Cambridge Business Association
Your Killer Emotions
Book

Your Killer Emotions

The 7 Steps to Mastering the Toxic Emotions, Urges, and Impulses That Sabotage You

Ken Lindner
Greenleaf Book Group, 2013
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Editorial Rating

7

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Recommendation

Has an emotional reaction ever clouded your judgment and prevented you from achieving your goals? Strong feelings can derail your ability to make important decisions. Even when you know better, your emotions, rather than your intelligence, can drive your actions, leading to self-sabotaging behavior. Executive coach Ken Lindner illustrates his theories about emotional control with several anecdotes in which people make common mistakes and act emotionally instead of thoughtfully. He advises creating a list of your tangible and intangible objectives and using it to build self-awareness and to make intelligent, positive choices. His text is repetitive, but it is also easy to follow and quite motivational. Lindner lays out a useful plan for recognizing and breaking problematic behavior patterns. He teaches concrete skills such as framing and visualizing past, present and future events (though he coins a silly word – “frisualizing” – to pat his metaphor into place). getAbstract recommends his manual to managers and to those who wonder if their emotions have hampered their careers or harmed their relationships.

Summary

Emotional vs. Intellectual Decisions

When faced with a conflict, do you ever act impulsively under the sway of emotions that undermine your ability to make well thought-out decisions? Someone who pushes your “emotional buttons” can skew your better judgment. In an emotionally charged situation, intelligence and reason may take a back seat.

Rage, anxiety, angst and even love can be so overpowering that they cause a physiological reaction that adversely affects your ability to act strategically. Your feelings alone don’t cause discord, but expressing them in the wrong way can sabotage you. Instead, make your emotions your allies by directing and expressing them appropriately.

Solving a conflict between your intellect and your feelings requires managing your emotions and channeling your thoughts so you focus on the goals and outcomes you want to achieve. Such “emotional mastery” begins with acknowledging the important role your feelings play in your decision making, particularly when crucial life choices are at stake. Such choices could include selecting a career, committing to lose weight or deciding to be a different type of parent than your mother or father. ...

About the Author

Ken Lindner is an executive coach with 30 years of experience. He wrote Crunch Time: 8 Steps to Making the Right Life Decisions at the Right Times.

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