Your Three Essential Messages

“500,000 people will be listening, but you need to give them just 3 short messages, ok?”  I was interviewed in Mexico many years ago, and the host explained that since it’s a Spanish station, I needed to make just three brief statements in English – she would translate each and discuss in Spanish.3 steps to apply emotional intelligence

After wonderful discussions with my colleagues, I decided on three messages — a “story” I’ve continued to articulate for over a decade.  Before I tell you my answer, I’d like you to consider how you’d answer.  If you could deliver three powerful points to half a million people, what would you tell them?

To answer, it might be helpful to consider:  What is the problem you want to solve? Is there a change you’d like to make in your business, your family, your community, the world?

As I travel around the world, I see that many of our biggest challenges are tied to a disconnection between the choices we’re making, and the results we’re creating.  No one WANTS to create economic meltdowns or environmental depredation, but we do.  A few days ago I posted featuring Anabel Jensen (Six Seconds) and Tony Wagner (Harvard) talking about the need to transform education.  In that, Anabel says,

It’s not enough to be smart, we need a powerful blend of ethics + compassion + commitment.  We need to put our principles into action.”  

Why don’t people do so?  What would it take to live that way?  This consideration led me to my answer for the radio show:

1. Emotions are real and they affect us.  They affect how we respond,  they shape the decisions we make.

2. You have a choice.  Maybe not total freedom, but options in how to respond.

3. Your choices matter.  Every decision, every interaction, affects ourselves, and others, and ultimately the world.

I didn’t realize it at first, but when I decided on my three messages, they are actually tied to the three parts of the Six Seconds Model of Emotional Intelligence. Know Yourself is about tuning into the value of feelings.  Choose Yourself means owning the decisions.  Give Yourself means ensuring those choices add up to create a worthwhile legacy.

What makes these three ideas transformational is that they are a PROCESS.  As we go through these three steps, we bring our emotional intelligence forward to make better decisions, to take action that’s aligned with our real goals.  Or, in Anabel’s words, to put our principles into action.

 

I hope to see you at the NexusEQ Conference in June, to share and hear how practitioners around the world are using emotional intelligence to make positive change. It’s part of our vision to support 1 billion people to practice the skills of emotional intelligence — which will require all of us to become more clear about those “3 essential points” we want to share.  S0 in the meantime, what are your three core messages?  Please share in the comments!

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