Ask HN: How to improve emotional intelligence to be a more creative inventor?

[mclightning]

Hi,

Hear me out HN, I am curious about this.

Assumption 1: You need strong emotional intelligence to relate to others.

Assumption 2: You need to relate others to identify their problems.

Assumption 3: You need to identify problems and frustrations of mass populations, to make very successful niche products and services.

Examples: Uber, UberEATS, AirBnb. Of course there are other advantages of these services, increasingly so as they grow. But I believe it solves a lot of frustration for people when it comes to engaging cab drivers, hostels etc.

Question : How do you work on your emotional intelligence to better understand frustrations of others?

[DoreenMichele]

I'm good at the emotional intelligence thing. Some things I have done:

I have taken college classes pertinent to the topic, like Intro to Psych, Social Psychology and Negotiation and Conflict Management.

I have attended conferences with pertinent info. I also attended parts of the conference that were more social and less technical in nature in terms of the kind of info covered.

I have read a lot about how the mind works and how different people experience life differently because of various issues.

I constantly wonder what the first person perspective is. When we take a third person perspective, we often feel people are just behaving badly. But people generally have reasons why they do the things they do. Trying to see it from their perspective is powerful for problem solving.

If you do nothing else, do that last thing. Always wonder how people are experiencing what they experience and their motives for making the choices they make. Context matters and most people seem to forget that.

[ambivalents → DoreenMichele]

> I constantly wonder what the first person perspective is. When we take a third person perspective, we often feel people are just behaving badly. But people generally have reasons why they do the things they do. Trying to see it from their perspective is powerful for problem solving.

I have found this helpful too, in training my empathy--breaking out of the "default mode"--and ability to relate to others. I started from the oft-quoted David Foster Wallace commencement speech [0], relevant bit below:

Or, of course, if I'm in a more socially conscious form of my default-setting, I can spend time in the end-of-theday traffic jam being angry and disgusted at all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUVs and Hummers and V-12 pickup trucks burning their wasteful, selfish, forty-gallon tanks of gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers, who are usually talking on cell phones as they cut people off in order to get just twenty stupid feet ahead in a traffic jam, and I can think about how our children's children will despise us for wasting all the future's fuel and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and disgusting we all are, and how it all just sucks, and so on and so forth...

Look, if I choose to think this way, fine, lots of us do-except that thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic it doesn't have to be a choice. Thinking this way is my natural default-setting. It's the automatic, unconscious way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I'm operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the center of the world and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities. The thing is that there are obviously different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stuck and idling in my way: It's not impossible that some of these people in SUVs have been in horrible auto accidents in the past and now find driving so traumatic that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive; or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to rush to the hospital, and he's in a way bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am-it is actually I who am in his way. And so on.

Again, please don't think that I'm giving you moral advice, or that I'm saying you're "supposed to" think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it, because it's hard, it takes will and mental effort, and if you're like me, some days you won't be able to do it, or you just flat-out won't want to. But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-lady who just screamed at her little child in the checkout line-maybe she's not usually like this; maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of her husband who's dying of bone cancer, or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the Motor Vehicles Department who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a nightmarish red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible-it just depends on what you want to consider.

[0] http://bulletin-archive.kenyon.edu/x4280.html

[ogasquez]

Since someone already suggested acting, I found playing tabletop RPGs (like Dungeons & Dragons, Legend of the Five Rings or Mage: The Ascension) helpful too.

They have a strong collaborative storytelling aspect (unless your group only likes to slay monsters), and it puts you in the shoes of a character with a life completely different than yours. A lot of problem solving and diplomacy situations are involved too. I recommend trying out a personality/background different than what you are used to.

[eurticket]

Suggest taking an acting class if you want to first be able to detect emotion then put yourself in a state to feel / understand them.

[mclightning → eurticket]

I might actually try that. I tried improv for a while, it makes you more watchful, observant of other people's behaviours, attitudes etc.

[oppositeofrain → mclightning]

It might also be worth looking into whether you want to be able to merely identify/analyse the emotions of others or whether you wish you actually empathise/understand their views.

I say this in reference to how you have noted services such as Uber; who might be masters of exploiting untapped opportunities but are not necessarily known as sympathetic and suffer PR and ethical backlash for it.

[surajs]

Interesting question, thanks. I think there are at least three levels of emotional connection:

1) cerebral/logical/abstract: these emotions spark from the application of "meaning" in the world. We are making meaning, finding it each moment and all that has been given meaning is real, is rational. the problems to solve here will involve concepts like precision, efficacy, economy. value addition will come from scale. the solutions will likely be a rehash of existing ideas, resulting product will likely be incrementally better.

Example: Jon Stewart interviewing Bill Gates, asked him "What does the F12 button do?", to which Bill replied "Why don't you start from F1 and work your way up?".

2) emotional/physical/kinesthetic: once you break the shackles of reason, thinking, and logic, the only other accessible world with problems to solve is the material/aristotelian world, where emotional intelligence will mean tapping into "state" in which meaning(s) exist. these "states of meaning" may or may not be meaningful themselves, but they are important to us. Concepts to watch out for involve: habit, need, convenience, identity etc. value addition comes from synthesis.

Example: Scrub daddy. doing dishes with soft and hard sponge are two different "states of meaning" and its value lies in its combination of the two, making a more convenient product.

3) coherence/consistency: the last approach is to do something more "safely" with/because less human involvement, people will pay for taking away their uncertainties and this is a big emotional issue for some. outside of speculation, perhaps this is the most lucrative area an inventor can crack open. value comes from exploitation of risk-aversion. Example: crypto, insurance.

[mclightning → surajs]

Very insightful answer! Thank you! Do you know of any books or related hub of knowledge on these topic? I am trying to find some sources of information to learn more about these.

[jiojfekjl]

I wouldn't blame the success of Uber on the founder's emotional intelligence. Quite the contrary.

[womd]

Smoke some Weed, (in normal doses) find your strain, sit back and think