SuccessQuest Podcast

Jacob and Kalob discuss how to become emotionally successful. Life is difficult. There is a roller coaster of emotions, and in this episode we talk about how to be in control instead of letting your emotions control you. We also talk about mental illness and anxiety and depression.

SuccessQuest Milestone: 8 Episodes!

• 8 straight weeks!
• We’ve finished talking about all of the different areas of success. 
• Physical Success
• Intellectual Success
• Financial Success
• Social Success
• Spiritual Success
• Emotional Success (This episode) 
• Consistency is important. 

Emotional Success

• Be in control of your emotions. Don’t let them be in control of you. 
• It’s also important to understand the importance of emotion. 
• Emotions are good. Without them the world would be boring and unfulfilling.

Attitude

• The way we react to and adjust our emotions. 
• Triggers will happen, and we will experience emotions. 
• Attitude allows us to take a step back, analyze the emotion, and appropriately respond to it. 
• This is a skill that can be learned. It takes practice. 

An Outlet for Emotions

• Find an effective way to express emotions. 
• You could:
• Punch a bag, 
• Go for a walk, 
• Pray…

Ways to cope with anxiety and depression

• Talk Therapy (Counseling)
• Medication
• Exercise
• Relaxation Techniques
• Check Your Diet
• Get Support
• Take Some Steps on Your Own
• Be creative
• Read a good book

Ways to support someone who struggles

• Finding out if the person is getting the care that he or she needs and wants—if not, connect him or her to help
• Expressing your concern and support
• Reminding your friend or family member that help is available and that mental health problems can be treated
• Asking questions, listening to ideas, and being responsive when the topic of mental health problems come up
• Reassuring your friend or family member that you care about him or her
• Offering to help your friend or family member with everyday tasks
• Including your friend or family member in your plans—continue to invite him or her without being overbearing, even if your friend or family member resists your invitations
• Educating other people so they understand the facts about mental health problems and do not discriminate
• Treating people with mental health problems with respect, compassion, and empathy

Jacob Links:

• Jacob’s Website
• Jacob’s LinkedIn
• Jacob's Twitter: @jacob_m_harmon

Kalob Links:

• Kalob’s LinkedIn

SuccessQuest Links:

• Website
• Blog
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• Twitter: @MySuccessQuest
• Email: podcast@MySuccessQuest.com

Kalob: [00:00:00] Hey there welcome back questers to the SQHQ with another episode of SuccessQuest. I'm Kalob Valle.

Jacob: [00:00:17] And I'm Jacob Harmon. 

Kalob: [00:00:20] And today we're gonna continue our journey discussing the successes of. This week's topic is emotional success. But before we begin we want to welcome all of you who may be new to the show here at SuccessQuest We believe that success consists of much more than being financially well-off or Rich even we believe that success encompasses the emotional physical spiritual, even there are so many aspects to success and far too often we Overlook them in order to obtain true success. We must understand all of these. Now we are all questers seeking the ultimate treasure which is true success and we are your resource to helping you take steps to getting to that point in your life, but we aren't professionals. We are on this journey with you, which is probably the coolest part about this podcast. You know, you're not just listening to these guys who are all high and mighty No, we're on this journey with you. We're all questers and we're looking for people everywhere even just like you to share with us your experiences. And stories of success. But yeah, Jacob and I started this podcast to 2 months ago. This is our eighth episode, which is crazy. It's crazy to think that we've gotten this far. We're super excited. It's been an amazing journey so far. We've gotten to meet some incredible people. And we have such an amazing audience. So we want to thank all of you listeners who have just continually listen with us and all you guys who are brand new. Listen for the first time. I hope you guys can get into feeling that desire tapping into that desire to reach success truly and all its aspects so welcome questor you are on the ultimate Journey because there's no other Journey more important than finding your own success in what makes you truly happy in life.So welcome. Um, but yeah, let's go ahead and dive into emotional success. 

Jacob: [00:02:17] Real quick before we do that. I just wanted to celebrate with our audience here a little Milestone that Kalob and I have reached we are on our eighth episode of SuccessQuest for eight weeks straight. We have not missed one Thursday and I'll tell you right now we are recording Wednesday night. So even though sometimes we come right to the line. We have not missed a week and it's a milestone for us because we have six different areas of success that we have defined that we're talking about. If you're interested in learning more about that go back and listen to episode 2 of SuccessQuest we go over all of the different areas of success, but. Episode 8 we're talking about the last area of success emotional success. And so it's a big milestone for us because we have been consistent we've done this week after week after week and that's actually a huge part of being successful.  Just being consistent doing something consistently if you're struggling with that that's a great place to start find one thing or one habit that you wish you had start doing it. And do it consistently eight weeks is a long time but we hope to do this much much longer. We hope that this is just the beginning but I'm just excited that we've been so consistent with this and I kind of wanted to celebrate that with our audience. So anyways, big milestone for us. Hey, so let's dive in a little bit too emotional success. I mean, there's a lot of different areas of emotional success to we could subdivide it into so many different things, but we want to talk today about relationships about being able to have a positive attitude being able to control your outlook on life and also how to deal with. Mental health issues that can arise like depression and anxiety in the more severe things that happen with our emotions and with our help mental health. But first we're going to start on a little lighter note on just day-to-day emotions and how they can help us in our life. What does emotional success mean to you Kalob?  

Kalob: [00:04:32] So, okay. This is a great. I'm excited. I'm so excited about this topic and. Before we start support until everybody know we're not professionals. Right? Like we we don't know everything. We're kind of having just the discussion. We're learning alongside with you. We've done a lot of research and we want to talk about this and maybe it why didn't the Horizon widen our perspectives on what emotional success maybe when I imagine emotional success, I imagine someone who isn't governed by their emotions yet someone. Who knows the importance of emotions and has that fine balance where they can say? Okay, you know right now I'm angry, but I'm not going to hit people, you know, like that's that's being control of my emotions. But at the same time knowing when to let anger kind of flow through you how to let it flow through you to motivate you to action right? Like for example, my dad anytime I was struggling in school for a reason that was external to me. Right, my dad would immediately let kind of be filled with frustration and he let it drive him and that he would go to action, you know talk to those teachers or talk to those people or talk to me and get things done. You know, I think so. I think emotions are good because they're there are driving force to action, but there has to be a good balance. You don't want to be fully governed by emotions because then you just drowning. What do you think Jacob?

Jacob: [00:05:59] I love what you're saying. Being able to feel emotion but not letting those emotions control you being in control of your emotions and also deciding how to react to them because it's important that we have emotion, right? There's a reason why we have them if we didn't have any emotion we'd be in big trouble. I mean, It'd be a pretty boring world that we live in so it's important that we have these emotions. We have Inger we have sadness we have passion right something that here on SuccessQuest. We have a lot of his passion. I mean, we really want yes. We have a drive to become successful and without emotion that wouldn't be possible. We wouldn't be sitting here talking to each other about success and getting excited about it. We need those emotions because they drive us like you said, but. Sometimes there's emotions can take control of us. And they can instead of us being in control of Our Lives we can let them govern us and I've seen a lot of examples of moments where people aren't in control. And it's always eye-opening to see this like even even just sitting at a restaurant right where I'll see a parent yellow their children or or just get so frustrated over something so small and lose it. They completely lose control of themselves and I watch these these interactions with people. I'm just like. Oh my gosh, that person has zero control over their actions because their emotions dominate everything they do and so there is a balance we need it. But we also need to learn how to control it and how to channel it.

Kalob: [00:07:43] And you know, I'm thinking about the examples. I was just thinking okay, so like comparing adults to children. It's interesting to see a child. So my I mean I'm raising my son and my son's only. Eleven months. I almost forgot his age. I don't know he's going to turn a year soon, but it's interesting to see how his life is governed by feelings, right? Because he'd really doesn't really know a lot better and he doesn't really know how to communicate. I know that but it's interesting because when he's hungry. I mean he will just let it totally Encompass him, right totally like he'll cry and he'll want hunger he wants to be fed. And those are his ways of expressing it but as you grow up, that's totally unacceptable, right if I were to just break down and start going crazy at a McDonald's because I'm so hungry like that is really strange. Don't be governed by your emotions and that in that instance if I McDonald's and I'm hungry right at the. Course of action is to sit patiently and wait my turn until I can pay someone to get food, but I was thinking and this is another thing I wanted to bring up with you Jacob because I'm trying to understand this myself. How our emotions and attitude tied together are they intertwined are they separate are they the same thing I was talking about this earlier with my wife. I was I was contemplating the fact that emotions are inevitable. You're going to feel emotions and any circumstance no matter what but it is what it is how you express your emotions based off the attitude that you have. I don't know. Can you help me out with that Jacob? I was thinking about this. I want to get your thoughts. 

Jacob: [00:09:20] Yeah, this is just my opinion. I'm coming out but I think attitude is. The way we react to and then adjust emotion. 

Kalob: [00:09:32] Ooh, I like that makes sense. 

Jacob: [00:09:34] So for example something happens we can call that a trigger right? I'm angry.  . Like the emotion going through me is anger. Now what attitude allows me to do is it allows me to take that anger. Take a step back kind of? Analyze that anger and figure it out and internalize it right and then channel that and adjust it. So if I have a good attitude, then I can for example. Let's say I'm angry at a situation at work. I have a co-worker who is is angry at me because of something I did but there was a poor communication. And so honestly, it wasn't necessarily my fault. It was just that we didn't understand each other and they're blowing up. Right. So in this type of situation, my natural response is anger right back at them. They're angry at me. I want to be angry back at them, right but if we have. A good attitude the way I see attitude is the ability.  To calm down internalize that anger don't get rid of it, but then Channel it and think it through so that you can actually respond to that situation and a proactive way instead of a destructive way in a constructive way because the way you respond especially in emotionally intense situations takes a lot of self-control. A lot of self-control but I think it's a skill that can be learned. It's something that takes practice. 

Kalob: [00:11:12] I agree with that. I think that you hit it right on the nail as I was discussing this earlier with my wife. I was like it almost seems to me that a good or a more positive attitude is like the driving force to the reaction of the emotion. You're about to feel. I just picture the levers when like the train is going somewhere and you want to change the track, you know, it's the positive attitude is like pushing that lever to the side. So it goes down a more positive track you starting to think through it. You know, you're making sure your reaction isn't over the top. You're analyzing the situation and on the opposite side if you have a bad attitude. You are going to just get crushed under the emotion. The emotion is just going to come and just absolutely steamroll right over you for example when you are. Angry in that instance and you have a really negative attitude already. You just are not liking that co-worker and it's just always just getting at you. You might actually yell you might actually Raise Your Voice you might stop out of the room slam the door do something. That's embarrassing afterwards because you are just getting steamrolled because of the negative consequences of having a negative attitude. It's not something that people are born with it's something that you can learn over time. This is something that you if you practice enough you can train hard enough. You can have a better attitude on top of having a good attitude. There are also a number of things that you can do to strengthen your control on your emotions. And one of those ways I wanted to discuss is the way you actually end up expressing that emotion can be a way of helping you control that emotion if you know you have a good Outlet. For your emotions, whether it's anger or sadness and if you have a good outlet that can help you so like for example with Jacob talking about his coworker if I'm in having a dispute with my coworker and I'm getting into a situation where I'm in getting angry, right? I'm getting angry in my emotions are hitting me from every corner, but I know in my head that I have a special Outlet saved for anger. I'm going to handle that situation totally differently if I know that in my office, I have a little punching bag like and I'm thinking in my head like I can't wait till I get back to my office, you know, so I can finally Express that that emotion. I think it's I think that's a great way of helping you control emotion. 

Jacob: [00:13:41] That's great. I think that it's always important to have some sort of outlet for emotions, especially when it's undesirable emotions emotions that. We don't necessarily want for me something that I like to do is just find a quiet place take deep breaths that that helps me or go for a walk. I know that for my wife she likes to just separate yourself from the situation whenever we're frustrated at all. She just doesn't want to talk to me. So she goes away she calms down. And and we don't we aren't explosive types. Like we don't have really heated arguments because we're both kind of the type that just go and calm down and then we come back and later talked about it. And I think that that that's that's a great way at least for me to to do with it. But some people are different and they'd rather explode a little get it all out. And then they're fine. And so everyone's going to deal with emotions in a different way and you just kind of have to figure out what the best way is for you. Another thing that I like to do in this goes back to our discussion last week on spiritual success that really all intertwined is I like to sit down and maybe say a prayer or just gather my thoughts and kind of ponder and meditate a little bit so.  Really? Emotions are tied very closely to spiritual success and also physical success because if you're taking care of your body. You going to be in more control of your emotions if you're eating junk food all the time and things than your brain is going to have a harder time dealing with those things. So honestly, the more you work on all these areas the more that are you're going to be helped in other areas too. So definitely figure out what works for you because everyone's different.

Kalob: [00:15:36] The point that you make that all these successes are intertwined is such a valid. The end goal is that you want to kind of develop all of these these successes so go back and listen to our other podcasts kind of get an idea for what these type of successes are because they're all intertwined just like Jacob said, so if you want to get better and emotional success or physical success social success, all these things need to be worked on gradually together. Having an outlet just for your emotions is just fantastic overall regardless of what it may be for you punching a bag of something. I like to do. My wife likes to write in her journal exercising our just venting to a friend. All those are great Outlets.

Jacob: [00:16:14] This whole time we've been talking about emotions that keep I keep thinking of that movie Inside Out where there's the girl and literally inside of her brain. She's got these little creatures that are controlling her emotions, right? There's the anger and happiness and sadness. And anyways, that's a fun movie but. We're going to kind of take a turn in the podcast now up to this point. We've been talking about a certain demographic of people that.  Their emotions work in the quote-unquote normal way where you have control over them, right? You can take a step back and calm them down, but there are also a lot of circumstances out there where people have mental health problems. That make these types of things difficult. There's so many different mental health issues out there and Kalob and I like we said already we're not professionals and we don't want to make it sound like we are but we do want to make it clear that we understand that the things we've talked about up to this point may not work for some of you. Some of you might have something bigger going on maybe. There's some of you out there that have anxiety or depression.  A good attitude as great as that is isn't necessarily going to work for you because there's deeper things going on. There's chemical imbalances going on that make it harder. So we just want to make it clear that we understand that emotional success is going to be more difficult for some people than it is for other people. And while there are so many different mental health conditions out there. Today we want to talk a little bit specifically about anxiety and depression because they are so prevalent and we love to talk about even more of them in the future. And since we're not experts we've taken the rest of what we're going to be talking about in this section of the podcast directly from articles. From professionals that have talked about it and we have a list of a few things that can help you cope with anxiety and depression and then also a few things for those of you out there who are supporting someone else who has anxiety and depression things that you can do to help them out on a personal note. I have a very close family member who suffers with severe anxiety and depression and even Suicidal Thoughts. And when I learned about this that was so hard for me because I didn't know how to help her.  I didn't and I still don't I'm working on it. Sometimes I don't know what to say or if something I'm going to say is going to be good or if it's just going to be make things worse. And so I know how difficult it is to try to be supporting someone and so we're also going to talk a little bit about that today. 

Kalob: [00:19:21] Yes, I also just want to say if you are suffering with type of mental illness that makes things like this hard being able to control your emotions and such. Can I just say you are so cool. Like you are so cool. You have to go through everything that we have to go through on a daily basis and then some you know, like you are already ahead of the game when it comes to. Experiencing your own trials and facing difficulty like you are on top of the food chain. Your you are seriously some of the people I look up to the most because I have a brother as well speaking about personal things who has to deal with severe depression and it's just crazy to me that I mean, he deals with so much crap just. And then on top of that he's trying to live in the real world, you know, and that's a tough thing to do. So, let me just congratulate all of you guys who are suffering from some type of mental illness and let me just say you are from you are. Okay, you are phenomenal. And if anything we believe in you, and I know it can be hard what you if you guys should reach out to us. Seriously. We would love to hear your thoughts on this matter because we're not professionals, you know, we don't experience this in anywhere near how you experience this so we would like to see maybe exactly what it is you do to try and cope with your own depression anxiety mental illness Etc. We would love to have you on the show. But kind of going into ways to cope with anxiety and depression again not all of this is going to help you per se but I think it's a good start. I think it's a great start. Well, the first on the list is just medication. Okay, I think that's that's fantastic. Like we have amazing modern technology. But like the the technology we have today is just fantastic trying to find depression medication is so. Hard because everyone's brains are different. Right and so you're trying to find medication that works for you. Not every medications going to work for you and sometimes you have to go through a series of medication trials before you find the right one for you and that can be rough that can be rough road to go on but we have technology nowadays that can. Look at your brain and detect exactly what's going to be right for you. I mean that it's just amazing and I know some people out there probably thinking, you know, I'm not about medication by it should be something you seriously consider if you're dealing with severe anxiety and depression that can be a really good way to help you. It's not going to change who you are. It's not going to change who you are. It's going to allow you to be more of yourself and I think people Overlook that aspect of medication.

Jacob: [00:22:10] Something that I want to add real quick to what Kalob was saying about medication. Unfortunately, there's a stigma about mental illness and thankfully seems to be going away more. We're starting to become more open about it as a society, but unfortunately in the past there's been this stigma like, oh you're depressed. We'll get over it. Oh, Just just smile. Like you'll be okay and that doesn't help that does not help and if you have a broken arm, you go to a doctor they give you medicine for the pain. They set the arm, they put it in a cast and they take care of it so that it can heal if you have a mental illness whether it be anxiety or depression or anything else. It's no less severe or no less real than that broken arm go get help go to someone who knows how to help you and who is trained to help you? And I mean, there's a lot of different ways Kalob already was talking about medication. Another thing you can do is find a counselor. Someone a therapist someone who can talk to someone that'll listen and can help you out and a few other coping. Mechanisms here. I'm just going to read them real quick because we don't have a whole lot of time but won't link this article exercising. It's actually been proven and we talked a little bit about this honor physical success episode. But when you exercise your brain releases chemicals that makes you happier. So exercising is actually a great way to cope with these types of things. Another thing you can do is you can learn relaxation techniques, like deep breaths and finding a quiet place maybe reading a good book those types of things look at your diet. There's certain foods that are going to help with. With being more calm and with being being happier and being less depressed. There's a lot of different ways that you can you can cope with it. And the biggest thing that we can recommend to you is if you're struggling with this, especially if you're struggling with this silently and nobody knows. Take that first step to getting yourself. Talk to someone in your family talk to talk to someone you trust go go to a doctor whatever you need to do. Take that step to start working towards coping and getting better because like I said, it's no less real than that broken arm.

Kalob: [00:24:43] I love that continuing on. Ways to support someone who struggles with things like this. Jacob. I think you're right that that stigma is kind of going away, which is great. But I see a lot more people kind of expressing it on social media, which is a great place for people to more widely appreciated and see it because I'm yeah, you can't just tell someone to suck it up. Ways to support someone who struggles finding out if the person is getting the care he or she needs or wants. I think that's that's key right there once to you can't push someone into doing something they don't want to do if they're comfortable with their lifestyle and all they need is a good friend meaning someone who's just gonna accept them. Just someone who's going to text every now and then be like, hey, are you okay like you doing good? Can I help you with anything? Cool, like if you want to go hang out, let's go hang out like that type of friend. I think that's a good friend. So yeah finding out to like if that they are getting the care they need expressing your concern and support Express that yeah, let them know that you love them and you care for them and you want to help them in any way and every time you express that, you know, they're going to appreciate that so much more asking questions listening to ideas being responsive when a topic of mental health problem comes up. All those are really great. I love the listening part. Um, yeah just be there to listen everyone needs a listener, especially when you're struggling with something. So yeah be someone who's going to lend to ear and not necessarily try to solve all the problems yourself. Right? Some people don't want problems fixed. They just want to be listened to okay and treating people with mental health problems with respect compassion and empathy. That's awesome. You should do that already to every human being ever. Okay, but especially if you know, someone is struggling. Be compassionate be respectful. You can't assume that you understand what they're going through. If you haven't gone through it yourself and even if you have it may not be too that severity. It may not be to that level. You don't know that person but you just don't know what variables make it worse for someone else. So you need to just be respectful compassionate and be empathetic anyway, like always. Thank you guys so much for coming and listening to this podcast episode for emotional success. You guys are seriously so fantastic all of you questers out there. We want to invite you guys if you haven't already to go and like our Facebook page going visit us give us a like send us a message. We love to hear feedback. That's like seriously the best thing we want to hear from you your thoughts your impressions your ideas and if you guys have a story to share. Get in touch with us. We'll have you on the show. I think that's a marvelous way because at like I said previously everyone has had some hint of success in their lives. That is that can be something that can benefit everybody. Also give this podcast a great rating. That way more people can see that this this podcast really has valuable contents and that they'll be more inclined to listen, and hopefully we can motivate and Inspire the world. That's the real goal. So, thank you guys again for listening to the podcast. We love you guys, and you guys have a successful day.