“We started our book Optimal reviewing research done at Harvard Business School, where hundreds of men and women kept journals of what their day was like at work, how they felt, what happened. From that emerged a composite of an optimal state; a state when people are fully engaged in what they're doing, they're very focused, they feel good. They're highly productive, because they're at their best, and they feel very connected to people around them. It's a very positive state, and we feel that it's a state people can enter voluntarily—unlike flow, for example, which is that one time you outdid yourself. You were spectacular, but you can't make it happen. It's like grace, it falls from the sky. But optimal is, we think, attainable—by people who just focus on what they need to do, on what's important right now. That's one way to get into the optimal state.”

Daniel Goleman is an American psychologist, author, and science journalist. Before becoming an author, Goleman was a science reporter for the New York Times for 12 years, covering psychology and the human brain. In 1995, Goleman published Emotional Intelligence, a New York Times bestseller. In his newly published book Optimal, Daniel Goleman discusses how people can enter an optimal state of high performance without facing symptoms of burnout in the workplace.

BONUS EPISODE: Trump, Comedy, and Hayes Davenport