People With High Emotional Intelligence Have Greater Success In Life

The impact of learning about your emotions has profound positive impact on every aspect of your life.

Understanding our emotional landscape doesn’t just make us feel better in the moment; it actually:

• builds long-term resilience and supports better mental health outcomes

  
  

• supports people around us to be more emotionally regulated

  
  

• in organizations people who lead with emotional intelligence skills have a positive impact on the culture and the financial bottom line. 

  
  

• our relationships become stronger, healthier, and more resilient because we’re able to recognize and regulate our own emotions while also tuning into the feelings of others. This creates space for empathy, trust, and deeper connection. Instead of reacting defensively, we can respond thoughtfully, which reduces conflict and increases understanding.

People with high emotional intelligence communicate more clearly, listen with genuine curiosity, and repair ruptures more effectively, all of which fosters mutual respect and psychological safety. Over time, this builds relationships that are not only more satisfying but also more supportive, collaborative, and enduring.

According to March Brackett, Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, people with higher emotional intelligence tend to have lower stress, greater emotional well-being, and more satisfying relationships. They’re better equipped to move through discomfort instead of avoiding it.

In fact, research shows:

• People with high emotional intelligence are 25% less likely to experience anxiety disorders and 30% less likely to suffer from depression 

  
  

• In one study, 41.3% of people with low emotional intelligence showed symptoms of anxiety, compared to 29.8% among those with higher emotional intelligence 

On the flip side, emotional suppression (avoiding or pushing away difficult feelings), is linked to:

• Higher stress

  
  

• Lower resilience

  
  

• Increased risk of anxiety and depression

Emotional intelligence is one of the most powerful tools we have for navigating discomfort in both our personal and professional lives. It’s not just a ‘soft skill’ that is nice to have, emotional intelligence is a learnable, skills-based capacity that helps you recognize what you’re feeling, understand why it’s showing up, and respond with intention rather than reactivity.

In his research, Daniel Goleman found that IQ and technical skills are baseline requirements for leadership but they are not enough to make someone an outstanding leader. The differentiator is emotional intelligence, which Goleman calls the sine qua non (“without which, nothing”) of leadership. Emotional intelligence is now considered an integral skill in leadership within organizations.

With intention, we can build emotional intelligence over time, through awareness and practice. And like any skill, emotional intelligence strengthens the more we use it. When you build these skills, you’re better equipped to move through tension and hard emotions with more steadiness, creativity, and self-trust—instead of spiralling, avoiding, or numbing out. Learning to deal with emotions supports you to  respond to life’s tough moments not just with grace, but with grounded inner wisdom.

In research of organizations,

• People with higher emotional intelligence report significantly lower burnout 

  
  

• Emotional awareness and regulation were found to be the strongest emotional intelligence predictors of reduced exhaustion and cynicism in workplace studies.

  
  

• Labeling emotions precisely (emotional granularity) is linked with better stress recovery and less physiological wear-and-tear

Why Naming Our Emotions Matters

One of the most powerful things we can do to learn emotional intelligence is simply name what we’re feeling. It might sound simple, but it’s deeply effective. Naming an emotion brings clarity, steadies the nervous system, and creates just enough space to choose how we want to respond rather than reacting on autopilot.

This mood meter is based on Marc Brackett's Mood Meter, interpreted by Alexandria Art Therapy.

Research tells us that  only 36% of people can accurately identify their emotions in the moment. In a large study of 7 thousand participants, most were only able to  name three emotions: happy, sad, and angry. This is despite research identifying over eighty distinct core feelings!

A larger vocabulary to express your emotions:

• Calms the nervous system. When we name a specific feeling (like I’m anxious or I’m discouraged) instead of something vague (I just feel awful), it reduces activity in the amygdala (the part of the brain responsible for threat response), and activates the prefrontal cortex, which helps us reason and regulate. As Dr. Daniel Siegel puts it: “Name it to tame it.”

  
  

• We can behave differently. If I only identify as “angry”, I rob myself of the nuance of understanding what I might actually be feeling: frustration, disgust, and a little bit frightened. When I identify the nuance of the emotion, I can move forward in my thinking, and my actions with others, with more integrity to what’s actually going on for me, internally.

  
  

• It breaks the spiral. When we don’t know what we’re feeling, emotions swirl. That’s when we shut down, lash out, or feel overwhelmed. Naming an emotion gives it shape. It becomes something we can work with, rather than something that controls us.

  
  

• It helps us respond, not react. Once we understand what’s going on inside, we can make more intentional choices—like setting a boundary, asking for support, or taking a break.

  
  

• It improves relationships. When we can name what’s true for us, we’re better able to communicate clearly and kindly. That creates stronger connections and less misunderstandings.

  
  

• It builds self-compassion. Naming an emotion is a way of acknowledging what we’re feeling without judgment. It’s a gentle form of self-validation that matters when we’re struggling.

  
  

So, what does this look like - how can you start to understand your emotions better so you become the leader, parent, friend, partner that you really want to be?

The mood meter above is a great starting point. Go to it right now, and choose a couple of emotions that you’re feeling. Start to discern between them. Go to the mood meter twice a day and start to track how you're feeling throughout the day. Get curious about how you would define different emotions - what's the difference for you between content and fulfilled, or frustrated and stressed?

You can also go to March Brackett’s app, How We Feel to track your feelings over time, it’s a super cool, interactive app that has analytics over time, and offers other features like mini videos on mindfulness or emotional regulation techniques.

Start to become curious about your emotions. When you start to get curious about your emotions, you'll shift from being run by your feelings to being in relationship with your feelings. That shift unlocks awareness, resilience, compassion, and greater alignment in life and work. Doesn't that sound like a great way to live?

Authors that inspire me in emotional intelligence work: Marc Brackett, Susan David, and the OG, Daniel Goleman.