The Answers Are Hiding in Your Repressed Emotions

All right, welcome to The Heart of Entrepreneurship, where me and my BFF Dave Kashen talk about all things personal growth, spirituality, uh, love as it relates to entrepreneurship. What's up, Dave?

What's up, Jesse?

Andrew's— Andrew's taking a break because he's in Australia, slash I think we scared him away with all of our love talk. I had a good topic today and I didn't want to tell you before because I want it to be as natural as possible, but I want to talk about emotions. And I think this is like a really misunderstood topic, including by myself many years ago and still sometimes today. And I think You know, the historical refrain on business and emotions is like, no, no, you got to be unemotional. You got to be, you know, stoic, logic, logical, rational at all times. Don't— there's no space for that stuff. Doesn't— it's just going to ruin you as a business person. You know, people use it to be sexist, right? Oh, women are more emotional. Like, there's all these things, there's this whole narrative that's like in the broader. And, you know, I think I would have told you 10 years ago, I wasn't like crazy about it, but like I generally believed that stuff. Like I didn't, I didn't tell people, hey, stop crying in my face or something. But I, but I was like, yeah, this like you can't mix these things in. And our work has shifted me a ton in that way. So I don't know. Yeah. Where should we start? What are emotions, Dave? And Why? Yeah. Why do you think historically people have said to not allow them? And I don't know, just talk about this.

First, I'll just say me too. Like, I maybe not quite as extreme where I was like, oh, business is all about rationality. But I, I generally had it for most of my life like happiness is the good one and sadness and anger and fear, those are the bad ones. So, you know, you got to And my mom still is like, what's wrong? Right at the moment, you know, if I'm not feeling happy, what's wrong?

Right?

It's like, oh, something's wrong if you're not happy. So that's how I was, you know, brought up and, you know, trained. Also, anger was definitely like a no-no. That was what, you know, uncivilized people expressed anger, you know. Interesting.

I feel like anger is the only emotion I could access and understood up until 7 or 8 years ago.

Yeah. Yeah, I was in some way the opposite that, yeah, I just didn't think I got angry because I didn't really feel it and I never learned to feel it. And we'll talk more about it. I imagine there's a big cost. What are emotions? That's actually— I don't even know how to answer that. My experience of emotions is some kind of like energy moving through certain parts of my body. You know, I— what I learned from Diana Chapman at Conscious Leadership, I learned from someone else, they described emotion as energy in motion, which is nice, catchy.

That's what I tell my kids now. I mean, that's an easy way to tell my kids, like, there's something coming through you and it's just an energy moving through, you know.

I mean, that— yeah, if you, if you look at like, how do I actually know I'm feeling something? It is a physical phenomenon, like there's some sensations moving in our body. And interestingly, even that is unknown for a lot of people. They don't— it's like one of these like hiding in plain sight, unexamined things. It's just like, I don't know, I just feel sad, or I just feel, oh, I'm crying, so I feel sad. Um, so, you know, if you even just starting to notice like, oh yeah, it's a physical thing like in the body. So, you know, many of us, like you were saying, way over-identify with the intellect. You know, in business, it's all about logic, rationality. What I think is wild is there are these studies— I forget if we talked about it before— for people who had, like, certain brain injuries that had them not able to feel emotions and they could not make decisions. Like, as simple as, like, what would you like for lunch was like a 5-hour ordeal because It's actually our emotions that we use to make decisions. We just then rationalize or justify them. So that's a funny thing in a way about thinking like, oh, there's no place for emotions in business. Emotions are all over business. All the decisions we make are emotional no matter what. We're just sort of pretending that it's all rational. And I think it's part of this whole, like, need to control everything that we feel as humans. Because at least logic and rationality seem like we can grasp it. And, you know, like emotions are so chaotic and irrational and uncontrollable, really. Like, I don't, I don't feel most of the time like I get, I get to choose, just like I can't choose what my next thought is. I don't really feel like I get to choose what my next emotion is. And I think a lot of us don't want to feel out of control. And so it's like we get to pretend we're in control when we pretend it's all rational and logical.

But there's— there— I mean, I'm asking this more of a question that there, there's some feature of our human body physiological thing, right? Like something, something happens and a feeling and a reaction shows up in our body. Right. I mean, is it— is there anything more to it than that in some sense?

Yeah, at the basic level, that's my experience. Yeah. And yet it does generally seem to be in response to something that's occurring or that I'm thinking. So I could generate, I think, any emotion using my imagination, right? I could like imagine something bad happening to my kids and I'll feel scared and sad. And I think that's interesting just to note, because I do think most of the emotions that most people are, I'll say, dealing with or experiencing are actually kind of manufactured.

Right.

Right. Like, we don't live in the present most of the time, so we're just imagining stuff or maybe remembering stuff and then kind of generating a feeling. And I think there are authentic feelings arising, right? Walking on the edge of a cliff. You know, that's actually happening. You'll actually feel fear, right?

And we talk about fear, like, in, in this podcast as dirty fuel. But like, as an example, fear can be such a, you know, again, I like, I would think of these things as God-given or universe-given, whatever you prefer, because they are needed to keep us alive, actually.

Yes, and safe. Yeah, I, I love that you just said that. I heard myself yesterday in our this Inner Game of Entrepreneurship community that I'm running, uh, I said to the group, I basically like, I want to apologize because I've been saying for a long time that like fear is dirty fuel. And like, I want to be really clear because it gives the impression that fear is bad and we should resist it and avoid it. That the issue is actually not fear. The issue is resistance to fear. Because if you really look, the, what has us, you know, in our heads thinking about issues and trying to figure it all out, or what has us, you know, motivating ourselves to achieve, you know, but from this like toxic place is not actually fear. It's not wanting to feel the fear.

Right.

And so sort of paradoxically, if you fully allow yourself to feel the fear, it actually tends to quiet the mind and alleviate a lot of that, like, needing to figure out and do and like the compulsive kind of feeling, right?

Like you want to be successful so that you won't have to feel the fear of not being successful. And that's—

or the disappointment.

Yeah, the disappointment.

I mean, one thing that's funny, if you start to peel back the layers, is often the thing we're really scared of is some other feeling we don't want to feel. So I went through this yesterday, um, and I had the founders really reflect and they're like, yeah, I think I'm most scared of feeling disappointed and ashamed. Yeah, that's not necessarily universal, but I think it's pretty common. So first there's the fear that we don't want to feel, and then the thing that we're most fearing, because if you really go through like the scenario in your mind, imagine your startup failing. Yeah.

Right.

Imagine losing— someone's talking about raising friends and family money. And it's like, imagine losing your friends and family's money.

Yeah.

Like, what's the real thing you don't want to experience? It's the feeling of shame or the fear of heartbreak, of losing relationships. So what's, what's wild, if you really, really examine, I think our whole lives, at least for most people, are organized to feel certain feelings and avoid other feelings.

Right. And at the heart of that, like, I think— I thought you were going to say is approval and acceptance of other human beings, essentially. Like, it's— if you really drill it all down, it's like, I don't want— I either want to be loved by people or not, not loved by them.

Yes, and like, there, you know, there's kind of safety, freedom, and worthiness, approval. But, but the yes and is even those at some level, it's really the heartbreak or the shame. It's like some actual emotion you most don't want to feel. Because like, what's so bad about being rejected, let's say, or having people not like you? Like, the thing you're actually most wanting to avoid is, oh, I'll feel ashamed, or I'll feel lonely, or I'll feel sad. And I think that's kind of— I don't know, I find it fascinating when you really face that. Like, that's actually how most of us are living our lives. It's just I want to feel this. I don't want to feel that. Let's—

I want to come back to the resistance thing because it's a little deep. I want to go— I want to pretend Andrew is on the call again and it's like, dude, Dave, come on, what are you talking about? Like, I'm not a feelings guy. That's a very common refrain you'll hear. So I have some very 101 questions. What are the feelings? What are the different feelings that people have?

And so there's a bunch of good tools out there like feelings wheel, and we could, we could post some of them in the show notes. But the, the primary feelings, as I learned them from Conscious Leadership, are joy, excitement, or creative energy, or sexual energy. I'm using those three synonymously. Sadness, anger, and fear. And then I've been finding it useful lately to throw in shame and guilt because a lot of people experience those. Conscious Leadership would say you know, shame tends to be kind of fear and sadness and a story that there's something wrong with me. And guilt is the same, but a story that there's— that I did something wrong.

Right.

So shame is like fundamental. I'm bad. Guilt is I did bad. But I think for practical purposes, it's useful to think of those as emotions, especially like love.

Does love not play into any of those, or where is love? It transcends all of them.

Yeah. I mean, again, now we're just in some way playing with language, but the way I hold love is, yes, something deeper than a feeling. I mean, I definitely can feel like I could feel warmth in my heart if I tune in. I can definitely feel sensations in some way. I think of love as like the white light and then all the emotions, like if you put the white light through a prism and then it splits out. Um, and in some way I think of the emotions like pathways back to the wholeness, to love.

Um, yeah, that makes sense. So, and you know, a funny thing, when a lot of my friends who are entrepreneurs become dads, they, or moms, they, they, they become, you know, they watch. And by the way, I will say with women, you know, I work with several women CEOs and like one thing I tell people, like, how's it like working? I'm like, man, it's so much easier. I don't have to explain empathy to them. I don't explain emotions like, like women generally. These things are not for men. They are, you know, there is a distinction. Men are— I think men generally don't find these things intuitive. And I'm not blaming men. I think as a man, like you're raised, you are raised like, dad, don't cry. Like even to this day I'll see parents and it's not abnormal. Like, stop crying. You don't need to cry.

Like, right.

Or you're being too loud when you're happy. Your joy is too big. Like, you'll, you'll see these things. But what I was going to say is I've had this experience, mostly men founders, not because most men are founders, but because the men are, you know, emotionally dumb. They'll, they'll have a kid and then they'll watch Inside Out. And it's like, and they, you know, and it's such a great— and if you haven't seen that movie and you are, you know, you're interested in— it's a Pixar movie, but it's a great movie. But it really, really like because it takes those emotions that you listed just now and it personifies them and literally has them go to the controls of the brain of the kid.

Yeah.

And it's like anger's here. It's like, you know, and, and now joy's here. And so I think it's, it's to me, it's actually really helpful. It's been helpful for me. It's been helpful for my family, you know, for the kids. It's like, hey, anger is like, you're angry and you're not angry and anger is not bad or any of those things like that. That like guy with the fire is at the controls of you right now. And, and it's— and that's okay, right? Like, what does he need? What does he want? Um, so I thought I would just share that. I think it's, it's such a great way to understand.

I love the movie, and I think there's two things that movie helps you, um, potentially connect with. One is the idea that, like, maybe you're not your feelings, to your point, right? It's like, oh, you can observe the feelings and choose your relationship with them. And I think that gets to this point of like, are you resisting them? Are you welcoming them? Right. Could you, you know, another coach, Joe Hudson, often says something like, could you look forward to being scared? Could you look forward? Right. Could you love having your heart broken?

Right.

And that's really provocative for most people. Like, what are you talking about? Like, I'm trying to avoid being scared and sad and angry. And then the second is the, the notion that emotions are intelligent, like that there's wisdom in the emotions. And, you know, that's kind of like the, the big, like, theme, I think, when you, you know, of the movie, especially sadness, right? Because Joy is always trying to— it's like my family. It's like Joy's trying to make it all happy, happy, happy all the time.

Right.

And then you sort of— Riley sort of learns like, oh, sadness is actually useful too. And, you know, one thing I learned from Conscious Leadership is this, the specific way to tap into the wisdom of the emotions. So one, like, generally thinking that emotions have wisdom is useful because then when you're feeling something, you can get curious, like, huh, what is this? What is this here to teach me? Or what wisdom is coming with this emotion? And then more specifically, like each emotion, like I think of, for example, anger as like boundary energy, right? If emotions are energy, they're kind of different flavors of energy. And even in some way, you know, if we had, if we humans had labeled it boundary energy, that might have been a more useful label than anger because that's more like, oh, that's what it is. You know, because when we feel anger, we're like, ah, what's going on?

What does that mean? Say more about boundary energy.

So basically we have, we kind of have natural boundaries in the sense of like we have values, we have things that we want and don't want, we have things that we need and things that are okay with us and are. So those are all sort of flavors of boundaries in my mind from like, oh, I'd kind of prefer, you know, vanilla ice cream and you got me chocolate. Like you'll feel a little bit of frustration.

Yeah.

Like, ah, like that's not what I want to the extreme of like you're yelling at me, I'm not okay being yelled at.

So I'm gonna— some random guy punches you in the face. Well, that's a boundary violation, extreme boundary.

They're literally by— you're right, right. Your right to swing your arm ends at my face. You know, that's a literal, you know, boundary. Or my home, you know, someone—

most people would be pissed if that happened, obviously.

Of course, right? And that's the, you know, so what's really happening is they're violating some, some— your sovereignty in some way, right? Your authentic right to be an authentic human and have have your experience be the way you want it. And there's a lot to say about boundaries. You could do a whole episode on boundaries. One thing that I, I'll just say since we're on the topic that I found super useful and was a big reframe for me as a parent is the idea that boundaries don't require the other person to do anything. Right. So just, you know, with the parenting analogy, it's like the difference between me, like, guys, you need to, you know, get off your screens by 9 PM. That's actually not a boundary, that's a request. And I thought that was a boundary. And I'm like, I thought I'm doing boundaries and what's going on? And I'm so mad at them because they're like, they didn't honor the boundary. And I got mad, right? Because, right. But I was, you know, um, but instead I'd be like, now I've learned, hey guys, I'm gonna come upstairs and take your screen away at 9 PM. That's a boundary, just like an actual boundary. You hit a wall, the wall's there, what, you know, nothing you have to do The wall's there.

My favorite analogy on this one topic, by the way, like they talk about putting your kid in a car seat and then not doing it consistently or whatever. But the best thing I've ever read on this is if your kid had a peanut allergy, you would never compromise. You would make sure the boundary would be set. They would never go anywhere near a peanut.

Peanut oil. Yes.

Nothing. I mean, and you would do it. You wouldn't wait around. Hey, kid, please, please.

Could you please be care— I mean, at some age. But yeah, when they're kids. Yeah. Nope, that is a no. And if someone came along and tried to give them a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, you know, absolutely not.

Yeah.

And you'd feel some of that anger. It's like this fierce love of like, no, I'm protecting something that's—

But if you hold any boundary in your house like that, that will be— it'll never happen. And I've like, I've seen it with my kids and it's just like if anything I really hold steady, just it's not even a discussion.

And then, you know, to bring this into entrepreneurship and business, like founders, leaders who aren't comfortable with anger, they don't hold firm boundaries with their team, right? Like, I'm often having a conversation, hey, you know, hey Dave, I don't know, people just like are coming late to meetings, or, you know, how do I get my team to work harder? Or I got this person on my team, they're not performing the way I want. And most of the time, if we dig into the root, they're not allowing— the leader is not allowing themselves to feel and express anger and say, this is not okay, this is how we do things around here. There's a boundary that they want to set, but because they can't access their anger, often they're not even aware of it. They just notice this sort of dull frustration of like, ah, why can't I get people to do what I want? Um, and the truth is it's because they're not feeling their anger. And I, I know this, you know, as I mentioned, for me, anger was like a What? No, I'm just a kind, nice guy, right? Like, and I've learned over the last several years in particular to really feel anger. Um, and when I'm really practicing it, I can literally sense more fine— it's like a more finely tuned sense of when something I want isn't happening or something I don't want is happening, and then, you know, speak to it. So it's a real superpower. Um, and then sadness is the energy of letting go. I mean, that one's sort of intuitive, like grief, right? When someone dies. But again, if a founder or leader isn't comfortable with sadness— um, Jesse— um, they may, they may, they may keep doing, um, like too many projects. They just don't want to feel the sadness.

I think you remember for me, I struggled letting people go a lot at Ample.

I was just— that's exactly the next example I was going to say.

No, we can, we can, we we can turn this around, or like, let's more feedback, or, and, and like, there was times where I just had to literally like cry and like let go. Like, it didn't work.

Yeah. And it's the thing to see that's so on point here is it's, it's just not wanting to feel that sadness. That is really what's in the way, right? The mind will, will sort of rationalize like, oh, I should coach them, I should give them another chance, maybe they can get there. Um, but we know at some level, generally know at some level, yeah, they're, you know, they're just not there, they're not a fit, which is okay. Um, but when we don't want to feel the sadness, we won't let them go.

And I think there's— I think while we're here, I mean, this— I want you to finish the, the emotions, but I want to, I want to double-click on this for myself as a, as a lesson for everyone, which is again, people like, oh, emotions are useless, they're not valuable. And I want to talk about this too, but like I think we're just lying to ourselves when we say that. We talk about the— we should talk about the ways we lie to ourselves about that. But for me, there is a story and you kind of know it in arrears. It was like every— like I wanted to sell Ampush and that was, you know, probably the right decision at that time. You know, whatever. I'm not— I don't regret it. But like at the time I was really sad because like the valuations in my head were not the valuations we were getting. I had no idea that's what I was, by the way. I would never like— and then we're talking about not knowing how to feel sadness. I never sat in it. I never was like, oh, I'm disappointed. Let me like cry because the company is worth $20, $30 million less than I thought it was. All silly, stupid money anyway, right? But like, and so instead I— but I was like, okay, well, I'm not going to sell the company. It was a pretty big decision and it was a decision that led to, you know, the company's valuation didn't change between year 5 and year 10. So financially it was 5 years of your life. Yeah. I mean, like, obviously, you know, there was tons of great things that have come our relationship and a million other things. And we've— you and I have done my work around this. But just if you're a hardcore finance person, like, you know, for 5 years, the enterprise value didn't change basically. And it was 5 more years of time, like from 0 to 5.

And the cost of resistance to sadness.

Yeah. Or just I would even argue it's unawareness of sadness that I didn't know I was sad. I need to let go. And I think, who knows? But I think if I had like had you around or felt, cried my cries of like, hey, it's not— I probably said, okay, well, what do I want to do? And I'm like, I still probably would have been like, I think I want to sell my company and move on. Like, I think that's what I actually still want regardless of the valuations. And instead I came up with this crazy deal that I did that like it was, you know, we transformed the whole strategy of the business. We like, I mean, again, lots of great things came from it, but it's just interesting to see like one little inability to know what I was feeling and actually feel it created this crazy chain of events that was not actually what I wanted at that time, or Nick wanted, or Chris wanted, or anybody wanted at that time.

That's a really— that's a great example. And I'm fond of saying the team that sees reality the clearest wins. And I think it's one of the primary ways we don't see reality clearly is when we're holding on to some ideal image we had of how reality would be. That's not how it is. But we don't want to feel the grief and sadness of letting go of that image. I think that's one of the most common ways we don't.

Yeah. I mean, dude, and I don't know if you remember this, but the actual deal— I had 9 figures in my head so high that the deal we did with Red Ventures was literally like, buy, buy some right now, but then we're going to give you a call option to buy the rest at, you guessed it, 9 figures. And the whole deal was constructed around this like number I had in my head. Yes, because I was like, I just didn't want to let go of— yeah, that I just wasn't willing to feel.

And it's, I mean, it's just a crazy thing of how, again, it's like, well, and how many people are in marriages, relationships, jobs, startups that they actually no longer want to be in just because they, they're not willing to feel. And what's crazy too is, in a way, I think is it's actually a set of physical sensations.

Right.

Like, if you really, like, wrap your head around that, we limit our lives by which physical sensations we don't want to experience.

Yeah.

Yeah. It's not like it's not going to kill us, right? Like, and we do crazy stuff. We go to the gym and we push ourselves and we like, you know, no pain, no gain, right? Like in, in actual physical realms or physical, like, exercise realms or run straight up a hill and burn out our legs, you know, because we want to get stronger. But then, oh, a little bit of constriction in my belly. No, no, no, I don't want to be with that. So I'll just stay in this marriage or I'll just keep this person on my team for, you know, years beyond when I actually want them to. It's fascinating.

Can you go through the other emotions quickly? And then I want to talk about the ways people don't understand them or feel them or know them.

Yeah. Let me just say one thing while it's here in my mind, just so I don't forget to say it, which is there's a, I'll say, a story that our mind tells us that's kind of a fear-based story with most emotions, that if I allow it, it will, like, engulf me, right? Like, it'll never end, right? Like, people who have, like, a lot of repressed sadness. Oh, God, if I allow the sadness in, it'll never end, and I'll just be— I'll drown in it. And so that keeps us resisting it. It's not true. From my experience, other coaches, lots of clients, like, the energy does move through. It can come in waves, but it does move through. And so that's— I just want to make that point because what stops a lot of people from being willing to feel their feelings is this fear that they'll just be swallowed up by it. And in some way, the opposite is true. The resistance to it is what actually makes it so intense and keeps it around.

And I've also seen— I think I've seen people, not just the feeling that they think that that's what they are, If I allow this, I'll just be an angry person. If I allow this, I'll be a lazy person. Yeah, I allow this, I will be sad, depressed, sad person. Like, it's—

and even that language, right? I, I am sad. I am angry. I am scared. It's like, I am— like, it's, it's in some way, you know, it's just language, but it's— language is powerful. Is really different connotation than I feel sad, right? There's an I that's feeling this feeling, you know, of sadness right now. So yeah, because it almost encapsulates that it feels like this permanent pervasive thing when you're like, I am angry, like as if I'm an angry person. From my experience, all humans have all the emotions, you know, whether they know it or not or willing to feel it or not. Um, so the next one we could talk about is fear. So fear is the energy of the unknown, right? And this is an interesting one to couple with excitement because excitement is also the energy of the unknown. Like the simplistic way to think about it is like fear is excitement plus resistance. It's like what, or, or the unknown plus resistance. Excitement is the unknown without resistance, right? So if we I mean, we of course don't know what's going to happen. If we put our attention on the fact that we don't know what's going to happen and we positively anticipate or don't resist it, we tend to feel excited. Like, oh, right. We need uncertainty in our lives.

I'm going on a trip. I can't wait.

Yeah, I'm going on a trip. Or if like, imagine some friends were like, just get in the car. We're going somewhere and you don't even know where. That would be super exciting. And you know, when I, I say this thought experiment to most founders at some point, I'm like, okay, let's imagine, because they get really scared and they don't want to be scared. I'm like, let's imagine you could watch the whole movie all the way through to your IPO right now. And you'll know exactly what's going to happen at every step. They're like, uh, it sounds boring. Like, I don't even know if I'd do it anymore.

Right.

Because, you know, it's like we crave certainty, but we also crave uncertainty. Yeah.

Um, and for founders especially, I think that's a, that's a, it's a real struggle because I think anyone who starts a company fundamentally wants the adventure. They want to go down that road, but then, but then like this other part of you is like, ah, this is scary. Like what's, you know, yes.

Or it's, yeah, it's more challenging than I thought it was going to be. Like I wanted it to be this scary, but oh, it's this scary. And so then we resist it and it's really all just the resistance. That's the issue again. So if you resist the unknown, then you start to feel scared. And oh, so the wisdom is like what wants to become known, right? Like that's the beauty of going into the unknown is we get to know something we didn't previously know, right? That's, you know, that's why people who are like really arrogant or righteous or think they know it all don't learn because they're not gaining, they're not willing to gain the wisdom found in the unknown. By feeling that fear. Yeah. Feeling the fear.

Interesting.

I mean, I'll just quickly share this metaphor that I, I really like of, imagine like there's a garden hose way off in the distance and it really looks like a snake to you and you think it's a snake. Like what wants to become known is it's not a snake, it's a garden hose. It actually won't hurt you as you get closer to the garden hose. You get more and more scared and it gets more and more intense because you, you know, you think you're getting closer and closer to a snake. And then finally you get close enough to see it's a garden hose. I actually think that's some of the common pattern of fear and sort of the beauty of fear is if we go toward it, we generally find that the thing we were so scared of is actually not dangerous.

Right.

Of course, there's exceptions, right? There's the raw, like, fight or flight if you see a lion or at the edge of a cliff. But most of us, that's not what we're dealing with. And if you're spiritual, you can even say, well, maybe death is not as scary as we think because it's just a transition, right? So there is a school of thought that, like, anything you're scared of, a part of you actually wants so that you can learn who you really are and that that's not actually scary. So that's an interesting way to play with it as well. But so, you know, fear is the wisdom of the unknown. Excitement, creative energy is simply what wants to get created. And like you said, most people, they don't, they're taught at some point like, oh, that's too much. You know, you're too much. Don't be too much. And so we, it's like the upper limit. We can't find our excitement. And then joy is the energy of celebration. And so the wisdom is like, what wants to be celebrated? And what's interesting is this is a recent learning for me, is that you can actually learn to enjoy being sad or enjoy being scared. This is a pretty big breakthrough for me because I thought for a long time that like, you know, I've heard this notion that like all emotions flow through one pipe. And so if you're not allowing sadness or fear or anger, you won't allow joy or excitement. It'll just narrow your range of your human experience. But it was really— so the way I kind of related to it was, okay, fine. Like, I got to feel the sadness so that I can get to the joy. But that's not really welcoming sadness. That's like, imagine welcoming someone into your home and you're like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Welcome. Come in, come in, come in. Okay, get out, get out, get out. You gotta take your turn so that my real friends can come in. Like, that's not very welcome, right?

Well, almost I think of it, I don't know if this analogy's right, but it's almost like you can love every emotion. I don't know if it's like enjoy, I guess, is it?

Is it?

Because if joy is its own emotion, if you wanna be measy about it, it's like, well, you can love every emotion and, and then maybe you celebrate the sadness. I don't know.

What I'm learning, and I'm not there yet, but I'm learning from others who I would say are perhaps further on the journey than me, um, I think the emotions start to blur the further along you get in the journey.

Yeah.

Which is to your point about like, what's love? Like, in some way there may be different flavors of love, just love moving through you in different ways.

Yep. Um, and so when you said that, it made me think, have you seen those like viral videos where they're like a little kid, really young, like sub-3 and something very either joyful or scary happens to them and they'll actually like laugh and cry at the same— like, yeah, yeah, they'll just— they'll do it, they'll do it all. Like, they won't know what— you know, and, and yeah, they kind of made me think of like, yeah, that makes sense if you're really young and you haven't been taught that they sit in these orifices and they're all just right.

One energy, a bunch of energy.

Yeah, yeah.

The other thing that's cool about kids is you'll just see them go from like hysterically crying to hysterically laughing in seconds, you know, a minute or two, you know, they skin their knee because they fully allow their feelings and they just have a good cry and they scream and then, ah, now they're back and they're just, you know, playing again.

So, so those are the wisdom and I, or like, I, I've found that to be a game changer. I'm a thinker obviously. And so then like I've learned how to get in touch with my feelings and feel them. And then I'm like, oh, what is this telling me? And that's usually been—

how have you done that? Because I, That's a big leap that I'm sure a lot of people will be curious, like, how have you actually learned to get in touch with your feelings and feel them?

That's a good question. I mean, I think the biggest thing was you teaching me and asking me, like, about sensations in my body. And I don't, I don't think I— and this is what I wanted to ask you this question, but we can talk about for me was like Sure. I don't, you know, I just didn't know. Like, I don't know that I felt any many emotions up until 6, 7, 8 years ago. I don't think it was like normal. Like, it wasn't my— my house was not, not in a bad way or anything, but it's just like my parents are like, yeah, what are they like? We're not going to feel things other than anger. And I think, yeah. So I just didn't— I didn't recognize that stuff at all. And I think— and like, I think when you started going like, well, what does that feel like? Or just feel your body, what's going on? On in it. I think the first one that I really picked up on was fear, which is sort of like, you know, every— you know, you feel a little tightness in your chest or your butt, like, you know, you're like, you're feeling afraid, you feel closed off. And I think I would feel that sensation, and then, and then it's like, huh, maybe I— yeah, maybe I am feeling scared about something. And then I would, you know, be like, what do I want to be paying attention to? I'm like, oh. And that would lead me to these interesting personal unlocks and, and growth. And, and then I was like, oh, okay, now it's like you know, I think anger for me was never a felt thing. It was like I would just get pissed off and flip on, you know, just say something quickly and react. React. Yeah. And so then I started to feel it before it would show up in that way. Like, oh, like my shoulders are feeling tight. It was for me, it was all the sensation stuff, sadness, like so. So I think that was the big gateway for me was slowing down enough or getting someone like you to be like, well, what does it feel like? Or where are you feeling that? And then recognizing that I was probably feeling emotions all along. I just either didn't know what they were or didn't give them the time of day or some combination thereof. Yes. And I was going to ask you that question. Yeah, I was going to ask you, like, the wisdom has been very valuable for me because it kind of— it's given me unlocks. Like, once there's a question of why are you feeling angry, that has led me to a lot of unlocks in addition to just being with the anger. But again, like, if Andrew were on the call, most business people would be like, dude, no, what emotions? Like, sure, cool. That's a cool framework, Dave. But like, I don't feel them. That's not me. I'm not. And what— so what are people doing when they're, when they're saying that? Or if every human feels everything and there's all these people in the world who say, I'm not emotional, I don't feel emotions, I— what are they actually doing to themselves?

Uh, repressing and denying their feelings.

Yeah. Say more about that.

I mean, I'm sure there are— I imagine there are humans, maybe they're sociopaths or psychopaths, you know, that don't, that actually don't feel or don't have empathy.. But I'd say the normal range of humans, it just seems to be a core part of the human experience is that we have emotions. And I do think, I think many of us, including me, especially in childhood, like the first 8 years, as I understand it, we sort of learn to constrict and constrict and constrict and constrict and like bound ourselves and protect ourselves from unwanted experiences. So, like, if you cried and one of your parents is like, don't cry. Okay, crying is bad. Don't do that. I get negative attention when I do that. And, like, I think, by the way, I think a lot of this stuff lives in our body. I think that's why so many people have chronic health issues and stress issues as we've, like, stored up all this bound energy and we've learned to protect ourselves by constricting. Like, it's a physical thing. I think it lives in the fascia, lives in our body from the feeling. So I do think because you made this comment like, I probably felt it, but I didn't recognize it. I think both may be true. I think for a lot of people, they actually don't feel it. Like, we've blunted our instrument.

Yeah.

To keep ourselves safe, basically, and protected is, like, for me.

So what's somebody actually doing in that situation? If something upsets me, for you, you're holding it in.

Just holding it in. Like, you just never, you know, like, yeah, I'm realizing. Yeah.

Sucked it up.

I think just because the light is getting bad. Yeah. Just literally holding it in. Like, and actually, if you think about it, takes a lot of energy to hold in the emotions. A lot more than just feeling them. So a lot of us, our whole lives have just been holding it in and, you know, becomes an unconscious thing. And I think you can— I mean, it is wild if you think about like all these walls that we put up metaphorically to protect us become our prison, you know, when we become adults, right? That's it.

I think people call it personality. I think like one of the biggest learnings I've had is that your personality is not Like I think up until 7 or 8 years ago, I would've said that personality's a personality. Like it's who you are versus a, um, a moldable, malleable, it's basically, yeah.

It's like a defense structure.

You know, it's like if you build a castle, you only feel certain feelings and orient in certain ways. And then, and it is, it is a very jarring experience to start to break that down. And I, I do think people have natural energetic tendencies of certain types, like zones of, you know. You're called in certain ways. Yeah. Yeah. All that stuff. But like the— well, it's even funny. I didn't know this until recently. The Enneagram, they say that you're all 9 numbers.

Oh, interesting.

But your person— and that's why it's a circle. But your personality, the structure you place got you to spend more, you know, you put more weight on one of those numbers. Yeah. But it's interesting because those sets of emotions that you're willing to feel and not willing to feel, like you were saying earlier, have become your personality. Become sort of the— so people are repressing them and— but they're still, they're still showing up for people in their decisions.

Well, they leak out.

Oh yeah.

Yes, certainly. Right. Like, like I— well, I've had, I've had trouble making decisions. I would, I would classify myself in many ways as indecisive. And I think it comes especially from not feeling my anger. 'Cause like that, you know, it's like when you really feel your anger, you get this like, you don't know what you want, determination, right? Um, and so there's like difficulty making decisions, which most, most, at least many founders I work with, you know, they, they have decisions that they struggle with. And I find if they actually allow themselves to feel fear or the anger, you know, whatever feeling they're not feeling, On the other side of it, they're pretty clear, like, actually, I know what I want. Or they're trying to figure out what they should do instead of, like, tune into what do they really want to do.

Do you have a good example story from a client that's, that, like, maybe didn't believe in emotions or feelings but was really feeling them?

And, like, once they recognized it, they, um, well, what I'd say, I have a client, it's maybe not satisfying, but I have a client I spoke to this week who feels like it's become a superpower. They're like, this is crazy. Like, how does—

yeah.

He's like, I feel bad for everyone else who doesn't know this because he's just been practicing and he finds clarity, which is what so much— so many founders want or are starving for is like, I just don't feel clear if I, you know, because most founders are like pretty badass. Like if they're clear, they can like run after something. So it's the lack of clarity that's really the issue. And so, um, I mean, yeah, I, uh, I don't know if this is the best example, but like, uh, founder in, in my community yesterday was struggling with basically his team. I'll keep it generic for confidentiality, but his team had built a certain set of software and he saw an opportunity that really didn't leverage that software at all. He's like, do I go after it? But like, maybe my team will feel bad, you know, and it's kind of a waste of these like months and months of their time. And, um, invited him to just like really feel the fear of his team being disappointed and, you know, the sadness and like letting go of the old thing. And it was like unequivocally, uh, you know, after that I was like, what do you want to do? He's like, yeah, I want to go do this thing. Right. So either he kind of knew it at some level but wouldn't let himself really know it because he didn't want to feel those feelings, or the—

not— but everybody's had that experience in life where you had a bunch of confusion, and once you're clear, you're clear. Yes. And it's usually feeling— I mean, it's usually feeling. I think that's why, like, psychedelic journeys, these other things work, is because they just give you a feeling. And the second you have that feeling, you're like, I know this is true now, and I don't need to think about it or talk about it because I know it to be true.

And what most of us do is we go into our head and try to figure it out, right? And ruminate and think about it to get to that clarity, which, you know, I've used this metaphor often of like, you have a bottle of water with sand in it and it's murky, right? Going into your head to try to get clear is like shaking the bottle of water, which just gets more and more murky. And, um, but that's what we do. Like if you really, for most people, at least most founders, most leaders, most people I know. Um, and so that's the, I think the real unlock here is to realize more thinking is not going to get you clearer. Most of the time it's the feeling and allowing the feelings that will create that clarity.

The other superpower thing I've noticed for myself, and I think it's funny to like, now that I realize other leaders probably already had this. Once I can see them and feel them and understand them in myself, I can see them and feel them and understand them in other people. Yeah. And, and then as a leader, what I've realized, like when someone, someone may be complaining about the way the spreadsheet is formatted or the system process between the handoff between sales and marketing and, and, you know, now I do this all the time. I'm like, you seem angry. What are you mad about? And then it's like, and the person goes, Oh, like, first of all, someone sees me. And then second of all, they want to let some anger out. You know, I'm— what I'm really frustrated is, you know, I feel like I'm working hard and I have salespeople get paid more than whatever it is, right? Something comes out and then you go, oh, okay. Now, first of all, just letting them air the anger usually solves 80% of the problem. And then you can actually deal with the real problem, not the fake problem that comes in. And up until I learned how to see myself and my own emotions, That stuff, I was, I was like, I would get stuck all the time with other people. I'm like, why is— what's— I don't get it. I don't see the issue. Yeah. Like, and I would, I would like do master debate. I'd like, okay, here's number 1, number 2, number 3. Here's why this is right. Here's why this is wrong. And then the person would walk away from it. I'd probably be right intellectually. They'd feel like shit. The problem with some new problem would show up the next week because they weren't actually mad about the spreadsheet formatting. There's something else, right? And So I think that's a whole nother thing for founders or leaders. Like, man, once I knew my, my own, I could really— I could understand other people and where they were coming from. And that was a— it just changed everything from a leadership perspective.

Yeah, I think that's such an important point. That's what allows us to feel empathy. It's the mirror neurons where we can feel in our body something and then recognize, oh, that's what they're feeling. And 99% of the time, the presenting issue is not the real issue. That's what you're pointing to.

Yeah.

And when we, you know, we waste so much time trying to solve intellectually the presenting issue. And, uh, I had the thought earlier, just, just for those listening, probably this whole time you've been listening from your head. So I would just invite you to take a moment and literally bring your attention down from your head to that thing below your neck, just to practice this. Like, notice what's actually occurring in your body right now.

One time we were doing this and you had me visualize an elevator going from my head to my heart. I still do that a lot.

Yeah, take the elevator down. There's some, there's some poem or quote like, the longest journey is the, you know, I don't know, it's 18 inches from the head to the heart or something like that. Feel your feelings.

All right. That's a great, great one to end on. I think next week we should do resistance because we didn't get to it and it feels like such a big part of this discussion. But today, this week was like emotions as the beginning part of this.

But yeah, I like that as a preview or like a little— what's the word? Cliffhanger. Teaser. Teaser. Thank you. Well, and full credit to Joe Hudson, a coach I deeply respect for teaching me this. One thing that's been game-changing for me is to learn and recognize that even the experience of the feeling plus resistance is a fundamentally different experience than that same feeling without resistance. We'll talk more about that in the next episode.

All right. See you next week.