Zeng Shiqiang's "Emotional Management"

The core value of Zeng Shiqiang's "Emotional Management" is to provide a set of localized emotional regulation solutions adapted to China's human society - it does not advocate suppressing emotions and enduring internal injuries, nor does it support wanton venting to intensify conflicts. The core logic is that "emotions are not caused by external things, but are determined by your views on things." The ultimate goal is to help you turn your emotions from uncontrollable instinctive reactions into tools that you can choose independently.

The first time I came into contact with this set of content was when I was just graduating. I was blamed by my partner and my performance was deducted for half a month. I was hiding in a rental house wiping my tears. My first reaction at the time was, what nonsense did this old man say? Co-author: When I feel wronged, do I still need to adjust my mentality? Isn’t this the method of spiritual victory?

It wasn’t until I actually used it later that I realized that what he said about “adjusting your perspective” was not to make you give in at all. A friend who worked as an administrator told me about a similar experience: a week before the annual meeting, the venue she was working with suddenly broke the contract, and her boss scolded her in front of the entire department. Previously, she would have slapped the table and thrown the supplier's chat history in the boss's face and shouted, "It's not my fault." "At that time, she happened to be reading a clip about Zeng Shiqiang's emotional management. She lowered her head and said nothing. She waited for her boss to calm down before sending the evidence and two alternatives. Later, the boss not only apologized to her in private, but also promoted her to administrative director immediately after the annual meeting. To put it bluntly, if she had been in a mood and talked back on the spot, even if the boss finally knew that it was not her fault, he would not be able to give her a good look if he could not save face. Instead, it would be the best choice for him to calm down his emotions first.

Of course, there are always a lot of controversies. I have seen many young people calling this theory a "slavish philosophy": It is obvious that the company is exploiting you and others are deliberately bullying you, but you still have to adjust your views. Isn't this just helping ordinary people with vested interests? This statement actually makes sense. If you go to the hospital 996 times a day and lie to yourself, "This is my boss training me," then you are really not clear-headed. Zeng Shiqiang himself has repeatedly mentioned in the class that emotional management does not allow you to tolerate without a bottom line, but helps you not to be led by your emotions to make stupider decisions - if you encounter principled issues such as sexual harassment in the workplace and malicious wage arrears, you should call the police or arbitrate. Talking about "adjusting your mentality" at this time is pure cowardice.

In fact, to be more serious, his core logic has the same origin as Ellis’ ABC theory of emotions in Western psychology. They both believe that “the triggering event A is only an indirect cause of the emotional consequence C, and the real cause is the individual’s perception of the event B.” However, Western emotional solutions prefer “direct expression and release of emotions”, which is somewhat acclimated to China’s human society. It's like visiting relatives during the Chinese New Year and being asked about your salary to get married. If you just say "none of your business" according to the Western method, your mother will be able to talk about you for half a month. It's much easier to switch to Zeng Shiqiang's method: you know in your heart that he just has nothing to say and doesn't really care about your life. Just make a haha ​​and get over it. It doesn't hurt the relationship and you don't take it seriously. On the contrary, it is much more comfortable than falling out on the spot.

I still think of what he said when I get angry while driving: "If you compete with a stranger for those 30 seconds, if something happens to you, it will waste days or even months of your time. Is it worth it?" ”In the past, when I encountered a traffic jam, I had to step on the accelerator to push it up. Now, I usually take my foot off the accelerator to give way, and there is no missing piece of meat. On the contrary, in the past few years of driving, there has not been even a small scratch, which saves a lot of trouble. Emotions are actually like a malfunction light in a car. When it comes on, it doesn't ask you to smash the light directly (vent), nor does it ask you to cover the light and pretend you can't see it (depress). It lets you first figure out whether there is a real problem with the engine (a matter of principle), or whether it is just a bad sensor contact (a trivial matter). In the latter case, there is no need to stop for overhaul, and you can just drive forward when you need to.

There are friends around me who have saved his "Don't punish yourself for other people's mistakes" clip as an emoticon. When I get angry at work, I take it out and look at it. To put it bluntly, the purpose of learning emotional management is not to become a moral saint, but to reduce internal friction and live a more comfortable life. Whether it is Zeng Shiqiang's localized method or the Western emotional healing system, whatever can help you achieve this goal is a good method.