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Our emotions are powerful tools and heavy burdens. They can help us process what we experience and convey our feelings to others. However, they can also hinder our progress and destroy lives. How do we recognize the difference and how do we manage them so they don’t cause harm? We don’t want to be controlled by our emotions, but there are times where we lose control of our emotions and they control our responses.

There are times that our emotions are a good thing. Happiness can brighten our day, and lead us in a positive direction. Managing happiness usually isn’t a big problem. However, happiness can also be used against you. When buying a car, if the dealership sees you are happy and desire a specific car, they will use that to control the conversation and possibly move you in a direction that you didn’t want to go. If you go in with a game plan and manage your emotional presence, you will be able to recognize those moments where you are moving away from your gameplan and giving control over to others.

Anger is a strong emotion that is often associated with negativity. Being angry is not a bad thing. However, when you bottle up the emotion, it grows like a cancer and poisons everything you do. You might lash out and hurt others, or your stress levels might rise and you end up hurting yourself. An expectation is created and you end up reacting to those situations with anger more easily each time. Take a moment to recognize what makes you angry and find a healthy way to release that emotion. I use a form of momentary journaling to write down what I am feeling and why. This offers me perspective and helps focus my thoughts on logic. It also gives me an outlet for those emotions. I take those angers and burn them as a form of release.

Perspective is the most important part of managing your emotions. If you have a clear perspective of the causation of your emotional state, you can take steps to prevent those emotions from filling you up or bogging you down. Learn what sets you off, and take a moment to look at it logically. Analyze and deconstruct how you are feeling and how you go there. From there you can make forward progress towards a healthy release and prevent a breakdown from occurring.

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The holidays are a time of rejoicing for many, and a time of frustration for others. How you view the holidays will tell you a lot about your mindset. I find that there are two camps of people in the holidays; the Carolers, and the Humbuggers. Each has their own view of the holiday season and each reacts differently to them.

Carolers are excited and happy for the holidays. They listen to Christmas music, they feel happy when they see decorations, and love going through the retail stores and looking at their holiday displays. The positive feelings and happy memories are always on their mind.

Humbuggers can’t stand the holidays. They look at the negatives and get frustrated by them. Their experience is hindered because they will focus on the commercialism, the traffic, the inconveniences and the busy schedules.

Not everyone has happy memories of the holidays. They might have been abused as children. They might have had a financially challenging childhood where there weren’t a lot of gifts and their families might have been constantly fighting. People in these situations tend to grow up hating the holidays because they see other people happy and feel that they have missed out.

A time of year, or a specific holiday are not to blame for the experiences a person has had. However horrible the holiday season might have been in the past for you, you can still find enjoyment in them now. If you don’t have happy memories of the holidays, make some. Start fresh by making some new memories and traditions with friends. Find a way to keep your mind on the positive message of any holiday and you won’t even notice the negative side anymore. You will see your mood brighten and your outlook lift. Set a new tradition for your personal life as well. It can help you find a way to view things in a more positive light. I reread a book that I grew up reading and remember the time I met the author and fell in love with his stories. It helps me keep things in perspective and clears my mind of negative feelings during a stressful time of year.

Get together with some friends and set some group traditions. Rohit Rohila and I go out on a shopping trip every year. It is always a different place and we always experience new things. Sometimes we bring others with us and sometimes it is just us guys. We might not even buy anything, but we always go out and just hang out.

The holidays are not just a time of rejoicing and good food. They are also a time for reflection. Take this time to reflect on your year. Write down some of the things that have made you happy this year. Review that list of happiness and keep it I your heart. Happiness in the holidays can spread if you keep it alive.

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What separates an Entrepreneur from the average person? It’s all about the mindset. This episode all started when we had a discussion over lunch about our paychecks. We were talking about how our holiday pay schedule was different due to the normal day we would get paid falling on either a holiday or a weekend. Rohit mentioned that he couldn’t even remember the last time he worried about a steady paycheck and it all snowballed from there.

Rohit worked most of his life for someone else and just last year started working for himself when the company he was working for cut his department. He could have panicked and threw himself into the same cycle we all know of looking for another 9-5 making money for someone else while earning a steady paycheck. Instead, he started thinking outside his comfort zone and moving into his strengths.

It became less about “how do I trade my time for money” into “how do I create the income stream I need to be successful.” He turned his situation into a competition with himself. “How do I create more success with what I have?” It is all about perspective with him.

If you ask yourself “how do I make more money” you are looking at things from a perspective of “lack.” It has negative connotations that directly impact your abilities to succeed. You are always looking at things from the perspective of “I need to do more to keep what I have.” You never have enough. When you look at things from a success standpoint, you are constantly asking yourself, “What can I do to improve on my results.” Both, you might argue, have the same messaging. “I need to improve to keep what I have.” However, the difference is in the beginning. One looks at it as I need to keep what I have by offering more. The other looks at is as “I have what I have, now how do I improve or grow it or create more.” That is the entrepreneurial mindset.

Your time is precious. Our jobs take up a large portion of our day. We are selling our time and effort to a company to provide a specific service. They can replace us with another person no matter how much we think we know or do for them. We are a resource. However, the rest of our time could be spent in improving our lives and growing what we have. Be it in relationships, knowledge, or whatever else you value, you need to be the master of your life. Remember that the more time you spend at work, the less time you have to do the things you want or need to do for yourself.

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Spoiler Alert! Everybody hates spoilers. Social media is fraught with people spoiling TV shows, upcoming movies, books, games, events, and activities. We believe it could be a couple of different reasons. If everyone hates them so much, why do people still do it?

The first that comes to mind is malicious intent. The true meaning of “spoiling” an experience is to ruin the experience for others intentionally. We all know that one guy that always tell s the ending of a story before we hear it. No one wants to hang out with that one guy because he ruins every movie/TV show and gets off on the feeling of power he/she gets over sharing knowledge that he/she believes no one else knows.

The second reason is more common. A person unintentionally spoils the experience by hinting at things or “foreshadowing.” These people truly love the story or activity they are involved in, but have a hard time avoiding information that affects your experience with the activity. They mean well, but have this annoying habit to set expectations of something yet to happen.

Why do these people do these things? Having been guilty of both a time or two, I think the first is just looking for the attention that they get from having the knowledge. The second truly enjoys the activity or story, but can’t separate their feelings from those of other people. They are the ones that say “don’t get attached to these characters,” or “just wait until the next episode. I read the book and the next episode should break your heart.”

Whatever the reason, spoiling something for someone has a real impact on their expectations of that activity or event. It limits their ability to fully experience or enjoy something new. If we are more cognizant of how we are sharing with each other, we might be able to recognize when we are guilty of these things and begin to correct it. It is difficult not to project our experiences on others. Therefore, we should try to be aware of how we might be trying to create an experience for someone else based on our feelings, and not theirs.