Latest / Daily Influence / 770. The Social Symphony: Fine-Tuning Your Emotional Intelligence (rerun)

Transcript

770. The Social Symphony: Fine-Tuning Your Emotional Intelligence (rerun) · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence, your daily dose of positive influence.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Brian Smith founder of IA Business Advisors and co-author of the Iain team series.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Each day we share stories and insights to help you find be and build your influence in a positive and responsible way.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm Greg Clino, partner at IE Business Advisors, and co-host of Daily Influence.
• 0:32
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• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And make us part of your Daily routine, whether it's during your commute on a walk or an quiet moment just for you, because you're influenced matters.
• 0:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hey everybody, Brian Smith here with the IM team series and your daily influence.
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: In today, we're going to talk about social skills.
• 0:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's interesting because I never really thought much about social skills.
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: We developed them as children.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: whatever the influences of our childhood are usually help to mold and shape our social skills.
• 1:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: So becoming emotionally intelligent about them as adults can be a little difficult sometimes.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: We carry with us into adulthood a number of different biases, conscious unconscious and subconscious biases that can really influence.
• 1:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: our social skills, how we react, how we talk, how we think, and it's difficult sometimes to get out of these boxes we live in.
• 1:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And to overcome some of these life-long influences we've had.
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's a number of ways that we like to talk about helping us to build our social skills or actually improve them and help us to overcome some of these lifelong issues that we might be facing.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the first one is really for me in communication.
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: which is the foundation of social skills is listening to learn or practicing active listening.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I call it listening to learn because you can get so much out of other people's social ability, how they communicate, good and bad and indifferent.
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: focusing fully on a speaker giving them all of your attention without response and just taking it in.
• 2:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Having interest in what they say even when they're not interesting, even when you may not be interested.
• 2:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: practicing this active listening, this listening to learn, can do a lot for understanding, just life in general, and how people are social.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: You may not even agree with how they are socializing, but you can learn something from something you don't like.
• 3:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you, however, see people gravitating towards it, you might think, as you listen, well, why isn't that people gravitate towards that type of person?
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you want to be more socially accepted, you might want to listen to learn from that person, even though you're not overly interested in them or what they're saying, clarifying and reflecting on what successes for that person.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: It could be content, it could be context, it could be where you're at, but you'll never know was it content, was it context, was it delivery, if you don't listen to learn, and understand what it is they're saying, not just with their words, not just with their voice, with their body language,
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: when you listen and see how people engage with that, you can learn, that's why we call it listening to learn.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Part of being social is also understanding, having empathy for what's being said or what's going on.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: When we under contextualize and just take things out of context, we don't really get the situational awareness we need to have good understanding.
• 4:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: And when we do that,
• 4:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: it's hard to have empathy.
• 4:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's also hard to engage in a real social conversation if we take things out of context.
• 4:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: If we don't put them in the right perspective and if people's views differ, is it their views that differ or is it the context of their understanding or yours that is different.
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: you might find through engagement, through empathy, through active listening listening to learn, that you're really not that far apart, that the context with which you or they found themselves understanding where they are in that moment was different.
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And when you go through this process of understanding, you've got to be careful about responding to feelings.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: See those emotional cues.
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Don't let them take over the conversation.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Get it back to context.
• 5:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, yes, there's going to be times when you're just going to agree to disagree.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: There are differences in all of us, and sometimes we're a very far apart.
• 5:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if you see yourself there, if the context is clear and you still just don't agree, then leave the emotion somewhere else because it's okay to not agree.
• 5:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're going to talk about also exceptional issues, talking about generally social issues that one way or the other will not remarkably change your life.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: They may upset you because you got an emotional about them, but they don't remarkably change you.
• 5:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And when you find people who don't agree, practice compassion.
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe they have a reason why they have the feelings they do.
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe they have life circumstances that have moved them in that direction.
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's where empathy comes into place.
• 5:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Having the compassion to understand these things is really important.
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I see this a lot as I travel around the world in the different cultures and those different cultures have different ways that they do things, different ways that they dinner, different ways that they communicate, different ways that they negotiate.
• 6:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can go to some parts of the world and you would swear that they're about to have fist fights with each other and they're just having a conversation and it's the way they talk.
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: However, if they came to America and talked to us that way, we would be insulted, and there's a very good chance in many circumstances that that conversation could turn physical, and there was no intention of it to go there, it's just the way the culture is.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: In a world,
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: in a country like where we live here in the United States or other free-based countries.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: We are co-mingling different cultures and evolving and trying to improve all at the same time and it's amazingly difficult.
• 6:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: So develop empathy and enhance your verbal communication skills by being clear and concise.
• 6:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: We stayed at a smart communication.
• 7:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Be specific.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Communicate your thoughts and ideas clearly directly.
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Ask if there's understanding, and if there isn't, get back to the specifics.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Try to use positive language, positive phrasing, constructive feedback.
• 7:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: It helps the interaction move forward, ask questions that solicit real responses.
• 7:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Don't ask rhetorical questions that oftentimes make people feel stupid or make them think that you think they're stupid.
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: and adjust your communication style.
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you find somebody communicating a certain way, adjust a little bit, adapt, try to meet in the middle, ask for some guidance.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is there a way I could ask this question differently?
• 7:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is there information that I could provide that would help you to help me have a better understanding of where we are, where we were, or where we're going?
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And work on your non-verbal communication, also be aware of your body language.
• 7:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: use open and positive body gestures maintain eye contact.
• 8:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: If somebody says something that upsets you and you feel yourself flinch, be transparent about it, ask for clarification, share whatever the emotion is, but do it in a way to help them understand.
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: not to become defensive or argumentative.
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And again, remember those cultural differences.
• 8:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Those come into play a lot now, as we work through this commingling of the world, which is getting smaller and smaller and smaller.
• 8:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: and build your assertiveness, express your needs and feelings for communication, help people to understand how to communicate with you better, try not to be passive or aggressive, just be you, and if you think that you are passive and inherently passive or aggressive, get some help in getting back to neutral, and don't be afraid to say no, or yes, it's okay to refuse requests, and if people aren't happy with it,
• 8:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's okay for you to justify the know and it's also okay to ask why yes is so important to them in contradiction to what you feel or what you want to do.
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can be firm but you don't have to create conflict and practice conflict resolution.
• 9:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Practice handling disagreements and conflicts is commonly as you can.
• 9:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Have that emotional intelligence that self-reflection when you feel yourself triggered, take the deep breath, take a walk, count to 10, shut your eyes, share your feelings.
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Look for ways to have win-win resolution.
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: While that can't always be the case, if we are constantly looking for ways to engage with others in a way that moves us both in a direction we both want to go, then we're looking for win-win situations.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Look for social situations where you can practice these things, join a group or a club.
• 9:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you have trouble speaking, there's a great book out by a friend of mine that I've known for a very long time, Deb Fein, the fine art of small talk.
• 10:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Start there, we all talk.
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Go to Toast Masters, join a club, role play with up here and get feedback and reflect.
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Look at those instances where you've struggled with all of this.
• 10:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: You've struggled in social situations, build yourself up and put yourself back into those social situations where you've had difficulty and see how you do again.
• 10:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Get feedback,
• 10:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: reflect often, read books and articles, look for ways to educate yourself and to enhance your social skills in any way.
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I hope you've had a good listen to us today.
• 10:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: I look forward to talking to you again in the very near future.
• 10:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Remember, you can follow us on all of the social channels, Instagram,