Transcriber: sama mahmoud Reviewer: nada kilany
Two years ago,
I found myself in a difficult situation.
And no! it’s not because of the board exams.
I was in an interview for the post of a prefect facing some of
the most challenging questions when my mind went completely blank.
I saw sweating profusely. My heart rate went through the roof and
I just stood there, staring and staring. Before I finish my story,
I have a quick question for you all. But the show of hands.
How many of you think that I actually got selected?
Well, you're right. As fate would have it, I didn't get selected.
But you know what? I did manage to learn something.
It's that we humans have way too many emotions for our own good.
And as a result, we have terrible control over them.
And on that day, I let my nervousness and anxiety get the better of me.
I now understood that someone with no control over their emotions
or someone who doesn’t understand the feelings of others,
was at a pretty big disadvantage in life.
And this is what led me to study about AI, or just simply put it,
emotional intelligence. So what is emotional intelligence?
We humans are like an ocean of emotion and our brain helps us activate
a particular river based on the requirement of the situation.
And the management of these rivers of emotions is called emotional intelligence.
Now, some of you might be thinking that throughout my life I've never heard of
such term and my life has been going perfectly so far.
So why hear about it now? Or some of you might be thinking that
How is going to affect me on a day to day basis?
And why should I spend my time pondering over this?
Well, I would like to explain this to you with the help of a few examples.
We all watch movies, right? By the show of hands,
how many of you have watched the films Interstellar and Inception?
Now, how many of you have actually understood these films
On the first time watching them?
Okay. For those of you who don't know,
Christopher Nolan has directed these films and his films are like
an emotional IQ test. He's all about those intricate storylines that make you
scratch your head and go, What on earth is happening?
But, it’s pretty impressive when you think about it.
To pull that off, he’s got to be a master at understanding
the emotional rollercoaster his characters are going through.
And this is where the majority fall.
Just like you guys who put your hands down.
They fail to understand the emotional plot line.
They fail to understand the characters and hence don't understand the film.
Now, some of you have some idea where I’m going with this.
But, I’ll make myself clear with another example.
To all the adults here, how many of you remember your first job interview?
where you felt that excitement that you finally gonna make your first money.
Well, some of us tend to think that if we have a very perfect resume
or if we have graduated from a prestigious college,
that we're most likely to get the job. However, this is not always the case.
Sure, all of these do add pros on why you should get hired,
but most of the hiring process happens inside that interview room,
Where I’m sitting in front of the interviewer. Let’s take a case.
Let's say you're sitting in front of the interviewer
and he goes through your resume and other stuff and values you
at an X amount of money throughout the duration of the interview.
It's your goal to increase your value to x or x plus five or x plus ten.
And this is known as the art of negotiation.
And one can only be good at the art of negotiation if he or she has
a high emotional intelligence.
Now you can see that we use and require emotional intelligence
so much in our day to day lives.
I want you all to close your eyes and just imagine.
Imagine what would happen if you dedicate
a time of your day every day to improve your emotional intelligence.
Just imagine how it wants you would become as an individual.
And what if you began this training from a very, very young age?
Maybe then I wouldn't have flopped my interview.
We live in the 21st century,
where all information is available to us at our finger tips.
I can just scan it using my phone and can get a bunch of solutions.
We live in an era where AI is more advanced than ever,
and the only thing that separates us in the near future is that we have emotions.
We have emotions, and they don’t.
And if you fail to take advantage of this, we fall behind.
Schools could introduce a new period with just like we learned Physics, Chemistry,
math, bio, etc. We learn to develop our emotional intelligence.
And this can be done in many ways. For example, games.
It's a universal truth that kids, adults, teens,
etc. Everyone loves to play video games and normal games too.
But for obvious reasons, since video games aren't allowed in school,
we have to stick with board games.
Board games are a fun and entertaining way to teach your kids those decision
making, critical thinking, problem solving skills,
which are all elements of emotional intelligence and to all
the riddles solving people out there.
You can also solve riddles that actually test
and improve your emotional intelligence.
And to all the parents listening,
instead of pestering your kids to solve those WhatsApp forwarded riddles every
day in the morning, why not give them questions that actually test their
emotional intelligence? For example,
would you divert a train which is on track to run over four people?
But in doing so, you run over one person?
But the catch is that one person is your close friend. Would you divert the train?
Questions like these not only tackle your intelligence and logical reasoning,
but also your emotional intelligence.
Parents play a huge role in development of emotional intelligence of their
children. For example, parents tend to focus
on one aspect of education like academics.
They fail and neglect other aspects like sports, music, art, literature. ET cetera.
ET cetera. We often receive
a lot of criticism when trying to pursue something non academic.
Children often face scoldings
This kind of approach not only stifles the young children's curiosity,
but also makes them not share things with their parents.
Having said this, I can already see the smoke coming out of my dad's ears.
You see, my dad is a bit of a tough cookie.
The idea of emotional intelligence seems a bit fluff to him.
But the truth is, emotional intelligence is not just a feel good concept.
It's a real life skill that can have a significant impact on your personal
as well as professional life.
It’s like having a secret weapon in your back pocket.
So if you want to be the cool kid on the block or impress your boss.
Work on your emotional intelligence.
Not only will you be able to read people like a book,
but you'll also be able to handle those pesky emotions like a pro.
And who knows, maybe you'll finally understand why your significant other
gets mad at you for not keeping the toilet seat down.
Thank you and have a nice day.