How To Navigate Your Emotions to Make Healthy Business Decisions

Summary

In this episode of the Off the Ladder podcast, Branden Sewell discusses the importance of emotional resilience and mental toughness for entrepreneurs. He shares personal experiences and insights on how to detach emotions from business decisions, the role of faith in navigating challenges, and the significance of empathy in leadership. Branden emphasizes the need for ownership in difficult situations and encourages listeners to seek wisdom over emotional responses when making decisions. He also touches on the importance of fair pricing and treating employees with respect to foster a positive work environment.

Takeaways

It's essential to take the emotion out of business decisions.
Entrepreneurs often face emotional challenges when starting and running a business.
Pausing to reflect can lead to better decision-making.
Faith can provide strength during difficult business seasons.
Ownership of challenges is crucial for growth.
Empathy towards employees can improve workplace dynamics.
Detaching from emotions can enhance sales strategies.
Confidence in pricing is necessary for business sustainability.
Constructive criticism should be embraced for personal growth.
Wisdom and faith can guide decision-making in business.

Chapters

00:00 Welcome Back and Podcast Updates
01:58 Emotional Resilience in Entrepreneurship
08:04 Faith and Business Challenges
11:55 Taking Action Amidst Uncertainty
17:05 Empathy in Leadership
22:53 Detaching Emotion from Business Decisions
28:13 Wisdom Over Emotion in Decision Making

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Transcript

Branden Sewell (00:01.528)
Hi everybody, Brandon Sewell. I'm the owner of Seal Pro Painting located in central Florida. I'm also the host of the Off the Ladder podcast and we exist to help home service business owners learn so that they can lead well and ultimately live life off the ladder. So some of you who regularly tune into the Off the Ladder podcast, you may have noticed that I haven't uploaded an episode recently.

I've kind of made it a pattern to take some time off from the podcast. So last year I took a month off and this year I took the month of May off. And there's kind of a couple reasons for that. It's just a lot to do the podcast. And I had a lot of traveling I was doing in May, a lot of stuff going on. And so it was just super busy.

and I needed to take some time off. So I'm excited to get back into weekly episodes. With the last break that I took, once I started back, made that season two of the Off-Ladder Podcast, and this is effectively going to be season three. So there's no real particular topic for this episode, but I want to say welcome back to

my listeners and those who loyally tune into the Off-Ladder Podcast. One thing that I do want to talk about today is it really has to do with our, I don't necessarily want to categorize it as mental health, but maybe just like mental toughness as entrepreneurs and a lesson that I've had to learn over time.

And so that topic is going over how, you know, just when you start a business, it's very, it can be emotional because you invest a lot of time, a lot of energy. You make a lot of sacrifices to start a business and to ultimately keep it going. And that's an emotional process.

Branden Sewell (02:23.278)
What I've had to learn in my journey and just through maturation and learning hard lessons is that you a lot of times have to take the emotion out of the business. And that can be very difficult. However, if you're driven solely by your emotion with the business, it can cause you to make decisions

that aren't ultimately going to serve you and your business and your customers best. so oftentimes you have to, I've just made it a discipline for myself that in moments or situations that arise in my business where it's difficult, I've made a concerted effort to stop, to pause,

let the emotion pass and then use wisdom to make decisions. And that can be very difficult because even some like the way that you're feeling, the way that a situation or a circumstance makes you feel can lead you to think that a decision that you're going to make in the moment

is going to be the best one. And oftentimes that decision that you want to make in that moment is not really taking into consideration a big picture. It's taking in consideration the pain or the momentary suffering that you feel as an entrepreneur in that moment. And you have to be able to say, OK,

This this is painful right now. This is hard. I want to make this decision right now to alleviate the pain of the situation or the difficulty. However, taking that time to pause gives you the ability to process fully through what's happening and think of the reality because sometimes

Branden Sewell (04:48.846)
what I found is I'll start to tell myself lies of like what I'm going through in the moment, which is not connected to the reality of what really happens day to day in my business. You know, for example, I might have a week where we're down in sales and I think, okay, no, this is the end of it. My business is going to fail.

And and this is this is it But then what I have to do is I have to pause and I have to think back I have to say to myself. Okay. No, you've been in business for eight years eight years in August and you have been able to overcome challenges in the past and you can do it again and historically I have had

I've had seasons where, you know, we're up here and seasons where we're down low and that's just the reality of business. It's the reality of life. There's just these cycles that we go through, but I can look at historical data. I can look at the historical trends and I can. From that I can then say OK.

Yes, this is painful right now. Yes, this is difficult. How did I respond back then? And how did that response or decisions that I made in that time affect me long term? And what decisions do I need to make now that are going to better serve me long term? And, you know, the only way that I was able to really get to that point is going through it. And so

Really my encouragement is to try and, know, for those of you who may be, you know, you're young in your business and maybe you're facing some of your first challenges and maybe it feels massive and it feels huge and it feels bigger than you and you don't know what to do and you feel like it's, this is the end, this is where it all fails and falls apart.

Branden Sewell (07:10.926)
Maybe you're in a situation right now where you've been in business for a while and you're just in one of those seasons and you just need some encouragement. So here's my encouragement is just keep in it and go day by day. Like right now, truthfully, I'm in a difficult season in the past like couple weeks because of

mistakes that were made earlier on this year with jobs like things we didn't foresee that caused jobs to take longer or you know unforeseen expenses, equipment breaking down and all of that stuff it's just adds up adds up and then you find yourself you know a few months down the road and it catches up and you're like my goodness this is crazy

And so in those moments, it can be hard not to let the emotion of that challenge, you know, take hold of you. Now, I'm going to throw this out there and say that another part of this is that I am a person of faith. And I rely heavily on my relationship with Jesus to get me through seasons that are difficult. And in the moments where

I feel anxious or I feel worried or I'm I don't really know what to do. I feel like I don't have control of what's happening in my business and I'm just you know, I'm praying and asking God to show up on my behalf to give me wisdom of how to handle situations and you know what I've learned to do is I've got to just let go. Okay.

there's gonna be situations that arise in business that are going to be, you know, beyond my control. may not, I may not see that like yesterday, it's challenging and finances are challenging, but I may not see that a few days from now we're going to land a big job or, you know, get a large, you know, sum of money that comes in. And so it,

Branden Sewell (09:30.75)
I've had to learn that, yes, it's challenging right now, but historically, we've been in business for going on eight years, the business is going to keep coming in. And I have to believe that in faith, of course, because I guess nothing is guaranteed. But I just, I look back and I see the faithfulness of God to provide in my business. see the faithfulness of Him to show up.

when I don't know what to do. And he gives me wisdom and he shows me how to ultimately walk through those challenges. And so, you my encouragement to you, if you're going through a challenge or if you're young in business and you're facing challenges, which is normal, is to learn how to let go. Don't let the anxiety, the worry and the fear

rip you or consume you or cause you to don't let it drive your decisions. Because I've done that too. I've let the anxiety, the fear, the you know, whatever, drive some of my decisions. And, you know, I suffered the consequences of those over time. And so just learn how to detach from the emotion of it.

and really look at the reality. And then I'm gonna go to another side of this is if you're an entrepreneur, you've gotta just put your head down and get to work. So it's like, yes, you let go of control in a sense of like, you let go of feeling like you're the one who's gonna determine the outcome. So it's like, you put in the work and then you leave the outcome up to God. You say, you know what?

I'm gonna do what I know to do. I'm gonna do my best. I'm gonna put my head down and I'm just gonna get after this. I'm gonna go to bed tonight. I'm gonna wake up tomorrow. I'm gonna keep grinding and keep moving forward. And if I do my part, know, God's gonna take care of the rest. And so there is a ownership that you have to take when you go through difficult seasons in business. You can't just like sit back and say, hey, you know what? I'm just gonna go hands off now. And whatever happens, happens.

Branden Sewell (11:55.552)
Okay, I'm gonna let go of the anxiety and the fear and the emotion of this situation. And I'm going to press in and I'm going to push. you know, so for me, it's like, all right, I know that I've been able to grow this business, I know what I've been able to accomplish. And so I just decide in this difficult season, okay, I'm just gonna

pick up and I'm going to just keep driving forward and I'll get to the other side of this challenge. you know, so you sit down and you say, okay, well, what do I need to do today? What do I need to do to drive things forward? What could I do today to get more business in? What can I do today? How can I get creative?

You know, there's there's not like one way to handle a challenging season. You know, I spent, you know, it's funny as entrepreneurs, you know, we really don't ever stop working. But from from about three o'clock until seven o'clock today, I'm I was up and I'm literally just running through like, OK, I can send this crew here and I can.

you know, move these funds here and I can do this and I can do that and putting together the solutions. I'm not just sitting back and letting whatever happens happen. But, you know, you have to come at it, use strategy, get creative. That's why you're an entrepreneur. You're going to adapt to the situation.

and you're going to find a way to make it work. That's what we do. We face challenges, but we find a way to make it work. And it's tough. nobody wants to go through challenges. Nobody wants to face the hard days. But that's just the reality. They're going to happen. And I think over time you learn how to handle it better. You know, there was a, there was a season where like, you know,

Branden Sewell (14:17.9)
The challenges that I'm facing this week, I might have like not slept at all. I might have like been pacing, but you know, it's I've learned how to have more peace in the midst of the challenges that are going on. I've learned how to, you know, let go and pray and, you know, I'll talk to my wife about it I'll say, hey, babe, this is what's going on. Can you be praying about this?

And I can't tell you how many times I've told I've asked my wife to pray about something. And it's like, things just start happening and things work themselves out. So yeah, I think this also, you know, it can relate to finances, it can relate to employees. If you have a situation with an employee,

What I've tried to do over time is realize that my employees are imperfect people. They are going to have bad days. They are going to have things that they go through in their personal life. They're going to do things that are stupid, dumb, don't make sense. But hey, guess what? I do the same thing. I'm not perfect. I make mistakes.

I am sometimes, or you know, really ultimately I'm the owner of this business. So when things are bad, it's my fault. And so the way that I try to think about things is like, if somebody has overall a, you know, good track record with me in the business, they have a good attitude, they show up, they do their job, and they do it well when they are there and customers are happy with them and all of those things.

I can see past mistakes and sometimes in the midst of like those things that come up mistakes happen or they make dumb decisions and they affect you or they affect the business or they affect the customer. Emotionally you might want to respond and be like hey you're out of here right but.

Branden Sewell (16:39.11)
I have found that having grace in the midst of those challenging times, trying to be empathetic towards my employees when I don't want to be, when I'd rather just be like, just get out of here, I'm done with you. I've learned how to stop, take the emotion out of it, give people the benefit of the doubt.

like think of my own life like, you know, like one thing that, you know, comes up somebody might, you might have a situation where a employee calls out, you know, and it seems like it's like this just crazy circumstance. And then it happens like two times in a row or whatever. It's just it's like, over the top. And you're like, there's no way this can be real. Like there's no way they're facing this much all at once.

And then what I'll do is I'll think back in my own life and I'll be like, man, remember that time I was supposed to be at a customer's house to provide an estimate. I got a call from daycare saying I had to come pick up my son because he was sick. That distracted me. I went straight to the daycare, picked my son up, completely forgot to go to the estimate, get a call from the customer a few hours later. Hey, like, what's up? never called, nobody's here.

And then I'm like, my goodness, I completely forgot. And then, you know, I have to tell, give an explanation like, I'm so sorry. I got a call from the daycare. My son was sick. They had told me I had to come get him and had to have it picked up, you know, as soon as possible, whatever the situation is, maybe take him to the doctor if I had to. But anyway, it's just that I think back into my own life and I'm like, hey,

In those moments, how do I want to be treated? Do I want that customer to say, oh, well, you must be unreliable, no second chances, we're never going to hire you, thanks, but see you later, bye, and lose that opportunity? No, I would want some understanding. Like, hey, I made a mistake, but it was very real. Like, my son...

Branden Sewell (19:02.686)
is sick, I need to go get him. And that can just kind of like throw you off, right? And so I try to do the same things for my employees. If they reach out to me and they say, hey, you know, boss, this is going on. And then it's like, I need another day off. And then it's like, okay, be real, be empathetic, treat them as if they are a human being.

And the reality is, like life is, it's different for all of us. Life has, you know, seasons for each one of us, some that are just absolute chaos and crazy stuff happening. And sometimes it's smooth sailing. And as that happens for us, it happens to our employees too. And sometimes it falls in sync with a challenging time for us, which makes it feel more intense, or maybe it just happens at a super inconvenient time.

But the reality is that their lives are not going to be convenient for us and vice versa. That's just the reality. And I think approaching things with empathy and kindness can go a long way in how we treat our employees and how we handle those situations. again, going back to it, if we just are driven by the emotion,

we might face those situations, have no empathy, no kindness, and just start firing people. And then next thing you know, it's like, well, I can't keep a team or I can't keep employees. And well, maybe it's you, maybe it's that you're really hard to work with. Maybe it's that you lack empathy. Maybe it's that you lack understanding and kindness. Maybe it's that you think that the way up is just to be

you know, absolutely hard on everybody all the time. Maybe you think that the only way to produce quality work and to have happy customers is just to be like a slave driver. And what I found is that's not true. As I treat my employees with dignity, with respect, with empathy, with kindness. Yes, it's not always convenient for me. Yes, it's painful sometimes. And yes,

Branden Sewell (21:25.42)
Sometimes I feel like I get the short end of the stick, but I've got great people that work for me. They're making our customers happy. They're putting out a great product and a great service, and we have an incredible reputation. And so how much more can I ask for? Like, you know, what I tell them is like, the two things that I care about more than anything is that we get the job done.

and that the customer is happy. And there's gonna be mistakes made along the way. There's gonna be areas where we all fail. But if we can accomplish those two things, I can deal with the rest. And so, you know, the whole purpose of this podcast is like to get off the ladder and to grow a business. Well, I firmly believe that in order to do that, you have to be

able to empathize with people. You have to be able to understand people's lives in a grander view. And I guess it comes down to, how you want to lead your business. I I'm sure there's companies that are very successful that lead in a completely different way. That's just not my style. But you can accomplish it.

being empathetic and being kind. So I mean those are two really big areas, you know the financial piece, the employee piece, you know, but it's you know, I'll say this to you, sales. That can be an emotional process and you know the reality is is like if you want to get off the ladder and you want to work on your business and not in it, you have to detach from the

emotion of sales a lot of times. And what I mean by that is, you know, it's you have to be able to raise your prices if you want to get off the ladder, because you have to be able to hire other people, which costs more money. And you have to be able to cover those expenses of the labor. And you can't do that selling at the same price that you have for years, maybe.

Branden Sewell (23:52.652)
And you have to be able to detach from the emotion of thinking like, man, like I can't charge that much or it doesn't feel fair to the customer. It's it has nothing to do with fair or not. It's it would be unfair to hire people and not pay them well. It would be unfair to hire people and you know, not be able to, you know, do the things that you should for them like

you know, just something as simple as like carrying workers comp and insurance. You know, it's just it's, it's doing those things. And you've got to look at both sides like, yes, I want to treat my customer fair, but I also want to treat my employees fair. And I want to grow a business that can thrive and offer a great product and service. And so you have to be able to

you know, come in with a number that might feel like, wow, I don't know if that's too much. And you have to be able to be confident in the fact like, okay, I'm charging this because I have to I want to pay my people fairly. I want to cover my expenses, and I want to be profitable. And I want to be able to honor what we do as a business. And so, you know, that that's part of it, too, is the sales and

You know, it's definitely a tough thing. I would say that's one of the more challenging things is like to not let what you're going through currently drive your sales decisions. And something that I've messed up a couple times even this year is selling jobs that weren't necessarily our ideal job or ideal customer.

making mistakes, having to pay for those mistakes, and doing that because it's like you want to get the money in you want to get the sales in you want to be able to cover payroll, you want to be able to pay for everything you want to be able to grow your business and so you're emotionally you're like, Okay, I to sell that job, I got to take it, I have to take this job. And then you think back and you're like, Man, if I didn't take that job, I would have had time for these other jobs that I wanted. But now my schedule is full.

Branden Sewell (26:19.02)
And so you have to detach from the emotion and say, realistically, is this job going to be as profitable for me? Is it going to really do what I think it's going to? Or would I be better off saying, hey, that's not for me. I need to keep my schedule, our availability open for the jobs that are best for us to do.

and that are going to serve our customers best and our employees best. that's another side of it too. And you can apply this principle to basically any area of your business. You can apply it to marketing. You can be emotional about investing in something, but if it doesn't work, if you're not getting a return on investment, it doesn't matter how much you want it to work, how much you believe in it, how passionate you are about it. If the data is not...

working out if the numbers aren't telling you that this is working, then you have to be able to release from the emotion. Maybe that's, you know, firing a marketing agency, maybe that's, you know, firing somebody who's doing some type of work for you. But you have to detach yourself from the emotion of that. It can apply to, you know, like I said, production, it can apply to leadership, sales.

just basically any area of your business. Try to detach from the emotion, let the data and the reality of things dictate how you're going to respond, and then just try to walk in wisdom and respond to those things with wisdom, not just emotion and feeling. And ultimately, that applies to life in general. I can say that

For me, one of the biggest areas that I had to grow on my life when I was younger was in criticism and the ability to be criticized, to take on constructive criticism and not be offended by that constructive criticism or somebody telling me, don't do this, you need to do this. And being able to say like, hey, I need to take their advice.

Branden Sewell (28:43.85)
and take the emotion out of it and walk in wisdom. So, you know, I, it was yesterday, I was having a conversation with somebody and I was telling them, hey, like, you know, this is a decision that I'm going to make. And they're like, hey, don't make that decision. If you don't have to try to do it this way. And in the moment I was like, no, I have to do it my way. But then, you know, just in a time of

stillness, silence, letting go of the emotion. I was like, okay, how can I actually listen to what this person is saying? And instead of just jumping to the conclusion that what they're saying isn't possible, how can I look at it from a different angle, have a different perspective, humble myself and say, okay, maybe what they're saying is best and I need to try and figure out another way to make this work.

And so anyway, that's what I did. And I told, I even told my wife this morning, said, Hey, here's, you know, some different decisions I have to make. These are all of my plans and here's my contingencies and, my initial idea is going to be the last resort, right? But it's just having that ability to set back and use wisdom opposed to emotion is ultimately what this whole episode is about.

The Bible actually says that if a man lacks wisdom, if you ask God, he'll give it to you. So if you're feeling like you lack wisdom in a circumstances, pray, ask God to give you wisdom, knowledge, understanding, and he's faithful, he'll give you the wisdom, as long as you're humble and you're willing to receive that wisdom and to act on it.

And, you know, the word also says in Proverbs three, five and six that we need to trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding, but in all of our ways acknowledge him and he'll direct our paths. so again, it's like emotionally, you might want to lean on your own understanding. But if you can step out in faith, he'll direct your paths in a way of wisdom, which is beyond our understanding.

Branden Sewell (31:11.72)
know, you know, and Philippians, chapter four says that if, if we lack peace, you know, he gives us peace that surpasses all understanding. And so it's, it's not about our understanding, it's not about what we can justify or rationalize. He gives us peace, he gives us wisdom, he gives us knowledge, understanding, discernment, that surpasses our understanding. And so that's what

you know, we want to tap into. don't want to like be driven by our emotions all the time. So anyway, with that, I'm going to wrap up this episode. I'm excited about season three. I'm excited about growing. I'm also tossing around the ideas of some different things that I'd like to do this year. Like I'd really like to maybe do some daily.

a podcast that are shorter, maybe five minute episodes that are just like an encouragement. It's a lot of work on those would probably be audio only and not audio video. And then maybe just the Wednesday Wednesdays would be both. But anyway, just things that I'm tossing around, I've got conversations with partnerships that might be possible. And I'm looking forward to all the interviews that we'll do in season three and

I'm just excited to continue to grow the Off the Ladder podcast and all the opportunities that will come with it in this season. So thank you so much for tuning into the Off the Ladder podcast. As always, if you are listening on YouTube, please like this video, comment down below, share it with somebody, and ultimately subscribe to the channel. I'd really appreciate your support.

If you're listening on any major podcast platform, please rate and review this show so that it can reach more people. And I'll leave you with this. Please follow me on social media. I'm active on Facebook, Instagram, and my YouTube channel. And you can also email me, reach out through the fan mail on here. But I'd love to hear from you. I'd love for you to connect. Let me know.

Branden Sewell (33:37.177)
Maybe feedback that you have about the podcast, maybe guests that you'd like to see on here. Anything that would help to make this better for you and the audience and to help you learn and grow in your business. Well, I'll bring this to a close. Thank you so much for tuning into the Off the Ladder Podcast and I'll see you next time on the next episode.