In his book 'Twelve and a half: leveraging the emotional ingredients necessary for business success', Gary Vaynerchuk (world reknowned entrepreneur) argues that the softer skills associated with emotional intelligence can help accelerate business success despite them being less-favoured and often not quanifiable like the traditional hard skills.
Emotional intelligence is made up of many different components that can be combined together to solve a wide range of problems both in business and in life. In essence, we need to power up our strengths and improve on our weaknesses.
Here at Blue Horizons, we place a strong emphasis on emotional intelligence as part of our ethos and culture with an overriding growth mindset.
#1: Gratitude
The ability to be thankful and show appreciation. An attitude of gratitude makes us happier, improves our moods and makes us feel more connected to others. In a working environment it also enhances the sense of belonging and respect which in turn leads to higher job performance, less sick days and lower staff turnover.
#2: Self-awareness
A clear knowledge of your self; your personality, values, strengths, weaknesses, behaviours and thought processes. Without understanding yourself internally, you can't really understand how you present yourself externally and therefore how you interact with others. Being able to flex your own behaviour appropriate to the situation ensures far more success in life.
#3: Accountability
You are responsibile for every situation in which you find yourself. You may not be responsible for the circumstances themselves but you are always responsible for how you react to the circumstances. All of your decisions belong to you.
#4: Optimism
A hopefulness and confidence about the future. Being optimistic is not about being naive, it's just asking you to assume an attitude of hope and confidence about the future.
#5 & #6: Empathy & Humility
Empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of other people, while humility is the comfort you take in your understanding of yourself.
Together empathy and humility make it possible to truly put yourself in someone else's shoes without feeling in any way superior or inferior to them.
#7: Conviction
Believing in yourself. Conviction keeps you on track and prevents you from being over-influenced by other's opinions.
Conviction is one of the ingredients that will protect you from doubt and help you to keep going.
#8, #9 & #10: Tenacity, Patience & Kindness
Tenacity is the gritiness that inspires you to push on even when the going gets tough.
Patience is the ingredient that enables you to maintain your tenacity.
Kindness is all about being friendly, generous and considerate. You never know what's going on in someone else's life and vice-versa. Always be kind and don't take other people's unkindness to heart.
#11: Ambition
The desire to do or achieve something. Strategise, set goals and work to achieve things.
"Why am I trying to grow this business?" - By answering the bigger picture questions you'll refocus your mind on the goals and targets you're trying to achieve.
#12: Curiousity
The strong desire to know or learn something. Genuine curiousity helps drive your ambition and makes you wonder how far you can go.
And finally, in case you're wondering, the #1/2 that Gary's book refers to, is identifying whichever ingredient you're weakest in and working harder at it.
