For the past 20 years, my most rigorous exercise has been carrying my laptop around the world. Still, when I went to the doctor for a checkup (finally), I was surprised and dismayed by my blood pressure.  [This article was first published 12/21/2005 -- the good news:  I've come to like exercise!]

Over the years doctors have been saying, “you’re on the high end of normal, one of these days you’re going to have to deal with this”. In my fantasy, “one of these days” was not coming any time soon.
Since then, I’ve managed to exercise 30 of the last 34 days. It’s not so awful doing it, but thinking about it has been frustrating. Especially at the beginning, I felt trapped and powerless. I’m thinking of exercise as a punishment — how much time will I have to serve before I can go back to living how I want?

So while I’ve been successful at initiating some of the right actions, I haven’t fully addressed the emotional challenge. By force of will I can make myself exercise. I can say, “exercise or die. Let’s go,” and I get on Nordic Track. But internally it’s a battle, and that means I’m making myself a victim instead of a warrior, and it’s not a sustainable model.

At 3 and a half, my son can surely relate. He is somewhat indignant that he can’t do whatever he wants, whenever he wants to — and he makes it unpleasant for those of us who attempt to direct him otherwise.

It’s like the same thing in my head. On the one hand, I know all these benefits of exercising. I like the feeling afterwards, I like sleeping better, I like having more energy. I don’t like not being able to do whatever I want, whenever I want — so I throw these little tantrums.

Just like with Max’s tantrums, it was a great relief for me to realize I could just ignore mine. I could just say, “Go ahead and pout — I’m doing it anyway!” and get skiing. But also like trying to ignore Max’s tantrums, this is an energy drain. Read the rest of this entry »

Despite all our technological advances, isn’t life still full of mystery?  One enigma is our emotional inconsistency.  Some days we are the essence of centeredness and calm.  Then, out of seemingly nowhere, we are quick to explode.  We may be expert at hiding our emotional eruptions.  But even if they aren’t apparent to others, we know (if we’re honest with ourselves) that our inner switch is flipped—we’re enraged, furious, incensed.  Then we feel ashamed.  We deny our feelings to others and our self.  But do we take the time to ask—why does this situation lead to a sudden burst of anger?

Emotions don’t always give us “accurate” information about our environment but if we learn to use this unique internal software, we can benefit from our emotional data.  Through trial and error, we can learn our personal “program.”  We can repair any “faulty wiring” and analyze the emotional reports generated moment by moment.  Then we can use our emotions as an internal GPS—a guide through the dizzying array of choices we face everyday.

This week, on two different occasions, I was uncharacteristically outraged.  As I thought about each event, I realized that my anger was recurring –and growing.

My short fuse shows me that my choices aren’t working.  In one case, I’ve found myself fuming after a prospective buyer is a ½ hour late for a showing of our home.  Why such an over-reaction?  It “shouldn’t be” such a big deal.  Then I realize that after a year of showing the house, I’ve become more frazzled and frustrated with the endless trials of selling a house.  My emotions tell me, “Enough!   It is time to give up (for now).”

My other challenge is a relationship.  I’ve tried to “make it work” but my reactions give me another message.  I’m not weathering minor conflicts well.  Each small struggle seems huge to me.  I’m quick to feel outrage, to sulk, or brood over an injustice that, in other situations, I’d barely notice.  When I think of ending our contact, my anger subsides and I immediately feel calm.   I may argue that I “shouldn’t” let this friendship end.  Maybe I “shouldn’t.”  But if I’ve worked through my psychological blind spots (an ongoing task), my current emotions may discern more about a situation than I (as yet) consciously understand.  It may be months or years before I finally comprehend what my unconscious emotional self knew all along.

I don’t like being angry. (Who does?) Rage is murder on the immune system and people don’t like a furious person.  But anger gets my attention.  It’s like a good friend who will tell me the truth, even when I don’t want to hear it.

All emotions send us daily data that we can use for better living.  Are you utilizing the messages of your emotions–your internal GPS?

Last week Emma was “fussing out” about a writing assignment.* So I said, “then don’t do it.”

“But I H A A A A A V E to…” she moaned.

I pointed out that she did not, in fact, have to: She had choice and each choice had consequences.

She cried harder.

Why?

Emma was caught in a classic emotional trap: wishing it were not so (but knowing it’s not).

Many of us squander buckets of energy spiraling around as we avoid directly facing the facts of our current reality, for example:

Frequently leaders I work with will tell me they have an employee that they KNOW isn’t working out, but they pretend (at some level) that it will change. Months and a lot of pain later, they finally pull the trigger and make a change (sometimes still avoiding the real issue by moving the person to be a poor performer for someone else).**

Some of my younger friends tell me about someone they’re dating, “He’d be perfect if only…” KNOWING it won’t happen, yet they hold onto this hopeless hope.

I want to write another book and KNOW that all I have to do is start writing, but I tell myself I don’t have time right now… in three months I’ll have less time, but I may finally become so frustrated with myself I take action.

Yes – change is possible, but denial is sweeter.

When something feels tough, we often defend ourselves by avoiding the truth of the situation. At the extreme, it’s like a scared 3-year-old: “If I cover my eyes you can’t see me!” While it’s “obvious” this doesn’t work, most of us do it regularly!

The paradox is that while we’re “protecting” ourselves and others from the “brutal” truth, while we stay in the trap we continue to feel frustration, fear, and sorrow. Those feelings push us to narrow our focus to dig into a problem:

Frustration – something’s wrong

Fear – something important may be at risk

Sorrow – I’m losing something I care about

While we stay in the mix of the problem, those feelings continue and usually escalate until we finally get serious. Once we confront the situation and make a commitment to deal with the current reality, then the feelings shift.

So the moral is: fire everyone we’re frustrated with, split up with everyone who disappoints us, and forget about projects that stress us out – right?

Er… maybe not. But those feelings are signals – like indicator lights on the dashboard – saying, “Hey – check it out. Maybe it’s time to get real.”

—–

* Emma is now 10, and an amazing student. She’s also a perfectionist and when something is hard and the “right answer” is not clear, she stresses herself out. Familiar to any of you?

** To be clear: Often a poor performer would be GREAT somewhere else because the problem is frequently the match. But then there are people you just know in your heart will not do well anywhere in this organization, and it takes chutzpah to stand up and take the right action.

Just listened to a fab radio show from The Really Big Questions about emotion. talks about some of the science and implications for us individually and collectively. The just forgot to say, “and if you want to learn how to effectively use these incredible resources, contact Six Seconds”

Definitely listen to this one and let me know what you think – and feel about it!!!

http://trbq.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=16&Itemid=43

I was recently thinking about love and how I believe it’s one of the easiest emotions to share with others. And not just that but when you do share it, the benefits that come back to you (and hopefully others!) are significant. A few weeks ago the January 2010 edition of Scientific American Mind came out and had a whole article on what makes love between two people successful. Surprisingly, a lot of the work was done using students and relative strangers. The increase in feelings of love, even between total strangers, was incredible when they used certain techniques. One exercise in particular involved sharing a piece of personal information with another person. It’s a form of love to share and be listened to. Of course, there are many definitions of what love actually is and this leads to interesting thoughts and discussions about this type of research. Perhaps this isn’t love at all but something else? The link to the preview of the article is below. Take a look!

http://tinyurl.com/yeumxfo

Every Emotion has a Purpose is a basic tenet of Emotional Intelligence.  I thought of this today when I heard about  a study quoted on national news: “Bad moods can actually be good for you, with an Australian study finding that being sad makes people less gullible, improves their ability to judge others and also boosts memory.”

Here’s another quote:  “…research suggests that sadness … promotes information processing strategies best suited to dealing with more demanding situations.”

Good to know that my moods can provide some benefits at work!

You can read the entire article here.

From NurtureShock to Bright-sided, there are several new “anti-feel-good” books coming out, and they seem to be striking a chord with the current state of the world — and they are SO right.  I mean enough of this talking about feelings. As Marge Simpson said (more or less), “take those negative feelings and push them down inside yourself until you’re standing on them!”  What we need is more cold-hearted, analytic critics in the world, and clearly there’s good money to be made selling books that say so.  Look, suppression has worked for generations — one only has to look objectively at the data.  For example, our parents’ generation was raised to suppress feelings and avoid confrontation, and see how fabulously well they’ve done with the big challenges of life, such as holding onto ideals, building enduring marriages, leading businesses ethically, and reversing environmental depredations?

Oh, wait…

Look, as a society we’ve already tried the path of the supremacy of mean logic, and it hasn’t worked well.

In all seriousness, there is a piece of this “anti nurture” stance that I appreciate.  JUST being positive doesn’t accomplish much. Overpraise – that sloppy, saccharin way some people interact (especially with kids) – has terrible detriment (though underpraise is probably worse).

My daughter, Emma, recently entered a garden in the County Fair.  We were asking her how it went on the setup day, and what the adults there said to her.  “They said I did a good job, but I didn’t know if that meant I really did a good job or not.”

“Why honey, what do you mean?”

“Well, you know, adults always say how great kids’ work is to make them feel good, so you don’t know if your work is really good or not.  Except Suzanne [Emma's fabulous and tough dance teacher], she hardly ever says something is good so when she does you know it’s really good.”

I also agree that JUST talking about feelings is pretty much useless.  Again, treating feelings as an anathema is probably worse.  But emotional intelligence requires more than “just talking,” it requires accuracy and insight.  Emotional wisdom is an even higher standard – it takes going from awareness to action – which requires a robust mix of skills.

One of the key principles we teach people learning to use our emotional intelligence assessment is that BALANCE is at least as importance as overall competence.  Someone who’s highly skilled in one competency can overuse that to their and others’ detriment – as I wrote a few days ago, even an incredible valuable asset like optimism can go awry when it’s used without the balancing effect of other strengths.

And, in the end, would you rather live in a world with well meaning happy people who are over-caring and over-praising, or in a world with steely-eyed grouchy “realists” who can’t be bothered to care and find praise a waste of oxygen?  Maybe somewhere in between?

I’ve been spending a bit of time lately trying to ‘feel’ things without the usual accompanying thoughts in my head. This, it turns out, is exceptionally difficult for me! I do ‘feel’ a lot and often use those feelings to help me navigate through my life. However, in some ways, I have a brain that I rarely turn off and it seems sometimes that thoughts and emotions are so interconnected for me that I don’t separate the two.

The first thing I noticed is that just relaxing and trying to ’feel’ with no thoughts attached, just acknowledging my feelings, is tough for me at this point in the process. The next strategy I tried was to ask myself “Are you feeling _____?” “How about ________?” This worked pretty well but then left me feeling a bit rudderless, still unable to linger in a feeling even after identifying it, partly because my brain was leaping ahead and thinking about the feeling and what to do with it.

I spent a few days working on this and I came up with a ‘template’ for myself I’m calling thoughts_to_feelings that helps to get me into a space where I can make contact with my emotions and then stay in contact for a while, without thinking about the ‘why’.

At any given time there is always a ‘current event’, if you will, in my head and heart. Something I’m mulling over and having feelings about. I decided on the third day to start with that current event. I then took myself through a series of questions about that situation and identified the feelings I was feeling and, most importantly, allowed myself to rest there for a few moments or for as long as I wanted to. Here is my template of questions for myself:

What is my ‘Current Event’?

What is the overriding feeling about this?

What are the other feelings floating around?

What have I felt about this in the past?

Why did I feel that way?

Do I still feel that way?

Today what do I feel?

Next Steps?

This may seem like a lot of thinking about feelings but the result was that this worked beautifully! I had a wonderful ‘feeling’ experience and ended up crying tears of absolute joy afterwards. I have worked some with this basic template each day since. Often it’s the same current event (I have a big one in my life right now!) but that’s okay with me. I have no agenda except to practice feeling and this process is helping me immensely. For me, this is a journey and a chance to quite intentionally work on this important skill that I want to improve. I wanted to make sure to treat myself kindly and not be disappointed that this was hard for me but rather, to ask myself what it would take to move forward. I know I will get better at doing this and won’t always need to follow this prescribed course but this opened the door for me. I hope we all try to treat ourselves kindly when we realize that something is hard for us and praise ourselves when we make progress, even slightly, in the direction we want to go. The experience of success helps us want to continue and makes for a positive experience we want to keep repeating!

A friend recently confided that he had “acted badly” at work. He had raised his voice and snapped at his team. Now he felt ashamed.

I asked him to describe the situation.

“Greg” had repeatedly asked his logistics team to bill their trucking partners using new parameters. Time and again, Greg discovered that several of his staff were still using outdated pricing. This was unacceptable!

His anger seemed understandable to me—Greg’s directives were being ignored. Of course he felt angry. But instead of recognizing that his anger was an internal message to take action–Greg simply felt that it was “bad.” Ironically, suppressing his anger led to a bigger outburst. If he had allowed himself to simply acknowledge his mounting frustration–first to himself, and then to the others–Greg could have expressed himself with more skill.

While anger can lead to many harmful behaviors, anger itself is not the problem. If we feel ashamed of our anger (a common response) it will be even harder to navigate this emotion.

Authenticity is a rare and invaluable leadership trait — the foundation of credibility and trust, authenticity is even more critical in times of challenge and complexity. Adapted from a chapter in Bruna Martinuzzi’s new book, The Leader as a Mensch: Become the Kind of Person Others Want to Follow, this article provides a clear explanation of authenticity as a leadership imperative, and offers practical strategies to develop this trait.
Read the rest of this entry »

Even though it’s billed as “The World’s Shortest Parade”(under 1/4 mile) the Aptos 4th of July parade takes over two hours because of the myriad marchers — from the Ukulele crew to the giant pigeon to the few remaining World War veterans.  This year’s parade had an accidental entry, a picture I can’t get out of my head.

Imagine a small town street thronged with crowds and hundreds of people in a parade — flags waving and cheering.

In the last decades, we’ve unleashed undreamed of social pressure on young adults, we don’t understand and we’re not prepared to cope.

Now imagine a teenage girl walking with one of the groups. She’s a little apart from the team, looking a bit lost and alone, and she is talking on her cell phone, desperately trying to connect, oblivious to all the real people around her.

I’ve observed a similar scene in cities around the world, with adults too, but especially teens. Watching the girl at the parade, I started thinking about my own experience as a teen — feeling disconnected, lonely, and often desperate. Like looking into the windows of a sweet shop and wishing I had a quarter for a treat. Maybe if I’d had the treat it wouldn’t have satisfied me, but at the time you wouldn’t have been able to convince me.

I suspect I’m not alone in feeling a perpetual outsider — feeling something missing. Even Albert Einstein, one of my greatest heroes, said, “It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely.”

“It is strange to be known so universally and yet to be so lonely.” - Albert Einstein

As I’m working to grow up, this void has become smaller and I worry about it less often, but it’s there — a hopeless longing that I “know” would be filled if only become successful enough, cool enough, fashionable enough, popular enough, smart enough.

The drive to connect, to be accepted, is both glorious and brutal. It drives us to care and connect — and to engage in self-destructive behavior in a desperate bid to fit. I remember watching a counseling group with teens, the counselor asked one boy, “What would you do to feel accepted.” The teen’s immediate answer was a desperate “Anything.”

As a teen, I had this sense of being outside, of missing the party. I was lonely much of the time, and that didn’t really go away until Patty and I were living together. Since then, I can hardly think of five times I felt overwhelmed by the tide of loneliness, and most of those involve laying sleepless at 3 am, jetlagged on the other side of the globe (we just celebrated our 15th anniversary).

Part of the change is having a real partner, and part of it is growing up. I’ve come to know myself more, and like myself better. I’ve developed a bit of what the Six Seconds EQ Model calls “Intrinsic Motivation,” that force that drives from within despite the noise and pressure from outside.

So the struggle is not new, but technology changes the pace. The girl alone in the parade was trapped in wireless loneliness – a primal pain brought to the digital age.

In a digital world, there is an added dimension of rapid but thin connection. Thin connections don’t activate the same brain centers – they are simulations of but not substitutions for social contact. The speed and ease, however, makes them accessible and exciting.

The “thinness” of digital connection can’t actually be fixed by quantity — just as one can not get a healthy meal by eating a LOT of junk — but the thinness may drive people to want more.

I feel this rush of connection and importance when I come into the office and there are 50 emails, and the phone is ringing, and I spend hours responding — but by 2:00 the machines are quiet, and I feel let down, partly because the stimulus has faded, and partly because I didn’t accomplish the meaningful work I’d set out for myself. This flurry of busy-ness is like those “energy drinks,” where you get the illusion of vitality ’till the emptiness returns, redoubled.

I suspect there is a quasi-addiction to this stimulus that, combined with the pressure to belong, can lead people (especially teens) to fixate on their phones. This summer, in two cities on opposite sides of the country I happened to overhear parents talking about their teens’ cell phone bills. Somehow in both cases the teen had racked up a $250 bill, and in both cases said “I wasn’t my fault, friends just keep sending me text messages.” Just as I can hardly say “no” to the waves of emails, I imagine the thousands of text messages send a slightly re-assuring “you’re not alone” message.

The “thinness” of digital connection can’t actually be fixed by quantity — just as one can not get a healthy meal by eating a LOT of junk — but the thinness may drive people to want more. I recently met Amelia, a wonderful, vibrant teen who happened to be in a corporate leadership workshop I was running. During a break she was checking on her MySpace friends. I asked how much time she spent a day on the site. She paused to count and said, “Probably 19.” Thinking she’d misunderstood my question, I reiterated: “So how many hours per day?” She looked at me like I was a bit clueless (true), recounted on her fingers, “Yah, about 19.”

It seems Amelia has a lot of company — among 15-17 year-old teens, 70 percent girls and 57 of boys have profiles on sites such as MySpace (Pew Internet & American Life Project – here is a site with a lot of data on children and media: http://tinyurl.com/2zjqwp ).

“it’s not technology that’s the issue. It’s the disconnected relationships – the lack of emotional intelligence, ours and theirs.”

In spite of all this “contact,” my sense is, that like the rest of the Western population, teens are not happier. Among students in grades 9 through 12, 29 percent reported feeling sad or hopeless almost every day for an extended period in the last year (http://tinyurl.com/36gvbn). Apparently teen suicide has increased 300% over the last 30 years (http://tinyurl.com/3xwjbp).

At the same time, in a study on “social media” and “friending” (connecting to others online), more than 48% of respondents said they are having more fun in life as a result of spending time networking online (http://tinyurl.com/2ygshc).

Something is not adding up.

In the last decades, we’ve unleashed undreamed of social pressure on young adults, we don’t understand and we’re not prepared to cope. Pandora’s box is open for business – online and going mobile.

So for those who care to about this and future generations, we’re faced with a rapidly evolving challenge. Our knee-jerk reaction may be to push against these advances, to blame the technology.

At the same time we know it’s not technology that’s the issue. It’s the disconnected relationships – the lack of emotional intelligence, ours and theirs. It’s the isolation and lack of skill at building emotional bridges.

Emotion is the language through which we can create deep connections that mitigate the thinness of the digital age. So as IT capacities advance to make more and faster ways of interacting, we must put equal energy into advancing the underlying human capacities that make all this communicating actually matter. Then we’ll be able to reach those kids who feel they’re walking alone in the parade.

First published 2007-10-30

Google is crunching employee data to understand who might leave and why — so far, a key finding is that employees who feel underused are at risk.  This is a BFO (blinding flash of the the obvious) — a little emotional intelligence among managers would go a long way here!

Google Searches for Staffing Answers – WSJ.com.

In the car yesterday when Patty, my wife, accidentally pressed the little red button on her keys.  Lots of loud noise ensued, with Patty jumping out of her skin and jabbing at every button she could find to turn off the caterwauling.

When she finally managed to silence the alarm: “Good name for this button,” she said, “I press it and it makes me panic!”

Patty’s cortical thinking (analysis, sequencing) was shut down due to the flood of emotions pushing her to protect herself in this “dangerous” situation.  This reaction, which Goleman called “Hijacking the Amygdala” after Joesph LeDoux’s scientific research on the process, is often described as a “primitive” or even “bad” emotional response.  Yet it beautifully illustrates the primacy of emotion and the way feelings drive us.  The trick, as Patty found, is to learn — in advance — how to push the “un panic” button.

Dear Josh,
I’m a little confused with this issue, someone at my workshop asked me this question so need more explanation on this!  She said that: usually we use a hearts as an icon to express love and feelings and now you said feelings come from brain (amygdala) not heart?
So please help me to understand this, I have another workshop in Riyadh this week.
Look forward hearing from you, Regards,
- Manal

Hi Manal!
It is true that our emotions seem to be primarily produced and regulated in the brain – the limbic region.  Emotion chemicals are assembled in the hypothalamus and then released through the pituitary gland, they then flow through the blood and then into EVERY cell in the body.  The picture (to the right) illustrates an important point — when we’re talking about chemicals that are released from the brain in the blood, notice how important the heart is!  The Amygdala responds to certain “distress” or “danger” feeling chemicals and amplifies the flight/fright/freeze reaction – it is the regulator of our defensive patterns — again leading to a cascade of chemicals (one leading to another leading to another) that floods through brain & into body… and back and forth.

Neurotransmitters (brain cells) function through chemicals + electricity – so there are also electrical currents flowing around the brain tied to emotion.

However, the SAME kinds of brain cells and chemicals which exist in the limbic brain surround our hearts – and around our stomachs and in our spines — so people often talk about our “four brains”: head, heart, gut, and spine.

Important to note:  The neuropeptides that we experience as emotion (“the molecules of emotion” as Candace Pert says) are also produced throughout our bodies!  So sometimes a feeling could start in our toes!  These chemicals form a feedback loop between brain and body — constantly cycling around and regulating the function of our systems.  One major function is to direct attention — our emotions tell us what’s important in our environment (and in our internal landscape).

And finally:  There is emerging research on the link between the heart and emotions.  The heart beat becomes more regular when we’re in a calm, focused state.  The heart itself produces electromagnetic energy which seems also to become more even and smooth when we’re in an optimal state of emotional-mental-physical function.

Thanks for asking – I’ll post this on the blog as well!
=:-)
- Josh