So we're talking about four reasons to build healthy relationships at home and at work
under the rubric of growing your EQ factor, and that's the emotional quotient of your life.
What I shared earlier was that your emotional quotient can be, I gave a definition. Here's
my definition is emotional intelligence or emotional EQ is the ability to understand,
use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, communicate effectively,
empathize with others, overcome challenges, and defuse conflict. And then I shared that having a
high and growing EQ will empower you in self-management, self-awareness, social awareness,
and relationship management. Today I'm talking about the benefits and the value that comes
with a high IQ at home and at work. That relationships really matter. That as you're
becoming better and skilled at having good relationships, everything else in your life's
going to go better. And the first thing I said in the last episode was healthy relationships
make you healthy. Healthy relationships make you healthy. And I meant physically and emotionally
and spiritually healthy. That people who have strong relationships, strong connection with
others, tend to be healthier. They just don't get as sick as other people. They don't contract
cancer as much as other people. Now, of course, everybody who contracts cancer doesn't mean they
have a low EQ. I'm not saying that. But I am saying many of us who work hard at our relationships and
try to build relationships, positive relationships, not negative relationships, socially healthy
relationships, not isolational in our lifestyle, tend to be healthier. We just tend to be physically,
emotionally, and spiritually healthier. Well, secondly, and listen to this. This is really
important. A high IQ makes you courageous. It does. High IQ people are more courageous. They're
more brave than those who don't have that. They did this interesting study a number of years ago
at the University of Virginia where they took hikers and they had one group. It was just they
had one group of people that were all individual hikers. They showed him a summit and they interviewed
them and asked him, how long will it take you to summit this mountain? And they gave him a time,
what they thought it would be. And they went through all these people that were individuals.
Then they had another grouping. They were pairs. And so they interviewed a pair of hikers and they
asked him the exact same question. How long will it take you to summit this peak? And in 75% of the
cases, the pair believed and actually did summit the mountain 40% faster than the individual hikers.
So what does that tell you? The study that they concluded with is that when we have each other,
when we have a mutuality with others, when we're doing things together as a team, we do things
faster, quicker, and we're more courageous in even our view of what we can do. This is why I think
the sports, the teamwork sports, are so valuable in the life of a kid when he's growing up. To be
in sports, to be in baseball, football, basketball, tennis, whatever it is. You say, well, tennis is an
individual sport. Yeah, but it doubles tennis, isn't it? So much of that is so crucial in growing as a
person in relationships. And I think it's also important, you know, when we're talking about
dating before you marry someone, that's important that you know them. Is there a real good
connection? Can you work through problems together? Because EQ in a marriage is so important. So
secondly, healthy relationships make you courageous. Thirdly, healthy relationships or high EQ
empowers you to reach your full potential. You are made to do life with others. That means that the
more that you're doing life with others, the more you have the potential to reach. All that is in
your God-given abilities. Sean Accor in his fantastic book, which I would encourage any of
you to read called Big Potential, I quote him. He says, I believe that there's one main reason why
we are seeing elevated rates of anxiety in our schools and unhappiness in the world. A crucial
mistake that every major religious tradition and ancient philosopher warned us against.
We've been trying to pursue happiness and success by ourselves in isolation,
depending completely on ourselves for success in isolation through competition.
This is what I call small potential, believing we have to do all this alone.
We've been taught in our culture to strip others out of our formula for success and
happiness.
When you choose to be more grateful, more positive, that makes other people around you
more grateful and more positive as well and this creates a virtuous cycle.
The only way to achieve big potential in our lives is to transform the pursuit of happiness
and success from a solitary one to an interconnected one.
Love that.
And Dr. Accor really gets it, that the interconnection that we have with others and their interconnection
with us actually empowers us to reach our full potential.
So instead of being in competition with people, kind of holding back what makes a success,
to sharing, giving, loving others, giving away our secrets, letting others also find
success has a interconnected, almost symbiotic relationship of their success actually influencing
and empowering us with our success.
So that's pretty exciting.
It sounds a lot like the kingdom of God to me, that God wants us to be kingdom in our
relationships.
So reaching your full potential comes, your greatest chance of reaching your full potential
comes through a high EQ, healthy relationships.
And then fourthly and lastly, healthy relationships break the power of shame.
All of us carry shame.
All of us have stuff, situations, relationships that we don't want anybody to know about and
it's those things that we hide, we play hide and seek within ourselves, we play hide and
seek with others.
We play hide and seek with just ourselves and that's what creates blind spots.
But shame is a part of our lives and shame are those things that if people knew about
us they would disconnect because they would have a lower view of us.
And the reality is everybody's got shame and the quicker we can get over that and begin
to share our shame with others through vulnerability, the quicker we can get healed.
And Brene Brown has done the best work on this and any of her books relating to shame
and vulnerability are awesome.
I've read most of them.
Brene Brown has said something very interesting.
She says, vulnerability is super risky.
It's the reason we don't do it because we're just afraid of it.
And here's what she says.
She describes vulnerability as uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.
So here's what, here's the problem with walking in and living a life of vulnerability is you
don't, you don't know what that person is going to do with the information that you
give them.
So it's always risky and it always sets you up for emotional exposure.
But men and women, it's worth it.
It's so worth it.
And even if people betray you, you need to have enough relationships and a high enough
EQ factor that you're still bolstered by the others that are for you.
And of course, you'll learn to know where to share your shame and who to share your
shame with.
It's not for everybody, but for those that you feel like that you can trust.
I want to challenge you to strengthen your personal relationships.
EQ is huge.
It's really important in your walk with God and in your walk in this world with people.
And in the next episode, I'm going to talk about what some of those hindrances are.
There's hindrances to developing your EQ.
I'm going to talk about that in the next episode.
But let me conclude with a toolkit.
So here's four skills that I want to challenge you to get good at in your life in relation
to EQ and how to develop your EQ.
The first, number one, is a skill to work through conflict and create a win-win situation.
A win-lose situation is where you win, they lose.
That's that competitive side, the dark side of our personalities.
And I'm saying you got to push through that into a mutuality and a win-win attitude so
that when you're in conflict resolution, when you're talking to someone, there's a conflict,
you're trying to pull out of them the best.
What's the best thing in that person's life?
It may not even be there yet.
You don't see it very often, but you're trying to work through whatever's the current conflict
in a win-win way where that person begins to realize that you're for them, that you
love them, that you care about them, that you're kind and that your kindness gives them
a desire to change.
And it's the Bible.
that says it's the kindness of the Lord that leads us to repentance, not the
sternness of the Lord, but the kindness of the Lord. Well, we need kind people. We need
people who are in a conflict and instead of just shoving, you know, your viewpoint
down someone's throat, we actually have enough ownership of our own
responsibility and help that person to want to change just as you want to
change. Sometimes you have to model it before them, but you work through a
conflict in a win-win way. Well, that's a skill to be developed and I don't have
time to go over that right now, but there's plenty of seminars, I'm sure
plenty of webinars you could go to on conflict resolution. Number two, in the
toolkit of a high IQ, the skill to verbally encourage and empower others.
Encourage you to become a good communicator verbally. You say, well, I
don't, I'm not very good at that. Most people say that. Okay, well, let me tell
you, one of the best things you can do is try to encourage someone every day.
Some of the people here at the church, we just had a party, and so the
first thing I wanted to know about the party was who made, who got the card, who
made the cake, and all that, and then I personally thanked them for that
because it was a party for me, but it really was a party for everybody that
was there, and I wanted to encourage the people that did it. So learn to
encourage and empower others. Number three, the skill to communicate love and
kindness. The ability to communicate love and kindness. So instead of just assuming
that that person feels love or assume that that person's okay, why not say it?
Why not say loving things and kind things to that person? And then number
four, the skill of building leaders around a common vision. So if you're a
leader, a high IQ is the ability to develop other people in the group into
leaders, but also lead them in a common vision, a common mission. So I hope this
is helpful to you, and in the next episode, this is pretty important because
in the next episode, I want to talk about obstacles to a high EQ, and there's a few
of them. Some of them may seem to be insurmountable, but they're not. Take it
from me, they're not. God can do anything in your life, and he can actually make
you who you might consider yourself a pessimistic person, you might consider
yourself more of an introvert. This has nothing to do with extrovert or
introvert. This has to do with healthy relationships in your life. I want to
talk about those obstacles, and I hope by identifying them, that's going to help
you see breakthrough in your life to getting a high EQ.