The Ultimate Guide to Referral Networking: Ch.13

 

Chapter 13 Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and Referral Networking

Emotional intelligence was first mentioned back in 1964 in an article published by Michael Beldoch, but it was not until 1995 that it gained fame when the psychologist Daniel Golman published a book titled” Emotional Intelligence” now abbreviated to EQ.

The common consensus identifies Emotional intelligence as a person’s ability to understand and control their own emotions and the emotions of others.

There are three subsections associated with EQ

•                    The ability to connect to emotions and use them for thinking and problem-solving tasks;

•                    The ability to control emotions, which includes regulating your own emotions

•                    The ability to promote happiness and relaxation in other people.

Why is this different to the Empathic approach? It isn’t the empathic approach is about attracting another person’s notice through understanding them. EQ is about understanding their strengths and weaknesses and controlling them! However, before you can control another person’s emotions, you need to know how to control your own emotions, once you control them, you can then begin to control others too.

•                    Your worst emotion to control is fear! Once you can overcome this, the rest is easy.

Just like a yogi teaching you how to meditate in order to understand your body better and develop mind control skills or a karate teacher teaching you “kata’s” to develop immediate physical reactions to certain situations, EQ also has certain procedures and tests to advance your abilities. 

Remember, there are no real negative emotions; there are only negative applications or dominance of emotions on your actions. Fear is your hardest emotion to control, it is your worst enemy, whilst it is important to have it since it is a survival based emotion, it must not be allowed to dictate your other emotions. An instance when fear is useful is when you are standing on the edge of a cliff, without fear you would take an unnecessary risk that could lead to your death. So, in this instance, fear is a positive emotion. Anger is also an emotional response based on how you accept information; you must be able to control your anger completely. Once you have taken the necessary steps to control these two emotions, the others will come into line. Another important issue is over-excitement of emotion, such as happiness or awe. If you become excessively happy, you can become hysterical, and if you become excessively awe-struck, you become a moron. All your emotions must be in check in order for you to truly appreciate every-one.

Redirect your focus

This means projecting your desires onto the object of your desire. Imagine, in your mind, the target you wish to acquire; now you must prepare yourself both mentally and physically to attain it.

How is this done?

Tip 1. you must negate all negative thoughts, concentrate only on the positive. This means you must only think in terms of creativity and productivity.

Tip 2. Focus on your self-awareness, try to imagine watching yourself from the outside, how do you look and act? Then concentrate on how you feel from the inside, how are you reacting, feeling?

Tip 3. Start to self-regulate your emotional response, don’t let others regulate your actions. Instead, you decide how you will react to any situation.

Tip 4. Improve your motivation by thinking of ways to increase output, reduce the time and generally improve your work environment. Think positive, optimism is as addictive as pessimism, but with much better results.

Tip 5. Increase your empathic abilities by trying to help others solve situations. Show both compassion as well as actual aid in solving the situation.

Tip 6. Increase your social network and skills, basically, continue to attract new friends both online and in real life. Increase your circle of influence through the number of people you know and relate to. (Don’t try to suck up to bosses! Try to talk to them and to those in lower positions; you never know who has influence or access to information)

Tip 7. Revenge is for losers. Instead of applying your time and efforts to seeking ways to make others suffer for indiscretions done to you, concentrate on attaining your target. Too many companies have fallen, too many lives have been lost, and too much pain has come from revenge. The very thought of “getting even” is infantile, the hardest thing to do is to ignore. By ignoring (not forgiving), you replace your valuable time and energies from concentrating on THEM to concentrating on the real target, YOU! How YOU succeed, how YOU progress and how YOU reach your goals.

Redirecting your focus onto YOU is what you must do every day when you listen to how other describe their lives, what they like and what they do, it does not mean you must like it or do it too. You are not a sheep, neither are you a wolf, you are just you. You do not need to listen to jibes and meaningless criticism; you must listen to your inner voice, look at your goals and continue to aim for them

Live your life, not theirs! Remember you only have one life, don’t waste it by living according to how others think or tell you. On the other hand, there are certain social norms that you will need to adapt to maintain your focus.

Socializing

Whilst there are golf clubs and fitness centers that are actually social gathering sites, like watering holes, they bring many types of people together. There are also winter sports sites which are considered a major defining sport as well as museums and art centers; every country has a different social gathering point dependent on the weather, culture, and religion of the country. In all countries charity work is considered great social interactivity since it connects you with other minded people but also has a productive outcome, it helps those in need. So, you must find out what are those social network centers that best suit your lifetime desires and join them. This is not being a sheep, its being goal minded, focusing on advancing yourself through every social media available.

Once you have joined one, your work is far from over. Now you must start to get involved in the daily activity, increasing your reach by occasionally volunteering, find out about the board, is there a “friends of” unit, such as in a museum. Go to this and join it. Start to get involved in their schedule, become an integral part of their activity. Over time you will find you are a member of a number of boards, and occasionally you will find certain people like you as members of more than one. You don’t need to be rich; you just need to have time and energy. You will suddenly find yourself being invited to all kinds of parties and meetings. Use this to advance your career, map out who is who at each board, and start to build a map of influence.

Remember by using your new-found control over your emotions, you can easily adapt to any new environment, and can easily control how others perceive you.

Boardroom tactics are also very important. When sitting in a boardroom meeting you will find many types, but they can be categorized into four groups; the quiet ones, these try to hide and generally don’t talk, they are scared that if they talk and upset their boss, they could lose their position. The over-talker, this is the exact opposite, they try to take over the discussion at every point, trying to prove how brilliant and irreplaceable they are, then there is the fact spouter, they usually aren’t inventive and rely on a mass of data and percentages to prove how capable they are, and are mainly ”yes men” and finally there are the visionaries, they tend to constantly come up with new ideas but don’t actually offer much data to back their ideas up. All these people are important as a group; they interact to create cohesion (except for the silent ones, they are useless in a boardroom and waste space.) The ideal boardroom executive is someone that combines data and facts with inventive and innovative thinking, and does not talk too much but speaks exactly what needs to be said. They must also argue when necessary; true leaders don’t want yes men, they want someone that will make the company go forward, that will manage their department properly for the benefit of the company.

Leaders Vs. Tyrants

There is a very interesting fact about great leaders, as opposed to tyrants. Great leaders were all sympathetic, perfectionists, original thinkers, very patient with those that needed extra help but impatient with those that didn’t. They were all witty, funny and highly intelligent. Another interesting fact, not all successful businessmen are leaders, some of them are merely great businessmen. Now, unless you have an original idea, or access to venture capital, or have a cousin that is CEO of a major corp. that wants to employ because his mother told him to, I suggest you learn EQ so you can start to stand out at work and evolve.

Professional Networking

Like socializing, the business sector has its own groups to belong to. In some industries, they come naturally to medical societies. Basically, you chose the society or societies your profession and experience is best suited to. Join and become an active member. Go to chapter meetings, national and international conferences, if necessary work on articles, abstracts, and presentations. Become a known speaker. Or perhaps apply for voluntary board role, although it helps if you are well known, and that happens through your application and appearance. Once you start to advance in the society, don’t stop, use business networks to build up more presence, start to link them. Befriend peers from other companies, mingle with peers of all levels, but also try to meet with those in higher positions, it will help you advance. In some instances, being elected to and voluntary executive position in society will help you advance your application for a new job. Everyone wants a leader in his or her profession, and there are two ways to gauge a leader, either through his or her fame from publication or inventiveness or through his or her popularity online and in the society. Remember, if you are President of a Society, you can be called upon to give an official opinion in court or on TV…it always helps to be in that position.