Emotion will get the best of you when you let it. Just the same, It can bring out the best in you. Moreover, emotion can control you or manipulate you, hurting relationships and outcomes in your life. After-all, e-motion, energy-in-motion, is the way anything and everything gets done. By harnessing emotion you can consistently bring out the best in yourself and others. You just have to learn how.

This week’s podcast episode, one of my longest, outlines two very different stories highlighting the importance of valuing emotion. The story in my LinkedIn and Instagram video may appear to criticize the power of emotion. If that’s your conclusion, I invite you to listen again. I’m not endorsing expressing anger, while at the same time, I’m acknowledging that anger doesn’t always need to be stuffed down. Frankly, that’s never a healthy way to engage with your anger. The newsletter on the theme may be my most succinct yet. I neglected to ensure the podcast link was included so it’s better to access that using the link above. It outlines a response I received from a client Monday, after dropping the podcast episode, that offered me a significant insight into how my personal work with valuing emotion must continue. This blog post focuses on the catalyst that emotion is.

Emotion as Catalyst

Whether you believe you make decisions for practical reasons including critical analysis or you’ve learned your brain is not wired that way, it’s essential that you accept you’re emotional state is key to every decision. It’s your emotions that are the catalyst, the driving force to your decisions. Therefore, it’s emotions that change the world, good and bad.

Define and describe it

A catalyst is essentially a substance or entity that increases the rate of a reaction. It could be a person or thing that precipitates a change or a reaction. Emotion is a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from your circumstance. Emotion is a catalyst for change because of the triggering effect. When we see something that triggers an emotion, whether positive or negative, we’re motivated to action.

When you watch a hallmark commercial or, in Canada,  most Tim Horton’s commercials, they trigger sentimental or nostalgic feelings connecting the brand to either “hearth and home” or patriotism. These work because of the connection our brain makes. The same can be true about negative emotions. Fear is a common approach to motivate change. It turns out fear, though, is a trickier emotion to use as a motivator. Fear may lead to paralysis but some politicians have used it to placate or obfuscate the issues.

It turns out that simply being aware of how your emotional reaction may be used to manipulate you won’t eliminate its impact so it’s important to become more self-aware about your values and your emotions so you can test when they are doing battle.

How Emotion Manifests as Catalyst

For change, real change, to happen and become sustainable, people have to want the change. When it’s imposed, strong tactics may work for a short period. For example, a government can implement legislation to dictate change like requiring people to wear seat belts but if they don’t also change hearts and minds people will find ways around it. It turns out simply telling us to buckle up because of the statistics doesn’t work. Last year’s bus crash involving the Humboldt Broncos demonstrates the need for seat belts on buses and while there has been evidence of this need in studies, governments are moved to make changes largely because of the narrative in this story and the outcry that resulted. In this case, at least, the narrative is following the evidence.

Government isn’t very good at using narrative, it seems, although a few politicians have been very adept at using it to get elected. Brands, on the other hand, as stated earlier are extremely good at it. As advertising firms demonstrated, emotions sell. Eventually, brands understood that they would benefit from developing a brand story and the capitalist-driven society has never been the same since. We are driven by our emotions AND story is how we use it to make change possible.

Emotion and Social Media

Above I mention how brands learned to tell their story – to own the narrative. Social Media of course has taken the use of emotion to a whole new level. Whether you see it in the exacerbation of FOMO (fear of missing out) that motivates many to excess, or extreme “engagement”, it’s shaping our lives. Social media didn’t create this but it does appear to be exploiting our emotional drives.

The Power of the “LIKE”

How many times do you check your phone? Are you hostage to the “like”. Whether I’m in the gym or on transit or in a coffee shop or enjoying a party, I hear about “likes” and “followers” frequently. How about you? How much do you think you are driven to check for “likes” or responses to your most recent post? I read recently that many of the most invasive sites, and you know which I mean, actually time the “likes” to keep us coming back over and over again throughout the day.

Rather than being angry with them, although I think it’s valid, consider how to use the principles of this to structure a day that’s focused on what will serve you and your goals better. How can you set up healthy levels of stimuli to increase your resilience at the toughest points of the day. What could you do to encourage healthier practices at key times in your day, week or month?

The Influence of Anger?

Anger drives change. It always has AND it’s important to learn how to use it. More on that, another time, because here I’m talking about social media. Have you noticed how many algorithms drive controversial stories or messages to you? Have you noticed how anger seems to fuel engagement? This is not constructive anger. Not constructive or useful to you, at least. It is very useful and profitable to the social media platforms. Not only do people stay on the site longer when engaging in an angry rant or responding to one, after engaging this way, you are more likely to return and engage again and again. It’s stimulating.

Did you see the “Saturday Night Live” skit that aired a year or two ago? It was one where Keenan played a bar tender who used social media approaches to stir people up. At one point he tells someone conspiratorially that he is doing this to keep people there, drinking and tipping. I laughed vigorously but it also really made me think. I tried to find the link to share it here so if anyone finds it, send it to me. It was a perfect example of how we are manipulated when our emotions are stimulated. Anger is the laziest way to stimulate. Anger is also the emotion we need to work to understand and learn from most.

Harnessing Emotion

A focus on emotion seems counter-intuitive in a world that wants to cling to the rational and factual, or so we tell ourselves. Think about the one thing you know you want to change but just can’t seem to make it happen. There’s the answer. Just wanting something and even knowing it will make you happier, healthier or even wealthier WILL NOT make it happen. It will take harnessing the emotion to bring the knowledge to the precipice so you can take the leap and make the changes that #makeithappen.

What Does it Mean to Harness Emotion?

           emotions must be optimized to improve performance

Harnessing emotion requires discipline. It’s not like harnessing a horse, even the horse that doesn’t like to stand still. With emotion, you have to find just the right temperature for you. This takes time and practice AND, you have to #dothework over time.

Your best tactic is NOTICING. Again, the key is to pay attention to the degree of emotional stimulation you require to perform at your optimal state. You don’t want it to boil over and allowing it to just simmer isn’t going to move anything forward either. Find just the right spot.

Psychologists Yerkes and Dodds in 1908 posited that performance improves when physiological and mental motivation is triggered or stress induced, but only to a point. In other words, see the image on the right, you need to determine what’s optimal for you.

The Canadian, considered the father of neuropsychology, Donald Hebb, in his 1948 book, The Organization of Behaviour, contributed to this theory demonstrating clearly that motivation was extracted by emotional stimuli. Hebb is credited with coining one of my favourite performance management expressions, “neurons that fire together, wire together”. This is key to understanding how emotional triggers support change and growth AND how they can diminish it. If this subject matter interests you, it is often called neuronal firing. 

Try it On

Want to improve your performance or the outcomes you are creating for yourself and your life?  Once again it is about experimenting for yourself. Learning what works for you will require you to do the work. When you register for my mailing list from my homepage you’ll receive a very basic interactive exercise that is aimed at using the basic principles of this to limit your stress or feelings of overwhelm. The basic steps there are useful here; we do more within in my system but this may be a great place to start. Essentially the experiment consists of three steps outlined below. (The interactive handout offers you a four page document and audio guidance in using it.)

1. Identify the demands on you. What are the most difficult parts of your day or experience right now? This may include: relationships, deadlines at work, challenging projects, your commute to work and more.
2. Outline the coping mechanism and supports you have to manage any and all of the most difficult demands.
3. Now, considering where you are not performing at your optimal level, how can you reduce the demands or increase the resources you have to manage them?

This sounds easier than it is. You need to be really honest with yourself if it is going to make any difference in your performance or your level of life and career satisfaction. Want a thinking partner as you move forward?

How We Can Walk together…

Is finding purpose and meaning in your life and in your career important to you?

Are you ready to unpack the tough stuff so you can find your north star?

Is your career all that you want it to be and more? If you answered yes to this last one, I’m so happy for you. Don’t you want that for everyone you know? THEN, pass on my message to everyone in your network in case it resonates for them.