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FLAME with Brad Hook

Train Your Emotions Like a Skill: Joey Klein on the Inner Game of Mastery

Joey Klein · Founder & CEO, Inner Matrix Systems29 July 202650 min

A near-death experience at 19 pulled Joey Klein out of a destructive life and into a two-decade obsession: turning emotional mastery into a trainable skill. The founder of Inner Matrix Systems — whose method has reached more than 90,000 people, from Fortune 500 executives to professional athletes — explains why lasting change starts with the nervous system, not the mind.

Most of us try to think our way out of anxiety — and lose. Joey's argument lands close to FLAME's core: the sequence matters. Regulate the nervous system first, manage the emotion second, and only then train the mind. Get the order wrong and willpower is fighting biology; get it right and change starts to compound. His system distils ancient wisdom traditions, psychology and neuroscience into something you can actually practise.

Brad and Joey get specific about what that practice looks like: the three emotional competencies — building awareness, switching off fear-based states, and deliberately switching on love-based ones — plus a simple morning check-in and a four-sided breathing pattern you can start the same day. They close on the four steps Joey has watched underneath every genuine transformation, whether the person in front of him is an executive, an athlete, or someone rebuilding from the ground up.

Joey has made both of his books — The Inner Matrix and Relationship Alchemy — plus a complimentary session with a certified IMS trainer free for FLAME listeners at the link below.

In this episode

  • Why you can't think your way out of anxiety — regulate the body first
  • The sequence of change: nervous system → emotion → mind
  • Three emotional competencies: awareness, switching off fear, switching on love
  • A morning check-in and four-sided breathing practice to start today
  • The four steps behind every real transformation
  • How ancient traditions, psychology and neuroscience combine into one system
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