Hey, have you ever caught yourself wondering if the smartest kids from your high school are really killing it in life? I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about this lately, and it’s pretty wild how many people are thinking the same thing.
So, what do you think? Did those high school whizzes make it big?
From what I’ve gathered—nothing too scientific, just chatting around—it seems like about 80% of those high achievers are on pretty much the same track as the folks who were at the back of the class in school. Kinda makes you wonder, right?
What actually decides if someone’s going to climb up the career ladder?
Heads up, I’m just focusing on moving up the ranks when I talk about “success” here.
It’s kind of a cliché, but it fits perfectly here: “What got you here won’t get you there.”
We all start out with certain gifts, like being smart or athletic, and then there are traits we work on, like hard work, dedication, and yep—emotional intelligence. Early on, being naturally talented can really give you an edge. You breeze through challenges while others are putting in the sweat.
But here’s the catch: a lot of us smartypants never really had to push our limits or develop our character. We missed out on learning from failures and didn’t get much practice in things like self-awareness or managing relationships.
For the 20% who were both smart and focused on building their soft skills, the sky’s the limit.
As we climb higher in our careers, those hard skills and natural talents start to take a back seat, and it’s the soft skills, like emotional intelligence, that really start to count. Sure, we all hear about the Elon Musks and Steve Jobs of the world, but they’re the exceptions. Most people who reach the top have spent a lot of time getting to know themselves better and boosting their emotional intelligence.
What is Emotional intelligence btw?
Emotional Intelligence is defined generally on five parameters.
- Self-awareness: Recognizing one’s own emotions and how they affect thoughts and behavior. This includes understanding one’s strengths and weaknesses, and having self-confidence.
- Self-regulation: Managing one’s emotions healthily and constructively, maintaining control and adaptability in the face of challenges or obstacles.
- Motivation: Harnessing emotions to pursue goals with energy and persistence.
- Empathy: Understanding, recognizing, and considering other people’s emotions, which is essential in managing relationships, listening, and relating to others.
- Social skills: Managing relationships to move people in desired directions, whether in leading, negotiating, working as part of a team, or handling conflicts.
Tips to cultivate Emotional Intelligence
- We all have been in emotional situations where impulses took over our logical brain. While, sometimes, it is absolutely important, most of the times, it isn’t.
- Whenever you are in an emotionally charged situation, always take a deep breath, step back and respond, not react.
- Whenever faced with obstacles, always reframe it as an opportunity to learn and grow.
- While in the moment, it is easy to fall into the downward spiral of self-pity, it is much more important to look at the positive side. Would you rather fall into the pit and self-destroy or use this as an opportunity to grow?
- In order to lead and influence people, it is very important to understand their perspective and not assume their intentions
- I have always faced situations where I recalibrated my positions on certain issues after seeing the other side. Empathy is the secret weapon to insights and success
- Do you always feel the need to win every argument, always crush your opposition without understanding strategic consequences?
- Conflict resolution is a very critical skill. As you go higher the ladder, your ability to create win-win situations is very crucial for your career growth. Sometimes, it is important to yield to others for the larger goals.
In conclusion, while natural gifts may get you a head start in career, in the long run, people who develop soft skills like emotional intelligence, hard work, perseverance, etc will get much further in their career.
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