Podcast Summary: The Dark Side of Emotional Intelligence

In this conversation, Peter C. Fuller and Bill Stierle explore a less-discussed dimension of emotional intelligence: how a skill intended to deepen empathy, communication, and self-awareness can also become performative, manipulative, or counterproductive when divorced from honesty and accountability.

Bill brings decades of experience as a communication specialist, speaker, consultant, and author of The Emotional Sobriety Solution. As founder of Subtext Solutions, his work has focused on thinking styles, emotional intelligence, conflict resolution, and the patterns beneath what people say and do. The discussion moves beyond surface-level EQ language into the more demanding questions: Are we truly regulating emotion—or avoiding  ...