Winning, Success, Emotional Intelligence and Suicide

I was reading an article which talked about an "emotionally intelligent lawyer." Here is an excerpt from the article:

The emotionally intelligent lawyer feels her heart race when she spots a critical thread of facts in a complex case. She feels excited and knows she’s on to something, but she also knows that when her heart races she sometimes jumps too quickly to conclusions.

She has developed this self-awareness and ability to manage her emotions over years. It started with the dinner table debates she used to have with her dad. She was sure she was right, yet time and time again he pointed out her zeal in concluding too early.

.... her responsibility was to get good at recognizing it the moment when it did happen, learning what to do about it and managing herself. Her ability to self-manage depended on keeping her eye on the final result she wanted. It was exciting to think she was done searching for facts she’d need to influence a decision. The excitement came from the prospect of finishing work sooner and of winning the case. But winning the case was the final result she sought, so she had to self manage her excitement early on...

Later I plan to write an editorial specifically about the use of the term "emotionally intelligent lawyer" but for now I just want to call attention to this part of the quote: "winning the case was the final result she sought".

Later in the article, though, I read this:

A decade of research now shows that emotional intelligence predicts success over all other factors.

The article offers no support for this statement, by the way.

Still further in the article, I saw this quote about American Express life-insurance salesmen were having problems talking about death with their prospects:

When sales were down, a needs assessment showed that these advisors felt uncomfortable discussing end-of-life issues with clients. Neither party was moving past the discomfort of the topic and life insurance sales were suffering. Executives at American Express designed and implemented the Emotional Competence Training Program. Later evaluation showed that the trained group significantly outsold the untrained group, thereby adding millions to the bottom line at American Express.

Now I'd like to point out the way we use the word "win". We talk about winning a case, winning a debate, winning an election, winning a hockey game and winning a war. The media tells us that we have to be "winners." In schools, children and teenagers insult and hurt their classmates by saying "Loser!" Success is equated with winning. Failure is equated with losing.

Being successful is now also being equated with being emotionally intelligent.

But I have been thinking about the idea of an emotionally intelligent writer. And about the idea of a successful writer.

How do we know when a writer is "emotionally intelligent"? Do we know this according to how many books they have sold?

What about Henry David Thoreau? Was he either emotionally intelligent or "successful"? When he died, he was neither famous nor rich.

And what about Ernest Hemmingway? Would we call him a successful writer? He sold a lot of books but he shot himself in the mouth, killing himself.

So would we say then that Thoreau and Hemmingway must not have been emotionally intelligent? But someone who can win a war, a hockey game, an election or a sales contest in a life insurance company is?

Steve Hein
April 15, 2006
Salta, Argentina

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Clients vs. Prospects - I chose to use the term "prospect" instead of "clients" because life insurance salespeople will try to sell life insurance to people they don't even know. They will call you up, or they will try to get you to set up

A few notes about life-insurance salespeople in the USA

While I lived in Dallas, Texas and had my own business, I would frequently go to meetings such as professional association meetings where I would all to often be approached by life-insurance salespeople. I found them to be some of the most annoying and emotionally false people I knew. In order to sell, they always had to appear to be happy, positive, friendly etc. I think they are actually more annoying than used-car salesmen. Used car salesmen typically only pressure you when you step into their car dealership, but life insurance salespeople will invade your privacy by calling you at home and sending you birthday cards every year if you make the mistake of telling them when your birthday is. Your birthday is very important information to them, by they way for several reasons. One is that you are more likely to by life insurance as you get older, so they like to keep track of your age. Another is that the price of the policy changes with your age. It is more expensive as you get older since you are more likely to die and they are more likely to have to lose money on you. But of course when the salesman sells you a more expensive policy, he will make more money. It is actually not his problem if you die, except of course that he will no longer get a yearly commission from renewing the policy.

The way life insurance salespeople get wealthy is basically this. They make a lot of contacts. They will pressure you to tell them the names of two of your friends, for example.

I would avoid them as much as possible. Even though I was single and had no children, therefore had no reason to need life insurance, they would still pressure me to set up an appointment. They are taught that selling life insurance is basically a numbers game. If you meet enough people and have enough chances to give them a sales pitch, you will be almost guranteed to sell enough to reach your quota.

Though I found them annoying, I will admit that I did write software programs for several life insurance agents to help them keep track of their prospects. One of them, whose name I think was Bob Mosher, tried to cheat me out of the money he owed me and we ended up going to court over it. This was a very wealthy person, by the way, who drove a Mercedes, if I am not mistaken. So he was "successful" by life insurance company standards.

The program was even called "Prospect Manager." A prospect is someone who is not yet a client, in other words, you are trying to sell them something, but have not yet succeeded.

I also attended a presentation by one of the most famous life-insurance salesmen in the business at that time, Al Granum.

once saw one of the leading salesman in the business

, Al Granum,

I was involved in a networking group called