Which component of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) provides immediate success?
Technical skills and Intelligence are essential to get a job. But with intelligence alone, a person may fail in the job in the long term if he lacks Emotional Intelligence.
So what is emotional intelligence?
We define EI as the ability to: Recognize, understand and manage our own emotions and the emotions of others.
Emotional Intelligence (EQ or EI) is a term created by two researchers – Peter Salavoy and John Mayer – and popularized by Dan Goleman in his 1996 book of the same name.
For our own understanding, I would interpret Emotional Intelligence as managing one’s own emotions in a better way so as to yield better results.
The five components of Emotional Intelligence are
1. Self Awareness: Strengths, weakness, drives, values and impact on others
2. Self Regulation: controlling or redirecting disruptive impulses and moods
3. Motivation: Relishing achievement for one’s own sake
4. Empathy: Understanding other people’s emotional makeup
5. Social Skill: Building rapport with others to move them in desired directions.
Out of these five skills, which particular component will provide the earliest success?
It is motivation.
“People often say, motivation doesn’t last. Well,
Neither does bathing-
That’s why we recommend it daily – Zig Ziglar”
This above quote may be true to a certain extent.
But we have to remember that there are some ignited souls for whom this motivation may not be necessary every now and then. They remain motivated for a larger part of their time.
For eg: Mark Zuckerberg sitting in his college dorm writing millions of codes in creating Facebook, Bill Gates spending hours together in developing Windows, Sachin Tendulkar playing for India at the age of 16, Pele becoming the first player to score more than 1,000 goals, Serena Williams winning the most number of career singles title's.
What made them achieve this kind of phenomenal success?
The answer is simple.
These people remained motivated. Their drive made them put in that extra effort in making their dreams a reality. The strenuous effort and pain in undergoing was not a matter of concern because they were passionate enough to pursue their ambition. Infact, what we call pain would have been pleasure for them because of their obsession towards their goal.
In my opinion, all the above mentioned stalwarts would have never faltered in their life. If faced with obstacles, they would have found a way to rise above them. They would have not got distracted easily.
The point I would like to make is among all the components of Emotional Intelligence, motivation would be the quality to attain the first or immediate success. The other components of EQ are equally important for success but at different levels.
To sum up, If the strength of the person’s motivation (focus, will power etc) is greater than the strength of the person’s weaknesses (distractions, lack of confidence etc) success is attainable.
