Quotes from Daniel Goleman

Martin Luther King Jr. observed that those who failed to offer their aid asked themselves the question: "If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?" But the Good Samaritan reversed the question: "If I do not stop to help this man what will happen to him?

Emotional intelligence does not mean merely "being nice". At strategic moment it may demand not "being nice", but rather, for example, bluntly confronting someone with an uncomfortable but consequential truth they've been avoiding.

goal-directed self-imposed delay of gratification" is perhaps the essence of emotional self-regulation: the ability to deny impulse in the service of a goal, whether it be building a business, solving an algebraic equation, or pursuing the Stanley Cup. His finding underscores the role of emotional intelligence as a meta-ability, determining how well or how poorly people are able to use their other mental capacities.

It's not the chatter of people around us that is the most powerful distractor, but rather the chatter of our own minds. Utter concentration demands these inner voices be stilled. Start to subtract sevens successively from 100 and, if you keep your focus on the task, your chatter zone goes quiet.

We need to re-create boundaries. When you carry a digital gadget that creates a virtual link to the office, you need to create a virtual boundary that didn't exist before.

There is zero correlation between IQ and emotional empathy... They're controlled by different parts of the brain.

Doggedness depends on emotional traits - enthusiasm and persistence in the face of setbacks - above all else.

Emotional self-control-- delaying gratification and stifling impulsiveness- underlies accomplishment of every sort

Mindful meditation has been discovered to foster the ability to inhibit those very quick emotional impulses.

CEOs are hired for their intellect and business expertise - and fired for a lack of emotional intelligence.

The emotional brain responds to an event more quickly than the thinking brain.

The amygdala in the emotional center sees and hears everything that occurs to us instantaneously and is the trigger point for the fight or flight response.

Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection - or compassionate action.