How Leaders Regulate Their Emotions in High-Stakes Moments — with Psychiatrist Dr. Tracey Marks

Great leaders don't avoid pressure — they know how to think clearly inside it. In this episode, Kwame Christian sits down with Dr. Tracey Marks, a board-certified psychiatrist and one of the most trusted mental health educators on YouTube (with over 2 million followers), to break down what's actually happening in a leader's brain during a high-stakes conversation — and how to stay in control of it. Dr. Marks explains why our brains treat criticism, tension, or a tough deadline the same way they'd treat a physical threat, shutting down the prefrontal cortex — the part responsible for rational thinking — right when leaders need it most. She and Kwame walk through concrete tools for reclaiming that control in the moment, including the "micro-pause," affect labeling ("name it to tame it"), and how mirror neurons and emotional contagion can either escalate or defuse a tense exchange. The conversation also covers the broader landscape leaders are navigating today: how to tell credible mental health information apart from social media sensationalism, what's really behind the ADHD self-diagnosis trend, and a candid, mixed-feelings take on AI chatbots as substitutes for real therapeutic support. Connect with Tracey ⁠Traceys Youtube Channel ⁠ ⁠Tracey's Website: markspsychiatry.com Connect with Kwame: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Request A Customized Workshop For Your Company⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow Kwame Christian on LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠negotiateanything.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Click here to buy your copy of Finding Confidence in Conflict: How to Negotiate Anything and Live Your Best Life!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ @kwamenegotiates across all social platforms

• 0:00Speaker 00

  How does an electrical engineering student with no interest in psychology become one of the world's leading experts in mental health with millions of followers across the globe? Dr. Tracy Marks discovered her love of psychology almost by accident during a psychiatry rotation in medical school, one that she had actually deferred because she had zero interest in it. But once she did it, something clicked. That was the start of a journey that wouldn't just change her life. It would change the lives of the millions of people who now follow her work. One of her core motivations has been de-stigmatizing mental health while also democratizing access to high-quality information, information that is crucial for combating the misinformation

• 0:43Speaker 00

  that is often spread by psychology influencers online. Today, she's at the forefront of the most important conversations in that space. The role of AI in mental health, how to perform under pressure and manage stress and way more. We aren't just learning from the best, we're learning how the best became the best. This is the story of Dr. Tracy Marks. Welcome to Big Swings Only.

• 1:09Speaker 00

  Today's episode is brought to you by Shopify, Granola AI, Quince, and the Anxious Achiever Podcast. Stay present in your meetings. Get three months of Granola free at granola.ai/Quami. For your gift list, shopquince.com for free shipping and 365-day returns and make sure to tell them that Quami with Big Swings Only sent you. Subscribe to the Anxious Achiever today on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Do you have an idea that you want live for the holidays? Launch before Black Friday at Shopify.com/Quami.

• 1:44Speaker 00

  A fun place to start would be talking about your background in psychology as a psychology influencer now, because I'm assuming when you started off, that probably wasn't the goal. How did that part of what you do start?

• 2:02Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it's funny. It starts with me clarifying that I'm a psychiatrist and people say this all the time, call me a psychologist. That's, that's fine. I don't get caught up in that, but I'm an MD. So I'm a psychiatrist. I went to medical school and psychologists are not MDs. They can either get a master's degree, but some level of graduate studies, usually PhD, PsyD.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  But there's a lot of overlap between the two of us. Okay, so enough about that.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  But you know what? I did not start out with an interest in psychology psychiatry. I started out with an interest in engineering. I was an electrical engineering major because I was good at math and science and I did not like to read or write papers. So I went to Duke and at Duke, as an engineering major, you only had to take one semester of, of English and you didn't have to take a, a language. So that's my major. But it wasn't until I got out of school that I, I've always been someone who's very, who's been very sensitive and like to help people.

• 3:19Speaker 01

  And the work that I was doing just wasn't meeting that need for me. So I decided to go back to medical school and I'd actually thought about medical school in undergraduate, but I was like a junior and at that point it was way too late for me to change my major. So I just decided to just push forward. In medical school, my intention was to be an internal medicine doctor.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  And it wasn't until, in fact, I deferred my psychiatry rotation because I had zero interest in that. I mean, I grew up in the South and, and, and culturally for me, seeing a psychiatrist or psychologist is, that's for other people. Like, you know, you don't talk to, you talk to people you know. You don't talk about your problems to strangers. So it was never on my radar until I did the rotation in medical school and saw how much more satisfaction and gratification I got out of helping people with their mental pain over their physical problems.

• 4:27Speaker 00

  Wow, this is so fascinating. It's definitely not the response that I expected. This, this is really interesting. So you kind of almost in a sense stumbled upon this passion for like psychology within something that you were actively trying to avoid.

• 4:47Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Yeah. In fact, you know, I went to, well, you know this since your wife is a doctor, but there's a whole match process, which is like the draft for medical students going into residency. And so I matched in internal medicine and I made the switch after the match. There was a psychiatry resident who couldn't come because of a medical issue. And so they just switched my name from one roster to the next at the New York hospital where I trained. So, but when I was at my graduation dinner, you know, we had family there and everything and I made this announcement, I'm actually going to be doing psychiatry instead of internal medicine.

• 5:31Speaker 01

  There was like, it was like mic drop. I mean, it was like, it was just silence because again, culturally that was just not seen as something that warranted, you know, anyone's attention. It's like, why would you do that?

• 5:48Speaker 01

  In fact, one of my attending, attending doctors on my internal medicine rotation, when I told her that I'd switched to psychiatry, her response was, wow, what a waste. Like what a waste of intelligence. And I just, I thought, what a shame that that is the sentiment even within medicine. Now I do think things have changed tremendously over the years in terms of respecting mental health. And when I started on YouTube with mental health education, that was one of the things that I wanted, that was one of the reasons I wanted to see that change. I wanted mental health to be something that is, can be ordinary conversation at the dinner

• 6:32Speaker 01

  table without anyone feeling shame about it because we all have brains and minds and it affects everyone.

• 6:40Speaker 00

  Yes, absolutely. And, and when it comes to this, I, I 100% agree. We, we needed to de-stigmatize these mental health conversations. But in addition to that, we need to have real leaders within the, the field who are the people driving these conversations because that's one of the things that drew me to your content. It was always so scientifically sound. Everything was scientifically sound, not sensationalized. And I would, I'm wondering your perspective as somebody who is, who has worked tangibly within this field, but also has inspired and educated millions online through this. What are your thoughts on the different types of social media conversations that are happening around mental health?

• 7:25Speaker 00

  And because I want to say social media because I feel like that permeates into everybody's everyday vernacular. So when you're thinking about the different types of influencers talking about this topic, what are some of the good things and what are some of the things you would rather not see?

• 7:42Speaker 01

  Oh, boy. Okay. So do I tiptoe through the tulips on this or do I just say it? Okay. So it was a struggle for me at first to not be drawn toward sensationalism. That is a draw on social media because, you know, if no one is, is interested in what, if, if I can't get a click and no one watches, then it goes nowhere. And so it's very tempting to want to make the content sexy for people, for then just the broad public to want to watch it. But I didn't want to go down that road because the original reason I started, kind of going

• 8:27Speaker 01

  back to, you know, Simon Sinek's knowing your why thing was it started with me treating, treating patients. I mean, I still have a practice today, but seeing how here I'm doing all of this explaining and things in sessions. And I thought, how many people don't get this because the, because they don't see a doctor? And so here we've got this information that's just kind of locked behind the doors of an office practice. And if you don't have, if you aren't seeing a doctor who's talking to you this way, then you're just kind of out of luck. So I thought, how many more people could benefit from just learning these things?

• 9:06Speaker 01

  Because the more you understand your mind, the better you know how to equip yourself with tools and, and strategies to get through life, to have better relationships, et cetera, and just improve the quality of our life just from knowledge alone. So I think that, you know, online, there's, there's been, now that there's so many more people, influencers, I kind of don't like to think of myself as an influencer, but people online with presenting mental health content, there is what we call just pure education. Then there's edutainment.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  So there is, you know, doctor reacts and, you know, maybe commenting on television shows and, and speculating about people's personalities within the television shows. Like that would be kind of more edutainment. It's a mixture of it's entertaining, but at the same time educational and then just pure entertainment. It's hard to make mental health purely entertaining, but still there's, you know, there's the draw to want to kind of go more in the edge, in the entertainment realm because it, you know, gets more views, more views gets you more attention, potentially more money, et cetera. Um, but one other, one other thing though, is there's also more of a concern these days now with

• 10:32Speaker 01

  the proliferation of misinformation. And so sometimes it's, it's not, there's a lot of mental health content that's not coming from a clinician. And so, but you know, it would, if someone's not really making any kind of distinction, or even trying to see if the person is, is, is grounded, they can just take in this information and think that's the way it's supposed to be. And, um, and unfortunately, you know, that backfires when people get misinformation.

• 11:03Speaker 00

  Yep, I agree 100%. And I, I think you are an example of somebody who exemplifies the distinction between a thought leader and an influencer, right? An influencer is somebody who could just, you can influence anybody and anything. Um, it's easier to influence people negatively, right?

• 11:21Speaker 01

  Oh, absolutely.

• 11:22Speaker 00

  But

• 11:22Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 11:23Speaker 00

  Be a, a thought leader who has garnered a following in a psychologically and scientifically sound way. I think it's just, it is incredibly encouraging because we need more of this so we can have higher level conversations. Because when it comes to communication, I think that this is one of the, the fundamental elements of humanity is how we transfer information. But if we are basing the communication on misinformation, then how good can the quality of the conversation even be? And so I, I really appreciate the work that you're doing to kind of lead the, the way when it comes to addressing this in a meaningful way that is ed, eh, enter, no, educational. I find it entertaining. I still do.

• 12:06Speaker 00

  I still find it entertaining, but it is educational and, and sound. So I just appreciate the work.

• 12:11Speaker 01

  Absolutely. Thanks so much. I guess a different way to think of it is engaging. So I try to make my content engaging. And if that ends up being entertaining, good. But, uh, but yeah, the, the idea is not to, um, you know, clickbait, rage bait you into watching my content.

• 12:29Speaker 00

  Right, right. No, that's good. And I, I want to talk to you about the ability for people to perform under pressure. Because I know the, based on what I've, I've seen about you, a lot of the folks that you work with are high performers. Um, and then for me, when I see people who are having tough conversations, whether it's a high stakes negotiation or just a, a difficult conversation with a loved one, one of the problems is that they cannot access their skills because they can't manage their emotions. And I'd love to see from your perspective, when it comes to performing in these tough conversations, what are some of the biggest barriers that can hold us back?

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Sure. I think one of the biggest barriers that can hold us back is letting the, um, emotions at the moment just take over. And we all are prone to this or susceptible to this because that's how our brain is wired. So our brain is wired to always be looking for threats. And back in the day, way back in the day, you know, a threat could be a saber tooth tiger right outside your cave. But, um, and that was, you know, 20 years ago. But, um, I'm just kidding, but you know, ancient times, that's what a threat was.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  But today's modern times, a threat is, can just be, uh, someone's tone or, um, having a, uh, an upcoming deadline or just too much online information, you know, on our phones and things. So there's lots of things that get, that get interpreted in our brain the same way as a threat. So therefore, uh, let's divert, um, all of our energy toward defending you. When that happens, um, and again, the, the threat trigger could be someone, uh, using a very negative tone with you or accusing you of something or criticizing you, let's just say that.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  Um, the thinking part of your brain kind of takes a step back, goes offline, sort of. Then that's the prefrontal cortex, that's what is responsible for rational thinking and emotional regulation. In fact, that takes a backseat while the rest of your body is, you know, your heart rate increases, um, you know, your, your senses get sharper, but, um, you're not able to think and rationalize as much. You're just kind of acting on autopilot. So one of the ways to break that cycle, or one of the things that can get in the way of that is not recognizing that this is a natural thing that happens.

• 15:13Speaker 01

  And how can I intercept that so that my thinking brain can come back in and allow me to be able to, um, be able to interact with this person in a calm way and in a rational way, instead of just mimicking, you know, their, their response or their emotions?

• 15:34Speaker 00

  Yep, it makes so much sense. And I, I think one of the things that's important for people to just accept about this is that it's a very natural response. And in fact, it would almost be more shocking if you did not respond in, in this type of way, because it's, it's very human. But what we then have to recognize is that, yes, it's natural, but there is a way to, to level up and improve, because at the end of the day, this is a skill. But I think it's often, oftentimes people just say, this is who I am. This is how I react. It's, it's a, this is my personality. And to a certain extent, it might be, but that doesn't mean that you cannot utilize the skill of emotional intelligence and, and learn to manage your emotions.

• 16:18Speaker 01

  That's right. That's right. And the better you can get at that, the better you're able to manage your emotions. So what do I mean by that? Um, I think kind of the first step toward even being able to recognize how you're feeling about something is to recognize the early signs that you're starting to get triggered. So that would be things like, um, and it could be different for different people. So I mentioned the heart racing. Sometimes you could, I can start, for me, I could start feeling heat in my chest, kind of like a fire breathing dragon. Or, um, or starting to sweat, you know, whatever your signs of you're starting to get amped

• 16:58Speaker 01

  up or worked up is being able to recognize, uh-oh, it's coming. Then in order to keep things from escalating to a point where you don't have much control over what you're saying, or you can't really think straight, um, you could take a micro pause. Just take a second, a couple of seconds to breathe in and then exhale slowly. And then acknowledge or just think about how is the situation making me feel? Like putting a name on the emotion that you're experiencing at the moment. That whole process can take 15, 30 seconds.

• 17:42Speaker 01

  It's enough time to just put in, just to create space between the trigger and your reaction to it, so that you can then formulate a better reaction than the one you would have had you just, had you not done that and just let things flow.

• 18:00Speaker 00

  Yes. Oh, this is great. And this is exactly why I wanted you to have you on, because a lot of times people will talk about the power of the pause, just take a moment. And that's a great start. Um, but it doesn't help if you don't know what you're doing and why in that time. So you can still take like 30 seconds and still be supremely pissed off at the end of the 30 seconds, if you don't know what to do. So I appreciate you breaking it down. So let's, let's recap and, and tell me what you think about some additions here too. Because we're taking this micro pause and so we're breathing and exhaling slowly intentionally to trigger the parasympathetic nervous system, because if we are, like, if we are being threatened by that hypothetical saber tooth tiger, taking a deep breath isn't our natural first response.

• 18:43Speaker 00

  So we're kind of treating our, like coaching our body to say, this is not a threat in that way. I can take the time to breathe slowly, introducing more oxygen into the brain and then labeling the emotion, because we, we know in psychology, you have to name it to tame it. And labeling it, using affect labeling, it helps us to be able to not just get an understanding of ourselves, but it also triggers frontal lobe activation, which lowers the limbic response. So there's a lot that's happening beneath the surface. We're not just taking a pause for the sake of stopping.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Right. Or just doing some silly exercise of, well, okay, let me, what, well, how do I actually feel? Cause you, you described it perfectly, um, that engaging your prefrontal cortex with that exercise, which is a cognitive exercise of how, of affective labeling or affect labeling, what do I feel at this moment? It brings your brain back into it. And then you have more control over what you're saying and how you're behaving. If you don't reengage it like that, then you can just be acting on autopilot. Because another concept here, since you like nerding out on psychology stuff, um, is a concept of mirror neurons. Yes.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  So mirror neurons are, uh, kind of like our, our, well, they're specialized nerve cells that work to

• 20:05Speaker 01

  Imitate or match is probably a better word. Someone else's emotions and and and presence. So if someone is like, hey, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you're just sitting there reading peacefully and they start talking to you like that. You can automatically click in and respond in that same attitude and that that they have of anger. And you, you know, what do you got to be angry about? You were just reading something peaceful and this person's come and saying this kind of stuff. So all that to say, um, just as it's kind of like, I think, you know, catching people's emotions or emotional contagion.

• 20:48Speaker 01

  If if if someone, so just as you can pick up on someone's negative energy, they can pick up on your positive energy. And therefore, uh, it brings, it de-escalates the situation. So if you go back to the whole micro pausing thing, like so somebody comes over, hey, blah, blah, blah, with some bad attitude. Instead of me just snapping back with something, um, if I take that 30 seconds to create the micro pause and like register how I, okay, I'm feeling attacked. I don't know why. I don't even know if it's justified, but this is how I feel at the moment. It it then gives me the ability to respond more calmly. And then that can calm that person down.

• 21:32Speaker 01

  So they can catch or catch my calm, just as I could catch their irritation.

• 21:37Speaker 00

  Yes, this is so powerful and I I want the person listening to to fully appreciate this because we're seeing how the the very beginnings of these conversations, especially when emotionality is introduced. This could be the micro fork in the road that dictates the direction of the entire conversation. Depending on how emotional the conversation begins, we we might be set on, set upon a course that was doomed for failure from the jump. It's wild and it's determined by these first seconds of how you handle this, this important part of the conversation. And here's the thing too, because I remember that there was a time when I was less mature than I am. Every year I swear that I'm going to get ahead of holiday shopping.

• 22:19Speaker 00

  This year it started with a Quince cashmere sweater that I bought for myself. It was so soft, so well made, and my first thought was, who else on my list needs one? Quince makes high quality staples with 100% Mongolian cashmere and Italian leather. And their cashmere sweaters start at just $60. All of it is 50 to 80% less than similar brands because they work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. As a negotiator, I know a great deal when I see one. This is luxury quality without the luxury price tag. I use Quince and you should too. Give the gift of quality this season. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or just go to quince.com.

• 22:59Speaker 00

  Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Kwame with big swings only. That's the best way to support the show. If you were going to take a big swing this holiday season and start a business, what would you build? Maybe it's that one idea that you can't stop thinking about. I've built a business from the ground up and I can tell you that the hard part isn't the idea. It's getting it live. That's where Shopify comes in. You can sell everywhere people shop, online, in person, across social media, even in AI chats. And Shopify checkout with shop pay converts up to 36% higher than the competition.

• 23:43Speaker 00

  So more of the people who show up actually buy. Plus, Black Friday is when more people are already shopping and ready to buy. So the sooner you're live, the better. If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com slash Kwame to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com slash Kwame. Go to Shopify.com slash Kwame to hear your first.

• 24:06Speaker 00

  Now, and I used to think I could just kind of muscle my way through emotion management. Like a weaker person would feel this, but I don't feel this, so I'm going to keep on acting like I don't feel this. And I I remember that with my wife, she told me, she's like, the way I know that you're mad is because you say you're not mad. And and denying the reality doesn't allow you to do the very thing that's required to actually manage your emotions effectively. And I see a lot of folks in the business world, they try to convince themselves and others that they don't feel anything. And as a result, they don't have any mechanism to control their emotions and they're making these these decisions thinking that they're strategic when they're really emotional.

• 24:47Speaker 01

  That's right. And you can lie to yourself consciously, but your mind still knows how you're really feeling about this and how you're processing it. Even if you can't fully relate to how you really feel. So let's say, and what I mean by that is, let's say you're not that emotionally intelligent. You just know that made me feel some type of way. That's what people will say.

• 25:13Speaker 01

  Well, what, some type of what way? But anyway, that made me feel some type of way. But really what you feel is resentment or you feel disrespected. You know, disrespect or resentment, you know, those are different kinds of anger and negative emotions than just simply, um, I feel attacked. Or, you know, there's, there's lots of different ways that you can experience something negative. So the better you can get at recognizing how it is you actually feel, the better you can get at processing that emotion. So, yeah, if I just say, well, you know, that made me feel some type of way, but or um, I'm not going to let these people get to me.

• 25:58Speaker 01

  I'm just going to keep moving because I got work to do. That still doesn't address the fact that I still don't feel very respected. So how will that manifest? I can start doing other stuff sabotaging. I could, you know, um, act passive aggressively toward people who I think aren't respecting me. Where is it without? And that can all happen on autopilot as well. Like I'm doing these things because I'm still mad, but I'm trying to act like I'm not mad because that's the professional way to act. And it's like you can run, but you can't hide. These things will come out some kind of way.

• 26:38Speaker 00

  That's so powerful. And I think as well, and this is kind of a step to another direction, but in some cases, this helps me to recognize how some people can end up being unintentionally toxic. You know?

• 26:52Speaker 01

  Right? Yes.

• 26:53Speaker 00

  Because I can't imagine, because one of the things that I I talk about so much is that I'm a recovering people pleaser. And so I like to create a lot of content for people who struggle in these tough conversations. What often happens in these conversations with people pleasers is that they sacrifice their own wants and needs. They don't articulate those to other people. They don't set boundaries and they just hope that other people will adjust or self-correct. But then they say, you know what? I'm a good person. I want to be easygoing. I don't want to make a ruckus or anything like that. So I'm just not going to say anything. I'm not going to do anything. But I will just sit here seething in perpetuity. And like you said, it leaks out in different ways. And now you're trying to be nice for other people, but that exact act is what's making you mean and unintentionally toxic.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  That's right. That is so right. I love that term unintentionally toxic. Um, because yeah, it just that brooding and the seething, um, it takes its toll eventually. And it will start to affect, um, the way you relate to people. Um, it it will even affect how you speak, your tone. It's hard to, um, it's hard to express

• 28:08Speaker 01

  genuine emotions that don't exist. You know, if you're quietly and secretly pissed, um, you're not going to be able to really come across genuinely as this, you know, uh, happy or satisfied or joyful person. You just can't.

• 28:25Speaker 00

  Yeah, no, that's fascinating because it's it's what oftentimes with folks who are conflict avoidant, they don't have these conversations because they don't want to damage the relationship. And in doing so, they ultimately damage the relationship. And it's and it's a guaranteed loss too, because it's they're saying to themselves, okay, I want to sacrifice myself in order for this person to feel good and the relationship to be okay. But what ends up happening is even if they do successfully please the other side, they are guaranteeing that they themselves will not be pleased and they're an equal part of the relationship. So still there's going to be an a person within the relationship that is unhappy with the relationship, which makes it kind of fundamentally. Untenable for the relationship to be successful at that point.

• 29:09Speaker 01

  Absolutely, because on a on a more subtle level, there's the connection issue. And I can relate to the people pleasing person because I'm I'm one of those two. It pains me to like say no to some someone who really wants something. They need this, but you know, I can't take on everything. But at any rate, um, what can happen is you can you can feel you can feel like you can just not really be connected uh to the other person. Let's just say this is a dual thing, you and someone else. And um, you're just kind of yesing them and and letting and yielding to whatever their whatever their needs are to the expense of your own.

• 29:52Speaker 01

  You're not really being emotionally honest with them because you have to be disappointed that your needs aren't being met at some level. And so you can you can get to where you're just kind of out there on your own, not really feeling like anybody understands you or really cares about you because no one's really like meeting your needs. Whereas you're allowing everyone to not meet your needs because you don't want to speak up and admit that you have needs.

• 30:23Speaker 00

  Hmm hmm hmm. This is getting deep. I can feel people getting really uncomfortable, Tracy.

• 30:30Speaker 00

  This is really good. And and I think that's what people need. And the this actually gives us a good opportunity for us to segue because I want to talk about the uh the the magical power of journaling. And I I recognize that a lot of times people describe things as magical when they don't understand the science behind it, right? And so in your in your practice, when you've worked with high performers, people who have been struggling in different ways, how have you seen journaling be part of their pathway to recovery?

• 31:02Speaker 01

  So there's so many different ways that you can journal. Um, and I'll just name a few. So one is I like to uh call it a worry journal or or or setting aside worry time. So if you're someone who tends to anticipate negative scenarios, maybe even catastrophize or or or have a lot of what ifs floating around in your head. And they particularly get worse at bedtime when you're trying to go to sleep. And now you've got time to yourself and your mind's just running. Set aside worry time. You pull out a journal and you write these things out of, okay, well, what if this scenario happens? What if this scenario happens? What if this scenario happens? And you could either just write out the scenario.

• 31:47Speaker 01

  So you're just kind of offloading all of this information. Or you could even even put down, you know, potential potential solutions to these, which also serves the purpose of offloading um all of this information from your working memory onto paper. That's part of what's going on here as well because it's taxing for your mind or your brain to kind of try and keep everything fresh. And and you know, if you're worried about problems, to keep all this information top of mind for you as you go through your day. You know, you need to be, you need to focus on, if you're working, you know, you need to focus on this project.

• 32:30Speaker 01

  And then you need to think about what you're going to have for dinner and so on and so forth. There's like a million decisions that we need to make throughout the day. If I'm still having to like keep reminding, keep keep refreshing, oh, yeah, I got this. And what if this happens? And all you know, all these things that are also running in the background. That's one of the ways people can get cognitively and or emotionally overwhelmed and overloaded from just too much information. So um, too much information that they're trying to keep current and fresh for themselves. So another benefit to journaling is just, even if it's not necessarily about worries, is just offloading information like a data dump.

• 33:14Speaker 01

  So I know I've done this where I could be like getting toward the end of my evening thinking, oh, yeah, I can't I can't I can't forget that I need to do blah, blah, blah. So I'll go and I have this little book and I'll write down all these things that I want to make sure I do tomorrow. And once I write them down, then I don't have to hold myself responsible for keeping keeping it fresh so that tomorrow I won't forget.

• 33:38Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 33:40Speaker 01

  Um, you know, another uh thing for journaling, some of it could be freestyling where you just kind of, or you want to process some difficult emotions you had during the day. Or they don't even necessarily have to be difficult. If you're trying to improve your emotional intelligence, the affect labeling thing, you can use a journal to document those situations. So let's say, um, you know, something happened at work or wherever that that that made me that that created or triggered a strong emotion.

• 34:18Speaker 01

  It would be best in the moment, so you could use your phone, the notes app on your phone or something, to identify how it made you feel and doc and like write it down real quick at that time. And then later, when you've got more time, open up your journal and just kind of um work through it again. So uh, this happened and um, I felt slighted or overlooked. I could be thinking of, well, what else did it make me feel? Or go a step further and now this is processing the emotion. This is what this exercise is for this journal entry. Okay, so I felt slighted when um, the this project was given to someone else and I had already been working on it.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  But actually, why is that such a big deal? Like, what what's the bigger problem here? This is just a one one time incident, but why is this bothering me still? It's because I always feel like um, this is a dead end job for me, that they don't really think that I meet their expectations. So maybe I need to address that um, or look for another job. You know, that kind of thing, that that would be processing. Or I could conclude from that processing that um, I just don't feel secure in my own skills. And so I'm misinterpreting what people are saying. You know, maybe maybe it's me. Maybe if I improve my skills, I won't feel so insecure at work. That kind of thing.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  I mean, there's there's lots of things that you could write in a journal. But really, I guess, the the high level strategy or or one of the high level benefits here is offloading a bunch of thoughts in your head onto paper to give your brain and working memory um, more space.

• 36:10Speaker 00

  Yes. Oh, Tracy, there's so much to explore here. So first of all, I think it's important when we when we think about this as related to um, difficult conversations of any kind. One of the questions that I get frequently is, how can I? What are the best ways for me to manage my emotions in these tough conversations? And one of the things I always say is, the best way overall is to do a better job of managing your baseline level of emotionality. It's not just what happened in the conversation itself. It's everything that led up to that and then how you process this. And so you could see how this could be an integral part of the preparation for tough conversations. If you're feeling for whatever reason fearful or avoidant, because now you can work to process this in a meaningful way

• 36:55Speaker 00

  before the conversation happens. So it's easier for you to maintain your cool. I see that people often prepare strategically for conversations, but not prepare emotionally for the conversation. And then they go in the conversation and trip over a landmine and they're freaking out right there in front of the person. You should have you should have handled that freak out before this was predictable.

• 37:15Speaker 01

  That's right, absolutely. If you feel fragile, emotionally fragile, then it is going to be harder for you to to feel confident that you could have a difficult convers- conversation with someone. Or even and and when I keep saying difficult conversations, not like everything has to be these, we need to talk kind of conversations. But let's say, um, you know, you need to ask for something and you have a feeling you're going to get some pushback. And you already you fear that at the least bit of pushback, you are going to lose it. And if you do that, you may lose your job. So how do you hold yourself together?

• 37:57Speaker 01

  Well, to your point is, if if you know, it isn't to, how do I make this one situation go perfectly? The bigger question that precedes this is, how do I make myself less fragile or less explode, less labile? We call it when, you know, I could just easily explode.

• 38:23Speaker 01

  How do I, yeah, how do I make things just kind of less sensitive that way? And that's more of a, you know, that that's more than, you know, a what's what's the cognitive exercise you can do or behavioral exercise you can do for that? That's a lifestyle adjustment that that touches on multiple aspects of your life, your sleep. Because a sleep deprived person, no matter how good they are at uh emotional control, is going to lose that emotional control if you are sleep deprived. That's just the way it is.

• 39:00Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 39:00Speaker 01

  You know, it just strips all your defenses.

• 39:04Speaker 01

  You know, diet, exercise, like everything that builds a healthy mind helps you have more margin and cushion to be able to absorb these insults.

• 39:18Speaker 00

  Yes, yes. No, you're you're spot on. And when it comes to this, I know you've done a lot of work, not just with, as a clinician, with telling people to journal. Actually created a guided journal, right?

• 39:30Speaker 01

  I did. It's called the Shine Guided Transformation Journal. And it, I love it because it's, it's 12 weeks. And each week, there's different things you can do. So there's people who, and I say guided journal, because there are people who want just a journal that has just blank pages. And they're good at knowing exactly what they're going to do with their journal. There's others who just aren't used to journaling and they don't really know what to do. So this is perfect for that person that, and so that's the guiding part. So there's, you know, each week, there's a, there's a challenge exercise for the theme for that week.

• 40:14Speaker 01

  There's affirming statements that you can read and then reflect on. There's also open space for just general journaling and then there's mindfulness exercises. So I think it's a great tool for the person who would like to feel like they're trying to improve different aspects of their life. Like for example, one of the months is self-awareness, helping you improve your self-awareness by focusing on, on certain aspects of it. With a little bit more guidance than just kind of freestyle, just journal about whatever is on your mind at the time.

• 40:52Speaker 00

  Right. Oh, that's powerful. And this is, is this in the mental wellness store that you have online?

• 40:59Speaker 01

  It is. So I've created a, my brand is the Mental Wellness Space. And so I created an online store, mentalwellnessspace.store that is designed to have different tools to help people with various aspects of mental wellness. So this is one of those tools, a guided journal.

• 41:21Speaker 00

  Nice. Brilliant. This is great. And before we bring Simone in for his question, which I'm excited for, I want to ask you one question, which will probably open up Pandora's box and require a completely different episode, but I just, I'm interested to see your thoughts on this. And I'm, I'm also interested to see whether or not you've shared your thoughts on this publicly before. What are your thoughts on AI therapists and people using generative AI for mental health? Try this. Pull up your notes from a meeting last week. Do they still make sense? Or do they just seem like random notes that only the old version of you could decode?

• 42:00Speaker 00

  That used to be me. And as a negotiator, that's a real problem because my job is to listen, not type or write notes. That's why Granola has been one of my favorite tools, period. It's an AI-powered notepad. I jot my usual rough notes and then Granola securely transcribes the meeting in the background. And when it ends, I get clean, structured notes that still make sense a week later. Decisions, owners, next steps, everything that I would need to feel good about going forward. And it works through your device's audio too. So there's no additional setup or any annoying AI joining your call. Just your normal meeting, but with superpowers. If meetings are eating up your day, Granola is a no-brainer. You can try it totally free for three months. Just go to granola.ai/Quami.

• 42:45Speaker 00

  That's granola.ai/Quami to get your time back. Get three months free at granola.ai/Quami. If you were going to take a big swing this holiday season and start a business, what would you build? Maybe it's that one idea that you can't stop thinking about. I've built a business from the ground up and I can tell you that the hard part isn't the idea, it's getting it live. That's where Shopify comes in. You can sell everywhere people shop, online, in person, across social media, even in AI chats. And Shopify checkout with Shop Pay converts up to 36% higher than the competition. So more of the people who show up actually buy.

• 43:25Speaker 00

  Plus, Black Friday is when more people are already shopping and ready to buy. So the sooner you're live, the better. If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com/Quami to start your free trial. That's Shopify.com/Quami. Go to Shopify.com/Quami to hear your first.

• 43:47Speaker 01

  So, um, I have mixed thoughts. Um, this is coming from observing even like my child heavily using AI. Uh, now gotten to the point where, um, she asks for just about everything, you know? Well, I'm, I'm going to see what chat says about this. Prob, so I don't know. I think it's, it can be great.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  It can be great for general information. I still think it's too, it's dangerous to rely heavily on it as a substitute for a real clinician. Because it's just, it just, it makes mistakes. It doesn't always take other things into context. Um, and so it's, it's, hmm, I don't know. It, it, I don't know. I've got mixed feelings. In some ways it's very helpful, but it's a double-edged sword, really.

• 44:47Speaker 00

  Agreed. Yeah, I'm, I'm with you on that because there, we see the pros, we see the cons, we see the stories of both. And I think a big part of it is, comes down to sophistication as well. Because I think, for instance, if you hypothetically were to use this as an AI therapist for yourself, you would have the sophistication to know, hey, that, what you just said was BS and, and nonsensical. So I'm going to ignore that, right? And but the, the problem is, a lot of people don't have, not a lot, the majority of people do not have your level of sophistication on the topic. And as a result, they don't know enough to protect themselves. And it's also designed to be very validating. And even when you're wrong, um, just for everybody, just try, just try this.

• 45:32Speaker 00

  Put in like a statement that you believe that is, is incorrect, you know, to be incorrect, not even factually, maybe philosophically. And then say, tell me why I'm right. And it will validate the hell out of you inappropriately. So I think it, it requires a lot of self-awareness, but again, from your work, we talk about the fact that self-awareness is the foundational step when it comes to emotional intelligence and, and so many other things in life, but we also recognize that self-awareness is the step that most people lack. Because it's a skill. So it's, it's tough. And I think especially when you consider the discrepancies of, of sophistication on specific topics that people are asking about, it could be very dangerous.

• 46:13Speaker 00

  Sorry, this, I live my life with alarms, Tracy. I just, I get into a flow state really easy. And if I don't have these alarms, something will get missed. So sorry about that.

• 46:24Speaker 01

  That's okay.

• 46:25Speaker 00

  But, um, yeah, what I was saying is, if you don't have that level of sophistication to know what's right and what's wrong, or what could potentially be wrong and double-check it, then it could be very dangerous in the wrong hands.

• 46:39Speaker 01

  Absolutely. You know, I forget that aspect of it because of the fact that I have the knowledge. So I feel like it's a little safer for me because I can tell when this isn't correct and, you know, that sort of thing. But, and even be able to see the nuanced, um, uh, things that are just not quite right, but maybe sort of right, whatnot. So that makes it all the more scary to think about the person who is just blindly trusting it because they don't know any better. That's usually the more impressionable person, the younger, younger minds. And so, um, so yeah, it really is a double-edged sword.

• 47:19Speaker 01

  I do know that medicine is, is trying to utilize it more for, um, delivering not really care, because you can't call it that, but information and things to make up for the fact that, um, not everyone has access to healthcare and, you know, all the information that we want. So what do we do about this? Here's this tool, but you know, the tool in the wrong hands can still be harmful. So we, we have a ways to go to put some protections in place.

• 47:53Speaker 00

  Agreed. Agreed. Great. Well, perfect. Let's bring in Simone before we wrap up. He's always listening and always comes up with fantastic questions. So Simone, what do you have for us?

• 48:03Speaker 02

  Uh, Tracy, you have more than 2 million followers on YouTube. So you should receive lots of questions and comments. What are the most frequent questions you receive on social media and what are the answers?

• 48:19Speaker 01

  Wow, I probably get a thousand comments a week. So I don't see as many as I used to. When I, when I first started my channel, probably the first two years, I was answering or responding to every single comment until I just couldn't do it anymore. Um, but I will say, so right now, I get, it's more people commenting that this has been helpful, or they may use an example of how they plan to use whatever I suggested. Um, but if I kind of pull back a little bit and just look at the people who actually do have questions,

• 49:02Speaker 01

  I would say probably the most frequent, let me, let me, let me say it this way. The most frequently requested topic for me to talk about would be ADHD. Everybody thinks they have ADHD.

• 49:18Speaker 01

  But and a lot of people do who don't who were never diagnosed. So you know, that is a reality that deficits in attention, whether you actually have the disorder or not, deficits in attention are very common and it can be on a spectrum. But understanding that, recognizing signs and things like that, those are the most frequent questions that I get.

• 49:42Speaker 00

  There are some trending topics. That seems to be one that comes up very frequently. Okay, yeah, well, let's let's stick with this because we talked about emotional contagion before. We talked about mirror neurons as well. I'm wondering, because I think, like you said, especially with ADHD, there are there documented incidents of people not being diagnosed when they're younger, they're diagnosed when they're older, and they say, oh, my gosh, if I had this diagnosis, life would have been so much better for me had I known. So that not denying that this exists. But I also want to think about, could there be a little bit of, what is the term, psychosomatic impact here, where we learn about something and then

• 50:26Speaker 00

  we have it? Because I remember my wife, like I mentioned, is a doctor. And when she was in med school, it's like, the more diseases she learned about, the more of them she thought she had, and she ended up having none of them, you know? So how, what do you think this balance is?

• 50:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's, it's tricky, because there are lots of things that can impair our attention. That's not necessarily the disorder, the clinical disorder of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. So going back to the sleep, if I don't sleep enough, if I've got some projects that I'm trying to stay up late working on, and I get, you know, instead of my usual seven or eight, I'm only getting five or six hours of sleep a night for a couple of weeks, my attention is going to be compromised. So I may not, I may not be as sharp as I usually am, I may forget stuff a lot and all that. Does that mean I have ADHD? No,

• 51:24Speaker 01

  it means I have compromised attention because of something else affecting that, in this case, sleep. So anxiety can also affect your ability to pay attention and retain information. So if you can't encode information because you didn't pay enough attention at first, then you're not going to be able to recall it. Anxiety can affect that. Depression can also affect your thinking ability and problem solving ability and ability to remember things and hold things in working memory. So all of those are things that can impact your your attention. That's not easily talked about, you know, in a quick TikTok video.

• 52:09Speaker 01

  That are clinical nuances that someone with more training would be able to tell the difference, because those differences determine, well, what do you do about it? People who have significant executive dysfunction, that's a whole nother animal. I mean, it goes along with ADHD. But in terms of like, you know, our prefrontal cortex and whatnot, the executive functions are things like working memory, planning, time management, organization, and emotional regulation. There are different things that can affect our ability, our executive functions that aren't necessarily ADHD, but ADHD definitely impacts those.

• 52:55Speaker 00

  Again, I have a love of psychology. I love that we're talking more about it. I love that I'm seeing more videos on it. And then I'm also seeing people who are like self diagnosing that see in ways that seem inappropriate. And then people going into comments and saying, yes, I think I have it now, too. I'm like, I don't know if this is what the vision was

• 53:17Speaker 00

  for like, psychology based education. Because I remember day one of psychology, when I was in psychology 101, my, our professor said, okay, rule number one, you cannot diagnose your friends.

• 53:31Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 53:32Speaker 00

  They were very explicit. And now on social media, TikToks, like, diagnose everybody. And you probably have it, too. So I don't know. It seems like it's kind of muddied the water when it comes to these conversations.

• 53:46Speaker 01

  It has. And again, another double edged sword in the in terms of information has been wonderful to open our eyes, have some people get help that they wouldn't have gotten. But then over it also just everyone of, but then also just over calling it and, you know, having everyone feel like this is their their problem, or even pointing fingers at people and diagnosing people. So, but I still, despite all that, I still favor the proliferation of good and accurate information, because we still need to know, like this, this, because

• 54:28Speaker 01

  of this double edged sword feature, that's not a reason to shut it down. And let's not talk about this anymore.

• 54:33Speaker 00

  Agreed. I think it's the, the solution is talking about it more within in a better way, you know, which is why I was so excited to have you on the podcast today. Tracy, this has been fantastic. And before you go, I want to give you an opportunity, again, to shout out the work that you're doing and how people can get in touch and work with you.

• 54:52Speaker 01

  Sure. So I probably the best place to find me, the hub, is my website, Mark's Psychiatry, and that's M A R K S, and then psychiatry.com. That's where I kind of where everything is. But as far as on law or on social media, my main place is YouTube. And my handle is my name, Dr. Tracy Marks, and that's T R A C E Y. Same thing on Instagram and TikTok. Of course, those are short form. And then the YouTube is where my most, my long form

• 55:32Speaker 01

  explanations and things is. So, you know, I'm all about helping people. So here's my kind of parting words is, I think, the most advanced sophisticated piece of software that we own is our brain. And it is something that could be understood, updated, and optimized. And if we can do that, you can do that through repeated behaviors and habits, little changes over time. And that is the way to have better relationships, feel better about yourself, and just have an overall better quality of life.

• 56:16Speaker 00

  Tracy, if my mic was not so expensive, I would have dropped it on your behalf. Thank you for this. Thanks for coming on the show. We really appreciate it.

• 56:25Speaker 01

  Thank you for inviting me. I enjoyed this.