In high school, I had the emotional intelligence of a caveman.

My emotional vocabulary consisted of three words: good, bad, and meh. I grew up in a small rural town with more tumbleweeds than people, so my social skills sucked.

No one ever asked me, how are you feeling?

This led to several problems.

The first problem–I was disconnected from my body. During COVID-19, I lost 30 pounds in three months on the “anabolic diet “-a diet in which you eat high protein, low calorie, and high volume so you don’t go over your calorie limit. Every day, I would stuff myself with salad and eat so much chicken, I’m surprised I didn’t start clucking myself.

The diet didn’t work–I lost 30 pounds, yes, but a lot of it was muscle. I was expecting to mirror a Greek God, but I ended up looking more like a soggy noodle. Even worse, I was estranged from my closest relationships. If I had any connection with my body, I would have realized the stress I was putting it under and stopped.

The second problem–I was too cerebral. I craved intellectual conversation like it was peanut butter. My dad described that period of being around me as “excruciating,” and my mom described it as “exhausting.” In her words, not everyone wants to have a deep conversation, every conversation. It’s tiring.

The third problem–I got burned out a lot. Because I didn’t have a good connection with my emotions, I often set expectations too high for any project I embarked on whether dating, content creation, or a gym workout. Restlessness was my default mood.

I could have navigated all of these better if I had sufficient emotional intelligence.

I didn’t think it was essential to build it. All my life I had played “the intelligence game,” seeing smarts as THE quality. What I didn’t realize is emotional intelligence plays the same if not a larger role in one’s life outcomes in comparison with IQ.

So, a few weeks ago, I set out to learn what emotional intelligence was and how I could build it. Something beautiful happened.

I realized not only that with conscious effort, I could build emotional intelligence, but that I wasn’t alone.

So, so many men are struggling alongside me.

It’s Tough Being A Man

Men have the cards stacked against them both culturally and biologically when it comes to emotional intelligence.

From an early age, women are asked golden questions like “How are you feeling” whereas men are more often asked, “How are you doing?” People expect women to be more emotional, whereas a guy crying can still raise eyebrows in many places. Women’s friendships tend to talk more about feelings where, whereas men tend to talk more about things. Biologically, testosterone can promote aggression and competition over empathy and cooperation.

Together, these factors create significant barriers for men in developing emotional intelligence.

Let’s change that.

The rest of this article encapsulates my research on emotional intelligence–what it is, and how to build it–for men especially (girls are welcome of course). I envision a world in which men and women both have emotional intelligence. A world in which we feel connected to ourselves, others, and the world. A world where

Why Do We Have Emotions?

To talk about emotional intelligence, we need to know what emotions are.

According to Goleman’s (1995) book Emotional Intelligence, emotions, in their essence, are impulses to act[^1]. The very root of the word emotion is motere, the Latin verb “to move,” plus the prefix “e-“ to connote “move away,” suggesting a tendency to act is implicit in every emotion.

We can further break down emotions as impulses to act in three ways.

First, emotions help us make decisions. Should you have cereal or toast for breakfast? Without emotions, we would be stuck, endlessly deliberating until lunchtime. Regardless, the obvious answer is Reeses Puffs.

Second, emotions can give us feedback on our goals. Sadness often comes from missing out on something in life, and anxiety often comes from focusing on something in the future you can’t do much about in the present. Of course, not all emotions give us feedback. Just ask any woman on her period if she feels the way she does because she is failing at her goals in life–you’ll probably be slapped.

Third, emotions can be used as social information. Describing your emotions to someone is one of the most powerful ways to connect and convey the world. Emotions shown in the body or words help you understand how you should interact with others.

What Is Emotional Intelligence?

Emotional intelligence is the ability to recognize, understand, and manage our own emotions and recognize, understand, and influence the emotions of others[^2].

It’s built up of four key components:

• Self-Awareness: our ability to be aware of both our emotions and our thoughts and feelings about those emotions.
• Self-Management: the ability to manage one’s own emotions effectively to act toward one’s best self. This involves managing impulses, fighting procrastination and distraction, following through on commitments, and adapting to changing circumstances.
• Social Awareness: one’s ability to recognize and understand the feelings of another.
• Social Management: the ability to influence the emotions of others in healthy directions using conflict resolution, persuasiveness, collaboration, cooperation, leadership, and effective communication.

How Can We Build Our Emotional Intelligence?

I got most of my understanding about how to build emotional intelligence from Bradberry & Greave’s (2009) ​Emotional Intelligence 2.0​, which I highly recommend reading if this topic interests you.

Each section of their book provides many practical tips on improving these skills. However, if I included all of them, this article would be longer than a terms and regulations form. So, I chose to include the most important thing you can do to build each of these skills.

I don’t recommend you try to build all of these skills at the same time. As you will find out, the skills build on one another. It’s easier to build self-management if you have self-awareness. It is easier to improve social awareness if you have self-management. If you haven’t built your emotional intelligence up before, you should start with self-awareness.

Building Self-Awareness

Self-awareness is the ability to be aware of both our emotions and our thoughts and feelings about those emotions.

My favorite way to build self-awareness is to use The A.I.M. acronym:

• Awareness: Tether yourself to the present through focusing on the breadth. Try and label the emotions you are feeling. Scan through your body if it helps. A few emotions you might feel are joy, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, trust, elation, contentment, melancholy, frustration, anxiety, astonishment, revulsion, admiration, love, hate, envy, pride, guilt, shame, relief, or hope. You’re likely feeling a mixture of these rather than only one at any given time.
• Investigate: Look into the details and context surrounding your emotions. What did you eat/drink/do in the hours, days, or even weeks before this that is most relevant? What environment are you in? Who are you with?
• Match: Find patterns and consistencies in your emotional tendencies to understand them better.

Here are some of the things I have learned about myself using A.I.M.:

• I thrive in natural settings disconnected from the internet
• There’s nothing that gives me more life than learning something new for the sake of learning
• Whenever I eat a high-carb meal like pancakes, I enter such a deep food coma, I could be used as a speed bump

Building Self-Management

Once we are aware of our emotions, we can begin to develop self-management: the ability to effectively manage one’s emotions to act toward one’s best self. This involves managing impulses, fighting procrastination and distraction, following through on commitments, and adapting to changing circumstances.

My favorite emotional model for building self-management is the process model of emotional regulation explored by Gross (2015)[^3].

The process model explains emotions arise and affect us in this order (While I present the order linearly, each aspect can interdependently and dynamically affect the other aspects):

Situation - Attention - Appraisal - Response.

For example, let’s say you’re going grocery shopping at Aldi’s–that’s the situation. As you grocery shop, you attend to various food items based on your past eating habits, current feelings, and the store you chose, Aldi’s. You appraise these food items as good, bad, or a mix of both. Then, you respond by putting the food item in your cart or continuing on.

We can influence every aspect of the process model to manage our emotions better.

For example, in the previous shopping example, I purposefully go to Aldi’s to grocery shop because it hosts much healthier food than something like the Dollar Store–an example of altering the situation. While shopping, I bring a shopping list and stick to the outside isles to funnel my attention only to the healthy foods I need–an example of altering attention. If I do see an unhealthy food I’m craving, I ask my body if I truly need it, and otherwise, I appraise it as bad by thinking of all the negative health side effects it might bring–an example of appraisal. My response is generally to get only the healthy food I need from the store–and occasionally a few cookies, which nobody needs to know about, of course.

Building Social Awareness

Once we have effectively developed self-awareness and self-management, we can begin working on social awareness, which is the ability to recognize and understand the feelings of others.

The better your self-awareness, the better you will be able to build your social awareness, as social awareness is just self-awareness applied to others.

One of the most powerful ways to become more socially aware is to improve your ability to pick up on nonverbal cues. Often, people say things different from what they are actually feeling or show their emotions through their bodies even though they aren’t saying anything.

There are five steps to observing non-verbal cues according to Navarro and Karin’s (2008) book What Every BODY Is Saying[^4].

Step 1: Observe

Most people see, but they do not observe. To see means you are aware something is in your vision. To observe means you ask questions about that thing.

Reading non-verbal behavior requires you to look deeper into people’s body language than you have ever before.

Step 2: Establish Baseline Behavior

Not only do different people have different body movements, but they will also act differently based on the context. Therefore, a considerable aspect of reading non-verbal behavior is establishing a baseline expected behavior for a person.

What is normal for someone based on their personality and life situation? What’s the context? Do they have some idiosyncratic behavior specific to them?

Step 3: Look From The Feet Up

According to Navarro, the lower body (feet, legs, torso, arms, hands, and shoulders) is often more honest than the upper body. Many people have learned to hide or fake emotion on their faces, as anyone who routinely has to see their extended family might resonate with.

The lower body, however, often hasn’t been trained in the same way. It moves more subconsciously based on how we are truly feeling. This makes it a valuable reservoir for non-verbal reading.

Step 4: Look For Changes In Behavior

Behavior itself can be highly individual to the person and context. That’s why changes in behavior are often a better indicator of someone’s feelings. For example, going from still feet to elated jumping feet–a sign of a happy camper.

Step 5: Look For Behavior Clusters

One behavior is often not reliable evidence for a feeling.

But many behaviors together—a behavior cluster—can indicate something more significant. For example, someone leaning away from the person they are talking to could indicate discomfort, but not necessarily. However, if they also have puckered lips and point their feet away from the person, they likely want to leave.

Joe Navarro used his incredible body reading skills during a high-stakes meeting with two negotiators about a trade deal. While his client read the terms, he noticed the negotiator shifted in his seat, puckered his lips, and squinted his eyes a little. Knowing this was a sign of dissatisfaction, Navarro slipped his client a note saying they needed to renegotiate that side of the deal. His client renegotiated it then and there, and they were able to save millions of dollars in further negotiations later on.

Building Social Management

Once we have built social awareness, we can begin working on building social management: the ability to influence the emotions of others in healthy directions using conflict resolution, persuasiveness, collaboration, cooperation, leadership, and effective communication.

Perhaps the single most valuable skill you can develop to enhance social management is your ability to listen actively.

Many people hear, but they don’t listen.

Listening requires being open-minded, curious, and attentive to the other person. It means giving space so they can finish their thoughts. It means stopping the torrent of thoughts in your mind so you can be present in what they are saying, both verbally and non-verbally.

The best way to practice active listening is to–drumroll please–listen more. I know it’s crazy. In your next conversations, catch yourself when you get the urge to speak over someone else. Stop yourself when you come up with something to say before the other person finishes speaking. Talk less, and ask more questions.

One of the moments I realized the power of active listening came with my brother just a few weeks ago. He called me spontaneously in the morning one day, which I knew instantly was odd because we rarely call in the morning. Knowing this, I put my listening cap on when picking up the phone. For the next three hours, we talked about his semi-depression that came from a mixture of anxiety about the future with his acting career, his boredom regarding school, and his lethargy from finishing his five-month diet.

By the end of the conversation, he felt much better. I know for a fact he wouldn’t have felt that way had I been unable to be present with him.

The Problem Of Being Too Emotionally Intelligent

So far, I have made emotional intelligence look like the holy grail of living a great life.

But it’s not all fun and games. There are some negatives to being too emotionally intelligent.

First, there are diminishing returns to emotional intelligence.

Becoming a little more emotionally intelligence can change your life by leaps and bounds. But, like with anything, there are diminishing returns.

At some point you can start to analyze noise instead of signal. Sometimes, emotions don’t reflect anything significant about your life. For example, women have periods every month. During this period they can feel significantly sadder and more angry, not because of something they’re doing but because of pure happenstance.

Thinking every emotion might hold some profound revelation can make it hard to just be present. You can overthink. You don’t have to analyze everything. Sometimes, you should simply chill.

Secondly, being overly attuned to others’ emotions can be draining and overwhelming.

You might find yourself taking on the emotional burdens of those around you, leading to compassion fatigue and burnout. Constantly trying to read and respond to the emotional states of others can also make social interactions feel like a minefield, where you’re always on edge and trying to manage the emotional landscape.

Emotional intelligence is great to build, but don’t let yourself be fooled into thinking it’s all that matters in life. We already did that for years with IQ—let’s make EI different.

A New Era For Me And You

I’m far from having great emotional intelligence.

However, the research I have done so far has allowed me to come much farther from where I started. Four years ago I was a video game addict with horrible social skills. Now I have a great group of friends at Cornell, I feel I’m acting towards my best self in more and more situations, and I’m making strides to help others do the same as well.

Just a few days ago, I was about to eat dinner with my brother and dad, when my mom called from the Netherlands at 12:00 p.m. Because of all the emotional intelligence research I was doing, I knew something was wrong. My mom is an early sleeper and knows when we eat dinner, so if she was calling now, it must be something important.

Unfortunately, my dad was not as aware and almost hung up the phone after telling her we were about to sit down for dinner. Knowing better, I told her we could talk to her on the phone at the dinner table. Turns out, she was having a minor panic attack about seeing one of her family members and needed us to help her navigate it.

Talking with her at the dinner table helped calm her down and fall asleep. Emotional intelligence saved the day!

I hope stories like this show how we men don’t have to continue the stereotype of having the emotional intelligence of a dead snail. We can and should build our abilities.

It all starts with self-awareness.

📸News From The Channel!

📺Latest On De YouTube - ​How To Learn Anything Terribly​: In this video, discover the top 10 principles to ensure your learning experience is as ineffective as possible! From avoiding planning to relying solely on motivation, these tips will help you make sure you never truly grasp new skills or knowledge. Perfect for those who want to learn how NOT to learn.

✍️Latest On De Blog - ​This Book Made Me Stop Minimalism: The Meaning Of Things​: I used to be a staunch minimalist. I had so few things, I could fit everything I owned in a backpack made for a kindergartener. This book made me realize the profound meaning things can have in our lives and how they can improve our relationship with ourselves, others, and the world.

💡My Best Insights:

P.S. Some of the links below are Amazon affiliate links.

📖Book - ​The Learning Game​: fantastic book that unveils what is wrong about traditional education and how we can improve it. The main problem is traditional education teaches us how to play “The School Game” of getting better grades rather than “The Learning Game” about falling in love with and effectively learning.

📺YouTube Video - ​How Connection Can Change Your Life Art of Connection​: This video explores popular YouTuber Ali Abdaal in a coaching call about his emotions regarding his future plans for his channel. I found it fascinating because it showcases someone who tends to intellectualize their emotions away, a thing I do quiet often as well. Through some body scanning exercises and questions, Joe Hudson manages to bring some of Ali’s emotions out and craft a direction for his future plans.

References

[^1]: Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence. Bantam Books, Inc.

[^2]: Bradberry, T., & Greaves, J. (2009). Emotional Intelligence 2.0. TalentSmart.

[^3]: Gross, J. J. (2015). Emotion regulation: Current status and future prospects. Psychological Inquiry, 26, 1–26.

[^4]: Navarro, J., & Karlins, M. (Collaborator). (2008). What every body is saying: An ex-FBI agent’s guide to speed-reading people.

Got questions? Hit "reply"! I read every email (yeah people are surprised!) 🤗 Thanks for reading!

Cheers, 🥜

Aidan

Thank you for being part of the journey!🎊 Whenever you're ready there are three ways I can help you:

​The Art Of Linked Reading:​ This course helps people who struggle to understand, connect, remember, apply, and smartly share insights from non-fiction books learn to do so with linked notetaking apps like Obsidian, Tana, Logseq, and more.

​Obsidian University​: a pre-made Obsidian vault, templates, and video course helping you level up your notetaking and studying, fall in love with learning, and get good grades in less time so you have time for other parts of college.

⭐You can also ​share this newsletter​ here.

If you would like to update your email settings, choose from the options below:

1. ​Unsubscribe​ from just Aidan's Infinite Play.
2. ​Unsubscribe​ from all future mailings. This will make me sad. But hey... I get it. You're busy. Just know that once you click this link you won't receive any more emails from me.
3. ​Update your profile​ here.