Hello and good evening, I'm Jane, sat a financial planning and analysis consultant at Verizon. I'm here to talk about the practical guide to building emotional intelligence and insight, which is a topic that I am very passionate about.So just a little bit about myself, I have always wanted to move to Australia from the Philippines and I got that opportunity to move and change my life. When my permanent resident visa application got approved about 5.5 years ago, the company I was working for at that time, which was T tech offered me a job which is similar to the role I was doing back in the Philippines in Sydney to what I was doing before. And this made my move, feel very supported. However, about two years ago, back in 2020 during the start of the COVID pandemic, they decided to close down the business unit I was supporting and they closed down our offices in London, Sydney and Hong Kong. That was a time of incredible stress and uncertainty for myself. And because of the emotions that I was feeling back then I decided that I needed to get a grip about my emotions and I needed to learn more about my emotions and then incorporate those practices in my life.

And these practices have allowed me to bounce back and you become a much stronger person who can face adversities. And these things are those which I will share with you in my session today. So I, my talk for today is composed of two things. The first one would be mindset, which is composed of three things and we will, where we will cover emotional inside and emotional control. And the second part would be the practices that I have incorporated in my life that help me build emotional intelligence and insight. So let's dive in. So the first one is mindset. So there are three critical parts in the mindset. And the first one is c clarity. Second is pay attention and third is take control. So seeking clarity, I got this concept of seeking clarity by from the book High Performance Habits by Brendan Bouchard because the chances are you are here watching this session because you want more success in your jobs. You want to have better relationships with your spouse, your kids, your friends, and even colleagues at work. So the first step is really being clear on what you want and why that matters to you. So some questions you can ask yourself is, what kind of emotions do you want to feel most of the time? And how do you want to show up? Every day and around the people you care most about.

So what I'm sharing showing right now is one of my favorite quotes by Daniel Goldman, who they say is the father of emotional intelligence. And what I feel about this code is that he wonderfully puts together the reason why learning about emotional intelligence is very important in our lives. So I'm just gonna read it through. He said that people with well developed emotional skills are more likely to be content and effective in their lives, mastering the habits of mind that foster their own creative productivity. People who cannot marshal some control over their emotional life, fight inner battles that sabotage their ability for focused work and clear thought. I hope that this code resonates with you as well. The second one is pay attention or what we call as emotional insight. So emotional insight is being conscious of and learning from our emotions. It is paying attention to our own emotions and the emotions as well of the people around us. Um I just wanted to share something about myself. So when I first started my job at Verizon about a year ago, um I started having period pains and having less energy for some reason. And I was thinking maybe because it was the level of stress of starting a new job and working new hours.

So I was having this conversation with a friend of mine and she told me that I needed to be more aware of how my emotions are being affected by the changes in my hormones caused by my monthly period. My monthly cycle, incredibly enough, I'm, I'm in my uh later release. And then this was the first time that somebody talked to me about this thing. And then she suggested that I read this book In The Flow by Alisa Vitti, which talk about what happens in our bodies as women on a monthly basis. And so because I never really thought, thought about how my emotions are being affected by my monthly period. And so that was the start of me paying attention and accepting the changes in my body to how I feel and becoming more self aware. So we do need to be more aware of how we feel about ourselves and also become more susceptible and sensing how others around us are feeling as well. The third one is take control. We do need to have emotional control. If the there's one thing that you will take away from this session today, it would be this that at any given point in time, you have the ability to choose how you feel and the ability to create the emotions you want in your life.

It actually sounds very simple, but I didn't say that it was easy. So when, for example, when you have a conversation earlier in the day that upset you and then it's later on the day and still feeling agitated or frustrated because it didn't go the way you wanted to, or maybe some, somebody said something to you that didn't sit well with you.

It's just hard to stop feeling that way. But what you need to do is you have to have that talk with yourself that you have a choice to ch, to change how you feel and you have to make an effort in changing how you feel so that it doesn't go um and progress the way you don't want it to. So these are the three things, the three mindsets that we will, that we were, we will build the everyday practices. So seek clarity, pay attention and take control. The next part of my talk would be the practices, the practices that are being built on this foundational mindsets.

And these are first the power of identity. Second journal, third, gratitude practice. Fourth is breathe. Five, do a brain dump and sixth channel your focus. So these are the practical tips in building emotional intelligence and insight. So what's the power of identity? I got this idea when I was reading the book Atomic Habits by James Clear. And he talked about the the power of building the identity through the actions that you take every day. And so this idea of power of identity is closely linked to the first mindset of seeking clarity of being clear of what type of person you want to become and what kind of person you are becoming to ask for me as for me, for example, whenever I start my day or whenever I go through my day, I usually tell myself that I am emotionally resilient in dealing with failures and rejections or it can be, I am in control of my emotions and what I feel and you can do the same thing for you.

You need to ask yourself, what do you see yourself as, what type of person do you want to become? Because when you see yourself as that person with that identity, it becomes so much easier for the actions that you take to be aligned to that identity. The second one is journaling. So in your journey of self-awareness, finding the time for self reflection is key. It could be at the start of your day when you've just woken up or as you end your day after a long, long day of work, so you can write down, how did you feel that day? What events happened? Was there something that triggered you or made you upset? And as you journal over a period of time, you will start to see the patterns in your behavior as well as sometimes how you talk to yourself. Ideally, um you can write in your journal using your head or you can just type it in your computer. The third is gratitude practice. Same with journaling. You can do it at the start of your day. And as you end the day, you can identify 3 to 5 things that you are grateful for in your life. It can be as simple as having a beautiful weather on that day.

It could be remembering a kind word that you got from your boss because of a great job that you've done or something that uh you've accomplished and are proud of about yourself. This is actually a concept that I got from the six phase meditation by vision Liani. And it, his meditation practice is quite um more, there's a lot more steps in that. But in there, he, he has like um three levels. He identifies um three things that you are grateful for in your life. And then three things that you are grateful for in your job or in your career and three things that you are proud of for yourself. So find that things that you want to be grateful for, it can be 3 to 5 things, it could be 10 things. And the next step that's not always talked about is you need to feel the emotion of gratitude when I heard about this type of feeling it. And then I started doing it. I actually realized that what it does to your body when you feel it viscerally is that it changes your state. And then, and any feeling of lack or agitation or frustration actually gets released or it's just being taken away by the feeling of gratitude that you feel in your body fourth is breathe. So I like doing yoga.

My friends know that I like doing yoga and I got this from doing my yoga practice. What I noticed about myself is whenever I change my post to something much more difficult, I stop breathing. And then my yoga teacher keeps reminding, not to forget to breathe. And apparently there's actually some science um as to why we need to breathe, there is actually a calming and relaxing effect of breathing. And what it does is it redirects your attention as you inhale and exhale, it stimulates your parasympathetic nervous system which restores the body in a state of calm as to opposed to the, the sympathetic nervous system which activates the fight or flight syndrome. And the sixth one is doing a brain dump. Um I had this catch up with my boss, um, a couple of weeks ago on a Monday and she was asking me how I was, how I was given all the things that was happening in my life and my work, I was just feeling so much overwhelmed at that time because there was just a lot of things going on.

Um settling into a new space that I moved to deliverables at work, um taking on new work and someone resigned and working as well on my personal goals. And then she suddenly asked me, how do you see yourself in the long term? And then I said, because I was feeling so much overwhelmed. And then I was just told her, uh the thing is, I'm, I, I'm only taking it one day at a time and I can only see until Sunday. And she kind of said, uh I understand what you mean. I'm not saying that the long term is not important. It is very crucial that we have a vision for our lives in the 3 to 5 years time frame. But it is also equally important to know what we are doing this upcoming week. So whenever I am feeling overwhelmed because things are happening at, at the same time, what I usually do is I do a brain dump, I take out a piece of paper, I write all the stuff that I needed to do big and small. And the next step that I I do and something you shouldn't forget is look at your calendar, open it and then look and then start blocking out the time when you have to do them.

Because what this does is it will give you peace of mind that you have found the time for your priorities in the future and that you will work on it. So for example, you've taken like one thing from the your list of priorities when something comes up into your mind and tells you, oh, you haven't done this yet. You can just tell yourself. Don't worry. I have plotted the time in my calendar. I've carved out the time in the future to make sure that that gets done. So this step of doing a brain dump and putting it on your calendar combo is really important. Six is channel your focus. So sometimes there are times when you feel angry or upset or something or feeling agitated, what you can do is you, you need to take that emotion and then you transform it and you transmute it into something more productive and focused. So what you need to do is what you can do is you feel the energy and use that focus in emotion to finish that piece of work or your project. And you will see that when you're able to transmute that emotion and transform it into something more positive than you don't repress it and you don't let that emotion um destroy you. So I know that I've mentioned um six practices that we can take over today.

But there's actually one more thing that I'd like to share with you. And this is something that I got from Steve Jobs. Whenever he does his presentations, there's a bonus practice which is number seven and that is take action. So what matters is action? So everything that you've heard from me today in this session, the knowledge and the wisdom that I have shared with you today won't matter and won won't help you if you don't take action. So after the session, go back to your notes, look at the things which resonated with you and then pick out some of them and then see if you can test them and experiment them and incorporate them in your lives. And then from those taking those steps, you will get more progress and then you will build on it little by little. So there you have it, the the practical steps and build the emotional intelligence inside the power of identity. Journaling, gratitude, practice, breathe brain dump, channel your focus and then take action. So here's what we have covered today. So the first one is mindset. You need to seek clarity. You need to understand what's really important to you and why are you doing it? Second, pay attention, pay attention to your feelings and pay attention also to the feelings of the people around you. And third is take control.

You have that power and the ability to, to choose what kind of feelings you have to gene you want to have and generate in your life. And the second one is practice the daily practices that you incorporate slowly into your life. OK. So um just the last bit um if you want, where do you want to go next? I'd like to share with you some resources that I have that I've read and some are in my reading list. The first one is Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goldman. Um This is a great book. Second one is The Emotional Intelligence. 2.0 Very practical book with a lot of insight actually have it right here. It's really great, lots of um very practical tips, emotional alchemy by Tara Bennett. So, she's the wife of Daniel Goldman. And this one is a really great book as well. High Performance Habits by Brendan Bouchard. Um, it talks about Six Habits um that you can incorporate. It's really great book, Atomic Habits by James Clear. I've read this twice and I can say that he, he gives a lot of practical insights in terms of what kind of how you can um slowly build those habits that matter to you. And the last one is in the flow by Eliza. Um This one is about like learning more about um the different um stages in your monthly cycle and what kind of changes you can expect in terms of your hormones and how you can manage that.

So, yeah, this one are, these are um if you want to learn more about them, go and um study them, that's it. Thank you. I hope you enjoy um my session today and you've gotten a lot of practical tips from what I've shared.