Nuanced. - 2. How to Develop Confidence, Independence & Leadership Skills | Emotional Intelligence Explained

Episode Date: October 5, 2023

In the second episode of the series, emotional intelligence expert Carolyn Stern discusses the dynamics of independence, interdependence, and emotional growth. Tune in for a captivating exploration that promises fresh perspectives on self-reliance, resilience, and personal development!Join host Aaron Pete on the Bigger Than Me Podcast for an enlightening Emotional Intelligence mini-series with renowned expert Carolyn Stern. In this 5-part series, we'll delve into why EQ matters and how it affects you, your family, and your workplace. Get ready to explore the various facets of Emotional Intelligence and enhance your life in meaningful ways!Learn more about Carolyn Stern:https://carolynstern.com/Send us a textThe "What's Going On?" PodcastThink casual, relatable discussions like you'd overhear in a barbershop....Listen on: Apple Podcasts   SpotifySupport the shownuancedmedia.ca

I teach how to be independent, but to me, what you're talking about is interdependence. When you know, you can rely on yourself and you can do it on your own, and when you need to know, hey, I might need some help. And it's finding that balance. And that's really what I teach. Every single one of the emotional, intelligent competencies I teach, is on a continuum, right? And so are you too much of something or not enough? We're back. We're back. We're at episode two now. I think it's really valuable to explore this idea of independence, confidence. We hear about being a good leader. and that you want to put people in the right direction. Yeah, I don't know if we give people the tools to really understand what it means to be independent. Does that mean you don't need people?

How do we navigate these kind of conversations? So it's a pleasure to sit back down with you. Thanks, Aaron. Great to be here. So I'd like to start with this idea of being independent. We push people to find their own, but we also want them to develop a community around them. And I think it's tough to find that middle ground where you're not just doing it all yourself, or you're willing to bring people in to support you,

but they have to be the right people. Can you talk about what it means to you to be independent? Well, I actually teach how to be independent, but to me what you're talking about is interdependence. When you know you can rely on yourself and you can do it on your own and when you need to know, hey, I might need some help. And it's finding that balance. And that's really what I teach.

Every single one of the emotional intelligent competencies I teach is on a continuum, right? And so are you too much of something or not enough? And what we have to realize is when we've swung too far or not far enough. So, you know, I'll ask you, what do you think, how independent do you think you are? Do you think you're high in independence, which is you are self-directed, you can make your own decisions, you trust yourself, you don't need validation. low in independence like me is I tend to be more needy, I need a lot of validation, I tend to not trust my judgments, or the dark side of independence is you never ask for help. You can be not seen as a team player.

You're very, you're almost soloed, you're siloed, I mean, like you're siloed and you kind of just do things on your own and you never ask for any support. So where do you fall on that, continue? I am definitely on the pre-meeting. Rebecca, I was on the fully independent. I'll never need anyone. I'll never make myself vulnerable to need anyone. My favorite sport to watch is the UFC where it's one guy going into the ring and it's all on him. Of course, he has a team around him, but it's not a gray area. If he loses, it was because of decisions or actions he made. You can't blame it on anyone else or the team

had a bad day. I've always been drawn to the idea of one person doing it themselves. And over time, I think I've developed what you're describing as interdependence, that willingness to work with other people. But as long as we share that same vision, and that's, I think, to the roots of like interdependence is willing to see, okay, this person has similar values. They're willing to put in that effort. So I love working with Tim because he wants to perfect his craft, regardless of whether it's me or somebody else, he wants to do a good job that he's proud of. And so I love working with people who have that similar mindset because I'm going to bring my A game and I know the people around me are going to bring their A game. And that just, I think, levels up the team.

Yeah. And I think the problem with. a lot of people when they are too independent, they don't realize how that impacts the other person. So I used to date someone that he was so independent. He never asked me to do anything, but it made me feel not needed, not wanted, or not trusted. And when you're in the workplace and you're so independent and you don't ask anyone for help, your employees might not think that you trust them. They might not think that you value, you know, value what they bring to the table. So I think it's really important for us to, even if you don't need help, like I used to say to my partner, I know you don't need help making the bed, but let me help you so that I feel needed. So a lot of times, again, it goes back to putting yourself in somebody else's shoes.

I know you can make the bed yourself, but I want to feel like a partner with you to make that bed. Yeah. I love that because there's an aspect of action from the other person, and that's what I think a lot of independent people, need is not to go out and say, hey, can you help me with this? Hey, can you help me with this? But for people to desire to play that role for them and to be involved in the process. And that's, I think, how you start to let go with the reins when you're really independent is people showing up and saying, I've already done it or I'm all over it or like let me show you because then you go, okay, I'll take my hands off because you want to do this.

That's right. Or it can be on the other side like me that I ask for everybody for help because I don't trust myself. I don't trust that I can do it on my own. which I see a lot in schools now. These young kids do not, as a professor. I don't see them trusting their own judgments. They're constantly looking at chat GPT to give them the answers rather than just truly believing in themselves that they have the answers. Where do you think this is coming from?

Because there is this growing sense that people don't have anything to say, that you should trust other people and that you should let other things do the work. When I was a kid, it was a calculator. or don't rely on your calculator, you're not always going to have it. Now we have a calculator at all times, and it seems like we tell people to be confident, and it almost results in people just being a bit arrogant or rude rather than actually having confidence in their skills and abilities. I think these tools, and it's funny you talk about calculators, because I think

chat GPT is a tool like a calculator was back then. And people, you know, in some countries like Turkey, they don't allow you to use calculators because they want them to be self-reliant. You know, I just was sharing before we started airing is that I just marked a final paper in my class at the university and five out of the six groups use ChatGPT to write their paper. Wow. I was so disheartened because the problem is it's a tool, not a replacement.

So I have no problems with you going on ChatGPT, getting some inspiration of ideas. But the paper, the assignment was for them to write the paper. The problem is, I understand, if you have low confidence, if you have low independence, you don't believe in yourself. So you feel like you have to rely on those skills or those tools rather than saying, hey, I got this. And the problem that I see with society, especially now that these young people are constantly

looking at other people's ideas. Well, it's not leaving space for us to come up with our own ideas because we're always thinking, oh, I just want to be like this person. In order to have innovation, we have to create space to take what's been there and what could be. Well, you can't do that if all you're doing is spewing out what other people think. I couldn't agree more. And I think that goes back to this idea of being confident in yourself, is believing

that you might have a novel idea. being willing to believe that you have something to share with the world that is worthwhile, that is of value. That's something I think so many people are hesitant on because we don't see as much of it anymore. So many of the ideas around important topics have been done 50 years ago. So we've lost that faith that we could be the next Albert Einstein, the next thoughtful person, Isaac Newton. We don't have that same, like, what if I was the next Stephen Hawking? We don't give ourselves that space until we question our potential way earlier on. and we use crutches so that we don't have to expose ourselves to where our gaps in thinking are,

where we don't understand things. And there is this sense of not wanting to face too much adversity. Well, think about, you know, with creativity comes vulnerability. I got to throw out my ideas for the world to judge. That's scary, right? And really what you're doing is you are emotionally exposing yourself to judgment without knowing, you know, without knowing what the world's going to say. Writing a book for someone like me who lacks independence was a really hard thing to do because I was so

worried, what if people don't like the book? What if, what if I get canceled out? What if, right? All those negative thoughts. But here's the thing. You can be brave and afraid at the same time. And so the fact, you know, you talk about Rebecca that she asks you these challenging questions, she still might be afraid of your response or afraid to even kind of open Pandora's box, but she's braven us to ask those questions to kind of figure those things out. I think the problem, and this is what was so disheartening to see those students all using CHAP GPT, is it wasn't the fact that they didn't have the confidence in themselves to say, I got this. You know, I've been doing, I've been teaching it 25 years. I know how you young people write. I don't get a piece of, if I get a paper

with absolutely no grammar mistakes, I know it wasn't written by a 20 year old, right? So the fact that, like, again, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, just like a calculator, we can use it not to, to take us to a higher level, but to still come up with our own ideas to make whatever data, chat GPT or a calculator tells you, how can I take that data and make it that much better when I bring my own secret sauce? The other thing I like about, like, some of the tools or functions in our society are done unconsciously, so we have a resume process, a cover letter process. Then we have an in-person interview with the person, and often in classes.

You have the paper, but you also have presentations in class. So we really get to sift through the weeds to find out exactly who understands what they were talking about and who just used this metric. So it's not like we can't still figure this out, but it forces us to be more thoughtful during the interview process or during presentations to see who really understands what they're talking about and who's taking their work seriously. Yeah, I saw something the other day on Instagram that said, school lied to us, you know, a school, and it was saying, it makes you, you know, write a paper for 20 pages. Reality in 20 seconds, if you can explain what the paper's about or else I'm out. Like, that's really what we're teaching people is that we need, or what we need to be teaching people is that can you explain, like, okay, you chat GPTed it, explain it to me in 20 seconds. I really agree with you. And it makes me curious about this idea.

You talked about feeling like this might get you canceled, but this book could have impact. We're in a time where trigger warnings are becoming more commonplace, where certain topics have sensitivity warnings. And it seems like we're not pushing people to face the adversity of the world as much, where we're trying to be so understanding or empathetic to a fault, where if you're going to learn about World War II, it is going to have some harrowing aspects to it.

If you're going to understand, like, the nuclear arms race, you're going to learn about Hiroshima. You're going to learn about some horrible tragedies that have happened throughout our history that give you the context of what it means to be a human being and the responsibilities that lie on us. We hear a lot about rights, but we don't think about what our responsibilities are people.

Can you talk about in the world of emotional intelligence, what are trigger warnings and how do we approach them? Okay. So what a trigger is, it's a person situation or thing that causes an emotional reaction. And what I'm so upset about, and I was actually thinking it might be part of my next book, is that why are we so afraid of triggers? Because we don't want to feel them or we don't know how to deal with them. I think the bottom line is it's the same reason why I wrote the book. Why were people so afraid of emotions? Well, people are afraid of emotions because they don't have the tools on how to deal with them and they don't have the confidence to use the tools. I think we need to to teach people that even if I say something that accidentally triggers you, that can be super powerful, even though it might be painful and incredibly personal, it can be super powerful for you to learn about you if you kind of sit with that trigger. Why am I triggered? What was it about what Carolyn said that triggered me? What can I tell her from, you know, how can I teach her maybe something that she has a blind spot?

too, right? I can't know your lived experience. I have no idea what your life looked like. But if I say something that unintentionally triggered you, then at least tell me what I don't like as a trainer is it's after the fact that I get negative feedback written. No one tells me to my face. Like in the moment, I would rather someone say, hey, Carolyn, you're out of line. You know, as a leader, as a teacher, I'll be honest. I don't know what's going to trigger my classes. I have no idea what I could say. You know, I'll never forget. I had, I did a workshop once and the, on the top of the PowerPoint, it said the communication model. Well, I did this workshop. At the very end of the workshop, I got a snotty comment at the end of it saying I was triggered by the word the because you're

telling me it was the only communication model. And that's not at all what I was saying. It is a communication model, but that's not what I said on the slide. And so that person canceled me out, didn't like the session, didn't want to have anything to do it, but maybe, even if I had made a mistake and put the word the in it, maybe there could have been something in that session that they took from that, that they might have missed out on because now they're discrediting me. I'm a horrible person. How could I have said that? Well, I made a mistake because I didn't know that the word zah would trigger you so much versus an uh and so i think it's important for us to have these conversations hey today even in in this series when we we speak together i might say something

that triggers you aaron if i do please please tell me what i've done because i need to learn i want to learn and grow and i think the problem is society right now is everything's fast and easy and we don't want people to feel uncomfortable. What's wrong with feeling uncomfortable? Uncomfortable will teach me. Like, we've got to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. I couldn't agree more. I think about it a lot with land acknowledgments because there will be people who start

like a presentation and they just get started and then somebody will stand up and go, I'd like to acknowledge that we haven't done like a land acknowledgement yet. And I often worry that we're creating a currency for people to make a comment that actually doesn't have any depth to it, but they get to sit back and say, I said something or I pushed the conversation in some way. I had some sort of impact. And as you said, it's quick and easy. You didn't have to really think about the content. She wasn't arguing with the depths of what you were talking about or your experience or your knowledge base. She was taking one word and decided to make that the complaint. And then there's no thinking required. There's no thought

process. There's no, well, do I disagree with her on this philosophy or this approach? It's the easy thing to just point at that and say, I'm all done now. I've, I poked a hole in the presenter's argument and so now I can sit back to my life. Yeah, and I'm out. And I'm out. And that's the problem. I think that's what people are doing now more than ever. And it's so much easier with social media. If I don't like you, I'm just going to say something horrible about you on the internet for the world to see. And then I'm gone. Rather than let's have a conversation. It's going to be a difficult conversation. It's going to be an uncomfortable conversation. It might even be a heated conversation. But

at least let me know what your perspective is, because I'm only seeing it through my lens. I might not know what that land acknowledgement or that the meant to you. Well, tell me why, by me using that or not using it, had such an impact on you. And what does that say about you? Is this a circumstance where we're bucking the blame on someone? It seems like she blames you for your presentation. And when somebody's triggered, it seems like it's a blameless incident that the person being exposed to a side of themselves they might not have seen, but the presenter had nothing

to do with that trigger. They have no real responsibility unless it's like a very clearly emotional topic like what happened in World War II or World War I, where we're talking about some heavy topics. But it seems like oftentimes it's blameless, but the presenter gets the buck and the responsibility for how other people feel. Yeah. And I think this is also what the challenge is, what they say with leaders. Like they think, just because I'm a teacher, doesn't mean that I know. everything about, like, you know, gender has changed from when I was in school. Gender fluidity has changed. I might accidentally call someone a he or a she when I didn't know that that's not how they identify. I didn't get a crash course in that. They're not

teaching us teachers how to do that. So if I accidentally make a mistake, rather than wronging me for them, shaming it, you know, shaming me for it, teach me. Teach me. I want to learn so that I know how to do it better the next time. And I think that, you know, here's the thing about the younger generation from an emotional intelligence point of view. Studies show that the younger generation, so Gen Zs, are lower at problem solving, lower at independence, and lower at stress tolerance than any generation before them. Why? Well, the problem is society. We have phones now. You all, like, I remember when I was in school, all the information in the world was in those 12 encyclopedias. Now, you know,

you have information at your fingertips, right? We also have helicopter parents, right? A lot of young people, we have these parents that want to give people the answers. Leaders, the biggest thing I teach leaders as someone who is constantly, you know, leaders are always saying, what's the biggest issue? The biggest issues is leaders don't realize that they're teachers. And as a teacher, I know the answers to your test, but if I give you the answers, you're not learning. And so the worst thing that parents or leaders can do with employees is give them the answers, because then you're creating this culture, as we talked about, of dependence, that I need to, I need to ask my boss the answers. I need to rely on my parents. I need to trust Google. I can't rely on my

own judgments. Is there still a space for the idea of toughen up? Is there still an idea here that exists where people need to be willing to face their vulnerable sides and own that some way, not to repress it, but to really strengthen themselves and look for the opportunities within themselves to grow and develop and not to blame the presenter, to blame the lecturer, to blame other people, but to look inside and go, what is going on inside me and that we're not doing that as much with people. We're saying the world is a scary place and we understand and take your time and don't look into these things. And if it's too much, leave the room. Exactly. You know, in hot yoga, have you ever done hot yoga? They always say stay in

the room. And when I do the kind of work that I do, I always say to people, you don't have to say anything, just stay in the room, because it's going to be uncomfortable, but stay in the room. And why is it on Zoom? I can laugh on camera, but as soon as I cry, I turn my camera off. Why is it that people do that? Because laughter is just an emotion, just like sadness and tears. And so why is it that we are so, we judge these negative emotions? So 100%, I think we need to, This is why I'm teaching emotional intelligence, is we need to be bigger than our emotions. I don't want to be so afraid of pain. I don't want to be so afraid of sadness.

I don't want to be so afraid of fear because those emotions can tell me things about me. And I think that if we can get people, it's the reason why I did it. I toughened up. People used to say, you know, Carolyn, you're so sensitive. I'm still sensitive, but I know what to do about my sensitivity. So if you say something to me today that I start crying, I have no problems on camera to cry because it's just an emotion. It's just, and it comes and goes just like clouds. It's transient.

I really think that this is so interesting to talk about in this time where we just discussed in our previous episode this idea of communicating. And as we discussed previously, there's this feeling of cancel culture. There's this feeling that if you say the wrong thing in the wrong setting that you could be canceled for it. that you don't want to offend anybody. And it seems like it makes people hesitant to communicate effectively because you may end up offending someone. If you're having a serious conversation, particularly it's easy to think of in a relationship. If you're having a disagreement, someone's going to be offended by what somebody else says.

That's just an inevitable aspect. But in the world, we're almost uncomfortable with that right now. So how do we think about communicating when there's this glooming fear that we could say the wrong thing, that we could end up being canceled in certain circumstances or getting in trouble in our workplace. I think it's a huge question. It's something that I personally struggle with because I care too much about what people think. I constantly worry

what if I say something unintentionally that upset someone and they cancel me out. I think it is something that to me emotional intelligence is speaking your truth respectfully and professionally, but it's also about you know, if I make a mistake

admit it. I screwed up. I called you a he when you should have when I should have said she. you know, admit that in public. There have been plenty of times as a teacher that I screw up that I will say to my class, I'm sorry. Like a great example was I was teaching a course. And just before the assignment was due, I get three emails from three students saying,

my dog ate my homework, I'm sick, and, oh, I have a family emergency. I was pissed. I was so angry. I thought, I've been doing this for 25 years. You think I'm stupid that I can't. smell a liar when I, right? And I walked into my class with the other students and I, you like, they were terrified of me. They're like, oh gosh, Carolyn's upset. And then I realized halfway through the class, I'm wrong at, I'm angry at the wrong people. These were the kids that

were brave enough to show up to do the assignment. It was a vulnerable assignment. They had to share their emotional intelligence journey. And then I realized halfway through the class, I apologized right in that moment. I said, I am sorry. I just realized I got angry at the wrong people. You're ones that are here, and I'm proud of you, and I changed my mood. In that instant, now, Aaron, you go to school, right? You know, or you have gone to school. It was a Friday afternoon. They stayed after class for a half an hour just to hang out with the teacher, which does not happen in university, because they were so, that one moment of me screwing up didn't negate all the good moments that they had throughout the semester with me.

So just because you're a leader or any person, if you make a mistake, just own it. But I think we need to start toughening up and just having these difficult conversations and still speaking our truth, might not be your truth, but it's my truth, and then learning from each other. If we keep shying away, we're not going to talk about the real issues. What does truth mean to you? Because this is an idea that we hear, like there's the idea of the pursuit of truth in freedom of expression, but what does it mean to you to have a truth that's worth speaking? Great question.

I think something that's so important to me that if I don't, I think it stems for me as a child, I just didn't have a voice. And so if I feel so passionate about something, probably that stems from my value system. So if I see something that I just don't think is right or there's an injustice or unfairness, I will speak up without knowing, you know, that might have negative consequences. So I guess my truth is, I mean, it's what's important to me and my values. What is it for you? I'm curious. I think the idea of pursuing truth is unapologetically taking you down a path as you sort of described where you don't know what the consequences are going to be and that you have to weigh information. And this is where the idea that CHAPT could replace is just not the case.

It can't replace disseminating and understanding information and saying, I trust this study more than I trust this study because of how it was done. No algorithm is going to be able to do that. I trust this researcher more than I trust that researcher. I trust this voice more than I trust that voice. And you may not always agree. There's certainly popular people in our society right now that lots of people disagree with. But that doesn't mean that they're wrong about everything.

That may mean they're wrong about some things. And I think that that's where you have to be willing to enter the weeds and the mess in order to start to understand your truth and accept the consequences and the risks involved. And that's why I think it's courageous when people are willing to tell their boss that maybe they approach something wrong. It can be uncomfortable to tell the people in your classroom, a circle where their areas of improvement are or where you're having struggles connecting

with them on a deeper way because you don't know how they're going to react. So it's an act of courage, in my opinion, to speak truth and it's a real risk because not everybody is on that path. And that's where I hate that philosophy departments are doing so poorly in universities because, in my opinion, they're the most important. If we have a similar underlying philosophy that we both agree we're going to pursue truth, then I know that I can trust that person if I make a mistake that they're going to understand. And it seems like we like to make straw man arguments of people so often where we say, you said the, and I didn't like that.

So you're done. Instead of steel manning and going, I'm going to listen to the full presentation, really think about it, and then write you a letter out two weeks later, really understanding the topic and exploring it for myself and then saying this is where I would improve because that takes a lot of work and it's so much easier to just call people out. And right now there's such a currency to it because on social media algorithms, It's one post. It's so quick. It doesn't take any effort, and you can now do it anonymously.

So it can be done so effectively that it discourages people from taking the risk of saying what they believe is true. Even if we all collectively believe it, we're not willing to publicly say it. And I think that that's very concerning because then we're no longer agreeing that truth is worth pursuing. Yeah. I think Renee Brown talks about vulnerability. Why is vulnerability in you strength but weakness in me? Why is it that we, oh, when we see someone being brave and speaking up and speaking their truth, we're like, wow, I really like that. But when I do it, oh, I can't do that because that, you know, that's going to make me look weak.

And I think that's the challenge is we need to change that mental model that you, this is what you don't have, as an emotional intelligence expert, I always tell people you do not have to be highly emotionally intelligent. What you have to be is you have to be brave enough to start talking about emotion. So I don't need to be your emotional therapist. I'm not qualified. But what I am able to do and brave enough to do is saying, hey, Aaron, I see that you, you know, are walking around, you know, moping around. The story I'm telling myself is you're upset. Is that correct? I have to be brave enough to have those conversations, even if they're uncomfortable.

And I think people aren't doing that enough. I couldn't agree more. What does it mean, though, to have confidence? We say that a lot. We tell people to try and be confident, but it doesn't always seem like they have like a deep understanding of what that actually results in. When you work with people, you see people who lack confidence and perhaps on their journey, they develop confidence. What does that confident person look like?

It's someone who believes in their abilities. And there's a difference because I teach self-regard, which is, you know, an aspect of confidence, having a positive self-perception of who I am. But confidence is, again, going back to competence versus confidence, which I said in episode, the first episode, is competence is the skill. Confidence is your ability to use that skill. So the more I do a skill, right, mastering your craft, right? You said you love to work with Tim because he's someone who wants to master his craft.

Well, I also like to work, I mean, I reached out to you because I was like, wow, this person is going places and I want to tag on that bandwagon. But I think that it's really about figuring out, you know, what you're good at and then doing it over and over. I mean, that's why the outliers, the book says, you know, you have to do it 10,000 hours to master your craft. That's how you become confident. The belief in your abilities that you can do something.

I couldn't agree more with that particularly because I think of being willing to be a student and embracing the idea that you don't know and that you're willing to learn. And I've talked about this before, but this idea of imposter syndrome, I often refer to as like, like, if you don't feel like you deserve where you are, earn it, work harder, see yourself in that position, put in the time and effort to feel like you do deserve that seat. Certainly when I started this podcast, I was like, I am not a good host. Like, this isn't my skill. But earn it. Work over time to develop the comfort in that seat so that you deliver a good product. The last question I have is, what does it mean to be a leader?

We often think of it as a person at the front of the room, but I love that your book, you describe this idea of being a leader in your own life. That's right. So to me, leadership isn't about being the best. It's about being willing to go first. I mean, really, it's that simple. It's when we talk about, you know, speaking your truth, it's putting your neck on the line and saying, I have no idea what people are going to say, but I'll go first and say it

first. And so to me, I always, I think the biggest mistake that leaders make is that they think they have to be perfect, that they have to know all the answers, that they need to do it better than anyone. And that's the last thing you need to do. All you need to do is be the first to go out. Brilliant. This is just a gentle reminder to everyone to go check out Carolyn's book. The link is in the description. I highly recommend people get started on that as we continue this emotionally intelligent journey. Awesome. Thank you. Perfect. Thank you.