In this episode, Michael Gardon chats with Raman Chadha. Raman is a Founder and Managing Partner of The Junto Institute, which has been in business since 2012. Junto is the only place for bootstrapped companies to get flexible, affordable, and high-impact training and development for their remote workforce. Membership includes live weekly roundtables, women-only discussions, leadership mentoring, and emotional intelligence coaching.
Prior to Junto, Raman was founding director of a university entrepreneurship center where he was also on faculty. He holds an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and a BA from the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana. A native Chicagoan, Raman is now a digital nomad, exploring wide open spaces like rural towns and the mountains. He is a highly devoted father of two adult daughters, and passionate about longevity, solitude, personal growth, and emotional intelligence.
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL LEARN:
- Raman’s background
- How Junto Institute began
- How Raman started learning about emotional intelligence
- Raman’s definition of emotional intelligence
- The components of emotional intelligence
- The Emotion Wheel and how it works
HELP US OUT!
Help us reach new listeners by leaving us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts! It takes less than 30 seconds and really helps our show grow, which allows us to bring on even better guests for you all! Thank you – we really appreciate it.
BOOKS AND RESOURCES:
- Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman - book that Raman references
- Junto Institute Emotion Wheel
- Junto Institute Membership
- Other Daniel Goleman books
- The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People - another book mentioned
- Connect with Raman on his website, LinkedIn, Twitter or Instagram.
TRANSCRIPT
Disclaimer: The transcript that follows has been generated using artificial intelligence. We strive to be as accurate as possible, but minor errors and slightly off timestamps may be present due to platform differences.
Michael Gardon (00:00):
Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the CareerCloud Radio podcast. I'm your host Michael Gardon. In today's episode, we're diving into the world of emotional intelligence. This is a tricky subject. One where I think theories don't get connected well to outcomes, but I promise if you truly want to get better in all aspects of your life and live a more connected, purposeful, and authentic life, there's no better payoff than consistently becoming more self aware and emotionally intelligent. I couldn't think of a better person to sort all this out and give us an introduction to the world of emotional intelligence than Raman Chadha. Raman is the founder of the Junto Institute in Chicago, where he helps young companies get flexible, affordable, and high impact training and development core to this program is mentorship and emotional intelligence training. Prior to Junto, Raman was founding director of the entrepreneurship center at DePaul university. I was one of the people in Raman’s classes as he was formulating what Junto would become. I'm blessed to have learned from Raman at that time. And I continue to be blessed to learn from him today. I hope you enjoy this introduction to emotional intelligence with my friend Raman Chadha
Michael Gardon (00:49):
Raman, great to see you, welcome to the podcast.
Raman Chadha:
Thanks Mike. Great to be here.
Michael Gardon:
So I got to say a couple of things before we really get going in many respects. I think this is going to be one of the most challenging interviews that I've done. And that's number one, because the concept that we're talking about, right? Emotional intelligence it's so it's broad, it's nuanced, it's misinterpreted. It's looked at as theory to some people I don't quite know what to do with it. So I think the whole topic's going to be interesting, but also this is challenging because I view you as one of the most pivotal people in my kind of career journey. And I just hope that I can honor our relationship with this conversation today.
Raman Chadha (01:47):
Well, thanks, Mike. Awfully big compliment to start. So I got to use my emotional intelligence to put that. Thank you.
Michael Gardon (01:54):
Thank you. Excellent. So I want to kind of begin with the end in mind as you talk about a lot. So our audience, everybody listening to this is trying to become better, better at what they do, trying to become better human beings, trying to have better relationships and just live a, a fulfilling life. Right. So that's kind of first. And then the second part of that is the topic that I really talk about all the time. I haven't had language for this, but it's this idea that like integrating work and career, right? Like I think that is so fundamental right now, and we've never been at a better time to actually do that. And I think listening to some of your work, you kind of have language for that where I didn't, you talk a lot about bringing yourself to what you do or integrating these two things. So if people are gonna want to get better and emotional intelligence is maybe a path to get there, can you just start by kind of describing what you do at the Junto Institute and like your journey to sort of discovering emotional as like a window into actualizing, what you do?
Raman Chadha (03:03):
It's a long story as well. Is it stumbled across emotional intelligence in my modern form, fairly accidentally and serendipitously, I was studying leadership for my own benefit professionally and kept coming across that phrase. And although I was aware of it, I hadn't studied it. Didn't know much about it. My dove into it. This is about, I don't know, it's been about 13 or 14 years now. And the more I went down that rabbit hole, the more I discovered how beautiful the surroundings were and studying, it started to answer a lot of questions that I had about myself and about my past and about my relationships. And most importantly about the person I wanted to become. And a big part of that was this idea of bringing who I am to what I do, which is something I've always strived to do. And at times that was troubled some because especially in the corporate world, that's not normal.
Raman Chadha (03:59):
And in fact, in the corporate world, we're to some degree expected to conform to how everyone else is like the norms of the organization. And I struggled with that mightily during that period of my career. So the more I studied emotional intelligence, the more I practiced it, the more I felt comfortable being who I was in every aspect of my life. And that then influenced the founding of the Junto Institute, where part of what we do is help companies and their teams become infinitely better, smarter and healthier through not just learning emotional intelligence, but the more, most important part of it, which is practicing emotion, intelligence, and even people who haven't studied it, we have found through our experience and our observation that just practicing it without knowing what it is actually makes a difference.
Michael Gardon (04:49):
So you kind of started out on this, I guess it would be traditional leadership journey. What is leadership and really you sort of discovered the key is emotional intelligence and that there's also all of these downstream benefits. If you will, that it's not just, it's essentially the key to integrating what I would describe as like a successful, happy, healthy life.
Raman Chadha (05:14):
One thing that gets overlooked when it comes to leadership is we talk about leadership in the context of other people, organizations, businesses. We don't talk enough about leadership in the context of ourselves before we can lead others, we must be capable of leading ourselves. And that's where emotional intelligence plays a role.
Michael Gardon (05:30):
What was the light bulb moment where you really felt, okay, this is the key. I have a quote here that I think one of your companies said, what somebody from one of your company said, not only did Junto make me a better CEO. It made me a better hockey player, a better husband, a better father. Was that the light bulb moment?
Raman Chadha (05:49):
It was around that time. It was around that time because it was one thing for me to feel like I was getting better and that things were changing for my own self. It was another to see that happening with other people. And it wasn't just that one person that quote was uttered at an, at an event where others, some of his peers were saying similar things. And so that was when it was like, okay, something for something here.
Michael Gardon (06:13):
Can you talk a little bit about how you personally started implementing EI or researching it? Like what resources did you turn to in those early days when you were just doing that for yourself?
Raman Chadha (06:23):
Well, it was The book, emotional intelligence. That's the title of it by Daniel Goldman, G O L E M a N. And he's widely considered to be the forefather of what we now consider to be emotional intelligence. He didn't create it or invent it, but he kind of based it on the work of social scientists who came before him. So that's the book that I, to this day, I still recommend it has a lot of the science in it, which I think is really important. Emotional intelligence, as you said earlier, has become a little misunderstood. And a lot of people have taken the Liberty to change the definition or more fit. It is still a science-based practice and body of knowledge that is really important to lean on in all aspects of life. But the purity that comes from the work that Goldman and his peers have done.
Michael Gardon (07:09):
So when you say it's rooted in, in science, what do you really mean by that? I mean, is this, are you talking specifically about the studies that he has brought to light and kind of psychology or are there other aspects of this that are, have been really scientifically studied?
Raman Chadha (07:23):
So it started in psychology and has since been emotional intelligence has been continued through neuroscience, especially, and some sociology, I'm not an expert in any one of those areas. I've tried to bring it to the business world, but I think the biggest one is the neuroscience part that in the last 15 years or so brain imaging technology has given these neuroscientists literally a window into how our brains operate. And that has been able to explain so much of the physio physiology of emotional intelligence that we can start putting two and two together. You know, about why the psychological background of emotional intelligence aligns with the physical.
Michael Gardon (08:06):
So we've been throwing around the term emotional intelligence. How do you actually define that?
Raman Chadha (08:12):
We Define it as our ability to recognize and regulate the emotions in ourselves and in others, our ability to identify and label those emotions with specific words. And then the most important part of the definition is our ability to use all of that information to guide our actions, thinking language and behavior.
Michael Gardon (08:34):
And so why is that important? I can see some people listening to this and saying, okay, great. But like, how does that get enacted? I guess, can you give an example?
Raman Chadha (08:44):
Maybe the Easiest example is when we are troubled by something or when we are stressed by something and this past year and a half is probably the best example, we've all been thrown, all kinds of curves in the environments in which we live and work. Some of them have been our own doing, but the vast majority have been circumstances beyond our control. Our ability to manage that is based on our ability to practice emotionally intelligent skills and behaviors. So for instance in our framework that we use, there are 16 building blocks and one of them is adaptability and resilience, which happens to be a part of the self-management level. And that's something that a lot of people talk about. And it's a part of a lot of popular philosophical beliefs, probably the most resonant one is stoicism, but what a lot of these philosophies leave out is the dif the other elements.
Raman Chadha (09:35):
So my point being that it's one thing for me to be adaptable and resilient. It's another thing then for me to pick up the, on the cues that I'm getting from the people around me, both in my home and in my workplace and in today's world, even through video technology. So I spend, for instance, just as much attention when I'm in a meeting or a session for my work, I pay just as much attention to other people as I do to myself in the moment. And if I'm exercising my ability to be resilient, for instance, I have to pay attention to how other people are reacting in the moment, because I might think of myself as being in a, in a strong position. And I might then all of a sudden try to influence other people, but if they're not in a place where they can be or wants to be influenced, I'm going to fall flat on my face. And so it's an a, in other words, emotional intelligence, isn't just about ourselves. It's really about the world in which we are operating on a daily basis.
Michael Gardon (10:31):
Personally, I find this calm, at least it's most resonant with me in sort of the coaching type environment. So if I'm in a relationship with an employee or my kids, or in a mentor type relationship, that's where it sort of clicked for me. It's like, I have to understand where my influence sits in this relationship and the words that I'm using, like how they're landing on somebody else and also how everything else I'm doing is landing on somebody else. And then I need to be able to step into that person's shoes, if I want to get the best out of them, like that's what a coach is there for. So you talked a lot about mentorships and again, I think one of the biggest things I learned from just kind of following you and your work is the idea that your mentors don't really tell you what to do to ask really good questions. You talk a little bit about like the roots of that in particular, because I think that was the, probably the number one lesson and probably the biggest value on locker in my personal life that I've taken away from this.
Raman Chadha (11:37):
Yeah. Well, the roots of it is both experience. And then also some, some studying and research when I was probably midway through my career was reflecting on the most high impact people in my life. And I was trying to figure out what were some of the common commonalities amongst, and it turned out that the biggest one was they asked questions and it wasn't that they asked good questions or they asked the right questions. They just asked a lot of questions because in my view of mentorship, and this is the research and the end of the study that I did is really about discovery. And the only way for me, if I'm being mentored, the only way for me to discover more about myself and where I want to go is for people to bring out from what's inside with questions that I'm probably not going to ask myself.
Raman Chadha (12:23):
And so that's where that came from. And the more that I then started to do that myself and my mentorship roles, where I was mentoring others, I saw that impact occurring. And then since that time, we put it in the practice that at [inaudible] and we kept hearing the same types of feedback. So people started to shift that they started to appreciate the idea that mentorship is isn't about giving advice and guidance that's to some degree coaching and consulting and advising mentorship has its own little place. And it's about encouraging people to discover who they are and where they're going. And the best way to do that is through questioning.
Michael Gardon (12:58):
Yeah. And there's this as the mentor, there's the self-aware aspect of recognizing that if I'm the mentor and you're the mentee, I don't stand in your shoes. Like no matter how many facts we throw out on the table, you are interpreting certain things differently. And I need to see that and respect that, and the best way that I can possibly respect that is by asking great questions that get you to think about it from a different lens. And we can kind of cover it a little bit of the benefits, or at least giving people some taste. I want to drill down a little bit. You mentioned kind of the building blocks and your framework that you have at home. [inaudible] And I don't know if this is exactly the same, but like, can you sort of break down for us, like what you would view as the components of emotional intelligence? Like I know empathy is kind of a big thing in there. How do you break all of that apart?
Raman Chadha (13:50):
So back to Daniel Goldman's work, he had conceived of a, what he called four domains of emotional intelligence, which are self-awareness self-management social awareness and relationship management. After the first five years of our work, what we heard was this consistent feedback that there seem to be dare I say an order to it. And therefore what we ended up conceiving was this framework called the building blocks, where we take those four domains and turn them into levels foundation of self-awareness upon which sits self-management those two levels, then compose what we call self-mastery. And before we can then move on to social awareness, which is level three in relationship management, we must build stronger competencies and abilities with self-mastery because the levels three and four now involve other people. And so I might walk into a room thinking that I can just automatically read the room when, in fact, unless I know where I am in the moment, and unless I can turn the switch where now I'm making about them and not about me, I'm not going to be able to read the room as effectively. And then the fourth level is relationship management, which is the most advanced one, the most complex one, which is where everybody wants to be. Not recognizing that it's the first three levels they need to start with.
Michael Gardon (15:05):
Okay. So let's stick with kind of this self-mastery one for the moment, because again, I think most of our audience is probably in that bucket. We're where people who are looking to get a new job, looking to make a different jump in our career or kickstart our career. And we may not be in the ranks of managing big teams. So let's kind of stick there. What would the process be like for an individual to start exploring, getting better at emotional intelligence, getting more self-aware
Raman Chadha (15:40):
Well, you just uttered it. It starts with the foundation level, which is self-awareness and, you know, back to what I said about our building blocks framework. So each of the four levels, then it has four separate building blocks as we call them for self-awareness. They are emotional awareness, self image, clarity on purpose and values and self-confidence. And so emotional awareness is what we call the cornerstone of the entire framework. And that's where we use this tool called the emotion wheel as a method for us to check in with ourselves and to label how we're feeling in any given moment. And it can be a mix of words that come off of that wheel. And there are other tools that can also be used in that regard, but it's not just me knowing how I feel. It's also understanding why I feel that. And it's also understanding what type of an impact that's going to have on other people. So that's all part of emotional awareness. So that's where we typically will start. And then each of the three corresponding blocks and self-awareness help build overall our ability to then rise up to the level of self-management.
Michael Gardon (16:50):
Okay. So I, up on the screen for people who are watching the video of this, I have Hutto institutes emotion wheel up. I have one in front of me, ramen, take me through like how you would use this with somebody starting out. Yeah.
Raman Chadha (17:05):
With somebody starting out. What we say is, first of all, using the language, I'm feeling ownership of it. Not I am, but I'm feeling, and that's at the center of the wheel. Then the six emotions at the core are the six primary human emotions. We encourage people to start there. Okay. Are you feeling positive? Are you feeling negative? Are you feeling love, joy and surprise? Are you feeling fear, anger or sadness. And then from there branching out to find more nuanced words that better describe how you are feeling in the moment. So an example is that this past year and a half, for instance, a lot of people have been using the word anxious or anxiety. And that's, you know, is that coming from a place of fear or is it coming from a place of anger? Is it coming from a place of sadness?
Raman Chadha (17:50):
Because anxiety, while it's only sits in one place and our wheel can apply in all three of those areas, but there've been a lot of people who've been afraid this past year and a half. There are a lot of people who've been sad this past year and a half and so on, but those words can sometimes incorporate, as you can see so many different nuanced emotions that it's important for us to find a specific one that resonates with us personally. And the other point I want to make is what I referred earlier is we can sit in any one of those parts of the the wheel and simultaneously. So I can feel dismayed and frustrated and hostile while at the same time, feeling ecstatic, sentimental, and love, and that's demonstrates kind of the complexity of our humanity.
Michael Gardon (18:34):
Okay. So I want you to do this with me, but I want to just, again, I want to keep reminding people, like, I want to connect this back to the why, right? Like again, okay. It sounds like a therapy session, right? Like I'm getting in touch with my feelings. Why am I doing that? Right. So I don't want to put words in your mouth, but I'll just try to summarize. So for an individual, practicing this on a daily basis or in a situational basis on a situational basis will help you understand more about how you're feeling in certain moments and then be able to that's being projected out. Right. And so you're better able to understand how somebody else may be interpreting you. Am I missing anything?
Raman Chadha (19:16):
I think one thing that we haven't touched on yet is that when I have a sense of how I am in a moment, I now am in position to exercise self-control okay. So back to the, you know, what has happened this past year and a half, and I didn't get granular enough. So I'll get granular now in a different context, that could be a face-to-face interaction with someone. And someone says something that triggers me and it could be anything right, but it triggers me. We all have our own triggers. I can either react or I can respond. I typically react when I am not checking in with myself to see how it is I'm feeling. And the reason this is our emotions work faster than our thoughts do our emotions are automatic system. One responses by our brain where our thinking is slower system to process of our brain.
Raman Chadha (20:05):
If I know that what somebody just said triggered me and I'm feeling hostile or defensive or afraid, now I can create this distance between the stimulus and the reaction. And that distance is the space. And in that space, I have the ability to choose my response. And that could be a breath that could be a sip of water. That could be me walking away. That could be me counting to 10. And that's one of those building blocks now in self-management of emotional balance or in the moment in an instant, I can effectively achieve greater balance by stopping because I'm checking in with myself of how it wasn't appealing in the moment as opposed to simply reacting, flipping my Lyft.
Michael Gardon (20:48):
Okay. So that makes a lot of sense to me because obviously a plague in, in our society right now is this instant reaction, instant gratification, instant reaction beings, beeps. I have to react all the time and just giving that pause. And this is, I mean, it's a very similar principle with, you know, mindfulness meditation, just taking some time to like, feel your fingerprints or whatever to give it's really just about that separation. Right? That's an excellent synopsis for, for why individual should do it. And you use this in a group setting as well. Is that for transparency for literally getting out, like in verbal form, how somebody is feeling to their team members or how does that dynamic work?
Raman Chadha (21:38):
Yeah. So for instance, in our team huddles, every week we start with the emotion wheel check-in how are we feeling? And then you have the option to say, why, if someone doesn't feel comfortable, they don't have to. What that does now is. So if I'm in an, on a zoom call or in a meeting with six people, and I hear how they're feeling and why I'm now in better position to know how to manage the relationship with not just each of them, but the group as a whole, right? If our company just went through a tough period, people might be feeling fear, anger, sadness. If I'm a leader, I have to be really careful now about how I tread when I hear there, the words that they're sharing on the flip side, I know I can be a little bit more playful, positive forward-looking if I hear the opposite,
Michael Gardon (22:23):
Is this connected to the term that I hear a lot, which is psychological safety.
Raman Chadha (22:28):
I believe that when we create an environment where people are allowed to share how they're feeling without it going too far and for too long, that means that we are contributing to psychological safety,
Michael Gardon (22:43):
Right. Because I've definitely seen the speak on this and then have it go wrong in teams. Right. And it feels to me like this would be a really good tool to getting those things out on the table and make building a practice around it. Okay. So take me through this, have me do this. So I would start with I'm feeling, is that correct? Do I go to the next, I'm feeling one of these six or do I go straight up to
Raman Chadha (23:09):
However you feel like, because you've seen the wheel before you can go. Right. But let's, but let's assume that you haven't seen it before. This is the first time. Yeah. Okay. So I would ask you, Hey Mike, what are you feeling right now?
Michael Gardon (23:21):
Okay. So I am feeling, I'm feeling joy. I'm excited about this conversation. I'm like, I'm excited for just the topic and what we're diving into. I have some fear because I'm a little insecure around being on camera and having these conversations kind of like in a public forum, I'm definitely a behind the scenes guy and I've been trying to work on that, but I definitely feel that. And then there was one here as I looked at this that I was surprised where it was. So, oh, here it is. So I went straight to the term nostalgic. Okay. Because of our relationship, but it's funny. I wouldn't put it in kind of love and joy. It actually makes me a little bit sad just because like you and I have this connection that went way back and I'm reliving some of those and I don't necessarily get to do that on a daily basis. And so there's sort of like sadness attached to the nostalgia, I guess, which is kind of interesting based on where this all was. So that's how I would say
Raman Chadha (24:28):
The whole idea here is there's no right or wrong. So you just attached nostalgic or sentimental to feeling of sadness. And that's your way of processing it. And the beauty of sharing this with other people is it can't be argued with, we've done this thousands of times, Mike, I have not once ever heard someone try to rebut someone else's emotion. That's a really powerful thing to say. And back to this idea of psychological safety, the more we do that, the more psychologically safe people feel. And then, especially when we're in an environment where if a leader, for instance, let's say that, you know, we're on a team and you're a leader on the team and you just said, I feel insecure. And I feel sadness. Imagine how I feel if I'm like an entry-level team member or an associate, or I report to you. And I've just heard that now I feel so much more comfortable.
Raman Chadha (25:22):
I might not want to do it just yet, but I now feel more comfortable doing it at some point in time because you've role modeled the behavior. And that's a really critical piece to this when we're other, when we're, when we're with other people, is that's how we get other people to become more emotionally intelligent is by role modeling the behavior. We have a team member right now, quick anecdote. Who's been with us a little, about 15 months. She hasn't been through any of our program. She's a freelancer. And I have already observed that just by virtue of the way that we operate as a business, interpersonally actually intelligent 15 months without studying it and practicing it as intentionally as all of our members do, like it's staggering. And I just started picking that up a couple of weeks ago. I literally said to myself, during a meeting, she's different today than she was a year ago. That's really cool, but it's because everybody else in our team is doing their best to role model the behaviors.
Michael Gardon (26:18):
Right? So it's probably, I mean, it's somewhat of a difficult thing to adopt because it is a practice and you have to have buy-in and you have to have people modeling this type of behavior. So let's say you get, you get through a lot of that. I mean, what are the outcomes? I mean, we know that we have better relationships and I'm talking specifically like in a business setting, I guess we have, maybe we have better relationships, have more trust. What about an individual level? What do people who take this on and go through this journey? What's the number one thing that they say they come out of it with?
Raman Chadha (26:56):
I don't know if there's one, one thing necessarily, but if I had to answer that, I would say that they're just more comfortable with who they are. We hear words like clarity and confidence, a lot, and not confidence in a boastful or positive way because confidence, by the way, from a scientific standpoint actually includes an awareness of what we're not good at and what our limitations are. So I think those are some of the things that we get for ourselves. I, at a very anecdotal level, I hear people talking about like they just sleep better. They feel more comfortable in their own skin. They're more comfortable, finally being who they really are in front of people with whom they weren't in the past. And that could be personal relationships or professional relationships. So those are a lot of the factors. And that's why it also contributes to what we started with, which is bringing who you are, what you do.
Michael Gardon (27:51):
So I would say, I just want to give the audience a little bit of like what I've found in myself since we're talking about benefits and, and I haven't gone through exactly through your program, everything I've learned, I've just kind of absorbed from following you and watching what you do. But I would say confidence is a, is a, is a big one. And I think it's confidence. Not only necessarily like in how I carry myself, but being okay with what I know, what I don't know. I think there was a lot of like imposter syndrome at certain times in my life or places where I felt like I had to know that thing. And I didn't, and there was a lot of anxiety around that. And for whatever reason, just being able to sit with that or understand how I was feeling about that led me to just say, okay, and be okay with that, and then go down a path to kind of work through the rest of it.
Michael Gardon (28:48):
So I just, I, I definitely feel like I am more comfortable in knowing my core, but then also, like I feel more comfortable in taking on things that are outside of my core if I choose to, because I no longer kind of view those as, oh, I should know that it's like, oh, I get to try that. Or I get to do these things. And I don't view myself as like, oh, I should have already known that kind of thing. So that's like how I think I have in using the wheel in, again, following some of your practices, that's like what I've observed in myself. And I would also say, and has just been really interesting. I think like a huge accelerant to my journey with this has been having kids because like kids are a little bit easier to read and it's very clear to me that the way you solve a problem with a child is by managing their emotion.
Michael Gardon (29:49):
It isn't exactly. It's not their behavior. It's not what they did, right. It is. It's how they feel. And you can totally take them down the wheel. And if they're acting out, you can trick you by asking some good questions, again, like going back to mentorship, coaching, like it all comes to me through the kids. And so I think I've become much more self-aware I still have a long way to go as, as I think we all do, but I don't know. I guess like, if you want to become a more emotional, intelligent, go have a few kids as mine would say, life hack dad, life hack.
Raman Chadha (30:23):
Yeah. That'd be a really big life hack. Yeah. To that point, you know, there's, there are no hacks with emotional intelligence because it is, as you referred to a journey, it's a lifelong practice. We all speak to a couple of things. Number one, I talk a lot about how my two daughters were the accelerant for me, that I would have become more emotionally intelligent just with them, but because I was studying it while they were growing up, my gosh, like I had the blessing of those two things simultaneously. So without about here's one of the reasons why another one of the building blocks and self-awareness is a self image. As I mentioned earlier, our self-image, isn't just what we think of ourselves. In other words, our opinions and biases, but also it's informed by all the feedback we get from other people and whether we take self-assessments and so forth, right?
Raman Chadha (31:10):
So all this information that we derive from external parties, children are constantly giving us feedback when we're parents, whether we know it or not, everything that they do and say everything is feedback to us. And by the way, most of it is feedback about us. We don't treat it at that. And then once that light switch goes on, we recognize that data is giving us information about ourselves. And that helps us then manage that relationship. As you said, because we're moving up the levels, right? I'm observing how they are self a social awareness. I'm controlling myself, I'm informing myself awareness. And now my relationship management capabilities as a parent, it becomes stronger as it resolved. And the challenge as adults is we don't get enough feedback, especially in the workplace. And so we've got to find ways, invent ways to do that. And that's why even something like the emotion wheel can be helpful because it forces us to articulate how we're feeling, which is feedback for ourselves. And when somebody says how they're feeling, because it's based on something we said or did, that's also feedback to ourselves. That's why it can be really powerful to have children because they give us that feedback. But as adults, we've got to find other avenues.
Michael Gardon (32:21):
Yeah. Feedback is super key. I agree. We don't get enough of it. And so practices like this are great to bring in. And I think I wanted to just make another point. I think about, about when I hear people say they're more confident because of this. It ties in beautifully back to bringing yourself to what you do, because you're here sharing some of the most intimate feelings that you have with other people. And you realize that, oh my God, the world's not going to end, oh my God, these people, aren't going to hate me. When you have the nurturing, when you set the tone for this, it lifts everybody up. And so now we're full circle to, wow, I'm comfortable doing what I do. I'm comfortable now taking more risks and being out there. And that translates to more creative companies. I've seen it in myself for sure in our company and what we want to do and the things that we go after.
Michael Gardon (33:16):
So I just love that. And I think, again, it's somewhat tough sometimes for some people to see these sort of maybe see the power of some of these intangible benefits and how you tie all of it together. But I think that's the case when you have more confident people and they're willing to take more risks and have the safety and have the team support behind them, like you're going to go farther and that's including all of your other relationships as well. So to the person that like is kind of stuck in a large corporation and listening to this and saying like, there's no effing way that I can bring myself to what I do. Like what would you say to that person? I
Raman Chadha (33:58):
Would say that you may not be able to bring your entire self to what you do, but you can probably bring more of yourself. And that alone is a victory because that's what life is all about and is getting better every single day. And so if we can do that, just bringing more of who we are, whether we're in a large corporation or we're self-employed, I think that that's a win.
Michael Gardon (34:20):
Excellent. Where would you send people again? The individual just exploring AI? What, what type of resources, where would you send them first? So you mentioned Daniel Goleman's book. Are there any other areas where people can really kind of dive into this?
Raman Chadha (34:37):
Any of his books, I'm a big advocate of Daniel Goldman's work. There are other popular books bestsellers that I'm not as big of an advocate for, because they, I think they've taken a little bit too much Liberty and tried to write popular books as opposed to writing sound books. Because like I said, I'm a believer in the science of this. Another book that I believe is very similar to this. And as it has much more from a tools standpoint, so it's easier to practice emotional intelligence behaviors is the seven habits of highly effective people by Stephen Covey book has, I don't know, been around 25 or 30 years, but very well known. It has a lot of eerily similar principles in it to emotional intelligence. So those are the two that I would highly recommend. I'll also emphasize again, that emotional intelligence is not something in my opinion, that we can develop by watching YouTube videos and social posts.
Raman Chadha (35:33):
Like this is a rigorous lifelong practice that is similar to physical fitness. And so we all know that for us to be physically fit, doesn't just involve exercising, but involves how we eat and involves how we sleep. And everything that we do with our body is physical fitness. And that we're never as physically fit as we want it to be. Right. Those of us who are committed to it, continue to work on it because we know that it'll help extend your lifespan. That's what emotional intelligence is. It doesn't matter how emotionally intelligent we are, what matters is how emotionally intelligent we can be. And therefore it does require in my belief, a deep dive from a studying standpoint and also a practice stamp.
Michael Gardon (36:16):
Yeah, it's a habit. It's a practice. It's a lifelong commitment. But again, I think what's amazing is this, isn't just a career thing. This isn't just an output thing, right? This is a better, more fulfilling life. Like everybody has relationships right outside the workplace. We have our, our wives or girlfriends, our husbands, our children, boyfriends, parents, and all of those complicated relationships, right? And while you can't control everybody else, you can control and you can develop better control over how you react, respond, and believe me, that makes for better relationships. So I'm a huge believer. And I hope that we're able to kind of connect the why with some of the practices, ramen, where can people learn more about you and what you do
Raman Chadha (37:15):
Well, I'm on most of the social networks and what I do is all in the Huntsville Institute. So it's the Hutto institute.com and Hindu is spelled a J U N T O a. And that's where anybody can learn what we do as well.
Michael Gardon (37:28):
All right, Raman, thanks so much for being on. I really appreciate it, man. I'm getting goosebumps because I just love reconnecting with you and love our conversations every time we get the chance. So I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story.
Raman Chadha (37:41):
My pleasure, Mike, I appreciate you asking me to do this and spreading the word about this because I believe that more of that needs to be done. Great. Awesome.
Outro (37:54):
CareerCloud Radio is a production of careercloud.com. Please review this episode on iTunes. We really appreciate it a lot. And thank you.
