Seven Jacobs
I'm a Communication and Confidence coach, and the only Emotional Fitness & Self‑Discovery Practitioner. This newsletter helps you make personal power, philosophy, and emotions practical. I'd love to have you here!
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Hey Hello Reader! I've been talking about something called "Emotional Fitness" a lot recently. But someone asked me today what it is. And because next week I'm bringing together 50 scaling entrepreneurs, directors, senior managers, and People Professionals to talk about it, I figured you should know about it. But first, I want to paint you a picture. The other night, I was sat on an intimate stage in front of a microphone, with a friend playing a guitar while I told a story. Let me paraphrase it for you: There were once two brothers who split the estate they inherited from their father, splitting everything 50/50. One day, they came across something they missed: a small wooden box with 2 rings in it.
One ring was golden, encrusted with jewels, and looked very very valuable. The other was a basic silver ring, not worth much.
The older brother convinced the younger brother to accept the basic silver ring. And content with having his more expensive ring, he continued on his days, weeks, and months. The younger brother, with his silver ring, at one point thought, “Our father kept these in the same place - why keep something of so little value with something of such high value?”
So he looked closer at the little silver ring, and noticed on the inside, an engraving. The engraving read: “This too shall pass.”
And knowing this lesson was as important as gold and jewels, the younger brother took it to heart. The older brother, despite his extra wealth, soon became upset. The weather changed, he lost his crops, and so he made less money. Cattle died, and other things went wrong. He thought it would be forever.
But the younger son understood: this too shall pass. So the bad weather didn’t affect him. He remained happy.
And when spring came, the older brother became happy - for a moment. But then became fearful, for soon the winter would come again and wipe out the new crops, and his income. But the younger brother remained happy, knowing to enjoy this while it lasted.
Always remember, whatever you’re going through: “This too shall pass.”
The spirit of "this too shall pass", to me, is a combination of resilience and gratitude. And that is a core part of "Emotional Fitness", which I think of like the lesser known sister of Mental Fitness. As I mentioned when discussing authenticity the other day, each of our emotions carries a vibration which does something to our minds and bodies. Something that other people easily pick up on. Emotional fitness is about understanding how your emotional state effects others, and how to catch it and choose a more useful one that helps you create the reality you really want to see more of. In the workplace, that means, for example:
But when people can access more of a creation state, the workplace has more room for:
This is not about pretending work should feel lovely all the time. It is about recognising that the emotional state people are in affects the quality of their thinking, communication, and behaviour, and that fear-heavy cultures usually make good work harder rather than easier. Because work is also shaped by friendship, excitement, passion, energy, gratitude, awe, and curiosity, and those more resourceful emotional states help people connect, learn, and collaborate better. Emotional fitness helps people handle the uncomfortable emotions without getting stuck in them, while also making it easier to access the states that support resilience, agility, creativity, and teamworking. So how do you improve your emotional fitness? More than just "feeling good", it's about practices that raise the level you're operating on emotionally, able to choose, proactively, the emotions you want more of, and direct them to help yourself and your team in work environments. It starts mainly by catching yourself, then learning how to adopt the most useful emotional state that the situation calls for. And if you're in London, and think this is something you and your team need, then you don't want to miss my next full workshop on this. It's aimed mainly at professionals who leader, manage, or influence others. Next week, on July 8th at Barclays in central London, in a room of 50 founders with teams, HR and People Professionals, Managers, and more, we'll be learning how to start this journey. And I'd love for you to join me while ticket are still available. You can apply here. But either way, it starts with you. When you're ready to make your emotions the forefront of your success, instead of shaming or ignoring them, you know you're on the right track. Excited to see your progress! - Seven |
Seven Jacobs
I'm a Communication and Confidence coach, and the only Emotional Fitness & Self‑Discovery Practitioner. This newsletter helps you make personal power, philosophy, and emotions practical. I'd love to have you here!