On a rough day, it’s rarely the workload that breaks you. It’s the human layer: the meeting that turns tense, the work chat message you read as disrespect, the impulse to fire off a reply that feels righteous for thirty seconds and costly for a week. In those moments, emotional intelligence is basically the difference between staying aligned and creating unforced errors.
You may not control the situation, but you can control how you meet it. You can stay aligned, or drift into unforced errors: reactive words, sloppy decisions, needless conflict.
Confucius even gives a compact checklist for this: nine “states of mind” to return to in the middle of ordinary life. In the Analects he writes:
The superior person has nine states of mind:
- for eyes: bright
- for ears: penetrating
- for countenance: cordial
- for demeanor: humble
- for words: trustworthy
- for service: reverent
- for doubt: questioning
- for anger: circumspect
- for facing a chance to profit: moral
Here “superior person” does not mean a status flex. It means the mature person, the person training character. These aren’t abstract virtues floating above ordinary life. They’re trainable capacities, ways of seeing, listening, speaking, and acting that let you “avoid deviation,” especially when pressure rises. “Avoid deviation” is simple: stay aligned, so stress (or ego) doesn’t knock you into unforced errors: reactive words, sloppy decisions, needless conflict.
In my reading, these nine states are “nine results of practicing humanity and righteousness”; nine abilities of a mature person, trained through right action. What makes them powerful is that they work inside the mundane: the email, the meeting, the conflict, the temptation to cut corners.
Confucius is giving a surprisingly usable answer to the workday problem: a set of inner checkpoints you can return to before you speak, decide, or react. Think of it as a pre-meeting checklist for attention, nine ways to reduce unforced errors when work puts you under strain.
What follows is a quick walk through all nine, each with a plain language translation for work, and a small practice you can try immediately. The point isn’t perfection. It’s training the inner conditions that shape your relationships, your decisions, and your integrity.
1. For eyes: bright
At work, “bright eyes” means accurate perception: seeing what’s actually happening before your mind fills in the story. A lot of conflict is projection, tone guessed, motives assumed, threat inferred where there’s only ambiguity.
Micro-practice: Separate observation from interpretation. Ask: What am I actually seeing, without preconception, motive, or ego? That pause keeps you aligned and prevents the unforced error of reacting to the story you invented. If someone writes, “Can you send that today?” you might read it as passive aggressive. Bright eyes notices what is actually there: a request, a deadline, maybe stress, but not proof of disrespect.
2. For ears: penetrating
At work, “penetrating ears” means listening precisely: not half-hearing, not prepping your rebuttal, not grabbing the one line that confirms your irritation. It’s listening before you respond or even have a second thought. Let the words land and breathe without your assumptions covering them. Then you can answer what was actually said, not what your agenda expected.
Micro-practice: In the next conversation, give yourself a rule: Don’t speak for the first beat. Let the other person finish, pause, and then reflect back the core in your own words, cleanly, without spin.
3. For countenance: cordial
At work, “cordial countenance” isn’t fake cheer. It’s the ability to show goodwill even under pressure so your presence doesn’t harden the room. In tense moments, your face becomes a signal: either safety, or threat.
Micro-practice: Before a meeting or hard conversation, soften one notch on purpose, unclench the jaw, loosen the brow, let your eyes communicate, I’m here, I’m listening. Imagine what that does to a workplace over time: fewer people bracing for impact, fewer conversations turning defensive before they even start. Cordial countenance is quiet leadership, the atmosphere shift that makes truth telling possible.
4. For demeanor: humble
“Cordial” is the mood you bring; “humble demeanor” is the posture. In work terms, humility isn’t self depreciation. It’s staying teachable, staying proportionate, and not needing to dominate the room to feel secure.
Micro-practice: In your next disagreement, trade one certainty for one question. Instead of “Here’s why you’re wrong,” try “What am I missing?”
5. For words: trustworthy
Trustworthy words are the backbone of any working relationship. When your speech is clear and reliable, no fog, no spin, no quiet evasions, people stop wasting energy deciphering you and start collaborating with you.
Micro-practice: Make one promise smaller and cleaner. Say what you can do, by when, and then do it. It starts as honesty with yourself: seeing what you actually have bandwidth for, what you actually mean, what you’re actually willing to stand behind. When you’re not divided inside, your words naturally become trustworthy to others. “Sure, I can handle it” feels generous in the moment, then you miss the deadline and create panic downstream. Trustworthy words prevent that chain reaction.
6. For service: reverent
Reverent service means taking your role seriously without making it heavy. It’s the opposite of carelessness and the opposite of ego: doing the work with attention, because other people will live inside the consequences of what you do.
Micro-practice: Treat handoffs as sacred. Before you send the email, ship the deck, or close the ticket, ask: “Will this create clarity, or confusion for the next person?”
7. For doubt: questioning
Questioning in doubt is the discipline of not pretending. Instead of hiding uncertainty behind confidence, you go straight to what you need: clarity. Done well, questions don’t slow work down. They prevent the expensive mistake of building on a wrong assumption.
Micro-practice: When something feels vague, ask one clean question that forces definition: “What does success look like here?” or “What’s our priority?”
8. For anger: circumspect
Anger isn’t the enemy. It can be valuable information: something matters, something feels off, a boundary got crossed. The problem isn’t feeling anger. It’s expressing it without circumspection, in ways that burn bridges and create harsh mistakes that you can’t walk back.
Micro-practice: Keep the force, change the form. Name the issue cleanly, without threat or contempt: “I’m frustrated, and here’s what needs to change.” Then stop, let the message land without escalation. And yes, anger can cloud the mind and sow disharmonious action if it runs the show.
9. For facing a chance to profit: moral
This is the final alignment check. “Profit” isn’t only money. It’s credit, advantage, status, the quick win, the tempting shortcut. Confucius says: When the opportunity appears, measure it against what’s moral, so success doesn’t quietly hollow you out.
Micro-practice: Before you take the win, ask one question: “Is this clean?” If it isn’t, don’t take it, or reshape it until it is.
Even though we’ve leaned into work, Confucius didn’t see life as career over here and relationships over there. Human relationships are the training ground of a life, the pivot point where fate becomes destiny, and where our influence becomes legacy. Work just concentrates the lesson: Day after day, we practice how we harmonize with other people.
And that’s why these nine states matter. They don’t promise you control over the world. They give you something more valuable: agency in the one place it counts, your own mind, right in the middle of the ordinary day.
Try this tomorrow: Before your next meeting or difficult message, run a thirty second scan. Bright eyes. Penetrating ears. Cordial face. Humble posture. Trustworthy words. Reverent work. Clean questions. Circumspect anger. Moral profit. It is not dramatic, but it is how a life, and a workplace, gets shaped.
This article 9 Confucian rules for emotional intelligence at work is featured on Big Think.