Set fire to your 'emotional intelligence'

“Neurons that fire together, wire together.” That’s one of the most insightful, albeit simple, phrases anyone has ever said to me. It resonates with me professionally, and personally, because it gives me hope that I really can change my ingrained habits.

As a child, teenager, young woman, parent and now manager, I’ve heard people say countless times, “That’s just the way you are” or “You’re just built that way” or “Your brain is hard-wired to think like that.” While my brain, and yours, might be hard-wired one way because of experiences and genetics, that doesn’t mean that those wires can’t be rewired with practice, intention and coaching.

In March, I hosted an ACFE Fraud Talk podcast interview with Lisa Walker, Ph.D., MCC, owner of Walker Consulting LLC. We discussed an executive we’ll call “Samantha.” Here’s Walker’s story of how Samantha rewired her management style via changes in her emotional intelligence (also known as EQ or emotional quotient):

Samantha’s story

“Samantha is this go-getter. She’s known as this person in her organization … [where you] give her the hardest task and she is going to push through that wall and ensure that they’re getting amazing results,” Walker says in the podcast. “The challenge is any wall that Samantha comes up against — meaning people and others — she tended to bulldoze them.