EQ - Are you Emotionally Intelligent?

Most of us know all humans need both IQ and EQ in equal portions to succeed and this is well put - I personally will start with Go offline and Less caffeine;

Dr. Travis Bradberry identifies 18 characteristics of emotionally intelligent people. When emotional intelligence (EQ) first appeared to the masses, it served as the missing link in a peculiar finding: people with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70% of the time. This anomaly threw a massive wrench into the broadly held assumption that IQ was the sole source of success. Decades of research now point to emotional intelligence as being the critical factor that sets star performers apart from the rest of the pack. The connection is so strong that 90% of top performers have high emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the “something” in each of us that is a bit intangible. It affects how we manage behavior, navigate social complexities, and make personal decisions to achieve positive results. Despite the significance of EQ, its intangible nature makes it very difficult to know how much you have and what you can do to improve if you’re lacking. You can always take a scientifically validated test, such as the one that comes with the Emotional Intelligence 2.0 book. Unfortunately, quality (scientifically valid) EQ tests aren’t free. So, I’ve analyzed the data from the million-plus people TalentSmart has tested in order to identify the behaviors that are the hallmarks of a high EQ. What follows are sure signs that you have a high EQ. 

You Have a Robust Emotional Vocabulary All people experience emotions, but it is a select few who can accurately identify them as they occur. Our research shows that only 36% of people can do this, which is problematic because unlabeled emotions often go misunderstood, which leads to irrational choices and counterproductive actions. People with high EQs master their emotions because they understand them, and they use an extensive vocabulary of feelings to do so. While many people might describe themselves as simply feeling “bad,” emotionally intelligent people can pinpoint whether they feel “irritable,” “frustrated,” “downtrodden,” or “anxious.” The more specific your word choice, the better insight you have into exactly how you are feeling, what caused it, and what you should do about it. 

You’re Curious about People It doesn’t matter if they’re introverted or extroverted, emotionally intelligent people are curious about everyone around them. This curiosity is the product of empathy, one of the most significant gateways to a high EQ. The more you care about other people and what they’re going through, the more curiosity you’re going to have about them. 

You Embrace Change Emotionally intelligent people are flexible and are constantly adapting. They know that fear of change is paralyzing and a major threat to their success and happiness. They look for change that is lurking just around the corner, and they form a plan of action should these changes occur. 

You Know Your Strengths and Weaknesses Emotionally intelligent people don’t just understand emotions; they know what they’re good at and what they’re terrible at. They also know who pushes their buttons and the environments (both situations and people) that enable them to succeed. Having a high EQ means you know your strengths and you know how to lean into them and use them to your full advantage while keeping your weaknesses from holding you back. 

You’re a Good Judge of Character Much of emotional intelligence comes down to social awareness; the ability to read other people, know what they’re about, and understand what they’re going through. Over time, this skill makes you an exceptional judge of character. People are no mystery to you. You know what they’re all about and understand their motivations, even those that lie hidden beneath the surface. 

You Are Difficult to Offend If you have a firm grasp of whom you are, it’s difficult for someone to say or do something that gets your goat. Emotionally intelligent people are self-confident and open-minded, which creates a pretty thick skin. You may even poke fun at yourself or let other people make jokes about you because you are able to mentally draw the line between humor and degradation. 

You Know How to Say No (to Yourself and Others) Emotional intelligence means knowing how to exert self-control. You delay gratification, and you avoid impulsive action. Research conducted at the University of California, San Francisco, shows that the more difficulty that you have saying no, the more likely you are to experience stress, burnout, and even depression. Saying no is indeed a major self-control challenge for many people. “No” is a powerful word that you should not be afraid to wield. When it’s time to say no, emotionally intelligent people avoid phrases such as “I don’t think I can” or “I’m not certain.” Saying no to a new commitment honors your existing commitments and gives you the opportunity to successfully fulfill them. 

You Let Go of Mistakes Emotionally intelligent people distance themselves from their mistakes, but do so without forgetting them. By keeping their mistakes at a safe distance, yet still handy enough to refer to, they are able to adapt and adjust for future success. It takes refined self-awareness to walk this tightrope between dwelling and remembering. Dwelling too long on your mistakes makes you anxious and gun shy, while forgetting about them completely makes you bound to repeat them. The key to balance lies in your ability to transform failures into nuggets of improvement. This creates the tendency to get right back up every time you fall down. 

You Give and Expect Nothing in Return When someone gives you something spontaneously, without expecting anything in return, this leaves a powerful impression. For example, you might have an interesting conversation with someone about a book, and when you see them again a month later, you show up with the book in hand. Emotionally intelligent people build strong relationships because they are constantly thinking about others. 

You Don’t Hold Grudges The negative emotions that come with holding onto a grudge are actually a stress response. Just thinking about the event sends your body into fight-or-flight mode, a survival mechanism that forces you to stand up and fight or run for the hills when faced with a threat. When the threat is imminent, this reaction is essential to your survival, but when the threat is ancient history, holding onto that stress wreaks havoc on your body and can have devastating health consequences over time. In fact, researchers at Emory University have shown that holding onto stress contributes to high blood pressure and heart disease. Holding onto a grudge means you’re holding onto stress, and emotionally intelligent people know to avoid this at all costs. Letting go of a grudge not only makes you feel better now but can also improve your health. 

You Neutralize Toxic People Dealing with difficult people is frustrating and exhausting for most. High EQ individuals control their interactions with toxic people by keeping their feelings in check. When they need to confront a toxic person, they approach the situation rationally. They identify their own emotions and don’t allow anger or frustration to fuel the chaos. They also consider the difficult person’s standpoint and are able to find solutions and common ground. Even when things completely derail, emotionally intelligent people are able to take the toxic person with a grain of salt to avoid letting him or her bring them down. 

You Don’t Seek Perfection Emotionally intelligent people won’t set perfection as their target because they know that it doesn’t exist. Human beings, by our very nature, are fallible. When perfection is your goal, you’re always left with a nagging sense of failure that makes you want to give up or reduce your effort. You end up spending your time lamenting what you failed to accomplish and what you should have done differently instead of moving forward, excited about what you’ve achieved and what you will accomplish in the future. 

You Appreciate What You Have Taking time to contemplate what you’re grateful for isn’t merely the right thing to do; it also improves your mood because it reduces the stress hormone cortisol by 23%. Research conducted at the University of California, Davis, found that people who worked daily to cultivate an attitude of gratitude experienced improved mood, energy, and physical well-being. It’s likely that lower levels of cortisol played a major role in this. 

You Disconnect Taking regular time off the grid is a sign of a high EQ because it helps you to keep your stress under control and to live in the moment. When you make yourself available to your work 24/7, you expose yourself to a constant barrage of stressors. Forcing yourself offline and even—gulp!—turning off your phone gives your body and mind a break. Studies have shown that something as simple as an e-mail break can lower stress levels. Technology enables constant communication and the expectation that you should be available 24/7. It is extremely difficult to enjoy a stress-free moment outside of work when an e-mail that will change your train of thought and get you thinking (read: stressing) about work can drop onto your phone at any moment. 

You Limit Your Caffeine Intake Drinking excessive amounts of caffeine triggers the release of adrenaline, and adrenaline is the source of the fight-or-flight response. The fight-or-flight mechanism sidesteps rational thinking in favor of a faster response to ensure survival. This is great when a bear is chasing you, but not so great when you’re responding to a curt e-mail. When caffeine puts your brain and body into this hyper-aroused state of stress, your emotions overrun your behavior. Caffeine’s long half-life ensures you stay this way as it takes its sweet time working its way out of your body. High-EQ individuals know that caffeine is trouble, and they don’t let it get the better of them. 

You Get Enough Sleep It’s difficult to overstate the importance of sleep to increasing your emotional intelligence and managing your stress levels. When you sleep, your brain literally recharges, shuffling through the day’s memories and storing or discarding them (which causes dreams) so that you wake up alert and clearheaded. High-EQ individuals know that their self-control, attention, and memory are all reduced when they don’t get enough—or the right kind—of sleep. So, they make sleep a top priority. 

You Stop Negative Self-Talk in Its Tracks The more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them. Most of our negative thoughts are just that—thoughts, not facts. When it feels like something always or never happens, this is just your brain’s natural tendency to perceive threats (inflating the frequency or severity of an event). Emotionally intelligent people separate their thoughts from the facts in order to escape the cycle of negativity and move toward a positive, new outlook. 

You Won’t Let Anyone Limit Your Joy When your sense of pleasure and satisfaction are derived from the opinions of other people, you are no longer the master of your own happiness. When emotionally intelligent people feel good about something that they’ve done, they won’t let anyone’s opinions or snide remarks take that away from them. While it’s impossible to turn off your reactions to what others think of you, you don’t have to compare yourself to others, and you can always take people’s opinions with a grain of salt. That way, no matter what other people are thinking or doing, your self-worth comes from within. 

Originally published on LinkedIn. 

Carl-Philip - My Song (Studio Session)

A friend of mine shared this wonderful song on her Facebook. It's a relative of hers, in the studio, recording a song he has written. I just love it! What a talent. All luck to you, Carl-Philip!

Ed Sheeran - Thinking Out Loud - Later... with Jools Holland - BBC Two

This song has the most beautiful lyrics, I send them to a very special soul and force. With love<3

"Cos honey, your soul can never grow old, it's evergreen. And baby, your smile's forever in my mind and memory..."

Printed pants

Printed pants are lovely. Lazy Sunday and I would like to wear these from Valentino and combine them my way. They're gorgeous! Find all the nice stuff at www.net-a-porter.com

One driver's license, pls!

Well, it is time for my son to take a driver's license! That means a lot of patience from my side and a lot of time for him behind the wheel as well as behind the books! We started out on our small street and around the neighborhood managing the courage to take the leap and go on a wider circle; to the store, the post-office or the library. Of course also the usual tour round and round on a parking lot to learn how the car works...

The other day he came to my work after school and drove all the way home. It went very well and I hope we can make this a nice routine the days we finish job/school at the same time. Our new favorite thing to do in the car is to ask each other about all the different traffic signs! There really are a lot of them to keep track of and this is a fun way to learn, even I get an update. Another simple way is to practice and do tests regularly on internet. We found this page www.korkort.se that is awesome with a lot of different tests and good information for everything one need to know!

New stuff on my wishlist

March is the perfect month for spring news. These four pieces are more than nice:

Upcycling is the new recycling

Upcycling has captured the zeitgeist, with a growing vanguard of designers taking old – and often unwanted – objects and transforming them into imaginative, covetable collectibles.

Upcycling for most of us is a pretty new concept. Recycling we know all about. It’s what our foremothers did when they stitched patchwork quilts out of old bits of fabric; it’s what all poor societies do from necessity when they refashion every bit of wood and metal because they can’t afford to buy anything new. Upcycling is more ambitious. It takes old (and often unwanted) items and turns them into something more than merely functional objects – it transforms them into things of great beauty, thus perfectly resolving the tension between our desire for new, lovely things and our concern about consuming more of the world’s diminishing resources. It offers luxury for our new eco-conscious times. Creativity gone wild. Have a look down below. Like it?

Find more awesome and unique things at

www.robertomora.it
www.bokjadesign.com
www.boukedevries.com
www.maartenbaas.com  
www.mintshop.co.uk
www.johnnyswing.com

 

 

 

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The Invitation

I have this truly wonderful poem that I've carried with me and it has brought me both inspiration and comfort for years. I have shared it only with a few very special friends but now I thought I'd put it here.

It's called the Invitation, the writers name is Oriah and I believe she's Canadian. A very talented poet as well as a very beautiful soul with an insight that not many possesses. Strong and fragile at the same time.

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me
what you do for a living.
I want to know
what you ache for
and if you dare to dream
of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me
how old you are.
I want to know
if you will risk
looking like a fool
for love
for your dream
for the adventure of being alive.


It doesn’t interest me
what planets are
squaring your moon...
I want to know
if you have touched
the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened
by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know
if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it
or fix it.


I want to know
if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you
to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us
to be careful
to be realistic
to remember the limitations
of being human.


It doesn’t interest me
if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear
the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.


I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know
if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand at the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”


It doesn’t interest me
to know where you live
or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after the night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.


It doesn’t interest me
who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the center of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.


It doesn’t interest me
where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know
what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.


I want to know
if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like
the company you keep
in the empty moments.

Keith Urban - Somebody Like You

Chanel | Haute Couture Spring Summer 2014 Full Show | Exclusive

Awesome Donna Karan silkdress

This is awesome!! Donna Karans silkdress is absolutely gorgeous and I want it! Pair it with Givenchy stilettos and a clutch from Lanvin. Dressed for an evening to remember!
Shop at www.net-a-porter.com

 

 

 

New year, new colors and a new you!

It´s already a new year. Again. Time passes fast and sometimes it seems like twelve months is nothing.

As usual fashionwise one is looking for the IT-thing or IT-color for the spring that is around the corner. I found these things while browsing around. Tangerine with a nice touch of beige. Like!

Everything can be found on www.net-a-porter.com 

Robbie Williams | Robbie Swings In The Studio

I can't resist, he is as charming as ever and I just love the musicians he works with. Quality!

A new friend

I recently met a person whom I instantly bounded with. It's not often anyone really make that much impact on me and I must say I was a bit taken. We both felt the same connection and when we started talking there was no stopping us. I love the sense of knowing somebody before I actually do that, it's rare and it's truly attractive - almost scary. We shared a great deal - from how we'd spent our lives in similar ways so far - to common interests and similar thoughts on how to bounce back after life have given us both some bad rounds.
I must admit that I'm looking forward to continue our talk. To meet a person that inspires, tickles both one's curiosity and mind, is an adventure. Like a gift to unfold.

Living and loving it

Sundays, for me, are for falling in love, for slowing down and for savouring my cappuccino while my kids are still asleep and the house is quiet. For remembering how much I love to live and how much gratitude I feel. It is for enjoying the rare, calm moments and for listening to the wind sweeping over the house. For the scent of the ocean outside or enjoying my home: my sanctuary. Pausing throughout the day to simply take in the many things we take for granted - just for one full inhale and exhale - noticing the world around us, the things that spark our imagination, feed our bodies and lift our hearts.

Sundays are my time to fall in love with this great world and my wonderful life again, after yet another hectic and intense week of loads of work and problem solving.

 

There are some grand houses with fierce apartments either rising or being totally refurbished in NYC. Who wouldn't want to move in?!

Have a look;



Want more? See original article by David Kaufman at http://howtospendit.ft.com/property/36433-i-want-to-wake-up-in-that-city

Lauren Santo Domingo's Paris duplex

This home was just too good not to share. Featured in Vogue. Images Oberto Gili

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mantra mania

There is a quote, by Artur Ashe, that is a genuine, perfect guideline of how to approach life;

"Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can."

McQueen + Williamson

This is surely to die for... At least a little. Bag by iconic Alexander McQueen and dress by Matthew Williamson. A nice outfit for a summer-party. Or maybe even a wedding. Nevertheless one would both feel and look great. That's what counts.

The Biker

One of the best staples in a wardrobe is the bikerjacket. Versatile as few, whether you throw it over a dress or a t-shirt. I really like these new additions. At net-a-porter