Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Ethan Kross on How to Make Your Emotions Work for You | EP 568

Starting point is 00:00:00 Coming up next on Passion Strike. We are challenged throughout our lives, whether it's a deployment under hostile conditions, on the world stage, a difficult home situation or problems at work. Life is constantly throwing curveballs at us. Sometimes it's not just that we don't hit the pitch. Sometimes we have the equivalent of Nolan Ryan throwing fastballs at our heads is the way it sometimes feels and he's hitting us too. And we need to understand how to get better at bats when that happens and how to not get injured. Welcome to Passion Struck. Hi, I'm your host, John R. Miles. And on the show, we decipher the secrets tips, and guidance of the world's most inspiring people

Starting point is 00:00:46 and turn their wisdom into practical advice for you and those around you. Our mission is to help you unlock the power of intentionality so that you can become the best version of yourself. If you're new to the show, I offer advice and answer listener questions on Fridays. We have long-form interviews the rest of the week with guests ranging from astronauts to authors, CEOs,

Starting point is 00:01:10 creators, innovators, scientists, military leaders, visionaries and athletes. Now let's go out there and become passion struck. Hey, passion struck fam, welcome to episode 568. If you're new to the show, thank you so much for joining us. You have just entered a community that's all about igniting passion, living intentionally and creating a life that matters.

Starting point is 00:01:33 Now let me ask you something. Have you ever found yourself overwhelmed by your emotions, feeling like they're controlling you instead of you controlling them? What if I told you that the key to managing your emotions isn't about suppressing them or trying to ignore them, but learning how to use them as a powerful tool to propel you towards your purpose? That is exactly what today's guest is here to help us understand. In this episode, I'm sitting back down with my friend Dr. Ethan Cross, one of the world's

Starting point is 00:01:59 leading experts on emotions and self-regulation. Ethan is also the best-selling author of Chatter and the director of the Emotion and Self-Control Laboratory at the University of Michigan. Ethan has dedicated his entire career to studying how we can transform the way that we experience and navigate our emotions. His latest book Shift, which launches today, takes his groundbreaking research even further, showing us how we can harness our emotions for resilience, connection, and fulfillment. But today's episode isn't just about theory, it's about real, actionable tools. Today, Ethan and I will discuss how we can reframe our relationship with our emotions, shift our inner dialogue, and embrace the full range of feelings, from fear to joy, as a source of growth and clarity. We'll dive into fascinating stories like how a Navy SEAL used his emotions to thrive under pressure,

Starting point is 00:02:48 and explore the science behind how sensory experiences like music, scent, and touch can change the way we feel and react. Before we get started with today's conversation, let me give you a quick recap of last week's episodes. On Tuesday, I sat down with Dr. Dave Vago, a leading neuroscientist to discover the neuroscience of matter and how our brain's intricate pathways shape our sense of belonging and purpose. On Thursday, Francesca Sipma joined me to discuss how breathwork can connect us to our subconscious, unlocking clarity, emotional balance, and self-discovery. On Friday, I shared a solo episode on how to fight for your soul, where I explored the importance of aligning with your purpose, overcoming

Starting point is 00:03:28 inner resistance, and making choices that protect the core of who you are. If you haven't listened to any of those yet, check them out for some transformative insights. And if you're loving these conversations and want to dig deeper into topics like emotional resilience, personal mastery, alternative health, and growth, make sure to explore our episode Starter Packs. These curated playlists are designed to guide you through key themes like mindfulness, mindset, and the science of mattering. You can find these Starter Packs on Spotify or at passionstruck.com slash Starter Packs.

Starting point is 00:03:58 Don't forget to subscribe to my live intentionally newsletter at passionstruck.com where I share weekly insights, challenges, tools, and exclusive content to help you stay focused on what truly matters. It's the best way to get inspired and stay aligned with your goals each week. And if you prefer watching these transformative conversations, make sure to check out our YouTube channel. It's a great place to engage with the content in a whole new way and connect with others on their intentional living journey.

Starting point is 00:04:22 Now let's get started with episode 568 of Passion Struck with Dr. Ethan Cross. Thank you for choosing Passion Struck and choosing me to be your host and guide on your journey to creating an intentional life. Now, let that journey begin. I am absolutely thrilled to welcome back Dr. Ethan Cross to Passion Struck. Great to see you again, Ethan. Great to be here, John. As you know, we were just talking offline. I've been looking forward to this for a while.

Starting point is 00:04:53 And I've missed you and I've been tracking all of your successes. And so it's great to be in the same virtual room with you again. It is great. I wish we could do this in person and I hope down the line we can. But I am glad that we're doing it now because we actually are both of us huge Michigan fans and we can still as of today say we are the national champions ahead. That's right. We have a few days left and we're going to savor it because it was a wonderful ride last year and even this year, although we've had some downs has been, we ended on a pretty positive note with two huge wins towards the end. So we're feeling pretty good in Ann Arbor. I'm going to embrace that because there have been years in which we haven't felt

Starting point is 00:05:35 that way, which is actually like a perfect segue. We haven't even planned it into the topic of my book on, uh, managing our emotions. Right. Absolutely. to the topic of my book on managing our emotions, right? Absolutely. And I am ecstatic that it also looks like our basketball team is gonna be back to the program. We all hope it will be. So with that lead in,

Starting point is 00:05:57 it is such a pleasure to have you back on Tash and Struck. Your last episode on your previous book, Chatter, resonated so deeply with our listeners that I was just thrilled when I learned that you had written this new book and that we could bring you back on. So this episode is really, to me, a continuation of the incredible journey you've taken us on, one that's both scientific and profoundly human. Can you maybe walk the listeners through what led you from Chatter

Starting point is 00:06:32 to now writing this book? I'm happy to, and they were very much and are related. So my first book, Chatter, dealt with the question of how do you manage a voice inside your head, which is often a really vital tool when you find that it starts ceasing to be a tool and starts to become your worst enemy. And what I'm talking about there is when we start perseverating on things,

Starting point is 00:06:55 worrying and ruminating incessantly, that mental chatter builds up to the point where we have problems thinking and performing relationship issues and even find that those nasty conversations we sometimes have with ourselves get under the skin to influence our health. And that was a topic that I've spent a lot

Starting point is 00:07:15 of my scientific career investigating. Why does that happen? What tools exist to help you talk to yourselves more effectively? And the book came out and, you know, fortunately it was well received. And I went on a book tour and the experience I had on that book tour was really quite interesting because, you know, as an author and you know this, John, you work so hard on a book and you hope it's received well, but you don't

Starting point is 00:07:41 really know until you get out there. And so I'm out there and I'm finally talking about all these ideas that I spent so much time writing about and researching and it feels great. And then I get to the Q&A and effectively time after time the experience I had was people saying, this is so interesting, thank you so much. They lob a question or two about chatter, but then they start going off in all sorts of other directions. Like, well, what about anger and sadness and what is an emotion and should I try to manage them?

Starting point is 00:08:16 And what do you think about being in the moment? And it just, the list of questions went on and on and on. And the experience I had, and I write about this in my new book, is it felt like I had just given a talk on how to deal with heart disease. And people were grateful for that information. But they also had questions about how to optimize their physical fitness, avoid cancer, reduce the risk of diabetes, and a slew of other questions.

Starting point is 00:08:44 And so when I took a step back, really, I think the opportunity that emerged was to write something about our emotional lives, which is a topic, of course, that we are all so intimately familiar with from the time we are born and actually before in the womb too, there's, you know, likely we're experiencing various kinds of emotional states, but we don womb too, there's, you know, likely we're experiencing various

Starting point is 00:09:05 kinds of emotional states, but we don't get a user's guide, a science-based accessible user's guide for guiding us through that emotional world that we are bathed in all the time. And so I got really excited about that topic and shift was my attempt to address it. So it is, you know, it's like, welcome to your emotional life. What are emotions? Why do we have them? And most importantly, what does science have to teach us about what we can do to manage those emotions, all of them, when we find that they cease to serve us well

Starting point is 00:09:39 and actually start conspiring against us because they're activated either too intensely and or for too long a period of time. So Shift opens up with an incredible story about your grandparents, Dora and Izzy and their harrowing escape from the Nazis during World War II. It's a story as I was reading it of survival, resilience and emotional endurance.

Starting point is 00:10:06 What stuck with me the most is how their stories reflect the themes of emotions as really tools for navigating life. Can you share more about their journey and how it influenced your own understanding of emotions? So, Jordan and Izzy, as you mentioned, were my grandparents and their story was one of the first I can remember hearing about growing up. And it always captivated me and it still does to this day. They lived in a relatively small town in Eastern Poland, where adolescents, teens, young adults around the time that the Nazis invaded, they were Jewish, and they effectively witnessed their loved ones be slaughtered and narrowly escaped that fate themselves lived in a series of ghettos in the frozen Polish woods for years trying to evade capture. And the interesting thing about my grandparents was

Starting point is 00:11:04 they were exceptionally emotive and loving. They did not talk to me about their experiences during the war. And I would ask them as a curious kid, hey, Bubby, Papa, what happened? Tell me more about it. You know, these are heroes. It was like G.I. Joe. And I just wanted to know more. The only time I got a window into their experience was they would hold these remembrance day events one time a year with other members of the town that survived and ultimately moved to the States. fall into tears and just describe atrocities that I still have a hard time wrapping my head around. I mean, I sit here right now at home. I've got my daughter who's a little under the weather upstairs safely snuggled up in

Starting point is 00:11:56 her bed and I'm looking out to the snowfall and I've got a fire in the back. Life is really good and sweet.. Life is really good and sweet. And their lives were really good and sweet. And yet they just ended that version of their life so quickly. It's hard for a human being like I think any of us to contemplate that. So I only heard them talk about their experience just one time a year, never any other time. And as I got older, you know, I learned more about psychology, what was really fascinating to me was, it sure seems on the surface that my grandmother in particular was avoiding talking about these experiences. And one of the first lessons I learned early on in life from my parents, and then it was reinforced in graduate school, was you shouldn't avoid focusing on things. Avoidance is bad,

Starting point is 00:12:51 because if you avoid it, the wound never heals, and it'll just come back to haunt you later on. Yet by all accounts, my grandmother was actually doing pretty well. This was not a depressed or overly anxious woman. This was a woman who saw her position in the world elevate. She moved to the States with nothing, worked really hard, saved up enough money to ultimately buy a home and even have a winter escape in your part of the country in Florida during the snowy winters. But she avoided. And what I ended up learning later on, I write about this in the book is that I think this uncovers one of the myths

Starting point is 00:13:32 surrounding emotion regulation that a lot of us buy into, which is this idea that avoidance is always toxic. It is not, and the science now pretty compellingly demonstrate that that is not the case. There are times and places when strategically avoiding emotional triggers and cues can actually be quite useful. And I'll give you a couple of examples. Sometimes, and now I speak from personal experience, I will get triggered an email, something really bothers me or a conversation with someone at work, or, you know, I will admit sometimes it happens at home too. Shocker! Sometimes I get into an argument with my partner or my kids and I've discovered that

Starting point is 00:14:11 actually right when those emotions are first triggered, sometimes the best attempt to work through them right there in the moment is not the optimal solution. A better strategy is to take some time away, whether it be a few minutes, hours, even days, and then come back to the problem later on. And when I do, I've got more bandwidth, I can think more objectively, I can relate to the other person if it's an interpersonal problem more effectively too.

Starting point is 00:14:40 That's an example of using avoidance strategically, right? Taking a break to then come back. Sometimes I take a break and I find that the problem just melts away because I realized it just wasn't significant in the first place and I was magnifying it excessively. Now, of course, there are instances where taking that time away, the problem just continues to surface and that can be a cue to engage more deeply.

Starting point is 00:15:08 But the point here is that avoidance isn't uniformly bad. It is a tactic, a tool that when used strategically can be quite effective. And so that was just one insight that my grandparents' experience provided me. The broader one, and I'll throw it back to you, is that there are just no one-size-fits-all solutions when it comes to managing our emotional lives. I think we, as human beings, love the prospect of finding such solutions. There's something really seductive about this idea

Starting point is 00:15:44 that there's a single tool or two you can use to be more emotionally fit, to be happier and more successful. I get asked all the time, what's the one thing you do to manage your emotions? It's a question I can't answer because there are no single solutions. Do you ever work out, John? We haven't talked about this before but do you exercise frequently? I just went to the gym earlier this morning. What what did you do when you went to the gym? Well today I just wanted a cardio workout so I just did 30 minutes on

Starting point is 00:16:17 an elliptical. Okay. And I listened to Andrew Huberman's podcast that you were on as I was doing it. Okay, good. You're prepping up. And my memory of that podcast is that we're covering some different ground here, which is good. Let me ask another question though about your gym experience. Do you ever lift weights? Well, I have an alternative health podcast. So I follow what Mark Hyman and other people have told me to do. So I try to do cardio a couple times a week and I try to do free weights a few times a week. Okay. So my last question, then I'll give you the punchline is when you go to lift weights, do you do more than just exercise your biceps with curls? Of course. Okay. Of course. That's the kind of response I hope this book and conversations like the one

Starting point is 00:17:09 we're having can help push people towards that awareness, that of course response. When it comes to thinking about the tools we use to manage our emotional lives, it shouldn't be, the question should not be what's the one thing you do to manage your emotions. The question't be, the question should not be, what's the one thing you do to manage your emotions? The question should be, as far as I'm concerned, what are the tools you use to manage your emotions? Right, depending on the goals that I have at any given point in my life, when I go to the gym, I'm doing a range of exercises.

Starting point is 00:17:39 I may be doing some cardio, high interval training, calisthenics, I'm blending in different things because there are different components to physical health. What we have learned is that the same is true when it comes to managing our emotional lives. Our emotional worlds are incredibly nuanced and the goals we have are not always the same when it comes to emotion management.

Starting point is 00:18:01 So why on earth would there be one tool that all of us can benefit from? It just doesn't make sense and the science don't support it. So that was another insight I got from Bubby and Papa. So they ended up being quite influential in my life and I wish they were here for me to tell them about it directly now. Well, hearing your grandparents story reminded me

Starting point is 00:18:23 of my partner, Corey's history. Her grandparents were Russian Jews on both sides who, similar to your parents, evaded the Germans and eventually also migrated to Brooklyn, much like your family. And as I think about this and your family and I think about the fires that are happening in LA right now. I just think of, imagine just sitting in your home and everything is normal. And then all of a sudden you're told you have to leave now. And this can happen for a hurricane or a tornado or other things. But imagine that emotional toll. I mean, it really is universal, whether it was them or even what we're facing today.

Starting point is 00:19:09 And I think emotions and these personal narratives really shape the way we understand the human capacity to endure and thrive, even when we have to face things like this. Won't you agree? Absolutely. And I think the fires are a great and tragic example of how important it is to be able

Starting point is 00:19:31 to manage our emotions effectively for our own wellbeing and survival. I was actually just in LA last week and I had to evacuate on Wednesday evening. When I arrived, the fires weren't really raging at all and they just took off. And I was able to see some of that devastation firsthand and it was tragic.

Starting point is 00:19:54 And it was an inherently deeply emotional experience that required a lot of empathy, people banding together to support one another, but also the ability to manage some pretty potent emotional responses, sadness, fear, anxiety, in order to take actions to protect oneself and one's loved ones.

Starting point is 00:20:18 And sadly, as I think this tragedy stretches out, we're gonna need more help managing our emotions, just given the amazing devastation that is occurring. It is a parallel to what we're talking about. Well, I want to jump from here to the first section of your book in which you describe emotions as a near constant force in our lives. And I love the words you use, sometimes subtle like background music and other times sharp and consuming, shaping our decisions and relationships. And in this first chapter,

Starting point is 00:20:51 you highlight a 2015 study that found that people experience one or more emotions over 90% of the time to illustrate it. And I am someone who has, I was not a Navy SEAL, but I have deployed a lot with them and I've also been to SEAR school and you beautifully illustrate this with the story of Matt Mastam, who's a SEAL going through SEAR training. I personally don't know, but I can understand what you were talking about with his story where he felt anger, pain, joy, and surprisingly even love simultaneously. Can you talk about that experience he went through

Starting point is 00:21:33 and how understanding this pervasive and complex nature of emotions help us refrain them as a tool for navigating life rather than obstacles to overcome? So Matt's story is a really powerful one. So Matt is just such an interesting character. He was a Michigan alum who, after graduating, became a SEAL, deployed, was a hero, came back, became a SEAL instructor,

Starting point is 00:21:59 and then actually went to Harvard to get his leadership degree and was selected by the President of the United States to carry the nuclear codes or selected by whoever selects such an individual. And so he has this just unbelievable record of achievement. And for me, the first thing that came to mind when I heard about him before I interviewed him and became friendly with him was this guy must be a robot, right? Like emotions just don't enter the equation given the kinds of extraordinary things that he has had to do.

Starting point is 00:22:33 And in our very first meeting, he swiftly dispelled me of that notion. And you know, when a Navy SEAL of his level of accomplishment and physical prowess dispels you of something, you believe it very quickly. So I was very happy to change my mind. Essentially what he described was his experiences of emotions, both positive and negative, were vital to his success. Not his ability necessarily to shut them down,

Starting point is 00:23:02 but he described the emotions he experiences as information he acted on that was useful for helping him determine how he should respond to different situations. And these emotions that he experienced were present throughout his experiences. And so the Sears School experience that you asked about, so Sears School for those who are not familiar with that acronym, is a school that you send, I think primarily military personnel to teach them how to deal with the possibility of them essentially being abducted

Starting point is 00:23:41 or trapped behind enemy lines. So you put people in different really uncomfortable situations and uncomfortable is putting it pretty lightly as John, I'm sure you can attest firsthand. So that, God forbid, if someone finds themselves in one of these situations, they have some tools they can use to manage them and to survive. So we're talking about not eating food for days, being held in cages, all sorts of really aggressive kinds of interrogatory, is that a word? Interrogatory? I don't think it's a word. They're like mock interrogations and other things of that sort. Well, what am I missing? Give me more color here.

Starting point is 00:24:27 Water simulated waterboarding maybe. I wasn't simulated. I mean, you are put through a mock of what it would like to be a prisoner of war, including they're trying to test all aspects of use of the aspects of it from the noises that they blur in. There's the temperature, you know, I did it in the mountains. So three aspects of it from the noises that they blur in, there's the temperature. You know, I did it in the mountains.

Starting point is 00:24:47 So it was freezing cold. By the time you're captured, you haven't eaten in a few days because all they give you is a rabbit and send you on your way. So you're starving. And so they try to give this, I think is real world as they possibly can. Here you are trying to evade capture, which is what the first aspect of it is. And then everyone gets captured. And then it's how do you deal with all these things

Starting point is 00:25:09 that they throw at you to put you as much as they can under a real world situation. So if it would ever happen, you are somewhat prepared for what it's gonna be like, knowing that it's probably gonna be even worse than the environment that Matt found himself in. I'm glad you were there to help illustrate it in more vivid detail. And so it's a grueling experience,

Starting point is 00:25:33 but what was interesting about Matt's time there is that he was filled with all sorts of negative emotions when he was going through it. He was angry and frustrated and concerned about he had these training missions that he was going to be doing these cold water training up in, I think, Alaska. In order to be fit for that, you need muscle. He found his muscle depleting because he wasn't eaten.

Starting point is 00:25:58 So would he be able to accomplish those missions? Alongside all those negative feelings he was having, he also was falling in love with the woman he would eventually marry, who was in the literal cage across the courtyard from where he was being kept in a cage. And he was flirting with her during this training exercise and in the process of doing so, falling in love. And so he's a perfect example of someone who,

Starting point is 00:26:27 I think many of us think shouldn't feel emotions and should just be robotic. Yet, if you asked him, hey, would you give up your ability to experience any different kind of negative emotion or positive? He would say no. What he was really skilled at is experiencing those emotions, learning from them, but not allowing them to mushroom too greatly.

Starting point is 00:26:55 So not allowing those experiences to, those emotional experiences to be triggered too intensely or for too long. And that is the challenge I think that we all face when we think about how to manage our emotional lives. I'm a proponent of the idea, really strong one, that all of our emotional experiences, when they are triggered in the right proportions and contexts are useful. I benefit from my ability to experience anxiety

Starting point is 00:27:24 and sadness and anger and envy and jealousy. All of those different responses, they tune me into specific features of the situations that I'm encountering to help me manage them more effectively. Give you a couple of examples. Anxiety. Anxiety captures my attention and focuses it on a potential threat that is looming. It's effectively telling me, hey, dopey, focus.

Starting point is 00:27:51 You gotta prepare for this thing, it's important. When I think back to some of the engagements that I've had that haven't gone as well as I would have hoped, they're the ones that I felt zero anxiety about. As a result, I had no cue inside me to trigger me to focus and prepare. So I didn't. You know, take envy. We think of envy. It's one of the deadly sins, right? Like it's uniformly bad. It is not uniformly bad. Sometimes I look at someone who I'm envious of and that then provides me with a target to aspire to

Starting point is 00:28:26 achieve what they have accomplished. Now I've got something I can shoot for, so I'm reframing that envy as a way of, it's a kind of North Star of sorts. And you could play this game with all the different negative emotions we experience. They all have a functionality to them. negative emotions we experience. They all have a functionality to them. Well, one of the things I liked that you covered in this chapter is I realized hope isn't really an emotion. It's a cognitive state, but I explored this whole concept of why hope matters.

Starting point is 00:28:57 I really typed hope to matter and similar to the way you're explaining influence, the influence of emotions and how they influence not just our moment to moment decisions, but they can influence the trajectory of our lives. It's kind of like hope. I mean, it was hope that Gandhi used to inspire people to break away from the British rule,

Starting point is 00:29:22 but he also tied into the emotions of the people. It's, as you write, it's ignited personal achievements, like the cultural legacies to large movements like the Taj Mahal or the Underground Railroad. And it's so interesting because emotions do fuel some of humanity's greatest accomplishments. But I think what people fail to realize is how can they tap into this emotional fuel, so to speak, to create this life or these movements that they want? Well, there are lots of ways you could tap into hope if that's the target.

Starting point is 00:30:02 Our ability to both strategically wield our attention, what we focus on, and then how we focus on it, whether we're reframing or not. I think those are two specific cognitive tools we possess that can be really helpful for boosting hope. And let me give you a couple of concrete examples because that's a little abstract. Let's first talk about finding hope when things feel really bad, and we're really sinking into the doldrums, sinking into despair, or we're finding ourselves really anxious or angry, angry for that matter. states, we often zoom in on them and what is driving them in that moment. So we're focusing on the worst parts of the experience, which makes good sense because what is one of the first things we're taught to do when we have a problem growing up?

Starting point is 00:30:56 Roll up your sleeves and deal with it, right? Don't avoid it. So that's what we often reflexively do when we're struggling with things. And it just, it often perpetuates that negative experience. All of us though have had this experience that I'm going to describe probably millions of times, certainly hundreds of thousands, probably millions, depending on how old you are. And the experience is as follows. And tell me if you disagree, John, like truly tell me if you disagree. We experience something and it triggers an emotion, that emotion activates,

Starting point is 00:31:33 and then as time goes on, the emotion eventually begins to fade in its intensity. Most of our emotional experiences follow that temporal trajectory, that time course. They're triggered, they rise, and as time goes on, they fade. Some emotions rise more intensely than others. Some fade more quickly, some take longer. But almost all of them follow that time course. Now, we lose sight of that in the moment. But if you jumped into what I've called your mental time travel machine and you

Starting point is 00:32:06 ask yourself, how am I going to feel about this thing tomorrow, next week, next year, and 10 years when I'm dead? That is a powerful way of automatically making accessible the understanding that what you're going through is temporary. It will eventually fade. And when you have that recognition, it gives you hope. It gives you hope that things are gonna get better. And that can be a powerful bomb when we're struggling with negative things. I worried about something happened just yesterday

Starting point is 00:32:39 that I was having some second thoughts about, oh crap, did I say the wrong thing? And didn't feel good in the moment or in the immediate aftermath. And then I asked myself, how am I going to feel about this next week? Instantly, I was reminded of the fact, John, that I, Ethan Cross, have put my foot in my mouth tens of thousands of times. And that doesn't feel good in the moment, but it usually amounts to nothing. And instantly that turned things down.

Starting point is 00:33:11 So that's one way of finding hope. The other way of finding hope is to wield your attention onto things that are inspirations. So we do this often too, and this can be a kind of attentional deployment, right? Like if you're really struggling with something, try to find something in your life that is the source of hope. Something that just makes you really excited about the future and what

Starting point is 00:33:36 lies ahead for some parents. This is their children, grandparents or children and grandchildren, business owners or employees. It can be hope for future accomplishments. There's an infinite number of things and ways we can find hope. And so that would be another tactic that people can use if they're motivated to do so.

Starting point is 00:33:58 Well, thank you for answering that. Ethan, I wanna go back to something with the military here for a second. As you know, I have really been trying to study a lot about the topic of mattering and I'm actually working on a book right now about it. And I want to take you back in time. A few years ago, I went to this retreat that we were having that had probably 60 special forces, former special forces people there.

Starting point is 00:34:28 It was everything from the former secretary of defense who was there to, you know, we had green berets, we had rescue swimmers from the coast guard. We had Rangers, we had SEALs, we had Marines and universal across all of them, they had experienced profound post-traumatic stress and all of them had told me that they had gone through this sense of just feeling completely numb and indifferent and apathetic to the world around them. And it really led me to this connection that our emotions are really deeply tied to this sense of meaning and connection in our lives.

Starting point is 00:35:13 How does understanding and managing our emotions enhance our ability to feel like we matter and how we connect and belong in the communities that we're part of? Well, what a great question. And I wish there was a one line answer, but there isn't. So let me do my best. So one thing I think that is important to keep in mind

Starting point is 00:35:37 is that we human beings are meaning makers. One of the ways we navigate the world is with this motivation to constantly make sense of the world in which we live. We need to make sense of it because if we understand this world and the place we occupy in it, that makes this world easier to navigate. And as a general rule, that's like a general guiding motivation for human beings. We want to be able to navigate the world easily. So if we have meaning and purpose and we feel like we matter, that's great. Things feel right and we don't have to, we could just focus on the task at hand.

Starting point is 00:36:18 Oftentimes, the times that people get stuck is when they can't find meaning. They don't feel like they matter. When that happens, it's like a giant red button is pressed in your brain that says stop, pay attention, figure out what's going on here so that you can start feeling like you do matter and have meaning so that we can get on with life the way it's supposed to be lived. But for having trouble developing that sense of purpose and meaning, we often struggle. We can ruminate about things, we can experience complicated negative emotions like anxiety and sadness as well. So finding meaning is really important. Being able to manage your emotions when you're struggling to find meaning is also really

Starting point is 00:37:06 important because we are challenged throughout our lives, whether it's a deployment under hostile conditions on the world stage or a difficult home situation or problems at work, life is constantly throwing curveballs at us. Sometimes it's not just that we don't hit the pitch. Sometimes we have the equivalent of Nolan Ryan throwing fastballs at our heads, is the way it sometimes feels, and he's hitting us too. And we need to understand how to get better at bats when that happens and how to not get injured. And that's really where the science of emotion regulation comes into play because we evolve this extraordinary

Starting point is 00:37:55 capacity to experience emotions. And remember, emotions are tools. They're useful. You want to be able to feel anxiety, to motivate action, to focus on the task at hand. Anger, when you perceive that there's some transgression, some violation of your understanding of the world, and there's an opportunity for you to fix things, anger is a powerful little message that propels you to do that. These are useful, but they are often unwieldy tools. And the gift that we have also been born into this world with is the capacity to manage those emotional states. So on the one hand, we evolved this wonderful brain

Starting point is 00:38:38 that allows us to experience all these emotions and these different kinds of shades and textures and blends, but we also co-evolved all of these different capacities that we can harness to manage those emotions. And the key is accessing those tools that we possess to rein in those emotional responses. That's what I hope the book helps people do. Number one, simply introduce you to the tools that exist. And then number two, offer you some guidance in how you can use those tools. If we go back to the gym metaphor here,

Starting point is 00:39:16 if you don't know how to work out, right? You just show up in a gym and you're looking at equipment, like you can very well get hurt if you don't know how to use that equipment. And the odds are that you don't just walk into the gym and you know how to seamlessly weave these different exercises together in a way that's gonna dramatically

Starting point is 00:39:37 improve your health right away. There might be some stumbling, some trial and error that you do in the gym, and you find, oh, this is making me, my biceps a little bit bigger and my calves a little bit blubber, whatever you're trying to achieve, but it's not gonna be the most efficient thing.

Starting point is 00:39:53 I would argue that that is kind of how a lot of us navigate our emotional lives right now. We stumble on exercises that sometimes work for us, oftentimes don't, sometimes even get us into trouble. And the value of science here is that it doesn't, it's not can. Science provides us with a guide to introduce us to the exercises that are out there and to teach us how to begin to weave them together to help us achieve the emotion goals that we have. And that's, I think, the real opportunity.

Starting point is 00:40:31 Thank you for sharing that. And I want to use the remaining time that we have to do a little bit of a teaser for the audience about the book, but not giving it all away. So they'll go out and buy it. Part two of your book, you're really starting to go into, how do you start using the title of your book, Shifts? And it starts from shifting from the inside out.

Starting point is 00:40:56 And on my way back from the gym today, I was trying to get myself pumped up for our interview. So I happened to listen to Casmir by Led Zeppelin. Nice. But you, as I understand it, you have a daughter named Danny and I have a daughter named Olivia. They both are soccer players. Although my daughter doesn't really play anymore, but I remember when she was younger, there were those days where, like anyone, you just don't feel like practicing or going to a game or something else.

Starting point is 00:41:29 And since we're talking about Michigan today, you happen to turn a song on that journey saying that starts about a young boy from Michigan who wanted to believe. And can you go into the story and how this sensory shift helps us with our emotions? I will do so on one condition, which is when this podcast airs, you subtly have this song begin to play in the background as we talk. I call them shifters.

Starting point is 00:42:04 What is a shifter? If you think about a shift, we want to shift our emotions. We can shift them up or down or make them last longer or shorter. So then the question is, well, what are the shifters that are out there? Well, the first one that is often overlooked is what I call our sensory shifters. Senses, sight, sound, touch, smell, just a few examples. These are very powerful tools for pushing our emotions around. And when I use the word powerful to convey that, not only can they generate very different kinds of emotional responses, but they can do so relatively easily. And what's remarkable to me about these sensory shifters is that we all are intimately familiar with them, but we often overlook them.

Starting point is 00:42:50 So there's this one study that asks people, why do you listen to music? Almost 100% of the sample indicated they listen to music because they like the way it makes them feel emotional. But then if you ask people, last time you were anxious, angry or sad, what did you do to change the way you felt? Between 10 and 30 percent use music as a tool. Just 10 and 30 percent, even though close to 100 percent of people readily acknowledge that music is a powerful modulator of their emotional experiences. It's not just people out there in the world who don't often think about sensation as a

Starting point is 00:43:28 tool to manage your emotions when they're struggling. It's this expert that you're talking to right now as well. I'm using that expert title a little bit jokingly. I've listened to music my whole life and it wasn't until this experience I had with my daughter that I began to start using it strategically. She woke up was in a kind of morose mood. It was bumming me out because at the time that she was playing soccer, I looked forward to this weekend event throughout the week. It was like my release.

Starting point is 00:43:57 I loved just watching her play. I played when I was a kid and she just didn't want to go, is in a funk. And then we get in the car and I put the radio, whatever you call the, I don't know, streaming device, whatever we call them nowadays on, and Don't Stop Believing just came on. And you know, I can't help myself. I start jamming out to that song.

Starting point is 00:44:17 I'm bopping my head, I'm humming, I'm singing. And then I look in the rear view mirror and I see Dani without even knowing it is like bopping her head along and she's into it. And that was really surprising because normally she tells me my choice of music is terribly embarrassing, but I guess that's a universal, that song. And next thing I know, we're like, we're having a ton of fun in the car and we pull up to the soccer field and she just darts out of the car and scores seemingly a gazillion goals that game as far as my memory tells me.

Starting point is 00:44:51 We know memories are fallible, so we won't fact check that detail, but she did do really well. And it was just this wonderful example of how sensory experiences can modulate how we feel super fast. And so since that moment, number one, we've done some research on this topic. We actually published a paper identifying this as a bit of a blind spot in the, in the areas that we work in for emotion regulation researchers. But I now have playlists that I have on my iPhone that I go to, to help me reach

Starting point is 00:45:26 certain kinds of goals that I have. I got some pump up music, I have some calming music, and it's a tool right there, and I avail myself of it all the time. And I would just say that a great other tool if someone could use is I really loved the book, The Five Senses that Gretchen put out a couple of years ago. I loved the book, The Five Senses that Gretchen put out a couple of years ago, really exploring when we really tap into our senses, how much it plays a profound role. And all you got to do to experience this is go to a hotel like I did this past weekend where they pump in the sensory smells or restaurant, which does the same thing.

Starting point is 00:46:02 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, these are tools that organizations and other entities are wielding all the time to trigger emotional responses in you. I mean, just think of not just the hotel and restaurant industry, which I talk about in the book, but think about every international airport you go to in the duty-free zone, it is populated by perfumes and colognes, right?

Starting point is 00:46:28 This is an entire industry. I don't know what the number will put on it, but it's a pretty big one, I think. This is all about how scents are being applied to our skin to trigger emotional responses in other people. Typically approach, although we know that odors can also elicit the other kinds of response as well. Just take a ride in a New York City subway if you want the other experience.

Starting point is 00:46:55 But these are some of the tools, and this is just an example of some of these tools that are hidden in plain sight that on the one hand, we've all experienced them. But I don't think a lot of us are consciously wielding those tools to help us reach our goals, our emotion regulation goals on a moment to moment basis throughout our lives. And so there are lots of shifters that take that form. You've probably worked with them, but you may not have realized it. Then there are shifters that take that form. You've probably worked with them, but you may not have realized it. Then there are shifters out there that you've never encountered before.

Starting point is 00:47:31 And then we go even outside of the shifters that exist within us into the next part of the book that deals with how our interactions with other people can shift us, our interactions with our physical spaces can shift us. And then we talk about culture more generally to think about how do the cultures that we are a part of shape our view of our emotional worlds

Starting point is 00:47:55 and how we can manage them. And what role do we play as individuals that can shape the cultures that we belong to, to not only help ourselves, but to help other people that we work with and live with do the same. So this cultural shift is something that needs to happen in a lot of businesses right now, where you've got so many people who are disengaged, and there is absolutely a reason for that happening, but a lot of it plays into the emotions of the employees.

Starting point is 00:48:26 So why does culture play such an important role in how we interpret and express emotions and how can shifting it help us navigate our lives with greater intentionality? Well, in some ways, culture is the most powerful shifter that exists because it's ever present. We are bathed in it. It is like the air we breathe. And what does it mean to be a part of culture? Well, culture determines our values and beliefs. So do

Starting point is 00:48:56 you think you can control your emotions? Do you think you should control your emotions? Culture is influencing those values and beliefs that we have about emotions and emotion regulation. Culture is also providing us with norms. Norms are rules, both spoken and unspoken, that guide our behavior throughout our lives. And so culture is shaping the norms that govern the way we behave on a moment-to-moment basis. Is there a norm in your family or in your organization for talking about emotions or bottling them up? Like, we have norms for all sorts of emotional behaviors that are then impacting us and those around us.

Starting point is 00:49:37 And then culture also can give us practices, tools that we use to manage our emotions, rituals, as an example. Families have rituals, organizations have rituals, some of which are designed to help us manage our emotions, families. We often teach our kids and our loved ones how to manage our emotions. Employees, bosses, mentors are constantly mentoring those beneath them, ideally, without a deal with adversity.

Starting point is 00:50:08 Adversity, by definition, an emotional experience in those kinds of organizational contexts. So culture is the kind of, what's the word I use for this in the book? It's the big kahuna of shifting. It's impacting it at every level. And the reason I think it's so important to start thinking about the role culture plays in our lives is because on the one hand, you're a parts of different cultures.

Starting point is 00:50:34 So if you understand what culture is, beliefs and values, norms, practices, you can start getting in there to maybe push the culture around in a direction that you think is more beneficial for you and those that you love. If, though, you find yourself in part of a kind of culture that is toxic with respect to emotion and emotion regulation, and there's not much you can do about it, you can make the decision to leave that culture too. And that is a noble decision to make when that culture is working against you. And I think thinking about culture through the lens of emotion regulation makes it a lot easier for us to start reasoning about how to change culture, when to join new ones, leave them,

Starting point is 00:51:18 and so forth. Well, I think that's a great topic to end on. Ethan, if someone wanted to learn more about you and your work, where's the best place for them to go? The best place to go is my website, www.ethancross.com. And there's information about Shift, my lab, my old book, and lots more. So check it out. Well, thank you so much for joining us here today. And I can't wait to have you back on for a third time. Thanks so much, John. It's an honor and a privilege as always. Wow, what an extraordinary conversation with Ethan Cross.

Starting point is 00:51:55 From the groundbreaking insights into why we feel the powerful tools for shifting our emotional states, today's discussion was a master class in understanding and harnessing the complexity of our emotions. Ethan's work in Shift reminds us that our emotions aren't obstacles, they're allies. Whether it's the power of sensory experiences like music, the stories of resilience and love from his research, or the practical ways we can use emotions as tools for connection

Starting point is 00:52:22 and growth, this episode is packed with wisdom that can truly transform how we navigate our lives. As we close, I encourage you to reflect on a few key takeaways. How can you begin to see your emotions as superpowers rather than hindrances? What sensory tools like music, scent, or touch can you intentionally incorporate into your daily life to help shift your emotional state? If today's episode resonated with you, please leave us a five-star rating and review. Your feedback helps us continue bringing powerful conversations like this one

Starting point is 00:52:50 to the PassionStruck community. And if someone in your life could benefit from Ethan's insights, share this episode with them. It could be the spark they need to see their emotions in a whole new light. You can find all the resources we discussed, including Ethan's book, Shift, and links to the previous episode on chatter in the show notes at passionstruck.com.

Starting point is 00:53:08 Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel where you can watch the video version of this episode and share it with others who are passionate about intentional living. Lastly, if you're looking to bring these kinds of transformative insights into your organization or team, visit johnrmiles.com slash speaking to learn how we can work together to ignite purpose, connection, and emotional mastery where it matters most. In our next episode, I'll be joined by Eric Zimmer, host of the One You Feed podcast for a powerful discussion

Starting point is 00:53:35 on intentional living, personal transformation, and feeding the parts of ourselves that matter most. It's gonna be an inspiring conversation, so make sure you tune in. It took everything away from my identity that wasn't about being an addict. That was it in the last couple years of my addiction. That was all I was and all I lived to do and it consumed every waking moment of my life. How am I going to get the next fix?

Starting point is 00:54:00 That's it. That was all there was. It took every part of my identity away, any part of me that was anything different. And ultimately, I think the thing about addiction that really becomes the thing is this belief that I can't do anything else. I'm never going to do anything useful or important or interesting because this thing owns all of me. Thank you for always, for spending your time with us, and for being part of the Passion Star community. Remember, the lessons you learn here are only as powerful as the actions you take.

Starting point is 00:54:35 Until next time, live life, Passion Star. you

Passion Struck with John R. Miles - Ethan Kross on How to Make Your Emotions Work for You | EP 568

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