Optimal

How to Sustain Personal and Organizational Excellence Every Day

By: Daniel Goleman, Cary Cherniss

Narrated by: Mike Lenz

In his groundbreaking #1 bestseller Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman revolutionized how we think about intelligence. Now, he reveals practical methods for using these inner resources to more readily enter an optimal state of high performance and satisfaction while avoiding burnout.

There are moments when we achieve peak performance: An athlete plays a perfect game; a business has a quarter with once-in-a-lifetime profits. But these moments are often elusive, and for every amazing day, we may have a hundred ordinary and even unsatisfying days. Fulfillment doesn’t come from isolated peak experiences, but rather from many consistent good days. So how do we sustain performance, while avoiding burnout and maintaining balance?

In Optimal, Daniel Goleman and Cary Cherniss reveal how emotional intelligence can help us have a great day, any day. They explain how to set a realistic, attainable goal of feeling satisfied that you’ve had a productive day—to consistently work at your ‘optimal’ level. Based on research of how hundreds of people build the inner architecture of having a good day, they sketch what an optimal state feels like, and show how emotional intelligence holds the key to our best performance.

Optimal is the culmination of decades of scientific discoveries bearing on emotional intelligence. Enhanced emotional intelligence pays off in improved engagement, productivity, and more satisfying days. In this book, you’ll find the keys to competence in emotional intelligence, and practical methods for applying this skill set more readily. It will equip you to become a highly effective leader and enable you to build an organizational culture that empowers workers to sustain high performance.

©2024 Daniel Goleman and Cary Cherniss (P)2024 HarperCollins Publishers

Great follow up and integration

Updated research and integrating other concepts and researchers. Good examples, stories, data and connection to others work.

You listen you pick and choose what’s best

Working in today’s environment definitely complicated all the advice you can get and utilize bitch and pieces always a good idea 

Must listen

Imperdivel, maravilhoso, obra de arte, manual de sobrevivencia em tempos dificeis, junto com 10x easier than 2x, um dos livros mais importantes das ultimas decadas

wow, data only

there's very little advice, and a lot of data that might mean something to someone else.

No information on how to gain emotional intelligence

The author goes on and on with examples of why emotional intelligence is important and studies that prove it's important, but yeah, it does not tell you how to develop emotional intelligence. There was a short blurb about meditation being helpful.

Lack of Structure

The narration was dull. I would have enjoyed a more enthusiastic narrator. Concepts were all over the place, and worse they were delivered repetitively.

Bad narration and lacks focus

The narration and audio are bad. It's not worth the sale price. We're unable to refund it because it was not bought on audible credit.
Seems like a big con job.
The author tries to squeeze many unrelated concepts into "emotional intelligence." and ends up lacking focus

Some good ideas clouded by pushing a liberal agenda.

This felt like a very long infomercial for the idea of Emotional Intelligence. Peppered with liberal world views (DEI, over population, etc). Waste of money.