Erin [00:00:00]: And so what that was bringing up for me was this discernment between empathy feels to me like I’m giving to another person from myself. That would be the action component, piece of my heart. It’s a little piece of my personhood. Right. I’m going to sit with the woman at the hospital who’s crying in the waiting room. That’s empathy. Right. But the EQ for me is not as much the action as it is a sense of being in an awareness. A really keen awareness. Hey, it’s me, Erin. Thanks for joining us on the More Love podcast. Do not tell Rebecca, but this podcast is about empathy. She likes people to think she’s dead inside, but the truth is she’s a big time feeler who has truly helped me uncover that empathy is my superpower. Here she comes.
Rebecca [00:01:11]: Hey, bestie.
Erin [00:01:12]: Hi, love.
Rebecca [00:01:13]: What are you doing?
Erin [00:01:14]: Oh, just getting ready to host a podcast.
Rebecca [00:01:16]: A podcast about what?
Erin [00:01:19]: Life. Our life as best friends who are more like sisters. Ah, yay.
Rebecca [00:01:24]: I love us. And I can’t wait to share our.
Erin [00:01:26]: Stories with the world, especially the ones that involve us pushing each other. Right. To be our most authentic soaps.
Rebecca [00:01:33]: Oh, man. Okay.
Erin [00:01:41]: So they let us back on Brockport’s campus. They sure did, you guys. I don’t know how well or why.
Rebecca [00:01:47]: I don’t, to be fair. To be fair, they didn’t have a choice.
Scott [00:01:50]: Wait, were you banned from Brockport’s campus?
Erin [00:01:52]: No, no, we used to work there, and that’s how we met each other. Right? We met each other at Brockport’s campus, and my niece took a tour of Brockport, and I randomly decided on a whim, I wanted to get another tattoo. So I called Rebecca. I said, do you want to go get a tattoo? She’s like, yeah, sure. I said, you got to come with me on this tour of Brockport. And I. Next thing you know, we’re on a tour.
Rebecca [00:02:14]: We’re on the tour.
Erin [00:02:15]: We’re on the tour.
Rebecca [00:02:16]: It was the whole thing.
Erin [00:02:17]: We gave the tour.
Rebecca [00:02:18]: We didn’t.
Erin [00:02:19]: Couldn’t do it. It wasn’t available. I know we’ll do another day, but we gave the tour outside of the tour. Disappointing. Actually, this is quite hilarious because we’re sitting there listening to this person, you know, give information and stats on different things. And then Rebecca leans right in, and she was like, just wondering, are there any former resident directors on today’s tour that could maybe talk about the Res hall experience? And so that a couple seconds later, I leaned in and, like, we just kept recounting all the things. So you say.
Rebecca [00:02:57]: You say, is there anybody in the room that is the Marion Schrenk Leadership Award winner? And I go, is there anybody in the room who’s a current graduate professor? Is there anyone in the room who has both their undergraduate and graduate degree from this institution?
Erin [00:03:10]: Can anyone give us any information about any type of resource platform that will help students find resources easily and efficiently? Something called Eagle’s Care? Does anyone have any information about that here? Here at SUNY Brockport Liter, literally, we.
Rebecca [00:03:24]: Could pull out of our ass so many things. And so then we start on the tour, right? And then they get to the point and they’re like, tonight there’s going to be a program called Club Craze. And I go, erin, I invented that program. And I’m not even fucking around. I invented that program back in the day.
Erin [00:03:39]: I go, no, you didn’t.
Rebecca [00:03:40]: I said, yes, I did.
Erin [00:03:41]: I said, yes, I did.
Rebecca [00:03:42]: Yes, I did.
Erin [00:03:43]: Did you call it Club Craze? And you said, yeah, yeah, that’s what I need.
Rebecca [00:03:47]: I have my floppy disk with my. That was my graduate. That was my graduate internship final paper.
Erin [00:03:53]: Sounds right.
Rebecca [00:03:54]: Then we. Then we. And I go, do you see. Do you see this book about Brockport open to the last page? She opens, it’s my picture. Yep, there she is.
Erin [00:04:02]: There she is, right?
Rebecca [00:04:03]: There we go.
Erin [00:04:04]: We walk into Hartwell hall and she goes into this random ass classroom over here. Pulls up the plaque. She’s like, I’m not on here once. I’m on here twice.
Rebecca [00:04:13]: Anybody else on here twice? I go, not elite. Not elite. They called me Rebecca Christopher on one line. And then the second line, it’s Becky Christopher. Like it’s two different people. It’s not. It’s me. Then we get into. We get into something else. I mean, the list could go on, on and on and on.
Erin [00:04:27]: Started to go through. Oh, who was the resident director in this building? And then you took a picture for Jeremy. I died of Gordon Hall. Right.
Rebecca [00:04:34]: It didn’t come through, but I tried so hard.
Erin [00:04:36]: Who has their name? It says, aaron is a hottie on the back of Hartwell Hall. That’d be me. Okay? And so occasionally Sherry’s sister Terry will just randomly send me a picture of it and I’ll like, open my phone. And she’s like, this still cracks me up. Someone wrote it in something, but it’s covered, so it never gets washed away. And it just says, aaron is a hottie. It’s just from when I was president director. That shit’s hilarious.
Rebecca [00:05:04]: So funny.
Erin [00:05:04]: So we just, you know, did that.
Rebecca [00:05:06]: Oh.
Erin [00:05:07]: And then.
Rebecca [00:05:07]: Then we’re on the tour, and I’m like, who on this tour can say when they were an infant, they were in the res hall because her niece was.
Erin [00:05:13]: Yeah, right. Yeah, I know.
Rebecca [00:05:16]: Pretty much everybody’s looking at us like, why are you here?
Erin [00:05:19]: Yeah, why are you here?
Rebecca [00:05:21]: And then I would ask questions. I’d be like, excuse me, does the police still escort you at night?
Erin [00:05:25]: Oh, you did ask a question.
Rebecca [00:05:27]: Oh, I asked numerous questions. You were on the phone. I was on the phone most of the time, yeah.
Erin [00:05:30]: I’d say.
Rebecca [00:05:31]: And then I’d ask another question, and then I’d ask.
Erin [00:05:33]: This is just so stupid. See, they let us back.
Rebecca [00:05:36]: They let us back.
Erin [00:05:36]: It was such a.
Rebecca [00:05:37]: And then we have decided nostalgia.
Erin [00:05:38]: Now we’re going to do a more love tour of the Broadway campus, and we’re going to give you the real tour about what happens here. So we walked to the library. Rebecca’s like, oh, that’s the library. It never was there.
Rebecca [00:05:48]: No.
Erin [00:05:48]: Not once on this campus.
Rebecca [00:05:50]: Ten years. Never walked.
Erin [00:05:50]: Undergrad or grad experience.
Rebecca [00:05:55]: Did I have it? Did I manage the athletic facility and have a key, like a master key to the building? And would my friends and I go and skinny dip in the night? Absolutely.
Erin [00:06:04]: That’s good.
Rebecca [00:06:05]: At the pool.
Erin [00:06:05]: That’s good. Here’s my other favorite part. We get up to the Cirque center, and Rebecca turns to my brother and is like, oh, my ex fiance works here. But, you know, he won’t probably remember me. And I look at her and I’m like, what? What do you mean he won’t. He won’t remember me.
Rebecca [00:06:25]: He probably wouldn’t.
Erin [00:06:26]: I’m like, this man put a ring on your finger and was like, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But then, you know, you see him at the Cirque center, and he is like, hey, and what’s your name again? Blisco. Is this. I’m like, you’re an idiot. An absolute idiot.
Rebecca [00:06:45]: And then I turn to Erin and I say, you know, my daughter wants to go here, and she wants to, you know, be in the athletic program and this, that, and the other. It would be real weird. Real weird. Oh, yeah.
Erin [00:06:53]: Now she’s the intern if he. If she working for your ex fiance. But it’s. And I said, it’s okay. He won’t remember you anyway. She’ll be like, oh, Taylor, nice to meet you. You remind me of someone. I don’t know who, but it’s idiot. Oh, God. So awkward. All right, what hippie will you got for us today?
Rebecca [00:07:12]: The Seven of Cups.
Erin [00:07:13]: It’s about possibility, possibilities, possibilities. Hold on.
Rebecca [00:07:18]: I gotta put my readers on. All right, Seven of Cups. I wasn’t prepared. I wasn’t prepared.
Erin [00:07:23]: Oh, okay, wait. Seven.
Rebecca [00:07:25]: Here we go. Seven of Cups. There are many choices available to you now, but which one do you focus on? At this point, there are a few facts to help you decide. Only a raft of impressions. Danger lies in falling for fantasy, as you have no sense yet of what is real and what you’re idealizing because of the fires in your imagination. In creative projects, you may be awash with ideas. An additional meaning is dreams and visions. Remember what I told you my dream was last night?
Erin [00:07:52]: Yeah. Do you want to talk to people about that? Scott, Ask Rebecca what her dream was about last night.
Rebecca [00:07:58]: No, you can’t. I can’t say it on the public. The public era.
Erin [00:08:01]: She doesn’t have to go into detail, Scott, but ask her. Ask her what her detail was.
Rebecca [00:08:05]: It was lots of different sexual experiments with my husband that left me feeling very uncomfortable this morning. Guys, I. They all came floating back to me on the drive over here, and I legit felt certain things on my body that I did not like.
Scott [00:08:21]: Wait, this is just a dream or this is a remembrance of things?
Rebecca [00:08:27]: No, this was a dream.
Scott [00:08:28]: Oh, okay.
Rebecca [00:08:28]: This was a dream. I’m having a very vivid visualization right now that I’m very uncomfortable with.
Erin [00:08:33]: And then what did I say?
Rebecca [00:08:35]: You had a dream, too?
Erin [00:08:36]: I said, oh, I had a weird dream last night as well. You know what mine was? I killed my neighbor’s baby in a pool. Jesus.
Rebecca [00:08:43]: Yeah.
Erin [00:08:44]: Yeah.
Scott [00:08:44]: Psychomuch.
Rebecca [00:08:45]: Yeah.
Erin [00:08:46]: You’re not kidding. You’re not kidding. Like, it was so weird because in my mind, the baby was too hot, and so I took it in a.
Rebecca [00:08:57]: Pool, like a swimming pool, and the.
Erin [00:08:59]: Pool was too cold, which ultimately ended up killing the child. And I just had these, like. It was so weird. Like, little things that would pop up. Like, I wasn’t sure if I should call someone. I don’t know who, or 911. I couldn’t figure out who I was supposed to call. But in my mind, I’m like, of course you call 911. It was probably you. Do I call Rebecca or do I call 911? I got the answers. But in my mind, like, you had to call. I had to call 911. But before I did, I had to count on this gigantic, like, circle that had, like, one of those rings, one of those metal Rings. It had all of those little tiny hair bands you were just playing with a little while ago. It looks like. It looks like one of those things you put on your braces. When you have braces. Those. There was thousands and thousands of them. You had to count all those? I had to count them because I had to tell the person on the call what my code was. The 911 operator. So I was like, red, yellow, green, green, green, yellow, red, green. And I’m going through it and I just said out loud, do I have to keep going through this or can I talk to you about what is going on right now? It’s screwed up. Whatever’s happening in dreamland, you’re doing crazy ass sexual shit and I killed the neighbor’s baby. Like, that is not okay. Yeltsin.
Scott [00:10:16]: More love on the couch.
Rebecca [00:10:17]: That’s right.
Erin [00:10:18]: Next. Yeah, yeah, Freaking weird.
Scott [00:10:21]: Can go both ways, I guess.
Erin [00:10:22]: Oh, all right. What were you saying, though?
Scott [00:10:25]: What were we a totally different audience.
Rebecca [00:10:27]: For that podcast that’s busted by More.
Scott [00:10:30]: Love on the casting couch.
Erin [00:10:32]: Oh my God. This is also very random. I feel like you right now. I was at Dave and Buster’s last night eating chicken wings. And I thought to myself, do you think anyone on only fans would pay to watch me eat chicken wings?
Scott [00:10:43]: Oh, probably Darren fucking Tea.
Erin [00:10:45]: Really?
Scott [00:10:45]: Oh, yeah.
Erin [00:10:47]: Seriously. All I could do is order some chicken wings. Cause I got. See, I got my nails done. Can you see? These are hooker nails if I’ve ever seen them. They’re like stiletto massive hooker nails. Okay, So I want you to imagine my hooker nails clawing into the chicken. The chicken wing. And I thought, this is so gross. And it’s all up in my hooker nails and it’s all like all over my wherever. And so I thought to myself, could I make money off of this? I can’t. Could I make money off of this? Sometimes I use blue cheese. Sometimes I use ranch just to capture the audience.
Scott [00:11:21]: If you could eat the chicken wings with your feet.
Rebecca [00:11:23]: Ew.
Scott [00:11:24]: You can cover two genres of pizza.
Erin [00:11:26]: You don’t think that people would want to watch me eat chicken wings with my hooker nails?
Scott [00:11:31]: You know what? There’s an audience for everything.
Erin [00:11:33]: That’s what I think too.
Scott [00:11:34]: There may only be one guy, and.
Erin [00:11:36]: I love chicken wings.
Scott [00:11:37]: But he’ll pay.
Erin [00:11:37]: But he’ll pay. What’s the going rate? Does anyone know?
Rebecca [00:11:41]: No, I don’t know anything about only fans. Ew.
Erin [00:11:45]: I got a side gig.
Rebecca [00:11:47]: You better turn the comments off.
Erin [00:11:48]: How about no? Those are probably the comments I want to read.
Scott [00:11:52]: We Encourage people to join our supporters club.
Erin [00:11:54]: Oh, yeah, you could do that too. Please keep me from having to go out only fans and eat chicken wings.
Scott [00:11:58]: Yeah, it’s.
Rebecca [00:11:59]: It’s.
Scott [00:11:59]: It’s a. It’s a really good cause.
Rebecca [00:12:01]: Yeah.
Scott [00:12:01]: And it’s very cheap.
Erin [00:12:02]: Yeah. Yeah.
Scott [00:12:04]: To keep Aaron from.
Erin [00:12:06]: From having to go to the depths of chicken wing eating, I would use two different wings.
Scott [00:12:11]: So tell me more about the chicken wings, though. Are Dave and Buster’s wings good?
Erin [00:12:15]: They weren’t.
Scott [00:12:16]: It’s been a while since I’ve had.
Erin [00:12:17]: Since I’ve been together. I recommend Dave and Busters to eat their.
Scott [00:12:20]: Are they the breaded kind like Hooters, or are they just regular Buffalo wings?
Erin [00:12:23]: They are regular Buffalo wings, but we’re so. It was just Carter and I, and we’re sitting there, and the. This man reminds me so much of Hate me today.
Scott [00:12:38]: What the hell is that?
Rebecca [00:12:40]: That’s. That’s the story from my w. Wedding night.
Scott [00:12:44]: Oh, my God.
Erin [00:12:46]: So basically we’re gonna.
Rebecca [00:12:49]: Footage. Bonus footage.
Erin [00:12:53]: But that was him.
Rebecca [00:12:54]: So he went right back to that.
Erin [00:12:56]: I know he’s standing next to the table.
Rebecca [00:12:58]: It probably is him.
Erin [00:12:59]: And he’s like, hello.
Rebecca [00:13:01]: Stop. He was the waiter.
Erin [00:13:02]: Yeah, he was the waiter. He’s like, can I get you some drinks?
Rebecca [00:13:06]: A stop.
Erin [00:13:07]: So I said, yeah, I’ll have a water, please, Carter, what would you like? Carter orders a lemonade, right? I said, I actually think we’re ready to order now as well. He’s like, okay. So then we go to order. He takes our order, he walks away. And I’m like, a little test cardi out here. Cart, what did you think about that man’s personality? He goes, doesn’t seem like he likes his job a whole lot. I said, that’s great. Did you pick up on anything else? And you said, yeah. He doesn’t seem like he has much joy. I said, yeah, yeah, that’s great. And so how do we feel about him right now? And he said, well, I feel kind of bad because we can’t just ask him to up and quit his job, but he probably wants to do something different, but maybe this isn’t the right place for him to be. And I thought in that moment, yes, I’m nailing it. I’m nailing it with the. The acknowledgement of feelings and, like, he’s not. So, like, if he was like, yeah, he just took our order, I don’t know what the problem was. If he was not aware of that dynamic that was going on, I would be like, we gotta get him in even more counseling. Like, this is not okay. But the fact that he appropriately and accurately recognized what was going on now, he let it go. He didn’t give a shit. Right. I had to talk about it, but I was like, oh, thank God. He knows. He knows. So every time the guy would come back over, Carter would be extra nice to him. Just like, I think out of this, like, beautiful sense of, like, you hate your life, man. Like it’s. It’s not. That’s not great. It’s really sweet. See, I took us on a little tangent. I have no clue what we were talking about. Now I feel like you. This is a freaking free for all. It’s a free for all. What else do you want to talk about? You know, so random.
Rebecca [00:14:52]: I don’t remember how it started.
Erin [00:14:53]: Brockport. So anyway.
Rebecca [00:14:54]: Oh, our tour.
Erin [00:14:54]: Brockport. I gave a presentation at Brockport recently on EQ for leaders. And I think when people think about eq, they just think you’re aware of your feelings and the aware of the feelings of other people.
Rebecca [00:15:08]: No, I gotta do a timeout because Scott right now is frantically googling what EQ is.
Scott [00:15:13]: I’m not.
Rebecca [00:15:17]: What is it, Scott?
Scott [00:15:18]: I don’t know. Sorry. I was doing something technical, so I didn’t even hear what you said. I just heard. I mean, EQ is mean something different to me, I guess.
Rebecca [00:15:30]: Like what?
Scott [00:15:30]: Like equalization. Like the highs, the mids, the lows.
Erin [00:15:33]: I love that.
Rebecca [00:15:34]: All right.
Erin [00:15:35]: EQ stands for Emotional Intelligence.
Rebecca [00:15:39]: Thank you.
Scott [00:15:42]: Wouldn’t that be ei?
Erin [00:15:45]: Yeah, many people think that, except for the people who have eq. And then they just let it go.
Rebecca [00:15:52]: Okay, thank you for that clarification.
Erin [00:15:55]: Okay, you’re welcome. So EQ stands for Emotional Intelligence. EQ is something that can be adapted, whereas IQ is something that cannot. You as dumb as you born. You are right. Not when it comes to eq. Not when it comes to eq. So I was there talking about EQ and leadership. And it was so clear to me, just in doing this presentation that I was trying to present it in such a way that people would understand eq. And as I was going through that process, I thought, don’t tell them about eq, show them eq. Right.
Rebecca [00:16:38]: Okay.
Erin [00:16:39]: And so it was so clear to me as I was doing this presentation that my EQ is unaffin real off the charts. But I don’t remember that being something that was taught or encouraged or something that, you know, was built in me just kind of like I did that testing of Carter at Dave and Buster’s. And so I don’t know where it came from, but yet my whole being embodies this eq. So let me just give you a couple of examples of what I did. So the first thing I did was I had these stickers, and they were the kind of stickers that you use at a garage sale. The yellow, blue, green, and red. The circle circles that you put the.
Rebecca [00:17:21]: Price on, like 10 cents.
Erin [00:17:23]: Yes.
Rebecca [00:17:23]: $1.
Erin [00:17:23]: Right, right, right.
Rebecca [00:17:24]: Okay. Correct.
Erin [00:17:26]: 25 cents.
Rebecca [00:17:27]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Erin [00:17:28]: So I walked around the room, I shook hands with every person that was there, introduced myself, asked what their name was and like, their role, essentially. And then I said, what type of contributor are you in these types of presentations? I have a few options for you. Green is ask me every single question. I can’t wait to participate. I’m going to raise my hand. You’re going to have to tell me to shut up. At certain times, yellow means I’m going to participate selectively because I don’t always know, you know, if I want to participate or not. And red is like, please pretend I’m not here. I just want to be a fly on the wall. So I went around, asked people their preferences and got to learn something about them by I would take the sticker off and then I would put the sticker next to their name tag. And so you’re learning in that process about who these people are, who are your go tos, who are the people that just want to talk all the time? Who are the people that aren’t? Right. I learned that one guy played volleyball, was the athletic director. And I said, what was your sport of choice in college? And he said, oh, I played volleyball. And I said, I played volleyball too. What was your position? And he was like, oh, I was a setter. And I’m like, I was a setter. And so I said, I wonder, between the two of us, who was the better setter? Right. So that then just builds this awesome rapport, right immediately where, like, I think I kept coming back to that multiple times during the presentation.
Rebecca [00:18:59]: Right.
Erin [00:19:00]: So that was just one way. The second thing I did was when I got up there, I said, hello, my name is Dr. Erin Halligan Avery. It’s nice to meet you. Today we’re going to be talking about EQ and how EQ is used as an effective leadership skill to manage teams. I hear that all of you are from the division of enrollment management. So you’re engaging with each other. And you’re engaging. It was very nice. It was peppy, it was whatever. And so I Then say, if you could all please go around and like, just introduce yourself in the way that I just did. So they did that, right? And then I said, so who would be ready to move on to the next slide? And everybody raised their hand and I said, so what if I stopped the presentation here and said, let’s just strike that. Let’s just strike that entire intro. And instead. And what I did was I went and got out from behind the podium and I went and sat in a chair that was like facing all of them. And I said, I’d like to introduce myself to you. My name is Aaron. EQ has been something that’s been a part of my life for a really long time. And I didn’t realize until recently that it was exactly who makes me me. I’ve had so much EQ in a lot of my positions that it has helped me navigate crisis situations with death on campus or with student suicides or with really, really difficult topics. It’s the thing that’s helped me navigate certain friendships and to help people through really difficult times. And it’s the thing that I think makes me the best mom I can possibly be. It’s not my iq, it’s not my technical skills, it’s the fact that I can read a room and I can hold space for people. So then they sat there and I said, now introduce yourself to me like that from an EQ perspective. And the people who introduced themselves just, you felt so much more connected and engaged and like you knew who they were and why they were there. It was more than just their titles and their, you know, what they did on that campus, you know, and it just occurred to me as we continued throughout that presentation that this EQ is separate from empathy. Which then got me thinking, am I just calling empathy eq? And really, is this the. More Love the EQ Podcast. Because it’s essentially, yes, caring about other people’s experience. But this EQ is really a unique way of me being able to see people and understand people and engage in social settings in a way that is different than, for instance, that first way that we acknowledge. My name is Dr. Aaron Halligan Avery. I’m a professor. I own a business. This is what I do. Right? It’s that meaningful connection in a different way. What do you think about that? More Love the EQ Podcast.
Rebecca [00:21:51]: I think it’s real. I keep going back to circumstances is the wrong word. I’m a part of these. The quote unquote companies I work for operate from an EQ vantage point. So nobody Identifies when you introduce each other. I actually have zero idea about what these people do for a living. The only way I find out is when I have to find their contact information to reach out to them. We have like a master spreadsheet that just has basic information on it. That would be the only way I would find out. But having being in person and engaging with any of the people who participate in these groups from.
Erin [00:22:36]: No clue.
Rebecca [00:22:37]: No clue. The whole point of joining these groups is because we don’t want to be defined by our income, by our status in our companies, any of those things. So I’ve been so far out of that realm that you’re in that it seems almost foreign to me. So the idea of EQ is very real in my life. It’s the same idea of I’ve been working for Home and Remote for so many years that when Covid happened it was like a no brainer and I.
Erin [00:23:06]: Couldn’T just wait the same way the next.
Rebecca [00:23:08]: But I couldn’t understand why other people couldn’t get on board. It was so confusing to me.
Erin [00:23:12]: Right.
Rebecca [00:23:12]: Because I’m like, this is not hard.
Erin [00:23:14]: But what’s the difference between EQ and empathy?
Rebecca [00:23:17]: I don’t know.
Erin [00:23:17]: That’s a great question. I think there is a difference and I think what we’ve been referring to as empathy may just be a tremendous sense of eq. So when I.
Rebecca [00:23:30]: What is the definite. What is the actual definition of empathy? Scott, can you google that? What’s the Marianne Webster’s actual definition? Because that might help me have an opinion when I.
Erin [00:23:43]: When I think about. While you’re doing that. Scott, when I think about empathy, I think of it as a way that you are connecting with someone by being able to feel and resonate with what their experience is. So much so that it’s as if you’re living it alongside them and then can respond to them from that intense of a place.
Rebecca [00:24:17]: So then would it be true that in order to get there you have to have some level of IQ of EQ that you can get out of your own way or is it the opposite?
Erin [00:24:34]: Empathy is required for eq?
Rebecca [00:24:35]: I don’t know. That’s why I need to. I need the actual formal definition.
Scott [00:24:39]: Empathy, the action of understanding action, being aware of, being sensitive to and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts and experience of other. Of another.
Rebecca [00:24:51]: Okay, now can you do the definition of eq does that it specifically said action in empathy? Yes, it’s a verb.
Scott [00:25:02]: It’s a verb looking up emotional intelligence.
Rebecca [00:25:05]: Correct?
Erin [00:25:06]: Yes, yes.
Scott [00:25:07]: The ability to recognize Understand and deal skillfully with one’s own emotions and the emotions of others, as by regulating one’s emotions or by showing empathy and good judgment in social interactions.
Erin [00:25:20]: But here’s what felt different to me in this presentation. Me giving out the different colored dots. I did not identify that as a form of empathy. I identified that as a form of connection by using my emotional intelligence.
Rebecca [00:25:43]: Okay.
Erin [00:25:44]: Me introducing myself in a way that was more in tune with who I am as a whole person, as opposed to my titles and whatever else you might want to know about me didn’t strike me as an act of empathy. It was just me being me. But me being me is essentially embodying eq. Right. And so what that was bringing up for me was this discernment between empathy feels to me like I’m giving to another person from myself. That would be the action component piece of my heart. It’s a little piece of my personhood. Right. I’m gonna sit with the woman at the hospital who’s crying in the waiting room. That’s empathy. Right. But the EQ for me is not as much the action as it is a sense of being in an awareness, a really keen awareness that, for instance, when we’re walking around Brockport and on that tour, my EQ is aware that you and I are really enjoying our tour around Brockport. But I’m so keenly aware that this isn’t also about us. That’s right. This is about the people that are on the tour.
Rebecca [00:27:14]: That’s right. That’s why we’re in the back. We’re just talking to each other quietly. Not enough to distract what’s going on.
Erin [00:27:20]: Right. But then I’m also aware we’re not as with the group as the other people are, that I have a keen awareness to that. Then I’m aware that I’m there to support my niece. And so I’m trying to figure out, where does she fall? Does she like this? Does she not? Does she have any questions? Right. And so it’s like this social awareness around me at all times, when you probably picked up on this, too. When we were standing outside of Perry hall and they were talking about, you know, the dining hall and all or whatever, there was a man that walked by with shorts on.
Rebecca [00:27:53]: Yes.
Erin [00:27:53]: And he looked over and he had a smirk on his face. Did you remember this? We never talked about this until this moment. He had a smirk on his face and he had his earphones on. And I felt in that moment like he wanted to sabotage the tour in some way. Shape or form. It was right after the election by likely saying something election focused.
Rebecca [00:28:14]: Oh, you mean like the guy who yelled across the train tracks when we were entering the building and said, if any of you voted for Hillary Clinton, turn around now, don’t walk in or something. And we’re all like, anyone who walks.
Erin [00:28:25]: Into that building voted for Hillary Clinton. Is what he said weird?
Rebecca [00:28:29]: We’re like, like, I’m very confused.
Erin [00:28:31]: Right? But that man, when he walked past, I was aware he was either having some type of conversation in his head or whatever, but that had nothing to do with anything we were doing. Right. But that, again, social awareness of what’s happening is this, like, keen sense of, I’m aware of the dynamics that are at play around me all the time. And I’m going to blend in, connect, bring together all of that energy in such a way that it’s harmonious and peaceful. Right. Those are the differences for me between empathy and eq, which then brought me right back to this podcast and really go, Aaron has so much empathy. Aaron has so much empathy. The empathy is the part that becomes problematic to me because my EQ pushes me into situations where I become more connected with people. And then instead of just being able to leave that at that line, I then feel I have to go that next level to inflict empathy in this person’s life. And then before you know it, I’m best friends with this person that I met at a coffee shop.
Rebecca [00:29:36]: So funny. You’re triggering me to think back to when the hurricane happened, okay. And how I follow all these people on social media and a lot of them are Southerners or whatever, and the amount of people who live in those areas who may not have personally been affected, but their community was and couldn’t read the room and were posting things on the Internet that the comments were like, wow, you are next level. You have zero empathy. You could care less. You are like, yeah, I’m winning, I’m winning. So I’m going to keep moving forward when your next door neighbor now has nothing. Instead, you could have used your power or influence or whatever to maybe go out into the community and help and support. Whether you want to or not. It doesn’t matter. It’s bigger than that. I think back to your experiences when there were situations on campuses and you being in a powerful role and a higher up role, watching even the people above you do things where they’re not reading the room, they’re sending emails. That’s like, wow, you missed everything possible that you could have possibly missed because in your mind, we just need to move forward. Move forward.
Erin [00:30:50]: We’re not going to recognize wrong questions, right? Yeah.
Rebecca [00:30:54]: Right. Now, can some people go to the extreme and focus too heavily on the minorities or the people? Minorities probably are the wrong word. Please don’t hear that in a negative way. Like I’m speaking to a specific group of people. I’m talking about when a situation happens but only a handful out of the gigantic group are affected, the person in charge goes the opposite and completely ignores the vast majority of people and everything’s focused on this small group and it makes zero sense. That is also frustrating.
Erin [00:31:28]: Yeah. So yeah, that’s. Those are really good examples. I hadn’t thought about that. But how much damage can be done if someone does not have eq? More so than if someone doesn’t have empathy in those leadership positions. Because what we needed during that massive time when I was on that college campus and we experienced more tragedy in a year and a half than I’ve experienced in my entire life and probably will ever experience again or even Covid. It wasn’t my empathy, it wasn’t my care for these families of what had happened. Certainly that was alive and well. But it wasn’t that that moved the group. It was eq. It was the fact that when I was in the bunker, you know, trying to figure out what we needed to do to solve the situation, that I immediately had purchased something called column all credits that I could then send a text message or that my group wanted to hear my voice. So I would say, hey everyone, I’m here in the crisis area. We’re having this conversation right now. This is what’s going on. I’ll have a more of an update to you soon. Right. And then it could just blast it to all of their phones so that they all got the same message at exactly the same time. It wasn’t. I told this person who told this person who told this person that’s eq. Recognizing that everyone’s in this terrible situation and they want to hear my voice, they don’t want to get a text message from me because they’re going to be able to interpret that as how she doing? Is she not okay? The fact that when I went and got called at 6:30 in the morning to tend to that situation, the very first thing I did was go to Dunkin Donuts and I bought out every single bagel donut malt, those big ass boxes of coffee. Right. And that that turned into. When we were debriefing one of the most prominent things that could have been done in that moment because everyone else just got up and raced to the event to try and help figure it out. That wasn’t in my mind an act of empathy. Yes. I cared about the people who were doing the caretaking. That was a moment where my EQ thought to itself, you’re going to be in a room for a very long time. This is going to be a really long day. And it’s 6:00 in the morning. People probably aren’t thinking to eat on their way, take a moment and stop and get the stuff from Dunkin Donuts. Right. It’s those aspects of EQ that change people’s experiences drastically. And so it’s blowing my mind a little bit. When we talk about empathy, it may be not that people lack empathy. Maybe people have a tremendous amount of empathy or are like you and have to shut that down because they don’t know what to do with it. Maybe people are lacking eq.
Rebecca [00:34:20]: Mm, mm. Because EQ is more or less a vehicle on how you get.
Erin [00:34:27]: Empathy will come naturally when EQ is present. Right?
Rebecca [00:34:32]: Yes.
Erin [00:34:33]: And empathy is an internal state that I would really like to think people are born with in some way, shape or form.
Rebecca [00:34:41]: I mean, such a red siren going off in my head. But the election results for me, it had to be. I mean, I have so much EQ when it comes to that, that it’s not about me, it’s not about you, it’s not about anything. It’s about. I fully recognize there are a group of people in this country who are having some very significant feelings and it didn’t matter what the outcome was, that was going to happen regardless and to be mindful and careful with that. Yeah, that’s really important to me.
Erin [00:35:13]: And where you see that EQ breakdown is when people are fighting about why this and why that, and you did this and you did that. And I hope you’re happy with this and I hope you’re happy with that. Right. That we do this tit for tat, which is not something that people with EQ do. You know what people with EQ do listen or realize. Social media isn’t the place where these conversations are going to be had in a beneficial way. No.
Rebecca [00:35:43]: Right.
Erin [00:35:44]: And so it’s just a little life altering for me that I went and I gave this presentation and I’ve really hung on eq. But what was important to me about giving the presentation was I didn’t need to create PowerPoint slides. I could have done the entire presentation just on being me and going in there and talking to a group of people about why this matters, and that’s effing awesome.
Rebecca [00:36:10]: But again, it goes back to when I was working at a college and I was doing leadership workshops. And my fundamental theme was, all I need to know in life is what I learned in kindergarten. Because at the end of the day, it’s those simplistic messages that get completely bombarded and compounded and diluted over time. Experience, et cetera. But at the end of the day, if you go back to basics and you operate out of that, what do you get?
Erin [00:36:38]: Yeah. So how far away we get with that?
Rebecca [00:36:41]: Yeah.
Erin [00:36:41]: From that. Well, let’s see if our cards align. I know that my deepest desires are the pathways toward my dreams. I’m going where it feels right.
Rebecca [00:36:56]: Hashtag, nailed it. I loved that.
Erin [00:36:58]: Me, too. Isn’t empathy amazing?
Rebecca [00:37:01]: Well, we’re amazing. I don’t know about all this empathy stuff.
Erin [00:37:05]: That’s fine. I accept you wherever you are. Oh, God, I love you.
Rebecca [00:37:11]: I love you, too.
Erin [00:37:12]: And if you love us, please like and subscribe to more Love the Power of Empathy podcast. Wherever you get your podcasts.
Rebecca [00:37:20]: See you next time.
Rebecca [00:01:11]: Hey, bestie.
Erin [00:01:12]: Hi, love.
Rebecca [00:01:13]: What are you doing?
Erin [00:01:14]: Oh, just getting ready to host a podcast.
Rebecca [00:01:16]: A podcast about what?
Erin [00:01:19]: Life. Our life as best friends who are more like sisters. Ah, yay.
Rebecca [00:01:24]: I love us. And I can’t wait to share our.
Erin [00:01:26]: Stories with the world, especially the ones that involve us pushing each other. Right. To be our most authentic soaps.
Rebecca [00:01:33]: Oh, man. Okay.
Erin [00:01:41]: So they let us back on Brockport’s campus. They sure did, you guys. I don’t know how well or why.
Rebecca [00:01:47]: I don’t, to be fair. To be fair, they didn’t have a choice.
Scott [00:01:50]: Wait, were you banned from Brockport’s campus?
Erin [00:01:52]: No, no, we used to work there, and that’s how we met each other. Right? We met each other at Brockport’s campus, and my niece took a tour of Brockport, and I randomly decided on a whim, I wanted to get another tattoo. So I called Rebecca. I said, do you want to go get a tattoo? She’s like, yeah, sure. I said, you got to come with me on this tour of Brockport. And I. Next thing you know, we’re on a tour.
Rebecca [00:02:14]: We’re on the tour.
Erin [00:02:15]: We’re on the tour.
Rebecca [00:02:16]: It was the whole thing.
Erin [00:02:17]: We gave the tour.
Rebecca [00:02:18]: We didn’t.
Erin [00:02:19]: Couldn’t do it. It wasn’t available. I know we’ll do another day, but we gave the tour outside of the tour. Disappointing. Actually, this is quite hilarious because we’re sitting there listening to this person, you know, give information and stats on different things. And then Rebecca leans right in, and she was like, just wondering, are there any former resident directors on today’s tour that could maybe talk about the Res hall experience? And so that a couple seconds later, I leaned in and, like, we just kept recounting all the things. So you say.
Rebecca [00:02:57]: You say, is there anybody in the room that is the Marion Schrenk Leadership Award winner? And I go, is there anybody in the room who’s a current graduate professor? Is there anyone in the room who has both their undergraduate and graduate degree from this institution?
Erin [00:03:10]: Can anyone give us any information about any type of resource platform that will help students find resources easily and efficiently? Something called Eagle’s Care? Does anyone have any information about that here? Here at SUNY Brockport Liter, literally, we.
Rebecca [00:03:24]: Could pull out of our ass so many things. And so then we start on the tour, right? And then they get to the point and they’re like, tonight there’s going to be a program called Club Craze. And I go, erin, I invented that program. And I’m not even fucking around. I invented that program back in the day.
Erin [00:03:39]: I go, no, you didn’t.
Rebecca [00:03:40]: I said, yes, I did.
Erin [00:03:41]: I said, yes, I did.
Rebecca [00:03:42]: Yes, I did.
Erin [00:03:43]: Did you call it Club Craze? And you said, yeah, yeah, that’s what I need.
Rebecca [00:03:47]: I have my floppy disk with my. That was my graduate. That was my graduate internship final paper.
Erin [00:03:53]: Sounds right.
Rebecca [00:03:54]: Then we. Then we. And I go, do you see. Do you see this book about Brockport open to the last page? She opens, it’s my picture. Yep, there she is.
Erin [00:04:02]: There she is, right?
Rebecca [00:04:03]: There we go.
Erin [00:04:04]: We walk into Hartwell hall and she goes into this random ass classroom over here. Pulls up the plaque. She’s like, I’m not on here once. I’m on here twice.
Rebecca [00:04:13]: Anybody else on here twice? I go, not elite. Not elite. They called me Rebecca Christopher on one line. And then the second line, it’s Becky Christopher. Like it’s two different people. It’s not. It’s me. Then we get into. We get into something else. I mean, the list could go on, on and on and on.
Erin [00:04:27]: Started to go through. Oh, who was the resident director in this building? And then you took a picture for Jeremy. I died of Gordon Hall. Right.
Rebecca [00:04:34]: It didn’t come through, but I tried so hard.
Erin [00:04:36]: Who has their name? It says, aaron is a hottie on the back of Hartwell Hall. That’d be me. Okay? And so occasionally Sherry’s sister Terry will just randomly send me a picture of it and I’ll like, open my phone. And she’s like, this still cracks me up. Someone wrote it in something, but it’s covered, so it never gets washed away. And it just says, aaron is a hottie. It’s just from when I was president director. That shit’s hilarious.
Rebecca [00:05:04]: So funny.
Erin [00:05:04]: So we just, you know, did that.
Rebecca [00:05:06]: Oh.
Erin [00:05:07]: And then.
Rebecca [00:05:07]: Then we’re on the tour, and I’m like, who on this tour can say when they were an infant, they were in the res hall because her niece was.
Erin [00:05:13]: Yeah, right. Yeah, I know.
Rebecca [00:05:16]: Pretty much everybody’s looking at us like, why are you here?
Erin [00:05:19]: Yeah, why are you here?
Rebecca [00:05:21]: And then I would ask questions. I’d be like, excuse me, does the police still escort you at night?
Erin [00:05:25]: Oh, you did ask a question.
Rebecca [00:05:27]: Oh, I asked numerous questions. You were on the phone. I was on the phone most of the time, yeah.
Erin [00:05:30]: I’d say.
Rebecca [00:05:31]: And then I’d ask another question, and then I’d ask.
Erin [00:05:33]: This is just so stupid. See, they let us back.
Rebecca [00:05:36]: They let us back.
Erin [00:05:36]: It was such a.
Rebecca [00:05:37]: And then we have decided nostalgia.
Erin [00:05:38]: Now we’re going to do a more love tour of the Broadway campus, and we’re going to give you the real tour about what happens here. So we walked to the library. Rebecca’s like, oh, that’s the library. It never was there.
Rebecca [00:05:48]: No.
Erin [00:05:48]: Not once on this campus.
Rebecca [00:05:50]: Ten years. Never walked.
Erin [00:05:50]: Undergrad or grad experience.
Rebecca [00:05:55]: Did I have it? Did I manage the athletic facility and have a key, like a master key to the building? And would my friends and I go and skinny dip in the night? Absolutely.
Erin [00:06:04]: That’s good.
Rebecca [00:06:05]: At the pool.
Erin [00:06:05]: That’s good. Here’s my other favorite part. We get up to the Cirque center, and Rebecca turns to my brother and is like, oh, my ex fiance works here. But, you know, he won’t probably remember me. And I look at her and I’m like, what? What do you mean he won’t. He won’t remember me.
Rebecca [00:06:25]: He probably wouldn’t.
Erin [00:06:26]: I’m like, this man put a ring on your finger and was like, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. But then, you know, you see him at the Cirque center, and he is like, hey, and what’s your name again? Blisco. Is this. I’m like, you’re an idiot. An absolute idiot.
Rebecca [00:06:45]: And then I turn to Erin and I say, you know, my daughter wants to go here, and she wants to, you know, be in the athletic program and this, that, and the other. It would be real weird. Real weird. Oh, yeah.
Erin [00:06:53]: Now she’s the intern if he. If she working for your ex fiance. But it’s. And I said, it’s okay. He won’t remember you anyway. She’ll be like, oh, Taylor, nice to meet you. You remind me of someone. I don’t know who, but it’s idiot. Oh, God. So awkward. All right, what hippie will you got for us today?
Rebecca [00:07:12]: The Seven of Cups.
Erin [00:07:13]: It’s about possibility, possibilities, possibilities. Hold on.
Rebecca [00:07:18]: I gotta put my readers on. All right, Seven of Cups. I wasn’t prepared. I wasn’t prepared.
Erin [00:07:23]: Oh, okay, wait. Seven.
Rebecca [00:07:25]: Here we go. Seven of Cups. There are many choices available to you now, but which one do you focus on? At this point, there are a few facts to help you decide. Only a raft of impressions. Danger lies in falling for fantasy, as you have no sense yet of what is real and what you’re idealizing because of the fires in your imagination. In creative projects, you may be awash with ideas. An additional meaning is dreams and visions. Remember what I told you my dream was last night?
Erin [00:07:52]: Yeah. Do you want to talk to people about that? Scott, Ask Rebecca what her dream was about last night.
Rebecca [00:07:58]: No, you can’t. I can’t say it on the public. The public era.
Erin [00:08:01]: She doesn’t have to go into detail, Scott, but ask her. Ask her what her detail was.
Rebecca [00:08:05]: It was lots of different sexual experiments with my husband that left me feeling very uncomfortable this morning. Guys, I. They all came floating back to me on the drive over here, and I legit felt certain things on my body that I did not like.
Scott [00:08:21]: Wait, this is just a dream or this is a remembrance of things?
Rebecca [00:08:27]: No, this was a dream.
Scott [00:08:28]: Oh, okay.
Rebecca [00:08:28]: This was a dream. I’m having a very vivid visualization right now that I’m very uncomfortable with.
Erin [00:08:33]: And then what did I say?
Rebecca [00:08:35]: You had a dream, too?
Erin [00:08:36]: I said, oh, I had a weird dream last night as well. You know what mine was? I killed my neighbor’s baby in a pool. Jesus.
Rebecca [00:08:43]: Yeah.
Erin [00:08:44]: Yeah.
Scott [00:08:44]: Psychomuch.
Rebecca [00:08:45]: Yeah.
Erin [00:08:46]: You’re not kidding. You’re not kidding. Like, it was so weird because in my mind, the baby was too hot, and so I took it in a.
Rebecca [00:08:57]: Pool, like a swimming pool, and the.
Erin [00:08:59]: Pool was too cold, which ultimately ended up killing the child. And I just had these, like. It was so weird. Like, little things that would pop up. Like, I wasn’t sure if I should call someone. I don’t know who, or 911. I couldn’t figure out who I was supposed to call. But in my mind, I’m like, of course you call 911. It was probably you. Do I call Rebecca or do I call 911? I got the answers. But in my mind, like, you had to call. I had to call 911. But before I did, I had to count on this gigantic, like, circle that had, like, one of those rings, one of those metal Rings. It had all of those little tiny hair bands you were just playing with a little while ago. It looks like. It looks like one of those things you put on your braces. When you have braces. Those. There was thousands and thousands of them. You had to count all those? I had to count them because I had to tell the person on the call what my code was. The 911 operator. So I was like, red, yellow, green, green, green, yellow, red, green. And I’m going through it and I just said out loud, do I have to keep going through this or can I talk to you about what is going on right now? It’s screwed up. Whatever’s happening in dreamland, you’re doing crazy ass sexual shit and I killed the neighbor’s baby. Like, that is not okay. Yeltsin.
Scott [00:10:16]: More love on the couch.
Rebecca [00:10:17]: That’s right.
Erin [00:10:18]: Next. Yeah, yeah, Freaking weird.
Scott [00:10:21]: Can go both ways, I guess.
Erin [00:10:22]: Oh, all right. What were you saying, though?
Scott [00:10:25]: What were we a totally different audience.
Rebecca [00:10:27]: For that podcast that’s busted by More.
Scott [00:10:30]: Love on the casting couch.
Erin [00:10:32]: Oh my God. This is also very random. I feel like you right now. I was at Dave and Buster’s last night eating chicken wings. And I thought to myself, do you think anyone on only fans would pay to watch me eat chicken wings?
Scott [00:10:43]: Oh, probably Darren fucking Tea.
Erin [00:10:45]: Really?
Scott [00:10:45]: Oh, yeah.
Erin [00:10:47]: Seriously. All I could do is order some chicken wings. Cause I got. See, I got my nails done. Can you see? These are hooker nails if I’ve ever seen them. They’re like stiletto massive hooker nails. Okay, So I want you to imagine my hooker nails clawing into the chicken. The chicken wing. And I thought, this is so gross. And it’s all up in my hooker nails and it’s all like all over my wherever. And so I thought to myself, could I make money off of this? I can’t. Could I make money off of this? Sometimes I use blue cheese. Sometimes I use ranch just to capture the audience.
Scott [00:11:21]: If you could eat the chicken wings with your feet.
Rebecca [00:11:23]: Ew.
Scott [00:11:24]: You can cover two genres of pizza.
Erin [00:11:26]: You don’t think that people would want to watch me eat chicken wings with my hooker nails?
Scott [00:11:31]: You know what? There’s an audience for everything.
Erin [00:11:33]: That’s what I think too.
Scott [00:11:34]: There may only be one guy, and.
Erin [00:11:36]: I love chicken wings.
Scott [00:11:37]: But he’ll pay.
Erin [00:11:37]: But he’ll pay. What’s the going rate? Does anyone know?
Rebecca [00:11:41]: No, I don’t know anything about only fans. Ew.
Erin [00:11:45]: I got a side gig.
Rebecca [00:11:47]: You better turn the comments off.
Erin [00:11:48]: How about no? Those are probably the comments I want to read.
Scott [00:11:52]: We Encourage people to join our supporters club.
Erin [00:11:54]: Oh, yeah, you could do that too. Please keep me from having to go out only fans and eat chicken wings.
Scott [00:11:58]: Yeah, it’s.
Rebecca [00:11:59]: It’s.
Scott [00:11:59]: It’s a. It’s a really good cause.
Rebecca [00:12:01]: Yeah.
Scott [00:12:01]: And it’s very cheap.
Erin [00:12:02]: Yeah. Yeah.
Scott [00:12:04]: To keep Aaron from.
Erin [00:12:06]: From having to go to the depths of chicken wing eating, I would use two different wings.
Scott [00:12:11]: So tell me more about the chicken wings, though. Are Dave and Buster’s wings good?
Erin [00:12:15]: They weren’t.
Scott [00:12:16]: It’s been a while since I’ve had.
Erin [00:12:17]: Since I’ve been together. I recommend Dave and Busters to eat their.
Scott [00:12:20]: Are they the breaded kind like Hooters, or are they just regular Buffalo wings?
Erin [00:12:23]: They are regular Buffalo wings, but we’re so. It was just Carter and I, and we’re sitting there, and the. This man reminds me so much of Hate me today.
Scott [00:12:38]: What the hell is that?
Rebecca [00:12:40]: That’s. That’s the story from my w. Wedding night.
Scott [00:12:44]: Oh, my God.
Erin [00:12:46]: So basically we’re gonna.
Rebecca [00:12:49]: Footage. Bonus footage.
Erin [00:12:53]: But that was him.
Rebecca [00:12:54]: So he went right back to that.
Erin [00:12:56]: I know he’s standing next to the table.
Rebecca [00:12:58]: It probably is him.
Erin [00:12:59]: And he’s like, hello.
Rebecca [00:13:01]: Stop. He was the waiter.
Erin [00:13:02]: Yeah, he was the waiter. He’s like, can I get you some drinks?
Rebecca [00:13:06]: A stop.
Erin [00:13:07]: So I said, yeah, I’ll have a water, please, Carter, what would you like? Carter orders a lemonade, right? I said, I actually think we’re ready to order now as well. He’s like, okay. So then we go to order. He takes our order, he walks away. And I’m like, a little test cardi out here. Cart, what did you think about that man’s personality? He goes, doesn’t seem like he likes his job a whole lot. I said, that’s great. Did you pick up on anything else? And you said, yeah. He doesn’t seem like he has much joy. I said, yeah, yeah, that’s great. And so how do we feel about him right now? And he said, well, I feel kind of bad because we can’t just ask him to up and quit his job, but he probably wants to do something different, but maybe this isn’t the right place for him to be. And I thought in that moment, yes, I’m nailing it. I’m nailing it with the. The acknowledgement of feelings and, like, he’s not. So, like, if he was like, yeah, he just took our order, I don’t know what the problem was. If he was not aware of that dynamic that was going on, I would be like, we gotta get him in even more counseling. Like, this is not okay. But the fact that he appropriately and accurately recognized what was going on now, he let it go. He didn’t give a shit. Right. I had to talk about it, but I was like, oh, thank God. He knows. He knows. So every time the guy would come back over, Carter would be extra nice to him. Just like, I think out of this, like, beautiful sense of, like, you hate your life, man. Like it’s. It’s not. That’s not great. It’s really sweet. See, I took us on a little tangent. I have no clue what we were talking about. Now I feel like you. This is a freaking free for all. It’s a free for all. What else do you want to talk about? You know, so random.
Rebecca [00:14:52]: I don’t remember how it started.
Erin [00:14:53]: Brockport. So anyway.
Rebecca [00:14:54]: Oh, our tour.
Erin [00:14:54]: Brockport. I gave a presentation at Brockport recently on EQ for leaders. And I think when people think about eq, they just think you’re aware of your feelings and the aware of the feelings of other people.
Rebecca [00:15:08]: No, I gotta do a timeout because Scott right now is frantically googling what EQ is.
Scott [00:15:13]: I’m not.
Rebecca [00:15:17]: What is it, Scott?
Scott [00:15:18]: I don’t know. Sorry. I was doing something technical, so I didn’t even hear what you said. I just heard. I mean, EQ is mean something different to me, I guess.
Rebecca [00:15:30]: Like what?
Scott [00:15:30]: Like equalization. Like the highs, the mids, the lows.
Erin [00:15:33]: I love that.
Rebecca [00:15:34]: All right.
Erin [00:15:35]: EQ stands for Emotional Intelligence.
Rebecca [00:15:39]: Thank you.
Scott [00:15:42]: Wouldn’t that be ei?
Erin [00:15:45]: Yeah, many people think that, except for the people who have eq. And then they just let it go.
Rebecca [00:15:52]: Okay, thank you for that clarification.
Erin [00:15:55]: Okay, you’re welcome. So EQ stands for Emotional Intelligence. EQ is something that can be adapted, whereas IQ is something that cannot. You as dumb as you born. You are right. Not when it comes to eq. Not when it comes to eq. So I was there talking about EQ and leadership. And it was so clear to me, just in doing this presentation that I was trying to present it in such a way that people would understand eq. And as I was going through that process, I thought, don’t tell them about eq, show them eq. Right.
Rebecca [00:16:38]: Okay.
Erin [00:16:39]: And so it was so clear to me as I was doing this presentation that my EQ is unaffin real off the charts. But I don’t remember that being something that was taught or encouraged or something that, you know, was built in me just kind of like I did that testing of Carter at Dave and Buster’s. And so I don’t know where it came from, but yet my whole being embodies this eq. So let me just give you a couple of examples of what I did. So the first thing I did was I had these stickers, and they were the kind of stickers that you use at a garage sale. The yellow, blue, green, and red. The circle circles that you put the.
Rebecca [00:17:21]: Price on, like 10 cents.
Erin [00:17:23]: Yes.
Rebecca [00:17:23]: $1.
Erin [00:17:23]: Right, right, right.
Rebecca [00:17:24]: Okay. Correct.
Erin [00:17:26]: 25 cents.
Rebecca [00:17:27]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Erin [00:17:28]: So I walked around the room, I shook hands with every person that was there, introduced myself, asked what their name was and like, their role, essentially. And then I said, what type of contributor are you in these types of presentations? I have a few options for you. Green is ask me every single question. I can’t wait to participate. I’m going to raise my hand. You’re going to have to tell me to shut up. At certain times, yellow means I’m going to participate selectively because I don’t always know, you know, if I want to participate or not. And red is like, please pretend I’m not here. I just want to be a fly on the wall. So I went around, asked people their preferences and got to learn something about them by I would take the sticker off and then I would put the sticker next to their name tag. And so you’re learning in that process about who these people are, who are your go tos, who are the people that just want to talk all the time? Who are the people that aren’t? Right. I learned that one guy played volleyball, was the athletic director. And I said, what was your sport of choice in college? And he said, oh, I played volleyball. And I said, I played volleyball too. What was your position? And he was like, oh, I was a setter. And I’m like, I was a setter. And so I said, I wonder, between the two of us, who was the better setter? Right. So that then just builds this awesome rapport, right immediately where, like, I think I kept coming back to that multiple times during the presentation.
Rebecca [00:18:59]: Right.
Erin [00:19:00]: So that was just one way. The second thing I did was when I got up there, I said, hello, my name is Dr. Erin Halligan Avery. It’s nice to meet you. Today we’re going to be talking about EQ and how EQ is used as an effective leadership skill to manage teams. I hear that all of you are from the division of enrollment management. So you’re engaging with each other. And you’re engaging. It was very nice. It was peppy, it was whatever. And so I Then say, if you could all please go around and like, just introduce yourself in the way that I just did. So they did that, right? And then I said, so who would be ready to move on to the next slide? And everybody raised their hand and I said, so what if I stopped the presentation here and said, let’s just strike that. Let’s just strike that entire intro. And instead. And what I did was I went and got out from behind the podium and I went and sat in a chair that was like facing all of them. And I said, I’d like to introduce myself to you. My name is Aaron. EQ has been something that’s been a part of my life for a really long time. And I didn’t realize until recently that it was exactly who makes me me. I’ve had so much EQ in a lot of my positions that it has helped me navigate crisis situations with death on campus or with student suicides or with really, really difficult topics. It’s the thing that’s helped me navigate certain friendships and to help people through really difficult times. And it’s the thing that I think makes me the best mom I can possibly be. It’s not my iq, it’s not my technical skills, it’s the fact that I can read a room and I can hold space for people. So then they sat there and I said, now introduce yourself to me like that from an EQ perspective. And the people who introduced themselves just, you felt so much more connected and engaged and like you knew who they were and why they were there. It was more than just their titles and their, you know, what they did on that campus, you know, and it just occurred to me as we continued throughout that presentation that this EQ is separate from empathy. Which then got me thinking, am I just calling empathy eq? And really, is this the. More Love the EQ Podcast. Because it’s essentially, yes, caring about other people’s experience. But this EQ is really a unique way of me being able to see people and understand people and engage in social settings in a way that is different than, for instance, that first way that we acknowledge. My name is Dr. Aaron Halligan Avery. I’m a professor. I own a business. This is what I do. Right? It’s that meaningful connection in a different way. What do you think about that? More Love the EQ Podcast.
Rebecca [00:21:51]: I think it’s real. I keep going back to circumstances is the wrong word. I’m a part of these. The quote unquote companies I work for operate from an EQ vantage point. So nobody Identifies when you introduce each other. I actually have zero idea about what these people do for a living. The only way I find out is when I have to find their contact information to reach out to them. We have like a master spreadsheet that just has basic information on it. That would be the only way I would find out. But having being in person and engaging with any of the people who participate in these groups from.
Erin [00:22:36]: No clue.
Rebecca [00:22:37]: No clue. The whole point of joining these groups is because we don’t want to be defined by our income, by our status in our companies, any of those things. So I’ve been so far out of that realm that you’re in that it seems almost foreign to me. So the idea of EQ is very real in my life. It’s the same idea of I’ve been working for Home and Remote for so many years that when Covid happened it was like a no brainer and I.
Erin [00:23:06]: Couldn’T just wait the same way the next.
Rebecca [00:23:08]: But I couldn’t understand why other people couldn’t get on board. It was so confusing to me.
Erin [00:23:12]: Right.
Rebecca [00:23:12]: Because I’m like, this is not hard.
Erin [00:23:14]: But what’s the difference between EQ and empathy?
Rebecca [00:23:17]: I don’t know.
Erin [00:23:17]: That’s a great question. I think there is a difference and I think what we’ve been referring to as empathy may just be a tremendous sense of eq. So when I.
Rebecca [00:23:30]: What is the definite. What is the actual definition of empathy? Scott, can you google that? What’s the Marianne Webster’s actual definition? Because that might help me have an opinion when I.
Erin [00:23:43]: When I think about. While you’re doing that. Scott, when I think about empathy, I think of it as a way that you are connecting with someone by being able to feel and resonate with what their experience is. So much so that it’s as if you’re living it alongside them and then can respond to them from that intense of a place.
Rebecca [00:24:17]: So then would it be true that in order to get there you have to have some level of IQ of EQ that you can get out of your own way or is it the opposite?
Erin [00:24:34]: Empathy is required for eq?
Rebecca [00:24:35]: I don’t know. That’s why I need to. I need the actual formal definition.
Scott [00:24:39]: Empathy, the action of understanding action, being aware of, being sensitive to and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts and experience of other. Of another.
Rebecca [00:24:51]: Okay, now can you do the definition of eq does that it specifically said action in empathy? Yes, it’s a verb.
Scott [00:25:02]: It’s a verb looking up emotional intelligence.
Rebecca [00:25:05]: Correct?
Erin [00:25:06]: Yes, yes.
Scott [00:25:07]: The ability to recognize Understand and deal skillfully with one’s own emotions and the emotions of others, as by regulating one’s emotions or by showing empathy and good judgment in social interactions.
Erin [00:25:20]: But here’s what felt different to me in this presentation. Me giving out the different colored dots. I did not identify that as a form of empathy. I identified that as a form of connection by using my emotional intelligence.
Rebecca [00:25:43]: Okay.
Erin [00:25:44]: Me introducing myself in a way that was more in tune with who I am as a whole person, as opposed to my titles and whatever else you might want to know about me didn’t strike me as an act of empathy. It was just me being me. But me being me is essentially embodying eq. Right. And so what that was bringing up for me was this discernment between empathy feels to me like I’m giving to another person from myself. That would be the action component piece of my heart. It’s a little piece of my personhood. Right. I’m gonna sit with the woman at the hospital who’s crying in the waiting room. That’s empathy. Right. But the EQ for me is not as much the action as it is a sense of being in an awareness, a really keen awareness that, for instance, when we’re walking around Brockport and on that tour, my EQ is aware that you and I are really enjoying our tour around Brockport. But I’m so keenly aware that this isn’t also about us. That’s right. This is about the people that are on the tour.
Rebecca [00:27:14]: That’s right. That’s why we’re in the back. We’re just talking to each other quietly. Not enough to distract what’s going on.
Erin [00:27:20]: Right. But then I’m also aware we’re not as with the group as the other people are, that I have a keen awareness to that. Then I’m aware that I’m there to support my niece. And so I’m trying to figure out, where does she fall? Does she like this? Does she not? Does she have any questions? Right. And so it’s like this social awareness around me at all times, when you probably picked up on this, too. When we were standing outside of Perry hall and they were talking about, you know, the dining hall and all or whatever, there was a man that walked by with shorts on.
Rebecca [00:27:53]: Yes.
Erin [00:27:53]: And he looked over and he had a smirk on his face. Did you remember this? We never talked about this until this moment. He had a smirk on his face and he had his earphones on. And I felt in that moment like he wanted to sabotage the tour in some way. Shape or form. It was right after the election by likely saying something election focused.
Rebecca [00:28:14]: Oh, you mean like the guy who yelled across the train tracks when we were entering the building and said, if any of you voted for Hillary Clinton, turn around now, don’t walk in or something. And we’re all like, anyone who walks.
Erin [00:28:25]: Into that building voted for Hillary Clinton. Is what he said weird?
Rebecca [00:28:29]: We’re like, like, I’m very confused.
Erin [00:28:31]: Right? But that man, when he walked past, I was aware he was either having some type of conversation in his head or whatever, but that had nothing to do with anything we were doing. Right. But that, again, social awareness of what’s happening is this, like, keen sense of, I’m aware of the dynamics that are at play around me all the time. And I’m going to blend in, connect, bring together all of that energy in such a way that it’s harmonious and peaceful. Right. Those are the differences for me between empathy and eq, which then brought me right back to this podcast and really go, Aaron has so much empathy. Aaron has so much empathy. The empathy is the part that becomes problematic to me because my EQ pushes me into situations where I become more connected with people. And then instead of just being able to leave that at that line, I then feel I have to go that next level to inflict empathy in this person’s life. And then before you know it, I’m best friends with this person that I met at a coffee shop.
Rebecca [00:29:36]: So funny. You’re triggering me to think back to when the hurricane happened, okay. And how I follow all these people on social media and a lot of them are Southerners or whatever, and the amount of people who live in those areas who may not have personally been affected, but their community was and couldn’t read the room and were posting things on the Internet that the comments were like, wow, you are next level. You have zero empathy. You could care less. You are like, yeah, I’m winning, I’m winning. So I’m going to keep moving forward when your next door neighbor now has nothing. Instead, you could have used your power or influence or whatever to maybe go out into the community and help and support. Whether you want to or not. It doesn’t matter. It’s bigger than that. I think back to your experiences when there were situations on campuses and you being in a powerful role and a higher up role, watching even the people above you do things where they’re not reading the room, they’re sending emails. That’s like, wow, you missed everything possible that you could have possibly missed because in your mind, we just need to move forward. Move forward.
Erin [00:30:50]: We’re not going to recognize wrong questions, right? Yeah.
Rebecca [00:30:54]: Right. Now, can some people go to the extreme and focus too heavily on the minorities or the people? Minorities probably are the wrong word. Please don’t hear that in a negative way. Like I’m speaking to a specific group of people. I’m talking about when a situation happens but only a handful out of the gigantic group are affected, the person in charge goes the opposite and completely ignores the vast majority of people and everything’s focused on this small group and it makes zero sense. That is also frustrating.
Erin [00:31:28]: Yeah. So yeah, that’s. Those are really good examples. I hadn’t thought about that. But how much damage can be done if someone does not have eq? More so than if someone doesn’t have empathy in those leadership positions. Because what we needed during that massive time when I was on that college campus and we experienced more tragedy in a year and a half than I’ve experienced in my entire life and probably will ever experience again or even Covid. It wasn’t my empathy, it wasn’t my care for these families of what had happened. Certainly that was alive and well. But it wasn’t that that moved the group. It was eq. It was the fact that when I was in the bunker, you know, trying to figure out what we needed to do to solve the situation, that I immediately had purchased something called column all credits that I could then send a text message or that my group wanted to hear my voice. So I would say, hey everyone, I’m here in the crisis area. We’re having this conversation right now. This is what’s going on. I’ll have a more of an update to you soon. Right. And then it could just blast it to all of their phones so that they all got the same message at exactly the same time. It wasn’t. I told this person who told this person who told this person that’s eq. Recognizing that everyone’s in this terrible situation and they want to hear my voice, they don’t want to get a text message from me because they’re going to be able to interpret that as how she doing? Is she not okay? The fact that when I went and got called at 6:30 in the morning to tend to that situation, the very first thing I did was go to Dunkin Donuts and I bought out every single bagel donut malt, those big ass boxes of coffee. Right. And that that turned into. When we were debriefing one of the most prominent things that could have been done in that moment because everyone else just got up and raced to the event to try and help figure it out. That wasn’t in my mind an act of empathy. Yes. I cared about the people who were doing the caretaking. That was a moment where my EQ thought to itself, you’re going to be in a room for a very long time. This is going to be a really long day. And it’s 6:00 in the morning. People probably aren’t thinking to eat on their way, take a moment and stop and get the stuff from Dunkin Donuts. Right. It’s those aspects of EQ that change people’s experiences drastically. And so it’s blowing my mind a little bit. When we talk about empathy, it may be not that people lack empathy. Maybe people have a tremendous amount of empathy or are like you and have to shut that down because they don’t know what to do with it. Maybe people are lacking eq.
Rebecca [00:34:20]: Mm, mm. Because EQ is more or less a vehicle on how you get.
Erin [00:34:27]: Empathy will come naturally when EQ is present. Right?
Rebecca [00:34:32]: Yes.
Erin [00:34:33]: And empathy is an internal state that I would really like to think people are born with in some way, shape or form.
Rebecca [00:34:41]: I mean, such a red siren going off in my head. But the election results for me, it had to be. I mean, I have so much EQ when it comes to that, that it’s not about me, it’s not about you, it’s not about anything. It’s about. I fully recognize there are a group of people in this country who are having some very significant feelings and it didn’t matter what the outcome was, that was going to happen regardless and to be mindful and careful with that. Yeah, that’s really important to me.
Erin [00:35:13]: And where you see that EQ breakdown is when people are fighting about why this and why that, and you did this and you did that. And I hope you’re happy with this and I hope you’re happy with that. Right. That we do this tit for tat, which is not something that people with EQ do. You know what people with EQ do listen or realize. Social media isn’t the place where these conversations are going to be had in a beneficial way. No.
Rebecca [00:35:43]: Right.
Erin [00:35:44]: And so it’s just a little life altering for me that I went and I gave this presentation and I’ve really hung on eq. But what was important to me about giving the presentation was I didn’t need to create PowerPoint slides. I could have done the entire presentation just on being me and going in there and talking to a group of people about why this matters, and that’s effing awesome.
Rebecca [00:36:10]: But again, it goes back to when I was working at a college and I was doing leadership workshops. And my fundamental theme was, all I need to know in life is what I learned in kindergarten. Because at the end of the day, it’s those simplistic messages that get completely bombarded and compounded and diluted over time. Experience, et cetera. But at the end of the day, if you go back to basics and you operate out of that, what do you get?
Erin [00:36:38]: Yeah. So how far away we get with that?
Rebecca [00:36:41]: Yeah.
Erin [00:36:41]: From that. Well, let’s see if our cards align. I know that my deepest desires are the pathways toward my dreams. I’m going where it feels right.
Rebecca [00:36:56]: Hashtag, nailed it. I loved that.
Erin [00:36:58]: Me, too. Isn’t empathy amazing?
Rebecca [00:37:01]: Well, we’re amazing. I don’t know about all this empathy stuff.
Erin [00:37:05]: That’s fine. I accept you wherever you are. Oh, God, I love you.
Rebecca [00:37:11]: I love you, too.
Erin [00:37:12]: And if you love us, please like and subscribe to more Love the Power of Empathy podcast. Wherever you get your podcasts.
Rebecca [00:37:20]: See you next time.
