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What’s Your Emotional IQ?
By Daniel Goleman
It was a steamy afternoon in New York
City, the kind of day that makes people sullen
with
discomfort. I was heading to my
hotel, and as I stepped onto a bus, I was greeted
by the driver, a
middle-
aged
man with an enthusiastic smile. “Hi! How are you
doing?” he said. He greeted each
rider
in the same way.
As the bus
crawled uptown through gridlocked traffic, the
driver gave a lively commentary:
there
was a terrific sale at that store … a wonderful
exhibit at this museum … had we heard about
the movie that just opened down the
block? By the time people got off, they had shaken
off their
sullen shells. When the
driver called out, “So long, have a great day!”
each of us gave a smiling
response.
That memory has stayed with
me for close to 20 years. I consider the bus
driver a man who
was truly successful
at what he did.
Contrast
him
with
Jason,
a
straight-A
student
at
a
Florida
high
school
who
was
fixated
on
getting into Harvard Medical School.
When a physics teacher gave Jason an 80 on a quiz,
the boy
believed
his
dream
was
in
jeopardy.
He
took
a
butcher
knife
to
school,
and
in
a
struggle
the
teacher was stabbed in
the collarbone.
How could
someone of obvious intelligence do something so
irrational? The answer is that
high
I.Q.
does
not
necessarily
predict
who
will
succeed
in
life.
Psychologists
agree
that
I.Q.
contributes only about 20 percent of
the factors that determine success. A full 80
percent comes
from other factors,
including what I call emotional intelligence.
Following are some of the
major qualities that make up emotional
intelligence, and how they
can be
developed:
1.
Self-awareness.
The
ability
to
recognize
a
feeling
as
it
happens
is
the
keystone
of
emotional intelligence. People with
greater certainty about their emotions are better
pilots of their
lives.
Developing
self-awareness
requires
tuning
in
to
what
neurologist
Antonio
Damasio,
in
his
book
Descartes’
Error
,
calls
——
literally, gut feelings.
Gut feelings can occur
without a person
being consciously aware of them. For example, when
people who fear snakes are
shown a
picture of a snake, sensors on their skin will
detect sweat, a sign of anxiety, even though
the
people
say
they
do
not
feel
fear.
The
sweat
shows
up
even
when
a
picture
is
presented
so
rapidly that the subject has no
conscious awareness of seeing it.
Through deliberate effort we can become
more aware of our gut feelings. Take someone who
is annoyed by a rude encounter for
hours after it occurred. He may be oblivious to
his irritability
and surprised when
someone calls attention to it. But if he evaluates
his feelings, he can change
them.
Emotional
self-
awareness
is
the
building
block
of
the
next
fundamental
of
emotional
intelligence:
being able to shake off a bad mood.
2. Mood Management.
Bad as
well as good moods spice life and build character.
The key is
balance.
We often have little control over when
we are swept by emotion. But we can have some say
in
how
long
that
emotion
will
last.
Psychologist
Dianne Tice
of Case Western
Reserve
University
asked
more than 400 men and women about their strategies
for escaping foul moods. Her research,
along
with
that
of
other
psychologists,
provides
valuable
information
on
how
to
change
a
bad
mood.
Of all the moods that
people want to escape, rage seems to be the
hardest to deal with. When
someone in
another car cuts you off on the highway, your
reflexive thought may be,
That jerk! He
could have hit me! I can’t let him get
away with that!
The more you
stew, the angrier you get. Such
is the
stuff of hypertension
and
reckless driving.
What should you do to
relieve rage? One myth is that ventilating will
make you feel better. In
fact,
researchers
have
found
that's
one
of
the
worst
strategies.
Outbursts
of
rage
pump
up
the
brain's
arousal
system, leaving you
more angry, not less.
A more effective
technique is “reframing,” which means consciously
reinterpreting a situation
in a more
positive light. In the case of the driver who cuts
you off, you might tell yourself:
Maybe
he had some emergency.
This
is one of the most potent ways, Tice found, to put
anger to rest.
Going off
alone to cool down is also an effective way to
defuse anger, especially if you can't
think clearly. Tice found that a large
proportion of men cool down by going for a drive
——
a
finding that
inspired her to drive more defensively. A safer
alternative is exercise, such as taking a
long walk. Whatever you do, don't waste
the time pursuing your train of angry thoughts.
Your aim
should be to distract
yourself.
The techniques of reframing
and distraction can alleviate depression and
anxiety as well as
anger. Add to them
such relaxation techniques as deep breathing and
meditation and you have an
arsenal of
weapons against bad moods. “Praying,” Dianne Tice
also says, “works for all moods.”
3. Self-motivation.
Positive
motivation
——
the marshaling
of feelings of enthusiasm, zeal
and
confidence
——
is
paramount
for
achievement.
Studies
of
Olympic
athletes,
world-class
musicians
and
chess
grandmasters
show
that
their
common
trait
is
the
ability
to
motivate
themselves to
pursue relentless training routines.
To
motivate
yourself
for
any
achievement
requires
clear
goals
and
an
optimistic,
can-do
attitude.
Psychologist
Martin
Seligman
of
the
University
of
Pennsylvania
advised
the
MetLife
insurance
company
to
hire
a
special
group
of
job
applicants
who
tested
high
on
optimism,
although
they
had
failed
the
normal
aptitude
test.
Compared
with
salesmen
who
passed
the
aptitude
test
but
scored
high
in
pessimism,
this
group made
21
percent
more
sales
in
their
first
year and 57 percent
more in their second.
A
pessimist
is
likely
to
interpret
rejection
as
meaning
I'm
a
failure;
I'll
never
make
a
sale.
Optimists tell
themselves, I'm using the wrong approach, or That
customer was in a bad mood. By
blaming
failure on the situation, not themselves,
optimists are motivated to make that next call.
Your
predisposition
to
a
positive
or
negative
outlook
may
be
inborn,
but
with
effort
and
practice, pessimists can
learn to think more hopefully. Psychologists have
documented that if you
can
catch
negative,
self-defeating
thoughts
as
they
occur,
you
can
reframe
the
situation
in
less
catastrophic terms.
4. Impulse Control.
The essence of emotional self-
regulation is the ability to delay impulse
in the service of a goal. The
importance of this trait to success was shown in
an experiment begun
in the 1960s by
psychologist Walter Mischel at a preschool on the
Stanford University campus.
Children were told that they could have
a single treat, such as a marshmallow, right now.
However,
if they would wait while the
experimenter ran an errand, they could have two
marshmallow. Some
preschoolers grabbed
the marshmallow immediately, but others were able
to wait what, for them,