Music. Hey everybody, welcome to episode 403 of The Virtual Couch. I am your host Tony Overbay. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist. And today we are going to explore your emotional intelligence. What does that even mean? And how you can improve your emotional intelligence. And we are going to use glasses, dry eyes, flamingos, a nearly divorced couple, and even more to make the point. So of course I want you to listen to my podcast and rate and review it and share
it. and go to my website, sign up for my newsletter. My magnetic marriage course is so close to a relaunch. It's crazy, but that is all. So look at the link tree in the show notes or go to tonyoverbay.com. So there, I said it, please do those things. But I am ready now to lay out a promise, even a guarantee, that if you stay with me here today, you are going to learn things, you're gonna feel things, hopefully a chuckle or two, but you will leave this podcast wiser.
So, let's start by a story about a delayed flight home from a recent trip to Arizona. Because this delayed flight kept getting more and more delayed, and my wife and I found ourselves pulling up to the house at about 1 or 2 in the morning in California. And the next day was a Monday, and I had a very, very early client. And I like to record. I like to get here really early and record before clients
come in. And so I was wide awake from unpacking and we happened to have a vehicle situation where one was being fixed And so my wife was gonna ride me or drive me to work. So it was either get up early or Go now, so I said, yeah, why don't you you know, if you want to let's just take me now And then I have a couch as every therapist does I've made the mention before mine isn't your traditional therapist leather couch It's a really comfy.
I don't know what a non leather couch is comfy cushiony couch non-leather.
And so I came here and I thought you know what I will take a little nap I'll sleep here and I have a new app that I've been taking a look at I could go crazy on talking about mindfulness over the last three or four months because it's been a whole new experience but I've been experimenting a little bit with with an app that I'll probably talk about down the road but it uses the concept of these things called binaural beats
and it's really a lot of the I had no idea what I didn't know truly didn't know what I didn't know, But I there was a part of the app that said you could do lucid dreaming, which is where you can jump in and take control of your dreams. And I was definitely a skeptic of that. But I thought, OK, I'm here. I've got a few hours. I'll set my timer and I'm going to put my headphones on. I'm going to listen to these binaural beats and then let's jump into a dream. Let's take control of a dream.
And what happened was pretty fascinating. I thought it had only been two or three minutes. It had been about 20 minutes. And here's where let's just be vulnerable and open. I did wake up because I felt like I heard some really loud sound in my headphones. I went back and listened later and it wasn't what I thought it was. So that part, I think I made up. But I woke up and I had a little bit of that that sleep paralysis where I was very aware, but I couldn't move my arms.
And I love all things about sleep other than actually doing it itself. And I understand the concepts around sleep paralysis. And and my brain had not not released this hold on all the body parts. I wouldn't go run and play in traffic, apparently. So then I just kept myself a little bit calm and then I thought, okay, maybe I can slip back into this dream because it really was pretty wild.
I mean, I was able to, I was pretty present in the dream, but then I'm a 50 now, 54 year old man, and I realized I gotta go to the bathroom. And that is not the best thing to do when you're experiencing sleep paralysis because I thought this is a non-leather therapist couch and I have clients all day and all week. So I really need to get up. So then I'm able to eventually wiggle toes and fingers and arms, but then I gotta go.
So, I stepped off of my couch and I had set my glasses down on the floor, just in case we were wondering where on earth could this be going, and I broke my glasses. And so, in breaking my glasses, then I thought, okay, I got to do the duct tape thing, but I actually got super glue, put them together, but I still felt like these could break at any moment, so I probably need to go get an eye exam.
And now, we're getting more into today's topic. the eye exam really helped me understand that I truly did not know what I did not know and about something that had just happened so gradually over time and that was the worsening of my eyesight. So let's put a little pause right here and let me give you a definition of emotional intelligence and we're gonna dig a lot deeper into this here in a little bit.
But emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize, understand, and manage our own emotions and then as well as recognize, understand, and influence the emotions of others. And we're hopefully talking about a good kind of influence. But it encompasses a lot of skills, but one of the articles we'll refer to today talks about self-awareness, the ability to accurately perceive your own emotions and understand how they impact your thoughts and behaviors.
Your self-regulation, which is the ability or capacity to manage your emotional responses. So what do you do with those big feelings, especially in stressful or challenging situations? Social awareness, which then that involves understanding the emotions, the needs, the concerns of other people, also known as empathy. And so building empathy and recognizing dynamics maybe in a group or an organization, including your family or your relationship.
And then the fourth component of building emotional intelligence is social skills, or the ability to interact with other people, build these relationships, manage conflicts, work well in a team. And if you can improve this emotional intelligence, it's thought to be one of the key factors of this on the way to emotional maturity.
And it can lead to better personal and professional relationships, it can enhance your communication skills, and really give you a better understanding of yourself as well as others. This eyesight, we're gonna get back to that in just a second. I told you we're gonna go on a little bit of a little bit of a journey here today. So next, I want to talk about the process of gaining new information, which is a very fancy way of saying that we just don't know what we don't know.
So, I'm guessing that most likely you may not know some or all of the following. Let me start with bananas. Did you know that bananas are berries? Strawberries aren't. Because in botanical terms, a berry is a fruit produced from the ovary of a single flower with seeds embedded in the flesh. So, if you look at that definition, then bananas qualify as berries. But strawberries don't, because strawberries are actually considered aggregate fruits because they form a flower with multiple ovaries.
Another fun fact, honey never spoils. Archaeologists have found pots of honey in ancient Egyptian tombs that are over 3,000 years old and they are still perfectly edible, which is kind of gross. Like I have a hard time with the Thanksgiving leftovers a couple of days after. And I promised earlier we would talk about flamingos. Did you know a group of flamingos is called a flamboyance?
So while a lot of people know that things like a group of crows is called a murder of crows Not everybody knows that flamingos group together in something called a flamboyance And this term if you think about it really vividly captures the vibrant appearance and behavior of these these pink birds But here's the interesting thing in Hearing these facts.
What was your reaction? Was it, okay, this is kind of dumb, or was it, oh, that's interesting, I'm fun to know, or I want to know more, or was it, I don't really even think he's right. Because it's truly fascinating when you can honestly sit with yourself, with curiosity, and recognize that we're all pretty judgy, and we're all also pretty self-centered. And that's okay, because you're actually with yourself more than you are with anybody else.
So, one of what I feel are my life's many missions is to get to know myself, accept myself, and even, yes, grow to love myself, because when we can come from a place that it turns out that we're okay as we are, then we don't need as much validation from others, and we can be pretty consistently a solid, fun hang, either with others or with ourselves. So, at the core of that process is becoming more emotionally intelligent.
So, we are going to have to continually check ourselves with the old, I didn't know that, that's interesting. Tell me more versus that's dumb or this guy is dumb or yeah, I'm not really interested in that. Because I promise that that's one of the big takeaways that you will learn about today. Because when I talk about the group of flamingos or bananas or honey, if you say, who cares?
Well, I think the banana, I don't know if they're farmers, strawberry farmers, honey Farmers will go with bees, or Winnie the Pooh, or the people who make bit of honey, candy bars. And people who like flamingos care about those things. So when somebody else is communicating something, especially if you've asked them a question, Hey, how's your day champ? And if they start to tell you, and you're thinking, I'm not really that interested.
It really is a you thing. And that's one of those things that is a big part of a lack of social awareness, or a lack of emotional intelligence. Because not being able to sit with anybody else's opinions or anybody else's thoughts, or feeling like you have to have a reaction or weigh in and then tell somebody what they don't even realize that you think that they need to know about their thought or their experience, then that is a lack of emotional intelligence.
And I don't think that we look at it that way very often. Let me, and I think I can, let me, let me go back to something that I love talking about. and this I think will help explain this process of gaining emotional intelligence even better. I talked earlier about my glasses and I didn't even know that I didn't know that my eyesight had gotten really bad over the last two or three years. I didn't even wear glasses until my mid-40s and now they're they are a pretty consistent thing in my life.
So I love quoting the book Buddha Brain, the practical neuroscience to happiness, love, and wisdom, where the author Rick Hansen lays out these four steps along a process of awakening. And then I often refer to these same steps with my clients or I do so on my podcast as going from the you didn't know, what you didn't know, then now you know a bit more but you don't always do anything different and that can be so frustrating. And it's often a place that we spend the majority of our time.
Then you can move into the now you know more and you're beginning to do things about whatever it is more than you don't. And the final phase is that's where you become. And so change has truly become part of then what it feels like to be you or your implicit memory.
So when you look up in the book Buddha Brain, the author, Rick Hansen, he talks about what they call these things in education, and that is unconscious incompetence, then conscious incompetence, conscious competence, and unconscious competence. So I'm going to break those down here and then we're going to start tying everything together. One of the, to, to read what he talks about in the Buddha brain, we have to do a quick review of the first and second dart.
The first dart is the, it's the inescapable physical or mental discomfort in essence that we go through life. As long as you are, as long as you are being and doing and walking around the face of the earth, these darts will hit you. So that is, that is some mental discomfort. It can even be some physical pain.
That's just part of life. It's that concept of where life is is full of pain, but then that suffering part is what's optional because then once we know that there are these first darts, the second darts are our reactions or they're the darts that we throw at ourself. And so they often trigger more second darts almost in association. You can have these a second dart cascade, so to speak.
So as you start to deal with different issues on your own path of awakening, you'll start to encounter these stages of growth. So when he talks about stage one of growth, which again is that unconscious incompetence, or what I like to say you didn't know what you didn't know.
Hansen says you're caught in a second dart reaction and you don't even realize it and he gives the example of your partner forgets to Bring milk home and you complain angrily without seeing that your reaction is over-the-top. You're just in a reactionary mode You don't even know what you don't know.
You're unconscious and you're incompetent So that is the epitome in my opinion of a lack of emotional intelligence, So then he calls it the stage two Reaction, which is you realize you've been hijacked by greed or hatred or frustration in the broadest sense but you can't help yourself. Internally, you're squirming, but you can't stop grumbling bitterly about the stupid milk.
So that is that conscious, I'm conscious of my incompetence, and this is what I call the, now you know, but you struggle to act differently. And then you move on to stage three, where now there's some aspect of the reaction arises, but you really don't act it out. Yeah, you're irritated, but you remind yourself that your things worse and you probably could have gone and gotten the milk yourself if you really wanted it.
And then state, oh, and that one is what he calls conscious competence, I'm consciously competent. And that's where I like to call that one, I'm beginning to act differently more often than not. And then finally, we have his stage four of this path of awakening or enlightening, where he says the reaction doesn't even come up. And sometimes you forget you even had the issue. You understand there's no milk, but you just figure out what to do now with your partner.
So again, in education, those are unconscious incompetence. I'm not even aware of the immature way I'm showing up. Then you move on to, I'm conscious, I'm aware of it, I'm trying to figure this out, I'm starting to work on things, but I've got these deeply rutted neuropathways and I just do these things naturally. I'm conscious of my incompetence. And that's a tough place to be. But then you move on to, I'm conscious and I'm pretty competent. And eventually unconscious competence.
I'm just being, I don't even have to make a choice. I'm just doing and I'm showing up more emotionally consistent and with far more emotional intelligence. And so I think these are so helpful for just knowing where you are with any given issue. So if I go back to these stages of emotional intelligence and growth, now I'm just gonna use my concepts, my terms there. You didn't know what you didn't know. So it's really a stage of a lack of awareness.
You're unaware of your emotional responses or you're unaware that your eyesight has even gotten bad. And that can be really difficult because somebody could say, well, how would I even know? And, but the more that you start to just become naturally curious, then it's going to lead to more emotional intelligence.
Like that second dart reaction that we talked about earlier in this, you didn't know what you didn't know, you might react excessively without realizing even the intensity or the inappropriateness of your response. Like you might get really angry about something and then all of a sudden you feel bad about it so then you are really nice. And that's that part that when you are that person, I've been that person, you feel like, no, I'm so sorry, I figured it out.
But then the people around you don't necessarily feel so emotionally safe in the relationship because they don't quite know what version you're going to get. And I think that's one of the biggest components that I want to convey today is that is a lack of emotional intelligence and.
Better yet, it's okay because you're listening to this and you're starting to become aware, We're gonna get you to that now, you know, but you still struggle to act differently You start to become more aware of your emotional responses But you often feel unable to change them and this stage can be really frustrating because you'll start to recognize for lack of a better word some of your shortcomings but you frequently just find yourself reverting to old patterns because that's just what we do.
So similar to that second stage in Buddhist brain, you realize that the, we'll call it the disproportionate nature of your reactions. In this example where he was grumbling about the milk, but you just feel powerless to control them. But this stage is so crucial for acknowledging the need for change and beginning to develop these strategies to be able to regulate your emotions.
So if you are there or even just starting to be there, and these are a lot of the emails I get are from people that are waking up to their own emotional immaturity or narcissism or their impulsivity or their rejection sensitivity, but then they don't know what to do about it. So you're in the right place. Because that leads to that third stage of emotional intelligence or growth of beginning to act differently more often than not. And you're not gonna be perfect and that's okay.
You're more consistently aware of your emotions and you begin to manage them effectively. And it's more of this phase of active learning and applying new emotional skills. And this is where my beloved acceptance and commitment therapy is so powerful because then we start identifying what does matter to you. And now you're gonna start taking action on those things that matter to you.
Taking action, doing, not ruminating, not beating yourself up, not making excuses, taking ownership, and it is gonna be uncomfortable. But in that discomfort comes the growth. And this is such a, just such a crucial stage. And then we move on to, I love the changes just become a part of you. You just are being and doing. You're very non-reactionary.
You're very safe emotionally. you admit that things that you don't know and the things that you might have even done on accident or you did wrong and, Then you confidently talk about the things that you know that you are capable of so you start to lead people into safety And you're more curious about other people's experiences because it's okay for you to say I don't know that doesn't mean that people are gonna think less of you doesn't mean that people well if they are it's a them Issue,
but it doesn't mean that you are less of a person. We'll put it that way. So now when I go back to this concept of glasses, so I did not know what I didn't know. Like so many people, I was unaware of the gradual deterioration of my eyesight because it was such a slow change. It was so subtle, I didn't even realize how much my vision had gone on me, especially until I put my new glasses on, which was just yesterday.
And then similarly that I also had very dry eyes and I complained about those to my wife a lot and I mentioned them briefly to a client or two that is in that industry or that field. So when I went in for the eye exam this time, my doctor did an amazing job or the optometrist did telling me all about dry eyes and how normal that was in this day and age and all the reasons why.
And so I was aware that the I had dry eyes, but I had normalized the discomfort or I didn't even realize that it could be treated The way that it can be treated which has been such a better place the last week or two. So staying with this The the glasses the eyesight in that second stage of awakening or emotional intelligence now I know but I struggled act differently breaking my glasses kind of inadvertently led to an eye exam.
That was the moment of awakening I realized not only my vision needed help, but also, you know what, I need to speak out about my, the discomfort of my dry eyes when I was going to seek help. Literally, I was about to say it was an eye-opener, and I really didn't mean to make that pun. But it was, and then even then it was something where I kept putting it off and putting it off. I'll do it later, I'll do it later, I'll do it later.
And then eventually I did it, and now I got the new glasses and eyedrops, and it's amazing. It really is. Which then leads to that stage three, beginning to act differently more often than not.
Now that I was armed with this new information from my optometrist, I started to understand actually the importance of eye care, both in terms of correct vision and treating the dry eyes from everything from an oral supplement to these preservative-free drops that are amazing, to literally being a little more aggressive with my blinking, which is kind of funny if you're in the same room with me now at times.
But that knowledge led to conscious changes in my behavior, Choosing the right glasses, possibly adopting new habits, treatments for dry eyes. At that point now I am actively applying what I have learned, making the conscious choices for better eye health. And then last but not least, the change has become a part of me. Now it's been a little bit of time, and I wear my new glasses, I take care of my dry eyes, and hopefully that is going to become second nature.
I feel like with the eyedrops at least, we're starting to move into that world of where I don't necessarily have to remind myself to follow the new routines. They become just a part of what's going on throughout my day.
What I love about that concept is that it just can highlight that it can be something completely different that we didn't know like the flock of flamingos is a flamboyance that is a tongue twister or it can be something that we were just doing and tolerating and being that we didn't even have any awareness or idea that it could be done differently. So now let's enter the almost divorced couple.
So, of course, names and ages and a lot of the details have been changed, even though this couple literally said we would like to come on your podcast and talk about our issues, which I'm grateful for, but we have changed some of the things here. But let's call them Jack and Jill. Jack mid-40s, male, and I think this is significant because this was on the paperwork, going through an unexpected divorce and not necessarily being okay with it.
So his perspective, again mid-40s, and he perceived his marriage as stable. Because his method of handling disagreements with Jill, his wife, was to reassure her that her concerns were overblown and to assert that she needs to trust him. And he genuinely believes that his approach resolves conflicts and maintains peace. Now, Jill's experience, she was feeling increasingly unheard and invalidated.
And whenever she would attempt to express dissatisfaction, then she was met with Jack's, what he felt like were confident reassurances, but they literally dismissed her feelings. So for Jack, these are solutions, but for Jill, they are absolute dismissals. A lot of the greatest hits of, don't worry about it, that's not a big deal, you don't need to worry about that, I've got it taken care of, I said I'll do it, that's it, you need to calm down.
None of which were, are particularly helpful statements, but using my pillar one of a connected The conversation, plug for the magnetic marriage course, is about to be relaunched. We're assuming good intentions. He's not trying to hurt her by that, or even if she felt like it was pretty aggressive, there's a reason why he feels like that is the way that he needs to express himself.
Maybe that was how things were modeled in his home, or he lacked emotional intelligence, part of what we're talking about today. So in my office, Jill expresses her decision to potentially end the marriage, and that absolutely shocked Jack. He is perplexed. he believes that they had a good relationship. And then Jill starts talking about her very longstanding unhappiness and her efforts to communicate with him.
And she talked and gave examples that she had so many different times where she tried to communicate. And Jack consistently negated those. Now, Jack then had a realization. This is where he started to understand his blind spots. So he starts realizing that what he perceived as resolving issues was actually him imposing his perspective and his will, so to speak, on Jill, and that invalidated her experiences.
So he starts to see that his approach to conflict was more about getting rid of his own discomfort than addressing the issues at hand, the issues that she was bringing up. So also in the paperwork, he said he believed his marriage was in good condition and he was pretty resistant to the idea of divorce. So again, Jack was telling Jill that he is not okay with her bringing up divorce. And trust me, I am in the marriage helping people business, the people helping, the marriage helping.
But I think it doesn't take too much to see again that Jack is dismissing her feelings, not willing to listen, and saying, I will not stand for that. So what got Jack in the door was eventually... She tells him to start listening to my podcasts and he can't stand me. And then he thankfully realizes that I come in peace. I want to simply start from a place of, hey, hang on there. Is it safe to say that there are things that you don't know?
But the truth is you don't even know that you don't know these things. So he started listening to the podcast, realizing that he had these gaps in his understanding. So he comes in feeling blindsided. He admitted his lack of awareness about the marital problems and his own emotional processes. And so then he had this desire to understand what he was missing in his life and starting to acknowledge what we identified was Basically his limited perspective.
So he was having a hard time seeing outside of his own bubble or his own lens He truly didn't know what he didn't know and then that showed up as a lack of emotional intelligence, So let's let's jump over into emotional intelligence and I want to refer to an article I there were a lot of articles on emotional intelligence the one that I actually found And really helpful was one from the Harvard Business School, and it's called Why Emotional Intelligence is Important in Leadership.
But then I really feel like they handle things in a way that is not necessarily about leadership, but they just lay out the concepts very well. So I'm going to read a fair amount of this from Lauren Landry. And Lauren says, the technical skills that help secure your first promotion might not guarantee your next. If you aspire to be in a leadership role, there's an emotional element that
you need to consider. And it's what helps successfully coach teams, manage stress, deliver feedback, and collaborate with others. So right there, I think that would maybe even turn some people off from here, but it's where we go for the rest of the article that I think is magic. She says it's called emotional intelligence and it's one of the most sought-after, interpersonal skills in the workplace.
In fact, 71% of employers value emotional intelligence more than technical skills, when evaluating candidates. And I think this starts to go into, I think there's a lot of other names for it. People talk about common sense or they talk about book smarts versus street smarts. So then she says, what is emotional intelligence? Emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to understand and manage your emotions as well as recognize and influence the emotions of those around you.
The term was first coined in 1990 by researchers John Mayer and Peter Salovey, but was later popularized by a psychologist named Daniel Goleman. But then more than a decade ago, Goleman highlighted the importance of emotional intelligence to the Harvard Business Review, and he said that the most effective leaders are all alike in one crucial way. They all have a high degree of what has come to be known as emotional intelligence.
It's not that IQ and technical skills are irrelevant, they do matter, but they are now the entry-level requirements for executive positions. So you can be intelligent, your IQ, and you can have technical skills, almost know what to do, but then it's how you do it, I think, that becomes very, very important. So she said, over the years, emotional intelligence, also known as EQ, has now evolved into a must-have skill. Research by EQ provider TalentSmart shows that emotional intelligence is the
strongest predictor of performance. People with high emotional intelligence are more likely to stay calm under pressure, resolve conflict effectively, and respond to co-workers with empathy. So, slip into there that in a family dynamic, and I think that this is where things are very powerful.
That you want to be, I think, you want to be the person in your relationship and in your family with the high emotional intelligence to be able to stay calm under pressure, to resolve conflict effectively, and to respond to people in your family with empathy. Because that is that emotional consistency that is going to bring safety into your relationship.
And we already know that, or I think most will agree, that if you are telling your kids or your spouse what to do, we get hit immediately with the psychological reactance or the instant negative reaction of being told what to do. That is a defense mechanism.
But when we can start to speak first before being understood, ask questions before comments, my pillar three and my four pillars of a connected conversation, we can start to build that trust, and we can start to learn and grow and build empathy, and we quickly realize that we don't have to make everything about us. That everything, every interaction becomes this opportunity for us to grow. So now things start to get a little interesting. How do you identify a lack of emotional intelligence?
Lacking these critical emotional skills can lead to conflict such as misunderstandings due to an inability to recognize or understand emotions. That's either managing your own or understanding someone else's emotions and then you getting rid of their their emotions and your discomfort by taking control. One of the most common indicators of low emotional intelligence is a difficulty managing and expressing emotions.
You might struggle with acknowledging a colleague or at any time where I say anything about business please insert in their family. So acknowledging a colleague's concerns appropriately or wrestle with active listening. Consider the relationships you have with your co-workers or your family. Are your conversations strained? Do you repeatedly blame others when things don't go as planned? Are you prone to outbursts? Because these are all signs of a lack of emotional intelligence.
So she refers to four components of emotional intelligence. Self-awareness. Self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.
And this is one of these situations. I one time heard that the movie Stepbrothers, which was featuring Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly, the entire movie, and I would love to know if I have now confabulated this, but the entire movie was built because I think the writer Judd Apatow wanted to do the scene where the bunk beds collapse on each other, which is one of the greatest scenes in movie history, snubbed the Oscars, shockingly.
But I feel like in that same breath, I almost feel like this entire episode was somewhat built off of this next paragraph. Self-awareness. Again, this is the first component of emotional intelligence. Self-awareness is at the core of everything. It describes your ability to not only understand your strengths and weaknesses, but to recognize your emotions and their effect on you and your team, or Insert Family, their performance.
But here it is, right here. Drum roll, please. I hope I built it up because I think it will deliver. According to research by organizational psychologist Tasha Urich, 95% of people think that they are self-aware, but only 10-15% actually are, and. That can pose problems for your employees, aka your, family, your relationships.
Working with people who aren't self-aware can cut a team's success in half and, according to Urich's research, lead to increased stress and decreased motivation, which I think is what is happening in so many relationships in so many homes. She goes on to say, to bring out the best in others, you first need to bring out the best in yourself, which is where self-awareness comes into play. One easy way to assess your self-awareness is by completing a 360-degree feedback.
And now we're getting into some business tools that I am not familiar with, but that's one in where you evaluate your performance, then match it up against the opinions of your boss, your peers, and direct reports. And through this process, you'll gain insights into your own behavior and discover how you're perceived in the organization.
And I realize right now I'm skipping through that because I've had people come in and talk about getting those kind of those kind of that feedback and either being incredibly offended or feeling like everybody said the same thing, they're fine. So, it's almost as if people that were filling out this feedback were honest and the person that wanted the feedback can't, they're saying, no, that's not who I am.
And now we're digging into that. I think we all present a version of ourselves and say, hey, everybody validate this. And then if somebody says, oh, um, what if that's not exactly my experience, then we're offended. How dare they? Don't you know who I am? Even if I'm not really sure who I am. And then I have the other version of that where I might have somebody that has a very big personality, shall we say, and then they'll say, no, I got back all the feedback. Everybody said I was great.
I think maybe they have to because they know the consequences. So that's self-awareness. The second one is self-management. Self-management refers to the ability to manage your emotions, particularly in stressful situations, and maintain a positive outlook despite setbacks. Boy, that sounds like a little bit of the recipe for emotional consistency. Leaders who lack self-management tend to react and have a harder time keeping their impulses in check.
And here we go again with the emotionally immature or Impulsive person in the family, even if they mean well, even if they are Experiencing the the good old nice guy syndrome where they are just continually trying to do things for everybody so that then everybody will do things for them, Even though they have not expressed what those things are that they are hoping that people will do So they have set these covert contracts They've almost set
these traps and snares for all the people around them that will not get that right and then the person The impulsive or emotionally immature nice guy who I 100%. Have been that guy then gets to say man These people don't even care about me.
I must be unlovable So that is why it becomes so important to figure yourself out and your own emotional intelligence so that you can show up and not need all of that and that external validation because that is is putting all of the what your value or worth is on someone else and I often say that there's a 95%, chance they're not going to get that right and then when they don't then you're offended and you also feel broken and unlovable and that's where it turns out
to be that you're actually okay but in that check for self-management, we often find that our reactions are just so automatic, we're back to that the first dart reaction well no we're talking second dart first start something happens but those second dart reactions are so automatic so impulsive but the more in tune you become with your emotional intelligence the easier you can make the transition from reaction to response and.
It is so important to pause breathe collect yourself do whatever it takes to manage your emotions whether that means taking a walk a step outside calling a friend petting a dog whatever you need to do so that you can more appropriately and intentionally respond to stress and adversity and that is where I won't do it today, but I could go on and on about the importance of a daily mindfulness or meditative practice.
It is a practice to continually let your mind go crazy. You are not trying to stop your thoughts.
That's not the goal. The goal is to think and feel and be and do and then continually practice coming back to, center, grounding, to the breath, to the room, to the feeling on the couch, to the smells in the room, to the sounds that you hear, and then you're back in your thoughts in your head and you come back to the center, to grounding, to the moment, and the more you practice that, then that visceral or gut reaction that those thoughts, the emotions travel twice as fast as the thoughts,
your emotional response starts to become more emotionally consistent. You're able to build that pause in to then be able to manage your emotions and not just lash out and act impulsively. Next up is social awareness. While it's important to understand and manage your own emotions, then you do need to start to know how to read a room. Social awareness describes your ability to recognize others' emotions and the dynamics at play within your organization or family.
And I realize how admittedly skewed and somewhat jaded I am of working so much in the world of nice-guy syndrome, emotional immaturity, and narcissistic traits and tendencies, where it's even hard for me to not read this. And when it says know how to read a room, that I've worked with too many people that then are saying so that then I can manipulate and do a hard sale to a sales pitch to and try to convince that you need to do it my way and that sort of thing.
But this is assuming that there is more you're coming from a place of doing what you feel is the best or the greater good. Leaders who excel in social awareness practice empathy. And it is again a practice. You have to step outside of your own lens, your own ego to be able to try to understand what is going on for someone else.
They strive to understand their colleagues' feelings and perspectives, and that gives them the ability, the opportunity to communicate and collaborate more effectively with their peers because it is not all about them. She then shows some global leadership development firm, DDI, they have some data that ranks empathy as the number one leadership skill, reporting that leaders who master empathy perform more than 40% higher in coaching, engaging others, decision-making.
And in a separate study by the Center for Creative Leadership, researchers found that managers who show more empathy toward their direct reports are viewed as better performers by their bosses. So look at that in the family setting and I will, I feel safe to say that that will work in your relationships if you are cultivating empathy in that social awareness. So by communicating with that empathy, you are better there, able to support those around you, your team, your family.
But even more so, that practice also then improves you. Instead of just getting rid of your discomfort, instead of just using anger to get rid of a moment or to manipulate or to tell somebody they're wrong or trying to always put yourself in this one-up position or it wasn't my fault.
That once you start embracing and learning the concepts around emotional intelligence, this is why I continually hammer the every single opportunity that you have to interact with another human is an opportunity for you to grow, not for you to show how amazing you are and how much better you are than them and all of those things. That's not the point. And then finally, relationship management. That refers to your ability to influence, coach, and mentor others and resolve conflict effectively.
Again, we're talking about the good kind. Some prefer to avoid conflict. I know I am one who has often tried to avoid conflict. But it's important to properly address issues as they arise. Research shows that every unaddressed conflict can waste about eight hours of company time in gossip and other unproductive activities, which starts to put a drain on resources, morale. So if you want to keep your team happy, you need to have those difficult conversations.
Part of my whole magnetic marriage course is about we're so afraid of contention that we avoid tension altogether and tension is really where that growth occurs when you have the right tools. 72% of employees ranked respectful treatment of all employees at all levels as the top factor in their job satisfaction.
So I think it's safe to say that this concept of emotional intelligence, it will not only make a leader more effective, it will make you more effective as a human being and how you show up in your relationships, how you show up in your home, and then there's an internal shift. This is why I want to go back to you didn't know what you didn't know, then you know you're not doing, you're doing more than you don't, and you become.
Because when you have become more emotionally intelligent, it doesn't mean you're done, it doesn't mean it's over, but now you are on this amazing path where every opportunity is one to self-confront and grow because it is a me issue. And not that I don't find myself still wanting or needing some validation on occasion, but you find yourself being more comfortable in your own skin.
And that becomes so, so powerful. Let me take you through a little bit of a speed run of Jack and Jill's experience before we wrap things up. So Jack's process of becoming, when he was in that he didn't know what he didn't know phase, there were some key components, there were some key items that occurred.
One, when Jack's relative started to ask about his divorce a year ago, he had reacted real defensively, and this was about the potential or possibility of a divorce, and with irritation, and he felt like the question was intrusive. And his response was really sharp and it was actually really rude. He wasn't even aware of how his unresolved emotions about the possibility of divorce were really influencing his behavior.
A few months now we go into that stage two, the conscious incompetence or now you know but you struggle to act differently. He's a few months into therapy, a similar situation occurs, and he was so much more aware of his emotional triggers and he recognized that he was able to see his defensive reaction.
It was right there on the surface and that that was an expression of his pain and his frustration about the divorce, but that was a warning sign to him to say, man, you need to take a look at this pain and this frustration, and this is something we can work with. Now, despite the awareness, he still kind of struggled to control his response, and he was just visibly uncomfortable and annoyed, but he didn't call out anybody.
Then when he got into that stage three of conscious confidence, or beginning to act differently, more often than not, he started to handle similar inquiries with more composure, and he talked about what his experience was, and he understands the difficulties that he has put his wife and family through. And at this point, he absolutely hopes that he's given another chance, but he needs to become the very best person he can be.
And so where he would still feel a little bit of a surge of defensiveness, but he was so aware and conscious and was able to respond calmly and he acknowledged that, again, his actions are and it wasn't from a place of wanting to get validation or to try to throw himself under the bus to play the victim. But he just was able to acknowledge what he now knew that he didn't know before and that he could sit with that discomfort because he was on this path of growth.
Then you go, it was almost a year later at that point, the couple's doing pretty well. And he talked about being at this similar family gathering. And then somebody was asking more, they didn't realize all the work he had done and they were calling him out on the person he had been a year before. And he said that, he said, my response was so different. He said, I was able to have empathy and understanding that, of course, this person doesn't know what I've gone through over the last year.
And so I can understand why they would even be making the jokes they're making. And he said he spoke really openly and reflected about his experience over the last year, and he said, I really didn't feel any distress or any defensiveness. Because he had internalized this whole concept of his emotional intelligence to the point where he could discuss really sensitive topics like how close he was to divorce with ease.
And he said it was even an understanding and where he really now wanted to just start to just be so intentional about the way he lived his life and especially with his wife and his family so that he could be that light unto others if people were looking to him in that way. So his response he said at that point was so natural that he said it really just demonstrated to him a very deep level of self-awareness.
Emotional regulation, and I remember wanting to, if I had a printer in my office, print him up a little certificate that said you are now emotionally mature.
They continue to come to therapy from time to time and because now they recognize there are things that they still are sure that they don't know that they don't know but that path to becoming more emotionally mature and emotionally intelligent has been an absolute game changer not just for jack it's helping in the relationship as well but then he said it's just opened up an entire new world to him the way he interacts with people in his family his kids at his church in in his work,
with his friendships, and it's just fascinating. I hope that each and every one of you will remember that a pack of flamingos is called a flamboyance, and go get your eyes checked if you need glasses, and dry eyes is a real thing, but even more important is you are the only version of you walking the face of the earth, and what an opportunity you have to learn through the discomfort and become more self-aware.
Are you one of those people who says, you know I'm 95 one of those 95 percenters who who think I'm pretty self-aware but, I don't know are you maybe only one of the 10 to 15 percent that actually are or you have somewhere in between probably it's where we all I think most of us land especially if you're listening to this podcast you made it this far through you're in a place where you do want to learn more to get better,
so I have all the confidence in the world that you will send me your questions send me your thoughts send me your examples and pass this episode along to somebody that you think it might help and I appreciate the support taking us out per usual the wonderful the talented Aurora Florence with her song It's Wonderful. Have a great week and we'll see you next time on The Virtual Catch. Music.