K 's Key Ideas from Emotional Intelligence
by Daniel Goleman

We are programmed to act in a way our brain has been trained. There are moments in our lives when our emotions overpower our rational thinking. This happens because our brain is divided into 2 parts: rational and emotional. When the emotions are intense, they hijack the rational part of the brain and trigger a reaction that could be seen in the form of the emotions: anger, fear, happiness, love, surprise, disgust, sadness.

The rational and emotional brain complements each other. The rational brain helps in making consciously thought-out decisions while taking into consideration every aspect related to it. Whereas the emotional brain is involved in making impulsive and sometimes illogical decisions.

IQ is a genetic characteristic that can't be changed by life experiences. Whereas EI can be taught to children & instilled in them at a young age so that they could utilize their full intellectual potential.

The traditional meaning of success is having a better IQ. But Daniel Goleman says that those who have enough IQ to just get into a decent university but a stellar EQ makes more money than those who have a higher IQ but lack in EQ.

Research shows that high EI is actually more important than IQ for success. An individual’s success in work is 80% dependent on EQ while only 20% dependent on IQ.

The 5 Domains of Emotional Intelligence

1. Self Awareness

2. Managing Emotions

3. Motivating Oneself

4. Recognizing Emotions in Others

5. Handling relationships

Developing a better understanding of your own nature is the first step towards learning emotional intelligence. Self-awareness is the ability to recognize your emotions and how they affect your thoughts and behavior.

Being aware of the self means knowing your strengths and weaknesses. It includes having self-confidence and an accurate self-assessment of knowing how and why you behave in situations in a certain way.

If you can know your emotions as they happen, you can make better decisions.

The ability to control impulsive feelings and behaviors, and managing them in an effective way, being optimistic, taking initiatives, and adapting to the conditions in challenging situations.

Goleman stresses that you can not avoid emotions from arising. However, you can control them when they appear.

Goleman explains the Ventilation fallacy for the most experienced emotion: anger.

Goleman tells a story when he gets in a cab. The impatient cab driver honks signaling a young man to move out of the way. The young man makes an offensive gesture, further adding to the cab driver’s agitation. He revved his engine loudly and said you have to yell back as it makes you feel better.

Venting when you are angry prolongs your mood rather than ending it. Anger only breeds more anger. Venting out when you are sad is a good way to validate your feelings. So you have to keep a check on your feelings.

Follow these simple tricks to relieve your bad mood:

• Take deep breaths
• Reframe your thoughts and try to avoid overindulging in negative thoughts
• Go for a walk

Emotional traits like enthusiasm and persistence play an important role in mastering aptitude.

Goleman says the reason most Asian students have better aptitude than their counterparts, not because of their IQ, but their endurance to improve their shortcomings.

Self-motivation is also affected by delayed gratification. Goleman shares the famous marshmallow test wherein some 4 years old were given a marshmallow. They were asked to wait for 15 minutes before eating the marshmallow. If they did so, they will be awarded another marshmallow. But if they did eat it before that time, they will not get another one.

Years later, the children who did not eat the marshmallow immediately were found to perform better in life than those who did eat the marshmallow immediately.

The ability to delay the gratification was a result of self-control. This helps in making some difficult choices which result in good benefits in the long-term rather than making short-term but bad choices.

People express far more through non-verbal cues like facial expressions, gestures than they express their feelings with words. Understanding others through non-verbal communication and feeling empathy for others helps you connect with them more comfortably.

Suppose someone at work messes up with some task. If you provide them with a harsh and sarcastic tone, it does not lead to a solution. Instead, you should try to provide constructive criticism with specifics and suggestions to face the problem face to face. This gives them hope and motivation to do things better.

The ability to develop and maintain good relationships, communicate clearly and manage conflict in stressful situations.

Emotions are highly contagious. If someone talks to you in an angry tone and you can keep your calm, it is highly likely that the other person will start to calm down.

The ability to develop and maintain good relationships, communicate clearly and manage conflict in stressful situations.

Emotions are highly contagious. If someone talks to you in an angry tone and you can keep your calm, it is highly likely that the other person will start to calm down.