Posts by James Moore

I honestly think intuition is pretty much hitting the nail on the head, that's really what it boils down to...

A few years back, I actually tried reading this stuff, but I just couldn't get into it, it felt so incredibly tedious and draining. But then life happened, and I went through enough experiences where I just couldn't wrap my head around why I was acting the way I was... so I attended this seminar where they talked about the absolute necessity of mastering your own emotions... and that's what finally drove me back to the library.

That book was a total game changer for me! It basically explains how emotions are this massive, overwhelming force backed by our entire physiology that can completely hijack your rational thought. They stem from the ancient, evolutionary parts of the brain, while the rational center is part of the newer cortex that developed later on. For thousands of years, the brain evolved so that emotions were the primary driver for survival—like if you're suddenly staring down a mountain lion, your body gets flooded with hormones that kick you into this intense "fight or flight" state before your rational mind even has a chance to process whether you're about to be eaten or if you can take it down. Back in the day, the guy who sat there overthinking his options didn't live long enough to regret it...

Emotions can just totally drown you, and your logic doesn't have much of a say in the matter. But it's not entirely hopeless: you actually can SEND SIGNALS to that primal brain. You can send warnings or messages like, "Hey, take it easy, calm down, let's think this through..." But the problem is the old brain can't "think," it just reacts instantly. That’s why it’s so vital to visualize potential situations ahead of time, so your modern brain has time to map out a strategy.

And man, there is so much more to it—for instance, emotions and motivation actually share the exact same root —they act as motors, providing the drive to move, so at its core, an emotion is just an impulse calling you to action. IQ matters, sure, but if you want to actually succeed in life, you need EQ, and the best part is that it's something you can actually develop...

This book definitely gave me the answers to everything I was wondering...

wiredbison92 said:I honestly don't quite get why some potentially great discussions have to be completely derailed by people acting all high and mighty and getting into these petty arguments,

it’s funny how people usually act as a mirror for us,
where we end up venting about our own flaws
while we just sit back and admire their virtues,

so I suppose you might as well just vent at yourselves and admire your own greatness instead,

and regarding EI, I’ve never really been a huge fan of the term itself, because I tend to think that how we treat others and how we learn to recognize what someone else is feeling is more of a skill you pick up through life experience,
whereas intelligence feels like something more innate, you know, like a raw potential we're born with that we just have to work on developing over time...

Daniel Goleman argues that IQ pretty much peaks by age ten, while your EQ can actually keep growing well into adulthood

I’ve already gone through 'Working with Emotional Intelligence' by Daniel Goleman
and right now I’m working my way through his main 'Emotional Intelligence' book

I heard there’s actually a third one in this trilogy about EQ, but I can't seem to track it down anywhere—does anyone happen to know the title?

Look, I’m no psychologist, so I don't really know how the academic experts view Goleman's work, but personally, I think he's great because he made the concepts accessible without stripping away the intellectual depth. I truly believe we wouldn't deal with nearly as much frustration when a plumber turns out to be sharper than a PhD holder, if only we understood that it all comes down to EQ.