The Most Important Skill Nobody Taught You | Dr. Marc Brackett

Key Takeaway

Emotion regulation—the ability to manage your own feelings and support others with theirs—is the single most important skill we can develop. Research shows that people who regulate emotions effectively are better learners, make sounder decisions, have healthier relationships, and live longer. The most powerful practice: give yourself 'permission to feel' without judgment. When you stop judging your emotions and simply allow yourself to experience them, you unlock a master regulation strategy that builds resilience and well-being.

Episode Overview

Dr. Mark Brackett, founder of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, discusses why emotion regulation is the foundational skill for success, health, and longevity. He shares his personal journey from childhood trauma to becoming a leading expert in emotional intelligence, explaining how most of us never received proper emotion education. The conversation explores practical strategies for managing difficult emotions, supporting others emotionally, savoring positive experiences, and building what he calls 'permission to feel'—the ability to experience emotions without judgment.

Full Transcript

Transcript of The Most Important Skill Nobody Taught You | Dr. Marc Brackett from 10% Happier. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

It's just like literally having empathy for yourself and saying, "Mark, you know, this feeling is impermanent." Yes, Mark. Mark, you know, this is like that rainy day. It feels like a thunderstorm, but tomorrow there's going to be a rainbow. I still get caught up in the rainy day is never going to go away. It's okay. Tomorrow's going to be a sunny day. sunny day. sunny day. That is the way to distance yourself, dude, bro, Mark, whatever you want to call yourself. call yourself. call yourself. And recognizing that emotions are ephemeral, and that's kind of the law of physics is freeing for me.

Write it down, people. Dr. Mark Brackett, welcome to the show. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure. So, you you make a pretty strong claim here. You say emotion regulation is the single most important skill we can develop. Why is that? that? that? Because if you can't deal with your own emotions, life is pretty tough. And if you can't deal with other people's emotions, meaning if you're not a good co-regulator, I don't think many people want to be around us. Your belief is that this inability that many of us have or this under underdeveloped skill underdeveloped skill underdeveloped skill uh uh to co-regulate with others and to regulate ourselves is is a major contributor to the mental health crisis we're seeing these days.

It is. I mean, if you think about what we're seeing these days, whether it's emotion dysregulation with anxiety or depression, or whether it's the inability to control oneself from, you know, doom scrolling for 6 hours every night. I mean, in the end, it's a form of self-regulation that most people are lacking. And in the relational aspects, I mean, let's think about our society today. I mean, don't you think maybe our society would be a little bit better run if leaders cared about how people felt and were concerned about the well-being of society?

of society? of society? I do. Um, and that that the caring quotient fluctuates in Washington and in uh the seats of power around the country, although this is a whole digression, but I'm not sure how high it it has ever been. I mean, we, you know, we're we're a flawed species. Sometimes it's high, sometimes it's not, but I'm not sure how high it ever gets. Well, it hasn't been explicitly taught. And that's my whole argument that none of us really ever got an emotion education. And, you know, for my book, I did this research with thousands of people across the world.

Less than 10% of people said they had any formal education in emotion regulation. They couldn't even define it. Uh, most of us can't even articulate what it even means. Well, what what does it mean? Good question. Well, you you want the long form or you want the short form first. first. first. This is a podcast. You can go as long as you want, baby. All right. Good. So, the way I like to think about it is that emotion regulation is a set of goals and strategies.

strategies. strategies. So, we can prevent unwanted emotions. These are the goals. We can reduce difficult ones. We can initiate the ones that we want to have or help others to have. We can maintain our emotions. We can enhance our emotions. So I have an acronym I use prime for that. So we can prevent, reduce, initiate, maintain or enhance our own or other people's emotions. And we use strategies to do that. That we can go into in a minute cuz there's a lot of strategies. So emotion regulation is a set of goals and strategies.

But there's a lot more to the formula because it's a function of three big things. The emotion you're feeling. So, you know, I do different things to regulate my anxiety than my stress, then my anger, then my disappointment or or to feel more pleasant emotions like happiness and contentment. Um, that's the E. The P is the person uh personality. I'm an introvert who's on the neurotic side. So, you know, what I need and what you might need are two different things, but I have a feeling you might have some of these traits, too.

And then there's the context which is um you know right now uh I'm traveling so got my nice setup here in the hotel. I feel really good. I got a good mic. Um and so the context matters for regulation because I can't go for a run right now. I'm feeling if I'm feeling anxious during the podcast I've got to like use some cognitive strategies or breathing strategies. But tonight or early this morning I can use different strategies. So, just to put it together, emotion regulation is a set of goals and strategies that are a function of the emotion we're feeling, the person that we are, and the context we're in.

We're going to go deep on your strategies because the book is loaded with them. with them. with them. But let me just ask a few more sort of highlevel questions. highlevel questions. highlevel questions. Sure. Sure. Sure. Just to make this more even more appealing to people. What are the health benefits of learning how to um regulate your emotions? And maybe we can even think about it in the inverse like what are the health dangers of not doing this? this? this? Well, what does disregulation lead to?

It leads to an immune system that doesn't function well. It leads to cortisol levels that are skyrocketing in our body throughout the day. It leads to us, you know, choosing poor foods. It leads us to not engaging in a lot of physical activity in general. lots of kind of downside health benefits. On the upside, what my research and other people's research shows is that people who regulate better are better learners in school. They're um make more sound decisions. They have healthier and higher quality relationships. They have better physical and mental health.

Um they achieve their goals in life. And I think the big one, which seems to be the new thing that everyone wants to talk about, is longevity. people live longer. You're going to live a healthier, happier life if you can deal with your feelings. feelings. feelings. On the longevity piece, my understanding, and you're the you're the expert here, so um I'll defer to you obviously on this. My understanding that on the longevity front, the the the most powerful powerful the most powerful uh way to regulate your emotions is by having positive relationships.

And those positive relationships are what help us do it. Is that is that your understanding? It's part of my understanding. I think that we have never put all the variables into the equation to look at, you know, predictive wise. you know, a lot of the studies, you know, my friend Bob Waldinger is the, you know, the big person to do the good life study, you know, and um, yes, relationships do matter, but I find in my research that, uh, something I wrote about earlier in my career seems to have the same predictive power, which is what I call permission to feel.

that when we give ourselves just the permission to be true full feeling selves that we don't judge our feelings that we're comfortable being with them that alone is a master emotion regulation strategy I'm thinking about my longtime meditation teacher Joseph Goldstein one of he he teaches in these pathy phrases and one of them is it's okay by which he does not mean everything's fine he means it's okay to feel what you're feeling right now like you might not think you can withstand it but you you can just let it all in 100%.

100%. 100%. And uh that's you know a big project that I'm working on right now which is the follow-up research to that concept of permission to feel. Got about 70 studies that I've run across the world on it actually and um it's a powerful concept to give oneself permission to feel to live without judgment of the emotional experiences you're having. I mean so much of our dysregulation comes from the judgment around the feeling. I'm anxious that makes me weak. you know, I can't feel this way.

It's the feelings we have about our feelings. You know, we call that meta emotions, but the uh you know, the shame I had as a kid that I was being bullied. So, I was feeling fearful, you know, with the bullying, but my shame around being a boy who was bullied and had a father who was a tough guy, you know, is what really got in the way of dealing with it. it. it. So, what you were just saying right there, that's that's your story. That wasn't just a a for example.

Oh, no. That's that yeah that's that's personal. personal. personal. So that sounds pretty searing. Bullying I think is always or if not always most of the time quite a searing experience. And then when you add that into the context of your family con uh um uh configuration is that what drove you into this work? It is. Although, you know, if we want to go deeper into the personal, unfortunately, I also was abused sexually by my parents' best friend for 5 years of my childhood. And so, if you couple having 5 years of sexual abuse from 5 to 10 years old and not disclosing it with hating school and having two parents who love me, but you know, one was angry, couldn't deal with his life, and the other one was anxious and couldn't deal with her life.

Where do you go with your feelings? You eat your feelings, you know, you scream your feelings, you cry your feelings, you do mischievous things. And uh to not go too far off, far off, far off, the reason why I wrote my first book called Permission to Feel was because I had one person in my life who was my uncle Marvin, who uh was a an amazing human being. He was a school teacher by day and a band leader by night. and he happened to be running a curriculum to teach kids about feelings in the 1980s.

And he happened to use me as a guinea pig. And um so we sat in my backyard when I was around 11. And he'd say, "Hey Mark, how you feeling?" And I would say things like sad, angry. He was the only person who ever asked me how I felt. But on top of that, when I shared what I was really feeling, he didn't say, you know, "Toughen up, kiddo." Or, "I can't handle this cuz I'm going to have a breakdown because of your feelings." which was what would have happened at home.

He's like, "Let's get through this together. He didn't fix me. He didn't, you know, solve my emotional difficulties. He just was present." And that's what we're hoping for or what I'm hoping for for everybody. Cuz my research shows uh only about onethird of us have an Uncle Marvin. Oneird of us. And only about 15% of us say it's our parent. So, um, 85% of us are growing up in homes where we don't believe our own parents give us permission to feel. I'm having a million thoughts as I'm listening to you talk.

First of all, I'm really sorry that happened to you. I appreciate that. Not the Marvin part, the abuse part and the bullying. Um, that's awful. Um, the other thought I was having, which is we don't have to dwell on, is just I've I sometimes think about how we use language. We say to people, "How you doing? How you feeling?" Uh we we often say also uh take care or take care of yourself. Exactly. And none of we we don't actually mean any of that. It's just wrote.

Um but it would be interesting if we as a culture started to mean it. And but sorry, you want to jump in on that? I do because I think it's interesting and I you're you're correct which is that you know in the workplace especially it's like you know we don't say how are you feeling cuz that's like very intimate right it's like how you doing and then before the person even responds you're already down the down you know the hallway um we don't really stay with people's feelings and I have research to show why that's the case too um a lot of it is people don't think it's worthy it's like time like really like I'm going to waste my time with this.

The second is fear, which is that people are afraid about, you know, what they're going to hear. Like if I asked you, hey Dan, how are you feeling today? By the way, how are you feeling today? That's a whole other discussion. Let's blow past that. We can come back to it if you want, but we All right. I don't want to I would answer and I will answer, but I don't want to derail the point you're trying to make. I appreciate that. But the point of me asking you is that if you were to say like most people say good, fine, okay, you know, it's like great, me too.

And then we move on. But if you said, you know, Mark, I'm actually feeling this odd mixture of anxiety and frustration and overwhelm. I'm excited to be with you on the podcast, but I got so much going on in my life. I would, you know, like what do most people do when they hear that? They're like, uh, you know, oh gosh, really? This is why I didn't ask you how you felt from the beginning. I don't want to have to deal with this. And that leads to the third issue.

Uh well, for parents, by the way, it's a lot of fear. Like, I don't if I ask my kid how they're really feeling and they tell me the truth. Yikes. What am I going to do with that? And the big one is skill, which is why I wrote this book, because people don't have the skills. They don't know what to do with that information. They get overwhelmed by other people's emotions, and they don't know how to work with them to support them. support them. support them.

Well, so Well, so Well, so you're you're one of these guests. Um, this happens every once in a while where you your answers beg a bunch of questions. I'm trying to write them all down and then figure out what order I should ask them in. But, um, you said something right there at the end that kind of begs a question. So what I think a lot of people don't know what what do you do if you actually inquire of someone how they're feeling and they say something that's something that's something that's you know has some moment to it some power it's momentous in some way how how do we handle that how can we develop that skill because it's a massive public service to be Marvin for other people that's my vision um and again I think people have this weird conception that being the Uncle Marvin means that you're like indulging, you know, this is the push back we get now for the work that we do in schools.

It's all you're indulging kids emotions. I'm like, absolutely not. This is emotional intelligence, not emotional indulgence. We're helping people develop the skills they need because if a kid, for example, comes into my classroom as a teacher who's just gotten bullied on the bus and feeling fearful and, you know, hatred and anger, they're going to be ruminating about that pretty much all day long and figuring out a way to get home safely. they're not going to be good learners. So, it's my obligation to help kids a be safe and b have the vocabulary and the strategies to deal with their feelings.

So, I think the first step is, you know, if you were to say what I, you know, let's say you said, "I'm anxious and overwhelmed." They said, "Gosh, Dan, you know, it's a lot of feelings today. You know, what's going on?" Just be curious. You know, what's wrong with being curious about someone's experience? Again, what I want to share is that um people are not looking for someone to fix their feelings or even to give them necessarily specific advice. People are looking for presence and co-regulation or support.

And that really should relieve people uh provide some relief to people who are listening thinking, you know, the reason why I'm afraid to ask people how they're feeling is because, you know, I'm not sure what to do. You don't have to do that much. You just got to be there. people actually their resilience muscle will be built by not giving advice by not doing the problem solving for kids especially it's letting them be with their feelings the discomfortable the discomfortable one the ones that are uncomfortable and um and help them think through the solutions to those emotions if they're even in need of a solution because most emotions right they're ephemeral we're not regulating all day long we go crazy it's the strong ones it's the big ones that you have to deal with.

I just want to completely agree with you. I mean, the the the this is something I learned late in life that you don't need to fix. In fact, fixing is annoying usually um for the person who's who is being worked on. Uh you just want to I I often think of something Bnee Brown said here on this show actually about her own children and of course this applies to, you know, grown-ups too. I can't. She She often said she often says to her kids, or at least did at the time we did this interview.

this interview. this interview. I can't solve the problem, but I can sit in the dark with you. And I like that u because that's what people want. We want somebody to just I learned this when I was a hospice volunteer, too. Like sit there, hold hold somebody's hand and sit in the light, too. I think that we underestimate the power of co-regulation of positive emotions, the savoring of these beautiful experiences in life that we say, "Oh, fabulous. Good. Congratulations." as opposed to really being with those pleasant feelings.

feelings. feelings. Another I completely agree with you and another little moment of wisdom is coming to mind from another past guest on this show. She didn't say it on the show, she said it in the context of um a direct teaching from her to me. Uh there's a great dharma teacher named Spring Wam who one of her subsp specialties is teaching what are known in Buddhism as the Brahma viharas. The uh um these four interrelated skills. I would call them love. uh you could call them warmth or heart qualities, whatever.

Uh compassion, friendliness, um uh equinimity, and then the skill she was talking about specifically that comes to mind when you said your thing about sitting in the light, it's called sympathetic joy or mood, which is just the the the pleasure we take in other people's success. and spring with this is a this is a uh trainable skill through um meditation where you envision people and send uh imag people imagine people savoring their success and you send them wishes for continued happiness and and success and it's it's very hard to do.

That's why there's that expression every time a friend of mine uh succeeds I die a little bit. Um the but what Spring once said to me that has never gotten out of my head is you want to be the person that other people like to call when they have good news. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Um I would say that it's a skill and it's that the and I teach this skill to kids and to others but kids are my favorite because they're our future. And I was just to give you an example of this.

It was a fun one. Uh I was as I was when I do writing I often times go into the real world to do it. Meaning I do workshops with kids or with teachers or leaders and I you know record them and I it helps me think about my work. So I'm working with this group of fourth graders and I'm asking them to differentiate the feelings of excitement and elation. and elation. and elation. Do you want to try it verbally to distinguish them? Yeah. Excitement to me is jangly and elation is um has a bit more stability and balanced and calm in it.

Nice. Um that was a beautiful way to describe them definitionally speaking, right? One is more anticipatory, right? I'm excited about going to the park. I'm excited to go on vacation. Where elation tends to be kind of afterward, right? like you're related, you know, when you watch, you know, the thing, you know, in in sports, the goal, you hit, you get the goal and you're like this sense of joy and kind of pride coming together. So, I'm teaching this to kids and I asked them to think about, well, what are the ways that you would help a close friend prolong their feelings of elation?

And it was amazing. I mean, they got into groups and they're thinking about all like, "Give me scenarios where this could be true and where you would practice this and do it and what would it look like and sound like and how would you do it?" And then we role played it. I mean, these kids were would blow your mind. And what I loved about it was at the end I usually tell these kids you know obviously it was a letter that went home that you know professor Brackett came to visit your class today and your parents are going to probably ask you know what did Mark do with you in your in that class on emotional intelligence today and this one girl raises her hand she goes sir I think we learned a new form of empathy and I said say more she goes well we always talk about empathy you know if someone's grandma dies or their dog dies you know we have to show that we care and that's obviously important.

But helping people savor their pleasant feelings, that's a really important form of empathy. of empathy. of empathy. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My point is that you can teach this at a young age and when they see the value of it, they're going to do it more. But I didn't learn I mean, did you learn anything about muda or positive empathy when you were a kid? No. And I have to say I had No. And I have to say I had really touchyfey parents like hippie exhippies. Um exhippies.

Um exhippies. Um um and I was raised in, as I often joke, the People's Republic of Massachusetts, and it was like, you know, Free to Be You and Me, though, that record that they played to kids back then. I may have been taught it, but I wasn't paying attention. attention. attention. Yeah. It should have been more explicit. Absolutely. And I agree that it's um it I agree with your young pupil that it it is a new a new form or a enhanced and advanced form of empathy.

I I will also shout out um that you said two words there that can be very practical for the rest of us when dealing with what can feel like an emotional onslaught from other people. Say more. Exactly. The same thing, by the way, goes for pleasant feelings. Yes. Yes. Yes. That's how you that's how you engage in the muda process, right? It's like tell me more about that goal you got. I want to what did it feel like in your body? What was going on in your mind?

Just I want to hear the whole story. And people love that. As as a matter of fact, longitudinally speaking, when we reflect back on our childhoods or even when we reflect back period and we think about the people that had the greatest impact on us, it's the people who engaged in the positive empathy that stand out more so than the people who engage in the traditional empathy. empathy. empathy. That's great. Um, that's good to know as a as the father of an 11-year-old as well. Um, the the I just want to put a fine point on this part of the discussion.

I'm always I'm always and I don't know if this is a a don't know if this is a a service that people actually need, but it's what I need as a person who's wired for selfishness. I want to put a self-interested top spin on everything we've been discussing. Um, in my experience, if I had heard this discussion 10 years ago, even though I was already kind of interested in, you know, Buddhism and personal growth, I I don't know that I would have understood why helping people savor their positive emotions or survive their negative ones would be in my interest.

But I think it go to me it kind of well there's the evidence base which is what you referred to earlier with Bob Waldinger and his work at Harvard with the adult study for with the Harvard study for adult development which has shown over 80 plus years that the quality of your relationships determines the length and quality of your life. Um, so there's that. And then I could also just say from an N of one perspective, my having these skills to draw people out out out and be with them no matter what's happening has brought my life from black and white to color.

And I don't do it all the I don't do it all the time. I once heard somebody on my team say that Dan practices what he preaches about 70% of the time. So um, and that felt pretty good actually. Um but it it really has helped. Sorry, you were trying to say something and I interrupted. interrupted. interrupted. No. Um you're making me think about not just about parent child relationships but you know colleague to colleague relationships. You know I work at a university where people are not so great at celebrating other people's success.

you know, it's, you know, and I see couples all the time who feel inhibited, you know, sharing the good news they had because they feel like maybe their partner will feel like, well, I don't get the good news that you get. And so it almost is like this weird dynamic of power where I can't really share my pleasant feelings because I'm afraid that you can't handle the fact that I'm actually enjoying my life which is you know this is like we can do like a a 17p part series here.

So we uh I think where we were going just for my own sense of staying on track, you know, is that the the regulation of emotion often times is focused on downregulating unpleasant feelings. And we just had a little movement here around it's not just that. It's also about supporting other people in experiencing pleasant emotions and also upregulating uh our own pleasant emotions to enjoy our lives and that matters a lot. H we'll say more about that upregulating our own our own positive emotions because I don't think we've really touched on that.

We talked about how to get other people to savor theirs. But I think given the negativity bias that that is so hardwired into the human animal, it can be very easy to move past the the pleasant things in our day, the taste of our food, the the the quality of a tiny fleeting little interaction with your pharmacist or the somebody at the uh the barista or whatever. Uh or big big positive things. How do we draw those out and savor them more? Well, first we have to know what those things are.

things are. things are. And so, you know, in our work, we have a tool we call the mood meter, which you may have seen before. It's this box of four colors, the yellow, the red, the blue, and the green. And we have an app now that helps people to use that more effectively. And so, yellow emotions are the high energy, pleasant ones, the excitement, the elation, the optimism, the hope. The green emotions are those of calm, content, tranquil, peaceful, relaxed, kind of low energy, unpleasant feelings.

And then we got the blue and the red which are the unpleasant emotions, the anger and the anxiety family and the kind of sadness and loneliness family. But um so firstly like do you know what brings you into the yellow? the yellow? the yellow? Like what actually brings you into the yellow quadrant? Like what are the things that you like to do that when you're there or doing them you feel joy and excitement? People don't reflect on these things very much. What are the things that bring you into that green quadrant, the things that make you feel content?

It's funny. I live now in the countryside of Connecticut. We moved after the pandemic to like a very rural area. I've got lots of property and hiking trails. And people always say like, "What do you love to do, Mark?" And I said, "Well, I you know, now that I live in the country, I love to hike." And people say, "Well, how often do you hike?" And I'm like, "I think I did two last year." last year." last year." So, it's like, you know, it's like, I don't make the time to do the things that I know bring me pleasant feelings cuz I'm busy working.

And um, you know, so identifying those things in your life and planning them. I think you have, for me, one thing that I do that I've never done before is I plan my well-being time. time. time. And so my calendar, I I may look like a severely neurotic human being, but I schedule my workouts. I schedule my hiking time. I schedule my connection time because otherwise I'm not going to do it. My my default is, you know, research and analysis and, you know, blah blah blah.

Yes. You're reminding me of somebody on my team. She didn't give me permission to name her, so I won't name her, but somebody on my team who talks about her default mode being work robot. Uh, and so therefore has to put go to the movies with a friend or take a walk on her calendar because otherwise it's just the slog. slog. slog. Exactly. So identifying those things that bring you joy is critically important and scheduling them really matters. I mean, I think that's just one thing.

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Um and so number one the first strategy you mentioned is quieting the mind. Um so so so what do you recommend for doing that? I mean this is your whole thing. I mean I listen to you all the time. This is your practice right? It's the breathing exercises. It's the mindfulness exercises. It's the meditation. And I think the one thing, you know, writing a book on emotion regulation that has a chapter on quiet in the mind was not easy. By the way, given there are 3,750 million, you know, books on this topic.

And so I wanted to be really clear in terms of I was very curious around the the nuance in the research because I mean it's pretty obvious for most of us breathing is going to deactivate our nervous systems. Would you agree? Yeah. I think that's unimpeachable. I mean it it's the advice every every mom gives their kid. You know take a deep breath but it actually it's there's evidence for it. Exactly. Except it's not great when we tell people that. I've I've learned that the hard way.

Fair enough. Fair enough. Um I mean it really doesn't work. I I'm like everybody breathe and like that's a trigger mark. That's a trigger. Like okay. Um but uh but we do know it works and it's the place where we can build that space to deactivate. I'm a big you know I make sure I I'm clear that I don't think breathing is sufficient. Um, I always joke, you know, with my, uh, when my mother-in-law got trapped with us during the pandemic, I would do a lot of breathing exercises and it'd be like, I'm even clear why she needs to go home.

So, you know, you know, yes, it does lower the temperature. It helps us to be, you know, able to access some of those cognitive strategies that I think are critically important. But it doesn't guarantee we're going to use obviously the mindfulness work is important. um whether it be mindfulness exercises to be more present or to as we talked about earlier, you know, the compassion focused ones. Um and so I think it's stating the obvious that we need to do that. The problem is that nobody wants to do it.

And I think this we we haven't sold it well. And I the best example I have for that is here I am, you know, got a large amount of money from a donor to do a study with my undergraduate students to put them through different forms of mindfulness training. And we were going to pay these people and they didn't even need the money, but we paid them anyway to, you know, participate cuz we figured we'd get, you know, them to stick with the research. By the time the study was over, something like 70 something% dropped out.

So we couldn't even actually analyze the data because there was nobody left to actually study and it was you know once a week working together through the mindfulness exercise and they had their on their own time practice time practice time practice zero uh% practice on their own. It was like the numbers were terrible. And when I interviewed the students afterwards um what do you think the number one reason why they didn't do it was? Not enough time. not enough time. That's only a piece of it.

It's deeper than that. It's a waste of their time. Huh. Huh. Like there's no you can't be productive while you're doing mindfulness and breathing exercise. breathing exercise. breathing exercise. I see. I see. I see. I mean, so the value proposition to me that seems like a like a problem with the pedagogy like I cuz I I deal with a lot of people who have beefs with meditation. Um, usually if I can bend their ear for 5 minutes, they're disabused of the notion that it's a waste of time because there's a ton of science to show that it's really good for you and it's actually can make you more productive and focused and all that stuff.

What I found is that people aren't doing it because they don't have enough time and habit formation is really hard. Exactly. Same thing is true with exercise or sleep hygiene or eating uh a healthy diet. Like the the there's a reason why New Year's resolutions were we bail on them by February. You're right. But I think this goes back to, you know, I'm a prevention scientist and it sometimes fascinates me how unpopular prevention science is and how popular, you know, clinical researches, you know, or treatment research is because if we keep on treating people with anxiety disorders or depression or whatever it is, like the number of new kids or adults who fall into that system of the need for help is never going to diminish.

And it doesn't make it just makes no sense to me why we don't think oh like my other background by the way is I taught martial arts for 30 years and I have a strong background in Eastern philosophy and Buddhism myself and I would teach 5-year-olds like really complex meditations and mindfulness exercises and they loved it. But I got them when they were young and you know when I I they saw the connection between the breathing exercise and the mindfulness and their martial arts and their lives and I taught them that explicitly.

But now you know as a professor of college students I have kids who are 17 18 years 18 19 years old. You know, they've gone through a system where the only thing that makes you successful is playing an instrument that no one ever heard or having something on your CV that sounds so special that like it's like, "Wow, you went to a country that I didn't even know existed to volunteer." there's no reinforcement for having these kinds of practices and so we're starting late and so we have to mindset you know is we have to work on that mindset which is before and you know the way I talk about it in my book is like before we can get to teaching people whether it's mindfulness or cognitive strategies we've got to get them to believe that all this matters yes yes yes they have to have that that both that emotions are data and valuable sources of information and that it's a learnable skill because a lot of people think of this as something that's innate like yes I thought this way by the way I mean until I got a PhD in psychology I just thought I was emotionally a basket case case case sort of like you know I had so much neurosis from my childhood you know it was complicated life and I would have strong emotions that's just part of who I am and I just thought okay this is going to be one it's like you got to live it out you And then I realized, oh, wait a minute.

There's evidence-based strategies to regulate emotions. There's actually a science to this. There's skills you can learn. And um it's harder, not impossible, to do it as we as we develop. But I, you know, my big push is let's start this in preschool and teach it in a developmentally appropriate way across development. And of course, you know, now at 56, I run a center at the university. I've got 40 employees. I've got political push back on my work. Like I I still got to regulate and I need new strategies, but I have, you know, the muscle, you know, has already gotten that exercise that it needs to, you know, try a new technique.

Well, I agree with you about teaching them while they're young. I totally agree with you about that. And I will say that um the people listening to this show want to hear what you're uh want to buy what you're selling. So, of course, this is this is aospitable environment. The good news, it's never too early. It's never too late. The areas of our brain responsible for learning these skills are with us until we're in our 90s. I got a letter from a 90-year-old man just a while back thanking me for teaching him this stuff.

He said, "I only wish I learned it earlier, but you're making the last years of my life better." So, I promise everyone this is something you can learn today and make a difference. So the me breathing and mindfulness work that we discussed you know I have my favorites and I think that's part of the work is that you know my I I came from a Zen background um I learned of aa and other forms of of meditation and mindfulness but the one that stuck with me the most was the work from Tiknanhan and I just related to him as a human I liked his the way he thought about the world like his mindfulness practices and they work for me been practicing them there for 40 years and um I can tell you that I don't need 15.

I need like two or three different ones for different purposes and it it really does its work for me. Okay. So, strategy number one, quieting the mind. Strategy number two is about redirecting your thoughts or cognitive strategies. strategies. strategies. What should we know about that? This goes back to your point about the negativity bias. you know, we really have to fight that. And um and because again, we're not taught from a young age to sit through, you know, the way people are talking to us. us.

us. You know, for me, this is a big one because I grew up with very low self-esteem. Um, you know, I hated myself. I um I was too Jewish. I was too chubby. My nose was too big. I was too feminine. I mean, like, the world had a lot to say about who I was, and nobody really helped me sip through that and say, "Oo, ho, ho, ho, ho, wait a minute. Who who who are you to define my reality for me?" That's called gaslighting, by the way.

And like, I don't accept that. I do think that most of our negative talk comes from gaslighting. Um, I think that other people just feel they have the right to tell you who you are and then you start believing it because no one else teaches you otherwise. And so going from that self-critic to the person who's self-compassionate is effortful and we have to learn the strategies you know that that that work of positive selft talk and that distant selft talk of like mark mark mark take the high road like my favorite because of my zen meditation background my favorite strategy for cognitive strategies is I say to myself consistently consistently consistently mark you know this feeling is impermanent and to me it's like ah I can breathe because I don't know about you but when I when bad stuff happens little bad things like you know the flight gets canceled and you're stuck there freaking out or you know whatever you're having a really rough day you get news that something didn't work out at work and you just go into that rumin ruminative state which is my default um I take that breath which gives me access to the cognitive strategies and I say Mark today a rainy But it's okay.

Tomorrow's going to be a sunny day. And recognizing that emotions are ephemeral are ephemeral are ephemeral and that um that's kind of the law of physics is is is freeing for me. And I don't think many people take the opportunity to adopt that mindset around their emotions. They get stuck in it and then they feel as if you know the emotion they the biggest challenge I'm seeing today by the way this is with young teenagers like I do a lot of work in high schools and I can't tell you how many high school students come up to me you know they don't want to say this in front of their peers but they say it privately and they say Mark I don't feel anxious I am anxiety they define their whole body and life by the emotion and there's where the problem lies they're not anxiety or not your emotions.

Your emotions are experiences. Some of us have stronger experiences than others and sometimes they're more intense or you know more frequent than others. But emotions are ephemeral and if we can adopt that mindset and recognize that when we're experiencing the strong unpleasant ones, life is going to be a lot better for us. So this you said this was your favorite strategy for interrupting rumination. Is this um is the name for this strategy distance distance distance selft talk? selft talk? selft talk? It is just by because distance selft talk is is just like literally having empathy for yourself and saying mark you know this feeling is impermanent.

Yes Mark it's true today Mark you know this is like that it's like that rainy day it feels like a thunderstorm but tomorrow there's going to be a rainbow so it's okay. And I have to say like again I I repeat this I'm 56. Like I still get caught up in the rainy day is never going to go away. And then I I even take like a double self a double step back and I'm like, "Mark, last week you had that really shitty experience and you were in that same spot and the next day everything was fine.

Remember that?" Oh, yeah. Yeah, you're right. Okay. I mean, it's it's work. Maybe I just need a lot more work than other people, but from my exposure in the world, I don't think so. Yeah, dude. Yes. Um Um But I uh Yes. I completely identify with what you're describing about yourself. And just to be technical here, you added on top of distance self-t talk, temporal distance. That's another form of it, which is that's when you say to yourself, Mark, is this really going to be something that's problematic in a week from now?

Like, does this really matter? Like I have I do a lot of that in my relationship. I've been with my partner for 31 years and we have very different lives and different styles of being and um we have different values about buying things you know and sort of like it's you know part of it is like really you really need that and then I have to say Mark like you know you're not your partner's father let it go you know or I have to say something like is this really like going to impact our finances you know no let it go you know so that kind of forwardlooking, forward thinking strategy.

Very, very helpful. Reappraisal. Reappraisal. Reappraisal. Oh my gosh, how critical is that? Instead of going right for the blame, can you just try to see it from a different lens or a different perspective for a minute? It may not be the right answer, but give someone the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they're not trying to sabotage you. Maybe they're not intentionally late cuz they don't respect you. You know, maybe they just really hit traffic. I want to talk about reappraisal in a second but just to say on distance selft talk which includes the kind of bonus level of temporal distancing.

distancing. distancing. Just want to point out to the audience that the key move that Mark was making was using his own name. That is the way to distance yourself. Dude, bro, Mark, whatever you want to call yourself. It you it it allows you to harness this ability we all have underdeveloped but there anyway to give good advice uh when appropriate uh to children, mentees, friends, whatever. You can do that to yourself. yourself. yourself. Correct. Correct. Correct. You can be your uncle Marvin. Well, by the way, I love that you just said that because a big part of my training now is, you know, because twothirds of us didn't have the uncle Marvin.

A lot of people and my research shows that if you have the Uncle Marvin, you tend to be more successful in life. You tend to have greater life satisfaction, greater purpose and meaning, better physical health, better mental health, you actually sleep better at night. I mean, big benefits to having grown up with that Uncle Marvin. But then twothirds of the people in the room thinking like, look at me. Like maybe that's why I'm so messed up. Like I didn't have the Uncle Marvin. And I have to remind people like you got to look in the mirror and be your own Uncle Marvin.

Yes. I just think that's so important. We we can and I'm here for this to a certain amount to a certain extent bemoone our life circumstances. Um and we've all got challenging ones. Some of us way more than others. And that's all true. Nobody's trying to take that away from you or gaslight you. And you you still have this opportunity right now to be your own supportive anthroponist. Yes. By the way, just for the for the research um to plug a little bit of my research here that will help clarify what that means like is being uncle Marvin like okay that sounds complicated like what is that?

My research shows three things that Uncle Marvin's have. And by the way, they can be aunt Maras, they could be grandparents, they could be coaches. This is just people that we want to be around that are are emotional allies, as I call it. Three things, non-judgmental, good listeners who show empathy and compassion. That's it. And by the way, that shows up cross-culturally. cross-culturally. cross-culturally. um you know where there's some there are cultural differences and strategies that people use to regulate or how people express emotions but in terms of people reflecting on their childhoods and thinking about the people that created the conditions for them to have permission to feel I have not found cross-cultural differences people say non-judgmental non-judgmental non-judgmental good listeners who show empathy and compassion compassion compassion write it down people you know what gives you peace of mind financial security I can tell do, and you've probably heard me say this before, I have uh spent a lot of my life, unfortunately, worrying about financial security, and I'm always on the lookout for new products and services that can help in this regard.

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If you want to try it, they're offering a 100 blades free with the purchase of a razor. Just head to hensenshaving.com/happier or use the code happier at checkout. Okay, so reappraisal. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Um, Um, another Josephism. Don't side with yourself. yourself. yourself. Nice. I love that. Yeah. I mean, the reappraisal piece for me, I actually love reappraisal and I love teaching it because I think it's actually one of the most creative emotion regulation strategies there is and I love helping kids think about it.

Like, give me give me five alternative ways of thinking about that particular experience and they love the challenge. And so, this is where I think there's a beautiful intersection of emotional intelligence and creativity. Sharon Salsberg, Joseph Goldstein's longtime um uh partner in crime in the meditation world, has this riff, this rap that she goes on sometimes um about how we all think certainty is going to help. That's what we we crave certainty in a world in constant non-negotiable flux, which is scary. So we we we we find refuge we think in certainty but actually um thinking we know how things are that they're terrible and will never change makes us feel worse.

It's that think of five different explanations uh that makes you feel that's how uncertainty actually or curiosity feels safer actually when you do it. 100% agree with that and the I mean you just that's also the you know certainty control this is why we get anxious because we can't make the prediction and we want to make that we want to be clear the pandemic I want to be clear when is the office opening I want to be clear when am I going to be able to take off the mask I want to be clear you know all that kind of stuff and for things that we have no control over you know it this is where all these strategies come into play I remember my favorite one during the pandemic.

Remember that that like it was like maybe May and it was like nobody knew what the heck was happening. Everybody was freaking out and we're spraying our groceries with Windex. I mean it was nuts. And um the stock market's crashing. I mean it was just like you're watching the news and it's like you know it's really horrific. And I would just sit there thinking, you know, I started singing songs like we all go down together, you know, like Mark, you're pretty selfish thinking like you're the only one who's suffering right now.

You're actually doing pretty good. You got a good job. You have a home, you know, you got a little home office. Like actually life is pretty good. How about some gratitude, you know? And I switched from all the negativity to gratitude. And it was eye opening for me. And I actually did a study on gratitude during the time because I was very curious how people thought about gratitude during the pandemic. And it was, you know, you want the little results of that study were that, you know, people just rely on like they think about I'm grateful I have a family.

I'm grateful I have food. There was no real gratitude for things like the doctors and nurses who are putting their lives at risk to help people. you know, the people who had to like have jobs where they're, you know, cooking for people, you know, in, you know, precarious waters or the delivery people. And I think that oftentimes taking a moment, you know, it's another strategy, right, of cognitive strategy of gratitude really does make a difference as we know probably the strongest research is in the field of gratitude.

gratitude. gratitude. Tell me about the how of gratitude. If we want to use that as a emotion regulation strategy, what's the best practice? practice? practice? It's pausing. It can be there's multiple strategies, I mean techniques. One can be just, you know, doing the writing exercise. One little caveat about that though is that people tend to overdo it. And so this is the stuff that never gets published, but I won't mention the scientists on this, but years ago I was part of a think tank of researchers doing stuff on this.

And you know there's a sweet spot because if you write 10 things you're grateful for every day by the time Friday comes you can't think of anything and then all of a sudden sort of like you know like I guess I have nothing to be grateful for and it actually backfires and your happiness goes down. So don't you know it's like all things to me it's like the Buddhist way the middle path. It's all these strategies are middle path. The breathing is the middle path. The cognitive is a middle path.

Um you know the eating is a middle path. you know, it's it's all kind of that way. But, um, I think the writing of it is great. And I think just the pausing, you know, as a mindset shift for me, I do it in the morning. I have some rituals that I do. And, uh, one of my other rituals in the morning is I say to myself, how wonderful it is that today is the first day of your rest of your life. And it's just like all that that like was like yesterday.

It's like that would that's the past. You know, I got I got the whole day. I got tomorrow. got tomorrow. got tomorrow. And I think we could all be more forward-looking in our lives. To be frank. It's like present moment with forward-lookingness. One other quick side about the gratitude thing is I think it's a beautiful antidote to a very popular emotion these days, which is envy. You know, I know from my research with students, they say they're stressed, but the research actually shows that the the deep feeling is envy and jealousy, but they don't have the vocabulary, so they say stressed.

But when you get into the nuance, it's actually all about social comparisons. Whether it's about body type or whether it's about studying for less hours and getting better grades or parents who have better connections in Wall Street or Hollywood, you know, it's like everybody's like just scanning the world for like what's going to be better than me. And you know, people think breathing exercises, you know, this is where I I really think that it's about remember my formula. I don't think just doing kind of mindfulness and breathing exercises alone is sufficient because when you're in a classroom of 300 people like mine and you're looking around thinking everybody else is better than you are, you got to switch your cognitions.

If you don't if you don't shift your the way you see the world, um you're going to drown in the envy. And if you take a moment and think, wait a minute, I'm actually, you know, a student at Yale University. Wow, I got a great freaking professor. Whatever it is, but you know, getting people to shift out and please just focus on three things that you might have great gratitude for and it just pulls them away from the rumination or the proveration around, you know, their notworthiness or everyone else's betterness and it gives them a bit more freedom.

So, just to put a fine point on this, I think what you're saying is to the listeners, next time you find yourself in a moment of social comparison, if you can catch it, because it can be sneaky and subtle, but if you're in that moment, and it's probably going to happen the next time you're on Instagram, if you're on Instagram or whatever social media um death trap in which you find yourself, um try to use that as a wake up, an alarm bell to pause for a second and think of three good things in your life to mitigate the pernitious effects of comparing yourself to other people's curated versions of their lives.

their lives. their lives. Exactly. Right. Exactly. Right. Exactly. Right. I'm skipping around a little bit in your book. One of the strategies you recommend is identity regulation. What does that mean? Well, Well, Well, um, what I mean by that, it goes back to kind of our opening conversation about like why is this so important? And I'm I I got this idea, by the way. So, one of the things I did for my own well-being while writing the book was I started doing a rigorous uh lifting like weightlifting workout.

I was always like an I was always a physically active person with martial arts and other things. I taught, you know, exercise in gyms during graduate school, but um you know, you become a professor, you get a little dumpy um and the pandemic hits, you're eating too much Thai food, and I'm like, Mark, you got to work out like you got to get yourself in shape. So, I found I was this is the positive benefits of social media. I was scrolling one night kind of feeling disgusted and I found this virtual trainer and I decided it was a reasonable price to get me started and I meet this person uh his name is Marco and he's interviews me he's like you know I only really want to take people who are motivated and I'm like wow that's pretty intense and anyway we had this long conversation and he said there's different phases to working out and the first phase is you're going to hate it you know it's like Why am I doing this?

This is ridiculous. Which, by the way, I went through like for months. I would be doing like deadlifts and I'd be like, I'm 50 years old. Like, who needs like, you know, I've been with my partner for 30 years. Who cares? Like, nobody's looking at you anyway. I mean, all the negativity negativity. And then I I got through that. I was like, Mark, this is ridiculous. Take the high road. You know that this is what you want to do. And all all the selft talk worked.

Then I saw changes. But the conversation that was the most interesting to me was that he said, you know, when like for just to make the parallel, I see myself as a martial artist. I have a fifth degree black belt in a style called hopko. Like if you ask me like do you consider martial arts an aspect of your identity? I'd say 100%. Like I just I feel like I operate as a martial arts as a martial artist in the world around. I'm scanning the environment.

You know, I feel confident in terms of protecting myself and other people. But do I feel like I have a black belt in emotional intelligence? Not so much. Do I identify? Do I see Mark Brackett as a highly regulated human? Not yet. And I feel like that's where people need to grow. that when we start identifying as people who got this yes I am the Yoda of emotion regulation you know um that that's when our automatic habitual unhelpful reactions to stimuli uh become our automatic habitual deliberate conscious helpful ways of dealing with our emotional lives.

And that's my whole life is striving for that. I mean, for helping people to to see that, to identify that way. But isn't that a setup for failure? If you think you're Yoda, the next time you're a like it's just it's going to be devastating. Well, you're going to be Yoda with some humility. But for me, it's actually great because, you know, I I'm I'm very easily, you know, for whatever reason, you know, I feel strong emotions in the world around me. and you know whether I'm at like a grocery you know getting a coffee and I feel like the barista is nasty or whether I'm online at the airport or wherever or you know people challenging me in my public speeches and so when when when or students for example professor bracket I've got a question but you know I'm not sure you're going to know the answer I'm thinking to myself okay yeah this is going to be a winner um I use that as an opportunity like to me it's like Mark I Go into Mark the Yoda.

Mark, you are the feelings master. Mark, you are the world's leading expert in emotional intelligence. intelligence. intelligence. Use that identity to solve this problem. And by the way, it works. And there's good research to support that. But okay, but but let me press on that. What about the inevitable? the inevitable? the inevitable? How what does it do to your identity in those inevitable moments when you are disregulated and and in a bad enough situation that dysregulation might last, you know, for a while? It might. And that's where you have to have the humility and the courage to either have some self forgiveness or apologize to your partner.

I think there's a lot of emotion regulation that goes into having the courage to say, "I'm sorry, honey. Like I have to do that pretty much every week. I'm terrible at this by the way. And I just the other day I was like I really we went out for dinner with friends and I just like I was triggered by something and we're walking home and of course I like don't say it Mark don't say it. Of course I said it and then I'm like why did you do that?

you know, and then it was like a whole thing, you know, when we got home and then, you know, the next morning I woke up and I was like, you know, I don't know what got to me that I needed to say that and I I'm sorry and I'm going to really work on not, you know, doing that again. That's the best you can do, you know, and then you reflect on it and you try to move forward. I can't I, you know, I think that 90% of our divorces are because people can't regulate.

They can't deal with their feelings in their relationship. Whether it's telling someone about their discomfort or whether it's managing these moments, people just either decided they're going to cheat on them. They go to the gym for 6 hours. They, you know, compartmentalize, suppress, deny, repress as opposed to approach. The approach takes courage. The approach takes skill. But I think the approach is what makes us healthier, happier people. You have this kind of order of operations in this section of the book under identity regulation. Sense, stop, see your best self, strategize, and act.

Yeah. Can you walk us through that? Yes. So, that's a technique we call the meta moment. And that's um I cultivated this technique with a colleague of mine whose name is Robin Stern. And we came at this from a really fun perspective. She's a clinician who was dealing with, you know, uh, patients who were, she was teaching them emotion regulation strategies. They go home and they would not use them. We we just worked on this and you're couples therapy like what's going on here? I was a scientist working on research and like teaching people this and I got all this resistance and so we're like nobody wants to regulate.

So there's it's not just about the strategy because you know you can do the breathing exercises, you can do the cognitive exercise that we've talked about and others, but if you don't actually see that my life is going to be better, my relationships are going to be better by applying these strategies to my life, then you're probably not going to do them because it does feel good to be disregulated. you know, I proved myself right that evening on that walk home, you know, and um it does feel good to say go blank yourself and, you know, have that extra alcoholic beverage in the moment.

You just these strategies don't tend to, you know, do well for you long term. So, with that said, we realized the missing link was something we've spoken about already, which is this idea of cultivating your best self. So we get the step the four-step process of the meta moment. Three of the steps are similar, right? The first step is you notice that something has shifted in your environment. I am triggered. I'm feeling tense in my shoulders. You know, I have that negative thought. I want to say something mean or hurtful.

And then we do that pause but where we do that breath. But the critical and creative thing about the meta moment is this moment of seeing your best self. So, what does that mean? Well, it's role specific, but very simply, if I were to ask you, Dan, you're a father of an 11-year-old. You just said, correct? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. So, I'm going to put you through this exercise. this exercise. this exercise. You didn't you didn't sign the consent form, but it's okay. Dan, in your role as a parent, your best self, or you would say this to yourself, my best self, how I want my child to see me, how I want my child to experience me, um, how I want my child to talk about me to their peers.

What are the three qualities that you would want them to have in mind? Well, I think number one is the Uncle Marvin role. Like a just a safe place. I don't know that my son would have the vocabulary for this, but like a safe place to just be, you know, express his himself in his full range. So, what's the trait or attribute that you would have? How about easy to talk to? Great. So, you want to see yourself as a dad who's easy to talk to?

Yes. Yes. Yes. Give me two more. Fun to be around. Like, I'm I'm down to do his stuff. I'll, even though I don't really want to do it, listen to him talk about video games as long as he wants to talk. Take him to sporting events. Another thing I also don't really want to do. Uh, but you know, I play drums with him. I watch 30 Rock with him. We're working our way through that whole show, which has a lot of inappropriate in it, but whatever.

Um, so easy to be around, fun, easy to talk to, fun to be around. Okay. Easy to talk to, fun to be around. Give me one more. Aspirational figure like I want to be like him. say more about that. I don't believe as a parent in a lot of direct instruction of my child because I don't believe that will work. Um, so I try to lead and teach through osmosis for example, you know, and so I want him to feel like, yeah, that's a dude I want to be like because he has rich relationships.

He has work that he really cares about. He pays attention to his marriage. He's Mhm. fit uh you know to the best of his ability. Um and I don't mean like looking a certain way like I I pay attention to my fitness like that. I want him to look up to me in that way. So what's a word? What's an attribute? Role model. Role model. Role model. Yeah. But that's not specific enough for me. I want more specific. Is it passionate? Is it perseverant? Is it motivated?

Is it Yeah. Yeah. Um, yeah. Passionate. Sure. Nice. So, as a dad, I want my son to see me as someone who is easy to talk to, fun, passionate, nice. So, tonight or wherever you are, if you're going to meet your child tonight at home, you can be forward-looking. Remember I talked to you, I said I was a preventionist. Well, if we always are waiting for our kids to trick us to then activate that best self, it's going to be harder. But you can be proactive about this.

Can you before you walk into your kitchen tonight for dinner or whenever you're going to see your kid um next, just pause and set a goal and remind yourself, I've made a commitment that I want to be a dad who is easy to talk to, fun, passionate. Yeah. This kind of gets into the whole idea of intention setting which I feel can be can metastasize in a very positive way throughout your life. Like I in a Buddhist sense I I wake up in the morning and this is Buddhist language say that you know my job is to be of benefit to all beings.

Um, and so it's it sounds to me, and I you you'll correct me if I'm wrong, that you're saying that we can just be tweaking our intention or our best self and and setting that as a north star in different contexts throughout the day. That's exactly right. in my best self as a husband is very different from my best self as a public speaker on stage which is different than my best self you know as you know a colleague um and there's different attributes that come up for me but how many of us really take the time like I did with you to just sit back and reflect on these things and that's how you feel right now with your kid being 11 when they're 17 or 18 you might think of different attributes because of what's going on in both of your lives at that point, but my the real point of it is like you said, it's the intentionality of it, but it's the granularity of it.

Just saying I want to be a role model, it's kind of too broad. And so, um, you know, for me, you know, this joke in my book when I say like cuz my students call me the feelings master is that I had to operationalize that like what does that mean exactly? It means he is beautifully creative at dealing with life's, you know, curve balls. And so that that means that when I'm in a classroom and someone throws that curveball at me, I see myself as beautifully creative, you know, at solving those big challenges.

And if I can bring myself into that place, I'm just going to be much better at managing it. And then you reflect on it because importantly, Dan, this is not about you're never going to arrive there. This is going back to your thing. Well, Mark, you're going to make mistakes and you're going to mess up. Of course I am. But that doesn't then I have to look at the barriers. barriers. barriers. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Then it's like, okay, so what was the reason? And I could say, you know, in, you know, say this publicly, I felt insecure about what my partner said, you know, in that in that dinner, and it was my issue.

my issue. my issue. And so that was a nice reflection for me to have. Oh, so the reason why really the real deep down reason why I didn't live up to my best self was that I got insecure. Oh, okay. That's interesting, Mark. Sit with that for a little bit. Let's get curious about that. So often times when we're trying to be our best selves, the things that are the barriers to that are where real the real learning happens. happens. happens. We're almost out of time.

So let me ask you the two questions I ask at at the end of pretty much every interview. One is is there something you were hoping that we would get to that we didn't. We covered a lot. You know, we went, you know, we weren't linear, which is fine. I like, you know, over the river and through the woods. Um Um Um I think we covered a lot you know we didn't get into you know some of the other strategies but that you know people can read about them you know in terms of the biology of regulation you know the way how food and sleep and physical activity all are supportive of that that's an important thing for people to know cuz a lot of people I'm trying to be my best self but I can't and I just say things like well how much sleep did you get last night?

Well it's terrible. I'm like well there you go there's the barrier. Um and so we need a budget. We need fuel to regulate our emotions effectively. emotions effectively. emotions effectively. But for me, you know, I see it as really two big things. One is the attitudinal. It's the permission to feel piece. And by the way, the one thing we I we didn't talk about was, you know, we have to give ourselves permission to feel. Um we have to give other people permission to feel. And I want to recommend that people do this in public.

meaning like show up and let other people observe you being the non-judgmental good listener who's empathic and compassionate because it has a contagion effect also. So once we can give ourselves and everyone we love and even the people we don't love that much permission to feel we can lean and figure out what well even though I give myself permission to feel there are certain feelings that are interfering with my success with my goals I need strategies to deal with them and I think importantly that importantly that importantly that we have our society has is so like the quick fix thing is like I was giving this speech for I don't know a couple thousand actually police officers And like they were very impatient with me and they were like, "Dude, what's the one strategy that works?" And I'm like, "I'm sorry, it just doesn't work that way." They're like, "I'm asking you right now, what's the one strategy?" I'm like, "All right, be kind to yourself." And my point in sharing that with you is that when we're regulating our emotions in real life, it's never just one strategy.

It's using all the strategies that I write about. and you know, you you realize you're having a strong emotion, you take the deep breath, you walk out of the room, you gather your thoughts, you go back and you say something to try to rectify the situation or you take a break and you go look at nature or you go work out or you call a friend. We need all of these strategies. You know, they're they're a collective. And if we can help ourselves to see where our strength areas are and where our challenge areas are and kind of cultivate the challenge areas, we're going to be, I think, happier, healthier people.

people. people. Well said. Fi final question. Just can you remind everybody of the name of your new book, your old book, any other books, any other things you do in the world, website, social media that we should know about? Thank you. So, my new book is called Dealing with Feeling. Uh, my first book is called Permission to Feel. I have a dealing with Feeling podcast now where I interview world the world's experts on emotions and emotional intelligence and learn about their ways of dealing with emotions, which is fun.

I'm on Instagram primarily on LinkedIn, which is my name. And, uh, my website is markbet.com. We will put links to all of those in the show notes for anybody driving um or otherwise not holding a pencil. Um Mark, great job. Thank you very much. Thank you, Dan. As many of you know, I'm not a big fan of the so-called power of positive thinking that just because you think something like, um, let me get a million bucks or let me uh cure whatever disease I'm struggling with right now, just because you think it doesn't mean it's guaranteed to happen.

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