THE MOST UNDERRATED SKILL – EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE
“We are dangerous when we are not conscious of our responsibility for how we behave, think, and feel.” – Marshall B. Rosenberg
My wife’s granddad is a retired judge of the Panjab & Haryana High Court, and I love listening to the fascinating stories about some cases he has adjudicated. Out of all those, there is one that got me thinking about the lack of emotional intelligence. Here goes-
Once upon a time, there was a chief engineer, let us call him Alan. The job entails the person to be experienced, intelligent, and a competent civil engineer, for he has the responsibility of passing/approving construction projects across the state – any bridge, highway, toll plaza, etc. It is a highly important position.
A person needs to possess a strong aptitude, quantitative and cognitive ability, and other intellectual gifts to be one of tens of thousands of engineers selected by the state government. Simply put, you need to have a project experience, perseverance to clear the vetting process, a great personality, and networking skills to be chosen in that position for the state.
Alan graduated from one of the top engineering schools in India, had a successful career with a bright future. But there was one problem. He suspected that his wife had an affair. He had no proof, and his suspicions about his wife cheating on him were purely based on some “signs.”
One day, he bought two pistols, plotted some vague plan, drove to his brother-in-law’s house where his wife was at that moment and. Opened fire. He injured his wife and brother-in-law severely. He thought he killed them both, took out the second pistol, and shot himself in the head.
Alan survived but was blinded by one eye. He was convicted for a few years in an “attempt to murder charge” and released early on parole due to his good conduct inside the prison.
When Alan got out, he bought an illegal pistol, drove to his house, shot his wife, wrote a suicide note that said “my job is done,” and shot himself dead.
I know it’s heavy! When I heard this story, the first question that came to my mind was – did Alan ever try to talk to his wife and clear his suspicion?
He didn’t. Both Alan and his wife attested in court that he never tried to discuss or talk through this suspicion. Neither did he have any proof to confirm his suspicion.
An intelligent man with high cognitive ability, trusted to ensure the safety of millions of people, ends up like this? A civil engineer with a high IQ! The answer is the lack of emotional intelligence.
Viktor. E. Frankl said, “Between stimulus and response, there is space. In that space lies freedom and the power to choose our response. In our response lies growth and freedom.”
Between Alan’s stimulus of suspicion and his response of deciding to commit a crime was a lot of space. The time he spent thinking about murdering his wife could have been used to step back and rethink. Introspection could have led him to self-realization and a mature response.
Emotional intelligence, also known as “Emotional Intelligence Quotient,” emerged in the 1960s and gained substantial popularity in the 1980s and 1990s. Emotional intelligence has existed for a thousand years, but the official term explains why intelligent people like Alan do foolish things.
Why Emotional Intelligence is an underrated skill:
There are many essential skills that schools don’t teach us such as, doing taxes, managing personal finances, career advice, et al. For me, emotional intelligence tops that list!
For example, I am sure you may have watched many movies in which a rich spoilt brat of some Mogul always creates trouble. These characters often portray narcissistic behavior through entitlement, rage, and a misinformed sense of self-pride. This reel life behavior is not uncommon in real life either.
I remember some of my batchmates from middle school belonging to wealthy families lacked emotional intelligence. They lacked self-esteem because they depended on their parents’ mercy to survive. They felt entitled because their demands were being fulfilled, and their entire existence was ballooned by the material possessions they inherited from their parents. (Before you start moral policing me, OF COURSE, not all wealthy people suffer from such complexes..)
Such people are often in a state of mental unrest. This is because they lack emotional intelligence, which is very subjective. It is not like math!
In a particular situation, each person tries to navigate the waters by understanding how the person on the other end is thinking and feeling.
I know of this boy who belongs to a wealthy family, and his father is a notorious bureaucrat. As a young boy, he had all the freedom to do or behave in any manner he wanted to. If he created any nuisance, his father would pull some strings and help him to be let off the leash. Over the years, this pattern of misdemeanor and his using his father’s name & power to get out of trouble – got out of hand. This habit transgressed into alcoholism, drug abuse, and a lifestyle where his entire existence was around two things, a druggie party animal or the son of that “popular bureaucrat.”
I heard that he was arrested in California for misbehaving in a club, most recently. Bystanders claim that they heard him scream, “If this were Panjab (his home state in India), I would have shown you who I am.”
Firstly, the cops in California don’t give a rat’s ass about who he was or how powerful he was back in Panjab.
Secondly, his parents enabled this behavior. He never got the opportunity to build his EQ because he never felt the need to. This is a textbook example of why EQ is one of the most important skills. If he had had it, he would know better than to get in a scuffle with the authorities.
I have realized that we can strengthen our EQ – it helps us navigate life in all areas, whether it is our job, relationship with friends or family, our partners, and children. EQ is built of few key principles that comprise self-awareness, values, and emotions.
How to develop EQ:
Oscar Wilde famously said, “I don’t want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to dominate them.”
You, too, can dominate your emotions and become the driver of your actions instead of passengers. No matter what your level of IQ is, you can constantly develop and strengthen your EQ.
Sharing here some ways -.
1: SELF-AWARENESS
The modern human is blind. By blind, I mean that the modern human is in auto-pilot mode or a state of sleep all the time. Do you feel in your sleep? You might think you do, but you don’t because it is an illusion. You react to dreams. You always stand in the middle of your dream, as if you’re in some dramatic scene in a play, and you respond to whatever is being enacted.
You never pause to think, ‘Why am I on an airplane with my middle-school friends I haven’t spoken with for a decade?’ You can’t control it. The next thing you know, you tell your best friend/partner about it.
We have more ways to distract ourselves that historically have never existed. Instagram, TV, Netflix, Facebook, Twitter, Tik Tok, etc.; our phone is like a Vortex!
This inherent blindness comes due to a lack of self-awareness. That rich boy above? He spent his life in the euphoria of drugs, parties, video games, and sleep. If you put him in solitary confinement, he will go insane. Solitary confinement has proven to be the cruelest punishment a criminal can get in jail. Some criminals have happily accepted getting electrocuted in their balls as a form of punishment instead of going into solitary confinement.
This is because, in solitary confinement, the person is finally awake. He/she will be forced to communicate with the only thing present in the cell – his/her real self. Their brain, their consciousness, and nothing available to help distract them.
Building self-awareness happens in three layers:
1. Understanding what we do or are doing.
2. How do we feel about our actions?
3. Understanding what we don’t know about ourselves, i.e., why do we do certain things?
Block some time during the day to get away from your distractions and audit your day. Replay everything you did and rethink the criticality of your actions. Then think about how you felt in those moments.
Did you flip someone off on the highway just because they honked? Are you still pissed about it? If yes, why? Why is that moment still living in your head?
After you have addressed how you felt, understand what you do not know about yourself! Why were you on your phone for 6 hours and 55 minutes today? Did you realize you spent 50% of your awake time staring at your phone’s screen? What is causing this behavior? Is it to find escapism from homework, your job, a negative relationship?
Self-awareness is like peeling an onion. We must do it layer by layer!
2: CHOOSE WHAT YOU VALUE CAREFULLY
What we value has a massive impact on our emotions. A person can be self-aware, disciplined, hard-working, but if he/she values the wrong things, that person’s emotional intelligence would be counterproductive.
Alan, the chief engineer, was an intelligent and hardworking man. He knew his responsibility to build strong and sturdy highways, and bridges as the safety of the thousands of citizens was in his hands. But he did not value the significance of the legal system; he didn’t value his spouse, his family, or the possibility of confronting and reconciling with his wife. He didn’t value the lives of his in-laws, and in fact, neither did he care for his own life.
No matter how smart, rich, poor, privileged, or unprivileged we are, we always choose what we value. The engineer, for all his experience, was unable to handle his emotions. He valued his rage and revenge more than anything.
Carefully choosing what we value is more critical because our values give us perspective. If the engineer valued his life, relation, and wife, he would have confronted her and then decided to keep the marriage or not.
3: SHEPHERD YOUR EMOTIONS
“You have to get to a point where your mood doesn’t shift based on the insignificant actions of someone else. Don’t allow your emotions to overpower your intelligence.” ~ Bruce Lee
We cannot control our emotions. What does that mean? Can we stop ourselves from feeling anger, love, sadness, or fear? No, we cannot. We can only learn how to manage those emotions better. That is precisely what Bruce Lee meant in his quote.
We cannot control our emotions, but we can control how we choose to react to those. If someone insults us and gets angry, it is up to us to shepherd our emotions and not react violently.
Managing emotions in such moments when the urge to do something rash is exceptionally high, recognizing what we’re feeling, deciding whether it an appropriate emotion for the situation, and acting accordingly is the essence of emotional intelligence.
Alan failed miserably at controlling his emotions. He let his emotions untamed and took one rash decision after the other, resulting in multiple casualties costing him his own life.
4: PRACTICE SELF-DISCIPLINE AND SELF-MOTIVATION
During the lockdown last year, when I would wake up to run in the morning, my brain would become frantic. Sitting in the bed at 4 AM, I could feel that chilling NYC breeze slapping me across the face. The first-quarter mile would suck, but then slowly, it started getting better. The next thing I know, after half a mile, I would be lost entirely, deep into the dungeons of my mind. (Read more: ‘Mind Maze’)
I loved the wind, how my heart pounded, the strength I could feel in my muscles. I loved that feeling. I felt invincible. I was motivated to keep going and repeating this exercise every day. The most important lesson I learned is to feel invincible, and I had to feel like crap in the beginning. This phenomenon is the “show up” phenomenon. If you want to do something, you win 50% of the battle by simply showing up. The remaining 50% you win by simply doing.
When I used to get frustrated with my career, performance at soccer games, or my finances, I would go back to a quote that said, “Doing is the answer to everything.
Doing = motivation = self-pride = doing more = motivation.
Most people look for inspiration outside – the truth is that motivation is within us all. This is the biggest reason why self-discipline feels difficult to a lot of people. People try to motivate themselves with external factors, so they go back to square one within a week.
When I don’t feel like doing something, I take self-negotiation out of the equation. Then when I attempt that activity, I become aware of the emotions that were making me quit before even trying the task. Before I know it, I am halfway through my workout – feeling proud and accomplished.
Therefore, self-discipline is vital to become self-motivated, and these two skills will help us become more self-aware.
5: UNDERSTAND AND ACKNOWLEDGE OTHER PEOPLE’S EMOTIONS
The whole point of developing “emotional intelligence” must be to improve social interactions. Understanding and acknowledging other people’s emotions will help us lead healthy relationships – romantic, familial, professional, friendships, etc.
It all begins with recognition and respect for each other’s emotional needs. You can understand someone’s emotions by connecting with them, putting yourself in their shoes, and feel what they must be feeling at a particular moment.
Suppose your best friend has lost a sibling or parent. In that case, empathizing with your friend does not mean completely understanding him/her, but just accepting that they are in pain. They should have the complete freedom to grieve in whichever way they want to. Even though you have not felt the pain of losing a parent, just by acknowledging their pain as your pain – as your collective pain, you immediately become their companion.
The way we connect with others is everything. Being emotionally intelligent/available/equipped and improving our social interaction helps get us out of our heads and connect with the world around us. It is also imperative to realize that we are a part of something much more significant than just ourselves.
