EQ: Critical Key to Success, and How to Grow It.

December 10, 2020

EQ: Emotional intelligence can get you farther than IQ

Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is your ability to read other people, anticipate what they’ll do, motivate and work with them cooperatively. Most business owners, entrepreneurs and researchers surveyed agreed that EQ is at least 50% more important than IQ as it affects our daily interaction success.

The benefits of having a high EQ are: more easily creating rapport, communicating both as a better listener and problem solver, selling more efficiently with less resistance, teaching young ones so they can absorb the lessons, establishing and elevating relationships, and so much more. Being on the same wave length with others is always a good thing.

Neuroscientists say EQ is composed of 5 areas:

1) Self Awareness-recognizing an emotion as it is happening

2) Self Regulation-mitigating anger and anxiety (regardless of impetus)

3) Motivation-holding vision and moving toward worthwhile, clear goals (regardless of negative circumstances or feelings)

4) Empathy-understanding others’ feelings and responding compassionately.

5) Social Skills-developing interpersonal, communication and “people skills”

We begin to develop our world views and EQ in the womb and continue to develop these critical skills throughout our lives. Ideally, with awareness and intention we enhance our fullest EQ potential as reality.

The fastest way to have success is to copy it. As with all learning, when we focus on what we DO want, and recognize that we can learn by consciously watching others who have the EQ attributes we admire, then we improve by copying and practicing their behaviors.

In a relaxed state of self-hypnosis, we can imagine ourselves exhibiting the habits of those who are skilled. We literally rehearse excellence by imagining using their excellent skills in our own situations.

Coaches suggest we watch superstars perform. That can be in the kitchen, on the court or dance floor. With our intention of seeing and incorporating professionals’ moves, we may not master their action 100%, but we do improve by at least moving in the direction of their subtleties. It’s exactly the same with EQ.

Want to fast track your high EQ?

Reading fiction provides opportunities to go places, meet people and have experiences that broaden EQ. Neuroscientists have so well mapped the brain. They see activity in portions of the brain that reading produces exactly as if the experience was real. Motivational speakers for many years have been saying that ’the brain doesn’t distinguish between reality or fantasy.’ It reacts the same. So, picturing success as specifically and clearly as possible, is giving the blueprint for future actions. A baseball player visualizing a perfect swing activates the motor cortex of the brain, as shown in an fMRI. As does a golfer picturing a perfect putt, a student seeing himself acing a test, a realtor imagining the focused successful listing presentation.

This is not new or news.

READ

When it comes to reading, we may be assuming that reading for knowledge is the best reason to pick up a book. Research, however, suggests that reading fiction may provide far more important benefits than nonfiction. For example, reading fiction can increase social acuity and a sharper ability to understand other people’s motivations. Reading nonfiction might certainly be valuable for collecting knowledge, but it does little to develop EQ, a far more elusive and perhaps, valuable goal.

READ FICTION

When you are engaged in reading a story your brain automatically puts yourself in the character’s shoes. Throughout the process of reading narrative fiction, the reader learns life lessons from how he or she personally experiences the journey of the protagonist and other characters in the story.

A study entitled, “Can Classic Moral Stories Promote Honesty in Children?” found that reading a child a fictional story about honesty led the child to act more honestly when presented with a situation in which he or she could lie or cheat.

Reading gives vocabulary, different perspectives, the challenge of changing attitudes, learning about lives you haven’t experienced, thoughts you’ve never had and so much more. As though additional benefits were necessary, stimulating your brain by reading is one of the activities neuroscientists say will help you maintain a younger better functioning brain, help clear up brain fog and stave off dementia.

Is reading fiction worth your time?

Contact me about a Personalized Hypnosis Session that can improve your reading focus, speed and comprehension.

MOTIVATIONAL SPEAKER, HYPNOTIST, TRAINER, COACH

© 2022 • Barry Eisen