What is EQ (emotional intelligence)

Welcome to The Introverted Path!

Happy Thursday! Hope everyone is making the most of the last parts of 2023 — crazy that the year is almost over.

Today I will be discussing EQ (emotional intelligence). Many of the key pieces of EQ are things introverts can excel in.

This is a huge topic that will likely span multiple newsletters.

So for today, I’ll be introducing some things, and then will dive in deeper in the next couple weeks.

In today’s email:

• What is emotional intelligence?

• Why is it important?

• Links to other content I enjoyed this week

Let’s dive in 🤙 

What is emotional intelligence or EQ?

Emotional intelligence can be defined as:

Psychologist Daniel Goleman, in his book Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More than IQ, outlined 5 key personality and behavioral traits related to EQ:

1. Self-awareness

Self-awareness is the ability to recognize your own thoughts, actions, and emotions, as well as how they impact others. I previously wrote about how introverts can improve their self-awareness.

2. Self-regulation

Self-regulation is a person’s ability to manage their emotions and conflict in a positive manner. Not acting on emotions, but being thoughtful with their responses.

3. Social skills

Social skills involves the ability to build meaningful, productive relationships. One of the key parts of this is active listening.

4. Empathy

Empathy refers to interpreting other people’s emotions and responding in a thoughtful way. You take other people’s thoughts and feelings into account when making decisions.

5. Motivation

Motivation boils down to continually wanting to pursue your goals and to learn. Always striving for something more.

Why is EQ important?

EQ is important in both professional and personal settings.

International search firm Egon Zehnder analyzed 515 senior executives and discovered that those who were strongest in emotional intelligence were more likely to succeed than those strongest in either IQ (“intelligence quotient”) or relevant previous experience.

People with higher EQ in general are more enjoyable to work with.

If you can match the technical knowledge with high EQ, you’re golden.

Same can be said in personal relationships.

Empathy in particular is something that isn’t talked about much as being a good quality in a friend, but is super valuable.

You want relationships with people who will take the time to understand things from your point of view and take your feelings into consideration.

My thoughts 💭 

EQ is one of those things that’s hard to grasp since it isn’t necessarily tangible.

When you think about IQ, it is pretty straight forward. You take a test and are given a number score based on how well you did.

With EQ, it is made up of a bunch of intangibles and soft skills.

As a society, we tend to focus way more on IQ than EQ.

Think about the standardized testing process leading up to college.

We take multiple standardized tests throughout our schooling, with the ACT or SAT being the culmination before applying to colleges.

All of these tests gauge our knowledge, give us a score, and that is used to get us to the next step.

There’s no standardized testing for EQ.

Wouldn’t it be equally as important to test for our self-awareness, self-regulation, social skills, empathy, and motivation?

Seems like those are all great predictors of success as well.

If you’ve gotten to this point and you’re anything like me, you’re probably googling “EQ test”

There’s a lot of stuff out there and it’s hard to tell what is legit or not, so that could be part of the problem.

But I still stand by my opinion that EQ is just as important of an indicator for success as IQ is 😀 

Links that I enjoyed this week 💥 

• The importance of delayed gratification (link)

• Five timeless life lessons from Seneca (link)

• 10 powerful visuals about psychology & life (link)

That’s it for today - hope you enjoyed this week’s newsletter!

Best,

BG