Emotional intelligence begins to develop in the earliest years. All the small exchanges children have with their parents, teachers, and with each other carry emotional messages.

In a very real sense we have two minds, one that thinks and one that feels

There are a host of surprises among longer-term meditators, like a boost in the immune system from a day of practice, which is not seen in beginners, and a rapid recovery from stress or pain. At the "Olympic level" we find there is no anticipatory anxiety when the stress of pain is certain to come, and no lingering aftereffects - unlike the stress reactions in ordinary folk.

Leaders with empathy do more than sympathize with people around them: they use their knowledge to improve their companies in subtle, but important ways.

There are some surprising payoffs with only a few minutes' practice, like eliminating the loss of concentration that multitasking usually brings. Short daily mindfulness practice in beginners also improves memory, to the point that a group of students who volunteered for a study got significantly better scores on their graduate school entrance exams.

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

The human brain is by no means fully formed at birth. It continues to shape itself through life, with the most intense growth occurring during childhood.