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The name "Homo sapiens" which is Latin for "wise man" places emphasis on our thinking abilities. However, Goleman says the value of IQ is overrated in human life. Emotions often overwhelm reason, and there is an evolutionary logic behind it.

Our emotions have a very long history: we genetically inherited emotional neural circuits developed throughout the lives of 50,000 human generations. And even though the last 10,000 years were marked by a rapid rise of civilizations, it didn't impact our emotions that much.

Roughly speaking, the emotions we have today are the same emotions our very distant ancestors had. As a result, Goleman explains. "We too often confront postmodern dilemmas with an emotional repertoire tailored to the urgencies of the Pleistocene".

People, however, have grown to have two minds - the emotional and the rational. The reason is the neocortex, the centre of thought, which is bigger in humans than in other species. Thanks to the neocortex, we can analyze our feelings or ideas, and we can have feelings about feelings.

However, the neocortex doesn't govern our emotional life. In "emotional urgencies", it's the limbic system that takes charge.

Emotional hijackings are short periods of emotional explosions, like extreme rage that happen before the neocortex, our thinking brain, gets a chance to analyze the situation. They happen to us very often and not only with negative emotions involved. It can be an outburst of laughter, or intense joy. The reason is the amygdala, part of the brain that Goleman calls "the seat of all passion".

What the amygdala does is scan every situation for trouble. We ask ourselves if this is going to hurt us, and if the answer is yes, the amygdala sends an urgent message to every part of our body and drives our rational brain. As a result, we often simply cannot control emotions, we just propelled to action.