In a high-IQ job pool, soft skills like discipline, drive and empathy mark those who emerge as outstanding.

Empathy and social skills are social intelligence, the interpersonal part of emotional intelligence. That's why they look alike.

Self-absorption in all its forms kills empathy, let alone compassion. When we focus on ourselves, our world contracts as our problems and preoccupations loom large. But when we focus on others, our world expands. Our own problems drift to the periphery of the mind and so seem smaller, and we increase our capacity for connection - or compassionate action.

A prerequisite to empathy is simply paying attention to the person in pain.

There is zero correlation between IQ and emotional empathy... They're controlled by different parts of the brain.

But once you are in that field, emotional intelligence emerges as a much stronger predictor of who will be most successful, because it is how we handle ourselves in our relationships that determines how well we do once we are in a given job.