Understanding emotional intelligence is a core ability for anyone involved in personal development. Coaches and other helping individuals become more self-aware and more effective in their personal and professional lives can find resources here. If you are looking for coaching or workshops using emotional intelligence, contact me.
Felt Any Good Thoughts Lately?
The body-brain connection.
What emotions are driving your thinking? From Time Magazine's recent issue on our brain (see links) to "What the Bleep ..." we are learning more and more about how to set up our day - create a path for clear thinking and greater creativity - through paying attention to our feelings. David Hawkins uses quantum physics to make his point that our feelings - expressed as vibrational levels - affect our well-being. Robert Cooper tells us that we're ignoring 90% of our intelligence when we rely solely on the brain in our head, ignoring the heart (feelings) and the gut (intuition).
The Emotionally Intelligent Coach
The Blog
Musings, ideas and questions about emotional intelligence and coaching.
Fetching RSS feed... please stand byHappiness, Productivity and Hope
A chicken and egg question
Happiness and productivity? What's the connection? So much of our coaching seems to center around negative emotions. Clients come to us because they're feeling some disconnect or pain. In fact, going for the pain has become a popular starting point for engaging with clients.
Where's the joy? Where's the hope? The passion? Sometimes, we forget that we can take an appreciative stance in our coaching. Start with the good. There's some small good in even the worst job. Use that to build a balanced perspective. Letting go of the burden of being unhappy all the time leaves room for creativity, productivity, exploration and renewed interest or new beginnings.
Where's the joy? Where's the hope? The passion? Sometimes, we forget that we can take an appreciative stance in our coaching. Start with the good. There's some small good in even the worst job. Use that to build a balanced perspective. Letting go of the burden of being unhappy all the time leaves room for creativity, productivity, exploration and renewed interest or new beginnings.
Shadow and Light - Balanced Emotions
If you're never sad, will you know you're happy?
At the recent Academy of Management conference, I heard a number of presentations suggesting that we may have gone too far in pursuit of happiness. I'm a beleiver in positive psychology, appreciative inquiry, attraction, and any of the current fields of study that move us away from accentuating the negative. But perhaps the pendulum has swung a bit too far.
Recently, I've started to see consultants veer away from client discussions that are negative. Christine Oliver, author of Reflexive Inquiry, (http://www.christineoliver.net/) talks about consultants censoring discussions by ignoring the unpleasant. Some coaches also look to put a positive spin on everything - "can you see the perfection in that?"
No, I'm not advocating wallowing in misery or having a perpetual pity party. Rather, I'm hopeful about an emerging return to a balanced perspective. Use the shadow to inform the light. Mine the bad stuff for ways to make the good better.
When we encourage our clients to take the time to reflect - and to view a situation from all perspectives - we can help them experience real growth.
Recently, I've started to see consultants veer away from client discussions that are negative. Christine Oliver, author of Reflexive Inquiry, (http://www.christineoliver.net/) talks about consultants censoring discussions by ignoring the unpleasant. Some coaches also look to put a positive spin on everything - "can you see the perfection in that?"
No, I'm not advocating wallowing in misery or having a perpetual pity party. Rather, I'm hopeful about an emerging return to a balanced perspective. Use the shadow to inform the light. Mine the bad stuff for ways to make the good better.
When we encourage our clients to take the time to reflect - and to view a situation from all perspectives - we can help them experience real growth.
Emotional Intelligence and Related Readings
- Emotional Intelligence Consortium: Research on Emotions and Emotional Intelligence
- Emotional Intelligence Consortium - Dedicated to research on emotions and emotional intelligence in the workplace, this site provides free information and cutting edge research on emotions and emotional intelligence in organizations. Visitors can download the latest research findings, learn of train
- How to Sharpen Your Mind
- Time on Your Mind
- Customer Service Reader
- This is the place to learn everything you ever wanted to know about customer service.
- Coaching Hits TODAY!
- This is the article on the Today show's website to go with their April 5, 2006 segment on Life Coaching.
- EI, NLP and Coaching
- This is a place where you can find information and practical resources to develop Emotional Intelligence (also called "EI" or "EQ") using NLP and other disciplines.
Find out why NLP provides the practical "toolkit" for improving your EQ - and start using this knowledge immediately with our free tips. You can also order books, CDs and audio downloads and invest in our courses in NLP and coaching. - EQ at Work
- ...Transforming leadership, work and life through the development of emotional intelligence
- EI and Job Interviews
- The Top 10 Ways to Use Your Emotional Intelligence to Prepare for a Job Interview
- Susan R. Meyer, Coaching and Consulting
- Expert coaching and consulting services underscored by emotional intelligence competencies.
- Courage as a Skill
- Courage in business, the author has found, seldom resembles the heroic impulsiveness that sometimes surfaces in life-or-death situations. Rather, it is a special kind of calculated risk taking, learned and refined over time. Taking an intelligent gamble requires an understanding of what she calls the "courage calculation": six discrete decision-making processes that make success more likely while averting rash or unproductive behavior. These include setting attainable goals, tipping the power balance in your favor, weighing risks against benefits, and developing contingency plans.
Perspectives
Insights of an Executive Shadow Coach.
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Related Lenses
More about EI, Leadership and Coaching
- Spirit at Work
- I'm on a journey ... a journey of spirit and a journey of business. That journey (so far) has led me to create my own Life Purpose and Career Coaching business because I believe so strongly in the opportunity to enhance employee engagement by connecting with spirit. Let's examine the possibilities o
- Emotional Intelligence At Work
- Emotional intelligence (EQ) is most simply described as capabilities that enable you to perceive, understand and use emotions to more effectively manage yourself and relate with and positively influence others.This lens is focused on the development of emotional intellige
- Assessments
- A list of assessments that may be useful.
- Law of Attraction
- Does having a positive attitude, asking for what you want and creating an environment to welcome it make a difference? Judge for yourself.
- Practical EQ - Emotional Intelligence for the rest of us
- Emotional Intelligence - just a fashionable buzzword or something you need to know about? If you are involved in management, sales, education, or running a business, I'd say the latter. Although some overhyped claims have been made for EI in the past - especially by management consultants and publis
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Transformational Girlfriends
Because Change is Good
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