How embracing your emotions will accelerate your career | Joe Hudson (executive coach, Art of Accomplishment)

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Joe Hudson is one of the most sought-after executive coaches in Silicon Valley. He is the founder of Art of Accomplishment, a transformational coaching program that has helped tens of thousands of people, including many tech executives and founders from companies like Apple, OpenAI, and Google. His unique method of transformation comes from over 25 years of exploring neurological, psychological, and spiritual traditions, tested against real-world challenges. In our conversation, Joe shares:

• Why the critical voice in your head is always wrong, and how to change your relationship with that voice

• Why authenticity trumps self-improvement

• The importance of embracing all of your emotions

• How to create more enjoyable and effective meetings

• The power of gratitude in transforming your life

• Practical experiments for personal growth

• Much more

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Apply for Joe’s Connection Course:

Thousands of students have taken Joe’s most popular experience, the Connection Course. Unlike most online courses, there is no reading, lectures, or written homework. It is a three-week experiential deep dive where you will apply your learnings to real-life problems—how to make your team more productive, communicate more effectively, and resolve conflicts with ease. Apply here and use the code LENNY for $300 off your enrollment: view.life/lenny.

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Listen now on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube.

Some takeaways:

1. The critical voice in your head is always wrong. Instead of trying to eliminate it, change how you relate to it. For example, try acknowledging the fear (“I see you’re scared, but I’ve got this”), engaging with humor, or simply dismissing it. The goal is to understand how different responses affect your experience and to manage the voice more effectively.

2. Introduce a practice in team meetings where you ask, “What are you scared to say?” This encourages open communication and helps address underlying issues that could hinder team performance.

3. To find the best opportunities for change in a company, scrutinize the mechanics of its meetings and decisions. These are the atomic unit of all companies, so they offer great leverage for changing them. On the meeting front, you can ask for star ratings out of five for different meetings and then dig into the problems causing low scores. On the decision front, you can seek out which decision-making processes frustrated people and dig into the details of those frustrations. Improving these issues is synonymous with improving the company.

4. Instead of just acknowledging emotions passively, try to actively welcome them. Approach each emotion with a sense of curiosity and acceptance. You can integrate practices that facilitate emotional fluidity into your daily life. This might include activities like expressive writing, art, or movement exercises that help you explore and express your emotions in a constructive way.

5. “Whatever emotion you’re trying to avoid, you are inviting into your life in exactly the way that you’re trying to avoid it.” For example, consider someone who wants to avoid the out-of-control feeling associated with conflict, by resisting tense conversations. By not having discussions that resolve issues, they create an environment where conflict inevitably boils up in ugly ways, and they lose control of the situation—they get more of the exact feeling they were trying to avoid.

6. Dedicate at least seven minutes each day to expressing gratitude with another person. Focus on genuinely feeling the gratitude, rather than just listing things you’re thankful for. This practice should involve back-and-forth exchanges where you both savor the feeling of gratitude.

Where to find Joe Hudson:

• X: https://x.com/FU_joehudson

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-hudson/

• Website: https://www.artofaccomplishment.com/

• Podcast: https://www.artofaccomplishment.com/podcast

• Linktree: https://linktr.ee/theartofaccomplishment

In this episode, we cover:

(00:00) Joe’s background

(02:31) The critical voice in your head

(06:39) Changing your relationship with the critical voice

(13:19) Understanding and embracing emotions

(19:52) The importance of emotional fluidity

(24:40) Questioning assumptions and self-perception

(30:25) The consequences of avoiding emotions

(36:57) Experimenting with self-improvement

(39:42) Understanding efficiency and enjoyment

(43:17) The power of enjoyment in daily tasks

(45:03) Innate enjoyment vs. learned enjoyment

(46:31) Authenticity vs. self-improvement

(50:01) Embracing emotional experiences

(55:49) How understanding your emotions helps you make better decisions

(01:02:53) Creating effective teams and meetings

(01:10:40) Gratitude practice for personal growth

(01:15:36) Conclusion and final thoughts

Referenced:

• Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain: https://www.amazon.com/Descartes-Error-Emotion-Reason-Human/dp/014303622X/

• Joe’s quote about joy: https://x.com/FU_joehudson/status/1756837774743790030

• “Emotional Inquiry”: https://www.artofaccomplishment.com/podcast/emotional-inquiry

• Inside Out 2: https://movies.disney.com/inside-out-2

• “Question the Assumption”: https://www.artofaccomplishment.com/podcast/question-the-assumption

• Bodega Bay: https://www.bodegabay.com/

• Elon Musk reveals the interview question he asks every candidate to instantly spot a liar: https://www.good.is/elon-musk-reveals-the-one-job-interview-question-he-asks-every-candidate-to-instantly-spot-a-liar

• Great Decisions course: https://www.artofaccomplishment.com/course/great-decisions-course

• HBR Analytic Services: https://hbr.org/hbr-analytic-services

• Connection Course: https://www.artofaccomplishment.com/course/the-connection-course

Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com.

Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.