Michael Reed Of Sparrow Counseling Services: Emotional Intelligence; What It Is, Why It Is So Essential, And How We Can Increase It

Life is full of challenges and seeing a constant feed of everyone else’s best moments invariably invites us to compare those to our own lives.

As a part of our series about “Emotional Intelligence”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Michael Reed.

Michael Reed is a licensed mental health therapist with more than ten years of clinical experience and a focus on providing counseling to adolescents, teenagers and adults. Much of his focus is on short-term, goal-oriented therapy, utilizing CBT, motivational interviewing, elements of DBT and trauma-recovery among others. Clinical issues which he has significant experience in managing include anxiety and depressive disorders, trauma, issues of suicidality and self-harm. Michael’s goal is to build a connection, rapport and trust with everyone who he has the privilege of working with.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive into the main focus of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your childhood backstory? What or who inspired you to pursue your career? We’d love to hear the story.

Thank you so much for having me and giving me the opportunity to share some of my thoughts. Regarding my childhood, for as long as I can remember, I’ve struggled with anxiety and, more specifically, OCD. As a child I didn’t know how to understand this, but I knew I needed to complete certain checks to make myself feel calm; this could be checking locks on windows and doors or repetitive behaviors until something “felt right.” This caused a lot of difficulty in school as constant intrusive thoughts made it hard to focus and I fell behind in academics. It felt nearly impossible to keep my anxiety under control and keep on top of my assignments; the amount of mental energy it took to get through the day, to try to assuage my own anxious thoughts left little room for anything else and was emotionally exhausting. I think in large part, wanting to understand more of what was going on with me and to use my own experience is what led me to want to pursue mental health as a career, seeing firsthand the challenges it can bring to individuals and their families.

None of us can achieve success without some help along the way. Was there a particular person who you feel gave you the most help or encouragement to be who you are today? Can you share a story about that?

My parents were certainly supportive in as much as they were able to be while not understanding what was going on with me. They got me tutors throughout school and set up an appointment with me to see a therapist when I was a teenager. But I was embarrassed and uncertain of how to even describe what I was feeling, so I refused to engage. It was later on in college when I decided on my own to start therapy. I didn’t tell anyone and I knew it needed to be something that was entirely my own. I knew if it was going to work, I had to have buy in and be open to the process. The therapist at my college was incredibly helpful, validating and informative. As he began discussing OCD, it was as if things were starting to fall into place for the first time; he was describing thoughts and feelings which I had never told anyone before and I was amazed that others had them. All of a sudden, that which had been so confusing and caused so many years of emotional distress was given a name, given context and maybe, most importantly, gave me hope that it was not insurmountable. For the first time, I didn’t feel alone in my struggles. I didn’t feel crazy. That insight and understanding was so powerful and I hope that I can now, in my current role, provide similar understanding and education for others. But it was also his approach to therapy: he was friendly, affable, relaxed and conversational. He made it feel like friends having a conversation and less clinical. I think his style has also been very influential in my own approach to how I conduct therapy.

Can you share the funniest or most interesting mistake that occurred to you in the course of your career? What lesson or take away did you learn from that?

Well there are certainly plenty of mistakes to draw on, but one that stands out was in my first year of work post-graduation. We had spent years learning theories and modalities and conducting practice sessions with peers. I had some real-world experience through internships, but when face-to-face with a stranger in an office, the door closed and an hour of time to fill, I found myself overwhelmed. Imposter syndrome is real and I was putting pressure on myself to perform, to make this worth the other person’s time, to offer insights that they had never thought of, or to “earn my keep,” so to speak. I got so wrapped up in my own head that I stopped paying attention to the person sitting in front of me! My focus became so internal and self-focused; how was I doing? Was I succeeding? Was I messing up? Am I any good at this? I was trying to draw on past lessons learned in classes, trying to think through approaches, even (to my own embarrassment now) thinking through therapy scenes I had seen played out in TV and movies — wondering if I should ask him about his mother or something. I think the most important thing I learned from that was to just be present and listen. When I was focusing on myself and my performance, I wasn’t listening. I wasn’t present. That person was not the focus. What people need is to be given the opportunity to talk in a safe space with someone who is giving them their undivided attention, to feel supported and validated. What modalities or interventions you use will come and settle in with time, but the most fundamental thing is to be present and to listen. At the end of the day, there’s nothing as important as that and when we get lost in concerns about our own performance, it creates a barrier and it de-prioritizes the person with whom we’re speaking.

The road to success is hard and requires tremendous dedication. This question is obviously a big one, but what advice would you give to a young person who aspires to follow in your footsteps and emulate your success?

I think my answer may sound trite or cliched at first, but it’s true, and I wish I had done more of it when I was younger. Take care of yourself. This field in particular is notorious for burnout and exhaustion. Being exposed to and processing other people’s trauma and pain throughout each day really takes its toll on you. When you’re starting out in this career, it’s easy to feel like you need to be emotionally invested in clients to the point where you are taking them and their problems home with you. It feels cold and almost cruel to not think about clients and their sessions after the door closes and you head home, but it’s an important discipline to practice. When you’re at work, be at work. Be present. But when you are at home with your spouse or your children or out with friends, it’s just as important to be present. You can’t do that if you’re still thinking about the issues that you discussed with a client that morning. We all have a multitude of responsibilities, personally and professionally, and we cannot do any of them to our fullest if we are not okay. Invest in time for yourself, prioritize sleep, make time for socializing, surround yourself with people who support you and work to create boundaries — practical and emotional — between work and personal life. If you’re so emotionally invested to the point of being distracted or compromised because of an earlier session, you are of no use to the next person that walks into your office.

Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

That’s a great question and there have been many over the years that have stuck with me. However, the one that has had maybe the most substantive impact on me is Viktor Frankl’s book, “Man’s Search for Meaning.” Frankl was an Austrian psychiatrist and philosopher who spent time in the concentration camps and survived the Holocaust. The book is his reflections on life and finding purpose amid unimaginable tragedy and loss. He shares his observations about his fellow inmates in the camps: who was able to survive, who was not, who found the will to keep going and who was unable to. It was those individuals who never lost sight of meaning in their life, of a sense of purpose, who were able to continue on. Once he left the camps, he expanded on this set of observations and created his approach to therapy; what he termed Logos Therapy, the driving force of which is to identify and cultivate meaning and purpose in life, rather than happiness or contentment. No one can be told by another person what their meaning and purpose is, but the goal of therapy should be driven by a sense of helping to identify and cultivate that meaning. That has always resonated with me, to seek meaning and purpose rather than happiness or contentment, which are more fleeting feelings. But meaning and purpose will remain despite your current emotional state.

Can you share your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Why does that resonate with you so much?

Yes, and this relates to my last answer as well: a life lesson that has stuck with me for years is this excerpt from an essay written by Leo Rosten, a writer and humorist in the 1960s, whose thoughts on meaning and life have always dovetailed well with the need for meaning and purpose outlined by Frankl:

“Finally there is the myth which gives me the greatest pain: the myth that the purpose of life is happiness, and that you ought to have fun, and that your children ought to have fun. Where was it written that life is so cheap? Where was it written that life is, or should be, or can ever be free from conflict and effort and deprivation and sacrifice?…The purpose of life is not to be happy at all. It is to be useful, to be honorable. It is to be compassionate. It is to matter, to have it make some difference that you have lived.”

Our culture seems to have an obsession with happiness: on finding it, keeping it, embracing it. Countless books and podcasts have focused on making yourself happy and the satisfaction that can come from cultivating a life where this is the primary drive. For so many of us, especially those of us who are predisposed to mental health issues, happiness has always felt out of reach, due to depression, anxiety, trauma, etc. So, to then be told that happiness is the key to life is disheartening and feels invalidating. We compound our struggles with guilt that we are not able to attain what we need to in order to cultivate a good life. What I love about this lesson from Rosten is that it challenges that idea; happiness is an emotion. It is fleeting and not a worthwhile enough pursuit to devote one’s entire life to.

What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? How do you think that might help people?

One of the most interesting and exciting things to me recently is what has been a key focus in my practice in the past few years: working with transgender youth and the LGBTQIA+ community at large. While I personally am not part of that community, I am honored that so many individuals within that community, especially young people, have trusted me with their stories and experiences. I am encouraged that the trans community has been getting more attention lately in our culture and within the medical and mental health fields. Discussions and trainings around how best to provide culturally sensitive treatment for individuals who are questioning their gender and/or sexuality are more commonplace. One thing I have been thinking about is the idea of creating a podcast that facilitates conversations with members of the trans community so that others can hear them describe in their own words what their needs, concerns, hopes and experiences are. What are things that they wish people knew? What are questions they wish people would feel more comfortable asking? What are questions they hope to never be asked again? What are the most common misconceptions that they wish they could disabuse others of? I have benefited tremendously from the trust which members of this community have placed in me, and I would love to find a way to help them share their stories and perspectives with others more broadly. This would give people an opportunity to be a sort of fly on the wall and be privy to some of the more intimate experiences that these individuals are open to sharing.

OK, thank you for all of that. Let’s now shift to the core focus of our interview. Can you

briefly tell our readers a bit about why you are an authority about Emotional Intelligence? For the benefit of our readers, can you help to define what Emotional Intelligence is?

Broadly, emotional intelligence is the ability to identify, understand, communicate and effectively manage our emotions, both positive and negative. Emotions are complex and often feel erratic or irrational. When we are able to parse out and identify what we are feeling, we then begin to understand how our feelings are affecting our decisions, our behaviors and our interactions with others. We can start to make more informed decisions based on our emotional needs, begin to communicate to others what those needs are, tell them what we need and how they can support us. The more we understand our own emotions, the more we can understand what is behind our behaviors and decisions. Then, subsequently, we can better understand other people’s decisions and behaviors which can increase empathy and interpersonal connection.

How is Emotional Intelligence different from what we normally refer to as intelligence?

What we think of and refer to as typical intelligence measures one’s intellectual or academic abilities. It reflects mental acuity, reasoning and rationality, one’s ability to retain and communicate information. Emotional intelligence is quite different; it is the ability to recognize in ourselves what we are feeling, how we are being affected by those feelings and what impact they have on our decision making and behaviors. It is also the ability to recognize and respond to those feelings in others at a basic human level, to react with sympathy and empathy and to be open to understanding the motivations behind their decisions and behaviors in turn. This comes through being open to vulnerability, being willing to listen, and trying to put yourself in someone else’s shoes. This takes practice and a willingness to be open rather than just the accumulation of new information.

Can you help explain a few reasons why Emotional Intelligence is such an important characteristic? Can you share a story or give some examples?

There is a common theme that I have heard from people in therapy over the years when it comes to navigating relationship dynamics with others. This could be any type of relationship: family, romantic, social or professional. A common theme is being able to see that someone is having an emotional reaction, but not being able to intuit why that may be or how to respond. They feel insecure in that uncertainty of how to respond and so they shut down. They don’t ask questions and allow it to become a barrier. The focus becomes whether we have done something wrong or to upset that person. Are we being supportive enough? Are we doing our job as a friend, partner or coworker? Emotional intelligence helps us recognize those feelings and concerns that may be a barrier and to work instead to see the needs of the other person standing in front of us.

Would you feel comfortable sharing a story or anecdote about how Emotional Intelligence has helped you in your life? We would love to hear about it.

Where to start?! There are so many examples, but one that comes to mind is when my wife started her PhD program a number of years ago. All of a sudden, the bulk of our social interactions were focused around events with her fellow PhD students and their professors, and I found myself thrown into this new world surrounded by high achieving academics at a prestigious university. My initial reaction was insecurity, feeling like I didn’t belong in this group, that the people with whom we were spending time were better than me, smarter than me, etc. It took a while, but I worked to recognize what I was feeling and why. Why did I have those insecurities and more importantly, how were they affecting my interactions with this new group of people? And eventually I was able to stop trying to compare myself to them and to just lean on my own skill set, which is talking to people, getting to know them and building rapport. As I started to become aware of my emotions and the effect they were having on my behaviors, I began to adjust accordingly. I started trying to focus just on the other person in front of me and getting to know them. I was also able to start being more honest and vulnerable with this new group of people and how this environment caused me insecurity. Then they started to respond in kind, letting me know that they too felt insecure in such a prestigious setting, wondering if they belonged in that group or what others thought of them, that they felt like imposters. We were able to recognize in ourselves and one another shared emotions and allow them to be a way of cultivating shared experience and connection rather than division and isolation. Some people I met in those years have become some of my closest friends, but that would never have happened if I hadn’t been aware of my emotions and how they were negatively impacting my decisions.

Can you share some specific examples of how Emotional Intelligence can help a person become more successful in the business world?

This is a tough question to know how to answer because on one hand, the answer could reasonably be put as simply as “in every conceivable way.” But I think the framing of the question also denotes something about how we view work and business in America. We fetishize productivity and we tie worth and value to our level of burnout. But it’s the connections and relationships that we form with our peers and coworkers which often take a back seat to that productivity. Can you imagine going to work in a job in which our entire working dynamic was defined only by individual productivity, where there was no interpersonal connection, where no one valued relationships with their coworkers? These are the people with whom we often spend more time than our families and closest friends. What would it be like to never cultivate relationships with those people? In our culture, that’s often how we function or try to function. So the question of how it can benefit us is best answered in how emotional intelligence can help us to form connections with our peers, to cultivate vulnerability and in doing so, to make our professional lives more three dimensional. Those relationships can add depth and meaning to our work. That meaning comes through connections, working together, allowing ourselves to be vulnerable with our coworkers, to be honest about how and when our emotions are affecting us and our performance. It’s taking a chance to be vulnerable with our peers and being open to them doing the same. Productivity and performance will always matter, but they are not the only things that matter. Without connection, support, validation and meaning, our endeavors become more meaningless and empty. That won’t ever come from performance, but rather from supporting and allowing ourselves to be supported by others.

Can you share a few examples of how Emotional Intelligence can help people have better relationships?

Sure, I think the biggest way is through communication, which is really the cornerstone of any healthy relationship. If we aren’t taking stock of what’s bothering us, or of what we’re feeling, then all that means is that those feelings are going unaddressed. They won’t go away. We still carry the weight of our feelings with us every day, even if we don’t understand them or pay attention to them. Our feelings will always find a way of coming out. The question is whether or not we are going to be the ones in control of how and when. If we don’t take ownership of them, feelings will find a way of being heard; this could be through losing our tempers, through increased irritability or agitation, through worsening sleep or, to your earlier question, through worsening performance at work. I think that all of us have had the experience of having a fight or a blow up with someone close to us where it starts over something entirely mundane. Someone forgot to take out the trash, or was late in meeting us, or some benign comment was taken the wrong way. This explodes into a much bigger fight where pent up anger or frustration come pouring out. Whatever the trigger, that wasn’t the real reason for the outburst. It was just the straw that broke the camel’s back and gave way to a flood of pent up negative emotions.

Negative emotions can either create division or cultivate emotional intimacy in relationships. It’s up to us which it’s going to be. But when we are keyed into our emotions and how they’re impacting us, then we can communicate that to people we are in a relationship with. If we are angry, anxious, or feeling unappreciated, we can either allow it to build and create resentment, thinking that we are doing the relationship a favor by not making waves, or we can have more honest conversations when we realize what’s bothering us; we can communicate how we are feeling and what we need, thus bringing the other person into our thought process. It can nip bigger problems in the bud and help us understand what the other person is experiencing and how we can best support them. Even hard conversations or fights can cultivate better emotional connection and intimacy if we take a proactive approach in communicating through them.

Can you share a few examples of how Emotional Intelligence can help people have more optimal mental health?

This is another question that could reasonably be answered with the phrase “in every conceivable way.” I don’t think there is any element of our mental health that is unaffected by how we handle and process our emotions. From happiness and contentment in our relationships to finding meaning and joy in our day-to-day experiences, to our physical health — all of these are affected. We all experience a wide array of emotions: positive, negative and everything in between. When we get into the practice of identifying those feelings and work to keep them in check, we can have better control of our decisions and behaviors. We can better understand how we function, how our emotions impact us in our daily lives and when we recognize a problem, we can have a jump start on handling it by knowing what works best for us to cope. Do we need time alone or time with friends? Do we need more sleep or do we need to have a difficult conversation with someone? Is there a task we’ve been avoiding that is causing undue stress? What we need for self-care can vary significantly and the more we are keyed into our emotions, the better we can be at identifying solutions and coping skills that we need in that moment.

Ok. Wonderful. Here is the main question of our interview. Can you recommend five things that anyone can do to develop a greater degree of Emotional Intelligence? Please share a story or example for each.

This is a good question and there are any number of things that we can all do to be continuing to grow in this area, but a few things that I have always found to be helpful, both personally and for people whom I see for therapy, are as follows:

1. Ask trusted friends for feedback: None of us has any real objectivity when it comes to how we come across to other people. We may think that we are handling our emotions well when, in reality, they are bleeding through our interactions with others in ways we are unaware of. It can be scary to be vulnerable and to ask for and receive feedback but asking trusted friends what they see as our strengths and areas for growth: do they feel supported by us? Are we someone they feel they can trust with their feelings? Do they see us as open and vulnerable? Is there anything we can do, from their perspective, to be more sympathetic or empathic? I have had a friend ask me this in the past and it was really meaningful that they trusted me enough to ask that and I wanted to do their question justice. I think it’s a scary exercise but one that would benefit all of us.
2. Journaling: I know, I know, it seems such a cliche for a therapist to say that we should all journal more. But I think this can be a helpful exercise, one that would benefit most of us, especially when there’s some structure involved. I find that when I write or journal in an unstructured way, it is not as helpful. I can get lost going down rabbit trails or focusing too much on stressors without focusing on solutions. Something that has helped me and others is to spend time journaling about something specific that is bothering me. Try to answer specific questions about the issue that is on your mind: what feelings is it causing you to have? Are those feelings affecting you day-to-day? Causing poor sleep or distraction, irritability, etc.? Do we feel that we are in control of the situation? Is the situation something that is within our power to control? If in our control, what are practical things we can do to make positive changes? If the situation is something that we cannot control, then the question becomes how we can best take care of ourselves and give ourselves the support and self-care we need so that no matter what happens, we will best be able to handle the outcome? Sometimes a very structured and focused form of journaling can help us identify how we are feeling about something specific and bring our problems down to earth a bit. It can make problems feel less big and overwhelming while helping us feel more in control emotionally.
3. Use a mood tracker: A really great tool that I have suggested people use is a mood tracker. There are many apps that track moods that anyone can download for free. We go in every day and enter in our mood: How is our stress level? Are we angry? Are we happy? Do we feel calm or tense? Most of them use 1–10 scales or sliding graphs and are quite user-friendly and accessible. When we check in every day on anything, whether our bank account, or our weight, or whatever it is, we become that much more keyed into the current state of things. It becomes easier to recognize changes or disruptions. We see patterns emerge: Are there certain times of the week when we are more stressed out or when we are happier? Did something that day have a negative or positive effect? We can track our moods daily, weekly or monthly and see the fluctuations in order to better understand what may have contributed and how to adjust accordingly. It’s a great tool that I think would help all of us feel more aware of our emotions.
4. Practice vulnerability: Vulnerability is scary for all of us, whether it’s in the workplace, with friends or with a romantic partner. It’s hard to let ourselves be open with and to trust other people. But the alternative is that we hold everything in, not communicating what we need, not sharing how we are feeling and bottling everything up until it finds its own way out. If something that someone did made you happy, practice telling them and validating that. If you had a negative reaction to something someone did, if they said or did something that made you feel badly about yourself, even if you know they didn’t mean to, practice sharing that with them. It’s a way of advocating for yourself, of validating that your feelings matter and gives the other person the chance to better understand you and how their actions are coming across. It’s a scary but important exercise.
5. Lastly, be patient: All of us are works in progress and we all have a unique set of emotions that we are dealing with. Practice identifying how you are feeling. Practice communicating those feelings with others. Practice vulnerability and inviting others to be vulnerable with you. This will not always go well. Sometimes people will respond negatively or get defensive. That doesn’t mean that you were wrong to share your feelings. Sometimes it may seem as though what you are doing is not helping or not making you feel better. But it’s still valuable work. Be patient and practice these skills. Like anything, the more we practice the more confident and comfortable we become in doing these things.

Do you think our educational system can do a better job at cultivating Emotional Intelligence? What specific recommendations would you make for schools to help students cultivate Emotional Intelligence?

In recent years schools have started adjusting to this in a positive way and I have been heartened by some of the things I’ve seen. For instance, having sections in health classes devoted to emotional health and teaching coping and grounding skills like deep breathing, meditation, etc., has been a great step forward. There has also been a big shift in focusing more on mental health awareness. Teachers are often the first people who notice someone struggling emotionally. Their presentation in class, academic performance, whether someone starts to isolate from others at lunch or recess — these are all signs that something is wrong and that a teacher may see before a parent. Mental health first aid training for teachers has also become a more common practice in schools, showing teachers how to recognize and engage with potential problems so that kids can get the support they need earlier and more consistently. Also having counselors on staff and available for kids who are having a hard time is a wonderful thing. But kids can still fall through the cracks and I think that more communication between teachers and parents, teachers and therapists, etc. would be helpful. Also, normalizing the idea of requiring a mental health assessment as part of each student’s physical each year is important. For most schools, students are all required to show proof of an annual physical exam. I think that adding the requirement of a mental health exam could give advanced warning if a student is having a difficult time, which would be really helpful.

Ok, we are nearly done. You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I think one of the biggest challenges that we face culturally right now is the role of social media on our mental health. This goes for people of all ages but most notably for younger people and teenagers. Social media encourages people to put up a well-curated version of their best selves. We put up pictures or posts about fun trips we went on, amazing dates that we had, of life milestones like graduations, engagements, marriages or purchasing homes. We put up our accomplishments and the best possible versions of ourselves. What this does is skew our perspective; it makes it feel that everyone else is succeeding. Everyone else has it all together. Life is full of challenges and seeing a constant feed of everyone else’s best moments invariably invites us to compare those to our own lives. But we’re not comparing apples to apples. We’re comparing someone else’s best moments, curated and filtered for public consumption, with our insecurities, our failures, the areas of our lives that we are still working on. That will never be a fair comparison and will inevitably lead us to feel as though we are failing where others are succeeding; that we should hide away those parts of us that we feel most vulnerable about. I think some revamping of how we use and engage with social media, whether a new app, platform or updates to existing platforms where there could be a more authentic representation of our lives, good and bad, would be helpful. Where it would be easy and safe to share how we are doing emotionally, to find ways of validating others in their challenges and where vulnerability was a benefit rather than something to be avoided. I think about this a lot and what a new format or app could look like where those elements could be prioritized.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we both tag them :-)

That’s a great question and yeah, let’s tag them and see what happens! Someone like Chad Mureta comes to mind. He’s someone who has been prolific in terms of developing new apps and software and understanding the psychology behind our using technology. I’ve read a few interviews with him and heard his story and he strikes me as someone who appreciates the need to identify the emotional and mental needs related to various technologies. Where I’m going with this is that I have spoken with hundreds of teenagers and college students throughout the years and all of them have the same complaint: social media is broken. The apps that I use to connect with my friends make me feel worse about myself. Whether Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat or whatever else, they all recognize that it’s an unhealthy and superficial form of connection and one that fosters unfair comparisons like I mentioned before. But it’s also where all of their friends are. The alternative, in the minds of so many people, is to not feel connected. We continue to invest time and energy into cultivating these versions of ourselves that are designed to get likes rather than foster real connection. I see this need out there for a new way of connecting, a way of giving people the tools to try to cultivate more meaning in their relationships and networks and have toyed with ideas of what that would look like. But having a conversation with someone like Chad Mureta, with a history of success in building usable and intuitive apps, someone who understands the psychology behind why and how we use technology, would be a really interesting opportunity to discuss the future of social media and online communities.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

They can find more information about me and my work at my website, sparrowcounselingservices.com.

Thank you for these really excellent insights, and we greatly appreciate the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success.

Thanks so much for having me and giving me this opportunity!