G'day leaders. In this episode we discuss emotions and feelings. Are they the same or
are they different? We touch on the science behind them with tips on how to control your
state. This podcast is a little shorter but packed full of goodness. Enjoy.
Why did it count backwards? Oh no, we're now recording.
What? Hello captain.
What do I say?
Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly away.
What are we going to talk about?
I don't know. So leadership, life and everything else.
Okay so we're going to talk about emotions and feelings and how they're actually different
things because most people use them interchangeably in language but they're actually different.
That's right, you brought up believing that you get control of your emotions and feelings
as one.
Yeah they're not. They're different. So the simple way to look at it is emotions are chemicals
that are released into our body because of stimulus, stimuli, and feelings is the meaning
that we associate to the emotional response or the way we think. So one's chemical, the
other's emotions, and feelings are thoughts, the way we think about the event. And we both
love this next fact that we discovered from a neuroscientist called Dr Jill Balty Taylor.
She said that emotions only last for 90 seconds.
I know, this blew my mind when I first saw it. I actually saw her talking on a TED talk
and it gave me power to know that because it's like if an intense emotion happens, I
can ride that for 90 seconds and know that if it goes downhill after that, I'm in my
head.
Yeah you're thinking, yeah. So that TED talk is one where she suffered a stroke and she
experienced what life was like without the left hand side of her brain operating.
I know, for anyone who hasn't seen it, I recommend it because she actually talks about how when
she had that stroke, so the neuroscientist in her was saying, quick, I need to record
what's actually happening in my brain. How cool is this that I'm actually a neuroscientist
and I'm having a stroke and I know what's happening.
It's a fantastic, fantastic TED talk. I love the way she describes how the brain has different
compartments. Anyway, let's get back to, hopefully we can talk about that particular TED talk
for ages, but we'll get back to emotions and feelings and the fact that emotions are just
a cocktail of chemicals that have been released into our body and I like to call it a sensation
rather than a feeling. So we're experiencing the sensation of anger or the sensation of
sadness because I want to, in my head, separate it from feelings because the feelings are,
like I said before, the meaning that we attribute to it, the thoughts that we associate to whatever
it is that's happening and the fact that an emotion only lasts for 90 seconds is such
a powerful piece of knowledge.
It is, it is. It really does give you control then.
So you can just sit with that chemical, almost just bathe in it.
Put a timer. That's right. Give yourself two minutes. Like round it out to two minutes.
Just sit there. Sit on your hands basically and let that go.
And just wait for 90 seconds?
Yeah, yeah.
Wait it out. Wait it out. What's another situation where we would just wait something out?
Like the traffic lights. We're at a traffic light. We know it's going to go green.
True.
Yeah. If we wait it out, it goes green and we go.
Except when you're at the pedestrian crossing, you've got to push that button.
A thousand times.
Well, you know.
But not during COVID, you had to use your elbow.
That's right. Yes, and you look like weird.
Yes.
But actually that's one of the things that when we're flying and for, you know, when
something, failure management is what we call it. So bang, you know, engine goes bang.
Yeah. Not a good thing, I presume.
No, that's right.
Engine goes bang.
So we're told, you know, aviate, navigate, communicate. So control the aircraft, point
in the right direction, say, oh crap, you know, something's happened. I have control.
But then sit on your hands. So give yourself, and it feels like forever, but just take in
a deep breath. So that shock and that acute shock and what would you call it?
Where just that surprise element.
You're going into fight or flight.
You have gone into fight or flight. So rather than all this adrenaline and the bloods rushing
down and everything and you really get tunnel vision, sit on your hands metaphorically and
take in a huge breath.
So this is what you're taught to do.
We are taught to do that.
To calm yourself down.
Exactly, exactly.
To not let the emotions take over.
Correct. Yeah.
What a fantastic piece of training. I wish I had got that when I was a younger kid. I
was not very good at sitting out my emotions because I'd get into my head and start thinking.
And that's the issue, isn't it? When you start thinking, you start catastrophizing.
That's right. You can go down a wormhole.
Yeah. So you start thinking about all the negative thoughts and all of the negative
meaning that you could attribute to that situation if it's a negative emotion, obviously. And
then when you're in those thoughts and you're in your head, you're then going to be releasing
more of the emotion, which are the chemicals.
Yeah.
So it's like this vicious loop. So if something happens, we have an emotional response. We
get the cocktail of chemicals that comes into our body out of our amygdala, the limbic part
of our brain. And so we go into fight or flight. And now if we just sat with that chemical
for 90 seconds, it's going to go away, but we don't. We then come up into our neocortex,
the top part of our brain, our conscious mind. We start having all of these thoughts and
start thinking, which then releases more of the chemical. And two days later, we're still
holding a grudge because somebody cut us off in a car.
That's right. My daughter does this really well. She can be, something happens. She gets
instantly emotion, like the emotion hits her instantly, but she has the ability and how,
I don't know. It's not from me.
I don't know. I think she might've learned from her mom.
Oh, I don't know because I was at her age. I was definitely not in control of myself.
Yeah, you're an airline captain who's in control of her emotions now.
But she at, you know, at 11 can be in it. And then she sits down, she closes her eyes
and then she'll be like, okay. And she's back to him.
Wow. What a fantastic skill.
I know. She's, she's.
Well, she may have learned that from you because that's where kids learn all of their skills,
especially the good skills like that. So kudos.
However, my son, not so much.
My son as well. We're having chats about it.
It's funny though, children get these massive releases of these emotional chemicals,
a cocktail of chemicals. And one of the things that I'm very conscious of as adults and parents
that we often expect them to know how to deal with this big volume of emotions and chemicals
that are flooding their bodies, especially when they've got hormones being released at the same time.
So we get these kids with this, this overwhelming rush of this chemical sensation.
And as parents, we stand there and go, calm down or stop behaving like that.
Or, you know, we almost, we don't give them credit for the fact that they're driving around in a Ferrari
and they've never been given a driving lesson. Yeah.
And so I think all parents should be a lot more patient with children and realise that
they're often being flooded with these chemicals that they've got no knowledge on,
no idea of why it's happening. So they go into their head, they start catastrophising.
And we just say, calm down, stop behaving like that.
And no one ever in, in ever has calmed down after being told to calm down.
Yeah, no, it's a very powerful technique, isn't it? Calm down, mate.
It's funny, you know, okay. Well, actually, so my eldest son, he went to a boys' school
and his principal had written many books on raising boys.
And I recall going to see him because I was a little concerned about, about my son,
just the hormones that were happening. I think he was from memory about 15 or 16.
And I thought, oh, this isn't going in a good way.
You know, the back chatting and the whole thing. And I thought, oh, it's, you know,
it's because he's going. I'm very uncommon in teenagers and the back chatting.
Anyway, he did say, and he highlighted the fact that bodybuilders knowingly,
not all bodybuilders, obviously, some bodybuilders and people who are into using steroids,
inject this as a set amount, knowing exactly what the side effects and what the outcome will be.
So imagine a boy, my son, having like millions of times that injected into his body
without his knowledge, without his permission, not having any knowledge of what,
what is going to happen and how it's going to be at the end, like what the final thing is going to be.
So it just feels out of control. Absolutely out of control.
So if you think of all of the symptoms, you know, the pimples, the shrinking or enlarging of genitals,
the oily skin, the oily hair, the mood swings, et cetera.
They're sleeping in in the morning because they're processing so much.
So it's, you know, it's kind of acceptable in somebody who knowingly injects that.
But then it's not in our children who have no say in it.
And no idea what's going on. No, that's right.
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And I don't know if you were ever taught that emotions and feelings are different.
No, not at all.
I always thought they were the same thing because we use them interchangeably in our vocabulary, don't we?
I feel sad rather than I'm experiencing the sensation of sadness.
That's right. Yeah. So it's difficult for kids and adults often don't learn either.
No. Oh, everyone's got, yeah, moody, moody colleagues, moody family members or friends.
And they do. Something bad happens and it is the worst thing in the world.
And they sit in that for three or four days. They're not nice to be around.
Yeah.
In leadership, I often talk about the power of being calm, calm under pressure.
And so I guess when you're under pressure, your brain is wanting to release adrenaline and cortisol,
adrenocorticotropic hormone to put you into that fight or flight because you think you're in danger.
You've just got too many emails or you've got a deadline looming.
But a lot of leaders under pressure, they fail to stay calm.
Yeah.
Whereas others, I've seen some very, very influential leaders, they can be in a crisis situation, but they remain calm.
And I think the biggest difference between those that can and those that can't stay calm under pressure is confidence.
Yes. Yeah.
Because if emotions are chemical, so they're under pressure, there's a crisis happening, their body is flooding them with all of the hormones associated with the fight or flight.
But feelings are thoughts.
The confident person has control over their thoughts because they focus on the appropriate thing, what they can do, not what they can't do.
And so being calm under pressure is just simply you realizing that all you can do is what is in your control right now.
Whereas the person who maybe lacks the ability to stay calm is focusing on all the things that are outside of their control or the 99 things that they have to do rather than the one thing that they're going to do right now.
Yeah. One technique that I use and was taught this in training, and I do use it still now, and I use it personal and professional life, is that you shed the unnecessary.
So when there is, you know, the feelings start to take over and keeping calm under pressure.
So you shed the fluff, the stuff you don't need.
And then when you have a process, now initially it's a bit clunky because you haven't done it, but it's practice.
And so you then fall into this process of, you know, almost like, navigate, communicate, but it's that whole thing of, OK, fly the plane.
So make sure you're safe and keep doing what you're doing.
Navigate, so point in the right direction, so even one step forward or standing still as long as you're not going back or, you know, some call it a dance, a bit of a one step back, two steps forward.
But and then communicate, so ask, tell, you know, discuss.
Those are processes that I use to keep calm.
So these are the systems you're taught.
Absolutely.
And I still do it now as well.
How many people's lives in your hands?
Well, that's right.
Well, on the 737, yeah, 186 at a time.
It's yeah, it's and it becomes it does become just as part of a process that you do all the time.
Absolutely.
All right.
A lot to think about, but let's wrap up.
So emotions and feelings, different things.
They are.
Emotions are chemicals and feelings are?
In your head.
They're basically your, the meaning that you associate or put them to.
So your subjective experience of what's going on.
And so everyone's is different.
Yeah.
And that's why it varies from person to person because everyone's subjective experience is different.
Yes.
And so 90 seconds is all we need to do.
We just need to sit with the emotion for 90 seconds as Dr. Jill Bolte-Taylor has taught us.
Yeah.
And just ride whatever emotion.
That's right.
And if you're still in the fun.
And it sounds like the kids next door to the studio are having a lot of fun.
There's a lot of noise in the background if you can hear it, but that's kids being full of emotions.
And these, these emotions sound like they're having a great time.
It's brilliant to hear.
So wrapping up, stay calm.
Stay calm at least for 90 seconds.
You can hide away.
And then anything that goes after that, realise you're in your head and you can control it.
Yes.
Excellent.
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go to michellhuntington.com.
Michelle speaks of her 20 plus year career in aviation and the challenges she had to overcome to be an airline captain.
She's been hit by lightning and flown without instrumentation.
Ireland hopped single engine aircraft from America back to Australia,
filled with a bladder of fuel so that she could get all the way back.
She's had urine filled beer bottles thrown at her head mid-flight,
and she survived much worse to become anti-fragile.
Her keynotes will be the highlight of your next conference.
michellhuntington.com
Well that was fun.
That was fun.
You're such a clown.
The clown.
Lady captain.
There you go.
And who's going to listen to this?
Maybe our mums.
Thanks mum.