In this keynote excerpt, resilience speaker Shawn Ellis shares a personal story of financial hardship after the Great Recession and a recent divorce, describing how he initially labeled his feeling as "I'm scared." He explains that naming a negative emotion gives it power, but the specific label also determines its intensity. By deliberately shifting his language—from "scared" to "concerned" and finally to "curious"—he reduces the emotional weight and creates a more empowered state that fuels action. Ellis contrasts "empowered" emotions (care, courage, curiosity, appreciation) with "disempowered" ones (fear, frustration, anger), outlining the neurochemical and physiological benefits of the former, such as increased longevity, resilience, memory, creativity, and performance, and the detrimental effects of the latter, including stress hormones, muscle loss, brain cell death, and accelerated aging. He concludes with a call to claim authorship over one's experience, using intentional language to move forward and improve life outcomes.
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You see, I had an experience a few years back where I came to this place where I was in a really difficult financial position, and I was standing in my kitchen, and I remember saying out loud, like, I'm scared. Like, I said to myself for the first time, admitted, like, I'm scared. Because you see, being in this, you know, motivational space, personal growth and development, like, we don't say things like we're scared. Like, I'm great, I'm gonna rise up, and I'm gonna thrive, right? Remember, thriving is not about being happy all the time, but thriving is about owning your power. And part of that is recognizing, like, right now I'm scared. Like, I saw the financial situation and I was still recovering from the Great Recession from years ago. I was divorced at that point and just finances were not in a good place. And I could see this cliff up ahead and thinking like, I don't see how this is going to work out. So I said, "I'm scared." But what I knew at that point was that our language matters, our thoughts matter. And as soon as you say, "I'm scared," that immediately puts you in a more powerful position. Because otherwise, until you name the feeling, that feeling is kind of like hiding in the shadows. And like, that feeling can drive you and push you and make you do things that maybe you don't want to do. But as soon as you say, "Hey, I'm scared," as soon as you name that feeling, you've taken some of its power away. But we have this way of really elevating or amplifying negative feelings, disempowering feelings, while we lower, we reduce, we turn down the intensity on positive feelings. And what I mean by that, think about this, like I say, "I'm scared," like, "I'm scared, I'm terrified, I'm afraid," like we say those kind of things, or like, "I'm mad, I'm pissed off, I'm as mad as a hornet," or whatever. Whatever it may be, right? If you're in this like negative, agitated state, what do we say, right? We elevate those feelings. We turn up the dial. But what about when you're feeling good? Like, what do you say? Like, I'm feeling good. How are you doing today? Like, I'm okay. I'm fine. Good. Yeah. I mean, does that sound good? Does that sound like something, a really good place? Like, does anybody just sound fine? I'm okay. Good. Right? What about like, when do you ever sound like, man, I'm feeling incredible. I feel incredible. I feel amazing. That was awesome. Do you ever speak like that? I'm sure you do at times, but don't we have a way of like amplifying the negative and turning down, de-escalating the positive? So if you know that, then I realized when I said, "I'm scared," I thought, okay, that's a pretty intense— it's a pretty intense level. "I'm scared." Like, I wonder if I could turn down the intensity a little bit. So I thought to myself, let me think, what else Could I say, instead of saying I'm scared, what about I'm concerned? That's still recognizing the reality of the situation. Like, I look around, I see this, I'm like, this does not look good. I'm concerned about this. Like, I am really concerned. But does concerned have a little less edge to it than scared? I can tell you it does. Like, all of a sudden you remember Consider the thought, how does that make you feel? Like if I put the language to it that says, "I'm scared," language being the thought that's the label on the feeling, if I say, "I'm scared," yeah, I feel scared. I feel like I don't have much power. If I'm scared, I'm in a pretty low power place. If I say, "I'm concerned," okay, I've got a little bit more power here. I recognize the situation, but I've got a little bit more power to meet it. Because that's what this is all about, is figuring out like, Putting yourself in the best position to move forward. It's not just about like, just, I just want to feel good for sake of feeling good. No, we want to put you in a position so you can move forward and meet this circumstance, meet this challenge. So I shifted to being concerned, and I felt pretty good about that. And then I thought, I wonder what if I could take this even further? Let's just see. I went from scared to concerned. Where— what else? And then it dawned on me. I'm curious. I look at this situation, I see where all the bills are due, and I see how much money I have, I see how much money is coming in, and I'm curious how this is going to work out. This should be fun. Let's pop some popcorn and let's see. I'm curious. This is going to be fun. All of a sudden there's like some excitement about it, right? Exact same circumstances, but different words, different label. And from that place, I was able to rise up and move forward, right? What do you need in order to rise up to move forward? What puts you in the best position to move forward? So let's talk about this, the power of empowered emotions and why this matters. You see, emotions and attitudes such as care, courage, tolerance, appreciation create neurochemicals that are regenerative in nature. And look at the benefits: increased longevity, increased resilience to adversity, increased memory, problem-solving, intuition and creativity, increased job performance and achievement. Would your life be better with any of this? Well, of course it would, right? Isn't it funny, we think about longevity, we think about the food we eat, we think about exercise, and of course that's all important, but do you realize the thoughts you think have an effect on your longevity? Let's take a look at the cost of disempowered emotions. What's on the other side of it? Well, emotions such as fear, frustration, impatience, and anger goes the other way, releases stress hormones, and then you get reduced muscle mass, brain cell death, impaired memory, accelerated aging, impaired mental function, diminished performance. Like, who wants some of that? This is the power of our thoughts. You see, I am the creator of my experience. Claim your power over your experience in this moment. But also where your life is headed.
