30 Jul What is Emotional Intelligence

I sat on the couch this morning and watched a YouTube video that my Fast Track guest Dr Ben Palmer recommended. It was four minutes long and I ended up crying for about the same amount of time.

The video is called “A Powerful Experiment” by Amnesty Intentional UK. Four minutes of different pairs of people (Europeans and Refugees) sitting opposite each other and looking each other in the eyes. 

Ben had mentioned this video when I was interviewing him about Emotional Intelligence of which one of the skills is how well we are able to read emotions in others and demonstrate empathy.

When clients ask Ben, how can they demonstrate more empathy he asks them to watch the video as it really shows how each of us has the ability to feel what others are feeling, regardless of who they are. It truely is an incredibly powerful experiment.

In the workplace this type of empathy and emotional intelligence is only possible when we really allow ourselves to be present to the opportunity. As we work remotely, work in a physically distanced way or move back to a hybrid office environment, many of our clients are expressing confusion about how to connect with emotional intelligence.

If this is the case in your workplace, my interview with Ben really gets to the heart of what emotional intelligence is, why we need it, how we measure it and most importantly how we really build this muscle.

Listen to the full episode above and if you are interested in watching the YouTube clip, here is the link, make sure you have a tissue handy.