6 Emotional Intelligence Lessons and a First Aid Kit

Over 16 million people watched the Academy Awards on March 27th. It was a phenomenal exhibit of the power of emotional awareness and management at the moment. These are the foundations of emotional intelligence.

We saw Will Smith lose it, and Chris Rock stay calm and professional. This is an opportunity for us to unpack some of the learnings and highlight some elements that you can use to prevent losing it and the negative consequences that may follow.

In Emotional Brilliance: How to Live a Stress Less and Fear Less Life, Cathy Greenberg and I define emotional brilliance as being able to beckon and bring forth your strengths and character at the moment for the best decisions and responses.

With the spotlight on amid the shocking slap and subsequent chaos, Rock’s decision-making and self-control allowed him to excel or be “brilliant in the moment.”

On the other side of the stage, Will Smith had an emotional reaction to Rock's joke about his wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. What happened from Smith laughing at the joke to then storming onto the stage, slapping Rock, and swearing at him?

This was one of the latest examples of the “amygdala hijack.” A part of the brain signals a fight or flight response when there is a perceived threat. Daniel Goleman, who wrote Emotional Intelligence in 1995, stated the amygdala has a “privileged position” in the brain where it can overpower our executive functioning when threatened.

The definition of emotional intelligence is “being smart about your emotions.”

In my article, Where Did My IQ Points Go? I wrote,

Logic is suppressed by the powerful tunnel vision survival reaction of the amygdala and the emotional network. No one can make you do something against your better judgment, but the amygdala always can.

Any strong emotion, fear, stress, anxiety, anger, joy, or betrayal trips off the amygdala and the emotional network which impairs the prefrontal cortex's working memory. The power of emotions overwhelms rationality. That is why when we are emotionally upset or stressed we can't think straight. The IQ points we need to thoughtfully consider decisions are depleted temporarily.

The lights go out temporarily on your executive functioning as your IQ points bleed out in these moments. This is a powerful example that we can all lose with devastating consequences. What can do you do to prevent a hijack?

Here are some hijack First Aid kit ingredients to prevent a devastating emotional reaction yourself.

1. Know the triggers that make you reactive.

These are your emotional bookmarks or Achilles heel that can be quickly activated. We don’t know all the history behind Will Smith's reactions, but he was certainly triggered.

What gets under your skin that bugs you?

• Being criticized or ridiculed?
• Team and direct reports who seem incompetent?
• Being interrupted?
• Not being told about major concerns?
• Lack of acknowledgment or recognition for your hard work?
• Being left out?

2. Your decision-making in the moment defines you. Pause to catch and redirect.

Chris Rock stayed aware of the moment: “Will Smith just smacked the sh*t out of me,” and “this was the greatest night in TV history.” He had perspective and was able to view the situation objectively, as we say, “from the balcony.” Notice he said “was” versus “is” as his perspective allowed him to view the now experiences from the future.

Will Smith’s outburst was 20-30 seconds and will likely follow him for the rest of his life. When you are triggered or your feelings are activated, can you pause to bring back your rational thinking?

We train our clients to take a short pause and use the Emotional Audit Five questions that can activate your executive functioning and "bring back your IQ points." Each enhances our quality of being in the present moment highlighting meta-awareness, meta-cognition, and the meta-attention that Kleiner et al. (2019) discuss in the Wise Advocate.

1. What am I thinking now? (Meta-cognition)
2. What am I feeling now? (Meta-awareness)
3. What do I want now? (Meta-attention)
4. How am I getting in my way right now? (Meta-awareness and meta-cognition)
5. What do I need to do now to be my best right? (Meta-attention)

You can do the audit in 10-15 seconds, just enough time to "regain your IQ points" and control and make better decisions.

You want to catch the triggers (self-awareness) and redirect your attention (self-management). Chris Rock caught his emotions and was able to redirect them in an appropriate manner.

Here is an example of what Rock might of gone through in these seconds of "brilliance."

What am I thinking? What the hell, why did he just slap me?

What am I feeling? Surprised, shocked, confused

What do I want? Stay professional, handle the situation

How could I get in my own way? React to him like he's reacting to me

What do I need to do now to be my best? Use this experience and tie it into my humor and act, like I normally would do with a heckler.

Being in the moment and accessing his executive functioning allowed him to be creative, spontaneous and professional.

If Will Smith took the 5 seconds walking up to the stage to go through the audit questions he may have caught his reaction in time to save this career stain.

3. Manage your ruminations.

Perhaps Smith was worrying and ruminating all day if he would win the Oscar for the best actor. What we know from neuroscience researchers and authors is:

If you ruminate on negative thoughts and feelings for 5-10 minutes, those chemicals begin to degrade your brain's memory and emotional regulation centers. (Newberg & Waldman, 2013)

Maybe Smith used up a lot of his cognitive budget in the anxiety of worrying about if he would get an Oscar and what he would say, etc. If so, he would have less cognitive control over his emotions.

If you find yourself spending a lot of your brain time focusing on unresolved issues or your current worries, grievances, or injustices, you need to get them out of your head and strive for some closure.

First aid hacks include: writing them down, talking to a friend who will listen, or bringing them to your coach or therapist. These “feelings don’t biodegrade” as much as we would like them to.

It is amazing how if you express these feelings appropriately and are heard, they are easier to let go of. So free up some of your brain space to be creative and focus on your goals and passions.

4. Enhance your recharge rituals.

When your cognitive budget gets depleted, what are your rituals to recharge and refill it? We all need our “go to’s” to recharge, create more balance, and "regain our IQ points." What works best for you to regain your energy:

• Taking a walk, being in nature, talking with a good friend, eating, exercising, meditating, deep breathing, or journal writing.
• What are your recharge rituals, and which ones can you do more?

5. Counteract the negativity bias.

We know the negative is more powerful than the positive. Tierney and Baumeister (2019), in their book Negativity Bias, state that the negative is twice as powerful as the positive. Look at the attention, even in this post, to how the slap and the negative overpowered the positive aspects of the Oscars. The negative is two times more powerful than the positive. “The manager’s default is to find fault.” Managers often ignore the positive and accentuate their “righting reflex.”

Can you comment on and reinforce what is going right more? Negative interactions are very sticky and easy to replay and ruminate on.

The goal is to have three positive interactions for each negative interaction. This has been stated in numerous sources. (Gallup, 2019; Fredrickson, 2009; Tierney & Baumeister, 2019)

6. Act with compassion for yourself and others.

Can you treat yourself with compassion and understanding versus being supercritical? If you are very critical of yourself, that same conversation can be emphasized with others. The internal conversation becomes the external conversation. Your meta-awareness is laser-focused on your faults and others. Compassion changes the target of your attention and can help prevent you from losing it and getting hijacked.

Above are six actions to add to your emotional intelligence First Aid kit to prevent an emotional hijack that can ruin your reputation and career.