This practical piece of advise comes from Vanessa Van Edwards' book, Captivate. The NUT formula was designed to help us relate with emotional people, because there is a very predictable and proven process to get people through the emotion. The reason it is so necessary is because we often aren’t patient enough with our empathy, jumping to conclusions too quickly without giving someone the time they need to go through the steps of processing.

That’s exactly what the NUT formula is. It’s a way to help guide people through their emotional processing. N stands for Naming, U stands for Understanding, and T stands for transition. To improve our comprehension, let’s use the example of someone who was just broken up with as our reference.

Naming. The first step is to acknowledge the emotion. By getting someone to state the emotion they are feeling, they gain clarity and validity on what exactly they are feeling. It is then our responsibility to reinforce that understanding by restating that emotion, and other related emotions that could be underlying to the one they are feeling. "I’m so sorry he broke up with you, that must be really hard. I’m sure you’re feeling sad and frustrated”.

It’s at that point we can move on to the Understanding. We still stay out of it, not really offering any input of our own, it’s all about helping them to understand why they feel that way. We, then, can validate that understanding, stating how it is also rational to us and help them find confidence in their processing. “Your emotions makes sense, you were really invested in that relationship and I see how difficult it would be to deal with this.

Transition. Get their mind on something else, distract them, or provide a new perspective. We can’t do this until they have come to terms with the emotion, which is why Naming and Understanding is so crucial. “It’s their loss, you’re such a catch. But this probably all means that it just wasn’t right for you, let’s grab some ice cream so you can have some me time”.

I wanted to share a metaphor that my mom sent to me.
You are holding a cup of coffee when someone comes along and bumps into you or shakes your arm, making you spill your coffee everywhere.

Why did you spill the coffee? 

"Because someone bumped into me!!!"

Wrong answer.

You spilled the coffee because there was coffee in your cup. 

Had there been tea in the cup, you would have spilled tea.

Therefore, when life comes along and shakes you, whatever is inside you will come out. It's easy to fake it, until you get rattled.

So we have to ask ourselves,“what's in my cup?".

When life gets tough, what spills over?

Joy, gratefulness, peace and humility? 

Anger, bitterness, harsh words and reactions? 

Life provides the cup, you choose how to fill it. 

Now, let me ask you this. What do you fill your cup with? In my opinion, it’s the choices you make every single day that mold into each other to create your reality. If you want positivity, you need to fill your cup with gratitude, joy, authentic connection, and humility. In order to acquire those things you need to intentionally expose yourself to them through affirmations, relationships, and experiences. You’d be surprised how nice a warm cup filled with all the right goodies in it would feel. It’s in your power to fill your cup.

Our guest is Gavin Dantez, and Gavin is a guy who understands the human mind in great detail. He has identified ways for us to become more limitless when it comes to our mental capacity, and has developed a process around it. Central to this process is understanding the hierarchy of information, and how learning at different points in the process require different complementary actions.

I know that might sound like a lot, so let me quickly break it down. We process information at different levels of comprehension. It starts at data, the lowest, which come together to create bits of information. Those bits of information are organized into resources, or knowledge. Then you must test that knowledge for yourself to gain a practical understanding of its utility, and last combine understandings from different people to have well-rounded wisdom.

Do you want to do something that will change your life overnight?

It’s as simple as saying thank you. While it’s short, thank you is one of the most powerful expressions in the world. It’s a positive acknowledgment for a benefit received. The benefit can take many forms, a favor someone does for you, a hard lesson learned, a decision you make that you know is for the best. There are happenings everywhere in our life that deserve acknowledgment for the influence they are having in our development.

But, the game changer is a habit practiced by a mentor of mine, David Meltzer. When David wakes up, the first thing he does in the morning is he says thank you. He says thank you for the opportunity to have another day, for the past experiences that led him to today, and for the potential of what’s to come. Then again, right before he puts his head down at night, he says thank you for everything that happened that day, the joy it brought him, the growth he experienced, and the progress he has made. It’s a grounding practice rooted in gratitude and humility. By saying thank you, David chooses to take no credit for the events that transpired, further asserting his faith in the process and growing deeper into his practice. 

Kindness is contagious. Our physiological response to kindness is a cascade of neurotransmitters that lifts mood, provides energy, relieves anxiety, and creates depression. Interestingly enough, it induces the same effect in the recipient, who with that boost, is more likely to go on and continue to spread kindness.

Kindness is easy. We have the wrong idea that random acts of kindness are meant to be elaborate and complex. The reason they are “random” is because they aren’t premeditated. They are a response to how you’re feeling in the moment and what you can offer to someone who looks like they could use it. Last week, a friend of mine stepped in dog poop, and I took her shoe to the bathroom to clean it myself. There’s no way I could have predicted that!

Lastly, it connects our heart and our mind. For those of us who are heart centered, we acknowledge that we are responsive to the energy and emotions of those around us. By taking the internal feelings our heart desires and putting them in an external, shared environment through acts of kindness, our logical mind feels validated in the logic witnessed in the manifestation of the internal state. 

Remember that these are acts of kindness, which means it’s important to take action. A random act of kindness goes infinitely further than a random thought of kindness. And it doesn’t need to be for a stranger! There are many people in your life who are more than deserving of your kindness. 

Now, how do we do it? It’s about being mindful of the opportunity. You can place your body in a state where it is primed to notice the ways you can be kind. This means smile often, stand tall, and be kind to yourself, as it will attract more of the same.

Our perspective may be limited. Our perspective has been created over years of experiences, rationalizations, feedback and response. It truly is beautiful how we see the world from our own lens, because it means we offer something unique to ourselves. But, we must be honest and recognize that it presents limitations. While I often talk about the positive side of perspective, I am going to talk about the negative side:

You are too close to see the truth.

We all have our default perspective and way of processing the environment around us. Whether we are approaching a challenge, we rely on our default scripts that have done us good in the past. But, as we gain more experience and navigate deeper into the issue something odd happens. We know too much to make a truly informed decision.

The decisions we make are just trade-offs. What are the consequences for the reward? When we know too much, we are hyper-focused on the small details, that mean a lot to us because they are now in our awareness, often prioritizing those micro things over the more important macro consequences.

This is why hearing others’ opinions is so important, both personally and professionally. It is through the fresh eyes of others where we can see the bigger picture that we usually cannot. I have had some really good conversations with people who have known more of the truth by knowing less, simply because they aren’t being distracted by the small details.  

This lovely quote is actually in the form of a question, “Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”

Let’s first look at the state of culture. We are encouraged to conform and do what makes conventional sense in order to abide by general societal norms. Of course there are situations where this is appropriate. For instance, making sure not to behave in a way that jeopardizes someone else’s safety or ability to find joy. What about those times when that is not the case?

Many of the limits we place on ourselves are self-imposed, which often comes out of fear. Fear that challenging the norm will create problems for yourself or others. Fear that others will judge you for being different. Fear that you expressing yourself will do more harm than good. Fortunately, the results of these self-imposed fears are often misguided assumptions, overestimating the severity and consequences of your actions. You can overcome this by gaining self-awareness.

Now let’s look at the alternative. It takes something different to do something different. If you abide by all conventions then you can expect conventional results. We both know that’s not you, and lies within you to grow beyond average.

It literally is you! The uniqueness you offer, the experiences you’ve acquired, and your perspective of the world is beyond average. You offer something no one else can. When you allow yourself to express that, you can generate outcomes no one else is capable of. 

If you dream big and have aspirations to do something great, you can’t fit in, because greatness is never average. We were each born to stand out, and that’s something worth celebrating.

Our guest was Sarah Speers, who is a woman at the forefront of eating disorder advocacy and treatment. We often have awareness of things that we know we should or shouldn’t be doing, and we come up with rationalization strategies to justify our behavior. In the interview, Sarah reflected on a very common rationalization, “I’ll start tomorrow".

While Sarahs’ example is specific to her relationship with disordered eating, at the end she broadens it and explains how it applies more generally to making healthier choices. I mean think about it, haven’t we all told ourselves “I’ll start tomorrow” at some point? And then we find a way to justify our way out of doing it, or into giving in to the urge one last time. It could be food, exercise, porn, video games, alcohol, you name it! But knowing what we know now, that our brain has this rationalization strategy, we can be more aware of the times it’s prevalent in our lives.

When it comes down to it, all of us just want to be loved. It’s in Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and it’s something that is important to each and everyone of us. What’s interesting is, when we think about love, we think about receiving but we don’t think about giving it. And the thing is, it’s just as important.

A perfect example of this is an event I went to a few months ago that recently became top of mind again. I’ve gotten into a workout group called November project, and they’re a very supportive and fun-loving group, so they hosted a cheering section at a 10k to root their friends on in the race! I decided to go and support, see some friends, why not? And I’m so glad I did. It was very different experience than I expected because, there were 10 people we were there to specifically cheer for, but continued on to support thousands more who were participating. 

And since we were there, we poured our heart and soul out for each and every person that passed us, complete strangers, rooting them on, just because.

It was powerful to look someone in the eye, say something encouraging, and see their response. You could see their spirit lift and mentality shift all because they felt supported. It was also powerful to serve someone while expecting absolutely nothing in return. The feeling of taking a complete position of service was really grounding.

And that brings us back to the first point I made. When it comes to thinking about love, we default to receiving love and not really giving love. But what happens is, when you give love, it ends up serving you in the way that you feel validated by serving others.

Give love for no reason. Wish someone a good day, give out a high five, shoot someone a smile. What this does is it creates ripples in this world that invites more goodness, returning back to you stronger, and helping you to perpetuate it.