June 1, 2021 • 35 mins
Our final Podcast of the season. “Those who can do; those who can’t teach.” This quote from George Bernard Shaw stubbornly endures. And yet many of us attribute at least one inspirational teacher for our current successes. We greatly underestimate the unique skills of teachers.
This week’s guest, Cyndi Zacheis, shares how her experience in the classroom prepared her for everything outside the classroom.
EQ At Work features interviews with people who have overcome significant difficulties by using the concepts of emotional intelligence.
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This week’s guest, Cyndi Zacheis, shares how her experience in the classroom prepared her for everything outside the classroom.
EQ At Work features interviews with people who have overcome significant difficulties by using the concepts of emotional intelligence.
---Connect with us!
https://facebook.com/eqatwork
https://instagram.com/eqatwork1
https://twitter.com/eqatwork1
YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/c/ATopCareer
Web Site
https://eqatwork.net
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
And so every lesson that we have, every hard day
at work that we have, every challenge that we have,
helps populate that toolbox, puts more tools in that toolbox
and more skills so that the next time we're faced
with something not the same challenge, but it may feel
like the same challenge, we're more ready for it. Teaching
was filled with challenges. The transition from teaching to corporate
(00:21):
America was filled with challenges, but all of those challenges
led me to having the skills that I needed for
whatever came next.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Think about the five most influential people in your life.
More than likely at least one of them is a teacher.
It's clear that teachers give us so much. What's not
as well known is that the act of teaching itself
provides many important lessons for everything else in life.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Folks, I'm your host, Edith Richards, and you may know
me from my podcast series Meyers Briggs Question Corner or
my website at top career dot com. I've spent the
last twenty years of my career helping people get smart
about their careers, and I've found that lots of smart
people aren't successful. Why is that? I'm convinced it's due
(01:22):
to emotional intelligence. In EQ at work, I'm bringing you
inspiring people and messages to help you get smart about
your emotions. It's one thing to know complex information, it's
(01:47):
another to understand that information so thoroughly as to relay
it to others in a way they can understand. This
is one small example of how skills learned as a
teacher can parlay into multiple jobs and career fields and
even tough situations in life. Some educators know they've found
their dream job the moment they step into the classroom.
(02:10):
For many others, teaching is what starts other successful careers.
We've all heard the stereotypes that teaching is easy, and
it must be nice to have your summers off, and
my favorite, anyone can teach. The truth is that we
grossly underestimate the skills teachers bring to the table. I
(02:33):
can think of few careers that are as underpaid and
sadly underappreciated as teaching. Whether you're a teacher tuning in
and know it's what you were born to do, or
if you're a teacher considering how to reinvent yourself, or
if you're thinking of becoming a teacher, Cindy Zachy's my
guest today has some thoughts to share. Cindy, Welcome to
(02:56):
EQ at work.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Edith, thanks for having me, and can I just say,
I think what you do is so important. The time
that you've given me in EQ consultations has made a
difference in my life. So it's a gift, and thank
you for that.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Well, you've certainly boosted my ego here today. I really
appreciate that. And I'm sure, yeah, we're going to get
into the EQ piece of this as well. But I
know you're a former teacher, and thank you so much
for that. My turn to thank you, And I understand
that was your first job out of college, and I
know it served as the foundation for your career, and
(03:30):
start out with telling us about your career progression.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Absolutely, I went to college and studied education and was
also pre law, and so sometimes budgeting can help us
determine what we're going to do with our life. So
at the end of my four years of college, I
wound up taking a teaching position in a middle school,
public middle school, and I had no idea what a
difference it would make for me. It was a really
great experience and I'm glad that I did it.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
I don't regret.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
I may regret a day or two, but I don't
regret the experience. It was really good for me. After
I'd been teaching for about thirteen years, I was recruited
by a consulting firm to join their benefits communication team,
and I stayed with them for a bit and moved
to a corporate position and then moved up the ladder
to a director position. It was a good deal. It
was a good gig after that. However, while I was
(04:19):
in the midst of thinking that I was moving up
a corporate ladder that would be my entire career, my
sister was waging a courageous battle with cancer and it
became really clear that she needed more help than she
was willing to ask for. So I put my career
on pause so that I could be there for her.
As a cover story, I started a small business concentrating
(04:41):
on yeah, concentrating on the art that I made. She
would not hear anything about my giving up a job
to help her. She was extremely independent, and so I
needed that cover story. After we lost her, I concentrated
on my business as an artist, as a teacher, as
a lecturer, and.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
As an author.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
And so that's three careers, but there's one more. The
career I'm currently in is different, but the culmination of
all of the skills I've developed over the many different
things that I've done. When life threw me a curveball,
I had to become completely self sufficient and independent, and
I took a good hard look at my skills and
assessed to what I thought I wanted to do and
(05:22):
where that meshed with what I could do, and I
was fortunate enough to land the position I have now,
which is in human resources communication.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
That's actually important.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, The important thing here is that each career built
on what I learned in the previous careers.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
There's a progression.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Yeah, And there's so much to dissect from what you
just shared there. So I want to just backtrack just
a minute there to something you said at the beginning
there that you had no idea the difference that teaching
would make for you. Do you mean by that that
that was kind of the start of this culmination of
different career paths to where you are right now. It's
(05:59):
kind of the intersection of everything, or the foundation for everything,
maybe's a better way to say that.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Looking back on it, it absolutely is the foundation of
pretty much everything I've done since then. But when I
was involved in my teaching career, it gives you a
gift teaching teaching people, not virtually necessarily, but in a
classroom with people, and my people were seventh graders. The
gift it gives you is this, You're awake, You're alive,
(06:26):
you are absolutely focused while you are interacting with these people.
I know folks who have jobs where they'll go to
an office or in these days, will go to a
home office and they'll do their job, and when the
day is.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
Over, they go away.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
They don't think about it, they don't develop their skills.
The job seems to have very little to do with
their lives. And I think teachers are actively engaged every
minute they're in the building, and an awful lot of
the minutes that they're out of the building thinking about
teaching and thinking about what they need to do.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
To be better at what they do.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Yeah, for sure, that's one of the common myths about
teachers is that two point thirty or three o'clock or
whatever it is, their day stops, and they have all
of their evenings free, and their weekends free, and summers off,
and that's definitely not the case.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
The responsible teachers, the ones who work hard for their students,
the ones who are engaged in improving not only their
students but themselves.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
They don't have summers off.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
They're painting their classrooms, they're preparing new units of study,
They're hunting for affordable supplies, begging and everything. It's crazy
what you do.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
That is something I think a lot of people just
they don't realize about teachers, about how sometimes they are
spending their own time to search for supplies and their
own resources, their own money to fund a lot of
the work that they do.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Agreed.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
And then what you're saying about spending so much time
on professional development and just getting better understanding, I think
probably not only the course material that you're going to
be teaching, but also more about how to relate to
these different people you have to relate to. And you know,
that's one of the other things about teaching that I
find very interesting, because there's few careers where you have
(08:17):
to engage with so many different personalities. I mean not
just the students, but the administrators and the parents and
your other colleagues too.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
I couldn't agree more. I hear folks who work in
offices and my colleagues. Now you, in fact, I think
may have said this. Your day can be planned, but
one phone call in the morning can change your day completely.
In teaching, it's so similar to that. You can have
your day planned and then it can snow and the
energy in the room can shift so radically that you
have to shift with it or you're just going to
(08:48):
fight all day, shift with it and you.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
All sail together. It's kind of crazy.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Yeah, no kidding, I can imagine. There's all sorts of
unexpected things that can happen that can throw you off
if you allow it to.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Throw you off exactly.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Yeah, what other myths would you like to deflat about
teachers or the teaching profession or what do you wish
that most people knew about teachers? Is there anything else
you can share on that.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
You know there is? Thanks for asking that. It goes
kind of with having the summers off. One of the
things that teachers are doing, and you touched on this
is we're preparing ourselves for the next year mentally. We're
taking classes, we are reading, we are doing things that
we know how to do to make ourselves better. Because
if we're not ready, how can we expect the students
to be ready? And if we're not curious and we're
(09:39):
not learning, how can we expect our students to know
what that looks like? Everything teachers do in the classroom counts.
So it's all about that energy and the total commitment
during the day. When you're there, you are there.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Yeah, no kidding. You really have to be there in
the moment and kind of be ready for just about anything.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Yes, you never know. So it could be a kid
walking up to you saying, these scissors are stuck on
my hand, and yes, in fact, the fingers are through
and you can't get the scissors off of his hand.
Or it can be someone who doesn't feel well. It
can be anything. It can be something that happens out
in front of the school and there's no way you're
going to get them back, So you have to go
with the flow. Okay, fine, let's look out of the window.
(10:19):
Let's figure out what's going on as best we can
so that we can get past it and.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Get back to what we need to do. Yeah. Wow,
I mean it really does set you up, like all
of these unexpected things that can happen. I mean, who
would have thought somebody getting scissors stuck in their hand
for crying out loud, that.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Would be the one. The answer is you send them
to the nurse.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
That's an answer to know, hey, we have a nurse
in the building to defer to other people when you
don't have all of the expertise to deal with the
problem there. Yeah, that's something you have to know. You
have to know the parameters of what you're able to
do and what you're not able to do. Right. Oh, yes,
and what you're saying here, just it makes me think
of all of these other hats that teachers have to wear.
(11:02):
I mean people just think of teaching often as you know,
just this one hat. But there's so much that goes
into it, you know, everything from gathering data to setting
goals and all the communication that goes along with teaching, persuading,
persuading your students, persuading administrators and parents, presenting, documenting, all
(11:23):
the research and writing. I mean, there's so many skills
that teachers have to constantly juggle and use on a
daily basis.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Oh, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
It's crazy.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
What you need to learn, how to do, how you juggle,
how you present, and folks who haven't done it, I
think it would be a great idea for them some
time to talk to a teacher and maybe ask, what's
the biggest challenge you have in your day? Is there
anything I can do to help you with that? What
I'd really like folks to do is this, The next
time you're talking to a teacher, tell them you appreciate them.
(11:57):
Find something nice and positive that you can honestly say
to them, and then well say it. You'll make a
difference in their day.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
Pay it forward.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Imagine what the world would look like, and not just
the world of education, but the corporate world if people
could stop and ask people that, yeah, it doesn't take
that long, really, I mean just a few seconds to
be there in the moment. So how long did you
say that you were a teacher?
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Thirteen years? Almost fourteen. I left before the end of
the school year, which was a very unpopular decision with
my administration and my students. But when an opportunity arrives,
you can't always control the timing of it. So I
did my best to make sure that my students were
not only in a good place and understood why I
was leaving them, that it wasn't them, that it was
(12:46):
something else entirely, and that the substitute teacher who came
in to do the long term at the end I
left my about a month early, was very well qualified.
I knew the person, and I made sure that she
knew exactly what my kids had been doing.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yet another gift that you're giving your students, because I'm
sure that a lot of people just leave without so
much thought to the fallout that can happen with that.
And I'm just remembering the one or two times in
my own elementary and middle school years when a teacher
left midyear like that. It was tough because you get
so used to someone's style and then all of a
(13:21):
sudden you have to get used to someone else. So
there is I think quite a lot of fallout for
the kids. Agreed, Yeah, And then so you had an
opportunity to get into benefits, did you say?
Speaker 1 (13:34):
I did? I was recruited by a HR consulting firm
to be part of their communications team and got to
do some really interesting things. The culture shock. The transition
between teaching and working in a consulting firm was unbelievably,
unexpectedly difficult. In teaching, you order your supplies. You have
(13:55):
a very tight budget, and you get what you get
and then you're done, and then you go out of
your post to get the other special things that will
help your students do what they need to do. In
the consulting world, or I think in most corporations there's
a supply room.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
And this may sound kind of.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Silly, but that was such a shift of perspective that
I wasn't going to have things doled out to me.
If I needed some post it notes, I went and
I got some posted notes, and so it was a
whole new world. And that was how I started to
figure out how very very different different situations can be.
It never occurred to me that it was going to
be that different, and so it was a hard transition.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, essentially, you're having to beg for all of these
supplies and then suddenly they're just given to you. Other
difficulties that you encountered, I'm sure that's not the end
of it.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Though there were funds for everything that you needed. You
needed money, there was money for it. Your time was
no longer your own. In teaching, you have a certain
amount of things you need to do, and you have
a certain amount of time, and it's up to you
to figure out how to get them done. The only
real time constraints when you teaching would be class times
and when the students are there with you. But in
(15:04):
the consulting world, or I think in any corporation, folks
are checking in on you. You've got a time clock,
and in a consulting situation, you have to track your
hours to be sure to charge the right client for
the right work. And so how quickly you work and
how efficiently you work and when you get the work
done became so much more important. And so I had
(15:24):
less autonomy, and that was a real adjustment for me,
you know me in real life, and so you know
that autonomy is an important part.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Definitely. I mean when in the teaching world you're in
charge of your classroom and your supplies, and how your
pupils are educated, how you convey information, and just moving
into a completely new environment where you don't have as
much control, I can imagine that, especially at first, pretty
darn unsettling it was.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
And that said, I would add two things. One is
that that period in my life changing from one career
to another included also moving from one state to another,
finding a new place to live and becoming engaged to
be married, all of those things at the same time,
and so the stress meter was just crazy.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
The needle was buried on the stress meter.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
But with the gift of perspective, I look back at
that and I think that was a lot of stuff
coming at me, and while it was difficult as it happened,
I handled it. Resilience was there, and I developed more
resilience as a result of that. And so every lesson
that we have, every hard day at work that we have,
every challenge that we have, helps populate that toolbox, puts
(16:38):
more tools in that toolbox and more skills so that
the next time we're faced with something not the same challenge,
but it may feel like the same challenge, we're more
ready for it. Teaching was filled with challenges. The transition
from teaching to corporate America was filled with challenges, But
all of those challenges led me to having the skills
that I needed for whatever came next.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
I'm hearing you talk about resilience, and I'm hearing you
talk about resourcefulness. Everything that you needed to do as
a teacher and how that translated into this new role
you found yourself in. What other unique skills did you
gain as a teacher that helped you in this new role.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I'm glad to hear you ask me this question because
there are certain lessons I have three for you, three
nuggets of information. In the face of conflict. Try to
give everyone a way out with dignity. In a school,
in a classroom, if two kids are facing down something
and you can just see it's electricity in the air,
you know you're going to have to do something about this.
(17:37):
If you can get in there and give them both
of them a way out with dignity, nobody loses. Everybody
wins just a little find the compromise that's a win
for your day as a teacher. I find in corporate America,
in my current job, the same challenge is there. Everybody
wants to win, and with all the differing personalities. People
(17:57):
who eat power for breakfast, people who don't have any
power and they or they think they don't have any power.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
It's just this whole power dynamic.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
If you're in a meeting, even if you're not in
charge of the meeting, but you find that you have
an idea of how everybody can win a little bit
instead of one person winning big then that's a good
thing if you can get in there and try to
make that happen.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Boy, is that a skill to have. And it's one
of those skills that one of those non tangible skills.
It's just something you can't even put into words. But
if you have that, Wow, talk about power, what a
powerful human being you can be?
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Does that come with a superhero cape?
Speaker 3 (18:38):
So you mentioned some other nuggets of information.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Absolutely, the second nugget that I would offer you is
that we're all just people. We walk into any room
and we bring with us roles and things that we
think preconceptions, but at the end of the day, I
think sometimes we're just all tall seventh graders.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Nice analogy there.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
We may be on shore of ourselves, and we may
show up as a result as arrogant because we're overcompensating,
or maybe we're afraid of something, and we may show
up as hostile or defensive because we're protecting ourselves. And
it's important, I think, to try to be really aware
of how we show up. And more importantly than that,
we need to try to understand that the others in
the room may be showing up in one way, but
(19:23):
they may be feeling something completely different because we don't
know what they're facing or what they need. Here's what
I try to do, and boy, I wish I did
it more. Give people some extra grace. It might be
just what they need. And while we're at it, we
need to give ourselves some extra grace and cut ourselves
some slack as well.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
We could all use it, we really could. Just what
you're talking about here just makes me think about how
pervasive confirmation bias is today, and we're hearing about it everywhere,
We're seeing evidence of it everywhere, and again, if we
could just live by these rules here, Hey, at the
end of the day, we're all just keep just being
aware of how we're showing up and recognizing how other
(20:04):
people show up, it can go such a long way.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Absolutely, Yeah, my last point, I guess my last little
nugget would be And this was so important in teaching
meet people where they are. It's easy to start a
conversation with assumptions, and those assumptions aren't really going to
help anybody. I don't know what you think, you don't
know what I think. I don't know what your goals
are for the conversation. You know. It's so we have
(20:30):
to stop and listen and think and ask questions. And
if I don't know those things and I don't stop
to find out that information, then I'm going to miss
out on what you are bringing to the table. So
if I want to meet you where you are, I
need to slow down. I need to listen to you,
I need to ask some questions, and I need to
gather some information. And once I know where you are,
(20:52):
I can meet you there and we can actually accomplish something.
When I was teaching English is that was my topic
English and I taught writing, and it became super important
to meet the students where they were in their writing skills.
I had a special education students mainstreamed into my classroom
because writing is really one of those situations where you
(21:13):
can start wherever the student is. At one minute, you're
talking about how to use a comma in a compound
sentence and explaining that you can only put two thoughts together,
don't put more than that together, And in the next
sentence you might be talking about something way more complex,
about taking a theme and weaving it through or alliteration
or whatever.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
So it's really important to develop that skill.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Yeah, very well said. And this kind of pings into
the next question. I want to ask you which is
more related to emotional intelligence, because I know you have
taken the EQI assessment. You're one of two guests this
season who's actually taken the assessment, so I'm really interested
in your opinion on this. What areas of emotional intelligence
(21:57):
do you feel are undervalued in the world world and
how can we get more buy in for emotional intelligence. Well,
that's a huge question, really, it really is, and I'm
sorry to put your spot on this one.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
My first answer is probably the comp out answer, but
it's true. I think every component of EQ is important
individually and imbalance with all of the other ones.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
It's just it's a package deal.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
And because I know that you won't accept that answer,
I have others. My initial response when you asked this
question was the soft things, the empathy, the relationships and
all of that, And then I realized that they are
very important, and that's great, and we should all we
should all aspire to be better at those things because
(22:48):
everything will be easier and more people will get the
respect they deserve, and everything will be Everything will be easier.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
I'm going to say that twice.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Everything will be easier but I think that there's some
triage that needs to be in a lot of life situations.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Stop, look at the.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Situation, find out what needs to be done, and manage it.
And then once it's identified, then all of those other
things can come into play more effectively. And so I
would say that there are two composites that are really important.
Stress management, which is going to allow you to actually
get things done, and decision making. So for stress management,
(23:25):
optimism super important. You have to be able to look
at a problem and say, this is not outside of
the realm of possibility. We can do this. Have a
positive attitude. You know, people talk about glass half full,
glass half empty, meat. I can refill my glass. I
think we all can, and if we could just think
in those terms, we'd be better off.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Wow. I love that analogy. There I can refill my glass.
Gosh darn it, yes I can. There is for now, anyway,
an infinite supply of water and other liquids too. As
a matter of fact.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
I would not know anything about that. So and also
under stress management stress tolerance, we talked a little bit
today about all of the stressors that surrounded my transition
from teaching to corporate and stress tolerance is super important
because you need to sort of control that fight or
(24:19):
flight instinct that we have when things become overwhelming. And
if there's a way to stop that and figure out
how to breathe and work on the stress tolerance thing,
then there's a better chance that you will in fact
be able to deal with the things that are stressing
you out.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
And then the umbrella.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
That goes with all of that is flexibility to be
able to adapt to the changing situations. One of the
aspects of flexibility that is most important for what I'm
doing right now is that we live in a world
where COVID nineteen is a headline in everything we do.
As an HR communicator, I'm talking a lot all day
(24:57):
every day about COVID, about vaccine, about precautions, about best practices,
about medical coverage, and so flexibility has become super important.
We never know what's going to happen in a day,
what regulations are going to change, what benefits coming from
the government our people may.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
Have access to.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
We don't know, and so part of the stress management
thing the triage is to recognize when something needs to
be handled first and be flexible enough to handle everything
else and get it out of the way so that
you can concentrate on the important stuff.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
I got you there. I believe flexibility is one of
those elements that a lot of people think that they have,
but they it's it's sorely lacking. And these times surely
have spoken to that, and so really appreciate what you
said there. These are just unprecedented, unpredictable times, and those
of us who are going to get out ahead are
(25:52):
the ones who can hone into that flexible mindset when
we need it.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Absolutely agree.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
So.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
And then once you've got yourself under control enough once
I have myself, but you control enough to handle whatever's
going on that is the stressor, then the decision making
process kicks in and you figure out what needs to
be done. And then the decision making process is, Okay,
how are we going to do this? What do we
need to do? And so for there the problem solving
(26:19):
skill becomes super super important to find the solutions when
the emotions are involved, because as soon as the emotions
are high, I find there's sort of this weird inverse
relationship between ability to feel and ability to think.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
When the stress is really high.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Yes and yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
So the problem solving It relates back to what I
said about giving everybody a way out with dignity.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Oh yeah, so it's being aware of.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
What's going on around you and reading the room and
reading the people.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
It's hard.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Yeah, yeah, it's really hard, especially when there are emotions involved,
that's for sure.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
And speaking of emotions being involved, I'm sure there are
people tuning in right now who are teachers and are
considering a career change or are wondering if a career
change is even warranted. What would you tell these people,
maybe not just teachers, but anyone who's considering changing careers
(27:17):
or changing workplaces.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Well, what a great question, and what a hard question.
And I wish I had the magic answer to that.
What I do have is how I made my decision.
I believe that no matter what it is that we're doing,
we can become stale. If we stay too long somewhere
without doing any intentional changing or progressing, if we're just
sitting there, we're going to get stale. We've got a
(27:42):
date on ourselves for teaching. I believe that some teachers
burn out, and when they burn out, instead of nurturing
and facilitating learning, they hinder learning and the damage that
you can do to a student by being disinterested in
learning can less that student a lifetime. It can mean
the diffference between a high school education, a college education, whatever,
(28:04):
a high performing student. It just takes one year with
that teacher who really should have left sooner. We've all
seen those teachers. We've I worked with some some of
us had those teachers. And I think that happens in
corporations as well. Someone will get parked in an office
and they'll do their job, and they will have They'll
think they have seen everything, and so nothing is new,
(28:25):
nothing challenges them, and so none of their solutions are
new or updated because they don't think they have to
come up with anything new.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
And what a loss that can be for the people
who work with that person. And if it's a very
public facing career, of course there's implications for that, far
reaching implications.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
For that exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
And my overarching goal, as soon as I realized I
was teaching on a team with one of those teachers,
was to never become that person. And I know that
we should always think positively, I want to do this,
I want to be that, But in that case, I
think the negative work for me.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
I did not want to.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Be that that can be just as powerful. And I
think it was you, Cindy, who actually told me this
one time. Sometimes these people are and situations are sent
as reminders for what you don't want to be.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
I believe I remember that conversation.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Well, there were so many great nuggets of information that
you shared with us today. Thank you so much for this.
This was such an enlightening conversation. Where would you like
listeners or subscribers to be able to get in touch
with you if you would like them to get in touch.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
Absolutely, I'm on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
I have a business profile there, so my name will
be in the call notes and you can check me
out on LinkedIn.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Yes, indeed, we will put your name with the correct
spelling in our listening notes. And I appreciate that. Yes, indeed,
thank you, Cindy. Thank you so much for being here,
and thank Edith.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
I was really happy to be here.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Cindy mentioned so many different aspects of emotional intelligence, and
she also mentioned the relationship between elements and how they
work together. In my work with coaching and leadership development,
I've often found this to be the most helpful approach
in learning more about and improving one's own emotional intelligence
(30:30):
far more helpful than the scores on an EQ report.
For example, someone who is much higher in independence than
assertiveness is most likely going to show up as different
than someone who is significantly higher in assertiveness than independence.
One element that comes into play in Cindy's story is
(30:53):
problem solving. Problem solving is the ability to find solutions
to problems in situations where emotions are involved. Problem solving
also includes the ability to understand how emotions impact decision making.
When someone is skilled in this element of emotional intelligence,
(31:15):
as Cindy clearly is, they take in enough information to
make informed decisions, but not so much that they're overwhelmed.
They're also able to keep a clear head on the
issue at hand without becoming frustrated, and they're able to
see a path through obstacles that inevitably come their way,
(31:37):
using emotions to solve problems and not letting their emotions
get the best of them. At the end of the day,
teachers are problem solvers, perhaps the greatest examples of problem solvers.
Every day they encounter problems, small ones like Cindy's example
of the kid who stapled his hand, to larger ones
(32:01):
like helicopter parents, unrealistic administrative policies, a student whose parents
suddenly get evicted from their home, not to mention all
the disruptions they deal with on a daily basis. Teachers
always need to be willing to try new things and
find out what works and what doesn't work. People who
(32:23):
aren't as skilled as Cindia is in this element of
emotional intelligence may prefer to let others make decisions for them.
They may spend a great deal of time worrying about
decisions rather than trying to solve them. Or they may
become so overwhelmed by problems and get stuck solving problems
(32:44):
poorly or not at all. Other people may see these
people as conflict avoidant or unreliable. If this is an
area you'd like to boost in yourself, make sure that
you define what the real problem is, not the symptoms
of the problem. For example, feeling anxious and overwhelmed are
(33:07):
symptoms of for example, too many items on your to
do list. It's easy to become hyper focused on those
feelings rather than a solution, so practice generating possible solutions
to problems before making an actual decision. You can also
try to differentiate between what's important and what's not so important,
(33:31):
and devote the appropriate amount of energy accordingly. Lastly, when
you've decided on the best way to deal with a problem,
just do it. In this case, action is more often
than not better than inaction. If it doesn't work, try
another possible solution. This may feel awkward and clumsy at first,
(33:54):
but don't give up. The more you practice, the easier
it will be to put EQ to work.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Thanks for listening to EQ at Work. Find us using
the hashtag EQ at work or visit our website EQ
at work dot net. Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes, Speaker,
or your favorite podcast platform. We'd love you to leave
a rating or review, and if you have a moment,
a simple share would be wonderful. Remember tell your friends
(34:26):
mastering your emotions matters. We thank you for tuning in
to EQ at Work, where we hope you're well on
the path to mastering your emotional intelligence. If you enjoyed
the series, please please subscribe, give us a share or
a review or a rating on iTunes, Spotify or your
favorite podcast platform. This is the best way to let
(34:48):
you know that she's doing a great job in bringing
useful content to you and ratings and reviews help us visibility,
so it's super helpful for us to most importantly thank
you for being and loyal listener, wishing you all the best.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Mm hmmmmmmm
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Hm
And so every lesson that we have, every hard day
at work that we have, every challenge that we have,
helps populate that toolbox, puts more tools in that toolbox
and more skills so that the next time we're faced
with something not the same challenge, but it may feel
like the same challenge, we're more ready for it. Teaching
was filled with challenges. The transition from teaching to corporate
(00:21):
America was filled with challenges, but all of those challenges
led me to having the skills that I needed for
whatever came next.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
Think about the five most influential people in your life.
More than likely at least one of them is a teacher.
It's clear that teachers give us so much. What's not
as well known is that the act of teaching itself
provides many important lessons for everything else in life.
Speaker 3 (00:59):
Folks, I'm your host, Edith Richards, and you may know
me from my podcast series Meyers Briggs Question Corner or
my website at top career dot com. I've spent the
last twenty years of my career helping people get smart
about their careers, and I've found that lots of smart
people aren't successful. Why is that? I'm convinced it's due
(01:22):
to emotional intelligence. In EQ at work, I'm bringing you
inspiring people and messages to help you get smart about
your emotions. It's one thing to know complex information, it's
(01:47):
another to understand that information so thoroughly as to relay
it to others in a way they can understand. This
is one small example of how skills learned as a
teacher can parlay into multiple jobs and career fields and
even tough situations in life. Some educators know they've found
their dream job the moment they step into the classroom.
(02:10):
For many others, teaching is what starts other successful careers.
We've all heard the stereotypes that teaching is easy, and
it must be nice to have your summers off, and
my favorite, anyone can teach. The truth is that we
grossly underestimate the skills teachers bring to the table. I
(02:33):
can think of few careers that are as underpaid and
sadly underappreciated as teaching. Whether you're a teacher tuning in
and know it's what you were born to do, or
if you're a teacher considering how to reinvent yourself, or
if you're thinking of becoming a teacher, Cindy Zachy's my
guest today has some thoughts to share. Cindy, Welcome to
(02:56):
EQ at work.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Edith, thanks for having me, and can I just say,
I think what you do is so important. The time
that you've given me in EQ consultations has made a
difference in my life. So it's a gift, and thank
you for that.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
Well, you've certainly boosted my ego here today. I really
appreciate that. And I'm sure, yeah, we're going to get
into the EQ piece of this as well. But I
know you're a former teacher, and thank you so much
for that. My turn to thank you, And I understand
that was your first job out of college, and I
know it served as the foundation for your career, and
(03:30):
start out with telling us about your career progression.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Absolutely, I went to college and studied education and was
also pre law, and so sometimes budgeting can help us
determine what we're going to do with our life. So
at the end of my four years of college, I
wound up taking a teaching position in a middle school,
public middle school, and I had no idea what a
difference it would make for me. It was a really
great experience and I'm glad that I did it.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
I don't regret.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
I may regret a day or two, but I don't
regret the experience. It was really good for me. After
I'd been teaching for about thirteen years, I was recruited
by a consulting firm to join their benefits communication team,
and I stayed with them for a bit and moved
to a corporate position and then moved up the ladder
to a director position. It was a good deal. It
was a good gig after that. However, while I was
(04:19):
in the midst of thinking that I was moving up
a corporate ladder that would be my entire career, my
sister was waging a courageous battle with cancer and it
became really clear that she needed more help than she
was willing to ask for. So I put my career
on pause so that I could be there for her.
As a cover story, I started a small business concentrating
(04:41):
on yeah, concentrating on the art that I made. She
would not hear anything about my giving up a job
to help her. She was extremely independent, and so I
needed that cover story. After we lost her, I concentrated
on my business as an artist, as a teacher, as
a lecturer, and.
Speaker 4 (04:59):
As an author.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
And so that's three careers, but there's one more. The
career I'm currently in is different, but the culmination of
all of the skills I've developed over the many different
things that I've done. When life threw me a curveball,
I had to become completely self sufficient and independent, and
I took a good hard look at my skills and
assessed to what I thought I wanted to do and
(05:22):
where that meshed with what I could do, and I
was fortunate enough to land the position I have now,
which is in human resources communication.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
That's actually important.
Speaker 1 (05:31):
Yeah, The important thing here is that each career built
on what I learned in the previous careers.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
There's a progression.
Speaker 3 (05:37):
Yeah, And there's so much to dissect from what you
just shared there. So I want to just backtrack just
a minute there to something you said at the beginning
there that you had no idea the difference that teaching
would make for you. Do you mean by that that
that was kind of the start of this culmination of
different career paths to where you are right now. It's
(05:59):
kind of the intersection of everything, or the foundation for everything,
maybe's a better way to say that.
Speaker 1 (06:06):
Looking back on it, it absolutely is the foundation of
pretty much everything I've done since then. But when I
was involved in my teaching career, it gives you a
gift teaching teaching people, not virtually necessarily, but in a
classroom with people, and my people were seventh graders. The
gift it gives you is this, You're awake, You're alive,
(06:26):
you are absolutely focused while you are interacting with these people.
I know folks who have jobs where they'll go to
an office or in these days, will go to a
home office and they'll do their job, and when the
day is.
Speaker 4 (06:41):
Over, they go away.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
They don't think about it, they don't develop their skills.
The job seems to have very little to do with
their lives. And I think teachers are actively engaged every
minute they're in the building, and an awful lot of
the minutes that they're out of the building thinking about
teaching and thinking about what they need to do.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
To be better at what they do.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
Yeah, for sure, that's one of the common myths about
teachers is that two point thirty or three o'clock or
whatever it is, their day stops, and they have all
of their evenings free, and their weekends free, and summers off,
and that's definitely not the case.
Speaker 4 (07:19):
I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
The responsible teachers, the ones who work hard for their students,
the ones who are engaged in improving not only their
students but themselves.
Speaker 4 (07:29):
They don't have summers off.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
They're painting their classrooms, they're preparing new units of study,
They're hunting for affordable supplies, begging and everything. It's crazy
what you do.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
That is something I think a lot of people just
they don't realize about teachers, about how sometimes they are
spending their own time to search for supplies and their
own resources, their own money to fund a lot of
the work that they do.
Speaker 4 (07:54):
Agreed.
Speaker 3 (07:54):
And then what you're saying about spending so much time
on professional development and just getting better understanding, I think
probably not only the course material that you're going to
be teaching, but also more about how to relate to
these different people you have to relate to. And you know,
that's one of the other things about teaching that I
find very interesting, because there's few careers where you have
(08:17):
to engage with so many different personalities. I mean not
just the students, but the administrators and the parents and
your other colleagues too.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
I couldn't agree more. I hear folks who work in
offices and my colleagues. Now you, in fact, I think
may have said this. Your day can be planned, but
one phone call in the morning can change your day completely.
In teaching, it's so similar to that. You can have
your day planned and then it can snow and the
energy in the room can shift so radically that you
have to shift with it or you're just going to
(08:48):
fight all day, shift with it and you.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
All sail together. It's kind of crazy.
Speaker 3 (08:54):
Yeah, no kidding, I can imagine. There's all sorts of
unexpected things that can happen that can throw you off
if you allow it to.
Speaker 4 (09:01):
Throw you off exactly.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Yeah, what other myths would you like to deflat about
teachers or the teaching profession or what do you wish
that most people knew about teachers? Is there anything else
you can share on that.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
You know there is? Thanks for asking that. It goes
kind of with having the summers off. One of the
things that teachers are doing, and you touched on this
is we're preparing ourselves for the next year mentally. We're
taking classes, we are reading, we are doing things that
we know how to do to make ourselves better. Because
if we're not ready, how can we expect the students
to be ready? And if we're not curious and we're
(09:39):
not learning, how can we expect our students to know
what that looks like? Everything teachers do in the classroom counts.
So it's all about that energy and the total commitment
during the day. When you're there, you are there.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Yeah, no kidding. You really have to be there in
the moment and kind of be ready for just about anything.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Yes, you never know. So it could be a kid
walking up to you saying, these scissors are stuck on
my hand, and yes, in fact, the fingers are through
and you can't get the scissors off of his hand.
Or it can be someone who doesn't feel well. It
can be anything. It can be something that happens out
in front of the school and there's no way you're
going to get them back, So you have to go
with the flow. Okay, fine, let's look out of the window.
(10:19):
Let's figure out what's going on as best we can
so that we can get past it and.
Speaker 3 (10:22):
Get back to what we need to do. Yeah. Wow,
I mean it really does set you up, like all
of these unexpected things that can happen. I mean, who
would have thought somebody getting scissors stuck in their hand
for crying out loud, that.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Would be the one. The answer is you send them
to the nurse.
Speaker 3 (10:38):
That's an answer to know, hey, we have a nurse
in the building to defer to other people when you
don't have all of the expertise to deal with the
problem there. Yeah, that's something you have to know. You
have to know the parameters of what you're able to
do and what you're not able to do. Right. Oh, yes,
and what you're saying here, just it makes me think
of all of these other hats that teachers have to wear.
(11:02):
I mean people just think of teaching often as you know,
just this one hat. But there's so much that goes
into it, you know, everything from gathering data to setting
goals and all the communication that goes along with teaching, persuading,
persuading your students, persuading administrators and parents, presenting, documenting, all
(11:23):
the research and writing. I mean, there's so many skills
that teachers have to constantly juggle and use on a
daily basis.
Speaker 4 (11:32):
Oh, I couldn't agree more.
Speaker 2 (11:34):
Yeah, it is.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
It's crazy.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
What you need to learn, how to do, how you juggle,
how you present, and folks who haven't done it, I
think it would be a great idea for them some
time to talk to a teacher and maybe ask, what's
the biggest challenge you have in your day? Is there
anything I can do to help you with that? What
I'd really like folks to do is this, The next
time you're talking to a teacher, tell them you appreciate them.
(11:57):
Find something nice and positive that you can honestly say
to them, and then well say it. You'll make a
difference in their day.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
Pay it forward.
Speaker 3 (12:07):
Imagine what the world would look like, and not just
the world of education, but the corporate world if people
could stop and ask people that, yeah, it doesn't take
that long, really, I mean just a few seconds to
be there in the moment. So how long did you
say that you were a teacher?
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Thirteen years? Almost fourteen. I left before the end of
the school year, which was a very unpopular decision with
my administration and my students. But when an opportunity arrives,
you can't always control the timing of it. So I
did my best to make sure that my students were
not only in a good place and understood why I
was leaving them, that it wasn't them, that it was
(12:46):
something else entirely, and that the substitute teacher who came
in to do the long term at the end I
left my about a month early, was very well qualified.
I knew the person, and I made sure that she
knew exactly what my kids had been doing.
Speaker 3 (13:00):
Yet another gift that you're giving your students, because I'm
sure that a lot of people just leave without so
much thought to the fallout that can happen with that.
And I'm just remembering the one or two times in
my own elementary and middle school years when a teacher
left midyear like that. It was tough because you get
so used to someone's style and then all of a
(13:21):
sudden you have to get used to someone else. So
there is I think quite a lot of fallout for
the kids. Agreed, Yeah, And then so you had an
opportunity to get into benefits, did you say?
Speaker 1 (13:34):
I did? I was recruited by a HR consulting firm
to be part of their communications team and got to
do some really interesting things. The culture shock. The transition
between teaching and working in a consulting firm was unbelievably,
unexpectedly difficult. In teaching, you order your supplies. You have
(13:55):
a very tight budget, and you get what you get
and then you're done, and then you go out of
your post to get the other special things that will
help your students do what they need to do. In
the consulting world, or I think in most corporations there's
a supply room.
Speaker 4 (14:09):
And this may sound kind of.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
Silly, but that was such a shift of perspective that
I wasn't going to have things doled out to me.
If I needed some post it notes, I went and
I got some posted notes, and so it was a
whole new world. And that was how I started to
figure out how very very different different situations can be.
It never occurred to me that it was going to
be that different, and so it was a hard transition.
Speaker 3 (14:33):
Yeah, essentially, you're having to beg for all of these
supplies and then suddenly they're just given to you. Other
difficulties that you encountered, I'm sure that's not the end
of it.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
Though there were funds for everything that you needed. You
needed money, there was money for it. Your time was
no longer your own. In teaching, you have a certain
amount of things you need to do, and you have
a certain amount of time, and it's up to you
to figure out how to get them done. The only
real time constraints when you teaching would be class times
and when the students are there with you. But in
(15:04):
the consulting world, or I think in any corporation, folks
are checking in on you. You've got a time clock,
and in a consulting situation, you have to track your
hours to be sure to charge the right client for
the right work. And so how quickly you work and
how efficiently you work and when you get the work
done became so much more important. And so I had
(15:24):
less autonomy, and that was a real adjustment for me,
you know me in real life, and so you know
that autonomy is an important part.
Speaker 3 (15:34):
Definitely. I mean when in the teaching world you're in
charge of your classroom and your supplies, and how your
pupils are educated, how you convey information, and just moving
into a completely new environment where you don't have as
much control, I can imagine that, especially at first, pretty
darn unsettling it was.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
And that said, I would add two things. One is
that that period in my life changing from one career
to another included also moving from one state to another,
finding a new place to live and becoming engaged to
be married, all of those things at the same time,
and so the stress meter was just crazy.
Speaker 4 (16:15):
The needle was buried on the stress meter.
Speaker 1 (16:17):
But with the gift of perspective, I look back at
that and I think that was a lot of stuff
coming at me, and while it was difficult as it happened,
I handled it. Resilience was there, and I developed more
resilience as a result of that. And so every lesson
that we have, every hard day at work that we have,
every challenge that we have, helps populate that toolbox, puts
(16:38):
more tools in that toolbox and more skills so that
the next time we're faced with something not the same challenge,
but it may feel like the same challenge, we're more
ready for it. Teaching was filled with challenges. The transition
from teaching to corporate America was filled with challenges, But
all of those challenges led me to having the skills
that I needed for whatever came next.
Speaker 3 (17:00):
I'm hearing you talk about resilience, and I'm hearing you
talk about resourcefulness. Everything that you needed to do as
a teacher and how that translated into this new role
you found yourself in. What other unique skills did you
gain as a teacher that helped you in this new role.
Speaker 1 (17:16):
I'm glad to hear you ask me this question because
there are certain lessons I have three for you, three
nuggets of information. In the face of conflict. Try to
give everyone a way out with dignity. In a school,
in a classroom, if two kids are facing down something
and you can just see it's electricity in the air,
you know you're going to have to do something about this.
(17:37):
If you can get in there and give them both
of them a way out with dignity, nobody loses. Everybody
wins just a little find the compromise that's a win
for your day as a teacher. I find in corporate America,
in my current job, the same challenge is there. Everybody
wants to win, and with all the differing personalities. People
(17:57):
who eat power for breakfast, people who don't have any
power and they or they think they don't have any power.
Speaker 4 (18:03):
It's just this whole power dynamic.
Speaker 1 (18:05):
If you're in a meeting, even if you're not in
charge of the meeting, but you find that you have
an idea of how everybody can win a little bit
instead of one person winning big then that's a good
thing if you can get in there and try to
make that happen.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
Boy, is that a skill to have. And it's one
of those skills that one of those non tangible skills.
It's just something you can't even put into words. But
if you have that, Wow, talk about power, what a
powerful human being you can be?
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Does that come with a superhero cape?
Speaker 3 (18:38):
So you mentioned some other nuggets of information.
Speaker 1 (18:41):
Absolutely, the second nugget that I would offer you is
that we're all just people. We walk into any room
and we bring with us roles and things that we
think preconceptions, but at the end of the day, I
think sometimes we're just all tall seventh graders.
Speaker 3 (18:58):
Nice analogy there.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
We may be on shore of ourselves, and we may
show up as a result as arrogant because we're overcompensating,
or maybe we're afraid of something, and we may show
up as hostile or defensive because we're protecting ourselves. And
it's important, I think, to try to be really aware
of how we show up. And more importantly than that,
we need to try to understand that the others in
the room may be showing up in one way, but
(19:23):
they may be feeling something completely different because we don't
know what they're facing or what they need. Here's what
I try to do, and boy, I wish I did
it more. Give people some extra grace. It might be
just what they need. And while we're at it, we
need to give ourselves some extra grace and cut ourselves
some slack as well.
Speaker 3 (19:41):
We could all use it, we really could. Just what
you're talking about here just makes me think about how
pervasive confirmation bias is today, and we're hearing about it everywhere,
We're seeing evidence of it everywhere, and again, if we
could just live by these rules here, Hey, at the
end of the day, we're all just keep just being
aware of how we're showing up and recognizing how other
(20:04):
people show up, it can go such a long way.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Absolutely, Yeah, my last point, I guess my last little
nugget would be And this was so important in teaching
meet people where they are. It's easy to start a
conversation with assumptions, and those assumptions aren't really going to
help anybody. I don't know what you think, you don't
know what I think. I don't know what your goals
are for the conversation. You know. It's so we have
(20:30):
to stop and listen and think and ask questions. And
if I don't know those things and I don't stop
to find out that information, then I'm going to miss
out on what you are bringing to the table. So
if I want to meet you where you are, I
need to slow down. I need to listen to you,
I need to ask some questions, and I need to
gather some information. And once I know where you are,
(20:52):
I can meet you there and we can actually accomplish something.
When I was teaching English is that was my topic
English and I taught writing, and it became super important
to meet the students where they were in their writing skills.
I had a special education students mainstreamed into my classroom
because writing is really one of those situations where you
(21:13):
can start wherever the student is. At one minute, you're
talking about how to use a comma in a compound
sentence and explaining that you can only put two thoughts together,
don't put more than that together, And in the next
sentence you might be talking about something way more complex,
about taking a theme and weaving it through or alliteration
or whatever.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
So it's really important to develop that skill.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Yeah, very well said. And this kind of pings into
the next question. I want to ask you which is
more related to emotional intelligence, because I know you have
taken the EQI assessment. You're one of two guests this
season who's actually taken the assessment, so I'm really interested
in your opinion on this. What areas of emotional intelligence
(21:57):
do you feel are undervalued in the world world and
how can we get more buy in for emotional intelligence. Well,
that's a huge question, really, it really is, and I'm
sorry to put your spot on this one.
Speaker 1 (22:13):
My first answer is probably the comp out answer, but
it's true. I think every component of EQ is important
individually and imbalance with all of the other ones.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
It's just it's a package deal.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
And because I know that you won't accept that answer,
I have others. My initial response when you asked this
question was the soft things, the empathy, the relationships and
all of that, And then I realized that they are
very important, and that's great, and we should all we
should all aspire to be better at those things because
(22:48):
everything will be easier and more people will get the
respect they deserve, and everything will be Everything will be easier.
Speaker 4 (22:54):
I'm going to say that twice.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
Everything will be easier but I think that there's some
triage that needs to be in a lot of life situations.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Stop, look at the.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Situation, find out what needs to be done, and manage it.
And then once it's identified, then all of those other
things can come into play more effectively. And so I
would say that there are two composites that are really important.
Stress management, which is going to allow you to actually
get things done, and decision making. So for stress management,
(23:25):
optimism super important. You have to be able to look
at a problem and say, this is not outside of
the realm of possibility. We can do this. Have a
positive attitude. You know, people talk about glass half full,
glass half empty, meat. I can refill my glass. I
think we all can, and if we could just think
in those terms, we'd be better off.
Speaker 3 (23:45):
Wow. I love that analogy. There I can refill my glass.
Gosh darn it, yes I can. There is for now, anyway,
an infinite supply of water and other liquids too. As
a matter of fact.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
I would not know anything about that. So and also
under stress management stress tolerance, we talked a little bit
today about all of the stressors that surrounded my transition
from teaching to corporate and stress tolerance is super important
because you need to sort of control that fight or
(24:19):
flight instinct that we have when things become overwhelming. And
if there's a way to stop that and figure out
how to breathe and work on the stress tolerance thing,
then there's a better chance that you will in fact
be able to deal with the things that are stressing
you out.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
And then the umbrella.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
That goes with all of that is flexibility to be
able to adapt to the changing situations. One of the
aspects of flexibility that is most important for what I'm
doing right now is that we live in a world
where COVID nineteen is a headline in everything we do.
As an HR communicator, I'm talking a lot all day
(24:57):
every day about COVID, about vaccine, about precautions, about best practices,
about medical coverage, and so flexibility has become super important.
We never know what's going to happen in a day,
what regulations are going to change, what benefits coming from
the government our people may.
Speaker 4 (25:16):
Have access to.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
We don't know, and so part of the stress management
thing the triage is to recognize when something needs to
be handled first and be flexible enough to handle everything
else and get it out of the way so that
you can concentrate on the important stuff.
Speaker 3 (25:32):
I got you there. I believe flexibility is one of
those elements that a lot of people think that they have,
but they it's it's sorely lacking. And these times surely
have spoken to that, and so really appreciate what you
said there. These are just unprecedented, unpredictable times, and those
of us who are going to get out ahead are
(25:52):
the ones who can hone into that flexible mindset when
we need it.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
Absolutely agree.
Speaker 2 (25:57):
So.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
And then once you've got yourself under control enough once
I have myself, but you control enough to handle whatever's
going on that is the stressor, then the decision making
process kicks in and you figure out what needs to
be done. And then the decision making process is, Okay,
how are we going to do this? What do we
need to do? And so for there the problem solving
(26:19):
skill becomes super super important to find the solutions when
the emotions are involved, because as soon as the emotions
are high, I find there's sort of this weird inverse
relationship between ability to feel and ability to think.
Speaker 4 (26:32):
When the stress is really high.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
Yes and yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
So the problem solving It relates back to what I
said about giving everybody a way out with dignity.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Oh yeah, so it's being aware of.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
What's going on around you and reading the room and
reading the people.
Speaker 4 (26:47):
It's hard.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
Yeah, yeah, it's really hard, especially when there are emotions involved,
that's for sure.
Speaker 4 (26:56):
Absolutely.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
And speaking of emotions being involved, I'm sure there are
people tuning in right now who are teachers and are
considering a career change or are wondering if a career
change is even warranted. What would you tell these people,
maybe not just teachers, but anyone who's considering changing careers
(27:17):
or changing workplaces.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
Well, what a great question, and what a hard question.
And I wish I had the magic answer to that.
What I do have is how I made my decision.
I believe that no matter what it is that we're doing,
we can become stale. If we stay too long somewhere
without doing any intentional changing or progressing, if we're just
sitting there, we're going to get stale. We've got a
(27:42):
date on ourselves for teaching. I believe that some teachers
burn out, and when they burn out, instead of nurturing
and facilitating learning, they hinder learning and the damage that
you can do to a student by being disinterested in
learning can less that student a lifetime. It can mean
the diffference between a high school education, a college education, whatever,
(28:04):
a high performing student. It just takes one year with
that teacher who really should have left sooner. We've all
seen those teachers. We've I worked with some some of
us had those teachers. And I think that happens in
corporations as well. Someone will get parked in an office
and they'll do their job, and they will have They'll
think they have seen everything, and so nothing is new,
(28:25):
nothing challenges them, and so none of their solutions are
new or updated because they don't think they have to
come up with anything new.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
And what a loss that can be for the people
who work with that person. And if it's a very
public facing career, of course there's implications for that, far
reaching implications.
Speaker 4 (28:45):
For that exactly.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
And my overarching goal, as soon as I realized I
was teaching on a team with one of those teachers,
was to never become that person. And I know that
we should always think positively, I want to do this,
I want to be that, But in that case, I
think the negative work for me.
Speaker 4 (29:03):
I did not want to.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Be that that can be just as powerful. And I
think it was you, Cindy, who actually told me this
one time. Sometimes these people are and situations are sent
as reminders for what you don't want to be.
Speaker 4 (29:18):
I believe I remember that conversation.
Speaker 3 (29:22):
Well, there were so many great nuggets of information that
you shared with us today. Thank you so much for this.
This was such an enlightening conversation. Where would you like
listeners or subscribers to be able to get in touch
with you if you would like them to get in touch.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
Absolutely, I'm on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 (29:41):
I have a business profile there, so my name will
be in the call notes and you can check me
out on LinkedIn.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Yes, indeed, we will put your name with the correct
spelling in our listening notes. And I appreciate that. Yes, indeed,
thank you, Cindy. Thank you so much for being here,
and thank Edith.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
I was really happy to be here.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Cindy mentioned so many different aspects of emotional intelligence, and
she also mentioned the relationship between elements and how they
work together. In my work with coaching and leadership development,
I've often found this to be the most helpful approach
in learning more about and improving one's own emotional intelligence
(30:30):
far more helpful than the scores on an EQ report.
For example, someone who is much higher in independence than
assertiveness is most likely going to show up as different
than someone who is significantly higher in assertiveness than independence.
One element that comes into play in Cindy's story is
(30:53):
problem solving. Problem solving is the ability to find solutions
to problems in situations where emotions are involved. Problem solving
also includes the ability to understand how emotions impact decision making.
When someone is skilled in this element of emotional intelligence,
(31:15):
as Cindy clearly is, they take in enough information to
make informed decisions, but not so much that they're overwhelmed.
They're also able to keep a clear head on the
issue at hand without becoming frustrated, and they're able to
see a path through obstacles that inevitably come their way,
(31:37):
using emotions to solve problems and not letting their emotions
get the best of them. At the end of the day,
teachers are problem solvers, perhaps the greatest examples of problem solvers.
Every day they encounter problems, small ones like Cindy's example
of the kid who stapled his hand, to larger ones
(32:01):
like helicopter parents, unrealistic administrative policies, a student whose parents
suddenly get evicted from their home, not to mention all
the disruptions they deal with on a daily basis. Teachers
always need to be willing to try new things and
find out what works and what doesn't work. People who
(32:23):
aren't as skilled as Cindia is in this element of
emotional intelligence may prefer to let others make decisions for them.
They may spend a great deal of time worrying about
decisions rather than trying to solve them. Or they may
become so overwhelmed by problems and get stuck solving problems
(32:44):
poorly or not at all. Other people may see these
people as conflict avoidant or unreliable. If this is an
area you'd like to boost in yourself, make sure that
you define what the real problem is, not the symptoms
of the problem. For example, feeling anxious and overwhelmed are
(33:07):
symptoms of for example, too many items on your to
do list. It's easy to become hyper focused on those
feelings rather than a solution, so practice generating possible solutions
to problems before making an actual decision. You can also
try to differentiate between what's important and what's not so important,
(33:31):
and devote the appropriate amount of energy accordingly. Lastly, when
you've decided on the best way to deal with a problem,
just do it. In this case, action is more often
than not better than inaction. If it doesn't work, try
another possible solution. This may feel awkward and clumsy at first,
(33:54):
but don't give up. The more you practice, the easier
it will be to put EQ to work.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Thanks for listening to EQ at Work. Find us using
the hashtag EQ at work or visit our website EQ
at work dot net. Subscribe to this podcast via iTunes, Speaker,
or your favorite podcast platform. We'd love you to leave
a rating or review, and if you have a moment,
a simple share would be wonderful. Remember tell your friends
(34:26):
mastering your emotions matters. We thank you for tuning in
to EQ at Work, where we hope you're well on
the path to mastering your emotional intelligence. If you enjoyed
the series, please please subscribe, give us a share or
a review or a rating on iTunes, Spotify or your
favorite podcast platform. This is the best way to let
(34:48):
you know that she's doing a great job in bringing
useful content to you and ratings and reviews help us visibility,
so it's super helpful for us to most importantly thank
you for being and loyal listener, wishing you all the best.
Speaker 3 (35:06):
Mm hmmmmmmm
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Hm
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