George Baker, Sr. is the founder and Managing Partner at 2 the Moon Ventures.
The old adage “Nobody gets through this life unscathed” applies to everyday life, and as any entrepreneur will tell you, boy, is it true when starting a business.
Life in a startup is exciting and exhilarating but also scary, vexing and agonizing—often all in one day. Maybe you’ve seen Derek Halpern’s simple meme that spread across the Internet like wildfire. The chart swings wildly from “It’s working!” to “I was wrong. I suck!” to “Wait a second. My life is great.”
It’s tempting to try to divorce yourself from this rollercoaster of emotions to make it easier on yourself, but as a serial entrepreneur, I recommend you do the opposite. Instead of shying away from your feelings, practice radical honesty with yourself. Emotions are key to decision making, drive and resilience in a startup environment. Feel all your feelings and harness them to propel you forward.
The Importance Of Passion
Passion, confidence and even a little hubris all have a role in entrepreneurial success. In my experience, passion is among the most commonly mentioned emotions people associate with startups, and passionate entrepreneurs—defined as those who are enthusiastic and prepared—are more likely to receive angel funding.
Passion can drive creativity and innovation, help you build a network of advisors, and attract talented employees. Passion makes you more likely to take risks and weather the inevitable setbacks that come with running a business.
Increasing Your EQ
Passion is essential, but history shows it takes more than just passion to succeed. Along with passion, you need emotional intelligence.
The pillars of emotional intelligence are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management. To navigate the rollercoaster of startup emotions, you must tap into these first two pillars.
Self-awareness means recognizing one’s strengths, weaknesses, emotions and personal source of motivation. Acknowledging these personal attributes can make you a better leader, allowing you to play to your strengths and shore up your weaknesses. From what I’ve seen when leaders lack self-awareness, they tend to make bad decisions.
Self-management is about remaining in control, adapting to the situation and staying focused on your goals. Recognizing your strong emotions is not the same as giving yourself permission to have emotional outbursts.
Tactics like mindfulness, stress management and a simple pause before reacting can help entrepreneurs manage their emotions. They also are important elements in preventing burnout because a startup is a marathon—not a sprint.
Managing Negative Emotions
Every entrepreneur faces challenges and setbacks on their way to success. Negative emotions like doubt, anxiety, fear and stress will inevitably creep in.
Most startups emerge from the idea stage with a burst of enthusiasm, determination and creativity. Then, as the realities of running a business take over, entrepreneurs often begin to worry about issues such as financial stability and market viability.
The fear of failure can lead to denial, procrastination, risk avoidance and decision-making paralysis. However, you can prevent these negative behaviors by setting realistic expectations for yourself and anticipating setbacks.
Determine your personal “why” and stay focused on your vision, but be prepared to be flexible in how you reach that goal. Failure will happen. The important thing is what you learn from it and how you adapt your approach.
Building Entrepreneurial Resilience
All of these practices can help you build entrepreneurial resilience—the ability to adapt and recover from difficulties. This resilience is key to entrepreneurial success.
Formal studies of the psychology of entrepreneurship confirm what any veteran entrepreneur will tell you: It’s not that resilient entrepreneurs don’t fail or don’t feel the effects of their mistakes. They do. They just pick themselves up, learn from them and move forward. And the more we fail, the better we become at handling the failures that inevitably come our way.
So what does all this tell us about the extreme exhilaration and the crippling doubt that comes with starting a business? It tells us that we need to feel every feeling and experience every emotion on our path to growth. So, celebrate the wins, but stay present in adversity rather than dismiss it.
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