The People Builder

Do you fail to prepare for the future or do you recognise the need for change, take charge of your own change initiatives, and then remove the barriers to that change?

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Speaker and Trainer of the Year and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around all things emotional intelligence by having a conversation around creating your own change, rather than waiting for others to do it for you.

We all know that 2020 has been an environment of change on a daily basis, and it's certainly been a major change in what our normal is right now. Over the last few weeks, we've talked about having more personal agility, being more intentional, and being able to remove those resistance roadblocks that are creating anxiety around all the change that's happening in our life right now.

However, this is not just a conversation for COVID-19, this is a conversation we need to have about the rest of our life. Our future. I work with people every day who resist change overtly and covertly. And they say things like, "Well, this is the way we've always done it around here." And the fear of change is stopping them from bringing out their personal best.

Now, we've talked about the meaning that we put on change and our mindset around it and how that can either be empowering and help us to navigate change or disempowering and keep us in the status quo, fearful of being able to move forward.

And right now, I want to make sure that I'm doing what I can to keep the conversation going around being able to create the change in your own life, rather than letting it happen around you. Perhaps it's time to challenge the status quo, to stand in opposition to that fear of change, and to become a champion of change in our own life and the intrinsic effect that that will have on the lives around us.

So, what I want to do is I want to give you some tips that I've found have helped me and the people that I work with to navigate change, to take control of our own situation, and create the changes that we want to see in our world.

Number one is to challenge that status quo and rather than thinking, "Well, that's the way it's always been done.", have a mindset that says, "Just because it's always the way it's been done, is it the only way that we can do it? Is there a different way that will produce different results?"

So, the first thing that we need to do is open our mind to change. We've worked over the last few weeks about being able to make a change, something that we embrace, rather than fear, something that we look forward to, rather than resist. So, the first thing we need to do is challenge our own status quo.

Number two is to identify where and how we could do things differently. Now that we've got our brain in a state to think logically, now that we've done an audit on our thoughts, our beliefs, what we feel about change, what our status quo is, now we are in a position because of our open mind to look at things differently and go, "Hey, I could do this this way. I could do this differently."

So, it's not about using "better", it's not about using the word "should". We're not being judgmental here. We're not saying what we've been doing is wrong. What we're doing is identifying things that could do with a bit of a change. Right now, here in Australia, we've just gone into spring. So, there's an opportunity for us to do a spring clean on the way that we're getting things done. So, number two is to write out a list to identify things that could possibly do with the change.

Number three is to develop a plan for change, rather than just seat of the pants, "Let's just wing this and see if we can get a result here." Now that we've got a list of what needs to change or what we could change, the next step is to actually create a plan for change. So, it's something that we do intentionally, rather than something that just happens.

So, in each initiative that you come up with, an area of your life, your business, whatever it is for you, that you could change, write out a plan. Write out a plan that says what needs changing, when it needs changing, by how it needs changing, who needs to be involved, how are we going to measure the change, et cetera, and have a written plan.

We then transfer into whatever it is that keeps us on track, whether it be, for me, my calendar. I use a program called Asana. I've got my team as accountability partners and put it into that system so that you actually go from it being something that you want to do to something that gets done. So, number three is to develop your change plan.

Number four is to make sure that your change is covered in terms of the impact that it has on other people. When there's other people involved in the change, we need to make sure that we identify how they may need to change as well, or how what we're doing will affect what they're doing.

So, it's imperative to get those people involved in that change process, rather than what I've done many times over the years with my team is I just decided that was going to be a change. And then I just started changing and people are thinking, "What's going on here? This is different to the way we were doing it before." And then they wouldn't be able to support what it is that I was changing. So, number four is to make sure that you consider who else is involved in the change.

And number five is to start making the change. Everything that we do in life starts with the first step. So, now, over the last few weeks, we've learned how to be more empathetic when we're working with others. We've learned how to communicate differently. We've learned how to handle conflict. We've learned how to be more adaptable and have more agility. We've learned how to be more intentional in what it is that we're doing.

So, now we're ready to make some change that we might have been putting off in our life. There's been many times where I've been working with people who were resisting change simply because they didn't know what was the first step.

So, now that we have a plan, we can break that plan down and take the first step. And my experience is that every time we take a step, it gets a little bit more clearer. The clarity comes. We know what we're doing. And that fear and that anxiety and the things that were holding us back before dissipate because we see the benefit of the change.

So, number five is now that we've got all the planning in place and we've got the mindset where it needs to be is do something today to move towards that change.

So, change is something to be embraced. It's not something to be feared. And now that we know that, we can be the master of our own change. Sometimes people get up and they just go to work. They just do what they did yesterday, and they wait for things to change. And I know I've been in that position in certain parts of my life.

But what I'm encouraging you to do is to become a catalyst of change. And catalysing change is one of the 26 competencies that I work with in social and emotional intelligence. And it's definitely one that's getting a lot of work right now. So, let me encourage you to be the change that you want to see in the world, to have a plan, to make those changes, to put aside all your fears and your doubts as to whether or not you can do it, and get some support, get some help.

If you need to work with someone like me, if you need to do some sort of an online course that will help you to develop those skills, if you need to get other people involved, then do that and make the changes that you need to make right now. We're going to make changes anyway. Why not make them the ones that we want to make?

Well, that's it for me for another week. Make sure that you subscribe, that you go to my website grantherbert.com, you join the conversation, that you leave me some comments, that you share this on your social media. And join me again next week, when we continue the conversation around all things emotional intelligence, positive psychology, neuroscience, VUCA leadership, where we look at some key areas of personal leadership that will help us to actually be able to make the change that you're deciding to make today. I'll see you then.

Do you think and act on purpose or do you tend to run by the seat of your pants? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Master Trainer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and this week, I want to continue our conversation around self-management, the second quadrant of emotional intelligence, by talking about the competency of intentionality.

Some people take control and make things happen where others just sort of look back and go, "Wow, what happened?" Working in the daily grind where the same old thing happens every day and it's just in a bit of a rut. And you just get up and just run the same patterns and do the same thing and then, at the end of the day, not quite sure what you really got done.

Continually reacting to other people pushing buttons for you, or for crisis situations, being totally out of balance in the things that you focus on. And the end result is comparison and regret and feeling guilty about the lack of effort that you've put in, or the lack of forward movement that you've got on your goals.

Comparing yourself with others is one of the biggest dream stealers. And we have so many opportunities out there to see on social media, on television, wherever it is, others who are showing you what they're doing. So, therefore, because we're not acting on purpose, we've focused on what others are achieving and we regret not being there ourselves.

But when we work on our intentionality, we get different results. We go from a daily grind to a daily flow where things happen as they're supposed to happen, where we're operating, not from the seat of our pants, but on the front foot.

That's a cricket analogy whereby when a bowler bowls a ball, particularly a spin bowler, we're not quite sure what's going to happen when it hits the pitch. So, if the batsman takes a step forward and gets on the front foot, ready to take the ball, it takes out that ambiguity because he meets the ball where it pitches and that's what we can do as well when we set intention.

And instead of being out of balance, we build our own perfect balance where we're prioritising things that are most important to us, and we feel proud, and we feel fulfilled by whatever it is that we've achieved in our day, in our week, in our month, whatever it is.

And to have these results, we need to develop the competency of intentionality. Intentionality is thinking and acting on purpose. Taking control of your life, taking control of your day, and making sure that you decide where it is that you put your energy. So, therefore, you are in control of your destiny. So, let me take you through five key ideas that will help you to be able to lay this platform that you need to be more intentional.

Number one is to know your purpose. When we have that bigger picture idea of what we're on the planet for, when we know what our purpose is, we're able then to make sure that whatever we give our time, our energy, our bandwidth to is actually related to and linked to that purpose. When we lack purpose, we can just do anything. We can just go about our day, seat of the pants mentality, and just look busy.

But when we ask ourselves the question, "For what purpose?", we then give that particular activity that we may or may not want to do a priority. If it's working towards the purpose, then, "Hey, it's something that I need to do." "If it's something that's going to detract from my purpose, then it's something I need to discard." "If there are things that I can decide between, the one that's the highest priority will be the one that moves me in my purpose."

The second one are our horizons of focus. A lot of times when we get trapped in this rut, this day to day, this grind, it's because we are just looking at what's in front of us. However, when we have a purpose, we can then look at that purpose and, indeed, our life from a higher perspective.

It's like taking a satellite view of the earth. So, we're looking down on the entire situation and seeing the whole picture, not just this thing that's come across my desk or across my day that I need to decide whether or not it's urgent based on normally other people's requests.

So, the horizons of focus that we need to look at are up there in the atmosphere, then down, just as we're going up through the clouds and the runway, what's right in front of us that needs to be looked at now. How are we going to get this journey started?

So, start by having a big picture view. What is it that your overall purpose is achieving? What is it that you want to get done this year, this quarter?

So, have a look at it from a macro-level and then bring it back to what I need to do this week, this month, then bring it back and have a look at, well, what do I need to do this week, today, right now so that when I put those steps together, it will achieve that weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly goal, whatever it is. So, make sure that we understand the horizons of focus.

Number three is plan your journey. There's been many times, and I think I talked about this one of the other weeks, there's many times where I just would jump in the car with the family. We say, "Let's go somewhere." And we would not, and when I say "we", I meant me, we would not book a hotel or those sorts of things. We just run by the seat of our pants because that was exciting and the variety was great.

And there've been occasions where we've had to drive a lot further before we could get into a hotel using that analogy or that methodology. And it's the same with our life, our week, our day, we need to make sure that it's planned. We need to make sure that we know where we're going, we know how we're going to get there, and we know what the milestones are along the way.

If you're like me and planning is not a natural thing, it's something that you really need to get good at. Those who fail to plan, plan to fail. You've heard it before. And I used to think that was some cliche thing that people used to say, and let me tell you, I now know that they were so right.

Because when we've got things planned, things happen because we want them to, not because they just turn up. We're expecting them. They're part of the journey. The other thing about planning the journey and having those milestones is we can measure where we've been. We can measure how far we've come. So, number three, plan your journey.

Number four is take action. Let the green light go. It doesn't matter if everything's not perfect. Every journey of a thousand miles starts with one step. So, just get started. Do something today towards that goal. Do something that's going to take you one step closer from where you are now to where you want to go.

A lot of times we want to get it a hundred percent ready. We want to make sure everything's right, that everything's perfect, and it's never going to be that way. So, the fourth big idea, when we want to make sure that we achieve things through intentionality is hit the start button, take action.

And number five is to reflect to refocus. So, on the journey, we need to make sure whether it's a day, a week, or whatever, that we have milestones where we stop and go, "How far have we got?" It's like on the car journey where we stop, we need to fill the car back up. We need to go to the bathroom, get something to eat, whatever it is.

We need to make sure that we've got these stops planned in along the journey. And what we do with that is we reflect on where we've been. And when we do this, we do it in a special way. We do it with forward-focused reflection, not looking back and then beating ourselves up with what we haven't got done.

And to help me remember this, I like to think of driving a car. I like to think of the windscreen, that big piece of glass in front of us, that also has this little rear-vision mirror that's there so that we can have a look every now and then and see what's happening behind. And when we reflect, we need to do it in the same proportion. We need to make sure that most of our focus is still on where we're going, just checking in and doing two things.

One, to have a look and identify what we got right. What was a win? What worked? And then number two is to be able to recognise what still needs doing, what we didn't quite get the result with that we wanted. So, we then are able to refocus our energy and our efforts on the things moving forward. So, number five is to make sure that we reflect and refocus.

So, there's five big ideas, key principles that we need to employ so that we can get more done, so that we can be more intentional. So, what I want you to do at the end of this episode is just pause for a moment and ask yourself that first question, "For what purpose? What is it that you are on the planet for? What is it that you are wanting to achieve?"

And get some clarity around that so that you can then operate your day days with purpose and making sure that you set the right intention of where you put your time, your energy, your finances, whatever it is that you need to be able to be the best steward of.

Running by the seat your pants is not as romantic as it sounds. It creates a lot of disharmony and a lack of results. Setting intention, working on your intentionality, that critical competency of self-management in the spectrum of emotional intelligence, is going to allow you to get more done in a day than most people get done in a week. So, a lot of us right now are in a situation where things have changed, where this COVID-19 has totally changed the way we operate.

And I know myself that there were times when I was just starting to go through the motions, doing the same old stuff every single day, and I was getting into one of those ruts that I talked about before. Intentionality will bring us out of that rut, and I just want to encourage you that if you're feeling like you're getting nowhere, that you're just like a hamster on a wheel, then take what I've taught you today, set that intention, and enjoy the results moving forward.

Well, that's it for me for another week. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, that you share this with your friends, and join me again next week where we continue this conversation around the self-management competencies of emotional intelligence by empowering you to be the creator of change in your life. I'll see you then.

Do you always expect the worst during setbacks, see them as insurmountable and out of your depth, or do you see them as temporary and have the confidence to be able to navigate your way through them?

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Master Trainer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around emotional intelligence self-management strategies by talking about the very important topic right now of realistic optimism.

I've quite often been referred to as the eternal optimist, where I don't see the challenging things, and that's not always healthy either. What I do though is by developing this competency is I take control of my self-talk, and I look for the things that I can change, and I reduce that anxiety and stress that can lead to some debilitating emotions in this time right now. What we need to do is to bring some realism into that optimism.

So, it's not about just the power of positive thinking alone, it's using our logical brain, now that we know how to tap into the logical brain, without that emotional spiral, to look at things in a way that puts them in perspective, that looks at what we do know, rather than vent what we don't.

Realistic optimism is all about expecting success, seeing those setbacks as just temporary, and knowing and having the confidence in yourself and what's happening around you that you're going to be able to navigate through this current situation, and there is a future that's bigger, better, and brighter. To reach that future and enjoy it, we need to be able to employ strategies that will help us to see the future and not be stuck in the past or the present situation.

When we get this wrong, we can see bad events as lasting forever. We see luck as the only way that we're going to be able to get through things, rather than your own ability. It can leave us feeling helpless and listless a lot of the time during our day, and it can lead to some very major mental health issues like depression.

But when we learn how to do this differently, we have belief in our own ability, that we're able to make that change, and that comes from a deep sense of our personal power.

You apply that same belief to everything you do, not just a single task. You operate from a mindset of success, rather than fear, and you have a healthy self-talk. I heard it once said that an optimist is a man who gets treed by a lion, but enjoys the scenery while he's up there.

And if we look at that and how we can put that into our everyday life right now, some of us do feel like we've been forced up a tree. We're stuck. The view that we see when we're there is totally up to you and it's up to me.

So, what I want to do right now is I want to give you some tips that you can implement right now so that you can become more realistic in your outlook on life. You can bring in that optimism to empower you to be who you need to be right now and to move into your new future. So, let's get started. 

Number one is you tune into your self-talk about the adversity in your life right now. What is it that you're saying to yourself? What is your inner dialogue reminding you of? What's holding you back? So, step number one is to tune in and listen actively to what beliefs are coming out, what you think about yourself, what your self-talk is telling you and setting you up for either success or holding you back.

Number two is to examine your beliefs you have about adversity. What does it mean to you? Is it something that you see as being a whole of life thing or is it situational? Our beliefs determine our thoughts and therefore our behaviour.

So, by doing this audit of your beliefs around adversity, around setbacks, around the things that are going on in your life right now, it's going to give you the information that you need to channel into your logical brain and remove those things that are not allowing you to move forward and flip them to things that will.

Number three is to take notice of the feelings that you feel around those beliefs. So, how does it make you feel that you think that certain way about adversity? Does it make you feel fear? Does it make you feel trapped? Does it make you feel disempowered? Or are your beliefs making you feel empowered, making you feel positive in your outlook so that you can then move forward?

Sometimes, we can even feel guilty about having those beliefs. And we can beat up on ourself, and that creates a spiral down emotionally. It limits our personal power. And then we make even more decisions, based with our emotional brain, based around that, "I am a less than, rather than I'm capable." And the result is even worse. So, tune into your self-talk, examine your beliefs, and then examine the way that you feel about those beliefs.

Number four is to dispute those negative beliefs. Instead of taking them on because they feel good and they line up with how you feel about yourself, dispute them. Look for evidence from your logical brain that they are not true. They're something that you've believed, something that you've made up, and they are not actually what's really happening right now. So, step four, let's take action to get rid of those beliefs, to reject them, dispute them, and leave them behind.

Now that we've been through these four steps, we can get to number five, 'cause we're in a position where we feel confident in ourself. We've got ourself in an emotional state and a state where we are thinking logically and looking at things realistically. And we can look now for evidence to dispute those beliefs. We can look at ourself and go, "You know what? I'm not a failure. I am not whatever those beliefs were. This is what I am."

So, this whole five step process or the four steps leading to the five is to get ourselves in a position where we're thinking realistically, where we're thinking with our logical brain, where we're looking at ourself in a positive light with our big voice, not that mini-me that wants to hold us back.

So, let me introduce you to a strategy, a method that you can use so that you can operate out of a position of realistic optimism. And it's really simple for me to remember because it is A, B, C, D, E. Let's have a look at it.

The A stands for adversity, the B stands for belief, the C for consequences, the D for disputation, and the E is for energisation. Let's pull them apart and put them into context with an actual live scenario.

So, let's say you were having a dinner party and you invited some friends. And this friend came along and the adversity was your friend came, but they sat there and they didn't eat any of the food. So, that's the adversity. Now, that can trigger a lot of thoughts. And depending on what you move into the belief zone with, will determine what you do with that.

So, the belief could be, she didn't like the food. I'm a lousy cook. I don't even know why I try to make friends. I don't think there's any need at all for me to try and pursue her as a friend in the future because I'm not a good friend. So, that belief can become very powerful based out of that adversity, because that's what you made it mean and it can then move into the consequences.

So, the consequences in this scenario could be I feel really bad and awful about myself for thinking that way. I feel embarrassed that I've cooked such terrible food. And I actually avoid spending any time with that person for the whole night because of the way that I feel.

So, the consequence of the belief is what we really want to tap into because then we can decide whether or not we want that to be a consequence in our life. To be in control and to be able to move forward, there needs to be enough pain around what's happening or enough pleasure for us to move through. And we've talked about how the brain works and the pleasure circuits and dopamine, et cetera, works in our brain in previous weeks. So, the third part of the process, the C is to look at the consequences.

So, we've had A, B, C. We've had the adversity, the belief, and the consequence. So, now what we can do is we can move into the D, which is the disputation. This is where we look for evidence that what we believe is not true. So, we could look at the fact that there was several people at the dinner party and everybody else ate the food. So, the food wasn't awful. She could be on a diet. She could be only able to eat certain things. She might've have been feeling very well.

So, we're looking for evidence that's contrary to the belief that we have. What we do most of the time was we look for evidence of what we believe so that we can submit those beliefs because those beliefs are what are keeping us safe. Those beliefs are all about where we feel about ourself in that given moment, in that time of our life.

So, what we're going to do here is dispute those negatives and we're going to replace them with real evidence. And to do that, we obviously need to work in the logical brain. And the E stands for energisation. So, what the energisation is is by disputing those beliefs and having a different belief, it energises us. It becomes an empowering feeling.

And in that energisation in this scenario, what it would energise us to do is to invest some more time with that person, to talk to that person, to get around that person, and enjoy their company, and to remove that feeling of fear, anxiety, whatever it was that you were going through, and enjoy the rest of your night, and enjoy the company of everyone else that's there as well.

So, what we believe affects our energy. So, by disputing those negative beliefs, putting in the real beliefs, it changes how we come across energetically. We're more engaged, we're more enthusiastic, and we feel more empowered.

So, that is a five step process, A, B, C, D, E. Easy to remember. Adversity, belief, consequence that moves us into disputation and energisation. With realistic optimism, we're able to navigate, whether it be in a period right now in this COVID-19 disruption or in any time in our life, we're able to navigate more effectively what it is that we're going through, rather than be more present.

We're able to feel more positive emotions because we're looking at life with reality, rather than the made up stories that our negative self-talk and our negative self-worth conjures up.

Realistic optimism is one of the 10 competencies of self-management in the four quadrants of social and emotional intelligence. So, it starts with self-awareness, and then we move into these competencies of self-management.

And if you'd like some help to get involved in your own development of your emotional intelligence, let me know, drop a comment, go to my website, wherever you need to connect with me, and ask some questions. I'd love to help you on your journey. 

Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week when we continue this journey through self-management by learning to be more intentional. I'll see you then.

Do you readily and willingly adapt to the changes around you or do you resist change and try to hold on to the status quo? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Master Trainer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and this week, I want to start to move into the second quadrant of emotional intelligence and talk about skills around self-management.

Change is inevitable and the pace of change is unprecedented right now. You either run with it or you let it overwhelm you. The difference between these two comes in developing the competency of personal agility. There are several things that will actually hold you back from being able to change without all the stress and all the conflict.

The first one is being fearful of change, wanting things to stay the way they are. If we operated that way, you would still have typewriters, rather than be able to talk to a computer and it types it out for us, or resisting change and being stubborn and saying, "No, that's not what I want to do."

Being inflexible, which is like my body in the morning when I first wake up. Because it's been still all night and hasn't done any movement, it can be a little bit seized up. And that's what happens to us when we resist change, when our level of personal agility is low.

And the end result is that we stagnate, and it's like a pond of water that's not moving: green algae grows on the top. It's stagnant. We can't drink it. We can't swim in it. We can't use it at all. It stops us from going forward. But when you learn to develop your personal agility, instead of having these challenges, you can have better results.

You can learn to embrace change and see that the changes are actually good, see that the changes are part of your process of moving forward. They're not actually holding you back. You can become an initiator of change. So, instead of the change happening to you, you create the change.

And you learn to become adaptable, like the chameleon who camouflages itself and blends in with the environment that it's in so that it stays safe. We can do the same thing when we learn to adapt to the change. And the end result is that we have flow and we grow and we move forward. So, let me outlay five key principles, big ideas that we need to take hold of before we can develop the competency of personal agility.

Number one is change is inevitable. It's like the larvae that spins its cocoon and then expects to stay there forever. As we know, what happens is from that cocoon comes a beautiful butterfly, and it's like that in our life as well. We're not able to just stay wrapped up in the cocoon. Change is going to happen. It's inevitable. So, when we understand that, we can anticipate change and it doesn't become such a big problem and a big shock to us.

Number two is we have to learn to become uncomfortable. When the motor car was first developed and they wanted to start the car, they had to get this big handle called a crank handle and put it in the front of the car and turn it round and round and round until the magneto created enough spark and the engine fired and then it took over by itself. And the momentum was created by the weight of the flywheel.

Unfortunately though, a lot of times when we did that, and when I say we, by the way, I'm not that old, but when they did that, what happened was that there was some kickback and sometimes that handle came off and there were knuckles that got scraped. Sometimes it really hurt the shoulder of the person that was trying to crank it.

So, by getting uncomfortable and understanding that that's not how you wanted to continue, that's the only way that they came up with the idea of the electric starter motor. Now, when I jump into my car, I don't even have a key. I just need to push a button, and that wouldn't have happened if people didn't learn to get uncomfortable with the status quo.

Number three is to focus on your "why". Asking yourself, "Why is this change a good thing?", rather than looking for reasons not to do it. Find how that change is going to move you closer to one of your goals, one of your dreams, one of your desires, the "why", the overarching picture that you have in your mind every single day as to why you get up out of bed and do what it is that you do.

Number four is to look at and navigate change incrementally. We have this door at home where the kids, every year, stood up against the door with their back to the door and on their birthday, we would put a mark, an increment on the door as to how tall they were getting.

The point I'm trying to make here is they didn't get to be the height that they are now overnight. They weren't born that way. They were a certain size. And then, each year, they grew. Some years, it was a big incremental change. Other years, not so much. When we look at change in the same way, it makes it easier to navigate, but breaking it down into bite-sized chunks.

And the overall thing that we want to do then is know, "What do I need to do next? What do I need to do today? What's the first small step that I can take to make that change?"

And number five, and one of the most important, is to seek support. Make sure that whenever change is happening, you've got a support team. You've got people you can talk to. You've got people that are going through similar things to you. You've got people that can offer you practical support in being able to navigate the change.

So, there's five key principles, big ideas, concepts that we need to understand before we can navigate change without the overwhelm. So, if you're feeling a little bit out of kilter with all the changes that are going on around us right now, it might be time for you to just step back, have an honest look, and see where you are in this competency of personal agility.

Emotional intelligence starts with awareness and then empowers you to be able to manage your responses to what's going on around you. When we can control the disruptive thoughts and feelings, we're able to change without it being a major challenge because we're looking at it logically and we're going through those principles that I gave you before.

Well, that's it for me for another week. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. If you need some help in developing your emotional intelligence, make sure you get in touch. And next week, we're going to continue the conversation around self-management competencies by looking at maintaining realistic optimism. I'll see you then.

Do you do your best to deliver on your promises and commitments, maintaining high standards of personal integrity, or do you find it hard to establish long standing, trusting relationships?

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Master Trainer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today I want to continue our conversation by unpacking the elements you need for “Building a Bond of Trust”.

Everywhere you look at the moment there are so many examples of mistrust and scepticism. Whether it’s leaders in government, health organisations, the media, or even with people you have never even met but are interacting with on social media, a lack of trust in them or the information they are communicating is causing more and more conflict. 

When people have developed a reputation for lacking integrity, or undermine others for their own personal gain, it is little wonder you find it hard to believe anything they say. Making promises they never intend to keep just to get what they want, behaving erratically and treating their fellow man poorly, and being unable to establish open and candid conversations, erodes away the trust that we all need to feel safe, cared for and valued.

But then there are the people in your life who behave in accordance with their beliefs, values, and commitments. They genuinely care about others and treat people fairly, consistently and with respect. That’s the kind of people we want to run the world, right?

Well, let me encourage you, and myself, to be the personification of that famous quote that says, “Be the change you want to see in the world”. You and I may not have any chance of controlling the behaviour of those other leaders, but we do have an opportunity to influence our own little part of the world.

It takes a long time to build trust, and only an instant to destroy it, so let me unpack a few tips for you that will help you build and maintain a lasting bond of trust with those around you. Are you ready to take on the challenge?

Over the last few weeks, we have already spoken about several things that every trusted leader demonstrates. Empathy, active listening, effective communication and great conflict management skills. Let me add a few more to the list.

Be real and talk straight, rather than skirting around the subject and appearing to be hiding something.

Make it easier to keep your word by avoiding to overpromise because you want people to approve of you.

Admit when you have made a mistake because nobody expects you to be perfect, they just expect honesty.

Share your true feelings and thoughts about a situation, allowing room for others to disagree or share a different view.

Show others you have trust in them. A bond of trust is a 2 way street. People need to know that you have their back before they will unconditionally have yours.

Learn about who people really are, not just what they do, and never betray a confidence by disclosing what they tell you inappropriately.

Trusting others, and in turn being trusted by them, is all we need to build a bond of trust. In today’s uncertain world of constant change, online scrutiny and the many examples of people we find it hard to trust, you can be a breath of fresh air to the people in your world. 

To demonstrate these trust makers, and avoid the trust breakers, you need to continue to build your emotional intelligence. As I have said many times before, I may be a subject matter expert, but I am a daily work in progress just like you. It’s never about being perfect. It’s more about making incremental changes, one day at a time.

If you would like to know more about how to do this, get in touch and ask me to help. I would love to be a part of your journey.

Well, that’s it from me for another week. Make sure you hit the subscribe button, share this with your friends, and join me again next week when we will continue the conversation by learning how to navigate change by being more agile. I’ll see you then.

Are you uncomfortable with and tend to avoid conflict, or can you spot potential conflicts, bring disagreements out in the open, and then deescalate them?

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Master Trainer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around Emotional Intelligence, around Effective Communication and Empathy by talking to you about what to do when it all goes wrong and we get into conflict.

Conflict is inevitable and Conflict Management is all about resolving disagreements. It's about identifying that we've had some miscommunication, that we've had a misunderstanding, and it's about using all the skills that we talked about in communicating and effectively, actively listening to go, "Hang on a sec, let's get back on track."

I know in my own life and in many of the people who I work with, in their lives, this is a skill that we haven't at all yet mastered. And when we're having difficulties in this area, we tend to fall into conflict all the time.

Now, to just step back a little bit, firstly, we've got to make sure, before we get into management of conflict, that we understand where it comes from. And a lot of times, conflict will come when we fail to suspend our judgment, when we fail to actively listen and therefore, we get misunderstandings.

When we tend to see the other person as our opponent, we fail to listen to their point of view and we're only interested in being right. I know this was a major challenge for me and it's something that I still have to work on every single day. We might lack consideration or tact and fail to see it from the other person's point of view.

And when we're only focusing on our point of view, it's really challenging to find common ground. When we encourage open debate and discussion and we draw out everyone's opinion in a logical way, as a fact-finding exercise, not looking for things to rebut against, then we're able to set up an environment of understanding where we can have those win-win solutions.

Effective Conflict Management is something that we will all get the benefit from at some point in our lives. There are totally different styles of Conflict Management. Some people are conflict avoiders at all costs. "Keep it away from me. I don't feel empowered, so I don't want to play."

Some people can be aggressive and they're really good at conflict, so they think, because they're practicing it all the time. Some people are compromises, where they just look for a win-win all the time. They give a little bit and they lose a little bit and they try and find the middle ground. This is not always a good thing because others might manipulate the situation.

So, whatever conflict style you are currently using, what I want to do is teach you some key tips, some steps that you can take in any conflict situation to deescalate and get back on an even ground where we can continue with positive communication.

Number one is to operate from your logical brain. As we've talked about, Emotional Intelligence is the ability to be aware of the emotion that you're going through in the moment, and then to use that information to manage your response.

So, when we operate from our logical brain, by asking "what" questions and "how" questions, rather than "why" questions, we're able to give ourselves a better opportunity to think, pause, and respond to what we're hearing, and to practice active listening, and to go through a logical process of gathering information without the need to give it a meaning or to judge it and therefore, be able to have healthy dialogue and manage and resolve the conflict.

Number two is to focus on the issue, not the person. Now, that's something that I was taught many, many years ago, and I never understood it until I understood the neuroscience behind Emotional Intelligence. Because when someone says, "Focus on the issue, don't focus on the person," I'm thinking, "It's the person that's creating the conflict. It's the person that's in front of me right now. It's the person that's on the other end of the keyboard in the social media conversation," or whatever it is.

So, by utilising tip one, which is staying in the logical brain, we're then able to focus on the outcome, focus on what it is that's being said, focus in a data-driven, logical information way that allows us to look at the issue and not make it personal between you and the other person or people.

And number three, and this is one that I have to use a lot, is to decide to be the most emotionally intelligent person in the interaction, to decide that no matter what, you're going to behave in a way that will give you the best opportunity to have a peaceful outcome.

Relationships are important and whether it's someone that you've just met on the keyboard, on social media, or someone that's close and near and dear to you, I think we can all benefit a lot more by having less conflict. So, if I make a decision that I'm going to be emotionally intelligent to the best of my ability and control only my behaviour, 'cause that's really all I can control, then the conflicts will deescalate quickly because you can only have conflict when two people want to play.

I remember a lot of times driving in traffic where someone might cut me off. And in the old days, before I knew how to do these things, I would give them the California salute, or shout something at them, or they would know by the expression on my face that I wasn't happy. And I was ready for a fight, but doing things differently, like when they cut me off going, "Sorry," even though it wasn't my fault, it tends to take the sting out of the conflict. There's no argument if you're not involved in it.

So, what I'm not saying here is not to let people walk all over you. What I'm saying is walk away when it's not your fight. What I'm saying is behave in a way that you would like others to behave to you. And what I've found is that communication gets the response from the way it's been given.

So, the best thing that you and I can do to deescalate a conflict and get to a position where we can get back on track with our communication. And Effective Communication is to decide to be in control of our emotions, of our self-talk, of what actually comes out of our mouth, whatever we type on the keyboard, and all these skills are a part of Emotional Intelligence.

Conflict happens when there is poor communication, when there's a lack of mutual understanding, where there's no give and take, where there's a failure to suspend judgment, where there's a need to be right.

And Conflict Management is a culmination of those skills in Emotional Intelligence that we've talked about: Personal Power, being okay in your own skin, and being okay with being who you are, Emotional Self-Control, being able to understand the emotions and the meanings that you're putting on things, and being able to take your response down a different direction, rather than a reaction.

It's about having that Effective Communication, things like active listening, listening for what's not being said, and all the things we've talked about over this last six weeks or so. When I work with people in developing Conflict Management skills, I teach a five-step process for effectively negotiating and resolving any conflict. If you're interested in knowing more about that, then drop me a line, put in a comment, and I'd love to help you out with that.

Well, that's it for me for another week. Make sure you hit the subscribe button and join me again next week, when we continue our conversation around the competencies of Social and Emotional Intelligence that are going to help us to navigate beyond COVID-19 and just enjoy whoever we need to be in every area of our life. I'll see you then.

Do you fail to listen, interrupt, or always find fault in what others say, or do you welcome mutual understanding by listening intently and allowing the sharing of information?

Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Master Trainer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around Empathy and Emotional Intelligence by talking about the art of active listening.

One of the most powerful skills that we can all have is genuine listening. It's the key to effective communication. And for healthy relationships, it's important to hear everything that's being said and to be a tuned into what's not being said so that we get the full picture and we're able to interact and have mutually beneficial communication. This is one of the most important ingredients in Empathy.

Well, we're still learning to do this well. We might be someone who interrupts all the time, where we've got our own agenda and we're pushing that, and we're not really all that interested in fully listening to what the other person's saying. We might be giving the opinion that we are listening with our ears, but our body language and our response and reaction says that we aren't really interested.

When we get this skill to where it's going to help us and give us that triple win we talked about last week, a win for us, a win for them, and a win for the greater good, we are not only interested in what we have to say and what our opinion is, but we're open to what the other person or people have to say. And we filter that information in our logical brain to make sure that we have the entire picture to avoid misunderstanding and to avoid conflict.

When we do this, we're able to have conversations that are effective, that are mutually beneficial, and that allow us to be involved with Compassionate Empathy; to not just understand, but to be a part of the solution as well.

So, let's talk about some of the things that we are listening for. As we've already said, we're listening to what's being said, we're also listening to what's not being said. We're listening to what's not congruent, what doesn't seem to add up. A lot of times, I'll be having conversations or I'll be communicating and what I'm saying here isn't lining up to what I said here, and that creates confusion.

We listen for what's needed, what's missing, and we listen to what their goals are, what they want to achieve. By actively listening, we can also be attuned to what their strengths are so that we know where we can add value and where they're doing okay.

So, let me give you three key tips that you can use to help you to be a more active listener and therefore, have more effective communication.

Number one, set aside your own agenda. When we have our own agenda out front, we've got all this noise and all this clamor going on in our mind. So, even though we are doing our best to listen, we're not hearing. We're filtering it through our own agenda. So, the best thing that we can do is to be totally focused on them, set aside our own agenda, and listen fully and be fully present.

Number two is to avoid jumping in. A lot of times when I was learning to be a better communicator, someone would be talking and they could tell that all I was doing was waiting for them to take a breath so that I could jump in. I'd be trying to jump in and go, "Yeah, okay." And every time they said a point, I'd have something to counter it with or something to add.

So, when we avoid jumping in and leave the conversation open and collect the information in a logical way, not collecting it in a way that's comparing it to what our beliefs are, we're able to get the full picture.

And number three is to reflect back what you heard. Remember last week, we talked about the communication process, being someone who is a sender, encoding their message, and sending it to a receiver. The receiver receives that information through the noise and then they decode what they thought they were communicated. And that's where the confusion can come in.

What they then do is they encode their reaction or their response and they send it back through the noise to the original sender who is now the receiver, who decodes what they think they heard. The challenge with all that is we can make assumptions. We can think that we heard this and therefore make a belief around that, give that a meaning when in fact it may not be what was said at all.

So, by reflecting back what we think we heard, we were able to get clarification and or confirmation so that we can then move forward effectively; simple phrases like, "So, what I heard you say was...," and then repeating what you thought they said. Now, this can be done, whether it's verbally or whether it's written text.

And that gives the person that you're communicating with the opportunity to go, "Yes, that's exactly what I said," or give clarity and either go deeper to give further understanding or go, "No, that's not what I meant at all. This is what I meant."

So, when we use these three tips, when we actively listen and we do it without assumption, we do it without jumping in, and we reflect to get clarity and confirmation, we take out all the misunderstanding and all the conflict. Active listening is a crucial component of Empathy, and one of the competencies that we teach in the work that we do in Social and Emotional Intelligence.

Well, that's it for me for another week. Make sure that you hit the subscribe button so that you can be with me again next week when we talk about Conflict Management.

It doesn't always go right. We don't always get it right. So therefore, I'm going to teach you a strategy and a procedure to be able to effectively navigate conflict, nip it in the bud, and go back to effective communication. I'll see you then.

Do you fail to listen, interrupt, and find fault with what others say, or do you listen well, seek mutual understanding, and welcome differing opinions? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, Emotional Intelligence Master Trainer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation on empathy by talking about another key ingredient of Social Intelligence, Effective Communication.

As we talked about last week, demonstrating Cognitive, Emotional and Compassionate Empathy can really help us as we continue to navigate the effects of this pandemic on our lives. Going into battle, so to speak, dominating conversations with our own bias and opinions creates an environment where someone has to win and someone has to lose. It's not healthy and definitely not what we need right now.

In the 1967 movie Cool Hand Luke, we hear the prison captain justify the beating that he gave Paul Newman, who played the prisoner Luke, by saying to all the other prisoners, "What we've got here is a failure to communicate. Some men you just can't reach. So, you get what we had here last week. Which is what he wants."

It's like he's saying that when people speak up for themselves or express their views and concerns, they want to be beaten up and put back in their place. I would suggest a different way of looking at it. Perhaps I just want to be heard or release the pent up emotions and stress that they're experiencing. They might be going through some really challenging stuff in their life in that moment and really need some help.

Whatever the situation, I'm fairly confident that they're not looking for a beating. When we have empathy, we seek first to understand before being understood. So, let's take a look at what effective communication is and how we can use it to be more compassionate and understanding.

Famous playwright George Bernard Shaw said it so well. "The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place." For many years, I saw communication as speaking and being heard. If I said something to you and you heard me, I had communicated. I was under the illusion that Shaw was talking about.

Communication is a process with many moving parts. And if we leave any of the parts out, we have ineffective communication. We have senders who encode what they send based on their own beliefs and biases. We then have a receiver who decodes what they heard based on their beliefs and biases.

In the middle of all that, we have a lot of noise from media, family, friends, our own inner dialogue. Sometimes the message comes through distorted and that's where the misunderstandings originate from. This causes conflict. So, let's take a look at three things that we can all do to improve our communication.

Number one is to listen more than we speak. When we are seeking to understand, it's far better to listen than to tell the other person what we think. The more that we learn this crucial skill of listening, the better we will be attuned to what is not being said. We talked about that last week. So, listen more than we speak.

Number two is to keep focus in the logical brain. When we are involved in any type of communication, if we allow the emotion of what's being said to trigger our thoughts and our behaviours based on our previous experiences, and we've talked about that over the previous weeks, then we're going to have a reaction to what's being said.

But, when we get it up into the prefrontal cortex, into the executive command center of the brain, we can then listen and use our Cognitive Empathy to find out what's actually being said. And then we can process that in a logical way and respond.

And number three is to ask more questions than we make statements. Questions are so powerful to gain understanding, whereas statements can put up barriers and put up roadblocks. So, I encourage you, as I encourage myself, to become really good and proficient at asking more questions. 

Effective Communication is a key ingredient of Social and Emotional Intelligence and something that we all might consider doing a little differently, if we want to restore unity of purpose across the world and beat this pandemic and take back control of our lives. By the way, even though I'm going live each week to support you, my listeners, the topics that I'm choosing are the ones that I need to work on in my own life right now.

Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week as we continue our conversation by learning the powerful art of active listening. I'll see you then.

Can you see things from other people's perspective or do you tend to act without considering how others might feel? Hi, this is Grant Herbert, International Influencer and Sustainable Performance Coach, and today, I want to continue our conversation around Emotional Intelligence during this time of COVID-19 by having a conversation around a crucial competency called empathy.

Right now, I'm seeing many examples of a lack of empathy, whether it be on social media, whether I'm listening to the news, or if I'm downtown at the local shopping center. Whether it's stereotyping people, whether it's not being tolerant of differing views, or whether it's coming across just being uncaring with a total lack of concern for others and being trapped in our own agenda.

To restore a greater sense of unity and peace for everyone right now, let's consider how we might do some things differently. Things like being more attentive and attuned to the feelings that are coming across in what people are saying or listening without an agenda and showing sensitivity and understanding of other people's perspectives and feelings. To do these things differently, we need to understand and to develop the skills around empathy.

There are three types of empathy. There's Cognitive Empathy, which is having an understanding of what people are thinking. There's Emotional Empathy, which is having a sense of what they're feeling and the emotions that they're going through. And then there's compassionate empathy, which is at a deeper level, which spurs you on and inspires you to take action to help.

I know in my own life, this is something that I work on all the time and I'm not perfect at it. And as we've talked about before, that's never going to be the goal. I do have a sense of what other people are feeling, and I'm very attuned because of the development of Emotional Intelligence.

And for us to be able to do that, we need to go back to where we talked about self-awareness and we need to have an understanding of what emotions we are going through ourselves so that we can recognise what others could be going through as well.

So, let me give you three tips on what we can do when we develop empathy, when we've developed this skill and this crucial competency of Emotional Intelligence, that allows us to be more socially competent.

Number one is to suspend all judgment. A lot of times, when I witnessed what I've been witnessing and when I've done it in my own life and had to check myself on it, the core of the challenge is judgment, whether it's judgment on ourself or judgment on the other people or judgment on the whole situation.

So, when we suspend all judgment, it takes it out of the equation. So, we can go into the situation, whether it's something that we're seeing, whether it's something that we're reading, whether it's something that we're listening to with an open mind, just like we do when we are getting feedback from others when we ask for it.

The second thing we can do is to listen to what's not being said, to go deeper than just the surface level. So, when we suspend all judgment, we're in an environment where we're able to do that. So now, using active listening, we're able to sense and feel the underlying issues that someone might be going through or in that situation.

And number three is that when we want to get involved in a conversation, whether it be on social media, face to face, on the phone, however we're doing it with our body language, we need to first acknowledge what we think we've seen, what we think we've heard. A lot of times when I've fallen foul to this, it's because I've made a decision that this is what this person's trying to say.

This is what their real agenda is. This is who they're aligned with. This is whatever. So, by reflecting back and asking questions, rather than reacting with a comment, we're able to find out what the real story is.

So, empathy. It's a key competency of Social and Emotional Intelligence and one that we can all brush up on a little bit. Right now, there's an environment going on and around the world that can bring out some behaviours in us that are a little bit surprising. It's not how we might normally respond or react.

So, if this episode has touched you and ignited something in you to want to know more, make sure that you get in touch and ask your questions, whether that be in the podcast, on my YouTube channel, or in the various social media outlets that you might be watching this or listening to it and ask questions. I'd love to help you because we could all do with a little bit more empathy around the world right now.

Well, that's it for me for another week. Join me again next week, where we will continue to talk about competencies of Social and Emotional Intelligence that will help us go beyond COVID-19 and enjoy every aspect of our life a little better. I'll see you then.

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