Emotional intelligence: the value of emotions

We live in a time of rapid change that challenges our old convictions. The conviction, for example, that if you just study or work hard enough, success will come to you of its own accord. That if you work 16 hours a day, the inbox really will empty itself. Or that by the age of fifty you have finished learning.

The financial crisis has, and now the changes in the climate and the housing shortage have, refuted a number of convictions and certainties that seemed self evident. We are searching for new signposts. Intangible values such as integrity, the capacity for empathy and leadership can help here, because they may well be more important to feeling happy than (only) money and possessions.

In addition we live in an information age. Faster and faster we receive and send information. In less than a second the message is on the other side of the world. We sometimes know what is happening in China before its own inhabitants do. This raises questions about the extent to which the private sphere is still personal or common property. All day long this stream of information provides stimuli, because we have to make choices: ‘what shall I wear to school or work?’, ‘which email has priority?’, ‘which of the 15 kinds of hair shampoo is really the best?’

The many choices we have to make daily also place different demands on our intelligence. You do not have to graduate in order to lead a happy life. For some it does, incidentally, bring a feeling of happiness, but at least as important are often the contacts we make along the way and being able to use the talent we have for ourselves and for others. A life that gives fulfilment calls for self examination:

• what are you good at?
• what moves you?
• who are important to you?
• what does your personal leadership look like?

Emotional intelligence is past the hype of the nineties. After all, we all deal with feelings and emotions. All day long. Continuously we make affective and emotional considerations on the basis of which we make choices. The myth that we are rational beings notwithstanding: we are both. This is our gift from evolution: that we can use our reason to recognise what we feel. Once we understand these, we see their value. We then learn to deal more consciously with setbacks, recognise our own drivers and ambition sooner and make contact with others more easily.

Emotional intelligence is all of this and perhaps even more. The concept was developed in the previous century and is by now past the trend it was suspected of being. Both cognitive and emotional intelligence are of value for successful performance and for ‘being’. It lets you experience what happiness means to you, and that you achieve it above all by knowing what you should do or, on the contrary, refrain from doing. In this book I have, in a way that to my knowledge has not been done before, also looked at emotional intelligence from the angle of the Dutch scientific contribution and the value that E.I. can have in this and coming time. A time in which a transition is taking place, with a call for the revaluation of certain values such as integrity, empathy, listening and leadership.

I wrote the book 'Emotional intelligence, the value of emotions' for the world's largest publisher of free e-books, Bookboon. The concept of Bookboon means that in a relatively short time you can take in general information about a specific subject. This book includes tips, references, mind maps and exercises as a starting point for further insight and development.

Happy reading!