Hey everyone!

Starting today, my newsletter will arrive in your inbox twice monthly, always on Saturdays. I've made the editions more concise and actionable, with a strict focus on Productivity, EQ, and Leadership.

There might be additional longer editions in the future covering more of the underlying framework for What Is A Happy Self.

Thanks to LinkedIn, we've grown to over 50 subscribers because of you all. Keep going!

From feeling just “bad” to vulnerable, discouraged, tired or numb.

Last week, a 6-month coaching process with a client concluded. She felt she had learned valuable new skills and needed time to reflect, process, and take action. I recalled a specific moment, when we worked on Emotional Granularity. But, what is that?

Simply put, the more accurately you can name what you feel, the more control you have over your responses. Her challenge was recognizing that feeling "bad" or "inhibited" wasn't the complete picture.

With practice, she developed granularity in her emotions, distinguishing between restlessness, uneasiness, frustration, nervousness, vulnerability, discouragement, tiredness, and numbness. Eight new words and feelings!

I'll explain how we implemented this in her life and what changed for her, here: How I Coach Emotional Granularity.

The science behind Emotional Granularity

Why do you and I sometimes stay calm under pressure but other times feel completely overwhelmed?

Simply put, neuroscience shows that emotions aren't automatic reactions. Your brain actively makes predictions, creating guesses about what could happen next and how to respond.

As Lisa Feldman-Barrett explains in How Emotions Are Made, our brain continuously integrates our inner (!) signals, past experiences, and current context to generate emotions. Emotions are flexible and shaped by our understanding of them, not just by external events.

Further, research shows that people with higher emotional granularity—those who can distinguish between specific feelings like frustration and disappointment—are better at managing emotions, making decisions under pressure, and maintaining strong relationships.

I highly recommend studying Lisa Feldmann-Barrett’s books and articles, I will link them below. She also appeared on some of the biggest podcasts in the last years, I will link them below, too.

How I Coach Emotional Granularity

I have a comprehensive approach that spans several weeks, incorporating multiple tools and sessions (I will cover this in a future edition).

Here is my condensed 5-step version:

1. Always (!) pause and take a moment before reacting. This part is the hardest, as we are on autopilot usually all day. As with all in life, this comes down to training or habit building. If I react in the same way 3 times in a row, chances are high I do the same thing the next 1000 times. Taking this road will lead you to a different version of the 1000 times, I promise.

2. Name the emotion you are feeling. As we unfortunately do not learn emotions words as vocabulary in school, use the App How We Feel (Link at the end). It is free and just a phenomenal tool for building EQ. My client uses this app to check-in twice a day or before or after difficult or new situations. By this, she build up a whole database with her emotions. She replaced “bad” with 8 different emotions.

3. Notice where you feel the emotion in your body. This helps you pause effectively. Identify specific areas of tension or discomfort. The app also helps with this body awareness. For my client, the feeling "bad" initially affected her entire body, while "restless" was more concentrated in her chest, and "discouraged" manifested primarily in her head.

4. Assess how intense it is, rating it from 1 to 10. This gives you more depth and scalability. For my client the feeling “bad” was an 8 most of the time, so pretty bad. Then “restless” was more a 5 with a light anxiety or boredom and “discouraged” presented as a 9.

5. Respond deliberately by choosing your next action rather than reacting automatically. Create an action plan or work on building a new habit and routine to address your most prominent emotions. Everything comes down to consistent practice. For my client, feeling "restless" stemmed from a mix of anxiety, boredom, and feeling overwhelmed with too many tasks. Since these feelings typically appeared in the morning, she developed a routine focused on concentrated work, goal setting, and prioritizing tasks.

Action Step for You

Get the How We Feel App and start checking in once or twice a day. Or take a paper and pencil, of course.

You can go with my 5-step-framework for this.

Notice how this shifts your clarity, decision-making, and energy. Over time, these small practices help you lead yourself and your team with greater confidence, resilience, and focus. Give it a try and see the difference small moments of reflection can make.

Write me an email with your experience and results, I am happy to respond to it!

That's just 5 minutes per day that might well change the trajectory of your life.

See you again on October 18th. Take care,

Yours,

Moritz

PS:

If you are interested in my coaching program “Mastering Emotions” email me or book an orientation call here.

Sources & Links

Lisa Feldmann Barrett: https://lisafeldmanbarrett.com/

Her on Huberman Lab Podcast: https://www.hubermanlab.com/episode/dr-lisa-feldman-barrett-how-to-understand-emotions

How We Feel App: https://howwefeel.org/