HOPE FOR GLORY

What this leaves is that approximately eighty to ninety percent of our careers will be determined by our E.Q. or our Emotional Quotient.  This mysterious characteristic has dramatic impact on our lives and yet very few people have understood the difference.

The emotional quotient affects the ability to learn, perceive and give warning for survival instincts.  This is the part of our brain that makes quick decisions in life or death or even stressful situations.  When we need to make a snap decision (fight-flight) or follow our gut urgings, we are using emotional intelligence.

Think of emotional intelligence as street smarts.  When the pressure is on, we can make a decision.  A salesman needs to prescreen his prospects to find the ones he needs.  An executive needs to know what tasks are most important to accomplish and which are window dressing. 

This intelligence is incredibly important for people to excel in their relationships, careers and personal finances.  Emotions are why people get married; emotions are why they get divorced.  Success doesn’t come because of your background or genius; it comes because of your attitude, your psychology, your E.Q. 

Marshmallow Trial

In a clinical study, they tested young children with marshmallows. 

They set a child in a room with nothing but a marshmallow on a table.  They told the child that when the presenter left, they were going to get 10 more marshmallows.  They said they could eat the one marshmallow in front of them, but they couldn’t have any of the new marshmallows if he did.  If the child could wait on eating for ten minutes (an eternity for a young child), then he could eat all the marshmallows he wanted. 

As soon as the presenter left, some of the children would immediately scarf down the single marshmallow.  “Sucker.”  Others would turn their chairs and not face the marshmallow chanting it’s not there.  At some time they broke down and ate the marshmallow.  Only a few made it the full ten minutes to get the abundant feast. 

Value Judgment and Delayed Gratification

One of the most practical insights into E.Q. is one’s ability to determine values and delay their personal gratification.  Low E.Q. shows someone who will blow their credit card’s limits on the needs of the moments without regard to consequences.  It is a high E.Q. that will work extra hours for no or little pay for the first few years of a job to learn the trade and become successful at it later. 

Now, just as a child who begins life with little development of E.Q. there has to be some discipline or hardships that train them to wait on the momentary desires in lieu of more long term ones.  So it is the parent who tells their boy to wait on buying candy so they may invest in a good video game after savings.  Or the girl who should wait on purchasing hair glitter so she may save the money for a doll house.

The Learning Curve

The beautiful thing about E.Q. is it can be learned.  You can improve your E.Q.  But the learning devices are sometimes difficult to register. 

Let’s say you have to make some intimidating phone calls in the process of your day.  The natural reaction is to delay, get some of the easy stuff taken care of before you get ready and prime yourself for the calls.  Why do we wait?  Why do we hold off some of the important things in our day?  Most likely because we are afraid of the reactions we’ll receive, we are not prepared for questions, or we feel like imposing on others so don’t feel confident.

Too often we are trapped in the spiral, I know I get caught in it all the time.  But trace out what happens.  We put off our big intimidating calls, or our exercise routine, or having a quiet time.  What this does is make us feel the pressure of this big intimidation all day.  We either feel guilty because we didn’t work out or have a quiet time.  We feel more stress during the day because the calls are continually hanging over our heads and we can’t relax. 

The best thing to do is get them done in the order of their priority.  If those calls are of high importance, then get them taken care of as soon as possible.  That way, there is little pressure hanging over you life and you can actually enjoy doing the rest of the work during the day.  Or if exercising is a high priority because of weight loss or muscle fitness, then taking care of that in the morning is going to make your day feel great because you know for sure you are taking care of yourself.  That will make us all happier.

The Loss of EQ in our Society

Former Bill Clinton press secretary, Mike McCurry, described on of the reasons for the former president’s legacy as “stain”ed is, “the ambivalence of the baby boom generation,” which is a generation “that lacks emotional intelligence.”

McCurry said this generation came of age in the 1960s believing that the government could do "extraordinary things."  The result was a country where "we wanted to have much more government than we were willing to pay for."

But today’s franchise and system producing society is creating the next generations with little need for emotional intelligence.  Most first jobs are at a fast food restaurant, a minimum-wage customer service job or light manufacturing.  Each of these brings low responsibility and their positions.  The way businesses are creating cookie-cutter jobs with easy systems in place demands little more from the employee than human automation.  And thus there will be little E.Q. for their employees to gain.

Changing our Emotional Focus

Additionally, there is little E.Q. to be gained in most American’s leisure time.  Computer games, television and movies hardly challenge someone to greater feats of emotional understanding.  And yet there may be some examples. 

My wife and I used to watch Smallville, a TV program about superman as a teen.  We would laugh at all the emotional predicaments the characters would get into and how these teens would be amazingly mature in their actions and behavior.  No teen behaves like this. 

My wife and I, being adults quite a while, don’t always behave with the maturity of these high school freshmen and sophomores.  Of course that is probably more of an indictment about my wife and me than the show, but it is wonderful to watch a show illustrating perfect emotional maturity, if a little surreal. 

So how does this change happen..?

Here is a very critical area we need to look at.  We need to look at who we associate with, whether they are positive or negative to our own personal growth and will encourage us to grow.  We also need to see where our goals are… or better whether we even have goals for our lives.  There will never be success in any endeavor without setting our sights – our goals on where we want to be. 

So the first step is to identify where you want to succeed, what goals you desire to achieve and identify personally why you want to achieve these goals.

The next step is to remain persistent and consistent in working towards that goal.  The outcome of the persistency and consistency towards your accomplishment will forge within you a renewed emotional maturity which will bring you emotional security.

By having this heightened emotional security, our self-image is raised which gives us a greater interaction with others and less fear of rejection.  We realize we are not the bad person we believed ourselves to be, but we are accomplishers with a purpose and goals.  Our interactions with others are going to mirror a much more positive feedback which will reinforce our self-image.  This will again make you more motivated to make your goals come true.

This is just a brief introductory survey on emotional intelligence.  I hope you enjoyed it.  Most motivational speakers speak on this topic without actually using emotional intelligence.  I suggest going to your local library and listening to Zig Ziglar, Earl Nightingale or an Anthony Robbins program to get you started on your journey growing in Emotional Intelligence.

I wish you the greatest blessings in all of your endeavors.