Mark Scherer, PhD – How to Improve Your Emotional Intelligence and Why You Should

Connect with Dr. Mark:

• 

Connect with David:

• 
• 
• david.turetsky@salary.com

Connect with Dwight:

• 
• 
• dwight.brown@salary.com

Podcast Manager, Karissa Harris:

• HRDataLabs@salary.com

 

Production by Affogato Media

Resources:

• Encompass Life
• Salary.com Consulting practice
• HR Data Labs Season 8 Episode 4
• HR Data Labs Season 8 Episode 2

• “To really have the life you love, you gotta find what limits you the most is also what you hate the most about yourself and what you defend the most.”
• “What people fear the most is giving up their excuses—they fear giving up their identity. Who would you be if you didn’t have that fear?

Announcer: 0:01

The world of business is more complex than ever. The world of human resources and compensation is also getting more complex. Welcome to the HR data labs podcast, your direct source for the latest trends from experts inside and outside the world of human resources. Listen as we explore the impact that compensation strategy, data and people analytics can have on your organization. This podcast is sponsored by salary.com Your source for data technology and consulting for compensation and beyond. Now here are your hosts, David Turetsky and Dwight Brown.

 

David Turetsky: 0:38

Hello and welcome to the HR Data Labs podcast. I'm your host, David Turetsky, alongside my friend, co-host, well, BFF, actually, Dwight Brown from Salary.com! Dwight, how are you?

 

Dwight Brown: 0:48

At first, I thought you said BSS. I was gonna say, yeah, there's a lot of BSS in there, but

 

David Turetsky: 0:55

No. Dwight, no, we will not use that language on this program.

 

Dwight Brown: 0:59

That's right, don't want the explicit version.

 

David Turetsky: 1:01

This is not getting the E. Yeah.

 

Dwight Brown: 1:03

Yes. But getting back to your question, I'm great. How are you doing?

 

David Turetsky: 1:06

I'm great. I'm actually wearing my HR Data Labs podcast three quarter sleeve Henley t-shirt.

 

Dwight Brown: 1:11

Look at you! Sporting the swag, man.

 

David Turetsky: 1:14

Sporting the swag but you know why I'm also really excited today?

 

Dwight Brown: 1:19

Why is that?

 

David Turetsky: 1:20

Because we have a wonderful guest with us who is going to make us cry, so I actually have tissues available, Dr. Mark Scherer. Dr. Mark, how are you today?

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 1:31

I'm doing well, guys, thank you.

 

David Turetsky: 1:33

Dr. Scherer, or can I call you Mark?

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 1:35

Yeah, please do.

 

David Turetsky: 1:36

Okay, Mark. So tell us a little bit about your background and a little bit about what you do.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 1:41

Yeah! So I've been an entrepreneur since the mid, early, mid 20s, I guess, ran several different companies, from construction to raw foods to real estate investing. And during the during those times, I had some ups and downs, so I was always trying to improve myself. The largest company I had was about 100 and 150 employees somewhere around in there. We did a lot of construction in Central Texas, and being able to manage that and and continue to improve my leadership ability. So I was taking a lot of classes, and I was actually more interested in the classes I was taking than working in construction, you know. So sometimes I'd be gone a month at a time, taking doing different sabbaticals and taking different classes in Europe and throughout the throughout the US. And like that was always really a passion for

 

David Turetsky: 2:35

Wow! me, a desire to go into coaching at some point in time. I guess back in 2008 2009 is when I transitioned over. And during that time, it had gotten into a pretty severe accident, and I had a friend of mine embezzle a bunch of money from my construction company. So it was like a perfect storm hit, and I was I was really hoping to put a couple more million dollars in the bank before I went into coaching, but, you know, wanted to get out, and I was just. Anyway, I got my way out. Wasn't the way I would have planned if I had planned it, but I got my way out, and I'm so glad I did. That's when I really started to focus on, on on, on coaching and putting this system together, and over the last, I guess since 2008 2009 I studied with a couple of other couple other coaches, learn some other modalities in my system, and I started getting clients all over the world, all over the world by word of mouth. And I guess about six years ago, I started Encompass Life as a university so I could train people. My clients were asking me, Hey, where can we learn to do what you're doing? Is there a certification process to do so? And so I started Encompass Life as a coaching certification school and also a Leadership Development Academy. And got a couple of books coming out. Yeah, we're really, we're really growing a company now. That's awesome. And so we're going to talk a little bit about what your company focuses on as we get into our topic. But one of the things we love to do with our guests is to ask, What's one fun thing that no one knows about you, Mark?

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 4:19

Oh, fun things. How about different?

 

David Turetsky: 4:23

Okay.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 4:23

I was raised on a cattle ranch, and I've done artificial insemination palpation, and I've pulled and I've pulled calves.

 

David Turetsky: 4:31

Wow!

 

Dwight Brown: 4:32

Nice.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 4:32

Not many people can say they've done that!

 

David Turetsky: 4:34

No, no.

 

Dwight Brown: 4:35

It's true!

 

David Turetsky: 4:36

And if you've watched television, or you've been to a farm, or you've seen these kind of activities, like I watch Clarkson Farm on Prime Video. It is. It's heart wrenching. It's hard work, but it is some of the most rewarding work in the world, right?

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 4:53

Yeah, it is. It really is. And you go out and and set up, get up a project done, and get, you know. It makes the progress on the project every day is really, really beautiful. Even if you're out just, just harvesting crops, it's so, right, yeah, that's what you're one with nature out there. It's beautiful.

 

David Turetsky: 5:10

Absolutely. Well, there's a lot of reasons why people think of farming as almost a it's not a religion, but it's a it's obviously, it's a way of life, but it's something that they they couldn't imagine doing anything else, right?

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 5:21

Yeah, spiritual connection, for sure. The earth and the wonder of the wonderment of life,

 

David Turetsky: 5:26

Yeah, well, and that brings us to our topic for today, because what we're going to try and do today is we're going to talk about something a little different. It's going to be a little emotional, and that's on purpose, because we're going to be talking about increasing your emotional intelligence. So Mark, what is the problem?

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 5:53

Problem is people have wounds of unhealed stuff from their childhood, and any time a situation reminds them of that unhealed wound, they react the way they did as a three or four year old, and immediately go into reaction, and whatever they used to survive as a child is what their automatic response is as an adult. So imagine if you have a company and you have an emotional intelligence of a of a three or four year old, like I said, and reactive, you know, I'm gonna go silent, go to my room, lock myself in my office, lash back out, somebody, throw a fit, all those things. And as soon as that emotional reaction kicks in, the person leaves this higher brain function because they're going into the fight or flight response they did as a as a child. So you know, to be able to shift out of that, or the way we measure emotional intelligence, here is a time it takes from the person to go into a reaction, to be able to become having an effective action show up again. And the gap between the reaction and the effective action is a measurement of emotional intelligence. So if you can cut that down to milliseconds or seconds, man, you're doing great. And how many people desire to work with the company, or especially small business, medium sized company, where the owner goes off?

 

David Turetsky: 7:12

Right.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 7:12

That kills a company!

 

David Turetsky: 7:14

Right.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 7:14

And people gonna leave really quickly,

 

David Turetsky: 7:14

And also, I think maybe in my parents' especially in today's world, if somebody doesn't like it, you generation, certainly, they took hierarchies, the ability, or don't like the way the personality of the owner is, and they have a don't have, like, a higher purpose, they're out of here. It's not like when my dad was a was working, he spent 40 years at the pod or whatever, you know, whatever he did. You know that that type of loyalty is it's not here in today's world, people are always looking for what's next. afforded the ability, to have low emotional intelligence, and you know, you just dealt with it, right? You just, you just kept going, because you

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 7:54

You just accept it.

 

David Turetsky: 7:55

Exactly, they had the right to, because they in the hierarchy, they were above you, and if they start screaming at you for whether it's your fault or not.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 8:04

Yeah. Great point. And a lot of people talk about being in when people stay in their comfort zone. Well, I found that the word comfort when people talk about being in a comfort zone, 90% of the time, that's all, you said BS at the beginning of the show, I'm gonna say BS here. So it's really what people are, what people are in is their familiar zone.

 

David Turetsky: 8:31

Right.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 8:32

And a lot of people are living in a familiar zone of being really, really miserable in their life. So when they have that misery there anything that triggers another level of it. They go on that state of reaction very quickly, and whether it be a business owner or or a team member or whatever. But you know, when somebody's living in that heightened state of anxiety and misery, it don't take much to set somebody off.

 

David Turetsky: 8:55

Is that the reason why we accept it is because we're used to it? And, you know, talking about woundings.

 

Dwight Brown: 9:01

It's what you know.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 9:01

Yeah and the way it's languaged. Oh, you're you're in your comfort, oh, you're in your comfort zone. Well, I'm gonna tell them I'm in my comfort zone. Oh, yeah. But are you really? Are you really comfortable being miserable? Are Yeah. you really comfortable being reactive?

 

David Turetsky: 9:15

It's what you know! Yeah.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 9:17

It's what you, it's what you've experienced. But, yeah, it's a. Language is really, really important part of what we're doing here, because every word can produce a, produce a different effect chemically in

 

David Turetsky: 9:28

Right. Well, I know from my past, in not only the body. the experiences went by with my parents, but also the experiences with work, yelling was a really huge part of my growth, right? I would get yelled at by my dad or I get yelled at at work. In fact, my first, my first experiences at work I used to have a boss who stood over my shoulder to watch me work, and when I got one letter wrong on data input on mainframe focus. I got yelled at right then, so it was an immediate feedback, and I didn't love it, but I accepted it because she was my boss.

 

Unknown: 10:10

Yeah, and interesting you said the word, I didn't love it. So anytime, anytime you're using the word not that's basically which the person is doing is lying by omission. They're not telling, like, what's really going on. You're telling what didn't happen, you know, like, Hey, Mark, where you going today? Not Houston. You know, I'm not saying the truth. This way it is. It's a way to lie by omission. Where you, where are you going? Hey, it's true. Where are you going? Not my girlfriend's house!

 

David Turetsky: 10:45

But, but in so are we trying to save someone's feelings? Are we trying to to get around the issue? What are we trying to do?

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 10:53

You try to, you try to protect yourself so you won't get into trouble is what that all is. Yeah, because as a kid, like you said, if you got yelled at as a kid, so you learn to speak in these ambiguous terms, because if you nail yourself down, you know.

 

Dwight Brown: 11:10

Like nailing jello to the wall.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 11:12

Right!

 

David Turetsky: 11:13

I didn't not eat that candy, Dad.

 

Unknown: 11:17

Where'd you go? To the library. Well the library was closed. Oh yeah, we found out library was closed, you know.

 

Dwight Brown: 11:25

One lie after another.

 

David Turetsky: 11:27

I mean we make these comfortable zones for ourselves, right Mark? I mean, it's, it's, it's hard living in a world the way it is. I mean, there are so with social media, with pressures at work, with pressures at home, with financial pressures. It's so hard to kind of be quote, unquote, okay. So how do people deal with trying to protect ourselves and protect our our sanity for for lack of a better way of saying it?

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 11:56

The only thing that you're trying to protect is your lies. You're not trying to you're not trying to protect yourself. Truth requires no protection. What requires protection and defenses is lies. To really have the life you love, you got to find what limits you the most is also what you hate the most about yourself, and also what you defend the most. And the way the person defends is by speaking in vague terms, by lying, by misdirecting, by all that stuff. So everybody says just, you know, like, what you say it's really, really hard to do this? That's what I used to think. That's why I used to speak as well. And when I found out the way I used to live was really, really hard once I shifted it, I was like, Holy crap. That's what hard. You know, working with people over the years, it's like they say, Oh, this can be really, really hard to shift once per once somebody makes that shift. I go, Hey, you'd like to go back to where you were? Oh, hell no, that was hard! The stress, the worry, all that stuff exists when you're trying to, when we're trying to cover stuff up. It takes, it takes all the RAM. I mean, I remember going to be late to an appointment, and I would practice my excuses of why I was going to be, why I was late before we get there, you know, I was like, golly, man and all that stuff. Just it wore me out. Man, it had, it was a, you know, that that false front, and here's how present myself to the world. And here I, here's how I really feel behind that false front, whatever that, whatever that schism is, chasm or canyon between those two things, the bigger the split, the more, the harder it is that person to live their life.

 

Dwight Brown: 13:30

The weird part is that so often people don't realize when they're in the midst of it how hard it actually is for them. I know, I know I've had that in aspects of my life where I didn't have a clue until it finally got called out. And, you know, there could be behavior change, and all of a sudden I'm looking back going, Holy smokes. That really that sapped every ounce of my energy!

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 13:55

Yeah, yeah. Even, even in marriage, you know, even in romantic relationship. I mean, the way my parents dealt with stuff was they just went silent and kind of had hallway sex. You know what hallway sex is?

 

David Turetsky: 14:08

No, I'd love to hear about it though!

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 14:09

It's where you pass each other in the hallway, Screw you. Screw you too. You know? You know, all

 

David Turetsky: 14:23

That's not exactly what I thought it was gonna be, but okay!

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 14:25

No, yeah. But this all, and it's all done under the under the breath, you know, it's all done,

 

Dwight Brown: 14:31

Yeah.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 14:32

You know. And because, you know, having those conversations, everybody thinks it's really hard. I mean, I remember thinking, gonna have a conversation with somebody, they were gonna leave and it was gonna kill me to explain this. And then once I did, like, Oh, what the heck, man, I held that in for how long?

 

Dwight Brown: 14:51

Right.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 14:53

And all those little things we hold in, or like little nails in a coffin in a relationship, or in a business, nails in the coffin of profitability and productivity!

 

David Turetsky: 15:03

Right. But the difficulty everybody's got, like you mentioned at the beginning, everybody's got woundings. Everybody's got those scratches on their heart or scratches in their in their psyche, and the protection of them enables them to live another day with debt, with interest rates, with kids, and how crappy they're doing at school with, you know, the you know, dealing with a spouse, or dealing with an ex spouse. All those things are so hard in the way in the world in which, the US at least, lives in that I mean, that's, that's how we deal with things, is just keep moving forward like a shark. And, you know, you can't stop, you got to keep moving forward.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 15:50

Yeah, all these patterns were put into place when for that individual to survive whatever happened at that moment. You know, those, those pains in the childhood, those traumas. And it could be like, I remember when I was a kid, I saw, I choose, remember what movie it was, some movie with a with a baby elephant in it, and we live on a ranch. I was like, man I want a baby elephant! No, you can't have it. Like, what do you mean? I can't have a baby elephant? I mean, everybody has their own, their own little their own little trauma things like a little four year old, like, we got we got land, we got hay. Like, what do you mean? They can make fertilizer, you know? So whatever those traumas, occurred, and the behaviors associated with those things, those protection mechanisms came up. What those protection mechanisms do is they have the person survive. But that's all they have the person do is survive. They can't. They never really thrive in their life, because there's a whole bunch of not statements associated with the trauma, like life shouldn't be this way. I'm not good enough. I can't do this, and they surround that trauma with a whole bunch of not statements, and all those things affect their ability for creativity,

 

David Turetsky: 17:04

And I think the microcosm of work makes those enthusiasm, intuition, being able to author their life playfully. You know, most people will shut down, in a sense, like if anger shows up, if somebody's reactive, they go into fear with anger, or they will go up over the top of that anger. You know, you're not going to treat me this way, because my dad treated me this way, you know. So they have all those unconscious patterns, and those unconscious patterns, there's a direct correlation between that and emotional intelligence. Then that person will never, actually, never really thrive. They may survive to a greater level, but they'll also be living in debt. They'll also be living like their own conversations are creating a reality, not the not the reality, creating the conversation. things even more difficult, because there are certain things they can control and certain things they cannot control, or they believe they cannot control.

 

Unknown: 18:05

Yeah, the only thing somebody can control is their own body chemistry, and once you can manage that, that's the key. Like what you hear so far? Make sure you never miss a show by clicking subscribe. This podcast is made possible by Salary.com. Now back to the show!

 

David Turetsky: 18:24

So let's talk about it. Let's talk about how we shift the pattern and how you can get more control on this.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 18:30

Yep. So you know, you can go to therapy and talk about stuff for 20 years, right?

 

David Turetsky: 18:35

And spend a lot of money.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 18:36

And spend a lot of money, right? Yeah. So there's a, we have a thing called the Quantum Leap technique. And what it does is, instead of going and trying to fix all that stuff, what we do is, I pretend you already fixed it. Give yourself the feeling in your body, like all the stuff that happened in my childhood, all the issues I'm having at work, all those things, just like somehow or another, just pretend so you got it, and they made it, you got it, make it okay. But somehow or another, it all worked out. Don't try to do it mentally. No mental activity at all if you can do it. Just have your body go into a state of relaxation. If the body's in a state of fight or flight, all you're doing is running in your brainstem. Everything is fight or flight when the body has a level of tension. So you give yourself, you give your body a brand new level of ease. As you do so, the body chemistry begins to change. And once the body chemistry changes, thoughts change, and a person has access to a new reality, instantaneously.

 

David Turetsky: 19:37

So is that concept, I'm trying to be very pragmatic in my the way I phrase this question, but is that kind of the way in which we hope a vacation would be? Where we're living in different reality, we escape what we have today, and we go to what we think ideal might be if we had or if we had the best alternative of our life, we try and vacation in a place where our life would be better, simpler, more exciting, whatever. Is that what, what we what you're talking about?

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 20:11

But that's so fleeting, right? You have to go,

 

David Turetsky: 20:13

Yeah.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 20:14

Yeah. That's so fleeting. And then the issues are never getting addressed.

 

David Turetsky: 20:18

No.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 20:19

So what we're doing here is having, I mean, the way to do it is that, do it you've got a. If you've got something up that's really, really tough for you to solve, and maybe it's a repeating pattern. Well, there's four things that keep a repeating pattern of the place. Those four things are shame, blame, guilt and hate. So rather than trying to work on the repeating pattern, when there's all this glue holding it into place, first we got to address those four things. Then, as those four things get scraped off the jigsaw puzzle, you know, the glue that's holding the jigsaw puzzle, the puzzle starts to fall apart. And all we're all we're doing here is activating. There's glands in the body that produce chemicals that enhance imagination, intuition, wisdom, enthusiasm, in other words, problem solving abilities. So there's a way to access these chemicals in your body to have to be able to produce them on a command. In fact, that's the way the most important time to do it is when it's the toughest time for you to do these things, that's when it's most important for you to be able to do it. And then those patterns, you're able to become effective, effective, effective, effective. You become the solution in your company, if it's a if you're a leader or if you're a team member, if you're if you're choosing to move up in your company. You think people want people who complain in a level of leadership? No, you become the solution. And there's ways to produce breakthrough thinking in a matter of seconds. Einstein said, you have to change the thinking that created the issue to solve the issue. So you can't go into it with the same tension that you created it in. It has to be a full consciousness shift to bring a solution to it. Otherwise it's still going to be still in survival.

 

David Turetsky: 22:08

But then people have to be ready for that shift, right? They can't be in fight or flight mode while they're doing it. They can't go, Hey, I've got this rabid dog who's chasing me. Hmm, I really wish my life were different right now. Like they can't make that change consciously when they've got all that shame, blame guilt, and

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 22:30

There's a, there's a system for it. You know, it Dispenza and those guys like you sit down and meditate for a couple hours to get into this place, right? And then have a new, a new, renewing of the mind and all that stuff. But there's, there's is a way to live in it. There's a way in being able to live in a in a solution environment. And that's really our natural state. What keeps us out of that natural state is the lies we tell ourselves that produces the toxicity and the tension in our body. There's a book out called Language and a Pursuit of Happiness that he has, one for Language and Pursuit of Happiness and Language and Pursuit of Happiness for Business. I studied with, with one of the proteges of the guy who developed that system. And there's six different speech acts we can use as humans, assessments, assertions, declarations, requests, promises and offers. Most people, they speak assessments, in other words, opinions, as if they're facts. And if you ask them why, there's you know, you can say, hey, you know Dwight's, uh, Dwight's really rude. Yeah, that could be their opinion, right? And you could, and you could go, Why do you say Dwight's really? Well, he's just a jerk, and he's really inconsiderate and he's really whatever. I mean, just making up something. But none of those have any facticity to them, right? They're, all those things were all opinions as well. You know, you can say Dwight's really rude. You know, he walked into a room, grab a plate of food, threw it at David's face, he walked by another person, lifted up the leg, let out a little toot, you know.

 

David Turetsky: 24:08

That would be more like Dwight, actually.

 

Dwight Brown: 24:09

You mean, there's something wrong with doing that?

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 24:17

Nah, it's great, dude. Depends. Depends who you choose to be in life, right?

 

Dwight Brown: 24:22

Exactly.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 24:25

So when somebody's living in these ungrounded assessments, what that does, it produces this, this chemical cocktail on the body that had that ramps up the emotional charge with the person. If you listen to the news, that's what the news is designed to do, to ramp up emotions in people, and then all they do is they speak tagline with no with no facticity behind it and it they live in a in a hallucination of anxiety. But there's a way to break that chemical cocktail.

 

Dwight Brown: 24:56

Does it ultimately all come down to fear? Fear is in sort of that fight or flight idea I see the tiger and that tiger could eat me. And modern day is I see the tiger, but the tiger is in the zoo and behind a great big fence, but I'm still seeing the tiger and the tiger could eat me. Is it fear of what could happen, or is that not a component?

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 25:28

The fear is, life is happening to me. That's the fear. The truth is, life occurs for you. Whatever's happening on the inner shows up on the outer. Everything you know, if you listen to Henry Ford, if Henry Ford says, You believe you can't, you can't. If you believe you can, you can. Einstein said, Imagination is more important than knowledge. I just wanted to I remember reading the thing about Einstein. He said, if somebody gave him an hour to solve a problem and put a gun in his head, and we're gonna kill you after an hour, if you don't solve this issue, he said I would spend the first 50 minutes coming up with the correct question I'm to ask myself, and 10 minutes solving the issue, everything that we everything that we really achieve, that brings peace and ease into our life, is through an inside, inside remembrance. So even Tesla, I mean, Tesla talked about frequency, right? All these guys who did breakthrough results, they had a particular way of using language and thinking that produced it. It wasn't like their brain was bigger or any of that stuff, but they had a way of being able to language themselves and to be able to language the issue most people ask some really, really stupid questions, and they get and they get answers they hate. Why am I such a screw up? Why can't I do anything right? Why can't I solve this problem? And then they get bombarded with thoughts to add that answer that support the answer to that question. The question is, what's my life like at 100 times greater love? What's my heart life like at 100 times greater ease? And you give yourself the feeling of it first, and then you'll start to see the vision of it. So feelings are the gateways and memories. If you were, if I was to ask you guys about maybe a beautiful romantic encounter, you have a terrible romantic encounter you have, right? If you were able to feel the feelings of it, you know the weather, you know this, the lighting was this. Remember the smells, I remember the sounds, I remember, and you can go back into the memory of it and call great, great detail into it, right? Makes sense? And maybe even start to get maybe even your body will respond. You start to get a body response. All you're doing is is going into the memory of it, but you're still getting a physical response in the body, even though there's nobody else there, right? So there's a way to produce a brand new feeling, and feelings always access memories. So there's a way to produce a brand new feeling. And if it's a brand new feeling, the memory can't come from the past because it's a brand new feeling. So you're going to get a you're going to get a memory from your from your future, and you'll start to see a picture of what of what life is like at 100x love, or 100x success, or 100x greater level in your in your company. And then the way to to achieve this is you ask yourself, What characteristics do I have in this new life, how do the most important characteristics for you to be able to answer while you're in a state of ease is, how do I handle a kerfuffle when I'm when I'm 100 and I have 100x profitability, my my wealth is up 10x or 100x if an unexpected bill shows up, how do I handle that? Because it's not, it's always the reaction that's producing that's producing the result. The results don't produce a reaction. The reaction produces the result. In other words, if you yell at your wife, what results does that produce divorce? Right? Sure. So there's a way to to negate those react, reactionary responses, you know, what if? What if my my life, life look like now that my wife and I really, really love each other, now that we really, really get along, how do we handle how do we handle kerfuffles? How do we handle kerfuffles and with employees in our business? You ask yourself those questions. And when you can feel, you know, the tissues on stuff, when you can feel them deeply enough, you program your subconscious with those new actions, and it on then, and your subconscious will automatically do them. No, no thinking about it, because if you got to think about it, you're ready, you're already too late. It's different. I mean, really a different way of doing things. And this is how I got my the PhD thing, all was, was all on this. So people going, Holy crap, guy, you're onto something. This is, this is really a way, a different way of doing it. Rather than try to think positive thoughts, of thinking, don't think negative thoughts. I did that for 30s. Now, 20 something years. It was like herding cats.

 

Dwight Brown: 29:59

Yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 30:00

Absolutely. Hey, are you listening to this and thinking to yourself, Man, I wish I could talk to David about this. Well, you're in luck. We have a special offer for listeners of the HR Data Labs podcast, a free half hour call with me about any of the topics we cover on the podcast or whatever is on your mind. Go to salary.com/HRDLconsulting to schedule your free 30 minute call today. Well Dr. Mark, sorry, I tried in certain parts of my life to model what you're talking about. To not react right away with the visceral reaction and to take things a lot more differently than I would in the past. I'll give you an example. Huge Ranger fan, they lost their first game against Florida, and instead of getting really physically upset by the loss, which I have in the past, thrown a lot of things and a lot of televisions, and which has cost a lot of money. Instead, what I did was I said seven game series, it's okay, they can come back, and if they don't, and if they lose, it's okay, it's not going to change my life dramatically. Yes, I'll be happy if they win, but I can't get too high or too low. I can't experience that until the end result happens. And when it happens, what I'm going to try and do, what I'm going to try and model is, that's why I'm still here on this earth to see them win a Stanley Cup, and it'll be next year, or next year or next year. So I've tried in that little microcosm. And for those of you who know hockey and Ranger fans were mathematic about this stuff in that way, I'm trying to manifest that, and then I'm trying to use that as examples in other parts of my life to say, well, if I can do it for that, then I can do it for this. Because I guess my question to follow up. Is, is this a gestalt? Is this a it happens across all of our feelings, all of our woundings, all of our reactions? Or can we target it at certain things first, and be able to do what I'm trying to do and model my, my new emotional intelligence in hockey for everything else?

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 32:20

The system once, once it becomes it starts to come in and starts to reprogram the person. All areas of their life change simultaneously and exponentially. So somebody may come in with relationship issues or health issues or business issues. Well, they come in for a business issue. Well, next thing you know, the relationships are improving. Their health is improving. When I was a I remember back in the 70s, I was reading articles, and they said 90 something, 95% of all disease was caused by stress. Now, you don't see those articles like that anymore. And then the last order, the last time I saw it, they said 98% of all disease is caused by stress.

 

David Turetsky: 32:59

There's a lot more stress now!

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 33:00

Yeah, a lot more stress now so, but you and if you don't think that's by design, I mean, there's something going on to create customers. You know, there's, there's ways for us to live, there's ways for us to live in a way where we can be calm in the eye of the storm. You're going into a state of fight or flight, and in a state of in a state of tension, doesn't solve the issue. It makes it worse. So the person has once they begin to get this comparison, oh, this is what this produces. Oh, this is what this produces. Then they, most people, start getting into this stuff because the pain is so great, they can't take it anymore. But at some point in time, it starts to become a benefit. Once it becomes a benefit, that's when, like, the gas pedal really goes down. And when you were speaking, you were speaking like, I tried to do this, I'm doing something different, and all those things, but you're to for this to work, you have to speak with with specificity. Because of greater levels of specificity, you speak with the greater the level of emotions associated with with it. For this to work, you have to speak in such a way that you change the feeling in your body. If you're just doing it mentally. It's a struggle still, and you may say maybe you don't might, react as as greatly, but you still, you're still not happy and enthusiastic about life. Hey, honey. They will say, hey honey. No matter what, no matter whether my cap team wins this year or not, we're going to go out and celebrate the end of the series, you know. So you do something that's going to be that's going to produce peace, pleasure, you know, pleasure and peace together, and really replace it with something very specific. Wow, you know whether they win or lose, you know we, Hey, honey, we still win. And you talk about throwing stuff at a TV, I was at a playoff game once, watching a play off game at a friend's house party a long time ago, and the guy took out his gun and shot his TV.

 

David Turetsky: 35:07

Actually, Mark, that's the difference between a New York reaction and a Texas reaction. Actually, New York City reaction, they took multiple shots at the television.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 35:19

See you guys! When alcohol and guns come out. Look, like I love guns, I love alcohol, not the abuse of alcohol, love guns, but not at the same time, man, not at the same time.

 

Dwight Brown: 35:30

Yeah, those two don't mix.

 

David Turetsky: 35:32

No, no.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 35:35

It was one of the big box TVs. You know, remember the big?

 

Dwight Brown: 35:38

Oh yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 35:39

Oh yeah. That's even more dangerous too, because of the fumes that might come out of the tubes.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 35:45

Oh, yeah!

 

Dwight Brown: 35:46

That's right!

 

David Turetsky: 35:47

yeah, yeah,

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 35:48

12 gauge, he took a 12 gauge to his TV.

 

David Turetsky: 35:50

A 12 gauge?!

 

Dwight Brown: 35:53

Hey if you're going to do it, do it right!

 

David Turetsky: 35:55

Yeah exactly!I know that TV's not, not around anymore.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 35:59

It was somebody dropping a pass.

 

Dwight Brown: 36:03

To hell with the 22, give me the shotgun to take out the TV!

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 36:07

Yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 36:07

Well, the 22 at least, will be accurate. I think the shotgun, it's, it's everywhere!

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 36:12

It's everywhere!

 

David Turetsky: 36:13

Um, and talk about woundings, that would, a shotgun probably,

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 36:19

Different kind of woundings.

 

David Turetsky: 36:20

But, but but I think that's kind of the problem, though, is that that emotional reaction we get from that, that sports whatever dropping the ball or whatever, that's that that's a perfect manifestation about like things at work. Like, I drop a ball at work, you know, where somebody drops the ball to work, the first thing we do is we get angry or we get upset about it, instead of trying to help the person.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 36:46

Yeah, you ever watch a Shark Tank?

 

David Turetsky: 36:48

Yes!

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 36:49

You ever do that? She remember how I say her last name? Blonde hair. Real short. Blonde hair. Lady, Barbara, something, right? I saw her an interview with her, and she she started her real estate company with $1,000 loan. And this was when I saw this interview. It was a while back, and her company was worth over a billion and a half at that time. And they were asking her, what had her become so successful? I was like, I gotta hear this, you know? And she goes, Well, she go, you know, we don't have the best we don't have the best real estate agents. We don't have the best client list. But she goes, all of our agents have one thing in common. I was like, Holy crap. What is this? She goes, you know, in real estate, you win some, you lose some. She goes, all of our agents, if they lose a deal, they immediately get back up and they get back in the game. There's no delay from they don't go back and go to lick their wounds or go to the bar, drink them, drink them off. They get back up to get back in the game. Hey, lost one. Let's go back in the game, you know. So that particular mindset or those particular behavior patterns is let's see how to say that, whatever the reactionary patterns are, yeah, they have us. They have a trauma surrounding them, but they become, at some point in time, they become a habitual pattern, right?

 

David Turetsky: 38:05

Absolutely.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 38:06

So once the trauma begins to be shifted, now, if they still doing it, that's just, that's just a habit. So all you do is create, create a different habit, and you can and what, really, what a habit is, is the subconscious is doing all the behaviors for you, even to the like, you don't have to think about it anymore. And that's what, that's the big deal to do it, you know, like, there's a there's conscious unconsciousness, right? We don't know. And then there's a uncon or the unconscious, unconscious, conscious unconsciousness, conscious consciousness, and then unconscious consciousness. So as you move up in scale, right? I'll do it again. Unconscious, unconsciousness.

 

David Turetsky: 38:47

I'm trying to, yeah,

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 38:49

Unconscious, unconsciousness. Like, I don't even know what's going on here, man, like, right? And that conscious, conscious, conscious unconsciousness, like, you start to see that you're unconscious in certain areas of life. You go, Hey, there's some behaviors I could do, like, you're noticed about, about throwing things at the TV, like, Oh, my God. Unconscious pattern. What do I choose? To consciously change it? So then you become conscious, consciousness where you're you're actively, actively taking those things and create a new behavior in that moment. Right? Then unconscious consciousness is where those, those patterns have been in you, and this becomes your normal, your normal reaction. So the key to get to that unconscious consciousness to greater and greater and greater levels is the key to really being able to go past your glass ceilings and continue to improve your thriving again and again. So there's systems to be able to do it. We can reprogram a subconscious in minutes or seconds, instead of me, if you can reprogram your subconscious in minutes or seconds, would that be, would that'd be worth it to you?

 

David Turetsky: 39:52

Absolutely!

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 39:53

Yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 39:54

I mean, it would improve our, it would improve not just our personal lives, but our work lives, because then people would want to work with us.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 40:01

Yeah!

 

David Turetsky: 40:02

To go back to what Dwight was saying about fear, I think that the problem that we get into again in my life, the problem I get into, I'll just speak, I won't speak in generalities, is I fear so much about what might happen that it definitely prevents me from making that right decision consciously, and so the unconscious decision to make that right choice consciously hadn't really approached yet, because I hadn't been able to allow it to.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 40:31

What I found what people fear the most is giving up their excuses. That's what people give up they fear. Give up their identity. You know, who would you be if you didn't have that fear? Who would you be if you didn't have that story and that repetitive story again and again and again? And a lot of people talk about people have a fear of failure. What I found out is people have a fear of success.

 

David Turetsky: 40:56

Absolutely.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 40:57

And what I mean by that is they know they're going to have to change their life to become successful, and they fear the change that it takes to be successful. You know, they're living in failure. So it's not like they're terrified of failure. They're living in failure. They're, they're, they're going from paycheck to paycheck, or whatever, whatever, you know, all that stuff. So they're living, if they're living, a life of failure already, and to go, like, how you like to go to success require me to change. I'm not sure if I want to change that much. The person has to be able to see it, taste it, smell it, and then they'll go and trust they then start to take action, and then the things start to happen for them. So it's got to, you got to get a person into a whole new, whole new body chemistry to be able to create these shifts. And if there's something that's really traumatic for the past, that's holding on, that's creating a that's holding a space, you know that you got to find those things and not just forgive it. Where the power really comes from, is finding the blessing in it and realizing that that was an integral part of your growth. You got to be able to get the lesson on it.

 

David Turetsky: 42:02

And embrace it.

 

Dwight Brown: 42:12

So much swimming in my head right now!

 

David Turetsky: 42:15

And I think that gives us an opportunity to kind of say this might be a good time for people to stop and reflect on that, because I think especially that last piece means so much and would mean so much to a lot of people, that I think it's probably a good place to end, because I don't want to remove that focus, because that was a really kind of brilliant way of being able to say to people, you need to look back, find those things and embrace them and challenge them and feel how that moves you forward, right?

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 42:53

Yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 42:54

Dr Scherer, Mark, thank you so much. That was awesome.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 42:58

You're welcome guys. Thank you for having me on the show. Really pleasure meeting you guys. Y'all have a great chemistry together. BFFs.

 

Dwight Brown: 43:05

BFF, BSS, yes, whichever one you want to use.

 

David Turetsky: 43:10

And Mark, we're going to have to have you back on because one of the things I really want to explore in the future is woundings in the construct of work.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 43:18

Yeah.

 

David Turetsky: 43:18

And, and how to, how actually, very specifically, probably how to deal with them, and in the context of probably workplace violence, or even in the construct of meetings that go south, I think that would be probably pretty fascinating to a lot of people.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 43:34

Yeah. Can I make a quick comment about that?

 

David Turetsky: 43:37

Of course you can!

 

Dwight Brown: 43:38

Yeah, yeah.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 43:39

So some woundings become the person's success method, but those woundings will only get the person to a certain level of success, you know. Like, you know, I'm not gonna let somebody take advantage of me or whatever. Like they can, I'll give you a real quick example. I worked with a company they were doing 25 to 35 million a year in sales, and doing pretty, doing pretty well. And they're trying to, they're attempting to double, double their their revenues. Hired a couple business coaches to do so. They were still, they were still stuck at that, at that rate, and they had a lot of anger in them from childhood stuff. So anger propelled them to become that level of success. Yeah, I'm gonna do this, prove my dad or whatever, right?

 

David Turetsky: 44:22

Right.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 44:22

That's all that anger would allow them to do. So when I worked with them, theyhey went from 35 million to 350 million in a year.

 

David Turetsky: 44:31

Wow.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 44:32

And now they've been, now they're hitting, they're hitting a billion dollars at three within three years in a service industry. And that's crazy growth, guys.

 

David Turetsky: 44:40

Yeah.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 44:41

So, you know, the those wounds that the person use it also can become their success method. And once, when they start getting success from it, then they tie those things together, and that gets even tougher for them to create that shift. So it takes awareness, and it takes a lot of courage to take to look, to look at yourself at thathis level.

 

David Turetsky: 45:01

And if people need to get over that, they're going to call you

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 45:05

Awesome.

 

David Turetsky: 45:07

Again. Thank you so much.

 

Mark Scherer, PhD: 45:08

You're welcome.

 

David Turetsky: 45:09

And Dwight, thank you.

 

Dwight Brown: 45:10

Thank you. A lot to think about here,

 

David Turetsky: 45:13

And thank you all for listening. Take care and stay safe.

 

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