Welcome to episode 3 of the Coach Yourself Series - WTF is emotional intelligence and why it's critical to your success & satisfaction.
If you’ve listened to this podcast for a while, you have absolutely heard Bre talk about emotional intelligence but in this episode she really drills down into the core of what it is and why it’s so important.
Tune into hear her chat about:
⭐ What the heck is Emotional Intelligence?
⭐ When you work on your EQ you become in control of your power
⭐ How to know when you need to improve your emotional intelligence
⭐ Practice makes perfect
This episode is chock-a-block FULL of things to be aware of and things to implement to improve your emotional intelligence. We need to remember it is a SKILL meaning it can be improved, nurtured, refined and honed.
As always, let us know your biggest takeaways by taking a screen shot and tagging @iambreannamay on Instagram.
Are you a human who works with humans? Have you heard about the Mind School Method? You’re gonna want in on this I can promise you. Get your name on the waitlist HERE
We are launching LUL veryyyy soon so make sure you’re on the waitlist to receive the details HERE
If you haven’t had a peruse of Bre’s website – what are you doing?! It’s full of all the good stuff (and some of it’s free!) you can visit it HERE
Welcome to episode 3 of the Coach Yourself Series - WTF is emotional intelligence and why it's critical to your success & satisfaction.
If you’ve listened to this podcast for a while, you have absolutely heard Bre talk about emotional intelligence but in this episode she really drills down into the core of what it is and why it’s so important.
Tune into hear her chat about:
⭐ What the heck is Emotional Intelligence?
⭐ When you work on your EQ you become in control of your power
⭐ How to know when you need to improve your emotional intelligence
⭐ Practice makes perfect
This episode is chock-a-block FULL of things to be aware of and things to implement to improve your emotional intelligence. We need to remember it is a SKILL meaning it can be improved, nurtured, refined and honed.
As always, let us know your biggest takeaways by taking a screen shot and tagging @iambreannamay on Instagram.
Are you a human who works with humans? Have you heard about the Mind School Method? You’re gonna want in on this I can promise you. Get your name on the waitlist HERE
We are launching LUL veryyyy soon so make sure you’re on the waitlist to receive the details HERE
If you haven’t had a peruse of Bre’s website – what are you doing?! It’s full of all the good stuff (and some of it’s free!) you can visit it HERE
Welcome back to the mind school podcast. If you have been listening to this podcast for a few years, welcome back, if you are new, I am so happy that you are here. It is February and it is one of my favourite months because it's summer. It's our wedding anniversary. And it's my birthday month, which means this is a reminder to podcast listeners that I am running a birthday month celebration and massive, massive, massive giveaway. I've never done anything like this. And I will not be sharing this on my Instagram, I will not be sharing this in my email list. It is purely for listeners. And that is to celebrate my birthday and the support of you guys who listen to this and support me in getting this out there to lots and lots of people, I am doing a giveaway where one person will be given access to every single one of my courses for 2020. For all the master classes, all the courses including level up your life, just excluding the mind school method, you will be given completely free access for the whole of 2024. And there is a lot coming a lot a lot coming, which is very, very, very exciting. So if you would like to go in that competition, all you need to do is leave a review on Apple or Spotify of this podcast and send it to us in the DMS on Instagram. And you also need to share this podcast on your stories and tag me. So there's two things you need to do. If you've already left a review, like I said, just get creative. use somebody else's email, drop another one. And you will go into the draw to win a whole year of courses, personal development, mindset, all of the things that I've got coming out and like I said, there's a lot of cool stuff happening. So that's that also just a little reminder, there is going to be some more information coming soon like a whole podcast episode dedicated to the to the mind school method certification, which is all about becoming a very, very highly skilled coach and leader and educator. It's for humans who work with humans, it's for aspiring coaches, and it's for those of you who feel like you actually want to uplevel your your toolkit and your skill set so that you can a be a self led and empowered human who gets incredible results for your life, but then can also lead other humans and we are going into all things mindset NLP, emotional intelligence, Shadow Work rapport, relationships, all of my favourite things. And it is really one of a client that is going to be released very, very soon, but you will need to be on the waitlist to get all of the information. And the waitlist is in the shownotes. So obviously I've just talked about one of the core pillars of the mind school method is emotional intelligence. And it is something that I have been banging on about for fucking years now. And I actually realised I wrote a post about it yesterday for my Instagram. But I had this moment yesterday where I was like, holy shit. When I left the education system, when I left teaching, I was banging on and on and on and on about how it's not about IQ. It's actually not it's not about IQ. IQ is not the thing that leads to the outcomes we want for students. And when you think about what's what outcomes you want for students, right? You want academic achievement, you want life satisfaction, you want mental health, you want them to be able to navigate relationships, you want them to have career success, none of that really comes down to IQ. It actually doesn't. And when I left teaching, I remember because I started my business and I was niched, down into mindset coaching for teenage girls. And I was very, very, very passionate about that still am. But anyway, I started the Facebook business page, you know, as you do, you go and go and do all the wrong things. Those of you who have businesses might be able to relate, you go and put all your energy and time and money into the wrong things, you get all these business cards that you actually never use. Or anyway, I could talk about all of the business mistakes over the years, which would probably be a fun episode. But I started a Facebook page for the business and the tagline was EQ over IQ. And what I was talking about was emotional intelligence. Because emotional intelligence when that is the thing that you prioritise, when that is the thing that you cultivate, when that is the thing that you nurture, when that is the skill set that you allow kids to develop. All of the other things become a beautiful benefit benefit of that. You benefit from the success in academia, you benefit from all of those things. I mentioned that when you put academic performance as the first thing. Usually all of those other things come crumbling down. So back in the day, I was like, it's about EQ it's actually about EQ none of The other things, and just to put this into a bit of a practical example, and you might be able to picture this, maybe how you were as a student, whether you went to uni, or if you're thinking back at school, or maybe if you're a parent, and you're thinking about your child, if you picture that stereotypical performer, or student who knows all of the things like is very intelligent, has all the IQ, like, knows how to study does the study does the work comes to class and contributes heaps, knows all the information, has great discussions really performs well in class. And then exams come, or assessments come. And because their student can't regulate their emotions, has a lot of pressure on themselves, doesn't know how to manage stress or deal with anxiety, can't speak to the teacher about it, because they haven't developed interpersonal interpersonal relationships, doesn't even know how to sort of manage these emotions. What happens is they flunk they get a really bad result, they test really badly. They're their exams flop, and then their scores plummet, and then it creates a cycle of I'm stupid, and it creates this really downhill downhill spiral. But it's not because the guy, the person, the the, the boy or the girl, he hurt them. It's not because they're stupid, it's not because their IQ isn't there. It's because their EQ isn't there. And so they don't get the results they want. Because the EQ isn't there, not because the IQ isn't there. And if we think about this, how it sort of how it sort of landed when I was just thinking about it yesterday was, I'm still banging on about the same thing. Every coaching session I have with my clients, everyone who's building a business who's an aspiring coach, or who is wanting to leave their job, start a business is scaling a business, whatever 90% of the conversations I'm having with them is about developing and nurturing and cultivating their emotional intelligence so that they can thrive in business. And so if I paint the picture, like I just did, of the student who's struggling with their emotional intelligence, let's talk about in business how this might play out. Or maybe if you're at work, it could be a similar thing. But let's say you're someone who you've done all the work, you're so excited, you've figured out who your niche is, you've got this offer that you can't wait to share with the world, you've got a message really, really keen, you're willing to do the work, you've found out how to create a sales page, you've created a landing page, you've learned how to do the copy all of the things that you're doing the work, you're actually doing it, there's no problems with your application, or execution or passion or energy or any of those things. However, you start to put your stuff out there, and you don't get the results you want. Or you launch a programme and it doesn't take off. Or maybe it launches and there's crickets, maybe you actually have some people disagree with you online, maybe nobody signs up, and then what starts to happen, rather than sticking to the plan, all of the emotions take over, and you start doing weird shit in your business. Like you start putting everything on sale and changing the launch strategy and ghosting or cancelling the launch altogether and just ghosting your business for ages. And then somebody says, Oh, honey, like maybe maybe it's time to get a job. And that spirals you and so then you completely go into a whole and you stop showing up completely. And then your business results plummet. And then this person might go, oh, maybe it was the strategy, I need a new strategy. And they go business isn't working. It's the business. But actually, most of the time, it's it's the lack of emotional awareness, the emotional intelligence to be able to hold the normal shit that comes with business. It is normal and standard practice that if you have a business, there's going to be times when things don't take off, there's going to be times where you didn't quite hit the mark, there's going to be times when people didn't understand people didn't buy it, people want refunds. But you have to be able to hold it emotionally and know how to navigate it to be able to withstand the everyday life of a business owner. And so you could probably apply this to your career. But everything really comes down to it's not the strategy. It's not the IQ. It's not the boss. It's the emotional intelligence. And so I want to talk about this on today's podcast, like what it actually is and how to know if it's something you need to work on, and also how to work on it. What I've noticed is it's become like a bit of a buzzword, and a lot of people say it but I don't know if not, if everyone necessarily knows exactly what it is and what it means and how we can improve it. and why it's so important that we do because, and obviously I'm biassed, and this is just my own perspective and opinions, but I believe it is one of the most important skills and it is a skill. That's the other thing. It is a skill, which means as a skill, it can be taught, it can be practised, it can be refined, it can be nurtured, it can be improved. And that's so empowering to know, we can go from somebody with really low emotional intelligence to really high emotional intelligence. When we know what it is, we can see where we've got opportunities to grow. And we know how to do it. Because when I think about any problem that a client has ever presented to me any challenge, when I think about any time in my life, where I've wanted to evolve or get to my next level, it's actually been the need to be able to hold lots of emotions, lots of discomfort, lots of stress, lots of all of these different things, that's been the actual decider of whether or not somebody's going to go from wanting something to actually seeing it through. Like, to me emotional intelligence is the difference between the people who want to do things, and the people who actually do things no matter what. So what the heck is emotional intelligence, I want to say, first of all, emotional intelligence is considered a skill. And this excites me because when it's a skill, it's something that we can practice, it's something that we can improve, it's something that we can refine, it's something that we can nurture, it's something we can cultivate is something we can teach. And that is so exciting, because whether or not your emotional intelligence is low, or high, or wherever, there's always room for improvement, which means there's always room for growth and for your next level. So first of all, it's a skill, very, very exciting. But ultimately, it's your ability to be able to recognise your emotions, to be able to understand your emotions, to be able to manage and regulate your emotions, and the ability to also recognise and see and influence the emotions of others. So if you're listening, and you're a coach, or you want to be a coach, or you're a human who works with humans, this is huge. Because if you can't really recognise an influence other people's emotions, you're not going to be very impactful. And therefore, you're not going to be able to get the results you want, you're not going to be able to have the quality of relationships you want, you're not going to be able to navigate relationships and the challenges that come with it, because you can't regulate your emotions, you can't understand others. And all of these really fucking when you think about the key pillars of life, emotions and relationships, they're pretty high up there for having like, for having mental health and well being. And emotional intelligence is really the cornerstone, or the foundation of these things being high quality. And so when you've got high emotional intelligence, and you're able to, like I said, manage, regulate, understand influence your emotions, and others, you tip, you're typically a really strong communicator, you're typically very good with other humans. And you actually have generally the studies show a better sense of well being, does it mean that you are always happy? No. Does it mean that you are always optimistic? No, it means that you can hold all emotions, and you don't necessarily spiral. And if you do, you know how to pull yourself back, you know, how to self regulate, you know, how to reach out for help you know, how to communicate. And so, like, like I've said, a million times, it's fucking important because to me, it touches every element of our life. And like I said, when I was explaining why I think it's so important in schools, it is what they say contributes to career success, to mental health, to our relationships, to our academic performance to life satisfaction in general. And what I would say to those of you who have a business or coaches, it absolutely contributes to your business business success, it 100% contributes to whether or not you can stick out something that is uncomfortable, and you're going to whether or not you're the person that ghosts your business was soon as things get uncomfortable, and you don't get the results you want. Or whether you're the person that keeps trudging through and learning and navigating the stress and navigating the challenge and navigating everything that comes with business. It's a huge, huge, huge influence in your business success, and the types of of people that you attract into your world. Because when you have high level of emotional intelligence, ultimately, you become very in control of your life. And when you're somebody who's in control of your life, you're self lead, you have a lot of power, and people feel that and people want to be around that people want to learn from that people want to pay you because that's ultimately people that are all trying to access their power. While and when you access yours, because you're working on your emotional intelligence, you become a very attractive person for those people. So, like I said, it's about managing your emotions. It's about influencing relationships. It's about understanding your relation, your emotions, etc. So how would you know when you actually need to improve this skill set? Well, you might notice that you get really easily triggered, but not just that, when you get triggered you respond and behave in ways that don't align with who you want to be or where you're going. So it could be that Bob on the internet, or Annie, Susie, or fucking Sally and accounts that the office says, Ah, I didn't like your post? Or why would you do that? Or, or that doesn't make sense. And if that triggers you beyond belief, and impacts and influences you so much so that, that stress actually causes you to doubt yourself, question yourself, maybe you go into a bit of a hole for a while, you don't show up, maybe you absolutely ghost your business for a while, that would suggest that you haven't been able to regulate your emotions to talk yourself off the ledge to behave in a way that aligns with where you're going. And your emotions have actually got the better of you. It could also mean that when you don't get the outcomes you want. So say, for example, you do a launch and it flops, or you write a post and it doesn't get engagement or insert result that you aren't happy with. This might cause you to go into a massive spiral, and not be able to hold that disappointment, not be able to even recognise or there's a bit of disappointment here. Oh, wow, I'm actually seeing that I'm starting to feel a bit of shame. Or I'm seeing that now I'm wanting to actually pull back, oh, I'm seeing that I'm starting to become very avoidant, you won't be able to see your own behaviour and understand what's going on. And so you will just be unconsciously sort of sabotaging yourself, because you can't see what's going on with your behaviours and under the surface, and you don't have that level of self awareness. And so that could be another thing to look at, or to start to see like, Oh, this is very, very interesting. Another way that this might be playing out is in your relationships, whether it's with clients, whether it's with people online, if you can't hold differences of opinions, if you can't hold a coach, maybe he's saying to do things this way, and you don't agree. Or maybe it's that I don't know, I like if anyone says something that you don't agree with a stranger on the internet. If you can't hold differences of opinions and navigate that in relationships, without it, meaning that they're wrong, or you're wrong, or somebody's the devil, or, you know, you can't navigate relationships, even when there's a little bit of friction. And that causes you again, to maybe retaliate, to get defensive to go avoidant. If you can't navigate differences of opinions or conflict. Or if you can't understand and Seek resolution, whenever things present themselves with relationships. Again, it can be another sign that there is a skill here to practice. And like I say, practice, because it is something that requires practice when never done. There's always edges, as I said last week in the coach yourself series, but it's about seeing in yourself where these edges are and having the self awareness to know or I've just started sabotaging or doing this behaviour that actually doesn't align with who I want to be. And so all of this is to say, it's fucking important. It's really important. And there's opportunities all over the place, in terms of how we handle adversity, how we jump back from setbacks, how we handle dispute, how we handle disagreements, how we handle stress, how we can handle anxiety, how we handle all of these things, are really great opportunities to see where we can improve this skill set. So how would you actually improve this skill set, especially if it wasn't something that was taught to you? If it wasn't something that was modelled to you, it can actually be really fucking challenging. And I want to just pre frame this by saying, There is nothing wrong with you. If you do feel that your emotions take control all the time and you are actually not in control. They control you. There is nothing wrong with you. It doesn't mean you're broken. It doesn't mean you can never improve. It doesn't mean you're shit. In fact, it means it is beautiful. I think that it's fucking beautiful to feel all your feelings really strongly, what we want to do is just be able to bridge the gap between feeling our emotions, understanding our emotions, but also having the awareness to not let them completely derail our plan and take us further from who we want to be and how we want to show up in the world. So like I said, for some people, if this was never modelled, that high levels of emotional resilience, emotional awareness, emotional intelligence, emotional understanding, if you weren't even raised where this language was normalised where you didn't have any emotions for your you didn't have sorry, any language for your emotions, this can be really difficult. So I just want to normalise that. First of all, sometimes we don't even know what to call our emotions, because it's just, I don't know, I don't know what I'm feeling. I don't know, it just I don't like it. And that might and that's okay, we can start wherever we can start. And we can slowly start to build our vocabulary, to give us more tools, to name our emotions and to communicate our emotions and to be with our emotions. So like I said, just pre framing, there is nothing wrong, it can be really difficult, especially if it's not something that was modelled to you. But it is a skill. And it is something that can be developed and it is important. So how would we start to develop and nurture our emotional intelligence? Well, the first thing I've just kind of touched on, we want to actually expand our vocabulary for emotional states. So a lot of us when when someone says, how are you? We're like, good, or Yeah, I'm alright. We don't actually have a whole lot of language. And we don't know really how to verbalise what it is we're feeling because we don't have the vocab. And words create worlds. This is something that I feel really strongly about. And I think it's having that NLP background, which was, you know, NLP stands for Neuro Linguistic Programming, which is neuro brain linguistic language, the language we use impacts our life. And I love that saying that words create worlds, if you don't have the words for your emotions, it's it can be hard to express, it can be hard to seek help, it can be hard to understand or manage. So the first thing that we want to do is start to expand our vocabulary. And just looking at what words do you use, what is your emotional home, that you always revert back to? So to give you an example, when I was in my 20s, I feel like the words that I would have used to describe my emotional state often were good, happy, frustrated, overwhelmed. And I sat in overwhelmed quite often, I sat in frustration quite often. And now knowing what I know about human design, frustration is my not self theme when I'm off alignment, which is super interesting. And it's not to say frustration is a bad thing. This is the other part. I love frustration. Now, I don't try to get rid of it. I'm excited by frustration, because I know that I'm about to hit a new level, I know that I'm about to expand, and that's something in my current reality doesn't feel good anymore, which again, is great. But like I said, in my early 20s, my emotional home, the only language I really used was those kind of four, maybe six words, but frustration and overwhelm was was definitely a reoccurring theme. So I started to bring some awareness to Whoa, I only really have these words. But I want better ones. I want more empowering ones, I just want more to explain, because obviously, I feel more than four emotions throughout any given day. But how do I explain that. And so it can just be having, for example, and this is something we're doing level up. So if you're interested in learning this, I would highly recommend you join the next round of level up your life, very much centred around this, particularly in the last few weeks. But we want to start to expand our vocabulary and starting to look at different emotional states and bringing that in. The second piece is self awareness. And it's easy to say we're self aware. But so often, when we start to respond in our automatic ways, when we start to sabotage, that's when we've gone completely unconscious and unaware. We're not bringing our curiosity with us to go, oh, what just happened there? How am I feeling right now? And when you do go to lean into an edge, so maybe you know, it's edgy for you to tell someone how you're feeling when you go to do it, having that self awareness of going, what's happening in my body right now? What fears are coming up for me? How is this feeling? Oh shit, I'm feeling vulnerable. I'm actually feeling scared that they're gonna judge me, I'm feeling scared that they're gonna see that I'm weak. What is coming up. So it's really about when you're walking out these things when you're going about your daily life, but particularly when you're feeling a heightened emotional state, checking in and being like, what is this? What actually is happening in my body and my mind what is feeling present for me, and having that self awareness is really really, really powerful. And then I would say always, with everything that we want to improve, we need courage, because we're going to be consistently testing what feels comfortable to us and expanding that, so that we can grow and evolve. And that means stepping into discomfort, time and time and time again. And like I said just before, if emotional intelligence and self regulation and expressing our feelings and feeling safe with emotion, if that was not normalised for you, all of this will feel edgy. And that's why it takes courage and you want to be somebody who really celebrates courage. But also, it can be very, very, very helpful to have a mentor, a coach, a mirror, to hold space for you to safely do this, and to role model what it looks like. And this is something that I've always really prided myself on. I'm very good at communicating, I love. I love this stuff, I feel like I'm quite safe within my own emotions. And therefore, clients feel safe to express theirs around me, even if it's not comfortable for them. It happens quite often where clients on the first call will cry. And they'll be like, What the fuck, I never cry. And it's beautiful, because I have that, to me creates it means I've created safety. And I create safety because I am safe within myself. I am my own safe space. I don't judge myself, beat myself up, call myself weak. When I have quote, negative emotions, I love all of it. And I'm learning more and more and more whenever done. Like I said, I still have my edges, and I still lean into them. But I think having somebody that can mirror back to you emotional safety, and having someone who can mirror back to you how to model this is really, really, really powerful. So it can be either getting a mentor or a coach, anyone that feels good for you that feels safe for you. And just watching people who really role model this and show you how it's done can be really, really, really, really, really helpful. And so the last thing that I want to leave you with is that I believe what can really, really Quantum Leap, your success, your fulfilment, and your ability to stay in difficult situations and to see things out is to be somebody who actually prides yourself and identifies with and celebrates, not the external rewards that you reap, from from actually prioritising this, but from actually celebrating and being the person who rewards this exact behaviour. So let me give an example. I don't really get a whole lot of celebration, I don't find that much excitement in celebrating like financial milestones. But what I love is that those financial milestones that I hit a representation and a reminder to me, of who I had to become, and the levels of emotional resilience and emotional intelligence, I had to nurture and cultivate, to be able to create that result. So it's not the result that I'm celebrating, it's who I had to become. And I like to celebrate and pride myself, on being someone who can regulate my emotions, who can have tough conversations, who can hold stress, and who can hold anxiety and who can hold all of these emotions and still show up in my power and not drop my power, and can feel all my feelings without closing my heart and can be consistent even when it feels like I'm not getting any results. Those are the things that I celebrate. Those are the things that I pride myself on. And because of that my power is all internally focused. It's Who am I being how am I showing up? What patterns Am I normalising What am I thought behaviours, those are the things that are all in my control. But if I was somebody who only celebrated the external things, the likes, the money, the followers, the downloads, that would all be something that can be taken, it's not in my power. So when you become someone who really values your growth values, your emotional intelligence, you become someone who is so fucking self sourced and can coach yourself through anything like I've spoken about in this coach yourself series, you become a very powerful and safe person for others to be around. Because when you can coach yourself, you can coach others when you're a safe place for yourself. You're a safe place for others. And this is something that I I like to pride myself on. It's where I put all of my attention and focus because I want to be someone who gets my power from an internal place, not from an external place and something that can be taken. So like I said, if your power comes from your skill set that you have worked on That can't be taken, a skill set cannot be taken. And that is why I'm so big on teaching skill sets that are yours forever. They can't be taken, nobody else can take it away from you. It doesn't depend on, I don't know, the industry or the market, or Joe Blows opinion, it depends on you. And developing skill sets is something that can never be taken from you. And that really contributes to your confidence, and overall satisfaction and success because you have self trust, because you've been focusing on who you are, not what you do. And so that's my spiel today on the emotional intelligence required for so much different levels of success, I believe. And that is the end of the coach yourself series. So if you want to learn more of this, if you froth personal development, and getting to know yourself more if you want to have tools and skills that you can take with you through life to navigate things and create your own reality, level up is for you. And that is coming again soon. If you want to use this to coach others to impact and influence others, and to become a very highly skilled leader, coach, mentor, educator speaker, then the mind school method is for you. And that is also coming soon. All of the information is in the show notes. And just a reminder that the February giveaway is in in full swing. So to have a whole year inside of my world inside of my courses inside of my programmes and master classes for all of 2024 All you need to do is leave a review for this podcast, send it to me and then share one of the podcast episodes that you've been listening to and loving. Share it on your stories and tag me and then we can put you in the drawer to spend 2024 together. So I would love to know your takeaways. I can't wait to hear from you and I will be back here next week. Thank you so much for tuning in.