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Issue 4 > Five key skills for raising your emotional intelligence.

Five key skills for raising your emotional intelligence.

Jeanne Segal with a practical how-to.

It is no secret that emotional intelligence plays a vital role in both your happiness and success in life. Raising your emotional intelligence will help your business and professional interactions as well as your family relationships.

Emotional intelligence involves five key skills:

• Being able to quickly calm yourself.
• Recognize and manage your emotions.
• Respond appropriately to others.
• Meet challenges in creative ways.
• Face difficulties with confidence and self assurance.

The good news is that the skills that raise emotional intelligence can be learned throughout life. All you need are the right tools.

What is emotional intelligence? Emotional intelligence is the ability to manage and use your emotions in positive and constructive manor.

It's about engaging with others in ways that draw people to you. Emotional intelligence is also about recognizing your own emotional state and the emotional states of others.

Emotional intelligence consists of four fundamental capabilities:

• Self-awareness—the ability to recognize your emotions and their impact while using gut feelings to guide your decisions.
• Self-management—the ability to control your emotions and behavior and adapt to changing circumstances.
• Social awareness—the ability to sense, understand, and react to other's emotions and feel comfortable socially.
• Relationship management—the ability to inspire, influence, and connect to others and manage conflict.

Emotional intelligence (EQ) and Intellectual intelligence (IQ). Most of us have learned not to trust our emotions. We've been told emotions distort the more 'accurate' information our intellect supplies.

Even the term 'emotional' has come to mean weak, out of control, and even childish. 'Don't be a baby!' we say to the little boy who is crying on the playground. 'Leave him alone! Let him work it out!' we admonish the little girl who runs to help the little boy.

On the other hand, our abilities to memorize and problem-solve, to spell words and do mathematical calculations, are easily measured on written tests and slapped as grades on report cards. Ultimately, these intellectual abilities dictate which college will accept us and which career paths we're advised to follow.

However, intellectual intelligence (IQ) is usually less important in determining how successful we are than emotional intelligence (EQ). We all know people who are academically brilliant and yet are socially inept and unsuccessful. What they are missing is emotional intelligence.

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