Tan, Chade-Meng - Search Inside Yourself - The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace)

Being a data-loving Google engineer, I find the premise of the book and its heavy reliance on data fascinating. I find equally fascinating how well its findings seem to work in real life. Many of the principles from the book felt remarkably similar to what I experienced at Google in its early years. A casual observer who has read Good to Great and who is also familiar with Google’s history might mistakenly think all of us early employees at Google knew the book by heart. So, if you want to found the next Google, I recommend you read Good to Great .

The first and perhaps the most important finding in the book is the role of leadership. It takes a very special type of leader to bring a company from goodness to greatness. Collins calls them “Level 5” leaders. These are leaders who, in addition to being highly capable, also possess a paradoxical mix of two important and seemingly conflicting qualities: great ambition and personal humility. These leaders are highly ambitious, but the focus of their ambition is not themselves; instead, they are ambitious for the greater good. Because their attention is focused on the greater good, they feel no need to inflate their own egos. That makes them highly effective and inspiring.

“I said great ambition and personal humility .”

While Collins’s book convincingly demonstrates the importance of Level 5 leaders, it (understandably) does not prescribe a way to train them. I do not pretend to know how to train Level 5 leaders either, but I am convinced that compassion plays an essential role.

If you look at the two distinguishing qualities of Level 5 leaders (ambition and personal humility) in the context of the three components of compassion (cognitive, affective, motivational), you may find that the cognitive and affective components of compassion (understanding people and empathizing with them) tone down the excessive self-obsession within us, and thereby create the conditions for humility. The motivational component of compassion, wanting to help people, creates ambition for greater good. In other words, the three components of compassion can be used to train the two distinguishing qualities of Level 5 leadership.

Compassion is a necessary (but maybe insufficient) condition for Level 5 leadership, and therefore, one way to begin training Level 5 leaders is compassion training. This is one compelling benefit of compassion at work.

Training Compassion by Multiplying Goodness

We can train compassion similar to the way we train loving kindness, by creating mental habits. The premise is the same: the more you think about something, the stronger the neural pathways conducive to that thought become, and the easier it is to have that thought. Eventually, that thought becomes a mental habit and arises frequently and effortlessly. The mental habit that we are going to use for training compassion is something powerful yet pleasant at the same time: goodness. We increase the ability of the mind to perceive and increase goodness, both within ourselves and toward others.

For this practice, we’ll also employ another powerful mental tool: visualization. Our brains devote a substantial amount of resources to processing visual perception, so in theory, if we can make skillful use of the visual perception system for any mental task, we can take advantage of a lot more of the brain’s computational resources. In practice, I find that if I can visualize something, I can make it stick better. So, in this meditation, we will use visualization as a way of increasing the effectiveness of creating the mental habits for compassion.

The practice itself is very simple. When we breathe in, we visualize that we’re breathing in our own goodness, we visualize multiplying that goodness by ten in our hearts, and then when we breathe out, we visualize giving all that goodness to the world. After that, we breathe in the goodness of other people and do the same. If you want, you may visualize the goodness as white light.

Try doing this at home.

MULTIPLYING GOODNESS MEDITATION

Resting the Mind

Start with 2 minutes of resting the mind on the breath. Multiplying Goodness

Now, let us connect with the goodness within ourselves: our love, compassion, altruism, and inner joy. If you wish, you may visualize your good-ness radiating out of your body as a faint white light.

(Short pause)

When you breathe in, breathe all your goodness into your heart. Use your heart to multiply that goodness by a factor of ten. And when you breathe out, send all that goodness out to the whole world. If you wish, you may visualize yourself breathing out a brilliant white light representing this abundance of goodness.

(2-minute pause)

Now, let us connect with the goodness within everybody we know. Everybody we know is a good person, possessing some goodness. If you wish, you may visualize their goodness radiating out of their bodies as a faint white light. When you breathe in, breathe all their goodness into your heart… (Repeat above.)

(2-minute pause)

Finally, let us connect with the goodness within everybody in the world. Everybody in the world possesses at least a hint of goodness. If you wish, you may visualize their goodness radiating out of their bodies as a faint white light. When you breathe in, breathe all their goodness into your heart… (Repeat above.)

(2-minute pause) Closing

End with a 1-minute rest of the mind on the breath.

This practice develops three useful mental habits:

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)

The first habit (seeing goodness) strengthens the affective and cognitive components of compassion. When you instinctively and habitually perceive goodness in everyone, you instinctively want to understand and feel for them. Even in difficult situations, instead of simply dismissing the other person as a jerk and walking away, you want to understand that person because there is at least a hint of goodness in him that you can see. If you do this a lot, eventually, you become one whom people trust because you understand and care.

The next habit (giving goodness) strengthens the motivational component of compassion. When you instinctively and habitually want to deliver goodness to the world, pretty soon, you become the person who always wants to help others. Eventually, you become one whom people respect, sometimes even admire, because they feel your heart is in the right place.

“I want to deliver goodness to the world, but the world keeps requesting crap.”

The last habit (confidence in the transformative power of self) strengthens self-confidence. When you become comfortable with the idea that your heart can multiply goodness by a factor of ten, your emotional brain soon becomes comfortable with the idea that “Yes, I can benefit people.” Eventually, you may become one who inspires. And then maybe you will become a Level 5 leader.

Compassion Training for the Brave

The traditional practice for developing compassion is something known as Tonglen , which in Tibetan means “giving and receiving.” It is a lot like the Multiplying Goodness practice, except instead of breathing in goodness, you breathe in suffering (of self and others), and transform it within yourself. When you breathe out, you radiate love, kindness, and compassion.