What is the INTERFACE
The INTERFACE four-week experience is designed by Carl Paoli and is dedicated to guiding you toward Self-Mastery by diving deep into Emotional and Mental Fitness practices.
The course is hosted online via Zoom, where Carl covers the topics, practices, and assignments that make up the INTERFACE program.
- Journaling Guidelines and Prompts
- Movement Development and Practice
- Breathwork Exercises and Progressions
- Meditation and Silencing Guidance
- Project Creativity and Management
You will receive a weekly set of follow-along exercises dedicated to helping you implement the practices of emotional fitness. In addition; Carl hosts weekly office hours to cover any questions and challenges you may be experiencing to assist you in personalizing the work done in the program.
You also get direct access to Carl via email and group chat.
"Emotional Fitness is the ability to move into a state of being that translates into purposeful action."
- Carl Paoli
The Four Phase Approach
The Four-Phase progression that Carl follows through the INTERFACE Experience is designed to guide you through the complexities that lie ahead when working with your emotions. Each phase has a unique focus:
The simplicity of these four phases is the key for coming out on the other side of this experience with the clarity you are seeking, the tools necessary to continue to develop on your own, and the ability to perform in any area of your life at the highest level possible.
These four stages are not linear but rather circular. When you have moved from expression to experimentation, to integration, and finally transcendence, you arrive back at experimentation but now at a higher level of consciousness, understanding, and ability. It is like climbing the steps of a spiral staircase. You go around and around, reaching greater heights for each lap. The more you climb, the more you know, and the more freedom you find to continue to fuel what moves you towards your potential.
Why Emotional Fitness is Important
Emotions come before thinking, and when we are running on emotional overdrive, our feelings change the way our brain works. We lose the ability to think clearly, make conscious decisions, and struggle to connect with others.
The good news is that Emotional Fitness is a skill that anyone can develop by learning to understand and work with our emotions and applying our feelings to help us become more successful in all aspects of our lives.
At a personal level, emotional fitness helps us:
- Manage our emotions when stressed or feeling overwhelmed.
- Improve our relationships.
- Have challenging conversations without hurting our feelings and the feelings of others.
- Think clearly and make better decisions.
- Achieve our goals.
At work, emotional fitness helps us:
- Resolve conflicts.
- Support, coach, and motivate others.
- Create a collaborative culture.
- Build psychological safety within teams and an organization.
Interesting statistics:
- Nearly everyone (95%) thinks of themselves as self-aware, but only about 15% of people are.
- Peers were reported to be the most unaware co-workers.
- EQ is four times more reliable than IQ in determining success in your field.
- Leaders with empathy perform over 40% higher in employee engagement, decision-making, and coaching.
- Emotional intelligence has a 58% influence on job performance.
- 90% of top-performing employees have high emotional intelligence.
- 71% of hiring managers value EQ over IQ when looking for employees.
What are The Practices of Emotional Fitness
Emotional Fitness as taught in the INTERFACE by Carl, is based on four core practices:
- Journaling
- Meditating
- Moving
- Creating
And progressed through a four-phase process:
- Expression
- Experimentation
- Integration
- Transcendence
Journaling
Keeping a journal is one of the most powerful practices one can develop. Journaling helps you keep your thoughts organized, set and achieve your goals, record and remember ideas, relieve stress, self-reflect, find purpose and meaning, and fuel your inspiration.
The great masters kept journals. Leonardo DaVinci had over 5000 journals with ideas. Marie Curie, considered by many to be the mother of modern physics, a pioneer in radiation research, and one of the most influential scientists to have ever existed, left behind journals that changed the scientific landscape.
The Problem
The problem many people have with journaling is that they feel like keeping a journal is a chore. They don't have time. They are afraid to put their words on paper if somebody reads them and can feel discouraged because of a lack of instant gratification.
The Solution
The solution is to start slow and build up. In the INTERFACE Experience, Carl sets people up for success by creating simple, clear, and compelling prompts that get the pen moving and the ideas flowing. After four weeks of journaling, a new habit is formed, and journaling, rather than feeling like homework, feels like a place of refuge, progress, and mental and emotional clarity.
Meditation
Many people think of meditation as a way to reduce stress and develop concentration. But meditation is much more than that. Meditation is a gateway to becoming who you need to be at any given point to handle any situation with composure and coherence. Meditation is the foundation for learning to live the most fulfilling life.
Bruce Lee described it best.
“Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless—like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”
– Bruce Lee
Meditation reduces stress, controls anxiety, and promotes emotional health. Meditation also develops self-awareness, improves your attention span, reduces age-related memory loss, decreases blood pressure, helps fight addictions, improves sleep quality, and generates kindness.
The Problem
The problem is that people who haven't meditated before don't know how or where to start. They feel too busy to sit down and do "nothing." They think they need to empty their minds to meditate. They fall asleep when trying to meditate. They get anxious when trying to meditate. It hurts to sit in the lotus position (cross-legged).
The Solution
The solution is simple. Practicing meditation doesn't require you to spend a long period of time sitting in silence. You don't need to empty your mind. You don't have to adopt the traditional cross-legged seated position to benefit from it. And you can do it by simply learning to pay attention to your breathing. In the INTERFACE, Carl shares step-by-step breathing practices influenced by Yoga, free diving practices, the research influenced by Wim Hoff, Dr. Joe Dispenza, Brian Mackenzie, and Patrick Mckeown. These practices are accessible to all levels and will positively impact your state of mind through only four to six weeks of consistent practice.
Movement
"Move like you care" - Carl Paoli
Movement is essential for our physical health and serves as a bridge to our mental and emotional wellbeing. When we can treat our bodies with respect and learn to care for them as the only vehicle we have to navigate this world, life becomes clear, meaningful, and fulfilling.
Learning to work with our bodies is at the core of health. And although going to the gym and exercising has great benefits, becoming aware of how our bodies work will support our conscious evolution—at the same time, bringing longevity and prosperity to our lives and those around us.
"When you move, you feel.
When you feel, you think.
When you think, you begin to understand.
When you understand, you move again."
- Carl Paoli
The Problem
The problem is that most people are looking for a quick fix. A way to rapidly lose weight, look better or perform better. We seek a prescription or magic pill that will bring us the solution to our problem. In reality, exercise is not a magic pill but an intimate relationship with our body, how it moves, and how it communicates. Movement is like a language. When we learn to speak the language of human movement, we begin to hear our bodies' instructions that unlock our physical abilities and our true existential potential.
The Solution
The solution is to make our movement practice a lifestyle. Not something we do, but rather something we are. The best way to do that is by reprioritizing our relationship with our bodies and developing new habits around exercise. Carl facilitates the connection with our bodies in the INTERFACE Experience is by teaching you the Position - Movement - Purpose framework for human movement and its application to your practice.
Creativity
"The arts are a critical component of healthcare. Expressive art is a tool to explore, develop and practice creativity as a means to wellness." - Well Arts Association
Science points to art enhancing brain function. Art has a positive impact on brain wave patterns and emotions, the nervous system, and the ability to raise serotonin levels, thus yielding a sense of wellbeing.
"The systems they nourish, which include our integrated sensory, attentional, cognitive, emotional, and motor capacities, are, in fact, the driving forces behind all learning." - Arts with the Brain in Mind
Art also has the power to change our outlook and the way we experience the world. Art is invaluable to our ability to function individually and as a society. In other words, art can also elevate our conscious awareness as human beings and our relationship to our environment, other living beings, and our planet.
"When you observe a profound piece of art you are potentially firing the same neurons as the artist did when they create it, thus making new neural pathways and stimulating a state of inspiration. This sense of being drawn into a painting is called "embodied cognitions." - Jacob Devaney
The Problem
The problem is that people believe that creativity requires talent or a unique skill set when the truth is that art is the tool to help you develop talent and specific skill sets.
The Solution
The solution is to get started. Carl, growing up at the feet of an artist, his mother, realized that art is innate in all of us and that the secret to unlocking our creativity is by granting ourselves the opportunity to express ourselves.
In the INTERFACE Experience, Carl guides you to see your life as a canvas, your knowledge as a paintbrush, your relationships as colors, and your lifestyle as your masterpiece.