Daniel Goleman  0:00  
Emotions are contagious and they're most contagious from the leader outwards. Because it's very natural in any group. People pay most attention to put most importance on what the most powerful person in that group says or does.

kevin edwards  0:14  
You are listening to the religious Podcast, where leaders keep it real. I'm your host, Kevin Edwards. And that sage advice is delivered by author and psychologist Dr. Daniel Goleman, whose books and philosophies have influenced millions of leaders around the world who intuitively understand the power of emotional intelligence. So in today's episode, Goldman shares why our brains developed the way they did, how to regulate emotional hijacking, and the antidote to all of our phone addictions. So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for the real Dr. Daniel Goleman. Enjoy

Okay, nice. Well, your system was telling me she was like, yeah, you know, there might be a snowstorm coming in, the Wi Fi might go out and I said no problem. And then this morning, I woke up it would be the snowstorm last night, I was like, you know, I think it's Daniels fault that that's why I say thank you. For your call. You

Daniel Goleman  1:29  
said that came to you not to me, right? Yeah.

kevin edwards  1:33  
Yeah. Okay. Well, Daniel, really excited to have you on the podcast today. And thank you, everyone for joining. Before we begin real quick, thanks for letting us know where you all are coming in from. This is the earliest podcast while the few links flying in or This episode will be edited and published to all of our platforms on Apple podcasts and Spotify. But this interview today is not about the relators podcast this interview today is that Dr. Daniel Goleman. Doc, how you doing today?

Daniel Goleman  2:01  
Oh, I'm happy to be here. Thanks a lot.

kevin edwards  2:04  
Very happy to have you. So Doc, you know, I was I just purchased the book emotional intelligence, which is like, you know, I guess I guess is what you're known for. However, I always thought it was EQ but the first two pages I'm in the book and it's like, oh, EQ is something someone else made up with. I refer to it as Ei. Is that true?

Daniel Goleman  2:26  
Well, EQ is kind of a slang I prefer Ei but most people recognize EQ, EQ became a word in languages, certain languages around the world. I was done because that book, emotional intelligence from first came out, I became a worldwide bestseller. And in terms of real leaders, I went on to write about how emotional intelligence affected leadership because in the book, emotional intelligence, I have a little chapter, bleeding with heart. I really was trying to argue for teaching this to kids. But so many people in the business world responded to leading with heart that I started to look more deeply into, well, how does emotional intelligence matter to leadership and turns out matters quite a lot.

kevin edwards  3:08  
Now, why do you think that is? Why do you think so many business leaders are wanting to connect with their heart and, and and are asking for something like this?

Daniel Goleman  3:20  
Well, I think that the emotional intelligence concept articulated, put into words something people knew intuitively, you know, that the boss you hate, you hate because he lacks emotional intelligence. He's abrasive or he doesn't empathize or he's aloof, whatever it is, the boss you love, the leader you love has lots of emotional intelligence. People know this. They know it from their own experience. Emotional intelligence, the way I look at it is self awareness. Knowing what you're feeling, why you're feeling it, how it affects what you do, managing your emotions, using that awareness to handle your disruptive emotions, and to keep your goals in mind to stay positive. tuning into other people, empathy is very important. If you don't do that you're going to be off, you're gonna be clueless. And then putting that all together to have effective relationships. That's what we it's that fourth part that we think of as, you know, leadership approach. But I think it takes all four to be really effective.

kevin edwards  4:24  
Daniel, how did you stumble upon something like this? Now, I know you're a psychologist. But you know, some of the work you were doing studies that you were conducting all the tests? Did you come across a subject like this?

Daniel Goleman  4:38  
Well, actually, I was a science journalist at the New York Times. My job was to read all of the academic journals and find what was new, exciting and relevant. And I came upon an article that frankly, very obscure journals so obscure doesn't exist now. called emotional intelligence. thought, wow, that phrase is great. It's so counterintuitive to put emotions together with intelligence. You know, in those days, that was like a radical idea. And I had been, I would say, harvesting research on emotions in the brain for about a decade at the New York Times. And I thought, this is a great framework for a book that puts that all together. And then I looked at what the components were. And that fell out to self awareness thing now, before I mentioned. And, you know, once I wrote that book, then I got other requests, like Harvard Business Review, where you write about emotional intelligence and leadership. So I wrote an article called what makes a leader, which is about why leaders need emotional intelligence, it became their most requested reprint in the history of the arbor business review. I was shocked, but it just shows you how high the interest is. And I think how so many people knew intuitively that this was the case. They just wanted someone like me to make the case for them.

kevin edwards  6:10  
Do you think it's because leaders are trying to improve themselves? Do you think it's so people like them more so their organizations can thrive more? Why do you think people cling to something such as emotional intelligence,

Daniel Goleman  6:23  
I think all of that, it's the people themselves want to be more effective as leaders. organizations want their leaders to be more effective. And everybody wants whoever it is they report to, to be emotionally intelligent, instead of a jerk, frankly. And so I think all of that creates this huge interest in it. And I wouldn't name any one of those parts. I think it's all a

kevin edwards  6:53  
One of the questions I get asked some of the authors that come on this show is, you know, I'm not going to date myself here. But let's just say that book came out around the time I was born. And I know and one of your, your revisions, you're asking yourself, you ask yourself, you know, what would I change about this? How is leadership changing? How is it evolving? Yeah, as technology come into play, you know, so fast, and leaders have to use, you know, their brains have been developed over hundreds of 1000s of years. What are some of the ways that leadership and emotional intelligence are changing? And how might you change your book,

Daniel Goleman  7:32  
actually, I'm writing a new book about this, I'm just doing an article for HBr, putting it together. And two of the things that I think are important, and have put a new emphasis on emotion telling just one is the pandemic. People don't work in the same room that much anymore, they work from home. Not only that, they often meet by zoom, or WebEx, whatever it is, and computers, laptops are designed for another era, the computer, the future, will put the camera, right where you are, the person you're talking to, is to can have eye contact again, our our digital distance has broken eye contact, which is a prime avenue for connection. So one of the things that I'm always asked about is how can emotional intelligence help us keep our connections during this, this digital distancing that we're going through? and another is now that artificial intelligence is taking over this and that that job? Isn't there a new premium on emotional intelligence? And my answer is yes. Just think, if you were really sick, would you rather have at your bedside a robot or a person for certain jobs in certain roles, that just AI can never feel because it's a machine, it's Harvard software. And that means that there I think, is going to be a new premium on these abilities, to manage emotions, to tune into emotions and to relate to people effective because of AI. And I think as you know, I don't know if work will ever go back to the way it was before. I think more and more people are going to say, Hey, I don't have to go to the office, and they're going to work for home. But if they do work from home, I think we need to, we all need to make more effort to be empathic to tune in. If you're in the same room with someone if you're next to someone, say to a meeting, sense what they're feeling. You pick up their nonverbals that someone is on a screen, you've got what facial expression, maybe tone of voice, you have to work harder to tune in, to empathize and that takes emotional intelligence.

kevin edwards  9:55  
It's interesting, you know, I think you do a really good job of explaining it. Difference also between IQ and Ei or EQ and IQ, you can say, Well, you know, by the time your brain develops when you're 25, your IQ is kind of set. Right? You know, but EQ can always improve. So the question of AI and then now emotional intelligence becoming a premium, why are we investing so much into tech to AI? You know, Silicon Valley, it's just, it's growing. It's this the digital, but less emotional intelligence. Why is that?

Daniel Goleman  10:30  
Well, actually, people are trying to model for AI, emotional intelligence. And frankly, it's a little clunky. They're doing an interesting job at Media Lab, but AI models thinking that models cognition, and that can be done really elegant. So AI when it comes to IQ, by the way, IQ is basically a metric for how rapidly your brain can take in new information. That's really what I like. And it doesn't change much to like, the mid 20s. window is actually for emotional intelligence, the emotional and social circuitry of the brain develops throughout childhood and adolescence into the mid 20s. And then the brain is matured. And that's why I argue for putting this in schools. So kids get it right in the first place. It's never too late, as you point out to improve emotional intelligence. But back to your mid 20s or so you've got a double job. You've got to unlearn the habits that you learned before, like the common cold of management is poor, listening, cutting people off and taking over conversation. That is a habit you've rehearsed, rehearse more than 10,000 times. It's, it's unconscious, it's automatic. So you've got to be mindful, oh, my God, here's a chance for me to change how I listen, then then you have to be intentional to change your habits. So it can be improved, but it takes a little commitment and a little work.

kevin edwards  12:04  
Doc, why did our brain develop this way? I know it's kind of a big question. But when it comes to emotional response, right, when when something happens, my Wi Fi goes out this morning. Why do I get so oh my gosh, flustered, I've got to go find the place instead of relaxing and staying calm, and everything's gonna work out.

Daniel Goleman  12:24  
Yeah. So basically, our brain was designed for the jungle. It was designed to detect that rustle in the bushes that might be something that eats us, and make us run as fast as we can. Or maybe it's a rustle of something we could eat. So we run after it, but you have to decide instantly. So we have the same architecture of the brain that was designed for the jungle. But modern life is not a jungle. So your tech goes out, and your brain responds, but the same emergency activation that was designed and helped us so much when we were surviving on the savanna when we lived in the jungle. By and today, it just does not help by the brain's radar for threat, the part of the brain that says oh my God, I've got a podcast and my Wi Fi is out. What am I going to do? Is the amygdala, and it wants to know or things, okay? It's always asking, Am I safe? All the time, that's a job. And if thinks there's an emergency, it takes over the executive Center, the boss of the brain, the prefrontal cortex, and it makes it do what it thinks is necessary. And that gets us in trouble. Because for one, our attention fixates on what it defines as the emergency for another, our memory shuffles, so we can remember Bestival, how do I get my Wi Fi back and you forget everything else? By the way, if you're having an argument with your loved one, and you have two amygdala hijack is going on, I recommend you don't make any big decisions like why am I with this person? Don't ask yourself that question during the peak of the hijack, because you'll get the wrong answer. Wait, because it takes about 20 minutes to reset without any intervention. So wait 20 minutes. So basically, it's a great question. Why do we overreact? It's because our brain was designed for an earlier time, then we're, you know, we don't have brain 2.3 we have brain 1.0.

kevin edwards  14:28  
Interesting, interesting. Now, how much of that decision making is driven by emotional responses such as fear, and how does that play into the business setting?

Daniel Goleman  14:42  
Well, one of the things that triggers that the amygdala triggers is fear. Another is anger. By the way. These are extremely disruptive emotions, by the way, you know, in this world of multitasking and distraction, research shows it's not what's around You caught your attention. It's your emotions. So if you have an emotional hijack, forget it. Fear is what you get as part. That's one of the signs of the hijack, particularly if it's realistic fear, fine, but it usually isn't. Usually it's anxiety, it's worry, too much fear or fear, we can't stop, you know, that thing you're afraid of, and you wake up at two in the morning, and that thought keeps coming back to you. That's the, you know, the the fear that you hold on to for a couple of weeks. So the answer about work is that this is never beneficial at work. One of the things that leaders need is to be able to manage the disruptive emotions. And by that I mean, handle your amygdala recover from the hijack, you can't determine when you're getting at hijack. But you can do things that will help you recover more quickly. That's called resilience. You can become more resilient, it's a learned skill, which a learnable skill.

kevin edwards  16:03  
Now, Dr. Graham, I know resilience comes with also going through a lot of hard times, understand you've been there before. When something like this comes up, for instance, COVID, a pandemic gets locked down and start to happen. Businesses have to start making decisions when what's going to happen in the future. How can someone regulate their emotions to make conscientious decisions?

Daniel Goleman  16:27  
Sure. This is an area I've looked at a lot, I did my my PhD thesis research actually was on stress reactivity. And so basically, I think that the path that you described where you've gone through lots of trauma, or lots of ordeals, or lots of challenges and obstacles, can help you recover more quickly next time, not necessarily. However, you may have the same old reaction you've always had, you may not have learned how to become more resilient. So it turns out there are shortcuts there brain hacks that will help you get resilient the fact that share one with your readers right now, by not, I'm sorry listeners right now. And it goes like this, you notice that you're agitated, you want to calm down, try this, this is what Navy SEALs do. For example, take a deep breath in so your belly expand, hold it as long as it's comfortable, then exhale very slowly. Do that six to nine times. And it shifts you from the fight or flight response to the relaxation of recovery supplements, it changes your physiology, and it does it on the spot. Another way you can become more resilient is to do you know kind of mind training sometimes called Mindfulness like focusing on your breath, you know, watching the full in breath control out there that when your mind wanders off, bring it back to the breath. The key here is when you notice your mind wandered, and you bring it back. That's like when you go to the gym. And every time you lift a weight, you make that muscle with every rep, you make it a little more, a little stronger. Every time you bring your mind back, you're making the neural circuitry for focus that much stronger. But there's a twofer. It turns out that the same neural circuitry that helps you concentrate on your breath is a circuitry that helps you calm down when you're overly upset. So what this means is you eventually use a dose response, the more you do it, the better the effect. But eventually, you get triggered less often if you do you get triggered to the strongly. And then you recover more quickly, which is the definition. As I said, I presume

kevin edwards  18:56  
it seems like meditation kind of what you just had described this deep breathing this focus, understanding where your mind is going seems to be some sort of antidote for this attention economy that we live in. With all of these distractions happening going on. We ran a team meeting today and I said, Listen, I don't want anyone looking at anything else today. Try to stay focused, and it was really difficult for everybody. Very difficult. And this happened. We do this at once a week every week. Do you think that mindfulness is an antidote to the chaos of attention that's taken away from our focus?

Daniel Goleman  19:37  
I know it is. I just finished I just published a book a year or two ago called altered traits, which looks at the more than 6000 peer reviewed studies on this kind of binding training. We we looked at I did it with a neuroscientist at University of Wisconsin. We looked at the best 60 top journals, best methodology. What it shows is that pretty much from the beginning, mindfulness helps you get more calm, as I said, and also more focused, when the most interesting studies to speak to your point was done at Stanford with multitasking, you know, when you're focused on something really important, this project I've got to get done and your concentrations pretty ramped up. And then you get a ping, and all I've got an email or a text, I'm going to check that. And then, while you're there, you check all your emails, and then you go online, you look at Twitter, and you do Facebook, or what you know, you multitask as we call, then you go back eventually to that one thing that's so important, where your attention was up here, now it's down here, and it takes you quite a while to ramp up to get unless you did 10 minutes of mindfulness, that breath exercise, then it turns out, you're very close to top concentration. So basically, what that says is that attention and focus and the ability to ignore distractions is a trainable skill. And the more you do it, the better you get.

kevin edwards  21:00  
I love that. I love that. So, so simple, but also so hard. It's very difficult sometimes, especially for people starting out meditating just to stay focused just on one thing, breathing. As simple as reading.

Daniel Goleman  21:12  
You know, there are many kinds of meditation. And there's a law that says the very best meditation is the one you will do. It doesn't matter. It's just, you know, just do it every day, if you can do it before you go to work, get up a little earlier, whatever, I always have some tea before I meditate, I do it first thing in the morning, trying to just make it a priority. It's like working out. If you made that a priority. You can do it with mine trading, too. It's the same thing. And the more you do it, the more you make a priority, the more it's going to work and it may be difficult at first, a very common complaint is my mind is crazy. I have so many thoughts I could never concentrate. That's actually a good sign. It means you're starting to notice the way your mind is coordinating. Everybody gets that. So just keep going. Keep going. It gets better.

kevin edwards  22:06  
Now, Doc, I know you're good acquaintances with the 14th Dalai Lama, His Holiness, know you're also a fan of Eastern Western philosophies. How can you say similarities between those two type of philosophies have a way of life of the Yang, the Yang, the Buddhists, the Taoist, the good? Is there something that you can bring to our audience today that you think would be helpful?

Daniel Goleman  22:32  
Well, I think that there's a lot of overlap, but they're not the same. They have different goals. And one question is, how do you regard yourself are you Is it just you are, our culture tends to be very individualistic. So it's about me, and making my way or my success. However, there's another way of looking at itself, which is that it's relational, you're connected to all kinds of people, your family, your company, your team. And they're your success means their success, or their success means your success. Those are actually two different ways of looking at the world, then I would say Eastern philosophies tend to look the second one, to look at the self, in a larger sense, a more connected sense. And that has lots of implications for how you lead your life and who you care about and who you are concerned about. You know, there are three kinds of empathy. There's cognitive empathy, I know how you think, emotional empathy, I know how you feel. And then there's one called empathic concern I care about. It's the way a parent feels about a child. But you can feel that way about people in your life about people you work with. Sometimes it becomes compassion certainly is concerned. And that's a kind of a larger self. And I, I think that that's kind of a gift from Eastern philosophies to the west, because the West has been historically very caught up with the individual self and individual success. So it's a large picture. Another thing that I liked it the Dalai Lama says, you know, if things are bad, and you can do something about it, why worry? Things are bad and you can't do something about it. Why worry?

kevin edwards  24:29  
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And I had heard that from one of your, your speeches, and that's why when the whole team was give me a call to go Yeah. We're not gonna worry about this. Everything's gonna work out no work. We gotta get this in your mind. Well, you know, there's

Daniel Goleman  24:45  
another saying this is from the west. Will Shakespeare said all's well that ends well, we ended

kevin edwards  24:52  
you know, six. Shakespeare is an interesting one. I think I read somewhere that you know, he contributed overly 40% of the words in the English dictionary or something like that? 

Daniel Goleman  25:03  
Could be? I have no idea. Yeah, even that might surprise. You know,

kevin edwards  25:07  
it's interesting. And you know, back to, you know, the evolution of language, the evolution of your mind, you know, could you maybe dive more into the science behind the development of our brain and kind of why we feel right now in this state, when we're kind of isolated, we're locked in more, I feel like we gotta go. So you know, yeah,

Daniel Goleman  25:31  
well, you know, there are different parts, or there's different webs of circuitry in the brain. And they evolved for good reasons. But they evolved in a context when we lived with about 100 people. It was our group, and they pop up, the important part of the brain is called the social brain is the pre frontal was designed to link brain to brain to the person you're with, and created a brain to brain bridge that is automatic, unconscious and instantaneous, and it tells you what that other person is doing or shooting. And today, when we're all isolated, that part of the brain is in trouble. Because it isn't face to face. As I said before, we have to make more effort to tune into the people around us. But because the brain wasn't designed for the reality we live in right now. So we're making the best of it. And in fact, there's a degradation of motion channels are really important for the brain. And they're maximal when we're face to face. If we had a holograph of the person we're interacting with that would be pretty good. On zoom, or WebEx, or whatever your preferred platform is, there's a degradation. But then there's less on a phone call. But phone calls pretty good because voice carries lots of emotion. The worst is text. If you text someone or email them, it can easily lead to flaming, flaming occurs when one of you is having an amygdala hijack, and you start typing furiously a message and hit send. And then the the telltale sign of flaming as you wish you hadn't done it. You regret what you just said. And, you know, it can lead to what are called flame wars for one person's flaming triggers another person claiming back, I remember two sets of engineers in a European city, the companies had an alliance develop a product together, but they'd never met each other. They just emailed back and forth, and pretty soon it disintegrated into flame wars. And this consultant was called in he did and gotten together, have some beers over the weekend. And it just changed the thing because if you know the person, then you're less likely to fall into flaming or to take a flame as personal you know, it's just Charlie's that way.

kevin edwards  28:08  
It makes a lot of sense. And I'm a culprit of flaming there's no doubt about it, especially with a few emails that I've regretfully sent and but you know, we learned from those right then we learn from the

Daniel Goleman  28:18  
well we hope we do but I have some advice for listeners. Don't send emails late at night, or if you've been drinking. Wait till the next day. Because you'll be clear Yeah. Why anyway, so

kevin edwards  28:35  
it's wise advice, this wise advice? Maybe maybe anything Don't don't do much when you're training. Other than I don't know socialize but you brought this interesting story about this bus driver that you love the show. Yeah, I love I love you to share that before I kind of go into this I don't like telling other people's stories about them.

Daniel Goleman  28:54  
Well, I started the book emotional intelligence with a story about a bus driver on Madison Avenue in New York City. So hot humid day I'm waiting for the bus and like everyone else in the city I have this bubble this invisible bubble around me Don't touch me Don't talk to me. And I get on the bus with my bumbling tech driver really does something shocking to me. It looks at BNC says really warmly how's your day going? Mikey cares This is like you know connection that I wasn't expecting then I get on the bus and I realize he's talking to everyone on the bus you're looking for suits there's a great sale over here and departments join your right and your Did you see the Great Exhibition in this museum on the left and oh the the Cineplex on the right I know that one in cinema six got great reviews by saw the one in cinema three. That's really good on and on. Then people get off the bus and he waved to me say I hope your day is wonderful. And he said it Mikey meant it. That guy was an urban saint. Then I found out years later I didn't write about this. I found out years later. When he died, they did an obit in the times. His name was Govan Brown. He was a pastor of a black church on Long Island. And he felt that the people on his bus were part of his flock. He was taking care of them when he retired from being a bus driver, they threw a party for him, they had never done it in the history of the Transit Authority. 300 devoted passengers came, he got more than 3000 letters of commendation, not one complaint, that guy was outstanding. And by the way, I think he was outstanding because he had a deep sense of purpose. And he found a way to make his job meaningful in terms of what was meaningful for him. And I think that goes for anybody. But for a leader, for example, if you can articulate what matters to you about we're doing in a way that resonates with the people you're leading, and inspires them to then you get people's best efforts. So you know, it's a lesson for leadership. It's not just for bus drivers.

kevin edwards  31:07  
Dale, how infectious is something like that me Is there any science is backed around the spread and the contagiousness of a positive personality and someone that's able to connect with you like that?

Daniel Goleman  31:21  
Absolutely. There's a lot of research out of Yale, the Yale School of Management where they looked at team leaders, leaders in a very positive, upbeat, enthusiastic, when people on the team catch that mood, performance goes up. If people the leader of a team is bummed out, angry, anxious, whatever it is, people on the team catch that mood, the performance goes down. So emotions are contagious, and they're most contagious from the leader outwards. Because it's very natural in any group, people pay most attention to put most importance on what the most powerful person in that group says or does.

kevin edwards  32:02  
Now, also, this is something you can build upon, connecting I for one No, during these conversations, being locked in like, this is one of my favorite things to do. It's what I think I'm best at and what I what I enjoy the most being direct in a conversation like this, and it seems to translate outside of the world, then people come to me and says, Man, you really, you really do listen, you know, you really are a podcaster, you really like to have these conversations, how does someone that maybe isn't a podcaster can practice something like this such as attentive listening?

Daniel Goleman  32:40  
Well remind yourself that it doesn't help to be telling people, it helps to be listening first. And as I said, the common cold of leadership of management is taking over the conversation before you've really heard out the other person. So the big challenge is to be fully present, which means you want to know what the other person is thinking and feeling. And then you want to respond to that, then the person feels felt feels heard, and you get full information. So from a leadership point of view, I think it's an essential skill.

kevin edwards  33:22  
What about for the people that may label themselves as introverts who may not want to be bothered, like you said, you were in that kind of a bubble when you came on that day. And you didn't really want to be bothered about some of the introverts listening to this right now that you know, like, if I was on that bus, I wouldn't say anything, I'd probably just carry on without, with my business.

Daniel Goleman  33:45  
So Kevin, I'm gonna plug in my computer. While I think about the question.

kevin edwards  33:50  
Take your time. And you know what, while you're doing that, Doc, you know, I just, I just think this thing right here is just such a pain and this movement. I'm serious, because I, you know, I was telling you, I flew to Central Oregon from San Diego a couple days ago. And I'm at this airport, and it was the most dead that airport had ever been in my lifetime. People on their phones, they used to be, you know, children, you know, we're gonna grow up like apes, and the evolution is here, and we're back at our phones like this, right? That's how it used to be and then then you actually see it. And this fight in this flight attendants given, you know, the protocols of how to put on your life or death situations. Yeah. And everyone's on the phone around just like, I'm sure people have heard it a million times. But still, it's just to the point of, you know, the attention economy, you know, people are distracted from maybe what's really important.

Daniel Goleman  34:45  
That's a wonderful question. Do you want me to go back to the one about introverts?

kevin edwards  34:49  
Please, please? Yes. Yeah, go wherever you want. Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Goleman  34:53  
So I think that a lot of leadership has to with finding your own style that fits your comfort level. So people who are introverted may not want to go out and network. But still they can be very focused in a one on one conversation. And really, that's, I think, the core of leadership. It's not networking, it's being fully present to the person you're with, which gets me to cell phones, because they are our best friends and our worst enemy at the same time. You know, they're fabulous, because Google will tell you anything that you want to know right away, you can reach out to anybody who can, you know, send that message that you forgot before you left to the person that needs to get it today. And yet, all of our first distractions are in the same device. So their constant temptations to ignore that lady telling you what to do in a life or death situation, and play that video game, or whatever it is you're doing on your phone. And I think it's one of the bigger problems of our time, I worry about kids who have grown up, never knowing a time, you couldn't ignore everyone and everything around you, and focus on the small screen on that small device in front of you. Because the social and emotional parts of the brain were designed to be shaped in childhood, by interactions, by hanging out with other kids by interacting with your parents, your siblings, your family, anyone, that's what helps a child grow, to be able to manage their own emotions, and to connect well with other people. So I worry about today's kids. And this actually, for me is an argument for what we call social emotional learning, where you teach kids the gamut of emotional intelligence, self awareness, self management, empathy, social skill, because you want to be sure they're going to get. And it doesn't take that much time. Hardly any time, actually, from the core academic subjects. There are more than 100 curricula. And it shows that in fact, it improves academic achievement test scores by 11%. Because if you help kids manage their own emotions, and handle the relationships better, those are the things that upset kids. Those are the things that distract kids. So now they can actually pay attention to what the teacher said, what they're having to learn. So it's a win win. So I recommend cassens ca es el.org. It's a collaborative for academic, social and emotional learning. To see if your school district or the school your child goes to, might want to bring it in if they don't have it.

kevin edwards  37:51  
And that's the key word right there goes to, right goes to we're at home right now. Plus students are at home. I think this is the first time at least I got little cousins at school right now, Doc. And the first time I've heard Oh, we want to go back to school. We want to go back to school because they need they miss their friends school. 

Daniel Goleman  38:11  
It's not about academics for kids, right? It's half or more just hanging out with your shirts. And I've got grandchildren who are really missing school. Because they're doing it online. They say it's just not the same. And it isn't the same. You know, it's the courts, the academics, but it's not the social life. It's not the social learning that kids get in school. So that's another deficit over and above what cell phones or video was doing to today's kids. It's what's happening, because the pandemic, the fact that kids are now isolated at home. 24. Seven, there, maybe they have a small pot, one of my granddaughters has a pod with her best friend, which is good. But still she misses the other kids.

kevin edwards  38:58  
And again, folks, that's casel.org. See, there it is got link find in there wonderful. It also kind of drives me to this, this notion that media in today's day and age like it's one of the most ongoing topics of today's you know, pop culture media, what's wrong with now, Daniel, you worked in the New York Times? What do you think big institutions like this can do to contribute to a movement of empathy and movement of emotional intelligence?

Daniel Goleman  39:34  
That's a really interesting question because of the balkanization of groups on the media. There are many, many people who ignore the mainstream media don't believe. And so I'm not sure what the media could be doing. I think that delivering the news in new ways is important from sample your podcast is a good model of an emerging reality. It's very intimate. It's like real Radio, when I was a kid, you'd listen to the radio. Now, you know, the family would actually gather. And it's a very intimate medium podcasts are the new radio, I just started a podcast called first person singular. And it's just getting off the ground, I decided to do a podcast for the reason you're saying, because it's a way of delivering information pretty quickly. And in a very personal person, intimate way. Because it's you and the person listening. So Kevin, there's a certain power to a podcast that you don't get in a newspaper. You don't get in online news. Because as I said, voice remembered I was talking about the phone voice carries a huge amount of emotional tone. And I think that adds to the information. Just the pure, positive cartoon you're putting out? 

kevin edwards  41:01  
interesting. It's good point, you know, the long form of a podcast really lets people digest information, listen slowly. And it's just something different. Nowadays, I've had it kind of described as social media, like skipping a rock across the lake, just hits kind of the top of the bottom, which alludes to your point as well about children, reading books, it's so difficult for them to do now, they're having a hard time getting from page one to page 300. Because it's because it's just not in front of them. It's not a quick read for them.

Daniel Goleman  41:34  
I was talking to a teacher who's taught the same book for years. And she said, in the last five years or so there's been an obvious decrement in the ability of her students to understand the same book, you know, and you hear it from from college teachers, people can't write a short essay anymore. There is definitely a degradation. And it worries me because I wonder if it reflects degradation in thinking. But it certainly reflects the inability to master a form. And maybe it's an old form, I'm open to that. Maybe now it's all going to be spoken word or video, or that's the new form. Maybe we're going but just morphing I know Socrates was upset when they started having, you know, printed words were printed. In his day they were written, written language, he thought would be the end of memory. So every generation that used to the old format, despairs at the new format. Maybe we're at that kind of CUSP. I hope so. And I hope it will be just as rich as former kinds of information. I also hope that the old ways Don't go away, I write books, I still write books. Actually, book sales have gone up, oddly enough, during the pandemic. That's right. But I don't know about demographics. I don't know if younger people are reading books. But reading a book is one of the best things a child can do for that child's brain.

kevin edwards  43:07  
Yeah. And to go on that point as well, you know, it's like, oh, we can just google it now. Right? It's like that whole thing, like, Oh, I learned these things. So we can just Google it. Oh, really? you're sacrificing the memory, the knowledge, the repetition?

Daniel Goleman  43:19  
Well, there's an understanding of that. But there's more, Kevin, that is true. You know, since there's been culture, we've been having people tell us stories. And those stories create a reality for us, many of those stories, so called miss our stories about how the world began. What's important, what's not important, what we value as a people why we do this or that. And I think stories, particularly for leadership, by the way, stories are very important. It's a leadership tool, to tell a powerful story about your company, about how it started, why it started, what purpose does it have? What meaning does it have, what are our values, you can embed that in the story, and people learn it very powerfully, if it is embedded in the story, and I think kids today still need stories, whether they're getting a mutt to podcasts or through video or by reading. It's a very important way that cultures continue themselves that they pass on what's important.

kevin edwards  44:31  
Daniel, what makes a good story to you?

Daniel Goleman  44:36  
To me, I think that there's a good story has a beginning, a middle and an end, that people can follow easily. It has a lot of emotion in it, so that people get involved in it. And it has a punch line. So people learn something. That's what I think is a good story just off the top of my

kevin edwards  44:57  
head. I love it that day. You also mentioned you're starting this thing. podcast up right now correct me if I'm wrong, this podcast is with your son.

Daniel Goleman  45:05  
Yeah, my son Honeyman is has a Master's actually in audio. And we're doing it together. We're co hosting Harman Coleman and his name, Daniel Goleman is my name. First Person. Plural is the name of the podcast. And it's emotional intelligence and beyond because as time has gone on, I've seen that emotional intelligence has lots of implications for many, many different areas of my life. And I love exploring that. So that's what we're going to be doing in the podcast. Kevin, thank you for giving me a chance to let your listeners know about first person, plural. My podcast.

kevin edwards  45:45  
It just started. I mean, it got a couple episodes on there right now. Really?

Well, good. Only two right now. But we have many more in the pipeline,

and many more in the future. More to come, folks. Right. Well, I want to bring that up. Because I want to ask you this question. Well, what's better doing a podcast with your son or reading a book with the Dalai Lama?

Daniel Goleman  46:07  
Ah, ha ha ha, apples and oranges. They're both great.

kevin edwards  46:13  
Well, I hope it works out for you all. It's it's an interesting journey. Are you going to have guests on that podcast?

Daniel Goleman  46:19  
Oh, absolutely. One of the guests I really enjoyed was a woman named Laurie Santos. She did that happiness course in Yale. That became their most popular course ever. You know, she's fantastic. I did a podcast on constructive anger with a guy named rod Owens, llama Rado. And is black. He's overweight, he's gay. He's had a lot of discrimination in his life. And he's overcome it. And he can talk about what is constructive anger. What basically, it's anger plus compassion. And the Dalai Lama talks about that, too. So the book I wrote with the Dalai Lama is a force for good, which is really about his vision for our world. But I found it very influential. I'd like to be I want to be like him when I grow up.

kevin edwards  47:09  
Yeah, don't we all right. Now. Now, anger? Isn't that also an interesting emotional trait to think about? Because anger we all think is bad. But I know the Dalai Lama had mentioned that, well, anger can actually be good. If you channel it the right way. What did he mean by that?

Daniel Goleman  47:23  
Well, first of all, anger basically arises when a goal is thwarted, there's an obstacle, something gets in our way someone screws up, or somebody says something that, you know, triggers us whatever it may be. Anger in evolution has been very positive, within reason. The trouble is when anger explodes and and makes us do things without reason. That's destructive anger, we harm ourselves, we harm our relationship, we harm other people. That's no good. So the Dalai Lama has said, anger is useful, keep the focus, keep the energy, keep the persistence, keep the motivation, give up the hatred, give up the negativity. That way, he said, you'll make a smarter decision, you'll find a constructive way to get what you want. Which is really your goal, rather than just to like payback. That's, you know, the seduction of destructive anger.

kevin edwards  48:24  
is I think the saying goes, you know, what, Marcus Aurelius, he said, you know, what gets in the way becomes the way that the stoic approach to overcoming obstacles. But you mentioned the force for good. It's funny you say that, because we interview impact organizations, organizations, trying to solve a social or environmental problem. as they grow and scale they solve that problem, or now they consider themselves a force for good. What would you want from business leaders listening to this right now? What advice would you give to them and how you would like to see their organizations being used as a force for good?

Daniel Goleman  49:03  
Well, I think there's a lot of potential there because frankly, I feel that business is actually a greater force the government, government can change policy restricted to its national boundary. Businesses International, its global. I think it's important to remember that their leaders and businesses of all kinds, smaller to mid sized businesses actually add more jobs, then major business, you know, we think about the big multinationals, but they actually employ fewer people than smaller businesses globally. And there's Every business has its leader and its set of leaders, and every business has its impacts. I was very impressed by Paul Polman, who is the former CEO of Unilever, who set the wonderful goals for Unilever while he was CEO and the next guy who co says he's going to follow them. They're going to bring half million small farmers into their supply chain to give them stable income, they would set really amazing environmental goals and so on. So that's great if a large company assesses its real impacts, and there's been a little bit of a fiction that accountants have sold to businesses, which is called externalities, which means that your environmental impacts don't count. There's someone else's problem. I say, bullshit, they're your problem, if they're your impacts their responsibility. And also I've been tracking interesting data that shows the Gen Z and millennials care more than any generation in the past about those index companies, which means that who they want to work for this is about attracting talent, who they want to buy from this is about market share will be determined in the future by the company that has the least negative environmental impacts. And that means that you better start paying attention to that now be the first mover in your sector. Because then you'll have that advantage. And you can, you also need to get impartial verification of impacts because people young people particularly don't trust you to measure your own impacts. of there's something called Earth stir erster.org. That's just starting, which uses lifecycle assessment is a state of the art way to measure impacts, and will help you verify what your impacts are. find a better way to fix your supply chain or whatever it is your ingredients. How you do business and show people objective Li by an impartial measure you're doing. So that has to do with impacts for everybody, but particularly for the big ones, for the littler, smaller companies. I think that being aware of your impacts, being a B Corp, for example, or thinking about, is there a way we're helping people? Is there a way we're helping the environment? And to keep that in mind to demonstrate it for any leader at any size company is not only good ethically, I think it's a business imperative, particularly going into the future.

kevin edwards  52:26  
Absolutely. I couldn't agree with you more. And you know, like you said, evolving and changing to present day and age with our emotional intelligence is also just like capitalism, like our phones, oftentimes, our phones need to be updated. And when you think about productivity, storytelling from a leadership perspective, millennials and Gen Z's, they just want transparency. And if your organization is transparent in what you do, you know, they're gonna come to your organization, they could be be mission aligned, they could be more productive in the workplace, it just manifests throughout the whole company.

Daniel Goleman  52:59  
Well, I think they want transparency plus, Kevin, they want 90 plus good intention. And they want proof of that intention that you're doing. You're not just saying it greenwashing. But you actually believe it? Or

kevin edwards  53:12  
not? And no doubt, no doubt, I'm building this course right now. Daniels called the impact methodology, I imagine and model p profitability, a accountability, see, customers, transformation. Now accountability is something you talked about earlier. And that is this fictional idea of accountability. Well, what are we responsible for? Are we just responsible for assets and liabilities? Or are we responsible? And do we take more accountability for our impact on the environment, our impact on society, wages, the community, all of those things? Why are we tracking in today's day and age?

Daniel Goleman  53:46  
I love that. And I recommend you chapter five enforced for good, because the Dalai Lama agrees with you. Yeah. He talks about transparency, responsibility and accountability, as essential, and it sounds like it's absolutely what you're saying.

kevin edwards  54:04  
Now, Daniel, what about profitability and the Dalai Lama, though? Why does he think profitability is as dangerous?

Daniel Goleman  54:10  
I think that he would agree that everybody needs to make enough profit, that you feed yourselves well, that you have money to invest in your company to grow it, that you give people a decent salary. I don't think he's in favor of billionaires actually. I don't think he sees any reason for a person to keep amassing wealth for wealth sake. He does say people only have one stomach. And what do you need all of that for? So in a way, he's a little bit subversive. He would like a compassionate capitalism.

kevin edwards  54:50  
Interesting, you know, cuz I think like profitability is like you can solve more problems that way. I think people have also this mindset of not profits, you know, to me, oh, yeah, this is saying something like that, you know,

Daniel Goleman  55:03  
I would agree with you, I would agree with you. And he would agree with you, if you use those profits for good, right? If you just if you just use those profits to get a bigger bank account, I don't think he would agree. So, you know, that's, that's, that's a little contrary to the kind of the way capitalism is playing out today.

kevin edwards  55:26  
Interesting, interesting. And I'll give the example of let's just take an intention, right. We talked about intention ending single use plastic. Well, what is this? So let's say you have a reusable straw, right? Right. So now you're eliminating all those people that hold those straws, they no longer have to buy a straw by making more money and selling more products and investing the more products that instantly use and making more profits for their own organization. They are intentionally solving that problem even more with the Dalai Lama disagree with that?

Daniel Goleman  55:59  
No, I don't think he would, because the writing the Prophet back in the solution. And by the way, I'm an advocate of something called a plastic pollution coalition. That wasn't just plant plastic pollution coalition, which is against single use plastics, trying to get towns states countries to ban them. Because you know, where they end up, they end up in the ocean, they end up in us they end up in animals, they kill fish. Plastics never decompose completely, because the petroleum oil and water don't mix. So plastics in the ocean end up in little beads, tiny microscopic beads called nurdles. And those noodles are eaten by everyone there. If you eat fish, you're eating nurdles, and I happen to love fish. So it's it's a question saving ourselves. And by the way, this is another issue that I think future generations will evaluate companies on how they relate to plastics, the petroleum industry is putting lots of money into plastic plants, because they see that the use of plastic for vehicles and so on is dropping, but the manufacturer of plastics is increasing. So they're increasing their capacity. But I think that it will bump up against the fact that younger people particularly know that plastics in the environment are no good for anyone. And that's where they all end up. And so I think they will start penalizing companies that don't do what you're saying?

kevin edwards  57:42  
Well, it's interesting, because you know, all these products are going to outlast us for generations, they're going to be here for hundreds and hundreds of years. And to think that you know, these microplastics like babies are being born with plastic in them. Just think about that for a second. Very sad.

Daniel Goleman  58:00  
Yeah, well, you know, each of us has a physiological load of industrial chemicals, plastics, as part of that. They The body was not designed for any of them. But we're carrying mercury in our body, we're carrying land, we're carrying all kinds of toxic chemicals. And it's in part because the government grandfathered the use in. In Europe, a lot of chemicals that industry would want to use are illegal. Not in the US. That's just another area where we got to get better at protecting people, not just companies.

kevin edwards  58:46  
So doc, with all this in mind, the existential questions, the internal questions. We've covered so much today, from our mindsets, to what's actually happening out there in the world. So with all this in mind, let's bring this home Doc, what is your definition of a real leader?

Daniel Goleman  59:05  
I think that a leader is anyone who has a sphere of influence. We're all leaders in our own lives. May be with your kids, your family, your friends, that's a sphere of influence. You can change how people think how they see the world what they do what they believe. And if you go into an organization, that sphere enlarges, if you're a designated leader, then you have a particular scope of leadership may be your team or division. You may be an emergent leader, which is someone who's not the explicit leader, but he was very influential. That means people listen to you and what you say matters to people. So I equate leadership with influence.

kevin edwards  59:56  
As well said doc will appreciate you come on the show. Hopefully you can Stick around to answer a few of our guests questions love. Questions flying in here for Dr. Daniel Goleman. I'm Kevin, our is asked me to go out there be your own sphere of influence. And always folks keep it real. Thanks, Doc.

Daniel Goleman  1:00:14  
Great, thanks. My pleasure.

kevin edwards  1:00:17  
And thank you get people for hanging on to this episode of the real leaders podcast with Dr. Daniel Goleman. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. And folks, if you didn't know by now, all of these episodes are streamed live for your enjoyment on crowdcast. And on our LinkedIn channels. All you got to do is go online to really there's dot com slash podcast where you can RSVP for an upcoming episode with people like Michael Franti, Seth Goldman, or Shadi before the CEO path water. Again, folks, really there's dot com slash podcast where you can RSVP and be a part of the conversation. That's it for me. Thanks for being a real leader. And stay tuned for the next episode.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai