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Emotional intelligence, on the other hand, this area of the brain is not crystallized.
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It isn t fixed.
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It s very malleable.
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And when you work on it, you tend to improve the flow of information between your sort of rational brain and your emotional brain.
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Welcome to the Art of Charm.
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I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
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Today we re talking with Dr. Travis Bradbury, author of Emotional Intelligence 2.0.
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I took this test, Jason took this test, so you get to laugh at slash along with us.
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It graded our self-awareness, our self-management, our social awareness, and our relationship management.
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We re gonna talk about our EQ, our EQ strategies to improve those areas.
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and there s a few surprises in here for both me and Jason.
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I think the book and the test is a good starter set if you re new to self-help especially or growth, personal growth, and definitely if you run a company and you want to help some of your team dip their toes into the water without demanding they dive head first into some of the deeper work that a lot of us do.
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So enjoy this episode with Dr. Travis Bradbury.
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And by the way, if you re new to the show, we d love to send you some top episodes and the AOC toolbox.
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where we discuss things like reading body language and having charismatic nonverbal communication, attraction science, negotiation techniques, networking and influence strategies, mentorship, persuasion tactics, and everything else that we teach here at the Art of Charm.
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Check that out at theartofcharm.com.
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Also at theartofcharm.com slash podcast, you can find the full show notes for this and all previous episodes of the show.
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Alright, here s Dr. Travis Bradbury.
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Travis, thanks for joining us today.
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Well, I have been interested in EQ.
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It s basically the foundation for the majority of what we talk about here on AOC for the last 10 years.
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EQ, the soft skills and maybe hard skills involved in developing it.
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And your book, it s making the rounds, man, as you know.
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I mean, this thing is everywhere.
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So I figured if something is unavoidable, it s probably a good sign that it s time to dive in and explore it a little bit.
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Yeah, that sounds great.
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I m glad you re interested in it.
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I have a lot to share.
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Jason, did you take this test as well?
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Yes, I did.
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Okay, cool, because I got results and I was like, all right, I want to discuss these results and congrats on getting the Dalai Lama on speed dial there.
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How did that happen?
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That s a pretty good testimonial.
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Well, that was a good old email.
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I had a publicist who had contact info for his personal assistant and we sent the book.
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I knew he was interested in emotional intelligence and somehow he found the time to read it.
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I think it was about a month after our official deadline, and then they sent an endorsement and asked if, you know, oh, I m sorry this is late, would you like to use this?
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Yeah, I think we ll find a way to squeeze this one in.
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Oh, we can t put it in the book.
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Fine, put it on the cover.
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It s the Dalai Lama.
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Exactly.
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So these results that I got, I ll just dive into this stuff because I wanted to check and see if this stuff made sense.
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Did you have a chance to look at our results as well?
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I did, yeah.
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So why don t you guide us through this stuff rather than me just starting at an arbitrary point?
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Well, there s a couple things that I see.
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It looks to me like you answered the test very honestly, which is important.
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There s some behind the scenes stuff that happens with the assessment.
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And that is trying to get people, because everyone wants to fake good.
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So when you take a test, if you feel like you re being evaluated, you want to say you do things you don t.
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And the trick, so when I say there s some behind the scenes stuff, there s some leveling out of scores.
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But ultimately, when you re taking a self-assessment, the more honest you are, the more you get out of it.
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And the fact that both of your scores are rather low,
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is actually a really good thing because it means you re honest about it, right?
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Emotional intelligence is something that our brains are hardwired to need to skill, but it s not something that you learn in school.
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So if I gave you a math test and you made it through high school, I would expect that you would do fairly well, let alone if you went to college or graduate school as you did.
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This isn t a math test.
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It s a skill that most people do not possess in abundance.
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Yeah, this was interesting for me because when I took the test, I thought, okay, if I m on the fence, I m gonna go one rung lower because then it will at least highlight areas of improvement, whereas I know the answer that I would need to give in order to get a good score.
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I could have faked my way to an A, A minus, and this stuff just like I did in high school.
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So it seems like that s something I could have done, but I figured there s more benefit to me getting a lower score because it will make the areas that need work stand out much more than if they re all kind of blurred together because I know how to game the test.
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Yeah, and that s the idea with the self-assessment is to really, to answer honestly.
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There s a whole nother level to it too.
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We have a multirater version of the assessment where you can get feedback from other people.
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And then it compares that self-assessment to other people.
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So for those that have a really hard time getting something out of this on the self-assessment because they re not honest, the multirater tends to bring that to life.
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Yeah, that made sense, because one of my quips slash questions about this was, great, when I worked on Wall Street, I could easily see myself taking this with a bunch of lawyer friends, and then the guy who s just the most insufferable bastard in the whole office games the test and smugly walks around telling everybody else about what they can do to get higher EQ, because,
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It seems like the most self-aware people are gonna be the most honest, and therefore probably the hardest on themselves, and it seems like the people with terrible EQ wouldn t even be able to complete the test.
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They would just skew the results, like, oh, of course.
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Of course I d take other people s feelings into consideration.
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Of course I know my own feelings really well.
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You know, A plus for me.
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And that s when we rock them with the 360 because there s a great deal of research that shows the most accurate assessment of your behavior comes from what you do every single day.
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And that is measured by what other people see.
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Which is terrifying.
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Yeah, which is terrifying.
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And the truth really comes to light when you say, would Travis tolerates frustration without getting upset?
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I always do that.
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I keep my composure.
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Well, if everyone else says that I sometimes do that.
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Boom, that just opened the door.
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The beauty of the self-assessment is that if I m honest with myself at all, it will pinpoint which of the 66 strategies in the book I need to work on to increase my EQ the most.
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And that s a really valuable thing because it s actually analyzing your score profile and showing you where you need to take action.
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This is useful.
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Funnily enough, self-awareness I scored low on, in part I think because I was self-aware enough to know that I wasn t that self-aware sometimes.
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Does that make sense?
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so you had a 60 in self-awareness, correct?
0
78.
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78, okay.
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SPEAKER_01
Yeah, you re reading my scores.
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I got the 60 in self-awareness.
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SPEAKER_02
Ah.
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Yes.
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So Jordan, you had the 78 in self-awareness, which the issue here isn t, well, first of all, on a one to a hundred point scale, and these scores are normalized to an average of 75, you re not any less self-aware than anyone else.
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And that s an important thing.
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You re actually a little bit above average.
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Good.
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C plus.
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The thing you want to ask yourself is, how is that relative to my other scores?
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Because your social skills are really, really high.
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Your social awareness score is a 95.
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And you said, look, I tried to answer this really honestly, even being a little hard on yourself.
0
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Well, 95, that s two standard deviations above the mean.
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That s a really high score.
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That s well less than 8% of the population scores that high.
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And so a relative strength for you is how you are with other people versus how you are with yourself.
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There s more room for improvement.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I can definitely vouch for the fact that self-awareness-wise, I have some level of that, but I also, yeah, just self-aware enough to know that I need to work on self-awareness.
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And there s been a lot of incidents maybe recently where I ve just had foot in mouth or had to straighten something out and I just thought, okay, that could ve been avoided.
0
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Well, I mean, look at your whole focus of your work.
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I mean, you ve been very successful because you lean into your strengths, and that s understanding other people.
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And look at the podcast as the art of charm.
0
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It s connecting with other people.
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It s a skill that you have in abundance.
0
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So the recommendation to sharpen the saw is, okay, what can I do on this, what we call personal competence?
0
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That s your self-awareness skills, and it s also your self-management, because you actually score lower in self-management than you do in self-awareness.
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There s likely some holes there in terms of achieving everything that you want to achieve in life that can be filled through better self-management.
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So let s talk about what self-awareness and self-management are.
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Let s talk about what the categories are so that people can follow along, and then we can dismantle Jason as well, because he got lower self-awareness.
0
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I was gonna say, this is why you re the host and I m the producer.
0
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Yeah, Jason, there s a lot of dismantling to do for you, unfortunately.
0
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Of course there is.
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I m the whipping boy.
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That s my job, too.
0
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Emotional intelligence, there s four skills.
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And the first two skills are about you individually.
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As an individual, it s self-awareness and it s self-management.
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Self-awareness is the foundation of emotional intelligence.
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It s how well you understand, not just your emotions in the moment, but your tendencies.
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Without that awareness, you can t expect to self-manage, you can t expect to have effective relationships with other people.
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So we really say that self-awareness has to come first.
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On the social side of things, you have social awareness and relationship management.
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Social awareness
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isn t just how aware you are of the emotions of other people, but it s also how aware you are of what they re experiencing, what they re trying to communicate to you that s often unspoken through body language and all these subtle cues that people provide.
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Finally, relationship management, which requires that you use these other three skills in concert.
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You can t hope to manage relationships effectively until you re able
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to be self-aware in that moment.
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Until you know what s going on with the other person, you re able to manage yourself and adjust course accordingly.
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Okay, if somebody has high self-awareness, they re very aware of how they re being perceived by others in that case?
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If you re very self-aware, yes.
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I mean, it s not aware of how you re perceived by others, although that can be a factor.
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It s really aware of what you re feeling and how it s impacting your behavior.
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If self-awareness is a need area, there are likely times when you re kind of putting foot in mouth and things of that nature where your emotions are kind of driving the bus and you re not aware of it.
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Gotcha, okay.
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And then the self-management.
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So Jason s level of self-awareness at a 60 is below the 75 if they re all normalized for that.
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So what does that mean for him?
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That means it s not as bad as it looks.
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Like I said, 60 on a math test is pretty bad, but 60 on this test is not as bad.
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You re a little over a standard deviation below the mean.
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The big thing for you, and this is what we re always trying to guide people towards, is that self-awareness is a relative strength, sort of the opposite of Jordan.
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Self-awareness is something that you possess in abundance relative to the social side of things.
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Okay.
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On your social awareness scores, on the other hand, are pretty darn low.
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48 is... Oh my god.
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It s three standard deviations below the mean.
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The good news there is, you know, the lower you score, if you actually have some interest in working on it, your scores tend to jump really quickly, you know, to a large degree.
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Nowhere to go but up.
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Nowhere to go but up.
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And the test that comes with the book includes a free retest.
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So the idea is you take the test, you see what you need to work on, you work on it for a while, and then you test yourself again and see how those scores jump.
1
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That s interesting.
1
SPEAKER_01
Jason, what kind of mood were you in when you took this?
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Because that has to affect the results too, right, of a test like this.
1
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I was in a pretty good mood and I was pretty honest.
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I tried to be brutally honest when I took the test for the same reason that you did.
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Why cheat on a test that s only here to help you?
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Yeah, because Jason, when we hang out, you re not like a weird, awkward person where everyone s like, oh, this guy, right?
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So it can t just be that type of stuff that we re talking about with social awareness.
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I mean, nobody that I know has a problem with you.
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Nobody s like, oh, this guy s coming.
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There are people like that that I would expect to have low social awareness scores.
1
SPEAKER_01
So is social awareness not the same thing as social skills then, Travis?
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Well, the social skills are really more about relationship management because relationship management is a better measure of how you respond to other people.
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Social awareness is how well you re picking up on the cues that other people are sending your way and how they re communicating with you and how accurate you are in understanding that.
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My guess is, you know, of course, I would not look at the score of profile and think that you re a total weirdo.
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Those folks usually score in the 20s.
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I mean, the scores do go lower.
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Someone who scores in the 40s or 50s might not be the quickest to attune to someone else s emotions, might not pick up on those subtle unspoken levels of communication that come from, let s say, women.
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You know, it might not be the first person to pick up on those things.
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Whereas people with higher scores tend to just be really attuned to that.
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I know a guy who, he works in sales and he s really great at it.
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He also tends to, he s single and he always has a date, let s just say that.
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And he s very attuned, very attuned to other people, especially women eat it up.
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I mean, people like to be understood.
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So, okay, the scores can go up if we work on this stuff, and the book goes into that, and we can talk a little bit about that stuff as well.
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The points in the test are illustrated with these really great movie clips from Meet the Parents, Catch Me If You Can, Erin Brockovich, and things like that.
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So, how would we then...
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work on these skills to make them better, and then of course I want to talk about how they might actually go backwards, because I feel like that s where a lot of us find ourselves, where we re like, no man, you know, when I was in college, this, that, and the other thing, and then suddenly you re 40 and you realize, wow, I am not doing well in these categories.
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Well, one of the biggest ways they go backwards is influenced by your surroundings.
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Just like you might have been a great football player in high school and then you went off to college and discovered you were a big fish in a big pond versus a big fish in a small pond, the same thing can happen with these skills.
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and you re tested at a higher level, then people get stalled out.
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Another thing that could influence you negatively are just your life circumstances and the stress and the challenges that you re dealing with can bring your scores down.
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The thing with emotional intelligence you need to understand is if you take IQ, for example,
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IQ is not what you know, it s the pace at which you assimilate information.
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So it s how rapidly you re able to absorb and assimilate information.
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Well, that s fixed at an early age.
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They measure this across the lifespan, and it s fixed the same at age 5 as it is at age 50.
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So it s measured relative to your peers.
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Emotional intelligence, on the other hand, this area of the brain is not crystallized.
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It isn t fixed.
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It s very malleable.
1
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And when you work on it, you tend to improve the flow of information between your sort of rational brain and your emotional brain.
1
SPEAKER_04
When you don t work on it, you know, the opposite tends to happen.
1
SPEAKER_01
So we backslide if we re not constantly working on these, is that kind of the takeaway?
1
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, if you re not making some effort, if it isn t on your mind, you do tend to backslide in particular if you re encountering difficult circumstances in your life, particularly challenging circumstances.
1
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So that s interesting because, Jordan, when you and I used to hang out, I was living in Los Angeles with a woman, and now I live alone with my dog for like the past nine months.
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So maybe I have backslid because my environment has changed and I don t hang around that many people that often anymore.
1
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, it s more work.
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SPEAKER_01
You can t just walk out your door of your room and have your BFF like hanging out, talking about stuff that you don t get from your buddies.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And the way that works in the brain is, you know, our brains are hardwired to give emotions the upper hand.
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So the limbic system is part of kind of the core older part of the brain and everything you experience has to travel through the limbic system first.
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Well, that s where emotions are generated.
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So you have an emotional reaction to events before you re able to think rationally about them.
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The flow of information between the rational brain, which is up here in the front, right behind your forehead, and the emotional brain, which is way back near your ear, kind of just above your ear in the center of your brain.
1
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Picture, you know, some people have the rutted country road going between those two areas of the brain, and other folks have a six-lane superhighway, and the information just flows really readily.
1
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That s the essence of emotional intelligence.
1
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So is this then a pathway that we need to develop in order to create better communication between the two parts of our brains?
1
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Is that kind of like the essence of this?
1
SPEAKER_04
Yeah, that s the essence of it.
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When you work on your emotional intelligence, you form habits that increase the flow of information between these two areas.
1
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Your brain facilitates the use of these behaviors.
1
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When you don t, those pathways kind of wither and die, and your emotions drive.
1
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They re driving the bus.
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So what types of things can we work on to generate better self-awareness?
1
SPEAKER_01
What sort of practical application are we looking at for self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship management?
1
SPEAKER_01
What sort of practical takeaways can somebody get, even if they don t know what their scores are on the test yet, that they could work on in order to hone these areas?
1
SPEAKER_01
Because we don t need to know that we re bad at it just to work on it, right?
1
SPEAKER_04
Absolutely.
1
SPEAKER_04
I mean, we can look at, for example, Jordan, we can look
2
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at your score profile here and see what your EQ strategies are.
2
SPEAKER_01
So the areas that bring down your scores the most are, one, trouble handling frustration.
2
SPEAKER_01
Two, making decisions without adequately considering alternatives.
2
SPEAKER_01
All that means is that you might be making decisions less carefully than you should be, you know, optimizing them.
2
SPEAKER_01
And three is letting stress get the better of you.
2
SPEAKER_01
I ll back up all three of those.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, definitely.
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SPEAKER_00
The trouble-heading frustration, it s not necessarily, I guess I shouldn t argue with it, but it s not like, gee, I don t know what to do with my frustration.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s more like, I m just gonna get frustrated right now, even though this is a completely avoidable situation or not something to worry about.
2
SPEAKER_00
And Jen, she obviously gets on me for that all the time, where she s like, yeah, your guacamole
2
SPEAKER_00
was less today than they usually give you.
2
SPEAKER_00
Not something that should ruin your lunch, or your day, or your week, or our vacation.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because it s always sort of like a metaphor for something else, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
So the stuff balls up.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I definitely see that happening.
2
SPEAKER_00
That s been something I ve struggled with my whole life.
2
SPEAKER_00
I ve been very aware of that problem.
2
SPEAKER_00
However, it s also served me in some ways, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
It s helped me motivate to get a lot done and be a top performer.
2
SPEAKER_00
So I think every issue that I m having in some way also has a function, otherwise I would just
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, and that s the kicker, is to understand where it holds you back versus where it serves you.
2
SPEAKER_01
The place that self-awareness is an issue, the reason you re getting all pissed off about your guacamole, you re letting an issue swell to the point that it s the straw that broke the camel s back.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s not really the guacamole.
2
SPEAKER_01
Self-awareness requires spotting when, oh man, you know what, this is really starting to get my goat, I gotta be honest about this now, I gotta do something about it.
2
SPEAKER_01
versus pushing it aside, pushing it aside, pushing it aside until you re pissed off about guacamole.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s the essence of self-awareness, is understanding your emotions, thinking about them, and realizing when things build up.
2
SPEAKER_01
Or, when you get pissed off about the guacamole, be like, wait a minute, this isn t about the guacamole, what s really going on here?
2
SPEAKER_01
And taking a moment to just, you know, this isn t like psychoanalysis, this is just real simple stuff.
2
SPEAKER_01
What s fueling this behavior and what should I be doing differently?
2
SPEAKER_00
Right, so each of these things serves us in some way, and so we keep a hold of it, but the idea would then be to replace it with something that s maybe a little bit more constructive and doesn t involve all of the side effects of something.
2
SPEAKER_00
So instead of complaining about the guacamole and letting that be the culmination of emotional implosion,
2
SPEAKER_00
It s like, okay, let s figure out what s really wrong, address each of those causes, rather than just having a Chipotle, exactly, exactly.
2
SPEAKER_01
Here s the thing, I mean, a lot of successful people are very perfectionistic.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that perfectionism can build up to the point that it s likely a bigger issue.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s something that matters more in your work that you could let go of.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s not the guacamole.
2
SPEAKER_01
So the act is to try to understand that a little better and know when to pull back
2
SPEAKER_01
and let go.
2
SPEAKER_01
So your profile is recommending breathing exercises.
2
SPEAKER_01
The point is recognizing when you re saying, oh man, I need to let this go.
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t have to have, you know, 2 million views of every single podcast I do.
2
SPEAKER_01
Or maybe I need to do something differently to get there rather than beating myself up about it right now.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, so it s like the breathing strategy is just taking a moment to calm yourself down to kind of choose your battles.
2
SPEAKER_01
Otherwise, your battle will end up being guacamole because the emotions don t go anywhere.
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t want people to neuter their emotions.
2
SPEAKER_01
You can t stuff them.
2
SPEAKER_01
You can t get rid of them.
2
SPEAKER_01
You can only channel them into producing the behavior that you want.
2
SPEAKER_01
So when they re producing a behavior that you don t want, get aware of it and change course.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right, and mindfulness slash redirection is a good use of that.
2
SPEAKER_00
Surprise, surprise, in weeks where I work out four plus times, the guacamole is good.
2
SPEAKER_00
We re good with the guac.
2
SPEAKER_00
On the weeks where I m too, quote unquote, too busy to get in the gym more than a couple times, that s when the chips start flying, so to speak.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, and that s the third strategy in your feedback report.
2
SPEAKER_01
The third recommended thing to help you keep from letting stress get the better of you is to put a mental recharge into your schedule.
2
SPEAKER_01
And for a lot of people, that s exercise.
2
SPEAKER_01
It just calms you down.
2
SPEAKER_01
It gives you an outlet.
2
SPEAKER_01
It gets your mind off that wheel of basically stressing and fixating on work.
2
SPEAKER_01
You give yourself a break, and you come back to it with a fresh perspective.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, and some of this, a lot of people are like, great, be mindful, go to the gym, ah, screw this.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s not just that, this is tailor-made in a way to showcase where and why you need to use this stuff, because I think everybody realizes, hey, you should get more sleep and you should work out.
2
SPEAKER_00
The problem is a lot of us think that s just generally good for me because I m human.
2
SPEAKER_00
They don t think,
2
SPEAKER_00
For my personality in particular, I need specifically to get enough sleep, cut out caffeine, work out a certain number of times per week, make sure that I m prioritizing these things.
2
SPEAKER_00
I noticed some of the negative reviews on Goodreads and Amazon of the book were like, oh, this is all common sense.
2
SPEAKER_00
And I wanted to ask each one of those people, oh, so you re going to the gym every day and you re meditating and you re mindful and you re applying all this stuff already?
2
SPEAKER_00
Wow, you must have scored really well in self-management.
2
SPEAKER_00
whereas I was dead average, because I think for a lot of folks, it s really easy to say, yeah, everybody knows that sleep is good for you, and I need to go to bed earlier, that I need to work out, but most people aren t thinking, this is actually something that s going to make me better at other skills, that I need to do work.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, the guy that says that it s common sense is sitting there smoking a cigarette, you know, drinking a Mountain Dew in front of his computer.
2
SPEAKER_01
Common sense isn t all that common, that s my point.
2
SPEAKER_01
We ve tested, you know, we ve sold more than a million books, we ve tested more than a million people, and we find that just 36% of people can accurately identify their emotions as they happen.
2
SPEAKER_01
This is just not a skill set that we learn in school.
2
SPEAKER_01
And you re absolutely right, it s not as simple as, oh, I need to exercise, I need to meditate.
2
SPEAKER_01
You might need to exercise, I might need to meditate.
2
SPEAKER_01
I need to know as an individual what makes me tick and what helps me get where I need to go.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that s a very individualized thing.
2
SPEAKER_01
That s why you have to take a test.
2
SPEAKER_01
You have to be assessed somehow to know where you stand.
2
SPEAKER_01
You can t just follow some sort of general advice and expect to get to where you need to go.
2
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I think that s the point of these types of tests, and I know I ve taken every test on the whole friggin  internet in the past few months here, but this stuff is important because it has to be targeted.
2
SPEAKER_00
You can t just say, here s 25 blanket things that you need to do every day to work optimally, because it s a different balance.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s a different number of ingredients.
2
SPEAKER_00
Jason, you re the one who cooks here, right?
2
SPEAKER_00
You can t just throw the same type of ingredient that you would when you re baking a cake and think,
2
SPEAKER_00
Well, it doesn t matter the amount I put of each of these into the cake.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s still gonna come out a cake, because I have all the basics.
2
SPEAKER_00
If you ve got less flour than you do water, or vice versa, it s gonna be kind of a funky mix, and it s not gonna work out.
2
SPEAKER_01
You have to take care of your mise en place.
2
SPEAKER_01
Come on, man.
2
SPEAKER_01
I don t even know what that is.
2
SPEAKER_00
You have to prepare your ingredients properly every time.
2
SPEAKER_00
There you go.
2
SPEAKER_00
and these tend to be the ingredients.
2
SPEAKER_00
One question that I do have, though, is when we re looking at the social awareness graph or silo of this test, there was a point about listening using your gut and listening to your intuition and things like that.
2
SPEAKER_00
How do we know whether we re listening to our social awareness in our gut or whether we re getting bias via emotional filters, logical brain, and things like that?
2
SPEAKER_00
How do we know what s telling us the truth in our brain here?
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, when you re listening to your gut, you re making a decision based on a feeling you have about other people when you re sort of analyzing it.
2
SPEAKER_01
Have you ever walked into a room full of people and there s just a mood in the room and you can feel it and you don t know why?
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
2
SPEAKER_01
Of course, of course.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, they did this really great study at the University of the Netherlands where they took people who were blind because they had cortical lesions.
2
SPEAKER_01
That means their eyes work perfectly.
2
SPEAKER_01
They sent signals to the back of the brain, the visual cortex that processes what the eyes see.
2
SPEAKER_01
And that thing, it wasn t taking information because they had lesions there.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was dead, basically.
2
SPEAKER_01
So what they did with these people is they put them in front of screens where they popped up images of people displaying strong emotions.
2
SPEAKER_01
So if I put you, Jordan, in front of a screen and I pop up a picture of a really angry person, you re going to frown just a tiny bit, furrow your brows.
2
SPEAKER_00
It s a micro-expression, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
Absolutely.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s mirror neurons.
2
SPEAKER_01
They just mirror the state of other people.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, in these people with the cortical lesions, the same thing was happening.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it was freaking the researchers out because they can t see it.
2
SPEAKER_01
They say, hey, why did you just crack a smile right there?
2
SPEAKER_01
And the people would say, I don t know.
2
SPEAKER_01
It was just a hunch.
2
SPEAKER_01
And as far as the researchers knew, all this information has to go to the base of your brain and then spread out through the limbic system before you can have an emotional reaction.
2
SPEAKER_01
You know, in a Steven Seagal movie, when he knocks someone real hard and their eye hangs out and they ve got that optic nerve, the eye s hanging by the optic nerve?
2
SPEAKER_01
That s what sends information to your visual cortex.
2
SPEAKER_01
And what they found, and the reason these people were able to have emotional reactions to stuff that they weren t even seeing, is because the optic nerve sends signals off to the limbic system before your brain is able to process them.
2
SPEAKER_01
So when you re in a room full of people, you may not even recognize all the number of facial expressions and emotional reactions that people are displaying to you, but you feel them.
2
SPEAKER_01
And social awareness is not just being aware of other people, but what you feel about them.
2
SPEAKER_00
So, okay, right, they re always going to be influenced, I guess, by your emotional filters no matter what.
2
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, so the question is, are you focused more on other people than you are on yourself?
2
SPEAKER_01
The reason we are so terrible at social awareness is because we re always thinking about what we re gonna say next.
2
SPEAKER_00
Right, how we re being perceived.
3
SPEAKER_00
and things like that, we re trying to manage that in real time instead of being present.
3
SPEAKER_02
Thinking about how what they just said affects us, and we re not thinking about them at all, let alone about these gut feelings that we re having.
3
SPEAKER_02
Well, I just had that sort of gut feeling, I wonder what that has to do with them.
3
SPEAKER_02
That s social awareness, it s tuning into other people more than you tune into yourself.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s a real simple thing that common sense isn t all that common, we just don t tend to do it, we get distracted.
3
SPEAKER_00
When I was younger, I was always hyper-aware, and by aware, I mean focused, because you re not really aware as in perceiving accurately what other people were thinking of me.
3
SPEAKER_00
I was afraid to talk in class, and I was really shy.
3
SPEAKER_00
I didn t want to draw attention to myself, and I m talking about middle school, high school, whatever, worried about everything from my hair to, you know, you got a zit that day or whatever teenagers worry about, but it was like,
3
SPEAKER_00
chronic clinical level of that.
3
SPEAKER_00
So my social awareness would have been probably at a 20 back in middle school and high school.
3
SPEAKER_00
And I worked on, I mean that s the point of the show, I ve worked on that for a decade and change here to change that.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so this is definitely something that can be changed and I can see how a lot of folks, especially people that I meet and train, are wanting to work on this particular set of skills.
3
SPEAKER_00
Because even and especially high performers, I should say,
3
SPEAKER_00
difficulty with this because we re trying to get the best out of ourselves.
3
SPEAKER_00
We re kind of missing the forest through the trees.
3
SPEAKER_00
We re trying to get the best out of ourselves, so we re thinking, all right, what should I say next?
3
SPEAKER_00
What can I do that s more efficient?
3
SPEAKER_00
How does this person perceive me?
3
SPEAKER_00
And that actually, counterintuitively, turns off our ability to interact well and fluidly with others because we re focused inwardly instead of outwardly.
3
SPEAKER_02
Absolutely.
3
SPEAKER_02
And it says a lot that you brought that score up to a 95 from where it was when you were young.
3
SPEAKER_02
And I m guessing it took some time.
3
SPEAKER_02
You know, hell, going through college, going through graduate school, working in law, you know, those are all environments that require a lot of social awareness to maneuver effectively.
3
SPEAKER_02
So you probably had a lot of challenges along the way that got you there.
3
SPEAKER_00
Oh yeah, I mean, it was just, eventually I just hit a pain point that was like, I can t live the rest of my life like this, because it s going to be freaking miserable, and there s more to it.
3
SPEAKER_00
You know, you see other people who clearly have better social awareness, better relationship management, better social awareness, self-awareness, self-management, all those things.
3
SPEAKER_00
You see the EQ, even if you don t call it that, in other people that have things that you want, and you just go, alright, I ve got to emulate that and figure out what works.
3
SPEAKER_00
And unfortunately, it was a lot of stumbling around, emulating things that were actually bad, bad habits and things like that, that those same people had, because you don t know what to take out of it.
3
SPEAKER_00
You just know, the more I m like this person, the better off I will be, theoretically.
3
SPEAKER_00
And we see that a lot with our role models.
3
SPEAKER_00
We end up taking the bad with the good.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so, that s why this is kind of an interesting test, because you can see what you alone,
3
SPEAKER_00
need to work on and then use things like the strategies in the book and the strategies here at the Art of Charm and in the toolbox that we have at our boot camps, whatever, to work on those specific skillsets.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think that s pretty interesting.
3
SPEAKER_00
Jason, how did you do in relationship management?
3
SPEAKER_00
Relationship management, I got a 53.
3
SPEAKER_00
Also not super high, but again, you re a person that has friends and close relationships, so what s happening there, Travis?
3
SPEAKER_02
Well, I m looking at his profile right now, and it s a relative weakness for him, but not much of one.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s fairly even with some of his other scores.
3
SPEAKER_02
Self-management is a 57.
3
SPEAKER_02
Relationship management is a 53.
3
SPEAKER_02
Self-awareness is a little higher.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s a 60.
3
SPEAKER_02
Let s see what brought your scores down here.
3
SPEAKER_02
So when you go to MyEQ strategies, you find out what brings your scores down the most.
3
SPEAKER_02
For you, it says withdrawing in social situations.
3
SPEAKER_02
missing out on other people s non-verbal cues, and failing to spot the mood in the room.
3
SPEAKER_02
These are the three things that bring your scores down the most.
3
SPEAKER_01
Okay, Jordan, how would you respond to that?
3
SPEAKER_01
Is that an accurate assessment of me?
3
SPEAKER_01
Can you clarify that a little?
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t want to respond to the wrong thing here.
3
SPEAKER_00
I want to make sure I know what I m talking about.
3
SPEAKER_02
Well, I get the sense that Jason is probably much better one-on-one and with people that he s built rapport with than he is when he s thrust into a social situation with a bunch of people that he doesn t know.
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, I can definitely see that.
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t know that to be fact in every scenario, Jason, but I do know that one-on-one or two-on-one or whatever, Jason s completely normal, good friend, I don t see any weird standout things.
3
SPEAKER_00
Jason, have we ever been in a situation where we re in a large group together?
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t even know if it s ever happened.
3
SPEAKER_01
I think DerbyCon was pretty much one of the one times, and we had a ton of fun there.
3
SPEAKER_01
My thing is I go deep in relationships.
3
SPEAKER_01
I m not pretty much a surface guy.
3
SPEAKER_01
So all of my love interests have been long-term relationships.
3
SPEAKER_01
I usually live with my girlfriends for years.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I don t bounce around.
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t date a lot.
3
SPEAKER_01
You know, I don t do that kind of thing.
3
SPEAKER_01
But in a room, you know, I can turn it on and be just as socially aware, I think, as the next guy.
3
SPEAKER_01
And sometimes more so because I work on the show.
3
SPEAKER_01
I get a lot out of it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Maybe I just answered the wrong things on the test because I didn t have coffee that day.
3
SPEAKER_01
Do you tend to be a little hard on yourself, Jason?
3
SPEAKER_01
Me?
3
SPEAKER_01
Oh, God, no.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yes, I m extraordinarily hard on myself.
3
SPEAKER_02
I think that s a big part of your test results, too.
3
SPEAKER_02
I think you re not giving yourself credit where credit was due.
3
SPEAKER_02
So I guarantee you, if I gave you the 360 or the multirated version of the test, you would find that people are rating you higher than you rate yourself, which is a lesson in itself.
3
SPEAKER_02
and it can be a really challenging thing to get over.
3
SPEAKER_02
We find that the top performers are people who see themselves accurately, but people who over-inflate themselves are actually a little easier to develop than people who deflate themselves.
3
SPEAKER_02
Could it be a self-esteem issue?
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, or just, you know, sometimes how you were brought up.
3
SPEAKER_02
Some people are just brought up to be harder on themselves, you know, than they need to be.
3
SPEAKER_02
It s not that it s some sort of intractable thing, it s just a little harder to get over than the sort of common human tendency to think you re better than you are.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, I can understand that.
3
SPEAKER_00
I can understand why it s also harder to develop if you re harder on yourself, because it s not that you re not aware of it, it s that you re aware of it and you constantly beat yourself up or downgrade yourself or fight against yourself, whereas if you re just overvaluing yourself, you can be shown, hey look,
3
SPEAKER_00
the results don t bear out your opinion of yourself, and if your ego s ready to change, then you could do it, whereas for people who are constantly downgrading themselves, it s kind of the opposite problem.
3
SPEAKER_00
And so every time you show them, look, you can build this up, you can do this, and this is working for you, they re still gonna do that same behavior where they downgrade.
3
SPEAKER_00
You have to break that habit first, which is really tough.
3
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, having this specific of what you need to work on is key.
3
SPEAKER_02
I can write a book with this 66 emotional intelligence strategies in it, but unless you know the two or three that you need to work on most, it s really hard to get where you need to go.
3
SPEAKER_02
It takes a lot longer when you re sitting there studying other people and saying, I could try that, I could try that, then, well, I need to do these three things.
3
SPEAKER_02
It puts you on the fast track to using this stuff, and that s really our goal.
3
SPEAKER_00
Speaking of top performers, I read in one of your articles that 90% of top performers are skilled at managing their emotions in times of stress in order to remain calm and in control.
3
SPEAKER_00
That totally makes sense, especially in a corporate environment.
3
SPEAKER_00
However, as my scores will illustrate, I m not that good at managing my emotions in times of stress, however,
3
SPEAKER_00
When there s danger or something like that, I do get super focused and calm when that happens.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s guacamole problems are the ones that tend to set me off.
3
SPEAKER_00
Why is that happening?
3
SPEAKER_00
I mean, how come when there s a potential shooter at LAX, which I Facebook-lived, how come that was just like, no problem, clear head, evacuate, help others, blah, blah, blah, whereas, you know, the guacamole thing, suddenly I m off the handle.
3
SPEAKER_00
How come, it seems like it should be the other way around.
3
SPEAKER_02
I have a similar thing.
3
SPEAKER_02
You re like me, it s a lot of high energy, a little bit of ADD type, where you re constantly seeking stimulation.
3
SPEAKER_02
And when you find it, that s when you re the most comfortable.
3
SPEAKER_02
Whereas someone who is not a stimulation seeker gets in, you know, oh, there might be a shooter at LAX, they freak out, they re overstimulated.
3
SPEAKER_02
But when you re someone who s very driven, who s very motivated, who s constantly seeking stimulation, you actually feel calmer when you find it.
3
SPEAKER_00
That totally makes sense, actually, and jibes a lot with my experience.
3
SPEAKER_00
I think also, at some level, it s safer for me to blow off some steam with a guacamole problem than it is to lose my proverbial-ish when I could get shot by what ended up being a non-shooter at LAX.
3
SPEAKER_00
That s something where, I guess, at some level of my brain, I m like, it s safe to worry about this.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s not safe to not have it together when you ve gotta get the hell out of Dodge.
3
SPEAKER_02
The guacamole problem, that s a control issue.
3
SPEAKER_02
That s a little bit different because what s manifesting there is you want to be in control.
3
SPEAKER_02
You want to be able to, when I do X, I want Y to happen.
3
SPEAKER_02
I want to be able to manipulate my environment and get the stimulation that I need.
3
SPEAKER_02
So when you re getting frustrated by not being able to achieve that and then you go and the guacamole is not as good as it was the week prior, everything gets put onto the guacamole and you re pissed off when you re just pushing yourself too hard because really you know that guacamole is not that good to do.
3
SPEAKER_00
Right, exactly, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
Well, look, some people question the validity of the material, and so I want to allow you to address this.
3
SPEAKER_00
Is this stuff science-based?
3
SPEAKER_00
Because the citations are kind of hidden in the back.
3
SPEAKER_00
A lot of people who wrote negative reviews of the book obviously did not look in the back of the book for that stuff.
3
SPEAKER_00
A lot of folks are saying, look, is there science behind this?
3
SPEAKER_00
I don t know, could just be pseudoscience, could be fluff, but I would like to think that there s research
4
SPEAKER_01
behind everything we re claiming here, regardless of the fact that, of course, it does make sense, there s gotta be some brain science here.
4
SPEAKER_03
Yeah, well, I mean, myself, I have a dual PhD in clinical and industrial psychology.
4
SPEAKER_03
Doesn t mean that I use it, it s just that I have the training to do something with it.
4
SPEAKER_01
Gotcha.
4
SPEAKER_03
My co-author has a PhD in organizational psychology.
4
SPEAKER_03
One of the big things we both learned in school was how to create a scientifically valid assessment.
4
SPEAKER_03
And that certainly went into, and there was a great deal of research on tens of thousands of people, went into this assessment before it was even released.
4
SPEAKER_03
And one of the things that we did was we compared people s scores to job performance.
4
SPEAKER_03
So there s a lot of research that shows that emotional intelligence is predictive of success, including success in the workplace.
4
SPEAKER_03
But our test needed to be predictive in order for it to be scientifically valid.
4
SPEAKER_03
And it does.
4
SPEAKER_03
It explains about, even though it s a self-assessment, and some people who are a little too hard on themselves will deflate their scores, and some people who are too easy on themselves will inflate their scores, it still explains about 17% of your job performance, which doesn t sound like a lot, but it s huge for a self-assessment.
4
SPEAKER_03
It s actually a huge, huge result.
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So yeah, obviously there s a lot of science that went into this.
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I mean, a lot of our strategies are research driven and the assessment itself has been scientifically validated.
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But it s funny because we wrote another emotional intelligence book.
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That s why this is Emotional Intelligence 2.0.
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And it included the test too.
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And what we did is we surveyed our readers.
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We asked them, so we had their email addresses from taking the test.
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And we said, what do you want to see in version 2.0?
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And they said, I don t want to read through a bunch of science citations.
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I want to know what to do now.
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Show me what to do.
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Dive right into the strategies.
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So that s why it s in the back.
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And the book isn t intended to be very heady.
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It s how can I increase my emotional intelligence today?
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That s what it s all about.
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Let s wrap with some practicals for those of us that want to create a little bit more awareness and things like that.
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So we know that depending on the results of your test, you have to make sure that you re maintaining mindfulness so that you can intercept, so to speak, those emotions before you have a reaction that s not going to be helpful.
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What about this making decisions without adequately considering alternatives?
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I mean, I tend to not be super knee-jerk
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However, and I do tend to deliberate and research things like that, however, I still ended up with this result.
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What s going on here?
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Because I know a lot of people who are listening to this as well are gonna be surprised by something like that.
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We ve already talked about stress and frustration.
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Let s handle that one.
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Yeah, well, I ll give you my three silver bullets for increasing your EQ.
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They apply to your situation, and they ll be useful to, you know, the vast majority of people that listen to this aren t gonna go out and buy the book, and they won t be tested, so let me tell them something they can all use.
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The first is to clean up your sleep hygiene.
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During the day when you re awake, toxic proteins build up in your neurons.
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It s a byproduct of normal neuronal activity.
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They can only be removed when you get sufficient quality sleep, number one, and hopefully enough sleep, which is difficult for a lot of us to do.
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But the way we don t get sufficient quality sleep is, A, we take things that, quote unquote, help us sleep.
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So a Benadryl, three glasses of wine, a NyQuil, an Ambien, all these things interfere with your body s normal sleep stages.
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And they leave these toxic proteins basically in your neurons, and you end up the next day feeling groggy.
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It impairs your self-control.
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It impairs your cognitive function.
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Basically, you feel like you didn t sleep.
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And that s going to impact your decision-making.
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It s going to impact your emotional self-control.
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So the way I recommend people clean up their sleep hygiene, there s two things that most people do.
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Number one, take things that help you sleep.
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So don t do that.
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Don t take things that don t help you sleep.
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So caffeine afternoon.
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Caffeine has a really long half-life.
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It s about six hour half-life.
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So when you re drinking caffeine late in the afternoon, it impairs your sleep.
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The other thing is no blue light in the evening.
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So in the morning, sunlight is high and blue wavelength light.
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It halts melatonin production, makes you feel alert.
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Well, in the afternoon, sunlight is orange, it s red, there s no blue wavelength light, your brain produces melatonin, you re ready to go to sleep.
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But what do we do?
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We get in front of this beautiful new monitor that I was just talking about, and we bathe ourselves in blue light.
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And then we end up, even if we can fall asleep, we end up having low quality sleep.
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So those are a couple things that you or anyone can do to clean up your sleep hygiene, which has a big, big impact on your EQ.
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Definitely, we basically did an entire program on this with Dr. Bruce about sleep as well, and he went into a lot of detail that overlapped a lot with this, of course.
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The caffeine curfew, the toxic proteins in your brain during sleep was something new for me as well.
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Sleep for me, personally, actually led to a nice cascading benefit effect of helping be able to deal with stress because you re more refreshed.
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You have a lot more willpower, you re less cranky.
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There s a lot of physiology involved in that as well.
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Also, having the ability to lean on a support system has helped a lot with the stress, maintaining mindfulness, reframing perspectives, avoiding negative self-talk and things like that, and there s a lot that goes into caffeine.
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If we had more time, we could dive into all that, but that might be a different show for a different day.
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Your article on caffeine was actually quite interesting, the fact that it stays in your system for a whole day and messes with your brain s ability to get oxygen and refresh itself and things like that is just kind of depressing and enough to make you want to quit coffee or caffeine altogether and then deal with the withdrawal that comes with that, et cetera, as well.
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For people who are listening, if you can just turn it off at noon, don t have any after noon, you ll solve 80% of the problem right there.
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Well, Doctor, thank you so much for coming on the show here.
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Super interesting.
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I recommend people check out the test if they get a chance to do so, because it will highlight areas that you can work on, especially if you re super honest with yourself, that might surprise you.
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I was a little surprised by the results, both positively, maybe not negatively, but I thought I would do better in the self-awareness department than average, but I m surprised that my social awareness was so high.
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as well, so I found this pretty enlightening.
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Thank you for your time.
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Yeah, thanks for having me.
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Great big thank you to Dr. Travis.
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The book title is Emotional Intelligence 2.0.
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Of course, that ll be linked up in the show notes for this episode.
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Again, I think it s a great way to get your toes in the water, generate some self-awareness, or at least areas that you need to work on.
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I don t know, Jason, were you surprised by your results, or was it pretty much what you expected?
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Well, since it came out in the show that it turns out that I m really hard on myself, I think that the results are pretty much what I expected, but I think that I learned a lot from this and I can t wait to actually start working on this stuff.
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Yeah, should be super interesting.
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Let me know how that goes for you as well.
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And a lot of these areas that were highlighted for me, I won t say I had no idea, but I will say that maybe wasn t as cognizant as I could have been about those things and definitely looking forward to the strategies.
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involved in working on those things.
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And if you enjoyed this episode, don t forget to thank Dr. Travis on Twitter, we ll have that linked in the show notes as well.
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I m also on Twitter, at The Art of Charm, and I d love to hear from you there.
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It s pretty much the easiest way to get ahold of us as well.
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If you re looking for the show notes, tap your phone screen, they should pop up, and if you re listening on the website or something else, they re around there somewhere, I promise, in any podcast player, any app, and definitely at theartofcharm.com.
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along with our live program details.
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So if you re looking at that school that we run down in LA where people come in from all over the world, check us out at bootcamp.theartofcharm.com.
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Speaking of EQ, we ll drill you there for a week and you will see major improvements.
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And I love seeing the results that people have during this.
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We re sold out a few months in advance.
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So if you re thinking about it a little bit, get in touch with us.
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We ll get some info out to you so you can plan ahead.
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We also have the AOC Challenge at theartofcharm.com slash challenge.
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Or here in the States, you can text the word charmed, C-H-A-R-M-E-D, to 33444.
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The challenge is about improving your networking skills, improving your connection skills, improving your EQ at some level, and of course, in developing personal and professional relationships.
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We ll also email you our fundamentals toolbox that I mentioned earlier on the show.
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and I do regular videos with drills and exercises to help you move forward.
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It ll make you a better networker, a better connector, and of course, a better thinker.
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That s theartofcharm.com slash challenge or text charmed in the US to 33444.
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For full show notes for this and all previous episodes, head on over to theartofcharm.com slash podcast.
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This episode of The Art of Charm was produced by Jason DeFillippo.
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Jason Sanderson is our audio engineer and editor, and the show notes on the website are by Robert Fogarty.
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I m your host, Jordan Harbinger.
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Go ahead, tell your friends, because the greatest compliment you can give us is a referral to someone else, either in person or shared on the web.
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So stay charming and leave everything and everyone better than you found them.
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Thanks for listening to the Art of Charm.
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Get more confidence, relationship skills, life hacks, and more at theartofcharmpodcast.com.