Emotional Equations

October 24, 2011
Hotelier and motivational speaker Conley (Marketing That Matters) introduces his concept of emotional equations (such as “Joy = Love – Fear”) to help readers “get a handle on how emotions work together and how you can work with them.” To deal with despair, he turned to the post-WWII classic Man’s Search for Meaning, in which Viktor Frankl recalled how concentration camp prisoners who focused on meaning and learning survived while others who saw only suffering died. Trying to explain Frankl’s ideas to friends, Conley reduced them to an equation: “Despair = Suffering – Meaning.” Now he takes off from that first equation. For Conley, these equations are a way of allowing the brain to gain some control over irrational emotions, a new twist on the self-help staple of learning to monitor one’s emotions. But his equations do help break down the components of an emotion: for instance, both mistrust and self-esteem are elements in jealousy. Exploring such emotional landscapes as disappointment, regret, jealousy, anxiety, pleasure, pain, courage, narcissism, love, and fear. Conley filters his own readings in psychology and philosophy into his teachings, which may help some readers who can appreciate a rational, mathematical approach to managing their emotional lives.