THE SECRET TO BOOSTING YOUR EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

Good evening. Welcome back to Transformation Tuesday. How are you guys doing? Welcome back to another episode of how to hack your life, how to transform everything about your way of being, how to improve your productivity, how to manage your time better, and then how to manage your life better. Tonight I\’m here to share with you how do we upgrade our emotional intelligence. Specifically I\’m going to be giving you my five secrets to boosting your emotional intelligence. Hello and welcome. My name is Chris Jackson. I\’m here to deliver the best of what I know on how to boost your emotional intelligence. It\’s a powerful topic. It\’s one that I\’ve studied, I\’ve coached, I\’ve trained on. And it\’s something I\’m incredibly passionate about, and I\’m going to be sharing with you the best of what I know on this topic for you tonight. I\’m going to be sharing with you how to actually, what\’s the fastest strategies to boost your emotional intelligence? Why EQ? I call it emotional quotient, your emotional intelligence is more important than IQ. Hey Mike, good to see you here mate, welcome aboard. And also how to enhance your self awareness. Self awareness is one of the major pillars of emotional intelligence so I\’m going to be unpacking how do you boost your self awareness. And also I\’m going to give you my five top hacks on how to boost that self awareness. How do you then increase your emotional intelligence, so some practical strategies, and ways you can implement this in your life. So this is going to be incredibly powerful. So, as always get your notepad and pen out, two different colours, one for column for taking notes and nuggets of wisdom, the other column for application, how you\’re going to apply this, how you\’re going to implement this in your life. So let\’s dive straight in. And for those of you that are going to, there\’s a bit of an incentive for you guys to watch the whole show, I\’m going to be offering a bit of a bonus, special bonus at the end with regards to emotional intelligence to help you guys unpack this and take it to a whole another level of depth. So stay tuned and I\’ll mention a bit of a special offer coming towards the end of the show. So first of all we need to understand what do we mean when we\’re talking about emotional intelligence? Because it can be a bit of a confusing concept, it can be a bit of a weird topic that no one really understands. Is it kind of like IQ, what is this? What\’s the whole point of even talking about this? And the most important thing to recognise is that our emotional intelligence is the foundation of how we operate, it\’s how we do everything. We are emotional creatures. We are creatures of habit. We are very complex beings where there\’s so many interled and overlapping forces, emotions, memories, language, belief systems, core values, there\’s so many different elements that make up the human being that we\’ve got to understand emotion is a core part of that. Hi Charmaine, good to see you again, welcome back. So emotion, how we understand our emotions and how we use our emotions is one of the most foundational skills that we could ever learn as a human being. So we simply must master this skill that we call emotional intelligence, it\’s a skill set and it\’s kind of a little bit different to IQ because your emotional intelligence is really actually quite simple to upgrade and improve, and I\’m going to give you some major strategies on how to do that. So this is the really inspiring thing about emotional intelligence is that it\’s completely learnable, anyone can boost their emotional intelligence, anyone can be highly proficient at emotional intelligence. It\’s not some mystical gift that\’s only meant for, it\’s not this mystical gift that\’s only meant for the select few. Emotional intelligence is something every single person can master. And I work with my clients until every single one of them have mastered this and it\’s a skill. So it\’s really important because, I\’m going to give you the definition of emotional intelligence because this is critical. Your emotional quotient, so EQ, I\’m just going to call it EQ for simplicity. Your emotional quotient, your EQ, which is the standardised test for emotional intelligence, your EQ is a measure of your ability to sense, to understand and effectively apply the power of your emotions in yourself and in others, to facilitate high levels of collaboration and productivity. So that means that it\’s the skill set of understanding self, understanding our own internal workings to be more productive, which also contributes to more income, which means we also have better relationships, which means that we ultimately are living the highest quality life that we can possibly live. So when we understand our emotions, when we understand ourself, we become empowered, we become totally empowered to start to change all the results. So Aristotle said \”Knowing yourself is the beginning of a wisdom\” and it\’s true. This whole conversation is about knowing yourself. Emotional intelligence is knowing yourself. The greater that you know yourself, the more that you know about yourself, the more empowered you are to understand and utilise your emotions. We know we\’ve all got emotions and we can either use our emotions as fuel or they can be like an anchor pulling a boat back to stop it from accelerating. So we\’ve got to understand well these things that we call emotions, they are fuel. They can be fuel or they can not be fuel. So this is a resource we need to tap into and understand. The quicker that we can understand our emotions and utilise them the greater results we create across the board in every single dimension of life. It\’s really important to know that this has been studied, this has been documented, this is something that\’s now an official field of psychology. So this is now something that\’s real. This is really important. So if you don\’t know about emotional intelligence, if you haven\’t been tested for emotional intelligence, if you don\’t yet understand it, I can\’t emphasis enough just how important this is to understand this concept because when you understand this you\’ll notice your results, your ability to generate results, to be motivated, to be inspired, to manage the stressful situations in life, the ability to make more money, the ability to be able to communicate, and it\’s cross contextual meaning that when you boost your emotional intelligence it boosts every other area of your life. And the area that we\’re going to be talking about tonight, within emotional intelligence, is one of the five major pillars of emotional intelligence, which tonight is self awareness. And we don\’t have time to go into the other four major pillars of emotional intelligence, however tonight I\’m going to go into some very, very powerful detail around how you can maximise your self awareness and how you can boost it through the roof using some pretty powerful tools. Now Daniel Goleman, who is the psychologist that really kicked off this study back in 1995, he\’s on record saying that emotional intelligence is actually more important than IQ, than your intelligence quotient, and there\’s a lot of studies out there, Forbes Magazine has done studies about the power of emotional intelligence. Forbes Magazine has found that for every one point that you increase your EQ by that equates to 1750 Australian dollar increase in your salary per year, so very, very important information to know. This is not just something that\’s airy, fairy and fluffy, they\’ve got documented studies, they\’ve got a lot of studies. There\’s also a study of around 2,000 hiring managers that was done back in 2011, and 75% of the hiring managers said they would favour someone with a higher EQ rather than a higher IQ. So this is, this is powerful information. This is powerful data that\’s real. So why am I telling you this? So the point of me telling you this, the point of me sharing this with you, is so that you can understand that this truly matters, this conversation matters. And if we don\’t understand our emotional world, if we don\’t understand our emotional intelligence, we are at a severe disadvantage if we\’re looking to compete in business, if we\’re looking to be functional in relationships, if we\’re looking to get the most out of ourself, if you\’re looking to be a professional human being, like I am, then this is something that you\’re going to want to really truly master. So let\’s take a bit more of a closer look at it. So I mentioned that your emotional intelligence, you can boost it, you can boost it through the roof, it\’s uncapped, it\’s unlimited. When I say that I mean, typically when you take a test you can get scored between zero and 100, so there\’s a maximum of 100. Now there\’s nothing stopping anyone from reaching an emotional intelligence quotient of 100, it\’s a skill. All these things that we\’re talking about tonight are skill sets. It\’s simply awareness, it\’s understandings and it\’s things that we can master about yourself, it\’s knowing ourself. When you have complete knowing of self you can get to 100%, 100% emotional intelligence. So this is just simply a journey. It\’s like strength training. It\’s like going to the gym and lifting weights and building the weights up day after day after day. This is totally a skill that\’s refinable and you can improve it day by day. Now as I said, the first major pillar of emotional intelligence is self awareness. So what do I mean by self awareness? What I mean by self awareness is it\’s your ability to recognise and understand your moods, your emotions and your drives, as well as the effect on others. So I\’d love to know, for you guys watching, what do you think your self awareness is? If you were going to rank yourself, if you were going to assess yourself on how good you think your self awareness is, what would you say? Most people would like to say well I think my self awareness is pretty good. Well most people would say that because they can only evaluate their self awareness within the self awareness that they have to evaluate themselves. So without a benchmark, without an assessment, there\’s no real way of gauging what is your level of self awareness unless you actually do a standardised test. So this is what I thought, I thought my self awareness was amazing until I did a test and I realised whew, I\’ve got some gaps, I\’ve got some areas I need to improve on. So this is the great thing about an emotional intelligence test is when you do a test it shows you the gaps. It\’s like when you put, for those of you who know what a Dyno is. A Dyno is when you put a car in a garage and you can actually test the horsepower of the car on a machine. Well it\’s the same thing with emotional intelligence, you can put yourself through an assessment and you can understand what is your emotional intelligence? It\’s a test, it\’s a standardised test, which is great because you can understand where you\’re at. You can totally, through that awareness you can totally upgrade your emotional intelligence, which I love, it\’s fantastic because it\’s available to everyone. And it\’s so simple, literally to do this test takes less than 10 minutes. And it\’s amazing, the information, the insights are profound. So let\’s get into how do we actually improve our self awareness? You\’re saying, Chris, tell me, how do I improve my self awareness? Well the very first thing is I definitely recommend taking an emotional intelligence test, taking an assessment. Now you can take an assessment, there are plenty of rudimentary ones you can do online. If you want to take a high quality one that\’s validated, that\’s a really high profession one, I offer them to my clients that I do. Now I\’ve got a special offer, if you stick around till the end, I\’ve got a couple of bonuses that I\’m going to be giving away as a special gift for those of you that are on the call today, on the broadcast. But definitely get yourself an emotional intelligence test, do the assessment so you can have the data, so you can have the blood test so you can see how you\’re doing so you can gauge where you\’re at. So that\’s the first thing. Number two, you\’ve got to keep a list of all the triggers. And what do I mean by triggers? Any of these emotional, I call them flame thrower moments, any moments where you\’re emotional reactionary, any moment where you fly off the handle, any moment where life gets the better of you and you indulge in any of the negative emotions, like resistance, fear, frustration, anger, you guys can relate to experiencing some kind of flame thrower moment when you react and you kind of feel oh my god, I\’ve just been triggered, I\’ve just been reactive, it\’s like someone pushed your hot button. Hey Eugenia, good to see you here. Hey Rod, good to see you too. So you\’ve got to really evaluate what are those moments that trigger you because it\’s those moments where if we are reactionary as opposed to responding, that\’s the key distinction here, a trigger is when we react. If we are now reacting, well we\’re no longer in control, we no longer are choosing our emotions, we are letting our emotions happen to us. Now this can have some significant degrees on amounts of problems. If you\’re an employer, if you\’re a boss, if you\’re in a team, if you\’re in a relationship, and if you get triggered, well whew good luck. If you\’ve now been triggered and you\’re now feeling angry, frustrated, sad, bitter, disappointed, well it\’s very disempowering. It\’s not someplace you want to be. It\’s not a place where you can make high quality decisions. It\’s the, when you\’re in a negative emotion, when you\’ve been triggered, it\’s like the equivalent of being hung over. You\’re not in a peak emotional state to be able to make high quality decisions, to be able to perform at your best, to be ale to manage yourself, to be able to get stuff done, to be productive, you just simply can\’t function at your best. So being aware of when you get triggered and your emotional state is one of the foundational elements of high performance. If you wanted to perform at the peak level, like a sustained level of peak performance, you got to get really, really clear and self aware about what are the things that trigger you. Now that\’s one of the first steps is awareness of what triggers you. So I recommend that you actually keep a list. So keep a list. Now for everyone watching, and for those who have been following me for a while, you\’ll know that I\’m big on evaluating your life. I recommend every single human being has a reflection journal. Now in that journal you want to reflect on absolutely everything in your life. You want to reflect on everything. This is the place where you evaluate your whole entire being, this is where you evaluate all your beliefs, your fears, your limitations, your goals, your aspirations, your dreams, your relationships, your business, you want to evaluate life, you want to turn your life into a science. You want to turn your life into a complete masterpiece. Now the way to do that, one of the ways to do that, is in your journal that you\’re keeping, you\’re keeping a log of all the experiences, all the challenges and everything you want to experience. You want to keep a specific list of what are my triggers? What are those moments that trigger me, that really push my buttons where I then react. Now that\’s the first step, you got to become aware of it. Now the next part of that, which is part three, the third step, is you\’ve got to understand what\’s that all about? You\’ve got to go hunting, you\’ve got to go sifting through that experience and I\’ll go right this emotion has now become present within my awareness. Now the emotion is here to give you information. Emotion is information. Emotion is there to tell you where\’s the misalignment. Emotion is like a red flashing light on the dash of your car saying alert there\’s something to pay attention to. So it\’s really important that when an emotion happens, when a trigger moment like that happens, you evaluate it, you say what\’s underneath it? You\’ve got to unpack it, you\’ve got to look into it and go how am I doing now? And you\’ve got to look at things like typically there will be judgement involved. You\’ll be diminishing either yourself, you\’ll be diminishing someone else, there might be complaining, there might be blame. It might be playing the victim, it might be not taking responsibility. It could be all sorts of things that are unfolding so you\’ve got to take a look at it. So once it\’s on your list as being identified that that moment happened, it\’s now your responsibility to take a closer look at it. You\’ve got to unpack it. So those are the questions to ask. These are the questions. These are the important questions you\’ve got to ask to unpack. How do I actually get some benefit from this experience and you want to ask well who are you judging? It will either be yourself or someone else or maybe the scenario in general. Maybe ask where\’s the fear? What\’s the fear? What\’s the resistance? Maybe you need to forgive someone. Maybe you need to have compassion for someone. You\’ve got to start sifting through and looking, all right what action do I need to take? What perspective shift do I need to create? What belief change? What level of compassion or forgiveness or awareness of self do I need to generate in order to overcome this trigger? So that\’s a journey. Again, when I work with my clients, I can help my clients figure it out pretty quickly, in a matter of minutes. Now if you\’re reflecting on your own, yeah it\’s going to take a bit of time. It takes a little bit longer to sift through it, to work out why am I being triggered? What\’s underneath that? And for some people it can be very complex. Maybe there\’s something in your past, maybe something happened 20 years ago, something happened when you were a kid and then when that same thing happens again you get triggered. Now the classic example is for some people when they go home for Christmas they get triggered maybe by family. All these memories, all these emotional experiences get triggered and come flooding back. So let me know if you can resonate when certain people say certain words or say certain things, maybe people tell you to do things, maybe people tell you in a particular tonality that doesn\’t resonate with you and you get triggered. That information is giving you the gift of how do I move beyond it because you might just have to forgive them, have compassion for them. Maybe you need to speak the truth. Maybe you need to enforce your boundaries. Maybe you need to remove yourself from the situation. So you got to understand what is it that I need to do to bring myself back into internal alignment within myself so that the trigger doesn\’t exist. It\’s a powerful process. The fourth step is you want to now start to set up some protocols. Now that you\’re aware of the trigger, you want to create some sort of, like a military operation, you know if this event happens I execute this protocol. I execute this protocol to eliminate or avoid that trigger. So for example it might be on Christmas. If you know that you get triggered on Christmas day hanging around family you would execute a protocol or you would prepare yourself for, you know most likely someone\’s going to say something, someone\’s going to do something and you can prepare yourself. You know I can forecast that this is going to be challenging and therefore you can reinforce yourself emotionally, you can prepare yourself to maybe have a high degree of compassion, maybe you have forgiveness in advance, maybe recognise, maybe the way that you\’re seeing the situation is from a place of disempowerment or victim hood. Maybe you need to have some compassion. So you\’ve got to start recognising and forecasting and future projecting. Okay if I\’m going to be placed in the situation, how am I going to now handle that. So you can now plan, you can plot and you can develop strategies for how you\’re going to then manage that. So this is now what you\’re thinking in advance. You\’re now preparing yourself. It\’s like maybe going into battle, all right what are the preparations I need to prepare myself. What\’s the, how do I defend myself? How do I actually sustain myself? So this is the questions you\’ve got to ask to deal with these situations that are going to arise. The fifth element… Hey Kaz, it\’s good to see you here. The fifth element that you really have to master is understanding your strengths and your weaknesses. So this is taking a deeper look from a self awareness perspective and saying all right yo what am I really, really good at? What am I not so good at? Now this extends into everything, not just your skills, your knowledge, and your experience, but also the parts of maybe the soft skills, things like compassion, empathy. Things like listening. Where are the elements within understanding and communicating with other human beings? What are those elements that are missing within you? And you\’ve got to, again, you\’ve got to evaluate yourself. So as my good mate Aristotle says, he says \”Knowing yourself is the beginning of a wisdom.\” So if you don\’t know what your strengths and your weaknesses are, you\’ve got plenty of blind spots. How can you possibly be the highest, most professional, most competent version if you haven\’t done an assessment what are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? It\’s like when you\’re driving in a car, if you don\’t know what your weaknesses are, it\’s like driving along and you\’ve got a blind spot just behind you and you might just merge into a car that\’s driving in your blind spot, well it\’s the same thing in life. If we don\’t have awareness of the weaknesses then we\’re going to come unstuck. So we need to, and this is a conversation that comes a lot, people ask, Chris, what should I focus on, my strengths or my weaknesses? Well there\’s no absolutes here, you got to focus on both. You got to focus on your strengths and your weaknesses. And this is a classic example of when you have the skill of self awareness you can evaluate based on my strengths and weaknesses, which are the ones that I want to work on that are going to provide the greatest net benefit to my life? So it\’s not a simple black and white answer, focus on your strengths or focus on your weaknesses. It depends, depends what you want to create in your life. It depends what your purpose is. It depends where you\’re at. It depends if you want to earn more money, if you want to have a higher quality relationship. It depends if you want to be fitter, healthier. It depends if you want to grow your business. There\’s going to be thousands of different strengths and weaknesses you can focus on, but you first need to have awareness of what are the strengths and the weaknesses so you can make an informed decision about all right I\’ve got a list of strengths, I\’ve now got a list of weaknesses, let\’s take a look at \’em, which ones are important? Which ones are going to move the needle the most? Which of these strengths and weaknesses are actually going to make an impact? So there might be some weaknesses that are not important. There might be some weaknesses that you just draw a line through and you go yeah I\’m not strong at that, does it matter? Maybe not, maybe it does. Maybe that weakness could be the single biggest thing that\’s limiting you in your life, you\’ve got to evaluate it. So this is why having an awareness of strengths and weaknesses is one of the most powerful things that anyone could do in a position of leadership, I would say mentoring, coaching, if you\’re a parent, if you\’re in a job, if you\’re in a business, you\’ve got to know about yourself. You\’ve got to understand what are you good at? What are you not so good at? And then from that you\’ve then got to create what I call a growth curriculum. You\’ve got to design a curriculum for how you\’re going to approach your strengths and weaknesses. \’Cause we\’ve all got weaknesses. We need a tactile planned approach that\’s designed out and I recommend we design out a 12 month personal growth curriculum which identifies all those different areas. What are all the weaknesses? What are the strengths? What are the skills I want to acquire? What are the experiences I need to get? What are the talents and the abilities that I need to nurture or cultivate? So you\’ve got to get tactical. What are the books I\’m going to read? What are the courses I\’m going to study? Who are the thought leaders I need to be following? What\’s the education programme I\’ve got to put myself through to take myself to that next level? Because if we don\’t get tactical and very, very logical about our personal development well five years, 10 years, your life is going to go past and you\’re going to look back and think maybe I should have worked on some of those weaknesses, maybe I should have cultivated some of those strengths. So we\’ve got to get really, really deliberate about how we\’re pursuing our conscious growth. Conscious growth is a very, very deliberate process. This whole process is a deliberate process. So the more deliberate that you get about your life the more predictable your results are. So I recommend, I\’m just going to give you guys some other couple of nuggets. You got to be planning your life on a weekly basis. You got to be planning your life on a daily basis. You got to be planning your life also on a yearly basis. What are the major goals, aspirations, and projects you want to create on a yearly basis? So we have to become super conscious about every aspect of our growth and personal development, your growth curriculum, your strengths and your weaknesses. You got to take an emotional intelligence assessment and you\’ve got to have it unpacked so someone can explain to you what it actually means. Otherwise it\’s like just getting a blood test and you\’re looking through a whole lot of numbers and whole lot of words and you have no idea what it even means. Well does that mean I\’ve got low iron or high iron? Or does that mean I\’ve got low blood pressure? So when you do one of these emotional intelligence assessments it helps you unpack and explore what do I actually need to work on. So they are my recommendations. They are my strategies for how to boos your self awareness. And if you just focus on those that I\’ve mentioned, and even if you just focus on those for the rest of the year, there is enough work to keep you occupied for a whole entire year just looking at that, I guarantee. So, as always, the important thing here is to note the wisdom, note the information, but then how are you going to apply it? How are you going to implement this? What are you going to now do differently day to day or during the week or during the year that\’s now going to implement and embody these practises. And I definitely, as I\’ve said, I definitely recommend having that journal where you can review your life. I do it every single evening, I review my whole entire day. And as I\’m going through my day I have my misalignment journal next to me. When I\’m having a moment where I\’m actually triggered it goes, I write it down or I put it in my phone, I become aware of it. I then analyse it, I understand it, I unpack it. Once you\’ve unpacked it, you then become empowered to go ah that\’s what was going on. Great, good to know. Next time it happens, I\’m going to take evasive action, I\’m going to implement something, I\’m going to change my perspective and I\’m going to eliminate it from my experience. That is someone who\’s highly emotionally intelligent, that\’s the way they approach their life. They evaluate their whole entire life and they get it right. If I was going to do my day over again today, what would I do differently? Your awareness of what happened in that day, that\’s what we\’re talking about, self awareness. So even just by asking these questions you\’ll find your self awareness improves. Questions like what did I experience today? What emotions did I experience today, both positive and negative? What were the challenges that I had today? If I could do today over again, what would I improve? So these are the types of questions you\’re going to start asking that improve your self awareness. So that\’s self awareness, which is the first of five pillars of emotional intelligence. So we\’ve just unpacked self awareness today. So, as you can imagine, there is a lot to emotional intelligence. This is a huge field of psychology and I\’ve just given you a little bit of a nugget tonight that I trust is going to help you implement some of these things that\’s going to improve your self awareness, that\’s going to improve your emotional intelligence. And what this is really about, is it\’s not just about working on self, I mean this is a major benefit, you obviously get to improve yourself, you get to develop yourself, but the major benefit is earning more money, getting more time back, higher quality relationships, more effective communication, higher quality of life, less ability to be influenced by stress. So these are all the things you gain by improving your self awareness and your emotional intelligence. And yes the money\’s important, but ultimately I would say far more important aspect or benefit of this conversation is quality of life. There\’s a sense of joy, a sense of meaning, a sense of purpose. A sense of escaping the stress and the unnecessary suffering that we as humans tend to do sometimes. I\’m glad you like the conversation, Kaz, good to hear from you. So in a nutshell that\’s a real simple, quick unpack of self awareness, which is, as I said, the first of five major pillars of emotional intelligence. So I\’ve got a special bonus today, which is something that I don\’t even normally offer. For people that want to work with me for one on one coaching, it\’s a 12 month journey, so people that are totally committed. I do have one spot in my calender coming up next week for anyone who wants an EQ assessment. So for anyone that wants an EQ assessment, send us a message, one of my team will get back to you. We\’ll let you know about that when it\’s coming up. As I said, I don\’t even offer these really one off\’s anymore. So if it resonates with you, drop a comment below saying EQ yes please and one of my team will send you guys a message and see if we can hook you guys up with that. So that\’s it for emotional intelligence, self awareness. So guys this is powerful stuff. Trust me, use it or lose it. Take everything here, figure out how you\’re going to apply it, integrate it into your daily experience, make it part of your daily practise. Make these questions part of your daily review process. Create a misalignment journal, become aware of the misalignment, become aware of the triggers, unpack the triggers, figure out what it is within you that\’s creating the resistance. What it is, what is it that we need to move beyond? What\’s the information our emotions are telling us about how we can evolve, how we can grow, how we can become more professional human beings? So that\’s all for this week guys. I\’m going to keep this one short and sweet. Next week I\’ve got a powerful episode coming up for you guys, which is all about how to maximise your productivity using planning. So for those of you that want to be even more productive, those who want to get more done, you want to save time so you can finish work earlier, get out and do some more empowering things with your life, this is going to be a game changing episode because I\’m going to show you how you can save so much time by planning your day, your week, your year, your life by being very, very tactical and strategical with how you plan your day, which is ultimately how do you make decisions in life. So if that resonates, if you\’re looking to be more productive in whatever your endeavours are in life, you\’re going to love the episode next week. Thank you all for tuning in. Thanks Charmaine, thanks Kaz, appreciate you guys for tuning in. And I look forward to seeing you guys next week for another amazing Transformation Tuesday. As always, lots of love, wishing you guys a fantastic week. Bye for now.