Emotional Intelligence - Beyond The Buzzwords

While I'm definitely not one to walk into a meeting and tell people we have to synergize, think outside the box and repurpose our goals to make them actionable, I do think there is something to the oft used and abused term Emotional Intelligence.

So, what is Emotional Intelligence? Sure, there's a long, drawn out scientific explanation as to why and how our emotions developed and clearly raw, unadulterated intelligence can take a person pretty far in this life. Still neither of these, standing alone explains why some extremely intelligent people fail while those with a perceptibly lower level of intelligence seem to get a lot of traction. Emotional Intelligence, according to author Daniel Goleman is an amalgamation of five areas: (1) Self-Awareness: Ongoing attention to your internal states, including your emotions; (2) Managing Emotions: Don't ignore or try to eliminate emotions, analyze and incorporate them; (3) Self-Motivation: The ability to restrain emotions, delay impulses, and to defer gratification are critical life skills and the key to a host of endeavors; (4) Empathy: The more self-aware you become, the more skilled you will become at reading other people's feelings; and (5) Handling Relationships: The ability to accurately express feelings and sense the emotions of others is key to maintianing healthy relationships. IQ and Emotional Intelligence are not opposing competencies, but they do work separately. A person can be intellectually brilliant but emotionally inept, an imbalance that can cause many life problems.

How can you build your emotional intelligence? Authors Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves offer some suggestions in their book, the Emotional Intelligence Quick Book:

1. Repetition is the key to permanent change. If you practice emotional intelligence skills regularly they will get easier over time.
2. Don't bite off more than you can chew. Spend time improving one particular skill area rather than taking a shotgun approach and losing interest when the task seems overwhelming.
3. Lean into your fear. Most people have a hard time realizing the cold, ugly truths about their own weaknesses. If you come face to face with your shortcomings, you can find ways to deal with them rather than ignoring them altogether.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, but a great starting point for gaining control over your emotions and dealing with the emotions of others in your personal and professional life.

Leverage Presentation

Today, the WieseLaw Contract Studio presented at a BITS conference on the topic of Leverage. The presentation was a lot of work and a lot of fun to put together - probably one of the best things we've ever done. It seemed like we really connected with the group in attendance and we had a great time being there.

Some things we learned:

1. Always check your behind for stuff stuck to your posterior BEFORE you start.
2. Technology will always find a way to sabotage you in some way, just be ready for it instead of freaking out about it.
   
3. People LOVE prizes, even if they are books. Winning is awesome.
   

Here's some pictures from the day - now you can put a face on us here at WieseLaw. Come by and say 'Hi!'

Check out this Lightsaber I found!

Under Pressure

In these troubling economic times...

Yeah, how many times have we heard this sentence lately? Probably more than we'd like. As a relatively young person, this is the major economic crisis that I've ever had to deal with head-on and much like everyone else out there, I'm a little freaked out. In fact, today (April 9), the New York Times ran an article about the effects that people are feeling. For the most part, people seem to be doing a great job coping with things - you only hear of the aberrations on the nightly news, because, well, they're aberrations.

In perhaps the strangest pairing of ideas ever, I present Michael J. Fox. From Family Ties to Back To The Future, he was a big part of my entertainment growing up. Since being diagnosed with Parkinson's (at 29!) he's become more than just an advocate for those suffering from Parkinson's - he's become an optimist. Recently, MJF discussed his diagnosis and his research into writing a book about optimism.

So, what's the takeaway? For me, it's simply this: The glass always has some water in it, even if it's not exactly half-full anymore. It's really easy to focus on what we don't have or to let our anxiety run wild. Next time I feel that vice-like pressure in my chest when I see the Dow down another 150 points, I'm committed to seeing what's left in my glass.

What Ever Happened To Civility?

I am consistently underwhelmed with the caustic and often-times disturbing conversations that go on in online forums and commentary. I have always believed that you show your true colors when you can't be held accountable for what you are doing. Unfortunately, too many people take advantage of the anonymity offered by the internet to be petty, small-minded, bigoted, etc. The old proverb often comes to mind: Destroying things is easier than building them.

Some time ago, Tom gave each of us in the Studio a great book - Return To Civility: A Speed of Laughter Project, by John Sweeney & The Brave New Workshop.
The book has 365 suggestions for ways to improve your life and the lives of others by taking small and simple steps. The back of the book has a bit of great advice: "Act the way you want the world to be."

Elephants in NYC

A great tidbit from Pace working for WieseLaw in NYC:

M and I just got back from seeing a herd of elephants walking through the streets of Manhattan. When the Ringling Brothers Circus comes to NYC each year, the train carrying the elephants is too big to come through any of the tunnels into Manhattan, so it stops right outside (in Queens) and the elephants walk through the Queens-Midtown Tunnel and then up 34th Street to Madison Square Garden. It happens between about midnight and 1:00a.m., and not many people know about it, so it's not a crowded scene, which makes it particularly enjoyable. The elephants are so cute, each holding in its trunk the tail of the next one. It was a magical scene!

Playing Is Serious Business!

Just finished reading a very interesting article the Tom turned me on to: The Serious Need For Play by Melinda Wenner, published in Scientific American Mind. The article is full of studies about the importance of play in childhood development and well-being. In essence, Play is an integral component relating to three central themes: (1) Playing relieves stress; (2) Playing helps to build social skills; and (3) Playing may actually make you smarter (or at least more creative in your problem-solving skills).

As an adult, have we missed the boat when it comes to play? Wenner states that although researchers usually focus on the effects of play on the developing brain, it is important for adults to play too! So how do we get more play into our lives? Stuart Brown, psychiatrist and founder of the National Institute for Play has a few suggestions:

1. Body Play: Participate in some form of active movement that has no time pressures or expected outcome (hint: if you are exercising just to burn fat, that is not play!).
   
2. Object Play: Use your hands to create something you enjoy (it can be anything; again there doesn't have to be a specific goal).
3. Social Play: Join other people in seemingly purposeless social activities, from small talk to verbal jousting.

It might seem elementary, but if you are still struggling to figure out how to bring more play into your life, think back to what you enjoyed as a kid. According to Brown: "Find your childhood play's 'true north' and try to translate those memoreis into activities that fit the current circumstances."

Good luck and remember to schedule a little play time for yourself today!

Learning About Contracts

Whew! Life in the Studio has been busy! Tom just got back from a little ski vacation in Alta, WY and a subsequent client meeting in NYC where they had a lot of great discussion around social media. Kendra has been out landing whale clients and dealing with sick kids, I'm not sure when she sleeps - she's amazing! Stephanie is the glue holding us all together as always, now I just have to trick her into coming back to the gym with me.

So, enough with the firm update. My focus for 2009 is going to be learning how to do deals and understanding the subtle ins and outs that separate good deals from great deals. Well, that's great, but how do you get started? One of the first things I learned was to use a methodology. Use the same approach to analyzing deals each time, so that you aren't reinventing the wheel over and over again. From our website, you can download our approach to contract analysis, here.

Second, and equally important is using a visual representation of complex deals that highlight important deal points. This makes it so much easier to come back to a deal, months later, and pick out the key pieces of information that you might need to know (e.g., payment, indemnification, termination, etc.). We use software called Mindmap Pro. It's very easy to use and allows for a wide range of customizable options. You can check out a free trial, here.

Why WieseLaw?

Hi all - Thanks for stopping by to see our blog. As the newest member of the WieseLaw Contract Studio, I thought I'd share with you some of my impressions and why I knew I wanted to be a part of what Tom, Kendra, Stephanie, Pace and Don have worked so hard to build.

It was obvious pretty early on, that WieseLaw was going to be unconventional. Even the interview process was different. Tom's first question to me was: "What's your favorite movie?" (Intolerable Cruelty, by the way). I was floored and excited. They were a lot more interested in finding out what I was good at, what I enjoyed doing and how I could help them develop the vision for their practice than they were about figuring out where my weaknesses were.

After I joined the firm, I got to see first hand how important relationships and people are here at WieseLaw. We aren't anything without our cool clients. It's definitely not unusual to hear questions about people's families and backgrounds along with whatever deal is being worked. All part of the holistic approach that's taken here.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my year and half I've been here and I can't imagine doing anything else.

Harley, the Golden Retriever

One of the great things about working in the Contract Studio is that we have lots of visitors of the 4-pawed persuasion. We've had Bauer the Bernese Mountain Dog in for a visit (while he was recovering from surgery) and Walter the Pug was a lot of fun.

Our latest office mascot is Harley the Golden Retriever and he loves tennis balls:

We're not sure how long we'll have Harley with us, but we're so glad he's here.