Eddy’s HR Mavericks Podcast
Created by Eddy and our HR Mavericks community.
Emotional Intelligence for Safer Workplaces w/ Steven Farber
In episode 69, we talk again with Steven Farber about what EQ is, why it matters, and how to improve workplace EQ.
Episode 69
“Let’s talk about our feelings.” Those are words that you don’t often hear at work. But understanding—and mastering—our emotions can make a huge impact on physical and psychological safety in the workplace. On this episode of the HR Mavericks podcast, Steven Farber explains what EQ is, why it matters, and how to improve workplace EQ. As vice president of training and certifications at Take Flight Learning, Steven knows a thing or two about how humans work together, and he says that growing our emotional intelligence is one of the first steps toward success at work. During our discussion, we talked about:
- The importance of controlling our emotions
- How having a higher EQ leads to better workplace safety
- Understanding personality types to better understand emotional intelligence
- Why awareness is the first step toward improving EQ
- Signs of a high-EQ workplace
- How to develop greater emotional intelligence
- The 4 main components of EQ
Steven Farber
I spent much of my working life in a whirlwind of uncertainty wondering when I would find a career that would make me happy. After spending 23 years trying to find that 'dream career' I came to a sobering conclusion. I realized that I wasn't looking for a career, but for a purpose and that I would never be happy until I figured out what that purpose was. After a long hard road of trial and error, I concluded that my purpose, the very activity that brought me happiness was when I could bring that happiness to others first. Removing the vast amounts of uncertainty this life can bring for others and replacing it with true peace of mind, gave me my much sought-after peace of mind.
Full Transcript
[00:00:00] Garrett Jestice: Welcome to the next episode of the HR Mavericks podcast. I'm Garrett Jestice, and today I am joined by a familiar guest, someone who's been here a few times before, Mr. Steven Farber. Steven, how you doing today?
[00:00:14] Steven Farber: I'm doing great, Garrett. Thanks for having me on. I think this was the third time right?
[00:00:18] Garrett Jestice: I think it is. And we are super excited to have you on the show. I know, you know, your previous two episodes that we've done, you know, months in the past are some of my favorites that we've done and some of our listeners favorites too. We were just joking before we jumped on here, that it seems like every time you come back you have a different title, different company.
Right. So now you're the Vice President of training and certifications at Take Flight Learning. Is that right?
[00:00:41] Steven Farber: That is correct, yes.
[00:00:42] Garrett Jestice: So tell our listeners who might not have heard your previous episodes a little bit more about you, your background, and what you're currently doing in your job right now.
[00:00:50] Steven Farber: Yeah, absolutely. I'll see if I can kind of give a succinct background about myself. So again, yeah. My name is Steven Farber. I'm a Vice President at Take Flight Learning. Sorry, Take, Yeah, take Flight Learning. It's been one of those days and, yeah, so a little bit about me. You know, I was a participant in the Great Resignation, right?
My initial reaction whenever I was part of the droves that walked away was, Wow, I gotta figure out a way to help other people not have to go through this. From compensation issues to under appreciation, culture problems, whatever may have been happening, you know, after the pandemic, during the pandemic that caused people to walk away.
I wanted to really help people get in front of it because that's, that was me. I felt like that was, my life there. But one thing that I kind of missed was, even though I thought employers were these callous opponents that just really wanted to push me out the door, it, it turns out, for the most part, and I'm sure this is true of a lot of people, that employers don't like losing people.
[00:01:46] Steven Farber: They, they hate people walking away more than we hate leaving. So, I, you know, what I did is I, I got into this and I did some investigation, Garrett, and what I found was that there's these patterns that occur and if I could figure out a way to kind of isolate these patterns of discontent, I thought, you know, I can really bring some impactful insights into the engagement world and figure out how we can keep more people from, from leaving -- people like me.
And, and, and how to really build that job satisfaction so that employees don't just want to jump ship because there's a lot of options these days. And that drove me into a lot of different things. If you go back to those past episodes, I was at employee benefits, then I had started my own company called Hero Culture, which was in the name of, of bringing a positive experience that was long lasting and impactful to lots of company cultures and in the form of communication training, that's kind of where I hit on.
But I wasn't quite sure what I was doing there. I just knew that it had something to do with communication. And then of course, I'm at where I'm at now. I was introduced to the Disc personality world and team building and kind of tried to do that on my own. Was, was, was mildly successful, but eventually was very happy to join the team at Take Flight Learning where we do this worldwide, for people now just bringing, all kinds of trainings from personality to emotional intelligence, to team building events, just to really help teams grow, communicate better, and ultimately wanna stay. So that's a little bit about where I was, where I'm at, and really what my mission is in this life per say.
[00:03:23] Garrett Jestice: I love it. I love how, seeing every time you come back, you know, every time we chat, seeing that evolution of you add a little bit more to what it is to you, like your personal mission, right? And it seems like you're in a place that's perfect for you right now based on those previous conversations.
Like, like Steven mentioned for some of our listeners out there, if you go back and, and for some of you who've listened for a while, there was the, the disc personality is the last one that Steven did. Some of you might remember it as the, the bird personality. Steven is our bird man, right? It's the different types of, of, of birds out there.
And so if you've followed Steven at all, he's talked a lot about that. But I'm really excited to dive into our topic today because I think it's just an evolution. Again, just like you and your career, it's an evolution of the past conversations that we've had on this show, and I think that it, it kind of ties 'em all together.
So as you and I talked about, what do we talk about today on this episode, you kind of proposed this idea of something you mentioned a minute ago, emotional intelligence and how that can impact workplaces, make them better physically, psychologically, safer workplaces so that there's, there's better output for the companies and, and better enjoyment and fulfillment and engagement from employees.
Is that right?
[00:04:37] Steven Farber: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:04:39] Garrett Jestice: Let's jump into that. I guess just to set the stage, one of the things we really like to do is really just define what we're talking about so that we're all on the same page. We often do that on episodes, so tell us what you mean when you say emotional intelligence. I think that's something that has, it's a term that's popped up a lot more in the last few years especially, fortunately, but I think it's something that's still a little fuzzy for some people.
So what's your, what's your definition of emotional?
[00:05:03] Steven Farber: Thank you. And, and it's rightfully so fuzzy because EQ is like, is like what we like to say is kind of like drinking from a fire hose. It is a broad, broad topic. And oddly enough, you know, we asked that question a lot at the beginning of our training. It's like, you know, what is emotional intelligence?
So it's funny having that posed back to me cause I'm like, Oh, I gotta answer it this time. And you know, it's the best way that I would say to answer is kind of in the thought of, or rather in the metaphor of the path. EQ is kind of, it's kinda like following a path on the way to learning how to perceive our emotions and how to understand them.
And what I mean by that is once we perceive and understand them in a way that is more self-aware, it allows us to control them. Because if we don't control our emotions, they're gonna control us. That's kind of a one way street, you know, this way or that way. And I think a lot of people live their lives just being controlled by their own emotions.
And it's not, it's not, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't blame them because it is hard to actually step back and realize our inner narrative is often pretty darn negative. And you know, there's all kinds of people who have a lot to say on that, but it's definitely a skill that can be brought to the table, and it's one that affects so many areas.
And that's why I wanted to talk about this topic, is something that really blew my mind was when I learned that EQ directly affects workplace safety. And it comes in kind of two parts, and this will be the second kind of half of that question is, the first one is it definitely affects on the job safety, like physical safety, you know, getting hurt in the real world.
But what's even more interesting is the psychological safety bit. And you know, while physical's not getting hurt, psychological safety, is it, it's, I think, the best way to explain it is it's feeling safe and expressing your ideas and not feeling like they're going to be condemned, shot down, or you're gonna be punished for 'em.
So yeah, EQ helps in both of those areas. And I hope I, I kind of went a long way around answering your question, but yeah, that's how it would define it, and that is how it connects. And I'll kind of explain how it connects to psychological and workplace safety as we continue on here.
[00:07:12] Garrett Jestice: Yeah, I love it. So again, emotional intelligence or EQ is, is really, you know, the abbreviation for that. Right. And it's really about like, like I heard you say, understanding your emotions and helping, also being able to help and identify the emotions of others that you interact with. Is that right?
[00:07:31] Steven Farber: Yes, absolutely.
[00:07:32] Garrett Jestice: Okay, so I gotta ask this question because I, because I, I know that there's some people out there who might not be as familiar with, you know, the study of EQ who might be like me, might be the, the skeptic sometimes, right?
I, I, I had the fortunatechance to actually take an EQ course a couple years ago. Found it fascinating. But let me take, let me play devil's advocate here for a minute, right? Because one of the things you said was, was really interesting, you know, your emotions and understanding those, definitely you can see how that ties to a psychologically safer workplace.
But you also mentioned a physically safer workplace. So you know, let's take for example, someone who works in a, in a warehouse. How does emotions and understanding of the, you know, their own EQ lead to that, the fewer safety violations or the phy- safer physical workplace?
[00:08:22] Steven Farber: Gotcha. No, that's a, that's a really great question. I'm actually having to dig into my notes for this, because, and that's the thing with EQ is it's not, it's not necessarily a simple, short answer because, because emotions aren't simple either most of the time. But to answer your question, let's dig into the world of personality just a little bit.
So let me pull out the personality of the eagle here, and if anybody has watched that last show, Eagles are gonna be more of the dominant, decisive type of personality. Does that make sense?
[00:08:50] Garrett Jestice: Yep, totally.
[00:08:51] Steven Farber: Right. So if you have an eagle, they're technically people who exude a lot of confidence in the workplace. They know where they're going.
They're not gonna ask a committee about getting something done. They are to the point. But an eagle can have a low emotional intelligence whenever it comes to a self-awareness or confidence, if that makes sense. So what does an eagle with low confidence look like? Do you have a what? What does that look like to you, Garrett?
What would that person seem like?
[00:09:18] Garrett Jestice: Let's see, a, an eagle with low confidence. They're probably someone who on the outside seems like they have, you know, it all together. They're pretty decisive, but they second guess themselves often on the inside. They, they, they want to prove themselves a little bit at times and their ability to, you know, be smart and capable and seen as that.
[00:09:39] Steven Farber: Right. No, you're, you're right on the mark. It, it's, yeah. Basically they're, they're constantly second guessing who they are. They don't feel nearly as confident as they, as they naturally exude. So what happens is they overcompensate, right? So as instead, instead of someone who is this direct decisive worker, who, who's really goal oriented, you end up getting a bully instead.
And, and that, that's rough because this person, if they, if they're unsure about themselves, they consider anything that they screw up on a personal failure. So in order not to actually, you know, take the blame for that, they're going to overcompensate. So that directness becomes aggression.
That that decisive assuredness becomes this arrogant, almost condescending pushiness. And, and the reason I bring all this up, because I'm gonna answer your question about how this relates, relates to physical safety. You know, if there is a potential safety hazard or a violation or something that's not quite right, this person probably is not gonna bring it up if they feel like it's going to tie it back to them because they're gonna be afraid of being judged for that.
The other thing is someone else may not want to bring that up to them because they're going to be afraid of getting lash or, or getting lashed out at because of that. So it affects not only themselves, because if they admit that there's a problem, that's a personal failure and they can't have that.
But it also makes it hard for other people to approach them because they're like, I really think this is a problem, but I am not gonna go tell Steven about it because he'll, he will eat me alive. So now you have, So you have these, you have, you have this problem that's not being solved because of emotions.
Then somebody actually gets hurt. Then it's an even bigger problem, because now you're looking at productivity, people walking away, all kinds of stuff. Now, now you have. Different set of emotions going on. You might have OSHA get involved. Who knows? All of it happens though, and it's not just Eagles. Everybody has a problem.
If you're a parrot, you might turn into the biggest narcissist you've ever met. You know, it just, it depends on who you are. But the point is, is if you don't know that you have this trait that's low in EQ, you're going to just act out of instinct, and you're going to naturally cause problems to, you know, develop in the background that'll result in bigger problems.
Does that, does that make sense?
[00:11:50] Garrett Jestice: Yeah, total sense. So like, if I can just reiterate what I, what I heard you say is really as we, as we, as you know, business leaders and managers and also employees, better understand how we're wired in many ways, kind of going back to, you know, the disc personalities, the bird analogies like you just talked about, and also better understand our emotional tendencies that are kind of tied to that, those dominant personality traits that can help us spot some of those potential failures and hopefully overcome them before they happen.
Right, to leading to fewer accidents in the workplace, or generally a safer work environment, whether you're physically or psychologically. Is that right? Anything I missed there?
[00:12:37] Steven Farber: No, no, you're, you're right on the money. And just to add to that, you know, what we described was largely how you prevent something physical from happening. You go over to the psychological safety side, you know, psychological safety being the, the actual ability to feel safe voicing your opinions. If you don't feel safe, if you're not self-assured, or if someone else is so overbearing that you're terrified of being self-assured, it's not a psychologically safe workplace either.
And there's probably so many of those that are just really dependent on a low EQ culture. And the key to actually raising EQ is to start with that awareness that hey we're in a low EQ culture, and then you, from there, you can start looking at what the high EQ cultures look like and you can really just mimic it.
That's, that's how simple it can be. The hard part is getting people to stop and say, oh, this is a problem. If that makes sense.
[00:13:26] Garrett Jestice: Yeah, totally. So I think you kind of hit on what I want to go to next, which really is just what, what does a low EQ culture in a business look like versus a high EQ culture, and how, how do you first identify that? And then how do you move your company to be more like that high EQ culture?
[00:13:45] Steven Farber: No, that's, that's a really good question. It's, it's also a, a big one to unpack. And you know what, let me, so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna grab an EQ profile here. And typically what we, what we've done when we do trainings like this is what we do. We, again, we point out what the low EQ is, what the high EQ is, and then we have strategic actual activities around that.
But I would say some of the low EQ cultures, let's just start with leaders, for example. So if your leadership is, I, if the appearance is closed mindedness, they're not open to new ideas, they're not willing to actually reach out and help someone, that could point to a low EQ area in the social awareness aspect.
And what I mean by that is they're not aware of how they're actually treating the people who are around them. So for instance, if you have somebody who is very kind of systematized, very, very systems oriented and they like things, you know, everything in it, everything, everything. A place for everything and everything in its place, easy for me to say, right?
The way, you know, and they have, they have a whole team of people that may not think that way. What that person, the high EQ trait would actually be to be able to read that room and know, you know what, I'm not actually connecting with everybody here. What I need to do is I need to stop slow down. Maybe I need to have some individual meetings with each one of these people, you know, really ask, you know, Hey, what do you think about this?
What are your qualms? What are your, what do you like about it? What do you not like? The, the ability to read the room is a high EQ trait. If you just assume, and this can, again, this can be someone with a lot of confidence as they can actually fall into this hole sometimes confidence isn't always the key to everything.
[00:15:22] Steven Farber: You know what, I nailed this. Everything's good, we're great. And then you just shut it down and in your mind, you're like, Yeah, the way I'm gonna do it is perfect. But if you don't actually know that, if you can't read the room and see that your team is, you know, there's a couple people who are shaking their heads.
My favorite are the dove personalities where they will not say, they'll say yes on the outside, but in inside they're saying, No, I hate this. But they're not gonna tell you in the meeting. They, they might have a little mini meeting after the meeting and the hallways, a lot of people will notice that sometimes.
[00:15:50] Steven Farber: Oh, looks there, there's meetings going on after the meeting. It's because there wasn't actual total agreement. So let me, let me back up and just kind of answer that more succinct. High EQ workplace would be a workplace that's really good at reading the room. They're open to ideas, even if it's in contra, conflict to their current one.
The, the actual ability to step back and listen is high EQ. It shows an openness. If you're closed to that. That's low eq. So, and the way that you would raise that, and this is kind of the neat thing about it, is it really comes down to knowing what high and low is. If you know what the end goal looks like and you know where you are, you know where you have to go, so to speak.
[00:16:29] Garrett Jestice: Yeah, I think that makes total sense. And I think, you know, the next, probably the million dollar question, which I don't know if there is like an end all be all answer to this, but I'm curious your thoughts on it is, you know, can you really change EQ?Like those people who are wired that way, right. Who are the people who don't naturally read the room very well?
Is it something that they're just born with or is it a skill or a trait that people can actually improve over time?
[00:16:58] Steven Farber: Man, I, that's my favorite question, so, short answer, absolutely. EQ is not like IQ, it's not static. And personality style, while personalities can change and, you know, with a lot of effort, sometimes, trauma can change personalities, big life events, getting married, adopting a child, having a child. Anything like that at all will change it.
EQ is the one thing between, between personality and emotional intelligence. EQ can be actively changed, and everybody can go to zero to a hundred. Like there's not, you can't, you're not necessarily wired to have a medium to low EQ like you might have with an IQ. EQ can be maxed for everybody, as, from what I understand from Daniel's original work, and for what we have put together today over on our team is, is it's actively able to be changed. And that's why it's such a big deal for people to get on board with because it is 100% leveragable today.
[00:17:52] Garrett Jestice: Awesome. That's awesome. So, let's say for instance I am a, you know, a small business leader, or maybe an HR person. I hear this podcast. I think, you know, I, I think we do work in a fairly low EQ culture, and I wanna change that at our company. What, what would be, what would you recommend as like the next step?
What, what would, what should someone like that do to really start down that path of raising the collective EQ of their company?
[00:18:23] Steven Farber: That's a really good question. The first thing I would say is you, the biggest step is realizing that you're in a low EQ culture and, and you're not alone, because low EQ is so much more common and really, low EQ is just people not understanding what EQ is.
Once you understand, well, I say understand EQ, understanding EQ is a huge, again, it's a fire hose of information, but understanding that you might not be in a high EQ situation, that immediately raises your EQ because you've just hit self-awareness.
And that's a big part of those four components, which, I didn't mention this initially, but those four components again, are gonna be self-awareness, social awareness, and then self-management, and I always, relationship management, that's the fourth one. So any, and by the way, there's 18 pieces to all of those as well. So yes, very changeable. Not a problem there.
[00:19:14] Garrett Jestice: Got it. Awesome. And so let's bring this back then to what we originally started talking about, which is how EQ, emotional intelligence can actually make your workplace safer. . Right. And so how does, how does this EQ and just mindfulness kind of in general of where you are at, where your company's at, how other people perceive you in those relationships there.
What are the results of starting down that path of changing it? How does it make people safer and happier at work? And especially if you have any examples of those that you've worked with and, or evolutions you've seen in companies where they have started down that path and what the result has been.
[00:19:54] Steven Farber: Right, right. Yeah, no. To, to answer your first question, really it all starts with digging into four components of EQ and then going from there, just understanding what you're in, like we answered in that previous question immediately raises your EQ, one that I really wanna point to, we'll just, we'll just focus on one component here, just self-awareness.
For instance, if you, in a self-awareness has four components, there's emotional clarity, self-reflection, cause and effect, and confidence. Just focusing on confidence. If you have low confidence at work, no matter your job, you're much more prone to make mistakes. And one mistake can lead to another mistake, can lead to another mistake, which then reinforces the belief that you just make mistakes all the time, which I'm not saying is true about anyone.
[00:20:38] Steven Farber: I felt that way about myself for a long time. But you know, our brains are geared for survival. So they're going to find these processes that we're doing, they're gonna do the best they can to keep us away from what hurts. And if we have low emotional intelligence in the form of, of confidence and we, we make mistakes, our brain's gonna get us away from doing the things that we actually need to be doing to get better.
And of course, when it comes to safety, especially psychological safety, which I think psychological safety is directly gonna correlate to physical safety anyway. If we want to have a workplace that we feel safe to express ourselves in, if we really want true inclusion and diversity and equity, we have to feel like we can speak.
And if we have low EQ in, in confidence and self-reflection, cause and effect those areas, if we don't know what it looks like to have it higher in those areas, then we're gonna just make more mistakes. We're not gonna be able to connect the dots and then people are really gonna get hurt in real life.
If we have bullies that develop or things like that, we, we know the problem that bullies can cause in childhood. We know the, the rates of people who get hurt and, and suicides and all these terrible things that happen. And then you, you can have these develop in your workplace. So it's very worth having the ability to understand.
Is this person just a hateful person, or do they not understand that they're exhibiting a low EQ trait, Let's teach them how to raise it. All of a sudden you've turned, you've turned a detractor into an absolute outstanding rockstar leader. So I'm kind of, I'm kind of going all over the place. Let me reel it back in here.
What was the, what was the second half of that question Garrett?
[00:22:10] Garrett Jestice: Yeah. Just if you had any examples of, you know, good examples of companies or people that you've worked with through this process.
[00:22:17] Steven Farber: Yeah, absolutely. So, it's funny because I, I'm not picking on eagles, I promise they're, they're my favorite type. I'm not an eagle. I wish I was, my, one, one of my bosses. So I promise Jeff, this isn't on you. But, you know, Eagles, I would say... you know, we had a, we had a training a while back, and the most crazy thing about this is we were going through, you know, high and low traits and what, you know, what somebody, an overuse in a style looks like, that directness turning into aggression.
That, that, in, you know, it, it's, it's somewhat accidental becoming this bully. And you have this, you have this manager in the back and he's, he's one of the leaders of the company and I. You know, disclaimer, if you're an eagle, that doesn't make you a leader. And it doesn't mean only eagles can lead.
We can all lead, happen to be a leader who is an eagle, and we're talking about the most, according to his own people hard-nosed, very intense, very direct person. And we have lots of examples of these, but this one in particular as the training is, is concluding. He begins to break down in tears. Of course, everybody's looking around like, this person can cry? I didn't know that. Like, whoa, what is happening? And he came to the realization in his own words, he's like, Oh my gosh, I've been a total a-hole.
I can't believe it. I didn't know. And you know, at first it's like, oh, is he playing the victim? But these people, when you're in overuse, when you have these low EQ traits, when you were being super, super intense and you don't realize what you're doing, you don't realize how overbearing you're being to someone else.
It hurts. Well, I mean, it's almost a release to realize that, that you can change, but until you know that you can change it, it's, it's, it's something that you'll never actually change. So, sorry, I'm, I'm...
[00:23:58] Garrett Jestice: Yeah.
[00:23:59] Steven Farber: ...confused myself there, but yeah, that's probably my favorite example is just when you're able to show these differences, you can actually help people realize themselves what, what they're actually doing. And once somebody picks that up on their own, that's when the real change happens. You can't force someone to change, but if they can realize it themselves, all the results are, they're incredible.
[00:24:21] Garrett Jestice: Yeah, I know. I, I love that example because I think that it's, it's eyeopening when you start down this process of learning about EQ, learning about how you're wired, learning about how, you know, you might have intended one thing and someone perceived it a completely different way. And I, and I totally see how, you know, by starting down that path and making progress on it, it can, if, if you can, you know, have a culture of doing that in your company where that's accepted and encouraged that it totally leaves to psychologically and physically safer environments, workplaces.
So it's definitely applicable. And I, and I love the example that you shared because I think it is eye opening for many people who maybe, maybe just hadn't thought about this before, and then they start down this process and they, they realize, oh my goodness, this is, must be how I've been perceived and I need to do something to change.
And that's perfect because that's, that's kinda like you said, the first step in this, in this process of of, of realizing that there needs to be a change, realizing that there could be a better way or, to communicate your ideas. And again, coming back to you and what we talked about with, you know, your journey and your career, again, I see how this fits in perfectly for, for you, Steven, of, you know, this idea of communication, personality styles and bringing that all together under this umbrella of EQ to, to create better, engaged, safer workplaces for people.
And you know, that's a, that's a noble mission that I think every company needs to be improving on. So salute you for, you know, that personal mission and where it's led you in your career. And I think that this is an awesome next step.
[00:26:00] Steven Farber: Oh, thank you so much. There's a lot of kind words there, so appreciate ya.
[00:26:05] Garrett Jestice: Anything else you would say to this topic of EQ specifically, if there are people who are listening who are intrigued by this idea or this topic who want to learn more about it, what, what would you recommend that they, they do as a next step?
[00:26:19] Steven Farber: Yeah. You know, I like to keep it very simple. I actually have a ebook on this that I wrote. It's a hundred percent free. I don't know why I use percent. It's a free ebook. You can actually just go to my LinkedIn. It's right in the banner. It's also in my resource section, and you can download that for free.
And it, it kind of breaks down a little bit of what I've talked about here today, along with more of a step-by-step process of how to introduce this idea to your workforce. And there's also, in addition to that, there's some resources about, the personality styles, how to combine those with EQ, which is something that we do that not a lot of other, I don't know if anybody else does that.
We just, I think it's the best way to do it, but that way you can find your bullies, you can find your detractors, you can find the people who may not even know they're causing problems and bring a more emotionally intelligent workforce to your workforce, and the ebook is called the Emotionally Intelligent Workforce.
So in the name of redundancy, I hope I've answered your question!
[00:27:10] Garrett Jestice: You definitely have, we will drop a link. For anyone listening, we'll drop a link to, to Steven's LinkedIn profile and also that ebook in the show notes so you can find those there. So Steven, thank you again so much for taking the time to be with us today. If there are listeners that want to connect with you or learn more about working with your company, what's the best way for them to do that?
[00:27:31] Steven Farber: Sure, there's a couple of different ways. Again, I never log off of LinkedIn. It's a problem. So reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm always on there. You can also visit us at takeflightlearning.com. And of course, oh, you know, those are really the, the major two ways. There's, there's some other information.
You know, we got a phone number, we have an email, all that fun stuff. But yeah, takeflightlearning.com or catch me on LinkedIn. My LinkedIn slash In is Steven Farber. It's my name, so feel free to look that up.
[00:27:56] Garrett Jestice: Perfect. Thanks again Steven. It's great connecting with you, catching up as always and I'm looking forward to our next episode sometime in the future.
[00:28:04] Steven Farber: Sounds good. We'll make it happen.
[00:28:05] Garrett Jestice: Thanks Steven. We'll see ya.
[00:00:14] Steven Farber: I'm doing great, Garrett. Thanks for having me on. I think this was the third time right?
[00:00:18] Garrett Jestice: I think it is. And we are super excited to have you on the show. I know, you know, your previous two episodes that we've done, you know, months in the past are some of my favorites that we've done and some of our listeners favorites too. We were just joking before we jumped on here, that it seems like every time you come back you have a different title, different company.
Right. So now you're the Vice President of training and certifications at Take Flight Learning. Is that right?
[00:00:41] Steven Farber: That is correct, yes.
[00:00:42] Garrett Jestice: So tell our listeners who might not have heard your previous episodes a little bit more about you, your background, and what you're currently doing in your job right now.
[00:00:50] Steven Farber: Yeah, absolutely. I'll see if I can kind of give a succinct background about myself. So again, yeah. My name is Steven Farber. I'm a Vice President at Take Flight Learning. Sorry, Take, Yeah, take Flight Learning. It's been one of those days and, yeah, so a little bit about me. You know, I was a participant in the Great Resignation, right?
My initial reaction whenever I was part of the droves that walked away was, Wow, I gotta figure out a way to help other people not have to go through this. From compensation issues to under appreciation, culture problems, whatever may have been happening, you know, after the pandemic, during the pandemic that caused people to walk away.
I wanted to really help people get in front of it because that's, that was me. I felt like that was, my life there. But one thing that I kind of missed was, even though I thought employers were these callous opponents that just really wanted to push me out the door, it, it turns out, for the most part, and I'm sure this is true of a lot of people, that employers don't like losing people.
[00:01:46] Steven Farber: They, they hate people walking away more than we hate leaving. So, I, you know, what I did is I, I got into this and I did some investigation, Garrett, and what I found was that there's these patterns that occur and if I could figure out a way to kind of isolate these patterns of discontent, I thought, you know, I can really bring some impactful insights into the engagement world and figure out how we can keep more people from, from leaving -- people like me.
And, and, and how to really build that job satisfaction so that employees don't just want to jump ship because there's a lot of options these days. And that drove me into a lot of different things. If you go back to those past episodes, I was at employee benefits, then I had started my own company called Hero Culture, which was in the name of, of bringing a positive experience that was long lasting and impactful to lots of company cultures and in the form of communication training, that's kind of where I hit on.
But I wasn't quite sure what I was doing there. I just knew that it had something to do with communication. And then of course, I'm at where I'm at now. I was introduced to the Disc personality world and team building and kind of tried to do that on my own. Was, was, was mildly successful, but eventually was very happy to join the team at Take Flight Learning where we do this worldwide, for people now just bringing, all kinds of trainings from personality to emotional intelligence, to team building events, just to really help teams grow, communicate better, and ultimately wanna stay. So that's a little bit about where I was, where I'm at, and really what my mission is in this life per say.
[00:03:23] Garrett Jestice: I love it. I love how, seeing every time you come back, you know, every time we chat, seeing that evolution of you add a little bit more to what it is to you, like your personal mission, right? And it seems like you're in a place that's perfect for you right now based on those previous conversations.
Like, like Steven mentioned for some of our listeners out there, if you go back and, and for some of you who've listened for a while, there was the, the disc personality is the last one that Steven did. Some of you might remember it as the, the bird personality. Steven is our bird man, right? It's the different types of, of, of birds out there.
And so if you've followed Steven at all, he's talked a lot about that. But I'm really excited to dive into our topic today because I think it's just an evolution. Again, just like you and your career, it's an evolution of the past conversations that we've had on this show, and I think that it, it kind of ties 'em all together.
So as you and I talked about, what do we talk about today on this episode, you kind of proposed this idea of something you mentioned a minute ago, emotional intelligence and how that can impact workplaces, make them better physically, psychologically, safer workplaces so that there's, there's better output for the companies and, and better enjoyment and fulfillment and engagement from employees.
Is that right?
[00:04:37] Steven Farber: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:04:39] Garrett Jestice: Let's jump into that. I guess just to set the stage, one of the things we really like to do is really just define what we're talking about so that we're all on the same page. We often do that on episodes, so tell us what you mean when you say emotional intelligence. I think that's something that has, it's a term that's popped up a lot more in the last few years especially, fortunately, but I think it's something that's still a little fuzzy for some people.
So what's your, what's your definition of emotional?
[00:05:03] Steven Farber: Thank you. And, and it's rightfully so fuzzy because EQ is like, is like what we like to say is kind of like drinking from a fire hose. It is a broad, broad topic. And oddly enough, you know, we asked that question a lot at the beginning of our training. It's like, you know, what is emotional intelligence?
So it's funny having that posed back to me cause I'm like, Oh, I gotta answer it this time. And you know, it's the best way that I would say to answer is kind of in the thought of, or rather in the metaphor of the path. EQ is kind of, it's kinda like following a path on the way to learning how to perceive our emotions and how to understand them.
And what I mean by that is once we perceive and understand them in a way that is more self-aware, it allows us to control them. Because if we don't control our emotions, they're gonna control us. That's kind of a one way street, you know, this way or that way. And I think a lot of people live their lives just being controlled by their own emotions.
And it's not, it's not, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't blame them because it is hard to actually step back and realize our inner narrative is often pretty darn negative. And you know, there's all kinds of people who have a lot to say on that, but it's definitely a skill that can be brought to the table, and it's one that affects so many areas.
And that's why I wanted to talk about this topic, is something that really blew my mind was when I learned that EQ directly affects workplace safety. And it comes in kind of two parts, and this will be the second kind of half of that question is, the first one is it definitely affects on the job safety, like physical safety, you know, getting hurt in the real world.
But what's even more interesting is the psychological safety bit. And you know, while physical's not getting hurt, psychological safety, is it, it's, I think, the best way to explain it is it's feeling safe and expressing your ideas and not feeling like they're going to be condemned, shot down, or you're gonna be punished for 'em.
So yeah, EQ helps in both of those areas. And I hope I, I kind of went a long way around answering your question, but yeah, that's how it would define it, and that is how it connects. And I'll kind of explain how it connects to psychological and workplace safety as we continue on here.
[00:07:12] Garrett Jestice: Yeah, I love it. So again, emotional intelligence or EQ is, is really, you know, the abbreviation for that. Right. And it's really about like, like I heard you say, understanding your emotions and helping, also being able to help and identify the emotions of others that you interact with. Is that right?
[00:07:31] Steven Farber: Yes, absolutely.
[00:07:32] Garrett Jestice: Okay, so I gotta ask this question because I, because I, I know that there's some people out there who might not be as familiar with, you know, the study of EQ who might be like me, might be the, the skeptic sometimes, right?
I, I, I had the fortunatechance to actually take an EQ course a couple years ago. Found it fascinating. But let me take, let me play devil's advocate here for a minute, right? Because one of the things you said was, was really interesting, you know, your emotions and understanding those, definitely you can see how that ties to a psychologically safer workplace.
But you also mentioned a physically safer workplace. So you know, let's take for example, someone who works in a, in a warehouse. How does emotions and understanding of the, you know, their own EQ lead to that, the fewer safety violations or the phy- safer physical workplace?
[00:08:22] Steven Farber: Gotcha. No, that's a, that's a really great question. I'm actually having to dig into my notes for this, because, and that's the thing with EQ is it's not, it's not necessarily a simple, short answer because, because emotions aren't simple either most of the time. But to answer your question, let's dig into the world of personality just a little bit.
So let me pull out the personality of the eagle here, and if anybody has watched that last show, Eagles are gonna be more of the dominant, decisive type of personality. Does that make sense?
[00:08:50] Garrett Jestice: Yep, totally.
[00:08:51] Steven Farber: Right. So if you have an eagle, they're technically people who exude a lot of confidence in the workplace. They know where they're going.
They're not gonna ask a committee about getting something done. They are to the point. But an eagle can have a low emotional intelligence whenever it comes to a self-awareness or confidence, if that makes sense. So what does an eagle with low confidence look like? Do you have a what? What does that look like to you, Garrett?
What would that person seem like?
[00:09:18] Garrett Jestice: Let's see, a, an eagle with low confidence. They're probably someone who on the outside seems like they have, you know, it all together. They're pretty decisive, but they second guess themselves often on the inside. They, they, they want to prove themselves a little bit at times and their ability to, you know, be smart and capable and seen as that.
[00:09:39] Steven Farber: Right. No, you're, you're right on the mark. It, it's, yeah. Basically they're, they're constantly second guessing who they are. They don't feel nearly as confident as they, as they naturally exude. So what happens is they overcompensate, right? So as instead, instead of someone who is this direct decisive worker, who, who's really goal oriented, you end up getting a bully instead.
And, and that, that's rough because this person, if they, if they're unsure about themselves, they consider anything that they screw up on a personal failure. So in order not to actually, you know, take the blame for that, they're going to overcompensate. So that directness becomes aggression.
That that decisive assuredness becomes this arrogant, almost condescending pushiness. And, and the reason I bring all this up, because I'm gonna answer your question about how this relates, relates to physical safety. You know, if there is a potential safety hazard or a violation or something that's not quite right, this person probably is not gonna bring it up if they feel like it's going to tie it back to them because they're gonna be afraid of being judged for that.
The other thing is someone else may not want to bring that up to them because they're going to be afraid of getting lash or, or getting lashed out at because of that. So it affects not only themselves, because if they admit that there's a problem, that's a personal failure and they can't have that.
But it also makes it hard for other people to approach them because they're like, I really think this is a problem, but I am not gonna go tell Steven about it because he'll, he will eat me alive. So now you have, So you have these, you have, you have this problem that's not being solved because of emotions.
Then somebody actually gets hurt. Then it's an even bigger problem, because now you're looking at productivity, people walking away, all kinds of stuff. Now, now you have. Different set of emotions going on. You might have OSHA get involved. Who knows? All of it happens though, and it's not just Eagles. Everybody has a problem.
If you're a parrot, you might turn into the biggest narcissist you've ever met. You know, it just, it depends on who you are. But the point is, is if you don't know that you have this trait that's low in EQ, you're going to just act out of instinct, and you're going to naturally cause problems to, you know, develop in the background that'll result in bigger problems.
Does that, does that make sense?
[00:11:50] Garrett Jestice: Yeah, total sense. So like, if I can just reiterate what I, what I heard you say is really as we, as we, as you know, business leaders and managers and also employees, better understand how we're wired in many ways, kind of going back to, you know, the disc personalities, the bird analogies like you just talked about, and also better understand our emotional tendencies that are kind of tied to that, those dominant personality traits that can help us spot some of those potential failures and hopefully overcome them before they happen.
Right, to leading to fewer accidents in the workplace, or generally a safer work environment, whether you're physically or psychologically. Is that right? Anything I missed there?
[00:12:37] Steven Farber: No, no, you're, you're right on the money. And just to add to that, you know, what we described was largely how you prevent something physical from happening. You go over to the psychological safety side, you know, psychological safety being the, the actual ability to feel safe voicing your opinions. If you don't feel safe, if you're not self-assured, or if someone else is so overbearing that you're terrified of being self-assured, it's not a psychologically safe workplace either.
And there's probably so many of those that are just really dependent on a low EQ culture. And the key to actually raising EQ is to start with that awareness that hey we're in a low EQ culture, and then you, from there, you can start looking at what the high EQ cultures look like and you can really just mimic it.
That's, that's how simple it can be. The hard part is getting people to stop and say, oh, this is a problem. If that makes sense.
[00:13:26] Garrett Jestice: Yeah, totally. So I think you kind of hit on what I want to go to next, which really is just what, what does a low EQ culture in a business look like versus a high EQ culture, and how, how do you first identify that? And then how do you move your company to be more like that high EQ culture?
[00:13:45] Steven Farber: No, that's, that's a really good question. It's, it's also a, a big one to unpack. And you know what, let me, so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna grab an EQ profile here. And typically what we, what we've done when we do trainings like this is what we do. We, again, we point out what the low EQ is, what the high EQ is, and then we have strategic actual activities around that.
But I would say some of the low EQ cultures, let's just start with leaders, for example. So if your leadership is, I, if the appearance is closed mindedness, they're not open to new ideas, they're not willing to actually reach out and help someone, that could point to a low EQ area in the social awareness aspect.
And what I mean by that is they're not aware of how they're actually treating the people who are around them. So for instance, if you have somebody who is very kind of systematized, very, very systems oriented and they like things, you know, everything in it, everything, everything. A place for everything and everything in its place, easy for me to say, right?
The way, you know, and they have, they have a whole team of people that may not think that way. What that person, the high EQ trait would actually be to be able to read that room and know, you know what, I'm not actually connecting with everybody here. What I need to do is I need to stop slow down. Maybe I need to have some individual meetings with each one of these people, you know, really ask, you know, Hey, what do you think about this?
What are your qualms? What are your, what do you like about it? What do you not like? The, the ability to read the room is a high EQ trait. If you just assume, and this can, again, this can be someone with a lot of confidence as they can actually fall into this hole sometimes confidence isn't always the key to everything.
[00:15:22] Steven Farber: You know what, I nailed this. Everything's good, we're great. And then you just shut it down and in your mind, you're like, Yeah, the way I'm gonna do it is perfect. But if you don't actually know that, if you can't read the room and see that your team is, you know, there's a couple people who are shaking their heads.
My favorite are the dove personalities where they will not say, they'll say yes on the outside, but in inside they're saying, No, I hate this. But they're not gonna tell you in the meeting. They, they might have a little mini meeting after the meeting and the hallways, a lot of people will notice that sometimes.
[00:15:50] Steven Farber: Oh, looks there, there's meetings going on after the meeting. It's because there wasn't actual total agreement. So let me, let me back up and just kind of answer that more succinct. High EQ workplace would be a workplace that's really good at reading the room. They're open to ideas, even if it's in contra, conflict to their current one.
The, the actual ability to step back and listen is high EQ. It shows an openness. If you're closed to that. That's low eq. So, and the way that you would raise that, and this is kind of the neat thing about it, is it really comes down to knowing what high and low is. If you know what the end goal looks like and you know where you are, you know where you have to go, so to speak.
[00:16:29] Garrett Jestice: Yeah, I think that makes total sense. And I think, you know, the next, probably the million dollar question, which I don't know if there is like an end all be all answer to this, but I'm curious your thoughts on it is, you know, can you really change EQ?Like those people who are wired that way, right. Who are the people who don't naturally read the room very well?
Is it something that they're just born with or is it a skill or a trait that people can actually improve over time?
[00:16:58] Steven Farber: Man, I, that's my favorite question, so, short answer, absolutely. EQ is not like IQ, it's not static. And personality style, while personalities can change and, you know, with a lot of effort, sometimes, trauma can change personalities, big life events, getting married, adopting a child, having a child. Anything like that at all will change it.
EQ is the one thing between, between personality and emotional intelligence. EQ can be actively changed, and everybody can go to zero to a hundred. Like there's not, you can't, you're not necessarily wired to have a medium to low EQ like you might have with an IQ. EQ can be maxed for everybody, as, from what I understand from Daniel's original work, and for what we have put together today over on our team is, is it's actively able to be changed. And that's why it's such a big deal for people to get on board with because it is 100% leveragable today.
[00:17:52] Garrett Jestice: Awesome. That's awesome. So, let's say for instance I am a, you know, a small business leader, or maybe an HR person. I hear this podcast. I think, you know, I, I think we do work in a fairly low EQ culture, and I wanna change that at our company. What, what would be, what would you recommend as like the next step?
What, what would, what should someone like that do to really start down that path of raising the collective EQ of their company?
[00:18:23] Steven Farber: That's a really good question. The first thing I would say is you, the biggest step is realizing that you're in a low EQ culture and, and you're not alone, because low EQ is so much more common and really, low EQ is just people not understanding what EQ is.
Once you understand, well, I say understand EQ, understanding EQ is a huge, again, it's a fire hose of information, but understanding that you might not be in a high EQ situation, that immediately raises your EQ because you've just hit self-awareness.
And that's a big part of those four components, which, I didn't mention this initially, but those four components again, are gonna be self-awareness, social awareness, and then self-management, and I always, relationship management, that's the fourth one. So any, and by the way, there's 18 pieces to all of those as well. So yes, very changeable. Not a problem there.
[00:19:14] Garrett Jestice: Got it. Awesome. And so let's bring this back then to what we originally started talking about, which is how EQ, emotional intelligence can actually make your workplace safer. . Right. And so how does, how does this EQ and just mindfulness kind of in general of where you are at, where your company's at, how other people perceive you in those relationships there.
What are the results of starting down that path of changing it? How does it make people safer and happier at work? And especially if you have any examples of those that you've worked with and, or evolutions you've seen in companies where they have started down that path and what the result has been.
[00:19:54] Steven Farber: Right, right. Yeah, no. To, to answer your first question, really it all starts with digging into four components of EQ and then going from there, just understanding what you're in, like we answered in that previous question immediately raises your EQ, one that I really wanna point to, we'll just, we'll just focus on one component here, just self-awareness.
For instance, if you, in a self-awareness has four components, there's emotional clarity, self-reflection, cause and effect, and confidence. Just focusing on confidence. If you have low confidence at work, no matter your job, you're much more prone to make mistakes. And one mistake can lead to another mistake, can lead to another mistake, which then reinforces the belief that you just make mistakes all the time, which I'm not saying is true about anyone.
[00:20:38] Steven Farber: I felt that way about myself for a long time. But you know, our brains are geared for survival. So they're going to find these processes that we're doing, they're gonna do the best they can to keep us away from what hurts. And if we have low emotional intelligence in the form of, of confidence and we, we make mistakes, our brain's gonna get us away from doing the things that we actually need to be doing to get better.
And of course, when it comes to safety, especially psychological safety, which I think psychological safety is directly gonna correlate to physical safety anyway. If we want to have a workplace that we feel safe to express ourselves in, if we really want true inclusion and diversity and equity, we have to feel like we can speak.
And if we have low EQ in, in confidence and self-reflection, cause and effect those areas, if we don't know what it looks like to have it higher in those areas, then we're gonna just make more mistakes. We're not gonna be able to connect the dots and then people are really gonna get hurt in real life.
If we have bullies that develop or things like that, we, we know the problem that bullies can cause in childhood. We know the, the rates of people who get hurt and, and suicides and all these terrible things that happen. And then you, you can have these develop in your workplace. So it's very worth having the ability to understand.
Is this person just a hateful person, or do they not understand that they're exhibiting a low EQ trait, Let's teach them how to raise it. All of a sudden you've turned, you've turned a detractor into an absolute outstanding rockstar leader. So I'm kind of, I'm kind of going all over the place. Let me reel it back in here.
What was the, what was the second half of that question Garrett?
[00:22:10] Garrett Jestice: Yeah. Just if you had any examples of, you know, good examples of companies or people that you've worked with through this process.
[00:22:17] Steven Farber: Yeah, absolutely. So, it's funny because I, I'm not picking on eagles, I promise they're, they're my favorite type. I'm not an eagle. I wish I was, my, one, one of my bosses. So I promise Jeff, this isn't on you. But, you know, Eagles, I would say... you know, we had a, we had a training a while back, and the most crazy thing about this is we were going through, you know, high and low traits and what, you know, what somebody, an overuse in a style looks like, that directness turning into aggression.
That, that, in, you know, it, it's, it's somewhat accidental becoming this bully. And you have this, you have this manager in the back and he's, he's one of the leaders of the company and I. You know, disclaimer, if you're an eagle, that doesn't make you a leader. And it doesn't mean only eagles can lead.
We can all lead, happen to be a leader who is an eagle, and we're talking about the most, according to his own people hard-nosed, very intense, very direct person. And we have lots of examples of these, but this one in particular as the training is, is concluding. He begins to break down in tears. Of course, everybody's looking around like, this person can cry? I didn't know that. Like, whoa, what is happening? And he came to the realization in his own words, he's like, Oh my gosh, I've been a total a-hole.
I can't believe it. I didn't know. And you know, at first it's like, oh, is he playing the victim? But these people, when you're in overuse, when you have these low EQ traits, when you were being super, super intense and you don't realize what you're doing, you don't realize how overbearing you're being to someone else.
It hurts. Well, I mean, it's almost a release to realize that, that you can change, but until you know that you can change it, it's, it's, it's something that you'll never actually change. So, sorry, I'm, I'm...
[00:23:58] Garrett Jestice: Yeah.
[00:23:59] Steven Farber: ...confused myself there, but yeah, that's probably my favorite example is just when you're able to show these differences, you can actually help people realize themselves what, what they're actually doing. And once somebody picks that up on their own, that's when the real change happens. You can't force someone to change, but if they can realize it themselves, all the results are, they're incredible.
[00:24:21] Garrett Jestice: Yeah, I know. I, I love that example because I think that it's, it's eyeopening when you start down this process of learning about EQ, learning about how you're wired, learning about how, you know, you might have intended one thing and someone perceived it a completely different way. And I, and I totally see how, you know, by starting down that path and making progress on it, it can, if, if you can, you know, have a culture of doing that in your company where that's accepted and encouraged that it totally leaves to psychologically and physically safer environments, workplaces.
So it's definitely applicable. And I, and I love the example that you shared because I think it is eye opening for many people who maybe, maybe just hadn't thought about this before, and then they start down this process and they, they realize, oh my goodness, this is, must be how I've been perceived and I need to do something to change.
And that's perfect because that's, that's kinda like you said, the first step in this, in this process of of, of realizing that there needs to be a change, realizing that there could be a better way or, to communicate your ideas. And again, coming back to you and what we talked about with, you know, your journey and your career, again, I see how this fits in perfectly for, for you, Steven, of, you know, this idea of communication, personality styles and bringing that all together under this umbrella of EQ to, to create better, engaged, safer workplaces for people.
And you know, that's a, that's a noble mission that I think every company needs to be improving on. So salute you for, you know, that personal mission and where it's led you in your career. And I think that this is an awesome next step.
[00:26:00] Steven Farber: Oh, thank you so much. There's a lot of kind words there, so appreciate ya.
[00:26:05] Garrett Jestice: Anything else you would say to this topic of EQ specifically, if there are people who are listening who are intrigued by this idea or this topic who want to learn more about it, what, what would you recommend that they, they do as a next step?
[00:26:19] Steven Farber: Yeah. You know, I like to keep it very simple. I actually have a ebook on this that I wrote. It's a hundred percent free. I don't know why I use percent. It's a free ebook. You can actually just go to my LinkedIn. It's right in the banner. It's also in my resource section, and you can download that for free.
And it, it kind of breaks down a little bit of what I've talked about here today, along with more of a step-by-step process of how to introduce this idea to your workforce. And there's also, in addition to that, there's some resources about, the personality styles, how to combine those with EQ, which is something that we do that not a lot of other, I don't know if anybody else does that.
We just, I think it's the best way to do it, but that way you can find your bullies, you can find your detractors, you can find the people who may not even know they're causing problems and bring a more emotionally intelligent workforce to your workforce, and the ebook is called the Emotionally Intelligent Workforce.
So in the name of redundancy, I hope I've answered your question!
[00:27:10] Garrett Jestice: You definitely have, we will drop a link. For anyone listening, we'll drop a link to, to Steven's LinkedIn profile and also that ebook in the show notes so you can find those there. So Steven, thank you again so much for taking the time to be with us today. If there are listeners that want to connect with you or learn more about working with your company, what's the best way for them to do that?
[00:27:31] Steven Farber: Sure, there's a couple of different ways. Again, I never log off of LinkedIn. It's a problem. So reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm always on there. You can also visit us at takeflightlearning.com. And of course, oh, you know, those are really the, the major two ways. There's, there's some other information.
You know, we got a phone number, we have an email, all that fun stuff. But yeah, takeflightlearning.com or catch me on LinkedIn. My LinkedIn slash In is Steven Farber. It's my name, so feel free to look that up.
[00:27:56] Garrett Jestice: Perfect. Thanks again Steven. It's great connecting with you, catching up as always and I'm looking forward to our next episode sometime in the future.
[00:28:04] Steven Farber: Sounds good. We'll make it happen.
[00:28:05] Garrett Jestice: Thanks Steven. We'll see ya.
Eddy’s HR Mavericks Podcast
Emotional Intelligence for Safer Workplaces w/ Steven Farber
In episode 69, we talk again with Steven Farber about what EQ is, why it matters, and how to improve workplace EQ.
Episode 69
“Let’s talk about our feelings.” Those are words that you don’t often hear at work. But understanding—and mastering—our emotions can make a huge impact on physical and psychological safety in the workplace. On this episode of the HR Mavericks podcast, Steven Farber explains what EQ is, why it matters, and how to improve workplace EQ. As vice president of training and certifications at Take Flight Learning, Steven knows a thing or two about how humans work together, and he says that growing our emotional intelligence is one of the first steps toward success at work. During our discussion, we talked about:
- The importance of controlling our emotions
- How having a higher EQ leads to better workplace safety
- Understanding personality types to better understand emotional intelligence
- Why awareness is the first step toward improving EQ
- Signs of a high-EQ workplace
- How to develop greater emotional intelligence
- The 4 main components of EQ
Steven Farber
I spent much of my working life in a whirlwind of uncertainty wondering when I would find a career that would make me happy. After spending 23 years trying to find that 'dream career' I came to a sobering conclusion. I realized that I wasn't looking for a career, but for a purpose and that I would never be happy until I figured out what that purpose was. After a long hard road of trial and error, I concluded that my purpose, the very activity that brought me happiness was when I could bring that happiness to others first. Removing the vast amounts of uncertainty this life can bring for others and replacing it with true peace of mind, gave me my much sought-after peace of mind.
Full Transcript
[00:00:00] Garrett Jestice: Welcome to the next episode of the HR Mavericks podcast. I'm Garrett Jestice, and today I am joined by a familiar guest, someone who's been here a few times before, Mr. Steven Farber. Steven, how you doing today?
[00:00:14] Steven Farber: I'm doing great, Garrett. Thanks for having me on. I think this was the third time right?
[00:00:18] Garrett Jestice: I think it is. And we are super excited to have you on the show. I know, you know, your previous two episodes that we've done, you know, months in the past are some of my favorites that we've done and some of our listeners favorites too. We were just joking before we jumped on here, that it seems like every time you come back you have a different title, different company.
Right. So now you're the Vice President of training and certifications at Take Flight Learning. Is that right?
[00:00:41] Steven Farber: That is correct, yes.
[00:00:42] Garrett Jestice: So tell our listeners who might not have heard your previous episodes a little bit more about you, your background, and what you're currently doing in your job right now.
[00:00:50] Steven Farber: Yeah, absolutely. I'll see if I can kind of give a succinct background about myself. So again, yeah. My name is Steven Farber. I'm a Vice President at Take Flight Learning. Sorry, Take, Yeah, take Flight Learning. It's been one of those days and, yeah, so a little bit about me. You know, I was a participant in the Great Resignation, right?
My initial reaction whenever I was part of the droves that walked away was, Wow, I gotta figure out a way to help other people not have to go through this. From compensation issues to under appreciation, culture problems, whatever may have been happening, you know, after the pandemic, during the pandemic that caused people to walk away.
I wanted to really help people get in front of it because that's, that was me. I felt like that was, my life there. But one thing that I kind of missed was, even though I thought employers were these callous opponents that just really wanted to push me out the door, it, it turns out, for the most part, and I'm sure this is true of a lot of people, that employers don't like losing people.
[00:01:46] Steven Farber: They, they hate people walking away more than we hate leaving. So, I, you know, what I did is I, I got into this and I did some investigation, Garrett, and what I found was that there's these patterns that occur and if I could figure out a way to kind of isolate these patterns of discontent, I thought, you know, I can really bring some impactful insights into the engagement world and figure out how we can keep more people from, from leaving -- people like me.
And, and, and how to really build that job satisfaction so that employees don't just want to jump ship because there's a lot of options these days. And that drove me into a lot of different things. If you go back to those past episodes, I was at employee benefits, then I had started my own company called Hero Culture, which was in the name of, of bringing a positive experience that was long lasting and impactful to lots of company cultures and in the form of communication training, that's kind of where I hit on.
But I wasn't quite sure what I was doing there. I just knew that it had something to do with communication. And then of course, I'm at where I'm at now. I was introduced to the Disc personality world and team building and kind of tried to do that on my own. Was, was, was mildly successful, but eventually was very happy to join the team at Take Flight Learning where we do this worldwide, for people now just bringing, all kinds of trainings from personality to emotional intelligence, to team building events, just to really help teams grow, communicate better, and ultimately wanna stay. So that's a little bit about where I was, where I'm at, and really what my mission is in this life per say.
[00:03:23] Garrett Jestice: I love it. I love how, seeing every time you come back, you know, every time we chat, seeing that evolution of you add a little bit more to what it is to you, like your personal mission, right? And it seems like you're in a place that's perfect for you right now based on those previous conversations.
Like, like Steven mentioned for some of our listeners out there, if you go back and, and for some of you who've listened for a while, there was the, the disc personality is the last one that Steven did. Some of you might remember it as the, the bird personality. Steven is our bird man, right? It's the different types of, of, of birds out there.
And so if you've followed Steven at all, he's talked a lot about that. But I'm really excited to dive into our topic today because I think it's just an evolution. Again, just like you and your career, it's an evolution of the past conversations that we've had on this show, and I think that it, it kind of ties 'em all together.
So as you and I talked about, what do we talk about today on this episode, you kind of proposed this idea of something you mentioned a minute ago, emotional intelligence and how that can impact workplaces, make them better physically, psychologically, safer workplaces so that there's, there's better output for the companies and, and better enjoyment and fulfillment and engagement from employees.
Is that right?
[00:04:37] Steven Farber: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:04:39] Garrett Jestice: Let's jump into that. I guess just to set the stage, one of the things we really like to do is really just define what we're talking about so that we're all on the same page. We often do that on episodes, so tell us what you mean when you say emotional intelligence. I think that's something that has, it's a term that's popped up a lot more in the last few years especially, fortunately, but I think it's something that's still a little fuzzy for some people.
So what's your, what's your definition of emotional?
[00:05:03] Steven Farber: Thank you. And, and it's rightfully so fuzzy because EQ is like, is like what we like to say is kind of like drinking from a fire hose. It is a broad, broad topic. And oddly enough, you know, we asked that question a lot at the beginning of our training. It's like, you know, what is emotional intelligence?
So it's funny having that posed back to me cause I'm like, Oh, I gotta answer it this time. And you know, it's the best way that I would say to answer is kind of in the thought of, or rather in the metaphor of the path. EQ is kind of, it's kinda like following a path on the way to learning how to perceive our emotions and how to understand them.
And what I mean by that is once we perceive and understand them in a way that is more self-aware, it allows us to control them. Because if we don't control our emotions, they're gonna control us. That's kind of a one way street, you know, this way or that way. And I think a lot of people live their lives just being controlled by their own emotions.
And it's not, it's not, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't blame them because it is hard to actually step back and realize our inner narrative is often pretty darn negative. And you know, there's all kinds of people who have a lot to say on that, but it's definitely a skill that can be brought to the table, and it's one that affects so many areas.
And that's why I wanted to talk about this topic, is something that really blew my mind was when I learned that EQ directly affects workplace safety. And it comes in kind of two parts, and this will be the second kind of half of that question is, the first one is it definitely affects on the job safety, like physical safety, you know, getting hurt in the real world.
But what's even more interesting is the psychological safety bit. And you know, while physical's not getting hurt, psychological safety, is it, it's, I think, the best way to explain it is it's feeling safe and expressing your ideas and not feeling like they're going to be condemned, shot down, or you're gonna be punished for 'em.
So yeah, EQ helps in both of those areas. And I hope I, I kind of went a long way around answering your question, but yeah, that's how it would define it, and that is how it connects. And I'll kind of explain how it connects to psychological and workplace safety as we continue on here.
[00:07:12] Garrett Jestice: Yeah, I love it. So again, emotional intelligence or EQ is, is really, you know, the abbreviation for that. Right. And it's really about like, like I heard you say, understanding your emotions and helping, also being able to help and identify the emotions of others that you interact with. Is that right?
[00:07:31] Steven Farber: Yes, absolutely.
[00:07:32] Garrett Jestice: Okay, so I gotta ask this question because I, because I, I know that there's some people out there who might not be as familiar with, you know, the study of EQ who might be like me, might be the, the skeptic sometimes, right?
I, I, I had the fortunatechance to actually take an EQ course a couple years ago. Found it fascinating. But let me take, let me play devil's advocate here for a minute, right? Because one of the things you said was, was really interesting, you know, your emotions and understanding those, definitely you can see how that ties to a psychologically safer workplace.
But you also mentioned a physically safer workplace. So you know, let's take for example, someone who works in a, in a warehouse. How does emotions and understanding of the, you know, their own EQ lead to that, the fewer safety violations or the phy- safer physical workplace?
[00:08:22] Steven Farber: Gotcha. No, that's a, that's a really great question. I'm actually having to dig into my notes for this, because, and that's the thing with EQ is it's not, it's not necessarily a simple, short answer because, because emotions aren't simple either most of the time. But to answer your question, let's dig into the world of personality just a little bit.
So let me pull out the personality of the eagle here, and if anybody has watched that last show, Eagles are gonna be more of the dominant, decisive type of personality. Does that make sense?
[00:08:50] Garrett Jestice: Yep, totally.
[00:08:51] Steven Farber: Right. So if you have an eagle, they're technically people who exude a lot of confidence in the workplace. They know where they're going.
They're not gonna ask a committee about getting something done. They are to the point. But an eagle can have a low emotional intelligence whenever it comes to a self-awareness or confidence, if that makes sense. So what does an eagle with low confidence look like? Do you have a what? What does that look like to you, Garrett?
What would that person seem like?
[00:09:18] Garrett Jestice: Let's see, a, an eagle with low confidence. They're probably someone who on the outside seems like they have, you know, it all together. They're pretty decisive, but they second guess themselves often on the inside. They, they, they want to prove themselves a little bit at times and their ability to, you know, be smart and capable and seen as that.
[00:09:39] Steven Farber: Right. No, you're, you're right on the mark. It, it's, yeah. Basically they're, they're constantly second guessing who they are. They don't feel nearly as confident as they, as they naturally exude. So what happens is they overcompensate, right? So as instead, instead of someone who is this direct decisive worker, who, who's really goal oriented, you end up getting a bully instead.
And, and that, that's rough because this person, if they, if they're unsure about themselves, they consider anything that they screw up on a personal failure. So in order not to actually, you know, take the blame for that, they're going to overcompensate. So that directness becomes aggression.
That that decisive assuredness becomes this arrogant, almost condescending pushiness. And, and the reason I bring all this up, because I'm gonna answer your question about how this relates, relates to physical safety. You know, if there is a potential safety hazard or a violation or something that's not quite right, this person probably is not gonna bring it up if they feel like it's going to tie it back to them because they're gonna be afraid of being judged for that.
The other thing is someone else may not want to bring that up to them because they're going to be afraid of getting lash or, or getting lashed out at because of that. So it affects not only themselves, because if they admit that there's a problem, that's a personal failure and they can't have that.
But it also makes it hard for other people to approach them because they're like, I really think this is a problem, but I am not gonna go tell Steven about it because he'll, he will eat me alive. So now you have, So you have these, you have, you have this problem that's not being solved because of emotions.
Then somebody actually gets hurt. Then it's an even bigger problem, because now you're looking at productivity, people walking away, all kinds of stuff. Now, now you have. Different set of emotions going on. You might have OSHA get involved. Who knows? All of it happens though, and it's not just Eagles. Everybody has a problem.
If you're a parrot, you might turn into the biggest narcissist you've ever met. You know, it just, it depends on who you are. But the point is, is if you don't know that you have this trait that's low in EQ, you're going to just act out of instinct, and you're going to naturally cause problems to, you know, develop in the background that'll result in bigger problems.
Does that, does that make sense?
[00:11:50] Garrett Jestice: Yeah, total sense. So like, if I can just reiterate what I, what I heard you say is really as we, as we, as you know, business leaders and managers and also employees, better understand how we're wired in many ways, kind of going back to, you know, the disc personalities, the bird analogies like you just talked about, and also better understand our emotional tendencies that are kind of tied to that, those dominant personality traits that can help us spot some of those potential failures and hopefully overcome them before they happen.
Right, to leading to fewer accidents in the workplace, or generally a safer work environment, whether you're physically or psychologically. Is that right? Anything I missed there?
[00:12:37] Steven Farber: No, no, you're, you're right on the money. And just to add to that, you know, what we described was largely how you prevent something physical from happening. You go over to the psychological safety side, you know, psychological safety being the, the actual ability to feel safe voicing your opinions. If you don't feel safe, if you're not self-assured, or if someone else is so overbearing that you're terrified of being self-assured, it's not a psychologically safe workplace either.
And there's probably so many of those that are just really dependent on a low EQ culture. And the key to actually raising EQ is to start with that awareness that hey we're in a low EQ culture, and then you, from there, you can start looking at what the high EQ cultures look like and you can really just mimic it.
That's, that's how simple it can be. The hard part is getting people to stop and say, oh, this is a problem. If that makes sense.
[00:13:26] Garrett Jestice: Yeah, totally. So I think you kind of hit on what I want to go to next, which really is just what, what does a low EQ culture in a business look like versus a high EQ culture, and how, how do you first identify that? And then how do you move your company to be more like that high EQ culture?
[00:13:45] Steven Farber: No, that's, that's a really good question. It's, it's also a, a big one to unpack. And you know what, let me, so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna grab an EQ profile here. And typically what we, what we've done when we do trainings like this is what we do. We, again, we point out what the low EQ is, what the high EQ is, and then we have strategic actual activities around that.
But I would say some of the low EQ cultures, let's just start with leaders, for example. So if your leadership is, I, if the appearance is closed mindedness, they're not open to new ideas, they're not willing to actually reach out and help someone, that could point to a low EQ area in the social awareness aspect.
And what I mean by that is they're not aware of how they're actually treating the people who are around them. So for instance, if you have somebody who is very kind of systematized, very, very systems oriented and they like things, you know, everything in it, everything, everything. A place for everything and everything in its place, easy for me to say, right?
The way, you know, and they have, they have a whole team of people that may not think that way. What that person, the high EQ trait would actually be to be able to read that room and know, you know what, I'm not actually connecting with everybody here. What I need to do is I need to stop slow down. Maybe I need to have some individual meetings with each one of these people, you know, really ask, you know, Hey, what do you think about this?
What are your qualms? What are your, what do you like about it? What do you not like? The, the ability to read the room is a high EQ trait. If you just assume, and this can, again, this can be someone with a lot of confidence as they can actually fall into this hole sometimes confidence isn't always the key to everything.
[00:15:22] Steven Farber: You know what, I nailed this. Everything's good, we're great. And then you just shut it down and in your mind, you're like, Yeah, the way I'm gonna do it is perfect. But if you don't actually know that, if you can't read the room and see that your team is, you know, there's a couple people who are shaking their heads.
My favorite are the dove personalities where they will not say, they'll say yes on the outside, but in inside they're saying, No, I hate this. But they're not gonna tell you in the meeting. They, they might have a little mini meeting after the meeting and the hallways, a lot of people will notice that sometimes.
[00:15:50] Steven Farber: Oh, looks there, there's meetings going on after the meeting. It's because there wasn't actual total agreement. So let me, let me back up and just kind of answer that more succinct. High EQ workplace would be a workplace that's really good at reading the room. They're open to ideas, even if it's in contra, conflict to their current one.
The, the actual ability to step back and listen is high EQ. It shows an openness. If you're closed to that. That's low eq. So, and the way that you would raise that, and this is kind of the neat thing about it, is it really comes down to knowing what high and low is. If you know what the end goal looks like and you know where you are, you know where you have to go, so to speak.
[00:16:29] Garrett Jestice: Yeah, I think that makes total sense. And I think, you know, the next, probably the million dollar question, which I don't know if there is like an end all be all answer to this, but I'm curious your thoughts on it is, you know, can you really change EQ?Like those people who are wired that way, right. Who are the people who don't naturally read the room very well?
Is it something that they're just born with or is it a skill or a trait that people can actually improve over time?
[00:16:58] Steven Farber: Man, I, that's my favorite question, so, short answer, absolutely. EQ is not like IQ, it's not static. And personality style, while personalities can change and, you know, with a lot of effort, sometimes, trauma can change personalities, big life events, getting married, adopting a child, having a child. Anything like that at all will change it.
EQ is the one thing between, between personality and emotional intelligence. EQ can be actively changed, and everybody can go to zero to a hundred. Like there's not, you can't, you're not necessarily wired to have a medium to low EQ like you might have with an IQ. EQ can be maxed for everybody, as, from what I understand from Daniel's original work, and for what we have put together today over on our team is, is it's actively able to be changed. And that's why it's such a big deal for people to get on board with because it is 100% leveragable today.
[00:17:52] Garrett Jestice: Awesome. That's awesome. So, let's say for instance I am a, you know, a small business leader, or maybe an HR person. I hear this podcast. I think, you know, I, I think we do work in a fairly low EQ culture, and I wanna change that at our company. What, what would be, what would you recommend as like the next step?
What, what would, what should someone like that do to really start down that path of raising the collective EQ of their company?
[00:18:23] Steven Farber: That's a really good question. The first thing I would say is you, the biggest step is realizing that you're in a low EQ culture and, and you're not alone, because low EQ is so much more common and really, low EQ is just people not understanding what EQ is.
Once you understand, well, I say understand EQ, understanding EQ is a huge, again, it's a fire hose of information, but understanding that you might not be in a high EQ situation, that immediately raises your EQ because you've just hit self-awareness.
And that's a big part of those four components, which, I didn't mention this initially, but those four components again, are gonna be self-awareness, social awareness, and then self-management, and I always, relationship management, that's the fourth one. So any, and by the way, there's 18 pieces to all of those as well. So yes, very changeable. Not a problem there.
[00:19:14] Garrett Jestice: Got it. Awesome. And so let's bring this back then to what we originally started talking about, which is how EQ, emotional intelligence can actually make your workplace safer. . Right. And so how does, how does this EQ and just mindfulness kind of in general of where you are at, where your company's at, how other people perceive you in those relationships there.
What are the results of starting down that path of changing it? How does it make people safer and happier at work? And especially if you have any examples of those that you've worked with and, or evolutions you've seen in companies where they have started down that path and what the result has been.
[00:19:54] Steven Farber: Right, right. Yeah, no. To, to answer your first question, really it all starts with digging into four components of EQ and then going from there, just understanding what you're in, like we answered in that previous question immediately raises your EQ, one that I really wanna point to, we'll just, we'll just focus on one component here, just self-awareness.
For instance, if you, in a self-awareness has four components, there's emotional clarity, self-reflection, cause and effect, and confidence. Just focusing on confidence. If you have low confidence at work, no matter your job, you're much more prone to make mistakes. And one mistake can lead to another mistake, can lead to another mistake, which then reinforces the belief that you just make mistakes all the time, which I'm not saying is true about anyone.
[00:20:38] Steven Farber: I felt that way about myself for a long time. But you know, our brains are geared for survival. So they're going to find these processes that we're doing, they're gonna do the best they can to keep us away from what hurts. And if we have low emotional intelligence in the form of, of confidence and we, we make mistakes, our brain's gonna get us away from doing the things that we actually need to be doing to get better.
And of course, when it comes to safety, especially psychological safety, which I think psychological safety is directly gonna correlate to physical safety anyway. If we want to have a workplace that we feel safe to express ourselves in, if we really want true inclusion and diversity and equity, we have to feel like we can speak.
And if we have low EQ in, in confidence and self-reflection, cause and effect those areas, if we don't know what it looks like to have it higher in those areas, then we're gonna just make more mistakes. We're not gonna be able to connect the dots and then people are really gonna get hurt in real life.
If we have bullies that develop or things like that, we, we know the problem that bullies can cause in childhood. We know the, the rates of people who get hurt and, and suicides and all these terrible things that happen. And then you, you can have these develop in your workplace. So it's very worth having the ability to understand.
Is this person just a hateful person, or do they not understand that they're exhibiting a low EQ trait, Let's teach them how to raise it. All of a sudden you've turned, you've turned a detractor into an absolute outstanding rockstar leader. So I'm kind of, I'm kind of going all over the place. Let me reel it back in here.
What was the, what was the second half of that question Garrett?
[00:22:10] Garrett Jestice: Yeah. Just if you had any examples of, you know, good examples of companies or people that you've worked with through this process.
[00:22:17] Steven Farber: Yeah, absolutely. So, it's funny because I, I'm not picking on eagles, I promise they're, they're my favorite type. I'm not an eagle. I wish I was, my, one, one of my bosses. So I promise Jeff, this isn't on you. But, you know, Eagles, I would say... you know, we had a, we had a training a while back, and the most crazy thing about this is we were going through, you know, high and low traits and what, you know, what somebody, an overuse in a style looks like, that directness turning into aggression.
That, that, in, you know, it, it's, it's somewhat accidental becoming this bully. And you have this, you have this manager in the back and he's, he's one of the leaders of the company and I. You know, disclaimer, if you're an eagle, that doesn't make you a leader. And it doesn't mean only eagles can lead.
We can all lead, happen to be a leader who is an eagle, and we're talking about the most, according to his own people hard-nosed, very intense, very direct person. And we have lots of examples of these, but this one in particular as the training is, is concluding. He begins to break down in tears. Of course, everybody's looking around like, this person can cry? I didn't know that. Like, whoa, what is happening? And he came to the realization in his own words, he's like, Oh my gosh, I've been a total a-hole.
I can't believe it. I didn't know. And you know, at first it's like, oh, is he playing the victim? But these people, when you're in overuse, when you have these low EQ traits, when you were being super, super intense and you don't realize what you're doing, you don't realize how overbearing you're being to someone else.
It hurts. Well, I mean, it's almost a release to realize that, that you can change, but until you know that you can change it, it's, it's, it's something that you'll never actually change. So, sorry, I'm, I'm...
[00:23:58] Garrett Jestice: Yeah.
[00:23:59] Steven Farber: ...confused myself there, but yeah, that's probably my favorite example is just when you're able to show these differences, you can actually help people realize themselves what, what they're actually doing. And once somebody picks that up on their own, that's when the real change happens. You can't force someone to change, but if they can realize it themselves, all the results are, they're incredible.
[00:24:21] Garrett Jestice: Yeah, I know. I, I love that example because I think that it's, it's eyeopening when you start down this process of learning about EQ, learning about how you're wired, learning about how, you know, you might have intended one thing and someone perceived it a completely different way. And I, and I totally see how, you know, by starting down that path and making progress on it, it can, if, if you can, you know, have a culture of doing that in your company where that's accepted and encouraged that it totally leaves to psychologically and physically safer environments, workplaces.
So it's definitely applicable. And I, and I love the example that you shared because I think it is eye opening for many people who maybe, maybe just hadn't thought about this before, and then they start down this process and they, they realize, oh my goodness, this is, must be how I've been perceived and I need to do something to change.
And that's perfect because that's, that's kinda like you said, the first step in this, in this process of of, of realizing that there needs to be a change, realizing that there could be a better way or, to communicate your ideas. And again, coming back to you and what we talked about with, you know, your journey and your career, again, I see how this fits in perfectly for, for you, Steven, of, you know, this idea of communication, personality styles and bringing that all together under this umbrella of EQ to, to create better, engaged, safer workplaces for people.
And you know, that's a, that's a noble mission that I think every company needs to be improving on. So salute you for, you know, that personal mission and where it's led you in your career. And I think that this is an awesome next step.
[00:26:00] Steven Farber: Oh, thank you so much. There's a lot of kind words there, so appreciate ya.
[00:26:05] Garrett Jestice: Anything else you would say to this topic of EQ specifically, if there are people who are listening who are intrigued by this idea or this topic who want to learn more about it, what, what would you recommend that they, they do as a next step?
[00:26:19] Steven Farber: Yeah. You know, I like to keep it very simple. I actually have a ebook on this that I wrote. It's a hundred percent free. I don't know why I use percent. It's a free ebook. You can actually just go to my LinkedIn. It's right in the banner. It's also in my resource section, and you can download that for free.
And it, it kind of breaks down a little bit of what I've talked about here today, along with more of a step-by-step process of how to introduce this idea to your workforce. And there's also, in addition to that, there's some resources about, the personality styles, how to combine those with EQ, which is something that we do that not a lot of other, I don't know if anybody else does that.
We just, I think it's the best way to do it, but that way you can find your bullies, you can find your detractors, you can find the people who may not even know they're causing problems and bring a more emotionally intelligent workforce to your workforce, and the ebook is called the Emotionally Intelligent Workforce.
So in the name of redundancy, I hope I've answered your question!
[00:27:10] Garrett Jestice: You definitely have, we will drop a link. For anyone listening, we'll drop a link to, to Steven's LinkedIn profile and also that ebook in the show notes so you can find those there. So Steven, thank you again so much for taking the time to be with us today. If there are listeners that want to connect with you or learn more about working with your company, what's the best way for them to do that?
[00:27:31] Steven Farber: Sure, there's a couple of different ways. Again, I never log off of LinkedIn. It's a problem. So reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm always on there. You can also visit us at takeflightlearning.com. And of course, oh, you know, those are really the, the major two ways. There's, there's some other information.
You know, we got a phone number, we have an email, all that fun stuff. But yeah, takeflightlearning.com or catch me on LinkedIn. My LinkedIn slash In is Steven Farber. It's my name, so feel free to look that up.
[00:27:56] Garrett Jestice: Perfect. Thanks again Steven. It's great connecting with you, catching up as always and I'm looking forward to our next episode sometime in the future.
[00:28:04] Steven Farber: Sounds good. We'll make it happen.
[00:28:05] Garrett Jestice: Thanks Steven. We'll see ya.
[00:00:14] Steven Farber: I'm doing great, Garrett. Thanks for having me on. I think this was the third time right?
[00:00:18] Garrett Jestice: I think it is. And we are super excited to have you on the show. I know, you know, your previous two episodes that we've done, you know, months in the past are some of my favorites that we've done and some of our listeners favorites too. We were just joking before we jumped on here, that it seems like every time you come back you have a different title, different company.
Right. So now you're the Vice President of training and certifications at Take Flight Learning. Is that right?
[00:00:41] Steven Farber: That is correct, yes.
[00:00:42] Garrett Jestice: So tell our listeners who might not have heard your previous episodes a little bit more about you, your background, and what you're currently doing in your job right now.
[00:00:50] Steven Farber: Yeah, absolutely. I'll see if I can kind of give a succinct background about myself. So again, yeah. My name is Steven Farber. I'm a Vice President at Take Flight Learning. Sorry, Take, Yeah, take Flight Learning. It's been one of those days and, yeah, so a little bit about me. You know, I was a participant in the Great Resignation, right?
My initial reaction whenever I was part of the droves that walked away was, Wow, I gotta figure out a way to help other people not have to go through this. From compensation issues to under appreciation, culture problems, whatever may have been happening, you know, after the pandemic, during the pandemic that caused people to walk away.
I wanted to really help people get in front of it because that's, that was me. I felt like that was, my life there. But one thing that I kind of missed was, even though I thought employers were these callous opponents that just really wanted to push me out the door, it, it turns out, for the most part, and I'm sure this is true of a lot of people, that employers don't like losing people.
[00:01:46] Steven Farber: They, they hate people walking away more than we hate leaving. So, I, you know, what I did is I, I got into this and I did some investigation, Garrett, and what I found was that there's these patterns that occur and if I could figure out a way to kind of isolate these patterns of discontent, I thought, you know, I can really bring some impactful insights into the engagement world and figure out how we can keep more people from, from leaving -- people like me.
And, and, and how to really build that job satisfaction so that employees don't just want to jump ship because there's a lot of options these days. And that drove me into a lot of different things. If you go back to those past episodes, I was at employee benefits, then I had started my own company called Hero Culture, which was in the name of, of bringing a positive experience that was long lasting and impactful to lots of company cultures and in the form of communication training, that's kind of where I hit on.
But I wasn't quite sure what I was doing there. I just knew that it had something to do with communication. And then of course, I'm at where I'm at now. I was introduced to the Disc personality world and team building and kind of tried to do that on my own. Was, was, was mildly successful, but eventually was very happy to join the team at Take Flight Learning where we do this worldwide, for people now just bringing, all kinds of trainings from personality to emotional intelligence, to team building events, just to really help teams grow, communicate better, and ultimately wanna stay. So that's a little bit about where I was, where I'm at, and really what my mission is in this life per say.
[00:03:23] Garrett Jestice: I love it. I love how, seeing every time you come back, you know, every time we chat, seeing that evolution of you add a little bit more to what it is to you, like your personal mission, right? And it seems like you're in a place that's perfect for you right now based on those previous conversations.
Like, like Steven mentioned for some of our listeners out there, if you go back and, and for some of you who've listened for a while, there was the, the disc personality is the last one that Steven did. Some of you might remember it as the, the bird personality. Steven is our bird man, right? It's the different types of, of, of birds out there.
And so if you've followed Steven at all, he's talked a lot about that. But I'm really excited to dive into our topic today because I think it's just an evolution. Again, just like you and your career, it's an evolution of the past conversations that we've had on this show, and I think that it, it kind of ties 'em all together.
So as you and I talked about, what do we talk about today on this episode, you kind of proposed this idea of something you mentioned a minute ago, emotional intelligence and how that can impact workplaces, make them better physically, psychologically, safer workplaces so that there's, there's better output for the companies and, and better enjoyment and fulfillment and engagement from employees.
Is that right?
[00:04:37] Steven Farber: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:04:39] Garrett Jestice: Let's jump into that. I guess just to set the stage, one of the things we really like to do is really just define what we're talking about so that we're all on the same page. We often do that on episodes, so tell us what you mean when you say emotional intelligence. I think that's something that has, it's a term that's popped up a lot more in the last few years especially, fortunately, but I think it's something that's still a little fuzzy for some people.
So what's your, what's your definition of emotional?
[00:05:03] Steven Farber: Thank you. And, and it's rightfully so fuzzy because EQ is like, is like what we like to say is kind of like drinking from a fire hose. It is a broad, broad topic. And oddly enough, you know, we asked that question a lot at the beginning of our training. It's like, you know, what is emotional intelligence?
So it's funny having that posed back to me cause I'm like, Oh, I gotta answer it this time. And you know, it's the best way that I would say to answer is kind of in the thought of, or rather in the metaphor of the path. EQ is kind of, it's kinda like following a path on the way to learning how to perceive our emotions and how to understand them.
And what I mean by that is once we perceive and understand them in a way that is more self-aware, it allows us to control them. Because if we don't control our emotions, they're gonna control us. That's kind of a one way street, you know, this way or that way. And I think a lot of people live their lives just being controlled by their own emotions.
And it's not, it's not, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't blame them because it is hard to actually step back and realize our inner narrative is often pretty darn negative. And you know, there's all kinds of people who have a lot to say on that, but it's definitely a skill that can be brought to the table, and it's one that affects so many areas.
And that's why I wanted to talk about this topic, is something that really blew my mind was when I learned that EQ directly affects workplace safety. And it comes in kind of two parts, and this will be the second kind of half of that question is, the first one is it definitely affects on the job safety, like physical safety, you know, getting hurt in the real world.
But what's even more interesting is the psychological safety bit. And you know, while physical's not getting hurt, psychological safety, is it, it's, I think, the best way to explain it is it's feeling safe and expressing your ideas and not feeling like they're going to be condemned, shot down, or you're gonna be punished for 'em.
So yeah, EQ helps in both of those areas. And I hope I, I kind of went a long way around answering your question, but yeah, that's how it would define it, and that is how it connects. And I'll kind of explain how it connects to psychological and workplace safety as we continue on here.
[00:07:12] Garrett Jestice: Yeah, I love it. So again, emotional intelligence or EQ is, is really, you know, the abbreviation for that. Right. And it's really about like, like I heard you say, understanding your emotions and helping, also being able to help and identify the emotions of others that you interact with. Is that right?
[00:07:31] Steven Farber: Yes, absolutely.
[00:07:32] Garrett Jestice: Okay, so I gotta ask this question because I, because I, I know that there's some people out there who might not be as familiar with, you know, the study of EQ who might be like me, might be the, the skeptic sometimes, right?
I, I, I had the fortunatechance to actually take an EQ course a couple years ago. Found it fascinating. But let me take, let me play devil's advocate here for a minute, right? Because one of the things you said was, was really interesting, you know, your emotions and understanding those, definitely you can see how that ties to a psychologically safer workplace.
But you also mentioned a physically safer workplace. So you know, let's take for example, someone who works in a, in a warehouse. How does emotions and understanding of the, you know, their own EQ lead to that, the fewer safety violations or the phy- safer physical workplace?
[00:08:22] Steven Farber: Gotcha. No, that's a, that's a really great question. I'm actually having to dig into my notes for this, because, and that's the thing with EQ is it's not, it's not necessarily a simple, short answer because, because emotions aren't simple either most of the time. But to answer your question, let's dig into the world of personality just a little bit.
So let me pull out the personality of the eagle here, and if anybody has watched that last show, Eagles are gonna be more of the dominant, decisive type of personality. Does that make sense?
[00:08:50] Garrett Jestice: Yep, totally.
[00:08:51] Steven Farber: Right. So if you have an eagle, they're technically people who exude a lot of confidence in the workplace. They know where they're going.
They're not gonna ask a committee about getting something done. They are to the point. But an eagle can have a low emotional intelligence whenever it comes to a self-awareness or confidence, if that makes sense. So what does an eagle with low confidence look like? Do you have a what? What does that look like to you, Garrett?
What would that person seem like?
[00:09:18] Garrett Jestice: Let's see, a, an eagle with low confidence. They're probably someone who on the outside seems like they have, you know, it all together. They're pretty decisive, but they second guess themselves often on the inside. They, they, they want to prove themselves a little bit at times and their ability to, you know, be smart and capable and seen as that.
[00:09:39] Steven Farber: Right. No, you're, you're right on the mark. It, it's, yeah. Basically they're, they're constantly second guessing who they are. They don't feel nearly as confident as they, as they naturally exude. So what happens is they overcompensate, right? So as instead, instead of someone who is this direct decisive worker, who, who's really goal oriented, you end up getting a bully instead.
And, and that, that's rough because this person, if they, if they're unsure about themselves, they consider anything that they screw up on a personal failure. So in order not to actually, you know, take the blame for that, they're going to overcompensate. So that directness becomes aggression.
That that decisive assuredness becomes this arrogant, almost condescending pushiness. And, and the reason I bring all this up, because I'm gonna answer your question about how this relates, relates to physical safety. You know, if there is a potential safety hazard or a violation or something that's not quite right, this person probably is not gonna bring it up if they feel like it's going to tie it back to them because they're gonna be afraid of being judged for that.
The other thing is someone else may not want to bring that up to them because they're going to be afraid of getting lash or, or getting lashed out at because of that. So it affects not only themselves, because if they admit that there's a problem, that's a personal failure and they can't have that.
But it also makes it hard for other people to approach them because they're like, I really think this is a problem, but I am not gonna go tell Steven about it because he'll, he will eat me alive. So now you have, So you have these, you have, you have this problem that's not being solved because of emotions.
Then somebody actually gets hurt. Then it's an even bigger problem, because now you're looking at productivity, people walking away, all kinds of stuff. Now, now you have. Different set of emotions going on. You might have OSHA get involved. Who knows? All of it happens though, and it's not just Eagles. Everybody has a problem.
If you're a parrot, you might turn into the biggest narcissist you've ever met. You know, it just, it depends on who you are. But the point is, is if you don't know that you have this trait that's low in EQ, you're going to just act out of instinct, and you're going to naturally cause problems to, you know, develop in the background that'll result in bigger problems.
Does that, does that make sense?
[00:11:50] Garrett Jestice: Yeah, total sense. So like, if I can just reiterate what I, what I heard you say is really as we, as we, as you know, business leaders and managers and also employees, better understand how we're wired in many ways, kind of going back to, you know, the disc personalities, the bird analogies like you just talked about, and also better understand our emotional tendencies that are kind of tied to that, those dominant personality traits that can help us spot some of those potential failures and hopefully overcome them before they happen.
Right, to leading to fewer accidents in the workplace, or generally a safer work environment, whether you're physically or psychologically. Is that right? Anything I missed there?
[00:12:37] Steven Farber: No, no, you're, you're right on the money. And just to add to that, you know, what we described was largely how you prevent something physical from happening. You go over to the psychological safety side, you know, psychological safety being the, the actual ability to feel safe voicing your opinions. If you don't feel safe, if you're not self-assured, or if someone else is so overbearing that you're terrified of being self-assured, it's not a psychologically safe workplace either.
And there's probably so many of those that are just really dependent on a low EQ culture. And the key to actually raising EQ is to start with that awareness that hey we're in a low EQ culture, and then you, from there, you can start looking at what the high EQ cultures look like and you can really just mimic it.
That's, that's how simple it can be. The hard part is getting people to stop and say, oh, this is a problem. If that makes sense.
[00:13:26] Garrett Jestice: Yeah, totally. So I think you kind of hit on what I want to go to next, which really is just what, what does a low EQ culture in a business look like versus a high EQ culture, and how, how do you first identify that? And then how do you move your company to be more like that high EQ culture?
[00:13:45] Steven Farber: No, that's, that's a really good question. It's, it's also a, a big one to unpack. And you know what, let me, so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna grab an EQ profile here. And typically what we, what we've done when we do trainings like this is what we do. We, again, we point out what the low EQ is, what the high EQ is, and then we have strategic actual activities around that.
But I would say some of the low EQ cultures, let's just start with leaders, for example. So if your leadership is, I, if the appearance is closed mindedness, they're not open to new ideas, they're not willing to actually reach out and help someone, that could point to a low EQ area in the social awareness aspect.
And what I mean by that is they're not aware of how they're actually treating the people who are around them. So for instance, if you have somebody who is very kind of systematized, very, very systems oriented and they like things, you know, everything in it, everything, everything. A place for everything and everything in its place, easy for me to say, right?
The way, you know, and they have, they have a whole team of people that may not think that way. What that person, the high EQ trait would actually be to be able to read that room and know, you know what, I'm not actually connecting with everybody here. What I need to do is I need to stop slow down. Maybe I need to have some individual meetings with each one of these people, you know, really ask, you know, Hey, what do you think about this?
What are your qualms? What are your, what do you like about it? What do you not like? The, the ability to read the room is a high EQ trait. If you just assume, and this can, again, this can be someone with a lot of confidence as they can actually fall into this hole sometimes confidence isn't always the key to everything.
[00:15:22] Steven Farber: You know what, I nailed this. Everything's good, we're great. And then you just shut it down and in your mind, you're like, Yeah, the way I'm gonna do it is perfect. But if you don't actually know that, if you can't read the room and see that your team is, you know, there's a couple people who are shaking their heads.
My favorite are the dove personalities where they will not say, they'll say yes on the outside, but in inside they're saying, No, I hate this. But they're not gonna tell you in the meeting. They, they might have a little mini meeting after the meeting and the hallways, a lot of people will notice that sometimes.
[00:15:50] Steven Farber: Oh, looks there, there's meetings going on after the meeting. It's because there wasn't actual total agreement. So let me, let me back up and just kind of answer that more succinct. High EQ workplace would be a workplace that's really good at reading the room. They're open to ideas, even if it's in contra, conflict to their current one.
The, the actual ability to step back and listen is high EQ. It shows an openness. If you're closed to that. That's low eq. So, and the way that you would raise that, and this is kind of the neat thing about it, is it really comes down to knowing what high and low is. If you know what the end goal looks like and you know where you are, you know where you have to go, so to speak.
[00:16:29] Garrett Jestice: Yeah, I think that makes total sense. And I think, you know, the next, probably the million dollar question, which I don't know if there is like an end all be all answer to this, but I'm curious your thoughts on it is, you know, can you really change EQ?Like those people who are wired that way, right. Who are the people who don't naturally read the room very well?
Is it something that they're just born with or is it a skill or a trait that people can actually improve over time?
[00:16:58] Steven Farber: Man, I, that's my favorite question, so, short answer, absolutely. EQ is not like IQ, it's not static. And personality style, while personalities can change and, you know, with a lot of effort, sometimes, trauma can change personalities, big life events, getting married, adopting a child, having a child. Anything like that at all will change it.
EQ is the one thing between, between personality and emotional intelligence. EQ can be actively changed, and everybody can go to zero to a hundred. Like there's not, you can't, you're not necessarily wired to have a medium to low EQ like you might have with an IQ. EQ can be maxed for everybody, as, from what I understand from Daniel's original work, and for what we have put together today over on our team is, is it's actively able to be changed. And that's why it's such a big deal for people to get on board with because it is 100% leveragable today.
[00:17:52] Garrett Jestice: Awesome. That's awesome. So, let's say for instance I am a, you know, a small business leader, or maybe an HR person. I hear this podcast. I think, you know, I, I think we do work in a fairly low EQ culture, and I wanna change that at our company. What, what would be, what would you recommend as like the next step?
What, what would, what should someone like that do to really start down that path of raising the collective EQ of their company?
[00:18:23] Steven Farber: That's a really good question. The first thing I would say is you, the biggest step is realizing that you're in a low EQ culture and, and you're not alone, because low EQ is so much more common and really, low EQ is just people not understanding what EQ is.
Once you understand, well, I say understand EQ, understanding EQ is a huge, again, it's a fire hose of information, but understanding that you might not be in a high EQ situation, that immediately raises your EQ because you've just hit self-awareness.
And that's a big part of those four components, which, I didn't mention this initially, but those four components again, are gonna be self-awareness, social awareness, and then self-management, and I always, relationship management, that's the fourth one. So any, and by the way, there's 18 pieces to all of those as well. So yes, very changeable. Not a problem there.
[00:19:14] Garrett Jestice: Got it. Awesome. And so let's bring this back then to what we originally started talking about, which is how EQ, emotional intelligence can actually make your workplace safer. . Right. And so how does, how does this EQ and just mindfulness kind of in general of where you are at, where your company's at, how other people perceive you in those relationships there.
What are the results of starting down that path of changing it? How does it make people safer and happier at work? And especially if you have any examples of those that you've worked with and, or evolutions you've seen in companies where they have started down that path and what the result has been.
[00:19:54] Steven Farber: Right, right. Yeah, no. To, to answer your first question, really it all starts with digging into four components of EQ and then going from there, just understanding what you're in, like we answered in that previous question immediately raises your EQ, one that I really wanna point to, we'll just, we'll just focus on one component here, just self-awareness.
For instance, if you, in a self-awareness has four components, there's emotional clarity, self-reflection, cause and effect, and confidence. Just focusing on confidence. If you have low confidence at work, no matter your job, you're much more prone to make mistakes. And one mistake can lead to another mistake, can lead to another mistake, which then reinforces the belief that you just make mistakes all the time, which I'm not saying is true about anyone.
[00:20:38] Steven Farber: I felt that way about myself for a long time. But you know, our brains are geared for survival. So they're going to find these processes that we're doing, they're gonna do the best they can to keep us away from what hurts. And if we have low emotional intelligence in the form of, of confidence and we, we make mistakes, our brain's gonna get us away from doing the things that we actually need to be doing to get better.
And of course, when it comes to safety, especially psychological safety, which I think psychological safety is directly gonna correlate to physical safety anyway. If we want to have a workplace that we feel safe to express ourselves in, if we really want true inclusion and diversity and equity, we have to feel like we can speak.
And if we have low EQ in, in confidence and self-reflection, cause and effect those areas, if we don't know what it looks like to have it higher in those areas, then we're gonna just make more mistakes. We're not gonna be able to connect the dots and then people are really gonna get hurt in real life.
If we have bullies that develop or things like that, we, we know the problem that bullies can cause in childhood. We know the, the rates of people who get hurt and, and suicides and all these terrible things that happen. And then you, you can have these develop in your workplace. So it's very worth having the ability to understand.
Is this person just a hateful person, or do they not understand that they're exhibiting a low EQ trait, Let's teach them how to raise it. All of a sudden you've turned, you've turned a detractor into an absolute outstanding rockstar leader. So I'm kind of, I'm kind of going all over the place. Let me reel it back in here.
What was the, what was the second half of that question Garrett?
[00:22:10] Garrett Jestice: Yeah. Just if you had any examples of, you know, good examples of companies or people that you've worked with through this process.
[00:22:17] Steven Farber: Yeah, absolutely. So, it's funny because I, I'm not picking on eagles, I promise they're, they're my favorite type. I'm not an eagle. I wish I was, my, one, one of my bosses. So I promise Jeff, this isn't on you. But, you know, Eagles, I would say... you know, we had a, we had a training a while back, and the most crazy thing about this is we were going through, you know, high and low traits and what, you know, what somebody, an overuse in a style looks like, that directness turning into aggression.
That, that, in, you know, it, it's, it's somewhat accidental becoming this bully. And you have this, you have this manager in the back and he's, he's one of the leaders of the company and I. You know, disclaimer, if you're an eagle, that doesn't make you a leader. And it doesn't mean only eagles can lead.
We can all lead, happen to be a leader who is an eagle, and we're talking about the most, according to his own people hard-nosed, very intense, very direct person. And we have lots of examples of these, but this one in particular as the training is, is concluding. He begins to break down in tears. Of course, everybody's looking around like, this person can cry? I didn't know that. Like, whoa, what is happening? And he came to the realization in his own words, he's like, Oh my gosh, I've been a total a-hole.
I can't believe it. I didn't know. And you know, at first it's like, oh, is he playing the victim? But these people, when you're in overuse, when you have these low EQ traits, when you were being super, super intense and you don't realize what you're doing, you don't realize how overbearing you're being to someone else.
It hurts. Well, I mean, it's almost a release to realize that, that you can change, but until you know that you can change it, it's, it's, it's something that you'll never actually change. So, sorry, I'm, I'm...
[00:23:58] Garrett Jestice: Yeah.
[00:23:59] Steven Farber: ...confused myself there, but yeah, that's probably my favorite example is just when you're able to show these differences, you can actually help people realize themselves what, what they're actually doing. And once somebody picks that up on their own, that's when the real change happens. You can't force someone to change, but if they can realize it themselves, all the results are, they're incredible.
[00:24:21] Garrett Jestice: Yeah, I know. I, I love that example because I think that it's, it's eyeopening when you start down this process of learning about EQ, learning about how you're wired, learning about how, you know, you might have intended one thing and someone perceived it a completely different way. And I, and I totally see how, you know, by starting down that path and making progress on it, it can, if, if you can, you know, have a culture of doing that in your company where that's accepted and encouraged that it totally leaves to psychologically and physically safer environments, workplaces.
So it's definitely applicable. And I, and I love the example that you shared because I think it is eye opening for many people who maybe, maybe just hadn't thought about this before, and then they start down this process and they, they realize, oh my goodness, this is, must be how I've been perceived and I need to do something to change.
And that's perfect because that's, that's kinda like you said, the first step in this, in this process of of, of realizing that there needs to be a change, realizing that there could be a better way or, to communicate your ideas. And again, coming back to you and what we talked about with, you know, your journey and your career, again, I see how this fits in perfectly for, for you, Steven, of, you know, this idea of communication, personality styles and bringing that all together under this umbrella of EQ to, to create better, engaged, safer workplaces for people.
And you know, that's a, that's a noble mission that I think every company needs to be improving on. So salute you for, you know, that personal mission and where it's led you in your career. And I think that this is an awesome next step.
[00:26:00] Steven Farber: Oh, thank you so much. There's a lot of kind words there, so appreciate ya.
[00:26:05] Garrett Jestice: Anything else you would say to this topic of EQ specifically, if there are people who are listening who are intrigued by this idea or this topic who want to learn more about it, what, what would you recommend that they, they do as a next step?
[00:26:19] Steven Farber: Yeah. You know, I like to keep it very simple. I actually have a ebook on this that I wrote. It's a hundred percent free. I don't know why I use percent. It's a free ebook. You can actually just go to my LinkedIn. It's right in the banner. It's also in my resource section, and you can download that for free.
And it, it kind of breaks down a little bit of what I've talked about here today, along with more of a step-by-step process of how to introduce this idea to your workforce. And there's also, in addition to that, there's some resources about, the personality styles, how to combine those with EQ, which is something that we do that not a lot of other, I don't know if anybody else does that.
We just, I think it's the best way to do it, but that way you can find your bullies, you can find your detractors, you can find the people who may not even know they're causing problems and bring a more emotionally intelligent workforce to your workforce, and the ebook is called the Emotionally Intelligent Workforce.
So in the name of redundancy, I hope I've answered your question!
[00:27:10] Garrett Jestice: You definitely have, we will drop a link. For anyone listening, we'll drop a link to, to Steven's LinkedIn profile and also that ebook in the show notes so you can find those there. So Steven, thank you again so much for taking the time to be with us today. If there are listeners that want to connect with you or learn more about working with your company, what's the best way for them to do that?
[00:27:31] Steven Farber: Sure, there's a couple of different ways. Again, I never log off of LinkedIn. It's a problem. So reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'm always on there. You can also visit us at takeflightlearning.com. And of course, oh, you know, those are really the, the major two ways. There's, there's some other information.
You know, we got a phone number, we have an email, all that fun stuff. But yeah, takeflightlearning.com or catch me on LinkedIn. My LinkedIn slash In is Steven Farber. It's my name, so feel free to look that up.
[00:27:56] Garrett Jestice: Perfect. Thanks again Steven. It's great connecting with you, catching up as always and I'm looking forward to our next episode sometime in the future.
[00:28:04] Steven Farber: Sounds good. We'll make it happen.
[00:28:05] Garrett Jestice: Thanks Steven. We'll see ya.
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