"Be like water."
Mike Clarke is your EQi guy and he is helping you achieve your positive emotional change. He is the Founder of Empowered People Thrive. He says that he lives in the most beautiful county in the UK – Cornwall, the home of Richard Trevithick (1771). He is passionate about emotional intelligence and helping people realize their true potential. Mike can help you change the way you feel and help you realign self-limiting thoughts. He will help you to choose “you”, as you are the number 1 person, who can change “you”. Mike will support you as you learn to love yourself again so that you can flourish. He can help you regain your confidence and help you to live again. He works with you, via face-to-face or zoom.
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Table of Contents
Let’s learn a little about you and get to experience what makes us tick – starting at our beginnings. Where did your story begin?
Mike Clarke: I started working upon leaving school at 16 with very few qualifications. My first job Was as a van assistant for Currys retail Electrical Ltd. After six months of working on the van I was promoted to work in the shop as a salesperson. Within two years of working in this organization promoted to assistant manager.
I left this organization because of a poor senior manager who was bullish and arrogant. I wasn’t prepared to be pushed around or messed around by someone who didn’t understand the basics of managing a person. And so I moved to another organization or a joint assistant manager and the trend continued until I was 32 working for a range of international companies where poor management was the name of the game.
In every instance, I left a job role because of a poor senior manager. Some of these managers were older and somewhat younger someone male and somewhat female. The one thing they had in common was poor management skills. At 22 I began to search for the answer as to how to do our best work with other people. And I found the answer and that was emotional intelligence. I studied the subject from the age of 23 to 25. It was upon receiving my qualification at my job role changed and I began to teach people how to manage people.
Was there somebody in your life that inspired you to take that specific journey with your business?
Mike Clarke: The only person that inspired me to make the change in my journey from being an employed person into being self-employed with myself. I’m a great believer in the best boss you’ll ever have is yourself. And so is the case for many many people that I work with. I’ve helped over 23,000 people over 30 years career To learn about emotions, their own and other peoples, to learn about social sciences, and to better work with the people around them.
What are the most common mistakes you see entrepreneurs make and what would you suggest they do?
Mike Clarke: I wouldn’t say it was a common mistake but what I often find is that I’m the first person to show an entrepreneur what emotional intelligence is and what emotional intelligence can do. By learning about emotional intelligence not only do we strengthen our character and understand who we are, but we can also begin to understand the people around us. We understand our customer’s needs more we understand how best to get our staff to interact with our customers. We understand how to influence other peoples thinking around the many different aspects of work that there are.
An example of EQi is – If you want to be a better salesperson the first thing you look for is sales training. When if we learned about the social science of EQi first the sales training would take on a whole new meaning. I’m a great believer in people’s 1st pounds second. So if the training is about developing people it is more likely to help you to achieve getting the pounds.
If you’re training is about trying to make people earn more money then there’s a real high percentage of a chance that people won’t achieve the thing that you thought they would from the things they learn. Plato said the key to learning is internal motivation. People are not driven by money as much as you think they might be. Internal drivers can help us understand what motivates someone to achieve the wonderful things that they can for themselves. That’s emotional intelligence. Another example of emotional intelligence at work is if you understand social sciences you will change your post on social media because you will know what it is that people are looking for when they want to begin a relationship with a new business or a new product. That’s emotional intelligence that’s why it’s important to learn
Resilience is critical in critical times like the ones we are going through now. How would you define resilience?
Mike Clarke: Resilience is the capacity to acknowledge how you feel about the given situation, and for us to be fluid and flexible in the number of ways we innovatively seek out a solution to the problem we are faced with. Resilience comes about because we ride the waves of emotion, which will come at us, to try and send us off course. Resilience means we keep a fixed eye on the prize and learn what our emotions can do to help us to achieve the goals and objectives that we set for ourselves.
When you think of your company, 5 years from now, what do you see?
Mike Clarke: In five years my organization will have an online presence across several social media platforms, which leads us to a website where the resources to learn to change will be readily available. There will be two books that will underpin the values of the organization and drive the mission which is to help people experience a positive emotional change.
What do you consider are your strengths when dealing with staff workers, colleagues, senior management, and customers?
Mike Clarke: The three key strengths which I believe help me to deal with people are;
I have a passion for Emotional intelligence which comes from my own experience of using emotional intelligence to change my life, and from watching over 23,000 people develop into happier better more efficient people.
I can tap into any person’s intrinsic motivators and once I understand what it is, I can take them down the road of transition which will lead them to feel inspired and motivated to want to take the steps needed to become a happier person.
I have developed a set of communication skills that allow anyone who experiences them the chance to ask questions to become inquisitive about themselves self to explore themselves in a safe manner where they are valued and where they can grow purposefully.
How important do you think it is for a leader to be mindful of his brand?
Mike Clarke: Innocence emotional intelligence is the very thing that can guide an individual’s brand. It becomes their signature. Without a clear brand of who we are then it is almost impossible to lead a group of people and do so effectively.
Having a clear vision that is driven by someone who very clearly understands who they are and how are the people operate is one of the most inspiring things to experience from a person’s point of view. People will be influenced by and will follow someone who has a very definite brand. And if that brand mirrors the eight drivers of emotional trust that we are more likely to find more people can be influenced by some more people will be motivated by the things we ask them to achieve.
How would you define “leadership”?
Mike Clarke: I would define leadership as the ability to and only know every individual in your team, to have developed a detailed plan of their personal development, and to have them at the core of every decision that you make.
What advice would you give to our younger readers that want to become entrepreneurs?
Mike Clarke: If you want to make the self-employed dream happen then you must believe in yourself, and you must have faith in the talent the skills that you have, and you must find yourself a mentor. Always collaborate, know your limitations, and be working on them the whole time, make sure you clearly understand the emotional reasons as to why you want to succeed as an entrepreneur, make sure that you break down all of your goals into micro-steps and celebrate every win, and remember no matter how could you get there is always another level and it is your job to make sure you always aspire for more from yourself.
What’s your favorite “life lesson” quote and how has it affected your life?
Mike Clarke: Be like water. Bruce Lee. When I read this at eight years old I didn’t quite understand what Bruce Lee meant. But I knew that it was important. And then I found the story which Bruce Lee shares with us about what he meant. What I found was that he said if we are like the water when the water is poured from the jug it becomes The glass. And that to me maybe realize that as a human being if I were to behave in the same way that I would need to know about social sciences I would need to know why people behave the way they did I would need to know how people make changes about themselves. And so my life is work began
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Mike Clarke for taking the time to do this interview and share his knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Mike Clarke or his company, you can do it through his – Linkedin Page
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