What is emotional intelligence?

Like I wrote already in my last posts I am very interested in the topic: “Emotional intelligence”  and read once in a while some quotes about it. I still have to finish reading my e-book about this. I love reading about personality. Because you get to know yourself better and also other people.

I experiences that many people don’t know themselves very good. Maybe they avoid the “personality” topic cause they are afraid of something. Since I started studying to be a teacher I loved the lecture in psychology. And after 3,5 years studying I thought of studying: councelling/coaching.

But at this time I started my 1,5 years training at school and during this time there is NO way to study anything else, cause everybody is glad when surving this tough training – working the day at school, then study in the afternoon at the seminar and in the evening and night preparing for school in the morning. And this goes on and on for 1,5 years. After this nothing can shock you anymore in any job =)

Well, anyways years and years after my studies I finally did a course in coaching and I love to coach people and bringing out the best in them. And there are soooo many interesting books about it.

Maybe you have read a book about emotional intelligence and could recommend it here?

Today I just read this quote and thought: how true!

“Emotional Intelligence is a way of recognizing, understanding, and choosing how we think, feel, and act. It shapes our interactions with others and our understanding of ourselves. It defines how and what we learn; it allows us to set priorities; it determines the majority of our daily actions. Research suggests it is responsible for as much as 80% of the “success” in our lives.” -Freedman et al.-

–From Handle With Care: Emotional Intelligence Activity Book

After my studies and training I worked in a school and while working there I attended a 1 week seminar called: Finding your calling. I wanted to know so badly: what did God design me for? I really wanted to live out his calling.

There I did personality tests and I thought intensive about my family background, the strenghts and weaknesses of myself and in which surrounding I can work best.

Since then I was constantly thinking about myself and why I sometimes react the way I do or why I feel uncomfortable in certain situations or with certain people. I tried to be more alert of my weaknesses and tried to work on my strengths.

I was lucky to have a sister who was interested in the same topic and we spoke many many hours about this. It was also interesting to discover what jobs my grandparents had and which strengths they had. You can see clearly what goes on the the family – how we are!

When I look at this quote I think of people who didn’t have that much “success” in life. And I realize that emotional intelligence plays a bit role in it!