Chapter 3

Emotional Self-Awareness

“He who knows the universe and does not know himself knows nothing.”

—JEAN DE LA FONTAINE, 1679

DEFINITION:

Emotional self-awareness is the ability to recognize your feelings, differentiate between them, know why you are feeling these feelings, and recognize the impact your feelings have on others around you.2

Consider Sam, the enraged passenger on Flight 107. He was completely unaware of how enraged he was and particularly oblivious to the impact that rage and its accompanying behavior were having on the ticket agent. Certainly, he was unaware how his feelings and behavior were undermining the success of his getting on the next flight.

Consider another example: Art returned home one evening after learning ...

Get The EQ Edge: Emotional Intelligence and Your Success, Third Edition now with the O’Reilly learning platform.

O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.