Emotions and Business

Emotions and Business

3 minute read

(I made a mistake, where I copied and pasted the quote, and copied too much. So just deleted the sentence and send the email again. Thanks for understanding)

Let’s talk about emotions and business.

They don't mix, like oil and water… They are immiscible.

Emotions like greed, fear, anger and sadness cloud our decision making and form a trap when it comes to business and decision making.

We're making decisions all day, every day.

How much do I pay this employee? How much do I invest here? Should I make this phone call? How risky is this deal? Should I let this person go?

Emotions can lead us to INCORRECTLY decide when making these key decisions.

Greed will lead is to take more risk than we realize and potentially lose it all.

Fear will lead to us selling out at the bottom of the market.

Anger will lead us to say something we can't take back and damage a relationship with a key employee or partner, or our kids and friends.

All of these mistakes can be incredibly expensive mistakes. The most important being our inability to properly assess risk.

Risk involves assessing FOUR key things:

1. How long might it set us back if it happens…

2. Can the event even happen…(sometimes it never does)

3. The damage that it would cause if it happens…

4. How much control I have over that event happening…

Incredibly difficult to do because we don't know what we don't know, and we also know a lot of things that we don't know.

Greed, fear, anger, ego and any number of other emotions can CLOUD our decision making and lead us to making poor choices.

This stuff is incredibly difficult. Everyone gets it wrong. Nobody can predict the future. Nobody can control all external factors. Business and life are nuanced.

So what can you do to help?

The best solution:

Surround yourself with smart people who aren't YES MEN.

It is tempting (especially as you gain more success) to surround yourself with people who agree with you on everything.

Don't do this.

I encourage leaders to stand up and call me out if they see a potential issue. If they see a blindspot. Or if they flat out disagree with the direction I am heading.

I want that, I need that!

Surround yourself with smart people who aren't afraid to challenge you and watch your world open up.

--

"Few things are worse than running in the wrong direction enthusiastically." - Keith Cunningham

How do you know if you are truly working on the right things?

Would be grateful if you can hit reply, and write to me what you think the answer is.

Thank you for reading

Keep saving and buying assets

-Stefan