Category Archives: Life Education

EQ and IQ – Rich vs Poor

Achieve Success, Life Skills, Rich vs. Poor Series

How does EQ and IQ move you from poor to rich and vice versa?

The poorest people have no EQ and no IQ. If you can’t get along with anyone and you can’t solve any problems, you will become poor.

The next richest people have EQ but no IQ. These people can’t solve their problems in life but can make friends and maintain relationships which are the ingredients to happiness and health. So these people are happy and healthy.

The next richest people have IQ but no EQ. These people are wealthy but sad. They can solve their own problems, but no-one likes them.

The richest people have both EQ and IQ. These people are wealthy and happy. They solve their problems and they have meaningful relationships to bring them meaning to life and joy to life.

If you are starting with no EQ and no IQ, you have to pick one to begin with. Which should you pick?

If you start by building EQ, then you will have the emotional stability to do the work to build your IQ.

If you start by building IQ, then you will earn money that you can invest in learning EQ.

The issue with starting to build EQ is that socializing is extremely expensive financially. You need to be well off to have free time and money to make friends. Realistically, if you are starting off poor with no EQ and no IQ, you can only escape poverty through IQ.

I wish you luck. Let’s make it to the top together with both EQ and IQ 🙂

Assuming Intent can cause Misunderstanding

Achieve Success, Conversation, Emotional Intelligence, Life Advice, Relationship Building, Relationships, Social Skills

Assuming Intent can cause a misunderstanding. When someone does something that you don’t understand, ask them why the did it. When you assume why the did something, you take away their truth and reality and you start projecting your truth and reality onto them. Maybe it was an accident like you thought, or maybe it was intentional like you thought, or maybe it wasn’t what you thought and there was another factor involved entirely.

You are not a mind reader, and you also cannot see everything that is going on. It’s less about giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming the best reason, it’s about achieving certainty by connecting and aligning with them on a shared reality and building a connection and a relationship.

Disagree with Active Listening and Clear Transitions

Achieve Success, Conversation, Emotional Intelligence, Friendships, Human Nature, Life Advice, Life Lessons, Relationship Building, Relationships, Social Skills

Sometimes you are unaware of how your actions are being perceived by others. You might think you are defending yourself, but in reality the other person is feeling attacked by your defense.

I recently had an experience where the more I defended my point of view, the more aggressive the other person became. And it took me a while to realize that from their point of view, me disagreeing with them was me attacking them. They felt I was invalidating their emotions and their perspective and disrespecting their right to have an opinion that is different from mine when that wasn’t my intention at all.

The approach I suggest you use next time is to utilize active listening to repeat back to them what they said to show that you heard them. Then check if they want to hear your opinion. Ask if they would listen to you now that you’ve listened to them. If the answer is no, then walk away, the conversation is done. If they do listen, then you can speak your mind. Manage the transitions from when you are listening and they are talking, to when you are talking and they are listening by making these transitions very clear. The last thing you want is for them to feel you are interrupting them to talk over them. Clarify if they have finished talking and ask for permission before transitioning to you talk.

In summary, if you are defending your position without acknowledging them, they could feel attacked. The way to have a healthy conversation is to use active listening to show you heard them, and then explicit transitions with consent from you listening and them talking to you talking and them listening so both people are respected and clear on their roles in the conversation at all times.