My son started attending a strength and conditioning program available through our school last year. More important than physical strength, he was gaining self-confidence. Even at 12 years old, with proper instruction, his body could do amazing things. I saw my little guy harnessed to a CAR, using all his might to pull, and like the Little Engine that Could, he did!
Gaining physical strength is important, but gaining mental and emotional strength is what many of us (myself included) need right now. I recently engaged in a webinar through BrightTALK. One of the topics that struck me was the importance of exercising your Emotional Intelligence (EI) muscle. High EI means you are able to understand and manage your own emotions, as well as those of the people around you. Imagine if we were all gifted with high EI, the world might be a gentler place to live. But since that’s not even remotely the case, it’s up to us to work on improving our own EI to better communicate with each other and our customers.
There’s a popular sentiment right now that says “we’re all in this together.” As nice as that sounds (and as awful as I sound saying this), it causes an involuntary eye roll on my part when I hear it. What I’m going through as a result of this pandemic may not resemble your plight at all. To say nothing of what our elderly neighbors are experiencing, or a single parent, or a (fill in the blank). Get my drift? If we approach ad writing or customer communication like that, we’re not showing empathy or speaking to the felt need of most of your customers.
As I continue to improve as an ad writer and strategist for local businesses, I’m continuing to work on my EI. If you’re interested, an article called from MindTools is a great place to start.
