Tag Archives: Emotional intelligence test
EQ TEST – HIS CONTROLLED FURY COULD HURT HIMSELF
When Failing the EQ Test Can Cost Everything
We all have had days when it just seemed things piled up against us. Rule after rule is broken. Things threaten our families survival, our business, even us. We’re left on the ragged edge and we just try to hang on. Even the best of us can contemplate that if we were dead, at least all this would end. It’s not really thinking about committing suicide, but we’re not too far from it.
That happened to Stan. He had just missed a big payday. He had done all the work he was contracted to do. He even did a good job at it. At the end of the second biggest project in the past two years, he was faced with a staggering revelation: his client had no money! There is a dispute of facts whether the client just ended up broke because of others, or if he was broke the whole time and running a scam – but it didn’t really matter. What did matter is that a whole quarter of income was suddenly not there.
That put his business in jeopardy. The impact rippled through other projects that payment on that contract was supposed to cover. That cost his family his home since he could not lose three months pay and cover rent. They had to move suddenly. Their new home would be an apartment barely big enough for all of them.
Things with his wife hadn’t been really good for a while. They were not in any immediate danger of divorce, but it had been nearly two years since he would have classified his marriage as “working.” One of his kids was going through a rebellious stage that was getting old, and two others were struggling academically.
As we can all easily imagine, the man was reeling.
LESSON ONE: GET IN SYNCH
When you deal with someone in an intense emotional state, the last thing Language of Emotions says we should do is argue with them about how they feel. Unfortunately, that’s what someone did.
Earnestly trying to help, a friend tried to assure him that there has to be an answer. He agreed.
Then the friend pressed further. The answer was probably something really easy.
The man reacted. Anger flared up. He bluntly said “If I’ve missed an easy answer for two years, I’d be seriously pissed off.”
As we found out, this man was educated, intelligent, read a lot, listened to books, attended seminars, and he had coaches and mentors. In the moment, all that information was lost, but in retrospect we can see why he would be so upset is something obvious and easy had been overlooked.
If I read two dozen books, attended uncounted seminars, had dozens of coaching sessions – and if in all of that something easy and obvious was overlooked – yeah, I’d be upset, too.
Rather than debate the man about his own life, it would have been better to empathize. When you empathize, you get in their corner. You may not agree with how they got there, but you get in there with them. You try to understand them for the sake of understanding them.
When you have high Emotional Intelligence, a natural genius, you’ll do it intuitively. The rest of us need some training to get this right! And even when we know, sometimes we need a reminder (at least until we’ve had enough practice to make it a habit!).
LESSON TWO: VALIDATE
Rather than drop the line that was obviously making the situation worse, he continued. He told a story of when he was struggling with his internet connection, and after hours of working on it, it ended up that a cable wasn’t plugged in all the way.
The man in turmoil reacted even more strongly. After two years of struggle, after countless hours of coaching calls, seminars, special training, and more, this guy was actually treating his problems as though it was as simple a thing as an unplugged cable? The reaction was extreme.
The mistake here was invalidating the man’s feelings. So not only was there a lack of empathy and argument, but then the whole of this man’s life disaster was declared equivalent to forgetting to plug a cable into a data port.
The man felt that clearly this guy had zero clue about the situation he has just spent the better part of an hour explaining. He felt that this guy was totally invalidating the magnitude of the problem, how hard he and many others had worked on it for years, and how large and complex the situation had got.
The man’s vocabulary turned violent. We presume he was using hyperbole to express the magnitude of his anger, but even so, once words get there, it’s time to make sure you’re not pressing any harder!
LESSON THREE: GUIDE OUT WITH QUESTIONS
As it worked out, this is about when I stepped in to the situation. Had I not been near, it is hard to imagine how bad it could have gotten. So far, things were still being spoken in relatively controlled tones. I could easily see that with this man being triggered so badly, it could escalate into something bad at any moment.
With some empathy, validation, and some key questions, the man was brought down quickly. His problems were not solved, but at least the immediate emotion was handled. He was calm enough to start thinking about his problems more objectively.
I know what just some of them are, and yes, he’s got a complicated mess. It’s going to take a step by step approach to fix things in chunks. There are some elements are in crisis, and other longer term issues. I certainly don’t blame him for being angry that someone would minimize the difficulty he and his family were facing.
EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE COACHING
After things were handled, I did get to spend a little time coaching the guy who was making things worse. I’d worked with him in the past, so he listened intently and quickly realized how he had fueled the fire rather than help the man get through to the other side.
In this case, there was a real-world, real-time, on-the-spot Emotional Intelligence Test, and the guy was failing. The result, had things kept getting worse, might have resulted in someone getting hurt. This is just one of many reasons it is so important to develop a high EQ!
Language of Emotions 101a and 101b establish a genius-level foundation for exceptional Emotional Intelligence.
Emotional IQ Test: GAME OVER: YOU LOSE – The Band Breaks Up
Emotional IQ Test - A Story of a Real World Emotional IQ Test Failed
This one is a story of a coaching client that failed. I know coaches aren’t supposed to talk about their failures, but here I am, and here it goes. There was a local band with hot prospects that asked for me to come alongside as a coach and mentor for the band. I had met with them a couple of times when they were just starting out to encourage them in their original music endeavor. As they reached a small measure of success, they recognized the need for something on a regular schedule – so I became mentor to the band. Things were going fairly well for a while. I coached them on some key skills to develop, helped them communicate more effectively, and I chaired a couple of hard meetings and helped them work through some difficult issues. They had come to the attention of a big-name band. They were being considered as an opener. The leader of the band was developing a personal relationship with the famous, successful band, and everything appeared poised for a whole new level of success.
Emotional IQ Test - FRICTION
Emotions are a funny thing. They are there to help us and protect us. Sometimes they help us do the wrong thing, and they “protect us” from the very thing we want. I admit that I didn’t adequately coach the band of Emotional Intelligence. In retrospect, what I should have done was insist that getting and listening to some of my programs was a prerequisite to me working with them. If they had listened to my programs, it would have allowed me to work with them much more effectively. I did teach them a critical lesson: Friction. To start up as a brand new band, they all had to be willing to start at the ground floor. To work on their first CD release, they had to invest of themselves with no promise of reward. When they first started getting gigs, they had to be willing to perform for free just to get out there. It takes a certainly willingness to stay at a “we haven’t gotten anywhere” level to do all that. Now with great success possible, I warned them about friction. Their emotions had adapted to being starving musicians. That was comfortable for them. They could face that day in and day out and work from there. Success would be uncomfortable at first.
Emotional IQ Test - DISCOMFORT
The emotion of Discomfort means you’re facing something with a risk of harm of some kind. When they were on the bottom clawing their way up, there really wasn’t anything to lose. It was all an upward climb and there was no place to fall to. With the prospect of sudden fame meandering near, suddenly there WAS something to lose. That was a whole different thing than they were used to. The Self-Protection Reaction to Discomfort is “create space.” That means you reflexively try to put some distance between you and the thing you’re afraid might result in harm. I this case, they should be prepared for their emotions to undermine what they were trying to do – and make their choices accordingly. Now maybe if they had listened to my Emotional Genius Program and I was more of full time consultant, I might have been able to help them more. As it was, they ran off and did things without talking to me. I got wind of it after the fact. Some of the band members suddenly started taking longer to get their part of the music done. That was one manifestation of the emotional drive to “create space” from the fear of falling if they got to the top. The leader of the band got impatient, so he gathered some other musicians to put some music together, which was another manifestation – since his bandmates would not like it. They would feel like he was replacing them to go for big success without them.
Emotional IQ Test - BROKEN BAND: GAME OVER
Well, as you can imagine, things erupted. With layer upon layer of poor Emotional Intelligence, they failed the real-life test given to them. By the time I was called, people were Angry, Hurt, and Frustrated. Apologies were made, but some of the words exchanged were very serious. People were furious, others were in tears. I did what I could, but it was too late. They had done very, very serious damage to their relationships. By the time we had the meeting they asked me to help with, they had all been fuming for a while. Spouses and friends had gotten involved in the “army building” the fueled sides and resulted in some digging in. There can be extra volatility with groups of artists, and there certainly was here. I had taught them the basics of what they needed to know, but I should have had them listen to Language of Emotions and Pure Power before we got that far. It was more than I was contracted to do, but in retrospect, I should have worked to persuade them to do that. I didn’t sell them on more than they asked for, and as a result I failed to give them what they needed. I talk about the importance of already having the Emotional Intelligence you need before you actually need it. This was one of those cases when they needed more than I had taught them. Actually, they would have done well just to heed my warning about Friction. They didn’t. Had life thrown this problem at them a few months later I would have had them ready – but life is like that: Life is full of pop quizzes. We never know when life will throw a pop quiz at us, but when it does, we want to be ready! Some of the members of that band are launching another project. For their new band, they have new wisdom, new skill, and at least one of them is consulting with me early and often. This time, if such a huge opportunity comes along, this time the band will be ready!
Real World Emotional Intelligence Testing
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!