Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Emotions can guide us through conflicting and complex situations

What I love about EI is recognizing that emotions offer us an intelligence.  As my hubby and I look for a new house I've had lots of emotions.  Yesterday we almost made an offer on a house but I began to have this nagging feeling.  The feeling nagged me until I slowed down and examined what/who was pushing me to buy that house.  It wasn't the right house for us.  Yay for emotions!

© 2017 Laura Lewis-Barr all rights reserved

Monday, February 27, 2017

Why is competition so much more compelling than cooperation?

Why is it that competition can feel more fun than cooperation? When I lead team building events, no matter the group -- teams always get more excited when they get to compete against other teams. Some really struggle when I try to coax them (or trick them!) to cooperate in an activity.

I know that Dr. Mihály Csíkszentmihályi's research confirms that boredom is painful and the "flow state" comes from meeting challenges and growing from them. Is this the reason?

Today I wondered: could we change the nature of challenge and competition in our culture? What if our measure of success had less to do with $$ and more to do with how well we serve each other?