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.

Do You Act With Initiative?

May 6th, 2007 by Galba Bright

emotional intelligence 101 managing yourself reflection self awareness

The Power Of Personal Initiative

Treat yourself to Ed Brenegar’s compelling account of his 5 professional and personal passions. Here’s Ed’s take on Personal Initiative.

Ed’s Insight About How We Tend To Be

One of the conclusions that I have reached, though without a full appreciation of its cause, is that people in general tend to move toward that which makes them comfortable. They tend to look to other people as responsible for both the problems that they have in life and for the solutions to those problems. As a result, people tend to be reactive, resistant to change and ill-prepared to deal with change

Ed’s View About How We Ought To Be

Human progress, potential, happiness and fulfillment only come when we take responsibility for our lives. When we stop blaming others, and accept responsibility, then we move into a mindset where personal initiative becomes how we approach every aspect of our lives. Personal initiative is the activity of leadership character. My passion in this regard is to help individuals and groups develop their capacity to take initiative in the context of their work and life.

Ed’s insights resonate with my 7 Laws of Emotional Intelligence. Our response to change is tied to our feelings, emotions and sense of self esteem. We rarely reason or intellectualise our way to successfully chieving personal change. If you adopt these Laws you’ll succeed in moving away from automatic responses to stimuli, for example, blaming others, and reach a point where you accept that you always have choices and you should select your actions wisely. This diagram makes the argument.

Here are my 7 Laws of Emotional Intelligence.

Law #1: I am responsible for my own feelings.
Law #2: I am responsible for my own behaviour
Law #3: I always have choices about how I respond to situations, events and people.
Law #4: No-one can make me upset, angry, happy etc.
Law #5: Identifying my choices empowers me to take fresh look at my behaviour.
Law # 6: Recognising my range of choices is an excellent way to start changing my behaviour for the better.
Law# 7: I can practice and learn new and more effective behaviours.

The 7 Laws challenge us to move towards living an empowered life. EQ provides a series of approaches that can help us to achieve this transformation. Thanks for sharing your ideas Ed. A strong theme of the importance of character runs through your 5 professional passions Ed. Thanks so much for your insights.

Download Galba Bright’s 7 Laws Of Emotional Intelligence

This article is part of the EQ 101 series.

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