Powerful ideas from top nonfiction
Try Blinkist to get the key ideas from 5,500+ bestselling nonfiction titles and podcasts. Listen or read in just 15 minutes.
Start your free trial
Blink 3 of 8 - The 5 AM Club
by Robin Sharma
Listen to the Intro
Search Inside Yourself summary
Chade-Meng Tan
The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace)
19 mins
Table of Contents
Search Inside Yourself
summarized in 7 key ideas
Audio & text in the Blinkist app
Key idea 1 of 7
Emotional intelligence is one of many different types of intelligence.
What does intelligence mean to you? A high IQ? Brilliant linguistic skills? What about musical abilities?
Howard Gardner, a developmental psychologist at Harvard, was the first to propose a theory of multiple intelligences. He argued that a child who lacked skills in math, but showed talent in languages or the arts, for example, should still be considered intelligent.
To illustrate his argument, Gardner came up with a list of different types of intelligence, which includes among other items intrapersonal intelligence and interpersonal intelligence. Having intrapersonal intelligence means being aware of your own inner feelings, values and goals. Interpersonal intelligence, on the other hand, involves awareness of the feelings, emotions and motivations of others.
Intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligence come together to form emotional intelligence, which is the ability to understand the feelings and emotions of yourself and others and the ability to use that knowledge to guide your actions and thoughts.
The author of the book Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman, grouped emotional intelligence into five categories:
- Self-awareness is your knowledge about your internal state and about your preferences, resources and intuition.
- Self-regulation is the ability to control your impulses, resources and state of mind.
- Motivation is the emotional ability to steer yourself toward your goals.
- Empathy is your awareness of others’ feelings, needs and concerns.
- And the final category is social skills: your ability to influence others.
So what are the benefits of emotional intelligence?
Well, let’s take a look at Bill Duane, an engineering manager, and how he used emotional-intelligence training to improve his life.
Through emotional-intelligence training, Duane realized that he needed more time for himself and reduced his workdays to four a week. With one less day of work, he found the time to focus more on his well-being, and became motivated to accomplish more while doing less. He became a better listener, learned how to regulate his temper and to understand situations from different perspectives. As a result, Duane became a more effective manager, not only improving his life, but also the lives of those who worked for him.
So now you know what emotional intelligence is. Let’s press on to see exactly how useful it can be in your day-to-day life.
Want to see all full key ideas from Search Inside Yourself?
Key ideas in Search Inside Yourself
More knowledge in less time
Read or listen
Get the key ideas from nonfiction bestsellers in minutes, not hours.
Find your next read
Get book lists curated by experts and personalized recommendations.
Shortcasts New
We’ve teamed up with podcast creators to bring you key insights from podcasts.
What is Search Inside Yourself about?
Search Inside Yourself (2012) teaches how the power of emotional intelligence and mindfulness can be harnessed to thrive both personally and professionally. Tan’s teachings are based on years of research and afford you the opportunity to improve your happiness, creativity and productivity.
Who should read Search Inside Yourself?
- Professionals who want to become better at their job
- Individuals who want to start a sustained mindfulness practice
- Those having trouble understanding their emotions
Categories with Search Inside Yourself
Books like Search Inside Yourself
People ❤️ Blinkist
Sven O.
It's highly addictive to get core insights on personally relevant topics without repetition or triviality. Added to that the apps ability to suggest kindred interests opens up a foundation of knowledge.
Thi Viet Quynh N.
Great app. Good selection of book summaries you can read or listen to while commuting. Instead of scrolling through your social media news feed, this is a much better way to spend your spare time in my opinion.
Jonathan A.
Life changing. The concept of being able to grasp a book's main point in such a short time truly opens multiple opportunities to grow every area of your life at a faster rate.
Renee D.
Great app. Addicting. Perfect for wait times, morning coffee, evening before bed. Extremely well written, thorough, easy to use.
People also liked
Start growing with Blinkist now
26 Million
Downloads on all platforms
4.7 Stars
Average ratings on iOS and Google Play
91%
Of Blinkist members create a better reading habit*
*Based on survey data from Blinkist customers