Most people have a hard time confronting their weaknesses in a really straightforward, evidence-based way. They also have problems speaking frankly to others. Some people love knowing about their weaknesses and mistakes and those of others because it helps them be so much better, while others can't stand it.

As Harvard developmental psychologist Robert Kegan, who has studied Bridgewater, says, in most work places everyone is working two jobs. The first is whatever their actual job is; the second consists of managing others' impressions of them, especially by hiding weaknesses and inadequacies - which is an enormous waste of energy.

Nature gave us pain as a messaging device to tell us that we are approaching, or that we have exceeded, our limits in some way.

I found that whenever I encountered a situation, rather than just reacting to it, it was tremendously useful to think carefully about how I should react to it and other situations like it. Besides providing me with more thoughtful responses in each of these cases, approaching things this way provided me and others with guidance on how to deal with similar situations when they came up in the future.

I believe that we all get rewarded and punished according to whether we operate in harmony or in conflict with nature's laws, and that all societies will succeed or fail in the degrees that they operate consistently with these laws.

School typically doesn't prepare young people for real life - unless their lives are spent following instructions and pleasing others. In my opinion, that's why so many students who succeed in school fail in life.

Meditation helps you stay in a calm, clear-headed state so that when challenges come at you, you can deal with them like a ninja - in a calm thoughtful way. When you're centered, your emotions are not hijacking you.