Emotional Intelligence

Being an entrepreneur with a business to run can sometimes be overwhelming. Maintaining a business is a demanding role that requires significant time, attention and energy. Meanwhile, your entrepreneur mind has many great ideas that you don’t want to slip away. 

Creating an equilibrium is important to keep growing as a person and in your business. I hope some inside information about the concept of emotional intelligence — commonly known as EQ — will help you strive for a balance to succeed in your goals. 

Let’s say that your EQ is measured by:

how you deal with your positive and negative emotions
+
how this impacts your behavior

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how you react with others and with yourself

In my July 2020 Howler e-magazine article I outlined some ways for entrepreneurs to practice mindfulness. Using mindfulness can also help you deal with your EQ. Why? 

Let me start from the standpoint of self-awareness, which enables you to recognize how an emotion makes you react. 

Example: You have the best news of your life. At the same time, someone (an employee, client or friend) comes to you with news that is terrible but doesn’t affect you personally. 

How you react to these opposite pieces of information reflects your EQ level. That means the extent that you control your euphoric emotion in response to the excellent news preceding the terrible news. Focusing on the emotion that will impact the other person in this instance, you might want to react empathically to the bad news rather than show you are extremely happy about your own news. 

This example illustrates the leveling of your emotion to convey an empathic reaction. This behavior can have a positive result in your relationships; think of business as a basket for relations. 

Now you are wondering how to improve your EQ. I am not an expert in this area, but I will give you some tips that I learned when I became a coach.

No judgment

It is difficult for human beings not to judge or criticize. Our culture has taught us rules for what we “must do” to belong to society. But in truth, we are all different. We come from different families and have different educational backgrounds. Maybe we learned at home that the best coffee is black, while other families think espresso is the best coffee. 

So what seems best may be what you were taught as a child and related to ever since. Yet, even if we live in the same country, our beliefs might be different. 

Emotion perception

Instead of reacting to a contrary belief or behavior by concluding it is wrong, analyze the situation and work on your emotion perception. “Put yourself in the other person’s shoes” when striving to respond with empathy.

Work on yourself

Check the way you express yourself verbally and through body language. Perhaps you tend to overexpress your feelings, or not show them at all. Consider what works better in your environment, circumstances and relationships. 

Improved control of emotional intelligence can contribute to better relationships and work environments. What you think and how you show it can impact your business. Changing behavior patterns can lead to success in your business and personal relationships. When you make EQ adjustments that enhance your well-being, repeat them over time. Then your emotionally intelligent responses become routine and occur naturally.

To learn more about this fascinating topic, contact me. Visit joannablanco@vivesattva.com or Instagram: Movimiento Sattva. Your first coaching session is free, with no obligation for a second one.