Book Review EQ A practical guide

Review of Emotional Intelligence: A Practical Guide to Making Friends with Your Emotions and Raising Your EQ by Ian Tuhovsky

I received an email from Ian asking me to honestly review his book. I have given it 2 stars. As someone who has written a book about lifting your emotional intelligence I am the first to admit I would be biased but in fact I must confess that it was my scientific training at the University of Cambridge that probably framed my thinking.

In the (slightly longer) second introduction the book claims: “Scientific research conducted by many American and European universities prove that the “common” intelligence responses account for less than 20% of our life achievements and successes, while the other over 80% depends on emotional intelligence. To put it roughly: either you are emotionally intelligent, or you’re doomed to mediocrity, at best.” Unfortunately this is one of the great myths of EQ. Despite what proponents say IQ is the major determinant of life success. Even Daniel Goleman agrees. What Goleman then says that after IQ is removed from the equation, EQ is probably the next major factor, particularly in occupations where people skills are critical.

Secondly the book relies heavily on NLP concepts spending considerable time on such concepts as Submodalities and Reframing. Here my scientific training cuts in. On 29 July 2016 The British Psychological Society published an article: 10 of The Most Widely Believed Myths in Psychology. Myth Number 9 is Neurolinguistic Programming is scientific. To quote from the article NLP is filled with false claims, pseudo-scientific terms and piffle. If the science is weak, I feel weak.

Thirdly the book is filled with an incredible amount of to do lists. To my mind this makes the book impractical. The author describes himself moving to a new country every couple of months and reading between the lines and looking at the books he has published he is on journey of trying to find himself. If he was married, and raised a family, I believe he would have an unfamiliar perspective on himself and time management.

I did like Chapter 19 where he argues pity and compassion are harmful emotional states. I agree that those people full of pity and mercy gain a sense of superiority and look at other people as hopeless victims, unable to rise on their own feet, take independent action and fight over something or for something. They are rightly called “poverty pimps.” The author correctly defines the difference between pity and empathy. The compassionate one feels compassion, whereas empathy means understanding.

The secret to lifting your emotional intelligence is not even mentioned in this book. It is to have an understanding of temperament. People drive performance, emotions drive people but it is your temperament that drives your emotions.