Welcome to my newsletter, Emotional Intelligence with Daniel Goleman

I’m delighted to share with you matters close to my heart, ideas that I find stimulating, and some practical tips and leads that you might find useful. At the heart, of course, you’ll find emotional intelligence. But my interests also go far beyond; you’ll get a taste of that range here. PLUS news you can put to use in your life or work – or in both. Please join me each month.

Let's dive in...

Sanity in Lockdown

HOW MANY PEOPLE YOU TALK TO THESE DAYS ARE WORRIED, PANICKED, OR SIMPLY AFRAID?

We’re all grieving these days, whether for someone who has passed away, or the loss of a job, or simply the absence of the way life used to be just a month or two.

Many of us are angry, too, at the ways we are being forced to lead our lives, a truncated version of the ordinary pleasures we knew before the coronavirus suddenly destroyed the work of so many of us, kept us cooped us in our homes, and put a stop to public life.

Even though we have no conscious awareness of this brush with our own mortality, it impacts our thoughts and actions.

And how many people you talk to are worried, panicked, or simply afraid these days?  It’s hard not to be in these sometimes terrifying times. Those feelings, and the perhaps surprising insights they can lead us to, are the focus of a blog I did for Korn Ferry, where I regularly write about our sense of purpose. I’m giving you that blog’s key points here:  

• When we hear about someone else’s death – or read about the COVID-19 daily death toll – our unconscious mind makes the equation that we, too, will die.
• Even though we have no conscious awareness of this brush with our own mortality, it impacts our thoughts and actions. People become more hostile toward “them”, like ‘foreigners’ e.g., and prejudices intensify; Judgments get harsher; greed increases.
• BUT if we bring thoughts of our own death into awareness, this all changes. If we consciously ponder our mortality, our mind goes down none of these negative mental paths. 
• Instead, thoughts of what has meaning in our lives come more readily to mind. Viktor Frankl, a psychiatrist who endured four German World War II death camps, says he survived because he held on to his own sense of purpose through all the horrors.
• His book about this has just been published, with an introduction I wrote. The book’s title holds some wisdom for what we all are facing these says: Yes to Life In Spite of Everything.

Next up...

Self-Management 101

If you’ve got kids with you now 24/7 and are also trying to work from the same space – home – good luck. There are kids popping up in workplace zoom sessions or whining in the background, dogs barking, and all the other sounds of home life.  Not so long ago, school, home, and work, of course, used to be in separate places. Welcome to our new reality.

Add to this the angst of keeping our loved ones safe from the coronavirus, and also getting along with each other, plus the worries all this generates, and we have a more compelling need than ever to find a way, somehow, to keep calm so we can navigate this new reality.

Calm Down: A Menu

FOCUS FOR KIDS – Here are five methods for kids age 5 to 11 or so. They include:

• Focus on Your Breath, a way to enhance a child’s concentration, which also has a strong calming effect – a two-for-one.

Children are emotion detectors, hyper-sensitive to your emotional state, and to being influenced by it.

• Scan, where the mind, like radar, picks up whatever sensations are in various parts of your kid’s arm – this both focuses and relaxes, too.
• Focus on Listening, where the child listens intently to a sound until it disappears – a quick way to concentrate and calm. Great for little kids.
• Just Like Me has your child see the ways in which he or she is similar to other kids – a way to teach tolerance.
• Kindness, where your child wishes for himself or herself good health, happiness, and the like – and then extends those wishes in an ever-widening circle starting with family and finally to the whole world.

FOCUS FOR TEENS – For tweens and teens there’s a more age-appropriate version of the same practices.  

Then there’s you. Children are emotion detectors, hyper-sensitive to your emotional state, and to being influenced by it. So if you want to help your child be more calm and clear, first take care of yourself. You can try my instructions on Focus for Excellence which offers adult versions of similar mind training methods.

You or your child (or both) can try out each practice until you find one (or maybe two) to stick with.  Then spend a few minutes every day with that method, whatever it is. The more time you put into practicing, the greater the benefits will be.  

GET STARTED

When neuroscientist Richard Davidson and I reviewed the more than 6,000 scientific articles on meditation, we found that helping the brain, mind and body calm down was one of the strongest benefits, right from the beginning. As with any skill, the more you do it, the better the payoff. 

Many people these days are drawn to mindfulness, a classic meditation from Asia that’s been adapted for modern sensibilities. An excellent overview of this method is offered by Andrew Scheffer, who was both a monk in Burma and a grad of Wharton. That combination means he both knows what he’s talking about and can put in ways anyone can understand.  

Or you can try the instructions I give in my audio The Art of Meditation. 

There are some excellent – and free – mindfulness courses online now.  Among them are instructions for beginners from two teachers I admire:

Jack Kornfield  

Jon Kabat-Zinn

There are countless other ways you can get started. You can go to Ten Percent Happier, Calm, or any number of apps that will guide you in meditation practice.  The key here is simply to find a method that works with you that you can practice regularly.

And then there are methods that let you be more resilient and adaptive on the spot in how you respond to major stresses like those we face daily now.  GolemanEI offers a free two-week (but just a few minutes each day) resilience training.

Our mind is ours to manage. While you’re at it, help your kids learn this life skill too. Good luck!

FOR YOUR CONSIDERATION

I recommend:

• Vivek Murthy, Together: The Healing Power of Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World. Life in lockdown can intensify our sense of loneliness; a former US Surgeon General offers a diagnosis and a fix.
• Caroline Welch, The Gift of Presence: A Mindfulness Guide for Women. At a time when women particularly may be feeling overwhelmed by all the demands on them, this book offers a path to inner peace.
• Tim Shriver’s Call to Unite. While there are so many divides, this call to unite by Tim Shriver and Oprah seems especially timely. 

LAUGHTER: THE BEST MEDICINE

To brighten your mood, try this: