LBrain

I just started reading this. My wife put emotional intelligence 2.0 in my hands.
I did a cursory search here and didn't find a reference to it.

Has anyone here read or studied this application? It is geared more toward succeeding from a business standpoint, methinks. However, I believe it can be a useful tool for some struggling with an addictive personality (me) and could be helpful to overcome the inability to get and stay sober over the long haul.

Does anyone have thoughts or experience with this?

airwick

nope

hypochondriac

Do you mean the book by Goleman? I have heard it is really good. It's been sat on my book shelf for years waiting to be read!

Soberpotamus

I read Goleman's book when I was 22 or 23. It's an interesting read and might have some good applications for people in recovery from addictions, but it's more of a self-help type book I think. As for the theory of EQ replacing IQ or competing with IQ as a benchmark of intelligence, not buying it. I believe the application of one's intelligence to emotional regulation is more likely what's going on.

LBrain

I did see a reference to Goleman as I looked into this further. Though not the book, similar philosophy.

SJ - I don't believe it is used as a benchmark for IQ. What I gleaned from it quickly was that some people with a lessor IQ are more successful than those with a higher IQ. It has more to do with how one is adaptable to the emotions of others and themselves. To be able to keep emotions from interfering with rational decisions. Or having the ability to make things work for you by adjusting to others and taking advantage of their (or your) personality in social or business settings.

The brightest people are not always the best in other words.
I'm guessing now...

biminiblue

...and that is why we try to shut the brain up with substances.

It seems to me that a lot of alcoholics are some of the brightest people who made it through advanced schooling etc.

When I was drinking I definitely had the opinion (delusion, perhaps?) that I knew too much and had to shut up my brain.

I've always been super empathic too - maybe too much so. I cannot be in a group of people for very long before all their inner stuff starts to bother me immensely. That is one of the reasons I couldn't go to AA. I kept saying to my friend after meetings, "I can't do it. Other peoples' pain is so painful for me." All the hand-wringing was too much for me to process. All the life-drama was overwhelming. The inner thoughts of other people disturb me when I am in the same room or in proximity to them.

This site gets to me for the same reasons - and I don't even know you guys!

Aellyce

I never like when the more rational type of intelligence and emotional intelligence are separated from each-other. Or when people talk about excluding emotions from certain types of decisions and information processing. There is a great body of literature with evidence that all these processes are interrelated, also with self-concept and consciousness. I would recommend work from neuroscientist Antonio Damasio who pioneered in this area.

I think what happens is that people who have very good abstract reasoning, logical and problem solving abilities often prefer to apply the same processing to human and social concerns especially when they are young. But it's never devoid of emotions, it's just physiologically impossible unless someone has certain types of brain damage. There is also the phenomenon that when people got criticized for being "too emotional" in early life by parents or others, they develop a behavior that seemly shuts off emotional and human relational concerns. But it's there.

I think developing our emotional intelligence involves improving how we deal with these things in ourselves and especially in social life, and how well it's integrated with other types of information processing, self-expression, and communication.

For me personally, what helps most is learning and improving this from experience, while interacting with the world. I definitely wasn't good at dealing with emotions as a kid and not even interested much, I needed some experiences to recognize how important it is if we want to live a full life. Work in progress of course...

DoubleDragons

Bimini, I so related to your post. I always have the tendency to take on other's problems, emotionally. I have had to really limit reading any news, because I can get myself physically sick thinking of trauma other's have gone through. I don't know if it is codependency or just my "make up", but I always seem to attract people wanting me to fix their problems. I jokingly call myself "freak magnet." I once asked a therapist if I was just too sensitive (as I was always told by my parents growing up) and she said that there was no such thing. She said that my life would have probably been easier had I been less sensitive, but that I should embrace who I am . . . .

biminiblue

Well, I almost included being a natural born codie into my first post.

I've learned through painful experience to not try to fix them or "help" them or to take it personally when they have meltdowns, but in doing so have realized that others don't get these emotional "hits" from outside themselves. I don't know if they have shut down that part of themselves completely or what.

I do know that I was born this way, it isn't the norm for everyone, and I have to carefully guard what I let in - like you said.

I'm with you. I stopped watching and reading the news many years ago, for the same reason. I don't spend time with emotional vampires outside of necessary interactions. I have to spend time in prayer and meditation or pay the consequences of mental disease. I have incorporated a visualization that I am hoping will give me some protection from outside emotions. I almost physically recoil - no, not almost - I physically recoil from people who start to rant or who are negative in nature. I can't even engage them without suffering physically for it. I feel you, DD.

Of course I do

MesaMan

I listen to a fair amount of Int'l Broadcasts. Sources like Swiss Radio Int'l or the good ole BBC develop Stories, rather than always just tossing out CNN-style, short Attention Span Headlines.

One such Story was an Interview of a Long Haul 747 Jumbo Pilot flying at night from London Heathrow to Sydney [or so I recall]. They flew through Volcanic Ash emanating from someplace like Indonesia. At the time, this was accepted practice. Further, Ash was difficult to 'see' on Radar and Satellites of the time.

SOOOOO, Volcanic Ash hitting the leading edges of Jet Engine Turbine Blades operating at incredibly-high temperatures then cools, and solidifies to something like Beer Bottle Glass. Engines started failing sequentially out over the Ocean. This caused Power from Generators to fail. They're losing altitude and running the Cockpit on dim Battery-backup Power. Jumbos don't glide. Engines are restarted 'in the nick of time' after numerous attempts. However, this Beer Bottle Glass-like Material damages Engine internals as it chips off.

They make it to near Sydney and can't see out the Windshield. It's coated with this 'stuff' [substitute another word, there]. Communication with the Airport Tower is limited, due to diminishing Battery power. And, this is the truncated version of the Story.

Meanwhile, in his impeccable English Accent, this Senior Pilot is recounting the Story like some Fellow having a giggle and a last Cigarette before the Guillotine lops off his Head. Unbelievable! This is Guano you can't train for precisely because it was an unforeseen set of potentially-fatal circumstances. Procedures were changed, and Pilots now fly well around Volcanic eruptions.

As I learned in the Int'l Biz World, this was Emotional Intelligence personified. It's not so much IQ, but applied IQ. Can you grasp the situation, despite your own Background? Can you suss out the Customer impartially? Their needs and wants? Can you communicate all this back to Corporate or - if it's a Marital situation - to your Spouse or Family. Without losing it? Can you create new Outcomes; not by the Book? On and on...

To get better at these Skills is to reduce the need to escape into Genetics-based Addiction, IMO. This is where I target my effort these days, and it's very rewarding. It's the Polar Opposite of promulgating Drama; currently a Cultural obsession.

LBrain

MM - I think this was a bit from where I was heading regarding "EQ" in day to day interactions. Non-crisis situations. Just being able to sort out feelings and recognize how they may influence decisions made under ordinary circumstances. Or in the case of getting sober, recognizing how reactions to past events or situations were cause to run off to find the bottle rather than asses the moment in a reasonable manner. Not the knee-jerk reaction to a stimulus but rather having a calm and cool demeanor, or at least the ability to not let emotions negatively affect decision making. It's tough and has to be a learned skill I think for some.

The 'scroo-u' I'm gonna drink just because you are mad I am drinking kind of mentality comes to mind also.

Your example brings to mind the folks at Fukushima following the 'flood'. Let's build our diesels and fuel tanks below the postulated worst case tidal wave. The tidal walls were too low - they knew it but never got around to re-designing them following newer data. But even if the design basis tidal wave were to breach, the tanks were still at "ground level". In the worst of worst possible circumstances- not knowing if your entire family was dead or missing among other bizarre circumstances - cool heads realized the only way to get DC back to put water back in the can was to collect all the car batteries they could from the devastation in the parking lot. And that they did. Dedication - untold sacrifice. They collected enough car batteries and wired them to get a few DC pumps running to cover the core. THAT is thinking outside the box. TMI should have never happened either. That's for another time.

MesaMan

LBrain ~

After reading and absorbing your Post above, I'll borrow a Pal's term and say 'I think we're in violent agreement!'

My 'outta left Field' intent was to put up a Story which I feel illustrates the 'end point', laudable extreme of the Bell Curve of Emotional Intelligence. Not that any of us are likely to face the emergency of safely bringing in a 747 Long Haul Jumbo, but to engage Folks here on the topic of - indeed - day-to-day situations that first appear unfathomable. These can be successfully attending a Wedding Reception to competently working one's own side of the Street while with an Active Alk.

As with some Posters above, I've cut back on News consumption, and on wasting my time on 'no hope' discussions. And on negative vibe encounters. In our own little ways, I think our Drinking is due to being 'over-taxed' with Life. At least, mine was. In teaching an Alcohol/Drugs 'Unit' in High School, I noted my Teacher Wife's Lesson said: 'The Alcoholic handles the ordinary setbacks in Life differently'. Yep.

I've cut way back on reading 'Friends & Families' Stories here. The old thought about why many of us drive slowly past Traffic Accidents is the Mammalian Brain thinking 'glad that wasn't me'. The slight benefit in me occasionally reading 'Friends & Families' Stories is to think through, like the 747 Pilot, what my newly-Sober responses would be to the unfathomable situations posted there. And, I mean this in an absolutely non-condescending manner. At 61, I've seen and dealt with plenty, so we're not Life Amateurs in this Household.

With overcoming really daunting challenges comes new confidence, and a lessened propensity to run for the 1.75 L Bottle as my 'go to' Coping Mechanism. In a way, I strive to be that chilled-out 747 Pilot who brings in that 747 [or, copes with new, weird Life situations] gracefully.

I agree with the idea, as posited above, that IQ/EQ is different from Stanford-Binet tested IQ. What I liked about the original EI/EQ premise was that it very possibly is a more meaningful measurement of true IQ. Yah, one can possess generic 'smarts', but what does one do with them smarts day in/day out? I needed to handle my House Renters skillfully in weird situations far more than I needed to know the answer to when two Trains leaving Kansas City intersected while traveling at different speeds.

As we learned in the Stone Age in High School Tennis, you only improve when you play someone better than you. I've tended to hang with very IQ/EQ-smart Folks, including a few here. Them's my kinda Mentors. They show me how to cope better, and more creatively. This is right in line with the Fukushima details you cite; a Story I followed in great detail. Some situation-based Leaders/Mentors there saved the day.

Like the Fukushima Workers, if I kept responding to Life Crises in the same old way, I was a dead Man.

Good Post, Sir!

dwtbd

The Randroid part of my thinking has caused me to dismiss all things emotional as irrelevant, at least in terms of rationality and cognition. I do no think I ever really enjoyed the experience of emotion and being steeped in that philo for so long was a 'helpful' rationalization. It's only recently , in the last few years that I have come to see that my understanding of things non-rational may not easily equate to irrational.
While I believe there is a dichotomy between rationality and emotion , I do not think it is as clear cut in our psychological makeup. Just musing here, interesting topic.
While I believe we are born tabla rasa ( blank slate) in the conceptual sense, we need to apply reason to experience to understand the world around us , we are not born with innate ideas or ready made concepts or understandings that pop into our heads when we encounter a thing. We are born with innate and universal emotions joy, sadness, love ect. and it seems it is certainly hard to control the popping.

mfanch

I have this book, but I think it is the older version. EI is a part of my sobriety PLAN. I have to look at ALL facets of my being during introspection and my emotions are a part of that. I have much work to do in the EQ area but I have come a long way in the 5 years I've been sober. Feelings are chemicals in my body that can be molded and changed. It is all tied into neuroplasticity and the nervous system.

I can see the fruits of my labor in my inner peace, my relationships with others, and with how I perceive the world. Not bad for a raving lunatic addict....

LBrain

thanks for all your responses, I have to 'work' on myself as far as separating emotions from rationalizing or the opposite when required.
I didn't last a month attempting to be a car salesman. I was too honest and compassionate. Quite the opposite of the character played by Wm Macy in Fargo.
Yet, during my recent work I had almost zero patience for people who couldn't perform a task in a logical and efficient manner. It drove me nuts.

Aellyce

Brain, I personally don't think it's necessary, beneficial, or even possible to really separate our rational thoughts from our emotions when we communicate with others especially. Probably it's more the question of finding the appropriate form of expression. I would say perhaps try to keep the task and communication relatively unbiased, polite, and non-judgmental. Of course it's challenging.

I have a similar task myself for the coming month. I'm involved in organizing an educational event about addictions for the general public, teens and adults. The planning phase involves multiple meetings with the committee to discuss what we will do and in the first meeting early this week, I found myself having some unexpectedly strong reactions just to the topic. I did not express anything from it but it wasn't easy to hide at all. I plan to do a lot more of this kind of work so better get used to it!
Usually a sort of meditative-type exercise (mentally, while being on the spot) helps me.