Your Emotions Are Costing You More Than You Think

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today we're going to be covering a really important topic. And that topic is your emotions are costing you more than you think. Your emotions are costing you more than you think. And I know a lot of us can relate to this specific topic. I most certainly have had moments throughout my life where my emotions, uh, you know, have costed me. And I think that, uh, for those of you who, uh, can relate to this, uh, which is probably almost everyone, uh, you know, you're definitely going to get a lot of value. And today we're really going to be talking about just how to navigate through emotions because emotions. I remember hearing a mentor of mine say that the quality of your life is dependent on the quality of emotions you consistently feel. So everything we do is a means to an end emotion we wanna experience. And that could be with relationships, that can be with business, that can be with purpose, and so many other things in between. So, your life isn't controlled by your circumstances. It's controlled by your emotional reactions to your circumstances. So really, really, uh, great share. Uh, once again, your life isn't controlled by your circumstances, controlled by your emotional reactions to your circumstances. So one thing that I've learned about, emotions in general, and over the years I've worked with thousands and thousands of people. I always like to say I'm in the people business. So, um, I've, I've led thousands of people all around the world and I've dealt with men. And you know, the interesting thing about working with so many people like that is, you know, people be people in as they oftentimes say, like, it's, it's interesting, uh, you know, when, when people, uh, just kind of get caught up in their emotions and you have to sort of navigate not only through your emotions, but also, uh, working within a team. You have to sort of manage or not manage their emotions, but do your best to kind of guide people through their emotions. So one thing that I've, I've experienced on many occasions are just emotional outbursts and whether it was myself or other people. And the thing about emotional outbursts is that there's, there's a cost to to them, right? Um, how many of you can relate where an an emotional outburst may have led to, uh, you getting in some kind of trouble and that that could be costing you a deal. It can be costing you a relationship, a year of progress, and so many other things. So emotional control, remember, is not suppression, it's regulation. So it's not about just suppressing those emotions and pushing them down, it's about regulating them so that they're not necessarily costing you, um, any harm. So, uh, one thing that I, I will share here is that when it comes to emotional maturity, you have to understand that emotional maturity is also wealth. It's a form of wealth, right? Think about it. How, how valuable is it to you to learn how to navigate through your emotions throughout the course of your life is absolutely essential. And one of the best things that you could even teach, for example, uh, children, is uh, teaching them how to navigate through their emotions, how to, how to channel those emotions. Because in a world of. IQ where everybody promotes sort of like IQ and how intelligent you are. EQ is even more important, and EQ is your emotional intelligence. And we're gonna jump a little bit into that here shortly. So. First and foremost, we have why emotions actually work or how emotions actually work. So I'm gonna go over basically like the science of emotions. Uh, the first thing is you have different regions of your brain that are responsible for different things. One of those being the amygdala. So the amygdala is sort of like your emotional alarm system, okay? So whenever you get triggered, that trigger is triggering, uh, triggering the amygdala part of your brain. And, you know, that's when you kind of go into that sympathetic nervous state where it's fight or flight. Right? Now you also have the prefrontal cortex, which is the very foremost part of your brain. Probably the, i, I believe, if I'm not mistaken, the most recent part of your brain to evolve. And the prefrontal cortex is responsible for logical. It's sort of like your logical decision center. So all rationality and, and logical thinking is from the prefrontal cortex. So. The thing about when, uh, being triggered, you have to understand that when you're triggered, typically blood flow shifts away from logic towards survival mode. Okay? So it's called a amygdala hijack. So whenever you're in a space, and I always share the idea that when emotion is high, logic is low. And whenever you're in a space where, um, you're sort of being, you know, triggered or, or you're in a fight or flight situation, you have to be very mindful that, uh, that trigger is causing you to, uh, kind of like go into survival, right? And if, if you're not aware of this, you, you'll do things impulsively. And that's what usually leads to really poor decisions. So one thing you have to understand is that your brain doesn't know the difference between, let's say a tiger and a disrespectful email. So. Back in, back, you know, thousands of years ago when, when you were out in the, the Savannah or you were out in the jungle, you know, our ancestors, uh, they had a lot of things to kind of look out for and, you know, that could have been a, a wild tiger for example. And it was very, very valuable for your brain to go into fight or flight, right? You don't have time to rationally think things through when you gotta get the hell up out of there. So in modern day times though, you have to understand that you can just have someone trigger you emotionally and your brain is not necessarily like quantifying or measuring, okay, which one is more severe? No. Whenever you're triggered, your, that amygdala is hi hijacked, you're immediately going into fight or flight. It's not a matter, matter of, hey, and is this a life or death situation? Your brain is automatically going to take it as that. So. You have to give yourself time to really process what it is that you're feeling in that moment, right? And, uh, your brain, um, again, whether it's a disrespectful email or something in the wild that you actually have to run from, it's not going to know the difference. It's basically going to react the same way. So this is important to, to really, really grasp when it comes to just emotional control. Now, why do most people lose control, right? Why do most people lose control? If you can get any idea as to why people would lose emotional control, drop some comments on why you think most people would lose emotional control. And that could be having an argument, right? Maybe they were triggered by something and you know, they kind of went off. We all know people who are also emotional, volatile, or it may be, you know, some their kids, right? Some like people will snap the moment. Something is, is, you know, going on with their children, um, or going on with their spouse or significant other or whatever. So, uh, but why do most people lose control? What, what's the underlying reasons? So here are a few. The very first one is lack of self-awareness. Lack of self-awareness, right? Not really just even having any awareness ar around their emotions. You'd be surprised at how many people don't even think about their emotions, right? You just kind of live and you're like a ping pong ball in a vast ocean, you don't really have any personal power, so you're just always reacting instead of respond. Right. So that's, that's one of the main things, just lack of awareness around it. The second is sleep deprivation. So you may be a little hangry, right, where you're hungry and tired, um, but you, you, you have to understand that when you're deprived and you're fatigued of, and you're deprived of sleep, is going to have an effect on your emotions. Sometimes you're just moody, not because your, your, your, your coworkers or anything like that. It's, it's simply because you just are sleep deprived. So ask yourself if you find yourself being emotional, emotionally volatile. Is it sleep deprivation that you're really going through, right? Is that, is that really the culprit? How many hours of sleep did you get? Did you get at least seven to eight hours? If, if you didn't, that's probably why you're in a crappy mood. So it is essential to always go to your physical health first and ask yourself, okay, what's off? Am I tired? Am I hungry? My blood sugar low, and it can be so many different things. The third is poor diet. Poor diet. So diet does affect your mood, not only diet, but also just your hydration levels. Okay? So you have to really do some self-inventory on what your diet is ultimately looking like because your a diet, your diet can make you, you know, you a lot more acidic, right? Your body more acidic. Uh, your diet can, uh, sort of put you in a lethargic state as well. Sometimes you have zero motivation, zero energy, right? No energy to even solve any problems. And your diet is playing a big part of just running your life. You're what you eat as we oftentimes hear, as cliche as that may sound. The next is chronic stress. Chronic stress. Now, this is a big one because, um, sometimes we're a little hard on ourselves. We're like, we we're a little hard on ourselves because we may have, um, responded to something in a specific way. And really we're just going through a very difficult season. So give yourself some grace, right? But it's not to make an excuse, whoever, just because I'm stressed out doesn't mean that I don't have to take responsibility for, for my actions. Like, yeah, you still have to take full responsibility, but also give yourself some grace because again, when emotions are high, logic is typically low. So regulating your stress or managing your stress, um, and it's crazy that we even live in a world where people have to manage their stress levels. But it is important because when your, your stress is high, when when cortisol, the big C right, that that stress hormone, when your cortisol levels are high, your immune system is also compromised. So your body. It's also not in a state of equanimity where it, it has the ability to even fight off this disease. Right? And this is oftentimes what leads to a lot of chronic illnesses and ailments and diseases and so many different things. So chronic stress is something that you always have to be mindful of before you go into that difficult conversation, before you go off on someone. Give yourself enough time to really regulate your nervous system. Next we have unhealed trauma. Unhealed trauma. This is a big one. And I remember, you know, it's so interesting. I remember back in the day, trauma wasn't even a word. Like, I don't know about y'all, but in the nineties, early two thousands, you never really spoke about trauma. I don't, I don't remember talking about trauma. Not once. As a kid growing up, we had no type of. Awareness on what, what trauma was all about or, or toxic situations or anything like that. And it is a beautiful thing to see that people are becoming more and more aware of healing from, from their trauma. And one of the things about trauma you have to understand is that. Trauma isn't necessarily something that you can measure or, or quantify. Like you can't do some type of experiment on trauma per se, in in terms of like something that you can measure, uh, biochemically, right? Uh, trauma is, it's kind of like energy, right? It's, it's, it's something that you just observe in people and their behavior and you see kind of patterns, right? So there, there's still a lot of studies being done on how trauma really works in the body and the brain, but one thing that we know for certain is that unhealed trauma will most certainly guide a lot of your life. So you have to go back and heal those, those inner wounds. And you guys oftentimes hear me say that trauma is not necessarily what happened to you. Trauma is what happened in you as a result of what happened to you. And when it comes to trauma, overall trauma gets stored in the body. It's not something that just kind of comes and goes. It's, it's like energy blockages in, in your body. And this is why a lot of unhealed trauma oftentimes leads to different ailments and diseases and everything like that. So unhealed trauma is a big, big part of what, what causes you to get triggered? Because when you're triggered understand, that's like, uh, the, the word trauma. It, it, the, the original Greek meaning is wound or wounding. So when you're, when you're triggered, what's happening is something is sort of like brushing up on that mental or emotional wound and you get triggered and it may be somebody saying a specific word, or maybe you have someone that looks like your ex. And when you see them, you, they just kind of rub you off the wrong way because you went through a very toxic relationship maybe. Even someone's name. I remember just hearing the name of my biological father. When I would, I would, I would cringe whenever, when I was a child and I would hear someone say that name in public. I would cringe because I had a lot of trauma from my relationship with my father, right? Not having a, a present father in my life. So, um, you know, you have to understand that certain things will, will trigger you. And the important thing to do is whenever you find yourself being triggered, really ask yourself, why am I feeling the way that I'm feeling? When was the last time we really just took time to process? Why you're feeling the way that you're feeling? You see, we have to all take responsibility for the way that we feel. Not only the way that we behave, but also the way that we feel. Because emotions don't happen outside of you. They happen inside of you. Okay, so big, big part of understanding how to go about your emotions now. Why do most people, um, again, lose control? Lack of self-awareness, sleep deprivation, poor diet, chronic stress, and unhealed trauma. Now, when it comes to leadership, understand that business owners who can't regulate emotions, burn teams, I see it happen all the time. You'll have a leader just go off and end up sabotaging the entire organization or think about fatherhood, right? Uh, fathers who can't regulate emotions, damage, trust, how many people have daddy issues? Like it's a, it's a serious thing. And one thing that's super dangerous to society is an emotionally unstable man. Emotionally unstable man is what leads to wars, what leads to a lot of the issues that we have on this planet. So it is important to make sure that, you know, throughout this journey, you're, you're helping, um, especially the men heal because, let's be honest. The vast majority of violence happening in the world is for men. It's not necessarily the, the woman that account for the vast majority. It's, it's the men. So emotional, volatile men is, is a, a, a major detriment to just our world and our, our generations to come. Another thing is entrepreneurs who can't regulate emotions also make bad financial decisions. If you're impulsive as an entrepreneur, it'll cost you financially. So this is super important, uh, to understand. So next, we have a really good life hack, and that's the 92nd rule. The 92nd rule. So neuroscientists, Jill Bolt, or a Bolte Tailor explains that a chemical re emotional reaction lasts about 90 seconds in the body unless you keep feeding it with thoughts. So think about that and emotional. Reaction last about 90 seconds. So what if you just took 90 seconds to really process what it is that you're feeling? One thing that I, that I learned years ago when it comes to neuroscience is that we have this part of our brain that's the lizard, part of the, the brain, the lizard part of the brain is that that ancient part of the brain that operated from a place of survival, it was fight or flight or freeze, right? That that's essentially what it was responsible for. But as generations continued and human beings evolved even more, we had the prefrontal cortex kind of kick in and human beings started becoming more and more rational, right? But you still have that ancient lizard part of your brain that's going to respond and react, and it is a very valuable thing, right? That's where instincts kick in, where you don't really have to think about something. It's just all about reacting. However, in today's day and age. You sort of have to be able to make decisions when emotions aren't necessarily so high, and then really process things and think things through. We're a lot more complex as homo sapiens, right? As human beings. Uh, we're a lot more complex than our ancestors, thousands and thousands of years ago, or at least most of us, or, uh, I would hope that's the case, right? I, I shouldn't say that we're all that complex because honestly, common sense isn't so common, uh, from time to time. So next we have a practical application. So, for example, before responding to a message, taking time to just breathe and catch yourself, give it at least 90 seconds, right? Because typically within 90 seconds you have that sympathetic nervous system kicking in where it's fight or flight. After 90 seconds, you start that process of going into sort of like your parasympathetic nervous system where you can sort of get back to a even keel and get back to a place of equanimity where you can properly manage your emotions. Now think about this. Before disciplining a child, how many parents will go off on a child? I know my first child, I was a lot more snappy, and my second and third child, we, I, I just took a completely different parenting approach. And one thing that I can tell you, you know, you oftentimes hear these sayings, those spare the rod, spare the child. And this is not to downplay that, but one thing that I will tell you is that you can very well discipline your kids in such a way. Where you don't have to spank them. And I know from personal experience, my kids are pretty decent. They're good kids and we, we haven't had to spank them. You know, just literally just talking to them and making sure that I'm not operating from a place of just being reactive and just snapping on them the moment I, I get triggered by something. Right. Taking some time to really process your emotions. I think one of the best things that you could teach children in this generation is how to properly manage their emotions. How to properly navigate and, and regulate their emotions. Okay. So before disciplining a child, imagine if you could just take some time to catch yourself. And I know sometimes it's easier said than done, right? Especially those of you probably single moms, single dads, and you're up against a lot. You're probably in survival mode and it's so easy to kind of revert back to this, you know, going off on a child. But think about how valuable it is for your child to see you be patient, to see you properly regulate your emotions, and to act from a place of deep compassion right, and understanding and being very logical, one of the best things that you can do. Another thing is, before making a financial decision, how many of us, I, I don't know about y'all, but I, when I want it, I want it. How many of you have that mentality? Like when you really want something, you're not trying to wait on it. You're not trying to just sit there and calculate everything. Uh, drop a one in the comments if that is the case for you. I know whenever I want something, like I'm one of those people that I know that there's one day delivery with Amazon, but I'm not trying to wait 24 hours to get what I want. Like I will find that very thing at the bottom of a river. Like, I'm usually like that when it comes to books. If I hear about a book that I absolutely wanna read. And I, and I got, there was like a really great recommendation, uh, from like, about this book. I'm gonna go to whatever bookstore and find that book. Right. So that's, that's one of the things when, when it comes to making a financial decision, you have to be very mindful of that, that there's certain financial decisions that if you make it impulsively, it's gonna, it's gonna definitely, uh, you know, be, be your downfall in a sense. So you have to be able to think things through. How many of you have been in a, in a, in a mattress store? Right. And mat mattress salesmen are rootless like. They're going to do everything in their power to make you buy right then and there. And then if you, if you're lucky enough to leave the mattress store, they're gonna be hitting you up all day long. You, you may hit them with, oh, well I'm gonna, you know, just shop around and see my options. They are going to make sure that they keep following up and they, they push to get that sale. Right? And the thing about it is, a lot of people will make the decision of buying a$5,000 mattress. Meanwhile, their original intention was to maybe spend 400 bucks on an Amazon mattress, but then they go into the mattress store and now they get sold on a$5,000 mattress for a, a payment plan, right? On a, on a mattress That's way out of their budget because they were thinking impulsively, right? You see people get caught up in timeshare. So many different things, right? It's just being quick to make these financial decisions. So give yourself some time. Give especially things that, that are on, on the pricier side. Next name it to tame it, name it to tame it. So, studies show that labeling your emotion reduces amygdala activities. Remember, your amygdala is the part of your brain that's like an emotional alarm system. So instead of saying, I'm mad, for example, remember there's power in the tongue. There's power in language. Instead of saying, I'm mad, you know, explain why you're mad. So perhaps you can say, I'm feeling frustrated because my expectations weren't met. Think about how much that weighs emotionally. Just saying I'm mad, or I'm pissed off to now saying I'm feeling a bit frustrated because my expectations weren't met. It's a completely different weight in emotions, right? So explaining your emotions can go a long way when, when it comes to the way that you feel, remember, language creates distance. So it kind of separates you from the emotion when you label it this. Build emotional intelligence right away, okay? The moment you could label something, so don't just generalize what it is that you're feeling, just explain or label it and, and that way there's more of a separation and you're not all caught up in the emotion. Here's another life hack. Change of physiology. Change of physiology. There's three things that ultimately dictate your emotional state. Those three things and take notes if you guys have something to take notes with. But those three things that dictate your emotional state, it's known as the triad, are your body focus. Language. So your body is your physiology, what you're doing physically in that moment. Secondly is your focus. Whatever you focus on, expands in your life. And typically if you're thinking, let's just say a negative thoughts, you're probably going to feel negative. If you're thinking happy thoughts, it's probably going to be impossible to feel depressed while you're thinking happy thoughts. You know why? Because two thoughts cannot occupy the mind simultaneously. Two emotions can't necessarily occupy the body simultaneously. Try feeling the depressed and happy all at the same time. Probably not gonna happen, right? So you, you have to be always mindful at where you channel your focus. And whenever you're feeling down and out, whenever you're feeling a little bit sad or depressed or angry, ask yourself what are you currently thinking about? Where's your focus? And then the last thing is, like we mentioned just now, is the language, your self-talk. The meaning you give to something that's ultimately going to dictate the way that you feel. So you can look at, for example, life is happening to you or you can look at life is happening for you. It's not to say one is right and one is wrong. The bigger question is, which one is more useful? Okay? So if you guys are getting value so far, drop a v in the comments for value. And uh, by the way, uh, I've been running these five day challenges. So every week I start a new cycle of five day challenges, and it's pretty much me working with people in our community one-on-one. Uh, if you want information on how that challenge works, how you can work with me on whatever project you're currently working on. It could be writing a book, it could be launching a podcast, launching your speaking career, getting momentum in that business, whatever it is. It's, it's working with me one-on-one for five days, and I've been running this challenge, uh, or these challenges since December and I've had a lot of people go through it. It's been exciting working with so many of you guys, and if you want information on how you can be a part of the challenge, you may not be able to get in this week or next week, but I do have a standby list. Uh, for those who want to get in on it at some point in time, just dm me the word challenge and I'll be more than happy to send you some information on how that works. So moving forward, right when it comes to changing your physiology, remember emotions live in the body so you can have quick resets, for example. And it's interesting because I'm, I'm going to be speaking at an event for those of you who know Myron Golden. I'll be speaking at an event, him, uh, sharing the stage with him and, and my segment is specifically going to be on health and wellness. Right. A lot of the work that I do is on holistic life coaching. So, um, one of the things that I'm gonna be talking about is how to physically regulate your emotions, like in, in that moment, real time, whenever you're navigating through really difficult circumstances. So, for example, you guys may have heard me talk about box breathing. For example, box breathing is inhaling for, uh, for about four seconds, four to five seconds. Holding your breath for four to five seconds directly after exhaling for four seconds. And then holding your, your, your breath with, with empty lungs in a sense. You know, holding on an, on an empty lungs for about four seconds and doing it for four times. Okay? So that's box breathing and there's so many different breathing exercises that you can do. So, uh, you have. Five deep breaths that you can take as well. Just simple exercises. You have cold water on your face, which is another thing that you can do. Uh, cold water on your face is a big one. Uh, instantly can change your emotional state. You have 10 pushups. That's something that you could also do right away, just 10 pushups, or even just going for a five minute walk. Something that you can do instantly. Something that you can do right away. Okay? Uh, which is a, a, another one, one second. We are back. So another, uh, another thing is when it comes to your physiology, remember, when you shift your body, you shift your state. So the fastest way to kind of change your emotional state is 100% going to be, uh, shifting your body right away. You have to get your body moving. A body in motion stays in motion. Now, high performers, when it comes to just how they feel, high performers, the first thing that they do is control their physiology. First. It's probably the easiest way to shift how you feel, right? And you guys know exactly what I'm talking about. The moment you go for that walk or go for that run or put on some clothes and get yourself moving, now you feel motivated. Whenever I'm feeling like my lowest or whenever I feel lethargic, whenever I'm feeling like a sense of apathy where I don't feel like doing anything. Typically it's because I'm not in motion, like I'm just there, like a couch potato and not moving around. I'm not sure how many of you can relate to that, but, um, that's a, that's a big, big part of overall, like how, how you feel is getting your body moving. Next we have emotional triggers and patterns. Okay, so here's some really great questions when it comes to emotional triggers and patterns. You know, ask yourself what situations consistently trigger me. What situations consistently trigger me? And it could be maybe a, a certain person, any of you ever work with somebody that they just trigger the hell out of you? Like it's just something about that person or the way they go about their communication style where it's like super triggering. Right? But what situations, and it helps to have an understanding of, of, of these situations because, uh, the, like, when you know about them in advance, you could probably navigate through your emotions whenever they do arise. Okay. And also ask yourself, is it disrespect? Is the disrespect triggering you? Is it rejection? Is it feeling ignored? Is it financial stress? And I can tell you, for me, it's been a combination of these things. Like I'll have something, i'll, and you usually know what, when you're being triggered as like immediately you go into a lower vibrational state, immediately you go into a, a, a space of frustration or anger or resentment or bitterness. That's how you know when, when you're being triggered by something, it's like, uh, it doesn't happen gradually. It happens right there in that moment. I know, I know. For me, disrespect is like, that's a big one. You, you are not about to talk to me any kind of way. You know that that's a, that's, I'm really big on respect. Right? But do like, think about it, if you allow someone to have the power to disrespect you or the power to alter your state, then you give that person control over you. Right? You never wanna give away your personal power by allowing someone to alter your state. So that's why doing the, the healing is, is so essential because you regain your personal power. Those things no longer can brush up on wounds because you've stitched up those wounds symbolically. Right? Or metaphorically. So is it disrespect, is it rejection? Is it feeling ignored? Any of you get triggered like you've been in a relationship and the person you are with is ignoring you and it triggers the hell out of you. How many of you can relate to that? Drop a y in the comments if that's you. If you can relate to being triggered just by being ignored. They're not even saying anything, but you feel a sense of rejection. Maybe you, you've gone through abandonment, you've gone through neglect as a child and you never heal from those wounds. And that's why it triggers you. Right? So I know for me it's big on like disrespect is a big one. The rejection of course. Right? And the more I peeled the layers of that onion and got to the core of it, I realized that, oh, it was, it was going through abandonment as a kid. Never really healing from that, going through neglect as a kid, right? Think about it. If you're a kid and you're being ignored as a kid, think about like. Physiologically biologically for thousands of years, like it probably wasn't going to be in your best interest to be ignored all the time by the tribe, right? Like it was, it was your very survival that was on the line. So whenever we're not given any kind of attention, right? Biologically speaking, right? That that's why we feel the way that we feel because it's, it's a part of your very survival mechanism, right? Think about it. If you're not respected in the tribe, if if you're not accepted or, or respected or you're not given any kind of attention, you're probably not gonna have a great chance of survival. So we still, biologically speaking, have a lot of that right in us. So another thing is financial stress. Financial stress is probably one of the, the most diff difficult to, to navigate through, right? Because your body is signaling that you're in danger. So that's why regulating your nervous system is one of the best things that you can do. Taking time to remind yourself that I'm okay. I'm safe. I'm probably not going to be living out on the streets next week. Right. I'm probably not going to starve. Right? But our body is signaling something completely different because remember, your brain is not necessarily labeling it as, oh, this is financial stress and this is life or death, right? It's, it's signaling all, all of those situations as danger to you, and it's, it's creating these triggers to, to help you survive. But 99% of the time, it ain't that deep, right? But to us, we sort of, uh, catastrophize it, right? Or we, we traumatize it and we make it something bigger than it has to be. So whenever you're in that moment where you are being disrespected and you're triggered, and you have not passed that 92nd window, you have to be careful. With going off on someone because people don't forget words so easily. And those, those few words, remember, it takes a lifetime to build a reputation and a moment to destroy one. So those moments where your, your emotional volatile, you have to be careful with going off practice. This take time to allow yourself to go from a par, from a sympathetic nervous state to a parasympathetic nervous state. And one of the best things you can do is go for a walk real quick, right? Breathe, do some tapping exercises. You guys hear me talk about the tapping method, where you're tapping on those meridians on, on the body to regulate your nervous system. All of these things really help. Okay? So like the seminar that I'm going to, or the conference I'm gonna be speaking at, at the, at the end of the, uh, month, I'm going to specifically talk about different things when it comes to biohacking and regulating your nervous system during those. Those moments where you have to make important business decisions. Think about how much more effective you would be, not only as a professional, but also as a parent, also as a spouse, also as a friend, as a brother, sister, uncle, aunt. Think about how much more effective you would be as a human being, just knowing how to properly navigate through your emotions, knowing how to communicate from a logical standpoint. You wanna do what you know, not what you feel all the time. Right? Do what you know, because sometimes when we operate based off of the way that we feel, if you're in a, if you're in a very negative state, it's not always going to be the best response. Okay? So moving forward, you have to understand that there are emotional pattern loops, and the way that emotional pattern loops work are first you have the trigger. You'll have something trigger you. It could be someone saying something crazy to you or you see something that just pisses you off or whatever. That's the first thing, the trigger. Then it's the reaction. It's how you respond in that moment, okay? Then you have the regret, because oftentimes, remember when emotions are high, logic is low. And then if you, if you just react and you act impulsively, typically you're not going to make the very best decision in that moment. And now you're left with regret, which leads to shame. And then you are on this repeating cycle, right? And it, it, it happens over and over and over again because you have not figured out how to properly regulate your emotions in that moment. How to just take time to breathe, to catch yourself before going off. Now, emotional maturity is what breaks this loop, getting emotionally mature. Think about that. How many of you can relate to just a moment in your life? I was thinking about that the other day. I was like, man, uh, back in the day, I was way toxic. Like I had a lot of healing to do on my journey, and I could think of like this past relationships where I, I was just super, I was super snappy. I would just go off on, on, you know, every little thing. There was always a fight, always drama, always toxic. And it, I mean, it's, it's unfortunate, but if you don't have awareness of this, I had no awareness of, again, trauma. Like it was never brought up. I didn't learn about trauma until probably my late twenties. And, and understanding how to properly heal from that. Like we always had like personal development, right? We, we always had like self-help, but there wasn't a strong emphasis on, on healing through trauma specifically. And it doesn't matter how much personal development. You have how much self-improvement you've been doing. If you have not done the deeper inner work to heal from those things that you need to heal from, you'll have those moments periodically where you, you get triggered and you get out of character. I see this happen all the time, and it used to happen to me, and from time to time it still does because healing is an ongoing journey. You're never necessarily going to be completely healed from every single thing. Sometimes you, you go through difficult seasons and that leads to new traumas. Okay? So these are all important things to understand now, um, there, there have been, um, over the course of my life, like I can think of. Um, a lot of moments, whether it was relationships, it could have been just even, even internal breakdowns in communication. Sometimes you're dealing with somebody who's very difficult to, to, to work with and they'll just bring out, you know, the very worst in you. You understand? And really, you have to take responsibility. Like no one has the ability to just alter your emotions unless you let them. And the act of you letting them right, is, is a clear indication that you're responsible for whether or not you're going to allow someone to get the best of you, right? So when we talk about free will, the more emotional control you have, the more free will you have. A lot of people relinquish their free will because everything that, that, that they're feeling. They, they sort of go into a vic victimization a victim mindset. And that victim mindset will have you feeling like life is always happening to you. People are are, are doing things to you. But the moment you realize that you truly have the power to regulate your emotions and dictate the way that you feel in any moment in time, things start to change. So here's a really cool fun fact. The word emotions, or the word emotion comes from the Latin meaning to move or meaning to move. Emotions are literally means like energy in motion. That's the idea, right? So they're meant to move through you, not stay stuck in your body. So when you experience trauma, what happens is during childhood we don't really know how to properly regulate our emotions. And if you don't know how to properly regulate your emotions, where do you think they go? They don't just necessarily flow through you, right? They get stored, they get stored as energy blocks in your body, which again, if you don't do the proper healing, and in Eastern traditions this is referred to as some scarra, some scars are like energy blocks in, in your body. And, uh, you have to allow energy to just flow with those feelings to be processed. Because if you just bury them, you suppress them. They're not just going to leave. They get, they get buried, they get stored in the body. This is what leads to this disease, right? Disease is being, uh, stored in the body in a sense because again, your cortisol levels are high, your immune system is low, it's compromised, right? And, and you're not properly regulating those emotions. So that's how trauma essentially happens throughout childhood or throughout your life, okay? Because you have not learned how to properly regulate emotions. Remember when you are, when you are a young baby. Babies are super dependent on parents helping them regulate their emotions, right? Holding them while, while they're crying and, and, uh, make making sure that they're properly nurtured. But imagine if you're neglected of that and you are just crying and crying as a child, and no one there to help you really process what you're feeling. Where the hell do you think all of those emotions are going? Right? They're, they're being stored up. So, so ultimately what leads to issues later down the road and you're like, man, why am I feeling the way that I'm feeling? And it's because you never properly process those emotions. So one of the best things that you can do whenever you're, you're feeling a sense of anger or frustration or bitterness or whatever, allow yourself to feel it. Don't just. On that gaping wound expecting for it properly heal. No, you have to do the hard work of, of stitching up that emotion wound and very painful in the moment, right? But you liberate yourself and you allow those emotions to wash through you. That's the way it's supposed to work, right? The emotions are there for your survival mechanism. It's, it's, it's that fight or flight kicking in to keep you alive. But the moment you regulate your nervous system, it should flow right through you and it's like, okay, I'm safe. I'm not in danger. There's no need to bottle this in. You don't have to drink your sorrows away or just do things that ultimately leave you feeling even worse because it was a bandaid on a gaping wound. Okay, so next, and by the way, if you guys are getting value, drop a v for value in the comments. I wanna make sure you guys are still with me here. I know there's a lot of great information shared here and, um, I'm, I'm super passionate about talking about emotions because I genuinely believe that the quality of your life is dependent on the quality of emotions you consistently feel, right? I always say we want the Leaf of Life Leaf being an acronym for love, right? Empowerment by feeling, empowered, feeling a sense of awe and fulfillment, right? Imagine that if, if rather than feeling anxiety, overwhelm, overwhelm, shame, bitterness, resentment, imagine if your day-to-day experience is one of which you feel constantly loved or, or a sense of appreciation. Sometimes I say like, you know, the A, the A in leaf can be appreciated, right? We all wanna feel loved. We all wanna feel appreciated. We, we wanna feel empowered or excited, and we wanna feel fulfilled. That's what it's about. And if you learn how to navigate through your emotions, then you can, this can be your experience, okay? So that, that's how, that's how important it is in your lifetime to really learn how to navigate through these emotions, because your emotions are dictating your human experience. Now, next we have people. These are really great fun fact people with higher emotional intelligence, statistically earn more over their lifetime than those with high iq, but low iq, eq, all right? There's a lot of people with high iq. But low eq, how many of us know people like that, right? They have more degrees than a damn thermometer, but like their emotional intelligence is, it is on the low side. Like we all know people like that, right? Super, super smart. But they, they don't have any empathy. And I had saw a really profound reel the other day on social media where a gentleman was talking about the future of intelligence. What it means to be intelligence is not only how much information, you know, think about it, in a world of ai, there's no shortage of knowledge. It's not going to be how much you know, or how critically you even think, but it's more so going to be how well you can empathize. How, how, how well are, are your instincts, how, how great are your instincts when it comes to being able to make decisions on the fly? Empathy and you understand human beings on a deeper level, right? That's the difference between IQ and eq. A lot of people can be great at critical thinking and solving problems, but can you empathize? Can you regulate your own emotions so that you can navigate business challenges? I always hear that ignorance on fire is better than intellect on ice. There are a lot of people that are probably not the sharpest, they probably were the C students in school who sat in the back of the class, but they know how to navigate through really tumultuous cs. That's the idea. So EQ predicts leadership success, more than technical skill in many, many industries. So it's just as important and there's a really good book on emotional intelligence, um, that I would recommend. I would, I would recommend learning anything you can on emotional intelligence. Super helpful. So here's another fun fact. Stress literally shrinks parts of your brain over time. But emotional regulation, practices like meditation can increase gray matter in areas linked to decision making. So learning how to properly regulate your emotions. I know for me, meditation is a big one. Meditation, breathing exercises, tapping exercises, walking, going outside, getting some sun because sun produces serotonin in your body. Serotonin is a mood stabilizer. You have to understand that a very biochemical and from a, from a neurochemical standpoint, there are four main hormones that are chemicals in your body that determine your happiness levels. It's dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin, and endorphins. Nothing more, nothing less. You have other things like epinephrine, which are responsible for like adrenaline rushes and things like that, but those are the four big ones. Dopamine being responsible for your motivation levels. The word do comes from dopamine. So a lot of the times people get stimulated like with their dopamine levels, when, when they, when they experience, uh, you know, certain stimulants. And then you have oxytocin, which is the love hormone. Whenever you feel in love or a sense of community, it's oxytocin. You have serotonin, which is whenever you feel a sense of gratitude and self-esteem, high self-esteem, a a sense of wellbeing, that's, that's serotonin. And then endorphins are like when you're out exercising and you feel incredible because you have that runner's high is what they call it. And endorphins mask pain. So these four hormones pretty much run your whole life. They're running your entire body and brain. And then you have the big C, which is cortisol, which increases stress levels. And cortisol is essential because cortisol is designed to keep you alive. Imagine if you didn't have those fight or flight instincts, right? You probably wouldn't be very. Useful, or, or you wouldn't, your, your body wouldn't be very valuable if it didn't have the ability to just have those natural instincts. So it is important, however, in modern day times, people have just stress every single day with their jobs, stress, with their family life, stress with the economy, with so much going on in the world, they're, they're tuning into news. They're tuning onto social media, comparing themselves to other people, and the cortisol levels are just always high, right? And you have to find ways to bring down those cortisol levels and, and raise your dopamine, raise your serotonin. And it's unfortunate that a lot of people give their dopamine away to the algorithm, right? Things that are, things are that, that are being fed to them through their newsfeed all the time. And you're giving away all of your precious attention. Understand that we're in the attention economy. You have to be very mindful that who and what you give your attention to. You know, some of you know that I, I homeschool my kids and sometimes what I'll do is like, if they're on a break, I'll sit down with them and I'll give'em some life coaching advice and just practical wisdom. And the, the last time I sat with them a couple of days ago, I sat them down and, and one of the things that I had stressed to them is who in what they give their attention to. I specifically told them like, Hey, your attention is one of the most valuable things that you have, and companies make money off of grabbing your attention. And you have to make a conscious decision over what you give your attention to these days. There's a phrase called brain rot. And these, this younger generation, they always talk about brain rot. And brain rot is literally just giving your attention to something like nonstop. And you're, you're constantly brain rotting because you're not using your brain for something that's actually productive. You're, you are wasting away in a sense. Okay. And, and I had to explain to them that. You don't want to just be the consumer, you be the creator. You wanna be the person that actually creates things as opposed to just consumes things. Okay? And, and I, I stand firm on that. You know, so many people just give away their, their dopamine and then they wonder why they don't have any motivation. Okay? So moving forward, uh, when it comes to emotional discipline, I wanna share some emotional discipline as it pertains to leadership, okay? And high performance. So remember this, the calm person in the room has power still. Waters run deep. The calm person in the room has power. I remember hearing a politician during nine 11. Um, in New York, I think it, it might have been either Bloomberg or or Rudy Giuliani, one of them. But they mentioned that they had learned from their father. Like when, when everyone was panicking, they were super calm and they had learned from their partner, from their, from their father. That whenever everybody's in a frenzy, when everybody is in a panic, you always wanna be the calm person in the room, right? You're, you're that person that people can go to. You're the rock, and, and you wanna be that person for your family. When everybody's all up in their feelings, you're the one that they can go to for, for emotional stability. Okay? And it's super important, for those of you who are men, is super important to play that role. Right in, in the family. Remember, like most women are nurturers, most women are, are the ones that women have a much more expansive emotional range. Men, we have to be super, super logical and I mean, this is biological for thousands and thousands of years, men have been the hunter-gatherers, right? And, um, for, for thousands and thousands of years, women didn't have to work as much as they do in today's day and age. Like over the last hundred years, women probably have been working harder, right? Just, just living in survival, right? Could you imagine having such an expansive emotional range and having to navigate through financial difficulties or uncertainty and all this stress, right? So that's why it is important to understand how to regular regulate your emotions. But imagine a man who's also emotional. Like that's the worst thing that a family could have is an emotional man, right? Like. A man should be the, the very backbone of the family. The, the very rock, right? A safe space. Right. And, and this is the issue that a lot, a lot of family structures just break down because they don't have that, that strong masculine figure to, to be the rock. And this is not to say that woman can't play that role either, right? There are a lot of phenomenal women out there that, that play that role, but men we're just biologically wired to be a little bit more on, on the rational and logical side, right? I would hope that's the case, right? We can't, I can't speak for all men, but this is, this is the issue in society. It's like if you, if you have generations of broken little boys running the world, we're gonna have more and more problems. So this is why from the time that a child is young, it is important to help them learn how to navigate through these emotions and regulate their emotions properly. Okay, now. Another thing is emotional steadiness creates safety, right? It creates safety in an organization. Imagine working for a boss that's just like, and some of you probably have worked for a boss that's super emotional, right? And it's not a good situation for the company or your, your in a household where your parents are super emotional. Think about how many of us have had mommy and daddy issues simply because we had a parent that was super emotional, right? So this, this is how you break these generational cycles is by learning how to take full responsibility of your emotions and properly navigate through them in healthy ways. Another thing is investors trust stable leaders. Like I, I had raised a bunch of investment, uh, with my, my company, dream Nation Media from people who've known me for a lot of years, and a lot, a lot of them invested simply because. I've been a stable leader for a lot of years. I've like, there's no way in hell I'm going to invest in someone that's just emotionally unstable, right? How are you gonna run a company? You know how difficult it is to run a business. So imagine if you're running a business, but you don't even know how to properly cope with your emotions. It's not going to be a very successful business. Okay? Another thing is children trust, emotionally secure fathers, right? Mothers as well. But that father figure, like so many people had daddy issues simply because they had an emotion, father that didn't really know how to properly manage. And, and these things are systemic as well. This is not to downplay, right? A lot of the, the, the, the causes or factors to why many men end up not being emotionally stable. There's so many things that have happened systemically that have led to this, right, but the first path to healing a generation, healing a person is awareness. If you don't have awareness that this is even going on, how can we properly right navigate through it? You know, it's crazy and, uh, I need to get all controversial and, and political, but man, this, this past week, what, what should be a moment to unify the nation? Unify the world with something as profound as the Super Bowl? And I'm, I'm a big football guy. I played football for almost a decade of my life, you know, at, at the high school level and at the college level. I've won championships in high school and college. It was a big part of my identity. Like, I mean, I was the, the, the young high school kid, like always on television, always in newspapers and everything for playing football. It was a big, big part of my life. And. You know, I love the, the, the football, the Super Bowl football season, right? Because it's a just a great time to, to bring everybody together and, and you know, you, you, you come together with your family and friends and you know, such a great American tradition and it's just unfortunate that there, there's been so much division right over the past week, right? So much division and a lot of it is from emotionally unstable people. Like, let's just call it for what it is, people seeing someone post something on social media getting super triggered, right? And not necessarily, you know, navigating through their emotions. Now I get it there, there's moments where you have to stand up for injustice a hundred percent. You know, and this isn't to downplay that, but man, think about how much better we would've been able to navigate through this past week and, and reduce the amount of division happening in the world if people just truly understood how to go about. Navigating their emotions, like the world would be a, a, a far better place. So that's why I'm so passionate about even teaching specifically on this because I, I believe that, you know, knowledge is, is one of the best things that you can do to prevent division in the world, right? Like, why do we have to be so damn divided? And if we don't learn this lesson, there will be like very negative consequences to that. You know, media promotes the vision. Why is that? Because it's good for the algorithm. It wants to see confrontation. You know, it's crazy. The, I had a recent post that, that had crazy amounts of views, like hundreds of thousands of views, literally within a few hours. And I had a post go viral. And the reason it went viral, unfortunately it wasn't because it was so educational or inspirational, it was because people didn't, a lot of people didn't agree. With what I said, they took things out of context. Understanding that you can't really open up a whole lot of dialogue in a 32nd clip. Right? And people are just going back and forth, back and forth. And unfortunately, that's how the algorithm works. It, it, it promotes division, it promotes hatred, unfortunately. So we have to stand up for, for something better. We have to stand up for truth. We have to stand up for peace. We have to stand up for unity. That, that's important. But it starts with standing up for how to navigate through your emotions, right? Taking full responsibility for how you operate like in this. And it's, it's, it's just so, so interesting man. Um. It's so interesting. I had a, I had a gentleman, I, I had watched the Super Bowl with a gentleman that, uh, and you know, this is probably as political as I'm gonna get. Um, and, and for me, I don't identify with any side. I'm just calling it for what? It's, I'm more of a moderate, right? I'm not like left. I'm not right. Like I'm, I'm specifically, I, I look at the policies that are being put in place. I'm looking at the person being elected in office and their character and all of those different things. I'm pro unity, um, that, that's just the way that I operate. I've lived in blue states, I've lived in red states, and, and for me it's just more important to stand up for peace, for unity, for love, for respect, for dignity, for family values. That that's what I stand for, right? I, I can care what political side of the spectrum. Many of you on the breakfast club, you come from both sides of the political spectrum, right? So this is, this is about standing up for unity and, and standing up for love when it's all said and done. And it's interesting because. Uh, you know, I'm, I'm, my family is Puerto Rican, like father, mother, everyone, like a hundred percent. My grandparents were a part of the great diaspora that left Puerto Rico because of mass poverty, right? Because of systemic things that were going on, let's just call it for what it is. And they migrated to New York City, and I'm very passionate about my, my family's heritage and for living out the American dream because that's what they originally came to the United States for right now, unfortunately, in their generation, and the generation after, they didn't necessarily get to because there was still a lot of poverty in New York City. I grew up in the murder capital of New York at the time, late eighties. It's probably the worst time in history in New York City. And why do I bring this up? Because, um, it was, it was super important, right? It was a, it was a moment in history that us uh, Puerto Ricans, Latinos had shared collectively, right? And there's so much going on in the world and. I was in a household of Puerto Ricans, but we had a gentleman who, who came, uh, to watch the Super Bowl. And the moment he came, you know, he's a little, he's more on the, uh, on the, on the right side of the political spectrum, right. And, uh, a little bit more country, a little bit more conservative. And the moment he comes in the house, you know, he didn't really have the awareness, but he was just like, I'm not here for the bad Bunny halftime show. Right? He's like, I'm not here for that. The moment he comes in, meanwhile you're in a household of a bunch of Puerto Ricans who are excited for it, and that's what you come for, right? And, uh, you know, it's a Caucasian brother and, uh, you know, we were very welcome, you know, still brought him in and we just started to have conversation. And his big thing was like, well, you know, I heard that he's gonna wear a dress right? I got mad. It's my, uh, poor country accent. And, uh, he had a country accent and, uh, he said he heard that that bad bunny was gonna wear a dress, and he was like, anti all of that. And I get it. I get it. And that was fair. And we, you know, we heard him out. We, we were very open. We, we weren't necessarily judgmental or, um, again, emotional volatile where we were snapping on him. And we just welcomed him in and, and allowed him to express, you know, his views. And he had a few comments on what was going on in the world with ice and everything like that. And, um, you know, it's interesting because we still played the halftime. We didn't switch over right to the other halftime show. And he was open-minded enough to actually sit in, sit. And he actually put a bet with my really good friend,$20 bet that that bad bunny was gonna come out in address, right? And, uh, he lost the bet, of course. And oddly enough, you know, ironically enough, he ended up really enjoying the show. And he not only enjoyed the show. He felt the love that, that we still welcomed him. We didn't judge him. Like we had great conversation. We spoke about different, you know, challenges, just life in general, parenting and all of that. His kids was there, you know, and it was, it was beautiful that someone that probably would've been so anti what we stood for, you know, came in and we were able to essentially change his worldview of everything with love, with unity, with respect, with compassion. And I think that that's what we need more in the world. I felt like God had brought in there for a reason, in a sense, right? Because he was so anti, you know, he pulled up in his American pickup truck and all that and, and, you know, just, uh, and, and I understood what he stood for. And, you know, I, I love brothers like that too. I feel like we need both sides of the political spectrum. Like we need balance in the world. And there are moments when conservative values have to stand up and defend themselves. And there there's times where, you know, left wing values also, right? We need, we need both. And you can't have, uh, a thriving society with just one political ideology. So I've always learned to just be respectful of both, and I've heard out opinions and, and, and just different understandings. And I think that if we can just be more accepting of one another, right? And this is not to necessarily say like, Hey, you know, we should be okay with hate. We should be okay with, with, with certain things that are detrimental to, to human civilization, right? However, there's, there's, there's a way that we can live and use with one another and we can't let algorithms just cause the vision in the world. So that's my political rant for the day. And I mean, if you guys agree with that or disagree with that, drop a comment. I'd love to hear your perspective as well. Right. And at the end of the day, uh, for me it's, it's more so, you know, how can we be more unified? How can we be more accepting and more open-minded of each other's cultures? Right. And embrace each other and, and do our best to, to promote, right. Well, the wellbeing of families, the wellbeing of a healthy nation, where we all get to thrive and live out our version of the American Dream. And in today's day and age, because the American dream also evolves over time, and I know many of you are probably on the other side of the pond and you're probably like. I don't get all this going on. Or maybe you do. Right. But it's, it's important, especially on platforms like this, for me to promote Unity when it's all said and done. Right. Because the premise of my show here with the Breakfast Club and, and the Journey podcast and all of that, the Breakfast Club is our community where we gather together, together, right, with our Dream Nation community. But the, the whole purpose of of this show is really for people to liberate themselves, right? To empower themselves and educate themselves so that we can live in a better world. It's not for the vision, it's not for self-fulfillment where it's just all or self gratifying, where it's just all about you. No, it's about building yourself up so that you can make a greater contribution in the world. It's growing, so you can give and, and you could be a lot more of value to the world. That's why we grow ourselves. So that we can make a greater contribution so we can be, uh, uh, servants in the world and, and servants to each other in a sense, right? And when I say servants to the world, I mean people who genuinely are servant leaders who, who, who build themselves up, whether it's their skills, their mindset, their, their knowledge, right? Their, the wisdom, the deep wisdom, but also within love, within unity, within respect, within core values, right? The, these are the, the essential things that, that, that make a thriving society. And that's what I stand for more than anything. It's not about the left wing or the right wing, or who's right and who's wrong. It's how can we come together? How can we improve ourselves so that we can better serve each other? Okay? So that's enough for that. Ran. Now, um, as we close out. Right. Um, I wanna give you guys some practical frameworks. Now, here's a great four step model before we wind down for today. It's called the REST method and REST being an acronym. Okay? So the R is for recognize, right? Notice the trigger. That's the first thing, right? The R and REST is recognized. The E is evaluate. Is this worthy or is this worth my energy? It's worthy of my energy. Okay, that's a big one, evaluating it. The third is the S, which stands for slow down, pause, breathe. Take some time to slow down, give it at least 90 seconds before you respond. And then the T is for transform. Choose a response aligned with who you want to be. So again, the rest method. Recognize, evaluate, slow down, transform. Really great framework. And as we close out. Remember this, your emotions are indicators, not dictators. Emotional discipline compounds like money. So the more you focus on it, the more you work on it, the better you get over time. And the person who controls their internal world controls their external results. And ladies and gentlemen, if you got value from this, if this helped you in any kind of way, drop a light, comment, share, tag someone who can get value from it, subscribe to the YouTube channel. Uh, thank you so much for those of you who constantly share and advocate for my work. And I appreciate you guys. Breakfast is officially served. Let's create more unity in the world, less division. Let's promote love and, and you know, just abolish hate as much as possible. Let's really come together and build ourselves up so that we can, you know, just love God and love each other as the great two commandments states. So take care. God bless, and I'll be seeing you soon.