Ask Jim Anything! #4

Hello, everyone. Welcome to another Ask Jim Anything. Today I will answer 10 questions submitted by you or by me if there's not 10, but today there are 10 from you. I actually recorded this episode yesterday, but it failed because I forgot to put the audio on everything except for the intro. So we're going to re-record it and see how I do on the second run. The essence of the show is that I have been working with emotions and conflict for the last 13 years. And while I don't think I'm perfect at all, I think I've spent a lot more time on it than most people have. And so this is for people who have questions for me about my journey, about how what I've done can help them and help you. And yeah, I don't always have the answers, but I'll give my best and maybe at least it will spark something in you and start a conversation in your head or some conversation with you and your friends. So I'm not going to use all two and a half minutes here, but just say that I'm feeling a little rushed. I'm actually heading out to the airport soon. So I think sometimes it's nice to tell you how I'm actually feeling before, and then I can do a reflection afterwards. So we're going to get started with the first question in, yeah, right now. Let's see if this works.

Question number one. Why do you think it matters that a leader be emotionally secure, Caleb?

I think, okay, maybe the best analogy is, think about a kid. When a kid falls down and scrapes their knee, they often look to their parents, or to the adults around, or even their older siblings, to see how they should react. They don't know if they're supposed to cry, if they're supposed to get angry, if they're supposed to laugh. So a lot of times, I think, as children, but also as adults, we look up to people to understand how we should feel. And how we should behave. And I think that happens to a disproportionate amount when somebody is a leader of an organization or a government, because there are, even just an influencer, you know, we call them an influencer, a content creator online, or whatever you want to call them, author, artist, musician, there can be hundreds, thousands, millions, even billions of people looking up to them to see how to behave and how to respond, how to feel. And so I think there's a huge amount of, I don't like the word responsibility, but influence that someone at the top can have throughout what I often call trickle-down emotions, but it can be trickle-down behaviors as well, that whether people want to admit it or not, they are role modeling and people are looking up to them to see how to behave and then the other thing i would say is that being it doesn't just trickle down these things trickle up as well and so if you're running an organization with 10 000 people, there's probably going to be some people in there who commit suicide who go to prison who. Have mental breakdowns or emotional breakdowns who have family members who are going through chemo who have some that are going to the olympics and just the full range of emotion and it can be really hard to.

Absorb, you know, not absorb all those emotions because you care about these people. And so I think it's this double-edged challenge where if you're at the top, how you feel impacts so many other people, but so many other people are impacting how you feel as well. And so I think there's just, I think it's a really big challenge, but I think it's really important that people are more aware of that, I guess. All right, let's see if I can go to the next question. All right question number two of ten are there examples of emotionally intelligent leaders from the present or past of u.s politicians this is also caleb i think to be a politician in general one has to be more emotionally intelligent than most now i don't really like the phrase emotionally intelligent so much because i think it often gives this you are or are not emotionally intelligent.

And I also don't like the current popular interpretation of emotional intelligence. I like the one that Salovey and Mayer came up with originally. They called it like the ability model of emotional intelligence, the idea that these are skills and we can get better at them or we can lose them, but it's skills that we can practice and improve upon. So I think to be a politician one has to deal with many many many people from many different backgrounds i think that's really hard you require and not only just deal with them but try to. Agree with them understand them listen to them get them to vote for you at least in a democracy and, but even not in a democracy you still have to get their support because if you're an authoritarian government and too many citizens don't like you, they can throw you out. And so I think there is a balance in how to understand life and stay liked. So anyways, just to say that, I think we underestimate how emotionally intelligent a lot of politicians are and how much they're actually trying their best. And it's just a really, really hard job. But examples of people who are really good, probably Lincoln. Lincoln had his, there's a book called Team of Rivals, where Lincoln would literally put people on his team that would shout vicious things at him and embarrass him. But he knew that these people were really smart and really needed for the job to get the work done. And so I think there is something about Lincoln that I aspire to be. And I don't see too many examples of people to that level of, maybe not emotional intelligence, but strength and love. The ability to resolve conflict and the ability to get back to loving each other and getting on the same team so we can solve these problems. I just, I see so much, so many politicians nowadays just pretending that there are two teams instead of one team.

Next question, question three of ten. Why do we expect people, particularly people we idolize, to be perfect, Caleb?

Because if they're perfect, there's peace. And if there's peace, we think we can relax. We think we want peace. We want this imaginary world where there's no conflict, there's no fighting.

Everyone agrees upon everything. Everything is just smooth sailing.

But we don't want that. We don't watch Hollywood movies because they're peaceful. If they were peaceful the whole time, we'd be bored. If they were happy the whole time, we'd be bored. If they were angry the whole time, we'd be bored. If they were relaxed, it doesn't matter. We like the variation. We like the mix. But I think we have this maybe cultural desire, but also there's this overwhelm of like, well, if somebody else is perfect, then there won't be any fights between me and them. And maybe I could be perfect too. And if I'm perfect, I don't have any internal fights. I don't have the internal conflict anymore. Everything is just smooth. No problems, no sleepless nights, no back aches, no really hard conversations, just no anger, no sadness. No sadness. Because if someone's perfect, then there's no sadness. But what you don't realize is that even if somebody's perfect, if that person leaves, there's sadness.

So I think we're just hoping that so I think part of it is that and I think the other part of it is, maybe to inspire us we look up to people and we want to see somebody that we think is better than us in a specific way so going back to that last question I get so frustrated because I'm like I want to see, I don't care if it's Biden or Harris or Trump or I don't care who it is I want to see somebody who inspires me to behave in a better way kind of this aspirational role model I talked about on Daily Gym yesterday. And so I think part of it is to get rid of the conflicts that we have. I think another part might be just the aspiration, something that gives us motivation to improve, to try harder, to keep fighting, ironically. Ironically, maybe we do it because we want to see somebody who gives us the motivation to keep fighting.

Okay, next question.

Question 4 of 10. Why do people always choose to make other people happy instead of themselves? Manka. I don't think we always choose to make other people happy.

Very, I don't, I don't say, I don't think we ever always choose to make other people happy instead of ourselves. I think it's impossible. If we did that, we would die. I mean, you have to, if there's water and two people have the water, and you have to drink the water. If you don't drink the water, you die. Sometimes people say, hey, come out, come out. I'm like, no, I need to sleep. Hey, come out. I need to sleep. If we don't sleep, we die.

So I don't think we always do that. But why do we have a tendency to do it? I think it's often because we see the emotion more in the other person and we have less control over changing their situation. So we can see the emotion written all over their faces, whereas we often don't see our face. I mean, when was the last time you looked in the mirror when you were crying? But when you see somebody else cry, you feel it. You feel the pain. The emotion transfers very quickly. The emotion can be very contagious, especially if you care about that person. And I think that second part is the helplessness. If I feel sad, or I feel angry, or I feel tired, if I feel tired, I can sleep. I can try to sleep. But if somebody else feels tired, can I force them to try to sleep? What if they're trying but they're not able to sleep? Then what do I do? I think sometimes there's this helplessness with other people that we can't change their situation. And I've been reflecting on this personally a lot in the last couple weeks of people in my life, I wish that they would be better at certain skills, and then I go, but maybe I can focus on myself, maybe if I can change how I'm feeling, that might impact them, maybe if I can.

Behave in a different way or feel in a different way it'll be contagious towards them, and I can help them that way because trying to force them to get better at a certain skill of communicating how they feel or you know having hard conversations with people or or assuming good intent all these different things like to try to push them on that often doesn't work so I think why we choose to do it often is just because how they feel impacts us strongly, and we maybe feel a little more powerless over controlling their situation versus ours. Next question, question five of ten, how can I make myself happy? Sometimes I choose other people happiness before or mine.

Maybe it goes back to what I just said, recognizing that how I feel impacts other people.

So recognizing that taking care of myself can inspire other people, and it can do it in a way that's a little less forceful, a little more subtle, and also inviting. It invites people, and it doesn't, okay, sometimes it pulls them in because of the contagion, right? If I start crying that other people feel it. But it's not, the attention isn't on them, which I've found sometimes can be really helpful. One of the reasons I don't like therapy sometimes is that so many of the questions and the attention are put on the participant. And sometimes I think people learn the most when they hear stories from somebody else and they hear somebody else's experience. So that's part of the essence of why I do Daily Gym and these Ask Gym Many Things is because I want other people to maybe learn from my experience without me having to put them in the spotlight. So how can I make myself happy?

Just recognize that sometimes you're going to choose yourself, sometimes you're going to choose other people, and it's okay. There's trade-offs.

I mean, what are some ways that make you happy? What are some ways that make you satisfied or make you excited or motivated or filled with life, filled with energy and hope? What are some little things could be going watching birds it could be going for a walk it could be painting it could be recording podcast videos it could be you know what makes you come alive because I think recognizing that you being in you being more open you being more excited you feeling more and being more vibrant can influence other people in subtle informal ways.

It's hard to remember this. And yeah, I don't know if that's the full answer. I can answer in different ways next time. Who knows?

Yeah it just models the behavior i mean again the focus right now i think even what i'm saying is on other people man just do what you want to do hey i don't know i don't know question six of ten how can i have a healthy relationship with someone who always likes to start fights hey man learn how to fight it seems kind of a simple answer or maybe i'm being facetious but learn how to fight a lot of people who like to start fights just want attention and when we don't give them the attention because we get overwhelmed by the fight and we run away, then they tend to want to start even more fights. So I think one aspect is really to just get better at staying in the fight, which means getting better at feeling the anger and not running away, feeling the fear and not running away, feeling the sadness, not running away, really feeling all the emotions and not getting so overwhelmed or flooded, as they often say, and disconnecting and running away from the conversation or the interaction. Think about a kid who wants to go jump in the pool and wants his mom's attention. First they'll say, hey mom, watch. And then the mom doesn't watch. Hey mom, look. And then the mom doesn't watch. Hey, hey, hey mom, mom. Nothing. So the kid goes over to the mom and starts pulling on her leg. Hey mom, watch, watch, watch. She still ignores him. Eventually the kid will, or actually maybe she doesn't even ignore him. She like maybe shouts at him, hey, that's enough. Stop it. End the interaction, right? and then the kid goes off and he jumps off a high platform into the water and, now the mom is freaking out and gives him the attention he wanted because it was maybe just a bid for connection as John Gottman calls it and when we don't get it we escalate so learning how to connect learning how to stay in the fight and then.

Yeah. I mean, I'd say that's probably the essence of it. I think I talked about something else yesterday, but I can't remember. How can I have a healthy relationship with someone who's going to start fights? Oh, recognize that maybe 5% of the fight has to do with you. 95% has to do with other stuff.

And maybe if you focus too much on I'm the cause of the fight or this specific clash that we had, then you may miss the actual underlying cause of the fight. So I'd say to be more curious about what's causing them to want to fight, what other conflicts they have in their life, not just for them to feel better, but for you to feel better. Because if you think it's only that one conflict, then, I mean, I can speak from my experience. When I get stuck thinking it's only the one fight, then I feel miserable. When I expand, I feel so much better.

Two and a half minutes, question seven of 10. How can I have a healthy relationship with someone who is toxic, anonymous? Stop calling them toxic. Get this phrase out of your lexicon. They're humans. They're not toxic. They're humans who did something that maybe made you feel hurt or sad or angry or confused. They did something. And you probably felt hurt, sad, angry, confused because of other humans who have done other things in the past and probably because of things that you've done in the past. So they're not toxic. They're not poisonous. They're not killing you. They're humans who are trying their best, whether that's a woman or a man or, you know, a rich person or a poor person or, like.

People aren't toxic so I think believing that people are toxic makes it really hard to have relationships with almost anyone because if you think your ex is toxic then maybe you think all the people you date in the future might become toxic as well so this kind of like are you are you not toxic red flag green flag bullshit really just puts people into it puts us into like this, conditional worth mindset. Well, if you do this, then you're a good human. If you do this, then you're a bad human. How about you're just a good human who does a few things that occasionally hurt people? I remember there's one guy, an Uber driver, I'm sure I told this story before, but an Uber driver who got out of prison and turned to me and said, hey man, I just got out of prison, I'm a bad guy. I said, no, you're a good guy who probably did a few bad things. And he was shook. He looked at me and said, huh? What? He's never heard that in his life. So I think that's probably the main thing, is to just be, again, curious about why this person is behaving the way they are, and being more specific to identify which behaviors do you think are toxic, like which behaviors are causing you problems, and then be more curious about why they may be behaving that.

Way, maybe behaving that way, and why, you know, what other things are going on in their life now and in the past. Because maybe they behave that way because their parent died, or because their parents got divorced, or because they were molested, or because they fell in love and the person left the country, or they, like, who knows why they're behaving that way. But to just start to imagine different scenarios, even if you don't get it correct, I've found has helped me so much. to just realize they're a human being. They're not a toxic thing. They're a human trying their best. Okay.

Question 8 of 10. How do you develop assertiveness without feeling guilty? Anonymous.

I think it's okay to feel guilty. I mean, I don't know if there's ever... I don't know. I don't think you have to develop assertiveness without feeling guilty. I think it's about develop assertiveness while you also feel guilty. Because when I feel guilty, sometimes I say to myself, I feel guilty, it's okay to feel guilty. it says that I feel sad that I'm doing something that might be hurting someone else. It says that I care about them. Oh, it says that I care about other people. Or I care about myself. That's fine. That's good. I'm actually grateful that I feel that I care about other people and myself. And so I would say the first step is to just not think that you have to not feel guilty. It's okay to feel guilty. It's a hard decision. I mean, assertiveness often, I would say, is choosing what we want or going for what we want more than what other people want. And sometimes we have to do that. Sometimes we, but other times we don't. So like if you're not assertive, if you're more passive or whatnot, and you don't go after what you want, you prioritize what the other person wants, then you might feel guilty that you didn't take care of yourself. But if you choose what you want and not what the other person wants, then you might feel guilty that you didn't take care of them. So there might always be guilt or some levels of guilt in how we interact with each other if we care about each other. And so I think it's okay to feel guilty. I think it's great. I'm grateful when I feel guilty.

I try to be, at least. Try to remind myself that it means I care about people. And so the assertiveness, like going after what we want versus what other people want, standing up for what we want, can be really hard conversations, and it hurts people. I think one of the best ways is to just tell people that you feel guilty and tell them why you feel guilty. Just because you feel guilty doesn't mean you don't have to do it. Like I said, you feel guilty if you do do it and if you don't do it. So I would say just communicating that to them and to yourself that often when we make these decisions, we have so many internal conflicts, so many emotional conflicts, and we just have to make a decision at some point. It's not that we don't care about each other. It's that sometimes we do, and that's why it takes us so long to make that decision.

Okay, 9 of 10. Question 9 of 10. Becoming more in touch with emotions is scary, and it may disrupt or end some relationships. What makes being more in touch with your emotions worth hurting or losing friendships, Caleb?

My answer might be similar to the last one. I mean, whether we are more in touch with our emotions or whether we are less in touch with our emotions, we could end up disrupting or ending relationships. So someone who is too open and too considerate, they may say, Why are you so friendly with other people? You don't care about me. Or, oh, you think you're better than me. I mean, some of that can bring conflicts, but if the person is also too closed off, they can bring conflicts. Oh, you never tell me what's going on. You keep all these secrets.

You never let me cry. I start crying and then you shut me down, etc., etc. So what makes it, you know, worth, why is it worth maybe hurting or losing relationships?

That's a choice. We go both ways. Would you rather lose a relationship because you love the person too much and you love yourself too much, or because you thought they didn't love you and you thought you didn't care about them? Which way do you want to? I mean, we can lose relationships either way.

And more so, we're constantly influencing each other, like I talked about earlier, this contagion. So if if I open up more I can influence the other person to open up more too but there will be conflict there'll be a fight they don't necessarily want to just open up and as they open up it can cause other conflicts in their lives with other friendships and workmates and things like this, but it's also the same way if I start closing off if I start closing off they could start closing off and if they start closing off that can impact their work as well it can impact their friendships because people are like, man, I haven't seen you in a long time. What happened? Or, wow, you seem to be really cynical these days. Or, I can tell a lot's going on, but you don't want to open up, so maybe you don't care about me. Like, you used to be so open and optimistic. What's going on? And so I think we're constantly in this tug of war and there will be conflicts.

We're never at the same level, so there will always be conflicts. It's just which way do you want to pull people? You want to pull people up? You want to pull them down? You want to open them up or close them off?

I felt good on that one. Last question, question 10 of 10. Why do you think learning more about our emotions isn't part of the general school curriculum, Caleb? Thank you, Caleb and Manco for asking these questions and anonymous people as well.

Because emotions can be a bit wild, maybe. I don't know. Like the example that comes to mind is, okay, one, we don't think I don't think emotions really matter that much. But I think underneath it, it's not, maybe we don't, maybe we actually do believe they matter, but we're just afraid of feeling that much. Imagine being in a classroom and you got 30 kids in the classroom and all of them are very energized and excited and saying how they feel and like it could be a bit chaos. They're supposed to just sit there and read and do something, you know, ignore their bodies in some way. Whether they even have recess anymore or not, I don't even know. And so I think some of it is that we're training people how to ignore their bodies and emotions have a really big physical component. I think another one is the fear of people getting too emotionally connected to each other. So students bonding too much with teachers or students bonding too much with other students, administrative people are fearing that you know maybe there will be some lawsuits parents fearing that students will have a closer connection with the teachers than they do with the parents because, kids spend more time with teachers than they do the parents most of the time I think well like sometimes eight hours a day and they probably don't get that much with the parents maybe if they're lucky and so I think part of it is that when we start to feel when we start to open up When we start to resolve conflicts, we start to care about each other a lot more. And we start to become a lot more affectionate with each other.

And affection in general is taboo. So we probably don't teach it in general school curriculum because culturally we don't teach it. We don't teach people to be affectionate. There are public displays of affection rules. Like PDA is, oh, you're not supposed to do that. Okay, so I'm not supposed to be affectionate. What am I supposed to be? Apathetic? public displays of apathy. So it's like, I think we would teach it more in schools if we believed it more in the culture. Because I think schools are just passing down cultural lessons.

Reflection. What did you learn during today's session? One, thank you all for listening to that. Two, that it's hard to do this a second time. I did it yesterday and it felt nice doing the questions fresh and now doing them a second time. I was sad because, oh, I said that yesterday. I didn't, maybe some realizations that felt new and fresh, but yeah, a bit sad and frustrated that I failed yesterday, but also grateful that I was able to rerecord.

Burp a little bit on tv um what else did i notice i focused maybe a little more on the contagion aspect or how we can model and influence other people.

Yeah i don't know i didn't feel maybe as present right now because i have a flight soon and like i'm grateful to answer these questions but also trying to, again manage all these different conflicts at the same time so it's a balance of like i talked about feeling guilty it's i made a decision to record this because it messed up yesterday, but now i'm thinking what else did i not do in the last hour or so before i travel, that i feel guilty for i didn't go to that store i didn't buy this thing or i didn't have that phone call or i didn't uh-huh so like there's guilt always there but i'm trying to take lessons of what I was even just saying to you all and how to just sit with that and okay good that means I care about this person I care about that person but I also care about you and kind of the general public and making sure that I record this there are people who ask questions and, they seem excited for the answers or my my approach there's not like the answer, but just my perspective on it um what else did I learn.

That sometimes I rush through these things and maybe I can just slow down a little bit, give a little slower of answers, but also fear that when I slow down, I may lose the focus, especially as I'm doing the speaking into a camera by myself and I'm tired. So yeah, just juggling all these different things.

And also to just be careful to say that I don't know the answers. I'm just trying my best. And to remind myself I'm trying my best and hope that these help some of you as well. So that's the end. If you appreciated this, or even if you didn't, please check out jimklyber.com slash giving. That's how I'm able to keep doing these things. And you can see examples of how I've given to others, how you've given to me, and just how we kind of create a more generous world. So thank you all. Talk to you next time.