LexArrow - it’s in your mind…

This is the title of a book I’m reading, written by Daniel Goleman. It has too many anatomical details for my taste, but it’s interesting none the less. It sustains that IQ plays only a small part in professional success and in fact EQ makes the difference. EQ meaning capacity to form human relations, self awareness, self confidence, pro-activity and other feelings like these. Everything is based upon documented research. It emphasizes awareness and trusting your instinct. It explains the fact that people are not rational in a mathematic/computer kind of way. The human brain makes decisions based on perception and former experience.

This is not astonishing news, as I’ve heard these things one by one in different situations. The fact that much of the scattered information I’ve been acquiring are in one book is an important value added.

I see this book as a tool to successfully prove some points I couldn’t prove before. For example school teaches only hard skills/technical stuff, but never the soft skills needed in life, not just in business, but in everyday life. It also raises some questions. If people don’t make rational decisions, why try to explain human behavior through inflexible mathematical patterns. I’ve learned so many economical models that our teachers even said they will never happen in reality, but YOU HAVE TO KNOW THEM. Don’t get me wrong I don’t think practice is possible without theory (or the other way around), but I feel I learned a lot of useless things in college that I never applied in almost 2 years of working experience. Well, that’s just the result of going to college in Romania. I had a great time both in school and in high-school with very demanding, but awesome teachers. College was a biiiig disappointment. On the other hand, as a student, I had time for extracurricular activities (a.k.a working) that shaped me and taught me essential things that I will detail in further posts.

Back to the book, if you’re not interested how the amigdala and the limbic system make you react in certain ways, then read this book on the diagonal in some parts. You’ll essentially learn what EQ is, how it manifests, what is it useful for and a few tips on how to improve it.