Podcast Player Episode 036

Dr. Robin Stern: Welcome to The Gaslight Effect podcast. I'm Robin Stern, co-founder of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and author of the bestselling book, The Gaslight Effect. I'm an educator and a psychoanalyst, but first and foremost, I'm a wife, a mother, a sister, aunt, and healer. And just like many of you, I was a victim of gaslighting. Please join me for each episode as I interview fascinating guests and explore the concept of gaslighting. You'll learn what it truly means to be gaslighted, how it feels, how to recognize it, and how to understand it, and ultimately, how to get out of it.

Dr. Robin Stern: Before we begin, I want you to know that talking about gaslighting can bring up challenging and painful emotions. Give yourself permission to feel them. Some of you may wanna go more deeply with your emotions. While some of you may hold them more lightly, no matter what you're feeling, know that your emotions are a guide to your inner life. Your emotions are sacred and uniquely you respect and embrace them for they have information to give you. If you want to listen to other episodes of The Gaslight Effect Podcast, you can find them at robinstern.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for being here with me.

Dr. Robin Stern: Welcome everyone to this episode of the Gaslight Effect podcast. I am thrilled to introduce to you and to host today, uh, my friend and colleague, Dan Goleman. I've known Dan for more than 20 years, and he is, um, the reason that we have the field of emotional intelligence. He took an article that wa I'm gonna let him tell you about it. Dan, I, I, people want, wanna hear the history of emotional intelligence and your first book from you, much more than from me. So please tell us how you wrote your first book, and then how you came through that continuum of books to this last book, which is optimal. And as I said to Dan before we started recording, I am in my optimal state today because Dan is here with me.

Daniel Goleman: Robin, you're so sweet. And it's so nice to be here with you. I, uh, you know, we know each other for years and years, but I have to say we haven't seen each other that much of late. I'd like to see you again too, actually, person to person. So, we'll, we'll figure out how to do that. So, yeah, so of course it was, um, your friend of mine, Peter Salve, uh, with his then graduate student, John Mayer, Jack Mayer, as we call him, who wrote the first article on emotional intelligence. At the time, I was a science journalist at the New York Times, and I saw my mandate was to look at academic articles in, uh, peer reviewed journals, see what was new and interesting, and might appeal to the millions of readers of the New York Times, uh, and write about it in a way where the people who know about it, like emotional intelligence wouldn't complain.

Daniel Goleman: That was my job. So I saw this article in a rather obscure journal called Emotional Intelligence, and I thought, wow, that is such a great term. It's an oxymoron. You never put emotions together with intelligence. But when you think about being intelligent about emotion, all of a sudden it makes sense. So, uh, I, I used that term as the title of a book I was writing anyway, which was about emotions in the brain. Uh, and that framework somehow really caught on, you know, it was on the cover of time and, uh, it, it just struck a nerve really around the world and became a kind of global phenomenon. And, uh, thanks to Peter, uh, Salway, who's now, of course, the president of Yale University. Last I heard,

Dr. Robin Stern: Well just step down, actually. Just like, oh, did he really? Last month? Yeah.

Daniel Goleman: Oh, last month. Oh, okay. Well, I wish him well, whatever he does, he's

Dr. Robin Stern: Going back to academia. But yes, he'll still be there. He'll

Daniel Goleman: Be, he always loved teaching. Peter's a great guy. So, um, when I wrote the book Emotional Intelligence, it, it was a brand new concept, and there was no direct data. So I used converging data to make a case that, hey, this personal skillset matters in life. And during your school years, you know, IQ really predicts strongly how will you do, uh, in school, but it doesn't really hold up as a predictor in life. I just saw some data about that. Engineers were asked to rate other engineers they work with on how effective they are as engineers. And it turned out that, uh, those ratings didn't correlate at all with iq. They correlated strongly with emotional intelligence. So the basically, my view is that, uh, IQ and cognitive abilities matter enormously. They determine not just how well you'll do in school, but what profession, uh, you can enter. But once you're in that door, how you do doesn't really depend so much on those abilities. 'cause everyone else has them. That's

Dr. Robin Stern: Exactly what I,

Daniel Goleman: It's how well you manage yourself, how well you relate to others, which is basically emotional intelligence. So

Dr. Robin Stern: We tell that to our Yale students all the time that they'll IQ will get them in the door, but EQ will get them out of the

Daniel Goleman: . Yes. That's a, it's hard. Uh, if you've worked so hard to get into Yale, that must be a hard message to hear. But

Dr. Robin Stern: Yeah, a little bit

Daniel Goleman: A heads up. Anyway,

Dr. Robin Stern: I just wanna say that when I first read, when I read your book for the first time, I didn't know you at the time, and I thought I was so captivated by your first example of the bus driver, which you later then brought back, and you're in optimal. Um, and I thought everyone is going to recognize this as like some deep truth that we, we all know. I mean, there is that, there was that resonance then and now again, in your book, which we'll get to in a minute, I hope, but it it your new book, but it really was, oh my God, of course. Like, oh my God, of course. That makes so much sense.

Daniel Goleman: Yes. And that's the thing, we all kind of know it intuitively. So the bus driver, if you're not familiar with the story, it was striking. I, I, I took a bus up Madison Avenue in New York, and the bus driver was remarkable. He welcomed everybody on the bus personally in a way that was felt true. And he was talking to people, everyone on the bus as he went up Madison. And when they got off the bus, he'd say, you know, have a wonderful day to each person meaning it. And he really had an impact. He had fans, I found out years later, because they had an obituary in the New York Times. His name was Govin Brown. He had, uh, 3000 or more letters of accommodation, not one complaint over. Oh my

Dr. Robin Stern: Goodness.

Daniel Goleman: He was the pastor of a black church on Long Island, and he felt that people on his bus were part of his flock. He was, you know, relating to them in a very warm, welcoming way. Uh, he was just an outstanding person. So experiencing him who's outstanding experience, and, you know, we all have examples of nutritious people that we've known for whom we know.

Dr. Robin Stern: I love that word. Yeah, exactly. And so people on the bus got off feeling nourished, right, and, and rather than crabby, because wasn't it raining that day or it was not. The weather was, it

Daniel Goleman: Was, it was sweltering. It was a August day.

Dr. Robin Stern: Oh, yes, thank you. So it was very hot. And, and everybody who gets on a bus crabby kinda cranky. Yeah. Crowded. And so he just, he just transformed that experience and, and . Yeah. So tell us where your, your writing took you. I'm sorry to interrupt you tell, but so eager to, for you to get to your new book.

Daniel Goleman: So I'm, I'm essentially a writer and a psychologist, and I've written about several topics, but I've been the co-director of consortium on research for research on emotional intelligence in organizations. Uh, and over 25 years, there's been a mountain of data about this, as opposed to when I first wrote about it. So my co-chair, Carrie Cherice, and I wrote this book, which is just coming out January 9th, optimal, uh, starting with data from a study that was done at Harvard Business School where people kept journals of what their day was like. And, uh, that's the notion of having a really good day. That's the optimal day. And we've all had such days, it's not like getting in flow. Flow is that one time when you outdid yourself, uh, and you can't make it happen again. But if you focus on what you're doing and drop your distractions, which are internal more than external anyway, you can get into a, a place where you are highly effective, you're highly productive, you're highly satisfied, highly engaged, uh, you connecting well with the people around you, you feel good about what you're doing, you enjoy it.

Daniel Goleman: That's the optimal day. And we make the case that emotional intelligence is a framework, is a way of cultivating the qualities that make such days more likely. Uh, and then we look at what it would mean to make an organization emotionally intelligent, uh, which is one of the key points of the book. So at the individual level, it's, what can I do to be more like Goven Brown or to have a, a wonderful day, more often than a bummer day. Uh, and, and, uh, and by the way, one of the people whose work we appreciate is Mark Bracket, who I know you work with. We talk about his, uh, way of gauging your being self-aware, the way I think of emotional intelligence, the four parts, self-awareness, self-management, empathy and social skill, essentially. And I think Mark's method is really good for honing an awareness of what you're feeling, uh, which is a foundational strength and emotional.

Dr. Robin Stern: Yeah. And I, I think the work we do at Yale really helps to, uh, be granular about your emotions so that when you can name them, then you can tame them, is what we say. And, and, um, being able to discriminate between, uh, lots of different feelings in, or lots of different emotions in the family of feelings of anger or disappointment or sadness and happiness. So thank you for that, those kind words. And I'm sure Mark will be thrilled to know that you, uh, and, um, that you said that about our work and, and you wrote about it. And I, I read about it in the book. And unfortunately, I, even though I am a member of the consortium, I haven't run into you when, uh, the times that I've been there, but I did, I did of course know everyone in the book you talked about. And so tell us a little bit more about the book you and Carrie wrote, because I think it's gonna be just the same kind of, has same kind of impact that emotional intelligence had when you first wrote,

Daniel Goleman: Well, we don't know. It's gonna come out in a couple of weeks. We'll see. You never know. But we hope that, uh, this update of emotional intelligence will reach many people. Uh, basically we review, uh, through a more current lens the basics, my model of emotional intelligence. So I look at those four domains, self-awareness, self-management, which you just mentioned, really. Uh, and then empathy and social skill, how you recognize emotions in other people and put it all together to have effective relationships. So we have a model which is based on other, on research, uh, of star performers in the workplace, and the qualities or competencies of those, uh, um, people who are remarkable. And which of those competencies nest within one or another domain. Uh, and if listeners wanna know more about it, they can look at the book, or even better, I think is the, I have a Daniel Goldman emotional intelligence program online where you can, uh, look at each of these abilities within yourself and reflect on it and practice it and get better.

Daniel Goleman: But, uh, we feel strongly that organizations should be more, uh, what shall I say, explicit in creating an emotionally intelligent culture. And that means, uh, not just having these things embedded in the DNA, which is very true. It's surprising Robin, how common these qualities are as, uh, abilities that companies want and look for and say, uh, and pride themselves on. But they use their own language. So sometimes it's hard to find, but we find a couple of things, um, are the hallmarks of organizations or companies that are more emotionally intelligent. And we look for example, at, uh, MD Anderson, which is the number one, uh, cancer clinic in America. It's a remarkable place down in Texas. And the CEO, there is a champion of emotional intelligence. We looked at Progressive, the insurance company, uh, which, um, many people know through those commercials with flow, that woman in, in white, it's, uh, yeah, she's been around for a long time.

Daniel Goleman: But it turns out that the, uh, value of that company has skyrocket had over the last decade or two. And John Murphy, who was the head of the customer relations area, which is who really is the interface with people who example are buying insurance, is also a champion of emotional intelligence. So it helps we find enormously to have someone in the organization, in a business, for example, from the business side, say, this matters here. We want this. It helps because then hr, who, uh, who doesn't have as much clout usually as the someone in the c-suite, for example, uh, can implement training programs. So I, uh, the ingredients that we spot are these, uh, someone who champions emotional intelligence, who's influential in that organization, second, showing that it matters here, for example, in performance review, it's not just did you get the numbers? How did you get those numbers? Uh, you know, where you're driving people to, uh, emotional exhaustion, uh, pressuring them to get the numbers, or were you inspiring them, engaging them, exciting them about what we're all doing together. And that's much better, of course. And also it matters.

Dr. Robin Stern: Yes, exactly. You make that point over and over. I love that.

Daniel Goleman: And then finally, it's important that an organization offer ways to get better at this training and development matters. Uh, and those, those are the key ingredients if you wanna know more optimal. That's the ad . So, uh, it brings together 25 years of research. Yeah.

Dr. Robin Stern: Very powerful. And, um, really impactful in that you talk about the need to practice it, because I think that, uh, there have been many places that have had emotional intelligence webinars, but have not really implemented in the way you're suggesting needs to be in order for the organization to become an emotionally intelligent, uh, culture. Uh, yes.

Daniel Goleman: Yeah. So if, if you wanna improve your emotional intelligence, don't go to a talk I'm giving, or even a talk Robin gives, I'm sorry to say, don't go to any one important person talking about it, even, uh, Peter Salve, because that's not what's gonna make a difference. It might motivate you, but what it really takes is ongoing practice and support and feeling motivated to do that in the first place. Uh, there's a difference in learning this skillset from what you learned in school. In school. You have a cognitive network of understanding and a given feel like math. So, you know, for a kid, then subtraction, you plug it into addition, uh, it builds. But emotional intelligence is very different. It's, it's like, uh, improving your golf stroke. You're trying to change your brain, make these things automatic. So for example, with mark bracket's, uh, grid of how to name emotions, you need to practice that. It's not like reading the book is going to help you in the same way as having ongoing practice with the whole method. Exactly.

Dr. Robin Stern: Ongoing practice where you're using the new words of your emotion vocabulary to let, to communicate more authentically and effectively. But I'm gonna ask if we can pivot for a minute. Sure. Because I wanna, um, can we, is that all right? Sure. For you. All right. Great. Um, we'll get back to your book before the end because I want people to know where to find you and, and all the places. Um, but I do want to talk a little bit about gaslighting because, um, this is the Gaslight Effect podcast. And people are coming with some expectation that there'll be, uh, perhaps an answer to a question like, um, how does gaslighting interfere with being in an optimal state? Or how is your optimal state impacted by, by being treated either by your direct supervisor, by your partner, by your organization, um, as if there's something wrong with your perception or, or if ending or feeling that there's no psychological safety because you are at risk of being gaslighted or you are immersed in this gaslighting bubble. So you can start anywhere.

Daniel Goleman: Well, you know, uh, one of the things, Robin, that is very important in my view, is that the people around you have full empathy. And by full empathy, I mean this, there's three kinds of empathy, uh, each of which seems to be based in different circuitry in the brain. One is cognitive empathy. I get how you see things. I know the language you use to parse reality. And I can be effective in messaging to you. 'cause I know what words you'll understand. Second is emotional empathy, sensing what the other person feels, uh, and responding to that at the emotional level. But the third, I think it's the most important, it's caring about the person. It's called empathic concern. Technically. It's like a, a parent's love for a child. And I think that at work you wanna have a boss who, uh, cares about you, not just who knows how to manipulate you.

Daniel Goleman: 'cause they know what you think and feel, but who actually has your back, who's concerned about your best interests. That is what creates that psychological safety. And as you, as you know, I'm sure when Google looked at their top performing teams, one of the elements that distinguished them was psychological safety. Uh, we call it a sense of belonging. You feel at home there, and you wanna feel that way at work. You want to feel you can bring your whole self. And I suppose if someone is gaslighting at work, uh, you don't get validated. You feel like, um, you have to be inhibited. You have to hold yourself back to seem to be the person that they seem to want you to be. Did I get that right, Rob?

Dr. Robin Stern: Yes. And also that you, you're not even sure where the ground is. You may be at work and noticing things going on and speaking out about it, and then being, um, accused of being so stressed out or too paranoid or, um, uh, not really tuned into what you need to be tuned into focusing on the wrong thing. But actually, you may be focusing on exactly what you need to focus on to see what shifts may be afoot in that organization that turn out to later on be true. But in the meantime, you're being accused of, um, it being your problem that you can't get your work. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So

Daniel Goleman: Rd Lang calls it the Game of Happy Family. Uh, and, uh, what he meant was this, that you feel uneasy because you sense something is off here, everyone else seems to be going along just fine. And so you feel you can't bring it up. You have to play the game of being happy, being in the family without acknowledging to yourself even perhaps, but certainly to others. What's off here? What's wrong here?

Dr. Robin Stern: Yes. And then the gaslighting piece takes that the next step, because then when you do bring it up, you're told it's your fault. Oh, no, no. That, that's why are you so paranoid? Like No. Yeah.

Daniel Goleman: You're dismissed. You're dismissed. You're

Dr. Robin Stern: Dismissed. Or it's defected. Exactly. Or you're told you're crazy. Like, no, that didn't happen. That's not what's going on.

Daniel Goleman: That's not what's going on. Exactly. You may have seen something and everybody interprets things differently, but there's, what shall I say, there's a reality that, uh, you're invited implicitly to collude with. And, uh, I actually, I don't know if you know this, my first book was called Vital Lies. It was about self-deception and collusion. I did very relevant to the, to gaslighting. Yes,

Dr. Robin Stern: Exactly.

Daniel Goleman: 'cause both things go on, uh, in a gaslighting situation. So

Dr. Robin Stern: I read it before I read, I wrote my first book, yes. .

Daniel Goleman: Right. So, at any rate, uh, I, I feel that that goes on in the workplace. And actually, I think there's a bigger picture here that we're all caught in that I would love to talk about, if you don't mind.

Dr. Robin Stern: Yes. Please. To

Daniel Goleman: A higher level.

Dr. Robin Stern: Yes.

Daniel Goleman: This, the, uh, global systems that support life on our planet are being eroded by each of us in, in aggregate. We're complicit in a huge gaslight, uh, that is allowing us to act as though nothing we do matters. When in fact, collectively it's destroying the planet, both for ourselves, for our children, and certainly for our grandchildren. And the way it works is, I see it is that, uh, the economy is based on lies essentially. And the lies are that, uh, the products that we buy and use, the services we buy and use, uh, don't really matter in terms of, uh, the catastrophe that's happening to the planet, when in fact they are causing that catastrophe. But, uh, it's economically in the self-interest of those who profit from selling us services and products not to look. Uh, I have a friend who teaches lifecycle assessment at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Daniel Goleman: Used to be at MIT teaching it Lifecycle assessment is a gorgeous methodology. You can look at the entire lifecycle of anything, any product, uh, a book, a cup, a car, your watch, your, uh, phone. And you can see, for example, with your phone that the, um, pro the parts of that phone were sourced in more than 150 different places. It's quite complicated. But each one can be assessed for its impact, uh, on the environment or on the people working there. Uh, and they, there's actually metrics for this. Companies themselves will pay to have a lifecycle assessment done of a product because they wanna know where can we save money? But what they don't want you to know is what they found. They don't want you to know the carbon impact. They don't want you to know, uh, how, uh, here's, here's a startling thing. Organic cotton uses more water than regular cotton now, uh, and, um, it sounds better, but actually it, it's really just greenwashing.

Daniel Goleman: Because cotton is grown in parts of the world where water is scarce, where in dry climates. And so we're inadvertently, for example, when we buy fast fashion, uh, we're basically buying things that have a huge negative footprint. Uh, and, you know, fast fashion is meant to be thrown away. So, and we're creating a huge amount of garbage. And it's true of, you know, plastic, you name it. So everything has a footprint. What I, here's what I think, Robin, and I'm interested in your thought. I'm thinking that a smart, first of all, back up. I don't think we're gonna change the economy overnight. I don't, I don't know if we'll ever change it, but I think the economic self-interest can be used to clean up the planet. And I'll tell you how, if we all knew the actual footprint of what we bought, uh, and that there are an impartial evaluator instead of greenwashing where a company says, oh, we don't use bleach in making this paper, but they don't tell you about their water use and, you know, all of the other things. So right now, we live in a greenwashing reality, which I would say is a collective, uh, gaslight. Greenwashing is gaslighting

Dr. Robin Stern: Because it, it's insisting that we believe that everything's okay when it's not okay. That we're, we're blind to what's really going on. And we're buying, we're being asked to focus on this piece of the picture. What actually, there's a whole other piece of the picture we're not focused on. 'cause we don't know about it.

Daniel Goleman: Bingo. That's it. That's it. Exactly. So here's, here's my pitch for companies, there's a smart business strategy to be the first to go public with your footprint and talk about the ways you are reinventing or rethinking what you do to lower your footprint, which is called your hand print. Your hand print is all the good you do. So you start with your footprint, and then you think of ways to improve it. And I think ultimately this means reinventing everything. You know, we make, uh, concrete brick steel, glass using a Bronze Age technology. You take a bunch of things that you extracted from the earth, mix 'em together and heat them at a very high heat for a very long time. This was discovered in the Bronze Age, and we still do it, and it's destroying the plant. It's, it has a huge carbon footprint. Um, why not rethink how we make those things?

Dr. Robin Stern: So what a fantastic way to, to put it in the hands of, let's say, leaders of organizations where they could incentivize everyone who works in the organization to do something differently, to be, to be a champion of what we are talking about. Um, because it's, the challenge is that's so ubiquitous, right? And so how do we get individual people to pay attention in their own lives? And how do we, how do we enlist this company who's gonna be the first company to do this, right? Um, after they listen to this podcast and say, yes, Dan Goldman, he's right. , uh, how do we, how do we incentivize people?

Daniel Goleman: I I'll tell you how, uh, one of the things that's very important in marketing is capturing loyalty early in a customer's life. Younger people, older people actually don't care much about this at all. You and I grew up in an age when it didn't seem to make a difference, or we didn't know what difference it made. There were a few people, even in the seventies saying, global warming is coming, but every day, every, you know, summer seemed like the last summer, and every winter seemed like the last winter. However, today's children and young people are growing up with a drumbeat of bad news about the environment. They will, I believe, be far more motivated to care and to favor products and services that are, have a bigger hand print rather than bigger footprint. So what I'm saying is it would be a smart business strategy going into the future to think about this and think what your organization or company could be doing to capture the hearts and loyalty of younger consumers.

Dr. Robin Stern: Yeah. I think it's fantastic. And do you think that there is intentionality, um, to, uh, to gaslight on the part of the manufacturers that they, that they're going in there trying to pull the wool over people's eyes and, and have them believe what they want them to believe? The reality is this, like, I mean, it almost reminds me of, you know, the, uh, like Aaron Brockovich or any of those things. So no, the water here is just great. And actually people were living the results of the water not being great, being poisonous, getting cancer. Exactly. Exactly. And, and so is it that, is it that kind of, we're just not gonna tell you the reality because even though we're living it, you are crazy and you're,

Daniel Goleman: I actually think that there are some well-intentioned people, even in businesses that are doing bad. Mm-Hmm. . So, you know, you look at someone like Govin Brown, he worked for the New York Transit Authority. Mm-Hmm. , their mission statement was getting lots of people where they want to go as quickly as we can. Had nothing to do with what he was doing. Mm-Hmm. . He had a strong sense of purpose. Uh, and I think there are many people in organizations who are well intended, but if you look at the incentives in the system, they're all wrong. Mm-Hmm. . So if you look at someone who's say, managing a supply chain, well, that person has to get the stuff they need to make the thing they make in the least expensive way, that's the incentive for that person. The least expensive way may be the most harmful way for the planet, we don't know.

Daniel Goleman: But then the predicament actually comes with marketing. And I think this is why there is tons of greenwashing now, many, many companies are happy to tell you about that one thing they do, which is better than what they used to do. They are not gonna tell you about all of the footprint that they have now. I think that's where the gaslighting shows up, where that comes from. Maybe it's the c-suite, maybe it's the CEO who on the one hand, uh, sees how we're getting stuff and maybe has a glimmer that not so good for the planet. But on the other hand, we wanna maximize our sales. So marketing do your stuff and, and your stuff happens to include gaslighting. So Robin, you're the expert. I what, how can we take what you know about gaslighting and apply it in this collective predicament?

Dr. Robin Stern: I, I think it's, as you're describing it, I'm thinking, um, I actually went in a different direction. Uh, I was thinking about focus as you were talking, and so I'd like to take it in that direction. But just to answer quickly, it, it's, um, it's not easy and it's complicated and it will take leadership, uh, in organizations and in the world, because you're talking about a meta level of gaslighting going on at a time in our, in our world where we have just been through, um, years of being out of control where things were unpredictable, um, where there was no end in sight. And so that's like a fertile ground for gaslighting. And you can't turn on the news on one channel without re without, um, there being news on our next channel that is completely different. So what is reality? And so people, yeah, okay, so maybe that's not so good for our health, but wow.

Dr. Robin Stern: Like, look at what makes my life easier, or I like the way that product smells, or something like that. And so the, the necessity to focus on, um, that part that you're talking about, I think, uh, maybe a clue, and maybe this is a conversation we can continue for sure, but it may be a clue to as to how to make a difference. Because what I was thinking as you were talking that and saying, well, you know, this is just a little bit of this thing, but then there's this whole other picture. Well, that's exactly how people get into gaslighting relationships, because at the beginning, um, the lighter says something that is just a little bit off or sounds a little bit crazy. Like, oh, you don't, you, you have a terrible memory. Or even in the 1944 movie, no, no, you, you know, you are very forgetful.

Dr. Robin Stern: And, and initially you wave it off and you say, I don't know, that's not me. But then over time, you continue to focus on that one thing that's been said to you as opposed to this other picture. Initially, you don't do that, though initially you say, okay, there's that one thing. It doesn't feel so good, but he's my soulmate and you know, I'm so in love and it's so fantastic. And, um, he's always there for me, and he's so charming and handsome, and so you forget that he did that thing to you. And so where do you look? Where's, where in the picture do you look? And so if you wanna insist that people focus on that one thing, then that one thing has to become a much bigger part of the picture.

Daniel Goleman: So right now, Robin, uh, opaque, we don't really have access to what the true, uh, negative footprint of the things we buy every day is.

Dr. Robin Stern: We'll, if you, if you, we will, if companies will adopt your invitation

Daniel Goleman: To Sure. I mean, the same way that you have a nutrition panel Mm-Hmm. , it may take a policy change, it may be making this mandatory, but saying, what is your carbon footprint? What is your impact on biodiversity? What's your impact? Yes. People who work for you, uh, not just in your, uh, business, but in your supply chain.

Dr. Robin Stern: Yes, exactly. Because if people don't have access to the truth, how can they even make their decision?

Daniel Goleman: You know, uh, I tell you a story. Uh, Gregory Norris, who's my friend who has the hand print footprint Mm-Hmm. methodology, uh, used to teach at MIT lifecycle assessment with a guy named Dara O'Rourke. Dara ended up, uh, working in Asia, looking at factories, and he found that the, uh, that Nike was using child labor and so on. And so he contacted Nike headquarters somewhere in Washington and said, you know, you're doing the, you're, uh, using abusive labor practices. And they said, no, we're not. He said, how do you know? He said, well, we have people who check. And they assure us we're not. But in fact, they were. And when they came to look themselves, they're like horrified. Nike then became a leader. Uh, but what he did was pierce through the gaslighting. And I think we need that time and again, and your focus idea is really interesting because I think younger consumers particularly will naturally tend to be more focused on this aspect of a product. Uh, my granddaughters don't shop in stores for clothes. They go to thrift stores. They want something used. Part of it is the price point, but part of it is, uh, that lessens its impact, environmental impact over the lifetime of the item. And I think that represents a shift in consumer habits. I was just talking to a woman, Eileen Fisher, she has some, of course, you know, Eileen Fisher, she

Dr. Robin Stern: Used to support Woodhill. Yeah,

Daniel Goleman: Yeah. Oh yeah. So, uh, Eileen, uh, is a champion of recycling their clothes. They'll take back anything. And if it can be cleaned up and resold, they'll do that. Or if it's too far gone, they'll cut it up and make it part of something else. But she'll take back anything. What she's doing is preventing Eileen Fisher clothes from ending up in a garbage heap somewhere in the landfill. And right now, uh, you know, with fast fashion, those clothes do, they're basically selling garbage. She said, um, there's one company that makes things, items, clothing items, and sells 'em for $2. How can they do that? 'cause it's junk.

Dr. Robin Stern: So Eileen could be a champion.

Daniel Goleman: Eileen is a champion. She's very much in favor of policy changes that would, uh, make this kind of thing more incumbent on companies. For example, cotton is a commodity. When something's a commodity, it means you don't know who grew it. Uh, it's all mushed together and it's sold to you, you know, no matter where it was made. There's a, a law, I think they might do this already in the eu, where clothing companies have to know where their cotton was grown and how, and track it to their factory. That changes the game. So I think it's a combination of game changing policy, uh, more honest, uh, revelation and sharing with customers of what the actual impact is, rather than, uh, how we gaslight to you what it is. Uh, and then the motivation of younger consumers and the focus on this information

Dr. Robin Stern: And the social support, as you said in your book, it's so important to have social support in making change and going forward in, in, in moving towards your purpose, whatever that is, you know, purpose with a small p or purpose with a big P, it's really important because what you're talking about is purpose with a big p and a small PI think.

Daniel Goleman: Well, yeah. I, I think it's, uh, the big P here is, is recognizing honestly the impacts of what's going on in business. Basically small p is each person caring about that. They make a choice because it's the aggregate, it's the sum total of those choices, which will create a different kind of market share, which companies, without changing incentives at all, will wanna chase.

Dr. Robin Stern: Yeah, love it. Yes. It's brilliant. Yeah, it's, I think, think maybe your next book or certainly some articles. ,

Daniel Goleman: I'm kind of tired of writing books. I I I'm trying to recruit someone else to write that book. Maybe you'll do it. I dunno.

Dr. Robin Stern: Well, I think we can talk about some articles, but I do wanna to come back to the role of emotional intelligence and gaslighting. Because when you, um, what I've seen in couples and in workplaces is, um, that when people are in that gaslighting moment, when people are gripped by or dancing that gaslighting tango, I called it, um, or I call it, uh, they are much more concerned with the, what the other person feels than what they feel. And, and being in touch with or in tune with their own feelings of anxiety, let's say, keeps people really stuck. Sometimes it's very hard for people to remove themselves from an active gaslighting moment since this is your expertise.

Daniel Goleman: Well, actually, I, I'd like to recommend another book. My wife's book, emotional Alchemy, tar Bennett Goldman is my wife.

Dr. Robin Stern: Yes, I've read it, but not for a long time. She

Daniel Goleman: Talked about, uh, very common emotional patterns, one of which gives people, uh, makes them prone to being gas lit, which is, you could call it subjugation or emotional deprivation. It's a trade off of seeming to be, uh, loved and cared for in exchange for my giving into whatever reality you want to tell me we should live. That's, that's the formula for gaslighting. And her book says what the pattern is, how to recognize and what to do about it. But in general, uh, I think that, uh, you know, that's all too common. But in emotional intelligence, I think one of the antidotes, one of them of course, is what you're, uh, doing with Mark bracket, which is knowing what you actually feel. But the second thing is that third kind of empathy, caring about the other person. Basically someone who's gaslighting you, doesn't care about what's in your best interest. And, uh, realizing that and, uh, I think can be part of the wake up. I

Dr. Robin Stern: Love what you're saying because it's tied, it ties us right back to where we just were with what's going on in the world. How do we get people who are creating these products that go through a life cycle, what that's destroying the planet to care about what they're

Daniel Goleman: Doing. Yeah. And I think, uh, there are two levels there. One is that you have a purpose, which is to prevent or slow down the, uh, centuries old causes of climate change. Mm-hmm. that could be your purpose. And I think many young people will embrace that. The second, uh, is, um, what makes economic sense for our business? And you don't have to change anything there because the system's incentive remain the same when you realize, hey, we have to rethink what we do. We have to reinvent everything that we are involved with to show that it has a better hand print instead of a worse footprint. And to let people know that, you know, and that means for that to happen, actually, I think we need an impartial agency that would evaluate things. I, I wouldn't believe it if a company told me, I would believe it if some agency that didn't care told me, but to get that two people at point of purchase when they're making decisions. So it's not just cost, but it's also impact and focus on that and demand that. And I think as younger consumers do, so companies will start listening. At least that's my hope.

Dr. Robin Stern: Yeah. Well, I'm gonna borrow the word you just used the word impact to, to help us wrap up. Because there's nobody who's had a bigger impact on the landscape of emotional intelligence than you. And, and my personal, um, life has been just tremendously impacted. I don't even know. I'll, I'll end with this story and then add, let you, um, tell people where they can find you. But many years ago, um, there was a convening at the Garrison Institute and, and at the last minute you couldn't come. It was on mindfulness and emotional intelligence and research. And because it was an opening, I got to take your place. Of course, I couldn't stand in your shoes, but I did get to have that seat. And it was at that, um, convening that I met Mark Bracket.

Daniel Goleman: I see.

Dr. Robin Stern: So that was like a very big shift. , I credit you as being responsible for my career because I wouldn't have been there had you been able to go. Um, so in many ways then, I have just such gratitude, admiration, respect, and love for you. So thank you so much for coming here today and for being with me and for giving your words of wisdom and experience and brilliance to, to our audience. And please tell people where they can find you.

Daniel Goleman: Uh, Rob and I just have to say, it's totally mutual. This is a joy for me to be with you again, even by Zoom. Uh, and I can be reached probably the best of my website, contact@danielgoldman.info I nfo, uh, and or through the, uh, Daniel Goldman emotional intelligence program, the online program. Great. Thank you again.

Dr. Robin Stern: Thank you so much. See you all next time after this wonderful episode with Dan Goleman. Thanks for joining me for today's episode. I hope you found it helpful and meaningful. If you want to listen to other episodes of the Gaslight Effect podcast, you can find them@robinstern.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. And please leave a rating and a review. I also invite you to follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. This podcast is produced by Mel Yellen, Mike Lens, and me. The podcast is supported Suzen Pettit Marcus Estevez and Omaginarium, also by Sally McCarton and Jackie Daniels. I'm so grateful to have many people supporting me and especially grateful for all of you, my listeners.