Nurturing Positive Emotions, A Sense of Purpose, and Resilience with Bob Brooks

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation! JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire! brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Creator Science. Today, we'll be breaking down how to nurture positive emotions, a sense of purpose, and resilience. To drop these value bombs, I have brought to Bob Brooks in the EO Fire Studios. Dr. Bob is a clinical psychologist with a major interest in resilience across the lifespan. He is the author or co-author of 21 books. And today, we'll talk about a charismatic adult shifting from deficits to islands of competence, creating positive emotions, micro moments, and so much more.

0:40And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Bob and our sponsors. Success Story, hosted by my friend, Scott D. Clary, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Success Story features Q &A sessions with successful business leaders, keynote presentations, and conversation on sales, marketing, business, startups, and entrepreneurship. In a recent episode, Scott brings Kate Bradley on the show, founder and CEO of Lately.ai, to discuss the best ways to use AI to create content. Listen to Success Story wherever you get your podcasts.

1:11Yahoo Finance makes it easy to get financial news, data, and insights fast. For comprehensive financial news and analysis, visit the brand behind every great investor, yahoofinance.com, the number one financial destination, yahoofinance.com. That's yahoofinance.com. Bob, say what's up to Fire Nation. and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. What a question. My answer, John, may be different from other people you interview. And I should note that I clearly remember when you first invited me on your podcast a number of years ago after we met at my son Rich's conference in Portland, Maine.

1:53I was flattered you asked me, but I was saying to myself, why is John asking me to be on his podcast? I don't even view myself as an entrepreneur. But eventually, maybe because of interviews such as yours, I came to think maybe I am an entrepreneur in some way. So I just want to give a little background in order to answer your question with some context. As you know, I was trained as a clinical psychologist. I was very satisfied being on the staff of McLean Hospital, which is a private psychiatric hospital in the Boston area. I love doing supervision and I enjoy giving an occasional talk for different groups.

2:30If you would have interviewed me then, I would have said, I see myself doing all of these same activities for the rest of my career. So with that context, I want to describe an opportunity that arose that was to significantly broaden and enrich my career. Although I must say, a number of people tried to dissuade me from the opportunity. And I really should note that these people were my professional colleagues in the field of mental health. So let me give you what the opportunity was. More than 40 years ago, I was invited by the ABC TV affiliate here in Boston to do a segment on a morning talk show about psychology.

3:10It was a much different time. There were very few psychologists appearing on TV. And I was surprised because I was excited about doing it. I was surprised several colleagues told me it wouldn't be professional for me to go on TV, that I had to be careful about doing therapy on the air. I might say something that could actually harm people. And I was even more startled, John, when a colleague said, check your malpractice insurance if it covers TV appearances. And I thought, though, it would be beneficial to discuss mental health issues on TV as a way of lessening some of the stigma related to mental health.

3:51I also knew that I could reach a much larger audience than was possible in my clinical work. And I must be very honest. I thought it would be an interesting challenge, and I love challenges, an activity I had not done before. But I'm laughing about it now. I must say I had doubts given the reservations expressed by my colleagues, and I actually looked at my malpractice insurance, which had nothing about TV, that I might be sued. Well, now to get to the point. But fortunately, I accepted the invitation, which led me to appear regularly on a couple of their shows, one twice a month, once once a month.

4:29And the feedback was really positive. It included my being given an award from the Massachusetts Psychological Association for my work in promoting mental health and psychology in the media. But now what really was to happen, which I had not anticipated, the TV appearances led to more requests for me to speak locally, which led to engagements around the country and other countries. I found that people were especially interested in hearing my thoughts about a theme that was just beginning to receive notice, namely, how do children and adults learn to cope more effectively with stress and become more hopeful and resilient?

5:07Little did I know I was going to write a number of books about resilience. So eventually I left my position in McLean to devote a major part of my time to writing and lecturing, which I have now done for almost 30 years. What I learned is that sometimes opportunities arise that others may question, but we have to be true to ourselves and our values and sometimes take a risk. And so my career took a much different turn, which has been so enriching to me, even though the first reactions from colleagues was quite negative. Fire Nation, I think you can see why I decided to have Bob on the show here.

5:45I mean, this is an individual who has been there. He has done that. I mean, he has now authored or co-authored 21 books. And that's why I was a little surprised, Bob, that you were surprised of my request to have you on the show the first time because every one of those books, Fire Nation, has immense value for you as an entrepreneur, as a businessman, woman, as a human being. This is how we grow. This is how we learn. And that's why today we're talking about nurturing positive emotions, a sense of purpose and resilience. And I want to start by talking about the phrase, a charismatic adult. Take it away.

6:21Yes. As I got more interested in resilience, I started to wonder why is it that some children could face great adversity and yet as adults be much more hopeful and optimistic than anyone would have predicted. And as psychologists started to do research in the area, John, they started to ask adults who had faced great adversity, they grew up in poverty, under racism, came from unfortunately abusive homes, and now we're doing well. And they said, we could have never predicted based on how you were growing up, that you would be as hopeful and as optimistic as you are today. And they asked a very straightforward question.

7:03What do you think was the most important thing in your childhood, adolescence, and I'll even say in our adult lives, to help us be resilient? In every study that was ever done, bar none, the first answer was almost always the same. It sounded so simple, but in a very spiritual way. It's why we're all here. The first answer was, there was at least one person in my life who truly believed in me and stood by me. And more studies showed the impact of these positive relationships. And back in the 1980s, a psychologist, Julius Siegel, wrote a three-page article, brief article, but very powerful, where he said in research conducted around the world about children who have problems and face adversity, the ones who make it have during their lives the presence of a charismatic adult.

7:54I almost wish he hadn't used the word charismatic because it has different meanings to different people. But John, I loved his definition. He said a charismatic adult is an adult from whom a child or adolescent gathers strength. And of course, as adults, we need these people. And little did I know, I'll just end with this, when something you said before, little did I know that when I was to speak about charismatic adults, that I one of my talks for parents, the head of a financial advisor institute heard me speak, called me. These are how opportunities come up and say, you know, Bob, when you talked about the importance of being a charismatic adult for our children, I thought about wouldn't any financial advisor want his or her clients to see them as a charismatic adult from whom they gathered strength, which then led to an area I was not as familiar with, then led to two books I wrote with him about being an advisor in a business or financial world.

8:58So things start opening up that sometimes you don't anticipate. I love the theme of this, Fire Nation, and the arc as we traject through this interview. And that's where I want to shift to deficits. I want to talk about islands of competence. So how do we as entrepreneurs shift from deficits to islands of competence? Again, a little background. When you said deficits, a big mistake I made as a beginning psychologist was I focused too much on deficits. John, parents could come in to see me about their child who's having problems. I could focus the whole hour on what's wrong with the child. And the same thing could be true when I did consultations, focusing on what's wrong.

9:40And 40 years ago now, I said to myself, you are spending too much time on what's wrong with people and you have to start asking them what are their islands of competence? What are their kids' islands of competence? And it could be in any relationship. And I just had coined the term islands of competence. So if I'm meeting with someone, again, it could be a patient, it could be someone I'm consulting with. I know that after a few minutes, even though they may be speaking about some of the problems they experience, I am going to ask them, let's say it's a parent or teacher. Now that I've heard about some of the problems, what do you see as your son or daughters or your child's strengths, their beauty, their islands of competence?

10:28And I'll ask the same if I'm consulting with a financial advisor or a financial advisor group or what do you see as your strengths? But I'll also say to them in your consultation, are you asking people you're consulting with, what do they see as their strengths? because if we just focus on the negative, we're going to really have a great deal of difficulty because what I discovered, and there's now much research to support this, is when you evoke or elicit positive emotions, it actually activates parts of the brain that have to do with problem solving, thinking about different options, being more open to new ideas.

11:10And this led me to think about in any relationship, how do you create those positive emotions? And even, John, in giving a talk, how do I, in the first three, four minutes of a presentation, use a little humor, build a positive emotion so people will be more receptive to hearing me and my message? This is powerful. And I don't even know if you know this, Bob, but I actually now have a four-month-old child. My baby, Beau, was born in November of 2023. So it's just been an absolute joy to kind of see this transition from, of course, birth to where he's at now. And, of course, the fun is just beginning.

11:44And it's really making me think about, you know, the islands of competence for him moving forward and continuing to kind of like identify and see and kind of nurture those things along. So, I mean, Fire Nation, work this into your life, like work this in to where you are at right now, because there's a lot of cool opportunities. Speaking of opportunities, I mean, we have opportunities to speak about micro moments, about strengthening our empathy and so much more. When we get back from thanking our sponsors. You know your customers want fast, personalized support, but how do you find a customer service solution that actually delivers?

12:19Most solutions leave reps struggling to stay productive and customers frustrated by the lack of support. But with the new AI-powered Service Hub from HubSpot, you've now got a better way to do service and success. Service Hub helps you fly through the service queues and lighten the load on your reps with AI-powered self-service chat and knowledge-based articles. It also helps you grow your customer base with tools that helps reps anticipate customer needs before they ever become issues. With HubSpot Service Hub, reps are resolving tickets 13 times faster, helping them close 42 % more tickets per day.

12:51And that means increasing retention by more than 80%. Plus, with Service Hub, you get a full 360 view of your customers on one smart CRM that brings marketing, sales, service, and success teams together to work smarter while you watch your business grow. So visit HubSpot.com slash service to learn how this all new solution can help you deliver for your customers. I was lucky to grow up in a household where finances were talked about openly. And so from a young age, I knew the importance of saving and investing. That's why I'm passionate about transparency when it comes to the financials of our business.

13:25As you know, we've been creating monthly income reports for the past 11 years. But whether you grew up knowing the importance of saving and investing or not, it's never too late to take control of your financial future. and to do so, you need the right tools. I know that behind every great investor is Yahoo Finance. Yahoo Finance allows me to get financial news, data, and insights fast so I can make informed decisions to reach the financial freedom we all want. I love how Yahoo Finance allows me to see all of my investment and retirement accounts in one place. So instead of logging into three or four different sites, I can see it all at yahoofinance.com.

14:01For comprehensive financial news and analysis. Visit the brand behind every great investor, yahoofinance.com. The number one financial destination, yahoofinance.com. That's yahoofinance.com. Bob, we're back and something I really wanted to dive into was what you refer to as micro moments. So first off, what are micro moments and how the heck do we create them? This has become a very favorite topic of mine. years ago one of my first books I ever wrote John was about school climate and this is where the notion of micro moments arose and I gave out a questionnaire to 1500 people and I asked them of the memories they have of school what is one of their favorite memories and I was really struck by some of the most powerful memories or experiences we have of what I called at that point seemingly small gestures.

14:58They remembered like a teacher smiling at them or a very brief comment. And so I started to write about the importance of the seemingly small gestures. And then I think it was in about 2016, I read an article in the Harvard Business Review that talked about the emotional culture of organizations. It says each organization has their own emotional culture. Some, unfortunately, are emotional cultures of fear or anger, but they talked about emotional cultures of joy or where people wanted to work together. And in that article, what it said is some of these emotional cultures are really based on micro moments, which was like what I was saying in seemingly brief moments.

15:44And they gave actual examples where, say, someone, a manager, would each morning just say hello to the staff. I mean, it was the smallest things. And they said we really have to focus on the positive are called microaffirmations. We hear much more about the negative microaggressions. And so one of the things I found is that – and I use myself as an example. example, if I go into an organization to speak, someone greeting me in a very warm way and saying, we're really happy to have you here, is much different than someone saying, oh, you're the speaker. This doesn't happen too often, fortunately.

16:27Right away, when someone is welcoming me, what happens is it's a micro moment where already I'm feeling positive. My talk is going to be filled with much more positive emotions because of this. And so these micro moments applying not only to the business world, they've done research to show that if teachers, what they call positive greetings at the door, John, if teachers each morning, a positive greeting at the door, how are you, greet you by name, it actually leads to kids being more engaged, fewer discipline problems, just these micro moments at the beginning of the day. And so it's in any relationship then that we, how do we create these micro moments that also help to create these positive emotions?

17:14And I've just become much more tuned in, in terms of my own experiences as a consultant and as a therapist, in terms of creating those micro moments. Fire Nation, I hope that like me, you are having some of these micro moment memories. I mean, there's some really interesting ones popped up. I mean, for me being in kindergarten was just one that just popped up into my mind. I mean, it was so vivid, but it wasn't like this big moment. It was like this little thing that happened, but I'll never forget it. And there's other of those that just kind of continue to cycle through my mind as you were speaking.

17:47It was a really cool moment, and I think it's very powerful. I know I'm interfering a little, but I just want to compliment you. When you asked me to be on your show a number of years ago, That was a very positive micro moment for me because it got me to think about, what am I doing that's like an entrepreneur? But I realized I was giving talks out there. I was selling books. And so that was a very positive micro moment for me. So I just wanted to add that. Well, I received that. I love that I could be a part of that moment. And I want to move into strengthening our empathy because you believe that we would actually all benefit from a little strengthening in our own empathy.

18:28So how do we do so? How do we strengthen our empathy? And why would we benefit from that? You know, Daniel Goleman, the psychologist who wrote Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence, he was the one who said more important than IQ at times is emotional intelligence. And he said, one of the most important things in any relationship components is empathy. And we all have the basic understanding. It's the capacity to put yourself inside the shoes of another person and see the world through their eyes. But then I said, you know what? I have to be more specific. If I'm giving a talk, what does it really mean?

19:06And I started getting some interesting questions from different audiences. Are there questions they ask that they can ask themselves that will help them to be more empathic? So over the years, I collected some questions, which I'm going to just share with you that I hope the listener, you know, your listeners can use. I started to say, again, my consultations on my clinical work, I started to ask this question. What words do you hope? And then you could fill in the blank. Your students will use to describe you. Your clients will use to describe you. Your spouse will use to describe you. So what words do you hope they will use?

19:41So this helps you to focus on you're coming across in a certain way. The second question, which is, you know, people have told me is really thought provoking is, as you think about the words you hope they would use, what do you say and do on a regular basis so they're likely to use the words you hope they use? Because I think we have to be very intentional. This does not mean being rigid in terms of how we're coming across and how our actions affect how people see us. And a third question is, and it's very much related, what words do you think they will use? And I have some very funny stories.

20:22I could tell you one quickly. I was giving a talk for parents, since you mentioned, and congratulations on Bo's birth. Thank you. I was giving a talk for parents and I mentioned these questions and there were about 200 people in the audience, John. And all of a sudden this woman screams, oh, my God, I thought there was a medical emergency. Fortunately, this doesn't happen often. I said, what is it? It's like she totally forgot that there are, you know, another 200 parents there. I said, that's a very good question, Bob. You know, how would our kids describe us? I said, thank you. Any speaker wants to hear his or her questions are good.

20:56And then she said, could I tell you what it is? Well, at this point, all the audience is listening. And she said in a sweet way, she said, the first word I hope my kids use to describe me is calm. And all I could think about is how she totally disrupted the meeting. But I said, do you think that will be the first word they use? It was really funny. She said, not at all. She said, I've been yelling at them for about a dozen years. I don't think that's the first word they will use. And it's very interesting. After what she came up and she said to me, she said, you know, it's such the questions are so simple but powerful.

21:33I never really stopped to think about how my kids would describe me when I when I've consulted, you know, heads of organization. Same thing. How would you like your staff to describe you? What do you regularly say and do intentionally say and do so they're likely to describe you this way? And, you know, Goldman says self-awareness is one of the most important things of emotional and social intelligence. So what I'm really also doing there is helping you to think about being more self-aware of how you come across. So empathy for me, in every one of my books on resilience, I was going to say there's a chapter on empathy because it's hard to be that charismatic adult if you cannot really put yourself inside the shoes of the person with whom you are, you know, you're relating.

22:24Fire Nation, we talked about being a charismatic adult. Deficits to islands of competence, creating just overall these micro moments, strengthening our empathy. Bob, how do you want to end this episode? Take a step back. Take a thought. And what is the thing, maybe it's that one thing that you really want to make sure our listeners walk away with from this conversation? Yeah, I hope this doesn't sound overly simple and it's really related to islands of competence, John. Over the years, I've realized even when people have difficulty and even if we're struggling, we all have a certain beauty or strengths there.

23:06And one of my favorite, I would say, strategies that I've used to help show those beauty and strengths is that I talk a lot in my books now about basically having a sense of purpose or meaning. And one of the ways we have a sense of purpose or meaning is when we engage in activities that enrich the lives of others. As a matter of fact, again, as a new parent, you'll see, I believe that one of the things that helps kids to be resilient is this. We engage them in helping others, helping us, not by saying there are chores to do, but by saying I need your help. So I found I've been really talking a great deal that a basic component of resilience is when you feel your presence is making a positive difference in the world of others.

23:57And you could be very successful financially or whatever, but I think that feeling you're making a difference and that you're enriching the lives of others has become a theme I've been addressing more and more as a foundation for resilience. Fire Nation, value bombs have been dropped once again from Bob. And I love everything that we talked about today. The arc of the conversation just ended at such a good place. And if Fire Nation wants to connect with you, Bob, maybe read one or 21 of your books. I mean, what do you want to share with our listeners as far as a call to action, how they can find you?

24:39The best way is really just my website, drdrobertbrooks.com. I should note that for the last 20 years or so, I've been writing a monthly article except for the summer. And there are over 200 articles related to a number of the things we talked about today. And certainly free to subscribe, I'll say. so people could get a sense of my thoughts on a number of these topics. And then there's also, of course, a list of my books that people can purchase. And thank you again, John, for having me on and being able to share some of these thoughts with you and your listeners. Well, you are welcome. And honestly, thank you for coming here and sharing so much value with our listeners because Fire Nation knows that they're the average of the five people they spend the most time with.

25:32And Fire Nation, you've been hanging out with BB and JLD today, so keep up that heat. And for links to everything we talked about, visit eofire.com, type Bob, B-O-B, in the search bar, and the show notes page will pop right up. And Bob, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute you, and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank you so much, John. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Bob for sponsoring today's episode and Fire Nation. Successful entrepreneurs accomplish big goals. That's why I created the Freedom Journal to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in 100 days.

26:07And we're talking step by step. Visit thefreedomjournal.com and I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Success Story, hosted by my friend Scott D. Clary, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Success Story features Q &A sessions with successful business leaders, keynote presentations, and conversation on sales, marketing, business, startups, and entrepreneurship. In a recent episode, Scott brings Kate Bradley on the show, founder and CEO of Lately.ai, to discuss the best ways to use AI to create content. Listen to Success Story wherever you get your podcasts.

26:41Yahoo Finance makes it easy to get financial news, data, and insights fast. For car behensile financial news and analysis, visit the brand behind every great investor, yahoofinance.com, the number one financial destination, yahoofinance.com. That's yahoofinance.com.