Susan David is recognized as a leading thinker on emotional intelligence and its role in organizational health. Yet she wrote this book, Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change and Thrive in Work and Life, for anyone seeking to improve mental well-being and self-management in any relationship, regardless of context. It offers actionable tools for personal growth, resilience, and relational effectiveness.

Building on Daniel Goleman’s foundational work on emotional intelligence (EQ), David shifts the focus from simply recognizing and managing emotions to what she calls emotional agility. She defines this as the ability to navigate one’s inner world—thoughts, feelings, and self-talk—with flexibility and clarity, especially in times of stress and change.

Where Goleman explains the why and what of emotional intelligence—why it matters and which skills are needed—David provides the how: practical methods for turning emotional insight into flexible, value-driven action. In this way, her work becomes a natural evolution of Goleman’s theories.

As a longtime practitioner of Nonviolent Communication (NVC), I connect with her promise that we can learn to create space between what we feel and how we respond. Through mindfulness, we can detach, observe our thoughts and emotions, and respond with greater choice.

This work is a practice. She not only explains why it matters but also offers practical exercises to help us cultivate these capacities.

“We still don’t like the things we don’t like –we just cease to be at war with them. And once the war is over, change can begin.”

“Life is full of diving boards and other precipices, but, as we’ve seen throughout this discussion of emotional agility, making the leap is not about ignoring, fixing, fighting, or controlling fear—or anything else you might be experiencing. Rather, it’s about accepting and noticing all your emotions and thoughts, viewing even the most powerful of them with compassion and curiosity, and then choosing courage over comfort in order to do whatever you’ve determined is most important to you."

“Emotional agility is about loosening up, calming down, and living with more intention. It’s about choosing how you’ll respond to your emotional warning system.”

BOOK: Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change and Thrive in Work and Life

VIDEO: The Four C's of Emotional Agility

‍