{"id":19945,"date":"2016-05-24T17:21:49","date_gmt":"2016-05-24T17:21:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.freelogoservices.com\/blog\/2016\/05\/24\/4-emotions-all-entrepreneurs-feel-and-why-acknowledging-them-will-help-grow-your-business\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T15:39:43","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T15:39:43","slug":"4-emotions-all-entrepreneurs-feel-and-why-acknowledging-them-will-help-grow-your-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.freelogoservices.com\/blog\/4-emotions-all-entrepreneurs-feel-and-why-acknowledging-them-will-help-grow-your-business\/","title":{"rendered":"4 Emotions all Entrepreneurs Feel, and Why Acknowledging Them Will Help Grow Your Business"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Launching a startup will toss your emotions around like a roller coaster, with mountain top highs and devastating losses. But pretending that your co-founders and other entrepreneurs aren\u2019t dealing with the same emotions will perpetuate an unhealthy myth\u200a\u2014\u200a\u2014 further isolating you, draining your confidence in your own abilities.<\/p>\n

After years spent growing business after business, as a co-founder at Performable, which we sold to HubSpot, and FreeLogoServices.com<\/a>, my current startup, here are four emotions that I\u2019ve faced on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

Fear.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Every single entrepreneur faces this emotion\u200a\u2014\u200aand most of the time represses it. I\u2019ve watched businesses lose three-quarters of their team to layoffs, and I can attest that fear is one of the lowest feelings you can have. According to a University of Colorado study on, Emotions & Entrepreneurial Opportunity<\/a>\u00a0inducing fear in participants caused them to perceive a choice as being riskier than other emotions, like anger. However, winning the game requires sending the right people onto the field at the right time\u200a\u2014\u200aand sometimes that means making cuts. Whatever gut-wrenching situation comes your way, leverage it as a godsend. Trust your intuition. You have to, for the long-term health of your company. Fight for your culture and mission above all else, and trust me: the toughest decisions are best made sooner, not later.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

I have faced situations that would make any entrepreneur\u2019s heart race: firing people, laying off 20 percent of my team at once, and 90-day deadlines that carried the threat of a shutdown. All were things I feared. Fear is good\u200a\u2014\u200ait means you are moving forward. If I had avoided the fear of making challenging decisions, the companies I\u2019ve founded would have died.<\/em><\/p>\n

Curiosity.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Startup success pivots on ferocious curiosity. Only by continually peeling the onion on customer and business needs can a great idea grow into something real.<\/span><\/em> But growth also requires change, which requires flexibility. At FreeLogoServices.com, we hold \u201cExperiment Meetings\u201d each week, complete with white lab coats embroidered with our company logo. I know that if my employees don\u2019t feel empowered and confident to try new ideas\u200a\u2014\u200aand even fail in the process\u200a\u2014\u200awe will never move forward.<\/p>\n

Picture a company with no curiosity. (Maybe you\u2019ve worked in one!) It\u2019s probably a place where the same people have operated the same way for many years, despite major advances in technology. They may adjust to meet an imminent threat, but never go out of their way to innovate. An existing company with this kind of attitude may be able to scrape by, but won\u2019t grow long-term; a fledgling startup would never even make it out of the gate.<\/p>\n

Doubt & Anxiety.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Learn to distinguish between insecurity and anxiety. Insecurity is an excuse\u200a\u2014\u200ayour inner critic telling you that you don\u2019t have what it takes. Anxiety is a normal and healthy reaction to stress; it\u2019s your body telling you that you\u2019re about to make a big decision<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As an entrepreneur, sometimes you will have all the data to make a decision\u200a\u2014\u200aand sometimes you won\u2019t. No matter how much you\u2019ve pored over the numbers, there will be times when you\u2019re unsure about the next step. Don\u2019t over think decisions you know to be right. <\/em>After you\u2019ve researched your options as thoroughly as possible, trust your own instinct.<\/p>\n

Excitement, Passion & General Euphoria.<\/strong><\/h4>\n

Some days, the life of an entrepreneur is just hell. You are guaranteed to have those days, the same as every other entrepreneur. You should also feel a satisfaction that is larger than life as a passion for what you\u2019re building continues to evolve. According to the University of Colorado study<\/a> mentioned earlier, happiness actually makes entrepreneurs predisposed to see less risk\u200a\u2014\u200ain other words, more confident about risk taking.<\/p>\n

If the euphoria, of building a business, doesn\u2019t buoy you on a daily basis then do something else with your life!<\/span><\/em> That innate excitement signals you\u2019re doing what you should be doing, and it will warm you when the fear and loneliness of being an entrepreneur threaten you, and your business.<\/p>\n

Do you know the best thing about startups?\u2026 You only ever experience two emotions: euphoria and terror.<\/span> And I find that lack of sleep enhances them both.\u200a\u2014\u200aMarc Andreessen as quoted in Ben Horowitz\u2019s book \u201cThe Hard Thing About Hard Things\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What\u2019s the point?<\/strong><\/h4>\n

I\u2019m the first to credit success to carefully gathered data. My company uses data in making every major decision, but logic and emotion aren\u2019t mutually exclusive for an entrepreneur<\/em>\u200a\u2014\u200ait\u2019s crucial to employ both areas of the brain with each decision. In fact, \u2018gut feelings\u2019 are our brain\u2019s way of sorting through the facts. Neuroscientist Janet Crawford put it this way<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u2026emotions are elegant shortcuts that allow us to sort through reams of [subconscious] neural patterns and generate feelings that guide us toward or away from a course of action. Without emotion, we are biologically incapable of making decisions. Logic is often the last step in the process.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In other words, when we dismiss our emotions to make a big business decision, we\u2019re rejecting our body\u2019s own way of analyzing data. So,\u00a0acknowledge emotions as you make business decisions.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n

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\u00a0Read full post here<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Launching a startup will toss your emotions around like a roller coaster, with mountain top highs and devastating losses. But pretending that your co-founders and other entrepreneurs aren\u2019t dealing with the same emotions will perpetuate an unhealthy myth\u200a\u2014\u200a\u2014 further isolating you, draining your confidence in your own abilities. After years spent growing business after business, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-offline-promotion"],"blocksy_meta":[],"yoast_head":"\n4 Emotions all Entrepreneurs Feel, and Why Acknowledging Them Will Help Grow Your Business | FreeLogoServices<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Launching a startup will toss your emotions around like a roller coaster, with mountain top highs and devastating losses.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.freelogoservices.com\/blog\/4-emotions-all-entrepreneurs-feel-and-why-acknowledging-them-will-help-grow-your-business\/\" \/>\n<meta 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