All Men Feel Emotions, Real Men Control How They Respond To Those Emotions.

Summary

In this episode of the Earn Your Title Podcast, Danny Dumas discusses the importance of curating and controlling emotions to achieve desired outcomes. He explores the stereotypes surrounding men's emotional expression, emphasizing the need for emotional awareness and the ability to express emotions appropriately. Dumas shares personal experiences and insights on how emotions can be used as tools for personal growth and effective communication, particularly in relationships and parenting. He encourages listeners to embrace their emotions while also being mindful of how they express them, ultimately aiming to foster emotional intelligence and awareness in themselves and their children.

Takeaways

• Curating your emotions can lead to better outcomes.
• Men often face stereotypes about emotional expression.
• Emotions should be treated like clothing; they can be chosen and expressed appropriately.
• It's important to control the expression of emotions, not the emotions themselves.
• There are times when suppressing emotions is necessary for effectiveness.
• Expressing emotions can strengthen relationships and communication.
• Using emotions as tools can aid in personal growth.
• Teaching children about emotions is crucial for their development.
• Being aware of emotional responses can lead to better interactions.
• Emotional intelligence is a valuable skill for men to develop.

Chapters

00:00 Curating Your Emotions for Desired Results
02:59 Understanding Emotional Expression and Control
05:56 The Importance of Emotional Expression in Relationships
08:46 Using Emotions as a Tool for Growth
12:03 Teaching Emotional Awareness to the Next Generation

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Transcript

0:17

Hey, what's up guys? My name is Danny Demos. This is the Earn Your Title Podcast. Today, we are going to be talking about your emotions, but not just your emotions, but curating your emotions to get the desired results. You know, as men, As men, many of us are put into a stereotype of there's two types of emotional men. One type is the stoic, just the blank page. You know, your dad just died, no emotion. Something hilarious just happened, no emotion. Just a blank page. Other guys are super emotional, usually on the negative like blow up. road rage, scream at the TV when your favorite football team fumbles. Like this epic big emotion. And I'm going to tell you that both of those can be good. And I want you to think about your emotions as kind of like you think about your clothing. And if you're not thinking about your clothing this way, you should. You know, like if you're watching this, it's pretty laid back today. I've got a hoodie on. It's super cold outside. I shouldn't say it's super cold. 20 degrees but we got a ton of snow. I'm gonna have to go build snow for the second time. So I'm comfortable today. I'm dressing a certain way. If you're watching me online, I want you to think that I'm a casual dude. Today I went to church, it's a Sunday, and I dressed up a little more. Because I want to have, there's an appearance of respect and just a little more decorum. If I went on a date with my wife, I would wear something a little bit nicer. And if I was gonna when I go to work, I wear a uniform So when you show up I show up to your house you go that's a fireman and most importantly That's not a cop because I don't people to shoot at like we we definitely go out of the way to not look like cops and no offense to cops But people don't like you and we want to show up and people go. those are the good guys Not the guys that arrested my uncle. So what you wear truly affects the way people think about you and I used to not actually care about this at all But as I got older I realized it It's a tool. If I want someone to take me seriously, I'm gonna wear something. And that could be, that doesn't always mean wearing a suit. If I was gonna show up to your house and we were gonna do some construction and build something and I don't have work boots on and work jeans on, I'm just preppy, you're gonna think this guy has no idea what he's talking about. like dressing for the occasion portrays the kind of person that I wanna be. And I wanna be careful with this because I don't want any of you to think that I'm saying be fake. don't be fake. But our emotions and the way we express our emotions or don't suppress our emotions is a really powerful tool that helps people figure out who we are. So there's kind of three things you can do. You can not express your emotions at all, suppress them. And for a long time men have been told that that's bad because we do that. It's bad you should show your emotions. You you should always let them out. And I don't think that's true. There are times when you should not express your emotions at all. And I'll share some of those with you, and I'll share with you some of those times where I have not expressed my emotions and it was a powerful moment and it was important that I did that. And there's some times where we should express exactly what we're feeling, even if that's sadness or things that maybe aren't masculine like tears. And I'm gonna express some of those times with you. And the point of this is that I want you to be in control of your emotions. I want you to be responsible for the expression of your emotions. Because this is one thing that I think is important. An emotion is not something that you can control. The expression of your emotion is the thing we control. But if you see something and it makes you sad and you feel sad in your heart, you don't have control over it. That's like the definition of an emotion. It's kind of like telling an inappropriate joke. There's a, when I teach a CPR class, it's a very dark joke and I won't say it cause it's public. And I tell the people, I have a really dark joke about, know, I'm not even gonna tell you what it's about, but if you wanna hear it come up to me later after class, I'll tell you this really dark joke. But I'm just telling you, it's not a good joke. And I come up and I tell the joke and everybody always laughs. And the reason they laugh is cause it's funny. Even though, my God, that's terrible. It's a terrible joke, but they laugh because it's funny. That's how you know. A joke is funny if you laugh. That's the definition of funny. An emotion is real if you feel it. Sadness, anger, happiness, disappointment, all those things are real. You can't, and don't ever be ashamed if you feel that way. As I've got, know, men are stoic. We don't cry. But if I watch a video on YouTube of soldiers coming home to their families, it gets me every time, man. And I know, I just talked to a friend, he watches videos of baby elephants. He's like, don't watch a lot. When I watch videos of baby elephants, it just makes me happy. And this is a big tough fireman, know? He's like, I like, I don't know why, baby elephants are cute. It just brightens my day. It's a good emotion, right? It's inside. So don't ever be ashamed of the emotion you feel. But what I want you to do is to be in control of how you express that emotion. So suppression. There are times... when maybe you feel extremely sad or anger and you need to suppress that because you need to be an effective individual. You know, in my job, one of the worst calls I was ever on was a kid that was, he was left in a vehicle by his father who was intoxicated, forgot he was back there. And the dad went to, once he sobered up, he went there and the kid was unconscious, not breathing, pulse. He calls 911 and I literally, He was screaming and yelling and I had to wrestle this kid away from his dad, just yank him out of his hands. And the rage in my heart was intense. I felt just anger and I didn't show it at all. I showed zero emotion because I had a job to do. I had CPR and I had some things to do and we did those things and you know, the outcome wasn't good. And I remember I called my chaplain. I told him, hey, man. Me and my guys had a really bad call. It was just stressful all the way around. And he came to talk to us and we sat down and we had this kind of informal briefing and he said, how did that make you feel? And I said, I wanted to take a baseball bat and smash the guy in the face. That was the emotion. But because this was fairly long in my career, I know, maybe I've maybe had 17, 18 years, I've been doing this job a long time. I realized that wasn't going to be effective. Me getting mad or angry and looking back, that dad didn't do that on purpose. It was a terrible mistake that he'll never live down. That initial feeling of just rage, it was bad. And I felt it, but I suppressed it and that was okay because I had a job to do. Your job as a man sometimes, and when your kids make you just... They do something that annoys you, they bat talk you, they do one of those things and you're just like, are you serious? Did you just say that? That's what you want to say. But at that point you might need to suppress that anger and have a conversation that's calm because if they're, maybe they're jacked up, you getting yelled, jacked up and you just yelling at each other is not going to be good. But if you can get angry and then you're having this conversation with your, you know, soon to be adult son, listen son, that felt very disrespectful. When you said this, this and this, I don't appreciate that. I don't expect you to talk to me like that. I'm gonna walk away because this made me upset, but I don't wanna be, I don't wanna argue with you. So later on, me you were gonna talk when we both cooled down a little bit. Man, you've done a lot. Good for you. You've suppressed that reaction to the emotion, which is fighting to anger. And for some of you, that is really hard. You know, I work with some guys that are, they're ready to go. they are ready to fight you know it's they're just that's just who they are but as men i think we should be control over emotions we should be able to have that feeling know that it's okay and decide how we act because we want to be a kind compassionate person and kind compassionate people don't always get angry now i'm not saying don't ever the opposite so suppress your emotions sometimes but do it for a reason Other times, let your emotions go, let them fly, especially if they're good. You know, I feel bad sometimes because I'll get a gift and I really like it and I say, that's really nice. Well, my emotions are like, wow, you thought of me, like this is a very thoughtful gift and I just don't have that in me and I need to work on that because I want to be a thankful person and if I have thankfulness in my heart or happiness or joy. Let it out. Let people know, like, wow, I've always wanted this. We just had my anniversary with my wife and I mentioned something I wanted and then she got it for me. She's like, here it is. This is the thing you just talked about two days ago and I got it for you. And I'm like, thank you. But I wish I would have been bigger because I was really excited. It's something I've always wanted to do. Thank you so much. Let the emotion out. Let it go big because if you want to be a happy person, Let your emotions show that, right? Let the emotions out. Like let them let it go. Like just unleash the emotions and go over the top. And I wouldn't even say that for some negative time. There's times where it's okay to be angry out loud. If you see something that you know is morally wrong and you have the opportunity to use an emotion like anger to stop that, you you see somebody being mistreated. You can light that person up, you know, within reason, you know, that this is unacceptable. Don't ever treat someone like that again. can just, you know, there's times for that. know, emotion is a tool. I teach at the fire academy and I don't, I'm not a yeller. I don't yell at them for things, we implement consequences. I should say, I don't yell at them to be mad. Because I'm not going to get mad because their students are learning. But I will. yell when I want to stress them out. Right? And you think, why would you want to stress someone out? Because you don't know how you're going to react to things until you truly get stressed out. So we'll yell to get people stressed out so we can see, so we can train them on how to respond. All that's good. It's a thought though. I'm not yelling because all of you triggered me and I'm mad. I'm yelling because I'm expressing an emotion for a purpose. And that's the whole thing. If you're going to plan, if you know, if you're going to a job interview, you'd wear a suit and tie. if that matches where you're supposed to go and you would wear the nicest suit and tie with pressed pants and a nice shirt, maybe, you know, I don't know, I don't ever dress up so I don't actually know. Something really nice, right? Because that's the kind of job we're going for. Unless you were going for a job like in construction and then maybe you wouldn't, you'd wanna have your car hearts on and your steel toes on, like you're ready to go to work. You're letting the world see it's something specifically that you've designed. Do that with your emotions. Let your emotions go. And the last one is, and I think this is important, is let your kids, especially your kids, let them actually see that you have emotions that can be sad. And as guys, we don't see our dads cry very often. I haven't done a good job of this. I think I told the story once, but this summer, or last summer, we went to Washington, D.C., then we went to New York. And when we got to New York, we decided we were going to go see the 9-11 Memorial. And I get to the first waiting, the first pool. And if you've never been there, this water, it's like a waterfall that flows into where the towers were. The first one was out of service. There was no water in it. Just a big hole. I walked over to the other one and there's water flowing in it. And I started to cry. And I wasn't expecting that. Like I wasn't going, I was the tourist. You know, I just wanted to see it. And this thing hit me and I started to cry. And my son said to my wife, he's like, I don't know if I've ever seen my dad cry. I think, ashamed is not the right word, but there's definitely been times in my life where I was sad. And for some reason I just kind of swallowed that and I didn't cry, even though maybe I felt like it. And I don't think that's necessarily good. And I understand, know, we're guys, we don't cry and I don't know why that is. But. I wanna encourage you that it is okay. It's okay. That was a time to let that out. I didn't need to suppress it. I didn't need to exaggerate. I didn't need to start bawling and snot coming out of my nose, because I just couldn't handle it. That's too much. But it was a genuine emotion of sadness, of reverence, of loss. Obviously, I'm not a New York fireman, but I was working on a day that happened at a fire station. I spent the whole day watching TV. It was my first year. I I just internalized all that and then I had emotion and I let it out. And that was okay. Yeah, let your emotions out guys. Use it as a tool though. Make a decision that, know, like if road rage is a thing for you and you just can't help yourself, I don't wanna say there's something wrong with you, but think about why you're doing that. And then is there anything good that could happen? Other than maybe it's a stress reliever to cut somebody off, flip them off, I don't know. but you can't fix them, right? People can't hear you in your car while you're cussing them out or slipping them off. So control it, right? It's okay, someone will cut you off. Today I'm driving with my family and someone literally was in, I was almost completely off the road and they weren't even on their phone. I looked them in the eye and the dude's just driving on my side of the road. What would be the purpose of yelling and screaming at him other than for my family to hear me being a hothead? I went, what in the world is with this guy? Hit my horn. That was it. I just had to get off the road, get back on, and then life is okay. So use your emotions. Use it as a tool. Figure out the kind of person you want to be. You want to be a kind person, a caring person, compassionate person, loving person. Show those emotions. You know, you have a tendency to be angry, upset, negative. Maybe we suppress those, right? That's okay, right? You don't have to share everything you're feeling. You know, little kids do that, right? They're instantly mad, instantly happy. We have the ability to control it and I want you to exercise that ability. If you need some help doing that, you just need some help figuring out how to do that, some ways to maybe stop the cycle of emotion and response. You need to have a little gap in there. Give me a text me. I'd love to talk to you. Maybe we could work on something. My email is danny at dannydewmas.com and I would love to talk to you and I think we could come up with something. Again, I'm not a therapist, I'm not a counselor. I didn't go to college for this. Just a guide wants to help other guys become better husbands and fathers and leaders. And hopefully this podcast is doing that for you. I really appreciate you listening. As always, my name is Danny Dumas. This is the Earn Your Title Podcast and I will talk to you later. Bye.