The power of emotional intelligence | Travis Bradberry | TEDxUCIrvine

Why do people with average IQs outperform those with the highest IQs 70% of the time? One important factor is EQ, emotional intelligence. And unlike IQ, emotional intelligence is a choice and a discipline, not an innate quality bestowed upon the lucky. In this talk, Dr. Travis Bradberry talks about EQ and offers three ways to improve it.

Dr. Travis Bradberry is the award-winning coauthor of "Emotional Intelligence 2.0" and the cofounder of TalentSmart, the world’s leading provider of emotional intelligence tests and training. His bestselling books have been translated into 25 languages and are available in more than 150 countries.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx.

Well, I'm really excited to be here today

to introduce you to a skill
that can change the way you see yourself,

it can change the way you see the world
around you and everyone around you,

and it can absolutely change the way

you go about reaching
your goals in life or pursuing your goals.

And emotional intelligence
is an absolutely critical skill

because we have more than 400
emotional experiences every single day.

Whether you're aware
of these experiences or not,

they can really drive the bus
if you let them do that,

and emotional intelligence is
your ability to understand your emotions

and to respond to them effectively
to produce the behavior that you want.

Now, to help you understand

how emotional intelligence
operates in the brain,

I need to introduce you
to a guy named Phineas Gage.

It's going to be a bit
of a challenge with this mike.

Phineas was a guy who was building
the Burlington Railroad in Vermont

in the 1840s.

And he was not just any railroad foreman,

he was considered to be
the most capable foreman in the business.

Phineas was very intelligent.

He knew how to cut
through the rocky terrain

to lay the tracks on time,

but he also had that extra something
that made people want to work for him.

He was polite, he was calm
and cool under pressure

and he was great with people.

Well, on this one day in particular,

Phineas, being the hands-on
manager that he was,

was working with an item
called a tamping iron,

about the length of this cane
that I'm holding here,

made out of really dense metal
like a crow bar.

And what Phineas would do -

The way they'd use the tamping iron
is they'd cut a hole in the rock,

they'd pour blasting powder in there,

and then they would pour sand on top.

They would take the tamping iron,
and they would tamp down the sand.

What this did is it gave them
a very precise blast.

So on this day in particular,

Phineas was waiting for his assistant
to pour sand in the hole,

and his men overloaded
a train car behind him,

just overloaded it with boulders -

you can imagine the noise that it made -

and it distracted Phineas.

It also distracted his assistant,
who didn't pour sand in the hole.

So when Phineas went
and he rammed the rod into the hole,

it ignited the gunpowder

and launched the rod
through his head, like a rocket.

It actually landed
100 feet behind him in the bushes.

And it entered right below his left eye.

This is his skull,

which is on display at the medical library
at the Harvard Medical School.

Let's say goodbye to the cane.

Now I can handle this microphone.

So, the area of the brain that it removed
is your left orbital frontal cortex,

and this wouldn't be much
of a story to tell you,

except Phineas survived this accident
without his left orbital -

his left orbital frontal cortex

was probably in the bushes
back there with the rod.

And he was sitting up under his own power

within five minutes
of the rod traveling through his head.

He logged his exit
from the job site in the logbook,

and he told the town doctor
what had happened to him.

It took about six months
for his physical wounds to heal.

Once they healed, Phineas
was ready to go back to work.

He was still every bit as intelligent
as he had been before;

he still had interest
in building the railroad;

his personality was the same.

But there was something
very, very key missing,

and it was how he responded
to his emotions.

What happened is,

every emotion that Phineas had
exploded unfettered into action.

So he was angry, he was impulsive,
he was unreliable.

Suddenly, he was showing up late.

So here was this guy
who so much of him was the same,

yet something else
was fundamentally different.

Let me show you
how that works in the brain.

Everything you experience
in the world around you

must enter at the base of your brain.

So if you're listening to me speak,

the signal travels from ear
to the base of the brain.

If someone bumps into you,
you feel that sensation;

it goes to the base of your brain.

Then it travels across your brain.

And once it does so, it travels
through the limbic system.

This is where emotions are generated.

In Phineas' case, this part
of the brain was still intact.

His brain was producing
emotions like normal,

but he lost his rational brain.

He lost the area of the brain

where he was able to read
and respond to these emotions.

Emotional intelligence combines the two.

It's your ability to understand
these emotions that you're having.

We're hardwired
to be emotional creatures.

So these emotions happen
in a split second,

before we're able
to think rationally about them.

What we do in response
to our emotions dictates -

that's really what
emotional intelligence is about.

Now, if you're like me,
you're probably saying,

"Well, why do we -

If this is hardwired in our brain

and we've had ideas about this
since the 1850s with Phineas Gage,

why is this a TED idea?

Why am I learning about this now?"

Well, we live in a world

that doesn't necessarily
teach us what's good for us.

This Cola ad from the '50s
is a great example.

It says, "For a better start in life,
start Cola earlier!

How soon is too soon? Not soon enough!"

"Laboratory tests over the last few years
have proven that babies

who start drinking soda
during that early formative period

have a much higher chance
of fitting in and gaining acceptance

during those awkward
preteen and teen years."

"So do yourself a favor.
Do your child a favor.

Start them on a strict regimen

of sodas and other
sugary carbonated beverages

right now,

for a lifetime of guaranteed happiness."

(Laughter)

Now, this is actually a satire, this ad,

but let me show you a couple that aren't.

These are real ads, and they send
the same kind of message.

Here's one that's saying
that sugar is a great way to diet

and curb food cravings.

Here we have doctors who are telling us
how healthy it is to smoke,

and then my favorite,

"DDT is good for me."

These are real ads of random publications.

It's a sign of the world we grow up in.

We're taught the three Rs in school,
but we're not taught how to lead.

We're not taught all
the capacities that we possess

that we can utilize
to make the most of life.

And emotional intelligence
is absolutely one of these.

Now, here's what most people
don't know as a result of this.

Emotional intelligence
is absolutely distinct from your IQ.

You can be high in emotional intelligence
and have also a really high IQ.

You can be low in one
and not the other, low in both.

They don't occur together
in any meaningful way,

despite the stereotype
that people with high IQs have low EQs.

Right?

That's a stereotype because those folks
stick out like a sore thumb.

Another thing that people confuse with
emotional intelligence is personality.

Personality is a stable set
of preferences and tendencies

through which you approach the world.

It's fixed at an early age,
just like your IQ.

So if you're a hopeless
extrovert at age 17,

you can't expect that to change at age 40.

And personality, it occurs
in a part of the brain

that's what neurologists
call crystallized.

It's fixed; it's not responsive to change,

just like IQ.

Emotional intelligence, on the other hand,

is an area of the brain -

This pathway between your emotional
and rational brains is highly plastic.

What that means is it's flexible
and responsive to change,

and when you work
on your emotional intelligence,

your neurons will actually
branch out to each other

and increase the flow of information
between the rational and emotional brains.

This is the essence
of emotional intelligence.

There are four
emotional intelligence skills,

but the thing you need to know
is that, statistically,

it really comes down to what you see as
personal competence and social competence.

Personal competence is about you,

awareness of your own emotions
and how you manage them.

Social competence
is about you with other people.

It's how you're reading and responding
to other people and what you do with that.

The reason, statistically,
there aren't really four skills,

it's just kind of two,

is because once you
become aware of your emotions,

once you take the blinders off,

it's really hard not to do
something productive with them.

And there's a lot of things
that operate beneath our awareness.

I'd like to show you one example.

This is from a study that was conducted
at a university of The Netherlands.

In this study, they took people
who had cortical lesions.

So, these folks,
their eyes worked perfectly,

the optic nerves worked perfectly,

they sent the signals back
to the base of the brain to be processed,

and the problem's there -
they had cortical lesions.

The brain didn't know what it saw
although the eyes physically saw it,

so they're blind.

What they did is they put these people
in front of computer screens,

and they flashed images
of people expressing strong emotions.

When you do that with people with sight,

there's "mirror neurons" in your brain

that mirror the emotional state
of other people,

and you can't help but have
a very small emotional reaction.

So if I put an image
of someone smiling really big,

you'll crack a smile.

If it's someone really angry,
you'll furrow your brow a bit.

You can't control it.

The thing that really freaked
these researchers out

is that these blind people were having
the same reaction as people with sight.

The exact same reaction.

And it really left them scratching
their heads: "How can this be?

The brain cannot process
what their eyes are seeing."

They went back and they
further analysed the MRIs,

and what they found is that
there's an alternate pathway in the brain.

They found that as the signals
traveled down the optic nerve,

they were actually branching out
and sending signals to the limbic system.

So these people didn't even know
what they were seeing.

They said to them,
"Why did you crack a smile?"

"I don't know. It was a hunch."

"Why did you furrow your brow?"

"I don't know."

"Did you see something?"

"No, dude, I'm blind.
I didn't see anything."

How many of you have walked
into a room full of people

and you can just feel a mood in the room

even though you
can't put your finger on it?

These are the kind of
emotional signals driving your brain.

People who are highly
emotionally intelligent

are very tuned into them.

And once you're tuned into them,

they tend to produce
the behavior that you want.

Now, I'm going to show you
some stats around emotional intelligence

and why it's so important to success,

and I want you to understand
why these statistics are so powerful.

It's because emotional intelligence
is a foundational skill.

Emotions are the primary driver
of our behavior.

Think about that picture
of the limbic system.

It's at the base of the brain;
everything is traveling through it.

It's emotions first, emotions first.

So when you master your emotions,

when you become aware of them
and are able to manage them effectively,

it trickles into everything you do.

It trickles into how you manage stress,
how you get presentations,

how you work in a team,
how you make decisions -

it's a foundational skill.

Here's another bit of research.

We found that emotional intelligence,
when it comes to work,

explains about 60% of how you do.

If you look at the percentage
of top performers,

what percentage of them are high in EQ,

it's 90%.

And the skeptics in the room,
I happen to be one.

I'd say, "What percentage
of low performers are high in EQ?"

Well, you can have a high EQ
and be a bottom performer -

there's other factors at play -

but emotional intelligence
is a very, very direct route

to producing the behavior that you want
because of how your brain is wired.

Here's research we published
in the Harvard Business Review,

and this is looking at emotional
intelligence scores by job title.

You have individual contributor first.

These are people
who don't supervise anyone.

Then you have your supervisor,
you know, first time managers.

And then middle management.

This is where emotional
intelligence scores peak.

Because above middle management,

it is a ski slope
all the way down to CEOs,

who have the lowest emotional intelligence
scores in the workplace.

Now, I just told you that 90%
of top performers have high EQs.

So shouldn't CEOs be the top performers?

Well, the trick is,
for each of these job categories,

emotional intelligence
is a big predictor of performance;

those with the highest EQs
also tend to be the top performers.

But what organizations do -

if you think back to the wonderful ads
that send us the wrong messages,

our society that sends us
the wrong messages -

organizations perpetuate this,

and they promote people above -

Okay, why do you get promoted
to be a manager?

Because you're good with people.

But how do you move above management?

How do you become
a director, a senior exec, CEO?

It's increasingly focused on tenure,

on short-term financial gains,

on industry knowledge.

These things matter,

but it's the really well-rounded people -

people who are able to achieve that

and also have high
emotional intelligence -

that really, really flourish.

And that's the challenge:
it's for organizations to buck this trend,

and it's for individuals
to become that well-rounded person

that's going to achieve
the highest level of success,

whatever job you're in.

Okay, now, people always want to know

how you can go about increasing
your emotional intelligence.

And I absolutely recommend
that you test yourself

and you find what your low areas are.

For one person,
it may be social awareness.

For another, it may be self-awareness.

That's a really great starting point.

But I do have three silver bullets
for increasing your EQ to share with you.

And these apply to a lot of people -

I guarantee you the majority
of the people in this room.

The first thing is to get
your stress under control.

We all know that stress
is bad news, right?

It compromises your immune system,

it's linked to heart disease,
depression, obesity.

The trick is, intermittent, mild stress -

that is stress you keep under control -

actually entices the brain

to produce cells that are responsible
for improved memory.

So good things happen
when you start to feel some stress,

and you actually climb up
this performance curve.

But what they found at UC Berkeley

is that when the stress
becomes severe or becomes prolonged,

you move down the backside of the curve.

And it actually causes degeneration

in the areas of the brain
responsible for self-control.

So when you keep
your stress under control,

good things are happening in your brain.

And when this stress
starts to take you too far,

you actually are diminishing
your capacity to control your behavior,

including control your ability
to control your stress.

So it's kind of this vicious cycle.

The key here, like I said,
is keeping that stress intermittent

and having intervention strategies
that you can employ

to give yourself a break from stress.

There's a great study
conducted at UC Davis

where they taught people
a simple strategy.

And that was to cultivate
an attitude of gratitude.

So every time these people felt stress,

the experimental group
was instructed to stop

and think about something
they were grateful for - that's it.

It sounds a little hokey,

but in these individuals that did this,

it actually lowered
the stress hormone cortisol by 23%.

So cultivating an attitude of gratitude

physically, physiologically lowered
their body's response to stress.

So getting stress under control,

doing all the stuff
you know you should be doing -

taking a walk,
reading a book, exercising -

all these things that give you breaks
are key to getting stress under control.

The next thing, silver bullet number two
for increasing your EQ,

is to clean up your sleep hygiene.

More sleep would be great,

but for a lot of people
that isn't going to happen.

And cleaning up your sleep hygiene
is the next best route.

Now, the reason is
because when you're awake,

toxic proteins build up
in the neurons in your brain.

This is a byproduct
of normal neuronal activity;

it's just a part of being awake.

And when you sleep,
if you get the right amount of sleep,

your neurons actually clean themselves up

and they remove these toxic proteins.

When that doesn't happen,

you actually - they hinder
your capacity to think.

They make you groggy,
they diminish your self control,

and that's why you feel like crud

when you get three hours of sleep
when you know you really need seven.

So for most of us,

the trick here is you need
to clean up your sleep hygiene

because your body moves through a very
elaborate series of stages when you sleep.

And if you're not getting sleep
of sufficient quality,

you won't remove these toxic proteins

from your brain.

What do a lot of us do
to diminish the quality of our sleep?

Well, the worst thing,
the number one offender,

is taking things that "help you sleep."

Anything that helps you sleep -

a Benadryl, three glasses of wine,
an Ambien, a Nyquil, melatonin -

if it helps you sleep,

it is impairing your body's ability

to go through the necessary sleep stages
to remove these toxic proteins.

And that's why you feel groggy
the next day when you take a sleep aid.

So the number one way
to clean up your sleep hygiene

is to not take something
that makes you sleep.

And, actually, there's kind
of a co-title for poor sleep hygiene

because the other thing a lot of us do

is we expose ourselves
to blue light in the evening.

And here's how this works:

In the morning, sunlight
is very high in blue wavelength light.

Blue wavelength light
halts melatonin production

and it tells your body:
"Be awake. It's morning time."

After noon, sunlight is increasingly
orange and red in wavelength.

That allows your body
to start producing melatonin,

which prepares you for sleep.

All well and good,
but what do we do after dinner?

We sit in front of our massive Mac monitor
and just bathe ourselves in blue light,

or read on our iPad.

You know, when you
bathe yourself in blue light,

you're confusing
the heck out of your brain

and you're halting melatonin production,

and it will often keep you
from going to sleep,

but even if you can go to sleep
when you do this,

your body doesn't get the quality of sleep

that it needs to remove
these toxic proteins.

So, silver bullet number two
for increasing your EQ

is to clean up your sleep hygiene.

No blue light, don't take anything
that helps you sleep,

wake up at the same time in the morning -

these are all things that can help you
to get your self-control under control.

Now, the third one is the one
that people really hate me for.

Get your caffeine intake under control.

And caffeine really links back
to this same cycle

because caffeine
has a very long half-life.

It's six hours.

So when you're feeling tired
in the afternoon

because you took seven Benadryl
the night before to go to sleep,

and you have a triple espresso,

by nine or ten PM, half of that is still
metabolically active in your body.

It's still there, doing it's thing.

So it makes it hard to go to sleep,

and even if you can go to sleep,

again, you're not getting
the quality of sleep that you need

to remove these toxic proteins
from your brain.

So, my recommendation here

is just to not drink
any caffeine after noon

and know how it affects your body.

Some people can tolerate more caffeine,

but if you pay attention to it,

you can see how it's affecting your sleep.

So, those three silver bullets
will help you get where you need to be

on the road to improving
your emotional intelligence,

and I hope that some of the things
that I taught you today

prove useful as you pursue
your goals in life.

Thanks so much.

(Applause)