Emotional Intelligence: What it is and why we all need more of it.

Micheala Barsotti:

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode. Paul and I are super excited that you choose to listen to us each week. And if you are new here, we hope that you’ll stick around. Just a quick reminder before we dive into today’s topic, if you find this episode valuable, make sure that you share it with a friend. This really helps us towards our goal of reaching more people and spreading valuable information to help all of you achieve true transformation from the inside out, so that you can show up as your best self. And I want to start off by celebrating some wins within the 5% community, or in the fundamentals program even, because we, as The 5% Way, always start off every call and really everything with wins. And we do this because it trains your subconscious to start scanning for more wins and to see more positives that are going on in your life.

Micheala Barsotti:

It’s very easy to pick out the negative stuff, and often we overlook some of those really awesome things that are happening. So two kick things off, sharing just a win in the 5% community specifically, I am just really proud and excited of those, there’s a big group of people, Paul, I think mentioned it on one of the other previous episodes, doing the 75 Hard Challenge. And it’s been really cool to see that channel. So we have a private channel for all those people. And just the community and how they’re all leaning on each other for support. And I mean, it’s just awesome, because I think you guys are all just fueling each other’s fire. We have a couple of people in there that are just really on top of it. And it just, I mean, I’m not even doing the 75 Hard, but I read Nicole’s post and I instantly am like, I need to be better today. So that’s really been cool to see.

Paul Salter:

Yeah. It’s such a fun channel. The 75 Hard Challenge, there’s a reason people go pay stupid amounts of money to go do these crazy challenges with other people is it builds connection and comradery. Going through tough challenges together is such an accelerant for strengthening a bond between human beings. And 75 Hard, for those of you who know about it, who have done it, who have attempted it, know it is no easy feat. It is simple, yes. But we all know very well that simple does not mean easy. And kind of piggybacking off of that wonderful win, I want to celebrate one of my very, very long time clients, like four and a half or five years before she graduated one-on-one coaching, AKA I was no longer offering one-on-one coaching, and now is a 5% community member who reached out to me on Instagram just a couple days ago when I was talking about some of the key elements to building a foundational nutrition plan, which by the way, Micheala and I detail in episode 175 of the 5% Way podcast.

Paul Salter:

But like I said, I’ve worked for her now, we’re going on over six years. And she just liked that particular story and DM’d me like, yes, you have made my life so much easier. It is such an easy approach to implement and everything truly happens on autopilot. She can take the weight off, maintain it as she sees fit. And to be honest, she’s just been maintaining a very lean physique for, I don’t know, three or four years now. And it’s just so cool to see how all the dots have connected for her, and years later what she once struggled with from a food perspective is nowhere to be found, seen or felt and she’s just literally on cruise control. Which brings me to a quick little segue before I let Micheala dive in and talk about all things, emotional intelligence.

Paul Salter:

Between Micheala, and myself, and that message from my client and our community member, we’ve been noticing a theme in people asking, how can I go build a nutrition plan? How can I get personalized portions for myself? And if you’ve seen any Micheala’s stories lately or her responses, like, if a coach or someone just hands you a random set of macros, that is a red flag. So Micheala and I thought it would be a great idea to offer a free live training. And we’re going to do this on Saturday, March 12th, teaching you how to build your own sustainable nutrition plan. So her and I will be walking you through what thought processes we go to. We’ll be giving you the same questionnaire that we give all of our clients and community members. We’ll be sharing our screen, giving you the exact template we use to build that individual framework in teaching you the big picture philosophy and the nitty gritty details and nuances.

Paul Salter:

So that by the end of the live training, you literally have a blueprint, a nutrition plan, so to speak that is rooted in individualization, simplicity and flexibility, which collectively work together to promote both adherence and sustainability. So again, March 12th is when we’re going to host that live training, and we have a link in the show notes where you can learn more and register so you get the link and can attend live, and also get a recording sent to you after the fact as well.

Micheala Barsotti:

Cool. I’m excited.

Paul Salter:

Yeah, that should be a lot of fun.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah, it’s going to be good. All right. Let’s dive into today’s topic. As Paul mentioned, we are talking all about emotional intelligence. So we’re talking all about our emotions, gaining a better understanding of how our emotions influence our lives so much every single day. And I’ll be honest, I am no whiz, but I just started really diving into this recently when Paul recommended that I read Emotional Intelligence 2.0. So highly recommend. If you are looking for a new book, this is it. And I guess my biggest takeaway from reading that book was just understanding that I’m a very emotional person. And I lead often, I make many decisions based on emotions, which it just brings a lot of awareness to how I go about handling different situations in my life, whether it be my relationship, or in work, or anything that’s anything rather.

Micheala Barsotti:

And in the book they give you tangible action steps at the end, which are really, really cool because it helps you with … And we’ll talk more about the different components that make up emotional intelligence. But when you figure out what area is the area that you need to focus on, I guess, it gives you those tangible action steps of focus more here. And something that really stuck out to me was not being fooled by a bad move. And I can definitely be somebody who something goes wrong and immediately I think everything in my life is crap. And I just go down this like negative spiral or I start second guessing everything I’m doing in my life. So it’s just a great example of how this emotional roller coaster I start going on.

Micheala Barsotti:

But yeah, in the book, it just talks about these moments are not permanent. They’re going to pass. Don’t make any decisions during this time. Being able to recognize and being more aware that this is the emotional state you’re in, I think that that’s just so powerful. So that was just kind of one of my really big takeaways, and I think it will all makes sense as we dive into it more. But Paul, what did you think just about the book?

Paul Salter:

Yeah. An incredible read, like you said. I couldn’t recommend it enough. And for me, operating at my default of being very masculine and being this hard charging, high achiever who just kind of suppresses his emotions in the past that never, or more often than not, did not work out to serve me well in the end, I was very quick to recognize, oh, it’s not only appropriate to feel emotions and to recognize them, it’s actually very helpful when you are able to garner a sense of emotional awareness and begin to be able to better connect how you’re feeling physically, as well as emotionally, psychologically, and see that when you can give an adjective or a name to that emotion, you can better solve, conquer or overcome it.

Paul Salter:

So for me, it almost created this safe space or validation in some of the feelings I had, which helped me feel a bit more at ease knowing I wasn’t alone in some of the fear that was coming up experiencing those emotions. And then, like you mentioned, the book does such a phenomenal job walking you through action steps to gain more clarity of your emotions, talking you through how to better manage them, and then also opening up a whole nother can of worms and applying both of those principles of awareness and management, not only with yourself, but then too with those people you interact with, which we’ll discuss here shortly. So yeah, for me, it was just a total game changer and probably something I need to go revisit and reread again here very soon.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah. I definitely need to go back to it as well. So I guess, let’s just kind of kick things off with what is emotional intelligence? And it’s the ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others, and your ability to use this awareness to manage your behavior and your relationships. And I’m sure that a lot of you can relate to me in the sense of you’ve had a situation a time or two where you’ve acted in the moment when the heat’s high and emotions are all over the place, and you’ve maybe made a decision that you’re not necessarily proud of, or that you’d take back if you were to give it a little while. So in the moment we make these irrational decisions because we haven’t really given our rational side of the brain a chance to kick in yet.

Micheala Barsotti:

And as humans, our brain is literally hardwired to give emotions the upper hand. And I want to explain a little bit how this works. So everything that you see, smell, hear, taste and touch, it travels through your body in the form of electric signals. And these signals pass from cell to cell until they reach your brain. So when they enter your brain at the base near the spinal cord, they travel to your frontal lobe, which is right behind your forehead. And that’s where you reach a place of rational, logical thinking. But the problem here is that it passes through your limbic system along the way, and this is where all of our emotions are produced. So really, this path, it ensures that we’re going to experience things emotionally before the logical, rational side of our brain kicks into gear. And the rational part of our brain, so the front part of our brain, it can’t stop emotions that are felt by your limbic system, but it’s important to know that those two areas do communicate and they maintain constant communication with each other.

Micheala Barsotti:

So in this constant communication between the emotional and logical parts of our brain, that’s what makes up our EQ. So we have no control over this process. The emotional side of the brain is always going to react first. But what’s interesting is that we do have control over the thoughts that’s going to follow the emotion and how we react to the emotion, as long as we are aware of it, that’s the key. So the best part is that EQ is unlike IQ where it’s fixed, it is what it is. EQ is something that you can continuously work on to be improved, which was really cool to me reading through the book and seeing all the areas of opportunity that I have. It’s like, you actually are able to improve.

Paul Salter:

Absolutely. And again, just to clarify, in case we didn’t do this earlier, EQ being the abbreviation for emotional intelligence. And yeah, I think it’s such a fascinating journey from when those electrical impulses begin their initial signaling to see how it always kind of feeds through the funnel or the filter of tapping into the emotions before it reaches the logical, rational component of our brain, which is in the frontal lobe, as you said. And two points that come to mind I really wanted to reinforce for everyone listening, is first and foremost, I know you don’t need to hear me say this, but it’s worth saying, in that it’s A okay to feel and experience your emotions. Take it from somebody who is a master in suppressing his emotions for so long that suppressing them is not the answer. So just a reminder and permission, if you will, that it’s okay, and healthy and productive to feel and experience those emotions.

Paul Salter:

However, if you can proactively get in front of them, meaning the moment you acknowledge or recognize, hey, I’m feeling a certain way, you’re putting yourself in a better position to manage that emotion so that it impacts your decision making and your action taking in a positive, productive manner rather than a negative counterproductive manner that you might be left feeling regret, or guilt, or frustration about later. And the second point I’ll mention too, is remember that our emotions are basically vibrations of the body, and your body is going to tell you how you’re feeling before you actually acknowledge that you are feeling that way. You’re going to feel tightness in your chest when you’re stressed, a pit or butterflies in your stomach when you’re nervous. And I think it’s so powerful to take time to start listening to what your body is telling you. Sitting in silence and with yourself when you notice your chest starts to get a little tight, your stomach starts to twist into knots.

Paul Salter:

Because if you can begin to identify the emotion that is common when you physiologically feel a certain way, you’re able to better get ahead of that emotion and then can proactively take some steps to change your emotional state or to improve your emotional state.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah. So important. And I’ve mentioned this before, but it was something that you told me back when I was your coaching client, it was like, don’t let your emotions dictate your actions. And when it comes to living my healthy lifestyle and all the choices that I make regarding my nutrition, or exercise, or anything, we’re not always wanting to do things in the moment. And so having that awareness to remind yourself that what you’re feeling right now, you’re likely not going to feel in 20, 30 minutes. You’re going to be really happy that you went and did the thing. And so it’s always reminding yourself. I have to check myself often with that. It’s like, I told myself I was going to go on a walk. I don’t feel like it. Well, that’s what I right now I don’t feel like it, but how am I going to feel later? But it’s a skill to be able to stop, and pause and reflect on that and be mindful enough to evaluate the situation.

Micheala Barsotti:

So as we kind of dive in here, I want to talk about the four different skills, because there’s four skills that make up our emotional intelligence. And they’re broken down into two buckets, our personal competence and our social competence. And the personal competence is our self-awareness and our self-management. And then the social is the social awareness and our relationship management. So self-awareness is the ability to stay on top of your typical reactions to specific events, challenges and people. And it requires a high level of willingness to tolerate discomfort focusing on negative feelings.

Paul Salter:

Yeah. And this is where most of us need to begin our journey. This is speaking very much in generalizations, but a lot of us are emotionally immature. And maybe I’m biased because I recognized how emotionally immature I was after reading this book. But the self-awareness is huge, because ultimately that’s going to set the stage for how you then interact in the social and relationship atmosphere. But when it comes to becoming aware of your emotions, sometimes it can just be incredibly humbling and uncomfortable to recognize that I am feeling, whether it’s sad, angry, frustration. And if you weren’t raised in an environment growing up in which it was safe to communicate your emotions, or if you were not really taught how to express your emotions in a healthy way, it can be very scary to further explore how you’re feeling and continue to bring awareness to how you’re feeling.

Paul Salter:

And many of us, when we are in the beginning stages of taking control of our self-awareness of our emotions, we might just kind of put a bandaid over things and think there’s just this general umbrella emotion, like I am sad, or I am mad. But the truth is, as you kind of step into this awareness, you’re going to find there’s much more to the general vague umbrella term of sadness, or anger, or mad that you are feeling. And it can be very uncomfortable to sit with that for a little while. But once you gain more clarity and comfort with the awareness, you can then actually ascend to the next stage or progression, if you will, which is self-management of emotions.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah. And self-management, I think you kind of just touched on this a little, but it’s what happens when you act or don’t act in that situation? And so it’s very dependent on the amount of self-awareness that you have. And so it’s the ability to stay flexible and direct your behavior positively in that moment regardless of how you feel.

Paul Salter:

Absolutely. If you’re not aware of how you’re feeling, how can you ever expect to take productive, positive action to change it? You’re probably in a process where you’re operating on autopilot subconsciously handling that general umbrella emotion of sadness, because maybe you’ve been conditioned by your environment, your childhood, a traumatic experience to operate a certain way when that general feeling is there. But when you become more aware and recognize maybe it’s a need for love, maybe it’s a need for validation, appreciation, now you can better manage how you respond to that emotion because you have the clarity and awareness to what you’re truly feeling, therefore you can be better management, which then ultimately not only helps you feel better and take that control, it starts to have a positive ripple effect in how you manage social settings and relationships with others.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah. Yeah. And that brings us into our social awareness, which is perceiving what others are thinking and feeling, even if you don’t feel the same way. And it’s listening and observing more. So how easy is it to get caught up in our own emotions that we don’t take the time to consider the perspective of others? I know I’m guilty of this.

Paul Salter:

Oh, absolutely. We could go off on several tangents here about the difference between listening and hearing. So many of us are a condition to think about our response when someone’s talking to us that we’re not truly hearing them, or we’re just completely missing the emotional signals they’re sending us. But for me, this is interesting. So many of you know, or maybe some of you know, that there was a while where I was seriously contemplating playing professional poker. And sitting at a poker table, awareness of other’s emotions and the psychology behind it is something that really fascinates me. And it’s actually probably more what fascinates me about the game than the cards itself. I mean, I’m someone who nerds out over math, and probabilities and whatnot. But just being aware of the emotional communication taking place verbally, non-verbally, physically is really, really neat.

Paul Salter:

And as I mentioned earlier, our emotions are expressed physically. We can feel them. But they can also be expressed in how we communicate non-verbally. What am I doing with my hands, my eyes? Where’s my glare at? Am I looking at you, below you, not even looking at you when I’m speaking to you? So there’s just so many subtle nuances of how our emotions are communicated, and being able to recognize and pick up on those tiny cues while navigating a conversation can give you a hell of a lot more information to work with, even though you hear everything that person says. So hearing what they’re not saying is what’s going to really serve you well to effectively communicate, listen, whatever it may be that that person needs in that given moment.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yep. Yeah. Because that goes right into the relationship management piece. So having more social awareness is going to help you manage your overall relationships better and have better interactions, I should say. And something that I got from the book was they identified that the difference between an interaction and a relationship is the quality, the time and the depth that you spend interacting with somebody else. So that kind of put things into perspective. We have different interactions all day long, but relationships are a lot deeper than that and built upon those.

Paul Salter:

Yeah. I like that. And if you’re someone listening, and let’s say you start taking the action step of reading this book, gaining more self-awareness of your emotions, ascending to more consistent and competent management of your emotions, imagine how much of a game changer it is when you recognize coming home from a day of work, that you are incredibly stressed, or tired, or anxious, or frustrated, whatever that singular emotion is, but you are so aware that you’re able to proactively get in front of that and ultimately avoid snapping at your kids or your significant other, ultimately avoid raiding the pantry or the fridge before or after dinner, or both.

Paul Salter:

So just these little tweaks can go a long way in extending a reach of positive into other areas of your life. And now we can truly duplicate that positive impact and create a synergistic relationship. But maybe you and your significant other are both taking this seriously, working on your own awareness and management of your emotions, and then coming together to recognize how can I better communicate with my significant other, my coach, my coworker, employee, employer, boss, subordinate, whatever it may be based on where my emotional state is and recognition of where his or her emotional state is? It just fosters more productive, positive communication. And like Micheala mentioned, it really elevates an interaction into a relationship.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah. And with nutrition I’d say, most people think that it’s about what you’re eating, which yes, that’s part of it. But a lot of it is about why you’re eating and what those habits are that you’ve created, which a lot of these habits are based on different … Oh gosh, sorry. I just lost my train of thought here. A lot of these habits that are built upon nutrition that we gravitate towards every single day, they will … I’m sorry, I just totally lost my train of thought.

Paul Salter:

And I think the one point I want to circle back to is that the only way to begin genuinely understanding your emotions is literally spending time with them. And again, can be incredibly uncomfortable, especially, and I’m kind of singling out all of the men listening, we are conditioned to, like I said earlier, kind of suppress our emotions and not really want to deal with our emotions, which ultimately always comes back to bite us in the ass. But spending time with them is such a valuable part of our personal growth and discovery journey, and just pays dividend after dividend for the rest of our lifetime. And the way I like to teach an introductory approach to emotional awareness is when you start to recognize that you’re feeling a certain way, pinpoint a specific adjective. Give that feeling a name or an adjective.

Paul Salter:

So is it anger? Or is it frustration? Is it anxiety? Is it regret? Is it guilt? Or let’s not keep everything all negative and dreary, is it positive? Is it joyful? Is it competence? Is it bliss? Is it contentment? Is it inner peace? Calm? Control? Certainty? Give that emotion a name and start to pay attention to some of the physiological feelings you experience right before, or even during your awareness, your come to moment of that emotion. So again, the easiest one I can give is if you’re beginning to feel anxious or nervous, is your stomach also in knots? Are there butterflies there? If you’re stressed and anxious, is your chest tight? That’s my number one thing. I notice as soon as my chest feels tight, I know there’s something stressing me out that needs to be addressed. I can sit down, I can pause for a moment, do some deep box breathing and try to identify what that stressor is so I can quickly get it off my plate, deal with it, et cetera.

Paul Salter:

And the one little cliche takeaway I’ll share that I use on a fairly regular basis is that action always alleviates anxiety. So something I try to implement as much as possible and keep top of mind. And I think this is such a powerful introductory step to emotional awareness because of the profound impact it can have on emotional eating. Because all of us know how to make healthy choices. All of us are taught from a fairly young age the difference between nutritious food choices and not so nutritious food choices. It’s really navigating our emotions, learning to gain awareness and how to better manage them that influences our ability to make the choices in the food department we are supposed to make, regardless of how we’re feeling. It’s choosing the meal you spent time preparing even after a shitty day of work, a blow up from your toddler, et cetera, and still adhering to the plan you’ve put in place for yourself, regardless of how you feel.

Paul Salter:

And that’s literally one of the true, biggest differentiators between those who are uber successful in any aspect of life and those who just achieve average results. It’s the ability to do what they know they are supposed to do, regardless of how they feel. And working on your emotional intelligence is a crucial step to really move in that direction.

Micheala Barsotti:

Yeah. And I just wanted to say too, that you mentioned being okay with expressing your emotions, but also understanding that our emotions are not just going to go away. If we try to dismiss them, they’re going to keep popping back up. So it’s important that we do sit there and understand why are we feeling the way that we are? And take some time to just nurture that emotion, because otherwise it will keep coming back up. I think of a relationship, a fight that you have. If you just try to sweep it under the rug, it’s going to probably come back up later, and again, and again until you actually come up with a solution, and talk through it and just understand both set parties and the emotions that are going on in that moment.

Paul Salter:

Absolutely. And I think it also goes hand in hand with the relationship you have with maybe your nightly date night with Ben and Jerry. If you’re someone who is sweeping under the rug, oh, it was just a one off occasion that I binged on ice cream last night, it’s going to come back and rear its ugly face again until you get to the root cause. So yeah, two great examples there to just really highlight the importance of emotional intelligence. And I think it’s a good reminder opportunity that emotional intelligence is a skill, which means it can be learned, which also means you can’t expect to be a master or expert in emotional intelligence overnight, or even after reading the book. I mean, you heard both Micheala and I say we already want to go back and reread it. I was joking with her, maybe we were recording already, how emotionally immature I felt after reading that book and still feel as if I have so much more progress to make.

Paul Salter:

So it is a skill that can be learned. And I think the best action step, and Micheala, please add in if you have something else too that I can recommend to a listener, is go buy the book. We’re not promoting the book to make any money off it. We don’t have any affiliation with the authors. Don’t know them whatsoever. It’s just a life changing book full of details on how to develop a skill that is useful in every single aspect of your life and helps every single person feel, look and be their best. And considering that’s what we’re about, we want to share great resources that further support that.

Micheala Barsotti:

Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more.

Micheala Barsotti:

Awesome. All right, you guys, well, we really appreciate you taking the time to listen to us today. And if you found this discussion valuable, as I mentioned early on, share it with a friend, share it with somebody who will enjoy it as well. If you have not already, don’t forget to leave us a genuine review and rating on Apple Podcast or wherever it is that you listen to this. And other than that, we will see you guys next week.