By Talia Eisenberg -Reflection on Leadership and the Merits of Growing Emotional Intelligence

For me part of my never ending quest for mastery of self includes refining and improving emotional intelligence skills, my inner world projected outward. Digging discovering and transforming emotional roughage is something that I have pursued since leave Omaha and moving to New York City at the age of 17. In my accidental training to be a leader/light warrior in life and in love, and later setting out on a process to earn an MBA/MPA at Presidio Graduate School in SF I have have learned how to be most effective by shining a light on my strengths as well as reflecting on areas of myself to improve. 

A few weeks ago at residency, one of my professors, sustainability consultant Cynthia Scott, imparted to me that in the world of leadership training it is very common for people to focus on their own areas of weakness. However, she believes since life is short, improving "weak" competencies first is overwhelming and misses the point. Her belief is that instead it makes more sense to focus on core strengths and continue to build on those. She used the metaphor of tent poles that signify various area of emotional intelligence for leadership and said that to lift the tent up, all tent poles can never all be even or high enough at once, that in business leadership it is far better to have a few longer well sharpened and honed poles than many shorter ones. Because of this I choose to focus on one strength at a time for greater mastery instead of focusing on something I am not naturally gifted at to begin with. Her theory is that there are enough people in this world with a variety of experts to cover the areas that others are not as proficient in. Together we can all raise various tent poles.  At a microlevel as an individual hoping to contribute to the greater whole, you want to have two or three really high poles or emotional competencies that you are mastering before moving on to others. 

If you are interested in knowing and improving your leadership skills then an in-depth self-assessment like the EQ-I is for you. The EQ-I is a self-administered online test that measures emotional intelligence. As you probably know, emotional intelligence has been all the rage in corporate environments for awhile now. It used to be that intelligence was measured only by logic and knowledge. EQ-I is defined as “a set of emotional and social skills that influence the way we perceive and express ourselves, develop and maintain social relationships, cope with challenges, and use emotional information in an effective and meaningful way.”

Emotional intelligence (EI) reflects one’s overall wellbeing and ability to succeed in life. While emotional intelligence isn’t the sole predictor of human performance and development potential, it is proven to be a key indicator in these areas. Emotional intelligence is also not a static factor — to the contrary, one’s emotional intelligence can change over time and can be developed in targeted areas. 

According to the test’s website, the EQ-i 2.0 online test, https://tap.mhs.com/EQi20.aspx by MHS Assessments, measures the interaction between a person and the environment he/she operates in. Assessing and evaluating an individual’s emotional intelligence can help establish the need for targeted development programs and measures. This, in turn, can lead to dramatic increases in the person’s performance, interaction with others, and leadership potential. The development potentials the EQ-i 2.0 identifies, along with the targeted strategies it provides, make it a highly effective employee development tool.

The EQ-I test measured me at the highest level (115) for flexibility: “adapting emotions, thoughts and behaviors.” This makes sense because I see change and innovation as a must, necessary for pleasing your consumer audience and for having a competitive advantage. When I co-founded one of my old companies, Henley Premium Vapor which mission was to use a harm reduction approach as a tool for reducing the number of smokers in the world and increasing longevity and health, one of my primary goals was to create team impact and positive change culturally by challenging employees to think outside of the box. At one point our team had the idea of opening up a 2,000 square foot Willy Wonka themed flavor “vaporium” in the heart of SoHo, New York where a smoke free lifestyle could be appreciated and many types of ecigarettes along with 350 eliquid flavors were available for sampling and purchasing. The core emotional competency of open mindedness and willingness to try new things was infused in a completely new consumer market, e-cigarettes, and helped the company to innovate and get noticed. Among competitors, nothing like a “vaporium” with "vapologists" serving up nicotine concoctions existed at the time and it became a very popular mechanism for marketing which increased media coverage and revenue resulting in a solid brand that attracted investors, influencers and loyal customers. Thousands of people successfully quit smoking with us. 

During this time I learned that, when leading staff to adapt to new behaviors, there are multiple approaches for integrating flexibility in the workplace. Open-mindedness without enough discrimination or feedback can lead to confusion among team members. In the past, I used to get very excited about ideas and If not mindful, assume that the rest of the team would adapt to the implementation process quickly. As a leader, one of my gifts is an actively creative mind that would like to implement ideas. Doing it too quickly which can be problematic. Today I'm learning that strategic planning, constructive data analyzation and team buy in is key otherwise the overarching mission can be compromised. Too much independence and quick-movement implementation can result in fear and lack of cohesion (instead of interdependence) for the rest of the team. During my first semester at grad school, I took a course in leadership and vowed to further develop the goal of pausing and listening whenever the team at work or school is struggling with change. I have learned the importance of pausing, inquiring, listening and empathizing in transitional times of change. The consideration of others perspectives and concerns is extremely valuable as an individual and the organization as a whole. We need more of a holarchy approach to leadership in today's world where constructive team discussion and inclusion of other’s ideas is valued. As a leader, flexibility of mind with the added process of team inquiry and discovery is a necessary continued skill to improve daily.

By Talia Eisenberg - Reclaiming the Core Integrity of Age-Old Agriculture (My MBA Admissions Essay)

The human population of developed, industrialized countries of especially North America and Western Europe seem to be increasingly suffering as a result of overconsumption, overproduction, proliferation of waste and near idolatry of materialism. Despite the cultural popularization of sensibilities related to and awareness of environmental conservation, the vast majority of people continue to maintain lifestyles that are disconnected from any deep-rooted relationship with the earth.

I was born in 1986, in Omaha, Nebraska which makes me a millennial from the Midwest. For the majority of my life, I lived in a community of people who are literally surrounded by farm life and agricultural endeavors, and yet they are commonly unhealthy and overweight. It is culturally acceptable to over consume food, align one’s identity with oversized motor vehicles, and generally avoid outdoor activities. I was encouraged to celebrate athletic achievement by crowding around the television to watch the Cornhuskers of University of Nebraska while drinking beer derived from wheat, or carbonated water sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, and eating highly processed or fried food products usually derived from genetically modified corn. I have witnessed the physical, emotional and spiritual decline of many of the folks and their family members that I grew up with. Many who suffer from obesity, shun physical exercise and are at risk of or have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. They struggle to get through life, have difficulty affording the pharmaceutical treatments needed to just get by, and yet they continue to practice their downward spiral into what appears to be an abyss of unconscious disconnection from the earth and its resources that have supported our communities for generations. As I contemplate my post graduate pursuits and possible professional ambitions, I find myself unable to avoid a recurring set of questions in my mind. How could the pursuit of profits so rapidly eclipse the fundamental purpose of farming? How could our communities become so overrun with mindless overconsumption of food and a collective fascination with materialism that has set us on a course of calamity of such colossal proportions? How is it that the families I grew up with, who have passed down farms for generation after generation, are unable to sustain themselves, let alone our community or our planet? I feel drawn to ask what innovations in technology, products, services and business models might be explored and developed that could help reverse these catastrophic trends and right the wrongs that are literally killing the people I know and love, and the planet that we have inherited from previous generations.

Talia Eisenberg Omaha, Talia Eisenberg Henley

As a result of a statistically improbable quirk of fate, my paternal grandmother, Bella Eisenberg, encouraged my brother and I to join her on many international journeys that allowed me to explore the world far beyond Omaha at a very young age. She was one of the only survivors in her family to avoid extermination in the Holocaust, and she immigrated from Austria to Omaha in 1945. She married her first love (Erwin) and they settled in what must have seemed like one of the safest places on earth, Nebraska, to open the first modern art. Bella lost her husband in the 1970’s, but she never lost her love of travel. Driven by her personal love of art, camaraderie with artists and local cultures, and her desire to expand her collection, my grandmother seemed to always be reading about or planning her next trip to Europe, Asia or Africa with her girlfriends. By virtue of her passions and her dedication to expanding my horizons and appreciation for other cultures, I have enjoyed the privilege of frequent travel from a very young age and have visited 5 continents and 10 times as many countries. In my early adult life, after losing my grandmother, I have continued to pursue my passion for travel and exploration of many diverse cultures around the world.

My personal travels have taken a distinctly more adventurous agenda, and I have explored many developing countries in Africa and South America to learn that the natural world of plants and plant medicines offer many specific healing properties to previously incurable diseases which Western science can’t quite figure out. After immersing myself in the practices of tribal communities from the West-Central African country, Gabon, or the healing arts of the Shipibo tribes of Amazonian Peru, I have come to passionately believe that for nearly every problem that plagues the people of the “first world countries” there is a natural solution that already exists yielding fruit from the earth, we just have to avoid killing it and somehow find it. This takes exploration, organization and the audacious hope and faith in a brighter future for ourselves and for our planet.

Being from Nebraska, where farming is as common as Facebook, where soybeans are still more popular than Snapchat, I have often anxiously wondered about the family farmer’s fading connection to the earth. My close friend from childhood is now a PhD candidate in Psychology at the University of Chicago. We were both vegetarians in middle school, partly to annoy others and partly because of burgeoning environmental sensibilities. We were each dedicated dietary deviant’s in Omaha. Beyond our friendship, she now represents an important shift in personal values for a growing number of our generation. She refuses to have any part of her family’s massive livestock business because of how much waste is produced, water is wasted and destruction it wreaks on the earth and the bodies of the people who consume the burgers that result from their mass production. We grew up with the internet, and a proliferation of non-traditional sources of information from a mushrooming network of global resources. Our adolescence was punctuated with interests in holistic treatments, alternative spiritual practices and often overlooked views of the healing properties of plant medicines. We have witnessed the growth of the natural foods and cosmetics markets with excited curiosity and these trends have been the basis for many conversations about entrepreneurial fantasies. My mind has always gravitated towards the potential opportunities for the development of plant-based medicinal innovation and the possibilities of new products that might help heal the sick. I was then and I still am fascinated by the intelligence beyond human capabilities to cure physical and spiritual maladies. Science has limits, in my opinion plant knowledge is infinite and naturally solution-oriented. Have you heard of the scientific theory that animals were conceived by plants long ago to move seeds around as a solution to their inability to migrate across environments on their own?

It’s becoming more apparent that the modern health care system has fundamental flaws and some even regard it as a complete failure. Instead of curing disease, the most common healing technologies often serve as a “band aid” or leads to continuous dependency with a heavy dose of side effects. The source or root issue of the disease too often doesn’t get cured or even properly diagnosed. Many of the sick and suffering have abandoned their faith in their first world doctors and are travelling to place like the Amazon to benefit from the practices and recommendations of tribal shamans who combine spiritual practice with plant medicines. While many of these people do, in fact, experience symptomatic improvement these are all too often lost when they return to the toxic environments of their modern home life.

Simultaneously, I am deeply troubled by the impact on indigenous people by the proliferation of wireless access to the global internet and the popularization of materialistic measures of modern “success.” In my recent years of travel into the jungle of the Amazon, I have personally seen how the cultural influences of the industrialized countries are flowing fast into the minds of locals, and I am distressed to see how their reverence for traditional spiritual practices and their dedication to passing on personal knowledge of plant medicines is being diluted, and becoming increasingly more endangered.

In my home state of Nebraska, a reliable and deep relationship with natural resources by family farmers has been nearly lost and large corporate agricultural enterprises have all but taken over; the family farm and the families themselves are now threatened by increasingly unsustainable methods that put profit above purpose. The overproduction of commercial crops has grown to become a major cause of a climate in crisis and driven the mass popularization of dietary dysfunction, while shareholder interests have made it increasingly impossible for even the most dedicated to make a living off the land. The ancient purpose of the role of the farmer as provider of nourishment and the arbiter of access to the wisdom of nature, has been eclipsed by market expansion and the modern practices of mega-farming. When I talk to the farm operations managers in my community, they describe the goal of innovation in environmental sustainability in terms of increasing yield while driving greater efficiency to achieve higher profits. Yet, I firmly believe we live in a unique historical moment where the next level of our common welfare depends on successfully reclaiming the core integrity of age-old agriculture, while incorporating the ancient principles of plant intelligence and natural wisdom. Family farms are as much at risk of extinction as the local shaman in Peru, the tribal doctor in Gabon, or far too many other species that have a right to thrive on Earth; our job, indeed my mission at PGS, should be to enable and empower the next generation of entrepreneurs with breakthrough innovations that sustains us all. While many students may define success of their MBA studies as developing a great new app, I believe the world does not need the next new Uber. I believe that we can dedicate our research and develop the next “uber successful” solution to the problematic misguided practices that are driving the world to irreversible destruction.