Emotional Intelligence

by Daniel Goleman

Anyone can become angry—that is easy. But to be angry with the right person, to the right degree, at the right time, for the right purpose, and in the right way—that is not easy. ARISTOTLE, The Nichomachean Ethics

Those who are at the mercy of impulse—who lack self-control—suffer a moral deficiency:

At best, IQ contributes about 20 percent to the factors that determine life success, which leaves 80 percent to other forces.

Managing emotions. Handling feelings so they are appropriate is an ability that builds on self-awareness.

Handling relationships. The art of relationships is, in large part, skill in managing emotions in others.

Downs as well as ups spice life, but need to be in balance.

Benjamin Franklin put it well: “Anger is never without a reason, but seldom a good one.”

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 douses those flames.

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Empathy builds on self-awareness; the more open we are to our own emotions, the more skilled we will be in reading feelings.

Without feedback people are in the dark; they have no idea how they stand with their boss, with their peers, or in terms of what is expected of them, and any problems will only get worse as time passes.

Too often people criticize only when things boil over, when they get too angry to contain themselves. And that’s when they give the criticism in the worst way, in a tone of biting sarcasm, calling to mind a long list of grievances they had kept to themselves, or making threats.

When anxiety helps us prepare to deal with some danger (a presumed utility in evolution), then it has served us well. But in modern life anxiety is more often out of proportion and out of place—distress