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

Dr. Marc Brackett has spent decades at Yale studying the one skill that determines the quality of your entire life: emotional intelligence. He reveals why even experts struggle to regulate their emotions, especially during crisis. Lewis opens up about his own journey from explosive reactions and ruined relationships to finding emotional mastery at 30, and Marc shares the RULER method that's transforming how millions of people understand their inner world. This isn't theory, it's survival tools for modern life. You'll learn why permission to feel is revolutionary, how to break cycles of emotional trauma, and why your emotions aren't the enemy. They're the roadmap. Marc’s book’s:Dealing with Feeling: Use Your Emotions to Create the Life You WantPermission to Feel: The Power of Emotional Intelligence to Achieve Well-Being and SuccessLearn more about Dr. Marc BrackettIn this episode you will:Discover why 90% of people never received emotional education and how this one gap sabotages relationships, careers, and healthLearn the RULER method, a five-step framework to recognize, understand, label, express, and regulate emotions in real timeBreak free from childhood patterns of gaslighting and narcissistic parenting by becoming an emotion scientist of your own lifeTransform how you show up in relationships through co-regulation, the skill of managing emotions together instead of aloneUnderstand why giving yourself permission to feel all emotions, even the uncomfortable ones, is the first step to genuine freedomFor more information go to https://lewishowes.com/1843For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Jerry Wise – greatness.lnk.to/1747SCDr. Becky Kennedy – greatness.lnk.to/1586SCDr. Mariel Buqué – greatness.lnk.to/1555SC Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Here's the deal. Ninety percent of us report never having had any emotion education. And you can't just bury your emotions because they're what make you human. The number one thing that students said to me was that they felt manufactured. And they really weren't sure who they were because someone else prescribed. Clarence. Yeah.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  Professor of psychology at Yale University and the director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence. A guest today is Dr. Mark Brackett.

• 0:27Lewis Howes?

  There seems to be this trend that I'm noticing where parents are too much in their feelings with their kids. Tell me more about your feelings. It's okay. Cry.

• 0:36Speaker 00

  That's not emotional intelligence. That's emotional indulgence. Why is everybody depressed? Everybody's not depressed. They're just using the word depressed. We can't allow that. We've got to get people to understand. You're disappointed. You're discouraged. What we want to do is help people understand that granularity, it's called. I'm pretty convinced at this point in my career that most of us have been gaslighted in childhood.

• 0:57Lewis Howes?

  How does someone who's experienced that as a child work this cycle?

• 1:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, well firstly.

• 1:05Lewis Howes?

  Welcome back everyone to the School of Greatness. Excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Mark Brackett in the house. And the first question I want to ask you, Mark, is about emotional regulation. Because many neuroscientists that I've brought on this show before, brain surgeons that I've brought on, elite athletes, billionaires, and people that have harmony in their, their life. When I ask them, what is the number one skill that you should master? They say emotional regulation. And I lacked emotional regulation for probably most of my life until I hit about 30, when I had all the outward success. I had money. I had followers. I had beautiful girlfriends.

• 1:50Lewis Howes?

  All these different things, but I could not manage my emotions. And anytime I felt like under attack or anytime I felt.

• 2:00Lewis Howes?

  abused in any way psychologically, physically, financially, emotionally, whatever it might be. It was like a bear came out of me, emotions that I could not contain. And these emotions would ruin relationships, they would ruin moments in my life, they would rob me of joy. They would rob me of peace and harmony inside of myself. And it wasn't until I hit around thirty years old where I started to understand and study what emotional intelligence was. I didn't even understand the concept. I just thought if you have a goal, you should do anything in your power to go achieve that goal and be successful. You know, whatever it takes, win at all costs, be number one, be the best.

• 2:45Lewis Howes?

  I didn't understand the concept of having harmony and peace along the journey. And every time I would accomplish anything, it was almost like I felt more and more frustrated with my life. Interesting. I felt more and more not enough. I felt like I had to go for something bigger and I didn't feel like anyone ever understood me. And I'm assuming a lot of people watching or listening can relate to that feeling of not feeling understood, not knowing how to manage their emotions. And it's been a twelve year journey of learning how to process my emotions, learning how to regulate my emotions, learning how to name them, learning how to meditate, learning how to breathe, learning how to sleep better, learning how to have the courage to actually use my voice

• 3:28Lewis Howes?

  and create boundaries in my life without screaming at someone. Yeah. All these different things and you've been teaching this and you're, you're leading the research center at Yale around emotional intelligence for a long time now, and you've been teaching this and you have this book, Dealing with Feeling. Use Your Emotions to Create the Like You Want. And I guess my first question is,

• 3:51Lewis Howes?

  Why do so many people struggle with understanding how to navigate their emotions to create peace, harmony, and accomplish their goals in life?

• 4:00Speaker 00

  Well, during the pandemic, which was eye opening for me about how dysregulated people were, I had written my first book called Permission to Feel, and then people were saying things like, well, thank you for giving me permission to feel about like, what the hell do I do with all these feelings?

• 4:15Lewis Howes?

  I don't know what to do with them, yeah.

• 4:16Speaker 00

  Yeah, like people in the grocery stores were like spraying their groceries. I mean, it's like, people were out of their minds.

• 4:21Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah.

• 4:22Speaker 00

  And so, and I was going crazy myself.

• 4:24Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 4:24Speaker 00

  Because I was not used to working from home. I was not used to my mother-in-law living with me, and it became, you know, pretty chaotic.

• 4:32Lewis Howes?

  But you were the expert in this. You were studying it and teaching this.

• 4:34Speaker 00

  Well, I can write the papers.

• 4:36Lewis Howes?

  You can do the research.

• 4:37Speaker 00

  Yeah. Living it is hard. And so, I've done a lot of research in this space, obviously. And here's the deal. Ninety percent of us report never having had any emotion education.

• 4:49Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm. It's probably more.

• 4:51Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 4:51Lewis Howes?

  Probably more.

• 4:52Speaker 00

  And seven percent say we got it in school. So there's just no formalized way of teaching it, which is what I want to change. I think that this is as important as reading, writing, and arithmetic.

• 5:02Lewis Howes?

  I believe this is the only skill. You know, I, I learned how to set goals, how to accomplish goals, how to work hard from sports. Like, sports was my playground for learning life skills. I learned how to be coachable, how to get feedback, how to learn to communicate, all these different things, and work together in teams. I learned all these things in sports, but I didn't learn how to navigate emotions.

• 5:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:26Lewis Howes?

  So I could work really hard. I could show up early and stay late and do whatever was required of me physically. But mentally and emotionally, when something got under my skin, when someone like cheap shotted me, it was like, I felt under attack.

• 5:41Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:41Lewis Howes?

  I felt like my life was under attack, even though it wasn't. And I didn't understand how to navigate those emotions. So most of the time, I was fine, but sometimes they would get the best of me. And I would do stuff that I was like, not proud of. I'm like, oh, why did I react that way? Why did I scream? Why did I blow up? Why did I get into this fight?

• 5:59Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 5:59Lewis Howes?

  I got in multiple fights just reacting to my emotions because I didn't know how to navigate and process them. And thank goodness, I never did anything like that. I can't, you know, come back from, you know, it's like, it was all okay, but man, so many people, their emotions get the best of them. And they ruin their, their relationships, their marriages, their careers, their health.

• 6:22Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 6:22Lewis Howes?

  And they do things to harm themselves and others because they don't know how to understand emotions.

• 6:28Speaker 00

  You're speaking my language, buddy.

• 6:29Lewis Howes?

  I mean, and so when you, when you COVID hit for you, even though you'd been researching and teaching this for a long time, you had to face your emotions at a different level.

• 6:39Speaker 00

  Totally.

• 6:40Lewis Howes?

  How did you learn how to process it as the expert? Now that you were faced with this real world experience, how did you learn how to deal with it and, and not blow up your life?

• 6:51Speaker 00

  Well, the one thing I did, I learned every single park in the town that I live in, and it's a pretty big town. I mean, I literally would go every day for a walk because I needed the space. I was not a person who went for walks, but because of being trapped in the house, I'm like, I gotta get out of here. I don't want to look at you and I want to look at you. So it's like, I need like just downtime to myself and I'm an introvert.

• 7:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 7:12Speaker 00

  So it just, I needed quiet time. That really helped a lot. But I think for me, you know, I had spent 25 years of my life teaching this, writing about it. You know, I have curriculum in schools around the world and 5,000 schools. And here I was, um, you know, like secretly crying in my room, you know, eating really unhealthy foods. I was, you know, just takeout and I was, I'm a martial artist by training. And so I was, I stopped doing that. I stopped going to yoga classes. There's no hot yoga during the pandemic and I can imagine breathing.

• 7:47Lewis Howes?

  So all the tools that you were used to.

• 7:49Speaker 00

  Were taken away from me.

• 7:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 7:51Speaker 00

  And so I had to invent new tools and, um, the night, there was one night, this is, you know, the story of the opening of my book, where, um, my mother-in-law had come to visit us from Panama for two weeks on March 5th. Of 2020. Right before. Right before. Right before. Two weeks turned into two years. It turns to eight months. Yeah. And so, you know, 81 year old woman doesn't speak English. I'm lucky I speak Spanish, but you know, we weren't used to cohabitating for that long. And it just so many things came up in terms of like meals and like making coffee and time, like spending time with someone who's in your house. You know, I'm not used to that. I'm used to like, you know, I go to work and then I, you know, I go to the gym and then I do other things. You have your routine. Yeah. And I'm very, I like routine.

• 8:37Speaker 00

  Anyhow, one night she looked at me and she says, are you really the director of the Center for Emotional Intelligence? And I just look at her and I'm like, you know, not tonight, I'm not. And it's like, I thought that night like the dogs peed on the rugs. I mean, it was just sort of like, the house was nuts. But I share this story, A, because the best of us or the most wisest emotionally of us fail. And I went to bed that night. And I said, you know, Mark, you actually are the director of the Center for Emotional Intelligence. And you do teach this stuff, like, why are you not applying it? Like, what, what has happened to you? And I started reflecting on all this about like, well, my time and my space and you're in, you know, blah, blah, blah.

• 9:22Speaker 00

  Mm hmm. But there's a piece of my work, and actually the end of my book, I talk about how we regulate to become the best versions of ourselves. And so I had not actually paused in the few months before the blow up to think about, well, Mark, you know, here's this woman who is like displaced from her house in Panama. She wants to go home. Yeah. She doesn't want to be with you. And how do you show up tomorrow morning when you come down for breakfast as the best version of yourself? Like, what do you need to think about and what do you need to do differently to be that person for your mother in law? But just that, literally that two minute pause and reflection and reminding myself about the work I do, it transformed everything, just transformed everything.

• 10:06Speaker 00

  I'm like, Mark, you're a narcissist. Like, you don't care about anybody else except you. Like, you're not, this 81 year old lady is sitting here like depressed and wanting to go home. And you're worrying about that you want to drink coffee by yourself. Mm hmm. And so. That your routine is displaced because someone's here when she's out of the country and she's not in her home. She's got a dog and a parrot we had to deal with. And that was nuts. And, um, and I think for me, something that was a wake up call was having an other orientation.

• 10:34Lewis Howes?

  What does that mean?

• 10:35Speaker 00

  Just, it's not just about me.

• 10:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 10:38Speaker 00

  You know, emotions are not just my emotions. Everybody's got emotions. And I could, yes, I can regulate my own emotions, but guess what? Co-regulation is a huge piece of emotional intelligence.

• 10:48Lewis Howes?

  What is co-regulation?

• 10:50Speaker 00

  So, think about it in a, in a baby, you know, you're working with your baby and they're crying and you're holding the baby and you're giving them warmth and you're, you know, give it a little cooing, you know, you're talking in a very soft voice to kind of deactivate their nervous system and that makes you feel calm. It's this kind of symbiotic back and forth.

• 11:07Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 11:08Speaker 00

  As adults, it's me asking you good questions. It's me showing up with empathy, with compassion, with good listening skills and saying, you know, hey, Louis, I heard, you know, I heard the news, you know, I'm really sorry about that. Um, what can I do to be supportive? Let's think about it. Let's go for a walk. Let's go play a game. Let's do something to just get your mind off of it or to problem solve about it. But I'm here for you. That's co-regulation.

• 11:33Lewis Howes?

  I guess the challenge is when, when someone's, you know, if your coffee routine is displaced, you know, for months in a row and you're just like, I can't take this anymore. And your nervous system is on high alert or even something more extreme, whatever it might be for someone. And their nervous system is not calm.

• 11:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:50Lewis Howes?

  And they feel like they're in chronic stress because they haven't regulated their own nervous system. How does someone co-regulate with someone else's heightened emotions or irrational emotions that might seem irrational in a, in a context of setting? Um, how do you co-regulate when you can't even get your own nervous system to relax? And you think the other person you're with is already irrational?

• 12:16Speaker 00

  Well, two over, uh, activated nervous systems is a nightmare.

• 12:21Speaker 00

  It's a nightmare.

• 12:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:23Speaker 00

  And so you gotta be the first. And you know, it is our responsibility, your responsibility as a father to be to deactivate. You're the role model. You have to be. And so the self-regulation piece comes before the co-regulation piece. And ultimately, if you're talking about parent-child, you're the role model for like daddy can take,

• 12:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:46Speaker 00

  handle this. Daddy has, you know, daddy talks to himself in a self-compassionate way. Daddy takes care of his body. Daddy breathes properly and daddy's modeling that for you because daddy eventually wants you to be able to do that for yourself.

• 12:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What about in a partnership, though, with two grown adults?

• 13:03Speaker 00

  Someone's gotta take responsibility. I mean, this is, this is the thing. It's, you know, it's oftentimes, you know, in my relationship, it's like the battle of who's the strongest person never works.

• 13:12Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 13:13Speaker 00

  And so sometimes it's like, Mark, remember you're the director of the center for emotional intelligence. Cause Mark me is like, I hate you right now.

• 13:23Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 13:23Speaker 00

  Like, I don't want to be with you anymore. And this is very impulsive, crazy stuff. We all say this for ourselves. When you're triggered and activated, the worst of ourselves comes out. Our automatic habitual kind of really poor habits, just like they come out like there's no tomorrow. And in those moments, we have to build a space. And no one's going to build a space for you. You've got to learn to, again, take the breath, back up, maybe just say, you know, I'm sorry, I cannot do this right now. I've got to go out for a minute.

• 13:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 13:52Speaker 00

  But if you build the space, the distance, you can deactivate the nervous system and then you can access all that cognition that you can use to then have a good conversation.

• 14:01Lewis Howes?

  Space is key. I love this quote in your book that says, "Success in virtually every aspect of life, career, friendship, love and family, is determined mainly by one thing, and that's how you deal with your feelings."

• 14:12Speaker 00

  That's correct.

• 14:13Lewis Howes?

  Now, how dangerous is it then to suppress and numb your true emotions?

• 14:19Speaker 00

  Well, I mean, they gotta go somewhere. So they go into stomach problems. They go into physical health problems. They go into depression, anxiety, losing a spouse. I mean, you can't just.

• 14:34Speaker 00

  Bury your emotions because they're what make you human. And that's why I think it's should be required to teach people the skills of emotional intelligence. Yeah. It's so critical. And I make this claim and I I stand by it, which is that as someone who teaches at a very powerful university, I always joke, like, all of my students have higher SAT scores than I had, higher grade point averages than I had. They play instruments I didn't even know existed. Right, right, right. They've traveled the countries to do internships. They've done everything they can to get into a place like Yale. But the question I've always had is how many of these students are successful? How many reach and attain their desired goals in life?

• 15:19Speaker 00

  And what I've seen over and over again is that the students with the greatest kind of, you know, academic skills are not the ones who succeed the most. Really, why is that? Because they can't deal with their emotions. Interesting. And so. They can study and get good grades. But then they get anxious. Hmm. Ninety, I mean, upwards of eighty percent of the students report having anxiety right now. Um, so if our definition of success is getting into a high powered university and being anxious all the time, I don't know, that makes no sense to me. Yeah. I know what it's like to be anxious. I've lived with anxiety. That's not something you want to live with, or depression, or imposter syndrome, which is a big deal at where I where I work. Really? Yeah. Everyone at Yale thinks they're an imposter because everyone else is smarter than them?

• 16:04Speaker 00

  Exactly. You know, they're the real valedictorian. You know, it was harder to get an A in their school. Right. They can study for less hours and get better grades than I do. They have a father who's connected at Wall Street. They have a mother who's a Hollywood producer. I mean, it's everyone's, you know, focusing on what everyone else has, except for, you know, having some gratitude, like, I'm actually doing pretty well here. I'm at Yale University. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, but the thing, the real key here about success is that over and over and again, and again, there are, we know. For some good and bad reasons, that people who are not so emotionally intelligent can reach high positions.

• 16:41Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 16:42Speaker 00

  Usually because they're bullies. However, if we define success as having the skills of emotional intelligence, meaning that I am well, you know, I am a person who has the strategies to deal with life's ups and downs, and I'm good at helping other people and lifting them up. I think it would change the way we would view people in terms of life success. And again, just going back to even attaining our goals, I don't know about your career, but in my career, like I teach emotions. A lot of dudes aren't interested in my work. A lot of like Fortune 100 CEOs who are mostly men, I go give speeches at their organizations.

• 17:22Lewis Howes?

  They're like, just tell me how to make money.

• 17:23Speaker 00

  Yeah, exactly.

• 17:25Lewis Howes?

  Tell me to get my people to like, do what I want them to do and like.

• 17:27Speaker 00

  Totally. I mean, I have one favorite memory where I'm at this very famous hedge fund and the CEO looks at me and he's like, look at my office. You know, you think I need emotional intelligence? And the joke behind that is I had interviewed the people who report to him like, yeah, because your employees hate you.

• 17:43Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 17:44Speaker 00

  And so I don't think people realize that when you're a poor, when you're a poor role model for emotional regulation, people don't want to be around you.

• 17:53Lewis Howes?

  No. Or they're afraid of you, or it's just, it's not a healthy relationship.

• 17:57Speaker 00

  It's.

• 17:58Lewis Howes?

  You know, it's interesting because the more I've studied emotional intelligence, and correct me if I'm wrong, the greatest, the greatest way that an individual can become a true leader is not just understanding their own emotions, but like you said, learning to co-regulate all types of unique personalities in the world when you're in an environment with them and understanding their emotions.

• 18:20Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 18:21Lewis Howes?

  Being able to, being able to be with your emotions and the discomfort or the, the messiness of the moment, whatever's happening in life, being able to regulate your own emotions, being able to see the other person in front of you, what they're experiencing.

• 18:36Speaker 00

  Correct.

• 18:36Lewis Howes?

  And almost have a snapshot of their life, of where they could have came from, what they might have gone through, why they're dysregulated, almost seeing it without knowing who they are.

• 18:45Speaker 00

  That's right.

• 18:46Lewis Howes?

  And in trying to flex and navigate emotionally, how to.

• 18:52Lewis Howes?

  Co-regulate with that human being. You're not going to do skin to skin bonding with an adult, but learning how to just be present, how to breathe, how to relax, how to say, tell me more how you feel.

• 19:03Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 19:04Lewis Howes?

  I think that is true leadership when you can understand emotional intelligence, more than just calming yourself, but learning how to calm the entire room and the environment around you.

• 19:13Speaker 00

  Well, you just summarized this big study I did during the pandemic. So we studied leaders across five time periods during the pandemic. And what we looked at was their employees' perceptions of the leader's skill at dealing with their own emotions, but co-regulated.

• 19:29Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 19:29Speaker 00

  So being kind of like my, you know, Mark, let's use me as an example, like Mark can, like he remains calm, he's not freaking out, he can, you know, self-regulate. Or Mark, you know, when we're having our team meetings is really helpful to the group and understands where they're coming from and creates the conditions where people feel held, where people feel supported emotionally, et cetera. So it's intra-inter.

• 19:53Lewis Howes?

  Intra-inter regulation.

• 19:55Speaker 00

  Exactly. Yeah. And, um, and then we tracked that across five time periods and looked at culture and climate in companies. We looked at it in terms of how the employees felt on average, uh, burnout, uh, intentions to leave their jobs. And of course, everything went in the direction we had predicted that leaders who are both skilled at dealing with their own emotions, but helpful at co-regulating, had employees were healthier, happier, actually employees who slept better at night.

• 20:22Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 20:23Speaker 00

  I mean, think about that. The skill of a leader is predicting the sleep quality of an employee.

• 20:31Lewis Howes?

  But the challenge is it's really hard for most people to learn the skill of emotional regulation in themselves, let alone in themselves and with 10, 20, 50, 100 employees or their team or their family. And I'm assuming you grew up with dysfunctional parents like I did and like most, like most of us did.

• 20:50Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:51Lewis Howes?

  Where we, we mirrored and modeled behaviors that were not healthy from the, the, the dysregulation of fighting, of screaming, of silent treatments of.

• 21:03Lewis Howes?

  Feeling fear coming in, you know, the house lots of times. At least that's how I grew up. You know, I left home when I was thirteen because I was like, get me out of here. You know, I knew my parents loved me, but they didn't know how to love themselves.

• 21:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 21:15Lewis Howes?

  And it didn't feel emotionally safe. My brother went to prison when I was eight for selling drugs to an undercover cop. My older sisters were going through their own struggles as well. And I was just like, I don't feel emotionally safe. I knew they loved me, you know, it's like they, they showed up at sports practices. They tucked me in a bed. They told me they loved me, but when you feel like your parents are not in an emotionally loving environment and they don't regulate their emotions. It's a scary world when you're a five, seven, eight year old. It's scary and you don't, they don't teach you how to, to, to regulate your own emotions when they're not really theirs.

• 21:53Speaker 00

  A hundred percent. I mean, we, different families, same experience.

• 21:57Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 21:58Speaker 00

  So I had two parents who loved me a lot. My mom had terrible anxiety and I'm having a nervous breakdown. I'm like, wait, I'm the one being bullied. So.

• 22:07Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, I'm seven. What do I do with this?

• 22:09Speaker 00

  Exactly. And my father was, you know, we call it today, the toxically masculine tough guy. So his mantra to me was, son, you got tough enough.

• 22:17Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Stop crying.

• 22:18Speaker 00

  Stop crying. You know, I joke about this, but even when I was in middle school, my father had the nerve to say something like, you know, son, I used to beat kids up like you. And I'm like, okay, you know, like, guess what dad? We have very different, you know, personalities and, uh, and it was nuts. Now, again, I think my father's belief system was that's how I'm going to get my son to be tough.

• 22:42Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 22:42Speaker 00

  Like I have to like scare him into being tough.

• 22:45Lewis Howes?

  He didn't have the tools either.

• 22:47Speaker 00

  You're looking at me right now. Like I do have a fifth degree black belt.

• 22:50Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:50Speaker 00

  I'm still not a tough guy. It's like, also what is, that's a whole, like, that's a whole nother podcast.

• 22:55Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 22:56Speaker 00

  But, um. Anyway, and unfortunately, I also had abuse in my childhood. Um, while my parents were dealing with two older brothers of mine who had their own challenges. The person who took care of me unfortunately was a pedophile.

• 23:11Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 23:12Speaker 00

  And so for about five years, I was abused and didn't say anything about it.

• 23:17Lewis Howes?

  Oh, yeah, that happened to me as well when I was five, by the babysitter's son. And I've talked about it many times openly, but it's for 25 years, I didn't tell a soul. And that's where I felt someone was always abusing me, you know, in every environment in my life. Like if someone was taking advantage of me, it was like I'm being abused.

• 23:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 23:36Lewis Howes?

  And for 25 years, I never told anyone. And it felt like if anyone knew this about me, no one would ever love me. No one would ever like me, love me, people would make fun of me forever. I would not have any friends. And so I stuffed this frustration, this anger, until I learned to process emotions around 12 years ago.

• 23:55Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 23:55Lewis Howes?

  And it set me emotionally free. The journey, it took, you know, it took some time, but it set me emotionally free to have a level of peace that I'd never felt in my life.

• 24:06Speaker 00

  That's amazing.

• 24:07Lewis Howes?

  And I think one of the biggest, and not to, not to cut you off, I want you to share more about it. But also I want you to share, based on your research and experience. If we don't fully own our emotions and our traumas, and we keep it stuck inside of us. What, how is that going to hold us back from accomplishing a life we want?

• 24:30Speaker 00

  Well, like we said earlier, in terms of emotional suppression, that's a form of suppression or repression or denial. And it's hard to live a full life when you can't be your true self.

• 24:41Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 24:43Speaker 00

  I've done a lot of research in this area too. This is a new line of research that I can just share with you. And and what I think what we're both talking about here, you know, about our childhood is that we needed adults who gave us, as I call it, permission to feel, who created the conditions where we could talk about feelings, where we can get support, where we wouldn't have, we didn't have to like, you know, secretly, you know, bang our heads against the wall or drink alcohol or whatever it was. And I found in my research, there are three characteristics of these people. Do you want to guess what they are?

• 25:15Lewis Howes?

  Three characteristics of adults.

• 25:16Speaker 00

  Of the adults who create the conditions for us to talk about feelings and be our true selves.

• 25:22Lewis Howes?

  Of like a healthy versions or the three?

• 25:24Speaker 00

  None of the, the people who give us permission to feel. What do you think are their top three traits?

• 25:32Lewis Howes?

  Well, they have, they've created kind of a healthy relationship with themselves. They feel whole, they feel healthy, they feel healed.

• 25:40Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 25:41Lewis Howes?

  You know, they've created a healing journey. You know, maybe it's not fully healed, but they've created safety within themselves.

• 25:49Lewis Howes?

  They

• 25:53Lewis Howes?

  they probably are in a healthy relationship, I would say. You know, they're probably in a healthy relationship with someone else.

• 25:58Speaker 00

  Think about someone you know, who just is, is that kind of person. How would you, what would be their attributes, their characteristics?

• 26:06Lewis Howes?

  Very loving, very kind, very calm.

• 26:09Speaker 00

  Calm.

• 26:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, peaceful, present.

• 26:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 26:13Lewis Howes?

  Very connected, like they're.

• 26:15Speaker 00

  Exactly. All the things that we learn how to develop in school.

• 26:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, none of that.

• 26:19Speaker 00

  Yeah. The top three, which you're, you're kind of bringing them all together. The number one is non judgmental.

• 26:25Lewis Howes?

  Oh, okay.

• 26:26Speaker 00

  We're just dying to be around.

• 26:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, accepting.

• 26:29Speaker 00

  Yeah, just like, can I just be me? Like, why are you trying to make me into somebody else? The second is listener. Just listen, stop talking. And the third is compassionate. That just let me know you care. What I think is so fascinating about that is that.

• 26:49Speaker 00

  Never do people say brilliant, wise.

• 26:52Lewis Howes?

  Talented.

• 26:53Speaker 00

  Talented, fixer, problem solver. We don't want that. We want the presence. And what I've done in my research is I've asked, you know, tens of thousands of people, well, only a third of people, by the way, a third of adults running around the United States at least, and I've done this cross culturally, it's the same stuff. Only a third of us say we had someone like that growing up. Two thirds of us.

• 27:14Lewis Howes?

  I mean, shoes.

• 27:15Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 27:16Lewis Howes?

  It's tough.

• 27:16Speaker 00

  And the barrier that when I talk to parents or even business leaders, well, I don't have time. Like, you don't have time to be nonjudgmental. Like, I'm not sure I get that one. The second is fear.

• 27:29Lewis Howes?

  Fear of what?

• 27:31Speaker 00

  That they're afraid of like, if I ask you how you're feeling, you're going to say like, I'm feeling this way and I'm not going to know what to do about it. So they're afraid to ask the question because they don't know how to kind of work with the person.

• 27:41Lewis Howes?

  They don't know how to deal with the emotions of a person.

• 27:43Speaker 00

  Exactly. But remember, no one is looking for you to problem solve or fix. They just want to, they just want you to listen and ask maybe some questions to show that you care. And also, we want to help kids build resilience. And so if we just constantly tell our kids like, do this and do this, they're not learning anything. And they don't want that anyway. What they want is someone who shows their care and gets them to think critically so they can come up with their own solutions, which I think is, should pull away the fear that people have because you actually have to do that much, other than be present and ask your questions.

• 28:17Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 28:18Speaker 00

  And so it's time, fear, and feeling like, you know, the skills, which

• 28:23Lewis Howes?

  Most people don't.

• 28:24Speaker 00

  We've got to build the time, take away the fear and teach people the skills.

• 28:27Lewis Howes?

  Most people don't have the skills at least, but they could have the time for sure.

• 28:29Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 28:29Lewis Howes?

  The fear of not knowing how to deal with someone else's emotions, I think, could be real because, you know, even, you know, my wife Martha, she's, you know, due here with our twins in less than two weeks. And she's having a range of, more range of emotions than she normally has, right? And she's really good at self-regulation. Like, she's done a lot of healing work. She has a therapist and speaks to her family and friends. And she's processing a lot before she brings me the big emotions. So I'm not getting, you know,

• 29:04Lewis Howes?

  Big emotions every single day from her, right? It's like once in a while. And I feel like I can handle it. Like, okay, yes, it's okay. If it was every day, I'd be like, this is kind of exhausting too for me, right? It's all hard for you and hard for me. But it's it's more now. It has been more and still not that much, but. And a lot of times I'm like, I don't know how to solve this because I don't know how you truly feel. I don't have two kids inside of my belly growing and my pain everywhere. So it's like, I can try to empathize and be compassionate, obviously, but I don't know how to fix. And I think that's one of the key things you said is don't try to fix.

• 29:39Speaker 00

  Don't try to fix it. She doesn't want to, believe me, I I'm telling you, she does not want you to fix her.

• 29:44Lewis Howes?

  Exactly. And so what I have learned is just rubbing her and listening to her is the best thing I can do. And me learning how to be with the emotions.

• 29:54Speaker 00

  Or how about saying, what do you need right now?

• 29:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah. What do you need? How can I support you? I'm here for you.

• 29:59Speaker 00

  What would help right now?

• 30:00Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly.

• 30:01Speaker 00

  Again, that's that other orientation mindset.

• 30:03Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. But it's hard for a lot of, and I'm I'm in this work consistently and it's still, I have to be reminding myself to be patient. Yeah. To listen, to know that this may be two minutes, it may be 20 minutes. And I get to sit with it. And even though it's uncomfortable.

• 30:18Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:18Lewis Howes?

  It's still.

• 30:19Speaker 00

  Discomfort is fine.

• 30:21Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. So when you, I mean, going through the sexual abuse that you experienced for many years as a kid, how do you feel like that shaped your nervous system as an adult? And when did you feel like you were able to start processing the shame or guilt or fear or insecurity around that? To feel like you had a healthier nervous system and a better relationship with all the parts of you?

• 30:44Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 30:48Speaker 00

  Well, it was tough because I was a precocious kid. And at 11, when I disclosed it, like any parents, my mother, you know, had a breakdown. She could not believe that her friend was doing this to me.

• 31:02Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 31:02Speaker 00

  And my father got a bat and went to kill the man.

• 31:05Lewis Howes?

  Oh, my gosh.

• 31:06Speaker 00

  And luckily he didn't do that.

• 31:07Lewis Howes?

  Oh.

• 31:09Speaker 00

  Uh, he was arrested. And it was a long case. Unfortunately, it was back, you know, in the 1980s. And unfortunately, we found out he had abused. Many, yeah. But, um, and then stupidly, uh, my parents had a friend who was a psychiatrist, and he was writing a book on pedophilia, and I went on television with him, which was the worst decision anybody could have made because I became, you know, the pariah, you know, of, uh, of people. Meaning that my school found out about it and the teachers found out about it. That's tough. Parents would say things, don't play with Mark, you know, he's kind of like damaged goods. Oh, man. And so more bullying happened. It was bad.

• 31:55Speaker 00

  But Uncle Marvin, who is the man who was my hero in life, who happened to be a teacher in the Catskill Mountains of New York State, and a trumpet player by night, and a curriculum writer kind of in other hours. He was writing a curriculum to teach kids about emotions. Wow. And he stayed with us one summer. And he was the first person who asked me questions like, hey, Mark, you know, how are you feeling? And then he, he practiced his, his lessons with me with these feeling words. And he'd say, you know, tell me a time when you felt elated. And I'd be like, I can't think of any of those. How about when you felt alienated? I'm like, I could talk about that all day long. And we started having all these rich conversations just about emotions.

• 32:37Speaker 00

  What was the cause of that feeling? Was that really the right word? And how did you deal with that emotion? Let's think together about the strategies. So I tell you that because I went to college, life got better for me. And then I'm in college, I'm graduating, I'm still like, what am I gonna do with my life? I'm in therapy. And all of a sudden, it's 1995. And this, um, book comes out called Emotional Intelligence. Hmm. And I see it on the cover of Time Magazine. And I'm like, Emotional Intelligence, I don't know what that is, but that's exact, that's my uncle in me. That's, that's everything I learned out of the kid. And so I look, I read the book and I call my uncle and I'm like, he's retired now in Florida.

• 33:19Speaker 00

  And I'm like, Uncle Marvin, I think like, this is stuff that you were doing 20 years before this book came out. Let's work together and write a curriculum. And so I pulled my uncle out of retirement. We sat in Dunkin' Donuts in Fort Lauderdale, drinking our decaf and muffins and, and starting to think about, how could I translate what he was working on in his classroom into a real curriculum? Which then led me to get a PhD in psychology, because in that book, that book was originally written by a journalist, not the scientists. And so I found the two scientists who were the real authors and theorists, and I called them both. They both agreed to meet with me. One was at Yale, one at the University of New Hampshire. Joke about that one is I got rejected from Yale, where I'm now a professor.

• 34:05Speaker 00

  And I went to the University of New Hampshire to study with the other professor. And I, I share that kind of story because that really was my healing journey. It started with my uncle and then I started studying it and really understanding it. And then obviously, you know, other things like my martial arts training, you know, having a fifth degree black belt in hopkido, which was a Korean martial art, just the principles and the mindsets in the martial arts. I studied Zen meditation. Yeah. So between psychology and the martial arts and Uncle Marvin, it was really my healing journey. Wow. And I, you know, it's funny, I just gave a speech last night and, you know, it was a lot of people and people give you an applause at the end. You know. Somebody came up to me and said, you know, gosh, Mark, you know, with all your story, look at you.

• 34:50Speaker 00

  You're like, you're the one on stage presenting. And I always say, thank you for that. And then I go back and I say, but remember, I had Uncle Marvin. Remember, I have a PhD in psychology. Remember, I got a fifth degree black belt in the martial arts. I spent 30 years of my life researching, studying, teaching, writing books. I have a lot of time and effort put into my own emotional health and wellbeing. And so while I appreciate that, you know, my big question is, is how many kids are going to have that journey? How many kids in our country are getting the emotional education they need to achieve their dreams in life?

• 35:29Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:30Speaker 00

  And far too few.

• 35:32Lewis Howes?

  Well, I think a lot of people struggle accomplishing their dreams because they they deal with a lot of inner suffering.

• 35:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:39Lewis Howes?

  And I was the ultimate accomplisher for many years, high school, college, you know, my twenties was like goal setting, accomplishing.

• 35:46Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 35:47Lewis Howes?

  But again, I could accomplish my goals and dreams, but I still didn't feel enough.

• 35:51Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 35:52Lewis Howes?

  And if you go make a lot of money and accomplish your dreams and you still feel less than, I don't think that's success. I think it's like suffering. You're just suffering because you haven't learned how to appreciate life and be at ease with who you are at this season of life. How many? What percentage of the people in the USA or in the world do you think would associate with a level of inner suffering? Like on a day to day basis, like they're going through some type of suffering.

• 36:20Speaker 00

  It's higher than it's ever been.

• 36:21Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 36:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, it's, I mean, I just in among college students where I work, it's increased 10 to 15% a year over the last 20 years. Every year, more and more.

• 36:31Lewis Howes?

  What is the language? Like they just say like, I'm suffering or I feel like stressed out.

• 36:36Speaker 00

  Depends where you're at in life. I mean, here's an interesting thing about you. You were talking about naming emotions. So one of my favorite kind of things that I did in in my own courses. You know, I ask people, if you take my course, it's also a research project.

• 36:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 36:50Speaker 00

  So you're filling out surveys every class and you're introspective, blah, blah, blah. And so 80% of my students said they were stressed. Now, I they say they're stressed. What am I? Can't tell you're lying to me, but there was something deep inside me. It was like, I don't get it.

• 37:05Lewis Howes?

  What does that mean?

• 37:06Speaker 00

  Exactly. So I had them journal about all their feelings and why they were stressed. What do you think the top emotion was? The real emotion.

• 37:17Lewis Howes?

  Not enough? I don't know. They're not, they felt not enough or

• 37:20Speaker 00

  You're getting close.

• 37:21Lewis Howes?

  Comparison or not good enough or?

• 37:23Speaker 00

  It was envy.

• 37:25Lewis Howes?

  Jealous and envy? Yeah.

• 37:27Speaker 00

  Well, they're different too. We'll talk about that.

• 37:29Lewis Howes?

  They're feeling envy of other, their peers?

• 37:32Speaker 00

  What they're doing is they're sitting in my class. They're like this, oh my gosh, you're richer. Oh my gosh, you can study for less hours. Oh my gosh, you have more connections. Oh my gosh, you've got better hips. You've got better lips. I mean, it's just endless. Everyone else is better than I.

• 37:44Lewis Howes?

  Not even in the classroom, but also scrolling on the phone, seeing everything on Instagram and social media.

• 37:48Speaker 00

  Hundred percent. And so the joke I have about this is I went to the counseling center and I said, what's our university's envy reduction program?

• 37:58Speaker 00

  And, you know, everyone was looking at me like, what are you talking about? Because we're doing breathing exercises or yoga. And, you know, respectfully, I love mindfulness and breathing exercises. I write about them. They're evidence-based. I love yoga too. But it's not going to solve the envy problem. You know, the envy is a cognitive thing that has to be reworked.

• 38:20Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 38:20Speaker 00

  You've got to shift the way you're thinking about yourself and other people. If you don't do that, you can breathe, you're going to go for the walk and you're going to go back to your envy. You're going to do your breathing exercise and you're going to feel envious again. You've got to shift your thinking.

• 38:31Lewis Howes?

  It's a perspective shift.

• 38:32Speaker 00

  The antidote from my perspective is gratitude.

• 38:34Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 38:35Speaker 00

  Can we just stop thinking about what everybody else has and like, let's take a minute and look around us like we're doing pretty good.

• 38:41Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 38:42Speaker 00

  Can you think about, have a couple of things each day, you know, for which you're grateful and that will shift the envy.

• 38:47Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. I mean, your students are in the top one percent of one percent of students in the world at Yale, and yet they're still not happy.

• 38:54Speaker 00

  A hundred percent.

• 38:55Lewis Howes?

  Isn't that interesting? But I think that's probably most of the USA of people who are watching or following accounts that make them feel more envious when they see lack. They see separation. They see lack. They see, oh, this person has this. I don't have it yet. Now I want that thing. There's a separation of a physical space or a lack of not having something or accomplishing something or having a certain amount of followers, whatever it might be. So how do we, so if stress is one of the number one things that

• 39:25Speaker 00

  I have to tell you one more thing though.

• 39:26Lewis Howes?

  Tell me.

• 39:26Speaker 00

  You just made me think about it, which is in the research that I did, I asked them more about their experiences, about their development. And the thing that made me the most disheartened was that the number one thing that students said to me was that they felt manufactured.

• 39:43Lewis Howes?

  What does that mean?

• 39:45Speaker 00

  It means that they felt like they had to figure out this formula to get into this place called Yale. But then they really weren't sure who they were.

• 39:54Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 39:54Speaker 00

  Because someone else prescribed.

• 39:57Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, parents pushed them, prescribed them.

• 40:00Speaker 00

  And, you know, it's so funny because I was not an Ivy League student. I went to public schools. I went to public universities. And, um, and I just think so many people think like the, the, the only way my kid is going to be successful is that they go to this top university. And I just think that's so misguided.

• 40:19Lewis Howes?

  Cause it's interesting because most people want to create a beautiful life for themselves.

• 40:24Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 40:24Lewis Howes?

  Right? Most people want to become something greater. They want to master their talents, develop themselves. They want to try things. They want to explore and they want to, you know, have some sense of accomplishment in their life. Right?

• 40:37Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 40:38Lewis Howes?

  They don't want to be broke, poor and sleeping on their parents', you know, basement forever. So it's like they want to get out, into the world and make something of themselves. But how do we feel? How do people learn how to feel enough? Even if they're sleeping in their parents' basement and don't have any skills or anything to show for it? And how do we continue to feel enough when we have all the success, money and fame in the world?

• 41:03Speaker 00

  Well, a couple of things about that. Going back to my other research about like the uncle, I call it the uncle Marvin's or the aunt Maria's or whoever. The person who gives you permission to feel. So my research shows that people who grew up in those conditions, 15 to 20% greater purpose and meaning of life.

• 41:20Lewis Howes?

  Who have the ability to feel, the permission to feel.

• 41:23Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 41:24Lewis Howes?

  By someone in their life.

• 41:25Speaker 00

  Anyone, anyone. By the way, the research is pretty unfortunate. The findings for guys, only 3% of people say it was their father.

• 41:34Lewis Howes?

  Oh, man.

• 41:35Speaker 00

  So you got something to look forward to.

• 41:37Lewis Howes?

  And I got two girls, so I gotta, you know, I gotta.

• 41:41Speaker 00

  Again, you don't have to just show up, listen, show you love them.

• 41:45Lewis Howes?

  Non-judgment.

• 41:45Speaker 00

  Non-judgment.

• 41:47Lewis Howes?

  Now here's an interesting, I, I have to, I have to ask you this as if something I was thinking about sooner, earlier. There seems to be this trend that I'm noticing where parents are too much in their feelings with their kids. Who are four, seven, eight, and they say, tell me more, tell me more about your feelings. It's okay, cry, keep talking about your feelings all day. Yeah, that person stole that toy from you. Keep telling me more.

• 42:14Speaker 00

  It drives me out of my mind.

• 42:15Lewis Howes?

  Extreme, it seems like so extreme of like, it's okay to talk about your feelings and almost encouraging it so much to stay in the feeling of why you feel sad, hurt, whatever. So there can be, I don't think that's a healthy thing either.

• 42:30Speaker 00

  That's not emotional intelligence.

• 42:31Lewis Howes?

  What is that? When a parent is doing that.

• 42:33Speaker 00

  That's emotional indulgence.

• 42:34Lewis Howes?

  Ah, so when a parent is indulging in their kids' emotions, allowing them to express it over and over again, what does that do to the child?

• 42:42Speaker 00

  It makes them incapable of learning how to deal with their own feelings. It's the worst thing we can do for our kids. And I, that kind of stuff drives me crazy because it's a misinterpretation of the feelings work. The work in emotional intelligence, just to go through the skills for a minute.

• 42:58Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 42:58Speaker 00

  It's about recognizing our own and others' emotions, understanding their causes and consequences, labeling them with precise words, knowing how and when to express them and having the strategies to regulate them. But it always finishes with regulation, always.

• 43:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, not just keep talking about it.

• 43:15Speaker 00

  No, no, you don't want to be in it. What you, actually, the research shows that venting and talking about emotions can cause more rumination, which is what we don't want.

• 43:26Speaker 00

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

• 43:59Lewis Howes?

  And you're not giving the child the solution.

• 44:02Speaker 00

  No, no, no.

• 44:02Lewis Howes?

  You say, go think about what is something else we could do today that could be fun.

• 44:05Speaker 00

  Imagine, Louis, that this happened to your best friend. Imagine your best friend just called you or you're on your phone and he said, you know, I was supposed to go play with you, but I couldn't do it. What advice would you give him? You're going to be really good at giving advice to your friend. And then I'm going to say, as your dad, honey, gosh, you came up with these amazing ideas. Which one do you want to try today?

• 44:24Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 44:25Speaker 00

  That's emotion regulation teaching.

• 44:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. The first, first step of it is recognizing the emotion first. Is that within yourself or if you're looking at someone else's emotions? Either one.

• 44:34Speaker 00

  Both. I mean, it's always. All these skills are self and other. So if you're the ones, if you're my son and you're screaming daddy, I hate you, daddy, you, you made it so I can't go to my friend's house. Like, I'm going to get triggered by that.

• 44:46Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:47Speaker 00

  So it's Mark, take a breath. Mark?

• 44:49Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 44:50Speaker 00

  Your kid is reacting. Your job is to figure out how to co-regulate, down-regulate and reach your kid to help them problem solve. That's got to be the mindset.

• 44:58Lewis Howes?

  Okay, so recognize first, what was the second step?

• 45:00Speaker 00

  Understand.

• 45:01Lewis Howes?

  Understand. The emotion.

• 45:03Speaker 00

  For example, if I, if you're like, I hate you and I want to go home and I can't stand this. If I do that to you, let's, let's switch roles for a minute. So I'm your son.

• 45:11Lewis Howes?

  The child.

• 45:11Speaker 00

  I'm the child. I hate you. How do I feel?

• 45:15Lewis Howes?

  Angry?

• 45:17Lewis Howes?

  Frustrated?

• 45:17Speaker 00

  Why?

• 45:19Lewis Howes?

  I'd have to ask you to understand it, right?

• 45:20Speaker 00

  Yeah. Because what you're doing is what 99% of people do.

• 45:24Lewis Howes?

  Assuming?

• 45:25Speaker 00

  Right. You're the emotion judge. You're assuming how I'm feeling based on my behavior.

• 45:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 45:32Speaker 00

  Behavior is not feeling. I've been socialized to be aggressive because that's what boys do to get attention. That is nothing, I may be feeling shame, disappointment, overwhelmed. You have no idea. Until you can bring me down and find out what happened, you're not going to know what I'm really feeling. And if you don't know what I'm really feeling, you are going to be incapable of providing or supporting me and regulating.

• 45:54Lewis Howes?

  If someone, let's say it's a child or a friend or an intimate partner. If someone in your life is bringing what looks like frustration and anger, emotion. What is something that you can do to understand what is beneath that anger to know exactly what it is?

• 46:18Speaker 00

  Yeah, I mean, the first is you don't want to ask them when they're in that place.

• 46:21Lewis Howes?

  It's like. Why are you so angry?

• 46:22Speaker 00

  Exactly, yeah, like, that doesn't work. Because that'll just, you know.

• 46:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:28Speaker 00

  But I would say it's, it looks like you might be angry or frustrated, but I'm not sure what's happening right now. Just can you tell me what's going on?

• 46:39Lewis Howes?

  So ask a question.

• 46:40Speaker 00

  Just ask, open any question.

• 46:42Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 46:42Speaker 00

  Just tell me more what happened. And then you start hearing the theme. See, part of the core of emotional intelligence is that you, we adults, have to understand what we call these core themes of emotion. So anxiety, the theme is uncertainty. Fear, the theme is danger. Frustration, blocked goals, anger, injustice, disappointment, unmet expectation. I'm giving you the kind of unpleasant feelings.

• 47:13Lewis Howes?

  Interesting.

• 47:14Speaker 00

  And until you, as a father, as a friend, as a partner, as a boss, understand that, you're not going to be able to help people.

• 47:22Lewis Howes?

  Is there a, is there a graph or a chart that you have that explains what the root foundation is under every emotion?

• 47:30Speaker 00

  There is.

• 47:30Lewis Howes?

  What's it called?

• 47:31Speaker 00

  It's the app that I co-created with the co-founder of Pinterest called How We Feel.

• 47:36Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 47:37Speaker 00

  And it's free, and you can download it on iOS or Android.

• 47:41Lewis Howes?

  What's it called?

• 47:42Speaker 00

  How We Feel.

• 47:43Lewis Howes?

  How We Feel, okay.

• 47:44Speaker 00

  Hundred forty-four emotions, including their definitions.

• 47:47Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 47:48Speaker 00

  And ability to track your emotions over time.

• 47:50Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 47:52Speaker 00

  And once you get that, because here's the thing, once I understand that what you're feeling is disappointment and not anger, because anger is an injustice, right? Anger is, for example, someone treating me unfairly. So if you think about, if your wife tells you like, comes in like, looks like she's pissed, and you think, or comes in like, you know, I can't believe this happened. Oh, why are you so disappointed? Well, the disappointment is, oh, well, you thought this was going to happen and it didn't happen. Let's, let's think together about what you could do differently next time.

• 48:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 48:28Speaker 00

  If it's someone treats her unfairly, yikes. Now she might have to have a really difficult conversation with someone and say, Lewis, you can't treat me that way. Your support in helping her find that solution is based on knowing what the actual emotion and experience is.

• 48:42Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm. In your book, Dealing with Feeling, on page 109, you say labeling is a link that connects our internal lives, our feelings, to our outward actions, how we react to those feelings. I'm not exaggerating when I say that mastering this skill is what ultimately gives us the power to control our own fates. It's a pretty important thing.

• 49:04Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:04Lewis Howes?

  And so when we can learn to understand, I think, the root underneath each one of these emotions, we're going to have better awareness around why we're feeling that way, why someone else is feeling a certain way, so we can co-regulate or inter-regulate, I think it's what you're talking about. And, and the key to having a rich life is having beautiful relationships, first with yourself.

• 49:28Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 49:29Lewis Howes?

  So you're not suffering, stressed and overwhelmed, or envious, or jealous constantly, because then you're just in a suffering state of being. You're not in a rich, abundant, beautiful, grateful state, peaceful state. So it's getting in that relationship with self and understanding your own emotions, and then learning how to navigate those and others. That's what I'm hearing you say.

• 49:48Speaker 00

  It's correct. And it is a caveat, which is that understanding emotions doesn't mean you know exactly the reason why, and that we each feel the same emotion for the same reasons.

• 49:59Lewis Howes?

  Right. Yeah.

• 50:00Speaker 00

  And that's important.

• 50:01Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 50:01Speaker 00

  Because we tend to think other people feel emotions because of the way we feel those emotions.

• 50:07Lewis Howes?

  No, it's different.

• 50:08Speaker 00

  And so like the things that, for example, with anger, you know, the things that I see as an injustice, you may not relate to.

• 50:17Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 50:17Speaker 00

  And I may not be able to relate to the things that you see as an injustice because of our childhoods, our upbringing, our culture, our religion, our gender, race, whatever it is. And so the goal of emotional intelligence is not to be right. The goal is to be curious.

• 50:30Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 50:30Speaker 00

  The goal is to, hey, Lewis, tell me more. Oh. You know, it's hard for me to really be empathic because I don't get it. But I hear you and I believe you and I want to support you.

• 50:42Lewis Howes?

  It's like my wife and her emotions right now, just being pregnant. I'm like, I don't know.

• 50:46Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 50:47Lewis Howes?

  But I can be compassionate. I can be non judgmental. I can ask questions.

• 50:50Speaker 00

  It doesn't matter. What matters is what she's feeling and why she's feeling it and that you care.

• 50:56Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. And you said, so number one is to recognize emotions. Number two is to understand. What was the next three?

• 51:03Speaker 00

  Then there's L, labeling.

• 51:05Lewis Howes?

  Labeling.

• 51:06Speaker 00

  So that's, you know, within an emotion, there are many degrees. Am I angry? Or am I just peeved? Or am I enraged? That's important because the smaller the emotion, the easier it is to regulate. It's a lot easier to manage peeved than it is enraged.

• 51:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 51:22Speaker 00

  It's a lot easier to manage disappointment than it is despair. And so, but if we don't have that granularity, which a lot of people don't. This is, I was talking with someone recently and why he goes, why is everybody depressed? I'm like, everybody's not depressed. They're just using the word depressed. And this is, we can't allow that. We've got to get people to understand. Like I used to work at Bellevue Hospital. I'll show you depression.

• 51:47Lewis Howes?

  You saw it, yeah.

• 51:48Speaker 00

  Catatonic depression is real depression. You're disappointed. You're discouraged. You know, we don't want to say you're that, but my point is that what we want to do is help people understand that granularity, it's called.

• 52:00Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Okay. So labeling, number four.

• 52:03Speaker 00

  Expressing.

• 52:04Lewis Howes?

  Expressing.

• 52:06Speaker 00

  So it's knowing how and when to express emotions with different people across context and culture.

• 52:11Lewis Howes?

  Yep. And then the last one?

• 52:14Speaker 00

  Is the R, which is this, my whole book on regulation.

• 52:17Lewis Howes?

  Regulation, yeah, at the end. Okay.

• 52:20Speaker 00

  It always culminates in regulation.

• 52:22Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 52:22Speaker 00

  Now importantly, regulation doesn't mean you have to change your feeling. Regulation can just mean acknowledging it and being with it.

• 52:31Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. It doesn't mean you have to like, remove the feeling right away. I mean, you might still be let down.

• 52:36Speaker 00

  Or ever remove it.

• 52:37Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. You might be let down or frustrated or sad or hurt or whatever it might be. But. Allowing that feeling to dictate your joy and rob you of your joy or presence or ability to connect to other people, then you're you're kind of in a powerless state. Something else has power over you and emotion has power over you, rather you taking back control of your life, which is what you talk about in the book.

• 53:01Speaker 00

  There are five in my work, I have my like, I call it my money slide when I give my presentations, because there's so many naysayers of like emotions, like they roll their eyes or like, we leave our feelings at the door. We don't have time for this. We're a high achieving, high power. And I'm like, all right.

• 53:18Lewis Howes?

  If you want to make more money, do this.

• 53:21Speaker 00

  But there are, you know, I say, how much of the science have you read about emotional intelligence and leadership and management and productivity? None. Okay. Well, let me show you what, let me show it to you because you may think differently now. There are five reasons why everybody should care about emotional intelligence.

• 53:37Lewis Howes?

  What are those?

• 53:38Speaker 00

  One, you're a better learner, period. Two, you're a better decision maker. Three, you're way better at building and maintaining healthy relationships. Four, you have better physical and mental health. And five, you can achieve your goals. It's pretty convincing to me.

• 53:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, exactly. But what would a naysayer say to that then of like, well, it just seems like woo woo or fluff or therapy and I don't have time for that. So how can I learn to master my emotions better or have a better relationship with them without having to go through all this woo woo stuff?

• 54:17Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well firstly, I mean, that's a trigger for me that you're calling it woo woo.

• 54:21Lewis Howes?

  I understand. This is what other people would say.

• 54:24Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 54:24Lewis Howes?

  I'm not saying that. I'm all in this. I'm all give it all to me, you know?

• 54:30Speaker 00

  Yeah. What I would say is tell me more about why you think it's woo woo. I just want to hear.

• 54:35Lewis Howes?

  Because I'm looking for results. I just want to, I need, you know, I've got pressure from my boss. I'm trying to accomplish these goals. I've got responsibilities. I got kids that need me and I don't have the time for these things. Seems like too much, you know, soft work and I need hard results.

• 54:51Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, what if I were to tell you that organizations that have managers with higher emotional intelligence have less attrition? What do you think about that?

• 55:02Lewis Howes?

  I just think, you know, most employees are weak minded. And if we gotta go through them and just find new people, then we just gotta find new people. But we need people that have strong, you know, strong will, not weak emotions.

• 55:14Speaker 00

  Yeah, and I, I agree. This is why I think it's important to develop the emotional intelligence of your employees because

• 55:19Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 55:20Speaker 00

  they're gonna have difficult clients.

• 55:23Speaker 00

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

• 55:50Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 55:52Lewis Howes?

  No, I get it. I'm just trying to find, I'm trying to find the devil's advocate here.

• 55:54Speaker 00

  I love it. I mean, like, this is my favorite test of emotional intelligence. But I think that's what people need to hear.

• 55:59Lewis Howes?

  Sure. And if I'm in that archetype that's combating you, I would say, well, gosh, we just don't have this extra money for this type of training or these budgets. And how long is this gonna take to have someone heal their like inner child wounds? You know, it's gonna take decades for these

• 56:14Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:15Lewis Howes?

  25 year olds who have had no training and are already complaining and already show up late and already don't do a good job.

• 56:21Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 56:21Lewis Howes?

  How am I gonna get them to understand this in the next three to six months? I don't have time to train them.

• 56:26Speaker 00

  Well, you can use our app, number one, but I think more importantly, Lewis, what I'm hearing from you is that you're confusing scale building with like therapy and counseling. And some people do need therapy and counseling because of whatever they've experienced in life. I'm talking about really serious skills. I'm talking about collaboration on your team. I'm talking about having people in your workplace inspire other people. I'm talking about people being able to give and receive feedback without creating chaos. How many, do you think that your organization might do better if people were better at giving and receiving feedback and inspiring teams and collaborative?

• 57:03Lewis Howes?

  Hundred percent.

• 57:04Speaker 00

  Well, there you go.

• 57:04Lewis Howes?

  And a side note on this, something that I learned when I started my emotional intelligence training. Was I was, I was good at being coachable in sports, but I wasn't good at receiving feedback of my person.

• 57:20Speaker 00

  Totally. It's a, it's a huge issue.

• 57:22Lewis Howes?

  And I was very.

• 57:23Speaker 00

  It's like, it's like an attack on your character.

• 57:25Lewis Howes?

  Attack on me as a person. I was like, ah, don't give me feedback. I couldn't take it. And it was so hard for me. And once I understood the incredible power of receiving feedback, even if you don't like it.

• 57:39Speaker 00

  It's a gift.

• 57:40Lewis Howes?

  It is the greatest gift. And it doesn't mean every, all feedback is accurate. It doesn't mean you have to receive all feedback.

• 57:46Speaker 00

  You gotta sift.

• 57:47Lewis Howes?

  You gotta sift it. You have to know where it's coming from, the context, setting, who, you know, if you're getting the same feedback from multiple people, maybe that's something to listen to. But why is receiving feedback such a crucial part to achieving more success in life?

• 58:05Speaker 00

  Because when you're getting, I'll give you an example of this. So, early in my career, I, I think I was just overcompensating. You know, I had like, I knew how to do complex statistical analyses. And I would, I had this tendency, like when I would do a presentation, say like, this is very complicated. And one person, a woman, once came up to me at the end of my talk, she's like, you know, I think you're a great presenter, but the way you're framing things about like, how complicated your ideas are and your work is, it's, it's insulting. It's kind of diminishing the strength of your presentation. Now, my immediate reaction was like, oh my gosh, like this is the worst thing that could ever happen. Oh my gosh. And then I just sat with it. I'm like, thank you. Because the last thing I want to do is

• 58:50Speaker 00

  come across as an arrogant professor, or the last thing I want to do is have people in my audience not receive the information because of, of the language that I'm using to teach it. But that's a mindset. That's a big mindset shift. And if you, if your eye is on attaining your goals, then being open to that feedback is just critically important. And managing the feelings.

• 59:13Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, manage, well, here's, so what would you say then to anyone, you know, in their late teens or twenties, in the Gen Z range, on, who maybe don't receive feedback well?

• 59:25Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 59:27Lewis Howes?

  Why they should be open to receiving feedback, whether in their career or relationships or friendship circles? Like, why is feedback important for anyone who's Gen Z?

• 59:37Speaker 00

  Because if you want to achieve your goals in life, oftentimes you're going to have to change some of your behavior. Because you're having an impact. And you want to be conscious of your impact. And if you're not conscious of it, you might be going down a path that's not going to be the best for you.

• 59:58Lewis Howes?

  Why does it seem like most younger people don't like hearing that? They're like, why don't you accept me for who I am? And just receive me? Why do I have to change who I am, my personality?

• 1:00:11Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:00:16Speaker 00

  Well, I never want you to change your personality. But I want you to understand your impact.

• 1:00:23Lewis Howes?

  Of your behavior?

• 1:00:24Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:00:26Speaker 00

  I think, you know, this goes back to this kind of that everybody gets a trophy, you know, stuff that was going on for many years and still goes on. Whereas people have been raised with not having any resilience. Because, oh, my gosh, you're, don't cry, honey. Oh, my gosh, you've, you know, you know, I would have parents call me and say, like, you're, you've now made it impossible for my kid to go to law school. I'm like, I didn't take the test, they took the test.

• 1:00:53Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:00:54Speaker 00

  You know, it's like, really? And, you know, I stand firm on this kind of stuff. I mean, my true belief about this is that, you know, being someone who's out in the world a lot and teaching a lot and, you know, doing webinars and workshops and classes is that there's some, there is variability. Even within, I mean, a lot of people love to talk about this generation, that generation. I'm OK with that, but I really think there is a distribution within every generation.

• 1:01:22Lewis Howes?

  Of course.

• 1:01:22Speaker 00

  Of people who are going to understand the nuance and work hard and take the feedback because they want to achieve their goals in life. And my belief is that if you really want. To have your goals realized, you have to be highly self-aware, highly self-aware. And you've got to be willing to shift and change.

• 1:01:43Lewis Howes?

  Hmm. Adapt, shift, change.

• 1:01:45Speaker 00

  It's not that you have to be someone else.

• 1:01:47Lewis Howes?

  No.

• 1:01:48Speaker 00

  But you just have to be aware of your impact.

• 1:01:51Lewis Howes?

  What does self-awareness look like for anyone in any generation? What does that even mean, being self-aware?

• 1:01:57Speaker 00

  Well, that goes back to the R in ruler, which is being aware in my work about your emotions. Like, what emotions am I experiencing right now? Do I, am I even aware of it? And most people are not self-aware, but it's socially aware too. You know, for example, I love this because when I do public speaking, I tell people right away, I'm an introvert. Like, I'm, I'm pretty good on stage, but like afterwards, I'm going to want to like, kind of do my own thing. I'm not going to go to the big party and like celebrate and like drink alcohol and watch TVs and like, oh, you know, I'm going to go to a wine bar by myself maybe.

• 1:02:30Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:02:31Speaker 00

  But, um, and then I say this out loud and I'm always so curious about the people who come to talk to me at the end and they want to tell me their entire life story within like, and it's like, and I'm sitting there like trying to be polite.

• 1:02:43Lewis Howes?

  Sure, like, I really want to leave right now. Yeah.

• 1:02:45Speaker 00

  Yeah. And so people aren't listening and that's just a kind of an easy example. But in general, we're just not paying attention.

• 1:02:54Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:02:55Speaker 00

  And like people who, um, you know, in meetings, like I do this little joke, uh, you know, when I do trainings, is you got 30 seconds to introduce yourself. And there's always somebody that's like on their fifth minute.

• 1:03:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:10Speaker 00

  You know?

• 1:03:11Lewis Howes?

  You're like, all right.

• 1:03:12Speaker 00

  But that kind of self-awareness is really important. Like just be aware of your presence, be aware of how you're dealing with your own feelings. Are you eye rolling? Years ago, there was someone in my office.

• 1:03:25Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 1:03:26Speaker 00

  Who was unconscious of the fact that when someone said something that they disagreed with, they would do this.

• 1:03:34Speaker 00

  That had this like stern kind of weird facial expression, which is kind of like a little bit of contempt, actually, or kind of disgust or anger. And it was really hard for me to give that person feedback.

• 1:03:47Lewis Howes?

  Why?

• 1:03:48Speaker 00

  Because, again, it was like an attack on her facial expression, attack on her presence. And so, but I felt it was super important for this person to be aware of it because it was scaring employees. And so people didn't want to work with this person because they were afraid of that person. That's, this person was a wonderful human being.

• 1:04:10Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:10Speaker 00

  It just was unconscious of her automatic reactions to things that she disagreed with. And it was a gift to give her that feedback about her facial expressions. I have the same problem, by the way. So, because I'm always thinking, I'm a scientist. I'm like, even right now, I'm like, I gotta do a study on this idea. And then, and when I get in that mark bracket scientist mode, I'm like, I get these weird facial expressions. Oftentimes, people come up to me and say, is everything okay? And I'm like, what do you mean? You know? And they say, well, you look really upset about something. And I'll have to say, gosh, you know, like, I'm just thinking about something that's really kind of, I'm being critical. And when I make, I have my critical face on.

• 1:04:49Speaker 00

  I share that also because I think we can also be outwardly kind of acknowledging our own kind of nuances. And because I'm an introvert who's a scientist, I kind of be, people think of me as sometimes being aloof. I'm very friendly. I just, it's not like my, it's not like my first go to.

• 1:05:09Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:05:11Speaker 00

  And then the extrovert who is a narcissist is, is difficult. At least for me.

• 1:05:16Lewis Howes?

  Sure, sure. Yeah, you're, it's like emotionally draining probably for you.

• 1:05:19Speaker 00

  Very draining.

• 1:05:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. What would you say is the number one emotion that is holding the most people back in the world or in the USA? Like, what's the number one go to emotion that blocks most people from true abundance in their life?

• 1:05:36Speaker 00

  You know, because I'm a scientist, I can't answer that question so easily. I it's very different for a lot of people. I think the envy right now is a serious issue. And I think it's not people are not aware that it's envy. I think. And and and fear. The fear family.

• 1:05:55Lewis Howes?

  What does envy and fear? Block for a human being when they're constantly in that emotion?

• 1:06:04Speaker 00

  Well, the envy, you know, because envy can go in multiple directions. You know, envy can be admiration. Or envy can mean resentment. And I I've seen so many people, unfortunately.

• 1:06:19Speaker 00

  Resent other people's success. They they start hating people for. Reaching certain goals or hating people who have a certain way of being in the world that they don't feel like they can ever attain. Which I find sad, you know, that people go down that route. Of, you know. Of resentment, because it just paralyzes you. It doesn't. It's not a place of growth.

• 1:06:43Lewis Howes?

  When someone is resenting or frustrated with someone else's success, whether they know the person they don't. What happens in the brain or the body that blocks them?

• 1:06:53Speaker 00

  I mean, it's all the self defeating self talk. It's they become their own self critic and self saboteur. It's I'm not enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. This will never happen for me. You know, everyone else can do it, but I can't do it. It's all that negative spiral.

• 1:07:10Lewis Howes?

  What is the science? Or research that you've discovered? Say or share? When we say to ourselves, we're not enough, or envying someone else, or self deprecating, or. Whatever these not enough thoughts or saying it out loud to ourselves or other people. What does the research or science say about how that hurts you? Or helps you in accomplishing your goals or living a better life when you're constantly in that? State?

• 1:07:37Speaker 00

  It's a roadblock. You just you're basically creating your own barrier to your own success. Because if you're. Always second guessing yourself, if you're always thinking I'm not enough. If you're always thinking, you know, I'm not smart enough. And by the way, I have a. A strong stance on this. I'm pretty convinced at this point in my career. That most of us have been gaslighted in childhood. We've been told we're too fat, we're too skinny, we're too tall, we're too short, our nose is too big, our nose is too small, we're too dark, we're too light, we're too masculine, we're not masculine enough, we're too feminine, we're not feminine enough. And what happens is that our own self-talk is not defined by us, is defined by other people trying to create a reality for us.

• 1:08:22Speaker 00

  And what happens is that because there's no intervention, there's no training, there's no teaching, we believe it. Maybe I am too sensitive. Maybe I do have, you know, maybe I'm too feminine, maybe I'm too masculine. I mean, I can't tell you how much of that I had internalized as a kid.

• 1:08:38Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 1:08:39Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah, everything. I was believing everyone's, whatever, whatever one else said about me became my reality.

• 1:08:48Lewis Howes?

  No pressure to parents.

• 1:08:49Speaker 00

  No pressure to parents or teachers or anyone.

• 1:08:51Lewis Howes?

  Peers.

• 1:08:52Speaker 00

  Coaches.

• 1:08:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah, coaches. So what would you say are the three most important things a parent can do for their kids?

• 1:08:59Speaker 00

  One is you gotta be the role model. So monitor your own self-talk.

• 1:09:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:05Speaker 00

  You know, what are you saying to yourself when you make a mistake? Are you out loud saying, I'm such an idiot, I'm a moron, mommy's, mommy's dumb, you know, daddy's whatever? That's a big deal. You gotta monitor what comes out of your mouth because kids are listening and kids are watching. The second for parents is they gotta deactivate before they can co-regulate. They've gotta learn how to pause, take that breath, bring the nervous system down so they can be more present and show up with compassion, non-judgment and good listening. The third is they've gotta help their kid label those feelings and help them to co-regulate. They have to kind of validate, not indulge, and do that search finding to see what the experience is and then work with their kid for solutions on managing it.

• 1:09:50Speaker 00

  And that's, by the way, that's for couples, it's for bosses with employees who are upset. This is not just parent-kid, this is life.

• 1:09:56Lewis Howes?

  This is life. What's your thoughts on Inside Out and how that's helped or hurt people by consuming that?

• 1:10:05Speaker 00

  I think it's helpful. I think it just gets the word out. It gets that, you know, emotions are out there. And the more we can do to show people that how people feel matters, but importantly, how people deal with their feelings matters even more.

• 1:10:20Lewis Howes?

  That's true.

• 1:10:21Speaker 00

  Because it's not just the.

• 1:10:22Lewis Howes?

  That's interesting.

• 1:10:23Speaker 00

  It's, you gotta show the skill.

• 1:10:26Lewis Howes?

  How people feel matters, but how people deal with their feelings matter even more.

• 1:10:30Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:10:31Lewis Howes?

  That should be on a bumper sticker.

• 1:10:33Speaker 00

  There you go.

• 1:10:33Lewis Howes?

  It's like that should be on the back of every car in LA traffic.

• 1:10:37Speaker 00

  There you go. Yeah, exactly.

• 1:10:38Lewis Howes?

  Cause you could be like, ah, I'm angry about this, but it's like how you respond with your feelings.

• 1:10:42Speaker 00

  That's the answer.

• 1:10:43Lewis Howes?

  Is one of the greatest skills to develop if you can respond well with them.

• 1:10:48Speaker 00

  I, you know, I'm in favor of a quote that is attributed to Viktor Frankl. It's, I live by it.

• 1:10:53Lewis Howes?

  The space between?

• 1:10:54Speaker 00

  That's right. Between stimulus and response, there is space. And that space, in that space lies our power to choose our response. And our response lies our growth and freedom.

• 1:11:07Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:11:08Speaker 00

  And a lot of the work that I do is built on how do you fill that space? I think right now in society with between, you know,

• 1:11:19Speaker 00

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

• 1:12:05Speaker 00

  Knowing that it's okay to get help, have an emotional ally, I call it. Not someone who's going to tell you what to do, but someone that you have that psychological safety with to just have a conversation.

• 1:12:15Lewis Howes?

  Not indulge, but have a conversation.

• 1:12:17Speaker 00

  Not indulge, but have the conversation. And the good emotional ally, what they're doing is they're providing support, but they're also helping you think through things through another lens.

• 1:12:27Lewis Howes?

  Mm hmm.

• 1:12:28Speaker 00

  They're helping you reappraise, they're helping you shift yourself talk.

• 1:12:31Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:12:33Speaker 00

  And then we got to take care of our bodies. I think people fail to understand the biology of regulation in terms of sleep, nutrition and physical activity.

• 1:12:40Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:12:41Speaker 00

  I mean.

• 1:12:41Lewis Howes?

  If you didn't work out consistently or do your martial arts or the movement that you enjoyed, if you got 20% less sleep than you normally get, and if you ate poorly, do you think you would have the ability to regulate your emotions?

• 1:12:55Speaker 00

  No, 100% not.

• 1:12:57Lewis Howes?

  And most of America is sick or obese or chronic stress or chronic illness.

• 1:13:03Speaker 00

  Or have sleep deprivation.

• 1:13:04Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 1:13:05Speaker 00

  Yeah, a lot of parents, going back to parenting for a minute, a lot of parents, in my, in my work and in my book, we talk about what does it mean to be the best version of yourself through emotion regulation? And people set goals. We help people set goals. Like, how do you want to be seen and talked about as a parent, as a leader, as a friend? I want to be more empathetic to my child. I want to be more patient with my child. And that parent set these goals and they're like, I got my patient's goal. And I'm like, how's it going for you? Well, this morning, the kid was crying and screaming and I lost it and I yelled at them and I sent him to the room. I'm like, you set the goal. What happened? And they say, well, this best self stuff doesn't work. I'm like, I promise you it works. I've taught it to millions of people. But let's look at the barrier to being your best self.

• 1:13:48Speaker 00

  Tell me about the night before. Tell me about the morning. Oh, I only got three hours sleep.

• 1:13:54Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, good luck. Good luck being your best self.

• 1:13:56Speaker 00

  Exactly. You can't be. And so part, that's just one, it's very interesting that we're talking about this because so many people come to me like, just to not be stereotypical here, but I give this speech to about 1,500 police officers who were not patient with me.

• 1:14:10Lewis Howes?

  Right, right.

• 1:14:11Speaker 00

  And they're like, dude, what's the best strategy? And I'm like, I don't know, like, self-talk, you know?

• 1:14:18Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:14:19Speaker 00

  Um, I got, you know, under pressure. That's not the way it works. All of the strategies of emotion regulation work together.

• 1:14:28Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:28Speaker 00

  And in certain contexts with certain emotions, you know, with different people, you're going to use these strategies in different ways. And you've got to be aware that you need strategies for your, for the barriers.

• 1:14:39Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:14:40Speaker 00

  And so that parent, like you get more sleep, guess what? Your fuse is going to be longer in the morning.

• 1:14:46Lewis Howes?

  You have more space.

• 1:14:47Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 1:14:48Lewis Howes?

  But if you're having sugar all day, you're going to be like crashing and high and crashing, and you have less space.

• 1:14:53Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 1:14:53Lewis Howes?

  You get less sleep. If you do all these, if you're not moving your body and you're just stuck all day in one place, you're not processing your emotions and processing your body also. So all these tools combined allow you to have more space to then see the emotions in yourself, see the emotions in another, and hopefully respond with curiosity, compassion, listening, asking questions.

• 1:15:15Speaker 00

  Self and other.

• 1:15:16Lewis Howes?

  Self and other, and trying to find some type of resolution with the emotions rather than overindulgence, overreaction, or stuffing of the emotions.

• 1:15:27Speaker 00

  I mean, you, this is like, you're going to come on a row with me.

• 1:15:32Lewis Howes?

  I'm curious about co-regulation.

• 1:15:35Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:15:37Lewis Howes?

  If, if we grew up, if someone watching or listening grew up with a narcissistic parent, how do they learn to break the cycle when they've been gaslit most of their life as a child? And regulate and co-regulate with another? I mean, what do you, I mean, obviously you've shared a lot of this already, but how does someone who's experienced that as a child break the cycle? And it's like, you have to make such a conscious decision. You have to say, I'm going to, even though this wasn't fair, and this probably happened in this parent and this parent, I need to be the one who's going to break this cycle, right? Is it a first of the decision of like, I'm going to be the one, even though I, it's not fair?

• 1:16:22Speaker 00

  I mean, I think you're getting to a really good point here. And this is a lot of people in our culture. One of my favorite stories of all time was a 94 year old man wrote me after reading my book. And he said to me, you know, I'm a lawyer. I was successful, but I really was not a great parent. I was not a great husband. I worked all the time. And after reading your work, I realized how much better my life would have been. And and how much better of a parent I would have been. And I was blown away by this 94 year old guy writing me this email. And I wrote him back and I said, you know, thank you so much for writing me.

• 1:17:04Speaker 00

  And I'm just blown away that you're thinking about this. And he wrote me back and he goes, you know, Mark, thank you for being my Uncle Marvin. Because tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life. And I'm going to start using these skills now.

• 1:17:18Lewis Howes?

  That's cool.

• 1:17:19Speaker 00

  That was pretty cool.

• 1:17:19Lewis Howes?

  That's really cool.

• 1:17:20Speaker 00

  Yeah, 94 year old, you know, like stoic, you know, lawyer is saying like tomorrow is the first day of the rest of my life that I can apply these skills. That was pretty mind blowing to me. And so if that person can do it, any of us can do it. And awareness is the first step, just being aware like, and I, I ask people to be emotion scientists about their life.

• 1:17:42Lewis Howes?

  Yes.

• 1:17:43Speaker 00

  Like, that's my vision is everyone becomes an emotion scientist. Because that curiosity, is my life working for me? Or is my life working against me? And if it's working against you, it doesn't have to. Yeah. Because these are all learnable skills.

• 1:17:58Lewis Howes?

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

• 1:18:43Lewis Howes?

  But when you can learn to navigate and master these tools, which takes your whole life, it's not like you learn it and you're done. You're gonna live anyway. You get to practice it constantly.

• 1:18:56Lewis Howes?

  You will only see your life get better and improve. So I want to acknowledge you, Mark, for having the curiosity as a, as a young boy to reach out to your uncle and go down the journey of studying and trying to understand emotional intelligence when there really wasn't a lot of information, when therapy wasn't cool back then, when, you know, you were made fun of and, you know, kicked out of social circles because of choices you made, all these different things. I acknowledge you for staying in the emotion and allowing yourself to process and teach others because you've, you've helped your own life, but now you've helped millions of people around the world with a lot of your work, your books, your students. And I acknowledge you for the journey you're on of trying to make people understand it better,

• 1:19:41Lewis Howes?

  which is probably the most complicated thing to understand is our own emotions and feelings. And learning how to heal and integrate the healing lessons is probably one of the most courageous things that any person can do for their own life. One of the hardest, but most courageous things they can do. So I acknowledge you for everything you're doing. You're on Instagram, mark bracket, mark dot bracket, mark bracket.com. We've got the, the app, how we feel app, which is an award winning app that's helped millions of people improve their wellbeing. And we've got the book, dealing with feeling, which is out right now. People can grab, get a copy for a friend, a sibling, you know, whoever it may be, give a copy to

• 1:20:26Lewis Howes?

  your child, whatever it might be, and, and learn these tools and help someone else as well. I've got two final questions for you. Okay. This one is called the three truths. Hypothetical question, imagine you get to live as long as you want, but it's the last day on earth for you, many years away. You've accomplished all of your dreams. You have all the relationships you want to experience, memories, fun, joy. But for whatever reason, on the last day, you have to take all of your work with you and we don't have access to your, your content anymore. This interview is gone, the books are gone, the app, we don't have access. But you get to leave behind three lessons to the world. That's all you get to leave behind or three truths. What would those three truths be for you?

• 1:21:11Speaker 00

  I have to say, my first response is, you know, the world's chaos will worsen and expect my return. But I stole that from my martial arts master. But I think the first is, it goes back to permission to feel. Just give yourself and give everyone else permission to feel. I feel like that's at the heart of the work.

• 1:21:32Speaker 00

  I think the second is, is being other oriented. That life is about supporting other people and achieving their dreams. Yes.

• 1:21:45Speaker 00

  And the third, I think, is, I don't know. My guess is, is it's around freedom. It's just that.

• 1:22:01Speaker 00

  Life is about moving forward, not staying in the past. And while we're in dark places in our lives, those moments are impermanent. And relish the fear of impermanence because we don't have to be stuck. We can move forward. That's beautiful.

• 1:22:24Speaker 00

  And final question, what's your definition of greatness?

• 1:22:31Speaker 00

  I think my definition of greatness goes back to what I said, which is having an other orientation. I feel, I mean, and this is developmental for me, but I feel like my job now is to support other people in achieving their dreams. Yeah, Mark, thanks for being here. Appreciate you. Amazing.

• 1:22:49Lewis Howes?

  I have a brand new book called Make Money Easy. And if you're looking to create more financial freedom in your life, you want abundance in your life, and you want to stop making money hard in your life, but you want to make it easier, you want to make it flow, you want to feel abundant, then make sure to go to makemoneeasibook.com right now and get yourself a copy. I really think this is going to help you transform your relationship with money this moment, moving forward. I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links.

• 1:23:30Lewis Howes?

  And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as ad-free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.