Men's Interview Spotlight - Dr. Mort Orman - How Your Brain Turns Triggers Into Anger

Anger has a way of convincing us we’re powerless: someone disrespects you, something breaks, plans fall apart, and the heat rises like it’s automatic. That story sounds true, but it keeps a lot of men stuck. We talk with internal medicine physician and anger elimination expert Dr. Mort Orman, author of Dr. Orman’s Life-Changing Anger Cure, about a different model that’s both blunt and hopeful: outside events are triggers, not causes, and the real cause is a set of invisible “filters” your brain applies in the moment.

We get into how those brain filters drive anger and stress the same way they drive anxiety, why two people can witness the same situation with totally different reactions, and why “anger management” often feels like a life sentence. Dr. Orman shares his own history of waking up angry for years, struggling in relationships, trying therapy and self-help, and finally finding a practical framework that made his anger fade instead of simply getting “handled.”

We also bring it back to men’s mental health and relationships: what hidden anger can look like, the health and family costs doctors see over decades, and why waiting for an ultimatum can be a painful gamble. You’ll hear a powerful turnaround story sparked by an RV trip that nearly derailed a marriage, plus where to find Dr. Orman’s resources, including his website and a free handout for relationship anger.

If this conversation hits home, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a review so more people can find the show. What’s a trigger you want to understand better?

Transcript

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_00 0:30

Welcome to the men's round table, full of the chair.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Welcome back to the men's interview spotlight. I'm your host, Mr. Youth. If you're watching us for the very first time, thanks for making us part of your week. We are live on LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube as we speak. Our guest today is the internal medicine physician, anger and stress, elimination expert, and the author of Dr. Orman's Life-Changing Anger Clear. Dr. Mort Orman's in the house.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

Thank you. Happy to talk to you and your audience.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Same here, sir. Good to have you here. All right. So this is something that I know we have uh a male audience, and we have, and I'm I I reflect this probably once or twice uh in this show. We have what's called a men's roundtable series podcast every Thursday night at 7 p.m. We have men that get together in our safe space that we've created where we talk about men's issues, everything from validation to the father womb to anger to false narratives about men being supporters and leaders. We talk about all those things every week, and this show is an opportunity to have a one-on-one conversation about these same kind of topics, plus some more. So, you are uh what I would deem an expert in the area of anger and stress, and you dealt with it for a long time. Yes, give us a brief synopsis of your background, how you got to say 40 years you've been doing this, so kind of briefly share share about that, and then we get into some questions for you.

From Angry Doctor To Anger Cure

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Sure. Well, I I've been an internal medicine doctor for over 50 years, and uh 40 of those years, I've also been an anger and stress elimination expert, helping people get rid of, not manage, but get rid of their anger and get rid of their stress uh by understanding exactly where it's coming from. Um and um I didn't understand this myself when I was a young man going through medical training and opening up my practice. So I had a lot of anger, I had a lot of anxiety, uh, all of my relationships with women failed one after another. Uh and no matter what I tried, I couldn't uh fix it. You know, I tried all the self-help stuff and stress management stuff. I even went into therapy for several years, and I was still the same angry, anxious guy, you know, every day I woke up. It was, you know, it was like it was like Groundhog's Day, which is funny because my I was born on Groundhogs Day. So I was literally living Groundhog's Day every day. Um and uh it was very frustrating because I was, you know, I was very good at helping other people with their problems to solve their health problems and things like that, but I really couldn't, I couldn't make a dent in in these anger problems and relationship failures and things that I was having in my own life um until you know I really got decided I needed to find out some answers. So I started going into personal development work, did that for a couple of years, eventually pieced together some insights from different programs, and I finally figured out, you know, what was going on whenever I got angry. I figured out how my brain was making me angry, which no one ever told me, um, despite all my education. So I mean, it was like amazing. I was uh, and if if you'd walked up to me when I was in my 20s or mid-30s and asked me if I ever thought I would see a day when I would not be an angry guy and not be triggered very easily, I would have told you, I just don't think that's in the cards for me. I think that's just part of my makeup, part of my personality. So I was like one of the most shocked people in the world, you know, a couple years later to find out that, oh my God, all my most of my anger is gone now. I'm not getting triggered like I used to get triggered. I'm finally having success in my relationships. You know, it's like I didn't believe that was possible. And most people today who are stuck with anger problems or repeated relationship failures, they they probably don't think there's much of hope for them either to have the kind

The Biggest Myth About Anger

SPEAKER_02 4:15

of life that they dream of, you know?

SPEAKER_01 4:17

I doubt it. I won't do it at all. What's the what's one of the biggest myths or I guess misconceptions about anger today, Doc?

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Yeah, there's a lot of them. Uh the biggest one is we have this sort of external causation uh model, you know, and just because that's the way it looks like it happens. So we see things we don't like, people behave in ways we don't like, they say things, they do things, uh, and then we feel angry. And then it looks like it's a direct one causes two, you know, a one-two uh process, causal process. It's actually not. The the external events that upset us are really just the triggers. They're not the causes. The causes are happening inside of our brain, but they're invisible, so we can't see them. And unless you know what they are, they're actually not that complicated, but unless you know what they are, uh you can't defend yourself. So you know that's why most people, that's why if you turn on your TV or scroll social media and you see people being angry all over the place, and it looks like they can't control it. It's not that they don't have the ability to control it, they're just they have a blind spot about what's going on in their brain that's making them angry. Because our brain tells us to look at things in certain ways, and that's actually what causes our anger. If you don't look at it in those ways or believe those things about it, you won't get angry. And that's why two people can be standing side by side and they witness the same event. One of them angry, the other doesn't, because their their brains are doing different things in response to that trigger uh that makes one person angry and the other person doesn't have any reaction at all.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

That makes a lot of sense. So is the frequency of anger the same across genders, or is it a little different with men than it is with women?

SPEAKER_02 6:02

I think men and women get angry about the same amount. The difference is society is pretty much said to men, it's okay for you to express your anger.

Men And Women Express Anger Differently

SPEAKER_02 6:10

That's manly. That's good. But for women, women have been told it's a bad look, you know, for women to get angry. So they still get angry, but they've learned to uh mask it a little bit. You know, they'll put a smile on their face when they're angry sometimes, or they'll pretend they're not angry when they really are. Men are more likely, if they're angry, we're gonna show you that we're angry. We're gonna have an angry face, we're gonna have, you know, we're gonna get worked up, whatever. And because society said it's okay. Uh and and and unfortunately, women uh have been taught to suppress their anger or hide their anger or mask it. Um, although they will let it out at times, as we all of us men know, they will let their anger out. They will let their anger out at times, uh uh when usually uh when they're not in public, you know, um to do that. But but I think we get it, we all get triggered, we all get angry. And our brain, and there's no difference in what the brain is doing in a in a woman's brain or a man's brain. When they're making us angry, when our brains are making us angry, they're doing the exact same. They're giving us the same filters, they're telling us look at this situation in these ways and believe that these are completely true. And when you do that, then you get you get anger. So, for example, uh, and all the emotions work in the same way. So we all get anxiety from time to time. We get scared from time to time. So the first thing

The Brain Filters Behind Emotions

SPEAKER_02 7:35

our brain tells us to make us anxious, for example, is it tells us something bad is gonna happen. Very simple, not complicated, but it's a filter. Your brain says, Oh my god, something bad's gonna happen, you know? And it doesn't matter whether that's true or not. If you believe it's true, which your brain wants you to believe, then you're gonna feel anxious. And and we all know that uh countless times we have thought something bad was gonna happen and we got all scared and worried, and it never happened. So our brain our brain actually lied to us, or it exaggerated the likelihood that something bad was gonna happen. You know, it really inflated the probability, and it turned out it didn't happen.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Honestly. Yeah, and and that's that's where all of it's gonna think bad.

SPEAKER_02 8:25

Yeah, and that's that's where all of our emotions come from. Our brain is giving us a filters of how to look at the world and think about the world. And a lot of times the one or more of those filters isn't really true, but it but we believe it's true, and then we get the emotion. So and nobody can recognize what's the what's going on. You know, you talk about you know winning against stress, winning against anger. It's hard to win when you don't know how the game's being played and what your opponent is doing is doing. And that's the state that's the state we're in today. We get angry and we have no idea what our brain just did to us, you know, or we get anxious and we have no idea what our brain just did to us. And and you can learn these things. I mean, I take when I work with people and I have a coaching program, it only takes eight sessions. I can totally turn people around as far as their anger is concerned. Um, and in the first two sessions, I teach them how to understand what their brain is doing. It takes about two hours. It's not complicated. Anybody can learn it. Um, but once you understand and you have that model, you go every time you get angry, you're going, oh, I know exactly what happened. I know exactly what my brain, how my brain told me to look at the situation. Now I have to figure out what's true and what's not true. And when you start to do that, you realize, oh my God, my brain tricked me here or made me believe this, and it's not really true, or it's left, or it didn't have information that was really relevant, you know, and I didn't find out till later. You know, we've all had it, we've all had examples like that where we've gotten angry because we think somebody did something for certain reasons or whatever, uh, and then we find out later that we got more information later, and we find out oh, that was a completely false narrative. Uh, and uh we got angry over for no good reason, you know. So you can figure that out once you understand the mechanism and what your brain is actually doing every time it makes you angry, and it's the same thing over and over and over, and it's no different. That's the triggers can be very, very different. And what triggers you might not trigger me or somebody else. The triggers can be anywhere. But the whenever you get angry, it's always the same three filters in men, in women, and children. Doesn't matter whether you live in Russia, you live in the US, uh, you lived a thousand years ago, it's always the same three filters. Your brain's telling you, look at it this way, look at it this way, look at it this way. And then there's the behaviors that kick in too. But it's a very simple uh formula to understand. And when you when you arm are armed with that, it's like now you're in now you can play the game and win it. Now you know what's going on, you know.

SPEAKER_01 11:00

Yeah, all right. Yeah, we got time for a couple more questions, and after that, I have you uh let folks over there

Hidden Anger And The Health Cost

SPEAKER_01 11:05

can fire you and your work.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

So as it pertains to men, which is our entire audience can consist of men, maybe 90-95%. What and we talk about this a lot on our uh round table, what does hidden anger look like in men? Because I I think that peak men's tend to live in the moment where that's concerned, uh, and don't recognize the internal cost that's taking place. So in your system, what does that look like?

SPEAKER_02 11:33

Well, uh that's one of the that's one of the advantages I actually had by being a physician and having a lot of anger. I'm taking care of a I I'm taking care of a large group of people, and and I inherited a practice from a doctor who retired. So I was in my late 20s and I had a whole bunch of people in their 60s and 70s. And um, so I'm taking care of them every day, and I'm seeing what happens in their lives. I know about their health history, I know about their families, and and I and as doctors, we easily recognize the angry people from the not so angry people, and you start to see a very clear pattern that the angry people have a lot more health problems, they have a lot more heart attacks and strokes, and they come in and tell you, you know, their spouse asked for a divorce, or they get addicted to some substance, or they get thrown in jail, or something, you know, you got all these things that happen. And I'm sitting there as a young man with my own anger saying, you know, I don't really want to end up with all these problems, you know, and so that's what drove me into personal development. But it but as a doctor, we we see all the time how dangerous anger can be and how harmful it can be. And that's not to say there aren't times when anger might be useful. You know, if somebody's somebody's attacking you or somebody's threatening you or somebody's abusing you or encroaching on your boundaries, you know, then sometimes anger is appropriate response. Um, but but a lot of times, I'd say 90% of the time when we get angry, it's gonna cause problems for in our health, it's gonna cause problems on our jobs, it's gonna cause problems in our families or with our kids. And a lot of times, you know, it has a negative effect on our kids uh to be around a lot of anger in in either parent or both parents. So it's something that we really should consider. And a lot of times people wait until it's too late before they ask for help. They wait until somebody asks for divorce and they go, okay, now I better do something about my anger as well.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:29

You know, you knew that things were building, you knew that the your spouse wasn't happy, you know, with your anger outburst, but you just figured, well, I'll just put up with it. And then eventually they don't, and then you go, okay, now I'll go for help. Sometimes, you know, from men's standpoint, sometimes when a woman has closed her heart and and said, I want out, it's very hard. Even if you, even if you work on yourself and you and you overcome your anger problems, you know, that they may not be willing to rekindle the relationship. So uh I see I see a number of people have come to me when they get that ultimatum or they get that word. And it's really a shame that they waited that long to uh you know to do something about it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

I've seen I've seen that too, uh, most definitely in several instances of that. Uh could be my last question for you today. Without uh please please omit any names or unique identifiers, of course, but can you share a success story with somebody who you helped eliminate the anger or mostly anger?

A Real Client Turnaround Story

SPEAKER_02 14:31

There was a uh gentleman I work with. Uh I moved down to Florida a number of years ago and I play golf, so I went to a golf course and got matched up with a guy. And uh he was a nice guy, and uh I never really talked to him much afterwards, but he followed me on Facebook. Anyhow, he turned he's a he was a 66-year-old guy who had been divorced once, he was remarried, retired, and he uh calls me up one day and he says, My wife just gave me an ultimatum. And what happened was they they bought an RV because their dream was to go travel around in their retirement. So they bought a used RV and they went on the first trip, and he had never driven an RV before, he's getting blown all over the road, things are breaking down, and he's just getting angry. And he's not none of it was directed at his wife, but she was, my God, only two feet away in this little small space. And they walked when they got home, they both walked out of the uh RV, and she turned to him and said, I'm never going on another trip with you again until you handle your anger problem. So next day he was on the phone, called me. I met with him, he told me his whole story. He'd been angry all his life, his mother was very angry, his siblings were very angry. Uh, he he tried to get away geographically, he moved himself away from the family, but he still carried the anger with him. He tried all kinds of things, nothing helped. Uh he he signed up for my short program, and in eight, actually, 10, it was 10 sessions at the time, in 10 sessions, he was like a different guy. His wife could not believe how much he had changed, how he stopped getting angry at little things that she did. He even stopped getting angry on the golf course when he made bad shots, which was a habit before that. Uh, and it it just shows you that even though you've been angry all your life and nothing has helped, it doesn't matter. Once you understand what these invisible uh factors are that your brain's using, you can step in, take control, and really end a lot of the damaging anger uh in your life that can affect you and your partners and kids and your health. So it's very possible, it's just that very few people are teaching this. I mean, one of my goals is to get this into the education system. So by the time you graduate high school, by the time you graduate high school, you have this understanding that your emotions are not caused by things that are going on outside of you. You know, it may look that way, but it's really going on inside your brain. And you and you can take charge of that if you know what what's going on. And that can be taught very simply in schools. Uh, and that's one of my goals is to get that. So if any educators are listening to this or homeschool folks and they want to get this into you know their curriculum, I'd be happy to work with them to do that.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

Well, that would be awesome. I know I think I know plenty of books through my uh personal and professional journey. So perhaps I can make some uh hookups for you there. But that'd be great.

SPEAKER_02 17:19

That'd be great. I'd love to talk to anybody in the education space.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Yeah, and this actually several shows on our YouTube channel of people who are homeschoolers. I think there's three total that are doing that. Maybe uh a search of homeschooling in our uh our brand, our network, and you find those people who you can connect there to. So a lot of ways to do that. But before we

Resources Education Goal And Closing

SPEAKER_01 17:40

get off the air, can you uh briefly share kind of uh where people can find you and you work, work under your book is with on Amazon. But how else can they find you along with your book? Go ahead and share that.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

Yeah, uh people can go to my website, it's docorman, do c or m- dot com. And I also have a handout for people who are worried about anger in their relationships. So it's called How to Eliminate Unwanted Anger in Your Marriage or After Divorce. So, particularly after you know, after divorce, it's very important to understand anger so you don't end up in that same situation again when you have your next relationship. So, and you can get that handout by going to um relationshipangercured.com. And that you can download that for free. That'll get you on my mailing list also so you communicate me with me that way. Uh, it also shows you how you can set up a time to speak with me if you want.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Thank you very much. Internal medicine physician, anger and stress elimination expert, and the author of Dr. Orman's Life Changing Anger Cure.

unknown 18:40

Dr.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Mort Orman. Thanks for your time and being a part of this, and thanks for your day.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

My pleasure. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Thank you if you guys are watching for the very first time. Thank you for being a part of this process, this journey that we're on together. Thanks for watching and listening. You can find us on all social media platforms, of course. If you can follow us, support us, subscribe to our YouTube channel, helps out greatly to keep on putting out great content like this. Dr. Orman, thanks for your time here. Thanks for making us uh small part of what you're doing. And we're grateful for you. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_01 19:13

Have a great day, guys. Thanks for watching in Men's Interview Spotlight.

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Men's Round Table, everybody, step inside. Real men, real faith where the truth can lie. Voices at the table where the stories can share. Welcome to the men's round table, pull up a chair.