Books are responsible for many of the major changes in my life. I think that I’m going to look back on this book as the starting point of a lot of positive changes in my life. Of course, I’m referring to the bestselling book, Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, which was written in 1995.
As an analytical introvert, I’ve always struggled with reading social situations and understanding emotions. To be quite honest, it’s something that I just rarely think about. For example, I focus far more of my attention on what someone says, rather than how they say it. This book showed me just why it’s so important to understand your own emotions and those of the people around you.
For some people out there, this might come naturally. But, for me, it certainly doesn’t. Emotional intelligence is not really taught in schools. It’s something that you have to pick up as you go. You have to be paying attention. I also think that emotional intelligence really varies from person to person because there is no standardized curriculum. We’re taught EQ by our parents, our environment, and our cultural influences.
In this review, I’m going to go over the compelling reasons to buy or not buy this book, along with highlighting some of my key takeaways and notes.
Steps toward emotional mastery:
- Knowing one’s emotions. Self awareness. Aware of your mood and your thoughts about that mood.
- Managing emotions. Everyone needs to learn how to sooth their own emotions.
- Motivating oneself. How do you use emotions to your benefit to take action in the world?
- Recognizing emotions in others. This allows you to influence others or form relationships.
- Handling relationships. Managing emotions in others.
Interpersonal intelligence components:
- Organizing groups. Initiating and coordinating efforts of a network of people.
- Negotiating solutions. How do you come to a solution when you have different points of view?
- Personal connections. Reading emotions from facial expressions.
- Social analysis. Detect and have insights about feelings and concerns.
You should buy this book if:
- You have more of a logical mind and have difficulty understanding or reading emotions.
- You want to improve your happiness and the happiness of those around you.
- You’ve never given much thought to emotions and how they impact life.
- You want to improve the quality of your relationships with the opposite sex.
- You’re trying to get better at managing your own emotions.
You should not buy this book if:
- You already have a high emotional intelligence.
- You’re already savvy in social situations and understanding your own emotions.
My first biggest takeaway
Having spent a lot of time learning from self-help leaders like Tony Robbins, I’ve been aware of the concept of controlling your emotional state in order to follow through on goals, but I didn’t pay as much attention to how emotions really determine the quality of your life.
“When people’s moods are averaged over weeks or months, they tend to reflect that person’s overall sense of well being.” – Daniel Goleman
As simple as this observation is, it’s 100% true. You could have all the money in the world, be married, have 2.5 kids, or be the life of the party leading a bachelor lifestyle, but if the primary emotions of your life are sad, depressed, angry, or frustrated, then you’re going to feel pretty shitty about your life.
In addition to keeping a journal of what you do each week and the events that stand out, I think it’s also important to keep an emotional journal and to check in throughout the day. You can ask yourself how you’re feeling and what’s causing you to feel that way.
My second biggest takeaway
Emotions can cloud your judgement and decrease your intelligence or logical thinking abilities in a situation. I think that everyone knows not to make impulsive emotional decisions when it’s an important topic, but I never realized the degree to which I, myself, let emotions affect my decision making in my daily life.
“Emotional aptitude is a meta-ability, determining how well we can use whatever other skills we have, including raw intellect.” – Daniel Goleman
In a competitive aspect, we can use our own actions to “psych someone out” or emotionally affect them and hurt their judgement or performance. I find this to be a very interesting concept because all too often, we’re taught by society that we can’t win against someone who is bigger, smarter, or wealthier, but that’s not true. It all depends on how they actually use their resources.
“It is in moments such as these – when impulsive feeling overrides the rational.”
My third and final biggest takeaway
The key to influence is not logic. The key to getting your message to stick in the minds of your followers has nothing to do with rationality. If you want someone to remember you at a party, it has nothing to do with what you say.
“Emotional entrainment is the heart of influence… Setting the emotional tone of an interaction is, in a sense, a sign of dominance at a deep and intimate level: it means driving the emotional state of the other person… When two people interact, the direction of mood transfer is from the one who is more forceful in expressing feelings to the one who is more passive.” – Daniel Goleman
Natural leaders “express the unspoken collective sentiment and articulate it so as to guide a group toward goals.”
It could be marketing, selling, or developing a relationship with someone of the opposite sex. Rather than thinking about what you’re saying, pay attention to how you’re making them feel.
A great example of this (though also a bit scary) is Donald Trump. He may say outlandish things, but it’s all with the goal to incite emotions in the crowd. I think that he and other leaders realize consciously or subconsciously that people aren’t going to care or act unless they are riled up.
“All emotions are, in essence, impulses to act, the instant plans for handling life that evolution has instilled in us.”
People don’t react or pay attention as much to what you say. They remember you for how you made them feel and the emotional overtone that you’re conveying.
These are just a few of a bunch of realizations that I had from reading this book. I highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t already.
For the rest of the post, I’m just going to include some notes and quotes that I wanted to remember
Notes & Quotes
“Sadness brings a drop in energy and enthusiasm for life’s activities, particularly diversions and pleasures, and, as it deepens and approaches depression, slows the body’s metabolism.”
We have two minds. Rational and emotional.
“This means that, in effect, the brain has two memory systems, one for ordinary facts and one for emotionally charged ones.”
“The amygdala arousal seems to imprint in memory most moments of emotional arousal with an added degree of strength.”
“Just can’t think straight.” – Working memory
Pinpoint the emotions that you are feeling.
“Women feel both positive and negative emotions more strongly than men. Emotional life is richer for those who notice more. ”
“The art of soothing ourselves is a fundamental life skill.”
“We very often have little or no control over when we are swept by emotion, nor over what emotion it will be. But we can have some say in how long an emotion will last.”
“The longer we ruminate about what has made us angry, the more “good reasons” and self-justifications for being angry we can invent. Brooding fuels anger’s flames. But seeing things differently souses those flames. Tice found that reframing a situation more positively was one of the most potent ways to put anger to rest.”
“One way of defusing anger is to seize on and challenge thoughts that trigger the surges of anger, since it is the original appraisal of an interaction that confirms and encourages the first burst of anger.”
“It’s hard to stay angry when we’re having a pleasant time.” Cooling off physiologically. Must be distraction though, not brooding.
Taking out rage usually prolongs the mood rather than ending it.
“Worry is, in a sense, a rehearsal of what might go wrong and how to deal with it.”
Sadness saps energy for starting new endeavors and closes down interest in diversions.
“Worrying about what’s depressing us, it seems, makes the depression all the more intense and prolonged. Often times depressed people are priming feelings of sadnes without taking any steps that might actually lift their mood.”
If depressed, it’s important to choose things (like movies) that will not bring your mood down.
Effective lifter: cognitive reframing. See the loss in a more positive light. Compare to someone in worse shape. Also, helping others in need. Finally, turning to a transcendent power.
Emotions can overwhelm concentration and working memory.
Delay gratification.
“One antidote that makes life’s misery bearable: hope”
Hope: “Believing you have both the will and the way to accomplish your goals, whatever they may be.”
Optimism = a lot of hope. Failure due to something that can be changed. Optimism can be learned.
“My hunch is that for a given level of intelligence, your actual achievement is a function not just of talent, but also of the capacity to stand defeat.”
“Flow is a state of self-forgetfulness, the opposite of rumination and worry. They are not concerned with how they are doing.”
“Creative achievements depend on single-minded immersion.”
Attunement – A mother affirming emotions, like a baby’s anger or happiness, in order to communicate that the baby is understood. “Such small attunements give an infant the reasurring feeling of being emotionally connected.” You play back his feelings.
“Empathy requires enough calm and receptivity so that the subtle signals of feelings from another person can be received and mimicked by one’s own emotional brain.” Body should be in sync.
“The more empathy a bystander feels for the victim, the more likely it is that she will intervene.
“Being able to manage emotions in someone else is the core of the art of handling relationships.”
“We catch feelings from one another as though they were some kind of social virus.”
“Whether people feel upbeat or down, the more physically attuned their encounter, the more similar their moods will become.”
” Leave other people in a good mood.
Boys and girls are taught different lessons about handling emotions. Women experience emotions with greater intensity and volatility than men.
“The differences between complaints and personal criticisms are simple. In a complaint, a wife states specifically what is upsetting her, and criticizes her husband’s actions, not her husband, saying how it made her feel.”
When either partner criticizes the person, it’s a sign that something is wrong. Bad emotions: contempt, disgust. Leads to stonewalling.
Men feel emotionally flooded or overwhelmed or riled up more easily and take longer to return to equilibrium.
“Men also need to be on guard against short-circuiting the discussion by offering a practical solution too early on- it’s typically more important to a wife that she feel her husband hears her complaint and empathizes with her feelings about the matter (though he need not agree with her).” my thought: selling to men and women is probably different.
Want to feel heard and respected.
Mirroring = repeat the message. Both the words and the emotional overtone.
What is the overall IQ and EQ of the group?
Empathy is the balm for anger.
Bad parenting: 1. Ignoring feelings or treating them like they are trivial. 2. Being too hands off. 3. Being contemptuous.
“We cannot decide when we have our emotional outbursts, we have more control over how long they last.”