Full text and summary of Jason Bridges’ talk titled “The People Currency: Practicing Emotional Intelligence”at TEDxWabashCollege conference. In this talk, Jason shares his personal journey of discovering EQ after a life-altering accident and highlight the value of connecting with people at a deeper level, reading body language, and practicing empathy.
Listen to the audio version here:
TRANSCRIPT:
So I’m a big movie buff. I love me some sci-fi. There’s a great scene from a sci-fi movie where Tim Robbins is in. The movie title and the story and the plot doesn’t really matter for this example.
There’s a great scene where he has to go in to interrogate somebody. So right before he goes in to question them, he takes an empathy pill. This heightens his senses. And when he questions the person, it only takes a couple minutes. He knows everything they’re going to do. He knows what their next move is, what they’re thinking, if they’re lying or not.
I love this scene for a lot of reasons. I watch it a lot because I’m a sci-fi geek. I watch my movies over and over again. Every time I see it, it makes me think, we can do this right now. We don’t need an empathy pill. We can connect with people at a higher level to where maybe we don’t need to interrogate them, but we know where they’re coming from.
Empathy. Reading their body language. All the things that encompass emotional intelligence. We’re in a people economy. Our currency is people. The relationships we build at our schools, at our work, our community, our churches, at home, that’s what’s important.
So I’m here today to talk to you about my story, how I found emotional intelligence. My journey of using it. Kind of teaching it to myself. How I structure it and use it in my businesses. And then hopefully give you something that you can walk away with and start applying the second this speech is over with.
This all started when I was 16. Now I didn’t take an empathy pill, but I know what you’re thinking. I haven’t aged in a day. 24 years ago, that was me at 16. Good old prom picture. Got to keep those around.
So in October of 1991, buddy of mine picked me up on the way to school and another friend and we took the same route we always took. It had just gotten to rain so it was a little slick and we were late. We were late for school.
So we were going a little quicker than usual. There’s this one curve on this country road on the way to school that we’d taken 100 times before but we lost control of the car and we hit a telephone pole. It takes two seconds to fasten your seatbelt. That morning I chose not to.
We were all rushed to the hospital. I had five skull fractures, which is what they call an H-cell fracture, and my brain was hemorrhaging. Now what happens when your brain is hemorrhaging is it swells and that’s when brain damage can happen.
So when my family arrived to the hospital, they told them to expect the worst, that it might not make it. There’s nothing they can really do. Luckily, the pressure released. I was out of the ICU in a couple weeks, into a regular bed, out in a month, out of the hospital, and I walked out. It was kind of, we all felt it was a miracle.
There’s the headline that day. But I had lost some IQ. I had lost my brain power. I had had a little bit of brain damage. I couldn’t think very well. I couldn’t remember very well, and everything was slower.
I was a straight-A student before the accident. Everything came quick. Everything was fast. I had a great memory. I was a great test taker. I was just a straight-A student. It came quick. Now I was struggling for D’s and everything was hard. Luckily, I had faculty and friends and family who helped me through high school and it got me to college, a really good college.
But I really struggled there. The game is higher in college. And that was tough. But I got through it. As I was, you know, through high school and college, I had started to develop a little bit of EQ because, you know, I couldn’t play basketball for a while. I couldn’t move very fast. I started watching more. I was kind of forced to.
So by this accident, EQ had kind of started to sink in because I needed it. IQ, once you get to, you know, high school age, it’s pretty much it’s what you got. Now I never heard of EQ, never heard of emotional intelligence. But it was starting to kind of sink in by default. So let’s go back into a more educational area that’s around school and talk about what is emotional intelligence.
Just give you a little background. I like to refer to emotional intelligence as EQ. I know it’s confusing, emotional quotient EQ. But we’re just going to say EQ for the sake of this speech.
So emotional intelligence, if it’s an umbrella, it encompasses self-awareness, understanding your emotions in real time, and being able to regulate them. Not eliminate them, but regulate them. You’ll understand them. Social awareness, you’ll interact in groups and reading body language, reading those cues.
Empathy, understanding what somebody, what it feels like to be in their shoes. And then relationship building. All these encompass and overlap emotional intelligence. Now you don’t need to memorize this. We’re going to come back to it later.
So EQ was coined by this guy, Daniel Goleman. He in the 90s, coined emotional intelligence as the single most important trait or intelligence to have. It was twice as important as any other thing for leadership. So the academic world coined it in the 90s.
60 years earlier, this guy, who didn’t call it emotional intelligence, 1936, came out with How to Win Friends and Influence People.
It’s a blueprint. Each chapter is why to remember names, how to make people feel important, why you should never try to win an argument. It’s a lose-lose situation. All these little things. This book was handed to me when I was 23, and it was an epiphany for me.
I saw it as my golden ticket. I didn’t have the IQ. I could never out-test anybody. I could never out-smart anybody. But I could do this. So I put everything in to emotional intelligence, to this book, and any other thing I could get into.
So I was in the service industry, in hospitality, definitely worked in restaurants. I grew up in a restaurant. And so I tried to apply this through my 20s. And I started to get better and better at it the more I practiced it.
So in my 30s, my wife and I started a bike tour company. I was really excited about this. We get to ride around the island and people are going to pay us to talk. It sounds like a pretty good idea. But I saw this as an opportunity to be able to teach emotional intelligence. Or could I? Could I teach emotional intelligence in a business setting to, one, help my business succeed, but two, give the skills to the staff where they can go on, have a higher purpose. They can go on and be better at connecting with people.
Be Interested, Not Interesting
So our mantra for our bike tours is be interested, not interesting. Now it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to be an interesting person, but it means to focus on those around you. To not just look at body cues, but ask questions. Be genuinely interested in those around you. So we use that mantra for our bike tour company and how we interact with our community and our customers.
One quick example. When a client walks up, we don’t wait for them to come to us. We go to them. We don’t let them come to the shop and say, hey, is this the bike tours? But when we walk to them, we don’t have our hands in our pockets or we’re closed up. We’re out wide. Our hands out wide. We’re open. We want them to trust us. We shake their hands and we smile.
We use their names and we ask questions. And that’s the first two or three minutes of our interaction with our clients. If that goes well, the bike tour goes great. But be interested, not interesting. We call it beanie. It’s just easier. It sounds fun. Beanie.
You can’t beanie with sunglasses on. You can’t connect with people with sunglasses on. So we incorporate all these little things into beanie. So after three years of the bike tours, I was starting to feel more confident that I could teach this.
But this program that I had that I worked with my alma mater was where two interns would come and live with my wife and I. And we would pretty much give them a 10 week boot camp of EQ. And we’d use the business as the vehicle to teach this. So after three years, we’re like, all right, we can teach this.
These guys are going in from one week to 10 weeks and they had learned the value of practicing this. So at three years in, we had an opportunity to start a coffee shop. Now, I love coffee. I love to be in coffee shops. It’s just a cool thing. It’s a community.
But I saw an opportunity to try to teach EQ or use it and apply it, put it into my business, into my structure of our everyday life, our daily operations. To one, connect with customers, which is going to help sales and all that. But give our staff skills and this understanding of how they can learn EQ and apply it after they leave. They’re not going to work at our shop for 30 years.
So one of the things we do is the name game. So when Bill comes in and orders a coffee, he says his name. We write it on the cup and we say his name out loud, Bill. We hand it over, we make the drink. When it’s ready, we don’t yell out, vanilla soy latte. We yell out, Bill.
What does this do? We only have 30 seconds to maybe 3 minutes with a customer in a coffee shop. It’s not 3 hours on a bike tour. We have very little time to connect. So by hearing his name twice, he’s connected with us. We’ve heard it. We’ve written it down. We’ve seen it. We’ve connected with him. So if the coffee’s good, which I think it is, he’s going to feel connected. He’s going to feel good. We live in a touristy island, so I might not ever see Bill again, but at least we made him feel good. We connected with him.
So we use those things in our business to connect with people, make our business better, and they get to learn these skills. So that’s a small business example, the bike tours. Not everybody can leave their life and come live with my wife and I for 10 weeks and learn this, or come and work at my coffee shop.
Project Aristotle
So I want to give you another example of how a bigger business uses this. Google. Maybe you’ve heard of them, Google? So Google is really good at capturing data and analyzing data. They’re pretty good at it. And they were really, really interested in what makes the best team. It was usually get the best people makes the best team. But it wasn’t really working. They couldn’t figure it out.
As soon as they would see one team doing well, another team would come up. That’s the exact opposite and do just as well. So they started Project Aristotle. And they took their 51,000 employees and they studied them and all this data. Was it because they ate lunch together? Was it because where they were from? Was it because their background, diversity, everything they looked at?
And it came down to one thing, psychological safety. That’s what made the most effective groups. If people felt safe and trustworthy inside of a group, they performed better. Well, what is that? It’s high EQ. The group had a higher EQ, right? They can read body cues. They understand each other.
They trust each other. They’re patient, empathy, listening . That’s all EQ.
So when I read this, all this research, just like the movie scene, it was like this, it’s EQ. This is it. So that’s me in the smile challenge. This is something that you’re going to be able to do the second you walk out of here.
Smile challenge goes like this. I like to start off on a Monday. You have to make five people smile that you don’t know. The rules are this. Make five people smile, different people. You can’t say anything to them. You can’t touch them. You can’t dance for them. You just have to make them smile with your smile when they’re not smiling.
Make somebody smile with your smile when they’re not smiling, right? This is a great way to practice emotional intelligence. Some days you’re going to try it. It’s going to look like that. When you’re feeling really good, smiling, making people smile is easy. But when your energy is low, it’s hard. Or it could look like that. And that’s scary.
You might scare some people. It’s okay. You’ve got to keep trying. Everybody really quick. Turn to anybody to your left or your right and just smile. Don’t say a word. Just smile. That’s it. Just smile. Okay. Thank you.
So the brain activity that just shot through your noggin was equivalent to eating 2,000 bars of chocolate. So you’re welcome. You’re welcome. No calories, no sugar, low. So that’s been proven, 2,000 bars of chocolate.
So going back to the smile challenge, why do this? I want to break it down back to the emotional intelligence umbrella. When you’re walking down the street, in the days you don’t feel like smiling, that’s starting to create self-awareness. And you’ll start thinking about why I don’t want to smile, how hard it is.
Social awareness, kind of obvious. You’re looking for people not smiling. You’re connecting with them. You’re looking at their cues, right? Oh, by the way, we call this smile bombing. Relationship building. It’s the very beginning of building a relationship with someone. You never know when you’re going to see them again, right?
So you’re looking for it. And then empathy. I feel my empathy growing when I do the smile challenge, when I smile at somebody and they don’t smile back. I get to the point now where I think, what happened in their life that I couldn’t make them smile? I don’t think about me anymore. So it’s starting to create empathy.
PARABLE: The Guy In The Hole
So a smile challenge is just a really good way to get it started, to get you going with practicing EQ. I want to give you my favorite parable: the guy in the hole.
Guy’s walking down the street and he falls into a hole. The sides are so high, he can’t get out, so he has to wait for help. Soon, the doctor walks up. ‘Doc, doc, can you help me out? Stuck in this hole.’ ‘No problem. I just want to do, write a prescription, throw it down.’ He walks on.
The guy’s still stuck in the hole. So he waits. And a priest walks by. ‘Father, Father, can you help me out?’ Didn’t know just what to do, prays, and he walks on.
The guy’s still stuck in the hole. So he waits. And a friend walks up. “Shelly, Shelly, can you help me out, stuck in this hole.’ No problem. I know just what to do. She jumps in the hole.
He’s like, what are you doing? Now we’re both stuck in this hole. Shelly looks at him and smiles and says, I’ve been down here before and I know the way out. The connections we make with people will help us no matter what hole we stumble down.
We need medications. We need technology. We need religion. They’re very important in our society, but they’re nothing without strong relationships and connecting with people, the people currency.
I know you can all do this. I know you can practice this and get better really, really quick because I did. If I can do it, I know you can. I want to leave you with this. People are more important than the coffee we brew or the bikes we ride. Thank you.
SUMMARY OF THIS TALK:
Jason Bridges delivered a compelling talk titled “The People Currency: Practicing Emotional Intelligence,” where he shared his personal journey of discovering and applying emotional intelligence (EQ) in various aspects of life. Here are the key takeaway points from his talk:
Empathy as a Superpower: Jason began by referencing a sci-fi movie scene where the protagonist takes an “empathy pill” to understand people deeply. He emphasized that we don’t need such pills because we can connect with others on a profound level through empathy and emotional intelligence.
The Significance of Empathy: Jason stressed that in today’s “people economy,” our most valuable currency is the relationships we build with others. Understanding and practicing empathy, including reading body language, is crucial in this context.
A Life-Altering Accident: Jason’s journey into emotional intelligence began after a life-changing car accident at 16. Despite brain damage and academic struggles, he found himself naturally developing EQ skills, as he couldn’t rely solely on his IQ.
Understanding Emotional Intelligence (EQ): Jason introduced EQ as encompassing self-awareness, self-regulation, social awareness, empathy, and relationship building. He highlighted the importance of these components for effective communication and connection.
The Influence of Daniel Goleman: Jason mentioned that Daniel Goleman, who coined the term “emotional intelligence” in the 1990s, considered EQ to be the most critical trait for leadership—twice as important as other factors.
Learning from “How to Win Friends and Influence People”: Jason shared that reading Dale Carnegie’s book at age 23 was an epiphany for him. He realized that he could excel in life by practicing emotional intelligence even when his IQ was not as strong.
Application in the Service Industry: Jason applied EQ principles in the hospitality industry, particularly in restaurants, where he aimed to connect with customers and improve service quality.
Teaching Emotional Intelligence: With his wife, Jason started a bike tour company, using it as a platform to teach EQ to interns. He emphasized the importance of creating a higher purpose for staff and helping them connect with people.
“Beanie” Mantra: Jason introduced the mantra “be interested, not interesting,” which they used in their bike tour company. It emphasizes focusing on others, asking questions, and being genuinely interested in people.
Connecting Through a Coffee Shop: Jason discussed using EQ in their coffee shop business, emphasizing the “name game” to connect with customers in a brief interaction and make them feel valued.
Google’s Project Aristotle: Jason highlighted how Google’s research project revealed that psychological safety and high EQ within teams were the keys to their success. He emphasized the importance of trust, empathy, and understanding within groups.
The Smile Challenge: Jason introduced a practical exercise—the “smile challenge.” Participants are encouraged to make five strangers smile with their own smiles, promoting self-awareness, social awareness, empathy, and relationship building.
The Guy in the Hole Parable: Jason shared a parable about a man who falls into a hole and is rescued by a friend who has been in that situation before. It illustrates the importance of strong connections in navigating life’s challenges.
The People Currency: Jason’s overarching message was that relationships and connecting with people are more valuable than anything else, whether it’s coffee, technology, or medications.
In summary, Jason Bridges’ talk emphasized the power of emotional intelligence in building meaningful connections and success in various aspects of life. He encouraged the audience to practice empathy, be interested in others, and foster strong relationships as a valuable “people currency.”
