October Newsletter
EQ in the Virtual World and Workplace
Hi PFP Community,
We hope you all are well and keeping healthy. Just as many of you may still be adjusting to the new normal we’ve found ourselves in this year, we have been as well, and over the last few months we’ve been working on a few initiatives to continue our mission and engage with you in new and more virtual ways – a virtual community and a podcast.
“Zoom fatigue” seems to be referenced just about everywhere lately, right alongside “top 10 lists” for how to survive in the remote workplace. However, there seems to be a lack of rich and actionable resources for us to learn how not just to survive, but excel in the virtual world.
As we all are learning how to better navigate this environment, we put this newsletter together to highlight EQ in the virtual world and workplace. Our goal was to filter down to some of the more valuable and actionable resources, and most specifically share a couple of great tools we’ve found over the past few months.
Thanks for reading, and let us know if you have any additional suggestions we can share with the rest of the community in our next edition!
-The PFP Team
Virtual Community Announcement:
Hello All! It is with great excitement and anticipation that I announce PFP’s latest venture; building out the virtual community for People First Professionals! You will see more announcements across our channels in the coming weeks but we have candidly been behind the times in adapting to a virtual forum for our community. As we build out the foundational online community, we are releasing 2 specific projects for our members:
1. Slack Community including daily content, weekly/monthly challenges, online events, job board and mentorship. Many channels and content will be free for all, by simply signing up on our website for access. Some channels such as job boards and mentorship require membership. No, we are not asking for any money for membership. Instead invest in your own EQ; take short EQ test that comes with the book “Emotional Intelligence 2.0” (link here). Then, upload your scores in the new member sign up form on our website. That’s it! Stay tuned for the site to go live and your early access opportunity as part of our newsletter community!
2. Announcing the People First Podcast!
PFP will be delivering a steady stream of short-form podcasts wherever you get your podcasts and on our website. Our content focuses on career and personal advancement and success, all with the backdrop of EQ of course! Expect 10-20 min podcasts of diverse guests with varying perspectives and backgrounds. Quick-hitting, insightful, EQ driven help and guidance on any device.
We look forward to seeing and hearing from you in our online community!
-Devin Williams
People First Podcast Preview with Matt Kursh, CEO of Oji Life Lab
Doing the Work, Growing Your Everyday EQ
On this edition of the People First Podcast, we talk with founder and CEO of Oji Life Lab, Matt Kursh about what it takes to grow your EQ. The intentionality, the occasional step back in your progress and common mistakes people make in their progress. Oji Life Lab is a breakthrough digital learning system that builds essential emotional intelligence skills, through everyday interaction and supported by experts in the EQ field.
In this episode we discuss:
- Common failures and challenges seen as people embark on a path to intentionally growing their EQ
- What is Oji Life Lab: what, why, how?
- What are some best practices people should follow to help them maximize their EQ growth and minimize frustration/stop-gaps along the journey?
We will be publishing and sending out the podcast soon, and in the meantime, check out Oji Life Lab here
Recommended Content:
Upstream: How to Solve Problems Before They Happen – Dan Heath
In previous newsletters, we’ve recommended a couple of other books written by Chip and Dan Heath, and Upstream is the newest addition to the Heath brothers’ portfolio. If you have not had the chance to read Made to Stick or The Power of Moments, I would still highly recommend both alongside Upstream. Each of the Heath brothers’ books explores different perspectives as to how we can bring about change, and leave impressions on the world around us on large and small scales. Although Dan set out on his own with Upstream, it aims at another important perspective, which is how we identify and perceive the problems around us, and both where to look for, and how to generate solutions – addressing the source, or upstream, versus the downstream, or reactionary approach, we often find ourselves in.
Consistent with his other work, Dan gives great contextual examples to bring these concepts and ideas to life, which makes for an enjoyable, memorable, and actionable guide. In addition to sharing examples of “upstream” successes and failures, it also illuminates our blindness to many of the upstream problems around us, and offers motivation and practical applications to solve them.
Masterclass | Never Split the Difference — Chris Voss
In a past issue of our newsletter, we recommended the book Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. It’s a fantastic resource and centers around how we can use the skills of Emotional Intelligence in negotiating.
Chris has since put together a virtual course through Masterclass that brings the teaching of these techniques to life, and allows us to see them in action.
Masterclass is a paid subscription, but if you enjoyed the book, or are looking to hone your negotiation skills, this is one of the best resources available.
Wall Street Journal | Finding Hope When Everything Feels Hopeless – Elizabeth Bernstein
Our team found this recent piece about the importance of hope from Elizabeth Bernstein to be a great encouragement. Just like EQ, we have the power to boost hope, for ourselves and for others, and this article offers a few simple suggestions for how we can do so.
Dallas Chapter Monthly Update
COVID 19 has fundamentally transformed the way we communicate with each other. While a remote workforce has offered flexibility and improved productivity for many organizations, the impact of WFH on each of us doesn’t go unnoticed.
This is a season of stressors. Some employers are struggling to keep their employees engaged, and the feeling of “burn out” is a reality for many. According to a survey by the Society for Human Resource Management, 41% of employees feel burned out from their work, and 44% feel used-up at the end of the workday. It’s statistics like these that stress the importance of self and social management.
PFP DFW will be shifting our community to a 100% online experience, where anyone can connect, seek mentorship and harness the essential EQ skills to help them progress personally and professionally. Our goal of building genuine connections and developing a positive corporate culture have not changed, and to that end we’d like to share that our Networking Pop Ups will be making a return.
Once PFP Online launches, we’ll be hosting a members appreciation Happy Hour and our first philanthropy event, which have been organized by our own Chris Sam and Jamelyn Griffith.
It was amazing hearing the stories of how a PFP Pop Up brought people together and helped place members in new roles at great companies. We need more of these stories. No more waits for physical meetups, we’re going to continue the positive energy
Look forward to an invitation and more details in the next 2 weeks.
-Chris Amaefule
Monthly Call to Action
In keeping with our theme for the month of EQ in the workplace, we noticed that for all of the newfound awareness to the challenges around how we interact in this more virtual world and workplace, it’s difficult to find credible and actionable resources to overcome the challenges and help us excel in these environments.
Powers Resource Center is a great hub we found and wanted to share with you all as it has many great tools and content to boost our EQ in the virtual workplace.
One example that we can all probably relate to and heed advice from is the Virtual Meeting Etiquette Infographic below. This is just one of many great resources along with others such as Best Practices for Remote Workers, Checklist to Choose Your Workspace, Working from Home Handout, and more.
We strongly suggest checking out the Powers Resource Center at the link below, and take advantage of the wisdom they’ve curated and shared for free!
