Staying off the Emotional Rollercoaster

 We are all familiar with the ups and downs of life. But to truly succeed at any endeavor, let alone a career as an actor or in the arts, we must control our emotional reaction to the things that happen to us.

We all experience this one constantly.  Be it personally, professionally or anything else, we all know that ups and downs come with the turf.  

If we are in a relationship, there will be days when we are flying, when our partners are the greatest people we have ever known, when we cannot believe how lucky we are to have these amazing people in our lives… Then something goes wrong.  They leave the toilet seat up once too many times, and we’ve told them how that drives us nuts, or they wince at our driving in just the wrong way, and suddenly we are second guessing ourselves, wondering if we can cope with this exasperating moron one more second, and seriously contemplating homicide (justifiable, of course). 

Then comes work.  And there are days when we close that sale, or get that promotion, or make a great tip, and our boss is behaving well, and we feel great, and hey, I am lucky to be here, and I could be doing construction so things are pretty good, really… then the next day the boss bites your head off for getting their coffee order wrong, and a customer was just plain mean, and the customer we closed yesterday called to cancel their order, and they complained about us, and suddenly construction is sounding pretty good, especially as you get to hit things with sledge-hammers, and pretend they are your supervisor… 

Is any of this sounding familiar?  It should do, because life is like this.  It has ups and downs.  You feel great, you feel lousy, then great again.  And, as you set out on your financial journey, you need to know that this roller-coaster will happen here as well.  The trick is to never get stuck in where you are right now, and remember the great maxim “This too shall pass.”  There are, however, a couple of things one can do to even out the bumps in the road. (And for more help, visit us at www.abundancebound.com for our free CD The Wealthy Artist.") 

1. Keep your eyes on the prize.  We have written before on the importance of goals, and, when you hit the inevitable blocks, this is an important time to pull them out.  A coach once told me: “Your goals have to be bigger than the rocks you encounter.  Otherwise all you will see is obstacles, and then you will give up.”  Reminding ourselves of our goals will keep us moving forward, and will help get us around the obstacles we encounter.

2. Do your homework. Often, the key to making good business decisions is to remove the emotion from the process.  This is easier said than done, but, if you have educated yourself about your situation, then it will be simpler for you to identify the correct course of action, as opposed to reacting to a situation emotionally.

3. Enjoy the highs, learn from the lows.  When things are going well, enjoy yourself, but don’t get carried away into over-confidence, because that is when we make mistakes.  We also need to remember that rush when we are down, because it will sustain us through a rough patch.  The other question we need to ask ourselves at our low points is this:  “How did I contribute to this situation?”  We know that responsibility is an essential step towards taking control, so it is important that we analyze every situation (especially those in which we may have made mistakes) in order to learn what, and what not, to do should a similar situation arise.

These points become all the more important as you enter the world of investing and business (and we are all in business already, because we run our artistic careers like one, right?).

 When you start investing, you will by a stock (for example), and it will take off. You will start having visions of weekends in Paris, a new BMW… and then something will happen, and the price will crumble, causing you to conjure Dickensian images of poor houses and debtor’s prison.  This will happen but, if you have done your research and chosen wisely, then “this too shall pass,” and you will cling on when others are running for cover like rabbits in hunting season, and make your money when the stock recovers, while others have taken thumping great losses because they panicked (a very emotional thing to do).

 As your business takes off, you will get 50 customers your first week, and again you will have visions of global expansion and corporate jets… only to have them dashed when half of them cancel, and the other half reveal themselves to be chronic whiners.  Again, eyes on the prize (which is independence and a lucrative and long-lasting career in the arts), an analysis of why what happened happened, and forward to bigger and better things.

We are all, on some level, aware of this process.  But, by consciously focusing on the three things listed above, you will find that the inevitable bumps you encounter will affect you less, leaving you free to concentrate on the things that matter most, be that business, artistic or personal success.

 Other notes that I didn’t end up using….

A company will under-perform one quarter, or lose a client or two, and investors will suddenly run for cover like rabbits in hunting season.  The result?  Share prices plummet, and people who just bought will sell because of an emotional reaction to what others are doing, and lose money in the process.  But, in this situation, let’s run through our 3-step checklist.

1. Our long-term goals, when it comes to investing, are not dependant on short-term fluctuations.  We also know that if we sell now, we are guaranteed to take a loss, not something any of us want.  So we look ahead, and don’t dwell on today.

2. If we have done our homework, we would know that, despite whatever news caused the panic, underneath the company is solid, otherwise we would not have bought into it, right?  So again, we wait, to see if the company can pull through.

3. When the stock was up, we had images of trips to Paris.  Now that it is down, we are contemplating Dickensian things like work-houses and creditors, but that is obviously not the case.  When the price dropped we took another look at our numbers, made sure that we had made the right decision, and then stuck in there (or didn’t, if the numbers indicated that it was a bad idea).  But, either way, our emotions had nothing to do with it: we made rational decisions through-out the process, and walked away better of because of it.

Obviously all this is easier said than done.  In the aftermath of a bad audition, or a rejection from an agent for our latest script, or the collapse of our first stock investment, we will be feeling pretty bad.  The trick is just not to dwell there.  Read your 3-year vision, listen to a motivational tape, talk to some positive friends, and then get off the rollercoaster.

 Stocks collapse on moderately poor performance, not because the business is bad, but because people make an emotional decision, and react to what others are doing.

 The same will be true of our own businesses.  We just need to be aware of when we are just feeling bad, and when things are actually wrong.  We just need to be aware of this, and always try not to do the same thing.

 While most people are doing this, however, others leave their emotions out of it, analyze the situation objectively, and make a killing by getting in on the deal when most others are jumping out.  When playing this game, we must all make a pact to leave our emotions at the door, and know that we will perform better because of it.

 

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