SUMMARY
If you feel like you’re constantly monitoring your words, tiptoeing around someone’s moods, or trying to prevent the next explosion, this training is for you.
To illustrate how to break this pattern, Joey shares the story of David, a successful executive whose teenage daughter’s outbursts left him exhausted, anxious, and constantly self-editing. Every conversation ended in slammed doors. Every attempt to “say it perfectly” only amplified her reactivity. Joey taught David the Emotional Ownership Technique, a four-step process that transforms reactive, fragile dynamics into grounded, healthy connection:
Full Transcript:
[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.]
Do you ever feel like you're walking on eggshells around someone important in your life? Maybe it's your spouse who gets triggered by seemingly innocent comments. Your teenager who explodes over the smallest things. Or that co worker who makes every interaction feel like a minefield.
Do you find yourself editing every word, second guessing every action, and still somehow saying or doing the "wrong thing"? Sound familiar? I want to share a powerful truth with you. Trying to manage other people's emotions is destroying your relationships.
It's actually the opposite approach that works. And I can show you how. Hi, I'm Joey Klein, founder and CEO of Inner Matrix Systems and also the author of the book Relationship Alchemy. I train high achievers in the art and science of personal mastery.
And to date, over 84,000 people have gone through my trainings. Listen, here's what most people don't understand. When you try to manage someone else's emotional state, you're actually making them more volatile, not less. You're actually teaching them that their emotions control your behavior, which gives them unconscious permission to be even more reactive.
And here's the kicker. The more you walk on eggshells, the thinner those eggshells become. Let me tell you about David. A, successful executive who came to me because his 16 year old daughter had turned into what he called an emotional terrorist.
Every conversation ended in slammed doors. He was exhausting himself trying to say everything perfectly and it was only making things worse. I taught David the emotional ownership technique and it changed everything. Here's how it works.
First, you must stop taking responsibility for the other person's emotions. David's breakthrough moment was when I told him, your daughter's anger is hers to manage the, not yours to prevent. Your job isn't to make sure no one ever gets upset.
Your job is to show up authentically and let them handle their own response. Next, you must learn to set aligned emotional boundaries. Instead of tiptoeing around his daughter's moods, David started saying things like, I can see you're upset when you're ready to have a respectful conversation I'm here.
Then he'd leave the room. No arguing, no pleading, no trying to fix her mood. Then you must commit to staying in your own lane. Here's the magic. When you stop trying to control the other person's emotions, you can focus on managing your own.
David started asking himself, how do I want to show up in this relationship with my daughter, regardless of how she's acting? Finally, you must learn to respond, not react. When his daughter would explode, instead of getting defensive or trying to calm her down, David would take a breath and respond from a centered place.
I love you, and this behavior isn't acceptable. Let's talk when you're ready. Listen. Within three weeks, his daughter's outbursts decreased by over 80%. Why? Because David stopped giving her emotional reactions the power to control his behavior.
Here's the truth. People treat you the way you teach them to treat you. When you stop walking on eggshells, you teach them that your emotional state isn't dependent on theirs. This makes safety for both of you make sense. Look, the secret is that relationships get healthier when you stop trying to manage the other person's emotions and start taking full ownership of your own.
So if you're exhausted from walking on eggshells around the people you care about in life and want to learn about how to create emotional safety without sacrificing your authenticity, go to relationshipalchemybook.com and get your free copy of my book, Relationship Alchemy.
You simply cover the small shipping cost. In this book, you'll discover the complete system for transforming any difficult relationship dynamic.