Emotional Intelligence 2.0 - Self-Awareness

Tony: You’re listening to The Present Professional, where we explore the intersections of personal and professional development.

John: To change your experience of life and work with every episode.

Tony: So tune in, grab your notebook, and let’s go. Let’s go.

John: Welcome to the Present Professional. In this episode, we’ll introduce you to the topic that’s been going all around professional circles these days, emotional intelligence. And specifically on this one, we’ll talk a little bit more about self-awareness. But we want to introduce you to the overall concept in itself and tell you our perspective on it, how it can help you within your professional and personal life. But before we get into all that, I wanted to tell you the different pieces of it. So in the book that we’re going to be referencing here by Travis Bradbury and Gene Greaves, we’re going to Emotional Intelligence 2.0. They have it defined as two separate tracks made up of four different skills. So there’s the personal competence side of things, which is self-awareness and self-management, and then the social competence part of it, which is social awareness and relationship management. So those four skills as they have it, self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management, we’ll be breaking those down together in a four-episode series starting with this one right here. But to kick us off, tell us a little bit about what emotional intelligence means to you, Tony, And, you know, I’ll go into it, we’ll talk about some personal examples, and give the folks something to walk away with here. So what do you think, Tony? Define it for yourself.

Tony: For sure, for sure. Thanks for teeing it up so nicely. Man, emotional intelligence is definitely a topic that’s a hot topic for many of our works in our circles and spheres of influence. I think it’s something that people lack in a way where they don’t even acknowledge it or they don’t even know it exists. We have a society of highly functioning human beings, right? People are busy, people are on the go, people are juggling different tasks. You have moms who have full-time jobs and are also active in their society circles and things like that. People are just naturally just busy, busier than ever. In the busyness, you know, there’s a part of being busy that we’re not thinking about when it comes to people and conversations and working together and this new life of collaboration. And that’s where emotional intelligence comes in. And, you know, like you said, I think it’s a huge pillar of personal development. So for me, emotional intelligence is looked at as just as important as IQ. People have defined emotional intelligence as EQ, actually. And with your EQ, it’s not just about how smart you are, but it’s more about how aware you are. How aware you are within yourself and how aware you are socially. And the good thing about what I love about the book, Emotional Intelligence 2.0, is that they give the science behind it. They talk about how emotional intelligence requires communication within your brain. So when you receive information or you receive something that someone says to you or even a thought, you interpret your feelings. And from interpreting your feelings, then you have to rationalize it. And when you rationalize it, that’s where the emotional intelligence science really kicks in because your rationalization can either be accurate or completely inaccurate. The good thing, too, is in the book, they do give you an assessment to take. So for people who are interested, highly recommend taking this. You can see where you are when it comes to your own emotional intelligence. But that rational part, I just want to kind of hone in on that so people understand that when you are interpreting your own thoughts and when you are around people socially, you have a responsibility to think rationally and not just think about yourself or what you interpret the thing to be. And I just want to plug, that’s where good coaching comes in. So can you tell people real quickly what you think about that, but also the importance of having a coach so that you can help you with your rational thinking, with your emotional intelligence?

John: Think having a coach is a superpower. It is something, you know something that I was introduced to late and you know late in my corporate career and I think that all of the leaders that I worked with could have benefited from having that type of honest mirror because when it comes to these These four skills these four ways of being that are in emotional intelligence 2.0 It’s all about first acknowledging where you’re at, right? Being okay with that without judgment. And the first part of that is, yes, I enjoy looking at the results of the test and going over those with the coach can provide you a little bit more insight into the little things that you may be overlooking. So it may be something around the lines of the way that you respond to things within specific situations. So specific situations can be more of a trigger than others, but you might not be noticing that because you’re having a visceral reaction because something has triggered you, whether that be from your past, from in the present, something that you’re concerned about, something that you may be worried about in the future. Something, everything that I just said there kind of takes you out of the present moment. And when we’re out of the present moment, when we’re not being mindful, when we’re not aware, those primitive tendencies take over. And that’s where I feel he’s talking about in the mind. is when it comes to rational thought, unbiased thought, looking at things objectively, it takes some space between stimulus and response to do that. And the great thing about having a coach is it gives you that awareness without having as much of the space, right? So as you’re working to cultivate, your self-awareness, grow a little bit more in that area of understanding, of seeing your thoughts, your emotions as you’re developing there. If you’re doing that with a trained coach, then they’re going to catch the things you’re not aware of as you’re developing. Yeah. So they’re going to even they’re going to reflect back that awareness to you. So you can learn at a much faster rate. You’ll improve your emotional intelligence scores at a much faster rate because you don’t have to just wait to discover things on your own. You’re working with someone that is going to honestly reflect back. what they’re seeing that is honestly going to reflect back the tendencies, the triggers, the limiting beliefs, the blocks that may be holding you back, the thoughts that are not serving you anymore. And the growth that comes from that is, it’s just unparalleled, man. It really is. So when it comes to defining emotional intelligence, So my, I feel like my personal definition is being aware of and understanding the emotional response that comes up in yourself and others without judgment. So I feel that someone is emotionally intelligent if they’re able to notice emotions that come up, the feeling, the energy within themselves, the room, without being in judgment over it. Notice it objectively and then make a choice from there. How do I want to show up in this room? How do I want to show up as myself? And I think that’s an emotionally intelligent being. What do you think?

Tony: Yeah, I think you’re spot on, man. And a part of that, too, is without judgment, but then also it’s caring. When you recognize things in yourself or things socially with other people, then you may notice that people withdraw from you. But a part of being emotional intelligent is also caring about that. What I mean by that is like if someone or something’s happening where you know that you may not be performing at an optimal emotional intelligence level, and you don’t care, that is not emotionally intelligent. But sometimes people say, you know, I don’t care how people feel about me, or I don’t care what people think about this or that. That’s just not emotionally intelligent. And those people sometimes are stuck, stuck career-wise, stuck relationally, or just stuck within themselves. You know, the book also looks at the whole person when it comes to defying emotional intelligence. And they break it down into three quadrants, your IQ, your EQ, which is emotional intelligence, and then your personality. So your IQ and your personality, they don’t change that much. You can become smarter by reading and doing a lot of schoolwork and things like that. Your personality though is usually fixed. You can really do the work to change that too. But the thing about all three of those things is your emotional intelligence is the one that is the most flexible and able to change. So sometimes people start with the wrong thing. They say, well, I’m going to go back to school or I’m going to become a better person. I’m just going to naturally become a nicer person and change my personality. But honestly, if you were to change your EQ Whatever you’re looking, whatever problem that you’re facing would probably rapidly change faster if you put in the work to do your emotional intelligence work. Meaning, if you’re feeling stuck at work and you think that you need to add another degree or change jobs, What if you changed the way that you worked with your peers and your clients and your customers? I think that would make you go up the corporate ladder faster than spending two or three more years getting another degree. From a personality standpoint, if you’re struggling in relationships and then you think that, well, it’s everybody else, well, what if you did the work to have more self-awareness? and more social awareness and cared more and put in the work to have your emotional intelligence improved. So, you know, I’m just a big believer in EQ, man. And I’ve seen it work for me. I’ve seen it work for other people. And, you know, hopefully it works for some of our listeners.

John: Yeah, I know it’ll make a difference for a lot of our listeners. you know that first that first quadrant there of self-awareness and you know where we wanted to where we wanted to talk about that today and I think it’s great coming off of our you know coming off of our last episode Specifically on the foundation of all this work and why self-awareness is so important why it’s important to know yourself your tendencies and I wanted to start with some of the strategies that they have here and you know why self-awareness is so important to EQ and I’ll give I’ll give my uh my why behind it and it all starts with self-awareness just like our podcast started with it it’s going to start here as well with emotional intelligence because in order to improve your your EQ you have to know yourself You have to be aware and not just self-knowledge, but self-awareness in the moment, like being able to see your tendencies, be able to see your reaction coming up. It takes another profound level of being aware of the present moment and internal awareness. And they have a bunch of strategies here in the book for cultivating that. How do you feel about sharing a couple of those with the listeners?

Tony: Oh yeah absolutely man that’s what I’m sure for people who are listening to this that’s what they’re here for is growth and you know before I do that I had another thought I wanted to touch on when it comes to the foundation of your EQ. So before we give you the strategies Understand that these are the kinds of things that if you just put a little effort toward, you could make a big difference. Things like time management, empathy, managing your personal stress, your presentation skills, your anger management, your trusting of other people, accountability, social skills, customer service, all these things are the root and foundation of emotional intelligence. It’s not some huge big secret science thing that you are like, what are they talking about? It’s actually very small things that make a huge difference in your personal growth. And actually, there’s science behind it that it also improves your salary. potential as well or in other earnings too. So if you’re a business owner or an entrepreneur, you should definitely consider taking the course and putting in the work that needs to be done to improve your emotional intelligence. When it comes to self-awareness, really it’s having an honest understanding of what makes you tick. That’s a huge part of it. And really want to make sure that people understand that, like John’s saying, it’s that mirror. Looking in the mirror and just making sure that you are being honest with yourself. And some self-awareness strategies that you can do that I personally like that the book also touches on is knowing who and what pushes your buttons, watching yourself like a hawk. We talked about that a bit in the first episode. And I like this one too, which is don’t be fooled by a bad mood and don’t be fooled by a good mood either. A mood is just a mood that doesn’t, remember, we’re talking about rational thinking. So the feelings of a mood or even any feelings that you have, that’s not the end result. You shouldn’t let the feeling or the mood determine what’s rational or not. Once you see that you’re having a mood or an emotion rise up, that’s step two of three. The third step is to properly rationalize that and then make a decision, and that’s emotional intelligence.

John: Yeah, I love and even just even just looking at looking at feelings objectively I think it is really parallel with what we were talking about about good and bad moods But the number one thing there right the number one self-awareness strategy in the book is Quit treating your feelings as good or bad. They’re just feelings. It’s the same thing as thoughts, as moods. It’s like, okay, here’s a feeling. I’m feeling this type of way. It’s causing sensation. I notice it. And now, what is the actual decision that I want to make from what I value? From who I want to be? From how I want to show up in the room? So being able to look at it as objectively without judgment, it helps you separate the story from it. Because I think that where this good emotion or bad emotion, it also reflects on, okay well then, I’m a good person or I’m a bad person. Which then it’s like, that I feel like affects how you respond to the situation more than anything.

Tony: So I love I love that first one and then hey John can we talk can we pop pocket there for a second though because that’s so good. Like we can unpack it even more because you know how people say I’m in a bad mood. That can create a dark cloud over your head. And then that dark cloud follows you into work. It follows you into relationships. But that’s because you haven’t finished analyzing your feelings. That bad mood is just, remember, it’s step two of three. There’s still a third part, which is properly rationalizing it. And then the thing about good mood too, if you have too much of a good mood, that can actually Stagnate your emotional intelligence as well because then people may not want to work with you because you may have a snobbiness or a arrogance or a bit of narcissism in you that people pick up on and they also Look at that in the book and analyze that as being a negative toward emotional intelligence So I just really wanted to say that man before we moved on because that good mood bad mood is I think that the world and society has decided that their mood is the determinant on everything when it comes to social awareness, and that’s not true. Right.

John: And I think, so for me personally, the good mood was the growth edge for me. I felt that I was so aware of and able to manage a bad mood, Like coming into it and coming into this awareness was like, oh, yeah, for sure. You know, I never let you know, I never let my emotions get the best of me, but I was only in my head at the beginning thinking of bad things like, oh, first, I’m labeling these emotions as bad. All right. So it’s like when I feel the anger, frustration, like annoyed, like I would I would be able to set those down, take a look at how I want to respond, and be able to look at things objectively. And then it’s funny, because when I was thinking of that, when I was thinking of, oh, how do I respond to this in my self-awareness? Actually, when I was thinking about my emotional intelligence, when I was first introduced to this, I thought I was above and beyond. But it was the good emotions were my blind spot. When I’m all, when I’m all hype, everything’s good. It’s like, then social awareness kind of goes out the window. Like what I’m saying, like awareness of what I’m saying and why. Cause it’s like, oh, well it’s a good mood. It doesn’t matter. Everything’s great. But no, like sometimes it’s not received well. Like you said, I said, so I’m glad that you brought that up because that was such a growth edge for me was noticing like, okay, you’re excited. Don’t be a dick.

Tony: You know, I can relate though, like for me, and I’ve even recognized it, and this is like within the last year, like this isn’t something that years ago, it’s a constant learning and constant development that is required by people who are leaders or say that they put in the work. You have to continuously be growing. But I noticed that for me, when I have multiple projects going on that are like high stress and then when my time is like super limited, at least in my mind, it’s super limited because I feel like I have to get certain things done within a certain period of time. I noticed that that affects other people and they wouldn’t, they didn’t appreciate rushing or short conversations or just kind of feeling as if they’re not important. And for me, I didn’t. recognize that I was doing that because I’m really like, well, I’m really busy and I’m really doing a lot of different things and I have only this much time. But what I started to notice is that that was a me thing. And the trigger for me was having multiple projects going on, especially at work, as we’re talking about the present professional. A lot of times at work, You’re pulled in different things and you are kind of, what is it, overworked and underpaid or you’re wearing multiple different hats. But if you can recognize that and not let that affect your mood or not affect how you interact with other people, you can have happy and positive work relationships and personal relationships by recognizing what the trigger is. Like you may be a high performer, but You feel stressed because of the amount of work that you have on your plate. Well, don’t let the work supersede the people because the people matter.

John: And and which is why emotional intelligence is such a predictor of your success in the workplace, because, yes, people matter. People matter now more than anything in collaboration and business. Yeah. And just to just to touch on coaching one more time, So number number 14 here on the list and seek feedback. And if you’re not working with a coach, then we’ll do, we’ll end up, I mean, we’ll be doing a whole episode, maybe even a series on giving and receiving feedback. Let’s be real because that’s so important. So if you’re not working with a coach, you have to at least be working on a part of this emotional intelligence and have an accountability partner. have an honest mirror in your life that you can ask, Hey, I’m working on X, Y, Z. Can you let me know how you think I’ve been improving or what do you think I could have done better in this meeting to, you know, to be more self aware, to be more aware of what’s happening in the room. Like how do you, how would you rate, you know, my emotional intelligence in that meeting? Like having some trusted, honest mirrors that will give you honest feedback is invaluable. And if you’re working with a coach, that’s a different level then, right? Because then you have trained feedback that gets behind the why, gets behind the meaning behind what you say, the triggers, where they come from, getting into depth. But if you’re not getting to that depth, You have to at least have those trusted accountability partners that are going to bring your blind spots into awareness.

Tony: Mm-hmm. I love it. And I mean, you know, I love number three and four which is lean into your discomfort That’s number three and it’s it’s proper healing to lean into your discomfort along the self-discovery self-awareness process because it is uncomfortable to see yourself with a mirror in front of you and know that hey I’m not who I thought I was that’s what happens when you take that self-awareness test you’re like oh I’m not as self-aware as I thought because we all think we know ourselves but we do but we don’t know how other people view us sometimes and we also don’t know what we don’t know. And that’s the importance, like you mentioned, of having a coach. And number four is feel your emotions physically. And understand, to me, especially when it comes to anger management for people, I don’t have issues with anger management, thankfully, but I’m just saying for people who do, if you feel that rise, that you feel yourself getting hot after a certain conversation or even a thought sometimes when you’re alone, You should definitely seek counsel on that because that’s unhealthy and that is a part of the emotional intelligence growth is recognizing those feelings and then properly putting them in their places and then also doing the work that’s required to improve on those different things. I almost look at it like Emotions can sometimes be like a shoe box or something. Like you need to pick up the shoes and put them in the right box because they’re all over the place. And that’s how your emotions are. When you can categorize them, then you can work on each individual thing one by one. And sometimes it takes a coach to do that with you because you don’t even want to pick up your shoes. You don’t even want to start. But that’s OK. That’s why people like us are here. But even if you don’t have a coach, just using a journal, that’s in there too. It’s another self-awareness strategy and that’s important. I know that at one point in my life I journal every day. I don’t have that kind of time anymore. At least I say that to myself, I probably should do it. That’s emotional intelligence to be recognizing that. But I do write down all of my tasks and all of my things and all of my thoughts and all of my plans. Those kind of things, but that really helps me too along the journey, but writing is super important, and if you find yourself struggling with emotions, consider journaling. You’ll be surprised at what could happen if you do that. I know there’s a story with Abraham Lincoln where he had, before he was who he became, he was a very angry guy. He would lash out at people quite often, One time he wrote a letter once he became more aware of himself actually and became a person of power. Someone on his team messed up really bad. I mean it was I want to say it was I think it was a battle that happened, a battle at Gettysburg maybe, but he wrote a letter to one of his generals and he was so pissed. And I mean, he just like completely went off on him, but he never sent the letter. He just wrote it. And he probably felt amazing for writing it. but never sent the letter. Because that, those feelings that he had and those emotions, the other person receiving that, that feedback or that criticism, it was just unnecessary. And that’s emotional intelligence. You know, just taking some time and getting your own thoughts out and then healing from it.

John: That’s a great story. That’s a great story. I love that. And you know, when it comes to journaling is really powerful. Getting your thoughts out on paper, getting your emotions out on paper. And speaking of emotions, it’s another, I think another really profound part of recognizing your emotions. is having the vocabulary to do so. So when, when most people, when you ask most people about, you know, can you name, like name as many good and bad, what you would say, emotions or name, name as many emotional states as you can think of. And most people you get happy, sad, and angry. but there are so many different nuanced ways of looking at emotion. Frustrated, disgust, awe, excitement, like so many different ways that you can describe how you’re feeling. And I think that that’s really critical to being able to notice your emotions is really diving into the diversity of them. diving into different ways to describe how you feel. And I had just, I just bought, um, Brene Brown’s Atlas of the heart. And it goes through, I think it’s 83 or something different emotional States or ways of like to describe ways of feeling for the whole book. So it’s like kind of a self-guided journey through the heart, Atlas of the heart. I haven’t finished it yet. So we’ll, we’ll get back to recap that one. But I think after just even going through the very beginning of it and reflecting on, on my own emotions and my own awareness of them, because that was the part that brought my self-awareness score down was really just awareness of my emotions, like awareness of, And it’s the different emotional states, the nuances of them. So I’ll get back to you on that after I read through that. But I think that’s going to be a profound jump for my self-awareness.

Tony: No, that’s good. And that’s what I’m talking about, always continuing to do the work. So important in the fields that we’re both in and then also the people that we serve and the people that we love. You know, another piece on self-awareness is observing the ripple effect of your emotions. And for me, I have a new team I’ll be working with here in the next couple of months. Well, I’m working with them now, but I’m going to be definitely observing my ripple effect for the next few months because I’ve had some role changes. And I’m excited to be able to really lock in and focus with this particular group of people. And I can’t wait to show up with this amazing mood every day, every time I work with them, and just let that energy just flow. Because I hadn’t been able to give them the best version of me from an energy standpoint. Just like, yeah, you know, I’m working on this, I’m working on that. But I had a big event that just occurred that is now I’m shifting roles. And so now that that’s over, I can really lock in on something that is super purposeful to me. And so, you know, my personal thing that I’ll be keeping up with him and observing is how my mood and emotions as the leader affects everybody else. I’m super excited, man, because I know the energy that I’m bringing. And I’m not saying it’s going to change their lives, but it’s going to change our work, which hopefully will change their lives.

John: Mmm, I’m confident that it will man just like the energy that we bring here the insights the conversations that we bring here, you know, I feel like I feel like this is a like this is a pretty good spot to wrap up the the self-awareness part of emotional intelligence and You know, I hope our listeners got some insights out of this some things that they can try to improve their self-awareness and pique their interest on emotional intelligence, so You can check out the book emotional intelligence 2.0 It’s very practical, like real strategies to start improving your scores and your life really right away. So that’s one thing I really loved about that book is it’s just very much here it is, here’s the measurements and here’s some ways you can improve it. Like start your journey, right? It was less about like, let’s describe everything. So, Yeah, I invite you guys, listeners, to start your journey with us. We’ll be, the next few episodes, we’ll be spending time breaking down each of the four quadrants of self-awareness. And yeah, follow along.

Tony: Yeah, and if you like what you heard, take some of these ideas and start practicing them now. Don’t wait until you got the book. But if you heard some of the self-awareness strategies that we’ve dropped here, believe us, these are written by experts that are accredited in what they do. And we’re thankful to be able to share those through a medium like this. And so if you I like what you heard, you know, start implementing these things and watch yourself change and watch the people around you change on your own self-discovery and self-awareness journey.

John: All right, my friends, signing off from the present professional. We’ll catch you next time. Peace.