You may have seen the book Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman in your local bookstore. This was the book that made the term popular. It is fascinating, and transformational. It’s one of those books that, once you’ve read it, you’ll never see the world the same again. You’ll see things in people’s behaviours you were barely aware of before. You’ll just understand the world, people and their actions a hell of a lot better.
Not only that, but if you take on board what the book discusses, and put it to use, you will have a seriously powerful, life-altering, skill set that can never be taken away from you.
You see, a lot of emphasis is often put on the ‘understanding’ part of the Emotional Intelligence skill set, but that is only one part of the whole picture.
Emotional Intelligence is really a collective term or a group of associated skills that we are all, to some extent, naturally able to do. And with conscious training, all able to achieve an excellent competency in.
The skills are usually broken down as follows:
- Perceiving
- Using
- Understanding
- Managing
1. Perceiving – Noticing emotions
The skill of perception is the skill of observing what is happening in a person, in terms of their emotions, and recognising the various emotional states a person, or people, are exhibiting.
Someone seems irritable; they snap easily; and are rushing around. What emotion do you think they are feeling? Could it be that they are stressed out?
Your friend comes over to your home. You greet them warmly, they reply in monotone. Their shoulders are slumped and they don’t seem in any hurry to move their body. When asked questions, they seem distant and give one or two word answers. Are they possible a bit depressed?
This is the skill of recognising emotions.
2. Using – Harness your emotions
This is the skill of using your emotions to get what you want out of yourself. It is the skill of utilising your fluctuating moods to get the most out of yourself.
The rockstar that gets pumped up emotionally and delivers a world-class performance. The athlete who focuses intently before the big event. The engineer who approaches each problem encountered as an opportunity to exercise their creativity and ingenuity.
These are all examples of using your emotions to help you achieve what you want in life.
3. Understanding emotions
This is the sill of being able to understand and explain emotions, and their sometimes subtle relationship and interaction with each other.
Is a friend of yours acting odd? What are they going through in their life right now? Maybe they just lost their job and feel the pressure of financial obligations. They suddenly start playing a huge amount of World of Warcraft. They obviously love the game. But why the unhealthy compulsion to play? Could it be that they are really just hiding away from life and their responsibilities? Maybe their fear is compelling them to play a video game.
4. Managing your mental state
This is one of the most powerful of the four emotional intelligence skills. The ability to influence your own emotions, and to choose how you feel.
Most people go through life not even realising that this is possible. They think that emotions are things that ‘happen to you’, rather than things that are potentially under your control.
This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Yes, if left completely unchecked, your emotional wellbeing will be almost completely in the hands of your biological hardwiring (your genetic predisposition) and your environment. Bad news will make you feel bad; and you may have a tendency to dwell on these negative feelings, just by your very nature.
But, it doesn’t have to be this way. We are all capable of proactively influencing our own emotional states.
Imagine this: tomorrow, for whatever reason, you wake up in a ‘bad mood’. Now, you have a choice: you can either let that fact control your day, influencing your actions and interactions with the people around you, or you can grab the bull by the horns and say to yourself, ‘No thanks, today I’d rather be in a good mood to be honest.’
So you picture some of your goals, your aspirations. You remember the three best things that have happened to your this year. You think about the people in your life that matter to you, who love you. You think about what you have, and what you are grateful for. Eventually (and it doesn’t happen immediately), after maybe half an hour or so, you’ll start to notice a shift in your emotional state.
You will have pulled yourself out of the funk. A bad day turned into a good day through your own actions. And all it took was a few easily-done visualisation techniques. Easy.
As Tony Robbins often says (and he probably got it from someone else), “Your mind is like a garden; the weeds come for free. It takes conscious effort to cultivate a beautiful landscape. You have to weed, plant seeds and prepare the ground.”
If you haven’t ever read any Tony Robbins, I recommend you check him out. Even if you have some preconceived notions about him. Give it a chance, take from it what is useful to you personally, and discard the rest. A great place to start is: Awaken the Giant Within.
It contains many exercises for getting a hold on your life and your emotional well-being. It’s another one of those ‘life changer’ books that sound so cliche to say, “It changed my life… bla bla.” I say just do the exercises and see how things change for you.
In conclusion
Hopefully you’ve learned what it really means to have emotional intelligence, and this article has inspired you to do a bit of further investigation into the subject of your emotions, and the emotions of others. When it comes to meeting women, emotions are of key importance. You have to see yourself as an ‘emotional facilitator’ that guides her through certain key emotions such as attraction, interest, intrigue, attraction, lust, frustration, wanton desire.
Through the power of emotional intelligence, you can learn to not only control your emotional states, and get the most out of yourself, but also to recognise and influence the emotions of others, which enables you to influence their behaviour and actions.
