Speaker 1: Ammy Jacobson, Welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2: How are you going all the better for.
Speaker 3: Submitting my book to the Sea and Publisher as you
Speaker 3: yesterday morning.
Speaker 4: It's exciting times, right, It's like it's like Bertie in.
Speaker 2: Your base Cities.
Speaker 3: And actually I submitted it yesterday and got an email
Speaker 3: from my edited last night, and then it just kind
Speaker 3: of helped me able to sitt the airport had done
Speaker 3: an old day rockshop, and I was just like, ah,
Speaker 3: do you know.
Speaker 4: You know what, though, when I simitted my second book,
Speaker 4: I think I think I'd put all of the pressure
Speaker 4: on that submission date, and once I did it, it
Speaker 4: was that absolute relief. But then you go into the
Speaker 4: editing process and you forget just how intense that is
Speaker 4: as well. It's fun, it's absolutely fun.
Speaker 2: But oh yeah, it looks like I'm fine with that.
Speaker 3: I was.
Speaker 1: It was the deadline and mine was tight.
Speaker 3: Because I'd also submitted my PhD about a month ago,
Speaker 3: so it was juggling to friggin things at the same time.
Speaker 3: So I don't know whether I'm Arthur or Martha at
Speaker 3: the minute. So if I go wibble in the middle
Speaker 3: of this podcast.
Speaker 2: You know why.
Speaker 3: We're not here that is a poor example of emotional intelligence.
Speaker 3: There for me right now, I was starting a podcast
Speaker 3: with someone on emotional intelligence and talking about myself.
Speaker 1: So you are an expert on emotional intelligence.
Speaker 3: You've written two books now I on emotional intelligence.
Speaker 1: Your second one is going to be out very very soon.
Speaker 1: So tell our listener.
Speaker 3: Look, firstly, what inspired you to get into this area
Speaker 3: and to write.
Speaker 1: Not one, but two books on emotional intelligence.
Speaker 4: The mind, like, people's minds have always fascinated me, and
Speaker 4: I think, you know, for as far as I can
Speaker 4: go back, I was more fascinated to begin with with
Speaker 4: the I think I guess the bad side in the mind.
Speaker 4: I was really into criminology forensics to think, how can
Speaker 4: some people's minds be so messed up? And look, the
Speaker 4: more I played in that area, I realized I just
Speaker 4: can't switch off. I will not be able to switch
Speaker 4: off and sleep at night diving deep into these areas.
Speaker 4: So I kind of parked it for a while, but
Speaker 4: always had that fascination and eventually it came back through,
Speaker 4: you know, from like from my career in the corporate world,
Speaker 4: just seeing how much of an impact different people had
Speaker 4: on situations and how people responded and you know, the
Speaker 4: impact that they had on performance, the impact that had
Speaker 4: on relationships, on success. So I started to dive deeper
Speaker 4: into Okay, well, how do we leverage the mind in
Speaker 4: a good way, in a really great way to be
Speaker 4: able to improve situations? So I started to do all
Speaker 4: of my studies in that side. And what led me
Speaker 4: to take it further and to write the books was
Speaker 4: the just the absolute lack of understanding that was out there.
Speaker 4: And you know, it's because a lot of the data
Speaker 4: that's out there it's very science y, which is which
Speaker 4: is fantastic, right, it's so intriguing, but it's also quite
Speaker 4: hard to take the scientific work and simplify it or
Speaker 4: actually apply it to your day to day to say, okay,
Speaker 4: that's great, but how do I actually grow this? How
Speaker 4: do I improve? I know what's causing it, but how
Speaker 4: do I take control of it? So for it all
Speaker 4: kind of started and absolutely love it. I get to
Speaker 4: meet the most incredible people on my path, and it
Speaker 4: still astounds me that everybody's mind just works so differently
Speaker 4: and the impact that you can have on the outcome
Speaker 4: simply by the weight of your mind.
Speaker 3: Now that leads into the next question, So is you
Speaker 3: know the old question or leaders born or me?
Speaker 1: Is emotional intelligence genetic or learned?
Speaker 3: Or I'm guessing it's a bit of a mix, But
Speaker 3: what's the right answer.
Speaker 4: It absolutely is, Yeah, it is a mixture. The way
Speaker 4: that I look at emotionally intelligence is I think that
Speaker 4: the first mistake we make is we think that people
Speaker 4: are either emotionally intelligent or they're not. And I don't
Speaker 4: agree with that. I think that emotionally intelligence is a
Speaker 4: skill the same as all the other skills that we
Speaker 4: learn in life, and some of us are born naturally
Speaker 4: with more skill in that area. But can we develop it?
Speaker 4: Absolutely we can. But I think at never, at any
Speaker 4: point in time would I call somebody emotionally intelligent because
Speaker 4: I think, you know, every situation happens and we've got
Speaker 4: a choice to make. We can either choose to respond
Speaker 4: in an emotionally intelligent way or choose not to. So
Speaker 4: while some people have that natural skill come to them,
Speaker 4: and a lot of people don't actually know what it is,
Speaker 4: and they kind of search to find out why they've
Speaker 4: got it, why other people don't. It's a skill, so
Speaker 4: it can be taught. Is it easy? No? But can
Speaker 4: you build your emotional intelligence over time by building the
Speaker 4: skill and applying it and continuing to apply it and
Speaker 4: building those neural pathways in your mind. Yes, you absolutely can.
Speaker 3: Look, I just realized we haven't actually properly defined it.
Speaker 3: So let's and I think most people kind of get
Speaker 3: it right.
Speaker 2: But what is the.
Speaker 3: Kind of gold standard definition or just your definition? I mean,
Speaker 3: is there is there a widely accepted definition that's out
Speaker 3: there or is it?
Speaker 4: Yeah, they tend to differ a bit. I guess the
Speaker 4: most accepted one out there is about emotionally intelligence is
Speaker 4: the ability to manage your own emotions and to manage
Speaker 4: the impact you have on the people around you. I
Speaker 4: dive a little bit deeper into that, and I think
Speaker 4: that emotional intelligence is the how and why what we do.
Speaker 4: So what you can do and what you know and
Speaker 4: you can do, that's your IQ. But the how and
Speaker 4: why you actually do it, that's your equ or your
Speaker 4: emotional intelligence. And it's really it's understanding the way that
Speaker 4: your mind is tipped and your mind ticks, and it's
Speaker 4: working with it rather than against it. So knowing, Okay,
Speaker 4: this is my natural wiring, this is how it works
Speaker 4: for me, So how do I be a better person
Speaker 4: or how do I be the best person I can
Speaker 4: possibly be based on how my mind is wired, what
Speaker 4: those neural pathways actually.
Speaker 3: With springs up a couple of questions from me, and
Speaker 3: you may or may not know the answer to this.
Speaker 3: So in terms of let's take neuro divergent people and
Speaker 3: particularly who are on the autism spectrum, who often have
Speaker 3: difficulty with emotions, difficulty recognizing emotions, any research around that
Speaker 3: and the impact on their emotional intelligence, and then if
Speaker 3: they use strategies to learn emotional intelligence that I'll give
Speaker 3: you that first one and they'll last the second one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, beautiful. So there's two different things in play here.
Speaker 4: I think that when I speak emotionally intelligence, I think
Speaker 4: we have to separate that from neurodiversity as well, because
Speaker 4: I think that's in a slightly different area. That really
Speaker 4: does come down to, you know a lot of areas
Speaker 4: around your genetics and the way that you are actually wired.
Speaker 4: Does it impact it? Yes, absolutely so. If you have
Speaker 4: somebody like you said that is on the autism spectrum,
Speaker 4: they are going to struggle more with emotional intelligence and
Speaker 4: their levels are going to be different. And I think
Speaker 4: that to approach to approach it in the same way
Speaker 4: that you would approach somebody else and expect them to
Speaker 4: be able to learn and build their skills, I think
Speaker 4: is unrealistic. I think that, you know, it needs to
Speaker 4: be a slightly different approach there. So when I'm speeding
Speaker 4: about emotional intelligence, and I'm more talking about you know,
Speaker 4: if you go with that eighty twenty rule and more
Speaker 4: going with those people that don't have those neurodiverse challenges
Speaker 4: or that side totally.
Speaker 3: And then so people who have had adverse childhood experiences
Speaker 3: that then significantly shape their brain and how they process emotions,
Speaker 3: and presumably that can have an impact on their emotional
Speaker 3: intelligence because you know, their brands then become ship around
Speaker 3: maybe one or two particular emotions, anything that you've seen
Speaker 3: on that and whether that is an inhibitor of them
Speaker 3: optimizing their emotional intelligence or can they navigate around it
Speaker 3: if they're aware of it.
Speaker 4: Look, it is a big blocker or limits because when
Speaker 4: you think about emotional intelligence, it stems from those neural pathways,
Speaker 4: and those neural pathways are defined by our values, our beliefs,
Speaker 4: our experience as our habits. So if you have somebody
Speaker 4: who has had quite a traumatic experience or has had
Speaker 4: quite a pivotal moment in their life that has created
Speaker 4: a neural pathway that is so deeply embedded it absolutely
Speaker 4: is going to impact the mind is going to naturally
Speaker 4: default to those areas. Is it something that they can
Speaker 4: work with? Yes, I do believe that it is. Again,
Speaker 4: is it easy. No, You've got to have that first
Speaker 4: step of awareness right, and you've got to be able
Speaker 4: to dig in deep to understand the neural pathway that exists,
Speaker 4: the triggers that are actually attached to the beginning of
Speaker 4: that neural pathway, and also the emotions that are attached
Speaker 4: to the trigger and the neural pathway. Once you start
Speaker 4: to understand that, then you can dive deeper into being
Speaker 4: able to I guess, rewire that neural pathway. And we
Speaker 4: know that that is possible to rewind new neural pathways,
Speaker 4: but as I said, it takes a lot of commitment
Speaker 4: and a lot of work to be able to process
Speaker 4: and go through it.
Speaker 3: So yeah, the reason that I asked that question, I
Speaker 3: was running a workshop yesterday, an Old Day workshop, and
Speaker 3: was talking about those early life experiences and how they
Speaker 3: shape our brain, but then also talked about neuroplasticity, and
Speaker 3: with self awareness and self regulation, how you can then
Speaker 3: change the wiring work of your AMIG dealer, right, because
Speaker 3: we do have that enormous neuroplasticity. But as you say,
Speaker 3: it's about doing the work right. There's no emotional intelligence
Speaker 3: fairy that you can just or a program you can
Speaker 3: diwnload from the internet just yet.
Speaker 4: Oh no, Look, that's my disclaimer every time I run
Speaker 4: a program is you would not leave this room emotionally intelligent.
Speaker 4: I wish that's how it worked out. Yeah, Unfortunately, it
Speaker 4: doesn't the same as reading a book. Right, reading my book,
Speaker 4: as great as it is, we're not going to make
Speaker 4: you emotionally intelligent. It's the work that you do afterwards
Speaker 4: with the information that you get.
Speaker 3: So, given that you've written a book on EI and
Speaker 3: leadership and one on personal give us the impact that
Speaker 3: emotional intelligence has. One in the workplace and from a
Speaker 3: leadership perspective, and then just two from an everyday individual
Speaker 3: going about my general life perspective.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So to start with the personal side, we know
Speaker 4: that your emotionally intelligence is it's how you act, it's
Speaker 4: how you impact the people around you. Now, it is
Speaker 4: usually from a personal point of view a little bit
Speaker 4: more intense, given that when we're around people where we
Speaker 4: feel safe and where we feel trusted, we tend to
Speaker 4: we tend to bring out the worst in this because
Speaker 4: we feel safe. So our emotional intelligence usually isn't as
Speaker 4: strong around those people that we feel safe in around
Speaker 4: because we kind of let down our guard. And it's
Speaker 4: that whole thing in the mind where the mind makes
Speaker 4: choices based on the potential consequences. Right, so what do
Speaker 4: I send to gain versus what do I send to
Speaker 4: lose in this situation, the emotional intelligence when we look
Speaker 4: in those personal relationships and conversations, especially with the people
Speaker 4: that we live with, we find that that emotional brain
Speaker 4: drives a lot more often than our logical brain does.
Speaker 4: So it is in play, our subconscious minds in play,
Speaker 4: our egos in play, which drives our opinions, which then
Speaker 4: shows those differences in there. So to manage your emotional
Speaker 4: intelligence and develop your emotional intelligence for your personal side
Speaker 4: is going to directly impact direct your relationships with the
Speaker 4: people that you live with, with your family, with your friends,
Speaker 4: the people you surround yourself with, because it's going to
Speaker 4: change communication and it helps us to get out of
Speaker 4: our own head and actually realize it's not always about us.
Speaker 4: So from a personal side, some of the impacts that
Speaker 4: I've heard, you know, I've run, I've run programs within
Speaker 4: organizations where we've gone into actually help the organization, but
Speaker 4: had people contact me later to say this is actually
Speaker 4: totally safe my marriage, like this is this has made
Speaker 4: me realize that, you know that I'm not being emotionally
Speaker 4: intelligent when I'm listening to my partner, that I am
Speaker 4: making it about me that you know, maybe they are
Speaker 4: right when they say I don't listen. So the impact
Speaker 4: can have a huge, a huge change to your life.
Speaker 4: So on your relationships are from the personal side, if
Speaker 4: we just before, because.
Speaker 3: I actually I actually want to dive into that because
Speaker 3: it's interesting what you say that that that you know,
Speaker 3: with with those people, particularly with the ones that we
Speaker 3: live with, we kind of let our guard down a
Speaker 3: little bit. And I think everybody relates to that, right
Speaker 3: They talk differently to the people at home, yeah.
Speaker 2: Than they do to people at work.
Speaker 3: So does that suggest then that emotional intelligence is really
Speaker 3: not that innate and that it's something that we need
Speaker 3: to really be conscious around. If our natural bent is
Speaker 3: to just not be that emotionally intelligent, you know where
Speaker 3: it's that animal instinct inness that's more about fucking me, me, me,
Speaker 3: and what are you doing to me?
Speaker 4: Exactly if you think about it, right, if you think
Speaker 4: about our mind does what it does, like it makes
Speaker 4: its choices, it says what it is. It does the
Speaker 4: things we do because it believes that it's the right
Speaker 4: way to do it. So we do the things that
Speaker 4: we do when we're stuck in our own mind and
Speaker 4: we say, what's in this for me? How will I
Speaker 4: benefit from this? And that's what you're kind of looking at,
Speaker 4: how will this make me feel? So when you're around
Speaker 4: other people that you feel safe around and they do
Speaker 4: something different or they have a different opinion, or they're
Speaker 4: coming from a different angle, the mind kind of gets
Speaker 4: disrupted and thinks, well, hang on a second. If they're
Speaker 4: doing a friend the mirror of they've got a different
Speaker 4: opinion to me, what is that trying to tell me
Speaker 4: about my way of doing it? In my opinion because like,
Speaker 4: clearly I'm right, like I do it this way because
Speaker 4: it's the right way. It's not rocket scides, just do
Speaker 4: it my way. So when we're fronted with people that
Speaker 4: don't do it the same way. That don't that aren't
Speaker 4: thinking about how we're feeling constantly. It is kind of
Speaker 4: that disruptor. And because we feel so safe in that environment,
Speaker 4: we have that that emotional hijack or that amindala hijack
Speaker 4: right where we just think, oh, we haven't got much
Speaker 4: to lose here. They love us. It's not like they're
Speaker 4: you know, we're going to lose our whole relationship or
Speaker 4: anything just over me saying one thing. So we just
Speaker 4: snap and we come straight up from our emotional mind.
Speaker 4: And it's that it's that need to be right, and
Speaker 4: we've wired that into ourselves with this whole world is
Speaker 4: based on being right, right, doing the right thing, being right,
Speaker 4: getting ahead because you've you know, you've got enough ticks
Speaker 4: or you've got the right answers. So it's not that
Speaker 4: when we do feel safe in front of people, we
Speaker 4: will lower our god, we will be more selfish, we
Speaker 4: will think about it more from our point of view,
Speaker 4: we will stay more stuck in our head and be
Speaker 4: thinking about our feelings.
Speaker 3: And for us, it is kind of how the human
Speaker 3: brand works, right, is that we perceive reality, perceive reality
Speaker 3: through our personal lands and and and really deep down
Speaker 3: in your Brian, in the chimp briand the emotional brand.
Speaker 1: It's just me, me, me, me.
Speaker 3: Me, And we need to learn strategies. And I think,
Speaker 3: as you rightly say, when you're around people that you
Speaker 3: feel safe and secure with you're you're you're more likely
Speaker 3: to be that natural decad pot, right.
Speaker 4: That's right, It just comes straight out because it's kind
Speaker 4: of I guess it's that it's that old, you know,
Speaker 4: challenge or question that says, you know, when we do things,
Speaker 4: when we do things for charity, do we actually do
Speaker 4: them for the people to benefit or do we do
Speaker 4: them because it makes us feel like a good person.
Speaker 4: Do we do things for our kids because you know
Speaker 4: they benefit from it, or do we do it because
Speaker 4: it makes us feel like a good parent. We are
Speaker 4: constantly striving, naturally defaulting to be the best person we
Speaker 4: can be. But from it's from an egotistical reflection, right
Speaker 4: is yeah, So the more comfortable we are, we're going
Speaker 4: to let that happen where you put us into an
Speaker 4: environment where we're not as safe, it's not as comfortable,
Speaker 4: then we are a little bit more aware of it
Speaker 4: because the consequence can do so much time.
Speaker 3: And yet and judgment of others that we don't know, right,
Speaker 3: that we don't have credits with and strive.
Speaker 1: So we're on our best behavior.
Speaker 3: So let's not skip to the workplace and just individual
Speaker 3: to individual within the workplace the impact of emotional intelligence,
Speaker 3: and then from a leadership perspective, because I think probably
Speaker 3: lots of people who are listening to us will have
Speaker 3: had leaders or no co workers who are not that
Speaker 3: sharp in this area, and another ones who have had
Speaker 3: co workers and leaders who are cracking in this area.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'd even add a third angle to it to Paul,
Speaker 4: is that you've what I noticed most of all is
Speaker 4: when I go into organizations, you've got the levels of
Speaker 4: emotional intelligence between individuals as you said, and their interactions,
Speaker 4: and then between the leaders. But then you've also got
Speaker 4: the external emotional intelligence because a lot of the time
Speaker 4: when we're looking externally to our customers, to our clients,
Speaker 4: to our community, to whoever we're kind of serving through
Speaker 4: that organization, we tend to do emotional intelligence well. Then,
Speaker 4: but when we look internally, we're really not. We look
Speaker 4: for right right, because you feel safer because when you're
Speaker 4: speaking with customers direct, you've got more of a risk
Speaker 4: that either a stranger, but they could make a complaint,
Speaker 4: it could impact your job where you feel like you've
Speaker 4: got more fighting you to or you're seeing more on
Speaker 4: even path with those people internally, so you kind of
Speaker 4: drop that that little bit. Now, those internal relationships are
Speaker 4: probably where we see some of the poorest emotional intelligence.
Speaker 4: And again that is because the longer you've been there,
Speaker 4: and if you kind of picture somebody that goes into
Speaker 4: an organization, into a new workplace, those first couple of months,
Speaker 4: you kind of like on your best behavior, right, and
Speaker 4: then the more comfortable you get, the more you get
Speaker 4: to know people, the more opinions you make on the
Speaker 4: people around you, as well as when you start to
Speaker 4: bring that emotional money into play and you start to
Speaker 4: drop that logical brain and you start to drop your
Speaker 4: emotional intelligence in situations so that that self cided start
Speaker 4: of our mind starts to drive a little bit more
Speaker 4: so your emotional intelligence one hundred percent. It influences and
Speaker 4: it impacts your culture. So any workplace that you're going
Speaker 4: to walk into, if it has a great culture, it
Speaker 4: is because the emotional intelligence is high, or the emotional
Speaker 4: intelligence is very well managed. And noticed where you walk
Speaker 4: into a toxic workplace, you walk into places where you've
Speaker 4: got people in conflict or you know, underperformance or people
Speaker 4: in wrong jobs. And that's when we know that the
Speaker 4: emotional intelligence is lacking and it's just not there because
Speaker 4: the right conversations are tough conversations are not being had,
Speaker 4: the honesty is not happening, the you know, the decency
Speaker 4: to be able to get out of your own head
Speaker 4: and understand what other people are going through and what
Speaker 4: they're being impacted, how you're impacting them. That's that's the
Speaker 4: impact of emotionally intelligence.
Speaker 3: Doctor seem to me that see if the insecurity is
Speaker 3: the saboteur of emotional intelligence, Well, that's.
Speaker 1: What I say.
Speaker 4: Right, every single time you make a choice, your mind
Speaker 4: is going to weigh up and say what do I
Speaker 4: seem to gain from this? What do I tend to lose?
Speaker 1: That is completely aligned.
Speaker 3: To the integrate model of the way the brain marks
Speaker 3: by the brit Sciences Institute, and they say that the
Speaker 3: core twin motivations of everybody is to minimize the injer
Speaker 3: or threat and maximize reward. Right, And it's that constant
Speaker 3: evaluations going on right. Very interesting now, let's not talk
Speaker 3: about your framework, right, So you have a framework around
Speaker 3: emotional intelligence and five different things own it, fiace it,
Speaker 3: feel it, askt drive it.
Speaker 2: So let's take each one of those in turns. So firstly,
Speaker 2: own it. What do you mean by own it.
Speaker 1: When it comes to emotional intelligence.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so, Paul, if I could sum up emotional intelligence
Speaker 4: in two words, it would be own it. Own It
Speaker 4: is about owning who you are. It's about owning the
Speaker 4: values and beliefs that you've made in your life that
Speaker 4: are driving and driving those decisions to get you where
Speaker 4: you are. It's about owning how well you manage your
Speaker 4: own emotions, Owning the impact you have on the people
Speaker 4: around you. Owning reality, Owning the fact that sometimes things
Speaker 4: will happen and you have no control over it. But
Speaker 4: you've got to own the reality and that this is happening.
Speaker 4: Whether I like it or not, this is happening, and
Speaker 4: I can try to be in denial, but in order
Speaker 4: to move forward, I have to own the reality of
Speaker 4: the situation. And I have to own my own self
Speaker 4: awareness and the role that I play in it. So
Speaker 4: that ownership is heavily around your self awareness. But it's
Speaker 4: so much more than that, it's about really owning your
Speaker 4: own definition of success, owning your purpose, owning while you
Speaker 4: get out of bed every morning, owning what is driving
Speaker 4: you to kind of hit that happiness level or what
Speaker 4: you truly believe is happiness. So you've got to start
Speaker 4: with owner. You have to understand how you are wired
Speaker 4: and what is driving you and what your kind of
Speaker 4: what you're head into wars like what does what is that?
Speaker 4: What is that enoughness that you're looking for in your life.
Speaker 3: It seems to me that that's quite aligned with Victor
Speaker 3: Frankel and the last of human freedoms? Right?
Speaker 2: Is that the he said, and that came out of
Speaker 2: is Fits.
Speaker 3: For those who don't know it, Victor Frankl was a
Speaker 3: Jew psychiatrist who was imprisoned in Fits and a couple
Speaker 3: of other concentration camps. But but realize through that process,
Speaker 3: he said, mine can take from you everything, your dignity,
Speaker 3: your pride, your belongings, your loved ones, everything but one thing,
Speaker 3: your ability to choose how you react to your circumstances.
Speaker 3: And that's that that seems to play into this.
Speaker 4: It does. It is around that choice. And I'm a
Speaker 4: big believer in you know we are where we are
Speaker 4: in life based on those choices, and I think it's
Speaker 4: it's one of the to me, it's that real hit you,
Speaker 4: light bulb moment when you when you're working on your
Speaker 4: emotional intelligent because it's so easy for our mind to
Speaker 4: blame other people, to say, well, this is happening because
Speaker 4: they did this, or you know, the world is like this,
Speaker 4: or this happened. But at the end of the day,
Speaker 4: you've you've got to own the fact that you've made
Speaker 4: choices throughout that period as well, and the choices that
Speaker 4: you've made have actually led to it, and you've got
Speaker 4: to own the role that you're playing in it because
Speaker 4: you always have that choice, and you know, without that
Speaker 4: without that level of awareness, without that ownership to say, Okay,
Speaker 4: I'm going to take some of this blame on here
Speaker 4: because it is actually me, Like you know, maybe maybe
Speaker 4: it's not everyone around me, Maybe I am the problem
Speaker 4: with myself, maybe I am my own worst enemy. And also,
Speaker 4: as I said, it's it's not just that self area,
Speaker 4: it's that realization too that things are going to happen
Speaker 4: around you and you have no control over it. You
Speaker 4: cannot control any other person. You cannot control the situation.
Speaker 4: You can only control how you choose to res spond.
Speaker 4: But you have to own the reality that once something
Speaker 4: has happened, it's happened.
Speaker 3: Like move on, move on into the stoic zooms of control,
Speaker 3: right and focusing on that which you can control. Jocko
Speaker 3: Williams would love you this old idea of extreme ownership.
Speaker 3: And so let's let's talk to the second one after
Speaker 3: own it is fierce it So what do you mean
Speaker 3: by that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, so, face it was still in our own head.
Speaker 4: So I don't own it is when we're in our
Speaker 4: own head. Face it was still in our own head.
Speaker 4: And this is when all of the emotions start to
Speaker 4: come into play. Right, So when we've got to the
Speaker 4: point that we've owned the fact that, oh gosh, actually
Speaker 4: it is me and I am having an impact on this,
Speaker 4: I am playing a role, or own the fact that
Speaker 4: this is happening around us. This face, it is when
Speaker 4: all of these emotions start to come up. And they
Speaker 4: might be it might be fear, it might be angry,
Speaker 4: it might be upset, it might be excitement, it might
Speaker 4: be loved, it might be happy in this whatever it is.
Speaker 4: But at this point in time, the emotional brain is
Speaker 4: just going to send forth all of these emotions and
Speaker 4: you might go through hundreds of emotions in relation to this.
Speaker 4: But the face it is about the fact that your
Speaker 4: emotions are actually your emotions occur for a reason and
Speaker 4: you have to face them. To not face your emotions,
Speaker 4: to kind of ignore them, or to put a lid
Speaker 4: on them and push them down and just hope that
Speaker 4: they go away, is never going to help with those
Speaker 4: emotions and it's never going to help with you moving forward.
Speaker 4: So in this face zone, it is all about understanding
Speaker 4: how these emotions are coming into play, what is actually
Speaker 4: driving them, But how do I face them and process
Speaker 4: them and clear them inable to move on rather than
Speaker 4: them compounding and building up, because if you have that
Speaker 4: compounding a pressure, Yeah, and usually at.
Speaker 1: The worst.
Speaker 4: Exactly right, it's I always like to say, I don't
Speaker 4: know if I don't know if you read it, Paul,
Speaker 4: but you know, when I was younger, there's there's a
Speaker 4: book for the young kids who sank the boat, and
Speaker 4: it's it's all of these animals. It's kind of like,
Speaker 4: you know, you've got a war for a jetty and
Speaker 4: a little dinghy at the end, and they walk all
Speaker 4: the animals down and they're getting based on size like
Speaker 4: your horse furst and your cow in your sheep and
Speaker 4: et cetera. And the boat is floating until the little
Speaker 4: mouse jumps on and then the boat sinks, and it's
Speaker 4: like it's like sometimes we're sitting in front of somebody
Speaker 4: and they're absolutely blowing up, like the pressure cooker has exploded,
Speaker 4: and we're thinking, how like this is not that big
Speaker 4: a deal, but we don't realize it was all those
Speaker 4: other animals compounding and compounding that just kind of created
Speaker 4: the boom or the right.
Speaker 2: So let's move on to the next one.
Speaker 3: We talked about owning it, and we've talked about fiercing it.
Speaker 3: Now let's talk about feel it.
Speaker 4: Okay, So feel it is when we get out of
Speaker 4: our own heads so they own it and face that.
Speaker 4: Once you're through those two steps, you realize, okay, I'm
Speaker 4: okay with this, I've owned it, I've faced my emotions.
Speaker 4: Now you get out of your own head and you
Speaker 4: start to think, how are the people around me feeling?
Speaker 4: So this is when your empathy kicks in. This is
Speaker 4: your ability to say, okay, it's no longer about me.
Speaker 4: I'm okay, how are they feeling? And this is when
Speaker 4: we start to understand and you know, know that other
Speaker 4: people are not failed versions of us that other people,
Speaker 4: you know, will it be wired different, they'll have different responses.
Speaker 4: And this is not where judgment comes into play. This
Speaker 4: is looking to understand their wiring and you know, what
Speaker 4: they're bringing to the table, and to help them get
Speaker 4: through it. It's about empowerment and as I said, it's
Speaker 4: about empathy. It's about understanding their strengths, the roles that
Speaker 4: they play, and it's also understanding how you impact them
Speaker 4: as well. So what does things look like from their
Speaker 4: point of view, from their side, from the way that
Speaker 4: they are feeling.
Speaker 3: Curiosity please a huge rule here, isn't it? And it's
Speaker 3: understanding that we will often just jump to judgment of others.
Speaker 3: But if we're to actually sit back and be curious
Speaker 3: and go, that's an interesting response, like where did that
Speaker 3: come from?
Speaker 2: Right? And you know, is that something in that person?
Speaker 3: But is that something that I said or the way
Speaker 3: that I actually said it? And I guess this one
Speaker 3: it feels to me like is probably easier to practice
Speaker 3: and get better at quicker than the previous two right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, so face it is by far the toughest
Speaker 4: part of emotional intelligence, Like controlling your emotions is the
Speaker 4: toughest side because you're working against the science of the
Speaker 4: mind right the way which we're wired. But when you
Speaker 4: get to this point and feel it, there are small
Speaker 4: one percent is that you can put in place so quickly,
Speaker 4: but it's it's also being on the sit and understand
Speaker 4: how other people are, how other people approach things, and
Speaker 4: that is it's easier because it's knowledge that you're taking
Speaker 4: on and learning from it. But you're not having to
Speaker 4: rewire anything within yourself. You're not you're not having to
Speaker 4: rechange habits or long term imbedments where this is okay,
Speaker 4: I get it now. And at this stage, you know,
Speaker 4: I see some people literally like their faces just drop
Speaker 4: and go oh now, I get it, now, I get it.
Speaker 4: That's why you know, when I'm going to this person
Speaker 4: and I'm giving a really short, sharp communication, they're coming
Speaker 4: back at me with questions and want to see details
Speaker 4: and statistics and research. That's why it's not because they're
Speaker 4: questioning my ability or my credibility or what I'm telling them.
Speaker 4: It's the fact that they learn through information. Their mind
Speaker 4: requires more data. It's more data driven where mine is
Speaker 4: very big picture, high level.
Speaker 1: And I think it's kind of helpful here.
Speaker 3: And it's going back to what you said about our
Speaker 3: kind of view of the world is shaped by our
Speaker 3: belief systems, our experiences or emotions.
Speaker 2: And stuff like that.
Speaker 1: And I find it it's really helpful for people.
Speaker 3: To understand that your brain is a bond's eye, right,
Speaker 3: and it's running a personalized hallucination of reality, right, and
Speaker 3: my brain's running a slightly different personalized hallucination of reality.
Speaker 3: Like anybody who thinks that their view of the world
Speaker 3: is real is completely demented, right, because that brain is
Speaker 3: just a filter that becomes shaped by experience. And I
Speaker 3: think when you understand that, it kind of really helps
Speaker 3: this feel it this empathy bit, because and you combine
Speaker 3: it with curiosity, it's like, ah, okay, right, maybe I
Speaker 3: shouldn't expect everybody to react the way that I think
Speaker 3: they should react.
Speaker 4: Right, exactly right. I love that bon Si example. It
Speaker 4: takes me back to Biagi days, right, that you'll never
Speaker 4: have a Bonzie that is exactly the same. It's all
Speaker 4: going to look slightly different and depending on the way
Speaker 4: that you trim it the way that you craft it,
Speaker 4: it's going to look different again. And yeah, that is
Speaker 4: very good.
Speaker 1: Can be reshiped, right, Yes, that's right, So let's right
Speaker 1: move on to ask it. So I think it that's
Speaker 1: about interaction, is it?
Speaker 4: Yeah? Yeah, so ask it is about asking the right questions,
Speaker 4: but it's also more importantly about answering the questions that
Speaker 4: are being asked of you. So this is where your
Speaker 4: two way communication comes in. It's where we start to
Speaker 4: understand that communication is actually not about us. It's one
Speaker 4: hundred percent about the person receiving the message. And the
Speaker 4: whole definition around communication is to be able to get
Speaker 4: a message from one person through to another. So the
Speaker 4: EI side of this is when we start to tap
Speaker 4: in and realize that if we are communicating and the
Speaker 4: person who we are communicating with is not understanding the message,
Speaker 4: that's on us, Like we are not communicating in a
Speaker 4: way that works for that person that they are understanding it.
Speaker 4: So we cannot just you know, give up and put
Speaker 4: up a hand and say, well it's done, clearly they
Speaker 4: don't understand me. No, Actually, you're going to take responsibility
Speaker 4: in this how you actually communicating it and it's you know,
Speaker 4: we dive deeper into that communication because I think if
Speaker 4: you look at like if we go personal and work right,
Speaker 4: if you look at any marriage or any relationship that's
Speaker 4: not working, usually the first thing that's called out communication.
Speaker 4: If you're looking at one that works really well, first
Speaker 4: thing they call out communication. You look at any culture
Speaker 4: in any environment, and if it's working really well, first
Speaker 4: thing they call out communication, bad communication. It's it is
Speaker 4: how human beings interact, and when you have two or
Speaker 4: more human beings interacting, it is how that interaction happens.
Speaker 4: The questions that they ask, the listening that they're doing,
Speaker 4: the answers that they're providing, the back and forth that
Speaker 4: is going to determine the appect.
Speaker 3: I remember going through military training and they always said
Speaker 3: to us, you can never over communicate clarity, and and
Speaker 3: I think that's a big part.
Speaker 2: Of communication, is not just.
Speaker 3: Giving your community, delivering your communication and expecting that it's
Speaker 3: landed the way that you intended. I think that checking
Speaker 3: how it's actually landed and checking the understanding of it
Speaker 3: right and by and by the way, email is shiit
Speaker 3: house form of communication.
Speaker 4: Oh, don't get me startled. In my first book, there's
Speaker 4: a whole chapter on emotionally intelligency and email. It absolutely
Speaker 4: kills me.
Speaker 2: It does not exist.
Speaker 4: I was like, do not do this, But I think,
Speaker 4: you know, we've got to accept the fact that the
Speaker 4: way that the world is going in communication is going
Speaker 4: Verbal communication, unfortunately, is decreasing, and you know, forms of
Speaker 4: electronic communication are increasing massively. And we've always known that
Speaker 4: tone and body language is more important than the words
Speaker 4: that we use. However, when when we have electronic communication,
Speaker 4: we've got to start to be aware that tone and
Speaker 4: body language isn't naturally evident, but the mind still needs it.
Speaker 4: So the person perceiving it will make it up, and
Speaker 4: they're going to make it up based on your relationship
Speaker 4: the words you use. So you've got it. It's probably
Speaker 4: even more important with electronic communication to get it right,
Speaker 4: to know the impacts of the words you're using, to
Speaker 4: know the impact of you know, whether it's a two
Speaker 4: line email or.
Speaker 3: You're in a rush and you're just far off an
Speaker 3: email right and don't sit and tick the time to
Speaker 3: read it and all of that, and that can just
Speaker 3: line horrible.
Speaker 4: Because you're in that conscious mind. And I do it myself,
Speaker 4: pull I'll see done, and you know, smash out an
Speaker 4: email and then before I send it, I'll read and
Speaker 4: I think, oh, Amy, you are completely in your own
Speaker 4: head right now, like this is all about you. How
Speaker 4: about you actually say hi? And how about you check
Speaker 4: in with this person? So it's it's just that it
Speaker 4: is that environment that we're in that is such a
Speaker 4: you know, I hate the word busy. It is that
Speaker 4: it's in that intense reaction. Everything has to be done now,
Speaker 4: and everything has to be done at a speed. And
Speaker 4: when that happens, it's our conscious mind driving it, and
Speaker 4: a subconscious mind just doesn't come into play very often,
Speaker 4: and that's where we lose. Like our emotional intelligence is
Speaker 4: sitting in our subconscious minds. So if we're not engaging
Speaker 4: that subconscious mind, it's going to be very yeah, very
Speaker 4: black mind.
Speaker 1: Very class one is drive it.
Speaker 3: I presumably this is not drive a stick through the
Speaker 3: heart of the person who's not understanding you.
Speaker 4: No, definitely not. But this drive is this is where
Speaker 4: the rubber hits the road. Right, So you've gone through,
Speaker 4: you've owned it, you've faced all your emotions, you've got
Speaker 4: out of your own head, you've understood how the people
Speaker 4: around you are feeling. You've engaged them in conversation, you've
Speaker 4: spoken about it and answered the questions. And drive it
Speaker 4: is the doing part. It's the motivation. So how do
Speaker 4: you actually take it now? Because I think there's one part.
Speaker 4: You know, at times, emotional intelligence can be seen as
Speaker 4: a soft thing. And drive it is the area that
Speaker 4: you've got to be decisive and you know what, not
Speaker 4: everyone's going to agree with you, but you have to
Speaker 4: be decisive and you have to drive it at some
Speaker 4: point in time. And when you do drive it, it's
Speaker 4: about making sure that you're working smart, not hard. So
Speaker 4: are you working with the way that the brain is wired,
Speaker 4: or are you working in a way that you know,
Speaker 4: there's no denying that you're working hard, but you're achieving
Speaker 4: nothing because you're just you know, tapping into so many
Speaker 4: things that you're spending most of your day with your
Speaker 4: mind having to refocus, refocus, refocus, that you're actually never
Speaker 4: hitting that peak performance. So drive it is being able
Speaker 4: to take things and because unfortunately we're great ideas but
Speaker 4: not always good at implementing them. So it's been able
Speaker 4: to take them the way the mind is wired in
Speaker 4: order to trigger those chemical reactions in our mind that
Speaker 4: actually give us the motivation and give us the drive
Speaker 4: to move forward and impact it. Cool.
Speaker 3: Let's take all of that and throw it into a
Speaker 3: couple of scenarios, right, And I want to get the
Speaker 3: distilled version of you because I think these scenarios people
Speaker 3: could just go back and listen to what you said
Speaker 3: and work it out.
Speaker 2: But if you kind of put it together.
Speaker 3: So in terms of navigating difficult or challenging conversations, are people,
Speaker 3: what's your kind of strategy for people to use?
Speaker 4: Yep, So if we look at that five step process
Speaker 4: when it comes to difficult conversations and starting with the owner,
Speaker 4: you have got to own the fact that this conversation
Speaker 4: needs to happen. So many times we will avoid it
Speaker 4: at all costs, will sweep it under the carpet, will
Speaker 4: convince ourselves that oh no, everything's okay now, or you know,
Speaker 4: it's okay. But you've got to own the fact that
Speaker 4: this conversation needs to happen and you have to do
Speaker 4: it. It's a must thing that you have to do. When
Speaker 4: we get into the face it the face it is
Speaker 4: as soon as you accept the fact that, okay, this
Speaker 4: is happening and I'm going to have to do something
Speaker 4: about it. This is where the fear kicks in, right,
Speaker 4: because as human beings like fear of the unknown, fear
Speaker 4: of not knowing how this person's going to respond in
Speaker 4: this situation. Are they going to get angry? Are they
Speaker 4: going to get upset? You know, how are they actually
Speaker 4: going to respond? It's the fear of judgment. Are they
Speaker 4: going to judge me in the way that I deliver it?
Speaker 4: It is the fear of confrontations.
Speaker 3: I was going to say, and there's a lot of
Speaker 3: people who do not like come from frontiation, right and
Speaker 3: that this is a shitlold wash.
Speaker 4: For them, exactly right. And this is a mistake that
Speaker 4: we make, Paul, in this area, is that when we
Speaker 4: don't face these emotions and process them, what we do
Speaker 4: is the amygdaler gets triggered and we go into fight mode,
Speaker 4: which means that because that fear is kind of connected
Speaker 4: in our head and we don't feel completely safe, we
Speaker 4: arm ourself. And what I say is we over prepare.
Speaker 4: We arm ourselves with as much information as we possibly can,
Speaker 4: so we pull in every stat every report, everything that
Speaker 4: you know, this person said five years ago that I
Speaker 4: still haven't gotten over it. And we get it's kind
Speaker 4: of like, by the time we go into this conversation,
Speaker 4: we have this huge backpack of ammunition on our back
Speaker 4: ready to go, and the minute we go into it,
Speaker 4: it triggers the amigdaler and the other person and they
Speaker 4: come out fighting as well, because they're fighting for their lives.
Speaker 4: So this face it areas where you've got to face
Speaker 4: those emotions. You've got to process them, You've got to
Speaker 4: understand that, you know, this conversation is actually not about you, Like,
Speaker 4: I know you're scared, and I know you don't like confrontation,
Speaker 4: but this conversation is not about you, and what are
Speaker 4: you looking to get out of this conversation. So when
Speaker 4: we get through that face it and we start to
Speaker 4: go in to feel it, and we start to think, Okay,
Speaker 4: how is this person feeling like because a lot of
Speaker 4: the time, the reason why we're having the conversation is
Speaker 4: not the real reason why it's happening. So we might
Speaker 4: be having a conversation because somebody has done something poorly
Speaker 4: or said something poorly. But when you actually get out
Speaker 4: of your own head and you ask the right questions
Speaker 4: and you empathize and you listen to them, you hear
Speaker 4: that the problem is actually something way deeper, way deeper
Speaker 4: than that, and if you just fix the situation, you're
Speaker 4: putting a band aid on it. You're absolutely just bandating it.
Speaker 4: So how do you then get to the point where
Speaker 4: you know? This is where the open questions come in?
Speaker 4: Right where you ask, it kicks in and we ask
Speaker 4: open questions, and just even your standard question, like any
Speaker 4: difficult conversation, should start with how are you? And a
Speaker 4: genuine how are you? Because if you're going into a
Speaker 4: difficult conversation, you find out that that person has just
Speaker 4: had a morning where they've had to put their pet down.
Speaker 4: Having conversation right right, because if you're pushing ahead, it
Speaker 4: shows that you're in your own head and you're doing
Speaker 4: this for your sake, not for their sake. You're not
Speaker 4: doing it for the right outcome. You're doing it to
Speaker 4: tick the box and say I've done it. I've done
Speaker 4: what I needed to do. The rest is on them,
Speaker 4: so feel it and ask It is really about getting
Speaker 4: that empathy side, understanding it, but asking the really vital
Speaker 4: question of how do we fix this? And sometimes we've
Speaker 4: got to ask that question four or five times because
Speaker 4: their mind will naturally go back into that emotional hijack
Speaker 4: of you know, all of those emotions flowing out. We've
Speaker 4: got to pull them back in and say, but how
Speaker 4: do we fix this? How do we actually fix this?
Speaker 4: How do we move forward? And it's not until we
Speaker 4: can get them to kind of to draw that line
Speaker 4: in the stand and say, okay, let's go into the
Speaker 4: fix it mode. Now that then we enter into the
Speaker 4: drive it and that's where your actions happen. So we've
Speaker 4: got to go through the process of own it, face it, field,
Speaker 4: ask it, to drive it. But by the time we
Speaker 4: go into the conversation, we should be at feel it,
Speaker 4: but the other person will probably still be at own it.
Speaker 4: So we've got to help them to own it. We've
Speaker 4: got to help them to go through their emotions. We've
Speaker 4: got to listen to their emotions, we've got to empathize
Speaker 4: with their emotions. Then we've got to help them to
Speaker 4: get in to feel it and know, Okay, let's get
Speaker 4: out of your own head. How is this impacting everything
Speaker 4: else around you? Then you help them going to ask it,
Speaker 4: and then you help them going to drive it. So
Speaker 4: by the time you get to the end of the conversation,
Speaker 4: you're on the same page. You've got clear actions, you've
Speaker 4: got your support there that you're offering them as well
Speaker 4: to go through it and you go through it together.
Speaker 4: And that's that wee word, right, like, how do we
Speaker 4: fix this? How do we do this together? Rather than
Speaker 4: being those two people that come into a conversation armed
Speaker 4: with ammunition ready to fight against Yeah, right, between both
Speaker 4: of mindalers. Like it's like imber LINKEDNT.
Speaker 1: That usually ends the widespread master destruction.
Speaker 4: Right, the battle of egos? Right, it's like you are wrong,
Speaker 4: I am right?
Speaker 1: So where where this letter listers?
Speaker 2: Or when does the book come out?
Speaker 3: It's pretty dumb, soon, isn't it?
Speaker 4: It is twenty fifth of June is when it hits
Speaker 4: all bookstores worldwide. You can find it online, you find
Speaker 4: it open at the moment. Yep. Yeah, so if if
Speaker 4: you jump onto Amazon, Amazon has free orders. Are not
Speaker 4: free pre orders, free orders taking at the moment. So
Speaker 4: your twenty the Jude is where it will hit all bookstores,
Speaker 4: airports pretty much.
Speaker 3: And what was the name of your first book as well?
Speaker 3: Let's not forget about the first baby.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so the first book. Here's something I prepared earlier.
Speaker 4: This is the first book. So this is Emotional Intelligence,
Speaker 4: a simple and actionable guide to increasing performance, engagement and ownership.
Speaker 4: And as I said that, that's your fundamental basics. And
Speaker 4: the name of the second book, the name of the
Speaker 4: second book is the Emotional Intelligence Advantage and it is
Speaker 4: mastering change and difficult conversation. So it's going to that.
Speaker 3: Indeed, and then if people want because you're a keynote
Speaker 3: speaker as well, so if people want to services, get
Speaker 3: you come in teach their workplaces how to actually communicate
Speaker 3: and improve performance and everything along with it.
Speaker 1: How do they do that?
Speaker 4: Yep? Just jump onto my website which is Amy Jacobson
Speaker 4: dot com dot au and you'll find all the information there.
Speaker 4: You can find me on any social media as well,
Speaker 4: and find my phone number. Pick up the phone and
Speaker 4: give me a call. I love a chat as you
Speaker 4: can probably tell.
Speaker 2: Let we go. Excellent.
Speaker 1: Okay, Amy, thank you for enlightening us.
Speaker 3: About emotional intelligence and the fact that we need to
Speaker 3: own it, face it, feel it, ask it, and drive it.
Speaker 1: And I would just encourage the listeners.
Speaker 3: Drive yourself to Amazon or Booktopia or whatever it may
Speaker 3: be and get your order in brilliant.
Speaker 4: Thanks