1089 How to Overcome & Take Back Control of Your Emotions w/Dr. Susan David

This is episode number 1089 with Harvard psychologist and best-selling author, Dr. Susan David. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Maya Angelou said, I can be changed by what happens to me, but I refuse to be reduced by it. And Gever Tulley said, Persistence and resilience only come from having been given the chance to work through difficult problems. I am so excited because we have my friend and repeat guest, Dr. Susan David, who is one of the world's leading management thinkers and award-winning Harvard Medical School psychologist. she's the author of the bestselling book emotional agility, which describes the psychological skills critical to thriving in times of complexity and change. And again, this is the second time I've had the chance to speak with Susan on this show. And if you're interested in hearing more, you can visit lewishouse.com/604 to listen to the previous one. But this one is amazing. And what we cover is specifically what emotional agility is and how to develop it for yourself to live a better life, how to respond in moments when we feel completely triggered and overwhelmed. The science behind values and why they're so important, how Susan believes we should set goals for ourselves, the biggest misconception people have about creating change in their life, and so much more. And if you're enjoying this at any moment, please share this with a friend who you think would be inspired by this as well, as we're all about spreading greatness and positivity to as many people as possible. And if this is your first time here, welcome. Please Subscribe over on Apple podcast. Just click the Subscribe button right now or on Spotify or anywhere that you're listening. And at the end, please leave us a rating and review of the part you enjoyed the most about about this episode. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only Susan David. Welcome, everyone, to the School of Greatness podcast. Super excited about our guest today. Susan David, who is a Harvard Medical School psychologist, is back in the house. Good to see you, Susan. How you doing?

I'm so good and so happy to be with you today.

Very excited. People need you more than ever. I've been thinking about you throughout the year, believe it or not, about just emotional agility, emotional Fitness, emotional flexibility. whatever you want to call it. Because I see so many people overwhelmed, overstressed, scared, confused, unclear of everything in their life, whether it be their intimate relationships, their careers, their businesses, their health, their family's health, and this need to grasp onto some sense of control, of some sense of like, I need to know the answer, what's going to happen, and no one knows what's going to happen. Yes. Emotional agility is more important in learning to develop this skill than ever. And I want to talk about why you believe it's so essential before this, but obviously right now, what is emotional agility for those who don't know? And why do we need to start tapping into it?

So delighted to be back. And absolutely the moment for emotions and the moment for emotional agility is now. And this, has always been true. But of course, this moment that we are in is inviting all of us to dig really deep into our human psychological capacity. So great question to start, which is what is emotional agility? And I'll start with, Loes, if you don't mind, a very brief definition, but then I'll broaden it out a little bit.

Okay.

So the brief definition is really it's about our ability to be healthy human beings. And what I mean by that is that every day we have, you know, tens of thousands, literally, thoughts. Thoughts might be, I'm not good enough, I'm confused. Emotions might be emotions about loneliness or anxiety. And then stories, stories that we tell ourselves about who we are in the world. Some of our stories were written on our mental chalkboards when we were five years old about what kind of relationships we need and whether we're getting those. And we have these every single day. When we are experiencing stress and ambiguity and complexity, often these thoughts, emotions and stories become more pervasive and they have a greater level of hold on us. And so emotional agility is the psychological skills that help us to deal with this inner world of ours in a way that is fundamentally healthy. And What do I mean by healthy? I mean healthy in a full spectrum of the way we can think about being healthy human beings, which is firstly about being able to be wise and connected and trusting of ourselves. But it's also about being able to then bring our capacity to our relationships to see other people. So this is this interpersonal experience. And then beyond that, I think the world culture, the conversations that we're having in our culture at the moment are calling us in the collective to be healthy in the way we see, in the way we interact and in the way we connect. And so emotional agility, and I know we'll dig deeper into it, are the skills that help us to be healthy human beings. And they are, you know, foundationally associated with greater levels of well-being ability to attain our goals and come to our relationships more effectively.

So thoughts, emotions and stories, right?

In a world, our psychology.

Yes. And which one is harder to have more emotional agility around the thoughts that we've been, you know, thinking our whole lives, the, the emotions we've been feeling of the stories we've been telling ourselves?

Yeah. So that's such a great question. Well, they, they actually all interconnected, you know, for instance, a lot sometimes people think that it's all about thoughts, you know, the thoughts that you have drive everything and they all that matter. And of course, thoughts are very important, but we also know that how people feel can impact on the kinds of thoughts that they have. So for instance, when we are in more relaxed, positive moods, we actually tend to have a thinking style that is more creative, it'll be okay, and more capacious and open. When we are in a more neutral to negative mood, we have a thinking style that's more editing, what's gonna go wrong? When we proofread a document, we'll find more errors, contingency planning and so on. Now again, the narrative that we have in society is that we should think positive. And in my work, I push back against this very, very strongly. I push back against the idea that we need to think positive and be positive and be happy. Why? Because that narrative actually takes away from our health and wellbeing. And in ways that I think we should explore, because I think it's really helpful, especially in this moment that we're in, when we force positivity or when we force positive thinking, it sounds good on the surface, but actually it undermines our agility, it undermines our resilience and our capacity. In other words, it sounds good, But it actually makes us more fragile.

So give me an example. Someone leaves a nasty comment online about me, someone cuts me off on the road, a family member does something where I feel taken advantage of or neglected, whatever it may be, our partner does something that they broke their word and it infuriates us and we have this emotion. We have a thought that turns into a story and a feeling of I'm angry. Yes. In this moment, this triggered me in a way that whatever trigger it hit, it hit a button, I'm angry. So what should we not think positive in that moment? What should we do if we feel that sense of anger or frustration, resentment, I'm not enoughness, whatever this emotion is that holds us down in a lower state of energy, what should we think in that moment if it's not positivity?

Well, the first thing that I'll say in relation to that is this notion that we can just think positive actually doesn't work.

Okay.

So it's not that we've even got a choice. It actually doesn't work. If we, in experiments, if we say to people, don't think about an ice cream, you know, or don't think about, we actually know that in around a minute, we have this amplification effect where the person actually thinks about the thing that they're trying not to think about around 40 times. And we've all experienced this. We've experienced this when we try not to think about that piece of chocolate cake in the refrigerator. And all we think about is that piece of chocolate cake. We've experienced this when we decide, you know, we're really angry and we're not going to say anything to our, whether it's to our boss or to a loved one.

Then we explode.

Yeah. And then we end a meeting and that thing comes out. So this idea that we should actually think positive It actually doesn't work. It doesn't work.

So what works instead?

Okay, so what we first need to recognize is that having difficult thoughts, emotions, and stories is actually normal. This idea that we need to be happy all the time is abnormal. And I say this for two reasons. Firstly, life's beauty and its fragility are interwoven. So for every single person, the normal experience of life is that we're going to have illness, we're going to have loss, we're going to have breakups. And so when we force ourselves to always be positive, we're not living in the world as it is. We're living in the world as we wish it to be. In other words, forced positivity is not healthy. forced positivity is denial. Forced positivity is avoidance. Forced positivity is gaslighting yourself. It's basically pretending to yourself that your inner experience is not valid and trying to paper over your inner experience with something else because culture tells us to. So our difficult thoughts, emotions, and stories are actually normal. They are part of our body and psychology's way of adapting to threat, to looking out for things that might be going wrong, we have around 16,000 spoken thoughts every single day, and many more thousand that course through our mind. And so one of the ways that we start becoming in agile or rigid or inflexible is when we have these normal experiences and then instead of showing up to that with a level of acceptance and graciousness and compassion for ourselves, which is really such a healthy and wholehearted way of being with ourselves, instead, what we often do is we have them and we say, well, I shouldn't be upset or I shouldn't be. Well, my experience is not as bad as other people's. And so what we do is from the outset, we actually undermine our capacity to be healthy. And when you do that, you are much more likely to be triggered by someone or to be, you know, enraged by a person who cuts you off on the road as an example, because you aren't operating from a place of clarity and wisdom in yourself. you operating from a place of hustling with your emotions. And that takes cognitive resource, trying to push emotions aside, trying to second guess yourself actually takes resources. And so you're not able to then bring yourself in a way that's breathing and centered into your experience.

So give me some more coaching on this so I understand. cause I want to make sure that I'm, I'm not doing it. I'm not, I don't have an in emotional agility myself. You know, I try to really have perspective in life on most of my days and try to not obsess over things that might cause suffering for me.

Yeah.

And even though I might be upset, frustrated, hurt by something in the moment, I don't say that I shun those emotions away, but I try to quickly find perspective, find the gratitude in the moment, figure out how will this benefit me, what can I learn from this moment as opposed to creating more frustration and stress and anxiety in the moment by reaction, by getting angry and sad all day about something. I try to say, you know what? What is my vision? What is my purpose? How can I increase the level of my quality of my health, my happiness in this moment? maybe I'm going to feel sad for, you know, a period of time, but how can I move through it faster with more agility? What can I be thinking about then? Should I be holding on to these emotions longer? Is it okay to have perspective and gratitude and say, you know what? That sucked. I don't like it. But I'm going to focus on the next moment in my life. What do you.

Yeah. So I think what you describe is such a beautiful example of emotional agility. so many ways. If we think about the opposite of emotional agility, what I've already described is this idea that these inner experiences are normal. And so what we want to do when we are emotionally agile human beings is we want to come to our inner experiences with a level of connection with them. But we also don't want them to drive us, right? Because you know, you in that moment, you are not defined by a single emotion. You are a person with values and intentions and relationships and wisdom and breathing and there's so much more to you than your emotion in that very moment. So if we think about emotional in agility, what we're doing when we are in agile is we have a thought. The thought might be, I'm not good enough. We have an emotion. The emotion might be this feeling of stress or this story. And what we do is we get hooked into this experience. We start treating it as fact. We start letting it dictate our actions. So we'll say something like, well, you said such and such and it made me feel this and that's why I left the room. In other words, We either give our power over to the person, basically telling them that they were responsible for our action.

You made me feel this way.

You made me feel this way. Or we give our power over to that single emotion. Okay? My emotion told me to do such and such, so I did it. And what we're doing in both of those circumstances is we're not being emotionally agile because not being appropriate to the circumstance, which is a circumstance that has, you know, different aspects of how we can bring ourselves to it.

So in that scenario, are we being either a victim to the person or a victim to our own emotions? Is that what I'm saying?

And both, and both very often. I mean, it depends on the context. But of course, you know, when we say to someone, when we say to someone, I did this and you drove me to it. What we are doing is we are giving all of our power to that person. And when we say to ourselves, I'm feeling something or I'm thinking something and therefore I'm doing it, we are giving all of our power over to that single thought, you know, whether that thought is, I don't want to exercise today, or the thought is something else, we're giving our power over to them. So these are signs of rigidity. You know, rigidity, by definition, is when you have these experiences, but instead of noticing them in a way that's flexible and light and not too clenched into.

Them.

We can either hold onto them and let them drive us, or we can notice them in a way that's curious and compassionate. And in doing so, what we do is we are able to step into a different place. And so what you describe in your example, which is you're not letting your emotion call the shots, but rather you stepping into the place of your values.

And that is- Your vision, your values, what you want to create, who you want to create.

Correct, correct. And that is the cornerstone of emotional agility. The only thing that I would say in the example that you gave, Louis, is that very often our emotions actually contain signposts of things that we care about.

So not- Would it all be something we care about or something we also haven't healed or faced?

Matters, like something that matters to us. So not every emotion, of course, needs to be acted upon, but our emotions are data. And so the way that I often think about this is our emotions are data, not directives. So what do I mean by our emotions or data? If people are listening right now and they think back over the past couple of weeks or months, and if you imagine having a piece of paper and writing on that piece of paper an emotion that you've been experiencing. So loneliness, boredom, guilt, sadness, anxiety, grief, okay, whatever that emotional experience is. In agility is when you either take that piece of paper and throw it away and pretend to be positive or avoid it or get lost in Netflix. But in agility by the same token is where we aren't then learning from those emotions. And so if you have those emotions on an imaginary piece of paper, forced or toxic positivity might say to you, turn that piece of paper over and now write what you're grateful for. Write what you think you should be focusing on and positive about. But what I'm doing in emotional agility is I'm actually inviting a very different conversation with the self. On the one side of the piece of paper, you've got the emotion. On the other side of the piece of paper, what is that emotion signaling to you about your needs or about what matters? And so, Louis, like an example might be boredom might be signaling that I need more growth in my work. And it's a signpost. that I need to be taking action in that direction. Loneliness, we can be lonely in a relationship, we can be lonely in a crowd, we can be lonely in a house full of people that we were with 24/7 because we can literally feel our wall go up with our loved one as we pass and brush against one another in the kitchen. And loneliness might signpost that you need more intimacy connection. Grief. Grief is love looking for its home. You know, grief is signposting that there is love that you've had in a relationship or in an experience and inviting you to reconnect with that. And so maybe that helps to give some of the distinction in the example that you give, which is I'm not anti happiness at all. You know, I love being happy. But when we push aside normal human experiences, we fail to learn from them and to therefore be adaptive to the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.

And obviously we're all unique human beings with our own experiences and timelines of things. but if a value of ours that we choose is I want to live a healthy, happy whole life and focusing on something that is hurting me or stressing me or making me angry or resentful or and focusing on it for a very long period of time would be against that value. Is that right? Or am I missing something there? It's not dismissing it and saying, I do not feel angry in this moment. I am going to act like I am happy when someone, whatever, steals my money or beats me in the face or something. But it is, how do we get back to the value quickly?

-So, that is such an important, important part of this work, which is that often when people have these difficult emotions, what we do is we often have a tendency to do what I call bottling. And bottling, bottling, yes, bottling with the South African, Australian, New Zealand, Bostonian accent. Bottling is when you push aside the emotions. So bottling is the example of forced positivity or when you say, I've just got too much to do, I just don't want to go there or, you know, I'm trying to get on with this project. So bottling is when you have a difficult emotional experience and you push it aside. And often what you're doing is you're pushing it aside with really good intentions, which is you trying to get on with your day or your life. But bottling actually is associated over time with lower levels of well-being, more burnout, hitting walls more often, and more often actually having experiences when the world changes around you. You know, you lose your job or COVID hits where you actually haven't been practicing emotional skills. And so now you actually are completely at a loss with how to deal with a situation that is fundamentally out of control.

Give me a practical example of how we can not bottle, but also be a functional human on a day-to-day level.

Yes.

Our boyfriend neglects us. Our spouse breaks their word in a moment and we're at dinner where our boss does something that offends us in the middle of the day. How do we process emotions? Not bottle them, but also not.

Sit.

Here all day and be like, I'm expressing myself and throwing up my emotions on everyone.

Yeah, no, completely. the opposite of bottling is brooding. And brooding is where we get stuck in our emotions. We're so busy focused on why we feel what we feel and we've been wronged and it's unjust and we're getting victimized by our Twitter feed or what's, you know, we're so victimized that that in of itself looks very different to bottling, but it's just as unhealthy. And it's almost like, you know, if I think about an, an a visual metaphor for this. It's almost like when we bottle, we've got this big pile of emotion books and we're holding them so tightly, so far away from us, that we drop the books. When we're brooding, we are holding the books so tightly to our hearts that we are unable to be in our relationship, to see our loved ones, to see their pain. and so we, both of those are examples of emotional in agility. And so what does emotional agility look like? Well, I think there's some really important components to this. The first is what I've come to call in my work, gentle acceptance. And gentle acceptance, I think, is this really beautiful idea that We often see when we are at a restaurant where we might see a caregiver, a parent with a little child. And what do you start seeing in this moment? You often see this situation unfold in front of you. The little child runs off from its parents or caregiver. It turns to look back. to see that the parents or caregiver are still there. And then when it makes sure that, yes, I'm safe, you know, I'm safe. If something goes wrong, someone will come in and intercede and help me. What does the child do? The child giggles even more and runs even further away from the caregiver. So what is going on here is so remarkably beautiful. And that is that the caregiver is providing to the child what in psychological terms is called a secure base. The secure base is this idea that the knowledge that this person has my back is actually what allows me to grow, to be curious, to explore, and to move forward in the world. Now if we take that idea and we apply it to the self, if we take this idea that we have our own back and what does having our own back look like? It means being compassionate and kind to ourselves, not invalidating ourselves or telling ourselves that we shouldn't feel what we feel. Having our own back actually actually allows.

Us.

Literally, to explore, to take risks, to be vulnerable, to give love, to put your hand up for a business opportunity. Because you know that if something goes wrong, that you will be forgiving and kind to yourself.

You've got your own back. But a lot of us, a lot of us, a lot of us beat ourselves. beat our back up. When we do something that's not right, we, we, you know, are like, stupid. I should never do that again. What were you thinking? How, you know, of course you couldn't have accomplished this or whatever. Of course you got rejected again, because you're, you're stupid. You're no good. You'll never do anything. We say these things, you know, or I should say I've said these things in the past. I don't want to say all of us, but I've said these things and it's, it's, I've had feelings in my younger life where I never had my own back.

Yes. And it's this example firstly of recognizing that sometimes these stories have arisen for a time and a place where actually at one point they might have been functional. Okay? And what do I mean by that? I mean often these stories can unfold in childhood or in trying to prove to another person, a teacher, a caregiver, and this constant feeling of unworthiness can actually be something that was actually really functional for a time, but has now reached a point in its life where it's no longer serving you. And so this idea of functionality is really important. But I think the other reason that often people don't have their own backs is there is this myth that we, you know, need to keep on pushing ourselves and driving and we see it everywhere. In the moment, in the moment, in the shadow of illness, of death, of COVID of such pain and heartache, it was so remarkable to me that we would go on social media and we would see things saying things like, if you didn't use your time in quarantine to dust off your screenplay or to start your own business, It's not that you didn't lack the time, it's that you lacked the discipline. You know, even in the moment of the most remarkable human pain, our culture still drives us to feel that we are in a never-ending Iron Man or Iron Woman competition, where having your own back feels weak or lazy or letting yourself off the hook. But actually it is the opposite. It is the opposite when we have our own back. And I can talk practically if that's helpful.

Yeah, go ahead.

What that actually looks like. But it's having your own back. That's, that's really important. So the first aspect of this is like this idea that I've mentioned before, which is just gentle acceptance. And gentle acceptance is not the same as passive resignation. It doesn't mean, oh, my goodness, I am what I am. This terrible. There's nothing I can do. Gentle acceptance is the idea that if you went out and it was raining, you would just be, oh, okay, it's raining. You know, that's gentle acceptance. Bottling would be saying, I'm going to ignore the fact that it's raining and therefore I'm not going to take my umbrella and I'm going to think positive or I'm going to just get on with my day. That's bottling. Brooding is like, oh my goodness, like why does it always rain when I'm trying to you know, I'm being facetious here, but those are the differences.

Sure.

So gentle acceptance is really this idea that there is no right or wrong way to feel or think about any situation. Your emotions and your thoughts come up every day, thousands of them, in a way that is designed to help you to be in the world. Now, it doesn't mean the emotion is fact, our emotions are data, not directives. Just because I feel something doesn't mean I need to act on it. But gentle acceptance is really important.

And it doesn't always mean it's real. It could be a story that's made up or it could be an interpretation of a scenario that we tend to hold on to and react to, right?

Yes, very much so. Very much so. Because when we are we carry with us, of course, stories from many situations and relationships and how we've interacted. And so, you know, when we are hooked, what we are often doing is we're giving those weight. And when we agile, we rather giving the context the weight. We're saying, this is the person in front of me that loves me. And even though my story is telling me that I'm unworthy, the person in front of me is showing love. So gentle acceptance is really important. But how else do we give ourselves self-compassion? How else do we have our own back? They're just really some, some practical ways. And I can give some examples that are more in the moment, but also longer term. The first is, is connecting with your child. inside of you. And really what I mean by that is there is, for every single person listening, there is a child inside of you that is saying, see me, you know, love me, hold me, listen to me. And in the busyness of our lives, we often get so stuck in goals or in our busyness or in the things that we're trying to do in our autopilot, that we forget to nurture that child inside of us that had hopes and dreams and that is still there and has needs. And so a really powerful way to start just connecting with yourself in a way that is compassionate is to think of the child inside of you and to ask the child what the child needs. The child may be saying, I need more joy, you know, that I've lost my spontaneous spark. And yes, I might be in quarantine, but I can pitch a tent on the dining room floor and have a picnic. Like, I just need that sense of quirk or I can dance around the room, there's something that the child needs. The child might be needing kindness. The child might be saying, you, need rest. So just asking what the child needs. Another thing that we can do is, as human beings, we're very, very tactile. and especially at a time where there is such a paucity of human touch, the ability literally just to remind yourself that you are here. Because, Lewis, we live our. Our lives so often in our heads, and we often forget that we are, you know, tactile human beings. And so often when doctors, for instance, are going in to give patients bad news, we ask them to do this. It's this just breathing grounding technique that reminds you that you are here. And then a last example, and you know, I've got other practical ways. I think it's going to be helpful for us to think about how we unhook from difficult, difficult and I think gentle acceptance is one of these first things. But another example is just thinking for a moment that if a child or someone that you loved came to you and said, I messed up, what would you do? Would you punish them? Tell them they're stupid? Tell them that they're unlovable? or would you take them in your arms and hold them? And when you take them in your arms and you hold them, you're not pretending that they didn't do the thing. You're not in denial. Rather, you are doing what I actually describe a little bit in my TED Talk, this idea, this word, sababona. Sawabona is the Zulu word for hello. And I grew up in South Africa and you hear it every day on the street. Sawabona, yabo sawabona. It's such a everyday word. But what does sawabona mean? Sawabona literally translated means I see you and by seeing you I bring you into being. And so when we suburban ourselves. What this does is it actually galvanizes us. It strengthens us to find our way forward in the world. Yeah.

This is powerful. I want to unpack this a little bit, but I'm curious.

You.

How long have you been married for?

I'm on. I've been married for 26 years.

26 years. What's been the biggest challenge personally for you in your marriage on navigating emotional agility? As someone who's the top expert in this and studying this daily and talking about it, what have you dealt with that's been hard for you?

Yeah. So even though I live in breathers, of course, I, you know, get hooked in emotions and I, you know, these are practices that we become better at over time. And I remember this really interesting example that I had many years ago where I had been writing a book and I mentioned the title of my book to a very, very famous esteemed psychologist whose name I will not mention. And in In the talking about this book that I was writing that I'd invested years into your life. And my life into, I literally saw this person's facial expression change and a couple of months later.

In a negative way or in a positive way?

In a way that was like, I could see that I'd said too much. And I saw him registering something that made me feel a sense of disquiet. So a couple of months later, I'm sitting in Starbucks working on this book, and I got a voicemail from this colleague saying to me that he had been writing a book and he was struggling with a title, and he hoped I didn't mind him using my title for his book. No.

I kid you not.

I kid you not.

How was Hoped you wouldn't mind?

What do you mean?

This is your book.

And the justification and it was like, you know, there are many other titles and you've got lots of time to develop, you know, and so he left this message. So what was really interesting in this example was I called my husband and my husband is a physician. My husband answers the phone that day as he sometimes does, which is, Susan, can't talk now. I've got a patient on the table waiting for a procedure. Okay? And we've all been in that situation. The trapdoor to your heart opens and you start like the one time when I need them, they're not available.

Like we start- They don't make me a priority. They don't care about me.

I do this whole thing. And so what's so interesting is I then start planning that when my husband's callback comes, which I know it will, it's going to be my turn to be unavailable.

Oh my gosh.

Okay? But don't we all do this? You know, what's remarkable is that we can put a man on the moon. We can automate pizza delivery so you do not need to interact with another human being. And yet the stuff that stuffs us up time and time again, in our relationships, in the way we come to the world, is in agility. When we get stuck in our stories, our narratives, our monkey mind, our planning, our getting hooked on being right and the other person's wrong. And so there I spent three days, three days in a snit with my husband.

Thinking, when can I get back to, when can I get back at my.

Husband for not Not with my colleague, but with my husband, whose only prime was trying to save his patient's life.

Yeah, right. He had to go in five minutes right now.

And I'm using this as an example, but the reason I use it as an example is because if you had to say to me, who do you want to be in your relationship? What is the value that you want to bring to the relationship? The value would have been I want what I call a clean relationship. What I mean by a clean relationship is a relationship in which my husband is allowed to do his work without worrying I'm gonna serve divorce papers on him.

Right.

So we all do this. We all do this. And the magic, the magic of the human moment is that we think we are so strategic and logical and yet the magic is in these skills. Because you can be a child growing up with all the knowledge you want in the world, but one day your heart will be broken. One day you will lose your job. Life's beauty is inseparable from its fragility. And it's your capacity to manage your emotions and to step out of them and to be compassionate and to be values connected. That's helpful. So to answer your question. I'm not immune from any of this. I think what has been the biggest learning for me has been firstly to ask myself much more frequently questions like, I may be right, but is my response serving me? You know, I may be right, but is my response bringing me closer to being the person that that I most want to be, the leader that I most want to be, the parent that I most want to be. That has been a really, really helpful way of being. And then I think the other part of it that's been really helpful is holding ourselves lightly, you know, holding our emotions lightly. And what that sometimes means is not taking ourselves so seriously that we get so stuck in our story that we are unable to just, like, laugh at the moment, which is these two human beings muddling their way through the world, trying to raise a family, or as listeners will experience, we didn't get an instruction booklet for COVID. And it is a tragedy. and yet one of the most beautiful ways we can perspective take is to just for a moment imagine that I'm not in a tragedy. I'm in a comedy. You know, right now I'm in a comedy where I've got like two kids at home, that I'm homeschooling. I haven't been to a restaurant in a year. Like there's something, you know, and it's all because of this thing that I no saying and it's a tragedy and yet I think I can hold it lightly while not denying the heartache.

So what's the difference between reframing that you're living in a comedy as opposed to a tragedy? Retelling the story and shifting the perspective but not living in a state of forced positivity? What's the difference there between, well, okay, let's reshape the story, but not live in forced positivity. Where's that fine line?

So when we're doing forced positivity, we're basically not showing up to the story. We're not showing up to the learning of it.

We're denying it.

We're denying it.

We're saying this isn't happening. I'm happy. This is not real.

Yes.

Gotcha.

Forced positivity is, I think, one of the greatest contributors to decreases in human well-being right now. Because what it does is it doesn't allow people the space to, or even the permission, to process normal experience. So what do we do then? What do we do then that helps us? What do we do then that's effective? And like, what are these differences? A key difference is this acceptance, this gentle acceptance, but there are others. So for instance, when you say something like, I'm stressed, forced positivity might be pretending that you're not or trying to find things that you're grateful for. emotional agility is saying, I'm stressed. I'm showing up to that stress with gentle acceptance. But then my emotions are data. So how do I perspective take from those emotions? How do I get perspective so that I'm not stuck in the emotion, but rather learning from the emotion and actually living my life? So here are some, some strategies that I think are really very, very important. The first is what is called emotion granularity. So, Lewis, often people, when they're experiencing difficult emotions, will use big umbrella terms to describe what it is we experiencing.

I'm always feeling this way. I'm never getting what I need. This is.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, or how was your day? Stressful. How are you feeling right?

I'm overwhelmed.

I'm overwhelmed. So often what we do is we use these very big umbrella labels to describe what it is that we're feeling. But if you think about it, your body, your psychology, your motivation, your ability to take action cannot respond effectively to something that feels so vague as stress. There is a world of difference between stress and disappointment, stress and depletion, stress and that knowing feeling of I'm in the wrong job or the wrong career. So when you instead of just saying I'm stressed, you say to yourself, what are two other things? What are two other options that I could use to describe what I'm feeling right now? What are you doing is you're going beyond the umbrella and it's very simple. You're just saying, I'm calling myself angry, but what else might be happening here? And this thing called emotion granularity is so extraordinarily powerful because what it does in the moment of saying, I'm depleted, I need support, or I'm bored, I'm in the wrong job, in that moment, what you are doing is you are starting to activate what is called the readiness potential in your brain. And it's the part of you in your psychology that helps you to understand what the cause is of the emotion and also what you need to do in response to that emotion. And that is, this skill sounds so subtle, but it is associated even in children in longitudinal studies, children who have greater levels of emotional granularity. have high levels of well-being ability to delay gratification and so on. Because you can imagine if you're a 16 year old child and someone says to you, oh, let's let the air out of the principal's car tires. And you're like, oh, that sounds exciting. And excitement is the emotion that's the umbrella emotion. But then underneath it, actually you've got disquiet or anxiety. If you haven't learned how to connect with that more subtle emotion underneath it. You're going to be constantly swept away by peer pressure, what other people are doing, whereas when you're connecting with your emotions in a more granular way, you are grounding yourself in yourself. And there was I had this example of a client many years ago, and it was just a beautiful example. It came to mind as we were talking of this client always he used to say things like, he used to describe everything as angry. He would say, you know, I'm angry, my team's angry, my wife's angry. And that was his word. His word was angry. And I started to say to him, you know, what are, you use this label a lot. What are two other words that you could use to describe? And so he started saying, you know, I'm in a new role and maybe I'm not angry Maybe I'm actually scared. And maybe my team is not angry. Maybe my team, because they've had a prior bad experience, is distrustful. Now you can see that if you go into a meeting with, I'm angry and they angry, it's a very different meeting than, I'm going into this meeting scared and my team's going in looking for opportunities to build trust. And a couple of, you know, months after this conversation, I was very good friends with him. He was a long-term friend of mine. And I went out with him and his wife for dinner, and his wife said that this absolutely changed the relationship because he would say to her, you angry? And she would say, I'm not angry. It's just the end of the day, and I'm ready tired or I just need support. So that's one way that we can start now moving out of emotions, driving us into us creating psychological space between us and the emotions. I've got other practical strategies if it's helpful.

Sure. I'm curious, is it important for us to label our emotions and identify as our emotions or are we not our emotions? Or they're just a thing we're feeling in a moment?

Well, this, yeah, this is, this actually so beautifully connects with something else that may be helpful to people. So our emotions are part of us. We are not our emotions. But often the language that we use is language that over identifies identifies ourselves with our emotions. So when we say something like, I am sad, I am angry, what you are doing linguistically is you are saying, I am all of me, 100% of me, is that emotion.

That's not good.

Yeah, there's no space for anything else. There's no space for breathing, for wisdom, for intention, values. any other parts of ourselves.

What should we say instead?

So a really good way of thinking about this is when you say I'm sad, it's almost as if you imagine a cloud in the sky. And when you say I'm sad, it's almost like you have become the cloud. You know, you've become the sad cloud. But actually, a a really beautiful, effective way of getting space between yourself and the emotion is by simply noticing it for what it is. So I am sad, I'm noticing that I'm feeling sad, I'm being undermined, I'm noticing this is my fault that I'm being undermined, I'm not good enough, I'm noticing that this is I'm not good enough story. And what you do here is you're moving from I am sad, I am the cloud into doing in psychological terms what's called the meta view, the ability to helicopter above your emotions. And when you do this, when you say I'm noticing the thought, the emotion, the feeling for what it is, it's a thought, it's an emotion, it's a feeling. for what it is. It's not a fact. It's a thought, emotion, a feeling. When you do this, what you're doing is you move away from being the cloud and you become the sky. You are literally linguistically starting to create space that allows you to breathe into the experience and choose how you want to respond.

How important is it for us to use different different language verbally and internally speaking to ourselves when we're expressing or talking about our feelings and emotions.

It's actually really important and I think it's one of the most almost under-recognized powers that we as human beings have. And I don't mean again this I said such and such to myself, now I'm going to ignore it and just be positive. In fact, there's a very large body of research that shows that simply doing positive affirmations doesn't actually work. That again, there's this amplification or rebound effect. So what do we want to do instead? How do we draw on the wisdom of language or self-talk in ways that are powerful? So there are a couple of aspects to this. The first is I'm sure every person who's listening has had this experience where you are, you know, so angry because your telephone bill is wrong yet again. And you have tried 363 times to get hold of another human being. And finally you get hold of a human being to discuss the telephone bill. or whatever it is with them and you decide that you are going to give the person a piece of your mind. Okay? So what you're doing there is you are hooked, you are immersed by that emotion. Okay? Then there's this little voice that goes off inside your head that says, Susie, if you just tell this person how you feel, she's going to conveniently lose your files. or never call you back again. And so you find the ability to both feel the feeling but to also rise above it. And what I described earlier about that meta view is exactly an example of that you developing a meta view. So how else do we do it? So labeling emotions effectively, moving from I am to noticing your thoughts, emotions, stories for what they are. Another strategy that's really really powerful is often when people are feeling stuck, like really stuck. I don't know what to do about this relationship or this job or I just feel stuck and they go and they see a psychologist or they see a coach and the coach says to them, well, what do you think you should do in this situation? And the person says to the coach, I've got no idea.

That's why I'm here.

Okay, I am stuck by definition.

That's why I'm here with you, yeah.

That's why I'm here. Then the coach says to the person, well, who is someone whose wisdom you really value, who you know loves and cares for you, who wants the best for you? Let's imagine for a moment that we bring this person into the room. What is this person telling you to do? about the situation. And here, what does the client do? They start saying, well, they would advise me to do this and they would advise me to do that. And it's the most remarkable thing to see because of course there is no imaginary person in the room. It is just the two of you. So what has happened when we are stuck, we are in one perspective, one way of seeing things. When we bring an imaginary other person into the room, it's not that that person is there giving you advice, but it's that perspective taking that allows you to move from that space into that alternative perspective. And so, in effect, the person is actually giving themselves their own advice, but they're doing it by perspective taking. And of course, perspective taking is the hallmark of empathy. You know, when you are empathetic towards another person, you are moving from your emotional space into the emotional space of another person. And so this perspective taking capacity is a hallmark of emotional effectiveness.

It reminds me of, I think in terms of sports analogies as a former athlete, it reminds me of when I would doubt myself before a big game, I would step into an alter ego. And I would say, well, what would my, you know, the best version of myself or this former great athlete in my position, what would they become? What would they do? How would they show up, you know?

Yes.

And it's stepping into, you know, triggering a different being inside of you, in a sense, to show up differently in that moment so you don't crumble to your emotions, your feelings, and, and hold hold onto them, but rise to something greater in that moment.

It is so powerful, Louis. That's such a beautiful example. It reminds me a little bit of LeBron James. And he was describing making a big decision and how he started saying, you know, not what should I do, but talking to himself in the third person. so it's like instead of what should I do? So Susie, what's a good thing to do right now? And what I'm doing is I'm talking to myself and we all talk to ourselves. In fact, it's a, it's a, we just, it just depends on how we talk to ourselves. But what we're doing is we're talking to ourselves in the third person and we're bringing a different perspective. And that third person perspective taking is a core way that we get unstuck. And again, why are we getting unstuck? Why do we care about getting unstuck? We care about getting unstuck because what we're trying to do is we're trying to move from our emotional thought or story driving us in ways that are not helpful or connected to the moment and who we want to be in the moment. So what we're doing is we are not ignoring them we letting them loosen their grip over us so that we can step with power into our intentions and our values.

And what is the science behind values and individuals developing their personal values or principles for their life and how it will support them with, again, following up on their habits and just improving their life in general? How important is it to have values How do we create those values?

It's extremely, extremely important. Values are often seen as being these abstract ideas, you know, things that are written on walls in businesses. I'll give you some examples of how values come into play. And one of the main ways that they come into play is by protecting us against what is called social contagion. So you'd ask for some of the science around this and an example is that all of us are subject to social contagion. And social contagion is the idea that over time, without even becoming aware of it, certain behaviors become normalized. So we can suddenly realize that you know, from going, you're meeting with a team and like no one's on their phone, now all of a sudden everyone's on their phone, or someone goes into an elevator, one person takes out their phone, now everyone does. There have been really fascinating studies showing that if you in non-COVID times are on an airplane and your seat partner who you do not even know buys candy your likelihood of buying candy increases 70%.

Wow.

It's, it's, and there's, yeah.

Robert Cialdini talks about this in social proof in his book influence, which is, yes. You know, if you see a long line, you're more likely to go in that line than a store with no line because, hey, more people over here. So it must be better or something.

Right.

It's like, if everyone's looking up, you're gonna look up and be, you know.

Yeah. And it's, it's. remarkable. And what he describes is just so powerful. It's really remarkable. I mean, large-scale epidemiological studies show that if someone in your social network, you do not even need to know the person, there could be two or three degrees of separation from you. If they put on weight, stop exercising, I mean, these are just the studies that I'm citing, get divorced, your likelihood of doing those things increases.

Really? If people you don't even know, but are connected to someone else or getting divorced, you're like, well, if they did it, then I guess I can do it.

It starts to normalize behaviors within social and both positive, you know, both more positive behaviors and more negative. But what is the impact for us? And of course, we saw this with the buying toilet paper scourge at the beginning of COVID like what is going on there? there's a social contagion that is actually happening. Now, how does this impact us? It impacts us because it can lead to us engaging in behaviors that are not reflective of who we want to be. Suddenly we are wanting to drive our next-door neighbor's car or live in our next-door neighbor's house. I mean, not literally, I mean, in terms of wanting the desires of other people or we, everyone else is wearing a particular item of clothing and now we feel we need to own that piece of clothing. And it operates in such profound ways. So for instance, if we look at, if we look at stereotyping, we often think of stereotyping as something that other people have about us. But what we know is that we can actually internalize stereotypes and then in times of stress, we actually turn those stereotypes against ourselves. So if you for instance are a first generation college goer and you've grown up in a community that says, oh we don't go to college, we don't go to college here, we don't go to college, but you fight it, you try and you decide that you are going to go to college and you work really hard you go to college and then as will happen at some point, you fail your first test. At that point, around two-thirds of those people will drop out and they'll start saying things like: Everyone was right. I wasn't cut out for it. So then, this is how value is coming. We take these these people and we say to them, spend 10 minutes at the beginning of your college, and literally 10 minutes, writing down why you're doing this college degree, why it's important, what your values are, what your purpose is here. Or if you're a woman in science, write down why it is that you're going into this profession. What we know is that this simple exercise of values affirmation. The simple process of saying, this is what's important to me. It doesn't need to be convoluted. Protects those people two and three years down the track.

From dropping out. Wow.

Yeah.

Just because if they, if they don't create the value, if we don't create values, then we're, is it that much easier for us to say, well, this is hard and I'm just going to stop doing what I want to do because I don't know why I'm doing it in first place?

Well, firstly, values provide the keel that keeps you steady even when things are tough. If you're writing a book, if you're taking on a really difficult project, you're going to run into hard times. And keeping your eye on the prize, and what I mean by prize here is the values-based prize of why it is that you're doing something you want to go is going to help to stain you. But another reason that it protects you is because if, because social contagion is so strong. And, and I mean, literally from, like, the phone that we pick up to the Instagram account that we go on to, like, every aspect of Our Lives, it's so strong. The pull is so powerful that when we don't have sense of who we want to be, what's important to us. We literally are then just winging it every single day.

We have no guide, we have no direction, we have nothing that we're working towards, even when we're distracted. And that's, that's why I think, you know, sports for me was really helpful to give me certain practical tools as an athlete, because if we didn't have a goal for the season, if we didn't have weekly goals, if we didn't have a support system, coaches, game film to review what worked, what didn't work as data, and something to continue to work towards, we'd have been like, why am I working so hard? Why am I struggling so much? It's just challenging to build this momentum on this sport or this college course or whatever. And I would just probably easily give up. But when we have something greater we're working towards, We're more committed to the process is what I'm hearing you say.

Yeah, yes, absolutely. And also just related to that is, is that goals can be have two goals or they can be want two goals.

What's the difference?

Well, a have to goal is a goal that is derived out of a sense of shame or obligation. You know, someone is- My parents need.

Me to finish medical school or whatever.

Yeah. You know, that's a have to goal. Or my doctor told me that I need to do A, B, C, otherwise I'm going to die. Right. A have to goal is a goal that is derived out of a sense of shame or obligation. And when you have a have to goal, there is literally a physiological response that differs internally with the way you approach that goal. And I'll give you an example. If you've got a have to goal that says, you know, I have to be, I have to be fit or I have to eat healthily, then actually, and you're like, I'm going to rely on willpower in order to, because when you have to go, you have to rely on willpower. So now you open the refrigerator and your brain processes taste attributes. minutes, 195 milliseconds before you even know whether you're eating that thing in the refrigerator or not. In other words, you think that you're going to be using your willpower, but willpower doesn't even come into it. Your brain knows whether you are going to eat that thing in the refrigerator or not.

It's guiding you.

It's guiding you. Okay? So have two goals literally ramp up temptation. They ramp up resistance and they down ramp our ability to be sustained. A want to goal is a goal that is derived out of a sense of my values. What is important to me? What do I hold to? What am I trying to create here? And so a want to goal is a goal that is intrinsically intrinsically derived because it is personally meaningful to you. And in every single aspect, literally of how people can operate in their relationships, to work, to how they give feedback to their projects, one to two goals, down ramp temptation, and lead to more sustained behavior change.

Yeah, it's like, I feel like you can really optimize delayed gratification more when have one, two goals. And I feel blessed because my parents were always, you know, supportive of me kind of going against the grain and just doing what I wanted to do as long as I wasn't hurting anyone and as long as I was contributing in a certain way. And I feel like I've been very fortunate to be able to choose one, two goals throughout most of my life. Not always, but most especially in the last eight years, I've I've had that fortune to be able to choose one, two goals.

And.

Again, I'm not perfect, but I feel like I'm much able to delay gratification constantly because I see the value of holding to what I want right now will create something better for me in the future. And I'm not resisting it all the time. So it's a certain feeling that's freeing and less stressful when you have that. I understand not everyone has that fortune at every stage of their life to do that. If you're living under the house with your parents and you're relying on them at a certain period of time, you might have two goals based on that environment. So I don't know how you would reshape those, you know?

Yeah, well, one, two goals are derived very deeply from a sense of this is what matters to me. So of course not every, you know, we can't leave every situation. We can't just be, oh, well, like, I don't like my job. And it's, you know, a hefty job rather than a one-to-job. Therefore, now I'm out of here. So very powerful becomes the idea of, of tiny tweaks, of small changes that feel values aligned. So, you know, an example might be that In the example that you gave, it might be that you remind yourself that the circumstances are not necessarily circumstances that you choose.

Right.

But you do have a choice about your relationship and the value of your relationship or how you want to bring yourself to the world. You want to go might be the one-to goal of partnering or of community or of collaboration or of fairness. And so you may not like, you know, doing the various things that you might do in that house, feeling that you don't have the choice, but you might also recognize an element of fairness around them, and that can be very freeing. In the workplace and even in other aspects of our lives, you know, I think one of the great misconceptions about powerful change is that it needs to be big and bold, that in order to make big changes, we need to make big changes. But actually the most powerful changes are in the tiny tweaks. It's how can I tweak the interaction? How can I tweak When I'm trying to enhance my relationship right now, there might be a moment in time every day where your spouse or your partner and you intersect in the living room. And you might recognize that in that intersection, you on your phone, they on their phone. the moment is gone. And a tiny tweak might be that idea that that moment, that predictable moment that I see every day, a tiny tweak is that I'm going to put down my phone and truly hug the person.

Right. I'm not throwing my phone in a safe and locking it away for 10 hours and making this big, drastic thing, but, you know, spending the first 20 minutes at home present and connected before I get back on my phone or something like that.

Yeah, the tweaks that we make are usually to be found in the interactions that we have with others, the way we come to the interaction. You know, you call your mom because you feel you have to and you have the phone conversation with that person, but then you're not really getting anything anything from it, and it feels almost like a cage. And a want to goal in relation to that might be reminding yourself of the love that you have and of the presence in that interaction. And so the way we tweak our goals is by thinking about the want to in our interactions, the. The want to or tweaking the what we put our hands up. in the projects we're doing at work, even if we can't change our job, you know, what can we bring ourselves towards that feels a little bit more values aligned or values connected? Are there other projects that you can put your hands up for? Are there interactions that you can have that are different? So they're meaningful ways that we can truly shift the cadence of our day-to-day experience.

It sounds like we need to know what our values are first to really stand on something and fall back on something in life in general. How do we create personal values for ourselves? Are we able to change them throughout time? And how many should we have at a certain time?

Well, one of the first ways connecting, as we've said, with values is just incredibly extraordinarily important. And one of the ways that we can start actually connecting with our values is by connecting first with those difficult emotions. You know, that idea of that piece of paper that the emotion is on the one side, the values on the other. What you really start seeing here is that our emotions are not barriers, but rather they are beacons to the things that we care about. So one really important way of starting to do this is when we feel a difficult emotion is instead of racing for the emotional exits to rather, you know, show up to that difficult emotion and say to yourself, what is this emotion signaling about what I care about? Because very often our difficult emotions will be signposting our values. so that's one way. Another way we can connect with our values in a very powerful way is by asking ourselves, just, you know, even at the end of the day, what did I do today that was worthwhile? Not what did I do today that I enjoyed, because I can enjoy getting drunk, going to a party, you know, often what's worthwhile is what is the thing that takes to the most discomfort.

Where you get the most growth.

Yes, it's that tough conversation. It's the so what did I do today that was worthwhile? And when we ask ourselves this, we start also connecting, you know, in greater levels with our values. Another thing that I found personally, I spoke about this in my TED talk, which is so much of my work is derived from growing up. I grew up as a white South African in apartheid South Africa, and it was a community that was committed in many ways to denial. And so from a very early age, I was interested in these ideas. And then my father was diagnosed with cancer, and I remember my mother telling me on a Friday to go and say goodbye to him. And so, you know, went to. I remember this little girl, you know, putting my backpack down and walking down this passage to say good goodbye to my father and this beautiful experience of knowing that even though my father was dying and it was the last time that I would be with that I felt seen. Okay, that I... By him or by him? I'd always felt seen by him. I'd always felt so aborted by him. I'd always felt it. And so I went through this connects with values. I went through this really interesting experience where he died on a Friday and on the Monday, because my mom was in grief and she was raising three children and she basically felt that we should keep things normal and so she sent me off to school. And I started this really interesting journey of doing the forced false positivity thing where I was dying inside. And people would say to me, How are you doing? And I would say, I'm okay.

I'm fine.

Yeah. But in truth, I was not okay. not okay. Our family was not okay. And I was praised for being strong. I became the master of being okay. And then one day, in the midst of this struggle, this English teacher hands out these blank notebooks, and she looks at the class and she looks directly at me and she these blank notebooks or journals. And she says, write. Tell the truth. Write like no one is reading. And it was just. I remember to this day, I'm still. Yeah, yeah. I'm still connected with her because.

Wow. What.

What was it doing? It was an invitation to see myself again, and it was an invitation to be seen again. pain, as opposed to pretend that I'm the master of being okay. And the reason that I give this example is because actually what became the catalyst to me being a psychologist was writing in this journal about my pain, about my grief, about my loneliness, my my desolation. and over time, what I realized was that that writing actually brought me to a profound sense of insight and resilience and agility, this feeling that I was actually okay, but in an authentic, real way, rather than a pretense way. And so one of the reasons I give this as an example is because we connect with our values when we are willing to see ourselves, you know, when we're willing to actually see ourselves. And one of the ways that we can often do this is by engaging in writing. And it doesn't need to be this convoluted process. It literally spending 10 minutes if you're going into a difficult interview or if you're having a difficult time in a relationship or even if you're going into a positive experience, but that you know is going to be challenging. Spending a little bit of time thinking about who do I want to be? What are some of the challenges? Who do I want to be in those challenges? What we know is that when we do that, we start to surface a sense of our values, the things that we hold on to, what I call the heartbeat of our own why. Yeah.

Cool. So you can start to really, what I'm hearing you say from this amazing story, you can start to develop your values based on the emotions, the discomfortable emotions that are coming up and you can start to see, well, what are the things that I truly want? You know, I don't know if it's opposite of these emotions or that I want to stand for when these emotions come up to be more of those things.

Yeah. It's what the emotions are either guiding us towards. The emotions are either saying, this is important to you. So it's either that the emotion is guiding you to those things or that you are actually starting to internally ground yourself in how your values are going to operate in difficult circumstances.

What are your main values?

A really important value of mine is autonomy. And it sounds actually like one of yours maybe as well. Yeah. This idea of feeling like you really want to be able to shape your world. I mean, I probably shouldn't, am I allowed to give one swear word?

Go ahead. Yeah, yeah.

In Australia, we swear a lot, but I know it's not a kind yeah.

It's all good.

You know, because when my father died, my mother was basically left in a very, very dire financial situation. And she sold stationery and every single day she would like package up these like books and pens and pencils. And for her it was a heft two job. And she always used to say to me, Susie, you've always got to have money. And what she meant by that was you've always got to be able to say f*** you, you know, whether that's in a relationship or whatever. And of course she didn't mean that literally. But what it did very much evoke in me is a recognition that something that's been always very important for me is having a sense of autonomy, being able to shape how I- Your life. My life, how I come to experiences. So autonomy is really important. A community is really important to me. And connectedness is really important. And a very important difference between goals and values is that values have an end point. You can check them off. You can say, you know, I wanted to start my own podcast and I did it. Check. A value is a direction. If you value being a present parent, you constantly going in that direction. If you value being a supportive partner, you never get to check it off.

You keep doing that thing.

It's always. Yeah, it's a life direction.

Goals are things you accomplish. Values are a way of being you're always in pursuit of, it sounds like.

Yes, yes. It's ways that you're trying to embody that are important to you. Yeah.

Okay. So autonomy, community, connectedness, what else?

Courage. Courage is a really, really important value. I think, again, that's something I know you with, you know, we've previously spoken about your relationship with your dad. I remember 10 years before my father had even been diagnosed with cancer, I was five. As a five-year-old child, many children become very scared of the idea of death. And I remember going and finding my way between my parents in their bed and saying to my father, Promise Promise me you'll never die.

Promise me you'll never die.

Oh, man. You know, and we didn't know that my father was actually going to be diagnosed with cancer, like, just 10 years later. And my father, you know, could have done the false positivity thing. He could have said, you, don't need to worry about that. Everything will be fine. You know, he could have done that. But he chose not to. He chose to guide me. with courage. And he would comfort me and he would say to me, Susie, we all die. It's normal to be scared, which is a very different way of being. You know, the one is like push away from. The other is step into. And for me, this has become a really important thing. This idea that courage is not the absence of fear, courage is about being able Notice your difficult emotions, your experiences, and still move forward in the direction of your values. Courage is not the absence of fear, it's fear walking.

Feeling the fear and diving in anyways, yeah.

Yes, and feeling it, but in a way that is compassionate and connected.

Not crippling you. Yes. But supporting you. In some way. Yes. That's powerful. What's the thing that you're most afraid of in the last recent part of your life that you've had to step into this value for?

Oh, that's such a great question. I think that, I mean, certainly COVID, the whole experience of COVID has raised for us as a family very specific fears. I've got a child who is immune compromised. My husband is a physician, and it's a really remarkable experience when you are. I'm now talking a year ago when all of this started, where you finding yourself sitting down and writing living walls. And, you know, that is a drawing of Courage that for me was very, very powerful. So I think so much of this moment has been encouraging me to think about, have I been living in ways that feel values congruent? Were there ways because I traveled so much for my work, you know, on the plane, like, so it's definitely for me, both around Health, but also just around the general choices that I was making that were very autopilot choices. They become autopilot at the moment. It's, it's, I'm very much stepping into the sense of there is this fragility, life's beauty and its fragility are interwoven and these tough emotions are normal. And there's also part of what had become my everyday experience that actually now I recognize I don't want to. I don't want to just resume.

Yeah, that's an interesting.

I don't know if you. Have you had any of those insights for yourself?

Yeah, I've had some. I've also just been. I've just been leaning more and more into how to serve, you know, in this time where I feel like. a lot of people are stressed and overwhelmed. I just am saying, okay, how can I lean more into my mission and taking care of my own personal health, my own emotions? You know, I've got therapists, coaches, I've got fitness coaches as well so that I stay on track with my value, which is health. And, you know, I'm not perfect. I'll have sugar and ice cream and all these other things, but it's like, okay, but I need to Sure that I have accountability for my health. Otherwise, I could easily go for like three to four weeks and just eat ice cream every day because it's the easy thing to do. And my feelings, my emotions, my feelings might take over and I could just fall into that autopilot. So it's setting up a schedule and structure with accountability. I kind of live my life like an athlete, because that's what I know. Because that's, that's, that's, you know, your identity. Exactly. and so I know that having that investing in accountability on the things that are my values support me in not having to have willpower every moment when I feel overwhelmed. But okay, this is scheduled in. I've invested in going to see the trainer or doing whatever the activity is, or seeing the therapist to process emotions so that I don't feel overwhelmed and stressed. having that and kind of doubling down on that has been extremely valuable for me while I'm building a team, hiring people, managing emotions of, you know, three times more people that I've normally have.

Yeah.

Navigating the financial stresses of a business, you know, whatever it may be, and making sure that my values and my foundation is.

Is strong.

So that's what I've been doing.

I think what you describe is such a powerful aspect of something that I actually talk about in my book, Emotional Agility, which is that so often, because as human beings we are drawn to autopilot, one of the most powerful ways we can start living our lives in a way that is values congruent is by creating then autopilot habits.

To support you.

Taught you.

Yeah, exactly.

So that instead of your habits being things that undermine you, your habits are actually the easiest thing that you do and values congruent because you've got a, you've got a support Network around you. I think the same, you know, when I, when I think, when I talk about Community, Community is just such a powerful value of mine. And for me, that's really come into play in my work because there's such There's such a profound need. There's such profound levels of burnout, of stress, of issues around mental health. And for me, that has been my guiding light through this time. Yeah.

And what would you say are some of the better strategies around stress or burnout and struggle that people can cultivate? What can we do? when we're feeling these things?

Well, I think honestly, we've spoken about so much of this, which is the, if you're experiencing in this moment these feelings, to not start trying to push them aside or disengage with them, but to engage with gentle acceptance. Routine is really, really important. It's very difficult to conquer the world, to build a business. It's very difficult if you're doing it on no sleep. So routine is really important. Compassion is really important. I've got this beautiful, I'll actually send it to you in case it's helpful to you. But what I'm calling the emotional pyramid of needs at this moment.

Please send it to me.

Yeah, it's so it's really just these ideas of emotional agility that are connected with this moment that we are in right now. And so, you know, tough emotions that there's no hierarchy when it when it comes to what emotions are allowed or what trauma is allowed, that tough emotions are expected. But a really important part is also that the, the more we struggle to control what is uncontrollable, the more we increase our suffering. You know, the greater our level of trying to control what is uncontrollable, the more we increase our suffering. Yeah. And, and Sometimes people say things like, well, COVID is such a loss of control. And I'm like, yes. And the idea that we even had control to begin with was a mere fiction.

We don't have control. Yeah.

We don't have control. And so trying to push aside, think positive, they are all tools of trying to control stuff that is uncontrollable. Instead, trying to accept and embrace and recognize that there is this wisdom, there is this bothness, there is this beauty and fragility that is part of who we are when we step into that in a more profound way. Then what we do is we're now not trying to control what uncontrollable, we actually step into the reality that it is uncontrollable, that evokes discomfort, but we are able to breathe into that discomfort.

Yeah, what I'm hearing you say then is breathing into the discomfort, noticing acceptance of the feeling, and then leaning back under values. Okay, well, what is my value and how long do I want to stay in this discomfort? Do I stay in this for days? Or do I notice it, feel it, process it, and move forward? Is that accurate?

Yeah, this moment, again, I always think about this Victor Frankl idea, it's this between stimulus and response. When we hook, there's no space between stimulus and response. We act, we're acting out, we're reacting. When we are showing up, when we're accepting, when we're labeling the emotion, when we're noticing the thought emotion story for what it is, when we perspective take it, when we're doing the kinds of things that. That I mentioned earlier, what we're starting to do literally is create that space. And what are we inserting into that space? We're inserting our why. Who do I want to be? Because for every single one of us right now, this moment is asking all of us, who do you want to be? Are you agile? And agility is born of a lifelong correspondence. with your own heart. It's not born of a controllable world.

Right. Who do you want to be, Susan?

I want to be. I want to be agile. I want to be kind to myself. I want to. I'm. I'm absolutely imperfect, but I'm trying to much more frequently step into discomfort, whether that's uncomfortable conversations, but that are guided by values. Again, if I have an uncomfortable conversation because I'm angry, then the emotion is driving. If I recognize that my value is that I value fairness, then I can start asking myself, how fair is it if I don't have this conversation? How fair is it to the team? How fair is it to the individual? How can I have the conversation fairly? And so we stepping into discomfort, but we doing it with the heartbeat of who we want to be in the world.

Yeah, that's beautiful. I feel like I could talk to you for hours on this, and this is extremely valuable for me as reminders and hopefully extremely valuable for everyone listening and watching. I want everyone to get your book, Emotional Agility, get unstuck, embrace change and thrive in work and life. And, I would say, in relationships as well if you wanted to add something to that too. But, I'm a big fan of your content and everything you put out on Instagram. I love following and seeing just the daily reminders of these things because it's easy easy for us to consume content or information that triggers our emotions in a negative way as opposed to supports us to getting back to who we want to be, to supporting our values, to reflecting from a place of more peace as opposed to reaction and reacting from our emotions that don't support us. So I want everyone to go, I want everyone to go follow you. SusanDavidPhD on Twitter, Instagram, and SusanDavidPhD over on Facebook and get the book. Get it for a friend. I think everyone needs to read this book right now. Did you do the audio version yourself?

I did the audio version. And actually, as you're talking, one other resource that I think may be really helpful because you were asking about practical ways that we can understand our values. And I've got this quiz online that around 100 50,000 people have taken. It's about a five minute quiz. It asks a couple of questions about your emotions, your values, and then it gives you a free 10 page report and that you can find on my website. It's susandavid.com/learn.

I'm gonna do that right now. That's good.

Sounds good. And thank you for the nice. We very much, you know, I'm very focused on social media of creating a space that helps people to breathe into these ideas in very, very practical ways.

Of course, that's brilliant. Well, I acknowledge you, Susan, for showing up the way you do in a time when people need someone like you to serve and help people who are distracted and overwhelmed and stressed. Your light and your values and your mission is extremely important. And, I'm just so grateful for you. I'm grateful for your work. I could listen to you for a long time. So, I'm glad that you did the audiobook as well because I feel like I could just listen to you for hours and feel calmer. I just feel like calm in your presence and in your energy. So, I want to make sure everyone gets the book. susandavid.com/learn will take you to a quiz that I see right there over 150,000 takers right there. You can test yourself. susandavidphd, everyone. online and check out the TED Talk as well. Yeah, check out the TED Talk. It's right there on the top of your website so you can check it out there. Susan, if people want to learn, if they want to hear your three truths and your definition of greatness, they'll have to go back and listen to the previous episode we did, which had even more content. So we'll link that up there so people need to go listen there. But any final words?

Just I'm grateful to be here and again, I'm just just know that this moment for all of us is asking so much. And I just, if you're struggling, struggle is normal and breathe into it. I think it's just really powerful for us to think about who we want to be in this moment.

Susan, David, thank you so much. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, my friend, for listening to this episode. I am just such a fan of everything Susan shares. Make sure you check her out on social media. Check out her book, such a game changer today and this time that we're living in right now to be able to develop and understand how we can have more emotional agility in our own lives. Again, if you found this powerful for your life, then I know you might know one, two, or three people that would be inspired by this as well. Go ahead and share this with a few friends. Post it on WhatsApp group, post it on social media, text a few friends, directly and say, Hey, I thought you would enjoy this. Check it out on the School of Greatness. You can use the link lewishowes.com/1089 or you can copy and paste this link wherever you're listening to this. And if this is your first time here, please subscribe. Click that subscribe button right now on Apple Podcasts and leave us a rating and review about the part that you enjoyed or got value out of this the most from this episode over on Apple Podcasts. And if you would like inspirational messages sent to you every single week to your phone from me, then text me the word podcast right now. Again, text the word podcast to this number 614-350-3960 because I send out weekly messages, inspirational texts, and some other secrets behind the scenes. And all you got to do is text the word podcast to that number right now. And I want to leave you with this quote from writer Will Durant who said, forget mistakes, forget failures, forget everything except accept what you are going to do right now and do it. Today is your lucky day. And I want to remind you that today is a beautiful gift. Even though you might be feeling pain, suffering, memories from the past that are feeling traumatic right now, you have a gift of breathing, of being alive and experiencing another moment in this life. And it might be challenging, it might be hard, it might be stressful, but there is usually some gratitude and good in every situation. if you can look for it and if you can find it. And I'm telling you, I am grateful for you today. I'm grateful that you decided to show up today. And I want to remind you, if no one's told you lately that you are loved, you are so worthy and you matter. And you know what time it is? It's time to go out there and do something great.