self-awareness summary

Self-awareness is the foundation for everything. It involves accepting teammates and their differences, as well as being aware of how we receive feedback. Lack of self-awareness can lead to issues in various areas of life, such as job interviews and youth sports. It is important for individuals to understand their strengths and areas for improvement, and to seek and accept feedback thoughtfully and professionally. By asking three key questions, we can promote self-awareness and drive productivity and collaboration. Self-awareness is really the foundation for everything. Accepting teammates, accepting their differences, becoming aware of how we receive feedback. I remember I just asked somebody a question as I was creating these lessons, and I said, so what do you do to seek feedback? How do you position yourself to accept it thoughtfully and professionally? I knew the answer was nothing, yet the question served its value. The person goes, wow, I don't know if I've ever done that. I said, oh, that's interesting, which heightened their awareness. Then I asked a question such as, so when you get feedback that you disagree with, how do you feel? The response was frustrated and angry. I said, so what do you do with that? Do you ever go and tell your coworkers? I smiled and the person goes, well, sometimes. I go, so you started a rumor, huh? They started laughing and I go, how will you go forward and seek feedback thoughtfully and professionally? What do you think that will do for you personally? See, self-awareness is really the major tenet of emotional intelligence in our estimation. There are really five levels of emotional intelligence. Self-awareness, self-regulation, where people are interruptive and disruptive, empathy, being aware of someone else, what they're going through, their feelings, their emotions, motivation, and then social skills. Self-awareness starts the process to everything. How often do we have people who don't get a job? They go through the interview process, they don't get it. Do they really walk out objectively and think, man, that was a great experience. The interview questions was awesome and that guy was fantastic when he interviewed me. I just wasn't qualified. I bet you're laughing. So we have a lot of things that breed a lack of self-awareness. Let me give you some further context. I love to share this because I am passionate about youth sports as a teaching tool. When you have the parent who goes to the coach and says, why is my son or daughter not playing? What we're really saying to our kids is, it's not your fault, it's the coach. I'm always amazed when I hear parents say, I just don't think that coach or teacher likes you. Nobody goes into teaching and coaching with the ultimate pursuit to finding your child in their future to upset you as a parent. It just doesn't make sense. Yes, there are some good coaches and some bad coaches. There are some good teachers and maybe not so good teachers. There are going to be good bosses and bad bosses. At some point, they're going to have to enter the workforce and deal with things on their own merits. Let me give you another case in point. My sister-in-law was a manager of a large insurance company for information technology. She would literally have parents come into the interview post-college. I want to sit in the interview. My sister-in-law was just stunned. I don't think my daughter would let me beep driving around the block where she was interviewing. It really shows that our school systems from high school to college, that can be anywhere from eight to 10 years. They're thrown into this workforce where guess what they're going to get? Feedback. If they don't have self-awareness of their strengths, if they don't have self-awareness of their opportunities to improve, if they don't have a mechanism of seeking and accepting feedback thoughtfully and professionally knowing that they're in control of their careers, not their boss, not their employer, they would accept those things more readily. Yet for eight to 10 years, people typically don't pursue self-awareness. So let's go back to our three questions. What did you learn? What did you learn about yourself? You're positively committed to improving. Based on those learnings, what positive action steps are you going to put into play? If you remember those three questions, you can apply it to almost any situation, and it will help you drive somebody's self-awareness to greater productivity, performance, collaboration, teamwork, cohesiveness, or what have you. Good luck.