The Power of Emotional Intelligence: Travis Bradberry at TEDxUCIrvine (Transcript)

Travis Bradberry

Here is the full transcript of author Travis Bradberry’s TEDx Talk: The Power of Emotional Intelligence at TEDxUCIrvine conference.

Listen to the MP3 Audio: The Power of Emotional Intelligence by Travis Bradberry at TEDxUCIrvine

TRANSCRIPT:

I’m really excited to be here today to introduce you to a skill that can change the way you see yourself. It can change the way you see the world around you and everyone around you and it can absolutely change the way you go about reaching your goals in life and pursuing your goals.

And emotional intelligence is an absolutely critical skill because we have more than 400 emotional experiences every single day. Whether you’re aware of these experiences or not they can really drive the bus if you let them do that. And emotional intelligence is your ability to understand your emotions and to respond to them effectively to produce the behavior that you want.

Now to help you understand how emotional intelligence operates in the brain, I need to introduce you to a guy by the name of Phineas Gage. There’s going to be a little bit of a challenge with this microphone. See what I can do.

Phineas was a guy who was building the Burlington railroad in Vermont in the 1840s and he was not just any railroad foreman; he was considered to be the most capable foreman in the business. Phineas was very intelligent. He knew how to cut through the rocky terrain to lay the tracks on time but he also possessed that extra something that made people want to work for him. He was polite; he was calm and cool under pressure; and he was great with people.