The Different Kinds of Rollercoasters
The Different Kinds of Rollercoasters
Physical vs. Emotional
¡Bienvenidos Jugadores! Don’t worry, I’ll only be sprinkling a little bit of Spanish here and there…
Today’s message is about emotions and how they can manifest in so many different forms. But before we get there, I have a story to tell you about one of my favorite topics: Goals.
I was at lunch yesterday with someone and we were talking about entrepreneurship as he was looking to make the jump himself.
He told me he set this lofty goal for the year to motivate him throughout the trials and tribulations of starting his own business. He called it a ‘stretch goal’, something that’s popular in goal-setting frameworks.
I found myself counseling him that setting such a stretch goal (he estimated the probability of accomplishing it to be < 5%) could potentially backfire…
T1: “If you fast forward one-year from now, and you inevitably don’t accomplish that stretch goal, how do you think you’re going to feel?”
P1: “Well… probably disappointed…”
T1: “Exactly. So why set yourself up for failure? Why set a goal that you know is only going to lead you to a place where you feel bad about yourself?”
P1: “Because it gets me excited! Knowing I have this stretch goal to accomplish is going to motivate me to get up every day and work as hard as I can. That’s the pressure I need to be motivated to succeed!”
I could see the excitement brimming in his eyes! A young entrepreneur in the making, ready to take on the world. It reminded me of myself at one point.
Setting a stretch goal to motivate oneself doesn’t always provide the intended effect. I know from experience. Like I said, he reminded me of myself, and when I used to set massive stretch goals for motivation I found that the type of motivation they built was a negative motivation.
It was a “You set this goal, and if you don’t complete this you’re a failure” type of motivation. That brought on more negative emotions, and more stress, and then I was stuck in this vicious negative cycle of not accomplishing a goal I never really had a chance at, and feeling bad about it the same time.
I didn’t want to swat this house of cards just yet though - so I continued to press him. And he’s a smart guy, he could tell the point I was trying to get across. And so he asked:
P1: “Do you not wake up every day excited to go to work? Are you not excited about your job?”
I paused for a second and thought…
T1: “No. Not really.”
Ah shit. I fell for his trap. Now I had some explaining to do…
T1: “Not in a bad way! No - I’m not actively excited every day I go to work…
…cont There is a lot of aspects of my job that are exciting, such as when a client makes a significant improvement towards their goal, or if I get a new client who is motivated and driven to succeed. Then yea sure, that’s exciting, but I can’t really say I’m excited about it. I’ve just learned over the years to manage my emotions when it comes to business.
If I was excited every day that means when opportunities fell through, which they often do, I would be exposed to the free-fall that comes after excitement. I don’t actively get excited in the same way that I don’t actively get disappointed when something bad happens.
By managing my expectations and not allowing myself to get too high, I also protect myself against getting low when things don’t go right, which is very often in the world of entrepreneurship.”
At this point I had a flashback to 2021. It was a vivid moment because I was back in the gym with one of my clients who is a successful entrepreneur running the #1 leading company in its industry.
I was asking him these very same questions I was now answering, and déjà vu was hitting hard because without realizing - I responded the same way that he had responded to me two years earlier.
He had told me how he doesn’t get excited, and he doesn’t get disappointed. He maintains an even emotional balance. Never too high, never too low.
At the time that sounded pretty depressing. You don’t get excited??
I even asked him - do you consider yourself happy?
And here I was at the table, when my conversation counterparty asked me:
P1: “Would you say that you’re happy in life?”
Like a wave crashing the spell of déjà vu came back to reality.
T1: “Hell yea I’m happy!”
At this point I was processing the flashback I had of my client years prior having the SAME conversation I was now on the other side of. I started to really understand my position much clearer now, and my clients’ old words finally made sense.
Entrepreneurship changes your way of thinking. Neither good nor bad, as most things, but just different.
You’re forced to recognize and discard your emotions. They do not serve you in business.
You must be logical, look at the objective reality, make informed decisions and calculated risks.
Any decision that is made purely off emotions is a dangerous one, whether you admit it or not.
And so I realized that learning to recognize your emotions for what they are, accept them, and the actively choose to make a logical decision in spite of them - is a great superpower.
And more importantly - that doesn’t mean you don’t feel those emotions. It just means that you are able to separate the process between feeling the emotion, and acting on it.
So am I excited about my job and my career? Yes - absolutely! I would not continue to do what I do if it did not excite me.
But does that excitement manifest itself in any other way than a feeling that I’ve learned to separate? Not really.
I am not fueled, or motivated by that excitement. It does not give me energy. It’s just a feeling, an emotion. If I allowed that excitement to give me purpose, to drive my motivation, then what happens when there is an absence of excitement? What happens when a client leaves or if I make a mistake and somebody gets hurt?
That means without that excitement present I would be prone to spiraling into negative feelings; depression, anxiety, thinking myself a failure. I would have a loss of motivation, lethargy. It would be entering the valley soon after the peak.
I would be riding an emotional rollercoaster.
As much fun as I have on real rollercoasters, and I do have quite a bit; I grew up with the largest rollercoasters in the world in my backyard - Six Flags Great Adventure in NJ. We had Kingda Ka - at the time it was the tallest and fastest rollercoaster in the world.
We had El Toro - the fastest all-wooden rollercoaster in the US.
And my personal favorite - Medusa - a thrilling ride of constant spins and loops and upside downs. I loved going upside down.
But as much as my body loves to be on a rollercoaster, my mind and certainly my heart don’t enjoy it as much. I don’t think anyone likes to ride the emotional rollercoaster. That’s one ride I prefer not to get on.
And I think that’s where there is a learning curve between a young entrepreneur, full of excitement and vigor at the possibilities of accomplishing their goals - and someone who’s gotten punched in the face every day.
That’s what I tell people entrepreneurship is like… waking up every day to get punched in the face. Over and over again until you figure out how to stop getting hit. And then eventually, if you’re lucky, you figure out how to punch back.
The former was the man sitting in front of me.
And don’t get me wrong - it IS exciting! The potential IS enormous! That kind of excitement DOES bring with it a sense of amazing energy!
But as is above - so is below.
To be excited, to think of the potential, to tap into that energy means you are exposing yourself to the equal and opposite amounts.
To acknowledge that excitement means you will be guided into disappointment at some point; to acknowledge the positive potential means you will eventually ruminate on what if things don’t work out; to utilize that positive energy means without it, you will feel empty.
I know from experience. I have felt the highs and lows in my career, and they were exhausting. The longer I’ve been in business, the more and more I have worked at managing my expectations and separating my emotions from my actions.
All things in life have a duality.
There would be no happiness if there were not sadness. We would not know the experience of joy if we did not also know the experience of grief.
If you have not experienced this yet for yourself, then I can certainly relate to the perspective that this approach is cold and mechanical. It can certainly appear that way.
That’s what I thought of my client when he imparted his wisdom on me at one point, although I didn’t understand.
But now I do, only because I’ve experienced the trauma those ups and downs can cause.
Remember - I’m not saying that we don’t feel emotions. That would be borderline psychopath.
What I’m saying is that in all great leaders, in all great persons of business, is an ability to identify your emotions and separate them from actions.
THAT, is a power that must be cultivated.
And that is why when I’m asked if I get excited every day to go to work… I simply say No, not really.
What I’m excited about is the direction I’ve lived my life. I may not get excited in the small day-to-day moments, but make no mistake, I am powered by a force much bigger than excitement.
I am living, and working, in cohesion with my Purpose.
Helping people achieve health and performance is in alignment with who I want to be.
How I live, how I treat people, how I give back, are all true to who I am.
Everything I do is evaluated not by a goal or by an outcome, but by one simple question, “Does this align with my Purpose?”
If the answer is yes - than I pursue it wholly.
If the answer is no, then I move on.
And so, whether you’re an entrepreneur or a passionate health and wellness advocate, my message to you today is not to measure your life by it’s successes or failures in some arbitrary goals; but to operate in alignment with your Purpose.
Are you riding the emotional rollercoaster every day? At the whims of material goods and bads?
Or are you emotionally aware and able to identify why you feel a certain way, and not allow that emotion to fuel your actions?
Are you able to make rational decisions in the face of adverse conditions? In highly charged emotional situations are you calm and collected - or do you lash out?
As a final note - no one is perfect. I am still prone to outbursts, I love a good rant when I’m feeling frustrated.
But learning to control my emotions is a lifelong journey that has no finish line.
I’m simply proud to be much more in control now than I was 2 years ago, and I am grateful that the people I lean on for advice are willing to share their wisdom with me.
I hope that the conversation I had yesterday will one day make sense to the person I had it with, just as I didn’t understand the words of my client until many years later.
Two resources that helped me on my journey as to these two points are:
- Trainer 01