5 Signs You’re Highly Emotionally Intelligent
These five signs of high emotional intelligence are not randomly chosen here. They’re based on 000’s of hours of EQ coaching over many years.
You keep calm when others do not
Calmness allows you to think clearly, be clear on what’s most important and act decisively. Being calm allows your body and mind to sync, encouraging the parasympathetic nervous system to activate. This mitigates anxiety and our body’s fight or flight mechanism. When we’re calm we’re able to more easily discern feelings and thoughts and so utilise this emotional information to facilitate thinking and behaviours. Creating calm such as by regularly using breathing techniques acts to suppress the sympathetic nervous system. This is a powerful antidote to fear, stress and reactive behaviour; and practiced daily it can change the way you are, permanently. This way you stay aligned to what’s most important to you and preserve your energy too.
You read people’s emotion well
From the great work of Paul Ekman, we know that the key emotions are represented on everyone’s face in exactly the same way no matter where they come from or the language they speak. In addition to voice qualities and body language, it’s possible to detect a phenomenal amount of emotional information when interacting with people. When you routinely pick up these emotional cues, this gives you a huge advantage over those that do not. This trustworthy information gives a distinct edge in both understanding and engaging with people. It’s trustworthy because such emotional cues can neither be faked nor hidden easily.
You keep a sense of perspective
Your attention may be drawn to many different areas of focus hundreds of times a day. This is natural. However, you are able to centre yourself regularly if you practice. This helps you notice important things and regain your balance. This helps minimise distraction or where you might otherwise lose the bigger picture.
EQ skills are called tactical skills as they help us in moment-to-moment management and decisions, however, a constant re-balancing allows greater strategic awareness and abilities too.
Having a good perspective allows us a strategic overview of things and good judgement and is the source of strong resilience and a positive mindset. Anxiety and depression, for instance, can be thought of as issues arising from a loss of or somewhat skewed perspective.
You stay positive even at difficult times
You seem to know that stumbling is merely a function of trying, nothing more, on the road to success rather than allowing setbacks to make you believe otherwise and become stuck on them. Your feelings about the future are positive and engaging allowing you to feel magnetically drawn to your potential. You trust that an obstacle has a solution you’ll uncover through diligence. You know deep down things work out for you. This endows you and your expectations with a lightness, a realistic positivity that is able to both flex and forgive.
You use positive language, tone and expressions
You use positive words and tone wherever you can. Overall communication is much more than words. You communicate with openness, smiles and allow others to feel this in you. You naturally use your voice tone, speed of speaking, silences, volume in ways that seem to work well together to convey, engage and persuade. You seem to know that words fall flat otherwise. You seem to mitigate or transmute other’s negativity or reactivity and avoid conflict far more than most and know what to say or do at the right moment that brings out the best in people and situations.
These 5 signs of high emotional intelligence are based on what I call the 3P’s™ which are three points of focus devised to simplify the practice of executive coaching and training people to help them live better and work towards greater emotional intelligence and well-being.
The 3 Ps are; Create peace, positivity and perspective in all areas of life and work and you’ll be on track for success and well-being because the evidence suggests that EQ works.
Philip Gimmack
CEO EQworks
Last updated 11nth November 2024
