Have you ever thought about emotional intelligence and how it applies to your business? Or maybe you’ve never even heard of emotional intelligence before this episode.
Either way, today you will walk away with a stronger knowledge of what emotional intelligence for business.
IE 231: How to Use Emotional Intelligence for Business with Sheetal Sujan
You will also learn helpful tools for when you are dealing with overwhelm and experiencing setbacks. This will help you be a better business owner and an overall better version of yourself.
Sheetal Sujan is a wife, a mother of two, and the owner of two companies. For ten years, Sheetal has been focused on training, coaching, and consulting.
She creates tailor-made training programs for both the public and private sectors, including the government. She teaches on customer service, productivity, emotional intelligence, and more.
Sheetal is a Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator Practitioner, as well as an Emotional Intelligence Practitioner.
Her goal in everything she does is to help people find the best version of themselves.
The Five Components of Emotional Intelligence
Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage our own emotions and the emotions of others.
It sounds simple, right? But many components go into emotional intelligence and there is a large misconception surrounding it.
You might think you have nothing to gain from learning about emotional intelligence but these 5 components will make a huge difference in your understanding:
- Self-awareness
- Self-regulation
- Self-motivation
- Relationships
- Social awareness
You have to start with self-awareness. If you don’t truly know yourself- your strengths, weaknesses, and passions- you will not be able to regulate yourself, you will not be motivated, and your relationships will be strained.
This applies to everything in your life, not just emotions. If you know what you are passionate about and what drives you, and you do more of that thing, you are going to feel good.
When you feel good on the inside, you are a better person, for yourself and others.
Mindful Motivation
Sheetal likes to call self-motivation “Mindful Motivation.”
When Sheetal teaches her courses, she asks her students to make a list of everything that motivates them. After you’ve created that list, make another list of everything that you don’t find motivational. The things that you are not motivated to do, you will procrastinate on.
You can compare and evaluate these two lists and it will help you to make better decisions.
If we are not being conscious of exactly why we are doing x, y, or z, and what our goals are, it will be very easy to make excuses and not complete tasks. If our intentions are in the right place and we are being mindful, that juice will keep us going.
Motivation Leads to Solutions
If you are not good at things and that is why you are not feeling motivated, being mindful about your goals will push you to figure out a solution. You might take a course to become better at that particular thing. Or you could choose to hire someone and delegate that task to them.
This mindfulness will keep you from making excuses or trying to quit. It will also give you the ability to show yourself grace on the hard days. You won’t view them as a total derailing, but a setback.
You can rest and then jump back in because you know what is motivating you.
Linking Emotional Intelligence to Business
When you think about self-awareness, and you link it to your business, you have to know your core values and what you stand for. If you don’t know your why for starting your business, you will not have the motivation to keep going.
If you are selling a product or service, you can self-regulate by making sure you are serving your client. Check in with your customers and find out if you are providing them with what they need.
The self-motivation aspect of emotional intelligence comes into play when it comes to business owners who have team members. You have to remind your team members of your mutual goals. When you have setbacks, you have to empathize and encourage.
This leads to relationships and social awareness. In your business, think about customer service. How are you showing care, support, and compassion for your clients? You also need to think about how you are talking to potential clients. How are you addressing your ideal person?
How to Handle Setbacks and Spiraling
On the days when you do have setbacks and you feel overwhelmed, there are a few things you should do:
- Take a deep breath
- Think about how you are speaking to yourself
- Shift your focus
- Encourage yourself
You have to be careful not to overwhelm yourself even more by saying things like, “I’ll never catch up,” “I’m always behind,” or “I have too much to do.”
Instead, say things like, “I can get this done,” “I will handle it,” and “I’ve got this.” Even if you don’t believe it when you first start saying it, pretend that you do! The more you say it, the calmer you will become.
The calmer you are, the more your emotions are managed. The calmer you are, the easier the task will be.
Determining Your Emotional Intelligence
So how do you determine your emotional intelligence? The best way is to observe yourself. Observe how you feel when you wake up in the morning, how you react to situations, how you behave.
The more you observe yourself and your reactions, the more self-awareness you will have. This self-awareness will lead to you being able to self-regulate and self-motivate.
Notice your negative emotions and how you can manage those feelings.
If you lean toward more negative reactions, you need to work on your emotional intelligence. Positive reactions are a sign of emotional intelligence. Remember, you don’t HAVE to do anything. You GET to do everything that you do.
Sheetal is offering a freebie called Emotions Matter. It is a course on emotional intelligence covering the basics, the 5 components, examples, and it includes a handbook with exercises.
If you want to take it a step further, Sheetal has a premium course, “Reset, Recharge, Reinvent Your Life,” which is all about digging deeper and managing your life goals through emotional intelligence.
You can connect with Sheetal on Instagram, Linked In, Facebook, and Clubhouse.
