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Success Quote by Lakshmi Mittal

"At the end of the day you have to keep emotions away"

About this Quote

There’s a chill to Lakshmi Mittal’s line that feels less like advice than a management philosophy distilled to its hardest edge. “At the end of the day” is corporate small talk, a soft preface that makes the punch land smoother. Then comes the real message: emotion is leakage. In the Mittal worldview, feelings don’t humanize decisions; they contaminate them.

The intent is pragmatic, even protective. A steel magnate who built a global empire through acquisitions, layoffs, and ruthless cost discipline has lived in rooms where empathy can get expensive fast. If you’re negotiating across borders, currencies, unions, and governments, the pitch is that sentiment creates tells: hesitation, guilt, overpromising, second-guessing. “Keep emotions away” reads like a self-defense mechanism against volatility - in markets and in oneself.

The subtext, though, is power. Emotional distance is easier when you’re insulated from consequences, or when you’ve trained yourself to see consequences as numbers. This isn’t just about maintaining composure; it’s about legitimizing decisions that will be unpopular. Detachment becomes a moral alibi: don’t blame me, blame the logic.

Context matters because Mittal’s career sits at the intersection of globalization’s promise and its casualties. The quote belongs to an era when CEOs were celebrated for “discipline” and “focus,” even when that meant communities hollowed out and workers treated as line items. It works because it’s brutally legible: a simple rule for thriving in a system that rewards cold clarity - and rarely invoices you for what it costs other people.

Quote Details

TopicDecision-Making
SourceHelp us find the source
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Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Mittal, Lakshmi. (2026, January 16). At the end of the day you have to keep emotions away. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/at-the-end-of-the-day-you-have-to-keep-emotions-93187/

Chicago Style
Mittal, Lakshmi. "At the end of the day you have to keep emotions away." FixQuotes. January 16, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/at-the-end-of-the-day-you-have-to-keep-emotions-93187/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"At the end of the day you have to keep emotions away." FixQuotes, 16 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/at-the-end-of-the-day-you-have-to-keep-emotions-93187/. Accessed 12 Feb. 2026.

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About the Author

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Lakshmi Mittal (born June 15, 1950) is a Businessman from United Kingdom.

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