Episode #3 - Harnessing the Power of Emotional Intelligence: A Journey with Executive Coach John Hughes

Ever wondered how a successful executive coach harnesses the power of emotional intelligence in his practice? Our guest, John Hughes, offers illuminating insights into his remarkable journey. From a near 50-year marriage to an exciting career at the New York Times, John's enriching experiences have shaped his unique approach as an executive coach. He will share how he uses the EQI 2.0 report to create culturally dexterous action plans, alongside his fascinating transition from academia to the corporate world, and the leap into entrepreneurship.

John has navigated some significant industry-wide changes, such as the advent of the internet and corporate downsizing, using them as opportunities for growth and enhancement. His perceptive observations on emotional self-awareness, mastering emotions in challenging situations, and managing interpersonal relationships are compelling. We'll also be exploring the profound role of emotional intelligence in conflict management and its influence on self-regard and validation in coaching.

Lastly, we delve into the transformative power of emotional intelligence in our discussion about John's experience with a client suffering from PTSD. His thoughts on motivation, the joy of helping others, and his poignant conversation about race with his granddaughter are not to be missed. This conversation is a treasure trove of insights, stories, and lessons for anyone looking to navigate career transitions or enhance their emotional intelligence. Join us for this enlightening discussion and learn how to harness the power of emotional intelligence from the best in the business.

Currently, he is working with certified EQi coaches and HR professionals who are interested in learning his debrief process. For more information, you can contact John at eiasssessments@gmail.com. 

Transcript

John 0:00

for me, coaching, it's creating the third space for a person. And by that the first space is gonna be home. Who are the people that love to take care of you that know how to get on market? That's the first space. The second space is where you making your. What's the craft? What's the profession? What's the thing that you do every day? You enjoy, that you wanna do more of. And the third space, that's where I need to talk to someone and it's not at home because they don't wanna hear about work and it's not work. Because they don't wanna hear my home. It's that third space where I can step back and exhale. That's where I think coaches, consultants life coaches, that skilled helper kind of fill, the gap with people.

Nigel 0:37

you are and will always be your most valuable asset. Welcome to the meeting podcast. I'm Nigel Franklyn, a cpa, mba, and a certified emotional intelligence coach

0:50

join me for a series of inspiring conversations with individuals embracing the ups and downs of life. Gain insights and perspectives into how you can lead a happier and more fulfilled life while exploring the importance of emotional intelligence to navigate the challenges and opportunities that come your way with greater ease and resilience. So I'm super excited about today's conversation. Today I have with me, John Hughes. The president of E I assessments. The M H S training partner on emotional intelligence. And a senior lecturer at Texas a and M. School of engineering.

Nigel 1:32

My pleasure to introduce John Hughes. My emotional intelligence guru. Bad John. Welcome. I love that. Welcome to the show. So John thank you for agreeing to sit in and chat with pleasure me today again, for the audience, always just the backstory into how these individuals are popping up on the show. Apart from doing my certification to administer the eqi 2.0 report back in 2020, I sat with John for my my first assessment in 2014. And everything has been very different since then. I think I've used John as a consultant. He's talked to my teams, he's talked to the affinity groups that I've. At different companies. He's done assessments for not just my staff in the US but in Indonesia. He's had those conversations and wherever I am in the world john, I'd look forward to your note every now and again Hey, how are you doing? How you're making out. So I appreciate you and the conversations were some really enlightening conversations. So thank you and welcome welcome. Excited to, to have this

John 2:44

conversation with you today. Same here. I forgot about Indonesia. You forgot

Nigel 2:48

Indonesia. Cool. That Indonesia was a good one. I think that's probably the first time you did an assessment like that? Yes. Yeah. It was fascinating. And what came out of the assessment? The action plan was also even more fascinating, the cultural dexterity of it. So tell everyone who is John Hughes?

John 3:03

I get, yeah, it's funny cuz the executive coach piece is where I am right now. I've been doing the executive coaching work, I guess since 2008 is when I started the firm and it's the best job I've ever had. It's one of those things where I always wanted to to be able to. Yeah. And I've been able to see it throughout most of my life. And but I never wanted the last job to be the la the best job. I worked for the New York Times, which was just fantastic. I thought that was gonna be the best job. So that was a long time ago, it seems geez. But but yeah, I also define myself as. As a boyfriend. You met my wife right? We met in 1972. Oh, okay. She remembers when I carried a comb. So we met outta a high school dance that my mother, insisted I go to. So obviously that was funny. So insisted I go to a dance, I end up marrying a girl who I meet there. Yeah. And that was so we got married in 79, so I, yeah. I defined myself by my relationship and number one, I think it's my girlfriend, you still referred her as my girlfriend. And then family man, pop up your granddaughter and yeah, I'm in a really. I don't know, spot in my life in terms of having done all the corporate stuff and the, and everything that you had to do to get your kids through college and pay your mortgage and all that. So now, and it's at a it's more of a giving opportunity. This part of life. There's something about Paying it back at the next level or whatever that, and I think again, that's that elder statesman elder village elder feeling around the emotions, the eqi.

Nigel 4:27

Yeah. And I'm definitely, we gonna go, we gonna dive into the eqi part of it, but in, in your career. So you are. At the New York Times and maybe just shed a little bit about the career arc again, what have you done? What are some of the things to get you to this

John 4:43

point? Yeah. It's it's funny, I, when I got my undergraduate degree in, in psychology, I went out and got a couple of jobs working for the association, for the help of children opening up a group home in College Point. And then Iona, a college calls me back and says, would you like to run our dormitory program? So I said, sure. So I go back to run the dormitory program, which gives me an opportunity to do my graduate work in counseling. So I complete my graduate work in counseling and same year my our daughter was born and I had to decide, am I gonna stay in academia or am I gonna try to give corporate a shot? And there was a member of I guess one of the board, the college board that I own a college is where I worked. It's now I own the university. And a friend of a friend, connected me with this trustee who happened to work for ibm and I approached the trustee and it just a long story and made me a, got me a connection to ibm and I went in for an interview and next thing I know had one of the lowest level jobs available in ibm, so low. I got my first promotion, I think two weeks into the job because I was doing work no one else wanted to do, so I slowly made myself my way up and maybe four years into into, and that was in stockholder relations and I moved over to international assignments, and international assignments, gave me my management position, and then I got a job at the New York Times as a staff trainer. Doing stuff that hadn't been done before. I was working with the unions I was working out at the production plans. And next thing know, I got the attention of. They wanted to me, wanted me to do leadership training at the time. Next thing I'm meeting all the executives and was a great opportunity. That's when I'm realized I'm working with the executives. So that's what I'm gonna call myself an executive coach. Because

Nigel 6:10

I'm doing coaching. So this was when you were at, this was when

John 6:12

you were at the New York Times? Yeah. Okay it was the golden age. It was the final age, of newspaper in a way, okay. Coast was right before the internet. It was 1998. They made a billion dollars in advertising revenue. Wow. In New York. Times a billion. I have a watch they gave me to celebrate a billion dollars in revenue. And after that, boom, just dropped like a stone. Then you could see it coming. You know that sooner or later you have to downsize. So I had an opportunity in 2008. Do you wanna stay and help downsize the organization, which I did with ibm, which is a terrible seed. Thing to see a, an organization go through or do you wanna leave? 2008 I took a, a. Buy out and I left and they gave me the cushion and stopped the business, and man, and it's feast of famine. That's what you say for consulting. So you gotta be able to, believe in yourself. You gotta be able to, believe in your product and have good relationships and and have a trampoline. Because you're gonna have some tough time out there. And early on, do you wanna think about 2018? I'd go anywhere for a buck, yeah. I traveled two or three hours just to charge for one hour. I remember what's charging you going back forth eight hours to visit a client to charge for two hours, you gotta do what you have to do.

Nigel 7:13

What's the mindset how do you move. Counseling to the corporate world what's the mindset shift

John 7:20

yeah, it's interesting cause when moving into corporate, I wanted stability. For my daughter, I wanted a 401k. I wanted, rely, I want to be, it's funny, I wanted to wear a suit every day. There was something about my father going into the city every day. My father was wear business suit. Advertising. Even when he was outta work, he wore a business suit. So there something about that was just part of the uniform, Businessman working on working, I on what was it? Not park off Park fifth Avenue. Was where the IBM building was. Fifth 59th Street. And just going in there every day it was supposed to do. My father went and out of the city, I went outta the city, got a, white college op and man, it was rough.

Nigel 7:54

Was it was rough from you just didn't fit into this space because I

John 7:58

didn't go to business school. I like my degree in psychology. What the heck am I doing in ibm? It's like I interviewed,

Nigel 8:04

okay.

John 8:05

So you're learning a lot. I learning a lot. Yeah. So their survival skills, because I always, here's the thing my family always pride, just like a lot of families, you go, they want you to be an engineer or not so much an engineer wanna be a Doctor or lawyer. Doctor or lawyer. So same thing in my family, two of my brothers are lawyers. So I'm never gonna be a lawyer okay. How do you survive? It's people skills. It's not my intellect, it's on my smile,

Nigel 8:27

I like that it's not on your intellect, but on your smile.

John 8:29

I was in academia. I had the beard, I was smoking a pipe, know I had the leather patches, it was wonderful. Now look around academia, what I saw of it, it was very limiting to me. I was running the dormitory, remember once walking the back of campus, looking around the campus saying, is this. Yeah, I was like 25, 26 years old. Is this it gonna be campus the rest of my life? No. No. So I dunno what's gonna happen next, but this isn't the end of it,

Nigel 8:49

so you jumped from the fine pan into

John 8:51

the fire? Yeah, because I remember declaring at the busi the beginning of the academic year. I'm not gonna be here at the end of the year. I'm gonna leave. Hey, where are we going? I have no idea. My dormitory by living on campus at all this, you, my, my housing was connected to the college and all. But declaring, yeah, I'm not gonna be here, man. That was just like, you, as I say, jumping off a cliff and building your wings on the way down because you're not having that, you, that, that cushion an annual contract for the campus, all of a sudden. And then I didn't, it was before I met this gentleman who gave me the break that I had for. And that's, that was a story where I sacrificed for someone on a Christmas day, and it came back to me with an I B M interview. It was just a funny, lone, funny story.

Nigel 9:27

You sacrificed some? Yeah. It was

John 9:28

like, say it was my daughter's first first Christmas, right? And we're on campus, and so we drive down to Queens to celebrate the, our first, daughter's first Christmas and all. But the day before an IBM executive had said, listen, are there any kids on campus for Christmas day that would like to come to our house for c. And I said so sure. I had a guy from Ethiopia, I had a guy from Puerto there, three guys that, didn't have anything for Christmas. So I did is I drove down to Queens, dropped off my daughter, drove back up to New Rochelle, got the guys to the executive's house, had a beer and whatever, and then came back down and picked up my daughter. So the executive said, wait, you went back and forth all day Christmas, just so these guys were gonna have a good Christmas. I said, yeah. He goes, listen, baby, wanna come to ibm? Gimme a call. Yeah. I said, really? Yeah. Said, gimme a call. So six months later I reached out to him. I gave him a call, and he gave me an interview and he set me up with other interviews. Next

Nigel 10:18

thing I know I was working for ibm. It's interesting how connections interpersonal relationships, acts of kindness. It doesn't come back in the same way. And if. If you are looking for it, sometimes it can get in the way of you being kind. Yeah. But still that transition, how do you, looking back now, how do you manage it?

John 10:34

Wow. I think a lot of it had to do with with my wife. Because she's one of these people where she knows I have a flexible, creative, innovative, nutty side. And she just let to go. She doesn't try to shut it down because a lot of it is just, what if we did this? What if we have a started business? You had a business just about emotional what if? And she goes, okay, yeah. What if you keep thinking she, that's what she says. Keep thinking, keep dreaming. She says keep dreaming. Keep visualizing. She's always encouraging to, so she encourages me to a point where I exhaust myself. And then that's where the beauty comes in. The magic is a lot of stuff that she and I have wanted to do we've accomplished it, it's, and that's just having a nice home, happy kids, two dogs, hey, Yeah. That's nice. It's what's your ultimate goal? And also to be in a situation where now I'm being able to help the helpers, help coaches coach other people.

Nigel 11:23

Looking back, what are some of those things that you've you took and you learned at those earlier points in your career?

John 11:29

That them are really good with people. And that You want to honor that? In many ways. Every time everyone gave gives me time. Even now, I thank executives for their time, maybe because they let me in. In Iona, the rawness of Iona in this environment, it was like a laboratory for counseling. It was believing in people that want to come together, believing that I had something that could, that was different from other people in terms to bring things together, bringing people together. Some people are great at math. I'm terrible at math. Some people great in information technology structure. My, organizing can that, but when it comes to working with people, there's something about my ability to get, allow myself to get into their world, them allowing me to get in. It's.

Nigel 12:08

They're special. What's, what are the lessons that you're getting at that period of time and how do you roll them forward to now?

John 12:13

In ibm I got my leadership, my management stripe, and I was just thrown into the event. I was thrown into, eight people that were older than me, more experienced to me that probably wanted the job that I was given, but that's, was it's under the jobb training or management by Under fire, whatever, but I just, yeah I ran with it and I, did the best I could and then I took on a second team after I gave a bat team moved on to another team, which is a little nicer in terms of having people report to you. And then I started to realize, yeah, that this is, and at the same time I had just finished supporting executives that were going on international assignments to. So these are, this was a group of 75 executives working and living in Japan. And they'd email me every day I get issues about their benefits, their housing, their whatever. So I started to get into the executive's brain and these guys were you. Insecure, you're neurotic. You they were somewhere power hungry somewhere. Power of avoiding. But I realized talking to these executives, I remember one of the executive called me up and they had like a minimal amount of you have you an executive going to, to Tokyo for two years. They gave you 1500 pounds of stuff you can take over 1500 pounds you'd have to pay for it. So I get this executive and the executive calls me up goes, the movers are here and I have 2000 pounds worth of stuff. And I'm not leaving here till you Okay. It. I haven't got the power of K and I'm just a staff guy. So I could put the movers on and the movers get on, goes, this guy's going crazy. We can't move his stuff. You gotta give the authority. Give him 2000 pounds. I said, what's he moving over? This guy's a weight lifter. He's moving his weights to Tokyo. And if you didn't approve him right. I say, okay man, listen, and I'll improve it. Get him 2000 pounds. Get him outta there. Listen. So I caught heck from the management, IBM or whatever. I probably got dinged on my performance management report, but that's why I saw the craziness of the organization sticking to policies and also the fragility of these guys going over to Japan. And all he could think about was his weights gotta be there when I arrive. So I started getting insights into these executives with it just like everybody else. It just have a lot more power, a lot more authority, a lot more responsibility. It means you're paid more. You're more responsible, but it doesn't mean you're pushing the buttons quicker or getting things done any faster, so I got a chance, I'm close to see these executives going on international assignment and that's when I realized one-on-one individually. Wow. They could use a coach or counselor or

Nigel 14:25

I'm sure there's someone listening who is in that role where they just took on a team and they're managing, I, I think it was probably one of the more challenging experiences that I've had in my life. One of the companies I went to I was new to the industry. Someone who reported into me probably wanted the job as well. How do you manage that?

John 14:41

I had to stick with with acknowledging what I didn't know. You're, if you're an, a senior elder in ibm and I'm a, I'm my mid twenties and I'm just trying to survive, and you wanna, you want to, be a hard noses on you do whatever you want, but at the end of the day, I can't let it rattle me. I can't get. Is there certain emotions that you learn to manage? You manage your frustrations. Even though you had those conversations inside your you're externally you're smiling and you're nodding your head internally. You wanna reach across the table and grab somebody, so it's knowing how to manage those emotions. But it's also. Realizing that that sometimes people wanna see you dance when they as a manager, right? Sometimes people just wanna pull at your chain, it's knowing when this is a serious issue. Is it, is this something that's gonna be gone tomorrow? Or is it's, is it hell to die on? What's the issue at stake here? You gotta put things into perspective. I think that's why I probably learned.

Nigel 15:29

How hard is that perspective? The KU by

John 15:31

lonely, man, you that's why I, that's why for me, coaching, it's creating the third space for a person. And by that the first space is gonna be home. Who are the people that love to take care of you that know how to get on market? That's the first space. The second space is where you making your. What's the craft? What's the profession? What's the thing that you do every day? You enjoy, that you wanna do more of. And the third space, that's where I need to talk to someone and it's not at home because they don't wanna hear about work and it's not work. Because they don't wanna hear my home. It's that third space where I can step back and exhale. That's where I think coaches, consultants life coaches, that skilled helper kind of fill, the gap with people.

Nigel 16:10

I'm gonna steal that one by the way, John. I always steal stuff. That third space to just sit back and exhale. at what point did that come to you?

John 16:17

Yep. I think that the whole third space concept's only come to me last couple of years. Oh really? Yeah. That's what I realized. What's the value then I'm bringing to my clients. And what I've noticed that executive coaches have, that I have, on this score here, emotional self-awareness. What I have, regardless of the executive's background, and I've spoken to some brilliant people. Just within their fields, mit, Lincoln Lab, these people are, scary, brilliant. So what do I give them or what I bring to them? It's. It's the acknowledgement and the sharing of emotional self-awareness. It's letting you know you're a very powerful executive. Are you aware of the power that you have? Are you aware of the impact that you have on the culture? Do you know that you have an opportunity to accomplish things? And sometimes. They say, yeah, that's what emotional self-awareness comes full top, because it's their brand, it's their presence. The skill that I think executive coaches share with their clients is that I have to have, my emotional self-awareness needs to be hired in my clients. That's when. Coaches read out to me or they want to do emotional intelligence stuff or they want to be a coach. The two areas I focus on emotional self-awareness and empathy. Are you comfortable, you in the emotional space, are you comfortable talking about

Nigel 17:24

emotion? If you learned it only the last couple of years ago, how do you, how were you managing the change going back then as you're moving from place to place or experience to experience?

John 17:34

I think it's more of an evolution. It feels like at times, where I think I probably said to my wife, I was a better co I'm a better coach now than I was, 10 years ago? You're supposed to evolve that way. So there's a certain amount of I guess there's always been part of me, the emotional piece. I've always been very, comfortable in that space. I don't know. That's something I gotta think about in

Nigel 17:53

terms of interest. But as, because I think it's, there's a, it is almost like there's a curiosity. And a need to help that sometimes fuels that. So what, yeah. So that's what I'm curious about. What's fueling the e the evolution, right? That's always been a weird

John 18:06

What's your, why A word? Part of me, man. Ever since I was I think the first time I was introduced to a a state run mental health facility was when I was 13 years old. And I was volunteering and I got a chance to work with, sweet kids that I think their parents were in. That was 13. By the time I was 16, 17, I was working in Creedmore State Hospital as a volunteer back in the seventies. We was talking 19 73, 19 74. They would warehouse autistic children in these huge wards. Where they would just throw kids into it and, I would come in working with an occupational therapist to try to, you understand, what are these, what's autism all about? What causes it? What, how do you work with autism? So I think autism studies were in their infancy back in the seventies. But I've always had the curiosity, so that went into psychology in high school. Then I tried to be a business major for one semester. That didn't work. I tried to be an accountant for a semester. Come

Nigel 19:06

on, God. Now that you just remember, I'm still an accountant. Yeah, I know.

19:11

The curiosity, if it's fueling your evolution, how do you stay curious. My father was in advertising. For his entire career. So that's all about delivering the message. That's all about a certain amount of presentation, certain amount of engagement. So where I am now with building things or I do something different I find it very exciting. There's something about it that, that, ooh, I get to communicate this differently. Or I've just unlocked this concept for somebody, or I have a visual that's really engaging and. If I find it fun, I'm looking for other people. Thank you. Find this interesting. Is this state inter, I find it interesting news. That's where you get that engagement. That's my wife's tired of this. Go to my wife every five minutes. Don't you find this fun? She's sick of it now. So yeah, it's all fun. It's all fun. But yeah, I think I just get naturally excited particularly about the topic because for me, This topic of emotional intelligence, we all have it. That's part of it as well. It's not it's something that, that's there. It's something that we use every day. It's something that it always bugs me when people are sent to me because they were told they didn't have emotional intelligence. I said who told you? My manager told me I don't have a motion intelligence. So there's something about. That since we all haven't, we can all develop it. That's pretty exciting because when I was young, it was either math or linguistics. That was gonna get you your co-op exam through the SATs, your math and linguistics. So finding that word intelligence to apply to something other than just, words and numbers. It, I think it's been very exciting for me. In 2008 you startedi assessments. Yep. How at that point in time was the focus although it's. Leadership coaching or executive coaching, where does the emotional intelligence come in? Cool. When I started in 2008 and this is the power of a summer intern in 2000, summer in 2007, I had a summer intern. And, I took her all the meetings as I, I treated her as a member of the staff when she was at New York Times. And again, she was summer intern, so next summer she's working at Major League Baseball. And Major League Baseball. They were focused on diversity. So she was a summer intern over Major League baseball saying, you know this guy John Hughes over at Oh wow. Times. Okay. And she was interning with Wendy Lewis, who was the senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships in Diversity for Major League Baseball. So this is where I'm still at the time. So she invites me over to do a presentation. So I'd come up with a presentation called Blue Eyes, brown Eyes about, the work at Jane Elliot and she thought it was great, right? And she says to me, listen, if you have to leave the New York Times, gimme a call. I'd love to work with you. So about four months later I'd call her up and said, listen, I worked at left the New York Times, I wanna work with you Uhhuh. So that was like around February, March of 2008. Then I would call her once a month or stop by once a month I gave her Eqi. So every month from March, 2008 till September of 2008, she soon she calls me up and says, Hey, am I come to Houston Astros? Do the eqi for the front office. Yeah, sure. That sounds good. So I'm jumping up and down cuz hey, I finally have a client, I finally have data. I guy told, this is what you're looking for as a client. So I did with all the major league baseballs that we were eventually, weve, we visited the front offices of 12 major league baseball teams. Which was great. I just wish I was a baseball fan thing. But, so it was a great opportunity. It was my first client. It was the first time I stood in front of an audience and said, Hey, I'm president of e i as. Oh wow. That was wild. That was a weird feeling. In 1997 was when I was certified, was at the New York Times, and there's a difference between internal coaching and external coaching. And plus I'm getting used to the data. So if I'm working with someone who has, low impulse control, low assertiveness I'm working with some of that, I don't know, you're trying to figure people out through the data. So I'm really young in terms of trying to figure out the data and trying to translate, giving value to the conversation. So it's taken years of those conversations to. When you look at the data, there is commonality between some of these lines. When I used to ask people, explain why this is so high, why do you think this is high? Why do I think this is low? And you start to hear you certain stories that people have in common that Yeah, my, my mother always talked about emotions. My father was always very, there's usually someone in their past that has reinforced some of these skills. Which is the, the genesis of where we, we've developed some of these, but coming, but that's why it all comes back to emotional self-awareness. It's like one of those anchor scores that, yeah, that's a topic that everyone can connect with. So we come back to emotional self-awareness. How do you define emotional self-awareness To me, it's my brand. It's my executive. And the fascinating thing is that now with Zoom, I see everybody's emotional self-awareness. As soon as you show up on the screen, I'll, I'm ready to comment on it. As soon as I see people and I'll say, wow, you are strong. You feel you've thought about this call. High emotional self-awareness they're constantly planning, constantly looking ahead. They understand the culture and understand the power they have. They weren't ready to engage. Boom, it's there. Other people, low emotional self awareness, should see that as well. They show up a little bit. Little bit. A little bit, I wouldn't say kinder but just not as, not passive, but just a little bit quiet. Not as strong. It's a hard thing to define sometimes. And meanwhile, the self regard could be really strong. So I could be working. Are you looking at very powerful executive yet? Their emotional self-awareness. Emotional self-awareness. It's not very strong. And I get something to talk about because I'm feeling it and I'm seeing you. And you could pick it up off a Zoom screen. Wow. Okay. Yeah. If you really focus on something, you're listening to that person. You don't have to talk about if you get into that level where you allow yourself to almost feel another person's energy. That's, I've had some situations where I've had to go to the speaker afterwards and I'm said, listen, do you believe in aura? She'll say, yeah, I just sort allowed to yell around you. Oh, so good. That feels something about, that some people connect with right away. But it allows, I think, high levels of empathy, cuz I've told people, allow yourself to listen to people. That's what empathy is. Allow yourself to take in someone. Just not the words, it's not the moment, but what's that other person feeling? Takes about another 15 seconds. It's not a lot of time. It's just consciously letting yourself feel what the other person's feeling. What makes you curious about this part of coaching? What about the human condition? You were saying, okay, this is how I think I'll have an impact. Yeah. I con cuz I'm convinced we all have your level of genius inside us. The concept of genius being that we all have something inside us that we're really good at and and that maybe it's intellectual, maybe it's artistic, maybe it's visual, maybe it's mechanical. It's all different ways, but it's knowing that we all had that and it's curious, it's, my curiosity is what's keeping you from releasing yours? Oh, wow. It's what? What's getting in your way? Okay. Cause my, my, when I do an Eqi report, my whole thing is, okay, what do you wanna be three years from now? I want to be this. Okay, what's gonna get you there? Okay. And so what was getting in your way at the time and how were you managing that? Unfortunately, part of it was time Uhhuh, because I need to be an executive coach. You need to get a little gray on you. You need to have some more stories. You need to mess up a little bit with some clients. You need to have a few regrets, so I think part of it is realizing that it's, you have to go over a level of confidence and like everyone else with the imposter syndrome, I, including myself, I go over a level of confidence, but I don't know everything. So you gotta be able to have a little bit of a poker face. So what was one of the big mistakes that hug made and how did you rebound from it? My biggest mistake I can think of and this is I've been to Europe twice in the last. 10 years since since leaving New York Times, I'm not allowed in anymore. They threw me out because cause this is my chance to work with a team right now. And so here's a guy from born in Brooklyn, raised in Queens. He goes to school in Westchester, living in touch. I'm a New York eccentric kind of guy. Now I'm, I find myself. I think it was Belgium Ramad sedan. I don't remember where I was, but it was a team, it was a European team. That's why you learned the difference between Northern France and southern France. You don't get those confused. And then it was someone from Spain, someone from two people from the uk. So it was like a good, global team there. And I was convinced there was no, I was there to do any conflict management, and I was convinced there was no, no conflict. Everyone told me there's no conflict on the team, right? So I was a cons. As an external consultant, that's what you wanna hear. There's no conflict, right? Even though Mary joined the team and took somebody else's job that she thought was gonna get promoted. So Mary and Maria, you weren't sure how they were going, but they're both cool. Everyone's great. So I spent you three days with them. No conflict. Everyone commits to goals, roles, no responsibility, all that stuff. Get on the plane. Then a week later, they're in Barcelona, Mary, and. Arguing over a cab and Maria says to Mary, you took my cab just like you took my job. So this conflict blew up in a Barcelona airport instead of me uncovering it when we were together. So then I realized, man, when you're looking at, when you're work working with people like that conflict, isn't there? I'd learned that from that experience. Conflict is always in a team. It's a matter of you as a consultant, uncovering it and working through it. Because I wanted to hear, there was no conflict. I wanted to think I'd nothing to word. No. There was a lot of conflict there, but people are really good at covering it up. So you're thinking, so you were creating the narrative for yourself based on your internal talk, how does that make you feel then? And how do you bounce back from that? Then you start coming up with, you do reading, and then you start coming up with your own rules and regulations when you work with teams. When I work with teams and looking for, you have really good people on this team. Are you really clear on your goals and objectives? Why does the team exist? Are you clear on roles and responsibilities? Do you know what everyone else is doing on the team and why they're doing it? Are you clear on decision making, individual decision, collective decision, and is there a conflict management protocol? Because there's always going to be conflict and I learned it because conflict only occurs in organizations or environments where people care. When people don't care, you're not gonna find conflict. It's not worth their energy. But when people in professional setting, when people care, they want their opinion heard, they wanna be considered, which case it's you. That's a conflict management piece. That's actually really good. I've met again a mom is fascinated, conflict happens in an environment where, People care. Yeah. That's so simply stated, but still so powerful. I'm a simple person. Yeah. Simple books. Tell me anything. What's cool is that you're going through it. What brought. I'm always curious about what helps you to find your way to something, right? So we're back to the eqi portion of it. What led you to getting certified? So you care about people, obviously that's from the psychology, the counseling portion of it. But now you're, now you're looking at that and although it's big now it wasn't, I guess Daniel Goldman was. He was doing a lot of work then, or starting to publish stuff then, but it wasn't as in vogue as it is now, right? No. He wrote emotional intelligence in 1995. He came out with working with Emotion Intelligence in 1996, and then he got to work on building an instrument, which was eventually called the eci. All right. Meanwhile, 1997, I get certified in the eq. So I'm already working with an instrument. That's exactly what I wanted to measure something so to me, when I saw this instrument for the first time, I just clicked with it because first of all the language was straightforward. And the other reason I'll, to be complet honest with this as well, what I saw it as a consultant had a decipher myself. Am I gonna invest in Eqi or the mbti? I, the mbti, I have to learn 16. Styles. S 15, 15 different, 16 different, E N T J I N F O, whatever. It's right. I was afraid I couldn't remember all the styles. Okay? So since I'm not gonna remember the N Bt I, at least I can read an EQ I report. It's going to be very straightforward to me, right? It's got the bars too, so people like to look at this other, so it's visual. Okay. It's visual and the data. And over time the data started to make sense to me. Where now you, now I just look at page three and I go, wow. I go, Ooh. Yeah. And the fact, when I look at page three, I say to people, how hard do you want me to be on you? Oh, be really hard. Really be Listen, you gotta stop yelling at people cause it broke. Okay. It's that kind of a thing. But it yeah. So it's been fun, kind of evolv. Looking at the data, understanding myself, understanding people and age has helped as well. I think I'm a, that's a big thing. Is now I push people more as a coach than I did a couple years ago. And what's different in that? But sometimes it's around the assertiveness line. Cause that could be a hard thing to deliver. If my assertiveness is a 20 and my empathy is, 80, right? A big, it's a big gap there. I might have a very subtle way of trying to tell you that you're a bully. Okay. Your style. Overly directive, I might say. Yeah. I think maybe the idea. How I define and talk about emotional intelligence now is appreciating and understanding the impact of emotions on you and others around you, and then directing that emotional energy. To getting things done. Yep. That's my simply stated way of saying it. Yep. H how are you now defining emotional intelligence and then how has it evolved over time? Yeah. I think I, now I define it more. It's to say, people skills. I think it's more than that. I think I, I like to see it as a set of professional skills. That we all have in us, that have evolved to a certain level through our life experiences. And that we can build to a higher level if we want to. Every once in a while, a lot of times you'll a, a client will say, look at my report. I'll analyze the report, and they'll say what should I be doing differently? I don't know. What, are you having any upset in your life or anything not working out? This is, okay. Let's look at that, but I'm not here to tell you what you should be doing differently. So that if I had a client recently that looked in a report and said, okay, where's my goals? And I thought, I'm not giving you goals and what do you think you should be doing? And about me, so that also tells you a certain amount of, that gives you insight into the client as well as about he, how he or she sees themselves. Are you engaged or not? Because some people you could look at the data, which is just one of the things that getting old and using, looking at the lot of data is I'll look at the data and I'll say, I think this person's gonna be X, Y, Z. They've gotta be loud, not be listening. Sure enough they're loud to not listening to me, to all the things I predicted. So my thing is, okay, how do I get them to realize that this is an opportunity they might be missing, and my thing is to how would you, your leadership style benefit if you spent. 10 more seconds listening to people, what would that bring to you? It's pulling them in with the features and benefits kind of thing. Every once in a while, so my old sales skills selling comes through as well Could you please do me a small favor. If you're appreciating the content so far, please like, and share with someone who may find this conversation beneficial. Thank you. I like to say you have a professional and a personal life. I do believe that you just have one life. Yep. And the sooner you can actually live those two incongruence Yeah. Or you treat 'em as one the happier or the more productive you'll be. You can have more energy to do all the things that you wanna do, but what's John learning just himself like as life is evolving, you're on your own now and you're doing this coaching how are you managing you? Yeah you got some tiring days there because it's still a business, right? You're still looking for clients all the time, so you always have that in a way. I remember when I started consulting the co, the coach that I worked with for three months, I did not start business, so it was great having a coach that I can go to. She was terrific. She told you that the three hats, one is administrative, one is sales, and one is. So the administrative is taxes and it's it's all the, back office stuff, which often Debbie takes care of. And then the doing stuff, I love to do it all the time, but it's the sailing selling stuff, that's the second hat. That's the more difficult one. That's why I'm not a direct seller. I sell by reputation. I sell by offering the e Q I for freedom to. That to me has been my greatest sales point. I think the first year I had enough in the bank to be able to give EQI anybody wanted to take it, and as a result of that, they, oh, this is valuable to me. What would be valuable to your team? How about you do your team? So it's been leveraged all over the place. So it was interesting when you said that. I think I did about 60 in the first year, maybe a little bit. And a lot of them in that same model that you've actually presenting. But you know what, what's, how do you manage? And in, just in that first year, right? You're doing a lot of it for free. Yep. But you still have to make progress. How are you managing, how are you managing you? What's your thinking? What's going on in John's head? Rain. Back then I was still drinking so you were drinking a lot. I was drinking consistently. That's years ago with the drinking therapeutic. No. I lemme see. Yeah, there were some moments where, I started in 2008. Oh Christ. You know what? Enough? It's crazy. It's it seems so long. Yeah. Far away now, but No. Okay. 2008. So people said to me, why you enjoy trying to start a business? Go out, go get an HR job somewhere. You're you still got some use left in hr. You, I don't wanna go back to hr. I don't wanna start my own business, so I was realizing that this now, my, it was the same year, I think my son graduated college we had, minimal, we had no tuitions left to pay. So that was great. But also I, when I married Debbie when I met Debbie, it was, I always wanted to run a business with her. Always. It's just a matter of what we're gonna do. And she's old school bookkeeping, so she takes care of the books and it's been a great partnership, but I couldn't have done it without it because you have to have someone, but even I need that third space, she wants, who do I go to talk to people about what's going on? I don't wanna share with her. Or she doesn't wanna, you listen to, which I understand. Yeah. So you've worked with your. This entire time since starting it. Yes. Yes. So you have there's really no, there's really a need for the third space that does it. It just hit it, it's just hitting me now. So there's definitely, yeah. Yeah. Okay. And how do you, me, how do you keep, because everyone always thinks that in the same, that separation of the personal and professional stuff, but you're working with your wife, you're, that means you're in the same space often, you're yep. And how do you keep things going? How do you keep, how do you manage the relationship in conflict? It's funny for a while there we're pretty successful, we don't talk about the business on weekends, so we try to do, cuz you're living it so much. Yeah. I could, we know each other well enough that I could read it and say, no, she doesn't wanna talk about the business. Okay. Or she'll say, Hey, let's talk about the business. And all of a sudden then we'll engage around Eqi because she does all the sheet logs in all the data here, all the spreadsheets. Okay. I pass off the report to her. She does all the data. So that's your database? That's what, yeah she's inputted over 3000 e q I report. Oh wow. So all the research you're doing all research. She's my rock, she wasn't doing it. I Stacks b QR reports sitting around here. Looking for someone to input them, but But it's been great. Since you've been doing it or since you started AI assessment assessment, is there a time when you thought thought of going back to what you were doing before or what happens when you're starting and it's not moving as quickly in the direction that you wanted to move? Okay. Then, fair enough. Then that's when you pivot to writing. It's when you pivot to that, that's one I think I'm probably at my most. Because now I realize I got a create a buzz or make a dent or reconnect with someone or offer something for free. Or that's where the creative juices really start flowing. You're reaching out to my network, your network reached out to you, what are you doing? So it's checking in with people and knowing that you're there because when people know that I'm there for them my, my assumptions are they could be there for me when. You know what I mean? It's just good karma. That's part of it. And that's the darnedest thing, is that the way I've rolled forward, I have very little work in the future, but it always seems to, something always seems to happen in the moment. Or always seem to carry on. And that's scary. Sometimes it's a life of a consultant. I've had some really good clients. Oh man, don't retire. Come on. Get a couple more years. Because they brought me in and it's going really well. I've had a nice long gig with Comcast for the last couple of years that, that should continue. So yeah, you start to get into organizations and and you want to, your billing is important. You don't wanna overbilled, you don't wanna over assume that, you're gonna, you gug your client at any. I've been told that sometimes I don't charge enough, which, oh my, I don't want Debbie to hear that either. But she's gonna hear it now, but yeah it's good karma. It's good. Come back to me. I just have to believe it, I like the fact, so karma and the spirituality stuff keeps popping up. Yeah. How do you approach that? Vic is again, if you're going out and you're taking chances, you're putting things out in the universe. Yep. Hoping that it will come back. Yeah. Or with the faith that it will come back. But what's the basis of it? How do you explain that? I'm here based on a vision I had 20 years ago. I'm doing today what I wanted to do today, 20 years. In words when I got certified in Eqi, I always wanted to be able to say, oh, I want this to be my cornerstone. I want to do nothing but talk about emotion intelligence. I want people to realize what's inside them. I want every kid that's ever gotten, a bad grade in math and verbal to realize there's so many other things in life, important to them. That how delicate self regard is and how I think we spent our entire lives trying to figure out the first 10 years of our life. You know what I mean? So there's a lot back there. People looking for validation and I've got great, I've had great mentors in my life and great validators, and I think I want to be the one of the validators out there. Describes self regard for someone, because that's one of the things that we've talked about yep. Yep. How your upbringing, your nationality, whether or not you're a first generation or second generation immigrant. Yep. Yep. Like how it all plays into that internal voice. Sure. How do you define, self regard if it's if it's so important? My, I think I, I hear both my parents' voices. My, my mother's voice would. Don't ever forget. You're descendant of Irish kings, right? You know something about that pride. Don't ever forget that, but if you wanted a chicken in Ireland, you were a king. You know something about the concept. I'm I'm five, six years old. I'm descendant of Irish Kings, right? So I'm better than everybody. Then as I got older, remember my father taking me aside saying, Hey, listen. Don't ever think you're better than anybody. Okay. Alright. Because he thought that's another side of the life. Don't ever, there's certain words that weren't used in my house. You never heard the n word in my house. Certain things that you just did not do in front of my father. Because he was that kind of a guy. So again, one ear, you're better than everyone. The other year you better than nobody. In between, where you gonna go? I pivoted to my father. My siblings pivoted to my mother, but I pivoted to my father, which is, I'm not better than anybody, so I gotta work with people. What are you learning now about the sale? The same self regard conversation and why I say that. So one of the more powerful books that I recently read is Victor Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning. Okay. Okay. Ooh. But I read that. In the pandemic. Okay. And that perspective view of life is really interesting, because you really can't solve for anything that's yesterday. Yep. All you have is the current moment and what you're gonna do going forward. Yep. So how do you talk to individuals about that? That voices or those voices that are pulling them back or pushing them to something not mine. My shelf inside for my granddaughter, the name of the book is You are, Oh wow. Okay. It's got all different pictures of all that. Yeah. So it's something about it. I want her You are enough. You don't have to be anybody. Yeah. It's something about you that, that's accepting. You have to accept yourself, right? In fact, again her mother's Ugandan and I guess about three, four years ago, she's sitting on a couch between Debbie and I, and she looks up at me. She says pop up. Am I. I said, what sweetie said? She said, am I rich? I don't know what she said. I look at Debbie. What's she saying? Debbie says she wants to know if she's Irish. And I said, I so sweet. Yeah, you're a little Irish, daddy's Irish or my grandpa, so I kinda stumbling through it and I Oh yeah. And so she's looking at TV and she looks back, she goes, what if I want to be black? Is it okay if I, if it's okay, if I wanna be, if I'm black? And I realized this is races conversation I'm having here with my son. And I said, you bet you can be black. It would be everything you want. All of a sudden it was a validation, man. She smiled and she'd, you'd be whatever you want. That's what she wanted to hear. Dominic could care. She, the Irish thing is a little confusing to her, but this just, yeah. But she could see her mom, she could see herself, and so there's something about that acceptance that she wanted to hear from me. That's the validation piece. But she was so happy to hear you could be anybody you want's. Great. Do you think, do you think that there's do you think that there's danger in that. Because there has to be some part of it, some governor pulling you back there's that self regard. Here's the thing. Either you're over validated in life or you're unvalidated in life. Some people are unvalidated and you're great, you're beautiful, you're brilliant. You're go and you face your first job interview. You're first, you guess what? You're not that brilliant. You're not that great, so you validated other people never got that validation and they're out there. Which it creates a different kind of a gap. But are there things that you're learning is of you coaching different generations? And you're seeing that, is it different? So if you take for instance, and I apologize for anyone who's gen Z listened to it, but for the long time, like I didn't accept participation trophies because it was not something that. I did growing up. So I would do all these races and, I would cross the finish line and someone will say you, they wanted to give me the medal, and I would turn it away because I was like, no, thank you. Yeah, because I'm like I did the race to finish. I'm not really. I don't know why I would just celebrate finishing and I had to rere redress that with myself, right? Because it's a different way of of seeing it. But, the way that then if I look internally, I'd say the way that I would communicate, the way that the way that I would. Support someone. Even I think there was someone that I was dating at a time and they thought that I wasn't as, I wasn't happy enough for what they accomplished and in my head I was like, but I knew you were gonna accomplish it, so why would we celebrate something like the keeping the bar low? But I'm just asking because obviously my self regard, the training as an athlete all this other stuff. It does play out into so many other areas of life. Yeah. And not just for me, for others, but are you finding that there's a delineation generationally in the people that you're coaching? Yeah. It's funny the people who I have the younger people who have taken through their eqi. The this what I'm, what you're wrestling with there. Cause they're in the midst of the pandemic as well. So last two, three years. In that context, there's a lot of insecurity about the future. So if I'm not, if I, if pre 20, 20 March I had my goal set, I had my career path set, I had, I knew exactly what I was gonna do. Now, 2023, hopefully I've been able to morph into a different, because I think that's what's happening is a, younger, the earlier generation, everyone describe them. What's the, what is the social path that's gonna be out that's gonna create jobs and opportunities for me? What's happening out there that, that's messy right now? And that, that's gonna play into, it's gonna affect businesses. It could affect so many different things. It could affect how I see the future. So what I'm seeing. Is younger people, the younger generation, it's seeing it a shakier future, maybe. It's always been a shaky future. Just seeing it shakier now. I see based on their data, their empathy's dropping, their emotional self-awareness is dropping. Seeing some real scores that it's hurt, there's loss out there, people experiencing, and that's gonna take a while to repair and come. So no one wants to hear time but time is one of those things, hopefully that we'll find a way of rebounding because yeah there's a lot of insecurity in different pockets of society out there. Understandable. And then how do you connect with that? There are some people who've seen it before and who are weathering the storm Yep. And the individuals who are uncertain about it, right? Yep. How do you bridge that gap for those two groups? There has to be a willingness to share with what you're going. In other words I'm not gonna give anybody advice on how I got to where I got, but I do want to hear what you're going through right now. So getting people to share their story open up and to verbalize their fears to verbal verbalize their loves. The, their what gets them excited, what's, because I think that's a big part, is the skill of feeling articulation. It's not. To be able to express to people how you feel. That's one of those things I've gotten with age to an extent is yeah, I could express more discontent in a more direct way or a more, in a more, I don't know, helpful way. But it's something about that, that you have to learn. And that that's not an easy lesson, particularly when, again, you have this sense of security that's out. Yeah it but that's what I think is really powerful about the self-awareness that comes with the eqi. So it being a data-driven way of really looking at how you're not just thinking about you, but how you're thinking about. Of others. And being aware of how your emotions not just impact you, but it may impact the Yeah. The others around you. I'm, that's the one thing I'm so curious about, because it's data driven it's not based on my feelings or based on anecdotal. Stuff that's been done for a long period of time. It's validated. It's it's verified. So I'm excited about it. Now I'm actually thinking maybe one of our next conversations is we can just get on and talk about emotional intelligence Sure. And the views on it. So maybe that's something that we can actually come back to. What keeps you motivated now? Let's see, motivated now. I think there're there's getting it. I think I see my next phase as that, the village elder mentor type of coaching coaches type of thing. I want to get to that level where I'm starting it. I'm finally doing a monthly meeting of EQI users. It's getting opportunity to hear from people. Yeah. Do you have a, do you have a report there you wanna share with me, with us to talk about you? So that's something I've always wanted to do and I'm doing it so that getting that start's gonna be a lot of fun. But motivation, I think it's always feeling. It's feeling you're helping somebody. Man, I wake up in the morning, it's 10 o'clock on a gray morning, and I get an eqi report and I gotta talk to someone who I can see from the report. This is not a happy person. This is someone who just doesn't, like what they're doing or whatever. And I start to call nine o'clock in the morning and next thing I know it's 9 45 and I feel great and the person feels great and I've give it something. We've had some laughs maybe or spoken about something. Or maybe a tier or two that happens sometimes when you're talking to people about their lives. But there's always usually an uplift. I could leave them. And to realize that yeah, it's validated. I've given you some kind of validation and, life's a stream, right? So for the last 45 minutes, you jumped out, you dried off. We talked for a little while. Now jump back in. That's actually interesting. I like that. But dealing with emotions all the time. And being in that space doesn't drain. Because I've had some, I've had some assessments where Uhhuh I've only went into one assessment knowing would go bad. Yeah. And it did go bad. Yeah. But then I, there are certain assessments where individuals just open up and sometimes I don't have a a container. Yeah. How do you manage that? I tell you truth, I didn't, once, once I had a client last year, I did an eqi debrief and the guy said he's ex-military God love him for what he'd been through. And he said, I suffered from ptsd. And he said, so I have him some incredible dreams. So what's the last question you want to ask someone like that? Last question you want to ask is, what are your dreams like? And what I do, I ask him, so what are your dreams like? And he told me and we cried together. I just, I didn't expect that man. I was just trying to do the, but he, you really wanna know John? Okay. Yeah. Tell me about when he told me about He's a Marine, they got there late. They, he told me the names, he knows the names of the soldiers that were dying. Oh. It's just incredible. But yeah I didn't take my own advice and I tell people, don't play psychotherapist here. Don't ask a question if you're gonna ask a question, open a person up. You better be prepared to sew him back together in the same amount of time. And that this was, man, we were on there for an hour and a half and that was like, Yeah. Whew. But that was cathartic. I'm not looking for good answers. I'm looking to provide some information. I'm looking at the help you wherever you can, but this was someone who had suffered. I felt it, and for some reason I gamble. How did you sew yourself back together after that? Oh, geez. When I went to, spoke to Debbie. She said what? She said, are you okay? I said, no, what happened? A guy talked by psd, you wanna hear about it? She goes, no, don't tell me about it. That's what I was gonna say. I hope she's, She was getting compensated for creating that third space fee submit invoice, huh? Yeah. That's, that, that's the right thing to do there. Yeah. But that's, that, that's that energy, right? I took his energy between Debbie and I, we just were able to get rid of it. Mean that's deep heavy stuff that I just, I'm not looking forward, but for some reason, that moment of that question, I can't tell you where it came from, but it was. I, I, will I do it over again? Probably cuz it came out successful. How do you help people to change? There's so many people who you would have these conversations with and it will go nowhere. Yep. Like how what's the difference between the person who. Pick up the report and then go a little bit further. And why? Before I say that, I would say it took me a while. So the first book you recommended was Search Inside Yourself,. It took me a while to read that book. Yep. But I must confess to you, I think Tim Ferriss says that, Your favorite book is not the one that you enjoy reading the most. It's the one that you've gifted the most. And I've gifted that more than any other book, but it took me a little while to read it. Yeah. And it's so powerful. But what's the, what is that thing that you think move people forward after you? You give them this awareness. You give them this information, this data. What's the difference between the person who does something with it and the person who does nothing? Yeah the, it's funny cuz I had someone really motivated to, to, they had to make a decision. Am I gonna go down to people track or am I gonna go with the people or the staff, right? Am I gonna manage people? Am I gonna be a staff professional? Because Comcast, certain technical organizations, you gotta make that decision. And I sent a copy of Search and Inside Yourself and I Guy, Hey, credits that book. We helping him make that decision because it helped him step back and realize he needed more information, he needed more feedback. So emotional self-awareness that's being open to other people's perception of you. Not agreeing with them, at least being open, at least hearing it. If you hear it enough, then there might be something to do with, something, there might be some consistency there about your change. But I love people that will reach out to me to say, yeah, I, there's a certain aspect of my management style, gotten feedback on, I don't wanna show up like that anymore. Can we talk about it? So once they have that awareness that's, those are the best clients. They really are. But so that you're saying, is it that it's intrinsic then? So it, you can't help someone to want. There. Ha. Yeah. You can't, there has to be a little bit, sometimes a little bit of fear involved. Fear is not a negative emotion. Not a bad emotion for some people. Fear is, it gets you focused, I know some people have reached out to me and say, Hey, listen, if I don't turn around my performance in 90 days, I'm gone. Can you help me? Other people, it's, there's motivation there, so you gotta break it down and see what the issues are. But someone who has that, yeah. Fears, again, it's one of those things where Stuff's happening around here and I want to share what's going on, and I want to tell you exactly, I want to dump everything right here, and I want to help work through what the next step should be. Can you do that with me? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Okay. What's cool though? I think the one the one line I took from you, and I think I ran with it quickly. You said, if you're not asking, what are you assuming? We were talking about the, that idea of being open to new information, being open to new thinking, being open to just hearing someone else. How do you actualize that now? Like it's really interesting for me because it's something that it forces that 15 extra seconds that Yep, yep. That I'm listening or or I am waiting to get additional information. Being mindful about the question I'll ask it's grounded in that if I'm not asking, what am I assuming? What's your constitution with that now? It came to me from a professor in graduate school. He's the one who made me a listener, because he, there was a moment in graduate school, my first session where I just wasn't listening and I could see him right in front of me. He would way it was structured was that I would meet with the client, do an hour session, and meet with the PhD the next day to do the debrief. So I meet with the client for the first. And, take all my notes and I meet the next day with the PhD. So PhD says, okay, John, how was your first session? I said the client said this and I said this, and the client said this, and I said this, and the client said this and I said this. And he just shook his head and disgusted. He just like Couldn, so I said, what's the matter? He said, John, do you own a pipe? And I said, no. He said, listen, do me a favor. Go out this afternoon and buy a pipe. And every time you wanna say something in your session, stick it in your mouth. Because every time you wanna say something, you're not listening to your client. So I realized, okay, I wasn't listening, I wasn't there. I was thinking of my response. I help you. So that's what realized. I know when I'm listening, when I'm not, you'll see me sometimes I'll go like this, I put my hand over my mouth. So that's why it reminds me to listen, make notes, that kind of stuff. So to me that's something where every day I gotta remind myself that cause I get cut of my own thoughts. Yeah. And someone who's probably listening now is gonna go, Nigel never shuts up, but, you know that, that's fine. I'm working on it though. I'm working on it. So I like that. And the conversations with your eqi and what are you learning yeah it's funny cause of all the scores, my lowest one has always been impulse control. We, because I like to get projects started even though that's finished. So there's a lot of stuff I used to, get going. So that's still my lowest. And in inflexibility it's also, a little. That's on high side. But I think when I think of the eqi over with this one in particular yeah. This one when I looked at the coaches report and all that, now this guy's full of himself. This guy's a little bit too much of a idea. This was, this guy was applying for a score. I'd have to bring him in for another interview. This guy really a people person? Is he, this is good. I would So your question. Okay. And here's the thing. When I see a guy with low woman, man or woman with high EQI scores, before I meet to my counselor, Person as good as they think they're And after five minutes Yeah, they are. Okay. They really are that sincere. They really are that connect. So what would you say the biggest strengths then that would pop up from it? Yeah. I think, it's funny sometimes at what point is your strength? You play against it, right? So reality testing that goes both ways, which. Reality test. I ask really good questions, but sometimes you ask who, you don't wanna know the answers of these questions. You know what I mean? You look around the world, you start asking things, and their curiosity, man wakes up in the middle of the night. Okay. That's what it plays. That's when you need some of these others. That's when you need emotional self-awareness to do some deep breathing, some four by four to go back to sleep. So that's why emotional self-awareness, it's a gift and a curse because it's you and your emotions and your emotional soup that you build that every day, and You're trying to unravel at night. So to me the, it's, I think the other thing I always learn about is brain functioning and we're learning about the brain and all that. That to me is, that's a whole area of of study. I would love to, be able to go deeper but looking at the report, yeah. I think it's that emotional self-awareness. It's it's knowing that, it's having that confidence that I'm gonna be able to help somebody. And what are you working on though, from the report? What's the one thing that you're working on? It's, it, I think it's reality. It's as hard as the reality testing is. I want to be able to do more Eqr certification. So does, I'm not asking myself the right questions. That's what it's telling me. Okay. If I'm not, if I'm not doing, again, I'm, it's not about, Bringing in clients, it's about different kind of clients, right? It's about certifying coaches to those work. So somebody haven't unraveled yet about that market. So if you're, but if you're asking too many questions do you think at some point that's why some limiting beliefs come in yeah. It's funny cuz it's funny, I'll, some people say you don't ask a lot of questions, you want to ask the right question. That's not me. I ask a lot of questions. I'll ask you 20 questions and one was the right one. People that go right to the right one. So I gotta kind work my way. My wife goes right to the right question. I'm dancing around. Oh, that's the question. Okay. So you're working on the reality testing and reality testing is confirming that what's happening is real. Yeah. So you'll keep d digging and digging. John I appreciate the conversation the insights. Thank you for taking this time. Pleasure to spend with me today. And looking forward to the other conversation. I think we should come back and geek out about emotional intelligence and the way that we often do. John, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. My pleasure. I appreciate you. Thank you. All right. Thank you. So what I learned from my conversation with John and what stayed with me. After our hour recording was that. We all have a level of genius in us. I think that was pretty spot on. That. Conflict happens in environments where people care. And also the importance of having a third space to help you balance the things that are off-kilter in your work. Work-life in the personal life. I'm so grateful for the conversation. They're so grateful for the time I was able to spend with John. Thank you for staying with us. To this point, I appreciate the mental space to mental energy. If you did get this far also if at all possible, and you'd like to connect, check out my website, me and help.com. Maybe there's some way that I can be of service to you or that I can help you wherever you are on your attorney. Again, thank you for listening. And the next show will be coming in about two weeks or so. See you then. Bye.