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E
Q For EverybodySteve HeinBelow are links to my complete 1996 book. I decided to put the whole book on line because I believe onte weneed now in the world is more free sharing of ideas and information, and less creation and accumulation of thingsand money.Please note that when I wrote this book I was basing my concept of emotional intelligence on the 1995 book byGoleman. I now believe Goleman himself doesn't really understand what EI is, although he did get many people inthe world thinking about it, including me. Now I have my own definition of emotional intelligence:Emotional intelligence is the innate potential to feel, use, communicate, recognize, remember, describe, identify,learn from, manage, understand and explain emotions.One of the main differences between my idea of EI and thatof most others is my emphasis on it being an innate potential we are born with. This potential can then either bedevelloped in healthy ways over our lives, or in unhealthy ways. As far as the term "EQ" is concerned, I don't useit much in my writing now. But for the purposes of this book, I suggest you think of what I have written as acombination of 1) a high level of development of one's innate emotional intelligence,2) a set of learned practical emotional skillsSteve Hein -- Sept. 2000April 2006 Note - I made a few more corrections and clarifications to Chapter 1 (in grey text)..Table of ContentsFront Cover, Dedication, Acknowledgements, etc.Chapter 1 - Introduction and BackgroundChapter 2 - The B.A.R.E. EssentialsChapter 3 - Emotional LiteracyChapter 4 - EQ and Self-EsteemChapter 5 - Validation and InvalidationChapter 6 - EQ and HappinessChapter 7 - Using Your Emotions to Set and Achieve Your GoalsChapter 8 - The Positive Value of Negative FeelingsChapter 9 - RelationshipsChapter 10 - ParentingChapter 11 - Signs of High & Low EQChapter 12 - How To Raise Your EQAcknowledgmentThank you to everyone who has supported, encouraged, and believed in me. Special thanks to Steve Brewer whowas foremost among those who believed I could write this book, before I believed it myself, and who supplied mewith loving prodding to keep me working on it...... And a very special thanks to Lisa Haueisen, whose help included meticulous editing, creative typesetting, anddependable emotional support, and who helped me do what most would say could not possibly have been done.(more is at the bottom of this page)ForewordI first heard the term "EQ" in the fall of 1995 when the book Emotional Intelligence, by Daniel Goleman waswidely covered by the American press. The extensive research presented in the book supported my ownobservations and suspicions about life and emotions, and reassured me that I was on the right track in my elusive pursuit of happiness. The research continues to confirm what I had concluded on my own: that feelings areextremely important to individual health, happiness, and social harmony.This may seem a bit obvious, but it was not always obvious to me. I grew up in a family where we didn't talk 
 
about feelings. We talked about ideas, concepts and principles. As a result, I could tell you what I thought abouteverything, but I couldn't tell you how I felt about anything. After several failed relationships, I took time off toreflect on my life and realized I had made many decisions which resulted in unhappiness for myself and others.After studying the literature on emotions and feelings, I concluded that most of my self-detructive decisions could be directly attributed to what I now call an unhealthy developement of my innate emotional intelligence.(In the 1996 edition of this book I said "poor" decisions, instead of unhealthy, and I said they were attributed to"what is now called low emotional intelligence, or low EQ, for short." I have come to realize, though, that I never had low emotional intelligence. It just was not given an opportunity to develop in a heathy way.)In 1996 I wrotePreviously, I struggled to find happiness through the traditional routes: material success andrelationships with the opposite sex. Now, however, I realize that:1. There's not much point to either wealth or relationships if you aren't happy.2. It is hard to be happy with others if you aren't happy alone.3. It is hard to be happy alone if you don't feel good about yourself.4. It is hard to have good feelings about yourself if you don't have good emotional managementskills.5. Emotional management skills are, therefore, one of the fundamental ingredients of happiness. Now I realize, in 2008, that you can feel good about yourself, and love yourself, but if you are alone and not inlove with someone else, your life can be very unhappy. This is one reason I speak to students whenever I canabout the importance of love and relationship skills.Even before I read the EI literature, I had realized the importance of feelings. I had started listening to myemotions, since I concluded that nature would not have developed emotions if they didn't have some importantvalue. Here is more about the importance of emotions.As I studied emotions, I learned that our feelings are complex feedback systems which let us know when we areon the right track towards health and happiness.This conclusion is supported by the evidence that negative feelings such as anger, stress, and hatred cause serioushealth problems. Such negative feelings are nature's way of telling us we are off track, and that we need to makesome changes. These changes could be to ourselvesl, to our environment, or they could include changingenvironments, as I have done many times during my travels since 1996. I wrote this book to help you applycertain emotional principles of in your life, just as I strive to apply them in mine. I believe that by individuallyaddressing our emotional needs, we can make a large impact on collective happiness.In 1996 I wroteWhen I look at people worldwide, I see rising alienation and detachment; rising crime, violence andgreed; and few fulfilling relationships. My country, the United States, is a world leader in these clear indicators of serious unhappiness, just as much as it is a world leader in material wealth and military power. Millions of individual Americans seem to be searching for an identity. We seem to identifynot with ourselves, but with sports stars, movie stars, baseball teams, political parties, and religiousgroups. Increasingly, when we have negative feelings, we turn to medication or distraction.I fear that the rest of the world is following our lead in this dangerous direction. Now I will add that since 1996 I have spent much more time outside of the USA than inside and I have travelledand lived around the world. I no longer refer to the USA as my country. I have a saying now, "If I can't sell it, thenit isn't mine." Also, I no longer think of myself as an "American". I prefer to think of myself as what Socratescalled a "citizen of the world."Also, from my travels I have seen that the influence of the USA is even more pervassive than I realized in 1996. Ifeel a responsibility to inform people in other countries of the dangers in the American culture.
 
 Now I return to the 1996 text.... Nonetheless, I am encouraged that Americans are also world leaders in the area of personal growth, a field inwhich this book attempts to make a valuable contribution. In putting together this book, I have tried to make the principles of emotional intelligence easier to understand, more accessible, and more relevant.To do this I have expanded the academic concept of EI. For example, I include the importance of taking personalresponsibility for our emotions as an integral part of our responsible participation in society. I also introduce theimportance of emotional validation. Finally, I explain the direct connection between EQ, self-esteem, andhappiness.My best wishes go out to you in your quest for happiness and a high "EQ".Steve HeinTampa, Florida November, 1996Revised 2008, Romania and MontenegroIntroduction"Boy, do I feel stupid!"How many times have we all said that? (I am not sure now if this is something commonly heard outside the USA)All of us feel "stupid" from time to time. All of us do things we realize were "dumb." So when you are feelingincompetent, try to remember you are not alone. Just realizing this might help you feel better -- being hard onyourself certainly won't. Yet we are conditioned to beat ourselves up. In fact, the smarter we are, the better casewe can make to prove our own stupidity. Smart people are often experts at making themselves (and others) feelmiserable. Why? Because bright people are good at forming conclusions from collecting, organizing, andinterpreting data. The smarter they are, the faster they can do it. In mere seconds, they can clearly see theconnection between their slightest imperfection and the end of the world as we know it. It doesn't even matter whether the data is true or false, relevant or not--whatever they want to prove, they can.2008 Note - When I wrote the above, I had not yet begun listening to suicidal teenagers. I had not written aboutthe "dark" side of emotional intelligence. Since then I have seen that suicidal teens are first taught to feelincompetent, inadequate, undeserving, unworthy, unimportant, etc. Then they become their own worst enemies. Iwas making a small joke when I said "the end of the world as we know it" but now I see that teen suicide is no joke. What I described is exactly what happens. The teens act as self prosecutors and self judges. They then findthemselves guilty, even when factual evidence to the contrary will prove ineffective at correcting their innacurateand distorted self-images.If we're not busy making ourselves feel worse, we often try not to feel anything. Many of us use our cognitiveabilities to become masters at detaching ourselves from our feelings. We have tried to get through our unhappiness by "being strong," in other words, by denying, repressing or "stuffing," our feelings. We intellectualize,rationalize, justify, deny, and defend. In other words, we use our upper, thinking brain to quell the feelings in our lower, feeling brain. The roles which these two brains play in our emotions and in our lives has been the focus of much of the emotions research. The findings show that each part of the brain has a clear and distinct purpose, andthat we function best when the two are working smoothly together and not fighting each other.When we do fight our feelings, we waste a lot of time and energy, since our feelings are very real. In effect, whenwe fight our feelings, we fight reality-- something which is generally a frustrating exercise. Instead of finding outwho we really are, we try to be who we are expected to be or who we are told we should be. We seek the approvalof those important to us, such as our parents, our partners, our teachers and religious leaders. But to be happy, wecan only be who we are. We can grow and change, but when we try to grow in a direction which is against our individual natures (i.e. against our unique genetic instructions), we are fighting nature and millions of years of evolution. All this wasted and misdirected energy is not very smart, since both our time and energy are precious,limited resources.Perhaps that is why the term emotional intelligence attracted so much attention. It offered a new meaning to"smart." In the following pages I take a close look at this new meaning, using lots of practical examples to make
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duponthumanite

Balance, Awareness, Responsibility, Empathy. These four elements of emotional intelligence are the centre of the Hein model and practice.

reply02 / 27 / 2010
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