Nada Lena - EQ and Why Your Success Depends on It

Hey friend, I know how this feels. Waking up exhausted after multiple trips to the bathroom and feeling embarrassed by sudden leaks. I used to be constantly on edge, searching for a restroom whenever I was out. Then I discovered better woman. I was skeptical at first, but two months in, everything changed. I experienced improved bladder control. No more heart-stopping moments when I laugh or sneeze. Less urged to go, deeper and more restful sleep. I finally felt like myself again, confident and in control. Better Woman is natural, effective, clinically tested, and trusted by women for over 25 years. Ready to take back your control? Head over to Bebetternow.com to order your supply today. That's Bebetternow.com. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Uses directed individual results may vary. Hi everyone, it's Bill Black, the exit coach from the Exit Coach Radio show. You know, one of the biggest questions I get on the show is what exactly goes into a business exit plan and when should I start creating mine? Well, I always tell people that the best time to start was 5 years ago, but the next best time is now because you never know when you might need it. So we put together a free report that describes what an exit plan is and what you should know. You can get it free by texting exit plan with no spaces to 44222. That's exit plan to 44222. Again text exit plan to 44222. Welcome to the Exit Coach Radio show, the show for baby boomer business owners who are looking for cutting edge information as they plan their 3 to 10 year business succession and exit. Every week we interview top professional advisors for their best tips, strategies, and precautions so you can be well planned. And now here's your host, the exit coach Bill Black. Well, hey everyone, thanks so much for joining me today. It's always a pleasure to have you. We interview a wide variety of advisers, business consultants and specialists and authors, and today we're going to have a great interview with someone who's in the business of personal and professional development, and she's going to talk about EQ and why your success depends on it. My guest today is Neda Lena, and she's again, we're going to talk about a lot of interesting things today, so I hope you have a pen and paper and ready to take some notes. Neda, thanks so much for joining me today. Thank you, Bill, so much. It's an honor to be here. Thank you everyone for listening. Uh, glad to be here. It's an honor. So Neda, you're, you have a program called Rise Up for You, and you, we were going to talk today about EQ, which I know what it is, but let's, we'll let the listeners know what that is and make sure we're on the same page and why your success depends on it. Neda, tell me a little bit about you and your background and let our listeners know what you've been up to. Great, thank you so much. So yeah, I can't wait to talk about EQ but as mentioned, um, my business is Rise Up for you. We're a small business here in uh Southern California, Irvine, and I really started as a performer. That's where everything started. It was my first passion. I toured around the world internationally as a singer and a dancer. Um, and through performing I quickly realized how important an individual and an organization's success was on people, right? Uh, so communication, people skills, emotional skills, and um I really recognize traveling abroad and with 40 cast members every 4 months, um, what can make or break an organization or an individual success. So after performing, I became an executive, uh, ran a company with under 200 professionals under me, starting at 27, got my master's in executive leadership, and about 4 years after that, that's when I built my own company, Rise it for you, which does just that, the personal professional development behind business and professional growth. Wow, there's a lot to talk about in that last segment there. So let's talk about what you learned as you traveled internationally singing and dancing to people, you know, of different languages. Did you discover certain things were universal wherever you went that that made or made a great show or or a, you know, really made a show shine? Yeah, so, you know, this is where a lot of emotional intelligence and leadership really um became a big interest for me because I recognize that, you know, especially when you go to countries again, like you mentioned, that don't speak your language. So I've been to Russia, I've been to Japan, Germany, all over the world, and I really realized how important your nonverbal communication was, right? Your energy, how you show up, how you put yourself together is very, very important, especially in instances where You don't always speak the same language. Now, today, speaking the same language can also be English to English, right? Because we all have different perceptions on what words mean, we communicate differently. So your energy, your nonverbal communication, your posture, how you dress, all those things really make a difference in how people receive you. Absolutely, that's exactly what I was going after. So the the energy that you bring to the stage translates out to the audience how you show up, like you said. So let's talk about, so a lot of our business owners. Some of them are technical. let's call them what they are. They're geeks, you know, they might be, they have specialized knowledge in a certain area. Some of them might be technology, it might be industrial, it might be something that they're really passionate about, but it's not that exciting. And then they're they're not, a lot of them aren't born communicators, let's say, with their, let's say their employee base. So you know, how can a business owner, can somebody can somebody Show up like, like you probably were jet lagging tired sometimes when you got to the stage, but you knew once you hit that stage, you needed to show up for that audience. Can someone learn that behavior and is that what the uh the EQ is all about? That's a really, really great question. So actually I had this conversation yesterday on, on another speaking opportunity is that the question was, if I'm an introvert, right, you know, how do I, how do I do that? How do I show up with this certain kind of energy or how do I put myself out there? And, and the answer is this, is that there has to be a little bit of a balance, right? And so there's times where you can be more introverted and there's times where you have to be extroverted and you. Have to understand the room and the energy of the people around you and what they need. So I mean there's times again when you can play more inward and then there's times where you cannot, you have to put your best foot forward, you have to put yourself out there. For some of you, it's going outside of your comfort zone, right? Because maybe you're more shy personally right at home, but this is where emotional intelligence comes in because most of us know that EQ has 4 pillars, right. Awareness, self-management, those are the first two that have to do with you, and then social awareness and relationship management with the, the last two that have to do with others. But many people don't know that under those four pillars are another 18 competencies and social awareness specifically, which is the third pillar, really talks about this. It talks about having organizational cultural awareness, understand, you know, your environment. The energy and the environment, what type of people are you speaking to? How are they showing up and then being able to play off of that and that's very important and that's one of the things with EQ is that it's not cookie cutter and so EQ gives you that adaptability in everything from building your business to working with people. So how do I adjust and which hat do I need to put on in this moment right now for optimal success 360. Now 18 traits is a lot to get our heads around in a 20 minute interview, but let's talk about the 1st 4 that you talked about. Kelly. Let's unpack the 1st 4 that you talked about. The first one was, was it self? I didn't write fast enough, self awareness. I thought that's what it was. OK, self awareness. OK, so what, what are some things our listeners can do to start with that self-awareness, just some brief tips for them. Yeah, that's a great question. So again, EQ has the four main pillars, the foundational pillars. The first one is self-awareness. The first thing that we need to understand, and this is the hardest part about emotional intelligence, is that every single person has blind spots, so you don't know what you don't know. Right? So you might be listening to this right now and say, well, what do I need, what do I need emotional intelligence for, right? But the truth is is that we don't have an accurate assessment of ourselves, right? There's always things about us that we don't know are true or that we don't believe to be true. So the first thing that I would say in order to build self-awareness is to do an assessment from other individuals. I like to call them the, the, your trusted circle, OK? So sending them an email, OK, sending them an email or we even have a 24 point assessment that you can send them if you want and having them assess you, please, you know, you're one of my connected advisors can you please answer these questions about me and then get it back and see what these 5 individuals said because again a lot of times you don't know what you don't know and the only way you're really gonna be able to grow is to get perceptions from the outside. Now Lena, I play golf and sometimes I hit a bad shot that I don't want to find if you get my drift. So this, this sounds risky. This sounds risky. Do a lot of people, are they ready for that, for that sending out that email and finding out things that they don't want to know? Well, that's a good question, and that's the that's the big question that people have to ask themselves is are you ready for the big change? So you think the the thing is is that a lot of people want next level success. They wanna change. They wanna like get to that next level. They wanna bring in clients, more money, this and that, but are you. Really willing to do the deep internal change not only in yourself but in your business, right? And so these are the questions that you have to ask if you really want to see the invaluable growth. I'll give you a perfect example. When I was an executive and so I understand the scary part, right? I was an executive, as mentioned earlier, 200 professional men and women under me, and I was only 27, so most of them were older than me, PhDs in the career a lot longer. You know, I kept being told that um I was intimidating and I'm like, no, I'm not intimidating. I'm an executive with an open door policy. Anybody can walk in here and ask me questions. I'm not intimidating, that's your insecurity. Don't project that onto me, OK? And then. At the end of the year, I decided to do an anonymous survey with the entire staff. I was the only executive that did it because everyone was scared, just as you mentioned, the executive team were scared to ask these questions. I made it anonymous. Was it scary for me? Yes. Could it potentially be hurtful? Of course, but I knew that if I wanted to get to the next step as a leader, I had to ask these questions. 75% of the staff came back and said that I was intimidating. What does that mean? Well, that my assessment of myself was not accurate and only then was I able to take a look in the mirror and then say, OK, if 75 people, 75% of the people say that I'm intimidating, guess what, it's a meat problem and I need to start changing that. And then I had to take steps towards working with that, you know. The nonverbal communication even more like smiling, right? I always had like the focus face on and that came across the wrong way. So you know, having brighter energy, all kinds. I used to wear a lot of black, you know, changing the colors that I wore. I had to make small shifts so that I didn't come across so close. That sounds like it was a very valuable exercise for you. That not easy but very very valuable. Yeah, and then, and then did you get an opportunity to resurvey people, or is that not part of the program, or could you just feel it? I did absolutely. So I was there for 4 years. Every year I did the anonymous survey, and every year the results got better and better and better. That's wonderful. So that's, so it's a step. It's a, you know, baby steps, a little progress, but starting with that, the risk, and you have to be ready for that change, it sounds like. So let's talk about what's pillar number 2. Pillar number 2, the foundational pillar is self-management. So, and, and I think that this is one of the most important, especially for, you know, the coaches and the business owners out there, is that You can be self-aware about something like you can know that you need to make change, right? Or you know that the ice cream is not good for your stomach, but self-management is you actually taking action to do something about it, right? So again, on a simple, in simple terms, maybe you know the ice cream is not good for your stomach, you're gonna eat it, it's gonna give you cramps. But you need it anyways, right? So like this is where the self management comes in and maybe you know that your business is struggling or maybe you know that your business isn't where you need it to be, but you don't have that self management to take action or the internal motivation, which is one of the competencies under this pillar to take action or to actually create a shift in a change and this is why. Self management is so important, especially now over the past 4 months with COVID we've seen a lot of struggles with self-management, right? Maybe co-workers or individuals that worked best in a corporate environment like in an office with people and now they're by themselves. It's like how do you build that self-management to continue to take action and have standards for yourself? Yeah, some people would call that discipline, but I think you're right. It's it's the ability to say, OK, here's, you know, here's what I know I should not be doing. Why do I keep doing it? How do I stop myself from doing it? And I'm sure there are good steps in the program for that. Let's move on to social awareness because it sounds like so far it sounds like a lot of pain so far, but a lot of great change. And the third is social awareness, right? Yeah, and I mean, the big thing is is that we can't change anything unless we start with ourselves, right? And that's why the two first pillars have to do with you, the self. And then the third and the fourth pillar, the third one being social awareness, this is now where we work with others, right? So this is again, social and organizational awareness. So how do you show up in a room? Are you able to walk into a meeting with a client and feel the energy, understand the value. Views of the company, the mission of the company, understand all of these things simply by having that organizational awareness, right? Are you able to stand up on stage if speakers out there and be able to adjust your talk instantly because you can feel that the room is not working, that maybe they're not resonating with your message. These, I mean, these are the things that I really learned as a performer, as I mentioned earlier, there'd be times when I would be on stage. Singing and there'd be zero reaction, meaning that like there was nothing happening or they would pick up their glass to drink. OK, so if I saw multiple people like drinking and, and eating cause I used to do dinner theaters as well, I knew that I wasn't captivating. I had to switch something really fast. So this is a part of that organizational awareness, as well as empathy, being able to put yourself in other people's shoes and understand their perspective. That sounds terrific. So, so having, having a game plan but being willing and ready to adapt that based on the needs of the people of your audience, of whoever that audience might be. Um, it sounds sounds like a very valuable skill to have. And what was the fourth pillar? And then the fourth one is the most important for all these leaders out there, all these incredible, you know, executives. If you have a team, this is relationship management. This is where coaching, mentorship, influence, uh, transformational change, leadership is all under this pillar. So do you have the ability to lead effectively? Do you have the ability To coach other individuals. Do you have the ability to influence and create transformation in other individuals? But again, if we don't have the first and the second pillar, it's gonna be really hard to do that at your full potential, right? It's gonna be hard to create transformation in other people or to coach other people if we can't do it for ourselves. That's really a great, great overview you've given us. So we talked about self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. See, listeners, I told you you needed to have a pen and a pad. I've been taking copious notes here, Neda. How long does it take someone on average, I would imagine it differs per individual, to go through this, this full, you know, these four pillars at least. It sounds like there's a lot more work after that too, but how long does this part take? Absolutely. So it takes about a minimum of 60 days to, to break the behavior, right? Or to shift the behavior into something that's positive. So, you know, you really want to get to work now and every single day you, you'll build a little bit more awareness and more management and then you'll be able to work with others better. And I'm telling you, I mean, you will see major results not only in yourself but in your business and the money that you make and the profits and the relationships. I mean, you will see major results. One of the challenges is though as you, as you mentioned is that people don't take that time. You've got to let that time, you've got to let that 60 days happen. You've got to keep working on it so that you can see the results which are going to be more sustainable and I know Bill, that you're all about sustainability and this is really it. This is a system that can help you with sustainability in your personal and professional growth. Yeah, it's really terrific. It sounds great. Now you have a live program coming up and tell our listeners about a little bit about that. Of course this show goes on, you know, on the internet, so it's, it's, so I imagine people can find out about a live program even if this one's gone by. But tell us about this upcoming live program. Yeah, thank you so much. So, you know, with working with all of our clients and we have B2B and B2C clients, OK, about 50% on each side, which is amazing. We've noticed that there's 3 things that people really need, including business owners, community of like-minded people, confidence, OK, and career strategy. And when these 3 things aren't happening simultaneously, it's really hard to continue to push yourself to that next level. And so we have something called the Rise It for You Success Club. It's completely free. It's live. It's not automated. It's a 5 week program. The next one starts in 2.5 weeks, so I really encourage everyone to jump in and we dive through these topics. We dive through emotional intelligence, confidence, leadership, how to present, how to stand on stage and like put your message out there in the world. All the things that are very, very important for executives, for business owners, entrepreneurs, you know, upcoming leaders. We teach these skills alive online via Zoom right now because of COVID, but it's very, very valuable and we have people from around the world. So you get to network with other professionals from the UK, from Ireland, from Canada, from the Middle East. So it's an amazing program. Last time we ran it, we Had 115 people enrolled in 2 days. Um, again it was incredible and we're reopening it again in 2 weeks so it's completely free if you're interested, uh, all you have to do is text Rise Up for you. That's the company Rise Up for you all, all together no space to the phone number 79-7979 and when you do that, the link will go directly to you. You can enroll and you'll be good to go. Now how long does each class last and how many classes are there? That's a great question. So it's 5 weeks. Each class is 30 to 60 minutes and there's 3 a week, OK? So, and, and we provide replays. We give you a whole entire school portal where all your materials will live. So if you have a meeting that day, if you can't come, you can go. Straight to the school and look at everything again for free. So it's, it's like I said it's a really valuable program so you get about 2 hours a week so we do 11 hour Zoom session that's live and then the two other sessions that we do are also live and that's in our Facebook group and those are 30 minutes each. What time of what are they all at the same starting time or are they all in a certain period of time during the day? Yeah, all at the same time for consistency's sake, so it's 9:30 a.m. Pacific time and again we provide all the replays for you as well. So you know we have people that are have maybe have a meeting at that time or an emergency happens and they just go straight into their portal and we put the recordings up within like 30 minutes. That's great. And so at the end of this 5 week program with again 3 per week, they should have a really good handle on making some progress on these areas and then maybe be ready to do some other additional work to really, really dig into seeing results, I would imagine, right? Absolutely, yes, it's so it's a total of 15 sessions and they're completely free. We're just giving, you know, the way the value, um, and then, you know, we go from there, you know, if you're ready to get to that next step, and we have testimonials and everything in that link that I sent you, so you can really hear from some of the professionals, you know, how they grew and how it helps them, and you, and you can watch the testimonial videos that we have and, and really understand the full program behind it. Really amazing. Great, great stuff. Well, I, I'm very, very impressed by your grasp of the of the content and again with your experience you've you've been in situations where you needed to have self-awareness and self-management, social awareness, and manage the relationships of your audiences. It's really a pleasure to have you on. I would love to have you on the show again sometime, and maybe we can go deeper into the topic. Um, but for now I want to really thank you for coming onto the show and look forward to the next time we speak. Thank you so much, Phil. Thank you, everyone. Glad to be here. Thank you again. Thank you for listening to Exit Coach Radio. This podcast is sponsored by TalkSpace. May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and TalkSpace, the leading virtual therapy provider, is telling everyone, let's face it, in therapy, by talking or texting with a supportive licensed therapist at TalkSpace, you can face whatever is holding you back, whether it's mental health symptoms, relationship drama, past trauma, bad habits, or another challenge that you need support to work through. It's easy to sign up. Just go to Talkspace.com and you'll be paired with a provider typically within 48 hours. And because you'll meet. Your therapist online, you don't have to take time off work or arrange childcare. You'll meet on your schedule. Plus, TalkSpace is in-network with most major insurers, and most insured members have a $0 co-pay. Make your mental health a priority and start today. If you're not covered by insurance, get $80 off your first month with TalkSpace when you go to Talkspace.com and enter promo code S space 80. That's SPA CE 80. To match with a licensed therapist today, go to Talkspace.com and enter promo code S80.