Dr. Marc Brackett: How to Increase Your Emotional Intelligence

00:00:00.000 | - Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast,

00:00:02.240 | where we discuss science

00:00:03.680 | and science-based tools for everyday life.

00:00:05.920 | I'm Andrew Huberman,

00:00:10.400 | and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology

00:00:13.520 | at Stanford School of Medicine.

00:00:15.180 | My guest today is Dr. Mark Brackett.

00:00:17.600 | Dr. Mark Brackett is a professor of psychology

00:00:19.920 | at Yale University,

00:00:21.200 | and the Director of the Yale Center

00:00:23.120 | for Emotional Intelligence.

00:00:24.640 | He is one of the world's foremost experts on emotions,

00:00:27.340 | meaning what emotions are

00:00:28.840 | and how they regulate our relationship

00:00:30.880 | to ourself and others.

00:00:32.780 | Today's discussion gets heavily into

00:00:34.840 | how we should think about our emotions

00:00:36.840 | and the emotional expressions of others,

00:00:39.040 | and when and how we should regulate those emotions.

00:00:41.940 | This is a very important aspect of our life,

00:00:43.920 | because as we all know,

00:00:45.320 | emotions are present with us

00:00:46.560 | from the moment we are born until the moment we die.

00:00:49.320 | So much like having a body,

00:00:50.640 | we need to learn how to work with our emotions

00:00:53.360 | in order to have the best quality of life.

00:00:55.680 | We all know that we are supposed to pay attention

00:00:58.200 | to our emotions, but at the same time,

00:01:00.440 | we are often told that we shouldn't

00:01:02.460 | take all of our emotions seriously,

00:01:04.100 | nor should we react to all of our emotions with behaviors.

00:01:06.960 | And indeed, that is true.

00:01:08.720 | What's been lacking, however,

00:01:10.220 | and what Dr. Mark Brackett finally delivers to us

00:01:12.680 | is a roadmap to think about our emotions

00:01:15.100 | in a very structured way,

00:01:16.800 | and thereby to engage with our emotions,

00:01:19.280 | sometimes shift our emotions,

00:01:20.720 | and certainly to understand the emotional expressions

00:01:22.840 | of others in ways that best serve our quality of life.

00:01:26.240 | So today's discussion centers very heavily

00:01:28.200 | on scientific data that plays out in the real world

00:01:31.360 | that we can all use.

00:01:32.880 | We talk about conflict resolution.

00:01:34.920 | We talk about how to think about and work with emotions.

00:01:37.400 | We talk about bullying, both in children and in adults,

00:01:40.840 | how to deal with that sort of thing effectively.

00:01:43.320 | And we talk about emotional intelligence,

00:01:45.680 | which it turns out can be increased at any stage of life.

00:01:49.660 | So by the end of today's discussion,

00:01:51.200 | you will be armed with a tremendous amount of new knowledge

00:01:53.680 | and many new tools, many new protocols

00:01:56.320 | that you can immediately apply in your life

00:01:58.320 | in order to improve your relationship

00:02:00.000 | to yourself and to others.

00:02:02.080 | Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize

00:02:03.880 | that this podcast is separate from my teaching

00:02:05.840 | and research roles at Stanford.

00:02:07.520 | It is, however, a part of my desire and effort

00:02:09.560 | to bring zero cost to consumer information

00:02:11.400 | about science and science-related tools

00:02:13.460 | to the general public.

00:02:14.840 | In keeping with that theme,

00:02:16.080 | I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast.

00:02:18.680 | Our first sponsor is BetterHelp.

00:02:20.840 | BetterHelp offers professional therapy

00:02:22.640 | with a licensed therapist carried out entirely online.

00:02:25.920 | I've been doing weekly therapy for well over 30 years.

00:02:28.520 | I consider doing regular therapy just as important

00:02:31.120 | as getting regular exercise.

00:02:32.620 | Now, there are essentially three things

00:02:34.040 | that great therapy provides.

00:02:35.400 | First of all, it provides good rapport

00:02:37.760 | with somebody that you can trust and talk to

00:02:39.680 | about the issues that are most critical to you.

00:02:42.160 | Second of all, it can provide support

00:02:44.180 | in the form of emotional support or directed guidance.

00:02:47.080 | And third, expert therapy should provide insights,

00:02:49.840 | insights that are useful in allowing you

00:02:51.920 | not just to feel better in your emotional life

00:02:54.120 | and your relationship life, but of course, to be better,

00:02:57.140 | to be better in terms of the relationship to yourself,

00:02:59.360 | your professional life, and to others,

00:03:01.320 | and of course, to things like your career goals.

00:03:03.520 | With BetterHelp, they make it very easy

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00:03:18.820 | or looking for parking or sitting in a waiting room.

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00:03:22.280 | go to betterhelp.com/huberman

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00:03:26.960 | Again, that's betterhelp.com/huberman.

00:03:30.320 | Today's episode is also brought to us by Eight Sleep.

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00:04:53.440 | I'm excited to share that I'll be speaking

00:04:55.040 | at a health summit called Eudaemonia,

00:04:57.340 | taking place in West Palm Beach, Florida

00:04:59.560 | this November 1st, 2024,

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00:05:13.440 | I'll be giving a keynote talk

00:05:14.640 | with none other than Dr. Gabrielle Lyon on Saturday.

00:05:17.880 | As some of you may know,

00:05:18.760 | she's a former guest on the "Huberman Lab" podcast,

00:05:21.160 | and has a terrific podcast of her own.

00:05:23.300 | That's going to be on November 2nd,

00:05:25.280 | and we will discuss all things neuroscience

00:05:27.620 | and neuroplasticity.

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00:05:33.520 | Also presenting at Eudaemonia

00:05:35.080 | are other excellent scientists and clinicians

00:05:37.040 | who've appeared on the "Huberman Lab" podcast,

00:05:39.120 | including Dr. Sarah Gottfried, Dr. Zachary Knight,

00:05:42.360 | and Dr. Robin Carthart-Harris,

00:05:44.560 | along with nearly 70 other experts.

00:05:46.960 | To see the full lineup of speakers and topics,

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00:05:52.120 | spelled E-U-D-E-M-O-N-I-A dot net.

00:05:56.600 | It's sure to be a terrific gathering,

00:05:58.620 | and I hope to see you there.

00:05:59.900 | And now for my discussion with Dr. Mark Brackett.

00:06:03.080 | Dr. Mark Brackett, welcome.

00:06:04.840 | - Thank you, great to be here.

00:06:06.760 | - I'm excited to talk to you today

00:06:07.980 | about many things related to emotions.

00:06:10.680 | We hear the word emotions,

00:06:12.920 | and we have all sorts of ideas about what they are,

00:06:16.320 | what they aren't.

00:06:17.600 | We also hear about emotional intelligence

00:06:19.840 | quite a lot these days.

00:06:21.160 | And I have a feeling that the way it's discussed

00:06:23.800 | is often not the way it really is.

00:06:26.760 | So to just kick things off,

00:06:28.840 | could you clarify for me, for everyone,

00:06:31.640 | what is emotional intelligence?

00:06:33.820 | What does it pertain to?

00:06:35.160 | And then maybe we can use that as a way

00:06:37.000 | to drill into the deeper question of what are emotions.

00:06:40.240 | - Sure, I think, you know, at the simplest level,

00:06:43.280 | it's how we reason with and about our emotions and feelings.

00:06:48.080 | That's like the simple definition.

00:06:50.840 | The way I talk about it is as a set of skills.

00:06:54.480 | And we use the acronym RULER to describe those skills.

00:06:57.580 | The first is recognizing emotions.

00:07:00.320 | So I'm trying to read your facial expression right now,

00:07:02.800 | right, are you interested or are you bored already?

00:07:05.040 | I'm trying to understand emotions, where are they coming from?

00:07:07.540 | Like, why am I feeling this way?

00:07:09.920 | What's the consequence of that feeling?

00:07:11.760 | The third is labeling emotions.

00:07:13.200 | So being precise with the words that we use

00:07:15.640 | to describe our feelings.

00:07:17.560 | The fourth is expressing emotions,

00:07:19.480 | knowing how and when to express emotions

00:07:21.320 | with different people across context and culture.

00:07:24.360 | And then the big one is the final R,

00:07:26.360 | which is regulating emotions.

00:07:28.280 | What are the strategies that we use

00:07:30.040 | to help us deal with everyday emotions?

00:07:32.800 | - So if I were to take an emotional intelligence test,

00:07:35.220 | would it have me looking at pictures of facial expressions?

00:07:38.220 | Would it have me reading paragraphs

00:07:40.640 | about emotional exchanges and gauging

00:07:43.560 | who felt what and why and how?

00:07:46.160 | That sort of thing?

00:07:47.120 | - If you were to take a test from like 20 years ago, yes.

00:07:51.280 | We try to be a little bit more innovative now

00:07:53.360 | in our measurement of the skills.

00:07:55.040 | So for example, I just finished with a bunch of colleagues

00:07:58.360 | publishing a test of emotion perception,

00:08:01.000 | but it's not static images.

00:08:02.620 | It's video clips that are around three to four seconds

00:08:08.400 | that show subtle emotions.

00:08:11.000 | It's about vocal tone.

00:08:12.640 | It's about body language.

00:08:13.800 | And we're trying to get people to accurately

00:08:18.640 | kind of label these emotions in faces, body, and voice.

00:08:23.640 | - When I think about most uses

00:08:26.280 | of the words emotional intelligence,

00:08:29.000 | it seems to correlate, again, in a very non-scientific way,

00:08:32.320 | seems to correlate with one's ability

00:08:35.020 | to tolerate others' emotions

00:08:37.360 | and make sense of the emotions of others.

00:08:40.060 | For instance, I've heard it said before, not about me,

00:08:43.640 | that so-and-so has high emotional intelligence

00:08:47.920 | because in the presence of their child

00:08:50.680 | or someone else's kid reacting in a certain way,

00:08:52.880 | they were able to see, ah, they just feel blank,

00:08:55.960 | and therefore they are screaming,

00:08:58.540 | as opposed to defaulting to a, you know,

00:09:03.680 | broad binning of what they were observing and saying,

00:09:06.720 | oh my goodness, that kid is a brat, for instance.

00:09:10.400 | You're describing emotional intelligence

00:09:12.380 | as a self-perception as well.

00:09:14.960 | - Yes.

00:09:15.920 | - And so is our task, therefore,

00:09:17.880 | to do the equivalent of what, in my little anecdote,

00:09:22.000 | this other person was doing,

00:09:23.040 | to be able to parse one's own emotions in a fine enough way

00:09:27.380 | to understand the experience in kind of a third-person way

00:09:30.620 | that one can regulate their behavior,

00:09:33.480 | what they say, how they act.

00:09:35.840 | How much is recognition of others' emotions

00:09:40.400 | and understanding of those,

00:09:41.760 | as opposed to one's recognition and understanding

00:09:43.740 | of their own emotions factoring into this thing

00:09:46.160 | that we call emotional intelligence?

00:09:48.720 | - So the whole set of skills are intra and interpersonal.

00:09:52.400 | That's really important.

00:09:53.440 | It's about self and others always.

00:09:55.380 | For example, right now,

00:09:57.520 | we are co-regulating each other's emotions, right?

00:09:59.780 | Our facial expressions, our vocal tones,

00:10:02.140 | we're influencing how we each other, how we feel.

00:10:04.600 | When you think about the recognition piece,

00:10:09.840 | we'll just start there, right?

00:10:11.220 | There's self-awareness, like,

00:10:12.240 | "Mark, how are you feeling right now?"

00:10:14.200 | And I'm having mixed emotions, right?

00:10:16.360 | This is a great podcast.

00:10:18.640 | I wanna be articulate.

00:10:20.920 | I'm excited, but I'm a little overwhelmed

00:10:23.400 | 'cause I got so much I wanna share,

00:10:24.740 | but I don't know how much I'm gonna share.

00:10:26.680 | So there's all that awareness of my emotion.

00:10:30.240 | Sometimes I have language for it.

00:10:31.520 | Sometimes I don't, like any of us.

00:10:33.840 | And that's why it starts off

00:10:35.320 | with kind of just a general awareness.

00:10:37.300 | Like, am I pleasant?

00:10:39.320 | Am I unpleasant?

00:10:40.960 | Do I have a lot of energy?

00:10:42.800 | Or do I feel depleted?

00:10:44.800 | And we call that your core affect.

00:10:48.240 | And then I could start asking myself questions like,

00:10:50.740 | "Well, what are you doing right now, Mark?"

00:10:52.520 | "Well, I'm sitting across from Andrew being interviewed."

00:10:56.240 | "Oh, okay, well, how does that,

00:10:57.440 | what comes up for you with that?"

00:10:59.560 | And then I try to label that feeling.

00:11:01.720 | So that's like the R, the U, and the L

00:11:04.640 | of emotional intelligence for the self.

00:11:07.200 | And I'm doing the same thing for you.

00:11:08.720 | I'm looking at your facial expressions,

00:11:10.160 | your body language, I'm listening to you.

00:11:12.160 | I'm trying to understand if I say something, do you shift?

00:11:14.920 | And I'm trying to put language to it.

00:11:16.520 | So it's self and other.

00:11:18.320 | - So given that we're both scientists

00:11:19.800 | interested in emotions, you're the expert.

00:11:22.400 | I'm also just the student today.

00:11:25.480 | I think it's worth pointing out to people

00:11:27.800 | that there isn't one location in the brain

00:11:29.680 | that governs this complex process that you just described.

00:11:32.680 | It's a network-wide phenomenon.

00:11:34.560 | But you did mention the body.

00:11:37.080 | You mentioned feeling, you know,

00:11:38.840 | how is one feeling both in brain and body?

00:11:41.440 | To what extent does somebody

00:11:43.440 | who has high emotional intelligence

00:11:45.940 | have more or less body awareness or somatic awareness

00:11:50.940 | as opposed to somebody who's "in their head"?

00:11:54.500 | Put differently, can somebody who's very much in their head

00:11:56.680 | who has very poor body awareness

00:11:59.160 | have high emotional intelligence?

00:12:01.480 | - Well, I think another big deal about emotional intelligence

00:12:04.160 | is that we like to think of it as,

00:12:05.760 | or people think of it as this construct.

00:12:09.780 | I don't think that's the best way to look at it.

00:12:12.600 | I think it's much more interesting to look at it

00:12:14.960 | as a set of discrete skills that come together.

00:12:18.040 | They're not that highly correlated.

00:12:20.320 | And so, you know, I really like to think of them

00:12:23.720 | as emotion skills, and that within the R, the U, the L,

00:12:27.920 | the E, and the R that I described, there are sub-skills.

00:12:31.120 | And so part of what you're talking about

00:12:33.200 | is the body awareness.

00:12:34.600 | Some people are more cognitive, you know,

00:12:36.360 | they're just very language-oriented.

00:12:38.320 | Some people, you know, a lot of therapists, somatic,

00:12:40.800 | you know, talking about somatosensory things, all good.

00:12:44.500 | I think at the end, though, you know,

00:12:46.640 | this is why I teach this stuff,

00:12:49.040 | is that we have to know how we feel.

00:12:53.780 | We've got to know what we want to do with those feelings.

00:12:55.980 | And we have to know how the people we live with and love

00:12:58.340 | and work with and teach, how they feel too.

00:13:01.420 | And so we need language in the end.

00:13:03.180 | - Some years ago, I went to this course.

00:13:06.900 | It was, you know, broadly could be described

00:13:09.860 | as personal development.

00:13:10.940 | It was interesting.

00:13:11.760 | It was grounded in science and psychology.

00:13:13.900 | And each day would start with going around the circle,

00:13:17.700 | as typically is done at these things.

00:13:19.700 | And you'd have to say how you feel,

00:13:22.420 | but you couldn't use a valuation.

00:13:24.420 | You couldn't say good or bad or so-so.

00:13:27.780 | And I found it very difficult.

00:13:30.180 | I found it difficult for a number of reasons.

00:13:33.140 | First of all, I don't think I was ever trained

00:13:36.400 | to use specific language for my feelings.

00:13:39.660 | In fact, I don't think I was ever trained

00:13:41.100 | to understand what feelings were.

00:13:43.420 | In fact, I know neuroscientists and psychologists

00:13:46.180 | are still trying to figure out

00:13:47.480 | what feelings and emotions really are.

00:13:49.540 | So a couple of questions.

00:13:52.540 | When it comes to using language to describe our emotions,

00:13:56.480 | how important do you feel it is

00:13:58.820 | to have a broad buffet of options?

00:14:02.740 | You know, a previous guest on this podcast,

00:14:04.560 | Lisa Feldman Barrett, and I talked about this a bit.

00:14:06.700 | And she mentioned that in some cultures,

00:14:09.360 | there's very specific language for specific emotions.

00:14:11.920 | In fact, there's even a word to describe

00:14:13.740 | the feeling of sadness one has in a particular culture

00:14:18.740 | after getting a really bad haircut.

00:14:20.620 | - Yeah.

00:14:21.980 | - Which is incredible when one thinks about it.

00:14:24.300 | - We all know what that feels like.

00:14:25.620 | - Right, we know what it feels like, right.

00:14:27.300 | But there isn't, to my knowledge-

00:14:29.480 | - We don't have the word.

00:14:30.320 | - A word for that in the English language.

00:14:32.280 | I mean, I'm sure there's a curse word for it

00:14:33.980 | in the English language. - Exactly.

00:14:34.820 | - But not necessarily for that specific feeling

00:14:38.420 | or unique to that specific feeling.

00:14:39.980 | So what is the relationship

00:14:42.580 | between language labels and emotion?

00:14:45.420 | And I ask that as a way to kind of wedge

00:14:47.800 | into the ruler approach, right?

00:14:49.740 | Because as you pointed out that one recognizes,

00:14:52.780 | understands labels, but the label is central,

00:14:56.140 | literally, to the ruler approach.

00:14:58.540 | - It is.

00:15:00.100 | Yeah, so I'm very similar to Lisa

00:15:02.920 | in terms of there are emotion concepts or categories.

00:15:06.740 | Well, let's use the anger category.

00:15:09.260 | If you only have one word for anger,

00:15:11.440 | that means all you know is there's one form of anger.

00:15:16.440 | But if you start teaching people,

00:15:18.660 | well, there are other words that we could use,

00:15:20.380 | like peeved, irritated, angry, enraged, livid.

00:15:25.380 | And then you have rich conversations,

00:15:26.980 | which is what I do in schools

00:15:28.380 | with kids and teachers themselves.

00:15:30.240 | Like what is, when you're feeling peeved,

00:15:32.380 | like what are the things that make you feel peeved

00:15:35.060 | versus the things that make you feel enraged?

00:15:37.620 | What does it feel like in your body

00:15:38.780 | when you're feeling that way?

00:15:39.980 | Granted that everybody feels things differently

00:15:41.980 | in their bodies, that really doesn't matter.

00:15:44.180 | What matters is that we have a common language

00:15:46.940 | and a common understanding of what these emotions are.

00:15:50.820 | Because otherwise we can't communicate.

00:15:52.620 | You know, I'm really, like this is a big deal for me

00:15:55.580 | in terms of having a common language

00:15:58.260 | within a community to talk about emotion.

00:16:00.380 | Because right now, right, we're in a crisis of anxiety.

00:16:04.380 | I'm not 100% bought into that.

00:16:07.320 | I think that people use the word anxiety improperly.

00:16:11.040 | Anxiety is about uncertainty about the future,

00:16:15.020 | if we're gonna define it.

00:16:16.320 | It's different than stress.

00:16:17.780 | You know, there's different forms of stress, as you know.

00:16:19.940 | But the distress, right, is usually

00:16:21.580 | when you have too many demands and not enough resources.

00:16:24.460 | Which is different than when you're overwhelmed, right?

00:16:26.300 | Which is my emotion of the year,

00:16:28.420 | which is I'm just saturated, like, you know,

00:16:30.740 | I can't even figure out what's going on anymore.

00:16:33.140 | Which is also different from fear.

00:16:35.460 | And that's, we call that emotion differentiation

00:16:38.820 | or granularity, people call it.

00:16:40.420 | They're slightly different.

00:16:41.620 | The differentiation is like between emotions

00:16:43.740 | and the granularity might be within the emotion.

00:16:46.800 | But from my work, just to go on about this for a moment,

00:16:51.800 | the best example I have is I do a lot of corporate training.

00:16:57.200 | And so I'm in a room filled with lawyers or executives

00:17:00.680 | and I ask them how they're feeling.

00:17:03.240 | Nobody's really sure how they're feeling,

00:17:04.640 | like you were saying.

00:17:06.160 | And then I'll do these little kind of quizzes with them.

00:17:08.660 | Tell me the difference.

00:17:09.500 | You got three minutes in a group.

00:17:11.320 | Anxiety, stress, pressure, fear, overwhelmed.

00:17:14.300 | And they come back and the number one response is,

00:17:16.800 | they're all the same.

00:17:18.660 | And I'm like, really?

00:17:20.940 | Take another few minutes.

00:17:21.780 | Like, just try to define them.

00:17:24.660 | They can't even define them.

00:17:25.860 | They say things like, you know, one is internal,

00:17:28.580 | one is external, one is higher energy and lower energy.

00:17:32.460 | I'm like, I get that, but what do these concepts mean to you?

00:17:37.300 | What do they mean to you?

00:17:38.820 | Anyhow, finally we get to like the definitions.

00:17:43.780 | And then I say, you know, who cares?

00:17:46.900 | Like, why am I asking you to understand these differences?

00:17:50.300 | Go back to your groups and talk about it.

00:17:52.740 | And then after like, this is like a 45 minute,

00:17:55.100 | like I thought this was gonna be like a two minute activity.

00:17:57.000 | It turns into like a 45 minute to an hour exercise

00:18:00.240 | because they finally realize, oh yeah.

00:18:02.960 | So if I'm anxious because I'm worrying about the future,

00:18:08.680 | you know, maybe the breathing exercise

00:18:12.560 | is not gonna be as helpful

00:18:14.520 | because maybe I need a cognitive strategy to say,

00:18:18.240 | you know, Mark, stop worrying about the stock market.

00:18:21.240 | Mark, stop worrying about the university closed down

00:18:23.640 | because of the pandemic.

00:18:24.480 | You've got no control over the university's decisions.

00:18:27.040 | And so helping people make connections

00:18:30.180 | between the feeling and the reason for the feeling,

00:18:34.220 | from my perspective has been very helpful

00:18:38.280 | to help them learn how to regulate the emotion.

00:18:40.880 | - So connecting the feeling and the reason for the feeling.

00:18:44.160 | - Correct.

00:18:45.000 | - As opposed to just labeling the feeling.

00:18:46.440 | - Yeah, you need to know why.

00:18:48.560 | It's the why that you really have to deal with.

00:18:51.120 | - How do you feel about emojis?

00:18:54.520 | From everything you're saying,

00:18:56.120 | they seem like more than benign to me.

00:19:00.040 | - Yeah, same.

00:19:01.180 | I could imagine that the emojification of culture,

00:19:05.260 | as I refer to it, I don't think that's a real word.

00:19:07.900 | - It's all right.

00:19:08.740 | - All right, it is now.

00:19:11.140 | Set up a Wikipedia page tomorrow.

00:19:12.820 | Emojification is a serious problem

00:19:17.180 | because it's what we call in science, too much lumping.

00:19:21.260 | In science we have lumpers and splitters, right?

00:19:23.500 | And both can have fabulous careers,

00:19:27.460 | but if you lump too much or split too much,

00:19:29.620 | you create more confusion and you often create problems.

00:19:32.660 | And I just see emojis as lumping this incredible set

00:19:37.660 | of different continuums within us that we call emotions.

00:19:42.260 | - Exactly.

00:19:43.100 | - Into literally a small icon.

00:19:45.380 | And I can imagine this would lead to all sorts of problems,

00:19:48.220 | not just in communication,

00:19:49.500 | but in understanding our own emotions.

00:19:52.300 | Put differently, do you think that the use of emojis

00:19:54.460 | has degraded our level of emotional intelligence

00:19:57.220 | and processing?

00:19:58.740 | I mean, I haven't done the research,

00:19:59.940 | but from my perspective, it's not helpful

00:20:03.460 | because the goal is to get granular.

00:20:05.980 | Think about the difference,

00:20:09.140 | and I'm not gonna quiz you right now,

00:20:10.460 | but anger and disappointment.

00:20:12.900 | Do you know that 95% of the people

00:20:14.700 | that I asked to define those two things cannot do it?

00:20:17.820 | - Yeah, I mean, right off the cuff I'll just say,

00:20:20.540 | I'm familiar with both of those feelings.

00:20:22.220 | I know they're different, I can sense their difference,

00:20:25.460 | but the disappointment piece could be directed outward

00:20:29.660 | or inward.

00:20:30.500 | I'd have to work systematically through

00:20:32.180 | until I found a violation of one or the other.

00:20:35.140 | So where an example applied to one and not the other,

00:20:37.820 | and it would take me a few minutes,

00:20:39.900 | longer than I want this audience to have to wait.

00:20:41.620 | - There you go.

00:20:42.460 | So we should just-- - So I got an F.

00:20:43.740 | (laughing)

00:20:44.980 | - But you have a growth mindset, so you're okay.

00:20:46.700 | - There you go, yeah.

00:20:48.060 | - But the, you know, so disappointment,

00:20:51.540 | I met expectations.

00:20:53.580 | Everything was legit, it just didn't work out.

00:20:57.540 | Anger, perceived injustice.

00:20:59.620 | And that's a really important distinction,

00:21:03.140 | because if you're a parent or someone at work

00:21:05.580 | and someone is like yelling and screaming,

00:21:07.340 | firstly, we grossly, you know, make mistakes

00:21:10.180 | in terms of labeling emotion from behavior.

00:21:12.820 | We gotta just throw that out.

00:21:14.260 | There's no correlation really between behavior and emotion.

00:21:17.500 | I can stop my feet, you know, as a boy

00:21:20.260 | because I'm feeling sad,

00:21:21.780 | just because it's more culturally acceptable

00:21:23.820 | for me to stomp than to cry.

00:21:25.460 | And so why are you so angry?

00:21:27.460 | Maybe I'm feeling shame, which is my experience.

00:21:31.300 | You know, I was yelling and screaming as a kid

00:21:33.140 | 'cause I was being bullied so much.

00:21:35.100 | And then my mother would be like,

00:21:36.500 | you know, who do you think you are talking to me that way?

00:21:38.220 | And then my father would say, go to your room.

00:21:40.300 | And I'd be like, is anybody reading my, you know,

00:21:42.740 | emotions properly or asking me how I'm feeling?

00:21:45.100 | Because you would know that I'm acting out

00:21:47.620 | because of fear and shame.

00:21:50.140 | Never happened because of a variety of reasons of,

00:21:53.460 | you know, triggering my parents

00:21:54.700 | and they didn't have such high emotional intelligence.

00:21:57.260 | They loved me,

00:21:58.100 | just didn't have high emotional intelligence.

00:22:00.300 | And so going back to the anger disappointment one,

00:22:03.300 | unmet expectations versus perceived injustice.

00:22:06.940 | And so when you think about it in terms of the strategy,

00:22:11.460 | like for example, my other career,

00:22:14.180 | Justina was as a martial arts teacher.

00:22:16.460 | So I have a fifth degree black belt

00:22:17.660 | and a Korean martial art called Hapkido.

00:22:19.940 | Except this podcast doesn't go so well.

00:22:21.940 | Anyhow, the, you know,

00:22:26.620 | I was an awkward kid, had a, you know,

00:22:29.100 | very insecure, low self-esteem.

00:22:31.340 | I got into the martial arts.

00:22:32.740 | I thought, I'm going to get my yellow belt

00:22:36.940 | and I'm going to feel tough and proud.

00:22:39.980 | Failed my freaking yellow belt test.

00:22:41.820 | I mean, at 13 years old, you couldn't imagine like,

00:22:44.460 | there's nothing worse for a 13 year old kid

00:22:47.260 | who's feeling shame and being bullied

00:22:48.980 | to fail a yellow belt test.

00:22:50.700 | So what do I do?

00:22:51.540 | I go home, I hate karate.

00:22:52.660 | I'm never going back to karate.

00:22:54.860 | Everybody's in uproar.

00:22:56.620 | I'm getting yelled at.

00:22:57.460 | I'm paying for your karate.

00:22:58.380 | You're going back to, you know, whatever.

00:23:00.580 | And the truth was like,

00:23:02.860 | let's think about that for a minute.

00:23:04.100 | So I go to take the test

00:23:06.220 | and I've got to do my blocks and my kicks.

00:23:10.460 | You know, my punches.

00:23:12.340 | I know there's five kicks, there's five punches.

00:23:15.700 | And let's say I do them the best I can,

00:23:19.780 | but the sensei just says, you know, Mark,

00:23:21.860 | just not good enough.

00:23:23.060 | You know, you're not ready yet.

00:23:24.940 | That's legitimate disappointment.

00:23:27.340 | I expected to pass.

00:23:28.900 | I didn't pass.

00:23:29.740 | I'm feeling disappointed.

00:23:31.340 | So the strategy for that is what?

00:23:33.580 | Like, tutor, help.

00:23:36.220 | Show me what I have to do better.

00:23:38.500 | On the other hand, let's say, which was true for me,

00:23:41.740 | that some of the kids who were the bullies

00:23:44.420 | in my middle school also took karate.

00:23:46.620 | And let's imagine they're watching me take my test

00:23:50.460 | and they're giving me some dirty looks

00:23:51.980 | because they're gonna, you know, threaten me.

00:23:53.900 | And which did happen, you know, you know,

00:23:56.980 | getting changed, going, you know, like,

00:23:58.340 | wait till you see what it's going to be like

00:23:59.460 | for you tomorrow on the way to school.

00:24:01.700 | Now, how am I feeling?

00:24:03.140 | Terrorized, fearful.

00:24:05.260 | And I failed my test because of that.

00:24:07.420 | So you can see how I could show up

00:24:09.980 | with a particular behavior.

00:24:13.420 | When people are attributing emotion to me,

00:24:16.300 | they're labeling my emotions for me

00:24:17.940 | because they don't have the skill

00:24:20.500 | to deactivate as a parent or a teacher or a partner,

00:24:24.580 | to be present, to help me understand my experience

00:24:29.100 | and then label my experience,

00:24:30.860 | understand where it's coming from

00:24:32.460 | and then strategize accordingly.

00:24:35.220 | - I'd like to take a quick break

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00:24:49.380 | Now, I've been drinking AG1 since 2012

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00:24:59.260 | and I'm so glad that I made that supplement AG1.

00:25:02.300 | The reason for that is even though I strive to eat

00:25:04.700 | most of my foods from whole foods

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00:25:10.180 | vegetables, vitamins and minerals,

00:25:11.900 | micronutrients and adaptogens from food alone.

00:25:15.100 | And I need to do that in order to ensure

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00:25:18.780 | I sleep well at night and keep my immune system strong.

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00:25:23.740 | I find that all aspects of my health,

00:25:25.420 | my physical health, my mental health and my performance,

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00:25:36.900 | given the relationship between the gut microbiome

00:25:38.980 | and the brain, that when I regularly take AG1,

00:25:41.460 | which for me means a serving in the morning or mid morning

00:25:43.880 | and again, later in the afternoon or evening,

00:25:46.020 | that I have more mental clarity and more mental energy.

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00:25:59.900 | Again, that's drinkag1.com/huberman

00:26:03.380 | to claim that special offer.

00:26:05.780 | - You said that disappointment is

00:26:07.900 | when one does everything essentially correctly,

00:26:11.640 | meaning gave as much effort as they could, et cetera,

00:26:15.060 | and it didn't work out.

00:26:16.460 | - Correct.

00:26:17.300 | - Versus anger, which is perceived injustice.

00:26:19.820 | - Yeah.

00:26:20.640 | - Would you say that your response

00:26:21.580 | to not getting your yellow belt then,

00:26:24.340 | because as a fifth degree black belt now,

00:26:27.140 | clearly you got that yellow belt eventually.

00:26:29.460 | I wanna hear that part of the story too.

00:26:31.960 | That you were experiencing anger,

00:26:34.560 | in this case, could we even call it inappropriate anger?

00:26:38.120 | Simply inappropriate because what you really needed

00:26:41.800 | to understand was this notion of disappointment,

00:26:43.840 | but no one had taught it to you.

00:26:45.240 | - I think what you're getting at though,

00:26:46.640 | is this like not knowing how you're feeling,

00:26:49.960 | 'cause I was never taught language, right?

00:26:52.600 | And having an experience that is,

00:26:55.800 | could be many feelings at once,

00:26:57.160 | which is, could be disappointment, could be anger,

00:26:59.320 | could be embarrassment,

00:27:02.600 | but you gotta unpack the situation.

00:27:05.280 | What was the real event that happened?

00:27:07.680 | What really happened in that moment?

00:27:09.360 | And so, if it were legitimate, like legitimate test,

00:27:14.080 | and I just, I blocked the punch

00:27:16.400 | and I just didn't have the strength to block it,

00:27:18.880 | to really stand firm, it's disappointment.

00:27:22.900 | It's like, son, you thought your blocks were strong,

00:27:27.120 | unfortunately, you need some work.

00:27:29.220 | Let's practice every day after school together,

00:27:31.300 | we're gonna get these blocks down

00:27:32.400 | so you can get that yellow belt test, there's no other reason.

00:27:35.320 | If it's because the bullies are staring at me,

00:27:37.880 | and I'm not capable of dealing with those piercing eyes

00:27:41.600 | that are at me, and I'm feeling so anxious and overwhelmed

00:27:44.120 | that I just can't block because I'm just freaked out,

00:27:47.540 | that's a whole nother story.

00:27:49.280 | Do you see how like a parent or a teacher

00:27:53.360 | would have to really differentiate their support,

00:27:58.360 | but you have to really get at the experience,

00:28:01.000 | which means we have to have relationships

00:28:04.360 | that are trustworthy, loving, caring with all people,

00:28:09.320 | because otherwise we don't build that connection

00:28:11.420 | to really understand how people feel.

00:28:13.120 | We just take the kind of behavior,

00:28:14.520 | we're like, why are you behaving that way?

00:28:16.120 | You know, go to your room or, you know, just practice.

00:28:19.520 | It's like, no, like, I've been bullied at school

00:28:22.860 | and now the bully is threatening me.

00:28:25.840 | Like that's serious stuff that needs to be taken care of.

00:28:29.240 | - Yeah, online emojis and, you know,

00:28:32.440 | downward facing thumbs versus upward facing thumbs

00:28:35.120 | and this kind of thing, and, you know,

00:28:37.160 | vomit emojis and things like that, a mind blown.

00:28:41.760 | I'm starting to realize that these may be doing

00:28:44.440 | far more harm than we realize.

00:28:48.280 | - Yeah, I think it's fun.

00:28:49.280 | You know, and maybe it's just,

00:28:50.280 | if you'd wanna just use it for fun, not a problem.

00:28:52.840 | If we're gonna use it to really communicate, not so great.

00:28:56.280 | - I'm thinking of instances

00:28:57.560 | where people are just using these

00:29:00.280 | with the intention of expressing

00:29:01.960 | their like dislike of something,

00:29:05.000 | but that the people on the receiving end

00:29:07.320 | experience a lot of self-criticism as a consequence,

00:29:12.320 | mostly kids, but adults too.

00:29:15.440 | And I know some adults that really can't handle

00:29:18.360 | somebody commenting on their Instagram posts,

00:29:20.380 | like big L or something like that.

00:29:22.800 | - Yeah, it's devastating for people.

00:29:23.640 | - Or nope, or this kind of thing.

00:29:26.160 | It's also interesting because I see it

00:29:27.640 | even in the academic community,

00:29:29.320 | especially on Twitter X, where I know that,

00:29:33.360 | sure, people reject each other's papers,

00:29:35.080 | critique each other's papers,

00:29:36.120 | but they do that with a degree of intellectual nuance

00:29:40.220 | that transmits a sense of care, right?

00:29:43.160 | If scientists really care,

00:29:44.320 | then they're gonna do a careful review

00:29:46.720 | as much as we would all love the,

00:29:48.080 | this is a perfect paper, that's it, no critique.

00:29:50.680 | When somebody critiques something that we do

00:29:52.520 | with an attention to detail, provided it's fair,

00:29:56.160 | we feel cared for.

00:29:57.840 | - Totally. - They care for the work

00:29:58.920 | and we care for the work.

00:29:59.760 | And so there's a relationship there,

00:30:01.360 | even if it's an anonymous review.

00:30:03.280 | But I'm shocked to see how scientific colleagues

00:30:06.420 | I've known for decades,

00:30:08.360 | really how they comport themselves online,

00:30:10.400 | like they'll swear, they'll come out,

00:30:13.500 | they won't bother to punctuate things.

00:30:16.840 | They'll just sort of behave in a very,

00:30:20.140 | what seems to be a very activated way.

00:30:22.700 | Not all of them, of course,

00:30:24.140 | but it's been very interesting.

00:30:25.860 | The words that come to mind are,

00:30:27.680 | I feel like online, especially on social media,

00:30:30.220 | the kids are acting like adults

00:30:31.580 | and the adults are acting like children.

00:30:33.700 | And so there seems to be a kind of regression

00:30:35.820 | toward what I'm calling the emojification

00:30:38.620 | or the kind of high amplitude expression with blunt tools.

00:30:43.620 | I don't know what that is because I know these people,

00:30:46.820 | the reason I'm using the academic community as an example,

00:30:49.580 | by the way, it's cost some of these people, their jobs,

00:30:52.420 | chairs of departments,

00:30:53.860 | not at Stanford or Yale, fortunately.

00:30:55.700 | But it's kind of striking to me

00:30:59.860 | the way that when we remove the face-to-face connection,

00:31:03.780 | when people will behave that way.

00:31:08.420 | And I use the parallel example of anonymous review

00:31:11.820 | because there it's anonymous.

00:31:13.080 | So in theory, they could behave however they want,

00:31:14.780 | but there's an etiquette.

00:31:15.980 | So it seems like online etiquette is very deprived

00:31:18.640 | of many of the important features

00:31:20.340 | that you're starting to lay out for us here.

00:31:23.920 | - Anonymity causes challenges.

00:31:27.940 | It's funny 'cause I gave a speech at Twitter,

00:31:32.300 | now known as X, about five years ago,

00:31:35.420 | and had analyzed quite a lot of data.

00:31:39.500 | It was actually the year that Mariah Carey sang

00:31:42.580 | and it got messed up.

00:31:44.280 | And it was like the week before I was going in January,

00:31:48.020 | it was like New Year's Eve.

00:31:49.020 | And I just was curious 'cause it really was a mess up.

00:31:52.300 | And I said, "How are people gonna respond?"

00:31:55.260 | And it was 99.99% ripping this amazing diva to shreds.

00:32:00.260 | - So she, I don't recall this incident.

00:32:03.380 | So she's obviously phenomenally talented,

00:32:06.240 | but she made an error.

00:32:07.820 | - There was something with the mic.

00:32:08.660 | - God forbid she made an error.

00:32:09.480 | - Yeah, there was something with the mic.

00:32:10.320 | - Or someone else, oh goodness.

00:32:11.580 | - You know, and she just basically like,

00:32:13.220 | the mic wasn't working the way she wanted it to work.

00:32:15.620 | And she's like, "I'm out of here, I'm not singing."

00:32:19.660 | And you should have seen how people just,

00:32:21.900 | I mean, millions and millions and millions of comments,

00:32:26.020 | you know, like, and I'm not gonna repeat what people said

00:32:28.060 | 'cause it was really disgusting.

00:32:30.100 | And I got really curious, like, what about things like,

00:32:34.420 | "Gosh, you've like won 15 Grammy Awards,

00:32:36.860 | "like this must really sting for you."

00:32:38.880 | Maybe one post like that.

00:32:41.980 | And so it does make you wonder about,

00:32:43.780 | A, the type of person who is interested in commenting.

00:32:47.620 | Like we may have a bias there.

00:32:49.180 | I do think we have a bias there.

00:32:51.220 | You know, people who, you know,

00:32:53.260 | they feel protected by, you know, something.

00:32:57.260 | If it's, you know, a more famous person in politics,

00:33:00.100 | obviously people are very clear how they feel.

00:33:02.860 | - Politicians sort of open themselves up to it.

00:33:05.900 | - Yeah, they do.

00:33:07.020 | - Public facing people in general,

00:33:08.940 | I've heard, open themselves up to it.

00:33:11.460 | But politicians in particular,

00:33:13.700 | I think we give, we sort of give the general public a pass

00:33:16.220 | to say almost anything about them.

00:33:19.020 | But it's not pretty.

00:33:20.820 | - It's not pretty and it's not emotionally intelligent

00:33:23.140 | to go back to the concept, right?

00:33:24.980 | It's like, what's your goal here?

00:33:27.300 | Like, I always ask people that,

00:33:28.500 | like, what are you getting out of being nasty?

00:33:32.020 | - I perceive it as evacutive.

00:33:33.900 | I look at that and I think,

00:33:35.220 | "Gosh, what they must feel inside

00:33:36.620 | "to be able to say those things can't be good."

00:33:40.900 | But maybe it feels good to them, I don't know.

00:33:43.500 | I don't think I've ever made a negative comment.

00:33:46.460 | If I have, someone can call me out on it.

00:33:49.060 | Hopefully it was in sarcasm with a friend as the target

00:33:53.300 | and they were okay with it or happy with it.

00:33:54.900 | But I don't know what internal emotional

00:33:57.620 | or psychological state it would take

00:33:59.780 | to go say something cruel to somebody online.

00:34:03.900 | - In my earlier research with Facebook,

00:34:07.260 | we analyzed millions and millions of posts.

00:34:11.180 | And people can be intentionally mean and hurtful.

00:34:15.020 | Just people wanna rip people to shreds

00:34:17.420 | and they wanna instill fear.

00:34:18.980 | And it's very hard to disentangle that too,

00:34:23.660 | just to be honest.

00:34:24.500 | So like, what we found in our research was that,

00:34:27.060 | I could say if you're like,

00:34:28.420 | Andrew's wearing a black shirt, you'll see that.

00:34:31.340 | I could say like, "Nice shirt."

00:34:33.220 | And it might mean nice shirt

00:34:35.700 | or it might mean, "I'm making fun of your shirt."

00:34:38.700 | And it's just hard, like that's the problem

00:34:41.180 | with social media in terms of posts.

00:34:43.020 | We don't really know,

00:34:44.020 | 'cause the person who's receiving it has a story, right?

00:34:47.780 | That was one challenge we found

00:34:49.420 | around like getting posts taken down,

00:34:52.100 | was that it was hard to have that objective criterion

00:34:54.820 | of what was painful to a person.

00:34:58.740 | Which is why what we tried to do

00:35:00.980 | was help the person who was receiving the content

00:35:04.420 | communicate in a way with the person who posted the content

00:35:08.580 | to get them to take it down.

00:35:10.420 | And what we found was that it actually worked really well.

00:35:12.660 | If you taught a teenager, for example,

00:35:14.820 | to say, "Hey, you know, hey, Andrew,

00:35:16.660 | like that comment you made really was hurtful.

00:35:19.700 | Would you please take it down?"

00:35:21.900 | We were more likely to get people to take it down.

00:35:24.460 | And what we found in experimental research was that,

00:35:27.660 | if we just let people go on their own devices,

00:35:32.980 | it tended to be more retaliatory.

00:35:34.620 | Like, "Who the heck do you think you are?"

00:35:36.420 | You wanna fight back, you know?

00:35:38.700 | And that did not motivate the person to take it down.

00:35:41.280 | So even meeting gross behavior with compassion

00:35:45.620 | can be helpful.

00:35:46.860 | - Can we provide a counterexample

00:35:49.460 | for the anger versus disappointment

00:35:51.540 | that's on the positive valence side?

00:35:55.260 | What's a positive set of feelings

00:35:58.500 | that people often conflate?

00:36:01.020 | - Like happiness and contentment.

00:36:02.720 | - Yeah, that's a tough one.

00:36:05.220 | I'm getting Fs all around, you know?

00:36:08.960 | Good thing I became a biologist.

00:36:10.340 | - Ecstatic and elated.

00:36:11.660 | - Cool, yeah, okay.

00:36:16.180 | - Yeah, this is, you know, this is why I do what I do.

00:36:18.380 | - Yeah, so-- - And so I'm good at this.

00:36:20.300 | - Yeah, yes, you are.

00:36:21.460 | - You know, when you think about happiness,

00:36:23.220 | you know, it's usually about, you know,

00:36:24.860 | when you're achieving something, right?

00:36:26.580 | You're gonna, I'm gonna be happy when, you know,

00:36:30.180 | this will bring me happiness.

00:36:31.620 | Contentment is the opposite.

00:36:33.020 | Contentment is everything is just great as it is.

00:36:37.340 | I feel complete.

00:36:38.780 | I have enough.

00:36:40.500 | And part of my argument against the happiness research

00:36:44.420 | is that we don't spend enough time

00:36:45.780 | helping people strive for contentment

00:36:48.020 | and we push people to strive for happiness,

00:36:49.940 | which there's research to show, you know, backfires.

00:36:52.600 | You know, if you're waking up every day saying,

00:36:54.580 | what am I gonna do today to be happy?

00:36:55.580 | What am I gonna do today to be happy?

00:36:57.300 | Chances are, you know, it's not gonna work out a lot.

00:36:59.540 | And that kind of backfires to create more despair.

00:37:03.420 | - Yeah, sorry to interrupt,

00:37:04.500 | but I, as soon as you described contentment that way,

00:37:07.420 | and thank you for parsing those two, very useful to me.

00:37:11.060 | As soon as you described contentment that way,

00:37:12.700 | I imagine waking up and rather than thinking about

00:37:15.260 | what needs to be done and the things I want to achieve,

00:37:17.380 | which I want to achieve, they bring me joy.

00:37:20.060 | - Yeah.

00:37:20.900 | - I'm throwing a third word there just to confuse myself.

00:37:23.280 | This notion of contentment, the way that you described,

00:37:27.800 | I could see might lead me to pay attention to

00:37:31.100 | how good it feels to have gotten some sleep,

00:37:33.620 | to, you know, I sleep well most nights,

00:37:36.380 | but what a privilege that is.

00:37:39.140 | And to, you know, maybe feel the comfort of the comforter

00:37:44.660 | and the mattress for a moment before barging into the day.

00:37:48.620 | - Yeah.

00:37:49.460 | - To chase happiness, as it were.

00:37:50.940 | - Exactly.

00:37:51.780 | I think, you know, the idea that we have to be happy

00:37:54.600 | all the time is also ridiculous.

00:37:56.420 | I mean, I'm a neurotic professor, like I'm never happy.

00:37:59.280 | You know, it's just, it's tough.

00:38:03.040 | And so, and also like, I don't know about you,

00:38:06.620 | but given that my dispositional affect, another term,

00:38:10.340 | you know, is more on the lower energy,

00:38:14.340 | kind of contented, a little anxiety.

00:38:16.760 | When I'm around the people who are like high energy

00:38:20.060 | and pleasant all the time, I have a difficult time.

00:38:23.180 | You know, it's like-

00:38:24.180 | - Because you somehow feel like you're not living up

00:38:26.420 | to some standards.

00:38:27.260 | - No, I just feel like overwhelmed and smothered by it.

00:38:29.500 | - Oh, interesting.

00:38:30.340 | - You know, it's like, stop being so happy all the time.

00:38:32.100 | - Here's where I get to appropriately make a joke about,

00:38:36.300 | because before we started, we were talking about

00:38:37.700 | East Coast schools versus West Coast schools.

00:38:39.620 | I was like, maybe you come West and that'll change,

00:38:43.420 | or maybe you're right where you belong there

00:38:45.700 | at the also phenomenal university that is Yale.

00:38:48.580 | But anyway, that's kind of inside ball stuff.

00:38:51.460 | East Coast University is amazing.

00:38:52.660 | Midwest University is amazing.

00:38:53.940 | West Coast University is amazing.

00:38:55.460 | Different perceived temperaments, but-

00:38:58.180 | - For sure.

00:38:59.380 | - And styles, just look at the walking speeds,

00:39:01.420 | for instance, not just the weather.

00:39:03.260 | But yeah, you raise a very important point.

00:39:05.400 | We have a member of our podcast team

00:39:06.960 | that is like always in a great mood.

00:39:10.220 | He's always in a great mood.

00:39:11.620 | And it is for me, a reminder to be in a better mood.

00:39:15.740 | I'm not somebody that I would say gets, I'm not moody.

00:39:19.860 | I don't change moods quickly,

00:39:21.700 | but I wouldn't say that my disposition is to be

00:39:24.580 | like Tigger-like and just happy all the time.

00:39:27.500 | But his energy around that doesn't drain me,

00:39:30.900 | but it makes me wish I was him.

00:39:35.700 | - That's good. That's okay. That's you.

00:39:37.660 | You know what I mean?

00:39:38.500 | Like the part of, I mean,

00:39:39.880 | part of being emotionally intelligent with colleagues,

00:39:43.940 | you know, romantic partners, with children, whoever,

00:39:46.900 | is picking up on that.

00:39:48.420 | Like now that I know that about you,

00:39:50.420 | it makes me think differently about you

00:39:52.260 | in terms of what your needs are.

00:39:54.220 | That's emotional intelligence.

00:39:56.220 | And for me, I am like, I wake up every morning,

00:39:58.260 | like having an existential crisis.

00:39:59.940 | I'm like, what am I doing with my life?

00:40:01.180 | And you know, what am I doing this today for?

00:40:02.900 | And then I got to publish this paper.

00:40:04.060 | I got to finish my book.

00:40:04.900 | I got to run my team.

00:40:06.520 | Like what do I want to do?

00:40:07.980 | And you know, then I'm doing it.

00:40:10.060 | And then I'm like, when I'm doing one thing,

00:40:11.500 | I think I should be doing the other thing.

00:40:13.700 | This is just who I am.

00:40:14.660 | And it's, I've tried everything.

00:40:15.780 | And it's just, that's my operating system.

00:40:18.640 | I'm more aware, like when I was,

00:40:20.900 | I'm working on another book.

00:40:22.540 | And as I was working on it, you know,

00:40:24.660 | I'm in a chapter, and all I could think about

00:40:27.460 | is the next chapter.

00:40:29.140 | And then I started like, Mark,

00:40:30.900 | give yourself permission to be with this freaking chapter.

00:40:33.660 | It's okay.

00:40:34.700 | Like, you can focus on one thing

00:40:36.380 | and not worry about the future.

00:40:38.540 | And I had to literally kind of do that for myself.

00:40:41.820 | That's how I am, you know?

00:40:44.300 | And so knowing that about myself is useful

00:40:46.700 | because it helps me find the strategies that work for me.

00:40:51.540 | And going back to the happiness thing,

00:40:53.700 | it's because I'm also introverted.

00:40:56.100 | And so when I'm around extroverts a lot, I'm drained.

00:41:00.140 | You know, I just, like after something like this,

00:41:02.260 | this is an intense conversation,

00:41:03.820 | I'm not gonna go to a sports bar, you know,

00:41:05.580 | like have a beer and like watch the game.

00:41:08.140 | I would never do that anyway.

00:41:09.420 | But anyway, that's just not my thing.

00:41:11.380 | You know, like that would make me,

00:41:12.520 | I would like, my brain would be burnt.

00:41:15.380 | Like my dream would be to leave here,

00:41:17.940 | go take a hot yoga class and take a walk,

00:41:20.740 | have a glass of wine, maybe by myself or with a friend,

00:41:23.560 | and then end the day.

00:41:24.620 | - All those things are readily available

00:41:27.500 | within less than a mile of here.

00:41:29.600 | We can point you in the right direction.

00:41:30.980 | It sounds lovely.

00:41:32.020 | The introversion, extroversion bit

00:41:36.580 | is going to prick up people's ears.

00:41:39.160 | It certainly did mine.

00:41:40.260 | I like time alone.

00:41:42.920 | I also like time alone in the presence of many people.

00:41:45.720 | In fact, I get my best work done always,

00:41:48.620 | either alone in nature or in Manhattan,

00:41:53.620 | where there are people around me,

00:41:56.040 | but I'm completely isolated.

00:41:58.300 | - I love that too.

00:41:59.680 | - So how should we think about introversion and extroversion?

00:42:03.600 | These things get thrown around so much in popular culture.

00:42:07.000 | Are there some solid scientific studies

00:42:10.320 | that support that introversion can best be defined

00:42:12.800 | as blank and extroversion as blank?

00:42:15.000 | And I'm guessing there's a range there.

00:42:16.760 | It's got to be on a continuum.

00:42:17.960 | It can't be two bins.

00:42:19.280 | - I mean, for some people, it's very clear.

00:42:21.840 | You know, they are a clear, traded introvert.

00:42:24.880 | And for some people, they're just like endlessly extroverted

00:42:27.920 | no matter, they wake up wanting to be with people.

00:42:30.680 | They, at the end of the day,

00:42:32.000 | they want to go out with people more.

00:42:34.000 | And so what research shows, for example,

00:42:36.360 | with creative people is they tend to be both.

00:42:39.120 | They tend to be high introverts and high extroverts,

00:42:41.520 | which is interesting, right?

00:42:42.440 | They're introverts when they're doing their art

00:42:44.320 | and then they're extroverts

00:42:45.240 | when they're out there selling their art,

00:42:47.320 | which is hard for some artists, right?

00:42:48.760 | Because a lot of artists are kind of introspective

00:42:51.400 | and they're creative types,

00:42:52.320 | but they really struggle with getting out there

00:42:54.760 | and being that extroverted, like, look at my art.

00:42:57.760 | And so you're the lucky artist

00:43:01.040 | if you are traded in both directions.

00:43:03.280 | I think the easiest way to think about it is just,

00:43:07.280 | it's a proclivity, right?

00:43:09.120 | It's a proclivity to how you want to use your energy.

00:43:12.240 | And the introvert is more a container,

00:43:16.840 | wants to contain their energy.

00:43:19.080 | They want to be in small groups.

00:43:23.040 | They want kind of less frenetic environments.

00:43:27.560 | And the extrovert just has a proclivity

00:43:29.280 | for more sensation-seeking, larger social groups.

00:43:34.160 | And again, it's a preference.

00:43:36.000 | I always say I'm an introvert

00:43:37.160 | with pretty good social skills.

00:43:39.080 | Like I can appear to be extroverted.

00:43:41.800 | Most people think I'm outgoing.

00:43:43.800 | And I always tell, like, I don't even like people that much.

00:43:46.240 | - You seem very outgoing.

00:43:47.600 | - Yeah, I'm not.

00:43:48.680 | You know, it's just not, it's not my natural,

00:43:50.520 | like if I'm at a party, I struggle with like,

00:43:53.540 | like, what am I going to do here?

00:43:56.840 | - When you say you don't necessarily like people that much,

00:43:59.600 | I realize you're joking.

00:44:00.920 | But, and I was just going to make sure to ask,

00:44:04.760 | 'cause I can't presume,

00:44:06.080 | that doesn't mean that you dislike people.

00:44:08.080 | It's just that being in the presence of a lot of people

00:44:09.920 | doesn't draw you out to want to be closer to

00:44:13.720 | or get to know all these people

00:44:14.800 | simply because they're there.

00:44:15.960 | Whereas an extrovert seems to really like forming

00:44:18.880 | and engaging in new relationships, old relationships,

00:44:22.720 | all relationships, relating.

00:44:24.920 | - Exactly, if you're like running a campaign

00:44:27.000 | to run for, you know, mayor of your town,

00:44:30.040 | like you're going to,

00:44:30.880 | you want to hire an extroverted PR person, right?

00:44:34.360 | An extroverted person do marketing

00:44:36.160 | 'cause they're like going to be out there

00:44:37.400 | really banging on the door,

00:44:38.320 | it's not very comfortable talking to people, right?

00:44:41.280 | The introvert is going to be better at doing the accounting,

00:44:43.960 | you know, and doing the planning.

00:44:45.640 | And we've done this research actually,

00:44:47.240 | if even fun with my students,

00:44:48.840 | I would have them take their,

00:44:50.240 | take measures of their valid measures

00:44:53.080 | of introversion and extroversion.

00:44:54.600 | I would score them into groups,

00:44:56.200 | like get that really extroverted group

00:44:58.000 | and the really introverted group,

00:44:59.680 | and I'd have them plan a party.

00:45:01.600 | Just go plan a party.

00:45:03.160 | And the group of extroverts is bonfires,

00:45:05.320 | there's beer, there loud music on the beach.

00:45:08.080 | And the introverts are like,

00:45:09.400 | we had to make sure we have good napkins.

00:45:11.480 | We want to, you know, we're going to have four people,

00:45:14.800 | you know, it's going to be quiet music.

00:45:17.240 | That's just, you know, how we're built.

00:45:20.040 | - Interesting, when I think of throwing a great party,

00:45:22.520 | and I've thrown a few,

00:45:23.840 | what I like to think were great parties,

00:45:25.640 | it involves inviting a bunch of people over

00:45:27.720 | and then being able to stand back from a lot of it

00:45:29.600 | and not have to participate in all of it.

00:45:31.320 | I just like seeing friends that didn't know each other

00:45:34.120 | start to interact.

00:45:35.400 | - That's cool.

00:45:36.440 | - That's fun for me.

00:45:37.320 | And then if I have to communicate directly

00:45:41.160 | with too many people at the party,

00:45:42.400 | I would definitely feel drained.

00:45:44.440 | I'm known to retreat to a room and take a nap or--

00:45:46.680 | - Yeah, so maybe you are more introverted.

00:45:48.800 | - Yeah, I think so.

00:45:50.760 | Rick Rubin, who's world renowned

00:45:53.920 | for his creative insights and creativity,

00:45:58.320 | and for being Rick,

00:46:00.280 | I think once said on a podcast perhaps,

00:46:02.520 | or maybe he said this to me,

00:46:04.600 | that Tom Petty was the sort of person

00:46:08.680 | that basically didn't do anything

00:46:10.720 | besides write music and read books

00:46:12.520 | and interact with the small number of people

00:46:14.080 | in his inner circle.

00:46:15.520 | And the idea of leaving the house

00:46:17.080 | was just completely overwhelming to him.

00:46:20.200 | Now, of course, people were always approaching him,

00:46:22.520 | but like really, really extreme introvert.

00:46:25.840 | Whereas Rick has described, and I won't name names here,

00:46:28.960 | other famous people, musicians and otherwise,

00:46:31.640 | that go out specifically

00:46:34.440 | to try and get the attention of fame.

00:46:36.520 | And if they don't, they feel absolutely isolated.

00:46:40.720 | - Makes sense.

00:46:41.560 | - Even though they have people in their private life,

00:46:43.000 | it's sort of like,

00:46:43.840 | it becomes a kind of extroversion requirement.

00:46:46.360 | I would imagine life is much harder

00:46:48.160 | for the extrovert in the long run,

00:46:50.560 | because there's so much need there.

00:46:51.400 | - The research shows that the extroverts tend to do,

00:46:54.000 | have a little bit more success,

00:46:56.240 | because they're more willing to get out there

00:46:57.960 | and ask for it.

00:46:59.400 | They get raises more quickly.

00:47:01.880 | - I see.

00:47:02.800 | - And in my work in schools,

00:47:05.480 | I always ask teachers to pay attention

00:47:08.840 | to the personality of their students,

00:47:10.600 | because the introvert has a lot of great ideas.

00:47:13.080 | They're just not dying to raise their hand

00:47:15.480 | and get the attention.

00:47:16.640 | So don't just call on the kids who are raising their hands,

00:47:19.280 | because you're missing out on getting some great information.

00:47:23.200 | - In that case, do you cold call on people?

00:47:25.480 | Whenever I'm teaching,

00:47:26.480 | I'm somewhat reluctant to cold call on people,

00:47:29.720 | because I recall it can be terrifying

00:47:32.680 | when suddenly you're sitting there taking notes,

00:47:34.240 | trying to organize your thoughts around the material,

00:47:37.600 | and then suddenly the whole room's looking at you.

00:47:40.680 | - I mean, I set expectations around that,

00:47:43.440 | 'cause I'm really particular about that,

00:47:44.880 | because it drives me crazy

00:47:47.520 | when the talkative extrovert

00:47:50.080 | is always getting their thing said.

00:47:53.680 | I think there's good instructional practices

00:47:57.240 | that can help with that.

00:47:58.600 | One thing I'm thinking about, though,

00:47:59.880 | is this intersection of personality

00:48:03.680 | and emotional intelligence.

00:48:05.240 | You just kind of brought that up for me,

00:48:06.760 | which is, and people confuse those a lot.

00:48:09.320 | So for example, I even confused it when I was younger,

00:48:12.680 | before I studied it,

00:48:14.200 | because I'm high also in neuroticism,

00:48:17.640 | meaning I am more mercurial

00:48:20.400 | in terms of I worry about things,

00:48:22.360 | and I'm fine, then I worry again.

00:48:24.200 | It just, that's who I am.

00:48:25.920 | And I just always assumed

00:48:27.680 | that someone who is high in neuroticism,

00:48:30.400 | or more, as I said, kind of volatile emotionally,

00:48:34.320 | that was this low emotional intelligence,

00:48:36.520 | because how could you be emotionally intelligent

00:48:39.240 | if you're emotionally volatile?

00:48:41.760 | And then I did all this research

00:48:42.880 | and found there's pretty much no correlation

00:48:45.480 | between personality traits and emotional intelligence.

00:48:49.280 | And why is that?

00:48:50.560 | Well, think about it.

00:48:51.960 | If you're someone who is more even-keeled,

00:48:54.520 | maybe you don't even have that much of an opportunity

00:48:57.800 | to regulate your emotions, right?

00:49:00.520 | But then, if you get triggered,

00:49:02.360 | you've never had experience,

00:49:03.400 | so it's actually harder for you.

00:49:05.440 | Someone like me, I'm practicing it all the time, right?

00:49:07.880 | I'm always like, I'm in a bad mood,

00:49:08.920 | and I gotta give a meeting.

00:49:09.960 | I'm irritable, I gotta give a presentation.

00:49:12.080 | So I'm constantly figuring out

00:49:13.880 | how to deal with my emotions.

00:49:15.560 | And that's why they're separate concepts.

00:49:19.440 | And in addition to it, just to build on this,

00:49:23.600 | knowing your personality traits

00:49:25.800 | can be extraordinarily helpful

00:49:27.960 | for choosing the best strategies to regulate your emotions.

00:49:31.960 | Why is that?

00:49:33.200 | I was traveling in Australia recently,

00:49:35.640 | and I gave this speech to a group of people.

00:49:38.480 | The person who was the person in charge of the speech,

00:49:42.000 | it was about an hour from Melbourne.

00:49:44.040 | And I took the train,

00:49:46.520 | 'cause I preferred to stay in the city,

00:49:48.280 | took the train, I was planning to take,

00:49:49.480 | I had bought my train ticket back.

00:49:51.120 | The convener said, "You know, Mark,

00:49:52.600 | I just really would love to be with you,

00:49:54.000 | and can we just, you know,

00:49:55.680 | can I drive you back to your hotel?"

00:49:58.160 | And I'm thinking to myself, like,

00:49:59.520 | that is the worst thing you could ever ask me.

00:50:02.600 | - And on the wrong side of the road.

00:50:04.000 | - Yeah.

00:50:05.000 | And I had my train ticket.

00:50:07.080 | I really, it was a full day of presentations and stuff.

00:50:10.600 | I really wanted to be by myself to decompress,

00:50:13.400 | but I felt bad and I said, "Sure."

00:50:16.520 | The guy talked to me for an hour,

00:50:20.680 | like he would just non-stop talk to me.

00:50:23.560 | I got back to my hotel, I was like,

00:50:24.880 | I am gonna have a nervous breakdown.

00:50:27.200 | Like, I need another day to recover because,

00:50:29.560 | and it just, it annoyed me about myself

00:50:32.200 | not practicing, you know, what I teach,

00:50:34.560 | which was, "Mark, know thyself.

00:50:38.520 | You're drained, be polite."

00:50:41.040 | You know, it was my insecurity of just saying,

00:50:42.920 | you know, "I really appreciate you wanting to drive me back,

00:50:46.520 | but, you know, I really have a lot to do tomorrow.

00:50:49.480 | I need to rest my voice.

00:50:50.640 | I need to, you know, do some prep."

00:50:52.880 | Instead, I just sat there like, you know,

00:50:55.280 | shaking and like, you know, having like, just went crazy.

00:50:59.680 | So do you see what I'm getting at?

00:51:00.640 | Like, really knowing yourself in terms of like,

00:51:03.640 | what drives you and what your, you know,

00:51:06.640 | your personality traits, just introversion,

00:51:08.560 | extroversion alone, and how that relates to like,

00:51:11.480 | your selection of strategies is so important.

00:51:15.480 | - Super important.

00:51:16.520 | And by the way, my joke about driving

00:51:18.720 | on the wrong side of the road,

00:51:19.800 | I do realize that we drive on the wrong side of the road

00:51:22.120 | for Australians and those in the UK.

00:51:24.800 | So I'll do the touche for you.

00:51:27.480 | I'd like to take a brief break

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00:52:40.460 | Text messaging is an interesting example of communication

00:52:44.960 | that nowadays, depending on how many people

00:52:48.320 | have access to your phone number,

00:52:50.360 | can either feel like a wonderful source

00:52:53.980 | of filling the gaps on trains and while in transit

00:52:56.800 | and while walking to the car,

00:52:59.360 | perhaps hopefully not while driving,

00:53:00.880 | although people seem to do that.

00:53:02.920 | And yet for the introvert,

00:53:06.240 | I can imagine that it might feel inundating.

00:53:09.120 | It might feel kind of overwhelming.

00:53:12.280 | How do you feel about text messages?

00:53:15.140 | Because it's just yet another form of communication.

00:53:17.740 | I ask this for a very particular reason.

00:53:20.240 | I could imagine that extroverts love to text message.

00:53:23.360 | They love to receive and send text messages,

00:53:25.200 | that they can't stand a moment of downtime

00:53:27.320 | before boarding a plane.

00:53:28.480 | They're excited that there's yet another form

00:53:31.240 | of communication at all hours of the day and night,

00:53:33.920 | whereas introverts would be less excited to text message.

00:53:37.940 | I also ask this in part because I want to protect

00:53:41.600 | the variable latency to respond to text option

00:53:45.680 | that I've tried to exercise in my life,

00:53:48.000 | but that seems to, doesn't really seem to work.

00:53:52.360 | I think most people assume,

00:53:53.920 | if I walk up to you and I say hello

00:53:56.960 | and you wait 10 minutes to say hello back,

00:54:01.180 | I'll first think you're a little bit rude

00:54:03.600 | and then think you're a little strange.

00:54:05.360 | Whereas if I text you hello

00:54:06.880 | and I don't hear back right away,

00:54:08.820 | I might think you're busy.

00:54:11.000 | There's some wiggle room for interpretation,

00:54:14.680 | but I think what I'm really getting at here

00:54:17.040 | is do we tend to project the same latency expectation

00:54:21.000 | on texts that we ourselves embrace?

00:54:25.200 | This seems like an important source

00:54:26.840 | of potential miscommunication,

00:54:29.920 | misunderstanding, and maybe worse.

00:54:31.720 | - Yeah, I mean, certainly.

00:54:33.360 | You could imagine also, though,

00:54:34.560 | that the introvert might be more comfortable texting

00:54:37.760 | because it's less stimulation.

00:54:40.160 | So it could work.

00:54:41.000 | I think it could work in both directions.

00:54:43.000 | I think the problem with text messaging

00:54:45.960 | is that it's decreasing emotional intelligence

00:54:48.600 | because you really can't communicate the same way

00:54:52.360 | through a text message.

00:54:53.520 | - Thank you.

00:54:54.440 | - Can you repeat both those things again?

00:54:55.960 | - Yes, I'm happy to say it 100 times.

00:54:57.000 | - No, because I mean, I feel this wash of like relief

00:55:01.820 | and now I'm looking for the appropriate word

00:55:03.120 | 'cause I'm talking to you.

00:55:03.960 | So I feel like I have to use the exact appropriate word.

00:55:05.960 | I feel emancipated.

00:55:08.480 | - There you go.

00:55:09.400 | - Because I also feel that

00:55:12.520 | as texting has become more routine

00:55:16.120 | and has crossed a number of different lines

00:55:18.000 | of formality and informality, right?

00:55:21.000 | Not just with family members,

00:55:22.360 | but with coworkers and people we do and don't know

00:55:25.840 | and just met and have known for ages.

00:55:28.040 | You know, the jargon that we use with one group

00:55:30.760 | is different than the jargon we use with another.

00:55:33.280 | But I feel that texting in general

00:55:36.360 | has really degraded our ability to communicate verbally

00:55:40.000 | and in writing elsewhere.

00:55:42.200 | - There's good research on even like teens right now

00:55:45.920 | prefer to text than to be face-to-face.

00:55:48.760 | - That's so weird.

00:55:49.600 | - It's not helpful to building like good relationships.

00:55:52.740 | - Forgive me, I'm gonna interrupt you too.

00:55:54.840 | I have no idea what it's like to be a teenager in 2024.

00:56:00.800 | So I've caught myself.

00:56:02.180 | I have no place saying weird

00:56:04.120 | because there were things that I was doing as a teenager

00:56:05.980 | that I'm sure adults were like, that's weird.

00:56:08.560 | So I take that back.

00:56:10.040 | - But if you think about how disconnected and alienated

00:56:13.320 | and lonely people feel these days,

00:56:15.360 | that's not necessarily gonna help make things better.

00:56:18.880 | I have an example.

00:56:19.880 | You know, when my father passed away a number of years ago,

00:56:23.680 | I got all these text messages.

00:56:25.520 | I'm so sorry for your loss.

00:56:26.640 | I'm so sorry for your loss.

00:56:27.840 | I'm so sorry.

00:56:28.660 | From people who I thought were really good friends of mine,

00:56:31.120 | like 20, 30 year friends.

00:56:32.500 | I'm like, you're not gonna pick up the phone

00:56:34.880 | and like listen to my voice and ask me,

00:56:37.760 | like what can I do to support you right now?

00:56:40.360 | And it's so strange.

00:56:42.160 | And actually one of my closest friends, you know,

00:56:45.960 | didn't even text me.

00:56:46.960 | She texted my assistant.

00:56:49.420 | And said, please go into Mark's office

00:56:51.780 | and tell him that I love him.

00:56:53.980 | I'm like, this is really weird.

00:56:57.140 | Like we need to like, I picked up the phone.

00:56:58.820 | I'm like, what is happening right now?

00:57:00.940 | What is happening right now?

00:57:02.580 | And you know, people have preconceived notions.

00:57:04.980 | Maybe she thought I was overwhelmed

00:57:06.380 | and devastated and needed space.

00:57:08.540 | But at the same time, like make a phone call,

00:57:10.860 | leave me a voice message and give me, you know, some options.

00:57:13.900 | I had one friend, she's like,

00:57:15.580 | Mark, I know you're going through a lot right now.

00:57:17.740 | I just want you to know, like, if you wanna talk,

00:57:20.740 | anytime you wanna call me, call me.

00:57:22.860 | If you wanna text, text.

00:57:24.860 | If you want me to come out and stay with you

00:57:26.620 | for a couple of days, I'm there.

00:57:28.420 | - That's an awesome friend.

00:57:29.380 | - Yeah, that was like,

00:57:31.020 | that was exactly what I needed to hear.

00:57:32.900 | I wanted, you know, someone to offer,

00:57:37.380 | provide options or just do.

00:57:40.180 | But we're so hesitant these days.

00:57:42.300 | It's kind of scary to me.

00:57:45.780 | And it makes me fearful about the future

00:57:47.940 | of our relationships in general.

00:57:51.060 | - Yeah, I think this is such an important topic.

00:57:53.500 | I think because texting is so common

00:57:59.100 | and has been used to, you know,

00:58:02.100 | communicate so many different forms of human emotion

00:58:05.900 | in this broad bin format.

00:58:08.220 | I mean, how much can you really put into a text?

00:58:09.940 | I have some friends and co-workers who put,

00:58:12.780 | and you can voice text.

00:58:14.060 | - Which is like, then it's like.

00:58:15.540 | - Right, right.

00:58:16.380 | It's long and sometimes,

00:58:17.580 | well, there are issues with that too.

00:58:18.780 | I feel like it's enriched compared to texting

00:58:21.740 | unless the text is carefully written out, punctuated.

00:58:26.700 | I mean, we can see the care that people put

00:58:28.420 | into certain texts or emails that they tip,

00:58:31.060 | and most people, including myself, don't, right?

00:58:32.740 | Texting is a short form communication.

00:58:35.460 | Audio notes, voice memos seem like a step up.

00:58:39.420 | I think what this has probably done

00:58:41.180 | is that it's made the phone call

00:58:43.900 | or the, goodness, the handwritten card or letter,

00:58:47.980 | it's kind of raised that

00:58:48.940 | to the pinnacle of care of expression.

00:58:51.900 | - Completely.

00:58:52.820 | And by the way, text messaging, you know, it's fine.

00:58:54.940 | I always, you know, I'll be home in a little while,

00:58:57.020 | you know, like, can you please pick this up?

00:58:58.740 | Whatever, great.

00:59:00.140 | There's nothing wrong with text messaging,

00:59:02.220 | but when it replaces intimacy

00:59:05.660 | and when it replaces building, you know, strong bonds,

00:59:09.340 | that's where I see the largest problem.

00:59:12.100 | - Yeah, I didn't outright set this rule in my relationships,

00:59:15.460 | but I would say with my coworkers, family members,

00:59:17.900 | and in other kinds of relationships, there's a rule,

00:59:20.820 | which is that we don't argue over text.

00:59:23.380 | - Yeah, it's not cool.

00:59:24.220 | - But people do it a lot.

00:59:26.900 | - It's easier 'cause you don't have to feel the feelings.

00:59:30.220 | That's what it is.

00:59:32.940 | You know, it's, I can be psychologically distant

00:59:35.540 | from that person and say what I wanna say,

00:59:37.900 | where if I have to say it face-to-face,

00:59:39.660 | I'm gonna have to face a response,

00:59:41.260 | and that response may be very uncomfortable for me,

00:59:43.820 | and I probably don't have the strategies to deal with it

00:59:45.700 | 'cause I never learned them.

00:59:47.540 | - I mean, you and I are both aware

00:59:49.100 | that there is neural real estate

00:59:51.580 | specifically dedicated to the processing of faces

00:59:55.380 | and specifically to the processing of human faces

00:59:58.300 | and specifically to the processing of the emotions

01:00:01.620 | carried in human facial expressions.

01:00:04.300 | So, you know, this is a hardwired aspect to our species.

01:00:09.100 | - Which is diminishing.

01:00:10.300 | You know, there was a good study done about kids in camps,

01:00:14.100 | and they randomly assigned them to be with their phones,

01:00:16.660 | not with their phones,

01:00:17.500 | and showed that after a couple of weeks of camp,

01:00:19.980 | kids who had their phones decreased

01:00:23.380 | in their emotion perception skills.

01:00:25.660 | So, it makes a difference.

01:00:28.980 | You know, we need to give children and adults

01:00:33.420 | more face-to-face time.

01:00:35.020 | - Wild.

01:00:37.740 | - Talk about the energy pleasantness axes.

01:00:41.740 | - Sure.

01:00:42.580 | - And create a mental picture for people of what this is.

01:00:44.820 | I found this to be incredibly useful.

01:00:46.980 | If listeners or viewers have a pen or pencil and paper,

01:00:50.900 | you could map this out,

01:00:52.420 | but it's very easy to imagine in your mind.

01:00:55.500 | So, maybe you could just tell us on the vertical axis.

01:00:58.180 | - Yeah, so we have, you know,

01:01:00.220 | horizontal, we'll call that pleasantness.

01:01:03.500 | And this is going back to something else

01:01:05.300 | that we talked about earlier.

01:01:06.740 | It's called pleasantness, not goodness or badness.

01:01:10.900 | It's, in this moment, am I feeling highly pleasant,

01:01:15.420 | or am I feeling unpleasant?

01:01:16.780 | Do I feel like approaching my day, my colleagues?

01:01:20.900 | Do I feel like avoiding my colleagues?

01:01:23.060 | Do I feel safe and comfortable?

01:01:24.620 | Do I feel uncomfortable?

01:01:26.380 | That's the x-axis.

01:01:27.580 | And the way I like to think about it

01:01:29.220 | is that from the moment we wake up in the morning

01:01:31.420 | till the time we go to bed, that is activated.

01:01:34.500 | We're just, you know, you wake up in the morning

01:01:36.380 | and you're all of a sudden have a thought process,

01:01:38.460 | like, yes, I want to get out of bed.

01:01:40.060 | No, I want to pull the covers over my head.

01:01:42.540 | On the y-axis is energy or activation.

01:01:45.420 | - Okay, so vertical axis is energy.

01:01:47.460 | - The technical term is arousal or activation,

01:01:51.940 | but I think energy is a better term.

01:01:54.460 | And so, it's either you're highly energized

01:01:57.460 | or you're deactivated or low in energy.

01:02:00.300 | That's mental energy, it's physical energy.

01:02:02.940 | It's like kind of like how much fuel you have.

01:02:06.580 | And then we cross those two axes

01:02:08.860 | to create what we call in our work, the mood meter.

01:02:11.300 | And there are four quadrants.

01:02:12.500 | We got high pleasant, high energy, yellow.

01:02:16.140 | So think about emotions there.

01:02:17.620 | Happy, excited, elated, ecstatic, optimistic.

01:02:22.140 | We got the green, so that's low energy and pleasant still.

01:02:26.220 | That's the calm, content,

01:02:27.580 | tranquil, peaceful, relaxed quadrant.

01:02:30.340 | And then we have the unpleasant side.

01:02:32.340 | And I'm gonna repeat myself.

01:02:34.020 | It's not the bad emotions or the negative emotions.

01:02:37.140 | We're gonna call them unpleasant

01:02:38.700 | 'cause it's not generally pleasant to be sad

01:02:40.680 | or down or disappointed or hopeless or feeling despair,

01:02:43.660 | which is the blue or that low energy unpleasant.

01:02:46.740 | And then we got our red quadrant on the mood meter,

01:02:49.020 | which we'll call the high energy, highly unpleasant emotions

01:02:53.420 | which are feelings of anger and anxiety.

01:02:56.200 | So it's very helpful for people

01:02:59.460 | because when you're, like you even said this yourself,

01:03:03.460 | you're not really sure how you're feeling.

01:03:06.320 | And we know our inner lives are complex.

01:03:09.780 | So to be able to have a tool that has four quadrants

01:03:13.020 | where you're like, I don't know, am I pleasant?

01:03:15.260 | I guess I'm kind of pleasant, but my energy is low.

01:03:18.520 | All right, I'm in the green.

01:03:19.800 | All right, now what are my options there?

01:03:21.820 | No, I'm feeling quite energized and pleasant.

01:03:23.660 | Oh, what are my options there, et cetera?

01:03:26.620 | We find that for both preschoolers and CEOs,

01:03:31.020 | very helpful, extraordinarily helpful.

01:03:33.900 | And then going back to RULER for a minute,

01:03:37.720 | we might talk about the quadrant

01:03:39.780 | as being the R for self-awareness, right?

01:03:42.260 | Recognizing like, where am I in emotion space?

01:03:45.180 | And then you might ask yourself like,

01:03:48.140 | all right, well, what's going on?

01:03:49.820 | Why am I thinking that I'm in the yellow

01:03:52.740 | or red or blue or green?

01:03:54.260 | What just happened?

01:03:55.900 | What might be happening?

01:03:57.780 | Oh, I'm about to be on a podcast.

01:04:00.580 | Oh, I'm about to take a test.

01:04:02.540 | Oh, I'm about to go into a difficult meeting

01:04:04.180 | with a colleague.

01:04:05.020 | Oh, I'm about to go home and my partner's gonna be mad.

01:04:07.820 | Okay, now I understand why I'm feeling the way I'm feeling.

01:04:12.180 | I put a word to it, I'm more precise.

01:04:14.740 | I'm not enraged, I'm irritable.

01:04:17.780 | I'm not blissful, I'm just content.

01:04:20.180 | I'm not depressed, I'm just feeling down.

01:04:23.580 | I'm not overwhelmed, I'm just feeling a little uneasy.

01:04:27.260 | That's helpful because that helps you

01:04:30.540 | go into the E and the R of ruler, which is,

01:04:33.660 | all right, is this an emotion I need to express

01:04:36.700 | or do I keep it to myself?

01:04:38.780 | Does this emotion need help?

01:04:41.060 | Do I need support right now?

01:04:42.860 | Or am I okay with what I'm feeling?

01:04:45.140 | I have a great story about this actually.

01:04:47.420 | You know, we're born to be fixers, I think.

01:04:49.820 | You know, especially in my role, like as a teacher

01:04:52.620 | or if you're a parent, you know, with a kid

01:04:54.420 | or a teacher, partners, right?

01:04:56.540 | And so I go to visit this school where my program is.

01:05:00.060 | It's called Ruler also.

01:05:01.420 | And we're in about 5,000 schools now

01:05:03.100 | across the United States.

01:05:04.900 | And I'm visiting this school, kindergarten.

01:05:07.300 | And I do this check-in and the little boy says

01:05:10.100 | he's in the blue, which means unpleasant, low in energy.

01:05:13.340 | And of course, my little five-year-old,

01:05:14.740 | he's in the blue, I feel terrible.

01:05:16.380 | And then my fixer, like I wanna fix this kid,

01:05:18.620 | I don't want this kid to be in the blue.

01:05:20.820 | And so I know I can't do that 'cause it's part of the,

01:05:23.500 | it's like the rules of Ruler.

01:05:24.620 | You don't fix people's feelings.

01:05:26.900 | You don't fix people's feelings.

01:05:28.140 | So I just said to the boy, I'm just curious, you know,

01:05:33.140 | you need a strategy?

01:05:35.340 | And he goes, no.

01:05:36.180 | And I'm like, no, I'm just curious, you know,

01:05:39.460 | why don't you need a strategy?

01:05:40.300 | He goes, 'cause I know it's impermanent.

01:05:43.020 | - Wow.

01:05:44.380 | Maybe the next generations coming up

01:05:46.740 | are far more emotionally intelligent than ours, if I may.

01:05:51.500 | - If they are, if they get direct instruction,

01:05:53.220 | that's my vision for the world

01:05:54.900 | is that everyone gets an emotion education.

01:05:57.260 | And the boy says, no, you know, I know it's gonna go away.

01:06:01.700 | I'm fine.

01:06:02.780 | I'm like, okay, I'm just bad to this kid.

01:06:04.500 | Like, you're my teacher.

01:06:05.780 | You know, it was amazing.

01:06:07.180 | And to think that that five-year-old had that insight,

01:06:10.660 | that he had an unpleasant feeling

01:06:12.220 | that didn't need to be fixed, that it was okay,

01:06:14.700 | that he just knew he was in a little flunking,

01:06:16.460 | but he has already experienced that emotions are ephemeral,

01:06:20.140 | you know, and he can just let it go

01:06:21.540 | and he'll be in the green a little later

01:06:23.700 | or the red or whatever else.

01:06:25.700 | It was really kind of mind-blowing.

01:06:28.100 | - I was going to ask,

01:06:29.980 | how do we resolve the contradiction

01:06:32.600 | between the message to feel our feelings

01:06:36.460 | versus to just recognize that the feelings

01:06:39.460 | are moving through us as this five-year-old, gosh,

01:06:44.060 | was and is able to do.

01:06:46.340 | Because I feel like it gets to the heart

01:06:48.140 | of a lot of what we hear

01:06:49.720 | in the psychological and wellness space,

01:06:52.260 | which is, you know, feelings are just feelings.

01:06:54.740 | They're transient.

01:06:55.580 | They represent all sorts of things.

01:06:57.580 | And we can get to the biological underpinnings

01:06:59.380 | or the, you know, childhood trauma root cause underpinnings,

01:07:03.980 | all sorts of things, genetics for that matter.

01:07:07.140 | Should we feel our feelings in order to best recognize them?

01:07:11.180 | I would imagine, yes.

01:07:13.860 | Is there any value to suppressing our feelings

01:07:16.660 | or does that tend to just grow the feeling?

01:07:18.740 | What is known about this from the research literature?

01:07:21.780 | Because you see a lot of different opinions about this,

01:07:24.380 | but I'd like to know,

01:07:26.300 | have there been any experiments

01:07:27.460 | where people are placed into a negative or positive emotion

01:07:31.900 | or are experiencing a negative or positive emotion

01:07:34.660 | and then intentionally try to suppress it?

01:07:37.740 | Has there been any brain imaging?

01:07:39.300 | - Yeah, there is.

01:07:40.140 | - Measurement of galvanic skin response?

01:07:42.460 | Like, does the emotion grow

01:07:43.420 | or does the emotion shrink?

01:07:45.020 | - It tends to grow.

01:07:46.860 | There are cultural differences, just to be frank.

01:07:49.500 | But in, you know, Western culture,

01:07:52.140 | suppression tends not to have great outcomes.

01:07:54.660 | Finding ways to reappraise tends to be more helpful.

01:07:59.540 | This really gets into, though, for me, the core of my work.

01:08:03.300 | Because, you know, for 20 years of my life,

01:08:05.700 | I was running a center for emotional intelligence

01:08:07.820 | and teaching skills.

01:08:09.540 | And I would go around and I would see a lot of resistance,

01:08:13.060 | a lot of resistance.

01:08:14.180 | Whether it was, you know, the hedge fund manager

01:08:16.820 | or the superintendent of schools or a parent.

01:08:19.660 | You know, I've had fathers come up to me,

01:08:21.220 | say things like, you know, Mark, you're so vulnerable.

01:08:23.540 | Like, you shared your whole story about being bullied.

01:08:25.780 | Like, I would never, in my wildest dream,

01:08:28.780 | ever share with my own son that I was bullied as a kid.

01:08:32.060 | And I'm like, tell me more, of course.

01:08:34.900 | You know, I'm a psychologist.

01:08:36.220 | And in the end, you know, what, you know,

01:08:38.780 | the guy was afraid that his son would think he was weak.

01:08:42.660 | And so we have a mindset about feelings

01:08:45.660 | that we have to talk about.

01:08:47.020 | People have feelings about their feelings.

01:08:49.580 | Sometimes we call those meta-emotions or meta-feelings.

01:08:53.020 | Sometimes it's just that happy is good,

01:08:56.500 | anger is bad, that simple.

01:08:59.260 | My whole recent research has focused on

01:09:02.660 | something I call permission to feel.

01:09:04.460 | You know, you know a little bit about my own story.

01:09:07.300 | I had a pretty rough childhood that included abuse.

01:09:10.900 | It included a lot of bullying.

01:09:13.060 | And I had two parents who loved me.

01:09:15.340 | But, you know, my mother was a very anxious woman

01:09:18.460 | who never had strategies.

01:09:20.180 | So, you know, she was always saying,

01:09:21.900 | I'm having a nervous breakdown.

01:09:23.180 | And she'd lock herself in her room

01:09:24.580 | and she wouldn't come out for a few hours.

01:09:26.460 | My father was, as we might call today, you know,

01:09:29.820 | the tough guy who was kind of toxically masculine.

01:09:32.740 | So I need to go toughen up.

01:09:34.500 | He even said to me once, you know,

01:09:36.220 | he's gone now and we have a good,

01:09:37.780 | we had a good relationship, but I'll never forget.

01:09:40.020 | He said, you know, son, I used to beat kids up like you.

01:09:42.660 | - He said that?

01:09:43.500 | - He did.

01:09:45.060 | And he didn't, I mean, he thought that was a message

01:09:47.340 | that I needed to hear to toughen up.

01:09:49.500 | Right, that was, he was doing that through love.

01:09:51.700 | I mean, it was not emotionally intelligent parenting.

01:09:54.700 | But that's, that was the way he thought.

01:09:56.940 | And, you know, he did love me.

01:09:58.420 | He just didn't know how to be a parent in that way.

01:10:01.980 | And so think about that.

01:10:05.780 | Bullied, shame, fear, abused,

01:10:09.260 | all kinds of stuff going on in my head.

01:10:11.300 | Mom having nervous breakdowns, father toughen up.

01:10:15.380 | What happens?

01:10:17.020 | You suppress, you deny, you ignore, you eat.

01:10:21.660 | You do all kinds of weird behaviors

01:10:23.860 | because you have nowhere to go with your feelings.

01:10:26.340 | And I fear that way too many people

01:10:29.980 | feel that way right now.

01:10:31.700 | And I have good research to show that.

01:10:34.260 | You know, you've read my book,

01:10:35.980 | you know I had an Uncle Marvin.

01:10:37.900 | He was a middle school teacher who, you know,

01:10:41.020 | by some wave of a magic wand

01:10:43.260 | was staying with my family one summer when I was 12.

01:10:46.420 | And he noticed something in my facial expression,

01:10:48.540 | my body language, he knew something was off.

01:10:51.620 | And he was the first adult who sat with me and said,

01:10:53.780 | "Hey Mark, how are you feeling?"

01:10:57.220 | And I don't know if it was his facial expression,

01:11:01.780 | his body language, his vocal tone,

01:11:03.420 | but that was the opener for me.

01:11:06.340 | I'm not doing so well.

01:11:07.940 | I don't really like life very much.

01:11:09.980 | I'm scared.

01:11:11.580 | And he didn't say I'm gonna have a nervous breakdown

01:11:13.780 | or toughen up.

01:11:15.660 | He said, "We're gonna get through this.

01:11:17.940 | "I gotcha, I'm with you."

01:11:19.580 | And it's really interesting to me because, you know,

01:11:24.620 | I feel like we're so focused on skill building,

01:11:27.060 | which is really important.

01:11:29.100 | But I wanna take a step back and say,

01:11:31.220 | are we giving ourselves, are we giving our colleagues,

01:11:34.500 | our partners, our children, the permission to feel?

01:11:37.620 | And I feel like a lot of people don't have that permission.

01:11:43.140 | Now, my research shows with tens of thousands of people

01:11:46.020 | across cultures, that only about a third of adults

01:11:50.620 | felt that they had someone when they were young

01:11:53.660 | who created the conditions for them

01:11:55.100 | to have permission to feel.

01:11:56.420 | I mean, 70% of the people walking around here right now

01:12:00.780 | in our corporations, in our schools, in our homes,

01:12:03.780 | 30% felt like they had that.

01:12:06.740 | And then you wonder,

01:12:09.020 | what do you think the characteristics are of these people?

01:12:11.500 | The characteristics of the Uncle Marvin's or Aunt Maria's

01:12:14.900 | or the colleague at work, by the way.

01:12:16.780 | This also works in the adult workforce.

01:12:19.620 | You can have an emotion mentor or a feelings coach at work.

01:12:24.620 | There's three characteristics.

01:12:26.740 | Do you wanna take a guess?

01:12:29.780 | - I'm guessing empathically attuned.

01:12:31.820 | - Okay.

01:12:32.860 | - Although that's a, for those that know,

01:12:36.060 | empathy involves a bunch of subcategories.

01:12:39.300 | So I wanna acknowledge that.

01:12:40.540 | Empathically attuned.

01:12:41.760 | I'm guessing that they have themselves

01:12:45.740 | some high emotional intelligence.

01:12:47.580 | And the third is,

01:12:50.780 | gosh, my hope is that there be a high situational awareness.

01:12:59.740 | - Yeah.

01:13:00.580 | - Right, because your uncle needed to see something subtle

01:13:03.580 | in your facial expression, or maybe not so subtle,

01:13:06.100 | but everyone else was missing it.

01:13:08.060 | But to be able to detect that there was something

01:13:11.220 | that really need, it was like a silent cry for help.

01:13:15.180 | - Yeah.

01:13:16.500 | You're getting it, like you're really nuanced,

01:13:18.540 | which is, that's why you're a scientist too.

01:13:21.300 | The three broad characteristics,

01:13:23.980 | the first one that shows up cross-culturally,

01:13:27.020 | nonjudgmental.

01:13:29.380 | Like when we think about the people

01:13:30.820 | who gave us permission to feel,

01:13:32.820 | they just had no judgment.

01:13:34.340 | They let me be who I can be, or who I am.

01:13:38.540 | The second is empathic,

01:13:40.780 | and kind of coupled with compassionate,

01:13:42.740 | which is kind of a different form of empathy.

01:13:45.100 | The third, primarily, is active listening.

01:13:47.760 | People wanna be around people who don't judge them,

01:13:52.860 | who listen actively, and show that they care.

01:13:55.700 | It's that simple.

01:13:57.540 | And I'll tell you, it's really interesting to me,

01:14:00.340 | because I do a lot of public speaking,

01:14:02.940 | and often my new strategy is I do surveys

01:14:06.000 | where I'm gonna be presenting,

01:14:07.260 | so I can present the audience themselves with their data.

01:14:10.300 | And so I'm giving this speech to a bunch of adult parents,

01:14:14.620 | high school parents.

01:14:16.380 | And I'm showing the data from them.

01:14:18.060 | They filled out the survey.

01:14:20.220 | Nonjudgmental, active listening, empathy, compassion.

01:14:24.940 | And I show, just like my national study,

01:14:28.060 | a third of you said yes, two-thirds of you said no.

01:14:31.260 | So this mom, and she just impulsively jumps out of her seat.

01:14:36.060 | She's like, "I'm having an epiphany."

01:14:37.700 | I'm like, "Okay."

01:14:39.100 | And she's like, "I know.

01:14:41.320 | "I'm certain that my daughter has an Uncle Marvin.

01:14:45.080 | "I know it.

01:14:45.980 | "And I'm also certain that my son doesn't.

01:14:48.960 | "And you know something, Mark?

01:14:49.920 | "I am leaving your presentation today,

01:14:51.620 | "and I am finding my son, his Uncle Marvin."

01:14:54.880 | And I'm like, "Lady, it could be you."

01:14:59.460 | And it was like--

01:15:00.300 | - Right, so interesting, it's kind of going right by her.

01:15:01.580 | - It's like outsourcing.

01:15:02.940 | - Right.

01:15:03.780 | - Like there's your karate teacher,

01:15:04.600 | there's your feelings mentor.

01:15:05.900 | And it's interesting to me,

01:15:08.740 | and I push on this in my research now,

01:15:11.340 | what is the resistance?

01:15:13.420 | Like what are people so afraid of?

01:15:15.580 | I mean, they're so afraid of feelings,

01:15:17.900 | their own and their children's or their partner's.

01:15:21.340 | And so I ask, you know, I push on this.

01:15:23.620 | And what's really interesting and sad to me

01:15:27.940 | is that adults today, the two barriers,

01:15:31.620 | I'm gonna now I'm gonna push you again.

01:15:32.700 | What do you think the two things that get in the way

01:15:34.900 | of giving other people permission to feel?

01:15:38.120 | - This is actually where my next question was going.

01:15:41.900 | So I'll just ask the question in the form of an answer.

01:15:46.540 | Is this like Jeopardy?

01:15:47.540 | I guess that's what you do.

01:15:48.540 | No, it's the other way around at Jeopardy.

01:15:49.980 | Sorry, you can see how many episodes of Jeopardy

01:15:51.800 | I've watched.

01:15:52.640 | That if people don't have adequate emotional boundaries

01:15:59.780 | and they are maybe even too empathically attuned,

01:16:05.000 | that someone they care about experiencing anger

01:16:10.260 | or sadness or frustration, maybe even with them,

01:16:13.460 | would shift their own emotions

01:16:16.460 | and not make them able to be available

01:16:19.060 | with the three qualities that you listed off before,

01:16:21.660 | in particular, non-judgment.

01:16:23.460 | Because now it's personal.

01:16:25.820 | And so it would undermine the process.

01:16:28.180 | - You're right there.

01:16:29.520 | The first one though,

01:16:31.900 | is just a really interesting one, just time.

01:16:34.780 | People, I don't have the time.

01:16:36.500 | You don't have the time to be non-judgmental?

01:16:38.240 | Like, can you talk to me about that one, please?

01:16:40.860 | - It's actually the case

01:16:41.700 | that we don't have the time to be judgmental.

01:16:43.660 | It's far too energetically costly.

01:16:45.140 | - Yeah, I agree.

01:16:47.920 | The second really goes back to the skills.

01:16:51.320 | So I've had parents say things like,

01:16:53.120 | I'm afraid to ask my child how they're feeling

01:16:56.380 | 'cause I'm not gonna be able to handle it.

01:16:58.480 | I mean, think about that for a minute.

01:17:01.600 | I'm not gonna be able to handle it.

01:17:02.840 | So you'd rather your son or daughter

01:17:04.800 | suppress their fears or whatever they're feeling

01:17:08.720 | because you haven't developed the skills

01:17:10.360 | that you need to help co-regulate and support them.

01:17:13.640 | You know, this is again, going back to my mission, vision,

01:17:17.440 | is that we need a world

01:17:18.760 | where everyone gets an emotion education.

01:17:20.960 | Preschool to high school,

01:17:22.720 | and it's gotta continue in college,

01:17:24.320 | and it's gotta continue in the workforce,

01:17:25.880 | and it's gotta continue as we grow older

01:17:28.160 | because as a 54-year-old person right now

01:17:31.160 | who leads a large group of people, COVID hits.

01:17:34.840 | I had a complete meltdown.

01:17:36.440 | I didn't know how to lead during COVID.

01:17:38.400 | I was trying to figure it out.

01:17:39.760 | I was doing Zoom meetings and crazy stuff,

01:17:42.640 | and then my mother-in-law got stuck with me,

01:17:44.760 | and that was a real kind of wake-up call

01:17:46.640 | in terms of like relationship building.

01:17:48.600 | I mean, it was really rough for me, actually.

01:17:50.720 | She came for a wedding.

01:17:52.800 | One of my colleagues got married on March 3rd of 2020.

01:17:57.040 | Well, my mother-in-law is from Panama,

01:17:59.400 | and so just so you know,

01:18:00.840 | all flights to Panama got canceled by March 13th,

01:18:04.080 | and they didn't open until September.

01:18:06.440 | So we had this 81-year-old lovely, lovely woman,

01:18:10.360 | but like, you know, it's a lot

01:18:12.360 | for your mother-in-law to live with you for eight months.

01:18:14.880 | One little quick side story for this.

01:18:16.320 | I just, I think it's relevant.

01:18:18.920 | So like, it was getting really, you know,

01:18:21.200 | I'm working from home.

01:18:22.640 | My mother-in-law was there.

01:18:23.560 | She wants me to make her a cappuccino every morning,

01:18:26.560 | which I like to do for the first week,

01:18:28.920 | but like after the fourth month,

01:18:30.160 | like learn how to use the machine,

01:18:32.320 | and I don't want to do it myself.

01:18:33.600 | I'm afraid of the machine.

01:18:34.520 | I'm like-

01:18:35.560 | - Sorry, I'm not, I didn't mean to laugh out loud.

01:18:38.000 | - That's all right.

01:18:38.840 | - Yeah, those cappuccino machines can be scary.

01:18:40.160 | - They can be, but like growth mindset, right?

01:18:42.080 | Like watch me, I'll help you do it.

01:18:43.920 | No, I want you to make the coffee.

01:18:45.240 | I'm like, you gotta make your own coffee.

01:18:47.200 | You got, like, I told you,

01:18:48.320 | I don't like people in the morning.

01:18:49.600 | You gotta make your own coffee.

01:18:51.240 | Anyhow, one night we're at dinner,

01:18:54.000 | and she looks at me, and she speaks Spanish.

01:18:57.480 | I speak Spanish.

01:18:58.400 | And so she said, you know, in Spanish,

01:19:01.440 | are you really the director of the Center

01:19:03.960 | for Emotional Intelligence?

01:19:06.280 | And I looked at her and I'm like, not tonight, not tonight.

01:19:10.680 | Like it's, we're going down, and it was a mess.

01:19:13.920 | Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to laugh.

01:19:15.520 | I laughed before you said it was a mess.

01:19:17.080 | I just, your impression of the question.

01:19:19.640 | It's a, maybe it drew to mind some experiences of mine.

01:19:22.400 | - Yeah, I mean, and there it was.

01:19:24.200 | Like, yes, my day job is I run a Center

01:19:26.880 | for Emotional Intelligence, but like I'm a human being

01:19:29.360 | who had strong emotions and I didn't have the strategies.

01:19:33.200 | And I needed to cultivate a whole new set

01:19:35.640 | of regulation strategies to deal

01:19:37.320 | with that new aspect of my life.

01:19:41.640 | - In thinking about people that can really help us

01:19:44.540 | by asking us the right questions,

01:19:46.360 | or in thinking about how we can ask people

01:19:49.000 | the right questions to really help them

01:19:51.200 | and us gain an understanding of what they're experiencing.

01:19:54.500 | I'm recalling numerous instances in my life

01:19:57.800 | where there seemed to be the requirement

01:20:00.920 | for an excuse, like an activity excuse.

01:20:05.160 | I currently have a very good relationship with my father,

01:20:09.200 | but I remember when there was a time

01:20:10.780 | where we had to talk about science or watches

01:20:13.680 | as an entry point to any conversation,

01:20:16.960 | let alone about emotions, right?

01:20:18.920 | And he's done a lot of work.

01:20:20.180 | I've done a lot of work.

01:20:21.020 | And I like to think we're much,

01:20:21.960 | we are much further down the road.

01:20:23.760 | We enjoy a very close relationship

01:20:26.680 | as a consequence of that work in part.

01:20:29.040 | But I think what you're describing really makes me realize

01:20:34.040 | that no matter who anybody is or what their age

01:20:38.140 | or what their background, that as human beings,

01:20:41.700 | we don't just need permission,

01:20:43.000 | but we really should think about just having a conversation

01:20:47.560 | about how others feel.

01:20:50.200 | - 100%.

01:20:51.040 | - As opposed to making an activity a prerequisite

01:20:55.560 | for that conversation.

01:20:57.200 | And as I say this,

01:20:58.640 | I realize some people are probably thinking,

01:21:00.320 | oh boy, okay, so we're just going to sit around

01:21:01.820 | and talk about our feelings.

01:21:03.200 | But my short response to that is yes,

01:21:06.020 | because when you don't do that,

01:21:08.280 | then I can say from experience,

01:21:10.780 | then pretty soon you're not participating

01:21:13.660 | in those activities with that person.

01:21:15.340 | And potentially with anybody, you know, I mean,

01:21:18.020 | I'm not saying that people become so unpleasant

01:21:19.580 | to themselves and others that they don't have any friends.

01:21:22.260 | I mean, okay, that's an extreme case.

01:21:24.420 | But what I hear in the backdrop of everything you're saying

01:21:28.180 | is that it's not just about an education.

01:21:30.740 | It's really about a practice of giving ourselves

01:21:35.160 | and others permission to simply have a conversation

01:21:38.180 | about what one is feeling as an exercise for both people

01:21:41.860 | to be able to explore that in the correct way.

01:21:44.520 | And there is a correct way.

01:21:46.140 | And you've described the ruler approach as one.

01:21:48.420 | - Yeah, there are strategies.

01:21:50.020 | Correctness is a tricky term.

01:21:52.060 | You know, it's a game.

01:21:53.540 | It's no matter what, it's going to be a game

01:21:55.140 | because you can't predict how people will respond.

01:21:57.780 | But I couldn't agree with you more.

01:21:59.540 | I'll give you another example.

01:22:02.680 | My father, who like you,

01:22:05.160 | we ended up having an excellent relationship.

01:22:08.000 | My mom died when I was young and he remarried

01:22:12.080 | and he had moved to upstate New York

01:22:15.240 | and he had this lovely wife.

01:22:17.040 | And she called me about two years after they were married.

01:22:20.840 | And she's like, "Mark, I can't take it anymore.

01:22:22.520 | "Your father is driving me out of my mind."

01:22:24.800 | I'm like, "What do you mean?

01:22:25.640 | "He's angry all the time.

01:22:26.940 | "He's just really making me miserable."

01:22:29.600 | And she's like, "I think, you know,

01:22:31.280 | "I might have to leave him."

01:22:32.560 | And I'm thinking to myself,

01:22:33.840 | oh my goodness, like, you know,

01:22:35.740 | he's older and if she leaves him,

01:22:37.200 | he's going to want to move in with me.

01:22:38.320 | So like, road trip.

01:22:40.120 | And so I went on a road trip,

01:22:42.960 | took my father out to the local coffee shop.

01:22:45.280 | We're sitting down.

01:22:46.440 | I can't take it anymore.

01:22:48.000 | This is what he's telling me.

01:22:48.840 | I can't take it anymore.

01:22:50.600 | I'm like, "Dad, like, tell me more."

01:22:53.360 | I can't take it anymore.

01:22:54.320 | I'm like, "That's not enough information, Dad.

01:22:56.280 | "Like, what can't you take anymore?"

01:22:58.720 | In the end, what I learned was that

01:23:01.440 | my father has three sons.

01:23:03.120 | All of us have doctorates.

01:23:04.560 | We're all independent.

01:23:05.640 | We're all successful.

01:23:07.120 | Her children were having struggles

01:23:09.280 | and she was needing to babysit her grandchildren.

01:23:13.880 | My father didn't like that.

01:23:15.200 | My sons are all taking care of themselves.

01:23:17.520 | You know, I want, you know,

01:23:19.160 | he's not realizing this, but what he's saying is,

01:23:21.920 | "I don't like the idea of you spending so much time

01:23:24.400 | "with these grandkids 'cause I want your attention."

01:23:27.000 | Now, why do I tell you that?

01:23:29.360 | 'Cause after my father and I spoke

01:23:30.760 | for about a half hour about this,

01:23:32.680 | I said, "Dad, you know, it sounds like you're jealous."

01:23:36.280 | He's like, "What do you mean I'm jealous?"

01:23:38.880 | I said, "Well, you're upset that Jane, your wife,

01:23:42.800 | "wants to spend more time with the grandkids

01:23:45.080 | "and that's not time with you."

01:23:46.880 | In my emotion lexicon, I didn't use that term,

01:23:51.240 | you know, that's jealousy.

01:23:52.680 | I can't believe you're telling me I'm jealous.

01:23:54.040 | I'm like, "I'm not telling you you're jealous.

01:23:55.320 | "You're telling me you're jealous.

01:23:56.320 | "I'm just giving you the concept."

01:24:00.040 | He starts crying, hysterical crying,

01:24:02.840 | 'cause he had awareness for the first time

01:24:06.640 | of his emotional experience.

01:24:07.840 | He was so emotionally illiterate.

01:24:11.120 | He just didn't know what he was feeling

01:24:12.920 | and he was just acting out.

01:24:14.480 | Once he sat down and understood the experience

01:24:17.600 | of like wife wants to be with child

01:24:20.640 | 'cause they need support, I'm not happy with that

01:24:23.440 | 'cause I don't know what to do with myself

01:24:24.600 | when she's spending time with the grandkids.

01:24:27.520 | It's jealousy.

01:24:29.400 | All of a sudden, we had a pathway to helping him regulate.

01:24:32.800 | Now, I'll finish this story by saying

01:24:34.920 | about two months later, Jane, she calls me.

01:24:38.120 | She's like, "Mark, I don't know what you did

01:24:39.520 | "at that coffee shop, but like your father's a changed man."

01:24:42.680 | And you know, I don't take all the credit,

01:24:46.000 | take some credit, but it just shows you the power

01:24:50.400 | of emotional self-awareness.

01:24:52.120 | Like once you really know how you're feeling,

01:24:54.520 | it can be liberating and then you can figure out

01:24:57.880 | what you need to do with those feelings.

01:24:59.960 | - I'm letting that really sink in

01:25:01.240 | because I think these days we hear a lot about therapy.

01:25:04.780 | Fortunately, in my opinion, I think,

01:25:08.600 | and I'm gonna get the numbers only crudely right,

01:25:11.360 | but they're certainly in the right direction and amplitude.

01:25:14.440 | There was a survey done, I believe at Stanford,

01:25:19.080 | asking students how willing they would be to seek therapy

01:25:22.760 | if they were dealing with an emotionally trying time.

01:25:25.120 | And this was in the, I think, early and mid 90s.

01:25:27.520 | And the numbers that came back were very low,

01:25:30.160 | somewhere in the teens or 20% of students polled.

01:25:33.340 | Whereas nowadays it's in excess of 80 or 90%.

01:25:37.680 | - It's very high. - Yeah.

01:25:38.720 | And I think that's representative of a lot of-

01:25:40.680 | - Can I give you another example of this?

01:25:42.480 | So here I am, a professor at Yale,

01:25:45.840 | teaching courses on emotional intelligence.

01:25:48.320 | Now I should just let you know there's resistance oftentimes

01:25:51.080 | and my students are fantastic in general,

01:25:53.480 | but there's a resistance to wanting to learn

01:25:56.620 | about emotional intelligence.

01:25:57.840 | What they want to do in general is get an A in my course,

01:26:01.080 | but they don't, and they want to memorize like,

01:26:02.800 | oh, so the theory was written in 1990 by Mayer and Salovey.

01:26:06.600 | - This is a pre-med course?

01:26:07.960 | - No, this is just general undergrad.

01:26:09.400 | - That was a joke against pre-meds.

01:26:10.600 | Love the pre-meds, but they are very grade conscious.

01:26:13.760 | - I have stories about that too.

01:26:15.880 | But, and so I say, no,

01:26:19.160 | this is about you developing the skills.

01:26:21.360 | Like this is gonna be,

01:26:22.180 | you're gonna think really critically about,

01:26:23.760 | and part of the essays you're gonna write

01:26:25.260 | are gonna be your action plans

01:26:26.640 | for building your own emotional intelligence.

01:26:28.920 | I don't want to do that.

01:26:29.760 | I want to, you know, get the test and take it,

01:26:31.980 | you know, get the A.

01:26:33.680 | After a month, I get them bought in.

01:26:36.380 | Interestingly though,

01:26:40.360 | and my, 'cause I make my courses into research

01:26:43.560 | and I ask them to fill out surveys,

01:26:45.800 | how they're feeling, every class.

01:26:48.320 | Number one emotion, stressed.

01:26:50.420 | Everybody's stressed.

01:26:51.720 | I'm thinking to myself, like stressed out,

01:26:53.520 | like you got a good life here,

01:26:54.920 | but nevertheless stressed, you know,

01:26:56.900 | I have to have empathy, I get it.

01:26:59.040 | But I decided that I really had a hard time.

01:27:01.580 | Remember, I defined stress as having too many demands

01:27:04.860 | and not enough resources.

01:27:06.900 | I didn't feel like that was the actual feeling.

01:27:09.740 | Now, who am I to judge?

01:27:11.220 | But one way to get better at it

01:27:13.720 | was to have my students do journaling.

01:27:17.080 | When you're stressed, write about it.

01:27:19.860 | What's on your mind?

01:27:20.700 | What are you thinking about?

01:27:22.200 | Take a guess what the number one emotion was

01:27:24.680 | after we did the qualitative analysis.

01:27:27.320 | Of journaling about stress?

01:27:28.760 | Yeah, what they were really feeling.

01:27:31.200 | Fear.

01:27:32.120 | Okay.

01:27:32.960 | Envy.

01:27:36.800 | Oh, interesting.

01:27:37.960 | Envy.

01:27:38.800 | Envy.

01:27:39.680 | Your father is richer than my father.

01:27:42.020 | Your mother is more connected than my mother.

01:27:44.520 | You've got better hips.

01:27:45.680 | You've got better lips.

01:27:47.200 | It was endless social comparisons, right?

01:27:50.720 | And so envy, right, is wanting what someone else has.

01:27:53.920 | Anxiety is about uncertainty.

01:27:55.680 | Stress is about too many demands, not enough resources.

01:27:58.840 | And so here I was, you know, having deeper knowledge

01:28:02.840 | of what was the underlying feeling or emotion

01:28:05.360 | that they were having, which was envy, not stress.

01:28:08.440 | And so I had a conversation with the counseling department

01:28:10.920 | and I made a joke about it and I was like, you know,

01:28:13.420 | what's our university's envy reduction program?

01:28:16.120 | You know, it wasn't, you know,

01:28:18.320 | the most popular, you know, conversation.

01:28:21.160 | And I just think it's interesting to think about it

01:28:24.500 | in terms of helping people to learn what to do

01:28:27.740 | with their emotions, you know.

01:28:29.700 | Right now, you know, there's a mindfulness craze.

01:28:32.320 | Everyone's doing mindfulness and I do mindfulness

01:28:34.740 | and I appreciate mindfulness.

01:28:36.600 | But let me tell you, you know,

01:28:37.880 | when you're feeling chronic envy, you know,

01:28:41.280 | doing breathing exercises is not gonna decrease the envy.

01:28:44.360 | You're gonna have to work on your construction

01:28:46.400 | in your mind of your relationships with people.

01:28:49.240 | And so I just feel so strongly that we help people

01:28:53.400 | pause a little bit, reflect a little bit,

01:28:57.640 | think about how they're feeling

01:28:59.200 | as a pathway to just having wellbeing.

01:29:02.980 | - Your joke about envy reduction

01:29:06.320 | is something I take very seriously.

01:29:09.240 | We did a four episode series with Dr. Paul Conti,

01:29:12.520 | who's a world expert in, he's a psychiatrist

01:29:15.960 | and among the very, very best psychiatrists in the world

01:29:20.960 | by many accounts.

01:29:22.580 | And he discussed during that series,

01:29:26.720 | but also on other podcasts he's appeared in,

01:29:29.560 | such as my friend Lex Friedman's podcast,

01:29:31.600 | that envy is actually at the root

01:29:35.360 | of much of the evil in the world.

01:29:37.760 | Small scale evil, large scale evil,

01:29:40.620 | and a lot of the despair that people feel.

01:29:42.920 | And I think it's a word that isn't discussed enough

01:29:47.240 | because like the sound of it, it's kind of gross, right?

01:29:52.200 | Envious, envy, nobody wants to be associated with it.

01:29:55.100 | But fortunately, Dr. Conti described it

01:29:58.760 | as a natural human emotion in some cases,

01:30:03.100 | but I had no idea.

01:30:04.960 | And I don't know if he knows,

01:30:06.080 | but maybe he does through his clinical work,

01:30:07.800 | but I'll certainly pass along what you just said to him,

01:30:10.160 | that so much of the stress that I have to imagine

01:30:14.800 | good people and these students are after all,

01:30:17.720 | I imagine they're not evil.

01:30:20.160 | - Very few.

01:30:21.000 | - Not characterologically evil, let's hope,

01:30:23.340 | are experiencing envy.

01:30:25.920 | The wish to have more of what somebody else has,

01:30:28.720 | maybe something specific,

01:30:30.120 | which of course gets to these more common phrases

01:30:33.480 | of people feeling that they are not enough.

01:30:35.880 | - Yeah, which is going back to contentment.

01:30:38.920 | - Right, actually, oh, I didn't draw the arrow.

01:30:41.320 | Now I thought I drew the arrow.

01:30:43.680 | Between contentment and envy, right?

01:30:45.520 | So if one wants to combat envy,

01:30:48.040 | you can imagine that a program to combat envy

01:30:50.440 | might be perceived, if one didn't understand it,

01:30:54.000 | as a calling for people to just be content with less,

01:30:58.740 | which is not what we want, right?

01:31:00.640 | I mean, we want ambitious people in the world.

01:31:02.480 | We want people aspiring.

01:31:03.760 | We want people to have growth mindset.

01:31:05.800 | And yet we don't want people to be stressed

01:31:08.640 | and have a pervasive feeling of envy inside either.

01:31:11.440 | So how would you make inroads into envy?

01:31:14.120 | - Well, I think, again, like all emotions,

01:31:18.520 | envy is not a bad emotion.

01:31:20.960 | You know, the way I think about emotions as being,

01:31:23.600 | you know, when we need to get help with our emotions

01:31:26.880 | is when, if it's an unpleasant one,

01:31:30.240 | it's intense and long duration, right?

01:31:34.760 | Momentary envy, you know, I get envious all the time.

01:31:36.800 | I get envious, I watched Ted Talks.

01:31:38.360 | I'm like, "Oh, that timing was amazing."

01:31:40.560 | You know, and I'm like, "I'm gonna try that out."

01:31:43.040 | You know, so I use that envy of someone else's skill,

01:31:47.360 | you know, as a way to grow.

01:31:49.240 | - How does that differ?

01:31:50.080 | Sorry to turn your own work back on you

01:31:52.800 | from admiration or inspiration.

01:31:54.880 | Like, wow, they, you know, like the-

01:31:56.960 | - Yeah, that's what I'm getting at.

01:31:58.640 | So that's the difference between, you know,

01:32:00.680 | the envy that leans toward admiration

01:32:03.840 | versus the envy, like what you're referring to,

01:32:06.280 | that leads to resentment, right?

01:32:08.840 | It's if I hate you because you have, you know, what I want.

01:32:13.840 | Now we're talking, you know, pathological envy potentially.

01:32:20.200 | And so that's the self-awareness piece.

01:32:22.680 | You know, that's the part of really getting, you know,

01:32:25.680 | that differentiation of emotion, that granularity.

01:32:28.480 | Because again, it's like anger, it's not a bad emotion.

01:32:33.200 | Anger's okay, there's reasons to be angry in the world.

01:32:36.720 | When we get treated unfairly, we should be angry.

01:32:39.160 | Doesn't mean that we have to be dysregulated, right?

01:32:41.720 | There's an assumption that we make

01:32:43.400 | that when we experience unpleasant, strong emotions

01:32:46.160 | like anxiety or anger, you know,

01:32:48.880 | that we're gonna be dysregulated.

01:32:50.800 | I have a whole new relationship with my anxiety.

01:32:54.920 | Very different relationship.

01:32:56.200 | I mean, I spent years working on it.

01:32:58.120 | I notice it and I'm like, "Hi, anxiety,

01:33:00.880 | how are you doing today?"

01:33:02.200 | And then it just, it's okay.

01:33:03.640 | I can even be giving, you know, here with you

01:33:06.320 | or giving a speech or teaching, have that anxiety come in

01:33:10.000 | and not allow it to have power over me

01:33:12.800 | because I can observe it, I can welcome it.

01:33:16.360 | And then if it's in the way, I can say,

01:33:17.800 | "You know, anxiety, you're gonna go back there

01:33:19.520 | for a little while."

01:33:20.360 | Or, "You know, Mark, I mean, sometimes, you know,

01:33:22.840 | when I give speeches, like it's the same speech, right?

01:33:25.040 | You're like redundant."

01:33:26.320 | And it's like, "I can't believe

01:33:27.480 | I have to talk about this again."

01:33:29.320 | And then I'll look at the audience and I'm like,

01:33:30.760 | "It's their first time."

01:33:32.600 | You know, and it's like, all of a sudden,

01:33:34.200 | like my despair turns into optimism and hope.

01:33:37.640 | That's all regulation.

01:33:40.120 | - Conflict resolution is something that I think a lot about

01:33:44.600 | in any situation where emotions are discussed.

01:33:48.560 | And it brings me back to this earlier situation

01:33:51.040 | you were talking about where this woman said

01:33:54.000 | that she was gonna find her child,

01:33:56.320 | somebody to help him to intervene.

01:33:59.960 | And you were thinking, "Well, why not you?"

01:34:01.440 | - His feelings meant she was gonna go, you know,

01:34:03.680 | buy his feelings mentor.

01:34:05.240 | - Right, exactly.

01:34:06.280 | And now there's a whole field of feelings mentors

01:34:09.280 | cropping up.

01:34:10.120 | That actually wouldn't be such a bad thing.

01:34:11.000 | - Hey, that's another one of my goals, so.

01:34:12.600 | - It wouldn't be such a bad thing.

01:34:13.840 | - Say it louder.

01:34:14.680 | - I like that goal.

01:34:15.520 | So when we were talking about that,

01:34:18.720 | one of the things that surfaced was this notion

01:34:21.520 | that some people have a natural empathic attunement

01:34:25.280 | or the emotion that the other person is feeling

01:34:28.060 | is a negative one and it's about us or about them.

01:34:32.000 | And as a consequence, we're not able to really be present

01:34:36.720 | to help the person the way that you helped your dad.

01:34:38.840 | Like he was frustrated with his wife.

01:34:42.240 | Had he been frustrated with you,

01:34:43.560 | it might be a little bit more challenging to say,

01:34:47.520 | "Hey, well, dad, maybe what you're experiencing

01:34:50.000 | in terms of your frustration with me is actually blank."

01:34:53.880 | - Yeah, for sure.

01:34:54.720 | - Because you're now in a tether with them.

01:34:57.040 | So to what extent is empathic attunement a positive trait?

01:35:02.040 | Are there people who are better at turning it off

01:35:05.240 | or directing it in appropriate ways than others?

01:35:09.460 | In a previous podcast that I did recently,

01:35:12.320 | somebody sitting right there in that chair told me,

01:35:15.840 | and I believe them, that I am codependent.

01:35:18.220 | It's the first time anyone's ever called me that.

01:35:20.080 | Codependent, she defined it, she spelled it out,

01:35:22.000 | and it, in a very parsimonious way,

01:35:25.280 | explained a huge array of challenges that I've experienced

01:35:28.360 | to the point where I've been learning

01:35:30.160 | more about codependency.

01:35:31.520 | Okay, not easy for me to say even now.

01:35:33.440 | - We're all interdependent.

01:35:34.480 | - Interdependent, yeah.

01:35:36.040 | Certainly depending on others is important,

01:35:37.520 | but certain patterns fall well

01:35:40.960 | under the umbrella of codependency.

01:35:42.800 | So I was like, okay.

01:35:44.160 | And even now I'm uncomfortable talking about it,

01:35:45.880 | which is part of the reason I'm trying

01:35:47.280 | to desensitize myself to the word itself,

01:35:50.500 | let alone drill into the process of getting through it.

01:35:52.800 | So the point being that if our emotions

01:35:56.620 | are so strongly tethered to others,

01:35:58.240 | we see that as empathy, we label that typically as positive,

01:36:01.840 | but it really diminishes our ability to be there for people

01:36:05.580 | if their emotions are negative and about us.

01:36:09.900 | - I disagree.

01:36:10.880 | - Okay, great, great, fantastic.

01:36:13.400 | - 'Cause that's empathy without emotional intelligence.

01:36:16.720 | And so I work with a lot of doctors.

01:36:19.560 | I've done quite a bit of work

01:36:21.360 | with the cancer hospital at Yale.

01:36:23.160 | It's called Smilow.

01:36:24.800 | And doctors have been taught from early on,

01:36:28.600 | you know, like leave your empathy at the door.

01:36:31.840 | And I challenge that.

01:36:33.280 | You know, when you're a patient with cancer,

01:36:36.560 | knowing that you may pass,

01:36:38.600 | the last thing you want is an unempathic doctor, right?

01:36:42.160 | You want a relationship with someone who's treating you.

01:36:45.700 | And the assumption is that you get lost in your empathy.

01:36:49.240 | And people have written about that.

01:36:50.420 | And it's true.

01:36:51.260 | It is overzealous empathy.

01:36:52.840 | You can have compassion fatigue.

01:36:54.800 | But again, it's in the absence of, you know,

01:36:58.800 | emotional intelligence.

01:36:59.960 | What do I mean?

01:37:00.920 | Well, part of emotional intelligence is regulation.

01:37:05.080 | And so if I see my work as a cancer doctor as, you know,

01:37:10.080 | helping people have the best last few months of their lives,

01:37:13.320 | that's a really interesting way to think about it.

01:37:16.540 | You know, so as I'm in relationship with my patient,

01:37:19.080 | my mindset is I've come to the understanding that my job,

01:37:23.280 | you know, people pass.

01:37:24.700 | But I could go down a rabbit hole of despair

01:37:29.240 | because everyone potentially may pass.

01:37:32.080 | Or I can see this as I'm giving someone a gift.

01:37:34.960 | I'm giving them a gift of my presence.

01:37:36.960 | I'm giving them a gift of them, you know,

01:37:40.180 | feeling held and cared for.

01:37:43.140 | And so to me, it's all about the framing, you know,

01:37:47.760 | of empathy.

01:37:49.720 | Yes, of course, you know, if you're just,

01:37:52.440 | you can lose yourself in someone else's shoes,

01:37:55.320 | but that's not emotional intelligence.

01:37:57.360 | Emotional intelligence is saying, you know what?

01:37:59.240 | I'm noticing myself, I'm getting lost in your feelings.

01:38:02.480 | I need to pull back a little bit.

01:38:04.120 | - Do we know where in the brain empathy resides?

01:38:10.680 | We hear so much about mirror neurons,

01:38:12.920 | but I think for those of us that have been in neuroscience

01:38:15.080 | and psychology long enough, we acknowledge,

01:38:17.200 | yes, there are appropriate conversations

01:38:20.180 | that include the words mirror neurons,

01:38:21.760 | but that they've been made out to be much more

01:38:23.760 | than perhaps they are in terms of empathy.

01:38:26.080 | And they've become sort of the default description

01:38:29.160 | for all forms of empathy and understanding.

01:38:31.800 | And it's not just that.

01:38:34.440 | So what do we know about the brain science of empathy?

01:38:39.160 | - I don't know much about that, to be honest.

01:38:41.200 | What I know more about

01:38:42.360 | is the kind of psychological experience of empathy,

01:38:45.280 | and that there are multiple forms of it.

01:38:48.260 | So for example, there's the cognitive empathy piece

01:38:51.680 | where I, you know, I've never had your experience,

01:38:55.080 | but intellectually I get that you've suffered

01:38:57.400 | or intellectually I get your experience.

01:39:00.340 | There's the emotional empathy, which is, you know,

01:39:02.320 | when I meet other survivors of abuse who have felt shame,

01:39:06.200 | I understand what that means 'cause I've lived there.

01:39:08.800 | And not that our experience was the same,

01:39:11.360 | but our feeling was the same.

01:39:12.580 | We have a shared emotional experience.

01:39:14.740 | And then on top of that,

01:39:16.980 | that compassionate kind of form of empathy

01:39:19.380 | is what I think is what we need much more of

01:39:21.620 | in our society, which is,

01:39:23.100 | we don't just cognitively understand where someone is

01:39:25.380 | or relate to their experience,

01:39:27.560 | but we feel compelled to be in relationship

01:39:30.900 | with that person and be supportive.

01:39:32.660 | I'm thinking about something else

01:39:34.700 | that you spoke about earlier,

01:39:35.820 | which is this idea that like,

01:39:37.620 | and this is a misconstrual of my work and others' work,

01:39:40.420 | that the goal of this

01:39:41.540 | is to talk about feelings all day long.

01:39:43.660 | Like, the last thing I want to do

01:39:45.220 | is talk about feelings all day long.

01:39:47.220 | Like, that is not helpful, actually.

01:39:49.060 | And I've had some experiences in my life,

01:39:51.380 | you know, where like, just to be blunt, shit happens,

01:39:55.500 | you know, and I call everybody I know,

01:39:57.580 | like my best friends, my family.

01:39:59.940 | Can you believe this happened?

01:40:00.860 | I mean, I can't take it anymore.

01:40:02.180 | And then I hang up the phone and I did the same thing

01:40:03.940 | and they all listen to me.

01:40:05.500 | And then I've spent two hours on the phone

01:40:09.340 | telling the same thing over and over again,

01:40:11.060 | talking about my feelings.

01:40:12.220 | And I feel worse 'cause I've rehearsed it 15 times.

01:40:17.100 | That's not emotional intelligence, right?

01:40:19.140 | When we're emotionally intelligent,

01:40:20.380 | we recognize and we know that just talking about it

01:40:24.740 | is actually not helpful.

01:40:26.300 | Like, we need to be with someone who's that active listener,

01:40:28.620 | who's nonjudgmental, who shows compassion.

01:40:31.060 | But when you're compassionate,

01:40:32.220 | you actually are bringing you back to the person saying,

01:40:35.140 | you know, is this, you know, the right thing right now

01:40:39.460 | for you, you know, what else might you think about?

01:40:41.900 | You know, I know when I've had really difficult experiences,

01:40:46.580 | you know, the person who says things like,

01:40:48.700 | maybe, could you just jump in the hot air balloon

01:40:52.660 | for a minute, Mark, and look down at your life?

01:40:54.860 | And like, besides this one thing that you feel like

01:40:57.580 | is the worst thing that's ever happened to you

01:40:58.940 | in your whole life, anything else going right?

01:41:01.100 | I mean, yeah, my partner loves me,

01:41:02.340 | my dogs love me unconditionally.

01:41:04.340 | I got great friends, oh yeah.

01:41:06.540 | All of a sudden, that little thing that's activating you

01:41:08.620 | is not so big anymore.

01:41:09.940 | That's emotional intelligence, right,

01:41:12.340 | is not getting lost in the empathy,

01:41:15.700 | not just endlessly talking about feelings

01:41:18.300 | to the point where there's no strategies.

01:41:21.020 | And I think that that's really interesting

01:41:24.820 | because it goes back to something important,

01:41:27.980 | which is the permission to feel characteristics

01:41:30.540 | of nonjudgment, active listening,

01:41:33.660 | and empathy, compassion, never.

01:41:37.220 | And I'm talking, I have tens of thousands of people

01:41:39.860 | who've done this.

01:41:41.140 | Does anyone say, fixer, problem solver?

01:41:46.140 | I don't even get smart or wise.

01:41:49.260 | When we think about the people who create the conditions

01:41:51.940 | for us to be our true selves,

01:41:53.420 | we don't think about the wisest, smartest,

01:41:55.700 | fixer, problem solver.

01:41:57.380 | We think about the nonjudgmental listener

01:41:59.860 | who shows compassion.

01:42:01.900 | And I think that has to be reinforced

01:42:04.580 | that some of the fear that we have

01:42:07.820 | is that we're gonna get lost in all these feelings,

01:42:10.740 | but no one's asking you to get lost in their feelings.

01:42:14.100 | What they're asking for is support.

01:42:16.980 | They're asking you to just listen

01:42:19.780 | and to maybe ask me a few questions

01:42:22.100 | to help me clarify my experience

01:42:23.900 | and then help me on a path towards feeling better.

01:42:28.820 | - Yeah, I keep hearing that the way to do this properly

01:42:33.220 | is to ask questions as opposed to telling people

01:42:38.220 | what they need to do.

01:42:40.500 | Your friend or this person who was an effective source

01:42:43.980 | of support in that moment said,

01:42:46.180 | can you get in the hot air balloon

01:42:48.420 | and look down on your life?

01:42:49.820 | I noticed that they didn't say,

01:42:53.620 | get in the hot air balloon for a second and then do this.

01:42:56.700 | As a former partner of mine said,

01:42:58.580 | who I'm still on great terms with,

01:43:00.100 | no one likes to be shifted.

01:43:01.760 | - Yeah, no one wants to be told what to do.

01:43:03.100 | - Right, no one wants to be shifted.

01:43:04.220 | No one, no matter what state they're in, high or low,

01:43:06.940 | want somebody to come along and try and shift them.

01:43:09.580 | - Or just tell them like, go for a walk.

01:43:12.940 | Okay, well, why am I, to do what?

01:43:15.460 | - Or meditate.

01:43:16.660 | That one's become equally grating

01:43:19.020 | when it's probably a great thing to do,

01:43:21.420 | but perhaps there's a different way

01:43:23.900 | posed in the form of a question

01:43:25.280 | that would be more effective.

01:43:27.020 | I think the hot air balloon example

01:43:29.380 | also brings to mind something.

01:43:31.260 | I'll try and keep this as succinct as possible

01:43:33.300 | for your sake and for the audience sake.

01:43:35.420 | But having studied stress a bit in my laboratory

01:43:39.820 | and experienced a lot of stress

01:43:41.220 | as most people have in their lifetime,

01:43:43.260 | it's very clear that when we stress,

01:43:45.740 | our mental aperture, our visual aperture,

01:43:48.380 | our auditory aperture, everything shrinks, right?

01:43:51.500 | It contracts.

01:43:52.880 | And we know that getting a different spatial perspective

01:43:57.320 | gives us a different temporal perspective.

01:43:59.400 | We can start thinking about our life,

01:44:00.920 | bend in larger pieces and get that perspective

01:44:04.320 | of the things that in life that are going well.

01:44:07.360 | There's a meditation that, I guess it's a meditation,

01:44:10.920 | I don't know what to call it,

01:44:11.760 | that I started doing years ago when I was a junior professor

01:44:15.360 | because life was so stressful for tenure.

01:44:19.000 | And little did I know that it just continues

01:44:22.720 | to be stressful, but a pleasure to do the work.

01:44:25.980 | That involves basically doing a standard type meditation

01:44:28.740 | for a few breaths of closing my eyes

01:44:31.000 | and focusing on my body and what's going on internally,

01:44:33.520 | but then opening my eyes and focusing on something external

01:44:36.040 | like my hand or the room,

01:44:37.160 | and then going to the pale blue dot.

01:44:39.600 | - Sure.

01:44:40.440 | - It's a very wide aperture.

01:44:42.600 | So effectively the hot air balloon looking down.

01:44:45.440 | - It's distancing.

01:44:46.560 | - Distancing, right?

01:44:47.640 | And making this a practice, not in a moment of stress,

01:44:50.660 | but each morning as I start the day

01:44:53.280 | as a kind of reminder that our brains,

01:44:55.820 | our cognition and our emotions

01:44:58.040 | go through tremendous state differentiation,

01:45:01.800 | like these complete, we're kind of different people

01:45:04.200 | under these different space-time references.

01:45:06.600 | And that when we're in stress,

01:45:09.240 | we tend to get locked into one space-time reference.

01:45:12.680 | And I'm not trying to be cosmic about this,

01:45:15.400 | but the nature of stress is to have us anchor

01:45:19.160 | to the stressor and to put up mental walls

01:45:22.240 | to break out of that and physical walls.

01:45:24.240 | So it sounds like great supporters,

01:45:28.800 | and we can help ourselves through the more unpleasant

01:45:33.600 | portions of the emotion scale, if we want to,

01:45:36.840 | by taking ourselves into this different perspective,

01:45:41.120 | using spatial tools, hot air balloon, pale blue dot.

01:45:45.560 | - Questions to yourself, say things like,

01:45:47.960 | Mark, I mean, I travel a lot,

01:45:50.360 | and I was just in Washington State

01:45:53.160 | for some presentations before this,

01:45:55.480 | flight delays, and my flight got canceled.

01:45:58.280 | I missed a dinner.

01:45:59.880 | And I used to get really worked up about it.

01:46:03.280 | And I would just take a seat at the airport,

01:46:05.720 | take a nice long inhale.

01:46:06.960 | I'm like, Mark, is this really gonna be something

01:46:09.080 | that's gonna bother you next week?

01:46:11.400 | I'm working on a book.

01:46:12.240 | I'm like, I got another night in a hotel to work.

01:46:14.160 | I actually reframed it as an opportunity

01:46:16.120 | to have some space and write.

01:46:18.400 | And so you can use these techniques a lot.

01:46:20.360 | Going back to my dad, so my dad, as he got older,

01:46:24.360 | his anger did come back, and he was kind of,

01:46:28.200 | I remember this one time where we're at a family dinner,

01:46:32.960 | and I had already been in my position for a while.

01:46:36.920 | And there was a little bit of resentment with my father,

01:46:40.240 | because he was a blue-collar worker

01:46:44.520 | and a very, very talented air conditioning repairman

01:46:47.680 | and had a good career.

01:46:49.800 | But all of a sudden, he went to graduate school

01:46:51.960 | and got PhDs, and that was, you know,

01:46:55.040 | it was a little bit difficult for my father at some time.

01:46:59.000 | And so when I got a job at Yale, in particular,

01:47:04.000 | he got a little, there was some emotions about that.

01:47:07.440 | And I remember we were at this one dinner,

01:47:09.600 | and basically he, I'm not gonna repeat what he said,

01:47:12.600 | 'cause it's really gross,

01:47:13.640 | but he said something like, you know,

01:47:15.360 | "Mark, you think your blank doesn't stink anymore."

01:47:18.880 | And I was like, "Eesh."

01:47:21.240 | And then he just kind of went on and on and on.

01:47:23.880 | And I had to make a choice, like, do I start crying,

01:47:26.080 | you know, like in the middle of this dinner,

01:47:27.160 | 'cause I feel so violated by my father?

01:47:30.080 | Do I, like, tell him to go blank himself

01:47:32.440 | and walk out of the room?

01:47:34.240 | And I decided to use a distancing technique.

01:47:36.960 | I decided to make him into a movie.

01:47:39.760 | I decided that he was now a TV show,

01:47:42.960 | and that TV show was something I was observing

01:47:45.440 | and not feeling.

01:47:47.200 | And that has proven to be

01:47:48.160 | one of the most powerful strategies for me,

01:47:51.200 | is when I'm in a position with someone

01:47:54.000 | who has a lot of negative energy,

01:47:56.480 | and as a kid who was bullied,

01:47:57.960 | I'm more affected by these things, I think.

01:48:00.320 | I create that psychological distance

01:48:02.280 | by just putting that picture frame up there,

01:48:03.960 | and I just observe it.

01:48:05.680 | And I kind of ask myself questions about it.

01:48:08.000 | I'm like, "Wow."

01:48:09.200 | Or I say things like, you know,

01:48:10.160 | "Wow, that's really interesting.

01:48:12.160 | "I wonder where that, I get curious about it.

01:48:13.800 | "Like, I wonder where that's coming from."

01:48:16.280 | You know, what was his childhood like that he's so angry?

01:48:20.040 | And it really is helpful.

01:48:21.120 | So these are very powerful techniques.

01:48:23.560 | - That can be used in real time, as you just described.

01:48:25.720 | - Very real time.

01:48:27.520 | I use them all the time.

01:48:29.360 | You know, I'm at the grocery store,

01:48:31.080 | you know, I'm not gonna get into my issues,

01:48:33.440 | but, you know, I'm like,

01:48:35.960 | and I grew up with, you know,

01:48:37.640 | I would say lower middle class.

01:48:38.920 | We were very, we didn't have a lot of money.

01:48:40.640 | Everything was on a budget.

01:48:42.280 | And, you know, I'm fortunate to be

01:48:43.720 | in a different circumstance now, but I'm still cheap.

01:48:46.680 | And so my partner, I'm like, "I don't understand.

01:48:48.880 | "Like, we're not buying that.

01:48:49.960 | "Like, that is ridiculous.

01:48:52.040 | "Like, we're not spending $7 on a bottle

01:48:54.160 | "of organic almond milk."

01:48:55.760 | You're like, "I'm not doing it.

01:48:56.640 | "We're not doing it."

01:48:57.920 | And then I have to like move away from the aisle,

01:49:02.400 | take a little walk.

01:49:03.280 | I'm like, "Mark, you know,

01:49:05.440 | "is this worth your relationship, the almond milk?

01:49:07.100 | "Like, really?

01:49:07.940 | "Is this what you're gonna do?"

01:49:10.060 | And so like, I don't know.

01:49:11.560 | Maybe I'm just the only one who needs regulation

01:49:13.860 | like 300 times a day.

01:49:16.280 | But I find that I've, you know, different strategies.

01:49:19.800 | Like the picture frame works when I'm angry

01:49:22.280 | or someone is angry with me.

01:49:23.720 | My anxiety, I get into the hot air balloon and I look down.

01:49:27.800 | When I'm like irritated with someone,

01:49:29.480 | I just take to walk away and I ask myself,

01:49:31.800 | "Is this really that important?"

01:49:33.640 | And that's what I hope people will learn

01:49:35.400 | is that there's so many amazing strategies out there

01:49:38.520 | and that we use them interchangeably

01:49:40.980 | with different emotions and different contexts.

01:49:43.340 | - While a lot of the stereotypes dating back to the,

01:49:47.540 | you know, let's just say in 1930s

01:49:49.900 | through to the end of the 1970s

01:49:52.460 | seem to couch people as more stoic,

01:49:57.460 | less emotionally expressive, especially in public

01:50:00.420 | or with people that they weren't very close with.

01:50:02.660 | There was also a tendency,

01:50:03.740 | at least in movies about that time,

01:50:05.820 | for people who were passionate

01:50:08.400 | to be rewarded for expressions of their passion.

01:50:11.400 | So it's kind of two ends of the spectrum, right?

01:50:13.840 | We always think of the kind of the real stoic thing,

01:50:17.460 | both for male and female phenotypes, right?

01:50:22.200 | You look at movies from the 30s and 40s, you see that,

01:50:25.520 | but you also saw intense expression, passionate expression.

01:50:29.140 | And now I suppose we're in a bit of a new place

01:50:36.020 | where I think there's an invitation.

01:50:38.760 | I like to think there's an invitation

01:50:40.260 | for a broader range of emotional expressions

01:50:43.140 | and phenotypes, let's call them.

01:50:44.760 | I'm a biologist after all.

01:50:46.660 | It's also a safe word to use still, I think.

01:50:49.440 | You can use the word phenotypes.

01:50:51.040 | Stereotypes is a bit loaded, a lot loaded.

01:50:55.760 | But emotionality and the notion

01:51:00.840 | of people being overly emotional has,

01:51:04.620 | unfortunately, a bit of a negative-

01:51:06.920 | - It does. - Tinge to it.

01:51:08.500 | Whereas somebody being passionate,

01:51:10.940 | that sounds like a pretty good thing.

01:51:12.240 | - Well, emotional is like historically,

01:51:14.100 | like you're hysterical.

01:51:16.040 | It means that you are not in control of your emotions.

01:51:19.240 | I don't like to use that term ever.

01:51:21.000 | I just find it a useless term.

01:51:22.920 | And 'cause that's when,

01:51:24.500 | oftentimes when people think about emotions,

01:51:27.360 | they think of people being emotional.

01:51:30.040 | And I just don't even know what that means.

01:51:32.400 | It has just connotations from the past

01:51:35.500 | that I don't think are helpful.

01:51:37.100 | - Maybe that's why my graduate advisor said,

01:51:38.860 | "Instead of telling you to be careful,

01:51:41.600 | I'll tell you to be mindful,

01:51:42.700 | because the opposite of mindful is mindless,

01:51:45.300 | and then you'll remember."

01:51:46.340 | - Yeah, and also, exactly.

01:51:48.180 | But going back, you'll hear people say,

01:51:49.680 | "Why are you so emotional?"

01:51:51.660 | And again, that's a place of judgment.

01:51:54.620 | What they're saying is that you're experiencing

01:51:56.820 | a strong emotion that's making me uncomfortable.

01:51:58.880 | I don't know what to do with that feeling.

01:52:00.520 | So by me labeling you as emotional, I can alienate you.

01:52:03.500 | Where's that going to lead to?

01:52:06.580 | Not good communication, right?

01:52:08.420 | Not healthy relationships.

01:52:10.580 | - And yet we reward people still for being passionate,

01:52:13.980 | even if it's tinged with some anger.

01:52:16.260 | Like if somebody has a cause

01:52:17.540 | that they're really passionate about,

01:52:19.540 | we don't necessarily say they're being emotional.

01:52:21.580 | We say they're really passionate about this.

01:52:23.300 | There seems to be a subtle difference.

01:52:24.580 | - There is.

01:52:25.420 | - That maybe it's rooted in a kind of a trajectory

01:52:28.500 | of like trying to achieve a specific outcome,

01:52:30.720 | whereas just anger or sadness,

01:52:32.680 | kind of just, you know, geysering out of us,

01:52:36.040 | it doesn't seem like it's directed towards an end point.

01:52:37.480 | - It's less personal.

01:52:38.320 | - Right, it's more evocative.

01:52:39.640 | - The emotional is the judgment, right?

01:52:42.280 | When I say, you know, "Andrew, you're so emotional," right?

01:52:46.040 | It's also can be a form of gaslighting, right?

01:52:48.860 | Which is I'm trying to get you to believe something

01:52:50.560 | about yourself that I want you to believe,

01:52:52.720 | which may not be a reality at all,

01:52:54.520 | which is usually problematic in our society.

01:52:57.600 | I think most of our low self-esteem

01:52:59.760 | comes from gaslighting in our childhoods.

01:53:02.620 | - People gaslighting each other.

01:53:04.060 | - Yeah, I think that's the beginning of bullying,

01:53:05.620 | which is that, you know, "Mark, you're too skinny.

01:53:08.100 | "Mark, you're too overweight.

01:53:09.080 | "Mark, your nose is too big.

01:53:10.260 | "Mark, your nose is too small.

01:53:11.260 | "Mark, you're too feminine.

01:53:12.220 | "Mark, you're too masculine."

01:53:13.860 | And then all of a sudden there's no feelings mentors,

01:53:18.140 | there's no education, and I just start believing it.

01:53:21.180 | And then it becomes my reality.

01:53:22.380 | It's like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

01:53:24.500 | And it's awful.

01:53:25.340 | I mean, you see it all the time.

01:53:26.620 | We're not born being self-critics.

01:53:30.100 | We're born being experience-dependent, right?

01:53:35.100 | We depend on relationships.

01:53:37.620 | And if those relationships are meaning cruel

01:53:40.480 | and people are gaslighters, well, guess what?

01:53:43.880 | That's gonna end up being how we think about ourselves.

01:53:48.540 | - In your book, you include a number

01:53:50.660 | of really wonderful quotes,

01:53:52.180 | but one of them that I anchored to very quickly

01:53:56.140 | is the following, "All learning has an emotional base,"

01:54:02.180 | and it was none other than Plato that said that.

01:54:05.500 | What is the relationship between emotions

01:54:07.660 | and learning and decision-making?

01:54:10.020 | - Let's think about right now, right?

01:54:14.180 | Our interaction, right, as a teacher, right?

01:54:17.700 | I mean, how many of you have ever been,

01:54:20.300 | meaning your listeners and you,

01:54:22.020 | like how many of us have ever been in a situation

01:54:23.980 | in a classroom where it's like,

01:54:25.220 | "All right, everybody, let's turn to page 357.

01:54:28.780 | "All right, Mark, you're gonna read paragraph one,

01:54:30.700 | "and Andrew, you're gonna read paragraph two,"

01:54:33.640 | and your brain is immediately gone.

01:54:35.920 | So emotions drive our attention.

01:54:40.520 | It's so clear, right?

01:54:41.940 | If we're not feeling engaged or curious,

01:54:44.020 | we're gonna be bored.

01:54:45.620 | And again, boredom, not a bad emotion.

01:54:47.740 | It just means like what's being presented to me

01:54:50.700 | and the way it's being presented is not meeting my needs.

01:54:53.420 | It's not engaging me, so my brain needs to do something.

01:54:56.540 | I'm just gonna go doodle.

01:54:57.820 | I'm gonna go push the kid here.

01:54:59.300 | I'm gonna get on my phone.

01:55:00.860 | It's just where we wanted,

01:55:02.580 | our brains are wanting to do things.

01:55:04.800 | When we're in environments where there's a lot of curiosity,

01:55:11.020 | where there is high engagement, attention is much better.

01:55:15.620 | So that's the simplest thing to think about.

01:55:18.320 | In my work, my whole career has been

01:55:23.620 | about building curriculum to help educators

01:55:26.180 | integrate emotions into their everyday classroom.

01:55:31.140 | And part of what we help them understand,

01:55:32.860 | going back to that mood meter,

01:55:34.800 | think about that for a minute.

01:55:36.300 | A lot of us, because of our dispositions,

01:55:39.940 | we tend to speak with a certain cadence.

01:55:42.620 | We tend to present in a certain way.

01:55:45.580 | And if you're someone who lives in the green,

01:55:48.460 | you're just calm and content and tranquil and peaceful.

01:55:52.140 | - The spa people.

01:55:53.140 | - All right, some of the yoga teachers,

01:55:55.260 | let's all turn our attentions to ourselves.

01:55:57.940 | They're great, I love yoga.

01:55:59.240 | But my point is, if you're always in that green quadrant,

01:56:02.020 | for me, even though I'm living there a lot,

01:56:04.220 | it's like, give me some energy, please.

01:56:08.060 | And then there's like, I have a friend

01:56:09.520 | who is a principal of a middle school in San Francisco,

01:56:12.980 | and she's a former tennis coach,

01:56:14.300 | and she walks into the school,

01:56:15.620 | team, let's go, go, go, every day.

01:56:17.820 | It's like, Heather, come on, you're overwhelming me.

01:56:21.380 | And then you've got people who might be

01:56:22.660 | in that kind of blue quadrant.

01:56:25.620 | It's like, we've done some education work in the past,

01:56:29.220 | and let's be real, how much education reform really matters.

01:56:34.060 | Mark, you do all this research, but who's reading it?

01:56:37.820 | Is anybody really reading it?

01:56:38.900 | - Such a downer.

01:56:39.860 | - Yeah, or that person who's always in the red,

01:56:43.380 | that's activated, it's caustic.

01:56:45.580 | And so my point here is that we're gonna default

01:56:50.820 | in many ways to being in one of these quadrants,

01:56:53.500 | maybe all day long, maybe part of the day.

01:56:57.100 | But as someone who is leading,

01:57:00.600 | 'cause I consider leadership teaching,

01:57:04.400 | someone who's managing a team,

01:57:06.700 | as a teacher in a classroom, as a parent, couple, whatever,

01:57:09.820 | I've gotta be aware of kind of where I live emotionally,

01:57:13.060 | and I've gotta be aware that not everybody wants to be

01:57:15.180 | with me where I'm at, and my job is to create

01:57:18.300 | an emotional rollercoaster ride for people,

01:57:20.620 | to bring people on an emotional journey,

01:57:22.660 | 'cause that's what's gonna keep them interested.

01:57:24.460 | And believe it or not, from our research

01:57:26.540 | and others' research, we know that certain emotions

01:57:28.500 | are better for certain things.

01:57:29.640 | So for example, if I want my high school students

01:57:32.380 | to be like really brainstorming ideas,

01:57:35.380 | I'm not gonna put on like a Gregorian chant.

01:57:37.740 | (imitates Gregorian chant)

01:57:40.820 | I'm gonna put on, you know, go back to Lady Gaga,

01:57:43.020 | you know, I'm on the edge of glory,

01:57:44.900 | and like, let's get pumped up, and like,

01:57:46.540 | everybody, let's get the post-its out there,

01:57:48.620 | and everybody's excited and just brainstorming.

01:57:51.500 | But then, you know, which one are we,

01:57:54.220 | like, what's gonna be the project?

01:57:56.260 | You can't be all hyped up, 'cause then your brain

01:57:58.620 | is not in a very kind of a building consensus

01:58:02.980 | kind of model, mode.

01:58:05.640 | So when we bring our energy level down,

01:58:08.660 | it's like, oh, let me think about it for a minute.

01:58:10.780 | It's more, you're more thoughtful, you're more careful,

01:58:13.180 | you're more like, I don't know.

01:58:14.740 | Then, like, people would say, well, why would blue,

01:58:18.620 | why would, you know, unpleasant, low energy be helpful?

01:58:22.660 | Well, believe it or not, oftentimes,

01:58:24.820 | we can be much more detail-oriented

01:58:26.660 | when we're in that low energy, unpleasant place.

01:58:28.740 | It's like writing, I do a lot of grant writing, right?

01:58:30.920 | It's like, I think it's great, not a great idea.

01:58:34.200 | Mark, like, put on the classical music,

01:58:37.860 | like, zone everybody out, get into that place

01:58:41.060 | where you are gonna look for every I to dot,

01:58:43.700 | every comma that should be a semicolon,

01:58:45.540 | every dash that should be this, paragraph matching.

01:58:48.940 | You can't do that when you're really super excited.

01:58:50.900 | It just isn't, your brain doesn't operate that way.

01:58:53.420 | And then people say red, like, why would red be great?

01:58:56.660 | The best story I have for that is,

01:58:58.540 | so I actually did a collaboration with Lady Gaga

01:59:01.860 | and her foundation, Born This Way Foundation,

01:59:03.700 | many years ago, and we did a study

01:59:07.900 | of thousands of high school students across America.

01:59:11.180 | And we looked at how do they feel when they're in school?

01:59:13.980 | And what we found was, 77% of the feelings,

01:59:17.420 | and I repeat that, 77% of their emotions

01:59:20.460 | at school were unpleasant.

01:59:21.860 | Tired, bored, and stressed were the top three back then.

01:59:26.060 | So we did this study, we were working on it,

01:59:29.340 | it was a big project called the Emotion Revolution.

01:59:32.100 | And we ended up going to the White House

01:59:33.320 | to present our findings.

01:59:35.380 | I had to make a decision.

01:59:37.000 | Like, I had the Secretary of Education at that time

01:59:38.980 | in front of me, I'm presenting this big study

01:59:41.380 | on the emotional lives of teenagers.

01:59:44.060 | Do I wanna go in there and like, you know,

01:59:45.860 | I've got an amazing study to share with you.

01:59:47.580 | I'm like, hmm, not so great.

01:59:49.280 | Do I wanna go in there like,

01:59:51.700 | Secretary, let's just take a nice long inhale and an exhale.

01:59:56.580 | That's not gonna go over so well.

01:59:58.300 | Do I wanna go in the blue?

01:59:59.860 | Like, you know, it's pretty bad out there.

02:00:04.860 | No, I decided that red was my quadrant.

02:00:07.600 | I wanted the people in the education department

02:00:11.860 | to be fired up by this research.

02:00:14.020 | I want them to be, I want them to feel the passion

02:00:17.160 | that I had and the anger that I had,

02:00:19.240 | that it is an injustice for kids to feel that way

02:00:23.320 | in our nation's schools.

02:00:24.280 | We need to figure out what to do

02:00:26.120 | to create a more engaging learning environment.

02:00:28.840 | And so I decided to really present that in that way.

02:00:31.840 | I didn't present the findings and like, look at the data.

02:00:33.720 | I'm like, I want you to really take a look at these data.

02:00:36.720 | Please, 77% of the, I mean,

02:00:39.360 | I'm saying 77% of the emotions, tired, bored, and stressed.

02:00:42.760 | How is that gonna lead to a nation filled with people

02:00:45.400 | who are innovative and creative

02:00:46.620 | and making a difference in the world?

02:00:48.240 | Think about it.

02:00:49.080 | We know how emotions drive the way we behave.

02:00:52.000 | If you're tired, bored, and stressed all day long,

02:00:54.400 | what's the result?

02:00:55.840 | And so I presented it that way.

02:00:57.720 | And, you know, I did the best I could.

02:01:00.400 | And I think that's the magic of understanding emotion.

02:01:06.340 | Does that, does this resonate?

02:01:09.320 | That we're gonna be intentional

02:01:11.360 | about the emotions that we feel

02:01:13.560 | and that the emotions that we create in environments,

02:01:16.380 | whether they're at home or at school or in the workplace,

02:01:19.440 | because certain emotions work better for certain things.

02:01:24.440 | - Yeah, your examples bring me back

02:01:27.080 | to your earlier mention of this brilliant five-year-old kid

02:01:32.080 | who realized that his current emotional state

02:01:36.800 | was like the weather.

02:01:38.160 | It's going to change.

02:01:39.960 | In order to have that perspective,

02:01:44.720 | my guess is that he had to have already at some point

02:01:49.120 | moved from the blue quadrant,

02:01:51.040 | so low energy, low pleasantness, to the green quadrant.

02:01:54.800 | You know, high pleasantness, low energy,

02:01:57.320 | to the yellow quadrant, perhaps not in this order.

02:01:59.920 | And yes, I'm using this to remind people about the quadrants,

02:02:02.360 | higher energy, higher pleasantness,

02:02:04.520 | and then red, high energy, low pleasantness.

02:02:08.000 | - Yes, well, 'cause he's checking in daily, right?

02:02:11.880 | So in this school, which we call a ruler school,

02:02:15.500 | that's what they do.

02:02:16.600 | Kids check in in the morning

02:02:18.680 | and other times throughout the day,

02:02:20.440 | and they start to recognize

02:02:22.000 | that I can feel this way at one point of the day,

02:02:24.720 | and I can feel this way at another point of the day.

02:02:27.240 | And if I'm feeling this way and I'm about to do something

02:02:29.720 | where that feeling is not great,

02:02:30.800 | I can shift out of that feeling,

02:02:32.400 | or I can still feel that feeling and still be a good learner.

02:02:36.440 | I mean, that's incredible to me that we can do that.

02:02:38.640 | And I see it in thousands of schools,

02:02:40.840 | and it's done remarkably well.

02:02:43.560 | - And you've developed an app that's freely available

02:02:47.520 | that allows people to essentially press the screen.

02:02:52.520 | Is that right? - Yes.

02:02:53.960 | - And to denote where they are

02:02:55.840 | on this energy versus pleasantness scale

02:02:59.520 | at numerous times throughout the day and night,

02:03:01.820 | if they choose.

02:03:02.660 | We'll provide a link to this app in the show note captions.

02:03:04.800 | - It's called How We Feel.

02:03:06.080 | - Yeah, I've used it before,

02:03:07.400 | and a previous version I need to update

02:03:09.320 | and get the new version, and I will.

02:03:11.120 | I found it to be immensely useful

02:03:14.320 | just to start thinking about emotions

02:03:16.640 | along this energy versus pleasantness axis.

02:03:20.040 | After one does this for a few days or weeks,

02:03:23.120 | maybe checking in and touching the app,

02:03:27.120 | I don't know, a couple of times a day,

02:03:28.960 | maybe again in the evening upon waking,

02:03:31.600 | what sort of data or information does one get back

02:03:34.860 | that can be informative

02:03:36.440 | toward being a healthier, happier person?

02:03:39.280 | Ah, excuse me, a healthier person.

02:03:41.480 | - More contented. - More contented.

02:03:43.940 | Well, what's really cool about the app,

02:03:45.820 | and the reason why we have an app,

02:03:47.240 | is that technology can be super helpful,

02:03:50.080 | in this instance, for building self-awareness.

02:03:52.840 | So if I set reminders, which you can do on the app,

02:03:56.320 | to check in in the morning,

02:03:58.200 | maybe after lunch or right before I go home,

02:04:00.280 | you know, you pick whatever works for you,

02:04:01.640 | or you can do it randomly,

02:04:03.280 | and then you aggregate your data across time,

02:04:05.880 | right now you have instances of your emotions over time,

02:04:09.440 | but what's also cool about it

02:04:10.720 | is that you can disaggregate your data

02:04:13.080 | by things like who you're with,

02:04:15.380 | or where you're at, or what you're doing,

02:04:18.300 | and then you can analyze that,

02:04:19.620 | so you get your little mood meters

02:04:21.260 | that are all different colors,

02:04:22.660 | because, wow, I thought I was more in the yellow at work,

02:04:26.380 | but I'm actually more in the blue at work,

02:04:28.540 | or I thought when I'm with this person,

02:04:30.200 | I'm actually feeling calm,

02:04:31.900 | actually, when I look at my data,

02:04:33.220 | I'm always anxious with that person.

02:04:34.740 | - So it runs a reverse correlation.

02:04:36.260 | - Yes, yeah. - Fantastic.

02:04:38.500 | - And then you can just look at your report,

02:04:40.060 | and then it asks you questions to get more insights.

02:04:42.900 | - And also, importantly, we've embedded

02:04:45.680 | a lot of the strategies that I've been talking about,

02:04:47.300 | so like these distancing strategies,

02:04:49.080 | or the breathing exercises, or the mindfulness exercises,

02:04:51.840 | or gratitude exercises, which, by the way,

02:04:53.920 | I was thinking in the back of my head

02:04:55.520 | as we were speaking about the Envy Reduction Program,

02:04:59.300 | I think the number one thing is gratitude,

02:05:02.260 | that if our brains are just endlessly searching

02:05:06.800 | for what's better that's out there than what I have,

02:05:10.400 | we're not experiencing any gratitude for what we have,

02:05:13.020 | and so I spend a lot of time helping people

02:05:14.860 | really understand, like, take a look,

02:05:16.740 | like, look where you're at as a student.

02:05:19.240 | Think about where you have the opportunity to learn.

02:05:21.300 | Think about the opportunities you have in life,

02:05:23.540 | and all of a sudden, it's like,

02:05:24.440 | oh, yeah, my life is pretty good,

02:05:26.560 | as opposed to everyone else's life is better than mine.

02:05:29.500 | So gratitude for me, sometimes it feels cliche these days,

02:05:33.000 | you know, you've heard so much about it,

02:05:35.300 | and I can't talk strongly enough

02:05:37.140 | about both the practice and the science that supports it.

02:05:40.440 | - Yeah, amen to that.

02:05:41.660 | When I did an episode about gratitude now some years ago,

02:05:45.640 | I was positively shocked to see the data.

02:05:49.080 | - Yeah.

02:05:50.000 | - The data on gratitude practices are so striking

02:05:53.500 | in terms of whether or not one looks

02:05:56.240 | at neurotransmitter expression,

02:05:58.040 | or whether one looks at happiness rating scales,

02:06:02.080 | or learning, ability to learn.

02:06:06.160 | So many things are improved

02:06:07.540 | by even short gratitude practices.

02:06:09.740 | - Exactly.

02:06:10.580 | - And it was interesting for me to realize

02:06:12.020 | that not only do effective gratitude practices

02:06:15.320 | include thinking about what one has,

02:06:18.380 | but also in observing others expressing their own gratitude,

02:06:23.380 | either towards us or towards others.

02:06:25.820 | - Yeah.

02:06:26.660 | - So, you know, there's something about the human brain

02:06:28.180 | that really thrives on gratitude.

02:06:30.420 | And the other thing that I think is worth mentioning,

02:06:32.800 | you said these students could,

02:06:36.920 | through a gratitude practice,

02:06:37.960 | realize the opportunity that they have.

02:06:39.800 | I think a lot of people default to the assumption

02:06:42.040 | that a gratitude practice will make them complacent.

02:06:44.600 | - Yeah.

02:06:45.440 | - And stop seeking to reach their goals.

02:06:48.600 | But actually the opposite is true.

02:06:50.340 | There's a smaller research, as far as I understand,

02:06:52.480 | maybe it's expanded in recent years,

02:06:54.480 | where if people do a regular gratitude practice,

02:06:57.080 | even five minutes a day,

02:06:58.720 | their achievement actually increases as well.

02:07:01.360 | So gratitude and complacency are not on,

02:07:06.160 | they're not in the same bin.

02:07:07.660 | - Yeah, exactly.

02:07:08.500 | These are all evidence-based strategies

02:07:10.480 | to help us have a better life.

02:07:13.040 | - So clearly you're on a mission and it's a wonderful,

02:07:16.400 | in fact, admirable one at that,

02:07:18.940 | to bring more emotional awareness.

02:07:22.400 | Can we call it that?

02:07:23.240 | - Sure. - Emotional awareness

02:07:24.480 | to kids and to adults to better the world.

02:07:26.960 | I don't think I'm, you know, overreaching there.

02:07:29.060 | I think that's the goal.

02:07:30.260 | I'd like to get back to your origin story a bit

02:07:32.900 | to understand a little bit more

02:07:35.300 | about the motivation behind the goal.

02:07:37.820 | You've written about in your book

02:07:39.600 | and you've spoken a little bit today

02:07:41.640 | about the fact that you were bullied pretty viciously.

02:07:44.920 | - Yeah.

02:07:45.760 | - And also were the target of abuse.

02:07:48.520 | - Yeah.

02:07:49.400 | - And when one thinks about bullying in particular,

02:07:52.940 | we, I think all hopefully naturally default to,

02:07:57.860 | okay, how can we stop bullies?

02:08:00.640 | But I'm guessing this is a two-sided issue

02:08:03.780 | and I'm not trying to create empathy for bullies here,

02:08:06.760 | but I'm guessing that in order to really disintegrate

02:08:11.000 | the bullying problem down to zero,

02:08:13.000 | which would be the ultimate goal.

02:08:15.200 | - Sounds great to me.

02:08:16.160 | - Yeah, that we need to get into the minds

02:08:18.800 | of both the bullied and the bullies.

02:08:21.440 | - Correct.

02:08:22.260 | - And as uncomfortable as that might be,

02:08:23.980 | maybe this is an opportunity to, you know,

02:08:28.160 | embrace some of the very practices

02:08:29.680 | that you've been talking about.

02:08:30.940 | - Yeah.

02:08:31.780 | - So if you would,

02:08:33.160 | could you tell us a little bit about how, as a kid,

02:08:35.560 | how you perceived your bullies?

02:08:38.020 | I'm very curious about that.

02:08:39.600 | I can say I've never been bullied,

02:08:43.060 | but I've also not been a bully.

02:08:44.560 | I can easily say, I was thinking about this

02:08:46.860 | during our brief break there, I hate bullies.

02:08:50.580 | Like I like hate them.

02:08:51.660 | I'm like right there in the red, low pleasantness,

02:08:54.740 | like top, top corner there.

02:08:56.220 | Like it activates me physically.

02:08:58.120 | Like it makes me angry,

02:08:59.240 | makes me want to do something about it.

02:09:01.060 | But as somebody who was bullied,

02:09:03.160 | how did you perceive your bullies?

02:09:04.660 | Did you think they were like correct or the authority?

02:09:08.720 | And how have you embraced whatever understanding that was

02:09:13.660 | and morphed it over time to be able to think about

02:09:17.060 | how to solve the bullying problem,

02:09:19.000 | both from the perspective of the bullied and the bully?

02:09:22.000 | - Yeah, that's gonna,

02:09:24.020 | we're gonna have a couple of days together for this.

02:09:27.280 | You know, I think, you know,

02:09:28.880 | when I think about my eight-year-old self,

02:09:32.800 | 10-year-old self, 11-year-old self being bullied.

02:09:36.380 | Remember, bullying is about a power imbalance.

02:09:40.560 | That's one of the core elements of it.

02:09:42.360 | It's about the intent to harm,

02:09:44.460 | which is, it's not conflict.

02:09:48.480 | It's not like sibling rivalry.

02:09:50.100 | It's intention to harm, you know,

02:09:52.720 | where there's a power imbalance and, you know,

02:09:54.680 | how long and the repetition of it.

02:09:57.440 | Those are the three key factors in bullying.

02:09:59.480 | It's repeated, it's intended to harm

02:10:02.080 | and there's a power imbalance.

02:10:04.360 | And so that puts you in a really powerless position

02:10:07.780 | when you think about it,

02:10:08.620 | when you have nobody to support you, no upstanders,

02:10:12.400 | no one else around you to help you get out of this situation.

02:10:15.920 | What happens is that you feel fear.

02:10:18.320 | And what I felt, and it's been the emotion

02:10:21.860 | that I've struggled with my whole life is shame.

02:10:24.700 | Because what happens when you're bullied often

02:10:27.420 | is that you are made to feel like you are not worthy.

02:10:31.180 | It's diminished self-worth.

02:10:32.740 | 'Cause I've got power over you.

02:10:34.520 | I'm gonna do whatever the hell I want to you.

02:10:35.940 | I'm gonna say whatever I want to say.

02:10:37.100 | I'm gonna spit on you.

02:10:38.020 | I'm gonna throw you into the locker.

02:10:39.860 | I'm gonna, you know, do crazy stuff,

02:10:41.860 | which is what happened to me.

02:10:43.360 | And guess what?

02:10:45.900 | There's nothing you can do about it.

02:10:48.140 | And when you're in an environment

02:10:49.760 | where nobody does anything about it, it creates despair.

02:10:53.000 | So you can see how there's a lot of emotions there.

02:10:55.000 | And I'll tell you right now,

02:10:56.600 | one of my hardest memories of being a student

02:11:00.460 | in around 10th, I mean, when I was around 10 years old,

02:11:03.560 | is that I remember being in a classroom in math

02:11:08.560 | and I was wearing like a vest,

02:11:11.680 | like a down vest as a protection.

02:11:13.800 | It was like my thing to hold on to,

02:11:15.200 | like my little vest was gonna be protective of me.

02:11:19.620 | The only problem was I had two bullies

02:11:20.780 | sitting on either side of me.

02:11:22.600 | And what they did throughout the entire class

02:11:25.180 | was they used pen and they just drew,

02:11:26.900 | like wrote things about me on my jacket.

02:11:28.940 | And I can still remember, like you're sitting across from me,

02:11:33.740 | you being my teacher.

02:11:35.900 | And I can still remember locking eyes with my teacher

02:11:39.220 | and him just looking away.

02:11:41.660 | And that feeling that you have of complete despair,

02:11:45.920 | like how is it that I'm not being protected

02:11:49.480 | by this adult in my community?

02:11:52.240 | And so that's the issue that we're trying to solve for.

02:11:56.200 | Now, I could make all kinds of excuses about the teacher.

02:11:58.920 | Maybe he didn't really notice.

02:12:00.960 | I don't buy it 'cause it was repeated over time

02:12:02.860 | and it was happening a lot.

02:12:04.200 | I could also say that maybe he misread my facial expression.

02:12:09.320 | I'm not buying that either.

02:12:11.400 | I think it was either he had a mindset,

02:12:14.140 | you know, this is a rite of passage,

02:12:16.060 | you gotta toughen up, kiddo,

02:12:17.460 | or you're not gonna survive in your Clifton High School.

02:12:20.340 | Or another point is that he just was like,

02:12:24.560 | I have no idea what to do about it

02:12:26.260 | and I'm just gonna let it go.

02:12:27.900 | None of those are an option for me anymore.

02:12:31.420 | It's just not acceptable.

02:12:33.420 | And so we need to teach people skills.

02:12:37.100 | People need to be emotionally perceptive,

02:12:39.420 | like emotions are signals.

02:12:41.480 | I mean, that's an important point of this conversation.

02:12:44.640 | My facial expression,

02:12:47.040 | which was probably one of depression, fear, and shame,

02:12:51.600 | which is not one of a big smile in general,

02:12:54.520 | obviously there's variability,

02:12:55.840 | but point is that it's pretty clear

02:12:58.280 | when you're wearing a jacket

02:12:59.640 | and sitting like this in your classroom with a hoodie on,

02:13:02.160 | you know, doing your work and people are writing on you,

02:13:04.040 | you're not in a good place.

02:13:06.600 | How that perception of my experience, my emotion

02:13:11.500 | was not a signal to do something blows my mind.

02:13:15.880 | It blows my mind, I'm just saying.

02:13:17.700 | I can't imagine an adult being in a situation

02:13:22.700 | with a child that is being treated that way

02:13:24.900 | and not thinking action.

02:13:27.180 | But yet we see it all the time.

02:13:29.180 | All the time we see it.

02:13:30.540 | - Even nowadays?

02:13:31.780 | - All the time.

02:13:32.740 | By the way, the research shows that bullying

02:13:34.220 | has not really decreased in the last 30, 40 years.

02:13:36.460 | Really, no, it has not.

02:13:39.140 | It's pretty much about a third of middle school,

02:13:41.860 | high school kids get bullied each day in school.

02:13:44.540 | And so this is the point of my work,

02:13:47.400 | which is that a lot of the programs out there

02:13:49.060 | are like let's create school rules.

02:13:51.220 | All right, who's gonna follow these rules?

02:13:52.600 | Like what is, how are rules teaching people skills?

02:13:55.780 | It's not working.

02:13:57.340 | My whole thinking about this is that we need

02:13:59.260 | to teach the things that we've been talking about.

02:14:01.500 | Empathy, perspective taking, you know, doing role plays,

02:14:04.840 | having people understand what it feels like

02:14:06.660 | to be in that situation.

02:14:07.820 | Like you said, you've never been bullied, right?

02:14:09.660 | And never have bullied, which is great for you.

02:14:12.260 | Which means it might be harder for you to understand that

02:14:14.500 | because the empathy for you might be a little tougher.

02:14:18.300 | - Yeah, that's part of the reason I asked the question.

02:14:20.020 | I mean, I was debating to myself whether or not

02:14:23.100 | I ask it in that way

02:14:24.660 | because I didn't want to come across as insensitive.

02:14:26.700 | - No, it's not that you care.

02:14:27.900 | - Precisely because I have sat on neither side

02:14:32.260 | of the bullying equation,

02:14:34.520 | that it's kind of a foreign thing to me.

02:14:36.900 | It also makes me realize, and especially now

02:14:39.520 | after what you just said, that while I was in high school,

02:14:42.640 | I'm guessing there was a lot of bullying going around.

02:14:44.160 | - I'm sure you might've witnessed it.

02:14:45.420 | - And I missed it.

02:14:47.320 | - Yeah.

02:14:48.160 | - You know, I had some friends that could definitely

02:14:50.320 | be classified as misfits.

02:14:52.040 | - Yeah.

02:14:52.880 | - And I think looking back, they hung out

02:14:54.440 | with my group of friends because we were definitely,

02:14:57.880 | we were into different things.

02:14:59.200 | We weren't, we, you know, me, meaning my peers grew up

02:15:02.780 | in the John Hughes film era where you had like the jocks

02:15:05.260 | versus the hippies versus the skateboarders

02:15:07.580 | versus the-

02:15:08.420 | - The burnouts.

02:15:09.240 | - Yeah, exactly.

02:15:10.080 | And, you know, and I had my crowd

02:15:10.900 | and was friends with a number of people outside that crowd,

02:15:13.000 | but there were these kids that would hang around us

02:15:16.240 | that weren't into the same things that we were.

02:15:19.800 | And I am looking back and realizing now that they did it

02:15:22.480 | because they were definitely safe with us.

02:15:24.840 | - Yeah.

02:15:25.680 | - And-

02:15:26.520 | - Well, that's your fundamental-

02:15:27.360 | - We could be a little scary if we wanted to be,

02:15:28.760 | but we weren't the type to go out and be scary.

02:15:31.040 | So we, I think they must've sent some safety with us.

02:15:33.920 | And I actually have very fond memories of those kids

02:15:36.800 | and know some of them still now.

02:15:38.440 | So yeah, I asked that way in part

02:15:41.400 | because I realized I missed a lot.

02:15:44.320 | Well, Lord knows I missed a lot of what was going on

02:15:46.320 | in high school for other reasons,

02:15:47.440 | but I just missed a lot of this.

02:15:49.360 | And I think in, even in academic culture as an adult,

02:15:54.680 | I, not now, but I certainly witnessed bullying at meetings,

02:15:58.620 | more that was more demonstrative

02:16:00.760 | where people would make fun of people in general

02:16:05.600 | in a way that I felt suppressed the likelihood

02:16:09.080 | that people would ask questions,

02:16:10.400 | which is a kind of different form

02:16:11.760 | of posturing and bullying, right?

02:16:14.240 | - 100%.

02:16:15.080 | - It makes students afraid to raise their hand

02:16:17.120 | and ask questions at meetings, for instance.

02:16:20.280 | - It's intimidation.

02:16:21.400 | - Right, intimidation.

02:16:22.600 | - And I experienced that too.

02:16:23.840 | I remember when I was younger in my career,

02:16:25.720 | I was giving a speech and people were like,

02:16:27.320 | "Oh, he does the field research, you know, like in school,

02:16:30.360 | that's soft science."

02:16:32.520 | And I was very, very fortunate and I was hurt by it

02:16:35.640 | 'cause it's like, by the way, like doing your, you know,

02:16:38.260 | experiment in the laboratory with your sophomores

02:16:40.320 | in college is a lot easier than trying to randomize

02:16:43.160 | 60 schools in Brooklyn and Queens, New York,

02:16:45.600 | and try to find effects of your program.

02:16:47.640 | It's hard research, really difficult.

02:16:49.920 | - Even just working on humans is hard.

02:16:51.720 | For those of us that have worked on both animal models,

02:16:53.700 | which I no longer do, and humans, which I've done and do,

02:16:57.440 | working on humans is that much harder

02:17:00.880 | for all sorts of reasons.

02:17:02.360 | They're not on the same genetic background.

02:17:04.640 | You can't just put them in their cage, take them out,

02:17:06.520 | the same like, different like dark cycles.

02:17:08.480 | Some slept well, some didn't sleep well.

02:17:10.440 | I mean, there are issues with animal work as well,

02:17:12.640 | but yeah, just even embracing human research at all

02:17:16.280 | is an immense challenge.

02:17:17.560 | So the idea that it would be viewed as soft is,

02:17:20.960 | I mean, that's just like laughable to me, but.

02:17:23.800 | - Exactly, but I was very fortunate that

02:17:27.480 | there was a professor, a very senior professor,

02:17:30.120 | his name was Ed Ziegler.

02:17:31.160 | He was one of the co-founders of Head Start.

02:17:34.840 | And he was like my, he became my adult Uncle Marvin.

02:17:38.880 | And I'm giving this speech and all his people

02:17:41.560 | are like trying to like, really like demolish,

02:17:45.400 | you know, the presentation and my research.

02:17:47.520 | And he was revered 'cause he was like

02:17:49.760 | this famous developmental psychologist.

02:17:51.320 | And he just stood up and he's like, he slams the table,

02:17:53.440 | and he's like, I like this research.

02:17:55.520 | And I love you.

02:17:58.240 | Because like, I needed you to stand up for me

02:18:00.880 | 'cause I'm like the stupid, not the stupid,

02:18:02.480 | I'm like the little postdoc here, right?

02:18:03.920 | Like I need support.

02:18:05.600 | And so, you know, my argument is that

02:18:10.040 | it's a human right to be protected, right?

02:18:12.560 | Now, I could protect myself now, right?

02:18:15.000 | Of course I can.

02:18:16.320 | But I'll have to, I'll give you another example of this.

02:18:19.320 | Gosh, this is a really tough one for me.

02:18:21.920 | I would say eight years ago,

02:18:23.560 | I was giving a speech at our university

02:18:28.720 | to a bunch of funders.

02:18:31.040 | And it was me and another professor who I will not name,

02:18:35.080 | who is bigger than I am and bigger personality than I am

02:18:38.680 | and has a kind of rough reputation

02:18:40.720 | of being kind of a bully.

02:18:42.560 | I went on first.

02:18:43.800 | Now, granted, I'm a pretty good presenter.

02:18:46.520 | And he was going on after.

02:18:50.640 | And I just, thank you, I went to the side.

02:18:53.680 | He gets on.

02:18:54.680 | Now, I actually did a presentation on bullying.

02:18:56.680 | That's why I'm thinking about it.

02:18:58.880 | All right, I get off stage.

02:19:00.600 | I'm sitting, you know, like everybody else.

02:19:02.680 | He gets on stage and changes his presentation

02:19:05.200 | and shows a video of a kid being horrifically bullied,

02:19:10.200 | which has nothing to do with his research.

02:19:13.360 | And I'm thinking, what the hell's going on here?

02:19:15.640 | And he plays a video.

02:19:17.280 | He's like doing that, like laughing to himself.

02:19:19.800 | And he's like, you know, I just wanted to let people know

02:19:21.680 | that was Mark before he got his black belt.

02:19:24.000 | And I'm like--

02:19:26.640 | - What a dick.

02:19:27.520 | - Yeah, it was not cool.

02:19:29.000 | And I felt like, firstly, what was really interesting to me

02:19:32.520 | as a psychologist is that in that moment,

02:19:35.320 | I regressed to 10 years old.

02:19:36.920 | It was psychologically, all the memories of all the feelings

02:19:41.920 | and the bodily reactions, I was like, boom.

02:19:45.440 | And then, you know, luckily, you know,

02:19:47.080 | I do have a fifth degree black belt.

02:19:48.400 | Luckily, I have a PhD in psychology.

02:19:49.960 | Luckily, I've had 10 years of therapy

02:19:51.240 | and I've been teaching emotional intelligence for 25 years.

02:19:53.800 | I'm like, Mark, you're 50, you've got a black belt.

02:19:58.720 | Like, it took me a lot to recover.

02:20:01.280 | And I had to make a choice

02:20:02.320 | 'cause like I'm still intimidated by that.

02:20:05.560 | And it makes me sad to even admit it

02:20:08.560 | because I don't like that I'm at this place in my life

02:20:11.840 | where I still can be intimidated by the bullies,

02:20:14.120 | but it's how I feel and I have to just accept that.

02:20:18.080 | And I decided, though, in that presentation was like,

02:20:24.080 | Mark, like, you gotta say something.

02:20:27.680 | You're gonna prove to yourself that you can do it.

02:20:30.400 | And so after he was over, you know, I waited a little while

02:20:34.040 | and I just went up to him and I said, you know,

02:20:36.400 | I have no idea what motivated you to show that video,

02:20:40.400 | but number one, it was not cool.

02:20:43.880 | And number two, it can never happen again, never.

02:20:47.160 | And I can cry now thinking about it

02:20:50.060 | 'cause it was very difficult for me, even as an adult.

02:20:53.080 | And of course then I ran away, I didn't run away,

02:20:56.560 | but I, you know, I took my breaths.

02:20:59.480 | I felt proud, you know, that I was able to handle myself,

02:21:02.060 | which, you know, may sound strange to some people,

02:21:05.320 | you know, being an adult who's a psychologist, you know,

02:21:08.280 | who has a fifth degree black belt,

02:21:09.400 | I have to reinforce that now to make myself feel strong.

02:21:13.120 | But it was such a powerful, it was a great moment for me,

02:21:17.200 | one, of like having the courage to face the bully.

02:21:21.280 | And interestingly enough, the guy never,

02:21:27.840 | he was, he turned his, he treated me like I was like

02:21:31.480 | the president of the university after that.

02:21:33.880 | And so my point of telling that story is that,

02:21:39.160 | like I was 50, like that's old to cultivate the skills

02:21:44.160 | that I needed, right, to be able to deal

02:21:48.360 | with that very difficult situation.

02:21:50.800 | And my dream is that, you know, I always, you know,

02:21:55.080 | I say, I tell people, I'm so envious of that kindergartner

02:21:58.320 | because I've been lucky enough to be the developer

02:22:02.680 | of the curriculum, but I didn't live it.

02:22:06.320 | And so it, talking about neuroscience, like I'm not wired

02:22:10.560 | like that five-year-old is gonna be wired

02:22:12.240 | because they're growing up in an environment

02:22:14.480 | where every day they're checking in on their feelings.

02:22:17.200 | It reminds me of just another story.

02:22:18.640 | I was in a school in Brooklyn and I mean, kids,

02:22:22.520 | this one school has been using our program for a decade

02:22:25.400 | and they wanted, the kids wanted to meet me.

02:22:28.520 | And the principal of the school, who's my former student,

02:22:32.200 | he said, you can ask Mark anything.

02:22:34.240 | And it's like, why do you do this and what motivates you?

02:22:36.860 | And I was telling these kids the story of my childhood.

02:22:40.680 | And this one girl, she must've been in sixth grade.

02:22:43.640 | She said, I mean, it's really hard for me

02:22:47.000 | to understand your experience.

02:22:49.040 | I said, why?

02:22:50.680 | She's like, I've been going to this school

02:22:52.040 | since I'm in kindergarten and I can't think of a day

02:22:55.800 | that someone didn't ask me how I was feeling.

02:22:58.120 | It's powerful.

02:22:59.640 | You know, when you think about like her neural development,

02:23:03.120 | right, all the pathways that are being built

02:23:05.280 | for this person or these children in thousands of schools

02:23:08.320 | to be learning their feelings,

02:23:10.360 | understanding where they're, you know,

02:23:11.880 | why they're feeling the way they're feeling,

02:23:13.240 | to interact with other kids and see how they're feeling

02:23:16.640 | and how they express their feelings

02:23:18.000 | and how they deal with their feelings

02:23:19.240 | and learning strategies together

02:23:21.200 | in a cooperative environment to cultivate

02:23:23.720 | and how that gets more complex with development, right?

02:23:26.000 | 'Cause in kindergarten,

02:23:26.840 | you're learning about sadness and disappointment,

02:23:29.760 | but then you're learning about despair

02:23:31.240 | and alienation and exclusion.

02:23:33.720 | And that's what makes this work so interesting

02:23:37.000 | is that these concepts evolve throughout our lives, right?

02:23:41.560 | Think about it.

02:23:42.400 | I mean, what anger meant to me when I was five

02:23:45.160 | is not what it meant to me when I was 10 or 15 or 25

02:23:47.720 | or now 55.

02:23:48.800 | - Your description of confronting this bully,

02:23:54.200 | I don't even want to call them your colleague

02:23:55.800 | because there's nothing collegial about that.

02:23:57.280 | - I agree.

02:23:58.120 | I thought it was an embarrassment for the university.

02:23:59.720 | But more importantly,

02:24:01.560 | the fact that you were able to confront them

02:24:03.360 | is to me and I think to anybody that hears that story,

02:24:07.360 | the definition of courage.

02:24:09.400 | - Yeah.

02:24:10.360 | - Because it's in the moments where we feel like this big

02:24:13.120 | and we're collapsed on ourselves

02:24:14.840 | and we don't know where the resources are

02:24:18.720 | and we don't have somebody sitting there

02:24:20.200 | like holding our shoulder saying,

02:24:21.800 | "Listen, I'm going to go talk to them,"

02:24:23.000 | or "Let's go talk to them,"

02:24:23.960 | that you did that for yourself.

02:24:26.440 | You internalized the lessons you'd learned

02:24:31.160 | initially from your uncle.

02:24:33.680 | - Yeah.

02:24:34.600 | - And brought that forward.

02:24:35.640 | And I think anyone hearing that story,

02:24:38.880 | it's obvious to them that that is a great act of courage.

02:24:43.880 | And it's an inspirational one too.

02:24:46.160 | And a reminder that for people that are being bullied

02:24:48.760 | as adults as well,

02:24:50.840 | that it's important to calmly,

02:24:53.300 | but directly and firmly express,

02:24:55.720 | like you basically gave him a no,

02:24:58.760 | like a really strong, like no,

02:25:00.280 | like you would to a puppy

02:25:01.280 | that was like putting itself in danger or something,

02:25:03.480 | except in this case,

02:25:04.600 | it's a human being who had agency.

02:25:06.480 | And so he needed a sharp,

02:25:08.200 | he needed to be punished slightly.

02:25:11.280 | - Yeah, he needed to be educated about boundaries

02:25:15.440 | and about how this game of being a colleague is played.

02:25:20.440 | - Well, certainly not rewarded.

02:25:21.920 | You're right, punished isn't the right word.

02:25:23.320 | He certainly, whatever dopamine hit he got from that.

02:25:27.920 | - I think part of it-

02:25:28.760 | - That antic was just needed,

02:25:30.480 | that needed to be retracted.

02:25:31.880 | That needed to be taken away from him.

02:25:33.480 | - Yeah, and I think that we should spend a minute

02:25:35.680 | on punishment because it never works.

02:25:38.400 | You know, unless it's consistent, harsh,

02:25:40.080 | and nobody wants to be punished

02:25:41.560 | because it doesn't feel good

02:25:42.880 | and it doesn't teach people anything, right?

02:25:45.460 | Go to your room.

02:25:46.960 | What does that teach me?

02:25:47.800 | It teach me to go to my room and ruminate and get angrier.

02:25:51.080 | I've been in schools that are not using our model.

02:25:54.400 | You know, I'll never forget this one moment

02:25:56.280 | where I was in a principal's office,

02:25:57.920 | a kid had given the teacher the finger

02:26:00.760 | and he got thrown to the office and it was a Tuesday.

02:26:03.880 | And it was Tuesday before,

02:26:07.960 | the next week was going to be a holiday break.

02:26:10.520 | And the, you know, you got, it was a two day suspension,

02:26:14.880 | you know, for giving the teacher the finger,

02:26:17.360 | but that was going to be till Thursday.

02:26:19.880 | And then Friday, you know,

02:26:21.240 | after that there'd be a week break.

02:26:22.660 | And I literally heard the principal say,

02:26:24.760 | let's just make it three days

02:26:25.800 | so I wouldn't have to see this kid for 10 days.

02:26:28.160 | And I'm thinking,

02:26:31.080 | what is this person learning about empathy,

02:26:35.460 | about self-regulation, about emotional awareness?

02:26:38.920 | They're learning nothing.

02:26:40.560 | They're going to be thrown out with no skills

02:26:43.840 | in an environment that's probably not supportive.

02:26:46.960 | And so I just think this has to change

02:26:50.720 | and it still does happen, not as often, thank goodness.

02:26:53.440 | I'm a prevention scientist.

02:26:56.080 | So I don't want to wait until everyone

02:26:58.520 | has an anxiety disorder and everyone's been bullied.

02:27:01.280 | I want to cultivate a society where people have the skills

02:27:03.800 | they need to navigate their emotions

02:27:05.660 | and know how to build healthy relationships

02:27:08.200 | and make sound decisions and have good mental health

02:27:10.400 | and achieve their dreams.

02:27:11.660 | - And it occurred to me just now

02:27:15.720 | that you're effectively doing what your uncle did for you,

02:27:20.720 | but for millions and millions of people.

02:27:24.560 | - You know, God bless Uncle Marvin.

02:27:26.840 | I have a, you know, as you know now, the storyteller,

02:27:30.680 | but one of the most profound moments of my career

02:27:33.840 | was just after I had written my book

02:27:35.760 | and I was on my book tour.

02:27:37.840 | I'm in Westchester, New York, and I'm giving a speech.

02:27:41.600 | And I had never spoken about my uncle

02:27:43.360 | in that level of detail, nor my abuse, by the way.

02:27:45.960 | I was talking about courage.

02:27:46.800 | It was not until 48, writing this book,

02:27:48.640 | that I decided, like, people ask me, like,

02:27:50.600 | why are you so passionate?

02:27:52.360 | And I would say I hated school, I was bullied,

02:27:54.200 | but I believe I was robbed of my emotional life as a child

02:27:58.120 | because of the abuse and, you know, my circumstances.

02:28:02.240 | And I felt I needed to just share that a little bit.

02:28:04.560 | Not the focus, but I needed to be, I needed to be real.

02:28:07.320 | So I'm sharing about Uncle Marvin, the sixth grade teacher

02:28:10.880 | from Monticello, New York State.

02:28:13.640 | And this guy has this, like,

02:28:15.080 | like that woman in the audience, he had an epiphany.

02:28:16.680 | He's like, are you talking about Marvin Moore,

02:28:18.040 | the sixth grade social studies teacher

02:28:19.200 | from Monticello, New York?

02:28:20.040 | I'm like, yes.

02:28:20.880 | He's like, Mark, you're not gonna believe this,

02:28:22.960 | but your Uncle Marvin was my Uncle Marvin.

02:28:25.320 | I'm like, are you kidding me?

02:28:26.920 | He's like, your uncle was my sixth grade teacher

02:28:30.640 | 45 years ago, and he's the reason why I teach.

02:28:35.000 | I was blown away.

02:28:35.840 | I was like, I was like, I was shaking so excited

02:28:38.160 | that I never met one of my uncle's actual students.

02:28:40.840 | 'Cause, you know, we worked when I was older.

02:28:42.880 | He was older.

02:28:44.320 | And so I said to the guy, I gotta finish my speech,

02:28:47.600 | but can I interview you afterwards?

02:28:50.200 | He's like, yeah.

02:28:51.040 | So I interviewed this guy, I have it on tape.

02:28:54.880 | 45 minutes, what he remembered

02:28:56.720 | about his sixth grade social studies class.

02:28:59.000 | I mean, I have no memories of my social studies class.

02:29:02.200 | This guy remembered details of my uncle's facial expression,

02:29:05.760 | body language, the way he taught feelings,

02:29:07.720 | the way he taught history.

02:29:08.720 | It was on and on and on.

02:29:11.040 | But here's the kicker.

02:29:12.200 | So we're done with this conversation,

02:29:16.440 | and he looks at me and he's like, you know,

02:29:18.280 | Mark, it's really clear

02:29:20.440 | that your uncle had a profound influence on your life.

02:29:25.360 | And so I just have one question for you.

02:29:27.360 | For whom were you an Uncle Marvin?

02:29:33.520 | And it just like, oh, like, I'm the professor here.

02:29:38.400 | I'm the one who does the teaching, right?

02:29:39.920 | I do the research.

02:29:40.760 | You don't ask me questions like that.

02:29:43.160 | And it was so eye-opening for me about just, you know,

02:29:46.440 | my life in terms of how I spend my time with my own family.

02:29:50.480 | And am I giving that non-judgment?

02:29:54.960 | Am I giving that active listening?

02:29:56.560 | Am I showing my empathy and compassion?

02:29:58.160 | I'm like, I'm a workaholic, you know, I write papers.

02:30:01.280 | I'm not living it.

02:30:02.920 | And it really has made a profound difference for me.

02:30:06.000 | You know, I really try hard

02:30:09.480 | to be an Uncle Marvin and it's tough 'cause time, right?

02:30:14.480 | All the factors that we talked about earlier,

02:30:17.480 | but gosh, you know,

02:30:19.400 | if we only had more of those in our world.

02:30:21.960 | - Well, it's absolutely clear to me

02:30:24.120 | that you're extremely passionate about this mission

02:30:29.120 | of teaching people what emotions are

02:30:32.080 | and how to work with them,

02:30:33.960 | giving them really clear systems to do that,

02:30:38.640 | tools that they can do that.

02:30:40.400 | And I think it's fair to say

02:30:43.200 | that you answered your own question, in my opinion,

02:30:47.800 | if I may, that, you know, you,

02:30:52.080 | through your Uncle Marvin to you

02:30:54.160 | and through the work that you do

02:30:55.480 | and through your public education effort,

02:30:57.880 | which includes your graciousness in coming here

02:30:59.840 | and sharing with us what you know,

02:31:03.320 | what you believe people can benefit from.

02:31:04.800 | And it's absolutely clear to me

02:31:06.640 | that people can so benefit from these tools

02:31:09.360 | and what you put into your book,

02:31:10.400 | which does include some very personal things

02:31:12.320 | that I must say are entirely couched

02:31:16.480 | toward the reader understanding

02:31:19.320 | and learning how they can make themselves

02:31:21.720 | and others and the world a better place.

02:31:23.880 | It's really extraordinary.

02:31:25.800 | - I appreciate that.

02:31:26.720 | - The rippling out effect

02:31:31.000 | is not a sufficient way to describe it.

02:31:33.760 | It's really an enormous amplification

02:31:36.080 | of the hard work you've done.

02:31:38.000 | And I'm just really, really in awe

02:31:42.320 | of the fact that you've taken hard experiences

02:31:45.200 | and transmuted those into so much good.

02:31:48.800 | And so on behalf of myself

02:31:50.480 | and everyone listening and watching,

02:31:52.320 | I just want to extend an enormous debt of gratitude.

02:31:54.560 | This is truly important work.

02:31:56.080 | And I don't say that lightly.

02:31:57.680 | - I really appreciate that.

02:31:58.720 | Thank you.

02:31:59.760 | Thank you for joining me for today's discussion

02:32:01.640 | with Dr. Mark Brackett.

02:32:03.160 | To learn more about his work

02:32:04.400 | and to find links to his book, "Permission to Feel,"

02:32:06.840 | which by the way, I highly recommend,

02:32:08.960 | as well as other links to his laboratory

02:32:11.440 | and other resources,

02:32:12.720 | please see the links in the show note captions.

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02:32:46.600 | For those of you that haven't heard,

02:32:47.740 | I have a new book coming out.

02:32:48.940 | It's my very first book.

02:32:50.560 | It's entitled "Protocols,

02:32:51.960 | an Operating Manual for the Human Body."

02:32:54.120 | This is a book that I've been working on

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02:33:00.320 | And it covers protocols for everything from sleep,

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02:33:08.320 | And of course, I provide the scientific substantiation

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02:33:13.760 | The book is now available by pre-sale

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02:33:17.660 | There you can find links to various vendors.

02:33:20.040 | You can pick the one that you like best.

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02:34:20.140 | Thank you once again for joining me

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02:34:25.120 | And last, but certainly not least,

02:34:27.460 | thank you for your interest in science.

02:34:29.420 | (upbeat music)

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Dr. Marc Brackett: How to Increase Your Emotional Intelligence

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