EP22: Emotional Intelligence – Let Meditation Enhance and Expand this Valuable Asset

02/10/20 • 17 min

Alexa Z Meditates - Your Life, But Better

Intro

In today's episode, I am going to shed a little light on emotional intelligence. You might think you don't need to listen to this episode because you know all about it, you might have even read Daniel Goleman's book, Emotional Intelligence. Hold tight! I am here to talk about how meditation can improve your emotional intelligence, why we should always enhance emotional intelligence, and how it can make you a better person and a better leader. Increasing your emotional intelligence is just one more magical gift that meditation can offer.

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Hey there, Alexa Z here! Before we jump into the topic of mindfulness, meditation, and emotional intelligence, I would like you to take a moment and check-in with yourself. Ask yourself, what are my emotions and feelings right now. When I work with children, I ask, "What's the weather today?" For example, sometimes, I feel stormy and sunny at the same time, as though my weather is a bit oxymoronic. Hold on to your thoughts on what your emotions are right now, and I will talk about them again a little bit later. If you have read Daniel Goleman's book on emotional intelligence, you may have some knowledge about this topic.

I personally like to keep it simple. There are excellent reasons why we need emotional intelligence. Usually, you hear about emotional intelligence with leadership. Everyone should be a good leader, whether you are a leader in a company or your family, or merely making your way through life. Imagine if you could not perceive that an employee or a family member, or your friend, is frustrated or upset. Imagine if you could not tune in to what others are feeling, and you are unable to connect with them. Research calls tuning in to another's emotions as emotional intelligence. Research also indicates that emotional intelligence is what differentiates great leaders from average leaders.

In Daniel Goleman's book, he includes a study that involved approximately 200 executives. The study found that their emotional intelligence, also known as EQ or emotional quotient, was twice as relevant to performance compared to their IQ. and their technical abilities.

Approximately 70% of the time, people with high emotional intelligence can outperform and attain superior leadership positions at a faster pace than those who have a high IQ and technical abilities.

I have always been fascinated by emotional intelligence. I am relatively smart, but I do not have a stellar IQ. There are some aspects I can't change about myself. But, I can improve my emotional intelligence. Not only can I develop my emotional intelligence, but I must continuously work on it. Your IQ stays the same, the way you learned in the past is the same way you learn today; it does not change. Your personality doesn't really change. I always say that I am an introvert hiding in an extroverts body. That won't change.

Emotional intelligence continually comes up when I teach meditation. One of the first things I ask is, what are your desires to meditate, and what was one thing that brought you here to learn how to meditate? Very often, the response I hear is to stop being so emotional and to stop being reactive. I also understand their to desire to balance their emotions, logic, and reasoning.

At the beginning of this episode, I asked how you were feeling. You likely had to pause for a minute and think about it. It's not easy to tune into your own emotions. Those who can tune in to their feelings are excellent leaders because they also can easily tune into the feelings of those around them. For example, if I am in tune with my emotions and feelings, I can easily tune in to the emotions and feelings of perhaps an employee I am meeting. I can use what I have learned about my employee's feelings and emotions to determine my actions; I want my actions to have the most significant outcome and success for myself and my employees. The act of properly using your emotional brain isn't only applicable to your employees; it applies to your family, your friends, and everyone you come in contact with. Tuning in to your feelings and those around isn't as easy as it sounds. Our emotions are coming at us so fast that it seems that they do not travel through our brain in a logical order. We can fix this!

What are emotions? Emotions are a neurological response to very strong stimuli. Your rational brain needs to catch up to your feelings. As your emotions are coming through your brainstem and entering your brain, we need to differentiate and discriminate amongst those feelings before they get to our executive prefrontal cortex, before we react.

In meditation, we are helping our brain to become more aware of our feelings and emotions; and also our bodies. The more we meditate, the better we are at discriminating and tuning in to our own and others' emotions resulting in more rational thinking and deci...

Intro

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Approximately 70% of the time, people with high emotional intelligence can outperform and attain superior leadership positions at a faster pace than those who have a high IQ and technical abilities.

Previous Episode

EP21: Are You Good at Multitasking? No, you are not, nor should you be!

In today's episode, we are going to shed some light on multitasking. You might be tired of hearing about multitasking, and monotasking is getting a little blase. If you are like me, repetition is necessary. I wear the badge of honor when it comes to multitasking.

In the past 30 years, any interview I had, when asked what my three top skills were, multitasking was always one of them. As I get older, I still think that I do well when it comes to multitasking. However, I see I don't get as much done as I used to.

Often there are distractions, mind-wandering, and more often than not, my top three tasks on my to-do list were not completed. I now know that those top three are the three that move the needle. I must prioritize my top three tasks. Multitasking is a thing of the past. The new cool kids, slow down, get more done, are more accurate, down goes the stress, and up goes the productivity.

Does it sound like you need a dose of that? Or, do you believe you are one of the chosen ones and are a great multitasker? Stay tuned! Multitasking is not fun. Most of us are endlessly and unsuccessfully trying to make the needle move.

Intro

Hey there! Alexa Z here! First, let me start off by saying if you are driving, walking, washing dishes, folding towels, and also listening to me, that's okay. You can do rote tasks in multiples. My motto is to keep it simple. Let's make this short and sweet, so you can go forth and get stuff done. Plus, facts are facts; you can't argue how the brain works.

When you are splitting your resources or your attention on multiple things, you start to slide down the slippery slope to inaccuracies. Multitasking isn't doing multiple things at the same time. It's content switching. The brain does not like to go forward to do one task; then, when you start another task, you have to put your brain in reverse. It may just be for a split second, put your mind in reverse, now forward to the next task. Back-up, go forward, back-up, go forward. This back and forth causes the brain to become exhausted, resulting in a 50% error rate, and it takes twice as long to complete a task.

Have you heard of the saying, "if you want something done, ask a busy person"? I do agree, but now I have reformated that thought. Asking a busy person is fine as long as they move slowly, not sloth-like but undistracted from task to task.

Our brain is never doing two things at the same time; the mind is merely switching back and forth. As you switch back in forth, there is a residue that is left, which causes your brain to be unclear. When have you multitask for an entire day and felt great? Your brain has a process. For example, you want ice cream. The anterior part of your brain sets that goal; the posterior part of the prefrontal brain helps the rest of you go to the freezer and get the ice cream. That might be a silly example, but imagine that your brain is going through that process with important tasks. Your brain is continually setting goals and processing how to get it done in multiple fashions.

We get such a high when checking things off of our to-do list. Let's use our electronic devices as an example. We have multiple tabs opened, email, instant messenger, and we are working on a task. We don't have a plan. If you are on vacation and have some work you have to address, most likely, you create a plan to make sure that you still spend time and are present with your family while taking care of responsibility for your job. You might set a specific time to check your emails once a day so that you are not distracted while doing activities with your family. When you set a particular time to check on your emails, you can focus and get through them much more quickly than if you had been checking your email throughout the day. When you always check your email, your mind wanders, and you end up on Instagram, Facebook, etc. Your mind is wandering 47% of the time, switching tasks constantly, and you wonder why you are not getting any task completed. It has been said that you forget 1 out of 3 tasks.

Have you ever learned to juggle? It is very challenging. Juggling is a lot like mindfulness. As you switch and grab the different objects, you must concentrate on one object to catch and toss it before the next object comes. I want to learn to juggle as it is an excellent mindfulness practice.

What is effected by multitasking? Everything! Multitasking decreases accuracy, crushes your creative thinking, you become anxious, it hurts short-term memory, and time is lost.

Exercise: Time yourself

Write, "I can multitask."
Stop
Write, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13."
Stop
Write both "I can multitask" and "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13." together but go back and forth from "I can multitask" and the number sequence for each character. For example, write "I" in one line,...

Next Episode

EP 23: Three Things to Make Meditation a Slam Dunk

In today's episode, I am going to discuss three things to make your meditation a slam dunk. By slam dunk I mean a practice that is simple, effective and best of all YOU WILL STICK TO IT! There are many methods, brands and apps, and apps for your apps, but today let's get back to the basics. Let's get back to the why and the how and get your practice on the tracks headed to the destination of your choice. You can study until you are old and gray, but the practice does not work unless you practice! Meditation is a training, and after years of teaching and watching students stop and start, get excited and sometimes frustrated, I think I have found the secret sauce to success.

Whether you are just starting out, you keep starting and stopping or have started but don't feel like the results are robust enough to keep you coming back, well hold on. I will layout a simple plan that will help you to that magical destination. One where you can find peace clarity, compassion, courage, and your inner badass.

Now get ready, hit subscribe, smile, get a beverage, and I will right back. You don't want to miss this.

Hey There, Alexa Z here with my favorite three things that can make your meditation practice a slam dunk.

First, my suggestion is for you to listen to this podcast until the end; no note-taking necessary. Please hear me out, listen and, more importantly, feel what I am trying to get at. In the end, I will give you a link where you can print out a few fun things to use to make these three elements of my secret sauce all your own.

When I first began to teach meditation formally, I always remembered my teacher Sarah McLean saying all you need to meditate are three things: a desire, a focus, and a nonjudgmental attitude. This made sense to me and I have repeated it at least 10,000 times over the years. However, of late, I have found a way to expand on all three of these. Right from the get-go, to help make your practice very personal because you are unique and your needs are individual. One size does not fit all.

In my first one on one session with a client, we go through the following exercise, and it tends to shed light on why the person wanted to learn to meditate, to begin with. I also help map out how on earth this practice is going to fit into their life efficiently and effectively. And most importantly, add an extra dose of accountability.

Let's Dive In

NUMBER ONE: Why Are You Meditating?

Desire: Before you take on something new most likely you have a desire, even if that desire was nudged on from someone like perhaps your doctor telling you have to lower your blood pressure. Or maybe the urge came from a place deep within like the desire to have less stress and more peace in your life. Or possibly to improve something like memory, your sleep, focus, or creativity. Or maybe to change a habit like quitting smoking or alcohol or improving your diet. This is where I get people to dive deeper.

The best way I can do this is through my own example:

Panic attacks - I had them and I needed them to stop!

If I really had someone walk me through this, which later came through a lot of soul searching and a lot of counseling, I would have discovered

Low self-esteem
Poor body image
Fears (financial, abandonment)

What are all of the reasons you want to meditate? If it is just one, I ask you to dig a little deeper. In my freebie at the end, you will be given a one-page worksheet to get you to develop the full story. I want you to tuck that completed page away and pull it out every time you think you don't want to practice or when you are wondering if anything is starting to shift. It is all connected!

NUMBER TWO: Start Simple and Stick to It!

Focus – As I said when I opened the show, you can learn many methods of meditation, mainly a type of focused concentration (think zooming in) or open awareness (wide-angle lens). The second type should come after the first type, a bit more advanced and there is no prize if you go to open awareness first. You don't go to hot, challenging yoga vinyasa flow level three if you have learned the basics first. Well you can but you will become frustrated and most likely will hurt yourself.

With that being said, I am going to make a recommendation. Start with body and breath awareness and do it every day for a bit. It is incredibly useful and how relaxing does it sound to know that you can sit down without having to make a decision on what to try today. It was like when I decided to wear jeans and white button-downs every day. It was as though life gave me a giant gift, mainly of time. And thankfully, I own 9 white button-downs. Back to Meditation. Body and breath awareness. I have people still doing this simple but profound practice year after year.

To help you start or get back on track, I will give you a 10-minute bo...