Drew Bird- Emotional Intelligence

Today on Conversations with Good Humans I'm talking with Drew Bird, emotional intelligence trainer, expert, and the author of the great book (that I've read twice!) called the Leader's Guide to Emotional Intelligence. His organization called the EQ Development Group, trains leaders and their teams to improve their efficiency and effectiveness through improved emotional intelligence.

I hope that it's encouraging as you hear that EQ, for all of us, it isn't something that is fixed. Each of us can grow in the areas that we need to, to relate to humans the way that we want. Thank goodness for that growth.

If you like this episode, please rate this podcast. It will help others find it and let me know what topics to cover in the future.

Mentioned in this episode:
Drew Bird on Twitter
Drew Bird on LinkedIn
Leader's Guide to Emotional Intelligence (affiliate link)
The Sales Life with Marsh Buice

Transcript

Do you think sales is a bad word? When you hear the word sales, I wonder what images come to mind, whatever your relationship is with selling. I'm glad you're here. Let's have a conversation about how to sell like a good human. Hi, welcome to conversations with good humans. I'm your host, Catherine Brown and I'm author of the book called how good humans sell.

Today on conversations with good humans. I'm talking with Drew Bird, emotional intelligence trainer expert, and the author of the great book that I've read twice called the leaders guide to emotional intelligence. His organization called the EQ development group, trains leaders, and their teams to improve their efficiency and effectiveness through improved emotional intelligence.

Drew has done some training for my weekly sales coaching group. And he and I have also had the pleasure of meeting in person a few times, recording this interview with Drew was a lot of fun because both of us really like to geek out, talking about the implications of emotional intelligence. I think you'll enjoy hearing us and our banter with that.

Additionally, I hope that it's encouraging as you hear that our EQ for all of us, it isn't something that is fixed. Each of us can grow in the areas that we need to, to relate to humans the way that we want. Thank goodness for that growth. If you like this episode, please leave me a review. It will help me know what topics I should include in the future.

And it helps people find the podcast. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. Drew, thanks so much for joining me. I have invited you recently to come and speak with my clients to offer insight about this subject that you know a lot about, which is emotional intelligence. It really helped me. When you spoke to the group to talk about what is emotional intelligence, what are the letters EQ?

What are some basic terms? So before we get too far along and listeners think, oh, I know what they're gonna say. I thought your definitions were really helpful. So let's start with that as a baseline and define some terms and then go from there. 

Yeah, sure thing. And, uh, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

It's good to see you again. Um, yeah, so we, so first thing we tend to use two terms, fairly interchangeably, EQ and EI. And uh, if, if we were, if we follow the rules, AI stands for emotional intelligence. And EQ stands for emotional quotient. So essentially the simplest way is AI is what it is. EQ is how much of it you have.

That's sort of the simplest paradigm to cover with. That's great. And that's useful as a, sort of a, as a dictionary definition, but of course it's so complex and there's so much underneath that, that, you know, a lot of people will say that they have heard of EQ or heard of AI. And, and there's just so much sort of below that.

So actually goes on to surface. When 

I hear the term emotional intelligence, I think it's about how much I recognize is going on in myself. With my own emotions, my ability to communicate effectively, not in a manipulative way, right. We effectively communicate what it is that I'm feeling. So I have to identify when I'm feeling, I have to communicate what I'm feeling.

And then my ability also to understand another person who presumably is doing the same thing, understanding what's happening and then communicating it. Is that right? Is there more, how would you, how else would you define that? Yeah, I 

think that that is right. I mean, there's this, there's this interesting aspect of emotional intelligence, which is the relationship with yourself and that relationship with yourself, the voice inside your head, that talks to you constantly from the moment you wake up in the morning to the moment you go to sleep at night.

That conversation is fundamental. That relationship is fundamental to our daily lived experience and a big part of emotional intelligence is the sense that we make of that conversation. So if the voice inside my head is a ongoing negative troublemaker, that's constantly telling me how bad things are going and.

How, you know, ineffective, I am, that's gonna affect the way I feel. And lots of people do struggle with negative self talk. It's not an uncommon thing whatsoever. So the first sort of aspect of emotional intelligence is understanding a little bit about that voice inside your head and the relationship that you have with it.

Uh, Seth, go down the author has a great question, which is if the voice inside your head was a real person, Would you choose to hang out with them? I think it's great because when I was younger, certainly probably into my I'm gonna say forties probably not would be my answer. That person was kind of negative.

They were a little bit, uh, unproductive accusatory. And now whether it's a, a result of doing this kind of work or whether it's just a result getting older. Um, but I find that the voice of my head now is actually. Kind of, okay. Still has its moments. Um, there are still times when I don't find it super productive, but you know, managing that relationship with the voice in your head is really poor part.

Then we have the interpersonal or the social aspect of emotional intelligence, which is that you interact with people constantly. And you take information from the interactions, you process that information. Make choices about what you're gonna do with that information. And then you act on that information as well.

Every interaction we have has, uh, an emotional intelligence components that are running through it. Uh, a common example I give is, you know, you go to the grocery store, you're at the you're at the checkout. You pick up a pack of gum. You put up on counter, you make eye contact with the person behind the counter.

You ask yourself, are they smiling? Are they not smiling? Do they look happy? If they look unhappy? If they've got a big grin, then maybe you say, oh, Hey, how's it going? And you have a conversation with them. Maybe you avoid eye contact. And we all know that as we go through life, sometimes we feel in a positive frame of mind.

Mm-hmm  and we will deliberately engage even strangers in a dialogue. We also know that if we're having a negative frame of mind, a good day or a bad day, if you wanna call it that. You're not as engaging. You don't wanna talk to strangers. You, you don't wanna have a conversation with the checkout person.

And all of this is a, uh, a product of, and a reflection of our emotional intelligence. It 

seems like people are more familiar with the term emotional intelligence, but mm-hmm  even though the letter's EQ stand emotional quotient, nobody says emotional quotient. Probably accept EQ trainers.  exactly. I'm guessing.

Right. Um, and, and so I think that's a funny thing, but the word quotion is helpful because it tells me that something can be measured, which leads me to my question is can it change? And you gave an example of your own life as you've gotten older, because you've worked and practiced on it. You know, all these different reasons you feel.

Like you, the, that voice inside your head and then what you do with it has evolved. It has changed, but I think this is worth mentioning because those of us that, um, let's just say it this way. I have purposely chosen to never find out my IQ. I literally don't know my IQ. Okay. Because I don't want to.

Because I can't see any good coming from it. I feel like I'm either gonna find that it's higher than I thought. And I'm gonna think, what have I done with my life or it's lower than I thought I'm gonna say. See, I knew it  but what's interesting is I'm crazy about EQ mm-hmm  because I know the research shows that your emotional quotient can change considerably with practice.

Whereas IQ is much more fixed and difficult to move. I'm not saying it doesn't change at all, but it changes less, right? 

That is what the science says. Yes. It's still out about whether your IQ. Can be increased or whether you are being, you are maximizing your IQ within a certain boundary. A, a good example here is I, I, I use this playing a musical instrument.

So, you know, I have a guitar in the living room looks great. I don't, you know, people say, do you play the guitar? I have a guitar  I don't play it very much. Uh, if I pick that guitar up every day and I play it for a few minutes for a couple of years, I'll probably get reasonably good. Uh, I'll be, you know, not bad at playing a guitar.

Um, but I'm never gonna be a concert guitarist. I'm never my capacity to be incredibly good at playing the guitar. It's limited by what I'm capable. Similarly with IQ and similarly with IQ, there's you a limit to what we are capable of? You know, you can, if you do math every day, if you do math every day, this is what these brain training games are on our phones do.

If you do math every day, you are going to get better at math over time, just as a process of practice and awareness. Mm mm-hmm  are you ever gonna be a genius mathematician? No matter how much you practice, how, how much you use. The skill there is, there's probably a limit of what you are capable of. And so, you know, the, the phrase living into your potential, I think could apply to IQ and EQ.

And although I don't study IQ and I'm, you know, sort of basically familiar with that, I've seen people live into possibilities around EQ that surprise legal themselves. 

That's amazing. Now I know because we share some mutual friends. There are resources that actually measure emotional intelligence. And this can be used, I assume, in a variety of settings.

But the one I know the most is in the world of executive coaching. Will you talk a little bit about how these things are measured and just a little bit, I know we could go really deep on this with the subscales and things like that, but what, what is measured and how would a listener decide if they wanted to be measured about.

Yeah, there, there are sort of three basic kinds of assessment. There's what we call trait based assessments. They measure your tendency to do certain things around emotional intelligence. So, uh, for example, how often do you back down, even when you know you are right, or how often do you make decisions? Uh, without other people's input?

So we can measure traits of emotional intelligence. We can also measure ability. Of emotional intelligence. How good are you at recognizing somebody's spatial expression? How good are you at determining the best course of action in a complex interpersonal scenario? And then the third type is assessments that mix both of those.

They have some ability based measure. Some trait measure. The one that I use most of my work is a trait based measure, uh, called the EQ. I. And it's a psychometric assessment scientifically validated that you can take to get a baseline of your emotional intelligence. 

What kind of things Drew does it measure?

So, for example, it measures, uh, you know, to what degree are you, uh, aware of the areas in which you need to grow? Um, are you willing to change your mind easily? Do you tend to avoid problems rather than deal with them? Do you take an interest in others and other people's emotional states? Do you understand what happens to you when you get in difficult, challenging, and stressful situations?

That kind of thing is all measured through a trait based. We do have to be careful though, because the assessments I'm talking about are self-assessments right. And that means that really what you're doing is you're reflecting on your own opinion. Of your emotional intelligence. And so sometimes I'll work with people, they'll look at their assessment results and they'll, they'll look at they'll look at them and think, wow, I'm so emotionally intelligent.

and, and yeah, you sort of have to add to the end of that in your own opinion. Right? 

Right. Yeah. I joke, I joke on the podcast, um, with some other episodes I've joked about my in-house council, you know, I think my listeners know I have, uh, lived with a researcher and psychologist. Yeah. And I've specifically heard him talk about, especially the component of the EQI.

That is reality testing. You know, it's like, oh, some people don't know what their reality really is. Exactly. And they deleted, so how are they gonna score well on that? So it it's, it, it is useful, but not perfect. 

It is. And I always remind myself that, that we are at the beginning of this journey around understanding this thing called emotional intelligence.

There are research has been going on since, you know, the mid formal research. And we've always tried to understand our. You know, that's ancient philosophy, but you know, the research around emotional intelligence specifically has been around since of the eighties. So it's relatively new and we are still trying to get our arms around this pretty vague nebulous topic and interpret it in certain ways.

And lots of research, still ongoing about it. A, a lot of the research nowadays is around applic. So, how do we apply emotional intelligence, much less research now going on around what it is, which in a way I think is a shame, because I think, you know, we, although we have some really good models to work from some really good basis to work from, there's still quite a lot of work to do.

Yes. I'm gonna use that to piggyback to my next question, to make this point because you and I have talked offline about how mm-hmm . I love this expression that you used when you were teaching my clients and were use, you used the phrase. Emotional courage mm-hmm  and what I think is interesting. So see if, see if my train of thought makes sense here.

What I like about it is that when I hear the term emotional courage, I think. Can I manage myself to do whatever is the thing that felt risky. And this is a business development podcast.  we talk about a lot things about human potential and the intersection of personal development and sales, but ultimately people mostly listen, you know, because they want to get better at selling.

What I thought was so interesting in the example that you gave to clients, which I'd like to ask you to repeat here is people were giving live examples of challenges they were having. When I hear just the broad term, emotional intelligence, I think of things like ability to read their face ability, to get the cues ability to know, to, to guess accurately or semi accurately what my prospect might be feeling.

But then we talked in the training about how. It's actually the validating of that. The asking, why is the room so quiet? Why did no one jump on that example I just gave, what, what might they be thinking? It's actually asking people and testing your assumption. That requires emotional courage. That's something I took away from that.

So I think it's interesting because I want people to have hope when they're listening, because. Even if you say you take the EQI and you don't score particularly well in whatever it says about your ability to make those inferences, you can practice the way you ask. And demonstrate emotional courage.

That's what I took from our former conversation. Would you like to build on that? 

Yeah. So there are a certain number of sort of general emotional intelligence principles that are separate from any model or constructs. And they're just useful ways to look at how we go through life. And one of those is emotional courage.

So emotional courage is the willingness or ability to do things that make you uncomfortable. And so that could be, you know, could be speaking up in a large group and saying, Hey. I have a different perspective or I'm sorry, but that joke is really not appropriate or something like that. In a sales context, it's emotional courage is picking up the phone, knowing that the person on the other end might be, you know, at, at worst offensive and maybe at best route, um, or dismissive, and then picking up the phone again and picking up the phone again.

And again, like this is an act of courage. Now, if you're a seasoned cold cooler, You might think, well, it's just easy. You just pick the phone up. Like what does it matter? That's because emotional courage is one of those aspects that can be really built over time. Um, I do a lot of public speaking. Um, When I first started sort of public speaking or training back in the mid nineties, I used to get really nervous and it goes, you know, the nervousness dissipates really fast when you do a 3, 4, 5 days a week as I was doing back then now, you know, if I'm standing in a room of 40, 50 people, I don't get nervous anymore.

Not really. Um, there might be sort, you know, it's sort of anticipatory butterflies, but that's about it, but it's weird if you put me in a room with four or 500 people, I still get quite nervous. And, you know, I do have that sort of momentary feeling where I think, you know, I should just leave. I should just go.

If I walk away, you know, they never find me. Um, you know, so, so a emotional courage is a skill that can be built, whether it's public speaking, whether it's cold calling, it is really just overcoming your own fears. And, uh, and that can be on a micro level. Picking up the phone or it's all, it could also be on a macro level.

One of my favorite quotes, uh, by a lady called Susan, em, I think that's the right pronunciation is fear has killed more dreams than failure ever. Will. I absolutely love that. Quote fear has killed more dreams than failure ever will. And we can talk ourselves out of almost anything. And emotional courage is the ability to say.

I'm not gonna back away from this, I'm gonna sort of push forward and do something that's difficult. And I know for myself, and I'm sure other people experience this as well, when you really stand up for yourself, whether it's in a sales scenario, whether it's in a marketing scenario, whether it's an interpersonal scenario.

You grow exponentially in that moment, you know, you can do it. Um, you know, that this is something you can do. Emotional courage is walking away from a sale that you don't think is right for the client. Mm. Uh, emotional courage is telling the client that you really think this is the right solution for them because you truly believe it is.

And you know, you know, I follow the Princip. And how could you sell? So, you know, if I'm advocating for a product with a client, then I believe it's the right solution for the client. Right. Um, right. So I, I do view sales, particularly as a process that is requires emotional courage and people that say, I don't agree.

I don't think it requires any emotional courage are probably seasoned sales people because they've built that emotional courage over time. And of course, it's very easy to forget. What you felt earlier on? Just like when I was working with some, uh, group last week that was gonna make some presentations at a conference.

And one of them said that they were really nervous and it was a bit of an easy for me to turn around and say, oh, don't worry about it. You know, it's easy because, you know, because once you've done it, it is right, 

right. Part of why building on this idea of being nervous.  whether it's to pick up the phone or give the presentation.

That is the, has all the stakeholders in the conference room or be at a conference of 500 people, whatever the thing is, part of why you're nervous though, goes back to our earlier conversation about the voice in your head, because that voice is telling you what you believe is true. Yeah. And so how I'm so bullish about talking about beliefs in selling is that there's so much power in learning to slow things down and notice that because you can reframe what you believe and you can grow and change what you believe.

And those beliefs are informing. What you're saying is true with the capital T when really it's a little case T in lots of cases, I I'm this moment believing this is a threat to me, but really this isn't a threat to me. I gave the example to a client recently. I was trying to remember. I've been selling for a couple decades.

So I I'm sure that there are examples. I don't remember perfectly, but I was trying to remember how many people in my whole career, when I ran a cold calling company. And when I was an employee of two other firms before I started my first business yeah. Was trying to remember how many people had been outright mean to me.

Mm-hmm  and I I'm pretty certain, it was fewer than 10  ever. I mean, think of the hours like this, isn't the 10,000 hour rule. This is like the hundred thousand hour rule. I mean, probably 10 people. And I'm, I'm actually rounding up to say 10 I'm being generous, cuz because I do think I've seared in my brain.

I can specifically remember the study that I was working in and the house I lived in at the time where one of them happened because he really was pretty mean, and that was jarring and it, it made an impression in my brain. But even now it's so interesting to her. Cause I look back at those situations and that I really have been able to reframe it to not make them wrong or make them bad because I think, I dunno what was going on in that person's life at that moment.

So even when I choose to believe about them, when the call doesn't go the way that I want, that's my choice. So I think part of why it imprinted and created some, some scared response in me, I began to be afraid. That would happen again, even though statistically, it was very improbable, even my very way. I defined why he was mean to me or chose to remember the way it happened informed.

How I then felt when I had a similar physiological feeling, you know, an emotion later, that was still a choice, in my opinion, that was a choice. And I made a choice to remember that and rehearse that in a very unhelpful way, which even though statistically didn't happen very often, it still really built that up to be something worse than it probably was.

Yeah, and we do, you know, we, we do learn from our experiences in those situations. So if you can have a bad, uh, bad call when the person's mean, or even, you know, disrespectful or rude, whatever you wanna call it. And to be able to say to yourself that probably has more to do with the day that they are having than it does with my approach.

You know, somebody, what said to me, what's your biggest fear about, you know, phoning somebody up? And my fear is, you know, I said to them, well, my fear is. They're gonna think that I'm wasting their time or they're not gonna like me, or they're gonna think about their person. And I was like, and they were like, is there a realistic fear?

And I like, I'm not sure cuz I don't know them. And they're like, so you would literally believe that you can imagine how another person feels, which is really, I mean, think about that for a second. That is such. To yeah. Like how, who do you think you are that could imagine feels that you've never talk to?

You know, it's, it's a lot of the work around emotional intelligence is really starting to recognize, manage that voice inside your head. I had experienced last weekend, I went to a store to pick up something, uh, which I pre-ordered, it was not there. And the person said, well, let me get the manager. The manager came out and you could tell just by looking at their body language, they were ready for a big argument with me about how angry I was gonna be and everything else.

And they said, you know, I'm sorry, there's nothing I can do. The product's not here. And I said, you know what? That's totally fine. I, I get that. It's, you know, it's a system and it's a process. And, you know, they said, she said, is there anything I can do for you right now? To make this better. I said, no, I really appreciate your time.

Have a great day. And you know, I sort of walked out the store to do that required that I was having a conversation in my head about the fact that this manager had no control over the inventory system for this, you know, nationwide organization. And if she didn't have the product, she didn't have the product.

I could get angry about the fact I'd driven 45 minutes to get there and now drive 45 minutes home. And so instead, you know, I walked outside and my wife stayed there and she's like, did you get it? I was like, where is it? They didn't have it. And she's like, oh, that sucks. I said, yes, it's a beautiful day for a driver.

And we just go to the car and drove home. And so, and that's the other thing is that, you know, this, it is like if you have a really bad call, You can let that really bad call spoil the next 15 minutes for half an hour or the rest of your day. So you don't pick up the phone again. Or you could just shrug it off and move on.

Cuz there's nothing you can do about it now. I mean, it's not like you could phone the back and say, Hey, listen, sorry that call went so badly. Let me take another five minutes of your time while I apologize for how bad the call went.  like, it's done. Like that's gone. That opportunity has passed. 

But let me ask you, cuz I do think there's a third way.

Like you're saying, you know, you can choose to rehearse it where that it didn't go well, you can shrug it off. But like something that I talk about, you know, in my teaching is that we're all interpreting all the time anyway. So why not interpret in a way that helps you like the person more feel, feel, feel calm or feel more empathetic, whatever it is.

And I have a funny, quick example, cuz it's a, a teenager story. Think that road rage is so scary because mm-hmm , I have always lived in states where people have conceal and carry and there really literally are guns on the road and people are hot heads. Yeah. And there's, I live now in Houston, Texas, and there's a lot of traffic you can tell, even on my walk, I have to cross a major street in the morning.

I can see that we're recording this in the fall and school's about to start. And so I can see the traffic uptick mm-hmm . And so it's, it's just really, really busy where I live. Am always trying to keep myself calm when I get cut off. Cause you get cut off a lot when you drive in Houston as in other major cities.

And I don't know where I got the idea. I literally can't remember Drew but years ago I started coaching myself and saying that person might be on the way to the hospital. They're having a medical emergency  because that was better to me to, to, to tell myself that that might be what's happening than to say they're a jerk or become angry, cuz I'm trying to keep myself down.

Because I'm anti road rage. Right? So. I told my kids this, I teach my kids to drive and I said, probably they're not being thoughtful, but it's not helpful to you to rehearse that because it gets you elevated. And then you also become more defensive as opposed to proactive and offensive driver. And there's this whole chain of reaction that happens.

So I said, you wanna stay calm by be feeling filled with empathy and remember. That they might be really in a rush cuz they're having a personal emergency medical emergency, something like that. And I was reminding one of my kids one day and they said, mom, no one has that many medical emergencies  but even though it's funny and I'm laughing about it, I'm not gonna change it because it serves me, which is to get me through traffic happy.

Calm and not hating on other people, because I don't like when I do that. So I think we could even make up things. And I wonder where you think that falls under EQ or, you know what you'd say about that? Because I think that meaning making is so powerful and we could use it even more to our advantage. So 

just to echo your point, I was in Austin, Houston last week, and there was a lot of medical emergencies that day.

It's amazing how many there were crazy. Um, so the, what you're reflecting on there is something that we call emotional regulation. So emotional regulation is the ability to manage police, our emotional reactions to things. And in situations like the one that I gave the customer service situation, you often get time to think about that.

So when the person said, I'm gonna go get the manager. In the 60 seconds or whatever it was that it took. I, I got time. I, you know, I have time to think about it. You may have heard the phrase. Life is lived in the gap between stimulus and response. So between a stimulus and a response, whether it's one second, 10 seconds, 10 months, 10 years, there's a gap between the stimulus and then your response.

You have a choice in that gap about what to do with that information in a situation where you get 60 seconds to think about it. You get time from an much more intelligent perspective to process it through, okay, this person's probably gonna expect to be really angry. I know there's nothing they can do about it.

So what's the point of getting really angry might as well just move on with that day. That's different when somebody cuts you off, when you've got, you know, your teenager in the car puts you in a seriously dangerous situation. And instead of a stimulus response, you get stimulus and react. And the gap between stimulus and react is very.

And I originally grew up in the UK. So, uh, we, we, the traffic is as bad as you may have seen it. And so there is a lot of finger pointing and, you know, gesturing and, you know, fortunately nobody's got, uh, guns in the cars in, in the UK, but, uh, it's a diff you know, certainly you get cut off, you wave at the person and everything else.

And I dunno what it is about road rage, cuz it's just people, the level of anger there's been books written on it. Um, the level of anger gets promoted by or prompted by road. Rage is, is significant, but it's a really good way of thinking about it is. Emotional intelligence, a good emotional intelligence is around slowing down your thinking sufficiently to make proper sense of a situation and choose an appropriate reaction.

Yeah. Which is easy when you get the time to do it. Yes. If you have trained yourself to have the presence in the moment to say, this is what I, this is the sense I'm gonna attribute to the situation. It's gonna stop me doing something like honking the horn or something. I shouldn't. Then I agree with you that you should just retain that process.

Okay. 

Um, and, and can we say, I know they don't perfectly know what's going on in the life of everyone who cuts us off, because that would be presumptive, which we just said a few minutes ago. We don't really wanna do, but I mean, I do have a theory, like is some of that though back to the EQI, I'm familiar with some of the things that are measured in that is some of what's happening.

That, that, that if a person has a very adverse reaction, They're um, that out of fear, if fear goes to anger right away, that, that, that has something to do with their stress management. It has something to do with their, uh, with not just emotional regulation, but actually something else that's going on in there, which is what comes out.

And how quickly does something come out when I'm under duress. That's a whole other thing that can actually be measured. 

So, yeah, I mean, it's quite difficult. So a reflection of our stress tolerance, but of course, most people feel like they have a decent amount of stress tolerance. And again, self-report assessments.

We have to be careful, you know, if you said to me, do I have a good level of stress tolerance? So I, yeah, sure. I do. But put me in a situation where my physical safety is threatened or the physical safety of a loved one. Yes. Very different situation. Very different reaction. One interesting thing about the road rage to think about is.

What's the emotional state or the emotional intelligence of the person cutting me off. Like, are they doing it deliberately? When I was in Austin, there was this, we were sort of, you know, merging lanes. And it was this person that would not let me in, like it was, you know, if you do the zipper merge, as you're supposed to, it was my turn to come in and they were just, they, they just, weren't gonna let me in.

And I'm sitting there thinking what is going through this person's mind. Like this piece of tarmac is so precious to them.  that? They're not gonna let me in. And so I, I like you I'm like, so maybe they don't understand the zipper role. Maybe they don't understand how that works in every sort of social interaction.

There's there's the other person and there's you. And so it's as useful to think about you don't know, and you can never know its as useful to think about what the other person's state of mind might be as it is to monitor and manage your own reaction to it as well. Yes. Um, 

but if you're a person Drew, you've heard me use this expression when we've talked about other things.

If you're a person that has a strong need to be right. It will be very easy to default and make that person have. Becoming from a bad place, whereas yeah, they could be, they could have something going on where they're staring ahead and you're thinking, how are you not seeing me trying to merge? And really they're so engrossed in whatever's going on with them, that they, they, they.

They don't notice. I mean, I've certainly had cases. I, I don't know. I'm very sensitive on the road cuz of all the traffic. So I don't know that I've done that anytime recently, but I can definitely off the top of my head. Think of times where I might have looked like I was not engaged or not acknowledged someone because I was so in my own mind that I didn't notice that they were waiting to see me or that, um, I was coming across as rude.

I can certainly imagine doing that. I think it's interesting because again, we're inferring and we're, we believe that those skills service, sometimes we do wanna sense danger. We do want to see that we're really connecting with someone that we want to, we want to read their expression and do our best to interpret what that is, and then validate where we can.

But. We can do that and be a jerk too, as part of what I'm thinking. And I, I don't wanna be a jerk. 

Yeah. You said you, yeah. You just said a moment ago, you know, some people have a overriding need to be bright. So one of the things I talk about in some of my work is the difference between imposter syndrome, which is this enduring belief that, you know, you are not adequate, that you are, you know, falling.

Sure. And that if people find out it's gonna be a problem, and any success that you've had is attributed to luck or being in the right place at the right. As concerning as imposter syndrome is there's something that I call epic syndrome and epic syndrome is this enduring belief that you are right. That the way you see the world is correct.

And that if everybody else would just fall in line, that would be great. Thanks for it much. And you know, both ends of that scale are unhealthy. There's a place in the middle where we accept that we are. Confident that we know things that we understand the world a certain way, that other people understand the world differently to us, that they're entitled to see the world differently to us.

I'm entitled to see the world the way I want to, and there's nothing wrong about them. There's nothing wrong about me. And, you know, that seems like a basis for getting along and, you know, a very interesting aspect of, uh, emotional intelligence is the concept of flexibility. So the ability or willingness to change your mind, see things from a different perspective.

And, you know, I always say to people, everybody believes they're flexible when they don't. So do you wanna go see, you know, do you wanna go and see a romcom or do you wanna go and see a sci-fi? I don't care. I like both. Okay. Let's talk about politics or religion. Our degree of flexibility changes. So drastically when it's, when we have an invo emotional investment in the topic that we're talking about.

Yeah. 

Absolutely. And if you're a big, what I call a big need to be, right. Person, maybe that is a reflection on flexibility. Mm-hmm,  more things, more things are big issues than they are to others. Right? More things rise to the level of politics and religion. Yeah. Than, than, than for others. I find the risk to being that way.

When I sense I'm feeling that way, I'm making a small issue, a bigger issue is that. Affects the way. Not only that I see the other person mm-hmm  and then, but then also that is gonna have this sort of spill down effect on me. So part of why I believe everyone who cuts me off on the road is having a medical emergency is not because it's really true, but because I want to arrive at a place in a positive emotional state, I'm going to a sales call.

I'm going to a business lunch. I'm going to speak somewhere. We know that if you walk into those situations in high arousal, You will then interpret everything else. That's coming in a different way. Right. So I want to be calm and cheerful and ready. And so I'm doing everything I can to regulate myself, even telling myself something that's not true.

Yeah, 

absolutely. And, and, you know, the, uh, one of the things about what you just, uh, about the idea about letting it go is that, and all of this stuff really is it's a lot of work. And, you know, when I work with people, they say, well, it seems like a lot of work. So the alternative is just that I'll think about it and just, just keep going as you are doing.

So yeah, there is work involved in doing 

so great. So Drew, I know we need to wrap up, I'm gonna ask you one more question and then give you a chance to talk about, about your, where people find you and talk about your book, which I loved and read twice. My last question is, as the owner seller, you have your own business, right?

The EQ development group. We talked about that in the, in. Bio at the beginning as the owner slash seller mm-hmm  where has knowing all the things you know about emotional intelligence, how has that served you? That can help our listeners. 

Our business is relationship based. Most of our work comes from referrals, uh, connections, understanding emotional intelligence as a principal, I feel lets you be much more empathetic towards clients.

So when a client turns around, says to me, you know, I'd love to do that, but I can't do it until next year. I don't think to myself. Yeah, it'd be great if it'd been our numbers for this year though. So let me keep pushing you on that. That's I totally get it. I understand that situation. So I think there's a really strong empathy element that comes in there.

Um, there's certainly pieces around the emotional courage, the picking up the phone piece, um, you know, working with you, I've been doing some sales outreach recently. Um, and that's been, I, you know, I feel the emotional courage piece building, uh, uh, part of that and certainly other aspects of emotional intelligence, like assertiveness independence, I think are really important, but I mean, overall, I think it just makes you look at the world through a clearer lens.

I, I wanna be really, uh, over about something. It doesn't help you see the world clearly. We are all looking through a dirty window at the world. It's all colored by our experiences and what we believe and you know, how we see things, our backgrounds and upbringing. But I believe that developing emotional intelligence lets you see the world more clearly.

And I think with that clarity comes the ability to connect more directly with clients, to be more realistic about what is and is not possible and to build better relationships. We often use the term emotional and social intelligence and building better relationships is really key, not just in the business part of things, but also in life.

And I'll leave you with one final thought, which is that there is not one person in your life that does not want you to be more emotionally intelligent. And you know, whether it's a partner, brother, sister, spouse, doesn't make any difference. Parent friend. If you go to that person and say, Hey, listen, if I was more, uh, empathetic, if I took more time to understand you, if I managed my emotional reactions better, if I had a clear understanding of where I need to do work and my relative strengths, and I was better at handling stress and linking decisions.

Is that something that would be good for you?  I don't think anybody in the world is gonna turn around and say, no, I know more of that. I want more of whatever the opposite is. So, and I think that's just as applicable in business and in, uh, business development, as it is in personal life. 

You know, what you're bringing up here is reminding me of my friend marsh.

He has a podcast called the sales life and he uses everything about what he is learned about selling, to talk about his philosophy and personal development in other areas. He does a great job of it, and I'll put it in the show notes so people can follow that one too. Um, but what you're, what you're mentioning to me is that.

Whatever my motive is to get better, right? I'm having conflict with my partner. I, um, am scared to sell and I want to have more emotional courage and some things that Drew and Kathryn have said and made me wanna do that. Whatever it is, give this beautiful spillover effect that can happen. Mm-hmm  so again, one of the reasons I'm so crazy about talking about beliefs is because as soon as I train myself to notice what I might be believing is true in a sales situation that I come to realize is not necessarily true.

That can happen and serve me in all these other realms of my life, too, where I think, well, I was inferring something that wasn't there or I'm attributing, um, an emotion or, or misjudging something. And I have all this set of assumptions. It, this spill over to lead to what, wherever we start, we can start with a personal motive that can affect us positively professionally, or we can start on a professional development and it affects us personally, that back and forth is.

Glorious to me. I think it's so great because the reason I love teaching people to sell better is because sales is a skill that is in the value chain of everything you want with your business and your life. What I want really is for people to have. The biggest, most wonderful, beautiful lives they can have.

It happens that if you're the owner seller, part of how you're gonna get there is by selling a lot of product or service, cuz it creates choices for you. And so it's, it's, it's in the system, the tools of learning to do it around the system of something greater. And I think the same is true of growing your emotional intelligence.

It's gonna, it's gonna benefit everything and make everything get better with that practice. And that's why I love that we can have a growth mindset about that and then a person can get better with. Absolutely. 

And the work is never done. I always say anybody that tells you they're really emotionally intelligent.

Probably isn't because nobody with a good level of emotional intelligence would ever make a statement like that. So  yeah, we all have work to do, and it's, it's an ongoing process for sure. But 

I do think it's an iterative cycle that goes up right. The circle goes around, but it absolutely. It goes up 

awareness.

Inspiration. Yeah, absolutely. 

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That's really cool. Thank you. Okay. Now you have a resource which came out a while ago, but is still a great resource, cuz it was new to me. So I read it twice. Talk about the leader's guide that you created and also where people can. 

Sure. Thanks. I appreciate that.

Yeah. So the leaders guide to emotional intelligence. So I, uh, published it in 2016. I'm currently working on the second edition right now. Um, it's a book that situates, uh, emotional intelligence in the realm of leadership and leadership development, which is an area that I at the, uh, or the team here at the eco development group.

So what we do a lot of is working with leadership groups and organizations, um, as well as individual leaders to develop and it gives. Leaders, not only a way of understanding emotional intelligence, it gives them a way of talking about emotional intelligence, understanding their own emotional intelligence.

And it also takes one step, which I, which was absent from other resources that were available are available, which is that it really gives you a very simple way to understand and develop your emotional intelligence. Yes, it's got a concrete action planning process. It provides suggestions about how to grow your EQ and, um, it's designed as sort of a handbook or a.

And this is why I wanna recommend it to the audience is exactly the last part that you gave. You, you list questions, you, you have scenarios that a person might go through. They might or might not perfectly match those. They, I, I read them and even though I only have three people that work in my company with me right now, I could just easily transfer it to other scenarios I've been in or think about.

You know, situations in my personal life, but the questions are self coaching questions. Mm-hmm . And so anyone that's a fan of coaching, anyone that's a fan of personal development can take the lessons that are inside the chapters and practice talk with people that are important to you in your life about them run through it and, and literally are exercises and self-analysis kinds of things.

And. Made it, that's why I read it twice is because I thought it was so much more interesting than something that is simply an academic publication about the subscales of emotional intelligence and what we measure and things like that. Although I love geeking out on that too. This is really, you can use the book to self coach.

And or share with your team. And I love things like that, that give me the questions I should be asking so that I can have emotional courage and step into certain situations. I thought that was great. 

Fantastic. I appreciate that. Yeah, I'm very proud of it. Now. It's, uh, excited to work on this, on the new version, which we are probably Ooh, early next year.

It's hard to make commitments around, uh, around, uh, book deadlines, but let's say early 2023. Oh, great. 

Okay. Well, great. Well, I'll look for that. Okay. So website wise, if somebody wants to take the EQI, if they want to know if they should want to take the EQI or any of the above, where do they find 

you?

Twitter is at Drew underscore Bird uh, LinkedIn, a search on Drew Bird emotional intelligence willyield the results or you can drop your line directly. And the email address is Drew D R E W EQ dev group.com, EQ D EV Group.com. And that's the same website as well. Www EQ dev group. Com 

 Awesome. Thank you, Drew. Thank you so much.

Thanks. Appreciate, appreciate the work you do. And for you to give away this information to the audience. 

Okay, thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Thanks Catherine. 

I'm so glad you joined us today. If you would like me to come and speak with your organization about how to sell like a good human, please contact me through the website.

1. How good humans sell.com. Thanks and talk with you again.