What if you had a simple language for emotions that lets you defuse conflict, feel safer, and actually change outcomes—in your marriage, at work, and even in a heated sports match? In this episode, pastoral counselor and author Myke Merrill explains “Reality Intelligence”—a practical framework that turns vague feelings into clear choices. If you’ve ever stumbled for the right words in a tough conversation, shut down around big emotions, or watched a disagreement escalate, this episode gives you handles to understand what you’re perceiving, what you’re feeling, and how to respond (not just react) so you can get the result you actually want. You'll discover the five core emotional systems—Acceptance (love), Exposure (fear), Empowerment (anger), Depletion (sadness), and Celebration (joy)—and how intensity shifts the words you choose and the actions you take. You'll learn real-world de-escalation tools: stand up/sit down resets, three deep breaths, and the three magic words “Tell me more,” plus how body position and movement signal (and balance) power. You'll get a repeatable loop—Perceptions → Emotions → Motivations → Behaviors—to map any heated moment (from partner talks to workplace flare-ups to sports) and choose a response that changes the outcome. Press play now to master Reality Intelligence and walk away with scripts and moves you can use today to turn conflict into clarity and connection.
What if you had a simple language for emotions that lets you defuse conflict, feel safer, and actually change outcomes—in your marriage, at work, and even in a heated sports match?
In this episode, pastoral counselor and author Myke Merrill explains “Reality Intelligence”—a practical framework that turns vague feelings into clear choices. If you’ve ever stumbled for the right words in a tough conversation, shut down around big emotions, or watched a disagreement escalate, this episode gives you handles to understand what you’re perceiving, what you’re feeling, and how to respond (not just react) so you can get the result you actually want.
You'll discover the five core emotional systems—Acceptance (love), Exposure (fear), Empowerment (anger), Depletion (sadness), and Celebration (joy)—and how intensity shifts the words you choose and the actions you take.
You'll learn real-world de-escalation tools: stand up/sit down resets, three deep breaths, and the three magic words “Tell me more,” plus how body position and movement signal (and balance) power.
You'll get a repeatable loop—Perceptions → Emotions → Motivations → Behaviors—to map any heated moment (from partner talks to workplace flare-ups to sports) and choose a response that changes the outcome.
Press play now to master Reality Intelligence and walk away with scripts and moves you can use today to turn conflict into clarity and connection.
Speaker 1 00:00:00 And by the way, if you say anything that is that you want to restate or is like, oh, that didn't come out right or whatever. We have. Yeah, we have an editor who will take out what I'm saying right now, in fact. So we'll start with that. All right. Let me just do a little bit of silence. Welcome, Mike.
Speaker 2 00:00:20 Hi, Barry. Thank you for having me on this afternoon. It's been very good to be here with you.
Speaker 1 00:00:25 Awesome, awesome. So, Mike, you've developed this framework about how to approach life and issues that we all faced called reality intelligence. Tell me, what does that mean?
Speaker 2 00:00:39 Reality intelligence really takes the concept of emotional intelligence to its fullest extent. Emotional intelligence is not just a course you take or a book that you read. It's how to understand emotions in a in a sensible and an effective way. Reality. Intelligence deals with perceptions, how we perceive the world. Emotions how we react or respond to those perceptions.
Speaker 2 00:01:08 Motivations how we prepare to act, and our behaviors. So the I found that emotional intelligence and psychology and all of that really was too limited for how people experience their own lives and their relationships with others. Those relationships might be in a work environment. It might be in a neighborhood. It might be in their family. It might be the guy in the mirror. And the problem that most people have that I found is the struggle to find words, to grapple with things that are slippery or ethereal, or really tough to even wrap your mind around. Reality intelligence provides the language and the concepts that are fairly simple to be able to do that. Sorry. You're going to have to edit this out. Your voice just disappeared.
Speaker 1 00:02:08 Sorry about that. Yeah. When you talk about emotions, are you talking about finding the right words? Like. Like, I don't know, my wife is is better at it, describing how she feels. And I'm not as good. And when I'm, when we're having a conversation about a difficult issue.
Speaker 1 00:02:37 Yesterday, she said that she would appreciate if I spent a little more time with her. Just put it that way. because I'd been running around all day doing a variety of things. And then I went out and I played pickleball for a few hours, and literally, you know, I left her at home. And, you know, she felt a little lonely. And when she came back, she was a little perturbed. And she said that. And honestly, I wasn't exactly sure what to say. But. But I knew she was right. And and I said, I'll do the best I can. Or something of that nature. It didn't go quite right.
Speaker 2 00:03:19 In your description, you used four different emotional words to describe the situation. Okay. You said she didn't appreciate it. Appreciation is an emotional word. She was perturbed. That's an emotional word that's a little bit more intense than not. Appreciative. She was set back or set off and wondered. Those are all emotional words. So the what I found as I listened, I spent probably the first ten years of my professional career listening without an agenda to what people were saying about themselves and about their relationships.
Speaker 2 00:04:03 My doctoral work was formed on creating a new taxonomy for counseling. I'm a pastoral counselor. I teach counseling, I work with people all over the world who are supporters or interveners in in people's lives. And the mystery is often emotion, at least the way we frame it in our minds. I've worked with CEOs and managers and companies who and people who are youth workers say when somebody gets emotional, I just shut off, I walk away. I don't understand the emotion at all. I say, well, could I help you with that? And the answer is, I don't think you can, but give it a shot. So I'll say so. There are tens of thousands of words that can be used for emotions and all the various adverbs. I'm very I'm somewhat I could be all those words. What I found is that human beings have five basic emotional systems. Just five. I tested this theory out. I examined many, many people from early teenagers through people about to die in their 90s. And as I listened to how they framed their own feelings, I found that there were five consistent systems, like rivers of flow or environments of air, that people rooms of life, styles of clothing.
Speaker 2 00:05:37 Pick any metaphor you want. There are five ways of understanding emotion.
Speaker 1 00:05:43 So are you going to tell us.
Speaker 2 00:05:45 I am I complicated words that I use in I teach, But let's start with the simple words. The simple words are love, fear, anger, sadness, and happiness. Those are the five I call them by more neutral and advanced words. They're systems. There's a system of acceptance that's in a mild form. Curious. Interested. Preference. enjoyment. Love. Bonding. Cherishing. Obsessing. Craving. Addiction. The difference between an obsession and a curiosity is one of intensity. It's about I want to bring that to myself. I want to accept it. I want to have it in. When couples start dating, how do you know they're falling in love? He stinks to high heaven. And she says, that's not so bad. She looks ugly with no makeup on. He goes, I just love her that way. So what? What you would have been offended by six months ago now you find attractive.
Speaker 2 00:07:01 So now you're attracted to the smells, the actions. And as. As love gets into dangerous territory, an obsession or a craving or an addiction, you find that one person can be extremely abusive of someone else, but they accept it. Why don't women walk away from abusive men when they get beaten black and blue? I love him, I want to give him an A. She accepts certain things that are really unacceptable in other relationships. But the system of acceptance has mild words, moderate words, and extremely intense words. And it's about what you will draw to yourself. Exposure is the word I use for fear. Exposure system is about a lack of safety or security. When you're shy, you got butterflies. You're a little embarrassed. You blush. That's mild. When you're afraid or scared or feel guilty or ashamed, that's much more intense. When you're terrified or phobic, it is extremely intense, but it's all about I don't feel safe or secure right now. I'm at risk. There's danger.
Speaker 2 00:08:19 So anything that presents that causes me either to react or to respond with an emotion of fear in some version. I call that exposure. The third one I call empowerment. That was the hardest one for me to name because I wanted a neutral word for anger. When I talk to people, I would say, so tell me about your anger at your mom or your dad or your spouse or your work. I don't really get angry. I'm not allowed to get angry. Excuse me? No. My mom told me that anger is evil and I should never feel anger. So anger is bad. I did read a book called titled the The Bad Emotions. And in there was fear, anger and and sadness. Depression. They're bad emotions. I developed the theory. There is no such thing as a bad emotion. Anger is not bad. Fear is not bad. You see a rattlesnake crawling in in the at the foot of your bed. You better jump and and move out of there quick. You see a fire starting? Fear is appropriate.
Speaker 2 00:09:27 It's actually helpful. Anger about injustice, about something that truly is wrong is a very helpful emotion. So the anger itself is not the problem. It's what is it doing to you and what do you do with it? So anger at a mild level. I'm annoyed. I'm miffed. I'm pissed off. You know I've had it. If it increases, it becomes anger. Fury. I'm really mad. I am. I am at a breaking point when it gets to extremely intense level. It's rage, it's violence. It's out of control. I put competitiveness, the competitive spirit, into the realm of empowerment. You look at a batter who struck out the last three times, and he's facing a fourth time at bat, and he's gripping the bat. The muscles on the side of his jar flexing his brow is knit. His eyes are penetrating you. Everything says this guy is so angry, but he's competitive. He's he's trying to bring all of his power and energy into a situation to get change or to dominate.
Speaker 2 00:10:44 That's what anger is about. It's about change. So I've walked into situations where a couple is really at each other's throats, literally harming each other. And I will say, could we change our position right now? Would you mind if we sat down? It's a change. If they agree to that, I know that they're following my lead. We're going to go somewhere with this. I walked into a house once where the husband had a loaded gun on the counter. His wife was by the sink in the corner. She wouldn't couldn't move.
Speaker 1 00:11:20 Wow.
Speaker 2 00:11:21 And I said, could I have a cup of coffee? Would you mind? And she said, he won't let me. And he snarled something back. I said, well, let's just calm things down just a little bit and let's get a cup of coffee. That change allowed them to begin to begin talking about some really serious issues, but I had to be the change agent of something very simple, because anger is about change. So when they were willing to go along with my suggested change, they used up some of the energy and their rage became fury.
Speaker 2 00:11:59 And then their fury became anger and their anger became annoyance. And now we could start talking about the issues that got them there. That's how that worked. So the system is empowerment. The fourth one I call depletion. It's sadness. Feeling blue. I'm not happy. I've sensed lost. I'm grieving. I'm hurting. I'm wounded at a much more intense level. I feel stabbed in the back, I feel empty, I'm hollow. I'm exhausted. The difference between exhaustion and feeling tired is one of intensity. Not a different emotion. We just have a different word for something way up there compared to something way down there. So I call that depletion. A woman came into my office once and said, pastor, my doctor wants me to go on antidepressants and I want to know what your thoughts are. And I said, why does your doctor want you to go on antidepressant? I'm not saying you should or shouldn't, but why? She said, well, he says I'm depressed. And I said, are you depressed? She goes, I suppose I am, because he said I was.
Speaker 2 00:13:11 I said, let's start this conversation over. Go out of my office. Come back in and greet me again and then say, pastor, I'm depleted. She said, what? I said, just change the word. Let's see where we go with it. She actually literally walked out of my office, walked back in and said, pastor, I'm I've been feeling really depleted. And I said, so what tank in your life is dry? Where it's gone dry. Without missing a beat, she said, since my husband died about a year ago. No one's hugged me. I just haven't had one of those hugs that just, you know, puts life into you. And I haven't laughed. There's just nothing funny. So we talked about it for quite a while. I said, before you start antidepressant, I'm not saying that there's not a chemical imbalance in your brain. In in clinical terms, when your brain is out of balance. You take medicine for that. When your eyes don't work, you wear glasses.
Speaker 2 00:14:03 That's fine. But when we use medication to deal with our emotional state of what I call depletion, we cannot refill the tanks that are empty. Sometimes it's just dehydration. What do you do for dehydration? Take an antidepressant? No. You drink eight ounces of water and you refill your tank when you haven't laughed. Find some buddies that you really can get to. That true mirth. That. That Join a Vive that's deep inside of you, and that refills the empty parts of your life. So I call the forth emotional system depletion. And the last one I call celebration. Celebration is about shining. It's about happiness and joy and thanksgiving and gratitude and and, a shining of your life. You spread out. So you see a friend. I observed this with teenage girls in the in the mall. This is just hilarious. We're walking down the mall. I had a couple of kids from my youth group, and we're walking a 13, 14 year old girls, and they see some friends from another school that they hadn't seen for a while.
Speaker 2 00:15:14 And immediately these quiet, timid 13 year old girls are screaming. They're jumping up and down. They're throwing their arms out, their eyes open wide, their voices go way loud. They run across the mall, grab their friends, give them huge hugs because they're so thrilled to see them. Later on, I noticed as we walked along they saw another kid that they knew from their school and they go, hi! What was the difference between this exuberant ecstasy and a pleasantness? One of intensity? So I call celebration the shining of your life and spreading out. You become much more generous. You become much more giving when you're happy, when you're when you're joy filled than when you don't have that sense of. So there's five emotions acceptance, exposure, empowerment, depletion and celebration. But there's intensity levels. Mild moderate. So now your wife was perturbed. That's an empowerment word for me. She wants a change. Does she want you not to play pickleball ever in your life? No. She wants to be included.
Speaker 2 00:16:36 She wants to know that your acceptance of her is stronger than your acceptance of your pickleball players. At least occasionally. Or something else was going on yesterday that she really wanted to talk to you about, and kept thinking in her mind. I really hope that's an emotional word, that he will come and pay attention to what my need is right now, but he didn't do that, so I'm disappointed. That's a depletion word and I want to let him know he better do things differently in the future. That's an empowerment word. So now when we're going to talk about I say, well, so tell me what you would like to change. Tell me what hurt you and how did it hurt you? what were you hoping to get? What were you accepting or drawing towards yourself when you saw your husband? They came in the house. Was that thrilling for you or was that a moment that had tension in it? Well, now we have lots to talk about because we can apply the concepts of five basic emotions, which is a part of reality intelligence.
Speaker 2 00:17:48 And I have the language to say, I know it's global, I know it's huge. I know you can't get your hands on it. But basically, did you draw it to yourself? Did you feel unsafe? Did you want to change something? Were you wounded or hurt and you got to recover? Do you shine? Does that make you glow? Now, if the person says, well, I certainly was not glowing. Unless you call being red in the face, I said, okay, if you don't call it that, I don't call it that. It was really if we have to narrow it down at that moment, I wanted to change. Okay, so we're in empowerment. Let's figure out how intense that was and what do we do next? Now we have handles on slippery things because we took vast areas of human experience and said there's only five of them, so pick which five they are, which one are the five? And let's start there and begin to explore. Well, and that's how I developed.
Speaker 1 00:18:56 Yeah. In in this particular situation I want to have a few follow up questions. But in this particular situation. Granted, we want both people to understand the, the range of, of opportunities to understand how they feel and also how to respond. And, so she responded, well, she I believe she felt perturbed. It wasn't. It wasn't rage. And and I did recognize that I had not spent a lot of time with her yesterday. And and I said, I don't know that I actually said anything. What I did was, I, I sat down with her. She was sitting out on the porch and she, you know, said these things. So I just sat down and and started talking. And so I didn't engage in the I'm not saying this is good or bad. I didn't, what would be the term? I didn't, validate her feelings. I, I may have said something like, I'm sorry and something of that nature, but Just something quick. But then I just sat down and.
Speaker 1 00:20:24 And we started talking and we had a nice conversation and.
Speaker 2 00:20:28 Let me.
Speaker 1 00:20:28 Back.
Speaker 2 00:20:28 That's one.
Speaker 1 00:20:29 That shifted to another.
Speaker 2 00:20:30 Conversation. So I, I'm only observing. Yeah. When a person is in some realm of empowerment, they want power. How does a person exhibit power? The person who moves has less power. The person who stays put has more power. So when you say to your child, come in here, I want to talk to you right now. The child has to move to you. You're the anchor. You're the one that is set. So without even understanding, when your wife stays in place and you move towards her, she's sitting down and you join that level She has more power, which uses the energy of that perturbation or anger, and she feels it less because it got used up. It was a fuel and the fuel was expended by you. How you use this term. But this isn't the best term you gave in. You submitted, you yielded. And so she has more power.
Speaker 2 00:21:44 And it's about I wanted you to do something differently that you did not do. So an apology will help. But actually the best thing is you stayed put. I came to you. You were sitting down, and I did not say, stand up here a second. Let's talk about this. Like you said, you're sitting down. I'm going to join you. And that uses. Now you have a healthy relationship. So when when the relationship becomes incredibly destructive, then I will find One person of the couple comes in and sits down on a chair, but far enough away that they're not within arm's reach of the other person. And then the most offended person stands up and takes a battle stance. So I watch that, and that's a power play. The one individual is is accentuating their power by standing up, by being forceful, by shoulders. All the body language stuff you've always learned, but it really has to do with I need more power here to accomplish the change or domination that I want.
Speaker 2 00:22:51 So I'll watch that and say, May I comment on that? And I've had couples say to me, no. Okay. And then two sessions later they say, you were going to say something. A couple of sessions ago. I'm curious as to what that is, because the emotion came down and they were ready to begin engaging what was going on. So I remember that I stockpiled that in my mind. They ever ask about that. I know where I'm going to go back to, and I try to do it in neutral terminology. So it's not like you were going to beat him to a pulp, or you're going to scratch your eyes out that those are all end point statements. I will say, it seemed to me that you were tapping into something that really has deep roots here. This is a well that goes way, way down deep. And if you spurt that water out, that's not going to end the artesian effect of what's really down there. This is pretty deep isn't it? And they'll go it is.
Speaker 2 00:23:49 It's really this has been going on a long, long time. So a long, long time or a long, long, long time. And they'll laugh and I'll say, well, not that long. Yeah, really. It's like since the beginning of our relationship. So now we're starting to get that's the roots of this. This is not something that has to do with going and playing pickleball. It has to do with I have never had power over you. You've always violated my trust or my expectations. As soon as I hear ever, never, always language. I know they're lying. I know that's not true. Because they. You always leave your socks on the floor. You don't always leave your socks on the floor. So as soon as I hear ever, never, always language, they're lying to themselves or they're lying to me. But it's a starting point. So are we talking about what they want, what they fear, what they change, what they're wounded by, what they're happy about.
Speaker 2 00:24:47 Now I have a starting place, and I don't have to wander in the woods trying to figure out what is anybody feeling? Nobody has any words for this, or they're using the wrong word. You know, it's like, this is just like you just stabbed me in the back. Stabbing is a wound. That's depletion. That's I gotta heal. This is not about healing, it's about control. So I'll say to a person, now that's that's interesting. That sounds like a reaction rather than a response. Do you want to react right now or would you rather respond right now? Well, I don't know how to respond. Good insight. all I know what to do is how to react. So now I know that instantaneous, spontaneous, steps are much more the way this couple's dynamic works than planned. Thoughtful. Say. So when we get to this point, what I would like you to do in response is to say, I am truly sorry for what I did. We're not there yet, but I want you to understand here's how we respond as opposed to react.
Speaker 2 00:26:03 So we get in a conversation. I'll say, now, now's a good time for that response. And I've had couples go. The tears start. I am truly sorry for what I did. Now they're responding. I have to teach them respond instead of react because all emotion, all five of them, are either a reaction to a situation or a response. And people say, I, you know, I react, I overreact, I know I overreact, okay, you do overreact. I'll go along with that. Would you like to learn how to over respond instead of react.
Speaker 1 00:26:42 Before the response is there? Do you teach people to take a breath? Reactions are often kneejerk, and that's when you.
Speaker 2 00:26:52 Get that reaction versus.
Speaker 1 00:26:53 Physical response. You get a burst of language, whatever that might be. Yeah. Do. Is there a pause in there that people could use?
Speaker 2 00:27:03 Absolutely. If that becomes helpful and I will even say, would it be helpful if we just took a breath right now? How about if we stand up and sit down? Just.
Speaker 2 00:27:13 We're not saying any words. We're just going to change. That's about anger. We're going to stand up. We're going to take a breath, and we're going to sit back down and continue. what was the last thing you said just before we stood up? 99% of the time people say, I, you know, I, I don't know. I've had people shop. I own a sign company. I'm actually sitting at my signing company right now, and I deal with a lot of clients and business people or whatever. And sometimes signs don't go exactly the way we had planned them, or they fall off the wall or whatever they peel apart. And I've had people come in and the way they deal with a product that they that didn't meet their expectations is some people get mouthy, some people go behind their backs. Other people get confrontational and really angry. And so I've had people come in screaming mad over a product that didn't meet their expectations. And I will say, I think you're absolutely right, I think I am.
Speaker 2 00:28:09 I'm agreeing with you. But what I would like you to do is say exactly what you just said to me about about three degrees cooler. Could you say that just what you said? And they'll say, I don't remember what. What did I say? Did I say, did I say, I don't want this product? I said, no, you don't want this goddamn product. I don't think I swore. Well, you did, but say the same thing, but say it a little cooler to me. I don't want this goddamn product. Just say it. Cool. And they'll say to me, I, you know, I, I don't think I can really say that, you know, you're a minister and say, okay, what would you prefer to say? And now I'm coaching them in a response instead of reaction. But it's very interesting. Stand up. Let's take three breaths. We're not saying a word. We're going to sit back down. What did you say just before we took that break? People say I I don't really remember because reactions are so spontaneous.
Speaker 2 00:29:08 It is not a function of what they really think and feel, but they don't know how to think and feel. Reality. Intelligence for me is a frame. It's a frame around life and we get to put that picture in the frame. The frame helps us with where the boundaries are, with how to define things, where the corners meet, and if there actually is a corner or is it a round frame. And it really has to do with, building, being intelligent about reality. I mean, that's how I came up with a name.
Speaker 1 00:29:50 So let me ask you a question is response at the in all the elements of reality intelligence is response a kind of a core. I hate to call it a problem, but maybe a problem that that is. Woven throughout all the five elements of reality. Intelligence. Because if we were.
Speaker 2 00:30:18 Five, the five, emotional systems have to do with the nature of of emotion. When I was doing my doctoral studies, I read every psychological, foundation, every.
Speaker 2 00:30:34 Freud has a concept, and Rogers has a concept, and Anderson has a concept. And, you know, everybody's got their own framework. And nobody had an agreed upon definition for what an emotion was. What is? Nobody's seen one. I mean, you can't take a living brain apart and see what an emotion is. We know what it does. We know how it acts or doesn't act, but we don't know what it actually is from the amygdala. Is it biochemical? Is it electrical? Is it what is it learned behaviors that automatic behaviors that, evolutionary? No, nobody really knows. So every theory is a little bit different. So I went to my advisor and I said I cannot find one definition for emotion. And he said, write your own. I said, I can't do that. And he goes, yes, you have to write your own because you're an expert in the area of emotion. I said, I'm not an expert. He goes, you're getting a doctorate. You're going to be an expert.
Speaker 2 00:31:30 So write your own, okay? All right. Don't get feisty with me. That's an emotional word. And so I thought and and struggled and worded things. And I came up with the link between our perceptions and our motivations are the affective reaction or response that prepares us to act. That's what an emotion is. It's an affective reaction or response to our perceptions, leading to our motivations. It's the link between what I perceive and how I'm motivated to behave. And so I ended up with a circle of four heads. One is perceptions. The second one is emotions. The third one is motivations, and the last one is behaviors. And they trigger in that sequence. But once they've triggered they interact. So if you act on your anger or you choose not to act on your anger, it changes how you perceive things. Your eyes actually see better when you're angry. And I physically know why. But and there's a physical reason for that.
Speaker 1 00:32:46 Because they dilate. No, they don't dilate.
Speaker 2 00:32:48 They don't dilate, they constrict.
Speaker 2 00:32:51 Yes. When you are in love, your eyes Expand and you see more light through the entire lens, which shortens the depth of field. So you move closer. When you're angry, your eye goes down to a pinpoint, and when light goes through the center of your your lens, you can see far, far distance in clarity compared to something that's close. So if you're going to throw a weapon or attack something, you can see it much more clearly. When you're angry. When you want to see someone's face, well, your eyes open wider and you have more light. Go through the entire lens of your eye. So there's a biological factor that's in here. But your anger, your love, changes how you see it changes how you listen. It changes how your skin works. It changes how your balance happens. You find girls are falling in love. Why do we call it that? Falling in love because your vestibular system, your balance, gets off balance. And for sexual reasons, you either fall backwards or you fall forwards and you find teenagers that are just beginning to get infatuated and fall in love.
Speaker 2 00:34:13 And they fall all over each other. Their vestibular system, because of their emotion and because of their processes, alters the way their bodies maintain balance. So I. So then I understand all that and I can explain it. You know, my son is in love with this girl and they're just, like, all over each other all the time. Well that's interesting. Do you find that abnormal or offensive? And they'll say, I just don't like it. Why don't you like it? What does it do to you that your son is in love with a girl? Now we're getting somewhere because I can find out. Not about the sun and not about the girl. I can find out what's going on for the parent because that's really what the issue is right now.
Speaker 1 00:34:57 Yeah. How they're perceiving it. Wow. This is fascinating. I want to go back just for a second. I am a hockey referee, and I've, in my youth, I was a professional hockey referee, and I've had a lot of training.
Speaker 1 00:35:16 In fact, part of our training camp, which we did two weeks every year, was psychological. We had a psychologist come and teach us the psychology of players and then how to interact with people when they are angry, how to make friends with players quickly, how to bring them to your side. Because there's going to be a lot of tension in a hockey game. Yeah. And so I learned techniques because Is when I make a call. Invariably, somebody's going to disagree. Maybe half the people in the in the in the crowd. Mostly I'm concerned about the coach and the player. Right. And in the moment of making the call, going to the penalty box to report the penalty and then returning back to everyone's position to get going. There's there's an opportunity for a player in the referee to interact. Let's just call it interact. And frequently the player will say you dirty rat. Right. You f ING this. I didn't touch him. Or he did it first, or he was holding on to me and I had to respond.
Speaker 1 00:36:38 Yada yada. And what's what's key in that moment is for the referee to have a minimal response. Because the players are angry. So we're talking about that, that reaction. They're not contemplating the situation. They're just they're just reacting. And the key that we were taught is let the players say whatever they want. If they if they if their arms go all over the place or if they start swinging things, swinging a stick, whatever. If they go in the penalty box and slam the door that's over the top, then you have to penalize that, but let the player get out their emotion, get out whatever words they have and, and and in the process. And here it is, is you want to engage with the player and, and be using your hands to say to push down, hey, hey, let's you know, I hear you, I hear you're pushing down. You're saying, let's talk about it. Yeah, I hear you, man, I hear you. Yeah. You know, I saw a little bit differently, you know.
Speaker 1 00:37:50 I'll get him next time. Whatever it is. You just want to say anything that's soothing so that the player feels a little bit heard. But most important is that no matter what they say is they just got to get it out. So they go to the penalty box. So that's what I was taught. Yeah. Today I still referee. And a lot of my colleagues have never been through that training. I try to share it with them, but they've never been to that training. And when they're skating the penalty box and the player says, you dirty, rotten f and yada yada, that referee without that training reacts and just gives them another penalty for unsportsmanlike conduct. And then that player gets more angry, it escalates, and then they slam the door and they get a misconduct. And now they're out for even longer. Yeah. And I guess the the question that I have more than anything is about that reaction, and I think that it worked the way you described it with with the girls at the mall meeting their friends, that is a reaction.
Speaker 1 00:38:59 They're very happy. They're exuberant. And then you have the opposite reaction of the couple that's angry. You're having a fight. And, and they're not listening to each other, but they're reacting immediately. And I think my question is, how do you, Is that a a, a friction point is not the right word. a it's it's a it's a place where, where, you know, two plate tectonics meet. Yeah. It seems like in, in many of, of the elements of reality intelligence, you have this point of of meeting C. I want to call friction. But it's not friction. Well it's. Yeah, it's a point of it's a point of meeting. Yes. And is, is that a place where you teach people to control or to at least understand what's going on at that point of meeting?
Speaker 2 00:40:06 Yes. in in hockey itself is a violent sport. It depends on violence that everybody's got a tool and you are you are whacking a black frozen puck as hard as you possibly can and aiming it directly at other human beings at high speed, and they're trying to catch it or deflect it.
Speaker 2 00:40:27 So the game itself is different from football or baseball, where you're trying to hit a ball away from where the players are. You don't want to hit it towards where the players are. and your tool, your bat is rounded and soft, not a hockey stick. Hockey stick has an edge. It's got a curve. It's long and you're in direct contact with a weapon. Football. You have your body. There's a ball. That's it. with hockey, you. It's may as well be a sword or a gun or. I mean, that's probably where it came from. What happens is that for me, the preemptive would be, as the official, to say to both teams, this becomes part of the culture of hockey. I know that some of you get very angry and upset quickly. I respect that you are highly competitive and anger and competition are sisters so that that one will feed the other. Some of you are guards. You back off. You pass off to someone else. I also respect that.
Speaker 2 00:41:30 But some of you are shooters and you're going after the goalie with everything you are to the point of danger. What I want to say to you is, if we run into an altercation and I have to penalize you, you can do anything except weaponize what's in your hands. You can scream, you can curse. You can do whatever you want to do. And I'm going to respect you because you're intense. And I love that. So you're playing the game. Somebody gets penalized, the guy's mouthing off to you and you as the official, go by and say thank you. You showed me something really authentic. Let's take it up after the game and you'll find it. They'll just go, all right. You're right. They will respond because you treated them. You're not trying to penalize them or remove that. You're trying to say, I recognize that's part of this game. What I want you to do is choose to control Troll that one aspect that has to do with injuring and possibly injuring another person.
Speaker 2 00:42:43 When you do that, you scream at me, but you don't slam the door. Thank you.
Speaker 1 00:42:50 Now, interestingly, invariably after the game, referees are on the ice. The players are shaking hands. The player who's angry will always come back up to the referee and say, hey man, I'm really sorry I lost it and I shouldn't have.
Speaker 2 00:43:06 And and you say, I get that and I respect you as a player because you have that fire. What I want you to do is turn the fire into a jet propulsion instead of a destructive force. Fire. Same energy.
Speaker 1 00:43:21 But. And that that place of of, you know, meeting you when you talked about the woman who came into your office and said she was depressed and you said, leave the office and come back in and say, I'm depleted. I was that also a place of. You know where she is trying to categorize how she feels. And that was she was moving farther down, or the doctor had moved her farther down on the continuum.
Speaker 1 00:43:53 And you wanted her to talk about. Now, tell me about the elements that are actually depleting you, and let's figure out where you actually are on the continuum.
Speaker 2 00:44:03 And it could be many, many people are are trained in our culture to assume that whatever a doctor says to them is absolutely right, and so you don't question it. And so what I wanted her to do, if her brain had a chemical imbalance that was resulting in a clinical depression, there are medications that will help her get through that difficulty of that season, that day, even that year that can go on for an extended period of time when the brain simply doesn't produce enough dopamine or or other kinds of chemicals that help you regulate sleep at night. I understand that. Her doctor could be right, but what I wanted her to do was think for herself. The one of the challenges of today's society is we have artificial intelligence everywhere. When I was writing a note to you about this particular meeting, my Google Gmail wanted to suggest words that I did not intend and I was not thinking, but it wanted to finish.
Speaker 2 00:45:11 As soon as I type two letters, it wanted to put it in there. To me, that's artificial intelligence. It's putting me out of my own life. What what reality intelligence does is it deals with what is real to you. What does it mean to you? How do you think about it? And I've had people say I, you know. Just tell me the answer. I'm not going to tell you the answer because I don't know your answer. What I want you to do is struggle with this. Until now. Let's wander around. I do a lot of counseling by wandering around. I learned that from a business book to manage, by wandering around and. And I and I council by wandering around. So we hit an impasse and say, okay, let's stop talking about that. What? What was the last table game you played? And I go, what? Just let's just. What did you have for dinner last Thursday night a week ago? I don't just think about it.
Speaker 2 00:46:07 What'd you have? And they'll think. And once they engage their thinking, they say, okay, let's go back to our topic and say, okay, I do have an answer now because because artificial means whether it's a book or a website or somebody else's counsel is artificial to my thinking process. What reality intelligence is. Think for yourself and learn better how to do it. And if you don't know how to do it. That's what I will teach you.
Speaker 1 00:46:40 All right. So I know people will want to learn more. And you've written 29 books? Yes. Right. 29 books. Okay.
Speaker 2 00:46:48 I published 29 books. I've written more than that. But yeah, I wrote, I went when we found out that I was pregnant. So don't anybody who's listening to this while they. They all know. When we found out the day that I found out I was pregnant, my wife was pregnant with each of our four children. I bought a 300 page spiral bound notebook, and I began writing each of my unborn children a letter from me to them about life from eight months out, seven months their birthday.
Speaker 2 00:47:22 Every trip we took when they lost their first tooth, when they had their first kiss. When they fell out of a tree being stupid. Everything that happened in our lives. I wrote about 300 pages for each child and then gave them their books when they were 21, when they turned 21. I got O.J. Simpson's autograph on a Buffalo Bills ticket and stapled it in one of my kids books. I have Pete Rose's autograph stapled in another kid's notebook. I have Doug Anderson's, autograph. Three great football players. sports book. And I stapled another kid's book. We were at Disney World, and goofy signed one of the kid's, programs. And I. And that was my daughter's favorite, so I stapled that in her book. We usually lost that stuff. And I told the story of how she cried until goofy hugged her and she stopped crying and hugged him back. I would never have remembered that two days later, but I wrote it in her notebook. And so I've, I've done that kind of thing.
Speaker 2 00:48:28 I've written 180 plays and skits and for my church that allow kids to get up and act out in a 1 or 2 minute, action that that's beyond everything else I've written to. So, I mean, I'm a I write I've always been a writer. I've loved putting my thoughts down and then sharing them with other people to be able to utilize.
Speaker 1 00:48:50 By the way, what a treasure that is to create that book for each of your children. And then it's the story of their life.
Speaker 2 00:49:01 It is. And and I've traveled all over the world, so I've taught for weeks in Africa. We went to Taiwan. I've been to I built a school in Honduras. we've been to England, Hungary, and I would sneak their books, or sometimes just one of them, and write about the whole trip. And then I would put in the other kids books, be sure to read about the Honduras trip in Josh's book. And so now they're reading each other. Or I would start a story in one kid's book and then say, this is continued in Tim's book.
Speaker 2 00:49:36 So you got to get Tim's book to find. And I did that kind of thing. I did stuff like that. I drew cartoons and made puzzles. I mean, I did whatever I could do to capture the essence of what it means to be alive. Yeah. And I would I would create that. I would write that. That's what I've. I've always done it. Reality. Intelligence for me is the symbolism of that process.
Speaker 1 00:50:01 So how can people learn more about it. Is that in one of your books or.
Speaker 2 00:50:05 Is it a.
Speaker 1 00:50:05 Couple.
Speaker 2 00:50:06 Of books for, well, for reality intelligence is is actually on Amazon. The book launches day after tomorrow Wednesday, or is today Tuesday? No. Today's. All right.
Speaker 1 00:50:18 All right. So wait, so that's a Monday. May 21st is the book launch Wednesday. Is it called Reality Intelligence?
Speaker 2 00:50:25 Is the the book launch? it is on, I have. Now, what I did was I wrote the book, took me about a year and a half to write this.
Speaker 2 00:50:33 The second edition, the first book was called why Do People Act That Way? And what can I do about it? And that came out of an OSHA course that I was asked to write in 2012, re-engaging the disengaged worker. And so.
Speaker 1 00:50:46 OSHA, meaning that's a book about safety and how for people to work more safely.
Speaker 2 00:50:52 Workers. Yeah, it was for workers compensation case workers. And at the very end of writing it, the Obama administration took online courses off. So they gave me my course back and said, you can do anything you want with it, but you just can't call it re-engaging the disengaged worker. I said, well, I won't. so I wrote a seminar called Why Do People Act That way? Parenthesis. What can I do about it? Then people, I did that seminar all over the country, and then when people came out of the seminar, said, so where's your book? I said, well, I never wrote a book. Well, put this stuff in a book.
Speaker 2 00:51:22 So I wrote that and published that in 2019. I have a friend in Washington state. His name is Mike Wilson. He's West coast Mike. I'm East coast Mike, and we teach together, sometimes virtually and sometimes live. on. Why do people act that way? Well, as we have been training colleges, college students, high school groups, corporate CEOs, keynote speakers at events. While we were doing that, we added because people would ask questions, well, what goes in advance? What makes an emotion happen? So we eventually said, well, your perceptions make and there's ten senses of perception, not just five. And they trigger your emotional reaction or response. Well, what happens as a result of having an emotion? What do you do with it? Well, it stimulates your motivations. It's either what you think about or what your habit is or who you are as a person. Then what do you do with your motivations? You either act out and engage the action, or you disengage and you get to choose.
Speaker 2 00:52:29 How do I take what is my experience and act on it? Then? Once you do that, it's a free for all. But we can we can take that tangled mess of yarn and we can untangle the pieces, follow the threads until we know here's what you perceived, here's what you felt. Here's how you got ready to act. And this is what you did. Yeah. Is that accurate? And they'll say, kind of. But you're missing this piece. Okay. Let's go back to now. We can refine. We can add pieces and take pieces away. And people go, you know, I don't like it, but I understand and I know what to do because I don't always have to agree. We don't have to come to, you know, we're all hunky dory and happy family that at the end we can still have very serious differences. But now we have the handles on this slippery, weird shape thing called life. To be able to say, here's what I perceived. Here's my emotion.
Speaker 2 00:53:38 I know I have a word for it. Here's how I am motivated and here's how I act. Or this is what I didn't say. When you talked about the hockey player who comes afterwards and he says, you know, I'm so sorry, I, I didn't get a chance to say that that was a disengagement. He had something to say that he chose not to say. And it's like, I'm good with that. Why didn't you say it in the moment? Well, now we're getting back into the fisticuffs of, you know, a particular moment. But it's to say I thought it and I didn't say it. Okay, I'm okay with that. Yeah, but now I understand. I hear, I hear what you're saying, and I'm really impressed with you. When you said, in you sat down with your wife and you were talking about. I didn't I don't know whether I actually said I'm sorry or not, but she knew somehow she knew. Well, you've got years and years together.
Speaker 2 00:54:39 So she has a thorough awareness of what your hesitation or sorrow or apology or any of those things are. But the biggest thing is you came home and you sat with me. That's all I wanted. I just wanted you to be present. Did you say the right words? I don't even know. I don't even care. It was that you were there. So when I do counseling, instead of saying, I never say I understand. And even in this entire time we've been talking, I've never said I understand because it's up to the other person to understand. And my response is I'm here. And and I and I have you. I'm with you. Wow. And that's really what?
Speaker 1 00:55:29 Wounded people.
Speaker 2 00:55:31 Angry people. Depressed people, they need to know. It matters enough for you to be present with me. The old. I've got your six, or I've got your back or. Or any of those concepts in the military are a way of saying you are not alone. And I don't necessarily understand what you've gone through.
Speaker 2 00:55:52 I don't have your frame, but I want you to know I'm part of your frame. Yeah. So I am here.
Speaker 1 00:56:01 Yeah.
Speaker 2 00:56:01 That's very powerful. Don't have to say anything else.
Speaker 1 00:56:05 Right.
Speaker 2 00:56:05 So when people I do. I've done a lot of funerals, 70, 80, 90 funerals and. And when I stand up in front and I will say to the gathered people, so often the words kind of are socially acceptable. I'm so sorry for your loss in this room. The person with the loss is me. I didn't know this person the way you all did. I am so thrilled to be in your presence, to celebrate this life, to mourn, to be angry if we need to be, to to love on this person. But I am so impressed with what you have that I don't have. And I am here simply to be present with you. I've had people come out and say, that is the best funeral I've ever been at in my life. It's like I didn't say anything and I don't know anything.
Speaker 2 00:56:56 I don't say, you know, your loved one died suddenly of a heart attack, and I thoroughly understand. Let me reframe this. My dad died of a heart. I've seen that so many times. You have a pain. You have your tire got flat. I had a tire fall off my car. you know, I missed an appointment with my boss today. Oh, that is nothing. I missed an appointment with three bosses. You overshoot everything and says I am not with you. I don't have your back. I'm not even listening to what you say. I do not do that. So instead of, over placing my frame over someone else's frame, I will. I. I've learned how to counsel in this way, and it's overly simplified. So there's a lot more to it than that. But if anybody who's listening to this wants to know how to counsel their own six year old or their 65 year old parent, this is how you do it. An event occurs. What does that do to you? That event? What do you do with that? Once you have that pain, that hurt, that thrill, that excitement that's stomach upset.
Speaker 2 00:58:09 What do you do with that? Your kid comes in late. They violated your trust. What does that do to you? And what do you do with that? And then three magic words of everything that I ever have to teach. Three magic words. Tell me more.
Speaker 1 00:58:31 Wow.
Speaker 2 00:58:32 And so somebody's spouse.
Speaker 1 00:58:33 People want to share.
Speaker 2 00:58:34 And they committed suicide. My father committed suicide. So I understand that experience in a family's life. But a person says, you know, I know going in there, son committed suicide. They found him in the bathroom hanging and that. And I will say, I'm here. I am here for you. Do you want to talk about that? No, I don't want to talk about that while I'm here. And then they'll just start talking. So instead of saying, you know, my dad died and I, you know, I have all the it is. Can you tell me some more? Tell me just a little bit more. About what? What your son was like or your daughter.
Speaker 2 00:59:16 And they get to a choked up point, and I'll let them get choked up and they'll say, so tell me more. Just those three words. Tell me. And it's that's my counseling theory. Now, I know a lot of stuff that's going on and reality intelligence, the book and I have an online course and we're going to do we have a podcast called Gripping Reality, Mike and I. It's all about these same kind of things, applications into real life situations. But what does this do to you? What do you do with that? Tell me more.
Speaker 1 00:59:48 All right. Well that's that's great. Mike, I'm going to put a link to the book, in the, in the show notes. And, and this has been absolutely fascinating, not just learning about how I can support my wife playing pickleball. Every. As you were speaking, I was thinking about elements of my life. I had a movie reel running in my life about all these elements and the different continuums that you talked about in In Love and fear and anger, sadness and happiness.
Speaker 1 01:00:26 And of course, I know you have a broader definition there, and I think that people listening will have that same, that same movie running in their head because, Soma, you know, everyone's lives can fit into those categories. So, so thank you. Thank you for that. Thank you for explaining it. Thank you for your work. And and I hope people get the book because that's what I'm going to do. So I appreciate you and.
Speaker 2 01:00:53 Thanks for having me on this afternoon. This has been very engaging and I've loved hearing about your life as well.
Speaker 1 01:00:59 All right. Thank you Mike.