Emotional Intelligence

by Daniel Goleman

From my last article you know that I was going to read this book.  I actually listened to it for free on youtube and you can too.  I has loads of good information in it that can be applied, in my opinion, to everyone.

Emotional Intelligence is something that isn't taught in most schools, but should be.  Emotional Intelligence is the knowing of what emotion your feeling, how to cope with that feeling, and explain to someone else how your feeling.  It is also how you see motions in other people so you can have empathy for that person's feelings and help them cope with those feelings.  I've never been to a psychologist, but in movies I've seen they always ask, "How does that make you feel?"  To me that one question is that start of teaching someone emotional intelligence.

There is a lot of information in the book so my suggestion is you listen to or read the book yourself.  It may help you find and area in emotional intelligence that you need to work on.

For me personally I have a hard time putting my emotions into words to tell someone else.  I also am not very empathetic to others emotions even though I can read their facial expressions well.  The main thing that has held me back is anxiety and fear.  I've worked on it through the years so it's not so bad now, but it used to be quite bad.  I would almost have a panic attack in some situations.  One book that helped me a lot is The Fear Project by Jaimal Yogis.  The other thing that has helped lately is not suppressing my emotions and keeping emotional elements in my activities.  It makes my life easier and less stressful. You can see this in action by watching the Olympics.  If an athlete looks like they are focused on enjoying the sport they are competing in rather than dwelling on whether they will be better than the other people, they tend to do well effortlessly.  That is why sometimes the underdog who thinks they have no chance of beating their competition goes out and has the performance of their life, and they people who are expected to win have many troubles.

I again suggest that everyone listen to or read this book.  If you find something you need to work on search for books, videos, and even podcasts on that subject.  Also I suggest you teach your kids emotional intelligence, because more than likely the school won't and it can greatly improve their lives.

Here is the audio for the book.

Emotional Resurrection

Before you start reading this article I'd like to say what I write about may not pertain to everyone.  You may not be affected as much as me from electronic devices.  I'm just writing from my own experience in hoping it will help people have a more positive life that are like me or who know someone like me and can pass on the information to them.  Also this article will be a segway from my last article(The Lost Art of Entertaining) to another article I will write after this one with my thoughts from a book called Emotional Intelligence.

About a month ago I started have a money problem and I went into a controlling survival mode about it.  This problem had to be fixed.  I was focused.  Doing the budget, working overtime, and keeping track of our spending.  On top of that it's tax time of the year and having to shovel snow every other day.  I was getting tired, cranky, and came to a point where I didn't want to do anything or talk to anyone.  My brain felt fried.  My wife kept asking me what she could do to help and I told her, "Just leave me alone."  I went to my bedroom and laid down for awhile.  Then I went to my drawing table and worked on my drawing while listening to music.  A song came on itunes radio about how much God loves me and I started softly singing along.  While I was singing and being reminded of how much God loves me it was like a switch turned my emotions back on.  I listened to a few more songs while I drew more, just taking in how emotional I felt.  Then I went and hugged my wife and told her I'm sorry and that I love her very much.  She couldn't believe how much I changed in about an hour.  I thought to myself, "There has to be something to this!"

These are the thoughts that I came up with:

Suppressing emotions can lead to depressing especially in right brained people like me.  I've been emotional all my life.  A lot my life, looking back, I suppressed those emotions, therefore I've dealt with a lot of depression.  I think a lot of people do this.  Every year, at least lately, we hear about some celebrity overdosing on depression related medication or committing suicide because of it.  Most actors or actresses are right brained as are people in the music industry.

It's harder to learn from sources that have no emotional element.  Think back to high school.  Who were your favorite teachers and why?  More than likely they were the funny ones or the ones who told stories as examples about what your learning.  Laughing is an emotion and stories are have emotional elements to them.  I had a hard time in school especially with doing homework.  Reading textbooks just made me want to take a nap.  Now if I read a book like Unbroken, I can't put it down.  I remember most of the details even the historical parts.  Philip Yancey is a great writer and uses stories throughout his books and writes with emotion.  Now think of music or movies you love.  How can most of us repeat every line after only listening or watch them about 5 times?  Music brings emotions out that is why we SING the alphabet song.

Being emotional makes you a better leader.  I've read books that say differently.  In some instances maybe this is true, but lets look back in history.  David was a great leader.  A man after my own heart God calls him.  Did he have emotional restraint?  Nope, he danced like a buffoon in the middle of the street.  Abraham Lincoln was a great story teller.  He wanted the slaves freed so badly and with that emotion he wrote the Emancipation Proclamation.  Martin Luther King Jr. also was a great leader of the elimination of segregation and civil rights, even with death threats if he didn't stop.  Did Jesus keep his emotions in check?  His love for us drove him to the cross to die for our sins.  In all these instances being emotional helped these people stay focused on what they were trying to accomplish which to me is the definition of being a good leader.

Thanks for reading and as I said there will be another article after this one after I read Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman.  A book that is recommended in a lot of places on the internet that I have been visiting lately.

The Lost Art of Entertaining

Before the invention of electricity what did people do for entertainment?  They would have gatherings at the town hall or a person house.  Some people may have brought their instruments to play, people would dance, play games, play sports, or just talk to one another.  Some people would be good at telling stories like Si from Duck Dynasty.  Perhaps even someone like me would bring a piece of artwork for people to see.  Farmers and other people with similar trades could share information on how to better their businesses or work together.  These gatherings were a way for people to be the entertainers themselves, giving everyone a chance to participate in the entertainment in some way.

So what happened to people that this lost art of entertaining each other diminished.  Everyone like to be entertained, but not many people do much to entertain others.  The difference is people of the 2000's are addicted to being entertained.  Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, Netflix, video and computer games, and even the fading regular television watching is what people do all the time.  I used to be you could only do these things at your computer.  Not any more; we have these entertainment super havens we can take with us anywhere.  Smartphones, tablets, and for those people who don't mind carrying the weight the laptop computer.  People are in a continuous perpetual state of being plugged into entertainment.  This doesn't give us much time to really think for ourselves.

In my opinion these new electronic entertainment gadgets that everyone is becoming or are already addicted to is suppressing the part of people's brains that lets them be creative.  It doesn't allow them time to think of ways to entertain others.  These devices take up so much of their time that they don't practice their talents that they could share with other people.

A part of my life is a good example of this.  I used to be addicted to computer games and using the computer itself.  Every time I would think, "what can I do today?"  I always thought of using the computer first.  It took up so much of my time that I didn't do much else.  I didn't draw, I didn't exercise, I didn't even eat much especially healthful foods.  I became overweight and even less sociable than I normally am.  After I stopped using the computer and playing games on it hours on end  I started to draw more and my drawing skills have drastically improved.  I also lost 20 lbs. without trying.  I took up bicycling more and other activities and now I to my goal weight.  Lately I started watching TV less and I can think more clearly.  I come up with more jokes to make my wife laugh, even come with with better(I think) Christmas gifts to give her.

So this year think about what is taking up your time and if it's electronic entertainment that takes up a lot of your precious time; think about giving your brain a break so you can entertain others!