Feelings - How they help us perform better

This is episode 247 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast. This is Kari Schneider and I have another Monday monthly topic for you. I always bring these topics because they're pertinent to our coaching membership and when we dive deep into them, we want to provide this content for you to benefit from. So this topic is one of the ones that I think is one of the most underrated topics when it comes to business life and overall performance. And it is this Feelings. Feelings and how they help us perform better. So there you have it. I'm going to say this as a statement. I want you to really hear it. Feelings and really understanding them help us perform better. I know you think, no, they help me perform poorly because I can't stand it when I'm emotionally bogged down. Well, that is true as well. So we want to be able to utilize our feelings, our emotional states in order to produce the perhaps performance or productivity or connections that will help our lives. So in order to really narrow this down, I am going to share with you three of the things that I utilize in consulting leadership for businesses and it's productivity, performance and personal. Personable. I should say personable because these three Ps end up being the one of the three things is typically the complaint that I get from a leader when something's not working. One of those is going poorly. Someone's performance and their KPIs, someone's productivity or their personableness, their personable ability. If that's a word, please, please check me on that. Is that a word? Whether they are personable or not, whether they can communicate, connect with others, work with others, collaborate with others in the workplace. So can you be productive? Ultimately, can you get things done? Do you do what you say you will do and you've indicated it will be done by a certain date, you have it done by that date. That's this. Productivity. But then the performance, the KPIs tend to be a bigger thing and it's can you be productive over time in multiple categories or areas? Can you continue to increase your productivity while balancing other areas of productivity? Typically this. We see this in business or in family lives or with anyone who starts to expand their role in the world. So if someone's new to a role in the workplace, chances are they are very focused on one or two main things. And then over time, they are able to juggle multiple things and be productive in multiple areas and balance them all by knowing which takes the priority over something else. Then thirdly, the personable. Can you get, can you communicate and work with others along the way? Do you communicate, collaborate, connect for better ideas, better outcomes, and an increased quality of work environment? Can you really make a difference in that work environment overall? And those things, the productivity, the performance, and the personable are key for a work environment that is highly, highly functional. Now, I don't want to just point to the work environment, because this podcast is not just about your performance in your career or your sport or your business, your entrepreneurship. It's about your life. So we're here to optimize your leadership in life and leadership in life and work. So this may be the case for the home life as well. So when we look at feelings in being able to perform better, I'm going to cite a couple of experts in this area because they're the ones that have really defined emotional intelligence. And one of them is Daniel Goleman, and he writes the book Emotional why It Can Matter More than iq. And he defines emotional intelligence as the ability to recognize, understand and manage our own emotions and to recognize, understand and influence the emotions of others. So notice it's this self awareness, but also this ability to influence others, other people's emotions. Another couple of authors and researchers, Travis Bradbury and Jean Greaves, they have a book called The Emotional Intelligence 2.0. Define emotional intelligence. Similarly, the ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others, but also the ability to use this awareness to manage your behavior and relationships. So their premise is more along the managing yourself, not necessarily trying to create behavior or influence other people. And other psychologists also find the ability to perceive emotions, access and generate emotions so as to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional knowledge and be able to regulate these emotions to promote emotional and intellectual growth. So all of these point to the awareness and the management as well as the creation and influence. So awareness and management on ourselves, awareness and management, perhaps on other people, but also the creation of our own emotional states. So when I look at this and I narrow down productivity, that 1p what emotions contribute the most to productivity? If you think of yourself, what emotional states are you in and you're feeling the most productive when you when most people feel enthusiasm or optimism or focus or confidence or especially determination, even inspiration, these are emotions and emotional states that really contribute to productivity and action. An actionable place that has you really doing the things, actioning the things that you want to get done. So it's the emotional state that contributes to the actions. When we realize that our emotional state is a massive contributor to our actions, then it is very. It's very inspiring for us to manage or become aware of our emotional states. When we think we're constantly a doer or a thinker and not a fear feeler, then we tend to avoid emotional states. But when we can open our minds and open our awareness to see that how we feel is really driving what we're going to do next. In fact, in business and in life, we tend to be doing things or structuring our entire lives based on how we want to feel. I want you to really let that sink in. We are structuring and taking action in the entirety of our lives based on how we want to feel. We do things because we think that it's going to have us feel a certain way. We go on vacation because we want to feel relaxed. We go on vacation to that certain place because we want to feel relaxed and inspired. We go on vacation with certain people because we want to feel relaxed, inspired, and connected. So we are typically taking actions because we're trying to fulfill a feeling that we feel we don't have right now. On the flip side, we're often taking a bunch of actions because we don't want to feel certain ways that we might have felt in the past or we might be socialized or even programmed by past experiences to avoid. So we might not want to feel lazy, we might not want to feel unproductive. We may not want to feel like we are alone or disconnected. So if we are taking actions to avoid certain feelings and we are taking actions to feel feelings we want to feel, then I hope this really highlights how much of our lives are being driven by emotions. And that is why I wanted this topic to be really clear. Feelings, how they help us perform better. Because they do when we are generating the emotional states that can help us perform better. So what might those emotional states be? Like I said, the ones that contribute to productivity the most. Enthusiasm, determination, inspiration, focus, optimism. Confidence. Confidence is a massive one. Those are ones that really engage us into greater productivity. How about performance emotions like confidence? Again, perhaps determination and optimism focus very similar to productivity and even passion. Passion can be another one that could add to that. However, when we get to personable, that third P that I mentioned, what about. What about how we. How we emote or how we feel to increase the likelihood of connection? And this plays a massive role when you think of culture in the workplace. Culture in the workplace is that combination of the human connection with all of that performance and productivity that might be the mission of the company. So if there's this performance, this productivity, but what about the human connection? The human connection within the workplace or if it's at home within the family and the human connection from that entity, so maybe the workplace to the rest of the world, how that connection is made with the rest of the world and if it was with our family, how our connection is within our family group, but then with from our family group to the rest of the world, that is really where culture comes into place. And so how do we create the emotions or what are the emotions that contribute the most to connection? And their emotions such as empathy, compassion, emotions like gratitude or having a really positive attitude, vulnerability, joy, Joy and blissful, having these amazing pleasurable experiences, all of those things can be part of human connection with other humans, connecting with other co workers, connecting with other family members. And then when we bring those all together, we can create a high performing culture, a high performing space where performance and connection meet. And that's why I place this context for you in hopefully in your mind here. I place this context or create this context so that for those of you that are high achievers, for those of you that may not be as inclined to emotionally connect with yourself or connect with your own emotions or emotionally connect with others, I hope you can see in this context how valuable it is for performance and for culture. Because most high achievers really understand how important culture is, how important high performance is for outcomes and achievement. And when you really understand that, you can feel that there's an emotional aspect as well, that chances are you've been looking to achieve in order to feel a certain way, you've been looking to achieve to avoid feeling a certain way. So now instead of having this unintentional or this unconscious way of actioning and achieving in the world, now let's make it conscious, let's make it real, let's create feelings, emotional states that are going to make our performance better in the world. Because when we do that, then we are intentionally creating our lives around us. So how do we do that? I'm going to give you a few steps so that you can come away from this with exact step by step. How do I do this? So number one, determine that KPI, that key performance indicator that you want, maybe that is having the house clean, maybe it is a key project that needs to be complete at in the workplace, but determine what that outcome is. What is that key thing knowing when that thing is done, that that going to equal performance in your mind. So determine what that outcome is. Number two, decide what emotional state will contribute the most for that performance. So if you look at, for instance, I'll give you the example of this podcast. This is something that I produce, this is something that I have standards of performance around. There are also metrics surrounding this podcast and in order for me to actually create the content and get into an emotional space to produce the kind of outcome that I want, then I have to determine what that emotional space is. So if I want the outcome of an energetic and a content rich, information based, fact based podcast for you, then if I'm in an emotional state of feeling disconnected, then I'm not able to produce that content, let alone produce the actual recording that is going to be effective. If I'm in an emotional state of feeling sad, that's another space that's very challenging for me to produce the outcome that I want. However, if I'm in an emotional state of feeling confident, if I'm feeling inspired, if I am feeling optimistic, if I'm feeling passionate about something, which I think if you're listening in, you can feel my passion about this topic because I see it over and over of how emotional states can really affect leaders. So you feel my passion, and if I'm bringing that passion as the emotional state state, then I'm going to be far more likely to have the outcome that I want when it comes to the production of the podcast. So number two is deciding what emotional state will contribute the most to that performance. So my emotional state might be passion or focus as my best emotional state for this particular podcast. And then number three, what would I need to believe in order to feel that passion or that confidence? Or maybe for you it's enthusiasm or maybe it's focus, whatever you need for your outcome. But for me, I gave the example of passion and confidence. If I want to feel passion, what would I need to believe? Well, in this environment, in this context, I would need to believe that this information is going to make a difference for the leaders that I serve. If I believe, if I'm thinking that this information is going to make a difference for the leaders that I serve, that thought can help me generate the emotional space, the emotional state of passion. If I want to generate confidence, I ask myself, what would I need to believe in order to feel confident? I would need to believe that this information will change people's lives. And that doesn't generate as much confidence. What generates more confidence for me is that I've seen it change people's lives over and over again. I've seen it change. I've seen this type of information, these key distinctions change people's lives and their performance countless times. And when I think that thought, I feel confident in the delivery because I've helped make it happen countless times. And that really generates the confidence when I really settle into the belief system and the thought pattern of I've helped countless people, I've helped hundreds of people change their leadership, change their lives via them getting more in touch with their own feelings and then taking action from those emotional states. And that generates massive confidence for me. So when, what do you need to believe in order to feel whatever the emotion is that's going to help you be the most performance based or productive in that outcome that you want? And number four, use that thought with supporting thoughts or supporting actions to generate the emotional state that you need. If you think of a high performer or a high performance athlete, they do the same rituals over and over and over because it works. They become uber practiced in it. And that's what the example I gave was. What do I need to believe? Well, I need to believe that I've done this countless times, I've seen the result countless times and that generates the confidence. And then number five I alluded to already, which is practice it. It's not just a one thought or one action that's going to help you generate that, that emotional state. It's going to be the original, the ritual, the repetition of it. That is what helps you create that emotional state on cue. But if you have never done it before, it's going to feel a little rusty, it's going to feel a little clunky. If you've done it thousands of times, you can immediately get in that state. And anything that you've practiced, it comes fluidly for you. I can only imagine your particular area that you know you can repeat over and over. Now unfortunately, some of us have practiced certain emotional states over and over that contribute to things that we don't want. We might have practiced self doubt over and over again. And the thoughts that contribute to self doubt, like I don't think I can do this, they won't believe in me. How am I going to get this done by the deadline? I don't think I can. This is impossible. Those thought patterns lead to emotional states that can be so practiced unconsciously that we don't realize that that it is impairing our productivity and the performance that we want. And this is why I really want to hammer home for you that the emotional states, those feelings are really, really important to grasp and be able to be aware of and then manage. So we can either create them or disintegrate them based on managing our own mind and managing our own actions. That is really the most important part for performing better is that emotional state and being able to manage it. The EQ that I had alluded to before. So I'm going to repeat these five steps so that you can put them in practice and have a step by step to do exactly what you need to do in order to perform better by using your emotional states, by becoming more emotionally aware, emotionally intelligent. Number one, determine what the key outcomes or performance indicators that are that you want exactly what they are. Get very specific. Number two, decide what emotional state will contribute the most to that performance or outcome. What emotional state is it? And there are countless of them. I hope that you are not stuck on sad, mad, glad if those are the only three sad, mad glad that you're going with. I would invite you to expand your emotional repertoire, your emotional language. Number three, what do you need to believe in order to feel whatever that emotional state is that's going to help you? Whether it's enthusiastic, confidence, optimistic, focused, whatever it is for you. What do you need to believe in order to feel that that is your thought and you can generate that thought at any time. You can even have that thought so rehearsed that you can grab it whenever you need it. That's what's going to help your repetition in your practice. Number four, use that thought with supporting thoughts. So maybe you've got a handful of thoughts that support that same emotional state, supporting thoughts or actions even to generate the emotional state you need. So have a couple of actions, a couple of thoughts in your back pocket to generate confidence whenever you need confidence, whenever, wherever, but specifically in this, step by step for the specific outcome that you want to generate. And then number five, practice it. It's not just one thought, it's not just one thing. Practice being able to do this in different contexts, different outcomes, different environments with different people. Because we all know that being around certain people might be easy to generate certain emotional states. And being around another person might be very challenging in generating that emotional state. So practiced in different environments so that you can really refine this skill. The skill of generating the emotions that you want is magical for producing the outcomes that you want. This is an intelligence. This is a skill that can be repeated and practiced. So I invite you to start practicing it. Those five steps are something that are they are steps that are simple and complex all at once. So when you start, just start with making it as simple as possible. It can be a productive task like getting the dishes done or tackling 10 key emails. Whatever it is, start with something simple. But practice these steps because once you flex that muscle and you know how to flex that muscle, it's like riding a bike. Just start applying it in a different environment, applying it in a different environment because you know how to do it. Do it over and over again. This is how the top leaders in the world consistently perform. This is how the top athletes in the world consistently perform. This is how you can consistently perform in the ways that you want to intentionally. Instead of allowing patterns that we are unconscious to drive our actions, now we want to be aware of those feelings so we can create what we want to feel in order to get our best outcomes. So there you have it folks. If this supports you in you living your best and a most empowered life, then give us some feedback. Pop us a five star review if this supports you and please share with other people who you think can benefit from our serving you. So have a wonderful rest of your day and week. Keep empowering yourself and others. If you enjoy listening to the Empowered Team Podcast, you'll love being on the Empowered Team. The Empowered Team is our group coaching and accountability program where we provide the tools, skills and community for you to grow your self mastery as a leader and optimize your results alongside other leaders. The Empowered Team runs year round to learn more about our leadership consulting for business and our Empowered Team Group coaching. Head to www.theempowered.ca empowered learn more. That's www.empowered learn-more. We can't wait for you to join us. Let's go.