Emotional intelligence tips

Research agrees: Developing greater emotional intelligence can lead to higher performance and pay , as well as better professional and personal relationships .

Which means we can work to unlearn and relearn some of our emotional responses.

Instead, you're stressed about a specific version of the future. Or about a certain decision you think may come back to haunt you. Or an upcoming presentation, or a conversation you dread having with an underperforming employee ...

"It's just really cool to get the opportunity to have all that pressure on you," Joey told me before the season-ending race at Homestead in 2016, where he had a shot to win that year's championship. "A lot of people don't get the opportunity to have pressure. To work hard and get to a certain level and then have pressure ... it's a privilege to feel pressure ." (My italics.)