Inaccurate biases make it more strenuous than it already is for an introvert to attend parties, network at events, and socialize anywhere. Introverts must understand the truth about their personality type to maximize their career, build a fun social life, and enjoy happy relationships.

What is an Introvert?

On the playground, children compare their belly buttons with one another. If you had an outtie, you were laughed at and probably labeled “weird”. If you had an innie, you were considered a part of the group.

The feelings of belly buttons in the playground are reversed for the extroverted and introverted personality types. Innies (introverts) are considered weird while outties (extroverts) are the norm. This perception of introversion and extroversion flow from misinterpreting their original definitions, which makes it scary to be an introvert.

Carl Jung brought the “introversion” and “extroversion” terms into our language. Jung defined introversion as “the state of or tendency toward being wholly or predominantly concerned with and interested in one’s own mental life.” He defined extroversion as “the act, state, or habit of being predominantly concerned with and obtaining gratification from what is outside the self.” These definitions when misinterpreted confirm most people’s idea of introverts being self-centered anti-social beings while extroverts happily socialize and enjoy relationships.

Introverts are not narcissistic persons. Just as introverts are not necessarily self-centered, extroversion isn’t synonymous with popularity and compassion for others.

The correct definition Jung gave introversion and extroversion is the direction of psychic energy. Psychic energy is hard to conceptualize, measure, and even describe, which makes some modern day psychologists disagree with the concept, but I like to think of it as a life force exchanged with the world.

The flow of psychic energy describes where your energy tends to reside while you think and socialize. If you have an inward flow of psychic energy, your energy builds from solitude making you an introvert. You get energized from reading, listening to music, and being alone.

If you have an outward flow of psychic energy, your energy builds from interactions with people making you an extrovert. Extroverts need to be around people otherwise they feel drained.

Lets look into this further. The knowledge I’m giving you in this article has given me tremendous freedom and acceptance that nothing is inherently wrong with me. I’ve found the more I understand myself, the more acceptance, self-love, and compassion I have for who I am. This self-love allows me to make great friends.

Introversion and Extroversion Model

Since Jung, the Myer-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) test is famous for its accuracy at defining people’s personality type. Introversion and extroversion is one of four dichotomies in a MBTI test, but by itself provides a lot of insight into your own way of feeling and behaving. Knowing the signs of an introvert is a great way to understand this personality type.

You may notice the opposite personality type occasionally surfaces from your behavior as you more accurately deduce introversion and extroversion. If you’re an introvert, for example, sometimes you may find yourself excited and energized talking to people. Extroverts also need moments of silence in solitude. Rare persons have the “pure personality type” of extreme introversion or extroversion.

Jung said the degree of introversion and extroversion varies along a continuum. We exist between the two extremes. It’s common as we age to move towards the center of introversion and extroversion by losing the introverted or extroverted characteristics once embodied.

The Challenge of Being an Introvert

According to introvert expert Marti Laney, an innie herself and author of The Introvert Advantage, we live in an extrovert world. Lang says about 75% of people are extroverts, leaving 25% to be introverts.

Like Laney, I’m an introvert! ToP subscribers are surprised to hear I’m introverted. They envision a communication skills coach as someone with wit, has a lot to say, loves to talk with people, and is dominant in conversations. I’ve built up some of these characteristics, but I’m absolutely an innie. I think that’s why a lot of shy people love connecting with me.

From my experiences, I’ve wondered why introversion makes life and socializing feel like an uphill battle. The general perception of introversion is bad for several reasons – some of which were revealed earlier.

Extroverts are put on holy ground reigning over introverts. Extroverts enjoy themselves in conversations, move forward in their careers, give the best presentations, persuade people to buy, and win dates. What about introverts? They are labeled as anti-social nerds that cannot converse with people because they have no social skills. Both beliefs are myths.

If introversion is generally frowned upon, it makes sense then to try and be an extrovert. Can such personality transform occur?

You cannot transform yourself from one personality type to the other contrary to common lies told by self-help gurus. I’m not saying introverts are forever stuck with a suck social life. I’ve found you can change from an introvert to an extrovert in the sense that you can become more social. You don’t really change from an introvert to an extrovert – you embody the characteristics often associated with extroversion.

You may mistake introversion for shyness or anxiety – such qualities and experiences have nothing to do with an introverted personality. Nonetheless, introverts are often uncomfortable meeting people because their personality pushes them away from socializing. Anyone becomes anxious without experience and practice.

Breakthrough Brain Battle: Introverts Versus Extroverts

Nerds in lab coats can see if you’re introverted or extroverted by injecting radioactive material into your body then looking at how your brain functions. You won’t turn into Radioactive Man from the Simpsons, but the findings will help you appreciate how you socialize and feel about yourself.

In a popular study by Dr. Debra Johnson, positron emission tomography was used to look at the blood flow of extroverts and introverts after participants completed a personality test. The medical technique involves injecting patients with a small amount of radioactive material into their bloodstream before a brain scan to see the brain’s activity. Red indicates high blood flow and intense activity.

The first significant finding Dr. Johnson discovered was that introverts had more blood flow in the brain. Their brains were stimulated more than extroverts. Secondly – and more importantly in understanding the difference between introversion and extroversion – Dr. Johnson discovered that introverts had intense blood flow through brain regions responsible for memory, planning, and problem solving.

Extroverts on the other hand, had intense activities in faster regions of the brain where sensory information of sights, sounds, touch, and taste (not smell) is processed. Extroverts were soaking in the visuals of the scanning machines, voices of the researchers, and feelings of the surface they lay on! Fascinating!

Dr. Johnson had extended on Jung’s definition of extroversion and introversion. She concluded based on blood flow in the brain that introverts revel in their inner world while extroverts direct their focus on the outer world.

Benefits of Being an Introvert

Up to this point in the article, you can now appreciate your personality type, which by itself helps you thrive in an extrovert world. You come to see where your strengths and weaknesses dwell. Keep in mind, however, that because we’re all blended with introverted and extroverted characteristics, you’re not excluded from the benefits and downfalls of either personality type.

There are further situations, careers, and skills each personality type is strong thanks to the qualities discussed in this article.

Extroverts thrive in situations and careers like emergency services, mediators, stockbrokers, and pilots that require quick responses. They love logical analysis for quick decisive action. They also have a curiosity for exploration and creation, which leads them to fields of science, marketing, investigation, acting, and entrepreneurship.

An extroverted person tends to focus on the present moment. These people prefer to be around others instead of reading, sitting at a computer, or doing some other social activity.

Introverts on the other hand, thrive in unique situations on their own. They are reliable experts at assimilating information by gathering complex information and filtering it through their experiences and knowledge. Examples of these people include accountants, engineers, computer programmers, and counselors.

An introvert generally has trouble meeting and talking with strangers, but they are good at building deep connections with people by listening, understanding, and appearing calm. Their ability to listen and understand with calmness makes them good writers and psychologists.

If an introvert learns to meet and talk with people, he or she may find the later stage of the relationship easy to maintain. People conversing with introverts feel surprised and intimate to discover a personal self hidden from others.

Your personality does not have to be the sole determinant of success and happiness. Michelle Pfeiffer, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep, Steve Martin, and Clint Eastwood are a few famous introverts in an extroverted industry. I know many successful communication trainers like myself who confidently socialize and enjoy life with an introvert personality.

There’s a lot to love about your personality – stop being ashamed of it. Whether you’re an introvert or extrovert, you can build friends, influence people, and live a life you enjoy. No matter your personality, it’s up to you to build the skills that give you the life you want.

(I developed the Big Talk Training Course to help the shyest introvert socialize and talk with anyone. What makes this course even better for introverts is I’m an introvert and know what’s it like to suffer at social events not knowing what to say. I recommend you check out the course by clicking here if you’re frustrated with your social life, have few friends, and don’t know how to talk with people.)

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Introvert and Extrovert Personality Test – Are You An Innie or Outtie?
2. 14 Social Skills Resources for an Amazing Social Life

Why It’s Hard to Communicate Well in Conflict When Stressed

If you’re like me, you find it hard to communicate in stressful moments. Scientifically, it is impossible to communicate well when under stress. The body experiences a primal response that agitates people in conflict. A stressed guy will tense his facial expressions, breathe shallowly, raise his voice, respond faster, and not think clearly. (If you controlled these, you wouldn’t be stressed). Not only does the tension hurt your communication, it also creates a viral effect as the emotional rigidity infects those you talk to.

Conflict is probably synonymous for you with stress. To be in conflict with someone is to be stressed. For me, however, I can have my mental and physical tension under control so I can communicate effectively to improve my relationships. If I don’t manage my stress, it inevitably gets the better of me, as it will to you.

Stress makes us mentally ill. A psychiatrist could diagnose you with depression, mania, psychosis, bipolar disorder, or another mental illness when you are stressed. The difference between you and someone diagnosed with one of these mental health problems is the time you and they spend in those states. A person diagnosed with depression feels down for most of the day while you may temporarily be depressed only when you are under loads of stress. No wonder it’s difficult to communicate well when stressed.

Fight, Flight, or Freeze Response

Stress in conflict evokes the fight, flight, or freeze responses. An argument, disagreement, or confrontation elevates tension as you yell, withdraw, stand confused. You do things you later regret.

Aggressive behavior towards another person temporarily feels okay, but then reality kicks in as you feel even more stressed from hurting the person. When you are submissive as you try your best to hide the tension, your suppressed emotions eat at you, which then hurts your relationships.

When under stress, your communication style will change in response to the situation. You can go from a cool, collected person one moment, yet when a stressful situation impinges your tolerable threshold your calm style can quickly shift to aggressive or submissive behaviors. What behavior you fall back on in stressful situations is the one comfortable to you in the past that offered momentary protection.

When someone has surpassed their tolerable degree of tension, telling them to get their act together or how ineffective their current communication is, does not work. It won’t work for you either. It’s human extinct to block out external factors, such as other people’s feelings, and listen to internal ones as your interpersonal communication skills decline. Better communication in intense conflict is a matter of managing stress otherwise it is next to impossible to deal with conflict.

“What Did I Say?” – Memory Loss and Other Dangers of Stress

Stress motivates us to take action, but it too often works against us. We yell, withdraw, or shut-down in tense communication. Our bodies produce cortisol, known as the “stress hormone”, to compel us into action. Without this double-edged hormone, we would accomplish little. If you are completely relaxed in conflict and untrained in good communication skills, you could overlook the problematic issue or give an unsympathetic response.

Research has shown cortisol to improve cognitive functioning. Too much cortisol, however, causes impairment. If you have ever forgotten what you said in a verbal fight, cortisol has literally shut off short-term memory. Cortisol obtrudes neurotransmitters that are chemicals responsible for communication between neurons and other cells. That is why you can memorize a speech 50 times and forget it when you present it. A stressful crisis temporarily results in a blank mind.

Stanford neuroscience professor Robert Sapolsky found that cortisol also causes long-term memory loss. When the receptors for cortisol located in the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for long-term memory, gets flooded overtime, it melts like microwaved Swiss cheese.

The affects of stress are too numerous to list here. From rapid aging of the body and heart disease, to poor sleep and skin conditions, the effects are real. You need to learn techniques to manage your stress; not just for your communication, but also for your health.

Stress Reduction Tips: 9 Key Lessons for Intelligent Stress Management

Because we have primal responses that arise deep from within our neurology, we need to attack the issue at that level. Thinking positively or talking yourself through stress isn’t going to reduce tension. I have developed nine effective ways and techniques to manage stress that you can use to keep calm in stressful moments so you can communicate better and live a happier life:

1. Prevention is the best cure. The best technique to deal with stress is to stop it before it begins. Create the appropriate measures, boundaries, and strategies to interrupt rising tensions. If the tension between two people rises beyond a safe level, one strategy is to pause, walk away, punch a pillow, and take slow deep breathes before commencing the conversation. You can incorporate other stress management techniques listed below into your plan to be more calm in conflict.

2. Accept your feelings. Never tell yourself you shouldn’t feel what you do. Do not say, “I shouldn’t be feeling stressed right now.” You must accept your feelings otherwise they will persist or repress into forms that severely affect your mental health and ability to effectively communicate. When you accept your stress, you move one step forward to taking personal responsibility.

3. Accept responsibility for how you feel. It is tempting and too easy to release your stress on other people. Do not treat people inappropriately. If you treat people in a way they don’t want to be treated, you make them tense, which they will be happy to put back on you.

Blame can only make you more stressed because anxiety is directly related to events within your control. What is beyond your reach makes you anxious. If you blame a spouse for making you angry by yelling, the only visible solution to you is for your spouse to lower his or her voice. Your anxiety and stress will continue to rise because you have little direct influence over your spouse’s voice.

When you accept responsibility, you eliminate blame. You live in truth. You do not become a victim of others. You take control of your feelings. Your new levels of responsibility cause you to do something about how you feel.

If someone causes you stress, address the person. Explain to them how you feel, why you feel that way, and what can be done to fix the problem. Do not worsen the problem by blaming them for how you feel, but focus on the problem. Be problem-oriented; not person-oriented.

4. Breathe. When tension in your body rises, you automatically take shallow breathes. This is one of the first stages prior to full fight, flight, or freeze responses that hurt effective communication. When your stress levels rise, take several deep, slow breathes and you will instantly reduce your stress levels.

5. Take time out. A walk away is guaranteed to refresh your mind. Don’t call for the travel agent to book a Caribbean cruise though, because a temporary break is all you need. Go for a walk or workout at the gym. Be active to release hormones that counter stress. Exercise is the body’s emotional reset button.

Absence from the situation that created the tension takes your mind off the problem and gives you clearer thoughts to attack the problem. Be sure to address the problem after your time out, however, otherwise you will only have temporarily avoided the real issue.

6. Be flexible. Stress is like the sunrise and sunset. It is inevitable. It is a part of your human body. Therefore, the best way to deal with it is to change your behavior and communication.

Be soft; not brittle. Recognize signals of stress by reading people’s verbal and nonverbal language, then adjust yourself accordingly. Be flexible by going a bit out of your way for them to assist their temporary needs and wants. Don’t run around the world for them, but do be more aware and respondent of them. This can lead you to less stress.

7. Discuss the problem afterwards. Combine this tip with the prior tip of remaining flexible and you have two keys to manage tense people. You need to address the problem following the stressful moment otherwise destructive, repetitious behavior occurs. Also, if there is someone you know that finds it difficult to manage their stress in communication, you can refer them to this article by clicking the “ShareThis” link at the bottom of this article.

8. Ask others about your responses in stressful moments. You are to do this because you cannot provide an accurate self-assessment when stressed. Your short-term memory loss makes it impossible to recall information.

Also, an awareness of your behavior can trigger a pattern interrupt. If the person says you consistently yell when stressed, raising your voice can trigger an awareness that your stress needs to reduce before the conversation continues.

9. Listen to binaural beats. Discovered by Heinrich Wilhelm Dove in 1839, binaural beats describes the low-frequency pulsations in the brain created by different frequencies played into each ear. The brain integrates the two sounds to form a third sound that relaxes the mind.

In terms of stress, binaural beats is a miracle. A correctly made binaural beat will scientifically make your brain produce alpha waves, which is the same brain wave you have when resting. That wonderful feeling you have when lying in bed almost asleep can be produced by binaural beats. Imagine how better your life would be by simply putting on a headphone the next time you’re stressed as you enter a relaxed state at will!

If you’re after binaural beats, Paul Kleinmeulman has a good program that includes a series of binaural beats for different purposes. You can check out his program here, where you will learn more about the proven science behind binaural beats, which can make you motivated, sleep better, intensify your focus, learn efficiently, and keep relaxed.

Conflict does not need to be synonymous with stress. Neither has to make you miserable. Stress can be a good thing – just like conflict is good for creativity, openness, and growth – when it is controlled with the above tips.

Your body experiences stress because it is threatened in conflict. Do something about it. You don’t want to feel the same way in a fight as you do when watching the Simpsons. Harness this primal response and you will be communicating more effectively in your next confrontation.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. How to Manage and Deal with an Aggressive Boss
2. The Complete Nonviolent Communication (NVC) Process for Compassion, Understanding, and Peace
3. The Benefits of Communication Skills
4. How and When to End a Long-Term Relationship
5. Getting Over a Relationship Break Up

See if you can find a link between the following short scenarios: Your partner leaves the room in anger after another argument; A friend lashes out at you despite you having done nothing wrong; Your children’s constant disobedience makes you extremely frustrated and causes you to yell and do things you regret.

Why do the above scenarios, or similar situations, constantly play out in your life? There are thousands of situations like the ones listed above that all have a common thread. We know there is a better way to handle the situation, but we cannot figure it out. Our emotions often get the better of us as we poorly handle the situation. We know something is wrong and that we can fix it, but how? The answers to these questions and the secret human need I will show you how to fulfill is through a method of communication called “nonviolent communication”, also known as NVC.

An Overview of Nonviolent Communication: Your Key to Compassionate Communication for Shared Understanding

The process I am about to discuss in this article is one created by the Center for Nonviolent Communication. The organization is a nonprofit organization founded by Marshall Rosenberg, author of Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life. Rosenberg and a couple hundred other NVC trainers, conduct workshops throughout the world where they teach people their nonviolent communication model. The NVC process has changed millions of people who learned the techniques directly from trainers or Rosenberg’s book, and people who have been fortunate enough to have those trained in the NVC process use the model on them.

If you are after a process that changes a person’s behavior, NVC is not the best one to use. NVC builds a deep intimate relationship and connection with effective communication by satisfying people’s needs. It achieves a level of connection most people never experience. It can be used to change a person’s behavior, but the primary purpose of the process is to help people face what matters with compassion to connect at a very intimate level.

Once you have sufficiently gone through certain steps in the process, then you can use your negotiation skills to persuade the person. If you try to persuade the person upfront before you use NVC, you will often find the person resists you and ignores what you have to say.

When a person disagrees with you, refuses to comply with a request, or is angry at you, a poor communicator tries to firstly express oneself. The person seeks to be understood before seeking to understand. An NVC user, on the contrary, seeks to understand the person, which in turn leads to their own need of being understood. Once you understand others, they will want to understand you.

The commonality amongst the situations I mentioned earlier, and hundreds of situations you experience throughout the week, is people’s desperation to be understood. Your angry partner wants to be understood. Your friend wants to be understood and will have almost zero frustration once you understand. Your children want to be understood, which will naturally compel them to talk with you about intimate issues. Nonviolent communication helps you understand people and have them understand you.

The need to be understood is possibly the greatest unmet human need. Fulfill this need and you will trigger new experiences, intimate sharing, and connect with people at the heart. Thanks to Dan Kennedy, a great marketer that I intently learn from, I came across a quote by Cavett Robert, founder of the National Speakers Association, who said, “Most people are walking around, umbilical cord in hand, looking for a new place to plug it in.” If you can be that “socket” by understanding the person and empathically receiving their needs, you automatically share an electrifying connection with the person. Something about the person will change before your eyes. They will know something deep is going on without knowing what you are doing.

Unfortunately, the majority of people never arrive at this stage of electrifying intimacy. Answer this question truthfully: How many people truly understand you on a frequent basis? Think about the question for some time because it is important to understand understanding.

I ask this not to make you blame others for their failure to understand you, but to show you the scarcity of people who seek to understand. If you are like most people, you will not have one person that frequently and truly understands you in conversations. Few people care about understanding others, which causes themselves to be misunderstood. People who complain that “no one understands me” are constantly misunderstood because they live on a one-way street seeking to receive before they consider giving.

Violence is widespread because one person or group desperately wants to be understood while another party they are in conflict with also wants to be understood. The failure to see each other’s needs means neither gets one’s needs fulfilled. The result is an outbreak of emotional or physical destruction. So much pain in the world is caused by misunderstandings.

The anger and frustration present in everyday situations appears to be irrelevant to deeper issues, yet it is our inability to effectively face conflict that contributes to a global scale of war and hatred. Our everyday wallowing in resentment, frustration, and misunderstandings has as much – but probably greater – impact on peace and love than kind actions. If you cannot resolve your minor nuances in relationships that are suppose to be intimate and love-filled, you cannot expect nations who have hated each other for centuries to resolve major conflicts. To understand another person is a secret of world peace. “Peace cannot be achieved through violence,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson, “it can only be attained through understanding.”

The nonviolent communication process is a simple once you know the process; though it’s not always a fun slide to ride on because emotional pollution clogs your use of it. With practice, you will become better at NVC and be more successful in your communication and relationships. Over time, provided you continually practice the techniques and polish your skills, you will become excellent at the process.

The Four Step Process

The process has four steps: observing, feeling, needing, and requesting. There are really eight steps, however, because you firstly apply the four steps to the other person, then you apply them to yourself. Remember what I said before about seeking to understand before being understood? The first four stages make you understand people so you can be understood when you apply the four steps on yourself. This is the most critical part of the concept to grasp.

Unless the person is a compassionate communicator, go through the four steps first on the other person otherwise he or she will not listen to you. Use the visualization of a vacuum empathically “sucking up” the person’s communication. Until the person feels “cleaned”, you will be unable to clean yourself. Once you have sucked up the person, and hence understood them, you are then ready to use NVC on yourself.

Most people identify a few problems in firstly focusing on the other person. If you have not identified one of these now, you will as you continue to read about the process. The biggest concern I had with NVC is that you forgo your own needs, concerns, and emotions like anger. NVC prevents destructive expressions of anger and frustration via harmful attitudes and behaviors (think of the sarcastic teenager or the employee who does poor quality work). The process encourages you to express intense emotions – especially anger – in a healthy way that fulfills the underlying need.

At first glance, I understand the model may overwhelm you, but keep at it and reread the pages in this article to refine your ability to understand people and be understood. The NVC process as described in this full article will give you a good idea of what to expect in my Communication Secrets of Powerful People Program should you want to invest in it. It could be one of the greatest investments you make. Once you know how to understand people and help them understand you, you can mold your relationships however you want. It is time to kick into the first stage: observing.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg
2. The Heart of Effective Communication: How to Love People
3. How to Manage Stress in Relationship Communication: Keep Calm with Scientific Stress Management
4. The Benefits of Communication Skills
5. The Greatest 15 Myths of Communication

As I drove, the open car park gave me an invitation to have a little fun with my car. If landscapes could talk, this one was whispering into my ear that I should spin the wheels. “Besides, it’s late at night. No one is around and you’re feeling great. It’s an open car park with no danger. Do it!” Like a vulnerable teenager succumbing to peer pressure, I accepted the invitation.

The car became an extension of my body as it began to mimic my ecstatic mood. I put my foot down hard on the accelerator as I spun the wheel left around the first corner. As the rear tires lost their stability and the car went side-ways, I entered the next turn and spun the wheel right. The sound of screeching tires was water fertilizing my increasing smile. Smoke filled the rims of my tires and a shot of adrenaline filled my body.

Following the two consecutive drifts, I straightened the car and approached a set of traffic lights on the main road that would take me home. Had this been during the daytime, about seven cars would be in front of me before the upcoming traffic lights.

My friend who had left before me had passed through the traffic lights three seconds ago so the lights were still green. Keeping in the mood, I put my foot down on the accelerator to catch the green light. I would safely make it. I turned around the corner with a soft screech of the tires. 20 meters in front of me on the side of the road were two police officers beside their vehicle. Lucky me.

The police pulled me over. Opposite to what you might be thinking, I was not concerned. I was still in my elevated state. I smiled. I wound down my window and an angry officer came charging at me, yelling, “What the hell are you thinking? What the hell is going through your mind?” I paused momentarily, unaffected by his aggressive state. I said smilingly, “I’m just happy, I guess.” Not a smart response. Not a smart response at all.

It hit me I was out of it. I knew I should have said something else. I gulped. My mind rushed to think of some communication techniques I could use as a life boat to save me from drowning in the conversation. The moment was intense and all that came to mind were some techniques on getting out of a speeding-ticket. I thought to myself that I will give the techniques a shot. I had annoyed the officer enough. Surely it couldn’t get worse.

As I was thinking how to approach this difficult situation, I was still happy. My happy mood seemed to pour fuel on his already raging fire. “Bloody hell mate! I could just give you a ticket right now!” My smile began to lower. I no longer made eye contact with the officer. The officer’s raging mood began to infect me. He was making me feel angry. It was as if my body was overcome by an emotional virus from the officer who was the virus’ host.

I thought of the techniques to get out of a speeding-ticket and realized I was already beginning to use them. It was too late to make the officer feel safe as he approached the car, but I needed to no longer act oblivious to my mistake. I needed to show respect as officers are in a clear position of authority and often experience disrespect throughout their day that only makes them more determined to convict guilty citizens. “You’re right,” I replied. “I was stupid and careless.”

The officer was still enraged and continued to threaten me with a ticket. I knew he could easily write me a ticket, but he was not writing one possibly because officers hate the paperwork created from citizens breaking the law. I kept myself aligned with the officer’s reality by remaining in a “Yes I’m wrong, stupid, and shouldn’t have done that” mood. I continued to play psychological judo, and match my mood with his own, until two minutes later he said to drive away. And oh, no ticket!

I drove off – though feeling pleased I had beaten a reckless driving ticket – in an irritated state. The officer had destroyed my happy mood. It took two minutes of talking with the officer to completely transform my happy state into a joyless, gloomy mood, which I remained in for another two hours until I went to bed.

Emotional Contagion: When Two Minds Infect One Another

“People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou, poet and actress

“Any emotion, if it is sincere, is involuntary.” – Mark Twain, highly quoted writer

“You can close your eyes to the things you do not want to see, but you cannot close your heart to the things you do not want to feel.” – Anonymous

“I am involved in all of mankind.” – John Donne, 16th century poet

My story I described is probably a perfect depiction of your reality with emotions. Everyday you interact with people in different moods. Sometimes you are happier than people; other times they are happier than you. Whatever the case, emotions transfer between people. This is a fascinating peculiarity with emotions. Have you ever noticed how we feel in our interactions is not only dependent on our internal state?

• How did you feel when someone really annoyed began talking to you? You became more annoyed.
• How did you feel when someone unhappy began talking to you? You began to be unhappy.
• How did you feel when a depressed person shared their misery with you? You felt depressed and miserable.
• How did you feel when a charismatic person talked to you? You felt his energy and you began to feel happier.

Psychologists call this phenomena “emotional contagion”. It is a psychological and physiological process – a transference of emotion that can occur from mimicking body language. Elaine Hatfield, a professor at the University of Hawaii, in a study with John Carlson and Christopher Hsee, had college students watch a videotape of a man describe two very emotional experiences: his life’s happiest and saddest events. While the college students watched the tape, they were taped so the researchers could record the students’ emotional responses. The students were also asked what feelings they experienced for each story at the end of the video.

The researchers found that students showed and expressed the recorded person’s emotions. The student’s felt happy when they watched the man describe his happiest event. The students felt sad when they watched the man describe his saddest event.

Hatfield and her two colleagues, John Cacioppo and Richard Rapson, in their co-authored book Emotional Contagion, say the psychophysiological phenomena occurs from automatically matching facial expressions, vocalics, postures, and movements. Hatfield says, “People tend to experience emotions consistent with the facial, vocal, and postural expressions they adopt.”

When you empathetically listen to a friend, true empathy puts you in their shoes to experience the discussed events. The friend describes an argument with an ex-partner, the yelling, the misunderstandings. You can vividly see what your friend talks about. The experience lets you feel the pain your friend feels. Well-known psychologist Albert Bandura says the shared experience results in a shared feeling. That is the price of listening: not only can you catch a cold, but you can catch an emotional cold.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
2. Dirty Tricks of Psychology for Mind-Reading and the Roots of Empathy
3. The Complete Nonviolent Communication (NVC) Process for Compassion, Understanding, and Peace
4. Review of Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
5. The Greatest 15 Myths of Communication

At the end of the round, he had failed to qualify for the national tournament by two shots. In the clubhouse where we had a drink, we talked about what he did well and what he could have done better. “I was surprised by the quality of your chip shots and game around the greens,” I remarked. “Everything went within 2 meters of the pin.” Not to concerned about the disappointed day, Nathan replied, “Yeah, you’re right. My wedge game was strong today. Just…” to which I interrupted and said, “The eleventh 2-iron.” He echoed my words, “Spot on, the eleventh 2-iron.”

I let him continue to talk as his words almost perfectly described the words in my mind. Something happened between our minds. It was like a magic trick taking place. A mystical cable connected our minds, leading to strange psychological phenomena.

It seemed we almost had psychic powers. He was not just reading my mind, I was also reading his. There was a shared connection, a relaying of thoughts exchanged between minds. The distance between two brains was removed as two minds overcame physical boundaries to connect with one another.

There was no two persons trying to talk to one another – frustrated in their misunderstandings. There was no interpretation, judgments, or confusion about what each other meant. We were so attuned to one another that we did not even have to say a word and we would have understood what was in the other person’s mind.

What happened here? Was it just a fluke, a lucky break? Were psychic powers at work? How does psychology explain this? How can you use this information to read someone’s mind and improve your communication skills?

We Were Born to Connect: The Roots of Empathy Gave Us Innate Psychological and Physiological Connections

In 328 BC, Aristotle said humans are social animals. Nowadays, more and more evidence is showing that humans are born to connect with one another. Much fascinating research on psychology, sociology, neuroscience, and child development is revealing how we connect in our relationships.

From birth, a baby prefers his or her mother’s voice, sight, and smell than that of a stranger’s. The mother is more connected to the baby than an outsider. As the baby grows, other attachments form. Should a babysitter come over to look after the toddler as the mother leaves the house, the toddler experiences separation anxiety and clings to the mother’s leg. (The anxiety is important for survival and avoiding dangerous situations.) The child can be joyous 10 seconds prior to seeing the babysitter, but the sight of the stranger creates fear in the child and leads to large amounts of distress.

As the mother leaves the house, she feels her child’s anxiety. The child may say no words or cry no tears, yet the mother mind-reads her child’s emotional state. She is able to feel exactly what the child is feeling. There is a mind-to-mind and mind-to-body connection taking place.

Interpersonal communication is not just about direct channels – the channels like verbal and nonverbal communication obvious to people. Though we are often aware of people’s words and body language, reading someone’s mind goes to the next level. When you know another person well enough, you pick-up on indirect channels that give you hunches about the other person. Nothing needs to be said or expressed nonverbally; it is your intuition – almost a sixth sense – that tells you what is on the person’s mind.

We do not just connect through words, we connect at a biological level. Our bodies can adjust to match someone else’s body. When you deeply connect to someone during a conversation, your posture, movements, and heart rate match the other person. This power gives you the ability to control another’s mood. (It isn’t fake rapport you see in most people’s attempts to use NLP.) A mother can relieve her distressed baby with her soothing voice. Our psychology and physiology can affect someone else’s psychology and physiology. You literally change people’s bodies with your thoughts.

Social and emotional intelligence expert Daniel Goleman is a leader in the mind-to-mind and mind-to-body connections we share with each other. In a New York Times article, Goleman discusses the powerful connection we share with people. He refers to one study that measured a female’s anxiety. Researchers had a group of females hold someone’s hand prior to receiving an electric shock. When a female held hands with a stranger, she remained distressed. When a woman held her husband’s hand, however, brain scans confirmed little activity in the emotional parts of her brain. She kept calm. The husband’s hand was a biological source of emotional rescue. Our psychological and physiological states affect ourselves and other people at astonishing levels.

You Have Superpowers

“Think twice before you speak, because your words and influence will plant the seed of either success or failure in the mind of another.” – Napoleon Hill (1883-1970), author of the classic Think and Grow Rich!

“The greatest reward is to know that one can speak and emit articulate sounds and utter words that describe things, events and emotions.” – Camilo Jose Cela, Spanish writer and recipent of the 1989 Nobel Prize in Literature

“The great gift of human beings is that we have the power of empathy.” – Meryl Streep (1949-present), American actress

Because we were born to connect with one another, each of us has innate abilities to connect with others. Believe it or not, everyday we read each other’s minds. Whether a friend asks for your opinion on their clothes, a boss wants your input on a coworker’s performance, or a child asks for a gift, you receive what feels like sixth sense signals that tell you how to respond. When a friend asks for your opinion on their clothes, you can almost determine what they are thinking. You have memories, empathy, and gut-feelings about the person’s thoughts that tell you how to respond.

You already have “superpowers”, an ability to determine another’s state. If you did not have such abilities, you would fail miserably in your relationships; you would fail to intimately connect with your partner; you would struggle to persuade others as your negotiation skills would be insufficient to determine what the other person really wants; you would be unable to sense when someone manipulates you. Without this “superpower” to read someone’s mind, you would struggle to cooperate and connect with people.

Unfortunately, the less time you spend with someone and the more distanced you are with them, you become less able to read a person’s mind. As I am sure you know, we do not have perfect abilities to cue into another person’s thoughts. If it were that perfect, there would be little reason to communicate. We would know exactly what everyone is thinking.

It seems that a couple intimately connected to one another should know what their partner is thinking because time in a close relationship helps build the individual’s mind-to-mind connection. Married people might be laughing at reading that. Too many married couples can recall endless occasions when their partner had no clue what they thought – yet alone, what they were thinking when they tried to explain themselves.

William Ickes, a psychologist at the University of Texas at Arlington, is the leading expert in empathic accuracy. Ickes says misunderstandings in marriages occurs from a lack of insight into their partner’s way of thinking. While you may be motivated to understand your partner early on in a relationship, says Ickes, during the first few years of marriage most people’s empathy for their partner decreases because they become overly confident in understanding their partner.

It may seem contradictory, but assumptions destroy your ability to read someone’s mind. Reading someone’s mind is not about guessing or contriving information to arrive at a conclusion; it is about being immersed in the present as you allow yourself to be absorbed by the person’s reality. You come to act as the person acts, feel as the person feels, and think as the person thinks. Assuming information destroys your human powers to read someone’s mind, build understanding, and establish empathy.

Become a Better Superhero: Mind-Reading Tricks – Empathy Techniques

“The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.” – Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), third President of the United States

“In nature we never see anything isolated, but everything in connection with something else which is before it, beside it, under it and over it.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), famed German writer

“Every reader, if he has a strong mind, reads himself into the book, and amalgamates his thoughts with those of the author.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

You can smile and the whole world smiles with you. That is the magic of “emotional contagion”, a term created by psychologists to describe the infectious nature of emotions. If you frown as you walk around at work, you will infect coworkers with your sour mood. This connection we have with one another is there for a reason: it connects us! Emotional contagion plays a very important role in connecting people together.

We would be separate from each other without emotional contagion; we would have little concern for how people feel; we would be unable to read another’s mind. Intelligently taking on a person’s reality by allowing yourself to become infected with their emotions, lets you infer their thoughts. Some psychologists allows emotions to transfer from their client to themselves, which gives them the ability to peer into their client’s inner world. A psychologist can then discover a thought or feeling their client is not yet aware of.

Goleman in Social Intelligence discusses the amazing mind-to-mind connection, a connection that transcends physical boundaries. He says the intimacy of our communication controls the degree we can connect with others. When a couple are highly engaged with one another, Goleman says, “Such mental intimacy bespeaks an emotional closeness; the more satisfied and communicative a couple, the more accurate their mutual mind-reading.”

The intimacy of our communication that creates a psychic connection has a neurological justification explains Goleman. It is not some unexplained magical power, but neurological adjustment. As we communicate with someone and experience what other people experience, our neurons form pathways. These neural pathways unconsciously direct messages to form our sixth sense that gives us gut-feelings about what people are thinking. “Our trains of association run on set tracks, circuits of learning and memory,” says Goleman. “Once any of these trains has been primed, even by a simple mention, that track stirs in the unconscious, beyond the reach of our active attention.”

Intimate communication that shapes the brain can only be achieved by intimately sharing another person’s reality. Quietening your inner dialog makes you more able to detect another’s emotions. Without inner silence, empathy becomes a difficult task because there is no two-way communication.

Think back to a time when you were angry with someone you were talking to. Your anger was illogical as it caused you to do things you later regretted. You did not care what the other person felt, you were just concerned with releasing your anger and telling him or her how you felt. (The 10th chapter on emotions and logic in my communication secrets program can solve this problem for you.)

Better emotional management helps your mind-reading skills to improve your relationships. Four researchers in a study titled Physiologic Correlates of Perceived Therapist Empathy and Social-Emotional Process During Psychotherapy found that therapists and patients who felt the same had a more positive relationship. Similar feelings between people helps their relationship.

The researchers from the study say that talking uses a different part of the brain than emotional responses. Being a blabber-mouth kills your ability to emotionally connect with people and read their mind. Listening plays a huge role in connecting minds. By talking too much, we block our biological ability to feel what another person feels – and fail to build a connection akin to mind-reading.

As you quieten your inner dialog to tune into a person’s emotions, be aware that their thoughts and desires will not be the same as your thoughts and desires. Psychologists call this a “theory of mind, which describes the ability to determine another’s mental state and at the same time acknowledge the differences to our own.

Body language and other nonverbal cues helps us achieve seemingly psychic powers. Annie Murphy Paul, in a Psychology Today article titled “Mind Reading”, says that body language cues such as facial expressions are a good way to tap into people’s thoughts. “We tend to focus on others’ eyes, and that helps us,” says Paul. “The many surrounding muscles make eyes a richer source of clues than other parts of the face: downcast in sadness, wide open in fright, dreamily unfocused, staring hard with jealousy, or glancing around with bored impatience.”

While the eyes play an important role in determining someone’s thoughts, as does other nonverbal signals like voice, “it’s the content of speech that contributes most to our success at mind reading” says Paul. Meaning is not always directly expressed through words, but words give us insight into people’s way of thinking. It is next to impossible to mind-read someone speaking another language.

Another trick you can use – which is one of the biggest tricks – to read a person’s mind is to keep learning about communication, personal development, and human psychology. As you learn more about yourself, you learn more about other people. You come to understand what people feel, how we act, and what we think in certain situations. It is crazy how good I am now at digging into someone’s mind and knowing what is going through their mind in a conversation. I know how people react to many statements, the feelings one has during certain moments, and how to shift all this around to make it work for me.

Responsibility Comes with Power – Be Weary of the Dangers of Empathy

There needs to be a word of warning about your mind-reading superpowers. Before you go out and use the magic tricks of mind-reading, a series of techniques that use our innate ability to connect with one another, use your powers wisely. Empathy expert Ickes, with his academic partner Jeffry Simpson, advise people against the surprising dangers of empathy. “Empathic accuracy and understanding can be bad for relationships,” writes Ickes and Simpson in their study Managing Empathic Accuracy in Close Relationships. “While accurate understanding should be good for relationships as a general rule, too much understanding in certain contexts may have deleterious consequences.”

Diagnosing is one such example of a poor application of mind-reading skills, which is discussed in my communication secrets program. We diagnose others when we express people’s intentions. We try to act above others. You can try to mind-read your partner by diagnosing them (“You’re just jealous”, “Why do you always try to argue with me?”, or “Liar, I know what you really mean”) and hurt the relationship as a result of your diagnosis.

As you learn more about communication, you may be tempted to use the communication barrier of diagnosing because you will understand the human mind. Just as a partner in a marriage gets into relationship-trouble by assuming they understand their partner, the same happens when you are overly confident about understanding how our minds work.

The sad thing about diagnosing is its accuracy is irrelevant. Merely assuming or revealing someone’s intentions makes them defensive. Your superpowers and all the tricks you have been given to read someone’s mind that are suppose to connect people together, can separate you from people.

Use your mind powers wisely young Jedi. Know when to get into someone’s head and when to stay out. It is not the power to read another person’s mind that will give you great power with people, for that is a skill we all have; rather, having the skill to keep on understanding people is what will give you power. Understanding is, after all, the purpose of peering into someone’s mind.

(To discover cool mind-tricks used by popular magicians to “wow!” their audiences, click here.)

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of Mind-Lines by Michael Hall and Bobby Bodenhamer
2. The Magical Science of Emotions: Emotional Contagion, Mirror Neurons, and the High Road to Happiness
3. Review of Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
4. Review of Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
5. The Greatest 15 Myths of Communication

“Getting rid of a delusion makes us wiser than getting hold of a truth.” – Karl Ludwig Borne (1786-1837)

“Myth is an attempt to narrate a whole human experience, of which the purpose is too deep, going too deep in the blood and soul, for mental explanation or description.” – David Herbert Lawrence (1885-1930), English writer who often criticized modern living’s negative influence on humans

“Few people have the imagination for reality.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), famous German writer

Lies, deception, misunderstandings, illusions, distortions, and deceit is easier to accept than the truth. We are creatures of denial. Ignorance has a cushioning effect to soften the harshness of reality.

While you may ignore the truth because it is uncomfortable to face, other times you accept myths over truth because you don’t know the difference. A relationship expert, counselor, psychologist, or even a communication trainer may have mislead you to believe a communication myth is truth. Whatever the case maybe, this article is sure to shake up your communication beliefs and shock you into reality, allowing you to communicate more effectively.

Originally I was struggling to complete 10 myths for this article, but after brainstorming, researching, observing people communicate, coaching people on their communication skills, asking tens of thousands of subscribers on communication myths, and picking out myths from my buried notes, 15 myths fitted surprisingly snug. I believe all these myths need to be revealed, cleared, and truth be told so we are better empowered to improve our personalities and relationships.

The greatest myths of communication are arranged in order depending on their frequency and strength in people’s minds. From lies, illusions, flawed teachings, and misunderstandings, it is time to debunk the top 15 all-time myths of communication:

#15 Myth: Logic makes communication effective

Logic destroys relationships. The next time you see two people in an argument, watch them focus on the logical level. Each person will give facts the other does not care about. The content and logical focus of a conversation has been the demise of many relationships.

When bland words and facts are focused upon, causing emotions to be overlooked, the relationship suffers. Intelligence, reasoning, and rationality are fine. Problems can arise when logic gets center of attention in a conversion – especially during conflict. The emotional content of conflict needs to be handled first before facts can surface.

Stop focusing on the content of conversations. Look beyond the words to see emotion. Start caring about people’s emotions beneath their content of a conversation because relationships are fueled by emotion.

Even in business communications you need to focus on emotion. We want others to understand how we feel instead of pointing out the facts or telling us how to feel. When you understand humans are creatures of emotion, and that we are predictably irrational, you enable yourself to have great charisma and persuasive power. (I recommend you read chapter 10 of my communication secrets program for full details on how to overcome this logical dilemma to communicate at an emotional level so you powerfully connect with people.)

#14 Myth: Effective communication is about the blunt truth

I know this myth will be interpreted by readers in a different way than how I intend it to be. A person who always tells the blunt truth is disliked by those who always get told the truth. Truth-tellers use the excuse of, “I tell it how it is” and “If people can’t deal with reality, it’s their problem.” They may even see their need to tell the truth as a virtue.

The truth we tell others often manifests itself into criticism that gets thrown back into our faces with defensiveness or arguments. Truth is hurtful when delivered in the absence of empathy. Productive communication is inhibited when people are too busy defending themselves from personal attacks.

I am not advocating you lie or give people enormous amounts of praise when they sucked at something or to live a deceptive life. Lies are unnecessary when you deliver the facts with compassion. You need compassion in a tell-it-like-it-is attitude.

Truth is not a virtue without compassion. “Our tendency is to choose up sides, valuing certain emotional skills while neglecting and even disparaging others,” write Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz in The Power of Full Engagement. “Take a moment to consider how broad a range of emotional muscles you have in your own life. In all likelihood you will discover that you have considerable more strength on one side of the spectrum than on the other. Notice, too, the judgment that you bring to the relative merits of opposing qualities.”

Loehr and Schwartz go on to write that “no emotional capacity better serves depth and richness more than the willingness to value feelings that seem contradictory and not to choose up sides between them.” Have you been limiting your array of emotional skills by valuing the blunt truth over compassion?

#13 Myth: Communication solves everything

As someone who teaches communication skills, this myth is something I would like to believe! Unfortunately, communication does not solve all conflict and relationship problems. Sometimes the greatest charismatically persuasive communication cannot solve relationship issues.

Marina Benjamen, Ph.D. of Psych Central sees a frequent scenario in couples counseling. Couples have no “serious problem”. Both partners can vouch for no drinking, abuse, or infidelity. The problem? They do not communicate. A lack of communication can happen for many reasons, but by itself it rarely leads to relationship resolutions. “Good communication exposes conflict that when effectively dealt with,” says Benjamen, “can promote a more open and intimate connection.”

I have come to notice a transition point in people who adopt this myth of communication solving everything. The general public are vaguely advised that “communication is important in relationships”. Few people like yourself who go one step further by learning conflict management, emotional mastery, and self awareness, for example, come to realize how communication is greatly beneficial. The more we learn and develop ourselves, the more emphasis we place on communication. Eventually, we come to believe that any argument, relationship break up, or person who does not like us comes from poor communication.

Think of a worldly issue, like abortion or the death penalty, that you have a strong stance on. Do you think someone with opposing views who communicates well would change your mind? If you really believe in your stance on the issue, then communication is not going to change your mind. You and I have religious, political, and personal values that prevent communication solving everything.

Communication is the relationship, a shared connection between two points. Communication forms the bridge in a relationship so it makes sense to assume the problems coming and going must exist on the bridge. If either side has a serious enough foundational problem, however, the strongest bridge is not going to last.

People ask, “What things can I say and do to make people like me?” This is the wrong type of thinking! Most effective communication is doomed before you even open your mouth. Becoming charismatic and persuasive starts from within you. Changing people’s behavior starts from within you. And having intimate, sharing, and loving relationships starts within you. Change your life by changing your thinking. Good relationships happen with self development; not only through good communication.

I steer my focus away from telling people to say rehashed lines in certain situations because no magical line can effectively work when you are incongruent with your words. You can say one brilliant communication line, but how you feel and think is a greater influence on the outcome. My Communication Secrets of Powerful People Program is not about rehashed lines. It gets you deeply understanding yourself and other people so you can begin communicating more intimately, powerfully, persuasively, and charismatically.

#12 Myth: Learning communication makes you a better communicator

We are at a global health crisis. Doctors have repeatedly said that the large percentage of health problems in Western countries comes from choices controllable by those who suffer such health ailments. We are in control of drinking, eating, smoking, stressing, and exercising. The global health crisis is not occurring because we have failed to learn the implications of the evil five of health – we all know what happens when ignoring these – but the problem comes from our inability to change. (This is further proof that logic is weak.)

Learning about a health problem does not automatically make you healthier. We all know how to lose weight: you consume less energy than you put out. But the majority of us have health problems within our control, which we logically understand, yet continue to ignore.

Learning communication only makes you a better communicator when the lessons lead to behavioral change. Even failing at a new skill makes you a better communicator because you went out and did something. Stop trying to intellectualize everything and just give it a go. You will become a better communicator when you do it. (I recommend you read Alan Deutschman’s Change or Die for more information about this topic.)

#11 Myth: Communication is one-way

Radios, televisions, and many electrical devices in the home communicate one-way messages. It seems our relationships are often the same. At times it appears we communicate in a monologue. There is still two-way communication – just poor two-way communication – because we cannot not communicate.

Communication in human relationships is two-way. Even one-way communication like public speaking is two-way. We have eyes and ears that absorb people’s communication as listening or a lack of listening communicates a message. You can listen and not say a word to communicate. Whether you choose to do something with this gathered information to improve your relationships, increase your charisma, or boost your persuasion is up to you. It is up to you if you choose to empathize, laugh at, pay attention to, or ignore another person’s communication, yet two-way communication will always exist. Several other myths, as you will soon discover, nicely tie into this myth.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. The Benefits of Communication Skills
2. Why Smart People Have Poor Communication Skills – and What to Do About It
3. The Complete Nonviolent Communication (NVC) Process for Compassion, Understanding, and Peace
4. Review of Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg
5. The Heart of Effective Communication: How to Love People

Sexual arousal contains several of the greatest lessons to teach yourself how to become self-motivated. Arousal begins by thinking about someone you find attractive. Thoughts create vivid images that lead to a growing intensity of feelings. As your feelings intensify, blood flow increases to certain body parts, breathing heightens, and your skin becomes sensitive. If you continue to immerse yourself in such imagery, eventually you need to act on those feelings.

The enduring desire and process to goal achievement is no different to arousal. Thoughts lead to vivid imagery, which creates intense feelings. Soon enough you must act on those feelings because it becomes too much for you to not chase your goal. You can create an equivalent – if not more intense – desire as physical arousal to achieve your personal development goals while the people around you quit by continuing to reading part two of this article.

2. Stimulating an Intense Emotional Craving to Get What You Want: How to Be Self-Motivated

“The starting point of all achievement is desire.” – Napoleon Hill

“You can have anything you want – if you want it badly enough. You can be anything you want to be, do anything you set out to accomplish if you hold to that desire with singleness of purpose.” – Abraham Lincoln

“Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic and faithful, and you will accomplish your object. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emotions play a vital role in goal-attainment. Nelissen, Dijker, and de Vries in their 2007 study titled Emotions and Goals: Assessing Relations Between Values and Emotions emphasize the importance of emotions in achieving goals:

“An emotional state is characterized by a motivational tendency to the attainment or maintenance of a particular, emotion-specific end-state. Some [studies] have further proposed that the goal-directed nature of behavioral consequences of emotions is adaptive, thus portraying emotions as solutions to obstacles and opportunities of physical and social survival.”

As a basic example of the importance of emotions in goal-attainment, let’s say you are on holidays visiting beautiful landmarks and you’re driving up a steep mountain. You get to the top of the mountain and make your way to an eye-grabbing location that borders the mountain’s edge. There is no fences or boundaries placed that control where you can walk on top of the mountain. As you approach the mountain’s edge, you see the steep fall and quickly take a few steps back to feel safe.

The emotion in this example is fear. It is a fear of danger to ensure you achieve your goal of safety. If you had zero fear of falling off the cliff, the chances of you falling – and failing your goal of safety – increase because you are closer to danger than if you stepped away from the cliff. Your emotions help you obtain goals.

Behind each goal you have, there exists an emotional void you seek to fulfill. Aristotle said the desire for happiness is the void behind all actions. Happiness is the ultimate void every human being pursues. Nobody can be happy enough. Knowing you desire happiness, however, is not much help when motivating yourself. There is little benefit in knowing you want to make small talk with anyone to be happy. This is where the pain-pleasure theory of motivation comes in.

Anthony Robbins, author of Awaken the Giant Within, made famous the pain-pleasure theory of motivation. The theory states that we either seek to gain pleasure or avoid pain with anything we do. Pleasure involves chasing something. Pain has you run away something. “The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure use you,” says Robbins. “If you do that, you’re in control of your life. If you don’t, life controls you.”

By understanding how to use pain and pleasure, instead of having pain and pleasure use you, I believe you give yourself unlimited opportunities to be self-motivated. When you learn to build as much pleasure in something as possible, while building pain in something you do not want, you become self-motivated. Manipulate pain and pleasure to build an intense emotional craving to achieve your desires.

We associate so much pleasure with physical arousal that it strongly drives our behavior to fulfill the emotional void whenever possible. Likewise, you can associate extreme amounts of pleasure with your goal, in becoming confident, for example, that you work towards better confidence under any circumstance. In fearful situations you normally avoid, extreme amounts of pleasure can be associated with fighting fear so it becomes exhilarating to be courageous and act in the face of fear. (This is a core secret of how you can become confident in social situations that I reveal in my conversation skills program Big Talk.)

Well-known motivational speaker Jim Rohn expands on the pain-pleasure theory. Rohn summarizes the primary emotions and desires that bring about change, like the pain-pleasure theory of motivation, into four categories:

1. Disgust – This is the pain component of the pain-pleasure theory. Disgust can occur when you have had enough. You’re sick of something from occurring, which motivates you to not let it occur again. Your pain leads to change.
2. Decision – There comes times in our lives that make or break us. These are fork roads where we need to choose the path on which to travel. The fork roads often arise from outside circumstances that force us to make a decision, such as a partner laying-down an ultimatum that sets the conditions if you’re to continue in a relationship. Make a decision and move forward in life. A wrong choice can be corrected at a later time.
3. Desire – We’re influenced by outside circumstances, but we must have an internal desire – a purpose that originates from within. You are shown throughout this article how to build a desire and increase pleasure with your desired pursuits.
4. Resolve – This state is defined by the decision to commit to a circumstance no matter what. “When confronted with such iron-will determination,” says Rohn, “I can see Time, Fate and Circumstance calling a hasty conference and deciding, ‘We might as well let him have his dream. He’s said he’s going to get there or die trying.’” Nothing can replace commitment. When you know what it is you clearly want, resolve will make it happen.

Pain, pleasure, disgust, decision, desire, and resolve – these are all powerful states you need to control or they will control you. The question remains: How do you control these mental and emotional states to become self-motivated? How do you build the emotional strength for endurance through the complete journey to attain your goals?

I believe an awareness of either pain, pleasure, disgust, decision, desire, and resolve is sometimes enough to create the respective emotion. Knowing about disgust, for example, can help you create disgust to change your behavior and achieve a goal. Nonetheless, I feel there is one technique I am about to share with you that’s amazing for building a burning desire to achieve your goals. With this technique you will remove any lack luster efforts and reluctancy to pursue what you want. It is one of the best goal-setting techniques you will ever use. The technique is simple, but very powerful.

On the piece of paper where we started the exercise earlier on, you are now going to fill in the second column. Label the second column as “Why I Want It”. In this column, you’re going to use the technique of listing 20 reasons why you want what you do to trigger, spark, and amplify your emotional desires to hunger for what you want. Come up with 20 or more reasons why you want what you listed in the first column.

Take your time in coming up with the list. 20 reasons or benefits is a lot of work, but the list created from the hours of work in this exercise will be your psychological fuel for achieving your communication and personal development goals in the weeks, months, and years to come. For me, it is my source of inspiration. If there is one method that I frequently depend upon for stimulating a hot passion so that I can pursue my goals with vigor, it is this technique. No other technique injects so much enthusiasm into me.

If you have troubles coming up with good reasons for your goals, expand on ideas and ask other people for ideas. You can also try to think in themes like: feelings you will experience, how others will see you, physical outcomes, reducing pain, and increasing resolve.

Let’s say your goal is to avoid destructively erupting in anger at family members during family conflict. Here are 10 starter points you could use in the “Why I Want It” column:

1. I want to be a good role model for my children.
2. I want my family to feel safe.
3. I want to ensure we have open communication and that no one is scared of talking about certain issues because of my anger. (Prevent other people being demotivated to talk to me because of the pain they will experience.)
4. I am sick of fighting with my family.
5. I want my family to love me as much as possible.
6. I want my family to be relaxed and calm when talking to me; instead of being provoked by my anger.
7. I hate feeling the shame when people in public see my anger.
8. I want to increase intimacy with my partner.
9. I want other parents to look up to me with how I manage my emotions towards my children.
10. I want my children to think back in 10 years time and be grateful with my emotional management towards their difficult behaviors.

The above is a great example of a list of reasons to achieve the goal of anger management. Once you have listed at least 20 reasons, I guarantee you’ll be filled with fiery emotions to help you achieve what you want. I encourage you to look at your list on a daily basis because of its emotional power in hooking you to achieve your communication and personal development goals. Look at the list frequently and you’ll remain focused and persistent with your goals.

The exercise works because you create a list that summarizes the sale points to make you “buy into” pursuing your goals. The list builds your pleasure, boosts your desire, and intensifies pain to make you persist until your goals arrive. The exercise builds the amount of pleasure you get by changing and builds the amount of pain you get by not changing.

I believe this one technique by itself is enough to create a burning desire. Regardless, I really want you to achieve your goals. I know what it is like to have a down-day where you don’t feel motivated (don’t fret, it’s natural). Here are some quick-fire pieces of advice to help you stimulate an emotional craving for your goals:

• Dress for Success – How often do you see yourself in a mirror or reflection, or look down at what you’re wearing that day? Let’s say 5 times a day. 5 times a day is 1825 times a year. That’s a lot of subtle mental programming. The power of clothing on your mood is amazing. Wear clothing that makes you feel confident and other areas of your life will improve accordingly.
• Be Aggressive – Having an important goal should stimulate aggression. Misdirect that aggression and it can become costly. Do not create another problem with your aggression. Channel your aggression towards a productive goal – what it is intended for – and watch the steam condense into hard results.
• Relive Past Success – Think back to your past successes and relive the experiences in your mind. Past successes are not only stored in your mind, but at the cellular level in your body. Linked to the successes are winning feelings you can tap into for success. On the contrary, think of past failures and you stimulate feelings of failure. The technique builds the pleasure of getting what you want. For a more in depth teaching of this method and other mental reprogramming techniques, I highly recommend Dr. Maxwell Maltz’s The New Psycho-cybernetics.
• Here and Now – Focus on what you can do in the present to allow your creative imagination the potential to develop solutions. When you are obsessed with the past and the future, anxiety rids you of your ability to achieve results in the present moment.
• Details – Defining what you want pulls you in the right direction with specific details. Visualize, feel, smell, taste, and hear the intrinsic details of your desired state to put yourself in that winning state. Just as it is with the process of arousal, you can become aroused by experiencing the details of your goals. This technique is similar to reliving your past successes except you’re free to create what you want with this technique. You’re not controlled by the past.
• Feed Your Mind – You’ll be surprised at how uplifted you get by reading about other people’s passions and successes. Consume at least 15 minutes a day of motivational material from the likes of Zig Ziglar, Jack Canfield, and Anthony Robbins. “People often say that motivation doesn’t last,” said Ziglar. “Well, neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.”
• Create an Ultimatum – Use the desire of resolve that Rohn explains to create change in your life. Make an absolute condition that if something doesn’t happen, so-and-so consequences will occur. Tell others about this to hold yourself accountable. Sun Tzu in the Art of War knew soldiers fought their hardest when it was a matter of life or death. Soldiers given an escape route by the enemy had an option to winning or dying so they did not fight their hardest. Alternatives and exit strategies make it okay to fail. Do everything in your power to create an ultimatum such that you must succeed or suffer severe consequences. This technique increases the pain of not changing.
• Teamwork – Team up with someone who wants a similar goal as you. This technique is frequently used in exercising where trainers encourage newcomers to workout with a friend. When you make your goals known to others – and when they have the same goals – the two of you can work together towards a common cause. Each of you becomes more accountable for his or her own actions because you don’t want to let the other person down. It’s vital the person is supportive or they could demotivate you from setting and achieving your goal.

A word of warning though, as I have repeatedly mentioned, if you must rely on these techniques to provide you with motivation, question whether you want the goal. You can stimulate passion using the various techniques provided above, but I want you to remember that your goal must be what you defined in the first stage of the article. An intense desire to pursue your goal will come naturally if your goal is what you truly want.

Nonetheless, passion increases with the above techniques. You will pursue your goals with a passion by learning how to create a desire for what you have clearly defined. Once you are passionate and persistent towards a goal, zero events can stop you from achieving it. Outside circumstances may delay achievement, but passion with action guarantees your desires ultimately manifest into the results you want.

Be careful with what you wish for because you can get it by following the advice shared in this article. Know exactly what you want, why you want it, and how to stimulate a passion to get it. I believe this is mysterious state of success philosophers have tried to described for centuries. (If you haven’t done the exercise yet, you’re only cheating yourself. Go back and do it now.)

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. On Achieving Goals – Part 1: Defining What You Truly Want
2. Setting SMART Achievable Personal Goals
3. The Only “Cure” for Social Anxiety Disorder and Achieving Social Freedom
4. Why Problem Solving Doesn’t Solve the Problem and the Real Solution to Permanent Change
5. 10 Almost Guaranteed Ways to Fail in Life

Part three of this course provides you with many tips, techniques, and pieces of advice to help you correctly apologize. The advice I’m about to share with you will help you in ways beyond an apology. The tips can be applied to many areas of your life and communication as you will soon see.

What It Means to Correctly Apologize: To Be Forgiven and Forgotten?

Some people think apologizing correctly is as simple as saying “sorry” for a mistake. This is a shallow understanding of what you need to achieve in an apology. The goal of apologizing – and what I define as “apologizing correctly” – is when the person you hurt accepts your apology and forgives you. The person neither rejects your apology by saying something like “no need to apologize” nor holds the mistake against you. Things do not necessarily return to the way they were before.

It is beyond the purpose of an apology to make your relationship stronger, indifferent, or worse because these outcomes depend on the severity of the mistake. If you keep screwing up by making mistake after mistake, you’ll have successfully apologized when the person forgives you – but it doesn’t mean your relationship is the same as it were before the mistake.

There is a lot of confusion about the old phrase “We must not forget; but we must forgive”. We know forgiveness is a must. Without it, the person unwilling to forgive emotionally suffers – often leaving the person who did the damage unscathed. But where does forgetting sit in a successful apology? Should we aim to have our mistakes forgotten by those we hurt?

If another person holds the bitter memories and resentment of your mistake against you, the person has not forgiven. It is almost humanly impossible, however, to forget another’s mistake. Forgiveness heals the past releasing ill will against the person. Not forgetting provides a memory of the pain that guides future actions. Forgiveness and forgetting are closely knit together, yet define entirely different things.

An apology is successful when it is accepted and the mistake no longer is held against you. The person may not forget your mistake, but he or she forgives you and no longer resents you for the mistake or uses it to manipulate you. Resentment, frustration, anger, gossip, bitterness, ill will, and other outward manifestations of hatred are erased upon a successful apology. Someone with these emotions possibly signals the person has yet to forgive.

Now that a successful apology is defined, I feel it’s important to note that apologizing correctly can only do so much. There is no iron-clad, fool-proof, guaranteed technique to successfully apologize. Sometimes you need to suffer through your mistakes and bear the punishment. Apologizing can sometimes be a bandage on a wound to help heal the pain. If the wound is repeatedly reopened, it is not the bandage’s fault, but the person who inflicted the pain. Most people can forgive you so many times before they lose trust in your. They cannot forget the pain you have caused them. A reoccurring problem needs to be dealt with instead of expecting an apology to make amends.

Though apologizing correctly can be difficult, use the following tips. You will fix your mistakes, repair your relationships, and initiate emotional healing and freedom. Master these tips and you will be equipped with the tools to repair emotional damage from your mistakes.

Plan

Plan what you’re about to say by thinking your apology through beforehand. Prepare yourself to give a sincere apology. You can also write down your apology to clarify your thoughts so you increase the chances of it being a success.

When intense emotions fly everywhere in a situation, such as in a heated argument, it’s hard to think of what you want to express – yet alone say it in a constructive manner. Intense emotions blind you to constructively express your thoughts. Plan your thoughts before going “live” with your apology to increase the likelihood of a successful apology. A plan gives you guidelines to act from – helping you remain on track and not deviate with relationship damaging statements too common in emotionally intense situations.

The same lesson in planning carries over to help you achieve life goals. Success stems from the seeds planted with planning. Don’t take this advice lightly. Planning nurtures golden relationships.

Responsibility

Admit you hurt the person. Your innate social intelligence will give you an intuition or feeling when you hurt someone. If you hurt the person by saying something offensive, admit that you made the mistake. Don’t say, “You shouldn’t be offended by what I said.” Avoid a non-apology (from part two on barriers and mistakes made in apologizing), which involves blaming the other person while simultaneously giving a poor apology. Here are non-apology examples:

• “I apologize to those I hurt because of their loss.”
• “I’m deeply sorry for those who I may have offended.”
• “Please take my apology if you were offended by what I said.”

These examples appear to be apologies, yet are attempts to avoid responsibility. Own up to the mistake and take responsibility regardless of your intentions and whether it truly hurt the person. The little voice that tries to take you away from accepting responsibility and apologizing is your ego. Egos are filled with deceitful lies and pride trying to deter you from responsibility.

Timing

For a little problem you need to apologize straight away and prevent it from growing into a big one. It’s very simple. If you accidentally step on someone’s foot, obviously you should say “sorry” straight away instead of apologizing at a later time. (I’m sure the person will think you’ve got some serious problems if you write an apology for stepping on their foot.)

For a more serious problem, take the time to get in a good environment where you can honestly apologize and they can safely respond. Don’t cause more pain by “going into a boiling room” by trying to apologize when the two of you have red-hot emotions.

In addition, it may be necessary to give the person time after your apology. You can have all the right ingredients for a meal, but time is needed to cook the ingredients. Provide the person with extra space to let him or her come to terms with what happened. Letting your apology seep in could be what makes your apology successful.

Explain

Why did you make the mistake? You are not justifying what you did, rather you are to Let the person know about your faults. Become vulnerable. Explain to the person that you didn’t see them there, you let your anger get the better of you, you were ignorant, you should have understood them better – whatever the mistake maybe.

Explain why you did what you did without blaming the mistake on external circumstances. It is tempting when explaining your mistake to shift the explanation onto the other person. You start off by saying, “I’m sorry for not taking out the garbage…” then your selfishness can kick in as you say “…but I always take out the rubbish and you don’t ever do it!” Explain the problem, but don’t convert it into someone else’s problem through a non-apology.

Use the who, what, why, when, and how to get you started in explaining your mistake. You don’t need to explain everything – just say what you think will help clear up the understanding between the two of you.

One last point about explaining is to avoid going overboard with your apologies and make a big issue over something small. It’s annoying to have someone constantly say “sorry” or use other forms of apologizing when you have forgiven the person and moved on. When the person has forgiven you, move on.

Sympathy – Display Your Social Emotions

Sympathy, a powerful “social emotion”, is an expression of pain felt by the person you hurt. This is important because social emotions, in general, create cooperation and understanding. We don’t learn in school how to feel another person’s pain, yet we have innate social emotions that make us feel, behave, and act in a way that complies with social codes. Remorse, embarrassment, and guilt are important emotions to display in your verbal and nonverbal communication when giving an apology. A guilty individual showing remorse is more likely to give a successful apology than someone that hides their social emotions. (If social emotions fascinate you, I discuss them in-depth in the tenth chapter of my Communication Secrets of Powerful People Program.)

Display sorrow for your actions. Communicate sympathy to show you understand the person’s pain and your mistakes. If you want, you can go one step further than sympathy by showing empathy, which involves psychologically and physiologically experiencing what the person feels. (See here for a more detailed discussion on sympathy versus empathy.) The pain connects the two of you to build understanding and harmony.

Share the person’s pain by reflecting your feelings about the mistake with something as simple as:

• “I’m sorry I lied to you. I feel guilty that I’ve let you down.”
• “Having scratched the car, I feel ashamed that something so careless will hurt our finances.”
• “I feel I have let you down and hurt our relationship by yelling at you.”

A common misunderstanding with sympathy is you focus on yourself, diverting attention from the hurt person. Sympathy, however, shows the person you are also suffering from your blunder. The person will be more understanding and willing to discuss their feelings because you have expressed yours. The person may even be happy to receive this little bit of secret revenge. If someone hurts us, we get a little kick of happiness seeing them also suffer from their actions.

How Did It Go?

Was your apology a failure? If an apology failed, do not take it personally. Failure is a result, not a person. If your apology failed and you are certain you successfully applied all these tips, try alternative forms of apologizing, such as writing an apology or getting someone else to apologize for you. Do not forget that letting time pass could make your apology a success.

On the other hand, if your apology was successful, congratulations! Be grateful for the person’s forgiveness and for a second chance. Learn from your mistake and move on.

Do not dwell on the past. You have a great future ahead of you. Make use of it by putting your attention on what you can do in this very moment to improve the relationship. You are now ready to complete emotional healing and freedom with forgiveness.

Links to all four parts of this course, “Freeing Yourself From Mistakes and Pain: A Four Part Course On Apologizing and Emotional Freedom”:

1. Power of Apologizing
2. Barriers and Mistakes in Apologizing
3. How to Correctly Apologize
4. Finding the Art of Forgiveness: How to Forgive and Be Forgiven

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Barriers and Mistakes in Apologizing
2. The Power of Apologizing
3. Finding the Art of Forgiveness: How to Forgive and Be Forgiven
4. The Complete Nonviolent Communication (NVC) Process for Compassion, Understanding, and Peace
5. How to Fight and Win Any Argument Fast

I purchased the 10th anniversary edition of this “groundbreaking book that redefines what it means to be smart”. 10 years following the release of his book, Goleman’s development and popularization of emotional intelligence (EQ or EI) has built this new field of study that assists with parenting, teaching, managing people, personal success, and general wellbeing. Emotional Intelligence is an insightful book in a new field that’ll satisfy any curiosity to understand emotions.

The broad subject of emotional intelligence describes how you manage yourself and other people’s emotions. Emotional skills related to the self include, but not limited to: self-awareness, impulse control, handling stress and anxiety, self-motivation, and coping skills; while emotional skills related to relationships include, but not limited to: reading social and emotional cues, awareness of others’ perspectives, sociability, motivating people, managing conflict, and listening. Nearly all these skills play an influential role in success and happiness.

Long gone are the days a person’s intelligence quotient (IQ) predicates his or her success. Research shows IQ to contribute only 20% to one’s success with the remaining majority accounted for by emotional and social intelligence. Book after book now emphasizes the importance of managing your emotions and knowing how to work with other people’s emotions. If you lack emotional intelligence, you bear the consequences in bad relationships and communication.

Goleman, having received his PhD from Harvard and reported on the brain and human behavior at the New York Times for twelve years, has jammed his eye-opening book with research and hundreds of studies related to emotional skills. At the beginning of the book, for example, Goleman provides insight into the emotional and rational parts of the brain. He explains the neurology behind emotions, along with their evolutionary use, which lay the foundation for the book. Goleman sends a warning about the technicalities of this section – that it can be skipped because it’s not necessary to comprehend the book. (This section on neurology is fascinating nonetheless.)

The next section defines the nature of emotional intelligence. This section has discussions on: when smart is dumb, the development of empathy, depression, anger, happiness, optimism, focus, and much more.

The third section titled “Emotional Intelligence Applied” deals with emotions in marriage, families, trauma, business teams, and the human body. The eleventh chapter, “Mind and Medicine”, will blow you away with the latest findings on how emotions affect different parts of the human body, such as the central nervous system, immune system, and heart.

The last few chapters of Emotional Intelligence advise how parents can teach their children and teachers educate their students on emotional skills. Any principal, teacher, parent, or person involved in a child’s life will find the book’s research and insights on children’s emotional intelligence shockingly real. From guaranteed ways to predict a child’s future temperament to the development of abusive, unsociable, or delinquent children, you will learn a lot about the emotional intelligence of children. I found the research on empathy and emotional development in babies amazing. The stories of babies and toddlers empathizing with young children by sharing blankets or comforting had my nose deep into the book.

Overall, if you’re after a book that explains how you can develop emotional skills, I weakly advise you to read this book. Though there are many skills buried in Goleman’s classic, the book is more about understanding the role emotions play in our personal lives and relationships than it is about developing emotional skills. With around 300 citations of research mostly from academic journals, Emotional Intelligence bridges the impact emotions have in our lives from academic studies to the general public.

Lastly, I hope for emotional intelligence to continue broadening in people’s lives. It’s a field of study with monumental potential to shape social and worldly issues. After reading the book, you will see the importance of emotional skills in life that schools need to teach children.

Because emotional intelligence largely determines happiness, success, and the quality of relationship communication, you are sure to get a lot of powerful information on emotions in this well-written book. The book flows smoothly and should have your life doing the same. You can grab your copy of Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence from Amazon by clicking here today.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of Social Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
2. The Magical Science of Emotions: Emotional Contagion, Mirror Neurons, and the High Road to Happiness
3. Dirty Tricks of Psychology for Mind-Reading and the Roots of Empathy
4. Review of How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
5. Review of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey

Goleman in his groundbreaking book reveals that human minds and bodies communicate with one another. The invisible bridges give us the ability to change people’s moods, emotions, and health – as people can do to us.

Recent discoveries in neuroscience state that humans are wired to connect. This connection of influence instantaneously occurs upon human contact – sometimes without any contact at all. Relationships not only shape emotional states and general psychological experience – but also another person’s physiology. For example, your interactions with people influences your immune system, circulation, hormones, and breathing.

Unlike emotional intelligence, social intelligence focuses on the intimate connection between two human minds. Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence focuses on skills and capabilities within the individual – it deals with self-motivation, self-awareness, anxiety, and detecting social cues.

Social Intelligence goes beyond the one-person psychology to a two-person psychology that looks at the connection shared between individuals. More specifically, Goleman defines social intelligence as: 1) social awareness, which comprises of primal empathy, attunement, empathic accuracy, and social cognition, and 2) social facility, which includes synchrony, self-presentation, influence, and concern.

Goleman says many theories of social intelligence confine it to a cognitive context. Social intelligence tests ask participants what they would do in specific situations – a process that uses the brain’s “high road”, a slow neurological path used when we analyze and think. His model of social intelligence seeks to include the brain’s low-road, the neural circuitry hidden from consciousness that functions at incredible speeds, because an awareness of what people think or feel does not make you socially intelligent. As the book’s titles states: social intelligence is beyond the intelligence quotient (I.Q.) and emotional intelligence.

Social Intelligence draws on hundreds of studies as it looks into altruism, primal empathy, attachment, rapport, and compassion to name a few topics emerging from this new field of study. From the amygdala and prefrontal cortex to spindle cells and mirror neurons, like Emotional Intelligence, Goleman once again digs deep into neuroscience and vast studies. Again, he provides many interesting anecdotes to demonstrate his principles in action, which to me gives the book more power for its application.

A standout for the book is chapter one, which reveals the emotional economy, a term that describes the give-take process of emotions. It discusses how a smile makes you happy and a worried face makes you unsure – the biological process of how emotions transmit through people like a virus.

The fourth chapter looks at human instinct for altruism. While it touches on worldly altruistic behaviors seen through people like Mother Teresa, it focuses on empathy in small-scale relationships. Like animals with instinctive compassion to assist a fellow member of its species in trouble, we have instinctive compassion to help people in our relationships. It is attention and empathy that bring forth this innate desire to love.

The last chapter I’ll mention in hope of motivating you to buy the book is chapter fifteen, which looks at the male and female brain, and the connection they share. The research in this chapter, like all chapters, is amazing and provides insight into attraction, sexual desire, libido, narcissism, and more intimate – or not so intimate – topics. You’re sure to gain a lot of advice about the opposite sex – as well as your own gender.

Without the jargon all too common in a professor’s books and within emerging fields of study, Social Intelligence is a free-flowing read in layman’s terms made easy by Goleman’s enjoyable writing style. The emerging field of social intelligence has fascinating dynamics worth learning more about from Goleman. Just like my review of Emotional Intelligence, I recommend you read Social Intelligence if you’re after a book that provides interesting research and insights into human interactions; not if you’re after vast skills to use in your interactions. You can grab your copy of Daniel Goleman’s Social Intelligence from Amazon by clicking here today.

Videos

Goleman discusses his book, the foundations of social intelligence, and a few discoveries social neuroscientists have made that reveal our neural connections with one another.

Other Articles That Might Help You

1. Review of Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman
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3. 14 Social Skills Resources for an Amazing Social Life
4. Review of Elite Social Control by Hamilton Miller
5. Dirty Tricks of Psychology for Mind-Reading and the Roots of Empathy