I love Mr. Maffeoso on AskMen. He writes, “Look, college boy, there are certain lessons that not all the books in the world can teach you.”
It strikes a chord with me. I totally dropped out of college, a college girl. It was a college in rural Minnesota, very academic, and very intellectual. How academic? How intellectual? More students have passed MedCATS from this school than any students in the country, or have passed at the last count. It produces doctors and lawyers, but not necessarily rich people; They are usually labor attorneys, doctors of inner-city clinics, or professors of medicine and law schools.
I think it attracts more than its share of NFs – idealists (only 8-10% of the population). Whatever job the idealist holds, it is a means to an end: saving the world. This is the college boy Mr. M is talking about, and the college girl who has to learn how to wear her big underpants, because one can never save the world, but one can lose one’s job.
When I left that ivory tower and got my first job, they saw me coming. Determined to be honest, brave, and honest (and I thought others were), I got in all the extra work, expanding my “Job Description” to match the endless limits of my naivety; I got the worst equipment. I met the students in the closet. And of course I was shunned just for good measure. While eating lunch alone, I read a copy of How to Survive in the Real World. k
What I did was get street smart. You know how someone works in the office better than they should think about educating them, and you can’t figure out why. Then you notice – she has street smarts… She always lands on her feet, she knows the score, she reads between the lines, she goes out when it’s good to get something, she can smell a rat, and she knows something when you’re seeing it?
It is emotional intelligence. What Mr. Maffeoso talks about in “Street Lessons”.
He begins with the saying that not all ideal intellectuals would accept: “The world is not fair. It is not nice. Nobody cares if you become stiff, if your feelings are bruised or how hungry you are.” We’re all in the same boat, he warns, and it’s a tough ride. “Everyone is trying to get a part of the action, trying to survive. And the street is just as cruel to everyone.”
I had to experience this a few times before I was ready to let go of how I thought the world should be, or wished it had been. Eventually, I stopped telling my co-workers that I didn’t really know what I was doing, etc. after I was hit enough times with a gun I had carried and handed to someone.
Then Mr. Maffeoso tells us the thing we don’t want to hear – it’s out of control: You can be on top one day, wonder what the big deal is, and then get a bag. “Any number of things: family, work, health, divorce, polluted spinach -“
its rules?
1. Keep your guard. These gels with a “confidence radius?” One component of emotional intelligence is “trust until proven otherwise.” Not seeing “otherwise” is what gets us into trouble.
2. Stay away from arguments. Wait, he says, until they bother each other, and you can see who will be the winner. As I put it in the How To Deal With Difficult People course, only “fools rush where angels fear tread.” This quote was from a book I had read in college. Once I aligned myself with reality, I was fine. Before that, I usually ran because I thought I couldn’t be an idiot; I got a college degree.
3. Do not meet unless necessary. Mr. Maffeoso believes that only girls enjoy meeting only to talk; That only real men gather to make a decision. Everyone knows it… except your boss, right? MBA course from Harvard University.
4. Get to know people. But, he adds, that doesn’t mean they need to get to know you. Having friends means connections, opportunities, information, and all good things; But do not reveal anything superfluous.
5. Don’t be too proud to back off. The next sentence is the one that closes the position of idealists, and it is often difficult to dispel. Sometimes the sole purpose of my training is to get them to stop fighting in principle. He says if you can’t win, give up, retreat, go to witness protection (ha ha); Having strategy trumps courage. I think it means “bragging”. and “Secrecy is the best part of courage.” Sometimes a college education is an advantage.
Mr. Maffeoso concluded that it was all back for him, “Learn everything the hard way and I hope my child does not have to do the same. There is no cure for this thing called life, so it is better to learn certain things early on. Nothing can It really prepares you for that, but if you keep your head on a whirl, you’ll suffer fewer “unfair” surprises.
The main points here about the child. When teaching your child emotional intelligence:
1. You know it whether you like it or not, so be conscious and teach GOOD Emotional
Intelligence, not bad emotional intelligence.
2. You never learn emotional intelligence. Get training.
3. Let them learn their lessons, do not save them unless the house is on fire.
4. Better yet, prepare the lessons so that they can learn them while they are under your care
protection.
5. Connect the dots to them about what you are teaching.
Don’t forget to do this; It’s the part that most parents leave out. Like most of us ask our kids, “How would you feel if Bobby did that to you?” and “How do you think Bobby feels now that I spit on him?” But we fail to tell them that we study empathy – understanding that you have feelings and so does everyone else. Labeling helps demystify the things that baffle us most in life – the emotional stuff.
Tell them you’ll teach them supervision, give them an allowance for 3 months at a time, tell them it should go on, and then be there when they spend it all at once and they have nothing left. Connect the dots to them, and give them a language. It’s easier to learn when you have a network.
Now, back to my NF client I’m coaching in emotional intelligence.
“I can’t do it,” she says, “it’s against my principles.” She’s preparing to sabotage herself… again.
I told her, “Look, college girl.” “Just wear the girls’ big pants,” aka stress tolerance, creativity, resilience, resilience, interpersonal skills, and other components of emotional intelligence.
It keeps your head in a spin.