Reducing the economic gap may be impossible without also addressing the gap in empathy.

Motivation aside, if people get better at these life skills, everyone benefits: The brain doesn't distinguish between being a more empathic manager and a more empathic father.

I don't think focus is in itself ever a bad thing. But focus of the wrong kind, or managed poorly, can be.

Whoever has the mind to fight has broken his connection with the universe. If you try to dominate people you are already defeated. We study how to resolve conflict, not how to start it.

However, I began meditating at about that time and have continued on and off over the years.

Our brain comes hard-wired with an urge to play, one that hurls us into sociability. A child's play both demands and creates its own safe space, one in which she can confront threats, fears, and dangers, but always come through whole. Play offers a child a natural way to manage feared separations or abandonment, rendering them instead opportunities for mastery and self-discovery.

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.