Tune up your EQ

It is with deep regret that the family and friends of Galba Bright wish to inform you of Galba’s untimely passing.

Galba Francis Adeyinka Bright, Human Resource Consultant and Author, died at his office on March 31 of natural causes, leaving his wife Sandra, numerous family members, friends, associates, readers and fans.

Out of respect, the Tune up your EQ website created by Galba will therefore be offline for a short period.

We thank you for your understanding at this time and appreciate the interest you have shown in Galba’s work and ideas.

Should you wish to post comments about the personal impact of Galba’s thoughts and writings, please feel free to click here or go to his blog.

The Service of Thanksgiving for the life of Galba Bright will be held at St. John’s Methodist Church, Montego Bay, Jamaica, at 1.00 pm on Sunday, April 19, followed by interment in Dovecot of St. James Memorial Park, Orange, St. James.

What Will You Unlearn in 2007?

December 27th, 2006 by Galba Bright

In 2006 I made a conscious decision not to make any New Year’s resolutions. It’s been a revelation. Instead, I spent some time thinking deeply about some of the assumptions that negatively influenced my behavior. The Iight came on and I realised that I had for a long time nursed a misguided desire to produce perfect work.

This insight helped me to become far more comfortable in refining my work after it is published and it’s helped me to responsive to feedback from others. The bottom line is that I became far more productive (and happier) in 2006.

If I hadn’t unlearnt my old habits of procrastination, I certainly wouldn’t have been able to create and produce so many Emotional Intelligence products and services.

So, as 2007 beckons, I’m not going to follow the crowd and make any New Year’s resolutions. Instead, I’ll continue to root out other misguided assumptions that limit my effectiveness. It won’t be easy, yet I know the investment of time will be more than worthwhile.

To learn effectively, we first need to understand what we need to unlearn and commit ourselves to emptying out the mental litter, one piece at a time. It’s a more emotionally intelligent way to transform our selves than making New Year resolutions.

Is there something that you need to unlearn in 2007?

What will you gain if you commit yourself to making unlearning a habit?

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This work is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Posted in Competencies, Emotional Intelligence, Blog, Improving Productivity, Managing Yourself, Self Awareness |

6 Responses to “What Will You Unlearn in 2007?”

robyn mcmaster Says:
January 10th, 2007 at 6:35 pm
Hi Galba, congrats on your great new web site and blog for Tuning Up Your EQ!

I like your resolve to step forward in the New Year with Positive Change.

Here’s my question. Since you’ve had some trials with technology, what did you find in emotional intelligence that helped you most?

I look forward to your answer.
Galba Bright Says:
January 11th, 2007 at 6:23 am
Hello Robyn.

Thanks so much for making the first comment on this blog. You’ve succeeded at the third time of asking because I had some challenges with the comment moderation technology.

To answer your question, the first thing I tried to do was to remain self-aware (which is the foundation EQ competency) and acknowledge how I was feeling. I felt excited at getting your comment and frustrated because I kept on deleting it, despite my best efforts.

My feelings took me into a spiral that was taking me nowhere. My self awareness also helped me to “catch myself thinking.” In Emotional Intelligence, we often call this capacity “living in the moment.” My self awareness also helped me to begin to feel differently and act differently. I recognised and accepted my limitations as a technological learner, rather than an expert and asked my weblog designer to help me, which he did in double quick time. After he fixed the problem, I followed his advice and emailed you to explain the situation and asked you to re-send your post yet again.

At a deeper level, I drew on my self management ability (which I see as the second EQ competency)to remain aware of what my purpose was in creating this blog in the first place. Reconnecting emotionally with my purpose helped me to recognise that this technological challenge was a small blip in an exciting EQ journey. I was then able to calm myself down and get into a mood where I could identify some solutions.

Robyn, it’s a long answer, because yours was a great question. Can I ask you one in return based on my curiosity about your work in brain based research?

How much of your brain’s potential do you feel you use and what is the single most important change that you would encourage a person to make to capitalise on their brain’s full potential?

Have a great day.
robyn mcmaster Says:
January 11th, 2007 at 6:49 pm
Galba, I’m very excited about your response here because my question helped you reflect on this and relate your professional expertise to this technology frustration. Galba, I can see that you found a way to step outside the situation so that you were not overwhelmed by anger as most people would be. Thanks for taking all the time you did to respond.

I like your question to me, Galba, and I will come back to respond after I’ve given it some more thought.

Since you truly answered my question with some unique approaches, I will feature this in a blog fairly soon and provide a link to this particular blog. Every week I’m striving to learn more from other bloggers and will share what I learn in a blog.

Keep up the good work!
Galba Bright Says:
January 12th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Hello Robyn. Thanks so much for your encouragement. Your good questions gave me the opportunity to reflect, which is an activity that I enjoy. I’ll have a look at your series about learning from other bloggers and I’ll happily accept your link. I also look forward to your answer to my earlier questions.

A wise person once said “there’s nothing as practical as a good theory.” I believe in EQ precisely because it helps me to deal with such real life Hot Spots. I never deal with them perfectly, however I learnt that channelling my emotions is a critical life skill.
robyn mcmaster Says:
January 12th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
Galba, most of us find some gaps between theory and application when the rubber meets the road in a crisis. So when we see what is not working well, we “tune up” as you suggest by using Emotional Intelligence.

Learning is a life long process and we do not “know it all” by hearing facts and information one or two times. Thoughts…
Galba Bright Says:
January 13th, 2007 at 8:29 am
You have taken this in an interesting direction. I understand your point to be that we can use our Emotional Intelligence to help us to face the facts and adjust our behaviour accordingly. Am I correct?

One of the benefits of EQ is that it enables one to be flexible and recognise that there is more than one way to approach an issue. So, although I may currently be “wired” to deal with a particular situation in a particular way, for example, smashing my PC when I lose comments from someone posting to my weblog :), I am capable of learning and applying approaches that are more functional.

Your observation that learning is a lifelong process is a gem.

Your thoughts have activated one of my multiple intelligences and the words of (I think) a Johnny Nash song come into my head:

“there are more questions than answers,
pictures in my mind do not show.
there are more questions than answers,
and the more I find out the less, I know.”

I asked Ellen what role she felt mental tools play in helping us to manage our emotions. Perhaps her answer will give us all new insights.