The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Unlocking Emotional Intelligence: The Key to Success and Authentic Relationships

Episode Date: January 13, 2024

Unlocking Emotional Intelligence: The Key to Success and Authentic Relationships Ei4change.com Show Notes About the Guest(s): Robin Hills is the director of EI for Change, a company specializing in education, training, coaching, and personal development focused on emotional intelligence and positive psychology. He has taught over 400,000 people in 195 countries how to build resilience and increase self-awareness. Robin is the author of two books, "The Authority Guide to Behavior and Business" and "The Authority Guide to Emotional Resilience in Business." He is also a keynote speaker and sits on the Northwest Committee of the Association of Business Psychology. Episode Summary: In this episode of The Chris Voss Show, host Chris Voss interviews Robin Hills, an expert in emotional intelligence and resilience. They discuss the importance of emotional intelligence in leadership and personal development. Robin explains that emotional intelligence is about being smart with your thinking and feelings, combining the two to make good decisions and build authentic relationships. He emphasizes that emotional intelligence is not about being kind and nice all the time, but about doing the right thing and managing emotions effectively. They also touch on the role of AI in emotional intelligence and the need for human elements in decision-making and relationship-building. Key Takeaways: Emotional intelligence is the ability to combine thinking and feelings to make good decisions and build authentic relationships. Emotional intelligence fluctuates and requires self-awareness and practice to improve. Leaders should understand the impact of their emotions on their team and work on building emotional intelligence to create a positive work environment. There are no positive or negative emotions; it's how we manage and respond to them that matters. Resilience is crucial in volatile and uncertain situations, and it involves being adaptable, creative, and finding meaning in life. Notable Quotes: "Emotional intelligence is about doing the right thing. If somebody is doing something wholly inappropriate, they should be told." - Robin Hills "Emotions contain data. It's the way in which you interpret this data in order to make good quality decisions and build up relationships." - Robin Hills "Emotional intelligence is not about being kind and nice and sweet and lovely and fluffy. It's about doing the right thing." - Robin Hills "Nobody else can go to sleep for you. Nobody else can do your exercise for you. You've got to look after yourself." - Robin Hills "Emotional intelligence is about building authentic relationships, not destroying them." - Robin Hills

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com.

Yeah, what she said. That's the important part. Thechrisvossow.com, folks. Welcome to the family that loves you but doesn't judge you. At least not as harsh as your mother-in-law because she liked your brother better. Honestly, seriously. And you're just never, she's never going to get over it. See, Miles will just give up and, I don't know, put yourself up for adoption.

So welcome to the show, folks. We always have the smartest people on the show. The CEOs, the billionaires, the Pulitzer Prize winners, the people who work for White House advisors over the years, the astronauts. We have so many darn smart people on this show. And the reason we do is because none of them are me. And that's why we have guests. And we have another multi-book author on the show.

We're going to talk about emotional intelligence because I'm interested in learning about emotional intelligence because all my girlfriends say I don't have it. I just have stoicism, which means I don't feel anything. That's not really true. It's not what stoicism is about. But we'll talk about all of these things. We're going to just put it in the mix, stir it like a giant soup, and serve it up to you in the condensed form of the Chris Foss Show podcast. But in the meantime, we need to guilt, shame, and beg, plead, get on our knees and grovel. Please go refer your friends and relatives to the Chris Foss Show on Goodreads.com, 4chesschrissfosslinkedin.com, 4chesschrissfoss, chrissfoss1 on the TikTok,

and chrissfossfacebook.com. Subscribe to the big LinkedIn newsletter and the 130,000 LinkedIn group over there as well. He's a multi-book author. Robin Hills is going to be joining us on the show today. He's got two great books out, The Authority Guide to Behavior in Business and The Authority Guide to Emotional Resilience in Business. Boy, I needed that a long time ago when I became an entrepreneur because it's an emotional rollercoaster being an entrepreneur. of EI4Change, a company specialized in education, training, coaching, and personal development focused about emotional intelligence, positive psychology, I flunked second grade,

positive psychology and neuroscience. I can't read big words. He has taught over 400,000 people in 195 countries how to build resilience. Now I just need to teach me how to read. he has helped them with increased self-awareness and an understanding of others his educational programs on resilience and emotional intelligence cover the most comprehensive and detailed education of any emotional intelligence organization that are today used educational establishments in South Africa and India. He's the author of two books and has delivered keynote speeches at conferences around the world, including Harvard University.

He sits on the Northwest Committee of the Association of Business Psychology, and he's probably diagnosing me right now, like this guy needs a lobotomy. Welcome to the show, Robin. How are you? I am doing great, Chris. Thanks for having me on the show. It's a pleasure to be here. It's a pleasure to have you as well, sir. We probably need a lot of this on the show, as you can tell. Some smartness, as the kids call it.

So, GiveAWriter.com, where can people find you on the interweb, which is in the sky? I'm easily found on LinkedIn, Facebook. You just put Robin Hills into one of the search engines and up I'll come. But my website is ei4change.com. EI, emotional intelligence, for the number four, and then change.com. There you go. So give us a 30,000 overview. Let's lay a foundation for people that may not be aware of what emotional intelligence definition is. What is emotional intelligence and how do you apply it from your words?

In a nutshell, emotional intelligence is being smart with your thinking and smart with your feelings. It's the way in which you combine the two in order to make good quality decisions and build up authentic relationships. That's it. Very easy to say, very difficult to do. So how do you know if you are doing emotional intelligence right? If you're emotional intelligence, is there a test you take or fail? You'll feel good about it. People will react to

you positively. You'll get good responses from everybody. And if you're not getting it right, it's the other way around. You won't feel so good about it. And everybody and if you're not getting it right it's the other way around you won't feel so good about it and everybody will give you loads of feedback that you don't like so let me make sure i understand it correctly so people have emotional intelligence they they understand and communicate their feelings properly and then they have logic and reason or is it just you know there's there's logic and reason which i don't know is that an intellectual intelligence is that opposite of emotional intelligence or is emotional intelligence emotions and logic all packaged in one big deal i think part of the problem is the fact that we've got these two words that fit together emotional and intelligence sounds like

an oxymoron to me it does doesn't it and to a certain extent it is a bit of an oxymoron to me. It does, doesn't it? And to a certain extent, it is a bit of an oxymoron. So let's go back to basics. Emotions contain data. So it's the way which you're interpreting this data in order to make these good quality decisions and in order to build up relationships. And so what if I'm a person who doesn't control their feelings? Like I have outbursts. I freak out, I'm triggered. I project a lot onto other people, my traumas and my issues. Is that emotional intelligence or is it not?

It is. That's you not being as emotionally intelligent as you could be, Chris. But hey, look, I do it too. I'm human like you. No, I'm not human. I'm a cyborg. Yeah, this is new AI. They just installed it January 1st.

So am I emotionally intelligent if I can't control my emotions, if I have outbursts and I'm going full Karen at the TSA line at the airport or whatever? Are those people emotionally intelligent? Probably not at that particular moment in time because your emotional intelligence fluctuates. There are times when you'll go into a situation, you'll have a great podcast, you'll engage your guests,

you'll have great listeners who are giving you some wonderful feedback. That's good high levels of emotional intelligence. And then there are going to be other times in the airport queue where you completely screw up. Ah, so you're not consistent. So there's times where you're smart and times where you're dumb. I think the important thing is to try and be as smart as you possibly can at all times. But that's not easy, particularly if I'm feeling hungry, if I'm feeling tired, if I'm not very well, then I'm not going to be at my best and I'm not going to be at my most emotionally intelligent. Okay.

So if, I mean, but wouldn't emotional intelligence be like, hey, like I go through this. Recently I started, I've been on testosterone placement. I'm 55. My testosterone, my free testosterone got a little low and so they started giving me an estrogen blocker and weirdly enough the first couple weeks i was taking the estrogen blocker i normally i mean i run a hard stoicism stuff i feel stuff but i i logically go okay i see what you're feeling cutie pie and we're not going to be triggered we're not going to act like an We're not going to act like an idiot.

We're going to be logical, and we're going to deal with your little emotion there and fix it and put it away. You're not going to light up the world. But I found that I was getting a little imbalanced and hard to stay in that stoicism. Sometimes the first day I dropped that estrogen blocker. It's kind of weird. But I'm intelligent enough to go, wait, I'm really triggered right now. And I've been triggered by something that's really stupid because I took this estrogen blocker and I was able to connect it to the estrogen blocker. There are times where, yeah, maybe I'm hungry

and I want to rage murder someone because I'm just hungry, but I'm intelligent enough to go, or I think I'm intelligent, you tell me, I'm intelligent enough to go, you're hungry. Just calm down and take a chill pill and don't rip off people's heads and no more murdering. The judge says I can't do that anymore. So who's more emotionally intelligent? The person who can deem some sort of control over their stuff or the person who's the Karen on the… No, what you've just described is a good way of you using your emotional intelligence.

You've actually recognized what the cause of your feelings are. You understand what the consequences are if you express them in an inappropriate way. And you're actually managing them, which is a good example of you being emotionally intelligent at that moment in time, Chris. Wow. There you go. And if I'm not controlling it. If you're not, you'll rip people's heads off.

You'll let them know how you're feeling in no uncertain terms, and they won't feel very good about you, and you won't feel very good about yourself. We've done that enough times where the judge says I can't do it anymore. So, and I'm tired of talking with judges, but I get one of my ankle bracelet stacks off tomorrow. There's still about five more left. It's a callback joke on the show. I love that joke.

So tell us more about, you know, you wrote these books, The Authority of Resilience, Emotional Resilience in Business, and how to apply these things. How important as a leader of an organization or a parent or any sort of leadership position where you oversee other people, you're trying to create a healthy culture or not. Some people seem intentional about unhealthy culture. Let's see what we can make today. It sounds like my Facebook post. Why is it important that leaders understand emotional intelligence and have emotional intelligence? When things are not going particularly well, and there's a lot of stress within the team, the people are going to take their cue from the leader. So if the leader is incredibly stressed

if the leader is being quite emotional and using quite intense emotions inappropriately people are going to react to that so as a leader you've just got to be well aware that your emotions are going to drive behaviors in the team and emotional intelligence is not about being kind and nice and sweet and lovely and fluffy. It's about doing the right thing. If somebody is doing something wholly inappropriate, they should be told. If the team are not feeling particularly good about something, they should actually make that emotion aware. They should make the leader aware of that emotion. The leader should work with that emotion and build up the right ways of dealing with the

emotion and dealing with the team and moving everybody forward to improve performance. There you go. Now, it sounds like you teach, you've got courses and you probably go to companies and teach emotional intelligence to teams, leaders, etc., etc. Yeah, yeah, that's right. But the interesting thing is taking one of my courses and going on one of my live workshops is not going to make you more emotionally intelligent what it will do is it will raise your awareness of emotional intelligence and you'll get a better understanding of how and when to use it but you've actually got a way and you've got to practice it you've got to try new things you've got to be aware of the fact that your emotions are having an effect on you and other people now some people are not going to like it but you're going to have to make but you're going to have to make mistakes.

You're going to have to try things out. And through that, over the long term, you will develop your emotional intelligence. Now, it sounds like to me that true emotional intelligence is being self-aware and self-accountable. Is part of emotional intelligence being able to apologize for what you did wrong? Because I know people that they know they're wrong,

but they can't apologize. And they know that they did something wrong, but they can't emotionally apologize. They can't bring themselves to it. It's funny, isn't it? That's one little word can be so impactful yeah i'm sorry sorry i've screwed up and a good leader will be able to say that yeah and and part of it is is you know being in a state where you have true empathy and not ego and i think that's why it's hard for a lot

of people they're running on ego and so for them to say they're sorry means they're infallible. It challenges their ego. And like you said, some leaders, some people can't do that. I've always been able to do that because I've understood the importance of it. I was kind of lucky. It kind of hurt when I was a kid. It was hard to do because you do stupid stuff when you're a kid. My parents were brutal, man.

If we did something like, you know, we pissed off a neighbor. I remember one time we threw a bunch of rocks in a neighbor's pool and we were just kind of high on life as eight year olds. And we thought it was really funny at the time, but it wasn't. And we, we had to learn that lesson. And, you know, and so my parents marched us over to my neighbor's house and we sat there crying and apologizing and and there were times you know i think i said something bad or pissed off a teacher once so i had to call the teacher and apologize and you know usually we always end

up in tears because it was pretty wrecking but i learned a really good lesson that it's important to apologize it heals wounds and and it's okay you can be big enough to apologize. It heals wounds. And it's okay. You can be big enough to apologize. You're almost bigger if you can't apologize and say, That's exactly it. Yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree more. There you go. So those of you who can't apologize, work on your emotional intelligence.

Hey, Chris, I've been through exactly the same thing. I went through childhood. I was an obnoxious little boy at times. Yeah. Yeah. My father was a minister of religion. He was a church vicar. And boy, did he let me have it if I stepped out of line.

You're the church preacher's son. You've got to stay on the... I am. Yes. Don't make me look bad. Yeah, that's right. so i had to be on my best behavior at all times so i learned to be evangelical when it was appropriate and then i could let my hair down when it wasn't yeah there you go it's yeah so i is is understanding the

difference between yourself and operating on ego and i suppose what's the opposite of ego empathy i don't know oh i don't know that's an interesting question i'll google here it's all about other people isn't it it's so empathy would be a part of it now the important thing about empathy is it's not sympathy it's not being sympathetic towards another person it's not sympathy. It's not being sympathetic towards another person. It's actually trying to understand the other person. It's trying to understand their feelings. It's trying to understand their thinking, where it's come from, so

that you can empathize with them. You can have that understanding. You don't necessarily have to agree with them. You just have to understand. That's what I do with a lot of people. I don't agree with them, but have to understand that's what i do with a lot of people i don't agree with them but i just understand they're idiots yeah that might be a nice way of working with them altruism is the opposite of egoism yes yes yes yes yes that would work really really well because within altruism there is a high degree of empathy there you go self-doubt

unselfishness timidity you know it's interesting as i'm reading this ego and and altruism i'm realizing that this is kind of some of the foundation for the ego is kind of some of the foundation for the dunning-kruger disease if you're familiar with Dunning-Kruger, it's people that the less they know, the smarter they think they are. And the more that people learn, the more there's a curve. They learn that they don't know anything. And the more you try and master something, the more you learn that there's a lot of stuff you don't know you don't know. But, you know, it seems like the dumbest people are the smartest people or think they're the smartest and they have this high they have this high self the self-assumption that they are that they know everything about something and they usually have just a minute amount of

knowledge and it comes back to me and my emotional intelligence i'm'm still learning, Chris. I've had a lifetime of working with it, and I'm still not there yet. Really? So, I mean, great. There's no hope for me then, because I'm behind the curve on this one. At least that's according to all my girlfriends. You actually shared something with me

before we came on air. You're 10 years behind me, so you've got 10 years of extra life in order to actually fill that with emotional intelligence note to self catch up to robin hill eh i'll try you know i've had girlfriends say to me you know your emotional intelligence sucks and i'm like no it doesn't i just don't give a shit there's a difference i don't care about emotional intelligence to have it. That's the problem, honey.

That might be part of your emotional resilience because if you have high levels of emotional resilience, then you can be perceived as not caring. But in actual fact, you're very much in control of your emotions so you know how to manage them more appropriately. Which is probably why I'm still single. No surprise to anybody who's listened to this show for 15 years. control of your emotions so you know how to manage them more appropriately. Yeah. Which is probably why I'm still single. No surprise to anybody who's listened to the show for 15 years.

There you go. So how does, how can one get better? I mean, obviously taking your courses, let's get, let's get a rundown of some of the courses you offer and things you do in between corporate speaking, or if I'm just a listener out there and I'm like, Hey, I want to go to Robin's website and learn how to get these Karen feelings under control and not yell at the TSA anymore because the judge says I can't do that anymore. The main courses I've got are underpinned by emotional intelligence. They're around empathy. They're around assertiveness. They're around self-esteem team building conflict management

leadership and i've recently produced a course on emotional intelligence versus artificial intelligence ah do we ai to actually recognize emotions but ai will never be able to truly be emotionally intelligent because ai doesn't have what you and i have got and that's a human brain and a soul and a soul yeah very very much so because spirituality is something that sets us aside as human beings from artificial intelligence i should probably quit that cult that i joined from the ai skynet service the that's that's really interesting you know because i've we've discussed ai a lot we had a great author recently who came on the show. People should definitely watch that show where, uh, he, he using, uh, Darwin's species and,

and other things in dealing with creationism really believes sincerely that AI is a new species. In fact, it's a competing species or it can be a competing species to us. Most likely it will. Cause it's going to recognize this way smarter than we are, but maybe it'll keep, you know, we've talked about how it'll keep us around for creativity.

Cause hopefully we can create better than it from, you know, our emotional intelligence. Maybe it'll keep us away from, keep us around for emotional intelligence too. They're like, Hey, look at what these drama queens do,

these idiot human beings. They're kind of entertaining. We'll be their sitcom. Yeah, but drama queens and sitcoms are something that AI cannot generate. That's true. That's true. Because the other thing that AI has no experience of, Chris,

is throwing rocks into the neighbor's garden and getting clipped around the ear for it yeah my biggest fear is that the ai will watch an episode of the kardashians and then decide to push the button because i mean when anybody sees this any alien that would come here and watch the kardashians would be like we should start over on this planet let's just nuke it and go because this is clearly this is the end. I mean, I'm pretty sure. Kardashians are in the Bible as one of the six apocalypse signs.

So it's any moment now. Something's going to happen, I'm sure. Beast is going to rise on one of the shows. Probably right during the show. It'll rise right out of Beelzebub. We'll just come rising up out of the show. And everybody's like, holy shit. And you're like, god damn it. those kardashians were gonna summer we're gonna summon the devil we're all going to hell now and we've all lost our acupoints anyway i'm getting cease and desist

notifications from the attorney over at the kardashian shop so so you you help teams build as a leader you know my job is to is servant leadership, and it's designed to build leaders around me, future leaders for the company, people that don't have to rely on me. And so I need people that have emotional intelligence, assuming I have it, which I don't. And how do I build those in teams? How do I get those integrated as a leader who's a servant leader? How do I make sure I'm employing and applying emotional resilience, emotional intelligence to my team? Let's go back to talking about AI because artificial intelligence can do a lot of menial tasks. So why are you actually employing a human being to do a lot of things that AI will be doing in the future? to work unconventionally, to understand context, and to network out there and build up relationships with clients and stakeholders.

Now, all of those things are things that AI will never be able to do. So what a good leader should be doing is recognizing the human element and building that into their teams for the future. So how big a part does empathy play in emotional intelligence? A great part because it all revolves around understanding people's emotions. So if people are able to suppress their emotions and not express them on their face how are is artificial intelligence going to be able to really emotionally connect with somebody whereas as human being we can pick up on very subtle non-verbal cues and make decisions around how the person's feeling and we can then ask the most appropriate questions in order to further our understanding and help the other person with the way in which they're thinking and feeling oh wow you know i've

met some people in my life i think it's most people i date they're solipsistic and very selfish they're not really concerned about other people's feelings most times i did a lot of broken people because i have trauma and i pick about a lineup too but it people that suffer from really extreme solipsism or sometimes minute narcissism you know it's not a diagnosable you see a lot of that in the marketplace nowadays of people that are that have narcissism you know social media has kind of created these little monsters do those people have emotional intelligence at all or do they have some or is this always going to be graded on the curve oh i'm going to frighten you here now chris because quite a few people those people already frighten me sorry to scare you even more i'm not going to sleep tonight i i'm going to actually

say that quite a few people who are particularly selfish, who are narcissistic, do have emotional intelligence and actually use emotional intelligence for inappropriate purposes. They know how to manipulate people's emotions. Ah, you just explained my dark triadism. Thank you. There you go. Because I might be one of them. Ah, there you go. It's good to know. So if I'm emotionally manipulative emotional manipulation is it emotional intelligence very good question and it then goes back to our discussion around ai one of the things that we do when we're applying

emotional intelligence is to do it in an ethical way and with the right morals and values applicable to the, I don't know, I'm just being a shit. So if I know I have dark triad traits of Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy, if I'm at least self-aware of that when I'm applying them, is that emotional intelligence, or am I just an asshole? I think you're the latter rather than the former, but awareness is so much a good part of emotional intelligence. It's having the awareness of what impact your behavior is having on other people, but you're doing it for the right reasons. Remember, emotional intelligence is about building authentic relationships. It's not about destroying relationships.

I mean, if you're trying to get rid of somebody, I mean, you're kind of tired of them. Sometimes destroying a relationship is constructive because you're like, I know you better now and you're awful, so go away. And as long as the relationship, some element of the relationship remains intact, then you've done a good job. Oh, what if you just want them to go away? Like it's either that or fake your death. That's a bit extreme, but there have been a number of times

in my career where I've lost my job. And people have told me to go away. More often than not, the role has been made redundant rather than the fact that I have not performed particularly well. But the managers that had to deliver that message, I've still got a good relationship with them all. Oh, there you go. You know, it fluctuates.

It goes down a bit and then it goes back up again that's what a lot of my girlfriends tell me when we break up they tell me it's redundant since they're cheating with someone else already so i see but you know sometimes i can stay friends with them because i just really don't care but it's good to know that technically i'm an asshole note to self text all my exes they were right so anyway what are some things we haven't talked about intelligence we can educate people about again i let's go back to ai and emotional intelligence and the fact that really if we're looking to the future we've just got to understand that the future does not look like it does today in 2024 at some point the future is going to change. So what we've got to do is to

adapt around those changes, make ourselves future-proof. And the way in which we can do that is to become more focused around the way in which we're working with our emotional intelligence. And so what's the best way to accomplish that? Keep your ears and eyes open for new opportunities to do new things in different ways. And so trying to be self-aware, I guess, trying to be self-aware of my emotions. Like I say, I study stoicism and what stoicism teaches you, especially as a man, because women have you know, women have a harder time, I think, because they filter everything through emotion first. And emotions are the number one priority. Their emotions are their number one paradigm. And it's a feature, not a bug, if you understand biology and this propagation species and why we're different. But for men, you know, we largely are

supposed to be based on our logic and reason. We're not supposed to be running around like women in our emotion. We're designed to be logic and reasonable to be the rock. And stoicism is really great because it's really made me better at looking at my emotions and going, okay. So in being self-aware where you're like, okay, I'm having emotion. I'm feeling right now. Why am I having this feeling? What is this about? Am I, am I just hangry? You know, I need some food. Why is this maybe triggering me? If you have traumas, you know, those are people that are usually getting triggered a lot because their trauma

that's unresolved. That's an issue, but you know, it enables me to sit down and go, okay, you're feeling something. What's that about? You know, you can sit and analyze it from a logical, reasonable thing, and you can put it away. You know, part of the way that men think, too, we can compartmentalize stuff. And so we can, you know, go, okay, what's going on right here? Okay, fix that, box that, put that away, inventory it, and away you go. And so women apply their stuff differently in their head and it's all design so you know it just is what it is so

how does that how does how do you think about that how do you what do you think about what the hell i just made up yeah yeah but to a certain extent there's an element of truth in that chris let me share with you a quote that's been attributed to Aristotle. I think it's brilliant. I think it sums up everything that we've been talking about. He's supposed to have said, anyone can become angry.

That's easy. But to be angry with the right person to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way, that's not easy. And that's not in everybody's power.

Now, here I am. I'm an emotional intelligence specialist. I work in this field. If anybody knows how to do that, can they let me know, please? You know, we mentioned the Dunning-Kruger thing earlier. People who are masters or are working to become masters of their trade know that the largest extent of what they should know, do you know what they need to master, is the stuff they don't know they don't know.

They're constantly in a point of training, learning. They say a lot of the teachers are the teacher is the person who learns the most when they're teaching more than their students because by teaching, they're always refreshing the material and they're reapplying it and they're learning new things. I certainly do that from what I teach because a lot of stuff comes back to me and you'll have little epiphanies. You're like, wait, I look at this from a different paradigm angle.

I can understand this more outside the box so you know you being self-aware that you're always trying to get better you're always trying to learn more is very different than the person who's you know sitting around parodying me going i'm emotional intelligence and you're like i don't know the cops are being called and and you've been yelling at people at the park. And it's not appropriate, anything of what you're doing. And you're going to be on TikTok later. So have fun being viral. The thing is, if I say I'm emotionally intelligent, I'm not being emotionally intelligent. It's not for me to say that I'm emotionally intelligent.

It's for other people to reflect back to me that they think I'm being emotionally intelligent. I want to be more emotionally intelligent because people tell me I'm stupid enough as it is. So I've failed at the logic and reason game. But maybe if I can get this emotional intelligence working my way or I can fool some people, I can make that work.

Well, I found you emotionally intelligent this evening. Oh, serious? Can I get a letter from you that I can hand to girlfriends? We won't work in that sort of relationship. I am certified. I'm going to put this on my Tinder profile. I'll just get a certificate from you, and I'll put it on my Tinder profile. Do you want to date a guy who's emotionally intelligent?

Sadly, most won't because I don't have a prison record. And evidently, that's something that's really popular right now but i'm working on i'm gonna pick one up just for my tinder profiles and i don't know i don't think anybody wants a man who's emotionally intelligent uh it's a little hard to game so what else have we discussed that you want to talk about what you do one of the things you talk about is mindfulness in action misconceptions between positive and negative emotions slowing slowing down to speed up. Any of those you want to tag into? Look, let's go back and talk about emotions because that's been the theme of the show.

And let's get rid of this myth that there are positive and negative emotions. Now, most people will actually talk about anger and fear as being negative emotions. But used in the right way, anger and fear can be very, very positive. So people need to get angry to right a wrong. People need to get angry to change some of the things that are not right in the world. If fear is such a negative emotion,

why do we get such joy from roller coasters and horror movies? Yeah, yeah. So it's not the emotion that is negative. It's what we do with it and how we react to it and our response to it and our behavior. That's what requires the label not the emotion itself there you go so i mean stoicism or a little bit of that or just being self-aware and being like i'm having an emotion right now how do i how what why am i feeling this how am i feeling this and

and all that stuff look chris those are brilliant questions to ask yourself to improve your emotional intelligence. I'm feeling this emotion at the moment. Let's put a label on it. Let's try and label it. Now, if I can't, it doesn't matter. Why am I feeling the way in which I'm feeling? What could I do with it? Do I want to suppress it?

Do I want to express it? Do I want more of this because it feels pleasant? Do I want less of it? Do I want to express it? Do I want more of this because it feels pleasant? Do I want less of it because it feels unpleasant? I like suppressing my feelings and then just bottle them up and then just explode on people. Does that sound healthy? That's a good way of using your emotions. If you bottle them up too much, it can lead to mental health issues. So it's the way in which you manage your emotions

again a lot of people will take it out in the gym or on the squash court or on the tennis court that's what i do that or i just i somebody crosses the crosswalk and i just hit the gas don't do that people that's a joke don't call me on that one so there you go you talk about resilience this is another thing that's in your wheelhouse. The resilient professional. What does it mean? How does it apply? Look, there are going to be times when situations are volatile.

They're uncertain. They're complex. They're ambiguous. They're given the label buka in these sort of in these sort of situations you've just got to realize that the world is not necessarily going to go your way but what is it that you can do to adapt around it be flexible be adaptable be creative and to do it because you feel that life has some meaning. What if I just sit and yell and scream like a child and go, life's not fair. You can do that if you want.

Is that going to improve your resilience and your emotional intelligence? Sometimes I get attention validation from it in a cookie. And that might be what you need to do. Maybe that's what I'm just angry probably at that point. So these are really insightful. You give you, I watched a video recently where someone was talking about how a lot of people who claim to be emotional intelligence really aren't. And it's kind of a sign.

And especially if you were solipsistic and very selfish and self-centered like me. And, and I thought it was kind of interesting because I've grown up all my life being told that there's one group of people that have more emotional intelligence than another group of people and i've always been like okay whatever you can win that battle because i'll stick to logic and reason but evidently you know i she has some great points she's like if you can't control your

emotions and you're outbursting and reacting and and you're not self-aware you you can go full karen on somebody you don't have emotional intelligence was her point you know if you can't control it it's not very intelligent this is very sloppy really when you think about it it is rather and look let's have a look at this word selfish i actually encourage people to be more selfish really what no what I mean by that is to be more self-ish because nobody else could eat that sandwich for you nobody else can drink that glass of water for you nobody else can go to sleep for you nobody else can do your exercise for you you've got to look after yourself that's true before you can look after other people. So a healthy diet, it's all the things the doctor tells you not to do.

Sorry, all the things the doctor tells you to do that's boring. Eat more healthier food. Eat more fruit and veg. Drink more water. Give up the smoking. Give up the drugs. give up the unhealthy habits you're running my whole life right now and take more exercise but you can choose to do it with a smile oh so smile when i'm going through withdrawals

don't take drugs people this is jokes on the show calm down so yeah so i've learned a whole lot more so it sounds like you know you you're still working to achieve perfection, but that's part of the Dunning-Kruger mastery. A master understands that they are in a constant state of improvement, adjustment, learning, and that learning will never end. in so this makes you feel good that you know is there any tests you can take where you can take a test and and be like you know here's you know how do i know that i'm good at it like is there any tests for you can kind of get a grade like an iq test for emotional and eq test i i'm qualified in using the eqi 2.0, which was developed by a psychologist called Ruben Barron about 20-odd years ago. It is a brilliant assessment

of 15 different facets of emotional intelligence, and they will blend together. Now, nobody will come out with a perfect score, but what we can then do is to determine Now, nobody will come out with a perfect score. But what we can then do is to determine what are the traits that are working well for somebody and what's getting in the way. What are going to be the barriers to stop them from becoming, say, a good leader? There you go. I think I took one of those tests one time and it said that emotionally I'm on the short bus team. I don't know what that meant, but that's why I wear the helmet when I go out. So there you go. I put the helmet over the heart. I don't know what that means. It's a dumb joke. Don't write that. So anything more you want to pitch on the show, give people instructions on how to onboard with you, reach out to you, how they can get involved, maybe newsletter or order of your programs etc yeah i've got a newsletter called ei matters ei hyphen matters.com and that's really a

resource where people can go to get more information about emotional intelligence but the best way to contact me is through the website ei ei4change.com. Excuse me. Ei Emotional Intelligence, number four, change.com. There you go. It's been fun to have you on the show. We've had some fun with all the jokes.

Now I've got to go contact my exes and wave around your certification that you claim that I'm emotional intelligence. So I either fooled you completely because I'm not self-aware of emotional intelligence or probably that. Thank you very much for coming to the show, Rob. I really appreciate it. It's been brilliant, Chris.

Really enjoyed it. Thanks ever so much. Thank you very much, sir. Thanks to our audience for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrisfoss, youtube.com, 4chesschrisfoss, linkedin.com, 4Chess, Chris Voss, and the Chris Voss newsletter, the Chris Voss podcast, and all that stuff. Subscribe to that, because if you want your friends and you to be more

emotionally intelligent, listen to the Chris Voss show, because evidently I am. Anyway, thanks for tuning in, everyone. Be good to each other. Stay safe, and we'll see you next time. Right now, the audience is going...