By Jaclyn IWU
TUE, FEBRUARY 28 2017-In Nigeria people tend to hide and suppress emotions and at the same time, those who do not hide their emotions exhibit them negatively in most areas of their lives.
The stress level in Nigeria is very high and when stress clashes with emotions, the outcome is always negative vibes. Funny enough Nigerians do not care about reducing or managing their stress level through counselling/therapies so most business owners and career persons we meet daily keep sending out wrong and dangerous signals thereby destroying their business and career growth.
I am going to point out how business owners and career savvy personnel can use their emotional intelligence positively to achieve success.
What do I mean by Emotional Intelligence? This could actually sound new to people in our environment because, people here also do not value professional services like Mentoring, clinical Therapy, General lifestyle counselling and other services that has to do with human inner self characteristics.
A corporate career minded lady one night discovered her husband has been cheating on her for as long as they were married and managed to go to work the following morning. At her work place, her boss called her in for an assignment and all she did was frown at her boss as he tells her what to do and when the man finished talking, she let out a big sigh and walked out.
This is a lady who has been picked for a promotion as one of the most promising staff to upgrade the image of her company. After she walked out on her boss, the man sat still wondering if he was dreaming because such attitude certainly should never come from the lady . He wondered if the lady had suddenly developed a psychiatric problem over the night. What is wrong with this lady? The boss asked himself aloud.
What happened with the lady has to do with the lady not controlling her Emotions and managing her marital issues properly and without allowing her husband cheating cripple her emotions and career life.
This sounds easier said than done but it is a fact that one must never mess with. She lost her cool and certainly was emotional absent while listening to the boss because her entire emotions were focused on her husband cheating and while the boss was talking, she was thinking of all the ugly things she was going to do to her husband.
Here, she was also faced with a man probably who she feels also behaves like her husband telling her what to do. So she probably flipped and allowed her beaten emotions to over ride her professionalism at work place.
She obviously didn’t know how to use her emotional intelligence well. Understanding her emotional intelligence could have guided her and perhaps help calm her and help her also stay calculated while at work place without focusing on the marital issue.
She could have also requested for a day off to clear her head. This would have spared her such ugly drama that could lead to her getting fired or being issued a query by the boss.
Now from my counselling expertise, such a problem hardly goes away easily and the victim suffers for long months before healing and if such a person is the one that does not believe in seeking counselling /Therapy, the effects drags longer thereby disrupting or destroying the person’s business/career life.
A charming male entrepreneur had an ugly row on his way to work that left him so angry and as soon as he entered his outlet, a customer walks in to do some shopping. He lost his usual charm to the sour experience on his way to work and was nonchalant while attending to the customer and while the customer was done with his shopping, she quietly requested for her change after paying for the bought items. The entrepreneurs’ response left the customer in shock-“I have no change’’. The customer took one look at him and blurted her frustration, “so, what I am supposed to do….leave the money for you?
The entrepreneurs’ response was even more bile, flaring and asking why the customer did not come with the exact amount of money to shop rather than ‘’come here to disturb him.’’ The woman simply grabbed her money from the man’s hand, dumped the bag where all her shopping was packed and left angrily. That was a big loss, losing the cash and the customer in fell swoop.
If you shop regularly in this country, you must have been a victim of such scene or seen it happened. This happens all the time with shop outlets and it worries me how they mess up with customers in this area and losing their prospective customers day after day.
But if he was in control of his emotional intelligence, he would have had a better deal for the day. He would have realised that the customer is not interested in how he feels, or was not aware of what happened to him on his way to work but simply wanted to buy her stuff comfortably and leave. Again the good attitude you give to customers never dies in their minds and will continue to upgrade your business image. Every customer wants to be appreciated while spending his/her money. That is why you have to be in control of your Emotional intelligence which could come handy while handling a customers’ business.
I will not be wrong to tell you here that when we coach on Customer service, most of the coaching deals with Emotional intelligence. You can now see why I use it here to relate to business and career.
Finally, let us not forget that people who own business and career are still same people who are married or in love relationships and it might surprise you to hear from me that people’s love lives affects their business and career massively.
So try to stabilize your married life and love relationships which deals a lot with Emotions/Stress and your work place will not be a war zone for you and your associates. I think it is high time Nigerians come out of their primitive ideas of not seeking/paying for Counselling /Stress Therapy.
Jaclyn IWU is a Life/Business/Career Coach|A stress Management Expert &Conference Speaker, Media Communication Personnel|BLOG: http://bluntjacqui.blogspot.com.ng| FACEBOOK:beautifulwoman.column|TWITTER: @Jacquiworld
