The Evolving Leader

The New Science of Everyday Wonder with Dacher Keltner

• Dacher Keltner • Season 7 • Episode 8

Share episode

During this episode of The Evolving Leader podcast, co-hosts Jean Gomes and Scott Allender are in conversation with Dr Dacher Kelter. Dacher is a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and the director of the Greater Good Science Center. His pioneering research focuses on the cultural and evolutionary origins of compassion, awe, love, beauty, power, social class and social inequality. He has over 200 scientific publications and has written several books, the latest of which is Awe - The New Science of Everyday Wonder and How it Can Transform Your Life. In this book, Dr. Keltner investigates the elusive emotion of awe - and presents incredible research on how the emotion of Awe can transform our brains and bodies, and how we can cultivate more experiences of awe in our everyday lives.

Referenced during this episode:
Greater Good In Action - https://ggia.berkeley.edu/

Other reading from Jean Gomes and Scott Allender:
Leading In A Non-Linear World (J Gomes, 2023)
The Enneagram of Emotional Intelligence (S Allender, 2023)


Social:

Instagram           @evolvingleader
LinkedIn             The Evolving Leader Podcast
Twitter               @Evolving_Leader
YouTube           @evolvingleader

 

The Evolving Leader is researched, written and presented by Jean Gomes and Scott Allender with production by Phil Kerby. It is an Outside production.

Send a message to The Evolving Leader team

Jean Gomes:

Each technological leap brings a new set of costs and consequences alongside the gains. At the evolving leader, we're interested in how we can benefit from the huge potential of these advances, but without losing what makes us human. AI in particular, represents a new urgency to this question, what are humans for in an automating world? One powerful counter move out of reactivity is how we can liberate the vast interior resources that each of us has that are far more complex and capable than any computer system our sense, making, reasoning, creativity, empathy and human connection, our competitiveness as individuals and possibly as a race, depends on our ability to amplify what only humans can do. In this show, we talk to daca kiltner, who directs the Barclay Social Interaction Lab. His pioneering research focuses on the cultural and evolutionary origins of compassion, awe, love, beauty, power, social class and social inequality. We focus into the nature of awe, what it brings to our leadership and how to make it an everyday experience. Tune into an important and fascinating conversation on the Evolving Leader.

Dacher Keltner:

Hi folks. Welcome to the evolving leader the show born from the belief that we need deeper, more accountable and more human leadership to confront the world's biggest challenges. I'm Scott Allender and I'm Jean Gomes. I usually do a feelings check in with you here, Jean, but I want to narrow it down today, and I'm going to ask you, when is the last time you felt real awe?

Jean Gomes:

It's a great question, and honestly, too few times, I think I noticed becoming somewhat not indifferent. It's not the right word, but sort of not surprised at things that I've gone to see for the first time, because I think television and films and so on, place in your mind a familiarity. And so I remember going to, you know, Grand Canyon and the Niagara Falls recently and so on, and thinking almost my expectation of those things was blunting the experience of truly being there. And then, combined with that, you know, that horrible thing where you're looking behind a camera lens rather than actually being present. So the last time I actually felt true or was on our forest bathing exercise that we we did as a company a few weeks ago, which was lot more mundane, but actually profoundly more awesome. So you know, like literally hugging trees to understand what it felt like to be in contact with them. Sounds really strange, but it was, it was amazing. And I think all of us came away thinking, oh my god, what are we missing here? It's just it was pretty amazing.

Dacher Keltner:

I love it.

Jean Gomes:

So how about you?

Dacher Keltner:

I resonate with everything you just said about experiences feeling blunted sometimes, I will say, a couple months ago, had the pleasure of sailing around Greece for a while, and so there were moments on the boat where the gentle breeze and all you could sort of hear was the wind and the waves. And, you know, getting in the water and snorkeling, and, you know, seeing all the way to the bottom of the floor and that clear water. I'm from Southern California, so you get in the ocean, you can't see your own navel, but in that water. You're like, I mean, I was just in awe many times, and and the stress level and every came way down, and my sense of clarity came up, and I just felt so much peace and gratitude and all of those things. So, yeah, so really, really grateful. And obviously there's a reason why we're talking about awe, and that's because today we're joined by Dr Dacher Keltner. Dr Keltner is one of the world's foremost emotion scientists. He's a professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and the director of the Greater Good Science Center. He has over 200 scientific publications and six books, including born to be good, the Compassionate instinct and the power paradox, is written for many popular outlets, from the New York Times to slate. He is also the scientific advisor behind pixars Inside Out. He's involved with the education of healthcare providers and judges, and has consulted extensively for Google, Apple and Pinterest. On issues related to emotion and well being. And in addition to us getting to know our wonderful guest today and get a better sense of his body of work, we are particularly interested in talking about his most recent book, ah, the new science of everyday wonder and how it can transform your life. In his book, Dr Keltner investigates the elusive emotion of awe and presents incredible research on how the emotion of awe can transform our brains and bodies and how we can cultivate more experiences of awe in our everyday lives, so we're not reliant on traveling to Greece. Dr Keltner, welcome to the Evolving Leader. It's good to be with you guys, Scott and Jean.

Jean Gomes:

Welcome to the show. How are you feeling today?

Dacher Keltner:

I am feeling a little bit tired at 730 in the morning, although I'm always up early because it's, it's really the first week of the semester here at Berkeley, and we have, you know, 35,000 undergrads and 10,000 PhD students, and it's a dense place, and so I'm looking forward to the weekend, just to quiet down a little.

Jean Gomes:

Excellent. Well, can we start to get to know you a little bit where you grew up, what experience has compelled you towards this, this life of being a psychologist professor and then writing six incredible books?

Dacher Keltner:

Yeah, thank you. You know, I'm at that age when you know you start to think about the story of your life, and a lot of our research on awe stories figure prominently. So I've been thinking about it, and yeah, in many ways, I was born to be an emotion scientist and to study awe. I My parents are, you know, counter culture. I grew up in the late 60s in Laurel Canyon, which I see Scott's music behind him had a lot of rock and roll going on, and revolution and politics and drugs, and I was a little eight and nine year old skateboarding around. And then we moved to the country on the Sierras, where a poor, rural town, you know, kind of they hit the experiment of going to nature. And that was really instrumental in my life, just, you know, you know, hours outside, wandering foothills and swimming in streams and the like. And then, importantly, you know, my my mom taught literature and romanticism, and, you know, Virginia Woolf and William Blake and and others. And so I, early on heard about awe through literature. And then my dad was a visual artist, and love Goya and Francis Bacon, a great British painter. And just like so I was just in the arts, but I wasn't good at art. And I wish I was a better fiction writer, but I wasn't really good at that, but I was good at math and science. And so when I, you know, when I heard about Paul Ekman that you could measure facial muscle movements and emotion in the face, I was blown off the map. Yeah, I was just like, This is what I'm supposed to do. You know, there's a science and a mathematics of how we feel emotion, how we see emotion, what it does to our minds, which and so that was kind of the ground of my work. And then, you know, was lucky enough to do well in school and then develop this science of emotions and study emotions that have changed my life, like compassion, which really foundational emotion and then awe. About 15 years ago, our lab, I have a terrific lab at Berkeley, lots of great PhD students. We got a nice couple of big research grants, and we just started studying all around the world, and it's meant the world to me. So can we get your definition of awe and and why study? I'm interested in hearing about all the emotions that have impacted you and what you've studied, but particularly awe, like, how would you define it, and why did you study and write it? Yeah, thank you, you know, and that's actually a hard question in some of our best minds. In fact, if you look at all the spiritual traditions, from Hinduism to mystical Christianity to Taoism, they grapple with like, what is this? You know, Transcendence that we feel. And then some of the great philosophers of the 18th century and on, you know, Edmund Burke and Immanuel Kant, and then Ralph Waldo Emerson and others have been like, what is this state that I experienced when. I'm just blown away and leaving worldly concerns, and that's all and so kind of grounded in those philosophers. Jonathan Haidt and I, who's a longtime collaborator, defined awe as this feeling. So it's an emotion, like you said, Scott, when you encounter things that are beyond your frame of reference, or vast you know, most typically, it's like, like Jean said, The Grand Canyon, you know, big sky, huge people, big ideas. And then it's mysterious. You can't make sense of it. And that's key, right? And you know, you see something, you know. And yeah, I always, I love finding everyday awe. And I always walk by these redwood trees in this stream on my way to work. And, you know, I mean, every time I look at the bark of the redwood tree and its size, I'm like, Man, this thing is 500 years old. Like, what's that like? So it's mysterious. So when we feel vast, and when we encounter things that are vast and mysterious, and then it triggers, you know, tears and goosebumps and the sense of humility and sense of being quiet, a lot of fascinating responses.

Jean Gomes:

And when you you read your book, you get this state change. I noticed when I was reading it, because you are clearly in this more than just a scientist. You know, you are inhabiting the experience and the emotion of this as you, as you explore it, and you start with this concept of moral beauty, we were most likely to feel awe when we move by moral beauty. Can we look at that for a moment and just unpack it?

Dacher Keltner:

Yeah, and, and, you know, thank you for noting the approach to writing. You know Jean, you know, as I there, there's a lot of great awe based Writing Across human history that I profile. There's nature writing, you know, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Wordsworth and his Prelude. And, you know, I mean, it's just part of our intellectual spiritual stuff, you know, the spiritual experiences. So I wanted to kind of move beyond my usual reliance on science and get rely on narratives and stories and personal experiences. Yeah, you know, moral beauty. I mean, there were many surprises in this science that I report upon, you know, and one of them, in fact, in some sense, the most striking one to me, is moral beauty. We surveyed. We gathered stories of all from 26 countries around the world, India, China, ukray, you know, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, you you know, just all these different countries. We just said, Hey, tell us a story of when you encountered something vast and mysterious. You know, awe and moral beauty was the most common story. And I hadn't expected that. You know, in the West, we tend to think about nature as a primary source of all, which is true in a lot of countries. That's, I thought it would be religious experience and spiritual practice, but it was this moral beauty. It's when you are moved and inspired and even transformed by someone's kindness, their courage, how they overcome hardship in life, you know, and and the stories we got were mind blowing. Or one of my favorites was, I think it was from Australia, and this son was writing about his 92 year old dad, and the dad had had every hardship, you know, his parents died young. He was raised in poverty. His wife died young. He had all these kids, you know, he spent his 90 years just working to to support his kids. And the sun was like, wow, you know what? What a figure. And so moral beauty is this, you know, in the in the when you ask, what makes you happy, right? We often think like, Oh, I gotta fix the patterns of my mind, or I gotta meditate, or I gotta go to Greece, you know, I gotta go to the Himalayas, like I was, you know, in, you know, fine mysticism. And in fact, very often it's the people around us, you know, I just, I remember giving a talk about awe in London, and this guy, you know, he literally stood up and he started crying. He's like, man, I was on my way to this talk, and I made eye contact with this stranger on the tube in London, you know. And we just recognize, like we're human beings, you know, living life. And they just were struck by that. And so that's moral beauty. It's really recognizing our humanity and the goodness of other people. I.

Jean Gomes:

And as a an emotion scientist, how, you know what? Because the word war is so tied up in lots of different meanings, what's the cluster of emotions that we experience around this? I mean, what are the other kind of things that we're experiencing when we're experiencing all what's what is it doing to us?

Dacher Keltner:

Yeah you know, Jean, that's such a important question, and it's a hard one, right? Like, all right, ah, you know, the the older definition of it, etymologically, is it's a fear and reverence and dread and horror. It's got a lot of stuff mixed up in there. You know, science, old scholars have worked really hard to think about the beauty, the beautiful and the sublime. How is awe? Sublime different from, oh, those are beautiful flowers on a rolling hill. And you know, if your listeners are really interested in this, they should consult this work I did with Alan Cowan, who is what we call a computational emotion scientist. He uses the new new kinds of statistics. And what we did is we would show people 1000s of videos and have them tell us how they felt. We would have them look at 1000s of vocalizations of emotion. Whoo, ah, you know. And again, rate what the meaning was, and then with really cool statistics. And if you go to Alan cowen.com you'll see the maps of these, these clusters, if you like to use your language, we see that all is really different. It's different from beauty. It's different from fear and terror. It is different from admiration and love. It's its own state, and that's important in our field, because then we start to think about, why do we feel? What does it do for us that's unique? And so we did a lot of work to really differentiate it from close states. Did you find that it was easy for all kinds of people everywhere to experience awe? You know, I know for some people, it's more challenging to access and understand the sort of more granular emotions we experience. But is that awe being such a more sort of all consuming emotion. I'm just curious, does everybody have equal access to it? Do they report on it similarly? Yeah what a you know, I approach things from an evolutionary perspective, and evolution always means individual variation, right? Because of our genetics and our family history and our culture and so forth. And when we look, we've studied on, you know, 10s of 1000s of people and or 1000s of people, and there's really significant variation. You know, a lot of us feel law, for example, a couple times a week. That's what we find. And I write a lot about everyday awe and how to cultivate it in the book. But there are people who feel a lot of awe all the time. And you know, they're feeling awe 10 times a day, and they they are hard to live with. You know, they don't do the dishes, and they've always got some new petition for you to sign. And, you know, kind of crazy. And, you know, I have a little bit of that my family. And then there are people who, you know, it's interesting to think about, people who don't feel a lot of them are, you know, they're and now I worry about that. You know, this emotion is so good for us, it gives us such meaning, and it's so easy to experience, ironically enough, despite its vastness, that so, yeah, there's always individual differences, and the people who feel a lot of ah, tend to be really open. You know, they they're just like, they're curious, they're open to other people, they're open to new ideas. They don't mind uncertainty that much, right? And then the people who don't feel too much awe, they like sort of things to be really fixed and certain and so forth. So we're learning something about those individual differences

Jean Gomes:

that you what what do you think the evolutionary purpose of or is, what's it solving for?

Dacher Keltner:

Yeah, you know. And, and I, we did a lot of different studies, you know, just sort of looking at the saw, what does all do to us socially, right? And what we find, you know? And this, it's so interesting. Jean, you know, when, when people feel a moment of all like when you had your forest bathing experience, you know, often they'll, they'll like, their mind will be reset, and they'll come out of it, and they'll say, like, you know, I just want to do some good for other people. You. And that is the first evolutionary purpose, which is it makes us integrate into social community, right, and become more collective. And you know, as EO Wilson and our other people have written, that's fundamental to human evolution, as as we shift from the our primate relatives to hominids, we just become really social, and we do everything collectively. And awe enables that. It helps us cooperate. We share more feeling awe. We have a different sense of self. We're like, wow, I'm kind of, I have these collective dimensions to myself. I'm a Berkeley person, or I'm progressive, or I, you know, I come from this class background, so, so really makes us do things that strengthen social collectives. And then the second thing that all helps us, I think, evolutionarily. And this is more subtle, and I end the book, thinking about this is it helps us see the systems around us. You know, systems thinking is so fundamental, some people think it's one of the great achievements of the human mind. And what it means for humans in an evolutionary context is like, Oh, you understand the social network you're part of better so you know how to navigate dynamics. You look around at nature and you start to see the ecosystem right, and where are there resources that would be good evolutionarily, you suddenly are more aware of weather systems and patterns. And so I think awe helps us at that cognitive level too, building on that a little bit the you know, we're really interested on the show and talking about how oftentimes our emotions are signaling to us about a need that is or isn't getting met. So I'm curious, and I think you've touched on this already in your in your last comments. But is need? Is all like an affirmation of a need in us, or what's it signaling that's that's a really timely and deep question. Scott, you know, I've raised two daughters who are in their mid 20s, you know, we have, I teach young people, you know. And I am struck by they have a need for awe. You know that they work so hard there's so much stress right now in our culture, climate crisis, economic issues, polarization, authoritarianism, and young people such a vital age to satisfy that need. And I just see them like, not quite, you know, being free and exploring and wandering and being having wonder about the world. And I think, I think in some sense, the the need for awe is experienced in your hunger for wonder. You know, just like I want to think about and be curious about and experiment with the groups that will define my community, and that's part of what awe does that need to belong to collectives. And so that's why, for example, music is so profound as a source of awe, because we go to concerts, we love particular kinds of music, and you start to find your collectives, right? This is my culture. These are my people. And then I think awe speaks to the need to understand our lives, to put the scenes of our lives, the chapters into this big story. You know that we call this is my life story. And you know, here's the system that the moments in my life are part of. And you know what, when people are all deprived, as for example, kids are in many contexts in the world, it's speaking to a need that's not satisfied, that we need to really be thinking about. And I like your language of that's a bold statement. We have this need for the transcendence, right for transcendence, and I think that's true.

Jean Gomes:

You talk about how wealth is undermining our ability to experience every day. Or can we talk about that a little bit?

Dacher Keltner:

Yeah, you know, I mean, philosophically, there's always, there's this long standing tension, you know, between the material life and the transcendent life, if you will. Awe is a transcendent emotion, it? It? It just gets us beyond ourselves. We, as Jane Goodall said, it connects us to things that are larger than the self and outside of the self, right, nature and culture and spirituality and so forth and and, you know, there's this deep human existential tension of, I got to be a material person and eat and. You know, have a place and shelter and status, but I also have spiritual leanings and transcendent leanings. You know, I want to lose the self. And you know, a lot ancient spiritual traditions later discussions of the sacred and the profane, it really differentiated those two things. And what that tells us is the material world of money and transactionalism and status driving, you know, and all of that may be an antagonist of all. And in fact, that's what we find empirically, that, you know, the people who have more wealth struggle a little bit more to feel awe when you you know, when people have a more material orientation in life, they tend to feel less awe. And you know, we have seen, historically, a rise in materialism worldwide. And so again, if we, if we want a balance of on our lives, I think we need to be questioning material in some way super interesting. Talk to us about collective effervescence. You mentioned a concert going a moment ago, but you know, you also say in your book that we've lost occasions for collective awe. Yeah, man, thank you for asking about that. You know, I love collective effervescence. So collective effervescence, you know, it's Emile Durkheim, great French sociologist, and he's like, man, you know, he fell from his field work in different parts of the world that like this, the core to religion was moving in unison with other people. And you start to, like, you know, get emotional and tear up and get goosebumps and raise your arms in the air, and, you know, like, feel it, and it's electric, right? I see you smiling, Scott, I bet you've had a lot of these issues

Scott Allender:

I've been there.

Dacher Keltner:

Tell me what's an experience of collective effervescence for you? No, I mean, you know, I mean, whether it's be a concert of my favorite band, I, you know, in my youth, I was in part of sort of some religious experiences where the whole room was very much in that sort of collective, effervescent space. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's an amazing process, and humans do it just instinctively. We're always kind of moving in unison, and suddenly we feel awe and and so that's hard to study scientifically, but I'll give you a couple of examples. But first, you know, so from our stories that we gather around the world, you know, 2600 stories, we started to find these cool stories of collective effervescence, like concert going an obvious one. So people, you know, they go to a concert, you know, it's Taylor Swift now, or for me, it's Iggy Pop. I'm wearing one of my Iggy Pop T shirts. Nice. There he is. And, you know, and suddenly you're, like, vibrating and hugging people, and, you know, proposing you buy a camper van, and you go driving around the country. And, you know, it just immediately forms this community through collective effervescence. One of the beauties of studying collective effervescence is it, got our lab close, you know, closer to things that scientists often don't study, like religious ritual. So religious people, you start doing, you know, different rituals that are part of your tradition, and you feel this collective effervescence. One of my favorites is sports. We got a lot of stories of like, you know, British people, like, at their favorite football team? Yep, I see Josh, yeah. And they were like, you know,

Jean Gomes:

I don't have a lot of collective FM switch. GPR, unfortunately. Who's your team? QPR, Queen spot ranges. The other teams have a lot of collective FMS against us.

Dacher Keltner:

But yeah. And then there's the other side to this. I Sorry to bring it up, but, you know, so, so, yeah, it's this incredible emotion. And they're really, there are. We're just that's a hard thing to study scientifically. You got 200 people, you're measuring them, but we are learning, for example, dancing together brings you awe and has a lot of benefits. There are studies of mosh pits, and you find that people kind of start moving in unison in the mosh pit and start to feel like they're part of a community. So I you know, Scott, to your question. I mean, you know, everybody's worried about technology right now. I don't think the smartphone is a great source of awe. I don't think the laptop is a great source of awe. It has to be direct, right? But one of the things that technology has done that we we don't realize as much or think about, is it's knocked out a lot of collective effervescence, right? When. I was in college, you know, 1980 you would, you would go to the record store, you'd buy an album, right? You know, the latest, you know, talking heads, or Ted Nugent, or whatever it is, you know, and you'd get your friends together, and you'd all listen to it together, right now, put on your headphones, and you're in your solitary world. So I worry, I worry about our loss of this. But you know, it's really cool young people. It's this need again, like you said, it's got like they're playing more games together. There's more communal living now. There's more dancing together. You know, dance societies and the like. So bring it back. Yeah,

Jean Gomes:

on that theme, you know, you talk a lot about the self knowledge that all brings us being when you feel part of something bigger than yourself, it gives you context. And given the the impulse over the however long it's been, but since the Second World War, since it's been measured this impulse towards individualism in the last 50 years. What? What does self knowledge from or help to help us with? What does it give us?

Dacher Keltner:

Yeah, your question. Thank you, Jean. It literally just gave me goosebumps, because you're one of the first to ask the historical question in that way, and thinking about all Yeah, you know, we there's there. It's pretty clear that we've had 50, 6070, years of individualism, you know. And young Kelly, this political scientist pollster, calls it self expressive individualism, you know, I express myself. I tell you my views, and you know, I define my identity in unique ways. I'm skeptical of conventions and categories and so forth. And there is enormous good that has come out of that, you know. And this is really in the spirit of John Stuart Mill, and you know, just the whole the importance of of individual dignity, individual rights, women's rights, rights of people of color, etc, sexual identities. So it's there's a lot of good news, you know, at the same time, we have lost certain things. You know, we've lost community, Bowling Alone, Robert Putnam, we've lost a sense of shared humanity. You look at the polarization issues in the United States and elsewhere. You know, just like no sense of shared humanity, even though it exists, we've lost collective effervescence in doing things together, and so we've lost a lot. And I think one of the reasons this, this emotion, awe, has hit such a chord or struck such a chord for people is it brings them to that, you know that, Oh, I like singing together with people. I like eating together with people. I like the rituals that we lost. You know, 90% of Americans were religious 40 years ago. Now it's 55 60% I miss those rituals and we got to recreate, and then the bigger shared narrative of life of, you know, what does it mean to be living in the 21st century? How to what's the story we tell about our shared identities? And so, I think all gets you to that, you know, it really surfaces. And I'll say also, we were talking about this before you know our relationship to nature. You know, yeah, nature is the second fundamental source of awe after moral beauty, and it's a different kind of relationality. My collaborator, Dr Yuria salidman, indigenous calls it ecological belonging. Got a book out on this coming up. You know, it's the sense that I am nature. You know, I am part of this ecosystem, and we have to return to that. So all, all is an important gateway to social change right now for the historical reasons you talk about, which is pretty glad you bring it up. In what ways do our brains work against us? In this you met, you mentioned people having, you know, when they're more open to uncertainty, they have greater experiences. But I'm listening to you talk, and I'm thinking about conversations we've had on the show and our own research that Jean and I have done. And in the space of our predicting brains are constantly working to minimize surprise. So in the endeavor of our brain trying to minimize surprise, how does that muffle our experience of that openness to awe and wonder? Yeah, you know. And I think that you know, prediction is one operation of the mind. Right? And obviously, there are many others. And, you know, I write about, you know, what I call the default self, which is a lot of consciousness. It's like trying to predict what people do, predict what will gain you status, you know, advance the self, which is, of course, an important for every imaginable reason. But we are also, you know, and it's this, really, in some sense, sets us apart as a species. We are explorers and we are questioners and wanderers, you know, their dopamine, this neurotransmitter helps us explore the new, go into mystery, where we don't have predictions, think about things that we don't know, right? And so I think that what awe is part of is a different way of understanding the world of exploration and discovery and thinking about all the unknowns that that current knowledge can't make predictions for. And in fact, you know, if you, as I wrote all and you know, you start to look at a lot of great innovators, and that's the story of their life, is they? They go after mystery. You know, Charles Darwin, like, Why did what? Why did we evolve? One of my favorite examples is Newton and Descartes were blown away by rainbows. They're like, I don't understand. I have no prediction of why a rainbow would be occur. What is that? You know, and they did a lot of scientific work. And then you look at social innovators, you know they so, yes, we're always seeking to minimize uncertainty with predictions, a very narrow, analytical mind, but we also have a very deep capacity to explore the unknown and it's, it's, it's why people innovate, it's why people create rock and roll and new paintings and new science. Yeah.

Jean Gomes:

Can we channel some of this thinking now into Yeah, the the implications on leadership, because you've given some really foundational thinking around the value of or the function of all the need it's meeting in us, the the you know, the kind of opportunities to do more with it. Why? Why do leaders need to foster this? What? What are they? What are they either missing by not doing it, or gaining from making or a factor in their thinking,

Dacher Keltner:

man, you know the I mean taking a step back what we know scientifically now, and we've got a lot of good tests of this, you know, with people in really stressful situations, is a minute or two of awe is about as good for you as anything You can do. You know, it's good for your heart, it's good for your immune system. It's good for your stress. It's, you know, we tested this, just published a paper health care providers during COVID, finding a minute of all day and they feel less depressed and anxious, you know? I mean, so and that's why the Surgeon General is very interested in this emotion, and I think we'll see a lot of it in organizational life and healthcare. I'm going to talk to healthcare leaders tomorrow about cultivating awe, which they're very interested in. I would say a few different reasons. You know, Jean and again, one of the cool things about the science as a report on in the book, is it's pretty easy to find, you know, just being outside and look, I just had my undergrads look at the sky for a minute. Whoa. That's awe inspiring. Listen to a piece of music, etc. So why in the workplace? One is, wow. Is this a good emotion for innovation. I mean, you know, I'm not the scholar to do this, but I kept bumping into it is really innovative people. Their innovation begins in awe, you know, the Einsteins and Darwins and Rachel Carsons and Steve Jobs and, you know, and now there's new work on innovation and creativity in digital technologies coming out of moments of all healthcare and meta medicinal discoveries coming out of like being awestruck by some possibility. So it's good for innovation. The second thing that I think is is interesting is, you know, people are now saying, this is a meaning, purpose driven generation or era, which I believe, being around a lot of young people, they're like, Yeah, this is a cool job, you know. But what's the purpose of this work? Right? And awe gets you there. You know, if you ask people, you know, what, you know, thick in your just think about the work you do, and what are the things that really give you awe in all the different things you do at work, as they do that inquiry, they'll really get to like, God, I really love bringing people together to innovate. That's what makes me get goosebumps. And then that tells you something about where you find purpose in work. And then, you know, for a lot of people in certain kinds of sectors, and this is a practice I'll do tomorrow with several 100 you know people in healthcare is like these stories of how your work colleagues inspire you. Moral beauty are powerful, right? Just to lift up the under the moral integrity of our work. And so it's a good emotion for the workplace. Certainly kept me going all these years. What else should we be asking you? Well, you know, the one of the things I felt a lot of worry about as I wrote this book, I think every day all how to cultivate it, you know, I think is a good one. I you know, I think you said this earlier, Scott, we have these conceptions of awe, you know, like going to the Grand Canyon and having the privilege to do forest bathing or sailing in Greece and and our work started to find that awes around us, you know, in our everyday lives, and I called that every day, all Einstein felt it was this state of consciousness. It was just a basic mental state, you know, like compassion or sense of justice or sense of anxiety or threat. And I agree, and the science aligns with that and and what that really has inspired is in work in different parts of the world, it's like man, you can find this pretty easily, you know? And so if you have a practice, a contemplative practice, in life, this is an opportunity for us just to take a minute pause, you know, look around you, think about something that's vaster and mysterious, feel a little bit of awe. Listen a piece of music. Just, just go, listen to a piece of music that really meant something to you. And you're 20, you know, and just you, it'll sort of take you back to that moment, you know, think of somebody who's of moral beauty to you. I love doing that, you know, it's just this. I asked somebody recently this question, and she's like, Oh my God, it was my 10th grade English teacher who taught me how to write, and then I actually was a pretty good writer, and I have it in me, and now I'm a writer, you know. So I think this is a really easy emotion to to bring us back, bring back into our lives and meet that need that you guys talked about, of like, our need for art. Yeah,

Jean Gomes:

I think this is so important to to not put ore on a pedestal, you know, and think that it has to be found by, you know, being one of the first people to get a, you know, a trip into outer space, or whatever it is,

Dacher Keltner:

who has the coolest bunker. Depressing, I could not agree more, you know. And, yeah, and I think there's something in our western tradition, and, you know, we think of spirituality like that, like in the West, it's like, you go to this remote place and your mind is blown and you have nirvana. But really, there's a lot of it all around us right now, you know, and and not to put it on a pedestal, as you said, it's important for us to remember. Hi.

Emma Sinclair:

This is Emma Sinclair, business psychologist, occasional co host and fan of the evolving leader podcast. There are now over 100 episodes with an incredible list of guests encompassing a broad range of disciplines, all hand picked by us to help you, our audience, understand and overcome your greatest leadership challenges. We have so much more to come. So wherever you get your podcasts, please subscribe, share, rate and review. Now, let's get back to the conversation.

Jean Gomes:

What's next for you Dacher, in terms of your research and the things that you're really excited about.

Dacher Keltner:

Thank you for asking that Jean, you know, one is, and this just grew out of the all book, which is when, you know, I when people. Learned of the awe science, which is a new science. They realize, like, our work is about this, and we don't have enough of it, you know. So in recreational communities and in healthcare communities, medical doctors, like they've lost their sense of awe, a lot of a lot of museums, and so I'm doing a lot of work to get awe back into organizational context, right. Just to remind people of awe they visit a museum tell stories of moral beauty and healthcare, doing a lot of work with palliative care. You know, as you head to the end of life, ah, reflections are powerful. So that's been exciting. And then I'm just fascinated you began our our conversation with this of moral beauty, like, that's a that's amazing to be. Not only is it amazing to me how kind we are, and yes, we're also violent and horrible. We're a complex species, but we're kind. That's amazing, and I've studied that a lot, but then I'm equally blown away by, you know, if I see someone be kind or courageous, I feel like a better person. And not only that, if you tell me a story of moral beauty, I feel inspired, right? So there's something magical about moral beauty that I want to sort of work on and get out into the world.

Jean Gomes:

We've certainly inspired me. You've given me a dozen ideas here that of reframing things that you know and bringing more meaning to them, or a new new meaning for them. So I mean, I really thank you for that. And you know, your book is fantastic, and I really both Scott and I loved it, and so glad that you were able to find time for us. I think my pleasure this weekend. What would you encourage everybody to start doing this weekend, to get a bit more awe into their lives? I know you've given us lots of ideas, but what are you going to do?

Dacher Keltner:

Yeah, you know, I It's all in the spirit of our conversation, Jean and Scott, you know. And it's just the accessibility. I think one of you used that word of awe, not to put it on a pedestal, but to see where it is around you. And first of all, for our listeners, they should go to greater good in action. Gia.berkeley.edu, lots of all practices and but, you know, I for the past 10 years, and I do this with my students, I develop lots of practices. I do this in my personal life. What I would encourage people to do this weekend is think about the eight wonders of life that organize the book of nature, moral beauty, collective effervescence, music, visual things, ideas and a couple of others, and then just, you know, pause, put away the chatter of your mind to the best of your abilities, and then and take in the awe of one of those wonders. So what I will do is all spend a moment near some beautiful trees and just feel their vibrancy. I will definitely look at the sky for a minute or two. I will always listen to music, and sort of sense the awe and wonder of the music, you know, and just listen to music intentionally. I will go teach leaders and ask them to share stories of moral beauty from their work. And once they do, yeah, I will remember some of those stories for a very long time. I will probably, you know, I'm lucky to have a job in the world of scholarship. So I'll think about an idea, you know, right now, it's freedom, you know, I'm reading about John Stuart Mill, and it's just like, man, the idea of freedom, it's amazing, you know. So there's a lot of awe around us, and then, you know, connect to people we care about and who we collaborate with. So it's easy to find, and those are some things I'll be doing and and if your listeners want to try some, go to ggia.berkeley.edu, it's free. There are lots of all practices. They could do an awe walk. There are many different things to do. So I've given some hints,

Jean Gomes:

brilliant. Well, I'm certainly going to be looking at that right after the show and planning out some of those things the weekend. I think you know you absolutely embody your work,

Dacher Keltner:

absolutely, yeah. Dacher, this conversation was good for my soul. So thank you. And thank you. Thank you for the work you're doing in the world. It's needed. It's important. And folks, if you haven't gotten your copy, go online. Go to greater. Good, and also get your copy of awe today and folks until next time, remember the world is evolving. Are you?

People on this episode

Head Shot

Jean Gomes

Co-host
Head Shot

Scott Allender

Co-host