Emotional intelligence in the summer

The sun is finally shining here in Calgary and it finally feels like summer! It took long enough ;-) Now, I’m feeling lazy and I can’t get people on the telephone – they’re all on vacation! And I’m jealous. I wish I was on vacation. (okay, okay, the photo is not Calgary, but it’s summer – ish! ;-)

Now jealousy, as it turns out, is not the best emotional state to be in to be productive at work! ;-) This is a big part of emotional intelligence. So, how do you get into the “best” emotional state for a particular task or activity? One way is to remind yourself why you are doing what you’re doing. For example, “I’m in a bit of a financial pickle at the moment and I need to get out of it.” Remember, this is just an example ;-) Now this is a bad example because my doing what I do is not just for the money, in fact, if I focus just on the money because I’m worried about a shortage of it, I seem to get into a bit of a ‘scarcity’ mindset (versus an ‘abundance’ mindset) and become even less effective. I get desperate sounding on the telephone and in meetings and you know when you’re dealing with a desperate person, it’s just not that ‘attractive.’ So, how do I become more ‘attractive’ to prospective clients? I have to sound less desperate.

I remind myself that I do what I do because I love engaging people in learning to become more effective and I need to believe that prospective clients will hire me because I am good at what I do so I can sound confident in my marketing, not like I’m begging with my hat in my hand.

Marketing is one of the daily/weekly – ongoing – activities I must do if I am to do what I feel I was put on this earth to do which is to have a positive impact on people and add value wherever I go. And so I/we (you too if you’re a small businessperson) must find a way to undertake what many feel is an undesirable activity. Especially in Summer when everyone seems to be on holidays!

Despite some people being on holidays, not everyone is away and so I must use my assertiveness skills and reach out to my target market in a way that doesn’t come across as ‘telemarketing’ so I can find that person or that company that needs what I do. When I can make it about them and not about me, I’ll come across as the caring, supportive, giving individual that I usually am and not the needy, desperate character that I can sometimes feel like.

How about you? What’s your feeling about marketing? Please comment.