Dr. Eugene Choi Part 2 - Executive State vs. Survival State

Dr. Eugene K. Choi is back for part 2! Jason and Eugene dig in on the executive vs survival state, recognizing the key to high performance and how to know what state you are in.

Key Insights:

• Executive vs. Survival State: Learn to identify when you're in survival mode and how to shift into your executive state for better outcomes.
• Emotional Regulation: Understanding the importance of managing emotions to improve decision-making and relationships.
• Performance and the Brain: Insights into how brain function affects our ability to perform.
• Empathy and Connection: Strategies for enhancing connections with others through empathy and compassion.
• Applying Neuroscience in Daily Life: Dr. Choi offers practical tips for using these insights to improve both personal and professional aspects of life.

Notable Quotes:

• "We operate from a state of survival or in an executive state."
• "Much of our adult life is spent reacting rather than acting with intention."
• "The experience of emotional pain is akin to physical pain."

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Transcript

Jason Frazell: 0:12

Everybody, I am back with Dr. Eugene K. Choi for part two. of the conversation that you would have heard last week, if you're a long time listener. I had Eugene on last week where we talked about his experience at a meditation retreat. And we started to get into a little bit of these things that we're going to talk about today. And we, Eugene and I just agreed together, we needed to have a part two of this conversation because there was so much meat to this. So Eugene, I'd like to say welcome back, although it's been a week for the listeners, a little bit longer for you and I, but good to have you back and to continue the conversation. Yeah,

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 0:45

thanks for having me again. It's always fun.

Jason Frazell: 0:48

Yeah, we're gonna talk about a variety of things. I think we're gonna start with the executive state versus survival state. And this is based on speaking and engagement that I saw you at, where I was really struck by a number of things, but I just wanna own something. I'm in my executive state today, and you can see that I'm wearing my chief sweatshirt, because we are recording this. Monday, February 12th. Sorry, two time repeating Super Bowl champion, Kansas City Chiefs. I'm a Chiefs fan. So, Eugene is not, I don't think you're a Chiefs fan, or maybe you are, but I'm wearing my Chiefs hoodie because I, I can, because it's my podcast and I'm a Chiefs fan and they're Super Bowl champions once again. So I'm at very much in my executive state today. I have no fight, fight, or freeze me. I'm just celebrating. It's been great so far. Awesome.

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 1:35

That's awesome.

Jason Frazell: 1:37

Yeah. Where, how are you, how are you showing up today, Eugene? Like what, how are you feeling today? It's, we're recording this on a Monday. Just generally, you know, you got a lot going on too. You got kids and thriving business. How are, where are you at today with your mindset? Just

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 1:51

every, every time I am on a call like this, I'm just trying my best to be present, right? It's, it's easy to kind of move forward and look at my calendar and what I have the rest of the day. So that's something I actively try to practice, which is why I started, I used to never use a calendar, right? Until I started my own business, but yeah, like just. Trying to be present. I'm here. I usually try to start off the day with gratitude, right? When you wake up in the morning, when the kids are waking you up, it's hard to do that sometimes. But yeah, it's just constantly trying to remind myself all the little reasons on things to be grateful for. Right. Kids are asking a lot of questions because their brains are growing. Right. Yeah. They are. I have a heater on, that means, right, it's, it's warm here when it's cold elsewhere. Having a toilet means modern day plumbing that we get to enjoy. Little things like that, right? Whatever you can use. It's always different every day, but that's kind of, yeah, and every day it changes. So always trying to be present.

Jason Frazell: 2:43

Yeah, I like that. That's something I've really had to work on, too. There's so many ways to be easily distracted for me. So many shiny objects and such, and just learning to be present with people, including on this podcast. You actually inspired me to think about, I'm also really grateful that we get a chance to connect for the third time like this, through technology. You are in California. And I'm in New York, so we're getting a chance to have a really cool conversation across, you know, multiple time zones and have a conversation that we can record for the audience. I'm grateful for that, that we can do this. That is so true. It's fun. It's so cool. And we get to

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 3:19

look at each other in real time. Yeah, we get to see each other's faces. That's new, right? And it used to be, if we did call each other and you were in New York and I'm in California, it would cost however much cents per minute, right, of us talking. Per minute, oh my god, yeah. Long distance phone calls, you remember that? And now it's all free. Oh my god, yes. Because of the internet. Yes.

Jason Frazell: 3:35

Yeah, pretty cool. And we're doing it on a really cool platform in real time, so little things to be grateful for. So Eugene, let's kick, let's kick this off and talk about the concept of executive state and survival state. Yeah. This is something you have done. A lot of studying on just to, just to pump, just to not even pump you up, but just to be factual about it. You've done a lot of studying around the neuroscience of performance, the neuroscience of how people make decisions, how they show up in the world, both personally and professionally. And this is one element of it is something that's called our executive state and our survival state. So I'd love to hear more about what these things are, let the audience know, give us a context and then we'll talk about how they show up for each of us.

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 4:19

Yeah, absolutely. If we were to recap this it's basically our nervous system, our brain only operates in one of two given states at any moment in time, right? Where it's one or the other. It's that simple. We're either in a state of survival or we're either in what I call an executive state. The thing to know about a survival state, it's meant, it's meant to be used. When your life is actually in danger. So if an animal's about to eat you, someone's pointing a gun to your head. And the mode that this puts you in is it's in a reactive mode. You're reacting without thinking. It's important for you not to be thinking in this moment. Because if you start thinking, it might mean the difference between life or death. So it's reacting without thinking. That's the key thing to understand. And the executive state is when your nervous system isn't feeling threatened for whatever reason. A lot of the amazing capabilities of your brain comes on, it's behind your forehead and your frontal lobe. It takes up 40 percent of your human brain. It's the highest ratio to any other animal that's out there in terms of the frontal lobe to the rest of the brain. And some amazing functions come from here. your emotional regulation skills, your creativity, your critical thinking skills, your ability to think, right? But the shocking research, the shocking thing is that research is showing that for about 70 percent of our adult lives, we're not in the exact state. We're in a survival state. We're reacting without thinking for about 70 percent of our adult lives. That means our empathy is off our ability to connect with people. We're not connecting with people. We're busy being transactional with people. We're using people instead, right? Cause when you're in survival, it's all about me, me, me, me. I need to get what's what's for me. Right. I mean, during the pandemic, what was survival state was. All that toilet paper being hoarded when people aren't thinking, it's just like, really, like, this is the thing, like, this is the thing to be panicking about is that you don't have enough toilet paper. Right. Do you see what I'm saying? Because you're not thinking. So that's, that's kind of what I realized. And modern day science is showing us how to be able to activate that executive state on a more moment to moment basis. So then you'll be able to solve problems that are difficult to solve. You'll be able to see solutions that you might not have seen before or ideas that you needed. And it's, it's been so cool. I've been testing it out for many, many years now with clients giving trainings and watching the results, right? Relationships have been saved. Businesses has been saved. Records were broken, all that cool stuff. Right. So it's just been such a

Jason Frazell: 6:34

joy. Yeah. Yeah. Let's talk about the physiological output of these states and how you generally. No, I think people, I was speaking, well, I'm not gonna speak for anybody. I'm speaking for myself. I'd like to tell you that I know. But I'm sure I don't totally know, but science tells us there are certain actual reactions, physiological reactions that happen dependent on the site site or brain. So let's start with let's start with survival state. And for the audience listening, I think most people here are going to be thinking about this through the lens of their career or their home life. People listening to this podcast probably aren't in danger on a daily basis, like actually in physical danger. So let's say, let's talk about this from a, let's take, let's just take a specific example of a work context. Mm hmm. What might it look like to be in your survival state while at work?

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 7:29

So, I mean, there's so much stats around this to you, right? Like 85 percent of people report being disengaged at work. So the fight flight, when you're in survival, it only does one of three things where you're reacting without, without thinking, right? So you're going to fight, flight, freeze. It's called a fight, flight, freeze response. So fight in. So it's important to understand in actual danger, it's really obvious. You're going to pick up a weapon to fight, you're going to run for your life in flight, or you're going to play dead and freeze. And in everyday life, if we're surviving for about 70 percent of our adult lives, it's not because you're in physical danger, it's because you're in emotional survival. There are feelings that you don't like feeling, and there's research that shows emotional pain can be just as painful as physical pain. So your brain can't help but react to these feelings. So then you have to think about how you feel at work on a daily basis. stressed, frustrated, annoyed, tired. When you're having all these feelings that don't feel comfortable. Your brain will usually react in survival because it's already been conditioned to react to them that way. So what does fight look like? It's like the overworker. You keep your head down and work, work, work, work, work, right? You're tending to work long hours and we lose the ability to be able to work smarter, not harder, right? So what this means is imagine a tiger walks into your room. Are you gonna look anywhere else except where the tiger is? No, you're only going to look at the tiger. So what's happening in your brain is this actually developing literal tunnel vision. It's only focusing on the thing that it's concerned about. So we can do the same thing at work. We're so focused on the thing that we're concerned about, whether it's the boss getting mad at you or not meeting the deadline and people getting upset and judging you or whatever it is, your brain goes into that tunnel vision and we end up overworking when there's probably more efficient, better solutions. Right. And this goes into a deep rabbit hole because another, another fight response could look like people pleasing because you also have to think, why do people overwork? Why do people say yes to things they want to say no to? That's also a fight response. We might fight for approval. We might fight to feel worthy. We might fight to be enough, but you have to ask, why are we fighting to begin with? Unless we, what we actually believe about ourselves is that exactly that, that I'm not enough. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not capable enough. I'm a loser. I'm a failure. Unless we believe that we wouldn't fight to do those things to begin with. Right. Yeah. So if a person has a low sense of self worth, the people pleasing happens and we form poor ability to set boundaries, set healthy boundaries. You see what I'm saying? Yes. So that's, that's also another form of the fight. It's, we just overwork because we have a lot of fears, right, or beliefs about ourself that cause us to react without thinking and keep saying yes to things that we probably shouldn't say yes to because it's already well beyond our capacity. Man. Do you see

Jason Frazell: 10:28

what I'm saying? Yeah. Eugenio, I didn't make a comment here. You know, we both, we both do coaching work with individuals and groups and such. How often do you hear boundaries as an issue? I hear it all the time. The people are sometimes quite present to it. Yeah. That boundaries is their thing. I re one of the reasons I wanted to have you go through each of the survival states is that really strikes me that that's a fight response. That's a fight response. That is not. Where I would naturally go from those three. That's so interesting because as you talk about it, like that makes perfect

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 11:03

sense Yeah, and it depends on the individual because it could also be a flight response by the way to avoid conflict, right? I want to avoid conflict so I'm gonna flee by saying yes to this thing I want to say no to but for people who overwork because they they're just so used to working too much That's usually a fight response. You see what I'm saying? Like I keep saying yes to things even though I know I should say no, but I'm so scared Of being perceived or starting to see that I'm a person that's not capable of failure or loser or whatever, insert whatever thinking that you might carry. We fight to have status, to have acceptance, to fight for approval. So and it always usually leads to burnout. Cause that's, cause people take advantage of fighters all the time. They make great employees, right? Until they get burnt out. And what happens when you get burnt out? They're gonna move on to the next batch of traumatized people that they can take advantage of. You know what I mean?

Jason Frazell: 11:58

You're speaking to somebody I spent a year and a half at a company. And I look back fondly with it and you know, looking back now, it was a year and a half of pure, almost pure survival state for me. Right. And what happened? I got burnt out Right. The whole, I mean, the whole company was pretty much in survival state all the time. Is is the least out looking back now? It's how it felt. I wouldn't, didn't, you know, you don't, don't always recognize it at the time, but makes so much sense that people were so burnt out.

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 12:29

And if the top leaders are burnt out or operating on survival, what's it gonna do for the rest of the team? It's gonna catch up to the rest of the team. Yeah. I see it happen all the time. We see stories about it all the time. And because of all of that tunnel vision, by the way, that's, that's why mistakes get made. That's why scandals happen. People just don't see things when they're in tunnel vision until it's too late. Yep. Which is why it's in our best interest to learn how to identify what the fight response looks like and get ourselves out of it.

Jason Frazell: 12:56

Yeah. What about, I know it asks for a specific example at work, but what about at home?

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 13:02

Oh, geez. Yeah. I mean, at home it's going to happen more because at home is, especially if you have, if you're not living alone, right? If you're living with others whether it's a family or roommates or, it's going to come out the most because these are people who see you at your home. When things tend to be a moment where you let your hair down, so all your insecurities come out. Right? What does fight look like? It's at home, like you can't sit still. You go on vacation and you can't seem to rest, right? You can't keep, you can't slow your head down because your brain, if you carry a belief about yourself where it's something not true about your worth or your perspective about yourself, some unhealthy perspective about yourself, your brain's going to keep fighting on autopilot. To be more, to do more, right? And there's nothing against getting things done. It's just a matter of how we tie our accomplishments to our worth. If there's a tie to it, then it's going to be a fight response versus if you don't tie your accomplishments to your self worth, it's not a fight. In executive state, it's a form of self expression. You do things because you want to. It's, it has to come out of you. There's things that you want to share. You want to be able to connect with people and help them. Right. And then there's also fight for approval at home. This was a lesson for me as a husband. And as a father, at one point in my life, I realized I do all these things. I say, I do all these things for my family because I love them, but it wasn't because I carried a belief that I don't matter. It was a fight response. My brain's going, Hey. I don't think I matter. I'm not worth much. So quick, fight. Do nice things for other people. Maybe one day you will feel like you matter. We talked about

Jason Frazell: 14:35

this last week. Yeah. That you got really present to this when you were in your meditation retreat, where all you had was your thoughts. You got really present to this. If I'm not mistaken, this belief system here of all your fighting manifests itself as physical pain for you at your meditation retreat. Yes.

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 14:54

Yes, it was wild. I mean that's the part where it might be weird for people, but like I mean I'm not shy about it anymore because it happened like it was a physical experience. Factual. Yeah, physically feeling your emotional pain apparently, right? It's like it was noticeable enough because it wasn't like an ache, you know, I mean, it wasn't like a muscle It was like a different feeling but yeah, I mean it's just It's just been a wild journey, like, learning about all this, the fight response, the flight response, the freeze response, and how it impacts us. I mean, that alone is the first major hurdle, is realizing that what we're, a lot of what we're doing is fight, flight, or freeze. We just think it's, you know what I mean? Like, there's a lot of fighters who wear it like a badge of honor. Oh, I get shit done. I'm, I'm a, I'm a very productive, high performance person when they're usually probably the most guilty of being in a fight response. Yeah, I saw,

Jason Frazell: 15:47

I saw an email from somebody I think you may know as well last night talking about if you go on Instagram in about 45 seconds, the like the hustle and grind culture, like, I don't got time to watch the Super Bowl. And the guy's just like, if that's true, then you probably don't have time to spend time with your kids and be a better, whatever it is you're doing, like, like, that's just, yeah, like the, the hustle and grind culture, it's it's so interesting to think about that as a fight, because I never thought about it that way, because you really, you are, you're just fighting for something, and a lot of the times, I'm speaking for myself here, I'm fighting to have people perceive me in a certain way, because that's, because that, I think, builds trust, you And looking at my sales crew, definitely, definitely in a fight response a lot of the time.

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 16:34

Hmm. Yeah. You know, it's like the, I don't have time. Mentality is usually a fight response. It really is because it's the more, I mean, I've said it plenty of times too, right? I don't have time. I don't have time. I don't have time to do this. I don't know. But what I realized over time is a lot of times what it really is, isn't that I don't have enough time. It's. I don't prioritize or that's not a priority for me right now. Why would I not make the time to grow? Well, it's just not a priority right now. Cause I'm busy fighting for my self worth. I want people to perceive me a certain way. That's more of a priority for me. Yeah. My fears are more of a priority for me to fight, to look better, to impress people, that's more of a priority for me. It's not really, I don't have time. I mean, in the business coaching world, there's a saying, if someone tells you the bottleneck is, I don't have enough money or I don't have enough time. That's never the bottleneck. You didn't go deep enough. What's causing the person to not have enough time. And sometimes it's a boundaries thing too, right? It's like, well, why are you saying yes to all these other things that clearly don't add value to your life, but you keep saying, giving your time to it and you're telling me you don't have

Jason Frazell: 17:47

time or micromanaging or inability to delegate or trust people. Yeah. And then likely, where does that show up at home? If you're like you said, if you live with other people,

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 17:58

it's exactly what you said, it's like the person who says, I don't have time that also doesn't have time for their children. Also doesn't make time for their spouse. The home life starts to suffer, right? I think we've all been there. It's back to battle, right? Like it feels like at times. And yeah, yeah, man, I think that's kind of where, you The big aha was just like, it's not about the time. Like time's not even, I mean, I don't know how else to say this. Like time's not even like a, I don't know. I don't know if the word is real. Like time is just a perception. If you think about it. Cause there are times in our life where we lose track of time, don't we? When you're really connected with someone, when you're really in the middle of a fun activity that you're doing, or whatever it is, you lose track of time. Time is not controlling you in that moment. Why is time controlling you in these other times when you're stressed? It usually just happens when we're in survival. So interesting. Yeah. We create it in our minds to beat the deadline or whatever, and then if I don't meet the deadline, then I'm a loser. If I don't meet the deadline, then we suck. If I don't meet the, we create all of these other types of realities in our minds when we're in that fight mode. But. Yeah, I mean, in flight mode, right, there's the procrastination, the avoidance the numbing, some people use alcohol, drugs, sex, to the point of addiction, no point, no judgment around any of that, and then freeze is when we're overwhelmed, we wake up in the morning, don't want to get out of bed, we just don't take action, the big aha for me with the freeze response was I realized, wait, that means there's no such thing as laziness, So, What if people who we perceive as lazy, we might perceive them as lazy, but if we look into their minds and their reality, something's going on emotionally. That for whatever reason their nervous system is overwhelmed and they just can't act they just can't move It's a free chronic freeze response. You see what I'm saying? Whether it's Environment they grew up in there's also the science that shows now trauma can get passed down genetically Maybe it's something that happened in their history right with their parents and ancestors, etc So I don't know. It's just, it just gave me a different perspective on things. You know what I mean? Like we might judge a person so lazy, but I'm like, now I'm like, what kind of freeze response is happening in that individual? They must be hurting or something must be going on. I wonder what's going on. Yeah, I

Jason Frazell: 20:10

want to, I want to pause here before we move into the executive state and just feeling called to say a couple of things. One, this is two friends and colleagues talking about something that we know a little bit about, you know, a lot more, but we are not, we are not de facto have figured at least. I know that we've talked with this Eugene, you don't have this all figured out. I certainly don't. And, that kind of leads me to the second thing is, this serves a purpose. It can be very powerful. Like, this survival state is literally what it sounds like, it is a way to survive. And, It's not that if people are, and I say this because sometimes I know when I hear this or other coaching, people are like, well, it doesn't mean I'm a bad person because I don't have a lot of facility with this or I'm not aware of it. No, it's like anything else. It's the awareness of it so that you can actually pay attention. And I heard this from one of my clients and this is really struck me. Are you making a decision or are you making a choice? You hear the difference there?

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 21:11

What's the difference? What's the implication?

Jason Frazell: 21:16

A choice is an empowered, I am choosing to do this thing because it variety of ways. It could be because I care about the people. It doesn't have to be the thing you wanna do necessarily. Be like, I'm empower. I'm empowering it because I know it's good for me. I know it's good for people. A decision is, well, there's two things and I'm just making a decision because ah, okay, I have to make a decision. Empowering versus disempowering way to look at. Well, how many, think, let's talk about, I like, really on this show, like, you know this, I like to talk about our own experiences because that's the thing we can talk best about. How often in your life, in the past, or today, or, where you consider yourself making lots of choices but you're actually just making a decision?

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 22:00

Right, okay, got it. I know what you're talking about now. So, I just have different vernacular for it, right? Yeah, so, well,

Jason Frazell: 22:05

and that's why I bring it up, is I had a feeling you'd have vernacular, because I know you work on this with people. What's the vernacular you like to use with folks? Yeah,

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 22:12

so, I either call it a conscious, I use both words, but it's, it's either a conscious decision or an unconscious decision, right? Right. So, we make about 30, 000 plus decisions per day. But a lot of these are unconscious, they're subconscious, meaning they're automatic, right? You wake up in the morning because you're in the same environment, your body just kind of automatically gets up, goes to the bathroom, brush, brush your teeth. It has that routine. You don't have to tell yourself. Okay, like let's get your left foot out and your right foot out. Let's slowly walk to the bathroom. Like you're making all these choices without telling yourself to do it because you got so good at doing it. Yeah. Conscious choice is when you're not in the autopilot anymore. Right? And the most powerful conscious choices are when it's when it has to do with your perspectives, your beliefs, stuff like that, right? Because then eventually you start feeling differently, acting differently, thinking differently. So yes, a lot of our life is autopilot. I mean, there's a saying that 90 to 95 percent of our brain becomes subconscious by the time we're 35 years old. Which means by the time that we're 35, 95 percent of the brain is on autopilot. Like, that's also one of the potential reasons why time passes by so fast the older we get. It's just more autopilot that's turning on. Yeah. So to snap yourself out of autopilot, it feels uncomfortable for a lot of people. But imagine like every moment you're paying attention to every little thing. Do you see what I mean? Yeah, I do. Like making conscious decisions. It requires more brain power. Your brain doesn't like wasting calories if it doesn't have to. That's right. But it becomes really important to do when the life you're living is not the one you want. Because if you keep going into autopilot, it's going to keep trying to move towards that same reality that it's used to. Do you see what I'm saying?

Jason Frazell: 23:54

I do. No, that's good. Yeah, and that's why I brought this up, because I know you and I have talked about this in a different framework, and I was just really reminded when somebody said, Are you making a decision or a choice? And yes, there are times we just have to make decisions. Two equal decisions that are both like but how often do we make decisions go? Oh, I have a choice in it. Well, it's sort of, but it is subconscious. And I really like that. I like the idea of where am I making this decision from? Am I choosing something or am I just making a decision because the decision has to be made? And yes, the lines get blurred. This is not a black and white thing. Obviously there's many places where we just have to make decisions, but a lot of places I know myself included, I'd call it, I'm making a choice, but it's really just a decision. Like doesn't have a lot of thought behind it.

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 24:39

Well, I mean, yeah. Like the reality though, is you have to think about this. It's every day you're making tons of choices, whether you're doing it without thinking or with thinking, do you see what I'm saying? Whether you're doing it from a place of executive state or every day you're making choices, but people forget that. I think, I think the name of the game is just to look at it again, going, Oh my God, I do make all of these choices every single day. How can I ever say that things won't change or I can't change when in fact there's so many choices we're making every day. I think we just lose sight of that sometimes. Right? Yeah. Oh yeah. We say phrases like, Oh, things don't change. That's not true. Everything's freaking changing every single second. Totally. We're getting a hundred thousand new heartbeats every single day. We're breathing in two million new liters of air every day. Twenty five million cells are replacing itself every single second. How can we ever say things don't change? What if it's just our brain's bias? It got programmed. It got used to just looking at certain information and then we tell ourselves things aren't changing. Everything is freaking changing every single second. single cell, like at a cellular level, everything's changing every second. So anyway, now I'm overwhelmed just thinking about that, right? It's scary for people, because the brain naturally doesn't like change. Because when we're cavemen and cavewomen, you go into uncertain territory and change the environment, you might get killed. So that's hardwired in us. But then the thing that we're missing out on is if your life's not in danger, it's okay to go there. And when you go there, that's when amazing change happens. That's when you're able to, you know what I mean? Like that's when opportunity, solutions, so many things happen. Yeah. But yeah, man.

Jason Frazell: 26:24

Well, let's, so Eugene, let's now talk about the other side of this, the executive state, which earlier you said, science shows that for adults, it's about 70 percent survival state. I'm sure that they've, what, hooked people up to monitors or had them wear something and actually doing it. So now let's talk about what the executive state is. You mentioned a little bit about it, and then what kind of things might we notice or pay attention to. Of the output there because survival state, you have your fight, you have your flight, you have your freeze. What about on the executive state side?

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 27:06

So on the executive state side, there's so many functions you're accessing. Your critical thinking skills. So you're able to solve complex problems, right? You're actually able to think through it versus just reactively making a decision and then realizing looking back on it, it was a big mistake because you didn't see some sort of key piece of context or information you should have looked at because in survival, your brain's in tunnel vision. Your emotional regulation skills. Comes from your executive state. So when you're having a moment it's your executive state that can help you calm down faster, right? Calm your nervous system down faster. The most important one for me, honestly, is empathy, the ability to have empathy and compassion and not treat someone like a a number, like a transaction. That's so important for me. Whether it's at a leadership level or at a parent or a spouse level, how can we access our empathy and actually connect with people? Because I mean the reality of it was I think I shared during the whole meditation thing too. It's just like there's so many times I used my kids. There's so many times I used my wife. I'm being honest to help me feel better about myself and when we're in an executive state, we're able to do that and because all of these things are on your Productivity your value that you contribute to people. It just skyrockets. You know what I mean? And, you know, I mean, speaking of personal experiences, you know, it was a big aha for me because like a lot of this stuff I think can get misconstrued as like, Oh, this is about like performing really well with like, this is your productivity hack and whatnot. Like, yeah. Like those are great, great side effects that happens when you train yourself to get out of survival state, right on a, get out of that autopilot more often. But dude, I was having, I might've shared this. Last week, but I'm trying to remember but like I remember having a conversation with a friend of mine Who's a former Navy SEAL and he's like with all this brain stuff that you study Like what do you think is that thing if you learned how to do it gives you that? Edge that even if it's just that 1 percent because in the Navy SEAL community, they're always looking for that extra 1 percent Absolutely, and I'm sitting there and it just hit me. I'm like, it's emotional regulation It's your ability to get out of anger, frustration, stress, anxiety, depression, like to train your brain to get out of it more often because research shows, biologically speaking, you can get out of a state of survival in as little as 90 seconds. If you look at any animal out there, like a deer runs away, outruns a tiger after almost being attacked within 90 seconds. If you watch this nervous system, it just moves on with its day. Even though it almost just died, it just moves on as if nothing happened. But humans, we have this weird ability to hold on to the past, right? We just keep thinking about it, thinking about it. The other thing that person said, that was a crappy day. That was a crappy day. I'm like, wasn't that like two months ago? It's like, yeah, that was still such a crappy day. It's like, oh, okay.

Jason Frazell: 29:52

Like so much value in holding onto that though, Eugene. I mean, it's so much value. It feels so good.

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 29:57

And then there's a famous pastor, T. D. Jakes, he, he was like giving this sermon and it was so powerful. He was just making a powerful question about like, you know, you held on to that person that did that thing to you and said that thing to you 38 years ago for 38 years, who is worth it. To give 38 years of your life. Oh, yeah. And that person's probably not even thinking about you. Yeah. You know what I mean? Oh, man,

Jason Frazell: 30:23

totally. Yeah.

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 30:24

So, it's just like, it's so powerful. I realize it's the emotional regulation part. Because if we can't do this Because you want to know where the real power is. I'll give a personal story. I have a my middle son, Theo. He is he just turned six. My neighbor is the same age. They're in the same class. Their birthday is two days apart. They were born within two days of each other. And they played with each other a lot in the past where when they were younger. And our neighbor it was not too long ago, about a year or two ago the mom passed away. She was struggling with cancer for a while. So I remember I'm at home with my family, with my three kids, and we're goofing off, laughing, having fun, and it hit me. It's just like, here we are, goofing off, having fun, while across the street, another family is grieving, and my friend just became a single father. Two different realities are literally happening at the same time. Are you following so far? Right? Like And I realize You know, the greatest leaders have the ability to accept that fact leaders and survival Try to pull other people into their reality. You see what I'm saying? Without any acceptance of this other person's reality. So that's when I realized, like, yes, I highly acknowledge the value and the need for conversations like DEI. Right? But when I'm looking at the science, it's like, there's even a deeper level here. It's to have the ability to not be uncomfortable with the fact that there are many realities in this world happening at the same time. At the same time. It's not a battle to try to convince someone else of a different reality. The first step is to understand how to accept that there's. Like it's true. There are multiple realities being lived at the same time in this world. That makes people uncomfortable. It's, it's, there's a term called cognitive dissonance to hold two opposing ideas at the same time in the brain. It really triggers survival because when your brain's stressed, it needs black and white answers. Absolutely. About the EU, you can't be like having cognitive dissonance. I need clear answers right now. So I don't die. Yeah. When you're a leader of a company and you're in survival, you're going to damage the whole company if that's how you're thinking. So one, a person's ability to be able to, to hold this comfort and not react to it. That's, that was the big lesson too, from the meditation retreat. It's like we have this ability to be uncomfortable and not react to it. That's what mental strength really is. Do you see what I'm saying? It's like, yeah, that was the big aha man. It's like, wow, that's so true. The greatest leaders can sit with many opposing ideas and they don't have to react to it. Why do they have to get upset? Why do they have to get triggered? If they can maintain an executive state, they don't get concerned. By the way, being concerned is usually a symptom of survival state. But instead they get curious. Because if you look at the source of suffering in this world, it's because of black and white thinking, isn't it? It's two parties in a rival state. They're just either fight or flight. They're busy fighting with each other, or they're avoiding each other in flight. And remember, no empathy is on. So someone's gonna get hurt. I mean, it's ironic, because like, I mean, that's what really Diehard sports fans are too, if you think about it, right? Whether it's the chiefs or, you know, we just had Super Bowl yesterday, but like, you see that out in certain populations. I mean, like I grew up in New York city. I didn't realize how bad the rivalry was with some of these teams. Like they get upset at each other. You know, they like

Jason Frazell: 33:49

want to actually. Fight with each other,

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 33:51

literally fight with each other over a team that you're not seeing any of their money. You know what I mean? Like they're the ones making

Jason Frazell: 33:58

them, you're getting your, each time you're giving them some of your money, their money, and you're talking about them as

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 34:03

if they're your best friend, but they don't know who you are. It's just, remember, we're not thinking when we're in survival, right? Totally. Yes. Anyway, there's, there's a deeper rabbit hole of why we do that. Right. With our perspective. But anyway, my point is, is like, if we simply got better at embracing that kind of discomfort to first accept, well, your reality is different than mine. I don't need to do anything right now, except Be listening. Open heart. I mean, as a parent, you know that's one of the damaging things we can do to our kids. Is to react to their uncomfortable emotions. You ever see the kids, like, when a parent, when they're Oh, well, I've done this too, right? It's like, you know, when the kid's crying and you don't want them to cry anymore. You're like, ooh, you're trying to distract them. Let's turn the TV on. Here's some candy. Right? Wait,

Jason Frazell: 34:47

are you talking about what happened to us this morning with our three year old? It's almost like you're in the house. By the way, listeners, not the candy. But yes, I had a strong emotional reaction to his strong emotional reaction. For sure.

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 35:01

But if we slow that down for a second. We're it's not we're reacting to the child because we're uncomfortable totally that feeling do you see what I'm saying? Yeah, I'll do it for sure What's damaging though in the long term if that's repetitive is the kid eventually goes is something wrong with this feeling? I should not be feeling this feeling totally versus imagine the parent who's okay with the discomfort of my child Melting down and I'm cool as a cucumber give my child a big hug Acknowledge don't react listen listen listen then that trains the child to go Oh, it's okay to feel these feelings, then. There's nothing wrong with Do you see what I'm saying? Because emotional pain can be processed as physical pain. We want to train our children early on, like, Look, it's not gonna kill you. Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with it. Oh my god, and if our kids get trained to do this, I will guarantee, I'll bet my life on it. We'll see the suicide rate go down in our Oh, for sure! Adolescent, adolescent, because right now it's going up. Because what's happening is, we're not taught how to handle these uncomfortable emotions. So then, you see more and more of these stories where a partner breaks up with a partner and they kill themselves. Yeah. It's horrible. Over a breakup, over a breakup, and there's no judgment around it. It's just, we just need to look at the context when we live in a generation now where it's so hard to feel uncomfortable feelings because we're so scared all the time. Whether it's in school, right? School shootings. Gen Z was nicknamed the school shooting generation. And if you look at that and then imagine every day in your daily environment at school, not only do you feel physically scared at times because of these shootings that are happening, but now you feel emotional. Add technology to the mix now you feel emotionally scared because you never know if you do something stupid someone might whip out their phone and record you and it's on the internet now and that's shame multiplied by like however many times right? Oh god yeah. So we're taught early on to avoid or fight really hard to get rid of these feelings that are quote unquote not good. But because we're not able to understand and get good and train ourselves to feel these feelings and accept them we go into fight fly freeze all the time. We're Right.

Jason Frazell: 37:09

So you, so Eugene, before we wrap with this, what's something, let's first of all talk about, and I'll just give you a little, a little promo here. So Eugene, you work with people individually, you work with people in groups around these, like you actually do this work with folks, usually high level entrepreneurs, but it doesn't have to be. And we'll talk about how people can connect with you. But I'm, my guess is. There are people listening to go wonderful. Where do I start? Like if I'm not ready to work with somebody, what's something that anybody who's listening can go and do? And I love a thing that they can do today whenever they're listening to this. What's something people could do?

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 37:51

Yeah. So the first part of the process is really just awareness. So it's, it's a three phase process for me. It's awareness training. That's where the science comes in. If you learn a science, it gives you the tools and skills to be able to do it. Change stuff, right? And then implementation, if you don't implement, right, you don't see the changes or the benefits. Yeah, of course. So the thing that anyone can do is, is just awareness building. What one, what I personally do with all my clients is fight flight freeze. Make it a daily practice. See if you can notice it, whether it's in other people or in yourself, make it a game. Oh, that person lost their mind on the road in road rage. Oh, there's a fight response. Yeah. Oh, I'm procrastinating again. There's my flight response. Oh,

Jason Frazell: 38:32

what do I do? Like, actually name what's coming up, what you're noticing. Yeah, it's powerful. Just notice

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 38:36

it. Yeah, it's powerful. Just every single And at some point, I promise you, it will hit you. And you're going to ask better questions, and you're going to go, wait, I am in fight mode. I work this hard all the time. I have trouble saying no. What am I surviving from? Why? What am I surviving from? And that's when you get more clarity around what the actual insecurity or the belief system that's not real inside of you is. And then at some point you will want to go. So what do I do about this? But that's the first step. It's awareness. And, you know, I talk about it on my podcast. I talk about it on the free trainings that I give, workshops that I do, all that kind of stuff. So that's step one. Anyone, anyone can do is just make it a daily practice. Fight response, flight response, freeze response. Just noticing it if you don't notice it, then you're gonna continue living in your autopilot. Yeah,

Jason Frazell: 39:21

I'm not a pilot So you mentioned something you're you're running you run some sessions Monthly where you talk with folks about this and help train people at it free of charge Just because I know that you have a real passion for this and as I've gotten to know you and your work you care a lot about this if nobody ever paid you a penny for it because It actually changes our world and as a father, you know, you're a father just like I'm a father you mentioned the kids It's important. So let's talk about those monthly calls and then any other ways that people you'd like to have people connect with you

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 39:54

Yeah, absolutely. So I launched neurohacking school and that's exactly what this is about is like being great name, by the way

Jason Frazell: 40:01

I'm sure you've heard.

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 40:02

Thank you. Yeah, great name. So I'm launched for the this year, I've launched free workshops that I'm doing once a month, and that's where you can sign up for those. And then if there's other workshops that you're interested in, that's more private. I run group paid group sessions and all that kind of stuff for clients. That's something you can check out there as well. Very cool,

Jason Frazell: 40:21

Eugene. All right, let's get a little vulnerable for a minute. What's a normal, and I'll answer we're gonna do this together, to people who understand this stuff. What's something that you know will put you into your survival state on a, on a normal day that isn't actually Like an actual danger, and let's take the kids off the table. I think for those who are parents, that's an easy place to go survive, right? Well, and I'm, I'm talking about things like, Hey, the principal called or just like, you know, it's like a natural, like, Ooh, but what's a thing that, you know, is just a trigger for you that will, that can get you to the survival state that you really had to work on.

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 41:00

Yeah. I mean, it's exactly what I shared a little bit earlier. The I know I have this boy inside of me, this younger version of me that believes he doesn't matter for many reasons. Right? And I think one of the biggest things that I remember was like, I was working like three jobs, man, when I was in college cause we grew up really poor and my mom was working a lot too. And every night, if I ran into her, I knew she had a list of things she wanted me to do. And I would go out of my way to get it done. Cause English wasn't her first language. But when I would ask her to help me with something, it would always be, I'm too busy, I'm too, you know what I mean? Or she'd say yes and she'd do it. So in my mind, eventually it became programming. It's like, if you don't listen to me, it's because I don't matter. So that's a big one for me where I don't matter. It comes up a lot, whether it's because I said something and I'm not heard or I get dismissed, someone's dismissive with me. I mean, yeah, I know you're saying that to bring kids into the picture, but when they don't listen to me, that's why I get angry, right? Like in my mind, it's because I don't matter when in reality, it's like, it's a five year old being a five year old, a seven year old, you know what I mean? Like it's a kid being a kid. Hmm. So I had to work through that a lot, man, and really like realize the thing was, I wasn't listening to me. I was doing it to myself. Do you see what I'm saying? Yeah. Part of me that felt unheard, but I was so busy trying to become somebody by fight mode and working hard. I wasn't listening to that kid or I was avoiding that kid. Right. With getting myself drunk a lot or whatever. Right. Sure. I had to work through that a lot and yeah, man that's something I had to work through a lot and still do every day. That's something I'm committed to doing for myself, making sure I listen to myself and it means feeling your feelings and such, right? And all that. Yeah,

Jason Frazell: 42:48

mine's, mine's similar. I'll, I'll answer this as well. I'm not trying to just put you on the spot, but mine is when I, mine is respect when I don't feel respected and I know for me, a huge trigger. Is when you're not on time. If it's in my calendar. I'm pretty chill when it's, you know, Hey, we're getting together, I'll see you around this. But if I'm recording a podcast, or I have a client, or and people just show up a certain amount of time late. My survival state of my little kid takes that as a personal affront that you don't believe that I'm worthy of the respect and you have disrespected my time, partially because I grew up partially because I grew up in my grandparents, my parents were all, it's just, we're a pretty timely family, not because I think it's just part of our integrity as a family, but I like, as I was asking you this, I'm like, what's mine. I'm like, Oh, it's if you show up late now, that doesn't mean you can't show up late and it's all good, but I have a hard time. Getting out of the this is a personal front end to like, well, maybe they got stuck in traffic, right? Maybe their internet was out. And so for me like just being aware of Giving folks grace and it's it's very likely an actual attack on me But if we go back to it, I actually think I feel physical pain sometimes right? Like oh like this person like I don't feel like this person respects me I feel almost, it's, it's not actual physical pain, but it feels, it's painful. It's like for you, it's probably like, if you got, if you're in a space and you're probably still in spaces where you feel like you don't matter, that's probably really painful for you.

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 44:24

And one question I always ask. Because what's happening in these moments. It's not what's happening. It's not. No,

Jason Frazell: 44:30

it's not. It's about what happened. It's not Yeah, it's not about like the person who's four minutes late for a podcast interview It's not actually about I'm not that's actually not changing my life in any way shape or form. It's fine, right? It's actually fine at an intellectual level. I

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 44:42

love that. I mean, yeah, that's why one question I always ask myself was like what happened meaning like what am I remembering right now? Remembering that time my mom XYZ or my brother did you know, I mean like my my friend that insert whatever happened, right? Yeah, totally. But yeah, man, it's, it's a daily work

Jason Frazell: 45:00

in progress. Yeah. So I'll leave you this, Eugene, you know, I think very highly of your work and you wonderful, like high, person of high integrity. Just keep doing the good work you're doing. It's much needed out there. I'll see you on one of your workshops soon. And I think we'll be seeing each other in person in a couple months as well, which I'm very much looking forward to as always. Same. Thanks so much for having me. Thanks so much, Eugene. Thanks for, thanks for spending two hours with us. Yeah, absolutely. As we speak about time, this is no small, you know, no small amount of time for you. You got a lot of things going on, so I really appreciate it.

Dr. Eugene K. Choi: 45:27

Yeah, it was an honor to be here. Thanks so much. Thanks, Eugene.

45:32

Thanks for listening to another episode of Talking to Cool People with Jason Frizzell. If you enjoyed today's episode, please tell your friends, follow us on Instagram and Facebook, and give us a shout out, or take a moment to leave a review on iTunes. If something from today's episode piqued your interest and you'd like to connect, email us at podcast at jasonfrizzell. com. We love hearing from our listeners because you're cool people too.