In this CEO podcast episode, Vince Moiso and Scott De Long delves into the importance of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) in personal and professional development. They emphasize the significance of self-awareness, understanding one’s own emotions, triggers, and the ability to reflect on oneself. Furthermore, they stress the value of empathy, the ability to understand and connect with others’ emotions genuinely.
Transcript | Season 1, Episode 15
Vince Moiso
Hey, everybody. Vince Moiso and Scott De Long with the CEO podcast, and our episode today is going to cover the topic of emotional intelligence and EQ. Better known as EQ. This is something favorite. I know I am excited about this because I want to preface the intro here where, you know, Scott, you have a course that you teach on EQ; I have taken that course. It is a great course. And I think everybody should be growing and thinking about their emotional intelligence, and any opportunity that you can continue down that path of just getting better at emotional intelligence is huge. And it is a thing that a lot of people in this world may not pay attention to,
Scott De Long
Or think they are good at,
Vince Moiso
Or think they are good at, no doubt.
Scott De Long
Which we will talk about that or,
Vince Moiso
Frankly, we are not good at
Scott De Long
With your group. In fact, you did not get your entire group to participate in the data course. My goal for that was, by the end of the five weeks that we worked with you, to make the other people jealous that they did not get to.
Vince Moiso
You mention a good point. And it is a good reminder that our entire group did not participate. And I do not think it was because they did not think they were good at it. And I do not think they were intimidated by it. They thought, no, I do not need it.
Scott De Long
They knew it.
Vince Moiso
That is not something I do not need. I could agree more; in fact, I would say today, not before, but I have done a lot of work on it. I mean, today, my emotional intelligence is pretty high. And that is the result of a lot of work. That said, even when I was offered your course, I jumped at it. I said, of course, I want to take it; I knew there was going to be something new that I was going to take away from that, regardless of whatever level I thought I was at that given point in time. Everybody needs to do a self-check on that. And when you have the opportunity to improve upon emotional intelligence, you have to do it. It’s absolutely critical. By the way, Scott and I really want you to take over this conversation. That means, so let me just set the tone here. We talked about a lot of different things. We talked about communication. We talked about body language. Okay, we have talked about development, right? We have talked about all this; we have talked about transparency, accountability, personality types, and all these concepts that I think are very, very symbiotic. When we talk about emotional intelligence, I think you can encompass all those things around Emotional Intelligence,
Scott De Long
It is layers, that have the same thing. And when I say the same thing, what I am talking about as just being a good human, right, so that is one of my goals is to be a better human.
Vince Moiso
So what does that mean? Tell me, tell me more. What does it mean to be a good human?
Scott De Long
I think being a good human starts with a deep reflection on self. And to see where my flaws are going to be. There was a there was a course I took at Berkeley. And it talked about it was it was interesting the way this professor did this. And he talked about improvement. So I played baseball, and there is, you know, they talked about the five skill kind of players, hits with power runs, throws, and fields, those are the five things, and they give you a one to five rating on the scouts give you a one to five rating on all those things. And most people do think about this: when you go to the gym, what most people do is work on the things they are already good at. So, if I am good at bench pressing, I would bench-press a little bit more. And I am going to improve myself a little bit more on that thing. But what this professor said in this class was cool. And he and he proved it with math was really cool. By working on your deficiencies, if you just went up, if I was a four across the board, right, or a four Across the board, except my feeling was a three. If I just made my fielding a three, I would score higher than if I made my hitting a five. Like, what do you mean? It’s just one point within one of the categories? It should not be. So, no, he did it differently. He says to multiply these numbers together. Do you multiply this by this? By this, these five categories improve your deficiencies and are much more powerful than improving your strikes. And yet, what most of us do is we do the things that we are comfortable with and improve our strikes. So, I think that’s why people back away from this whole emotional intelligence concept. It is a great place to start because it is an uncomfortable zone to be in. I think when we talk about emotional intelligence, we are talking first and foremost about self-awareness, aren’t we? That is the biggest thing. If we are all suddenly challenged to look in a mirror, nobody likes to look in the mirror. Right? Right. Because you never know, I used to like to investigate them a little better than I do now. But it changes day to day.
Vince Moiso
You know, what I see tomorrow is not exactly what I see today. I think none of us love looking in the mirror. And then especially, you know, okay, great. So that is anecdotal, right? And looking in the mirror. When I talk about self-awareness, it does get very, very uncomfortable. And so this place of discomfort, so when you talk about improving upon emotional intelligence, okay, that takes me to a place that I might not want to go, Scott.
Scott De Long
Well, it is so much easier to find out what’s wrong with others than it is to take a look at yourself for sure. And that is fine. Everyone has flaws. They do, we do whatever. But this portion about emotional intelligence starts with self-awareness, self-reflection, and fixing the things that you can fix. So the course in the course is, you know, we went through a few things, and one of them was three or four times a day; we changed it up three or four times today; we sent you a text and said, What do you thinking right now? What do you feel? What are you feeling right now? Right now. Now look around. What are the circumstances, right? Where are you? What is happening all that it is invasive to get a text in the middle of a meeting all that I get, but it is really an impactful, impactful tool to say, right now, I feel like crap because that gal over there is yelling at me for something that someone else did. Right? So here is what I am feeling. Here is why I feel that the real key to emotional intelligence is now: what can I do about that? Right? That is not the easiest thing. That is the hardest thing to do. But the self-awareness is to say what I am doing right now, how am I feeling? And what is happening? It is making me feel that way. And why are the triggers there? What are those triggers?
Vince Moiso
Well, if you have been listening to many of our podcasts, we have trickled in some of these nuggets around Emotional Intelligence. And if you are really paying attention, I will point out, you know, a few of them. One is really communication. So what comes to mind is, really, we talked a lot about email etiquette because email is such an important component of any business today, right? We are all pretty much email cultures. One of the things is email should primarily be used for informational purposes only, like I am just going to give you a piece of information that was set off; you should not be having banter back and forth. You should not argue back and forth via email; you know, there is no tone in an email,
Scott De Long
Memorialization
Vince Moiso
And memorialization. You are you are you are right. That being said you know, I often think about the emotional intelligence I have around those emails that I really want to write to somebody. And I often write them. And I stopped, and I read them. And I tell myself, why am I sending this? I am in an emotional state right now. I am angry. I do not feel good. I have this feeling in the pit of my stomach. And this is just everything about this email is reactionary. I am going to sleep on that.
Scott De Long
I’m okay with actually writing the email. Keeping it out on paper, get in front. So, somebody gave me an idea that I thought was brilliant. Is that somebody sent me a bad email, and I wanted to respond right now? Go ahead and respond; type it all out. But before I do that, take anybody that is on the top list or the CC list off; just delete it. Right? Sleep on it. I think if I really want to send that, do I want to edit it? If I do not want to send it at all, it would be that we just have a situation in our families that is very similar. My wife was having a situation with a lot of family members. And I said, What do you think you might want to do is write it out? Do not send it. Write it out. So she wrote it out. Send it to me instead for reflection editing. So I questioned if you think so. Did you want to say this? Why would you want to say this? All those kinds of things she edited. And then And then what happened was really cool. Today, she told me she had a conversation with that person about that.
Vince Moiso
Amazing
Scott De Long
She got all the anger of the Viet out in the letter, although all that stuff out then she was able to have dialogue because it was just that release, so that was a heightened emotional intelligence carried right there. So yes, awareness of self. Certainly. Now, I might need some help with that. Sometimes. You took a course with some of your folks. Did I need some help with that from others? How am I? How am I showing? How am I showing up and all that I want to get fed? I hate feedback. Just so you know, I hate it. Like my internal God says, do not like no, I want to be right, right now. No, I need it. So give me the feedback and find someone that you can trust. So here is one of the keys to that. Everybody needs to vent. I have seen studies that say do not bet because all it does is get this thing going on. But I think it’s really important. But here is my clue on vent. You need to vent to somebody who is not going to hold a grudge against the person you are venting about. So I tell people this all the time. Do not vent to your parents about your spouse. They cannot forgive you. God gave you an opportunity to figure out how to get over a fight. Right? They gave us this physical ability to get over that. But they did not give our parents that too. So find someone that you can vent to. That is not going to hold a grudge. Whether it is at work or at home. I do not care where it is at. But that is my number one advice to anybody: do not find someone to vent to cool. But make sure that is the person that is not going to hold a grudge.
Vince Moiso
I have a great business partner. And I have to tell you, we have our one-on-one sessions every week. And it is a great opportunity where I will often spend five or 10 minutes where I then, you know, and I precede the conversation with, will you allow me five minutes to vent? Will you allow me 10 minutes to vent? And it is such a great release. And he is a great listener. And he just, he just listens, right? And he does not; he does not really give, you know, he is not like pushing on anything and like, and then he will let me finish because he understands that it is an event session. Then, he asks what is so great about it, and they say, do you want feedback? And oftentimes, I don’t even need it, right? Like, no, I do not need feedback. There is no action item. Or he will say,
Scott De Long
I know where I sound stupid.
Vince Moiso
Yes, he will even say he will even say, is there an action item? Like is there something that you need me to step into? And I will say, No, there is no action item; I do not need you to do anything. Thank you for listening. I just needed to vent. I even do that with, you know, I have managers that I will have one-on-ones with that. You know, we will talk about a certain situation. And I will say, Hey, can I just vent, you know about this particular situation? So it is not about a person or about anything like that. It is just like, can I just vent about this? And it is great because it will bring them into the emotion of it. And in the end, it just becomes a vent session and nothing more, right? No feelings hurt, no grudges, no, nothing like that. But it is. I love what you just said there is. I do think it is important that many things are there that are holding you back; you have to get off your chest, and you have to speak it aloud. I am a big believer in that. You really have to speak it aloud. You know, and we are just fresh off of this topic of vulnerability, right? We recently released that podcast, and if you have not heard it, have listened to this podcast on vulnerability. Not only did we get vulnerable, but we also talked about this topic and how important it is. And I do believe vulnerability plays into emotional intelligence at a high level. And sometimes you have to be willing; in order to vent, you have to be willing to get vulnerable enough to speak those things aloud instead of holding them in.
Scott De Long
I just love that you go back to what I said; I said this before, but the words willing and willing are two things I look for in people: willingness and curiosity. I find someone who is willing and curious. They are my people. That is, that is what I like. We got through part of it, right? The self-awareness portion is, and honestly, that is three-quarters of it. Three-quarters of this whole emotional Intelligence. But the other part is important as well. And that is the awareness of others. And what are they presenting? What are they showing? How they are coming across him or hurting your feelings is really an important thing for me to recognize. And that is where we get into some of the body language and some of the things that we talked about in an earlier podcast, right? It is the awareness of others. A narcissist or sociopath does not have that. They cannot possess that. So, no matter what you do, no matter how good you get, this stuff does not work with narcissists or sociopaths. Just Sorry I cannot help you there. Right. My suggestion is to get away. But the awareness of others becomes another big component; probably the last 25% have emotional intelligence, which, in my mind, is making sure that the message that I am delivering is being received in the way that I want it received. Not just, I said it, therefore, it is. How are people receiving that? And you can tell in a variety of ways,
Vince Moiso
Now it goes into personality type a little bit; we talked about, If you have gotten, like you and I are very closely related in our personality types, the way that I am just very direct with my communication, I know, I can be very direct with you. And I know how that is going to land. And so I have that awareness of you, but others, not necessarily, might not have that dominant personality; they might be in that support role. And the way that they receive information is quite different. And I cannot be as dominant; I may not be able to be as direct. And I think that recognition, that awareness of, as you said of others, which is also understanding the personality type difference,
Scott De Long
Especially if there’s power differentiations
Vince Moiso
You are the boss talking about Organizational structure.
Scott De Long
Not just that. Parent and Child.
Vince Moiso
For sure.
Scott De Long
And in some places, husband, and wife. If there are power differences, then you really need to be, again, back to my definition of trying to be a better person trying to be a better human; if you care about that, recognize those power differences between who you are, what you are saying, how it is being received because a lot of people in a subordinate position will just say, Okay. All right. Just. Because they do not want to get into that conflict for sure.
Vince Moiso
None so many people are non-computational.
Scott De Long
A conflict does not have to be confrontational. We are going to have a whole other podcast on conflict. I got that one scheduled; it is coming up. We are going to talk about that a lot. But a conflict is simply a matter of a difference of opinion. So how to do you if you’re, if you’re emotionally intelligent, and you’re the CEO, and you need to talk to a subordinate, whether it’s one level down or two levels down? Is your message going to land the way you want it to land? Not just get it out?
Vince Moiso
There, think through that.
Scott De Long
But is it going to land the way you on land? And a lot of that has to do with self-awareness or where you are. And some of it has to do with who you’re talking to.
Vince Moiso
What comes to mind for me when you talk about awareness of others, as I think about EO and our experience with Entrepreneurs Organization, and when we start a forum meeting, we have what we call a one-word open. And what is that one word open really for? All of us get that awareness of others and the state of mind or the state of being that they are in. I might say something like, I am ready. Or I might say I am rushed. Or I might say I am not present, or something like that. Or I might say, I am very present. All of those things describe that state of being in that moment; what is great is each of us gets to see this awareness of how that person is at the moment. When we move into the meeting, I have adopted that into many of my meetings. Oftentimes, it may be more than just a one-word open; I might say, Hey, guys, I want to go around the room really quickly. Can you give me one word that describes what your state of being is right now? Or maybe what your mindset is? And can you also, you know, just mention something that you’d really like to accomplish from this meeting? Why do I do that? I do that because it gives me an immediate awareness of where each person is. Emotions.
Scott De Long
Their emotions
Vince Moiso
It can set the tone for a meeting. And then I know what direction I need to take that meeting, then I get a great understanding of the energy of the room. And hopefully where I need to communicate better.
Scott De Long
Back in the old days, we did not think about this kind of stuff. We just said, The boss says this, you do that. This is the way it works. All that is not working like that anymore. And in fact, that probably was not a great model. Like Rockefeller did it, Carnegie was pretty good. But some of the others in that industrial age were just top-down. Drive, we just got through with one on employee engagement. And this, again, feeds into all of that as well. Are my employees going to be more engaged if they believe that I care about what they have to say? This is all about care. Emotional intelligence is all about care. I have gotten an I have a theory. I do not know if it is a proven theory by anybody. I have not seen any studies on it. But my theory is this. If you want to learn how to love, learn how to care. There is nobody that I have seen who has cared for something that does not end up loving that thing, whether it is an animal, whether it is a person, or whether you are a healthcare provider. The laundry, I think the hardest thing in the world, would be geriatric health care; I think it would be very difficult to do that. And I do not have the personality for it. Yet, I watch some of these people, some of the most loving people that I have seen, and they care for that human being. And there is a love that gets transferred between those people.
Vince Moiso
No question.
Scott De Long
What does that have to do with business? Everything does it do? I am sorry, it does. I want my employees to know I care for them. Why? If they get that feeling, this experience is the most important employee experience if they know I care. What do you think they are going to think? Are they looking for another job? Is there a resume on the street if they know I care? And the depth in which I care. And it is not fake; it is real stuff. Care for people, and they will care for you.
Vince Moiso
My daughter just got her RN. And she already has a job. But she is applying to the Children’s Hospital. And she has a bleeding heart. I have talked to her at length about emotional intelligence and that whole conversation around care, and I could not agree with you more; I could not; I would struggle to do what she does. And she does what she does very well. She loves children, and children are immediately attracted to her energy. That means, you know what? It is not the end; it is not the children. The children know right away that she cares, but she does not care. Who it really is the parents, it is the parents, and the parents are an emotional wreck. And she said that what she has to do most is really help them manage their emotions around what’s going on. And that is an incredible responsibility. And I want to dress something else to this concept of care; sorry, but you cannot fake it, just cannot; I do not care how good you think. You can fake emotions or care for somebody; they either feel your energy or they do not. And when they feel your energy, they understand immediately if you truly care. And when they understand they feel that energy that you truly care, you have truly achieved a high level of emotional intelligence. And when we take it to business, as you just described, when your employees understand that you do truly care for them, then when we talk about engagement, or performance, or anything else, It’s all there. But this is an important part of the topic of emotional intelligence that we are talking about. And I really want to just say that aloud one more time; I cannot fake it. Go ahead and try. You can all day. People will spot a fake all day long because the energy is not there. The connection is not there.
Scott De Long
That is not immediate. There are people who can become narcissists and sociopaths who can think.
Vince Moiso
Hold on. Let me stop you there. There are people because I am going to I am going to change the world. Okay. There are people who are good at pretending. And eventually, they are found out. So, I use the word fake because it is very strong, and I am going to tell you that you cannot fake it. Stop faking. But there are people who try to pretend, and eventually, you are going to be found up.
Scott De Long
They faked it for a little while. He got people engaged in the short-term thing. But I
Vince Moiso
Example is a word called manipulation. And so what, you know, I do not I do not know that.
Scott De Long
We are going to have that, which is one of our other podcasts. It is that they never persuade versus being able to manipulate the difference between those two, and we are going to definitely talk about that. Absolutely. Emotional Intelligence. It is we are not as good as we think we are. It takes like everything else. It takes practice. It takes making mistakes, learning from those mistakes, redoing them, practicing some more, and keeping practicing. I spent a long time practicing my emotional intelligence, and I messed up. And I got to practice again.
Vince Moiso
It is a lifelong journey, right? Here I offer, I would offer two things to you: we focused our conversation mostly on this one is self-awareness. So, I think the number one thing to achieve a high level of emotional intelligence is going to be self-awareness. So your, you know, understanding your own triggers, your own emotions, those types of things, self-awareness is top of the list. Second is awareness of others, which encompasses a lot of different things; I talked about personality, types of communication, those types of things that you need to be aware of, but awareness of others can include body language, you know, whatever, it is the energy that you read in a room. And when you understand that, then you can shift how your communication is or how your reaction might be. Again, I achieved a high level of emotional intelligence. And I want to repeat, this is a lifelong journey. If you think you have emotional intelligence, that is great. I hope you do. And keep practicing, kids, as you said,
Scott De Long
Keep practicing. So, there is one piece that we missed, and we are talking about the awareness of others. And it is this word, which is one of my top three words of vulnerability and empathy, that is what I want to talk about. Humility: those are the three things that if I am going to do better in life. Empathy is a part of this emotional intelligence. What are the pieces that we did not talk about when you are talking about awareness of others? Is it a concept about empathy? And empathy is not different than sympathy. Feeling sorry for you or understanding how you feel? Empathy is the greater of the two.
Vince Moiso
How do you define it?
Scott De Long
So you do not want me to feel sorry for you? Do you? When that suck? I felt sorry for you. You are less than; it is all that. Empathy is the ability to feel what that person is feeling or close to what that person is feeling. If let us go with a bankruptcy, we have not had one. Suppose you happen to have one. I can guess what that feels like. And I could try to feel that, and that would be trying to be empathetic. I would not necessarily completely know because I had not gone through that. But I am showing empathy to try to understand where you are coming from; what is that feeling in the pit of your stomach? And how is that making you react to things?
Vince Moiso
I had breakfast with a friend this morning. Her father died at the age of 62. My father died at the age of 62. It was somehow, we came on that subject; she started to talk about that. And I had this immediate reaction. I knew exactly what she went through. I knew what she was feeling. I could feel the energy and the emotion all around that.
Scott De Long
It is a big piece of that, because and here is why. Empathy is a fast track to connection. If you know that, I know. Or you know that I care. My connection with you is going to be better than it would be otherwise.
Vince Moiso
Completely.
Scott De Long
Bullshit. Response and Oh, sorry. I am sorry for your loss. We get a lot that a lot of people are trying when they say; I am sorry for your loss. But your father and her father died about the same time, about the same age that you were dealing with. You get what that means to you. She knows that.
Vince Moiso
And if
Scott De Long
Your connection is there.
Vince Moiso
Empathy. I love what you said: empathy leads to an immediate connection.
Scott De Long
Empathy leads to immediate connection. That is a big part of this whole emotional intelligence. Do you have to have absolutely no to be empathetic? No, but I can see in your face, and I care enough that it is hurting you. And I do not have to hurt you. I have to understand that you are hurt.
Vince Moiso
I immediately thought of Entrepreneurs Organization again, and we talked a lot about experience sharing. The whole concept behind experience sharing is exactly that: empathy. I am going to share a similar experience of what you just stated about your feelings. I am going to tell you that not only do I feel what you feel, but I understand what you went through.
Scott De Long
It could be so with E. O. This is what I tell people all the time; it could be a completely different story. I never did that thing that made me struggle.
Vince Moiso
Does not matter.
Scott De Long
But I knew that feeling.
Vince Moiso
Yes, that is what resonated.
Scott De Long
And here is my story along that feeling, which creates, it is so cool when you get a group of eight people that are sitting around talking about this stuff because it is kind of like the telephone game. You remember, as a kid, you said something that someone said on the wider cross? Well, this has to do with feelings. You tell a story and hit me this way. And this person that way, or that way. And it turns into this, like this amazing experience, where people are sharing empathy.
Vince Moiso
This is emotional intelligence, everybody; this is what we are talking about at an incredibly high level; we can keep talking about this. I just want to encourage everybody to check out the CEO podcast.net, give us your feedback, go on LinkedIn, and go on social media; you can find us there and give us your feedback; we want your comments. And we want to hear, we want to hear about your own stories. And I think when we talk about emotional intelligence, there are so many directions you can go with it. I hope this gives you an inclination of some of the things that you need to work on. I think, ultimately, what we want to achieve with this podcast is just to get people thinking to get people committed to the subjects that we’re passionate about, that we know a lot about, and that we can help others to achieve to improve their lives or improve their, their respective businesses or relationships or whatever it might be. Because I think, you know, so many of the topics like emotional intelligence that we talked about, while it is so relatable to business, it is so relatable to life in so many ways. And I think the more you grow within your emotional intelligence, the more you grow as a person, and that reflects all aspects of your life without question.
Scott De Long
I think this. I mean, you know, when people hire me to work on their business, great, that is fine. That is how I get paid. But, my promise to the people that I am working with is that, sure, that will improve, and your personal life is going to improve as well. These things we are talking about, communication, emotional intelligence, and leadership skills, are all transferable from your business. To your personal life. Your personal life. Back to your business and improving your whole being.
Vince Moiso
What are we drinking? You are the one that got it.
Scott De Long
This has hopped us from Left Coast Brewery in San Clemente. Left Coast is kind of a cool little spot. Unassuming, there is nothing like a stolen brewery. We had this really cool garden kind of thing. It is a place where you can have some cool beers with people who will talk to you about what they are brewing. Why they’re brewing it? What is important about that
Vince Moiso
Great energy at that place, too. I love the energy, and I love the beer great is a great beer, but I am feeling the 10%
Scott De Long
Juice. It is a triple IPA and 10 percenter, I live close. If you happen to go down to Left Coast, and you are struggling give me a call I will pick you up.
Vince Moiso
Be careful if you offer that. I feel like you are going to get a bunch of calls. Check out the left coast, so we love the viewer. This is the second or third podcast where we have had some left-coast beer on it. And we and we enjoy it. Continue to enjoy it. This one especially went down very easily.
Scott De Long
Pretty easy beer.
Vince Moiso
Check us out at ceopodcast.net. Till next time, cheers.
