How to Increase Your Emotional Intelligence

we all have moments where our emotions get the best of us whether it's a hard conversation at work or a hard conversation at home if you want to have more effective communication you have to increase your emotional intelligence welcome to the Jefferson Fisher podcast where I'm on a mission to make your next conversation the one that changes everything if you enjoy learning tools to improve your communication I'm going to ask you to follow this podcast and please leave a review if you have any questions or topic suggestions just throw them in the comments emotional intelligence

isn't just a buzzword it is something that can transform the way you communicate how you understand the other person and more importantly how you understand yourself emotional intelligence I like to think of it as emotional fluency in other words I'm fluent in the language of my emotions I can recognize my emotions I can speak my emotions and I can better identify those emotions in other people and by increasing your emotional intelligence you take more control over how you feel and how you can guide the interaction in the conversation and I'm going to tell you how

to do that in three easy steps number one use the phrase I need it's as simple as that begin your response with I need it's a very entry level way of being emotionally intelligent number two have something to learn not something to prove too often we're fighting over who has the right answer rather than fighting to ask the right question and number three what triggers you teaches you so instead of focusing on what the other person is doing and why they're doing what they're doing it's asking the reflective question of what is about what they're

doing that is making my emotions feel out of place too often we think about our needs our emotional needs in a given communication we think about how we're feeling because we feel it bubbling to the top I feel my emotions starting to rise up I can tell I'm getting stressed out I be maybe my eyes are starting to water and things are starting to to to rise and ignite Within Myself and I don't know how to voice it instead when you don't voice your needs and use the phrase I need like I need a moment

I need to take a moment to digest what you just said I need to take a break I need to understand what you said when you put out the words I need it makes it to where you are voicing your emotions out loud instead of you bottling them all up which increases that ignition increases that uh tension in your body you are saying it out loud say I need to understand what you're saying because it's making me feel a certain way by putting out your needs or saying I can tell I'm not ready for this

conversation I can tell I'm not feeling myself or as easy as saying I feel sad when you say that I feel upset or I feel defensive when you make that kind of comment or when you talk about this topic whenever you put these kind of statements out there it's becoming much more emotionally intelligent because you're recognizing what is happening within your body you're not just keeping it all in you are voicing it to where you're able to share exactly what you need it's okay to assert your needs in the conversation to always feel instead like

you're having to be walked on that you have to cater to everybody else and the people please absolutely not you are somebody that can voice their needs at anytime in the conversation so I want you to feel confident and I want you to feel firm and to be able to say I need you I need this I need to talk about this when you say I need it makes it much more reflective and you emotionally more intelligent about how you're feeling in that moment I use the phrase I need a lot in my communication when

I need to add time as a variable into the communication often people rush things they Rush conversations when I'm not ready when you're not ready uh or I can tell my the way I'm feeling is starting to Bubble Up and my my heart's starting to be faster whenever I feel that happening you can increase your emotional intelligence your emotional fluency by saying I I need a moment that's probably my most often I need some time to to think on this to chew on this I just need a pause for me to add some distance to

help my my body regulate and make sure my analytical is not allowing my emotional to take over and that leads really to the the second part is having something to learn not something to prove this is let me tell you why that's important when you are focused solely on proving something to somebody that that means you uh you see this all the time people feel like they have to or you have to change their mind that's that's trying to prove something I'm trying to win against you I need you to see things exactly the way

I see them I need you I need you to agree with the exact type of way that my mind is thinking in this moment when you're trying to prove a certain position against them they often will tighten up and believe something even more they they become even more convinced that they're right the more you push to try and prove that they're wrong so instead you become much more emotionally intelligent when you realize that's happening within you and you kind of become you know water off a duck's back is what the phrase I grew up saying

is water off a duck's back in other words you just let those kind of problems and emotions beat off of you to understand that you are much more concerned about what to ask them the question to ask and that means you have something to learn when I can go into a conversation with somebody especially when it's heated and I can say to myself am I trying to prove something or am I trying to learn something right now in this moment you see how I can even tag that together hey I I need I need to

pause for a moment even 5 seconds I can talk to myself and say am I trying to prove something or am I trying to learn something right now and too often it's me trying to prove something and I can flip the whole dynamic of the conversation when I focus on what's something that I can learn about them something small rather than me trying to force feed them my opinion and then getting upset that they don't take it hook Line and Sinker instead you have something to learn not something to prove and number three lastly what

triggers you teaches you now this is one of my favorite phrases to talk about because it is so true as much as I sometimes wish that it wasn't and that is when somebody has triggered you in other words they've done something that is Raising bringing up this negative adverse reaction uh to you and you feel triggered by what they've done often the first place we point the finger is at them they say I can't believe you did that how do you dare do that why would you do that you should know that what you did

is going to affect me that way emotionally intelligent people point the finger at themselves first you know having something to learn not something to prove and they ask the question they get curious and say what is it about what they did that is causing this reaction within me so we all have triggers in other words words we all have a button that somebody can press and the people that are closest with us they're the ones that know these triggers the best but too often we don't ask the question ourselves now yes there's a trigger and

yes there's a button but why is there a button there in the first place so why why is there a button what is it about this behavior that triggers me what is it about what they said that is causing me to feel uh so out of place with my emotions and we just don't ask that question if you want to be much more emotionally intelligent you have to know your triggers in other words you have to know your buttons the reason why that's important is because you don't put yourself in positions for somebody else to

press that button you don't talk about things where you invite people to press that button that's the hard part is that you don't put yourself in a position to where you aren't going to be emotionally intelligent emotionally intelligent people prevent themselves from being in situations where you're going to be triggered that's that's the hard part of it once you know your triggers you know the areas to avoid and in a circular fashion that makes you much more emotionally intelligent okay we're at the part of the podcast where I get to take a question from the

audience I have an email newsletter and when people ask questions I'm able to respond to them and some of them I'm able to talk about in the podcast it's in the show notes but if you want a weekly communication tip right into your inbox totally for free all you need to do is sign up and it's a way for me to communicate with you and it's a lot of fun for me all right I got a question and this is from I pulled this one Simon he lives in London Simon says Hey Jefferson your stuff

is bloody brilliant thank you I don't is bloody a bad word and I honestly have no idea I hope it's not um he says it's brilliant thank you very much Simon I appreciate that brother um I have a problem my one of my co-workers that I work with who's very also has is a flatmate with this person and often they will do something that makes me emotionally um overwhelmed with their behavior and I'm not sure how to handle it it's always the same person I don't know whether I should continue to work in this job

this is a person who used to be their flat made now uh or what I should do at this point any advice would help Simon if I understood your question it is difficult when there's that one person in your life who always seems to get under your skin I here where I'm from they say get your goat I'm not sure why that is I'm sure somebody can inform me who's listening to this podcast why we use that phrase but it's somebody who knows you can push your buttons and uh it doesn't matter what they do

this is a type of person who just they grind your gears they always bother you and you find those people everywhere you find those people wherever you work in the workplace especially because um you you know that you like where you work perhaps and it's this one person this one um obstacle in the way that you're not sure what to deal with here's some tips on to be a little bit more emotionally uh intelligent about it that I wants you to try the next time that this person is coming to you in an argument or

an argument's being created be careful that the other person doesn't push your time frame that would be my first thought for you often in communication we allow other people's time frame to dictate ours when we're not ready emotionally intelligent people know when they are not aligned their emotions are out of place maybe your mind's A Thousand Miles elsewhere maybe you're thinking about something else you're stressed about work and you're not ready to talk to this other person instead they come in say hey do you got five minutes and they start imposing on you in that

moment you need to number one make sure that you don't operate on anybody else's time table and at the same time you don't put your time on somebody else in other words don't push your schedule on them you make time separate time for the discussion number two use that phrase I need and others that if you do feel comfortable to you is to say I can tell I can tell I'm not ready for this discussion I can tell that's upsetting to me or just I feel I feel defensive when you say those kind of things

I can tell that's making me upset or I need you to to stop doing that it's upsetting me when you put your needs out place out in front Simon it's it's going to make it to where they're not guessing you're being much more upcoming and upfront with what you need because if they don't respect it then that's where you put a boundary in place and they they they do not have a choice to continue with that kind of behavior once you put up a boundary but you can't set up a boundary unless you're being up

front and telling them what's happening out loud when you when you claim it you control it all right and number three another thought that I would have with this person is limit the interactions it sounds like you used to be roommates at at one point in time and there's probably a reason why you aren't anymore but now that it's just working relationship I would be very mindful of how much interaction that you have with this person and more so be careful about characterizing a whole person versus a specific behavior often if I think about I

don't like this person it's usually based off a very minor interaction and anybody who's listening has had this experience where you go oh I don't like this person usually when you say that kind of thing you know very little about this person you're basing that sentence on maybe 3% 8% 20% of what you know about this person instead what you're really saying is they have a behavior that I don't like they do something that I don't like maybe they it's the way they talk they maybe they cuss a lot maybe they talk bad about their

parents Maybe they uh did something that was dismissive towards me be really careful about uh characterizing a whole person based off of one minor behavior and in here I'm going to go to the number three that we talked about earlier which is what triggers you teaches you so ask yourself the question what is it about that specific behavior that is getting underneath my skin and use that in a way that's going to to increase your emotional intelligence to make you smarter in the way that you communicate thanks for the question Simon I really appreciate it

man okay if you want to increase your emotional intelligence meaning you have a greater understanding of the language of your emotions you're going to number one use the phrase I need begin your sentence with I need number two understand that you need to have something to learn not something to prove instead of trying to find out who's right or wrong it's simply the question of what can I understand better about you and number three what triggers you teaches you every time there's a button that somebody can press to make you upset make you lose control

over your emotions the better question to ask is why is there a button there to begin with when you find that answer you're going to be much more emotionally intelligent thank you for listening to the Jefferson Fisher podcast if you enjoyed this episode I'm going to ask you to follow this podcast wherever you like to listen to your episodes whether it's on Spotify Apple Amazon it should be on every platform and if you have any questions or topic suggestions just please just put them in the comments I personally read them uh like them accept them

and I I learn from them so anytime you have a suggestion or feedback on the episode that's just me talking in my car so I I very much I'm appreciative of all the feedback that I get really means a lot to me and as always you can try that and follow me