Emotional Intelligence
Articles mainly about emotional intelligence (EQ), managing emotions, self-awareness, empathy, reading people.
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Nanosecond Phenomena
Between the stimulus and the response is a NANOSECOND . This nanosecond is the time we decide our response .
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Impact and Intent
There can be a uniformity between impact and intent. However, not until we know and understand how to create this congruency is it possible to master the vital skill of creating healthy relationships.
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Artist Work
Shann and I went with our daughter Bella as part of a ministry team to work with children born into brothels.
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Beneath the Surface
My dad could discern the root motives of others. He could look past the behavior and see the unconscious compulsions of shame, envy, greed, selfishness, or fear.
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Waiting for the Shoe to Drop
I am sitting in my office feeling a mixture of hope and a small sense of dread. My dad’s picture is to my right. I consider how he would like me to live right now.
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Not a Machine
My dad was not mechanical. He could not look at a problem in the house and fix it. My dad was relational, and he understood life at an emotional and spiritual level.
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Curiosity Trumps Anger
Curiosity opens doors; anger closes doors. The Apostle James gives us solid counsel when he said, “Be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger for anger never brings about the righteous life God desires for…
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Relational Errors
As human beings, we all make mistakes. Often, we unintentionally hurt those around us. While saying, “I didn’t mean to hurt you,” may provide some comfort, it doesn’t truly fix the situation.
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Timeout
My dad loved timeouts. This is not a punishment and it’s unfortunate that this language is connected to punishment. Timeouts are crucial for our health, for taking a step back, and for reevaluating.
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Recognize the Value of Appreciation
“The ability to appreciate is a learned behavior. Mastery of this skill of seeing the full worth in people, in creation and all life is the difference between being a positive or a negative human being.” Fred Crowell…
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Listening for the Truth
One of the greatest gifts my dad had as a father was his insistence on total relational transparency regarding emotions. He wanted a home where truth reigned.
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Coming to the Table
One of our staff posted something on their social media which deeply grieved another staff member. This is always challenging. How do we handle our disagreements?
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Healing Conversations
Dad and I had lovely conversations. He was a masterful listener and question-asker most of the time. When we had a spare moment, he might start by saying something he appreciated about my life.
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Drinking Poison
My husband Shann and I have been discussing bitterness. It’s a deceptive emotion and incredibly dangerous.
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Beyond Crisis
I have been thinking about how crisis reveals truth. What does difficulty show about the underlying fabric of a home, marriage, business, or nation?
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Pageantry or Practice?
One of my dad’s favorite mentors was a man named Paul Nakai. Paul did so much to elevate our understanding of relational health.
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How Love Speaks
During a poetry night at our house, we played a round of “speed friendship” and then ended with the question, “Who is someone who has influenced your life for good?” One of the young men in attendance is…
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Learning How to Comfort
I was cleaning out a backpack and found a staff meeting paper from March 11, 2020. This was the last time we met in person as a team before we closed the office for several months.
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Careful Listening
Dad and I struggled with listening. Shann would laugh at our conversations sometimes when we were both distracted. When present, Dad was an amazing listener. It is one of the big six qualities at NBC Camps—carefully listen.
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Relational Tipping Points
My husband Shann and I have been talking a lot about the criticism/defensiveness cycle and how insightful it is for relational health. I have found it valuable in my relationships lately.
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Able to Move
Our family liked to tease Dad that he would be peaceful hearing about his car being wrecked but enraged about five crumbs on the table.
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Fervor
I listened to a sermon recently on Galatians. The pastor had worked himself up into a zealous fervor decrying the current times. Then he addressed sins, especially of the culture he was desperately trying to fight against.
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Emotional Discernment
I admire how my dad navigated his emotions. He grew very calm under duress. When others became aggressive, he became clearer-headed. He slowed down, spoke less, and listened more attentively.
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Envy Observed
It’s basketball season. The starting lineups have been announced and I consider all the students who don’t make the starting five.
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The Temptation of Pain
Pain is tricky. It makes people uncomfortable. Pain can cause us to make the wrong decisions. I love the training of Ignatius of Loyola who cautions never to make decisions in our pain.
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The Importance of Conflict
I am very quick to emotion. I cry, rejoice fully, and get angry quickly. My husband Shann is cool and calm. If you want to have fun on a Disney ride, you want to go with me.
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Gentle Impact
I read a brilliant insight from the Gottman Marriage Minute. What I love about John Gottman’s research is that it is immediately applicable to any relationship. Need a better relationship with your child?
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Losing My Head
My husband Shann and I had a bit of a spat in Oklahoma City after our daughter’s junior recital. After all the planning, there was an issue with the video recording of the event.
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Dangerous Tendencies
Dad wanted to be wise about tendencies to make the wrong response in crisis. He believed becoming wise about how we handle stress and crisis is an important consideration, especially if there is trauma in the family history.…
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Dogging Dogmatism Part 2
Yesterday, I wrote about my Dad’s response to people aggressively purporting their beliefs. Dad’s navigation of dogmatism greatly influenced me.
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Provoked
When Dad was younger, he could easily provoke people into frustration. He loved to induce people to anger, especially on the basketball court.
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Absent-Minded Wisdom
I was traveling through the Denver airport recently when I noticed I was drinking from a bottle that wasn’t mine.
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Love Without Return
My Dad valued people from all walks of life. He thanked and honored those many would overlook. He believed in leaving places better than when you found them. He honored janitors and housekeeping staff.
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Suffering Observed
When my Dad was ill during the last weeks of his life, he mostly lay on his back. His cancer treatment medication caused him to gain weight rapidly through the 12-plus years he was on it.
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The Slippery Slope of Crisis
One February, we lost our cat, Crystal. She never came home. I was devastated. I held to the fantasy she would be found at a pet shelter. I was grieving but not attending to my sorrow.
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Secret Sauce
One of the best skills Dad gave our family was the family meeting. Before an event, this meeting time was crucial to outline the expectations of the family and each other.
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Eyes That See the Need
Dad and I often wondered why people work and live together without knowing each other. This distance creates a supreme sense of loneliness. Proximity without intimacy. Habitation without a home.
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Repair
Dad and I had many conversations about the attraction to cut-off relationships by not speaking to someone or vilifying others, a tendency to build up resentment. A situation recently arose between a few people I know.
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Minor Adjustments
Dad loved unity, and he didn’t like disagreement. He also was a fierce competitor. Our family could get into heated disputes around politics, news, or even card games.
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Flooding
Dad and I loved to talk about relationships. Especially how they can be improved. He loved John Gottman and even met with him personally.
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Loving what the Beloved Loves
Shann loves loud music. He likes to feel the sound and hear the music throughout his entire body. I don’t love loud music. It is a trigger of anxious feelings in me. Dad hated loud music.
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Always
I cannot express how grateful I am that my Dad was a student of loving well. He made it his life mission to love God and love people.
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The Choice
Getting ready for the Celebration of Life was difficult and joyful. As our family gathered together to sing, we could feel the tensions and emotions rising.
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Ego Dying
One thing I have been marveling at since my father’s death is the realization of grief. I feel I am awakening into the color of grief as distinguishable from despair, loneliness, and anguish.
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The Negative Spiral
One of my favorite times with Dad was to discuss poor coaching or poor parenting as they share similarities. Dad had incredible insights into how we contribute to the unconscious dissolution of a team or family.
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A Novel Point of View
Dad and I loved to read. I am currently reading Graham Greene’s book, The Ministry of Fear. Greene was a masterful writer and author of one of our favorite books, called The Power and the Glory.
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The Art of Love
Dad thought outside the box as a basketball coach and had insightful ways to keep students engaged.
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Thick Skin
Dad and I struggled with thin skin at times. We love people and want to be loved. Dad often encouraged me to have tough skin with a soft heart. I wrote down his advice.
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March Madness
Dad and I liked to play solitary card games while racing against each other. Our favorite was kings in the corner. These games are addictive—just one more game.
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Tears
In our early years of marriage, Shann rarely felt anger, never cried, never had much emotion at all. He lived with a consistently cheerful attitude. He never appeared bothered.
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Weather Man
Dad would say, “Imagine an elevator. Most of us have moods and emotions which take us up and down the elevator. But some people get off and live on certain floors.
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Disagreement without Discord
One skill I am incredibly grateful for in my Dad is the peace he had to navigate difficult topics with wisdom and care. My Dad welcomed any topic in the home for Jay and me.
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Honest Love
In an earlier Words of Hope, I shared a message Dad asked me to consider in the year of 2018. We had a relationship where we could ask things of each other.
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Stone or Life
Grief is tough. My Dad tried to overcome his grief for the few years after his mom’s death, but many situations triggered his pain and anger.
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Worthy of Imitation
My good friend was in town on a recruiting trip, and he stayed with Shann and me. He loved Dad and considered Dad in many ways a second father.
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The Age of Enragement
My Dad’s father loved rage as a tool to solve problems. Dad desired to learn to be gentle. He sought out gentle men as mentors to help him learn how to navigate difficulty without getting angry.
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Friendly Flowers
The other day Mom and I walked through our neighborhood together. We stopped to see a woman planting in her yard.
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Dear Parents of Teens
When my daughter Natalya turned fourteen, our relationship didn’t feel the same. I felt like she didn’t want to connect, and I wanted to blame her. I read books about teens.
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A Loving Dad
A few days after Dad died, my friend sent me a loving text and ended with: You won the “Dad of the century” award.
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The Need to be Seen
My Dad noticed people that many do not—people mopping floors, or bussing tables, people who were often unseen or unrecognized. He treated everyone he met as a miracle with infinite value.
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Stay in Your Lane
Yes, Fred Crowell loves to drive a car! And the better the car, the better I love driving! And how fun it is to drive on a multi-lane highway!
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The Inside Story
Fred Rogers, the famous child inspirational television star, said, “There is an inside story for every outside behavior.” If every teacher, coach, and, most importantly, parents will understand every behavior a child exhibits has an inside story.
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What’s up People?
Here I sit in my easy chair, at 4 AM, wondering about life. How is it possible, so many diverse thoughts roam through my brain like a river flowing over rocks?
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Watching People with Wisdom, Part 2
As I inspire myself to love and good deeds, I realize I need to give more thoughtful attention and continuous care to watching over others.
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Watching People with Wisdom, Part 1
People-watching is fun, entertaining and a valuable source of learning. A wise spiritual and life educator taught his students to master three people-watching skills. WATCH THE PERSON .
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Exit Hell Hallways Enter Peaceful Rooms
Key Statement: “Ex” means to get out, and “en” means to enter. Get out of the hallway and enter rooms of beauty, grace, peace, joy, and love.
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Pain Comes in the Night
JOY COMES IN THE MORNING I BELONG TO JESUS JESUS IS MINE As boys Father Crowell trained us to not shed tears.
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People Watch You
People watch what we are doing, how we do it, and how it makes them feel.” – Derrick Sebastian “May I have another cup of coffee?” Asked the person at the counter.
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Guard Your Heart & Mind
“Defense is the best offense in basketball and in lifeball” – Fred Crowell One of my father’s passions I inherited was a clean car.
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What’s in Your Toolbox?
“If you try to fix a problem with the wrong tool you will make the problem bigger, not smaller.” – Jennifer Crowell Ferch My true friend, the late Dave Tucker, was a master machine and wood-smith of the…
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Relationship Values
QUESTIONS: After a gathering of friends, do you ever wonder if they had a good time? Do you sometimes wonder if a person dislikes you or has negative views of you?
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Love Hurting People
The customary “How are you doing” greeting continues to receive the same casual responses of either “Good,” “fine,” or “ok.” Yet, today there may be a big difference when those replies are given.
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The Two Way Mirror
Mirror Mirror in my hand who has a pure clean glass that can show reflection in two directions; first at me; second to my world set before me.
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Mindful Management & Self-regulation, Part 2
One great mind once said, “If you spend 15 minutes a day in Mindful Management with Self-Regulation, you will be able to solve nearly all of your problems.” Fifteen minutes!
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Van Gogh – Loving People
Some amazing quotes by one of my favorite artists: “I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.” “Keep your love of nature, for that is the true way to understand art more and…
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Walking in Another’s Shoes
Often we say, “I know exactly how you feel!” But do we really? It takes much connecting with another person before really understanding him or her. That is what empathy is.
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Life Lesson 101
Be quick to listen – slow to speak – slow to anger. These 3 life skills are as important as a carpenter’s hammer, power saw and measuring tape.
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Get Out of Jail Free
Unforgiveness is the number one way to be imprisoned in the Emotional Intelligence Jail. It is holding a grudge against someone who has offended us, leading to unkind and merciless thoughts.
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Takes Awesome to Recognize Awesome
What’s better than getting a text from a person you highly respect telling you that you are awesome ?
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Intent vs. Impact
A well-developed EQ is evident when one knows and understands that intent must ultimately be measured by its impact.
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Use Your Eyes
If you have eyes, use them to see both external and internal beauty. How our eyes observe color through tinted lenses is comparative to how our emotional state affects our outlook on life.
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Dealing with Difficult People – Appreciate Awesome People!
A human flaw is our overpowered magnetic attraction to negativity. Negative people disrupt and influence us more easily than positive people and the beautiful energy force we receive from them. Why is this?
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The Snake Line
A powerful solution to stop worry, fear, self-pity, and other forms of negative behavior. I happened to hear a portion of a sermon about not controlling your thoughts and emotions. Babies can’t control their emotions.
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To Compare Is to Despair
“If you want to feel inferior, look at someone above you. If you want to feel superior, look at someone beneath you.” – Walt King Susie’s dad was a wise man.
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Did So Good
Long ago God had some words to Cain (son of Adam and Eve). God could see in Cain’s heart, seeing his half-hearted motivation and attitude when bringing an offering to God.
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Quarrels & Wars = Q & W
“What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Don’t they come from the evil desires at war within you?” James, the brother of Jesus, asked these questions in James 4:1.
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Facial Responsibility
One of the many life-giving stories by President Abraham Lincoln is about his decision not to hire a well-qualified man for a cabinet position. Several colleagues questioned Lincoln.
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Resentment- Palms up Palms Down
Resentment is a signal light telling us to stop or go! Resentment is a gut feeling, telling us something is quite wrong. Resentment ignored turns to bitterness like grapes turn to wine.
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Hello My Name is Anger, Part 2
I thought it would be good for my readers to know more about myself and my past history concerning anger.
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21 Days of EQ
Hello All Friends of Daily Words of Hope with Fred Crowell The beginning of a new school year is the perfect time to set a goal to learn, grow, and master EQ (Emotional Intelligence) skills.
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Did So Good
Cain, what have you done? Why is your countenance so downcast? What did you do that makes your face so dark? The eyes are lights to the soul.
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Merry Christmas
Warm and delightful Merry Christmas wishes to all Words of Hope readers-friends. This WOH is my Christmas gift to you.
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Crowell EQ 101 Crash Course – Part 3
To develop your personal “Crystal Clear” concept of EQ go to the Crowell EQ 101 7 Day Crash Course at: http://crowellu.com/category/eq-101/ Thank you for taking the initiative to dig deeper into my crash EQ learning expletive.
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Crowell EQ 101 Crash Course – Part 2
Welcome to part 2 of this 7 part series on Emotional Intelligence. My life experience message has been centered on EQ (emotional intelligence), my relentless goal is to carefully teach what I know about EQ and basketball to…
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Crowell EQ 101 Crash Course – Part 1
Emotional Intelligence is the most important, yet least taught skill in education in my opinion. EQ has been proven to be a far greater predictor of success than IQ.
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Emotional “Artistic” Intelligence
The Logical Deduction: God the creator is the ultimate artist. Humankind was created in the image of God. Therefore all humans are uniquely created to be artists. God’s gift to us is artistic talent.
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Knock Knock
Knock knock. Who’s there? Destiny I’ve been expecting you! The Ferch Crowell families love good movies. BOLT is a “fam fave.” Rhino, the hamster, who scoots around rapidly in a rolling ball is a gleeful character.
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EQ More Valuable Than IQ
“Emotional Intelligence is the most important, yet least taught skill in education.” Fred Crowell. One of the many benefits of going on vacation is think time . No cell phone, no race horse living.
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The Crowell Basketball – Lifeball
“Shooting a bad basketball is like chewing food with a broken tooth. In LIFEBALL fixing a problem with the wrong tool creates more problems.” How can I more effectively teach basketball’s most important and most difficult skill has…
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Human Arrows in Your Quiver – Part 2
Imagine an arrow being one of the most important people in your life. What lessons can be learned from an experienced bow hunter? Imagine hunting with the finest bow without one arrow in your quiver.
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Eq-emotional Quotient
Knowing, understanding and managing your feelings is the foundation of emotional intelligence. Today the political debate rages on about three major factors: jobs, borders and safety.
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Crowell EQ 101 Crash Course
Ask any person this question! In your formal education experience have you taken a class in school or college on EQ? No will be the answer 99% of the time.
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Don’t Forget That Feeling
Emotions are unreliable; change suddenly; are easily influenced by circumstances, and words; they work better when you lead them with strong and decisive leadership, with fact, and logic. Emotions can’t think, they can’t make decisions.
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Crowell Basketball System
CROWELL BASKETBALL SYSTEM IF EXPECTATIONS DO NOT EXCEED OUTCOME, UNHAPPINESS IS THE RESULT. This is the reason a high majority of high school basketball players rate their experience as unhappy. Crowell has a solution!
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Ukulele-jumping Fleas
New discoveries in music and in life. This miniature guitar originated in Portugal. The Hawaiians fell in love with this nimble, fun instrument. They named it the ukulele , the jumping flee.
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Monday – Mundane or Momentous?
With this February being a leap year, we got a bonus day. We will not have another 29th of February for four more years! My bonus day started early.
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Sadness Is a Gift Not an Enemy
“Feelings are God’s precious gift” Sadness is truly a precious gift from the Creator of the universe. No sadness – no joy. No feelings – no humanity. No sadness – no conscience. No conscience – no morality.
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Master the Skill of Selling You
Being the best you, is your best guarantee to success. Far too many people in business don’t realize the vast majority of business is based on relationships.
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Roman Soldiers Mock Jesus
TRUISM: HURTING PEOPLE HURT PEOPLE As I read Matthew’s account of the brutality, taunting and abuse the ROMAN soldiers inflicted upon Jesus, I reflected on the hurt, pain, destruction and suffering in our world.
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Practice What You Preach
Matthew 23 – Seven Woes. Mathew quotes the Master’s scathing rebuking of those who don’t practice what they preach.
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Crowell Point to Post Basketball Camp 2015 – Skagit Valley
BREAKING NEWS! Skagit Valley College hosts CROWELL POINT TO POST BASKETBALL CAMP YOU ARE INVITED! July 20-24, 2015 “The Crowell Guarantee” – 100% Coach Crowell leadership involvement with exceptionally qualified assistant coaches.
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The Crowell Pure Basketball System
“Games don’t make you better, they reveal your skill. Fun D’ mentals make you better.” –Fred Crowell ARE YOU A COACH WHO IS LOOKING TO GET BETTER OR ARE YOU SATISFIED?
