Quotes from Travis Bradberry

people with the highest levels of intelligence (IQ) outperform those with average IQs just 20% of the time, while people with average IQs outperform those with high IQs 70% of the time.

The biggest challenge to developing self-awareness is objectivity. It's hard to develop perspective on your emotions and tendencies when every day feels like a new mountain to climb.

Emotions serve an important purpose—they clue you into things that you'll never understand if you don't take the time to ask yourself why.

The secret to winning this culture game is to treat others how they want to be treated, not how you would want to be treated.

People high in self-awareness are remarkably clear in their understanding of what they do well, what motivates and satisfies them, and which people and situations push their buttons.

Closing your eyes and thinking of emotionally arousing events is simply training for the real thing—spotting the physical signs of your emotions on the fly.

Even when you can't do or say anything to change a difficult situation, you always have a say in your perspective of what's happening, which ultimately influences your feelings about it.

Stay aware of your good moods and the foolish decisions these moods can lead to, and you'll be able to enjoy feeling good without any regrets.

Physical appearance is more straightforward—what you wear sends a pretty clear, established message about how you feel. For example, wearing old sweatpants and ratty T-shirts and having disheveled hair every day tells the world you've given up, while overdressing for every occasion and never missing your weekly haircut lets people know you are trying too hard.

Your personality is a result of your preferences, such as your inclination to introversion or extroversion. However, like IQ, personality can't be used to predict emotional intelligence.

Hard times of any kind—financial, familial, or job-related—create more intense and often prolonged negative emotions that ultimately result in stress. In addition to the physical costs of stress, such as weight gain and heart disease, stress also taxes our mental resources.

Social awareness is your ability to accurately pick up on emotions in other people and understand what is really going on with them.

The beauty of social awareness is that a few simple adjustments to what you say can vastly improve your relationships with other people.

Verbal slip-ups often occur because we say things without knowledge of the subtle implications they carry. Understanding these implications requires social awareness - the ability to pick up on the emotions and experiences of other people.

Emotional self-control is the result of hard work, not an inherent skill.

Teaching emotional intelligence skills to people with life-threatening illnesses has been shown to reduce the rate of recurrence, shrink recovery times, and lower death rates.