What Does Emotional Intelligence Mean?
The basis of street smarts is learning the art of controlling emotions.
Emotions need to be controlled, otherwise, they do the controlling.
I didn’t say kill emotions.
Or suppress emotions.
But to control.
Controlling is the game of engineering.
Engineering can be boiled down into 1 line:
Controlling energy for practical solutions.
To learn what emotional intelligence means, we need the hat of a scientist.
Watch the hard skills world align with the soft skills world.
Emotional Intelligence for Dummies
Emotional intelligence is a game of:
Allowing the mind and emotions to work together rather than against each other.
In a perfect world, everyone would be emotionally intelligent.
But in the real world, that’s not remotely the case.
‘Well, why not Armani??’
Because emotional intelligence serves as the weeding out process for life.
Imagine if everyone who started a business became successful.
That would not be ideal.
It robs the entrepreneur of the process, setbacks, and the skill of dealing with conflicts.
Likewise, our mind and emotions are wired to work against each other.
Not always.
But always in high-pressure situations.
During high-pressure situations, the mind wants to go one way and the emotions want to go another way.
‘And how do I fix this?’
By becoming a scientist.
How to Improve Emotional Intelligence
If you really want to understand what emotional intelligence means, you need to act like a scientist.
A top tier one at that.
Imagine a scientist creates a hypothesis and begins experiments to test the hypothesis.
Trial after trial, more data is gathered.
Once the experiments are done, the hypothesis was proven to be false.
Do you think it would be wise for the scientist to start crying because his hypothesis was false?
He starts throwing a temper tantrum.
Does this sound like a top tier scientist??
‘Hell no!’
This scientist would have been top tier if he got the data and adjusted accordingly.
He shouldn’t have been so personally involved with the hypothesis.
During that process of detachment from the hypothesis, acceptance was built.
Same thing with emotional intelligence.
The mind needs to be like a scientist.
Emotions are the data.
See how the data works.
And adjust accordingly.
Much easier said than done.
Making the Mind and Body Align
I said that emotional intelligence was the weeding out process for life.
And immediately, I’m sure you pictured a challenge.
If you did picture a challenge, then you’d be correct.
It wants the best.
The emotions are like little kids who thrive in chaos.
How can the body and mind align?
By unifying it under 1 massive goal.
It’s like a husband and wife who hate each other.
But they decide to stay together for their child.
I know that doesn’t sound like the most pleasant example.
Yet, it is still an example.
The husband and wife will join their efforts towards helping their child.
And together, they align.
Do you have any goal or vision to make the mind and emotions align?
The bigger the goal, the more steadily the 2 align.
But micro-goals help too.
And micro-goals help you learn how to be a scientist.
The Scientific Emotional Intelligence Wizard
Engineering is controlling energy for practical solutions.
Applied science = Engineering.
The field of science gives information to the engineer.
The engineer applies the information.
Use the science side of you to understand the emotions.
Get in the habit of understanding the full spectrum of emotions.
When you are happy, note it.
Sad? Note it.
Angry? Note it.
Be like the scientist who isn’t crying when their hypothesis didn’t work.
The Zen scientist.
Then after the information has been gathered, give it to the engineering side to you.
Engineers apply science, right?
Well, after understanding which emotions are which, can you leverage the energy?
Let’s say you’re angry.
Do you punch a hole through the wall OR do you go do 10 pushups?
It seems intellectually easy to say which one.
But the APPLICATION process is what turns the scientist to an engineer.
We have electricity, wind turbines, pressure generators.
So many energy resources outside.
But there are tons of energy resources inside.
The breath, imagination, and emotions.
For the mind to align with the emotions, it’s a game of the mind understanding the data points of the emotions.
And then applying those emotions for good.
Cultivating Street Smarts
Enhancing emotional intelligence is like going to the gym.
The gym can be easier at times because it does not require taming the pride.
Oh, wait.
I completely forgot about the first time I tried benching at the gym.
Yea, I embarrassed myself.
Never mind.
Guess the gym works out how to lower pride like emotional intelligence.
The 2 worlds do have a lot in common.
What are the benefits of aiming to put emotions to use?
Plenty of side effects outside of doing high-pressure tasks.
Other benefits include:
-better voice.
-reduced anxiety.
-more compassion.
-ability to form better bonds.
When the mind and emotions align, magic happens.
And that’s when supreme human potentials can be unlocked.
Are you Raising your Emotional Intelligence?
I wished we replaced the word ’emotions’ with ‘energy.’
- Energy intelligence.
- Energy quotient.
How cool do those sound?
But we have emotions.
Which isn’t that bad, I guess.
It’s growing on me.
Emotional intelligence is a game of allowing the mind and the body to consistently keep aligning.
Little by little.
Over time, a strong connection is built that connects the 2 distinct parts of you.
Now, it’s not just about losing your cool at the first sight of conflict.
Instead, it’s about the 2 sides acting like the mom and dad who had been despising each other.
Yes, the 2 despised each other for long.
But after working on their child…
Seeing the child grow up.
Graduate high school.
Graduate college.
Get a job.
Now the mom and dad are in a different headspace.
They weren’t supposed to be enemies.
The 2 were meant to be working together.
It’s like the honeymoon stage all over again.
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– ArmaniTalks 
