Leverage the Power of Your Emotions

SUMMARY

I always remember having a conversation with a client once who told me that he had learnt to leave his emotions at the door. I remember going through that conversation, and then about 10 minutes later, I could see that he was getting really emotional.

You see, it's not natural to separate from your emotions, but what you need to learn to do is navigate them in a healthier way. Throughout my entire military and corporate career, and going into my practice a few years ago, I had a lot of challenges with my emotions.

Instead of emotions being something that were there to support me, they were creating many challenges for me. The challenge is though, it wasn’t the emotion’s fault; they were doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing. What I was doing was taking those emotions and navigating them in an unhealthy way.

I see many people do this because emotions are a part of who we are; this is because people are not robots. Therefore, we need to learn how to use our greatest intelligence, which is our Emotional Intelligence.

This week, I will help you build yourself up and be the best version that you can be so that you can get what it is that you are going after in our world, by helping you to leverage the power of your emotions.

TRANSCRIPT

Have you ever been told to leave your emotions at the door when you come to work and that work is just about our cognitive intelligence and getting things done?

Well, that's the worst thing that you and I could believe.

Stick with me because in this week's episode, what I want to do is to help you to unlearn that myth and to harness a new type of intelligence.

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, VUCA Leadership and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to continue our conversation around building yourself up and being the best version that you can be so that you can get what it is that you are going after in our world, by helping you to leverage the power of your emotions.

For many years, I believed what others were telling me about emotions:

They were something that we didn't use at work.

We need to separate from the emotion of things and just focus on logic.

Well, that didn't work for me, and I'm sure it's not working for you too.

You and I are emotional beings.

We are not robots.

Therefore, being able to disassociate from who we are emotionally is not natural, and that's why it feels awkward, and it's a big challenge when we try and do it.

I always remember having a conversation with a client once who told me that he had learnt to leave his emotions at the door. I remember going through that conversation, and then about 10 minutes later, I could see that he was getting really emotional, and I felt like saying to him:

“How's that working for you?”

I didn't, but that's what I was thinking.

You see, it's not natural to separate from your emotions, but what you need to learn to do is navigate them in a healthier way. Throughout my entire military and corporate career, and going into my practice a few years ago, I had a lot of challenges with my emotions.

Instead of emotions being something that were there to support me, they were creating many challenges for me. The challenge is though, it wasn’t the emotion’s fault; they were doing exactly what they were supposed to be doing. What I was doing was taking those emotions and navigating them in an unhealthy way.

I see many people do this because emotions are a part of who we are; this is because people are not robots. Therefore, we need to learn how to use our greatest intelligence, which is our Emotional Intelligence.

I remember hearing about Emotional Intelligence about 15 years ago. Before that, I had not heard of it and did not know anything about it. But I do know, once I’d found out, that during my corporate and military career before that, I certainly had none. They're not skills that you're born with, and I've been on a quest ever since to develop my own Emotional Intelligence and the Emotional Intelligence of those who want my help all around the world.

Emotional intelligence is the ability to be aware of the emotions you are experiencing, in the moment, and then use that information to manage your thoughts and behaviour.

There are a number of different teachings that I've gotten over the years, and have started teaching others as well, that I've needed to shift now that I know more.

You have probably been told to ‘manage your emotions’.

There are books, courses, programs, and even “experts” in this area that will tell you to manage your emotions.

My experience is anything that gets managed — anything that has to do with a human being — doesn’t get the result that you are hoping for. When people manage their emotions, they suppress and ignore them. They want to operate only on logic without giving any acknowledgement or credence to their emotions, and that's where the problem starts.

To understand how to navigate your emotions in a healthy way, you first need to understand what an emotion is and then look at the “how-to”.

An emotion is a physiological sensation in your body that is a cue (a clue), letting you know that there's something going on in your world right now in that moment. It's then, the interpretation of that sensation that is the start of navigating that emotion.

Firstly, if you want to manage the emotion, you are managing internal physiological sensations. And that's where the problem lies: It’s not something we're able to do. However, what you can manage (or regulate as some might call it) are the thoughts and therefore, the behaviour that leads you to a feeling.

Emotions are physiological, while feelings are psychological. That's where you have the sensation, and then, there is a period in the middle of giving that a meaning: Looking at that, thinking about that, filtering that through our beliefs, and then we end up having some sort of a feeling.

Those feelings can change, and they can either escalate or deescalate depending on what it is that you continue to ruminate about and what you think about and what you do. That internal dialogue that I talk about — that mini-me — gets involved. Your beliefs (and those limiting beliefs that we flipped last week) and your conditioning are also involved there. Then, through that period, you go through a new feeling.

Here's an example:

There’s a feeling that people talk about all the time called “anger.

“I feel angry.”

Some people say, “I am angry”, and that's another story altogether.

Your emotions are not who you are; they're what you are experiencing in the moment.

When you say, “I am angry”, that sets a foundation around your identity, and we talked about that over the last few weeks.

Therefore, a different way of saying that is:

“I feel angry.”

However, did it start there?

Take this situation as an example:

Let’s imagine that I’m talking to someone and I can sense that they're not picking up what I'm putting down. Therefore, I give some meaning to the relationship I have with them, about what they think about me, and all these things come into play in the internal dialogue. What I make that mean will determine how I allow myself to feel.

Initially, I might feel misunderstood. Then, that feeling of being misunderstood, nursed and rehearsed might go to: “I feel frustrated”. Then, when I continue ruminating on those negative and limiting beliefs, the unhealthy meaning and thought pattern in the dialogue that’s going on, could lead to “I feel angry”.

Understanding, in the moment, what the sensation truly is telling you, being able to be in control, and regulating the internal dialogue will allow you to have a different behaviour.

Emotional intelligence, as I said, is the ability to be aware in the moment and then use that information to manage yourself.

Emotional intelligence is the number one skill for every leader.

The business world is talking about this now. It's taken them years to realize what we've already known. Since we are emotional beings and our emotions need to be navigated, this intelligence that we have is far greater than our cognitive intelligence. This is because it gives us the ability to go through in the environment that we are in and with the relationships that are involved in the work that we do, in a way that reduces stress and conflict. It also removes the distraction of disruptive emotional feelings and allows us to get more done.

So, let's build a foundation of Emotional Intelligence.

Well, that's it from me for another week. Join me again next week as we start a journey through the different elements of Emotional Intelligence where I will pull it apart, and we, step-by-step, will go on a journey of discovery together where we build our emotional intelligence competencies.

I'll see you then.