A few years ago, I realized my emotional intelligence was well below average to be generous. I made developing my emotional intelligence a guiding light for my personal and professional development. I started reading books like Emotional Intelligence 2.0, 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Daring Greatly, Mind, Behave, and many more. My emotional intelligence has increased a lot, and I have a long way to go, but I feel like the single thing that helps me develop my emotional intelligence is to stop and think, “What would an emotionally intelligent version of myself do right now?”. I ask myself this question all the time, and I use my answers to guide my growth over time.
My philosophy on growth is slow conservative compound growth. Be sustainable and logical, trust the process, aim to be 1% better every day, 10 minutes a day minimum, long run consistent progress over short term high variability gains.
Typically, my growth takes a while, but I recently had a rapid period of growth, and I had a number of learning opportunities in a short period of time. As I wrote out the experiences to contextualize them, I thought about how a number of people have said that they wish they could spend a day in my head, so I guess this is my attempt at showing what it’s like to be in my head when working on personal growth.
Some background on me… I recently got into an MBA program at UNC Chapel Hill. This is not my first graduate degree. I’ve been through the process before, but I had almost zero emotional intelligence back then. I had a huge problem with authority, I was abrasive, insecure, confused, angry, scared, lost. I had no tools to deal with my emotions in appropriate ways. I nurtured toxic relationships both personally and professionally that drained my energy. I was a very different person.
I was with my wife during my first trip through grad school. She put up with the older version of me. She somehow saw all the good in me that I never saw myself. Recently, we were talking about my experience at UNC. She has first-hand experience, as she is a Tarheel herself, graduating with her MAC degree in 2020. She told me I needed to let go of all the stuff I used to do and trust the process, as they are a top school for a reason and know what they are doing. She ended with “There’s a reason they do everything, just go with it for once”. I certainly don’t trust myself, but I trust her. What would an emotionally intelligent version of myself do right now? They’d involve themselves in school activities… I promised her and myself that I would absorb myself in the process. I would go from being a “curmudgeon-y A-hole” to “Mr. School Spirit”… Dr. School Spirit!
Before the program started, there was a virtual meet and greet. Past Mike would never show up… past Mike never showed up to anything that wasn’t required, and even if it was required, I’d shoot for 80-90% attendance. I’m not proud of who I was, but… what would an emotionally intelligent version of myself do right now? I promised myself I’d go to the event and I did. During the meeting, one of the professors who we’ll call… Adam was giving some advice. He mentioned there would be a balance of hard and soft skill work. He said a few times, “If you’re not struggling with Business Statistics or Accounting, reach out to your soft-skill friends and help them. You should be reaching out to them for help during the soft skill courses.” The soft skill courses were my nightmare. I want so desperately to have good soft skills, but I’m naturally terrible at it. I took note of what the professor said, and the rest of the event was really enjoyable. The emotionally intelligent version of myself was pretty stoked.
During the first semester, I was working through some business statistics work and really enjoyed it. I’m not good at statistics, but I’m fascinated by it, and after reading “The Book of Why” I have a huge appreciation for the biostatisticians I work with. A soft skilled friend, whom we’ll call…. Carrie because I’m not creative and her name is Carrie, was mentioning she was struggling with some math concepts. Normally, I wouldn’t say or do anything. I wouldn’t have the confidence in myself to think I could help anyone. I remembered our professor’s advice. I asked myself, “What would emotionally intelligent Mike do?”.
I reached out to my teammate and offered help. I thought my offer was received well, but my heartbeat was so high I don’t really remember hearing much. A few days later, my teammate reached out to me. We had a video call and I walked her through some math problems. I tried to teach her some theory behind the math, and some ways she could identify values while reading a question. If you haven’t taken a graduate-level math-based course, the questions are constructed with certain language to match the formulas you’re working with. That’s a long way of saying that in many cases, nerds speak differently than creative people. At a certain point, my new creative friend paused and said, “Why can’t you people write like us?”. I jokingly replied, “Why can’t YOU people write like US?!?”. Carrie sat back, nodded her head, and said, “Fair point, you are heard Mike. You have been heard.” and we both laughed a lot. As we were talking, she got frustrated and mentioned how she could write a 12-page paper in hardly any time but working through a few math problems took her hours. I laughed and told her that creative work is extremely difficult for me, and it would take days to write a 12-page paper and it would sound like a child wrote it. At the end of the call, she made it a point to tell me I needed to reach out to her for help with an upcoming writing assignment. The probably of the past Mike reaching out for help was >1%.
In addition to our business statistics class, we had an amazing class on communications. Our communications professor tasked the class with a writing assignment and recommended the students reach out to each other for help with proofreading. Past Mike would not reach out to anyone and would hand in a substandard document. I have no clue why I would sabotage myself so much, but NOT THIS TIME! In my MBA program, we’re assigned study teams. The study teams are a group that helps each other through the first year of the program. Past Mike would barely interact with anyone in his study group and, if I’m honest with myself, I was probably abrasive to most people I worked with.
What would an emotionally intelligent version of myself do right now? I reached out to my study group and asked if anyone could proofread my document, and someone agreed to help. I can’t explain why, but I heard Adam’s voice in the back of my head saying, “Reach out to your soft-skill friends.” I thought to myself, “Carrie said she’s pretty good with writing, maybe I should reach out for help.”. I reached out to Carrie, and she agreed to help. Shortly after, she sent me a message asking, “Can we talk about it?”. I was uncomfortable, but I promised myself I would buy into the program and trust the process.
Carrie didn’t proofread my document. She proceeded to ask me a bunch of questions that made absolutely no sense to me. As she was asking me questions and as I was answering them, I realized the way I was communicating did not match what I needed to be communicating. Carrie helped me realize how I should be framing my communications rather than working on proofreading. After many epiphanies, she helped me proofread too! Even her proofreading was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. Carrie explained to me why I should be making a correction instead of making the correction herself. No one had ever spent the time to explain writing to me before she did. I learned new things like how to apply the phrase “In addition” and realized I had been using it wrong my entire life. My mind was blown.
Carrie helped me for way longer than she needed to. We must have spent over an hour with her just asking me questions and me saying, “I’ve never really thought about that before.” We eventually got to the end of my document. I had a generic passive summary sentence followed by the blandest of closings, “Thanks, Mike”. I was relaxed and unprepared for the upcoming shenanigans that were about to ensue. Carrie had woken up that morning with emotional violence as her weapon of choice, and I was the subject of her rage. I might be taking some literary license here, Carrie’s awesome and I’m lucky to have met her.
Carrie asked me some final questions, and she kept mentioning I should think about my wording carefully. I didn’t understand what she was talking about. I kept answering her questions instinctively. I don’t remember how it happened, but I looked at my screen and saw “I welcome further discussion” or a similar phrase. My chest muscles tightened. I felt extremely uncomfortable. I asked Carrie if she thought “I welcome further” sounded aggressive. I’d never used “I welcome further” anything because I usually didn’t welcome anything. I took a deep breath, Carrie said something very kind to reassure me, and I looked at “I welcome further discussion” again. I loved it for a second and then I felt my chest getting tight. I know the way my chest tightened then is my inner critic limiting what I’m capable of.
I’ve done some mindfulness exercises and I found out that if I pay attention to my physical state, I can identify certain emotions I wouldn’t consciously recognize.
My chest tightening in that very specific way is the physical result of my brain’s “maladaptive defense mechanism” that prevents me from succeeding. I told Carrie I was okay using “I welcome” in a sentence, and that we should finish the rest. I felt like I made a huge emotional leap. I was okay using the phrase “I welcome” in a sentence. I was communicating in a whole different way.
That’s when Carrie reached out through the interwebs and kicked me in the brain, emotionally. Carrie said something along the lines of, “No Mike, delete the extra part. That’s it. You’re done. Think about it, it’s not for every email, but…” I realized what she did, and immediately cut her off. “We’re not working on a summary sentence, this is replacing my ‘Thanks, Mike’ closing!!!” I was uncomfortable again. Carrie has the patience of a saint. She calmed me down and gently explained to me what she had been perniciously plotting. She politely told me we weren’t working on my writing; we were working on my brand. I panicked, and I did what I always do when I’m overwhelmed. I screamed, “EDI, I NEED HELP!”, and my wife, Edi, appeared. Edi and Carrie adorably waved to each other and said hi over the computer. I explained to Edi what was going on. Edi looked at the closing, and said “I welcome further discussion, Mike… That’s perfect for you, I love it. Great job Carrie!”. After I caught my breath from the sheer audacity that I just witnessed, I started discussing the closer with Carrie. I don’t know if she realized it, but she gave me a really nice compliment. She said I was a unique guy, and I should have a unique signature. It stuck with me. I agreed to think about my closer, and we signed off.
After I signed off, I talked to my wife about all that had happened. We talked about my communication styles and how they weren’t aligning with my intentions or my brand. My wife and I had been discussing the idea of me developing my brand while I was at UNC, and we laughed about how quickly my brand development had begun. The next morning, we continued this discussion and concluded it was not appropriate for every e-mail, but it should be my default. This is a heavy decision for me. I’m a creature of habit and once I start using a different closer, I’ll be using it for a long time. I couldn’t decide what to do, I’ve always put “Thanks, Mike”. I’ve never had to think or worry about putting in another closer. I had no plans or intentions of changing my closer over the course of my life. What would an emotionally intelligent version of myself do right now?
I welcome further discussion.
