I think the smartest thing for people to do to manage very distressing emotions is to take a medication if it helps, but don't do only that. You also need to train your mind.

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

Fear, in evolution, has a special prominence: perhaps more than any other emotion it is crucial for survival.

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.

Great leaders, the research shows, are made as they gradually acquire, in the course of their lives and careers, the competencies that make them so effective. The competencies can be learned by any leader, at any point.

I would say that IQ is the strongest predictor of which field you can get into and hold a job in, whether you can be an accountant, lawyer or nurse, for example.

My hope was that organizations would start including this range of skills in their training programs - in other words, offer an adult education in social and emotional intelligence.