How to Raise Your E.Q. – Emotional Intelligence for Success

This is Women Road Warriors with Shelly Johnson and Cassie Ticcaro from the corporate office to the cab of a truck. They're here to inspire and empower women in all professions. So gear down, sit back and enjoy. Welcome. We're an award-winning show dedicated to empowering women in every profession through inspiring stories and expert insights. No topics off limits on our show. We Power Women on the Road to Success with expert and celebrity interviews and information you need. I'm Shelly. And I'm Cassie. Have you ever wondered why some people are so inappropriate? They say and do things they shouldn't. We've all encountered them, but there are ways to communicate to power others as well as yourself. This is all about emotional intelligence and how we use it. Netta Lena Nazardine is the founder and CEO of Rise Up for You. She's also the author of Emotional Intelligence, The Path to Fulfillment, Influence and Greater Success, which is a number one bestseller. Netta is a two-time TEDx speaker and a two-time number one bestselling author and globally recognized thought leader. She's considered an authority on leadership, personal development and emotional intelligence. She shared stages at events with legends like Tony Robbins, Les Brown, Adam Grant and Sharon Lecter. We have Netta with us on the show to discuss her insights and we're honored. Welcome Netta. Thank you for being on the show to power our listeners on their Road to Success. We can't wait to hear what you got to say. Well, hello. Thank you so much for having me. It's truly an honor to be here. Yeah. I think it's our honor to have you. Absolutely. Netta, first of all, before we tap into Emotional Intelligence and what that's all about, I thought you could give our listeners a brief background of who you are and how you got into all of this. Okay. I love that. Thanks. Thanks for asking. I don't know how brief I'll be, but I'll tighten it up. So, you know, honestly, my first career I ever had, I was a performer. I used to tour the world internationally as a singer and a dancer, believe it or not, do musical theater. And I realized very quickly in that industry that there was so much more than just the technique of being a singer and dancer that was needed. You know, when I first started performing, I would walk into a room with hundreds of performers that all were really good. They sang really well and they danced really well, but there was only 36 seats on a bus. And so I started to realize very, very quickly that I had to do something different to be seen, be heard and be relevant to get one of those 36 seats. And it had to be more than just my technical capabilities. Fast forward that a few more years later, and I'm 27 years old, I become the executive of an education corporation. I had about 200 team members under me, believe it or not. And I saw pretty much the exact same thing happening in the workplace. A ton of amazing professionals that had PhDs, master's degrees, bachelors, you name it, they had everything they needed to be successful, really struggled with being seen, being heard and being relevant. They really struggled with leadership, with communication, with really the skills that make up 80% of your success, even though they were incredibly intelligent from a technical standpoint. I'm sure we all know that person or persons that are incredibly book smart. They're genius at what they do, but they struggle with building overall success in life because they haven't built the soft skills that are needed to truly elevate them. Oh, gosh, yes. Yes, yes. And simultaneously in the evening, I started to teach at a college. I became a professor for a college. So I really saw the similarities between being an executive working with professionals and then being a professor and working with incoming students every year. And every year, more and more and more, I would see college freshmen and sophomore that would rather take an F than ask a question because they didn't want to look dumb. They struggled with anxiety and depression. They struggled with basic life skills that 50 and 60 years ago, we learned a little bit more because we used to play on the streets and play in the sandbox, if you know what I mean. I can see more and more than that this gap was being created. And so that's really where my journey began. I started to recognize and acknowledge that there was a gap here and we needed to fill it. And so I just did it in my own way. I did it as a professor. I created a life skills course at the college, which they didn't have. I built off the content. I started building some of this programming within the corporation as an executive and the learning and the development. And then I went through my own personal journey. After a few years of being an executive, about five years, I decided to resign from the company, sell my house, get rid of my car, get rid of everything. And I moved out of the country for an opportunity call of love. And after four weeks, I lost everything. I went from a six figure executive to $100 in my bank account and no job, no car, no house, two luggage, that was it. And I remember just feeling very embarrassed and very shocked about the situation, you know, how does an educated woman get themselves in this position? I'm sure many of us listening have experienced that at some point in our life. And I was really at a pivotal moment in my life. And so I remember getting back on a plane. Again, $100, two luggage. That's all I had. I didn't even tell my mother that I was coming home because I was embarrassed and parents take the pain of their children sometimes more than the child takes it themselves. I'm sure you can resonate with that. And so I got back on a plane and I fell asleep because I was crying so much. My father came to me in my dream who died a few years prior. And he said, Neda, everything you need is in you. You just have to rise up for you. And as you mentioned earlier, that is the company that I built rise up for you. It came from a painful journey. I didn't know anything about entrepreneurship. I knew nothing about business. But I got back to California and I just started building about four months later, my second parent, my mother was diagnosed with stage four cancer. So I built the company out of a hospital. I would take showers at the 24 hour fitness. I would go back across the street, open up my laptop while I'm sitting next to my mom and I would type in, how do you build a website? How do you build the business? Who's Tony Robbins? What do people need in the world? And nine months later, my second parent passed away. I was 31 when I buried my second parent and I was at my lowest in my life, but only one question came to my mind and that was, what does it mean to build a life that you're truly proud of? And that's where I really doubled down on rise up for you. I doubled down on myself, even though I knew nothing about entrepreneurship and business. And I started the company and today we're in over 50 countries with our programming and our services. And we've worked with everything from Fortune five companies down to, you know, local nonprofit. Wow. Wow. I think we said that at the same time, like, wow. Yes. Oh my goodness. Neda, you had some serious resilience at a very young age. You went through so many things. It was so scary. A lot of people would have been just crippled by any one of those things. Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. You know, I, I attested all to my parents and anytime I get the opportunity to talk about my parents, Shelley, I do because they were really the first person of everything that I am today. My parents were, I always thank God for the quality of time that I had with them. I always want more time, right? I want more quantity with them. But I'm so grateful for the time that I did have with them because they truly were incredible parents. They left the best of themselves with my brothers and I and they taught us self-confidence. They taught us to love ourselves at a young age. And they taught us to love ourselves and to be able to know that a lot of people in our lives were going to come along and kick us down and, you know, push us down and put doubt into our mind. And so at a very young age, they tried to combat that by teaching us self love and self confidence and pushing our potential and also gratitude, faith, being kind to other people, being respectful, telling the truth. And so I really attest the resilience and any accomplishment that I have that my parents provided from my brothers and I, which is why I think parenting is so important and really the starting point for a lot of the skills that we talk about today. It really is. It truly, truly is. You're shaping a human being and their confidence and everything else. And in terms of emotional intelligence, that's where we do learn it. But you're talking about communication. It really seems to me that communication seems to be a lost art. When you look at a lot of the young people, they're texting. If you talk to them, they don't know what to do. I mean, if you call them on the phone and if you don't know how to communicate, you can't be successful. Right. Absolutely. You know, influence. So within the company, rise up for you. We have four major pillars. Influential communication is the fourth pillar program that we teach. And it's by far the most difficult because you really have to have a strong sense of self confidence, emotional intelligence and leadership in order to communicate effectively. A lot of times when it comes to communication, there's a number of things that are happening that are hindering our capacity to communicate. One of the biggest things is the lack of self confidence. I always say that a lack of self confidence hinders your capacity to communicate effectively. It hinders your courage to have conscious conversations. It hinders your ability to be vulnerable. And so it really is the most difficult, I would say skill to embody, but if you can learn to build that self confidence and the emotional regulation and that authenticity around being vulnerable, the communication only opens up and gets better from there. Emotional regulation. That one's a tough one. Very tough. Yeah. It's very tough because I mean, there's a, there's a lot that we can dive into here, but you know, when we go through challenges in life, when we go through trauma in life, you know, our upbringing, whatever it is, many of us, that becomes our identity. And sometimes when we get attached to this identity or to the past experiences that we have, we can also make excuses for how we behave. So how many times have you maybe talked to a person or you've heard of a story where they say, well, you know, they were just raised that way or they're really going through a hard time. And so we use our past and we use our experiences to make an excuse around how we behave around emotional regulation. And that's why it's really difficult. And I know that we talk a lot about empathy in our society, but I think that, you know, a part of emotional regulation and a part of communication is taking ownership over how we want to show up and how we want to manage and take power over our emotions. I think that one of the greatest states you can achieve as a human being is being able to feel your emotions, acknowledge your emotions, but manage your emotions to the point where they still help you be the person that you want to be versus behave in a way that you regret later on. Music Stay tuned for more of Women Road Warriors coming up. Music Industry movement Trucking Moves America forward is telling the story of the industry. Our safety champions, the women of trucking, independent contractors, the next generation of truckers and more. Help us promote the best of our industry. Share your story and what you love about trucking. Share images of a moment you're proud of. And join us on social media. Learn more at truckingmovesamerica.com. Music Welcome back to Women Road Warriors with Shelly Johnson and Kathy Takarov. Music If you're enjoying this informative episode of Women Road Warriors, I wanted to mention Kathy and I explore all kinds of topics that will power you on the road to success. We feature a lot of expert interviews. Plus we feature celebrities and women who've been trailblazers. Please check out our podcast at womenroadwarriors.com and click on our episodes page. We're also available wherever you listen to podcasts on all the major podcast channels like Spotify, Apple, YouTube, Amazon Music, Audible, you name it. Check us out and bookmark our podcast. Also, don't forget to follow us on social media. We're on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, YouTube and other sites. And tell others about us. We want to help as many women as possible. Let me ask you something. Have you ever wondered why some people just don't seem to know what's appropriate? They say and do things they probably shouldn't. We've all seen this, but here's the good news. There are powerful ways to communicate, not just to influence others, but to empower yourself. And that's exactly what today's conversation is all about. Emotional Intelligence. Our guest, Nettalina Nasserdeen, is the founder and CEO of Rise Up For You and the author of the number one bestseller Emotional Intelligence, the path to fulfillment, influence and greater success. She's also a two-time TEDx speaker, two-time number one bestselling author and a globally recognized thought leader. And she did all of this after losing everything while confronting serious family challenges. She rose up to victory and teaches other people to do the same. Considered an authority on leadership, personal development and emotional intelligence, Nettalina has even shared the stage with icons like Tony Robbins, Les Brown, Adam Grant and Sharon Lecter. She's here to share the skills we all need to strengthen our emotional intelligence and create real success in life. It's all about deciding how we want to show up. Nettalina, we talked about emotional regulation in our last segment and taking control of our behavior so we don't behave in a way that we regret later on. So many times people don't think about this and say things without thinking about the effect of their words. Many people don't even think about that. That requires knowing what it's like to be on the other end of the communication and the empathy. I think that we lack that. I'm going to challenge that slightly because I think that people feel in their body when they're not showing up well. Even if somebody else doesn't say, hey, that was unkind or you weren't emotionally regulated or you were really aggressive, I think naturally as human beings, we can feel in our stomach or in our body, in our throat when we're becoming unregulated or when we're becoming slightly escalated. And I would say from professional and personal experience with working with clientele as well, that when those conversations or when those behaviors are had, there's typically a response later on that says, okay, well, I wish I would have done this differently. And so it's not always in the moment and that's why self-awareness is so important. But I would say that a lot of times people do have that second thought of, well, I wish I wasn't as hot tempered or I wish I would have responded this way or maybe I didn't need to say it in this way. And so I think it's a little bit, it's a combination of both. It's being able to get feedback and honest feedback actually from people that care about you that aren't afraid to tell you the truth and also recognizing your emotion and how you feel in those moments when you're behaving a certain way. I mean, I know for myself, no one's perfect. I teach this every day and I still have moments where I let my emotions get the best of me, but I'll tell you within 10 or 15 minutes, I will then coach myself and say, okay, did not like that, like you got to do better next time that this isn't in value or in alignment with who you want to be as a woman. And I'm already assessing and coaching myself for the next time. So you recommend basically people take a step back and evaluate themselves? Always. I would say every night. Every night before I go to bed, I lay in bed and I just, I have a conversation laying in bed. I don't write it down. I know journaling is a very great practice. It's something that we also have in our books, but for me, I just like to reflect upon it every night. I'll lay in bed and I'll say, what did I do great today? What is something that I did that didn't feel the best or maybe I'm not proud of? And how can I shift it tomorrow? And that's a constant practice that I'm looking at. Emotional intelligence makes so much sense, but it's not something that is talked about. I was just going to say, I didn't really know, I couldn't put a name to my emotions if that sounds crazy until I was in treatment in recovery at the age of 40. And I noticed a lot of women in that center couldn't because of traumatic backgrounds, they knew they're experiencing something, but they couldn't put a name. I didn't know what anxiety was until I reached that. And so when you talk about everything that you've been talking about, my question is, what if people don't really understand what it is that they're experiencing just from whether lack of information or just they've been so traumatized in life that they just go with the flow or they just follow the chaos and they don't really haven't been taken charge of their emotions, first to say. Yeah, that's a great question. Emotional intelligence is, it's a buzzword, but most individuals really don't know what it means. And unfortunately, it's not taught enough. So emotional and social intelligence, the bigger, broader spectrum is soft skills makes up about 85% of your success. But we spend probably 95% of what we're learning and what we're doing on the office and on the technical aspects. And so many people, Kathy would resonate with what you're saying. And that's why emotional intelligence, the very first pillar, I'll break it down into visual aspect, right, since we're since we're talking about this. Think of emotional intelligence like a tree, the root of the tree, the base of the tree is the foundation of everything you need in order to survive. And out of that base is four major branches. The very first branch Kathy is self awareness. And a part of that branch are three leaves emotional awareness, which is what you're talking about accurate self assessment and self confidence. And so going back to the communication aspect and tying it in with this first pillar of emotional intelligence. A lot of people struggle with that communication or even the emotional regulation because they don't have the language and they were never taught the language and coinciding with their feelings. And so that very first pillar self awareness and the emotional awareness leaf that comes off of that branch is critical. We have hundreds of emotions. Most individuals only know like the basic seven happy, sad, angry, frightened, right, they don't know the deeper spectrum of feelings. So now imagine if let's say I'm in a meeting and a leader comes to me and says, how are you doing? And I say, I'm really mad. What's the next question the leader is going to ask? Typically, why are you mad? Because we're explaining it in a basic level. I'm mad. That's a very basic foundation of how we feel. But now imagine if somebody was building the self awareness, the emotional intelligence and the vocabulary around their feelings, and they're able to say, I feel frustrated because I felt negated and unseen in the meeting that we just had. And oftentimes I feel like my opinion doesn't matter. Now as a leader, I have so much more information. The communication from the team member was 1000% more inclusive and I have a better understanding. And now we can have a true vulnerable conversation because the expression that the team member had is more self aware, which I think a lot of people are not. You'll hear people say, well, I just put my foot in my mouth. Instead of taking responsibility and they just kind of continue to do that or they'll have a major blow up and everybody's looking at them like, what's going on? Absolutely. Well, Harvard Business Review sent out some research that showed that 95% of individuals think they're self aware and only 10% actually are. And that's why this work is so important because in order for you to really grow and create positive change, you have to have an understanding of what needs changing, but not from your perception. And I've been there. Everything that we teach, I've also practiced on myself. When I was an executive, I was 27 years old, as I mentioned. I had 200 team members under my leadership at 27. All of them were older than me. Every one of them. And all of them have had also been at the company longer than I had. Most of them were there for anywhere between six to eight years. And when I was promoted as an executive, I was only there for three months. But because my emotional intelligence was a little bit more heightened, I think from performing, I got promoted very, very fast. And I went from an entry level position to an executive in three and a half months. And so I was not liked and I thought I was. I thought I was the most amazing leader ever. I thought I was the best executive that ever stepped foot on, you know, on the campus and in the headquarters. But nobody would ever come to my office. Nobody would ever talk to me. And then one day somebody said, well, you're kind of intimidating. And I said, nope, that's not true. That's your story, not mine. And then another person said, well, you're kind of intimidating. And I said, no, no, no, that's that's just not who I am. I'm not an intimidating person. And then by the time the third person said it, I went, okay, Neda. Numbers don't lie. This is the third person. Maybe my perception of who I am is not accurate. And so I did an anonymous survey. The only executive that dared to do it, I was basically putting myself on the chopping block. And out of 200 team members, 75% said I was intimidating, not relatable. And I looked mad all the time. I was devastated because I realized in that moment that what I thought about myself wasn't it wasn't how I was being received. And even though that was a painful moment, I went home, I cried, I was devastated. It was the best thing I ever did because I now had an opportunity to truly grow and learn from the data that I had collected from feedback, right, feedback of how other people see me. And that it's really, really important, not only as a leader, but as a parent, as a person, as a friend, understanding how am I really showing up? Because at the end of the day, it's very isolating if you only pay attention to yourself and your own thoughts, you have to have an understanding of how you're truly being received. Industry movement Trucking Moves America forward is telling the story of the industry. Our safety champions, the women of trucking, independent contractors, the next generation of truckers and more help us promote the best of our industry. Share your story and what you love about trucking. Share images of a moment you're proud of. And join us on social media. Learn more at truckingmovesamerica.com. Welcome back to Women Road Warriors with Shelley Johnson and Kathy Takarro. Netta is a global thought leader. She's an authority on leadership, personal development and emotional intelligence. And she's even shared the stage with icons like Tony Robbins, Les Brown, Adam Grant and Sharon Lecter. Here's the kicker. Influential communication requires emotional intelligence, self-awareness, self-regulation and self-confidence. You can actually learn to build confidence, regulate your emotions and coach yourself into better responses. It's about taking your power back for success in life and taking responsibility on how you show up. That's important because emotional intelligence accounts for 85% of your success in life. And that's exactly what Netta is here to help us do. Netta, you were talking about it's really important for people to know how they're being received and you actually ask for feedback on that. And that's really valuable for people to know because a lot of people aren't self-aware. That's pretty courageous to do that. A lot of people don't necessarily want to know. Well, yeah, because it's uncomfortable and you're afraid of what the outcome is going to be. But I had to remove my ego in that moment and do what was best for the greater good. I had that conversation. I said to myself, okay, I'm going to do this anonymous survey. I'm probably going to get my butt kicked, but it's not about me. You know, the second I took the executive role and anyone that's a leader out there, I really want you to hear this. The second I accepted the role as a leader was the second that I knew it was no longer about me and my ego. It just can't be. That's not what a leadership role is. And so I had to be able, even though I knew it was going to be painful, I knew I was going to get some feedback that was going to suck, that was going to hurt my feelings. I was 27. I wasn't, you know, as mature as I am today, obviously, I did know that one thing that in order for me to grow and be the best leader, I had to remove myself from the equation so that I can get some real honest feedback about who I am and how I can be better. And I was very wise. You're awesome. You know that. True. It takes a lot of courage to take a step back and do a deep self-analysis and especially the things that we don't like about ourselves or things that, like you said, people perceive that we are, we don't realize it. But at the same time, that is where the growth is. That is where, like, when I had to spend a period of off and on two years in this women's treatment center, recovery center, and I had to unlearn all like 40 years of learned behaviors of these lies. And I had to do this really deep pick in and out. And I mean, there's layers upon layers of stuff that I didn't even realize was there, which was shaping the way I responded to life. So once I removed all that, and I'm left standing there like, I don't even know who I am anymore. And I'm 40. And so I had to relearn what who Kathy really was. I had to learn what I liked, what I didn't like, like, and I'm not without other people's opinions, making me biased on things. And man, I got to say it was the best thing I could have ever done for myself because I'm not, I wasn't responding to what other people were telling me I was and just learning it. Well, it takes courage because there's a lot of things that I'm like, oh my God, am I really like that? And then to change that and to become the person I am today. I mean, obviously doesn't happen overnight. But it has been the best thing that has been the most positive change, not just for myself because now who I am, it reflects to everywhere I go to all the people I have contact with. And I think that it's a superpower. Yeah, I was literally just thinking when you were talking about how powerful that is because when you, when you commit, I always say commit versus interested because interested is just the thought it doesn't require action but we're committed requires action and you you committed to creating transformation within yourself when you're able to do that. You take back your power and it's ugly and it's hard and it's uncomfortable, but it's so empowering when you get to the other side and realize that okay, like, I have somewhere to go from here. I know baby steps to get to where I want to be and you really start to become the beautiful butterfly that you are meant to be. I always say that the greatest tragedy is wasted human potential and most people don't allow themselves to go through the suck and to fail and to cry and to get punched in the face in order to progress and reach their potential. So very true and life will punch you in the face. No doubt about that. More than once. Multiple times it'll happen. Well, people like security. They don't necessarily want to take risks and I think maybe I'm going out on a limb here but I think women are more vested in security. I think men may be bigger risk takers. So what you're talking about, it's all about taking risk but if you don't do that, you're not going to grow. Absolutely and taking risks, it's part of self confidence. It's actually something that we talk about in our self confidence training is that a lot of times we're afraid to take risks. Because we attach our identity to outcomes and what happens if we take a risk and we fail? What happens if we take a risk and it's not perfect? What happens if we take a risk and people don't like it? And so we say the what if a lot? What if this? What if that? And that often times will cripple us from taking action, from taking risk, from having the uncomfortable conversation. The other part of it is the amygdala which I'm sure many of you have heard about this, the reptilian brain. Right? So much has changed in our society but the amygdala part of our brain, the response of part of our brain, the reptilian part of our brain hasn't evolved in the same way. And so today we feel the same thing in our body that we did thousands of years ago when it came to like the saber-toothed tiger or whatever animal we were trying to protect ourselves from. Today we have the same feeling when we feel any kind of fear even if the fear is raising your hand in a meeting. The response that we feel in our body and our brain, our brain goes in and into fight or flight mode is the same even though the threat of it is completely different than it was a thousand years ago. Interesting. So it's a matter of getting over on that reptilian brain. Yeah, and it's a matter of coaching yourself and asking those questions of am I really, is my life really threatened right now versus am I just feeling afraid because the outcome might not be what I want it to be? And now which way do I go from here? And that again, that comes back to that self-confidence piece. It's interesting. I'm just currently reading a book called Change Your Questions, Change Your Life. Yeah. Who is that written by? I'd like to... Mary Lee Adams. Okay, okay, great. Yeah, you know, I mean, my team and I, we ask every year, believe it or not, four to five thousand people with their number one challenges, 83% say self-confidence, 83%. That, you know, every time I hear it, it's just mind blowing to me. The first book I ever wrote was on self-confidence because we live in a state of not feeling enough. Most individuals have a mindset of I'm not enough. And I really, one of my goals in life personally, not only with the company, but just personally as Netta, is to help more people overcome the I'm not enough mindset. You know, I think a lot of people think that they're not enough if they don't have maybe a certain person in their life, a certain thing in their life. Well, you listen to the advertisements. If you don't have this thing, you are going to be the best. It's externalizing everything rather than going inside and finding that strength within us. 100%. And that's really the difference between confidence and self-confidence, which oftentimes gets confused and intermingled. There are two types of confidence that we have. And in our life, we're taught to build general confidence, what I call micro-confidence in the book. It's exactly what you're talking about, Shelley. It's confident and external things. I'm confident as a singer. I'm confident as a speaker. I'm confident when it comes to coding and technology, you know, whatever it is, we're taught to build a lot of accolades and confidence in things and degrees and certifications and subjects, whatever that is. But all of those things are external and they exist outside of you. And the problem with anything that exists outside of you is that it will inevitably change. And when it does change, we saw this during COVID, for example, we had people around the world that all of those external confidences fell apart and guess what happened? The person fell apart. We had people come to us and say, who am I? What value do I bring to the world? I don't know what my value and my identity is anymore because they spent their entire life building micro-confidence, just the general confidence versus what I call macro-confidence, also known as self-confidence, which is that inner belief that you are enough simply because you exist. It's the belief that failure is research to success. And in order for you to grow in life, you have to have the polar, right, of failure and success. That's the only way you can understand what success is. It's the understanding that perfectionism creates procrastination, which prevents you from your potential. Macro-self-confidence teaches us that we are more than what we accumulate externally. And when you're able to build macro-level confidence, you're able to build more micro-level confidence. I use myself as an example with the story that I gave earlier. I lost everything. As I mentioned, I had a hundred dollars buried both of my parents. I was in my lowest point. I knew nothing about building a business. So from the micro-side of things, it was completely depleted, right? No money, no job, no car, no house, no business degree, no concept, no knowledge on what it took to build a business. But because I had the macro-confidence from my parents and I had an inner belief that my identity and who I am is not attached to those things, I was able to learn the micro-confidence of building the business. I was able to learn how to build a podcast. I was able to learn about getting out there and networking and all of these things that today created the business. That was amazing that you had that kind of insight. I'm not sure at 27, I would have done as well. Yeah, me neither. I'm very impressed with you. I can't tell you like, holy smokes, man. Yeah. With everything that came at you, I mean, those are some serious tragedies that would rock most people's worlds at any age. Yeah, I mean, it definitely rocked me. I emotionally, you know, it was very difficult for me, especially when I lost my mother because she really suffered. You know, she was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer out of nowhere and anyone that has had to watch a family member or a parent pass from cancer, it's just, it's brutal and it's heartbreaking and it's definitely a struggle. But I think that, you know, I'm going back to the life that life does not discriminate and all of us have certain things in life that just constantly kick us in the teeth. And I think for me, I just, I had to have a lot of conversations with myself around what type of woman do I want to be and how do I want to show up in the world. And there was also a part of me that didn't want the loss of my parents to go to waste. You know, I didn't want my pain to go to no good. So in that moment of suffering and pain, I just reminded myself, OK, like you can either, it's a ball of energy and the ball of energy is either going to go to good or it's going to go nowhere and go to bad. And so I just decided to re-channel that energy into something that can serve me and conserve the world and make a bigger impact. Bravo to you. Stay tuned for more of Women Road Warriors coming up. And don't forget to subscribe to our channel for more news on social media. Learn more at truckingmovesamerica.com. Welcome back to Women Road Warriors with Shelley Johnson at Cathy Takarro. If you're just tuning in, we've been talking about something that impacts every single one of us. Emotional intelligence. Our guest, Nettalina Nasserdeen is the powerhouse founder and CEO of Rise Up For You. She's the author of the number one bestseller Emotional Intelligence, The Paths to Fulfillment, Influence and Greater Success. We've been exploring why emotional regulation and self-awareness are so important. That's where ET comes in. It's about recognizing our emotions, building self-confidence and learning to respond instead of react. As Nettalina teaches us, real growth is about self-coaching and taking ownership of how we show up in the world. And today, Nettalina is giving us the tools to do just that. You have accomplished so very much and you've helped a lot of people. And you've spoken with some powerhouse people, Tony Robbins, Les Brown, Adam Grant, Sharon Lecter. And you also have a number one bestseller Emotional Intelligence, The Paths to Fulfillment, Influence and Greater Success. I wanted to touch on that book. What are some of the things that people can learn from that book? Oh, so this, thank you for asking, thank you for asking that because that book launched end of January. It was a number one bestseller before it launched and it was not written by chat GPT everyone. There is a lot of heavy lifting in there. Well, here's what I'll say about the book. Soft skills in general, emotional intelligence, self-confidence, leadership, influential communication. It's not something that you can just learn concepts on. You won't create transformation and you won't create change like that. And so one of the things that I really love about the book, even though I wrote it, is that 85% of it is pen to paper. Because in order for you to create transformation and these skills, you need to experience them in your body. And so the book is very empowering. There's stories in there. There's client stories in there. I mean, we really, we really share the stories that we're dealing with on a day to day basis. My team and I, I have about 16 team members right now and every single day we're in the trenches with companies and leaders and doing this work. And so we put a lot of empowering stories in there that are true, but then we immediately go into action steps and strategies in the book. So that the reader can start to create transformation and shift. We need to be able to take the skills that we're teaching and move it past the, the frontal part of your brain. We need to take it all the way back to the Olympic system where the change actually happens. And so that's one of the great things that I really love about the book, but you will learn pretty in depth about emotional and social intelligence. You'll learn about the four branches that I talked about earlier, self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship management. And then each one of those branches has additional competencies that come off of that branch. And so in, in total, there's 18 different competencies and emotional intelligence. This book breaks down every one of those competencies and it provides strategies for every one of those competencies so that you can actually create a shift in your life. As a person and as a professional. Wow. So emotional intelligence, it isn't covered a lot. Are there some cliff notes you could share on how to accomplish it? The very first thing I would say is going back to what we discussed earlier is self-assessment. If you go to our website, riseitfree.com and you click on the free resource button, there's an emotional intelligence quiz there. It's completely free. My recommendation is the first thing you do is you take the emotional intelligence quiz and then you send it to seven to 10 people that you trust that are going to give you honest, real feedback. And you have them take that assessment like on you so that you can see the difference. That's the very first step because in order for you to create change, you have to understand what areas of your life need change. Otherwise, it feels very overwhelming, right? There's 18 competencies and emotional intelligence. So I'll give you an example. Every year I do an assessment. That's the first thing and I give it to my entire team, my entire company. Every year I score like a nine and a half, 10 out of 10 on confidence. So that's not a that's not an area that I'm going to put my energy into or focus into because according to my team and according to myself, my confidence is pretty high because I, you know, again, I was taught that. I was taught at a young age, but you know, the area that does tend to get the lowest score that I'm actively working on is empathy, right? Because I'm a business owner. I move at a certain pace. Sometimes when you are an entrepreneur and a past executive, you're wired a little bit differently. You have certain expectations and standards. And so active listening and empathy are the two areas that my team suggests I work on. And so that's the first step that you need in order to build emotional intelligence is just understanding where the work should begin. And empathy is a tough one because you're kind of trying to put yourself in somebody else's shoes. Yeah. And not only putting yourself in someone else's shoes, but being empathetic without losing expectations. That's one of the hardest things for leaders today is how do I be empathetic to my team without letting the standards get watered down? So the expectations of the organization fall by the wayside. And so it's really understanding how to communicate with empathy while it's at the same time letting the team member know where the person or whoever it is that you're sitting in front of that A, B and C still need to happen. And so how do we marry the two together? Empathy plus the expectations. So how would a leader approach that? Say there's an employee that needs to improve, but you can appreciate their situation. How would they handle that with empathy? The first thing that I would do is role play a conversation. I always tell leaders if you're going to have a conversation that requires empathy, but maybe you don't agree or maybe there's still certain things that need to happen. Prepare for the conversation, role play the conversation because remember it goes back to communication and having the right language. And so it's important for you that you're able to map out in your mind. I even write it down sometimes being able to acknowledge, you know, first I hear where you're coming from. I understand how challenging this can be. And then working together to try to solve it where the team member feels like they're being heard, but that the leader or the company also feel that the benchmark or whatever is needed is getting done. And obviously it's a case by case situation that depends on the severity of the organization. But I think this happens a lot in organizations is again, we let things fall apart because going back to that self confidence leaders want to be liked. There's a lot of leaders that want to be liked. They don't want to disrupt their team. They're afraid to have conscious conversations. Believe it or not, we work with a lot of leaders that really struggle with having conscious conversations, but their team is dependent. Depending on them to have them. Yeah, it's intimidating. Leaders are in a power position and they literally hold somebody else's life in their hands. If an employee is not performing properly and hasn't been for a while, then they've got this quandary. It's like you really like that employee, but maybe they're not working out in the company. That's a hard one. Some people may be more comfortable with it, but I think a lot of people don't like that. Yeah. And again, it goes back to that creating the shift in you that it's normal to be uncomfortable. And I think we just need to get comfortable with being uncomfortable because that's where the change happens. And we have to go back to that piece of self confidence and realizing that it's okay if it doesn't turn out the way that you want. It's okay if you're not liked. It's okay if you know, you're a little bit of a disruptor. That's all a part of the process. And the more we can get comfortable with that, the better we're going to be able to communicate and create change. And I think ultimately at the end of the day, most people want to have a positive impact not only on themselves, but on their team. Do you think women are more hung up on being liked than men? It's a really good question. I think so. Yeah, I would say before I started the company, I would have said yes. Now that, you know, I run the company and my team and I work with, you know, thousands of professionals every year, I would say no, they just deal with it differently. They deal with it differently. I happen to coach a lot of male executives and it's the same story that I hear with my female executives. They just cope with it differently. They tend to assert more or maybe be a little bit more aggressive when they are struggling with people pleasing or wanting to be like or healthy boundaries. And women deal with it a little bit differently. They just tend to become more passive. Maybe they break more boundaries. They hit burnout. So the behaviors are a little bit different, but the symptom of people pleasing and wanting to be liked for the most part is across the board. Interesting. So, Edda, where do people find you? What kind of services can they get from your website and from you and where do they find your book? Well, thank you so much for asking that question. This has been a great conversation. If you go to riseup4u.com, there's a ton of free resources. Just click the free resource tab. You can get the emotional intelligence quiz, the self confidence quiz and the master class for both of them completely free. You can also follow us on social media at riseup4u. And I'll just say, you know, if you're an individual and any of this resonated with you and you want more support, just go to our website and click on the informative call. Or if you're an executive and a leader and you think that this would be useful for your team, you know, the coaching, the team training, the leadership workshops. Again, just click on the informative call and our team are happy to speak with you. And then other than that, you can follow me and connect with me personally, Nettlina Nasserdian on LinkedIn primarily is what I use. And I do my own social media. So if you send me a message, I will be the one to respond to you. That's excellent. I think a lot of people can be empowered by your message. This is really careful. Nettlina, we need more people like you to empower people so they can reach inside themselves, get that inner strength, that confidence and maybe have more empathy. Because I think in many ways our world needs more of that. We're so connected today, but somehow we've lost that empathy. You see so much stuff on social media. It's like, oh my really? Yeah, I always say we're more connected than we've ever been, but we're more disconnected than we've ever been. And it's almost like it's brought out the bully culture because people don't see each other eye to eye. They're sitting behind a device and they say things they probably wouldn't do on a face-to-face basis. Yeah, absolutely. It's the communication. They found a new way to communicate in a way that is less scary than if they were to do it in person. Yeah, it brings out the bullies and the cowards. Yeah, and I think there's a method in that as well online is learning how to kind of disconnect from some of that online. It can create a lot of pain inside and a lot of compromise. And so I think people have to be wise enough to understand what to listen to, what to consume on social media and what not to consume on social media. I totally agree. Neda, your wisdom is terrific. Thank you so much for being on the show with us. Thank you so much for having me because I enjoyed speaking to both of you and it's been my honor today. We hope you've enjoyed this latest episode and if you want to hear more episodes of Women Road Warriors or learn more about our show, be sure to check out womenroadwarriors.com and please follow us on social media and don't forget to subscribe to our podcast. Women Road Warriors is on all the major podcast channels like Apple, Spotify, Amazon, Audible, YouTube and others. Check us out and please follow us wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening. You've been listening to Women Road Warriors with Shelley Johnson and Kathy Takaro. If you want to be a guest on the show or have a topic or feedback, email us at sjohnsonatwomenroadwarriors.com.