Emotional I Q is More Valuable than I Q
ByThe purpose of I Q is to measure our capabilities for math and linguistics. It might be a good predictor for how we will do in school, but has been shown to be only 20% of the contribution to how we do in life.
Even students with high I Q’s that score well on SATs have not always excelled over students who were high on “hope”; the willingness and belief that they could do well.
In life, I Q is no longer a guarantor of success even for scientists and engineers.
Keith Sawyer, noted innovative expert, in “Group Genius” claims over the last 50 years the biggest innovations have come from group collaboration, not individual breakthroughs. In today’s environment, everyone has to learn to play well with others
More CEOs say they are looking for sociability in interviews. Corporations are spending to develop Collective Intelligence and top innovators and collaborators have greater promise of promotion and job security.
When life started for man and every other species, the reptilian brain gave only a few real options. The olfactory senses detected most everything early life needed to know about prey or predators or sex.
The next evolution provided man with the limbic brain which is his emotional center. In emergencies the emotional center can over ride all thinking to invoke action. With the third evolution of the brain man developed the neo cortex which separated him from all other species.
Now he had the ability to evaluate with a “working memory” to collect and work on problems and to consider the meaning of emotions fed to the frontal lobes from the limbic brain and stimulus fed by the thalamus.
The emotions still have the power to interrupt all “working memory”. Integrated into the brain first, they evolved with strong powers. The emotions emitted by the limbic brain can undermine the “working memory”. Emotions such as fear, anxiety, worry, anger, and sadness all have powers to interrupt the left brain hemisphere of rational and linguistic thought.
Yet, there are powerful positive emotions that can create the highest form of mental productivity like love, hope, and empathy. In the positive state man can perform every function at the highest level often given the names of “flow” or being in “the zone”.
“The emotions are a call to action. They motivate positive feelings or negative feelings upon which the brain has to consider and act:
- Recognizing a feeling as it occurs is the keystone of emotional intelligence.
- Handling feelings so they are appropriate is an ability that feeds on self awareness.
- Marshalling the emotions to serve us in the form of attaining goals is the direction we want to create
- Empathy in recognizing the feelings of others is fundamental to people skills.
- Handling relationships is managing the emotions of others which is the highest call of popularity, leadership, and interpersonal effectiveness.” Daniel Goleman “Emotional Intelligence.
Learning to recognize our emotions and even evaluate them while they are occurring is the state and skill first needed to channel them towards positive action and disrupt them from destructive behavior.
I have mentioned in my E Books that I am able to observe my mind give me messages about health or exercise. I consider what the mind is telling me to do and then decide whether, for example, I am really tired and should rest or whether I can push through.
The same can be achieved with feelings of anger, worry, anxiety, fear, or hurt. We can observe the emotions, evaluate them and then launch counter measures. The difficulty of some negative emotions like “anger” is that they actually energize us and we could learn habitually to turn to them in times of stress. John McEnroe comes to mind as a tennis player who used to improve his game with bursts of outrage.
But this is not playing well with others and for the most part these emotions can have lingering affects on our moods that eventually affect our temperament and can even evolve into disorders.
The best performers are athletes who talk about “being in the zone” and workers who talk about “being in the flow”. This is most likely to occur when you know you have a skill and are in a situation where you are tested but not over whelmed. If you feel over whelm you will go into a panic or worry mode and stop your momentum.
In the mornings when I consider all the research I have collected on a topic and realize I can synthesize and write about it with my point of view, but that it will still be a test, I can sometimes get into the “flow” where it pours out of me just like I would have wished.
Flow is total focus without concern for how you are doing or judgment. It occurs somewhere between boredom and anxiety. To put someone in a situation where they have natural competencies and are challenged but not over whelmed can put them into their “flow”.
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Information in this research was provided by Daniel Goleman in his book “Emotional Intelligence.”
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