Understand Your Emotions By Mastering Your Choices. Feat. Brendon Burchard

0:28So, hey guys, listen, we're all trying to get more productive. $10 ,000 worth of courses that are in there that come with the app. Also, some of the top influencers in the world are all posting content in there on a regular basis, like having the Avengers of personal development and business in one app. And I'm honored that he asked me to be a part of it as well and contribute on a weekly basis, and I do. So go over there and get signed up. You're going to get a free tuition-free voucher to go to an event with Brendan and myself and a bunch of other influencers as well. So you get a free event out of it also.

0:53So go to growthday.com forward slash ed. That's growthday.com forward slash Ed.

1:06This is the Ed Myerling Show. You know, I think it's probably one of the most important topics we could possibly have. I recorded a show on this today. And the reason I think it's so important is I was reading all this data over the weekend about the lack of emotional health in the world today. and it's a staggering stat i mean this is maybe a little bit dramatic to open up with but the number two leading cause of death for children well young people 18 to 29 years old now is accidents number one and now death by suicide number two it's ahead of cancer it's ahead of all other causes of death in australia brendan the number one cause of death from people 18 to 24 years old is suicide oh suicide and so you start to think now that's the extreme end of not having emotional regulation right and letting it go deeper um just a couple more things then we'll go into it but 59 of americans above 18 years old report in the last year having suffered through some form of depression six out of ten people and so this is a really really important topic And if I'm being honest, with all the tools I have, with all the resources I have, with this incredible life I have, this is something I have to work really, really hard on.

2:26And like anything else in life, I think you have to rely on community like what we have here. And also you rely on your rituals, your habits, and your disciplines. And those are something that I can fall back on. And for me, there's a variety of them. And I know this is your case, too. my emotional well-being typically is somehow connected to my physiology most of the time and i think one of the reasons i'm convinced one of the reasons i've struggled more than i ever have the last eight months or so is as you know because of some of the health issues i've had my physical routine has changed and i really believe it's affected me emotionally i really do believe that and so i've had to really dig deeper as to why i come from trauma in my life i didn't have a perfect upbringing.

3:13And so I had to learn to override those things as I got older. And the biggest thing for me emotionally is people ask me all the time when my dad was drinking, what was, I feel like I'm laying the negative foundation here first, but I think it's important. People ask me all the time, what was the biggest, well, what was my dad's drinking do to my family? What did it really do? And was it that, you know, he was mean or he could be violent or didn't say I loved you enough and all those things, the stress, all that comes with growing up in a dysfunctional home. But the main thing it did is I worried about my dad when I was a little boy.

3:50I worried about him. And that built the habit and pattern of being a worrier. So like my primary question was in my life, what do I need to worry about right now? What should I be worried about right now? And when that's the primary question that you ask yourself, you're wired for emotional pain. So when you step back, the first thing I would say for everybody, and I'll let you talk about this, Brennan, is one, check your physiology. And I know this is talked about in the industry. Tony Robbins is famous for it, but I mean like really check it. Are you elevating your heart rate every day? Are you going on a walk?

4:23Are you sweating like you should be sweating? And I'll talk about things I do to do that in a minute too. And then the other thing is really look at the internal questions you're asking yourself. Really look at it. Are Are you asking yourself what you should be fearful of or worried of? Are you focusing on what you don't have most of the time as opposed to what you do have? If you have the habit of looking for what you're lacking or don't have in your life, no matter what you accumulate, your mind has been trained to still find the things you don't have. And I can tell you as somebody who's had wonderful physical blessings or financial blessings, there's still lots of things I don't have.

5:00And so if you're trained to see the things in your life that you lack, you will find them because there's always going to be more of those than the things you do have. And now if you're in scarcity all the time and worried about what you don't have and thinking about what you don't have, even though part of it's made me and you successful is wanting to achieve, wanting to climb, wanting to acquire. But if you've wired yourself to where you look for what you don't have most of the time, you're going to find it all the time. And when you're focused on what you lack, you can't be in a great emotional state most of the time.

5:31So I had to teach myself, no matter what's going on, to focus on what I do have. What are the blessings in my life? And I know that sounds like, oh, okay, so write down my gratitude. I think it's much deeper than that. What have you trained yourself to ask yourself on a regular basis? Because your thoughts dictate your emotions. So if that's true, then what is a thought? and what a thought is, it's actually the internal very quick process of asking and answering questions to yourself. That's actually what a thought is. And so for me, I had to take a hold of the questions I asked myself and it's easy to get up once in the morning and go, okay, what am I grateful for?

6:09Who am I grateful for? Who do I love? Who loves me? And you do that for four minutes in the morning. That's great. But if you're patterned the rest of the day, 9 million other times is to ask yourself a different question. Then what you did is you gave yourself the gift of four minutes of bliss and 23 hours and 56 minutes of something other than bliss. And so I've trained perpetually and regularly ask myself questions that bring me joy and bliss. Cause I know that question leads to an answer and that answer is going to give me some form of an emotion. And so that's where it starts for me is the questions that I ask myself habitually.

6:44And when I change the questions, I change the emotion. So back to you on that. you focus on that so good well all of it i think you're hitting on so many elements and i know that um one of them that really resonates with a lot of people personally is what you're experiencing with is like well when your physical body isn't where you want it to be or you can't work out uh and there's just a misalignment between your mind and your body yes and you can really sense that that feels like a lot of turbulence that feels like dis-ease that feels like a dissatisfaction from what you want to experience. And so much about emotional freedom is learning to see where are you dissatisfied with what you want to experience and how are you dealing with that?

7:30Because if in dealing with the world, you drop yourself into a negative range of reaction versus dealing with the world and challenging yourself to generate into a positive intention, right that that we all know that stimulus response stuff but we don't realize how profound it is when we can say oh i'm going to be generative i'm going to say what is my intention what is the next right action of integrity even though this experience is here even though this difficulty here is here even though it's not perfect even though they were mean even though this was awful how do I want to experience life?

8:14And am I in range with that? I ask myself that all the time, Ed. I'm like, you were asking about questions. You talked about questions. One of the questions I always ask myself, am I in range? And what I mean that is I want to be in a positive range of emotion throughout the day. Not perfect, not on a dot of perfection, but I can tell if I'm in a negative range of emotion and mood and feeling throughout the day, or if it's more towards positive. And the only difference, well, I'll tell you what the difference isn't. The difference isn't circumstance. The difference isn't did everything go right?

8:52Because pretty much in an active life like you and I have, things fall off the rails all the time. Someone misses a meeting, somebody lies in a meeting, somebody doesn't deliver, something breaks. I mean, there's always is something to be upset about. It's am I orienting myself as a conscious, intentional guy towards the emotions and experiences I do want to experience? A sense of appreciation and richness in the moment. A sense of joy with other people or in process. A sense of love when I'm talking to my buddy, Ed. yeah you know it's like i love this guy it's like am i choosing as a conscious adult the range in which i want to experience life not just reacting from acute emotions and that makes me i think live a different quality of life uh aligned to a lot of what you were just talking about well what's fascinating by the way is and you do that for me like Like legitimately, when I talk to you, I'm lighter.

10:01I'm more joyous. I'm happier. You really put that out. Like I almost feel like in your case, maybe you've worked so hard at it that it's not natural. But it's almost like your default state is joy. And so when I do talk to you immediately, and it creates a different perspective in me too, brother. Like you actually do that. I have a few friends that do that. Top of the list, you know, for me, I would say is you. and the other thing i've also realized when you're a chaser in life meaning you go chase things so i'm gonna go get that promotion i'm gonna go get that client i'm gonna go get that amount of net worth i'm gonna work really hard so i can acquire that thing or whatever it is and you're a goal oriented person so you're a chaser and you love the chase there's two challenges with that number One, if you're a chaser, and I'll call myself like a future liver.

10:53So if you live in the future all the time, that's not healthy. And I've lived 53 years mainly in the future. This is just stuff I've come to realize recently. So it's made me really successful because I'm always a visionary. I'm a whatever. But if you're in the future all the time, there's two things. You're living there, and you also – I worry about things that haven't even happened yet that are in the future. I'm a future traveler in my own mind all the time. and this is important a lot of you are noting i guarantee you because you're like i travel in the future too so my traveling in the future one is to achieve but the other part of it is i move into the future and go okay this problem this thing what if that happened and i live there all the time and even if what i think is going to go wrong goes wrong which i'm incorrect about 97 percent of the time meaning only about three percent of the things i actually future travel and worry about ever actually happened right but even if they did there's what's crazy about it and it's like 3 % of the time.

11:48Even if they did, I now suffered through it 46 times in the future and once when it actually happened. As opposed to, this is really important, as opposed to just suffering when it happens. That's what's so crazy about worrying about things in the future. They're probably not going to happen. And if they do, you've suffered more times than you need to because it happened, then you got to suffer then. And so finally, it's true. And I finally woke up to that going, Like, hey, that did happen. And instead of me suffering the one time it happened, I've suffered through this like 47 times, which is crazy.

12:24I changed it. And here's the other thing, bro. I used to think you had to chase these emotions. I thought you had to go get happiness. You had to go get joy. Meaning it's outside of me somehow and I go get it. The pursuit of happiness. one of the most ridiculous, toxic phrases of all time. You do not pursue happiness. You do not pursue it. You tap into it, which already exists within you. And so I finally figured out bliss is within me. Happiness is within me. Joy is within me. It's a matter of whether I access that part of myself. I don't have to go get it. I don't have to chase it. I don't have to pursue it.

13:07you chase things. You do not chase emotions. You pursue things or people. You do not pursue emotions. They're all right here. I can tap into peace in an instant. I can tap into joy in an instant. It's right here. I don't have to go get it. And I also don't have to go earn it. You earn money. You earn things. You earn trust. You do not earn an emotion. And so that I give myself tapping into what already exists. And then I'll come up for air. But one other thing regarding that too is once you experience that, and we all have, by the way, I'm curious from you too. I've had people tell me that ironically, in the most scary moments of their life, they were completely calm.

13:51And they can't even explain it. For example, I have friends of mine like yourself, I'd like to hear your perspective, that have been in these catastrophic car accidents. And I've always thought, well, if I got into one of those, I'd be like, oh my. And many people have told me, you know, I actually was incredibly calm. I can't even explain to you why I was so calm. And so there's this deep part of us that when we really need to, we can tap into equanimity. Even under the most stress duress ever, we experience some of the greatest peace we've ever had in our lives. Some of the greatest calm we've ever had in our lives.

14:26And so that proves to you it's not circumstantial. It certainly isn't external. internal it's something that you can tap into the key thing is not to wait until an emergency where you need to to stay calm in a car accident or someone's attempting to harm you but that you can tap into that state at will i'm curious when you were in the accident did that happen to you did you feel a sense of calm or was it or or were you in a chaotic mode when it happened i think there was for me personally, the first couple of seconds was terror, just like realizing it's going to happen. So you brace and that brace is fear.

15:04It's like, Oh my God. Right. Remember you telling me that. Yeah. And then what happened though, as the car started skidding sideways and going off road, and it was like inevitable, it was going to happen. I have two beliefs about what happened. One is a belief and then one is biology. I'll talk about biology so just people know I'm not discounting it. Biologically, what happens is you just got a huge shot of adrenaline. And what we know is when you have a huge shot of adrenaline, the body actually and the mind processes way faster. And as your mind and body process faster because you're on adrenaline, things seem to slow down.

15:44Talk to a great soccer player on goal that was really important. They knew it was important as they're literally kicking to score the goal they will tell you it was like slow motion man because the moment was important but adrenaline was there when humans get adrenaline it's like things slow down it's funny you because you process faster adrenaline makes you process faster so i'm processing faster i'm in an accident it's important and time slows down so the slow motion thing happens and it feels like almost calming like you're watching the train go by you know what i mean um so biologically the adrenaline the cortisol does help that actually happen in car accidents so it's a very common thing uh i also believe that you know grace in some way entered the car i have a spiritual belief so if for those who are like oh i don't believe in god well then call it adrenaline dude but i also believe there was something spiritual happening there uh an opening that was happening there something important was happening and um so it did calm me down uh especially you know the car flipped off i hit my head and it seemed like the slow motion thing was going a little bit more again biology people say well he his head i'm like yeah but there's something else was happening because i was seeing these images in these scenes that i hit my head all the time dude i get up at night and i knock my head on the wall all the time i don't see scenes of these beautiful moments of my life it happened then that's why i think it was something different something special was happening for me and a calmness happened for me uh that was beautiful i saw these beautiful scenes in my life when i was surrounded by people i love and trust me i've knocked my head around a lot in life that never happened except right there so I think something beautiful was happening in that in that moment and because of all that happening and when I was able to pull myself from this car and free myself from the car afterwards and I was bleeding out and I thought I was going to die I asked a question kind of like said earlier you asked questions I asked a question of did I matter?

18:02And I'd never even thought about that question before. Do I matter? Did I make a difference? Did I do something with my life? I never questioned that before. So all these things happened in a car accident and the net effect for me became, oh, I want to live a good life. I want to live. I want to love. I want to matter. I want to have a good life, but I didn't know how. So I started studying personal development psychology. And all of those trainings taught me one thing. You can change your emotions. You can shift your feelings. You can improve your mood. You can feel better. But you have to consciously decide to do that and to set up the practices in your life that create that condition.

18:51And I know you've done the same thing. That's why we're here today. and it's interesting i'm thinking as you're talking like things that have worked for me recently and this isn't just a guy thing but i know it's definitely a guy thing but it's a people who lift weights thing so when i said earlier that um being physical and changing my physiology um has you know made a huge impact on my emotional well-being my mental well-being all of that you know there's another thing that i realized and that my form of physicality this a lot of you will relate to this was weight lifting and um it does a great thing of creating all the different things the serotonin in my brain and dopamine and even adrenaline is pumping through there and um but something far deeper happens to me now when i treat myself physics so just remember this at least for me physically working out is a big deal and it does change my emotional well-being but that is still sort of beating yourself up a little bit literally not just metaphorically and so really building muscle or weights is breaking something down and letting it heal so that's a good thing for a temporary state but what i found is if i'm doing something physical and i mean this sounds strange coming from me but i need to share it where I'm more gentle with myself and kind to myself, my emotional well-being goes through the roof.

20:25Let me tell you exactly what I mean by that. For me, if I stretch, there's something very personal with you when you're stretching that's different than lifting weights. Lifting weights is an aggressive move, right, for the most part. And it's you and this weight, and there's the connection to the weight. But when you're stretching, it's you and your body only. And so whether it's yoga or stretching or some form of that, that tell you it's been transformative for my emotional state because there's a connection with my body I don't have when I lift weights. I'm also not breaking myself down to build myself back up.

21:00What I'm doing is being gentle and kind with myself and feel like an instantaneous connection with my body and a centering and a presence, more importantly, that I don't always have when I'm lifting weights with loud music on and these other things. So that's been really huge for me. The other thing is when you can afford - Yeah, and you know that. I mean, I told you that I had to by necessity because I can't lift the weights that I once lifted, at least not right now. But as I've gotten older, I've had a lot of people tell me, hey, make sure you're stretching, make sure you do yoga. Well, about every year, this will give people hope too, probably every year for the last six years, I've had start some sort of yoga practice on my annual goal list.

21:43And I'm pretty good. I hit most all of my goal. I hit a lot of my goals. I don't hit all of them. That's not true. But I hit a good percentage of my goals. This is just something I've rolled onto my list six years in a row. And so last year, I went, we have to attach a reason to it. We have to attach an immediate massive action to it. And I actually went to a certain form of yoga and started to take it. And here's the reason why I never did it. It's why people don't go to the gym. I know I'm the least flexible human being I've ever seen in my life. And I knew I would be bad at it in front of a bunch of people.

22:14and I didn't want to do something I was not at. I don't want to do something new. I don't want to embarrass myself, right? And so finally I just said, so I finally just did it. And now I love it. And so I do different types of yoga that I do now. I do a lot of stretching and it's for my, not only physically has it been tremendous, but my emotional wellbeing is off the charts. And it's actually now a place I can go to access that part of myself very easily. I don't have to go chase it. I can get on the floor, start doing some of those poses and positions or stretches. And I'm instantly in that state.

22:48You know, the other thing, too, for me is, like, I'm just trying to treat myself more kindly. And so whether that's giving myself grace like you've talked about, but also, like, when you can afford it. I've always told me, anytime I get a massage, I was like, I need to do this more often. I just never do it unless I'm on vacation. So I've started to get regular massage. And that's something that not everybody can afford. But when you can, it's like such a great, gentle thing you're doing for yourself. And then for me, I have to say this to everybody. I know I'm always giving people practices and routines, but I like applicable stuff.

23:21I have an infrared sauna now. Man, it's one of the greatest things for my emotional state I've ever done in my life. One, I love sweating like that where I don't have to exercise to get it. I love the state it puts me in. I love the solitude of being in the sauna. I love the fact that my phone can't come in there because it's 140 degrees. So it's me, my body and my thoughts. And I get centered in there. I find a beautiful emotional state. I like being in the sauna so much, man. I find myself like dreaming about getting in there if I've missed it in the morning. Like it's that great of a place for me emotionally.

23:56It's become like an emotional home for me. It's this little like it's not, you know, they're not even that pricey for the most part. But even if you can't do that, like go to a sauna at your gym, something like that. But for me, it's like that's a routine now and a practice that's helped me emotionally. And I know a lot of the stuff I've said is physical. And I'll throw it back over to you because I know this has really transformed you recently too. Man, when I'm praying, when I'm in prayer, I tap into the most beautiful parts of myself, which is my soul and my spirit. and I can't be in prayer and feel stress.

24:34It's very difficult for me to access these other emotions. And let me say one thing about emotions too. I don't think there are good or bad emotions. I just think there are emotions. I don't think you have to label them as bad or good. They're just an emotion. And sometimes feeling a little melancholy on a rainy day, it's not so bad. I actually almost enjoy the melancholy on a rainy day and reflecting in that state. And then when I come out of it, feeling even better. If I was in bliss and joy 24-7, you know, I don't know that I would appreciate it when I find it and when I tap into it. And so I don't have to be good or bad states.

25:09But for you, I do know prayer life, you know, I'm not trying to be overly personal, but we're very close. Like that's become a centering part of your life. I mean, it always has been, but so much more, I think, the last few years. True? For sure. For sure. it's been um it's been a part of my life i felt like i've done so much in the other areas i condition my body all day long i condition my breath all day long i take moments of peace i stretch three times a day because i have a bad back so i have to i've been doing that for 20 years like i do all the things but i felt like i was lacking the consistent connection with the divine that i wanted and i did what a lot of people do with their emotions in my spirituality A lot of people in emotions, they go, oh, well, I either have it or I don't.

25:57But emotions, feelings, and moods are generative. We can generate them. I believe we can generate a stronger connection with the divine. And I was like, you know, I feel it, but it kind of feels like lucky when it happens. I feel like, oh, wow, God really blessed me there, or I'm so grateful, or it's Sunday, I'm at church. but it felt like a once in a while connection, almost like a bad Wi-Fi connection. It's there, but it's not powerful in streaming. I was like, I want powerful streaming. I want, you know, very strong Wi-Fi to God. And I didn't have it. And I realized, hey, I'm the one not plugging in.

26:44I'm the one not plugging in. I'm not even trying to connect. And I'm complaining about, you know a fuzzy connection and so I started adding prayer to the end of all my meditation so I meditate first because I need to release the noise and for me I practice the release meditation technique so my goal is to release the tension in my body and then to release my thoughts and then I find myself come by doing that, being in a better centered, silent, peaceful place. And then I tap in and that's when I then pray. And I feel like it's a cleaner connection, if that makes sense. And, uh, but only recently, I would say maybe three years ago, that became much a bigger priority because I just sensed that that connection had gone a little fuzzy and, uh, and inspired by you.

27:43Yeah, it's really inspired by you and Furtick. I would say we're just too big. I was like, wow, these two men I admire a lot. I love how they teach. I love who they are. And they got a stronger connection than me. I want to explore that. And I'm glad I did. Brendan what a wonderful way to describe it and I relate to what you just said I've had better wi-fi connections I've had high speed in my life and I've had some of the the dialogue sessions too I know exactly what you're talking about you know I think I think that's important too to say is I think know thyself so I'm with you I have to usually meditate and just sort of empty my mind and get centered and release and then I'm my wi-fi connection is much stronger too and by the way I I also just love the fact that you have two dudes here who both meditate and pray and that we merge both those worlds.

28:36Because we both do. Stretch and stretch. But I mean, yeah, we do. But we navigate the world of energy and transfer of energy and believe in that. And at the same time are prayerful men. And so you can be in both worlds. The other thing I think is to know thyself. And what I mean by that, too, is I got to know me the last 53 years. And when I ask myself, are there even times of day where I'm tapping into the emotions I would like to experience more or less? And in my case, I found that my emotions that are most debilitating when I experience them, whether they're angst, worry, fear, anxiety, even some bouts of depression in my life, are typically morning emotions for me most of the time.

29:24Not all of the time, but most of the time. And so when I'm waking up in a particular brainwave state, it's usually when I awaken or even the hour before I awake and the hour after. And I mean that when I'm loosely still asleep, but not completely. And I have noticed that those are the times where I'm experiencing the most anxiety, fear and worry is this is just me very early in the morning. and that as I get going in my day and feel a sense of more control, I don't know if that's it or I've now worked out, I've done my routines and I'm better. It's not that I don't feel worry or fear or anxiety at 4 o 'clock in the afternoon, but I think it's worth everyone asking yourself, is there a time of day if you really reeled it back that you're feeling certain things, good or bad?

30:13And for me, I was like, you know what? I've got to figure these mornings out. These mornings aren't what I want them to be. And if I could get that first hour kind of dialed in for myself, I think I'm off to a much better day. And so I did. And that's why my prayer, my stretching, my working out, my meditations are early. Not early time on the clock, but early for me whenever I get up. And I just know myself. You, on the other hand, have said to me many times, hey, man, it takes me a minute to get out in my morning. And I like my best, you put your best meetings, for example, like midday, because that's when you're going.