EQ Through The Lens Of New York With 2 Kids

posted on : March 23, 2023

I introduced my 6- and 8-year-old to New York City over a long spring-break weekend earlier this month. New York holds a piece of my heart as I lived there for 4 years in my 20s, then worked for a Manhattan-based organization that brought me back to the city several times each year in my 30s.

This week, I invite you to (vicariously) experience this short journey with my sons and I that will enhance each pillar of your emotional intelligence (EQ) so you can lead with more impact at work + home.

The strategies for leading children and your family are very similar to the best strategies for effectively leading your team at work, so let’s begin!

EQ Pillar 1: Self-Awareness

We have to start in EQ Pillar 1: Self-Awareness to increase our emotional intelligence and be more impactful leaders (at work + home). A major part of leading and living with self-awareness is knowing our core values and then aligning our work and daily life with those values. One of my 3 personal core values is ADVENTURE. My boys and I checked that value off my list at NYC’s Color Factory!

EQ Pillar 2: Self-Management

Self-Management is all about productivity, maximizing our potential, and resilience. It seems to be the easiest pillar to “understand” cognitively, but one of the hardest pillars for most people to put into practice consistently. Personal high performance requires quality sleep, food, exercise, and real relaxation (not the illusion of relaxation that’s induced by something like scrolling social media or a glass of wine – a mistake I leaned on for a long time and finally paid the price for physically). Self-management means we need to regularly rest and restore. We need to take time off and recover – whether that means Netflix and chill or taking your loud, energetic boys on a spring break trip to New York as I just did 😵‍💫 … or something in between. Rest IS productivity. After daily, weekly, and monthly moments of recovery, your brain comes back to work (and home life) with more creativity, focused, innovative, and empathetic. I fought this one for years – thinking that if I took a break – even for 5 minutes – I wasn’t being productive. Now I realize rest is a part of long-term sustainable high-performance (without the burnout).

EQ Pillar 3: Others Awareness

Others Awareness is about empathy, putting yourself in someone else’s shoes, and understanding what uniquely drives each and every person that you manage. (If you think it’s just about money or compensation, you’re gravely mistaken.) While in NYC with my 6- and 8-year-old, I wanted lazy brunches, hours of meandering through the city without a destination or timeline, and yummy food I couldn’t get anywhere else. I expected my boys to sit quietly on the train, walk miles each day without complaining, and to have a similar pallet to my 42-year-old-married-to-a-chef one. Seeing this trip from their perspective, I realized that they had the need to burn their blessed endless energy, snack and snack and snack some more, and socialize with humans closer to their age group. If I would have only thought about my desires and expectations, I would have been frustrated most of the trip. By finding a way to marry our desires together, we had a joyful experience with great memories created. And yes, of course I got frustrated from time to time (I mean, they think it’s appropriate to entertain themselves on a crowded subway by playing musical-chair tag with their sugar-high sleepover voices), but it was waaaaayyyyyyy less with my Others Awareness in check!!!

EQ Pillar 4: Relationship Management

Relationship Management is where leadership – and the sweet nectar of life – comes into play. We are, after all, human beings working (and living) with other human beings. As a leader exercising emotional intelligence, we must have direct conversations (without shame or belittling) to help our team (or children) understand how their behavior impacts others: “When you stop abruptly as we’re exiting the subway stairs, people run into each other and someone could get hurt… or pissed.” “When you talk loudly in the theatre, others can’t hear what’s going on.” Relationship management is also about working together to achieve a common goal without overstepping boundaries (theirs or yours) or agency: “Yes, you can choose your own entrée as long as you have a bite of something new.” “Yes, we will stay longer at this germy, crowded slime institute that you’re loving, but I changed my mind and am NOT getting slimed hours before we get on an airplane.”