 In this video, I'd like to discuss emotional intelligence, which has a really critical role in our ability to integrate effectively into the workforce, communicate effectively on the job, and even extends into our personal lives a great deal. So, very important topic for us. Let's start with defining emotional intelligence, talking about what is emotional intelligence. EI, emotional intelligence, is the ability to recognize, understand, and manage your emotions, as well as understand and influence the emotions of others. So, within this, it's important that we be able to know our own emotions, to recognize and know our own emotions, to manage those emotions, and then to motivate ourselves using those emotions to perform whatever task it is that we need to complete. Then on the other hand, we also need to be able to recognize and understand the emotions of others, as well as manage those relationships and other emotions within that. Again, this is not about controlling those other people, but helping them to process and understand their own emotions as well. So, there are different elements of EI, or what we call emotional intelligence. So, the first is self-awareness, being aware of who you are. We need to have an understanding, an accurate understanding of ourselves, and be honest with ourselves about who we are, what are our strengths, what are our weaknesses, where are areas that we can improve, and what's my role here in this relationship, in this workplace, in this whatever. We need to have a self-awareness about us. Then we also need to be able to self-regulate. We need to be able to regulate our emotions and manage them effectively, to not let our emotions control us, but rather to control our emotions. We also need to use emotions for motivation. Our emotions will lead us to different places, and we can use motivation to get fired up about something when it's appropriate, but we also need to use those motivations appropriately, and again, not let them control us. But we need to be in control of how we use emotion to fuel those different motivations. We need to have empathy. Empathy is being able to essentially put yourself in the other person's shoes, see things from their perspective. That's a really important element of emotional intelligence, to be able to relate to somebody else, to kind of have an impression for what they're feeling, and what they're experiencing, and be able to, again, put yourself in their shoes in that regard. And then finally, we need some social skills. We just need to be able to interact with people at an effective level. It doesn't mean being best friends with everybody. You don't have to be BFFs all the time. But we do need to be able to interact with people effectively in the workplace and have a comfortable conversational presence with people. So why are these things important for us? Why is emotional intelligence important for us at work? First of all, emotional intelligence is a big part of effective teamwork. So we get better teamwork when you have people who are self-aware and self-regulating and able to empathize and able to have appropriate social skills and so forth. You can see how that would factor into better teamwork. So we're going to experience better teamwork in the workplace when we have a higher degree of emotional intelligence. It also just leads to an improved office environment. It's more comfortable. And not that everybody has to be BFFs. You don't even have to necessarily like everybody in the office. But you should be able to communicate with them and to sort of tolerate them at the very least, right? So it'll lead to an improved office environment when people are aware of their emotions, aware of their actions and how they affect others and just, you know, can see things from others' perspectives. So it leads to just an overall better office environment. It makes change management easier. Organizations are always changing. Life is always changing. People are always changing. Relationships are always changing. That can be hard. And it's not saying we need to put those emotions aside or put them away, but emotional intelligence, greater emotional intelligence will allow us to manage those emotions more effectively, to recognize them and then to manage those more effectively, right? Again, not let our emotions control us. It can very easily happen in change management during times of change. So emotional intelligence will make it easier for us to manage that change. Obviously, it'll provide us with greater self-awareness in the workplace. Self-awareness of what kind of job we're doing, what kind of co-worker we are, whether we're perceived as somebody who's an effective employee and somebody who can be trusted to get the job done, and somebody who can get along with other people. Again, not talking about being best friends with everybody, but the ability to get along with people, and especially to get along with people that you don't otherwise necessarily like, but we still have to get along with these people. And in general, this will lead to less drama and conflict, right? When everybody's more in, has their emotions in check, has the ability to recognize their own emotions and manage those emotions, has the ability to see emotion in others and respond to that appropriately. Even if that response is to just give them some space and lay off a little bit, that's an important recognition, right? And it's just going to lead to less drama and less conflict around the office. So with that in mind, what can we do to improve our emotional intelligence? What can we do to go about improving our emotional intelligence? Well, just a couple of quick tips. First of all, recognize and name your emotions. Be intentional and proactive about saying, okay, I'm experiencing frustration right now. And I can name that, I can claim that, I can say this is what I'm experiencing. So why am I experiencing it? What's the triggering event? We know that emotions have a trigger. What's the triggering event? And what is causing this? And what can I do to either resolve that or to avoid that in the future? Or, you know, what do I need to do in response? But thinking about it logically instead of just responding to it with straight emotion, right? And pouring gasoline on that situation. We can recognize and name our emotions. We can ask for feedback, which is not easy to do, but we can ask people that we work with. We can ask people that we're close to. What are my emotions typically? How am I doing with this? Do you notice any emotions in any situations where emotions in particular kind of take me over? And why I don't manage them very well? Is there a particular emotion that you notice me, you know, losing control of a lot? And those can be hard conversations, but they can be really useful feedback. So you can ask for feedback from others because we don't always have the appropriate perception of ourselves or the correct perception of ourselves, right? So you can ask for others and get some outside feedback. And finally, you can read more. And this is so, it seems so out of left field, right? But you can read more for a variety of reasons. First of all, reading more is going to improve your vocabulary in general. It's certainly going to improve your emotional vocabulary and give you a broader emotional vocabulary. So it's just good in general. It also will broaden our perspective and our worldview and help us empathize with others. When we get in, you know, in social media, we get what we call these worldview loops. Really this feedback loop of worldview because we surround ourselves with people who agree with us and have the same worldview so that it kind of isolates us and we don't understand the rest of the world nearly as well. Now that's not saying you need to, you know, as a result, you're going to have to change your belief system, change your politics, change anything at all. It's more about being aware of what the other things are, you know, that there are other options out there and what are they and being aware of that. So read more, read more newspapers, read more magazines, read more literature because we also know that reading complex characters, when we engage in literature with complex characters, that that expands our emotional intelligence because we begin to see things from other perspectives. So we can read more as, you know, somebody that's going to be like, oh, yeah, I love reading. For me, that would be like, oh, yeah, really punished me there. I love to read. But on others, it's going to be more of a chore. But whatever you're going to read, just read more of it. Read diverse newspapers. Even go to different news channels. Even though it's not reading, it's something that will broaden your perspective and your worldview. But read more. Aristotle kind of summed up emotional intelligence well when he said this. Anybody can become angry. That is easy. But to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose and in the right way, that is not within everybody's power and is not easy. So emotional intelligence is not easy. Developing emotional intelligence doesn't necessarily come naturally to everybody. But that's what we're shooting for. We're shooting for the ability not just to become angry and not just to say, that's anger. I know what that is. I've seen it before. But to be angry with the right person to the right degree at the right time for the right purpose and in the right way, that's emotional intelligence. And once we can do that, then we're going to see massive benefits in the workplace and otherwise. If you have questions about emotional intelligence or emotion in general, anything else related to professional presence or communication, particularly in the workplace, don't hesitate to email me. I'd be happy to correspond with you via email. And in the meantime, really do some thinking and some critical analysis for yourself about emotional intelligence and determine how you measure up in those five components and then see how you can take the steps to improve.