Segment 1: Our guest on this edition of The Doug Noll Show is Cindy Wigglesworth. After receiving a Master’s Degree from Duke University and spending over 20 years in Human Resources at Exxon Mobile, Cindy founded her current business, Deep Change, in 2000. She is the author of SQ21: The Twenty-One Skills of Spiritual Intelligence, and a recognized expert in the field of Spiritual Intelligence.
Cindy’s personal journey started when she spent a few years in India as a child. It was there that her interest in different cultures and ideas began. She was raised Roman Catholic but always had nagging questions like: we need to love one another but where is the practical advice about how to do that? How does this world make sense? How can we all get along? What is the purpose of life?
Cindy developed her Emotional Intelligence as an adult and then through personal research stumbled onto Spiritual Intelligence. She found that EQ and SQ were hugely important for strong leadership but no one had the ability to talk about these topics because they didn’t have the language. Emotional Intelligence as a body of literature was not available. She began by using Myers Briggs personality tests and observed how people could communicate clearly and get tasks accomplished but not be overly annoying. She began to imitate what she was seeing in order to become a more effective leader.
Segment 2:
Emotions are big part of how and why we make certain decisions. When Cindy teaches seminars on Spiritual Intelligence she asks her students: what spiritual leaders do you admire? What are the character traits that cause you to admire them? Then, once the traits are named, she asks if any of those character traits are not appropriate in the work place (no). Eventually her students learn that wisdom and compassion have to coexist for Spiritual Intelligence to be effective.
Segment 3:
The most important piece of language surrounding Spiritual Intelligence is the understanding that we have an ego self and a higher self. The ego is the normal operating system that typically runs our lives (with high drama and proneness to flight of flight), which is fine if our only objective is to stay alive. However, if we have other objectives like having a purpose or having joy in your life, the ego can get in the way. The higher self is the part of us that can calm the “drama queen” limbic system. With practice we can rewire the triggers that anger us. It takes discipline and practice, but it can change.
Segment 4:
So how do we learn a compassionate response instead of a fear response? The first step is to understand the voice of our ego and higher self, and get clear about our core values and belief systems. Then we need to be able to get ourselves “into the mind” of anyone, which is essentially being empathic. In doing so, we become profoundly aware of the interconnectivity of life. We are not solo players. When we do things there are repercussions. When we feel threatened, we contract and the ego-habituated path takes over, which doesn’t serve us. To override this response takes practice and motivation, but it is possible.
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