447 | Strengthening Your Emotional Stability – Part 1

Chris LoCurto  0:00  

while strengthening your emotional stability may be your best defense against the craziness of the world we live in, that is coming up next.

Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are.

Welcome to the show, folks hope you're having a fabulous day. Before we get into today's topic, if you've not heard about our upcoming next level leadership live event, then you got to go check this out. This is our biggest event of the year. And registration opens Thursday, December 9, with 40% off ticket prices. That's hundreds off regular ticket pricing. So don't miss it. You're going to learn deep lessons that have helped our coaching clients transform their teams and their businesses and get more time back for the rest of their life. Now, if you're asking yourself, Is this event right for me? Well, that's simple to answer. If you're stuck and struggling in business, we're going to show you how to get out of that once and for all by doing the right things. Now, if you're absolutely killing it in business, you're going to learn new growth opportunities and the steps on how to get there, we're going to help you identify what's holding you back and give you a plan to fix it. We've had people go from being in crisis mode to absolutely killing it that have literally changed the way they grow their business, it's seriously been that profound. We have a ton more information on the website when we open registration right now you want to go to Chris locurto.com/next level leadership all one word, to sign up to be among the first to learn that registration is open and save 40% off your tickets. Now. Moving on, here's the deal. We are living in a time where things are getting a little crazy. There's a decent amount of tension all over. No matter where you go, we find that people are struggling emotionally, we find a lot of emotional instability. And guess what, there's actually no guarantee that things are going to get any easier in this crazy world that we live in. So in fact, it's incredibly possible or even highly likely that things are going to just get crazier. So what are you doing to make sure that you're up to the challenge of living this life. And I don't just mean surviving. I think if you've been with me for any decent amount of time, I don't mind you having survived, I don't want you to be a survive, or as a title, I want you to thrive. I have survived a lot in life. But I don't stay in survival mode, right? I mean, really living, thriving in these crazy times. What does that look like? So today, I'm going to walk you through a process to overhaul your emotional fortitude. So the first thing that we have to do is, we have to recognize our current condition. Self awareness is one of the best tools you can use to assess your condition and improve it. Right No matter where you are. If you're not self aware, what in the world do you work on? Right? What do you change? What do you fix? What do you make sure is strong and stable and ready to move forward. Right? So we have to be self aware so we can understand what we should focus on what we should work on. So when we're talking about emotional stability, we're talking about your ability to remain focused, stable, balanced under pressure. So let's just take a little survey right now, I'm going to ask you a couple of questions. What are the triggers you're experiencing in life that sends you off the rails? Now, some of you out there may be saying, oh, Chris, I never go off the rails. Okay, well, what are the triggers you experience in life that frustrates you? What are the triggers you experience in life that cause you to have conflict? What are those things that when they happen, they start a process of you feeling emotionally unstable, right, unstable? Maybe that's a better way to say. Another question is, what are those triggers are things that we might even call surface level responses around here. Say About your emotional fortitude, right? So if you're feeling out of control in the moment, and that causes you to go off the rails, trying to control situations, what does that say about your emotional fortitude? If you're a people pleaser, and you feel like you're not pleasing somebody, and that causes you to, you know, go off the rails and again, maybe the term go off the rails isn't connecting with you. Maybe it comes causes you to feel like you're losing worth or frustrated or whatever. What does that say about your emotional fortitude? Right? Does that say that you're emotionally strong in the moment, right? Or if we ask the third question, how are your current responses to those emotions, either helping or hurting you? So one of the most frustrating things that I am seeing over and over and over again, right now, is this concept that you have to feel every emotion that you have, that you have to experience every emotion and this ridiculous response that says, I cannot deny my emotions. Oh, for the love. Yes, you can. Listen, when we come back, we're going to talk about why you can't afford to neglect your emotions. But for the love, you can't afford to be led by them either. Right? So when we come back, we're gonna talk about that.

Unknown Speaker  6:07  

Freedom, it's so

Unknown Speaker  6:08  

powerful, I felt rejuvenated, almost renewed,

Unknown Speaker  6:11  

I just felt so welcomed and loved and accepted for who I am, and not an ounce of judgment. So I was very comfortable there, that had a really big impact on me,

Speaker 2  6:22  

it's going to be worth it. It's going to be hard. But it's going to be even better. On the other side. For me,

Unknown Speaker  6:29  

it was just, it was very refreshing. And I'm gonna say life really, for me, it really was,

Unknown Speaker  6:34  

you know, I would go to next level life again. And probably again, and probably again, because it's so powerful.

Chris LoCurto  6:42  

I want you to ask yourself a question. Could you hear the sense of hope and freedom and their voice is just that I want you to know, that could be you. Look, it's easy to get trapped in old habits, negative thought patterns and unhealthy relationships, it's gonna take some work. But yes, there is hope for you. If you want to experience the same kind of life transformation, this same kind of self awareness and freedom that they have. Or maybe you're just curious what the process would look like for you, then head on over to Chris locurto.com/next level life.

Alright, we're talking about emotional stability and how to strengthen and increase our emotional stability. Before the break, I talked about how there's a bad teaching out there that is saying that you have to experience every emotion, you have to allow every emotion to be felt and be experienced. And I need to tell you that that is terrible teaching. I'm not saying that you need to deny all of your emotions. But I will tell you this, one of the strongest things that we see coming through next level life is victim mentality. And victim mentality says that everything is happening to me in the moment when something's not going my way. I emotionally feel like a victim, that this is happening to me. Guess what? Rarely, when we're having victim mentality, are we actual victims? But what is the emotion say, Yeah, we are, you know, you're a victim, this is happening to you, this person is doing this, you can't do anything about this, this is all going to happen, and you need to feel every bit of it. Well, there's a way to fix that. There's a way to change that. How about gathering perspective? Asking questions like, am I actually a victim? Well, if I follow the horrid teaching out there, that says that you must experience all of your emotions, you must feel all of your emotions, you must not deny a single emotion, then guess what? I'm a victim. And I convinced myself I'm a victim, and I operate as though I'm a victim. But if I just take a hard look at the actual perspective of the situation, if I'm a victim, then what can I do to fix it? But if I'm not a victim, then what in the world am I doing telling myself that all of this is happening to me? Now, everybody listening to this can probably say, Oh, I know people like that. But ask yourself the question. When do you operate in victim mentality? When do you feel like everything is happening to you? Well, if you are operating in a victim mindset, that these things happen, and there's nothing you can do about it, and so on and so forth, and yada yada yada, then guess what? That's not a whole lot of emotional fortitude. What is it? What do I mean when I say emotional fortitude? What I mean is that you can withstand difficult situations when difficult situations come along. Your emotions don't absolutely destroy you. They don't wreck you. They don't shut you down. You don't lose your mind you don't freak out, you don't run around in anxiety. I am not saying there aren't situations where anxiety is legit. I've had a couple of those. I've had a couple of situations when it was so stressful, that it shut me down. Right? The problem is, how many times do we see even the smallest things, shutting people down today? How often do we see people that cannot withstand not even difficult situations, but slightly difficult situations? Right? Another thing that you have to be able to do if you have emotional fortitude is handle adversity. You know, when things come at you things change when things when you have to change your plans, when you have to change the way things are in life when when people mess up, or people hurt you or, or bad things happen. What do you do about it? How do you handle adversity? Now, this again, goes to that part of surviving, right? These are things that you have to then survive. However, you shouldn't stay there, you should learn how to go beyond it. So another piece of emotional fortitude is remaining productive and capable throughout it. Now, I will tell you, as somebody who has had situations in my life, gosh, I don't know how many times but at least two that I can think of situations in my life that were so stressful and painful and traumatic. It just shut me down. It just completely shut me down. And I remember through one situation of two days trying to just sit at my computer and do some work. And I don't think I ever actually did anything. I just sat there just in a very traumatic state.

But what I figured afterwards is that wasn't going to help me I had to do something, I had to change something. If I just sat there in the crap and in the the junk of my pain and in my trauma, then I was just gonna live there. So I had to make some changes. What do you do when you're experiencing difficult situations? And again, guys, I'm not talking about you know, your boss got mad at you, because you're not doing your job? Well. I'm not talking about, you know, your packages didn't make it in time for your kid's birthday. I'm talking about difficult situations, right? Tough stuff, right? Legit tough stuff. Do you remain productive and capable throughout it? If you do, you have emotional fortitude. If you want to get unstuck and the instability cycle that you're in, then you've got to recognize where you are, where are you currently, you have to know that you're in a emotionally weak situation, right? If you're struggling, and you're not making it through, and you're focused on your emotions too much, and you're not able to withstand the situation, you're not handling the adversity really well, you're not being productive, then you have to know that you're an emotionally weak situation. And you have to know that there are things that you can do to start actually changing it. If you want to get unstuck, you have to start doing things to change being stuck. Now, I want to hit things a little bit from the emotional instability side of personality styles. When we looked at a high personality style, we haven't done something like this in a really long time. And this is not going to be you know, crazy comprehensive, we're just kind of talking through how do each of the different personality styles feel out of control. So if we start with the high D, what do they do when they feel like they're being out of control? So a high D seeks to control situations? Right? So there's, there's two things you usually try to control when you feel out of control. And let me just back up because some of you out there, your personality style might say, Well, I never feel out of control. Because the definition doesn't land well with you. But if I asked you how do you feel in the moment you're frustrated or upset? Okay, do you feel out of control? No, not at all. What do you mean you don't feel out of control? Well, I'm perfectly in control of my body right now. Okay, but how do you feel inside? Well, I feel horrible. Okay. But that's not out of control. No, because I can control myself. Well, that deficit, the definition isn't aligning, right. The truth is, if you're feeling that frustrated, you actually feel out of control. Even though you may not be responding physically, it doesn't mean that you're not mentally feeling out of control. So, if we take a look at the high D, the high D seeks to control situations. And again, like I was saying, we tend to try and control one or two things, people or outcomes, whichever one we can control causes us to feel like or convinces us that we actually are in control. The bad thing is, controls an illusion, I can't control your feelings, your thoughts, your emotions, I can only highly suggest things to you. And if you choose him, then well, there you go, it worked. But I can't make you think anything, I can't make you feel anything, the only thing I can do is, you know, if I can physically control you, then there's a level of control that I can have. But outside of that, when it comes to your feelings, thoughts, intellect, emotions, I got nothing there.

I can highly suggest things and the moment you receive those things, then you're being controlled by those thoughts, right? A high D tends to feel out of control. When they feel taken advantage of. It's interesting, if you watch a high D, you can have the greatest nicest, high D on the planet, but the moment they feel like people are trying to take advantage of them, you can see a light switch flip. Right, they will change I have seen some become so angry. And so mean and so self protective. And listen, I am somebody who can't stand being taking advantage of as well. But when you watch a high D really respond to this, their responses usually is anger, right? it many times it's a threat of anger. But when they genuinely feel taken advantage of, they try to control the situation by getting everything back into control. If somebody is taking advantage of them, then they're going to strike first, you know, they're going to strike next, and shut that thing down or do whatever they can and stop that thing from happening. When you take a look at a high I eyes crave acceptance and approval. So they tend to fear being rejected by others. So high, I will spend a lot of time trying to get people to approve of them, they feel like somebody is rejecting them, then their response tends to become one of feeling attacked, or feeling victimized, what they tend to do is respond back with attacks, the high s feels out of control when they are striving for stability for peace for safety. SS can't stand change, neither can C's. But when you see an S feeling like they are going to lose control, because things are going to change and it's not going to be you know, in their their sweet spot, it's not going to be in something that feels, again, controlled, it's not going to be something that feels comfortable, then you can watch them start to push on things start to get frustrated, start to procrastinate or start to push back, saying these are things that shouldn't happen, we shouldn't do this thing, we shouldn't change that we shouldn't whatever, because they feel out of control. I see when they feel out of control. High Seas take a lot of pride in being accurate, being exact being correct. So they tend to fear criticism. A high C does not like criticism. They don't like being critiqued on the things that they are doing, working on the things I know. Because for them, that's a lot of rejection in that situation. So what you will see a high C tend to do when they feel that rejection, that criticism is they will respond back with all kinds of criticism, they will respond back with attacks as well, they will start to rip things apart or they will try and divert and deflect into something else. So when they're feeling out of control, you can see their response tends to be gaining control by misdirection by attacking by whatever it is to get you off of the subject of the criticism about them. So these are, again, not comprehensive. These are just over arching responses that we see and overarching struggles that we experience when we feel out of control. So maybe you see a little bit of yourself in there. Maybe you see your current emotional condition or tendencies. So what do you do with these emotional weaknesses? What do you do with these emotional responses? So the next thing we need to do is recognize our daily contribution. So when we break under pressure or feel out of control or lose patience with the process we're being challenged with, it can drive to flat out quit, it can drive us to lose perspective it can, it can drive us to miss out on opportunities. What we've got to do is we've got to recognize how we are contributing to that condition on a daily basis if we want to get unstuck, right. So first thing we need to do is recognize where we currently are. But then what we've got to recognize is how we're contributing to that condition on a daily basis. If we want to get unstuck,

then we've got to take some daily steps toward greater stability and health. So let's kind of take a look at some bigger contributing factors that might have us in a place where we don't have a lot of emotional fortitude, or we aren't as strong as we can possibly be. Now, the negative contributors tend to be in the number one, I will tell you that we experience all the time, and I'm sure that you experience them in your life. Now, some of you out there. Very, very few percentage may struggle with this. But once you think through it, you'll actually see it, the number one contributor, the negative contributor is the lies we tell ourselves. The lies that we I am a victim, all this is happening to me, I can't do anything about this, I'll never be good enough. I'll never be pretty enough, attractive enough. Funny enough, handsome enough, nobody's ever going to love me because I'm not good enough. My parents don't love me, my friends don't love me, whatever the lies are, I'm not qualified for the job I'm in, somebody is going to find out that I'm a fraud, whatever the lies are that we tell ourselves. That is the number one as far as I'm concerned, as far as what we see in next level life, even from folks that are in incredibly abusive relationships. Even the contribution of the abuser still comes in second, to the negativity inside the person's own brain. Right, the things that that person keeps telling themselves. Now, a whole lot of the contribution from the abuser has been saying, You're not good enough, you're never going to be good enough, You're terrible. You're a horrible person. So that's absolutely massive. But what tends to control us, is when we are lying to ourselves and believing it. So I'm gonna say that's number one. Number two, is definitely going to be the influence of others, right? If we are surrounding ourselves with unhealthy people think about this for a second, folks. No matter how many times I help people to see that they have not everybody, but definitely negative influences in their lives. Instead of putting in healthy boundaries, many times those folks will continue the relationship believing that it'll somehow fix itself, it'll somehow route itself. Instead of putting healthy boundaries in place and saying, I can't have your influence in my life right now. Right, I can't handle that. That negativity is driving me to a bad place. Listen, you may have heard me say this, but I literally have only watched the news a handful of times since the bush Gore election. Why? Why do I not watch the news? Well, first off, it's really not news. It's a bunch of crap and a bunch of lies. But I would wake up, put on the news channel, and get mad driving to work. Right? I'd be getting ready in the morning to have the news on in the background. And then I'm finding myself in my car upset. And I just said to myself one day, dude, that's influencing your attitude. That's changing the way you feel. Right? And God forbid, I got to work and somebody else was upset about what was on the news, because then it gave us the opportunity to go, Well, let's talk about it. No, we don't need to sit here and rip that apart. We got stuff to do. We have lives to change. But all the way back then I don't know what what year that was

early 2000s, mid 2000s. When was that? I don't know. Anyways, but I remember stopping watching the news back then I had to turn it off. And I have not watched the news except for a handful of emergency situations where I felt like I needed to get some some information. Now, some people think that's crazy. Some people think how in the world do you know what's going on in the world? I have plenty of information on what's going on in the world. But I also have an idea that if I continue you to pour that crap into me that it's going to change my emotional fortitude, it's going to change my attitude. So I changed that influence, I also have changed the influence on people that are in my inner circle. For years, I have had healthy people in my inner circle, not perfect people not even remotely close, but healthy. And I've had folks that are friends, acquaintances that I used to consider stronger influences that I had to actually not spend as much time with, or not let into my inner circle. And let them be folks that maybe I'm helping them or guiding them. But I couldn't allow them to have the influence on me why? Because their choices in life were affecting the way that I think their their decisions to do things that I felt were wrong, and not good enough, or maybe even morally incorrect, or things that I couldn't have around me. And the worst thing is, when you are hanging around folks that are doing stuff like that, how do they tend to respond, they tend to try and get you to agree that what they're doing is Okay, folks, you have to watch the influences that you have in your life, you have to make sure that sometimes you just got to flat cut them out. Right, if they are negative and you are feeling out of control, you're feeling like you don't have the emotional, the emotional fortitude. Right, if you have somebody who's constantly pouring negativity into you, if you have somebody who's constantly guilting, you, if you have somebody who's constantly a victim in their lives and pouring all their victimhood out onto you, then you might want to put some healthy boundaries in place. I think you should. But it's up to you. Again, just a suggestion. Then the next negative contributor actually has a ton of stuff behind it. And that is their reinforcement of things like social media, or any debilitating habits of of bad diet or no exercise or not pouring. You know, not reading quality, healthy information, not spending time in God's word not growing in, you know, not spending time in prayer. There's a whole lot of stuff around us that's constantly telling us how we are victims, right? We see it through social media all the time. We see it through the news media all the time. We see how we deserve a break today by going and eating crappy food, because it's been such a tough day. So we should destroy our bodies in the process. We decide that instead of going out and exercising and spending time doing physical work, we will sit on the couch and play video games, I don't know, whatever, whatever those things are, right? are the very things that keep you from healthy stuff, healthy decisions, then that's just reinforcing your lack of emotional fortitude. Right? That's another negative contributor to you in your life. So what are positive contributors? Well, we're going to talk about those when we come back right after this. Folks, if you've been listening to me for any length of time, then you know the number one issue when it comes to business, when it comes to family, when it comes to friendships, is having a lack of high quality communication, to make sure that you are absolutely winning in every aspect of your life. It all starts with having great communication, the best way to get that communication is to understand your personality style, and to understand the personality style of the folks that you're spending the most time with, whether it be at work, whether it be at home, the best way to do that is to go to Chris locurto.com/store and get your personality profile and personality profiles for your team to day get for your family members. Today. As you go through that profile, you will begin to see the greatest ways to communicate go to Chris ducker.com/store today. So what are positive contributors in our lives?

Well, if the number one is the lies we tell ourselves, what would be the number one positive contributor hearing, acknowledging, recognizing, continuously repeating to yourself the truth? What is the truth? Well, one of the number one lies that people tell themselves is I'm not good enough. Well, the question is not good enough for who? Who were you not good enough? What did you learn that? Where did you learn that? You're not worthy? Or did you learn that you don't have as much worth as what you think you should? Or what somebody tells you? Where did you convince yourself that you're not good enough? If you take a look, and for those of us that are believers, and if you're not a believer, then I think you should dig into God's word and find out. What does he say your worth is? Now for most Christians, if you ask them what their worth is, they would say, being a child of God, and then when you ask them to explain that they don't really have an answer. Here's what I want you to know. And I can't get into everything. But what does God say your worth is? He says, that from the beginning, from the time that he created us, that He has been working to make sure that we are reconciled with Him. That He has been pursuing our hearts from the very beginning, that he has put things are in place, to take care of us to make sure that we can spend eternity with Him. That He loves us so much that he is the loving Father who blesses us when we're obedient. And he spanks our backside when we're not. Yep, God gives consequences. Don't listen to those people who tells you that God doesn't give punishments. That is a lie. It's anti biblical. Now what God says, God disagrees with that theology. God's very clear. If you're disobedient, I'm going to bring you punishments. If you're obedient, I'm going to bring you blessings. And if that is something that you can't handle, well, then I'm going to say that you don't understand God. For those of you that are like, Oh, I would never do that to my child. I praise God that I had a mom who was strict. We didn't have the opportunity. My mom didn't count down our count up whatever, one to two and a half, two and three fourths three. Now you're really in trouble, mister. That didn't happen. My mom said, No, that was it. She said, Yes. Great. You knew the answer. We didn't get this ridiculous. Week. I'm gonna let you rule me as an adult responses. He was very clear. If we chose bad things. We got consequences wasn't that difficult? It was pretty easy. I happen to have been the good kid in this picture. Sorry, Mario, I happen to have been the good one. But here's what I knew I knew the truth. That if I chose stupid, I got stupid. If I chose disobedience and rebellion, I got consequence, or consequences. This is what I knew. This is what I understood growing up. Well, guess what? Guess where that comes from? A loving father, a loving Father who wants us to recognize that He is a loving father. And that he has a phenomenal way for us to follow. But we have to discover His truth, not our truth. Not the truth of those that are pouring honey in our ears, not trying to find somebody who's going to tell us the things that we want to hear. We need to find out what the king of the universe says is truth. We had a great Bible study this morning, where we were talking through when Jesus is questioning the Pharisees about who they say the Messiah is and who they say the Messiah is is the

the descendant of David. So then he responds to the Pharisees with more than Why did King David refer to him as Lord as God? And he's referring to Psalm 110. One and if you look at in the Hebrew, you can actually see what King David was saying it was truth. What was Jesus saying to the Pharisees? The Messiah is not just a human being. He's more than that. He's God. That's truth. But what were people hearing from those Pharisees at the time? A different, quote, unquote, truth which if it's not truth, what is it? It's a lie. So folks, you've got to dig in and find out. The more you discover God's truth in your life, the more you discover your worth to him. Guess what you're going to find out? His love is blessed. things, his punishments for bad choices, you're going to find out all of that. Another positive contributor is people around us who speak the truth. There's nothing like when somebody comes to somebody who does what I do, and says, hit me with the truth. What is the truth helped me with this, I know it's gonna hurt. I know, I might not like looking at myself and seeing some of the bad decisions I'm making. But I'm done. I want to change things, I want life to be better. Great. Let's sit down and talk about it and put a plan together. Having people around you who speak truth is profoundly positive. It is so incredibly needed, if you're going to strengthen your own emotional fortitude. Right? Having strong, truthful people around you Healthy People, helps you to make better decisions, for your emotions with your emotions, right. Another thing is, as a positive contributor, cut out the noise and the clutter. For the love, get off of that social media. Get off of that crap. If you're spending time, scrolling through stuff, and you find that after 1015 30 minutes, get it out of your life, get it off your phones, get it out of out of your way, right? Do things to remove it, do things to cut the clutter. If you're spending time with negative people cut it out. If you're spending time listening to negative news shows, cut it out. If you're spending time on and playing video games, that's just destroying your mind and not allowing you to focus on more important things, cut it out. Whatever the thing is, that is noise and clutter in your life that's keeping you from strengthening yourself emotionally from making better decisions, get rid of it, cut it out, you will find people who are incredibly productive and happy. I'm not talking about overworked, I'm not talking about overtaxed. I'm not talking about people that are overwhelmed. But people who are happy and very productive, have cut out all the crap that keeps affecting their time.

Get it out another positive contributor is healthy and consistent routines. Now, the first part of that is the most important part. It has to be healthy. I know people who sit down and do routines of things of putting bad theology in their head or bad philosophy in their head. And they sit down and believe that it is just powerful. And then they wonder why when they live out that philosophy, things suck. But they're consistently putting that philosophy in. And so it seems like it's a healthy routine. But it's actually not. You've got to find the routine that helps you. You have to be reading things that are truthful and actually helpful. If you're going to exercise you need to have a great exercise routine, that doesn't cause you to get hurt, because you go at it too fast, that isn't holding you back because you're not doing enough. If you're going to change the way you eat, don't go on a diet, that's a waste of time. What is the life change by getting the crappy stuff out of your life and putting the healthy things in your life, right? So whatever the routine is, if you sit down and one of your routines is spending quality time with a friend every week, and yet that time with that friend is that friend railing on all the horrible things that are happening in the world and in their lives and negative, negative negative. That's not a healthy and consistent routine. It's an unhealthy and consistent routine. So if you're going to make changes, you've got to put positive contributors in your life truth. People who speak truth, getting rid of the noise and the clutter and healthy and consistent routines. Well, folks, we are going to continue on with this in the next episode because there's just too much good information. So part two, we're actually going to go through recognizing your stability boosters, we're going to break down a bunch of these things and tell you why they're so important and what you can do about them to make sure that you're stabilizing your emotions to make sure that you have emotional fortitude. So, again for the next level leadership live events April 27 through 29th You You should be here, you're going to see in three days how to dramatically transform your leadership. Now, this is going to help you to have strategies and actionable methods to build a stronger, less stressful, more successful business. So right now head on over to Chris locurto.com/next level leadership, all one word, to sign up and be among the first to know when registration is open and to save 40% off of your tickets. We're excited. We hope you're excited as well. Well, we cannot wait to see you. As always take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life, and join us on the next episode.