The Science of Emotional Intelligence: How to Heal Trauma and Master Your Emotions

37:28We'll talk about that. So they're feeling envy of their peers? What they're doing is they're sitting in my class, they're like this. Oh my gosh, you're richer. Oh my gosh, you can study for less hours. Oh my gosh, you have more connections. Oh my gosh, you've got better hips. You've got better lips. I mean, it's just endless. Everyone else is better than I am. Not even in the classroom, but also scrolling on the phone, seeing everything on Instagram and social media. 100%. And so the joke I have about this is I went to the counseling center and I said, what's our university's Envy Reduction Program?

37:58And everybody's looking at me like, what are you talking about? Because we're doing breathing exercises or yoga. And respectfully, Thankfully, I love mindfulness and breathing exercises. I write about them, they're evidence-based. I love yoga too. But it's not gonna solve the envy problem. The envy is a cognitive thing that has to be reworked. You gotta shift the way you're thinking about yourself and other people. If you don't do that, you can breathe, you're gonna go for the walk and you can go back and feel envy. You're gonna do your breathing exercise and you're gonna feel envious again. You've gotta shift your thinking.

38:31It's a perspective shift. The antidote from my perspective is gratitude. yeah can we just stop thinking about what everybody else has and like let's take a minute and look around us like we're doing pretty good yes can you think about a couple of things each day you know for what you're grateful and that will shift the envy yeah i mean your students are in the top one percent of one percent of students in the world at yale and yet they're still not happy a hundred percent isn't that interesting but i think that's probably most of the usa of people who are watching or following accounts that make them feel more envious when they see lack they see separation they see lack they see oh this person has this i don't have it yet now i want that thing there's a separation of a physical space or a lack of not having something or accomplishing something or having a certain amount of followers whatever it might be so how do we so stress is one of the number one things that i have to tell you one more thing though because you just made me think about it, which is in the research that I did, I asked them more about their experiences, about their development.

39:34And the thing that made me the most disheartened was that the number one thing that students said to me was that they felt manufactured. What does that mean? It means that they felt like they had to figure out this formula to get into this place called Yale, but then they really weren't sure who they were. Interesting. because someone else prescribed. Yeah, parents pushed them, prescribed them. And it's so funny, because I was not an Ivy League student. I went to public schools. I went to public universities. And I just think so many people think the only way my kid is going to be successful is if they go to this top university.

40:17And I just think that's so misguided. Because it's interesting, because most people want to create a beautiful life for themselves. Yes. Right. Most people want to become something greater. They want to master their talents, develop themselves. They want to try things they want to explore and they want to, you know, have some sense of accomplishment in their life. Right. Yeah. They don't want to be broke, poor and sleeping on their parents, you know, basement forever. So it's like, they want to get out into the world and make something of themselves. But how do we feel, how do people learn how to feel enough, even if they're sleeping in their parents' basement and don't have any skills or anything to show for it?

40:58And how do we continue to feel enough when we have all the success, money, and fame in the world? Well, a couple of things about that. Going back to my other research about the uncle, I call it the Uncle Marvin's or the Aunt Maria's or whoever, the person who gives you permission to feel. So my research shows that people who grew up in those conditions, 15 % to 20 % greater purpose and meaning in life. Who have the ability to feel, the permission to feel. Yes. by someone in their life anyone anyone by the way the research is pretty unfortunate the findings for guys only three percent of people say it was their father oh man so you got something to look forward and i got two girls so i gotta you know i gotta again you don't have to just show up listen show you love them non-judgment non-judgment now here's an interesting i have to i have to ask you this as someone else thinking about sooner earlier there seems to be this trend that i'm noticing where parents are too much in their feelings with their kids who are four seven eight and they say tell me more tell me more about your feelings it's okay cry keep talking about your feelings all day yeah that person stole that toy from you keep telling me more it seems like out of my mind extreme it seems like so extreme of like it's okay to talk about your feelings and almost encouraging it so much to stay in the feeling of why you feel sad hurt whatever so there can be i don't think that's a healthy thing that's not emotional intelligence what is that when a parent is doing that indulgence ah so when a parent is indulging in their kids emotions allowing them to express it over and over again what does that do to the child it makes them incapable of learning how to deal with their own feelings.

42:45It's the worst thing we can do for our kids. And that kind of stuff drives me crazy because it's a misinterpretation of the feelings work. The work in emotional intelligence, just to go through the skills for a minute, it's about recognizing our own and others' emotions, understanding their causes and consequences, labeling them with precise words, knowing how and when to express them, and having the strategies to regulate them. But it always finishes with regulation. Always. not just keep talking about it. No, no, no. You don't want to be in it. Actually, the research shows that venting and talking about emotions can cause more rumination, which is what we don't want.

43:26Lewis, I know you're going through a lot right now, and I see that you're really sad. I'm imagining you're my kid. I know that you really wanted to go to your friend's house today, but unfortunately we got a flat tire. Daddy, I hate you. Daddy, no. Honey, I wanted you to go see your friend too, but we got a flat tire. I'm really sorry. Let's think about, take a minute and go in the car for a minute and just think about what else we might do today together. I'm redirecting, redirecting. But what I'm trying to do is teach you problem solving skills, not to wallow. And you're not giving the child the solution.

44:02You say, go think about what is something else we could do today that could be fun. Imagine, Louis, that this happened to your best friend. Imagine your best friend just called you or you're on your phone and he said, I was supposed to go play with you but I couldn't do it. what advice would you give them? You're gonna be really good at giving advice to your friend. And then I'm gonna say as your dad, honey, gosh, you came up with these amazing ideas. Which one do you want to try today? That's cool. That's emotion regulation teaching. Yeah, the first step of it is recognizing the emotion first.

44:30Is that within yourself, or if you're looking at someone else's emotions? Either one. Both. I mean, it's always interesting. All these skills are self and other. So if you're the ones, if you're my son and you're screaming, daddy, I hate you, daddy, you, you made it so i can't go to my friend's house like i'm going to get triggered by that yeah so it's mark take a breath mark yeah your kid is reacting your job is to figure out how to co-regulate down regulate and reach your kid to help them problem solve no that's got to be the mindset okay so recognize first what was the second step understand understand the emotion example if i if you're like i hate you and i want to go home and i can't stand this if i do that to you let's let's switch roles for a minute so i'm your child i'm a child I hate you.

45:13How do I feel? Angry? Frustrated? Why? I'd have to ask you to understand it, right? Yeah, yeah. Because what you're doing is what 99 % of people do. Assuming? Right, you're the emotion judge. You're assuming how I'm feeling based on my behavior. Yeah, yeah, yeah, your reaction. Behavior is not feeling. I've been socialized to be aggressive because that's what boys do to get attention. That is nothing, I may be feeling shame, disappointment overwhelm you have no idea until you can bring me down and find out what happened you're not going to know what i'm really feeling and if you don't know what i'm really feeling you are going to be incapable of providing or supporting me and regulating if someone let's say it's a child or a friend or an intimate partner if someone in your life is bringing what looks like frustration and anger emotion what is something that you can do to understand what is beneath that anger to know exactly what it is?

46:17Yeah, I mean, the first is you don't want to ask them when they're in that place. It's like, Why are you so angry right now? Exactly, yeah, like that doesn't work. Because that'll just, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I would say it looks like you might be angry or frustrated, but I'm not sure what's happening right now. Just can you tell me what's going on? So ask a question. Just ask the open-ended question. Yeah. Just tell me more what happened. And then you start hearing the theme. See, part of the core of emotional intelligence is that you, we adults, have to understand what we call these core themes of emotion.

46:55So anxiety, the theme is uncertainty. Fear, the theme is danger.

47:05Frustration, blocked goals. anger, injustice, disappointment, unmet expectation. I'm giving you the kind of unpleasant feelings. And until you, as a father, as a friend, as a partner, as a boss, understand that, you're not gonna be able to help people. Is there a graph or a chart that you have that explains what the root foundation is under every emotion? There is. What's it called? It's the app that I co-created with the co-founder of Pinterest called How We Feel. okay and it's free uh and you can download it on ios or android what's it called how we feel how we feel okay 144 emotions including their definitions wow and ability to track your emotions over time okay and once you get that because here's the thing once i understand that what you're feeling is disappointment and not anger because anger is an injustice Anger is, for example, someone treating me unfairly.

48:07So if you think about it, if your wife tells you, comes in, looks like she's pissed, and you think, or comes in like, I can't believe this happened, oh, why are you so disappointed? Well, the disappointment is, oh, well, you thought this was gonna happen, it didn't happen. Let's think together about what you could do differently next time. If it's someone treats her unfairly, yikes. now she might have to have a really difficult conversation with someone to say listen you can't treat me that way your support and helping her find that solution is based on knowing what the actual emotion and experience is in your book dealing with feeling on page 109 you say labeling is the link that connects our internal lives our feelings to our outward actions how we react to those feelings i'm not exaggerating when i say that mastering this skill is what ultimately gives us the power to control our own fates it's a pretty important thing yeah and so when we can learn to understand i think the root underneath each one of these emotions we're going to have better awareness around why we're feeling that way why someone else is feeling a certain way so we can co-regulate or interregulate i think that's what you're talking about and and the key to having a rich life is having beautiful relationships first with yourself yes so you're not suffering stressed and overwhelmed or envious or jealous constantly because then you're just in a suffering state of being you're not in a rich abundant beautiful grateful state peaceful state so it's getting in that relationship with self and understanding your own emotions and then learning how to navigate those and others is what i'm hearing you say it's correct and it is a A caveat, which is that understanding emotions doesn't mean you know exactly the reason why and that we each feel the same emotion for the same reasons.

49:59Right, yeah. And that's important because we tend to think other people feel emotions because of the way we feel those emotions. No, it's different. And so like the things that, for example, with anger, you know, the things that I see as an injustice, you may not relate to. and I may not be able to relate to the things that you see as an injustice because of our childhoods, our upbringing, our culture, our religion, our gender, race, whatever it is. And so the goal of emotional intelligence is not to be right. The goal is to be curious. The goal is to, hey Lewis, tell me more. Oh, it's hard for me to really be empathic because I don't get it.

50:39But I hear you and I believe you and I want to support you. It's like my wife and her emotions right now just being pregnant. I'm like, I don't know. but i can be compassionate i can be non-judgmental i got those questions it doesn't matter what matters is what she's feeling and why she's feeling it and that you care yeah and you said so number one is to recognize emotions number two is to understand what was the next three uh then there's l labeling labeling so that's you know within an emotion there are many degrees am i angry or am i just peeved or am i enraged that's important because because the smaller the emotion, the easier it is to regulate.

51:19It's a lot easier to manage pee if it is enraged. It's a lot easier to manage disappointment than it is despair. And so, but if we don't have that granularity, which a lot of people don't, I was talking with someone recently, and he goes, why is everybody depressed? I'm like, everybody's not depressed. They're just using the word depressed. And this is, we can't allow that. We've gotta get people to understand. like i used to work at bellevue hospital i'll show you depression you saw it yeah catatonic depression is real depression you're disappointed you're discouraged you know we don't want to say you're that but my point is that what we want to do is help people understand that granularity it's called okay so labeling number four expressing expressing so it's knowing how and when to express emotions with different people across context and culture yep uh and And then the last one?

52:14Is the R, which is my whole book on regulation. Regulation, yeah, at the end, okay. It always culminates in regulation. Mm-hmm, yeah. Now, importantly, regulation doesn't mean you have to change your feeling. Regulation can just mean acknowledging it and being with it. Yeah, it doesn't mean you have to, like, remove the feeling right away. I mean, you might still be let down. Or ever remove it. Yeah, you might be let down or frustrated or sad or hurt or whatever it might be. but allowing that feeling to dictate your joy and rob you of your joy or presence or ability to connect to other people then you're you're kind of in a power of the state something else has power over you an emotion has power over you rather you taking back control of your life which is what you talk about yes there are five in my work i have my like i call it my money slide when i give for my presentations because there's so many naysayers that like emotions, like they roll their eyes, or like we leave our feelings at the door, we don't have time for this, we're achieving high power.

53:16And I'm like, all right. If you wanna make more money, do this. But there are, I say how much of the science have you read about emotional intelligence and leadership and management and productivity? None, okay, well, let me show you what, let me show it to you because you may think differently now. There are five reasons why everybody should care about emotional intelligence what are those one you're a better learner period two you're a better decision maker three you're way better at building and maintaining healthy relationships four you have better physical and mental health and five you can achieve your goals that's pretty convincing to me yeah exactly but what would a naysayer say to that then of like, well, it just seems like woo-woo or fluff or therapy, and I don't have time for that.

54:09So how can I learn to master my emotions better or have a better relationship with them without having to go through all this woo-woo stuff? Yeah, well, firstly, I mean, that's a trigger for me that you're calling it woo-woo. I understand. This is what other people would say. Yeah. I'm not saying that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm all in this. Give it all to me, you know? Yeah. What I would say is tell me more about why you think it's woo-woo. I just want to hear. Because I'm looking for results. I just want to, I need, you know, I've got pressure from my boss. I'm trying to accomplish these goals. I've got responsibilities.

54:43I got kids that need me and I'm not the time for these things. Seems like too much, you know, soft work and I need hard results. Yeah. Well, what if I were to tell you that organizations that have managers with higher emotional intelligence have less attrition? What do you think about that? I just think most employees are weak-minded. And if we gotta go through them and just find new people, then we just gotta find new people. But we need people that have strong will, not weak emotions. Yeah, and I agree. This is why I think it's important to develop the emotional intelligence of your employees, because they're gonna have difficult clients.

55:23I stay at some really nice hotels, and my decision to go back to a hotel is about the customer service. if I come in early and there's not a room available and the person at the desk says like, you know, sir, there's just no room. I'm like, okay, great. I'll go someplace else. Thank you very much. If they were trained in emotional intelligence, do you realize how much more business you would have? Because how I feel when I enter that hotel and how I'm greeted and the way I'm treated is a determinant of my wanting to return. Right. No, I get it. I'm just trying to find the devil's advocate. I love it.

55:55I mean, like, this is my favorite test of emotional intelligence. Yeah, yeah. But I think that's what people need to hear. Sure. And if I'm in that archetype that's combating you, I would say, well, gosh, we just don't have this extra money for this type of training or these budgets. And how long is this going to take to have someone heal their inner child wounds? It's going to take decades for these 25-year-olds who have had no training and are already complaining and already show up late and already don't do a good job. How am I going to get them to understand this in the next three to six months?

56:24I don't have time to train them. Well, you can use our app, number one. But I think more importantly, Lewis, what I'm hearing from you is that you're confusing skill building with like therapy and counseling. And some people do need therapy and counseling because of whatever they've experienced in life. I'm talking about really serious skills. I'm talking about collaboration on your team. I'm talking about having people in your workplace inspire other people. I'm talking about people being able to give and receive feedback without creating chaos. Do you think that your organization might do better if people were better at giving and receiving feedback and inspiring teams and collaborative?

57:03100%. Well, there you go. And a side note on this, something that I learned when I started my emotional intelligence training was I was good at being coachable in sports, but I wasn't good at receiving feedback of my person, of who I was. Totally, it's a huge issue. And I was very - It's like an attack on your character. It's an attack on me as a person. I was like, ah, don't give me feedback. I couldn't take it. And it was so hard for me. And once I understood the incredible power of receiving feedback, even if you don't like it. It's a gift. It is the greatest gift. And it doesn't mean all feedback is accurate.

57:44It doesn't mean you have to receive all feedback. You got to sift. You got to sift it. You have to know where it's coming from, the context, setting, who. you know if you're getting the same feedback from multiple people maybe that's something to listen to um but why is receiving feedback such a crucial part to achieving more success in life because when you're getting i'll give you an example of this so early in my career i i think i was just overcompensating you know i had like i knew how to do complex statistical analyses and I had this tendency like when I would do a presentation and say like this is very complicated.

58:22And one person, a woman once came up to me at the end of my talk. She's like, you know, I think you're a great presenter but the way you're framing things about like how complicated your ideas are and your work is, it's insulting. It's kind of diminishing the strength of your presentation. Now my immediate reaction was like, oh my gosh, like this is the worst thing that could ever happen. Oh my gosh. And then I just sat with it. I'm like, thank you. Because the last thing I want to do is come across as an arrogant professor or the last thing I want to do is have people in my audience not receive the information because of the language that I'm using to teach it.

59:00But that's a mindset. That's a big mindset shift. And if your eye is on attaining your goals, then being open to that feedback is just critically important. And managing the feelings. Yeah, well, here's... So what would you say then to anyone, you know, in their late teens or twenties in the Gen Z range on who maybe don't receive feedback? Well, yeah. Why they should be open to receiving feedback, whether in their career or relationships or friendship circles, like why is feedback important for anyone who's Gen Z? Because if you want to achieve your goals in life, uh, oftentimes you're going to have to change some of your behavior because you're having an impact.

59:47And you wanna be conscious of your impact. And if you're not conscious of it, you might be going down a path that's not gonna be the best for you. Why does it seem like most younger people don't like hearing that? They're like, why don't you just accept me for who I am and just receive me? Why do I have to change who I am, my personality? Yeah.

1:00:15Well, I never want you to change your personality, but I want you to understand your impact. Of your behavior. Yes. I think, you know, this goes back to this kind of, that everybody gets a trophy, you know, stuff that was going on for many years and still goes on, whereas people have been raised with not having any resilience because, oh my gosh, don't cry, honey. oh my gosh, you know, I would have parents call me and say, like, you've now made it impossible for my kid to go to law school. I'm like, I didn't take the test. They took the test. So, like, really? And, you know, I stand firm on this kind of stuff.

1:01:00I mean, my true belief about this is that, you know, being someone who's out in the world a lot and teaching a lot and, you know, doing webinars and workshops and classes is that there is variability. I mean, a lot of people love to talk about this generation, that generation. I'm okay with that, but I really think there is a distribution within every generation of people who are gonna understand the nuance and work hard and take the feedback because they want to achieve their goals in life. And my belief is that if you really want to have your goals realized, you have to be highly self-aware, highly self-aware.

1:01:40and you got to be willing to shift and change. Adapt, shift, change constantly. It's not that you have to be someone else. No. But you just have to be aware of your impact. What does self-awareness look like for anyone in any generation? What does that even mean, being self-aware? Well, that goes back to the R and ruler, which is being aware in my work about your emotions. Like, what emotions am I experiencing right now? Am I even aware of it? And most people are not self-aware. But it's socially aware too. You know, for example, I love this because when I do public speaking, I tell people right away, I'm an introvert.

1:02:17Like, I'm pretty good on stage, but like afterwards, I'm gonna wanna like, kinda do my own thing. I'm not gonna go to the big party and like celebrate and like drink alcohol and watch TVs and like, you know, I'm gonna go to a wine bar by myself maybe. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, and then I say this out loud, and I'm always so curious about the people who come to talk to me at the end and they wanna tell me their entire life story within me and it's like and i'm sitting there like trying to be polite you're like i really want to leave right now yeah yeah and so people aren't listening and that's just a kind of an easy example but in general we're just not paying attention and um like people who um you know in meetings like i do this little joke uh you know when i do trainings is you got 30 30 seconds to introduce yourself.

1:03:07And there's always somebody that's like on their fifth minute. You know? You're like, all right. But that kind of self-awareness is really important. Like just be aware of your presence. Be aware of how you're dealing with your own feelings. Are you eye rolling? Years ago, there was someone in my office who was unconscious of the fact that when someone said something that they disagreed with, they would do this. that have this like stern kind of weird facial expression which is kind of like a little bit of contempt actually or kind of disgust or anger and it was really hard for me to give that person feedback why because again it was like an attack on her facial expression attack on her presence and so but i felt it was super important for this person to be aware of it because it was scaring employees.

1:04:03And so people didn't want to work with this person because they were afraid of that person. This person was a wonderful human being. It just was unconscious of her automatic reactions to things that she disagreed with. And it was a gift to give her that feedback about her facial expressions. I have the same problem, by the way. So, because I'm always thinking. I'm a scientist. Even right now, I'm like, I gotta do a study on this idea. And when I get in that mark bracket scientist mode, I'm like, I get these weird facial expressions. Oftentimes people come up to me and say, is everything okay? And I'm like, what do you mean?

1:04:38And they say, well, you look really upset about something. And I'll have to say, gosh, you know, I'm just thinking about something that's really kind of, I'm being critical and when I make, I have my critical face on. I share that also because I think we can also be outwardly kind of acknowledging our own kind of nuances. and because i'm an introvert who's a scientist i kind of be people think of me as sometimes being aloof i'm very friendly i just it's not like my it's not like my first go yeah yeah of course and then the extrovert who is a narcissist is is difficult at least for me sure sure yeah you're it's like emotionally draining probably for you very draining yeah what would you say is the number one emotion that is holding the most people back in the world or in the usa like what's the number one go-to emotion that blocks most people from true abundance in their life you know because i'm a scientist i can't answer that question so easily it's very different for a lot of people i think the envy right now is a serious issue i think it's not people are not aware that it's envy um i think um and and fear the fear family what does envy and fear block for a human being when they're constantly in that emotion well the envy you know because envy can go in multiple directions you know envy can be admiration or envy can mean resentment and i i've seen so many people unfortunately resent other people's success they they start hating people for reaching certain goals or hating people who have a certain way of being in the world that they don't feel like they can ever attain which i find sad you know that people go down that route of you know of resentment because it just paralyzes you it doesn't it's not a place of growth when someone is resenting or frustrated with someone else's success, whether they know the person or they don't, what happens in the brain or the body that blocks them?

1:06:53I mean, it's all the self-defeating self-talk. They become their own self-critic and self-saboteur. It's, I'm not enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. This will never happen for me. Everyone else can do it, but I can't do it. It's all that negative spiral. What is the science or research that you've discovered say or share when we say to ourselves we're not enough or envying someone else or self-deprecating or whatever these not enough thoughts or saying it out loud to ourselves or other people what does the research or science say about how that hurts you or helps you in accomplishing your goals or living a better life when you're constantly in that state it's a roadblock You're basically creating your own barrier to your own success.

1:07:43Because if you're always second-guessing yourself, if you're always thinking, I'm not enough, if you're always thinking, I'm not smart enough. And by the way, I have a strong stance on this. I'm pretty convinced at this point in my career that most of us have been gaslighted in childhood. We've been told we're too fat, we're too skinny, we're too tall, we're too short. Our nose is too big, our nose is too small, we're too dark, we're too light, we're too masculine, we're not masculine enough, we're too feminine, we're not feminine enough. And what happens is that our own self-talk is not defined by us, it's defined by other people trying to create a reality for us.

1:08:22And what happens is that because there's no intervention, there's no training, there's no teaching, we believe it. Maybe I am too sensitive, maybe I do have my nose, maybe I am too feminine, maybe I'm too masculine. I mean, I can't tell you how much of that I had internalized as a kid. Really? Oh, yeah, everything. I was believing everyone's, what everyone else said about me became my reality. No pressure to parents. No pressure to parents or teachers or anyone. Peers. Coaches. Yeah, yeah, coaches. So what would you say are the three most important things a parent can do for their kids? One is you gotta be the role model.

1:09:02So monitor your own self-talk. Yeah. You know, what are you saying to yourself when you make a mistake? Are you out loud saying, I'm such an idiot, I'm a moron, mommy's dumb, you know, daddy's whatever? That's a big deal. You gotta monitor what comes out of your mouth because kids are listening and kids are watching. The second for parents is they gotta deactivate before they can co-regulate. They've gotta learn how to pause, take that breath, bring the nervous system down so they can be more present and show up with compassion, non-judgment, and good listening. The third is they've gotta help their kid label those feelings and help them to co-regulate they have to kind of validate not indulge and do that search finding to see what the experience is and then work with their kid for solutions on managing it and that's by the way that's for couples it's for bosses with employees who are upset this is not just parent kid this is life this is life uh what's your thoughts on inside out and how that's helped or hurt people by consuming that i think it's helpful i think it just gets the word out it gets that you know emotions are out there um and uh the more we can do to show people that how people feel matters but importantly how people deal with their feelings matters even more that's true because it's not just the it's interesting it's you got to show the skill how people feel matters but how people deal with their feelings matter even more yes that should be on a bumper sticker you know it's like that should be on the back of every car in la traffic yeah exactly because you could be like ah i'm angry about this but it's like how you respond with your feelings that's the answer is one of the greatest skills to develop if you can respond well with them i you know i'm in favor of a quote that is attributed to victor frankel I live by it.

1:10:53The space between? That's right. Between stimulus and response, there is space. In that space lies our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom. And a lot of the work that I do is built on how do you fill that space? I think right now in society,

1:11:18between climate change problems, between political polarization, between wars, injustices, shootings. I mean, people are just chronically overwhelmed. They're stressed out. And that space is getting shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter and shorter. And they can't build a space. But we have to do it. We just have to do it. We have to. If we want well-being, if we want good relationships, if we want to make good decisions, if we want to achieve our goals in life, we've got to take care of ourselves and other people. and I think that, you know, today we spoke a lot about the mindsets and that permission to feel, the labeling of emotions, but there are strategies, the breathing work that is so important, learning how to go from being a self-critic to having some self-compassion, knowing that it's okay to get help, have an emotional ally, I call it.

1:12:10Not someone who's gonna tell you what to do, but someone that you have that psychological safety with to just have a conversation. Not indulge, but have a conversation. Not indulge, but have the conversation. And the good emotional ally, what they're doing is they're providing support, but they're also helping you think through things through another lens. They're helping you reappraise. They're helping you shift your self-talk. Yes. And then we gotta take care of our bodies. I think people fail to understand the biology of regulation in terms of sleep, nutrition, and physical activity. Yes. I mean - If you didn't work out consistently or do your martial arts or the movement that you enjoyed, if you got 20 % less sleep than you normally get, and if you ate poorly, do you think you would have the ability to regulate your emotions?

1:12:55No, 100 % not. And most of America is sick or obese or chronic stress or chronic illness. Or have sleep deprivation. Yeah, a lot of parents, going back to parenting for a minute, a lot of parents, in my work and in my book, we talk about what does it mean to be the best version of yourself through emotion regulation. And people set goals. We help people set goals. Like, how do you want to be seen and talked about as a parent, as a leader, as a friend? I want to be more empathetic to my child. I want to be more patient with my child. And the parents set these goals, and they're like, I got my patient's goal.

1:13:29And I'm like, how's it going for you? Well, this morning, the kid was crying and screaming, and I lost it, and I yelled at them, and I sent them to the room. I'm like, you set the goal. What happened? And they say, well, this best self stuff doesn't work. I'm like, I promise you it works. I've taught it to millions of people. But let's look at the barrier to being your best self. Tell me about the night before. Tell me about the morning. Oh, I only have three hours sleep. Yeah, good luck. Good luck being your best self. You can't be. And so that's just one, it's very interesting that we're talking about this because so many people come to me, just to not be stereotypical here, but I give this speech to about 1 ,500 police officers who were not patient with me.

1:14:10and they're like dude what's the best strategy and i'm like i don't know like self-talk you know yeah um i got you know under pressure that's not the way it works all of the strategies of emotion regulation work together yeah and in certain context with certain emotions you know with different people you're going to use these strategies different ways and you got to be aware that you need strategies for your for the barriers yes and so that parent like you get more sleep guess what your fuse is going to be longer in the morning you'd have more space exactly but if you're having sugar all day you're going to be like crashing and high and crashing and you have less space exactly get less sleep if you do all these if you're not moving your body and you're just stuck all day in one place you're not processing your emotions and processing your body also so all these tools combined allow you to have more space to then see the emotions in yourself see the emotions in another and hopefully respond with curiosity compassion listening asking questions self and other self and other and trying to find some type of resolution with the emotions rather than uh over indulgence overreaction or stuffing of the emotions i mean you this is like you're gonna come on the road with me i always do it i'm curious about co-regulation yeah um if if we grew up if someone watching or listening grew up with a narcissistic parent how do they learn to break the cycle when they've been gaslit most of their life as a child and regulate and co-regulate with another i mean what do you i mean obviously you shared a lot of this already but how does someone who's experienced that as a child break the cycle and it's like a you have to make such a conscious decision you have to say i'm gonna even though this wasn't fair and this probably happened in this parent and this parent i need to be the one who's going to break this cycle right is it a first of the decision of like i'm going to be the one even though i it's not fair i mean i think you're getting to a really good point here and this is a lot of people in our culture.

1:16:29One of my favorite stories of all time was a 94-year-old man wrote me after reading my book. And he said to me, you know, I'm a lawyer, I was successful, but I really was not a great parent. I was not a great husband. I worked all the time. And after reading your work, I realized how much better my life would have been and how much better of a parent I would have been. And I was blown away by this 94-year-old guy writing me this email. And I wrote him back and I said, you know, thank you so much for writing me and I'm just blown away that you're thinking about this. And he wrote me back and he goes, you know, Mark, thank you for being my Uncle Marvin because tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life and I'm gonna start using these skills now.

1:17:18That's cool. That was pretty cool. That's really cool. A 94-year-old stoic lawyer is saying, tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life that I can apply these skills. That was pretty mind-blowing to me. And so if that person can do it, any of us can do it. That's cool. And awareness is the first step. Just being aware. And I ask people to be emotion scientists about their life. Yes. That's my vision, is everyone becomes an emotion scientist. Because that curiosity, is my life working for me? or is my life working against me? And if it's working against you, it doesn't have to. Yeah. Because these are all learnable skills.

1:17:58That's beautiful, Mark. Dealing with feeling, use your emotions to create the life you want. I truly believe that everyone should get this book because I don't know a better skill than learning the art of emotional regulation, learning the tools of emotional intelligence, and like you said, being a scientist of your own emotions. And then once you can learn yours, is learning how to regulate with other people to navigate in the world. The key to success in life is relationships. And if you don't have a good relationship with yourself, you will not ultimately live a happy, successful life. And if you don't learn how to have relationships with others and understand their emotions, you will also struggle in life.

1:18:42But when you can learn to navigate and master these tools which takes your whole life it's not like you learn it and you're done you're gonna live anyway you get to practice it constantly you will only see your life get better and improve so I want to acknowledge you mark for uh having the curiosity as a as a young boy to reach out to your uncle and go down the journey of studying and trying to understand emotional intelligence when there really wasn't a lot of information when therapy wasn't cool back then when you were made fun of and kicked out of social circles because of choices you made, all these different things.

1:19:22I acknowledge you for staying in the emotion and allowing yourself to process and teach others because you've helped your own life, but now you've helped millions of people around the world with a lot of your work, your books, your students. And I acknowledge you for the journey you're on of trying to make people understand it better, which is probably the most complicated thing to understand is our own emotions and feelings and learning how to heal and integrate the healing lessons is probably one of the most courageous things that any person can do for their own life one of the hardest but most courageous things they can do so i acknowledge you for everything you're doing you're on instagram mark bracket mark dot bracket mark bracket dot com we've got the uh the app how we feel app which is an award-winning app that's helped millions of people improve their well-being.

1:20:14And we've got the book Dealing with Feeling which is out right now that people can grab. Get a copy for a friend, a sibling, you know, whoever it may be. Give a copy to your child, whatever it might be and learn these tools and help someone else as well. I've got two final questions for you. Okay. This one is called The Three Truths. Uh-oh. Hypothetical question. Imagine you get to live as long as you want, but it's the last day on earth for you. Many years away. You've accomplished all of your dreams. You have all the relationships you want to experience, memories, fun, joy. But for whatever reason, on the last day, you have to take all of your work with you.

1:20:53And we don't have access to your content anymore. This interview is gone. The books are gone. The app, we don't have access. But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. That's all you get to leave behind, or three truths. What would those three truths be for you? I have to say, my first response is, you know, the world's chaos will worse than expect my return, but I stole that from my martial arts master. But I think the first is, it goes back to permission to feel. Just give yourself and give everyone else permission to feel. I feel like that's at the heart of the work. I think the second is being other oriented.

1:21:35that life is about supporting other people and achieving their dreams. Yes. And the third, I think, is, I don't know. My guess is it's around freedom. It's just that life is about moving forward, not staying in the past and while we're in dark places in our lives those moments are impermanent and relish the theory of impermanence because we don't have to be stuck we can move forward that's beautiful and final question what's your definition of greatness

1:22:31I think my definition of greatness goes back to what I said, which is having an other orientation. I feel, I mean, and this is developmental for me, but I feel like my job now is to support other people in achieving their dreams. Yeah. Mark, thanks for being here. Appreciate you. Amazing. I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. and if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you wanna make it easier, you wanna make it flow, you wanna feel abundant, then make sure to go to makemoneyeasybook.com right now and get yourself a copy.

1:23:12I really think this is gonna help you transform your relationship with money this moment moving forward. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review.

1:23:50I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.