PUA Book Review: ‘Emotional Intelligence 2.0’ by Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves

By JT Tran

I saw this book while I was at the airport on my way to New York City. It looked interesting and I put it on my “Recommended Reading” list as I am a huge believer that emotional intelligence and social experience is a huge predictor of success: both personally and professionally.

Especially considering after the “Paper Tigers” article by Wesley Yang and how it starkly portrayed how the Bamboo Ceiling will hold Asian men from advancement in their careers and personal lives.

Anyways, our intern coach Ben J actually got to read it before I did, so here’s his another one of his PUA book reviews!

PUA Book Review: ‘Emotional Intelligence 2.0’ by Travis Bradberry & Jean Greaves

As we are all aware in our ABCs of Attraction Bootcamp experiences, it is briefly mentioned that our EQ (Emotional Quotient or Emotional Intelligence or EI) is increasingly important in the new ways of understanding social aptitude. The idea of increasing our Emotional Intelligence by increasing our social experiences is a huge cornerstone of the ABCDEF holistic meta-framework.

‘Emotional Intelligence 2.0’ by Travis Bradberry and Jean Greaves is a book with a single purpose, to increase your Emotional Intelligence. Although the book is tailored to corporate workplaces and paper pushing jobs, the message and design of the book is highly individualized. There’s a little orange postcard in the back with a code to take an Emotional Intelligence test online which will measure your EQ in four different categories.

I’m a bit of a nerd when it comes to psychology and neuroscience, so when the book delved deep into brain systems, I was all over it. The brief introduction to the limbic system, emotional hijackings is pretty interesting. It shows how our emotions really affect our logical thinking (prefrontal cortex). Emotional response always comes before logical response, whether we like it or not. This is why Emotional Intelligence is so important. It allows us to watch our emotions and respond intelligently to whatever happens around us.

After reading the first chapter, the book prompts you to take the test and write down your scores directly in the book. Then it goes through the subcategories of EQ, providing concrete examples of having high and low scores of each subcategory. The examples are laid out in plain black and white.

As I was reading them, I was thinking to myself, “Is that me? Yep, sounds a lot like me. Oh snap.”

The test itself is meager if anything substantial. I am hesitant to say it is 100% accurate, but it does give you a good idea of how skilled you are in each area. The test is incredibly short, having only twenty some questions. I completed the test in less than five minutes. When I read my score excerpts and suggestions, it threw me off guard because I felt like I was reading my own biography. Creepy, weird, and strange, but it is always nice to hear a second opinion.

From the results of my test, I lacked self-awareness.

When I read the strategies to employ, the test gave specific bite sized chapters to read and advice on how to improve your scores. If you’re already high in certain categories, you really don’t need to read those chapters. I scored high in relationship management and read the chapters anyways only to find I was already doing most of the things the book covered.

In the self-awareness chapters, the book told me to watch myself like a hawk. The strategies are a great eye opener for your weaknesses, and the information delivery is bite sized, so if you’re like me and soak in new info in small doses, this book’s just the right size.

After practicing your strategies and “watching yourself like a hawk,” you can take the test a second time. I haven’t taken the test again, so I’m not sure if the test would be different or possibly longer.

In practicing this self awareness technique, I was able to catch myself thinking negatively while in set. When a girl rejected a kiss from me a couple of nights ago, my chest started feeling heavy and those nasty gut feelings surfaced.

I buckled down and didn’t let an emotional hijacking happen by keeping my cool, stepping back, and gaming forward. It happens to everyone, and eventually, the girl kissed me and I walked away with a number.

One of the most important aspects PUAs can grasp from this book is to not let emotions take over. It sucks when you get rejected, or go in for the kill and fail miserably, but by keeping cool and thinking ahead a PUA can really overcome some heavy emotional obstacles.

This book is not intended for PUA purposes. In fact, it’s written for businesses and corporations. Although it is a very good read and some of the principles apply to what we do here at ABCs of Attraction, the book gets sloshed in “co-worker relationship management,” or “dealing with stress in the workplace,” sort of stuff.

If you can look past the business side of the book and just take in what information pertains to you, then I’m sure not just a PUA, but athlete, writer, musician, cook, or anyone can learn a thing or two about EQ. In regards to PUA self-help books, the worst part about this book is that it does not target us as an audience.

Regardless that this book does not target us PUAs, it still has a great deal of information and very concrete examples of what to do in order to get better and exactly how to do it.

The people examples in the book are great, and the video examples on the website after taking the exam (David Hasslehoff clip, gotta love it!) are golden. I recommend this book to those out to improve their personal lives and striving to live a balanced lifestyle.

However, if you’re looking at improving your PUA skills in the field, skip this one and get into the field.

-Ben J