Aging Helps Your EQ

Pat Nicolino, a corporate consultant friend, was catching me up on what has happen since I saw last saw her. In short, she is having great success at turning around yet another company and has never felt better or enjoyed herself more.

"I'm 56 now and I have 20 more EQ points than when I was 36," she said with exuberance. "At 36 I would have been clueless about how to accomplish things that I now do with ease." Everyone knows what IQ is. EQ, she explained, is experience helping you know how to get things done and doing them.

I would suggest that at 18 the average IQ and EQ is 100. If you are continually learning and growing, give yourself credit for an additional EQ point each year since age 18. If you have gone back to school, learned a new career, or have had other intense learning experiences, give yourself extra credit.

After the insight I realized there is a lot of overlap between experience quotient and Dr. Daniel Goleman's emotional intelligence and his eventual use of EQ for emotional intelligence. The broad skills he describes for emotional intelligence have a lot of overlap with experience quotient. The difference is an emphasis on having social intelligence vs. those skills getting better with experience.

Why is considering your EQ important? Psychology and medicine have painted a negative picture of declining skills as we age. Your EQ reminds you that you have grown, and are getting sharper with age. No disrespect to my teenage children but would you really want to go back to the mind you had at 18? Neither would I. So what's your EQ?


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Dr. Michael Brickey, The Anti-Aging Psychologist, teaches people to think, feel, look and be more youthful. He is an inspiring keynote speaker and Oprah-featured author. His works include:  Defy Aging, 52 Baby Steps to grow young, and Reverse Aging (anti-aging hypnosis CDs). Visit www.NotAging.com for a free report on anti-aging secrets and a free newsletter with practical anti-aging tips.