A guide to EQ (Emotional Intelligence) || Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ || by Daniel Goleman

Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

About Author:

Daniel Goleman (born March 7, 1946) is an author and science journalist. For twelve years, he wrote for The New York Times, reporting on the brain and behavioural sciences. His 1995 book Emotional Intelligence was on The New York Times Best Seller list for a year-and-a-half, a best-seller in many countries, and is in print worldwide in 40 languages. Apart from his books on emotional intelligence, Goleman has written books on topics including self-deception, creativity, transparency, meditation, social and emotional learning, ecoliteracy and the ecological crisis, and the Dalai Lama’s vision for the future.

Summary of Book:

Daniel Goleman argues that IQ isn't everything our current view of intelligence is too narrow Ignoring important abilities that determine how well we do in life. The superior metric that Goleman prefers to use to measure life success is EQ otherwise known as Emotional intelligence. It is made up of these five things:

1.     1.  Self-awareness:  This is knowing one's emotions as they happen if you can do this you'll make better     decisions.

2.       2.Managing emotions: This is the ability to handle feelings; people that can manage their emotions are     good at bouncing back from the setbacks in life.

3.       3.Self-motivation: You have to motivate yourself time to time by yourself.

4.       4.Empathy: This is recognizing emotions and others this is the people skill that makes people better at     teaching sales and Management and Loss of all handling relationships these abilities lead to                    popularity leadership and interpersonal effectiveness. 

So how do we improve our emotional intelligence? Goleman offers various insights throughout the book. We will go over the ones that I found the most useful and I think you will too.

Lesson #1 the ventilation fallacy:

Venting when you're angry prolongs your mood rather than ending it government tells of a story where he's in New York And he hops in a cab the impatient cab driver honks the horn signalling a young man to move out the way. The young man flips a bird so the cab driver yells back your son of a bitch followed by revving the engine loudly out of anger. As a cab takes off the driver then says you can't take shit from anyone you got to yell back at least it makes you feel better. Contrary to popular belief Government along with findings from multiple studies argues that venting your anger doesn't make you feel better but instead prolongs and amplifies your anger. It Pumps up the emotional Brain's arousal and leaves people feeling more angry don't get confused though Venting when you're sad can be a great way to get your feelings validated, but isn't as effective when you're angry. So when you feel yourself becoming angry what can you do to control your Anger [a] Take a few deep breaths to help you relax and slow your heart rate this helps your body go from a high arousal To a low arousal state [b] Go for a walk, but don't indulge and anger inducing thought. [c] As bad thoughts come to you write them down and then reframe them. For example if your spouse gets upset at you and storms out the room instead of thinking Oh, she's so cranky all the time for no reason it drives me nuts. Write down that thought and reframe it to maybe she's just had a bad day at work.

Lessons #2 don’t ruminate yourself when you are sad, distract yourself instead:

A Saleswoman gets depressed and spent so many hours worrying about it that she doesn't get around to important sales calls. Her sales Linda Klein making her feel like a failure which feeds her depression but if she reacted to depression by trying to distract herself she might well plunge into the sales calls as a way to get her mind off the sadness. Sales would be less likely to decline and the very experience of making a sale might boost their self-confidence lessening their depression somewhat. What Goleman is trying to say here? Is that continuing to think negative thoughts will lead you deeper into sadness? Distractions are what break the chain of sadness maintaining thinking the best distractions are ones that will shift your moods such as a funny movie, reading an uplifting book or going to an exciting sport event. He says distractions are more effective than crying because crying often reinforces rumination and prolongs misery. Goleman offers four more solutions to managing sadness (a) Aerobic exercise are good because it changes your physiological state. Depression is a low arousal state an aerobic exercise counters up by putting you into a high arousal state. (b) Go for that easy success. Do that small task that you've been putting off for a while and reap the rewards. (c) Reframe the situation just like with anger take note of bad thoughts when they come to you and see them in a more positive light. I can resonate with his strategy which helped me after my first relationship ended I had a lot of negative thoughts like life will never be the same without her After seven months I finally accepted that the relationship was over and if I continued to grieve, I would surely get nowhere. So instead I thought okay that Relationship wasn't so great. What can I learn from it? This was a massive turning point in my life, and now in a new relationship and things is going great, something that never would have happened if I didn't change my thinking. Lastly help others in need it helps us empathize with others and lifts us out of negativity.

Lesson #3 The artful Critique:

How to criticize the right way. Criticism is important in how it is given; it determines how satisfied people are with their work with those when they work with and those who are responsible? one of the worst Criticisms if you're managing people is to say you're screwing up, delivered in a harsh sarcastic angry tone. It provides neither a chance to respond nor any suggestion of how to do things better it ignores the person's feelings and leaves them feeling helpless and angry. A much more effective way to criticize would be to say the main difficulty at this stage is that your plan will take too long and so escalate costs, I'd like you to think more about your proposal especially the design specifications for your software development to see if you can figure out a way to do the same job more quickly. This gives them hope of doing better and suggests the beginning of a plan to do so Goleman says you need four things to successfully deliver constructive criticism. They are be specific offer a solution do it face to face and be sensitive by showing empathy.

Lesson #4 emotional Contagion:

Set the emotional tone. So in a simple experiment two volunteers filled out a checklist about their merits at the moment and then start facing each other quietly waiting for the experimenters to return to the room, two minutes later she returned and asked him to fill out the mood checklist again. The pairs were purposely chosen so that one partner was highly expressive of emotion and one who appeared flat and expressionless. It turns out that the mood of the expressive person had been transferred to the expressionless person. This is an example of emotional contagion our emotions are contagious like a virus they spread through others this is why speakers like Tony Robbins are able to hype up their audience and get them involved. They show their passion and energy which spreads through the audience like wildfire. Goleman says this ability to drive the emotional state and another person through emotional contagion is at the heart of influencing people whether that's through speaking teaching singing or in any other interpersonal communication.