• emotional intelligence, which include self-control, zeal and persistence, and the ability to motivate oneself.

the emotional brain

• when it comes to shaping our decisions and our actions, feeling counts every bit as much—and often more—than thought.
• the instant plans for handling life that evolution has instilled in us.
• there was an emotional brain long before there was a rational one. In contrast to the ancient brain’s two-layered cortex, the neocortex offered an extraordinary intellectual edge. As we proceed up the phylogenetic scale from reptile to rhesus to human, the sheer mass of the neocortex increases.
• The human amygdala is relatively large compared to that in any of our closest evolutionary cousins, the primates. workings of the amygdala and its interplay with the neocortex are at the heart of emotional intelligence
• Our emotions have a mind of their own, one which can hold views quite independently of our rational mind.
• the interactions of life’s earliest years lay down a set of emotional lessons based on the attunement and upsets in the contacts between infant and caretakers. since these earliest emotional memories are established at a time before infants have words for their experience, when these emotional memories are triggered in later life there is no matching set of articulated thoughts about the response that takes us over.
• intellect cannot work at its best without emotional intelligence.

the nature of emotional intelligence

• Academic intelligence has little to do with emotional life.
• IQ tests began during World War I, when two million American men were sorted out through the first mass paper-and-pencil form of the IQ
• IQs of 160 work for people with IQs of 100. intrapersonal skills are more important. who to marry, what job to take, and so on.
• emotional intelligence in 5 domains
  • knowing ones emotions
  • managing emotions
  • motivating oneself
  • recognizing emotions in others
  • handling relationships
• there is, as yet, no single paper-and- pencil test that yields an “emotional intelligence score” and there may never be one.
• women, in general, feel both positive and negative emotions more strongly than do men.
• alexithymia, Dr. Sifneos proposes a disconnection between the limbic system and the neocortex, particularly its verbal centers.