Introduction

This book is meant to be a practical guide for understanding, and internalizing emotional intelligence concepts.

Here, new vocabulary, scenarios and templates for dealing with different real life situations are presented.

Vocabulary for Emotional Intelligence

Here are some of the common words for better understanding what is emotional intelligence.

Change and Contingency

Boring discussion

If we faced with a question as to whether we could build a software like Microsoft Windows, then the response would be

now we don't need Windows right!
or there is demand for operating system

This line of thinking comes from an understanding that change is constant and a belief that we can't write the history, because history is something that people in the past could write. But, what we need to look into more closely is that change happens all the time.

Few concrete works

#	Field	Things	Link
1.	Mechanical Engineering	Function, use case	the car models of Bugatti
2.	Software Engineering / Code	Code changes	Tensorflow code history

How to Build confidence

Start with the daily work that we are doing, see the small changes that are happening:

Updating a wallpaper on screen
An effort into reading more about the work we do
Watching a movie

These small tasks provide a small changes, which helps us take the further dependent tasks.

Do we have the opportunity

Yes. But, it is not obvious most of the time. Depending on the problem we are solving the ingredient differ and the way feels as it is not there.

We do have all contingency of the past i.e., we all have the time and place appropriate opportunities (which do not seem like they are). Once we build enough confidence and work through it, things change.

External resources

https://www.theschooloflife.com/thebookoflife/world-ready-to-be-changed-now/

Civil distance

A distance in feelings, physical with another person or thing to develop a right kind of mechanism for its function.

Functions

Decrease friction between entities
Gives space for medium (ether) to intervene in order to develop the right kind of field.
Businesses to flourish
Create a long term relationship with neighbors, colleagues and entities.
Acts as a buffer, to accommodate any urgencies, or inevitabilities
Take account of the vulnerabilities of people or things involved, acknowledge warmly and accept the difficulties charitably.

Why?

Because demanding much control over circumstances can be challenging
This can be attributed to the characteristic of the human mind. (But, also of entities)
There is a lot (a good number, difficult to control) of uncertainty around the functions of the entities and their reliability.

For caution

It is better to know the depth before diving in

Polite distance
Caution
airtime (sufficient airtime for reaching a decision)
take time
take a deep breath

Resources

https://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/how-do-thoughts-and-emotions-affect-health

Emotional weather

Weather is a set of conditions and the state of elements (air, water, soil, temperature, and materials).

Rainy	Sunny
rain drops black clouds wet/humid air	white/no clouds sun presence Higher temperature

Rainy

Sunny

rain drops
black clouds
wet/humid air

white/no clouds
sun presence
Higher temperature

The same applies to our emotions

Emotions are a set of conditions or a state, that have an impact on thought process, physical feeling, energy levels, sense of self, confidence (our position in the environment).

Cycle

The emotional weather cycle can be in hours and may not be regular/irregular based on our activities.

While, the atmospheric weather will have a cycle of few months, with a daily localized changes.

What are our elements

Water (75% of the body composition), air, food, external (health, human influence, environmental influence). The elements, in a state of flux, defines weather.

Since the above elements vary so does our emotional weather.

Consequences

change of choices, or consistency in choices
Unable to make a quick decision, with good consideration
Comfort (it have a contrast effect, with a baseline)
Confidence
Working efficiency fluctuates

Shameful Inconsistency

While working on a task, going well with expected outcomes, creates a sense of confidence that we could do anything. After the lunch, you attempt the task and it didn't work - we feel like total disaster.

Reasons

Mood swing causes the evaluation to be corrupted. Our reasoning ability is not constant. It changes with time of the day, work pressure, motivation.
Our brains inability to do computation and holding information at the same time.

For example, you could answer 2 x 2 = ? but
- 22 x 22 = ? (take significantly longer), we know how to compute but we need to hold the intermediate results.
Keeping a flux benchmark, which is not clear to make decisions upon.

The identification of a thing, thought, or process by a number of people. This identity acts as a base. This is the collective idea of people about domains life in a social setting. This is essential for the social fabric to sustain in the so called dwellings like villages, cities or countries.

Examples

For example, the "Job" is a widely accepted formula for earning for a living at a recurrent fixed income over the years. The concept of job is well known, and widely accepted across time - in medieval ages to the modern age, geographically, even in space!

Few other examples are education, and money.

Few vocabulary examples

Portuguese word "Saudade" - expresses a subtle emotion that we feel when we walk down the lane.

For engineering "Incremental approach" - tells the small step increase over time for accomplishing simple, hard or impossible tasks.

Advantages

This formulation saves human time and makes it easy to communicate complex ideas in an analogous fashion. For the formulation to happen the attributes have to be felt by a substantial number of people. Some formulations take years to decades to manifest.

Every now and then there is new kind of formulation happening as our understanding develops where people pioneer in a new way of doing things.

A well formed social formula paves the way for easy spreading the knowledge around it and pass it down easily the learnings. For example, the business strategies, fallacies, and biases.

Disadvantages

Social formulae are difficult to change without a jolt. A lot of effort is expected or a sudden realization happened with masses. Only during the extraordinary circumstances that have consequences at a massive level does the formulation changes considerably.

The formulations persistent across generations even when the essential conditions that lead to the formulation in the first place cease to exist. This presents a challenge to people blindly adhering to the status quo. This can sometime even lead to misunderstandings and even conflict.

Time windows

While working as a designer, I do some design calculations each day. These calculations need to be checked which would only take some fifteen minutes. The managers' input is required at various steps of the design.

One challenging task for me was to find a suitable time for a conversation with my manager. In between the conversation, there are interruptions like the site calls, people with urgent doubts about their projects etc. Due to this, the initial fifteen minutes will become one hour.

Instead, we could ask for a mutually agreed small-time period regularly.

What are Time Windows?

The times during which you can expect an immediate response for emails, code reviews, triage discussions and instant com channels. These are to be agreed upon by the team.

For example,

9:30 to 10:00 AM
1:30 to 2:30 PM
5:30 to 6:00 PM

How to implement?

First, start with the timing at which the team meetings or discussions happen. For example, if the team code review happens an hour after lunch then the first time window would be 3:00 to 3:30 PM. Introduce additional time windows incrementally.

The maximum number of time windows are 4 in a day. Depending on the amount of concentration required for a task adjust time windows. The duration of the time window depends on the type of communication. Generally, Code reviews last longer while the email takes less time.

The number of time windows does not need to be the same every day in a week, can be curtailed. It is preferable not to change the timing of the window.

Time windows do not replace scheduled weekly meetings or discussions about unexpected downtimes.

Practical steps

In direct messaging apps, the status message can be used to inform your time windows

References

Que sera sera

After learning how to use a tool, and different options of it - I feel like I know a lot about everything related to it.

Especially, when I am using the incognito browser as if I am hidden from the internet while the reality is that web addresses that I enter is like a open book that people can intercept.

Examples

We definitely do have control over our personal life, but to what extent and with what kind of effort? - is to be considered.

Personal life

Friends - Our friends do what they think they want to do, they chose to be with us vice versa. Don't I have a thinking at times that our friends are influenced a lot by us.

Body - We can with effort do change. Over the internet we do see a number, of 1 in 1000s of people, of examples. This gives us an thought that we have control over body with food, and other efforts sometimes.

Work

Often our span of control is within the confines of the job description. If we are a data engineer with a managerial position our span of control would most likely be up to 5 people. But, there are a lot of departments even for the charismatic personality to influence. I do feel like I have more control over the so many things, we do if we ask people the desk we need and the timings etc. Many people don't ask, right?

Political

Yes, we have control. But, 1 in population of a country i.e., 1:1000 000 000.

Cricket

Yes, we have control. How, (the ticket price) / (total cost of hosting the match + pay to various parties).

So what now

Circle of competence

The circle in which we have better control.

If we are a bridge designer, in the design phase of the project we can design and deliver drawings
A highway designer, ability to shape a city transport and map to an extent. Which could further influence the land improvement along.

Other than the circle of competence, it is Que sera sera.

At Home

Being a friend to children

How to Talk to a Teenager

Think Different

Be Original

Happy is not a Default Emotion

New Morning Routine

Love and its Components

Resilience and Relationships

Calmness and strength when faced with difficulty is an important characteristic. We face difficulties around workplace, at home, relationships, or bureaucracy.

Resilience is an approach to the difficulty in an objective, focused, and open manner. This skill can be learned with practice and transferable to other aspects of life.

How to solve challenges

See everyday problems as opportunities to build resilience. Develop skills in
- handling tax increase and hidden costs of a purchase
- Customer care agent calling regularly to sell a credit card
- Nagging child
- Poor service at the restaurant
- Clumsy acquaintance
- Standing in queue
Try to manage these setback by reacting with humor, optimism, strength and rationality.
Think through the problem in a good frame of mind over a period of time. Wait!
Describe the problem more vividly, this would help keep the actual problem from emotional flux. So, you could find a simple, actionable solution.
Write things down. See the problem the you have solved, keep context. After a year or two you might forget the context, but this solutions might be a starting point for even more complex problem.

Relationships

Test of time, misunderstandings, separation shall test the strength of relationship.

Listen to the partner not just when an issue arises. Regularly talk, play, tease, share and keep the link intact. It is better to ask and listen than to assume.
Learn the boundaries and do not get disappointed. People chose to be with us. If you feel disappointed share with them.
Take responsibility for your own emotions.

References

https://psychcentral.com/lib/building-resilience/