Book Write-Up: Emotional Intelligence, by Diane Weston

Diane Weston. Emotional Intelligence: Why EQ Is the Secret Ingredient to Connect with Others and Make Everyday Life Easier. 2019.

Diane Weston is a PR specialist at a Fortune 500 company. She is an introvert, sharing tips she has learned about how introverts can shed their shy exteriors and succeed in an extroverted world. She has studied the topic of communications, both informally and also formally.

This book, as the title indicates, is about Emotional Intelligence: getting in touch with one’s own emotions and the emotions of others. What are you feeling right now, and why do you think you are feeling that way? What is somebody else feeling right now, and how can you tell? What is more, how can you respond to what the other person is feeling?

Speaking for myself, I found this book to be worthwhile to read. The book offers a lot of what could be considered common sense, but I found myself hungry for what Weston had to say. I read a book by Gary Chapman a while back and one time attended a church seminar on handling conflict, and I found them to be shallow, very basic, and disappointing. My reaction to Weston’s book is much more positive.

I tend to be a reactive person, reacting without much thought, so Weston’s discussion on getting in touch with one’s feelings is helpful to me. Weston’s book is also helpful because it systematically explains why certain things are important: why, for example, eye contact can help a person guess what another person is feeling. Weston does not tell a  lot of personal anecdotes: I cannot recall any in this book. But, in her own way, she paints a picture of what she is talking about. She conveys an empathetic tone of meeting people where they are and helping them get out of the pit they are in.

Sometime in the future, I may read her other book on small talk. This is an issue with which I have long struggled, though I am a little better now at it than I used to be. I tried reading Deb Fine’s book on it over a year ago, and I found it difficult to read because it was a laundry list of questions to ask other people. That may be helpful, but it is also boring to read. I also recognized myself in some of the socially deficient types of people Fine was discussing: the FBI informant, who sounds nosy and peppers people with questions. Fine’s book was disappointing, though, because it did not walk people through how they can display a genuine interest in other people without coming across as FBI informants. Diane Weston’s book may do that better.

I received a complimentary copy of Emotional Intelligence from the author. My review is honest.