What Is Emotional Intelligence?

Many people have fantastic logical powers; they are extremely rational and make sound decisions. Or do they?

If you are not in tune with your emotional nature, there is a likelihood that certain issues may prevent you from fully enjoying the kind of success you can have.

Emotional Intelligence – or EQ (EIQ), is a kind of spiritual self-knowledge.

Having a deeper insight into this intelligence can help you achieve incredible things in your career, communication and relationships. In fact, boosting your EQ pays off handsomely.

The ability to change state according to a specific context is the kind of flexibility that gets results.

This includes have a personal insight into your self-awareness – your emotional self-awareness, through an accurate self-assessment.

Once understood it can give your self-confidence a big boost.
Self-management including self-control and adaptability is also important.

Often emotional intelligence will affect a person’s ability to lead, influence, and communicate effectively. It plays a significant role in conflict management and teamwork.

So, what are emotions?
What is emotional intelligence?

Most of us are familiar with the term intelligence quotient (IQ) but are less familiar with emotional intelligence (EQ).

There can be confusion between the two terms.
We often have a good idea of how we measure up in the IQ stakes.
But what is emotional intelligence and how is it measured?

What do you think it takes to be a champion sales person or a brilliant musician?
What makes a person happy?
What makes a person a seasoned and successful CEO?

Indeed, what does it take to get ahead and be happy?
We live in a competitive world, but how do you separate yourself from your competition?

In truth, most of us feel a brittleness and fragility when it comes to our emotions.
We are not always happy.
Often our emotional response is inappropriate to a given situation.

How we react emotionally is extremely important and has a huge bearing on the results we will achieve.

It is vital to realise that our emotions are always engaged before we do anything.
Emotions are signals and must be identified, used, understood and managed correctly.
If you want to be happy, you must pay attention to your emotions.

As you pursue success, how do you lead a less stressful life?
And, importantly, how do you achieve fulfilment in both your personal and professional life?

So, what is the most important dynamic of your makeup?
Is it your IQ or EQ?
To answer this, let’s study the essential differences between the two.

What is the difference between IQ and EQ?

To explain the differences try this exercise:
Write down the name of a mentor who has had the biggest positive influence in your life.
Now list six of that person’s attributes that made them such a fabulous influence on you.

Look at the list and determine how many of these characteristics fall into an IQ category such as “high intelligence, expert strategist, financial wizard, and creative legalist?”

How many of these characteristics fall into the category of something similar to “treats me with respect, is interested in me and my life, shows integrity, is honest, listens attentively, and delivers difficult feedback well?”

Do your answers to these questions suggest that EIQ is at least as important, if not more so, than the more ubiquitous IQ?

Simply put, IQ is a measure of an individual’s intellectual, analytical and rational abilities.
It is concerned with verbal, spatial, visual and mathematical skills.

It gauges how readily we learn new things; focus on tasks and exercises; retain and recall objective information; engage in a reasoning process; manipulate numbers; think abstractly as well as analytically; and solve problems by the application of prior knowledge.

If you have a high IQ – the average is 100 – you’re well equipped to pass all sorts of examinations, often with flying colours.

However, EQ is the ability to perceive emotions, to access and generate emotions to assist thought, to understand emotions and emotional meanings, and to reflectively regulate emotions in a way that promotes emotional and intellectual growth.

Let’s face it, who doesn’t want to be in a happy, confident state most of the time?

In other words it is a set of skills that enables you to make your way in a complex world – the personal, social and survival aspects of overall intelligence, the elusive common sense and sensitivity that are essential to effective daily functioning.

In everyday language, EIQ is what we commonly refer to as “street smarts” or that rather uncommon label “common sense”.

It has to do with the ability to read the political and social landscape; to intuitively grasp what others want and need, to determine strengths and weaknesses of ourselves and others; to remain unruffled by stress; and to be engaging; and the kind of person that other want to be around. Let’s face it, people like to be around those who are emotionally stable and generally happy.

What are the most influential factors for Success?

A study has shown that most people believe the following factors are crucial:

All of these factors are reflections of emotional intelligence.

The Six Principles of Emotional Intelligence