Full Transcript for E068_How does emotional literacy make a difference to everyday safety leadership?

00:05:34.108 Well okay, yes, we do. 00:05:34.108 --> 00:05:39.041 They don't always agree, but there are techniques for bringing those into alignment. 00:05:39.041 --> 00:05:49.846 So I think there's benefits both in terms of, I would say, the accuracy of our choices, in terms of their alignment with what we care about and who we are. 00:05:49.846 --> 00:06:02.850 When we don't make choices that we thought we were going to make, we can begin to understand why, when we do things that are out of alignment with what we claim our values to be, we can resolve that for ourselves. 00:06:02.850 --> 00:06:09.891 So, again, it takes in my world, in my view, it takes a lot of mystery out of life and being human and why we do the things we do. 00:06:10.639 --> 00:06:10.920 I love that. 00:06:10.920 --> 00:06:14.016 A friend of mine once described emotions to me as a stop sign. 00:06:14.016 --> 00:06:22.803 You can either go almost running through the stop sign and just go wherever it takes you, or you can have that opportunity to pause and go. 00:06:22.803 --> 00:06:26.591 Well, what is actually going on in this moment? 00:06:26.591 --> 00:06:27.793 What am I feeling? 00:06:27.793 --> 00:06:29.848 What is the name that you put to that? 00:06:29.848 --> 00:06:38.293 You can tell me how many emotions actually are out there, but I think we only really think about nine or 12 or something silly like that. 00:06:39.180 --> 00:06:47.920 Well, there are studies that show that people like us tend to use the same 15 or 20 words regularly to name our emotions. 00:06:47.920 --> 00:06:50.944 We never vary from that same 15 or 20. 00:06:50.944 --> 00:06:54.952 But in my work there's more than 200, 250. 00:06:54.952 --> 00:07:03.033 And just out of curiosity, with the whole emergence of AI, I went to GPT and I asked it two questions. 00:07:03.033 --> 00:07:04.423 One do you have emotions? 00:07:04.423 --> 00:07:09.064 And it said no, of course not, because those are a human quality. 00:07:09.185 --> 00:07:18.410 So I thought, okay, at least he's being honest and then I asked him well, how many emotions are there, how many emotions do humans have? 00:07:18.410 --> 00:07:21.043 And I thought the response was fascinating. 00:07:21.043 --> 00:07:30.557 It said there's no way to calculate, there's no number that can be put on that, because human emotions are so nuanced that there is no way to count. 00:07:30.557 --> 00:07:34.288 And I thought that was quite insightful because I would agree with that. 00:07:34.288 --> 00:07:44.884 I would say, if we get to a hundred emotions that we can recognize, name, we understand and that we use in our lives, I would say we're quite masterful. 00:07:44.884 --> 00:07:46.848 But we can go beyond that. 00:07:46.848 --> 00:07:48.732 There are 200 or 300. 00:07:52.459 --> 00:07:58.273 It's not always essential every single one, but if we recognize that it's like a palette of colors, they get mixed. 00:07:58.273 --> 00:08:20.786 Our ability to separate and identify even closely placed emotions, for instance like apprehension and anxiety, the more accurately we can articulate what we're experiencing emotionally, the clearer we are about what we're experiencing in life. 00:08:20.786 --> 00:08:28.156 So for me that's the value is when we can understand the nuance of them. 00:08:28.156 --> 00:08:31.165 Then they become available to us to use. 00:08:31.165 --> 00:08:57.274 And you know, one analogy I would use is if you only knew the word fruit, then if you wanted a fruit, even if you wanted a banana, you could only ask for a fruit, and whatever the person gave you is whatever they interpret as a fruit, and you can be much more accurate about fruit if you know banana, apple, persimmon, pear, pineapple. 00:08:57.480 --> 00:09:04.836 Then you can articulate exactly what you're experiencing, what you're eating, but also you know what to ask for. 00:09:04.836 --> 00:09:11.592 You can be more precise in what you're requesting or how you're explaining to someone your experience. 00:09:11.592 --> 00:09:15.746 So I think that that's how it is with emotions too. 00:09:15.746 --> 00:09:33.988 If we only know the word anxiety, which is very popular, and if we're not clear on what's the relationship between anxiety and apprehension and uncertainty and resentment and disappointment, then we'll tend to call a lot of things anxiety that are not necessarily anxiety. 00:09:33.988 --> 00:09:35.653 In a social conversation. 00:09:35.653 --> 00:09:50.427 That may be fine, but if we really want to understand what's going on with us or in our work as managers, leaders, coaches, the more precisely we can articulate what's going on emotionally, the clearer the situation will be to all of us. 00:09:51.208 --> 00:09:52.371 I just want to throw in here. 00:09:52.371 --> 00:09:56.708 I can't more highly recommend your books on this. 00:09:56.708 --> 00:10:08.730 For that very reason, I have a book here that has got tags all over it, because there are some that I'm constantly talking and sharing with others to help understand that nuance. 00:10:08.730 --> 00:10:13.131 But for myself, just I'm feeling something what is this? 00:10:13.131 --> 00:10:14.505 It's not what I think it is. 00:10:14.505 --> 00:10:17.427 Let me go and have a look at Dan's book. 00:10:17.427 --> 00:10:23.972 The Unopened Gift is the one I use a lot because I think there's such an apt title. 00:10:23.972 --> 00:10:29.730 It really is a gift, and the more we can open up that gift, the more we understand. 00:10:29.730 --> 00:10:31.797 So I'm constantly going back there. 00:10:31.797 --> 00:10:34.123 So yeah, I just wanted to throw that in there. 00:10:34.784 --> 00:10:54.684 Well, I'll tell you a secret, which is I do that as well, not to my book, necessarily, but, for instance, I was thinking this week about the word ennui, which comes from French, but it's a word we use in English and it means a kind of discomfort or annoyance or irritation.

00:10:54.684 --> 00:10:57.251 But I would do exactly the same thing. 00:10:57.251 --> 00:11:10.672 I would go to an online etymology website to look up the root and see what the meaning is, and then I would deconstruct it the way I deconstruct emotions, and that's actually, I think, the lifelong pursuit. 00:11:10.672 --> 00:11:16.309 I think we continue to build our emotional literacy exactly by that. 00:11:16.309 --> 00:11:46.052 So, whether we're using my book as a reference or something else as a reference, that practice is actually at the root of how we become emotionally literate, because once we understand an emotion accurately, then we notice oh, I can remember a moment in my life when I felt exactly that I had that story, I felt that in my body it fits, the purpose fits, and then we can identify that emotion anytime. 00:11:46.052 --> 00:11:56.832 And then, if somebody else names that emotion, then we go oh yeah, I know what that emotion is because I felt that in my life, but also I understand it in all these different ways. 00:11:56.832 --> 00:12:03.173 So I think there's no better way to build your emotional literacy, your emotional understanding. 00:12:03.173 --> 00:12:13.654 Build your emotional literacy, your emotional understanding, which, for me, leads to emotional agility, emotional resilience, the ability to regulate our emotions, to navigate our emotions. 00:12:13.919 --> 00:12:16.865 I think that's what many people struggle with. 00:12:16.865 --> 00:12:20.274 It's that they know they have emotions, but one. 00:12:20.274 --> 00:12:25.960 They can't articulate them, they can't name them, which is actually much more difficult than it sounds. 00:12:25.960 --> 00:12:27.726 Just put a name on your emotion. 00:12:27.726 --> 00:12:29.506 But the other thing is they don't know what to do with them. 00:12:29.506 --> 00:12:31.586 Ok, so now I know I'm angry. 00:12:31.586 --> 00:12:33.009 What do I do with that? 00:12:33.009 --> 00:12:45.229 And I think that's when emotional literacy is so valuable, because you realize that, ok, that's one emotion I'm feeling anger, it's there for a reason and as a purpose. 00:12:45.229 --> 00:12:47.221 Okay, that's one emotion I'm feeling anger, it's there for a reason and has a purpose, all of that. 00:12:47.221 --> 00:12:53.902 But if it's not serving me, then I have 200 more I could choose from that. 00:12:53.902 --> 00:12:58.895 I know I could shift to that emotion if I think it would serve me better. 00:12:58.895 --> 00:13:00.480 This is the beauty of it. 00:13:00.480 --> 00:13:10.232 It's not just knowing about emotions, it's knowing emotions from the inside out so that we recognize them, but we also have latitude for what we do with them. 00:13:10.940 --> 00:13:17.333 So what is the difference between emotional intelligence and emotional literacy, if any? 00:13:17.720 --> 00:13:23.732 We all know about emotional intelligence now because it stormed onto the scene 25 years ago. 00:13:23.732 --> 00:13:31.289 Daniel Goldman put the name on it and suddenly everybody went, oh my gosh, yes, that's right, we do have this thing called emotional intelligence. 00:13:31.289 --> 00:13:33.386 I think that's lovely. 00:13:33.386 --> 00:13:41.799 But if you read his work or other people's work on emotional intelligence, one of the things they say that's a piece of that is emotional literacy. 00:13:41.799 --> 00:13:44.490 We have to understand emotions. 00:13:44.490 --> 00:13:48.263 Of that is emotional literacy, we have to understand emotions. 00:13:48.283 --> 00:13:53.500 So the way I see the relationship is you know, all of us grew up in situations where somebody wanted to assess our intellect. 00:13:53.500 --> 00:13:55.245 So they gave us an IQ test. 00:13:55.245 --> 00:13:57.089 And what did the IQ test tell you? 00:13:57.089 --> 00:14:01.989 Well, the idea of it, at least, was to assess your intellectual capacity. 00:14:01.989 --> 00:14:07.261 How good are you at learning, how good are you at processing intellectually? 00:14:07.261 --> 00:14:15.225 But if you think about what do we do with kids to support that or to build that, we use emotional literacy as a tool. 00:14:15.225 --> 00:14:30.703 We teach them the alphabet, to read, to write, and the amazing relationship there is, that literacy with language gives us access to our intellect, but it also is a tool to build our intellect. 00:14:30.703 --> 00:14:38.725 So there's this amazing relationship between intelligence and literacy linguistic literacy. 00:14:38.865 --> 00:14:41.109 Well, if we move to the emotional side. 00:14:41.109 --> 00:14:43.274 I see it exactly the same way. 00:14:43.274 --> 00:14:47.211 Now we go oh, we've got emotional intelligence, let's assess it. 00:14:47.211 --> 00:14:49.287 So we give people EQ assessments. 00:14:49.287 --> 00:14:50.250 What's the idea? 00:14:50.250 --> 00:14:58.440 It tells us about their emotional capacity, how much do they have they could develop, how big a force could it be for them in their lives? 00:14:58.961 --> 00:15:05.010 But just measuring either of those IQ or EQ doesn't increase them. 00:15:05.010 --> 00:15:08.221 It just is a snapshot of your potential. 00:15:08.221 --> 00:15:09.186 So what do we need? 00:15:09.186 --> 00:15:13.522 We need a tool with emotions, exactly like we needed a tool with intellect. 00:15:13.522 --> 00:15:17.331 And the tool with emotions in my world is emotional literacy. 00:15:17.331 --> 00:15:25.893 And that's the pausing is all of a sudden, you know, we pause to notice our emotions and then we name them. 00:15:25.893 --> 00:15:28.462 Oh, okay, now I know what that emotion is. 00:15:28.462 --> 00:15:37.392 And then we say, well, what's the story of that emotion and what's my impulse and what's the purpose, why is it here and is it helping me or is it a barrier? 00:15:37.392 --> 00:15:48.125 So we we have all of that that we can do once we name an emotion and then we can determine if we want to stay there and

leverage that emotion or move to a different emotion. 00:15:48.125 --> 00:15:58.820 So I think the relationship is really just simply that emotional literacy is a subset of what we tend to look at as emotional intelligence. 00:15:59.441 --> 00:16:08.182 But, if we take emotional intelligence and emotional literacy, those two together give us something we call emotional regulation. 00:16:08.182 --> 00:16:15.905 It's the ability to choose emotions in the moment that will best serve the situation or the relationship. 00:16:15.905 --> 00:16:22.043 I think that what all of us would benefit from is greater emotional regulation. 00:16:22.043 --> 00:16:39.230 Nobody controls their emotions, but we have this energy that we could put to work for us if we understood it better and if we weren't afraid of it and if we didn't dismiss it and if we really saw it, like you said, as a tool, as a life skill. 00:16:39.230 --> 00:16:41.561 And for me that's what I do. 00:16:41.561 --> 00:16:52.196 It's helping people in a very practical sense, develop their emotional literacy so it can be a tool for them both in their professional lives and in their personal lives. 00:16:53.182 --> 00:16:54.927 I love that around emotional regulation. 00:16:54.927 --> 00:16:55.870 I mean it's just brilliant. 00:16:56.279 --> 00:16:58.504 But, the link between IQ. 00:16:58.504 --> 00:17:01.633 Yes, there's something, but we've got a lot that we can learn under that. 00:17:01.633 --> 00:17:05.740 And, jake, do we have the same interpretation and understanding? 00:17:05.740 --> 00:17:17.251 And I'm going to guess that it's similar with emotions, because I might see anxiety in a certain way and have an understanding around what that is based on the knowledge and that I have around it. 00:17:17.251 --> 00:17:24.423 But, like we were talking about fruit earlier, there's many types of apples there's green apples, there's red apples, there's granny smith. 00:17:24.423 --> 00:17:31.075 So do people tend to have a similar understanding or interpretation of emotions? 00:17:31.075 --> 00:17:36.952 And if they don't, how do we help get that similar interpretation or alignment? 00:17:38.480 --> 00:17:42.491 So one thing to think about with emotions is we never see them directly. 00:17:42.491 --> 00:17:44.480 You don't see the emotion. 00:17:44.480 --> 00:17:54.102 You see the way someone expresses their emotion, we hear what people say, which comes from emotions, but you don't see the emotion directly. 00:17:54.102 --> 00:17:57.729 So we have to live in the world of interpretation. 00:17:57.729 --> 00:18:03.113 But what's interesting is, if I ask you what emotion you're in right now, what will you do? 00:18:03.113 --> 00:18:13.287 You'll check what you're experiencing, what you're feeling, what you're experiencing, what you're thinking, and then you'll say to me oh, I'm feeling the emotion of apathy. 00:18:13.287 --> 00:18:16.712 Okay, great, but that was an interpretation. 00:18:16.712 --> 00:18:20.467 That was your interpretation of what apathy is for you. 00:18:20.467 --> 00:18:27.381 Perfect, now, I have an interpretation too for you. 00:18:27.381 --> 00:18:28.443 Perfect, now, I have an interpretation too. 00:18:28.443 --> 00:18:30.230 So what we need to do is we need to agree on a shared interpretation. 00:18:30.250 --> 00:18:35.566 The challenge often is that people have never articulated what an emotion means to them. 00:18:35.566 --> 00:18:37.730 So, for instance, let's just take sadness. 00:18:37.730 --> 00:18:45.292 So when I ask people so what's the narrative or the story, what is sadness to you? 00:18:45.292 --> 00:18:50.198 And what most people will say is oh, what it means is that I've lost something. 00:18:50.198 --> 00:18:54.784 Fair enough, but I would say there's more to it than that I would say. 00:18:54.784 --> 00:18:58.928 So anything you lose will produce sadness for you. 00:18:58.928 --> 00:19:02.310 Well, not anything, okay. 00:19:02.310 --> 00:19:04.272 So what's the other criteria? 00:19:04.272 --> 00:19:08.336 Well, the other criteria is it has to be something you care about. 00:19:08.336 --> 00:19:18.421 Dog, your dog runs away. 00:19:18.421 --> 00:19:18.862 Will you be sad? 00:19:18.862 --> 00:19:19.344 Well, that depends. 00:19:19.344 --> 00:19:24.402 If you love the dog, yes, you will be sad, but if you found the dog annoying and irritating, no, actually you might be happy, you might not be sad. 00:19:24.402 --> 00:19:27.909 So sadness has to be always. 00:19:27.909 --> 00:19:30.773 You've lost something you care about. 00:19:30.773 --> 00:19:38.534 And I would say there's even one more piece, which is it's not just that you've lost it, but you believe you have lost it. 00:19:38.534 --> 00:19:43.449 So sometimes we believe we've lost something and we feel sad. 00:19:43.449 --> 00:19:45.493 And then we find it and we're happy. 00:19:45.493 --> 00:19:59.825 But if you work with somebody and you have this conversation about let's agree what sadness means when we use it in our conversation, or if you're working with a team or a company, you can do the same thing. 00:19:59.825 --> 00:20:06.925 But this is something that has to be done in order for us to be sure that we're talking about the same thing. 00:20:07.508 --> 00:20:10.801 But I want to point out this doesn't just happen with emotions. 00:20:10.801 --> 00:20:19.819 If I say the word house and I ask you to describe your house, and I ask Karen to describe her house and I describe my house, they'll all be different. 00:20:19.819 --> 00:20:35.405 There are commonalities that allow us to recognize house, but if we want to build a house together, we better have the same set of plans, because otherwise we will never succeed, and it's no different than that. 00:20:35.405 --> 00:20:38.203 Because otherwise we will never succeed, and it's no different than that. 00:20:38.223 --> 00:20:43.340 We need a shared interpretation of what our emotions, of each

individual emotion, the relationship between emotions. 00:20:43.340 --> 00:20:52.124 So at least at the beginning those conversations are necessary to be sure that we're in the same conversation. 00:20:52.124 --> 00:21:00.990 But once we have those in a team or in a relationship, then we don't have to do it again, because now we have agreed on. 00:21:00.990 --> 00:21:03.537 What does the word sadness mean to us? 00:21:03.537 --> 00:21:17.034 And the reason why it's so important with emotions is because we can't see them and because most of the time people haven't articulated very clearly, even for themselves, what's the meaning of that emotion. 00:21:17.034 --> 00:21:22.593 In a general way, yes, but in a very precise way, generally not. 00:21:23.220 --> 00:21:57.828 I'm sitting here hearing the conversation that you, noah, and I were just having with a potential client, and one of the things that we're going to do step one is to have what I'm going to call a reality check session, which is really is to have what I'm going to call a reality check session, which is really about getting the senior leadership team first to come together on some form of alignment about what is their culture of safety, what is it that they want, because we've already taken some small assessment and the gap is enormous, and a lot of that will actually come down to their emotional interpretation of what all of that is. 00:21:57.828 --> 00:22:01.530 So this is going to become a really important part of that conversation. 00:22:02.520 --> 00:22:06.169 And in the work you do, as I understand it, even the word safety. 00:22:06.169 --> 00:22:09.465 You have to do the same thing, for what is safety? 00:22:10.141 --> 00:22:11.165 That's an emotional word. 00:22:12.503 --> 00:22:14.611 Because safety means different things. 00:22:14.611 --> 00:22:20.247 That mean Because safety means different things, and you can see aspects of it, but we need to agree on. 00:22:20.267 --> 00:22:23.056 When we say a situation is safe or unsafe, what does it mean? 00:22:23.056 --> 00:22:25.765 And in different situations it may mean different things. 00:22:25.765 --> 00:22:28.997 But then, beyond that, you can say with emotions. 00:22:28.997 --> 00:22:29.819 You know what? 00:22:29.819 --> 00:22:34.808 Whatever my standard is for safety, there are emotions related to that. 00:22:34.808 --> 00:22:42.691 They can be fear, hope, optimism, they can be pessimism, they can be cynicism, it can be faith. 00:22:42.691 --> 00:22:56.707 I mean, lots of emotions are connected with a sense of what is and isn't safe in our lives, and so I would say that it's not just what does safety mean, but what's underneath that. 00:22:56.707 --> 00:22:59.452 That has produced that interpretation of safety. 00:22:59.819 --> 00:23:13.516 It's something you can spend an enormous amount of time on, but I think, in the interest of clients and efficiency, we at least have to have the basic conversation to articulate what do these mean when we say them in this context. 00:23:13.516 --> 00:23:24.665 Then we're free to move forward, but with emotions, this is the piece that I think people skip over, because many people's interpretation, even in the simple question, what is an emotion? 00:23:24.665 --> 00:23:25.248 Right? 00:23:25.248 --> 00:23:25.808 What do they say? 00:23:25.808 --> 00:23:26.471 It's a feeling. 00:23:26.471 --> 00:23:29.632 Well, I would say it's more than that Other people say. 00:23:29.632 --> 00:23:38.063 If you look up the dictionary definition, it says it's an affective state, meaning you feel something in it or it affects you in some way. 00:23:38.063 --> 00:23:39.727 Yeah, yeah, those are fine. 00:23:40.107 --> 00:24:04.601 But when we say the word emotion, we need to agree what that means, and so we need to do an exercise together to articulate that, so that it's set for our conversations, and then we can move forward and we can work with emotions as a tool, rather than something that we feel embarrassed about or we want to avoid or we're uncomfortable with. 00:24:04.601 --> 00:24:05.824 It's just a tool. 00:24:05.824 --> 00:24:10.933 It's just the energy that moves you, or the energy that causes you to move. 00:24:10.933 --> 00:24:13.483 It's what animates you in life. 00:24:13.483 --> 00:24:15.428 That's the word comes from. 00:24:15.428 --> 00:24:19.162 So this is where I always feel like I need to begin. 00:24:19.162 --> 00:24:26.009 When I work with people, in whatever domain, I'm working with them, and then we can move into okay, and how do we apply this? 00:24:26.009 --> 00:24:34.645 How can we use this to help you better understand your situation and make the choices that you want to make, and make them stick? 00:24:35.606 --> 00:24:37.189 With that particular client. 00:24:37.189 --> 00:24:42.996 Actually, about a week or two ago, him and I were having a conversation around complacency. 00:24:42.996 --> 00:24:54.353 And it was just at the moment when I was working through in the course around complacency and curiosity. 00:24:54.353 --> 00:24:58.645 And what complacency is Just having that conversation. 00:24:58.645 --> 00:25:02.429 You know, when you're looking at someone, you can just see the light bulbs starting to come on. 00:25:02.429 --> 00:25:20.492 And it was just amazing because the conversation I had having and I still think I need way more understanding around those two emotions but the limited understanding that I had already gained took the conversation down a completely different path and it was no longer this oh, people are complacent because they're lazy. 00:25:20.492 --> 00:25:25.810 It was because people believe that they know enough or doing things well enough. 00:25:25.810 --> 00:25:34.269 And then how can we shift that to going into curiosity and a conversation around that? 00:25:34.269 --> 00:25:47.588 And it was just so lovely to see in real life for me in that moment because this is really the first time that

I'm diving into understanding emotions to this depth and degree how the conversation changes. 00:25:47.769 --> 00:25:49.011 Yeah, I think it's lovely. 00:25:49.011 --> 00:25:57.163 I think one of the things you've done and that we need to do if we're going to work with emotions is we need to quit thinking about them as positive and negative. 00:25:57.944 --> 00:26:02.363 We do that because some emotions are comfortable and some are uncomfortable. 00:26:02.363 --> 00:26:13.826 But we've confused that to think that that means they're good or bad, or positive or negative, and many people would put curiosity in the good emotions bucket and they would put complacency in the negative emotions bucket. 00:26:13.826 --> 00:26:20.429 But if you just look at the meaning of it, if you look at complacency, I would say it means exactly what you just said. 00:26:20.429 --> 00:26:30.365 Well, I'm not going to put any energy into it because I believe that it's good enough already and if you think about that, there's actually a big benefit to that. 00:26:30.807 --> 00:26:38.805 Then you're not spending energy trying to improve, or change things that you believe don't need to be changed or improved. 00:26:38.805 --> 00:26:53.905 Now, you may be blind to something, that's true, but the whole purpose of complacency as an emotion, I think, is to help us save that energy to put into things that are more urgent or critical to us. 00:26:53.905 --> 00:27:01.551 So complacency in itself isn't good or bad, it's just an emotion, and in that emotion we have a certain impulse and a certain story. 00:27:01.551 --> 00:27:03.266 But you're exactly right. 00:27:03.266 --> 00:27:05.775 Then what we can do is we can question that. 00:27:05.775 --> 00:27:07.902 Right, we can bring curiosity. 00:27:07.902 --> 00:27:11.268 Well, really, are things good enough the way they are? 00:27:11.268 --> 00:27:18.501 Do they meet our safety standard, or would there be a benefit to putting energy into improving them? 00:27:18.803 --> 00:27:22.893 This is exactly how I work with emotions is let's listen to the story. 00:27:22.893 --> 00:27:28.916 What emotion is producing that story, and then, do we want to stay in that story? 00:27:28.916 --> 00:27:37.334 Do we want to stay in that way of behaving and seeing the world, or is maybe, is it worthwhile to explore something else? 00:27:37.334 --> 00:27:45.709 And if so, what's the emotion that can help us most to explore other possibilities and then decide whether to pursue them or not? 00:27:47.943 --> 00:27:52.890 Do you want your people to feel comfortable speaking up, asking questions and sharing ideas? 00:27:52.890 --> 00:28:06.968 If you answered yes, then sign up to join us on Zoom, thursday, july 11th, from 2 to 3 pm, uk time, and unlock your team's potential with our Introduction to Psychological Safety complimentary masterclass. 00:28:06.968 --> 00:28:11.463 Register your place via the link in the resource section of today's show notes. 00:28:11.463 --> 00:28:13.929 Spaces are limited, so get in quick. 00:28:13.929 --> 00:28:15.894 Now on with the show. 00:28:17.601 --> 00:28:17.942 I love it. 00:28:17.942 --> 00:28:39.335 My mind is going in all sorts of directions right now on how we can help people understand all of this a little bit better or at least feel more comfortable with who they are and how they feel on any given time and how they're interpreting that and how will that impact them in what they're doing in the next minute, sort of thing. 00:28:39.900 --> 00:28:50.634 One of the biggest changes that we could institute or create in terms of our relationship with emotions is we've been actively taught to distrust emotions. 00:28:50.634 --> 00:28:59.545 We have said, we have been taught get them out of thinking if you want to make a good decision, right, they interfere with clear thinking. 00:28:59.545 --> 00:29:01.088 You can't trust them. 00:29:01.088 --> 00:29:02.192 They'll lead you astray. 00:29:02.192 --> 00:29:06.614 So lots of us receive this message in lots of different ways. 00:29:06.855 --> 00:29:14.772 I still see this in television programs and read it, but the thing is is that an emotion is just giving you information. 00:29:15.074 --> 00:29:20.373 It's not telling you what to do, but it's giving you information that doesn't come from anywhere else. 00:29:20.373 --> 00:29:37.911 So, being able to trust that, well, emotions exist because they're there to support me in some way, even if it makes me uncomfortable, and to listen to them and then to make our own assessment is what that emotion suggesting to me. 00:29:37.911 --> 00:29:44.992 Does that fit with how I see things and am I going to accept that information or not? 00:29:44.992 --> 00:30:06.788 It's not automatic and I think this building trust with the information that we get from emotions and trusting that they're not there to hurt us or they're not there to lead us astray, I think that's a huge step because we're working against decades, maybe centuries, of a message that was the opposite, I would say. 00:30:06.788 --> 00:30:24.573 We can find lots of situations where emotions are indispensable and help us, and if we see those, then we begin to say, well, maybe there's a different answer, maybe there's something there that we're overlooking that every single human being has access to. 00:30:24.573 --> 00:30:27.027 Well, wouldn't that be wonderful. 00:30:27.861 --> 00:30:33.632 You don't have to buy it, you already have it All you have to do is pay attention to it and develop it. 00:30:34.093 --> 00:30:43.932 Yeah, yeah, I think the words curiosity and wonder, but even those two words, emotions have a whole unpacking to do. 00:30:43.932 --> 00:30:57.967 But if we can help people shift into, let's say, a mood of curiosity, where it shows up more regularly, and give yourself some efficacy around, okay, this is what I'm feeling and that's okay. 00:30:57.967 --> 00:30:59.269 Now what? 00:30:59.269 -->

00:31:03.394 Yeah, yeah, now what, yeah and. 00:31:03.394 --> 00:31:06.657 And in that question is a choice. 00:31:06.657 --> 00:31:08.941 We can choose what we do with it. 00:31:08.941 --> 00:31:10.769 Yeah, absolutely. 00:31:10.929 --> 00:31:11.931 I completely agree. 00:31:11.931 --> 00:31:18.212 I think this is the other thing that many people didn't grow up understanding is that they can shift their emotions. 00:31:18.212 --> 00:31:21.199 In fact, we do it intuitively. 00:31:21.199 --> 00:31:24.440 Let's imagine you're feeling I don't know, disappointed. 00:31:24.440 --> 00:31:26.026 You're really disappointed about something. 00:31:26.026 --> 00:31:29.997 And then a friend calls you up and says hey, why don't you come to my house? 00:31:29.997 --> 00:31:31.328 I'm having a little dinner party. 00:31:31.328 --> 00:31:35.580 What's going to happen to your emotion? 00:31:35.580 --> 00:31:42.955 Even if you're deeply disappointed, you are probably not going to go to their house wearing disappointment. 00:31:42.955 --> 00:31:52.051 You will find a way to shift into something that's more socially engaging than disappointment, and so we do this. 00:31:52.051 --> 00:31:55.685 We already know if we pay attention, we can do this. 00:31:56.006 --> 00:31:58.593 The only thing I'm suggesting is let's do it intentionally. 00:31:58.593 --> 00:32:01.666 Let's recognize what is the disappointment. 00:32:01.666 --> 00:32:02.509 What does it mean? 00:32:02.509 --> 00:32:05.477 Oh, I had an expectation or hope that isn't being fulfilled. 00:32:05.477 --> 00:32:07.049 What can I do about that? 00:32:07.049 --> 00:32:07.972 Is there anything? 00:32:07.972 --> 00:32:12.053 Or shall I just hold on to that disappointment? 00:32:12.053 --> 00:32:13.015 Let it be there. 00:32:13.015 --> 00:32:14.337 Choose the emotion. 00:32:14.337 --> 00:32:24.435 I want to go to this gathering in and work towards that emotion, because that emotion is the one that's going to produce the best outcome for that dinner party. 00:32:24.435 --> 00:32:25.371 We can do this. 00:32:25.371 --> 00:32:26.096 We just that dinner party. 00:32:26.096 --> 00:32:26.400 We can do this. 00:32:26.420 --> 00:32:47.325 We just have to learn how to do this and it can be done, and it can be taught raising awareness that that's actually what's happening all the time, whether we're in control of it or not, or aware, might be better yeah that, if we can always control it, but yeah I hope you're aware of it at least. 00:32:47.747 --> 00:32:54.693 And it begs a question that if a person wants to grow their emotional literacy, where would you recommend they start? 00:32:55.536 --> 00:33:11.696 the first two steps are exactly what you said pausing, so designing times during your day, when you pause for two minutes, for three minutes, for a minute and just ask yourself the question what emotion am I in right this moment? 00:33:11.696 --> 00:33:16.508 So the first thing is noticing and to notice. 00:33:16.508 --> 00:33:17.553 We have to pause. 00:33:17.553 --> 00:33:32.678 But actually because we're so busy, people are so engaged in doing that, that practice is quite difficult for some people even just to set aside moments to pause and ask themselves what emotion am I experiencing right this moment. 00:33:32.678 --> 00:33:39.147 You don't even have to go deeper than that, it's just to notice what's the emotion and then to put a name on that emotion. 00:33:39.689 --> 00:33:54.626 One of the exercises I do with people is I ask them to track that, to find a way, randomly, four times a day, pause, notice, name your emotion, write it down, create a list, just a chronological list of the emotions. 00:33:54.626 --> 00:34:12.599 You don't have to assess it, you don't have to write like a diary there's a journal about it Just name the emotion and then, after a week, go back and look at that list and see what you noticed, because what people notice is oh well, I only used like 12 emotions this week, but you know what? 00:34:12.599 --> 00:34:14.068 I bet it's more than that. 00:34:14.068 --> 00:34:18.271 Based on what Dan has told me, I had one woman do that. 00:34:18.271 --> 00:34:24.998 She said oh my gosh, I didn't realize how often I feel aggravation or annoyance. 00:34:24.998 --> 00:34:28.967 I must be horrible to live with. 00:34:28.987 --> 00:34:29.849 I don't know how my family puts up with me. 00:34:29.869 --> 00:34:30.650 But she said you know what? 00:34:30.650 --> 00:34:34.751 I never noticed it before, and now because I see it written down. 00:34:34.751 --> 00:34:35.914 That's right. 00:34:35.914 --> 00:34:39.626 That is one of the emotions that I experience frequently. 00:34:39.626 --> 00:34:44.313 So now I know there's something that I would like to shift emotionally. 00:34:44.313 --> 00:34:50.251 Sometimes people have an expectation that they'll see joy on the list and they look at the list and no joy. 00:34:50.251 --> 00:34:52.371 Hmm, that's interesting. 00:34:52.371 --> 00:34:56.215 Does that mean this week I didn't feel joy in any moment? 00:34:56.215 --> 00:35:08.076 So what it does is just that simple noticing and naming helps people begin to articulate and shine a light on what's their emotional pattern. 00:35:08.684 --> 00:35:22.679 And if they don't judge it, if they don't make themselves wrong for what they write down, and if they're honest, they begin to see patterns that sometimes it reinforces what they believe about themselves, and sometimes they're like, okay, that's really good. 00:35:22.679 --> 00:35:27.014 And other times people say, oof, now I'm seeing something I would like to change. 00:35:27.014 --> 00:35:31.835 So the very most basic thing we can do is notice and name. 00:35:31.856 --> 00:35:32.818 I love it. 00:35:32.818 --> 00:35:34.692 We could talk for hours on this. 00:35:34.692 --> 00:35:44.795 I've done this many times, but just listen to you sharing that wisdom that you have, and funny enough, it always gives me joy.

00:35:44.795 --> 00:35:52.150 You have, and it's funny enough, it always gives me joy. 00:35:52.150 --> 00:35:53.371 I always feel joyful in these conversations with you. 00:35:53.371 --> 00:35:56.938 So, as time goes by, how do you see your work evolving or making an impact into the future? 00:35:56.938 --> 00:35:57.224 What's? 00:35:57.224 --> 00:35:59.010 A little bit more into the future for you. 00:35:59.472 --> 00:36:03.291 So I think I've always approached it in a very general sort of way. 00:36:03.351 --> 00:36:08.391 So anybody could read the Unopened Gift and they could apply it to their circumstances. 00:36:08.391 --> 00:36:11.358 Sometimes I'm doing things that are more specific. 00:36:11.358 --> 00:36:16.114 The book that I just released, this last month, is called Dignity in Policing. 00:36:16.114 --> 00:36:23.257 It's working in emotional literacy and regulation, but in the domain of law enforcement. 00:36:23.257 --> 00:36:32.157 And the co-author, but in the domain of law enforcement and the co-author, that's his work, working with police departments and working with them on both assessing emotional intelligence. 00:36:32.157 --> 00:36:41.139 But now, how do they develop emotionally, when that's always been suspect, that's always been dismissed. 00:36:41.385 --> 00:36:46.898 Police officers have generally been seen that the way to survive is to be stoic. 00:36:46.898 --> 00:36:51.557 Right is to put away your emotions, but the emotions are still there. 00:36:51.557 --> 00:37:20.454 Just as a small example of how critical this is in the US more police officers die from suicide than are killed in the line of duty, and that has to do with their emotional well-being, and so the level of depression, the level of alcohol and substance abuse, the level of partner abuse, domestic abuse, all of these things are very high for police. 00:37:20.454 --> 00:37:45.521 The problem with that, from my perspective, is, even though police departments have programs, they have therapists, they have psychologists to work with, the average police officer in their career has 180 what we might call trauma events, so events that have a serious emotional impact on them. 00:37:45.521 --> 00:37:52.253 Well, when you think about that, no quantity of psychologists is going to resolve that. 00:37:52.253 --> 00:37:54.719 They have to develop it for themselves. 00:37:54.719 --> 00:38:03.867 They have to develop their capacity to experience and process and work with and shift and understand their emotions. 00:38:03.867 --> 00:38:06.427 If they don't do it, nobody can do it for them. 00:38:06.427 --> 00:38:14.271 So, although there are wonderful programs being done, there's also emotional barriers to people enrolling in those programs. 00:38:14.271 --> 00:38:17.686 Right, there's shame, there's harassment, there's guilt. 00:38:17.686 --> 00:38:30.936 So unless in the whole ambience of law enforcement there's a shift in terms of their understanding and recognition of

emotions, then I think things won't shift. 00:38:31.456 --> 00:38:42.067 We selected dignity as kind of the uber emotion, because dignity is that you believe you have inherent worth as a human being, no question about it. 00:38:42.067 --> 00:38:47.547 That's where it comes from, in Latin comes from worth, and so you believe that you have value. 00:38:47.547 --> 00:38:53.831 When you think about being a police officer, how often do you hear that you're wrong, you're bad, you're abusive. 00:38:53.831 --> 00:38:57.380 The stories in the press are astonishing sometimes. 00:38:57.380 --> 00:39:06.938 So if they can't create, generate and bring dignity from the inside out, it will not be available to them. 00:39:06.938 --> 00:39:16.800 So I think what's happening with my work is they're still general, but there's more and more focused in particular domains, and that's why we're having this conversation with you. 00:39:16.800 --> 00:39:34.358 You work in a particular domain, but this is probably the first time I've ventured so deeply into a specific domain and applied what I know in association with what someone else knows about that area and the challenges that the people in that area face. 00:39:34.985 --> 00:39:35.327 Wow. 00:39:35.327 --> 00:39:44.570 I have to say that was quite a scary revelation actually, and it makes me realize that it's not going to be just that industry or domain. 00:39:44.570 --> 00:39:50.853 The conversation here in this country around mental health is enormous, and we have this conversation from time to time. 00:39:50.853 --> 00:40:00.784 I think, well, OK, we want to fix mental health, but how about we go back a few steps and help people understand what their emotions are at this moment? 00:40:00.784 --> 00:40:03.271 How do we help increase emotional literacy? 00:40:03.271 --> 00:40:27.880 That may actually assist with I mean, there's clinical sides of things, but I think there's lots of people who are just feeling anxious or sad you know the cost of living and all sorts of things and if we can help them maybe come to terms with how they're feeling or their emotions around, that doesn't necessarily mean it's going to change the situation, but it may also help them to recognize that it's normal, it's not something abnormal. 00:40:29.389 --> 00:41:11.492 I think one of the distinctions we can make the subtitle to the book Dignity and Policing is how emotional well-being saves lives, families and careers, and I think there's a big distinction still to be made between emotional well-being, which comes from building your emotional literacy, being comfortable with emotions, understanding, being emotionally agile, resilient, so you can resolve your own challenges, your day-to-day challenges, emotionally, and one of the things we put in the category of mental health that can only be resolved by adjusting a chemical balance or by dealing with some truly deep trauma or something. 00:41:11.853 --> 00:41:29.382 There's two pieces here

that we've kind of put in the same bucket, and I would argue that probably 90% or more of the challenges that we individually face day to day we could resolve by elevating our emotional competence. 00:41:29.382 --> 00:41:35.570 There are always things that will be cases that can only be dealt with medically, and I think that's fine. 00:41:35.570 --> 00:41:36.132 But you know what? 00:41:36.132 --> 00:41:49.416 It's no different than physical, right, we have physical well-being and then you have illness that requires the attendance of a medical expert, but we haven't quite yet distinguished those two. 00:41:49.416 --> 00:42:04.309 But this is why I would advocate for emotional literacy beginning as young as possible, with three-year-olds, because when you grow up with that, then it looks completely normal From the very beginning. 00:42:04.309 --> 00:42:11.096 You can resolve issues for yourself that you couldn't or that I couldn't because I didn't have that tool. 00:42:11.096 --> 00:42:12.565 But now we have it. 00:42:12.565 --> 00:42:13.628 Now it's emerging. 00:42:13.628 --> 00:42:21.251 Slowly it's working its way into education, but I think the more quickly it does, the better off we'll all be. 00:42:21.893 --> 00:42:23.217 We'll all be moving forward. 00:42:23.985 --> 00:42:24.527 Completely. 00:42:24.527 --> 00:42:25.934 I remember a friend of mine. 00:42:25.934 --> 00:42:35.137 Her little one was having a bit of a moment and there were tears and all sorts and her husband walked up and looked at him and said come on, my boy, carboys don't cry. 00:42:35.137 --> 00:42:40.210 I was so proud of her because she went stop, carboys do cry. 00:42:40.210 --> 00:42:54.733 Everybody cries and had a very different kind of dynamic in conversation and that was so special, the fact that she was also very comfortable to just say stop, that's not the way it is. 00:42:54.733 --> 00:42:59.775 Let's have a better conversation, let's help our little one grow up to understand that it's okay. 00:42:59.775 --> 00:43:01.510 But now what do we do? 00:43:02.226 --> 00:43:13.916 The other thing that can lead to is well, what is crying and why do we have tears related to emotions, and it's not just sadness or it's not just disappointment. 00:43:13.916 --> 00:43:15.632 We cry with joy. 00:43:15.632 --> 00:43:18.152 We cry when we're happy. 00:43:18.625 --> 00:43:21.114 So what does it really mean when we cry? 00:43:21.114 --> 00:43:26.467 Well, from an emotional perspective, it means you're touching something that's deeply important to you. 00:43:26.467 --> 00:43:34.090 So the question I would have for that cowboy is to say, okay, well, there's something really important to him going on right now. 00:43:34.090 --> 00:43:35.494 What is that right? 00:43:35.494 --> 00:43:42.114 What is it that you're experiencing that's so important to you that it's spilling out in terms of tears? 00:43:42.114 --> 00:43:44.980 Because that can help him understand too. 00:43:44.980 --> 00:44:02.731 So I think lovely what happened in your story, and we can see that there's so many more pieces here that we could put into play that would normalize emotions, allow us to acknowledge that they're just part of every single one of us as a human being in the world. 00:44:02.731 --> 00:44:04.956 Every human being has emotions. 00:44:04.956 --> 00:44:16.894 So even if you don't know somebody's culture or background or family situation, one thing you do know about them is they do have emotions and they have the whole range of emotions. 00:44:17.135 --> 00:44:22.731 And when they speak, they will speak from emotions, which means you have an entry point with them. 00:44:22.731 --> 00:44:31.152 You already have something deeply in common with them, even if it doesn't appear that you do so for me. 00:44:31.152 --> 00:44:34.594 I think that's lovely, because I don't have to know everything about everybody. 00:44:34.594 --> 00:44:43.494 If I just know they have emotions and I know how emotions work, then I'm already off to a great start in terms of creating a relationship with them. 00:44:44.284 --> 00:44:44.987 My goodness me. 00:44:44.987 --> 00:44:49.197 I'm sure this could go on for some time, but let's wrap up. 00:44:49.617 --> 00:44:49.858 Okay. 00:44:49.945 --> 00:44:54.516 Do you have any last words you want to share with our people, our listeners? 00:44:54.885 --> 00:45:00.577 The only thing I'd say is that learning about emotions can be challenging. 00:45:00.577 --> 00:45:07.038 I mean, it can be scary sometimes, it can be uncomfortable, but not knowing about emotions can be scary and uncomfortable too. 00:45:07.038 --> 00:45:11.677 So I think in the end you have to decide for yourself how do you want to live life. 00:45:11.677 --> 00:45:26.918 And I will say that every ounce of energy I've ever put into learning about emotions has paid off, and my life is so different it's unimaginably different than it was when I lived in emotional ignorance. 00:45:26.918 --> 00:45:32.070 It's so much calmer, it's so much freer, it's so much more pleasant. 00:45:32.070 --> 00:45:34.550 There's just so much about it. 00:45:34.550 --> 00:45:35.949 There's so much more gratitude. 00:45:35.949 --> 00:45:43.474 And it's not because I was trying so hard to achieve those, it's just emotions and emotional learning bring those. 00:45:44.085 --> 00:46:01.905 So I would just invite people to dip a toe in the water and see what they discover now I'm going to guess that that doesn't mean you never get angry or sad or any of those emotions, because they're just healthy emotions well, I have the full range of emotions. 00:46:02.146 --> 00:46:13.614 I get emotionally stuck sometimes but the the difference is I know they're not permanent, I know I can shift them, I know I can come to understand them and I know they're there to help me in some way. 00:46:13.614 --> 00:46:20.077 So just knowing that gives me a completely different perspective on emotions than I used to have. 00:46:20.077 --> 00:46:22.914 So no, it doesn't make you less emotional. 00:46:22.914 --> 00:46:26.414 It just means you can navigate them with greater ease. 00:46:27.085 --> 00:46:33.844 Dan, thank you so much for joining us today and, as always, it's just wonderful to have conversations that matter. 00:46:33.844 --> 00:46:43.253 We have learned so much in this conversation Huge, and could just continue on, so really, really appreciate it. 00:46:43.253 --> 00:46:46.472 Someone wants to join the School of Emotions? 00:46:46.472 --> 00:46:47.956 They can do that. 00:46:47.956 --> 00:46:52.094 They can visit wwwschoolofemotionsorg. 00:46:54.246 --> 00:46:57.693 No world and they can find me on LinkedIn. 00:46:57.693 --> 00:47:01.193 If not, they write to you and you'll tell them Exactly. 00:47:01.193 --> 00:47:02.016 I'd be delighted. 00:47:02.445 --> 00:47:14.039 So, of course, as Dan just said, connect with us as well at safetycollaborationscom, where you will find the show notes for this episode and links to Dan's world of emotions. 00:47:15.166 --> 00:47:16.952 Thank you for joining us today. 00:47:16.952 --> 00:47:24.054 It is always lovely to have conversations that matter To learn more about creating a culture of safety and care. 00:47:24.054 --> 00:47:30.778 Please visit our website safetycollaborationscom to access our show notes, resources and guides. 00:47:30.778 --> 00:47:36.398 Leave us a message via the message us section on the show notes page and we'll get back to you. 00:47:37.324 --> 00:47:53.313 You can also join our community on social media by following us on our LinkedIn pages Safety Collaborations Karen Avari and Noorla Gage and on our new Safety Collaborations social channels YouTube, facebook and Instagram. 00:47:53.313 --> 00:47:56.552 Our handle Safety Collaborations is much the same. 00:47:56.552 --> 00:47:58.297 Sharing is caring. 00:47:58.297 --> 00:48:00.913 Follow us on your favourite podcast platform. 00:48:00.913 --> 00:48:02.510 Leave us a five-star review. 00:48:02.510 --> 00:48:03.333 It would be awesome. 00:48:03.333 --> 00:48:07.909 Doing these things helps us to grow and share our collective conversations. 00:48:07.909 --> 00:48:12.539 Till next time stay safe and stay well.