Emotional self-awareness is the building block of the next fundamental emotional intelligence: being able to shake off a bad mood.

One way to boost our will power and focus is to manage our distractions instead of letting them manage us.

We should spend less time ranking children and more time helping them to identify their natural competencies and gifts, and cultivate those.

People who are optimistic see a failure as due to something that can be changed so that they can succeed next time around, while pessimists take the blame for the failure, ascribing it to some characteristic they are helpless to change.

Women, on average, tend to be more aware of their emotions, show more empathy, and are more adept interpersonally. Men on the other hand, are more self-confident and optimistic, adapt more easily, and handle stress better.

In a high-IQ job pool, soft skills like discipline, drive and empathy mark those who emerge as outstanding.

At last, psychology gets serious about glee, fun, and happiness. Martin Seligman has given us a gift-a practical map for the perennial quest for a flourishing life.