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Emotional Intelligence: Moving from Knowledge to Action (January 2004)

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.
-Eleanor Roosevelt

Swallowing our truth. Reacting out of fear. Blowing up. Making irrational decisions based on situations rather than desired outcomes. These behaviours, all described by Dr. JP Pawliw-Fry, co-director for the Institute of Health & Human potential, was a great way to kick off the new year with his presentation entitled, Emotional Intelligence - from knowledge to action, which focused on ways to increase emotional intelligence or EQ.

Dr. Pawliw-Fry described how our emotions drive our behaviour, performance and leadership and how, through respect, understanding and responsibility we can face our fears and thus be more effective bosses, leaders, parents, husbands, and wives.

"When we feel put down, let down or shut down", he said, "our amygdala, the source of our emotional memory, literally hijacks the higher centres of our brain and stops complex thought." The result? We either blow up in self-defence or worse, we swallow our truth-Either way, it leads to irrational behaviour, poor relationships, and little growth.

Bu the good news is everyone can become personal leaders or coaches and stop the emotional hijack through examples like the 3Ls coaching method.

Listen: Asking questions in a genuine manner stimulates the higher brain centres to calm the amygdala.

Label: Understanding the emotion and empathizing with the person will help them find their voice. The person being highjacked can then become self-aware and label their emotion rationally.

Limit: Once the person has labelled the emotion, they can find self-generated solutions or options like: "What could I have done differently?"

According to Pawliw-Fry, "A good coach is empathetic and can tune into what other people are feeling and thinking-they are capable of stepping outside themselves and give people what they need. Great coaches look at the emotion that drives behaviour, not the behaviour alone."

By Linda Miller
Small Dog Communications

To learn more about this speaker, go to his website : www.ihhp.com

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