Active EQ: Create Stronger Connections

Article gives ideas on brain curriculum and supports a pedia's insight/creativity/inspiration goals.

Doctors have limited empathy skills, study shows.  They were shown to deliver empathy only 10% of the time when talking with cancer patients. 

In audio taped meetings with patients, researchers identified 384 "empathic opportunities," but found that the physicians responded empathically to only 39 of them. Each encounter elicited an average of less than two empathic responses from the doctor.

Listen, my dad was a doctor, so I know all about doctors and their limited empathy skills.  It doesn't make them bad people, just bad at empathy; bad at creating stronger connections.  (Could it be the reason I was drawn to the study of empathy?)

In any case, for all those left-brain, task-driven doctors (or any other professions), try this strategy.  When you hear someone express emotionally, start your responding sentences with:

-  I imagine......
-  I can sense that.....
-  I realize that .....
-  It sounds like you are feeling .....

So when a patient says, "This is kind of overwhelming," a doctor could start out with, "I imagine.....".  And once that phrase starts, you'd be surprised how quickly the brain kicks in to finish the sentence with congruity.  A doctor (of friend, or spouse, or....) could say:

-  "I imagine it can be overwhelming to hear grave news and thoughts of future and family flood your mind." 
-  "I realize you must be feeling overwhelmed at the tragic news and the aggressive treatment plan. It's certainly overwhelming to have to plan for something like this."

As the study states, "The most important job of a physician is also the most important job for a minister or for a lawyer or anyone else: To try and help people cope with the uncertainties of life."

Here's the article:

"Emotional intelligence is one, the capacity to think intelligently about our emotions and, two, to have our emotions help us learn how to think more intelligently."

     ---  Sigal Barsade, a professor of management at Wharton

Lately I have been able to really polish my facilitation skills and coach others to do so too (Including my husband who had an important meeting to run -- we co-created such a fabulous and impactful opening). 

It's great to get back to basics on how to engage others so they can learn.  (It feels like I'm creating stronger connections.)

Here's a quick read about the skills required to facilitate discussion ("Do you make these 10 mistakes in a conversation?").

Somewhere else in this blog I mention how looking up can cause your mood to lift.  Here research indicates that looking from left to right (the shifty look) can help you improve your memory.  If you forgot where you placed your wallet do the shifty look for 30 seconds.

Ok, so Mr. Carnegie is a little old fashioned (first published in 1936), and I was certainly not impressed with their hiring process for corporate contract trainers (I'll fill you in if you want to know), but nonetheless, Dale's relationship management basics are classic.

One who can intuit others' emotions is called an empath.  The anti-empath?

A bully.  (Read about "The Tactics of a Workplace Serial Boss")

The subject of bullying in the workplace is coming up frequently in HR e-zines, trade journals, etc.  My interest also lies in neighborhood bullies.  My husband and I are being bullied by a sociopathic business owner in town.  It's costing us a great deal, emotionally and financially.

What stands out in this article is that bullies don't have empathy.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

Empathy - Psychology Wiki - a Wikia wiki

Wikia's entry on empathy. Good resource.

From the TED Conference in 2007, Daniel Goleman talks about how emotional empathy is about noticing first.  This concept reminds me of the Buddhist axiom of "calm, then insight." 

Try this now:  Web Accelerator by Google.  Even if you have a new computer, it makes the web faster.  How do they do that?!  Smiling.  Happy.

Article does a nice job describing what self awareness is (being conscious of what you're good at while acknowledging what you still have yet to learn. This includes admitting when you don't have the answer and owning up to mistakes) and isn't (the belief that we must appear as though we know everything all the time or else people will question our abilities, diminishing our effectiveness as leaders)

"The quality of feeling and understanding another person's situation in the present moment -- their perspectives,  emotions, actions (reactions) -- and communicating this to the person."

An article from my alma mater's quarterly magazine entitled: The Hardest Thing You'll Ever Do: A philosopher tackles the ethical conundrum of forgiveness. It starts:

During the period of apartheid in South Africa, Eugene de Kock, the head of a notorious death squad, earned the nickname "Prime Evil." But de Kock, now serving a life sentence, decided to tell the truth about the atrocities he had committed and to ask for forgiveness from women he had widowed.

Incredibly, the women chose to forgive him.

Click for more. Bostonia - Winter 2007-2008

BU Alumni Web - Bostonia - Winter 2007-2008

My alma mater's take on why the Muslim world is in the eye of virtually every storm. It strikes me that it is emotionally based. The article starts:

"Husain Haqqani recalls a Newsweek cover from October 2001: a Pakistani child brandishing a gun and the headline "Why They Hate Us." The photo is emblematic of a question that has haunted Haqqani, director of BU's Center for International Relations and a College of Arts and Sciences associate professor of international relations. "I have always wondered why the Muslim world is in the eye of virtually every storm, in my lifetime at least," he says. "The Middle East is a cauldron. The India-Pakistan conflict has a Muslim dimension. In Russia, there's Chechnya, another Muslim dimension." Why is the Muslim world plagued by instability, undemocratic governments, and sectarian violence?

Haqqani has set out to find answers."

Do them now.

37 Stress Management Tips: More Tips for Easing Stress | Health | Reader's Digest

Welcome folks.

Thanks for the invite to present at your monthly meeting, and thanks for the hospitality and participation.

As promised, here is my entire presentation, with over two dozen links that will aid you in further study.

If you have any questions or comments, please be sure to post them (click on "Leave a comment" below). Looking forward to hearing from you.

Slides Only:
- Part One
- PartTwo
- Part Three

"All learning has an emotional base."
-Plato

How's that for a title?

But I didn't write it -- it's the title of a true story, written in sonnet(ish) form, by someone close to me who suffered a doomed relationship with a brother.

I assert that this is emotionally intelligent expressing at its truest form.

ALL CATS MUST DIE

I saw my brother take a cat and shoot it with a gun.
I saw my brother take a cat and slice it with a knife.
I saw my brother take a cat and stomp it with his shoe.
I saw my brother take a cat and strike it with a car.
I saw my brother sic his dog and gobble up a cat.

"All cats must die," he said out loud.
I don't see my brother any more.

"Everything becomes a little different as soon as it is spoken out loud."
–
Hermann Hesse

(or written out loud)

Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (Revised, Adult)

Identifying emotions is a critical skill in EQ. In this test, created by EQ expert Simon Baron-Cohen, you read 36 faces and identify emotions.

I scored 30 out of 36. My husband 29 out of 36.

What's your score?

Are you in the middle of conflict? In CCL's (Center for Creative Leadership) July newsletter, you will find a quick yet comprehensive article on calming conflict.

What I took out of it was their suggestion on the positions/destructive responses to avoid, which I will translate as questions to ask yourself (for self-awareness, emotional management and relationship building). You could also ask this of another in case they are in the middle of conflict. Those questions are:

* Am I/Are you taking the position to win at all costs?
* Am I/Are you displaying anger?
* Am I/Are you demeaning others?
* Am I/Are you retaliating?
* Am I/Are avoiding?
* Am I/Are you yielding?
* Am I/Are you hiding emotions?
* Am I/Are you self criticizing?

Be sure to click on "return to issue" for even more articles on conflict management.

"You think you can, or you think you can't - either way, you're right."

Henry Ford

Thanks for signing up for my Emotional Intelligence course. And thanks mostly for your great questions and intelligent participation.

For the next couple of weeks, I have opened up this blog for comments. (Which simply means you don't have to sign in to leave a comment -- something I do to prevent spam comments.)

To get in touch with me, please leave a comment by clicking on "leave a comment" below and fililng in the fields that displays. (I will never publish your email on this blog; you enter it so I can email you back.) You can also decipher my email (not difficult) which is explained when you click on "email me" in the above menu bar.

Thanks again and hope to connect soon.

Martha

My husband and I are dealing with a local business owner who has been intimidating and bullying us by questioning and legally threatening the validity of a contract over 16 years old. This business owner uses his clout to lie to the local police department claiming we are trespassing on his property and sends us scores of letters by mail bullying us and making life horrible.

We refer to him as a "psychopath" or "sociopath" (synonyms, in fact).

And we may be very correct in our assessment. Turns out one percent (thank heaven it's not more) of the population are "subclinical psycopaths". (The scary question is "how many "clinical" psychopaths?!")

"They're your neighbor, your boss, and your blind date. Because they have no conscience, they're natural predators."

The scariest part of all is that there is no "cure", no functioning treatment program for psychopathy.

Tragically, my and husband and I have unintentionally made it worse because we would not let ourselves be threatened, so we engaged. We sent letters back and, boy, did we make him livid. A livid sociopath is not a pretty sight and can be extremely frightening, in fact. We were not prepared.

I wish we had known that psychopaths have three motivations: thrill-seeking, the pathological desire to win, and the inclination to hurt people. "They'll jump on any opportunity that allows them to do those things," he says. "If something better comes along, they'll drop you and move on."

He's got upwards of 11 litigations and a $65,000 contempt of court against him. He does not rest. Even when the courts call him on it, he breaks all the rules. He knows no boundaries.

Scary, scary stuff. A business owner, a father, a husband, and a psychopath. Just our luck that one out of 3,000 psycopaths in the population, he'd be in our community.

Click to read more about psychopaths and the test used to "diagnose" called the Hare Psychopathy Checklist.

Daniel Goleman makes a presentation at the TED Conference on emotional intelligence. The TEDBlog recaps it by saying:

"Daniel Goleman made a wonderful connection between emotional intelligence and the empathy which will be required -- by all of us -- to make more informed, broader-scope consumption and action decisions in the future. "

Your best read is Ethan Zuckerman's synopsis of Goleman's presentation.

Bruno's review is a little more lean. Read it here (then control f for Daniel Goleman).

Direct from the TED Conference, blogger Bruno Giussanitells us about Jonathan Harris, a 28 year-old Internet artist and designer who has created software that tries to capture "emotional footprints" happening as we speak.

What you see is the ultimate feeling words list that is happening now.

I know I'm failing miserably attempting to describe what that actually means, so go take a peek here right now (then click on Open We Feel Fine)

And that's nothing compared to his other site, Lovelines. This one displays feelings of love (or hate) as they happen now. Wow.

Click here to read Ethan Zuckerman's post on Harris' presentation. He doesn't fail miserably.

From the Ted Conference:

John Maeda is a graphic designer and visual artist, and computer scientist at MIT's MediaLab, and author of the book "The Laws of Simplicity". Maeda says "Simplicity is about living a life with more enjoyment and less pain". Here are the ten laws of simplicity:

1. Reduce: The simplest way to achieve simplicity is through thoughtful reduction
2. Organize: Organization makes a system of many appear fewer
3. Time: Savings in time feel like simplicity
4. Learn: Knowledge makes everything simpler
5. Differences: Simplicity and complexity need each other
6. Context: What lies in the periphery of simplicity is definitely not peripheral
7. Emotions: More emotions are better than less.
8. Trust: In simplicity we trust
9. Failure: Some things can never be made simple.
10. The one: simplicity is about subtracting the obvious, and adding the meaningful

Click here for Maeda's blog and then click on Laws for his own words on each one.

Psychology Today: Swallow Your Fear

"Experts have found that taking physical risks is good for you: successfully navigating risky situations teaches you about yourself, increases your self-confidence, and helps you better manage life's inevitable uncertainties."

Couldn't agree more. If I use myself as a case study, consider: learning to sail, learning to scuba, climbing Machu Picchu, riding horseback through the Sacred Valley to 14,000 feet.

Hardwired for Happiness

Of all the emotions, happiness is the one scientists least understand.

In this article, find out the recent developments in the neuroscience of happiness. What stood out for me was:

"Research in psychology has shown repeatedly that the ability to regulate one’s emotions is essential for a happy life. While we may strive to be rational and in control, emotions are an indissoluble and essential part of our psyche. The great personal search, then, is how to defeat our inner enemies, to achieve control over our negative emotions. Although many psychologists and neuroscientists decry as unsupported sensationalism what has been known as the “power of positive thinking,” in fact several serious studies, using functional brain imaging techniques to observe the brain during sadness and happiness, have shown that distinct parts of the prefrontal cortex are involved in the volitional suppression of negative feelings."

So: CHOOSE HAPPINESS, MISERY IS OPTIONAL.

Here are more compelling excerpts:

A new study by Leadership IQ shows that poor interpersonal skills -- which are often overlooked during the interview process -- will cause new hires to fail.

The study found that 26% of new hires fail because they can’t accept feedback, 23% because they’re unable to understand and manage emotions, 17% because they lack the necessary motivation to excel, 15% because they have the wrong temperament for the job, and only 11% because they lack the necessary technical skills.

Read the press release of the study here.

"The companies that are going to prevail realize it's the quality of the emotional experience that sets them apart."
Danny Meyer

In an interview with Fast Company magazine, mega-restaurateur Danny Meyer, who has 4 of the top 20 restaurants in Zagat's New York, shares how he hires people in the hospitality business.

FC: Given the reps of Union Square Cafe and Gramercy Tavern, you must get resumes from every great chef and waiter in the city. How do you tell the fois gras from the chopped liver?
Meyer: The most important thing we do is teach our managers how to hire for a certain emotional skill set that yields what we call a hospitalitarian. We want people who have the technical skills we need -- how to clear a table beautifully, how to distinguish between wines, how to chop a perfect brunoise. That's 49% of the equation. The other 51% is emotional skills. You can't teach those skills, but you can teach how to spot them.

FC: What emotional qualities are you looking for?

In his book, Goleman explains social intelligence means being smart in relationships by being empathetic, or being able to sense what others are feeling and their intentions.

Read an exceprt here.

Emotional intelligence and leadership are intertwined. The disconnect is that so many people don't think they are leaders. Most people in business would define a leader as the CEO, or manager with budget and staff authority.

The truth is each and every one of us is a leader -- of ourselves and of the interactions we contribute to.

This article talks about how leaders must manage their ego and emotions if they want to be effective.

Excerpt:

"We influence others all the time emotionally. A leader who knows that can be tremendously effective in fixing a bad situation or reinvigorating members of his organization, captivating people, or calming them down. People resonate to people who connect to them emotionally. It is a learned ability."

"Business leaders who don't know themselves as well as they should and who cannot get a grip on their ego and emotions...fail."

Leading from Within Means Learning to Manage Your Ego and Emotions

CEO Hatim Tyabji is pointing to a poster on his office wall. The poster consists of twelve blocks, each with a photo of an Irish setter. The first 11 blocks show the dog standing, thoroughly oblivious to a command to "sit." Finally, in block twelve, the Irish setter sits. "Good dog," reads the poster.

"To me, that is the essence of leadership," Tyabji declares. "Human beings are worse than the Irish setter. Leadership is an ongoing, nonstop, continuous process. I can't get disillusioned when I say 'sit' and nobody sits. So I just keep repeating the message."

This book review came to me via email (gotta love it when the internet comes to you), and it looks like a good read.

The author of the book observes that there are plenty of management books out there but none tell you how to go about dealing with the emotional minefield work can be.

The author says "it's appropriate to go to the boss with questions regarding accounts receivable or sales firgures.....but when you feel nauseous after a staff meeting or a certain account gives you a migraine, where do you turn?"

Sovereign Bancorp's CEO, Jay S. Sidhu, gives commencement address and urges students to develop their emotional intelligence skills each day:

Today I came across a new word -- a Chinese word at that -- twice within a couple of hours. What serendipity!

When the universe talks to me in this way, I listen. (Could it be I have guanxi with the universe?)

Translated literally, guanxi (pronounced gwan-she) means "relationship building"; in practice, it means carefully cultivated clout, a culturally calibrated measure of respect, influence, and honor. It is a personal as well as political form of capital.

Hmmm. Isn't that EQ?

This makes me wonder how EQ fits into global business, specifically with China. China is the next big market -- China has more teenangers than America has adults!

So, what can we learn about guanxi and how can that help us understand how to do business nationally and internationally?

In his book, Genius at Work, author Dick Richard's premise is that we all have genius, no matter how much we might fight the notion, no matter how much we don't recognize our own genius. (What is genius?)

Recognizing -- that is identifying and putting a name on -- our unique genius is a difficult task, he asserts.

"Empathy requires the ability to understand how others perceive situations. This perception includes knowing how others feel about a particular set of events or circumstances. Empathy requires knowing the perspective of others and being very able to see things from the value and belief system of the other person. It is the ability to fully immerse oneself in another's viewpoint, yet be able to remain wholly apart. The understanding associated with empathy is both cognitive and emotional. It takes into consideration the reasons and logic behind another's feelings or point of view, while also alowing the empathic party to feel the spirit of a person or thing."

Adele B. Lynn

I like this definition because it talks about how others perceive situations. Perception is reality. So by trying to see how another perceives a situation, you enter their reality. It doesn't mean you have to agree with it. It doesn't even mean you have to feel it or even understand it.

Being empathic allows you to gather the data that supports their reality. The more you know, the better able you are to align and influence.

Take a suicide bomber's perspective.

The short of it is this:

We spend our working days (we used to call them "careers") uninspired and unproductive because of unsupportive micro-managers, demanding clients, unreasonable delays and impossible requests.

Or as Richard Boyatzis says in his book Resonant Leadership:

....who's the fairest of them all?

Could it be that real beauty lies in the most empathic and compassionate ones?

So says Matthieu Ricard, former genetic researcher, now Buddhist monk and author of Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill.

"You see it on someone's face when she feels in harmony with our deepest nature as human beings, which is basicall peaceful and loving."

Something radiates from within. What is it?

"You're responding to empathy, compassion, an openness to others."

But how does that harmony manifest itself physically? Through subtle expressions, sas Ricard, which we pick up both consciously and unconsciously. Hundreds of almost impreceptible muscular movements constantly communicate our feelings. Think of how a classically beautiful face changes when it's transformed by contempt; less beautiful, right? Maybe even ugly?

Unconditional love transforms a face, too, says Ricard. We identify with that look. It brings up in us a yearning to be loved and to be loving.

Author, columnist for O Magazine and coach Martha Beck hits the nail right on the head in this article about how to cultivate empathy.

She walks us through an empathy workthat that consists of:

Apparently it can. In fact, a diet rich in omega-3's.

Read about a study that showed a diet of salmon and spinach fed to prisoners led to a decrease in violence. (From the NYT Magazine, April 16th issue.)

I rush to imagine a future where a judge, fed up with a repeat offender, imposes anger management courses and a diet rich in omega-3's.

In April's issue of O, Dr. Phil shares a four-step program for teaching your child empathy as he answers a reader's question:

Q: I have a 10-year-old daughter who steals things from friends. My husband and I just caught her for the fourth time in two years. She makes up ridiculous stories about how the toys got into her hands. How do we deal with this?

I realize I haven't written about technology for quite some time, so here's a great review of blogs and websites that are the best. These SEOmoz's Web 2.0 Awards were handed out March 28, 2006, so it's real current.

It's a fun read....you'll discover websites you never knew existed. Like, did you know there is free websites out there that will let you create maps of your choice? Did you know there was free web-based word processing programs that allow you to file documents onto your desktop?

If I had known that I would not have forked over copious amounts of money for Microsoft Word. Doesn't Bill Gates have enought money?!

But, boy do I love technology. That's the emotional part of it.....when designed correctly, blogs and websites can create an entirely new and useful experience that expands the mind.

I just discovered a newspaper column that covers The Apprentice weekly as a "leadership" course.

I just love that! Why didn't I think of that!?

Here are the installments which appear in a Seattle newspaper called Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Note: You may have to register as a free user to get full access to articles.

Episode #1

Episode #2

Episode #3

Episode #4

Episode #5

Episode #6

Episode #7

Episode #8

Episode #9

Episode #10

Episode #11

Episode #12

Episode #13

Finale

...that helps us navigate our social surroundings. More than just caring, empathy is a complex neurological mechanism that holds society together.

So says the Infinite Mind as they discuss empathy, it's history, it's place in science, how it works in the brain and more. You'll learn about what goes on in our brains when we tune into each other’s emotions, and what it means if we can’t.

Listen to this fantastic hour-long show to understand more about empathy. Originally aired November 2003, but re-aired recently on March 8, 2006.

Heck, just the show's abstract is an interesting read and gives a great "who's who" and "what's what" in the world of empathy.

Find out here.

From Carl Rogers' book "A Way of Being"

"An empathic way of being with another person has several facets. It means entering the private perceptual world of the other and becoming thoroughly at home in it. It involves being sensitive, moment to moment, to the changing felt meanings which flow in this other person, to the fear or rage or tenderness or confusion or whatever he or she is experiencing. It means temporarily living in the other's life, moving about in it delicately without making judgments; it means sensing meanings of which he or she is scarcely aware, but not trying to uncover totally unconscious feelings, since this would be too threatening. It includes communicating your sensings of the persons world as you look with fresh and unfrightened eyes at elements of which he or she is fearful. It means frequently checking with the person as to the accuracy of your sensings, and being guided by the responses you receive. You are a confident companion to the person in his or her inner world. By pointing to the possible meanings in the flow of another person's experiencing, you help the other to focus on this useful type of referent, to experience the meanings more fully, and to move forward in the experiencing."

To be with another in this way means that for the time being, you lay aside your own views and values in order to enter another's world without prejudice. in some sens it means that you lay aside your self; this can only be done by persons who are secure enough in themselves that they know they will not get lost in what may turn out to be the strange or bizarre world of the other, and that they can comfortably return to their own world when they wish."

Here are some free online EQ tests. C'mon, self assessment can be fun!

Psychology Today

Blogthings

Queendom

Leadership

Tim Sanders' Likeability Factor

OK, this one's a little extreme, but, hey, you never know.

"What you do speaks so loud I can't hear what you're saying."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emotional Intelligence is still quite a new science and therefore has many different definitions. So, here you will find various definitions that I have come across. Also, why improve your EQ? So you can:

• promote optimism
• build loyalty
• celebrate success
• resolve conflicts
• plan well but recognize, analyze and deal with failures
• “reach out" to everyone around you
• assess and respond to other people's signals
• elicit fresh ideas from employees
• effectively help employees transform negative feelings into opportunities for improvement
• push yourself to higher levels of excellence
• build rapport and relationships (be likeable!)
• Be able to build effective teams
• Lead people through change
• Read social signs
• Influence individuals and groups in the required direction

List of Definitions

"Quite simply, emotional intelligence is the intelligent use of emotions!" -- Hendrie Weisinger

According to the authors of the MSCEIT (Mayer Salovey Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test):

- EI begins with the idea that we want to identify the existing emotions in the relevant people or person, including self and others, as appropriate.

- The next step is we want to match emotion with task and this is the use of emotion.

- The third step is to understand the causes of existing emotions and what it may take to change, if necessary, or to keep the existing emotions if that is what we choose to do.

- And finally to manage emotions by following through with what we have learned by attending to the first three steps.

"Emotional intelligence is about mastering ourselves so our thinking brain can stay in charge when stress overwhelms us." Brenda Smith

A website called Edge asked its community, made up of the most interesting minds in the world, the following question:

What is your dangerous idea?

An idea you think about (not necessarily one you originated) that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true?

One contributor sites Emotional Intelligence.

Read about his dangerous idea here (scroll down to, or control f for, John Gottman). Other contributors include phsychologists Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi and Howard Gardner, neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran, mathematician Keith Devlin, and many others.

Very provocative stuff...you are bound to get lost in this intellectual sandbox for a delicious chunk of time.

Notice Edge's credo:

To arrive at the Edge of the world's knowledge, seek out the most complex and sophisticated minds, put them in a room together and have them ask each other the questions they are asking themselves.

Sioux saying,

"If you listen for the whispers you won't have to hear the screams."

...that will make the biggest difference.

Then conduct the following exercise, as described by Marshall Goldsmith in the October 2005 issue of "Workforce Performance Solutions."

"Without understanding, no knowledge; without knowledge, no understanding."

(I think I detect a virtuous cycle.)

Kay Redfield Jamison, a Johns Hopkins professor of psychiatry, is a manic depressive with first-hand experience on the highs and lows.

In this interview with Elle Magazine she talks about the positive mental qualities of exuberance, happiness and joy and her book, An Unquiet Mind.

Back in June I started a collaborative relationship with a women who runs her own sales training firm. I was hoping to create a partnership wherein she would help me market and sell my emotional intelligence course and I would add value to her firm by adding to her current course offerings. I was hopeful and enthused.

The relationship ended recently, and not on the best terms.

What derailed us was that I gave her some feedback on her tone which I perceived to be as abrasive and demanding; bossy, rather than collaborative.

Now, of course I could say that what derailed us was that she didn't accept/receive feedback well, but I will take responsibility for what and how I communicated.

"My great religion is a belief in the blood, the flesh, as being wiser than the intellect.
We can go wrong using our minds. But what our blood feels and believes and says is always true."
- D H Lawrence

Here's a 33-page ebook called "Understanding the Power of Feelings." You get your own copy for free when you register on their site as a user (registration is free, and they don't sell your email).

I love the way they tell you a story about how the brain works and how the heart gets involved too. It's got some great visuals, "fun facts" and even exercises if you are so inclined.

IHM is mostly dedicated to schools, educators and kids K-12. But there's still a lot of applicable stuff for addults. I especially like their blog.

EQ has hit the mainstream as far as I'm concerned when I see the following magazine that launched in the UK this month. It's called Psychologies and here's their "About Us" blurb:

Welcome to Psychologies, the first women´s magazine that is about what we are really like, not just what we look like. If you are interested in the ways we think, behave, communicate and connect, then this is for you. Whether you want to develop your own potential, or become a better parent, partner or friend, we will bring you the ideas, insights and inspiration to help you do it. We all have more choices and more demands on our time than ever before. In a fast-changing world, the greatest skill we can have is to understand ourselves, and the people around us. With support from experts, who are leaders in the fields of behaviour, personality, emotions and relationships, we will present practical strategies and mind shifting insights to help you develop that understanding, and to live a richer life. I hope that you will find Psychologies.co.uk relevant to your life, thought-provoking and above all, useful.

Oprah, move over. Explore the magazine at their website.

And, also in the UK, there's a magazine called Easy Living that has -- in addition to the standard Fashion, Beauty, and Health sections -- a column on Emotional Intelligence.

It reads like an etiquette column, but with a focus on relationships, tough decisions, and communicating issues.

(Note to self: Explore the connection here to this and to my Miss Conduct/Missy Q opportunity. Hmmmm.)

It can be said that EQ is about becoming more emotion-sensitive.

Well, here's a firm that is ahead of the game and has brought emotional intelligence into artificial intelligence. NICE Systems of Isreal and NJ sells systems for call monitoring.

They're on to something. Their software tracks anger cues (like tone, pitch and number of interruptions) from incoming callers and receiving agents alike. Calls that match the algorithm are brought to a manager's attention, rather than fall through the cracks.

Next? Just imagine:

Emotion-sensitive software may be just a first step to broader monitoring. NICE's Veinstein says the same algorithms can be used to detect fraud. "You're calling your insurance company about a claim—say, that your car's been stolen, but it really hasn't been," he says. "A software agent could identify, in real time, an emotion that correlates with fraud."

Yikes. And after that? I can just imagine a future where individuals carry their own emotion sensitive monitoring devices. Just like disk drive space went from refrigerator-size units to thumb drives, perhaps emotion detection devices will ultimately be carried -- or implanted -- by you and me.

So, when you ask your kids where they've been, your husband why the business meeting lasted so long, or an applicant his education background, you'll be in the know.

Before you know it there'll be courses and chemicals that you can take that will inhibit emotions, so that we all will become a species superior at hiding emotions, fooling and yet confusing everyone. We'll all be like zombies or actors in a freak show.

Sounds like a bad science fiction plot; forgive my digression. Although I may not be far off: Fortune reports that NICE is used by the LAPD.

Read more about NICE systems.

Self-awareness is a major component of emotional intelligence.

Rather than poo-poo the concept, it's time for more to believe that there's something valid about being "in tune" with your own emotions.

In the article below, Lauren Slater (author of Openning Skinner's Box) tell us why it's OK to think self-help is helpful.

Also, looking for some good self-help? I couldn't find Koocher's list of top self-help books that the article referred to, but I did find the folowing:

About.com's list of the top self-help classics of all time.

Uniersity of Wisconsin's recommendation list.

To me this is both visually beautiful and cognitivly intriguing.

I heart the brain.

Goldsmith writes:

"...listening requires the discipline to concentrate. So I've developed a simple exercise to test my clients' listening skills. Close your eyes. Count slowly to 50 with one simple goal: You can't let another thought intrude into your mind. You must concentrate on maintaining the count.

Sounds simple, but incredibly, more than half of my clients can't do it. Somewhere around 20 or 30, nagging thoughts invade their brain. They think about a problem at work, or their kids, or how much they ate for dinner the night before. This may sound like a concentration test, but it's really a listening exercise. After all, if you can't listen to yourself (someone you presumably like) as you count to 50, how will you ever be able to listen to another person?"

Read more here.

Nova had an excellent piece on how neuroscientists have located empathy in the brain and what that means to us as humans and how we relate to one another. I've included the transcript from that show in this post.

It's about a 15-minute read, but if you are looking for the science behind empathy, or just want to understand empathy, this is the read.

If you'd rather watch the segment (I highly recommend it since some examples are purely visual), click here.

Met a lovely woman who reminded me of me.

She was professional, smart, elegant, articulate, motivated, full of great ideas, eloquent, fasionable, shall I go on?

But the me I recognized in her was the part that can be forceful, confident bordering on cockiness, in-your-face, demanding, and has high expectations of others. She was an open, vulnerable, take-control kind-of-gal, and I knew exactly what she meant when she said she was truly puzzled on why she turns people off.

I couldn't help see me! So I asked her, "Are you a Scorpio?"

You know what she said?

National Geographic's March 2005 issue has a full feature on the brain called "Beyond the Brain."

In it they talk about:
- brain surgery while patient remains awake
- how different regions of the brain control different functions (front left, language; back of brain, vision, etc.)
- brain development starting from inside the womb (did you know that at the moment of our birth we possess more brain cells than we ever will again?)
- how the brain, at birth, is able to hear every sound of every langauge on Earth, but only the syllables of our native language fill our ears, then our brain becomes more sensitive to just those sounds, while losing their responsiveness to other langauges
- In the old days, people said the brain is like a computer, but it's very distributed, closer to the Internet. (Most activity occurs in both hemisphere's of the brain.)

While National Geographic doesn't offer the entire article on-line (even for subscribers; what gives!?), they do include some other fun and useful links.

My favorite is Paul Eckman's survey that is asking for volunteers to take an online test to see how good you are at identifying emotions. It takes about 10 minutes.

Using the link above, click on "Do Your Part for Science" over there on the right hand side of the page. Have fun! (You have until the end of 2005 to participate.)

Last weekend my husband played in another two-day golf tournament.

That meant I was a golf widow for the weekend again -- not my favorite thing to do. I'd much rather spend the weekend playing tennis and going to the beach.

If the golf industry only knew they could make golf widows feel better, would they?

What I mean is, rather than give each player a new golf bag or pro shop dollars as the door prize for attending the event, how about giving something that would please the golf widow more than the player?

How about a laptop bag especially for the wife? This one's cool. Or portable speakers? A must-have ipod accessory. Or, the ever useful Amazon gift certificate?

But then again, maybe the golf industry is actually being empathic. After all, with gifts like these, we'd probably end up fighting over who keeps them!

What do you think, is linking golf and EQ a stretch?

I don't think so.

Although am I the only one thinking this new EQ program might be taking it a little too far?

In an interview with Reed Hastings, co-founder of Netflix, he mentions how he connected some dots that really paid off: a mega-deal with Wal-Mart wherein Wal-Mart handed over their online dvd business to Netflix.

First dot: Hastings observes that Wal-Mart enters the online dvd market with modest promotional efforts.

Second dot: Hastings is impressed with Wal-Mart's dvd prices during a Christmas shopping visit.

Third dot: He called the CEO (of Walmart.com) and asked if he could have dinner.

I always thought empathy was a cognitive function, a thought-ful/mind-ful cortical exertion that focused on processing emotional data from the primitive brain.

Research using MRI scanners monitored volunteers while their legs were touched and while they watched videos of other people being touched and of objects colliding.

Turns out, a sensory area of the brain called the secondary somatosensory cortex, thought only to respond to physical touch, was strongly activated by the sight of others being touched.

This suggests that empathy requires no specialised brain area. The brain simply transforms what we see into what we would have felt in the same situation.

"This means we can feel empathy without building up complex theories about what others feel". The researcher says.

This is good to know since I've always thought that empathy has something to do with a set of intuitive emotional knowledge we all have.