Welcome to What Would Amber Do with your host, Amber Howard. Each week, Amber dances in conversation with inspirational leaders out to make a difference for what matters most to people. She brings you incredible guests who share their real life experiences of being a leader and what it looks like to live a truly created life of service to others. And now, here is your host.

Welcome back, everyone. Welcome back to What Would Amber Do? I am very excited and overjoyed to have back on the show this week Corey Guy Jonas. I hope I pronounce that every time I say your last name, I'm like, did I get it right? Anyway, Corey was a guest on the show, Lord, I think in season two. At the time, Corey was doing really incredible rites of passage work with young men, teaching them, taking them into the Outback of Australia, uh, teaching them how to, you know, get in touch with their emotions and giving them tools. And Corey watching you over the last year or so as you're, you know, as this has evolved and the through the creation of the Big Emotions Academy and the release of your new book, which I cannot wait to get my hands on, the little book of big emotions. Uh yeah, the work you do is just so important for all of us, really, you know, working with the next generation and our kids. And uh, you know, I'm gonna get moved to tears. But Corey, just so great to have you back on the show. Thank you so much.

Thanks for having me. It's been it's been amazing to be a part of the journey in my own mind, really, to have this thought of how do I have a massive impact on emotional intelligence for the next generation and this concept of a book and the evolution of creating that has been a it's been a really beautiful journey for me. There's been lots of lessons of growth and change and self-reflection in writing about emotions and where I sit with those, and there's a whole story just in that in itself, really.

It's so good. So talk to me a little bit about that. You know, some people and like as entrepreneurs, people are like, oh, you gotta keep pivoting. But as I said to you before we kind of jumped, started recording, I don't see this as much of it as a pivot, you know, in business terms as it is kind of an expansion and like almost a deepening of the incredible work that you were all already doing around emotional intelligence uh and work with kids. So, how did how did all of this come to be?

Well, it was interesting because COVID kind of stopped everything that I was doing because schools wouldn't have external facilitators to come in. So I wasn't able to go in and work with teenagers. My personal training work stopped, and then I just kind of asked the question, what actually I was in a meeting with a guy talking to him about managing his school stuff. So there's a guy called Mike Dyson who runs um Good Blokes Co. And I went and had a coffee with him. I said, Look, Mike, like I can see you're struggling to get someone to manage your school stuff. Like, let me come in and do that. And he's like, I'm not doing that anymore, I'm stepping away from it. And he goes, You need to think about like what is your thing? Like, what is your gift to the world? What's your expertise? And when I was sitting there with him, I just said, My expertise is big emotions. He's like, What do you mean by that? I said, Well, I don't know, I don't know people who have gone on the journey that I've gone on. Like, I used to be a really angry, aggressive guy, and I've been able to really pivot to create a place of psychological safety for my family, and that's kind of been my primary goal is to create psychological safety for the people that are in my immediate realm, my immediate sphere of influence. And so that has turned me into this guy who is so when I was doing coaching, my coach said to me, Ask your wife to describe you in three words, and the words were angry, arrogant, asshole. They were the words that she described. And she was still with me because she loves me and she has this value of marriage for life, and et cetera, et cetera. Right. So we worked through all that, but then not even a few months later, I said, Look, like, can we revisit those words and like what is it, what does it look now like now? And it was like kind, caring, and loving. So it was in a very short period of time that that pivot happened, but then there was still an evolution of growth and change, and anger shows up and in different ways, and still moving through that. And yeah, so having that conversation with Mike and then not being able to work, doing rites of passage, and really my son being in school like last year or the year before, they did emotional intelligence in school, they did one hour of emotional intelligence, and I was like, He's anger, what's the colour for that? And they scribbled in some red on a page, and that was the that was the extent of of what they did for their emotional intelligence curriculum in school. So that that planted a seed in me because I'm like, well, that's that's not enough. And obviously, I'm having these conversations with my kids about their emotions, and it's fairly transparent that the the relationship I have with them around this this kind of stuff because I'm in the work. And then I couldn't do the work with teenagers, and then I started leaning into something I do with teenagers when I get onto a rite of passages. I'm like, all right, give me your give me your big emotion. Like, what is the thing that you're carrying that a bit like you do at the start of these sessions, right? What is the thing that you need to give me to be able to go forward with this interview? I do that with teenagers, we rock up to the bush. Like, what is your big emotion? What's the thing that you're carrying that we can over the next three days help you let go of? And that was always say I've got 15 boys, 12 of the 15 would be angry, anxious, or depressed. And this year we've particularly seen stress as a factor, like the word stress has been repeated over and over this year. So then I, when I couldn't work in that space, I was like, well, how can I create something, a tool that will teach young people how to have a range of expression of emotions? How can they like feel their anger, understand where it comes from, move through it, know where it is in their body, and know how they got out of it. So the next time they experience anger, they create this pattern of not being in it. So, and then I found working with men, that's where I started in this work was working with men, it's really hard because they're like they're so entrenched in their neural pathways to get them to shift. Like, I've got tools now, but getting convincing them to show up to do the work is challenging in its own right. So then I'm like, well, where do I start this? Where do I start it? And it's just been kids, like, and that's where the idea for really preyed on it, and the idea for the little book of big emotions, and then it was a journey of like even finding the artist. I was like on Instagram and I was like following all these kids' artists, like kids illustrator, kids artists, children's books, children's artists, and I was messaging them and dropping in their DMs, and no one was responding, and I was like, Oh, what is going on? Like, why is this not happening? And then I ended up just putting it onto like a local Facebook community group. I said, Hey, does anyone know an amazing artist who can draw characters? And funnily enough, it was my best mate's wife who introduced me to this artist, and I knew straight away because of my connection with them that that was the artist before I even got her. And then when I reached out, I said, Oh, how do you know Sonia to the to Alicia? And Alicia's like, I don't know Sonia. Then I said to Sonia, how do you know Alicia? She goes, I don't know Alicia. I just knew that she was the right artist for your book. So it was like this beautiful synergy, right? That was meant to be. So I've just really been following, I've really been just trying to follow the path of Leach Resistance in terms of like getting this created. But that was the essence of how the book came about, essentially. Like COVID really created the space for me to be able to sit with the thought of this and to go into mode of of creating creating something and creating this book, really.

I can't wait to get my copy. It's in the mail right now, it's coming here from Australia. Yeah, I love what you said about the one hour of emotional intelligence training. I had my son Matthew on the show a couple of weeks ago, and Matthew is really out to change the narrative around sexual, domestic, and physical violence, and and starting with educating children. And um, because he really believes that, you know, as he said it, you can't yeah, you can keep teach an old dog new tricks, but really if you want to create lasting change, it's about you know changing the the generations, the new, the, the, the new our our children, the new ones. Um but in that conversation we talked about, and I I I'm assuming it's not all that different in Australia, like given how important it is, like mindset, emotional intelligence, you know, getting tools and awareness and skills to be able to manage these things for the living of a human life, that it's shocking to me how little, like, you know, if we spent their formative years spending more of their time learning those skills than perhaps, you know, math and and science and geography. Not that those things aren't important, of course they are. But in terms of like having someone live a productive, happy, satisfied, fulfilled life, whatever that is for you, because I think we get to create that ourselves, um, I think we would probably all benefit by having way more of that education in the in the first few years of a kid child's life. And so in the absence of that, you know, I think, and I definitely want to talk about what the plans are for the academy long term and and how you see this work growing, Corey. But I I think the more tools we can get in the hands, and I love like so. Talk to us a little bit about what is the little book of big emotions and why is it such a cool tool for kids to have.

So the little book of big emotions is it's basically like a calendar book that stands on your table and it's been designed so like anger and anger sits on the same page. So my vision for it was to have it for a teacher to say to the classroom. So, in from pre-primary through to year five, right? Classrooms do a check-in every morning, like they sit on a map, particularly in younger ages. What's the weather? This is what we're doing today. Let let's let's add in how am I feeling today? So the teacher could have a room with 30 kids with a book on their desk, and they just flip through the book, and then they might have 15 kids who have worried on, and it might be because the sports can't all happening tomorrow, potentially. So the teacher then could either I've got a meditation that they just click on a QR code and it takes them to a box breeding meditation, so they could just get the whole class to close their eyes and do five minutes of box breeding to reset their nervous system at the start of the day. So it's like, and that that that's my vision is to have this as a daily, not a class plan and all these things, all that all that stuff will come, but it's really this simple tool that takes two minutes at the start of the day to check in with your kids and where they're at, and they can have it on their desk. And if their mood changes throughout the day, they can just flip flip the page over. So it kind of becomes this like live thing that lives because our emotions are living and breathing and shifting constantly, right? So it becomes this kind of just gives teachers a barometer of the classroom so they can kind of go, Oh, I was gonna drop straight into mass, but maybe I need to like take the kids outside and move them for 10 minutes and come in and do mass.

So you you mentioned the like for for I call it clearing, checking in, whatever it is, like that that that tool, that practice of saying, before I start my day, before I go into an important meeting, before I go on a date, or I go into a challenging conversation, like I'm just gonna take a few moments and say the things I need to say, hopefully to another human being who can really just listen, because it's not about fixing anything, it's just about expressing things. Um, is so powerful. And and kids like kids come from home, who knows what happened in their morning. I know what I was like in the mornings as a parent. It was not lovely, you know, typically involved me crying, uh, because none of my kids loved going to school. So mornings were, you know, even though there was always a lot of love in our home and it was a great, you know, mornings were really stressful because I was trying, I was a single parent trying to get three kids out the door, two kids out the door, and you know, and and most of them didn't want to get out of the door, right? So all of that. And then kids are going into the classroom from that environment. Um, you know, some kids are going without having had a good meal or breakfast, and you know, who knows what happened in their household. So, and then they're supposed to sit in a chair and learn for eight to ten hours. Like, I think it's Corey, you know, being able to provide teachers and students and you know, parents, something like that. And even like when you get home from school, you know, at the end of your day, like you know, I could see kids having these in the classroom and at home. So they have when they get home from school, the mom can just be like, so how is school? What do you need to get? You know, can we clear anything from your day so we can have a great evening together? And and perhaps mom and dad could take that practice on too, because how many of us bring a whole bunch of emotions home from work, right?

And then they get well, the book facilitates those conversations, right? So you go through to anger, and then the mum can go, like, hey, well, what were you doing before you got angry? The question's there, yeah, and they don't even need to think about it. How do you how do you feel when you're angry? So I just did this with my little niece. She was here for my son's birthday party, she had an absolute meltdown, and I had a book for her that I was giving her that night, and I just come down the study and I said, Come sit with me. And then we pulled the book out, and I said, How are you feeling right now? And she goes, angry. And I said, Well, what happened? And then she told me the story of what happened, and I said, Well, how are you how how are you feeling right now in the in the moment? And and she was actually sad, right? Because anger's like the top emotion, so there's always something that usually sits below anger. So then she was able to identify, oh, when I'm sad, I get angry, and then what what can you do to shift that? How can how can you shift that? She goes, Well, I'll go and take some time out in my room, or and the other question I've got in there for the for the heavy's not the right word, but for like your anxiety, for your worry, for your sadness, for your anger, for your frustration, I've got a question there, who can you talk to? Because that's so taboo in so taboo in in in conversation, right? Just say, hey, I feel angry, I feel sad. This is why I feel sad. Like sometimes I say to my wife, I just feel sad today. She's like, Why do you feel sad? And I'm I don't really know, but I just have this have this heaviness in me. And it's really empowering other people to be able to have those conversations. And the guys that I the guys that I knock around with, they're so used to those conversations. But now they're just having those conversations with me, right? So I can say to one of my mates, like, how are you feeling? And they're like, Oh, I don't know. I'll just sit with it, man, you know, and then they'll come back and go, Oh, you know, I've got a mate, his mum's got terminal cancer. And he's like, No one's asked me how I'm feeling about it. He's like, just out of all the people that he's told about, no one said how are you feeling, you know. And he had to like sit with it and think about it, you know. And it was a beautiful conversation. So this is what it's about. It's about giving giving people these tools to provide. So, Mike Dyson, funnily enough, I ran into him at uh he was talking in a panel and and I was sitting in the audience, and afterwards, he's like, Man, you're creating a common language around big emotions, and that is literally in the simplest form what I'm doing. I'm I'm providing a common language around big emotions so people can communicate how they're feeling in a really simple way without having to be attached to the story of how they're feeling. Why am I angry? And I didn't even know I was CBT. I sent it out to 20 psychologists and said, Hey, would you mind having a look at this book and doing a review when it was in its very early stages? And out of the 20 people, one person got back to me and she wrote this beautiful review, which I didn't end up putting in the book. I was gonna put in the book, but then I didn't do that in the end. But basically, she just said, like, this book is a powerful tool to help people communicate and connect around their emotions backed by science. And I had to go back to her and go, What do you mean back by science? She's like, Corey, like your book is based in CBT. Yes. So the book is based in cognitive behavior therapy, which I didn't even like at an unconscious level, I didn't even realise, you know, and then the combination of the artist and and me doing this work together, because I went and because she was in Perth, I was able to go and sit with her and had a book with like all these sketches and characters and the stuff that I'd glued in there. And I'm like, oh, here's a brief for all the characters. And she's like, Oh, people never give me this stuff, this is amazing. And then we'll probably go backwards and forwards, like around what the emotions look like. Like when she did anger, she did this big muscly monster. And I'm going, oh, I said, I said, I want him to look angry, but I want him to look like cuddly teddy bear. You know, because I don't want to have like I don't I don't want it to be a masculine energy, right? I don't and that was a big conversation, like lots of people going, oh, because when I did the first names, it was like angry Arthur. And you know, so I had these names that were very and happy Harry, and so they're very male and female type names. And I had a lot of people go, hey, like, can you neutralize my artist? Actually, said, Can you neutralize the names? And then I sent it to a school teacher and she said the same thing. And I didn't totally neutralize the names, but like I've gone with Alex and Blake, like Braid Blake is my son, right? That's the little warrior, so he got he got it, he got it. So it was really interesting going through that process of like naming the characters and and listening to what people were saying, and then also like when people were giving me feedback, like, did I ask for that feedback? Does that actually belong to me? Or is that more stuff like pink love shouldn't be pink? Oh, actually, heart, pink, red. I'm like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not taking that on. So at some point I had to make a decision about what how I wanted the characters to look and feel, and like all that stuff was very important. The whole process of going looking at all that and seeing how how the characters felt and really feeling into those emotions and writing down, like just it was funny when I wrote anger, I wrote like two, eight, four pages of anger, like what anger feels like, right? And then when I come to happiness, I just had the same three words over and over, and they weren't even my words that like they were just things that I looked at other people and I saw them being happy, and I'm just like, what is that? How do I not why do I not have feeling for that? Why do I not have expression? That was really difficult to like and this book's kind of knocked down these psychological barriers in my in my psyche, this exploration of what is what does anger look like? Like that was really easy for me, but to go to happiness and go, oh, what does that look like? What does that feel like? How do I put language around that? Was really difficult for me. I've even got tears in my eyes right now as I'm speaking. You know, and it's been really and it's been an exploration of like for me, I've I've started to explore like what does it look like to be happy and joyful in my life more. Like, and it's funny, I was with a psychiatrist two weeks ago, and he's like, Oh, you're emotionally, I don't know, emotionally was basically emotionally disconnected. So, what he was saying is that basically I've instead of expressing my anger, I've just kind of locked it in a box, and in the process of doing that, I've pulled in my sadness, I've pulled in my happiness, I've pulled, I've pulled all my emotional regulation in. There was some truth to that. And I've spoken to a few mates, and like, ah, I don't really agree with that, man. But so I haven't taken it all on board, but it was just interesting for me to kind of reflect on reflect on that. And then I was down teaching a bunch of facilitators for rites of passage, and there was two guys there that were like so joyful and happy and dancing. I was really triggered by it. I'm like, man, this is not what boys need. Boys don't need happy men, they need men men. Like, so I was like, so so I was in this exploration of that, right? Like, what does that look like for me to be? Why am I so triggered by this? What does that look like? So, like, while I was on there, I was facilitating these guys and I was taking space to go through and process my own things and and move through them as we as we do, right? So it's been this exploration of as I've written the book, it's been this exploration of emotions. And because I had a book on my desk for seven months before the final copy came out, as I was like doing things, I'd go to the book and flick through it and go, What am I feeling? And then one day I was feeling something, but it wasn't in the book. I'm like, what is it? I'm feeling I'm like, oh, frustrated. So, and that's why the book took longer to get out, because I added this other character who I felt like was really important as an addition to the book to have this layer between like going straight to anger. Because when I spoke to a bunch of kids about it, they're like, oh, frustration is not anger, like, even though it sits under the banner of anger, it's frustration is like most kids it was like too much noise going in. So when the artist was doing it, she was like kind of had a character was like pulling his pulling his hair or pulling their hair. I said he looks angry, and that's not what I want. So we ended up getting his character who's kind of like got a neutral expression with his fingers in his ears, you know, like or in their ears. I'm using him as a narrative because that's who I am on my boy, but they're just their characters, right? And so he's got his fingers in his ears. So, and that was because I had this experience of like, I'm not really feeling angry, I'm not feeling sad, I'm not feeling worried. What am I feeling? And I was like feeling frustrated, and I felt like it was important to kind of add that into the book, you know.

It was um it's so great, Corey. I, you know, I'm not surprised that one, you couldn't really put language to happiness, and and any language you could put was, you know, what you would experience through other people. And because I don't think that's a you phenomenon. I think we we spend so much of our life being told what the criteria are for being, or you know, what it looks like to be successful and happy from our external environment, that many of us don't actually ever engage in that inquiry for ourselves, like what does my happiness look like, right? Because we're just told that happiness looks like this kind of job or this kind of house or this kind of lifestyle. And that's what's expected of us, right? So I think from a very early age, we're kind of indoctrinated into that that way of thinking, right? So I think that in and of itself is a really important gift to give people is um you know, inquiring into what does my happiness look like? What you know, what is, and I and I love what you said. And I think it's um for me, it's really powerful when you start talking about well, we need men who look like men, because that's a big part of what I think we, you know, that like the opportunity to dismantle um these notions around what a man is, what a woman is, what's masculine, what's feminine, you know, all of these conversations. And because, you know, there's so many pre-existing networks of conversations around emotions. You know, men are angry, women are women are too emotional, women are woman, men don't get men are, you know, don't express sadness, like whatever it is, right? None of that's a problem. It just creates a limit on participation in life because women do get angry and men are sad, and people do have challenges expressing happiness because they may not have, you know, spent a lot of time, like really, because so much of our lives, I think, is spent in it and an outward, like a doing to try and become happy, right? Like, I'll be happy when I have the right things and I've taken the right um I have the right, you know, things around me, right? So it's all external versus like, no, like if I take on being happy, right? Take like creating happiness over here where I am as a beingness, then I'm gonna take the actions of a happy person and I'll have the results of a happy person, whatever that unique happiness is for me. So I think that's really powerful and amazing. And um, you know, the other thing you said about when you're the psychologist or psychiatrist was saying you kind of put put everything in a box, I can't speak for you specifically, but what I was present to in that moment was when Renee Brene Brown talks about she's one of my favorite human beings, when she talks about you can't numb selectively. So when you numb the the negative affects that you don't want to feel like anger and and et cetera, et cetera, you also numb out all of the positive ones because we can't selectively numb. So you don't when you're numbing anger or sadness or anxiety, then you're also numbing joy and happiness and you know, all of those things as well. And I think that's a really powerful thing to understand because you know, what if every, you know, the majority of us as human beings have never really experienced the the the the our capacity for ecstasy, our capacity for happiness and joy, because we're trying to avoid, and this has been a big part of my my growth or development or whatever you want to call it recently. I'm playing with those words because I had a mentor of mine say recently, I don't know if we ever we actually grow. I think we just become more of our authentic selves and we push the boundaries of expressing our authentic self in the world, um, which is interesting. So I'm just kind of looking at that. But one of my like that authentic expression is expressing my upset. And guess what? People don't like it when you're upset. People want you to not be upset. And I've gone my whole life, you know, up until recently, being someone who didn't express their emotions for, you know, I could express some emotions, uh, you know, like love and and um those kind of emotions, but my my anger, my frustration, my sadness, my grief, um I just kept going. There were things to be responsible for and people to take care of. And so I just kept going. And that man, did I get backed up? And literally when I started in in November of 2020 with the death of a loved one, took a day off work for the first time in my life to be with my sadness and grief over my friend dying. And really getting the inauthenticity at that, like given the the love I have for people and who people are for me, that up until that point, I was 42 at the time, I'd never taken like a break from work to to go to a funeral or you know, deal with the passing of someone that I loved. Um, the inauthenticity of that, like the lack of honoring the people in my life, because I just kept, okay, well, you know, they're gone. Keep working, right? Man, when I when I unplugged that, damn, I cried for months and I couldn't stop. Like, and it just like like and and it was like almost like this experience of becoming undone with decades of pent-up, unreleased emotions that had been stuck in my system that I was carrying around with me everywhere I went. And and I remember being on the phone with my friend Nina once. I'm like, when is this gonna stop? Like, I just want it to stop. Like, I can't keep, you know. And uh, she said, it'll stop when it stops, Amber. It's like a nut being cracked open. It'll stop when it stopped. And it did. And now I have this like increased capacity to be able to um to be able to emote and express and and be with my own, you know, ugly, whatever, even the way we talk about the negative emotions, right? Like they shouldn't be, versus like, no, I'm a human being with a range of emotions that I experience as a result of being in this world. And when I can, when I'm freed up to express them, then they don't get trapped in my body. I don't carry them around. I I can just talk about them, express them, release them, and then move on. Um, and and and and I'm actually like becoming really okay with being upset. I don't want to stay in it and I'm catching when I indulge in it.

You can shift it. And it was, yeah, and it's interesting because I've been in the same kind of I've been doing this work with my psychologist where she's put me put me into this meditation where we've been looking at like exploring through colour different emotions. And I I said to her at the start of this meditation, I said I have this real fear that if I go into my anger, that I'll end up in a psychosis because my anger has so much, my anger has so much power. I feel like the well of my anger is so deep because I I lived in my anger, right? It became my protection mechanism for everything. So I built this big body and I used anger as this tool to protect me. And it's really interesting. So then when I decided that I didn't want to be angry anymore, I kind of like just went, all right, I'm just gonna put that in a box and I'm I'm not really gonna express it, and I'm just gonna move through, even though I feel angry, I'm just gonna kind of put it aside and and move through it. And I had this real fear that if I went back into it, that it wouldn't. So when I was down at this camp and I was feeling angry, I just like I just said to the guys, look, I just need I need some time on my own. I just went to a beach and I had a 16 kilo kettlebell, and I picked that thing up and I slammed it into the ground until I couldn't slam it into the ground anymore. And then I just went into the ocean and I screamed and I cried. And then when I got my breath back and I was calm in the cold water, it was like, I don't know, 15 degrees or something. It was cold. And when my nervous system was calm, I was able to go and have a conversation with these people without having the load of the anger attached to it, right? And that was a really beautiful gift to be able to go, you know what, I can move through this anger and I can do it safely. And it doesn't have to be a thing that becomes unsafe for me and unsafe for those people who are who are around me.

Yeah. Well, and this is like that conversation, it's so so great, Corey. That conversation about expressing the emotion. And you know, because it's not about like suppressing your anger, right? And I can like, I know, like when when you've gone your whole life being someone who's like really angry in the world, and that's how you're protecting yourself. I think probably the pendulum swings, right? So it's like, oh, I don't want to be that. So it's like we've got to suppress or gotta, you know, but it's like, no, it's about the freedom to express all of yourself and all of the emotions that you have in a way, you know, being responsible and you know, like being about how you express those around other people and and and and all of that.

And it you've really done that work, so but it can I think even when I'm angry with people, like I can say to my son, like this morning, my son was on TikTok and I wasn't I wasn't happy about it. And I'd said, Can you jump off that while you're getting ready? And he didn't, he stayed on it. And I said, get off your phone. And then when he got out of the car, he slammed the door, you know, and I was really pissed off about that. And I just said to him this afternoon, I said, I'm pretty frustrated about the way you behave this morning. Like just able to really not revenue him and be like super hostile and angry, still feel it and have a conversation, but without anger being in control, right? And I think that's the key thing is that we can have this expression of our emotion and still be in control, you know. Yeah, and there'll be times where we have sadness and things that happen that overwhelm us and we we express them like crying and whatnot. But I think that anger, it's like really not letting anger control the situation. I think it's a really pivotal thing for particularly for men in the world.

Yeah, well, I think it's about like what I'm hearing and what you're saying. And I I think it's about like being responsible for how we express our emotions for other people. And and like that creates an environment where people can even like hear what it is that we're trying to say, right? Because when we're not being responsible for it and the and the emotions are just kind of coming out and they're leaking, um then oftentimes in the expression of them, we just trigger the crap out of the people around us and they can't even hear what it is that we're trying to communicate anyway, right? Because they're in a, you know, we're in an amygdala hijack, they're an amygdala hijack, and there's like no communication happening. There's just like reacting, people reacting. And and I love this, like from the work of Dr. Gabor Matei uh here in Vancouver, where he talks about responsibility as being able to respond. And and like you know, I see this as part of what you're giving, you're gifting children and the adults around them. So, like, really the impact isn't just you know, localized to kids, it's like all of us. This simple way of being able to communicate about our our uh our emotions and is really like uh tools, additional tools to be able to teach people to be able to be able to respond to their emotions, which I just think is really brilliant, Corey. So talk to me a little bit about you know the crew, uh what's next for Big Emotion Academy. And of course, for anyone listening to the show, you'll be able to get a copy of the book. Uh, by the way, I'm just like gonna gloat here. I was the first one to fund Corey's Kickstarter for this project, which is the first time I've ever been the first to fund anything on Kickstarter. So I'm very proud of that. Um the part that I got to play with many other people and seeing this, um, I just really love seeing people's dreams fulfilled upon, especially when they have a big impact in the world. So um, but talk to me about what's next and and people will be able to get a copy of the book in in the show notes.

Yeah, so so I've kind of dubbed the so the book is the little look little book of big emotions, and then I've kind of dubbed the um the the crew, the emotional monsters that I have within the book, I've dubbed them the the big emotions crew. So I guess the work for me, I feel like the next the next evolution is to create like this win-win situation. So schools that want to buy the book and use it as a fundraising tool, so they can buy 100 copies and then they can use it in the PNF to be able to get it out to their communities on scale and raise some money for the for the schools, particularly in in lower socioeconomic areas where they may not be able to afford to buy a hundred copies, 200, 300 copies for in the school environment. So that's kind of my next evolution of getting the book out into the world is to create this this opportunity for people to have a win-win situation. Um, I feel like with my rights of passage, seeing that this transition, I'm not sure when the transition is in in America and in Canada, but in Australia, in year six, our 11-year-olds transition into high school and it's going into a totally different, totally different school, totally different environments. They're going from being the big fish in the in the little pond to being the tiny fish in the in the in the big pond. And there's a whole bunch of stuff that goes on within the the realm of that situation. So creating a program around, hey, having a conversation around what are you feeling here, what's your experience, what are your fears, what are your excitements. So really talking through like that emotional spectrum of of what that experience could be like for them and let them have a get into circles and have a conversation and then come back to the room and and really facilitating a space for that to happen. Um, so that's kind of my my first, I guess, in school kind of program that that I'm that I'm building out. Um there's this thing called Chaos to Come, which is going to be like an online, go-at-your-own pace program for parents to kind of explore where they're at and how they're showing up with their kids and what that looks like. So that'll just be an evergreen program that people will be able to sign up to at some point. So I kind of put that in the Kickstarter to see what was something that people were interested in, and a few people bought it. So I've been building that out. Um and then I've got this. I I think my son tells me that older kids are not gonna, they're not gonna look at that book. So I'm like, okay, so how do I how do I service teenagers? How do I create? I guess I'm all about preventative, right? I'm all about preventing suicide. So the statistics, the things are probably the same in Kenna in US, is that 15 to 25-year-old men are at the highest risk of taking their own life, right? Like we need we need to do something to stop that, and what we're doing right now is not is not working. So my concept is that high schools have homerooms, the same as primary schools, and they go into those home rooms and they, you know, Catholic school, I'll do their prayer and they'll do their notifications, and let's do a two-minute emotional check-in. So build build a website or an app that will be based around here's the here's the big emotions. And my son's like, don't use the big emotional crew, so there might be some emojis or whatever it is, it'll be it'll be something, and but basically it'll be simple as this is how I'm feeling today. Click a button, I'm angry, click on it, and then it'll come up with three lines, and they just three lines, what are the three things that are affecting their anger today? And then that's it, that's it, that's their little journal. So it takes a couple of minutes for that to happen. But if they have these heavier emotions that are lower, lower spectrum emotions for seven out of ten days, they'll get a notification saying, Hey, did you know that for the last seven days you felt either angry, depressed, or anxious? Yeah, have you did you realize this? Firstly, have you sought support? What does that look like? So, how do we create this tool that becomes a preemptive strike on mental health? So, because what happens is there's a psychologist in Perth, Peter Slocum, who spoke about this about being fine. So you're in a room and it's 25 degrees and you turn the heat up to 27 and it feels uncomfortable for a few minutes and then you adjust to the temperature, and our emotions are very much the same, right? We get used to being angry, or we get used to being sad. So then when someone says, How are you? we're no longer saying that we're sad, we're saying we're fine. So we don't have our barometer to understand how we're actually feeling is right. So the idea of this app is to create a barometer that is actually a true reading over a 10-day period or a 14-day period on a rolling rock. So they get this cue that says, Hey, you can go see your school counsellor, can you talk to your parents? Can you talk to a mate? Can you go see your GP? And then it's if it's within a school framework, there'll be like parameters to be able to flag conversations to the school to say, hey, this kid's feeling this way. Like, what is that about? Are we able to support them? What does that look like? So it's really creating this framework. I don't have any of the expertise to do this, but this is what's in my brain. What's coming out of my brain is what the next phase of this really one aspect of what this next phase is.

It's a great. Well, if you can think it and you can speak it, then you can create it, right? And uh, I always just say as you were talking, um, so many different uh, you know, ideas were coming, including an app, you know, I think the the kind of the opportunities to to create off this platform are endless in terms of tools. And and one of the ideas, uh, you know, you and I've always, you know, wanted to collaborate in the world together, Corey, and we kind of had an idea of doing a podcast there for a bit. And then, you know, you were really into this work, and I was, you know, traveling a lot and that didn't come to fruition. But I've always loved the idea of creating like a course for young people and teens around uh learning how their mind works, because I think that's a huge missing, right? Like it's a huge missing that we don't teach people how the brain and how the brain functions and how the mind functions. And um, I thought it'd be really fun to do it with a focus on navigation because I just love travel and I love and I think kids love intuitively, people love intuitively love travel. And so I don't know, maybe one day we take the big, the big crew, you know, the big feeling emotions crew on on vacation, traveling, teaching kids about about the mind and how the mind works. Because it's there's a relationship between that and their emotional states, right? So good.

Well, it's integrating storytelling, so it's funny. I've just I've got LinkedIn premium for for 30 days, and I'm like, the first thing I did was like all the TV things, so Netflix, Prime, who are the people, who are the creatives in that? And I'm going to be sending them messages with the big emotions crew and going, hey, can we utilize these characters to create stories that were told in the format of Winnie the Pooh, but relevant to 2022? So we're creating these stories, these adventures around what is it, how does how do these characters show up in the world and how do they interact with each other and how do they support each other and what does that look like? So we're creating these miniature micro stories of of characters that it's been done with inside out, right? So it's taking that concept but bringing it into these characters that bring them to life and and really creating a TV series around yeah, so good. Oh that was good, you know. So yeah.

Well, I am I'm so grateful that you came into my life, Corey. And uh I just um so the work that you're doing, I just really want to acknowledge you. I want to acknowledge you for your own personal journey that you've gone through to become someone and continue the you know to be someone who can express yourself into the world and keeps looking at who am I and who am I being for the people in my life. I really hear that commitment. And um I think it's so powerful that the source of this work, you know, the the root of it was your own journey to transform your emotional self and and that expression in the world and the impact it had on other people. And and that's kind of at the the source of of all of this for for other people. I think that's so powerful, and I'm just so freaking proud of you. And as I said, I can't wait to get my hands on my little book of big emotions. It's coming with me to Bali. Um, and it's gonna sit on my desk and uh for anyone else. Sorry.

I know you love the gift book, so I threw one in there for you to give to someone.

I'm gonna leave it here for my kids when you were talking about I don't know if you've seen those octopuses that you know you turn them inside out, one's happy, one's angry. My daughter bought us all those, but I think it's like even it's like even better than that because there's more than just happy and sad, right? Or angry and happy. Um, so yeah, I definitely will be leaving one here for the kids so that they can like um do that. That's so great. Yeah. So if you want to get your hands on a copy of the little book of big emotions, either for a loved one or for a teacher, a perfect teacher's gift this year, come on. Uh, and why not don't wait till the end of the school year to give that tool to them, give them a starting the new school year in September early gift, uh, so that they can have that tool to work with their classrooms. You'll be able to find all of that information out and um the website for the Big Emotions Academy, so you can just keep up with what Corey and his team are doing as they move forward with this platform. And um I just love you. That's really I just love you.

It's uh the feeling is unusual. I'm so yeah, I'm so grateful for you on so many, so many levels for your inspiration, for your support, for so many, so many different things that you bring into my life from the other side of the world. It's uh it's a really beautiful gift.

Yes, but we're gonna have to connect in Australia once I'm down under. Um, anyway, for those of you listening to the show, you can find out all of the information about Corey and what he's up to and and again where to get the book in the show notes. Corey, I love you, everyone, for listening. Thank you so much for being here with us next week. And I will see you well, this week, and I will see you next week. Have a great day, everyone.

Thank you so much for joining us for this week's episode. For more information on the show and our extraordinary guests, check out what wouldamberdo.com.