
Ask HN: Best Resources on Emotional Intelligence? - aerumn
Myself and other engineers at my company are not the best at dealing with emotions. I’m approaching this as something learnable and am looking for great resources on this topic.<p>(“Resources” is meant to be regarded in a broad sense — if you have a personal growth story or some quote from a fortune teller that you think is a great resource, I’d love to hear it)
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chives_yo
I was listening to a presentation about emotional intelligence in the context
of working with children based on stuff from the "Yale Center for Emotional
Intelligence". The part of it that was life changing for me was the concept of
describing emotions based on a 2D graph. One axis goes from "Negative" ->
"Positive" and the other from "Low Energy" -> "High Energy". This makes four
"quadrants": negative + low energy (including thing like "sad"), negative +
high energy (including things like "angry"), positive + low energy (including
things like "relaxed"), and positive + high energy (including things like
"excited").

They went on to say that there are times when you want to be in each quadrant
because each is suited for different kinds of tasks (e.g. low energy +
negative for empathy, high energy + positive for productivity). If you can
identify what quadrant you're currently in, there are techniques for moving
toward any of the other quadrants depending on what you need to get done.
There's actually an app I used for a while where you could pick a point on the
grid and it would suggest words to describe how you may be feeling as well as
these techniques for moving on either axis.

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aerumn
This sounds cool, I'll check it out.

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memexy
Here's a book on the topic: [https://smile.amazon.com/How-Emotions-Made-Lisa-
Barrett/dp/1...](https://smile.amazon.com/How-Emotions-Made-Lisa-
Barrett/dp/1328915433/). It's one of the better books I've found on cognition
and emotional intelligence. The author's interview with Ezra Klein is also
very good and gives an overview of the book if you're hesitant about buying
it:
[https://lisafeldmanbarrett.com/podcasts/](https://lisafeldmanbarrett.com/podcasts/).

The pieces of the puzzle fell into place after I read the book because she
gives a computational perspective on emotions and how they're related to
regulating homeostasis.

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duopixel
Emotional intelligence (or competence) is highly non-verbal. In my personal
path I've tried impro, biodanza, and some variants of therapeutic theater.
Biodanza for me was the hardest but also the most rewarding:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodanza](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biodanza)

It's difficult to explain exactly what it is, but during the sessions you
don't speak, you communicate with other people through your eyes, touch and
your movements. There's too much personal contact to recommend it in these
virus-loaded days, but if you're the kind of person who has difficulty reading
people and you're kinda stiff, this most definitely helps.

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aerumn
This sounds like something that would be both extremely uncomfortable and
beneficial for me haha. I likely would have never heard of this if you hadn't
left this comment -- thanks!

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neom
I'm a big fan of HBR's 10 Must Reads on Emotional Intelligence:
[https://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Intelligence-featured-
Leade...](https://www.amazon.com/Emotional-Intelligence-featured-Leader-
Goleman-ebook/dp/B00O92Q6GM)

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gadders
How to Win Friends and Influence People is a good book to read. It was written
before people spoke about EI, but it gives good, actionable advice.

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aerumn
Read a summary and appreciated the actionable (& pretty insightful) advice.
Didn't really put anything into practice and forgot about it.

I may pick up a copy and try to internalize it better by taking it a piece at
a time.

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andrei_says_
Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg

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aerumn
Will pick up a copy for myself and for my cat.

