We Choose Our Responses & They Define Our Lived Experience w/ Yale Director of Emotional Intelligence Marc Brackett

On September 9, 2024 we published a show titled, Your Nervous System Is Controlling You & How To Master It. My guests were Jennifer Mann and Karden Rabin and my muse was their new book, The Secret Language of The Body. In our long conversation, Karden brought up his “Emotional Cold Plunge” exercise and I was incredibly intrigued. He gave me access to his community at somiainternational.com/ which I joined and went through the exercise. I ended up engaging more and just felt really attracted to Kardin’s guidance and spirit and found myself wondering how he had ended up where he is today. HIs bio says, Karden is a nervous system medicine practitioner and an expert in the fields of trauma and psychophysiological disorders. Over the last fifteen years he has combined principles of bodywork, brain retraining, and somatic trauma therapies and helped thousands of clients across the globe heal from chronic pain and illness. Karden is the Co-Founder of SOMIA and a regular contributor to Bessel Van Der Kolk’s Trauma Research Foundation and has led programming for The Wounded Warrior Project and Starbucks. But what you are about to hear is that Karden had severe asthma and almost died. He was very neglected as a child and often in tears, bored, and alone in his pain. From this, up to age 19, Karden says he became, an asshole. A bully. He was mean and used cleverness and criticism like a sword.Being a poser was identity and he worked to get tablescraps of validation from cool kids. He was good at making fun of people to get a laugh. But then…something happened. Something that drove him to become obsessed with uncovering the physics of what drives people and discovering the laws that no one is immune to. Today his ambition is to help as many people as possible. I bring you this story because I think you will resonate and it will help you see and understand yourself better, and how you can take your pain and heal it as you help relieve people of theirs. Find him at @KardenRabin Sign up for a $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to sign up for your FREE 60-day trial Get 20% off your first probiotic membership order at pendulumlife.com/drivesyou Go to cozyearth.com/driven and use code DRIVEN for an exclusive 40% discount Use my promo code WHATDRIVESYOU for 10% off on any CleanMyMac's subscription plans Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

9 Dec 20241h 39min

Every Monday I bring you an author with a new book. But in my personal studies, I’m just as equally reading and rereading books from years past. Classics, in my opinion. In 2010, Greg McKeown published his book, Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, and it quickly became a classic. He became an instant guru on looking at our lives and our work and asking, “What is really essential?” I sat down with Greg and Tom Ziglar a few years back to understand essentialism better. You will hear, it is not about minimalism. It’s more about making the right and best decisions. Putting decisions to extreme tests. Being in control. Greg says that in an emergency, “Everyone is an essentialist.” We get on task, on target, divest ourselves of non-necessities, and do what is most efficient, effective and successful. So can you really live every moment like that? Let’s see. Sign up for a $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to sign up for your FREE 60-day trial Get 20% off your first probiotic membership order at pendulumlife.com/drivesyou Go to cozyearth.com/driven and use code DRIVEN for an exclusive 40% discount Use my promo code WHATDRIVESYOU for 10% off on any CleanMyMac's subscription plans Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

6 Dec 20241h 14min

I’m wrapping up this series that started with Julia Baird australian journalist, broadcaster, author and host of the Not Stupid podcast. About the message in her brand new book: bright shining: how grace changes everything, and I got to thinking about when I've actually learned something. When I’ve been influenced to make a change. Has it come from war or peace? From everything that is not grace, or…grace? Thinking through it was really convicting for me and leads me to feeling that for the most part, grace is the only way to change the course of anything or anyone. Let’s see what you think as I share Sign up for a $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to sign up for your FREE 60-day trial Get 20% off your first probiotic membership order at pendulumlife.com/drivesyou Go to cozyearth.com/driven and use code DRIVEN for an exclusive 40% discount Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

5 Dec 202413min

I grew up with a mom who said, “Major on the majors, not on the minors.” Meaning to not make a big deal about small things. I ended up being a profound minimizer who was very conflict averse and didn’t make a big deal about anything. Not outwardly at least. But it was a big deal internally and I took myself to burnout and bitterness. It brings into question our personal boundaries, and what is and isn’t important enough to take issue with. Let’s think through it for ourselves here. Sign up for a $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to sign up for your FREE 60-day trial Get 20% off your first probiotic membership order at pendulumlife.com/drivesyou Go to cozyearth.com/driven and use code DRIVEN for an exclusive 40% discount Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

4 Dec 202411min

In the last episode we talked about grace. I want to give focus to judgment, and I mean towards people. The word in today’s culture has a negative connotation. “Who are you to judge!” is often thrown out. And yet I experience our culture as more judgmental than ever. I know I have been for much of my life, and I don’t see that it improved my life or anyone else’s. What interests me is, what drives judgment in us? What is fueling it? My muse for the topic is Julia Baird, journalist, broadcaster, author and host of the Not Stupid podcast. Her brand new book is, bright shining: how grace changes everything, and I want to ponder this idea of judgment with you. Sign up for a $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to sign up for your FREE 60-day trial Get 20% off your first probiotic membership order at pendulumlife.com/drivesyou Go to cozyearth.com/driven and use code DRIVEN for an exclusive 40% discount Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

3 Dec 202411min

An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. You hit me, I hit you back. You disrespect me, I disrespect you. That would be the opposite of grace. Grace is generally considered offering a kindness, anyways. When it’s undeserved. I don’t feel the culture gives much value to the idea anymore. We are afraid that letting a wrong go unpunished will enable others. But as our mental health continues to decline and we find more people in more relational conflict than ever, I wanted to dig into the lost art of grace. So I sat down with Julia Baird. Julia is an Australian journalist, broadcaster, and internationally bestselling author who contributes to the New York Times and the Sydney Morning Herald and is a cohost of the Not Stupid podcast. She has a brand new book out, titled bright shining: how grace changes everything. I dug into the hard questions around grace and ultimately came away asking myself, what kind of person do I want to be? What behavior will add the most to my life? One who errors on the side of grace? Or tit for tat? Sign up for a $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to sign up for your FREE 60-day trial Get 20% off your first probiotic membership order at pendulumlife.com/drivesyou Go to cozyearth.com/driven and use code DRIVEN for an exclusive 40% discount Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

2 Dec 20241h 47min

As a guy, the concept of compassion has little place in my life. Especially as an athlete, there was no value in compassion. You ignore any pain and keep going. It reminds me of the depiction of the army sergeant yelling at the soldier to suck it up and march on. As a culture, I think we still put more value on sucking it up and keeping going and being indifferent to ourselves, than having compassion. Though we miss that we can still keep going when the circumstances demand it, and have some needed compassion. Compassion is having concern for others and ourselves and the opposite of concern is indifference. I can’t find value in indifference to self, in normal life, outside of maybe sports and the battlefield. Seven years ago I sat down and had a conversation with Dr. Kristin Neff about it. Kristin received her doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley, studying moral development. At the time she had done a TED talk with millions of views, and published a book, “Self Compassion”, The Proven Power of Being kind to yourself. I talked with her, as I perceived the value of self-compassion. But in truth, it’s taken me a long time to let it actually integrate into my life. I wish I’d stuck with it then. But, better late than never. I spent some time recently discussing self-compassion with my own therapist, and am bringing this conversation back to benefit us both.  Sign up for a $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to sign up for your FREE 60-day trial Get 20% off your first probiotic membership order at pendulumlife.com/drivesyou Go to cozyearth.com/driven and use code DRIVEN for an exclusive 40% discount Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

30 Nov 20241h 2min

Imaging waking tomorrow for Thanksgiving. You are in a jail cell. You look out the one, small window of your cell where you can see a perfect, Norman Rockwell scene of the holidays. Kids outside sledding, people ice skating. People cooking. Eating. Laughing. And loving. A voice comes over an intercom and tells you to give thanks for all you see outside. You reply and say, OK, but can I please just go out and be a part of it all?” The voice says, “Yes!” So you say, “Well, who is going to let me out of here?” The voice responds, “You can, as soon as you are thankful for yourself.” I think this is how many people go about trying to give thanks. Drive with me a moment. Sign up for a $1/month trial period at shopify.com/kevin Go to shipstation.com and use code KEVIN to sign up for your FREE 60-day trial Get 20% off your first probiotic membership order at pendulumlife.com/drivesyou Go to cozyearth.com/driven and use code DRIVEN for an exclusive 40% discount Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

29 Nov 20249min