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Hello, I’m Elaine Kung. We continue to learn how to SHINE Your Talk! to excel in your leadership and workplace communication using biblical and practical skills. This will help address these needs and give us the benefit to practice leadership and influence at work, to build trusted relationships and speak up with confidence, persuasion and earn respect, the best way to solve conflicts and gain agreement, and then how to overcome frustration when we feel like we're not seen or heard.
And we'll look at some sticky situations. We learn to lay some groundwork and good foundation to understand when we communicate, it isn't just about talking. In fact, as we know, from James 1:19 that we should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. God created us with two ears and 1 mouth for a reason that we are to listen at least twice as much as our speaking. So we want to listen more than our speaking when we communicate. So communication has a lot to do with good listening.
And then as you continue with James 1:22-25, it didn't even just talk about listening. We also want to listen and also to do what we listen. So not merely listening to the word and deceive ourselves when we don't do what it says. So we should listen and also do what we read in the Bible. Just like, if we do what we say, then we're looking at the mirror and follow it. Otherwise, if you listen but you don’t do it then you forget what you look like in the mirror. It's important to look into the mirror and be aware of what God is reflecting in our lives. So this is an important concept about God-aware. When we listen to the word, we are aware of how God is shaping us and building us and the Holy Spirit reminding us. And then we do what we listen. That would give us the freedom and also continue, persistent, so that we don't forget what we heard, and that we truly listen and we do.
Then we'll be blessed. And that way we build up our God-awareness, listening and doing. So we continue to carry on not just be God-aware. When we are more aware of God, from the word reminding us, we actually become more self-aware and looking at how am I appearing to others? How am I speaking and sound like and be more aware of how I come across to others? Then we want to be more others-aware that how do people think about what I just said? So that I'm self-aware, others-aware and God-aware in order to listen and do what I listen, and then walk the talk and being consistent with being aware of what God tells me, I'm aware of myself and I'm aware of how people think and hear of what I said.
This is a good way to lay the foundation of communication. As we continue, listen and do. Actually, before you do, you need to be who you are first, just how we know about the iceberg effect. When you look at the iceberg, above the waters, only 10 %, so much of it is the 90 % below the water level. And that 90 % is really who we are. What is our being? Our value, our character. So that really becomes driven by our worldview, based on our Christian faith, our value, and then gives us the right set of assumptions, our belief system, and defining what our values to be and that tells what our behavior would be.
So it's very important to invest in that 90 % of our being based on our Christ-like character. This is our biblical worldview and know who we are. In Christ, we have these 3 roles with being a king, have the authority and set the boundary in our communication and authority to exercise what is the right thing and the wrong thing. And our being a prophet, how we can speak on behalf of God's word. So you can possibly be the only person, the only Bible that your coworkers got to read through you, through your action, how you speak, how you communicate as a prophet using the biblical principle. And then being a priest. When we can pray for ourselves, pray for our coworkers, pray for people we work with and pray for the situation like we discussed in the past. And that way, our being defines our value and that 90 %, then it shapes our doing.
So now our listening, our being and our doing will be consistent. And that helps us how to communicate. Then because we know our being in Christ, we now have wisdom to build up our emotional quotient, EQ, and typically, when you study any textbooks or online definition, emotional quotient is like an emotional intelligence, be more self-aware, report on how you're feeling, how you're expressing yourself, and get more motivated and express your empathy, and build good social skill and relationship with others. That's the typical textbook definition. I want to share with you my definition for a word on emotional quotient. And it goes beyond what the textbook tells us and that helps and guides us how we communicate as we listen, our being and our doing. Don't let others’ words and actions degrade your value or control your response. Don't let how people say or behave, really change my own value system, and end up let them control my response. That is good emotional quotient. And that's important how we communicate and build relationships with people.
So when people may be saying something negative, not fair, not professional, or not really positive, and not even correct, and very discouraging, I am gonna be strong in my emotional quotient, go to like a balcony to rest on my emotion, to rest on my spiritual. Now go into this balcony and just really see a bigger picture and a longer view, instead of just right now in short term, so that I don't just let their words in action, control my response. That’s emotional quotient that guides how we would communicate.
I want to introduce to you when we communicate in our being, in our doing having a high emotional quotient need these 5 SHINE values. Remembering these 5 SHINE values would really help us have the wisdom to SHINE Your Talk! And the SHINE is just like in Matthew 5:16 reminding us: In the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. So SHINE stands for Servanthood. Like Matthew 20 tells us that we're willing to serve. And even Jesus came not to be served. He came to serve others. So when you communicate, you think from others’ perspective, how can I serve them the best? That doesn't mean that you would just be taken advantage of. I'm gonna go into more specific cases. But the mindset is, when I communicate think from their perspective, help and then serve them. Be a servant leader. Then H is Humility. In Philippians 2, reminds us that we want to humble ourselves, just like how Jesus humbled himself so much unto death.
So even Jesus, the son of God humbled himself, how much more do we need to humble ourselves?
Now when we say humility it doesn't mean that i'm gonna be stepped on. I’m nobody. No, humility is to think less self-centered. It doesn't mean to think lesser of yourself, doesn't mean that you are less. It's just to think less frequently about yourself. And then Integrity. As Proverbs 28 tells us that we're gonna stand tall and strong and do the right thing whether people are watching you or not. That's integrity.
When you communicate, you want to say the right thing, that it’s right value with our faith. Remember our being and our doing. Then N is Nurture respect. In Micah 6:8, its tell us to be just, to work with our Lord humbly. So nurture respect, it's important in your high EQ communication. Finally, Empathy. In Philippians 2:1-2 it tells us to rejoice with those who rejoice and to mourn with those who mourn. And also to think from their perspective and express our compassion to them. Both Romans and Philippians remind us of empathy. And if you go deeper, what does empathy mean? Like in Romans 12:15 tells us: Rejoice with those who rejoice and mourn with those were mourn. If they feel not so shiny, not so sunny. I want to feel how they feel, of course, we need to stand strong.
So there are three words in English that are very similar. And yet they're very different in the meanings. Apathy - I don't care how you feel. Of course, we don't want to do that. Sympathy - I feel sorry for how you feel. People don't like your sympathy. But they really want your empathy and say, I feel how you’re frustrated with this work. I can feel how you are disappointed that you didn't get this project you wanted. You want to show empathy by connecting to that emotion and naming that emotion without judgment based on your observation. I can see you're frustrated or disappointed, that must be tiring. So give it a name based on what you observed and what you listened.
And that way they feel, Wow! You feel how I feel. All that a high EQ way of communication using your SHINE values. On the opposite, we want to avoid low EQ which is the GROANS. We don't want to show low EQ when we Gossip and greedy. Me, myself, and I, not good. I want Revenge. I want to get mad and get even, not good. We don't want to communicate that way. Always Obsessed in self-pity, self-accusation and worry and adding ourselves pressure is not necessary. We don’t want that. Or A - Against Biblical values, mean spirit, form cliques, take sides, not a good idea. Negative in reaction and get personal, get angry or low EQ. And finally S is selfish agenda, being very stressful. All those are low EQ so we want to avoid that. So in particular, when we communicate with our boss, we want to avoid these low EQ GROANS. Because when we have low EQ with the GROANS symptoms, then the boss end up getting embarrassed.
So these are the things that bosses do not want. The bosses do not want to be embarrassed or surprised or confronted in public. You want to praise your boss in public and then have some confrontational discussion in private. They don't want us to complain. They don't want us to complain to others when you're angry or depressed or demoralized about work. You want to reserve and be wise in what to say.
Of course, we want to focus on more the positive. The bosses don't like us to gossip or spread rumor. They don't want us to have any revolt or “Palace Coup”. They don't want us to engage in any undercover sabotage. All these are low EQ GROANS that we do not want to do, and our bosses do not like. So today we learned about these SHINE and GROAN values. I hope for us to know it in our head, and also be convicted in our heart and put this into practice with our hands, and then make the change as a habit time and time again in our daily life. And think of how you’re gonna change, what you’re gonna start doing, how are you gonna start shining? How are you gonna stop the GROANS? And how are you gonna do more listen and speaking, and how you’re gonna do less. So this way we'll fill up our being and having the right doing. See you next time.
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