Introduction

What do you think is the formula for success? Do you think it can be reduced to just one factor? Do you consider building relationships as a part of success? Do your feelings have a place in your career?In this book, you’ll learn why people with average IQs often (70%) outperform people with high IQs. This is surprising as people with high IQs only outperform people with average IQs only sometimes (20%).

The reason behind this is that, having a high intelligence quotient doesn’t come with emotional intelligence (EQ). The latter has four dimensions which are self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management.In the self-awareness part, you’ll understand why it’s important to connect with your emotions. In the self-management section, you’ll see why it’s crucial to be self-aware.

Through social awareness, you’ll realize how you’ve been listening and observing people the wrong way. Finally, in relationship management, you’ll see the positive outcome of putting all of these dimensions together.Working on yourself can be a confusing journey. You don’t exactly know which parts of yourself you need to improve. Tuning to your emotional intelligence can help you with this. This book will teach you how to get in touch with your EQ and how to become a better person.

What’s Emotional Intelligence?

Back then, people thought that having a high level of IQ was the only factor of success. Companies would surely hire you if you were ridiculously smart. However, results of some oriented studies were confusing. It was revealed, through these scrutinies, that only 20% of the people with high IQs could outperform people with average IQs.

Researchers have been left scratching their heads over the following results. Up to 70% of the people with average IQs could outperform people with high IQs. After years of research, it was revealed that emotional intelligence (EQ) played a crucial part in one’s success.

Emotional intelligence refers to your ability to recognize and acknowledge your own emotions as well as other people’s emotions. EQ, also, makes use of this awareness to help you improve your behavior and your relationships. Now that you know that there’s such a thing as emotional intelligence, you are probably wondering about its importance.

Well, if you want to land a job, you need to work on your EQ, which is , also, important when it comes to nurturing your relationships. In a study done by the authors of the book, it was shown that emotional intelligence is the “foundation” of fundamental skills. Think of EQ as the trunk of the tree and of communication, empathy, time management, etc. as its leaves.

EQ is so crucial that it makes 58% of a person’s success in their job performance. Your emotional intelligence can make or break you. If you want to be successful and fulfilled, you need to work on your emotional intelligence skills first. In the next chapters, we will discuss the four dimensions of EQ.

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The First Dimension of Emotional Intelligence: Self-Awareness

When you’re self-aware, you are able to understand what you’re feeling in every situation. Working on your self-awareness means spending time thinking about your emotions. What makes you angry? What brings you happiness? You need to understand why something brings out a reaction in you. If you take the time to observe yourself, you’d be surprised at how much you can learn.

Imagine the following scenario: You had a bad day at work because your boss blamed you for a missed deadline. You’re trying so hard to control your anger. You want to scream at him because it wasn’t your fault; it was your co-worker’s. Before you get the chance to explain yourself, your boss dismisses you. By the time you get home, your face has turned an angry shade of red.

Then, you see your child playing in the mud. You scream at him, saying that he’s getting dirt all over himself. He cries because he’s scared of how angry you got, even though, on a normal day, you wouldn’t have minded it. Later, the realization hits you hard, and you feel guilty. You've been redirecting your anger towards your child whenever things got bad at work.

If you want to make use of self-awareness in this situation, try to see if what you’re doing is right. You know it isn’t; because it’s unfair to your child. Being self-aware will help you know what you should be doing in such situation.

If you had self-awareness, you would able to work on yourself in a healthy way. You would not be scared of understanding your emotions, and you'd know how to deal with them when needed. Emotions can go as far as to hold you back. If you're always scared yet you don't know what you're scared of; this will make you lose lots of opportunities. The same process applies to anger taking a hold on you. If you knew the dark side of yourself and you could do something about it, you’d be able to reach your full potential.

The authors of this book, along with other researchers, created an Emotional Intelligence Appraisal Test. It helps you learn more about your EQ, and gives your scores on areas you’re good at and areas which you need to work on.

Dave, a regional service manager, has a score of 95 in the EQ Appraisal test. This means that he is in touch with his EQ. But, Dave didn't start with a big score. He took the necessary steps to increase it, and it paid off. As Dave improved himself, people who work with him noticed the difference .His co-workers said that Dave was more determined and hardworking. Whenever the team experienced a major setback, Dave would only frown. Then, he’d get to work on finding a solution to the setback.

Tina is a marketing manager. She has a self-awareness score of 69. Her co-workers noticed that she doesn't work well under pressure, and that she gets frustrated easily. Tina allows her emotions to consume her, and she ends up pushing her frustration into other people. It would be best for her to understand her behavior so that she can work on herself through it.

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Self-Awareness Strategies

It can be hard to determine if you’re at a stage whereby you can say that you’re self-aware. There's no visible finish line for this. Self-awareness is a journey you'd take throughout your life. It's knowing who you really are deep down.

When you’re not in touch with your emotions, they’ll have a strange way of coming out. They’ll even surprise you, since they might resurface in no time. You’re surprised by the fact that a simple “no” can leave you miserable for days; or perhaps, you get fuming mad when someone messes up with you just a little bit. In other words, your feelings in a particular situation aren’t proportional to the situation itself. It’s your emotions’ way of telling you that you need to sort it out.

You need to be honest when it comes to being self-aware. You’ll know you’re on the right path when you start noticing things about yourself that you weren't aware of before; for instance, realizing that you’re pushing your anger into other people. Another situation would be: realizing that you blow things out of proportion.

The authors have suggested a strategy to help you become more self-aware. The strategy is called “Observe the Ripple Effect”.Just like a piece of stone being dropped in water, your emotions can create waves in other people. A manager who shouts at and insults an employee in front of the other employees has created a wave. It might seem like the employee who was being shouted at is the only one affected.

But, the others who witnessed it felt like they were the subject of their manager’s anger as well. They spend the day dreading their turn to face the wrath of their boss. You should remember that your emotions do not only affect you; but, they affect other people as well. Observe the ripple effect your emotions have on other people. You can even ask the people affected by your emotions to tell you what they felt about it. When you’re able to understand the impact your emotions have, you’ll know what kind of ripple effect you want to have.

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