Meet Roger
Roger is a motivational speaker who helps you create teams and companies people don't want to leave. You hire him for his expertise in emotional intelligence and appreciation. He doesn't give up on people, he believes they will find a way to move forward and improve. Roger lives in Madison, Wisconsin, and currently serves as the president of the National Speakers Association of Wisconsin Chapter. He loves to travel bike and read science fiction. He's a big fan of baseball, pinball, and all things Tesla.
Can you just tell us what is emotional intelligence?
You bet! It started with Daniel Goleman who has been called the father of emotional intelligence. Quite simply, it is your self-awareness and your social awareness. So following Goleman, there are two parts of self. There's the self-awareness part and the self-management part, right? How we're aware of ourselves and how we manage ourselves. Then the social part is how we're aware of others, how we respond to others, their emotions, their actions, their behaviors. Then the other component in there is relationship building, hmmm, Social Capital much? That's how emotional intelligence is defined and then Goldman and others also put components of empathy into emotional intelligence.
Tell me a little bit about how you got into speaking because this is kind of the main offering that you provide, correct?
Right. I got into speaking and training and I got back into it actually. So way back early in my career, I was into training. I actually trained on all things Microsoft, I trained on operating systems, spreadsheets, Word, PowerPoint and then I also dabbled in a little bit of programming, and then I was also a resident expert on databases. So I love training and I love seeing the lights come on for people. So fast forward into a career in tech support and then while I was in tech support, I got recruited into project management and that's how I fell into project management. So I did that for a number of years and I got really good at both the science and the art of project management, I got into the soft skill and the tech part, but I found that I really had this passion for the soft skill part like facilitating and how we get people past barriers and how we get them to do work. So at my last job about six years ago, they were downsizing, and rather than playing the roulette wheel and figuring out where I wanted to go next in project management, I'm like, you know what? I want to get back into the speaking and the training! I decided that was a great time to start my business. I never knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but it was like this calling to get back up on stage. The more I got up on stage, the more I realized it was, I originally thought, you know, there was this big thing, like, you're going to be in lights, it's about you, and blah, blah, blah, and applause applause applause and I was totally wrong. It's about the audience and the people and creating that connection and that emotional spark and sharing knowledge with them, and seeing the lights come on for them that way. So it was about six years ago, that I decided to hang out my own shingle and get back into the world of professional speaking.
Can you share the difference between emotional intelligence and communication?
It's interesting to put them into both categories because I get that question a fair amount. So if we go back to what I was saying before, a couple of key components are of emotional intelligence are how you show up. One of the ways we show up is how we communicate. So we all have choices about how we communicate, the words we use, the expressions we use, the body language we consciously or subconsciously use. So just because we're communicating doesn't necessarily mean that we have emotional intelligence, and vice versa. I think the two are definitely intertwined. Don't get me wrong, they are intertwined. For...
