[Alicia Davis] Have you ever made up a story about an interaction that you had with somebody else? Like maybe they looked a certain way or they said something. And later you found out that what you were thinking is not what they were thinking? If so, that’s what we’re talking about today, aren’t we, Stacie?

[Stacie Watson] We are – we’re continuing our conversation about emotional intelligence. And the first two sessions, we’ve kind of focused on what’s going on inside of ourselves. And now we’re really trying to notice what’s going on in our interactions with other people. And what you just described, Alicia, this idea that we interact with someone and we make up a story about that interaction, is really at the heart of what social awareness is all about, right?

[Alicia Davis] That’s right. It’s about really recognizing what is the other person feeling. Now, of course, we’re not mind readers, right, we can’t actually know what somebody’s thinking, right? So we have to actually ask questions, we actually have to interact with them, and yet, right, we make judgments about people in five to seven seconds just by how they look. Right? So we have to be really super careful about you know, this, how we really interpret somebody’s look, the words that they say, because that’s really the part of emotional intelligence which is really about social skills, or really, really seeing the other person for who they are and what they’re doing in that moment, not being in our own head about it, right?

[Stacie Watson] Right. Absolutely. You know, one of the most common stories I think we hear and it might sound, you know, kind of innocuous or silly, and yet we do hear it a lot –

[Alicia Davis] All the time!

[Stacie Watson] – are challenges that happen on teams, or within organizations, where people, one person says, good morning, and the other person doesn’t respond. And I think it’s a great example of what you’re talking about – how we may make up a story about why that person didn’t respond. In our mind, it might be that they were being rude or they were mad at me, and the truth of the matter is, they might have had a really bad morning. Or maybe they are being rude, but we really don’t know. And that’s where sort of what you’re talking about this idea of curiosity comes in. Really notice – I’m making up a story and perhaps it would be better, or I might be better served if I was just curious about what just happened.

[Alicia Davis] That’s right. Because curiosity, when we’re curious, we’re more open-minded, right? We’re not judgmental. So we would invite you to be more curious. To really see if you can notice, in any interactions, just really notice and see if you can see what’s the look on the person’s face, what’s their energy, what’s their body language? And then perhaps, ask a question, check that out. We’re going to talk more about that in our next video around how do we really strengthen interactions with other people through emotional intelligence. For today, we’re going to invite you to be more curious.

[Stacie Watson] Absolutely.

[Alicia Davis] Thank you so much. I’m Alicia Davis.

[Stacie Watson] I’m Stacie Watson.

[Alicia Davis] And we are the co-owners of Transformative Leadership Strategies and we do all things that are related to coaching, training, and team building. So thank you so much for listening.

[Stacie Watson] Thank you.