Marc Brackett (on emotional intelligence)

Psychologist and founding director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence Marc Brackett joins Dax Shepard to discuss the childhood trauma that shaped his life's work, the fallout from disclosing it on national television at 12, and the uncle whose simple compassion finally made him feel safe. The conversation covers how Brackett's ideas became the RULER program now reaching 10 million children, being called out by his mother-in-law for failing to regulate during lockdown, and the discovery that Yale students often mistake envy for stress. Brackett explains why avoiding emotion is harmful, how precisely naming a feeling changes what can be done with it, and why the best emotional allies listen instead of trying to fix.