Happiness linked to emotional intelligence: Experts

Dubai - Happiness talks is a CSR initiative, which is free to attend and supports the UAE Happiness initiative and the Year of Giving, conceptualised and managed by Touch Points with RIT.

Rely on strengthening emotional intelligence to have a constant positive mindset and stay happy throughout life, participants of a happiness series talk were told. 
Themed "Unlock your happiness", the new session of the happiness talks series was held at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) Dubai to create awareness and enable happiness among community members. 
Happiness talks is a CSR initiative, which is free to attend and supports the UAE Happiness initiative and the Year of Giving. The initiative is conceptualised and managed by Touch Points with RIT.
The session had two speakers and a game powered by Escape Hunt where people unlocked a safe by solving clues that got them excited and engaged - they found takeaway goodies along with the learning.
The first speaker Nasreen Kawash, an emotional intelligence consultant, emphasised on the importance of optimism as the single and most powerful catalyst to cultivate success and happiness in life. She highlighted how the new science of emotions and the brain - neuroscience and positive psychology - rely on strengthening our emotional intelligence in order to develop, grow and embed a constant positive mindset so we are able to be our best self, build better relationships and create a positive impact on the people and the world around us. 
The second speaker Lynn Baker who extensively researches on customer happiness models. Her focus was on customer experience for customer happiness, but without happy employees, it would be an incomplete formula. She illustrated her finding - Happy Employees + Customer Experience = Customer Happiness.
"We had been waiting for Happiness Talks to start again after summer. It's an amazing place to be and learn how to increase our happiness levels," said Naseer, an attendee.
"This was my first time at the Happiness Talks, but I will ensure that I attend all the sessions in future. It's a great learning experience for me and I am certainly going to adopt the tools shared in the session," said another audience member Zuha Omar. 
Dr Yousef Al Assaf, president of RIT, was excited about hosting happiness at his campus and said: "It is an amazing initiative and we are in full support to create this awareness across the community to support the government's objectives. This adds to all the other initiatives like Happiness Diploma that we have developed to help organisations make employees happy." 
Hosting the session Rehan Naeem, chief happiness enabler at Touch Points, said: "This is the best destination for enabling happiness in the community with very high attendance." Adnan Butt, managing director of Touch Points, said: "With the new bigger venue we extend this opportunity to learn about happiness and have a happy mindset."
saman@khaleejtimes.com
 

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