Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ - A book review

I recently completed this masterpiece by Daniel Goleman and it made for some absolutely fascinating rumination. The concepts mentioned in this are quite profound and extremely relevant in today's world. Though this book is more than a decade old, it is all the more startling as to how much importance is still placed on IQ in today's world. Possibly because there are no consistent ways to measure EI, IQ still retains its importance.

Couple of things that are currently at the top of my mind long after i have finished the book are the following

• The absolute need to prevent the hijacking of the mind and the brain during sudden surges of emotion mostly on the temper side. A single such hijacking can potentially alter one's life for the worse and that too in a matter of seconds. Temper or Anger as a controlled emotion can be a very effective tool in bringing about change but the same, if unchecked, especially during a sudden surge is akin to a power fluctuation that blow out the fuse of the entire neighbourhood
• The need to start ingraining in our younger generation, the abilities to handle failure/anger/loss at an early age as these are likely to help them much more than the information overload that is likely to litter their brains in the name of IQ.
• To absolutely refrain from curbing one's creative senses based on some silly IQ measurement and to channelise their energies in their chosen interests is likely to help them be more succesfully and also be more emotionally balanced.

This book is definitely a must read to help us get a reasonable perspective into the behaviourial patterns that we see all around us. For after all, any better world needs to be far more emotionally balanced.

From IIM to Tollywood

As the wife and i were reading through reviews of the recently released movies in order to chose one for our weekend outing, we came across this interesting one. A person who shares my first name as well as a similar background seems to be stirring some interest in the Telugu movie industry (popularly referred to as Tollywood). The portion that stuck me was that the variety of things that this person has tried out since graduating from one of India's leading business schools. He started out with a Pharma firm, dabbled into stock broking, worked for an advertising firm, started a shopping mall amongst others and has recently even produced a movie, Ashta Chamma. No doubt, his thrilling career journey has found its way into a case study on entrepreneurship at the Indian School of Business

It is quite refreshing to see more and more professionals entering the Indian film industry as the world's largest unorganized glamour & glitz factory comes to grips with the challenges of corporatization and globalisation. Also encouraging to see smart young people dabble in different things rather than take the stereotyped Indian-middle-class dream of a good education and then a job till retirement. While these adventures are quite common in the west, the average Indian professional is still a novice in figuring out what he/she wants to achieve in their careers. Kudos to guys like Ram who are prepared to defy convention and are willing to experiment.