What Is Emotional Intelligence - WHAT THE HECK DOES THIS MEAN?

UNDERSTANDING OUR OWN EMOTIONS

PUMU: Perceive, Understand, Manage, Use

I was the cliché: the angry young man.

When it came to understanding my emotions, I had a pretty immature idea of what my anger meant.  In my childishness, I thought that fact I was angry automatically meant the world had to change.

Okay, maybe not the whole world, but whoever or whatever made me angry.  What was I supposed to do?  Express my anger, of course, in whatever way would force the “other side” to give me what I wanted.

I didn’t do anything criminal, but there was a lot of yelling, screaming, slamming doors, arguing, and, from time to time, things got a bit out of control.  I remember one time literally smashing up a door inside the house.  Later, I had to pay for it.  I said a lot of things that, once said, can never be taken back.  Sure, the other person might forgive me, but will they ever believe “I didn’t really mean it”?  Probably not.  They might say they do, but they will always have just cause to wonder.

I did get my way sometimes.  Not very often, to tell the truth, but sometimes.  I didn’t really have anything that worked better, so the temper kept flaring.

That continued until I was 18.  Things changed after that.  I guess you could say that not long after becoming an adult, I actually started to grow up!

WHAT IS EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE - UNDERSTANDING OUR OWN EMOTIONS

Every one had one of those night when your body is exhausted but your brain won’t stop?  I have those, too.  Some people have an endless stream of them filled with worry, fury, hopelessness, overwhelm, or any number of feelings.

The problem with these feelings keeping you up is that it is often an endless loop.  You feel.  Your imagination runs away with you.  You keep rehashing all the things that might go wrong and how bad it can be.  You keep going over and over all the things you wish you could do to the “other guy.”  It leaps you “looping” – and once that starts, it can go on night after night after night.

Even with the Language of Emotions, you will still find yourself awake some nights.  The difference is that you will be sorting through all the information you need, what you still need to find out, and formulating action plans.  Rather than just be stuck in an endless emotional loop, you’ll be up half the night planning how to deal with whatever is going on.

Let’s take me for example.  When I’d have an endless angry night, like most of us (I think!), I would stay up all night imagining all the things I could do the other guy.  In the dark of the night, you think of all sorts of things that you could go to prison for if you actually did it!  (Or maybe that’s just me…)

Instead, imagine going into the night of fury with a clear understanding that Anger means that one of my rules has been broken.  So, rather than just be angry, I can think about my rule.  What is the rule the other guy broke?  Is it a good rule?

Do I need to change the rule?  Sometimes I do.  If so, there is a system for doing that.  I teach one of them in Language of Emotions 101a.  The one that’s there is simple enough that anyone who really, honestly does it can do it on their own.  There are other techniques, some of which require a coach, but the Six Step Rule Change is a fundamental technique.

What if the rule is a good rule?  Then the next step is to figure out how I can get the rule followed.  The step here is almost always found in effective communication. Then you have to strategize how to do that.

A big question is whether or not the other person truly understands what they are doing.  If you have a good rule, does the other person understand that rule?  Has it really be explained?  Do they agree with the rule?  Sometimes people break rules they disagree with.  Sometimes they have a point (we should find out), and sometimes they don’t (but if we give them a chance to express themselves, we can at least talk about it).

Sometimes you need a carrot, a stick, or both.  In that case, you work it out.  What incentive might help gain compliance?  Is it reasonable?  In a workplace, it might be a raise, a bonus, a perk, or even just recognition.

What penalty might motivate someone?  Is that reasonable?  Sticking with a workplace example, it can go all the way up to firing someone.  At a lesser level, it could be cutting hours, demoting someone, keeping them off jobs or scaling back projects.  It could include a precursor to firing them: some kind of reprimand or suspension.

Sure, I might have started off Angry, but because I Understand, it gives me somewhere much more productive to go with it than to just spend a night fuming about it.

WHAT IS EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE- PUMU: Perceive, Understand, Manage, Use

You’ve probably notices that Perceive and Understand are deeply related.  So are Understand and Manage, as you can see.  You can also see that by doing genius level of Perceive and Understand, Manage is beginning to take care of itself!  If we just follow through, then we are doing Use.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE 2.0 - PUMU: Perceive, Understand,

Manage, Use

When I was young, I had very little grasp of my own emotions.  You can imagine I wasn’t all that great at knowing what someone else was feeling!  I could tell that when my girlfriend was crying, it was bad.  I didn’t understand why she was crying, so when I’d try to do something about, sometimes I’d just make it worse.  I wasn’t even sure what the crying meant!

Back then I just figured I’d done something that hurt her.  I had no idea she might be crying because she was overwhelmed, or scared, or feeling helpless.  I certainly didn’t know what questions to ask!  The only thing I had going for me was the “guy reflex” to “fix” whatever it was.  Trying to fix a woman’s emotions is almost always a mistake, but trying to fix it when you’re clueless?  Disasters waiting to happen.  I had a few of those disasters.

I was observant enough to realize that there were different kinds of crying times, but I had no idea how to decode the words, lack of words, body language, and whatnot.  I knew I was looking at SOMETHING, but I had no idea what.  I sure didn’t know what to ask!  I had no idea how to connect, how to relate, or how to really listen.  I just sort of sat there trying to make it all stop.

Pretty clueless, at least compared to now!  I know there’s a chance there’s a few people who read this and think, “Ummm, that’s kinda where I am!”

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE 2.0 –  Language of Emotions!

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 – P.O.P.E.

Perceiving Other People’s Emotions, or POPE, is a skill.  One challenge is that if you don’t even know what you feel, how can you tell what someone else is feeling?  Again, Understand from PUMU (Perceive, Understand, Manage, Use) comes to our rescue!

So long as someone expresses their emotions, most people can tell when someone is angry, hurt or really scared.  It’s more difficult to spot more subdued emotions.  It is challenging to distinguish between close cousin emotions.

Intuitive people can usually tell what someone is feeling.  The problem is that intuition is very difficult to teach!  How can you teach “Y’know… you just sorta… know!”  Intuitive people don’t often understand some of the subtle things that go into their intuition.  While most people with intuition may not understand how they do it, there are ways to tap into intuition-level insight and make these discoveries.

I admit there are some subtle tricks that are beyond an introductory course, and certainly far beyond a short article!  The techniques and tricks are fairly easily taught in a live seminar where I can show you how it works and let you practice, but for a short article, we’ll stick to a few simple things I can easily teach here.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE 2.0 - QUESTIONS ARE YOUR ANSWER

Obvious is obvious, so that’s your starting point.  Most of us can already do that.

The next level requires some skill at Understand.  Overwhelm, for instance, means there’s too much.  Someone might be crying, so it might seem like you’re dealing with Hurt, which means some feels damage or loss.  That’s when you blend Understand with Perceive to help you Perceive better.

Something as simple as “Talk to me.  I’m listening.” can open you up to information that will help you know what someone is feeling.  If they say “I don’t know how I’m supposed to get all this done” or “It just all too much!” tell you that Overwhelm is at least part of the picture.

Fear means “Something’s coming; I’m not ready.”  If someone says “I don’t know what to do!” that could be fear (I’m not ready), or it could still be Overwhelm.  Either of them would leave someone not feeling they know what to do.  You would need more information.

With a statement like “I don’t know what to do” you’re probably dealing with Fear or Overwhelm, and the solution to each is different.  So you need to ask more questions.  Something like “What’s going on?” can help you find out.

If they tell you something specific, that tells you that it’s Fear.  They know what’s coming, they don’t know what to do, so they feel Fear: Something’s Coming, I’m Not Ready.  If they tell you “a lot of things,” or “too many things,” that means it’s Overwhelm.

THEN WHAT?

Here, we’re talking about Perceive.  What you do next requires Understand (which we’ve talked a bit about here).  We’ll build into that as we continue through this series.

Emotional Intelligence 2.0 opens the door to mastery in such a clear, systematic way that you can walk it out in less time than it takes to read about it!  Sure, it takes a little while to learn and some practice to master, but it really does take the messiest part of human relationships and make it pretty straight forward!

Emotional IQ – PUMU: Perceive, Understand, Manage, Use

I admit that there was a time I was at the bottom level of skill here.  I was so bad that not only were Anger and Frustration the same for me, so was Hurt, Fear, Confusion, Overwhelm, Inadequacy… pretty much all of it showed up as Anger.  Why?

If I want to sound all clinical: I wasn’t adequately trained in Emotional IQ to make the distinctions.  In regular English, I was an Emotional Idiot.  Sure, I may have been an intellectual genius if you believe in IQ and percentile scores and all that.  But what had in genius in one side was counter-balanced by a level of emotional cluelessness that is almost hard to believe!

I had to improve my Emotional IQ just to get good enough to be at the “nearly everyone can do this” level.  It really is frightening to think about how little I really knew back then!  I can’t even imagine what my life would have been like without the discovery of the Language of Emotions!  I can tell you this, though.  If I can get to where I was to where I am, ANYONE can become an Emotional Genius!

Emotional IQ – The Obvious Level of the Subtle Art

Nearly everyone can tell when they are feeling big, obvious emotions.  (Well, unless you’re the younger me, then all you know is one – but we’re talking about normal people!)  If you’re raging, there is little doubt you’re angry.  If you’re paralyzed with fear or running randomly in a panic, everyone can tell that’s fear.  When you’re despondent or spiraled into a deep, dark depression, everyone can tell that’s some kind of hopelessness.

If that was as distinct as someone could be with their emotions, it would not be uncommon.  We would like to think we’d be better than that, but many people are not.  Over the years, a lot of us get just a little bit numb.

Sometimes it’s not numb so much as jumbled.  We’re not sure what we’re feeling, so we just toss things into large categories and hide behind the emotions we give ourselves permission to have.  Often, men will hide behind anger.  Women will sometimes hide behind some form of fear or depression.  We want to be better, of course, but that’s just where a lot of people land.

Many of us stay above that.  We can tell what we’re feeling pretty clearly.  We know when we back down because of fear.  We know when we’re feeling overwhelmed and need to make some changes.  We know when anger is really anger and not a mask for hurt, and sometimes we can even tell when we’re angry because we’re hurt.

Just knowing what you’re feeling is helpful.  Most people know when they are angry, they want something to change, and by yelling, screaming and throwing things, maybe, just maybe, they’ll MAKE it change.  At the very least, they express themselves, and sometimes there can be some utility in that, too, at least if you can channel it in a way that hurts no one and breaks nothing.

Fear tells us to hide.  Overwhelm tells us we need to stop.  Hurt tells us there’s damage and we want to get space between us and what is hurting us.  It may not be a lot of information to work with, but it’s a start!

Emotional IQ – The Subtle Level of the Subtle Art

To most people, an emotion like Anger and a close cousin like Frustration feel the same.  Someone with an exceptional level of Emotional IQ can tell the difference.  When you can tell the difference, it informs an action plan.

There are several sets that are close cousin emotions, like Anger and Frustration, or Hopelessness and Overwhelm, or Fear and Inadequacy.

There are also levels of each emotion.  Some people think Frustration is just a level of Anger, but it isn’t.  Frustration has a different message.  With both, you could rate each feeling from 1 to 10.  Frustration is a specific enough emotion that we don’t have much of a vocabulary for it.  We might call a 1 or 2 “a little Frustrated” and something higher just “Frustrated” and then “really Frustrated.”  We might use exasperated,   At some point, we often start to use the vocabulary of Anger.

Anger has a huge vocabulary.  It’s such a common emotion that we have a lot of way to talk about it, sometimes colorful ways.   We might be bothered, annoyed, miffed, ticked, infuriated, enraged, losing our temper, losing our cool, offended, riled up, galled, fuming or bitter.  What order we might put those in varies from person to person, but we all understand that there are levels of anger.

Same with Fear.  We have quite a vocabulary to describe Fear.  In fact, we have quite a vocabulary to hide the fact of fear behind code words, such as “stress” and “concern.”  Inadequacy, like Frustration, has a much smaller vocabulary.  Overwhelm has a limited vocabulary, too, mostly consisting of phrases such as “just too much to do” or “too much going on” up to “buried,” “swamped,” and, of course, “overwhelmed.”

Emotional IQ – Mastering the Subtle Art

It takes practice, and it takes the first U in PUMU to really get good at emotional IQ.  When you Understand, you can feel what you feel and then check the feeling against the meaning.  If you feel something you were going to label Anger, and you check it against the meaning of Anger and it doesn’t apply, but Frustration applies, then you know what you’re feeling is Frustration, not Anger.  Once you have Understand working for you, Perceive becomes dramatically easier.

A Good Emotional Intelligence Course is VITAL to Good Decision Making

HONESTLY, WE MAKE MOST OF OUR DECISIONS EMOTIONALLY AND JUSTIFY THEM LOGICALLY

Emotional Intelligence Course: Emotion and logic

Every good salesperson knows that people make most of their decisions emotionally, and they justify them logically.  If we have high emotional intelligence, that’s okay.  If we have low emotional intelligence, that’s a problem.

The logic side is more obvious to people.  If someone has to justify something logically – and their logic is tortured – we notice.  We would notice if someone said, “We have to invest $1,000 in this new gadget because it will save us almost $1 a month!  It will pay for itself in just 80 years!”

But logic is seldom so tortured.  Someone might justify the new thousand dollar gadget by saying it’s “The latest green technology” or “It will save energy” or “protect the environment.”  By leaving the dollars and cents out of it, you can leave the sense out of it, too.

You see, almost everyone makes decisions based on emotion.  We want to be the coolest.  We want the best.  We want to feel the smartest.  We want to have something that makes us feel a certain way about ourselves.

Emotional Intelligence Course: Logic To Back Up Our Emotion

SOMETIMES logic will actually step in to trump our desires.  We want something, but we take a look at it and decide it doesn’t really make any sense.  SOMETIMES we can kick our Mind into high gear and trump our Emotions.  Sometimes.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE COURSE SIMPLE SOLUTION: GIVE LOGIC A CHANCE

Resisting persuasion against our own long term best interests is a real-world test of Emotional Intelligence.  If we realize someone is pushing our buttons, we can respond better.  The “simple solution” is to step beyond Emotion to Logic.  This is something we can do without developing our Emotional Intelligence.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE COURSE: Observing SOP Before Making Any Decision

The easiest way to do this is to make is a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) to NEVER make even a moderate sized decision on the spot.  ALWAYS give it a day.  This way you can get some emotional distance from the choice and look at it with a clear head later.  (Provided you can clear your head later!  Sometimes you just want something so much you just keep on wanting it even with some distance!)

This 24 hour break is to give logic a chance.  It may not kick in every single time, but it will certainly kick in far, far more often than if you don’t even give it a chance!

For bigger decisions (you decide what is “big” to you), make your SOP to ALWAYS run the decision by someone else you trust.  Maybe it will be a partner, or a parent, or a friend.  Maybe you’ll have several people, each for a different type of decision, or, perhaps, for different perspectives on a problem.

For instance, say you know you are being “sold” a new car.  You might make it a policy that you never, ever buy a new car without talking to three friends.  Maybe your father will give you a very practical, nuts and bolts analysis with cost of ownership considerations, so you talk to him.  Maybe your friend will give you a perspective based upon your lifestyle needs and what things you need (and don’t need) in a car for the way you live your life.  Maybe another friend knows a lot about cars and what’s on the market, and this friend can give you a good sense of value.

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE COURSE: Taking Time To Think

Almost no matter how much Emotional Intelligence you have, for decisions like these, taking time to really think about it always a good idea.

Some decisions require faster thinking.  Sometimes you can’t take a full day’s break to think, or there isn’t any additional information to gather.  Sometimes you want something so badly, or want something to be true so badly, that it clouds your logic.  Even with thinking time, very little real logic gets done.

Maybe YOU have never done that (been illogical even with time to think), but we ALL know SOMEONE who can’t seem to break past Emotion to Logic no matter how much time they have!

EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE COURSE:BEST PRACTICE

Emotional Genius is the Best Practice for dealing with Emotional Decision Making.

Just as IQ and information helps us make better logical choices, EQ (Emotional Intelligence) helps us make better emotional decisions.

When we know what we’re feeling and we know why we’re feeling it, we easily slip in behind the “pitch” and see what’s really going on.  When our feelings are all wrapped up in a choice, we can stay clear headed if the feelings all make sense to us.  If we know what we’re really feeling and what it really means, we can make choices and take actions based on solid information – not just impulse!

LINK THIS: http://scotconway.com/ScotConway.com/videosales.html The Conway Emotional Genius Course (Language of Emotions 101a and 101b) is a solid introduction to emotions.  By understanding the Language of Emotions we learn what our emotions mean.  We learn why our first impulse is there to protect us in the short term and almost always MUST be countermanded for the long term.  We learn concrete action plans for how we feel.

Bring those skills that you have learn from an emotional intelligence course into decision-making and you have Genius-level Emotional Decision Making.  You will find that your instant Emotional Decisions begin to match your Logical Decisions that used to take you time!  The key is Emotional Intelligence!

Walking Out the Positive Part of Emotional Intelligence training to Make

My Life Extraordinary

FROM A 2D, SMALL SCREEN BLACK AND WHITE LIFE TO A HIGH DEFINITION, IMMERSIVE 3D, LIFE IN VIVID FULL COLOR

Emotional intelligence training benefits #1: You will learn to handle your anger

I’m not sure how many men experienced what I did.  When I finally got a handle on anger, I was able to eliminate it from my life.  It wasn’t perfect, but compared to what I felt beforehand, I’d say I had gotten rid of about 90% of my anger.

But the the world was pretty flat.  I had realized that not only was my DOMINANT emotion Anger, it was pretty much my ONLY emotion!  Not literally, of course, but if you were to rate my emotional range on a scale of 0-10, my anger used to run as high as an 8 or 9, but nothing else got past a 2 or 3!  Suddenly the world was like a two dimensional, small, blurry black and white television screen.

Emotional intelligence training benefits #2: You’ll transform your life from blurry screened to high definition

I know I might be dating myself.  I actually had a small, blurry screened, black and white television when I was young.  For those of you too young to remember them, you’ve probably seen blurry black and white videos online.  We used to call that “television.”  That was what my life was like before I decide to attend emotional intelligence training.

Emotional Intelligence Training for a Much Brighter Kind of Life

LIFE is an immersive, holographic, high definition, surround sound, giant screen adventure – and I was missing it.  I got to go places.  I got to see things.  I got to do things.  But I was still missing it.

You see, it’s Emotions that connect us to the world around us.  It is what gives life color, spice, flavor, resonance, the full spectrum equalizer… the VIVIDNESS of REALLY living!

Emotional intelligence training benefits #3: You will learn to find your REAL emotions

That required some work from me.  I’ve already told you about getting behind the Anger to find out the REAL emotions of change I was feeling.  I started to change what needed changing so I could GROW.  I used to just react, and react poorly, and that can get things pretty messed up!

The other side of my adventure was amplifying the good!  I was already mastering the troubleshooting side of life… while still missing the good stuff!  So that was my next adventure.

Emotional intelligence training benefits #4: You will learn to pay attention to the good stuff

I started out by making a simple change: REALLY pay attention to the good stuff!  Get into it!

For that, I learned a technique called Heightened Association.

I was a bit detached from the good things, sort of an observer rather than a participant.  My positive experiences were muted because I was disconnected from them.  I don’t know how common an experience that is for people, but it was how I was living.

Emotional intelligence training benefits #5: You will learn all about Heightened Association

Heightened Association begins by really immersing yourself in what’s going on.  I stepped in to what was happening around me and started to notice things I would not normally see.  I paid attention to the meaning of events and started to really enjoy life more!  In one major shift, I realized how many amazing things I’d been missing in life.

Emotional Intelligence Training To Help You Focus on Good Things

I learned to focus my attention on the good things.  I learned to think the thoughts that would keep me focused.  I started asking myself better questions that would guide me to focus even better.  “What is good about this?”  “What else is good about this?”  “What good can I take out of this?”  Considering how little training I had at the time, I was doing pretty well.

More than that was necessary for me, though.  In the years since, Heightened Associations seems to be plenty for most people.  I was a bit more messed up than that!

Instant State Change skills completed my skill set.  The short version of this skill is that you learn to fully and completely express.  This is another case where I have Tony Robbins to thank.  At a live seminar I learned how to ramp up my expression of emotion.  I learned how to create excitement in myself, how to be enthusiastic, how to be really happy.

Funny thing is that after I learned it from him, I realized I sort of knew it already!  You see, in martial arts, we learn to move with confidence and strength.  Like in boot camp, we learn to stand at attention.  We learn to combine loud, strong, powerful shouts with loud, strong, powerful movements.  Maybe that’s why I learned Tony’s lesson so quickly.  I already had a reference for it!

Since the emotional intelligence training, I’ve gotten to live my life in full color.  More than “just full color,” I’ve gotten to live life in immersive, holographic, high definition, vivid full color!

NOTE: I’m giving a strong promotion to Kevin Cole of Empowerment Quest International (www.empowermentquest.com), and his lessons have helped me continue to expand my toolbox.  I got to share my Language of Emotions material with him a few years ago, and that kicked off a powerful relationship of mutual teaching.  I highly recommend Kevin Cole both for private coaching and for his live training.  In one 16 day course, I probably doubled my toolbox of specific techniques to help people in one-on-one coaching and counseling.  Tell him I said hello!  Full Disclosure: I get no fee for promoting him!  I just REALLY liked his training.  I have the utmost respect for the man!

My Personal Application of Emotional Intelligence to Really Start Living

Life!

Application of Emotional Intelligence : NOTHING BUT ANGER TO BEING A WHOLE HUMAN BEING

Tony Robbins (http://www.anthonyrobbins.com/) was the first one to teach me that the experience of a person’s life was the emotions you felt in it.  If you are a wealthy, successful person in the world’s eyes, but your dominant emotions are anger and guilt, then your life is anger and guilt.  If you are poor, scraping your way in the world, and you’re happy most of the time, then you’re life is happiness!

Application of emotional intelligence rule #1:  Live with Passion 

One of Tony’s persistent sayings is “Life with Passion!”  I used to, but the only “passion” I felt was anger.  I was either flat, or I was angry.  When my temper finally gave way in 1983, I was left flat.  Based upon Tony’s lesson, it didn’t matter what I did, what I accomplished, or how well I succeeded at anything, my life was flat.

 Application of emotional intelligence rule #2:  Avoid living a Flat Life 

A flat life really isn’t much of a life at all.  Neither is an angry, bitter life.  Who wants to live that way?

Not me.

I didn’t know what to do, though.  Do I start to let myself cry?  Be the sensitive man?  Do I admit when I’m scared?  (Without using code words like “stressed” or “concerned.”)  How does someone go from an angry life to a full life?  How does someone go from a flat, two-dimensional, dull black-and-white life to an immersive, 3-D, vividly full color life?

Application of emotional intelligence rule #3:  Live a Full and Two Dimensional Life

One of the things it took was realizing I had to expand my emotional range.  But for me, Mr. Logical (remember, I used to be nicknamed Mr. Spock as in the Star Trek Vulcan), I needed a logical path to a deeply emotional life.  Sounds paradoxical, doesn’t it?  How does one use LOGIC to achieve EMOTION?

 Application of Emotional Intelligence: Emotion is a Matter of Focus

Application of emotional intelligence rule #4:  Have focus

Once gain, Tony Robbins got me started.  He taught that emotion was largely a matter of your focus and your physiology.  So I tried that.  I learned to use my will and my logic to focus on the aspects of my life that I thought would logically generate the emotions I desired.  It worked – at least compared to what I had been feeling before.  I tried using posture and movement and words to create the emotions I desired.  That worked for me, too.

I am immensely grateful to Tony Robbins for starting me down this path.  I had attended his live events, including Mastery University (where I also met and began my learning relationship with several other leaders).  I listened to over a dozen different programs, and I read his books.  It was a good start!  I credit Tony Robbins with helping me break free of that flat, logical, and otherwise meaningless life I had been living.

Application of emotional intelligence rule #5: If things worked, then keep going

Then I just kept going!  As I started to see how things worked, I used my own mastery of martial arts principles to grasp what was going on at a different level.  I was able to systemize it so I could better understand what I was doing and how to do it.

Application of emotional intelligence rule #6: Recognize your true emotions

Suddenly I could take apart emotions and see what they really meant.  That let me start to feel a whole range of emotions.  Instead of always feeling angry like so many men are taught to do, I could actually see when I was really hurt, or afraid, or feeling helpless or overwhelmed.  I used to hide all these emotional behind anger.  When I realized that my anger just meant that one of my rules were being broken, I started to discover “rules” that said I wasn’t ever supposed to be afraid (even if I called it “stressed”), or overwhelmed (which I also called “stressed”).  When I could admit to the real feeling behind the anger, the anger disappeared.  Then I learned how to deal with the real emotion.

 Application of Emotional Intelligence for Personal Growth

Application of emotional intelligence rule #7: Set better goals and plans

I used the Language of Emotions to start guiding my personal growth – though I didn’t start calling it the Language of Emotions for many years.  I started to see where I needed to change rules (using my anger to help me rather than hurt me or others).  I started to see where I needed to learn new skills to be ready for things (using fear) or reprioritizing to avoid overwhelm.  I began to take action to understand and use hopelessness to help be set better goals and better plans.

Even admitting to being hurt started to help me learn new skills that dramatically improved my relationships.  I found that most men sort of “armor up” and keep their emotional distance to avoid being hurt.  Once I understood what was going on, I was able to develop new, more empowering coping mechanisms so I could take the kind of risks that really hurt most people and know I could some out the other side!  I would have never guessed that I could USE hurt that way until the Language of Emotions was really coming together.

 Application of emotional intelligence rule #8:  Emotions of change

Of course, getting a total grasp on negative emotions (Emotions of Change) was just half of the quest.  It was the easy half for me, but I’m strange that way.  I work best in areas where things need to change.  I love growth, and growth requires change.  Not all change is growth, though, and that was the problem I had when I was young.  I let life change me, and sometimes it changed me in ways that didn’t really work out so well.  Once I took the helm, I liked who I was becoming.

Next time, I’ll talk about how I expanded from Emotions of Change into Emotions of Duplication, and the kind of Total Life Supercharge THAT brought about!

SAVORING CHRISTMAS

Emotional Intelligence Testing: Emotional Intelligence Tested in the Real World

This time I’ll be sharing a story of how we do emotional intelligence testing in Conway home.  This Christmas, we had another family staying with us, so they joined us for Christmas.  They told us that from now on, they intend to do Christmas the way they saw us do it, and they intend to share with many others.  Word is spreading.  I thought I’d join in the sharing.

Does this have to do with Emotional Intelligence, Developing Emotional Intelligence or  Emotional Intelligence Testing?  Quite a bit, actually.  This is Emotional Intelligence testing applied to the Real World.  You develop it by doing something that triggers, supports and sustains positive emotions.  You put it to the test by how your Emotional Genius manifests in your life.

ORDINARY

Christmas is a very special time of the year, and for weeks, months in some cases, gifts have been sought, purchased, wrapped, and have made it under the tree.  The excitement of seeing gifts under the tree with your name on them stirs the imagination of many a child – adults, too!  Curiosity, wonder, anticipation… all wonderful feelings that seek sweet release on Christmas morning!

This is how I’ve watched Christmas unfold in many households over the decades.  There is some variation on a theme, but it goes something like this: Everyone tears open their presents, reacts with various levels of excitement, and in about ten minutes all but the most interesting, fun gifts are set aside and play begins with a handful of them.

Some households take turns so everyone sees what everyone else got, but even so, in ten to twenty minutes, it’s all over.  Maybe someone keeps a list of who got what from whom so thank you cards can hypothetically be written later.  Those cards, if written at all, are often the result of a certain measure of nagging on the part of a parent – and in the face of playing with new toys, is a sometimes Herculean task.

EXTRAORDINARY

This is how we do presents in the Conway home.

Someone is the “elf,” and it is the job of the elf to try to find one present for each person.  Then we take turns, starting with the youngest, and everyone says who the gift is from, reads the card if there is one, and opens it.  Everyone gets to see it.  And then… we’ll come back to “and then.”

The next person opens their gift, and then the next person until everyone has opened a gift and everyone has seen everyone else’s gifts.  Here’s the “and then” I wanted you waiting for….

We write thank you cards.

Yes, right then.  Before we open the second gift, a thank you card has been written for the first gift.  Gratitude is demonstrated in card writing immediately after the gift is opened, and only after the card is written does the next elf get the next round of gifts.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

First of all, this turns a ten to twenty minute gift opening session into a much longer event.  Because of the extra people in our home, we spent nearly three hours enjoying and being thankful for gifts.  Normally it takes about half that time.  Think about how long it takes to shop for gifts!  We get to spend as much time opening and showing gratitude as an average shopping trip!

Secondly, it keeps us in an attitude of gratitude.  Gift by gift, we show our gratitude for the gifts, large and small, and for the gift giver.  Etiquette says you should give a card to anyone who is not present when you open the gift.  We make it a habit to do it for everyone.  If we know we have more than one gift from someone, we keep the card open with space for the rest of the gifts.  The card thanks each giver for every gift!

Third, it keeps us focused on more than just ourselves.  We really do pay attention to what others get.  That shows attention and respect for our family members – that they are important and what great things they get is important to us.  Giving thanks as we go keeps us focused on the givers of the gifts rather than just the gifts.  It helps us think about the generosity of others and be grateful for that – no matter the gift.  Gifts will be on unequal footing later when they are being played with, but for a time, every GIVER is on equal footing with gratitude for the thoughtfulness of the gift.

Fourth, it lets us visit while opening presents.  Sometimes there’s a story behind the gift, or an adventure getting it.  This year, one of the gifts I got for my wife involved a conspiracy to sneak it out of an amusement park store, get it into town, find a box for it, and get it wrapped and hidden under the tree without her having any idea where it came from (or she would have guessed exactly what it was!).  One gift for the boys had a whole story attached to it from many years ago, and that’s what inspired mom to buy it for them!  That story came with many wonderful memories from their younger years.

Fifth, it is an exercise in Patience.  Everyone waits their turn.  Everyone has something to do before the next gift.  Except when you’re the elf, you open what someone else chooses for you (even if you REALLY want to open that giant box you’ve been drooling over for two weeks!).

Mission accomplished.

MAKING IT MEMORABLE

That’s just the gift opening time.  We do many other things to make the season memorable.  We have established family traditions, and we pursue them purposefully.  From time to time, we may not get to something that is normal for us – and we don’t worry about it.  It’s not about neurotically checking everything off a list, we are making memories.

The way the Conways Do Christmas is rippling out from us to many other households.  This year, for the first time, an unrelated family actually got to join us for Christmas and be a part of our way.  They are very excited.  Every member of the household has talked to us about how great it was and how they intend to do things that way forever.

If they are so excited about it, I thought you might enjoy reading about it.  Maybe as you plan for next year, you might decide to adopt something of the way we do things.

Though I’m almost a year early, for the next Christmas coming up, make it an Exceptionally Merry Christmas!

Emotional Intelligence Appraisal: The Secret To Enthusiastic Passion

I WAS AN EMOTIONALLY FLAT ROBOT

UNTIL I DISCOVERED THE SECRET TO ENTHUSIASTIC PASSION

High Emotional Intelligence Appraisal  Saved Me from a Boring Life!

In the late 1980s, I was an emotionally flat robot. In the early 80s, I was the clichéd “angry young man.” In 1983, my anger came under substantial control. I learned to accept that the world worked the way the world worked – and it really didn’t matter if I liked it. My anger diminished by perhaps 80%.

Here was MY problem: Anger was the only place I ever felt any real passion. If I was emotionally intense, that meant I was angry. I never not passionately excited. I was never enthusiastically happy. I hardly ever felt fear. I wasn’t so much positively confident as I was detached from outcomes.

I was a martial artist, so it was easy to mistake it for a sort of “Zen-thing.” That sounded good, but it really wasn’t true. I was just sort of detached.

Star Trek fans know who Spock is. That was my nickname. I was Spock, the emotionless Vulcan who spoke, chose, and lived by logic and logic alone. When I deviated, it was “fascinating.”

Looking back on all the foolish choices I made, I can certainly see that my logic was flawed beyond imagining – but that’s a story for another time. What was true is that I was cold and unfeeling – not in a “jerk” sort of way, but more of a “nothing really matters to me” sort of way. I was driven by a few basic drives, but it would be a mistake to say that I really FELT those drives.

Emotional Intelligence Appraisal Can Help You

Emotional Intelligence Appraisal: Tony Robbins to the Rescue

I met with the VP of Robbins Research about some ideas I had to share. I received a free seminar for my effort, and I followed that with a trip to Cancun for Tony Robbin’s Mastery University. That’s where I first learned Instant State Change. Specifically, I learned how to generate Passion.

As a martial artist, I had long studied emotions such as Anger and Fear. I had considered Confidence as a sense of power that a martial artist develops because, well, he HAS power. Where I learned otherwise was watching kids. They didn’t actually have any real power, but by MOVING like they did, they created a FEELING of power.

I remember one day China was in the news about some military maneuvers. Some of the kids had heard about it and were practicing to be ready to repel the Chinese military should they invade our country! Obviously their confidence in their power was not based in reality, but in the way they moved and the way they thought.

Emotional Intelligence Appraisal: The Children Shall Lead Me

Children experience emotion in it’s most pure state. By that, I mean that there are few internal variables at work in many kids. With adults, we have so much life (read: baggage) that sometimes you have no idea why someone feels something. Kids are much easier to read. The logic of their feelings is much easier to figure out.

I started to duplicate the wonder in their eyes, and I found myself filled with awe and wonder. I smiled and giggled for no reason, and I found myself getting happier. Even though I was much too high ranked to be teaching children (by common martial arts convention, master-level instructors do not normally teach young children), I enjoyed teaching them as I learned and developed my positive emotions by emulating the most passionately excited kids.

Then I brought it up to and adult level, and I found that I was suddenly a much nicer fellow. I was learning to love with power and passion. I was learning to FEEL confidence, to FEEL enthusiasm, to actually ENJOY life.

Sure… I kinda lost that “detached Zen-thing” I had going. Here’s the important discovery: I had been living life in black and white. Once I got the full range of emotions going for me, life had lit up to full color! My life had been flat and boring, and then it became immersive and exciting!

Emotional Intelligence Appraisal: Understanding Your Emotion

Emotional Intelligence Appraisal: Emotions of Change and Emotions of Duplication

As a martial arts instructor, I had been studying the Emotions of Change for years. In the early 90s, I started to understand Emotions of Duplication.

Now I experience a full range of emotions. I get passionate about all sorts of things. I know what the emotions MEAN, so I can sort of “let loose” here and there and just run with it!

Maybe this part is a guy thing, but I value self-control. I like to know that no matter what’s going on, I’ve still got some measure of control of myself. One of the early fears I had with really getting into emotions was having them take over my life. After all, a lot of emotional people I knew were dominated by their emotions!

That’s not what happened to me, and here’s why: I knew what the emotions meant. Because I could understand them, I could perceive the meaning whether or not I FELT anything, and then I could let the feeling show up or not based upon whether I WANTED to feel it. Or I could just take the message, act on it, and let the emotion be a background whisper.

I could unleash Excitement, turn loose Happiness, run wild with Love, radiate Confidence… all because I knew that I had the meaning and message clearly understood and under control. The “clinical” nature of The Language of Emotions let me REALLY experience the whole range of emotions!

Emotional Intelligence Appraisal  is pretty amazing. For anyone who is doing the “emotionless robot” thing or the “numb” thing, come learn what I learned and do what I do. Anyone doing the “bitter human being” thing or the neurotic, the depressive, the overwhelmed, the anxious, the timid, or any other thing where you live too much in a negative emotion, come break out of all that and find a life really worth living.

Emotional intelligence appraisal  is so worth it!

Emotional Intelligence Workshop: The Worst Case Of Depression The Doctor Had Ever Seen

AND THE PATIENT TRIUMPHS USING LANGUAGE OF EMOTIONS AND PURE POWER

(NOT MEDS!)

It was a Wednesday evening about ten years ago when I had the conversation.  It started with a short lesson on the Language of Emotions (a key foundation for Emotional Intelligence Workshop).  In the talk, I had mentioned Depression.

That got Dawn’s attention.

She had spent nearly her entire life feeling bad.  In fact, feeling bad was normal for her.  Her life was punctuated by happy moments here and there, but for the most part, “normal” was a nagging bad feeling.

In the days leading up to that talk, she had answered some questions to her physician that clued him in that she might have Clinical Depression.  He gave her an assessment.  She was the WORST case the doctor had EVER seen!

“How long have you felt this way?” he asked.

“My whole life,” she replied.

She had every single symptom for Depression save one: suicidal.  She was not suicidal because this was “normal” for her.  This is just what you lived with.  Other than that, she was more depressed than the doctor thought was possible!

Emotional Intelligence Workshop To Overcome Depression

He recommended she see a psychiatrist and consider medication.  She was nursing, and the doctor wanted her to see a specialist.  (At the time, little was known about the impact of many medications on the child of a nursing mother.)

On that Wednesday afternoon, she was on the phone trying to get medication.  Since she was nursing and was not suicidal, she was told that they would not give her anything.  She would have to stop nursing to get the meds she so desperately wanted.  She was not willing to stop nursing her child, so she hung up even more despondent that her depression would remain for several more months.

That was the night she first heard me teach on the Language of Emotions.

That was the night she got her first lesson as part of the emotional intelligence workshop.

Some people are not willing to try something new.  She was.  The first lesson was simple: Stand up straight.  Roll your shoulders back.  Look up more.  Smile for no reason.  Take deep breaths.

Two days later she was already feeling better than she had ever felt before.

So she kept learning.  She learned to catch her thoughts and practice healthier self-talk.

Rather than saying to herself “I don’t want my children to see a crying, depressed, scared mother all the time!” (think about the only pictures that conjures in your mind), she learned to say what she DID want.  “I want my children to see that mom is energetic, happy, and strong.”  That conjures better pictures, and that gives her brain something positive to aim for.

Step by step she stacked skill upon skill.  After a brief introduction to Language of Emotions and Instant State Change, she started to learn to deal with the underlying emotions.

Emotional Intelligence Workshop: Getting Rid Of Negative Emotions

Negative emotions are Emotions of Change.  Things needed to change.  Her previous years of therapy, ministry involvement and book reading had prepped to her to make more changes.  She realized there were a lot of things in the past to let go of.

She learned that nothing in her past was a problem by learning The Definition of a Problem: Something with a Solution.  Since there was no way to change the past, it was not a problem.  It was a fact of life.  That squared with what she had learned by noted authors Henry Cloud and John Townsend from their book The Mom Factor.  “You can’t be reparented.”

But how do you let those things go?  She learned that from Pure Power.  I taught her a Five Step Forgiveness Technique that is simple and direct enough that once you really know it, you can do it by yourself.

In fact, a couple of her MFT friends thought that it was impossible.  A client NEEDS professional guidance through that.  At least that’s what they thought.  Not Dawn.  She learned the Pure Power techniques that let her do it herself.

Step by step, piece by piece, she got rid of all the crap that was poisoning her life.  As she created her own freedom, she found happiness was easier and easier.  The guilt faded away.  The anxiety faded away.  The worst case of depression a doctor had ever seen gave way to a Empowered, Strong, Capable, Human Being.

Dawn went on to earn Black Belts in three martial arts (talk about empowerment!).  She returned to work and resumed her old career.  She raises her children using principles and ideals (rather than fear of what her inlaws would think like she used to).

You can see Dawn talking just a little about her experiences in video.  Learn the skills Dawn learned, and you can do what Dawn did.  Chances are you aren’t “the worst case the doctor ever saw.”  If Dawn can dig out from THAT pit to where she is today…. What can YOU do? You don’t have to wait until it gets this worst emotional intelligence workshop is something you can do.

Improve Emotional Intelligence  For a Better Life               

                                                                                       Why do we need to improve emotional intelligence? All trained people know that it is a slow, disease-inducing suicide to just stuff your emotions.  Take anger and bury it, and it will eat away at you.  Try to ignore fear, and you walk into all sorts of danger.  Try to ignore hopelessness, and depression slowly metastasizes in your heart.  Most of us know that it can cause ulcers, might trigger heart attacks or strokes, or could even make us more vulnerable to cancer.  Basically, it wreaks havoc with our mental and physical health.

An Effective Technique To Improve Emotional Intelligence

So a LOT of people have learned a very powerful, very effective technique: Instant State Change.  It’s known by a few names, including State Management, Emotional Control, and Emotional Mastery.  Here’s a short lesson on how it works:

You come at your emotional state from two directions: Body and Mind 

Improve emotional intelligence and do these simple exercise.  Stand up.  Lift your shoulders and roll them back so you can easily lift your chest for a deep, deep breath.  Look upward, put a silly grin on your face, and with enthusiasm, say “yes!” (if you’re reading this at work, you can skip the “yes!”).  Move and gesture like you’re happy and excited about something!  That’s the Body side.

Improve emotional intelligence for your mind:  Think of something that makes you happy or excited.  Maybe it was a vacation.  Maybe it was something … well, let’s just say “private.”  Maybe it was winning a game.  Maybe it was a sense of accomplishment.  What would you be saying to yourself if you were excited, happy, and confident?

Sure, there’s more to it than that.  If you just do that part, you will find that you’re 80 or 90% from whatever you were feeling before to feel pretty good!

Hundreds of thousands of people have been taught that technique.  It’s powerful.  It works!  And it can destroy your Life, your Family and your Career.

How?

Because it turns off a warning light in your life.  There is a system built into every single one of us to announce: Something MUST Change!

Instant State Change hides the announcement.  Learning the technique is learning to put the light on hold, like covering it up with electrical tape.  That can be a very useful and extremely important skill!  When someone gets good at Instant State Change, it can be like ripping the light out and throwing it away!  Then you have no idea when the message is being delivered because you’ve practiced ignoring it!

Improve Emotional Intelligence: How It Can Affect Your Life And Business

Think about it for a moment.  Suppose there was a problem in your business, and only you could fix it.  Someone sends you a notice and you toss it in the trash.  Then they leave you a voice mail, and you delete it.  You delete the email and text, too.  When they call you, you hang up on them.  All the time they’ve been trying to let you now that there is some little problem that is growing.  You ignore them when it’s a medium sized problem.  Then it becomes a big problem and totally blindsides you!

What are you SUPPOSED to do?

Take the note and set it aside to deal with it at an appropriate time.  Save the voice mail.  Keep the email.  Have the conversation when you have a suitable opportunity to deal with the problem.  Get to the problem while it’s still small.  Solve it while it’s easy.

Big problems are often the result of little problems that were not handled while they were still little problems!

Instant State Change is an important skill.  I teach it.  I practice it.  When I teach it, I announce again and again: DANGER!

You need to go back to the natural emotions and take a look.  You NEED to take a look at the “Something MUST Change” messages and see what needs to change.  Then you need to make those changes.

Learn Instant State Change in Language of Emotions 101a.  It’s there, AND I explain how you can learn exactly what to do so it ALWAYS helps you!  It will teach you the precise techniques so you do not end up another casualty of a magnificently executed, amazing skill that can get you blindsided by big problems.

If you already know Instant State Change, learn how to keep it from doing damage.  If you’re lucky, nothing bad has happened, yet.  (At least none that you know of – it would be a good idea to take a close look!)

Improve Emotional Intelligence to genius levels!  THIS is one of those critical distinctions that separates those with high emotional intelligence from true genius.  Be the genius!