How Dysfunctional Are You? Thoughts on Emotional Intelligence

How dysfunctional are you? No, not “Are you dysfunctional?” The real question is just “how” dysfunctional are you? And how much is that emotional dysfunction impacting your life? Just hear me out.  

Let me start here…this blog article is being written by a dude with the following background: 

1.  Graduated from West Point 

2. Graduated Airborne School, Jump Master School & Ranger School 

3. Top Block Infantry Officer in 2nd Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division 

4. Ran a successful sales & business team that created 7-figure revenues for over 15 years 

5. Spoke all over the U.S. & internationally to audiences of 100 to 10,000 

6. Influential voice in an international homeschool company with tens of thousands of families & over 100,000 students 

7. Co-launched multiple successful start-ups  

8. Financially independent at 30 years old 

 Sounds like it’s the recipe for a success story, right?

WRONG.

Let me tell you what was wrong with me that entire time…and I was completely 100% unaware of it: 

1.  People-pleaser addict 

2. Food addict  

3. Emotionally needy 

4. Emotionally co-dependent 

5. Toxic positivity  

6. Stuffer & avoider of emotions 

7. Zero to rage-filled anger in .5 seconds 

8. Zero conflict resolution skills 

9. Little-to-no self-awareness 

10. Little-to-no self-management skills 

It took me a lot of self-reflection and greater dive into Emotional Intelligence to come to the realizations that I was carrying a lot of dysfunction that was affecting me negatively… and ever more reflection to peel the layers back and determine where these dysfunctions came from. Four years in the Emotional Intelligence space has shown me that the vast majority of people are walking around with emotional injuries they’ve never addressed before. I had what could be considered a fairly “successful” career (whatever that means) and was completely unaware the emotional dysfunction brewing beneath the surface. Those emotional injuries had been slowly building, slowly burning under the surface just like the recent Hunga Tonga volcanic eruption.  How many people in the world were aware of that impending eruption? The vast majority of people were just bee-bopping through life doing their normal everyday routine and then at 4:21am local time on 14 Jan, the 10+ megaton eruption literally rocked the world. 

 What lava is flowing beneath the surface of your own life? What emotional “gases” have been stewing beneath that surface? What unhealthy or unproductive coping mechanisms are still operating in your life that you’re not even aware of?  

 I’ve been an executive leadership coach for two decades and have worked with a couple hundred clients over that time. I can tell you that 100% of the people I’ve worked with over the past 20 years exhibit behaviors as an adult as a direct result of their childhood.  

It’s not IF your childhood is impacting you, it’s WHAT areas of your life are being impacted by your childhood… and to what degree.

So how do we start to address this dysfunction? The answer lies in how self-aware you are. That’s the first step in growing or assessing your emotional intelligence or “EQ”; growing your self-awareness. Here are some questions that can help you start growing that self-awareness and self-refection.

1. How accurately can you describe how or what you’re feeling?

2. Can you identify ‘why’ you’re feeling what you’re feeling?

3. What is the impact of how you’re feeling?

4. What behavior(s) are your feelings causing?

5. What impact are your behaviors (& feelings) having on those around you?  

These questions are a good place to start, but I can’t emphasize the importance of having an emotional fitness program and determining what that emotional fitness program looks like to you.

I strongly encourage you to make your emotional fitness a priority this year. Minimize the extent of your emotional injuries and begin maximizing & optimizing your strengths by being as emotionally healthy as you can be. You are worth being the best version of yourself. Your friends & family are worth having the healthiest version of you. Emotionally healthy people help heal other people emotionally.