What is beyond Emotional Intelligence?

A human can be considered as a combination of four dimensions i.e. Physical, Mental, Emotional and Spiritual.

Physical is body and we can keep it fit and healthy by exercise, diet, sleep etc. It has been an ancient practice to take care of your body.

Mental is our ability to use logic and reasoning. In the year 1900, Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon designed First IQ Test Binet-Simon Scale. The idea behind this test was to identify children who have lower IQ and help them develop. As with most of the inventions and discoveries, this was misused to identify high IQ children and focus on them.

However, over a period of time, researchers realized high IQ didn’t guarantee success. In fact, many with high IQ failed miserably and went into isolation and/or depression. Researchers had missed something.

Emotional or Social Intelligence - In simple words, emotional intelligence is ability to recognize, understand and manage our own emotions and recognize, understand and influence the emotions of others. The term was coined in 1990 in a research paper by two psychology professors, John D. Mayer of UNH and Peter Salovey of Yale.?Dr. Reuven Bar-On is thought to be the first to introduce the concept of an “EQ” (“Emotional Quotient”) to measure “emotional and social competence.

Daniel Goleman established the importance of emotional intelligence to business leadership.?He introduced five components of emotional intelligence

• Self-awareness
• Self-regulation (self-management)
• Social skills, like managing relationships and building networks
• Motivation (a passion for work that goes beyond money and status)
• Empathy for others

Emotional Intelligence is a skill and hence it can be learnt and developed.

To understand EI from the perspective of brain function, we can say in simple terms, we have two ways to respond to our environment. One is automatic response and the other is chosen response (after thinking). Though our ability of logical thinking is far more developed than the other species, yet it has vastly limited. More than 90% of time our responses are automatic. We will think only on those responses which are new. Our brain (subconscious mind in NLP) will record normal movements which we perform regularly and we won’t have to think while performing those movements. For example, when we start learning to drive a car, we have to think about when to accelerate or apply breaks, change gears etc. However, over a period of time, we go into automatic mode and we can drive most of the time without thinking (auto-pilot).

The more we think before response, the more we are using EI. Another example, you are getting ready to office. You are already late. You have a critical presentation. You come on breakfast table and notice your wife is still preparing breakfast. You get angry shout and scream in frustration. You leave hungry. You come across traffic and you see people driving badly. You pull down the window and hurl abuses. You reach office and you realise the audience is yet to reach. You relax. You give your presentation and it is outstanding. You are returning home thinking how badly you behaved. When you reach home, your wife is not talking. Your daughter is upset because you screamed at her mother. Instead of screaming and shouting (auto responses because of anger and frustration), could you behave differently? And avoid regret and guilt.

This doesn’t take away the importance of auto responses. While walking in the dark night during rains, you suddenly see something moving in front of you. Even before you know, you see a snake. You immediately jump and avoid stepping on the snake and run, and save yourself from snake bite. If you were thinking logically, before you could think and act, you would have stepped on the snake and bitten by it. Concept of EI is just thirty-five years old and we are still learning it’s importance and application.

Animals in lower plane than human beings, live more on an auto response. Humans live at a higher plane with higher EI or choosing their responses, less autopilot mode. Is it true for all human beings? Not really. Gross EI of human beings is still very low.

Consider the time when humans lived in a jungle where the environment was really hostile. For their survival, it was important to be on autopilot and negative most of the time. Negative thinking and living together helped human survive and gave that valuable time to develop their logical mind. In fact, humans had no options but to develop their thinking and learning for survival.

Environment has changed drastically for human in last couple of years however our brain and its way of functioning has not changed much. We don’t live in jungles anymore where our survival is threatened every moment. Yet for most of the human beings on earth, it is not true. A very large population of human beings, lives in abject poverty and fights every day for a full meal. This is in the world where there is no shortage of food and resources. If the resources and food are distributed as per the requirement, everyone will have enough to eat and more to spare. But we continue to live on autopilot mode. We hoard food and resources in form of wealth and power, and prevent it from reaching the needy. We take away the share of poor and keep it in our lockers and banks which we wouldn’t enjoy in our life time. Probably, it will be used by their children. But is it really worth it? ?

Rich is becoming richer day by day and poor are becoming poorer day by day. Rich believes they deserve to be rich because of their intellect and hard work (I am not taking credit from them completely). Imagine, if any of the richest person in the world today was born as a boy on the streets to a poor mother who begs and survives. As the boy grows, what are the chances that he would live a decent life? (Forget about being richest person in the world) Almost zero. As he grows and sees his mother begging and other boys and girls begging, he would naturally learn and become a beggar. No chance of any education and change of mindset. He can become a criminal and drug addict or a peddler. Is our society giving him a chance to choose his life? (We are talking about collective human EI). Many success stories we find on the internet are not completely true and we all know that or come to know later.

Rich also forgets that they are milking the resources that belong to all the human beings equally.

Environmental damage and destruction by rich and powerful are common in modern world, sacrificing tomorrow for today. Will this unique mother earth be able to support any life form hundred years from now? All the life forms including humans are in danger of extinction. We are closer to extinction than we think as per Stephen Hawking.

There was an interesting social experiment conducted in a village. This small village was entirely dependant on farming. If the rainfall is good, villagers had enough to eat. But if there are not enough rains, yield is not good and villagers had to go almost hungry for days. Government decided to give each family enough to survive irrespective of their yield. What would have happened with the government money? (You must have heard about minimum income guarantee schemed promised by Rahul Gandhi which was made fun of). It would make poor lazy and they would stop working. Incidentally, most of us believe that others would not use guaranteed income wisely. But if the same came to us, we believe we would use it wisely (example of double standards). The results were however shocking. Most of the villagers used this income wisely, on learning and educating their children, buying farm animals and so on. Yes, it was wasted by some but it did make a difference to most of the villagers. This experiment was later stopped and results were not made public.

There can be a system and support mechanism that can give equal opportunities to all the human beings on earth. This leads to fourth dimension, spiritual.

Spiritual Quotient can be a combination of IQ and EQ. When you reach a level of financial freedom, a sense of personal achievement, a stage where you have enough (resources/ wealth), you ask yourself, how I can now contribute to the society? ?Maslow’s theory of hierarchy of needs shows it as self-actualization. In leadership, it motivates you to help your subordinates grow, find their voice irrespective of your gains or loss. As an entrepreneur, you start thinking how your product and services can benefit the society. As a politician, you start working for the safety and well-being of a mankind not just your power and your country.

For me, Spiritual Quotient is beyond IQ and EQ, where you are not only aware about yourself or others but work towards the cause of entire humanity. You work towards the betterment of the entire human race and even other species that share our space (or we have encroached in their space). Compassion for all living. SQ I am talking about, can be often confused with religion and unless religion teaches compassion for all, cannot be included in SQ.

All humans can have some SQ but of different levels. Research shows that when an employee reaches certain salary level, he starts thinking more about job satisfaction and value contribution, money becomes secondary.

?One name that comes to mind (I know of) is Mahatma Gandhi, a true champion of humanity. He had capability to influence masses. Unfortunately for him and fortunately for us, he was born during British rule, he had to spent his entire life fighting for our freedom and social evils in our society.

I see spiritual dimension as the next dimension of development if humans really want to survive on earth. Humans have to come together forgetting all their differences like language, religion, gender, colour, race, geographical boundaries, past hostilities, raising from their personal ambitions and working for the common cause of mankind.

Thank you for reading.

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