Partial intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the key to successful interaction with others.

Appendix B. SIGNS OF AN EMOTIONAL MIND

Only in recent years has a scientific model of the emotional mind emerged to explain how so much of what we do can be done under the influence of emotions - how can we be so intelligent one moment and so unintelligent the next - and a sense in which emotions have their own common sense and their own logic. Perhaps the two best estimates of the emotional brain are independently proposed by Paul Ekman, head of the Human Interactions Laboratory at the University of California at San Francisco, and Seymour Epstein, a psychologist at the University of Massachusetts. Although both Ekman and Epstein carefully considered various scientific facts, together they offer a basic list of qualities that distinguish emotions from the rest of mental life.

Fast but inaccurate response

The emotional mind rushes into action much faster than the rational mind, without stopping for a second or stopping to think about what it is actually doing. His agility interferes with the leisurely analytical thinking that is the mark of a thinking mind. In the process of evolution, this speed most likely concerned the most important decision - what to pay attention to and what to immediately be alert for, say, colliding with another animal and instantly making decisions like “Will I eat it, or will it eat me?”. Those organisms that had to think too long about the answers to these questions were unlikely to have numerous offspring to which they would pass on their slow genes.

Actions dictated by the emotional mind are marked by a particularly strong sense of certainty, a by-product of a finely tuned, simplistic way of looking at things that can be utterly bewildering to the rational mind. When the passions subside, or even in the middle of a backlash, we catch ourselves thinking, “Why did I do this (a)?”. This is a sign of the awakening of the rational mind to this point, though not as fast as that of the emotional mind.

Since the interval between the occurrence of what triggers an emotion and its outburst may be virtually instantaneous, the perceptual evaluation apparatus must be fast, even in terms of brain "fire" time, measured in thousandths of a second. The assessment of the need to act must be done automatically and so quickly that it never passes to the level of conscious awareness. This array of hastily "bungled" emotional responses takes over us before we actually fully understand what's going on.

This speed perception mode sacrifices accuracy for speed, relying on first impressions, the big picture, or the most impressive aspects. In it, things are perceived immediately as a whole, and the reaction does not require time for thoughtful analysis. Bright elements can define this impression, outweighing a careful appreciation of details. The great advantage is that the emotional mind reads the emotional reality (it's angry with me; it's lying; it upsets it) in an instant, making simple intuitive judgments that tell us who to be wary of, who to trust, who is suffering. The emotional mind is our radar for detecting danger; if we (or our evolutionary ancestors) waited for the rational mind to make some of these judgments, we would not only be wrong, we could be dead. The flip side of the coin is that these impressions and intuitive judgments, by virtue of being made in the blink of an eye, can be erroneous or misleading.

Paul Ekman believes that the speed with which emotions manage to take over us before we are fully aware that they are already in action is necessary for their high adaptability: they mobilize us to respond to events requiring response without wasting time to think. whether to respond, and if so, how. With the help of a system he developed for detecting emotions from subtle changes in facial expression, Ekman can trace micro-reactions that flash across the face in less than half a second. Ekman and his collaborators found that outward manifestations of emotion begin to reveal themselves as changes in facial muscles within a few thousandths of a second after the triggering event, and that the physiological changes typical of that emotion, such as rapid blood flow and rapid heartbeat, also take place. just a fraction of a second. Such speed is especially justified with a strong emotion, such as fear or sudden fright.

Ekman argues that, formally speaking, the full swing of emotions takes a very short time, lasting only seconds, not minutes, hours, or days. He argues as follows: if some kind of emotion took possession of the brain and body for a long time, regardless of changing circumstances, then we would already be talking about poor adaptation. If the emotions caused by a single event continue to possess us invariably after this event has passed, and regardless of what happens next around us, then feelings would serve us as bad advisers. For emotions to last longer, the trigger must fire continuously, actually triggering the emotion over and over again, just like losing a loved one makes us mourn all the time. If feelings stubbornly do not leave us, as a rule, these are moods, a muffled form of emotions. Moods determine the affective tone, but they shape our perception and behavior to a lesser extent than the intensity of all emotions.

First feelings, then thoughts

Because the rational mind takes a little longer to register and respond than the emotional mind, the “first impulse” in a situation that arouses strong emotions does not come from the head, but from the heart. In addition, there is a second kind of emotional reaction, slower than a live response, which first “boils” and “boils” in our thoughts and only then leads to experience. This second path to triggering emotions is more measured, and we tend to be quite aware of the thoughts that lead to it. In this kind of emotional response, there is a longer evaluation; our thoughts - cognition - play a key role in deciding which emotions will be aroused. As soon as we make an assessment - "This taxi driver is cheating on me" or "This child is just adorable" - then the appropriate emotional reaction immediately follows. In this slower sequence of processes, a feeling is preceded by a more fully formulated thought. More complex emotions, like confusion or apprehension about an upcoming exam, follow this long route that takes seconds or minutes to unfold - those emotions that come from thoughts.

In contrast, in a succession of rapid reaction processes, feeling seems to precede or occur simultaneously with thought. Such hasty emotional reaction triumphs in situations associated with the need for primitive survival. The positive side of such quick decisions is that they mobilize us in the blink of an eye so that we can deal with extraordinary circumstances. Our strongest feelings are involuntary reactions, and we have no way of knowing when they will break through. “Love,” Stendhal wrote, “is like a fever that arises and disappears independently of the will.” Not only love, but also all our annoyances and fears seize us, not at all being our choice. Therefore, they can serve as some kind of alibi for us. “The thing is, we don’t choose the emotions we have,” Ekman notes, which allows people to justify their actions by saying that they were at the mercy of emotions.

Just as there are two pathways for emotions to arise - fast and slow - one through direct perception, the other through comprehension - there are also emotions that arise on demand. An example of this is acting techniques with the deliberate evoking of feelings, such as tears, which well up in the eyes when sad memories are called to help to achieve this effect. However, actors are simply more adept than most people at deliberately using the second path to emotion, feeling through thought. While we can't choose which emotions a thought will trigger, we can very often, and do, choose what to think about. Just as some sexual fantasy can lead to the experience of sexual feelings, so happy memories put us in a good mood, and sad thoughts plunge us into thoughtfulness.

But the rational mind usually doesn't decide which emotions we "should" experience. Instead, feelings tend to come to us as fait accompli. What the rational mind usually controls is the course of these reactions. With a few exceptions, we don't decide when to get angry, sad, etc.

Conditional, childishly innocent reality

The emotional mind has an associative logic; he perceives elements that symbolize reality or evoke a memory of it to be the same as that reality. That's why similes, metaphors and images speak directly to the emotional mind, just like art - novels, films, poetry, songs, theater, opera. Great spiritual teachers like Buddha and Jesus touched the hearts of their disciples by speaking the language of emotions, teaching them through parables, legends and fairy tales. Indeed, religious symbol and ritual make little sense from a rational point of view; they are expressed in the language of the heart.

This logic of the heart - the emotional mind - is well stated by Freud in his conception of thinking as a "primary process"; the logic of religion and poetry, psychosis and children, sleep and myth (as Joseph Campbell put it, "dreams are personal myths; myths are shared dreams"). The primary process is the key to understanding the meaning of works such as James Joyce's Ulysses: in primary process thinking, free associations determine the flow of the narrative; one object symbolizes another; one feeling displaces another and represents it; the whole condenses into parts. Time does not exist, there are no laws of cause and effect. In the primary process there is not even such a thing as "No"; everything is possible. In part, the psychoanalytic method is the art of deciphering and deciphering the meaning of these substitutes.

If the emotional mind follows this logic and its rules, substituting one element for another, then it is not at all necessary to define things by their objective features: what does it matter how they are perceived; things are what they seem. What something reminds us of can be much more important than what it "really is." In emotional life, features can actually be like a hologram in the sense that a single detail brings to mind the whole. As Seymour Epstein pointed out, while the rational mind makes logical connections between cause and effect, the emotional mind makes no distinction, connecting things that simply have similar, attention-grabbing features.

The emotional mind is much like a child's mind in its simplicity, and the stronger the emotions, the greater the similarity. One similar feature is categorical thinking, where everything is either black or white and there is no room for halftones; someone frustrated by faux pas probably has an instant thought: "I always say something wrong." Another sign of this childish way of thinking is personalized thinking, where events are perceived with a self-related error, like a driver who explained after an accident that "a telephone pole was heading straight for me."

This childishly spontaneous course of action is self-affirmation, suppressing or ignoring memories or facts that destroy beliefs and trapping those that support it. The beliefs of the rational mind are indicative; a new fact can refute some belief and replace it with a new one - he thinks in objective data. And the emotional mind considers its beliefs to be absolutely true and therefore does not take into account any evidence to the contrary. This is why it is so difficult to convince an emotionally disturbed person of anything: the soundness of your arguments from a logical point of view does not matter to him, they have no influence if they do not coincide with his current emotional conviction. Feelings justify themselves with the help of a set of ideas and "proofs" entirely of their own "production".

Past imposed on the present

If any feature of an event seems like an emotionally charged memory of the past, the emotional mind responds by including the feelings that arose along with the recalled event. The emotional mind reacts to the present as if it were the past. The trouble is that - especially when evaluation is done quickly and automatically - we may not realize that the state of affairs that once was is no longer there. Anyone who has learned to respond to an angry look with intense fear and disgust will retain this reaction to some extent even into adulthood, when an angry look no longer carries any threat.

If the feelings are strong, then the reaction that is triggered is obvious. However, when feelings are vague or subtle, we don't fully understand what kind of emotional reaction we are having, even if it slightly colors our current reaction. Thoughts and reactions at that moment will take on the color of the thoughts and reactions of that time, even if it seems that the reaction is due solely to the current situation. Our emotional mind will use the rational mind for its own purposes, so we will come up with explanations - rationalizations - for our feelings and reactions, justifying them in terms of the present time and not realizing the influence of emotional memory. In this sense, we can have no idea what is really happening, although we may be absolutely convinced that we know exactly what is happening. At such times, the emotional mind has already tuned the rational mind, using it to its advantage.

Reality characteristic of the state

The functioning of the emotional mind is largely specific to the state of being dictated by the particular feeling that is prevalent at the moment. The way we think and act when we are romantically feeling is completely different from how we act when we are depressed or angry; in the mechanics of emotion, each feeling has its own repertoire of thoughts, reactions, and even memories. At times when we experience strong emotions, these state-specific repertoires begin to dominate.

One of the signs of activation of such a repertoire is selective memory. Part of the mind's response to an emotional situation is to shuffle memories and choices of action so that the most needed ones are at the top of the hierarchy and can be easily played out. And as we already know, each basic emotion has its own biological "signature" - a seal, a pattern of radical changes that tune the body as this emotion becomes dominant, and a one-of-a-kind set of signals that the body automatically transmits when it is in her power.

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About emotional intelligence began to write actively and many years ago. Even a common meme has appeared that a “good person” in the 21st century is quite a “profession”.

When your emotional intelligence is high, you perceive reality more adequately, react to it more effectively and interact with others. Emotional intelligence has become one of the new tools for managing business, building effective communications and finding happiness.

But the question immediately arises: is it possible to develop emotional competencies in the same way as ordinary intelligence, logic, thinking and creativity?

Do you feel that the business environment is sometimes hostile to you? For example, does your boss not appreciate you, or does the client treat you like an empty space?

Regardless of where you are on the career ladder, I am sure that you have at least once encountered misunderstandings. You felt left out, not appreciated enough, not treated properly. And as a consequence, you experienced suffering.

Let's face it, business isn't always fun. Some may argue that "that's how it works." However, I am sure that we can improve our situation by developing one useful skill - emotional intelligence (EI).

Darius Foroux
Entrepreneur, author of three books, podcast host https://soundcloud.com/dariusforoux. "I write about how to be more productive to build a better life, career, and business."

What is emotional intelligence, how to improve it and how to use it in a business environment?

Term emotional intellect was popularized by John Mayer of the University of New Hampshire and Peter Salovey of Yale University.

Mayer defines EI (also called EQ) as follows:

In the current economic situation, the skill of solving problems related to emotions is very important. Plus, we often have to work together to find a solution. So success in business is not based on your diploma, IQ test scores, or any other grade-based metrics.

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If you want to achieve meaningful results, you will have to learn how to work with other people. From this point of view, EI is a key skill that will bring you better results and greater success.

In addition, studies show that high EI is an indicator of mental health. Therefore, it affects not only your success rate, but also your level of happiness.

Better self-awareness leads to higher emotional intelligence, which in turn brings more happiness.

EI characterizes a person's ability to recognize emotions. And not only others, but also their own. I believe that before you manage and direct others, you need to understand your emotions. Therefore, EI dough is associated with self-knowledge.

Thus, emotional intelligence is an important factor in determining our success in life and in business:

  • The result of high EI is self-knowledge.
  • Self-awareness leads to greater happiness.
  • A high level of happiness is an indicator of job satisfaction.
  • Getting the joy of work, you show the best results.
  • Good results lead to recognition.
  • Recognition of our successes makes us feel important.
  • This feeling leads us to greater happiness, better results, and so on.

Step one. Recognize your emotions.

Daniel Goleman, another pioneer in the study of emotional intelligence, is the author of Emotional Intelligence. Why it might mean more than IQ” states that we have two minds: “We literally have two minds. One thinks, the other feels.

In order to develop the part of the brain that is responsible for feelings, I like to write in a diary about my daily emotions. If you're not already journaling, start for the sake of your emotional intelligence.

Taking the first step, it is important to determine what you feel, what is the trigger for you experiences. Don't think why. Ask yourself some helpful questions:

What do you feel in different situations?

Do you get angry when you are criticized?

Do you get upset when people ignore you?

Do you freeze when all attention is on you?

Step two. Interpret your emotions

Once you have a better idea of ​​how you react to different situations, it's time to figure out how you react. Find answers to the following questions:

How do you respond to people when you're angry?

What do you really think of them?

What is the primary source of your feelings, what upsets you, makes you happy, sad, angry?

Don't judge yourself. Your goal is to understand your emotions. No more, no less.

Step three. Manage your emotions.

This is a big part of business success. The leader does not go with the flow or follow the energy of the group. The leader sets the atmosphere. But before you can determine the mood of the whole group, you need to learn how to maintain an internal mood. Answer yourself a few questions:

Can you get out of being sad?

Can you cheer yourself up?

Can you hold yourself back if you get too excited?

If not, work on it. Before you can control your emotions, you must learn to control them.

I used a three-step method to better identify my emotions. After trying these steps for yourself, you will learn to recognize your emotions and identify the emotions of other people. This is exactly what constitutes emotional intelligence.

Emotional intellect is a type of intelligence responsible for recognizing personal emotions and the emotions of others, as well as for managing them. The beauty of emotional reactions is their versatility, they seem to work in all human cultures. People of any race equally experience happiness, grief, surprise, anger and unconsciously show them in the body and facial expressions. Every emotional reaction has its manifestations in the body. For example, the emotion of surprise has three hallmarks: enlargement of the eyes, opening of the mouth, and inhalation. Such reactions are associated with the need for a person to actively act in a non-standard situation: the eyes concentrate better on the subject, and the breath prepares for possible muscle activity for defense or running.

Emotional reactions are quite intellectual in their meaning, they help to make the right, rational decision, which is fundamentally completely contrary to what we are often taught - the need to suppress, avoid them. People with high IQs and analytical skills often unfairly deny the role of emotions.

The fallacy of this approach can be shown by proving that emotional reactions have a very specific role. If we throw a crumpled piece of paper at such an analyst, then even if he were a genius who could calculate its trajectory extremely quickly, he would not have time to make accurate calculations and make an analytical decision based on them until it reaches him, then, as his natural reaction has time make him instinctively lean away. And if instead of a lump of paper there is a weighty stone? Like this primitive situation, in difficult and important situations, a complex of emotions is also able to promptly turn on the desired behavior.

What is emotional intelligence?

Where did the concept of emotional intelligence come from? The concept was first proposed in 1990 by John Mayer and Peter Salovey, who published a book, published several articles, and spoke at the same conference. However, it was not until 1995, in which Daniel Goleman's book was published, that this theory gained its wide acceptance.

Goleman, as a journalist, met Salovey and Mayer and was able to present their idea beautifully. However, Salovey and Mayer continued to develop and improve their theory, and again a few years later, co-authored with David Caruso, a book with specific practical recommendations for readers who are interested in developing their emotional intelligence. Goleman, having popularized the concept, gave rise to a huge number of new ideas regarding the emotional, as well as its models and methods of measurement. And to this day, this topic is new and attractive.

Measuring emotional intelligence - there are three most common ways. One is self-assessment. However, over 80% of people see themselves as smarter than the average person, so this kind of evaluation is not very high quality. The second is the so-called 360 assessment, when you in a group evaluate the abilities of others, while they evaluate you. And the third is the testing method, for example, using the well-known MSCEIT methodology. Since its authors Meyer and Salovey, as well as Caruso, who joined them, are sure that emotional reactions can be evaluated unambiguously, there are unambiguously correct and unambiguously incorrect answers in the methodology.

The test subject is presented with a picture with a certain facial expression of a person, and the question is asked what kind of emotion, in the opinion of the test subject, he is experiencing. Each emotional reaction must be evaluated on several scales - to determine how sad, happy or angry this person is on a three-point scale. The test helps determine how accurately a person can gauge the emotions of others, which shows a high correlation overall with their level of emotional intelligence. The result of the test calculates the coefficient of emotional intelligence that we measured.

According to research, success in activities is not only associated with levels of IQ, intelligence itself, the levels of emotional intelligence that appropriated the abbreviation EQ also have a significant impact. And it’s true that in most companies employees have good mental abilities, but by no means everyone succeeds. Yes, being smart is important, but it's not enough. In one survey of 250 IT managers, they answered which leader they consider outstanding - the most frequently named options were shared vision, motivation, and the ability to experience empathy. Moreover, the questions were open-ended, without given options.

Many large modern companies, when selecting a candidate, firstly study his emotional intelligence. Employees with high EQ unleash less, do not exhibit, and have a greater inclination towards desirable social behavior. And if the conversation turned to leaders, then they better unite, rally the staff around themselves, contribute to the rapid achievement of the desired planned results by the team, form a vision well and convey it to their subordinates in a quality manner.

David Caruso set up the following experience - he suggested to the CEO the possibility that he needed to move to a new company and take any 10 current employees with him. Interestingly, these selected 10 people had the highest EQ of all employees in the company.

Emotional intelligence levels are somewhat predictive of managers' future performance, but they are also much more accurate in predicting how they will act. Head-walking is not characteristic of high-EQ leaders, on the contrary, they belong to the category of leaders that subordinates want to be equal to.

Emotional intelligence is also important due to the fact that bright charismatic leaders always have the ability to infect the environment with emotions. A high EQ also guarantees greater team loyalty and greater employee engagement.

How to develop emotional intelligence?

The development of emotional intelligence begins with the ability to recognize the emotional reactions of other people by micro facial expressions, non-verbal bodily manifestations and intonations - as in the movie "Theory of Lies".

For example, a real, sincere, genuine smile must be accompanied by wrinkles around the eyes, a light, cheerful squint that conveys a state of joy and happiness. Everyone has such a skill to recognize emotions and works unconsciously. However, only a few people are truly talented at identifying emotions. Also, success here depends on the one who shows emotions - if his emotional intelligence is high, and the person wants to deceive you, then most likely he will succeed. A special study of human emotions by microexpressions allows you to get both information about how each emotion looks like, and skills in practice to quickly recognize them.

After this skill, it is imperative to pay attention to the development of control and the ability to express emotional reactions. It is important to learn to distinguish emotions in order to get the right picture of the world. Emotional reactions affect cognitive processes and thinking, because having relaxed and tuned in to a positive wave, a person perceives information better. To stimulate thinking, you need to understand emotions well.

Also, when we understand emotions, we can predict the behavior of other people. The skill of recognizing and managing emotions is especially important for various kinds of managers and team leaders, because at any given moment you need to be aware of the emotional state of your subordinates now: if they are upset, sad, with low energy, then on this day it is worth doing, for example, reconciliation of documents and verification of reports. If the people in the team are bursting with energy and full of joy, you can brainstorm, hold a meeting.

But what to do if you need to conduct it right now, and the emotional state of your colleagues does not match? It is difficult to motivate with words alone, while with the help of emotions, the leader can successfully inspire the team to the desired activity. What are the tricks here? For example, exhale, call to tune in, get together - like a coach of a sports team. It is useful to remember that the positive mood of the leader leads to better coordination in work and less labor costs.

An emotional reaction always has a fundamental cause that has an individual character. For example, a cheerful song usually evokes positive emotions, but a guy who invited an important girl for him to dance to this song and was refused, the same melody is likely to evoke negative emotions. It takes a lot of effort to hide your emotions. The more a person suppresses them in himself, the less he is able to absorb information. All his forces are spent on maintaining an impenetrable emotional facade, which, of course, is sometimes needed, but as a permanent regime it is very costly.

By following a proactive strategy, you can think ahead and direct another employee to a meeting that pisses you off emotionally. If, nevertheless, you went to the meeting and were taken out, then following the reactive strategy, you can inhale and exhale, count to three and calmly put your indignation on paper.

Emotional intelligence of a child

The development of emotional intelligence is relevant even for a small child, and this question can be asked by his parents, as well as teachers. Mark Bracket of Yale University runs a special program for children approved for use in schools. The program involves first training teachers, who then teach children themselves. The role of increasing knowledge about emotions in children is difficult to underestimate, because low emotional intelligence subsequently becomes a source of negative emotions and the first bad experience that can be imprinted for a lifetime. Through this kind of learning, children will have a choice. They can either experience the happiness they want, or be aware of bad emotions and try to change them. Thus, low emotional intelligence inherited in the family can be transformed through education, which is no less important than classical school education, aimed at expanding knowledge and increasing IQ.

Also, the book of the same name by authors John Gottman and Joan Decler is dedicated to the emotional intelligence of the child. She offers parents a methodology by which they can identify their parenting style, and with the help of a book to correct it, so that the child learns to harmoniously express emotions and develop his EQ, living a happy life.

The authors of the book consider in detail 4 types of parents with their respective styles of raising a child: rejecting, disapproving, not interfering, emotional. For emotional parenting, a parent must first have a high level of EQ, and the book helps develop this through a series of steps. For example, in order to develop towards the child's emotions, the parent is asked to first understand what the child is experiencing, then, without being influenced by what sign this emotion is, treat it as a positive opportunity for rapprochement. Then the parent is encouraged to actively listen and confirm to the child why his emotion is justified, to agree that its reasons are natural. After that, a competent parent will try to help the child name his emotion, thereby carrying out prevention. And in the end, together with the child, determine how to express his feelings in an environmentally friendly way with respect to himself, to others, so that it is acceptable and not destructive, and the child has a complete discharge of emotions, and, consequently, a solution to an emotional problem.

It would seem that it is easier? However, even the most loving parent makes a lot of mistakes in his upbringing of children, and first of all they are tied to the negative unconscious attitudes learned from his parents. And even despite the desire not to repeat them, it is not so easy without special attention to personal parenting style and its adjustment.

A PHOTO Getty Images

The term "emotional intelligence" (EI) appeared in the 1990s. Researchers Peter Salovey and John Mayer defined it as a group of mental abilities:

  • ability to perceive and express emotions
  • the ability to increase the efficiency of thinking with the help of emotions
  • the ability to understand one's own and others' emotions
  • ability to manage emotions

“Basically, we have two minds: one thinks, the other feels. These two minds - emotional and rational - are almost always in harmony, combining fundamentally different ways of knowing in order to successfully guide us in the world, writes science journalist and author of a book on emotional intelligence Daniel Goleman. - Usually a balance is established between the emotional and rational mind: emotions feed the rational mind and inspire it to action, and the rational mind ennobles emotions and in some cases prohibits their manifestation. In most cases, these minds are strictly coordinated: feelings are necessary for thinking, and thinking is necessary for feelings. But if passions rage, the balance is disturbed. This means that the emotional mind has taken over and suppressed the rational mind” 1 .

Why do we need emotional intelligence? Coach Leonid Krol suggests approaching this issue from three different angles. So: what does EI help, how does it develop and what can prevent it.

How does EI help?

Get rid of stress in case of increased uncertainty and chaos.

Form images of action in advance, even if there is not enough information.

It is better to understand people by getting into their shoes.

Receive sensual pleasure and understand what keeps us in a given situation.

Processing information is illogical.

It is nontrivial to set problems and reformulate conditions.

To go beyond the previous, structured experience.

Show charm and charisma.

Optimize individuality and openness of behavior.

It is better to feel the beauty and depth of the surrounding world.

What do we need to know about EI?

People are alive, even when they forget about it.

Feelings are with us all the time.

Thousands of years of animal evolution in man have created many reactions. They are all here, perhaps suppressed, and then we do not notice them.

Aggression is positive, has different forms, it is better to know and use them.

We are beings who are often distracted.

The less we say, the stronger our words.

Either we control our habits, or they control us.

Control does not mean oppression.

If we ignore feelings, they take revenge.

Emotional intelligence is a gift, but it can be easily squandered.

If you invest in emotional intelligence, you are rich.

We think with the body, if we think at all.

Seeing the beauty around and living it helps to think qualitatively differently.

What hinders the development and manifestation of EI?

Acceptance of other people's "declarations" - feelings, emotions, experiences - for one's own (out of mental laziness or self-preservation).

Underestimation of sensory experiences.

Fear of the flow of one's own emotional life.

Inability to feel.

Not too developed reflection, lack of experience in describing the inner life.

Hurry and busyness, failure of rhythms - orientation to "external and objective".

Declarative, ostentatious efficiency and attempts to measure it.

Fear of not being like that.

The inability to observe the little things and link them into "pictures".

Desire to generalize, draw conclusions, sum up.

Ignorance of oneself: own charm and charisma (derivatives of EI).

Showing maturity and intelligence.

1 D. Goleman “Emotional intelligence. Why it might matter more than IQ” (Mann, Ivanov and Ferber, 2015).

We experience emotions 24 hours a day, even when we sleep, but only a very small part of people know how to truly manage them. These people are experts in emotions, they are good at understanding and coping with their feelings, and they also decipher the feelings of other people. What are the benefits of this skill? By increasing your emotional intelligence, you will be able to achieve success in many areas of your life (from personal to social) and learn to solve problems without involving unnecessary emotions. In addition, there is a high probability that you will be satisfied with your life, because you will be able to understand what your psychology needs at any given time. You will learn to motivate yourself literally out of the blue - with the help of ordinary thoughts. You will not need external factors to be happy, because you know how to direct your emotions in the direction you need and achieve the desired mood.

Everyone dreams of learning to think clearly. But what does this mean? You will not be able to get your point across if you are irritated and angry, because at such moments your mind is clogged with emotional debris that prevents you from thinking. If you control your emotions, you can control your mind.

In addition, you probably know what catastrophic consequences they carry. They can deprive you of everything - life, money, reputation and happiness. While a person who controls his emotions is healthy and cheerful, he enjoys life and looks at all problems as new opportunities.

Our course was written with the aim of increasing your level of emotional intelligence, which will certainly entail all the positive consequences that we mentioned above.

What is emotional intelligence?

The traditional IQ intelligence test has been unable to predict a person's success in personal, social and career life. People with high intelligence did not necessarily achieve their goals, and vice versa - not very smart people somehow magically reached incredible heights. Therefore, the question arose in society: “So what affects the quality of life, the achievement of happiness and success?” And many psychologists believe that they have found the answer - it is about increasing the level of emotional intelligence.

Emotional intelligence (EI, emotional intelligence) is the ability of a person to recognize emotions, understand the intentions and desires of other people and their own, as well as the ability to manage their emotions and the emotions of other people to solve practical problems.

There is also a less scientific definition given by Howard Book and Stephen Stein: the ability to correctly interpret and influence the environment, intuitively grasp what other people want and need, know their strengths and weaknesses, resist and be charming. .

Simply put, your emotional intelligence is at a high level when you are balanced in any situation and can positively influence the emotions of other people. In this regard, emotional intelligence can be divided into two elements: understanding one's own and others' emotions.

Application of emotional intelligence in life

Whether you like it or not, you experience emotions in any situation: when communicating with a person, in an art gallery, in a supermarket. Therefore, you use emotional intelligence every day, the only difference is how high its level is.

You, and only you, decide what emotions and feelings to experience at any given moment. If you want to feel resentment and irritation - please. If you want to enjoy life and look to the future with optimism, you can achieve this too. You will be calm and balanced if you understand your emotions and begin to control them.

But why then understand the emotions of other people? Is it not enough to understand your own and learn how to manage them? We communicate with people every day in one form or another, so understanding how a person feels and why is a key moment in building good, harmonious relationships. You may not be a particularly talented person and not have an outstanding intellect, but if you can communicate with people and they respect and appreciate you, you will achieve great success.

How to develop emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence itself is a skill that can and should be developed. You will need discipline and patience, because serious success will not come immediately. You have to look at life with optimism, because at times you will fail, fall back and experience negative emotions that you want to get rid of. You also need to learn how to motivate yourself, because without this skill, you will not be able to increase your level of emotional intelligence every day. Our course will give you everything you need to do this.

In order to recognize negative, destructive emotions in time, you need to be aware. We will touch on this point, but we advise you to take a course on spiritual practices, and especially a lesson on. The first step in the fight against any enemy (destructive emotions) is recognizing it, which is why it is so important to be aware and notice when your emotions are out of control.

In our course you will find some good and useful exercises for developing emotional intelligence. Remember that serious results come only with practice, so put the knowledge into practice and study yourself.

You will need to understand how your . Each person has their own unique traits that affect how they think, feel and make decisions. However, even if you think that you have studied your psychology completely and know yourself, keep watching yourself, because everything changes. You today and you tomorrow are different people, so notice the changes in yourself and draw the appropriate conclusions. Tune in for the long haul and make it as attractive as possible. Remember that no one but yourself can help you.

The first good results will come to you after the end of the course, if you follow all the tips and recommendations that you will find in our lessons. Read the biographies of famous people and evaluate their lives from the standpoint of emotional intelligence. Would you have been able to or achieve such outstanding success if you had not been able to manage your emotions and influence the emotions of other people? You yourself know the answer to this question.

Do you want to test your knowledge?

If you want to test your theoretical knowledge on the topic of the course and understand how it suits you, you can take our test. Only 1 option can be correct for each question. After you select one of the options, the system automatically proceeds to the next question.

Emotional Intelligence Lessons

After studying a large number of books and textbooks, we came to the conclusion that emotional intelligence can be increased by studying theory and applying it in practice. We have developed five lessons for you that will help you learn to understand your own emotions and the emotions of other people.

Course objective: to acquaint our reader with emotional intelligence, its models and the necessary skills for its development and improvement.

Course objective: to teach the reader to manage their emotions and develop their empathy, assertiveness and listening skills.

We present to your attention a short overview of each of the lessons.

For, in fact, not much is needed. You need to find a business that you want to do all your life, feel that your work is needed by society and achieve your goals. The challenge is to learn to look at life with hope and faith and to motivate yourself to wake up every morning with a smile and determination to make the most of the day. In this lesson, we will teach you to look at life with optimism. This means not only seeing the good side of any problem, but also taking action to solve it. We will touch on positive psychology and the power that positive thinking brings. You will be surprised how easy and at the same time difficult it is to change negative thoughts into positive ones. And when you achieve success, you learn to control your emotions and use them to achieve success.

How to take classes?

The approximate duration of our course is two weeks. You can run through it in a few days, but remember that the course offers to learn several skills, and they in turn require a lot of work on yourself. We have tried to simplify the presentation of the material as much as possible and not overload you with scientific terms and concepts, so you do not need to especially set yourself up and study additional materials before taking the course. One small condition - keep a notebook and a pen near you. You will surely come up with interesting thoughts, so write them down right away. In addition, some of our exercises require recording.

The first and second lessons are related to the theory, but do not rush to immediately move on to the third. You must be clear about the importance of raising your level of emotional intelligence, as well as studying its patterns in order to move not by touch, but clearly understand where you are going. Set aside one or two days for each of the theory lessons.

The third, fourth and fifth lessons are practice. In this regard, allocate yourself the maximum possible number and go through them slowly. Do all the exercises and listen to all the recommendations and advice. Remember that any knowledge must be instantly transformed into action, otherwise it will be meaningless.

Books and textbooks

Should I continue my studies after completing the course? Of course, because the psychology of emotions is a rather complex and unstable matter, so you must accustom yourself to long-term training. However, this is quite interesting and should not carry an element of compulsion. Read the literature we recommend, periodically repeat the exercises from the course, keep a diary and remain aware, no matter what happens.

  • . Daniel Goleman.
  • Emotional intelligence in business. Daniel Goleman.
  • The ABC of Emotional Intelligence. Irina Andreeva.
  • Path to prosperity. New understanding of happiness and well-being. Martin Seligman.
  • Meditation and Mindfulness. Andy Puddicombe.
  • The power of positive thinking. Norman Vincent Peel.
  • AdvantagesEQ: emotional culture and your success. Stephen Stein, Howard Book.

We wish you good luck and, as a parting word, we suggest that you read quotes from famous people.

Quotes from famous people about the importance of managing emotions

“Forgiveness is understood as some emotion. This is not true. Rather, it is the cessation of some emotion.” Iris Murdoch.

“They believe that success comes to those who get up early. No. Success comes to those who wake up in a good mood." Marcel Asher.

"Only the one who subjugated them can live by passions." Albert Camus.

“To be happy, you need to constantly strive for this happiness and understand it. It does not depend on circumstances, but on oneself. Lev Tolstoy.

"Our emotional state of mind causes fatigue to a much greater extent than physical exertion." Dale Carnegie.

"Feeling is fire, thoughts are oil." Vissarion Belinsky.

“Once you replace negative thoughts with positive ones, you will start getting positive results.” Willie Nelson.

"In times of great stress or trouble, it's always best to keep yourself busy turning your anger and energy into something positive." Lee Iacocca.

"Laughter is the best means of expressing positive emotions." Norman Cousins.

“If you focus on opportunities in difficult situations, you can change your attitude, reduce stress, and focus on achieving things that might have seemed impossible before.” Katerina Palsifer.

“We are what we think. Our emotions are the slaves of our thoughts, and we, in turn, are the slaves of our emotions.” Elizabeth Gilbert.

“Emotions, as well as worries, cloud a clear head. Everything will change a hundred times.” Erich Maria Remarque.

“If emotions are in order, resentment and troubles will disappear themselves.” Neuah.

“Discipline is important, but get used to good emotions. This is the only discipline you need." Esther and Jerry Hicks.

“Emotions have their own smell and taste; perhaps they are transmitted from person to person by means of some special waves. Diana Setterfield.

"All the right thoughts come only after the emotions are over." Napoleon Hill.

“If you free the problem from emotions, it remains just a situation.” Unknown author.

“Anger is a message that there is a problem that needs to be resolved later.” Paul Ekman.

We wish you success in raising your level of emotional intelligence!

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