My generation's parents told their children, "Become an accountant, a lawyer, or an engineer; that will give you a solid foothold in the middle class." But these jobs are now being sent overseas. So in order to make it today, you have to do work that's hard to outsource, hard to automate.

In many professions, what used to matter most were abilities associated with the left side of the brain: linear, sequential, spreadsheet kind of faculties. Those still matter, but they're not enough.

I don't think it's a Western thing to really talk about intrinsic motivation and the drive for autonomy, mastery and purpose. You have to not be struggling for survival. For people who don't know where their next meal is coming, notions of finding inner motivation are comical.

Asking "Why?" can lead to understanding. Asking "Why not?" can lead to breakthroughs.

The ability to take another perspective has become one of the keys to both sales and non-sales selling. And the social science research on perspective-taking yields some important lessons for all of us.

The last few decades have belonged to a certain kind of person with a certain kind of mind-computer programmers who could crank code, lawyers who could craft contracts, MBAs who could crunch numbers. But the keys to the kingdom are changing hands.The future belongs to a very different kind of person with a very different kind of mind-creators and empathizers, pattern recognizers and meaning makers.These people-artists, inventors, designers, storytellers, caregivers, consolers, big picture thinkers-will now reap society's richest rewards and share its greatest joys.

For many of us, the opposite of talking isn't listening. It's waiting. When others speak, we typically divide our attention between what they're saying now and what we're going to say next - and end up doing a mediocre job at both.