Utkarsh Narang (00:01.752) Our guest today has spent 25 years understanding, reflecting and sharing about something that the world's I think is waking up in the last few years. It's emotions. Emotions are at the core of who we are, how we perform, what we do, how we operate and everything else. And Joshua has been studying emotions and how it impacts people's performance for the last decades. Joshua, welcome to the conversation. look forward to this insightful conversation that we're going to have. Joshua Freedman (00:32.686) Thank you, Udkuresh. It's good to be here. Utkarsh Narang (00:35.12) Thank you. And I was just sharing with you a little while ago, I've sent you about, I don't know, dozens of messages, but I'm someone who's I persevere for getting the right people in this room because I think there's a lot that we, our listeners and myself, we can learn from this conversation. So thank you for sharing your time with us today. Joshua Freedman (00:55.758) It's a pleasure to be here. Utkarsh Narang (00:57.168) Amazing. The first question Josh that we kick our podcast and conversation off with is if that eight year old eight year old Josh wherever that little kid was growing up if that Josh would come and meet you right now what kind of a conversation would emerge between the two of you? Joshua Freedman (01:15.822) Well I think that 8 year old Josh was trying really hard to be loved. And I think when I was, I mean, in some ways I was an optimistic, positive child, but I felt really lonely. I felt really disconnected. I grew up in a fairly dysfunctional family and really a lot of distance between people, not a lot of space for emotions, or at least not very intelligent use of emotions. And so I think... One of the big lessons that I would want to share with my eight-year-old self is you're lovable just as you are. You don't have to work so hard and try to prove that to anyone. And in fact, the more you're trying to fight for that and push for that, the harder it is on you and others. Utkarsh Narang (02:20.42) You're lovable as you are. You don't have to, you don't have to try too hard. As you were saying this, and we've never spoken at length, we don't really know each other, right? So lot of my questions are coming from this space of not knowing. And I'm layering them with my understanding and view of the world to A, get your insights. So I often feel that when kids are growing up, how we talk to them, how we... behave with them, how we allow them to express their emotions or not, decides a lot of what they end up doing in their growing years, right? And as you said this, that you grew up in a family which was dysfunctional or which did not create the space for the emotions to be expressed and used in a way it should. Utkarsh Narang (03:12.452) I would feel that that eight year old boy would find it difficult to grow up in this world and then talk about emotions. So how did that transition and journey emerge Josh? I'm intrigued. Joshua Freedman (03:24.482) think it's because I was bad at it? And at this point, I actually have a lot of appreciation for my childhood and for the opportunities that I had that pushed me, sometimes in ways that was painful and sometimes in ways that was exciting. But I remember when I started teaching and... I'd been teaching for a few years and I started in a school where we had a program called Self Science. And I remember going in to interview and there was like a list of different classes on the board and one of them was Self Science. And I'm like, oh, that's interesting. What kind of science is that? And I really liked science and I thought that was cool. And so I was curious about it. And they're like, oh, well, it's really, you know, this studying yourself and your emotions. And the kids learn about. learn about how they make their choices and they learn to communicate about that. And I remember really distinctly saying, okay, that's not for me. Joshua Freedman (04:41.23) And at that time, I was still really afraid of emotions. And one of the things that happened for me is I saw these 12, 13-year-old kids who were so much better at it than I was. They were so able to listen to each other and to me. They were so able to talk about, know, when you said this, I felt this. And I'm like, how? What's happening here? And that coincided with meeting Dan Gohmann, Ruben Baran, Peter Salovey, other people, Candice Pert, people who really at the forefront, the early days of emotional intelligence. And so it was sort of a perfect storm for me to connect with these pioneers and eventually maybe to become one. But it was really rooted in recognizing that I didn't. do this. Utkarsh Narang (05:46.008) So you that that just that thought that I don't know. like it has to be some amount of growth mindset, some amount of wanting to learn about it. Because from there, when was that moment like where you thought like it's all shifting, it's all changing and where you're more, more emotionally intelligent, you're more listening to the other person when that start to shift. Joshua Freedman (06:13.102) It was, I think, a gradual process, really. But I do remember one particular moment, maybe in my second or third year there. I went to Annabel Jensen, who was the executive director of the school and who's the president of Six Seconds Now. And I said to her, I'm feeling kind of overwhelmed. And she said, well, tell me about it. I was young, I was in my early 20s and... I had several of my students, their parents were going through a divorce. I was really overwhelmed with like how do I support them in that? I think my own trauma, unhealed trauma was definitely coming up for me. And then just the complexity of being a teacher and all that. So I kind of shared some of that and I was expecting she would do what most people do when you tell them you're upset and say, you that's okay, you're doing fine, don't worry. Right, like that's the script. And she said, wow, I think if I was going through all that, I would be depressed too. Maybe it's okay for you to feel depressed. Why don't you try that for a few days and just let yourself feel it. And if you need help, come back. Joshua Freedman (07:48.834) And I walked out of that meeting going, wow, OK, I'm depressed. That's great. But there was something about just how matter of fact she was very compassionate, but not fixing me. Utkarsh Narang (07:56.623) you Joshua Freedman (08:09.42) And that, I mean, years later, as I started studying coaching and working to become a master certified coach and training other coaches, I realized how much power there is in that, like that validation and recognition of emotions without a need to soften or fade or fix or take it away. And I still, to this day, when somebody is struggling and they're in pain, I have to like, sit on my hands, I call it, like hold myself back and not fix it. and go, yeah, that's okay. It's okay that that's hard. But it was such a gift for me. And I walked out of that and it led me to start thinking about how can I engage and connect with my students in that way. Joshua Freedman (09:04.99) And it's sure, you know, it's this worldwide phenomenon. 13 year olds, there's a lot of drama. And I was teaching 12 to 14 year olds. But I just started practicing this. Like, oh wow, it sounds like that's a lot going on. You want to tell me more? Like, oh wow, thanks for sharing that. Like not, like practicing being with them. And it's a great place to practice because young adolescents have so much emotion. And so there was a lot of opportunities for me in those years to practice just being with them. And it completely changed who I was as a teacher. It changed the way I engaged with them. It changed me. And so then in 1997, when we had the opportunity to start Six Seconds, Annabelle asked me if I would like to do that. I jumped at the chance. Not, by the way, expecting to be a speaker or on podcasts about it or writing about it. I thought I was going to be the back office person and Annabel was going to be out front. But life had other plans for me, I guess. Utkarsh Narang (10:18.671) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (10:24.879) Thank God for that because the world needed more of this. And we can dive into one of these themes, right? That don't try to fix it, just be present to the person and what Annabelle said to you. Like, it's OK. It's OK to be depressed. There's nothing wrong with it. But I want to go to the basics and the foundation because I'm assuming maybe our listeners are either new or are still figuring out what it means to have emotional intelligence. So take us to the groundwork, Josh. What does it mean to have emotional intelligence? Joshua Freedman (10:59.31) So I find it useful to think about other kinds of intelligence. So the dictionary definition of intelligence is that you accurately acquire data, you appraise that data well, and then you use that data to solve problems. So mathematical intelligence, you get your bill, you look at how much money's in your wallet, you figure out how you're gonna pay your lunch bill, right? Maybe you're gonna split it with somebody. Utkarsh Narang (11:03.631) Mm-hmm. Joshua Freedman (11:29.694) maybe even many people then it gets really complicated. So you have to assess that data accurately. Okay, here's how much it is, here's how much, you know, here's how much your wine was, here's how my lunch was, whatever. And then use that data to solve the problem, which is to share the bill. Utkarsh Narang (11:41.262) Mm. Joshua Freedman (11:49.516) The exact same thing is true with all other forms of intelligence. With emotional intelligence, it's emotional data. And so we're gonna accurately pick up this emotional data, we're gonna appraise it and figure it out, what does this mean? And then we're gonna use it. Now, with mathematical intelligence, we balance our spreadsheets, we get our budget working, we figure out our deliverables. With emotional intelligence, We balance our time. We figure out how to come together across differences. We learn to hear not just what's being said, but what's beyond what's said. We know how to motivate ourselves and others to inspire, to uplift, to support. These are complicated, complicated puzzles. And it turns out that when we look at even something like splitting the lunch bill, which on the surface seems like a very mathematical challenge, we've all been there. It's not just a mathematical challenge, right? wait. There's a lot to navigate. And what I would say is as we deal with more complex challenges, We need more intelligence, whatever type of intelligence we're using. In a world where we're dealing with tremendous change and complexity, crisscross cultures and globalization and rapid pace of technology and pivoting and trying to find our way through just profound levels of uncertainty, that's a tremendous strong challenge. Joshua Freedman (13:41.358) Unfortunately, what I see is we're not meeting that challenge that well in the world. We're muddling through, but there's a lot of suffering. There's a lot of people in deep pain. And I hope that if we can build up more of these skills, we can get better results with less costs. Utkarsh Narang (14:07.061) I love how you've compared it with and absolutely right when you're trying to the lunch bill, it depends on who's drinking, who's not, who ate how much and whatnot. And so all of those complexities. what we are talking about here in terms of emotional intelligence, these variables are these variables have their own variables. Like when you're when you're looking at cultures, each culture is different. How they respond to something is so different. Technology is adding another completely different layer to it. We have this uncertainty and it's like a word that's been abused, overused and misused because it doesn't even end and I don't think it's going to ever end. And so where does one begin? Because you're saying collecting the data, but just collecting the data around emotions is so hard because sometimes we don't even understand what we're feeling, let alone trying to decipher the emotion and then understand someone else. So yeah, just it's still very complex. So can we simplify it for the listeners? Like is there a framework that we can dive into that helps our listeners say, that's amazing. Joshua Freedman (15:10.446) Well, I started to approach this from a fairly analytical perspective because that's how I grew up, how I was trained to think. And I got interested in the science of emotion. And my new book, Emotion Rules, goes deep into the neurobiology, how emotions actually work in our brains and bodies. at a neurological level, at a chemical level. And I found that by studying the neurobiology, it was a really great doorway for me because one of the things that I used to experience, I saw emotions as really random and kind of scary and they were things that were happening to me. And I've come to see they're not random. There is a logic to emotion. It's not the same logic. as the logic of numbers or the logic of physics. And as its own logic. And diving in to explore emotions and then emotional logic was super helpful for me. It gave me a way to kind of connect and feel more comfortable with emotion. We have lots of tools that we published at Six Seconds. There's a great wheel of emotion. I'm just about to release a new wheel connected with my book. which is going into the wisdom of emotions. But really just starting to build your vocabulary and tune in and go, what is the difference between being frustrated and being disappointed and being mad and being sad? There are differences. I have an emotion list which has about a thousand words on it. some research that I share in the new book is that most adults use 14. words for emotions. I think even that's a stretch. I think most of us use about five. Utkarsh Narang (17:16.727) Yeah. Good and bad is where we start and then we get stuck somewhere. Joshua Freedman (17:21.452) Yeah, so expanding the vocabulary and just going, well, that's an interesting word. I wonder what that's like. What does that mean? I think that's a great place to start because it's fascinating. Utkarsh Narang (17:35.032) I want us to dive deep into this. The podcast is called Ignited Neurons, right? So this is igniting my neurons. If we were to pick any two emotions and I'll let you drive this. If you were to pick two emotions and understand how our brain is perceiving it very differently, because what I'm sensing is that I get angry because someone said something to me and I'm reacting to that. I will be happy because I get to know that I won the lottery. So to me, it's always something that's happening on the outside that's making me feel a certain emotion. Is that not true or is the neurobiology driving the emotion of what I'm sensing? Yeah. Joshua Freedman (18:17.656) So David Eagleman shared some really cool data about the neurology around this. We have far more interconnections between our memory and our emotional systems than between our senses and our emotional systems. So probably what's happening is we are creating an emotional experience. more through our memory, more through our interpretation, than through what's external. And it's like that, you know, Simon and Garfunkel song, you know, walking down the very same street on the very same day, something like that. The mood we're in changes what we perceive. And, you know, when you are in love, you know, in that like wonderful feeling of like newly in love and like You walk down the street and you see certain things. And it's like, look at that beautiful flower. look at those people talking. look, you know, and then you walk down that same street on a different day and you're like, there's trash on the ground and somebody parked illegally and why is that person cutting me off? Like the same environment, we pick up different things. And part of the neurobiological function of emotion is to reinforce a set of perceptions. It's part of our survival value to navigate in an environment. Emotions tell us what to pay attention to. So they focus our attention and they energize or motivate us. And certain feelings focus our attention on threats or problems or risks. Other feelings focus our attention on opportunities. And in either case, the emotion is kind of saying, hey, did you notice that? Like, pay attention to this. And then energizing us or galvanizing us to deal with that opportunity or threat. Joshua Freedman (20:24.15) So the short answer is it's probably more internal than external, but it is both. Utkarsh Narang (20:34.123) And when you said memory leads to how memories intertwine with emotions, it could be also of the place, the person, anything. So if I don't have a good relationship with someone, like my manager and I don't have a good relationship, anything that my manager is saying will put on an emotion that is more not constructive. Would that be the right word to use? Problem oriented. I like that phrase. Joshua Freedman (20:57.477) problem-oriented. Utkarsh Narang (21:01.263) So more problem oriented. And otherwise, if I have a peer who I have a great relationship with and they find fault in my behavior, even that would not lead to that problem behavior, emotion. Hmm. That's interesting. Joshua Freedman (21:15.63) think we've all experienced this. An example that I think is really useful in the kind of current era is when we're stressed, a little thing, like let's just say it's a beautiful day, we're on vacation, everything's calm, and somebody says X to me. And I'm like, okay, no big deal. And then it's whatever. busy day in November and I've got a lot going on and I'm trying to balance 17 things and I didn't sleep enough and yada yada yada and somebody says the exact same thing to me. Right? It's like that that same stimulus could trigger this bigger response or this bigger response. And when we're stressed part of what stress is is it's tuning up click click click click. getting more energy into that reaction system. And so the more stressed we are, the more we're gonna treat a small thing as a big thing. And by the way, it's not just bad things. You know, when you are really struggling, a kind word has so much. Utkarsh Narang (22:39.929) so powerful. And so if someone starts there where they're trying to understand what it means to have emotional digest, they're looking at their data that's coming to them, they're assessing it, the vocabulary, they're expanding the vocabulary, they've gone through the list and they've gone from 14 to maybe 28, maybe even 40 to explain what emotion they're sensing. What comes next? Joshua Freedman (23:04.302) So in the six seconds framework, we have a three step process for how you practice emotional intelligence. And I find it useful to just sort of have this process framework. So the first step is getting the data, know yourself, tuning in. there's something happening. The second step is to stop and to assess and consider. We, our brains are pattern following systems. Our brains create and follow patterns. It's the fundamental kind of neurological function. And we do that in order to create efficiency. We learn and we do it again. But we don't have to follow the patterns. And if we pause, we have the opportunity to disrupt and say, okay, so I have this immediate reaction. I can follow that, but I don't have to. I have options. So the first step is to notice. The second step is to stop, disrupt the pattern, switch off autopilot, and say, okay, so what are some more options? And then the third step is to step forward towards one of those options. And I think this is actually the hardest part. I used to think just noticing the first step was gonna be hard. And then I thought the second step was really challenging, but now I think the third step is actually the most challenging because the third step, once we've gone off of autopilot and we see a lot of options, which option are we gonna choose? And I think this is where we move from emotional intelligence to emotional wisdom. How do we figure out when there isn't a clear when there isn't a clear answer. Because intelligence is about seeing and solving, but wisdom is about finding our way through that unknown. What's actually worth solving? What's important? What matters? What has a long-term implication? So wisdom is when we move into this space of kind of moving through the unknown, and emotions give us clues about what matters. Joshua Freedman (25:29.632) So step one, get the data. Step two, pause, switch off autopilot. Step three, move forward on purpose. But in order to move forward on purpose, we need to have a deeper sense of where we wanna go. And in the new book, I wrote about a lot about this, but I was reminded of the story from Alice in Wonderland. And she says to the Cheshire Cat, which way should I go? And the Cheshire Cat, as you might remember, says, well, where are you trying to get to? And Alice says, I don't know. And so the Cheshire Cat says, go that way. Right? And points both directions. Because it doesn't matter where you go if you don't have a... Utkarsh Narang (26:09.934) Hmm. Joshua Freedman (26:13.454) place you're trying to get. So for this third step, figuring out what is important? What do I want to contribute to? What do I want to be part of? What's pulling me into the future? And how do I make sure that in this moment, I take a small step towards who I really want to be? Utkarsh Narang (26:13.657) Yeah. Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (26:36.365) I love the switch from emotional intelligence and the growth towards emotional wisdom. It's where you're actually choosing that path. So that is super helpful. And I want to come to understanding and brainstorming more on like what allows us to really choose wisely. And I have a hypothesis that I'd love to share with you, but just to maybe put this into practice. I'm a parent, my son, 12 years old. is drinking a glass of milk and he's wanting to play on his iPad and he by lifting his iPad spills the milk all over the carpet and that's a new carpet we just bought for $400 and my heart is crying and I want to really be angry in that moment super angry how do I go through these three steps what how do I what do I do what do I do as a parent Joshua Freedman (27:33.016) So you mentioned anger. And one of the things that's, I think, helpful is to know we always have more than one feeling at a time. So it's not just the loud, obvious feeling, but what else are you feeling? Utkarsh Narang (27:51.664) I'm frustrated that now we have to clean it up. I'm irritated that why could he not pay attention? I'm also feeling this loss or sense of loss that, now what if the carpet does not get clean and we've lost this $400 carpet or whatever. I'm also feeling fear. What will my wife say now? You could not take care of the cake for one hour. Joshua Freedman (28:16.718) Your wife is going to say, how did you let him do that? Utkarsh Narang (28:20.045) How did you know? Exactly. So, I'm fearful of that too. So yeah, it's a whole cocktail of emotions, but anger seems to be the loudest. Joshua Freedman (28:29.58) And yeah, and you probably also feel some responsiveness. Joshua Freedman (28:36.584) some determination and maybe also love and concern. By the way. Joshua Freedman (28:46.85) This is a fairly complicated idea that I get into in the book, but we tend to think of something like anger. maybe opposite of some Joshua Freedman (29:05.592) But I would suggest that if you didn't care, you wouldn't be angry. Joshua Freedman (29:13.59) If he didn't matter to you and him growing in to be a responsible, good person, if that really didn't matter to you, you'd be like, whatever, clean the carpet, doesn't matter. But it's because you have deep commitment, deep values, deep love, that that's what makes all these other emotions so intense. So this is why it's so important to not just stick with the one emotion. looking at this larger, as you said, cocktail. Okay, there's a lot going on in this moment. All right, so we've collected data, and now we're gonna switch off autopilot. So you're angry, what have you learned in your life? When I feel angry, I something. I shout, I blame, I bang my head against the wall, I blame myself, I something, there's something you learned. What's the old pattern? Utkarsh Narang (30:15.321) Yeah, the old pattern is to shout, to blame myself and him. It is to feel that, be screwed up completely. is to, yeah, it is to just feel hollow in a way because that, because it now triggers something that might have happened in my childhood where I spilled a glass of milk and how did my parents react? And just for our listeners, putting an asterisk there. Joshua Freedman (30:32.942) Mm-hmm. Utkarsh Narang (30:43.983) My parents did not react in a bad way. don't want them to be listening. My mom is an avid listener. She's an avid listener of the podcast and she'll be like, she'll call me. What the hell? But yeah, but yeah, that's all I'm feeling like I'm feeling responsible and blame and all of that. And maybe, yeah, almost like in the worst case, funny to give a, not saying it, but give a slap to my son. Like, what the hell? Joshua Freedman (30:46.51) In case they're listening, we want them to know. Joshua Freedman (30:54.946) Hahaha! Joshua Freedman (31:08.226) Yeah, yeah. So in this second step, we're going to stop. And what are some other? Joshua Freedman (31:20.984) And by the way, they don't have to be brilliant. They can be crazy, they can be practical. Let's just expand the options. Utkarsh Narang (31:31.531) As soon as you said crazy, the first thought came to you was like, let's stop and look at the pattern that we have made on the carpet because of the spill of the milk. Maybe it looks OK. My wife would know. It's an art project. Maybe it's like whatever has happened, happened. So what do we learn? Maybe it's like, how do we clean now? Or can you now on your iPad look at YouTube and find how to remove a milk spill from a carpet? Joshua Freedman (31:43.284) It's an art project. Okay, what else? Utkarsh Narang (31:59.598) Yeah, now as I'm thinking, the horizon has expanded from shouting, blaming to being creative to learning something new from this moment. Joshua Freedman (32:08.91) And like look how quickly, and I can see it in your face, like this has started to shift the emotion for you as you expand these options. Okay, so that was step two. And now, how are you gonna decide which step to take, which option to take? So what I would like to encourage you to do here is to first connect with empathy, which is for yourself and for him. Can you feel that connectedness with him? And then, what is your purpose? Utkarsh Narang (32:47.437) in this moment to be a good parent and a kind human being who who will leave a lesson but a positive impact on the child. That's in front of him. Joshua Freedman (33:03.726) And not to go too deep here, but when you think about that positive impact Can you give it a word or label? What is it to be, what is that positive image? Utkarsh Narang (33:19.15) Love. Joshua Freedman (33:20.312) love. So if you are fulfilling your purpose, there'll be more love in the world. and your son will be somebody who is able to share more love. Joshua Freedman (33:38.478) So now, with that in mind, what are you gonna choose? Utkarsh Narang (33:45.207) the latter, the one, those creative actions. Let's clean this up. Let's look at the spill. Let's try and see how we can rectify and what we can learn from the next time. Joshua Freedman (33:59.183) So that's the process that we teach at 6 Seconds. Utkarsh Narang (34:03.791) I love it. And there are so many examples that are coming to me right now. like a few work examples. So we were sending a few emails last evening where we were reaching out to big brands to help us sponsor the podcast. So if anyone's listening, this is your moment. And my team sent those emails, but they forgot to add any attachments. And the creator kit, all of that was in the drive, was not shared. Now looking at that, I'm like... Joshua Freedman (34:19.886) Mm-hmm Utkarsh Narang (34:32.359) the project is going to fail because you did not do it right. But I want to be a leader who's so I rectified that. And there are so many examples that are coming to my mind that the day before yesterday, something happened. Won't get into the details. But here's my challenge for those. For those who are still in a state of reaction and response, for those who are still not going through these three steps, or the brain is not wired to the primitive brain kicks in and it's like, you spill the milk, I'm gonna teach you the lesson of your lifetime. For those who are in that state, Josh, how do we help them move forward? Like, what's the trigger? do we help them? Joshua Freedman (35:16.43) So I think we kind of go to the fundamental of change, which is you cannot change anybody. We can change ourselves. And so the question is, this thing that I grappled with when I was in my early 20s, which is like, I want to be better. I'm bad at this. I want to be better at it. My own experience is that Most people that I interact with are very good at figuring stuff out. I with a lot of engineers. I work with a lot of senior executives. They are excellent at solving problems. They're excellent at optimizing. What happens is they need to decide, this is something worth optimizing. This is a constraint I want to go after. And whatever it is in business, in organizational life, in community, whatever, in the world, when people say, this is important, I want to figure this out, my experience is people are quite good at doing that. So I go to, in fact, I have a new post that I'm just working on for our LinkedIn group about this idea of what is the first step? And I'll give away the post. I think the first step is valuing it. Utkarsh Narang (36:44.015) Thanks Joshua Freedman (36:49.89) Because if you don't see the value in connecting, doing this stuff that we're talking about, if you don't see the value in it, it doesn't matter how many tips you and I give, how many practical strategies we have, how many options there are, because if somebody isn't going value it, they're not going to do it. And in coaching, we talk a lot about this with new coaches, aspiring coaches. You can't start coaching. until your client has said, yeah, I want to work on this. And once you've defined this, and by the way, the neuroscience of it is really interesting, we attach emotion to the vision. We feel the pull of vision. And when we feel that pull, when it matters to us, it galvanizes our energy. So for me, that's really the first step is. I want to have a different impact. I want to have this kind of relationship with my team members or my son. Utkarsh Narang (38:03.289) Yeah. And what was also emerging for me, so I love to talk a lot about values. And as we were talking about choosing this, this aspect of like how I want to be now, what's my purpose, I was coming down to the values. One of the values is love. And that's why when you asked me, the word that emerged for me was love. And so just having those values as your compass could drive you to choosing the right emotions, but you're right. we cannot change others, they need to value the change that they're going to bring about through the conversation. Joshua Freedman (38:36.77) I also find that values are almost always in conflict. Right, I value accountability and I value growth. And I value forgiveness and I value patience. Right, and I value efficiency. Those things are often, it's hard to have them all at once. And so one of the things that I think we need to learn how to do is to go, okay, well in this moment I can't have all the things that I want. But. Utkarsh Narang (38:53.838) Hmm. Mmm. Utkarsh Narang (39:01.582) Hmm. Joshua Freedman (39:10.926) I can, you know, if I'm going to pick and not undermine what's really important, and I'm going to pick one of these things to work on, what am I going to pick? And in organizational life, I think this is very important. I work with a lot of senior leaders on strategy and human capital strategy, people strategy. You can't optimize for everything. Do you want to have a culture that's super innovative? People are going to make mistakes. You want to have a culture that's Utkarsh Narang (39:20.173) Yeah. Joshua Freedman (39:40.488) super accurate, you're not gonna have so much innovation. So as you look at what you're trying to achieve in your organization and how you create value, build a culture that's aligned to that. And don't try to optimize everything. Pick the things that are really important. Utkarsh Narang (39:58.766) Yeah, love that, love that. And the post that you revealed, thank you for that. And somewhere Josh mentioned about the LinkedIn group, it's one of the largest in the world, largest. And it definitely is the most active group that I've ever experienced and seen. So we'll maybe have a few minutes on that too. I love the process as you're reflecting on this. Even after 20 years of teaching this, Josh, is there an emotion that you struggle with that you feel like is the hardest to master still? Joshua Freedman (40:29.346) Well, I struggle with excitement. Utkarsh Narang (40:32.163) Hmm. Joshua Freedman (40:33.666) I get really excited about things. And I say, yes, and let's do it, and let's go. And I start pushing. And it's funny because it's such a fun feeling. But for me, it's a challenging one. Utkarsh Narang (40:35.759) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (40:53.391) and how do you manage it? Joshua Freedman (40:56.366) Step one, notice. Step two, stop and expand the options. Step three, consider what's really important in this moment. Utkarsh Narang (41:04.195) Love it. Love it. Practice what you preach. That's the way to go about it. Joshua Freedman (41:07.598) I will also just add, I think a lot of us who've been trained and conditioned to avoid emotions, we wait until they're really big. Right, and probably that interaction with your son, it wasn't just that he spilled the milk. Probably you've had like seven little arguments on the way to that, and you've told him already, don't drink the milk and well, you have your iPad and he's doing it anyway, and you're already frustrated. And so you've gone up the escalator already. What if we learn to notice it down here? I'm a little frustrated. It's so much easier to deal with. And so for me, it's like, okay, I'm excited about this. I'm not like, woo, over the moon, but I'm just a little excited. That's much easier for me to pause and go, let me consider. Utkarsh Narang (41:57.007) Hmm. Joshua Freedman (42:03.736) What else am I feeling? What other options do I have? What's really important? And those are the three questions. What am I feeling? What are my options? What's really important? Utkarsh Narang (42:19.139) What made you call the organization Six Seconds? Joshua Freedman (42:21.518) Well, I mentioned Annabel Jensen. Annabel, sometimes we call her Annabel Research Says Jensen because she's always saying, well, research says. So we were having a meeting and we were talking about what to call the organization. And I was advocating for platypus. They're very social. They're very loyal. They're very unusual. Utkarsh Narang (42:43.023) Hmm. Joshua Freedman (42:49.646) And I thought that would be a fun name. Other people were not so excited about platypus. Along the way, some point in the conversation, Annabelle said, well, know, research says that when you listen to somebody, it takes about six seconds for them to feel compassion. And another point in the conversation, we were talking about Dr. Candice Pert, who is one of our advisory board members, been telling us about how long emotions last, and four to seven seconds. we're talking, and anybody said, well, yeah, research says it takes about six seconds for us to transform emotions. Anyway, this was over the course of a few hours, and I don't know who said it, but somebody said, so it takes six seconds to feel compassion. and take six seconds to transform emotions. Maybe we should be called six seconds. And we all looked at each other and like, yeah, that's a pretty cool name. Utkarsh Narang (43:48.976) Yeah, yeah, so cool. You've worked with organizations across the world and you've been doing this for decades, What's, even today when you're in a boardroom talking to leaders, what's still something that's around emotions that you see them being like shocked by or surprised by? Joshua Freedman (44:10.158) Well, a lot of times they're surprised that trust is an emotion. Utkarsh Narang (44:15.887) Hmm. Joshua Freedman (44:17.442) And trust is something people talk about a lot in business with customers, with employees, with investors. And then they sort of go around about like, we need to have more, we need to increase blah, blah, blah. would be great to more trust. And then when I say, you know, by the way, trust is actually one of the eight basic emotions. Trust is an emotion. Yeah, you feel trust or distrust. And it determines the risks that you take. And they're like, yeah, well, we need trust. So I guess we need to learn about emotions. Utkarsh Narang (45:02.969) Yeah. Yeah. Fascinating trust. I always thought like trust is more like action oriented thing. Like you trust others, but it's you feel the trust. Interesting. Utkarsh Narang (45:21.807) You know, like we can speak and emotions are at the core of us being human beings, right? And so there's a lot of talk right now in the world how we're all and I'm not even going to touch AI today. Maybe that's for episode part two. But this idea of people sensing this idea of burnout and that could be a mix of like that could be a whole cocktail of emotions that one is feeling that's leading them to feel burnout. How do you see this? connection between emotions and burnout, if any. Joshua Freedman (45:54.413) Yeah, if you think about times in your life when you've worked unbelievably hard, but you didn't have burnout. versus times that maybe you worked not even unbelievably hard, just worked hard, and you did. One of the immediate realizations is, actually burnout isn't really about how hard I work. And I've had times in my life where I've just had endless, seemed like endless amounts of energy. I first really experienced deep burnout in 2020. And after months of kind of grappling and pivoting and dealing with uncertainty of the early pandemic, I reached a point of pretty deep burnout. And that led me to kind of study it even more. I'd already been interested in it. One of the things that I will mention is I'm surprised at how I think I'm still four years later, five years later, I think I'm still affected by that. It's not a quick thing. But it's not, it's fundamentally burnout has to do with unmet emotional needs. A lack of meaning, a lack of autonomy, a lack of recognition, a lack of support. Joshua Freedman (47:27.234) These are foundational, deep emotional needs. And when you look at different theories of what are the basic human needs, most of them have some variation of safety, some variation of meaning, of relationship or connection, of achievement, of something like autonomy. And the other bad news is in our research, we see that the emotional intelligence competencies most connected to these very things, they're the ones that have gone down the most in the last five years. So it wasn't just me in the pandemic affected by this. Our research is a randomized sampling from 169 countries. It's the largest study of emotional intelligence there is. And we've been doing it now for 15 years. We've published every few years, new findings. And we just published in Frontiers in Psychology, in a special edition on the future of work, this incredible findings about the relationship between emotional intelligence and burnout and the pandemic period. And I think So many people are grappling with this right now. And I think it's a very important area for us to figure out how to recover our drive and recover that emotional connection with the sense of opportunity. Exercising optimism is one of the competencies that drop the most. And so when we are feeling pessimistic, we don't see options. Remember that second step in the three steps. Like what are options? There aren't any. Okay, that is a place where we're gonna really accelerate burnout. And then in that third step, I asked you about purpose. And we call it pursuing noble goals. And when people feel disconnected from their noble goals or unable to pursue them, they don't see they can make a difference in the long term. They don't see that their choices matter. Joshua Freedman (49:45.518) And so that is a very strong indicator for burnout. Utkarsh Narang (49:53.069) Yeah, it's such a complex conversation to have, but I think how you've explained at the crux of it, this need to feel safe, to have meaning, to feel supported, recognition, autonomy. think, yeah, over the five years, this has gone down for many, and that is a leading cause of burnout. And we come back to the three steps. If you can... do those three steps. Can we have the questions once once more Josh the three questions that one needs to ask. Joshua Freedman (50:23.726) Yeah, what are you feeling? What are your options? And what's really important? Utkarsh Narang (50:36.214) and everyone will have different answers every time you ask them these questions. Joshua Freedman (50:40.686) So we put these in a circle and go around and around and around that circle. You don't stop. And I think about it like a propeller. And when you have a ship on a smooth sea, the propeller doesn't have to turn very fast for the ship to move. But when you have heavy seas and you've got a lot of headwinds you've got a lot of big waves, those propellers are going to need a lot more energy to keep that ship moving. Utkarsh Narang (50:48.055) Hmm. Utkarsh Narang (51:08.172) Yeah. Yeah. Joshua Freedman (51:10.592) So that's where we are right now. We're at a time where there are really heavy seas. There's a lot of emotional complexity in our work and in our lives and our communities and our families. And so we've got to bring more emotional intelligence to bear. Utkarsh Narang (51:24.44) Yeah, more and more, more and more. Joshua Freedman (51:29.07) I'll just mention one other thing about those basic human needs. We measure this in organizational EQ. We measure for teams, organizations, individual leaders. Are you building trust? What is the level of trust in this team or organization? If you don't have trust, it's not a team, it's just a bunch of people. We measure that motivation and that ability to connect with purpose. We measure agility and change and people's readiness to adapt. We measure teamwork, we measure focus and execution. And these five drivers in organizations predict 50 to 60 % of the variation in organizational performance. So we can do this at an individual level. We can measure emotional intelligence competencies. We can also do that at a team or organizational level. And by being able to measure it, we're able to put it on the dashboard, bring it to scale, show the ROI, and you get what you measure. Utkarsh Narang (52:39.661) Love it. I'm just, there's so many things that I still want us to talk about. But our podcast platforms tell us that one hour is a good duration for a podcast episode. Maybe we'll have episode part two, definitely in the new year. One question that's kind of poking my head again. If you were to, and you have, and you coach and you're an MCC coach, if there was one question you could ask every leader. Joshua Freedman (52:50.196) Yeah. Utkarsh Narang (53:09.113) to that reflects their sense of emotional intelligence, emotional maturity? What would that, like, is there a single question that you don't want to ask every leader in the world? Joshua Freedman (53:22.232) Well, one question I ask a lot is, what do you do here? Joshua Freedman (53:31.694) And it's a question that I do some still. I used to do a lot of consulting. And I'd go in and work with an organization. I'd just ask everybody, oh, what do you do here? And it's fascinating to sit in a room of senior leaders and just say, you know, since I'm new, just, I mean, I already know it. I've already studied this. I know exactly what their roles are and whatever, right? But I just go, oh, you know, since I'm new here, I just want to go around and have everybody tell me, what do you do here? And it's fascinating how some people answer that as a role. Well, I'm the chief information officer. Some people answer it as a function. I look after our information systems. Some people answer it from a perspective of people and culture. I help our people use information well. Joshua Freedman (54:29.322) And to me, that third answer is people leadership. And I think a lot of times in organizations, folks get caught up in tasks and they forget that their job as leaders is not actually the function, it's not actually the task, it's the people. And so that tells me a lot when I go around and I hear a bunch of people in the room answering at this kind of transactional level. It helps me very quickly understand what we're dealing with in this organization. Utkarsh Narang (55:03.203) Yeah. Love it. Love it. Joshua Freedman (55:07.318) In coaching, by the way, my very favorite question I asked you earlier, what else are you feeling? Utkarsh Narang (55:13.743) you Joshua Freedman (55:15.192) Because I find that when you get into that, well, what else are you feeling? Like, there's just so much that opens up. Utkarsh Narang (55:22.415) Yeah, you open the beautiful box. Beautiful box. I'm about to say that, I'm like, should I? I? Should I not? Let me get to the end of this conversation, which I've loved and so many insights. And we'll do part two. Now, if we go into the future, Josh, and from that eight-year-old to now that 80-year-old, the one from the future, if that 80-year-old were to come to you right now and give you one piece of advice on how to lead the rest of your years. Joshua Freedman (55:26.55) Or Pandora's Box. Utkarsh Narang (55:52.439) What would that 80 year old say? Joshua Freedman (55:56.121) Well, I wish I knew, I think that one of the things that I have grappled with in the last few years is keeping open-hearted. Utkarsh Narang (55:57.839) Ha ha ha. Joshua Freedman (56:08.056) maintaining optimism, maintaining compassion. My noble goal is to inspire compassionate wisdom. And when I look at the messes that we have around the world, I sometimes get real impatient. And Mingar Rinpoche wrote a book about being in love with life. The title is something like that. And I was thinking, I want to stay in love with life. And to me that openheartedness, appreciation, compassion are really at the center of that. And so I hope that my 80 year old self is still committed to that. Utkarsh Narang (57:01.571) and is in love with life. And is in love with life. To everyone who's still with us one hour into the conversation, stay open-hearted. Stay in love with life. When Josh or someone else asks you, do you do, answer wisely. The three questions that you should be asking yourself and others, what are you feeling? What are your options? And what to you is really important? We all want change, but changing the other person is not an option. Changing yourself is the only option that's available. And step one is to understand why change and what's the value of that change that's going to bring to you. So think about that. We've spoken about emotional intelligence and we've elevated the conversation to emotional wisdom. And that's something that we can still deliberate and talk, talk and think about more about that. But I that's a beautiful idea. I love Josh something you said, which is that the seas are really strong right now and so the world needs more of this work, world needs more of understanding our emotions. It's a complicated puzzle, but it's a puzzle worth solving for. And if someone comes to you and shares their emotions to you, do not try to fix them. There's no fixing needed here. Just pause, listen, and let them be where they are because sometimes that's the best thing you can do for them. And finally, the eight-year-old Josh told us, you're lovable as you are. You don't have to try too hard to be loved. Thanks, Josh, again, for all the wisdom. Any final words before we wrap up? Joshua Freedman (58:43.944) I'm just appreciative of the time together and thank you for sharing emotional intelligence on LinkedIn and in lots of places. Utkarsh Narang (58:52.719) Absolutely, absolutely. We've not spoken about the LinkedIn group yet, but yeah, we'll come to all of that. It's a, and that's why I've been persevering and wanting to have Josh on the podcast because I know there is a wealth of wisdom here. To everyone who's on a podcast platform, share with someone who you think will value this. And if you feel that you don't have anyone in your network who will, keep it to yourself. Enjoy it, listen to it, keep it to yourself. Do not share it with anyone. And if you're on YouTube. Put your name on the comments. We'd love to see who is listening to us because that's what builds this community. That's what builds this tribe. Until the next episode of the Dignitarians podcast, this is Utkash and Josh signing off.