Emotional Intelligence 101

It's been a long day. A good day, but a long one. And I'm tired. So, how am I feeling? Green. That is, on the Mood Meter developed by the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, I'd put myself in the lower-right quadrant, where emotions that are low-energy and positive are color-coded green. Earlier in the day, right after my morning coffee, I was feeling…yellow: high-energy and very positive about the meetings I'd scheduled and a lecture I was preparing to give to incoming students at my university. Of course, four categories does not do justice to the many kinds of emotions each of us experiences in a lifetime, or even in a single day. There are nuanced differences between feeling serene versus satisfied (both green), or furious versus frightened (both red, high-energy and negative). But when you're a rookie at emotional intelligence, the four quadrants defined by energy (high or low) and valence (positive or negative) are a great way to begin to recognize how you're feeling from moment to moment.