Emotional Intelligence

I evaluated my self Emotional Intelligence, and the result was:

101 points- According to your self-report answers, your emotional intelligence is not extremely good. People 

who score like you do feel that their ability to understand and deal with their own emotions and 

those of others is just barely acceptable. Emotionally intelligent people have an easy time 

overcoming difficulties in their lives and they are generally able to control their moods. It's easy 

for them to motivate themselves to overcome obstacles and reach their goals. In addition, they 

find social interactions to be quite easy and fulfilling, for several reasons. They are comfortable 

allowing themselves to get close with others, and feel comfortable being vulnerable enough to 

establish intimacy. They also report having an easy time offering support to others; likely due to 

an empathetic nature and a solid ability to offer advice. Perhaps by working on your problem 

areas, you can become more confident in dealing with your own emotions and those of others. 

As long as you are getting older and you are going further in your career, you realized how important the Emotional Intelligent is in your personal life, in so many aspects: how to maintain personal relationships, as well as how to related to people in your work environment and to treat with customers. The companies are becoming to teach emotional intelligent in their leadership programs and in all their training for executives in the company. But, also, in my opinion, all the universities should start to include this topic in their programs, no matter what major, emotional intelligence is going to be vital for the career development. For example, in my career, as a Business major, I will have to mentor, coach and supervise employees, so I should learn how to manage my feeling and the other people's feelings. But, if you are a teacher, you should learn how to motivate students and know how they are feeling in their personal life because that could influenced their academic success. If you are a nurse, you need to have emotional intelligence and use it when they are caring people, because they are feeling bad, so they are not going to act as you are expecting they would be acting as in a normal situation. As a waiter, you also want to use emotional intelligence because using it, you can guess what kind of service do they want and you can provide them a much better service, exactly the one that they are looking for, more informal or more serious. 

One of my improvements in emotional intelligence was when I started college. I did not understand what they expected of me and, also, what I was supposed to do, because in Spain, they are not as clear as in here and in high school. So, I have to try to know what they want to say throughout my interpretation of their emotional intelligence. As time went by, I was able to completely understand what they wanted me to do and how I was supposed to behave during the class and during the academic year. 

Another improvement in my emotional intelligence was through teaching kids. I was doing it for 3 years and, at first, I was having a lot of problems understanding what kids what saying and explaining the subject in their own words, but, at the end, I was able to empathize with them, and know exactly how to motivate them to have good grades. I was "competing" with them, so if they have a better grade than me, they would be happier than nobody. 

The other great improvement that I just realized was when I was working as a sales agent of credit cards, doing cold calling and door-to-door. So, in that job, you are required to understand that you are bothering the customer, and making him feel confident and that he can trust on you. You can to empathize with the, be quickly because they do not want to lose their time and also, you want to be clear, so they have not to concentrate a lot in what you are just saying. 

I improved a lot, when I was studying abroad. Being surrounded for all the international students and americans, people from all over the world, you have to understand their differences, and put yourself into a different situation that the ones that you are used to. For example, I was used to relate with Asian people and respect their personal space. Also, I had to learn to related with South American guys, since their conduct is like is someone is trying on hitting on you in my country, but they were trying just to be friend and it took me a while to realized. And it was all by the improvement of my emotional intelligence. 

Developing a good emotional intelligence is essential in my career, as I want to be a manager. And it is even more important, as I want to work in a multinational, so I want to work in a very diverse ambient. Also, it is really important for managers, because you need it to manage and coach people, and I really want to develop my career in that path.

To develop a good emotional intelligence, you have to work hard in your self-awareness, acknowledge of thoughts, feelings, sensations, intentions and behaviors, development of empathy, understanding,  acceptance, validation and personal and interpersonal skills (creativity risk, taking, imagery, mediation and role play, deal-with  conflict, diversity, power and communication and listening.

Interpersonal Communication and Conflict

The style of conflict that I use a lot is symmetrical escalation. I do not like to discuss things, but I like to have everything clear and done to not have more problems with that issue in the future. For instance, if I have a conflict with my father, for example, I am going to explain my points of view as further as I can. But I know that this approach can not run forever, so when there is no point to follow this method, I would use the symmetrical negotiation. I hear other's opinion and I would reflect the good points of other point of view and then, I will argue the points that I do not agree with, expecting the other person to do the same, so we can fin the best solution picking both good points of the view. Although may times this results impossible because there is a Yes/No issue or a Black/White solution, so there is no a mixed solution, it has to be a straight one. So, that should be my health way to find a solution for the problem, so everybody should have the feeling of winning, because it seems that everybody got the point that they want to arrive.

Self Disclosure and Social Networking

After reading the article "Social Networking: Are we revealing too much?", it makes you think a lot about how you are showing yourself in the Internet, and most important, to whom you are providing all your information.

When I read it I was thinking about myself, and that is so true. I have people on my facebook and on my tuenti (the Spanish version of Facebook) that I did not see in forever. A lot of my high school classmates, for instance, I do not see them since graduation, 6 years ago; however, I still have them on facebook as my friends and they can see every movement that I make in my life. I just know about them whatever they posted online, that could be true or not. And also, a lot of them, I did barely talk to them in high school because they where in the other section or because we were not compatibles at that time.

Also, I have a lot of friends that could be dangerous because I do not know who is behind them. I am referring to the ones as associations, organizations, or different things that I added on there. One example could be Rider Bronc. Who is behind the Rider Bronc facebook? It could be a criminal or , even, being really dramatical a serial killer. And guess what? Thanks to facebook he or she is able to stalk mostly all Rider students´ facebook, and that could create an obsession for someone that provoke a crime, in some different ways.

Moreover, about my self disclosure on the Internet.... While I am communicating through the Internet, I do not curse (Spaniards curse a lot while we are speaking) and I am much loving in my messages. I´d rather say "sweetheart" in a message than personally. Also, on the Internet you are able to see my general "me" but you are not able to know how I feel most of the time or what my thoughts are about some topic. Also, I won´t talk about people, because the message could be misunderstood and also, it is going to last forever, and I could be sending to someone who can have a different opinion about that person and create a conflict. Another issue is that I don´t use Internet to show someone that I am not, in the Internet I am as I am in my real life: sociable, responsible, love diversity, love being around people,...

Relating Internet and safety, I would never post when I am on holidays or that my house is all alone, as well as I would never use this "four squares" app for mobile devices that you check in places in order to know where you are in every moment. Although I do not post information when I am gone for holidays, I always update my status saying that I am in the United States or in Spain, in order to let my friends that I arrive or that I am leaving.