How do you stay emotional detached from business?

SirKonstantine

SirKonstantine

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Jun 15, 2011
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I realized, every time my income goes up, I get super happy and celebrate. And, every time my income drops, I get depressed and just wanna stay in bed.

How do you become emotionally detached from your results?

Like, I invest 3 months working on a project that feels like my baby to me, only to have it rejected by the market. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
 


I spent 4 years working on one site to see $0 in return, it was an investment so I kept reinvesting... I've learned to live without money, I've had moments where I've eaten only PBJ for 6 days straight. I don't care about the ups and downs because I know it's always going to happen.. For me the emotional aspect is in owning the business, how much I cherish my lifestyle and dedication to it, not by how much $ I can rake in. Sure money is the most important part, it's why we all do this, but doing something you "personally enjoy" is so much more rewarding... Just knowing I can work at home, have freedom, etc instead of being a cubicle run of the mill person is worth it.
 
It's a tough proposition.

Moving from someone whose self image/state of mind is dependent on external factors to someone who is defined by internal factors is not something that happens overnight.

You need something to ground you, and keep you steady.

Surprisingly, I've found that volunteer work does this for me.
 
I come from a background of business and this is one very important principle my father taught me that business simply re-inforced. Always live within your means!


Don't start spending immediately if you start making money. Not only does it raise eyebrows but it would be sucky to ever downgrade.

Basically, don't change your lifestyle unless you can afford it.

Before taking a step forward, always make sure your secure enough so that you don't have to step back ever again.


A few bad months should not hurt your lifestyle

It is easy when you're single to go and over spend and hole up and cry when you're not making enough but when you have a family to pay for, you start thinking about maintaining your lifestyle in front of your immediate family, friends and neighbours.

People who make money too quick and too early lose out on the important life lessons that are to be had. Unfortunately, most people into Affiliate marketing are young and are making a tonne of money. They lie exactly within this category I just described.

So if you're making $1000 consistently each month and have a few good months making $3k, you could start spending like you make $1.5k/mo. Always spend according to the average you make.


What most people do is if they made $3k this month, they'll spend like they make 3k a month. And the months they make $1k, they'll spend like they make $1k.
That shouldn't be it! You should be consistent and live within your means.
Don't upgrade/downgrade your lifestyle depending on your short term finances.

That will make you link your business with your life emotionally.
If you live cheaply enough and people don't know how much you're making, you don't have anything to feel bad about. You'll be able to concentrate on what's more important.
 
DumDum said:
I come from a background of business and this is one very important principle my father taught me that business simply re-inforced. Always live within your means!


Don't start spending immediately if you start making money. Not only does it raise eyebrows but it would be sucky to ever downgrade.

Basically, don't change your lifestyle unless you can afford it.

Before taking a step forward, always make sure your secure enough so that you don't have to step back ever again.


A few bad months should not hurt your lifestyle

It is easy when you're single to go and over spend and hole up and cry when you're not making enough but when you have a family to pay for, you start thinking about maintaining your lifestyle in front of your immediate family, friends and neighbours.

People who make money too quick and too early lose out on the important life lessons that are to be had. Unfortunately, most people into Affiliate marketing are young and are making a tonne of money. They lie exactly within this category I just described.

So if you're making $1000 consistently each month and have a few good months making $3k, you could start spending like you make $1.5k/mo. Always spend according to the average you make.


What most people do is if they made $3k this month, they'll spend like they make 3k a month. And the months they make $1k, they'll spend like they make $1k.
That shouldn't be it! You should be consistent and live within your means.
Don't upgrade/downgrade your lifestyle depending on your short term finances.

That will make you link your business with your life emotionally.
If you live cheaply enough and people don't know how much you're making, you don't have anything to feel bad about. You'll be able to concentrate on what's more important.
Click to expand...


This is some solid thinking, aim to spend low and increase revenue until you have real wealth and can live off interest/rent.
 
You're developing products / projects, and want to stay emotionally detached? Why? You shouldn't at all. Being deeply involved, and having true passion for your next project is going to show through in the final version that end-user customers see. It could mean the difference between success and failure.

Of course there's times when emotions needs to be left at the door, like if you're negotiating terms with a new distributor or something, but for product development? Emotionally charged is a good thing!
 
I can relate to this because its something I still struggle with a bit.

You've tied your happiness to how much money you are making a day/week/month or whatever.

It's best to try and find some other things you can derive happiness from when things arent working right in the business world.
 
SirKonstantine said:
I realized, every time my income goes up, I get super happy and celebrate. And, every time my income drops, I get depressed and just wanna stay in bed.

How do you become emotionally detached from your results?

Like, I invest 3 months working on a project that feels like my baby to me, only to have it rejected by the market. Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
Click to expand...

I always try and remain positive and realise even if something is a "failure" you can still take positives and good points from it.

Every time I have ever failed, I see it as "paying for my education", especially when the next time I do it, it's better.

I suppose detaching yourself emotionally comes with experience but being happy when you're succeeding isn't a bad thing as I find it's a great motivator.
 
It's actually pretty simple, but easier said than done.

The amount of money you have or make should have NO bearing whatsoever on your happiness, assuming you have enough to cover basic necessities like food and shelter.

If it does, the only "problem" is in your mind.

I'm not sure how it happens or why some people are "materialistic", and some are not. I think part of it is just how you're wired, but for me I think growing up poor had a lot to do with it too.

I have very early memories of thinking "when I grow up I'm going to make a lot of money no matter what so I don't have to live like this." Of course, looking back, it wasn't THAT bad. We always had a roof over our heads, food on the table, and everyone was generally happy in my family.

Everyone except me, who it turns out was a very materialistic person.

Once I moved out on my own at 17 I went through a "partying" phase for about 5 years, but after that it was all business. Long story short I made a shitload of money and was living the life of my dreams.

Of course as most people find out, money can't buy happiness. I distinctly remember a period not long after where I was just sitting there in my mansion thinking "WTF? I have everything. I'm still not happy. Now what?"

It turns out that if your happiness is reliant on money, or even reaching goals, you'll never be truly happy. Because whenever you have a little success, you just move the goalposts that determine what success (and thus happiness) is.

I've since "downsized" twice. I thought I "got it" the first time, but it turns out I didn't truly understand or acknowledge the fact that my happiness was still somewhat based on material things and money. I downsized my life big time, and thought everything would be great, but a few years later I found myself in the same fucking boat as before.

Then I REALLY started to understand what being "happy" is all about, and I downsized AGAIN. I'm talking about living below my means to the point where I live like someone who makes at least 1/5 of what I make or could afford.

I learned some serious lessons the hard way. I consider myself lucky to be born with at least a bit of financial conservatism or I could have easily blown all my money and I'd be seriously fucked right now.

Anyway, if any of this sounds like you, you'll save yourself years (or possible a lifetime) of torment if you figure out how to deal with this issue sooner rather than later.

Hearing a guy named Shawn Achor speak is what first opened my eyes and got me thinking. Then from there it was pretty easy. As they say, once you go down the rabbit hole there's no going back.

Here's a video that sums up a big part of what's going on. He has lots more, and a book.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr_LKrpsefg&feature=player_embedded]Shawn Achor: The happy secret to better work: TED TALKS: documentary,lecture,talk - YouTube[/ame]
 
Clarkey said:
I always try and remain positive and realise even if something is a "failure" you can still take positives and good points from it.

Every time I have ever failed, I see it as "paying for my education", especially when the next time I do it, it's better.

I suppose detaching yourself emotionally comes with experience but being happy when you're succeeding isn't a bad thing as I find it's a great motivator.
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Definitely this.
 
The most successful people I know suffer from the same problem. Most of the really good self made men typically have some internal self esteem issues. But what makes them good is they harness that negativity and work their asses off and do what ever it takes to keep from feeling like that
 
The more you let circumstances dictate your happiness the less happy you'll be.

The truly wise spend time working on the lens that they use to view the world.

It takes work...but a lot less work than trying to get all of your life's circumstances just right.
 
dmnEPC said:
The most successful people I know suffer from the same problem. Most of the really good self made men typically have some internal self esteem issues. But what makes them good is they harness that negativity and work their asses off and do what ever it takes to keep from feeling like that
Click to expand...

This is what I've heard too and historically have seen people like John D. Rockefeller, etc. And of course this is against what's talked about in the TED talk above.. so once again we have conflicting info on reality so in the end we don't know jack shit.

Well maybe it's not contradictory. If Happiness is your main goal then the TED talk is correct.. but if extreme success is your main goal then being motivated by negative feelings might be the best route. Either way
Success != Happiness
 
Yeah don't confuse the two. It's very simple really...

There is a TINY percentage of people for whom extreme wealth and financial success truly is the only thing that will make them "happy". For these people, it's more important than anything.

But the key thing to remember is that the percentage of people for whom this is true is TINY.
 
Actually, my last post is good advice, but I can sympathize with the OP. Growing up my family had times of lots of money and times of little money.

I've seen (and worked with) people make their first decent or big monies here and watched them detach from reality. It is pretty overwhelming to go from getting by, or struggling to suddenly having more money than you can spend each day. A lot of people's self esteem changes, and maybe not for the better. They go from feeling good about themselves to feeling superior to others. They start to think the money reinforces every decision they make as "right".

I don't know the answer to why we behave like this, but it's something hard-wired into humans. You get high when you're wealthy, and you get depressed when you're not.

I try not to be motivated by money, but by accomplishing some other goal. 1,000 visitors a day. 500 backlinks. Some other metric. Staring at the money metric only will make you crazy imo.
 
Get in the habit of doing things that are good for goodness sake. Like I2E said, charity & volunteer work, or even a hobby that you do just because you like doing it. Constants like this that are not impacted by the ebb and flow of money and business success are a great outlet for your emotions to channel out and find a meaningful place that's not tied to the grind.

Sent from my Makita dual bevel sliding miter saw
 
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