IQ EQ GQ is the three-part framework in Cassandra Vitaka Mitchell's book The Happiness Formula: what you know, how you feel and act, and what you believe. A Stanford graduate and former teacher of Jeremy Van Wert, she explains how a hard childhood, a decade of darkness and a turning point led her to build it, and why she says feelings are flags, not facts.
ᛉKey takeaways
- Cassandra defines IQ as data, facts and stats, EQ as feelings and the actions you take, and GQ as the belief system you anchor to, which she calls the God quotient.
- She says feelings are flags that tell you to pay attention but are not truth.
- Cassandra describes hitting a low point as a starting place, and says taking the next right step, including therapy, started her climb back.
- She compares your belief system to the underwater part of an iceberg, because it shapes what you treat as fact and what you want.
- Cassandra says money is not math but human behavior, and she coaches people to look at the forest before the tree.
- Her closing reminder is that you are always a good example, of what to do or what not to do.
ᛃ Moments in this one
ᚠWhat IQ EQ GQ means in The Happiness Formula
Cassandra says the formula is about three parts that play into each other. IQ is data, facts and stats: what you know. EQ is how you feel about it and what actions you take. GQ is your belief system, which she calls the God quotient.
She compares belief to an iceberg. Your facts, feelings and actions are the tip, while the weight sits underneath in what you believe, and that determines what you treat as fact and what you want. She says she had worked hard on IQ and EQ for years and still felt lost because she had no belief system to anchor to.
As she worked the formula, she says, her happiness, peace and decision making grew. She describes it as a way to get off dead center, like bumpers on a bowling lane.
ᚢGrowing up gifted and finding a way to Stanford
Cassandra was Jeremy's social studies teacher at Homestead High School. She says she knew in first grade she wanted to teach.
She grew up with a single mother in a home she describes as turbulent in the early years. She was pulled into gifted programs from first grade, and by fifth grade she attended a school for mentally gifted students. She applied to Stanford, USC and Yale and chose Stanford because it offered her the most money.
ᚦCulture shock at Stanford and a class on money and identity
Cassandra calls herself a scholarship kid, and says about 60 percent of Stanford students paid their own way. She had never seen so much wealth, and she was unsure where she fit. She says the stress of her past surfaced her freshman year and she first went to counseling, which she loved.
In a sociology class, a professor kept splitting students into groups by gender, birth order, region and economic class. Cassandra concluded that people in the same economic group tend to think alike. She says the identity struggle of not wanting to stay poor, yet not wanting to leave her people, took decades to work through.
ᚨA decade of darkness after a successful start
After Stanford, Cassandra taught high school for a couple of years and then moved into corporate business development. She married her best friend from college, and after their son was born she left the marriage. Today she says it could have been an excellent marriage.
She calls what followed a decade of darkness. She was still working and paying bills, but she says she was dying inside, and Jeremy calls it functional darkness. She later married again and describes that marriage as abusive. If you are high-achieving and feeling lost, Jeremy offers individual therapy and coaching.
ᚱFeelings are flags, not facts
Cassandra says feelings are not facts or truth. They are flags that wave something in front of you to pay attention to, and she does not treat them as orders.
She grew up in a suck-it-up culture and says she did not know how to name what she felt. She values the self-esteem movement she met as a teacher in the early 1990s, as long as there is also a dance between how you feel and what is real. You can feel miserable and still go to work, she says, and maybe talk to a therapist as well.
ᚲThe next right step and the turning point on October 29, 2006
Cassandra describes a moment of despair in which she heard an inner question: what are you going to do next? She decided to get up, go to work and do the next right indicated thing. She went back to therapy, where she says she was given words for feelings she could not name.
She says her world had not finished collapsing. She lost a job and, at her lowest, asked God to show up if God was real. On October 29, 2006, she attended a church service and, in her telling, committed to faith in Christ. This is her own account of her faith.
ᚷHow the book came together in 40 days
Cassandra says she never planned to write a book. In 2018 she went on a silent retreat while trying to leave her financial services career. When she came home, she and her husband were talking through her ideas, and he pointed out that IQ and EQ sounded like a formula with a missing third part. They landed on GQ that Monday morning.
She called a marketing contact who connected her with a publisher. Forty days later, she says, she had about 65,000 words. The book is available on Amazon.
People who like to explore ideas like this in conversation with others can find real discussion, live Fireside Chats and a course library in Thriving Spirits, the Mindful Mutiny community.
ᚹWhy Cassandra says money is human behavior
Cassandra says she entered financial services to solve her own money problems and found she disliked convincing people. Her view is that money is not math but human behavior, because we do not know what to do with it until we know how we feel about it and what we believe.
As a coach she uses a golf analogy: she can give you the best clubs, but you still have to learn the rules and do the work. If you would like to talk through where you are, you can book a private 30-minute conversation with Jeremy.
Her closing thought is that you are always a good example, and that the goal is to show up as yourself.
This episode includes discussion of a difficult childhood, an abusive relationship and a period of despair, and Cassandra shares her Christian faith as part of her own story. If you are struggling, please reach out to a licensed mental health professional or your local emergency services.
ᚨ Questions people ask
What do IQ, EQ and GQ mean in The Happiness Formula?
Cassandra defines IQ as data, facts and stats, EQ as your feelings and the actions you take, and GQ as the belief system you anchor to, which she calls the God quotient. She says all three play into each other.
What does it mean that feelings are flags, not facts?
Cassandra says feelings are signals that tell you to pay attention, not truth to obey. She also says she grew up not expressing feelings, so she values naming them and then asking what is real.
Can rock bottom be a starting point?
Cassandra says her low point led her to take the next right step, including therapy and, in her account, a turn to faith. This is her experience, not the only path.
How did Cassandra write The Happiness Formula in 40 days?
She says she had been speaking on the ideas for years. After naming IQ, EQ and GQ in a conversation with her husband, a publisher guided her through the process, and 40 days later she had about 65,000 words.