John Mark Nickels: evaluation

Transcript context

…Okay. I want to come back to the thread that I pushed us off of, which is you talked about, you made this really interesting point about emotions, and this is something I've been learning myself recently with having a kid and also a couple of previous guests. So you say that when you have... so you're in this meeting, you're stressed, there's a lizard brain kicking in. Something's like, "Oh, Dara's going to think I suck and it's going to really screw my career if I mess up this presentation." Your advice there is very counterintuitive, I think for a lot of people, which is accept that emotion. Because when I feel stressed and nervous in a meeting, I'm not, "Embrace the nervousness, let it out." It's more I'm just like, "No, it's fine. Going to be okay. Don't worry about it." Talk about why that is actually more effective. Yeah, yeah. It's like my daughter the other day had some nightmares and she was like, "Dad, how do I stop thinking thoughts about the nightmare or whatever?" And I said, "You can't. Don't try to stop the thought. Just allow it. Let me show you why that doesn't work." I said, "Don't think of a pink elephant. What did you just think of?" And she's like, "A pink elephant." And then now she thinks it's hilarious and she tells her sister, "Don't think of a pink elephant." But yeah, I think you're right. It is a little counterintuitive, but one of my first coaches actually had a great phrase, what you resist will persist and what you fear will appear. And so in my experience, this is another reason why becoming more aware of my internal world has been so important. I have more agency than I realized on the outcome of my experience. And so when I think a thought like, Dara might think I suck and then I have a thought that I suck, that can become a self-enforcing negative feedback loop where I have a thought that creates stress, anxiety, fear, and then that triggers more thoughts and we call it cognitive emotive loop where you're kind of in this cycle of thinking stressful thoughts and then having unpleasant, anxious, fearful feelings. And so one way to break that is to just allow it and not try to fight it with other thoughts. So the advice is very tactically, so you're in a meeting with Dara, you're stressed about something. Just allow it, let it be. Don't try to pretend like it's not there or don't try to convince yourself-…

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