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[The following is the full transcript of this episode of Joey’s Performance Tune Up With Joey Klein. Please note that this episode, like all episodes, features Joey speaking unscripted and unedited. This video is captured in one take.]
Hey, Joey Klein here. Hope you're having a great day. So we're going to jump in today. We're going to speak a little bit about anger, where the emotion of anger comes from and essentially what we can do to make sure we're managing anger in a way that we perform at a much higher level and we're much more effective.
So often if we look at when we become angry, there's a theme that's present, and most of the time, whatever the mind is focused on inside of the theme called I've been wronged or something wrong has happened in some sense. And so when we have the focus on that we've been wronged and the way in which we've been wronged, the byproduct of that is the mind goes to a place of essentially righteousness. The positioning of why I'm correct and the other person is wrong or why I'm correct and the world disposition is wrong or the political disposition is wrong or whatever the space is that I happen to be focused on at the time.
And it can be something very little right? Like, I've waited too long for my food and therefore I'm angry and I've been wronged, right, because too much time has passed or I didn't get my thing quick enough or the order was wrong. It can be these sort of things that seem like they're irrelevant when we break it down, practically. But if we look at how we respond with anger, it's never proportionate. It's never like, oh, this is a little offense called they put the wrong sauce on my food or they put cheese on my burger and I Said no cheese, or whatever it might be. Those things seem like they should not anger because there's probably not a moral injustice tied to the fact that our order was incorrect, right? They brought us somebody else's order or a mistake happened, okay?
But when we look at the emotional response or reaction to things that are insignificant in that manner, anger is the same as if there's something more significant that occurred, like, somebody stole from you, you come home and your house got broken into. And a lot of people's response to those situations is anger, right? I've been wronged. And I'm not saying that if something egregious happens like your house gets broken into or somebody does a deal with you in bad faith and takes advantage in a way they shouldn't, or somebody does something unkind or hurtful to a family member or something like this that anger is not an appropriate response. Like, it's okay to feel angry and it's okay that anger is an appropriate response to certain life situations that occur.
But in another sense, there's a lot of situations where anger is not necessarily the appropriate response. Like, it doesn't really make sense that we're angry in those circumstances. And the point of the comparison is just to help to demonstrate that it's the way we're viewing a situation, it's our perception of what's happening that has us go to becoming angry, not so much the things that are occurring. And so when we have situations where it's reasonable to feel angry, if we were to take a different stance or position, a person could look at the exact same circumstance and feel grateful that everybody's okay or have compassion for somebody's hardship or something of that nature, right?
And so it's like, what's the difference between somebody who lives with anger and somebody who lives with compassion and acceptance and a sense of forgiveness or gratitude for life is the way they choose to focus on the things that are happening in their life. And so again, what I'm sharing with you is not to say that it's not okay to feel angry. Like, if you're a human being, you're going to feel angry sometimes. But there's a point where it's going to serve us better to be able to let go of the anger that we're feeling when we're ready to commit to that process, when we're ready to make that decision. Because a lot of times we hold anger for people that are no longer in our life.
Like maybe you had a divorce or a separation and for a time you blamed your significant other for the way you're feeling and that your life changed and they betrayed your agreement with each other or your vows and things like this. And so can we expect that it's normal to feel angry for a few days or weeks or maybe months? Sure, we could say that that's a reasonable response to feel angry to a situation like that. But I've trained so many people, especially in my programs and my in person trainings and seminars, where somebody's holding an anger and a rage and they're saying that so and so ruined their life and the divorce or the separation happened two decades ago. And so at some point, maybe that anger is no longer reasonable as it pertains to the event that happened.
Like if you're deciding that the circumstances of your life and the circumstances you're living out today, 20 years after something happens, is somebody else's fault or the fault of a situation, that's less likely than if you're answering to what just occurred the next day or the week after it occurs. The point is, I'm not here to tell you whether you should feel angry or not. That's your decision. That's your choice. Again, it's okay to feel angry. It's important that we acknowledge when we feel angry and we're aware it's there and allow that emotion to be present at times. But at the same point, if you're waking up angry every single day of your life, that's a very challenging life. That's a difficult life for you to live through, for me to live through when I was one day caught there.
And so for me, the reason I want to give you this training or this teaching and some tactics on how to manage this is so that you don't have to wake up and suffer inside of feeling angry day after day if you're ready to move beyond it, if you're ready to change it. And so again, there's nothing wrong with feeling angry. But when we're ready to create a different experience of life, it's possible. And in order to feel angry we have to hold on to the idea that we or someone we care about or the world has been wronged in some way and therefore your view or our perception of reality is right and the correct way.
And that's why righteousness and anger, they just go hand in hand. Somebody is always wrong when we are right and anger is the fuel to that fire, so to speak. And so if we start to pay attention we can be in the space of whatever's happening and choose. And if we're willing to let go of the idea that it's wrong, right? And we can still look at it, at a situation and we can acknowledge, hey, that's not creating the outcome that I want to create, or that's not going to lead to the result that we're looking for, or if this behavior continues, we're not going to be able to move beyond a certain dynamic that's causing pain or suffering. Those things can be acknowledged without getting angry about a situation.
So often people feel like the only way to create a change in a situation is to get angry because that's a tool that they have and that's the way we get paid attention to, that's the way we get noticed. That's the way we create attention on a space so that people do something to make a change. But it's not the only way to create attention and to propagate change. And it tends to be the least effective way to get attention and propagate change. Because if we can engage most situations, whether it's with your significant other and your spouse or your children or a friend or your business colleagues or a competitor or a customer that you're managing on a day to day basis or something that happens in your family, you're much more likely to be able to come to a resolution, create understanding, and produce the outcome that you really want to create for yourself and the people you care about if you can engage that situation with a sense of understanding and a sense of compassion and a sense of acceptance and a sense of feeling calm and at peace because you're going to be able to think much more effectively.
When we feel angry, we immediately go into a defensive posture or we want to fight, right, fight or flight. And if we're fighting or we're running away from somebody with some way, we're not going to be very good at producing the outcomes, results we want. Because that requires the brain's capacity for critical thinking and creative thinking and a bit of intuition. And when we're angry, the fight or flight mechanisms that are active in the brain, those shut off the prefrontal cortex. And the areas of reason in the brain responsible for critical thinking, creative thinking, and intuition, which we have access to when we feel inspired or we feel compassion, or we feel gratitude, or we feel acceptance, or we feel a sense of calm or peace, we're able to think through things differently.
And so whenever anger shows up, just pay attention. Like, how am I focusing on the situation such that I feel like I've been wronged in some way? And again, I'm not saying that that doesn't mean something hasn't occurred that's not ideal or that may be unacceptable. The point is we don't have to face those situations with anger. We can learn some different tactics. We can develop some other tools. And so when we feel angry, instead of lashing out immediately going to I'm wrong and they're correct, a question can be very helpful for making a transition, which is, hey, what is my opinion and perception here? What is the other's opinion and perception here? And that will tend to help the creative thinking process so that we can move toward feeling a sense of acceptance and a sense of compassion, a sense of calm and peace.
And then we're able to move through different situations and create different outcomes. Whether it's something that seems very irrelevant, right? Something mundane like, oh, there's cheese on my burger, and I asked for no cheese, or that took a little bit extra time to get my order than I thought, or somebody accidentally might have backed into you in a parking lot. Right. And it's like I saw these people just lose their mind the other day. I was coming out of breakfast, and somebody just pulled out of their parking spot and didn't see the other person driving by. And very little fender bender happened. Maybe a very small dent in the car, maybe even no damage to the car. And both people got out of the cars just going crazy on each other. It's like we could live every day that way in response to every little thing that happens. Or you can get out of the car and have a different level of understanding. It was an accident. The person didn't see me. I could have paid a little better attention. Hey, everything is okay, people are all right, let's see how we can get the car fixed and move throughout our day.
There's so many options available when we don't become angry. If it's a more extenuating circumstance, right? Something a bit more extreme. If we can go to, hey, what's my perception of this situation? What do I understand here? What's the other person's perception? What is their understanding there? That's going to be a lot more effective at kind of bringing the elements together and aligning it with the next question, which is, what's the outcome I want to create?
And what I find is more often than not, human beings tend to want to produce the same outcome. The way they go about it might be different or the way they think it should occur might be different. But at the end of the day, everybody wants to know love and peace and joy in their life. And when it comes to the realities of the outcomes we want to create, generally they are more aligned than they are disaligned. And if we can stop and ask the question, hey, what is my understanding here? What's my perception? Why am I coming from this place? And then ask the same question in regard to the other person. What's their understanding? What's their perception? Why are they coming from where they're coming from? This creates an understanding. Understanding tends to lead to compassion. That tends to lead to a form of acceptance. And that leads to a sense of love in a universal sense, right?
We don't always have to agree with each other or a situation to have a sense of love and compassion for our fellow human being, for our fellow man or woman, so to speak. And when we can come to situations with that energy, we're much more likely to produce the result that we really want for ourself. We're definitely going to have a better day if we can wake up to that sense of love, acceptance, understanding and compassion. I'd much rather live that day than pissed off all day, right? And I'm much more likely to have the impact and sort of create the influence in the lives of the people that I love and that I care about and people I don't even know if I'm coming from that place than if I'm upset and reacting or lashing out in that way.
And so again, okay to feel angry. But when you're ready to shift or change that, working to come from a place of understanding and practicing that is going to make you much more effective at creating an inner experience of life that you want to have and also producing the results of life that you and others aspire to. And so remember those questions, what do I understand about this situation? What's my perception? And why is that my perception? Why am I seeing things this way? Where am I coming from? And then ask the questions about the situation or the space that you're responding to anger with. Hey, what's their perception? What's their understanding? What's their why? Why are they coming from that place? Where are they coming from? And then what's the outcome that I want to produce?
Because what I find is it's more important for me to produce the outcomes and the results and the vision for the life I want to live than being right and correct. If I need to be incorrect at times to live the vision for life that's possible for me, I'm okay doing that. Matter of fact, a lot of times the answers we seek are just on the other side of anger. If we're willing to let go of that anger which is us reacting to something which is keeping us from seeing that which is available to us, we're usually able to gain understanding, gain an education, gain access to a new perception which tends to lead to new actions, new behaviors and new outcomes and results.
And again, not always easy to do, but with a little bit of training, a little bit of practice, we can get so very good at training, compassion, acceptance, understanding, which relates to a sense of peace and calm. As opposed to having that hair trigger to anger, which is, at the end of the day, going to have us want to fight and create conflict and agitation, which then again, usually costs us the outcome and the result that we really want for ourself and the experience of life that we could be living for ourself. And so pay attention. Whatever anger is there, usually it's the positioning of I'm right which means somebody else is wrong or I am right and therefore I have been wronged or somebody I care about has been wronged. And if we can take a moment of pause, maybe take a few deep breaths and then go, hey, create and seek for understanding there.
Even if you can't always agree on your perceptions or your understanding of the situation you don't need to usually to produce an outcome or result. What we need to do to produce the outcomes and results that we aspire to in our life and to have a sense of inner well being for ourselves, that we answer to compassion and acceptance and a sense of peace as who we are has more to do with finding our common ground and how can we move toward the things we want to create at the end of the day.
And so do your best to train. Again,it can become just as much of a reflex to immediately go to a place of understanding and compassion as maybe it is to go to a place of anger. It just takes a little bit of practice, a little bit of training and you'll be able to get there before you know it.
Hey there. Joey Klein here. We're going to jump in and talk a little bit about fear in its raw sense when we just sort of feel that sense of fear in life, right? As many of us know, most all fear that we experience is completely made up, meaning we're afraid of something that's essentially not there. And so when we come to understand what is fear, we can manage it very differently and ultimately take action despite fear. Sometimes we’ve just got to be able to act even though fear is there, and be confident enough that we're okay, that fear is normal and natural and it's okay for us to take action and execute anyway in the space that we're focusing on, knowing that fear is not actually there to tell us that something bad is about to happen.
I'm not saying ignore fear. That's not healthy. But be aware of fear and not let it hinder your ability to move forward and create the things that you aspire to in your life, right? Whether that's, you're in a new relationship and you have that fear of getting hurt, which then keeps you from creating the connections you deserve to have, right, love and connection in your life, or it's from a financial sense, right? I don't want to invest money or learn about that because I Invested one time in the past and I lost my money. And so we don't act when a good opportunity is before us, even though we vetted it and there's a high probability that we're going to make money, or taking on a new role in a job.
Like the fear of failure or the fear of being embarrassed or fear of making a mistake or fear of getting fired shows up and keeps us from taking action and embracing new possibilities and new opportunities, right? Fear keeps so many people from the life that's possible for them simply because they're not able to be aware of that fear and act confidently despite the fear.
So it's very healthy and very important to be able to learn how to be afraid and at times move forward despite the fear, knowing that we're going to produce the outcome by way of the actions that we're taking. Be afraid, take action anyway. We're going to be more capable of doing that as well as dissolving the fear entirely and taking action with confidence and inspiration and empowerment and taking action with a sense of love and connection in our relationships and embracing intimacy. Like, there's the space where we need to learn to drop fear and take action from some of those more empowered states and from those more empowered spaces as well. But we can't do that if we don't understand fear.
And so what we must first understand is that fear is just a biological process at its core. It's our nervous system's inherent survival instinct where it's looking at the environment, looking at reality and doing its best to assess threats and try to eliminate the pain of those threats, right? Or the life threatening reality of those threats. But the key to remember is it doesn't actually have to be a threat to set off our nervous system and for us to look at a situation or circumstance or something going on and be afraid, right?
Like many people know, the top fears of human beings, number one, even beyond the fear of death, is public speaking. And so that's a great example just to understand that most people aren't going to speak in public and drop dead, right? So it's an unreasonable fear. The fear of public speaking is essentially tied to the fear of being hurt, right? Assess the threat, eliminate the threat. That's all the nervous system is doing when we feel afraid. It's assessing a threat and doing its best to eliminate the threat. Assess the threat, eliminate the threat.
However, many of the things that our nervous system perceives as a threat isn't actually dangerous. Like, it's not life threatening to public speak. Statistically speaking, a lot of people are afraid of flying on airplanes. And statistically speaking, even if you flew for business three, four, five times a week, you have a much higher chance of dying in your bathtub at home from a slip or fall than you're probably going to die in an airplane. Just in terms of the humans who fly and those who actually end up dying in a plane crash, it's infinitesimally small. But it doesn't mean that the nervous system isn't going, this is a threat to my life. Right?
A lot of us look at relationships like getting close to people as a threat to our life or trusting people, and the fear of betrayal shows up, and my nervous system sees that as a threat to my life. And so all of these examples that I'm giving you are not actually life or death situations, but it doesn't mean that the nervous system isn't responding to them as such. And so if we want to oversimplify sort of where fear operates from, it's simply the nervous system doing its best to identify threats and eliminate those threats to ensure that we survive.
The key word there is survive. Make sure that we live another day. That's different than thrive. That's different than grow. That's very different than evolve into a better version of ourself and create the dreams that we aspire to for our life. Fear is not concerned with any of that. Fear is concerned with survival, maintaining whatever status quo is, okay? And anything that the nervous system perceives as a threat is really anything unfamiliar that could question or change our status quo. Number one, hey, there's a threat that could change my current status quo. Therefore, I need to eliminate the threat because it's questionable for survival. Like, that's how the nervous system is sort of playing out.
Or the second thing the nervous system learns to fear is basically anything that's going to cause pain. So it's the anticipation of pain, kinda like the hot stove scenario. If you didn't know the stove was on and you set your hand on a hot burner and you pull your hand away really fast and you're like, oh my God, and it stings your hand for a minute, that's intense pain. And then if you walk by the stove a few weeks later, your nervous system is like on high alert to the stove because it remembers the pain, right? And so its anticipation of pain is simply where fear is coming from.
Fear is activated anytime your unconscious self or your nervous system is anticipating some kind of pain. It might be in an emotional pain like, oh my God, what if I get hurt again? What if I get betrayed? What if somebody breaks up with me? What if they don't understand who I am? What if they make fun of me? What if I make a fool of myself on stage? That's all examples of the anticipation of emotional pain. Sometimes it can be fear can be the anticipation of physical pain. I'm afraid to go to the gym.I'm afraid to work out because I was so sore or, man, I hurt my knee last time I was squatting or when I was playing that sport I took a pretty good fall or something like this. And so it can be in the anticipation of physical pain, right? Sometimes fear is in the anticipation of a future pain, right? Or it can seem to be in more relationship to what's currently going on or what's right in front of me.
The key to remember is that all fear is a response to the anticipation of pain, not the actual enduring of pain itself. Because if you're actually in the midst of enduring pain, the raw fear goes away. And then we are dealing with the pain, we're figuring out how to move through it or we're actually getting through it, right? So if you look closely, the actual enduring of pain or the actual confronting of a challenge or the managing of a difficult situation, although it's not easy all the time, fear in its raw sense goes away as soon as you're in the midst of managing the actuality of the situation. And then we can usually go forward and think about, well, how do we solve for this and how do I create a different outcome, et cetera.
And so a great way to manage fear is to number one, is connect to the vision, the outcome that you aspire to. This is critical for managing fear in both senses, right? Number one, I'm going to be aware of fear,and I'm going to have the confidence to take action toward what I want to create despite the fear I'm executing, despite fear being present. I am afraid of public speaking. I prepared well, I got my talk ready to go and even though I'm nervous and I'm afraid and all those things, I'm anxious, all that's happening, I get on stage anyway. I do the talk right?
Even though I'm afraid of rejection, I'm going to ask that person out anyway. Like, I'm going to put myself out there and like, you know what? I might get the no, but I'm going to take action anyway. I'm going to apply for a supervisor position or a promotion at work or embrace an opportunity. Even though I feel afraid, even though fear and apprehension is there, I can see that this action is necessary for the outcome, the vision I want to fulfill. Therefore I'm going to take action despite the fear.
It is very hard, maybe impossible, to act despite fear if we don't know where we're going. Having a vision and having clarity of an outcome and a result that we want to fulfill that would better our life, that's important to us is the leverage that we often need on ourself to get ourself to execute despite fear. Another way to say it is the reward or the benefit of that outcome is more important to us than the temporary managing of the discomfort, the fear, the pain. And therefore we feel afraid, but we're going to act anyway. We're going to go for it, right?
And so it's so important to have that vision and have an outcome, have a sense of result that we want to aspire to, because that's going to give us leverage on ourself to be afraid and take action despite that fear, which is healthy to do, it's important to develop that capacity and that ability within oneself. Having a sense of vision and outcome is also critical for dissipating fear. Dissolving fear and learning to take action from a different place altogether. Take action from inspiration as opposed to fear. Take action from a place of confidence as opposed to fear. Take action from a place of curiosity and wonder instead of fear. That's all possible as well.
And the key to that, again, is having an outcome of vision, a result that you aspire to, that you want to get, and then relating to the process in a way that isn't in anticipation of pain. And so if I'm going to go to the gym as an example, instead of anticipating, I'm going to be sore, I'm going to make a fool of myself, I'm going to make a mistake, I'm going to get injured, I'm going to have to get sweaty, it's gross, people are going to judge me. Instead of anticipating fear, you can anticipate getting stronger. I'm going to go to the gym, I'm going to learn some new things, I'm going to meet some new people, I'm going to find a community of folks that are around me, anticipate connection, anticipate having fun at the gym, moving the body and getting healthier. If I'm anticipating the vision that I want to fulfill, and if I pre anticipate the results or the outcome that I want to achieve as an experience then I can start driving from motivation and confidence and inspiration and curiosity and empowerment as opposed to fear.
So, again, the way we can get ourselves to take action from these more empowered spaces within ourself and to train those qualities as opposed to fear is anticipate great things happening. If fear is the anticipation of pain, well,then inspiration is the anticipation of greatness, right? Inspiration is the anticipation of something wonderful happening or life getting better. And the more consistently we focus the mind on the anticipation of good things happening, anticipation of greatness, anticipation of beautiful things occurring then fear is not going to be there because there's no threat to the betterment of our life.
And so it's an adjustment. A lot of times, we're going to take the same action. It might be new. We might make some mistakes and have things not quite go our way. But the key is am I going to anticipate learning and growth? Am I going to anticipate getting stronger? Am I going to anticipate fun along the journey or am I going to anticipate failure? Am I going to anticipate getting made fun of or having a setback or the pain I'm going to have to endure? We're going to anticipate something on the journey and we can create one or the other on the journey. We can anticipate learning and growth and wonder and fun or we can anticipate pain and challenge and sense of failure. One is going to have a lot more fear be prevalent in our life and the other is going to have a lot more confidence and inspiration be prevalent in our life.
So, understand, we're never going to live without fear.That's just a nervous system response to our environment. But we can start to view our environment and our life situations in a way where we can anticipate pleasure and joy and fun and all those things I just named as opposed to letting the mind anticipate danger or some predator that isn't there around every turn of life. And so, hopefully this is helpful for you. Do your best to anticipate the great things coming your way.