SPEAKER_01 0:00

And one of the things which I found interesting in that was the therapeutic, you know, tradition going, you know, right back to when the psychotherapists first began, is that this concept of therapists having therapists. And it was just quite an interesting question. I just I was reading this and just thinking, well, how often as financial planners do we reflect on our client meetings? Do we have colleagues who we sit down and speak to and just go, do you know what? That was a really tough meeting. And then have them challenge you and just say, Well, what could you have done differently? What could you improve on for next time? And we could do that self-reflective practice, you know, just sat down with a notepad.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Welcome to Planning and Beyond, the show where financial planning meets human understanding. As an exceptional financial advisor, you know that financial planning is about more than just numbers. It's about giving clients the clarity they need to align their money with what matters most, which is why. Each episode is designed with that goal in mind. You'll learn how to uncover the psychology behind client decisions and gain insights and behavioral strategies needed to create deeper, more meaningful client relationships. You'll discover techniques for navigating emotional client situations, drawing from conversations with leading industry experts in behavioral finance, psychology, communication, and more. Whether it's mastering discovery meetings, handling sensitive client conversations, or understanding what is truly keeping your client stuck, you'll walk away with not only strategies that you can use in your next client meeting, but also the confidence to do so. Oh yeah, hi. To briefly introduce myself, I'm your host, Ashley Kwamey, a therapist who somehow wandered into the world of financial behavior and kind of decided to stay. My mission is to help you bridge the gap between financial planning and human understanding. Because remember, finances don't have feelings, but your clients do. Let's dive in. Welcome to Planning and Beyond, where financial planning meets human understanding. I'm your host, Ashley Kwamey. Today we're exploring a topic that is at the heart of not only every financial planning relationship, but also every personal relationship. And that is emotional intelligence. And to talk about this incredibly important topic, to have this conversation, I have James Woodfall from Raise Your EI and author of the newly released book, The Heart of Finance, Emotional Intelligence for Financial Planners. James, welcome to the show. I'm so glad that you're here.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

Hi. Yeah, thanks for having me. I know we've been talking about this for a few months. So it's yeah, it's really great to be here.

SPEAKER_00 2:42

Yeah, I saw your book on, I think it must have been LinkedIn. There was something, a post or something, and late last fall or I guess early fall, and I saw it and the title just like resonated with me so much. And I was like, I have to, I have to buy this book. Like I have to get it and I need to get it quickly and I need to talk to him. So thank you for humoring me, for entertaining me. And I know that everything that you're gonna share today, our conversation, will be full of just insights, nuggets for everyone out there that's listening. But before we kind of jump into all the good stuff, I am very curious. I know that you come from the finance space from a background standpoint, but I'd love to hear a little bit about just your journey from financial planning to studying emotional intelligence. Could you share a little bit with us?

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Yeah, sure. I was a financial plan for about 15, 16 years. Um I had a financial planning business that I sold two years ago. So I had the business for nine years. And this is about 2020, I started getting interested in increasing my skill set in terms of that initial meeting. So first meeting the client and building skills to effectively facilitate the discussion about uh financial planning. So I did a coaching diploma in executive coaching. So that was about a three-month period to do the to do the diploma and to to get certified as a coach. It was a great experience to learn, you know, new sets of skills, you know, around sort of coaching models, effective questioning techniques, you know, the importance of listening. But there was one thing in there, I think it was within one of the coaching models that was talking about different levels of listening. And level three was like reading the room. And I thought, okay, how do you read a room?

unknown 4:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

And that that that detail was was missing. So I found out about a master's degree in communication behavior and credibility analysis. And it just sounded like exactly the sort of thing that I was interested in because it was a deep dive into learning about non-verbal behavior, you know, understanding emotions, understanding how you can read emotions from someone's face expressions, some changes in the behaviour. And it was a real deep dive into how people communicate verbally and non-verbally. Um and included in that was was um looking at uh emotional intelligence and how that interacts with with reading and understanding understanding sort of behavioural cues. So I finished that that two-year program just before I I made the decision to sell the business. So the the business sale wasn't planned. I think reflecting on it, I was I was probably quite stressed leading up to it. So I had a few sort of little sort of things that sort of health health sort of niggles and just I I wanted to get checked out. So I went and had like a really sort of in-depth sort of checkup. And I spent sort of a a half a day in an MRI machine having everything scanned, and I had sort of two two large aneurysms in my brain. That was like, okay, my daughter was due to be born end of that year, and it was like, okay, sell the business, put the money in the bank, get those health issues sorted out and go again. And sort of on that sort of year year I had out, I reflected and just thought, do you know what? I was just so fired up and passionate about emotional intelligence. Because effectively my dissertation when I did the the master's program was looking at a a a research project correlating emotional intelligence with job performance in financial planners.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

And we could talk a bit more about that and unpick it, but I'm I came off the back of that thinking, well, hang on a minute, there's this there's there's effectively all this knowledge there, which is a teachable set of abilities that has been shown a number of times in different research studies to link to increased sales performance, increased client loyalty retention, and increased referrals. And then it's just like, well, that just seems like such a sensible way to train people in addition to the technical skills that everyone has to go through. So I was a bit more passionate about that, and um, that's kind of led me to where I am now, which is working as a trainer, uh consultant, coach with financial planners and firms, you know, helping them embed this knowledge and skills into you know, into their teams so they can you know increase their effectiveness in front of clients.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Wow. I'm in awe, I guess, in some ways, of your journey and your own emotional intelligence, making the decision from a well-being place to say, hey, things aren't looking so hot for me. And I need to do something different. I need to do something in a way that takes care of me, not only myself, but also for my daughter, for my family. So thank you for sharing that. Just from a modeling standpoint, I know that the industry is really stressful for many advisors. And so I applaud you and for sharing, like, hey, you know, I put myself first here in a way that was really scary, I'm sure, and stressful in a lot of things. So I know that's not what we're here to talk about, but you know, I just feel very disinclined to say, like, you know, thank you for for modeling that and sharing, you know, that aspect of your your journey. I can't imagine it was an easy one, although look at where you are now.

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Well, yeah, it was hugely stressful. And I know we could sort of say, well, it's not relevant to emotional intelligence, but it absolutely is because you know, if we kind of break emotional intelligence down, you know, into sort of two aspects. We've got intrapersonal emotional intelligence, which is how we deal with others, but we've also got interpersonal, which is how we we recognize and manage our own emotions. For me, that is just as much of a driver of successful performance as having, I suppose, the ability to interact with others successfully. Because you said it, the demands of the role are really high. It's a very stressful role, especially if you run your own business. You're dealing with staff, you're dealing with demands of clients, you're dealing with regulatory issues, something always goes wrong. So these, you know, you've got this mountain of things that look that you're always managing. And if you don't do it successfully, you know, I think there's a high risk of burnout. And so self-awareness and self-management are two two critical, I suppose, aspects of emotional intelligence, which you know you need to get that those are the foundations that need to be solid. If those are solid and you're working on yourself effectively, that's a stable platform to improve you know how you interact with you know with clients and colleagues.

SPEAKER_00 8:45

Yeah, absolutely. There's a fellow, I guess UKer, I'll call him, who lives across the pond. He lives over in your neck of the woods, I would say, Neil Beige. And you know, you mentioned burnout, and he came on the show uh episode 13, I believe, and talked about just burnout there on the advisory end. And so I think you're spot on there. And emotional intelligence does play a big role, you know, in being able to recognize that. Now, you started to kind of break down a little bit about what emotional intelligence is. And I know that here at Planning and Beyond, we talk all things, right? In in maybe not so overt ways, emotional intelligence, communication, things like that. But can we maybe just start by at a high level for someone who has heard this, like, okay, I kind of know this is like kind of a buzzword here, emotional intelligence. But can you break that down just from a definition standpoint or expand on what you were saying earlier? Like, what is emotional intelligence really?

SPEAKER_01 9:44

So I think it's it's an ability, I suppose, to differentiate it from say IQ, you know, church intelligence or personality. So emotional intelligence is an ability, which is important to define because that means we can approve it. Whereas like, unlike IQ, for example, IQ can't be improved. It sort of declines from about age 25. But emotional intelligence increases across a lifespan. And some of that's personal experience and learning, but we all have this ability to learn and understand more about emotions, you know, reflect on our own practices and increase our our ability. So that's quite useful to understand. And it's the ability to perceive emotions in ourselves and others and manage those across a range of contexts. So context is at work, so with colleagues, you know, with clients, at home, you know, with our families, or with friends. And the purpose of, I suppose, us managing, you know, and regulating emotions or or initiating them in some in some circumstance, across the range of contexts, is to facilitate communication, facilitate goals. So what it what whatever it is that we're trying to achieve, you know, our goals, you know, our goals of the person we interact with all share goals. So it touches upon all of those different aspects. But um, I've mentioned we can break it down into interpersonal and intrapersonal, and then it's those four quadrants, really. So I mentioned under the you know the self, we've got self-awareness, which is do we have the ability to accurately perceive emotions within ourselves? So do we can we can we distinguish you know when we're angry from sad? And then do we have strategies in which to interrupt our emotions and manage them? And that can be quite a useful thing to to have in the toolkit, the ability to interrupt emotions. And we use the example in the book of the um, you know, the chimp. So the you know, what what differentiates us from you know from other animals is we've developed this part of our brain which allows us to regulate emotions, so you know, from from the top down. Because when we experience an emotion, something's usually triggered it. You know, we might know what it has or we might not, but it will put into motion sort of an orchestrated set of changes in our physiology, which changes our behavior. And if it's not appropriate in the context, then having the ability to interrupt that is is quite useful. But put it simply, it's like well, you might have a client who's you know being a bit rude.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

Rough around the edges.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

You might just want to tell them what's on your mind, but uh that might not be the right thing to do. Then on the other side, the interpersonal dealing with others, uh, have you got the ability to perceive emotions in others? So I was mentioning uh just a second ago about um emotions uh changing behavior. And emotions are quite brief, they're about half a second to four and a half seconds in length. And within that short window, the changes to behavior happen below the level of conscious awareness usually. So we signal to others what emotions we're experiencing through our behavior. And people who score highly in emotional intelligence have a higher ability to perceive emotions in others. And then just the last quadrant is then have you got tools and strategies in which you can you you can help manage that. That becomes really key within the financial planning context because one thing within, I suppose, financial planning is it's inherently emotional. You know, we're dealing with decisions about you know crucial life events for people, and also we've got this kind of undercurrent of people have got to make decisions uh that involve risks at certain times. So we're dealing with you know people who are logical thinkers and people who are emotional thinkers, and sometimes you know we have to manage both of those or change how we're talking at different points as the context, depending on what people need. So those are the kind of four quadrants that sit within emotional intelligence.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Yeah, I appreciate so much about your book, and we were talking about this before we hit record, is just how down to earth and like grounded you explain all of this. And so when it comes to these four quadrants, I'm curious as a former financial planner, I don't know, are you do you still refer to yourself as a financial planner or former or retired? I don't know. Do you ever really are you ever really not a financial, I guess, planner? I'm not sure. But in your previous life working in your business, what would you say maybe is the more difficult part, you know, out of that quadrant? Like, is there any one particular part that's more difficult that you found for either yourself before, you know, studying this from an education standpoint or even just in your training? What do planners seem to struggle the most with out of those four?

SPEAKER_01 13:58

I think it depends on the individual. I can share a bit about my experience. I mean, I think so. One of the one of the things which interacts with emotional intelligence is is personality. Um so you get people who are just naturally very, you know, empathic people, you know, they're very good at perceiving emotions in others, you know, they're very attentive as to what people need from them and understanding of people, you know, what people need in certain in certain situations. That wasn't me. Um when I started learning about emotions, it was like learning a new language. And it was like it was like I'd spent you know 35 years on this planet, you know, blind to you know what other people around me were experiencing. I'm overstating that because but but that's but that for me it was it was quite eye eye-opening, you know, to understand that we all experience emotions in the same way. So what I mean by that is you know, within the book we talk about a categorical approach to emotions, is to say, well, look, these are the different basic emotions which we all experience and we've they've evolved with us. They all have the same universal triggers or themes in terms of what triggers them, and they all motivate and change our behavior in the same way. And so that's really, really useful, I think, for me to understand. Because if we take, say, anger, for example, you know, the trigger for anger is interference with with goals. So if we're trying to get something done or we're working towards something and all of a sudden there's a barrier in the way, you know, we get frustrated or you know, or angry. And that that's true of of of everyone. But just understanding that for me really started to increase my ability to empathize with other people. And just to think, well, you know, if I'm noticing someone's getting frustrated or angry, you know, I can think, ah, you know, what is it that they're perceiving is is getting in the way? And in a context of financial planning, you know, that made so much sense around just little things like on our side of the table, we've got to deal with administration, we've got to deal with different product providers which have got all their own processes and procedures. Sometimes a client might perceive that a transaction they want to do is just, oh, quick, quick, you know, it's the same as doing it online. I can I can click a button, send you the money, and that's it. And we kind of have to go, no, you know, we've got to do loads of work, we've got to write reports, we've got to do all this due diligence, you know, we've got to uh go through all these different steps. So there might be this disconnect, and and actually that, you know, you can understand in that context why you know clients might get frustrated, you know, and and experience you know an emotional reaction. You know, and the answer to that is well, is to educate them and bring them around to our side of the table and just sort of say, well, these are the steps we have to go through and this is why. And sometimes that's all you need to do is just someone's frustration is usually just from they don't have access to the same knowledge as you in that context. And once they do, they go, Oh, okay, well, that that makes sense. So, as I say, understanding different emotions and what triggers them and how they change behavior is, as I say, was was for me a real eighth. Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

Yeah, I'm recalling from on the clinical side, like seeing clients, how having that education was really useful and helpful for me. And I don't know, I don't know about you. I'm curious to hear your take on this or if you had this experience. But I have always found that one of the most difficult parts of not, I wouldn't say emotional intelligence, but certainly being a good practitioner is that you have to in the moment simultaneously balance, be aware of not only the what's going on for the client, but also what's going on for yourself. And that balancing act is really tricky sometimes. If in this example, the client you can see is getting frustrated, right? Maybe they're not understanding, they're coming across a bit prickly. And simultaneously you're like, come on, man. Like, you know, this is not like, this is not a cakewalk to have to, you know, do all this. Why don't you get it? Right. In that very fast and quick moment to have the insight awareness, right? As you kind of talked about on the emotional intelligence side, having to balance both sides of that is really, really difficult. It's it's really tricky. I'm curious, you know, one, is that something that you have found to be difficult yourself? And kind of following that, then, you know, I know some of the work and training that you do with advisors, do you talk about that? Like in helping, you know, advisors or training them on how to balance both kind of the individual side and the client side.

SPEAKER_01 18:18

One of the things that I found in research was was looking at well, what's the ideal length of time for a training program to be to develop emotional intelligence? And generally the kind of consensus is it's about three to six months. And it might seem like a bit longer than than you realize because the the components of delivering a training program to develop someone's emotional intelligence, initially it's increasing their knowledge and understanding of of the uh terminology. So understanding the fundamental things like definitions, you know, what are emotions, how do they differ from moods, you know, or or traits, you know, um how do the understanding how they change behavior and looking for the behavioural cues to you know to pick up on. Um so that's that's knowledge. But then the putting that into application is the hardest bit. And so um, I mean, I think you know, with the book, one thing to I suppose state quite clearly is with the book, we my co-author Cliff and I, we we never expected people to get to the end of the book and then harness all the benefits of you know changes in job performance. It requires work. So part of the training is to deliver the knowledge, but actually then there's a period of of changing your behaviour at work because that will deliver the benefits. And some of the practices, you know, in order to do that are are coaching. You know, coaching's a great environment to do that because what you do is that you you create you know goals and development plans and you create an environment where people can raise uh successes and you can unpick you know what went well, you know, they can raise challenges and start to reflect on their own practice. But recently, I think um you know something's been on my mind. So I'm doing another another master's at the moment just because why not?

SPEAKER_00 19:52

But I'm just lifelong lifelong learner.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

So I'm I'm just coming to the second well to finish that in the summer this year. It's um masters in psychology. So I've just I've just been studying coaching psychology, and one of the things which I found interesting in that was the therapeutic you know tradition going you know right back to you know when the psychotherapists first began is that this concept of therapists having therapists. And it was just quite an interesting question. I just I was reading this and just thinking, well, how often as financial planners do we reflect on our client meetings? Do we have colleagues who we sit down and speak to and just go, do you know what? That was a really tough meeting. And then have them challenge you and just say, Well, what could you have done differently? What could you improve on for next time? And we could do that self-reflective practice, you know, just sat down with a notepad, you know, after each meeting and just say, Well, look at what went well, what was challenging, what actions, you know, is that thrown up where where I need to change my approach or or do something differently in the future. And then so I mean you could also say, Well, do financial planners need financial planners? So would that increase their ability to empathize and put themselves in the client's position? I think I know the answer to that.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

Yeah, I'm a little bit biased, uh, but I I can't I can't see I can't see where it would be harmful to to have your own. So I'll I'll I'll say that.

SPEAKER_01 21:08

Yeah. But also, you know, even things like how frequently do you have, say, a supervisor, you know, come and observe a meeting. When I when I was employed, you know, early in my career, I remember I had a a sales manager who sat in one of my meetings and his feedback to me after the meeting was really interesting. He said, Do you know when your client's talking, you play with your pen and tap it on the table? And I just, no. I didn't have any awareness that I did this at all. He just said, Um, it makes you seem like you're not listening.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Oh wow. Oh my goodness, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

The person you're talking to is you know talking and you're you know tapping away and it's like you're distracted and not paying attention. So I just thought, wow, yeah, that's that's really interesting. That's I think what it takes is sometimes a third party or a another set of eyes in the in the room observing to stuff because they'll spot things that you don't. And this isn't a tangent, by the way. The reason that I'm I'm saying this about Do advisors need to engage in reflective practice, you know, whatever that is, self-reflection or reflection with someone else? Or you know, would they benefit from having periodic, you know, someone come in and sit in a meeting and feedback? And of course it's easier with virtual meetings and you know as long as you've got the client's permission, you know, to hit the record button and you know share it for training purposes. I think both of those are going to be quite key for developing emotional intelligence. Because if I was gonna sit in and observe someone's meeting, of course, I'm I don't have the burden of having to respond to the client and think about what the responses are gonna be and and you know come up with questions. Um I can just sit there, observe the client's behavior, observe the advisor's behavior, you know, make notes, or even watch a recording and give really, really you know, key feedback around behaviors and emotions that that may have been missed, or responses that maybe were suboptimal that and how how they could be improved. And that's one of the things which is really hard to do when you start any process of learning something new is to do what you've you've always been doing, you know, with your current habits and behaviours, then to observe yourself in the moment and pick up and make changes. It's incredibly difficult, and that's why it takes, you have to say, sort of three to six months, maybe more, to develop it. But it's a worthwhile investment. I think some of the research that's that's out there. Americans did a uh study from 2000 to 2004. So they took a cohort of their financial planners and they put them through an emotional intelligence training program that was a year long. So they did a cohort in 2000, you know, they won after the year after year after the year after. The average increase in sales turnover was 24%.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Wow, that's pretty significant.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Yeah, so if you've got a 24% increase, you know, you know, the biggest cohort, I think, was 48%, then it's a worthwhile investment of time, you know, to develop these skills.

SPEAKER_00 23:45

Yeah, well, you're speaking my language, and some of it is that I again I'm biased, I'm coming from the mental health space, like our practicums, we had our supervisors observe, observe our sessions. We had to record them even as a supervisor myself. This is what I you know have done with my supervisees. So, you know, the mental health field, I think that's just par for the course. Coming into the finance space and saying, hey, let me observe your client meeting and give some feedback. Yeah, you know, I know that I've seen some resistance there. And I get it, it's intimidating. It's incredibly intimidating and vulnerable. I'd love to know through kind of your training and even like your research, being able to help advisors understand, like by increasing these emotional intelligence skills, how does that impact, I guess we'll call it the trust factor? But how does this like help clients to lean into and trust you more as an advisor?

SPEAKER_01 24:43

It really comes down to if we're attentive and are careful with the emotions of others, it builds trust. And if we're not and we neglect others' emotions, it diminishes trust. And so, I mean, a good example of this would be, you know, have you ever had, I suppose, a scenario where you've been upset about something and you maybe come home and and your partner hasn't picked up on it and asked you how you've how you're feeling or how your day was. And then in the your mind you're just thinking, why haven't they noticed? You know, why haven't they asked how we're feeling?

SPEAKER_00 25:10

What a jerk. Oh, I'm sorry. I mean that yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

You know, how dare they? Yeah. Imagine if that was a client, you know, who in a first meeting, you know, first time they've they've first time they sat down with a new advisor, you know, maybe the advisor's interrupting them at key moments or finishing their sentences, or you know, the clients, you know, one of the emotions triggered and it's you know, they've they say they're worried or anxious about something and the advisor's like, oh no, you don't need to worry about that, you know, don't be silly. Maybe they leave that meeting just thinking they might not be able to uh put it into words, but their gut will be saying, No, something not right about that.

SPEAKER_00 25:44

Yeah, it's not safe. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:46

So on the other side, if if when we when we're attentive to others' emotions, so if someone says, you know what, I'm really worried about whether we're saving enough for retirement, you know, just that you know, that key question, just you know, just acknowledging that, you know, or you know, just that initial empathic response of just saying, Yeah, you know, I can see this is a big concern for you. Pause, because the pause is always really key. Because it's not you that will fill that pause, it's going to be it's been the client just say, Look, actually, yeah, this has been on our mind for you know, blah, blah, blah, it's kept us awake at night, whatever it is. So then you get more information. But actually, all of that's come from providing that first, you know, empathic response to just labeling what it is that you're seeing or just playing back the words, you know, the words that they've used. When you're the recipient of someone doing that, you feel heard, you feel respected, and you know, if if you've got a say you spend an hour with someone and you're figuring out whether or not you're gonna work with them, um, those are the type of things that are gonna build trust, and you just go, look, that person, you know, gets me, you know, they they understand you know what's important to me, you know, they listen. So that's the interaction and relationship between you know, between trust and emotional intelligence.

SPEAKER_00 26:49

Yeah, and all of that, I would imagine, just makes that relationship stickier, right? You mentioned, you know, client loyalty, uh retention, whatever word you want to put on it, but it makes the relationship stickier, you know, ultimately moving forward, which if you want to put dollar signs to that, I'm sure that you can, right? Um there, but it's gonna be incredibly impactful just in helping that client to say, yeah, I think I want to stick with this person for the long haul.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

Yeah, you just get you just get a good, you know, and I say gut feel, and I think gut feels good enough, especially when you're new to, I suppose, understanding and reading nonverbal behavior, gut feels good enough because we have, you know, information coming in, uh, you know, sensory information coming in. We've got you know parts of our brain that are really good automatic appraisers, you know, is this person a threat? Are they not? Um, those automatic appraises, you know, they generate gut feel. So even if you don't have the vocabulary to label and just say, aha, that person's experiencing fear, you might just have a sense that you know they're anxious. And and that gut feels good enough. So I think, yeah, gut feel is you know, listen listen to it. If you're looking at developing these abilities, just start start listening to your gut a bit more because it's it's usually picking up on things which you might not have the vocabulary, you know, to label exactly what it is that you're picking up on.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

Oh, that's a great point. Yeah. So if advisors are listening and they are maybe perhaps thinking, all of this sounds really, really great. I wonder where I stand on you know an emotional intelligence scale. Like, how can they maybe assess their current level of emotional intelligence or you know what areas of emotional intelligence need improvement?

SPEAKER_01 28:31

So there's a there's a number of different tools out there. Um so some of them are self-report uh assessments, uh, some of them are more sort of knowledge and ability-based tests. So the one that the one that we use in in training was so my co-author of the book, uh Cliff, um, his PhD thesis was creating an emotional intelligence measure that that deals with a number of different methodological problems. So one of those problems is the problem of self-report. So self-report basically means I come up with the answers. So uh a lot of personality reports were like that. Let's say that if we were doing a self-report assessment for a job interview, you know, we might answer that in the way that we think is going to get us the, you know, more most likely to get us a get us a job. So that's one issue with self-report. But the other is uh it requires us to have a very, very high level of self-awareness around our strengths and limitations. And quite often what we do is we have blind spots and we maybe overstate some of our strengths or we um underestimate some of our limitations. So self-report's good. It's got some fuzzy, fuzzy areas to it. So the way that um the the tool that I use works is that it combines self-report with with 360 so that um effectively you rate yourself and then you get other people who um who know you well enough to rate you. And you need at least three of those to get a good a good sort of diagnostics or analysis of where you are. So then you've got a difference between self and other. Uh, because you know you might say one of those questions might be, I'm I'm good at recognizing and interrupting my own emotions, and they might say, Well, not all the time. And then the uh the third element to this is an ability-based test. So do you have you know knowledge about emotions and can you apply them in situational judgment tests? So you get effectively, you know, situations, you know, what's the most appropriate response within this context? So that's testing your ability to utilize emotional intelligence in different scenarios. So that's the measure that I use, it triangulates those three, those, those three areas and gives them gives a score. And what that will highlight is how people are you know, where people currently sit in terms of their strengths and weaknesses within those four quadrants that we were talking about. So self, self-management, you know, perceiving in others and m managing others. And then that gives a good baseline for building a development plan. So thinking about what is it that you need to work on and how would you go about that?

SPEAKER_00 30:40

Yeah, I I think that it sounds so it sounds really fascinating. And the outcome of that, which you just mentioned of having a development plan, I would imagine just being so incredibly helpful because you know, how frustrating would it be to maybe learn about some areas of emotional intelligence and go, okay, well, I can start practicing this, but to feel like, I don't really know, you know, am I hitting the mark? Is this what I need to be focused on based on skills? So I could see we're having a development plan that says, like, hey, this is what you need to be doing, this is how to be doing it. Here's some strengths, right? Here's some areas to focus on. I can just see my husband in particular. Most people know he's an advisor, right? And probably most advisors going, oh, yes, just tell me what to do, right? A plan, yes, tell me, tell me how to improve the skill there. So, James, you've talked about your book. You've talked about just kind of the training program, right, that you have. Are there any other apart from maybe reading your book, which I would I would encourage and we'll link in the show notes and you know, going through your training program, are there any other maybe small steps that advisors, if they're listening, could just start to take today to improve some of their emotional intelligence?

SPEAKER_01 31:59

Well, I think uh let's let's just keep it on the on the theme that we've been, I suppose, talking about through this session, which is probably looking at you know self-awareness and that kind of self-reflective practice. I think because that's probably one thing that anyone listening could go and do straight away and implement is just to say, well, look, you know, tomorrow or the next time a client meeting is in the diary, I'm just gonna put 15 minutes at the end of that session, you know, to sit down with my you know, pen and paper and just reflect on the meeting. And just, you know, is there any is there anything your gut's telling you about what happened, good, bad, and start doing that process of kind of you know thinking about well, what is it that, you know, what is it that I can improve for next time? Uh, because that's that's just a really simple thing that I think the tangible thing that you know you could go and do straight away and and would start start the process of making small continuous improvements, which over time will add up to a big difference. You know, going back to I think what we were talking about was sort of that you know that therapeutic practice of you know doing this is um you know from kind of a a self-care perspective, you know, especially you know, do this if you get a meeting which is highly charged or highly emotional. And what I mean by that is that if you've got a client who comes in and their partner's died and they're you know experiencing grief, you know, we when we're when we're um I suppose high in empathy, we pick up on others' emotions and we mirror them. So we get emotion contagion. Uh so you come out of meetings like that and you you're drained, and because you've you know you shared the emotion, that emotion is gonna have an impact on your behavior and maybe your mood for the rest of the day. So sitting down, pen to paper, and just having a little bit of you know time to you know decompress and you know, just make sure that's sort of cleared out your system before the next next client comes in, I think it's really key. Because imagine if you had three clients like that in a day.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

Yeah, it would be it would be pretty Yeah, yeah. I'm sitting there thinking like, yeah, uh it's that's a lot, that's a load, right? Like that's just a heavy load to be carrying. And then to not have that self-awareness on top of that, I could only imagine just how that impacts behavior or how you interact with others' clients and family at home as well.

SPEAKER_01 34:01

Well, you get something called compassion fatigue, you know, which is um if you're dealing with highly emotional events, you know, and dealing with others' emotions all the time, it it takes its toll. So I think uh having a process to deal with that, I think it's I think it's really key. You know, whether it's whether it's a colleague, whether it's a colleague you can you can talk to, you know, quite openly and honestly, um, you know, whether it's your partner at home, uh, you know, part of part of a a good a good functioning you know relationship is that you can do that with each other. Or um, you know, if you don't feel com comfortable having sort of in-depth discussions or confidential discussions, if it's breaching client confidentiality, then yeah, pen and paper.

SPEAKER_00 34:35

Yeah, I think that's a wonderful way to wrap us up. James, can you tell everyone where they can find you out in the world? How can they connect with you?

SPEAKER_01 34:44

Um, LinkedIn's probably easiest. So I'm on LinkedIn you know quite a bit. So if you go on LinkedIn, you can get all the links to the website. Um, I do a weekly, weekly email um, so you can sign up for that on the website. But you know, that's that's usually about sort of four or five hundred words, you know, of me looking at sort of a different you know topic around emotional intelligence and applying it to the role. So that comes out on Friday, so if you want to sign up for that. Um obviously the book, you know, you can go and get that on Amazon and you know, everywhere that you know you can buy books basically. There is a digital copy available on the website. So if you if you're happy to have a digital copy, you can you can go and uh download one from the website. You just put your email in there, it gets sent out to you.

SPEAKER_00 35:20

Awesome. Well, we'll make sure that we include those links in the show notes there for the book and for the website and your LinkedIn profile. Thank you to everyone, James, you included, but thank you to everyone for allowing James and I into your ears and into your mind today. If you found value in today's episode, I'd love to stay connected, as with James. So follow us both on LinkedIn where both of us are posting pretty regularly around kind of this stuff there. And make sure that you go and subscribe to the Planning and Beyond monthly newsletter at planningandbeyond.com where we share exclusive resources from our show and also strategies that you can use in your practice. Don't forget to follow the show wherever you get your podcast so that you never miss an episode like this one. And remember, finances don't have feelings, but your clients do. Until next time, keep planning, keep growing, and keep going beyond. Thanks for joining me on this episode of Planning and Beyond. I hope you found today's insights valuable and inspiring for both your practice and your personal growth. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform. Your feedback helps us reach more advisors like you who are dedicated to making a difference. For more resources, tips, and to continue the conversation, visit our website at beyondthesp.com. You'll find articles, tools, and information about upcoming episodes designed to support your journey and practice. Stay connected with us on social media and never miss an update. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn. And remember, the best way to grow is to keep learning and sharing. Until next time, keep planning, keep growing, and keep going.