SUMMARY

• “Anger is not born from a circumstance in life. Anger comes from our perspective about a circumstance in our life.”
• Anger creates a distortion of reality such that we’re no longer managing what’s actually in front of us .
• “When we are angry, we are stupid.”
• If you’re looking for tips on how to understand and overcome anger, this episode is for you.
• Watch the video to get the full training.

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 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.]

In this session, we're going to discuss anger a little bit. Why it's inherently destructive. Why does it keep us from executing at a higher level or our optimal capacity? And what do we do instead? If we look at anger again, like any other emotion, we're not feeling angry because of a set of circumstances. We're feeling that way because of the way we are looking at those circumstances, our perception of those circumstances. And so anger and righteousness are cousins. They go hand in hand. And so another way to think about that is, whenever we feel angry, we inherently make ourselves right, and the rest of the world is wrong. The other person is wrong, the situation is wrong, the circumstances are wrong. Like, we are right, everybody else is wrong. And when we take that position, we are incapable of influencing others, typically, but we're also not able to see accurately the environment or where the people are around us, like where they actually are. 


And so anger is quite the distortion of reality, if you will. Anger creates a huge distortion of reality such that we're no longer managing reality or the circumstances before us. We're managing our interpretation of reality and that distorted idea of reality. And we've all experienced regret tied to anger. Where we were upset, we were angry. We saw reality in one way, a distorted perception of that reality. And then we did things. We wrote an email to our boss. We said things that we couldn't take back to somebody we cared about, like a child, a significant other, a friend, family member. And then once we sobered up and we were no longer angry, we felt kind of like calm or, you know, at peace with ourself again. We looked at our behavior or had to answer to something we did, and we felt regret for what we did and how we went about it and the things we said. And then we realized that when that distorted perception of reality goes away because we're no longer angry, we understand, man, did we miss the mark in such a huge way. Then we got to go clean all that up. 


And so if we remember that, we start to acknowledge when we feel angry that we're not seeing things clearly. I used to have a saying that I would acknowledge to myself whenever I felt angry and noticed I was I'd be like, Joey, you're inherently stupid right now, and you're going to do something stupid and have to, like, deal with the cleanup of that mess. And so it's better to just take a minute, calm down, so that you can access a more accurate perception of reality, but also so you can access a better strategy to get the outcome met that you're looking to get than the one that you're looking to employ right now. And it gives us some space to manage the anger. And so the biggest thing to remember about anger is that when we feel angry, we are inherently right, and our perception is that everybody else is wrong. And then our natural sort of inclination in that space is to fight, is to defend wherever we are. 


Like, you've probably been angry before. Where it occurred to you, you were probably just flat inaccurate or wrong, but you just double down in the argument just to be right. Well, that's because that's how anger works, right? And so, like, even when you know you're wrong and you're inaccurate, it's like you just start debating in order to be right, because that's what anger does. It just wants to fight. It just wants to defend. And it has nothing to do with, is that stance reasonable? Right? And so what we want to understand is that anger inherently decreases our ability or our capacity. Our natural ability capacity, from a performance standpoint, substantially, makes us, renders us actually pretty much incapable. Even though you're a highly intelligent and capable human being, when we get angry, no matter how highly intelligent or capable we are, we render ourselves incapable. The more we can stay out of anger, the more capable we are with ourself, and the more capable we are to create the outcomes and the results that we want. 


The other thing that goes hand in hand with anger tends to be criticism, right? There tends to be, in that right wrong perception or relationship, we're always very critical of the others around us and the perception of what they're again doing wrong or the mark that they're missing. And so if we start navigating our focus to, well, what are they doing well? What are they doing right? What is going well? Where is it that we agree? If you start looking for where do we agree? Like, where is our common ground? That can be a great launch pad where we can feel a bit of openness, right? We can calm ourselves down, we can feel a sense of peace and then more effectively negotiate or influence the outcome that we're looking to create. Because if we're in anger, we're not going to negotiate or influence to that outcome very well. We've got to get out of that anger and find common ground to work from, if you will. And common ground is not going to come when we're fighting or defending, and especially not if we're fleeing, right? Which is the, which is that fight or flight instinct that comes up in our nervous system when anger is there. 


And so common ground can often be found by asking the question, hey, what do we agree on here? Where is it that we have a common vision or a common goal? Or maybe the outcome that you're looking for is the common outcome or the vision. And so number one is acknowledging when we feel angry, accepting that we are rendered incapable in that moment. We're not seeing reality accurately. We are perceiving inaccuracies. And if we act on those inaccuracies, we're not going to not only not get the outcome that we're looking to create, but we're probably going to create a mess that we're going to have to clean up. And it's probably going to take us away from the things that we're wanting in our life with the people that we love and we care about, but also the results that we're attempting to fulfill on for ourself. 


And so once we notice that we're there, we want to take a moment and get focused on two, three key things. Number one, what's the outcome I want to create? And then number two, what's the best action I can take to move us, to move in the direction of fulfilling that outcome? And number three, where is my common ground? Where is my access point? Where is my relatability to what's going on, the people in my life, etcetera? Because that's going to be an important bridge for redirecting after we notice that we're in that place of anger and moving away of it, moving out of it. Not to mention, just if we look at the biochemistry of anger, it is so inherently destructive from a health standpoint in terms of the hormonal imbalances it can create over time and the stress that it produces on the body, it can increase your body temperature. I mean, there's so many destructive things, right? Adrenaline coursing through the body that then the liver and the kidneys have to, like, detox out. And, and this just puts so much unnecessary, undue strain on the body. And so we actually work against ourself in, in many different ways if we drive with anger. 


And so let's start acknowledging when we're there, acknowledge that we're incapable, we're not perceiving reality accurately, acknowledge that we're safe, we're okay. And then, and then those redirects. Hey, what's the vision I'm looking to create? What's the most effective way to go from here to where we want to go? And look for understanding common ground as a way to execute as opposed to anger. And you'll notice that not only are you going to feel a whole lot better, but your results are going to are going to be optimized as well. Hope this is helpful and enjoy. We'll see you next time.