The Test - How is Our Emotional Intelligence?

Based on research by Daniel Goldman, an influential american psychologist, author, and science journalist, emotional intelligence plays a key role in self understanding. Emotional intelligence involves grasping your emotions, their impact on you and others, and using this insight for navigating life and relationships. It's about tuning into your feelings and those of people around you, fostering personal growth and stronger connections. Essentially mastering EI, staying calm, being emotionally aware, and building relationships is crucial for a deep understanding of oneself. I'm Joe. My pal over there is Kurt, and we are dudes in progress. Hey, Kurt.

Hey, good morning, Joe.

How are you, pal?

I'm good. Friday morning. I like doing these early morning coffee talks.

Friday mornings actually work out very well. Typically, I'm working from home on Friday mornings. However, I will go into the office about noon today. But typically, I'm working at home on Friday mornings, so it's a nice way to start off the day. Here we are talking about emotional intelligence again. I took this test that you recommended, Kurt, and I like it.

Okay. What did you like about it? Because I'm curious. You love this kind of stuff. You love these tests. So you got experience in this area?

I like these kind of personality tests, if nothing more than the recreational value of it. This kind of gave me a little bit of insight. I was surprised by the results of this test. Like I said, I recommended a couple of podcasts ago, the strengths finders book and test, and that's been helpful. And you have all kinds of these tests, but I do like these kind of things just to see how right they are and whether it jives with what I think about myself. And usually if I take a test like this, I will take that test to the results, to somebody close to me and say, hey, this is what this test results say about me. What do you say about me versus what I say about me? And typically, they are agreeing with the test. How about you? Do you do these things every so often?

I have. We've talked about some of those. And, you know, I noticed when I was looking at our results, I didn't notice this when I first looked at this one. But this site, truity.com, has several personality tests. I'm looking at the list in their menu, and I don't know, there's like eight or nine there. There's some personality tests. There's also some for business personality library. So interesting. We could take a look at some of those also.

Yeah. So there's 1234-5678 test there. And then one thing that says all tests and quizzes, that's probably for their entire library or offering of tests, but they seem to be all free at a certain level. And I think if you want deeper results, you pay for deeper results. But I signed up for an account with Trudy, and so it has captured my test results right there. I'm guessing you did the same thing.

I don't know that I did after the first time, so I redid it this morning.

You redid the test?

Yeah. It doesn't take. What does it take? 1015 minutes maybe, to do test?

Not long at all. Not long at all. Do you recall whether you had similar results?

I think so, yeah, definitely. And the one thing I was going to say about the test that a little bit annoyed me was some of the questions that I knew I was not very good at it. Kept harping on it. It seems like, to me, like asking the same question in different ways.

That's the strategy of the test. Right. Okay. He answered it. When I ask it this way, he answered it, and now I'm going to ask it in a different way and see how he answers it just to make sure that, okay, we're being intellectually honest with ourselves. Right?

Okay.

Last week, we talked about emotional intelligence, and Kurt did a really good job at outlining emotional intelligence and what it is, how it affects our lives. And we talked about our own kind of feelings about emotional intelligence. You wouldn't expect anything else from a podcast called dudes in progress than us to talk about our feelings, right? But I thought it was a really good episode and they were great discussion. So if you haven't had a chance to go back and listen to that show, go back and listen to this previous episode. I don't know what episode we're on right now, 57 or 58, but it's the one just before this where we talk about emotional intelligence. And I thought it'd be a good idea just to jump on this test, and Kurt and I review our results together, see where the conversation takes us. Fair enough.

I love it.

And of course, we'll have our regular stuff, our wins for the week and our resource and our quote at the end of the show today. Just so you know, Kurt and I have not talked about our results at all. We've not reviewed them together. So what you're hearing is the discussion in real time. Again, when you took the test, did anything surprise you, Kurt?

Well, I was going to say, too, it's a very easy test to take the questions. I'm just looking through some of the questions here at the very beginning. I am very good at identifying the emotions I am feeling. And you got to scale a five point scale from inaccurate to accurate to respond to. So really simple interface, really easy to answer. I have control over my emotions. I readily donate to charities that help people in need. That was an interesting question. There was one, how do you feel about animal cruelty advertisements? I think I had some revelations in our conversation with you about emotions, because I said last week that I am not an emotional person, and you countered me a little bit on that. Now, here's something. When I see that commercial, they show these dogs in horrible conditions I can't even watch. Like, right. I change the channel every time. That was an easy question for me to answer, but that really speaks to my emotions. And then anyone who listens or knows me, and I'm thinking of Kevin Curtis Allen, who always teases me because he's such a stoic english dude. And when I get up in front of people and I talk about my family or my friends in my community, in the podcast, I'll do a little speech. In this little annual get together we have, I get flooded with emotions. I'm a wreck. And I struggled. I've gotten a little better over the last few years. But that first time, I tried to look in the faces of all the people that mean so much to me from my community and all the things that we do and been together, and I lose it. Dude, when you look at my results, you're going to find that I don't necessarily think I'm a good reader of my emotions. And I think that's evidence of what we talked about last week.

Yeah, definitely. Quite honestly, Kurt, I don't know how scientific this is. I don't know how much research was done into creating this test, but if for nothing else, it's a fun recreational activity. But some of the tests seemed very directed towards emotional intelligence, and you had to think. And anytime you take these tests, you have to put yourself in the right mindset to say, okay, I'm going to answer the best I can as to who I am, not who I want to be and not who I think I was, but I'm going to answer the best I can as to who I am and just kick out the first answer that comes to your mind. Right.

Right.

That's the best way to take a test like this. Any test can be Jerry rigged. You can look at the questions and say, okay, if I want this result, I'll answer this way. When you take a test like this.

You got to try to be honest.

Just be honest.

Just be honest.

It doesn't do you any good. It doesn't do you any good.

As we go through each one of these, I think I'll give you some of the thoughts that have come through my mind. Even some of the ones where I thought I was strong in.

Well, there are five categories. Self awareness, other awareness, emotional control, empathy and well being. And I don't know whether or not what a high score is or what a low score is. I don't know if we're measuring this based on your typical grading scale, right? Yeah, but if we are, I might be in more trouble than I thought.

Because I think you got 50s.

Well, we'll see here.

Maybe the. I don't know. If I didn't read this, I don't know that they give you a really great way to do an analysis of what this means. I mean, you can see in the bar graph, they give you which ones you are lower than others. Yeah, that's quite obvious. But like you said, hey, if I score a 50 in one of these, does that mean I'm failing?

You fail.

I failed. I don't think so.

Self awareness is the capacity to recognize and understand one's own emotions. With higher scores indicating greater attunement to and reflection on these emotions, lower scores may result in more impulsive behavior. Due to a diminished ability to identify emotional experiences. So I will start. Kurt. I scored on self awareness a 67.

I'm embarrassed. Then I scored a twelve.

Okay. I don't know.

But with that definition you just gave. I don't know that I'm that bad. Run that one by me again.

Sure. Self awareness is the capacity to recognize and understand one's own emotions. With higher scores indicating greater attunement to and reflection on these emotions, lower scores may result in more impulsive behavior. Due to a diminished ability to identify emotional experiences.

That's the part, the end part there. Potentially leading to impulsive or reactive social behavior. I don't do that. That's not me.

Right. Well, that's the twelve that you got. Okay. You're good at that. Thanks, pal.

I just don't pay any attention to self awareness is what I'm saying. How can I be impulsive, reactive? Because I'm not paying any attention to my own.

That's really interesting. That's really interesting. I do tend to be aware of kind of where I am in a space, my connection with people, kind of how I'm feeling about where I am at the moment. I do have some impulsive behaviors. Impulsive and reactive social behaviors. Okay, I'm picking up your twelve. Right. But I scored a 67, and I'm not sure why. I'm not sure how it came to that. I don't know what questions led to that. But, yeah, I do have some impulsive and reactive social behavior. I do have kind of a sense of how I'm feeling in the moment and how I'm reflecting on those feelings. And I agree with my score on this, especially compared to the other scores that I have. So I might agree with my score.

You definitely reflect on the frequent pondering and reasons behind emotional reactions. Whether I know of other people, and I know you've talked about things that you've said maybe you didn't feel great about, and it bothered you until you got a chance to apologize to someone the next day, or you. And I've had those conversations.

I do a lot of apologizing, and part of that is strategic, and that may sound cold and contrived, but the ability to apologize is a real skill to hone, I think, to approach somebody and recognize that you may not have framed it a conversation in a certain way, or you may have hurt their feelings, or you may have insulted them somehow or were not as responsive. I do a lot of apologizing almost every day now. Part of that is I've done something I need to apologize for, and part of it is just maybe trying to communicate a sense of humility to stage a conversation.

I was thinking of a situation where a new manager came on to be our manager for a group of technical people, and I said something. I didn't think so at the time. I'm sarcastic or condescending or what he felt was insulting his intelligence on something that we were talking about, and I never noticed it. Now, that's got nothing to do with emotional intelligence. That's just me being.

Not being a very clear, maybe clear and direct.

I don't know. It was off the cuff, probably thing that I said, or he said something and I maybe smirked. We talk about body language, the way I said it, my body language in front of the group. And he called me on it, like, the next day. Wow. I thought he was a little rough about it.

It may indicate two things. And I don't know this because we're talking about the subject and we've looked into it in the past couple of weeks. He may have a low eq, he may have some self esteem issues, and he gets hurt easily because he's not in touch with what your intent was, and he's not probably not in touch with how his feelings are easily hurt, right?

Yeah. Well, I think we were having a conversation with some highly intelligent, technical people, and maybe he doesn't feel he lives up to that and got pinned on.

Something, but I think it's highly more likely that you were just being a jerk. Let's move on to the next one.

There is that.

I'm kidding.

That's a whole nother topic for another day.

The next one is other awareness. Other awareness. You know I was kidding, right? I'm really sorry if I hurt your.

Feelings is my body language. Are you being self aware of my feedback I'm giving you?

The next one is other awareness. Other awareness refers to the ability to perceive and interpret the emotions of others. With higher scores linked to a keen sensitivity to nonverbal cues and accurate emotional inferences, lower scores may lead to misinterpretation of these cues, resulting in social misunderstandings or missed connections. So that's other awareness. How did you score on other awareness?

Almost twice as good as self awareness. 22.

Nice.

I'm getting better.

Getting better, right.

Only a way up.

Were you surprised by that? By other awareness? By that score?

No. These are the two that I told you last week. I knew I wasn't going to do well in.

This is where I knocked it out of the park. I scored a 97.

See, I didn't even know the scale went that high, because on the scale, my highest one only shows 90. So I was like, what is the scale on this thing? It doesn't show you the full scale.

My scale goes from zero to 100 is where my scale goes to. From zero to one.

Well, I never reached it, so I.

Didn'T know this is where I scored the highest. Other awareness, 97. And I'm not necessarily surprised by that. That is a skill that I've honed, and I think I have some natural ability to that. However it happened genetically or growing up, or maybe my parents were highly emotional people and I had to be attuned to their emotions and understand where I'm running into a trap or whether it's safe. Right? So I had to kind of hone those skills. I don't know if that's it or not. My parents were pretty decent parents. Some of this is intentional, trying to learn how to read people and trying to learn how to understand people. So I'm not necessarily surprised by a high score on this. I am surprised that it's that high, though.

Yeah, that's true. I knew you'd be high in this area, but that did kind of shock me? I think you were answering it to get the good score, is what I think you were doing.

I took a step back and a breath and tried to answer them as honestly and thoughtful as I possibly could.

Do you feel like when you're answering these, do you go from one extreme to the other, like a one or a five?

No, I tend to not do that. In order for me to go, like, to a one, it has to be clearly obvious. And no, if that's the low score, no, absolutely not. I have to really feel that one and the same thing with the other one. With the top score, I have to really be sure that. Yes, no doubt, everybody around me would say the same thing. In the spirit of that, I have very few of those. A lot of those are the. You have the five scale choices, one to five, and I'm not sure I like that. I think that it should be an even number. I think you should be forced to pick one side or the other. I've created and designed surveys for my work in the past, and I always pick an even number.

Yeah.

Because I want to be forced and I want to force people into. Pick a side, dude. Right. Pick a side. Where do you fall? You may be in the middle, but are you middle left or middle right?

Actually, you know what? I take that back. I see where this fits in. So, these two self awareness. Other awareness really lean into when you're in a conversation with someone, you're face to face and you're trying to read all these cues, which I'm not very good at, but I was thinking, I am in tune to people that are maybe in a crisis or something horrible is going on, but it's in another category. I was just looking through down here that I did score well in. But I think I have a monkey brain, maybe as much or more than anyone else, and that's always going inside my head. And I don't spend a lot of time really doing this particular self awareness.

Right. I think where you're really strong, Kurt, I think the story that you told last week indicates what I'm about to say. I think you're really good at reading, maybe not emotional people, but a highly emotionally charged situation, if that makes sense. Right.

What was the story?

The story that you told last week where there was the storm.

Oh, yeah.

And everybody was going bat junk crazy about trying to do what they wanted to do. And you were a voice of reason to say no, we kind of were told to do this. Right?

Yeah.

And you were calm and collected in this situation. I wouldn't discount your ability to read the situation and connect. The ability to read people versus the ability to read the situation. I think that's really where you shine.

Thanks for picking me up off the mat a little bit there.

Well, I'm high in other awareness, so I felt I had to support that.

So a topic I want to talk about in our upcoming episode is how to win friends and influence people. So you just use your skill there.

So there's self awareness, other awareness. Let's roll into emotional control. So, emotional control involves the regulation of one's emotions, with higher scores indicating an ability to guide emotions constructively, resilience and swift recovery from negativity. Lower scores are associated with difficulties in emotion regulation, becoming easily overwhelmed, and challenges in returning to a positive emotional state. Emotional control. So, you went first on that one. I'll go first on this one. And I scored decent. It's respectable. It's respectable. I scored a 77 in emotional control. And I think when we look at these scores, Kurt, I don't think we look at these scores, like, comparative. Like your score to my score. I think we look at the scale that we're measured, because you may have measured something at very high, and you may have chosen an answer that's very high. You may have had fewer swings than me or larger swings than me. So I would take it to your scale and my scale compared to the scale itself, not to compare it to somebody else's scale. Does that make sense?

Yeah. I mean, if I look at mine, we can take a look at its totality, even of what we talked about so far. Obviously, the first two, if I wanted to look at ways of improvement, those are the two areas I should focus on. So it's very apparent to me. And we talked about last week, I said, well, I heard about emotional intelligence. I figured, boy, I'm really good at this. This is an area that I excel in. Well, that's because my emotional control got a good score of 86.

Awesome. 86. Definitely see that. Definitely see that. Especially when you compare it to the other two scores. Right. So, you definitely have emotional control. That's clear to me.

I had some revelation or thoughts this week in looking at this score, and then, okay, let's take a look at some of the areas where I've not had emotional control, although I think I'm able to regulate it and get back. We've talked about this, and you'll understand what I'm saying. It's, I have road rage.

I get you.

I have road rage, and I have a problem when people attack me, either physically or intellectually, you get that one star review. Those are two areas that I don't have great emotional control in, but it didn't have a question in those areas. So I got an 86.

I don't know about my score. 77. I'm surprised it's that high, quite honestly. I look at the comment in self awareness where it says impulsive or reactive social behavior. I don't want to compare the two emotional control with maybe some impulsive or reactive social behavior, but I've had some really rough mood swings where I excel in those mood swings, as I do recover quickly. Right, okay. I feel it. I feel it. And then I kind of let it move forward, right?

Yeah.

I remember teaching my kids a little thing about crying and about being angry and about controlling your emotions is number one. Let yourself feel it, right?

Yeah.

Just let yourself feel it. Don't try to hold it in. I mean, for crying out loud, you're just a kid, right?

Yeah.

And I didn't say that to them, but they're just a kid. Just let yourself feel it. Okay. And then once you've let yourself feel it for as long as you need to take, to let yourself feel it, let's move forward.

Yeah.

Take as long as you need. Let yourself feel it. I'll be here, but it's time to move forward.

Let's get the solutions, right.

If somebody is highly emotionally charged, you can't get to the solutions right away.

No. I think that's one of the things that's always bothered me, that people get so emotional that they don't start working on the issue.

So do you think that there's a difference between emotion and passion? There are things that I'm passionate about, and because I'm passionate about it, I become animated, and I'll become direct and very forthright. Animated. I'm trying to think of all those words, right. But I'm not necessarily emotional about it. I'm not angry and I'm not mad. I'm not necessarily feeling an emotion. Maybe passion is the emotion. I don't know. I'm just trying to work this out in my head because I've been in conversations with my wife, and she'll say, would you stop yelling? And I said, honey, I'm not yelling because I equate yelling with anger. Right. I'm not angry. I'm just passionate about this. I want to get the point across. I want to understand your point. I want to work through this and understand the situation. And let's go.

That's interesting when you're bringing this topic up. I was thinking of some of the topics that people get really passionate about, and others will negatively get impacted. And I think of politics. People have, especially in social media, have gotten. They put all that out there, and others will interpret that and just blow that person off. I don't do that.

Right.

Hey, if you're passionate about your point of view, I'm more analytical about it. I don't get emotionally charged on that topic at all. I have passion and emotions around those topics, too. But I'm pretty low key when it comes to. I don't need to get into an argument with someone about that. I like a more balanced. I love the ying yang balance. That's, you know, that was something. That's something my mom always said, don't get too high. Don't get too low. You know what I learned? I think a lot of that, too. You talk about your childhood playing baseball, playing sports. That is probably an area that taught me this more than anything, because you can get clobbered one day on the baseball field, and then you can win a championship in another sport, and it never does you well to get too high or too low. And that's probably where I learned that. Emotional control.

Yeah. If you think about it, if you look at the World Series winners, and I don't remember who won the World Series last year, but if you look at the World Series, I'll bet you can find the World Series winners. I'll bet you can find a handful of games, maybe more than a handful, in their season where they got crushed.

Right?

Where they just got blown out.

Or it could be a couple of.

Weeks, maybe blown out. Yeah, maybe blown out by a team that is far worse than right. It's because you just never know what life is kind of going to throw at you. I love that attitude of never as good as it seems, never as bad as it seems, kind of stay right there in the middle. But on the other hand, Kurt, I do like a passionate debate, man. Show me you care. Dag on it.

I know you do.

All right, so we just wrapped up emotional control. Now we turn to empathy. Empathy involves understanding and sharing others emotional experiences, with higher scores linked to a deep sensitivity towards others suffering and a propensity for prosocial behaviors like volunteering. Low scores may result in a diminished ability to empathize and a tendency to attribute other suffering to personal failings rather than systemic issues. Your turn.

57 for empathy. You read that there are definitely, like I mentioned, the dog commercial or if I'm watching a movie and kids get hurt, I can't watch that either. I have a lot of empathy in those kinds of things. But on the other hand, some of my self awareness or that piece fits in. So, kind of being in the middle a little better than middle, is probably a good place where this scores. As I look at this now, I do volunteer. Like, I do volunteer my time donating to things that come up. I do do that. Not on a regular basis. Funny enough, I don't have a charity that I give to on a regular basis, but something comes up. I do.

I take every opportunity. If I see somebody struggling with something and I know I can help them, I take every opportunity to help them if I can. Right. But empathy was among the self awareness. I was a 67. Empathy, I'm a 68. So the lower of my scores, I don't have a regular volunteer cadence. Like, I don't necessarily go every Sunday to a soup kitchen or volunteer at a children's home or go to prison ministry or anything like that on a regular basis. But mine is usually opportunistic in the moment. Like I said, if I see somebody struggling with something I can help them with, I'll jump in. Right?

Yeah.

But I do lean towards this last statement, and this is probably a problem for me, the ability to empathize and a tendency to attribute others suffering to personal failings rather than systemic issues. I do have a tendency to say, man, they got themselves in a jackpot, or, man, they got themselves in trouble, or what kind of bad decisions did they make in their life? Instead of saying, wow, what happened in their life that brought them to this point that they had no control over?

Run that one by me. I'm almost there. So you're saying you kind of blame them for.

Yeah. I do have a tendency to attribute others suffering to personal failings. To their personal failings, rather than, hey, they got caught up in a bad system, okay.

I don't really do that.

They're in a bad situation, or it's something beyond their control.

I really don't do a lot of that, be honest with you. So maybe that's where I do get you a little bit. I really don't. I think I'm really good at people that have had struggles. I think of people that have personal relationship problems, like a divorce coming up or. Yeah, those kinds of things. I really don't. I empathize with them more than anything else. Yeah. Interesting.

And you can ask my kids this, too, because they're a good measure. I am 1000% better at empathy than I used to be.

Okay.

Yeah. I'm much better at saying, you know, what situation are they in? But I have to consciously think about it because my initial reaction is, they made their bed, they got to sleep in it. Right. That's my initial reaction.

Interesting.

I have to catch myself and say, what is their situation?

Yeah, I think you'll find when you dig into it, there's a lot of reasons that led to that issue. Being a podcaster, this was an area that in building a community and becoming emotionally attached or building friendships, I didn't expect this piece, but I've had lots of opportunity to express empathy when bad things have happened to my friends in my community. And I didn't think of that part. I was always thinking of the fun part of building a community. I didn't think about that. You're going to be involved emotionally and empathizing with situations that are coming up in people's lives. So I think I've done pretty well in that area. When I think in that area of my life. Yeah, I wouldn't have thought.

I can definitely see where that would help. Yeah.

You know, the situations I'm talking about and sure don't need to get into any detail, but then there's things going on right now as we speak that our community is involved, and I'm very proud of it, too. And again, this is something I learned from others. I watch what others are doing, and you see what they're doing, and you're like, I want to be like that. I want to be more like that.

Definitely.

Yeah.

I agree. And this is something that I've had to work on over the years, is being more empathetic. And I'm not sure I'm good at it, but I'm aware of it, and I can pivot from my initial reaction. Does that make sense?

Yeah. The other thing I see with a sense of myself, too, like you're saying, hey, pick yourself up, because I do have a little. And don't ask my wife to answer this question for you, Joe, please. I'm tougher with my family than I am with others.

I am too. I am, too. And it's a. A problem. I think culturally it's a problem. I think we're always tougher on the people closest to us. My problem used to be, man, I'm killing an ant with a sledgehammer sometimes, because did you really have to react that way? Man, they just asked you for $5. Did you have to kind of give them a whole dress down on personal responsibility and getting a job and finding their way in life and not entering your space and all that other stuff. I am significantly. And when I say, and I'm not being braggadocious here, I think that's two episodes in a row that I use that term. I think you are being braggadocious here. But I am much better at empathy than I used to be. But it's not natural for me. It's not natural for me. I can see that the final category is well being. And I guess it's my turn to answer. I answered reasonably high on this. I mean, I scored reasonably high, an 85 on well being. But let's talk about what well being is. Well being reflects an individual's psychological, emotional and social prosperity, with higher scores associated with life satisfaction, happiness, strong social connections and optimism. Lower scores may lead to difficulties in forming relationships. It's experiencing joy in social settings and maintaining a positive outlook.

I'm surprised I didn't score higher in this because I feel I'm good at this. I would love to know which questions these are that I messed up and would like to review those. Sometimes these tests will do that for you. They'll show you where these come from. I don't know that this one does. I had another 57 on this one.

Okay.

But as you read that description. Yeah, I do a lot in this area and I'm always a pretty positive and I'm very fulfilled and happy with my life. So I'm shocked I'm not a little higher in this one.

This is interesting for me, too. I'm surprised you're not higher in this one, too. But again, I think we have to take a look at the scale as a snapshot within ourselves, not compared to others. So when you look at your scale, what is your highest score?

That was the emotional control.

And that's at what?

86.

86, yeah. And what's your lowest score? The 1212.

Yeah.

If you take your 86 as 100% and your twelve for what it is, you kind of have your own scale. That's what I'm saying.

I got you.

Yeah. How you answered. How you answered the questions like your 86 may be compared to my higher score, your 12 may be compared to one of my lower scores just because of the scale. Right. I'm surprised by my results. When you look at the first part of this description, well being reflects on an individual psychological, emotional and social prosperity, with higher scores associated with satisfaction with life satisfaction, happiness, strong social connections and optimism. If I were to rank those, I think I do poorly in life satisfaction. I'm kind of an unsettled person when it comes to that, quite honestly. Yeah, I think I'm generally a happy person, but not as happy as people might think I am. And I have strong social connections. I do have that and I'm generally an optimistic person socially. I'm socially optimistic. Internally I'm much less optimistic. But when it says lower scores may lead to difficulties in forming relationships, I have no problem with that. Experiencing joy in social settings. I'm really good at bringing joy to social settings. And again, I mean that with humility. I try to do that. I try to be a positive influence in a social setting and maintaining a positive outlook. So I don't know what to do with that score because this is where I thought I would score. Probably the lowest and it's my second.

Highest as I read. I'm reading the detailed description here. It says they have enjoy socializing and have strong social skills and find it easier to connect with others and build positive. So connect. My introvert part of me scored low on this. That's where it happened. It's not easy for me to get out of my shell a little bit in social new people. Really, that's where it is. Once I'm comfortable and I'm fine, I think I do well there, but not initialized. I don't really seek it out as much as I probably should because there was a question, like on networking, I think. I really don't like networking.

How are you in large gatherings where you don't know anybody?

Bad.

Okay.

Scared to death.

How are you in small gatherings where you don't know anybody?

Still don't like it?

Okay.

Yeah.

You need some kind of prior connection before kind of feeling comfortable.

Got you. That's where it is.

Got you.

I'm better. I have to work at it.

Well, first of all, we all have to work on it. I don't think there's anybody that's 100% introvert and 100% extrovert. I'm much more introverted than people think I am. It's OD, isn't it? You have a very popular podcast. I'm in sales and marketing and I have a couple of podcasts of my own that I've done over the years. And no problem interacting with people at that level. But I do probably lean introverted, which surprises people.

Yeah, that does surprise me.

And people would probably be surprised to find out that you do as well because they see you in a social situation where you're interacting. You have no problem talking to people and understanding them, and it's that initial, do I know them, and how do I navigate this? Do I know this situation? How do I navigate this situation? I'm decent at that. I mean, I do have networking events where you scope out the room, you find out where the energy is coming from, and you kind of join that energy. And if you find a connection in that place, you find a connection. Then if not, you find out a different space, or you scope out the room, and you find out a different place where there might be some energy, and you kind of ease over into that place. And if you find a connection, then you move forward with that connection. That's usually my strategy. If that's a strategy at all. I don't know. We kind of went off on a tangent here. Does any of this have to do with well being?

I'll have to listen back.

I think you're great in social situations, Kurt. I've seen you in social situations. I've watched you in social situations, and it's clear with the community that you've built that you can navigate social situations.

You know, one thing I get a great comment on in my podcast. I do interview podcasts, and people are. There's a lot of times where people are nervous coming on and meeting me or anyone in kind of cold, and they always say to me, you really make me feel comfortable.

Absolutely. Yeah. Very effable. Very effable.

Hey, I don't know. At the end here, they actually give you your EQ superpower, and I'll just share. My emotional, intelligent type is the rock. Being the master of my own emotions, I'm great at making myself feel how I want to feel, powering through challenges and keeping a cool head in tough times. What was yours?

Mine is the intuitive. I notice nonverbal cues. Intuitively read the room to determine how others are feeling.

Yeah, there you go. I think that's pretty accurate.

Not necessarily surprised. Not necessarily surprised.

Fun test.

This was interesting, wasn't it?

Yeah. I love talking through it, too. I see more insights as you and I discuss it.

Wherever you find yourself in life and whatever work you've done on yourself, whatever personal development work you've done on yourself, I think it would affect these scores. Right? The nature of this show, dudes in progress. That's what we're trying to do. We see these places where we may be a little weaker, like empathy on my side and self awareness on my side. And so, okay, what do I need to do to kind of bump those up but also recognize, hey, I have these strengths. I have these strengths in other awareness and well being, and I can use those strengths. I can build on those strengths and really make that my we. I think we do ourselves a disservice, Kurt, when we try to work so hard on our weakness, to make our weaknesses better and not embrace our strengths and shine. Let the world see those really shine.

Well, in the case of this EQ, I thought my emotional control made me a brilliant eqist. And I've learned there's some areas that I'm a little weaker in that I didn't know about.

We're all a work in progress, dude, aren't we? Certainly.

Yeah, certainly.

This was cool. This was cool.

Good fun.

I like this. You know what, as I [email protected]. I'm glad you found this site because I think we can probably use this, take some other tests and discuss it together because I really thought this was fun. All right, so we're going to wrap that up right there and move on to our wins for the week and our resource and our quote. Did you have a win for the week?

I had a couple. I'm going to save one for maybe later, but I'm not going to cheat and give two. I'm really excited. This is just a fun learned. I got an email. I'm signed up for Neil Young's website on his mailing list, and he announced, I've been thinking about this. We've been seeing a lot of concerts and shows, my daughter and I, Broadway shows. If I was somebody who I really wanted to see live, who's not been around touring much over the last several years, found out it was ten years ago. He was last in Connecticut. My daughter and I bought tickets for Neil Young and crazy horse at the Bridgeport amphitheater, the venue we really have enjoyed going to the last couple years, and I am over the moon excited. I'm like, jumping up and down, running around the house like, I'm going to see Neil Young and crazy.

He's one of those guys that I think, and I've never seen Neil Young and crazy horse in concert. I like his music well enough. I think he has some really good stuff. He seems like one of those artists you'd like to see before it's too late.

That's exactly what I said. I said to my daughter, it's now or never. He's had some health challenges, like he had aneurysm. I believe that he survived, but wow. Absolutely. I mean, there's some great artists out there that are getting up there in years, and it's quite interesting that they're out there doing what they're doing. He doesn't need to be on tour. Right. If he said, I'm going to stop touring and retire, no one would doubt.

That's interesting. This is a topic for another time, but I think we might be surprised at some of these people who are out there touring. As to their financial position.

I'm not worried about Neil Young's financial.

Position, but generally, right. These guys might have. They may not have the residuals that they probably deserve, or they made some poor financial decisions and they got to stay out there and crank it.

Right.

But I don't think Neil Young's fine. He'll do all think, yeah, I saw, a couple of years ago, I saw Billy Joel in concert, and I am so glad I went. He's got such a large library of music that you just don't realize all the music that he has and every song in concert, you knew the words. And he's one of those guys. And, man, I'm glad I saw him.

Right?

He's one of those guys. I'd like to see James Taylor as well. Just one of those guys. You're like, wow, man, that's somebody I need to see before it's too late.

Yeah, Neil, I've been collecting. I was a little upset when he dropped Spotify because that's my music service that I use.

He did that for political. Think. Yeah.

Yeah. I want to go to the concert with a sign. Neil, think of us, not your own personal, and join Spotify again, please.

I wonder how he'd score on emotional intelligence.

Right.

My win for the week is I had a 90 minutes consultation with a personal coach, and this coach reached out to me and offered me a free 90 minutes consultation. It wasn't a sales pitch. It was a true consultation in the purest form. His name is Cliff Ravenscraft. We know him. You know him, Kurt. Many people in our community knows him. He's developed a real reputation for helping people focus and understand their life and business direction. And I've known Cliff for a while, and you've known Cliff for a long time as well, at a certain level, and we are both fans at a certain level. And he reached out to me and offered me a 90 minutes consultation with no strings attached. And I took advantage of that, and I really gleaned some interesting stuff to give me some direction as to some opportunities I might pursue and we might talk about that on another show. But that's my win for the week. My 90 minutes consultation with a personal coach.

I was really excited when you. I was on that was in Disney World. I think when you told me, messaged me or something that you were doing that, that was very exciting because I do follow him still. He's actually the reason Joe and I know each other. Talk about the throw a rock in the pond and see what ripple happens. I attended a seminar, actually, it was the very first one he did in his house. And I took the initiative to go do that, go to Cincinnati airport. And he lives in Kentucky, northern Kentucky, which isn't far from the airport, but talks about Cincinnati a lot. Yeah, we'll have to dig into that one deeper. But really proud that you did that. And we've had conversations personally about this. This is very cool. I think anytime you can get insights from somebody else, it's definitely. And he's good at it.

He lives about 20 minutes from me. And it's funny that you were this close. We didn't know each other at the time, but you were this close when you took that course or that weekend or whatever it was. And I've taken a course from him as well and connected with him on a couple of different projects. But, yeah, it was very interesting. We'll see where it goes. But I am definitely calling this a win for the week for me.

Love it.

How about your resource?

Yeah, I just continue my Neil Young. So what happened was I got the email from the Neil Young Archives website. Now, I don't really like his website. It's like 1998. That looks kind of good, but functionally, it's pretty crappy. But it did send me an email to let me know, and he has a subscription that you can get. And so for $25, I got an annual subscription to his site, which gives me an app that has all his music on it that I can play anything.

Wow.

But with that, I was able to get into the ticket the Ticketmaster allowed. They gave you a code, and with that code, I could go in and early purchase of the tickets, which I'm learning they're going on sale to the general public today. And my daughter looked at the website. I've talked to a bunch of my friends, someone from work who's going to go, and they're nearly sold out. They'll sell out today. But anyways, the subscription and the app is my resource. So if you're into an artist, that's Neil Young. But some artists do this if you're really into an artist and they have these kind of perks by joining for $25 a year. It was definitely well worth it, and I'm happily going to have great seats going to the show.

That is an awesome resource, and I'm certain Neil Young isn't the only artist that does it. I do know that trans Siberian Orchestra has a very similar setup where you sign up for their website and you can get access to their music, but also you become like an early fan club. Early fan club opportunities where their tickets will go on sale and they reserve certain number of tickets only for their fan club or only for their early fan club, whatever it is. I'm not using the label, but a lot of artists do this, so that's a great resource, man. If you're into an artist, I would definitely check out something that Neil Young does here for your guy, you know.

Who does this really well. And I don't know if you know this band, but I was into jam bands a lot. Like Grateful Dead, but Fish spelled P-H-I-S-H. They were one of the early ones that sold. They're known for their live concerts. You could buy their concert pretty quickly after. Sometimes I think some of these artists, you could buy the recording that day, like Almond Brothers used to do that, but their website and their purchasing, and they do have an app also now where you can just listen to all the live recordings by being a member of their community. So, yeah, if you don't know this, definitely check out your favorite artists and get passionate about your passions in music or any other area.

So my resource is a podcast. It's called Hidden Brain by Shankar Ven and Tam V e. We'll just call him Shankar. S-H-A-N-K-A-R Shankar, if you're listening, I apologize if I've completely screwed up your name, but it's a really good podcast. It's cerebral and it's calming. I'll bet you this guy has great emotional intelligence. He's very steady, he's calming. He's got a great disposition. I've come to really appreciate this podcast. I mean, when I look at some of the subjects that he's offered, the mystery of beauty. Where do feelings come from? What we gain from pain. The enemies of gratitude. Outsmarting yourself. Being kind to yourself. These are some of his podcast episode titles. The truth about honesty. Learning from your mistakes. It's really a good podcast, but just to give you a bit of a warning, he's very calm. It's very low key, but very intelligent.

I wrote it down.

Brain by Shankar. V-E-D-A-N-T-A-M vedantam oh, boy. I should just stop. I should just stop. Right, sorry. No offense intended. What's your quote of the week?

My quote this week is the world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think by Horace Walpole. I like this one, Joe, but I'm not sure why. I think I know why.

There seems to be some wisdom in there, right? There seems to be something there.

There's something there.

It's one of those things where you maybe see it on a bumper sticker or on a sign or something like that. You're. Oh, man, that's really neat. Or a t shirt.

Yeah. I don't know why, but it's profound.

Yeah.

I could take my best shot at it, but it's what we've been discussing in terms of. I don't think I'm an overly emotional person on a lot of. Although I've learned a little bit about myself through our discussions, so I think a lot of things to many people are immediately a tragedy until they don't put any thinking to it whatsoever. Exactly. I don't know if comedy is the right word, but I definitely think. And I don't go right to comedy necessarily, but I kind of laugh at people that get so emotional immediately at things. That part is true, but maybe I've just figured it out.

No, I think that's exactly it, Kurt. I mean, how many times have we been in a situation where that's highly emotionally charged, and if you're able to step back and just think about the situation, you're like, our reaction is kind of stupid here. It's actually kind of humorous. Let's just think about this for a second, folks. Do we need to really go half cocked here and weird at this situation?

I do get a little bit of a laugh. Yeah, I get a little bit of a laugh with people who get really emotional about things.

Yeah. So I think we got that one. The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but comedy a comedy to those who think. And if you want to laugh at a situation, step back and think about it. Right. There's some good advice there, I think.

I think most people run their whole life on emotion. Totally.

Yeah.

And that does seem strange to me. And I'm the weird one. I know I'm the weird one.

Well, I don't think necessarily, but have you ever met those people where their life is one tragedy after another drama and one drama after another? Come on, my friend. Breathe. As bad as it seems, it's not as good as it seems.

Yeah. This may relate to this is one of the things my wife and I and her friend, they watch the big brother show and I can't get five minutes into that show. And it's just, what is this show? How do you win this show? Well, you get voted out. Why do you get voted out? Well, because you do. I don't get it. And it's just all drama. And what are they getting all drama about? I don't get it.

That's funny.

That's funny. And they love it.

Well, good quote. Thank you, Mr. Waphole, whoever you are. Horace, mine comes from none other than Aristotle. Anyone can become angry. That is easy. But to be angry with the right person to the right degree at the right time for the right purpose and in the right way, that's not easy.

Aristotle.

Yeah, maybe it's a modern twist on know, he did live way back know. But I like this. I like this because number one, anger is an emotion. And sometimes it's okay to become angry. I mean, there's the story in the bible of Jesus turning over the table of the money changers because he was ticked off Adam for the way they were doing it and what they were doing.

There's appropriate time.

Yeah, there's an appropriate time. But anybody can just fly off the handle, right? Anybody can just be a jerk and have road rage, right? We both know about that, right?

Yes.

Anybody can do that. Anybody can just be a jerk and lose the handle and be mad and lose it. That's easy. That really is easy, right? In fact, it's morbidly satisfying. It's just not satisfying in the moment. Ten minutes later, it's not so satisfying. Anger is easy. But to express anger with the right person at the right time, understanding it's the right reason and you do it in a measured way. The right way. Wow. It's not easy.

I love this one. This reminds me of my mom so much. And I always said my famous way of thinking about my mom is she's your worst enemy and she's your best friend and there's no in between. And I love her for it. And it worked really well when I was a kid and she's my biggest fan. And I one time got a d in penmanship into the 6th. You know, they have the parents come in for a parent night and the room is full with parents and kids. And my mom gets her chance to go up there and I'm probably on her side, Joe, she ripped this teacher's one way up one side and one down the other.

No kidding.

And it was beautiful. And I'm just sitting there like the Christmas story kid just going, go, mom, go. And years back, looking at that, he deserved it. I remember being in college and a big, I think he got kicked out of teaching for some bad behavior. We'll just put it that way. And I'm like, yes, I knew he deserved it. Even as a 6th grade school child. I mean, my penmanship sucks, but I'll tell you, I got bees the rest of the year.

That's something special, though, for you to see, right? That's something special for you to see your mom standing up to you, especially to somebody in authority, right? Yeah, that's something really special.

Yeah, my parents really supported me, especially in school. And yeah, that was one of the warranted times where, yeah, that teacher deserved it. I mean, my penmanship sucked, but I don't know, it was funny how it all came about.

Well, this was a good show, man. I really like this topic. I like the topic of emotional intelligence. I think we'll revisit this website, truity.com, again, Kurt, and maybe build another show around it, depending on what personality tests we take. But yeah, I do like this topic. I'm glad you brought it up and I'm glad we expanded it into two episodes and we found out a little bit more about ourselves. And hopefully you guys did, too. So that's awesome. Let's wrap up right there. Our website is dudesinprogress.com. Dudesinprogress.com. And if you want to email us. [email protected] dudes meaning Kurt and me. [email protected]. On the website, you'll find out how to reach our Facebook page and how to support the show if you want to support the show and you can listen to previous episodes there on the website as well. Well, as we go out, Kurt, remember, progress is better than perfection. Let's keep moving forward.

I'm going to keep learning about myself, Joe. I think I still got a long way to go. Some self reflection.