Prompt 1: (EI Instruments)

I was first introduced to the concept of emotional intelligence back in 2011 by a supervisor. I found the
idea to be interesting, but unfortunately haven’t looked more into it since then. Not because I found the
material to be good or bad, just that life has a way of reappropriating your time to how it sees fit
sometimes.

I find myself split when conducting personality testing or even the questionnaires from Module 2. I say
this because there are two of me. I have my personal life and options, but I also have my professional
image as well. When taking these tests, I sometimes find myself wanting to answer one way for me as a
person, but a second answer for my professional self.

An example would be taking criticism. Within a professional workplace environment, criticism can be
very important in order to grow professionally, technically, or personally. My job in the US Air Force was
to plan, coordinate, and call-in air strikes. After every mission, we would conduct a through debrief on
what went well, went poorly, the root causes of what was good/bad, and solutions to fix those problems
for future missions. In order to grow, you have to understand that being corrected is a professio nal
courtesy, not a personal attack. During high intensity situation where information isn’t always clear, you
make the best decision you have under the circumstances.

After discussing this a friend who knew me from active duty and knows me outside of work, they saw
believed the same as I mentioned above. They want on to add that they thought most people in a
management or leadership positions did the same. After revealing my score to them, they “kind of
agreed with it.” Though, they admitted since we were peers that they often saw more of the real me
than my professional mask. Then again, we called each other by our nicknames. I doubt the Airmen I
supervised saw as “Wags” as opposed to “Sergeant Wegner”.

Prompt 2: (Radical Experiment in Empathy Video)

Sam Richards’ Ted Talk titled “A radical experiment in empathy” is a highly emotionally manipulative
video filled with several logical fallacies ranging from strawman arguments, false cases, black-or-white
solutions, appeals to emotion and more. His ability to frame and cherry pick particular pieces of
information as the foundation of his argument on who is good vs bad in these scenarios then apply it to
a wider population is disingenuous to the wide range of people that inhabit Iraq. This is not to say that
his examples aren’t true, but his framing of events is widely off base for Iraq as a whole.

His argument assumes that the people of Iraq are one homogenous group of like-minded people. This is
far from true based on the countless Sunni vs Shia extrajudicial killings by one side or the other. I
witnessed mixed neighborhoods of Christians, Suni, Shia, and other religious rapidly transition to
homogenous communities after “others” were forced out or killed. I don’t know how people use the
Tigris as a drinking source knowing the number of bodies dumped in there by locals killing locals.
Around 14:25 there is an image of two individuals captured with rifles, munitions and other equipment. I
am asked to provide empathy to those people based on a story that he made up. He calls them terrorists
and patriots. Both could be true. There is also a 3rd story that isn’t told as much as I’ve hinted at above.
Iraqis targeted Iraqis in the war. Foreign fighters from Iraq, Syria, and other nations poured into Iraq for
heir own personal reasons with little disregard to the Iraqi people. I have witnessed vehicle IEDs
detonate in civilian markets in order to suppress and instill fear into the opposite religious sects of Islam.

I’m not pointing out the flaws in his arguments because if he is wrong, there for my argument is right. I
am not even going to entertain weather the US action in Iraq was just or not. I am simply pointing out
that when you make up your own story to fit your narrative there is going to be inconsistences with the
story in your head and reality. Perhaps Sam Richards larger body of work might be more interesting, but
within the scope of this Ted Talk I find the entire video to be highly manipulative.

Empathy is an important skill to have, but if we do not recognize our own bias being projected onto it
than are we any closer to the truth?