In this solo presentation, DB Bedford (the “EI Guy”) explains his mission to help people prevent emotions from overpowering their intelligence. He frames emotional intelligence as a skill that, when practiced intentionally, leads to better outcomes, stronger work environments, and a growth mindset. Bedford introduces three hierarchical levels of knowledge—knowing, knowing how, and knowingness—arguing that true mastery requires not just awareness and technique but a transformed state of being. He then outlines his core framework: the five Emotional Laws of Human Nature. The first law, Emotional Energy, urges daily self‑assessment of the type of energy (positive, negative, tired, frustrated) one awakens with, as this sets the tone for the day. The second law, Emotional Contagion, highlights how others’ moods transfer to us, making it essential to manage who and how we engage. The third law, Emotional Processing, calls for intentional filtering of the constant stream of information (media, conversations, texts) through a logical lens to balance emotional reactions. The fourth law, Emotional Reactivity (and resilience), asks individuals to monitor their reactivity on a scale and develop strategies to stay calm under pressure, preventing impulsive decisions that derail positive outcomes. The final law, Emotional Digestion, mirrors the digestive process: retain the beneficial experiences of the day and discard the negative, turning daily events into fuel for growth. Bedford wraps up by presenting a step‑by‑step blueprint that integrates these touchpoints throughout the day, emphasizing intentional practice, the cultivation of “knowingness,” and the continual reinforcement of emotional resilience and a growth mindset.
Chapters
My name is DB Bedford, better known as the EI Guy, and I got one mission in life. I want to show you how to never let emotions overpower your intelligence. It is my sincere belief that anybody that intentionally practices the skill of never letting their emotions overpower their intelligence, they will create the best outcomes possible no matter what happens to them. throughout the day. This creates better work environments because the goal is to build your emotional resilience and embrace a growth mindset in 2023. And the reason why that's important, because emotional resilience allows you to adjust and adapt relatively quickly with the things you don't like, you don't agree, and you don't understand. And you manage your behavior during the process. So I want to introduce you to the 5 emotional laws of human nature. But before I share that with you, I want to let you know that my many years of training, consulting, and coaching, I realized that there are 3 levels of knowledge. The first level of knowledge is the knowing. You get introduced to something. Like today, the 5 Emotional Laws of Human Nature, and it's like now you know about it. Then there's the knowing how. So now that you know about it, you need to know how to implement the information that you receive. As I'm out training and speaking, I know that these 2 are extremely important— the knowing, and then most importantly, the knowing how. But the one ingredient that I see missing a lot is the knowingness, which is the state of being or becoming who you need to be to master the information that you are taking in. And so sometimes we see leaders not leading, and it's not that they don't know what a leader is, it's not that they don't know how to be a leader, but they haven't become a leader. They, they don't spend their times being the leader, right? Leading by example. And that is something that you have to be be very intentional about, because the law of intentionality would suggest that your emotional growth is not going to just happen. You have to be intentional about it, and that is in with everything that we do. And so what I want to do today, I want to introduce you to the knowing as it comes to the 5 emotional laws of human nature. And so the first law is your emotional energy, understanding when you wake up every day and you are activated And you realize you have breath. You also have energy, and it's very important to understand what type of energy you woke up with. Good energy, bad energy, tired energy, frustrated energy. What is your energy level? Is it positive? Is it negative? This is very important because this is going to determine how you show up every single moment of the day. And then there's emotional contagion, which I want you to be aware of, because as you start to engage, as you start to respond to emails, answer texts, as you start to make human connections, you must understand that the energy and the emotions of others can be contagious. Have you ever been in a meeting and that person with that bad attitude, bad mood, bad energy comes into the room and everybody kind of feels it? Right? Because energy transfers from one person to the next as you come in contact with. And so being aware of emotional contagion is very key to never letting your emotions overpower your intelligence. Because we're mindful that emotions are contagious, we're just going to be very aware of who we engage with, how long we engage with them, and if we engage at all. And so as you start to move through your day, you start to use these laws as touch points to increase the chances of you having the best outcomes no matter what comes your way. And speaking of what comes your way, there's something called emotional processing. Because once you are active, you wake up in the morning and you check your emotional energy, you start engaging with people, and you're aware of the emotional contagion, you have to take under consideration that you're going to be getting so much information throughout the day whether you like it or not. It's going to come through the radio, it's going to come through a podcast, it's going to come through texts, emails, conversations with people. Information is coming your way if you were blessed to be present for the day. So why not be very mindful and intentional on how you process it, thinking about what you think about? You can look at this like putting glasses on your thoughts, giving you a fair opportunity to think things through clearly and to allow logic, right, to balance the emotional responses that tend to come throughout the day. And I have created some powerful and practical ways that's laced in strategic insight to show you how to do this. And because every day won't be a good day, because every moment won't be the way we would like it, we— it's inevitable that we are going to come across something that we don't like, we don't agree with, we don't understand. And usually that increases the chances of us being triggered. So you should be very mindful of what your level of emotional reactivity is at all times. You didn't— you need to know on a scale from like 1 to 5, like, where is your level of reactivity? Like, are you to the extreme? Are you calm under pressure? Are you somewhere in the middle? But understanding that and having a handle on that helps you when you get caught off guard, because most people who are relatively smart Relatively good people, most of the time when they don't have a handle on their emotional reactivity, that's when they let their emotions overpower their intelligence and they say things or do things or behave in a way in that moment that changes the trajectory of positivity. And so the goal every day is to have the best outcome no matter what comes our way. We want to build up our level of emotional resilience, which gives us the power to adjust and adapt to stressful situations and manage our behavior along the way. And then by the end of the evening, you want to consider what we call emotional digestion. And this gives you that opportunity, just like when you take in food, the body wants to take the good, the nutrients, and fuel you, and it sends the negative and bad stuff out the back door. We want to take the same process. We want to capture our experiences for the day. We want to hold on and harness the ones that was good for us, right, that served us well. And anything less than that, we put it in a mental garbage can. And as a reminder, I have created a step-by-step blueprint on how to get this done, how to stay consciously connected to these touch points throughout the day in this sequential order. And I have some really cool ways to embrace the knowingness. the state of being to get you in a space that you become who you need to be so that you're practicing emotional intelligence, you're building up your emotional resilience, you're embracing a growth mindset, and most importantly, you never put yourself in a position where you let your emotions overpower your intelligence.
