For a lot of people, getting to know yourself can be very stressful. I was at a party recently where people knew I was a psychologist. I was introduced to the wife of a guy I had been talking to for the last 30 minutes. When I met his wife I said something like “Oh, I have just been talking to your husband - he is a really interesting and nice guy.” Her response was immediate and quite dramatic: “Don’t talk to me - I don’t want to be psychoanalyzed!” I think I understood her perspective although I must say I was saddened by her response as my observation was purely social - not clinical.

In therapeutic setting, helping patients become self-aware can create stress for them. How many of us really understand our own values, motivations, and drives? When I coach chief executive officers, one of the first things I do to increase their effectiveness in the organization is to help them become self-aware. I work on the assumption that self-awareness increases the capacity to confront, manage and relieve stress. This is particularly important in relationships where one or both parties have limited self-awareness and are unable to negotiate a meaningful communication space.

The concept is referred to in the literature is emotional intelligence and credit goes largely to Daniel Goleman for his work in this area. I believe that your work life and your personal relationships are made more effective through a high degree of emotional intelligence. Leaders with high self intelligence earn more money, have high producing and profitable departments and organizations, and are more successful overall. So my simple argument is become more self-aware and you increase your effectiveness and, probably, your capacity to manage and relieve stress.

Emotional intelligence is intelligence which relates to one’s emotions, one’s ability to understand one’s self and other people and an overall ability to be able to adapt to and cope with the emotional and interpersonal demands of everyday life.

And here is another thought for you - how you feel affects everyone around you. Based on the brain’s limbic system, research proves leaders’ moods affect the emotions of the people around them. For example, in 70 work teams across diverse industries, people in meetings together ended up sharing moods -both good and bad - within two hours. The same holds true in the office, boardroom, or shop floor; group members inevitably “catch” feelings from one another.

A fascinating piece of research suggests the following. Put two people together in a room and monitor their heart rate and blood pressure and you will find within 5 to 10 minutes they are almost identical. And they don’t even need to talk to each other. Just sitting together creates a shared physiological reaction.

If we do share common emotionality, it is obvious that we are constantly affecting the ones around us. If we are stressed, our partners at work colleagues are stressed as well. You need to know how you are feeling and how this impacts others. How others feel, especially if they are angry or discontented, affects us too. None of these bad feelings are healthy or productive. They add to the tension and stress we feel in the workplace.

Let’s turn the situation upside down. You are free of stress, rarely tense and troubled, and are positive about yourself and others so the outcome is that you will be happy in your relationships and happy at work. You will develop and maintain good relationships and you will manage stress well. You will know how to reduce stress and your life will be positive and successful.

When you consider the elements that make up emotional intelligence, you can see how vital this concept is not only to the workplace but to your relationships, your friendships, your interactions with your children and so on. Typically, five scales are measured: intra-personal; inter-personal; adaptability; stress management; and general mood. When I have measured EI I have been fascinated by the variations in the profile. For example, some people are very high on inter-personal understanding but have almost no idea of who they are themselves. Others are high on inter- and intra-persona dimensions but are not very adaptable nor do they manage stress well. Of course, this variety makes people and the world in general such an exciting and diverse experience for us all.