More on this book
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Emotional intelligence is the ability to monitor one’s own and others’ feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide one’s thinking and actions.
emotional intelligence is the ability to make emotions work for you, instead of against you.
Self-awareness includes the ability to recognize your emotional tendencies, strengths, and weaknesses.
Self-management is the ability to manage emotions in a way that allows you to accomplish a task, reach a goal, or provide a benefit. It includes the quality of self-control, which is the ability to control your emotional reactions.
Since emotions involve your natural, instinctive feelings and are influenced by your unique brain chemistry, you can’t always control how you feel. But you can control the way you ...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
Social awareness is the ability to accurately perceive the feelings of others and understand how those feelings influence behavior.
Empathy keeps you
in tune with others’ wants and needs, and it equips you to better satisfy those desires, increasing the value you have to offer.
Relationship management is the ability to get the most out of your connections with others.
The ability to anticipate and understand the feelings of others can help you avoid creating unnecessary offense, a skill that makes you more likable and draws others to you. But that same attribute can become a weakness if it inhibits your ability to speak up when you should or stops you from giving critical (yet helpful) feedback for fear of how others will react.
Self-awareness helps you identify when this perception of others’ feelings is holding you back from saying or doing something that could be helpful. Self-management involves preparing yourself for such situations and cultivating the habits that motivate you to action. Finally, the ability to manage relationships will help you say
whatever you need to say in a way that accomplishes your purpose while increasing influence, mitigating hurt feelings, and building trust.
making emotions work for you, instead of against you.
While you may never encounter circumstances quite like this, you will be faced with life-altering situations. Your ability to demonstrate self-awareness and self-management will impact the decisions you make in these moments. But what can you do to develop those abilities?
It all begins with preparation.
One of the best ways to develop self-awareness is to ask the right questions.
How would I (or you) describe my communication style? Am I direct? Brash? Clear? Ambiguous? Subtle? Tactful? How would others describe my communication style? What effect does my communication have on others? How would I (or you) describe the way I make decisions? Do I tend to make decisions slowly or quickly? What factors influence me? How does my current mood affect my thoughts and decision-making? How would I (or you) rate my self-esteem and self-confidence? How do my self-esteem and self-confidence affect my decision-making? What are my emotional strengths? What are my emotional
...more
Am I open to other perspectives? Am I too easily swayed by others? Should I be more or less skeptical? Why? Do I tend to focus on the positive or negative traits of others? What traits in others bother me? Why? Do I generally give others the benefit of the doubt? Why or why not? Do I find it difficult to admit when I’m wrong? Why or why not?
The next time you experience a strong emotional reaction, take time afterwards to process not only what you’re feeling, but why.
most of the emotions you experience occur
almost instinctively, you can’t control how you feel in any given moment. But you can control how you react to those feelings—by focusing on your thoughts.
you may not be able to stop a bird from landing on your head, but you can keep it from building a nest.
Self-awareness and self-management go hand in hand. Once you’ve built a certain amount of self-awareness, you’ll usually notice when your emotions are beginning to spiral out of control.
There are various ways to use the pause, and you can practice it differently depending on the circumstances. When upset, you may find it helpful to count silently from one to ten. On other occasions, you may need to physically remove yourself from a situation.
If you feel yourself beginning to respond emotionally to a situation, take a pause. If possible, go for a short walk. Once you’ve had the chance to calm down, come back and decide how you want to move forward.
if you need to have an emotionally charged conversation, speak in a way that’s calm and collected.
If an interaction with another person turns emotional, and leaving the situation is not an option,
stop speaking.
the intent to learn more about the other person’s perspective. In other words, don’t listen to help figure out how to reply; instead, listen to understand.
use rewind to revisit the topic at a later time, once all parties have had time to cool down.
you find yourself in an emotionally charged moment, step back and think forward to the consequences of your actions—both short- and long-term.
If emotion is clouding your judgment, take a moment to fast-forward. Doing so can help you achieve clarity of mind and make sound decisions that you’re proud of.
trailer is another name for an old cognitive behavioral therapy trick known as “the five-minute rule.”
Does this need to be said? Does this need to be said by me? Does this need to be said by me now?
What is this feeling telling me? Can I use this emotion to motivate me to make a change? Or, can I find a way to get through the day, confident that things will be better tomorrow?
Six Surprising Ways to Build Emotional Intelligence Researchers have found that some of
Watch movies.
Listen to music.
Read.
Engage in sports and exercise.
Write.
Travel.
Watch your thoughts, they become words; watch your words, they become actions; watch your actions, they become habits; watch your habits, they become character; watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.
due to the brain’s “plasticity,” or ability to change, you actually have some authority over your own “programming,” so to speak. Through concentrated thought and purposeful actions, you can influence the amount of control you exhibit over your emotional reactions and tendencies.
it would be great if you could identify your triggers ahead of time, but usually it will happen the other way around: you react to some stimulus and say or do something you later regret.
You can forget what happened, move on, and react the same way the next time you’re faced with similar circumstances. Or, you can try to sort through your thoughts and feelings, like pieces of a puzzle.
Whenever you receive negative feedback, focus on answering two questions: Putting my personal feelings aside, what can I learn from this alternate perspective? How can I use this feedback to help me improve?
What can I learn from their commendation? How can I repeat what I did right? Who helped me perform well? Can I, in turn, thank or praise them, too? Was the person’s praise sincere, or was it an attempt to flatter or get something in return?
at work you could ask a colleague, boss, or direct report: “What’s one thing you see me doing (or failing to do) that holds me back?”*
I’m sorry that happened. I can imagine how you may feel. Thanks for sharing this. Tell me more.
