What is Emotional Intelligence or EQ?

Most of us are familiar with IQ but not everyone is as familiar with EQ or emotional intelligence. EQ is considered much more important than IQ in working well with others such as managing groups or maintaining relationships. Emotional intelligence is basically the ability to perceive others emotional states and self-awareness of your own including the ability to manage or self-regulate emotions which is an invaluable skill. Many people with high IQs are successful but often have difficulty connecting with others whereas those with high EQs are the opposite. In my experience people that have success in certain areas of life but do poorly in relationships are rarely happy. For most people success in life has much more to do with their EQ than IQ since relationships and connecting to others is so integral to personal fulfillment and good mental health. EQ is fairly easy to improve upon because it involves greater awareness of emotional states and therefore certain exercises or personal therapy can give an individual gains in EQ and conceivably a better quality of life.