Harnessing Success: The Power of Emotional Intelligence in Business with Joshua Freedman

Emotional intelligence is actually an absolutely essential tool set for you and for your people. Organizations that score higher in emotional intelligence are 10 to 20 times more likely to have high performance. You're going to retain people, you're going to engage customers, and your brand is going to have a different impact if you've really paid attention to the emotional experience that you're creating. So there's now just tons of research that we can boil down to a simple sentence. Emotions drive people, people drive performance. If you're finding value in what you're watching, consider hitting the subscribe button and turning on the bell notification. Oh, and don't forget to drop a comment. I love hearing your thoughts and ideas. By the way, we have got a ton of other videos waiting for you. And if you are ready to level up your mindset, come hang out with us in our private Facebook group called Mindset for Business Success. Welcome to Super Entrepreneurs Podcast. I'm your host, Shahid Durrani. Today we have with us Joshua Friedman. Joshua is the CEO of Six Seconds, a global emotional intelligence community. He equips strategic leaders with emotional skills and metrics for a great culture. Welcome to our show, Joshua. Again. Yeah, it's great to be back. For the second time. Yes, I love it. Just to start off today, can you share how emotional intelligence can drive innovation, creativity for entrepreneurs and their ventures or their establishment, giving them a competitive edge from someone who's not looking into emotional intelligence? Sure. I think that as an entrepreneur, you are probably pretty focused on what you're creating, what your value proposition is, what you're bringing to market. You probably have some thoughts about how you bring it to market, how you build customers. You might have some thoughts about who you need in your team. Probably you have relatively little bandwidth where you're saying, how do I need to show up to engage those people to have that result? Most entrepreneurs have some thoughts about culture and thinking, yeah, I want a vibrant, positive culture, but probably not a lot of tools to do that. You've probably heard the famous Peter Drucker quote, culture eats strategy for breakfast. You probably recognize that if you have some weaknesses in your culture, people aren't really collaborating. People aren't really communicating. Your great product ideas and innovations are going nowhere. You might not realize that emotional intelligence is actually an absolutely essential tool set for you and for your people. Organizations that score higher in emotional intelligence are 10 to 20 times more likely to have high performance. You're going to retain people, you're going to engage customers, and your brand is going to have a different impact if you've really paid attention to the emotional experience that you're creating. So there's now just tons of research that we can boil down to a simple sentence. Emotions drive, people drive performance. Yeah. Emotions is the engine that gets this body moving. Literally, at a neurobiological level. It's super interesting. There's some research that's been done on people who don't really have emotions, usually because of a brain injury or illness. Okay. And what's fascinating is they can be really smart after those brain injuries, and they can talk as we are about facts and the world and data, and you have a lawyer who can still talk about case law. But then you say, okay, which of these things is more important? And they can't decide. Emotion tells us what to trust, emotion tells us what to prioritize, emotion tells us where we should be energized, where we should go. So when you have a board meeting and someone says, my gut is telling me this is what's important, that's emotion. And it shapes every thought we have, every decision we have and every action that we take. So when it comes to emotions, that may be more on a negative side as an entrepreneur, business owner, where you're expecting the worst all the time. I'm just giving an example of someone that might be out there that might be looking at everything as difficult, troublesome. What is that guy's intention? He was always on the lookout, very careful, worried, negative. When they get an emotion about a decision, how would you rate the quality of that decision then based on those emotions? Right. For example, when we appraise a decision, how much are we focusing on the opportunity or the threat? And a good decision is going to consider both of those. You can be too optimistic, you can be too excited. Personally, I probably have more trouble with excitement as an emotion than fear, for example. I get really excited about things and I'm, yeah, let's do it. And my team's, can we talk about it first? Can we think this through? But they're only able to do that because we've built a culture where there's enough trust, where people feel trust is an emotion and are able to have the conversations that we need to have. So there's our internal emotional dynamics, our relationship with our team, our customers, our investors, all of that is shaped by emotion. And if you're not paying attention to those emotions and using them intentional, you're just throwing away value. Back to my question, I just want to understand from your professional opinion, the quality of that decision. If someone is always on the lookout for bad news or negativity, and they're feeling the emotions that they're going to get automatically are going to be on the negative pole. So they may be more often hitting themselves in the foot, they might be losing opportunities. So I just wanted to pick your brain on this topic, this idea. Sure. So certain emotions tell us about opportunities and certain emotions tell us about threats. And so if you're, you know, emotion like excitement, emotion like curiosity, emotion like joy, those are signals of opportunity. And if you are not tuning into those feelings in yourself and the people around you, you're going to miss those opportunities. On the other side, if you're not tuning into worry, if you're not turning into tuning in to pay attention to who's stressed and why, you're going to be missing the threats. And then just for example, somebody is going to quit and you're going to go, I didn't see that coming. And Shahid or I, we would have said, wow, we could see that coming a mile away because we were paying attention to the emotions. So a balance. Yes. Unfortunately, the balance doesn't exist as much in the world today. It's real hard to find. Yeah, no. And that's where you come in and that's where you help organizations create that balance. And you too. Yeah. Because you could be aware of the negative. You could be aware of the problems. You could be aware of the worry side of things and make an informed decision based on that awareness, but not get infused into it where you're just taking that one pull all the way. By doing so, you create that balance. So I would say every emotion is there for a reason. Yeah. And by the way, I don't even believe they're negative emotions. They're just there for a reason. Yeah, it is what it is. They're all there for different reasons. And are we listening to just one? Are we listening to just these couple? Or are we really going to hear all these perspectives? So can you share some tips or some information on entrepreneurs leveraging emotional intelligence to navigate uncertainty, manage stress, for example, under pressure decisions, like quick decisions, anything that you could share on that? Yeah. First of all, you just mentioned uncertainty. And I think maybe we could talk a little bit about uncertainty. Sure. Please. I don't know about y'all, but I am so tired. We're living in unprecedented times. So much uncertainty. And our brains are not wired for uncertainty. There's an interesting study that was done at University College London, as studies do. They had two groups of people. One group of people, they said, play this video game, and you will get a shock. And the other group of people, they said, play this video game, and you have a 50-50 odds of getting a shock. Now, logically, 50-50 odds is better than definitely getting a shock, right? But most people, the majority, opted for the guaranteed shock. And the reason is uncertainty is literally painful for our brains. And this level of uncertainty that we're living in today, people are exhausted by it. So we just published the new state-of-the-heart research, which is the global benchmark on emotional intelligence. 169 countries, randomized sample, been doing this for 12 years, and we are in emotional recession. People are so deeply depleted after the last few years, which came after the few difficult years before that, by the way, right? And people are deeply depleted. You as an entrepreneur, chances are you are more depleted than five years ago. Everyone on your team, chances are they are. All of your investors, all of your allies, all of your customers, all the people you meet on the street, your children if you have them, your neighbor. All around you, people are in this state of emotional exhaustion, if not burnout. So that makes the work that we're talking about harder and more important. Definitely more important. And for uncertainty or navigating uncertainty, what do we feel? If I'm living in uncertainty and all the times that we went through, obviously since COVID and since the pandemic, it was a shocker for a lot of people and it disturbed lives. There's people we lost, loved ones we lost. Businesses were kaput in a lot of areas. A lot of people had their income just wipe away and had to rethink everything. What I'm saying is challenges do occur in our lives. Without challenges, life wouldn't be life. And having that understanding that it is what it is, also the fact is that in 100 years from now, this 110, 115, whatever, the entire batch of human beings on this planet won't be here. It'll be a brand new batch. So knowing that we may think of something being very severe and serious and the challenge might be driving us crazy, but in the grand scheme of things, they're happening and you can either fight it, resist it, or have faith. Having faith that whatever happens is going to happen and I'm okay with it and I have faith that it's going to work out. Do you think we can do both? Which have faith and fight and resist. Yeah, we got to do the work and have faith. Yeah, you have to be aware of the challenges. Like I mentioned earlier, you have to be aware of it. You have to deal with it. Pivot. I started this podcast when everything fell apart, but you don't create a nightmare for yourself within. So I just wanted to talk to you about faith because faith is very powerful. It changes lives. In the worst circumstance that you may be experiencing with faith, it can just take a complete turn. Events and situations, circumstances, everything will transform into something different. There's something very special about faith. I'm saying faith and it'll be okay. At the end of the day, it'll be okay. So what are your thoughts on that when it comes to emotional intelligence? I think that we're in a time in the world where if we don't get it together, 100 years from now, people are going to be saying, what the heck were those people doing? Why didn't they? The new batch is going to say, those kids missed it. We've had the hottest record heat. The record heat. It's the hottest temperatures on earth for five years running. We have wars breaking out. We have political polarization. We have economic crisis in half the world. We have tremendous fragility. There's a term that I like, which is metacrisis. It's like the crisis of crises. And all these things coming together, leading us into a sort of combo pack crisis, where it's really hard for people to step up. And by the way, we measure optimism. Not, oh, everything's great, just smile. But actual optimism. The faith talking about, we can make things better. And optimism has declined. It's one of the biggest losses in the last five years. Unfortunately. That's the metacrisis. And it's a trauma response. People are experiencing a lot of small T trauma, but many of them, and some big T trauma. And the burden of that. And I think that makes our work as entrepreneurs, makes our work as change makers, it's harder. People around us are going to be more resistant. We're going to be less open to new ideas. We're going to be less willing to adopt, to pivot, to shift, to put money in something uncertain. We should buy gold. That's what people do when they're really stressed. And so there's this withdrawal that happens. As an entrepreneur, we're trying to get people to step forward into something new. That's what entrepreneurship is all about. And I have tremendous faith in humanity. And I just see people do just unbelievable things. Incredible things. Yeah. Incredible things. I'm running our master coach certification this week, and I've just been hearing these deeply profound conversations between more or less strangers as they support each other in creating transformation. And just grappling with just ordinary stuff, but in an extraordinary way. And I see, and this is people from, I don't know, seven different countries here together. And I see people have an unbelievably deep capacity for compassion and growth and commitment to change. And it's being tested hard. How you mentioned about all the issues that we're facing in the world, the climate change, the flooding, and just one thing after another. Do you feel that there's basically the lack of awareness towards our thoughts, emotions, and actions individually, right? In the business world and just in general, if we had more of those throughout history on an individual basis, I think personally things would be different. I've thought a lot about, okay, I've got this one life, what am I going to do with it? And what will make the biggest difference in the world? And I look at all of these issues that there's so many, some things have gotten better in my lifetime, but there are a lot of things that have gotten worse. And what will make the biggest difference? And I've chosen developing emotional intelligence, teaching people how to grow these skills, supporting people to practice and grow these skills, because it is so foundational. If we can connect with our own emotions and each other's emotions, we kind of feel our shared humanity. If we can actually make better decisions that aren't so short-sighted and impulsive, if we can have this sense of, wow, I have a responsibility to myself, to the people around me, to my community, to the whole world, to the future. And I need to make choices today that are in line with that. And it's not like a big drag, right? That's freedom. That's freedom to be able to say, I can do this. Yeah. You take your power back. Yes. You take your power back. And this means a lot when it comes to building your business, creating wealth, building relationships, leaving a legacy. If you can take care of another human being at that level, but first taking care of yourself outwards, inside out, you have a big hand in the overall health of the society and business. A lot of the entrepreneurs that I meet, I'm curious if you've experienced this too, a lot of entrepreneurs that I meet feel a really profound responsibility to their team members, to their customers, to their investors. A lot of pressure. A lot of pressure. And a lot of us get into a state where we're not taking care of ourselves. The attention is outwards. And then comes a day when we wake up in the hospital and I'm like, oh, oops, I guess I should have done it a little different. And I think that piece you just talked about of how do we strengthen ourselves in a way that strengthens one another? Because I don't think humans are social animals. And as social animals, I don't think we're at our best when we're alone. And yet entrepreneurship is really lonely in a way. But I found Joshua that going within, going deep within, some people may look at that as being alone, but there's something extremely special about it that there's no feeling of loneliness at all. There's something very powerful about spending time inwards in the emptiness or the stillness and the calmness. You do that for 15 minutes, for example, you just feel like a brand new human being infused with some sort of a strength or power that you gain from within. So when you go within, your attitude starts changing about other people, how you mentioned about dealing and working with other people. It stops becoming a competition or what does this person think of me type of mentality towards what can I do for this person? It shifts everything, how we deal with one another. And I just feel like going deep within is the secret to life. It's very special. Yeah. And the skills of emotional intelligence, a significant part of it is really being able to understand ourselves more honestly, more profoundly. My experience is, if we don't really learn to listen to ourselves, if we don't connect with our emotions, we don't connect with others in the same way. And we end up doing stuff that we regret. I think a lot of it is about switching off autopilot and learning how to be more intentional. But it's also fun. This sounds so heavy. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's so liberating when I feel like my life... There's clarity, right? Yeah. Clarity provides a lot of peace. I think in a lot of my life, I would end the day looking in the mirror and saying, you know, that's not who I wanted to be today. That sucks. It's so much more fun to go, yeah, you know what? I laid it all out there today. I was open. I was honest. I was authentic. I listened to people. I listened to myself. And I did my best. That's awesome. It is. It is. That said, let's talk about Gen Z a little bit. Sure. Because I have some bad news in our research. And I think a lot of people who are leading businesses are going to be struggling with this, working across generations. And I hear a lot of assumptions from managers and leaders like, oh, they're Gen Z. They're not motivated. They're fragile. And our research is a little different. We did find that a lot of the declines in emotional intelligence that we've seen in the last five years are worse for Gen Z. The kind of factors that allow people to drive themselves, like optimism that we talked about, something we call pursue noble goals, which is that sense of purpose you talked about. For Gen Z, those have declined even more than everybody else. At the same time, our research shows people in Gen Z are really focused on achievement. And they're actually, surprisingly, you'd think in a younger generation, people would be more risk-oriented. And actually, what we found is that they're more cautious. It tells us something about how do we need to manage when you have people who are not feeling that sense of optimism, feeling that cautiousness. How do we help connect the dots? And I think if we have young employees and we're not helping them feel that their work matters and helping them understand the difference that they're making, we're really selling them short. And then we're not going to get great performance. And that's going to sell us short. They're very much serious about the earth, about being good to the planet, being good to others. I don't believe there's anything called bullying anymore in their world. Everybody's accepting each other. It's beautiful. There's a lot of love. But your research is showing some parts that organizations need to be aware of. Yeah. And in simple terms, I guess what I'd say is, overall, for all of us, we're in deeper water. The waves are bigger when it comes to emotions. And in those bigger waves, our boats are going to get filled with water, or we're going to learn to be better sailors. And we're going to learn how to navigate this complexity. And the tools for navigating this kind of complexity are emotional intelligence tools. And that's the good news, is these are all learnable skills. And we know that when people learn these skills, they have more effectiveness, better relationships, higher well-being, and better quality of life. And that correlation, those four things, over 50% of the variation in outcomes is predicted by emotional intelligence scores. And all it needs, Joshua, is a decision. All it needs is a decision. You know what, I'm going to make this shift, starting with myself and outwards in my organization. Yeah, something I love working with engineers, because they're so good at optimizing. And they're like, okay, tell me the constraint. Tell me what, and we'll optimize to it. I feel like in general, business people, once they make the decision, yes, this is important, they can go after it. They can go after it for themselves. They can go after it in their culture. So I agree with you. The decision part is the difficult part. Yeah. I can see this is valuable. I'm going to do it. And that decision is a shift from it's interesting to it's valuable. And that's a lot of what my work is around, is helping leaders go, oh, I can see why this is really valuable. No, definitely, Joshua. It's always a pleasure having you on the show. I really appreciate your time today. It was great talking to you. Definitely come back if there's anything else and new research that you would like to share, please do. We're just trying to make an impact in the world in all areas. I know the show is about entrepreneurship, but entrepreneurs have a family, they have relationships, they have a life and they're leaders in the world. And if we can penetrate the business world, the leaders of the world and get them to understand the importance behind it, they can make a dramatical shift in the world because of that position they hold in their branding and the people that they deal with because it's a ripple effect. So your work is very important. I respect you and I enjoy speaking to you. So definitely wishing you all the best. Thank you. It's great to get a chance to be with you. And thank you all for listening. I hope you'll decide that emotional intelligence is going to be a priority for you and your business. And we'll be glad to help you make it happen. Make the decision. That's all it takes, making the decision. Thank you, Joshua. Thank you.