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Emotional Intelligence 2.0 [With Access Code]
For the first time ever in a book, Drs. Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves unveil TalentSmart's revolutionary program to help people identify their EQ skills, build these skills into strengths, and enjoy consistent performance in the pursuit of important life objectives. The book contains proven strategies from a decade-long effort to accurately measure and increase emotional intelligence. Trusted by upper-echelon leaders inside companies worldwide, these strategies will enable you to capitalize on the skills responsible for 58% of performance in all types of jobs.
Unknown Binding
Published January 1, 2009
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
May 30, 2022
For what it is, it's probably very good. I do take issue with a book about Emotional Intelligence solely through the lens of being a more productive worker.
May 6, 2023
2.0 stars.
1 star for the assessment that was included + 1 star for making me deep dive into research that goes against some of the blanket statements made throughout the book.
1 star for the assessment that was included + 1 star for making me deep dive into research that goes against some of the blanket statements made throughout the book.
January 9, 2019
It’s a fast read, easily scanned when I encountered familiar information. I did make a list of strategies I recognized I could strenghthen. As a retiree, my years of management training opportunities are far enough back that I never made it onto the emotional intelligence train.
April 30, 2025
By God’s GRACEEE🙌🏼 I barely finished the book before the discussion for it. It was much more fun and enjoyable to read than I expected and I liked the “real world” people examples that it had. The book gives a lot of “common sense” tips that are easy to forget in day-to-day life management so I appreciated that.
October 24, 2017
Very useful book to read and to refer to. I had to read this for a professional/personal development class at work. There are some very good strategies to teach oneself and to use. I like that I am able to take the assessment again after some time.
March 23, 2019
Online assessment: this was only rating yourself on a scale. After you read the book and retest if you rank yourself higher, then you score higher. I was hoping for a test where I answered questions and then my results were calculated with some kind of deduction based on several questions.
Reason and feelings colliding. All decisions go through the emotional part of the brain first. We have to strengthen the connection between the two in order to make decisions on logic verses emotions. Emotional intelligences helps a person professionally and personally and it can be improved.
Self Awareness Strategies: Be aware of your positive and negative feelings.
1. Quit treating feelings as good or bad: sit with your emotion and just feel it. The feeling is there to help you understand something important.
2. Observe the ripple effect from your emotions: when others observe anger, it affects how they act and it creates fear. Emotions are powerful weapons.
3. Lean into your discomfort: move toward the feeling
4. Feel your emotions physically: check heart beat, breathing, muscles.
5. Know who and what pushes your buttons: knowing what pushes your buttons helps you manage your emotions.
6. Watch yourself like a hawk: view yourself from a broad perspective regarding your emotions.
7. Keep a journal about your emotions: describe emotions, including physical sensations, services to raise self awareness.
8. Don’t be fooled by a bad mood: don’t make important decisions during this time.
9. Don’t be fooled by a good mood either: can lead to impulse decisions
10. Stop and ask yourself why you do the things you do: trace emotions back to their origin
11. Visit your values: live your life by your values
12. Check yourself: sloppy dress verses over dressing, aloof verses overzealous
13. Spot your emotions in books and movies: this serves as a way to understand them.
14. Seek Feedback: get a mentor (friends, coworker, family)
15. Get to know yourself under stress: recognize stress early and take a break
Self management strategies: think about how your feelings influence your behavior
1. Breathe Right: oxygen is used to keep your alert, focused, and calm. Stomach should move more than chest.
2. Create an Emotion vs. Reason List: make a list of each/draw line down the middle of paper to separate. Goal is to see if you are being swayed by your emotions when making decisions.
3. Make your goals public: this will hold you accountable to your goals
4. Count to Ten: This helps you cool your limbic system down
5. Sleep on It: Sometimes we jump to a decision to be done with the uncomfortableness of making the decision itself.
6. Talk to a skilled self manager: Ask them how they self manage and use some of their tips
7. Smile and Laugh More: sends message to brain that you are happy.
8. Set aside some time in your day for problem solving: better decisions are made when planning is involved. 15 minutes of quiet each day.
9. Take control of your self talk: 50,000 thoughts a day. Replace always with sometimes, I made a mistake, accept responsibility for mistakes.
10. Visualize yourself succeeding: brain cannot distinguish between what you see and what you visualize.
11. Clean up your sleep hygiene: brain recharges while you sleep. 20 min of morning sunlight, no computer within 2 hours of bed, bed is for sleeping, avoid caffeine.
12. Focus you attention on your freedoms, rather than your limitations
13. Stay synchronized: body language should match emotions
14. Speak to someone who is not emotionally invested in your problem: perspectives are tainted the more people are affected by your situation.
15. Learn a valuable lesson from everyone you encounter:
16. Put a mental recharge into your schedule: exercise, massage, yoga, garden, walk. Schedule at the start of the week.
17. Accept the change that is just around the corner: people/friends, businesses all change. Make a list each week of things that could possibly change.
Social Awareness Strategies: how some people seem to know/sense how others are feeling. Looking outward to learn about and appreciate others.
1. Greet people by name: acknowledges who they are, personal connection
2. Watch body language: do head to toe body language assessment to know how people are really feeling.
3. Make timing everything: practice timing with social awareness
4. Develop a back pocket question: this will bail you out of an awkward silence.
5. Don’t take notes at meetings: Multitasking sacrifices your quality of work. Observe people at meetings.
6. Plan ahead for social gatherings: Think about who is coming and what you can talk to them about or have to give them (business card).
7. Clear away the clutter: chatter with ourselves in our head and thinking about our responses while others are talking.
8. Live in the moment: Usually we worry about the past and stress about the future. Be present for the present.
9. Go on a 15 minute tour: Walk around your work and check in with people (observe each area). Do this twice a week.
10. Watch EQ at the movies: Helps practice being aware of others emotions.
11. Practice the art of listening: tone, speed, volume of the voice. What is said and what is unsaid?
12. Go people watching: helps you read body language
13. Understand the rules of the culture game: Treat others how they want to be treated, learn about their culture.
14. Test for accuracy: Ask people if what you are observing is correct. “looks like you are feeling down” Did something happen?
15. Step into their shoes: when something happens, ask yourself how you would feel if you were them.
16. Seek the whole picture: ask others how you are perceived.
17. Catch the mood of the room: Ways to do this: rely on your gut, observe if people are alone or in groups.
Relationship Management Strategies: All relationships take time, effort, and know how (work).
1. Be open and curious: ask non-judgemental questions.
2. Enhance your natural communication style: direct, indirect, comfortable, serious, entertaining, discreet, controlled, chatty, intense, curious, cool, intrusive? Look at the upside and downside of your natural communication style.
3. Avoid giving mixed signals: words and body language need to match.
4. Remember the little things that pack a punch: thank you, please, I’m sorry
5. Take feedback well: consider the source, ask clarification questions,
6. Build trust: open communication, willingness to share, consistency in words, actions and behavior over time.
7. Have an open-door policy: you don’t have to be available all the time, just stick to when you will be available.
8. Only get mad on purpose: use only if it will benefit the relationship
9. Don’t avoid the inevitable: working together can mean doing part of the project separate and some together. Remember the goal of the project to keep you going.
10. Acknowledge the other person’s feelings: Reach out and care for that person.
11. Complement the person’s emotions or situation: choose an appropriate and complementary response to someone who is angry.
12. When you care, show it: his boss left a cookie on his desk to show appreciation for his hard work on a project.
13. Explain our decisions, don’t just make them
14. Make your feedback direct and constructive: giving feedback is a relationship building event. Feedback addresses the problem, not the person.
15. Align your intention with your impact: sometimes a joke (about someone) just isn’t as funny as you think.
16. Offer a fix it statement during a broken conversation: let go of blame and focus on repair
17. Tackle a tough conversation: start with agreement, understand the other person’s side, resist planning a rebuttal, help them understand your side, move conversation forward, keep in touch.
Reason and feelings colliding. All decisions go through the emotional part of the brain first. We have to strengthen the connection between the two in order to make decisions on logic verses emotions. Emotional intelligences helps a person professionally and personally and it can be improved.
Self Awareness Strategies: Be aware of your positive and negative feelings.
1. Quit treating feelings as good or bad: sit with your emotion and just feel it. The feeling is there to help you understand something important.
2. Observe the ripple effect from your emotions: when others observe anger, it affects how they act and it creates fear. Emotions are powerful weapons.
3. Lean into your discomfort: move toward the feeling
4. Feel your emotions physically: check heart beat, breathing, muscles.
5. Know who and what pushes your buttons: knowing what pushes your buttons helps you manage your emotions.
6. Watch yourself like a hawk: view yourself from a broad perspective regarding your emotions.
7. Keep a journal about your emotions: describe emotions, including physical sensations, services to raise self awareness.
8. Don’t be fooled by a bad mood: don’t make important decisions during this time.
9. Don’t be fooled by a good mood either: can lead to impulse decisions
10. Stop and ask yourself why you do the things you do: trace emotions back to their origin
11. Visit your values: live your life by your values
12. Check yourself: sloppy dress verses over dressing, aloof verses overzealous
13. Spot your emotions in books and movies: this serves as a way to understand them.
14. Seek Feedback: get a mentor (friends, coworker, family)
15. Get to know yourself under stress: recognize stress early and take a break
Self management strategies: think about how your feelings influence your behavior
1. Breathe Right: oxygen is used to keep your alert, focused, and calm. Stomach should move more than chest.
2. Create an Emotion vs. Reason List: make a list of each/draw line down the middle of paper to separate. Goal is to see if you are being swayed by your emotions when making decisions.
3. Make your goals public: this will hold you accountable to your goals
4. Count to Ten: This helps you cool your limbic system down
5. Sleep on It: Sometimes we jump to a decision to be done with the uncomfortableness of making the decision itself.
6. Talk to a skilled self manager: Ask them how they self manage and use some of their tips
7. Smile and Laugh More: sends message to brain that you are happy.
8. Set aside some time in your day for problem solving: better decisions are made when planning is involved. 15 minutes of quiet each day.
9. Take control of your self talk: 50,000 thoughts a day. Replace always with sometimes, I made a mistake, accept responsibility for mistakes.
10. Visualize yourself succeeding: brain cannot distinguish between what you see and what you visualize.
11. Clean up your sleep hygiene: brain recharges while you sleep. 20 min of morning sunlight, no computer within 2 hours of bed, bed is for sleeping, avoid caffeine.
12. Focus you attention on your freedoms, rather than your limitations
13. Stay synchronized: body language should match emotions
14. Speak to someone who is not emotionally invested in your problem: perspectives are tainted the more people are affected by your situation.
15. Learn a valuable lesson from everyone you encounter:
16. Put a mental recharge into your schedule: exercise, massage, yoga, garden, walk. Schedule at the start of the week.
17. Accept the change that is just around the corner: people/friends, businesses all change. Make a list each week of things that could possibly change.
Social Awareness Strategies: how some people seem to know/sense how others are feeling. Looking outward to learn about and appreciate others.
1. Greet people by name: acknowledges who they are, personal connection
2. Watch body language: do head to toe body language assessment to know how people are really feeling.
3. Make timing everything: practice timing with social awareness
4. Develop a back pocket question: this will bail you out of an awkward silence.
5. Don’t take notes at meetings: Multitasking sacrifices your quality of work. Observe people at meetings.
6. Plan ahead for social gatherings: Think about who is coming and what you can talk to them about or have to give them (business card).
7. Clear away the clutter: chatter with ourselves in our head and thinking about our responses while others are talking.
8. Live in the moment: Usually we worry about the past and stress about the future. Be present for the present.
9. Go on a 15 minute tour: Walk around your work and check in with people (observe each area). Do this twice a week.
10. Watch EQ at the movies: Helps practice being aware of others emotions.
11. Practice the art of listening: tone, speed, volume of the voice. What is said and what is unsaid?
12. Go people watching: helps you read body language
13. Understand the rules of the culture game: Treat others how they want to be treated, learn about their culture.
14. Test for accuracy: Ask people if what you are observing is correct. “looks like you are feeling down” Did something happen?
15. Step into their shoes: when something happens, ask yourself how you would feel if you were them.
16. Seek the whole picture: ask others how you are perceived.
17. Catch the mood of the room: Ways to do this: rely on your gut, observe if people are alone or in groups.
Relationship Management Strategies: All relationships take time, effort, and know how (work).
1. Be open and curious: ask non-judgemental questions.
2. Enhance your natural communication style: direct, indirect, comfortable, serious, entertaining, discreet, controlled, chatty, intense, curious, cool, intrusive? Look at the upside and downside of your natural communication style.
3. Avoid giving mixed signals: words and body language need to match.
4. Remember the little things that pack a punch: thank you, please, I’m sorry
5. Take feedback well: consider the source, ask clarification questions,
6. Build trust: open communication, willingness to share, consistency in words, actions and behavior over time.
7. Have an open-door policy: you don’t have to be available all the time, just stick to when you will be available.
8. Only get mad on purpose: use only if it will benefit the relationship
9. Don’t avoid the inevitable: working together can mean doing part of the project separate and some together. Remember the goal of the project to keep you going.
10. Acknowledge the other person’s feelings: Reach out and care for that person.
11. Complement the person’s emotions or situation: choose an appropriate and complementary response to someone who is angry.
12. When you care, show it: his boss left a cookie on his desk to show appreciation for his hard work on a project.
13. Explain our decisions, don’t just make them
14. Make your feedback direct and constructive: giving feedback is a relationship building event. Feedback addresses the problem, not the person.
15. Align your intention with your impact: sometimes a joke (about someone) just isn’t as funny as you think.
16. Offer a fix it statement during a broken conversation: let go of blame and focus on repair
17. Tackle a tough conversation: start with agreement, understand the other person’s side, resist planning a rebuttal, help them understand your side, move conversation forward, keep in touch.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 2, 2014
I was looking for a short but engaging book on equal or emotional intelligence to help out my students who seem to have iq in abundance but are unaware of how they may come across to others. This really fit the bill for me. I find myself recommending it to learners frequently and have picked up some helpful hints myself.
March 22, 2019
This book is a great place to start if you are interested in increasing your EQ. By taking the assessment you can learn the areas where you are the strongest, and the areas where you need improvement. The only reason I don't rank it higher is that it assesses you but it doesn't go into more detail about how you go from point "a" to point "b".
November 12, 2023
I bought the book because it had access to the emotional intelligence test and I'm a sucker for tests, but I thought the test was a bit lame. It was a test that I could too easily answer questions down the middle and my score seemed to indicate that. It was a very short test so not too thorough. I don't necessarily disagree with the results as much as I wondered if someone who was arrogant and clueless could actually get high scores (because, yes, you can tell which answers will give you a higher score) and someone who thought less of themselves would get really low scores. The book might help those of us in the middle or at the low end, but it's not going to get through to the clueless at all.
The practices are pretty much what have been around for awhile, but there were some new ones in there, and I'll certainly look into those.
I should have known that I might have problems with the book when the cover says: "Harness the power of the #1 predictor of success" -- as though emotional intelligence is only good when used for productive (and success is valued only by productivity).
Then, on top of that, some other books and a podcast were sitting "at the table" with this book. I was reading Multipliers (higher stars than this one), Outliers (ehhh, probably about the same amount of stars but a different take on success), and Huberman Lab podcast Oct. 16 with Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett on "How to Understand Emotions". I'm not so sure that this book and the science match up (which is also what one reviewer commented on).
My mom doesn't read non-fiction books like this (so that answers the mom question).
The practices are pretty much what have been around for awhile, but there were some new ones in there, and I'll certainly look into those.
I should have known that I might have problems with the book when the cover says: "Harness the power of the #1 predictor of success" -- as though emotional intelligence is only good when used for productive (and success is valued only by productivity).
Then, on top of that, some other books and a podcast were sitting "at the table" with this book. I was reading Multipliers (higher stars than this one), Outliers (ehhh, probably about the same amount of stars but a different take on success), and Huberman Lab podcast Oct. 16 with Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett on "How to Understand Emotions". I'm not so sure that this book and the science match up (which is also what one reviewer commented on).
My mom doesn't read non-fiction books like this (so that answers the mom question).
May 20, 2019
This is a quick read that seeks to focus on your Emotional Intelligence skills (via an online test), and then provide you with strategies to improve that EQ score. The 4 strategy sections are Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, and Relationship Management. Each of these sections provide the reader with practical tips to improve their emotional intelligence.
The writing is good - the topic is important - the strategies are sound. This is a solid read and a worthwhile addition to your business library. My scores made me uncomfortable, and I'll be taking another look at my interactions with family, colleagues, and friends.
The writing is good - the topic is important - the strategies are sound. This is a solid read and a worthwhile addition to your business library. My scores made me uncomfortable, and I'll be taking another look at my interactions with family, colleagues, and friends.
May 30, 2019
Thank you to the author/publisher for the copy of this book - a Goodreads giveaway. This is a handy little book that shows traits and skills that will help you better get along with others. The are little stories about some excellent managers and some pathetic losers. An interesting way to present the material and it's a quick read. There is a test to take to see how well you score in personal competence and social competence.
December 28, 2022
Recommended by a biz owner who had his employees read it...they say E.I. Is more important than high I.Q. This book really helped me identify and let go of many negative emotions and anger by practicing techniques allowing me to be able to recognize situations, thoughts, events that have trigger unkindness and stress. I find myself re reading it on occasion.
May 31, 2018
Disclaimer - I received this book as a Goodreads giveaway.
I thought the book has really good advice on how to improve emotional intelligence. It's a good book to read yearly for reminders. Having better emotional intelligence can help you to be successful in all areas of your life.
I thought the book has really good advice on how to improve emotional intelligence. It's a good book to read yearly for reminders. Having better emotional intelligence can help you to be successful in all areas of your life.
December 30, 2018
Exceptional book for growth & learning. This should be mandatory reading for youth today just to be more emotionally aware. Building the skillets discussed in this book will help you advance your career.
February 15, 2023
Rated: C+
Best value in this book is that it provides an EQ assessment. Good book to coach someone through the four quadrants (Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, Relationship Management) and help them focus on their weakest quadrant.
Best value in this book is that it provides an EQ assessment. Good book to coach someone through the four quadrants (Self-Awareness, Self-Management, Social Awareness, Relationship Management) and help them focus on their weakest quadrant.
February 22, 2023
Good practical advice - applicable across professional and personal domains. Will be interested to see if my EQ shifts with time (and practice). Not necessarily filled with new information - but reminds you of the importance of pausing and acknowledging the intricacies of personal interactions.
March 1, 2018
Make sure to take the quiz first.
December 9, 2018
Awesome book! Will definitely change your perspective on managing emotion.
November 25, 2020
I am well-versed in many areas of psychology, and I still learned a lot from this book. It's easy to read, and has very practical suggestions to improve your career and relationships.
January 23, 2021
Enjoyed reading it. It’s a good reminder but nothing profound. This year I’m making an effort to check in and be curious about my emotions rather than reactive. That’s a tough one for me.
March 25, 2022
This has been excellent for personal use, as well as a class for our recovery students. It's easy to read and the concept of EQ is well laid out.
January 4, 2023
well structured and a useful tool book, but most of the techniques around the 4 areas of improvement sound very outdated/not too unique
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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February 6, 2017book about EQ and methods to improve your EQ. it has an access code to take an EQ test online/
Read
December 31, 2015I think that everyone who works with children should read this book as a means of assessing possible functions of behavior and corresponding emotional skills to replace or alleviate maladaptive behaviors.
May 26, 2016
While I found parts of this interesting, I felt as if I were primarily reading promotional material for their online program.
January 29, 2017
Didn't learn anything that wasn't already obvious
Read
April 29, 2019Great book
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews