6. The Importance of Social Skills

The 5th Component of Emotional Intelligence: Social Skills

• do not let other people's emotions rub off on you
• someone who has stronger emotional intelligence tends to be happier
• you have to understand yourself first to be able to understand everybody else
• remember you have no idea what someone else is going through

And it all circles back to self awareness!

Lani: Caregiving Philosophy
Melissa: Wandering Missy - Start Living the Life You Want. How to find Joy + Purpose in your Life.

Transcript

Social Skills

SUMMARY KEYWORDS
emotional intelligence, person, empathy, listener, social skills, understand, hear, ruining, hijacks, self awareness, life, opinions, other people's emotions, happier, day, listen, thoughts, angry, self regulation, walk

SPEAKERS
Melissa, Lani

Melissa 00:04
Welcome to Happy Life Story. I'm Melissa.

Lani 00:08
And I'm Lani. We're discussing how to create your better life story. 

Melissa
Number five, social skills.
That sounds so simple, but let's remind our listeners that we're talking about emotional intelligence. 

Lani
Okay, social skills: What's your definition?

Melissa 00:34
Social skills are vital to emotional intelligence. When you're aware of how you're feeling, what others are feeling, and are able to communicate effectively, you're ready to interact well with others. I think if you're a good listener, if you listen well, then you've got to pick up on things.

Lani 00:57
Also, you listen to hear what they're saying, not to just respond. Find common ground with people and respect their opinion.

Melissa 01:10
That seems so hard for some people, though. Don't you find in your day to day life, that's something not everyone commands?

Lani 01:20
Most people have their opinions and they want to keep their opinions.

Melissa 01:25
They pretend to care, they pretend that they want to hear what you have to say. They talk over you. They don't listen. Have you ever done that? I wonder, did they hear anything I was saying? Honestly, that happens entirely too often. So I think being a good listener you pick up on clues, which I think is a really powerful tool, because so much is said. This goes back to empathy and self regulation and self awareness, where you're figuring out what other people are feeling, and how you interact with people.

Lani 02:08
About other people not listening....usually, if you have low emotional intelligence, you're just defending whatever you believe. You're not even hearing the other side, which you could agree on, but you're just holding to your position because you don't even want to hear their side. You just want them to know what you think and what you believe. What we believe is just thoughts that have been going around in our minds for a while. A lot of times, mostly all, it's just what we've learned from the past. It's not even the truth.

Melissa 02:44
It's your own interpreted truth. It goes back to what you said about all having different points of view. That's forming your thoughts in relation to your own situations, and putting yourself in someone else's shoes with empathy. That or listening and trying to understand multiple viewpoints, and objectively taking a look at yourself, all these things combined make you a strong, emotionally intelligent person.

Lani 03:21
One thing I think is super important in social skills, especially to have a happy marriage, is to not let other people's emotions rub off on you. If somebody comes in all grumpy, or if somebody comes at you angry, you can't just get that way. You don't need to get angry back, it's possible to just say, "Okay, they're angry, I'll give them their own space" and not react.

Melissa 03:56
That's a great example to tie it all back to why someone who has strong emotional intelligence tends to be a happier person. It's because they're not looking for those small fights or disagreements and things that they think of like "maybe this person had a bad day at work". Not picking small fights and trying to be on the same page with someone and understand what they're going through leads to a happier disposition because your expectations are for yourself, not for other people. That can help you be happier.

Lani 04:38
I'm thinking of being out in public too. You might not even know that person, but they're rude to you or something. You don't have to try to understand what they're going through. Sometimes I just say, "Oh well. I don't know what they're going through, but they're going through something. And that's okay". I don't have to get angry or take on any of their emotions.

Melissa 05:03
Say you get cut off at an intersection, you're driving and you get cut off. You could just say, "What a horrible person". You screaming just starts ruining your own day. When really, maybe that person needed to go to the hospital because of an emergency, or maybe that person is having a bad day. We start to run through the reasons why somebody may have cut you off. Don't go to the extreme of getting upset, which is easier said than done. There's times when there's just no other way, no other emotion than having them be upset. But, if you stop and think about "Why did that happen?" or just have compassion, it goes back to empathy.

Lani 05:45
I love that idea that you're actually just ruining your own day by by doing that, because that person's gone already. That person doesn't know what you're thinking, so if you're ruminating over something that somebody else did, that's just ruining your own day.

Melissa 06:02
Then see how that carries over. You walk into your office and you're complaining to all the people you work with. You're just dragging the story with you and it hijacks your whole day. There's a million examples where you couldn't get to just letting it go. Always easier said than done, because there's times it's hard to do that. But, the stronger you get with your own emotional intelligence, I think the easier it is to walk away from things that may have gotten you upset in that previous chapter of your life.

Lani 06:43
Definitely. You have to understand yourself first to be able to understand what everybody else is doing.

Melissa 06:50
There you go, right back to number one "self awareness".

Lani 06:53
The circle of life.

Melissa 06:58
The circle of emotional intelligence. It all comes together. Anyway, I think that's a great way to wrap up these five components. Thank you so much. We'll see you in the next episode.

Lani 07:12
Ok, bye.