Harvard Psychologist Shows You How to Make Your Negative Thoughts Serve You | Susan David

[Music] in my work I haven't have people saying to me things like you know I just wish the stress would go away or I don't want to feel angry I don't want to feel disappointed and I said to them you know these kind of goals are dead people's goals only did people never get stressed never feel the disappointment that comes with failure and never have their hearts broken you know discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life this episode is sponsored by skill share and the first 1,000 people to click the link in the description will get a two month free trial of skill shares Premium Membership enjoy the episode everybody welcome to impact Theory today's guest is Susan David she's an award-winning Harvard Medical School psychologist and number one Wall Street Journal best-selling author thinkers 50 named her to their list of the top management thinkers in the world and Harvard Business Review singled out her concept of emotional agility as one of their management ideas of the year her TED talk on the subject also an insanely viral garnering over 1 million views in his first week alone and her ability to help people navigate the often brutally difficult internal struggles of living in the modern world have made her one of the most sought-after speakers on the planet Susan thank you so much for joining me today I am delighted to be with you it's I think this topic is super important it's really intriguing I love the way that you've come into it and I think the best place to start with you is to understand the concept of emotions our data but they're not directives I thought that was so powerful what do you mean by that well what I mean is we live in a society that often has this narrative that emotions are bad that emotions need to be controlled we need to think positive all the time and if you feel bad if you having a bad day if you feel anxious or frustrated or even if you grieving that those emotions are somehow negative and they need to be then pushed aside because they're gonna get in the way of our success and what I suggest is the opposite which is that our emotions have evolved to help us to adapt and to thrive and if we can just be more effective with him understanding the data that they bring we can move forward effectively so what do I mean by data what I mean is that our emotions they might not feel good when they are the things that I spoke about previously anxiety and so on but that our emotions contain information about the things that we care about if you bored at work that border might be a signal that you value learning and that there isn't enough of it in your life right now or if you feel guilty as a parent that guilt might be a signal that you value presence and connectedness and you don't have enough of it so when we try to understand the emotions that are being that are there and the the values that are being signaled by those emotions it actually helps us to adapt so that's the data part the not directives part is that of course just because I feel bored doesn't mean I need to go give notice right now and because I feel guilty as a parent doesn't mean that I am a bad parent we need you as human beings be able to have the skills these are critical skills in complex challenging times the skills to connect with ourselves in ways that help us to be our best and so data not directives is one idea that helps us to bring ourselves forward one of the things I've always attributed my own success as an entrepreneur to is my ability to self-soothe and when I watch other people and I try to assess what's holding them back a lot of times it's the story that they're telling themselves so they'll get a piece of harsh criticism and they think that makes them bad like you were saying about feeling guilty about being a parent doesn't mean you are a bad parent but somebody would get harsh feedback they would shut down the psychological immune system kicks in to make them feel better about themselves they reject the feedback and then they're never able to progress and so your concept of emotional agility really being around that internal narrative I think is incredibly powerful it's really important you know my work is really as a psychologist and the core of my work for literally two to three decades now has been focused on a single question and that question is what does it take internally in the way we deal with our thoughts our emotions and our stories that help us thrive in the world because we know that how we come to our inner worlds our thoughts our emotions and our stories this drives everything it drives how we come to our relationships how we love how we live what careers we put our hands up for how we parent and how we lead and you know there's so much of the focus on successes about extrinsic factors you know what are your goals and what are the things that are outside of you but really if we don't get this internal part of ourselves in sync and feeling integrated and aligned and values connected the rest can't happen and so really that's the focus of my work and it's both about how do you how do you experience the value that our emotions and our thoughts bring but also how do we prevent ourselves from getting stuck in there because as you say you know we can have a thought the thought might be I'm not good enough the emotion might be something like I feel really stressed or the story some of our stories were written on our mental chalkboards in grade three you know stories about who we are what kind of love we deserve whether we creative not creative whether we business people or not and those stories can hook us and no matter what 90 day plan we've got on our wall in front of our desk it's that stuff that can hold us back and so really the focus of my work is how do we begin to move away from these thoughts emotions and stories so that we feel more connected and we can bring who we want to be forward yeah I want to dive into the process on that because so you talk about this stuff getting written into our chalkboard when little kid I am really freaked out to my core like how much of who we are as an adult is an echo of things that happen to us when were a kid and look I get it like neurologically and I'd love to hear you taking this I I have a feeling you're a lot more educated on it than I am but like the the way that our neurology works such that we are we are so much of a sponge in the early days and it's a great strategy right from a species standpoint you've got a horse sort of comes pre-wired with everything a human gets a drinking culture to be shaped by its environment but when that environment is dysfunctional then you get this dysfunctional adult I've heard very credible psychologists say there are certain things if you don't get locked in by the age of four like good luck on winding that and that that really scares me and I'd love to know like what that process is a beginning to change that story so this is where sort of the central questions of our lives overlap mine is how do you stop someone's zip code from being the biggest determinant of their future success which has so much to do with how they were raised yeah and this is you know as you mentioned the the stories that we tell ourselves these stories are actually functional at a very core level so you know what do you mean by functional well what I mean is that you know sometimes people talk about only think positive thoughts so only have positive emotions okay and and actually we have around 16,000 spoken thoughts every single day we have many many emotional experiences and we have many stories and there is nothing inherently good or bad about any thoughts you know there's nothing inherently good or bad about any emotion these this is basically your body doing its job which is that your emotions evolved to help you to ward off danger to judge to criticize to understand to pick apart so when you have these difficult thoughts emotions and stories that's often your body your psychology doing its job which is basically trying to help you to be a coherent being in the world and I'll give you an example of what I mean by this you know when I wake up in the morning and I hear my baby cry my story which is that is my child that is crying that needs me is what helps me to tune in that sound relative to the washing machine that's going on in the background so as human beings what we do is we take in all these stimuli we take in all this stuff that's going on in the environment and we make sense of it and making sense of these stories even if they make sense in a way that doesn't serve us is sense-making so we all do this what starts to happen is that we could have grown up with a story that might be I'm unlovable I was always told I'm not good enough and I'm unlovable but then you know you reach 30 or 35 or whatever it is and you start recognizing that that story is stopping you from being intimate is stopping you from actually moving in the direction of your values which is that you want to feel close and collaborative and connected and so it's it's not that there's anything inherently good or bad about any story any thought or any emotion that we have the more important question to ask ourselves is is the story that I have right now serving me can you define serving me that that's I think something that'll help you yeah is it bringing me closer to being the person the leader the loved one that I most want to be so for instance if I have a story that says I'm unlovable the example that I gave earlier and that's actually now stopping you from connecting with others and it might even be impacting on your leadership because you are unable to give effective feedback in a way that feels connected or you are really struggling with your team but you are unable to disclose gee we we're having a tough time together and you feel very distant they can get in the way and so what's more helpful is to recognize that our thoughts our emotions and our stories are good or bad they just are but sometimes what we do is we hook into them and we start letting them drive us and so what happens is it starts driving the you know that's the bus and the bus is being driven by the story as opposed to recognizing that we are more than our story there's so much more that we can bring to our lives and to any difficulty that we facing but when we get stuck or in emotional agility terms the language that I use is hooked when we get hooked by a thought and emotion a story what it does is it often moves us away from our values and so emotional agility is the opposite it's the process by which we become healthy with ourselves and healthy with these things inside of us so that we can bring other parts of ourselves to the surface so when I think about the things you're talking about in the process of rebuilding if you've had a negative story it's not serving you anymore and you talk so profoundly about values I think okay well one I don't know that a lot of people define who they want to be like what type of leader they want to be I don't know that people know what their values are how can people so if the rebuilding process is partly recognizing okay your emotions can serve you they're a signal right I've always said that if if the subconscious can process data faster and faster as they say then the odds are that emotions are essentially the subconscious communicating in a way that's far more it's faster it's far more visceral than if it were just trying to kick up words into my conscious mind and so my job is to identify okay what is that emotion why do I feel that emotion and then translate it to things I know about myself so how do you advise people if you think what I'm saying makes sense how do you advise people to solidify that identity of who they want to be identify what their values are so they can know this feeling is out of alignment with that like what does that process look like so okay so the first thing is recognized that we live in a culture that tells us that some emotions are bad and this can often mean is that we then are in an internal struggle with our difficult emotions because I feel sad and I shouldn't feel sad you know often what I'll talk about in my work is that we have these type 1 emotions the type 1 emotion is I'm frustrated I'm angry I'm anxious I'm fearful I'm grieving ok that's a type 1 emotion a type 2 emotion is the emotion that you have about the emotion oh I'm anxious but I shouldn't be anxious or you know I should be grateful about this that's going on even though I'm not enjoying it because many people would want to be in my position and so what we start doing is we start having this internal struggle with ourselves so how do we start feeling that out how do we start really centering on what are my emotions telling me and how can they serve me the first thing that I would say is that when you feel something I often talk about this idea that you know in my work I have often have people saying to me things like you know I just wish the stress would go away or I don't want to feel angry I don't want to feel disappointed and I said to them you know I get it but you know these kind of goals are dead people's goals only did people never get stressed never feel the disappointment that comes with failure never have their hearts broken you know discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life you don't get to raise a family leave the world a better place or have a meaningful career without stress and discomfort so the first thing that I would say is when you feel a difficulty motion gentle acceptance gentle acceptance what do I mean by that I don't mean passive resignation I don't mean like oh you know I feel bad this is hopeless there's no point in me even trying what is gentle acceptance gentle acceptance is the equivalent of you go outside and it's raining and you say gee it's raining okay it's it's raining not gentle acceptance is juice raining and what does it always rain when I want to go outside and I wish that's right okay so the first part of being with high emotions is actually gentle acceptance and this is not something we often talk about in business related contexts because really what I'm talking about is self compassion self compassion self compassion is often thought of as being weak or lazy you deluding yourself you lying to yourself but it's not it's the self soothing that you were talking about earlier it's that ability to feel something and instead of punishing yourself for that feeling instead being able to say this is what I'm feeling like this is tough you know I have had this experience and it's tough and when you do that you create a space for yourself in which you are connected and you kind of love yourself and it's in that space that you then able to take more risks and try out new things because you know that if something goes wrong you'll be there for you so that's the first thing the second thing that I would say is once you've done gentle acceptance understand that your emotions contain signpost to your values we don't feel things about stuff that we don't care about so slow down into what is this emotion that I'm feeling and what is the emotion telling me about my values because we can find out about our values in many different ways but one of the first ways we found out about our values is to recognize that our emotions are often telling us what our values are if we just breathe into it and start saying what is it that this difficult emotion might be telling me might be I need more support right now it might be that I'm exhausted and I need more self-care but these are really important parts of starting to connect with our values when you had your clinical practice did you find that people there was a question you could ask them that would help them figure out how to translate that because I've met a lot of people who they can identify I feel bored but they have a hard time going and this translates into I have a value around this like are there simple questions and things that people can ask them or do you have them journal well so most of the work that I actually do is with leaders in organizational contexts and their couple of questions the first is what is the emotion and what is the emotion telling you you might care about and I want to come back to that because often the emotion we say we feel isn't the emotion we're really feeling and how do people get to that ultimate true thing we can start saying what is it that I did today that was worthwhile okay not what did I enjoy because you can go to a party and you can get drunk and you can enjoy it it's not the same as worthwhile what did i do today that was worthwhile often when we answer the question you start connecting with it was learning or it was connection or it was I had that really difficult conversation with that person but I felt that there was a sense of both of us being together at the end of it and so asking ourselves over a couple of days you know what is this emotion that I'm feeling what is this signaling what did i do today that was worthwhile um what if I was to choose a day that I was designing for myself what would be some of the things that I would do and it might be things that are around creativity you know the stuff that we close ourselves off from but that starts signaling our values I've also got a quiz that a lot of people use that have got a whole lot of values kind of mapped out in it that I can share with you but their different ways of starting to explore what our values are and this is really important because the world around us is constantly telling us what our values should be it might be to drive a particular car or to have a particular kind of career and so being able to connect with the heartbeat of our own one who we want to be our internal compass is really important not just because it feels good but it also protects us from this kind of social contagion where we know we can start almost living someone else's life and then you turn around twenty years later and you like oh my god like I've built this thing but I don't want it so values help to protect us from social contagion but we also know that there are incredibly important for our mental health and well-being and knowing who you are and what you stand for is also protective of burnout and so we got to talk about that quiz in because you you've pointed out something that is a terrifying statistic which is that depression now causes more absence or how could I forget the exact phrase but more than cancer time away from work Oh God what was the exact set you know the World Health Organization really points to this statistic which is now widely accepted which is the depression is now the leading cause of disability globally that's crazy authorship and cancer are stripping heart disease and so you know really we are coming into an age it's an age where there is incredible complexity with where technology has really outstripped our capacities psychologically to thrive and so more and more these skills of being able to be with oneself in ways that are healthy in ways that are emotionally agile these are fundamental skills for ourselves our families our children you know because what happens is if you think about in organizations all organizations say oh we've got to be agile we've got to be creative we've got to be innovative but in reality when people are faced with huge amounts of information and complexity they tend to do the opposite they shut down there's black and white thinking there's huge amounts of rigidity and emotional agility is the skill that is critical because you don't it agility and flexibility and innovation without opening yourself up to difficult emotions that might come with innovation you know the flip side of that is the innovation doesn't work or success the flip side of that is failure so you know there is a fragility that is interwoven in life we are healthy until we are not we are successful in our work until we are not and so these skills that I'm talking about are the skills that help us to deal with the world as it is not as we wish it to be in some Pollyanna reality you know or in Pollyanna fiction of just be positive and this singular dimension of success it's about being able to be healthy with ourselves what are some specifics from the quiz because I want like I'm so intrigued by how you help people map their value system I'd love to know and I'm sure we can link to it as well so people can really get into it but at like just a quick sort of nutshell version what is a quiz walking people through sure so what the quiz basically does is it takes people through questions around whether they push their emotions aside whether they're agile with their emotions what some of their core values are and some of the skills that can be developed so let me give you a practical example of how we can be with our emotions more effectively and how they can start signaling our values imagine you come home from work and someone says to you how was your day and what do we often do we often use these very big labels to describe how we're feeling so I'm stressed is the most common one I hear I'm stressed you know every day it's like I just a bit stressful but there's a world of difference between stress and disappointment or stress and that like knowing feeling of I'm in the wrong job or the wrong career so what I found in my work is that when we do something that's actually fairly simple which is to move beyond this big label of unstressed and instead we go into one or two other emotions that we might be feeling this psychologically is called emotion granularity it's becoming more granular with our difficult emotions it's an incredible experience to do this so you go from I'm stressed into I'm disappointed or I'm exhausted and what we know psychologically is when we label our emotions in a more granular way it immediately helps us to identify what the cause of the emotion is and helps us to start taking active steps so I'm stressed I'm feeling like I need more support here you know I feel unsupported might be really what's going on and that starts to put you in the place of how can I get more support or you know moving away from I'm stressed into actually I think I'm in the wrong job or what it starts to do is it starts to develop out what is called the readiness potential app in our brands it's this part of our brands it starts moving us from the space of being in our heads into being in action in our bodies and so you start getting your resume together you start getting your CV together we know that this emotion granularity is critical to our well-being in fact children aged 2 3 4 years old who are more able to accurately label their emotions their longitudinal studies showing that over time those children land up doing better because you can imagine a 16 year old who can't label his or her emotions and someone says I've got a great idea let's burn let the air out of the school principals tires okay and that kid wants to be part of the group so a child who is more able to accurately label their emotions is a child who says I want to be part of the group but I have a sense of disquiet about what's going on here you know maybe this isn't the right action so we know that just the simple way of being which is to move beyond big emotions and to be more granular with them is extraordinarily powerful in fact I had a client I was working with in an organization who always used to say everyone's angry you know he was angry his wife was angry his team was angry with him and we started working on this you know what are two other options what are two other things that the team might be feeling that are not about anger it's about something else and he started to say maybe it's that they don't trust me it or maybe what's going on is that they feel a bit overwhelmed here and you can see that when you go into a meeting with other teams angry versus they need more trust it's a completely different conversation it's a completely different way of being and months later the scars wife said to me that it completely changed their relationship because he would said oh oh it looks like you angry with me and she was like I'm not angry I'm just tired you know angry I just want to be seen more and so labeling emotions can completely shift things there are other practical strategies I can give as well but I would love to go into more but first I want to talk about that idea of the emotional granularity I think that's hugely important and once you have the language for something all of a sudden you do start to begin to differentiate between things and I'll say one of the biggest breakthroughs in my own marriage is very similar to what you were just talking about which was the ability to articulate in the moment what I'm feeling and maybe even more importantly why I'm feeling it and so my wife and I say don't argue about the tea right we were always at the surface level about what the argument was and once we realized okay wait a second like when you can get into that granularity this is actually unease it's not anger or this is you're triggering my insecurities and now let me feel why am i feeling insecure about this is it's surprising even to me and you know then you begin to sort of dig under that and find it but don't have the words for it if you don't know what sort of that array of options is to be able to choose the one that fits just right you stay in that you know to every problem to a hammer every problem is a nail scenario yes yes and this is where even starting to connect with what it feels like in our body because again we so often live our lives you know yeah in our heads and when we live our lives in our heads you know really our wisdom and our compassion and our courage and our being our authenticity like all of the things that make us thriving human beings are often not the things in our heads you know our minds will walk us off a cliff our minds will you know our minds will persuade us that we are right and another person is wrong even if it means destroying a relationship you know even if it means not speaking to a person because I'm right and they're wrong and I can't remember exactly what this person did all I know is I haven't spoken to them since our minds will walk us off a cliff and really as human beings being effective is often about moving away from our heads into our hearts okay I mean I've heard you say that before I'm gonna pin you down that one so what is it what does that mean like to be in my head I understand to be in my heart what it means is being in our ability to breathe to be centered in ourselves and are you talking about the Viktor Frankl space that I've heard you mentioned before can you say to breathe easy yeah it is that I mean you know what is Viktor Frankl who survived the Nazi death camps describes this idea between stimulus and response there is a space and in that space is our power to choose and it's in that choice that lies our growth and our freedom when we are cooked when we are emotionally in a jar there's no space between stimulus and response you know he started in on the finances I left the room I'm being undermined I'm gonna shut down okay so there's no space between stimulus and response what are we doing to create the space what we need to be doing is firstly do away with this idea that some emotions are allowed someone not allowed I feel what I feel gentle acceptance secondly recognize that our emotions are data but there are not directors okay so we want to be able to observe our emotions not get stuck in them but also not push them aside we want to be able to observe them wisely another way that we can start just generating that data not directive space between stimulus and response is to simply notice our thoughts our feelings and our stories for what they are they are thoughts their feelings their stories what do I mean by us if we can instead of saying I am sad we start to say I'm noticing that I'm feeling sad I'm noticing this is my there's no point thought I'm noticing that this is my I'm not good enough story what you're starting to do is you're starting to notice your thoughts your emotions and your stories for what they are their thoughts they emotions their stories they're not facts they're not scripts that you have to live into so when people begin to notice that when they recognize their story do you teach them to rewrite that story well what we often wanted to do is we wanted to say this is my story and who do I want to be right now so you know for example this idea of getting hooked on the story of I am right we've all had that experience okay human beings love being right so I'm right and now wrong and we've we all nervous you know we all know that when you've been in a relationship for any period of time you can have a fight with someone and finally the waters calm and you get into bed and you turn out the light and then something compels you one last time to turn on the light again and tell the person while you were right and they are wrong and all hell breaks loose again you know was a made and countries are devastated by people being hooked on the idea of being right and so think about this you know the more important question for all of us is I may be right but is this story serving me you know I may be right but is the serving who I want to be in my relationship yeah you have heard you mention that before I think it's so powerful talk about the the gods of right which I thought was just a fascinating way for people that just carried out to its logical conclusion and see what happens if the gods upright came down and said I give it to you you are right you were right you are right you still get to choose who do you want to be who do you want to be and you know what's powerful with us is that it means that you can operate in a space that that you know we can call both us okay both us and what do I mean by this which is you can be cross with your husband or your wife and you may even be right but your love that you feel for the person and the value that you place in that relationship can lead you to simultaneously be right and to reach out to the person and give them a hug you can hear from my accent I didn't grow up in the US Agra as a white South African in apartheid South Africa and it was a country and a community committed to not seeing basically to not seeing the other to not seeing in in South Africa there's this beautiful word Sol buona sera buona you hear it if you go to South Africa it's a greeting you hear on the streets every single day it's Selbourne yeah boss are born and it's basically just hello it's hollow in Zulu but when you translate some Urbana some of on and literally translated means I see you and by seeing you I bring you into being and so much of my work is really focused on this metaphor this idea of what does it take in the way we see ourselves our thoughts our emotions and our stories that help us to thrive in a fragile and complex world and that also it's only when we are more able to see ourselves that we are more able to see others too because you know when we aren't clean with ourselves when we aren't connected with how we feeling and with what's going on we snap at people we judgy we tense we disconnected but when we see ourselves we are more able to see others too yeah that is that notion of bringing somebody into existence by seeing them I don't know if you saw the movie Avatar and I certainly did not mean in any way shape or form to cheapen what you're talking about but that that always hit me really hard like I see you and I say that to my employee sometimes like I see you in an avatar way like I I I'm not praising you because I'm blind to your faults I see the totality of who you are and I'm still moved to this this comment this relationship you know however you want to think about it and I've always thought that that is so powerful and there is like when you think about what happens to a human when you put them in solitary confinement and the sort of mental illness that ends up being born of that which is crazy like to think that just being alone is enough to make you feel like you don't exist so I really get that sense of like by seeing you there's there's like a reflection back to you that really does solidify your entire being it's it's pretty crazy it's so it's so profound you know our human beings have a couple of core needs we all have a need for belonging and you see this you see this at age two you know it's like Jack wouldn't play with me I feel you know left art so we have a need for belonging and this I see you is saying you know you belong there's space for you and I think doing it for other people as a leader and in a relationship is so powerful you know what do we often do we often do the opposite of it someone comes home from work and we barely put down our phones to say hello to this person that we sharing in life with or you know what would it experience for children to feel that they were rarely seen it's so powerful and then also how do we see ourselves yeah I love that there there's something about how even-handed you are with blending the head the heart the science all of it bringing it together you talked about earlier the tyranny of positivity which i think is too just like such a brilliant juxtaposition of words to get people to understand that if you were just saying hey if you're sad then be sad I I wouldn't resonate with that if it's you're sad accept it that's where we are that is the state of things but now you can in not fighting that you don't get that second order emotion of feeling badly about that that you don't fall prey to the social contagion of you're not supposed to feel that way but you're not encouraging people to just sit and wallow in it it's about recognizing this is now I'm using my own language but this is the subconscious communicating to you now what you make of that is going to determine the trajectory of your life right you've been you've been really elucidating in a powerful way what Shakespeare says in that quote which is nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so right so the way that you're perceiving your life the way that you're thinking about it is really going to determine the quality of your life and I think it's it is so extraordinary that you have got this system for people to recognize where they're at not beat themselves up over it but understand that they and again I'm using my own words don't be curious to see how you respond to this but that your emotions aren't necessarily true you know what happens when we have difficult emotions is that often what we do is we bottle them we push them aside and bottling emotions is associated with lower levels of well-being but also lower likelihood of achieving your goals but on the other hand we could Groudon our emotions getting so stuck in them that we treat them as fact and that we're so immersed in them that we we aren't actually living our lives we're just kind of living in our heads and so bottling and brooding they look very different but both are sociated with poor outcomes and so what is this you know affective Third Way look like it's about being curious it's about being compassionate with ourselves it's about being courageous because sometimes we face into emotions that are difficult you know sometimes we might be facing into an emotion that tells us that an a relationship isn't working out or that a business that you'd put yours into actually has zero likelihood of success and that you could put another five years into it because you just want to go go go but that actually you know there's a time to grit and I know this is something you talk about a lot there's a time to grit and that grittiness is powerful when it's values connected when there's an opportunity of success when it's aligned with who you want to be but sometimes as human beings we need to know when to grit and when to quit did I I think that's really interesting and this is something I'm glad you brought up again you mentioned earlier single-dimensional success and I'd love to know how do you define multi-dimensional success like what are the dimensions people should really be paying attention to you know often when we talk about success people imagine that success is you know financial metrics and to me I think about success in a very different way I'm thinking about success being you know are you living a life that feels concordant with your values you know that's fundamentally and again this is the conversation between you and the person in the mirror and you know those values might be values there are you know I want to live in a nice house or then that's something that you've identified it's intentional it's connected with who you are and that's you know that's your value but but you know we tend not to have just one value we tend to have many different values and so sometimes people might say things like all my values are in conflict you know our value having a great career but I also value my family and these values on conflicts and you know I think about this is very differently I see values as they just are you know your values are your values values often have this idea of being very abstract you know they're these things written on walls in businesses but I think values as qualities of action and what I mean by that is every single day you get hundreds of opportunities to either move towards your values or away from your values you get a choice point now when you when you go into your kitchen you get a choice point of do I take the muffin or do I take the fruit one might bring you towards your values one might take you away from your values so often when we think about values it's this abstract idea but I think about values as qualities of action that every single day we have hundreds of opportunities and it's actually very rare that values are in conflict your values just ah you know they just they just are they they they the things you care about their life directions so what is often in conflict what's often in conflict is not your values per se it's your goals okay your goals are in conflict there's a difference a value is a life direction a goal is often something that is very explicit circumscribed it's time limited so you know I might value my career and value my family as an example but my goal of giving a talk in Australia at the same time that my son has a really important you know competition at school it's those two goals that are in conflict it's not my values they're my goals and this is really powerful because this allows us to move out of the space of internal conflicts or what's more important you know is it my family or is it my career well it's both it's both and it can be both so what it allows me to do is to say it's the specifics of my goals that are in conflict how can I you know recognize that actually giving their talk in Australia is also earning an income and allowing me to do something that supports other aspects of my life including my children but how can I be in Australia and connect with my son in a way that's meaningful because now I've moved away from this internal like oh my goodness my values are in conflict and I've moved more into the space of there's this goal versus that goal as much as I want to pretend I am I'm not omnipresent and omnipotent and need to choose and it removes so much of the conflict and the difficulty that I think so often is part and parcel of you know when we think about goal the goals and values and what's more important and it allows me to be in a space and all of us to be in a space where we can say okay both of these things are my values so how can I be in one place and create a meaningful connection with this person do that that's an amazing breakdown I love that and to sort of bring this all together I've often said to people look the you talked about that single dimension of success people often define as financial I can just say I'll give you the punchline it isn't the point of life is definitely not money it's not Fame it's not notoriety anything like that the the punchline of life is how you feel about yourself when you're by yourself and your entire world all of your work is about that internal life and I think that that is so incredible like if I was going to put my finger on one thing that people need to put their time and energy into it's that it is literally getting it's funny when I go to use certain words I'm like I'm not sure how she'll feel about this but getting control of your internal life like making sure that you're telling yourself a story about yourself that moves you towards your goals and I hear us you know saying a lot of the same things I think it's it's so useful I'm so glad that you've taken the time to write this stuff down to put it out there the TED talk is incredible your interviews are incredible what is the impact that you want to have on the world the impact that I would want to have in the world is to help people to to be and you know really what I mean by that is we live in a life that would have us believe we are in a never-ending Ironman or iron woman competition just me to keep going and going and going and going and punishing ourselves and beating ourselves up and exhausting ourselves and I think the power in in just being kind to ourselves and in that space of kindness you know kindness to the self is often again thought of as being weak or lazy but it's not it's in that space of kindness is where you think oh maybe I'll try this or maybe I can take this risk and so you just have this incredible way of creating psychological safety within the self and so I think you know I think about my father and I think about when I was little before my father died before he was even diagnosed with cancer I was about five years old and I developed a fear of death you can imagine I'm a fun person to be around but you know kids at around five years old start becoming aware of their own mortality and so I was about five years old and I remember being petrified that my parents were going to die and I would call my dad at night and I would say to him promise me you're never gonna die promise me you're never gonna die and I would find my way into my parents bed night after night after night and my father would comfort me he would comfort me with soft pets he would kiss me and then he would say to me we all died Susie it's normal to be scared it's normal to be scared and what I understood and this is I think the impact that I would like to make what I understood in what he was saying to me through those dark nights is that courage for all of us as human beings is not the absence of fear courage is not about like never feeling fearful or never failing or never feeling anxious or grief courage is not the absence of fear we live a life in which the beauty of our life is interwoven with its fragility we don't get to love without knowing that one day we will grieve we just don't get it we don't get to be healthy without knowing that one day we will lose that health and so this interwoven Asst what it means is that as human beings we need to become more comfortable with not just the so-called positive emotions of happiness but also we need to develop skills to deal with the world as it is which is fragile and so to come full circle is you know my father would say to me courage you know it's normal to be scared it's normal to be scared we all die and what I understood he was teaching me is that courage is not the absence of fear courage is fear walking courage is about feeling new emotions not pushing them aside trying to do away with them or rationalizing why you shouldn't feel them courage is about feeling them with compassion with curiosity and then even if it is uncomfortable taking steps towards things that are of value to you uncomfortable because starting a new business is tough sometimes reaching for your dreams brings difficulty and this is why we need courage so what is the impact that I would like to have very long-winded answer but it is about helping people to be to be with themselves in compassion in curiosity what's going on for me what I'm feeling us and encourage what do I need to do here even if it's difficult and I think if I could do one of those things in any small way and even a small percentage I would feel like I've made an impact it's amazing I love that well tell people where they can connect with you and you can help them along on that journey so absolutely so the first is a 10 I've got two collaborations with Ted the first is my TED talk the gift and power of emotional courage the second is a podcast that I've just started with Ted called checking in which is bullets fight size you know 20 minutes and that's been amazing and the quiz we mentioned earlier Susan David come forward slash learn and then of course my book emotional agility awesome well guys definitely check all that stuff out I'm sure you got a taste of it here but she has an amazing way to get into the internal state of people and help them make changes air which will I promise you they will have an impact throughout everything in your life there's nothing more important than getting a hold of what's going on inside your mind and speaking of getting a hold of things inside your mind if you haven't already be sure to subscribe and until next time my friends be legendary take care as many of you know I'm all about constant self-improvement growth mindset and a relentless focus on progress and skill acquisition that's why I'm super excited to tell you guys about Skillshare Skillshare offers classes designed for 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Channel: Tom Bilyeu

Views: 249,625

Keywords: Tom Bilyeu, Impact Theory, ImpactTheory, TomBilyeu, Inside Quest, InsideQuest, Tom Bilyou, Theory Impact, motivation, inspiration, talk show, interview, motivational speech, Susan David, IT, Harvard Psychologist, Emotional Agility, TedTalks, PhD, Checking In, emotions, data, self-soothe, self-narrative, values, gentle acceptance, self-compassion, discomfort, tyranny of positivity, success, psychology

Id: y8bwEgCcOXs

Length: 54min 44sec (3284 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 07 2020