Emotional Intelligence
The Big Questions:
How can you influence anybody at anytime?
Why Emotional Intelligence?
First, what is Emotional Intelligence?
A common definition goes something like this: The capacity for recognising our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves and for managing emotions effectively in others and ourselves.
People with high levels of emotional intelligence are generally more successful than those with moderate levels.
Technical ability is not sufficient to motivate, influence and persuade.
Success increasingly depends upon how well you can unlock the potential of people by engaging with them emotionally.
For example, sales people with highly developed emotional intelligence skills are almost certain to produce far greater results than people without these skills.
Communication without emotion will rarely win the day.
Communication skills matter. Emotional Intelligence matters. Influence and persuasion skills combined with emotional intelligence gets real-world results.
Emotional signals is data that cannot be ignored if you want to use persuasion techniques that work.
Influencing people requires effective communication skills and communication strategies.
One of the best ways to influence people is through an emotional connection.
This series of videos attempts to demonstrate how to influence people using emotional intelligence.
It covers practical, in-depth skills that can be used on a daily basis.
It provides the viewer with an action plan and approach to succeed in any area of their life where communication skills are important.
The ability to communicate in a normal, articulate way may not be enough to give you the winning edge in today’s competitive business world.
Having the ability to communicate in a different way through emotional intelligence, however, is critical.
Emotional Intelligence is the capacity for recognising our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves and for managing emotions effectively in others and ourselves.
The key to success and prosperity in all areas of life is adaptability.
It is created through communication skills based on persuasion and influence.
To be a truly effective communicator requires using influential skills complemented by emotional intelligence know-how.
The ability to read people through their emotions develops trust and trust is the cornerstone and underpins success.
To communicate effectively requires using words to redirect a person’s attention and change their perceptions.
It is vital to have persuasive power at your fingertips. Emotions play a significant role in this.
Here we look at your personal inventory of emotions. We will also look at listening skills, a skill that is often ignored yet extremely important.
Covered is a range of emotions including pride, anger, greed, fear, grief and apathy.
A communication strategy that includes the ability to shift your emotional state will produce behavioural influence and provide you with the influential skills to generate better results.
The best ways to influence people is through an emotional connection.
This series of videos attempts to demonstrate how to influence and persuade people using emotional intelligence.
It covers practical, in-depth skills that can be used on a daily basis. It provides the viewer with an action plan and approach to succeed in any area of their life where communication skills are important.
The ability to communicate effectively is so important if you want to achieve consistent, winning results.
However, to achieve extraordinary results requires something more.
The ability to tap into emotional intelligence as part of your communication skills is the difference between competence and excellence.
The ability to identify your own emotional state and the state of others is vital. If you are weak in this area, it is likely that you will ignore your own emotions and be prone to acting on incorrect information.
If you have strengths in this area you will be alert to your own feelings and have awareness around what other people are feeling.
You will be able to correctly identify what they are feeling.
This will provide you with an enormous advantage when you are communicating with them.
Emotions are important signals and the ability to read these signals, together with skills in persuasion and influence, can transform your results.
Communication is not about being logical! Influencing others requires communication strategies based on emotional intelligence to fully succeed.
Learning persuasion techniques is an important part of effective communication.
Coaching people in this area will produce an enormous payoff.
In part, communication is the ability to use logic and emotion together to produce clear and concise information based on feelings.
Emotional intelligence makes the difference and provides communication skills that ultimately leads to brilliant results.
Identifying Emotions
If you are weak in this area you are most likely to ignore other people’s emotions
Have difficulty recognising faked emotions.
If you are strong in this area you are most likely to have good information about a situation.
Emotion Facilitates Thought
Weak: Most likely to have flat moods.
Struggle to feel what other people feel.
Have hindered creativity.
Strong: Most likely to:
Generate moods appropriate to a situation.
Be creative and have empathy.
Be able to influence others.
Work well in a team.
Communication is much more than just settling for airing your own point of view.
Your communication skills will be advanced when you decide to become skilful at reading the emotions of the person you are communicating with.
There are so many non-verbal signals to read and understand.
Facial expressions, posture, gestures, tone of voice, and so on are all relevant.
Expertise in reading body language goes a long way towards producing and delivering superior results.
Ignoring someone else’s emotions is a sure-fire way to lose the opportunity to persuade and influence somebody.
Influencing a person requires paying attention to feelings, both your own and those of other people.
When you begin to focus on your own emotions, you will find yourself reciprocating this action towards those people you are in communication with.
This will immediately enhance your communication skills and act as the cornerstone of your communications strategy.
Developing effective communication skills lies at the heart of emotional intelligence.
It is important to realise that your body language is always being noted by other people, at least unconsciously.
There is also the way you use your voice to consider.
The words, tone, pitch, rhythm, volume and timbre are all important to generate effective communication.
Matching and mirroring these qualities will enhance your rapport and gain the trust of others.
The ability to identify, use, understand and manage emotions is an essential part of all forms of communication.
If you want to possess behavioral flexibility that produces results it is important to improve your communication skills and include the ability to influence others.
So, how to influence is a key question. Influencing others requires the skill to shift your mood as and when it is required.
This will set you apart from other people.
Understanding your own emotional state, your own mood is required.
How your feelings are influencing your thoughts is also needed.
Having the ability to use these communication skills will help you to get your outcome.
In fact, influencing people requires highly effective communication skills. Perhaps the best ways to influence people is through an emotional connection.
Well-developed emotional intelligence leads directly to influence and persuasion.
This ability should form part of your communication strategy.
This will allow you to demonstrate natural empathy.
The influence to get a person to accept your communication requires something more than simple logic.
Persuasion techniques should form an essential part of your communication skills and communication strategy.
Assessing how you are feeling and knowing how an emotion may change is useful.
Also understanding why you are feeling this way and the likely cause of your feelings is necessary.
Emotions are tricky things!
Applying emotional intelligence to your communication skills will ensure you produce effective communication when it matters.
Let’s now focus on a small number of positive, actually magnetic, emotions.
Of course, there are literally dozens of positive and useful emotions.
I like optimism, confidence, resilience, inspiration and so on.
You may have your own favourites.
Here we will focus on just three, a special three that accurately meet our needs when we want to achieve a goal.
We could have chosen others, but these will do rather nicely.
No more crossed fingers!
So step this way for instant success! (point to right)
Here you step up to Courage, the first of the transformative emotions.
Once there, you’ve crossed a threshold.
With courage success is on the way!
When you feel courageous you know things might be tricky, but you still move forward.
You’re not going to be stopped.
Not by anybody.
It’s smart to also have the wisdom to exercise courage to recognize when perseverance with something should be abandoned.
One step up from being Courageous is Acceptance.
You say: I Accept myself exactly as I am.
Whether I succeed or not, I am perfectly fine.
I simply Accept the things I cannot change.
And go for those things that I know I can.
The ultimate state is a sense of Peace, inner Peace – a sense of wholeness.
When you have Peace in your mind and heart you don’t need anything because you already have just about everything.
You have thrown the switch.
Being at Peace makes you enormously creative and inspirational.
Stated simply: When you have moved beyond need, you become unstoppable.
So, to move up the scale of emotions all you need to do is:
Let go of your current level of thinking about your goal.
Let go of your reasons or excuses for not getting the goal.
Recognise and realise that getting the goal is the NOT the only way to change your life for the better.
Hey, and stop striving for perfection!
And realize you are perfect just the way you are.
Accept yourself just the way you are.
Knowing you’re going to be fine whether you achieve your goal or not is refreshing.
A strong self-belief forged through a robust self-concept paves the way.
And what happens when you do this?
You will always find a way.
You will intuitively know what to do.
You will feel inspired.
You will succeed.
After all, you’re on top!
So, take the time to look where you currently are and start the climb!
Next: How to alter a state easily in the blink of an eye.
Once you have a strategy for shifting your emotional state you can quickly and easily assume any emotional state effortlessly and easily.
Better results, even exponential results will swiftly follow.
These emotions are internally assumed and externally projected on a daily basis will transform your results.
Recently we discussed a scale of negative emotions running from Apathy –“What’s the point?” to Pride “Look at all my toys!” and the higher up the scale you go the more success you will enjoy.
However, with negative emotions there is a danger of slipping back down the scale.
Now we accept that emotions contain valuable information and they influence the way we think. In fact, your thinking largely determines how you are feeling.
How you feel is observed in your body language, your physiology.
How you think, feel and hold yourself produces your behavior.
Your behavior creates your results.
Emotions should be incorporated into your reasoning, problem solving, decision making, judgment calls and behavior to get the best results.
Staying open to your emotional state and the state of others will allow you to produce flexible behavior.
This will give you a clear advantage when you are dealing with other people.
To assist in doing this it helps to have a strong appreciation of emotional intelligence.
The ability to influence and persuade is enhanced when you combine emotional intelligence as part of your communication skills.
Emotional intelligence should form an essential part of your communication strategy.
This includes using empathy to form trust and rapport.
It needs to be understood that the influence to get a person to accept your communication requires emotion and logic.
So, persuasion techniques should be part of your communication skills and communication strategy.
Assessing how you are feeling and knowing how an emotion may change is incredibly powerful.
Adding emotional intelligence to your communication skills will ensure you produce effective communication, particularly when it matters.
So, what is communication? Well, it is the ability to use logic and emotion together to produce clear and concise information based on feelings.
Emotional intelligence is the key difference because it provides communication skills that gets results.
Emotional intelligence will help with judgment calls, reasoning, decision making, and behavior to get the best results.
We have talked about some simple methods you can use to alter your state.
Clearly, having the skill to match, mirror and lead people during an important conversation is vital.
After all, we want results, terrific results.
Prior to an appointment you can ask yourself 3 simple questions to set the scene and get yourself into the right frame of mind.
One: How are you feeling right now?
Two: How do you want to feel?
Three: What strategies do you have to feel that way?
But first, let’s recap on what practical and useful EIQ really is.
EIQ is the ability to problem solve with emotional information.
So, your EIQ is the ability you have to solve problems using your emotions.
It’s not about being nice all the time!
It’s about dealing with emotions on a day-to-day basis.
By the way, not using emotions is like shooting yourself in the foot!
How you use your EIQ will depend upon your values.
However, if you do not have core EIQ skills you will struggle to live out your values.
Take a moment to think about the last time you were emotional.
Were you also intelligent?
Well how do we become good at regulating our emotions?
With practice!
Back to Question One:
How are you feeling right now?
Just write down a few words to describe how you are feeling right now.
The words used will point to your thinking style in the present moment.
“Happy” words will probably mean you have lots of ideas, that you are motivated, receptive and can see the bigger picture.
Less happy words may mean you are relatively critical, distracted, and focused on details.
A mistake is to believe you need to be “happy” all the time. Not so.
A more neutral to negative state makes you more forensic and facilitates detail.
A doctor in a super happy mood might, for example, misdiagnose a condition.
Asking yourself how you are feeling right now will lead to wondering how the people you are dealing with are also feeling.
This recognition of your own and the state of others is the starting point and will provide you with information you can use in any situation to get better results.
And it leads to: Question Two:
How do you want to feel?
Is your state appropriate way for what you want to do?
Your mood impacts your thinking in 3 ways:
One: In your memories by a form of congruent bias
Two: In your thinking and decision making
Three: In gaining new perspectives
So, your memories get overlapped with your imagination.
Sherlock Holmes played his violin when solving a deep problem.
Question Three – the BIGGEST Question:
What is the most effective mood for a given task and context?
Then retrieve a memory from your vast database of personal experiences and step into it fully and completely.
Really embrace it.
Practice doing this until it is second nature.
Breathe the way you would do for this state.
Stand the way you would do for this state.
Fully engage neurologically and physiologically.
Then in a given situation track the other person’s subtle mood swings.
Begin to appreciate how emotions change and become really attuned to these changes.
Then use your strategies and flexibility you now have to alter your own state where appropriate.
Here we will focus more on the second key question: ”How do you want to feel?”
Now EIQ is the ability to solve problems with emotional information.
So, your EIQ is the ability you have to solve your problems using your own emotional skills.
It’s not about being nice all the time!
It’s about dealing with emotions on a day-to-day basis.
So, Question Two: “How do you want to feel?”
Adopting the appropriate state for a specific context is essential.
You must get this right.
This should become second nature to you because you may need to alter your state several times during a conversation.
Ask yourself: “What is the most effective mood for this task and in this particular context?
You will need to know whether your current state is appropriate for what you want to project.
Your mood impacts your thinking in 3 distinct ways:
One: In your memories by a form of congruent bias – we think and like to do what is familiar.
Two: In your thinking and decision making.
Three: In gaining new perspectives.
In fact, your memories can get overlapped with your emotional state, which itself may be fuelled at any moment by your imagination.
So, you need to take a moment and think about the state you want to embrace.
And then you can begin the process of getting into that state.
For example, Sherlock Holmes played his violin when he wanted to solve a deep problem.
Once you settle on the right state, you can go ahead and retrieve a memory from your vast database of personal experiences and step back into it fully and completely.
Anchoring can help you to do this.
Really step into the state.
Practice doing this until it becomes an unconscious skill.
Breathe the way you would do for this state.
Stand the way you would do for this state.
Fully engage neurologically and physiologically.
Then in a given situation track the other person’s subtle mood swings.
Begin to appreciate how emotions can change and become really attuned to these changes.
Then allow your flexibility and learning to constantly adjust your state.
We know emotional intelligence is about the effective use of emotions.
Charles Darwin spoke about this in the 1800’s a long time ago, so it has been around for a considerable amount of time.
Incorporating emotions and emotional information into your decision-making, problem solving and thinking, and being highly competent at shifting your mood will allow you to capitalise on any situation when you are engaged in a discussion that offers possibilities.
This approach should become an essential part of the way you communicate and be developed to form your overall communication skills.
We’ve talked about shifting your state using some simple yet highly effective communication strategies, such as recalling a positive memory and stepping into a specific state, altering your physiology, vigorous movement, breathing deeply, relaxing your face and neck, and expanding your range of vision.
Other methods include listening to music and paying attention to someone else.
The secret is to stay open to emotion.
Ask yourself: “How often do I think about my emotions?”
Paying attention to your own feelings is instrumental in observing how others are feeling and having the flexibility to alter your own state. Why not take some time and determine which emotions give you the most discomfort and then work on these emotions
Actively look for every opportunity to practice your skills.
Being mindful will begin to alter how you emotionally behave in any situation where you want to influence and persuade. Influencing through using emotions is the secret.
In general, a useful starting point for improving your ability to read emotions accurately is to observe other people.
Pay attention to their facial expressions, gestures, and body language.
Also focus on the tone of voice to determine whether it matches a person’s facial expressions and body language.
In today’s world one of the most endemic emotions is anxiety.
Many people are unaware that they in fact are quite anxious each and every day.
Anxiety is just a normal everyday condition for many people.
However, overtime it can take a heavy toll on anyone’s health.
Here’s how to find out if this emotion is affecting you.
Emotional intelligence is primarily about how effectively you behave from an emotional perspective.
In short, how you recognise, use, understand and manage your emotions.
Many people believe emotions have little or nothing to do with decision making.
They believe decisions are taken after clinical, logical thought.
Nice work if you can get it, but it isn’t true.
Virtually every important decision will contain a corresponding level of emotion.
It is unavoidable.
After all, you are not a robot.
Given that it is not possible to make a key decision without engaging your emotions it becomes imperative to have a number of emotional intelligence skills at your disposal so you can act and respond in a more appropriate way appropriate to, and often irrespective of the situation.
A person who is skilled with emotional intelligence is rarely derailed.
They have the ability to incorporate emotions and emotional information into their decision-making, problem solving, and thinking.
They are highly competent at shifting their mood and can capitalise on any situation when they are engaged in a discussion that offers possibilities.
So, there is an enormous payoff in having these skills.
As said, anxiety is common.
It’s all around us.
Some people have a tendency to block out their worries and threats.
They simply refuse to think about them.
Is this a good idea?
Well, the problem with this approach is that you can end up blocking too many emotions, and when something happens where you need to be involved you may not recognise it, nor even recognise the danger signals.
Threats are blocked out and they can get caught out because of this.
They lack the ability to anticipate any perceived threat.
If a person is over anxiety they can end up being overwhelmed and paralysed.
The dangers too easily get exaggerated.
They find themselves worrying about all kinds of possible scenarios without the energy to properly deal with any of them.
So, here’s the moment of truth, a few questions you can ask yourself to determine where you score with this particular emotion.
Please answer Yes or NO only to each of these questions.
I often feel nervous.
I worry about many things.
I don’t worry about things.
I tend to be tense and anxious.
Generally, I feel calm and at ease.
I often have a lot on my mind.
If you score 3 or less, you may well block out emotions.
If you score 4 or higher, you may be focusing far too much on perceived threats.
What should you do?
Decide never to be the same again!
Acknowledging the facts is the first step towards altering your reactions and the way you respond to everyday situations.
Ask yourself: “How often do I think about my emotions?”
Paying attention to your own feelings is instrumental in observing how others are feeling and gives you the flexibility to alter your own state.
Why not take some time and determine which emotions give you the most discomfort and then work on these emotions
And actively look for every opportunity to practice your skills.
The aim is for you to decide to learn how to harness the power of your emotions.
Then apply these skills to get brilliant results.
One area that can vastly improve your communication skills and lead to persuasive influence is the ability to tap into a small number of emotional intelligence techniques.
Why is this important?
We need to use the qualities of inventiveness, empathy, intuition and meaning to get winning professional outcomes.
This is a combination of left brain and, more importantly, right brain thinking.
In fact, emotions are generally overlooked, particularly in business, with most people relying on their IQ or logical mindet to deliver their results.
However, your IQ is only one part of your brain power and may account for just 25% of your overall intelligence.
In truth, emotions play an integral role in the decision making process.
You cannot make an important decision without making an emotional investment.
You may not be aware of this, but it still happens.
If you read the signals people display and get in the right mood, you will be able to predict an outcome much more accurately.
Emotional intelligence plays a crucial role when it comes to managing relationship with other people and it is here where a handful of relatively straightforward techniques can quickly and easily allow you to influence others much more advantageously.
By using, understanding and engaging more emotionally – naturally done tactfully with discretion – you can make an extraordinary impression on other people.
And this leads to real world outcomes.
So, what are the key areas where we should focus some attention?
Whenever we decide to do something worthwhile we tend to make some sort of plan even if it is just a collection of random thoughts.
We can use the acronym PLAN to steer the way, where:
P – refers to your Personal inventory of emotions.
How extensive is your use of emotions?
Are you competent at reading these often subtle signals and clues?
Are you actively looking for them?
L – how skillful are you at Listening?
Do you really listen or do you find yourself silently waiting for the next chance to speak?
A – your ability to Access and Assess the many verbal and non-verbal messages that are constantly on show.
Are you usually in your own head or adept at understanding what is going on in somebody else’s?
N – Noticing everything that is going on.
Calibrating carefully and then adjusting your approach accordingly.
This will give you incredible flexibility.
You will also be able to network in a more refined way.
The key is to get outside of your own head and personal experience and into what is happening inside the neurology of the person you are communicating with.
You will then be in deep rapport and before long you will enjoy watching your results soar!
Each of these areas are an essential part of your persuasive skillset.
Would it surprise you if I suggested that I find many people, particularly men, tend to get confused about emotional intelligence?
They seem to be unsure of exactly what it is, how much they have of it, hopefully some, and whether it is at all useful.
Well, here’s a handful of indicators that can help you to identify your own specific affinity with emotional intelligence, with the aim of providing you with an insight of how precious a skill it actually represents.
It may be even more surprising to hear that emotional intelligence is now considered to be such an essential skill that if you don’t possess an awareness of its importance and use it in your everyday interactions it is likely to hamper your ability to succeed.
Why so?
Well, emotional intelligence is how accomplished you are at recognizing, using, understanding and managing your emotions.
It includes the ability you have to make decisions, especially when dealing with complex matters.
So, how would you know if you were communicating with somebody who had a high degree of emotional intelligence?
- You possess an appetite for curiosity
Emotionally intelligent people consistently have a curiosity of everything around them.
This is a crucial quality because it lends itself to wanting to gain an understanding in what makes someone tick.
Given this desire it points to possessing empathy which is an important attribute of emotional intelligence.
- You play to your strengths
It is always amazes me why it that so many of us insist on stating that “he or she pushes my buttons!”
Emotionally intelligent people seem to be far more aware of this incongruous sentiment and they tend to have removed the buttons!
This provides them with an enormous advantage since they are more at ease with themselves and others with the consequence that they generally remain composed irrespective of the difficulty in a situation.
- Perfection is regarded as an irrelevant pursuit
What’s the point in pursuing something that simply doesn’t exist!
Unfortunately, so many people won’t start something if they feel they cannot produce something of perfection, or they never finish something unless they believe it is perfect.
Of course, the result is they rarely get what they would love to have.
- Negative internal dialogue is avoided
A further surprising characteristic of many people is the vast amount of negative thinking they engage in habitually.
Self-talk is a catalyst for behavior and can be self-destructive since the limbic system is stimulated.
Unfortunately, self-talk is a catalyst for behavior.
What you tell yourself leads to how you feel and this in turn creates the platform for behavior.
Constantly carping internally and focusing on what is wrong with what is happening in an environment generally produces more negativity than is healthy for anybody.
- You Embrace Change
Many people have a fear of change.
It can be seen as a threat.
Messing about with someone’s comfort zone is not something many people admire or welcome.
Change is welcomed by emotionally intelligent people. They have the ability to adapt to most situations.
Emotionally intelligent people are flexible and rarely fazed by changing circumstances.
Once known these insights and knowledge can swiftly improve your ability to read people and become skilled at knowing the best way to respond in a difficult situation.