Emotional intelligence is going to be the most important skill of the 21st century.

If I were at the start of my journey, these are the 8 books I would read first: Disclaimer:

All these books hold critical information. I have benefitted greatly from all of them. At the same time, I don't fully subscribe to any of them.

Don't let someone else tell you your truth. Always run experiments + test it for yourself.

I've been on my journey of self-discovery for 30+ years.

This is a list of 21 highly psychoactive questions I've collected.

Read this if you're into obliterating yourself: DISCLAIMER:

If you skim these without sitting with them, nothing will happen.

If you slow down and let each question simmer, you will uncover deep shit. Even better, open your journal.

Fear is not something to conquer, it’s actually a gold mine of deep intelligence.

Inside your fear is what you’ve been looking for your entire life: [Thread] I make a distinction between 2 kinds of fear:

→ Visceral fear: walking a slackline over a 500-foot cliff
→ Abstract fear: missing a text, losing social standing, not being liked

And abstract fears are where the gold is (and usually the ones we avoid most)

I've seen this pattern in several of my CEO clients:

They feel superior as a way to protect themselves. But in actuality, they're signaling their shame and shutting down their joy.

What I show them to break the pattern: 1. Superiority and deep joy are fundamentally incompatible

Try to name a single person who feels superior that is also deeply joyful.

You won’t find them.

Because superiority traps you in something called "Comparative Mind"↓

The anger you repress doesn't just disappear.

It turns inward and slowly destroys you from the inside...disguised as depression, self-criticism, or feeling completely stuck in life.

5 signs your unexpressed anger is eating you alive: 1. Self-critical thoughts

When anger isn’t allowed outward, it turns inward. You start attacking yourself:

- Self-judgments
- Harsh internal commentary
- Picking apart every mistake

It's redirected rage that you don't feel safe to express outwards.
And the worst part?

Addiction, anxiety and depression are NOT problems. They're symptoms.

The real culprits behind 95% of your suffering:

1. The Voice in Your Head
2. Disconnection
3. Repressed Emotions

How to solve them (without force): Most people are focused on symptoms. We think our issues come from:

- Using our phones too much
- The state of the economy
- Not waking up early enough
- Not being productive enough

These may contribute, but they're not what's actually driving your suffering...

A question I often get asked is how I raised my 2 daughters. People who meet them are always impressed and want to know our techniques.

Answer: My wife and I never dealt punishment.
And if we ever shamed them, we apologized immediately.

How we parented instead ↓ 1/ Non-punishment

Punishment doesn't teach accountability.
It teaches your kids:

1. That you punish yourself to get things done
2. That what you say to do has to be forced
3. That they will have to punish themselves to get things done
4. That they aren't inherently good.

The emotions you most resist are the ones that will set you free.

Feeling your fear → Dissolves chronic anxiety
Feeling your sadness → Unlocks vitality
Feeling your anger → Transforms depression

Here's a breakdown of what I teach my CEO clients about emotions: This thread will go even deeper on emotional clarity than I have before.

It's part of what I teach when I work with some of the world's top founders and their leadership teams ↓

https://twitter.com/1605/status/1902751101134438471

I've watched billionaires cry in my office and feel twice as much freedom an hour later.

CEOs who run 1000-person companies completely fall apart when they finally let themselves feel what they've been avoiding for decades

Here's what I teach them about emotions: 1. Don't believe your emotions

Your emotions control you when you believe the stories they tell.

- Anger says you've been disrespected, so you lash out/burn bridges.
- Grief says you'll never feel whole again, so you shut down/isolate.

Use the Actor Method instead↓

A consistent pattern I notice in all hyper-successful people: The emotion they're trying hardest not to feel is exactly what they're recreating.

Avoid failure → Play it safe → Feel like a failure

I call this the Golden Algorithm. Here's how it works: 1. Name an emotion you avoid
2. List the ways you try to avoid it
3. Notice that every way you try to avoid it, you recreate it.

Avoid failure → Don’t try → Guaranteed failure
Avoid conflict → People-please → Constant inner conflict

When I work with people navigating depression, here is the common pattern: They’re constantly beating themselves up.

“I should go outside.”
“I should work harder.”
“I shouldn't be depressed.”

"Shoulds" are anger directed inwards at yourself, which is why ...

🧵 Instead of pushing through or adding more discipline, we take a different route.

We go through a process of releasing the anger they've been directing at themselves and turning it outwards in a safe, contained environment.

A few years ago, I was working with the founder of a 200-person company who was badly burned out.

He'd checked all the boxes he thought he needed to be happy.
He'd built a respectable business.

Yet everyday, he still found himself waking up unhappy.

↓ When I asked him what would happen if he redesigned his work so he actually enjoyed it, he laughed.

Then he paused.

Then he realized: The things he hated doing were the ones most out of alignment with who he was — and what the company truly stood for.

Over the last 10 years, I've had the privilege of privately coaching leaders of companies like OpenAI, Apple, Alphabet, and YouTube, among others.

My job is to help them break through limitations and unlock their potential.

Here's how it works: The key to transformation isn't effort, it's attention.

I see so many high-functioning, brilliant people stay stuck, scattered, or disconnected from their joy and capacity...

A core reason is they believe they need to improve themselves or manage themselves better to succeed.

The problem with getting good at managing your life is that you end up with a life that has to be managed.

Imagine you are on a boat and are going down a river.

Management is when you are fighting against the river, trying to tame the water and battling against the current. You’re trying to get reality to conform to your will and assure a specific outcome.

Then, there’s another way to be with the river - listening deeply to it and riding with its natural ebbs and flows.

You might paddle every once in a while, but

How to find the emotions you avoid

(4 ways to find your biggest emotional blind spots)

🧵 1/ Judgements

Every time you judge somebody or yourself, there’s an emotional experience you don’t want to have that you can find.

- Judging others for showing off often means you’re struggling with a desire to be seen
- Judging others as "lazy" hides your own guilt around rest

F&%k getting leaders to meditate.

I am all about getting meditators to lead.

Not because of some moralistic imperative, but because I’ve seen how leadership creates growth in many ways meditation misses.

🧵 How leadership is one of the most powerful self-discovery tools: 1/ Leadership requires continuous reflection

Not in a quiet room, not on a peaceful cushion, but in the midst of chaos, decisions, and real stakes.

This isn't theoretical growth. It's growth by fire.

How to be more emotionally intelligent (without trying so hard)

🧵 for @threadapalooza 1. If you’re scared of feeling an emotion, you’re already in it.