Our genetic heritage endows each of us with a series of emotional set-points that determines our temperament. But the brain circuitry involved is extraordinarily malleable; temperament is not destiny.

We learn best with focused attention. As we focus on what we're learning, the brain maps that information on what we already know making new neural connections

Attention is a little-noticed and underrated mental asset.

Well, any effort to maximize your potential and ability is a good thing.

Directing attention toward where it needs to go is a primal task of leadership.

Who does not recall school at least in part as endless dreary hours of boredom punctuated by moments of high anxiety?

Our emotional mind will harness the rational mind to its purposes, for our feelings and reactions-- rationalizations-- justifying them in terms of the present moment, without realizing the influence of our emotional memory.