You don't grow in EQ without being in EQ circumstances
and that's through personal relationships with people.
The give and take of personal relationships.
The fourth reason for a low EQ is isolation.
Letting ourself fall into a tendency to be alone a lot,
to like go home straight from work,
stay alone, be alone, maybe watch movies,
maybe play video games.
I think one of the reasons that we see
so many young people today with a low EQ
is because they've been birthed out of the internet
and the computer age of isolation with their laptop
or with their computer and they just are not
in enough relational, connective situations to grow in EQ
because you don't grow in EQ without being in EQ
circumstances and that's through personal relationships
with people.
The give and take of personal relationships.
And I would say, and I've said this in other talks
that I've given, isolation's probably the number one
problem for most men.
Women struggle with it too but not nearly as much
as men do.
We tend to be independent.
We tend to be maverick.
We tend to be kind of outlaws.
We tend to be outliers.
And in some categories, that's really good.
And you see someone who's an inventor,
someone who's very creative, we're talking about someone
who has enough time alone that they can come up
with these amazingly creative ideas.
So there's nothing wrong with being alone.
I'm talking about isolation though.
I'm talking about when we isolate ourselves
from people too much.
As soon as we're done with this episode,
I will go home and I'll have to study so I'll be working
on stuff alone and I need that time.
But I'm not isolating myself.
So I'm talking about, that's this fourth reason
for a low EQ is those individuals that tend
to isolate themselves.
They're afraid of relationships.
They don't trust people.
And then because of that, they get themselves
in this weird circuitous thinking world
where they think of themselves as something
that's just not true about them.
For example, I've known so many people that began
to isolate themselves after a failure of some sort.
They lost their job.
They lost their marriage.
They lost a relationship.
They go into maybe a venture of some sort
and it's an abject failure.
The whole thing falls apart or they lose all their money
or they go through bankruptcy, whatever it might be.
Then going in, isolating themselves from others
and then having this thought, this circuitous thinking
of I'm a loser.
I'm never gonna amount to anything.
Everything I try fails.
I'm not a good leader.
I'm not a good father.
I'm not a good husband.
All those things are going through their mind
but if you don't have some other people
that can give objective perspective to help you,
holy smokes, you can go into this deep, deep hole.
And people like that then become depressed.
They start struggling with anxiety disorders
and then if it's not caught somewhere
in the continuing depth of one's circuitous negative thinking
it can lead to suicide.
So isolation is very, very dangerous
and Satan loves when we isolate ourselves from people
because people give us objective feedback.
People who love us tell us that's not true.
Look, two years ago you did this, this and this.
Those were tremendous wins for you.
You've had great relationships.
So sometimes we need people to speak life into us
and to speak perspective into us.
So isolation would be the fourth big reason for a low EQ.
Fifth, and I think I chose to make this fifth
because it fits with the fourth, and that's fear.
We're fearful of relationships
usually because of shame in our life.
And everyone has shame.
Everyone has done things or had things done to them
in their childhood, as they're growing up,
that they're ashamed of.
A lot of times it's not what you did.
A lot of times it's what someone did to you
that you don't want anybody to know about.
You especially see this in sexual abuse,
where there's been sexual abuse or even verbal abuse
or physical abuse on a kid and they've been slapped around
and they've been screamed at and they've been abused.
They can still hear that voice in their heart, you know, that you're never going to amount to anything.
You're just this kind of person or that kind of person, and you're playing those scriptings through your head.
And so the idea of being vulnerable with people is really scary.
And so when that happens, we wrap ourselves up in this cocoon of fear.
And this fear encapsulates us, and it paralyzes us,
and we can't have the beautiful and wonderful and loving relationships that God wants us to have.
And so fear becomes a big part of our story.
And with that story, the pain that goes with it, if we don't break out of that,
then it can just atrophy our mind and atrophy our heart to such a degree
that we never grow in the relational connection that we could have had with people.
So fear's huge.
Fear is probably the enemy's greatest tactic for bondage.
Fear always creates bondage.
And I'm not talking about the healthy kind of fear.
I'm not talking about a fear of something that's coming your way that you have a fear of,
so thus you prepare because you know that thing could take your life
or you know that thing could hurt your family.
I'm talking about an unhealthy fear,
the kind of fear that paralyzes you from being able to move out in action with relationships.
And that's how we develop our EQ is breaking through our fear with courage.
And so courage is not just the opposite of fear, okay?
But courage is more of a decision that we make.
I like what Winston Churchill once said.
He said, fear is a reaction, but courage is a decision.
So when we decide I'm not going to let this shame area block me from a wholehearted life,
that's a decision.
That's a courageous decision.
But then there's actions that you have to take at that point,
and that's called vulnerability, being vulnerable with other people.
So vulnerability with others breaks the power of fear.
But we break the power of fear by having the courage to make the decision to be vulnerable.
So vulnerability becomes the key to breaking out of that.
And then lastly, sixthly, is undervaluing of team, the undervaluing of team.
And this is what I mean by that.
For some of us, we've been pretty good at doing things in fiat or just doing things on our own.
And so we become convinced that's the best way to do stuff.
And Sean Accor, in his book, The Happiness Advantage, as well as his latest book,
which was called Big Potential,
talks about the fact that we've grown up thinking that our success totally depends on ourselves.
And the new research would show that the more, he calls it the virtuous cycle,
the more we can learn to help others, make them successful,
do everything we can to make them as empowered by us that they're achieving their goals, then we benefit.
So we benefit by loving others.
So sometimes it's actually valuable to take our eyes off just ourselves,
actually look around and build a team, work as a team on projects,
work as a team to accomplish goals,
work as a team for the success of everyone around you.
That's called big potential.
That's reaching your big potential.
That's a virtuous cycle.
In other words, the more you're helping the team win,
which are the different individuals on the team,
then the more you win because you're on that same team.
And plus, it's a whole lot more fun.
It's a lot more joyful when you're helping each other that way.
You know, undervaluing team sometimes is a product of not knowing how to build a team.
Well, the only way to learn how to build a team is to build one.
So, you know, you build it, you make some mistakes, you learn from it,
you build again, you make a few more mistakes, you build it again.
Each time you're on this skill development trajectory of becoming better and better as a team captain,
team player, and that's how life becomes joyful,
is working on a team, succeeding together on that team.
Here at The Road, where I'm the pastor, we have a team.
And I, as much as I can, try to include the team.
That's the reason we do staff meetings.
I lead the staff meetings, asking a lot of questions about how things went
because I want everybody to feel like that they contribute to the success of the church and what we're doing.
It's not that I have to have that.
It's not even sometimes that I want to have that.
I don't want to spend the time asking people's opinion, but I know the value that is to them.
And then the beautiful thing is, man, we're a better church because of it.
And so then you see the value of it by being a part of a team.
So being a wholehearted team player is huge in EQ.
So I hope this is helpful to you in developing in relationships, developing teamwork around
you, not letting yourself get so busy and so stressed out that you isolate from people
because you're hardwired for connection with people.
That's the way God made us.
He made us to be hardwired for connection with people.
Matter of fact, they found in numerous studies, and I shared this earlier in one of the earlier
episodes that we actually are wired to such a degree that we value.
We may not be able to recognize it, but we value connection with people even more than
food and water, that they find that people can survive longer.
People have resiliency longer, heartier, stronger when they have other people with them than
when they're alone.
And so don't continue to live in isolation and confinement and find yourself just being
totally a maverick, but work as a team.
I pray that this has been helpful to you in growing in your EQ factor.
It's a better way to go.
It's going to be more successful for you.
It's more fun.
It's more enjoyable.
So God bless you.
I hope that's helpful to you.
Share this with others if you think it has been.
Take care.