On the cusp of the release of the 25th-anniversary edition of his New York Times best-selling book, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ, Dr. Daniel Goleman is launching the First Person Plural: EI & Beyond podcast. The podcast promises to go beyond the theory of emotional intelligence, presenting an array of stories that illuminate how emotional intelligence is being put into action.
“A key component of emotional intelligence that is so particularly relevant these days, with crisis on top of crisis is resilience, or what we call emotional balance,” said Dr. Goleman. “It’s handling your upsetting emotions so that you can think clearly and stay calm, despite the craziness that’s going on.”
Beginning November 24, Key Step Media is launching a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to curve the production costs for the first season, which will serve as a resource to those experiencing heightened levels of stress and uncertainty.
Daniel Goleman will be co-hosting with his son Hanuman Goleman. This will be the father and son duo’s podcasting debut, propelled by their desire to share the emotional intelligence tools with as many people as possible and help them meet the challenges of the day.
“I believe that a lot of the crises that are happening are a result of or have a direct line back to a lack of emotional intelligence—a lack of empathy, self awareness and understanding of the ways that we impact the world,” said Co-host and producer Hanuman Goleman. “If this podcast can be a part of spreading the urgency of the need for emotional intelligence, then I’ll be very happy.”
The first few episodes will address a range of subjects from the social-emotional implications of online learning, to understanding the role of constructive anger when addressing racial injustice, and how to foster wellness and resilience through change.
“I started out as a teacher,” said Dr. Goleman. “I later went into journalism, which I thought of as adult education, bringing information from a place where it was sequestered. My job was to translate for the general audience what was interesting, new, important, and might help improve lives.” Dr. Goleman continued, “I don’t think writing is enough these days. Podcasts are the new format for news, so I’m starting this podcast to continue educating the public on these topics.”
The 25th-anniversary edition of Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ will be available on December 8, 2020. The First Person Plural: EI & Beyond podcast, brought to you by Key Step Media, is scheduled to launch in early 2021.
Please direct press inquiries to:
Gabriela Acosta, Communications Lead and Executive Producer.
For the last few months, I’ve been working with a team of creative, passionate, and talented folks to conceptualize and develop a podcast about emotional intelligence and the systems we are all a part of. Hosted by Daniel Goleman and his son Hanuman Goleman, the First Person Plural: EI & Beyond podcastwill encourage us to be more self-aware and deepen our understanding of how our actions influence others at a time when we need it the most.
Emotional intelligence is personal for me.
Serving as an Executive Producer for this podcast is particularly meaningful because as a queer bi-racial Latina immigrant born at the tail end of a civil war in El Salvador (a tiny country in Central America), I’ve witnessed first-hand the aftermath of trauma. I’ve seen what it does to people and communities feeding disconnection, conflict, and violence. Trauma can also cause us to lose our sense of self and our ability to regulate our own emotions, often leading to challenging relationships with ourselves and others.
However, the skills of emotional intelligence serve as a countermeasure in trauma recovery teaching us to become more self-aware and attune to our emotions and inevitably enabling us to become more resilient over time. My experience has shaped me into a highly curious person, fascinated by people’s stories and the unique ways we each experience the world.
Executive Producer, Gaby Acosta attempting to work from home with her needy pets (pictured are orange tabby, Noah and husky, Kyra).
I don’t think I’m alone when I say that the events of the last year have left me mentally, emotionally, and physically exhausted.
We’ve all had to adjust to life in quarantine during a global pandemic. Racial violence and injustice are playing out on the global stage. We’re experiencing the devastating consequences of climate change in real-time. Oh, and did I mention that we’re amidst one of the most intense Presidential election cycles in U.S. history?
Still, contrary to what I expected, in the past six months, these events have motivated me. More than ever, I feel called to openly discuss the complex realities of 2020—to tell the stories of those suffering and thriving at the forefront of change to bring us all into the conversation.
Here is what I know from my own experiences with trauma: the societal tumult and volatility we’re experiencing can trigger old pain, causing deep anxiety and stress. All of us have a response to this stress: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Personally, when I reach my stress threshold, I tend to go into hibernation mode—I shut down or sleep to escape it all. As an adult with responsibilities, this response is not a viable solution. It’s also contradictory to my deep want to be part of creating change.
To stay rooted, calm, and focused and override my automatic stress response, I always rely on the tools of emotional intelligence.
If you’re new to the concept, finding emotional intelligence is like putting on a pair of glasses for the first time. EI offers us the tools to see ourselves and the world around us more clearly.
If you’re new to the concept, finding emotional intelligence is like putting on a pair of glasses for the first time. EI offers us the tools to see ourselves and the world around us more clearly. These new lenses adjust our focus and improve the way we navigate and engage with our surroundings. At the end of the day, this newfound clarity allows us to make better choices—we are better able to manage what enters our field of vision and decide how we want to proceed.
While I can’t control what’s happening in the world or my visceral emotional responses to current events, emotional intelligence has helped me find healthier coping mechanisms. As of late, I’ve doubled down on a regular mindfulness practice to strengthen my resilience and vitality. Rather than run away from my emotions, I acknowledge how they show up in my heart, mind, and body. I also lean more heavily on my relationships and community for moral and emotional support.
Because of the role EI plays in my life, I could not be more excited to be a part of this podcast and I am energized to share the wisdom that Dan, Hanuman, and all of our guests can offer. I believe this podcast has real potential to help people process what’s been happening in the world and to develop healthy tools that will support their wellbeing. We’ll address some highly-pertinent topics such as the challenges of social-emotional learning in the age of zoom schooling, how we can leverage constructive anger to create social change, and how our systems influence the environment.
I believe that emotional intelligence is the antidote to some of today’s biggest challenges like extreme isolation, animosity, and polarization. Author Robert Jones Jr. explains it beautifully when he said, “we can disagree and still love each other unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.” Our society would go a long way if we could all remember that we are all deserving of empathy, understanding, and human decency.
I haven’t heard back from my friend. Are they upset with me?
Worry is a natural response to an upsetting situation, the unknown, or if we’re run down and frazzled. It can be difficult to get a handle on distressing thoughts. Fixating on a worry can exact a toll on our brain and our body. It also affects our decision-making skills, even our relationships (spending too much time with a “worry wart” can be draining).
Human beings are endowed with a very large prefrontal cortex, which gives us the ability to do mental time travel. That means that we can anticipate the future and reflect on the past, which clearly has its advantages. But it can also create a lot of problems.
We can worry about the future. We can anticipate threats that don’t actually occur, which, in most cases, turn out to be far more significant than real threats.
Our brain on stress
When we’re under stress, the brain secretes hormones like cortisol and adrenaline that in the best scenario mobilize us to handle a short-term emergency, but in the worst scenario create an ongoing hazard for performance. In that case, attention narrows to focus on the cause of the stress, not the task at hand. Our memory reshuffles to promote thoughts most relevant to what’s stressing us, and we fall back on negative learned habits. The brain’s executive centers – our neural circuitry for paying attention, comprehending, and learning – are hijacked by our networks for handling stress.
In today’s over-stimulated, fast-paced culture, it’s very difficult to respond effectively to worry and stress. Our old habits kick in: we shut down, lash out, ruminate, stress eat, and on and on. But you can develop more positive responses to stress.
Write it down
In Paul Ekman’s book Emotions Revealed he encourages people to keep a log of regrettable angry episodes. Write down:
what the incident was about
how it happened
what set you off
and what did you do that you think you shouldn’t have done.
After a few journal entries, try to see the commonality in the triggers and responses. You’ll usually find a particular script that underlies what’s causing you to have a particular perception on certain situations, to cast people into roles that they really aren’t in, and to try to replay a plot that doesn’t really fit.
Exercise your mental muscle
Practice different mental exercises to calm the mind and body down after a stressful arousal. The more you practice, the easier you can recall these tools when you need it most. Try these very simple exercises when you’re stressed or angry:
Know your stress type
Stress hits each of us differently. Some of us feel it in our bodies. Others just can’t stop worrying. Knowing how you experience stress can help you find the most effective relaxation methods. Try different exercises, such as deep breathing, auto suggestion or sensory focus. See which methods work best for you.
Stop and see
Stress management expert Elad Levinson developed the stop and see practice for the overwhelmed executives he coaches. Try this:
Begin with a simple exercise of thoughtful observation.
How would I characterize my mind right now? What does it feel like?
If I had to guess its revolutions per minute, what would I guess?
Does it feel hot or cool?
If my mind were a river, would it be a lazy river or a rushing river?
Next, try a slow deep breathing exercise to calm the mind.
Inhale and count to 3, 4, or 5, depending upon how deep an inhalation you can take.
Now exhale, doing the same.
Try this for one minute.
Notice any differences in you body, or changes to the content of your thoughts.
The late New Zealand-based art director, Linds Redding has recently gained notoriety for his brutal rant against the soul-grinding culture of the advertising industry. He started a blog after he was diagnosed with inoperable esophageal cancer. Many of his posts reflected on his career – a rather impressive one in the creative field. Yet despite his accomplishments, he felt it was all a waste of time.
Redding wrote, “It turns out I didn’t actually like my old life nearly as much as I thought I did…Countless late nights and weekends, holidays, birthdays, school recitals and anniversary dinners were willingly sacrificed at the altar of some intangible but infinitely worthy higher cause. This was the con. Convincing myself that there was nowhere I’d rather be was just a coping mechanism. I can see that now. It wasn’t really important. Or of any consequence at all really. How could it be? We were just shifting product. Our product, and the clients. Just meeting the quota.”
Could that have been his understandably stark end-of-life perspective, or a legitimate warning to all who put pleasing the client and the company before their own wellbeing? And is this exclusive to the advertising industry?
Pushing yourself – or others – past their limits isn’t sustainable. Burnout, resentment, and backstabbing are common symptoms of work cultures that expect everyone work at a break-neck pace. But some of the most successful organizations recognize that productivity, profits and personal fulfillment are intertwined. Such a corporate mindset is often identified as “good work.”
Multiple Intelligences author, Howard Gardner defines good work as a combination of the three Es: excellence, ethics, and engagement. When what we do becomes good work, we love what we do at every level: we feel competent, happy, and that our efforts have meaning.
Creating a workplace that embraces the good work concept must start from the top. When Daniel Goleman spoke with Gardner in his Leadership: A Master Class video series, he asked him: What would a business leader look like who exemplified good work? Here’s an excerpt from their discussion.
Gardner: A business leader who exemplified good work is somebody who understood himself or herself, understood the corporation or company that they were in very well, knew something about their history, understood the domain and had some sense of the mega-trends going on in the world. You cannot be an excellent leader unless you’ve thought about this kind of knowledge, so that’s excellence.
Engaged means they really love their work. They want to do it. Their energy crystallizes other people, and the other people on their team love them and want to be with them. Charisma doesn’t hurt, but you ought to be able to inspire people even if you’re not charismatic, because of the way you behave.
And a person doing good work is someone who is always trying to do the right thing. The right thing, of course, involves the self, and it involves the company. But if it’s only about advancing the company, then it cannot be ethical. There are many things we could do to advance the company that are bad for the company in the long run, or bad for society.
Goleman: Well, I think I need to push back a little. Did I hear you say that you can’t be a good leader if all you care about is promoting the company?
Gardner: Of course you need to promote the company, otherwise you shouldn’t be the leader. But if you’re promoting the company at all costs, you’re not thinking about how the workers are being affected, what happens to the company in the long run, what are the externalities. If you’re not thinking about the people that might be hurt by what you do, then you certainly would not be an ethical leader, and it’s a continuing conversation. You never get to be ethical or not. There’s always an effort to try to figure out what is the right thing in the broader picture, and whom we respect over the long run.
Don’t Wait to Make a Change
If you find yourself in an organization or an industry that puts profit over people – and don’t know how to transition out of it – consider Gardner’s tips on developing a career using the good work model as a guide.
Decide what you really would like to spend your life doing. According to Howard, this is much more important than deciding what particular job to hold, as the employment landscape changes so quickly. Let’s say you went into journalism with plans to work for a newspaper or magazine. Those outlets may not exist in their traditional forms now, but you still might want to write about interesting things. You want to investigate and talk to people. So you have to say “Where could I carry that out?” and be very, very flexible about the venue and the milieu, but not flexible about what you really get a kick out of and where you excel.
Think about people whom you admire and respect. Then think about people whom you don’t want to be like. Consider why you admire certain people and why you’re repelled by others. If you can’t think of people you admire, that’s a warning sign. It’s not necessarily a warning sign about you; it’s a warning sign about the culture around you. Perhaps you’re in a situation where you can’t admire anybody at all, or the people you admire don’t do anything related to what you do.
Consider where you want to work. Then ask yourself, “Is this the kind of place where I can see myself in others and where I can see others in me?” For example: Say you have job offers from both a small startup company you believe in, and a large corporation with a worrisome reputation for treating employees unfairly. You might make five times more money in the latter position, but does that reflect who you are and where you want to be?
If you’re a coach working with people in career transition, help them approach their search through the good work lens by asking them these three questions:
How much of what you do now is good work?
What could you do to boost that percentage?
How could you develop your career to maximize good work?
Authentic leaders have developed a keen inner focus. They know what’s going on inside of themselves. They’re in touch with the relationship between their emotions and their actions. Most importantly, they possess a meta awareness – an awareness of awareness itself.
Bill George, Senior Fellow at Harvard Business School and author of Discover Your True North, has some interesting methodologies for helping leaders master their self-awareness. Here’s what he had to say about a practical technique to develop self-awareness in his recent conversation with Daniel Goleman.
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The Contemplative Leader
When I introduce the concept of inner focus, some people view it as being egotistical. I think it’s just the opposite. Most business leaders I know are incredibly focused, but they’re focused on their business goals. Inside they’re a mess. Why? Because they don’t take time to get clarity about what it is they’re trying to do and who they are. You can’t be a good leader until you have a real depth of awareness of who you are and what you’re about. Otherwise you’re just chasing your tail, so to speak.
All of us – not just leaders – are so outwardly oriented. We don’t truly know ourselves because we don’t spend any time on trying to know ourselves. We don’t take the time to examine why we react when X situation occurs. We just react according to our habits. Business as usual.
People often ask me, how do I gain self-awareness? For me, maintaining an introspective or contemplative practice has been essential to my success. I’ve been a meditator since 1975. I try to sit for at least a few minutes a day, twice a day.
Before that, I was a wreck. I was just chasing everything – 25, 50 objectives all at once. I had no sense of clarity. And when I began to meditate, I gained a sense of what’s really important. I learned to separate the wheat from the chaff. And I come out of it with a sense of clarity. Here are the three or four things that I really need to go focus on.
But I also got a much deeper sense of what I’m about and who I am, as well as a sense of wellbeing and tranquility. Without that sense of wellbeing you can’t really be an effective, focused leader. You can’t feel good about yourself if you continue to let ghosts from the past chase you.
Now, your contemplative practice doesn’t have to be meditation. It could be prayer. It could be talking with a loved one in great depth. It could be going for a jog to clear your head. It could be taking a long walk. I happen to like meditation, but I’m not saying that’s the only way.
More and more people whose likelihood depends on being creative and innovative continually are working for themselves. They’re freelancers, they’re consultants, they’re independent. But many can spend much of their time doing anything but creative work: drumming up new prospects, carving out time for administrative work, or getting up to speed on new projects. Freelancers also lack resources that their colleagues with traditional jobs may take for granted: team support, project managers, tech assistance, or training opportunities, to name a few.
Daniel Goleman spoke with Teresa Amabile in his Leadership: A Master Class video series about practical ways to cultivate your own successful creative career.
Skill Development
Pay attention to your skill development. Keeping your skills sharp is an important piece of creativity. Learning new things in your own area of expertise as well as outside of your strengths can spark new associations that lead to fresh ideas.
Get a Different Perspective
Engage with people who have different perspectives, or who come from different fields. That’s going to fertilize your creative thinking. Working with people who see things differently can also sharpen your problem solving skills by seeing new perspectives on challenges or tasks, forcing yourself to break out of mental habits.
Stay Motivated
Pay attention to your motivation. Try to feel excited about what you’re doing. If you find that your work is getting stale, look for new projects, new people to work with, or new things to do.
Small Wins
Focus on your daily progress. It’s easy to feel like you’re falling behind on our to-do list given a typical freelancer’s workload. That’s why it’s important to keep sight on your accomplishments – no matter how small they may seem. Keep a daily diary. Take two or three minutes at the end of the day to jot down what things you actually got done that day that moved things forward for you in projects that you care about. Maybe it’s something that you didn’t plan on getting done that day. But if it’s meaningful, if you can see your way learning, getting somewhere, doing something that matters to you or to people that you care about, keep track of it. Look back on your record of the progress that you’ve made and the enjoyment that you found in your work.
Become Aware of Obstacles
Take note of obstacles you encounter. Include mental blocks or moods. Find ways of overcoming them. Make a plan for the next day to build on the progress that you experienced the day before to refocus on your goals.
Leadership: A Master Class Training Guide offers more than nine hours of research findings, case studies and valuable industry expertise through in-depth interviews with respected leaders in executive management, leadership development, organizational research, workplace psychology, innovation, negotiation and senior hiring. Each module in the guide offers individual and group exercises, self-assessments, discussion guides, review of major points, and key actionable takeaway plans.
Create to Innovatedetails the latest research behind creativity and innovation and how leaders can drive these critical factors in any organization by creating and growing positive inner work lives for employees.
The classical training of mindfulness revolves around the four foundations or applications of mindfulness, depending on translation. These four foundations involve paying attention to inner experience, then outer, then both together without blending the two. It is so important to ground your bases in some form of well-established, or basic and classical truth.
Mindfulness of Body – bringing awareness, attention, or focus to breathing and bodily sensation
Mindfulness of Feeling – noticing the affect tone, such as pleasure or displeasure, that comes with every sense object, whether a sensation or a thought
Mindfulness of Mind – noticing when there is attachment (greed, judgement, wanting) present in the mind and when there is not attachment present
Mindfulness of Mental Objects/Phenomena – being mindful and attentive to any thought that arises and allowing it to pass away unobstructed, and eventually directing this observance through a much more in depth exploration of the true origins of that thought
“When I work with children,” says Kaiser-Greenland, “I teach them mindfulness is paying attention with kindness – first towards yourself, then to other people, then to everyone and everything.”
Kaiser-Greenland believes another way of defining mindfulness is that it’s a way of looking at the world; it’s attention, balance, and compassion. Always remember to check in on your mind. Is it cloudy? Dull? Alert? Judging? Are my actions or words consistent with who I would like to be or who I would like to become?
“What happens when we do this?” she asks, before drawing on activist Cornel West. “We are in the world in a different way. A way of looking leads to a way of being. We call that love on legs.”
View an excerpt from Susan’s speech here, or purchase the full streaming video here. To view the entire BHMY conference, it is exclusively available here.
Exciting, compelling, and grounded in new research on meditation, this is a rare audiobook with powerful insights that can change us at the deepest level.
The complete collection of 12 Emotional and Social Intelligence Leadership Competency primers, written by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and fellow thought leaders.
