(Published in Biz X Magazine)
You might think you’re pretty smart, but are you emotionally intelligent?
A laser red sports car cuts you off in traffic, nearly grazing your car’s front end. The driver then comes to a sudden stop, forcing you slam on you brakes. Luckily, your reflexes are quick enough so that you avoid a potentially serious crack-up.
We’ve all dealt with our share of horrible drivers. The question is, how do we deal with them?
How would you react to the driver of the sports car? Would you hunt him down, shooting him the finger at the next red light? Or would you take a deep breath and tell yourself to give the guy a break.
If you’ve chosen the latter, you’ve taken the more emotionally intelligent approach. And that’s a good thing, according to Daniel Goleman, author of Emotional Intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ.
Goleman describes emotional intelligence as having street smarts – thinking through your emotions before over-reacting, knowing when to speak up or zip your lip, having empathy for others, and getting along well with other people.
Relax, don’t do it
Eli Bay, director of the Relaxation Response Institute in Toronto, says the key to emotional intelligence is learning how to relax.
Through a series of techniques that combine yoga, self-hypnosis and other forms of meditation, Bay teaches people to respond, rather than react to the environment around them.
“I teach people how to regulate their own emotions,” he says, adding that his clients include individuals, as well as organizations.
“Most people feel like a leaf in the wind, suddenly something happens and they react. And don’t feel that they have a choice.”
But we do have a choice. And something as simple as changing our breathing patterns can change how we feel, he says. Learning to breath slowly and deeply from our diaphragm can put us into a relaxed state.
“If you’re on the highway and a truck cuts you off, you are going to react. The issue is, an hour later, you could still have your heart beat fast and you could be breathing shallowly because of that experience, or you could choose to deliberately break yourself out of that state …If you breathe as if you are relaxed, you start to become relaxed,” he says.
Eli and EI
Bay wasn’t always what he considers emotionally intelligent. In fact, growing up he says he was a “nervous child.”
“I grew up with chronic headaches and a phobia about speaking in front of groups. My family doctor had me on tranquilizers in high school,” he says.
That changed, when in his mid-twenties, he began meditating. Within weeks his anxiety subsided and his headaches went away.
EI in Life
Not having emotional intelligence, can wreak havoc on your physical health.
“People who experienced chronic anxiety, long periods of sadness and pessimism, unremitting tension or incessant hostility, relentless cynicism or suspiciousness, were found to have double the risk of disease,” Goleman writes, citing the results of 101 studies involving several thousand men and women.
Aside from having better physical health, high EI will serve you well in all areas of your life – from your career, to your family life.
Dr. J.P. Pawliw-Fry president of the Institute for Health and Human Potential in Barrie, ON and Chicago, IL, who provides emotional intelligence training for corporations and Olympic athletes, says EI is just as important, if not more important, than IQ.
“The literature is rich with people who are sparkling when it comes to IQ and technical skills, but when they lack a significant level of emotional intelligence, not only is their performance inhibited, but certainly (their) ability to find peace, (their) ability to find purpose is very much diminished,” he says.
Learning EI
The training program at the Institute for Health and Human Potential provides EI assessment, as well as training that is extended over months – and sometimes years.
“We try to understand how we can increase our ability to have impulse control, our ability to be empathetic, our ability to have a courageous conversation and not to swallow our truth – whatever our truth might be,” says Dr. Pawliw-Fry.
Although we are all born with varying amounts of emotional intelligence, much of it is learned. In fact, the emotional lessons we learn as children remain ingrained in us into our adulthood. If we learn early on to manage our anger well, or calm ourselves, or to have empathy for others, those strengths stay with us for a lifetime, says Goleman.
Dr. Pawliw-Fry says the optimum time to learn EI is before the age of five, as well as during puberty. The older we get, the more difficult it is to learn, but with the right training, adults can boost their EI by creating new neuropathways.
How?
We are all creatures of habit. We tend to do the same things over and over and resort to the “tried and true” when we react to the people around us, Dr. Pawliw-Fry explains.
“When the pressure is starting to increase and the world is closing in on us, we will revert to our default behaviors – our most traveled neuropathways,” he says.
The key to changing these behaviours is repetition. Just like an athlete has to practice her game over and over again, we need to practise new behaviors.
“You have to work on … laying down new neuropathways. You need to extinguish old ones, and create new ones,” he says.
Changing habits
If your spouse says something that makes you upset, how do you normally react? Do you verbally attack him? Do you give him the silent treatment? Or, do you devise a plan to get back at him?
“In our conversations, when we are not emotionally intelligent, it can really have a detrimental effect,” says Dr. Pawliw-Fry.
Small changes in behavior can go a long way in increasing emotional intelligence. And the opportunities to practice new behaviors are everywhere.
At home you can practice new techniques during confrontations with your spouse. At work, you can create new neuropathways in your dealings with difficult co-workers. And, on the road? Well, just take a deep breath and keep your hands on the wheel.
Take the EQ test at http://www.ihhp.com/quiz.htm
Books on Emotional Intelligence
Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ By Daniel Goleman
Working With Emotional Intelligence By Daniel Goleman
Primal Leadership: Realizing The Power of Emotional Intelligence By Daniel Goleman
Emotional Resilience By David Viscott
Workshops
For information on training sessions at Eli Bay’s Relaxation Response Institute call (416) 932-2784 or check out www.elibay.com.
For information on workshops at the Institute for Health and Human Potential call
1-877-264-4447 or check out www.ihhp.com