Notes for An Awesome Life with John Spence
Notes for an Awesome Life with John Spence takes you beyond the boardroom into the habits, reflections, and small decisions that can help you create more clarity, resilience, and balance in your life.
This show features one of the world’s top leadership thinkers, John Spence, named by the American Management Association as one of America’s Top 50 Leaders to Watch. John has lectured at more than 90 universities, including MIT, Stanford, Cornell, and Wharton, served as CEO of five companies, and advises organizations from startups to the Fortune 10.
But here, he’s not talking about business strategy. He’s sharing the principles, stories, and reflective tools that help people live more joyful, successful, and yes…awesome…lives.
Every episode delivers candid conversations about failure, resilience, and growth. You will also hear practical strategies to align your life with your values and stories that prove it’s never too late to design your life with purpose.
Follow now and start your journey toward an awesome life, one decision at a time.
Notes for An Awesome Life with John Spence
How Self-Awareness and Emotional Intelligence Shape an Awesome Life
In this episode of Notes for an Awesome Life with John Spence, Josh and John dive into one of the foundations of a truly “awesome” life: self awareness. John explains why emotional intelligence, especially self awareness and self regulation, is the starting point for better relationships and better mental health. John shares practical habits like daily reflection, values-based self-assessment, and rating different areas of your life on a 1–10 scale to stay aligned with the future you want to create. If you’re ready to build a more intentional, emotionally intelligent, values driven life, this conversation is a powerful place to start.
- Email us: awesomelifenotes@gmail.com
- Learn more about John: JohnSpence.com
- Familiar Wilsons Media: FamiliarWilsonsMedia.com
About John Spence: John is a globally recognized business thought leader, former owner/CEO of five companies, and advisor/coach to organizations from startups to the Fortune 10. He’s lectured at more than 90 universities and was named by the American Management Association as one of “America’s Top 50 Leaders to Watch.”
About the show: Notes for an Awesome Life with John Spence focuses on personal growth, happiness, clarity, and the everyday habits that compound into an AWESOME life.
Credits: Hosts John Spence and Josh Wilson • Produced by Josh Wilson for Familiar Wilsons Media • Special thanks: Amanda Wilson (writing and production), and Domingo Jimenez (writing and marketing).
This is a familiar Wilsons Media Production. John Spence is recognized as one of the foremost business thought leaders in the world, a global top 100 business thinker and advisor to companies from startups to the Fortune 10. But it didn't start that way. In college, John hit rock bottom, kicked out of one university and rejected by another. That's when he made a decision to change his attitude and take a systematic approach to building the life he wanted. Through hard work and relentless learning, he went on to create a life full of meaning, joy, and connection. I'm Josh Wilson, and this is Notes for an Awesome Life with John Spence. We invite you to join us in conversation as John shares with us the lessons, habits, and tools that he used and that you can use to build an awesome life. I'm Josh Wilson. And I'm John Spence. John, it's good to see your face. You've been away in a faraway land. Uh, where have you been?
SPEAKER_01:I I've been all over the United States. I've been traipsing across the continent. Uh, but last week I was in Canada. I was in uh Edmonton for a few days and over in Calgary for a few days, uh, delivering speeches to groups, about 350 CEOs, uh company owners, and their key staff members. A lot of fun.
SPEAKER_00:Now I imagine when you're doing that, you're pretty locked in. But do you ever get a chance to sightsee at all?
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yeah, yeah. Usually, you know, when I first started my career, I would fly in, do the work, and fly out the next day, or sometimes the same day. Now, when I go to a someplace fun, I block a couple of days usually after the presentation. So I get there, I do the work, and then I give myself two or three days to go to museums, uh, some of the nicer restaurants and things like that. Uh, yeah, I try to add a little bit more fun. When my wife travels with me, which she does fairly often, uh, we do add, especially in fun places, we add an extra week or something for us to go enjoy the city.
SPEAKER_00:Nice, very, very nice. So I'm I'm hoping that you saw some of the beauty that I see in pictures of Canada.
SPEAKER_01:It was stunning, and the people are stunning as well.
SPEAKER_00:I love that. Um, I want to talk a little bit. You you touched on it just ask when you were talking about how you like to schedule in relaxing time or play time. And that reminds me of the idea of work-life balance, and that reminds me that a lot of people ignore or don't know how to have a good work-life balance. And then that leads me to this is this is there, there's a path in this in this bald head to the fact that that people often aren't very self-aware about what they need to be well-rounded, to be healthy in all aspects of our lives. And that's what I would like to talk about today is striving for a balanced, well-rounded life through self-assessment.
SPEAKER_01:Cool. Well, you will back up. So I'm going to do the funny stuff right around on my bald head. The first part of this about self-awareness is a major, major issue I deal with in the business world. Uh, in the in the senior executive side coach, one of their challenges from an emotional intelligence, and there are multiple levels of that, but to me, the most important things of emotional intelligence or EQ is self-awareness and self-regulation. And the idea of being able to stop no matter what's happening, and effectively identify the real emotion you're feeling. Uh, now you notice I said real. If you ask someone, most people, you know, what emotions did you feel last week? They're gonna go mad, angry, frustrated, happy. Someone with a high EQ uh emotional intelligence has a much broader palette of words they use to describe their emotions. Uh, instead of just saying I was angry, I was uh confused, I was offended, I was anxious, I was curious, I was upset. Uh and the word you use to describe the emotion pretty much drives the emotion. The the response you have to enraged is much different to the response you have to upset, uh being upset. So I work a lot with people who are not self-aware uh in their emotions, and then they don't, if they if they don't have the ability to regulate the response, to give an appropriate response to the appropriate emotion, you will see people um act and behave in ways that aren't appropriate. Now let's go to the other part of it is I will also coach executives to say you need to take at least 15 or 20 minutes a day to reflect on things. How's your life going? How's the company going? Have you spoken to people? Are you connecting with your your employees, your customers? And almost all of them, no, all of all of them say I don't have time. I just don't have time. Like if you can't carve out 15 or 20 minutes a day to reflect on your business and your life, you are doing something wrong. Uh, because that's a priority, that's a have to have, not a nice to have. I try to build in time every day to to back up and look at what's going on. And the main thing I connect with really is my values. Is I'm gonna I'm gonna back up every day and I do this and look at how did I do today? Did I live my values today? And then I'm big for, and you've heard this before, rating things, scale of one to 10. 10 is I crushed it, I lived my values, I was honest, you know, I I contributed, I had fun, on and on and on. Uh, or I go, I didn't quite make it today, and I need to work on that tomorrow. So, one of the big places I think for being self-aware and reflection is around are you living your life in harmony with the values that you've chosen?
SPEAKER_00:Very good. You just gave me a lot there. Let's start, I think, with the idea of your emotions. You know, a lot of people like to think that they are intellectual and they are in control. And the I find the emotions are the those things that you you can control, but you can't control. They come to you unbidden. Now, your reaction to them you can control, but particularly if you are not used to having to regulate your emotions, it can feel like you're caught in a tidal wave.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah. And you do there's a lot of the foundations of stoicism, which I one of the philosophies I study a lot is it's not what happens to you in life, it's how you choose to respond to it. Yeah, and it's funny that I will, you know, there's a few places I'll put a flag in the ground and say, no, no, I'm this one, I'm right. You know, most of them like, hey, you have an opinion, you have another idea, that's great. Everybody's entitled to it. On this one, you're not entitled to an opinion. Uh, you get to choose how you respond, no matter what happens in your life, no matter what happens, how good, how bad, how difficult, how challenging. You know, the the example I use is cancer. For some people who get a cancer diagnosis, it's the first step to dying. They give up, I'm sick, I'm gonna die. I mean, they just go down a spiral of negative emotion, negative emotion, negative thought. And I understand that. For other people, they will look at and go, This is the best thing that ever happened to me. I realized it was time to fight for my health, fight for my life. I could change things. And they will look back and say, you know, thank God I got cancer because it turned my life around. I know that's uh not always the case, but it's the same horrible thing. One person make destroys them, the other person it builds them. So I I struggle a lot in helping people understand that you get to decide whether this is good or bad. You know, I have a saying, everything will turn out okay. Now people, well, you die. Go, well, that's okay. You know, the problem's gone.
SPEAKER_00:There goes that morning.
SPEAKER_01:That's that's so morbid. Like, no, not really. And you know, it's you always have control, and you get you, you you get to choose your attitude. Um, and I see a lot of executives of people around though that uh do not have the ability. Uh and by the way, this is a skill that can be practiced. Yeah, this is uh through meditation, through awareness, uh, through being thoughtful, through pausing, taking time before you respond, and not going with the first emotion you think you're feeling, but sort of going down a list and really pinpointing what the actual emotion is. That's a very powerful skill to learn.
SPEAKER_00:It's interesting that you should say that. I had an experience working with seniors where I had a senior get in my face really angry and pointing his finger and so close to my face that I could smell his breath and I mean, really, really up in my face. But I realized in that moment, nothing that one of these seniors that I work with could say could upset me. Now, I I I would pay lip service to that, but I realized that I'd really internalized that because more times than not, especially uh with a senior, maybe they're losing their their faculties. What they're angry about is not really what they're angry about. And that's that is a thing that I internalized. And so what you're saying is that I and everyone else probably should internalize that towards ourselves as well.
SPEAKER_01:Yes, yes. I I have two stories I want to back up with that real quickly. Um, as you know, we both live in Gainesville, but my office is out in Alachua, which is a tiny little rural town about 15 minutes outside of Gainesville. And there's a little uh Brown's Country Buffet down the street uh that I go to for breakfast often, uh, where he was like, Hey, Miss Dixie, hey Mr. John. Uh one day I was in there and a guy came in and he was really upset. Yeah, and uh he was yelling and screaming that someone from the staff had stolen his phone, that he left it on the table, and he knew that one of them stole it, and he was screaming and yelling and just mad, and they were trying to calm him down. And the first thought came to me was that has nothing to do with the phone, sure, nothing at all to do with the phone. Uh, and then the other one during my trip to Canada, one of my flights got canceled, and this is a cute story. I was flying on WestJet, great airline, but the particular flight I was taking from Salt Lake City to uh Edmonton was one they didn't use all the time, and they canceled it and said, We don't fly, we don't fly this route again until May. I'm like, Well, I've had a couple hour delay, I've never had a five-month delay. But a woman next to me got out of control, angry, and I'm just sitting there and finally she turned to me and said, Aren't you mad? And I looked around and said, Would it help? Yes. So, you know what I mean? The plane ain't going, and there's not another one for six months. Every month I think we're just gonna have to go in a different direction on this one. So, yeah, it's it was fast. I and because of my travel and stuff, I see that sort of stuff a lot.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, sure, of course, especially recently, it seems like. Um, okay, so one of the things that you've talked about, or you talked around as we're having this discussion about self-awareness, is being aware how we speak to ourselves.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Self-talk, positive self-talk. Clearly, you engage in a lot of that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's interesting. I I had the great opportunity this week to speak to some of the captains of the various sports team at our local college, Santa Fe College. You know, these are the elite of their elite athletes. And one of the young ladies, while we were in the class, said, I don't know why. Does this always happen to me? I'm always messing up, I'm always making and I said, Let me back up for a second. You know, do you realize? Can you hear yourself? And I said, you know, sometimes we say things to ourselves that we would never let anybody else say. And every kid in the room started up and down, yep, yep, yep. I go, you know what? We can be our own worst enemy. I go, how many of you have negative self-talk? Every hand went up.
SPEAKER_00:Sure.
SPEAKER_01:So it's again, it's a skill. And I caught myself last week saying, I'm terrible at math. And then I backed up and went, I choose not to be good at math. I could, I think, if I put enough time, energy, and effort and had good, you know, trainer and coaches and you know teachers, but it's not some so I'm not bad at math, I just don't choose to be good at it. So I've I've taught myself to catch myself right after I say something negative in my head as well, and turn the why, why can't this happen to how can it?
SPEAKER_00:Right.
SPEAKER_01:Replace the why with the how or what can I do? How can I make this better? I think it's that shift of blame to to opportunity, yeah, giving yourself a you know a chance to make it better that flips things in your mind to really being down and depressed and hard on yourself to saying, hey, this is something I can learn, I can get better. And that's the idea between an abundance mentality and what's the other one? It's abundance, scarcity, oh, scarcity. Scarcity mentality versus an abundance mentality. I don't know. I'll ask you. I I don't know what the statistics are about how many people walk around with a really strong abundance mentality, but it's been my experience, it's not as as large of a number as I would have hoped.
SPEAKER_00:Oh, I wouldn't assume so. I think everyone battles with, well, I shouldn't say everyone.
SPEAKER_01:There we go.
SPEAKER_00:Yep. I think uh most people battle with that inner critic in their head. Yeah, you know, and and even as I'm talking to my kids, you know, I've got I've got four kids, two of them are in their 20s, and they're really trying to figure out, you know, okay, here I am in my 20s, where do I go? What do I do? And you know, as they're looking at different opportunities, I really have to remind them that you need to give yourself a shot. Don't say you can't do something. And if you do say that you can't do something, you need to tell yourself three positive things. Because we all know that it takes more positive to um to negate the negative than there is negative. So, I mean, that's that's one of the benefits of being a father is that I find myself saying things that are surprisingly wise that I don't apply to myself. And then then I'm like, well, maybe I should follow my own advice.
SPEAKER_01:And that your kids don't listen to either.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, it's fun. Uh one of the things I I wanted to say before we got uh off this podcast is if you're out there listening and you have kids, please direct them towards this uh podcast. This is great stuff that we're talking about, and we really want to get this to our kids early. And secondly, I want you to direct your kids to the podcast because ain't no way in hell my kids are gonna listen to me. So I need to know that someone's kids are benefiting from this show.
SPEAKER_01:I love teaching this material. Um, I've told you it's intimidating because it it concerns me about the the major choices people sometimes make based on the but the other if I if you were giving me a class of 50-year-olds or 20-year-olds, I would easily take the 20-year-olds because I told the young students the other night, kids, uh, you guys are getting this about 30, 20 or 30 years before most people figure this out. And we were talking about values. And I said, if you can align, you know, decide on the values you have now, they might change, and really try to live your life according to those values. You will look up and figure out that your life is going in a much better direction than people who just hope that the next day will be better than today.
SPEAKER_00:And you want to know an interesting thing about all this is that I never thought about self-assessment in a disciplined way until I was at work and they said, okay, everyone, we're having one of these meetings now where we're all gonna take uh the Myers Briggs.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00:Right? You know, personal assessment. And of course, the reason why we were taking it was so that we could ostensibly be better at our jobs. But I've received more personality assessments, more uh opportunities to look into the mirror through these different work programs and assessments than I think the the average person has. I also think that there's a lot of value in looking outside yourself and looking for some of these assessment tests and and having them help you shape uh an opinion as to what's going on inside of your your being.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, the Myers Briggs is good. There's another one called the Disc Profile D I S C.
SPEAKER_00:I just took that one, in fact.
SPEAKER_01:Yep, there's the Hogan, there's about them. What to me is interesting is you take three or four or five of them and a pattern emerges.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:And you look at it and go, yep, these these three or four things seem to show up in every one of these tests. And the nice thing is a lot of these things are free on the internet. I I did six or seven other assessments the other day uh and looked across all of them, went, yep, yep, here's some things that are definitely true in my life about me.
SPEAKER_00:When you were first starting out, when you were starting this journey of self-improvement, how did you assess yourself?
SPEAKER_01:My process, this is a great question. I've ever really thought about this. I got a very, very clear picture of what I wanted. And it for me, it was like in college, what does graduation look like?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Uh and what would graduation be? What awards would I've won, what job offers, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I made a list of that. And then I would hold myself accountable. That is what I'm about to do right now going to help me achieve that. And if the answer was, you know, I could go to the pool today because I had straight A's or whatever, I could say, okay, great. And that's a good use of my time. But also I would look at it and say, all right, my my activities this week, scale of one to 10, were they helpful or were they hurtful? Again, when I say hurtful, did they not move me towards my goal? And maybe it that helps me put numbers on things. Uh, but that constant self-assessment is are my actions and behaviors taking me in the direction of the goal or life I'm trying to create. And uh I've always done that, bumped it out four or five years, four or five years. Uh, I think I've mentioned before on this podcast, I still have the workbooks I did in the mid-90s. So, and if you look back at them, except for health and some other things, I've pretty much followed that track because I'm constantly assessing my life, scale of one to ten. And any place I drop below a seven, I'm like, gotta put my focus over here, gotta get that up. That's not acceptable.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. So you you base it on your values, the five values that we talked about, right?
SPEAKER_01:Based it on my values, that's one thing. And then I base it on a picture of my ideal life. Okay. Uh, it's one of the workshops in this is look out five years from today. And if your life was really going well, and part of that is living your values and your purpose, uh, your mission. But if it was really going well, and I try to write in a lot of detail, what would your life look like? Where would you live? What would your house be like? Would you have pets? How much money are you making? How much money do you have saved? Where are you going on vacation? What kind of car do you drive? Uh, what talk to me about your friends, what about your faith, whatever it might be. But I have a long list and I write out, and I have my whole life written out if things were going really well five years from today, reasonably, you know, I'm not going to win the lottery if that's nice, but I'm not planning for that. What would my life look like? And I will make adjustments during the time, but I'd pretty much then weigh every single decision I make on is this in alignment with my values? And is what I'm doing right now, today, going to make that ideal life I want to have happen actually happen? Uh, and that makes tough from a value standpoint, makes even the most difficult decisions super easy. But from a life direction standpoint, that also allows me to make even major life decisions saying, does this take me where I want to go right now? Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00:It does, it absolutely does. And you are blessed with a mind that's certainly more structured than mine is. I have gotten a lot of help in my assessment of myself from other people. You know, I have uh my wife who's wonderful and certainly isn't afraid to tell me what she thinks of me in a in a very in a very supportive way. Okay. My kids, you know, therapy is good. And and yeah, looking at these different assessments that you can do and trying to figure out okay, what's going on in my mind? What's going on in my life, and also how has that changed from two years ago when I took this same assessment?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, um, it's interesting, and this is the vulnerable part of this. Based on my uh therapist, uh, I took a whole bunch of assessments on autism.
SPEAKER_00:Okay.
SPEAKER_01:Uh, and it turns out I'm very high-functioning autistic, and I'm big on pattern recognition and assigning numbers to things.
SPEAKER_00:Interesting.
SPEAKER_01:I count, I look at things, I scale things, and I'm constantly looking for patterns, which then a lot is what my entire career is based on. Sure. Of course. My entire career on pattern recognition. So my quote unquote, and it's not a disability, but it's um it's an ability. My special ability is being sort of overwhelmed constantly with trying to find the pattern, which is making me you know among the best in the world at what I do, yeah, because I'm pattern. But it was taking, I took seven different assessments because I wanted to make sure, Mr. That the there was is there a pattern there?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:I'm killing myself over here. Yeah, no, there was a pattern, the pattern was very clear. So that was one of that, and I'm 61. That was a big wake-up call for me at my age to go, no wonder I've always done things this way, right? No wonder I'm so focused on these three or four areas of my life, and one of them is rating everything.
SPEAKER_00:Sure. It's so interesting as we're talking about this idea of self-assessment. Knowledge is power. Not well, I should say knowledge is potential power because you can have all the knowledge, and if you don't use it, then it's like leaving the Lamborghini in the garage and and using your pedal bike. But as much as you can stand looking into the mirror and being honest with yourself about what you see and what you find out, that's just power.
SPEAKER_01:And it's hard, you know. A, there's some stuff you can pat yourself on the back about and go, I'm really proud of this, I'm proud of that. But uh, and I'll again, you know, we you say some people, everybody has something they look in the mirror and say, that's not quite what it should be. I'm not sure, I'm not living up to that, or I'm here's a negative behavior, or here's something I do, or here's a relationship that isn't working for me. Uh, and that person stared back at you, kind of says, Well, fix it.
SPEAKER_00:Right. But also, you said it though. It's also, you know, finding out the why, and finding out that why is incredibly liberating. Like example, one of my my struggles my whole life has been procrastination, right? Which, by the way, I woke up at 5 a.m. prepared for this today. So that is certainly something that I'm dealing with. But, you know, through therapy and through self-reflection and through learning about psychology and understanding that in me, that procrastination is a trauma response from childhood trauma. Well, that's tremendous power that I have because I know why. And when you know why, you can start to address it and and attempt to control it.
SPEAKER_01:Let's make a point here because both you and I talk about therapy. Uh, and for some people that that's just you know, it's a I don't know, it's not something they look at, they're in therapy. Um, the way I look at it is therapy is someone to reflect back to you in a non-judgmental way. Yeah, you don't have you know a horse in the race, they don't have a dog in the fight. Yeah, you know, if it's your wife or your friend or whatever, they're gonna probably hold back on some of the stuff that you know might offend you or hurt your feelings, uh, or they might have their own biases. They've known you for five, 10, 15 years, whatever they're well. That's just the way John is, that's just the way Josh is. Yeah, he's not gonna change. Whereas someone from the outside who doesn't isn't in your bubble constantly can give you some really good feedback um based on their exposure to lots of other people. Uh, so I'm a big fan of that. You know, I I would get quote unquote therapy from one of my friends, sit down and talk to them, but I know it's biased and I know they're not going to most of them are not going to dig really deep and and make me look at something that is makes me uncomfortable to look at.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. Um, I can't recommend therapy enough, and uh you know, I don't take advantage of it as much as I should by a long shot. I tell you what, though, speaking of my kids, both of my 20-year-old boys are in their 20s boys, and they wouldn't mind me saying this, have really benefited from therapy. They they get it, man. They get it, they understand the the importance of it. So I can't recommend that enough.
SPEAKER_01:People think you go to therapy because you're broken. You don't go to therapy because you're broken, you go there to go be better. Yeah, and as soon as you make that mind shift of I'm not fixing something that's wrong, I'm taking something to be better, to improve, to be more self-aware, to be a better friend or partner or business person, you know, or just have a better life by taking the time, you know. I mean, I I don't know, it an hour every two or three weeks. I don't remember. I haven't, I my therapist is retired, and I've gotten to the point where after many years, he just like, all right, what's going on? What did you do? Then we tell jokes right you know for the rest of the time, because he had taught me to be very self-aware, very reflective, ask myself good questions, given me a lot of tools and suggestions along the way, and I had taken those on board and and tried to live them as much as I could. Uh, so at a point, I sort of got to you've got me, you know, sailing pretty smooth here. Uh, but it's funny because we're sometimes we're afraid to admit that because people are afraid to say, I need help. And it it's it's not help because you're you're bad, it's help because you want to be better.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and I guess uh another perspective is we're all going through it. There we don't see the battles that everyone's going through. And people need to emotionally connect with the reality of that because I know that we all know, oh yeah, okay, everyone has a hard life. I get it. I we know that intellectually, but we need to emotionally connect with the truth of that because that is something that actually unites us as human beings, is that we're all going through it and we're not issued uh you know training manual necessarily, and you know, it's very well possible that stuff happened to you as a kid that you had no control over that you are still bearing the burden of. All of these things speak to the fact that hey, we need help and that's okay. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Well, kids, adults, the whole life that there's interesting things that happen to us, and we get to choose how to respond. Yeah, as your skills and tools get better, you get better at your response. Uh, again, when I was with the uh student athletes this week, I we were talking about this, and I said, you know, it's one of my favorite phrases in the world, which I think of constantly. Everybody is fighting a mighty battle you know nothing about. Be kind always.
SPEAKER_00:Yep.
SPEAKER_01:Uh, everybody's doing the best they can with what they have. From the outside, it may look really, really bad, but an inside for them, this is the best they think they can do. It might be not very good, but it's still there's something about what they're going through that this is the best they can muster. They think it's in their best interest. It's it's a hard, hard, hard concept to get your head around. But then you realize that nobody gets up in the morning and and says, I want to be really shitty at work today and get fired. Yeah, that's my goal, you know. Yeah, or if they do, it's because there's something else in their life that's so bad that that will actually make them feel better. Yeah, we won't go down this rabbit hole.
SPEAKER_00:We could five episodes on this. Yeah, absolutely. And I'll tell you what we're gonna do because I'm always mindful of our time. And we've hit our around our 30, which is what I like to keep this as. But we're gonna continue this topic of self-awareness and self-regulation on our next next episode. We will pick up on this. Um, but for today, for what we've talked about today, what is your homework that you have for us?
SPEAKER_01:My homework and and is to, as you're talking to other people and you feel emotions arise, it could be negative emotions, anger, fear, or even positive emotions, um, to stop for a minute and try to name it specifically. If it's a positive emotion, it's then you can express it by saying, you know, I'm really grateful for the time we got to spend together. It's a joy to be around you. I've I feel happier in your presence. I went to visit a doctor this week, doesn't know me at all. Uh, and the end of our session, I said, I don't know you, but you just seem like a really nice person to me. And he looked at me and said, No one's ever said that to me. I go, Well, I just did because you seem really nice. Uh, and so the ability to stop and go through a couple of emotions. Am I mad or am I confused or am I offended? And get better at uh uh clearly assess assessing the actual emotion you're feeling and then choosing the appropriate response. That that's everybody's homework.
SPEAKER_00:Can I stick something on there, please? By all means. I try to no longer say I am angry. I am happy. I try to say I feel happiness. I feel anger. Because when you say I am anything, then you are saying that that is the totality of what I am, even in this moment. Well, even in that moment, you are not completely angry. You feel anger. And for me, thinking about it in that way allows it to not have such power over me and allows it to flow through me. So maybe someone will find that helpful.
SPEAKER_01:That is super helpful. Excellent addition.
SPEAKER_00:And then also, Amanda, my wife and I went to a restaurant two nights ago. We sat at the bar. And the two tenders there, they were absolutely just fabulous. Fun to talk to. And as we left, I called both of them over. I said, you know, the two of you are the reason why I like to sit at bars and restaurants. Thank you for making our experience better. And you know, they they kind of had the same response that that your doctor did. Oh, well, thank you. No one's ever said that before.
SPEAKER_01:I think that's one of the coolest things in the world is when you have an emotion where you're grateful or you're impressed or you're thankful, uh, or something really nice to say that's genuine and heartfelt. It's it I've it takes a lot of courage for me like that to stop and go, I just want to let you know, you seem really nice to me. That's not something 10 years ago I would have been comfortable stopping my doctor as and saying, Hey, I just wanted to share this with you. I you seem like a really nice person. Yeah, it had a very positive impact on it. And I did not say it to get anything out of it. He just seems like a really cool guy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Uh so I think our relationship will be better for the fact that I took the time and the courage to tell him to compliment him on something that I genuinely was impressed with.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and to your point that everyone is fighting a hard battle, um, even if you never see that person again, maybe in that moment you were the reason why they felt, oh, I can go on. Agreed. You know, you gave them a smile that they desperately needed. All right, folks, if you want to get in touch with us and let us know how you're doing on the journey, email awesomelife notes at gmail.com. You can find out about John Spence at johnspence.com, and you can find about Familiar Wilsons Media, which this is a production of at Familiar Wilsons Media.com. John, I cannot wait to continue to talk to you about this subject and others. Thank you so much for your time.
SPEAKER_01:My pleasure. It's my honor, my friend.
SPEAKER_00:Alrighty, we'll see you soon.