Will We Ever Achieve Mastery of Emotional Intelligence? with Devin Williams

One of the biggest challenges to people really making productive strides against their emotional intelligence.

Right when we started talking self awareness at the beginning it was like, you know, you got to take a hard look in the mirror, right? Like, you know, to look at yourself.

And so many people have the tendency to say, I'm mad, that's bad, I should be happy, or I'm happy, that's good, that's, that is the number one mistake that most people make in beginning this journey. One thing I want to all the listeners I want you to understand is you're not alone. This is part of evolution. This is the reason that our species was able to evolve and survive is because we had instincts that were driven by emotion. Think of fight or flight. Before we had really developed our frontal cortex, when we saw a big bear running at us, we didn't need to rationalize anything. We just needed to know, can I win this fight or do I need to run? But over time, as our frontal cortex is developed, that's the area that allows us to rationalize emotion. We literally feel emotions before we can rationalize them. As you trace synapses through the brain, through the alligator brain into the emotional center, you literally feel it before it reaches the part of your brain where you can rationalize it. And that's why this self awareness is both scary and because it involves a lot of self inspection. It involves some hard looks in the mirror. And that's one of the reasons that people struggle to get started is because you can't get started on social awareness until, or excuse me, self awareness until you're ready to take a hard look in the mirror and agree to go make some changes. Right? So a lot of areas that we encourage people to do is things like just picking up a book, opportunities to see other perspectives of the world. Because when we look at the overall kind of Venn diagram, we have intelligence quotient, iq, how smart are you? And really what that comes down to is how quickly can I understand and retain information. And unfortunately, IQ only goes down as we get older. You drink, you smoke, you don't sleep well, all sorts of habits can hurt your iq. It's not going to get any better. Then you have your perspective or your personality. That depends on who you talk to. There's a lot of argument, but most people in medical fields agree that at some point in time personality becomes somewhat locked. And that's where you hear the old adage, people don't change, right? That's your unique. Everybody who has glasses has a unique prescription based on their Eyesight perception is that unique prescription that you have that has been cultivated by your upbringing and your surroundings. That is your unique way of perceiving the world. And then you have eq emotional intelligence. So one way to help advance your self awareness is to gain the perspective of others and then reflect that back on your own perception of the world. So world travel, reading books, watching documentaries, right. These are all great ways. A big one for me personally is meditation. And that scares a lot of people. Like, oh great, this is some Zen guy. I do eight minutes twice a day. It's not that big a deal. I'm a busy guy, Anybody can do it. And my advancements in my self awareness by taking that mindful exploration of my own self is just absolutely tremendous. And then there's tons of books which I'll make sure to talk about some of those more tactical if you want to take this to the next level. Some different resources that we can use, but those are some great places to start. Go have conversations with people that aren't in your bubble. Go experience other people's perspectives, layer them against your own. And if you really want to take it to the next level, meditation is a great way to, to start illustrating and growing that self awareness. Interesting.

So you said something here I want to call out and go a little bit deeper on, right. When we started talking self awareness at the beginning was right. You know, you got to take a hard look in the mirror, right? Like, you know, to, to look at yourself. But at the same time, one of the recommendations was actually exposing yourself to other people to improve your self awareness. So let's go a little bit deeper on that.

Right?

Because I know a lot of people that travel that are not self aware. I know a lot of people that meditate actually that aren't self aware. So I guess let me rephrase this question here. How do you connect the dots? Okay, I'm reading on people, I'm traveling, but how do I then internalize that? So it's actually impacting my self awareness.

Yes, it's a great question, kd. And overall, the pursuit of emotional intelligence is a incredibly mindful pursuit. It requires great levels of intentionality. So let's take the example that you just said. So I'm out there, I travel to Italy and I have some conversations with barista at a coffee shop. I hear a little bit about the local town. Great conversation. That could be it. Now, now introduce intentionality, right? Oh, I noticed that this person treats strangers differently than I do. I wonder why that is. Right? And then Going and being curious and asking more of that. And then the piece that I said a few times is then you have to layer that over your own self. And that is where the hard look in the mirror occurs because you have to address your biases, right? And that is very difficult. Right? We're living in this world of social injustice. Clearly people are struggling to address their own biases. And that is where the self awareness can be very challenging for some people. Because I don't know if your listeners or yourself have heard of the term cognitive dissonance, but what that is is it's a reaction similar like they've looked at people's brainwaves and synapses undergoing what we call cognitive dissonance and it mimics life or death situations. It's incredibly stressful. And all cognitive dissonances. I believe X I'm presented with why and the gap between my belief and what I'm being presented makes me really uncomfortable. And that is that cognitive dissonance is why the self awareness is so difficult for many people, because they have to admit some culpability. They have to admit that they have room to grow. And some of us don't have egos that allow for that. And that can be very challenging to overcome.

And that's a great call out too on biases because it's one of those things where it's actually the denial of biases that prevent us from fixing them. And people hear that word like, well, I don't have biases. But just by saying that means you'll never improve because you're not willing to accept that we all have biases. We all have it. And to your point earlier too, I don't know if people caught this. Our biases happen at an emotional level, not at a rational level. They happen without us even knowing they happen. One of the most frightening books I think I've read in my life was called Behave the Biology of Humans at Their Best and Their Worst. It's a heavy read for anyone reading, but it talks about like these biases again at a like a chemical level. You see my face and your brain fires differently than seeing someone else's face that looks like yours. Not rationally, at an emotional and like at a synapse level. And it's just, it's scary actually when you think about it. But knowing that is actually the first step to make a change. Where I want to go with the next point, then here is like, okay, so I'm looking in the mirror. What should I be looking for? Right? Like, because Again, people like, they look all the time, they go, you know what? I'm good. I'm so self aware. You know what my EQ is? I'm probably the most EQ est person and the most humblest person ever, right? So when I'm looking in this mirror, if I'm truly trying to up my self awareness, what should I be looking for?

For. Yeah, it's another great question, kd. And that hubris that you just mentioned is one of the biggest challenges to people really making productive strides against their emotional intelligence. Right? And some of us have been so wound up in our upbringing by really negative things that that lens that I was talking about earlier can be very difficult to break through. So here's something I want all the listeners to remember. There is no such thing as a good or a bad emotion. It just is. Being happy doesn't mean that's good. There are plenty of scenarios that we can all think of where being happy is not an appropriate emotional response to the situation, Right? And so many people have the tendency to say, I'm mad, that's bad, I should be happy, or I'm happy, that's good. That is the number one mistake that most people make in beginning this journey.