This study looks at the impact emotions have on the cognitive ability of the entrepreneur to navigate the entrepreneurial challenges. The study examines how the entrepreneurial mindset is built in a business incubator in Malaysia. This business incubator, ET Ideas has an 80% success rate in comparison to a global success rate of only 10-15% (Kalyanasundaram, 2021). Even during the covid19 pandemic, all their start-ups survived, 90% going online and finding new markets and opportunities. ET Ideas builds the entrepreneurial mindset by guiding the novice entrepreneurs to manage their emotions. The conceptual framework was expanded from literature reviews and a critical study of the mindset and habit patterns of ET Ideas entrepreneurs. The findings show that emotions have a notable impact on the cognitive performance of the entrepreneur. When emotions are triggered, cognitive ability is disabled and an automatic knee-jerk reaction occurs from the individual’s subconscious programming. The ability to manage emotions determines whether the entrepreneur goes into an automatic reaction, where cognitive abilities are shut down and the entrepreneur acts out from their subconscious programming, or the cognitive ability kicks in, and the entrepreneur can access and apply the learned information. This paper presents a conceptual model to manage emotions called S-I-E-P; abbreviated for Spirit, Intellect, Emotions and Physical Senses. This conceptual model is the secret used by ET Ideas entrepreneurs to build their entrepreneurial mindset and exceptional resilience leading to long-term sustainable start-ups.