How to nurture your “emotional agility” (with Susan David)
How to Be a Better Human
TED
4.1 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 6 December 2021
⏱️ 28 minutes
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Summary
Whether you’re the kind of person who “gets in their feels” or you’re more the type to sweep things under the rug, all humans experience emotions. And the way we tend to those emotions directly affects the way we see our lives, says today’s guest, Susan David. She is a psychologist and author of the book “Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life” (Avery, 2016). In today’s episode, Susan explains how “emotional agility”--a process that enables us to navigate life's twists and turns--, powers self-acceptance, and gives tips on how to cultivate our agility to lead more meaningful, successful lives. You can hear more from Susan on her TED Audio Collective podcast “Checking In with Susan David” streaming wherever you are listening to this. To learn more about "How to Be a Better Human," host Chris Duffy, or find footnotes and additional resources, please visit: go.ted.com/betterhuman
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Ted Audio Collective. |
| 0:02.0 | Audio Collective. |
| 0:04.0 | You're listening to How to Bea Better Human. |
| 0:08.0 | I am your host Chris Duffy. I like to think that I am a pretty |
| 0:15.5 | emotional person right I'm certainly not one of those guys that's always all stoic |
| 0:19.7 | all stiff upper lip right the only acceptable place to display emotions is when I'm watching football. |
| 0:24.6 | That is certainly not me. That is not me at all. But that does mean that sometimes I can get |
| 0:31.1 | stuck in my feelings. |
| 0:33.0 | Or I can overemphasize positive thinking, |
| 0:35.6 | always looking for a silver lining when maybe there is not a silver lining there. |
| 0:39.5 | I sometimes wonder if I would be the person on the deck of the Titanic |
| 0:42.3 | looking around and going, |
| 0:43.2 | well on the bright side we are getting to experience history firsthand. |
| 0:47.2 | And that's not ideal. I think that's probably not ideal. |
| 0:51.6 | That's why I am so excited about today's guest, |
| 0:54.4 | psychologist Susan David. For years she has been teaching people that the way that we |
| 1:00.0 | navigate our internal worlds, our everyday thoughts, our emotions, our self-stories, that the way that |
| 1:05.7 | we navigate those, it determines our success in life. |
| 1:09.4 | I loved her book, Emotional Agility, Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and |
| 1:13.2 | thrive in work in life. And I am so excited for you to hear our |
| 1:17.2 | conversation that we have on the show today. Here's Susan David. |
| 1:20.7 | Hi, I'm Susan David. I'm a psychologist and I'm the author of the book Emotional Agility. |
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