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.

The near cousin of optimism is hope: knowing the steps needed to get to a goal and having the energy to pursue those steps. It is a primal motivating force, and its absence is paralyzing.

CEOs are hired for their intellect and business expertise - and fired for a lack of emotional intelligence.

The amygdala in the emotional center sees and hears everything that occurs to us instantaneously and is the trigger point for the fight or flight response.

Educators, long disturbed by schoolchildren's lagging scores in math and reading, are realizing there is a different and more alarming deficiency: emotional literacy. And while laudable efforts are being made to raise academic standards, this new and troubling deficiency is not being addressed in the standard school curriculum. As one Brooklyn teacher put it, the present emphasis in schools suggests that "we care more about how well schoolchildren can read and write than whether they'll be alive next week."

Simple inattention kills empathy, let alone compassion. So the first step in compassion is to notice the other's need. It all begins with the simple act of attention.

One aspect of a successful relationship is not just how compatible you are, but how you deal with your incompatibility.