Mind & Life was set up by the Dalai Lama back in 2001 and it brings together scientists and contemplative practitioners, aiming to form a better understanding of the human mind and therefore reduce suffering and promote well-being.

Emotional Awareness – The Dalai Lama

Daniel Goleman is the well-known expert on emotional intelligence, and Mirabai Bush has championed mindfulness in the workplace for many years. Together, they developed Google’s Search Inside Yourself programme, among others. This is a really fascinating video but, given its length, I’ve extracted some highlights:

Mindfulness research

(5:00-11:00 mins): Daniel and Mirabai describe the resistance they often encounter from people on hearing about mindfulness, which was especially prevalent in the 1970s, when they first started working in the field.

They make the point that the body of neuroscientific research now in existence has lessened that resistance – and that once people try mindfulness, their remaining doubts tend to fall away – such is the ‘obviousness’ of its effectiveness.

I’m also interested by their observation that the quality of research has increased hugely over the last 20 years. They attribute this in part to the work of Dr Richard Davidson at the University of Wisconsin, a contemporary of Goleman’s at Harvard. These days, the best global journals have published findings on meditation.

Mindful emailing

(11:00ish) Mirabai describes a great little workplace technique she developed for Google:

• Write an email
• Take three deep breaths
• Imagine the emotional response of the person receiving your email
• Send or rewrite

This is a valuable way to prevent ourselves ‘flaming’ (a term I hadn’t heard of that describes a knee-jerk, emotional email response).

Attention and the workplace

(14:00) Workplace coaches tell Goleman that the biggest problem in the workplace is partial attention – that most employees do not spend their working days completely present, even during meetings. This is a huge problem for business relationships – since the most effective communication happens when both people are fully focused – and for all-round performance and health.

One effective way to counteract this is ten minutes of meditation pre-work, which helps our brains focus even hours later. (I have to admit I struggle to get up early enough for this.)

Meditation guidance

(17:00) Daniel takes a practice meditation session, gently giving instructions for breathing and attention. Mirabai emphasises how natural it is for our minds to wander – and that this tendency never goes away.

Walking meditation

(27:00) ‘Sitting is the new smoking’, suggests Mirabai Bush – such is the effect sitting down has on our life expectancy. She gives advice for those of us at work to make use of our opportunities to walk, and to focus on the breathing and the steps. This cultivates the same awareness and relaxation as sitting meditation. We can be mindful during any activity, and repetitive activities are the most useful – making coffee; washing up; because these are most likely to be mindless.

Mindfulness and Google

(28:00) Mirabai makes an interesting observation about Google employees. Although they tend to be highly intelligent, talented and driven, they also tend to have spent long periods in front of screens in solitude. For this reason, they actually had more need than others she has worked with for self-awareness, emotional intelligence and teamwork.

Self-Management

(29:00) Mindfulness trains us to be aware of our thoughts and emotions – present to whatever is there. This makes it fundamental to developing empathy and emotional intelligence. We need to be tuned into our own emotional responses to handle other people’s.

Mindfulness as applied to different companies

Mirabai describes, fascinatingly, how different kinds of workplaces tend to interpret mindfulness differently. Workers at Google often refer to ‘defragging the mind’; journalists talk about interpreting the ‘mental story’; environmentalists refer to the ‘mental habitat’. When presenting mindfulness to different industries, she suggests conveying it simply and straightforwardly, though – not personalising it too much. Employees then make the practices their own in an organic way. On the other hand, she mentioned how powerfully Google employees responded to the science itself – and how starting with the neuroscientific background can be a helpful way to proceed.

Overcoming resistance

(42:00) Teaching mindfulness to entire departments at work is difficult. It’s much easier to teach to groups who have all chosen to be there. You have to make a case to demonstrate how effective the techniques are to convince those who are sceptical and to persuade them that it’s a good use of their time. The science has helped with this. As Goleman puts it:

Know what people care about, and put it in those terms.

(50:00) Finally, Daniel gives a demonstration of a short relaxation exercise that can be used anytime during the day.

Why compassion?

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”                                                                               Dalai Lama

I see Street Corner Compassion as an expression(s) of human kindness through commonplace actions in an ordinary setting.

Daniel Goleman, in an interview in Tricycle, reminds us that we are wired for empathy. He describes compassion as a the highest step in a natural emotional sequence that begins with paying attention, moves into empathy and culminates in compassion.

Street Corner Compassion is simple and easy.

Street corner compassion can be opening the door for a woman struggling with a stroller, bending down to help someone pick up spilled contents of a wallet, or asking the driver to wait for someone running for the bus. It might even look suspiciously like “good manners” if only politeness always grew out of empathy instead of feeling like disembodied rules of behavior handed down from authorities.

If Street Corner Compassion is so easy, why don’t we give and receive it more often?

First of all, you already give and receive compassion. I do. We all do. Sometimes we don’t even notice we’ve acted compassionately or we just don’t stop to name it. There are some things, though, that get in the way of more practice:

• We’re busy. We tend to rush everywhere and when we’re not rushing we tend to be paying attention to the stream of thoughts running through our heads while looking at tweets, texts and FB. We forget to pause, to look in then out. Oh yeah, that.

• Feeling someone’s pain (or elation, for that matter) can be overwhelming.

• Without some skills to manage the overwhelm, we react by either hardening against out sensations, shutting them out or pushing them aside, or, we give up to apathy and confusion, “I don’t know where to start, there’s no way I can help everyone who needs it.”

• We have expectations that true compassion ought to look different than the everyday kind, like it’s only good if it’s on the scale of Mother Teresa, or that terrific kid who delivers coats to the homeless all winter long.

• We think we have to respond in a way that another part of us feels is more than we can handle – now what?

Since Street Corner Compassion makes a palpable difference for our collective well-being, it might be a good idea to learn some skills for managing overwhelm while we also learn to:

1. Notice/pay attention   2. Open our hearts to the experience of others  3. Consider actions that are life affirming for us and the other person/people.

Begin now. One of the best ways to start is with some kind of Mindfulness practice like yoga, meditation, or Focusing.

Iolanda Tanase, 8th Grade, Appleton School

You can join me here on Meditation Mondays.

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Comments and questions are welcome either here, or at judy@moveintochange.com. You can find more about me, coaching and coaching with me at moveintochange.com.

More Daniel Geoleman here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yGNhCaKJKk

ESADE Visiting Professor and leadership expert Richard Boyatzis discusses the characteristics that distinguish effective leaders from non-leaders

2013 has just started and I’m already behind on my career goals. So much to do and so little time!   Here are my top ten pieces of career advice (to myself) for the year:

1.  Do goals right.  No more wish lists.  You can’t achieve a goal that you haven’t written down—that’s called a wish.  Neither is a bullet list of to-do items a list of goals—that’s why its called a “to do list”.  If you have any carryover goals from last year, chop them, they’re wishes!  Learn how to set goals that are real, achievable, and that move you forward rather than merely demoralizing you.   Master the art of ‘If-Then” goal setting.  Become a disciple of Heidi Grant Halvorsen, HBR blogger extraordinaire, on “the Science of Success” at http://www.heidigranthalvorson.com/

2. Benchmark performance each week.  Check out job postings for positions like yours and see what the people who hire people like you think you should know and what you should be doing at this stage in your career.  These free performance benchmarks are found with explicit performance criteria in places like USAJOBs.  When you have a good cross-section of performance criteria for jobs like yours, or better yet for the job you want, write out a list of the ten people who you think are your career competition and summarize their qualifications against the benchmark in a short paragraph.  Do the same for you.  Now, you know where you stand.  You also have a roadmap of what you need to learn and do to become the best in your field!  https://www.usajobs.gov/

3. Polish and manage your on-line presence.  I’ve got a fairly strong resume but it lacks focus.  I’ve got a blog but it lacks focus.  My LinkedIn profile lacks focus.  I’ve even got a web page, and it too lacks focus.  My Facebook page reads like a vacation scrapbook and my three or four Twitter comments are about a big bike crash I had.  I’ve been told that recruiters are looking for people like me but I’m obviously doing a pretty good job of staying out of their gun sights.  This year, I’m going to get the focus.  Plan to spend at least 2 hours a week on polishing the online persona.  The success metric will be how many people contact you this year, not how many people you invite on LinkedIn.  Dan Schwabel is the acknowledged Gen X personal branding mentor for all of us baby boomer innocents.  http://www.personalbrandingblog.com/

4. Build Career Capital.  Everybody knows that you’re due for a promotion, or a raise, or a career change to a corporate executive VP position in a Fortune 10 company, right?   Ask your wife/husband what they think.  If s/he can’t tell you why you’re due for that dream job/dream career, then neither can those hiring managers out there. You’ve gotta have something to sell and your customers have to know that you are the best place to get that something.  Career capital is the medium that you trade for career advancements.  This is the year to transition from building technical and managerial capital to creating and cashing in on real executive capital.  You’ve mastered the critical skills.  You’ve made the critical contacts.  Now sell yourself.  BTW, getting the word out on how wonderful you really are is also part of building career capital.  The homepage for getting it done is at the Wall Street Journal.   http://online.wsj.com/public/page/news-career-jobs.html?mod=WSJ_topnav_careers_main

5. Be Emotional.  In my research, the skills that truly set real high performers apart are the soft skills.  Soft skills like emotional intelligence, verbal communication, executive presence, dressing the part, building people up while you’re managing them for performance and holding them accountable, are really very hard to master.  This year, re-read Dale Carnegie’s classic, “How to Win Friends and Influence People”, only this time take notes and put it into practice.  For practice, put yourself out there at meetings and conferences.  Afterwards evaluate your performance, identify your skills that need work.  Now make goals for improving those skills.   The bible is “Emotional Intelligence”, by Daniel Goleman.  I’ve read it once and I’m in the middle of reading it again.  Find it here:  http://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Intelligence-Matter-More-Than/dp/055338371X

6. Get motivated. In the movie “What About Bob?” Bill Murray’s neurotic character is introduced to the concept of Death Therapy by a renowned psychiatrist.  I think that Death Therapy should be a tool frequently employed by all of us.  When you can’t get out of your rut, when you can’t let go of your fears, when you can’t see what you might be “if only”, then you need to have a tool to help you see clearly what the consequences of your inaction will be.  Don’t strap dynamite to your chest.  Do strap some competition to your life.  This year I’m going to beat my arch-nemesis, Damond, in at least one bike race or die trying!  My advice is to keep your motivations positive and find them inside your own heart.   A close second is to read current editions of Olympic Coach e-magazine.  http://www.teamusa.org/About-the-USOC/Sport-Performance/Coaching-Education/Coach-E-Magazine.aspx

7.  Refresh and relax.  “Pay yourself first” is an excellent technique for making sure that you get something out of all your hard work.  There’s nothing worse than feeling overworked and taken for granted.  Don’t let yourself take you for granted too!  This year, I’m going to pay myself daily with a nice workout.  I’m going to pay myself weekly with at least one day off (Sunday).  And I’m going to pay myself for the year with a nice vacation to Oregon where I’m going to climb Mt. Hood with my two oldest sons.

8.  Keep a journal.  Do you remember what you had for breakfast yesterday?  No?  Do you remember how you solved that big problem last week when everybody said you did such a good job? No?  I‘ve been keeping a learning journal for the last year and it is amazing to me how often I go back to check how I solved problems or dealt with a difficult situation.  Since one of my goals is to do better every “next time”, I always treat these entries like case studies.  I record what I think went well and what didn’t.  I end each entry with suggestions for next time.  Takes me about 10 minutes a day.  I write in my journal immediately after I do my day planner.  Get your journal at Levenger.  I like the expensive ones (about $45) because I am cheap and don’t like to waste the beautiful paper—I think it foucses me on the task at hand a little better.    http://www.levenger.com/

9.  Don’t forget the family.  I work too much.  I know it and my wife and children know it too because they pay a price that’s probably greater than my own.  I have adopted a standard of three meaningful and positive exchanges with each member of my family each day.  I also have a benchmark of never missing a game, never missing a performance, never missing a field trip.  Yes, I keep track.  And yes, it’s hard to find the time.  Has it made a difference?  I think so.  Ask my kids when I last took them skiing or attended a ballet performance or cheered through a Pinewood Derby or helped with the homework.  I can always do better but I think my family knows that they are my priority.

9. Practice deliberately.   Knowledge workers have a big blind spot.  After we get out of college we tend to think that our formal learning is over.  I challenge you to think like a musician.  Musicians get better with time, often performing at a world –class level well after most knowledge workers have faded away and retired.  Musicians think of their skill set as a craft that takes years and deliberate effort to hone.  My grandfather practiced his violin for 2 hours each day, every day until, in his eighties, he could no longer hold the bow.  World-class performance requires world-class skills which in turn require world-class practice.  Two hours a day devoted to a bleeding-edge skill.  I log it in my journal too.  This kid, Cal Newport, is my new guru for Hacking a career:  http://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/how-to-be-so-good-they.html

Best of luck in 2013!

© Fred Goldstein | Dreamstime.com

Emotional intelligence has been described as ‘using emotions to learn information about ourselves’ (BBC Radio 4 ‘Emotional Rollercoaster’ series) There are many ideas about, and definitions of, emotional intelligence but from the point of self-exploration this one is most pertinent. If we really want to go deeper and understand our own true nature, we need emotional awareness. Many spiritual traditions tell us that we are love, but how can we know? Can we see love? Can we taste it? Or hear it? No. The only way to know the truth of the statement ‘we are love’ for ourselves, is to feel it, and feelings are the language of emotions. Unfortunately in our daily lives, we are often required to suppress our feelings, and our emotions…

read the full article HERE

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Soul Path Coach and Author Ruth Hadikin, specializes in supporting you on your own greatest adventure: as you find and express your purpose, passion, and unique Soul Path through self-exploration.

Life’s Greatest Adventure is the path of your Soul!

Sign up for Ruth’s newsletter “Life’s Greatest Adventure” and receive a free eBook: “So You Think You Can’t Meditate? A Beginners Guide To Meditation”

One of the reviewers of Goleman’s book on Amazon wrote, “You may find yourself jumping up and down screaming, “Yes! Yes! Yes!,” to the book’s persuasive demand for better leaders, but you’re inevitably left whimpering, “Now what?”"

So, the question is, how do you prime good feeling in those you lead? In other words, how do you inspire trust?

What I’ve discovered in 40 years of management, most of those being an avid student of Dr. Peter Drucker, is that the quickest way to “establish good feeling” with those on your team is occaisionally spend time with them, one on one, ask a few direct questions, and then “listen” to what they have to say. By letting them know that they, and their ideas, are important to you, does a great deal to promote a healthy relationship. (By the way… the same things applies to a healthy marriage.)

My favorite question, that I call the “magical 5 words” is: “What needs to be done?” When asked it can have amazing results. But don’t be surprised that when the first time it is asked, you get the “deer in the headlights” look. Because it is rarely asked, most of the time people are told what to do. But when they realize that what they think actually matters, and that somebody on the other end is listening, it engages their thinking on a higher level and has a synergistic effect on the entire team.

Daniel Goleman’s Leadership That Gets Results, a landmark 2000 Harvard Business Review study, was a three-year study with over 3,000 middle-level managers. The research discovered that a manager’s leadership style was responsible for 30% of the company’s bottom-line profitability.

In this article, Robyn Benincasa, a two-time Adventure Racing World Champion, two-time Guinness World Record distance kayaker, a full-time firefighter, and author writes about the 6 leadership styles that should be used in teams. The main idea is to understand that each style can and should be used. You should never pigeon-hole yourself into one style of leadership. To read the article click here.

By Cindy Wigglesworth, Huffington Post

Who are your spiritual heroes — those people you would think of as exemplary human beings? And what characteristics do you admire in them? When I ask people these questions, they cite similar characteristics time and again. We tend to admire people who have high integrity and are courageous, loving, calm, visionary, selfless, inspiring, and making a difference. Think about this for yourself. Make your own list of those you consider to be especially noble, and why. This is a great starting point for becoming an exemplar yourself. I have found that the great majority of people want to live as their noblest self. And achieving this requires understanding and developing multiple “intelligences,” including spiritual intelligence.

Spiritual intelligence is an essential component of both personal and professional development. With SQ we access the voice of our noblest self — our higher self — and let it drive our lives.

Personal and spiritual growth can no longer be viewed as a private journey we undertake in a different sphere of life than our professional endeavors. There is, in my experience, an undeniable connection between the personal and the professional, between the inner life of the self and the outer world of effectiveness and impact. In other words, your personal development changes you. And who you are ultimately determines how you lead.

We are all leaders and role models regardless of our jobs. We are leaders to our children, to our coworkers, and to everyone we interact with. Deep, authentic leadership requires that we lead ourselves first. We do the spiritual weightlifting to develop a deep inner self-awareness and compassion for the world around us. And we put in the effort required to make a difference in the world. We build the multiple intelligences we need: cognitive or mental intelligence (IQ) and the related technical skills of our craft; emotional intelligence (EQ), or good interpersonal skills; physical intelligence (PQ), or good body management; and spiritual intelligence (SQ).

Most people are familiar with the term IQ, which is our classical mental intelligence (mathematical and verbal). And more and more have heard of EQ or emotional intelligence, thanks to the pioneering work of Daniel Goleman and Richard Boyatzis. PQ may not be a familiar term, but it is a foundational skill we all practice every day. Put very simply, when we don’t take care of our bodies, everything else suffers. I define PQ as “body awareness and skillful use.” A simple example of poor PQ is allowing yourself to be continually sleep-deprived. Mental, emotional, and spiritual functioning diminishes along with stamina and health.

The least familiar of these four intelligences is SQ, but I believe we may come to find that it is the most critical as we navigate the choppy waters of our current times. It builds on EQ and takes us to the next level.

I define spiritual intelligence (SQ) as: The ability to behave with wisdom and compassion, while maintaining inner and outer peace, regardless of the situation. I have researched 21 measurable “skills” or “competencies” that are components of this ability. These include things like “awareness of one’s own worldview,” “complexity of inner thought,” “awareness of interconnectedness of life,” “keeping your Higher Self in charge,” and “being a wise and effective change agent.” Unlike many spiritual teachings, which can tend to seem vague or mysterious, these tangible skills can be learned through practice and developed through clearly-defined levels.

Some people argue that spirituality is innate to each one of us — something we already are, not something we develop. And I agree. We are all born as spiritual beings. But just as a child with musical ability will never be highly “musically intelligent” if she does not learn music theory and practice playing an instrument, so it is with spiritual intelligence. We must understand the basics of “spiritual theory” and practice the skills to become spiritually intelligent.

The 21 skills of SQ are not new. In fact, they are as old as the spiritual impulse in human consciousness. I arrived at this skills-based model by stepping back from the particular religious or philosophical belief systems and considering the traits that are common to spiritual exemplars yet “a step beyond” EQ or IQ.

I feel that many of us, especially leaders in organizations, have been held back by the lack of a safe, diversity-friendly way to address the skills we need to develop. We need a skills-based language to help us tap the innate drive to nobility in ourselves and then share the benefits of this growth in our workplaces and in society.

SQ development boils down to this: We move from immature ego-driven behaviors to more mature higher self-driven behaviors. How do we do that? We develop the ability to hear the voice of our higher self, to understand and transcend the voice of our ego, and to be guided by deep wisdom and compassion. IQ and EQ support us as we develop the skillful means to deploy our noblest intention. The ego matures and nuanced forms of more effective leadership develop. With more SQ comes less drama and more impact.

Here’s one quick tip you can practice right away: Learn to be quiet. In the stillness you can observe deeply. Notice when your body and mind are agitated. Hear the voice of your ego and its fears. Love your ego — it is valuable. But know that it is also a drama queen. It needs guidance and balance. Hold your noble heroes in mind and ask your higher self for guidance. What is the wise and compassionate action to take today in this situation? What is in the highest and best interest of all players — including me, my co-workers, friends, family, company, society, and the planet? From this quiet place, you can act with SQ.

Spiritual intelligence is critical for personal growth and authentic leadership. The community, family, global and business leaders of the future will be those who are quickest to recognize this fact and begin to measure and cultivate the skills of spiritual intelligence in themselves and their organizations.

Related articles

• Assessment: IQ, EQ and SQ
• Achieving Happiness: Tapping into your inner resources – CapitalGazette.com: Achieving Happiness
• We do EVERYTHING for a reason

The act of compassion begins with full attention ~Daniel Goleman

Here is Matthieu’s praise over the fantastic work that the Mind and Life Institute has been carrying on over 25 years now.

“The Mind and Life Institute held its 25th meeting last November in New York City. The meeting also corresponded to its 25 years of activities since Chilean-born neuroscientist and thinker Francisco Varela and American lawyer Adam Engle founded it. Over the years, the Mind and Life Institute has organized remarkable meetings between His Holiness the Dalai Lama and some of the leading scientists of the world. During the meetings they engaged in two- to five-day long dialogues on major issues pertaining to modern science and Buddhist science. Topics have included the nature of reality and consciousness and training of mind through contemplative practices.

Not only did these discussions led to fascinating insights, but also created an extremely fertile collaboration between scientists and contemplatives engaging in actual scientific research furthering our knowledge and making a very positive contribution to society.

An ever increasing number of research projects were, and are still, being launched in many laboratories throughout the world including that of the late Francisco Varela in France; of Richard Davidson and Antoine Lutz in Madison, Wisconsin; of Paul Ekman and Robert Levenson in San Francisco in Berkeley; of Cliff Saron at U.C. Davies; of Jonathan Cohen and Brent Field in Princeton; of Amishi Jha in Pennsylvania, and of Tania Singer at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, to name but a few. 

The smaller core Mind and Life meetings took place in India at His Holiness the Dalai Lama’s residence. Numerous important public meeting were also held including: a significant meeting at MIT in Boston on Investigating the Mind, in 2003, attended by a 1000 scientists including a few Nobel laureates; a meeting in Zurich dedicated to Altruism in Modern Economic Systems; and one in Delhi that brought together major contemplative traditions of India.

Contemporary luminaries have been an integral part of the Mind and Life Institute for many years: Daniel Goleman, the author of Emotional Intelligence; Jon Kabat-Zin, who first launched the Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction program 30 years ago that is now taught in hundreds of hospitals in the world and has led to more research clinical studies than any other program; Joan Halifax, who started the Being with Dying Program and Upaya, and many other important thinkers.

I was fortunate to be involved in Mind and Life since the 2000, when the groundbreaking meeting on “Dealing with Destructive Emotions” was held at His Holiness the Dalai Lama residence in Dharamsala, India. Since then, as a meditative subject, I spent dozen of hours in MRI scanners, at the labs of Richie Davidson, Antoine Lutz, Brent Field, and Tania Singer, and became a close friend and humble collaborator with many of the eminent scientists who participated in Mind and Life events, such as Paul Ekman, Wolf Singer, and Daniel Batson.

One of the greatest achievements of Mind and Life has been its yearly Summer Institute. For the last seven years it has attracted over a hundred young scientists from all over the world, senior researchers and Buddhist philosophers and practitioners who, over a week, explore a specific topic, in a format that combines scientific presentations, informal discussions, and periods of meditation practice culminating in a day of silence.

Mind and Life has also organized networks that are working in the fields of education and, more recently, studying craving and the opposite, flourishing.

In April 2012, the first International Symposium on Contemplative Research was held in Denver attended by 700 specialists. The next one will be held in Berlin in October 2013 and will be dedicated to exploring individual and social transformation.

The Dalai Lama often describes Buddhism as being, above all, a science of the mind.  One of the great tragedies of our time is that we significantly underestimate our capacity for change. But the collaborative research catalyzed by the Mind and Life Institute has shown that it is indeed possible to transform ourselves for the betterment of our own lives and for society, by cultivating wholesome states of mind, thought after thought, day after day, year after year.

Adam Engle retired this year, after guiding the Institute for 25 years on its journey to becoming a respected worldwide organization that brings together the highest standards of modern science and contemplative practice. Arthur Zajonc is the current president and a Mind and Life Europe has been established in Zurich. I look forward to many more public events, meetings with His Holiness, and retreats with scientists and students over the coming years.“

Source: Matthieu Ricard, “Celebrating the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary of the Mind and Life Institute” – Jan 19th, 2012

Emotional intelligence is a non-intellective form of intelligence where a person has the ability to identify their emotions, understand what those emotions are telling them, and realize how their emotions affect others around them.  Charles Darwin’s work on the importance of emotional expression is probably the earliest work in this area, followed by many others who researched in areas of social intelligence, multiple intelligences, and intrapersonal intelligence.

In 1985, Daniel Goleman introduced his mixed model of emotional intelligence, which describes the competencies and skills that drive leadership performance.  The five main focuses are:

• Self-awareness
• Self-regulation
• Social skill
• Empathy
• Motivation

Each area of focus contains a set of emotional competencies that are learned capabilities.  They can be worked on and developed to enhance performance and leadership.

As emotional intelligence becomes even more broadly accepted, it is critical to professional success, as it is being used increasingly when organizations hire and promote.  A high degree of emotional intelligence often goes hand in hand with a high degree of success.

Developing and utilizing your emotional intelligence highlights your attributes as a leader.  And yes, Virginia, these skills can be taught and developed.  You might start by observing how you react to people, evaluating your need for attention, becoming familiar with your weaknesses as well as your strengths, and determining how you react to stressful situations.  Are you willing to take responsibility for your actions?  Do you think about how your actions affect others?

Are you aware of your actions and feelings?  Do you value others, actively listen, and feel empathy?  Well, let’s get started enhancing your emotional intelligence skills.  To begin with, you might read Leadership:  The Power of Emotional Intelligence, by Daniel Goleman.  You might also read Brene Brown’s blog entitled Ordinary Courage.  And you should definitely check out mindtools.com – sign up for their newsletter, utilize their toolbox and they also have an app for your iPad.  Take leadership tools with you wherever you go!

~ Julie Morris ~

number of human resources professionals present.  It was the most attended workshop throughout the whole week and I was astonished to see the amount of interest that Emotional Intelligence conjured among our professionals.

Related articles

• What is Emotional Intelligence? (psychology.about.com)

Crazy! Bonkers! Busy-ness!!! I type these three words very frequently in emails, texts and facebook messages. (I’m funnier on twitter, honest.) If someone inquires as to my good health, my response usually contains one of them, followed by an exclamation mark that belies my frustration. These words came to mind yesterday, as one of my mummy friends (I recently described her as my biggest fan) texted me, and asked me to blog, by way of helping her, on a topic that is preoccupying her greatly at the moment. Her dilemma? How Busy with a capital B she feels, all the time, and her worries about the impact this may have on her four-year-old child. Being very flattered to be asked, I stopped to have a quick, ironic chortle to myself at the notion of anyone considering me as someone with wisdom to share. Giggle over, I then proceeded to scribble ideas as I 1) cooked the kid’s tea, 2)started dinner for me and him, 3)listening to an astonishing amount of detail from my daughter as she described her day at pre-school. Blimey, that kid packs a lot in.

Like all women with young children, this particular mummy’s consistent juggling is the key to her family’s successful functioning. Without downgrading the graft our menfolk put their back into on our behalf - and hers is no exception - if she ‘stops’, then it all goes Pete Tong. In her text she worried that needing to ask her child to ‘hang on five minutes while I just do X (or Y or Z)’ on a regular basis was doing him a disservice somehow. My first thought? We ALL say that, EVERY day. But I suspect we all feel a little uncomfortable about it; I know I do. But does the fact that we’re all in the same boat mean we shouldn’t go looking for new paddles?

With that in mind, I’m going to do something in this post that I have never considered doing on the blog before. I’m going to give advice. My disclaimer should be made clear from the outset. I’m just a 41-year-old mum, no more, no less. My take on the Universe is just that; my take. I own what I say below, in the sense that I can justify why I have written it, but don’t feel any strong urge to persuade others to adopt my perspective. But, in the interests of helping my friend see her predicament from a few fresh angles, I offer this eclectic list of what can only be described as, well, ’stuff’.

Some ideas to think about….

1. You ARE doing a good enough job. Not so many generations ago mums felt they were doing a good job if they fed, watered, and clothed their child, and gave them sufficient pots and pans to bash away on while they did the serious work of running the home. They didn’t worry about child development, attachment theory, phonics, tooth decay, omega 3 deficiency or whether the kids have spent too long in their car seats. Our kids are, in relative terms, luxuriating in a warm bath of concern and attentiveness. While it would never do to be complacent, let’s not beat ourselves up too much, eh? If the laundry needs putting away, then it needs putting away - they’ll be OK while you do it. (1)
2. Playing is doing. Modern mums also feel a sense of twitchy guilt when they do stop and play. So goal-focused are we as a society, that simply surrendering to the meander of child-led activity can leave us scratching around for any sense of achievement. We have somehow ended up believing that playing isn’t ‘doing’. When we see mummy-lion roughing and tumbling with her cubs on the telly we know that its play for a serious reason, that life-lessons are being learnt. Yet we don’t find it easy to justify the same indulgence for ourselves and our kids. (2)
3. Feminism hasn’t done us any favours…yet. As I folded laundry today, the pithy statement, ‘Feminism strived for what was possible for women without considering the reality of what is do-able’. I wrote it down, quick, before I forgot it. (See yesterday’s ‘Rhetorical Questions I ask myself’ for more on the failing of my short-term memory.) I’m going to put this moment of  incisive wit down to the fact that I am currently reading Caitlin Moran’s How To Be A Woman. What I am actually trying to say here is that as a generation of women we are, more fully than those previously, the recipients of the benefits of the feminist movement, via our educational, political and cultural experiences, and to a slightly lesser extent, our career potential. All of this has given us an expectation of how life ‘ought’ to be. But we are also, as a result of our ‘inheritance’, expected to achieve so much (perfect relationship, perfect children, perfect career, perfect physical form, perfect social life, ya-da-da-da-da). It’s too much. It’s not possible. And then the media wades in with a zillion images of boy-thin celeb mums and their coiffed kids delighting in the sunshine at Sea World. We don’t cross-examine the glossies and red-tops for pumping this stuff out at us every day; we just absorb it, and find ourselves failing by comparison. But it’s not real, is it? Don’t deny yourself a flick through Hello at the Doctors surgery; do stop yourself at the point of wishing you could change places. It’s an illusion. If you think you are hooked on chasing all of this, cut yourself loose. Now! (And read Caitlin’s book; it’ll make you laugh, very loudly, and laughter is good for tension release.)

Some things to try…

1. Embrace who you are. The insightful psychologist Oliver James helpfully, and non-judgementally, categorises mothers into one of three groups: Organisers, Huggers, Fleximums. Your label indicates your approach to running you household and your kids lives. They are pretty good labels because you get an immediate sense of what he’s on about. His argument is simple. Whatever kind of mum you are, go with it, and don’t burden yourself with unproductive guilt. If you’re an Organiser and you’re not really into babies, fine, find a good carer who can do that bit for you, and don’t let others make you feel guilty for ‘not being very maternal’. If you’re a Hugger, accept the ebb and flow of happy chaos that will surround you, and put off tidying up until the youngest reaches 5. If you’re a Fleximum (and the majority of us are) tolerate the Juggle as best you can, and find spaces in the nooks and crannies between tasks to remember who you are. (3)
2. Set realistic goals for change. If you’ve explored Oliver’s concept and still come up feeling that there are Things Requiring Change, let’s stay this side of realistic and achievable as we approach them. Here’s an example of what I mean. I have a fervent hope of publishing a book on parenthood at some point this decade (and an even greater wish to be interviewed on Woman’s Hour about it). But, I know, that while I have a four-year-old and a one- year-old, and I am their primary carer, there is not much chance of me finding oodles of time to get on with said ambition. That doesn’t mean I can’t work towards it though. The book is sufficiently mapped out in my head that I can do five minutes research here, clip out an article from the sunday papers there. It might be another two years before I get anywhere near sitting and writing. But in the mean time, I get to feel some progress. I’d encourage you to adopt a similar approach. Recognise the reality of your busy circumstances, but don’t hide behind that as a reason not to modify your behaviour or introduce new challenges. Just keep them SMART, in the anacronym-istic sense; Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely. If you want to carve out more quality time for you and the kids, a day a week may be unachievable but 15 minutes a day? Well that would be a SMART goal. Neuro-linguistic Programming, an offshoot of psychology that examines the behaviours of the successful rather than those with poor mental health, takes these ideas further, inspiring you to have a rich vision of where you are trying to get to, and to live a life where you are keeping ‘the end (goal) in mind’. (4)
3. Be good to yourself while you change. Switching off the inner-critic is not an easy task. The father of modern psychotherapy, Carl Rogers, talked of providing clients with an environment of Unconditional Positive Regard, arguing that no-one can bring about change in their lives if they feel judged, under-valued or misunderstood. My psychotherapy training teacher used to put it slightly differently, encouraging us to work on freeing our clients from judging themselves as they brought about transition in their lives. It is a principle we can equally adapt and apply to our situations. If you have a constant internal monologue of ‘who do you think you are trying to do this/that/the other!’, you will not succeed. Tune this voice out; switch her off. Easier said than done I grant you. Recognising that you are possessed of an inner-critic is the first step. You can then tell her to pop in for half-an-hour per day only, in the manner of “You can come and make me worry and doubt at 4pm this afternoon, but right now, I’m busy being fabulous, and the bestest mum there is”. Odd sounding it may be, but I have tried this (the ‘worry hour’, I call it) and it can help.
4. Take all the help you can get along the way. If you’re choosing to make a change, however modest, get Team You right on side. There are behaviours, strategies we can all adopt that will support us in our endeavours. Julia Cameron talks of releasing our creativity and being a catalyst for change by keeping a daily journal in her book, The Artist’s Way. (5) Edward De Bono invites you to wear (metaphoric) different coloured hats to view your problem from all angles. (6) Daniel Goleman has examined the potential Meditation has to breathe fresh perspective into our lives. (7) Every Life Coach on the planet would suggest regular exercise as a path to personal growth on all levels. Suzanne Jeffers believes in the use of mantras to keep you focused throughout the day. (8) And during a particularly tough moment in my life, I had a ‘survival buddy’, a good friend who would text me regular messages of support as I summoned up all my bravery to get through a hard time. She was hugely generous and made a big difference. And beyond all this, I have personally found a lot of help in the blogging community; for an example of the real inspiration available to mums in the digital age, take a look at http://www.storyofmum.com/ and in particular, Pippa’s awesome Gold Star Mama EBook.

Without being unbearably sexist, family life for most does revolve around a fully functioning mummy. Each and everyone one of us is the pivot, the fulcrum, the magnetic pole around which all this activity spins. While we spend our days putting all others first, at some other, more profound, level, we have to put ourselves first. You can’t be the ever-reliable one if you don’t take a minute for yourself to recharge, as the saying goes. Feeling guilt, as an emotion, about what you are doing / what you have to do / what you don’t get time for, is only useful up to a point. If it inspires you to make an actual change to your circumstances or mental change to your attitude, then OK, we’ll let that guilt slide on in under the door. But beyond that, all it does is leave you stuck in a horrid, muddy rut, with slippery sides that do not aid rescue. What you resist, persists (man). Don’t fight it, do something with it. Change what you are doing, or change the way you perceive what you are doing. And come back and tell me all about it in the comments section, please.

Oh, and I loved that I multi-tasked while I brainstormed an article on the challenges mums face in their multi-tasking lives. It tells you everything you need to know about modern, motherly mayhem.

(1) Have a read of this, it’s brilliant http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amy-morrison/motherhood_b_2271349.html?utm_hp_ref=parents&ir=Parents

(2) Naomi Stadlen ‘What Mothers Do’ 2005

(3)Oliver James ‘How Not To F**k Them Up’ 2010

(4) Try googling / Amazon searching NLP and SMART goals for more information.

(5)Julia Cameron ‘The Artist’s Way’ 1994

(6) Edward De Bono ‘How To Have A Beautiful Mind’ 2004

(7)Daniele Goleman ‘Destructive Emotions’ 2003

(8)Suzanne Jeffers ‘Embracing Uncertainty’ 2003

This is not a sponsored post. I just wanted to share with y’all the stuff that gives me insight and inspiration. Pass it Forward.