‘Knowing yourself is the first step in creating social impact’

AMMAN — In today's busy world, emotional intelligence can help individuals to stay focused and healthy as well as empower them in making better choices, according to a lead facilitator.

Delivering a lecture titled “Developing Emotional Intelligence for Greater Social Impact” hosted by the Columbia Global Centre on Tuesday, Nadine El Asmar, managing director of the Nadal Group and a certified emotional intelligence (EQ) assessor, addressed the importance and the impact of "knowing ourselves", and of managing emotions and feelings in our everyday life.

“Today, people are busy, it’s always about performance and stress is rising," Asmar said, adding, "we have no break and yet we feel isolated. Even when we are connected by social media, real connections are getting lost." 

“In this situation, we need to develop more insight, and have more skills," Asmar explained, noting that the key differentiator in this situation is emotional intelligence.

"Emotional intelligence is giving more chances to yourself… to be healthy, to make better choices, to perform,” she said.

The director explained that emotional intelligence is not about having a good or emotional personality, she said it is "not the opposite of IQ" but that it's the “effective blending of thinking and feeling to make optimal decisions" as defined by the Six Seconds model,  one of the trending models develop emotional intelligence. 

“Some people get too caught up in emotions and get overwhelmed. Others push emotions away, try not to feel, and miss important signals. Neither extreme is very effective. Emotional intelligence means using emotions and thinking together. It’s about balance.”

Asmar introduced three steps of emotional intelligence: “The first segment is to know one's self, through noticing who I am and what I'm doing. The second one is choosing,  when I know myself there are some things I would like to grow, some things I would like to polish, some things I would like to go further in. Then I move to purpose, living with intention and doing things with a vision, and this is when I need to start with myself in order to be able to provide the same service to  others.”

Giving examples of figures like Gandhi, Mother Teresa and more, she mentioned how they impact society and how they are considered "social entrepreneurs" because of their empathy, care, purpose, vision and finding solutions to social problems.

Asmar explained that through social entrepreneurship, individuals can impact society “by just you working on yourself so you can impact yourself and the people around you, your company and your country".

Social entrepreneurship is to do what “is needed for society to develop sustainable solutions to neglected problems that affect the most disadvantaged people", and finally “by knowing who am I, who I want to be, I know what I need to do next, I am equipped to live a more purposeful life and make a difference in both my life and possibly in others”, Asmar concluded.