What is emotional intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is being smart with feelings.  It requires tuning into emotional data, making sense of that data, and integrating it into your decision-making.

The Six Seconds EQ Model provides a process for using emotions to make optimal decisions.  This model is intended to help you increase EQ to get optimal results from your relationships with yourself and others. The formal, scientific, definition of emotional intelligence comes from Dr. Peter Salovey and Dr. John Mayer who say emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, use, understand, and manage emotions.

• To learn about different models, definitions, and history, read Emotional WHAT? for an overview of the theory.
• We suggest your read about Six Seconds' EQ model and the guiding questions to increase self-awareness.
• EQ in Action, from the book At the Heart of Leadership (in our store), shows how the model applies to leading.
• The Emotional Intelligence Difference explains how EQ provides a unique "lens" for understanding yourself and others.
• The Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence test (SEI^™) is an excellent starting point for self-development with a clear orientation to our model.

How do I use it?

You can increase your emotional intelligence by practicing being more aware, by being more conscious of your choices, and by deliberately blending your thinking plus feeling to generate better decisions. Being "emotionally intelligent" doesn't mean "being nice," it means consciously and carefully processing and using emotional information and emotional energy. The moment you begin to value emotions as a source of information and energy, you will begin to get more positive results in your relationship with yourself and others. Everyone has emotional intelligence -- you have the chance to increase yours!

• A reasonable starting point is to measure your own emotional intelligence; the Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence test is focused on your professional and personal development.
• Fight or Flow helps explain the choice between reactivity and emotional intelligence.
• Our EQ Learning Journal provides a great "self-guided course in a book" -- a kind of workbook for adults who want to increase their emotional intelligence.
• This exercise, "Business Card Values" will help you see how emotional awareness translates into daily life.
• There are other excellent tools and books in the EQ Store.

How can Six Seconds help me?

We provide training, materials, and change programs based on emotional intelligence. Our EQ Training Certification is designed for people who are committed to implementing EQ as a consultant/trainer/educator or in their own lives, personally and professionally. Our organizational change help you measure and improve the organizational climate to increase profitability and performance. The Self-Science school programs help you create an environment where children are better able to learn and live.

• Six Seconds Consulting Group delivers our EQ solutions to corporations and organizations.
• Six Seconds' training schedule is regularly updated, and has links to info on Certification.
• To implement EQ in school, read about the Self-Science program.
• Our EQ Store offers a variety of products.
• Find an emotional intelligence expert in our directory of Certified Associates.

For more Q&A, see our Frequent Questions section