>>Chip Conley: Hello everybody.
Welcome.
My name is Chip Conley.
I'm not Bill Clinton and I'm not the Dalai
Lama.
I was third choice of Meng's to actually introduce
him today.
[laughter] But I'm incredibly honored to be
here as a friend of Meng.
I'm just a huge fan of him and his work.
In preparation for being here today, I decided
to google "Meng" and "search inside yourself".
The first thing that came up was "Mengstupiditis",
which I didn't know that you had this website,
Meng.
But he has a website called Mengstupiditis.
There's actually a little point in that website
where he says -- there's a picture of him
-- and it just says, "I'm just a random generic
guy."
There's a picture of him and Barack Obama.
So I don't -- [laughter] I actually think,
although it doesn't say it on his website,
I think the symptom of Mengstupiditis is excessive
need for getting your photo taken with famous
people.
I don't know about you, but I think that's
one of Meng's more endearing qualities.
I think he should have named the book "How
To Be A Jolly Good Fellow."
But what I love about Meng more than anything
is his combination of humility and humor.
In looking at that website, the Mengstupiditis
website, there was a wonderful little poem
that he wrote last month called "The Not Difficult
Path".
I'm going to read it to you very quickly,
it's very short, and then we'll have him up
here.
Meng says, "With calm mind, I see my true
nature.
With jolliness, I open Dharma doors.
With open heart, I welcome my Buddha.
And with non-doing, I enlighten the world."
Meng, come please, enlighten us.
Thank you.
[applause]
>>Chade-Meng Tan: Thank you.
Thank you.
I like to stand behind the podium so you can
see less of me.
It's always an improvement when you see less
of me.
[laughs] So welcome.
[inaudible].
Thank you, Chip.
Chip is a wonderful, beautiful human being.
It's always nice to be introduced by you.
Thank you.
I want to start by telling you a famous Zen
parable.
It's a parable of the guy on the horse.
So some guy was riding on a horse, and he
was passing by some guy walking on the street,
or standing on the street.
The guy standing on the street asks the guy
on the horse, "So, rider, where are you going?"
And the guy on the horse says, "I don't know,
why are you asking me?
You should be asking the horse.
How do I know?"
So this is a parable about our emotional lives.
The horse signifies our emotion, or emotional
life.
Usually, we allow a horse to take us where
the horse wants to take us.
We don't think we have any control.
But in fact, I want to tell you today that
we do have control.
To this, the book in general and to this talk
is about mastery.
But first, I think even beyond allowing the
horse to take you where he wants, I think
most of the time we analyze this.
We're like, "The horse is dragging us."
And especially if we're experiencing emotions
like fear, nervousness.
For example, you're speaking in front of a
crowd of a hundred people, and you're going
on YouTube.
For example, that could be nerve wracking,
right?
I don't know, I'm just creating the example.
Or anger, and things like that.
Then you feel like, "I have no control.
I have lost control."
You feel like you're being dragged along.
Search Inside Yourself is the idea that you
can improve on that.
The first level of improvement is going from
that to this.
[laughter]
Looking cool.
[more laughter]
And smoking a Marlboro.
But no, I'm just kidding.
But looking cool.
So you're on the horse, and you don't just
look cool.
You get to at least have influence on where
you want the horse to go.
To a certain degree, you get to control the
horse.
The horse still has his own mind, in the same
way our emotional processes have a quote-on-quote
"own mind".
But you get to control it, guide it where
it wants to go.
However, it gets even better.
You can go from this skillfulness into this
mastery, like you stand on a horse and so
on.
I wish the Geshes were here.
I think they would appreciate this.
So this is emotional mastery.
The question then is, "What does emotional
mastery look like in the context of work?"
I think that emotional mastery manifests itself
in the type of statement we make about ourselves
in relation to our emotional skills and success.
Oh, the Geshes are here.
Okay, I'll just continue talking.
[laughs] [pause]
For example, the example of those statements.
We tell ourselves, "If I have strong self-awareness,
I'll be so successful.
If I can remain calm and confident in crisis,
I'll be so successful.
If I can create optimism and resilience, I'll
be so successful.
And if I can understand people better, then
I can instinctively like people, and it can
help people like me.
I'll be so successful."
So all these qualities that I've talked about:
confidence, awareness, optimism, and so on,
they come under the umbrella of emotional
intelligence, which is defined as this: the
ability to monitor one's or the others' feeling
to discriminate among them.
And, most importantly, to use this information
to guide one's thinking and actions.
This is emotional intelligence.
The good news.
The good news is that these qualities are
skills.
And like all other skills, these skills are
trainable.
Emotional skills are trainable.
Emotional intelligence is trainable.
That's the good news.
However, there's better news.
The other thing with me, there's no bad news.
There's good news and better news.
This is why people like me, I mean, in addition
to my good looks.
[laughter] The better news is that we've found
running Search Inside Yourself that those
skills are trainable to a meaningful degree
in as little as seven weeks.
Seven weeks you can train to a large degree
of those skills.
This is what Search Inside Yourself is about.
Search Inside Yourself is an EI, or emotional
intelligence, curriculum for adults.
A cartoon to show what that looks like.
[pause]
The question then is, "How do you --" hello,
welcome.
[pause] It looks like I'm being nice and waiting
for guests to sit, but I'm just taking a break,
drinking my water.
People think, "Meng is so nice" but no.
[laughter] Just kidding, just kidding.
How do you learn emotional intelligence?
It turns out that you cannot learn emotional--
it's just by reading the book.
You can learn about EI, but you cannot learn
EI.
In the same way, there's an analogy.
The analogy is the gym.
Exercise, working out.
You can learn about getting fit, but the only
way to get fit is to do it, is exercising.
So therefore, to acquire emotional skills
requires training, just like to acquire muscles
requires training.
The question then is, "What are we training?"
We are training the brain.
We can do that because of something called
neuroplasticity, which is the discovery that
what you do, what you think, and what you
pay attention to changes the structure and
functions of our brains, even for adults.
Even for engineers.
[laughter] The most important part is attention.
What you pay attention to changes the structure
of the brain.
That is how we can acquire emotional and mental
skills, by training our brain with our attention,
which I'll talk about soon.
Which leads us to another question -- oh,
by the way, and this is a very important insight.
The insight that even adults and even engineers
can train their brains.
Which leads us again to the next question,
which is, "How do you train emotional intelligence?"
It turns out; all you need is three easy steps.
Step 1 is attention training, Step 2 is self-knowledge
and self-mastery, and Step 3 is to create
mental habits.
Now I will talk about this in some detail.
By the way, the cartoons you see on the slides
are the cartoons in the book.
So the book has cartoons.
I know, I was writing -- I told myself, "If
I'm writing a serious book about emotional
intelligence and mindfulness, it has to have
cartoons.
Whoever heard of a serious book without cartoons?"
This is why I did that.
Anyway.
[laughs] The first step is this, is training
attention, which is counterintuitive.
We talk about attention.
You come to a class that calls itself an emotional
intelligence class.
What has attention got to do with emotional
intelligence?
It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.
So here is where it makes sense: the attention
we're talking about is to basically create
a quality of mind which is this, which allows
you to be calm and clear, at the same time,
on demand.
The idea is to develop your mind, develop
your attention to such a degree that whatever
situation you're in, whether you're just hanging
out, speaking in front of the public, or under
stress, customers shouting at you, deadlines,
bosses are looking at you, and you can drop
into the state where you mind is calm and
clear, and at the same time, on demand.
And that, my friends, that is the foundation
of emotional intelligence.
Again, the good news is this is highly trainable.
Again, this leads to a question.
Yeah, it's highly trainable, but how do you
do this, how do you train this quality of
mind?
The answer is very simple.
It's embarrassingly simple.
It is a true technique called mindfulness.
[inaudible]You're going to laugh at me because
it's so embarrassingly simple is this: mindfulness,
[pause] [laughter]
mindfulness is paying attention, but not just
paying attention.
Paying attention in a particular way, on purpose,
in the present moment, non-judgmentally.
Thus said, that is mindfulness.
It's so embarrassingly simple that we can
even do it in a couple of seconds.
So I'm going to invite everybody to do a ten
second exercise.
It's very, very simple.
All you have to do is to bring a gentle attention
to your breath, the process of breathing,
whatever it means to you, and then if attention
wanders away, just bring it back very gently.
Thus said, we're just going to do ten seconds,
which is one breath.
Easy to do, right?
Even an engineer can do that.
But because I'm an engineer, I'm going to
time ten seconds.
[laughs]
[laughter]
Okay.
So, ten seconds, attention to the breath,
beginning now.
Very gentle attention to the process of breathing.
If attention wanders away, just bring it back.
That is all.
And that was ten seconds.
Easy.
So easy anybody can do it.
So that's the embarrassing part.
The hard part is doing this-- being able to
deepen the mind of mindfulness, like calm
and clear.
Deepen it and bring your on demand, and stay
in it for as long as you want.
So that's the hard part.
The easy part is, you know what it is, you
can bring it about in ten seconds in a semi-controlled
environment, where there's nobody fighting
each other or something.
It's easy.
You might ask the question, which is a valid
question, except it's what I call a WTF question,
which is: "It sounds so embarrassingly easy,
what good can it possibly do?"
You bring attention to it -- what good can
it possibly do for you?
It turns out it does wonders.
Here's the analogy, the physical exercise
analogy: what you just did is the equivalent
of me telling you, giving you a dumbbell and
saying, "Do this once."
It sounds stupid, right?
You take a heavy object, you lift it, you
put it down.
What can that possibly do for me?
It turns out that if you can do this enough,
you develop strength.
Once you develop strength, you realize that
you can do things that you can never imagine
before you were strong.
A simple thing like this, a simple practice,
done repeatedly, over, so practice, over a
long stretch of time, changes you.
That is the power of mindfulness.
So what does it do?
How does it change you?
A couple of things.
[pause]
The first change you realize if you practice
a lot of mindfulness, like I said, very simple
techniques, giving attention to breath.
The first effect you find the perception changes.
Specifically, the quality of perception changes.
You see things in more clarity, especially,
specifically, the process of emotion, the
process of thought.
You can see in clarity.
But I talk about it a bit more detailed.
The second thing it does-- so it sharpens
the mind, increases the quality of attention,
and it calms the mind.
This practice, done often enough, once again
mastery of it, in the middle of stress, you
can just bring attention to the breath and
your mind is calm.
That easily.
If people think, "Wow, nothing can bother
you."
It's not true.
Things bother you, but you calm yourself on
demand.
So what's the proof?
There's a study done-- this is one of the
earliest fMRI studies done on highly achieved,
highly enlightened monks, like the monks we
have in the audience today.
People with between 10 and 50,000 hours of
meditation training.
This involves the part of the brain called
the amygdala, which is a very special part
of the brain.
The amygdala, it has to do with emotion.
It's especially active when you perceive a
threat.
It doesn't have to be real.
You just have to perceive it.
Examples of perception of threat.
One example is if you see a saber-tooth tiger
running at you.
Now that's perception of threat.
Another perception of threat is when the boss
comes to you and says, "Meng, we need to talk."
[laughter] [pants]
Oh, crap!
You know?
That's perception of threat.
The amygdala likes that.
An interesting thing about the amygdala is
that it has a very privileged position in
the brain, which is that when it activates,
when it perceives a threat, it takes over.
The way it takes over is that it shuts down
the executive part of the brain, the prefrontal
cortex, over here.
You almost, not literally, yeah, you almost
literally stop thinking.
You just react.
Then, gradually, this "Oh my God, I don't
believe I just said that to the boss!
I just told the boss to go do whatever."
[laughter] And then we tell ourselves, "I
wasn't thinking."
Well, it turns out neurologically, you were
not thinking, like for real, literally.
That mechanism has been around for millions
of years.
It's there for a good reason: it helps us
survive.
If you see a saber-tooth tiger running at
you, you don't want to think, "Oh, is that
dangerous?
Should I google this?"
[laughter]
Wait a minute, Google hasn't been invented.
This sounds like a problem.
You don't want to go to this.
It's just a "Oh, crap.
Run!"
So that's how the mechanism works.
Unfortunately, it has slight negative consequences
that we have today.
Because if the amygdala triggers all the time,
it's not very healthy.
It causes problems.
Especially if you're shouting at the boss.
Career-limiting.
[laughter]
However, the question then is, "Is it possible
to down regulate something as primitive as
the amygdala?"
Well, of course not.
It sounds stupid.
It turns out the answer is yes.
Accomplished monks like the Geshes we have,
we can do this.
It's shown in the fMRI that they can down
regulate something as primitive as the amygdala.
And the more practice they have, the more
effectively they can do that.
That is fascinating.
This was one of the beginnings, the birth
of contemplative neuroscience.
One of the first glimpses into the mind of
a meditator, from fMRI. [pause]
One of the objections, here we see the graph,
is that, "Yeah, this is like 10,000 hours
of training.
I don't have 10,000 hours to meditate."
Happily, so again like good news and better
news.
Good news is this works.
Better news is that it turns out you do not
need 10,000 hours.
The latest research I've seen is-- anybody
want to guess?
Those who haven't been to my class, by the
way.
Anybody want to guess how little time it takes
to have a measurable effect?
[pause]
Okay, no guesses.
I'll tell you: One-hundred minutes.
That's slightly more than an hour.
One-hundred minutes is all it takes for it
to begin to have a measurable effect, for
your life to begin changing.
Fascinating stuff.
Okay, let me see.
[inaudible] Okay. so this is step 1.
Step 1 is attention training.
Mindfulness, another way to see mindfulness
is this: it is like [pause] your mind is like
a flag fluttering in the wind, in motion or
in distress.
Mindfulness is like a flagpole that in this
case literally grounds the mind.
This is how you can remain under stress [blows]
and yet stable at the same time.
This is one way to look at mindfulness.
So this is step 1: attention training.
So, what is step 2?
Step 2 is self-knowledge and self-mastery
using attention.
What does that mean again?
Let's begin with a picture.
I'm going to show you a picture.
Okay.
If you look at this picture, you don't know
what it says.
However, if we do two things to the picture.
The first thing we do is we increase resolution.
The second thing we do is we increase vividness,
or in this case vividness means brightness
and contrast.
What happens?
If you do that-- excuse me-- you find that
you have useful information that was hidden
from you before.
In this case, for those who can't see, it's
Colonel Sanders trying to hide the recipe
of chicken.
[laughs]
If not for Colonel Sanders, you can see the
recipe already.
[laughs] [pause]
So the equivalent of the analogy is this:
in the mind, when your attention becomes--
when you have training in mindfulness, your
attention not just becomes calm, it also becomes
sharp.
And what that means is two things.
First thing it does is it increases the resolution
at which you perceive the process of emotion.
What does that mean?
So resolution is on two dimensions.
There's a spatial dimension and a temporal
dimension.
Spatial dimension means that you're able to
perceive changes in the emotional process
that you never noticed before.
For example, to make this substantial, you
begin to be able to see-- oh, later.
Temporal resolution is the ability to see
changes in small deltas in time.
Combined together, to make it substantial,
it means for example, the ability to see an
emotion the moment it is arising, and to see
the emotion the moment it is seizing and all
the tiny changes in between.
The mind acquires that ability.
Hmm.
[laughs]
Oops.
Okay, we're back to this.
So that's what it does for you.
It creates-- so that's resolution.
What is vividness?
Vividness is when you increase the signal
to noise ratio.
Parts of an emotional process that was almost
hidden from view.
You begin to see it in clarity.
So combined, you begin to get useful information
about yourself.
What does that mean substantially?
Substantially, it means that you begin to
see yourself objectively from a third-person
perspective.
Instead of seeing your emotion going wild,
I can see this anxiousness from a third point
of view.
This is what it is like to have a certain
experience of emotion.
Rather than I'm experiencing it, I see it
objectively.
The way that works is it has to do with the
insula.
There are parts of the brain here on both
sides called the insula.
They are related to a few things.
The first thing they are related to is awareness
of bodily sensations, especially visceral
sensations, sensations inside the chest and
stomach.
The second thing it's correlated to is awareness
of emotion.
A third thing, surprisingly, is empathy.
So people with strong insulas are strong in
all three dimensions.
It turns out the insula can be trained.
It's very easy.
All you have to do is to bring attention to
the body.
That's all.
If you do that a lot, every time you do that
you strengthen a little bit more.
If you do that a lot, you become very aware
of yourself or your emotions.
The question then again is "What does that
do for you?"
It's like, "Yeah, yeah, I'm aware that I'm
feeling anger at the moment.
Whatever."
There are a couple of very useful things,
and they're so useful that the degree of self-awareness
that you can gain can create profound changes
in your life.
Let me give you some examples.
[pause] The first example is that if you're
able to perceive an emotion the moment it
is arising, that gives you the power to turn
it off if you want to.
It gives you choice.
Therefore, you have a choice of, "Hmm, I feel
anger rising.
Should I be angry or should I be not?"
You can choose.
I mean, there are situations where I chose
to be angry, and because I was getting ripped
off.
I figured the best reaction is to put that
other people.
What it can bring off is to become generally
angry, I faced them and banged on the table.
And the situations where you're "Nah, I don't
want to be angry, especially since she's my
boss.
Let's turn it off."
So you have a choice.
The first thing, already, this is life-changing.
If you have to ability to turn off anger.
Already, it changes your life.
That's one.
It gets better.
Another example is that if you have a lot
of strong self-awareness, emotional awareness,
the emotional awareness translates into self-assessment.
You get to know yourself a bit better.
You get to know your resources.
This is what I'm good at, this is what I'm
bad at.
These are my strengths, these are my weaknesses.
This is what I really like to do, this is
what makes me happy, and so on.
And the effect of that is that once you are
able to figure out, quote on quote your "deepest
values and motivations", then you know what
opportunities to look out for.
That could change your life.
For example, let's say you are good at coding.
So you know, "Writing code makes me happy."
But suppose that you took SIY and then you
know something beyond that.
You know that beyond writing code, something
else makes me happy, which is connecting people.
Just saying, just an example.
If you discover that motivation in yourself,
then when Google starts a project called Google+,
what do you do?
It's like "Oh my God, this is what I want
to work on.
This is it."
If you did not have the insight, the opportunity
would just come and go.
However, because you had the insight, you
catch the opportunity when it's there.
Therefore, you're always successful.
And then people will think you're very lucky.
I mean, you're lucky, but at the same time,
you're there to catch your opportunities and
you're able to catch opportunities because
you have deep knowledge of self.
So that's another example of how it changes
your life.
Very simple practices, changing your life.
There's a third one, which is even more profound,
which is this: if you experience an emotion,
we like to think that our emotions are existential
experiences.
What does that mean?
We like to think the emotion itself, is us.
And it reflects in the language that you use.
For example, we say, "I am angry.
I am sad.
I am happy."
So the emotion becomes me.
I become the emotion.
However, as the power of your mind, the sharpness
of mind, your resolution, your vividness becomes
stronger over time.
You discover something about a process of
emotion and then you read an emotion in a
very subtle way that has a profound change
in your life.
And that profound change is this: is going
from existential to experiential, which means
going from "I am angry" to "I'm experiencing
anger.
I'm experiencing happiness, or sadness, or
whatever."
What does that change?
Now it changes from "I am this, this is me"
to "My mind is like a sky."
Then emotions are the clouds occupying the
mind, but they're not the mind.
So that's a powerful shift.
But wait, it gets better.
For only $9.99-- no.
The way it gets better [laughs] which is there
is another step you can go.
As your attention becomes even more refined,
you discover something else, beyond being
experiential.
You discover that the process of emotion,
the experience of emotion is physiological.
You experience emotions in the body.
Every emotion has a bodily correlate.
And then you discover something.
You discover that painful emotions are not
that different from painful feelings in the
body.
For example, I hurt my hand.
Ow!
And then I know this is pain, I know this
is unpleasant, but the pain is not me.
It is a sensation in my body.
Having that perception changes everything.
Because it's not me, I can do things about
it.
I can take Tylenol.
I can massage.
I can put in ice.
Or I can ignore it.
Or I can experience it mindfully.
Or I can just eat ice cream and forget all
about it.
And so on.
There are things I can do because this experience
is not me.
It's just an experience in my body.
That is the power of this-- oh, I already
put it up, okay-- of this change in perception,
of framing from existential to physiological.
And this is one of those insights that will
change; that can change your life.
Just one of many in Search Inside Yourself,
to change your life.
So that is part 2 [pause] which is self-knowledge
and self-mastery.
You might think, "This is it, this is emotional
intelligence."
But wait!
There is more.
It gets better.
So there's step 3.
By the way, everything I say is incremented
improvements.
So if you only do one, it's already huge.
If you do a second one, it's even huger.
And now it's hugest, huger-er. [laughter]
Which is creating mental habits.
I say "useful mental habits", but specifically,
they are habits, they are conducive for social
skillfulness.
What does that mean?
Let me give you a few examples.
The first habit that is very conducive to
being socially skillful is the habit of kindness,
or loving-kindness.
That is a habit of looking at any human being,
anyone you've never met before.
Looking at any human being, my first thought
is, "I want this person to be happy."
I want this person to be happy: that's just
it.
Already, you can imagine if you have that
mental habit coming effortlessly, it changes
everything.
You go into a meeting room; you look at everybody,
you think, "I want all these people to be
happy."
It reflects unconsciously in your body, your
face, your language, your tone of voice, your
facial expression.
Because it reflects unconsciously, it's picked
up unconsciously by the other person.
Their feeling, their perception is, "I like
this person.
I don't know why.
This Meng guy, I really like him.
Maybe it's his good looks.
I don't know."
[laughter] But it's not just the good looks,
it's because I'm wishing for this person to
be happy.
I want Tara to be happy, and Tara can sense
it unconsciously.
In a situation like meetings and so on, if
you have that mental habit all the time, people
want to work with you.
Then you find yourself becoming successful.
You're not clear why.
But it's this; it's just simple things like
that.
So here's one example.
The other example is the habit of human similarity.
The habit of looking at a human being and
thinking, "This person is just like me."
But in three specific dimensions, by the way.
Not like every way.
It's not like Chip and I, like we're so alike
only our moms can tell us apart.
Not like that.
Just like me, three dimensions.
The first is looking at any human-- oh, especially
in a situation of conflict, this is very useful.
Looking at any human being in a situation
of conflict, "This is a human being, just
like me.
This person wants to be happy, just like me.
This person wants to be free from suffering,
just like me."
This is it: three things.
Three things alone can do wonders.
It changes in the situation of conflict.
It changes how you react.
It changes how you solve the problem.
It creates a possibility of solving the problem.
Changes are really what makes you successful.
So just a cartoon to show-- there was a right
way to do "just like me."
A wrong way to do "just like me" would be
this.
Don't do this.
[laughs]
Beyond talking, I want to create some things
that we can bring home today, that are useful
for you already.
The first useful practice is mindfulness,
bringing attention to the breath.
If there's any distraction, to let it go.
I want to introduce you to a very simple second
practice.
Again, it's one of those ten second practices
that if you do a lot, will change your life.
The practice is a random intention of kindness.
The idea is look at any human being at random
and think, "I want that person to be happy."
That's it.
If you want to, I want to invite you to participate.
In the next ten seconds, look at two random
human beings in this room and just think to
yourself, "I want this person to be happy."
Okay?
Ten seconds.
Don't say it, just think it.
[pause] Well, this is it.
Kind of fun, right?
[laughs] Kind of fun.
I mean, first it changes your life, you do
it a lot.
But beyond changing your life, you might find
that the intention that you're wanting other
people to be happy is intrinsically rewarding.
I think it has to do with evolution.
Being altru-social beings, wanting the other
to be happy, creates the conditions for altru-sociality,
for trying to survive.
So try this a lot.
When you walk out of this room, every hour
or so, just look at a random human being and
say, "I want that person to be happy."
Really think that thought.
And make it a habit.
Oh, by the way, everything I just told it,
these informal practices, there are ways,
formal practices, to make them even better.
So read the book.
[laughs]
Again, the question: why does this matter?
I wish for people to be happy, helps me succeed.
Why does it matter?
It matters especially if you're a manager.
If you're a leader.
There was a study which I found fascinating,
which was published in '03.
It showed this: in the study, they compared
a bunch of managers.
They ranked them by effectiveness and they
compared the most effective top 25% of managers
in the company with the bottom 25% and figured
out what difference is between them.
It turns out in their study there's only one
difference, which is a faction, which is the
top managers.
They love people and they want to be loved.
Somehow that makes them even more effective.
It turns out there's a simpler explanation,
which is if people love you, they work harder
for you.
That's it.
The quality of the work improves.
But knowing the data, it turns out that being
loved is good for your career, especially
if you're the boss.
It's like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, sounds good,
but I'm sure there are limiting situations.
I'm sure it doesn't work in the US Navy.
It turns out in the US Navy, and this is a
study back from 1988.
[laughter] A study on what makes the best
naval commanders.
You think naval people, Navy, they give orders.
"Make it so.
Engage, fire.
[laughs] Go wash the toilet."
No, no.
You'd think the tough people, the tough guys
don't do nice, and so on.
Now it turns out, according to this study,
it's a famous study, even in the Navy, being
nice works.
Here it says the description of the most effective
naval commanders in the US.
They are described as "more positive, outgoing,
emotionally expressive, dramatic, warmer,
more sociable, appreciative and trustworthy,"
and so on.
In other words, these are nice people, people
you want to hang out with.
The title of this study is Nice Guys Finish
First.
So even in the Navy.
And just to reinforce the point again, um,
a comic: Nice Guys in the Military.
[laughter]
So this is it.
It's very simple.
How to train emotional intelligence: three
easy steps.
You come to SIY, this is it.
In seven weeks, we go through this in detail,
of course.
But these are the three basic steps.
So our hope is that when we train emotional
intelligence, it helps to become more successful.
It helps to become a better leader.
And, I think more importantly, I think most
importantly, at least to me, is it creates
the conditions for happiness.
And happiness, I really like this definition,
which is "a deep sense of flourishing that
arises from exceptionally healthy minds, not
the mere passable feeling of fleeting emotion
or mood, But an optimal state of being."
This is from Matthieu Ricard who is one of
the happiest men in the world.
There's a story behind it.
We shall tell you when we have time.
But this is it.
What you learn, the emotional skills you learn
in Search Inside Yourself are, and in general.
The emotional skills, the skill for self-awareness,
the skill for mastery over self, the skill
for loving-kindness and compassion, ultimately
what it does is this: creates the condition
for happiness for everybody.
I want to create a happy world, so that's
what I do.
So let me see.
There are some more minutes.
So does he actually work?
We've been running this in Google for about
five years.
The feedback we get over and over again, which
most warms my heart, is this: oh, not the
circle.
[laughs] The thing inside the circle.
Which is "Your class changed my life."
That's very powerful, right?
I mean, imagine coming to work on a Monday
in the office, and you take a class in the
office, and it changes your life.
And just simple things like what we talked
about, like awareness, empathy, and so on.
There are different ways people's lives have
been changed.
Some people say, some of this is purely like
career wise.
"I got my promotion because of SIY.
It gave me the skills that got me my promotion."
Some people say, "I was going to leave Google,
and then doing SIY I discovered I love my
work.
I decided to stay."
And there are people who say, "My marriage
became better.
I see myself through kinder sets of eyes.
I see people in more kindness."
Profound changes in seven weeks.
That warms my heart.
The last part of this talk is the question
of: why did I do this?
How did Search Inside Yourself begin?
Embarrassingly enough, it began with world
peace.
[pause] Search Inside Yourself started because
I wanted to create the conditions for world
peace in my lifetime.
The way it started was we have this thing
called "20% time project", but for those of
you watching on TV, engineers, at least in
my days, when I was a young man, we could
spend 20% of our time working on whatever
project we wanted.
I figured since I could do whatever I wanted,
I might as well solve the toughest problem
I know, which is world peace.
I mean, like, mining asteroids; anybody can
do that.
[laughter] World peace, that is tough.
So I started thinking to myself.
The first question asked, "What are the necessary
and sufficient conditions for world peace?"
I figured something out.
I figured that the two conditions which are
necessary, each one insufficient, but combined
maybe sufficient.
The first is the end of global poverty.
The second is inner peace, inner happiness,
and compassion on a global scale.
Combined, I think they are necessary and sufficient.
Then I figured since Gates and the rich guys
are working on the first one, the second one
nobody's working on it: I'll work on it.
How do I do that?
Then after a few months, I figured it out.
I figured out that the way to create inner
peace, inner happiness, and compassion worldwide
is to align it with the success of individuals
and businesses.
If you can create those qualities in ways
that help people succeed at work, that help
businesses' bottom lines, that's going to
stick.
If it's just about goodness, oh, that's kinda
nice, go hug a tree.
[laughter] But if it's like this thing, this
thing will help you get your next three promotions
and you will earn the company a lot of money.
Oh, by the way, you will create world peace.
Okay, so where do I sign up?
So the idea, there's a word for it, I'm blanking
on it right now.
"Upaya": skillful means.
Which means that to do something good, do
what aligns with the people's self-interest
in a way that the goodness is a necessary
and unavoidable side effect.
Help people succeed in a way where world peace
is the unavoidable side effect.
That's what I'm trying to do.
Good.
How do I do that?
And then a couple of months of thinking, I
figured it out.
I figured out the way to do that is to create
a curriculum for emotional intelligence for
adults.
That was how SIY started.
That was a story.
So, SIY, Search Inside Yourself started or
began with the story of one funny little engineer
and his pursuit for world peace.
I hope that this story will have a funny and
happy ending.
It's about world peace.
I hope for a happy ending.
So I set out to write a book.
Oh, can I borrow it?
I will hold it up.
So I set out to write a book that is funny
and practical.
I hope it's life changing for the readers,
and there are a few people who told me it's
life changing, just the book alone.
I hope you like the book.
And more importantly, I hope you change your
lives.
I hope all of you will aspire to create the
conditions for world peace in your lifetimes
too.
Thank you.
[applause]
Okay, we have time for questions.
Any questions?
I guess do we need to use a mike?
Okay, yes.
Please use a mike. [pause] Oh, we have thirteen
minutes.
Yes.
>>male#1: If I imagine you being happy, I
imagine you doing some recreational activity,
maybe watching a football game, taking large
amounts of your recreational drug of choice,
I suppose it's beer.
I must be doing it wrong.
If I imagine you being happy or most people
being happy, just being made happy with the
smallest change, I imagine them being completely
contented and useless.
I don't think I want to do that.
>>Chade-Meng Tan: That's right.
Yeah, me neither.
So I tell you my experience, which may or
may not be universal.
I think it's universal.
Which is that I discovered for myself that
if I'm in pursuit of happiness, then I'm just
doing happiness.
Something is holding me back from greater
service.
However, if I'm already happy, and I feel
that I'm free to contribute, and that is how
I feel that I can go out and try to change
the world.
Because if I succeed I don't gain anything,
if I fail I don't lose anything.
Therefore, I'm free to try.
So for me, having a source of happiness that
is not dependent on sensory input, having
that was actually freeing, and it frees me
to do big stuff rather than the other way
around.
Of course, I don't mind playing golf too.
[laughs] Thank you.
Yes, you?
>>male#2: I have two kinds of questions.
This is really not challenging you.
>>Chade-Meng Tan: Yeah, you're so wise.
You ask me questions, I feel humble.
>>male#2: This is something that I myself
had experienced during my visits here and
there.
One is that, for example, the talk that you've
given right now is really enlightening and
wonderful.
But I do similar kinds of talks also, so what
I normally find is that these kinds of beautiful
talks that were are giving, and those who
come to listen to these wonderful talks are
already good people.
So the question is: how can we reach to the
dictators?
The totally dead and selfish, arrogant people
who don't care about any of these things.
Many of these people have the power to destroy.
This is one question.
The second thing is: the many wonderful activities
done by Google or many other companies, this
is really amazing.
I'm completely amazed by the innovative that
you have here.
But again here the problem is the fruit of
all these things that great companies do,
they seem to be again enjoyed by educated
and rich people.
Does it go anywhere on a larger scale to the
really, really downtrodden people?
I would like to hear you visit on this too.
>>Chade-Meng Tan: Okay.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I think the first thing to know is that I
don't have any wisdom.
I'm just trying my best.
[laughs] But having said that-- so the first
question about reaching the people who are
least, what's the word, not susceptible, least
receptive to this, which is why is "upaya"
is so important.
Skillful means.
If it's all about "Let's bring goodness to
the world", I think people in this room and
people in Google say, "Sign me up."
But there are people who would not sign up.
But if it's about profits, that's when I want
to hook people to sign up.
To say, "Everybody wants to make more money,
especially those who are the least receptive
to goodness."
However, if the money comes with being good:
"It's money, right?
Okay, I'll be good."
How about reaching people, the downtrodden
people?
Right now, I don't know.
I have a theory.
I want to say the Buddhists are expressing
in Buddhist terms.
Then I translate it to real world terms.
The Buddhist term is that I think America,
like Google in general, I mean, we're particular
in California and so on.
We are heaven, and I hope that for the work
that we do, we turn heaven into pure land.
In other words, for those who didn't understand
what I just said, we transform a place of
pleasure and happiness into a source of goodness
for the rest of the world.
So for those who don't know, pure land is
not a place where you're happy, pure land
is a place where you practice and become compassionate
and enlightened.
I'm hoping that through the work that we do
that compassion will spread, at least in America,
and through that, the world will benefit in
some good way.
I'm just guessing, I don't know.
>>male#3: This question is about reaching
another group of people.
Can you write one for my ten year old son?
>>Chade-Meng Tan: Maybe.
>>male#3: How do we reach children
>>Chade-Meng Tan: Maybe.
I don't know.
I think this book may be readable by ten years
old already.
Let me know.
>>male#3: I'll try.
[laughs]
>>Chade-Meng Tan: I'm actually thinking of
writing a children's book, but it would not
be as deep as this.
>>male#3: Get him started.
Get him started, that's a good thing.
>>Chade-Meng Tan: Thank you.
>>male#4: You almost answered the question
actually just now, but I still-- and maybe
you have some other thoughts on this.
Is there no hope for people to actually realize
that happiness is a value by itself, not through
career advancements or money?
Is there no hope at all in you to let people
understand that happiness is a value by itself?
>>Chade-Meng Tan: I think there's a lot of
hope.
I'll tell how optimistic, how naively optimistic
I am.
Can I?
I'm so optimistic that that topic-- that there
is a source of happiness accessible to normal
human beings with mental training, and that
source for happiness is independent of sensual
pleasure.
I'm so optimistic it's in Chapter 3.
[laughs] So near the beginning of the book.
So I do think it is doable, and I think given
the right way the message is spoken, spoken
with signs, spoken tangibly and not just "Oh,
you're happy."
But these are the specific practices, this
is what it does to you, and so on.
Spoken in the right language with the right
data, I think you can reach masses and I think
people get it.
I hope.
Thank you.
Sorry I keep stealing the books.
Good thing-- I don't know, it's kinda scary
to take things from monks because they know
kung fu or something.
[laughter] Just kidding.
So if you see me like "Krrr!", then...
>>male#5: You promised us the story of the
happiest man in the world if there is enough
time.
Is there enough time?
>>Oh!
There is now time, okay.
Since there's nobody behind you, I'll tell
the story.
So the story-- it turns out that neurologically,
there is a way to measure happiness, which
is very surprising.
It's a very simple way which is they measure
the relative activation of the left prefrontal
cortex over here, a specific part of the brain.
And then versus the right prefrontal cortex.
It turns out that if the left-right tilt,
if it's more left than right, the first person
experiences "I'm happy, I'm optimistic, I'm
joyful" and so on.
Positive stuff.
And the more the grade is, the more positive
the person's reports.
And vice versa.
Why is that so?
Nobody knows for sure, but there is a very
important clue, which is only the left prefrontal
cortex here has a direct connection to the
amygdala.
So only that part has the ability to tone
down the negativity.
This part doesn't have that.
It's not clear why.
There is a relationship.
This data has been around long enough, has
been studied for long enough, that there is
a normal curve, a thing established on what
most people look like.
The distribution.
And Matthieu Ricard, when he was measured,
he was a couple of standard deviations away
from the mean.
So at that time, he was the happiest person
ever measured by science.
Again, that's the good news, but again there's
better news.
The better news is that it turns out he was
not the only one.
It turns out that as long as you put in your
hours of practice, you can reach the state
of extreme happiness.
That is a reason, voluntarily without sensual
input.
On demand.
And I suspect all the geishas have that ability,
but they just don't want to tell you.
They're very humble.
They also have kung fu or something.
[laughter] They can use the Force.
Yes, Joe?
>>Joe: Hello Meng.
Thank you so much for this talk.
It was very enlightening.
>>Chade-Meng Tan: Thank you.
>>Joe: So I know that SIY, the Search Inside
Yourself, course is offered here at Google.
But if I were a company that was really needing
the sorts of tools that you're offering in
this book, how would I be able to obtain them
if I weren't here at Google?
>>Chade-Meng Tan: There is good news, which
is--it sounds like a planted question.
But I didn't plant it, somebody else did.
[laughter] If he also planted the question
he asked, "You're so good looking.
How do you do that?"
[laughs] Okay.
>>Joe: Also, if I want to look as good as
you, how do I do that?
[laughter]
>>Chade-Meng Tan: Study engineering.
[laughter] All the engineers are good looking.
Didn't you notice?
So how do you access this outside of Google?
We are creating an organization called the
Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute,
SIYLI.
It's pronounced as "silly."
[laughs] [scattered applause] Siyli.org.
We're going to train trainers and bring this
out to the world.
So if you're watching this from outside of
Google and you're interested, go to siyli.org
and find more information.
And I guess that's it.
Nothing else.
Thank you all for coming.
Thank you all for being my friends.
I'm so happy to have you.
Thank you.
[applause]
