Emotional Maths™ and the Marathon of Love: Why Recovery Matters More Than the Argument
In relationships, it’s not the argument that matters.
It’s the recovery.
Just like training for a marathon, love requires three things:
1. Preparation
2. Pacing
3. Recovery
I learned this the hard way running the New York Marathon—and it applies just as much to building emotionally intelligent partnerships as it does to running 26.2 miles.
The science is clear (Gottmans, Lisa Feldman Barrett): what sustains long-term connection isn’t avoiding conflict—it’s how well we repair, co-regulate, and recommit after the rupture.
Leadership Without Emotional Intelligence Is Workplace Negligence.
Struggling to get your team to buy in?
It’s probably not your strategy. It’s your emotional intelligence.
Your people don’t just hear your words, they feel your regulation, your assumptions, and your blind spots. And if you’re leading without understanding how emotions actually work, you’re asking them to follow you while wearing a mask.
The latest science (from Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett and others) shows that emotions aren’t “universal signals” you can simply read—they’re constructed, shaped by context and prediction. Misinterpret them, and you erode trust.
Learn to navigate them, and you unlock influence.
This Labor Day, I wrote about why leadership without emotional intelligence is workplace negligence and what today’s science tells us about leading in practice.
Read the article here below
To mark this year's Labor Day, I’m offering 3 free MSCEIT² assessments (first come, first served). This is the only ability-based test of emotional intelligence. Real data, no self-report bias.
If you want your team’s buy-in, start by seeing yourself clearly. DM me. Let's talk
#Leadership #EmotionalIntelligence #FutureOfWork #LaborDay
Gen Z AI Millionaires and the Values Crisis We Aren’t Talking About
As highlighted in Pivot5 newsletter today; The The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that entry-level AI professionals are landing total compensation packages as high as $1 million. Companies like Databricks and Scale AI are hiring 23-year-olds into salaries and stock packages that rival (or even surpass) the lifetime earnings expectations of many doctors and lawyers.
Meanwhile, unemployment among new graduates in non-AI fields remains stubbornly higher than the overall rate. We now live in a world where 25 people under 25 can hold packages in a company worth $200,000 to $1 million before their brains have fully finished developing.
This isn’t just a labor market trend. It’s a values disruption.
The Privilege of Practicing Emotional Intelligence: Lessons from the MSCEIT²
Every month, I step into a circle of learning leading a certification in the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT², pronounced Mesquite). On paper, I am the facilitator, trainer, and guide. In practice, these sessions are an exchange: I give as much as I can, yet I always leave having received far more.
It is a privilege. Each cohort brings together people with different histories, cultural frameworks, and ways of making meaning in the world. They remind me that emotional intelligence (EI) is not just a personal skillset, it is a living, breathing dialogue across difference.
Why We Struggle With Emotional Intelligence and How to Reclaim It
Human beings have always been emotional creatures. Our emotions evolved as survival tools; fast, automatic signals designed to help us respond to threats or opportunities. As Dr. Paul Ekman’s pioneering research showed, these signals often operate outside our conscious awareness. They emerge in micro-expressions, subtle shifts in physiology, and rapid reactions to stimuli.
The Bee, the Body, and the Search for Passion
Passion isn’t a lightning bolt. It’s a bee in a garden. A whisper spoken into the air. A practice repeated until life responds.”
I used to think passion was something you found—sudden, dramatic, undeniable. But I’ve learned it’s cultivated in practice: in showing up, in sitting with the flow, and in facing the discomfort that most of us run from.
One summer afternoon, I whispered to the bees in my garden, asking them to help the flowers at the back of the house bloom into fruit. The next morning, a single bee appeared—pollinating what had once been barren. Coincidence, or symbiotic serendipity?
That moment taught me something profound: passion, like pollination, isn’t given. It’s created through practice, connection, and the courage to stay with our emotions long enough for purpose to emerge.
How Do You Solve a Problem Like ChatGPT?
Picture Google as the perplexed nuns from The Sound of Music, singing about a certain Maria—dynamic, uncontrollable, and annoyingly brilliant.
Today, Maria is ChatGPT: lively, unpredictable, and just a bit too innovative for Google's comfort.
What’s making you emotional today—and hijacking your focus?
So, how do you stay clear-headed and focused when everything around you is designed to disrupt that?
Emotions, Feelings and Moods
Misunderstanding the difference between emotions, feelings, and moods is like trying to be a chef without knowing the difference between boiling, simmering, and steaming. All are "hot" processes—but using the wrong one ruins the recipe.
Similarly, confusing emotional states prevents you from becoming emotionally intelligent in a practical, measurable, and scientifically grounded way.
Gemini’s Emotionally Intelligent response
You most properly found your way here because you read ‘The Culturally Emotionally Intelligent AI Opportunity in 2025’ article in my Emotional Maths LinkedIn newsletter.
How to Get Comfortable with Uncomfortable Conversations: A step-by-step guide
Who likes being uncomfortable and having difficult conversations? I know I don't! But the reality is, as long as you are breathing, at some point they are likely to happen.
The Missing Skill in AI That Could Make or Break Trust—and Psychological Safety.
Artificial intelligence IS deeply embedded in how we work, hire, heal, shop, and learn. Regulations like the European Union’s AI Act that came into force on 1 August 2024, spotlight the emotional risks in technology and make a strong case for assessing whether our workforce are equipped with the right skills to reap the rewards and manage the risks.
April 2nd is #WorldAutismAwarenessDay — a time to celebrate neurodiversity and deepen our collective understanding.
In honor of this important day and throughout the entire month of April, Emotional Maths has partnered with FeelWise to offer a 20% discount on all FeelWise emotional intelligence tools — including the transformative 156 Emotion Cards and 37 Micro-Mindfulness Techniques. You can use the following code ZENAC20OFF at this link to access the discount.
The Emotional Equation of ‘What’s Going On?’ - Why Marvin Gaye’s Classic is a Masterclass in Empathy, Action & Change
Music, at its best, is an equation—a formula for feeling, a structure for storytelling, and a safe container where emotions can be solved, not just felt. Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On? is a perfect example of Emotional Maths in action, where the sum of its parts creates something greater than a protest song: it’s a formula for change.