Master Your Emotions For Career Success


Dr. Gregg Steinberg , has been a tenured associate professor of sport psychology and human performance at Austin Peay State University for the past seven years. He is also the associate editor of the Journal of Sport Behavior. As a world-class speaker and renowned expert on peak performance in sports and business, Gregg Steinberg helps people find their full performance potential. He has given presentations on sport psychology and performance psychology throughout North America and Puerto Rico.

Gregg, in your book, “Full Throttle”, you mention that mastering our emotions is the key to success in business, sports and anything else. Why is this so crucial?

In my experiences, those people who can remain calm under pressure, find joy in a challenge and get pumped up in a moment’s notice - are the ones who are most successful in sport and business.

Mental toughness is important, but it is our emotions which drive the engine, we need the right emotions to be successful.

What are some ways that we can train ourselves to master our emotions?

One way is how we may interpret a situation. We can turn a draining situation or draining person into a person who does not bother us.

As an example in the book, I recommend that you make up a story about the person. In the book, I tell of a story about Dr. Boyle who was a drain on my client, so we made up a story in which he lost a friend during a fishing trip due to his negligence. His friend drowned in the accident. He has lived with that torment all his life and I recommended to my client to think of that story before he interacted with Dr. Boyle. He did and their relationship blossomed because he saw Dr. Boyle with more compassionate eyes instead of contempt eyes. His emotions changed to positive ones because of this story.

What is the most taboo emotion to display in our working/business life?

Most people would say anger, but sometimes anger can be harnessed into a positive action because it gets your juices flowing and builds your intensity level. Except, there are other more productive ways to do that, as an example, an image that gets you pumped up is better than anger for most.

In your book, you also discuss about the six vital emotional strengths that we need to conquer to master our own destiny. Can you share about one of the six in some detail?

The first emotional strength is emotional awareness. This is your roadmap on your journey to excellence. In regard to this emotional strength, we need to know when we are peaking in our energy levels during the day, and when our energy levels are low. For some, they peak in the morning (like myself), but others peak in the afternoon.

Once you know when you peak, you need to develop an energy management plan. Create a task list that you need to do for the day or week, but quantify your tasks in terms of the amount of energy is needed.

For instance, writing a proposal may take a lot of energy and warm calls to a good client take a little energy. Now match your energy tasks to the appropriate time of day for you. Engage in high energy tasks when you are peaking in your energy and place low energy tasks when your energy is diminished. In that way, you can be productive even when your energy is low. Also, you want to save your high energy moments for the most important high energy tasks.

Which public personality, in your opinion, has mastered his/her emotional strength very well, and why?

Tiger Woods comes to mind as one of the best in the athletic world. He is completely emotionally connected to the moment - at times he forgets what hole he is playing (as he did in the 2000 US open). Tiger does get mad at times, but he can let go of that emotion instantly and focus back on the task at hand. He also has the emotional strength of balance, more specifically, meaning and purpose drives his energy.

The Tiger woods foundation has opened facilities in Los Angeles and (one is soon to be open in Washington DC) where underprivileged youths can learn about music, making videos, and some golf. Tiger has mentioned that he does not want to be remembered for what he does on the golf course but what he does off the course. His meaning and purpose concerning his foundation gives him greater energy for what he needs to do on the golf course.