Losing Your Mind Did Help

A couple of decades ago, I read a book that supported a revolutionary theory that emotions could be as crucial to your success as your intellect. Crazy idea, right?

That book was Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman.

Emotional Intelligence contributed to the evolution of many practices in education, interpersonal relationships, health, social work, or business.

It still took dozens of other books on this topic and a whole movement to start shifting the narrative about emotions. So for an extended period, whether feelings had an impact or not on performance was still a debate.

But with COVID, I hope to see the end of this argument. Then, finally, after we all suffered emotionally from the same situation, we realized that emotions rule way more than we could imagine.

During the first months of COVID, we lost our minds. And our performance dropped.

The pandemic created a change such that the narrative about emotions finally changed. It was fundamental, universal, undeniable, and irreversible as any good sea change.

There is nothing like change to force the adoption of change.

Losing your mind during COVID did help that change.

What do we see, then?

We finally see Emotional Intelligence taken seriously.

Employee compensation is also framed in terms of emotional value.

Because work invited itself into our homes, we care more than ever about the feelings that our professional occupations generate.

We seem to care more about the values embodied by the brands we represent for the same reason.

Being part of or buying from a business that creates emotional value is increasingly important.