“Look within; within is the fountain of all good.” - Marcus Aurelius

Attention is the basis of all higher cognitive and emotional abilities

“What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters to what lies within us.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emotional intelligence is the ability to monitor ones own and others feelings and emotions, to discriminate among them and to use this information to guide ones thinking and actions

Self-awareness is knowledge of ones internal states, preferences, resources, and intuitions

Self-regulation is management of ones internal states, impulses, and resources

Motivation is the emotional tendencies that guide or facilitate reaching goals

Empathy is awareness of others feelings, needs, and concerns

Social skills are adeptness at inducing desirable responses in others

Happiness is a deep sense of flourishing that arises from an exceptionally healthy mind... not a mere pleasurable feeling, a fleeting emotion, or a mood, but an optimal state of being, a profound emotional balance struck by a subtle understanding of how the mind functions

Neuroplasticity is the idea that what we think, do, and pay attention to changes the structure and function of our brains

Self-awareness depends on being able to see ourselves objectively, and that requires the ability to examine our thoughts and emotions from a third-person perspective, not getting swept up in emotion, not identifying with it, but just seeing it clearly and objectively. This requires a stable and clear, non-judging attention

“Between stimulus and response, there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.” - Viktor Frankl

Mindfulness is paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally

Mindfulness is keeping ones consciousness alive to the present reality

When your meta-attention becomes strong, you will be able to recover a wandering attention quickly and often, and if you recover attention quickly and often enough, you create the effect of continuous attention, which is concentration

Happiness is the default state of mind. Happiness is not something you pursue; it is something you allow

A relaxed mind is conductive to creative thinking

The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence

Self-awareness is knowing ones internal states, preferences, resources, and intuitions

The moment you can see an emotion, you are no longer fully engulfed in it

We are not our emotions. Emotions are what we feel

“One can have no smaller or greater mastery than mastery of oneself.” - Leonardo da Vinci

While we can’t stop an unwholesome thought or emotion from arising, we have the power to let it go

“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your estimate of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment “ - Marcus Aurelius

When you are trigger, stop, breathe, notice, reflect, respond

True motivation comes from autonomy (the urge to direct our own lives), mastery (the desire to get better and better at something that matters), and purpose (the yearning to do what we do in service of something larger than ourselves)

It’s much easier to achieve something if you can visualize yourself already achieving it

According to neuroscience, even before events happen the brain has already made a prediction about what is most likely to happen

“You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.” - Michael Jordan

People want to be inspired. Every aspiration of service we have and every act of charity we perform inspires others

People who are optimistic feel that setbacks are temporary, are isolated to particular circumstances, and can eventually be overcome by effort and ability

“Whatever one frequently thinks and ponders upon, that will become the inclination of his mind.” - The Buddha

“You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. Which is just another way of saying that the way to make a friend is to be one.” - Dale Carnegie

Compassion is a mental state endowed with a sense of concern for the suffering of others and aspiration to see that suffering relieved

The first rule of influence is that we all already have it. Everything we do or don’t do, and everything we say or don’t say, has an effect on other people

You can influence people most effectively when you help people achieve what they want in a way that also helps you and simultaneously serves greater good

World peace can and must be created from the inside out

The mind is normally in a constant state of agitation. With deep mental relaxation and alertness, the mind settles into calmness and clarity. In this mind, inner happiness naturally emerges

“With all this socially engaged work, first you must learn what the Buddha learned, to still the mind. Then you don’t take action; action takes you.” - Thich Nhat Hanh