Emotional Intelligence: Do You React or Respond?

You are going to define the difference between respond and react. What would you say? And it's a nuance and it's a big one. And the difference is that when someone is very emotional and someone gets caught off guard, someone gets hit with something that happens and triggers them, they tend to react to that. And most people live in this space where they're constantly reacting to life. They're reacting to someone at their job doing something they don't, like a client who calls up and gets upse, someone at home who kind of loses their temper, and then they react to that. So we're always in that kind of reaction mode. But someone with a really strong core, someone who knows who they are, they know what they believe, they know why they believe it, they know how they want to live because they're guided by a set of principles and they have core purposes that drive them and guide them in their life, they respond. And it's very different. And the difference between the reaction and the responding is that when you respond, you've already preloaded how you're going to react in a situation. You've already thought about, you know what you believe about someone quitting on you, someone screwing you over, you know, someone lying or cheating from you, you already know because you've thought about what you believe about that. You know what you believe. And because you're driven by this way of influencing yourself, because you're strong in who you are, you don't have to just react emotionally. You're able to kind of create some space, reflect, and then act. And that's the difference. Someone who's reacting just reacts. They're reacting on emotions. And typically your emotions are driving you crazy because they're temporary, they're up and down, and they don't let you think, you know, logically. And the way a strong leader will do it is they'll stop, they'll pause, they'll think about the scenario, they'll think about it in different ways, they'll see it from a different perspective, and then they take action. They won't stop and do nothing. We call that ruminating. When someone just ruminates in their head and they just kind of flush it out. And typically, what happens when people ruminate is then they catastrophize the situation. They start assuming things that aren't true. And there's nothing worse than kind of, just kind of, we say, sitting on the horns of a dilemma where you got a problem and you're not doing anything about it. So there's three kind of modes. You can be in. You have one mode that's just going to react. You have one mode, gets paralyzed and doesn't do anything. And then you have the. The mode that you want, which is going to be that you reflect on the situation and then you take action. So we call it, you know, the, you know, the reflective actionator is what we call it. And it's a powerful way of understanding how to preload how you want to act, how you want to show up when certain things that are going to happen, happen. And just having a little bit of vision and being able to see that you're going to be in tough spots and ask yourself, how do I want to show up when that happens, when someone does this to me or someone does that to me, and then preload that in, think about that. And then you have to build in an awareness that when things happen to you throughout the day to create some space, not react right away, think and then take action. It's very powerful reaction and responding. Get some clarity on that for you. Think about where you just react to things and preload all the things that you want. Sam.