Tune up your EQ

How EQ Could Have Made A Positive Thinker Even Better

If I told you that you were about to learn about a personal development idea that became so powerful that it inspired millions of people around the world, and yet generated controversy and criticism, would you be interested? What if I told you that the concept’s creator continued to energetically spread his message of empowerment around the world until he was well into his nineties?

What if I was to show you how, if Emotional Intelligence had been around in his day, he would have had enjoyed an even greater impact?

The Father of Positive Thinking

The motivational speaker and writer, Norman Vincent Peale coined the term “positive thinking” back in the 1950s. His best selling book “The Power of Positive Thinking” is estimated to have sold over 20 million copies.

In another of his books, “Why Some Positive Thinkers Get Powerful Results”, the master motivator gives numerous practical examples of people who transformed their lives through positive thinking. He also shares a number of practical tips that he used to successfully emerge from the shadow of self-doubt that haunted his youth.

How To Be A Positive Thinker

In chapter ten, Mr. Peale argued that we were all born as positive thinkers. He believed that a person who grew up in a negative family environment, was at risk of unconsciously adopting negative thought patterns, which could lead to negative attitudes.

For Peale, negative influences didn’t have to shape a person’s life story:

“If later, at age twenty or thirty or so, they want to be positive thinkers, they face the problem of unlearning old habits of thinking, and that relearning process can take some doing.”

He goes on to state that:

“The human being is endowed with habit-breaking power, the same as habit-forming ability.Any habit can be changed.”

Peale felt that our thought processes governed our ability to change our habits:

“Though sometimes the cerebral grooves made by habitual thought processes run deep, they are nevertheless subject to revision.”

Peale clearly saw that the brain’s processes strongly affected each persons’ life outcomes. His insight is supported by the latest brain research.

He argued that three attributes:

• intense desire
• strong will and,
• acute imagination

would inevitably turn transform a negative thinker into a positive thinker.

Peale’s Positive Influence

What enabled Peale to inspire millions and continue to be so influential long after his death?

I suggest that he highlighted two deep ideas that many people grapple with.

1. that thoughts are more than just fleeting phenomena; they are in fact, things.
2. that the quality and direction of our thinking affects how we fare in life.

The EQ Advantage

When Norman Vincent Peale wrote “Why Some Positive Thinkers Get Great Results,” the master competence that we know today as Emotional Intelligence did not exist.

Modern Emotional Intelligence research findings into the working of the brain and the mind give us clearer pointers as to how and why people can successfully

1. learn
2. unlearn and
3. change their habits and behaviour.

In the final part of this 2 part series, (I kept on getting ideas, so I changed it into a three part series) we will look in detail to see how Emotional Intelligence would have guided Norman Vincent Peale to be even more effective.

In the meantime, do tell me what you think.

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This work is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.