http://www.talentsmart.

com/about/emotional-
intelligence.phpEmotional Intelligence Is the Other Kind of
Smart.
When emotional intelligence first appeared to the masses in 1995, it served as the missing link in
a peculiar finding: people with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70% of the
time. This anomaly threw a massive wrench into what many people had always assumed was the
sole source of successIQ. Decades of research now point to emotional intelligence as the critical
factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack.

Emotional intelligence is the something in each of us that is a bit intangible. It affects how we
manage behavior, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions that achieve positive
results. Emotional intelligence is made up of four core skills that pair up under two primary
competencies: personal competence and social competence.

Personal competence is made up of your self-awareness and self-management skills, which

focus more on you individually than on your interactions with other people. Personal competence
is your ability to stay aware of your emotions and manage your behavior and tendencies.
Self-Awareness is your ability to accurately perceive your emotions and stay aware of
them as they happen.
Self-Management is your ability to use awareness of your emotions to stay flexible and
positively direct your behavior.
Social competence is made up of your social awareness and relationship management skills;
social competence is your ability to understand other peoples moods, behavior, and motives in
order to improve the quality of your relationships.
Social Awareness is your ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and
understand what is really going on.
Relationship Management is your ability to use awareness of your emotions and the
others emotions to manage interactions successfully.
Emotional Intelligence, IQ, and Personality Are Different.
Emotional intelligence taps into a fundamental element of human behavior that is distinct from
your intellect. There is no known connection between IQ and emotional intelligence; you simply
cant predict emotional intelligence based on how smart someone is. Intelligence is your ability to
learn, and its the same at age 15 as it is at age 50. Emotional intelligence, on the other hand, is a
flexible set of skills that can be acquired and improved with practice. Although some people are
naturally more emotionally intelligent than others, you can develop high emotional intelligence
even if you arent born with it.

Personality is the final piece of the puzzle. Its the stable style that defines each of us.
Personality is the result of hard-wired preferences, such as the inclination toward introversion or
extroversion. However, like IQ, personality cant be used to predict emotional intelligence. Also
like IQ, personality is stable over a lifetime and doesnt change. IQ, emotional intelligence, and
personality each cover unique ground and help to explain what makes a person tick.
Emotional Intelligence Is Linked to Performance.
How much of an impact does emotional intelligence have on your professional success? The short
answer is: a lot! Its a powerful way to focus your energy in one direction with a tremendous
result. TalentSmart tested emotional intelligence alongside 33 other important workplace skills,
and found that emotional intelligence is the strongest predictor of performance, explaining a full
58% of success in all types of jobs.

Your emotional intelligence is the foundation for a host of critical skillsit impacts most
everything you say and do each day.

Of all the people weve studied at work, weve found that 90% of top performers are also high in
emotional intelligence. On the flip side, just 20% of bottom performers are high in emotional
intelligence. You can be a top performer without emotional intelligence, but the chances are slim.
Naturally, people with a high degree of emotional intelligence make more moneyan average of
$29,000 more per year than people with a low degree of emotional intelligence. The link between
emotional intelligence and earnings is so direct that every point increase in emotional intelligence
adds $1,300 to an annual salary. These findings hold true for people in all industries, at all levels,
in every region of the world. We havent yet been able to find a job in which performance and pay
arent tied closely to emotional intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence Can Be Developed.

The communication between your emotional and rational brains is the physical source of
emotional intelligence. The pathway for emotional intelligence starts in the brain, at the spinal
cord. Your primary senses enter here and must travel to the front of your brain before you can
think rationally about your experience. However, first they travel through the limbic system, the
place where emotions are generated. So, we have an emotional reaction to events before our
rational mind is able to engage. Emotional intelligence requires effective communication between
the rational and emotional centers of the brain.

Plasticity is the term neurologists use to describe the brains ability to change. Your brain grows
new connections as you learn new skills. The change is gradual, as your brain cells develop new
connections to speed the efficiency of new skills acquired.

Using strategies to increase your emotional intelligence allows the billions of microscopic neurons
lining the road between the rational and emotional centers of your brain to branch off small
arms (much like a tree) to reach out to the other cells. A single cell can grow 15,000 connections
with its neighbors. This chain reaction of growth ensures its easier to kick this new behavior into
action in the future. Once you train your brain by repeatedly using new emotional intelligence
strategies, emotionally intelligent behaviors become habits.

5 Strategies for Building Your Emotional Intelligence

Use these five strategies to improve your EQ:

1. Pay more attention to your emotions on a daily basis. Its hard to become more self-aware if youre
simply not cognizant of the emotions that youre experiencing on a daily basis. Do you know how to
identify feelings when they arise? Do you know your emotional triggers? Paying more attention simply
means becoming more sensitive to your emotions when they arise by identifying them and understanding
why they are present. Over time, you will discover key distinctions that will help you become sharper and
further develop your emotional wheelhouse.

2. Improve your non-verbal communication and become sensitive to that of others. Professor Emeritus
of Psychology at UCLA, Albert Merhabian, notes that 55% of our communication is derived from body
language, while 38% is para-linguistic (having to do with the way that you say something: tone, pauses,
pace, etc) and a mere 7% pertains to the actual words spoken.

Bottom line: body language is the most powerful component of how we communicate. That being said, so
much can get lost in translation. What can you improve by changing your body language and being more
sensitive to others? You will begin to more accurately shape your communication so that it reflects your
intentions without confusion. You will also begin to understand how you process communication from
others.
3. Practice empathy. The idea of empathy is often confused with sympathy. Unlike sympathy, empathy is
the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. Stated differently, empathy is
feeling with someone, while sympathy is feeling for someone. We can establish a deeper connection with
anyone by being thoughtful about how we engage them, using our emotional dexterity. People know
genuine empathy when they feel ittheres no faking it. So, dig deep.

4. Exercise self-regulation. Its so easy to be uninhibited in our behavior, especially when its become a
habitquite a different proposition to purposely regulate it. However, when the goal is to increase your
EQ, self-examination combined with self-regulation, is important. Instead of submitting to your usual
practices and procedures, why not chart a new course, informed by focused behavior that serves a higher
purpose?

5. Sharpen your social skills. We are inherently social creatures. To say that the purpose of human
interaction is to connect, is an understatement. If we cant really avoid being around others, wouldnt it
also follow that we should make the most of each and every interaction? Practice listening, holding
meaningful, engaging conversations, collaborating, negotiatingand even executing common courtesies,
whenever possible. You may think of these things as common-sense activities, but experience teaches that
common sense is hardly common.

Each of these strategies can enhance your EQ and help you make a positive impact in the workplace and
beyond.

Here are 10 Ways to Enhance Your Emotional Intelligence:

1. Don't interrupt or change the subject. If feelings are uncomfortable, we may

want to avoid them by interrupting or distracting ourselves. Sit down at least
twice a day and ask, "How am I feeling?" It may take a little time for the feelings
to arise. Allow yourself that small space of time, uninterrupted.

2. Don't judge or edit your feelings too quickly. Try not to dismiss your feelings
before you have a chance to think them through. Healthy emotions often rise and
fall in a wave, rising, peaking, and fading naturally. Your aim should be not to cut
off the wave before it peaks.

3. See if you can find connections between your feelings and other times you
have felt the same way. When a difficult feeling arises, ask yourself, "When have
I felt this feeling before?" Doing this may help you to realize if your current
emotional state is reflective of the current situation, or of another time in your
past.

4. Connect your feelings with your thoughts. When you feel something that
strikes you as out of the ordinary, it is always useful to ask, "What do I think
about that?" Often times, one of our feelings will contradict others. That's normal.
Listening to your feelings is like listening to all the witnesses in a court case. Only
by admitting all the evidence will you be able to reach the best verdict.

5. Listen to your body. A knot in your stomach while driving to work may be a clue
that your job is a source of stress. A flutter of the heart when you pick up a girl
you have just started to date may be a clue that this could be "the real thing."
Listening to these sensations and the underlying feelings that they signal will
allow you to process with your powers of reason.

6. If you don't know how you're feeling, ask someone else. People seldom realize
that others are able to judge how they are feeling. Ask someone who knows you
(and whom you trust) how you are coming across. You may find the answer both
surprising and illuminating.

7. Tune in to your unconscious feelings. How can you become more aware of
your unconscious feelings? Try free association. While in a relaxed state, allow
your thoughts to roam freely and watch where they go. Analyze your dreams.
Keep a notebook and pen at the side of your bed and jot down your dreams as
soon as you wake up. Pay special attention to dreams that repeat or are charged
with powerful emotion.

8. Ask yourself: How do I feel today? Start by rating your overall sense of well-
being on a scale of 0 and 100 and write the scores down in a daily log book. If
your feelings seem extreme one day, take a minute or two to think about any
ideas or associations that seem to be connected with the feeling.

9. Write thoughts and feelings down. Research has shown that writing down your
thoughts and feelings can help profoundly. A simple exercise like this could take
only a few hours per week.

10. Know when enough is enough. There comes a time to stop looking inward;
learn when its time to shift your focus outward. Studies have shown that
encouraging people to dwell upon negative feelings can amplify these feelings.
Emotional intelligence involves not only the ability to look within, but also to be
present in the world around you.