Emotional Intelligence

Out-Sized Reactions

We’ve all seen out-sized reactions: when little incidents trigger big responses. If we’re honest with ourselves, most of us would admit that at one time or another, it’s happened to us. In an office place, out-sized reactions that can wreak havoc. In my teaching days, there was a teacher who used to throw chalk at his students when they were whispering. Eventually he threw a book and was fired. Once I saw the director of a non-profit demean his entire…

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Seven Signs of Anxiety

Learn the seven signs of anxiety that show your stress level has tipped beyond the healthy point. Secretly, I like stress. It revs me up and puts me in warrior mode. I’m at my best when I have too much to do and too many problems to solve. But when stress tips into anxiety, the opposite happens. I can’t get anything done. Anxiety is the low static hum left over from unresolved stress, a persistent, residual pattern that grates on the…

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Getting Tone Right in Email

https://youtu.be/F-YuO562M0k I feel sorry for this guy. Not because his car is jacked up–it’s a commercial after all–but because, as an actor, he has the same script as a 16-year-old girl getting surprised with a car for her birthday. His job is to make us feel sorry for him, but the words are not going to get him there. He only has tone to do it. The commercial is effective because he and the girl get the tone right. There…

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If You Want to Explain Behavior, Look at Mindset

The difference between scarcity and abundance mindsets explains a lot about why we get the best or worst out of people. A scarcity mindset can result in some pretty awful actions, like those of Harvey Weinstein or Larry Nassar. An abundance mindset can enable the most extraordinary actions, like those of Malala Yousafzai, or the many heroes who went back into the massacre in Las Vegas to save more lives. If you want to inspire people to do more than they…

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Lisa D. Foster, Ph.D. ACC  is an independent coach. As an Associate Certified Coach by the International Coaching Federation, Lisa honors and abides by the ICF Code of Ethics.  All coaching sessions and consultations are confidential.

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