We spent Memorial Day weekend with Caitlyn’s family at the Indy 500—one of my favorite family traditions.
It’s fast. Loud. A lot happening all at once.
And what stood out to me, as always, is this:
What determines your experience in an environment like that isn’t what’s happening around you…
It’s the state you’re in internally.
Over the last several weeks, we've been exploring something important.
We unpacked stress from several angles: macro, micro, and physical, and we had a real life example of what stress looks like in real time in a challenging environment.
And I hope what came through in all of it was this:
Stress isn't created by your circumstances. It's actually created by your inner state.
If you missed any of those issues, I'd encourage you to go back and start with Stress Part 1: Macro Stress.
The series will give you some context for where we're going today.
We're going deeper.
We're talking about emotions.
Not stress as a symptom, but emotions as a system.
What they actually are. What they're for. And most importantly, how to leverage them.
Here's what I see again and again.
People relate to their emotions in one of two ways.
The first is: emotions are in the way.
This is the high performer's version. The "just push through it" version.
The idea that if you want to execute at a high level, emotions are a distraction—something to be ignored, shut down, or overridden in pursuit of what you're trying to create.
I actually had a conversation recently with someone who trains the elite teams of Navy SEALs—indoor combat, high-stakes scenarios.
And he told me plainly: we train SEALs to treat emotions as a hindrance. Shut them down. Because in that environment, they will get in the way of performance. And potentially get you killed.
And I understand the logic.
But here's what that approach misses, and why it breaks down eventually.
Those emotions don't disappear. They accumulate.
And without any skill to process or regulate them, people reach for the tools they have: often substances, screens.
The emotions that were "managed" in the field come home.
What looks like emotional control in high performance is often just emotional deferral.
And deferred emotion doesn't stay deferred forever.
The second way people relate to emotions is: painful emotions mean something is wrong.
If I feel sad, anxious, unworthy, overwhelmed, something must be broken. In me. In my life. In the situation.
So the response becomes: fix it. Get rid of it. Find something that makes the emotions or the pain stop.
And that's where the coping mechanisms come in—alcohol, substances, plant medicine, screen time, working out, even relationships.
Not because people are weak. Because they were never taught another way.
Here's something I see often: someone tells me they want a romantic relationship. They want a partner.
And when I ask them why, what comes out—usually after a few moments—is: I'm lonely. I feel sad.
And the relationship they're seeking? It's not really about partnership. It's about relief. It becomes a vehicle for managing the emotion rather than a space for building something real.
And here's the hard truth: it's the untended emotions—the loneliness, the insecurity, the sense of unworthiness—that eventually break the relationship down.
Not the circumstances. The unmanaged state underneath them.
Neither of these frameworks—emotions are a hindrance or emotions mean something is wrong—gives you what you actually need.
What you need is a third paradigm entirely.
Emotions are not the enemy of performance.
And the presence of a painful emotion doesn't mean you're broken.
What it means, almost always, is that you're undertrained.
Not in the gym. Not in your craft. Emotionally.
And just like physical training, emotional competency can be developed.
It's a skill. It responds to practice. It builds over time.
The people I've worked with who are the most fulfilled—who have the best relationships, who perform at the highest levels, who feel genuinely alive—are not living in the absence of difficult emotions.
They're not emotionally flat or numb.
They're emotionally skilled.
And that skill comes down to three specific competencies.
Competency One: Resiliency - Awareness and Action
This is the ability to feel an uncomfortable emotion — sadness, anxiety, unworthiness, overwhelm — and still execute well despite how they are feeling.
Not by ignoring the emotion. Not by pretending it isn't there. But by not being enslaved to it.
Most people have had the experience of feeling anxious or emotionally drained and shutting down. They can't get out of bed, can't engage, can't push forward. The emotion is running the show.
This competency flips that.
You feel the emotion. You're aware of it.
And you act despite the way you feel — in alignment with who you want to be, regardless of what the emotion is demanding.
Going to the gym when you don't feel like it.
Being present and kind with the people you love even when you're feeling a bit of resentment or frustration or deregulated.
Showing up to the hard conversation when every part of you wants to retreat.
That's not willpower. That's a trained skill.
Competency Two: Self-Regulation
This is the ability to actually move through the emotion. Not just tolerate it, dissolve it.
Through specific practices and techniques — how we work with the nervous system, how we train the emotions and mind — it's possible to shift the emotional state itself.
To step out of activation, out of the loop, and find center.
From there, the intensity drops. The emotion loosens its grip.
The question to ask yourself honestly is: how good am I at this right now? At being aware of the emotion that’s there and stepping out of that fear-based stated, finding center.
Because there's a significant difference between someone who can regulate themselves within minutes during a hard moment — a layoff, a difficult conversation, a health scare — and someone who stays activated for hours, days, or potentially even months or years.
That gap is not a personality difference.
It's a training difference. It's a competency distinction.
The person who can find center quickly will navigate life better. Period. They’re more fulfilled, they accomplish more of what they set out to accomplish.
Not because their life is easier, but because they're steadier inside it.
Competency Three: Accessing Love-Based States
This is the one most people haven't even considered as a skill.
Not just managing difficult emotions — but actively training the states you want to feel and experience in your day to day life.
Joy. Peace. Inspiration. Gratitude.
These aren't just things that happen to you when circumstances go your way.
They're states you can develop. Strengthen. Make your default.
Think of it like inner weightlifting.
Every time you practice accessing and sustaining a love-based state, you're building that emotional resilience, that muscle.
Over time, it gets stronger. More available. More natural. To a point where the outside world doesn’t shake that state that you’re in.
The goal—and this is achievable—is to reach a place where those love-based states are present 80 to 90 percent of the time, and the fear-based states become the exception.
For most people right now, it's the opposite. Fear-based states are the norm. Love-based states are the rare visit.
And again, that's not because something is wrong with you. It's because nobody taught you how to train it.
Before any training, begin with an honest assessment.
For one day (or even just a few hours) check in with yourself ten times. Each time, ask: what state am I in right now?
Not good or bad. Be specific.
Am I in a fear-based state, am I in a love-based state?
Do I feel anxious? Sad? Resentful? Unworthy? Overwhelmed?
Or am I at peace? Grateful? Inspired? Energized? Present?
Just naming what's there — accurately, without judgment — is itself a skill.
And it's where all development begins.
Most people, when they do this for the first time, are surprised by what they find and what they discover within themself.
Not because they're broken. Because they've never understood how to pay attention to themselves and be with themselves at that level.
That attention is the starting point.
Everything we've covered over the last several weeks—stress in macro, in micro, in the body, in the airport(!)—it all points back here.
Stress is a symptom. Emotion is the system underneath it.
And if you want to stop recreating the same patterns—in your relationships, your work, your daily experience of life—the leverage isn't in the circumstances. It's in the emotional state you're operating from.
When you develop these three competencies, something shifts that can't be faked or forced:
You stop being at the mercy of how you feel.
You stop outsourcing your stability to people, substances, or screens.
And you start building a life from the inside out.
That's not just an abstract concept. That's a trainable set of skills.
And that set of skills is exactly what we train in the Power Series. Coming soon we’ve got Power of Vision in Denver, July 11-12, 2026, and Power of Focus Virtual, August 1-2, 2026.
If you're ready to build these skills, I'd love to have you there.
You’ll find these teachings in audio and video format on The Connection Fix Podcast and YouTube. However you engage best, use that.
Before we close this out, just pause for a moment.
In a typical day lately, what percentage of your time are you operating from a love-based state? And if so, what state?
And what percentage from a fear-based one? And if so, which state?
You don't have to calculate it exactly. Just get honest with yourself.
Because wherever that number is right now, that's your starting point. Not a verdict. A beginning.
If you're willing, send me an email and share what you notice.
Even one word – the name of the state that's most present for you lately.
I read every email. And it matters to me to know where you are.
More soon.
Have a great rest of your day, and I'll look forward to connecting again next week.
Joey