How to Handle Conflict Better

Conflict and crises aren't going away because building relationships are never easy. And so we have to ask the tough questions of how do we get better knowing that those things will always be there? How do we manage our internal state, our own personal development better so that we can be in the moment, be present, and solve things versus making them worse? Foreign. Today in Growth Day, we are taking on the topic of handling conflict better. I know this is such an important topic because sometimes your relationships, they start falling apart. Sometimes some at work has you frustrated. Sometimes you find yourself getting an argument after argument. Sometimes you feel, like, hooked or triggered emotionally by what other people are doing. And you figure, like, how do I handle this better? Because conflict and crises aren't going away because building relationships are never easy. And so we have to ask the tough questions of how do we get better knowing that those things will always be there? How do we manage our internal state, our own personal development better so that we can be in the moment, be present, and solve things versus making them worse? Okay, my first teaching point today will cover the themes of almost everything else I'm going to teach today. So it's three simple phrases. Okay? Three simple phrases. If you ask me, Brendan, help me manage conflict better for the rest of my life. You get, you know, three phrases. Here is what they are. First phrase is shared future mindset. You know, when we enter conflicts, it's so often we get so myopic. We take things personally and we just want to win. So we want to just crush and trounce the other person and debate them and make them look dumb because our ego wants to be right. And we forget we got to wake up with that person tomorrow morning. Maybe that's your spouse. Or we got to go to work with that person again tomorrow because it's Tuesday. We got to see that person again in our neighborhood, that person who we're about to have a conflict with. They're probably going to be there again. And once we can realize, oh, I'm entering a conflict, this is about to get heated up. We're about to have some debate here, or you're already in it. If you can adopt the shared future mindset that, oh, we're going to share a future together, I'm going to have to see her again. I'm going to have to work with this person again. I'm going to have to deal with this probably again and again through multiple more projects in the future, everything will shift. You'll approach the conversation differently, more strategically, more thoughtfully. When you keep the future in Mind. Usually what happens in the moment of conflict, we just throw out the baby.

With the bathwater or whatever that phrase is.

I don't even know what. I still don't know. Why would you say that?

You understand what I'm saying?

What happens is you just toss out the whole relationship because you're mad. And the ego goes into self identity, disconnects from the other person and from the future and just gets in fight and flight mode from that place we've already lost. So deciding and determining we're going to have a shared future mindset is important. And importantly, if we're talking about relationship or partner or spousal conflict, somebody who you really love. If the two of you have in mind a compelling future together, you have shared interests, shared goals, shared adventures coming up. If you can always ground your relationships in the reality that you're building something together, if that pre exists, then moving into a conflict, you're more likely to resolve it more quickly and amicably. Research shows even just having a couple have a conversation about something they're interested in doing or something good coming up in their future before having them talk out a difficulty makes that difficulty or that conversation of conflict so much more smooth, so much more short, so much less accusatory. It changes everything. Grounding ourselves in the future. I think it's important. Starting off the bat with relationships, thinking I'll work with this person again, I'll see this person and I'll care about this person again. It can change everything. It can really shift everything. The second phrase I would say here is respectful process. How many of you have been in a conversation in a conflict and you were just trying to be thoughtful and try to be calm and the person you were dealing with was not respectful? It's very, very frustrating. And soon as we lose respect in the conversation process, all is fair game in war. And so it's a very challenging thing. We have to go into conflict situations, but adopt this philosophy overall, I'm going to treat people with kindness and respect, even if they don't treat you that way. For those who don't know my background a little bit, this is a topic I really love. Because if you don't know, my master's degree was in communication studies and I focus mostly on leadership communication. And in that process, though, I got to do a lot of mediation, including peer mediation. So I was mediating students in college having conflicts. I was mediating professors and professors, professors and students, administrators and professors, local community members and administrators. Like my job was literally two people come In a room, they are in conflict, they cannot resolve it. They've already tried, they do not like each other and here they are. I even did some court referred mediation which in like a divorce case, they'd bring in the couple and I'd have to work with them. And mind you, I'm in my early 20s and it was such a great training ground. I mean, for two years I just got to see how terribly disrespectful people can be toward each other, even when they both want to solve it. A big part of mediation was teaching people in advance of a conversation that this process we were going to keep respectful, that the expectation was that this is going to be a respectful conversation because otherwise we couldn't solve it. They already usually knew that. I've done a lot of coaching, as you know, over the last 15 years. I'm a certified high performance coach and over these 15 years, doing it full time every single week. A lot of times I'm dealing with conflict situations and couples or conflict situations between co founders. And soon as it devolves into disrespect, it is 10 times harder to pull it back. It is so much more difficult. And so you'll hear me talk about how you can maintain that respectful stance with your partner or the person you're having conflict with, but also know that the expectation has to be had in advance of the conversation. Sometimes you react in the heat of the moment without stepping back and setting the frame for the conversation. As simple as if you feel hooked or triggered saying, you know what, could we talk about this in like 30 minutes in a much more calm way? I just need to go reset. And coming back with the expectation and the conversation, let's try this again. I want to be more respectful with you. I know that we love and care for each other, or I know that we need to work together, or I know that it hasn't been easy. So let's try this again. Let's try to do this with kindness and care for another and we can solve this together. I know we can. A simple reset into the frame of respect can change the outcome as well. The third phrase, so the first phrase was shared future mindset. The last phrase was respectful process. The third one is empathy and encouragement. Now, we all know about empathy, right? We all know we're supposed to listen, understand, feel, sense their thoughts and feelings. We're supposed to reflect back how they're feeling and what they're going through. We're supposed to validate maybe not their beliefs, but validate them As a person, we're supposed to really feel their pain or walk in their shoes. You've heard these phrases before, right?

Empathy.

People know they should do that.

But in conflict, common sense is not always common practice. And that's why we really wreck relationships. And empathy is one of those. Being an empathetic listener, we'll talk about how is so important. But notice the phrase empathy and encouragement. Do you know what in conflict also goes out the window? I said earlier, what goes out the window? Well, shared relationship and the future. Well, the ego also can't see and validate and praise the other person, which is exactly what they need. We forget because we're hooked or we're upset or we disagree that the other person is, you know, if you're a spiritual person, a child of God, or the other person that you know has extraordinary potential, or the other person has been through a lot in their life, or the other person is struggling and we forget that people actually need a lot of encouragement. And you, I know being in growth day, you tend to be the person who is more encouraging in your relationships. We know that from our research. You tend to be the person who's usually more of the optimist or more of the leader position that you are. The person who is supportive of others, more kind of others, and yes, more encouraging of others. But we forget that when we are angry. Who is guilty? Ok, a few of us think about the last argument you had with somebody. Did you praise them? Did you encourage them to share? Did you say a kind word? Did you appreciate something about them? Most people don't. They're on the attack, they're on the offensive. They think they are at war and they must win at all costs. That's the ego, that's narcissism, that's sociopathy. You know what it is, is it's saying, I must destroy this person. Because it's a zero sum game. Either they're evil and I'm good, or I'm right and they are wrong and there is no in between. And what that does is it objectifies the other person into the category of darkness and bad versus recognizing human frailty, human suffering. It strips us away from that common humanity. And if we let that happen with every conflict situation, no wonder we live in a divisive world where it's accusatory, where it's blaming, where it's the worst assumption about the other person, when in reality what we really need to do is remember the human struggle, remember their humanity.

You know, I know you all know.

This Being Growth Day members. But an encouraging word to somebody at the right time can change their lives. Let me ask this to you. Do you believe that it is true that some point in your life somebody gave you some encouragement, maybe some praise, validation, respect, appreciation, honor? They kind of told you you were capable and it changed your life? Did that ever happen for anybody here, ever? When someone encourages you, it changes your life. Well, then can't you get to the logical conclusion that if you encourage somebody in a conflict situation, it could change the tone and outcome of the conflict? If a simple piece of encouragement can change someone's life, couldn't a simple piece of encouragement change the outcome of conflict? Boom. Everything changes the second you get that. Like, whoa. Encouraging another person in conflict could change the outcome. Make them feel respected, make them believe in themselves, make them feel honored, make them feel appreciated, make them feel heard, make them feel validated in some way. Even this, even if at the content or topic level you disagree, this changes everything. When you can encourage another human and still debate a topic, now you're a mature adult. Before that, you're screwed. Forgive my language. Before that, you're locked into unconscious immaturity. And I don't say that flippantly. We've all been there. We've all lost our stuff in a conflict situation. We've all said things we regret. I'll remind you, no one here is trying to be perfect in growth Day. Our job is to prompt you with new ideas, new phrases, new mindset, new ways of thinking about things. But just think about this. The next time you're going to go have a strong or difficult or conflictual conversation with your partner or your spouse or someone you're in relationship with intimately. Imagine if you just said, okay, we have a shared future together. I'm going to respect him or her in this process, and I'm going to make sure I encourage him a little bit. If you did those three things, if you entered it from those three frames, a very different energy happens in that relationship. A very different one. So a lot of these themes are going to come up. That was literally my first point. So all of that was my first point, which is the three primary phrases. Shared future mindset, making sure we have a respectful process and encouraging other. This will change everything.

Here we go, my friends. Hey, it's Brendan Burchard. We're going to dive deep into how do you gain some more emotional mastery in your life so you can handle those difficult times when you get frustrated, when you get down, we get, like, beat up and like Chewed out and spit out by the world. What are you going to do to be your best self? That is the topic of today's conversation. That emotional masteries part, that emotional intelligence we hear so much about, that ability to handle the difficulties and challenges of life with grace or a plume, or being centered in the middle of all this chaos and turmoil. How do you be your best?

That's the topic of today.

We're talking about motivation at a deeper level. Maybe you haven't had with me before. The utmost, most important area of emotional mastery is mastering motivation. Now, when I say emotional mastery, you're like, wait, isn't motivation is a topic, an area? I'm like, no, motivation part. Motivation is an emotion, right? A motivation is an emotion that you feel, that you feel a drive, a sense of hunger, a sense of want, and a sense of desire to make something happen. I believe motivation is one of the most important things we have to master in our total emotional sort of toolkit. Because if you can emotionally feel motivated every day, almost everything else can fall in line, right? If you're emotionally motivated to be a better mom, be a better caregiver, be a better parent, be a better lover, be a better entrepreneur, be a better business person, be a better contributor to the greater world, when there's a motivation pulling you forward out of bed each day into the office, into real life to be your best, then everything changes when you lose motivation. You and I both know the loss of motivation is the first gate to suffering. You lose motivation now, you don't feel like doing anything. You don't feel like doing anything. You don't work out. You don't feel like working out. You don't feel like doing anything. You don't feel like doing anything. You don't want to do your goals don't feel like doing your goals. Feel unfulfilled. Feel unfulfilled, feel unsatisfied, feel unsatisfied. Feel like life is meaningless. It is a slippery slope when you lose motivation. But the issue is no one has motivation 247 all the time. Motivation is an emotion you learn to cultivate by using your mind, your body, your greater consciousness to ensure that you feel that pull of purpose that you feel, that energy inside that says, I want to create, I want to contribute, I want. I want to be my best self. I want to connect with people. And so motivation is something we're going to have to generate on a consistent basis. You have to learn to bring the joy. Because the power plant doesn't have energy, it generates energy Motivation is something. Me, the motivation guy, I have the best selling book of the entire century with motivation. The title, it's called the Motivation Manifesto. If you haven't read it. And the motivation manifesto is like, if anything is imbued in that book, it is like this ferocity and this fierceness and this tension to living our best lives. But it has to be like generated. Because even though I'm the motivation guy, there's plenty of days I wake up and I'm like, I don't feel like it. There's plenty of days, there's plenty of moments where just like you, I'm just like, I'd rather be lazy and do nothing right now. And, and that's okay. That's part of homeostasis. That's part of our human body to want to power down, to relax, to chill out. But too much of that can lead to an unfulfilling life. So we must learn to generate the emotions of drive, desire, go get in this, whatever you want to call motivation. And so it's something that we have to learn to stoke. Motivation is an emotion we feel by either luck or by purposeful conscious design. I just choose to design it into my day every single day. Motivation is driven by certain things. You have a spark, you have something that sustains it and you something grows it. Okay? The spark of motivation, which is how I anchor into being motivated each day, is ambition. All motivation becomes begins with the desire or hunger and ambition for more. Whether that's more depth or more connection, or more contribution or more abundance or more wealth or more love. Like we just want more of something and that says, I want to go get that. Like we see a fancier car, it's better than our car. I want to go get that. We see like a deeper love of relationship between two people. I said I want that in my own life. Sometimes it's a visual cue. Something we see makes us want something, right? Not too far from here, there's a beach that I strolled on vacation, I don't know, a couple years ago. And I said, I'm going to live here. And it was a motivation, it was a cue. I saw something desired, it wanted, it went after it. So sometimes it's a visual. It's a cue out in the world that says, I want more of that thing. And ambition can be visually cued for some people. If you just wake up, I mean, think about it. You wake up, you grab your phone, you're like. And all of a sudden you don't have any motivation.

Instead you look through all this stuff.

And all it did is make you feel like you're not enough or it distracted you or it upsets you or created anger, anxiousness. You got to be careful how you're using cues to start your day. I use cues to start my day motivated. And those cues to start my day motivated are things like, I literally wake up and I'll wake up and I'll think of things that I'm grateful for and that I want to give in life. I'll wake up and I'll think about someone I want to do something nice for or surprise. Today, I'll think of something I can be excited about today. All as soon as possible in the morning, revisit my ambitions, list my goals list. I'll look at them. I'll not wander through the day looking at social media and then, oh, I guess it's time to work and look at my goals. It's like my goals. I mean, in the first few minutes of the day, I'm revisiting them. And what I'm doing is when I'm looking at my goals or my agenda or my schedule, I'm looking at it. I'm thinking, okay, why do I want this? What would life be like? Like this? How could I go get it? What should I do today to make that happen? And that motivates me. That's my list of goals, my list of ambitions, the things that can excite me. In other words, it's very intrinsic goals. It's intrinsic rewards that I'm after. I'm like, if I go do that, I will feel better. If I could have this, I'd be happier, right? It's not that I can't be happy with now, but. But I want to pull. Like, if I can have that future pull, that's going to motivate me to go do stuff, right? I have to literally generate that in my mind. And so when I have that connection in the morning, then my takeaway for you is connect with your ambitions every morning, very first thing in the morning. Somehow part of your morning routine. Connect with your ambitions. Look at them. Why do you want them? What would you get from that? How would you feel from that? What would that generate? Why would that be more meaningful? Really connect with that ambition every single morning, and you'll start to notice. You feel better. Hey, guys, it's Brandon.

I'm jumping in here real quick. First, I want to make sure you've gone to progressmode.com to join the newsletter, because I have a resource for you related to this episode and I have an upcoming meetup with my private group, Ultra. If you've ever liked to be in a private group with me where I help you get more progress towards your passion, projects or to build your business or your brand in a bigger way, just go to progressmo.com, click on Private group to apply to. See you can get into Ultra and we can take it to the next level by getting in person and meeting up virtually once a month online as well. Just go to progressmode.com you also know.

This reality that motivation wanes with attention. Meaning if we don't give our ambitions, our goals, a lot of attention, the motivation just goes away. Because motivation is either fueled by our attention or by momentum, right? It either takes reflection or action to generate serious sustained motivation. Either reflection or action, because ultimately from the reflection that gives us clarity, and clarity can give us confidence, or action can give us momentum. And when we have momentum, motivation is way easier to cultivate, generate and sustain, obviously. So these are really important concepts. Every morning, get very close to your goals ambitiously. What are those things that you want, desire, need and would enjoy and what do you need to go to get? That's the intrinsic type of things. The things we'll feel good about, the drive, satisfaction, fulfillment, meaning excitement in us. But I also have my extrinsic meaning my external cues or goals or rewards that also I revisit. So for me, example, when I always tell you, wake up each day and at some point say who needs me on my A game for me, every morning I re anchor down into my relationships. I think about, okay, if I don't show up today and do a good job, then my wife and I have a lower quality of life. Then I can't support my mom, then I can't support my team. Then all these people who count on me every day for motivation, or count on me for leadership, or count on me for support, they don't get that from me. And I tap into that reality that if I don't show up for somebody today, then you know what, by the end of the night I'll feel worse about myself. But also it will impact other people. Because you cannot have real high powered mental motivation without a connection to other people. We are social animals, so we have to think about, okay, what should I do? How can I contribute in a way that serves other people? So where that internal one is about self and satisfaction and fulfillment and meaning personally, that's tapping into our own passions, desires, wants and hungers. That external one Is, is ultimately about service, about giving or taking care of or being the caretaker of other people. And you cannot just keep starting your day. I guess I'll get some coffee and read the news and see what's on social media, or hop into the car and listen to trash talk radio, or turn on the TV and hope to find motivation later in the day. Like, you want to kick off the day, kick off the day with motivation. Like get all ready in the morning immediately in a good state of mind. When I'm in a great state of mind, it's like, bam, the day goes. And you know what, if you start the morning in the right frame of mind, motivated, driven, because you're connected to what drives you and what will serve other people. Then when you start like running out of gas at noon, 1, 2 or 3, it's easier to fuel that flame than to start a new fire, right? Because some people just keep waiting. They don't even think about, I guess I should be motivated until they've lost it. I want you to start the morning with it and sustain it throughout the day by revisiting. Remember, the secret to all of motivation is revisiting those whys. It's revisiting that ambition that you have for your life, for more, for others, for contribution. That's everything, right? That's everything. And if you get away from that too many days, too many weeks, too many months, I'm just here to tell you you're really going to struggle. So I hope that helps. Every morning, everybody, every single morning. I really want you to connect with that. Okay, what am I motivated? What am I driven by? And that's going to really, I can't explain how much that's going to help you. You will feel it and you will know it. If you will do it every morning. Okay? Motivation starts in the morning, but it's also sustained by that morning frame of mind. So that's really key. That's the first idea behind motivation. Connect with your ambitions first thing every single day. Give attention to that every single day. Here's something I don't often talk about, but it's important for me because it's very easy for me to be really effective in the mornings. And then that afternoon, two, three o', clock, and I could just be like, man, I want to go outside, take a walk, come back, turn on some Netflix, eat some carbs. You know, that can be my afternoon if I'm not careful. So here's what I do. I have a checkpoint in the mid afternoon to recognize, reward, appreciate Anything that I have done today, Anything that I have done today. And that midpoint checkpoint for me on my phone, I just have an alarm. Mine tends to go off around 2:30 or 3:00 clock in the afternoon. It just flashes to me and it says what's been great today? What's been great today? And so that will cue me, all right, it's time to visit what's been great today. So I'll just think about something I've done. It could be like I answered 10 emails today that I have been avoiding. Good job. It can be as simple as I made that one call, I said I was going to call, did it, I shot that content, created that thing, whatever, some type like listen, motivation is often driven by recognition. So recognize what you have done so far in the day. Early afternoon. Then what I do in order to keep myself motivated even more, because I've set in my mind I want to be a person who's excellence driven. What I will do is I say, okay, here's what's great so far. And then I ask just a simple question. How do I complete this day with excellence? Just a simple touch point in the afternoon. How do I complete this day with excellence? So I will look at the rest of the day, whether that's two hours more, four hours more, five hours more, six hours more, whatever it's going to be for me. And I go, okay, how do I think through the rest of this day with real excellence and when I can connect with that, I'm telling you, it's just so part of me and it really makes me want to serve. So please think about having a mid afternoon connection point to keep yourself motivated. You'll feel a whole different quality of life come in. I promise.

It's a different experience for people because.

Most people, they're just running and gunning through the day. They don't realize or understand or accept how challenging it is to lose motivation. And so they've gone, many people, they've gone weeks without being motivated. They're going through the motions but there's no energy, there's no emotional pull towards something better. And because they're lacking that emotional pull, what ends up happening, they dog it. They don't contribute as much, they react and sort of create and all of a sudden a couple weeks later they're like, I don't know why I'm so unfulfilled. Well, no doubt you're so unfulfilled because you haven't been tapping into that emotion of motivation. When we lack motivation, it is a slippery slope to suffering. So please recognize that you must cultivate more motivation. What else can you do? Well, I'll tell you, it's like ambition, attention to those ambitions, effort towards those things. I think all of that is really, really, really clear. But I also really believe that a lot of motivation is simply lost because of fatigue. So let's say you're doing all those things, but you're wiped out, you're tired. Like, a lot of motivation really rests on how you feel physically. If you feel lethargic, you feel tired, you have the flu, and it's like, it's harder to be more motivated. You can still do it by doing what I've talked about. Re cue yourself, reconnect with those things. But health wise, it's really critical for you to say, okay, if I want to be motivated long term, I need to feel greater levels of mobility and energy in my body. So if you ever hung around me, I'm constantly bouncing and moving and breathing. And if you've been with me at hpa, you see some of these practices, this breath work that I do, that I'm activating and opening up my body so that my body says, let's go versus right? So my body's not like, oh, I ate this terrible thing. Instead, my body says, I feel refueled, I feel ready to go, let's go. So I manage my sleep, my diet, my health in ways that support my mental clarity and energy. And I know that, like sounds. Sometimes people think motivation is just a mental game. I'm like, yes, but your mind and your body are connected. If your body is lethargic, so is your mind. Right? That brain body connection is real, y'. All. And I know you know that you've been sick, you've been tired, there's times when you've been out of shape, you feel terrible. So I'm here to encourage you as I always do. If every single month in high performance, I have to cheer you on, to get in better health, to prioritize your health, to sleep good, to eat well, to move, if I have to do that every single month, I will do that. I will be your champion. I will cheer you on. I want you in excellent health this year. So please hear me cheer that on every single month. Because I just know I get you in better health. I get you in better mental health. We get you in better mental health. It's easier to sustain that fire and that drive, that purpose, that motivation, that thing will bring you satisfaction, joy and meaning. I know you guys get this. But I want to fire you up today. Like, this is something you must fire up on your own. This will be fleeting. Of course it's fleeting if you never look at it. I tell you all the time, no wonder you're not motivated. You haven't thought about what motivates you in three days. Just think about that. No wonder you're not motivated. You haven't thought about what motivates you in three days. Every morning, I'm a deep dive in what's going to motivate me. I get excited about it. I look at them like, okay, let's go. So if I didn't do that, I need coffee.

Now. I want to share with you what I call the ladder of perception. It's just a way of understanding how your mind works. So often we go through the day, something happens and turns us into a bad mood. And for the rest of the day, we're kind of wrecked and ruined and upset and frustrated. And it's not until. Until we go home, have five glasses of wine, that we finally chill out.

Right?

So what can you do in the middle of the day to get yourself back? It's just helping you understand, well, how do your thoughts work? How is it you're getting into these times in your life where you're just emotionally so upset or so frustrated, or you feel like you're just not in control? And how can we use that same reasoning to figure out how can you shape a more positive mindset? Because we all want to feel better, right? We want to have more positive thoughts. It's just hard when the day is crazy. We all want to have a lot more buoyancy and vibrancy and pop to our life, but it's hard when we keep taking in so much information that's not always positive. Right? So this is going to be a way to explain how to get you in a better mindset. And it all begins with this first part. The first thing that happens to shape your way you think is you get some information.

Right?

Super basic, I know, but hold with.

Me for a second.

Sometimes we don't realize how much information is coming in that is turning us into a negative person. And sometimes information happens and we grab hold of it and make it more than it is. I mean, has anyone said to you in the last couple months, hey, it's not a big deal, Calm down. If they had, it's because there's this information coming in and you're grabbing it in a specific way that's turning your mind towards negativity. I know this sounds very, very basic, but I promise we have to start.

With what's coming in, right?

It's just that old saying, garbage in and garbage out. So what I tell people, if you want to have a healthy mind, first and foremost, pay attention to the information that is coming in. What are you consuming? What are you looking at? What are you watching?

What are you reading?

Who are the people who are around you? All of that is shaping your mind, which I know you already know. Here's the question. When's the last time you did sort of a, an assessment or an analysis of the people and the information coming in? Like, what blogs are you reading a lot? What do most of your emails seem to say? Who are the people who are around you? What's the emotion and the energy and the information they're giving you? I know this sounds really crazy, but I am so, so controlling of that in my life.

I don't have a lot of negative.

People who are always giving me negative information. I don't consume very much media at all. I don't watch horror films or I don't consume a lot of information that just tends towards the negative at all. Not because I'm Pollyanna, because I understand how it's going to affect me long term. So pay attention to the information you have coming in second as the ladder goes up. Well, we get the information and then we interpret it one way or another. This is where obviously we know we see something, some information comes in, we interpret it as bad or good, positive, negative, something I need to interact with and react to or not. The challenge is most people take little pieces of information and they blow it up and they interpret it to mean something very personal and very negative. If you're in a place where you feel like you have a lot of arguments and fights, it's rarely about what's coming in because we all deal with negative information or bad things or the day gets interrupted. It's how do you interpret it?

Then?

As we move up, we move to identity.

This is, what did I see?

What does it mean, positive or negative? Then it says, what does this mean about me specifically? And this is where people take things very, very, very personal. Someone comes in to work and says, well, I have some bad news. We're going to have to let some people go today. And then they interpret it, oh my God, this company's going to fail. Oh my gosh, I'm going to have to quit. Oh my gosh, I might get fired. Oh my gosh, what's going to happen in the future. And then identity. Here it is again. I failed again. Here it is again. I never seem to get good things from me. Here it is again. I just don't seem like I'm deserving of anything. And people take things at a personal level into their identity over a period of time. Now you can see how this ladder is building because negative information can come in. You interpret it negatively, and then you take it personally negatively. And this is what happens to people.

They don't realize.

Little simple things. Little simple things. Someone cuts you off in traffic. How do you interpret that? See, when someone cuts me off in traffic, I go, oh, well, they didn't see me. Or, oh, they were trying to get ahead here. Other people, you know what they do?

They're like that son of a.

And they get completely angry. They completely freak out. They say, all drivers or horrible.

I hate this commute. This sucks.

And then they say to themselves, they take it so personally. They say, you know what? I'm gonna get back at this person. I'm not gonna be wronged. I'm not gonna be disrespected.

So they speed in front of them, cut them off.

Cause they took someone passing in front.

Of them to be what?

Disrespect to who they are. Cause they're a person who always feels disrespected. If you always feel disrespected, what are your thoughts going to be like? So you see how all this is starting to build to how you feel, and then it shapes what you intend in the world. What are you going to do? Your mind is all focused towards this one simple set of questions. It's what does all this information mean? How do I need to interpret it? Pay attention to it, not pay attention to it. Important, not important.

Good, bad.

Then we take it to us. What does this mean to me personally? What does it say about me as a human? What am I dealing with here? And then it ultimately shapes our intentions. So the next time you find yourself in emotional craziness, or you feel really upset, or you're saying, I don't know why I'm thinking this way, you can step it back. What did I hear? How did I interpret that? What did it mean to me? What do I intend to do? Because all of that led to what you ultimately do. The initiative that you take in the world, what you're actually going to be doing. So here's the payoff. When you're doing things that you are not proud of, when you are doing things that you think, like, I don't understand why I'm not taking more action. I don't understand why I keep beating myself up. I don't understand why I keep getting in fights with the people that I love. I don't understand why I can't stay more persistent towards my goals. If that ever happens, just take a pause and go, you know what? I need to think about what is happening here. Because it's the way that you're perceiving in the world that is controlling how much you progress in the world, right? And a lot of people, when they're having negative behavior, they just think it's happening to them. And I say, oh, let's just step it back. Okay, you were mean to your husband. Okay, you found that you were really short with them. Where did that come from? And then we can just step back. How are you feeling about yourself in that circumstance or that situation that led this way? What happened? What did your husband do? What did he not do, and how did you interpret it? And ultimately, what did you see or not see and experience? I know it sounds so basic, but try it. If you can work this through on a couple of different examples from your recent past. Just think about those times when you really struggled or you didn't feel good. Go through this, write it down, journal it, and you'll start to feel a lot more understanding about who you are and how your mind works.