Stop Surviving and Start Thriving Now | Susan David (Archived Episode)

Summary

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Podcast Summary

Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu

Episode: Stop Surviving and Start Thriving Now | Susan David
Date: December 19, 2024
Guest: Dr. Susan David, Psychologist & Author of Emotional Agility

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Episode Overview

In this thought-provoking conversation, Tom Bilyeu and Dr. Susan David dive deep into the realities of emotional living, especially as we navigate tough economic and societal times. The central theme is about not merely surviving difficult feelings and challenging circumstances but using them as signposts to thrive, connect with our values, and create authentic lives. Dr. David busts the myth of "just stay positive," offering a nuanced, science-backed approach to mastering emotions and building emotional agility for resilience and growth.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Are Emotions Positive or Negative? (01:02)

• Dr. David challenges the binary view: “I don’t see thinking as either negative or positive. Our emotions…have evolved to help us adapt, survive, and be effective.”
• Insight: Difficult emotions are signposts that show what matters to us.

2. The Problem with Forced Positivity (03:33)

• Culture pushes happiness as a right; this leaves little space or skill to manage difficulty.
• Dr. David: “The fragility of life holds hands with the beauty. You cannot go through life without heartbreak, challenge—beauty and fragility hold hands.”
• Quote: “When we live in a society that says you’ve just got to be happy...we’re not developing the skills that help us to navigate the reality of the world as it is.” (03:30)

3. Bottling & Brooding: Two False Solutions (06:02)

• Brooding: Getting stuck, ruminating—leads to paralysis.
• Bottling: Avoiding, denying, pushing through—leads to fragility and missed growth.
• Dr. David: “Both brooding and [bottling] are unhealthy ways of dealing with our difficult emotions.” (06:02)

Defining Unhealthy Emotional Habits (07:25)

• Temporary avoidance (for context, e.g., not crying before a job interview) is distinct from chronic avoidance, which impedes adaptation and growth.
• Quote: “There is a world of difference between being stubborn versus being stupid.” (09:50)

4. Emotions as Data, Not Directives (10:41)

• Tom’s insight: “There’s pathology on both sides. Ignore emotions—that’s pathology. Give in constantly—that’s pathology.”
• Emotions hold information but shouldn’t dictate reactions.
• Quote: “Our emotions are data, they are not directives.” – Susan David (24:02)

5. Pathway to Emotional Health: “Go To” and “Go Through” Emotions (12:08, 35:55)

• Go To: Make time for your emotions—notice, name, and label them without judgment.
• Go Through: Identify what your emotions are signaling (core values) and take value-aligned action.
• Example: Boredom could signal a need for more growth or connection.

6. The Power of Values: Building Your “Gymnast’s Core” (39:55)

• Anchoring in personal core values allows resilience amid external and internal chaos.
• Values protect against “social contagion” (mimicking others’ emotions/behaviors unconsciously).
• Quote: “The true tragedy is when we don’t know what our values are… and when we are literally risking our lives in an autopilot tragedy of never living.” – Susan David (50:18)

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Memorable Moments & Notable Quotes

• On the Beauty in the Messy Middle:
  • “We are going to treat the messy middle, the space between A and B...as a sacred, beautiful space.” – Susan David (33:30)
• On Self-Compassion:
  • “Growth takes courage. Learning takes courage. This takes courage.” (28:10)
  • “Compassion that you don’t always have the answers. Compassion…that it’s hard to human.” (30:14)
• On Emotional Language (“Emotion Granularity”):
  • “If you think that you are stressed, your body and your psychology doesn’t know what to do with that stress. But as soon as you start saying, ‘Oh, my stress is unsupported,’…now you can do something with it.” (76:01)
  • “Emotion granularity is a superpower.” (76:01)
• On the Price of “Unseeing”:
  • “When we turn our back on our difficult emotions…we are unseeing ourselves. And there is a cost to unseeing.” (64:01)

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Practical Strategies Discussed

Naming and Labeling Emotions (“Emotion Granularity”) (75:14)

• Move beyond umbrella labels like “stressed” or “angry.”
• Ask yourself: “What are two other options for what I might be feeling?”

Journaling for Clarity and Self-Discovery (19:09, 40:44)

• Slowing down, writing out your feelings, and distilling them into one clear sentence generates actionable insight.
• “If I can’t write it in a single sentence, I know I don’t understand it yet.” – Tom (19:36)

Visualization: The “Cloud vs. the Sky” (100:21)

• Don’t define yourself by a passing emotion (the cloud); remember you are the vast sky that holds many experiences.
• “I’m noticing that I’m feeling sad” vs. “I am sad.”

The Five-Year-Old Within (92:39)

• When fused with hard emotions, connect with your “younger self” to summon compassion and perspective.

Creating a Pause/Space (Viktor Frankl Principle) (34:06, 61:28, 100:21)

• “Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space is our power to choose, and it’s in that choice that lies our growth and our freedom.”
• Mindfulness/observing technique: “I’m noticing I’m having the thought that…”

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Important Timestamps for Segments

• 00:45 – Tom lays out the context: looming economic and mental health crises; how to deal with negative thinking.
• 01:33 – Susan on why “negative emotions” are evolutionarily useful.
• 03:30 – The cost of forced positivity & fragility in contemporary culture.
• 06:02 – Explanation of brooding vs. bottling emotions.
• 10:41 / 24:02 – Emotions as data, not directives.
• 19:09 – Tom shares his journaling/self-analysis process.
• 24:02 – Susan: “Just because I feel angry doesn’t mean I need to have it out with everyone.”
• 33:30 – Treating the “messy middle” as sacred.
• 39:55 – Developing a strong core of values as life’s anchor.
• 50:18 – The tragedy of autopilot lives.
• 75:14 – Emotion granularity as a superpower.
• 92:39 – Self-compassion and the “five year old” technique.
• 100:21 – “We are the sky, not the cloud” metaphor.

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Takeaway Wisdom

“Acceptance is the prerequisite to change. Acceptance is about facing into the truth of your experience… It just means you’re seeing it.” – Susan David (64:01)

“We are not the cloud. We are the sky. We are beautiful and messy and capacious and able and human enough to experience all of our difficult thoughts, emotions, and stories and still choose how we want to move forward in our lives.” – Susan David (101:26)

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Resources Mentioned

• Book: Emotional Agility by Susan David
• TED Talk: “The Gift and Power of Emotional Courage”
• Susan’s Website & Emotional Agility Quiz: susandavid.com/learn

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Follow-Up & Further Exploration

• For more context and tools, see Susan David’s TED Talk and her book on emotional agility.
• Reflect/journal: What feeling repeatedly surfaces for you lately? What value might it be signaling?
• Try practicing emotional granularity—articulate your emotion with specificity.
• Consider: What are your core values? When faced with challenge or change, which ones will you use as your compass?

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For anyone feeling “stuck” or overwhelmed by the pressure to be resilient or positive, this episode offers a humane, science-backed approach that encourages embracing reality, acting with self-compassion, and viewing emotions as guides, not dictators, on the path to truly thriving.

Transcript

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[Tom Bilyeu]

We are about to go into a potentially devastating economic period and I think that it's really freaking a lot of people out knowing how stupid stories, thoughts, emotions will determine the quality of our lives. What can we do to master our negative thinking?

[Susan David]

Well, I think one of the first things to say is I don't see thinking as either negative or positive. Our emotions and our thoughts have evolved to help us to adapt and to survive and to be effective in our lives. And so we, yes, we experience some of our thoughts and our emotions as uncomfortable.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Let me ask why do negative emotions suck so much if they're useful? Because they're really miserable.

[Susan David]

Charles Darwin was one of the first people to describe how our difficult emotions help us to communicate. They helping us to communicate with ourselves and other people. And so you know, when we are sitting in a place that feels tough, yes, it feels tough. But often what that tough feeling is about is saying, gee, something matters here. There's something that I need to pay attention to, there's something at stake. And so the difficult emotions feel really tough. But what they are pointing to, what they are signposting is often something that we care about, something that we value in our lives and something that we want to move towards. And so Tom, it's such a beautiful question that you ask in Launching Straight in, which is how do we deal with difficult thoughts and emotions? For example, when we facing into an economic crisis and the traditional way that one might answer this question is just stay positive, just be resilient, just keep a good attitude. And that sounds innocuous on the surface. It sounds like every single piece of motivation that we ever hear is this just be positive. And so it probably sounds odd to say that just being positive can actually make one less resilient. It probably sounds odd to Say just being positive can actually make one fragile. But actually, the research side supports that because the research is very clearly pointing to the direction that when we just be positive in the face of difficult circumstances, then we are not living in the world as it is.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Do you think this has to do with unprocessed emotions?

[Susan David]

I think that the narrative of just being positive has a number of contributors. The first is that we live in a world in which being happy is literally bound into the Declaration of Independence. Like it. It feels like just being positive and just being happy is a birthright. And so you land up having this really tough experience, which is that the fragility of life holds hands with the beauty. You cannot go through life, you cannot go through business without experiencing heartbreak, without experiencing economic challenge, without finding yourself in a situation in which you are perhaps unhealthy or healthy. You know, the reality of life is that beauty and fragility hold hands with one another. And so when we live in a society that says you've just got to be happy, what we often find is that people then start beating themselves up when they feel anything less than happy. And so we're not developing the skills that help us to navigate the reality of the world as it is.

[Tom Bilyeu]

All right, that's what I want to talk about. So I am. Ever since COVID kicked off, I have really been worried about people at large, just like the general population being able to. At first I thought it was going to be purely economic, and then it became like this sort of looming health crisis, mental health crisis, of being isolated and alone. And now we're sort of back round to the economic crisis again. And when I think about people being able to navigate this well, and this idea of mastering your negative thoughts, you have a really unique voice in that you're telling people to. You don't use the word lean in, but it's like that there is information to be taken from the negativity. And so as we go into what I think is going to be a difficult time is part of your. What you would encourage people to do is to recognize. Don't try to run from the pain or the difficulty. It's a signal of what's really happening. You need to be able to assess the world as it actually is. What I always tell people is you need an interpretation of what's happening that is both true and. And optimistic. Do you agree with both of those, or do you think just true and optimism may be actually a red herring?

[Susan David]

Well, true, yes, because deny, you know, reality will always have its way. And so, you know, it, it. When we deal with difficult emotions, often what happens is people do one of two things in ways that are unhealthy. The first is we get stuck in our difficult emotions. We briefly brood on them, we ruminate, we obsess. You know, you, you spoke about the looming economic crisis, and you can see how often what we can do is we can just dwell in and get stuck in these difficult emotions in a way that actually paralyzes us. So this is what's called brooding. The opposite, which looks so different on the surface, is saying something like, I'm just going to be positive, I'm just going to push through. I'm just going to get on with it. And it, it sounds the opposite. It sounds like actually what you're doing is you just ignoring those difficult emotions. And in many ways you are. And what's really interesting is both brooding and what I've just described, which is bottling. Both of those are unhealthy ways of dealing with our difficult emotions. So a really important part of.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Can we define. And maybe this is where you're already going, but can we define unhealthy? Because I bottle like crazy. It is super effective in terms of getting things done. Yeah, but why define unhealthy?

[Susan David]

I think that, okay, so if you are going for a job interview and your girlfriend broke up with you the night before, yes, by all means, put your difficult emotions aside and go in for the job interview and put on your best show. When I'm talking about unhealthy bottling, this is a strategy that is actually an avoidance strategy. It's basically a strategy that says, I'm having these difficult emotions, I'm having these difficult thoughts, but I'm not going to face into them, I'm not going to learn from them, I'm not going to connect with them. Instead, I'm just going to think positive and I'm just going to get on with it. And often what we do is we do this with really good intentions. The intention is that I've got a project that I've got to move forward with, or I've got an interview that I've got to. I've got a relationship that I'm trying to be in. But the problem with bottling and the definitional aspect of what makes it unhealthy is that you doing it in a consistent and persistent way and that you never go back to those difficult emotions.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Why does that matter?

[Susan David]

If you are unhappy in your job and you say to yourself, oh, at least I've got a job. At least I've got a job. At least, at least I've got a job. It's fine. What we find is that five years later, that person is still unhappy in their job, but they've now lost five years. They haven't used the signposts, the data that emotions are giving them to say, oh, you're unhappy in your job. Why? Because I need greater levels of meaning or I need greater levels of learning. And so when we turn away from ourselves and when we turn away from these extraordinarily beautiful parts of ourselves, which are our emotions, basically waving at us and saying, see me and learn from me, then we are unable to adapt effectively. And so one of the most popular notions is in our current world is that we've got to just grit, you know, we've just got to persistently grit through. But there is a world of difference between being stubborn versus being stupid. Okay? Like, if something is values aligned, if it has a chance of success, if it is something that when you are looking through the light of day in a realistic way, you're like, yes, this thing is for me, then by all means, grit. But when you're having difficult emotions that are saying to you, actually, maybe this thing isn't going to work out. This thing might be a relationship, it could be a hope or a dream. At that point, keeping on gritting through has a real opportunity cost. And so when we ignore those difficult emotions, we also turn ourselves away from the ability to adapt and to be effective in our lives.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Emotions are really confusing, though. So here is one. I think it's important to plant a flag on the following idea. There's pathology on both sides. So you can ignore your emotions and that becomes pathology. And you can give into your emotions constantly. And that's pathology. Yes, And I've heard you say that our emotions are data, not directives. And so people need to be careful not to be in the grips of their emotion. We will definitely get into that. But, okay, so we've got that idea that there's pathology on both sides. You have to be careful. Now, what's interesting is I think you and I may be on. I don't think either of us spill into pathology, but I think we're on different sides of the. If you were going to err, maybe too far on the, like, it's okay to sit with your negative emotions and make friends with them, I would certainly err on the side of bottling them up, which I have found to be effective. But I am very Cognizant of, of the fact that if you are not careful that your emotions will go underground and you won't understand them. And I live in terror of not understanding my emotions. The problem is they're very confusing.

[Susan David]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And so as you, when you said, when you look at it in the cold light of day and you're being realistic, it was, that's very close to what you just said. And I thought, but man, really knowing if you're being realistic is hard.

[Susan David]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So how do you encourage people or teach people maybe is a better word, to figure out what their emotions translate to into logic or words?

[Susan David]

So I just want to firstly circle back to the bottling and brooding because, you know, when I use the word unhealthy, I think it's useful to describe what I mean by that. When you are stuck in a difficult emotion, what is owning you? The difficult emotion is owning you. You're not in your life, you're not seeing your child, you aren't able to connect effectively in your relationship because you are so immersed in that difficult emotion. And so brooding on our difficult emotions is unsurprisingly associated with lower levels of mental health, of well being, of a likelihood that if you feel depressed, that depression will continue. And also a difficulty in actually problem solving in your life. Because it's almost like if you imagine your difficulty emotions are a pile of books and you are holding those books so close to you with such tightness, you are unable to breathe and to connect and to let go. And so that is the impact of brooding. And that's why I say brooding is unhealthy. But let's look at the opposite. It looks so different. Just push through, Just be positive. Just ignore your difficult emotions. When we do this, we are holding the books so, so tightly away from us that our arms get tired, that we are unable to be with ourselves, that we are unable to see ourselves. And so consistent bottling of difficult emotions, pushing them aside is associated with lower levels of problem solving because you aren't facing into the reality. Lower levels of relationship effectiveness because the person is not experiencing you as vulnerable and authentic. And as it turns out, lower levels of mental health and well being. And so the question then really becomes, what is it that emotional health looks like? You know, what is healthy from an emotional perspective? And what we know is that we need to have two aspects of emotional health that hold hands with one another. The first is going to our difficult emotions. Going to is meaning looking at them, assessing it, looking at them, not getting stuck in them. Because we own our emotions, they don't own us. So looking at them, trying to understand what the emotion is signposting that is important to us. And let me give you an example of what I mean here. If you feel bored, you can be bored in a loving relationship. You can be bored in a busy, busy workplace. That boredom might be signaling that you need more learning and growth. And it's an opportunity for you to face toward your partner and create greater levels of depth and connection, to maybe have conversations that you haven't been having for years.

[Tom Bilyeu]

How do you get people. So my fundamental question though is you could be bored in a loving relationship because the other person is boring. You could be bored in the loving relationship because you've stopped having sex. It's exciting for you. How do you know which it is? Emotions feel a little bit like dream interpretation, where it's like, well, but it could be this.

[Susan David]

Well, well, let me ask you this. So if you feeling bored in a relationship, that boredom is often signposting something that we value.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Okay, so you find that a lot of people are blind to it though, that they really can't figure out what. Like when I. So I think that I'm good at this kind of thing and when I think about how much time and attention it takes me to get to a conclusion, I'm like, yo, how does the. An average person that just. This isn't how they're wired for better or worse? Like, how do they get to the don't.

[Susan David]

I don't think that one needs to overly complicate. Like, I'm not talking about every morning, you know, sitting in general. I mean, by all means, if you want to sit and journal in the morning. I found journaling very helpful in difficult times in my life. But, but you know, what happens is all of us at some point move into different spaces where we go onto autopilot, where we just going through our day.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Is that where we're in the grips of an emotion? Like we're just sort of, we're not looking at it. And so we're just riding along.

[Susan David]

We just, we, we riding along. We've got our job. We haven't actually stopped to say, what is it that I value here? Am I living the life that I want? Am I doing something that is important to me? And it's extraordinary how often when you say to people, like, what are the things that you value? People say, I've got no idea. I've got no idea what I value. Yes, I'm earning a living. Yes, I'm an entrepreneur starting this new business, but I've got no idea what I value. And when I'm talking about values here, what I'm talking about are things like learning, collaboration, fairness, connection, relationship. You know, they are these beautiful values that are so grounding to us as people. And when the world is changing around us, whether that world is changing because of COVID or because of an economic forecast, we can often feel flipped around by the world. And it is so crucial for us to have a relationship with ourselves, to have a relationship that is this relationship that is a seeing of the self. And so how do we get to that point? How do we get to that point? We often are getting to that point through our difficult emotions.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yep. So I'm going to say that in my words, and then you tell me where we go with this. Your subconscious is kicking up to you. It's trying to communicate. But the subconscious does not speak in words. It speaks in feelings, emotions. If you damage the region of the brain that processes emotions, people can't make decisions. You would think they would become coldly logical, but they do not become incapable of deciding. So we know emotions play an absolutely critical role. So you've got the subconscious trying to let you know that something is going on that you need to assess. My guess is that, well, this is how I deal with it. I slow down. I create literal silence. I try to still my mind.

[Susan David]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That puts me in a calm and creative state as I put words on it that allow different regions of my brain to connect that otherwise might not connect so that I can suddenly put words to that feeling of, oh, my God, this is about this thing. Then I force myself to write it in a single sentence. And if I can't write it in a single sentence, I know I don't understand it yet. And I will journal and journal and journal and journal. Literally, I have journaled sometimes 30,000 words, 40,000 words. That's the length of a book.

[Susan David]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

To try to, like, figure out what is this? Again, just trying to get. So I can say it in a single sentence. So when I say it, my subconscious goes, yep, that's it.

[Susan David]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And I'm like, okay, now I know what this is. Does that ring as a universal approach or so powerful?

[Susan David]

And actually what you're describing then is that you are not someone who bottles their emotion.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's really interesting. So I'm the king of bottling. But.

[Susan David]

But you come back to it. Yes, you come back to it. And this. This is the. This is the cornerstone of emotional health

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[Susan David]

The cornerstone of emotional health is this recognition that we go through the day and not every emotion do we need to stop and inquire about. But when you've had a couple of weeks of feeling disquiet about a relationship or about a job, or you feeling sad, or you're feeling burnt out, there's so many experiences that we have. Again, we live in a world that tells us to just be positive and push through. But when we do this, we paradoxically become less resilient because we are now not facing any into the signal that this disquiet is bringing to us. And let me give you some examples of what I mean here. You know, I've already said like boredom might be signposting that you need more learning. And it might be that that learning is in your relationship, or it might be that your learning is in your job or with your friendships. Grief. Grief. Many of us in these past couple of years have been through a process of grief. Whether that is grief of a parent, someone who's actually physically with us no longer, or grief of what was once, in my assumptions, of what the world could have had.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Grief for that. Okay, sure.

[Susan David]

So there's grief. And the impulse when we feel grief is to just keep going, just keep going. But there is such beauty. I recall periods in my own life when I've been in grief. There's such beauty. Grief is love, you know, grief is love. Grief is love looking for a home. Grief is that person that you've lost saying, see me, remember me, connect with me. And there is something so profound and human and powerful and non hustling that's at stake in the Turning towards that. Let me give you some other examples. Anger, you know, anger. We can brood on our anger brooding. We get hooked on our Twitter feed. We get stuck inside being right. Bottling is, I'm just getting on with my life. But when we feel a sense of anger, often that anger might be signaling that fairness is important to us or equity is important to us, or something that we see when we watch the news shows that a value that is important to us is being contravened.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But it could also be pettiness and an ugly insecurity hiding inside of yourself.

[Susan David]

Yes, and this is why it is not about getting hooked on the difficult emotion, but rather recognizing that our emotions are data. That our emotions are data. They signpost things that we care about, but they are not directives. Just because I feel angry doesn't mean I need to have it out with everyone. Our emotions are data. They are not directives. And I'll give you yet another example that I think was so powerful during these past couple of years is people described how they felt really lonely. You can be lonely in a crowd. You can be lonely in a house with a loved one, because as we come to the kitchen, we turn away from that person. We on our phones, they're on their phones. And loneliness signposts a need for intimacy and connection. So when we turn away from these parts of ourselves, we also turn away from the beauty and messiness of our humanness.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I want to go back to the idea of problem solving. So as you're describing this, I'm like, man, people really have to understand, though, what the root cause is. There's. There is something utterly fascinating to me about you. So when I look at the same problems that you look at. Yeah, you. There's like a light in your eyes. There's. You talk a lot about the beauty of the conflict and, you know, the bittersweet nature. Like, before we started rolling. There's really something there for you that you love about, like, the, you know, that bittersweet nature of life. And so one of the notes that I took is, I'm. I wonder how you feel about the idea of risking real tragedy. Now, before you answer that, I want to bring it back to what made me start this. So I have a feeling. So you look at these things and. And to you, there's like a real beauty there. I look at them and think, most people are going to get eaten alive by that, because it. And maybe this is just me. And every theory is autobiographical, so I can help it reveal myself. That most people are Driven by their insecurities. That's certainly true for me.

[Susan David]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And they get lost. They don't understand the impulse. I have the very good fortune of recognizing when I'm being petty or insecure.

[Susan David]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And I stopped running from that a long time ago. So I can look at it and just be like, oh, that's interesting. I'm insecure about that thing. That's petty. That's gross. I don't like that myself. I can adjust my behavior. My emotions are data, not directives. All of that makes all the sense in the world to me. But there's 37 reasons why somebody might feel lonely in a house with somebody they love. And finding out which one it is is really hard. And that process to me fills me with. Intensity is probably the right word. It might look like aggression to most people. So how knowing. Because my whole thing. You are so uniquely good at helping people deal with the complexity of an emotional life.

[Susan David]

Yeah. Thank you. I've spent my life in this.

[Tom Bilyeu]

No, I mean, this is amazing. You're one of the, one of the only people I've ever heard talk about the, the sort of good and bad, that there's pathology on both sides, like all that stuff. But as people are, as we step into this difficult time.

[Susan David]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

We know that people need to create a space between the stimulus and the response. But my question is how do they create that space? And knowing that as they really face their emotions and recognize that I'm bored at my job or I'm bored in my relationship and I need to make a change. That when we take bold, decisive action, we risk tragedy because you may lose your job or leave your job. Now as we go into a pandemic and your life gets worse.

[Susan David]

Yeah. A core part of what I talk to is firstly being compassionate with yourself because it's very easy to talk about emotions. And we've got to go to emotions and we've got to learn from emotions and. But, but learning from emotions and going to emotions, even though it is actually crucial to our well being, it takes courage. It takes courage to face into a relationship that isn't working and that feels like it's not values connected. It takes courage to have a difficult conversation. Growth takes courage. Courage. Learning takes courage. Like this takes courage. And so a really crucial part of my work is not about going to difficult emotions in a way that is clinical and hard and icy. It's actually rather about going to ourselves with love. And I say this, Tom, because I think that the world invites us into an unseeing of ourselves. The models that we have of success are that there's an A and there's a B and that you just get from A and B. You know, you just do it. What we don't talk about is the messy middle. We don't talk about the confusion. We don't talk about the. That liminal space, the space of not knowing which my direction could be or should be. And so I think that when we fail to move into that liminal space and do so with compassion, what we do is passion.

[Tom Bilyeu]

For what? That you must.

[Susan David]

Compassion, that it's hard to. Human compassion that compassion that you don't always have the answers. Compassion. You know, there's this beautiful Greek philosopher, Heraclitus. Heraclitus describes this idea that I think is just so extraordinary and of course, so true, which is he says, you can never step into the same river twice.

[Tom Bilyeu]

What does he mean by that?

[Susan David]

What he means by that is that the world is always changing and that we as human beings are always changing. And yet our models of success suggest that there is something known that is out there, and it's only up to us to just step into it. And the models of success suggest that something that you wanted when you were 20 are things that you're going to want when you're 40 or when you're 60. And they are false ways of humaning, because that way of humaning keeps us stuck. And so you then say, okay, well, if I change and if the river's changing, the river here being the environment, then how do I deal with the uncertainty? And we deal with the uncertainty by becoming more adept with emotions. Because with uncertainty is going to be confusion, is going to be doubt is going to be complexity. And so I think, you know, really what you are getting to here is so profoundly important. Which is which of the 37 answers is the answer? And what I am saying is, instead of trying to just rush to the answer, there is power in slowing down, in slowing down into the liminal space. And Tom, an example of this is when we move into our future, when we move into an economy, when we move into a pandemic, when we move into whatever these experiences are. The impetus is always to have the answer. And sometimes, in fact, very frequently, if we just slow down, there is such beauty and creativity and growth that happens in the not knowing. And I know that you've experienced this. I know that, like, it's not like when you starting a new business that you suddenly wake up in the morning and you just like, oh, this is what the business is. This is the business plan. This is the strategy. These are the answers. No, there is a space of confusion, of trying things out in your mind, of an unknowing. And so when we give ourselves permission to be in confusion with my team, I committed at the beginning of the year, I said to them, we are going to treat the messy middle, the space between A and B, the space between the start and then the outcome. We gonna treat the messy middle as a sacred, beautiful space. Not as, oh, there's something wrong with me. Not as, oh, I don't know which answer it is, but we are gonna treat this space as a sacred, beautiful space. And what I mean by that is when I'm working with my team and we're like, which direction are we going to go in with this technology? How are we going to build this thing we're trying to build? We've now moved into a languaging around the space where we, as an individual and as a team, we say, huh, that's interesting. I think we're in the messy middle.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Can I get people a mile marker to your superpower here?

[Susan David]

Oh, I don't know. Tell me.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Well, you don't. You're not compounding your problems. So what I like about. So for people that don't know, you have a book called Emotional Agility. Brilliant book. We covered it last time in our first interview together, which people should watch. And the idea of being able to move easily from one emotion to the next. That space that we were talking about, Viktor Frankl, is somebody I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on. But that idea between stimulus and response, there is a space, but you have to create that space. You certainly should make that space bigger and give yourself the time to react. Well, that seems to be where you shine, where you're. So I heard a very interesting thing, and it. It allows me to predict the world more accurately. So whether it's literally true or just predictably true, it's nonetheless effective. And that is that the presence of estrogen makes sitting with an emotion easier than not having it, which makes my ability to predict my wife and why she's just, okay. Like, she doesn't want me to solve the problem. She just wants me to listen. But I'm like, this is so uncomfortable. Even her feeling like that we should talk about emotional contagions.

[Susan David]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But me catching her emotion is so unpleasant that I'm like, yo, we have to solve this problem now. When I heard that for her, it's not that the problem is Any less painful. It's that being in pain is not as problematic. And I was like, whoa. So that is.

[Susan David]

It's so beautiful.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes. And it feels true. That certainly defines the difference between my wife and I. And when I hear your advice and the way that you think through these problems, it seems like that is the real PowerPoint. That don't make your problem worse by trying to rapidly get out of it. Like, you need to be able to sit with it, assess it, and then make a decision.

[Susan David]

I want to circle back to something that we started talking through earlier, but there's a beautiful closure that happens here, which is I said for effective emotion processing, we need two things. And I started with the go to going to emotions, naming emotions, labeling, understanding the signposts that emotions are pointing us to, and also being compassionate. And we can talk more about that because I know that it's a really important part of how to human. Because it's hard to human. It's hard to human nowadays, I've noticed. I think we all have. It's really hard. Like it's hard to human. And so going to emotions is a crucial part of emotional effectiveness. But I said there were two things. The other part of it is going through emotions. Going through emotions is where you now say, okay, the value that this emotion is signposting, which is learning or connection or intimacy or change. The value that this emotion is signposting asks me, invites me to take action. In other words, I think that in a way, one of the things that you were pointing to, a subtext of what you're pointing to, is like, gee, am I going to get stuck in the difficult emotion? Am I going to get stuck in it? But no, because when emotion sign posts a things that we care about, what it's actually inviting us to do is to take a step towards that thing, to reach out with love to think about, okay, well, if I need more growth, what are ways, even in my current context, that I could get more growth in my life? And so there is an impetus not to circumvent through false problem solving, but rather move towards problem solving that is guided by your inner core. You know, I think of a gymnast, I think of a gymnast who has the strong inner core and all of the moves change and the audience claps and there's music and there's all of the stuff that's going on around the gymnast. And it is the inner core that allows the gymnast to land and to regain balance. And when the world is changing around us and even when we are changing Inside of us there is this inner core of these emotional capacities, this ability to say, what is this emotion signaling to me? What is this disquiet? Let me sit with it. Let me not judge the messy middle, but rather recognize that this is a space. Yes, it's confusing, but it's also a space of potential creativity and growth. So let me not rush out of it. Let me just be with it for a while, not be stuck in it, but be with it for a while. And as I start sense making from that, I'm then able to go through through those emotions. And what do I mean by going through? I mean taking steps that are values aligned, putting your hand up for the difficult project because it now it feels growth oriented. Going out to dinner with your loved one and asking a question or going to a place that feels extraordinary about your hopes and your dreams and maybe a place that you've turned away from through the complacency of the life that you've been living. And so it's the go to and it's the go through. But the go through is guided by a strong inner core of our values and a seeing of the self rather than an unseeing.

[Tom Bilyeu]

If you work in university maintenance, Granger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is all always ready for tip off. And Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H Vac and plumbing supplies to lighting and more. And all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock. So your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. This is super powerful. So I want to talk about the idea of developing that strong core of values. So you talked earlier about people needing Most people don't even know what their values are. I think a lot might be hiding in values when I think about my own life and how I've been able to navigate difficult things and still move forward. Let me run an idea by you. Very curious about this.

[Susan David]

I want to come back to journaling as well because I think it's a really important part, super powerful.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So I have a feeling that people would be very well served to put values in place around the idea of regrets. And the reason that I have rules in my life and that I have values in my life is, I want to say, in abject failure on a world stage. If I screw this up, what story am I going to tell myself about myself? Because ultimately it doesn't matter what the world thinks about me. It matters what I think about me. If the whole world hates me, but I really believe in myself and believe I did the right thing and all that I'm going to be fine if the world loves me, but I think I'm a total failure. It's not going to matter. So when I think about putting rules in my life and coming up with a value, my rules are based on my values, which is why I keep tying those two things.

[Susan David]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

So coming up with a value system and then putting rules in place, I do that because if I were to embarrass myself in some catastrophic way, if I were. I think about this a lot. If I were to make my. My wife's life worse. Very telling that I don't think about my own. But if I were to make my wife's life worse, I would have to know that I was at least pursuing the right values and that the suffering that I have brought upon others.

[Susan David]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Is at least valiant. And that I was attempting to do the right things. Interesting. That word, I think, hit something. So what do you think about that idea? The idea that, like, regrets are real. How you think about yourself matters a lot. And that if you don't have your values in place, you won't ever risk tragedy because all you can see is that tragedy was bad. And I'm not going to put myself in that position. But if you have a value system that mandates you risk tragedy, then it becomes worth it.

[Susan David]

I love, I love the depth of this. I think that what you describe is so powerful. You mentioned a little bit earlier social contagion. Social contagion is the very interesting psychological phenomenon where we get caught up in other people's emotions and behaviors. So you might be in a workplace where everyone's feeling stressed and busy and. Or you read the news and everyone's stressed the news and you start feeling those things. We also know we have behavioral contagion. Behavioral contagion is where we live in a particular environment and we start picking up, without even realizing it, on the behaviors of others. So we know in large scale epidemiological studies that if someone in your social network gets divorced, it significantly increases the likelihood that you will get divorced, which is extraordinary. If you are on an airplane.

[Tom Bilyeu]

This one freaks me out.

[Susan David]

I say airplane and I know in the US we say airplane. But if you are on an airplane and someone sits next to you and you do not even know the person and you are trying to be healthy and that seat partner buys candy 70%, it increases the likelihood by 70% that you will buy candy and sweet things, too.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That's insane.

[Susan David]

So I, you know, how do you protect against social contagion? How do you protect. And. And I'm using these as micro examples of something that is actually much more than a micro. It ultimately determines whether you are living the life that you want.

[Tom Bilyeu]

This is so scary.

[Susan David]

Scary. It's so. It is. Social contagion is so powerful. We saw it at the beginning of the pandemic. We saw how people were grabbing toilet paper. You know, this is catching behaviors from other people.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And this is what I'm talking about in terms of the difficulty of assessing your emotions.

[Susan David]

And so. And this is where what you talk about and I think what you stringing is something much more powerful, actually, even than what I'm saying. And I'd love to move to it, which is the risk of tragedy, because I think there's a through line there that is really important. But what I want to, before we get there, say, is that what can happen with social contagion is we get lulled into autopilot. Oh, someone else is driving this kind of car. I want to drive it. Someone else is wearing these clothes. Someone else doing this kind of job. Everyone's selling their stocks. We all get lulled into social contagion. And so we ask ourselves the most crucial question, which is, how do we protect against it? How do we protect against it? And the strongest answer that we have from science is by knowing what your values are. So let me play out an example, which is if you in conversation with your gorgeous wife, and she's upset about something, and you find yourself getting immersed in her upset or in her anger as an example, but you know, front and center that the relationship is so important to you and that clean communication and clarity of communication is a value that you want to hold to. We know that when people have taken a little bit of time to affirm and identify what their values are, they are more likely to be protected from social contagion. And I want to give you an example of how this is plays out. Imagine you are someone who's grown up in a community in which no one in your community goes to college. Okay? So every single piece of context that you've been in has said, we aren't college material. We don't go to college. We're not that type. That's not who we are. Okay? But imagine you have a passion and an interest, and so you study hard and you make your way to college, and you finally get there, okay? There is going to come a time in college and in life when we fail, when we have an exam and we do really badly, when things don't go according to plan. And at that point, when that student is in college and they take a test and they fail the test, there is a significant likelihood that they will drop out. And it's so interesting because we always think of biases as things that other people have about us. And yet what you start seeing is if you grow up in an X environment or a Y environment, you in times of stress, start to turn the bias against yourself. Oh, they were right all along. Maybe I'm not cut out for this. Maybe there's no point in even trying. Oh, maybe I am unworthy. Okay? And so we know that at that crucial juncture, and again, I give this just as an example, but it can plot in any context in life, at that crucial juncture, what we start to do is we start to turn biases against ourselves. Oh, they were right all along.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Maybe I'm not college, I'm obsessed with this idea. Okay.

[Susan David]

It's so fascinating. Then you start saying, what is it that protects people from becoming self biased, from having a narrative that is not a narrative that they want to live into, but is a narrative that in times of stress starts to rear its head and to own them? What protects them? And we know that if we take that college student and we ask them to just on their first day of going into College, spend 10 minutes, 10 minutes writing about why are you studying this thing? Why is this course that you are on important for you and in your life? Why? What is your purpose Here we know that that 10 minutes literally protects the person three years down the track from dropping out. So now let's get, it's, let's get generalized. You going into a difficult relationship, into a business where you believe in it, where it's purpose connected, but where anything could change, where the world is uncertain, this is why having this core, being the gymnast with your values is so crucial. Because when you know what your values are, when you know why you doing this thing, we are more likely to be able to stay the course and we are more likely to be able to, in your words, risk tragedy. And what I want to say is we may be risking tragedy, but the true tragedy, the true tragedy is when we don't know what our values are and when we are literally risking our lives. And what I mean here is we are risking our lives in an autopilot

[Tom Bilyeu]

tragedy of never living.

[Susan David]

The tragedy of not living.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah. Oh, My God. So to your point about humaning is hard. Yes, it is extraordinarily difficult. Emotions are signposts to a value system that you've never taken the time to write down. That you've been developing since you were a little kid. Often shaped wildly by trauma. As a kid.

[Susan David]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

When your brain was still like half baked.

[Susan David]

Like, yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Oh my God. All of this stuff creating this, it's feeding your subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind does not have the effect of speaking to you in words as we were talking about earlier. So now you get these feelings. Something doesn't feel right. You feel off. But you also feel a tremendous sense of fear when you look at what change might bring. The unknown, the liminal space, which that whole idea is fairly new. At least the word liminal. But now I have like completely fallen in love with like that in between moment where everything is uncertain.

[Susan David]

Beautiful.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's beautiful and terrible and terrifying.

[Susan David]

Yes.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And this is where most people get stuck. And this is why people don't make progress in their life. And so when I ask how do we master our negative emotions? It's exactly this. Like you have to get into that messy middle. You have to define your values. You have to take the time to journal. You said you wanted to get back to that. You've got to take the time to write this stuff down, get clarity of your own ideas. And, and some of this isn't even getting clarity. It's creating clarity. There's no clarity to be had that you just already exist. Right, Exactly. Like you have to take the time to say, here's my best, like go at what I think I should value. Over time you will see whether they work or not. But so that idea you were saying about, that you become self biased in moments of stress based on something that you learned a long time ago. This is why I am utterly convinced that zip code based poverty has everything to do about mindset and very little to do with actual money. Because they say you go from T shirt to T shirt in three generations. Meaning if you start broke, you can get wealthy, but you'll be back to broke. Because what ends up happening is the ideas, the even the pain that that person had to like. When I think about my own obsession with success, it's because I felt like I lacked as a kid. Right. I wanted for things. I wasn't able to get them. And so I was like, I'll never feel like this again. And so you overcompensate and you just go, ham. Now if I had a kid and raised Them, and they never wanted for anything. The odds of them having the fire in their belly that I have is virtually zero. And so them doing all the suffering and everything that I've done to get what I've gotten just not going to happen. So you take somebody that grows up in the inner cities. I actually. So impact theory exists because someone looked me in the eye when I was trying to get them to believe in their own future. And they said, well, my mom told me that the world doesn't want people who look like me to succeed. And I was like, what the fuck?

[Susan David]

Like, even if there were to think like that.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And so you're from South Africa. Nelson Mandela is arguably the most influential person in my life, though I've never met the man, but reading his book Long Walk to Freedom, and he said he got in a plane where the pilot was black, and he was, like, freaked out, and he was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, black people can't fly a plane. And he was like, oh, my God. Like, how could I, as a black man, think that? He was like, whoa. Like that? These ideas could get implanted that deep into my mind. And so when I think, like, telling your kid that the world doesn't want someone who looks like you to succeed, you. You walk out, just, well, why even try? And now your behaviors are, I'm not going to try. And so if you don't take the time to your point about college, write this shit down that even if the world wants me to fail, I will never stop trying. I will always pursue that which I love. Whatever that's going to manifest as a value, you've got to have it. Because if you don't, in times of stress, you will slide back to, oh, well, the world doesn't want me to succeed anyway, therefore I shouldn't even try.

[Susan David]

Yeah. Oh, my God. So I don't even. There's so many things to unpack that. The first is I would say that one of the most disempowering ways that we can be in the world, probably the most disempowering way, is to feel that we are completely victims to the system and the circumstance, okay? Because then there's no point in trying. Then the. The bias holds me, the story holds me. Another of the most disempowering ways we can be in the world is to think that everything rests on my thoughts and my emotions. Because what that denies is the reality of context.

[Tom Bilyeu]

There's pathology on both sides.

[Susan David]

You know, it's. It's. It's the bothness and. And I, you know, sometimes I talk out against this force, positivity, not sometimes. I always talk out against false positivity because it's cruel and it's unkind and it's ineffective and it, we do it ourselves and we do it to others. And there is no research that supports the idea that forced positivity is associated with. When forced positivity is, denial is associated with greater outcomes. But so often people say things to me like, so, are you anti happiness? You know, are you, are you anti happiness? And I'm like, no, I'm not anti heaviness. In fact, I, I wrote a 90 chapter, I edited a 90 chapter handbook called the Oxford Handbook of Happiness. I am genuinely and curiously and, and purposefully interested in true human happiness. And one of the most fascinating chapters of this book was a chapter about how where you live and your access to public transport, how it impacts on your well being. And of course it does, because if you are needing to commute two hours to work and two hours from work every single day, it is impacting on your relationships and your capacity to be there for your family and your children and so on. And so there is again this bothness. It is not about I am a victim of the system because that traps me. It is also not about I am a complete victim of my own mental state and mindset because that denies the truth.

[Tom Bilyeu]

That some shit is hard.

[Susan David]

That some shit is hard. That some shit is hard. And I wanted to come back, Tom, because you spoke about Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela described how in order to live through his purpose, he needed to be able to sit down with his oppressors is what he described. And he's learning actually about his anger. You know, not running away from anger, but actually going towards your anger, knowing that your anger is signposting that you care about equity and fairness. And then what demands that you sit down with your oppressor is because you care about equity and fairness and therefore you are being values guided towards having that conversation. And so the point that I make here when I'm talking about emotions or data, not directives, is that when you think about emotions as data and you say like, oh well, I'm sad, or oh well, I'm grieving, oh well, I'm angry. Those emotions are signposting things that you care about. But the not directives part is just as important. Just because I feel sad doesn't mean that I get to stay in bed all day. Because actually what is the sadness? Signposting? The sadness is maybe signposting that I care about outcomes, that I care about life, that. That I care about people. And so the sadness is signposting that this thing that is outside of me right now matters. And so this part of emotions are data, not directives. We are learning from our emotions so that we can step into the wisdom of our values. And that's why emotions are data, not directives. I'm learning from emotions. But we own our emotions. They don't own us. Every single.

[Tom Bilyeu]

We can own our emotions. I think most people are owned by the emotions going back to Nelson Mandela. I would be owned by my anger if I were locked up for 27 years.

[Susan David]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I can't fathom he is a human of higher class than I. It's unbelievable. I really want to pretend that I would be that amazing. I would not. And the fact that he was. And here's what I love from Long Walk to Freedom is he said that the oppressor gives up their humanity to oppress somebody else. And so it doesn't make sense for me to come out and just turn the tables of oppression. You have to find. And I can never remember if he said this or if I just implied it, but you have to come up with a third way because you can either remain oppressed, become the oppressor, or find this third way of unity. And the fact that he was able to do that is really, really incredible. And it brings me back to Viktor Frankl and this idea of, so Viktor Frankl, for those that don't know, and I can't imagine you've watched my content. You don't know who Viktor Frankl is, but Viktor Frankl was in the. In Auschwitz. He was actually. Multiple death camps, Nazi death camps. And he said that if you could establish meaning and purpose, that you could navigate the. I mean, the most gruesome situation I can possibly imagine. And he said if you didn't have that, then you died. And he said you could predict within 72 hours who was going to die when, because you would see them give up on their purpose. And then it was like, why am I doing this? And then they would just die. That's crazy to me. And goes to show that there is a relationship you have to have with your emotions. Because if Nelson Mandela had been consumed by his anger, as I would have been, then you have no Nelson Mandela. Nobody knows him. He's just somebody that burns out very quickly. And if you are just overwhelmed by your suffering and don't assign it because it's not really there, but you don't assign it meaning. And purpose. Then again, you will burn out. And that's that.

[Susan David]

Yeah. So can I. Can I play out Nelson Mandela and Victor Frankel via emotional agility?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yes, please.

[Susan David]

Yeah. It's. It's very much about the tapping into the wisdom of our emotions so we can move towards our values. So, Victor Frankl. Actually, I want to start before Victor Frankl. Can I talk about Primo Levi? If we're talking about.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I don't even know who that is, so I can't wait.

[Susan David]

So Primo. Primo Levi also survived the Nazi death camps. And he described how when he was on the. When the. The death camps were liberated and he boarded a train back to his hometown in Italy. And he had just been through this indescribable experience in the death camps. And he described how he was on the train and it came into the station where his hometown. And there were people waiting at the station because now everyone had been released from the death camps and. And so that the townspeople had come to meet everyone who were on the train. And Levi described how he and his fellow prisoners were absolutely emaciated and how the townspeople stood at the station. And then as everyone started to get off the train, the townspeople turned away.

[Tom Bilyeu]

They were so horrified.

[Susan David]

They were so horrified, they turned away because they were unable to see. They were unable to metabolize what it was that they were seeing in front of them, and they turned away. And Levi described how in many ways, that experience of being unseen was even more traumatic than his experience in. In the death camps.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And why are you shocked by that? I'm shocked by that because. Did he write a book? I'm going to need to read this.

[Susan David]

Because he was describing how. How. And I think this is the thread of my work. The thread of my work is the seeing versus the unseeing of the see self. The seeing versus the unseeing of others.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But. But, like, let's really put this in context. This man was in a prison camp where he's watching people get tortured and die.

[Susan David]

Came back to his home. He came back to his home with this expectation that he was now going to be amongst his people.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah.

[Susan David]

And they turned their back on him.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Did they? Or were they just weak?

[Susan David]

What. Whatever it was, he described that this experience was so profoundly painful to him.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Wow.

[Susan David]

Because it was. It was a turning the back. It was the turning of the back. And I think so much of my work on emotional agility, you know, people often say to me, like, what is emotional agility? Like, give us the psychological definition. And I'm like, well, you know, the psychological definition is. Emotional agility is the ability to be with all of our difficult emotions, thoughts and, and stories in ways that are curious. You know, what is it telling me? In ways that are compassionate and in ways that are courageous so we can keep taking values, connected steps in our lives. That's the nerd definition. That's the academic definition. But what is the truth of my work? The truth of my work is that emotional agility is about the seeing versus the unseeing of the self. When we turn our back on our difficult emotions, on our difficult stories, on our difficult values, we are unseeing ourselves. And there is a cost to unseeing. And at the same time, just because I feel sad today doesn't mean that my sadness is all encompassing. Because if I'm. I'm more than my sadness. I am also my values, my intentions, my relationships, my wisdom. I believe that every single one of us, inside of us has profound centeredness and breathing and wisdom and clarity. And when we get defined by our difficult emotion, by the sadness or by the anger, we are unseeing the other parts of ourselves. We are unseeing our capacity and our humanity and our potential. And so there is another unseeing that is happening there. And so now if we, if we can go back to Viktor Frankl. Viktor Frankl describes this. I think it is one of the most profoundly powerful ideas in human history. Between stimulus and response, there is a space. And in that space is our power to choose. And it's in that choice that lies our growth and our freedom. So let me try tie together what we have been talking about, which is when we are hooked, when we are fused, when we are stuck in a difficult thought, the thought might be, I'm not good enough. Stuck in a difficult emotion, an emotion of stress or disappointment or anger, or stuck in a story. The story might have been written on our mental chalkboards when we were five years old. Stories about who we are, what kind of love and life we deserve. When we are stuck in those stories, they literally have become a prison. So we've taken. Actually at the beginning I said, oh, these thoughts, these emotions, these stories are normal. Charles Darwin described how they've evolved to help us to communicate with ourselves and others. So there is nothing, there is nothing good or bad in having a feeling of being sad or angry or stressed. There's nothing inherently good or bad about it. But what happens is when we start treating that thought, emotional story as fact, when it literally creates a prison, I feel unhappy. Now I'm going to leave the room when my spouse is starting in on the finances. I have the story that I'm not good enough. So I'm not putting my hand up for that job. What you've now done is you've now taken a normal thought, emotion, story that is there to help you to make sense of the world and you're starting to treat it as fact and it's starting to become data and directives as opposed to data, not directives. Okay, so in psychological terms, we call this fusion. Fusion is where we have a normal thought emotional story and we start over identifying with it. There's no space for breathing, for love, for humanity, for connection. It starts to own us. So what is emotional agility? Emotional agility. And we can talk about some very practical strategies. But emotional agility is the ability first to say it is hard, too human. And these thoughts, emotions and stories have evolved to help me to make sense of the world in all of us. We constantly are assessing and adjudicating and trying to make sense of the world and ourselves in it. And so what we are doing is we are firstly saying these experiences that I'm having are normal. Okay, so we showing up to our difficult emotions and we are generating a level of acceptance towards them. And here's the paradox is acceptance is the prerequisite to change. I'll say that again, acceptance is a pretty prerequisite to change. It sounds weird. By acceptance, I don't mean passive resignation. I don't mean, oh, well, you know, I'm accepting that I have no money and it just is what it is and there's nothing I can do about it. Acceptance is about facing into the truth of your experience. And the truth of your difficult situation doesn't mean you passively resign to it. It just means you seeing it. Okay, so that's the first thing we want to be able to do. This is in emotional agility. I call this showing up. Showing up to our difficult emotions with a level of realness and gentleness and softness. But you're still showing up. Then how do we start creating this space once you've shown up? We want to start using our emotions in the ways that they were intended, which is as data. So can I give some practical strategies as to. Yeah, as to how that, how that. So here's some examples. Firstly, practical strategy number one is, is words matter. Words matter. So very often when we try to think about our emotions, we use very big umbrella terms to describe what we're feeling. Okay, I'm stressed, I'm Stressed is the most common one I hear. But Tom, there's a world of difference between stress and disappointment or why would

[Tom Bilyeu]

people lump is it. To me this just all goes back to people do not know how to interpret their own feelings.

[Susan David]

Well, why do people lump it? Because people have grown up in households in which emotions are maybe seen as bad. When you angry, go to your room and so people haven't learned the skills. I mean I think it's one of the greatest tragedies that when you are struggling with mathematics and you're a child, you can go onto can academy and as wonderful as Khan Academy is and find any lesson you want about algebra or pre calculus or whatever it is. But if you are a child who's feeling unseen by their parents or who's being bullied at school, the capacity to use the knowledge that we have in the technology that we have to bring you, the ability to develop those social and emotional skills does not exist. And I think is one of the greatest opportunities in scaled technology for good that exists in the world right now.

[Tom Bilyeu]

One of the opportunities. What's the opportunity?

[Susan David]

Well, I think the opportunity is that there is a, an absolute world that exists of scaled education when it comes to mathematics and English and algebra and learning and you know, masterclass chef and all of these things. And yet these skills that children need and these skills that we need, emotional

[Tom Bilyeu]

skills, without that they can't use the knowledge.

[Susan David]

Yeah. I mean if we look, if we look at children dropping out of school, if we look at children, children's lifelong well being, if we look at the, their relationships that they're going to be able to create and sustain through their world, if we look at the fact that they not going to just have one pandemic in their life, but likely more.

[Tom Bilyeu]

You bite your tongue. We don't even say it.

[Susan David]

We are growing up in a world of increased uncertainty. The World Economic Forum describes emotional agility as the skills of the future because we need the ability to deal with the world that is presented to us. The world as it is. And so I think, yes, I think one of the most remarkable opportunities is the scaled development of social emotional learning in, in children, in education and beyond.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, that doesn't sound easy.

[Susan David]

Well, it doesn't sound easy but if we're talking practical strategies, you know why you, you said to me like why is it that people struggle with these skills? Why is it is because these skills have become feminized. These skills have become associated with being soft and fluffy and irrational and as, as being like intangible and yet they are not. We have, we have bodies of knowledge about these skills being practical. And let me give you some examples of, you know what I mean here. So I was saying often we use these very big labels to describe what we're feeling. I'm stressed is the most common one. But there is a world of difference between stress and disappointment, or stress and feeling unsupported or stress and knowing you're in the wrong job or the wrong career.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Have you seen the color tests where they show you. It kind of looks like a colorblind test. It's like a bunch of slight variations of color color. And when there's, I forget, it's like a, an Amazonian tribe or something where they are so used to all the different colors of green that they actually have different names for them.

[Susan David]

Yes.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And if you, they like can find the dot of a certain name, like with 98%, you know, accuracy or whatever, if you're not from there, then you find it with like 15 accuracy. It was crazy love that I went through it myself. I was like, what? There's a difference in those two colors.

[Susan David]

Take this with emotions. Take this with emotions. Stress is not the same as.

[Tom Bilyeu]

But you have to have the words for it.

[Susan David]

So we've got to develop language for it. We've got to develop language for it. If you think that you are stressed, your body and your psychology doesn't know what to do with that stress. But as soon as you start saying, oh my stress is unsupported, there's literally this readiness potential in our brains that start saying, ah, I'm feeling stressed because I'm unsupported. How do I get support? So this is called emotion granularity. It's exactly what you're describing. It's these different colors. This is called emotion granularity. Emotion granularity is, and I don't want to overuse this word, it gets overused. But emotion granularity is a superpower. Children as young as 2 and 3 years old who are more able to accurately label their emotions have higher levels of well being, high levels of delayed gratification. Literally in longitudinal studies, if you are a 16 year old and the principal and someone says, I've got this great idea, let's let the air out of the principal's car tires. The child who's able to say, oh, I want peer acceptance and I'm excited on the one hand, but actually what's going on for me is I've got a sense of disquiet. This feels wrong. That child is going to be equipped in so many ways. So let me come back. Come back to this practical strategy, which is when you find yourself using a broad brushstroke label, ask yourself, what are two other options? I know that sounds very basic, but

[Tom Bilyeu]

I thought this was really brilliant.

[Susan David]

It's really important. I was working with an executive who described everything as angry. You know, he would say, I'm angry, I'm angry. My team's angry. You know, everyone's. This was his language. And I started saying to him, what else could you be feeling other than angry? What are two other options? And he started saying, well, actually, maybe I'm scared. You know, maybe what I'm calling angry is actually scared. And maybe my team's not angry. Maybe my team is actually mistrusting. Now, you can see if you go into a conversation with your team where you angry and they are angry, there's no space. There's no Viktor Frankl anything. You know, you're angry and they're angry. There's Fusion. But if you go into a conversation where you are scared because it's your first role in this organization and where your team is looking for opportunities to build trust, it's a very different conversation.

[Tom Bilyeu]

How important is it, do you think, to find the root cause of your emotion, so not just have the word to describe your emotion, but to actually understand, ooh, this is, you know, me being afraid because XYZ reason I think

[Susan David]

that root cause is really helpful so long as getting stuck in what is the root cause doesn't get us stuck. You know, this is. This is sometimes. Sometimes we can get too stuck in our heads and not enough living our

[Tom Bilyeu]

lives, you know, emotions comes from root cause analysis, though.

[Susan David]

I think sometimes. I think sometimes. So I think sometimes the labeling of this difficult emotion. So it might be, you know, so say the root cause might be the person saying, well, I'm scared. And whether it's like I'm scared that I'm gonna fail or I'm scared, scared that I'm going to lose my job, or I'm scared about something else. Like, it's not as. I mean, it can be helpful, but I don't think it needs to derail us from the recognition that I'm scared. And what is the scaredness pointing to? What is the data? The fear is pointing me to the fact that I actually kind of care about this role. And so you can start seeing the beauty here. Because if I care about this role, then how do I have a real conversation with my team? And so you move on the one hand from I'm angry, my team's angry, into I'm actually fearful because I care about the role. So how do I have a real conversation that builds trust? And there's such a. It's extraordinary. It's beautiful. And a couple of. A couple of months I was working with this executive. It was in a kind of consulting type context. And a couple of months later, I went out with this guy and some of his colleagues, and his wife was there, and they were talking about this particular strategy, about this tool. And his wife said, said this completely changed the relationship because he would come home from work and he would say, you seem angry. And she would be like, no, I'm not angry. I feel unsupported, or I'm not angry, I'm just tired. So emotion granularity is really important. And so a very, very important strategy is recognizing that words matter, really, and

[Tom Bilyeu]

to put a button on why that ended up changing her life. Why was emotional granularity? Because the usability of this, I think, is something people really need to get.

[Susan David]

Yeah, well, if you are completely going to assumptions based on your lack of emotional sophistication, okay, so you are going to the assumption that you are angry, your team's angry, and your wife is angry, then automatically your way that you are moving through the world is a way that is aggressive and a way that is likely disconnected from being able to build capacity.

[Tom Bilyeu]

You also, to your point about unseeing, you're not actually seeing what's really going on. You're not seeing which then makes that person feel unseen. And to your earlier point, which I'm still flabbergasted by, but that our concentration camp survivor, whose name I forget, Prima.

[Susan David]

Levi.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Prima, Levi.

[Susan David]

Levi, Levi.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Prima, Levi.

[Susan David]

Prima, Levi.

[Tom Bilyeu]

He was more traumatized by having his hometown turn his back on him and not see him and what he'd been through and where he was at. So, yeah, I can see how getting back to the emotional granularity, being able to actually understand the nuance, and quite frankly, just communicating. Because if she wasn't saying, no, I'm not angry, I'm actually feeling unsupported. Like, yeah, they just need to communicate, but they have to have a shared.

[Susan David]

So what else is underneath that? Yeah, and. And I suppose actually getting back to Levi, it's. It's really about when I say that my work is about seeing, it's about seeing others, and it's also about seeing the self. And so emotion granularity allows you to see. See the self Better. I've got some other practical strategies that can help to create space. I don't know how we're doing for time. The first thing we're doing is we're showing up to our difficulty motions so we no longer fused by them. There's a bit of breathing, there's a bit of space. The next thing that we're doing is we're recognizing that it's really difficult to read the instructions when you stuck inside the bottle. Okay. You know, to the point that you were making earlier with Nelson Mandela. It's like when you immersed in your emotion, you are unable to get perspective. So you can't read the instructions when you're stuck inside the bottle. So how do we start getting out of the bottle? In other words, moving out of the trap of the thought, the emotion, the story, and rather being able to notice it rather than be it. And that's the distinction here.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Can we play with that idea for a second? Because I think a lot of people get really lost there. Okay, so you're having an emotion, it's based on something happening in the real world. And this is the thing about being a human that I think is very difficult. When people speak in bumper stickers, immediately distrust them because life is so much more complicated than that. So you're having this emotion, you fused with the emotion because even though you know the tactics and you've listened to this interview and you know how it's supposed to feel, but you're like, I'm for real in the middle of some shit here. Like, this is real. There's really a problem. This is really bad. I'm going through something very difficult. I mean, to your. Your own history. My dad is actually dying. This is a make believe. This is not me like you know, building this up bigger than it really is. My dad is actually dying. I am going to lose the person who most saw me in this world. And this is, is brutal.

[Susan David]

Yeah.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And how do people create space in that moment? Like, because I know you really see what they're going through. But like see them right now. How?

[Susan David]

Yeah, they're.

[Tom Bilyeu]

They're in the thick of something that is for real. They're not making it up. But getting fused is still a bad idea. So how do they create space when they have every reason in the world to be fused with that emotion?

[Susan David]

Yeah, you know, when I came in, you. Well, we can have every reason in the world to be fused with an emotion. Like someone dying. My father can be dying of cancer. I can be a 15 year old. He can be 42 and I can know that he is dying and I have a reason to be fused with that emotion. And still being fused with the. This is just unfair. Can actually take me out of being able to see and be with him. So we can have every reason in the world. It still doesn't mean that that's helpful to us. And the way this is the nuance that becomes really important sometimes on social media. You know, I will try to make this distinction because it's like we have our emotions, we can honor those emotions, we can see those emotions, we can be compassionate with those emotions. We can do all of those things. And it doesn't mean that we need to be owned by them and it doesn't mean that they need to direct us. So how do we. How do we be with that?

[Tom Bilyeu]

Do you ever feel like you're lying to yourself when you're in the grips of a really negative emotion and you're like, but there's still beauty to be found. There's still joy to be had. Laughter should still be a thing. Do you ever have a voice in your head that's like, no, no, no. If you're focusing on anything other than the tragedy of this moment, you're lying to yourself.

[Susan David]

I. Are you asking that of me specifically?

[Tom Bilyeu]

I do get that. I know better than to believe it.

[Susan David]

I. I am. We should come back to the journaling because I have long. It's been decades since I try to hustle with whether I could or couldn't feel a particular thing. If I'm feeling sad, I'm feeling sad. I'll try label it, I'll try understand it. I'll try to do all those things. I'll try understand the values. But I'm not gonna try force my way into a different way of seeing.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Then how do you avoid getting fused?

[Susan David]

I think a really. I think a really important part of it is firstly, interestingly, when you try hustle with your emotion, you're more likely to be confused because when you feeling. If you feeling sad and you're saying to yourself, like I shouldn't be or I shouldn't feel this and like this feels wrong, you. You are actually starting to do. In psychology, like we have these, we describe these type A emotions and type B emotions. Type A emotions, I'm getting. I'm getting kind of clinical here. But top A emotions are the emotion you're experiencing. You feeling sad, you feeling angry, you feeling upset. That's your genuine experience of the emotion. Type B emotions are when you start having emotions about your emotions. Oh, I'm unhappy that I'm unhappy. I shouldn't be so unhappy. I'm not allowed to be unhappy. I'm anxious that I'm feeling anxious. You know, stress is meant to kill you now. I'm stressed that I'm stressed. And so what you start doing is you start actually. But as soon as you start hustling with whether you should or shouldn't feel an emotion, you actually create more fusion.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Stick with Type A though.

[Susan David]

So, yeah, I'm not feeling this difficult emotion.

[Tom Bilyeu]

Yeah, I don't feel bad about it. So I am. I am lost in it. I don't even realize anymore that there is an option to feel any other way. That even if I make a judge joke, I feel so inauthentic because I feel like I should just be wallowing. Not even that I feel like I should be wallowing. That the only the truth for me

[Susan David]

is that I'm doing this.

[Tom Bilyeu]

And so laughing feels like a lie.

[Susan David]

Yeah, I think this is where. I think this is also where self compassion becomes really important. This is, you know, self compassion. It like, it sounds like so kind of, oh, you know, self compassion we all talk about, you know, it's like roll the eyes but, but it's but in a culture, again, that promotes the idea that we should always know the answer. Even though when we are lying at night, just us in the stillness of our relationship with silence, we know we don't have the answer. And there is a compassion that is. That is invited at that moment. Because compassion speaks to the truth, that it is hard to human, that we don't know all the answers, that all human beings suffer, that there is fragility and beauty in life. And so when I'm in those moments of feeling stuck sometimes in grief, there is something really profound in being compassionate with that. And what do I really mean here? What I mean is firstly acknowledging, you know, for everyone who's listening right now, acknowledging that you are doing just the acknowledgement, just. Just the simple acknowledgement that you are doing the best you can with who you are, with the resources that you have been given in life. Just that acknowledgment starts to create a level of gentleness and a level of breathing and a level of space. When doctors are going to give bad news to patients, we ask them to. And I'll do this for people who can see me on YouTube, but if you can't see me, I'm putting my hands across my chest almost as if I'm hugging myself. We ask doctors to do this when they're going to give bad news to a patient's family. Why? Because we are tactile human beings and so often we live the world in a way that feels like it's just between our heads. But when we hug ourselves, when we hold ourselves, we are actually grounding ourselves. We are reminding ourselves of, of our human like this.

[Tom Bilyeu]

There's something about it shifts there, it

[Susan David]

shifts, shift something so, so visceral. If you're doing a gazillion zoom calls every day and you know, people will often say to me, how do we prepare leaders for connecting with their teams when they're doing a million zoom calls? And I'm like, preparing for connection happens when you connect with yourself and we connect with ourselves. When we actually, you know, remind ourselves that we are human. And for, for everyone that's listening, I. If you're going through, through a difficult period now or when you will in the future, or even if you, you have, there's something beautiful in recognizing that, you know, inside the 50 year old you or the 40 year old or the 30 year old, there is actually a five year old child. Like there is a five year old inside every single one of us. A five year old. And that five year old is like gently tugging on your sleeve, trying to get your attention. And that five year old is saying, see me, love me, connect with me. And often, even when we immersed in our difficult experience, that five year old is telling us what it needs. The five year old is saying, you know, what is your five year old saying it needs of you? Is it saying it needs more creativity, more spontaneity, more connection, more love? Does it need to be seen? Does it need more growth? Does it need more learning? There is a five year old inside of every single one of us. And when we stuck in something difficult, reminding ourselves that there is a five year old immediately starts to connect us with this. It's psychologically, I'm trying to kind of bring in these psychological terms. Psychologically it's called continuity of the self. Because when we stuck, when we hooked, when we most, when we fused, these are all synonyms for the same thing. When there is no space, all we're doing is we are seeing a singular version of our truth, which is our truth right now. When we connect with a 5 year old inside of us, we are starting to connect with a different part of ourselves, an earlier version of ourselves. And so we're starting to widen our perspective naturally. You know, we're moving beyond the this is the me, this is the 50 old me, this is the angry me into the, this is the 5 year old hurt me who's needing to be seen. And then there is also a plus 20 year version of the self, you know, the 70 year old or if you're 30, the 50 year old. And that version of you is also saying see me and love me and do things that are connected with me. Now why am I saying this? Like, why am I saying this as a strategy. I'm saying it as a strategy because what happens when we are hooked is we start to become very focused in a very rigid way on one version of our current truth. And astronauts describe this. I recently had the joy of presenting to NASA and it was the one opportunity, opportunity where I was like, you know, the overview effect. But, but we have all heard of the overview effect. The overview effect is this effect where astronauts describe when they go into space how they look back and they see the earth that is now just a pinprick. It's, it's like this tiny pinprick. And astronauts describe how seeing the earth as a pinprick reminds them both of their significance and their insignificance all at once. And it broadens their perspective. And so the reason I give this as a way of starting to move out of difficult emotions through a compassionate channel, which is your younger self and your older self, is because it starts to broaden your perspective of. I'm not just me now, the 50 year old angry me. I'm also the unseen me who's five and who needs love. And I'm also the 70 year old me who cares about how this relationship worked out. And that is one of the ways that we start creating space between stimulus and response. But, but we can't end this conversation without one more thing. Okay, so I am, I am sad, I am angry, I am frustrated. When we say I am, you can hear that it again is fusion because it sounds as if you, all of you is angry. There's no space for anything else. There's no space for love or seeing or connection. So a really powerful, when we come full circle to those difficult thoughts, emotions and stories that we started off with with is noticing your thoughts, your emotions and your stories for what they are. They thoughts, their emotions, their stories. They are not fact, they are not directives. So let me play all out what this looks like when you say I am sad. And we all do this every day. We say I'm sad, I'm angry. Like what else would you say? But it's almost as if the sad is a cloud in the sky. Okay, I am sad. I am the cloud. I'm defined by the cloud. The cloud is all of me. And there's no space for anything else. Then there's no space for your child or your colleague or your dreams. Instead, what we can do is we can notice our thoughts, our emotions and our stories for what they are. They are thoughts, emotions, stories. I'm noticing that I'm feeling sad. Not I am sad. I'm noticing that I'm feeling sad. I am not good enough. I'm noticing that this is my I'm not good enough story. I have the urge to leave the room noticing that. This is my urge to turn my back on this difficult conversation with my spouse. I'm noticing the urge. What you're starting to do here is you starting to notice these things not as who we are, but as parts of who we are which everyone will identify with. Everyone knows that you can simultaneously be a loved one and a parent and this child and a CEO, all at the time. We can all have multiple identities. We can also experience multiple emotions and multiple experiences.

[Tom Bilyeu]

It's a big part of mindfulness meditation.

[Susan David]

It's very recognize note the thoughts, the emotion, and you're starting to observe it and what are you starting to do here? It's starting to get you out of the bottle so you can start reading the instructions of your values. What you starting to do here is you starting to move from I am the cloud, I am sad into I'm noticing that I'm feeling sad because here's the truth. The truth is we are not the cloud. The truth is that we are the sky. We are the sky. We are beautiful and messy and capacious and able and beautiful and human enough to experience all of our difficult thoughts, emotions and stories and still choose how we want to move forward in our lives. We are not the cloud. We are the sky.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I love it. Where can people follow you?

[Susan David]

My TED talk is the gift and power of Emotional Courage. My book is Emotional Agility. And I've also got a quiz on my website which a couple of hundred thousand people have taken now. And it gives you a free 10 page report that connects with these different aspects of emotional agility. Susandavid.com learn and then of course on social I try to post thoughtfully and intentionally and I'd love to hear anyone's comments about this episode.

[Tom Bilyeu]

I love it. All right everybody, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time, my friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace.