Friday, March 29

How To Improve Emotional Intelligence

Do you ever feel that business as a whole can be hostile? Maybe you have a boss that doesn’t appreciate you. Or a client that treats you like dirt.

No matter what your place is on the career ladder, I bet you’ve felt misunderstood somewhere in your career. Every day people feel left out, unappreciated, and mistreated at work. And consequently, they suffer.

Let’s face it. Business is not always fun. Some might argue “that’s just the way it is.”

But I think we can easily improve the business landscape by getting better at one thing: Emotional Intelligence.

Everyone has heard of it. But what is it? How do you get better at it? And how can you use it to get better at business?

Emotional intelligence (EI) is a term that’s been popularized by John Mayer, from the University of New Hampshire, and Yale’s Peter Salovey.

Mayer describes EI (also called EQ) as follows:

“Emotional intelligence, as we described it, is the capacity to reason about emotions and emotional information, and of emotions to enhance thought. People with high EI, we believed, could solve a variety of emotion-related problems accurately and quickly.”

In today’s economy, solving emotion-related problems is critical. At work, we deal with complex problems. And we often have to work together to find solutions.

Success in business is not about SAT scores, IQ tests, or any other grade-based metrics. It’s about making an impact as a leader.

And If you want to achieve meaningful things, you must be able to work with other people. From that perspective, EI is the key skill that will bring you better results and more success.

Research shows that EI is also related to greater mental health. So it’s not only a skill that influences your business results, but it also impacts your own happiness.

Better Self-knowledge Leads To Higher EI, Which Leads To More Happiness

EI describes a person’s capacity to identify emotions. Not only other people’s emotions, but also your own emotions. In fact, I believe that you have to start with identifying your own emotions before you can lead others. So EI is very closely related to self-knowledge.

And that’s exactly why EI is an important predictor of success in life and business. It goes like this:

  • High EI leads to greater self-knowledge.
  • And better self-knowledge leads to more happiness.
  • And more happiness means higher job satisfaction.
  • Higher job satisfaction leads to better results.
  • Better results lead to more acknowledgment.
  • Acknowledgement for our work makes us feel important.
  • Again, that improves happiness, results, etc.

You see? EI matters. And after reading and talking a lot about it, I want to share how I improved my EI in 3 steps.

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