Up Your EQ With These Five Words

“There are very simple things you can change about your behavior -- as simple as memorizing a few basic words and concepts -- to leverage emotions and increase the odds that you'll achieve your goals.” So writes Bill Murphy Jr., contributing editor of Inc.. Murphy contends that people with high emotional intelligence keep five simple words in mind when they hope to be persuasive.  

• Prefacing:  Signal to your listeners that you’d like them to pay attention by saying something like, “There’s something I'd like you to consider,” or “Would you mind if I gave you a piece of advice?”
• Prioritizing: Organize your arguments, keep them short, and present your points in groups of three (we seem hardwired to think of things in triads).
• Pausing:  Use pauses as a tool to elicit desired responses. Want to offer relief and comfort? Pause two seconds in your discussion. 
• Politeness:  Leverage politeness as a means of lessening resistance to your message. 
• Phrasing: Emotionally intelligent people tend toward specific phrases that they've thought through so that they don't accidentally trigger unintended emotions. For example, they might ask, “Can you help me think this through and understand your position better?"

Which of these words resonate most with you, and why? To join the conversation, click "comments" above.

Learn more about creating a habit around masterful communication with our online learning courses awarded International Gold for Best Hybrid Learning of 2022.

---