Ep 70 Emotional intelligence: Understanding and improving your emotional intelligence

To lead creative teams you need to be able to understand your emotions, understand how other people feel and how your emotions can have an effect on other people. In this episode, we are going to look at the five different parts of emotional intelligence to understand how they are all connected, how they affect you and what you can do to improve it.

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Transcript

Stephen Gates : 0:00

What's going on everybody, and welcome to the 17th episode of The Crazy One podcast. As always, I'm your host, Stephen Gates. And this is the show where we talk about creativity, leadership, design, and everything that helps to empower creative people. Now, while you're on your favorite podcast platform, be sure hit the subscribe button. So you get the latest episodes whenever those come out. And also are there take just a couple seconds, and leave a review for the show always appreciated. Let me know that people are listening and brings more people into the show. Now, over the course of the show, we have talked about a lot of different aspects of emotions, of creativity, of leadership, a lot of those different things. And like creativity is emotional and it's personal, which is why it's so important to be aware of how it affects your work. It's why I talk about it so much. You know, of all the talk that we've done around emotion, it can probably really be summed up in one overarching topic and I think that's what I want to talk about today is emotional intelligence. Because I think The best leaders are the ones that understand how they feel and how they affect other people. The worst ones are the ones who are that just sort of like, emotionally tone deaf, and they're just oblivious to the way that their actions really affect the organization and the team around them. And being tone deaf doesn't just mean you get mad, right? Like, that's not what emotional intelligence isn't just about anger. It can also mean that you actually don't express enough emotions or maybe you don't care, or that whenever you do express it, you don't do it in an honest way. So this isn't just for the hotheads out there. I think this is for everybody. Because I think a lot of leadership, a lot of creatives that I see need emotional intelligence, because I know that they give a shit, I know that they care. Your team doesn't know that their company doesn't know that. I think sometimes, they may not even know that or remember that because they've just sort of lost their way a bit. And I think that this is also really important. Because whenever you look at this most people will just say like, Look, it's how smart you are people are for that is like IQ and intelligence is EQ it's IQ versus EQ. And I hear so many leaders sort of Bandy that phrase about these days. But the interesting thing, whenever I started looking at that did did some more research, as usual was that I think a lot of psychologists will generally agree that if you look at all the ingredients that go into your success, IQ will count for somewhere between most would say about 10%, it might be as much as 25% of your success. So just your straight line intelligence, your IQ, just how straight up smart you are, is only 10 to 25% of your overall success. That means that the rest of everything else mostly relies on EQ, it really applies to how do you apply that how do you work with other people how in tune already what they're doing so, in this episode, that's what we're gonna look at. We're looking at emotional intelligence, we're going to do it to just for starters, understand what the hell is it, the fact that it is actually made up of five different parts and each one of those parts have sort of multiple sub parts. So we're gonna dive into all of that. And as we go through and do that, we're also just going to look at, how do you get better at it? How is it something that you can start to be able to control? So it's something that really is more on your side? And, you know, we start with just that simple question of just like, what, what is emotional intelligence? And I think that the best organizations are the ones that are aware of this. They're the ones that are aware of how important this is. I think that it's been interesting whenever I've gone through in the press and things like that, whenever you look at like the people that work in the Genius Bar in an apple store, the vast majority of their training is around much more of emotional intelligence than how to fix a computer. Because I think in those moments, it's about how do you connect with people? How do you create that experience? And I think that's why Apple stores are so different. That's why and I'll ask this people all the time, like, have you ever even considered buying a piece of Apple hardware, not an accessory hardware, any place but an apple store, like if you were going Amazon and bought a laptop. And all the years have asked that question. I think I've only had one person whoever answered yes to that. And there's a reason for that. And there's a reason behind the power for this. But that's the thing is that we all have different personalities, we all have different wants and needs, and different ways of showing our emotion, navigating through all that, take some tact, take some self awareness, especially if we want to be successful. Because I think that's where emotional intelligence comes in. It's the intelligence part of it. That's the important part of what we're going to talk about today. Because emotional intelligence is just simply the ability to recognize your emotions, understand what they're telling you, and then realize how do those emotions affect the people around you? Because I think that the people that struggle with this the most are missing, all three. They are missing that self awareness to be able to recognize what is going on with their emotions. I think that they are unaware of sort of what it is that that's telling them about what is they Truth, what are they really feeling? And then again, they're just sort of emotionally tone deaf to how it affects those around them. Because that's the thing, right is when we talk about those around you, it really also affects how other people see you. Because we need to understand how they feel. And because this allows us to manage to build to maintain relationships and to do it effectively, and I think especially if you're in a leadership position, that emotional intelligence is so critical for success. Because if you think about it, who are you more likely to follow who you're more likely to think is gonna be more likely to be successful? Who are you going to be more likely to seek out as a mentor, somebody who really is in control of their emotions, somebody who understands not only themselves but takes the time to invest in you what you're thinking what you're feeling, or that person that just gets mad or just sort of goes tone deaf and, and that's, I think whatever they're under stress, they just sort of fall apart. Which one of those Are you going to lean to and I'm here again, I'm betting that as I'm talking about that somebody just came to mind. In the positive and the negative, I'm betting, you thought of somebody who is been a great leader, somebody who has been a good mentor, somebody who, again, is emotionally intelligent to be able to do that. And there was some resonance with you and what you were feeling. But in the same way, I think you also probably just thought of those people who are the bad leaders who are emotionally tone deaf. And that those also probably came to mind. I want you to keep three people in mind as we talk about this, I want you to think about the positive example the person who you feel like really exemplified the good side of that spectrum. I want you to be able to think about the bad person, the person who you didn't connect with the person who you didn't like the person who didn't have that sort of intelligence. And the third person I want you to think about is yourself, because I want you to start to be able to try to figure out between those two, where do you fall? Where do you fall in the way that you relate to yourself, but where do you fall in the way that other people Think about you and the way that other people gravitate to you. The best way I think, to probably break this down, is to start to talk about what are the different aspects of this. And so you know, once again for this episode, I always do a lot of research because I think I always have my insights. I have my stories, I read the things I want to talk about. But there's just so many smart people out there that I always find people who sort of sum it up better than I do. And this time, there's an American psychologist named Daniel Goleman. And I think he's the one who really helped popularize emotional intelligence. And whenever, you know, I went to the research. I think his work was the one I kept coming back to you. There's one I kept referencing. And I think his was probably the best model as I sort of looked at this and started to pull this episode together and he will break emotional intelligence down into five different parts. And I think that each one of these is unique is important, and we're gonna dig into each one of them but the five are self awareness, self regulation, motivation, empathy. And social skills. So we're going to go through those one at a time. And with each one of these, I want to sort of break down, what is it? What are the parts of it? And then how do you start to work on it? How do you start to get better on because I also think there's a bit of an order in which these go and I think he doesn't talk about it that way. But I think especially for creatives, that there is an order to these things. And I'd be curious to hear what other people's thoughts are of this. But of those five parts, the one that I really wanted to start with was self awareness. Because I think this is so much so critical to so many parts of leadership to so many parts of creativity. It really is the foundation for everything to do with emotional intelligence, because I think self awareness as a creative becomes wildly important, because I think you need to start to understand what you do when you have a good idea. What do you do whenever you get blocked? What do you do whenever you're happy? What do you do when you're frustrated? There's some part of that that becomes very important. And I think whenever it pertains to your work, that's what the focus is. You, but then as we look at it through the lens of leadership must like everything else in leadership, the pivot has to go from being about you to being about your team. And their How do you have emotional intelligence for everyone else that yes, understanding how you act understanding how you feel that absolutely that has ripples across the pond that is your team. But it is also definitely investing in them having empathy and understanding for them. self awareness has two parts. And it really sort of hits on those things. I just was kind of hinting out a little bit. The first one is just emotional awareness. And that is if you're gonna be self aware, we're gonna be talking about emotional intelligence. How are you doing that? Like what is your ability to recognize your own emotions and its effects for for those of like for your work, it's what I said, it's being self aware enough to understand how do you have an idea, and are you even paying attention to that at all, and I think this is a very First step is just to notice, what is your mind state? What is your emotion? Whenever you feel really creative, really empowered, really in the groove? What's that emotional state like and how did you get there? And how do you keep it there? versus the times when you're struggling, you're blocked, you're frustrated? It's not flowing, it's not coming as easily. What are the things that happened, then? What is your emotional state? what led up to that? Because I think it just it really is the first step in becoming a better leader. It's the first step in becoming a better creative. It's damn sure the first step in actually starting to be able to control your emotional intelligence. It's just awareness. And how do you just simply pay attention to it? And I think give yourself some credit, because this is there's not a right answer here. This is very, very personal. This is something where there's not going to be an easy or right answer a lot of times. So in many cases, what I'll ask people to do is just to stick with the awareness. Much like in any creative process, don't run to the solution. Don't overcorrect. understand if this is something that is really who you are, is it a one off instance of you're having a bad day you had a bad time at home, your boss pissed you off. Somebody said something to set you off. And that was sort of a one time outlier. or anytime somebody says something negative anytime somebody gives you criticism, does that really set you off? Do you go to a bad place? Does your work start to struggle? So it's starting with the first piece of that self awareness is just emotional awareness. And then the other piece, really is self confidence. We talked about this last week. And I think that it was one of the things that was really interesting in that episode, right? Because whenever you talk about creative imposter syndrome, that's one of the big things that comes into it is self confidence because at the end of the day, that's why we feel like we have it. Emotional intelligence is very, very tied to confidence as well. Because confidence really feeds into your self worth and how you feel about how capable you are. So it's also important for your growth. leadership, that you have to be confident in your style, not let your emotions get the best of you because the reality is in a leadership position, there are a lot of times when you don't get the luxury, the luxury. And that's the word I'll choose very carefully, you don't get the luxury of a bad day, you don't get the luxury of losing your temper, however frustrated you might be, however it is that is going on. That's one of those things were like complaints go up, they don't go down. Go pitch to your boss, don't go pitch to your team. And I think that it is about how do you deal with the bad days? How do you deal with the frustration? How do you deal with those things? And this is where in many aspects, emotional intelligence becomes even more important on leadership because it leadership can feel very isolating because of this. Who do I go to? Who do I talk to? Who do I tell? How do I release and sort of self regulate this emotion, this frustration that I'm feeling? But that's the same thing and it's the same thing with being creative, creative. So much of creativity is not about knowing that you know, you're going to have the answer whenever you've got a particular problem. What you do know though, is that you're confident yourself you're confident in the steps, your confidence in the things that you go through, that are going to lead you to an outcome that you know will be a good idea you don't know what the idea is, but you know that you've done it enough times you have enough confidence in yourself to be able to get to that. And a lot of that confidence is bred out of you know how to regulate your emotions, you know, your emotional stability. So those are the two parts emotional awareness and self confidence. How do you start? How do you start self awareness? How do you start to get better at this so this is something that you haven't done if this is something that you you know, think that you struggle with? And if you think that you struggle with it, I guarantee you that you do because if it's one of those things like yeah, I think you definitely do. Because if you aren't that self aware to it and you think you do, it's sort of like I don't know maybe it's a weird comparison but I always feel like it's like you put them perfume you put on Cologne, you're like am I wearing too much yet? You definitely are. Right, like if you can smell it then everybody else here to look like pig pen from the peanuts like walking around like a cloud of that stuff surrounding you. I don't know, weird analogy. It's where we ended up. We're gonna keep rolling with it. But I think that it's it is that sort of thing about it's that first step to awareness. And I think there are two things that I've done. One of them that I continue to do that I think really helps with this because I think like most of the things we talked about, this is also not a one and done proposition. who you are, from a makeup perspective, from an intelligence perspective, from a life perspective, from a success and failure perspective is going to evolve over time. So your emotional intelligence and your the set of emotions you're working with, is going to evolve over time. Now, whenever I first started doing this, I was never a big believer in this, I guess, ever. But it's amazing how whenever I started doing it, how useful I found it, which was keeping a journal. And because I think they can really help improve your self awareness about a lot of things. And I think even if it's just as simple, make it a voice journal, you record it in voice notes, make it something that you write down in Evernote or on your phone, do it physically Get it, get an actual diary and write it down. Like whatever the way you want to do it. But just spend a few minutes each day writing down Your thoughts? And your thoughts about when were you happy? When are you frustrated or mad? And then this can move you, I think, to that higher degree of self awareness. Because if you start to say, Hey, I was really happy whenever x happened. Okay, well, what was happening? what led up to that? How long did it last when you were frustrated? What happened? What led up to that? You know, again, what was your reaction of you when you're mad, same thing. And that's all that the purpose isn't this and like I said, to give yourself a little bit of time to just start to see who you are. And that sounds so strange. You live with you every single day. I've talked about this before I do this whenever I record this podcast. Like I think I've heard my voice in my head 24 hours a day, seven days a week for as long as I've been alive. And every time I hear my voice recorded, I think I can't sound like that big of a tool. It's the truth though, right? I think that we don't see ourselves purely as we are. We don't hear ourselves all of these sorts of things. So I think a journal is a great first step. But I think especially as you look at the the negative side of that spectrum, Right, because because very few people are ever accused ever being dinged for being too happy. A lot of people are being done a lot of people have problems because they have anger, other strong emotions. And that those get them to say things that they wish they didn't they get them into situations, they make them unproductive, they make them. So they they pull away from the team. But I think whenever you look at that strong emotion and usually a strong negative emotion, it's one of those times whenever, whenever that happens, what I want you to do is to slow down, don't jump at the shadow, don't give in to the impulse just to respond in that moment in that moment of emotion. Because I think it's the ability to identify when it happens. And then to identify the cause that I think will start to lead to self awareness, but it is also then the start of self control. And it because I think that's the other part of it. And there are plenty of times whenever I get emails from people. There are times whenever I need to close my email, I need to go for a walk. I need to Because sometimes it was meant to be an asshole. Sometimes you find out that it wasn't. But I think in either case, what I've learned is if I give in to that emotion, if I give in to that moment, if I let if I just let the self awareness pass me by, you never make it better. I think that, you know, because what you're either gonna do is and I'm like, I'm not saying you get run over by it, I'm not saying that you get let people dominate you. But I'm trying to say how do you respond in an intelligent way? How do you respond in a way that doesn't make things worse? How do you respond in a way that that, again, isn't sort of giving in to some of the base or emotions and some of those sort of knee jerk passionate reactions. And that really leads into the next piece of this because I think once you start to work with awareness, and then it is starting to be those moments where you need to slow down whenever you need to think about that. What that leads into is the next piece which is self regulation, the awareness will start to cue you into what is going on self regulation is in your ability to control those emotions and impulses. And it's important Because you don't want to become too angry to jealous, make impulsive or careless decisions because like I said, there's sometimes in the heat of the moment, especially if there's something you really believe in his work that you really love. And somebody you know, is rude to it, somebody knocks it down, somebody doesn't show the respect you think it should deserve? Man, you really want to respond in that moment and sort of put them in their place. But you need to think before you act, because creative people, I think more than anything, are prone to these emotional outbursts, because of those sorts of things. Because we take this work so seriously, because we're much more emotional driven than logic driven, because we're much more of those sorts of things where it's just like, Look, we don't, if you just want to come in and act like our father and scold us for what it is that we've done, most of the time in our head, we're telling ourselves, you know, telling you to go fuck ourselves or trying to figure out more politically way to be able to say that, because it's just again, for us, in a lot of this case around self regulation and in dealing with creatives. It's about how do you lead with a question about the statement statements tend to lead to very black black and white situations, statements tend to lead to the need For self regulation, I think wherever you lead with questions that lead to conversation conversations rarely then require emotional self regulation. So some part of it is also as you do this, and again, as you think about the impact that you have on the people past you, it's starting to be aware of that. Because I think that's the other part of it is whenever you do the self awareness, it's not just how it affects you like, yeah, look, start there. But also start to look at and look in the eyes of the people that you said, whatever that was that you said to look at how motivated they were, do the work get better or worse after you set it? And if it got worse, if they got angry if you're needing to justify or apologize for what it is you're doing, than self regulation is absolutely the problem. And self regulation is made up in many cases of five parts. And we'll go into each one of these in more detail, but the five are self control, trustworthiness, conscientiousness, adaptability, and innovation. Now, self control is just what it sounds like. How well do you manage those disruptive impulses Right like the time whenever you go from being you to being something else, this is like the Jekyll and Hyde sort of thing. How well do you regulate? How well do you control that. And I think it's important for you to understand that in certain situations whenever you are bad at it, again, having the self awareness to know that if something is coming, if you feel a particular way, go for a walk, don't say anything, give it a breath, you know, just do something so that again, you can start to have some self control. Now, the trustworthiness I think, comes in two different ways. I think on the surface, it is exactly what it sounds like, about how do you regulate? And how do you have just sort of an emotional honesty and integrity with what it is you're doing? Because especially in your leadership position, you can manipulate people in ways that are not beneficial for them. In many cases, I'll often say sometimes joke, the only difference between you know leadership and manipulation is intent. So that people need to know that whenever it comes to emotional issues, whenever it comes to things like that, that you they can trust you, that you got some sort of standard, you're gonna be honest with them, but you're also gonna have an Tegrity in the way that you do it, because whenever we talk about emotions, if you are not honest, if you try to bullshit them people know, if you try to say I'm sorry, and you don't mean it, people know. And I think that there's that part of it where again, there needs to be an honesty and there needs to be a true intent in that, because if not, there's nothing worse than that sort of like sickly saccharin bullshit, apology, you know, connection, whatever that is, whenever you know, it's not real, you don't trust it. Now conscientiousness, always a fun and interesting word to try to pronounce especially whenever you're doing something like this. conscientiousness is how do you take responsibility for your performance and your actions, which means if you do something that is negative, if you get into the darker side of things, how much of a conscience Do you have you take responsibility, accountability for it, you go back and say, I'm sorry, do you go back and actually try to improve things and make things better? Because I think conscientiousness Absolutely goes with the next one, which is adaptability, which is really how are you handling change and how flexible Are you because that's the other part is that it's great to be conscientious great to go back and say I'm sorry. It only works if you change. It only works if things get better. As I've said multiple times on this show before, this is why I say the first time it's a mistake, the second time, it's a choice. The first time you do something wrong, you come back, you apologize, I take your word for it. The second time you do it, we've already been down this road before. We've already talked about this before. You've already apologized for this before. So you know better you have an awareness of it because you know, this was an issue last time. And now you're making a choice to not care you don't care about you don't want to look to you know, deal with it. You don't give a shit how it affects me or the rest of the team. And that's the point is we start to break trust. Because at that point, I don't trust that you actually care about me. I don't trust that this is actually a problem that if all you think you can do is act like any sort of asshole that you want and then come back and say I'm sorry and like somehow that's going to fix it. People like that don't necessarily understand that there are many times in Life We're sorry, doesn't cut it. Sorry, doesn't cover it the first time if you really are sorry, great, I believe you. The second time doesn't cover it, because I don't believe it. I don't trust it. I don't I don't think that I think it's just again, it's your way of sort of forgiving yourself for doing that. So you need to be adaptable, you need to handle you know, you need to be able to be flexible and change. And I think a lot of the time is with this. Innovation may sound like a strange word. As we talk about emotional intelligence. I believe in so many cases, what we do, like design thinking can be used to design an app, it can be used to design an organization, it can be used to design, you know, somebody's career path. I think all these different things can be very adaptable. But But I think innovation also needs to come into it because innovation in this case really means that you need to be open to new ideas. You need to be open to again, part of self awareness part of self regulation is also is really, yes, it's holding yourself accountable. But it's also knowing whenever you are struggling whenever you Don't know what the answer is, whenever you're not sure what to do next. It's not just suffering in silence. It's not doing the same thing over and over again. It's finding somebody, maybe it's a loved one, maybe it's a family member, maybe it's somebody on your team, somebody who can give you that outside perspective, somebody who can try to give you a path forward someplace that you can open yourself up to that new idea. Because I think that's again, and I talked about it, maybe it sounds strange. That's why I sort of feel a bit of hypocrisy in doing this show. Because I think it's so easy to do some research, take some experiences, take some things I've done, package it together, like it's all the answers and put it out there. But it's amazing how much in my own career I struggle. It's amazing how much with these sort of things. I'm not good at what I talk about. And I struggle with these things. So that again, I think it's not just, you know, coming in here and sitting down and saying that you've got the answer or pretending like you do. I think in many cases, it is about how do you have that cohort, how do you have that that support team where you can be vulnerable where you can Go and say, these are the things I need. I need some help. I need some new ideas. I'm not sure how to break through this. Why do you think this is going on? Get a different perspective. But I think all of those are interconnected and self regulation where it is the self control, to not give in to the sort of like darker impulses, the trustworthiness of knowing that you need to be honest with yourself and with everybody else, as you go through that process for the regulation to actually be resonant and real. They need to be conscientious that you are not perfect, do not expect that you're gonna be in the moment that you slip, you need to take responsibility for what you did. But then again, you need to be adaptable, and you need to be innovative and thinking about how do you genuinely invest in solving those problems? Now, as you kind of think about, how do you get better at that? Because maybe you identify with some of those. I mean, I know I definitely do. This is not a checklist that again, you're going to go through and be like perfect all the time. That's not the goal here. But I think as you think about those, in many cases, if you want to start getting better at it, it really is about knowing who you are, knowing what your values are. Like, do you have a clear idea of who you really are? Like, what will you not compromise on? What are the values that are most important to you? Have you told those to other people? Have you talked about the way you like to work? Do you actually know that? And can you vocalize it? Can you set that expectation? And I think, you know, it is that sort of process that introspection of sitting down and looking at this stuff. Because if you know what's more important to you, then you probably won't think twice when you are faced with a problem. Because you're going to know what is true to you. You're going to know what is a rational reaction? What is something that whenever you've done it, it aligns with who you are, it aligns with the way you want to act and want to be seen and a lot of those sort of things. This is why in many cases, all I've encouraged people repeatedly for years now to think about and spend some time looking at their own brand. That's also the start of this process to know what your values are to know what makes you different. Yes, it takes the expression of a brand to be able to go to a job and do those sorts of things. But it also works here. And I'm part of emotional intelligence as well. Because I think you need to understand how to you want to work who it is that you are. And again, if you had a leader who is coming in and trying to make you into somebody that you're not, then you need to push back against that. And again, it's all about how you do it. But again, I think you need to be able to think about that. I think that the next part is, is you do need to hold yourself accountable. I see too many people. And it is sort of become the fad in society right now. Where whenever something is wrong, it is the fault of someone else. It can't be that I've let something down. It can't be that I've done something wrong. Somebody else has done this to me. Somebody else has imposed this on me, and that they are the one to blame. I'm fine, I'm perfect. I'm great. I do everything right all the time. It must be them. We can't give in to them. And I think if you tend to blame others when something goes wrong, I can stop like right because I think the one thing that you can always control 1% of the time is you That's why that's where you got to start is with you. And I think you've got to make a commitment to yourself to admit your mistakes and face the consequences, whatever they are, because they're going to be there, people are going to judge you, this is going to happen, whether you want to engage in the process or not. And look, at the end of the day, you probably sleep better at night. But I think the the bigger part of this is that you're going to earn the respect to those around you, you're not going to dead end your career, you are going to be somebody that people want to follow that you can build teams that they want to work with, whenever those people again, are just sort of and I think you see this in so many creatives, whereas there's that arrogance of like, I'm going to be me, great, be you. But also understand that you being you comes with consequences. It comes with the way that affects the people around you. If you want to be you and you want to be a singular, you know, strange, interesting, unique little snowflake, and that everybody else can plug into that everybody else can work with that. Everybody else sees value in that. And that again, that is part of a bigger collective rock on. If you do that at the cost of everybody else or your ego, circumvents everybody else. Your voice has to be louder than everybody else. Then those are the places where you know what it's going to work for a little while, and you're going to feel all big and important, hiding that massive amount of insecurity that you have around whatever it is, but at some point, you're going to be held accountable. And it's gonna be a lot better if you do it to yourself, and you try to start to change, because if not, you're gonna be held accountable in a dead end career, you're gonna be held accountable by getting let go of your job, you're gonna be held accountable by being ostracized from your team, or your executives, or your projects, or whatever it is. And in that case, you're probably then again, turn to them. It's them, they did it to you, they ostracized you, they are the ones that didn't want to work with you. they they they bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. And I think that's the part where we need to hold ourselves accountable. Be honest to this and it's a really hard thing to do sometimes. And there are a lot of people that would try give that advice to that. You know what sometimes if that is you, just fucking lean into it. Admit it to people. So you're trying to get better. You don't know where to start. Be vulner about that. It's amazing what the reaction can be if, again, it's honest. And I think the last one is, again, if you are prone to those darker impulses, if you're prone to getting into those emotional reactions, then I think it's about how do you practice being calm, like the next time you're in that challenging situation, be aware of how you act. This is why self important self awareness was the first thing. Do you relieve that stress by getting angry? Do you take it on other people? Like how do you do that? Here again, this is why that journaling becomes important. Like try to write down what those negative things are, write down the negative things that you want to say, don't actually say them, don't respond in the media immediately don't respond in the heat of the moment in the midst of that emotion. Because I think like that's, the thing is like expressing emotion on paper still gets it out. It's better than speaking out loud into your team. Like you need to do these things. Because you have to make sure your actions are fair. You need to make sure that there's a resonance to it because again, if you're an accountant or something like that, maybe it's different. But since emotion makes up such a huge part of creativity, It makes it such a huge part of leadership. It's why it becomes so insanely important that self regulation becomes a part of this. And I think especially in this time, whenever we have to work with more teams bring more people into our process, we need to do it in a way that without losing control, we need to show our value to an organization, we need to be a voice that is sometimes shouting into the darkness. If you give them the opportunity to make the conversation about something else, as in your emotional state, the way that you react to something, then you aren't dealing with what really matters. That's why this is so important is because whenever you are that asshole, whenever you are somebody who is out of control, they're not going to talk about the issues that actually matter. They're going to talk about the way you deliver it. They're going to talk about the way you divide people. They're going to talk about all those other things. And that's what they're going to lead with because they're to lead with you because you can't get over yourself and get out of your own way to let the conversation be about something else. So again, that's why this is so important. Now the inverse of that because I think a lot of self regulation does tend to give in to the darker impulses, the more hot headed emotions and things like that, as we talk about motivation. And it's an interesting and tricky part of the equation because like in leadership positions motivation can honestly be in really short supply sometimes. And I think if you are feeling blocked if you're feeling like you're not having a lot of ideas, again, motivation, real short supply sometimes because I think, like I said, self regulation tends to be about your actions in the heat of the moment. Motivation looks at your sort of longer term emotional intelligence, your longer term emotional control. And with this, we really have four parts. And motivation is often made up of achievement drive, commitment, initiative, and optimism. achievement drive really is about how do you constantly strive to improve how do you constantly strive to get better? Now in the last episode in Episode 69, as we talked about imposter syndrome, we talked about how that achievement drive can go wrong. We talked about how achievement drive can be used to mask Other things and why that, again is about that it is important. It's about how it's positioned. It's about how proportion it is to everything else, that ultimately becomes the part of it. But if you want to be motivated it is that you need to drive yourself towards something and especially the further you go on in your career, the more senior you get, the more important this becomes because the cohort you have surrounding you smaller, the number of people understand what you're going through smaller, the all those sorts of things. The Pete You know, there's not as much visible things you can pattern yourself after, so that that drive becomes really important. And I think whenever it comes to commitment, it's about how do you align, like the goals of your goals, with your group with your organization, how committed in real is this because that's a part of it is when you want to talk about motivation. When you talk about emotional change, emotional intelligence, creating change, any of those things, it comes down to commitment because those people who want to talk, do just that. Right. They come in, they talk a really good game, they watched enough TED talks and seen enough buzzwords, they can string it together to sound really intelligent, but whenever it gets hard whenever it's challenging, whenever it's not easy, whenever it doesn't work the first time, that's when the commitment starts to shine through. Because you can see, they they aren't really committed to it, they aren't really willing to do whatever it takes. And no initiative then comes down to the fact that whenever you are committed, you still need to take action. Right? The drive is the one to get forward commitment is the is the absolute just saying, Look, I'm not going to give up on this. And this initiative is really, how do you act on those opportunities? How are you actively trying because again, I can be committed, I can have a lot of like achievement drive, but that doesn't make me so might mean, I don't do anything about it. So that again, I need to take initiative I need to start. And I think that that's a big part of it is to actually start in so many things, even if I get it wrong. How do I start? How do I take that initiative? Because I think that's what that's what will keep you motivated motivation will fade very quickly because unfulfilled motivation, or inspiration turns into frustration in a heartbeat. Because of that, because at the end of the day, if I don't actually start putting an action if I don't see change if it just stays trapped in my head. It starts to die on the vine in the last part of about and I think this is one I don't know what I think I do really well at this and really badly this in equal measure and I feel like there's not much in the middle. But it is around optimism. Because it is about like, look if you're gonna pursue these goals, you need to do it persistently despite of obstacles despite a setbacks. You need to know and believe in the future, you need to know and believe that this will get better. And sometimes optimism can be in short supply because of all the people that want to stand against you all the people that have the excuses all the people that don't align with your vision, all the people who don't work hard enough, all the ones that do those sort of things. But here again, you need this is not about them. This is about you. It's about me, it's about you. And I think that's where optimism becomes really important because if you don't believe if you don't see the future, if you don't believe in that future, nobody else will. Nobody else is going to start to believe that any of that is actually going to happen. Because if the person who is in charge of this person is leaving us, the person who is next to me, the person that I'm working with, doesn't believe that we're gonna get there. That saps my energy, it saps my belief. It's absolutely those sort of things. So again, I think that's why you need that achievement drive to be able to push yourself forward, you need the commitment to get it done, you need the initiative to be able to start at the optimism to believe in that future state. So I think that if that is in short supply, if that's something you need to get better at, here, again, there are three things that I would tell you to start to look at around this. The first is just, and maybe this sounds a little bit overly dramatic or overly Machiavellian or something. But just go back and just take a look at like, why are you doing this job? Honestly, because look, it's easy to forget what you love about your career. It's easy to get very caught up in the day to day minutia. So I think you need to take some time to remember why did you want this job? Why did you want to work with these people. And if you're unhappy in that role in that job, if you're struggling To remember why you wanted it, I think that there again, go back to the origin of that and that if that has become disconnected if the team has different management is different, then I think you need to start to figure out what is that future you want to build towards? Like starting at the root of those sort of things starting at like why am I here? What What is my effect? What do I want to become? And again, starting with me not with them, I think well in a lot of cases let you look at a situation in a different way. And I think that you need to make sure that the outcome of this is something that is different, it is something that is innovative, it is something that is energizing, and optimistic. It is something that would forward looking at because if not, this is not an excuse to have a pity party to sit around and be able to line out and talk about, you know, all the things that are wrong. I'm great at that. I'm really good at sort of, you know, whenever that that vision starts to dim a little bit whenever it feels like a little bit further away than I wish it was. There's sometimes it becomes is easier to concentrate on all the reasons why not. And I think that that's the place where again, you need optimism, you need to be able to say, look, this is the impact I feel like I can have, this is what I want to do. And to be able to let that be that Northstar, and then start to figure out and again, how do you look at those different things? To understand how you start to build it. Now, the next part, honestly, is just like how do you how do you figure out how motivated you are to lead? How How much do you really want to do this? Because I think that it's one of these things where leadership isn't for everybody. Everybody feels like they want leadership. they aspire to it. In many cases. That's because that's what the job path is. That's what the bigger salaries are, the bigger titles are, go towards that. But I think it really is about just sort of like looking at that present state like where are you on that journey? Are you moving forward net net, even if There are problems in front of you. Are things getting better? Like, is there something you can be hopeful about? Is there something you can find the good in? Because I think, you know, like the best leaders, the most motivated leaders are usually the most optimistic no matter what problems are they face. And I think that in many cases that may need to be a bit of an act of will, to adopt that sort of mindset, to the point where it becomes a practice. But I think that as you look at that motivation, it is again, being self aware to see if you tend to err towards the negative, if you tend to err towards those sorts of things, then how do you actually again, start to adopt that mindset, to look at things a little more, hopefully, to find something that's good, and to again, do that sort of self re evaluation. So that again, this is why awareness is so important. It's why it's the first step is because so many of these things, if you're on how to stay motivated, you need to figure out a lot of these things about where it is you stand and how you're doing. So the fourth part of this, we talked about a ton of time, it's like the word it is sort of the word of the moment, which is empathy. And I think this is an ad of all the things we're going to talk about, this probably is the second most part of emotional intelligence. Because empathy is everybody hopefully knows, it's just the ability to identify with and understand the wants the needs, the viewpoints of other people, those people around you, right, because I think people remember the other ones that are good at recognizing feelings and others, even if those feelings maybe aren't obvious, because I think that as a result of that empathetic people are usually really good at managing relationships are good at managing, you know, a lot of those sort of things. They're good at listening, they're good at relating to other people, they avoid those sort of stereotypes of judging too quickly. And they can live their lives in in sort of an open and honest way because they understand what's going on around them. Here again, sound so easy and as you if you do go through and do design sprints, you do design thinking, a lot of this will focus on certain to give you good techniques to be able to do this, but a lot of it is it comes to you as it comes to emotional intelligence really comes down to sort of like again, five different parts of this. There is this sort of like Service orientation. There's the development of other people. There's leveraging diversity, there's political awareness, and then again, the understanding of others. And a lot of this probably is going to gear a little bit more towards leadership. Because again, I think, as you're in a leadership position, the need for empathy ramps up drastically. Because whenever you talk about that, in general, whenever you are creative, the service orientation really is about how do you serve, anticipate, recognize, and meet the needs of your team members of people who you lead of your clients, your customers, whatever it is, that's there, right? Because it's finding a resonance that not only do I understand it, but then I want to be able to help in some way and then how do I recognize it anticipate what that is? Now? The development of others, that's whenever it's about sensing, what do others need to get better? What do other people need emotionally, to make progress to get better at their abilities? Like what? What is it that they need? Do they need somebody who's sympathetic do they need somebody who is very honest, and they need somebody who's going to push them and be able to push against them to push their ideas. And I think that here again, it's not just about what I need, there is an understanding of resonance that is the foundation of this. But as we start to get into into empathy, and as you start to get on to leadership, this model becomes more complicated because as we talked about developing others, it's not about just me, it's about how do I then help other people? How do I give them what they need? How am I the shoulder to cry on when they need it? How am I the kick in the pants whenever they need that too, and everything in between? Because I think a lot of that does does come out of really leveraging diversity. I think you need diversity in the perspectives that surrounded you. You need diversity that is on your team. You do not want to surround yourself with people who think the way that you do who are emotionally built the way that you are, because it's not healthy. It's not good, good work does not come out of that. There is something about the contrast, there's something about playing off those sorts of things. That really opens up some amazing opportunities, but you need to lean into it. And I think that then the political awareness, this is real one that is very, very Very much like that as if you work in in house teams or something like that. But this is about how do you sort of read a group's emotional state? How do you read the power relationship of that group or that person to someone else? So that again, because that part of sociology, that part of psychology will play into it, that even if, again, I'm trying to help somebody else, if they're a CMO, and I'm a designer, that conversation is very different helping are they are two that is very different. And that that layer of politics is going to affect your emotional awareness what your emotional expression is, because if you just sort of talk to the intern, the way you talk to the CEO, usually that doesn't go terribly well. Now again, you can overcorrect on that sort of political awareness to the point where you won't say anything to anybody who is not below you in an organization. That is a massive, massive negative. So I'm not saying that. But like I said, is it it really comes down to how do you understand other people because discerning the feelings behind the needs and wants of others, is what really is sort of like the the evolution of a lot of emotional intelligence? Because you do start with yourself. But empathy is about how do you make it about other people. And I think that's really important. And if empathy is something that you struggle with, then there's probably three things that I really look at that. And again, I think as you look at a lot of the research or strategy that will go into a lot of even design thinking or techniques like that, they will put these exact things in practice. The first one, and this is my go to, whenever I'm having a problem whenever I want to respond to something whenever I'm dealing with difficult situation, is to put myself in somebody else's shoes. Because the reality is like, Look, it's easy to support your own point of view. But take the time to look at the situation from somebody else's perspective. Take the time to look at it about what would you want the emotional response to be? What would you want your leadership to be? What would you want it to be if the roles were reversed? If you're the boss, and that you need to talk to somebody on your team, what would it be? Like if they were then my boss, what would I want? I think this is why I will tend to then default to honesty because at the end of the day, I think that people always will respect honesty. And again, I'm not trying to spin it, I'm not trying to do something else. But put the show on the other foot, right? Like, don't just have that blind arrogance, to be able to say that, you know, look, that's the way that I need to do things, you need to look at it from another perspective, if you are in person. The other thing that is a huge indicator of being able to build empathy is watch people's body language, because it will tell you the truth, pretty much every time because I think if you are talking to somebody and they're sitting there and they've got their arms crossed, they're moving their feet back and forth or biting their lip. That body language tells you about how they're feeling in that situation. And in those particular ones, the message that gives is not positive, because again, if I'm crossing my arms, it means I'm shutting myself and it means I'm being very introverted. I'm holding something in, I'm withdrawing from the situation, fidgeting the same thing. Like you can really kind of take this a long way. I'll post some books in the show notes. That again, get very interesting and A lot of sort of insight into this, like I've spent actually a lot of time studying this. But I think learning to read body language can be a real asset, a leadership role, because you'll be able to really determine how two people actually feel. Because just like doing research, just like testing out your own work, what people say, and what they do hardly ever match, and that body language can really give you the opportunity to get some insight into what is actually going on. And the last one, is we're going to talk about empathy. This, this may feel strange, it may even feel a little bit different, but I think it is one of these things where to respond to the way people feel, not just responding to what their work quote unquote, work project needs are. That if somebody is happy if somebody is mad or sad or frustrated or things like that, to go and ask questions about how do you dig that out to go and ask questions, to be able to do that. I mean, like, whenever I think about it, I'm always I'm amazed at how few bosses I've ever had in my career, ever asked me the simple question of Are you happy? It's such a simple thing. But I think in most cases, they don't want they don't ask because they don't want the answer. They don't want to have to respond or deal with a feeling because they don't know what it is deadlines, easy deliverables, easy. Things like that great. Like Give me the numbers fantastic. That IQ side of it doesn't carry water, especially with the people who are more successful and more highly driven. It is there doesn't need to be a feelings conversation there. It can't just be great human numbers. It can't just be do this over and over again, perform Shut up, do whatever that is. You need to ask you need to respond to feelings because, again, that is a big part of emotional intelligence. As creatives we are emotional beings, whether we like it or not, it's just simply the facts. But I think that's why that becomes such an important part of this. Now the last part of this is gonna be a little bit of a doozy and this is around Social Skills cuz like, it's usually easy to talk into, like people who have good social skills. Like those strong social skills are typically they're, they're typically team players rather than focusing on their own success. They help to develop other people, they help them shine. Like they they're really good at managing disputes, they're really good communicators, they are here to sort of build maintain those relationships. It's a complicated thing. It's why in this case, we'll end on a whopper. There are eight parts that actually go into what I think make a really good social skills. And those are influence communication, leadership, change, catalyst, conflict management, building bosses, building bonds, not bosses, building bonds, collaboration, cooperation, and team capabilities. Now again, let's go through these one at a time. I think influence really is how do you use and wield these skills, and I think that's why you know, with social skills, a lot of this really Then is the last step because it is the culmination of a lot of these other things. Because if you don't have motion intelligence, if you aren't connected with people, you're not gonna have any influence to be able to wield. So that again, I think that's fine in this case, once you're able to develop that, that's when these those come into place. But I think influences just again, how do you use the fact that people listen to you? How do you use those sort of things? And I think in a lot of cases, whenever you use them, are you then able to communicate? Meaning just simply do you send a clear message? Do you speak honestly? And clearly? Do you do those sorts of things? Because I think if you have influence in your communication that ultimately then yields the next piece, which is leadership, because leadership really is about how do you inspire and guide groups of people? How do you inspire individuals? Because I think that that is the byproduct of a lot of this emotional intelligence is truly being looked as a leader not as a manager, right? A manager is somebody who only gives a shit about deadlines. A manager is somebody who only gives us about numbers. They don't care about your emotional state, don't care about anything else, but just performance that is not actual leadership. That is management. I know that it is a distinction that some people may not like but is one that I will continue to make, that again, a leader cares about all of you, a leader cares that you are happy, not just that you are doing your job, because again, if all you care about is me doing my job, then all you are to me is a paycheck. And that is not the relationship anybody should want. Because ultimately, it's not going to be successful. But then I think that that leadership will then lead to you being a Change Catalyst, which means that if I have influence, if I'm able to communicate, if people view me as a leader, what that then builds into is my ability to initiate or manage things changing. Because this is why for so many people, whenever you want to go be a leader, whenever you want to go change organization, it doesn't go anywhere, and they can't figure out why. It's because again, you have no emotional intelligence, you haven't built up the influence the communication and the leadership to be able to actually affect change. This is the Brampton problem of so many people who lead companies right now, because what they think is that they can be a Change Catalyst because of their title. If you do not have influence. If you cannot commit If you've not built leadership, if you're not emotionally intelligent to the state of your organization, then all you're doing is barking out orders that people will follow because they want to keep their job. And that is what they're going to spend most of their time doing. They're just spent most of the time keeping their job, not doing their job, but to be a Change Catalyst. That's why again, you have to have invested in this stuff. You have to be somebody that is good at conflict management, you need to understand what is going on with people, you need to negotiate with them. You need to resolve disagreements, you have to be able to be able to get people over their own bullshit. I don't know a better way to be able to say that. But again, I think that's one of the social skills that ultimately this ladders up to is that if you want to bring about change, there's going to be conflict, people are not going to like it not going to be happy about it. Whenever they do that. How do you actually make things better? And the ability to do that is about building bonds. And this is nurturing, honest relationships, honest investment in people to build a real bond with them. If all that you're doing it is because, you know, out of politics, if you're doing it out of social climbing, if you're doing it out of those sorts of things, then again, I'm not going to have the influence in the leadership to actually leverage that, because we're building on quicksand. And again, it is so frustrating to see how many people inside of these really big organizations can seem to make very fruitful careers with their only skills being kissing ass and hidden deadlines. They have no real bonds with people, they have no actual talent. But somehow that's enough. And it's so frustrating. And I think that then it comes down to, again, if you want to be that Change Catalyst, you can't be the one that is screaming into the darkness on your own. It has to be about collaboration and cooperation. You have to work with other people toward a shared goal. I think that there are times whenever you need to put your head down whenever you need to charge forward when you need to set the standard, but you can only do it for a finite amount of time before you need to stop. bring other people in, ask for their collaboration. Ask for their Cooperation because if not one, it is not a sustainable way of working, you're gonna burn yourself out. And that too organizationally, you just are not able to get stuff done that way. That is not the way things are. This is ultimately about the team. But how do you create that group that is going to come together to create a collective goal? Because that's where emotional intelligence is tricky because it starts with you. But then it needs to move out past you to be about other people. And so if you want to get better, that get better those social skills, the first one, which I think can be challenging, is to start to learn about how do you actually do conflict resolution because I think leaders have to know how to fix problems. You have to know how to fix problems between your team members when your customers, your vendors, everybody you work with. There are classes on it, there are things you can do. There are ways where again, it is a fantastic way to make it about how other people feel how other people think. The next part learn to say Thank you learn to praise other people because if you want to lead people, if you lie, like honestly try to inspire loyalty. It's amazing how far it goes to say thank you. It's amazing how often those words aren't said. It's amazing how just simple praise can make people feel so good again, especially for creatives, because we do tend to be more emotional animals, we tend to be more insecure animals, and learning how to praise other people. It's probably a bit more of an art than anything. But you also more than anything need to make sure that it's sincere. And you need to make sure that it's real. Because when somebody does something, well, it needs to mean something. It's just like, I'm sorry. If it's hollow, if I don't trust it, if I don't believe in it, it doesn't mean anything. But again, it's amazing how easy and how quick it is to criticize. It's amazing. See how easy it is though those things? It's amazing how hard it is to say thank you. And the last part of this, I think, is to look at how do you get better at being a communicator? Most of social skills comes down to how do you deliver a message? How How do you handle that? Because that's the thing was so much of emotional intelligence, I see people who've got the right message with the wrong delivery. And that still lands wrong. And I think that that's why so much of this becomes important because you can be doing the right things, thinking the right things going about the right things. But if people don't, if you don't connect with people, if there's not an emotional connection to them, then all you're doing is telling them what to do and then you're gonna sit around frustrated as to why do you not get the results you want? Why do you have to micromanage people and lean in on people and do all these sorts of things because you don't trust them? And they don't trust you. There's not an emotional connection there, there's not an emotional bond there. And we can all fake it. And we can fake it based on politics, we can fake it, fake it based on org structure, we can face, fake it based on, you know, who makes the most money or stands on the biggest stage or whatever that is. But at the end of the day, it's all fake. And the organizations don't change, things don't get better. People leave teams turnover. And that's why I think all this is so important is because look, you can either start to work on this on your own, start, develop the self awareness, start to develop all these sort of things, to get better at emotional intelligence to get better at these sort of things. Understand this is an ongoing part of this, to really be able to invest in this so that you can start to see the power of influence, you can start to see the power making things better for others, people making things better even for yourself. Or you can ignore it. Skip the episode. Don't do it. And it's like I said before Have your career defined and limited by it. Because emotional intelligence, I think is that next frontier in leadership, it is the next frontier, in so much of what goes on because these big companies, I think, have overlooked people for too long. That as there is this increased demand for innovation, for creativity, for all those sorts of things that we talked about, this has to then be the thing that goes along with it. The same old leadership models will not sustain the same old leadership models will not be successful. Emotional intelligence has to become a part of this, because especially in all that comes more disconnected because of social media and digital and everything else. Whenever there is an actual interaction between people. The importance on it is just that much greater. So it's, like I said, I think what I hope for you, there's a lot here, it's all in the shownotes it's all written out, I can, I'm gonna post some articles, do some other things like that. So you can start to spend some time with this. But start, find that group, find that advisor, find somebody who can again, you can start to work on this with somebody that you can can spend the time even with yourself to think about. Because if you do that you will become more successful you will become better your work will become better, or ignore it. So you know what it's them. It's all about them. So their problem, it's what they did to me enjoy that road to nowhere, because that's what it's gonna be. So, as always, I hope that this was useful. I hope you found it, you know that you got something out of this. If you did, take a minute for your podcast platform, leave a review, hit the subscribe button while you're there. So whenever these new episodes come out, you're sure that you get them. As I've said a few times through this look, you can find out more about this podcast. You can find other articles, full show notes, all those sorts of things head over to the crazy and the number one, the crazy one.com and all the shownotes articles, all that stuff will be up there. Follow me on social media, all different social media platforms, whatever it is LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, all those ones are the main ones. If you want to head over to Facebook, just type in The Crazy One podcast like the show there. I'm answering questions posting articles there too. As always, everybody don't legal wants me to remind you that the views here are my own, they don't represent any of my current or former employers. This is just me out here talking. And finally I say it every time because I mean it every time. But thank you for your time. I know that time is truly the only real luxury that any of us have. I'm always amazed that you want to spend any of it listening to me. So until next time, go out there, start to become more self aware, understand the importance of emotions, and that what the profound impact that it can have on you and your career. And as you start to work on it, and as always, stay crazy