An Engineer’s Guide to Emotional Intelligence — Part 1
By: Alex Kliotzkin
Tags: Change Your Life, Subconscious Mind, Personal Development, Leadership, Emotional Intelligence

Another way to look at this is: you produce thoughts, which in turn generate emotions, which in turn generate feelings in your body, which in turn produce action. Rinse and repeat.

Subconscious Programs

The subconscious mind can be likened to an operating system, while the subconscious programs are like daemons. Consider the definition of a daemon in the context of an operating system: “a program that runs as a background process, rather than being under the direct control of a user”. As a software engineer, I could not think of a more perfect definition! It is important to understand that these programs are always running, always controlling, usually without you being consciously aware of it (unless you pay attention).

So what do these programs actually contain then? The “code” of these programs contains all your major decisions thus far. The programs define major elements of your personality such as your:

Outer image: How you want others to see you.

Example: I want to be seen as a technical expert

How you want others to see you. Example: Self image: How you see yourself; your identity.

Example: I am a good engineer but bad with people

How you see yourself; your identity. Example: Core beliefs and biases: How you see your environment and general worldview.

Example: Upper management is clueless technically

How you see your environment and general worldview. Example: Motives: What drives you at your core.

Example: Getting recognition from my superiors validates me

Alpha Development

These programs are obviously important and have a major impact on your behavior, but just how in the world did they get developed in the first place? And how do emotions come into play here? This is an article on emotional intelligence after all!

Excellent questions! Let’s address how these programs came to be in the first place.

These programs were mostly developed at a young age (before 6), frankly by people that didn’t know any better. That’s a bold statement but let me explain.

Consider the below diagram:

You as a child below age 6

When you are a young pup, your conscious mind is not yet developed. Therefore, unlike your adult version, you do not have access to rational thinking and cannot accept or reject incoming data. That means all data goes straight to the subconscious mind virtually unchecked and accepted as just is. In other words, you inherit the beliefs of your caregivers. Your caregivers inherited their beliefs from their caregivers and they from their caregivers, and so on. So you can see how a chain of beliefs or subconscious programmers can develop some “old-fashioned” code.

At this stage of your life, since you cannot rationalize what is happening, your world is interpreted by your emotions via the subconscious mind. In this sense, your inner world (how you feel) is more real than anything external. The programs that have the most influence then are ones based on experiences that have the highest degree of emotional association. In these emotionally charged situations, all it takes is a moment to make a decision, and thus a new subconscious program is developed.

Let’s build on this concept with a nifty visual:

The programs that have the most influence are ones that were developed with a high degree of emotional association (i.e. traumatic experiences). The higher the emotional charge, the higher the degree of influence. It’s important to understand that the actual external experience is arbitrary; it’s the emotion that’s associated with it that is the driving factor. For example, a traumatic experience can be anything from getting severely beaten to getting a toy taken away from you.

Similarly, if examining the age of when the influential programs were developed, these mostly occur in the first 6 years. Another important takeaway is that the programs at the bottom of the pyramid are then used as the foundation for subsequent programs shown further up the pyramid, hence emphasizing the importance of those early, highly emotional programs. Of course this makes changing those core programs particularly challenging.

Not all core programs get developed through highly emotional or traumatic experiences however. An important factor in how programs get developed and continually reinforced is through repetition. As a child, the way you are treated, or statements that are constantly heard in your environment, even without much emotional charge, will go straight to the subconscious mind and simply be accepted as truth in the form of a subconscious program. Certain statements like “Life is a struggle”, “There is never enough money”, “Rich people have no morals”, “Why can’t you be more like <person>”, etc… can have a major influence on subsequent programs and your life choices.

Common Programs

Now let’s turn theory into application and take a look at some common programs and how they may have come to be.

Take some time and look over the above table. Do any of the input data or program codes resonate with you? Take a few moments and ponder what kind of programs you have running and the input that produced them.

When these program codes get triggered, there’s an emotional reaction that depending on the degree of influence, can be quite severe. The trigger is typically a confirmation of the belief or a rebellion against its existence, while the reaction may be directed internally (i.e. beating yourself up), or directed externally at the source that triggered it (i.e. a coworker).

It’s all about perspective

As you analyze the subconscious program codes and how they got developed, it is only logical to conclude that your interpretation of any experience is purely based on your inner world (a.k.a. perspective, past experiences, mood, emotional state, personality). In other words, subconscious programs define your experience unless you consciously override them.

There is no single truth for things that cannot be measured. Every single person has their own truth since every experience is seen through uniquely filtered lenses. This is especially evident when judging something as “good” and “bad” or “right” and “wrong”.

Take an example of skydiving. Two people can make the decision to go skydiving, get on the same plane, attach themselves to a trained instructor, jump out of the plane, and land safely with no complications. One person can have the most amazing euphoric experience, while for the other person it can be a terrifying traumatic experience. Now what is the difference? You guessed it! Subconscious programs.

Let’s take another example, which happens to be my favorite illustration of this point. Two brothers grow up in the same household with an alcoholic father. One brother grows up to be an alcoholic while the other one refrains from ever touching a drink. When the alcoholic brother was asked why is he an alcoholic, his response was: “What do you expect, my father was an alcoholic!”. When the abstinent brother was asked why he never touches a drink, his response was: “What do you expect, my father was an alcoholic!”. The point here is that two people can have an identical external experience while reacting completely differently and developing different subconscious programs!

Bonus question — Which brother do you think is better off?

Answer — Neither brother is better off because their life choices as adults are still being dictated by the decisions of their father!

What it all means

So the big question now is, what exactly does this mean for you? It means two things:

You are not responsible for other people’s emotional state

Let me repeat that again but louder.

YOU ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR OTHER PEOPLE’S EMOTIONAL STATE!

A person’s emotional state is clearly dependent on their subconscious programs and is not your responsibility. That means you can let go of the guilt you are holding onto for other’s reactions. You are officially given permission to stop feeling guilty over how you may have made someone feel. You may be in a situation where you are constantly reminded by another person of how you made them feel in the past to ensure that the guilt stays so that they can avoid taking responsibility. However, you can let go. What a relief!

2. You are fully responsible for your own emotional state

If you embrace the first point above, you must then accept that everyone is fully responsible for their own emotional state, and that includes you! That means you need to let go of the blame you are holding over others for your own emotional state.

This basically means only you are responsible for the results in your life and the current state you find yourself in. You cannot blame anyone else. This is scary! Because it is contrary to the identity you subconsciously defined for yourself. In other words, it goes against many subconscious programs.

Since this may be difficult to accept (how can you stop blaming someone who’s wronged you so!), let me provide a personal example to demonstrate what is meant here.

At one point, I was having a difficult time with my former manager. We had very different attitudes towards our approach to work which led to some tension culminating in him stating that I am not a good engineer and I will have trouble finding future jobs. That’s pretty insulting, right?

“What a dick!”, I thought. “How dare he make me feel this way? I didn’t do anything to him”.

Well, at the time I was working with a professional in this field and what she said really stuck with me in understanding this concept.

“Alex, if I called you a slut, what would your reaction be?”, she said.

Well of course I laughed!

“See, you don’t take it personally because you have nothing to do with the word slut. But if I say you are not good at your job, then there is an insecurity there and that is why you are feeling this way”.

That blew my mind! It completely changed my perspective on my own emotions. I then realized no one can make me feel a certain way unless on some level, I agree with them. In other words, I feel bad when my subconscious programs get triggered.

You need to take ownership of your emotional state, because no one else will. Your current emotions are based on past experiences, and all the blame in the world will not change what happened in the past.

With this understanding, I was then able to let go of the blame I held over my manager, and take back the power over my own emotional state.

Try looking back at some moments where you reacted particularly strongly and observe which program codes got triggered to warrant such a reaction. Can you let go of the blame for the person that triggered it? Can you embrace that the way you feel is your own responsibility and no one else’s? Imagine the freedom if you take back the power over your own emotions!