E543 Dr. Ryan Martin

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Get all these and more at theovonstore.com, the only place to get our merch. Today's guest is an expert in the world of anger.
He's an author. He's a researcher.
He's a dean at the College of Arts, Humanities,

and Social Sciences at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. We covered a lot of ground,

and he has some insightful thoughts, just talking about anger in general, and then

just things that spaces I've had trouble with anger in. I'm very grateful today to have spent

time with Dr. Ryan Martin.
I think the thing I was really, I thought was cool is just the variety of guests you've had on over the years. I mean, it was impressive.
It's a cool group. Thanks, man.
Yeah, it was a cool group. Yeah, I mean, there's been some real smart people, some real perverts that have come on here, some real creeps.
We've had all kinds. Yeah, well, good.
Well, I hope I fall in that first category. I hope I'm not one of the perverts or the creeps.
Yeah. TBD, brother.
We'll see where we end. Dr.
Ryan Martin is here from, you're a professor at University of Wisconsin-Green Bay. Yep.
That is right. And yeah, and we wanted to talk with you today about anger because that's the world you work in, right? Anger? Yep.
Exactly. Yeah.
So, I've been working at the university for the last 19 years. I've been teaching psychology for 18 of those years.
I actually just started a year ago as the Dean of Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences. But most of that time, I've been researching.
And actually, even before that, I was researching anger and teaching and writing about anger. And what made you get into it? Did you have some things when you things when you was a child that got you really angry? Yeah.
Yeah. Some of it was that some of it, you know, there's this long story about my family and what was called the Martin temper, right.
And referred to mostly the men in my family who had, who were like quick to quick to get mad. Um, starting with my dad, um, dad, but not ending with him.

Both my brothers, me.

It's interesting because I think people assume

anger is

hostile or uncomfortable or that we didn't love each other.

Like professional wrestling or something.

Yes, exactly.

But it wasn't that.

It was a really loving home. I get along great with my siblings.
We've got really great relationships. All of us have chilled out quite a bit since then.
But so it's just something I grew up with. It was a theme.
Yeah. And when I went to college, decided I was interested in studying it more and then went to grad school and started working with a professor who studied it.
His name is Dr. Eric Dolan and he was researching anger and it just became something I was really passionate about and really interested in.
So yeah, it seems like it was kind of a family affair then kind of. And so obviously that's maybe that's just a sign out of the gate that it's something for you to like on and learn about.
So when people like – because I get angry all the time. I'm pretty angry a lot even though maybe sometimes I don't seem like it.
But when people say anger, what do they mean? I know it's so basic, but what is anger? Yeah, and so I think what you just said is really, really important. You said I'm angry a lot of the time, but people don't realize it.
And I think that's because something I think you realize that a lot of people don't is that anger is just the feeling. It's just the emotion.
We can express that emotion, that emotion in a gajillion different ways. And some people express that anger by yelling and screaming.
Some people express that anger by suppressing it. Some people like me, they just do a relatively good job of controlling it, of using it to problem solve and so on.
To answer your question, what is it? It's the emotional desire to lash out and it's associated with having been wronged, having been treated unfairly or having had your your goals blocked. Like, I want to do something, and something's interfering with me trying to get that thing done, right? So, it's why road rage is so common.
It's because, by definition, you're on your way somewhere, stuff's getting in your way, and you start to get mad about it. What are your triggers? Like, when you say you get angry all the time, what are some of the things that if I can ask? Yeah, no, thanks for asking, Ryan.
I, for me, I've been noticing recently, a lot of it is unrealistic expectations. So I have a lot of just generally unrealistic expectations that people should know how to do things the way I would like them to be done.
Got it. So that's, that out of the gate has been a big one for me.
Would you describe yourself as kind of type A? Do you know what that means? Like type A personality? Like blood or whatever? No, no, no. It's a personality type of being competitive, really aggressive.
A lot of successful people are type A. I'm type A, right? And even it's like I'm really competitive.
I'm really aggressive. I'm really.
Type A, um type a let me see right here we have it our personality is defined by traits like ambition drive and competitiveness which can lead to a high level of success but type a personalities can also be impatient hostile and even have trouble relaxing um yeah i wouldn't go to hostile i don't get there but i can get like yeah very impatient um have trouble relaxing dude i'll notice i will be urinating right and in the middle of urinating i will flush the toilet just because i don't want to i want to get it off my checklist yeah it's like it's already done you got a to-do list right yeah right so it's still weird because i'll then still urinate into the then still urinate into the toilet, but it's like, I've already, it's like, yeah, but so impatience. Yeah.
It's definitely a big one for me. You got to learn to time that just right.
So that it's like, just as you're finishing, it's going down. Yeah.
Yeah. I'm sure that's how I started, but then after a while it was like, well, why do I, you know, but, but I noticed that about myself, like that's a real thing that I noticed that it's like, um, that for me was like, wow, I have a lot of impatience.
The reason I ask is because what you said about setting unrealistic expectations is that's really common for people who are kind of type A, right? Who have these high, this competitive trait is that they think, hey, the people should, I want to accomplish a lot and me accomplishing a lot relies on other people to get their stuff done and and taken care of and if they don't if they let me down that slows me down and i don't like it right and so it's it's um this is something i actually deal with relatively often too i get an idea in my head that idea is reliant on other people doing their job in a particular way and And I think to myself, they should be able to get that done by whatever day. Right.
And then they don't, you know, and it, and in fairness to them, it's because they've got other stuff they're doing. Right.
I mean, yeah, totally. Yeah.
It makes sense that they don't, or that things don't go a certain way. It's just like in certain moments, it's tough for me, you know, it's tough for me to notice that it's like, that not what i'm thinking right um but that for sure is a big trigger for me i notice is unrealistic expectations yeah um so and i'm sure i'm not the only person that deals with this type of thing uh yeah so what why do people get mad like or get angry in in any given moment kind of like is it is there a real science behind it yep and this is the stuff i study so okay so why people get angry in any given moment? Is there a real science behind it? Yep.
And this is the stuff I study. So why people get angry in a particular moment is usually a confluence of like three things, right? So there's a trigger.
There's the thing that happened, right? And I encourage people to be really specific about what that thing is, right? So driving down the street, yellow light in front of you, you think you can make it, car in front of you stops though, right? So now you've got to stop. So that's the trigger, right? Then there is your mood at the time of that trigger.
So are you stressed? Are you fatigued? Are you already angry about something? Are you anxious? Whatever. Are you too warm or too cold, physically uncomfortable, hungry? All those things make it more likely that you're going to respond with anger in that moment.
And then there's how you interpret that behavior. And this is where those expectations come in.
So do I interpret this person as, do I look at this and say, oh, this is going to ruin my day. Now I'm going to be late to work.
I'm not going to get done what I need to get done. Do you interpret it as, oh, that idiot, why did they slow down? And so do you label them in that sort of negative way? You totally could have made that, man.
Or do you interpret it as, hey, it's going to slow me down two minutes. I'll still get to work.
Everything's going to be okay third one sounds like the healthiest one yep but I'll even go sometimes like this bastard left his house just to fucking strain me here yep he's just here to ruin my life like yeah or I'll sometimes a part of my brain will even go there you know we have these thoughts there's like there are a couple specific types of thoughts that we have when we're faced with that kind of provocation. Okay.
And one of them is what you just described. It's, it's this inflammatory labeling, right? So I label this guy as a bastard, as an asshole, as a loser, whatever.
Right. Another one is, um, that demandingness that we talked about.
And it's like, you know, God, why can't they just do the job the way they're supposed to, whatever. You know, what we call like making these dictatorial demands, like things need to be done the way I want them when I want them.
There's what we call overgeneralizing. So it's, I don't know if you ever say like, God, this always happens to me, you know, where you label things in that sort of super exaggerated way.
There's catastrophizing, which is when you blow things out of proportion. You say, this is going to ruin my day, my week, my month, my year.
This is the, my career is over now. This ruins everything.
Christmas is done. Yep, exactly.
Yep. And then there's, the last one is what we call misattributing causation, but it's where you just blame the wrong people for things.
You know, you say, or you decide they did it on purpose, right? What you were saying before about, like, this guy's just doing this to fuck with me, right? That's, you're making assumptions about, now, I know you're not really making those assumptions, but you're making assumptions about why they did a thing right yeah um and blowing it out so all those things come together into like this recipe for why you get mad in a particular moment and then um even separate from that is what we do when we're mad right and so for me um every now and then i'll like just have a moment where i'll like yell, not at someone, but just sort of at the heavens. I might, you know, sometimes pound my fist on the table or something like that when I'm when I'm really mad.
A lot of times, though, I like I'll sort of simmer inside a little bit. I'll get frustrated.
I'll sort of take a we do this thing in my office. We've done it for a long time where when we're feeling frustrated, we'll say, okay, let's start with an unproductive response, meaning let's just take a minute to vent for a second about how we hate this, right? We'll take like two minutes and then we'll stop and we'll say, okay, now let's problem solve.
What do we need to do, right? How do we work through this? Right, let some of the pressure off. Yep.
Yeah, exactly. When it comes to anger, are there different types? So, like, we kind of have looked at, like, a situation that triggers and then you end up angry.
Right. Right? Are there different types of anger? Like, are there? Yeah.
I mean, I think anger can come from a lot of different places, and people can tend to express it in lots of different ways. I tend to think of anger as existing on like a continuum, meaning on one end you've got mild frustration, like, hey, I'm leaving the house, can't find my keys, right? No, it's irritating.
I misplaced something. It's a bummer.
Yeah, my shoes don't fit that good. Right, stuff stuff like that and then there's more intense frustration that that comes from like hey i'm now i'm really starting to run late this dude that got my way on the road or whatever right more intense all the way up to like extreme anger of i um uh you know when you see a politician do something that you just hate or when, you know, your spouse treats you badly or when your parents treat you badly or whatever, a friend takes advantage of you, like the real extreme, cruel, terrible things, right?

And it exists.

And so it's everything from like mild frustration to just being livid with rage, that whole spectrum.

So there's just kind of a spectrum of anger. It's like there's small amounts, there's larger, there's things that are really intense.
I guess in my next thought, like, because anger gives me a sense, sometimes it's like an illusionary sense that I have some control over what's going on. Yeah.
But at the same time, I feel out of control. Right.
Because anger sometimes makes me want to take an action. So that makes me feel like I'm in control.
Yeah. But then I'll get so sometimes just blinded by being angry that it's like I know I'm out of control.
You know? Yeah. This is one of the things that – so I don't know if you've ever had this experience, but have you ever been so angry that you started to cry?

Is that something you can think of?

Yeah, not as an adult, but as a child.

Yeah.

Okay.

Interesting.

I've been sad that I've cried, but not anger that I've cried.

So there are some people, and I discovered this on social media, like there are a lot

of people who sometimes when they get really angry, they'll start to cry.

Like that's their sort of go-to expression. And the interesting thing is the people I've talked to hate this about themselves.
They will tell me, I can't stand it. It drives me crazy because I'm really mad.
And instead of like, I just start to cry. And I think a big part of what's going on there is a pretty intense feeling of helplessness.

It's like, not only am I being treated badly, not only am I being treated unfairly and having my goals blocked, but there's nothing I can do about it. I'm just stuck.
And that hurts, you know, and it doesn't feel good and it feels scary. And so I think for a lot of people, that hopelessness and helplessness lands them in a place where they just start to tear up.
Like it sort of dovetails with sadness in this very real way. Whereas for people like me, when I'm feeling particularly sort of helpless or hopeless and angry, I tend to focus on, okay,

so where are the places where I can make a difference?

Where are the places where I can take a little bit of power back, right?

And try and solve this problem.

Can I solve the whole big problem?

Maybe not, but maybe I can make a dent, you know, and do what I can do.

And then, and that at least gives me some, some power to like, let things go. Yeah go yeah because that's the biggest thing is the anger it feels like it has to be let go that's the thing about anger like other feeling like you know anger it feels like you have to you know like happy I've never been so happy I then like went and dressed up like a clown and ran out into the street you know yeah but I've been so angry that I'll I damn, I will kick a clown if it comes near me, you know, like, so I, you know, I've, but you know, there's, there's anger is the one that feels like it has to get out of your body.
Yeah. You know, it's got that gremlin and it just literally feels like it needs to leave you somehow.
Well, it's because it, that's a really interesting thought. And I think it's because,

I think you're right,

anger tends to linger

in ways that other emotions

don't necessarily linger.

Yeah, dude, in loiters.

Yeah, and it's interesting

because joy or happiness

or excitement,

that tends to dissipate

relatively quickly,

more quickly than I think

people realize, right?

Those feelings don't last. Oh, the half-life on joy, it's not very long probably.
Right. But anger, you can still, like, you'll go get in your car, you'll drive somewhere, you'll start chewing the bottom of your, like, I didn't even know, somehow I started chewing on my own teeth one time.
I was like, what is even, you know, sometimes you can get so angry that you turn into a chew toy for yourself almost yourself almost yeah you know like i've just gotten so agitated um yeah what happens to anger if you if we don't process it and then how can you process it like like what's a legitimate way to process it that's yeah realistic well can we start with some of the illegitimate ways okay yeah and i say that because that's good because it connects to something you just said which is um you know wanting because people want it out of their body right and it feels like and so we've been literally for thousands of years people have been talking about catharsis as a way of of ridding our body of anger and and thinking of ourselves almost like pressure cookers like if we don't if we don't open up the valve and release this anger, we'll blow up. Right.
And so that's where a lot of these approaches, like if you've ever heard of a rage room or like, you know, people punching a punching bag or hitting the gym or things like that, that's where those approaches come from is this idea that we gotta, we gotta let that out. And now here's the, here's the thing and and people are gonna throw rocks when i say this but all of the research that we have on catharsis tells us it doesn't work it doesn't rage actions of getting it out physically that it doesn't work it doesn't it feels good at the time and so people think well because it feels good it must be good for me.
It must help. But what we find is two things.
First, over time, the people who use that as their mechanism stay angry and get angrier over time. We also find that like right after, like moments after they did the study, and this is like 50 years old, right? So we've known for a long time.
They did this study where they provoked people in the lab. Then they took half of them and they put them on a bicycle and said, just ride the bike as fast as you can, right? Exercise.
The other half had to do this really ridiculous task where they were like threading coins with a needle or something like that, something boring and tedious. And then afterwards, they assessed to see how angry and aggressive they were.
And the people who worked it out on the bike were way more aggressive than the people who, you know, did the other task. Because that exercise, it doesn't do it.
It keeps the angry thoughts at the surface. It keeps the intensity going, and keeps your blood pressure going.
What you need to do when you're angry is to actually find ways to calm down and relax. You need to take deep breaths, stuff like that.
Rage rooms don't do that. Hitting a punching bag doesn't do that.
Wow. And I guess you feel like it does because, again, anger is that – it's that – I mean, it you act it's like you know people do things in a fit of anger in a fit of rage it's like it it's like this energy that's it's almost like it's always leaving a diving board you know so to get that to that even it almost feels like inertia or whatever so to get it to stop i think is you know some of this kind of harrowing, I feel like.
Rage rooms invite people to engage with their anger, but do they actually work? Yeah. This is a study that came out.
I can't see who wrote it. Marcus Biddle.
I don't know Marcus. Rage rooms.
They just had one for women that they opened up. I saw this.
Did you? Yeah. You bring that up? Rage rooms for women?

Yeah.

I think, is it a rage room or do they take them out into the woods?

If they're taking them into the woods, I'm not getting involved in it.

That's a good one.

I'll let as many ladies as they want just go ham inside of a bed, bath, and body works or whatever with a shovel.

I'll join them.

But I don't think we need to bring anybody into into the woods yeah that's probably not great uh can you see what's going on here though i just want to uh i think it was like a new york times article or something this was an article about rage women rage getting it out yep well because sometimes my rage it will almost feels like it blinds me right know, it's like it is so overcoming because if you don't. Yeah.
So if so if somebody doesn't process. I mean, I think like probably truly the worst thing people can do is that a cathartic expression is like breaking stuff, exercising.
Those are probably the bad ways. Right.
And I guess there's, it just feels like that because physically you're doing something.

Yep.

Like, yeah, obviously I'm taking an action.

Yep.

This is an actual physical action.

Then it feels like, oh, that should be helpful.

And it is what your body wants to do, right?

Because, I mean, if we define anger as the emotional desire to lash out, well, then your body wants to lash out.

And so if you give it that, you know, it's going to feel good.

That doesn't, again, that doesn't make it good for you.

Right.

We could talk about this with other.

I mean,

Thank you. We could talk about this with other, I mean, you know, I guess some other like bad ways to deal with your anger, but these are obvious to people is like doing drugs, right? Overeating, you know, just calling a friend and screaming at them.
Like those things are bad for you. They're mean.
Do they make you feel better? Sometimes in the moment they do for people, right? But that doesn't make it good for them. But sometimes I think it feels like doing one of those things is healthier than doing something physically dangerous.
Yes. Yep, I think so.
You know, I think you're right. Although,.
Although, I mean, long-term those things can be physically dangerous too, for sure.

But, but yeah.

Right. Yeah.
In the moment.

Yep.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that's the, that's the worry actually is that, so what we find is that people who use like, if, if their approach to dealing with anger is I'm going to go punch this pillow, you know, or I'm going i'm gonna go punch this punching bag i'm gonna tear phone books in half or whatever yeah um what we find is that becomes it's like you know i have a i used to have a soccer coach who would say practice makes permanent right and it's like the way you practice something is how you'll do things in life and if you practice your anger that way well then someday when you're mad you're not going to control yourself and you're gonna you're gonna hit someone you're gonna you know you're gonna punch someone you're gonna go after them and so it ends up having those kinds of long-term harmful uh consequences damn dude god i just people don't like to hear this by the way when i when i talk about this, just a couple weeks ago, I talked about this on Instagram.

And, wow, I mean, new research comes out, 150-plus studies. It's an article by a guy named Dr.
Brad Bushman, who's a huge monster anger researcher and aggression researcher in the field. and he does this study and he looks at 154 studies over time approximately and finds that across all

these studies what does work is when you find ways to relax, to decrease arousal in the moment, right? Grounding, deep breaths, all that stuff. What doesn't work is when you raise arousal, right?

You break stuff.

Of course, I share this on Instagram.

Nobody wants to hear that.

Nobody wants to hear that.

Yeah.

Well, I think arouse is a great term too to use

because that's what's going on.

Right.

You're at a heightened state of arousal.

Right.

And it feels like dangerous arousal.

Right.

But even then, I could see maybe if you're going to work out

or get it out that way, you're keeping the arousal at a high level because you're keeping like at least something inside of you aroused. Every now and then someone reaches out to me and asks if I'll- Open a rage room? No, if I'll support theirs.
Like if I'll go and like do promote their rage room and I have to tell them, no, like you obviously haven't paid attention to what I have to say. These places took abandoned warehouses and vacant offices and turned them into businesses made for organized chaos.
Some were also marketed as an alternative to anger management. Yeah.
The one in my town has, makes itself available for gender reveals. Oh, really? I don't know what that looks like.
I could see that, maybe. I'm trying to think.
If you beat a cushion hard enough, like, you know, a couple twins pop out of it or something. I don't know.
That's wild. They fill up a printer with either blue or pink toner.
Oh, there you go. You trash it till it spills all over.
Yeah, I don't know if that would be. I wonder if the Rage Room, a lot of them I've seen, well, a lot of rooms, I noticed this happened too, there was a business like de-evolution where a lot of escape rooms went under and then they turned into rage rooms.
Oh, interesting. And then they just went out of business completely and just turned into one bedroom apartments that have like a trap door in them or whatever um dude i remember we there used to be a place in la downtown they'd have a couple it was like a vietnamese establishment and you would put on like a dog bite suit and these guys would literally beat the smack out of you for like 80 bucks for 15 or 20 minutes wow my brother and i used to play that game when we were kids actually yeah we really we really would.
We would play this game where we would pile up a bunch of, like, we were a sports family, right? So we had, like, all sorts of gear. We'd pile all this gear in the middle of the room and we'd draft items, like we'd each take a thing.
And then you'd put it on and then we had these big plastic Tinker toys and we just beat the crap out of each other. Yeah.
So it was great. He's a lot older than me, though.
So I usually lost. Well, it sounds like he was, it seems very unfair that he would do that.
Yeah. He's a lot older.
Like how old? Like 12 years older? Just five. Oh, that's kind of fair.
Even that's getting a little outside of the range of able to beat my brother age. Yeah.
Agreed. You should tell him that.
We'll let him know. Yeah.
Yeah. Here's one right here.
The rage room. There we go.
Oh, somebody hit a, uh, Oh. Maybe they did hit an ink toner.
Yeah. A toner cartridge.
Oh, there's something that had a dangerous gas in it. They said nerve gas.
Jeez. Yep.
That's what you do. That's gotta be careful.
Yeah. You gotta be careful.
Yeah. Rate.
I guess it's, I don't know if I've ever even been to one. I don't know if it was something that really excited me.
Um, so what would be healthy ways to process anger? I mean, some of them seem kind of obvious. They don't seem that much fun.
Right. Yeah, no, that's true.
You know, I think there's, there's two ways of thinking about this. Like the first way is to think about, okay, when I am angry, what do I do to deal with that anger? right? And that's where that study I was just telling you about, 154 articles that essentially find you got to find ways to deescalate, right? So what are those different mechanisms? And there are different ones for different people, but it's the deep breathing.
It's mindful walking. It is, you go for a walk and you just think about your thoughts and try and relax you think about nature, you think about whatever's going on a cool study just came out by the way that found that college students who go for walks versus college students who go for walks and bird watch, that the bird watching is actually better for their mental health than just going for walks.
Really? it's kind of peeping tom and on nature i feel yeah i mean it's true yeah no you're right it's it's voyeuristic it's like look this bird's just trying to live its life i know here i am yeah look at this bird just feeding his children you're sitting there just yeah googing in the windows it's kind of crazy but get out of that bird's business yeah But I think what's happening is, is that the, it forces people to get out of their head, right? And so it doesn't have to be birds. If you want to, if you want to look at something else, if you feel more comfortable leaving those birds be, you can look at, you can just be like, I'm going to identify leaves.
Okay. Like, yeah, I'm just going to absorb something out here.
Yeah. And it's because then you gets you out of your head to look at the thing and focus on the thing.
And so those kinds of de-escalation approaches are some of the best things to do. The truth is, though, there's infinite things you can do with your anger.
And so sometimes you can channel it into problem solving. You can say, I'm going to – because ultimately what anger gives you is energy right i mean it it right it gives you energy to to confront the injustice and so you know if if you experience something that is truly unfair and you want to do something about it well there's lots of things you can do right you can you can protest you can write letters to the editor you can donate money you can you can You can join all these causes to try and solve those problems.
That's a really good, healthy way to deal with your anger. You can hire one of those planes to write something in the sky.
Exactly. Stop smoking.
Love mom, it says on it. Yeah, nice.
I know. My mom wanted me to stop.
Is that how she got you to stop? She rented a plane? Nice. She did one year.
Pretty sweet of her kind of crazy. That's really kind, yeah.
But yeah, so you can put your anger into something. Yep.
Is that a real thing you can do? Like put that in? Well, I guess you already are activated. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, you know, and this is the example I use. I came home, so when my kids were young, you know, when your kids are young, like the only thing in the world you want is a little bit of time to yourself, right? At the house.
And so I came home from work one day and I think I knew in my head I had like 20 minutes before everybody else got home that I was just alone, right? And I thought, I'm just, I'm going to live my best life for 20 minutes, you know? And then I checked the mail and there was like a flyer in there. mail and there was like a flyer in there.
I feel you, dude. Guys have the worst best lives.
It's like, I'm going to live it off, dude. And I'll just eat like a, I'll just like find an old can of peaches or something and open them and just try one.
Just like a pudding cup. And like, here we go.
Every new wife comes in and you're like, Oh, she's like, this is so sad. Yeah.
This is for 20 minutes. I 20 minutes i had this pudding cup yeah but i'm gonna check this mail while everybody's just letting me be i feel you bro exactly so we're idiots so i i checked the mail and uh there was like a flyer in there for some political candidate who was just saying like nasty stuff about this i got so mad so i spent that 20 minutes i sent an email to the guy I didn't like saying that was BS.
What's wrong with you? I sent another email to the guy I did like and said like, hey, thanks. And then I donated money to the guy I was supporting.
And so by the time I was done, family's home. Right.
But like that's what like I was exhausted when I came home. But gave me the energy to do something like now did i solve all the world's problems no but but like i did something and it felt better afterwards to do that right and something that's more productive than just like yeah um yeah just like getting some spray paint and just tagging up a yeah writing profanity on a wall or doing right i'm trying to think of or anything anything that could be negative right so yeah because it was the male that made you negative so then you're like what am i going to do with it now yeah um but those are those are like safe ways nobody's going to get hurt right exactly yep is pornography causing a problem in your life do you find yourself watching porno for longer periods of time and having trouble stopping?

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So when anger shows up in us, what is it a warning us of? Yeah, I mean, it's one of it. So this is true of all emotions that when we feel them, it's our, one of our brains ways of like providing us information, right? So when you're scared, that's one of your brain's ways of saying, hey, there's a threat, right? There's danger around.
When you're sad, it means you've lost something and it's your brain's way of telling you that. Anger is one of your brain's ways of telling you that someone's treating you badly, that you've experienced this injustice and that that you got to do something about it.
And then when your fight or flight system kicks in, that's your brain's way of saying, like giving you the energy to deal with that. And so one of the best ways to to handle anger is to channel that energy into solving whatever that problem is.
Right. Positive.
Yeah yeah i feel like but if you some of it could go because what if you tell someone like yeah you should get into quilting or doing something that's progress you know and then they just quilt like a you know advertisement for saw two or whatever because that's how angry they are you know like that would be my biggest but i guess that would be like at least a nice piece of art and they could sell yeah um so yeah i guess that does kind of make sense i mean i mean so i love the the saw to quilt idea uh makes me wonder if that exists but uh yeah so probably yeah um but we should uh but i mean channeling your anger into art is a is a thing people do right? I a good healthy way poetry other forms of writing art it's so hard though it's so hard when I close my car door and I'm like to then want to draw something unless I just write how I feel and just show it but it's so hard like i guess that's the thing it's like how do you get over that like how do you get over like convert one moment into another so that you can because that's really the key huh yep well and i think this is like what it what it takes to be and ultimately like what i want and why i'm on social media and why why i write things is because i want people to have sort of a healthier relationship with their emotions and sometimes what that takes is like a de-escalation in the moment so that you can still hang on to the at least the thoughts of anger in a way that is healthy that allows you to to channel them into something positive. Because the truth is, even those emails that I was talking about, I couldn't write those if I was in such a fit of rage that I wasn't making any sense.
You've got to come down a little bit. Yeah, even to get correct punctuation, you have to be almost like at a four.
Right. At a nine, it's all caps.
It is dangerous emojis that you can get off you have a vpn this is one of the the things that i think actually has made electronic communication kind of dangerous for people i used to have a professor who when i was in college who said hey when you get an exam back i don't want you to come talk to me about it for 24 hours and i just just want you to calm, like just take some time to think about it, relax.

You're emoting too strongly in that first 24 hours.

Take some time.

But now, and that was easier to do back then

because you weren't gonna see them

for a couple of days anyways.

You didn't have access to them the way you do now

via email or whatever.

Now, I think when people get mad,

it's so easy to fire off a quick response, to fire off an email, to fire off a tweet or a text or whatever, that it, people can do things when they're feeling most enraged or when they're feeling most upset. Yeah.
Yeah. And then it's really made it almost tougher in person because you don't have, like when you're talking to somebody, you can't just like set them down for two or three minutes while you think about your answer and pee again or whatever you do.
Um, or get you a little, you know, get you a little dessert or something. But, um, yeah, that it's almost gets like, we want to communicate less in person in a way because online communication is kind of easier.
Yeah, I think it is. I mean, I think it is for a couple of reasons.
One is you do, and it is in some good ways, right? You have more time to think about what you want to say, and that's probably a good thing. But it's also easier in some bad ways in that you don't really, like right now you and I are talking to each other and everything I'm seeing, I can see how you're responding to it in your face, right? But if you and I were communicating over text, I have no idea how what I'm saying is impacting you.
And so it's easier for me, it might be easier in that context to say something cruel or hurtful or… Hopeful even. Yeah, you know, because I'm not confronted with what it did to you when you got the message.
So I wonder what that does to us as people over time, right? Because it used to be like if you wanted to – well, I guess you could write a letter. But it used to be probably more often you had to do face-to-face.
Right. More often.
Yep. And so you had to get the real reactions.
You had to get the real feelings of what was going on. Whereas if you can just message it, it's still scary, but it's not – it doesn't – it must affect us differently emotionally over time.
I wonder if that's valuable or not. Is this making any sense? Yeah.
No, absolutely. I mean I think of things.
One, it's, it's, we get out of practice, right? I mean, you get out of practice interacting with people and, and it becomes really easy to forget how, what you're saying is, is impacting them in a very real and meaningful way and how you may have hurt their feelings or whatever. Yeah.
Yeah. What about some other options for like the healthy processing of anger? Well, so yeah, that's one of the things we didn't get to is you can think about like what we've been talking about is how you handle your anger once you're feeling it.
What we haven't talked about yet is how you can kind of create a life where you are more, where you're managing it better in advance, right? Meaning, yeah, that's what I need. Yeah.
So, you know, if you think about that model I described before, right, you've got your trigger, you've got your mood at the time of the trigger, and you've got your interpretation. Well, you can intervene in any of those places, right? So you can, like, we don't have control of every trigger we experience, but there are some we invite into our lives, right? Either on purpose or on accident.
Tiffany or whoever you're thinking about or anybody specific, it could be. Yeah, sure.
I mean, even things like, the example I always use is like, so I used to love scary movies. When I was growing up, I loved them.
At a certain point, I realized, you know what, these are having a pretty negative effect on me, right? I'm staying up too late afterwards. I'm getting scared, whatever.
So I started watching them less often, right? We can do that with provocations. We can say, I'm not going to watch the news as often as I used to.
I'm not going to watch sports as often as I used to because it's getting to me in ways that aren't good for me. We can even say, you know, I'm going to change my commute up so that I don't find myself in traffic as often as I once did.
I don't know if that's possible in Nashville. Right.
But even if it's longer, it's like, I'm still going to change it up. So I'm just not because of the traffic.
That's a good point. Because sometimes though, we will recognize the things that agitate us and still continue to do them.
Yep. What is that called? Yeah, I don't know if that has a name, actually.
But you know what I'm talking about? Yeah, no. I mean, when people continue to sort of walk into those situations that leave them feeling frustrated.
Yeah. It's like you want the agitation.
Like, you know it's going to bother you, so then you know you're going to be able to be angry. Your anger almost becomes an addiction in a way.
And the worst thing that can happen there sometimes is sometimes we so anticipate that a situation is going to go poorly that we actually bring it out of that situation. Like we're going to Thanksgiving dinner and we know our uncle is going to be racist or whatever.
And so we so we go there and we end up sort of first of all we're hostile to them in advance in a way that it actually brings out their hostility back to us and then also we we sort of unintentionally like goat them into things yeah and we bring it out even pass the black beans to them and then lose it on them for no reason or something you know right like and they didn't and they didn't do any. It's just like, we're just waiting in our head, you know? Or we'll ask for the brown rice and they'll look at us a certain way and they just, they can't handle it.
Yeah, it's like, and then it's almost like, yeah, it's like a lot of times you set things up, you know how they're going to be. God, that's such an instance, man.
What do you do in that instance? Because that's a huge one, I think Well, I think it's about what I like to call Proactive emotion management So it's saying, okay I'm anticipating that this situation Is going to go badly What are some things that I can do now To prevent it from going the way I think it could go And so that might be Hey, let's give people the benefit of the doubt. That might be going into the situation and saying, let's not assume that they're going to do and say the worst thing.
Let's go into that situation. Maybe I minimize my contact with them.
Yeah, it's Thanksgiving, but I don't have to be in the same room with this person the entire night. I can minimize how often I talk to them.
Maybe it's you and your, your partner who you're at the event with. You have like a, like a safe word, right? When you're getting frustrated that, that some, some signal that you can do to send them a message saying like, Hey, get me out of this.
Right. I mean, there's, there's all these things we can do.
It's just, we have to be thoughtful about it in advance. And I think a lot of times we're not thoughtful about it.
Yeah. Yeah.
I'll struggle. I know sometimes like if I know, like sometimes I can cut myself off and I'd be like, Hey, go introduce yourself in the beginning instead of keeping an air where it's like, you have something in your head.
Yep. Cause I'm in, I'm in recovery.
And so I'll have a lot of things like I'll build a world in my head. That's not really going on in the world around me.
so sometimes some of those things I can cut off like, hey, go say, hey, how's things going? That way you've already created the first space of communication. It's been cool.
Everything is good. Then if they do say something, sometimes if you're expecting somebody to say a certain thing, it doesn't really land on you the same way.
A lot of times for me, it is, I'll keep myself away from people if I know I'm agitated. So that's one of the things I think you said of just being able to prepare a little bit.
But then it's like, sometimes it's like that isolation builds on my own agitation because I'm always just kind of in my own world process and stuff. Yeah.
No, that's really interesting that like, you know, we often do sort of create this world that may or may not be realistic. And we assume, you know, people are going to be a certain way.
They're going to do a certain thing or they're thinking. Like we do a lot of mind reading, you know, and we assume people think the way we think they think.
And then... Yeah, it's crazy, isn't it? Yeah.
And what you just said about going up and introducing yourself or saying hi or whatever, that's a, that's really interesting because what it does is it, it, it gives you the opportunity to realize that what you're thinking isn't accurate. Yeah.
It's funny you say that. Cause yeah, one thing, one thing we have learned a lot in recovery is just like, um, not believe in our brain that our perception of things is off.
Yep. You know? Um? I mean, that's really important.
And it's like you want to trust yourself, but you also have to leave some room to say, you know what? Hey, my understanding of the situation could be wrong. Yeah.
And when I meet people, I've got to let them, I mean, yeah, I can go in and I can be cautious, right? That's one thing. But I shouldn't assume that my understanding of them is a thousand percent accurate.
Yeah. Yeah, and the more I isolate and stuff, the more that bad perception builds.
That's what's fascinating to me. It's like it grows its own muscles.
Yeah, and that is, I think if there's a thing that I find sort of most dangerous or worrisome about modern day America or the world is the degree to which we are isolating ourselves, especially from people that we might disagree with. And the degree to which we're not having like real conversations with people that where we can get an opportunity to learn how they think.
right? We make assumptions about what other people are doing and saying,

and then we react to those assumptions more than we react to what's actually happening.

Yeah, it is interesting how much we've become kind of puppetable by,

like, I don't know if I just want to say mainstream media,

but by um bigger stories

maybe that we didn't write ourselves kind of yeah you know well and you know and when you when you

think about what like the social media algorithms do and how we end up seeing the content that we

agree with more regularly we interact with people who think like us more regularly right we we just

are seeing that we're connected i put that sort of of in quotes, but connected to more people than ever before, but not really because one, we're only seeing a very specific sliver of their lives. And we're not having this, we're not necessarily engaging with people who are different from us very regularly.
I mean, do you guys notice that we're any angrier now than we were in the past? Yeah, this is, I wish we could go back in time and like have a, some sort of anger thermometer, right? That could measure anger over time because this is the question that I think everybody wants to know the answer to is, are we angrier now than we used to be?

And in so many ways, it sure seems like we are, right?

Because we see tons of examples of it.

We see so much rage.

I think the parts that we don't have answers to is,

one, is a lot of that rage just more visible now than it used to be, right?

Are we seeing it more now because of social media, right? So we get more stuff captured on video than we ever did. And that might be what's happening, that those things were happening before, we just didn't know.
It could also be, you know, that particular expression styles have become normalized, right? So yelling, screaming, those things are becoming, like

hostility, those things are becoming

more common. That's a good point, huh? Yeah, and so maybe

that anger was there, but those outward

expressions are much more common now.

I think there is some

reason to think we're angrier now

than we used to be. I mean,

I think, like, we're

social, the stuff we just were saying

about social media is definitely bringing out

I think more. With the illusion, I think

there used to be more of

I'm going to go to the next one. I mean, I think like we're social, the stuff we just were saying about social media is definitely bringing out.

With the illusion, I think there was used to be more of,

I think like tradition we had,

it felt like there was more of a sense of togetherness maybe.

I wonder if those things left people feeling more complete or safer in their country.

And I do start to notice that there starts to feel a little bit of like,

Thank you. Oh, I absolutely think so.
I mean, I think, you know, one of the things we're dealing with, and I think a lot of this is post-pandemic, but not just post-pandemic, is, you know, so anger dovetails pretty closely with anxiety, right? That these two emotions are pretty similar. They actually feel pretty similar physiologically.
So there's a lot of overlap there. And I think it's fair to say that Americans are, and probably worldwide, people are more anxious now about the future than they have been for a very long time, right? And that anxiety, it comes from a place of uncertainty about, you know, safety and financial security and all these things.
Even having jobs. I mean, as they say, like, AI is going to – every day you hear AI is going to take your job, you know, and the guy's like, I'm unemployed.
And they're like, it'll take that job. You're like, Jesus, I can't even be unemployed anymore.
But I think there is a little bit of fear. Even somebody who's just sitting on their couch watching, you know, eating Fritos and is watching, you know, TV shows all day, that even that job job's going to be ticketing back well i'm going to lose this right yeah i mean i think that there is this all of this uncertainty is leading to people and because i think in some ways that part of what happens is it leads to some competitiveness it leads to like hey look the pie is getting smaller that we all share and i'm worried that I'm not going to have enough, right? And I'm not going to be able to make ends meet.
And all of that leads to, you know, frustration with your fellow humans, right? Oh, yeah. Because your perspective is suddenly I've got to take care of myself instead of like we have to take care of each other.
Exactly. And that gets a little creepy.
Exactly. What do we do with pervasive anger at society and ideology situation out of control? I think that's another thing that happened during the pandemic is that I think people, I think a lot of people in the United States and probably globally really started to feel like they couldn't trust each other.
Yeah. And I think that happened in lots of ways, right? It was sort of a sense of, hey, people aren't going to, they're more interested in themselves than they are in taking care of each other, right? They won't, you know, do X, Y, or Z.
They won't wear masks. They won't open things up.
They're not worried about my finances. They're not, know they're they're only worried about their own thing and i think that that scared people and and led to a lot of animosity uh amongst people when i think also people didn't know if their government cared anymore yep which was even like a which was um probably similar yeah in the sense that we're like can I trust my government? Can I trust like, you know, you see stories like the opioid epidemic.
And you're like the fact that the family didn't even go to jail or face any time. And the amount of, you know, the amount of pain that that caused so many families, not to mention deaths.
i think you know things like that it makes you start to question so if you don't even think you know if you can i mean you can always kind of question your government i think that that's safe and question society and what's going on it's good to think um curiously but i feel like that was probably another thing that happened is people were like i don't know we every commercial is about drugs like it's just like who can I where can I get valid information and who can I trust yep and it probably became scary you like I have to start with myself yep and I think that that sort of uncertainty leads to feelings of frustration leads to and and you know I think part of what happened too, is that for some people, they felt like, well, the answers here are obvious. And so why don't other people see how obvious these answers are? And, and, and I don't know that the answers were necessarily obvious, but, but I think that people felt like, why can't people just do whatever? And then we can get through this.
And when other people. You mean during COVID you mean? Yeah you mean yeah during covid and then yeah um yeah i think people and people had just also just real different views of it it was like in california things were very locked down and then here um things were more open yep you know and it was like what's the best way to do this it was hard to learn it was even i mean you know i live in in green bay and we've got you know there's the there's the green bay public schools and there's other public school districts that are like connected but and they're all doing different things and so there's a sense of well here we're doing this five miles away they're doing something different why you know what what's going on and so then there's an anger and frustration amongst the people who live in those communities.
And then people saying, well, I'm going to take my kids and send them to that school because they're doing this or I'm going to, you know, and so all of these things started to bubble up and lead to frustration. Yeah, a lot of frustration.
And really, I know how to do it. People wanted to, yeah, the second you don't trust or believe that your society that's's built kind of has a is looking out for you or you can trust it that it really the you got to go back to yourself well and then i mean imagine if it if we're not talking about society we're just talking about a family right and what and you as like a kid and a family realize wow the other people in this family aren't necessarily going to do the things that are best for me.
It becomes real hard to continue to feel good about that. And over time, right, people have to earn that trust back.
And I think we're right now in a phase where people haven't, where people don't feel like anyone's earning that trust back. They're just like, we still don't trust each other.
They don't have my best interests in mind.

They don't care about the same things as me.

What am I going to do?

How are we going to get through this? And I don't think anybody's got any answers to that.

Yeah.

Yeah, I wonder if it's one of those things

that just takes time or, I mean, that's always the thing.

Yeah, I think you're right.

I mean, I think time is going to be part of it.

I hope that there are things we can rally around.

Humor is usually a good one.

Yeah, absolutely.

I know they're trying to put out like.

I mean, you would say that.

You're a comedian.

That's probably true.

I would hope to say it, huh?

Yeah.

They just put out,

they just had a new show, Tires, on Netflix,

which is really crazy.

I've seen an ad for it.

I haven't watched it yet.

It's like different than a lot of stuff they put on there.

It's just like,

it seems like it's from like totally like the eighties or something,

you know,

it's just kind of like just humor without like judging that every person in

the,

in the show has to have certain like,

like you're just letting people be,

they could be characters. Like you could have a character.
You're like, Oh, that guy's hilarious, but I don't agree with him. Whereas to be like, Oh, that guy, I'm not even going to see if he is hilarious because I don't agree with the character.
Right. And it's like, dude, it's okay.
You know? So like just things being more, um, possible or just open their brains to like, okay, a character could believe differently than I do. Right.
Yep. Right.
Because I think for a while it's been like, I don't even want my characters. Right.
To have any different views than I do. That's kind of crazy.
Yeah. When you think about that.
Yeah. I mean, I'm drowning, but I only want a superhero to show up if he feels exactly the same way I do.
Yeah. When it's tough.
I mean like, you know, I think one of the tricky things we've had to deal with is that there are, I mean, there are opinions that people can like sort of rally around. There are opinions that people can like disagree with and in an understandable, reasonable way, right? Reasonable disagreements.
But then so often those disagreements are about real scary stuff. It's not me disagreeing about like, hey, is Cats a good movie? I don't know why I picked Cats.
I think it's because my son loved the movie Cats. Oh, he did? I haven't seen it, I don't think.
Okay. I'm not going to recommend it.
Okay. Yeah.
That's my advice to you. If you walk away with one thing from this episode, it's that you probably shouldn't see Cats.
Fair. Yeah.
So, yeah. I mean, so it's one thing to disagree about that, right? Totally different if we're talking about things that like really do have a, like have real consequences for people.
Oh, for sure. You know, like there are some opinions that we can just agree to disagree.
And then there's other stuff that is like, no, this is like, this is real personal. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
We didn't used to, people didn't used to care about it that much though. Yeah.
They did, I think, it is interesting how much, like people used to never talk about politics that much. You would kind of say maybe who you were going to vote for and kind of sometimes you give a couple lines about it, but you never, I feel like, would be like, oh, screw you for voting for that.
Like it would never, even the thought would never come into your head.

I feel like.

Yeah.

It does feel like it's taken center stage.

And I wonder how much of that is,

is,

I mean,

it's,

it's probably a lot of it is exacerbated by social media.

I suspect the 24 hour news cycle also led to that too.

Right.

That ruined a lot of stuff.

That created a lot of anger.

Yeah.

Yep.

Cause we used to be able to take a day off, half the day off. Yep they're like oh you need a little more anger yeah one intentionally so i mean it's like so there's there's plenty of research out there that says that you know content news or anything else that makes people angry or scared is far more luckily to go viral than than stuff, right? And so politicians know that.
And just purely from a financial perspective, if you put an ad out that makes people mad, it's gonna get more clicks. It's gonna get, I mean, you double the value, essentially, of that ad by making people mad with it, right? So there are people who are benefiting financially from our rage and that's not just true with politicians that's true with with you know fox news cnn etc they want to make people mad yeah i'm going yeah instead of just having an article they'll they'll reframe the title so it has an enemy yeah yep that's pretty crazy dealing with anxiety and stress in the age of the 24 7 news.
Let me see. Whether it's the coronavirus, political divisiveness, threats to terrorism, or mass shootings, you might not be immediately affected by these issues, but constant exposure to the 24-hour news and social media, which is often heavily skewed towards the negative, can adversely influence your mental health and overall well-being.
More than 70% of Americans believe the media blows things out of proportion, which may seem harmless, but it could lead to increased stress and anxiety. Wow.
The tough part is if we're addicted to it, though. That's the tough part, if we're addicted to it.
Yeah, I mean, that's because people are drawn to this thing that ultimately causes them harm.

Right.

You know?

What is that?

Has that always been?

I mean, has it just been since the apple in the Garden of Eden, you know?

I mean, information is, I mean, people crave information, right?

I mean, that's another emotion that I like to talk about sometimes is curiosity, right?

And people do crave information.

It makes them feel good about themselves, especially if they can share it with other people it's like a form of social currency um and so and so knowing things is you know better than not knowing things and so people are drawn to to media and then when that media makes them mad they're more likely actually to share it with other people they're more likely because it it gets the reaction they want, right? So if I came in here and told you just some sort of arbitrary fact, you'd be like, ah, that's great. But if I came in here and told you something that made you really mad, now I'm getting a reaction.
I'd be like, what the heck? Yeah. What are we going to do about it? Exactly.
It's pretty crazy. And then we problem solve.
So we've really just, we've kind of like death hacked ourself in a way. Like there's life hacks and then I feel like there's death hacks.
And I feel like sometimes the algorithm does that, you know, or the possibility to always have it at your fingertips. Because I'll find if I'd rather just chill or meditate or if I'd rather go find something to make me angry, I sometimes would like to find something to make me angry.
Yeah, I get that. Yeah.
Because, I mean, it does, I think for some people, that anger feels powerful, right? I mean, it's like there's a sense, and we talked earlier about it sometimes feeling helpless, but there's a piece of like the heart rate increase, the blood pressure increase, the muscle tension that leads to these feelings of excitement.

Yeah.

Yeah, well, it feels like it activates you.

Yep, exactly.

Is there a such thing as like a healthy anger? And then what is the difference between like a healthy anger and a rage?

Yeah.

Is that noticeable?

Yeah.

So what I would say is that when it comes to anger, I tend to think of all emotions as

not having, they aren't positive or negative on their own. They're just information systems, right? And it's good to feel things.
In fact, if I had a wish for people, it would be that they felt the whole sort of range of emotions, right? That that's what would be good for them, but in a nuanced way, meaning that they could evaluate whether or not this thing is that they're feeling is good for them or bad for them in a particular context. So when I think about healthy versus unhealthy anger, a big piece of it is what is it doing for me or to me, right? So am I, what kind of consequences am I experiencing? For some people, those consequences can be physical, right? They can have like heart problems or muscle tension or chronic headaches or things like that.
For some people, those consequences are like relationships. They get in a lot of verbal and physical fights, online fights.
For some people, those consequences are property damage. They break stuff.
Oh, yes. Steal stuff.
Yep. So, I mean, sometimes, though, it's like other negative emotions.
It's like I get mad, and then afterwards I feel guilty about something I said, and so I feel real sad later, or I get scared that, you know, my partner's going to leave me, or I'm going to get in trouble. And so they have these other negative emotions.
Talk about people like. That's me.
I'll get upset and then I will.

I'll apologize quickly usually.

But when I get into moments of really being really upset, it's hard for me to manage myself. Yeah.
And then do you end up feeling sort of like guilty about it? Yeah, I feel remorseful. I'm usually good at being able to apologize pretty quickly.
That's good. Being able to notice my space in it.
but the fact that it happens at all you know is like

is something that

has being able to notice my space in it, but the fact that it happens at all, you know, is like, is something that has been uncomfortable for me, I think. Yeah.
And I appreciate you saying that. I didn't mean to interrupt you there.
No, that's all right. Yeah, I think that's, you know, it connects to, like, for a lot of people, their anger leads to things like substance abuse.
It leads to overeating. It leads to even, I mean, you know, substance abuse defined broadly, like alcohol, nicotine included, right? Yeah.
People find ways of coping with their anger because they don't have better ways. And so they end up turning to drugs or alcohol.
Oh, yeah. And, you know, and that's, you know, that ends up having consequences.
Yeah. Was there more you want to say? Sorry.
No, I mean, I think that sort of covers it, but I think the big thing is there are lots and lots of consequences to unhealthy anger. There's also lots of good things we can do with it.
There's lots of ways that we can turn our anger into those positive ways. And so back to when people think about, okay, what's the impact of this on me and on those people around me is to really sort of evaluate what the outcome is.
Right. So if you can take a moment to evaluate what the outcome is going to be.
Like what's going to happen? Right now I'm upset. So if I act on it, then I'm going to have to to apologize later I'm going to be Probably Then I'm going to be bummed out at myself Yep So now Right now I'm upset at somebody else And maybe even at myself And then later I'm going to be I'm going to have to apologize to somebody And probably Then be a little bit disheartened in myself Yep For my actions Yeah So it's like what do I really want Or do I just want things to kind of be chill? I love what you're saying right now, because to me, one of the best lessons people can learn about anger or any emotion is when I'm feeling it, I need to stop for a second and think about what my goals are.
What's the thing that, where do I want this situation to end. Right sometimes that is like you know if i get mad on my my way to work uh because somebody cut me off right now i could i could drive them off the road and get in a fight with them but does that get me to work on time right in the way i want like my goal is to get to my destination safely um and and so I should focus on that and anything else that I try and do in that moment doesn't serve me, you know? And I mean, I use an exaggerated example, but even giving them the finger or honking at them, all those things just serve to distract me from my actual goal.
And we can think about that in a gajillion different other places, right? If I'm, if I get, you know, if I scrolling through social media and I see a post that bugs me, yeah, I can fight back or I can argue or whatever, or I can think about, well, what do I, why am I here? Why am I in this space? What's, what is the point of arguing? Maybe there's, maybe there's a good reason to, and I should, or maybe there's a good reason for me to just scroll on and not care. Yeah, and I was just thinking when you said that, that social media definitely kind of, it almost deflates our anger in some ways because instead of a lot of times, it used to be maybe if enough people got angry about something, they would go protest.
They would make a difference. They would boycott.
They would not use a product or they would stand up. But now it almost feels like you can comment into almost a vacuum because of how quick things disappear.
And you can just say, well, I commented or I posted. I did something.
Right. I did something.
But then it kind of like just satiates enough the human desire to do something where we don't end up doing things. And then we, as a group, get kind of further and further into this crevasse.
I think that is a real problem. I think you're absolutely, I do.
I think you're absolutely right that, that a big, a big part of what happens is some, there's this, this social media. And I don't want to minimize social media activism because there are forms of it that are really powerful and really meaningful, but, but there are also forms of it that are, that don't do much.
Right. And, but they, they, I think you use the word satiate, right? They give you a sense of...
Yeah. Moved right along.
Yep. Here's an article that was in The Atlantic.
The problem with social media protests.

Before the internet changes speed at which the world moves, movements were slower growing.

A year of organizing and directly advocating for change led to a 13th month long Montgomery bus boycott that began with Rosa Parks' act of resistance.

Right.

That's what it used to be like.

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Interesting

So in some ways it feels like what they're saying

Is when you put a lot of work

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Then you want to see it through In ways that social media protests don't have that right?

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it's like, it's like, it's like, it's ways that social media protests don't have that right it's like you know i've been thinking about this for a week so i don't need to keep thinking about i mean right i don't have as much sunk into this no and if i close the app i'm not even an activist anymore right right interesting it's kind of interesting huh yeah i grew up in a home where there was a lot of anger, right?

It was probably our number one emotion that we had. Right.
You know, it was just farm to table there. It was like, you got, it was 100% grass fed anger.
All right. You know, and it was, it was just the only way that we communicated.
How much of a responsibility is it

Of parents to

Like teach kids what their feelings are?

Right.

Yeah.

I love this.

So real quick, when you say there was a lot of anger, was it mostly outward expressed,

like yelling, screaming?

Yeah, mostly yelling, screaming, throwing things, judgment. Okay.
Those are like the main emotions, you know, and then humor. So, but we, otherwise it was just always, you knew somebody was going to be angry.
Where were you in the, in the birth order? I was number two. I have an older brother and two sisters.
Okay. And the sisters are both younger than you.
Yep. They're both younger and everybody's alive still pretty much.
Okay.

Pretty much.

That's good. two sisters okay and the sisters are both younger than you yep they're both younger and everybody's um alive still pretty much okay pretty much yeah i mean some people are you know got it they're willing to risk it all you know but uh some of us are doing our best so but yeah but so that's where we had and that it was just there was a lot of anger in there you know i think that um what my feeling feeling is with kids in particular, I mean, we can think about this from the, well, I'll start with what I consider to be sort of the golden rule of emotion and parenting.
And that is that kids tend to express emotions the way their caregivers did. And so they tend to, and it's rooted in like age-old psychology that's called modeling, right?

And so kids tend to model what their parents did,

that if mom or dad yell and scream,

kids tend to yell and scream

as a way of dealing with emotions.

And now there's some caveats to that

because simultaneously the other side is that,

you know, kids sometimes get rewarded or punished for emotional expressions of particular types, right? So a kid hits somebody and they get punished for it. Now, oddly enough, sometimes they get punished for it by getting hit by the parent, right? Getting spanked or whatever.
Right. That's kind of wild when you think about it like that.
Yeah. Right.
And so, or they get in trouble for yelling by being yelled at, you know, so like there's all sorts of mixed messages there. But to me, I mean, some of the healthiest things you can do with kids when you're, when you're trying to raise emotionally wise children is to talk about feelings often, to give them the language to have that conversation, to help them identify what they're feeling.
Yeah. I think that's a big problem for a lot of people, for a lot of kids and continues is they don't know the difference between anger and sadness.
They don't know the difference between fear and anger. Oh, yeah.
I would just start vibing. Yeah.
that kid he's just vibrating i don't know what's going on you got to show him a um flash card or something you know and you say that's joy that's anger that's but yeah because you don't know right and so helping kids to i mean one of the things i like to do with my kids and is um and liked when they were young is to like unpack those emotional experiences with them and and not just their own but when they see a kid you know melting down or a kid getting angry or sad or scared or whatever to to say so what do you think's going on like what where did that come from why you know if we're watching tv and a kid reacts some right just so at least they can have their own head their own head, like, okay, this is what happens when this happens. This is what I look like when it happens.
This is where I can start to see in somebody else what's going on, and then you'll recognize it in yourself and at least have some sort of, you'll be the conductor in some way as much as you can. Yep.
Maybe some of the outcomes, if not some of the origins of the feeling. Yeah, and then you can even talk through, you know, what are now right you know this kid's right yeah you know just had this just it's feeling really hurt what can what can he or she do uh to deal with those feelings of hurt and i mean i think those are all are like good healthy ways but i think it starts with wanting to make sure people are having those conversations that people are really understanding it because part of what happens happens, too, is that people can realize that, you know, we like to believe, and I've even been saying, you know, look, your feelings are one of the ways your brain tells you what's going on, what you're experiencing.
That doesn't necessarily mean that they're rooted in logic or reality or that they're even really valid, right? We can be angry over over a misunderstanding we can be scared over something that's not really dangerous um and the feelings are real right we shouldn't minimize that but we should take some time to like unpack them and talk about like what what is what's going on why why are you feeling this way i think that kind of stuff is important at least because i think for myself a long time i didn't know a lot of feelings i was even having i didn't know i only knew a couple like i i remember like yeah like certain things were going on i wouldn't really have any feelings about it and i was like man i never really had a lot of feelings so i think sometimes talking with your kids like oh this, this is a feeling. That's what that is.

This is what's going on.

Because otherwise you can just think you're bonkers as a child, you know? Like if somebody doesn't tell you kind of what's happening with you. Well, a lot of times kids aren't really allowed to have feelings, right? I mean, like that they're shamed for them.
That the message is, hey, hold that in. Don't let people see that.
and then I mean of course that's going to continue into adulthood

where

where in. Don't let people see that.
And then, I mean, of course, that's going to continue into adulthood where they don't feel like they're allowed. They don't feel like it's safe to express that stuff.
I was thinking if you allow your kids, right, like space to feel their feelings, okay, does that create in them, like, you know, recognize they're feeling something, allow them a little space to feel it. Right.
Yeah. Does that create like more of like an emotional resilience in them, which would just then like, then when they're angry again, it would just kind of become another emotion to them sort of like, um, does that make any sense? Yeah.
I mean, I think what, what you really want. So then in the, they could cope better.
So if it happens to them next time, it'd be like, okay. Yep, because what you really want is, I mean, you want a situation where your kids can, when they're feeling something, A, know what they're feeling, B, have a sense for where it's coming from, understand like its root causes, be able to critically evaluate those root causes and then know what to do with it.
Right. And I mean, and that's a, that's a level of sophistication that I don't think frankly, most people are capable of, but it's because we haven't given them the space or the tools to do that over their lifetime.
And I think we're way better than at this as a society now than we were when you and I were kids, right? Like we're way better at trying to provide those tools to kids, but it comes with them. It comes with people being able to have those conversations to say, hey, let's talk about what you're feeling right now.
Not in a like necessarily a judgment or punishy way. Like, Hey, you just got real mad.
You hit your brother. Let's, let's have a conversation about that.
Let's talk about better ways to handle that. Let's make sure we make up for what we did.
So it's not like it's consequence free. People oftentimes accuse me of being sort of wimpy and like, Hey, you're, you're letting your kids walk all over you.
They got to get punished or whatever. That's, it's not that's consequence-free.
It's like, no, we're going to deal with those feelings and try and figure out sort of the best way to handle it. And yeah, that helps them develop that emotional resilience going forward.
Yeah, at least having some emotional understanding of yourself. But how do you then like put the cap on it where you're like, it's okay if my kid is, you know, like, like how do we not turn into one of these societies where it's just like, oh, I don't feel like going to work today, so I'm not going to go.
Yeah. You know, like that's, nobody ever feels like going to work.
That's the first thing they should tell you. Yes.
When you ever go to school. Yeah.
One day you're going to go to work and nobody's going to feel like it. That should be the first thing that they teach us.
Yeah. No, I mean, it's true.
The message also has to be that your emotions alone aren't necessarily reason not to do something. I mean, that's the, I have two kids.
Both of them are very, very awesome in different ways. But the one is, he's a performer.
He's a dancer and he's in a lot of musicals and things like that. And one of the things that I can say about him is people often talk about how brave he is and he is, but I know him well enough to know that he gets real anxious about performing and those things.
He's feeling that fear. It's not that he's not scared.
It's that he knows how to do things anyways. And that's where you want people to get.
Like you want people to get to a point of right now, you know what, I'm feeling sad and I don't feel like being able to go, I don't feel like going to work, but I also need to do it. I understand what my responsibilities are and I can work through that.
And I think like there's something to be said for, I mean, to me, that's a big part of what emotional resilience is. It's being able to, to feel things and then overcome those feelings at times.
Right. And I think if you give your kids space for that, it feels like you're going to, that that's a armor you can create in them as well.
It's like, Hey, you feel sad right now, or you feel a little disappointed. This is how you can manage that right now.
And look, five minutes later, wow, look, we're right back to where we were before.

Everything's good.

So then when they have those things happen in their own lives, when you're not around,

they're going to have like some sort of, even if it's just brief little check-ins from a parent are huge.

Well, you can, I mean, that's the thing.

I mean, and this isn't just about parenting.

This is about being a supervisor.

It's about being a human being. You can be sensitive and have expectations.
You can be sensitive to your kids' emotional needs and have things you expect them to do. You can be sensitive to your employees and have expectations of them.
And frankly, you can be sensitive to yourself and you can be sort of patient And caring with yourself And still have expectations For what you want to accomplish That's a tough one sometimes Giving yourself some grace I'm terrible at it Are you? Yeah, I'm really hard on myself Yeah, me too, man God Remember when we were talking about type A At the beginning, right? That part of it Right Is like You're You know You're competitive You're success driven And that means You You want to accomplish certain things And that means being a certain way Yeah Yeah it's interesting Because I don't know when I would ever give myself The benefit of the doubt Very often You know I almost have to have someone Say hey man Give yourself some grace here right now like in like feel some pride you know i think uh and then sometimes i don't blame this i'm not being a kid or whatever but i think i never knew anything i never knew any nobody like i never knew what i was feeling or what was going on so i think even things like that with your kid, you can feel proud of yourself. Like, I know some of it sounds lame probably in some senses, but the cost of not doing it with your kids, I think can be kind of immense.
Yep. Because growing up, not knowing, like having my own sense of what's okay for me leaves me at the whim of what other people think is okay for me, you know, and that can just get kind I'm not trying to, like, woe is me That's not fully my story But I could see it being really risky for folks For me, one of the things that's been really helpful Is to surround myself with really good people Who care about me And that there are people who When I'm hard on myself, sometimes it's nice to have a friend who can sort of step in and remind me like, hey, you know, it's okay to not have things happen exactly as you want them.
It's okay to take a break and just be proud of what you accomplished today. And it's nice to have people in your life who can support you that way.
Yeah. So yeah so yeah it feels like we always have to be making something better these days too yeah like that and every it'd be like if you if you knew somebody and something was wrong with them people would just be like dang something's wrong with him yep you know and then 10 years later people would be like dang how's ernie and then people like something is wrong with him Like it had escalated, you know, like he bought an empty swimming pool and he was spending time in there.
And so, but now it's like. Is that a real story? Is there a real person you know who bought an empty swimming pool? There was some men in our neighborhood that would kind of like meet up or whatever in like this empty swimming pool at night and smoke weed or whatever.
Whenever I hear you drop an example like that, part of me is like, did that just come from his brain or is that like a real thing? Oh, no, that was a real thing. We grew up in a very shirtless area, if you will.
It was very, a lot of people just, a lot of people whistling and no shirts. Just a lot of just people doing their best.
That was a good description. I like that.
I can imagine what this area was like. We grew up in the stray animal belt, brother.
So there was just a lot of shirtless people. Shirtless people and no collars on these animals either.
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Can we still have childhood anger as adults? Like what happens to anger from our childhood that isn't processed or what happens to unprocessed anger? Yeah, you know, I think two things can be true here, right? I think on the one hand, yeah, we can absolutely still have, you know, anger and resentment and stuff that happened when we were a kid that we continued to be mad about forever. I also think that it's sort of never too late to process some of that stuff, right? I mean, you know, and that there's no reason why in your 40s or 50s you can't start to deal with some of the stuff that you're mad about still from childhood.
It might be harder. And I also think we have to be honest about what the outcome is going to be, right? I mean, we have to recognize that some of those things, I guess, think about what dealing with it looks like.
Because I can't. It's a good point.
You brought it up earlier with the other topic is like, think it, what outcome you want to have. What was the other one? Yeah, no, it's like, what are your goals here? And I think the thing is like, you know, when you're, when you're, I'm 48 years old, right? When you're 48, you might not, you might not be able to make, to fix the bad stuff that happened that you're still frustrated

by. So that can't be the goal, but maybe it is to forgive.
Maybe it's to, um, better understand where, if it is a person who wronged you, where that person was coming from. I mean, those are all, um, things that we can try and process ways we can try and deal with.
Maybe it's just to forgive ourselves for not handling it in a different way. Man, forgive ourselves for not being able to forgive people even.
That sounds crazy. Right, right.
Because sometimes it's like, that's crazy. I never thought about that.
Sometimes it's not even that I'm upset anymore as much that I can't forgive the person it's like i start to get upset at myself because i can't forgive the person so i'm not upset at the person anymore right i'm just upset at me because i'm having trouble forgiving is that crazy yeah no that i mean not crazy that that's really interesting and insightful right i'm i'm i'm still mad at this person i feel like i shouldn't be and i'm struggling Now I'm mad at me Because I can't forgive them Yeah Okay, yeah I mean, yeah Sometimes that Yeah, I would just notice It can hop from one thing A thing like that And I don't even know Exactly what I'm mad about You know That's what You know, I was thinking About it earlier So I was once a I was once a really bad student Really? Yeah, I's really surprising to people yeah i really really struggled in high school um and i actually failed out of my first university um and um my god i know it was and and a lot of it came i mean it came from a lot of different places like one of them was um uh i so i was a diehard soccer player uh and soccer fan at the time and i had a hard time like not being more interested in that than in school okay so you just loved soccer so much yep and same thing i i drank too much my my first year in college too that was that was relevant um not in high school at all but in college that a problem. But also I just hadn't developed a lot of like the study skills necessary to be successful.
And so I still like, years later, I still find myself sort of struggling with that, like mad at myself for not having done better, mad at myself for not having made more of my college experience. Because what happened is I took a break, like six months off.
I traveled a little bit. I was very, very fortunate that I had a safety net.
It didn't mean I was homeless. Right, you could afford to go somewhere and travel.
Yep, and I could live with my mom for a little while while I sort of figured things out in ways that a lot of my students can't, you know.

And so having that, I went back to college and I kind of got it together right after taking a little break.

But I'm mad at myself still for not having a different kind of college experience, you know.

Wow.

Yeah, man, that's funny.

I'll get upset at myself with like, yeah, that I didn't have a a blast in college sometimes like that's just this general term that's in my head man i'm upset that i didn't have a blast in college yeah but if i went and looked through a calendar and shit people be like dude you had a great time right it's like sometimes i don't even remember things correctly it's like my perspective of them isn't even clean and then or clear and then i'll get upset at a unreal and then i'll be like fuck man i gotta fucking or i'll be like dang man i gotta enroll somewhere yep yep you know i could still be a mascot i can't play but i could still be a mascot you know you just start going and then it's like i'm in this weird anger against myself and maybe the perspective wasn't clear you know or well yeah well a lot of times our our emotions our memories of emotional experiences aren't accurate dude why and so i mean part of it is that we hit the highlights or the low lights right and so like if you think about a uh and actually somebody did a study on this um where they had people monitor their emotions over the course of a week-long vacation and And then when they came back, they took a survey. How did you enjoy the vacation, right? And what they found is that there was very little correlation between those two things because when people are at the end of a trip, when they're saying, how did you feel? They're reflecting on the high points or the low points, right? And they're just thinking, and like the overall experience was super rad i was in jamaica it was great i loved it what they forget is you know how long it took to get their luggage um what they forget like getting stuck in traffic for hours and hours and hours bugs or whatever all that stuff and violence or whatever yep and so they forget all that stuff and they just focus on those other things.
And I think the same thing could be true of college, right?

It's like you think about sort of the high points

or the low points.

You don't think about the other sort of elements,

the things that happen, the day in and day out stuff.

Or sort of we think about like an overall theme

of what it was like instead of those day in

and day out experiences.

Yeah, I will even like, like I,

I, memories and stuff it's really it's pretty interesting yeah um dude sometimes when it comes to my anger and stuff i will even like like i think i remember being so angry sometimes as a kid i almost like i enjoy my anger in a way because it's like i had such a relationship with it i don't know if that sounds crazy or not no it doesn't i mean I don't enjoy it as in I want to, like, act it out or something or vandalize a shelter or whatever. But, like, that I want to, like, if I, there's a part of me still that when I get angry, it connects to that kid part of me that was angry.
And it's like, this is, it's ours, you know? Right. Well, I think all of us, like, you know, we've been talking about anger as an emotion, and it is, but it's also sometimes a personality trait, right? Oh, really? Yeah, I mean, it's a characteristic.
Like, there are some people who are just angrier than others, or some people express their anger more outwardly or experience more consequences. And because of that, you know, I think with any personality trait, sometimes as human beings, we cling to things that we sort of like as defining characteristics, right? And so, like, and we cling to those as things that, like, make us proud of ourselves or that we enjoy or whatever.
So maybe a person says, well, hey, like, I'm kind. That's just who I am and I lean into that.
maybe someone leans into the idea that they're an angry person and that it's, you know, that's

kind of how they identify I think that's true especially because I'm not advocating for this but anger is how a lot of successful people get things done did you ever watch the show Entourage? yeah that's rooted in a real life person um and he who i think had um like used those kinds of of um tactics yeah tactics and used angry aggressive approach to to manipulate people and to um to get people to do what he what he wanted right and so like that's someone who i think I think probably appreciates that he identifies as an angry person. He appreciates that he identifies that way? Yeah.
I mean, I think it's like, this is just part of who I am and it's part of what makes me successful. Oh, I see.
But then is that just a cop out of somebody that doesn't want to deal with their anger though? Probably. I mean, I think for a lot of people, that's them, I think they're scared to change.
It's like, I mean, if this is the thing that I've identified as making me successful, well then dealing with it might mean that I'm no longer going to be successful, going to be good at what I do. Can, but if it's a trait then, so it can be a real thing that some people are just are? Yeah, I mean, I think like any

trait... Like without any provocation, like without

any... Yeah, I think there's

still provocations. I just think that they're quick.

It doesn't take as much, right? And so

it doesn't take as much of a provocation

to make someone mad.

And it's still, I mean, it

still comes from a combination

of upbringing, probably

some genetics, you you know that people are

more likely to be angry uh much of the time um you know and and so it it still comes from from that place what are parenting strategies to assist kids with coping with anger yeah like um like like not feeling anger very often or yeah like what are some of those do you feel like yeah i mean i think for what i would say is there's there's when it comes to to kids one of the probably the most important things to do is is help them develop the tools that allow them to sort of find ways to

decrease their anger in the moment, right? And that's oftentimes for kids going to be

deep breathing. It's going to be distraction is actually a really good one.
So find something

else you can do for a little while. Maybe it's, we talked about drawing earlier, maybe it's playing

with Legos, maybe it's petting your dog, whatever, things like that, that, that allow you to, to

sort of deescalate. Yeah.

Um, the other side of it is, you know, helping kids identify where they have some control and this is harder with kids cause I think they have a little less control in their, their day to day life. Where can kids have control in their, um, uh, surroundings and their environment? How can they sort of do less of the things that, that provoke, that might provoke anger, right? My son is a, my other son is a diehard basketball fan.
And he's, he's a player and fan. And so we've been watching the NBA quite a bit.
I'm from Minnesota originally. So, okay.
So you guys are in, huh? Yeah. So we're, we're Timberves fans.
But, you know, and he handles, you know, they won last night. That was great.
But they've been, you know, they're down a couple games. Down 3-1, yeah.
Yeah. And he handles it well, but, you know, it takes a toll on him.
Like, he gets sad. He's 12 years old.
He gets sad when they lose. And so that's the kind of thing that, like, over time, you know, you want to think about what kind of impact that's having.
You want to think about how much it's influencing you. You want to think about whether or not you, as a parent, you mean, yeah, like a kid doing something.
If it's something that like what they're engaged, what they're absorbing, you mean? Yeah. I mean, as a parent, you want, you want them to be thinking about how much time they're spending.
And this thing that ends up having, taking an emotional toll on them on them yeah is it good to let your children feel anger is it yeah i think so i mean i think like anything i mean up up to a point you know i think it's good to let them because that's how they're going to deal with the i mean i think the art of dealing with emotions is is it's i liken it to exercise i saw a poster years working out the other day, right? You're on a run or something like that. Oh, yeah, yeah, I like to run.
Yeah, me too, every day. You do? I do, yeah.
Oh, wow. I think it's great, great for my mental health, great for everything.
But the thing about, I think it's similar, dealing with emotions is similar, you know, when you exercise, you push yourself to a place of discomfort. Okay.
But never so uncomfortable that it's actually harmful, right? And I think you can do the same thing with emotions. You can push yourself into a zone where this emotion is uncomfortable with me, for me, but it's not so uncomfortable that I'm suffering, right? And so it's like I want to feel some fear because I want to get used to dealing with that discomfort

and I want to sort of learn to cope with it,

but I don't want to feel so much fear

that I'm like on the floor shaking or anything like that.

And with kids, I want them to feel some anxiety

and learn that they can just do the thing anyways.

I want them to feel some fear, some anger, learn that they can just do the thing anyways. Yeah.
I want them to feel some fear, some anger and learn that they can do the thing anyways and work through it. That's a good, healthy way to be.
Yeah. It's just interesting when you think about like that, it's a parent's responsibility to do all of that.
Right. You know, like how many little things that they learn because of how the parents let them absorb it or.
And that's I think, one of the challenges is I imagine that, you know, our parents' age didn't, it wasn't on their radar to be thinking about stuff like this. No.
You know, that they just didn't know. And so they weren't necessarily attuned to, like, what kids might need or benefit from an emotional perspective.
Yeah, it was a different time. Another thing that really I'll get angry is if I expect people to – it's kind of unrealistic expectations, but it's thinking people should know what I want even if I haven't explained it.
Yeah, there's a name for this and it's escaping me right now. But there is that sort of like, it's like the opposite of mind reading.
It's like they should be able to read your mind, right? Yeah. And know exactly.
Yeah. And so it's like, hey, why don't they know exactly the way I want this thing done? And then why aren't they doing it that way? Yeah.
And for people who are ambitious and people who, you know, are success driven, then that becomes a sticking point. It's part of that type A thing that I mentioned before, right? It becomes a sticking point, leads to that frustration.
You know, why isn't it happening the way I want it to? What other personality types and what types of angers do they have? Do they have all of specific angers or not really just find that type a has more yeah i mean type a is i mean originally part of how it was sort of identified was that it was that that people with type a with that behavior pattern they called it at the time they were um that they were angrier more aggressive because one of the things you mentioned was goals being blocked. And I guess if you have, if you're driven like that or have that extra like drive, which can be a blessing and a curse sometimes, then you would have more goals just even generally floating around in your head.
Yeah. Another strategy, not that, not like the disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, but sort of an obsessive compulsive personality type is also associated with anger for similar reasons.
It's like, I want things the way I want them. And because I want them this way, when other people don't live up to that expectation, it makes me mad, right? You know, I want my home a certain way.
And if people don't set it up that way, if they don't, if they won't do the things I want, I get angry yeah um yeah and so it's like i you know people who are really kind of rule driven or have want things in a specific way are just more likely to to to get angry that's why you know if we think about um some of those what we call the big five personality traits one of them like who are a little bit more open, a little bit more flexible are less likely to experience anger. Gosh.
Yeah. Gosh, those people are good.
I would, oh, I almost feel like I would drink their blood. Is that crazy to say that? Because I just, that's, I'll just, I wish I could have some more of that.
Yeah. No, I get it.
I mean, it's, yeah. I mean, that's the thing we know is that I think there's a real drive right now in sort of modern sort of pop psychology to be really accepting of all personality traits.
And I think, I mean, I get why we should be accepting and be supportive, but I think we should also acknowledge that there are some ways of being that might end up being a little healthier than other ways, right? And openness is a great quality, right? And conscientiousness is a great quality. Those things, agreeableness, right? Those things are the kinds of things that help people be successful in a lot of ways and help them be likable and help them be happy.
Yeah. What about in relationships? You guys talk a lot about that.
How do you deal with if you have a spouse that you feel like has some anger issues? Yeah, that is really tough, especially because anger issues in families can look lots of different ways, right? Because there's the kind that is really scary and potentially bordering on abuse where the anger is driven at the particular person, right? It's the angry husband yelling at the angry wife or vice versa, right? And that's one way it can look. The other way is just a person who's just angry at the world doesn't necessarily take it out on the family.
And that's actually the way my dad was. Like he was an angry guy.
He didn't, I can count on one hand the number of times he yelled at me i wasn't the the victim right it was usually the waiter or the gas station attendant or some other driver you know and so um those but that still has consequences right it still scared me as a kid right i mean yeah it would have scared me if he were yelling at, but it also scared me when he's yelling at a stranger. And, you know, those moments can really sort of take a toll.
I mean, I think, you know, relationships are obviously tricky. I think a lot of times with relationships, it's got to be about communication.
It's got to be about like a person being willing to do the work to try and change. Yeah, and what kind of help do people need that have severe anger problems? That's the thing.
I think it's, you know, there are lots of things that people can do on their own without a professional. But ultimately, when the situation is bad enough, people need to talk to a therapist, right? And how do they recognize when it's bad enough, do you think? Sorry, I keep just stacking questions on you.
No, that's all right. Those are great questions.
I mean, I think usually it should be driven by the consequences. And to me, for me, if a partner came to me and said, hey, your anger is making me uncomfortable, your anger is scaring me, or it's making, like, to me, that's enough for me to want to say, okay, I got to do something about it.
And if I can't on my own, well, then I'm going to go get some help. Somehow, yeah.
If it's not in a relationship, if it's just, you know, I find myself getting so angry, I'm like uncomfortable with it

Or I don't like living with myself

Or

I'm drinking too much or whatever

As a way of coping with it

Well then those are all ways that I can

Those are all signs that I need to meet with someone

If I can't fix it on my own

Yeah

Yeah because most of my anger usually just comes out about work stuff

Right

You know

In personal and regular life I'm usually pretty chill

Yeah

But yeah I think when it comes to work and wanting to get things done, yeah, and wanting to be like efficient or, yeah, a lot of just unrealistic expectations. Well, it sounds like it's motivated, like that there's an undercurrent of stress there, right? There's an undercurrent of like, hey, if I don't meet these expectations, if I don't accomplish these things, something bad's going to happen, right? And so I'm anxious because I have these goals or I'm stressed because I have these goals and I get mad when things get in the way of them.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, I think sometimes the motivation, it's like, I think sometimes they come from an unrealistic space overall because sometimes I think I just have unrealistic expectations of myself, right? So that I'll never be able to achieve them. So I'll always be at a loss.
And so then it'll couple with some core belief I've always had that I'm not enough, right? That sort of thing. To me, that's how I've been able to kind of see what some of that makeup is like.
And I'm not trying to look at it as like, oh, woe is me. I'm just looking at it.
Yeah, no, that's great. And I would, I bet, I don't know this, but tell me, you know, I bet sometimes those unreasonable expectations, the way that they matter, like boots on the ground in a particular week or day, is that you end up planning too much or trying to do too much, you know? And it's like, you know, you think to yourself, well, hey, for me to achieve X, I've got to get A, B, and C done this week.
And it's impossible to get A, B, and C done in a single week. And so you set yourself up for failure that way.
Oh, yeah. A lot of times, I won't give things a lot of breathing room, you know? And that kind of is a bummer.
I know sometimes you'll have a meeting with a friend and be like, oh, I wish this meeting could be another 45 minutes. But, you know, I only set up a certain amount of time because I'm too focused on the work aspect of it and not focused on like the human aspect of it.
Sometimes that happens. I do this all the time.
Like one of my, you know, I set goals for myself every, I do this every semester, right?

I intentionally, I say, these are the things I want to do this semester, this year, whatever.

And then what that translates into is, well, that means that this month I've got to get X,

Y, and Z done.

I got to do these things.

And then that means I over plan for a particular week or day, and then I get frustrated with

myself.

Yeah.

And then it connects back to that core belief that you're talking about of, well, I'm not

good enough, right?

I don't know. for a particular week or day and then I get frustrated with myself.
Yeah. And then it connects back to that core belief that you're talking about of,

well, I'm not good enough, right?

All right, I ruin everything.

Yep.

I can't do this.

What the F?

Yep.

You F, you loser.

Too often the solution to that

is that we, instead of giving ourself grace

and being patient with ourselves

and saying, hey, we set impossible goals for ourself

is we just say, well, we just need to work harder. Yeah.
Right? And then we feel crappy when we don't achieve it. Man, that's just a lot of my life is I just have to work harder.
Yeah. I couldn't, yeah, it was tough sometimes to have fun.
I would tell my friends, I've said this before, but my friends were like, let's go do this thing. And I'm like, I can't go, I have to write a book.
And that's where my mind always was kind of. It was like, you can't go do that.
You have all this shit to do. Don't you know you have all this shit to do? And I would never even look at exactly what the stuff was.
It was just this gin. And I didn't realize that till recently, I'm like, well, what shit do I have to do? Like I never even, I just assumed I had to do all these things.
It was like this to-do list that was something was always being added on to. And sometimes it was like the worst part of my brain was, was just going to add things on there no matter what, like unrealistic things, like look better.
Like, all right, by 8 PM or whatever, you're like, this is, we can't do, you know, just like, or just, you know, you should be different. Like that's, but that would be like the kind of just like vague thing that would be on this yeah well yeah and then and ultimately you know that to-do list never ends right yeah i mean you just keep adding to it um because there's always more you can do and so i mean that's the problem i mean i've been i've been thinking about this a lot lately with work is that part of what happens is that we fill up the cracks, like we fill up all the time with just more work.
And this is particularly true of ambitious people is that they say, well, I can just keep going. There's no end.
There's no end to the amount of work that I can find to fill in. And if I want to be successful in the ways I want to be successful, then that's what I've got to do.
And then that hurts, right? We suffer in the long run. Yeah, and it makes me think when you're talking about that, do we have like just such – like how do we temper or how do we perspectivize our goals for success? How do we look at – can you help me say what I'm trying to say? Yeah, like when is it enough, right? Yeah, like and how can we even frame it for ourselves so that we're not just have this blind thing.
Yeah. Like you need to be successful.
Right. So that it's actually specific and realistic.
And yeah, and then when is enough? Right. Well, I mean, because in some way, I mean, you said before you like running.
I don't know if you do if you do races, like if you've ever if you ever run, you know, whatever. But I mean, it'd be like I don't do races.
I would do them. Okay.
But I don't do them yet.

But it's like if every race you did, the finish line just kept moving, right?

Because we move it on ourselves and we don't accept that we've accomplished a thing.

I do.

I mean, one of the things i do to sort of keep myself happy even though i have this this personality style too right where i'm just constantly adding to do's one of the ways i keep myself happy is by by really marking those achievements like when i've finished a thing I treat it like accomplishment. I don't just add to it.
I stop and I say, we did a thing. Like, let's be happy about that.
Let's be excited. Now we can take a day before we move on to the next thing.
So the next thing's still gonna be there for me. And I admit, I think there's something about me that I need that next thing.

I don't know what I do. Like, you know, if you want to get to the root of like what scares me most, it's retirement.
Really? Oh, yeah. I don't.
Retirement in the sense of having too much time then or retirement in the sense of just not having like a specific goal maybe? It's that. I don't know what my brain would do.
I don't know how it would operate without a thing to think about or like without work to think about. I don't know what it would.
Yeah, we got to find out, don't we? Yeah. Yeah, dude.
We got to just torch your calendar and get a little weird. I feel like you get a skylight.
Get a little weird. I mean, just to see what God wants, but it's like, yeah.
Oh, I can't imagine, dude, if somebody said, you can't work tomorrow. Yeah.
I literally, something would crawl out of me and go like this. Yep.
No, I've been, we got furlough days this year. Do you know what a furlough is? for disease or something? no we had some we had to take unpaid days like forced to take unpaid days to save the university money and we're literally not allowed we're going to do that just letting everybody know right now Dr.
Ryan Martin is brought in. Yeah.
Yeah. So we're literally not allowed to work, right? And so, and I have, I mean, I shouldn't say this because I'll get in trouble, but I've been working on those days.
I just don't use my computer because I'm not allowed to because I'm just like on my phone, like doing stuff stuff I'm on a different computer Just still working So Yeah I work sometimes To keep me away From having to deal With my own personal life I think sometimes Okay Do people do that? Oh yeah Absolutely I mean that's a That's a real Distraction for I mean that That's part of Part of what happens Is Yeah Yeah because I think It feels manageable manageable. It just feels like I can control what's going to happen.
Yeah, absolutely. I get that.
But that's okay. That doesn't mean necessarily a bad thing.
No, I don't think so either. I mean, I think there are lots of things in people's lives that can be fulfilling.
And yeah, personal relationships are absolutely one of those things.

And people should, they're good for us

in a gajillion different ways.

But people can be fulfilled by their work,

especially when they identify ways

that their work is really meaningful.

And not just to them, but to the world around them.

And if they can see that, and then yeah, it's really fulfilling to do that work. I think what would make me sad is if I hit a point where I thought, hey, I've been doing all of this and none of it really mattered, right? To you.
Yeah. Or to people in the world, right? it all sort of went away i i don't i don't

think that's true of the job i do i don't think it's true of the job you do i think it matters to to people and um and it and it matters to me but um but it would be you know for someone whose job was to do whatever yeah you know they i could see that happening i could see especially like as we get more technologically advanced and we take away jobs, you know, um, that people start to lose their purpose. You have to have some purpose, right? Or you're just, you won't have any, you won't care about yourself or anything.
Right. Everything has to have a purpose.
Yep. And then, and then for people it's about, well, where do they find that? Right.
Because maybe it's not work and it's okay if it's not work, it could be it could be your hobbies it could be your family it could be seeing the world it could be a billion things yeah yeah yeah i do think though that sometimes with like like like i wish there was just something that was like hey no more technology yep yeah yeah you know like we're we're doing fine we don't need like a robot sheriff and six uber drivers hiding from him all you know like like and everything you know it's like that's what it just yeah i don't know i think about that sometimes like why we wouldn't stop technology because it doesn't feel like it serves us sometimes at a certain point. Right.
Yeah. Well, especially the way in which we have reacted to it.
I mean, in so many ways, technology, I think, almost by definition, is supposed to make our lives better and supposed to make our lives easier, right? Yeah. And I don't necessarily see that happening, right? It makes specific tasks easier, but then we fill up that space with other

work yeah right you know it like um have you ever tried to do some task that's really easy now but have you ever thought about like what it used to be like when we were young oh yeah dude like i even just even writing a sentence the other day it was like where are we yeah i was like what happened dude is this are we in like the is this a war treaty or something i was like, where are we? Yeah. I was like, what happened, dude? Is this, are we in like the, or is this a war treaty or something? I was like, what are we even? And then I was watching, it was a pencil, right? And I was watching the leg come out of it.
I was like, this is crazy. This just happened.
I cannot even believe it. Yeah.
It's, I mean, when I think about How How I think honestly It was like It was getting my tickets For this flight And I was like Thinking about How there was a time When like You ordered paper tickets And they came in the mail Yeah And you had to like Carry them with you And you were all excited Yeah Yeah Versus handphone Yeah you got a ticket to a concert. There were certainly things that added this.

There was more of a – when there was more paper in the world, things that – I don't know, things felt a little bit more connected. Even when there was like a local newspaper and stuff and you got your name in it for something or you got to see what was happening in your community, it was a big deal.
They don't have a lot of those anymore. And so a lot of just, like, the value of being a community that's not just, like, a national community feels like it's dilapidating some.

I think that's true.

I mean, I think that's the – there's definitely a degree to which people have sort of, like, locked themselves into their homes in ways that they're like and they think they're interacting with people right because they are online but they're not necessarily coming out and talking to their neighbors regularly no they're not even talking to their spouses or kids they're always in their room on their devices just ordering doordash or whatever yep like exotic pistachios or whatever like people are ordering just a lot weird stuff. And then it just, at Christmas, they all meet up in the living room.
Everybody's like, wow, mom grew a mustache, you know? And it's just, yeah, it's just, I don't know. It's a different time.
Exotic pistachios. Yeah.
They're good. Some of them are good.
Are they? I'm trying to think. Any other things you found that you've gotten that you get angry at yourself for, Dr.
Martin?

um i think some things that like the things that tend to jump out of me a lot of them are things we've talked about like it's i i get angry at myself when i don't achieve whatever i set my

mind to um whatever i've decided and that's true not just with work but it's true with like

personal or fitness goals or, or things like that. You know, when I, like I said, I, I map out pretty specific goals.
And then when I don't achieve those things, I, I tend to get disappointed with myself. I think I tend to, I've become much more relaxed over time, not necessarily at work, but much more relaxed about just the, uh, my interactions with other people that I meet every, I've sort of embraced that philosophy of, Hey, everybody's dealing with something.
And just, you know, I was going through security yesterday at the airport and I, whatever reason i think you'll appreciate this

for whatever reason i got flagged by their by their like system get him guys angry you know the system where you go in and you have to stand there with your arms up and then it and it like smells you or something i don't know i don't know what it does really yeah so it somebody said it is they take the smell of you and just email it to satan or whatever That scares me.

Well, I walked out and it lit up both my crotch and my ass on their little monitor. And the guy was like, sorry, man, we got to pat you down.
And he took me aside and I think I got a trainee. And he was a little rough with me, man.
Was me, man. Yeah.
And it was like, it was a, it was a, a rough pat down and it was using more palms. You think? Well, he was, he told me, he walked me through this.
Here's what I think happened. I think because he was a trainee, he felt the need to like do a real good job.
And so he told me, yeah, he's like, cause my supervisor's watching, and I got to, so this is where, why I'm telling the story is because, like, I'm going to grant this guy some grace and just say he's doing his best. He's got a new job.
He's trying. He's trying really hard, maybe too hard.
Yeah. But he did the thing where he put his hands like this, and he p he patted me and he, and he walked me through in advance.

He told me what was going to happen.

He also had to go up and down my legs.

Oh yeah.

That's a big one.

Kind of.

Yeah.

It's like,

if you just ask me if something's on my legs,

I'll tell you honestly.

Yeah.

That's who I am.

Yeah.

He,

at one point he said,

do you want to,

would you like me to take you someplace private?

And I was like,

no,

no,

I really don't. I want to be out here.
Y'all met online? Yeah, yeah. Craigslist.
It was great. Yeah, we met out in the woods.
You wanted to. Dude, there used to be a strange encounters on Craigslist, casual encounters.
Oh, yeah? Yeah, you could go on there and just meet strangers in the middle of nowhere if you wanted to. No, thanks.
I did it. Did you? I wish I wouldn't have probably.
But there was definitely some different times you just didn't know, you know? Just, gosh. I've only used Craigslist to sell stuff and we didn't meet in the woods.
We just met at my house. TBD, brother, you know? There's more to know, I'm sure.
These are your books right here While we get mad Those are for you Oh thank you You can give them away But you gotta find Someone named Theo To give them to Okay Cause I signed them Oh thank you Now they're worthless That's super cool How to deal with angry people Yeah what do you tell people In this Yeah so that book It broken into two sections. It's got one that really explains where anger comes from, why people get angry, some of those angry personality types we were talking about.
And then it goes through like 10 specific suggestions for like how you can deal with angry people when you interact with them. Some of it's like, how do you deal with people that you run into online? Some of it's, how do you stay calm? Part of it's, you know, do you, do you, do you consider whether or not you really screwed up? Maybe the problem is that you blew it and you need to find ways to, to make amends.
So it's things like that. Is it, is, is apologizing ever a bad idea? Do you think? I mean, what I usually say about apologizing is that I don't think people should do it if they don't mean it.
I mean, I think you should mean your apology. Yeah.
Um, and I think a lot of times we, you know, so I, I, I, I think that one of the things we've done is by, especially with kids, a lot of times we force them to apologize. Oh, yeah.
We say, like, you got to go say you're sorry. And, you know, I think that actually sends a message of, well, apologizing is what you do to get out of trouble.
And that isn't necessarily why we should apologize. We should apologize if we're really sorry.
I actually don't want people to apologize to me if they're not actually sorry. Then it's just a meaningless gesture.
And it's weird too. They're still calling you names but they're apologizing.
Right, right. And so...
Like, I'm sorry I called you a name, you little... Yes.
And then you're like, Jesus, God. And it...
So if it doesn't lead to changed behavior, then what's the point? Yeah. So I think...
So I think, but the flip side of that is when a person is sorry, they should apologize and they should do it well. You know, like they should, they should do it effectively.
They should, you know, tell people what they're sorry for and they should, they should make amends in a way that suggests that it won't happen again. And I think that's where a lot of people fall short is that it's always a I'm sorry if or I'm sorry but instead of just I'm sorry.
Yeah. What can I do to make it up to you? That sort of thing.
Before you go, I wanted to ask you, why do people – why is road rage such a thing? Why does that? Driving is just the absolute perfect scenario for leading to anger. Everything about it.
I mean, truly, if you were an evil genius and you wanted to create a situation that was going to make people mad, you would create one that looked like driving. Right.
We've got to get from here to here. Yep i got i got goals and there's people in the way of those goals those people who are blocking them are anonymous to me um so i can think or say whatever i want right i can call them a total idiot yeah and uh and and i don't know they might be a genius and i'll have no idea um you've there's There's all these rules of the road.
Um, I mean, there's written rules, but then there's also like, what speed should you be going? Right. I mean, right.
So there's vagueness in there too, which can. Yeah.
So, um, it's the thing I often ask my students is what, what speed should you go on the interstate? And because nobody says, you know, the speed limit, it's over, 15 over, right? And so if you and I are on the road and we have different, what's your answer to that? My answer, probably 11 miles over. Okay.
So I'm pretty close to that. I'm like nine.
Okay. I tend to set the cruise at nine over.
So if you and I encounter each other on the road and you're behind me, well, you get mad because I'm not obeying your arbitrary rule, right? And I get mad because you're a hazard, right? You're trying, you're riding my bumper or whatever because, hey, I'm already going fast enough. Yeah.
So these arbitrary rules set people off. All of that ends up, and then on top of that, it's kind of a nerve-wracking situation.
We don't actually think of it. We've been driving long enough that we forget how anxiety-provoking it actually is, but it's dangerous, right? And so real harm can happen.
And so all of that tends to exacerb, that likelihood of getting angry when people slow us down or get in the way. Um, and then add to it that the consequences are so significant of people running people off the road when they get mad people.
Oh, I see. Yeah.
Just things like that, like that, those consequences, we see those, right? I mean, they're very visible. In fact, we have seen more road rage-related shootings in the last two years than ever before, that people are getting aggressive.
Oh, yeah, if I'm aggressive, dude, and I have a gun, it's anybody's ballgame, dude. There we go.
Very unfortunate, very senseless. Visitors witnessed deadly Myrtle Beach road rage shooting.
Oh, yeah. They call it Murder Beach now, I think.
Jeez. Every place is starting to be called like murder something.
But, yeah, people are just shooting. They just – I had a friend in New Orleans that died in a road rage.
Yeah, it's crazy. It's really crazy.
But it is. It's that intense moment.
But as a driver, if you can play it out in your head, like you were saying earlier, how do I want this to play out? The truth is, you probably want that guy to get a flat tire sometime the next day or whatever. That's fine.
But right now, you want to get to where you're going. And honestly, most of the time in those situations,

I want to get as far from that person as possible.

Like, I don't want to interact with them.

Yeah, you can't be following them.

What is this, somebody road raging?

Oh, this guy punched open a back window.

That's hard to do.

Yes.

That is hard to do.

Uh-oh.

Oh, this seems like a...

Thank you. to do.
That is hard to do. Uh-oh.
Oh, this seems like a um... Oh, she just popped the trunk, boy.
Oh, my God. Dang, bro.
She's carrying. Oh, she gots a hatchet.
What? Ooh, and he hit her. Those are children.
That's wild. But it is crazy.
That one guy, he acted like they were crazy for coming after him after he went and hit their window. Broke there, yeah.
But it's crazy. You would think you'd just leave.
If somebody broke your window, that dude. Yeah.
That guy or whatever. These incidents are everywhere now.
I mean, you scroll through. I mean, that's the part of it.
So I had a weird interaction right outside my kid's school one day where I was parked waiting for pickup,

and this woman came, and she parked her car in front of me,

and she was backing up, and I got a little anxious

that she didn't realize how close she was.

Yeah.

And so I honked, but it wasn't –

I mean, to me, this is what a horn is for, actually, right?

It's like to alert someone like, hey, you might hit me. Not because I was mad.
I wasn't. But wow, it made her mad.
Like she was really mad that I'd honked at her. But what was interesting is that she got out of the car and she came over to talk to me and she immediately started recording.
Like she took her phone out and started like videoing the situation. I think thinking that we might.
Things might escalate. Things might escalate and wanting it captured if it did.
And I think that like, which I do wonder sometimes, what is, do phones, I don't have an answer to this, do phones de-escalate situations or do they escalate them? You know, like if. Right, once the show is on now, do I have to perform? Right.
I had a soccer coach come yell at me one day. I was, I'm not just me, like yell at the fans at a game.
And I've, I've often, I mean, he was out of control. I've often wondered what would have happened if I had just taken my phone out and started recording? Would he have been like, Oh, I should back away or would he ever just exacerbate? Yeah I don't know.
Yeah, dude. Yeah.
Wow. Yeah, because that's interesting.
It's almost like art imitates life or whatever. It's like we're just like if we're watching something violent happen and then we get involved in something violent, the first thing to do then a lot of times wouldn't even be to help.
It would be to record. Right.
Right. Because that's if we just saw something recorded right gosh it makes me i mean i and i truly wonder is that i mean there must be circumstances where that's the smart thing to do where that is going to de-escalate right um you know where people are going to start to sort of say like oh i don't want to be i don't want to be famous.
I think if someone is probably urinating in your yard or something, then you definitely, I'm going to record you in the back. Oh, I'm not going to be doing this on that camera, on the camera.
I'm going to put my pants up or whatever. But I think if it's somebody who's just like, I don't know, that's a good question.
I think part of the question is how rational are they in that moment? Right. You know what I mean, if they're...
Right, they might be doing it as a safety mechanism. Yep.
I'm going to make sure things don't get out of control here. Right, right.
Yep. But, yeah, road rage commonly characterized by aggressive driving is a factor in more than 50% of all car crashes that end in fatality, according to AAA.
In fact, in a separate years-long study, road rage episodes resulted in about 30 deaths and 1,800 injuries per year. You know, it's funny.
One of the things that I oftentimes talk to people about, and it's like, so I did a TED Talk on anger a few. Yeah, I've seen it.
Back a while ago. And so, like, the premise of that talk is that anger is good for you.
There it is. That anger is, like, good for you in all these different ways.
One circumstance that I would not advocate anger is behind the wheel, right? It's just, it feels like there's no good outcome, that it just puts you in a dangerous spot and better to just back away and- Let it go. Yeah, let it go.
Yeah, what are good ways that anger? When is anger healthy? Yeah, I mean, I think a lot of it is, you know, if you grant the premise that unfairness exists in the world, that there are injustices in the world, and I do grant that premise, then, you know, feeling anger is totally natural and healthy. And it's what we do with it that is most reasonable.
Anger, like any emotion, it exists in us because of our evolutionary history. It exists in us because it encouraged our ancestors to fight back, and so it was a survival mechanism.
And so from that perspective, it's still valuable. So the same way, you know, I get thirsty and I get a sip of water, anger motivates me to confront injustice.
Right. And you're going to need it too.
I mean, if they didn't, if we got rid of anger completely, then what if there were tyr tyranny or something we'd never be able to stand up to it you know exactly what if there were yeah

i mean anger is behind all these social movements in in really meaningful ways right and now we were talking earlier about protests and social media that um but anger is what's motivating most of those in oftentimes in, in, in healthy ways. Um, yeah.
Yeah. Um,

um,

yeah. Yeah.
Um, Dr. Ryan Martin, I'm trying to think of anything else we can cover.
I think we got a pretty good. Yeah.
We went from flushing the toilet before you, before you're done peeing all the way to getting patted down at the, by a TSA agent, by an overly aggressive TSA agent. I think we've covered a lot.
That's a lot of ground. Dr.
Ryan Martin, thank you so much, man, for coming in. Yeah, thank you, man.
This has been an absolute treat. It's been great talking to you, and it's been fun being here.
Yeah, appreciate it, man. It's been interesting to just learn more a little bit about anger.
And the thing that has helped me at times is that moment of thinking, how do I want this to play out? Yep, that's good. If I can let that get me, at that moment when you're about to open the card or whatever, you know, you're about to go in the other room and say something, how do I want this evening to play out, this afternoon, this next hour, this next week? Yep.
Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think that like that has to be thinking about that outcome you want.
What is your desired outcome in any situation is so important. And then because the next question is, well, then how do I get there? Right.
What is the thing I have to do to accomplish this? And, and, you know, and now the second piece is be having the presence of mind to deescalate yourself in order to have that thought and be intentional about that. Right.
Yeah. If you can get to that thought, you're probably going to be okay.
Right. I've noticed that if for myself, if I can get to that thought, I'm probably going to be okay.
Cause most of the time I'm going to going to choose. Let's find a way to get this.
Let's find a way to just get through this. And I think for people who have real genuine anger problems, they're not able to get to that thought.
That they're so escalated in the moment. It's this righteous anger that is driving everything they're thinking about and they're're not able to get to the place of, okay, what's the rational, healthy thing to do right now? Yeah.
Because I think preserving your peace is really key. I mean, there's just everything is loud everywhere.
There's just everything is like signaling or letting you know, notification, just never ending now. I think just holding on to your peace, And if you can remember that, how do I want this to end? How do I really want this to end? It's really good for any situation.
Honestly, it's good for the small day-to-day interactions. It's good for big life goals.
Yeah. Business.
It's like if you're calling to make a deal with somebody, maybe they don't want the deal or maybe it's not. But do you want to do deals with them for the next 10 years? How do you want things to look long-term? Does the price need to be that? Can it be a different price over five years, and you still have a great business relationship? Do you have to win this argument? Do you have to defeat that Pontiac Firebird that just flipped you off, dude? Right.
You probably don't. Probably not.
It probably doesn't matter in the long run that you win that. But how do you get through it today? How do you reach out to your spouse? If you're angry, how do you reach out to your spouse and just say something nice? Just because you know it's going to make it better when you guys get home or when you see each other again.
So they're not going to have a tough day. Right.
You know, how do you, even if you're mad at your girlfriend or something, say, look, everything will be okay, you know? Yep. Thinking through those long-term goals, how do you want this situation to be and then charting the path to get there.
I think honestly, for a lot of people, the, the, the challenge is that they haven't, they aren't able necessarily, or haven't spent enough time thinking about that destination, you know, and, and what, and, and being really intentional about this is, this is the outcome I want. Um, this is the outcome I want today.
This is the outcome I want next week. And so this is the outcome I want This is the outcome I want today This is the outcome I want next week And so this is the outcome I want For this drive to work Is to get there safely And once you start having that thought Then it helps you Stop diverging into Stupid directions Yeah, sometimes I don't have that And so then I'm at the whims or whatever.
Right. You know, sometimes I'm just a little bit aimless, which is okay, but it can be risky.
Dr. Ryan Martin, thank you so much for coming in, man.
You bet. Thanks so much for having me.
This has been a treat. I appreciate it.
From start to finish, yeah. Yeah, I've been dealing with some anger, and so just excited to get to talk about it and just think about it so thank you for

sharing your knowledge. Yeah, share this peace of mind.
I found I can feel it in my bones, but it's gonna take