Emotional Intelligence: Building the Largest Predictor of Life Success
What is emotional intelligence?
Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand and manage one’s own emotions and the emotions of others. Crucially, we can influence our emotions and control our actions, but we cannot directly control our emotions let alone the emotions of others. I’ll refer to the emotional quotient as EQ throughout this article.
If this seems to be a skill that you’d like to further develop, the good news is that it can be practiced and built up consistently.
Is it really the number predictor of life success?
Yes. Individuals with higher levels of emotional intelligence tend to have more fulfilling relationships, communities, self-mastery, and earn an average $29,000 more than those with lower EQs. Some estimates attribute 58% of an individual’s life success to EQ. Other studies have found that among top employees that 90% of them have high levels of EQ.
In my clinical experience, individuals with higher EQs have an easier time seeing themselves as competent and capable while minimizing disruptions in their relationships and being more equipped to repair relationships after difficult moments. Those around them feel more seen and comfortable as a result of this. They are likely to be viewed as dependable, making them frequently sought after in personal and professional settings.
Assessing Where You Stand
I’m not affiliated with them, but PsychologyToday offers a free EQ test here: EQ Test. If you notice there are key areas that you are having difficulty with, I’d encourage sharing that with a therapist or some supportive people in your life. They may be able to help you build up your awareness of the areas you could improve.
Ways to Build Emotional Intelligence
We’ll break down emotional intelligence into its core three parts and give some examples for how you might practice developing these skills.
Understanding and Labeling Your Own Emotions
Moving beyond “good” and “fine.”
If you’re asked how you’re doing, work to go deeper than responding with the go to phrases of “good” and “fine.” It’s challenging that many cultures within the United States ask how you are as a greeting rather than a sincere inquiry, which has taught us to respond in shallower ways. See if you can come up with different answers that involve feelings.
I’ll attach my favorite ‘emotion wheel’ below, but you can also search online and find a wide variety. Pick and use one that you like.
Junto Institute’s Emotion Wheel
The emotions are organized into color clusters and become more specific as they fan out. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed when seeing all the options. Using the center six emotions is more than good enough. In fact, simply saying you feel good or bad is a decent place to start too.
Practice Slowing Down
Many of us expect to have an answer on the tip of our tongues when we are asked. Taking a few breaths and searching your body and mind for how you are doing will help you further develop your answers.
As I say to all my clients, “I don’t know” is always an acceptable answer.
What Would You Expect to Feel Given What’s Been Happening?
Ask yourself what you would expect someone else to feel if they had the day, the week, or the month you had. Search for those feelings within yourself.
This one applies is extremely helpful for understanding the emotional states of others too.
Notice Your Body
There have been numerous high-quality studies that have helped us map out emotions are housed in the body.
I encourage taking a few moments to scan your body and see areas that are standing out to you. Are you carrying tension in your jaw, forehead, or shoulders? Does your blood pressure feel higher? If you answered yes to any of these, those could be physical manifestations of stress.
The map below may help you in mapping the physical feelings you have and what emotions might correspond with those feelings.
This image is from a study conducted by Nummenmaa et al., 2014. The brighter yellows show intense physical experiences, whereas the darker regions show a lack of engagement in these areas. This general pattern of results has been shown again and again in numerous studies.
Journal
By slowing down enough to physically write about your feelings, you will gain tremendous insight into these emotions.
Mindfulness and/or Yoga
Mindfulness and yoga are two wonderful options for building up these skills too.
Managing Your Emotions
If this is an area that you’d like to practice, the steps covered above in practicing to label your emotions are incredibly helpful in taming said emotions. The act of providing a label to your feeling has been shown to decrease to the intensity of that feeling.
Rather than type a watered-down version of a coping strategy and regulation list, I’ll link to one that I wrote out several weeks ago: Creating a Gameplan for Hard Times: Coping — Minds That Matter.
Understanding and Managing the Emotions of Others
I want to restate that you cannot control any else’s emotional state or even fully control your own. That said, how we choose to respond to others given their emotional states can be the difference between success and failure in a variety of situations.
Another key piece to understand in order to effectively work alongside others is that if we are overwhelmed, our minds are not in the place to process complex thoughts. Whether it’s working with one of our children who is crying or a friend who is in the midst of a panic attack, simple messages and attempts at comfort are the best.
Here are some ways to build up this skill:
Practice Reading Faces, Body Language, and Situations
A great way to do this involves a decent bit of vulnerability and working alongside someone who is rather excellent at reading their own emotional states. If you have such a person in your life and want to practice this way, ask they if you take opportunities to share what you suspect they are feeling and the signs your are reading from them. They can give you feedback and with some practice, I am confident you will improve quickly.
Another way to practice can be through film and tv. Practice seeing what you assume other’s emotional states are and see if you can find context clues that might support your conclusion.
It’s important to note that it’s easy to be wrong, and it’s okay to check in with others on what you are observing. Although it can be uncomfortable, this can be a tremendous way to avoid conflict and improve communication for personal and professional relationships.
By sharing something like, “It seems like you’re angry at me. I wanted to make sure I’m understanding that correctly” can feel quite weird. However, if they are angry at you, that might prompt them to share why they are. If they are not, perhaps they will share what their understanding of their emotional state is while avoiding the risk of you becoming defensive, which is likely to come across as an attack to them. These situations so often create conflicts based entirely on miscommunications that are detrimental to the health of any relationship.
Active Listening
So often people will share and show their feelings more than we might expect. By being present with them, letting go of our internal dialogue and trusting that we don’t need to be planning what we’ll say next, and asking questions based on what they’ve shared, you can learn so much about someone while forming deeper connections to them. As a major bonus, you are likely to be helping them process their feelings while you are actively listening.
Reflect on How You Might Shift Your Behaviors Based on Where Others Are
There are a wide variety of situations you could reflect on and see how you’d like to shift your behaviors. My favorite way is to use real situations from your own life and run thought experiments based on those. “If my boss appeared more frustrated this morning, how could I adjust my behaviors to best navigate the situation?” See what comes up for you.
I do encourage that you work to somewhat match your energy to the person you are communicating with. If someone is feeling defeated and/or sad, coming in with lots of energy and enthusiasm is likely to cause them to shut down even more.
Things like validation and coming in just above or below their energy level can be excellent approaches in effectively navigating challenging situations
Notice What Their Emotions and Behaviors Bring Up for You
The point I’ll end on is to practice noticing what someone else’s emotional state and behaviors do to you. You might notice that someone else feeling angry makes you defensive and angry. Perhaps someone feeling overwhelmed makes you feel helpless, which creates a great bit of stress. Someone smiling and feeling joy spreads it quickly to you. All of these are helpful to know in order to better know yourself.
You may have to regulate your own emotions when attempting to understand and support someone experiencing their own emotional stress
Written by Dr. Luke Bieber on August 8, 2025