Emotional Intelligence Exploration

Learning Competencies

By the end of this exploration, you should be able to:

• Describe the difference between EQ and IQ
• Describe why EQ is important and how it is relevant to you
• Engage and practice mindfulness
• Engage and practice conscious listening

Summary

Your self-knowledge can have a significant determination on all aspects of your life. It greatly affects the way you relate to yourself and others. The Human Skills curriculum develops your self-knowledge through working on key emotional intelligence skills. This will benefit both your learning journey and your employability.

Read through all of the content. The tasks to complete at the end include:

1. Research and discuss EQ and IQ
2. Research and practice mindfulness
3. Partner with someone in your cohort and practice conscious listening (listening and Looping)

Time Box

Activity	Time
Read, research, explore	2 hours
Practice	1 hour

Why learn about Emotional Intelligence?

The world is a changeable, complex, uncertain, and ambiguous place.

• Changeable: Change happens rapidly and on a large scale
• Uncertain: The future cannot be predicted with precision
• Complex: Challenges are complicated by many factors
• Ambiguous: Little clarity on both problems and solutions

And being human is tough. We've got all these complexities in life - pressures of work, pressures of being at Dev Academy. We're learning a huge amount of stuff really quickly... and we're human with complex minds and complex emotions!

So, how can we work well in this complex world?

The Proposition

Cultivating emotional intelligence is one way of helping us in this complex world, helping us as we study at Dev Academy, and helping us work in the wider world.

One definition of Emotional Intelligence is:

"The ability to monitor one’s own and other’s feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.” - Salovey and Mayer 1990

We are going to explore three steps of Emotional Intelligence:

1. Mindfulness
2. Self knowledge and Mastery
3. Creating Useful Mental Habits

Three steps of Emotional Intelligence

1. The Practice of Mindfulness

Mindfulness practice is helpful in all aspects of life. It leads us to better understand and relate to ourselves and the world. Regular mindfulness practice improves attention. It can also cultivate a greater sense of compassion for ourselves and others. The practice of mindfulness can teach us to be less reactive. This helps us make wiser choices when faced with challenging situations.

2. Self-Knowledge and Self-Mastery

We can see what's going on for us internally with an attentive mind. We grow more knowledge of who we are, how we are and how we engage in any particular situation. From knowledge comes mastery, e.g. "Oh, I know what happens when I get angry. I know the intensity of it and how to regulate it."

3. Creating Useful Mental Habits

What would it be like if every time I had a negative, critical thought (e.g. "I can't do a difficult task") if I could defend against it and see both my strengths and my weaknesses?

What would it be like if every time I walked into a room of people I don't know, my immediate mental habit was, "Oh, I wish everyone well in this room"?

We can train our minds to develop habits to defend against the superego (the critical, judging mind).

Three Benefits of Increasing your EQ

You might be thinking: "So what? I'm here to code. I'm not here for this fluffy stuff". However, developing your EQ will have significant benefits to your ability to learn, perform and get hired.

Three primary benefits of strengthening EQ:

1. Stellar Performance
2. Outstanding Leadership
3. Happiness

Stellar Performance

Daniel Goldman, one of the 'founders of the era of Emotional Intelligence', cites studies that find emotional intelligence twice as important as IQ in one's work environment. And that the higher up the ladder you go, the more critical it becomes - meaning that the differentiating factor among people who are at a reasonably high level at a company is not IQ, but EQ.

What does Stellar Performance look like in the tech world?

Research shows six factors distinguish top performers from average performers within the tech sector. Note how 4/6 factors pertain to EQ, not IQ.

• Achievement drive and standards
• Influence
• Conceptual Thinking
• Analytical Ability
• Initiative
• Self-Confidence

Outstanding Leadership

“For those in leadership positions, emotional intelligence skills account for close to 90 per cent of what distinguishes outstanding leaders from those judged as average.” Kemper 1999

The emotional intelligence piece shows up once you get to the higher levels, even in more formal workplaces like the Navy.

Happiness

“A deep sense of flourishing that arises from an exceptionally healthy mind… not a mere pleasurable feeling, a fleeting emotion, or a mood, but an optimal state of being.” Matthieu Ricard

Can you bring to mind a time when you felt like you were in an optimal state of being? Where your mind was bright and clear, and there was a sense of capability? When weren't you being trashed by your internal judge or superego? A sense of stability and grounding? Aware of your strengths and limitations? An optimal state of being! If we want one word for what we're aiming for here, it's "optimal".

How can we optimally be in the world? At school, at home? What does it mean to be optimal?

How do we Cultivate Emotional Intelligence?

Neuroplasticity: Previously, it was thought that the brain was pretty static once we stopped growing. But what we know now is that what we think, do, and pay attention to changes the structure and function of the brain.

In the same way that we train the muscles in our body, we can train and change our brain.

Emotional Intelligence is a collection of skills: Emotional Intelligence is not something you are born with. It is something that we learn. Some of us were fortunate enough to have people around us when we were kids who were fairly emotionally astute, and we were able to learn from them. Those of us who weren't blessed with that or with varying degrees of it can train in it.

Skills are trainable: As with any skill, we can train our Emotional Intelligence skills. If you think you have low EQ, it's not the end of the world - with a bit of discipline and practice, you can improve your skills.

How do we train?

We're going to introduce three practices:

1. Mindfulness practice
2. Conscious listening
3. Journaling

Mindfulness/Meditation Practice

Mindfulness is the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to things as they are. ~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

Meditation refers to a family of mental training practices that are designed to familiarize the practitioner with specific types of mental processes. ~ Brefczynski-Lewis, 2007

Meditative practices are found in spiritual traditions ranging from Christianity to Hinduism. We'll be practicing mindfulness, a secular form of meditation based on Buddhist teachings. Its many benefits have been verified by a growing body of scientific research.

Mindfulness helps us cultivate focus and attention. This is a valuable asset to have during the challenges we set at Dev Academy. But mindfulness can also help us pay better attention to what's going on inside. This awareness can help us take better care of ourselves as we embark on this difficult journey.

There is a misconception that the goal of mindfulness (or meditation) is to achieve a calm, clear, and alert mind. Think of these as nice side effects of the practice. The only real "goal" is to notice, without judgement, whatever is here in each present moment. From this awareness and acceptance of things as they are right now, we are better able to make sound decisions.

The key aspect of being attentive to our experience is to do so non-judgmentally. That is to simply notice what you are experiencing, without criticisms, judgments, or evaluations. Just notice.

There is a huge difference between being angry and noticing that you are experiencing anger. When we are angry we tend to lash out at ourselves and others. We lose control. But what if we can learn to just notice anger when it arises? We can then experience its associated body sensations, emotions, and thoughts without having an unconscious reaction to them. This is one of the superpowers that mindfulness can teach us. The same is true for any state of being. If we notice we are distracted instead of being distracted, we can make a change to get back on track.

Conscious Listening

Rather than pay attention to the breath as we do in mindfulness, we pay attention to what someone else is saying.

You listen to someone for some time, without speaking yourself. It is simple but transformational.

This skill that we're introducing can be helpful for a couple of reasons. First, you can better receive and absorb information if you're not trying to 'jump in' or attempting to work out the next step. The other great thing is that the other person is much more likely to feel met and more likely to feel heard. Think, "OK, I'm just going to receive what you're telling me, what you're saying, how you're appearing".

Introducing Conscious (Mindful) Listening:

We introduce mindful listening through a listening and looping exercise, which we will practice throughout foundations and Bootcamp. In this sprint, we ask you to pair with someone in your cohort and do some listening and looping!

The format is like this:

• Meet together in a pair. The object of your attention is the other person.
• Person A will describe a topic for 2 mins.
• Person B mindfully listens for 2 mins in silence (nodding and smiling are fine, but no verbal interruptions)
• Person B then loops back what they heard Person A say for 2 mins.

Looping:

After Person A has finished speaking, Person B loops back what they heard Person A say. In one sense, it's a way of checking out whether you genuinely heard and listened to what the other person said. Another piece of it is to clarify and come to an agreement.

The important part is that Person B is repeating what they heard. Not your advice, not your recognition. But simply what you heard Person A say.

If, when hearing it looped back, Person A is like, "oh actually, I want to add something or change something", then person A can offer clarifications. Person B then loops back those clarifications until both parties agree that what was said was accurately heard.

Keep in mind - it's not a competition to see what you can and can't remember. It is more to see if you can get the gist of what was going on and the experience's quality.

The two forms of Looping:

1. What I heard you say was...
2. What I heard you feel was...

In some instances, it is good to practice "What I heard you feel was ...". It is not very good English, but it's trying to encourage the listener to read between the lines of what was going on rather than just retelling the story's content. What is the subtext of their feelings?

During foundations, we'll focus on the first loop, "What I heard you say..."

Journaling

There has been a lot of research over 50 years of the impact of writing down one's 'whatever'.

We use reflections in place of journaling during foundations, as the two service a similar function. As your learning journey continues through Bootcamp, we'll introduce journaling as basically a brain dump. So you start writing for a prompt, and you don't stop.

Journaling is:

• Brain dump
• Self-discovery
• Not public

Journal Prompts:

• What I'm feeling right now is ...
• When I feel understood I ...
• What I care about is ...

The rule is don't stop!

So if you run out of things to say, you just write, "I've run out of things to say - I don't know what to say... this is boring... I hate it when I'm bored". Whatever comes. Over time, you'll find that cognitions and emotions become easier to identify and write about. And through writing about them, writers can develop greater awareness of the positive benefits of stressful events.

The foremost reason (of journaling) is disclosure. Psychologists agree that avoiding or inhibiting unpleasant emotions or suppressing your thoughts makes your body tense, mood negative, and cognition impaired. But if you access, express, and process those blocked-up emotions, you’ll feel better in all of the ways. For the same reason that talking about your breakup with your best friend makes you feel better, journaling about getting fired lets you process it.

Human Skills tasks

1. Research EQ and IQ - Keep your answers on a document that you will later turn into a blog post.

   • What is Emotional Intelligence?
   • How is EQ different to IQ?
   • Why is EQ important?

2. Practice focusing your attention and commit it to habit. We're going to ask you to use this form of training every day.

   • Visit the Getting Started page at UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center and watch the introductory videos. You may also access this content on iOS or Android

   • We would like you to practice mindfulness daily throughout the remainder of Foundations. It is also something we do will do as a group during the bootcamp. Choose a time that you can repeat each day (e.g. After breakfast) AS WELL AS at the beginning of every engagement with the Dev Academy curriculum and experience.

   • Practice.

     • Using the website or the mobile app, take time now to engage with the practice. Choose any of the meditations on the website or on the app. You might start with shorter ones and work your way up to the longer periods of time. Meditations are available in multiple languages.
     • If you prefer to practice in silence, the apps feature a timer, or just use an alarm on your phone or your watch.

   • Set your intention by naming when you will commit to practicing mindfulness. You're on a learning journey with us, just as countless others have gone before you. This means we've had a fair amount of experience seeing what has significant impacts on our student's ability to respond, grow, and learn in this challenging environment. Lean in and trust that this is a skill that will take you far in life and in your career. Even Google Engineers do it (see below).

   • Reflect. In the my-reflections-sprint-3 file, answer the questions under the Mindfulnessheading.

3. Listening and Looping

   • Partner up with someone in your cohort
   • Spend 2 minutes each, listening and looping
   • Reflect

   The Prompt: Talk about a time in the last sprint when something came up that you found difficult/challenging.

   1. Organise to pair with someone in your cohort or accountability group. If you end up pairing with more than one person, then great - the more you practice, the better you get.

   2. Set a timer for 2 minutes

   3. Person A: Using the prompt, talk until the timer ends.

   4. Person B: Practice mindful listening. You'll listen attentively, the same way you pay attention to your breath. You're going to pay attention to your partner and just be awake to what's happening. Be awake to what's going on.

   5. After 2 minutes is up, Person B will loop back what you heard. Person A can then add little bits in or agree. Keep looping until you agree that what was said has been looped back.

   6. Using the reflection file, answer the questions under Listening and Looping. Stage, commit and push!

Additional Resources

VeryWellMind - IQ or EQ: Which One Is More Important? Traditional Intelligence vs. Emotional Intelligence.

Search Inside Yourself - What began as a mindful leadership initiative within Google has spread to over 30 countries and 100 cities around the world.

Developed at Google by leading experts in neuroscience, business, and psychology, Search Inside yourself teaches you "practical mindful leadership and emotional intelligence tools to bring out your best."

Interest outside Google was so great that the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute (SIYLI) was established in 2012 as an independent nonprofit organization. Since then, Search Inside Yourself has become a globally recognized program, and SIYLI continues to work with Google and other corporate, nonprofit, and government organizations worldwide.