075: Influence vs Control

Hope you're doing well Today on the podcast . What are we talking about ? We're going to talk about influence and control . I talk a lot about what we can control and how we control our thoughts , emotions and our actions , our thinking cycle , and I point out that we can't control what other people think or the circumstances in our lives . We don't control that .

But lately I've been talking , especially on last week's podcast , about how we can influence other people . We can't control them , but we can influence other people , and that's what we're going to get some clarification on today . We can't control other people , but we do influence them . We're going to look at why and how this happens .

So control is wanting someone to meet our expectations . Influence is how our words , our tone of voice , our body language , our actions , the state of our nervous system , the state of our being , impacts another person . That's what influence is how our being impacts another person .

We're all influential and we're all able to be influenced because of this function called neuroception . Neuroception is a part of the brain that is constantly evaluating our environment and it's constantly evaluating safe or not safe .

I'm making this really simple because I'm not an expert here , but what I've learned and studied and been certified on is that the nervous system has two modes danger and safety , protection mode or connection mode . So whenever you're anxious or you're frustrated or you're angry , you're in protection mode .

So whenever you're anxious or you're frustrated or you're angry , you're in protection mode . Your brain is perceiving your current environment as wrong , as unsafe . It's when your heart rate goes up . Connection mode is open . It's creative , it's calm , it's receiving .

Connection mode is hanging out watching the Olympics with your family and laughing together and pointing things out together . It's laying in bed with your wife and cuddling up At work . It's when you guys are laughing as colleagues or you're having a good discussion and people are asking good questions and being a little vulnerable .

Good discussion and people are asking good questions and being a little vulnerable that's when we're open . That's when we're in connection mode . So neuroception is always happening . We're reading the room , we're reading other people's body language . We're reading other people's tone of voice and our kids are doing this all the time . Right ?

Is dad pissed off or is he calm ? Is he stressed out or is dad on edge ? Is he smiling ? Is he in a good mood ? Right ? That's neuroception , the function of the brain that's constantly evaluating safe , not safe . This is why humans can be influenced Neuroception , All right . So we're talking about influence versus control .

All these people in our life , their neuroception is always on and it's picking up us , it's sensing our current state . So we want to be really aware of how we're influencing other people and this is what we can control . Is our current state , our nervous system , and it's called regulation . So your kid's always assessing , right ?

As a dad , you ask yourself am I open right now or is my guard up ? One of the coaches that I work with she always says are you huggable ? Ask yourself are you huggable right now ?

And if we're really just focused on kids here , since they're picking up on our mood and tone , it's it's so important for us to recognize what our triggers are , anticipate them , to start noticing when our heart rate goes up , when we get stressed , when we get tense . The workout group that I'm in F3 , they have this leadership development process .

I've talked about it a bunch . On the podcast . There's this one section called Get Right . It's all about you getting right before you focus on helping other people . This is the airplane analogy you put your mask on first , you get right before you go and you help your kid or the person next to you .

And a lot of the times this is framed as getting healthy , whether it's losing weight or breaking a bad habit or not overworking . Yes , that is getting right , but it's also not just fixing stuff that's outside , but what's happening inside . Learning about yourself is getting right .

I've had guys do this stress inventory before and it's pretty much an inventory over the course of a week of what stresses you out , and you either do it in the moment and you write it down , you take a note in your phone , or at the end of the day you wrote . I got stressed because this was happening and it's the start of what scientists call regulation .

Being aware of what stresses you out , being aware of your heart rate , is starting to control what we can control . It's starting to regulate our own nervous system and it doesn't mean that we're calm all the time or that we're chill .

If we think of our nervous system very simply , like I talked about before , as safe or unsafe connection or protection regulation of that switch is , it's not so much on-off on-off on-off , it's like a dimmer . I'm starting to feel stressed . I feel that level go up and I slowly turn it back down to calm .

When we're dysregulated , it's on off , on off , on off or it's just on and it's constantly on . The more dysregulated your nervous system is , the less control you have over yourself , the more likely you are to go from zero to 100 . And even if you don't go from zero to 100 , you don't flip out .

Your kids , your employees , your wife , their neuroception is still sensing the dysregulation , is still sensing your state and if your state is heightened they're going to go into protection mode . And this influence of our nervous system on others is called co-regulation . And this is the big thing . This is kind of crazy , right ?

Our nervous system impacts other people's nervous systems and it's why if you're hanging out with a little baby and you want it to chill out , you chill yourself out first . You take some deep breaths , you calm down and the baby will calm down as well . Our thoughts , emotions , actions , our thinking cycle influences the people around us .

We can control and regulate our thoughts , emotions and actions , and that's where we want to focus All right , so really interesting interpersonal dynamics , how these subconscious nervous systems are relating to each other and how important it is for us to learn about what's happening inside of our body .

When I was getting ready for this podcast , I went and looked at different studies on co-regulation and how a man's ability to regulate his nervous system , his emotions , impacts the kids , impacts his wife , impacts the people in his life , and all the results show that men that are able to have a higher emotional IQ are able to communicate how they're feeling , are

able to be triggered and stay calm without flipping out . They make the people in their life feel safer . They make the people in their life feel safer , the kids feel safer . The kids are more confident . The wife is more likely to communicate and connect with the husband . The people in the workplace are more motivated .

The main thing to take away is work on yourself . If you want things to change around you , if you want the world to slow down , for the chaos to stop , you got to work on the chaos that's happening inside . This is what it's all about . It's all about controlling what we can control our emotions , our thoughts , our actions and letting go of trying to control

everything else . And here's the thing we're also impressionable . We're also being influenced by our environment all the time . But the more clear we can get on the stories we tell ourself , the emotional reactions that we have , the sensations in our body , our heart rate , the less impressionable we are , the less our kids having a fit impacts our nervous system .

We can separate ourself and stay calm in the storm . And that's ninja work right . This is like so emotionally agile and being able to find that inner power . It's so possible for you Influence versus control , regulating your nervous system and co-regulation , how our nervous system influences others in the room with us , others in the room with us .

What we can control are thoughts , emotions , actions , the internal journey that's happening inside of us . All right , I hope you guys have an awesome week . Catch you next time .