Emotional Intelligence is the ability to understand and manage your own emotions and those of others to yield the best outcome on both personal and professional levels.
Emotions are Information
A revolutionary understanding of emotions and mastery of emotional intelligence starts when you realize that your emotions are there for you. They are a messenger; and every messenger has a message. Thus, emotions are information and by intelligently using this information, you transcend from a victim to a leader. Information are thus action signals; they’re signals to take action about something and change it.
Emotions are neither negative nor positive
Emotions are information and information can be valuable when you know how to utilize it. Pain, anger, stress and other emotions that you label “negative” can be utilized to get a positive outcome when you learn how to transform them. Information is potential power. Taking the right action by consciously defining your response (through self-management) is the real power.
Act with certainty instead of reacting to chaos
Life is full of chaos and undesirable events that we can’t control. We tend to react unconsciously to life’s chaotic events. The moment we become conscious and empowered with our emotional intelligence, the moment we realize that it isn’t about what happens to us in life but what we do with what happens to us, we will start witnessing growth and above all, emotional mastery.
Change your story
You created a story about what happened to you in life. When you look back and change the meaning of what happened, you change the story of what happened. You also realize that life didn’t happen to you; it happened for you. This will change how you feel about your past and yourself and will break the older identity that you created by repeating that story over and over again. This will release many buried emotions like guilt, anger, disappointment, etc.
Empathize with others
We are wired to feel with other people. And this exceeds poetry to scientific research done by Rizzolatti and his team who discovered mirror neurons. Shortly, you will feel and think in your mind, what the other person could be feeling. Empathy helps you understand the other person, and what they could be feeling, which will change how you will react to them. These are the social awareness and social management parts of EI.
About the author
Imad Abou Khalil is a Life Coach, Trainer and Public Speaker and the founder of SucceednLead training center. He has trained thousands of people in Canada and Lebanon. In Lebanon, Imad was a trainer and a public speaker at many highly-recognized organizations like ABC, Phoenicia Hotel, Mazda, Doctors without Borders, Lebanese Red Cross, Antonine University, UNRWA, Order of Engineers, Caritas, and many more.
