What is EI?  

Emotional Intelligence (EI) is the ability to gather information about your emotions and the emotions of others, and use the information to help you make effective decisions about what to say or do (or not say or do) next. It is about being self-smart and about being people-smart. 

Definitions by leading experts in the field: 

"It is the capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships."
                                                           Daniel Goleman, 1998

 "Emotional intelligence is the innate potential to feel, use, communicate, recognize, remember, learn from, manage and understand emotions."
                                                          Steve Hein, 2005 

"The ability to:
            1. accurately identify emotions
            2. use emotions to help you think
            3. understand what causes emotions
            4. manage to stay open to these emotions in order to capture the wisdom of our
                feelings"
                                                          David Caruso, February, 2004 radio interview 

"Emotional intelligence is being able to recognize, name and appropriately deal with the emotions that we feel and experience. We may all feel anger, emotional intelligence is knowing what to do with the emotion of anger to achieve the best possible outcome."
                                        Lea Brovedani, 2005 

"Knowing how to make sense of your own and others feelings thereby creating the best outcomes for whatever you are dealt with in life."
                                                         Lea Brovedani, 2006

 "Emotional Intelligence is a type of personal and social intelligence, which includes the following:
§         The ability to perceive, recognize, understand and react to the feelings of yourself and those of others (emotional awareness);
§         The ability to distinguish between various feelings and to name them (emotional   literacy);
§         The ability to express and control your feelings appropriately (emotional control);
§         The ability to listen to others, to have empathy with them and to communicate    effectively in terms of emotions and thoughts, and
§         To use the information in directing your thoughts and actions so that you live       effectively, are motivated and have a goal in mind (relation between thoughts, feelings and behaviour)."
                                                 Dr Ronel le Roux and Dr Rina de Klerk, 2006

 "Emotional Intelligence - ability to identify, understand and control your own thoughts and feelings, communicate them appropriately to others and have empathy with the emotions of others which enables you to interact with them on an emotional level" 
(de Klerk & le Roux, 2003, p.8).