Misfit Entrepreneur March 2019 - 138: Cracking the Curiosity Code with Emotional Intelligence Maven, Dr. Diane Hamilton

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Dave Lukas Chats with Dr. Diane Hamilton

138: Cracking the Curiosity Code with Emotional Intelligence Maven, Dr. Diane Hamilton

This week’s Misfit Entrepreneur is Dr. Diane Hamilton. Diane is the creator of the Curiosity Code Index (CCI) assessment and the author of Cracking the Curiosity Code.

She is a nationally syndicated radio host, speaker, moderator, consultant, and educator. Her radio show Dr. Diane Hamilton Radio showcases successful individuals including C-Suite Executives, Time Magazine’s Most Influential People of the World, Forbes 30 Under 30 Inductees, Nobel Peace Prize Nominees, New York Times and Wall Street Journal Best-Selling Authors, and other successful individuals who share their stories and insights.
Through her work as the MBA Program Chair at the Forbes School of Business and at several other universities, she has taught more than 1000 business courses. She has a Ph.D. in Business Management and is a certified Myers-Briggs MBTI and Emotional Intelligence EQ-i instructor. If that is not enough, she is highly sought after speaker, speaking to groups to improve employee relationships, increase engagement, improve productivity, and reduce conflict.

One of the most important, and least understood skill sets for entrepreneurs, leaders, and well, anyone is emotional intelligence and we could not have a better person on the show to talk to about it on the show.

www.CuriosityCode.com

www.DrDianeHamilton.com

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Show Notes

Diane started in sales doing a number of roles from pharmaceuticals to real estate. After a few decades, she wanted to get into teaching. She thought thousands of courses and this led to her being the MBA program chair at the Forbes School of Business. Through this, she got to work with and learn from some of the top business minds in the world like Steve Forbes. This got her interested in interviewing and started her down the path she is on now.

What is emotional intelligence and why is it so important to develop in our lives?

It is understanding your own emotions and those in others and then reacting appropriately in your behavior.
It’s extremely important, because your behavior and soft skills are some of the important things that impact your success and career.

Is this something that comes natural to people or something that has to be developed?

It is something you must work on
Influences in your life impact your emotional intelligence
Your environment has a large impact as well
If you were around people with high EI throughout your life, chances are that your EI will be higher than someone who did not have that environment.
No matter what, it is something you can continue to improve.

One of the best resources on Emotional Intelligence is work by Daniel Goleman

At the 11:30 mark, Diane talks about Curiosity and how it relates to your EQ?

Curiosity is a big part of improving EQ and succeeding.
In fact, there are 4 factors that influence curiosity which relate directly EI:
- Fear
- Assumptions
- Technology
- Environment

Steps to improve EI/EQ?

Most important step is to become aware
Get a foundational baseline measurement of where you are by taking one of the many assessments online.
Get input from others that will be honest with you and be open to it.
Be present in the moment when communicating
Be careful to develop your empathy which will improve your EQ/EI

What is the difference between emotional intelligence and critical thinking?

EI is about understanding your emotions and how they impact how you are feeling
Critical thinking is about looking at a bunch of different content/data and process it to make a good decision.
A lot of people don’t know how to make decisions by putting everything together and getting to the best decision.
You have to learn to separate emotion from logic very well to master both of these concepts

How do people avoid analysis/paralysis and become more decisive in this area?

Beware of planning too much because of data overload.
A lot of leads try to take on too much by themselves where they need to get help, outsource, or delegate.
Learn what you are truly good at and focus there – find the resources to handle the rest.
Look for the simple, unconventional method.
Try using a simple checklist.

At the 27 min mark, Diane answers the question, “Why is curiosity so important and what were some of the big things you learned about it while researching and writing the Curiosity Code?”

There are so many things that come back to curiosity – it all seems to revolve around it.
Inspiration, motivation, drive, growth, etc. all happen because of curiosity.
The big “aha” was that there is no research on how to improve your level of curiosity. There is no system or training for it.
We must move from “Are you curious or not?” to “How utilize it to grow and succeed at higher levels?”
For some reason, we lose our thirst for curiosity as we grow and we need to learn how to get it back.

Define curiosity…

It can be confused with drive or motivation but is so much more.
It is the spark. The strong desire to know more.
What is important is to look at the factors that impact it – that is how you can grow your curiosity.
Curiosity is figuring out how to overcome challenges instead of shying from them.

At the 38 min mark, Diane takes us through each of the 4 factors and what we should know about them…It’s best to just listen to this segment

Fear
Assumptions
Technology
Environment

How do people take these 4 factors and use them to gain more results in their lives?

Once you recognize that under each factor, there are specific areas to work on
Diane has created a quiz that will help you understand each area and show you where you need to go.
www.CuriosityCode.com (Assessment)
Once you know where you are in the areas, you can go to work on them and start to make changes.
In the end, as with anything, it takes ACTION!

What are 1-2 things you see consistent across the high performers that you interview and spend time with?

They are curious
They are tenacious
They read a lot
They take calculated risks and have a good ability to handle risk
They know they don’t know everything, but they focus on what they do need to know and bring together the rest

Best Quote

Tweet This: “Companies hire for your hard skills and fire for your soft skills, so you must work on your soft skills – your Emotional Intelligence and Critical Thinking.”

Companies hire for your hard skills and fire for your soft skills, so you must work on your soft skills – your Emotional Intelligence and Critical Thinking.

Learn something new. You must develop curiosity use it to your advantage.

If you don’t have goals to drive toward, you are missing out on what you are capable of accomplishing.

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