Eben Pagan explores emotions as 'the most powerful chemicals in the universe' and teaches how to consciously create and manage emotional states for business success. He shares frameworks from experts like Jerry Ballinger and Jeffrey Miller to help entrepreneurs harness emotions rather than be controlled by them.
Consciously Creating Emotions
Eben introduces emotions as an invisible but powerful force that controls thoughts and actions like a manic-depressive inner influencer. Drawing from his mentor Jerry Ballinger, he explains how emotions function as addictive chemicals that people unconsciously recreate through their circumstances and interpretations.
Using evolutionary psychologist Jeffrey Miller's metaphor, Eben explains how emotions work like television channels that completely change your thinking and behavior patterns. He warns that both extremely positive and negative emotional states prevent logical decision-making and practical actions.
Eben provides a practical framework for developing emotional intelligence by creating lists of core emotions and practicing real-time emotional naming. He honestly shares his own challenges with this process, admitting that even after years of practice, some emotions remain difficult to identify.
Drawing from Carl Jung's shadow concept, Eben warns against treating emotions as enemies to be overcome. He explains how suppressed emotions create more complex problems later and emphasizes the importance of allowing natural emotional cycles to complete rather than interrupting them.
Eben teaches a powerful technique from Werner Erhard's EST program for experiencing emotions through bodily sensations. He describes how emotions have physical qualities like pressure, color, and temperature that can be processed in 30-60 seconds when approached with presence rather than avoidance.
“emotions are the most powerful and addictive chemicals in the universe”
— Eben Pagan▶ 0:31
Start by recognizing that emotions are like an invisible inner influencer affecting your thoughts and actions. Create a list of core emotions, practice naming them as they occur, and learn to experience them fully rather than suppressing them. Strong emotions, whether positive or negative, prevent logical decision-making.
“if we just continually dissociate and push our emotions further and further from us, they go into what Carl Jung would have called the shadow and they come back later to bite us”
— Eben Pagan▶ 10:43
Suppressed emotions go into what Carl Jung called the 'shadow' and return later to cause more complex problems that require much more challenging work to resolve. You also miss out on great aspects of life and lose the ability to learn from emotional experiences.
“close your eyes and experience it out”
— Eben Pagan▶ 15:56
Close your eyes and notice where you feel the emotion physically in your body. Notice its pressure, color, temperature, and movement direction. Stay present with these sensations and the emotion will move through your body and dissipate in 30-60 seconds, leaving you with a cleansing, renewed feeling.
“when we're under the influence of a strong emotion, we're not likely to make the most logical decision or take the most practical actions, or think long term”
— Eben Pagan▶ 5:10
Strong emotions, whether positive or negative, prevent logical thinking. Fear activates your reptilian brain focused only on escape and survival, while extreme happiness creates impractical euphoria where everything seems great. Neither state supports practical decision-making.
“we start writing down the top emotions”
— Eben Pagan▶ 7:01
Begin by writing down core emotions like happiness, sadness, jealousy, envy, excitement, disgust, and fear. For each emotion, recall a specific time you experienced it. Then practice naming emotions as they happen in real-time, even though this is challenging and some emotions may remain unidentifiable.
“they're not affected directly. The way to trigger an emotion is either through our physical or through our mental”
— Eben Pagan▶ 18:39
No, emotions cannot be affected directly. You must trigger them through either changing the mental pictures and sounds in your mind or through physical movement and exercise. These are the two pathways to influence your emotional state.
A step-by-step technique for experiencing and releasing intense emotions without being overwhelmed
Notice the trigger
When you feel flooded with a strong emotion like anger or fear, acknowledge that you're being triggered
Close your eyes
Shut your eyes to focus inward and tune into your internal experience
Locate the sensation
Notice where in your body you feel the emotion - it will have a specific location
Observe the qualities
Notice the emotion's pressure, color, temperature, and direction of movement
Stay present
Don't get afraid and run away - tune into the feeling completely
Allow completion
Let the emotional cycle run its course - it will dissipate in 30-60 seconds
Experience renewal
Notice the cleansing, refreshed feeling that comes after the emotion completes its cycle
Emotions are the most powerful and addictive chemicals in the universe, functioning like an invisible inner influencer that controls your thoughts and actions
Jerry Ballinger, Eben's deceased mentor, defined emotions as powerful chemicals that people become addicted to like drugs, leading them to set up circumstances to recreate familiar emotional states
Emotions function like television channels that affect all your thoughts and actions - when you switch to the fear channel, you think and act differently than when on the excitement channel
Dr. Jeffrey Miller, evolutionary psychologist and author of 'The Mating Mind' and 'Spent', provided this television channel metaphor to explain how emotions create context for behavior
Strong emotions, whether positive or negative, prevent logical decision-making and practical actions - extreme fear triggers fight-or-flight while extreme happiness creates impractical euphoria
Eben explains that being in strong fear activates the reptilian brain focused only on escape, while being in 'super giddy, happy jubilation kind of ecstasy' also prevents logical thinking because everything seems great
Start emotional mastery by creating a written list of core emotions (happiness, sadness, jealousy, envy, excitement, disgust, fear) and recalling specific times you experienced each one
Eben provides specific examples: happiness from good fortune, sadness from loss, jealousy from seeing romantic interests with competitors, envy from wanting others' success, excitement from anticipating great events, disgust from unhealthy situations, and fear from perceived danger
Practice naming emotions as they happen in real-time, even though this is very challenging and sometimes emotions remain unidentifiable despite years of practice
Eben admits that after years of practice, he still experiences emotions he can't identify: 'Sometimes something will happen, and I'll get a feeling of kind of foreboding. And I can't tell. Is it a little bit of fear? Is it a little bit of, you know, kind of annoyance? Is it anger? Is it sadness?'
Completely dissociating from emotions is dangerous because they go into the 'shadow' and return later to cause more complex problems that require much more challenging work to resolve
Eben references Carl Jung's concept of the shadow and explains that people who view emotions as enemies to be overcome miss out on great aspects of life and create bigger problems for themselves later
Emotions have natural complete cycles that flow smoothly into other emotions when unobstructed, but modern society and dysfunctional family patterns often prevent these cycles from completing
Gay Hendricks, author of 'Conscious Loving', taught Eben about complete emotion cycles, and Werner Erhard's EST program included exercises for 'experiencing out emotions' to allow full emotional cycles
When experiencing strong negative emotions, close your eyes and notice physical sensations in your body - they have pressure, color, temperature, and movement patterns that will dissipate in 30-60 seconds if you stay present
Eben describes the EST technique where emotions feel 'almost like entities moving around in my body' and explains that Wyatt Woodsmall defines emotion as 'a matrix of sensations in the body', with the experience ending in a 'cleansing feeling' and 'calm, refreshed renewal'
Emotions cannot be affected directly - they must be triggered through either mental imagery and sounds or through physical body movement and exercise
Eben explains that while external threats can trigger emotions, to access them 'as close to directly as possible, we need to change the pictures and sounds that we're making in our minds or change the way we're moving our bodies'
Emotions are the most powerful and addictive chemicals in the universe, functioning like an invisible inner influencer that controls your thoughts and actions
▶ 0:31Emotions function like television channels that affect all your thoughts and actions - when you switch to the fear channel, you think and act differently than when on the excitement channel
▶ 4:37Strong emotions, whether positive or negative, prevent logical decision-making and practical actions - extreme fear triggers fight-or-flight while extreme happiness creates impractical euphoria
▶ 5:10Start emotional mastery by creating a written list of core emotions (happiness, sadness, jealousy, envy, excitement, disgust, fear) and recalling specific times you experienced each one
▶ 7:01Practice naming emotions as they happen in real-time, even though this is very challenging and sometimes emotions remain unidentifiable despite years of practice
▶ 9:20Completely dissociating from emotions is dangerous because they go into the 'shadow' and return later to cause more complex problems that require much more challenging work to resolve
▶ 10:43Emotions have natural complete cycles that flow smoothly into other emotions when unobstructed, but modern society and dysfunctional family patterns often prevent these cycles from completing
▶ 13:01When experiencing strong negative emotions, close your eyes and notice physical sensations in your body - they have pressure, color, temperature, and movement patterns that will dissipate in 30-60 seconds if you stay present
▶ 15:56Emotions cannot be affected directly - they must be triggered through either mental imagery and sounds or through physical body movement and exercise
▶ 18:39Claim: “Emotions are something to be overcome and controlled, and people who feel too much emotion are the enemy”
Reframe: Emotions should be made friends with, directed, and worked with as they provide valuable information and experiences essential to a fulfilling life
Claim: “People should always be happy and avoid negative emotions like sadness, grief, jealousy, envy, disgust, or fear”
Reframe: We're not designed to be in one emotional state long-term - all emotions including negative ones are natural and should be tuned into, worked with, and learned from
“emotions are the most powerful and addictive chemicals in the universe”
“we have a highly intelligent, highly persuasive person. We'll call this person your inner influencer and they're invisible”
“when you're experiencing a different emotion, it's like switching the channel”
“if we just continually dissociate and push our emotions further and further from us, they go into what Carl Jung would have called the shadow and they come back later to bite us”
“you'll notice that it has a pressure, a color, a temperature. It's usually moving in some direction”
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Coaching Strategies
Business Frameworks
Common Mistakes
Humans have the miraculous ability to envision a more evolved version of themselves and make it reality through conscious transformation
Eben explains this fundamental human capacity: 'you can imagine a more evolved better physical shape, a person who knows something, someone with a better self-image, imagine a person who knows a skill and then you can go become it'
Most people sabotage their future by painting it as an extension of their past rather than creating from a blank canvas
Jerry Ballinger taught Eben the metaphor that 'life is like a painting that you're constantly painting' and most people are 'painting our future based on what happened in the past...literally living into our future but we're just extending the past'
Most people focus exclusively on the 'black dots' (problems and conflicts) instead of seeing the entire pristine white circle of life, creating tunnel vision that prevents them from seeing opportunities and solutions.
Life metaphor described by friend 20 years ago: Life is a big, clear, white circle with tiny black dots (conflicts), but people become so focused on the dots they can't see anything else.
Arguing with reality is futile and emotionally destructive - when something happens, no amount of resistance will change what occurred, but acceptance opens the door to productive change.
Carl Jung and Carl Rogers both stated that to change something, you must first accept it. Example: yelling at partner for something they said never creates change because you didn't accept what they said first.
