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“Emotional Quotient Predicts Success More Accurately Than IQ”
Psychology
Researcher and coach Guadalupe Gómez Baides reveals the relationship between emotional intelligence and happiness
The ability to recognize one’s own and others’ feelings and the ability to handle them reveals much more about a person’s efficiency and abilities than a brilliant academic record or an above-average intelligence test. In fact, as Guadalupe Gómez Baides, director of the European Institute of Wellbeing, author of “This is Coaching” and founder of the Cegos Coaching School explains, it is not the IQ that predicts success in life. Let’s see why the emotional quotient is the one that really takes the pulse of life satisfaction, according to the expert …
What is emotional intelligence? Is it something innate or acquired?
Intelligence is the ability that people have to know and manage our own emotional states and those of the people around us.
There is talk of a “Emotional quotient”, which develops in parallel with people’s “IQ” and more accurately predicts success in life and feelings of satisfaction.
Like almost all psychological traits, we can inherit a predisposition to have more or less emotional intelligence, but what is really decisive is the learning we do from a young age, mainly by modeling the people around us. That is, we imitate the ways of recognizing and managing the emotions of our parents, siblings, and people closest to us.
The good news is that the emotional intelligence level can be improved from anyone (who does not suffer from a disease that limits their abilities in this regard) and who is willing to invest enough time and money to do so.
What characteristics define people with emotional intelligence?
They are all based on a good level of self-knowledge y self-management of emotional states.
When the term emotional intelligence became popular, I commented that it is what psychologists have always called “emotional maturity”, directly proportional to mental health.
The best known model outside the psychological fields is that of Goleman, which popularized the term and defined five basic emotional competencies: self-awareness, emotional self-regulation, self-motivation, empathy, and social skills.
As you can imagine, these features have to be developed in order, because you cannot regulate or manage an emotion if you are not aware of having it, nor can we have social skills without empathy, etc.
What are the positive and negative aspects of emotional intelligence? What is it for?
There really is no negative aspect of having emotional intelligence, they are all advantages both on a personal level and on an interpersonal level.
Some people identify a high degree of empathy (associated with hypersensitivity) with a negative aspect, but this only occurs in those people who have not sufficiently matured the rest of the characteristics, which includes good emotional intelligence.
We could say that empathy is a necessary but not sufficient condition to have emotional intelligence and that is why sometimes some people come to the empathic suffering.
Usually because nobody has ever taught us how to develop our emotional quotient and most of us do the best we can with the models and experiences that we have had and that are usually not suitable.
Regarding the positive aspects of having emotional intelligence, the truth is that they are all. If you think about what you want in your life, everything good that comes to mind is having a good emotional intelligence: love, health, success, satisfaction, well-being, inner peace, enjoyment, joy, happiness, …
How can a person know if they have emotional intelligence?
Seeing that emotional intelligence leads us to everything good in life, the happier you are, the more emotional intelligence you have. Of that you can be sure.
We can cite some indicators: if you have good Self esteem, self-confidence, self-control, integrity, you know how to enjoy the big and small things in life, you know how to give love in a healthy way and receive it, you have resilience (resistance to stress), you recover easily from the blows of life, you smile, you are grateful, you have a sense of humor, intuition, you are flexible and tolerant, you feel satisfaction with your life, you accept what you cannot change, you are proactive , you pursue your goals, etc.
What signs indicate that a person in our work, family, personal or sentimental environment lacks emotional intelligence
Well, many people speak of these people as “toxic”, I do not like the term, but I recognize that it is descriptive.
Normally, people with emotional intelligence transmit a feeling of calm y fullfilment of security requirements. They seem trustworthy, personable, compassionate, socially attractive, etc. So people who lack it are the opposite … They lack self-control, they suffer because they do not understand themselves, they are stressed, they do not respect others, they are selfish and self-centered, they cannot bear frustration, they are short-term, opportunistic, they can give different versions to different people to look good, they lie, etc.
And what happens when a person does not have emotional intelligence?
The negatives are devastating. On a personal level, it is impossible to have well-being and feel happy, satisfied, full, etc.
And at the relational level, the deep connection, which is based on emotions, love, which gives meaning to life.
Lacking emotional intelligence is having a passage to a life of misery, suffering, stress, exhaustion, depression, misunderstanding and deep loneliness. Come on, you wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy.
Could you advise us on practical exercises to train emotional intelligence?
Of course! The first thing to do daily is be aware of emotional states we go through, because it is the only way to be able to manage them properly and not deny or repress them.
The second would be take care of yourself physically and psychologically. Eating well, getting quality sleep and exercising give us the foundations to have a well-functioning brain and we can be smart in all ways.
The third would be one time a day or every other day at emotional management. Just as we go to the gym or exercise to keep our bodies healthy, our emotional system requires time to digest the emotions that arise from day to day.
And I am going to allow myself a fourth exercise in case some parents are reading us: you have to foster children’s emotional intelligence, because what matters most to us is that the children are happy. Teach them to identify and name what they are feeling, to decide the response I want to give beyond how a situation makes me feel, teach them self-control y empathy and how their reactions affect both themselves and others, and provide avenues for channeling and healthy expression of the emotions they feel.