Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace) – Google's Proven Mindfulness and Emotional Intelligence Guide

Is World peace an attainable dream or does Chade, like Don Quixote, need to ask himself whether he's only holding moonbeams in his hands. War is a dark malignancy spreading throughout the soul of the weary world. Chade's prescription, clearly set out in SIY, is "goodness" on a global scale to cure the malignancy. Chade-Meng Tan has a passion for peace and by writing this book he is doing something about it. Chade, an engineer at Google, was allowed by them to organize a team to develop a project for World Peace. He approached the project from an efficient engineering point of view. His team developed skillful means to help people succeed in a way that World Peace is a necessary side affect. Chade-Meng Tan recently explained at a Google seminar his plan for making world peace an attainable dream. It can be viewed on You Tube. David, my son, a retired Boeing engineer and now a teacher at Cal State Long Beach had this to say about Chade's book, SIY: "I did relate to him as an engineer. I like how he set out to solve the problem of world peace and came up with a simple, elegant solution. Implementing the solution will be a challenge but I think it is workable. I as a teacher am in a perfect position to spread the word. Even though my class is a technology class and not a philosophy class, I can still teach by example. I have a [peace] poster below on the wall of my lab. I do a little spiel how they need to have inner peace and how they need to foster a love for metallurgy to be successful in the class. Many of them snicker and think I am nuts but some of them get it and try to adopt it." Chade hypostasized that two necessary and sufficient conditions for world peace are: 1. End of poverty, and 2. Inner peace, happiness and compassion leading to goodness on a global scale. Chade reasoned that if goodness expandeds in the world on a global scale, wars and poverty would diminish and eventually disappear. He asked himself how goodness could be expanded in the world and came up with a simple solution. Chade makes a convincing case that if the business community realized that "goodness" was good for business then it would become part of the business culture on a global scale. Chade is pragmatic: If all you want is "goodness" go hug a tree he says. Chade developed a simple tool for the business man to use so he could promote goodness. The book covers convincing research and studies that show that the business and military leaders who exhibit inner peace, happiness and compassion within themselves are constantly the most effective leaders and their companies do better financially. To promote goodness Chade's book spends time explicating meditation techniques. The one practice that I found simple and practical and useful and which is now a habit with me is: Whenever I meet someone I think "I want you to be happy." What happens is this; my face softens and reflects goodness. The other person senses this and their face softens and a connection is made. It's impossible for me to maintain toxic feelings towards someone I want to be happy. It's simple and elegant and backed by research into our brains ability to radiate waves of consciousness. Chade's program is based on three insights. 1. That we are all human 2. We all want to be happy, and, 3. We all want to be free of suffering. These three insights have enormously enriched my life and are worth the price of admission.

Didn’t expect such book from a Google software engineer, what a unique take on mindfulness meditation! Most inspired by the author’s grand ambition to save the world through inner peace and emotional intelligence. Also like his idea of treating the mindfulness meditation as a science and the way he uses the example of medicine progression from an obscure discipline to widely accessible to the masses to illustrate the potential that meditation and mindfulness would one day become as commonly accessible as medicine. Meng’s writings and graphic illustrations are packed with high quality humors and that makes the whole learning experience fun and enjoyable.

I write about and teach meditation. As a result, many people ask me for a good, easy-to-read guides for beginners. I'm happy I stumbled over Search Inside Yourself on a bookstore table because it delivers. The author adapts several standard Buddhist meditations for the work setting. Another reviewer (perhaps also a Dharma teacher) on another site criticized the simplification of the meditations and advice, but I disagree with her. I think this "business-lite," as she called it, is brilliant, and it will help to do what we all want: to spread the message and help ease more suffering for more people. The author does a wonderful job of making these teachings accessible for a specific audience: people who suffer at work. He blends Dharma teachings (never really calling them Dharma, though) with the fields of psychology, specifically emotional intelligence. The book is an easy read and left me with several take-aways, even though I've been meditating for years. This is a business book, but the material could easily be used for any situation that involves dealing with difficult people, including marriage. It's a wonderful resource, one that I highly recommend.

Excellent Book that takes an Engineering Prospective to Mindfulness! This was one of my first exposures to mindfulness, and it was refreshing to find something that spoke my language. Instead of all the mystical BS, Medical Jargon, or Boring long winded words that make no sense, the book explained why Mindfulness works, and how you can use it. The book is based on a course that was internally developed at Google, called Search Inside Yourself. This has now Branched into an outside organization, called Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, or SIYLI. Cheng-Meng Tan was the one that pioneered the course, and later institute. And he has serious programmer chops. What I have found is there are two different schools of Mindfulness. They both have similarities, but they have a bit difference approach. - Medical as a way to reduce pain. the idea being you get rid of future and past pain, by focusing only on the present pain. You have now reduced your pain by 2/3rds! Jon Kabat-Zinn is the god father of this movement, and his classic book is Full Catastrophe Living (Revised Edition): Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness - Buddhist, that often has a more mystical point of view. Your breath is often the focus, but there is a philosophy behind it. I have attended a Medical type mindfulness class, as well as one by SIYLI, and a couple of meditation retreats by a Buddhist Monk Bhante Yogavacara Rahula, who has an amazing past, and a few other seminars including one by Jeremy Hunter of the Drucker School of Management. They all have had value, but the book Search Inside Yourself explained the why, which made it click. Mindfulness has been an excellent tool for reducing stress. I view it as giving your brain a mental break, which helps a tremendous amount and your mind is a muscle, and it needs exercising. Mindfulness is a great way to exercise your brain!

This guy is absolutely hilarious! According to the forward in the book by one of the leading pioneers of mindfulness named Jon Kabat-Zinn, Meng carry's around a business card that says "The jolly good fellow of Google (which nobody can deny)." Meng designed a meditation system at Google; to make the practice more accessible to people, he calls it, "Search Inside Yourself" its designed to work on three things. 1. Attention training 2. Self-knowledge and self-mastery 3. Creating useful mental habits. This books is full of ways to incorporate mindfulness into your life, he explains in-depth how to manage harmful emotions with mindfulness. It also contains a great deal of science backing up all of his claims, not to mention the book contains personal testimonials from other Google employees, about how a mindfulness practice has influence their life. As he says in the book about creating useful mental habits, " Imagine whenever you meet anybody, your habitual, instinctive first thought is, I wish for this person to be happy. Having such habits changes everything at work, because this sincere goodwill is picked up unconsciously by others." This is one hundred percent possible by incorporating a consistent mediate practice into your life similar to the one laid out in this book. America is ranked very low in the level of happiness on several recent polls and studies. This is something that bothers me, and I would generally like to see more people partaking in any type of available meditation practice or a practice that is similar to Search Inside Yourself even if they only incorporate five to ten minutes a day. I've been mediating for close to a decade, and I spend four hours a day doing it, because I think it's the most incredible tool for consistent states of happiness. Meng also explains how emotional intelligence is one of the best predictors of success and fulfillment in life. He outlines several mindfulness strategies in the book to work on your emotional intelligence. This book is a wonderful introduction to mindfulness, as well as a great book for advanced practitioners.

I highly recommend the book Meditation for Dummies. This book taught many of the meditations that are found in the book Meditation for Dummies. The most important thing I learned about mantra meditation is that you recite a mantra in your mind and anytime the mind wanders you bring your focus back to reciting the mantra while meditating. The same is true for breath meditaition. Focus on paying attention to the breath and anytime the mind wanders bring your focus back to paying attention to the breath. An old nursing book said to just focus on the breath while meditating without saying one's total attention should be focused on the breath and anytime thoughts entered one's mind a person should bring one's thoughts back to focusing on the breath. The book Meditation for Dummies really clarified what true meditation is. I think a lot of people misunderstand what meditation is and reading Meditation for Dummies and this book will help clarify what meditation truly is.

Many self-help books concentrate on identifying our problems and the scientific or practical approaches to resolving them. As a secular Buddhist, I’ve encountered, practiced, or read all the material in this book around mindfulness and compassion. However, this book stands out by demonstrating how to apply these techniques in various aspects of life, such as at home, in your marriage, and in difficult work situations. The chapters at the end are particularly noteworthy for their originality and practical value.

Search Inside Yourself was an excellent read. As an engineer, I'm constantly self-analyzing myself, looking for ways to improve. I've read quite a few books on mindfulness in the past, but this was one of the more humorous and light introductions to the topic that I've encountered. The book is written in a light, playful spirit, and walks you through not only what mindfulness meditation is, but how to practice it, why it is useful, and a variety of other things. One of the things I really enjoyed about the book were the studies it referenced along the way, which were great at explaining what mindfulness meditation can actually (scientifically) do for you. For those of you not acquainted with the topic, this book teaches you mindfulness meditation, which in its essence, is a form of self-analysis wherein you learn to separate yourself from instinctive reactions (to pain, sounds, emotions, everything), and critically analyze them. The art of building your mind to a point where this becomes second nature is an acquired skill, and the author does an excellent job of explaining it in depth. I'd highly recommend this book to anyone who is very analytical, and wants to learn a new method to introspect themselves.

Really, really good book. I bought the kindle version but was not able to keep on reading it. So I decided on the audio version and enjoyed every minute of the book (even though many people complain about the narrator...it did not bother me) and finally, I decided to buy the printed version so I could write my observations on it as I like. It has a lot of exercises and the explanations and links with the "real" life makes a lot of sense. Loved it! Now, I plan to attend the training as well. :-)

El un libro que recomiendo ampliamente, por su contenido de invaluable conocimiento que transmite, además de contener un proceso interpersonal que ayuda al crecimiento personal en todos los sentidos. Les recomiendo vivan la experiencia de infinita sabiduría aie este libro les proporcionará. En cuanto al estado en que me llego, fue perfecto sin daños y muy bien embalado para protegerlo, además fue muy rápido y llego antes de lo esperado. Estoy muy satisfecha con esta compra. Se los recomiendo ampliamente.

Would recommend to anyone at any point in their careers or life. So much good, practical advice along with the science behind meditation practices.

Absolutely brilliant - as a technologist and into mindfulness this was a powerful book by the Jolly Good Fellow!

Consigliassimo! Lettura interessante.