Queen Elizabeth II to attend first Kentucky Derby

FOX Sports - Horseracing - Queen Elizabeth II to attend first Kentucky Derby

What a great title for an article. It's so eye-catching and heart-warming.

"Firsts" -- they are the biggest -- the very biggest events in life.

Recently I took my granddaughter on her first real plane trip (she had been on that 55 min. one from Dallas to San Antonio). Well, this one was from Dallas to D. C. We had planned a "field trip" tour for her to see the nation's capital, and were focused on all the things she would be able to see for the first time, but what she was most excited about was looking out the plane window. For the entire trip - up and back - she never took her eyes off the window of the plane.

All your own "firsts" are wonderful, and when you are with someone else on a "first," it can be just as wonderful, if you have the emotoinal intelligence competency of empathy, that is.

It takes you back ... it makes you remember how you felt on that same "first." Oddly I don't remember my very first plane trip, I remember my first trip AFTER I had take Geology in college. I looked at the ox bows especially (and was quick to point them out to my granddaughter). Every time you see something for a first time, you stretch something in your brain. Then when you revisit it, with new learning, you see it with new eyes again. And then when you use emotional intelligence and experience it with another person on their first, you can feel again the thrill you had.

New things are essential to emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence includes empathy - understanding that other people have feelings, and being able to imagine what they might be feeling.

It relies on nonverbal intelligence, another emotional intelligence competency. My granddaughter might have been afraid on her first real plane trip. Many are. How did I know she wasn't (besides her words)? Well it's all their in the nonverbals, a large part of emotional intelligence and how we express our emotions. Eye contact is always a big sign. "She couldn't take her eyes off" the plane window.

Well, I would like to be there when the Queen of England see her first Kentucky Derby -- the sport of kings, and a tradition for which we owe the UK a big debt.

She's seen a lot in her day, more than most of us perhaps. I wonder ...

You can increase the boundaries of your life, and deepen your enrichment greatly with emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence allows you to enjoy vicariously the experiences of others.

Learn it today ! Go to www.susandunn.cc/EQcourse.htm . With emotional intelligence you will learn what the Spanish say -- la vida es corta, pero ancha -- life is short, but wide.

Remember? And what you remember is the feelings ... remember your

First kiss
First time you rode your bike
First day of school
First fight with your lover
First job
First day at college
First date
First train trip
First trip out of the country
First new language you learned
First great art you saw
Your first opera

Eyes and ears wide open??