Whenever we meet certain people, they trigger a mood within us. Same with objects, places, smells and a lot of other things in our life. Anxiety, flow, joy, fear, exhaustion… different moods are triggered. We human beings are hijacked by our surrounding emotions. When we watch a movie, we laugh, we get tensed, bite our nails etc i.e we get deeply involved in the movie and allow the same emotions to be in us as the actors. If you look at these situations the common thing is we allow emotions to be triggered in us.
Is there a way where we can choose our emotions?
Just like we choose to enter any room in our house, we can choose our moods ourselves instead of getting triggered. We humans have the amazing capacity and ability to think before we respond but most of us are not aware of this. How do we use this in our everyday life?
Be aware that there is always a mood that is triggered in you, in any situation. All of us have this – it is one of the things that comes along with being human.
Decide our mood before-hand: We can choose our mood prior to our encountering something, like beginning of the day or beginning of an interaction. In the morning, we can say to our self that today I choose to be optimistic, happy etc. When we encounter any situation or person the default emotion/mood is triggered, but we can stop it and remind ourselves about the choice we made and immediately choose the mood we desire.
Consistent Practice: The difference between a Pro and an amateur is the pro practices his skill everyday rain or shine. If we treat this habit like a game and practice it daily, it will eventually become a habit. It will initially be difficult, so, we can try this for an hour or so every day and slowly increase it for a day, then week.. months and then years, until this practice becomes second nature to us.
This is a key skill that entrepreneurs stand to benefit from. Why? Well, lets just say that entrepreneurs have their share of “Situations” to deal with that might trigger the default moods.
We all have heard many successful entrepreneurs and successful people talking about persistence and how persistence is one of the main ingredients for success. The famous quote by Vince Lombardi “Winners never quit and quitters never win.” Has perhaps been quoted many times by many people!
But if you look at any successful person – along with persistence comes also the wisdom to quit if something is not working out well. In fact, business laws like chapter 11 and Chapter 7 are setup for this, Chapter 11 just means “We are going to stop doing what we were doing because it is not working out well for us and start with something new. Chapter 7 means “We give up”
Declaring bankruptcy is sometimes good, so we can continue without the baggage from before. Here is a good example of a 19-Year-Old kid taking On Google. If you read his story, this kid Daniel Gross worked for 3 months on several ideas but nothing satisfied him and when he had 48hrs left he built a new one and continued to work on it for the next several months. This is a good example of when to persist and when to quit.
This “quit or persist” works in anything in our life… A startup idea, a habit, an addiction. At any point of time, we can decide if we need to quit or persist.
Quitting is painful and is not fun, but perhaps it is better to acknowledge the failure, so we can start with fresh ideas and fresh perspectives. When we know where we want to go and if what we are doing now does not seem to get us there, it is good to quit and maybe just maybe we will discover a better future than we anticipated.
If you have an average product , but if you can create brilliant ads, will the products sell more. Look at this superb Ad from Apple aired during the 1984 Superbowl introducing the first Macintosh computer.
Almost anyone who watches this will think that Apple would have had phenomenal sales for the McIntosh after this ad.. In fact, Steve Jobs thought so too, but what really happened was sales were dismal and the MCintosh was not at all usable in real life. Yes, it was looking cool, but people couldn’t use it. (Hard to believe now that Steve would have thought like this). In fact, the dismal sales of Mcintosh was one of the major reasons Steve was fired from Apple in 1985.
Steve learnt one of the most important lesson in his life… that a product has to be first really useful to the customers before advertising helps. Having average products and following up with great Ads worked in the Industrial age but not anymore. Now we need remarkable products or remarkable ideas, which can spread virally.
A recent article in NYT talked about how kids are wired for distraction by always being online . Every Gadget they use is connected to the internet and the kids are always distracted. Thinking about this, I thought it is not just the kids even we grown-ups do this.
The next time you see someone with an iphone, you can see every few minutes, he checks his email or something on the iphone. Yes, these gadgets are distractions, but there is a deep underlying problem than this.
Each one of us wants distractions and these tools are just another avenue for our distractions. We want distractions because we want to escape from things which are bothering us like laundry, doing the vacuum, taking the kids out, unfinished work at office etc. We all know that the easiest way is to go head-on with what is bothering us and resolve it, but the great majority of us flee and engage ourselves in distractions. So, how do we fix this?
Next time, you feel anxious and want to go for a distraction, notice it and then take on positive distractions like watching a movie or a funny video and once done, sit quietly with a paper and pen (ok, iphone is fine, too) and write down what bothers you. Most of the time, it is just some unfinished tasks, Next to the task write down what will be the next clear step you will take to resolve this. Resolve to look at it on a certain day. When that day comes, look at your list and take action. That’s it. You can do this mentally too but writing down seems to be effective, since when the bothering thought comes to your mind, you can remind yourself that you have already written it down and will take action on the appointed day.
Choose to face the problem and use the time previously used for distractions for more enjoyable tasks.
Almost every business book talks about satisfying the customer. Every business guru touts this. But no one seems to be asking the question – If we satisfy the customer, how will he keep coming back? He may be satisfied at that moment and you are happy that he is ecstatic about your service and it ends there.
Satisfied Customer – A Problem?
Everyone knows that it is easier to have recurring revenue (an existing customer) than generate a new revenue stream (from a new customer). The question though is – How do we handle this if the customer is already satisfied? One might wonder why this is a problem. Think about it – A customer who is satisfied over a long period of time slowly loses the value of what s/he is getting as it starts appearing like anyone can do it – in other words, the bar that you set becomes the standard and hence, the value erodes.
Satisfaction/Dissatisfaction Cycle
Great marketers have known this for a long time. Just like in a good movie, the director cycles through a satisfaction/dissatisfaction cycle working with our emotions – one needs to take the customer through cycles of satisfaction/dissatisfaction with the product and/or service. And yes, the honesty of this post makes it edgy!
Humans naturally crave for new and scarce things. If we look at Apple, they release a new product with some features which are not so great… like the camera in iPhone 3G. People are a little dissatisfied with these features and start to talk about these and eagerly await for improved features. When apple release a newer product, they surpass the expectations like the camera in iPhone 4G. Lot of iPhone 3G users will naturally buy the new iPhone 4G.
The cycle continues…
Listen to the Customer
Sometimes, when we release new models or new software, the customer is already satisfied with the product and does not want the new product. Lots of sales people work on convincing the customer by telling them the new features. They somehow want to convince the customer to buy the product. Instead, they should sit and listen to the customer and should discover pain points for the customer. Most of the times the customer does not see it as a pain, but if you can see it and show him how bad it is (make him dissatisfied) and then show him how the new product will alleviate this pain – he is most likely to buy it. The key is to know… that the customer is sometimes blind to the pain and we have to bring it forth for him. In the case of IPhone 3G, a lot of people are satisfied with the camera, but when they see other people telling how bad it is compared to the iPhone 4G, they realize that what they have is not good enough and want to get the new iPhone 4G!
A lot of us are anxious, worried and get depressed most of the time. A research was done about worries and the following statistic was found
Things that never happen: 40 percent. That is, 40 percent of the things you worry about will never occur anyway.
Things over and past that can’t be changed by all the worry in the world: 30 percent.
Needless worries about our health: 12 percent.
Petty, miscellaneous worries: 10 percent.
Real, legitimate worries: 8 percent. Only 8 percent of your worries are worth concerning yourself about.
If we look at this statistic, the majority of our worries i,e 92% do not happen and yet we are worried and this worry leads us to all sorts of problems including relationship problems and health problems. Let Mr. Worry be around you a while and you invite a new guest in your life, called anxiety!
If we analyze worries deeply, it is nothing but our stories about a future situation. If the future situation seems unfavorable, worry sets in, you let the story fester for a while, the worry becomes anxiety. On the other hand, if the future situation seems favorable, we feel better and more positive emotions (such as anticipation, excitement etc) set in. Take, for example, the feeling when you are planning to go on vacation, you feel great. Why? Because the future situation is fun. At the end of the vacation you feel depressed. Why? Because you have to return to work you don’t like.
So, how can we overcome worries and anxiety? Here are 2 quick ways:
Realize that all our worries are invented by us by thinking that a bad future situation will occur in the future. Remember, these are just stories, they have not yet actually happened… and probably never will.
Invent a good future situation by deliberately thinking about the good things which will happen in the future.
Now, think of that next presentation that you have to deliver to the management team… or that public speaking event that has your nerves a bit unsettled… or that next important meeting that has you chewing your nails… all these need not be a source of worry! You just have to first notice the story around the worry… and then change it in your favor!
There have been lots of books written about changing behaviors like avoiding procrastination, having good relationships, eating less food but in almost all cases, these won’t work. These won’t work because the behaviors are like stems in a tree, if you cut down a stem, they will come back again after some time. Instead we have to attack the root. We humans behave differently and see the world differently by the stories we deeply believe in. In other words, if you examine the story (root) and change it, the behaviors shifts effortlessly.
Here are a few examples
Parent-children Relationship Stories
If a parent believes the story “that kids cannot be trusted fully and will never listen to us”. Right from a young age, when the parent says something and the kids don’t listen, they shout and make sure the kids listen to them. When the kids go to school, there will always be clashes. These clashes will continue through out the parent’s entire life till the parent moves on to the next world.
What if the parent looks at his story and says… Let me change it. Let me believe that “Kids can be trusted, if I am trustworthy to them”. Now the scene shifts and s/he will always be open with them and s/he will make sure that the kids can trust him always with anything, now the whole 50-60 years of the parent’s life will be very rewarding. I have personally seen examples of both kinds of parents and I am sure you have seen too. The only simple difference is both strongly believed in a story.
Entrepreneur Stories
Richard Branson and Warren buffett believed the story that “life and business should be fun” and so, they choose a profession which they loved. Steve Jobs deeply believes in Zen philosophy which shows up in all of apple’s products (simplicity).
Our life is completely governed by the stories we deeply believe. Most of the times we never know that these stories dictate our life i.e. they are hidden to us like a blind spot while driving.
So, how do we recognize our stories, whenever we are frustrated or things don’t go the way we want, we can stop and say, this is not working the way I want “because”. Whatever comes after the “because” is the story we choose to believe.
We all work hard but don’t seem to make much progress. In a lot of organizations, people seem to be praised high for working long and hard, but they never seem to get promoted or get noticed. Why is this. It is because the definition of “hard work” changed. A lot of people still believe in the industrial age definition that hard work is using your “body” to work hard , but if we look at our current situation, the majority of us do work sitting at a desk in front of a computer.
Many people are not aware that we have transitioned to an information age from an industrial age. According to most economic historians, the Industrial age ended about 20Yrs ago in 1989 when the Berlin wall came down and the internet came up.
In the industrial age, working hard meant, using our body and working long hours i.e physical labor . That is how machines worked and humans had to work similar to machines and humans were rewarded for this.
Now though, the majority of us are not working with machines, we are working with computers using our mind more instead of our body. Now hard work means emotional labor.. exerting our mind. Sure, we still work on long hours and weekends, but this is still not working hard as hard work is still translating into long hours. As Seth Godin says ” Hard work meant more work in the past. But the past doesn’t lead to the future.The future is not about time at all. The future is about work that’s really and truly hard, not time-consuming. It’s about the kind of work that requires us to push ourselves, not just punch the clock. Hard work is where our job security, our financial profit, and our future joy lie.”
A lot of successful people work the same hours or less than we work, but they are still successful. They get ahead because they do the new “hard work” As Seth Godin says
“Hard work is about risk. It begins when you deal with the things that you’d rather not deal with: fear of failure, fear of standing out, fear of rejection. Hard work is about training yourself to leap over this barrier, tunnel under that barrier, drive through the other barrier. And, after you’ve done that, to do it again the next day.”
So, the easiest way to do hard work is to love change,train ourselves to love challenges and question the status quo all by using and exerting our mind.
From now on, let us start training ourselves in baby steps to do the new “Hard work” i.e “exerting emotional labor”.
All of us want to start a business or change a career and we keep postponing it.
If we analyze deeply, we postpone because we need to learn new habits and skills and accumulating these habits and skills seems harder. We keep saying to ourselves that we will learn these skills once we achieve the position or once we start the business. Days, months and years pass by and we still do not reach where we want to reach. What can we do to stop this drift? We can start in baby steps right this moment ( ok,.you can wait till you finish reading this post!) and keep growing gradually..
The following quotes from Jim Rohn summarize this very well.
Quote #1
“You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight”
All too often, we are worried why we are not reaching our goals (our destinations), it is just because we are travelling on the wrong road (habits). To reach our destinations, we need to change the direction and we will almost surely reach our destinations.
Quote #2
“Failure is nothing more than a few errors in judgment repeated every day”.
For example, drinking an “obesity causing High fructose corn syrup filled” cola daily will cause health problems in later part of our lives. We won’t know it now, but it will haunt us in the later part of our lives. The same is true with starting a business – Not reading books or actively finding a mentor now will haunt us later on because the consequences of not reading books or actively finding a mentor NOW, will show up LATER; perhaps in the form of us being unable in starting the business.
Fortunately we can reverse our direction now to reach our destinations.
Quote #3
“Success is a few simple disciplines practiced every day”.
For example: Learning to enjoy Orange juice instead of cola daily, actively learning from successful entrepreneurs daily are all examples of being directed with discipline.
So, if we take any area(health, money, joy) in our life, we need to start accumulating new habits and skills now. We can start with baby steps and keep moving. A few baby steps are:
Health: We can start doing yoga or exercise joyfully ten minutes a day starting today
Money : We can start reading books for thirty minutes every day by entrepreneurs on how to serve people and make money starting today.
Joy: We can read spiritual or books on the wisdom of leading a joyful life for 10 minutes a day to learn how to be joyful starting today.
Averting failures, however unattainable and insurmountable it might sounds, is a simple art of going in the right direction, in a disciplined manner.
Our lives are made up of a series of situations. How we handle each situation determines how our lives shape up. If we handle each situation well, our lives seem fulfilling, if we don’t, we end up living lives that we usually define with words like stressed or dull. Well… Imagine how you would define your life if you had answers to all situations that occur in your life? Wouldn’t that be simply phenomenal!
I was watching the brilliant, multi-talented Ben Zander’s video and he talks about how to handle any situation. Per Mr. Zander, there are 3 ways of going about it:
1. Resignation
2. Anger
3. Possibility
An example he gave in his speech went as follows:
Let us say you went to a restaurant and you witness a kid’s birthday party. Everyone in the party starts singing the “happy birthday” song like a chore..dull and boring. You look at the situation and can do 3 things
1. Resignation : You think people don’t change, that’s the way the world works
2. Angry: You say..These dull, boring people, can’t they know how to sing?
3. Possibility: You go to the party and take charge, Be the conductor of the orchestra. I am sure, the birthday kid won’t forget this experience and the others too would have experienced a little liveliness in them.
Now, imagine applying this to your business or the work you do… well! that’s a situation, isn’t it?
Do you go to your work in resignation, anger or do you show up as a possibility. That is… do you show up as a possibility for leadership, a possibility for being the conductor of you being productive? If you do… your boss, your employer or your customers will be like the birthday kid who won’t forget the experience… and of course, the others around you will experience a little liveliness, too!
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Whenever we meet certain people, they trigger a mood within us. Same with objects, places, smells and a lot of other things in our life. Anxiety, flow, joy, fear, exhaustion… different moods are triggered. We human beings are hijacked by our surrounding emotions. When we watch a movie, we laugh, we get tensed, bite our nails etc i.e we get deeply involved in the movie and allow the same emotions to be in us as the actors. If you look at these situations the common thing is we allow emotions to be triggered in us.
