#94: Stop Anxious Chatter & Harness Your Inner Voice with Ethan Kross

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Adversity, and set you up for a better tomorrow. I'm ready for my close up. Hi, and welcome back. Thank you so much for joining me back here again today. I'm so excited to be with you and I'm really excited for you to hear the interview that I have for you today. It's really good. I think so. Okay, so I want to share two stories, one that I was reminded of from years ago and one that happened this week because I definitely took learnings away from both. The first one is actually a chapter in my first book, Confidence Creator. If you haven't read it yet, you've got to check this book out. It's. I get unbelievable feedback on Confidence Creator. If you're in business and sales or you just need some confidence, it is. Oh, my gosh. It's the go to. It's still my go to. I love it so much. Okay, so as you know, I used to be a chief revenue officer in media, and before that I was a VP of sales and media, you know, coming up the corporate ladder. So I was in the radio business. And we would always have these annual meetings where we would bring in a talent, an up and coming artist, someone who would perform for us while we would do awards and, you know, award dinners and whatever. Clearly I, I don't miss it, let's just put it that way. But you know, that was back when I was definitely one of the only women in the executive team. And it was a very male dominated, older, white, male business shocker. Right? That's not shocking to anyone. So anyhow, I think this one took place in Philadelphia and it was, gosh, it was a while ago because Taylor Swift was about 16 years old. She was right on the precipice of Mary making it. She was just on that cusp, right? She, she was very well known. She was being played on the radio, but she wasn't mega superstar the way she is yet. And I want to tell you, she looked very different, right? She, she definitely looked like a young girl with chubby cheeks and, you know, acne and big, big curly hair. And I'm not sharing this with you to give her a hard time because the girl's gorgeous, obviously, and she looks like a supermodel. But it just reminds me of how much things and people can change over time and again. Over time is the key point here. So back then she was about 16, you know, maybe about to turn 17. So this is a long time ago. What is this girl now? She's in her mid-20s, right? It's at least a decade ago. And it was just funny because in the moment, you know, I didn't know who she was. She happened to be sitting at my table for dinner with her mother. And she and her mother were just so sweet and so kind. And of course I had to chat them up, right? So I'm chatting them them up. I have no idea who they are. And she was singing country music primarily back then. I am not a big country fan. So I was just chatting with them because I. I genuinely liked them. They were so nice. So down to earth, just really cool people. So the evening's going on, we're having a great time, chatting and talking. And all of a sudden I see a man that I work with named Danny jump up on stage, grab the mic and start his roast. And he was roasting me. And back then in corporate America, when something totally inappropriate like this would happen, I would just try to grin and bear it and not cry because I was one of the only women. I definitely looked different than the other women that were there. And I was embarrassed, but I didn't know what else to do. I never thought to stand up and say, this is totally inappropriate. You know, put the mic down, old man, or something. So I would never have said that back then. So I tried to just grin and bear it and hold back tears, hoping it would be over soon, which was super sad. I was really sad inside and felt terrible. And a young Taylor Swift who was sitting next to me leaned over and said, why is he doing this? I said, I have absolutely no idea. And she said, what's his name? And I said, it's Danny. She picked up a pen and walked out of the room. It was, you know, everyone thought that she was just either getting ready to perform or she was pissed at what he was doing. You know, nobody knew. I guess I didn't know what she was doing, but she disappeared. And I looked at her mom and I said, is she okay? And she said, oh, yeah, don't worry, Taylor's fine. And her mom knew what she was doing somehow. They didn't speak words about it, but her mom just knew her daughter, I guess. And so, I don't know. 10 minutes pass, right? And Taylor doesn't come back. And then someone takes a stage and introduces Taylor Swift, an up and cominging superstar, you know, and those are. It's funny cause I remember back we dealt with talent all the time because that was our business, the radio business. The talent was the focal point and the product that we would sell. And sometimes people would make it, and sometimes they wouldn't. But you didn't really know. I mean, you'd have a hunch of who would make it, but. But we never really knew who was gonna make it. Cause plenty of people were coming up and didn't make it. And in the music business, oh, my gosh, you see it happen all the time, right? It's really cutthroat. It's really hard to make it. And even some really talented people didn't make it. But as we know, we already know the end result on this one. This cat sure did make it. Holy cow, she made it huge. So they call her out, and she comes out of the hall, guitar in hand, big, puffy, curly hair and her chubby little cheeks, and walks up on stage, the cutest young lady, and she says, I know everyone thought I was gonna sing my new number one single, but I'm not. Dani, this one's for you. And when she sat in the hall, she was writing a roast about Danny. And in 10 minutes, she lyrically roasted Danny beautifully. She burned him like, this is the moment I knew. I've never seen anyone write a song. I've never seen anyone come up with something in 10 minutes that is so freaking good and funny and burning someone and classy, and whoa. She nailed it. The whole room went wild. Everyone was on their feet, screaming, standing ovation. Even Danny, who she had just roasted so eloquently, stood up and said, I have to hand it to you. You. You got me on this one. You definitely. You take the cake. That's all you. And everyone was, you know, cheering for her, waiting in line to get an autograph. Everyone knew, this girl, she's gonna make it. You know, we see all these people that don't make it. But after that, everyone thought, this girl's really got a chance, and this girl's got such talent. But for me, you know, it's such an interesting thing, because I. I didn't get up in the potential stardom of her in that moment. Cause I was stuck in my moment, right? I was thinking, gosh, this moment sucks. And I'm so grateful someone took up for me. I'm so grateful I'm not alone. And that was a really big deal. So when I look back on that experience. So that was over 10 years ago. Fast forward to today, and I see how incredibly successful Taylor Swift is, how she's everywhere, and how she gets attacked A lot. But how she always stands up. She isn't the roll over and look the other way person. She's the I'd ra be accused of being in someone's face and do the right thing than turn a blind eye to bad behavior. Which she's right all day, every day. And I look back on that night and I remember how she made me feel amazing. Supported, not alone. And so two things that I take away from that are, one, you need to play a lot of dinner parties for radio stations before you ever play an arena. Because that was over 10 years ago. Can you imagine how many dinner parties like that she had to play before she started actually playing sold out arena? So we don't always see the work that goes in behind the scenes. I do see it sometimes, and I forgot about it myself, right, because now I see her on these epic little virtual stages now, but, you know, major stages, and I've been to so many of her concerts and they're all sold out in huge arenas. And I'm just asking everyone, don't forget about those small, crappy dinners that she had to play. God only knows how many she had to. I was only at one of them. And I'm sure there were a heck of a lot more before you land the arena. So don't get caught up in landing the arena. Get caught up in taking the action to play the dinners. And that helped me refocus this week. Right, Because I play a lot of crappy proverbial dinners, or I have over the past three years as I've completely changed my career. Doesn't mean that I'm not gonna be playing the arenas. Cause, oh, hell yeah, I am. But thank you to Taylor Swift for reminding me there's legwork that goes in before you land that first arena. The second thing that that night taught me was you're gonna have a lot of opportunities in your life to do the right thing. And when you do, whether it's hard or scary or uncomfortable, always do the right thing. Always own your voice and your power when you know it's right. Even if it might go against what everyone else thinks. That young girl took that stage, wrote a song in 10 minutes, didn't know how anyone was going to respond. And I can tell you this, she didn't care. And she won the crowd over by being herself and standing up for what's right. And that was just such a really powerful experience for me. Okay, cut to one other quick story I wanted to tell you that happened this week. So I've been Getting into Clubhouse. And if you're not on Clubhouse yet, you have to get on Clubhouse. It's super interesting. One more thing to do. I know, and it definitely does suck a lot of time out of your day or week, but it's a really cool way to meet people, answer their questions live with very little work. And what I mean is it's an audio only platform, so you can literally be getting ready for bed and an hour before bed Instead of watching TV, put in your AirPods and answer questions live for people. And it just, you can help people a lot, but what it does is it humanizes you and others. Right? So maybe people only see your social media or, you know, they don't listen to the podcast. And if you're listening right now, you're going to love Clubhouse because you're someone who likes the audio element. So I would definitely encourage you download the app Clubhouse and check out the different rooms and follow the people that you want to meet that you want to ask questions to. It's so cool. And I collaborated a lot this week with Alex Carter, who I love, who if you haven't heard her episode on the show, you have to go back and listen to it because I just got a note from someone who had an opportunity to negotiate for more money for his job. He went back and listened to that episode again and then he added 10,000 to his ask and he got everything he asked for. So I'm so proud of that. So definitely go back, check out the Alex Carter episode. It's so, so good. And anyhow, I was on a Clubhouse room with Alex every night this week actually, or last week, and it was going great. And we also had a moderator that was on who Alex and I both work with. And so she moderates the room and Alex and I answer the questions. And it was going fantastic and we were getting great feedback. And every night when we would get off, I get these really meaningful DMs of thank you so much for your help. And that is so kind of you guys to offer your service for free and just so nice. Super nice. Right? It makes you feel happy that you can help other people. Especially when I look back and think, God, I wish I had opportunities like that when I was struggling before, you know, so it's, it's kind of great that now you can give back. Right? So that's the beautiful thing about getting older. Okay, so anyhow, I was doing a room with Alex. Hala was moderating. I'm still pretty new. I've only been on for you know, doing events for a couple weeks. And I don't know how to use any of the functionality on the app, which is fine. I just have to be able to get mute off so I can talk and put mute back on so no one has to listen to me when I'm not talking. I've mastered it. Well, I don't know if I've mastered it, but I'm getting decent at that, which is good. And I'm not. I'm really not kidding. And so we're in this room and I guess someone brought a woman up on stage, which is, you know, figuratively. But then once that person's brought up on stage, they can talk. Nobody else can talk if you're not brought up on stage. So the woman gets brought up on stage. She doesn't know by who. It has to be me, Alex, or the moderator that does it. We have the. You have a green button in front of you, means you have the power to pull people up. I don't know how to pull people up. So it wasn't me, but it was either Alex or the moderator. Anyhow, someone then puts the woman back to the audience, and I didn't even know you could do that. P.S. so that just shows how much I know about Clubhouse. Nothing. And the woman proceeds to go to my Instagram DM and send me a note that says, I was in your room and Alex pulled me up on stage and you pushed me back down to audience. And I can't believe you not be inclusive. Why would you be hateful and do something? The woman attacked me, and guess what? It wasn't me that did it. I don't even know how to do it. I didn't know you could put people back down to the audience. I don't, nor do I want to. I don't want to moderate. I'm just there to answer the questions and peace out. I'm done. Right? So that's why we had a moderator there, so that we don't have to do things like that. So I don't know. This woman was crystal clear that it was me. So I literally. She was so sure it was me and attacking me that I had to look at my phone, go into Clubhouse and see if I even knew what she was talking, talking about. And I didn't. And so I took a minute and here's what I'm going to share with everyone during this awful time that we're in this pandemic where some people appear to be doing great and they're going out like, life is normal, and then there's people who are struggling and lost their jobs, and there's people who, like me, are stuck in an apartment with a child in zoom school, which is tough. Everyone's got different challenges and struggles, but life certainly isn't what it used to be. Right now, we're in this temporary period where it's tougher and a lot of people are dying and sick, and there's just so much stress in the world that didn't exist, you know, a year and a half ago. And while we were all optimistic that 2021 was gonna be a better year and the vaccine is coming, it just doesn't seem to be changing the way that we thought it would or had hoped.

Right.

I'm still super hopeful for this year, and super hopeful we start having live events again and travel safe and, you know, kids are in school and playing sports and life is good, but we don't really know when that's gonna be. So what I wanted to share is I knew that lady must be struggling because why would she so certainly attack me in such an aggressive manner when it wasn't me that did the things she was thinking about? So I didn't do anything for a minute, even though I was super frustrated. I was like, who the heck is this lady and why is she being mean to me? I didn't do anything. And I, of course, I thought, oh, she's going to feel like an idiot when I tell her it wasn't me. But I just decided to wait and not respond. And that's a really good solution. You know, pause, do nothing, go for a run, regroup, work on something else and calm yourself down. And I did, eventually. But I also took a screenshot of the nasty note she sent me, and I sent it to the moderator and to Alex, and I said, guys, I didn't do this, so I don't know who did, but you need to know there's someone very angry. And it turns out it was Alex that brought her up. And our moderator put her back down because she thought she was brought up in error. It was completely innocent. And so Alex reached out to the woman and just said, hey, I wanna let you know you sent a note to Heather saying that she did this. She didn't. And we would never intentionally pull someone and then kick somebody out. It's not who we are or how we would run any event. So, you know, I just wanted to let you know that wasn't the case. So I responded to the woman and I just said I wanted to let you know I did not do what you thought I had done. It seems like you're confused and in full transparency, I don't even know how to do what you were insinuating I had done. I feel lucky that I can get the mic off of mute in any given night or situation. For me, that's all the functionality I need and for me, that's for the win. Best of luck on your future rooms. Hope they go well. So, you know something super. I didn't even address how mean she was to me. I just thought, you know what, keep it moving. This lady is someone I don't even know, you know, and obviously she's struggling and she sent me back a really nice apology and that she felt very badly about, you know, what she had said and, you know, it was just better left that way. So the only point I wanted to make about that story is just that we never know what other people are dealing with. I mean, we truly don't know. And that's why I'm so glad to have our guest here this week because he's going to address some of the things that we all can do to lower stress and talk about the impact stress is having in our entire world right now, which let me tell you, cut to this. It's not pretty, but you're going to have some great tools to handle it and manage yourself and your own stress better. After you meet my next guest and I can't wait. I'm super excited. So hold tight. I'll be right back.

Meet a different guest each week. Hi and welcome back. I'm so excited. We have the best guest today for you. You're going to get some major knowledge. So get your pens out. We've got Dr. Ethan Cross here. He's an award winning professor and one of the world's leading experts on controlling the conscious. Specifically, he studies how a person's internal dialogue impacts their health, performance decisions and their relationships. His findings can be found in his new book, the Voice in Our why It Matters and How to Harness It. So nice to have you here, Ethan. Thank you for being with us.

So great to be here. I've been looking forward to this conversation all day. Thank you, Heather.

I really am looking forward to this. Okay, so super interesting is I was going through a lot of your videos and I saw a talk where you were sharing with an audience one of the ways you torture these students that you bring in to do a study to assess behavior and to put them in stressful situations. Please share with us this crazy study that you did with some of the students.

You know, we tend not to use the word torture, but I could see why you'd have that descriptor. So, in my lab, we study how people can control their emotions, if they want to control them.

And.

And to study that, you often have to activate certain intense, usually negative emotions. And so the most powerful tool we have at our disposal for doing that in the lab is to have people give speeches in front of evaluators, speeches on topics that they haven't practiced for. And so this is a really, really stressful kind of task. And the way it works is you bring people into the lab and you tell them, you know, thanks for coming in for the study. Today, we're going to ask you to give a. A speech on why you're ideally qualified to land your dream job. And we want you to talk about your strengths and your weaknesses and ways that you've overcome your weaknesses in ways that perfectly position you for this opportunity. And then we give them, like, three minutes to prepare the speech. They can't take any notes. They have no computer. And so it really gets people agitated. And that's what we do in the name of science, because we then test predictions about different tools that people can use to control themselves and perform more optimally under stress.

That does sound very stressful, and I happen to be a keynote speaker. But even just the way you described it, right, with no ability to practice, not being able to get centered and get in your zone and do whatever routine you might have, it's really disarming. So I so feel for these students. But one of the things that was really surprising. I went to school for psychology. I've had a shrink my whole life. So I've done tons of personal development and recognize the importance of positive internal dialogue and reinforcing positives in life, whether it be through gratitude or whatever your practice is. What was so interesting to me that I had never heard before, was your reframe. In this study in particular, instead of using first person and distancing yourself, can you talk to us a little bit about how that works?

Yeah. So one of the things that we know from lots of research, and I think this will also ring true to many people's experience listening, is that we're often much better at advising other people on their problems than we are advising ourselves. So when I give talks to audiences, I'll often ask by a show of hands, have you ever been in a situation where a friend or a loved one comes to you with a problem? They're ruminating they're experiencing anxiety or what I call chatter, their mind's spinning, they don't know what to do, they present the problem to you. And it's pretty easy for you to coach them through the situation. And consistently, every hand in the audience goes up. If it's not happening to us, it's easier for us to be objective, to use our mind to come up with a solution. And what we've learned is that language provides us with a tool to help us think about ourselves like we're someone else with a little bit of psychological space, or distance as we call it. And the way you do it is you use your name to work through a problem. So when I'm really stressed before I have to do something, rather than thinking, oh my God, what am I going to do? I talk to myself like I'm coaching my buddy. All right, Ethan, what are you going to do about this? Now, of course I do that silently, not out loud. That's an important caveat. But the idea here is that most of the time that we use names, we use a name when we think about and when we refer to another person. So when you use your own name to think about yourself, it's almost like a psychological jujitsu technique, right? You're shifting your perspective, you're using these words to change the way you're thinking about yourself. And we find that that makes it easier for people to work through problematic experiences in ways that are healthy.

So if you are, and we'll use the example of speaking just because I found that so powerful. So you're going into speech, you're getting very nervous and you're starting to think about everything that can potentially go wrong. Which, by the way, I've done this many times myself, thought about, I hope I don't fall walking out to the main stage. So the right way to handle it or a tool that you would have available to handle it would be to say, okay, Heather, you're not going to fall on the floor. How are you going to go ahead and knock this speech out? Or do you start saying positive things? How exactly do you do it?

You're coaching yourself through it. So a great example of this is an interview that Jennifer Lawrence was giving with the New York Times a couple of years ago. And the reporter for the Times started asking her hard hitting questions. And at one point it was getting pretty intense, she stopped and she said, okay, Jennifer, get your act together. It's essentially she's talking to herself. Like this is what she would say to a friend and you started doing it too. Okay, Heather, here's what you're going to do. You're walking yourself through the problem and it's not importantly this kind of frantic, oh my God, what if this happens? I'm going to screw up. I'm going to screw up instead. It's very challenge oriented. It's like, okay, I can manage this situation. Here's what you're going to do. I think it's important to emphasize that in our studies, like when we look at what people, we find that when you use your name or this, what we call distant self talk, it really changes your internal monologue. It shifts you from being in threat mode. I can't do it to challenge mode. All right, you can manage this. You've done a bunch of these keynotes before. You could do it again. But it's not always, you know, cupcakes and hot chocolate, the equivalent in terms of the content of it. It's not always this positive sunshine and everything's going to be just fine. It's sometimes that we find that it can be kind of stern. Like I know for myself when I do this and I do use this tool before giving talks and other stressful.

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Sometimes it's like harnessing my like wrestling coach from high school. Like what he would say, all right, all righty. You're gonna do this. You know, get your act together and you know it could be stern. So it's not necessarily always this positive. It's more challenge. You can manage the situation. The difference between thinking about a situation as a threat, something I can't do and a challenge, something I can do is powerful and distant self talk. Using your name helps you think more in challenge oriented terms.

I love that simple shift that makes a lot of sense. So what about when there's issues that you can't control? Because I still feel like going into a keynote, I'm in charge of pretty much most everything that's going to happen over the next hour. But living in a pandemic is such the opposite situation. I feel like I'm not in charge of anything.

And when you don't have control and you're also not certain of things, those are two ingredients that really fuel chatter. So chatter refers to getting stuck. You're very narrowly focused on the awfulness of what you're experiencing, which I think many of us are right now with COVID Right. Like, objectively, what we're dealing with right now is pretty, pretty crappy. We don't have control. There's not much we can do about it. And when you tunnel vision in on that, when you get really immersed, that can get us stuck in these thought spirals and chatter, which can have lots of negative consequences. And so what do you do there? Well, there are tools that I think are useful for breaking us out of that. Tunnel vision, for zooming out and adopting a broader perspective. One tool that I rely on is something called temporal distancing. Fancy phrase for what you might think of as mental time travel. And so I'll often think about, how am I going to feel nine or 12 months from now when we're all vaccinated and we're back to traveling? When I do that, when I jump in the mental time travel machine to the future, what that does is it makes it clear that what I'm experiencing right now, as awful as it is, and to be clear, it's awful, it's temporary, it will eventually pass. I'm getting the bigger picture, and. And that gives me hope. And we know that hope is a powerful bomb for chatter, right? When our mind's running wild, that can be really helpful. I also sometimes go back in time. I think about the pandemic of 1918, which was arguably worse than what we're dealing with right now. Hard to believe that. Right? But it's like, these are pretty bad times. But think about 1918. We didn't have zoom, right? We didn't have takeout delivery. And all of the.

I don't know, maybe that would be a blessing because I'm done with zoom and takeout and delivery is way too frequent over here, so I might have to challenge that, but go ahead.

There are some drawbacks to takeout delivery. I mean, this zoom session for me is, from the neck up, problematic.

You and me both.

So But I mean, things were really bad back then and guess what? We got through it and we thrived after the roaring twenties, like, and we will get through this. So these are small shifts that broaden our perspective, break us out of the cycle of getting stuck thinking about how awful things are, the rumination about it, which can be really helpful for people when they're managing uncertain and uncontrollable stressors.

So I'm a little confused because I know that part of chatter can be, and especially for myself is focusing on when I'm just in my head alone somewhere, things that happened in the past that I'm upset, decisions I made that I'm upset about and obsessing over those and, or fast forwarding ahead and hope, you know, did I make the right decision on this now? Is this going to pan out in the future? And obsessing over that. So how do we know when to leverage that to work for us versus when it's working against us?

The mental time travel piece, I think the idea is. So first of all, this mental time travel or temporal distancing, this is just one example of many science based tools that exist for helping us deal with chatter. So that's number one. Number two, let's say you are fixated on how awful this podcast interview went with this guy from Michigan. Terrible. And you're spinning over it over and over. Yes, that is about the past. But you can still travel like further into the past and think about, well, I've had other difficult interviews before and guess what? It wasn't as bad as I thought and it blew over. Or you can think about how you're going to feel about this experience that you're worried about right now, a week from now, when it's over and it fades. And so even if you're, even if your chatter is coming from something in the past or the future, you can still go back further in time to make it clear that what you're, you're experiencing chatter about is not the focus, is not the center of your world, and it will eventually end. When we're consumed with something, it's like that is the only thing we can think about. Right? So, so I often ask people like, have you ever had an experience reading a book, reading a couple of pages when you're ruminating or anxious about something and you read five pages and you can't, you get to the end, you don't remember anything that you've ever read? Has it ever happened?

Yes, absolutely.

Pretty common, right? So it's all consuming and the idea is, how do we break you out of that all consuming mode? And so going further back or forward or, you know, backwards can be a tool for that.

I know that you are a father as I am a mother. And having kids in zoom school has been really, really hard. Not only on us, of course, but, you know, on the kids and the isolation that they're dealing with. What are some of the tactics that you deploy with your children to help them through this tough time?

I do do a version of like the distance self talk that we talked about. There's. We've done some research on how you can do that with kids. And there's something called the Batman effect where you ask your kids to essentially pretend they're a superhero. So Batman or Wonder Woman, Dora the explorer. Choose your kid's favorite hero. And one of the things that that does is so the next when Dani, my youngest daughter, struggling, I might say to her, all right, pretend you're Wonder Woman. What would Wonder Woman do right now? Call yourself actually Wonder Woman. Right? Like pretend you're her. That gives her a little bit of psychological. It lets her step back. It's not happening to her, it's happening to Wonder Woman. What do we know about superheroes? They don't let things get them down.

They're invincible, right?

Yeah, they're invincible. Right. And so that's one tool that I'll use with them. I'll also. In the book Chatter, I talk about, like different categories of tools or ways that we can try to break out of chatter ourselves with small shifts in how we think, like we've talked about. But there are also ways of harnessing our relationships with other people so people can help us by talking to the right kinds of people who help us broaden our perspective. So I'll often do that with them when they're really upset about really important stuff like whether their sister, you know, got a slightly larger dessert, like, this is the end of the world, right? Or who gets to choose the movie. You know, I'll try to broaden their perspective. Guys, listen, you know, you guys have dessert. Lots of people don't. Or, you know, we're lucky that like that that's a shift. It breaks them out of this tunnel vision. That can be helpful. I'll also do things like I'll try to use the world around us. That's another category of tools. The environment provides us with tools for managing our chatter and actually Mother Nature, interestingly, exposure to green spaces can be really helpful for rejuvenating us when we find Ourselves really stressed. And so we'll go for walks. Not as much right now in Michigan because it's terribly cold, as you might remember from when you lived here, Heather. So there's a variety of tools that I'll try to use with them. And one thing that I believe very strongly in is that there are no single tools that are magic pills.

Right.

Like, different. Different tools work for different people in different situations. Different combinations of tools I think work best. You know, you might think of this as what's a chatter fighting cocktail that works best for you? The unique blend of tools. And so I'll do lots of things with them in the same way that I'll do lots of things with myself.

So when you were describing the situation with dessert with your kids, it reminded me. So bizarre. It just popped right into my head during this pandemic, you know, while we're under this pressure, one day, my son and I, we live in an apartment building. We went down to the floor to get our car, and my SUV was gone, and I just lost. I started crying. I said, oh, my gosh, our car's been stolen. I started flipping out, and my son looked at me and he said, mom, there is a Porsche on either side of our car. No one would steal a BMW suv. Something's wrong. And so he snapped. He gave me the perspective, which I couldn't get in that moment. I stopped. I said, come with me. I walked over to the elevator, and I realized we were on the wrong floor. And it was.

So.

It was one of those moments with the dessert where someone had to say, excuse me, pick your head up here, and immediately snap me out of that negative chatter that obviously everything had just gone wrong.

Yeah. Your son is a great chatter advisor. That's a great intuition he had. And it actually, it raises, I think, a very important point that I talk about in the book, which is other people are in a unique position to help us when we're dealing with chatter, but they can also actually harm us. So you have to find the right people to talk to, and not everyone will do so. There are some people who I love dearly, and I'm pretty sure they love me. I don't go to them when I have chatter because I know that talking with them is not going to help me feel better. It'll actually make me feel worse. And so I think it's really important to think about, well, what makes another person a good chatter advisor, someone who really helps you. And there's science that illuminates the way here. And so what you ideally want is someone who you can find to talk to, who you can share what you're feeling. You can express your emotions. Very important to have someone who shows empathy and cares enough about you to actually listen. But just listening to you talk, that's not enough. Like, if you come to me, Heather, and you're like, you just want to unload your emotions about something bad that happened and you start talking to me and I'm listening attentively, you're going to feel much closer and connected to me. So our friendship will be stronger. And that feels good. But that's not alone going to help you work through the problem. Because what you additionally need is the person you're talking to to help break you out of your funk, help you broaden your perspective. So, hey, well, let's think about it this way. Or that happened to me and here's how I dealt with it. So talking to you to try to help you reframe your experience. And so those are the two qualities that you want to look for in another person. Someone who is empathic lets you talk a little bit, but that can help you shift your perspective. And not everyone does that.

Oh, definitely not everyone does that. And like you said, they can still love you and care about you. But those are not the go to people when your chatter is running wild in your mind.

That's right. And it can cause some serious problems. Like there's large bodies of research which show that when you get stuck doing what researchers call co rumination. So we just get stuck in like event session. What happened to you? I can't believe it. What did you say? And he did what? I'm back and forth, back and forth. That predicts things like anxiety, depression over time. And so it really, it makes us closer. We feel really close together and that actually motivates us to keep doing this. But it doesn't make our problems any better. It can make them worse. So other people can be a real asset or vulnerability when it comes to chatter.

That's gotta be scary for people. I just thought to myself, if someone's in a marriage where someone likes to feed off of negativity, or they have a relationship with a child or someone where they're living in close quarters during a pandemic with that person, they've got to be really vulnerable.

Yeah, I think they are. And popular culture actually doesn't often help here because we're often told, just find someone to talk to. Like, you know, especially now during the pandemic.

Right.

Like we hear so Much about physical, social distancing. Like, we need to connect with other people. Yes, we need to connect, but there are also ways to connect. Right. It's not a haphazard talking about anything that's going to make us do better. And I think in many cases I've seen people just revving themselves up like to go back to the kids at home situation. It's not easy, right? I mean, normally, Heather, you don't know what kinds of persuasion and negotiation I had to do with my kids before this call to make sure that they weren't sitting at my feet during this whole thing. Because that's all they want to do is be here while I'm doing my work. And so this is taxing. And it's very easy, I think, to slide into. Just let me tell you how awful it is and keep going, going, going. So just to be clear with everyone, talking about our emotions is a good thing. The ability to express those feelings. We don't want to stop doing that. What we don't want to have happen, though, is having us slide into this vent session where that's all we do without trying to step back, see the bigger picture. You know what, we're all safe. Everyone here has been doing okay. We're going to get the vaccine. Like that's what we want.

So bigger picture, perspective and sort of like a whiteboard session where we're brainstorming solutions and ways to move forward.

Yeah. Coupled with the emotional stuff. We don't want to be like cold, robotic. Let me tell you how to think about this, right? Like, that's not fun, that's not human. We want to engage meaningfully with the person. But. But hey, let's try to work through this problem rather than just get stuck. Because guess what? It doesn't feel good to experience chatter.

Right.

Like, so people often ask me, how do you know if you're experiencing chatter, these negative thought loops? And my response is, you usually know it when you're experiencing it because it's awful. And so we don't want to persist in that state.

Do you think there's something to be said for the discipline of not allowing yourself to indulge in that? Is that something fair to say?

I think that's easier said than done. I think it's very easy for us to. What chatter is, is. Is problem solving gone awry.

Right.

Like when bad things happen, we tend to focus inward to find solutions to our problems so we can move on. It's a very natural, adaptive response. That ability makes us human and it's what distinguishes us from every other species, our ability to use our mind to solve problems and language. But when emotions are involved, we often, against our best intentions, just slide into that tunnel vision, zoomed in mode where we get stuck like a gerbil on an exercise wheel. We don't get anywhere. If you could avoid doing that, great, that would be fantastic. And I think it's something to certainly aspire to. But I wouldn't get too down on yourself if you find yourself slipping into chatter because it's a very human experience. And the good news is that there are lots of things you can do if you find yourself going down the rabbit hole.

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Part of the reason I wrote the book was to talk about what those things are.

So this morning, oddly enough, I typically think that I've trained and worked myself to a point where I don't go down the chatter hole too often. Although it is a global pandemic, so it does happen. But this morning, oddly enough, obviously I knew I was going to be speaking with you. I was looking for an old video from five years ago that I wanted to post on Social Today and so I started scrolling through my downloads on through the years on my computer and as I started doing that I started freaking out at oh my gosh, look how much work I've done. I've done all this and I'm not where I want to be yet. My mind, I had zero control and I got into this horrible loop of oh my gosh, maybe I'm never actually going to achieve the goals that I think I thought I was on the right path and I don't think I'm on the right path anymore. It was this huge shift for it took me nowhere good and luckily I was able to distract myself. I had meetings set up that were and I wasn't doing it by design, which I know is one of your strategies. I was doing it by schedule, right that I had A schedule I had meetings I had to be on, which completely took me away from that. And now here I am reflecting on it. I really haven't thought about it since then. So clearly your power of distraction does work.

Yeah. So distraction can be a good short term fix, right? Like when we are going down the rabbit hole, diverting our attention away from the problem, you have to find something that's truly distracting. Sometimes you want to distract by like watching a TV show or reading a book and it doesn't engage you enough. But if you have to do something like your meetings, that can be very good as long as you then come back to the problem after assuming it's still bothering you to, you know, not let it continue to bother you. If the, if the problem is significant enough, like, you know, let's say you're in a relationship and you get rejected. Like this is one of the canonical like really intense, chatter provoking experiences. All right? You get dumped and you don't want to think about it. So you go to a party, you hang out with friends, you feel better when you're distracting. But then when you get, when you come home and you're reminded, oh, I was dumped, the chatter returns. And so that's the trick is if it's a significant problem, where it's going to come back, then you want to also layer in some of those, like, you know, there are more people out, plenty of fish in the sea.

Plenty of fish in the sea, right.

That's a perspective broadener, right? Like not saying that that's going to necessarily work for everyone, but that's a tool, that's a way of getting distance from the experience. So it sounds like your little chatter hiccup this morning wasn't so severe, thankfully.

Well, we'll hope so. I've been on back to back meetings. So to your point, I've been distracted all day long.

Right? You haven't had time.

I haven't had time. And it's really interesting that we're talking about this because I'm thinking about it now in my mind what's going to happen at 5:30 tonight when I really am done with meetings, right. And it's just time to make dinner and be with my son. Will I just go watch Netflix? You know, like all these things start popping into my mind because I really don't want to deal with it. But you know, the point I was making was around goals. And I know you talk a lot about the importance of goals in this situation. I was questioning my goals. How do goals benefit you and help stop chatter.

So, you know, the lab I run is called like the emotion and self control lab. And you say, what is self control? Well, self control has two key ingredients. Motivation to think of as goals, and then abilities, skills. So if you want something to happen right in your life, you want to orient, change the way you think or feel or behave in a particular way, you need a, you need to have a goal, like, you need to be driven to do it. And then you also have to have the ability, the tools you need to make those goals happen. If you just have a goal, I want to be happier. But you don't have the skills to do that. It's not going to work. On the other hand, you can have all the skills you want, but if you don't have the motivation to use those skills, you're not going to do it right. So you really need goals, motivation and tools. Now, I think in the case of chatter, what we have going for us is that it's so aversive, it is often so painful to get stuck in those negative thought loops that most people are in fact motivated to find ways to, to not experience it. I mean, it's, We've actually done research. It is painful in an emotional sense and sometimes even physical when you're really struggling with a problem over and over. So people tend to have the goal to want to reduce the chatter, but they don't always have the tools that they need to do it. And oftentimes the things we think are going to be helpful, turns out they're not, like just venting our emotions that doesn't work, or just trying harder to work through the problem. Doesn't often work. It just makes it worse. And so that's why I think the science can be really useful. Because what science has been doing, scientists have been doing for a while, is trying to figure out really precisely, so what are the different tools that exist for helping us manage the state so you can achieve those goals that you have?

What role does genetics play, environment play? What are the key pieces as to why some people might have more chatter than others?

So there are lots of question marks there. So we know that genes are involved, we know environments involved. We also know that, and we didn't know this, say, probably a decade ago, that genes in an environment actually come together, interestingly enough. So certain kinds of environmental experiences that we have can turn on certain genes and turn off other genes. And that's called gene expression. And that's in part how, like experiences of chronic stress. That partly explains how they can get under the skin to influence your physical health. Because when you're experiencing chronic stress, let's say you're living in an environment that's threatening, like really scary, a neighborhood or a war torn environment that can have the effect of like turning on genes that are involved in inflammation and turning off genes that are involved in fighting viruses. And so really amazing work coming out that's beginning to illuminate how genes and environment come together to predispose us to experience more or less chatter. But we don't have great answers yet about exactly how that happens. It's a very active area of work. The one thing we do know about background is that women tend to be more vulnerable to chatter than men. We don't yet know why, but it is true. But, and I think this is really important, but they benefit equally from the tools. So men and women benefit the same from the tools that exist for managing chatter. And so although there's a little bit of a higher level of chatter for women compared to men, they're no more vulnerable in the sense of they can make use of the tools.

Well, and so your experiences in your lab are that women, even though they are more vulnerable, they're bouncing back just as, as well as men do when they are given the right tools.

Exactly. That's good news.

That's good news. But what's not good news is yet again, women are at the disadvantage. And the other point that you made that really hit me hard is people who are in challenging economic situations are in really tough spots, because how do you get out of that? All I could think to myself was the projects, right? And if someone's living in that environment, not only do they not have the means to escape it, they might not have access to knowledge or to the tools that they would need to help themselves.

Well, I think you're absolutely right. And I think that's one of the reasons why it's so important to be having conversations like this, to be disseminating what we know about these tools, to give people the opportunity to use them, to try them out, to see if they can help them. I think we have a responsibility to do that. So that's in part why I'm excited to chat with you and others about this stuff.

Is that why you wrote the book?

In part. You know, part of the reason for writing the book was I had been teaching a class at Michigan on a lot of these ideas for several years. And the last time I taught the class, in the final session of class, one of the students asked Me, why are we learning about this now? And I was like, what do you mean? And they then went on, well, you know, we've learned that these, these different tools for managing ourselves help us perform better, help us have better relationships and make us healthier. Why didn't anyone teach us about this stuff earlier like in middle school or high school? And I didn't have a good answer to that question. And so, you know, what I did was I basically did the, you know, the kind of standard professor deflection technique. So I said it's a good idea. What does everyone else think about that? You know, I threw it back to the class but, but it bothered me. I didn't like not having an answer. And the more I thought about it, the more I couldn't come up with a good explanation. You know, we learn in school, for example, about things that someone has, thinks is important for children to know about. So we spent, I remember learning a lot about the digestive system and peristalsis. Like how does food get from one end to the other? Like, interesting. But do I use that information on a daily basis? I do not. Now what are we talking about? We're talking about the science of the mind. How your emotions work, how you can control them. This is information that would seem to me to be enormously relevant to students and adults lives. Why aren't we teaching kids about this, this stuff? It's like, you know, we teach them math, how to compute a percentage. That's a skill that comes in handy. I think controlling your emotions is. The ability to do so might come in handy later on in life. And so out of that experience came two efforts actually. The first is I started a project in which I worked with some colleagues, with teacher and teachers to basically create a curriculum for middle and high school kids that teaches them about this science. And we're currently evaluating this curriculum to see what effect it has on students lives. And then the other, the other outgrowth of that experience was this book to share the science of what we know about how to manage our inner voice and chatter with everyone else. So that's why I wrote the book.

I'm so proud of you that you saw a problem and didn't just teach or deflect, but you went in and jumped in and created this curriculum that is so exciting. I want my child to get access to it. That, I mean that's major work. I mean you can just feel your passion for it. And it's so great to see people living their purpose and passion. And I'm So excited for you, Ethan. Where does everyone find out about you? Where can they get Chatter? And what else do they need to know?

Well, you can get chatter from any bookstore. It's available now. And you can learn more about me or the book by going to ethancross.com it's cross with a K, K, R, O, S, S, Ethan. And that'll give you plenty more information than you would ever even want about the book and me.

You're gonna want the information, you're gonna want the book. And I'm gonna put all the links in the show notes so everyone can head down there, click check it out. This book is a must buy. Thank you so much for your time today, Ethan. I really appreciate you.

Thanks for having so much fun.

We'll be right back. I asked you to try to find your passion. Hi, and welcome back. Okay, we've got some questions here I want to jump into. Hey, Heather. This is from a LinkedIn DM. How do you find your speaking teaching experiences for Harvard? Now, do you find the students to be otherworldly, intelligent with a unique presence, or do you find the students to be a lot like us? I super appreciate a curious question like this because I wondered that too. Right. So here's what I know. Well, first of all, I don't know if you know this, but about a year and a half ago, I was invited by my friend John Westman to be a guest teacher for one class at Harvard. So anytime you do something for the first time, it's super scary. You don't know what you're walking into. That's how I felt going in. I thought, oh my gosh, am I going to be able to connect with these people? What am I going to think about them? What are they going to think about me? After having that first experience, I noticed these people are, listen, they got into Harvard. They're super smart, right? Very articulate. They use vocabulary that I might not use on a regular basis. However, everything. I shouldn't say everything. A lot of what they were talking about was from textbooks, from reading, from analyzing data, and not from experiences. And so that was the biggest takeaway I had a year and a half ago was, wow, they're really textbook smart, but not. They don't have a lot of experience like I do. So we, our understandings, even of the same topics were very, very different. Fast forward to this year now that I'm, I have a weekly class. And I'll tell you, it's interesting. It's the same thing that I observed the first time Right. Some of the people are so super smart. Some people seem more, you know, relatable to me, but there is a gap on experience and they defer to the textbooks. And gosh, there's a lot of them. If you could see my living room table right now, there's. I have so many books to read for Harvard, it's ridiculous. And they're all over this table. Clearly, I am not excited about reading them. It's all books on sales. So it's funny to me, I don't need to read them. I understand the principles in ways other people don't because I've been implementing them for 46 years. Right. However, it is a good point because last week there was a topic we were covering from one of the books and it was one of these very directive, you have to feel felt found. I believe that was it, if my memory serves me correctly. And it's all about the style of that. You want the person to. You want to say I feel and then parroting back whatever it is you felt. And here's what I found, essentially something like that. Well, I don't. That's not how I operate in sales. The way that I operate is I have an understanding through my experiences of what works in certain situations, environments, and with certain people. My goal is always to access as much information as I can, first and foremost, and then I want to be present and I want to help solve problems. I want to help people. Right. So I don't get into these like, feel felt found routines. I understand where that would be helpful if you were new to sales and you were trying to lean on something like as a crutch, but that's not my style. And so we did a bunch of breakout groups where we let the students try their hand at a feel felt found in real time role playing, which is a great exercise, you know, when you're teaching something to let people role play. And then I said, well, guys, I want to try to do it because it's going to be really hard for me because I'm not scripted. So for the students, it was much easier for them to follow the script because that's what they find themselves doing. So they felt very comfortable with that. I have never followed a script in sales. I've never even studied sales at a college. It was always in real life. Right. So I. I just figured it out through trial and error. And so I forced myself to try because it was super uncomfortable. And of course I did not do it correctly. However, at the end it was super funny. One of the students said, heather, that wasn't feel felt found, but that was so much better than what anybody else did. And I highlighted that. I said, guys, that's because I didn't do it scripted. And you guys were all doing it scripted. So as much as this is a great tool and crutch to lean on and one way of doing it, don't only defer to it, right? Just like I wanted to challenge myself to try the feel felt found way, I didn't succeed at it, but, you know, because in the end I just knew there was a better way in my mind to do it. That wasn't the lecture for the day, but I did want to share that the students at Harvard are people who want to learn. And while they're very well equipped and very educated in textbook learnings and they have huge vocabularies and do incredibly well academically in school and on testings, they seem to have a lot of opportunity to learn more about role playing and real life experience and leaning on and feeling confident in things because you've done it so much so many times. So I guess that's the best way I could say yes. There are some people that definitely seem hyper intellectual, which I am not, and I don't see myself that way. So there's some people I relate to more than others. But at the end, we're all the same. We all want to learn, we all want to get better. And I feel super grateful for the opportunity to be on faculty at Harvard and be there and share my insights with them. It's super cool, actually. This week, we don't have school this week, this Monday. And so instead I'm leading a small group from our class on a social media exercise to help them learn to leverage social media for business, which I'm. I've only really, you know, been figuring out over the last three years. So it's kind. It's crazy. Bottom line is this, people are way more alike than you think, number one. And number two, always step into what's uncomfortable for you. That's the only way you're ever going to grow, myself included. Okay, next question. Hey, I was hoping you could share some advice on how to best promote my new career position on LinkedIn to gain the most views and engagement. Any specific hashtags? I find that funny. Here's why. It's not that simple. The best way for you to get views, and I'm just going to cut the chase. Show up as the real you, tell your real stories. That's what makes you Unique and different. Share your teaching, share your learnings, share your fails, share your wins, Right? Share it all the more. You can show up as the real authentic version of you. Consistently. That's the key word. You have to be consistent. You can't post once a week and hope that you're dropping a hashtag on there. Is going to have a post go viral. It's not. Spoiler alert, that doesn't work. Wish it did, but no. You know, Gary Vee challenged me in November 2019 to 10x what I was doing on LinkedIn. He said that I wasn't posting enough. And gosh, he was right. He gave me advice. I implemented it. Even though it's hard and a lot of work. I 10x my content, my views went from. I think in 2019, I had 8 million views on LinkedIn and it went to, I think 30 million in 2020. A year with nothing going on. But the reason why is I just was able to reach more people. So, number one, show up daily, post consistently, and show up at least one time a day. Show the real you, different parts of you. Maybe part is your family life, maybe part is your business life. Maybe part is you teaching other people what you know. Maybe part is you sharing what you're learning. Maybe part is you running a contest and, you know, giving your services away for free. Maybe part is you sharing your testimonials or your work. There's so much you can do. And of course, leverage hashtags that are relevant to the conversation that you're having. But don't think dropping just one given hashtag is going to make a post go viral. It doesn't. It won't. You have to test different things and then look at the data. Data doesn't lie constantly. Go back to the data and see what's working for your feed and what's not. Okay, last question for today. Okay. Hey, I've got a question for you. My apologies if this is too forward, but if you have a few minutes. Okay. Can you help me? I lost my job with a company. Part of a restructure. And while I've been assured there is a place for me, I don't know that I believe this. The entire process has forced me to reflect on different opportunities. Yes.

Good.

I truly believe this was meant to happen. And I'm at a crossroads. I'm trying to evaluate my upside and the amount of risk. Gosh, that's a tough one. I would really appreciate and value your judgment, advice. I believe I'm destined for something great. That's your answer then. Right there. Hello, mic drop moments. I understand you're likely busy, but I figured I'd reach out anyway. As the great Wayne Gretzky said, you miss 100% of the shots you don't take. Let me know your thoughts. Absolutely. Okay. And then so I responded to him. Oh, my gosh. Totally gonna answer this on the show. Great. I look forward to tuning in. I wanna make sure you understand what I'm weighing out here. A sales director position for the company that just laid him off versus a big leap of faith to do something drastic and bold and become a motivational speaker. Hard part is I am the breadwinner for my family, and this is a huge risk. So I'm thinking maybe I hedge both while exploring both. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Okay, so here's the thing. Here's my best advice as a. As someone who's responsible for providing for a family. In a perfect world, if you didn't have a family, of course you're going to tell that company to F off. Peace out. See you later. You're just going to go roll the dice on you and be scrappy and make it work until you can. And yes, that's what you should do. However, you have a mortgage to pay for, schools to pay for, food to pay for, and we're in a global pandemic. So as much as I hate to do this, I have to give you the best advice possible. You are not going to become wealthy in the next few months in the speaking business. So you can't, in my opinion. This is my opinion you should do you. But you need to pursue that job as the sales director at the big company that you've been going through the restructure with. Advocate for it, push the comp on it, Go back and listen to the Alex Carter episode with me and really go for more and push your boundaries to get as much comp as you can. Because the more comp you get, the more savings you have, the more Runway you're building for yourself so that you can be building this other business. Now, don't get down, because here's the thing. We have a goal and a vision for your future, and that's of your speaking company and you working for yourself and you not having to rely on a company or, you know, some manager to direct your income or potential or fire you or whatever. Right? So we've got this vision. Write it down, what you're going to do, and let's give us a timeline. Now, at nights, on the weekends, you got to start hustling. And you got to let your family know, guys, here's what I need. You know, here's my situation. I'm going to work for myself and it's going to happen. And it might not be happening in 2021, but for sure it's happening in 2022. And here's what that looks like. I've got to work. You know, Dad's got to go into the office at night and on the weekends. And I need your support and understanding because this is going to make me happier. It's going to provide all of us more autonomy, flexibility, and I'm really passionate about it. And I've got to connect to my passion and do good work in the world that I feel good about. That's more than a paycheck. And I want to have the ability to drive where I go, not have someone else be directing and driving my life and my career. So I would have that conversation and then I would start taking steps. Anytime you can speak, immediately take it. And I don't care if it's paid or not paid, that's irrelevant. You just want to start getting footage of you on stages, even if it's virtual, that's fine, because people are asking for virtual footage now, recording yourself on Zoom, that's so easy. And you can do that, and you need to start doing it. So you want to offer your services, even if it's at work and you're leading a sales meeting, recorded. See what lands with people, start testing different material, and keep a word. Doc on. Here's what's working, here's what's not working. I even do that today, Right. I've been speaking for 25 years and I'm constantly updating. Wow, this is landing really well with people right now. You know, we're going through a different time, a transitional time, and things are going to hit differently. See what resonates with people. See what messages you get after and incorporate the wins into your talks. And the things that don't seem to land, get rid of them.

Right?

It's a constant evolution. Constantly. You're getting better. The more stages you take, the more you speak, the more clips you get. Share them on social media. Start using the hashtag keynote speaker. You know, as long as your company's not going to have a problem with it. The company I used to work for did actually. They did not want me promoting myself. But most companies, companies won't have a problem with that because what you're actually doing is allowing the world and business community to get to know you and you're pulling talent towards you. It's a really great way to recruit talent towards you, recruit business opportunities to you and put your best foot forward in a forward facing world that you want to be leading in. So start building that business now. Start today. Write it down, share it with your family and take that sales director job knowing that that is funding your future company that you are working on, that you are hustling for and you are taking action against today. That is definitely the best advice I can give you. Best of luck with it. Don't stop, don't give up. Hold that vision and work towards the outcome that you know is possible for you and it will be. So I hope you guys love the show today. I really do. I'm super proud of it. And if you can please subscribe to the show, rate and review the show, please and then promote it on social media. Holy cow. Means the world to me whenever. Whatever you do, I will always share. Just tag me in the post and I will always share what you posted and reshare it and thank you. And I'm super appreciative. No one succeeds alone and I totally need your help. So appreciate you and until next week, I'll be here creating confidence and I know you will too.

I decided to change that dynamic.

I couldn't be more excited for what you're gonna hear. Start learning and growing.

Inevitably something will happen. No one succeeds alone.

You don't stop and look around once in a while. You could miss it.

Come on this journey with me.