Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (and World Peace)

Recommended Reading and Resources

Books

What, you still have time to read? Lucky you. I hardly have time to read my own book, and I adore the author, he’s funny. For you, my friend, here are some books that will help you learn more about the topics covered in Search Inside Yourself.

Actually, all the books I mentioned in the footnotes of Search Inside Yourself are great reads, but if you only have time to read a small subset of those books, the books listed below constitute the short list I most highly recommend.

If you have time for only one more book after Search Inside Yourself, read Difficult Conversations. It is a very useful book—small, thin, and readable. You can read it in its entirety on a long flight, yet it tells you everything you need to know about the optimal steps to conducting difficult conversations. Highly recommended.

Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, and Sheila Heen, Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most (New York: Penguin, 1999).

If you would like to learn more about emotional intelligence, there is no better introduction than Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence. There is a reason that book sold millions of copies, and it was not just Dan’s good looks. If you want to read more about emotional intelligence in the context of work, Dan’s Working with Emotional Intelligence is your best bet.

Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ (New York: Bantam, 1995).

Daniel Goleman, Working with Emotional Intelligence (New York: Bantam, 1998).

There are three books I highly recommend on mindfulness and meditation; you can read any one or all three. The first is Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Miracle of Mindfulness. Thich Nhat Hanh is a great master who, in my eyes, personifies near perfection in mindfulness practice. The Miracle of Mindfulness is my favorite among his many good books. Thich Nhat Hanh originally wrote it as a long letter to a friend, so it presents mindfulness in an informal, personal, and heartwarming way.

Another very good book on mindfulness is Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Wherever You Go, There You Are. This guide to mindfulness is highly sensible, easy to read, and poetically beautiful, and it presents the essence of mindfulness at a significant depth. In person, Jon is ultra-intelligent and embodies an impressively deep quality of mindfulness and heartfulness. His book reflects both his personality and his great skill as a teacher.

The third great meditation book I’ll recommend here is Mingyur Rinpoche’s The Joy of Living. Mingyur is a gem. He is a great meditation prodigy who overcame his panic disorder with the power of his mind at the age of thirteen, and he was appointed as a teacher at the tender age of sixteen. The Joy of Living is a wonderful meditation book intertwined with Mingyur’s lovely life story.

Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation (Boston: Beacon Press, 1999).

Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life (New York: Hyperion, 1994).

Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche, The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness (New York: Harmony, 2007).

If you have time to read only one of the three books above, I suggest The Miracle of Mindfulness because it is short and sweet.

If you are interested in the science, philosophy, and practices surrounding the transformation of destructive emotions, read Daniel Goleman’s Destructive Emotions. (I know, the previous sentence can be quite funny when read aloud.) Dan’s book captures a fascinating dialogue that occurred in the Dalai Lama’s living room among some of the greatest minds in the world on that subject. If you are interested in the application of neuroscience specifically in the workplace, there is no better book that David Rock’s Your Brain at Work. It is easy to read and action packed with detailed scientific references for those of us who need to teach social skills classes to engineers. I highly recommend both books, especially if you are a card-carrying member of the geek club, like I am.

Daniel Goleman, Destructive Emotions: How Can We Overcome Them?: A Scientific Dialogue with the Dalai Lama (New York: Random House, 2004).

David Rock, Your Brain at Work: Strategies for Overcoming Distraction, Regaining Focus, and Working Smarter All Day Long (New York: HarperBusiness, 2009).

Last but not least, I tell all my friends that if they only read a single business book in their lifetime, the one to read is Jim Collins’s Good to Great. It will teach you more about running a great business than any other book I know of.

Jim Collins, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap … and Others Don’t (New York: HarperBusiness, 2001).

Videos

You are the type who prefers to watch a video rather than read a book? I have resources even for you, my video-preferring friend.

There is a great series of talks relating to personal growth hosted at Google, mostly by yours truly. The list of talks is available at: http://siybook.com/a/googletalks.

The three great talks that are most relevant to us are the ones delivered by the three close friends whose work enabled us to create Search Inside Yourself. The three are Daniel Goleman, Jon Kabat-Zinn, and Richie Davidson. The videos are:

• Daniel Goleman on emotional intelligence: http://siybook.com/v/gtalk_dgoleman

• Jon Kabat-Zinn on mindfulness: http://siybook.com/v/gtalk_jkz

• Richie Davidson on contemplative neuroscience: http://siybook.com/v/gtalk_rdavidson

For those who enjoy brain science, three other great talks on the brain science that is relevant to Search Inside Yourself are:

• Philippe Goldin on the neuroscience of emotions: http://siybook.com/v/gtalk_pgoldin

• Thomas Lewis on the neuroscience of empathy: http://siybook.com/v/gtalk_tlewis

• David Rock on your brain at work: http://siybook.com/v/gtalk_drock

Of all the talks on meditation I’ve hosted at Google, my favorite is one by Zen master Shinzen Young:

• Shinzen Young on the science and practice of mindfulness meditation: http://siybook.com/v/gtalk_shinzen

Some of my favorite videos are of TED talks and can be found on www.ted.com. I’d like to highlight a few that people who enjoy Search Inside Yourself will find fascinating:

• Dan Pink on the surprising science of motivation: http://siybook.com/v/ted_dpink

• Jill Bolte Taylor on her “stroke of insight”: http://siybook.com/v/ted_jbt

• V. S. Ramachandran on what brain damage can teach us about the mind: http://siybook.com/v/ted_vsr

• Daniel Kahneman on how our “experiencing selves” and “remembering selves” perceive happiness differently: http://siybook.com/v/ted_dkahne-man

• Chade-Meng Tan on how compassion can be practiced in a corporate setting: http://siybook.com/v/ted_meng

The last TED talk on that list is my favorite—I don’t know why.

Other Resources

For more resources, including those you can use to bring Search Inside Yourself to your own company, visit http://www.siybook.com.