Emotionally Fit with Dr. Emily Anhalt

It can be hard owning up to mistakes, but President and COO of Athletic Greens Kat Cole says that the more comfortable we can get with things not going perfectly, the better we’ll be at taking risks and trying new things. In this Taboo Tuesday episode, Kat and Dr. Emily discuss mistakes, loss, and grief and how to balance all of the above while also carving out a successful career. From asking for help to enduring a miscarriage, Kat doesn’t shy away from talking about her own experiences, including what she says was the worst mistake she ever made in her career and how she worked to turn the situation around. Tune in now for this thoughtful discussion on how to be honest, open and resilient in work and life.

Any relationship or experience that has taught us something about ourself is a relationship or experience that was worth having or doing. In this Emotional Push-Up, President and COO of Athletic Greens, Kat Cole, joins Dr. Emily to talk about the beauty in impermanence and how to make peace with things coming to an end.

It can be really hard to reach out and ask for help and support. Some people have trouble with this because they want to see themselves as competent and having it all together. Some people worry that asking for help will reduce the amount of control they have in a situation, and some people weren't given a lot of support or help with things early in life and find it hard to ask for help now. Angel investor Maia Bittner joins this episode to explore why it can sometimes be so hard to ask for help and work through a few steps with Dr. Emily that we can all take to get more comfortable asking others for their help and support.

Envy and jealousy are natural feelings that we all experience - sometimes we worry deep down that there isn't enough happiness and success to go around. Comedian Alexis Gay joins Dr. Emily in this Emotional Push-up to talk about the concept of compersion, i.e. taking joy in others’ happiness and success. So take a deep breath and come flex this important emotional muscle with us!

Chris Messina has over a hundred thousand followers on Twitter, but he wasn’t thinking about that when he accepted a challenge from his partner to be more vocal about his sexual desires, and updated his profile to include a personal goal of giving her more orgasms. Cut to the following day when people were shocked to see that this tech leader credited with inventing the hashtag had posted something so personal in such a public way. But for Chris, this event was a turning point for him in speaking more freely about sex without fear or shame. In this Taboo Tuesday, Chris talks to Dr. Emily about his journey to accepting himself as a sexual being and navigating a world where many people are not comfortable talking about sex openly.

So much of what we do in life is in service of avoiding discomfort. We avoid tough conversations. We avoid challenging the status quo when we know we could do better. We turn to drugs and alcohol to avoid facing other uncomfortable realities. But unfortunately the things we do to avoid discomfort often end up leading to more discomfort than the original thing we were trying to avoid in the first place. In this Emotional Push-Up, Dr. Emily talks to Chris Messina, credited with creating the hashtag, about why the most effective path to emotional growth is to become more comfortable being uncomfortable.

Let’s talk self-talk for a minute. Executive coach and investor, Micah Baldwin, joins Dr. Emily in this Emotional Push-Up to discuss how to summon some self-compassion to have a conversation with our tough inner critic. Grab a pen, some paper, and a tissue - this one will be a heavy lift.

In this Emotional Push-Up, Dr. Emily is going solo and walks us through a five-step process for taking in critical feedback thoughtfully and productively.

In this Taboo Tuesday discussion, author, illustrator, and mental health advocate, Jordan Sondler, joins Dr. Emily to talk about what it was like going public about therapy and working on her mental health in her book, "Feel It Out: The Guide to Getting in Touch with Your Goals, Your Relationships, and Yourself." Sondler says that what started as an illustrated book for single people on how to survive a break-up turned into a book for every single person that covers many of life’s challenges from strengthening self-awareness to how to adopt a dog.

One important hallmark of mental health and emotional development is the ability to exist in the gray. In this Emotional Push-Up, Dr. Emily is joined by author and illustrator, Jordan Sondler, to discuss why we tend to label things as right or wrong, good or bad, black or white, when the truths of life almost always fall somewhere in between.

What traits and behaviors make you feel connected to your family, friends, and loved ones? In this emotional Push-Up, Dr. Emily talks about a concept she calls our Currencies of Closeness with guest Tommy Kuntze, VP of Product & Design at Rhumbix. Our Currencies of Closeness are the things we felt we had to pay to receive the love and attention and recognition we needed in our families, and we’ve all had both positive and negative versions. Tune in to explore what currencies you may still be paying and what currencies you may just want to leave behind.

How have you been juggling work, life, and everything in between during this 7-layer dip of insanity that the world’s been serving us for the past few years? In this Emotional Push-Up, Dr. Emily is joined by the Community Manager of Morning Brew, Kyle Hagge, to talk about institutional transference, a concept that explains how we sometimes act out feelings about one part of our life in other parts of our life. Tune in to explore where this might be happening in your life!

James Beshara, an angel investor and the founder of Tilt, a crowdfunding company acquired by Airbnb in 2017, used to drink seven. cups. of. coffee. a. day—a habit that landed him in the ER with a racing heartbeat of over 170 beats per minute for three weeks straight. That turning point in James’s life led him down a rabbit hole of research on coffee, caffeine and alternative ways to boost productivity and heal, a search that included plant medicine. In this Taboo Tuesday, James talks to Dr. Emily about his first experience with psychedelics, and the effect it still has on him today.

Going from never meditating to becoming a “good” mediator is a bit like going from never lifting weights to becoming a bodybuilder. It takes time and consistency (and lots of reps!) to build the habit. In this Emotional Push-Up with Coa's Lead Product Engineer, Scotty Eckenthal, Dr. Emily explores the process of creating a safe and calm space within oneself through meditation. Tune in and let’s meditate together!

Asking for feedback (both positive and constructive) is not an easy thing to do. VP of Marketing at SparkToro, Amanda Natividad, rejoins Dr. Emily on the show to discuss self-awareness, self reflection, and the scary but powerful act of asking for feedback.

How much sharing is too much (or too little)? Today, Dr. Emily is joined by Coa CEO, Alexa Meyer, and StudioPod Cofounder, Julian A. Lewis II, to talk about how to avoid an emotional hangover with the help of boundaried vulnerability.

In October 2020, Business Insider bought a majority stake in Morning Brew—a popular business newsletter with over 2.5 million subscribers—for a reported $75 million. At the time, Morning Brew cofounder Alex Lieberman was just a few years out of college. In this Taboo Tuesday, Alex talks to Dr. Emily about his complicated relationship with money and the growing anxiety it caused him following the successful deal with Business Insider.

If we don’t love ourselves, then how is anyone else ever going to love us, right? Well, Dr. Emily says that’s bullshit. In this Emotional Push-Up, she is joined by Morning Brew cofounder Alex Lieberman to talk about this well known but questionable trope about self-love and a healthier way to approach the journey that is learning to love ourselves.

Do you have trouble accepting compliments (hint: most people do)? You might worry that you’ll come across as conceited if you do. Or maybe you’re so tough on yourself that compliments don’t resonate or feel genuine. In this Emotional Push-Up, Dr. Emily is joined by Emotional Fitness Instructor at Coa, Karin Gold, and shares a step-by-step method to help us all get a little more comfortable accepting compliments.

Raise your hand if you’re extremely burned out. Oh, everyone? Us too. Today we’ll practice Dr. Emily’s three-step push-up to prioritize rest and prevent burnout, along with NessLabs founder Anne-Laure Le Cunff, a PhD researcher investigating how different brains learn differently.

Hollywood actress and podcast host, Alessandra Torresani joins the show to talk about living with Bipolar I Disorder in Hollywood, discussing everything from being misdiagnosed and discouraged from revealing her condition publicly to finally opening up on set about her struggles and starting her own podcast.

In this Emotional Push-Up, Dr. Emily talks to longtime friend and Hollywood actress, Alessandra Torresani, about taking the time to notice, honor, and enjoy the small things that go right in life, i.e. celebrating the small wins!

Have you ever lost a houseplant because you forgot to care for it? How about a friendship? Taking care of our friendships can be a lot like taking care of our plants. Join us in this Emotional Push-Up with Kyle Hagge from Morning Brew to talk about how to maintain the friendships in our lives.

Supporting the success of others might be tough at times, but not because we don't care. In this Emotional Push-Up, Coa’s own Pallavi Yetur sits down to talk with Dr. Emily about scarcity mentality and how to replace it with solidarity, elevating others, and paying it forward - because it's more fun and fulfilling when everyone is at the top together!

When was the last time you really played? In this Emotional Push-Up with Coa Class Operations Lead, Kailey Thompson, Dr. Emily explores the benefits of play and of taking a ‘yes, and’ approach to your work and relationships. Tune in to learn how you can incorporate more play in your life, and hear Dr. Emily and Kailey play one of their very favorite games.

In 2016, Sunil Rajaraman wrote a satirical essay titled ‘This Is Your Life in Silicon Valley’ for the tech-heavy, San Francisco-based online magazine The Bold Italic. Within days the article was trending on social media with hundreds of comments and nearly a million page views. In this Taboo Tuesday, Sunil talks with Dr. Emily about the anxiety he experienced as a successful entrepreneur in Silicon Valley, and how he’s learned to shift his relationship to it.

Sunil Rajaraman, VP of marketing at GoodRx, joins Dr. Emily to discuss the importance of rest and why it can be difficult to unplug. Listen now as Dr. Emily and Sunil walk through how to maximize and protect our downtime without feeling guilty about it!

In this Emotional Push-Up, Dr. Emily is joined by the Head of Emotional Fitness at Coa Dr. Vaneeta Sandhu, to explore the idea that our relationship with food may offer some insights into how we were loved and how we love now. Listen in to hear about how we can be more intentional about the food we eat and the ways we show and share love.

StudioPod co-founder Julian A. Lewis II joins Dr. Emily in this Emotional Push-Up to talk about our gut instincts. While it’s considered standard sage advice to ‘trust our gut,’ Dr. Emily says there’s more to it than that. Listen now to hear why she says we should all be a little more discerning about what our guts are telling us.

We all have complicated relationships with social media. In this Emotional Push-Up, Dr. Emily talks to Emmy-Award winning TV Producer and therapist-in-training Jesse Zook Mann about his own intentional approach to social apps and the steps we can all take to bring some emotional fitness to our digital lives.

Bestselling author and Director of Relationship Science for dating app, Hinge, Logan Ury joins the show to explore talking about mental health and therapy on a first date. Logan also discusses vulnerability, pandemic dating trends, and her book How to Not Die Alone: The Surprising Science That Will Help You Find Love. Listen now to find out why opening up about your mental health might just be what gets you a second date!

Logan Ury, Director of Relationship Science at the dating app Hinge and bestselling author of How to Not Die Alone: The Surprising Science That Will Help You Find Love, joins Dr. Emily for an emotional push-up on asking directly for what you want and need.

I invited Amanda Natividad of Spark Toro to a Champagne Problem Pity Party, and you’re invited too! Join us as we talk about our tendency to downplay our struggles and why there is room to empathize with others while still acknowledging our own pain.

Basketball All-Star Kevin Love joins the show to talk about starting therapy after dealing with a very public mental health crisis during the NBA playoffs in 2017. Kevin shares what motivated him to take care of his emotional fitness and sends a shoutout to other athletes who have inspired him. We also explore the stigmas in professional sports and why Kevin believes vulnerability actually creates stronger teams.

What do we do when our greatest strengths turn on us and become our greatest weaknesses? Basketball All-Star Kevin Love knows a bit about that and talks with Dr. Emily Anhalt about how to turn it around in this emotional push-up!

In this Emotional Push-Up featuring PR expert Courtney Hamilton, we explore how we can put ourselves in healthier situations and face what we’re afraid of head on.

Staying emotionally fit takes work and repetition. That's why this podcast delivers short, actionable Emotional Push-Ups every Monday and Thursday to help you build a better practice of mental health. We'll also share surprising, sometimes funny, sometimes shocking conversations on Taboo Tuesdays, because the things we are most hesitant to talk about are also the most normal. So join us to kickstart your emotional fitness. Let's flex those feels and do some reps together!