Latest / The Growth Project / Episode 367: Are You Practicing Emotional Fitness?

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Episode 367: Are You Practicing Emotional Fitness? · The Growth Project

• 0:00
  emotional fitness really dictates who's going to then follow you. Yes. Going to want to engage with you. And, you know, experience the ups and the downs with you, because of the way you react.
• 0:17
  Welcome to the Growth Project. This is a podcast brought to you by AMP. Plus, we are a performance psychology practice headquartered in Greenville, South Carolina.
• 0:24
  Today have doctor
• 0:26
  Gaby Caveat is on the podcast with us. Gaby, you have, you've been a pleasant not surprise. But we get some really good feedback from our listeners. One, not only, your tone, your rhythm, your cadence, your insight, your delivery, but also just having a female perspective. We've kind of missed that on the podcast.
• 0:44
  So thank you for your contributions to the podcast and to our work and to our life. So thank you for having me. I'm glad I could be a good addition. Yeah, you've been a great addition. So it's been a lot of fun, especially I think what's fun for me is, you know, you being just out of school with new experiences, new research, new insights,
• 1:01
  and adding value so much to, as I said, our work and our podcast and our life.
• 1:06
  And one of the ones you helped us put together last week that I really enjoyed was a hidden curriculum
• 1:11
  about parenting. And it's, hey, what are you teaching your children?
• 1:15
  By how you act, how you show up, how you respond. And we got some great feedback. It was wonderful when I did you, disclaimer do not have children yet.
• 1:25
  I do not yet have three dogs, but yeah, no, not quite the same. But I did love I listened to the episode and I, I loved, the clip of drew and talking about how he regularly asked his kids what what do they think that he loves? Yeah.
• 1:42
  How that shapes, really, how you're showing up like one of your kids.
• 1:47
  Thank you. Love and enjoying and. Yeah, so, so powerful. Not only for our children if you don't have children, but, what's the same? By Emerson. What you do is so loud, I can't hear what you say. And and so we're going to go back to maybe even just do a parenting series here a little bit later in the spring.
• 2:04
  I've started teaching my parenting class again.
• 2:06
  so thanks for the feedback and questions. And like everything we do at AMP was our job is to help you be better, pursue better. And we believe better people make better leaders. Better people will make better parents. Better people make better partners. Better people make better employees. Better people make better athletes.
• 2:23
  Better people make better coaches. And so this is to try to help you be better, pursue better for the people that matter most and the things that matter most. And so this topic today really builds on a little bit of the hidden curriculum and, and kind of go ahead and dive into what we hope to talk about today.
• 2:40
  Yeah, today we're going to be talking about emotional intelligence. And we'll use the phrase emotional fitness throughout the episode today.
• 2:49
  really talking about why emotion regulation is so important for high performers, whether that be, as, as an employer as, you know, parent, and it really doesn't matter what the domain emotional intelligence holds a lot of value.
• 3:06
  So we want to dive into that today and help you understand what emotional intelligence is and how you can cultivate that. And I think what we know and what they say, it's sports or life or business, that the further you go, your physical ability in sports or your intellectual capacity becomes a less likely predictor of your success, and that your emotional intelligence or your emotional fitness that really separates you.
• 3:33
  The mental preparation, we say, creates separation in your work and in your life. And so if you think about that construct, emotional fitness, you know, what does that really mean to you? To me. And, you know, we talk about, like you said, your physical fitness, it's the level to which you're able to perform physically. And so emotional fitness is how are you training the way that you experience emotions, the way that you, express emotions so that it leads to better performance?
• 4:05
  The more that you train it and practice it, the better you'll get it. Just like with physical fitness. Yeah. And I think it's what we see is just so often overlooked. And here's the great part about mental fitness. Now there is a time and place that you work on it. You can't overdo it. But there's an opportunity in everyday life, every interaction, to work on your mental game, your physical body can only take so much.
• 4:27
  But your mental training, your mental fitness, your emotional fitness that is something that you can continue to sharpen over time in every interaction. Yeah, and as a leader, this is something that is especially important because we we've talked about how talent will only get you so far.
• 4:44
  Fiscal talent only gets you so far. And then there's areas of your mental game that you're talking about really separate you.
• 4:50
  And emotional fitness really dictates who's going to then follow you. Yes. Going to want to engage with you. And, you know, experience the ups and the downs with you, because of the way you react.
• 5:05
  always laugh when I give out quotes because I love quote so much, but Calvin Coolidge, there's nothing more common than unsuccessful people with talent.
• 5:13
  And so when you think about we love looking at the natural performer and we love quote unquote, natural performer or natural born leader or natural born athlete or whatever, those we believe are natural skills, but they aren't able to handle the pressure that that they've been labeled as a high performer or have high potential. And we know that label set limits, but they aren't able to stay consistent.
• 5:36
  They aren't able to stay focused on the things we can control. And their reactions kind of dictate and set the tone for everybody else. So how have you seen those labels kind of come up in, the sport or, executive coaching world where the management of emotions creates a label for an individual? Well, I think when we know we have labels, you know, one, we talk about a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset.
• 6:01
  So let's go back to that. We start young with our children. You were so smart. You were so talented. You were so athletic. You have so much potential. And potential is a word. It beats not having it, but it always reminds me of what I haven't done. You think I should have done? It's like you. You have so much opportunity.
• 6:17
  But you're so smart. But you, you people will follow you. But. And so it's always this. If I could only fix this, or if you would only change that. And what they're all often pointing to are those controllable factors. My preparation. How am I manage my anxiety? How am I managing my emotions? How am I, adding pressure or taking it away?
• 6:42
  And I think that is one of the skill sets of leadership that is often overlooked is knowing when to add pressure, knowing when to take it away, when the skill sets a beat performance, knowing when to add pressure, knowing when to take it away. And so there's emotional reactions. We are quite often aware of how much it's impacting our own performance and the performance of others, and we become okay with it.
• 7:05
  You know, I think of all of the athletes that I've worked with and how common it is for a parent to say, oh, well, they're just a hothead. Yes.
• 7:13
  And they're the high head on the team. No, they just don't have control of their emotions. Yeah, they haven't quite. Or they play with so much passion. Oh yeah.
• 7:23
  Yeah, they play with so much passion and and understanding that. Yeah, that can be part of your game. We are not we aren't talking about not being authentic and genuine to who you are. But but to me, the foundation of the work that I really believe in as a cognitive behavioral psychologist, it's as you think. So you are not as you feel, so you think.
• 7:43
  And so your emotions can really betray you and lead you down a path of poor performance. And really minimize your influence. So let's, let's try to set the stage here a little bit and, and help our listeners understand what exactly are we talking about? What about emotions and what do they signal? You know, emotions arise as a direct result of something happening in your environment.
• 8:10
  It's a response to a stimulus, right. And that could be a threat. It could be, response to your values,
• 8:18
  or overall readiness. So, you know, anything that you encounter throughout the day that challenges one of those areas, you're going to elicit an emotional reaction. Yeah. And and I love that. So we'll break down. There's, you know, reaction response.
• 8:31
  But I think it's also interesting a little bit how our brains were created to protect us from threats and what really separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom is they, they operate on reaction all the time. They feel a threat. They react, they feel pressure, they react. Whatever it is, they just react to the moment.
• 8:50
  And what separates us as humans is we get to choose a response so our emotions can inform us of what we're thinking, but should not dictate what we're thinking. And, and if I can become more aware of, as you say, these situations where whether it's a threat or there's conflict in my values, I think that's one that people often overlook the tension that arises when my values come into conflict.
• 9:13
  And and we as human beings don't like those feelings, and so we aren't aware of them. We try to avoid them, we try to suppress them. Or we tell ourselves, like, I should be able to handle this, and we don't give ourselves permission to be human and understand a little bit. These are normal human reactions. But what we're talking about is how do we have a different response?
• 9:40
  Yeah. I think an important thing to highlight here is that suppressing suppressing your emotions, that's it's not regulating your emotions. Like you said, that's kind of one of those things that we try to do. You know, an emotion comes up. We don't really want to experience it or it feels, unwanted. So we suppress yes away and avoid it.
• 9:59
  And we don't ever deal with it. And we and we, we teach that to our children like it's not okay. Like you shouldn't be mad. You shouldn't be upset. You should learn something. Yeah, yeah. We we minimize it. Yeah. And we don't give people permission to be human. We don't let them validate those emotions. And what we know by being aware of those are my own tendencies, my own reactions.
• 10:23
  That I have a better chance to respond the way I want to respond.
• 10:27
  Yeah.
• 10:27
  you know, we've talked a little about how it's normal to have these human reactions to, to different scenarios and different stimuli that are presented to us on a consistent basis. How do we start becoming more mindful of the like, our own reactions and our own responses? The first step always comes back to awareness. And here we're going to be talking about emotional awareness, tuning into, you know, how do you feel physically when, something stressful happens or on the flip, when something really great happens and you get excited,
• 11:02
  how do your emotions show through your body language?
• 11:05
  That's really the first piece of awareness here. And then your thoughts. What are you thinking about when you're really happy or what are you thinking about when you're angry? And getting a insight around what your thought patterns are and then urgency. And this is having the urgency to really dive into feeling your emotions and that awareness around how they're showing up, even when it's an unwanted feeling.
• 11:37
  yeah. So Daniel Goleman even talks about the the four key components of emotional intelligence. You know, it starts with a self-awareness.
• 11:46
  Yeah. So so you can't regulate what you don't recognize. Then once I'm aware, then we get into the other factors of self-regulation and empathy and social skills. But that awareness really being mindful of what is my body really telling me, what is my interpretation of these emotions that I'm experiencing? What am I thinking when I am stressed in.
• 12:07
  And since we weren't able to capture, we thought what we also know is what are the rules and beliefs I have created around myself, around the world, around leadership, around performance that are really limiting my ability to respond the way I want to respond. And we create those beliefs in our mind forever, that I should be able to act a certain way, that I shouldn't experience this, that I should, or we've been doing something for so long, that we weren't even aware of.
• 12:35
  Like we think we're helping instead of hurting the situation. I ask coaches all the time. Or your players or in leaders are your is your team winning because of you or in spite of you? And sometimes they're overcoming your own anxiety. And if you're ignorant of how you react to stress, or if you're ignorant of your own fear, your own anxiety, so many leaders get in a position like, well, I don't get scared, I don't get nervous.
• 13:01
  You know, I just watch Alex Honnold climb again top 101, which made me nervous just watching it. It's like people think you don't get scared. He's like, no, I get scared. I experience fear, but I've been fearful so much I know how to respond to it. So he understands how his body is going to react, and he is mindful and aware of how to regulate those emotions so he can stay in the present.
• 13:25
  Yeah, and I walked right into the second step there, which is that regulation. Once you have the awareness of how you're responding to the emotions, what do you do with it? And,
• 13:35
  you know, how do you actually make change so that you show up the way you want to show up when you experience different emotions?
• 13:42
  Yeah, to me, I guess. Where would you start? I kind of get my ideas. I kind of always think about quiet your mind and quiet your body to regulate those emotions. What would you find being most helpful in this? So when I think of emotional control and what's helped me the most in this regard is it's the deep breathing.
• 14:02
  Yes. And taking 1 or 2 deep breaths. And really, we'll get into this in a few minutes more so but picking out what emotion you're experiencing in that moment, a lot of times will feel at. I had a great friend one time who told me that I hate when a client tells me that they're overwhelmed and they're feeling overwhelmed for me.
• 14:24
  And I was like, well, why? And he goes, well, because it's not really an emotion. There's something underneath that. Yeah, when somebody tells you they're overwhelmed or frustrated, that's not really the emotion. Yeah. Anger, they usually say is a secondary emotion. There's something else there. And so labeling what you're feeling, and that is really where I think the control starts because you have to know.
• 14:49
  Okay. Well here's what I'm feeling. And I'm going to take a deep breath, figure out how I'm going to show up, and respond. And so one just the physiological nature, the quiet, your body taking a deep breath. It it kind of activates the parasympathetic nervous system and kind of calms that, that anxiety cycle down in your body and gives you a chance to focus, you know, when your body is under stress, all these factors are in play kind of throwing you in a fight or flight mode.
• 15:17
  And if we can just take a breath and relax now I have a chance to really not only label that feeling, but have a chance to respond the way I want to respond. But most people never get there. Yeah, yeah, most people never get there. Most, most of the time. I think we just shut down. Yeah, we either fight, which is maybe my tendency or I'm the withdrawal.
• 15:38
  Yeah. Oh yeah. Withdrawal. And I mean, my wife and I, we, we fight in different ways. I'm going to fight and she's going to withdrawal. And so part of is, what I hear you say, not only labeling what I'm feeling, but giving yourself permission to experience the feeling. And sometimes that's hard to do and be vulnerable and say like, hey, I'm really upset.
• 15:58
  I'm really discouraged. I am really anxious. I'm really stressed, which would lead to so much meaningful conversation because it gives people a chance to really have empathy for what you're experiencing, versus not labeling it for yourself doesn't give you permission to label it with others. And then you create kind of this big divide. Because unspoken and unmet expectations are a huge source of frustration.
• 16:28
  Yeah. I think what's important to note to know is you can't just stop there, because that's where we begin to justify our behaviors by giving it a title. I yell because I'm angry. Yeah. Or even worse, in relationship, I yell because you did this and we blame others, and we make excuses and we don't take ownership of our own feelings.
• 16:51
  We don't take ownership for our own responses. And we give that control to other people in our life, right? Yeah. They get to take back the control. Now. Yeah. An awareness without action again. That doesn't that leaves you worse off than you were before. And so as I'm labeling these emotions and you said, don't stop there, I like where you were going.
• 17:11
  I interrupted you like I'm frustrated because I'm angry. What's the next step? Or how do I how do I not just stop there? Because that doesn't benefit me. I'm frustrated because I'm angry that. So like you said, the first step, why am I angry? That's the next question. Yeah. Understanding where that anger is stemming from.
• 17:31
  how do I want to respond in?
• 17:32
  That's the question you ask is how do I want to handle this situation? And that's really that stuff that most people don't take, you know, they just go, well, here's the justification. So now getting you thinking about action, what are you going to do in this? And here's like, because sometimes that gets reinforced, say, I'm a coach and I get really mad.
• 17:55
  Next thing you know, my team plays great. And what do I get myself credit for it. Well, well they need me to get mad I need you know or you know they need me to do this. And and I'm not really understanding what was the reason for the change in their behavior. What was the reason for the change in my behavior.
• 18:14
  And without that understanding it's hard to change that behavior. Tada! Quit doing what? What quote unquote works for us. So if I can become more mindful and realize I do have a choice in the matter, one of the things I've always tried to help people understand, and even in my own life, even if you are upset and you are angry and you can label and identify, here's why you're upset.
• 18:37
  Here's a rule that was violated, or here's what somebody said, or here's the pressure that you're feeling at least asking the question, well, how is your reaction helping the situation? Yeah. How is the emotion helping you, respond the way you want to respond? We talk about minimizing regret, what we often see with people when they lose control of their emotions.
• 19:00
  They now make decisions and say things that they normally wouldn't say, and then ends up being a lot of regret and a lot of guilt and a lot of shame. And so we're just trying to help narrow that gap between who you are and who you want to be. By really being mindful of your emotional control or lack thereof.
• 19:18
  Gabby, as we continue to be mindful and aware, we've talked a little bit about the different reaction and response.
• 19:24
  And so just to kind of for clarification, I don't know if we ever really said, what's the difference between a reaction and response. So how would you what do you see. There's a difference in a reaction. Response. Yeah. Well the reactions are automatic in nature. They happen without thought. Very just instantaneous. Emotion driven is how we describe reactions.
• 19:45
  Is that, you, you get angry and you instantly have a reaction, whether that be yelling, hitting a wall, punching and kicking. And so, yeah, a little two year old temper tantrum, a little two year old temper tantrum. I mean, think about it as as a young child who has no idea how to regulate emotions and hasn't learned any of those skills yet.
• 20:08
  So how do they react when they're upset? They cry, they scream, they yell. That's a reaction. It's automatic. And and then responding. Responding is where we do what you said. You take a moment, pause, and choose how you want to react. So you're you're still having, you know, reaction. It's just you're getting to choose how that is showing up.
• 20:36
  Yeah. And I love Viktor Frankl and Man's Search for meaning. You know who was imprisoned in the concentration camp as a young Jewish man in World War Two? At the last the book, he said, the last of one's freedoms, the one they can never take away, is his ability to choose his attitude, no matter the situation. And I think there's great freedom.
• 20:55
  I talk a lot about playing for either freedom when you can choose how I want to respond, and at times you may choose to get angry and say mean things and bring a level of intensity. But if you are just constantly reacting, then as a leader you become unpredictable. Yeah. And and you aren't able to modulate and regulate your emotions in a way that really helps move and inspire people in a positive way that they feel threatened or intimidated.
• 21:25
  And we know growth doesn't really occur. Right? Think about just inner intermittent, reinforcement schedules, you know, in order for punishment or threats for that reinforcement to work, the person has to be present. Yeah. And this is such an interesting topic because, doing some research right now in the area of executive presence and one of the key areas is, you know, how do you handle emotions?
• 21:51
  And the dark side is when you get into what you said, where you become intimidating, people fear you, because of your reactions and your lack of control of those reactions. So, if you're thinking about being a leader, that stability, that consistency is what it's going to allow a team of individuals to want to follow you.
• 22:16
  Yeah. And I think that's and a lot of people lead with that power and fear and, and they misinterpret everybody's willingness to oblige and do what they say as they think they're really following. And you're just really a dictator in that sense. And you can draw out some short term performance, but long term growth, and a sense of connection to a common purpose and a common goal.
• 22:38
  I think we see that inhibited by your own reaction to stress. Now, know this is a good time to throw in a caveat. We're all human. I mean, I say that probably every podcast. And so it doesn't mean that you don't give yourself permission to be human, that you get to experience all the emotions that human beings experience.
• 22:56
  But maturity matching talent means, as I continue to grow in and and invest in who I am, that I learn to manage those emotions so I can connect with people in a meaningful way so I can help them accomplish what they want to accomplish. That I know when to add pressure and when to take it away, that that's what we mean.
• 23:17
  You're going to be human, but how quickly can you shorten the reaction and choose the right response? That's going to be a key contributor to your growth. Yeah
• 23:26
  okay. So how do we start. You know we've got a pretty good awareness. And and I'm a pretty passionate person. So in my in my mind with all these podcasts I'm like well I wonder what that feels like to, to I wonder what that looks like.
• 23:40
  Without being disingenuous. So what are some practical tools? We talked about awareness, but now some action steps. What can I start doing to be more mindful of, and what I like to think about is run some experiments you've been doing a certain way for. So long, how do we start running some experiments to get some feedback on our emotional reactions and emotional responses?
• 24:02
  Yeah. Well, the first tool is and I mentioned sense previously, is that emotion labeling. And I think this is great for anyone who really struggles to be in touch with their emotions and struggles to express or verbalize what it is they're feeling. Because maybe you've suppressed emotions for so long, or you have bottled everything up for so long that it's all kind of blurred together, you can't really label it.
• 24:31
  So, beginning to just name what you're feeling. I'm frustrated and acknowledging it, or I'm anxious, even the positive emotions. So I'm happy and grateful. I'm excited and allowing yourself to start saying, okay, well, when I feel this, this is what it is. A lot of times, at least in my experience with clients, is they'll come in there, they've got all these feelings, they're having these reactions that they can't really label it.
• 25:01
  Yeah, I know what I'm feeling, but I'm just so much. And then, as you said, that next step is okay understanding what's the thought underneath. What what what value is being violated? What belief is being contradicted that's driving that? What expectation are you living up to? That's that next step is understanding and labeling the emotion.
• 25:24
  But then understanding and identifying okay, what's underlying that. What are what are some of your beliefs and rules and even lies that you've created about yourself, about others, about the world that when they were violated, I automatically feel this way. And yeah, that I should be all things to all people. I can't let anybody down, that I should have all the answers, those unrealistic expectations that sometimes is what's driving our emotional reactions.
• 25:52
  And that's that's really that second tool. There is being able to pause and and name it. So pausing, taking those deep breaths that we mentioned and then thinking about, okay, like I said, why am I feeling this way? What happened to make me feel this way? And, how do I want to show. Yeah, how do I want to respond?
• 26:12
  I love like that freedom to choose a response.
• 26:15
  if I'm not aware of how my stress is impacting me, I cannot be how much stress is aware of how much stress is impacting others.
• 26:22
  That's why empathy and social skills are such a key component of emotional intelligence and emotional fitness. Because I have to be able to regulate my emotions in a meaningful way so I can connect in a meaningful way with others. But I think empathy is seeing with their eyes and hearing with their ears and feeling with their heart. If I'm under that stress response, I'm worried about me.
• 26:43
  Yeah, and that stress makes me selfish. It makes me so, self absorbed with me and it separates me from others. And so I think that's the key part, is I hear you talking, and what's in my mind is I become more aware, mindful of my stress and what's driving that amount of reacting.
• 27:02
  If I can just take a breath and looking around, I'm like, okay, is it really? Yeah. You know, I played a clip this weekend of Dave Chappelle getting booed off stage when he was 18. Have you seen that clip? Yeah. So good. And he's like, who gets like he had never been booed in his life. And that emotional reaction was so devastating to him.
• 27:22
  But after a moment, I took a breath. I was like, hey, my mom still loves mama. My friends still love me. This this is not so bad. Yeah, and he said he was liberated from his fear. And so that polls and reflect that emotion of insecurity, that emotion of anxiety, that emotion of not feeling like I'm enough. What?
• 27:44
  He realized he was okay with that. He was liberated from his fear. Yeah, that I was threatened. The third tool, which is recovery. And to your point earlier, I mean, we're not talking about not experiencing emotions or not expressing emotions. We're talking about how quickly came recover from a spike of an emotion. Right. And respond the way you would like to respond.
• 28:07
  And, I was going back to understanding that emotions in and of themselves are short lived experiences, but oftentimes we let them dictate our mood. We love to dictate our entire day.
• 28:20
  allowing yourself time to allow your emotions to peak so that they experience whatever emotion is coming and then to let it fade away, don't let it, you know, linger with you all day.
• 28:31
  Allow yourself to let it pass through. That's what they're meant to do. Yeah. Aren't meant to stay long term. They're short lived experiences. And I think, again, a key component of maturity is to narrow that gap between the reaction and response. The quicker you can be, you can call the timeout and hit the reset button. That is a sign of maturity.
• 28:52
  And for most of us to achieve what we want to achieve our maturity, or in this sense, our emotional fitness has to match our talent.
• 29:01
  So we've given you some tools to, to start thinking about how you could train your emotional fitness. Now we want to talk about integrating this. And, I love what we talked about at the beginning, how these mental skills can be practiced in everyday situations and not just one domain. You know, it could be a conversation with your spouse.
• 29:23
  It could be, you know, a meeting at work, conversation with your coach, anything that elicits emotion, there's an opportunity to practice.
• 29:36
  Yeah, I just get tickled when I think about anything that elicits emotion. Think about the emotional roller coaster most people own on a daily basis. I mean, think about the athletes we work with, the coaches we work with. I think about the salespeople that right in between calls, the pressure, the like, anything that elicits emotion. You get a call from a family member and they're going through a traumatic event.
• 29:59
  A child is struggling. This is something that you're going to be triggered every day, and so and you have a chance to respond in a certain way. Every day is a chance to learn and to grow. And so if I can identify and label these emotions and I understand and it informs me, what am I thinking about myself, what beliefs do I have?
• 30:20
  They're being challenged right now. And what would it look like if I chose a different way? Part of our job, I think Gabby, is to help people minimize the regret in their life. And we know that guilt and shame are terrible motivators. They can they can kick start the growth process, but they don't last. And so part of this is if I can narrow that gap between who I am and who I want to be, between a how I've shown up for all of my life and how I really want to show up, then I'm minimize regret.
• 30:50
  Then I'm operating from a position of strength, and I can be proud of how I showed up. And that's peace of mind.
• 30:56
  And then
• 30:57
  some of the questions maybe that we want people to leave with a little bit is, I always kind of think about what does it feel like to be led by you?
• 31:07
  What does it feel like to be loved by you? What does it feel like to be connected to you? What's it feel like to be connected and loved and led by you or coached by you when you're under stress? What are some other questions people can ask to really help kind of understand how they're reacting versus how they want to respond.
• 31:29
  Yeah. On the on the line there of understanding how your, showing up during stressful periods is when pressure hits, does your emotional response move you closer to the leader you want to be or further away from it? So when you're, you know, stressed out, do you do you become a worse version of yourself? Yeah. Or a better version of yourself?
• 31:54
  I only hope that it's the latter, but most of the time it's, you know, and that's why some pre work really helps. We spent a lot of time on our podcast over the years talking about visualization and paint a picture of who you want to be and preparing for those stressful moments, and seeing it in your mind.
• 32:11
  Most people don't spend that time and they just are constantly reacting without ever putting any intentional thought around who I really want to be. How do I really want to be? Yeah, and I think a question around your triggers is important. Yes. What emotions trigger me the most? Which ones do I struggle to regulate? The most.
• 32:31
  And maybe that's anger. Maybe it's fear. Maybe it's, frustration. Whatever emotion you struggle with, that is where you need to prioritize your growth and even think about taking that a step further. What situations trigger those emotions or what people what what what people would trigger those emotions? And I think it depends. Sometimes the roles that you're playing in leadership or in performance opportunities or in relationships with family members, what are some of those situations that kind of trigger the emotions?
• 33:09
  And then what are the emotions that give you the most trouble in regulating, and how are you interpreting those emotions? I think one last piece I'll say around maturity is being able to interpret your emotions correctly. Yeah. And the example I use all the time about Steph Curry getting nervous before every game. That interpretation is he's about to do something special.
• 33:30
  Not that he's paralyzed with fear. And so part of labeling and identifying these emotions and the ones that I struggle with is understanding how am I interpreting these emotions correctly. And if I give in to those emotions, I love that question you ask, are they moving me towards who I want to be or farther away from who I want to be?
• 33:47
  final thoughts? Wrap up questions. I think that's that's really it on my end. I think the final thoughts here would, would just be to try your best to be consistent with it. You know, emotions are so volatile. They change constantly. And navigating that is not an easy process. Learning to be aware and control emotions is is not going to happen overnight.
• 34:12
  So give yourself a little bit of grace and just be consistent with implementing these practices. Yeah. Love giving yourself grace. But to me, I hope, our listeners, I hope it hits you the way it hits, because I cannot help but think, as we're having conversations of, how this is maybe been a struggle my life at times, and especially as you feel more pressure as a leader and more fresh pressure as a parent.
• 34:37
  And more responsibility, maybe you become less mindful of how you're reaction. What's it feel like to be, connected to you? And so I hope our listeners are able to think about and relate to what does this really mean that we're talking about in terms of emotional fitness? What does it mean to you and how can you take this information, apply it to help you become a better version of yourself?
• 34:58
  And so that's that's our hope and our prayer here. We appreciate so much you're listening. We appreciate your feedback. Please continue to follow us or like us or send us questions. Comments. We love taking your questions and really trying to shape some, content that is relevant and encouraging and hopefully inspiring to you. So thanks as always for listening, Gabby.
• 35:19
  Enjoy being with you. And until next time, continue to be better and pursue better.