This is a 2012 book based on a course run in Google by Chade-Meng Tan. #Meditation or Dhyana when it reached China became #Chen, on reaching Japan became #Zen and on reaching west became #Mindfulness. This course & book is a commendable attempt to make meditation accessible to all and "align with the lives and interests of real people, the average Joes of the world " says the author.

1. Book Summary
Search Inside Yourself
Chade-Meng Tan

2. Book Based on a Training Program
• This book is based on a Training Programme
that was immensely successful in Google.
• The Programme was designed by Chade-Meng-Tan
who was the Chief Human Resource Officer of
Google.
• Chade – Meng Tan collaborated with Daniel
Goleman who popularised Emotional
Intelligence and John Kobat Zinn who is zen-
master to flesh out this 20 hours programme
spread over 7 weeks.
• The programme, launched in 2007, was
successful in Google and much sought after.
• As one participant says ―I know this sounds
melodramatic but I really think this
course changed my life‖.

3. The Book in four lines
• How to develop ―Emotional Intelligence‖
through mindfulness
• Mindfulness leads to Self-Awareness
• Self Awareness leads to Self Regulation ;
where emotions do not control our actions
• Compassion makes us effective leaders

4. • First Line
How to develop ―Emotional
Intelligence‖ through
mindfulness

5. Mindfulness Blended with
Emotional Intelligence
• His Holiness the Dalai Lama sums up the book,
well in the blurb :
―This book creativity blends the ancient
meditative practice of mindfulness with the
contemporary field of emotional intelligence
and shows that to avoid certain kinds of
results you need to change the conditions that
give rise to them.‖

6. Emotional Intelligence
• In summary ―Search Inside Yourself‖ is about
emotional intelligence.
• The aim of emotional intelligence is to help
you optimize yourself and function at a even
higher level than what you are already
capable of.
• ―Searching Inside Yourself‖ (SIY) is a
behavioral programme built on the premise
that emotional intelligence is a
collection of emotional skills and like
all skills, emotional skills are
trainable.

7. Emotional Intelligence is
trainable
• Emotional intelligence is trainable even in
adults.
• Neuroplasticity - What we think, do and pay
attention, changes the structure and
function of our brains.
• Neuroplasticity is based on the premise that
we can intentionally change our brains with
training.
• Philippe Goldin, neuroscientist, shows that
after just 16 sessions of cognitive
behavioral therapy (CBT) people with social
anxiety disorder are able to increase
activity in the parts of their brains
associated with self regulation, linguistic
processing and attention when working with
their own negative self beliefs.

8. Search Inside Yourself – Course
Objectives
This programme on Emotional-Intelligence
enables 3 important skill sets:
1. Steller work performance
2. Outstanding Leadership
3. Ability to create the conditions for
happiness

9. Stellar Work Performance
• As per a study, the top six competencies that
distinguish star performers from average
performers in the Technology sector are :
1. Strong achievement drive and high
achievement standards
2. Ability to influence
3. Conceptual thinking
4. Analytical ability
5. Initiative in taking self challenges
6. Self Confidence
• Only conceptual thinking and analytical ability
are intellectual competencies.
• The other 4 are emotional competencies.

10. Outstanding Leadership
• Emotional intelligence makes people better
leaders.
• A Daniel Goleman reported a Study that shows
emotional competencies make up 80 to 100%
of the distinguishing competencies of
outstanding leaders

11. Ability to Create Conditions for
Happiness
• Most importantly emotional intelligence
enables the skills that helps us create
conditions for our own sustainable
happiness.
• The World’s happiest man Matthieu Ricard*
says happiness is a skill that can be
trained.
(* Meng talks about Matthieu in the introduction chapter)

12. SIY – Topics covered
• ―Search Inside Yourself‖ – (SIY) was taught
at Google since 2007 and focuses on 3 areas:
- Attention Training
- Self knowledge and Self-Mastery
- Creating useful mental habits.

13. Attention Training
• Attention is the basis of all higher
cognitive and emotional abilities.
Therefore, any curriculum for training
emotional intelligence has to begin with
attention training. The idea is to train
attention to create a quality of mind that
is calm and clear at the same time. That
quality of mind forms the foundation for
emotional intelligence.

14. Self – Knowledge and Self –
Mastery
• Use your trained attention to create high-
resolution perception into your own cognitive
and emotive processes. With that, you
become able to observe your thought stream
and the process of emotion with high clarity,
and to so objectively from a third person
perspective. Once you can do that, you
create the type of deep self-knowledge that
eventually enables self-mastery.

15. Creating Useful Mental Habits
• Imagine whenever you meet anybody, your
habitual, instinctive first thought is, I
wish for this person to be happy. Such
habits can be volitionally trained. In
creating Search Inside Yourself, we collected
some of the best scientific data and gathered
some of the best minds on the topic to create
a curriculum that is proven to work.

16. How to Train For Emotional
Intelligence ?
• First step in training for emotional
intelligence is to do attention training.
• A strong stable and perceptive attention that
creates calmness and clarity is the
foundation upon which emotional intelligence
is built.
• Self awareness depends on being able to see
ourselves objectively that requires the
ability to examine our thoughts and emotions
from a third person perspective.

17. Response Flexibility
• Attention Training built an ability called
―Response Flexibility‖.
• This ability ―Response Flexibility‖ helps us
pause and then respond to stimuli.
• Viktor Frankl says ―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 happiness‖.

18. Mindfulness Meditation
• The way to train for attention is using
mindfulness meditation.
• Mindfulness is defined by Jon Kabat-Zinn as
―paying attention in a particular way; on
purpose, in the present moment and non-
judgmentally‖.

19. Science behind Mindfulness Meditation
• Science shows that improving ability to
regulate our attention can significantly
impact how we respond to emotions.
• Amygdala is a part of the brain that is
constantly scanning everything we see for
threats to our survival.
• Amygdala puts one on a fight-flight-freeze
mode and impairs rational thinking when it
detects something that looks like a threat to
our survival.
• Neuroimaging Researcher Jule Brefc Zynski
Lewis found in a study that more hours of
meditation training leads to lower activation
in the Amygdala

20. Science behind Mindfulness
Meditation
• A simple technique for attention training is
called effect-labeling which simply means
labeling feelings with words.
• Mathew Lieberman found that labeling
increases the activity in the right
ventrolateral prefrontal Cortex (RVLPFC)
commonly associated with being the brains
―brake pedal‖, which in turn increases
activation of part of the execution centre of
the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex
(MPFC), which then down regulates the
Amygdala.
• Another study by David Creswell and Matthew
Liberman suggests that mindfulness can help
brain utilize more of its circuitry thereby
making it more effective at managing
emotions.

21. Science behind Mindfulness
Meditation
• After developing strong stable and perceptive
attention, we focus on a body.
• There are two reasons to focus on bodies :
– Build Vividness to our perception
– Increase Resolution of our perception
• Every emotional experience is not just a
psychological experience, it is also a
physiological experience.

22. Science behind Mindfulness
Meditation
• High-Resolution-Perception is perception
refined across both time and space that one
can watch an emotion the moment it is
arising, perceive, subtle changes as it waxes
and wanes and watch it the moment it seizes.
• High-Resolution-Perception can be developed
by applying mindfulness to the body.
• High-Resolution-Perception of the body also
helps in strengthening our intuition.

23. Science behind Mindfulness
Meditation
• A lot of our intuition comes from our body and
learning to listen to it can be very fruitful.
• Matthew Liberman’s review of research showed
evidence suggesting that the basal ganglia is the
neuroanatomical base of both implicit learning and
intuition.
• Basal Ganglia observes everything we do in
life. It has no connectivity to the verbal
cortex. It cannot tell us what it knows in
words. It tells this is right or wrong as
gut feeling.
• That maybe why intuition is experienced in
body and gut and it cannot be easily
verbalized.

24. Science behind Mindfulness
Meditation
• Cultivating emotional intelligence
begins with mindfulness.
Mindfulness trains our brain for a
quality of attention i.e. both strong
in clarity and stability. This power
charged attention is directed to the
physiological aspects of emotion so
that we can perceive emotions with
high vividness and resolution.

25. Mindfulness
• What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us
are tiny matters to what lies within us –
Ralph Waldo Emerson
• Learning and Teaching Mindfulness is easy
• Jon Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as
―paying attention in a particular way; on
purpose, in the present moment and non
judgmentally‖

26. Practising Mindfulness
• Meng suggests two ways to practice
mindfulness.
• Easy way is to simply bring gentle and
consistent attention to ones breath for a
short time - at least two minutes.
• Easier way is to sit without an agenda for a
short time – at least two minutes.
• To make it even easier, you are free to
switch between the easy way and the easier
way any time during these two minutes.

27. Mindful meditation
• Scientific definition of meditation by Jule
Brefcsynki Lewis – ―a family of mental
training practices that are designed to
familiarize the practitioner with specific
types of mental processes‖
• While there are different mind training
techniques development of emotional
intelligence is through mindfulness
meditation
• Mindfulness meditation trains to important
mental faculties
– Attention
– Meta-attention

28. Attention & Meta-attention
• Attention is ―taking possession by the mind
in clear and vivid form.‖ Meta-attention is
attention of attention
• Meta attention is the secret to deep
concentration
• While riding a bi—cycle, to maintain balance
we keep tilting to left or right. By
performing such micro recoveries quickly and
often we create the effect of continuous
balance
• When Meta attention becomes strong, you will
be able to recover a wandering attention
quickly and often, to create the effect of
continuous attention – which is
concentration.

29. Happiness
• Meditation makes our mind relaxed and alert
at the same time.
• When mind becomes relaxed and alert at the
same time, three qualities of mind emerge;
calmness, clarity and happiness.
• Happiness is the default set of mind.
• So happiness is not something that you
pursue, it is something that you allow.

30. Meditation & Exercise
• Meditation is like exercise
• In both exercise and meditation growth comes
from overcoming resistance
• Every time your attention wanders and you
bring it back, it is like flexing your
biceps, ―muscle‖ of attention grows a bit
stronger
• Hence there is no such thing as Bad
Meditation. Every time you bring a wandering
mind back, we give our muscle–of-attention an
opportunity for growth
• Exercise and Meditation can both improve
significantly the quality of life

31. 4 Step Process
• The process of mindful meditation has four
steps:
– INTENTION - A reason for wanting to abide
in mindfulness
– ATTENTION - Bring your attention to follow
your breath
– COGNITIVE PROCESS - After a short focused
attention of our breath the mind starts
wandering. This wandering mind results
in cognitive processes like ruminating,
worrying or fantasizing
– ATTITUDE - The cognitive process of the
mind is a result of your attitude towards
yourself and others. A more positive
attitude we have or we want to develop
by making it habit, comes with practice

32. Posture for meditation
• Traditional Buddhism define four main
meditation posture :
– Sitting
– Standing
– Walking
– Lying down
• The best meditation posture is one that
allows you to remain alert and relaxed at the
same time for a long period of time.
• Sogyal Rinpoche, a World renowned Tibetan
Buddhist Teacher, suggests a fun and useful
way to find your own posture. He recommends
sitting like a majestic mountain.

33. 7 Pointers for a Good-Posture
• Back straight ―like an arrow‖.
• Legs crossed in ―Lotus Position‖
• Shoulders relaxed, held up and back ―like a
vulture‖
• Chin tucked in slightly ―like an iron hook‖
• Eyes closed or gazing into space
• Tongue held against the upper palate
• Lips slightly apart, teeth not clenched

34. Managing Distractions
• During meditation we get distracted by
sounds, thoughts or physical sensations.
These can be addressed by the following four
steps:
- Acknowledge – Just acknowledge that
something is happening.
- Experience – Go through the distraction
without judging or re-acting.
- React - If you need to react, continue
maintaining mindfulness. For example if
your toe is itching, scratch mindfully.
- Let it go - If it wants to be let go
off. Let it go. If not just let it be.

35. Duration of Meditation
• How long should one practice mindful
meditation.
• Start with something that can be done every
day for the rest of ones life without
feeling the burden.
• As you indulge in practice over a period of
time your ability to meditate also grows. The
longer the practice of meditation, the longer
is the ―attention–span‖ before the mind
wanders away. The end goal of meditation is
to have an attention span long enough that it
becomes ones way of life.

36. Insight
• Meditation is about self-discovery.
• Objectives of Meditation is insight and not
attention.
• Research study done by Richard Davidson & Jon
Kabat-Zinn with employees of a bio-technology
company showed that after just eight weeks of
mindfulness training the anxiety level of the
subjects was measurably lower.
• Further the study showed that subjects were
measurably happier and showed a marked
increase in developing immunity.

37. Attentional - Blink
• Study conducted by Heleen Slagter, Antoine
Lutz & Richard Davidson showed that after
three months of intensive and rigorous
training on mindfulness- meditation
participants can significantly reduce their
attentional blink
• Subject shown a series characters – P, U, 3,
W, N, 9, T, X on a screen, one at a time in
quick succession
• When subject asked to identify the two
numbers ―if the 2 numbers are presented
within half a second of each other, the
second one is not detected. This phenomenon
is known as attentional-blink.
• This is good news for those working with
numbers

38. Science Backing Meditation
• Study by Antoine Lutz showed that adept
Buddhist mediators are able to generate high-
amplitude gamma brain waves, which are often
associated with effectiveness in memory
learning and perception
• Study by Jon Kabat-Zinn revealed that
mindfulness can greatly accelerate healing of
skin condition known as Psoriasis.
• Study by Sara Lazar showed that meditation
can thicken your Nuero cortex. A thicker
Nuero cortex is associated with better
attention and sensory perception.

39. 2.Second Line
Mindfulness leads to Self-
Awareness

40. Self Awareness
• Self awareness is about clarity within
oneself
• Resolution AND Vividness are characteristics
of self-awareness
• Daniel Goleman defines self-awareness as
―knowing one’s internal states, preferences,
resources and intuitions‖
• Self awareness is the key domain of
Emotional-Intelligence that enables all other
domains.

41. Competencies under Self-
Awareness
Daniel Goleman states that there are three
emotional competencies under the domain of
self-awareness:
1) Emotional Awareness: Recognizing one’s
emotions and their effects
2) Accurate Self-Assessment: Knowing one’s
strengths and limits
3) Self Confidence: A strong sense of one’s
self-worth and capabilities
The difference between emotional awareness and
accurate self-assessment is that, the former
operates at the level of physiology and the
later operates at the level of meaning

42. Self-Confidence
• Self confidence is built on deep self-
knowledge and blatant self-assessment
• An engineer should be aware of his failure
more and recover more so that when there is a
failure engineer knows how to recover
• Similarly a deep understanding about one’s
mind, emotions and capability will give
confidence despite numerous failures
• Strong emotional awareness leads to accurate
self-assessment which in turn leads to higher
self-confidence.

43. Exercises for building Self
Awareness
• Mindfulness can help in developing emotional
awareness and thereby self-assessment leading
to self confidence.
• Body scan exercise functions at the level of
physiology and works best for developing
emotional awareness.
• Journaling functions at the level of meaning
and works best for developing accurate self-
assessment.

44. Body Scanning
• A body scanning is an exercise that helps an
individual to mindfully bring attention to
the body from nostrils, abdomen to the toe.
This can be done for five minutes daily.

45. Journaling
• Journaling is the practice of self-discovery
by writing to yourself.
• This is exercise to help you discover what is
in your mind.
• Journaling for five minutes can be done daily
by taking one of the following prompts:
– What I am feeling now is ……………………
– I am aware that ……………………………………………
– What motivates me is ………………………………
– I am inspired by …………………………………………
– Today, I aspire to ……………………………………

46. Research affirming Body-Scan & Journaling
• A study by Stefanie Spera, Eric Buhrfeind and
James Pennebaker of a group of terminated
professionals writing to themselves about
their feelings five consecutive days for 20
minutes each day.
• Study found after eight months 68% found jobs
versus 27% from the control group.

47. 3.Third Line
Self Awareness leads to
Self Regulation ; where
emotions do not control
our actions

48. Self Awareness builds Self
Regulation
• Self Regulation is about Choice
• Self Regulation is the Choice of responding
to emotions

49. Self-Regulation competencies
Daniel Goleman identifies 5 emotional
competencies under the domain self-regulation
Self Control: Keeping disruptive emotions and
impulses in check.
Trust Worthiness: Maintaining standards of
honesty and integrity
Conscientiousness :Taking responsibility for
personal performance.
Adaptability :Flexibility in handling change.
Innovation :Being comfortable with Novel ideas,
approaches and information.

50. Self Regulation is not …..
• Self regulation is not about avoiding
emotions
• Self regulation is not about denying or
repressing true feelings
• Self regulation is not about never having
certain emotions

51. Self-Regulation : Letting go …
• Self regulation is about Letting-Go
• In Buddhist psychology there is an important
difference between anger and indignation
• Anger arises out of powerlessness while
indignation arises out of power
• Hence when in anger you feel out-of-control
whereas when indignant one can retain control
of mind and emotion

52. Self-Regulation : Letting go …
Dalai Lama says that while we cannot stop a
negative thought or emotion from arising, we
have the power to let go

53. How To Let-Go
• Let go can be achieved when one becomes
conscious about two factors: Grasping and
Aversion
• Grasping is when the mind desperately holds
to something and refuses to let it go
• Aversion is when the mind desperately keeps
something away and refuses to let it come

54. Self-Regulation : Letting go …
• Pain and suffering are qualitatively distinct
and one does not necessarily follow the other
• Thich Nhat Hanh has a very nice way of
putting it:
―Wilting flowers do not cause suffering, it is
the unrealistic desire that flowers not wilt
that causes suffering‖

55. Self-Regulation : Happiness is
the way….
• Man is born to be ―happy‖ – Happiness is the
unconditioned state
• There are 3 types of happiness : Pleasure,
Passion and Higher Purpose:
PLEASURE: This type of happiness is about
always chasing the next high.
PASSION: Also known as flow where peak
performance meets peak engagement and time
flies by.
HIGHER PURPOSE: This is about being part of
something bigger than yourself.

56. Sustainable Happiness….
Three types of happiness have varying
sustainability.
• Happiness that arise from pleasure is highly
unsustainable.
• Happiness that arise from flow is reasonably
sustainable.
• Happiness arising from higher purpose is
highly sustainable.

57. Self-regulation : Motivation in
3 easy steps
Three steps are :
• Alignment is about aligning our work with our
values and higher purpose
• Envisioning is seeing the desired future for
ourselves
• Resilience is the ability to overcome
obstacles.

58. Self-regulation : Empathy…
• Building self awareness improves empathy.
Empathy is not psychologizing or agreeing.
• Empathy can be improved by creating desired
mental habits.
• Buddha describes mental habits as
―whatever one frequently thinks and ponders
upon, that will become the inclination of his
mind‖

59. Self-Regulation : Kindness
• Empathy increases with kindness
• Kindness is the engine of empathy
• Kindness motivates you to care
• Kindness makes you more receptive to others
• Kindness makes other more receptive to you
• The more kindness you offer people, the
better you can empathize

60. Self-Regulation : Trust
• Empathy helps build trust.
• Trust has to begin with sincerity, kindness
and openness.
• To build trust, practice giving people the
benefit of doubt.
• Trust begets trust.

61. Self-Regulation : Empathic Listening
• Empathic listening is a powerful skill,
• Empathic listening is like ―mindful
conversation‖ except that in empathic-
listening we look for feelings & emotions and
in mindful-conversation we try to comprehend
words & phrases

62. Self-Regulation : Organization
awareness
• Organizational awareness is built on our
ability to empathize
• To build organizational awareness the
following four practices help:
– Maintain personal networks within the
organization
– Practice reading the underlying currents of
your organization
– Distinguish between your self-interest, the
interest of your team and the
organizational interest
– Utilize your awareness to understand your
role in the web of personalities and
interactions

63. • Fourth Line
Compassion makes us
effective leaders

64. Compassion
• An eminent Tibetan Scholar Thupten Jinpa
defines compassion as ―A mental state endowed
with a sense of concern for the suffering of
others and aspiration to see that suffering
relieved‖
• This definition has 3 components:
1) A cognitive component : ―I understand you‖
2) An effective component ―I feel for you‖
3) A motivational component ―I want to help
you‖

65. ―I‖ to ―We‖
• Bill George, CEO of Medtronic : Compassionate
leadership is about going from ―I‖ to ―WE‖
• ―It is the most important process, leaders
can through in becoming authentic. How else
can they unleash the power of their
organizations unless they motivate people to
reach their full potential? If our
supporters are merely following our lead,
then their efforts are limited to our vision
and our directions. Only when leaders stop
focusing of their personal ego needs are they
able to develop other leaders‖

66. Research backs Compassion @ work
• Jim Kouzes & Barry Posner’s research shows that one factor
significantly differentiated the top quartile managers from the
bottom… affection…. Both expressed and wanted…
• All things being equal, we will work harder and more effectively
for people we like. And we like them in direct proportion to how
they make us feel

67. Good to Great
• Meng recommends Jim Collins book ―Good to
Great : Why some Companies make leap and
others don’t ― as a must read for all
professionals
• Base on 15 years data they identified 11
―good to great‖ companies and compared them
with a set of ―comparison companies‖ to
identify what makes a good company great
• Meng says the most important finding in the
book is the role of leadership. Collins
says ―Level 5‖ leaders are the type of
leaders who can take a company from goodness
to greatness.

68. Level 5 Leaders
• Level 5 leaders have two distinguishing
qualities ―Ambition‖ and ―Personal Humility‖
• The 3 components of compassion ―cognitive,
effective and motivational‖ can be used to
train the two distinguishing qualities of
level 5 leaders

69. Training for Compassion
• Training for compassion by multiplying
goodness
• Meng suggests an exercise to develop three
useful mental habits which will further
compassion in oneself:
1) Seeing goodness in self and others
2) Giving goodness to all
3) Confidence in the transformative power
of self ―that I can multiply goodness‖

70. Compassionate Influencing
• Influencing with goodness
• The first rule of influence is that we
all already have it.
• The key is not to acquire influence but
to expand the influence we already have
and use it for the good of all.
• The important step to expand our
influence is to understand the social
brain well enough to skillfully navigate
it.

71. Your Brain At Work
• According to neuroscientist Evian Gordon
―minimise danger and maximize reward‖
principle is an overarching organising
principle of the brain.
• David Rock in his book ―Your Brain At Work‖
describes 5 domains of social experiences
that the brain treats as primary rewards or
threats.

72. S C A R F
• These 5 domains form SCARF model :
– Status: Is about relative importance,
pecking order or seniority
– Certainty: Our brains loves certainty.
Uncertainty generates error-response in the
brain that cannot be ignored until they are
resolved.
– Autonomy: Is the perception of exerting
control over one’s environment
– Relatedness: Related perception of whether
another personnel is a friend or foe.
– Fairness: Humans are the only animals known
to voluntarily injure themselves to pushing
the perceived unfairness to others.

73. Expanding Influence
• Four steps plan for expanding the magnitude
and reach of your influence.
1) Know that you already have influence
2) Strengthen confidence. The more you are
aware of your strengths and weakness, the
more confidence you become and the more
effectively you can influence people.
3) Understand people and help them succeed.
4) Serve the greater good.

74. Aligning Meditation with Real
Life
• In the last chapter titled ―Three steps to
World Peace and Progress‖ Meng states the
objective of this SIY course and book is to
make meditation accessible and aligned to
real life
• For curriculum development Meng partnered
with :
– Mirabai Bush – Centre for Contemplative Mind
– Norman Fischer – Zen master
– Marc Lesser – Founder,CEO , Brush Dance Publishing
– Philippe Goldin – neuroscience researcher at Standford
– Yvonne Ginsberg – Practicing therapist and teacher at
Yale
– Daniel Goleman was the advisor to this group

75. Book Summary
Search Inside Yourself
Chade-Meng Tan