Hey there, Mauriciana here, founder of the Mindsite Academy, neurocoach to executives, leaders, entrepreneurs, and a neuroleadership trainer using insights from neuroscience to help you deliver results by learning to work smarter, be in control of your brain, manage yours and others' emotions, change behaviors, flourish and exceed expectations. Welcome back to another episode of Lead to Excel Podcast. I am so thrilled to be with you today. But before we get into that, remember to subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to it. Because it will help other people find it and give them the opportunity to understand how they can rewire their own brain to enable them to achieve their goals. So without wasting any more time, grab your cup of coffee or your drink or whatever that might be, put your feet up and listen in. Today we will discuss how developing emotional intelligence and understanding how your brain works can help you thrive in a toxic work environment. A toxic work environment is one where you experience negative behaviors such as disrespect, discrimination, and even micromanagement. And all this can adversely affect your mental and physical well-being. Now, employees may feel undervalued from this kind of environment. Some will feel helpless, frustrated, and even burnt out due to this stressful and due to the stressful feelings that they are experiencing. Perception plays a crucial role in a toxic work environment. A person's perception of the workplace is subjective and influenced by their personality, their values, beliefs, and even past experiences. By changing your perception and mindset, you can learn to cope more effectively and even transform a toxic work environment into a positive and healthy one for yourself or for your team. So a person's past experience in other workplaces can influence their perception of their current workplace. If someone has experienced a supportive and positive work environment in the past, they may perceive a workplace with less positive qualities as toxic. On the other hand, someone who has experienced negative workplaces in the past may perceive a similar environment as less toxic than others, or vice versa as well. If you've experienced a negative workplace in the past, it could actually trigger you to experience the same emotions again when something similar happens in your current workplace. Moreover, a person's mindset and attitude can play a crucial role in your perception of your work environment. So, in a toxic work environment, employees may feel that their contributions are undervalued, that their work is not respected or appreciated, and that they are not able to speak up or share their opinions without fear of reprisal. This can lead to a sense of helplessness, frustration, and burnout, as I explained earlier. Common signs of a toxic work environment include high turnover rates, low employee morale, frequent conflicts between co-workers or with management, lack of transparency or communication, and a focus on blame and criticism rather than on finding solutions. It's essential to note that a toxic work environment can have a significant impact not only on employees' mental and physical health, but also on the productivity and profitability of the organization or team. So creating a positive and healthy work environment is crucial for both the well-being of employees and the success of the organization or business as a whole. Emotional intelligence, we know and I always talk about is the ability to recognize, understand, and manage your own emotions as well as those of others. In a toxic environment, emotional intelligence can play a powerful tool for staying centered and managing your reactions to the negativity that you're experiencing or perceiving. Self-awareness is a key aspect of emotional intelligence. And by becoming more aware of your own emotions, your thoughts, and your reactions, you can actually better understand how you're being impacted by the toxic environment. One way to cultivate self-awareness is through mindfulness practices. Mindfulness involves being present in the moment and non-judgmentally observing your thoughts and your emotions. It's about noticing what's happening within yourself without getting caught up in the thoughts and emotions themselves. This can help you to become more aware of your reactions to stress and negativity and enable you to develop strategies for managing them effectively. It's crucial to recognize the role of your thoughts and beliefs in shaping your emotions. And if you want to know more about emotional intelligence, check out our course on emotional intelligence for leadership at the Mindsight Academy. It would help you massively in really building up your emotional intelligence. By identifying and challenging your negative thoughts and beliefs, you can reduce their impact on your emotions and responses. Cultivating empathy can also help you better understand the emotions and perceptions of other people, even when they are being negative or hurtful. This can help you maintain a sense of connection and compassion even in the face of negativity. And this reminds me of a client that reached out to me last year that was in a really toxic work environment. And within I'll probably say three weeks, the whole, her whole mindset had completely changed. And she was not feeling stressed anymore. The issue in this case was her manager was creating an environment that was quite toxic by finding faults in everything she did, criticizing her work consistently, micromanaging her. And this was a senior leader. So I'm not even talking about someone who is new in the profession. But with coaching and training, she did this emotional intelligence course. And with coaching alongside it, within three weeks, it had completely changed. It changed so much that her confidence came back up because she was really losing her confidence in the whole situation. Her confidence built back up and she was able to see that the issue was not her. The issue was actually her manager was treating her that way because one, the manager felt threatened. And secondly, it looked like the manager had low self-esteem herself. So what she was then doing was trying to put everyone around her down, which is so unfortunate. And this is why I keep saying, leaders, you need a coach and you need emotional intelligence, not just coaching, but understanding how to build up your own emotional intelligence will make a huge difference to you personally and to the people you lead. Anyway, the conclusion of this client was that that manager resigned and she's now in a fantastic work environment. Because you see, once she changed, it looks like the manager then realized that she, in fact, what she said was that she felt that the role was not for her. So she now went back to what she was familiar with. If she had a coach working with her, and if she had high emotional intelligence or even understood how to build it up, it would have been a different story. She could have thrived on that role. Anyway, my client is thriving in her role now. Neuroscience also has a role to play in helping us thrive in toxic environments. Our brains are wired to respond to stress and negativity in certain ways. And understanding these responses can help us develop more effective strategies for managing them. Neuroplasticity is the brain's ability to change and adapt. By practicing new behaviors and thought patterns, we can rewire our brains to respond differently to stress and negativity. In a toxic work environment, one thing to remember is that the only person you can change is yourself. You cannot change somebody else. But just like the story I've just told you, when you change, it's most likely that the people around you would also change. At least change in the way they respond to you or react to you. Neuroscience has shown that positive experiences and emotions can help counteract the negative effects of stress and negativity. By intentionally seeking out positive experiences and emotions, such as gratitude, joy, compassion, you can actually help build resilience and thrive in toxic work environments. So taking care of yourself physically, mentally, and emotionally is crucial when dealing with a toxic environment. This means prioritizing self-care activities such as exercise, getting enough sleep, eating healthy, and engaging in activities that bring you joy and fulfillment. Finally, it's important to cultivate a growth mindset in a toxic work environment. Well, you need a growth mindset anyway, whether in a toxic or non-toxic, but when you're in a toxic work environment, you need it. A growth mindset involves seeing challenges as opportunities for growth and learning rather than as threats. By adopting a growth mindset, you can stay focused on your goals and values and maintain a sense of purpose and meaning even in the face of negativity. As individuals, we can take steps to manage our own responses to negativity. But it's also important to advocate for change and work towards creating a more supportive and respectful work environment for everyone. By promoting empathy, positivity, and a growth mindset, we can help transform toxic work environments into spaces where everyone can thrive. Thank you once again for listening to Lead to Excel podcast. If you found this episode informative and helpful, please subscribe to our podcast for more insights and tips on personal and professional growth. I look forward to sharing more valuable content with you in the future. Have a blessed day. And remember that you are limitless. So I look forward to seeing you in our next episode. Bye for now.