Leadership and Emotional Intelligence: your brain can help you become more emotionally fit if you want to.

I had fun this morning having a conversation with a friend at a coffee shop talking about what we did the last week-end. We talked about laughing with friends, having good time doing nothing, and upcoming goals to be achieved in the near future. We talked and talked while drinking coffee, and eating blueberry muffins.

We talked about books: one of them, the Garry Chapman bestselling 5 love languages.

This week end, I have been reading contents relative to emotional intelligence. I went over “Emotional intelligence, A practical guide”, by Dr. David Walton and “Crucial Conversations: tools for talking when stakes are high”, by bestselling authors Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, Ron McMillan, and Al Switzler.

I enjoyed reading. But, above all, I have more pleasure underlining what makes me think, and take notes to share with friends, fans, and acquaintances I converse with.

David Walton defines Emotional Intelligence as “an assortment of mental abilities and skills that can help you to successfully manage both yourself and the demand of working with others.”

It embraces a set of mental skills that enable you to know and control your own emotions and to recognize and effectively respond to the emotional state of other people. Emotional Intelligence, according to Walton,  is crucial for making business profitable and relationships stable and satisfying.
It helps you to remain calm in emotionally charged situations and it enables you to:

.- know yourself reasonably well
.- control your own emotions
.- show empathy with the feelings of others

There are numerous benefits of developing  Emotional Intelligence such as:
– overcome difficult situations
– express yourself clearly but warmly
– build better relationships
– keep your emotions under control
– communicate mutual respect
– avoid skewed thinking
– say the appropriate thing at the appropriate time
– value and obtain commitment from others
– become resilient in difficult times
– have clear values and share them with others
– increase your own well beings

In this guide, the author mentions Emotional Intelligence  can be learned because of the power of the brain as an “amazing learning machine.”

His theory is your amazing brain can help you change by involving something called “plasticity.”
You have spent your life building ‘behavioral templates’ which are stored in your brain and used automatically to different situations. We are able to make our brains actually grow. Brain cells and neurons grow and proliferate. They migrate to where they may be needed.

David Walton described as “synaptic plasticity”. The ability of our brains to develop and to grow.

Every time new knowledge is acquired, the connections communicate differently and through repetition, become faster, more efficient and instinctive in this way is described as “synaptic plasticity.”

We can change. We can unlearn old behaviors and create new templates. This happens all the time if you have the motivation and the space for thinking

What’s intelligence? What’s emotion? David asks these simple questions to establish the conceptual framework about Emotional Intelligence.

He quoted Alfred Binet who was the first scholar to develop an IQ test in 1905. He also mentions
academic intelligence IQ is 25% for someone success in later life.

Other views such as Thorndike, Kelly and Howard Gardner proposed other types of intelligence for dealing with others often described as ‘social intelligence’. The concept of Emotional Intelligence went mainstream with the release in 1995 of Goleman’s book.

Emotions?

Walton went back to Greece and its thinkers who argued that logic, thinking, intellect, and reason were the only reliable way of leaving. They believed emotions, feelings were subjective, so an unreliable basis for living and working together.
Emotion was linked to hysteria and was seen as a disorder or a psychologic problem. This is a pretty sexy perspective. The male perspective was that emotion is a female problem.

The modern life brings a flow of impersonal stimulation contrasting with the warmth of a village life more rooted in emotional connections. The village life creates a sense of community, a sense of empowerment and purpose with good community relationships as a result.

Emotions play a huge role in human interaction.

Our emotions are wired to our brains. There’s a purpose for them. What is emotion? Feeling? These terms are difficult to define and even more difficult to understand, Walton said in this book.

Whatever the definitions and understanding, we know for sure people surround themselves with people and objects to which they become emotionally attached to. For many, the reason for being is the warmth of this attachment.

Our emotions shape our understanding, our way of thinking, the decisions we take, and the habits or attitudes we adopt.

To be emotionally  intelligent, and to  boost your health and well being through Emotional Intelligence, David Walton recommends the 5 next actions:

1.- connecting with others : this brings support, balance, enrichment, stability, and a sense of community.

2.- be physically active: walking or running, playing a sport, gardening, dancing, biking. Physical activity  helps you feel good, gives you a sense of balance in your life, rids your body of stress,
3.- stay alert: enjoy the choices others make about their clothing, style, or appearance, live in the moment. Appreciate the look and feel, the smells, sounds of each moment,
4. Keep learning . Do something new. Rediscover old interests .Read. Listen. Associate. Implement
5.- Give. Empathize with someone. Smile. Volunteer your time. Help someone in need.

I enjoyed the moment and the conversation I had this morning with my friend. And I am glad to be part of the Life Leadership Compensated Community where I have an opportunity to grow myself and sustain long term relationships and business development.