Tag Archives: Application of Emotional Intelligence
Application of Emotional Intelligence
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!