How to: HUMAN is a free weekly newsletter. If you’d like to create reciprocity for my work and support me I invite you to become a paid subscriber. This is a reader-supported offering and I’m so grateful for your presence here.
I put out a weekly newsletter to my coworkers and I’ve been encouraged to share it with the world. Please feel free to share parts of this newsletter that connect with you on social media or send to someone you love.
A true Star Lord faster, Quill became,
Yoda a powerful Jedi master.
Naruto a Hokage topnotch he is,
Jon snow, Lord Commander of the night's watch.
A secret superpower, that is
Use it wisely, hrrm.
There are moments when you feel like an alien on Earth, speaking a language only you can understand. It be like that sometimes. If you thought it was just you, know it happens to the best of us. Lucky for us, though, there’s a cure - emotional intelligence, that is.
"Emotional Intelligence?" I understand what you're thinking. "Doesn't that sound like something your boss would make you learn?" Trust me when I say this is the real thing. When you master it, it's like a life cheat code—a Jedi mind trick that will have you slaying challenges left and right.
EQ is defined as the quality that enables us to confront with patience, insight and imagination many challenges we face in our relationship with ourselves and others.
Alain de Botton
To eat this nutritious gourmet food you will need both a knife (the thinking brain) and a fork (the feeling brain). And, yes, life will feel less soupy after that. Or perhaps it will still feel soupy, but you will evolve into a fine spoon.
First, let me give you some background information. Then, I will present the levels you need to pass to master the EQ game and some skills you'll learn along the way.
BTW, if you're already bored reading, I gotcha; Alain de Botton from School of Life explains it pretty well HERE. You're welcome!
The idea that the purpose of our lives was to be happy would have seemed absurd for most of history. Pain and dissatisfaction were the norm in the Christian stories that dominated the Western imagination. Remember Adam and Eve and how we're supposed to pay for their sins every day? Life was essentially a story of suffering for Buddhists, too.
Then, gradually, at the dawn of the modern era, a fascinating new concept emerged: personal fulfilment - the idea that happiness can be found both at work and in relationships. We are gradually realising that we are responsible for our own happiness.
Our societies place a high value on education, but they are also unusually demanding in terms of what we can learn. We recognise the importance of education in numbers and words, natural sciences, and history, as well as cultural and business issues. But it's strange to think that we might need to learn—rather than just know—how to avoid sulking, how to interpret our griefs, how to choose a partner, or how to make oneself understood by a colleague. #weirdflexbutokay
Daniel Goleman, one of the coiners of the term EQ, discovered there are 12 competencies that cover 4 distinct areas of ability:
1. Self-awareness (recognising, naming, and understanding our own emotions)
Know your story and how it affects you.
Make peace with your past.
Know your beliefs, emotions, and behaviour patterns.
Know your relationship patterns.
Ask yourself: What is it that I am feeling now? I feel...
2. Self-management (emotional regulation, achievement orientation, positive outlook, and adaptability)
Develop skills for stress management.
Learn positive, self-affirming beliefs.
Develop self-shooting and self-motivation skills.
Maintain good physical health.
Ask yourself: Is expressing my impulse (emotion) appropriate for the situation I'm in? Is expressing my impulse (emotion) going to help me fulfil my goal?
3. Social awareness (empathy and organisational awareness)
Understand nonverbal communication and recognise emotions in others.
Develop a positive view of others and stop expecting the worst.
Understand basic emotional needs.
Understanding personal integrity vs. playing 'games'
Challenge the feeling. Don't believe everything you think.
Ask yourself: What might the person in front of me feel right now? How do I interpret the situation I'm in?
4. Relationship management (applying emotional understanding to influence, coach, and mentor others in conflict management, inspirational leadership, and teamwork)
Develop skills for reflective listening and empathy.
Develop skills for assertive communication.
Learn conflict resolution skills.
Learn skills for the support and affirmation of others.
Ask yourself: How can I be of service in this situation? How can I pour from my overflowing cup?
But why does any of this matter? Wouldn't it be better if our emotions were removed and we became emotionless, logical beings? As tempting as it may be, the answer is a big, fat no. Brené Brown, the First of Her Name and Mother of Emotions, said in one of her TED Talks that we cannot feel selectively. If we want to remove fear, we need to remove courage as well.
Emotions are important to us because they provide us with benefits, but we must balance the fork, or "feeling brain," and the knife, or "thinking brain'. Yes, we have two brains, as if one wasn't enough. The guys from Mind Architect explain it wonderfully in their podcast - look for episodes 1 & 2.
To put it briefly, the thinking brain, where we develop our rational thoughts, and the feeling brain, where we develop our emotions, are linked by strong neural pathways. If the link is broken, this process is no longer possible, and emotional regulation becomes extremely difficult, if not impossible.
If you wanna talk about the content of the newsletter, I'm down anytime; just hit me up. Look, I know it's TL;DR, so if you made it this far, you're a legend. Be like Snoop and thank yourself; you deserve it! Keep following the newsletters to learn more about handling emotions and why it's important to build strong connections at work and beyond—connections as tight as your favourite pair of skinny jeans. Peace out!