Building EQ

I hated my younger sister for working out that Santa Claus’ shopping list was written in our mother’s handwriting. She got it and I didn’t. Darn! I was embarrassed big-time because I should have sussed it out before her - after all I was older than her, so I should have been smarter than her. She got out with the guys, long before I stumbled into any form of relationship with a girl. She had a higher EQ than me. No problem though - only give it a couple of decades for me to catch up . . .

Some people grow up faster than others. Some have a natural street sense that gives them the ability to sniff out where they can get sex, drugs, make a kill, find a “sheila” or when to take off so they don’t get caught.

Others are challenged to know what is happening around them. They just don’t get it and get caught up in cons, sucked in to shady deals, ripped off by those who use others, or struggle to work out where they fit into the world emotionally. I was firmly in the latter camp for a lot of difficult years.

I remember my first wife screaming at me after we left the Courthouse having signed the divorce papers, saying “It’s over! Don’t you get it, it’s over!” But I didn’t. It took me years to face the horrible facts that I really didn’t want to hear - and so even longer to come to terms with them.

Growing up is hard to do for some of us. I’ve noticed that guys in particular tend to struggle with these emotional things. I’d encourage anybody who knows that they are struggling with what the boffins call Emotional Intelligence (EI), measured as Emotional Quota (EQ),  is to start building it slowly. Just like learning to ride a bike or drive a car, most people can do it eventually, although it will come naturally to some more than others.

The secret I’ve found in dealing with emotions positively is to first identify them. It’s no good getting medicine for an illness that you can’t identify. Just like we’re taught with firearms training to identify our target before we shoot, identifying our feelings is always the first step in working out what’s happening around us emotionally.

I would encourage others wanting to build their EQ, to implement the following three-step plan:

1. Conditioning
It’s too hard to suddenly try to identify our own feelings if we have never done this before. Instead start by observing things about others in a way that you would never have done before. Say for example you have never previously noticed what people were wearing, or how they were looking. Deliberately look at their clothes and shoes and hair and eye colour. Take notice of them and then memorise them, just for an hour or so. What this exercise does is shock our minds into seeing things around us that we never saw before. We’re training ourselves to look outside of our own world. This then prepares us for finding out things about ourselves, like our emotions that we never knew existed.

2. Familiarising
It’s still too hard to identify feelings when we have lived in a world of facts and figures or of logic, reason and thinking. So begin to deliberately invite others to talk about their feelings. As you talk to others, ask them how they felt about a given situation. If a parent talks about their child’s report and mentions the grades, just ask them how they felt when they first read it. If someone shares about a wartime or business experience, ask them how they felt at the time, and how they feel about it now. Be careful to identify the facts from the feelings. “I think . . .” is not a feeling. “I felt . . .” is. Watching others identify their feelings and talk about them helps us familiarize ourselves with what feelings are

3. Identification
The next stage is to transfer the experiences of others to ourselves. Referring back to others experiences, how they felt; how they dealt with them, we can then apply those similar experiences to ourselves. In time, the penny drops; we get to see and understand ourselves better.

Once we can properly identify our own feelings, we are then in a position to properly measure others and work out where we fit into the world. A note of advice from the Good Book. Feelings in themselves are neither good nor bad. Paul doesn’t say to us “Don’t get angry”. He instead gives us advice on how to handle our feelings.

In your anger do not sin: Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.
Ephesians 4:26-27

The bible is also replete with prophets, leaders and ordinary people having and sharing emotions of all kinds - anger, fear, pain, love, hurt, joy and so on.

If we can learn to walk and talk, ride a bike, drive a car, or build a house we can also learn to build our EQ.

That’s the VICTUS IN AMBITUS way.