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Hala: Hey, Dan, welcome to young and profiting podcast.

Dan: Oh, thank you. It's really my pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

Hala: I am super honored to have you on the show today to talk all things, emotional intelligence, you are literally the number one expert in the world when it comes to that topic. And so we're going to go super deep on EEQ today. But before we do that, I did want to get some insight on your background. It's pretty fascinating.

That you know, you actually have a lot of interest in the Eastern world and it impacted you as a child. And then later on in college and graduate school, you ended up traveling to India. And so there's no doubt that, you know, these different perspectives and getting exposed to meditation and mindfulness influenced your perspective on psychology and your work later on.

So talk to us about how you first got introduced to Eastern studies and what it was like growing up.

Dan: Well, I grew up, you know, my parents were college professors and my father's best friend was the, uh, [00:01:00] founder and head of the Oriental studies department at Berkeley. He was a guy, fascinating guy who had spent a lot of time in Asia. And I think osmotically, I got some interest there. My he and my father had met in a Sanskrit class.

As graduate students. So they had Eastern interests in common. And I think the big changer for me was when I met rom DUS. I dunno if you know the name Ron does, but he was a really important cultural. Or my generation, he had been, uh, a professor at Harvard and with, uh, Tim Leary, he'd been a big proselytizer for psychedelics, uh, and then went to India and, uh, became Randazzo, not Richard Albert.

I met him right after he returned and he'd become a serious student of Eastern disciplines. Uh, and he got me to go to India. I ended up being there for two years and studying. Eastern systems of thought and [00:02:00] working with the mind as psychologies. And this was a really radical thing back in the day today, maybe, you know, oh yeah, no, one's going to blink.

But in when I was doing it was what.

Yeah.

Well, you're like that doesn't make sense to anyone on my faculty. And, um, so, but I, my interest was meditation and the, the generation of people who founded like spirit rock and insight, meditation society, and brought mindfulness to America, like Jon Kabat, Zinn, Joseph Goldstein.

These are personal friends of mine from, from those days. And, um, we were doing something by being interested in mindfulness and meditation. Then that seemed really, um, beyond the fringe.

Hala: Yeah. Cause I was like the 1970 is right. And even just traveling to India, I think was a big deal, [00:03:00] especially for someone that young. Right. Uh, so what was it like when you in the 1970s, when you started

actually,

and all that?

Dan: Right. When I got to India, I found a lot of people like me, young Westerners, who mostly gone over his land. It was like a thing you did that in those days. And they were there because they had spiritual interest too. A lot of them have been like lifelong friends. There's one guy you might've heard of Christian Doss.

He's he's a famous singer now because he sings Indian. What are called budget and their chance at P color is very popular in the yoga scene. He was a guy I went to India with. So, uh, people who were in that first wave came back and started doing things like yoga studios, singing Indian chants, uh, mindfulness meditation, that then were like totally beyond the fringe.

And now our mainstream businesses are doing mindful. [00:04:00] You know, schools are doing mindfulness. It's not, not a revolutionary thing anymore, but at that point it was my dissertation. I went back to Harvard, uh, as a graduate student. My fellowship Tinder was from Harvard actually. Uh, and I did my dissertation on meditation and stress.

Very timely topic today, back then. People couldn't understand why I would put those two things together made no sense, but now it's been totally corroborated, like, oh yeah, that was a good idea.

Hala: Well, yeah, now it's like totally normal. But back then in the psychology world, especially it wasn't well received, like to talk about meditation and how it can change your brain. And they just thought that was kind of hogwash, right.

Dan: I was saved because there was one guy in the medical school, her Benson, uh, who had done a study of, uh, blood pressure and meditation. And he agreed to be on my dissertation committee. So because someone from the [00:05:00] medical school said it was okay, then I got to do it, but it was a little nip and tuck there for awhile.

Uh, yeah. And. Uh, and so when I graduated, I was really interested in theories of consciousness and the mind and Eastern theories meditation. Uh, but there was nowhere in the world of psychology faculty that I belonged. So I went into. And I ended up being a science journalist, uh, before I wrote emotional intelligence, by the way, for the record, I didn't come up with the phrase, emotional intelligence.

That's a friend of mine, Peter salivate. Who's now the president of Yale. He and a graduate student wrote a little article. They're very obscure journal called emotional intelligence. And at the time I was in the science desk at the New York times, and my job was to read even obscure journals and see what was new and interesting.

I thought, wow, what a great phrase. That was how I got to write the [00:06:00] book. Emotional intelligence.

Hala: Yeah. And so I knew that you weren't the one who coined the phrase, but you really made it popular. I mean, you wrote the book in 1995, it was a New York times bestseller. It was translated in over 40 languages. And I feel like the masses came to know about emotional intelligence from you. So, uh, you really set off a global movement there.

How did that feel when you released that book? Uh, the first, you know, did it take off right away or did it kind of build up to take.

Dan: In anticipation. I thought I better sell another book before that book flops. I had no idea it would be it, you know, it was on the cover of time magazine. Uh, it got huge press because the people were ready for the idea that there's a different kind of intelligence than IQ that matters enormously for how well you do in life.

And that's emotional intelligence, how you handled yourself, how you handle your relationships. It makes [00:07:00] all the difference. So if you, uh, you know, If you look at engineers, for example, this is new data and you ask engineers to rate each other and how effective they are as engineers. It turns out the zero correlation to their IQ and very high correlation to their emotional intelligence. You, the person you work for, the boss you love is someone with emotional intelligence. The employee that you want is someone with emotional intelligence. They manage themselves well. They keep their eye on their goals. They're positive, no matter what happens, they recover from stress. They empathize. They tune into other people.

They get along with other people. They're great on teams. You know, this, this is the kind of person you want in your organization. And by the way, it's a kind of person you want in your space.

Hala: Yeah, 100%. I mean, emotional intelligence is such an important quality, especially, you know, in 2022 and beyond, I feel like as people are looking for soft skills and technical skills get automated, [00:08:00] emotional intelligence is more important than ever, but let's rewind back to 1995. When you first put out this book, w w what was the history of emotional intelligence before that point?

And also, why was it so innovative at that time?

Dan: Sure. So the book emotional intelligence is highly speculative. There was not really any research to speak of on emotional intelligence per se. There were con there was converging data. Actually, I drew a lot on the decade of. Before 95 on the brain and emotions, which was a new field then, uh, and, uh, that was really the basis of my book.

And I brought, I wove in every other finding I could come up with, you know, uh, fine. It w it took a lot of work to do. However, once I put it together, it struck a chord. And since then, there's a ton of research on emotional [00:09:00] intelligence. In fact, I'm just agreed to do a book pulling together 25 years of research on the topic, uh, because there's a critical mass.

Now that shows, yes, this is the kind of. Uh, this is the set of abilities that leaders need entrepreneurs need. This is the set of abilities that you need to do well. Uh, no matter what it is you do, and this is the set of abilities that organizations need to, to, uh, encourage, as you say, AI is encroaching on human abilities, but I don't think it will ever take over the emotional intelligence space.

Hala: Um, yeah, it is very, very key as, as things go on. So let's talk about the reason why you put out this 25th anniversary edition. You released a 25th anniversary edition in 2020. Why did you decide to do that? I know you wrote a new introduction. What, what had changed over 25 years that you needed to reintroduce the topic again?[00:10:00]

Dan: Well, a couple of things that happened in 25 years. That's a long time. First of all, business had embraced the topic. There's a mini industry of consultants and testers and so on. And emotional intelligence. It's really everywhere. You mentioned that it's global. Uh, I've been doing a lot recently, for example, in Brazil because the topic has taken off like crazy there, Latin America, Asia, Europe, it's all over.

Uh, and that's new. It's. Nobody heard of it in 1995. Another place that, uh, I'm happy to say that it's really found footing is schools worldwide. There are many, many schools that now teach what's called social emotional learning, which. You know, the four parts of emotional intelligence, self-awareness managing yourself, tuning into other people, putting that together and social scale and relationships.

Kids are learning this in school. And I think that's, I [00:11:00] think that's very important because there's a neurological window of opportunity. The emotional and social circuitry of the brain does not become fully mature anatomically until mid twenties, which is you can help kids. How, you know, that circuitry get it right in the first place, instead of like people pass 25, if you want to get better, you can, but it takes a double effort because you have to overcome the bad habits you learned and then replace them with good ones.

Uh, and that basically is possible, but it takes a lot more effort than it would have if you had started this.

Hala: Yeah. So speaking of learning, it's, it's pretty interesting to me that that E Q emotional intelligence, you can actually learn it. It's not something that you're just like born with and you're stuck with like IQ is so talk to us about the difference between ETQ and IQ in terms of how you can actually improve your skills.

Dan: Well, I Q pretty much a stable [00:12:00] throughout life. It's index. Some say of how quickly you can learn something and people are, are born. You know, we have genetic differences and some people inherit, uh, pretty quick speed. And some people have a less quick speed and it may vary for math and language and so on, but basically.

Whatever your IQ is. As a kid is pretty much you'll have through life. However, emotional intelligence is learned and learnable

Mm.

life. And that's, I find that very encouraging because, you know, let's say you're starting a company or you're a manager somewhere, and you realize that, uh, you know, you need to get better at least.

Poor listings like the common cold of people. Just like there, you're thinking too much about what you're going to say, or you interrupt the person and take over the conversation. That's bad listening. So in order to overcome that, you need to be a [00:13:00] motivated, ask yourself, do you really care? Do you want to do this?

If the answer is no, give up. If the answer is yes, you keep going and you come up with a specific plan. This is important because this is really habit change, uh, at a granular level. So you're going to be mindful. And every time you notice that you're about to take over a conversation, or you're not really listening, you remind yourself, oh no, I'm going to do it better this time.

So. You're both inhibiting the habit that didn't work and you're encouraging a new way of doing it. And you want to do that as often as naturally occurs well, might be with your partner. It might be with your kids. It might be at work doesn't matter. The brain doesn't distinguish, but the more you practice and the more often you practice, the stronger the new habit becomes.

And, uh, you know, neuroplasticity is the name for this in neuroscience. The [00:14:00] brain, uh, sometimes it's called use it or lose it. The more you practice a behavioral sequence, the stronger, the neuronal connections for that become that's what doing at a brain level. When you practice a new way of being promotional intelligence, and you can do it at any point.

Hala: Yeah. And I have to imagine, like what you're saying right now reminds me of what a lot of people say related to meditation, that meditation actually helps you create it's like that neuroplasticity can happen with meditation. Can you explain the connection between meditation and emotional intelligence? Um,

Dan: I don't know if there's a direct connection. I would connect it in a co in two places. One is a meditation and mindfulness, or is applied. Self-awareness self-awareness is the first domain of emotional intelligence. You're getting to know yourself intimately. The second [00:15:00] has to do with empathy and presence to the person you're with, because it helps you pay full attention to the person in front of you.

And that's the basis of rapport. If you don't have that attention, if you're looking at you. Not going to happen. You're not going to have rapport with a person. So those are two ways. I think it helps, but there are others too. For example, uh, my, uh, PhD work was on meditation and stress reactivity, and I found that people who meditated wasn't that they didn't react to stress, but they recovered more quickly.

And now that's been very well established over 25 years of studies that people who meditate regularly, uh, Keep that thing that upsets you in their mind, you know?

they're more like

hour later at a later middle of the night later, it can drop it. And that's when thing you practice in meditation. And I did a book called altered traits with a friend of mine from graduate [00:16:00] school, Richard Davidson.

Who's now a neuroscientist at the university of Wisconsin, and we looked at all the best studies on meditation. And it's very clear that there's a dose response effect, meaning the morning. The better the benefits are. And we see that as being, uh, due to, uh, due to, uh, sorry. I just realized my computer wasn't plugged in.

That's okay.

Yeah. Uh, we see that as due to that practice effect, that is the more hours you put in, the more, the more strong the circuits for meditating become, and basically you're reshaping your brain. And when he studied yogis, these are like, uh, Olympic level practitioners. Uh, he found that the brains actually operate differently than most people's brains in a very good way.

Hala: Yeah, it's super interesting. Meditation is so useful in so many ways. So I do want to make sure that my [00:17:00] listeners get a really good foundation of emotional intelligence. So how would you describe an emotionally intelligent person?

Dan: Well, let's go through the four parts.

Okay.

Uh, the first part is self-aware the emotionally intelligent person has self-aware. Which means they know what they're feeling, why they're feeling it, how it's shaping, how they perceive the world and what they do, or what their impulses to do. They also have a view of themselves that fits how other people see them. You know, we find that people who, uh, have a big gap between how others see them and how they see themselves, don't do. Emotional intelligence as well, but people who have very little or no gap turn out to be pretty emotionally intelligent than the. Part of it is how you handle yourself. Self-mastery if you will.

And this has to do with dealing with stress and today, everybody is stressed out of their minds. Do you carry it with you? Does it [00:18:00] multiply or can you drop it and leave it behind and go onto the next thing? Uh, that's the emotionally intense. Way of handling it. Are you able to stay positive? No matter what happens do you see, uh, do you have a growth mindset?

You see yourself in other people as able to get better, not just dismiss yourself or others as you are now. Uh, and, um, uh, are you able to keep your eyes on your goals? Whatever they may be despite the distractions of the day. Very important. You wouldn't be doing what you're doing now. If you didn't have that, by the way.

Correct.

Yeah. Oh, I can self motivate, uh, anytime of the day. Any, any minute, any hour.

Exactly. They have a successful podcast. You need that, uh, drive to achieve to achieve your goals. Then the third part of emotional intelligence is empathy tuning into other people. Uh, there are three kinds cognitive [00:19:00] knowing what they're thinking, how they see the world, emotional, knowing what they feel because you feel it too.

And then. Empathic concern, which means you care about them. It's not just that, you know, what they think and feel, but you want, what's good for them. And as I said earlier, this is what you want in your partner. Uh, and the people you work with in your boss and your employees, you want people to care about other people, uh, you know, the brand me only me really doesn't cut it.

It turns out to be selfish then. Putting that all together, how you manage yourself, how you see your awareness of yourself and other people into your relationship skills, very important part to, are you able to persuade and influence people to come around your point of view? If you need to cue inspire them to give their best effort by articulating from your heart to their.

A shared sense [00:20:00] of meaning and purpose. That's very powerful. If you can do that, are you a good team player? You know, do you get along well with other people? Can you say the, the thing that needs to be said, even if it isn't. Just right now, by the way, there's a difference between being nice and being kind, I think being nice just means do whatever will help you get along.

And it's not actually that helpful being kind might mean bringing up that one thing that needs to be said, even though it's uncomfortable in the moment and, uh, you know, good teams, high performing teams have that social contract with each other. They can do that with each other. And people are mostly intelligent will do that to naturally. Uh, and then there are things like being able to help resolve conflicts. Uh, that's sometimes a tough one. So, you know, there are all these different aspects. I call them competencies that are based in emotional intimacy. [00:21:00] That actually research shows many people outstanding performers in the workplace. So if you're going to be an entrepreneur and start up your own organization, or if you're going to join an organization, be a manager, you want to be on a ladder to leadership.

These are the skills that you want.

Hala: Oh, yeah, 100%. So I feel like some people get emotional intelligence a little bit wrong. They think of it as I need to suppress my emotions. Like emotions are bad. And I think some people think that if they just eliminated emotions, it'd be this like perfect logical human being and rational and make the best decisions.

But emotions actually have a lot of value. So can you talk to us about the value that emotion. Ah,

Dan: Let me say emotional intelligence is not being a robot. Emotions are important signals to us from ourselves memo. I'm getting sad memo. [00:22:00] I'm a little anxious. Now these are memos to ourselves. I'm getting angry. It's really important to know what your emotional reality is. On the other hand, there's a critical choice point after, you know, and acknowledge the emotion, which is what you do and say there you want to be.

Skillful. So, you know, in these social, emotional learning classes, SEL when things I love is a poster that's on the wall of the classroom. It says if you're getting upset, remember the stoplight red light, yellow light green light red light stop. Think before you act. Very important. That means take that choice point and think of what you, yellow light think of a range of things you might do and what the consequence might be.

Greenlight pick the best one and try it out with a good advice for a five-year old or a 50 year old, frankly, [00:23:00] you know, life is full of those moments when we're we have this impulse. But, you know, sometimes you're sitting at the keyboard and you experience what's called cyber disinhibition. Meaning if you were face to face, you'd never say what you're about to send.

That person happens too often, but because you aren't the brain, doesn't get a feedback signal for facial expression, tone of voice from the other person you're going blind. So very often we send things. Uh, a text or an email that we regret the hallmark of a demotion will hijack where your worst emotions make you do something, is that you feel bad about what you, did you feel guilty or regret or remorse?

I wish I hadn't said it. I wish I hadn't done it. I wish I hadn't hit send,

Yeah.

you know, so. Having [00:24:00] that pause point. This is where mindfulness is very helpful by the way, because that helps us recognize the pause point and give us an internal range of choice that we wouldn't have otherwise.

Hala: Yeah, well, let's stick on this for a second. What happens to our brain? And atomically when we're in distress, when we're super anxious, like let's say let's use that example. I just told somebody off in an email. I didn't think I just got angry, hit the send button. And now, you know, what, what happens to our brain in those

Dan: Okay. So let me get a little technical here. Uh, the emotional centers have a structure called the amygdala. The amygdala does many things, but one of it is that it's the brain's radar for threat in a. Pre-history the amygdala helped us survive. You know, that rustle in the bushes could be something that eats us.

So we better run immediately. Today has the same wiring. It has a privileged position in the architecture of our [00:25:00] brain. So. Perceives a threat. It can take over the thinking brain, the prefrontal cortex, the executive seven or the boss of the brain just behind the forehead. The executive center is where we make good decisions, where we comprehend, where we think rashly, where we plan.

Uh, but the amygdala is just rife with anxiety and anger. It has the feelings that make us want to do something right away. And if it thinks there's a threat and by the way, today it's reacting to symbolic threats. This guy's not treating me fair. How could they, you know, leave me out or whatever it is, those are the things that trigger us today, but we have the same biological reaction.

So the amygdala freezes the prefrontal cortex and it often makes mistakes about whether or not there's a real danger and it has a haircut. Decision role, it would rather be safe than sorry. So it makes us do things [00:26:00] like send that email. Cause I was so mad and realize that I'm really mad, pause and think, well now what should I do?

Yeah. So we have this thinking and this feeling brain, right? So the feeling brain, I think people also call it the reptilian brain, right?

Well, the reptilian brain is actually below the mammalian brain, which is where the emotional centers are in that model of the brain. But it doesn't matter. It's. Yeah, it's it's ancient brain. You know, the, the thinking brain, the neocortex one theory holds is an add on instinct accessory to the emotional brain to help us survive.

There's a different way of thinking about thinking,

Yeah.

because in, uh, evolution, the emotional brain is what helped us make it from day to day.

Hala: Yeah, because, because you actually can learn from your different [00:27:00] memories, right? Like, so if you touch a hot stove, when you were a kid you learned from that memory and you never did it again, and you remember the emotion tied to that memory, right.

Dan: Oh, here's another thing about amygdala hijacks, which I was describing to you. One of the things that shifts is your hierarchy of memory. So you're going to remember the time you touch the hot plate, uh, as a two year old, more than. Uh, all the things you can do right now that would have a better outcome.

That's why you need to pause because your impulse is going to be whatever the jerk response comes from.
That emotion.

Hala: Yeah. So like, basically, even if the circumstances are changed, your gut reaction is going to be, you know, stove is bad, even though, you know, stove can cook your food.

Dan: Exactly.

Hala: Yeah, super interesting stuff. I mean, um, let's talk about, hold on, let me see where I want to go with this. We [00:28:00] covered a lot of ground already.

Um, let's talk about how we can start to get a better handle of our emotions. Um, how, what is the first step in developing our emotional internal. Wow.

Dan: Well, I think the first step is what I was mentioning earlier, which is to assess your own. Motivation. Is this really a goal you care about? Uh, because the reason it's important is it takes time and it takes effort. Um, my, my, I have a colleague Richard Boyatzis who teaches at case Western reserve. He has MBA students and he takes them through a learning process for emotional intelligence, but it takes three to six months. However, if they completed after three to six months, They're automatic responses, the new way of doing things, the better way of doing things, he's gone back and assess them seven years later, wherever they are and had people who work with [00:29:00] them, ablate them to get an honest, you know, reading of how they're doing.

And he finds it. What they learned back then. Is still the case. They still implement it that way. So emotional intelligence learning if you do it right. Really stick. So the first step is to ask yourself, does this matter to me? And if the answer is yes, then go ahead. Second step. I would recommend getting, uh, other people's reading of what your strengths are and where you're limited in this domain.

The reason is that you can fool yourself. Just evaluating yourself. If you have a blind spot, you will not see it by definition. Other people can see it. Uh, and maybe you have a good friend or friends. Help you think this through, if you work in a company they may have, what's called a 360 assessment, uh, where people who you choose will evaluate you anonymously and you'll get the data aggregated.

It gives you a [00:30:00] profile of strengths and weaknesses. And by the way, I have an instrument for doing this. It's called the emotional and social competence inventory. It's a 360 4, the competencies of emotional intelligence, but there are many, many, three sixties, many organizations have their own, but I would recommend that as a second step.

And then look at the feedback. This is. Many people take it as a judgment or criticism. Actually, you should think of it as news to use almost never in life. You get a candid assessment like this, of what your strengths are and your limitations. So this is golden information and you can use it to think.

Where would the biggest bang for the buck be from.

Um,

Maybe it's listing. As I said before, in which case you would develop a specific learning plan, you do it one thing at a time, you don't try to take on the whole of [00:31:00] your emotional intelligence. It's overwhelming do one, one at a time. And so let's say you want to be a better listener and you have a plan.
Whenever the opportunity arises, I'm going to listen to the person out and then say what I think they said, then say what I say, that's the new habit. Once you were a good listener.

Yeah,

then the last thing is you practice it every naturally occurring opportunity. Those are the steps to improvement.

Hala: yeah. Reps are, are definitely key in all of this. So a lot of this is about. Understanding your emotions, you know, self-evaluating so what about inner dialogue? Is there a right way and a wrong way to kind of speak to ourselves when we're trying to understand our emotions and kind of self regulate?

Dan: Uh, right way and hurt wrong way to speak to ourselves. And self-regulate whoa. Yeah, I think the wrong way is say. Um, I'm, I'm stressed out, I'm anxious and [00:32:00] I'm angry and frustrated and I'm a bad person because of it. Other words, the worst thing is inner judgment, self judgment. Uh, the much better way to handle negative emotions is to acknowledge them.

Oh, I'm feeling anxious right now. What can I do? I'm feeling angry right now. What should I do? That's a much better way to react. So I would say self blame, guilt, self judgment, uh, is the wrong road to take acknowledging feelings saying, okay, uh, hello, anxiety. Here you are. Again, my little friend is what I'm gonna do.

And there are a lot of ways to handle anxiety. Many, many ways. Meditation is one. Yoga is one find out what relaxes you. But another thing that your listeners might want to check out, uh, I [00:33:00] have an assessment of what are called stressors or hassles to refreshers. Think about your day. What part of your day allows you downtime?

Do you take your dog for a walk every day? Do you spend time with someone you love? Uh, do you, uh, go for a walk in nature? These are all things that put you in. What's called a parasympathetic mode, which is a body of rests and recovers, as opposed to the sympathetic nervous system arousal, which is anxiety, anger, frustration, and our days.

You know, the way things have gone have too much of that. We need to have a balance. The body was designed for the balance. This is called the personal sustainability index. Maybe you can put it in your show notes for people that want to check it out.

Hala: Yeah, I definitely will. And since you're talking about anxiety, I love a good productivity hack on young and profiting. And I found out that anxiety and performance are [00:34:00] actually related. Can you talk to us about the upside down you and how anxiety and performance are interrelated?

Dan: Well, I would say that, uh, you need to make a distinction right away between good and bad stress. Useful anxiety like anticipatory anxiety. I've got a test or I'm giving a presentation or going on shark tank or something that's stressful, but the anxiety about it mobilizes you to prepare that is so useful.

That's absolutely essential to succeeding. However, if the stress becomes overwhelming, It's unremitting. You never have a chance to recover. You know, those refreshers I was talking about, you get emotionally exhausted. You burn out that is bad stress. So the better, the good use of anxiety and stress is when you see it as helping you get ready for a challenge.

That's golden. The bad stress is when it's just wiping [00:35:00] you out and it doesn't help you recover at all that lowers your immunity that makes you an anxious person. It makes you irritable. It makes you do snap decisions that you regret later. Uh, so make the distinction right off the bat.

Hala: Yeah. I mean, I imagine these interviews are always like a little bit of good stress for me. You know, you stress out, you study and then it just happens. And.

Dan: Yeah. It's like bringing school, right? You've got the test.

Hala: Yeah. Um, so a couple of more questions in relation to kind of self-regulation how do we self motivate? What are your best tips for that?

Dan: Well, I would zoom out from self motivation and look at your sense of purpose and meaning, does this really matter to you? That's the deeper motivation, if this fits your sense of purpose and meaning, and by the way, re I've just seen some really interesting data that suggests it doesn't matter what your job [00:36:00] is or your role is.

If you have a strong sense of your purpose, you'll find a way to make that job or a role fit your purpose. Having a sense of what we call purposefulness is a great motivator. No matter what you're doing. The weaker motivators, turn out to be things like salary promotion. They they'll give you, uh, you know, a little, uh, A bit of a boost for a while, but then they don't really matter that much to you.

So w it's what's called an inner motivation. Intrinsic motivation is the best way to get yourself going. See how, what you're thinking of doing helps you get to where you want to go in the long run.

Um,

That's the inner motivation.

Hala: yeah, that's, that's super helpful. Um, so another mood lifter, you talk in your book that you actually say is kind of like an oxymoron is a good cry. So a lot of people [00:37:00] think that, you know, you have a good cry. You actually feel better. Talk to us about why that might not be true.

Dan: Well, there's another theory and data, both ways, which suggests that the more you practice, any behavioral sequence like crying is behavior, the stronger, the pathways that support it become. So it may be the, you know, letting your anger. Giving yourself a cry, a good cry may make you just more susceptible to anger and crying.

So that that's the way in which it may not work. On the other hand, there's a catharsis theory and I'm not going to take a stand here. The catharsis theory says, uh, you know, let it out, have a cry, and then you'll feel better afterward. And I'm not sure that we really know which is right. So I think which is right for you is.

Hala: Yeah. You just going to have to see what works for [00:38:00] you. I don't know. I feel like sometimes I feel better after I cry. Let's just get it all out. I think, I think men and women are different about it too. I'm
Yep. Yep.

Um, so you, something else that I want to talk about is how to actually recover from an argument.
So I think this is really hard for people, you know, they have a bad argument and they want to just like get over it. What's the best way to do.

Dan: Uh, well, two senses in which you get over it. One is you get over it inside yourself. The other is your repair, your relationship and get over it that way. Which one are you asking?

um, I'm talking about getting over yourself and then we can talk about how to, you know, yeah.

I would say that the recipe for getting over an argument is the same as getting over any negative emotion, which is dropping it, uh, acknowledging. And letting it go. And you may need to sit with it for a little while, but you don't want to stew in it. You want to go [00:39:00] on and going this. This is very interesting.

This is one way meditation helps you because in meditation, no matter what kind you're doing, the universal instruction is as your mind wanders, bring it back. Which means ROP wherever your mind went, that's practice and dropping it. And remember the, uh, the neural principle, the more you practice something, the stronger, your ability for that becomes.

So getting over an argument, which may really shake you up by the way, because you care about the relationship and the person, uh, getting over the argument is a tough one. But I think it demands more of your ability to shift mood, which can be practiced and, and can be strengthened. And it's shifting mood.

By the way you can do in two ways. One is to replace it with something that makes you feel good. Uh, like, okay. I had an argument with [00:40:00] so-and-so, but I'm going to, uh, spend some time with my pet cat, who always makes me feel better. That's one way, the trouble with that is after, during the cat, the argument may come back in

Hala: it didn't solve anything. Yeah.

Dan: uh, and maybe the better way is to, uh, handle the emotion by acknowledging it, and then letting it go learning to let.

Hala: Um, and I have to imagine, especially with relationships, empathy has a lot to do with, you know, being good at this relationship management. Uh, so

Dan: Yeah, let me say there's a third strategy, which you just alluded to here, which has to do with empathy, cognitive empathy, understanding the other person's perspective, saying, oh, well maybe this argument doesn't mean he doesn't like me anymore. Maybe it's because of this thing or that thing that's happening in his life or her life.[00:41:00]

And this is kind of, what's called cognitive reframing and that can sometimes be very helpful.

Yeah. So talk to us about the different, um, M like there's three different types of empathy, as far as I understand. Can you tell us about the three different types and how you use.

Well, I mentioned it earlier. Cognitive empathy means I understand your perspective. I know how you think about it, and it might be really useful in getting over that argument you just had, as you can think. Uh, well, maybe she gotten mad at me because of this other thing that doesn't have to do with me really has to do with her emotional empathy.

It means that I feel what you feel and it's because. The brain is wired to lock in and form an emotional bridge with the brain of the person you're with. It happens instantly and unconsciously spontaneously. You don't do it. It just happens. [00:42:00] That makes you able to feel what that other person feels. Uh, and you may have a lot of emotional reverberation after that argument because that person is upset you, right?

So you want to be able to manage that emotional aftereffect better, and then there's concern, caring about the other person. So you had an argument with that person. You want to help yourself, but do you want to help the other person. If you really love that other person, or you care about that or the person, the answer is probably yes. And this may help you come up with a strategy for mending the relationship in a better way.

Hala: Um, and so interesting because you think about people who might not care. And, and those are like the really bad people in the world, right. Who know all the ways they can manipulate people with emotional intelligence, but then they don't [00:43:00] have that one piece of empathy. In terms of, they

No.

about other people.

Dan: Uh, you're talking about sociopath is really that they have deep, they have a defective emotional intelligence. They don't have true empathy. They have a manipulative empathy. And by the way, there's a premium on that in politics. I'll say more about.

Hala: All right. As we close out this interview, I'd love to understand from you why emotional intelligence is so important to society as a whole. Cause I know there's some, some really interesting things in terms of crime rates related to eat and, and just different ways that it can impact society in ways that people didn't necessarily think about before.

Dan: Well, my view is that a more emotionally intelligent society would be a better world to live in, which is why I'm really a big advocate of teaching this in school to kids. So they get it right in the first place, because think about it. People who can manage themselves. Better, uh, who [00:44:00] can tune in and care about other people who can get along with other people and to help them as well as themselves.

Uh, those are the kinds of people you want to go through life with. Those are the kinds of people you want in your family as a partner, those kind of people you want as a, co-parent the kind of person you want in your business as your business partners, as your employees, as your bosses. So I think that it's emotional intelligence really is a recipe for a better system.

Hala: Hmm. And then in terms of the data, how does EEQ translate into organizational performance in areas like sales and leadership and things?

Dan: Well, yeah, well, I'm just pulling together 25 years of studies that show that, uh, being emotional intelligence makes people better in sales for obvious reasons. Uh, better leaders. Better team members, uh, and organizations that have a culture of emotional intelligence do better by hard measures like profit and growth.[00:45:00]

Hala: Hmm. I love that. All right. So I end all of my interviews with the same couple of questions, and then we do some fun things at the end of the year with them. So what is one actionable thing our listeners can do today to become more profitable tomorrow?

Dan: Manage yourself better. Keep your eye on your goal. Don't be so distracted

Hala: Ooh, I love that. And what is your secret to profiting in life?

Dan: care about other people. Be open, be empathic, but became.

Hala: That's great advice. And where can our listeners go to learn more about you and everything that you do, Dan?

Dan: Well, I do have a podcast it's called first person plural. Uh, and, um, I welcomed me there. I have a newsletter it's free on LinkedIn and I update what I'm thinking about in the newsletter. Um, LinkedIn blogs and I just started a new [00:46:00] organization called Goldman consulting group. Uh, and you can find me there too.

Hala: awesome. So we'll stick all those links in the show notes. Thank you so much, Dan, for your time and your wisdom. Appreciate.

Thank you. Wonderful talking to you. What a pleasure.

Dan: Likewise. Awesome. Awesome.