We are not put here to simply get THROUGH it. We are put here to get TO it!
Would you like to achieve greater success at work and lead a more fulfilling life?
Would you like to know how you can express more empathy and defuse more conflicts?
Would you like to know what it takes to overcome your personal and professional challenges?
Would you like to be better at drawing others toward you, engaging them, and communicating with them?
Would you like to have stronger skills when it comes to preventing or relieving the stresses in your life?
And would you like to have the ability to understand, use, and manage your emotions more effectively than you do now?
If you’re still alive and breathing, the answer is “Yes, of course!”
Well, the answer to all those questions is found in two words: Emotional Intelligence. When your Emotional Intelligence is high, your life, your relationships, and your career work so much better. The question is, how can you raise your Emotional Intelligence? It is totally possible and not all that difficult.
That’s why I’ll spend a whole hour this Thursday, February 12, from 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time, teaching you how to raise your Emotional Intelligence.
For the moment, however, you need to know that Emotional Intelligence is comprised of a set of skills that help you understand your feelings and manage your stress so you can be super effective. With that in place, Emotional Intelligence then teaches you how to understand and connect with others so people work with you instead of against you.
It’s all about skills and strategies that transform your personal and professional lives. However, those skills and strategies rest on a foundation of common sense principles that I’ve created. In fact, I keep a list of these foundational principles by my desk to help me stay on track and I thought you might like to read some of them as well.
DR. Z’S FOUNDATIONS OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
Financial Health
- Live beneath your means
- If you can’t afford cash, what makes you think you can afford it on credit at 20% more?
Mental Health
- Take time to be alone every day.
- For fast-acting relief, try slowing down.
- Take one day at a time. There’s always enough worry for one day without taking on more.
- Keep your perspective. It isn’t difficult to make a mountain out of a molehill; just add a little dirt.
Spiritual Health
- There are no shortcuts to any place worth going.
- Keep a folder of your favorite Scriptures on hand. Read them.
- Forget unethical shortcuts. Character is much easier kept than recovered.
- Every night before bed, think of one more thing you’re grateful for that you’ve never been grateful for before.
Physical Health
- Nothing tastes as good as thin feels.
- To avoid sickness, eat less. To prolong life, worry less.
- Get enough rest. Almost everything works out better with adequate rest.
- Eat right. Respect your body. You’re going to live in your body the rest of your life.
- Cherish your health. If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, get help.
Goal Accomplishment
- To get to the top, get off your bottom.
- The secret to getting ahead is getting started.
- Work hard. The harder you work the luckier you get.
- It only takes one person to change your life — you.
- What losers call adversity, winners call opportunity.
- The difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that little extra.
Change Management
- When you’re through changing, you’re through.
- The future depends on what you do in the present.
- Don’t limit your challenges; challenge your limits.
- Pace yourself. Spread big changes and difficult projects over time.
- Take a risk. You’ll notice that a turtle only makes progress when it sticks out its neck.
- Don’t get too upset by an initial failure. After all, it’s the second mouse that gets the cheese.
Communication Competence
- Passion persuades.
- Talk less. Listen more.
- Smile. A smile is a little curve that sets things straight.
- K.M.S. Keep mouth shut. This single piece of advice can prevent an enormous amount of trouble.
- Never put both feet in your mouth at the same time, because then you won’t have a leg to stand on.
- Take a stand. Standing in the middle of the road is dangerous. You will get knocked down by the traffic from both ways.
Personal-Professional Growth
- Don’t go through life; grow through life.
- Make the mistakes of yesterday your lessons for today.
- Remember you are not your past. You are your potential.
- It’s impossible to learn what you think you already know.
- Listen to something while you’re driving that can improve the quality of your life.
- Write down creative ideas, insights, and inspirations so you don’t have to learn them all over again.
- Keep on learning. Learn something new every day. Never let the brain be idle. An idle mind is the devil’s workshop.
Time Management
- Time flies, but remember, you are the navigator.
- Allow extra time to do things and to get to places.
- Do it now. One of these days is none of these days.
- Do something today that will simplify and unclutter your life.
- Get up on time so you start the day in peace rather than panic.
- Say “no” to projects and people who will compromise your mental health.
- Get organized so everything has its place and everything is in its place.
- Have backups: an extra car key in your wallet, an extra house key buried in the garden, extra stamps, etc.
Emotional Health
- Enjoy the simple things.
- Action is the antidote to despair.
- Keep your confidence up and your ego down.
- Do something for the kid in you every day.
- Don’t count the days; make the days count.
- Laugh. Laugh some more. He who laughs, lasts.
- Tears are okay. Endure, grieve, and move on. Be ALIVE while you are alive.
- Focus more on moments and less on time. Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
Relationship Management
- To belittle is to be little.
- The best way to get even is to forget.
- You can multiply happiness by dividing it.
- They serve themselves best when they serve others most.
- Be kind to unkind people. They probably need it the most.
- If you’re tired of the rat race, stop associating with rats.
- Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.
- Offer more grace. Most people find fault like there’s a reward for it.
- Develop a forgiving attitude. Most people are doing the best they can.
- To forgive is to set the prisoner free, and then discover the prisoner was you.
- If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
- A successful marriage isn’t finding the right person. It’s being the right person.
- To whatever extent possible, keep only cheerful friends. The grouches will pull you down.
- People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel.
ACTION:
Print out a copy of these Emotional Intelligence foundations and read them every day.