I’ve done numerous HR / culture / leadership/ industrial psyche courses and none resonated with myself and the team quite like the Justbeing.life course.

I may have some bias as the Just Being presenters and I have become close friends after this experience… but I’m pretty sure they’ll become your close friends too if you choose to go on the EQ Journey with them.

James, the pioneer of the course, has a very cool bio which actually ties into what he does and what I experienced: “we take borrowed truths to become knowledgeable but to be knowledgeable is not to know”. Why do I mention this? The reason I mention this is that there is no step-by-step process to building the perfect team. Someone else’s truth or what they experienced most likely won’t work for you.

Every single team is different and has different components and variables. You know your team best which is your truth or your experience and you know where it needs improvement and where it’s strong points are. Ultimately what James does is simply show you a way to communicate within a team or just human to human. You will then have clearer conversations with your team and in the end you will have real data, real insights and real thoughts from everyone involved which will put you in the best position to make the right decisions for yourself and for your team.

The strange thing is James or the Just Being course doesn’t tell you what to do to build a better team nor does he give you any guidelines or direction. He simply guides you with how to engage with people and how to communicate clearly. This is ultimately the backbone of any strong team. Once you are all communicating clearly it’s up to you what you do from there.

Conflict Resolution – When we can discern people’s emotions and empathize with their perspective it’s much easier to resolve conflicts and possibly avoid them before they start. We are also better at negotiation due to the very nature of our ability to understand the needs and desires of others. It’s easier to give people what they want if we can perceive what it is.

Success – Higher emotional intelligence helps us to be stronger internal motivators which can reduce procrastination, increase self-confidence and improve our ability to focus on a goal. It also allows us to create strong networks of support, overcome setbacks and persevere with a more resilient outlook. Our ability to delay gratification and see the long-term directly affects our ability to succeed.

Leadership – The ability to understand what motivates others, relate in a positive manner and to build stronger bonds with others in the workplace inevitably makes those with higher emotional intelligence better leaders. An effective leader can recognize what the needs of his people are so that those needs can be met in a way that encourages higher performance and satisfaction at work. An emotionally savvy and intelligent leader is also able to build stronger teams by strategically utilizing the emotional diversity of their team members to benefit the team as a whole.

Emotions play a very critical role in the overall quality of our personal and professional lives, more critical than even our actual measure of brain intelligence. While tools and technology can help us to learn and master information, nothing can replace our ability to learn, manage and master our emotions and the emotions of those around us.

Thought I’d put a couple interesting facts down about EQ:
Emotions’ are the biggest motivator of human actions.
They make you survive, make love (reproduce), create social bonds and be moral.
If you want to strong team, then motivations are pretty critical.

EQ > IQ. 85% of your financial success is due to your personality and ability to communicate, negotiate and lead. Shockingly, only 15% is due to your IQ. FACT guys and girls!

Self-awareness is the key. The earlier you recognize an emotion the more choice you have in dealing with it. You gain more self-awareness through meditation.

70% of male leaders in top 15% in decision-making skills score highest in EQ!

I don’t want to give too much away but basically, if you’ve got a team I highly recommend doing it.

 

ADHD kicking in now… Oh look there’s a squirrel!

CIAO – David