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Pelumi and Lekan are brothers and best friends. Pelumi works for a well-known software company. He is a programmer and his logical thinking has developed through the years. Nowadays he sees the world in numbers and algorithms. For Pelumi, everything is connected. There are no mistakes, only empty spaces that can be filled with available information. For Lekan, the world is a mystery and he likes to think about problems that haven’t got any answers so far.

How is it that we have consciousness?

How is it possible to have feelings?

Can we locate „love” within ourselves?

Where?

Why do people get angry?

Why is art essential to life?

One day, their mother has a nervous breakdown. Pelumi rushes home from work and Lekan stops his painting class and comes in a hurry to help her. At first, it seems impossible to do anything. Pelumi is trying hard to make sense of what happened using some formulas, believing that the world can be understood only through logic and rational thinking. Lekan reaches to his mother and takes her hand. He speaks gently to her trying to induce a certain feeling of calm and security. He begins to tell her a story about two brothers that wouldn’t be where they are now if it wasn’t for their mother, thus letting her know that she is the reason for their very existence. Since his mother calmed down, John can now make use of the resources that he has so they can take her out for a walk in the park and find practical solutions to her worries and problems. 

Can you see it now? 

Well, through a simple analogy, think of Pelumi as the left hemisphere of the brain and Lekan as the right hemisphere. Without both of them working together, there would be no solution. It’s true that Lekan, through his emotional awareness, was able to calm their mother, but this gave Pelumi the opportunity to take things further in the process of healing. Any act, from solving a math exercise to painting a work of art, requires the input and integration of information from both sides of your brain.

We are organisms that are hardwired in this way and we must learn to intertwine both sides at all times.

There are two things that measure one’s intelligence: IQ and EQ. IQ stands for intelligence quotient and it shows different skills in an individual: technical knowledge of the world, logical thinking, problem-solving abilities and how well can one learn new things.

EQ, emotional intelligence, is a measure of a person’s ability to identify with others, have awareness of other people’s feelings, relate to them and maintain control over one’s emotions. Why maintain control? Because it’s better to let an emotion express itself but still be aware of your surroundings thus controlling how that particular emotion goes out into the world.

Imagine yourself working with your team on a very difficult project. It’s midnight and you’re beginning to feel anxious about not finishing because one of the members is making too much fun of the situation. There can be at least two outcomes, depending on the way you react emotionally and how the others around you perceive your handling of the situation.

If you are aware of how others feel, what they want, what are they thinking about at that moment, you’ll speak in a friendly way and you will control that feeling of anxiety. Express yourself as a human being no matter what you feel, think or desire. Maintain an overview of everything that is happening around you because you are not alone in this journey that we call, life. Training your emotional intelligence is definitely going to help you achieve what you want and have a valuable social life.

More specifically, is emotional intelligence a decisive factor in having a successful career? Definitely. I know a lot of super-smart people that lack the skills of dealing with their emotions and being open to how others feel. I’ve seen how this thing gives them a bit of a hard time in their pursuit. Don’t get me wrong, it’s possible to have success only with a high IQ, but being emotionally evolved will enhance your experience of the world and you will get much more out of it.

How would you feel like, if right now you’d know that you are talking to a robot programmed to teach you the stuff that I’m talking about? Maybe that would result in a complete turn off in terms of emotional responses. Knowing that there is no possibility of emotions on the other side will make you even less interested in what it is that this article is saying. The decisive factors here are the feelings that we experience when we realise that there is a human being on the other side and that a connection on a subtler level is possible. Emotional intelligence is how good we are in understanding and grasping other people’s needs so that when we are doing a campaign, they will know that we care about their desires and wishes.

I know it’s a lot easier to stay on the surface and just throw content and information just for the sake of it but remember that It’s not about how much we sell but how much value we bring into the lives of others .

I strongly believe that based on our scientific evolution, our IQ can be outsourced but our EQ can not. Machines can replace man’s work in many fields but as far as I can see, they will have a hard time expressing something that they feel. Of course that a highly advanced robot can mimic emotions. Think about Sophia who just got her citizenship.

You can see a smile on her face and you are tempted to think that it’s an authentic emotion. Emotions can be mirrored but this process is different from the process of a human being that gives an authentic emotion out into the world.

Authored by Catalin Matei