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

The book contains a detailed guide to self-management and why it is important for employees of a large organization like Google. In addition, the book provides in-depth insights and guidance for each person to achieve career success and happiness all in one. I found it a fulfilling read.

Is World peace an attainable dream or does Chade, like Don Quixote, need to ask himself whether he's only holding moonbeams in his hands.War is a dark malignancy spreading throughout the soul of the weary world. Chade's prescription, clearly set out in SIY, is "goodness" on a global scale to cure the malignancy.Chade-Meng Tan has a passion for peace and by writing this book he is doing something about it. Chade, an engineer at Google, was allowed by them to organize a team to develop a project for World Peace. He approached the project from an efficient engineering point of view.His team developed skillful means to help people succeed in a way that World Peace is a necessary side affect.Chade-Meng Tan recently explained at a Google seminar his plan for making world peace an attainable dream. It can be viewed on You Tube.David, my son, a retired Boeing engineer and now a teacher at Cal State Long Beach had this to say about Chade's book, SIY:"I did relate to him as an engineer. I like how he set out to solve the problem of world peace and came up with a simple, elegant solution. Implementing the solution will be a challenge but I think it is workable. I as a teacher am in a perfect position to spread the word. Even though my class is a technology class and not a philosophy class, I can still teach by example. I have a [peace] poster below on the wall of my lab. I do a little spiel how they need to have inner peace and how they need to foster a love for metallurgy to be successful in the class. Many of them snicker and think I am nuts but some of them get it and try to adopt it."Chade hypostasized that two necessary and sufficient conditions for world peace are: 1. End of poverty, and 2. Inner peace, happiness and compassion leading to goodness on a global scale.Chade reasoned that if goodness expandeds in the world on a global scale, wars and poverty would diminish and eventually disappear. He asked himself how goodness could be expanded in the world and came up with a simple solution.Chade makes a convincing case that if the business community realized that "goodness" was good for business then it would become part of the business culture on a global scale. Chade is pragmatic: If all you want is "goodness" go hug a tree he says.Chade developed a simple tool for the business man to use so he could promote goodness. The book covers convincing research and studies that show that the business and military leaders who exhibit inner peace, happiness and compassion within themselves are constantly the most effective leaders and their companies do better financially.To promote goodness Chade's book spends time explicating meditation techniques. The one practice that I found simple and practical and useful and which is now a habit with me is:Whenever I meet someone I think "I want you to be happy." What happens is this; my face softens and reflects goodness. The other person senses this and their face softens and a connection is made. It's impossible for me to maintain toxic feelings towards someone I want to be happy. It's simple and elegant and backed by research into our brains ability to radiate waves of consciousness. Chade's program is based on three insights.1. That we are all human2. We all want to be happy, and,3. We all want to be free of suffering.These three insights have enormously enriched my life and are worth the price of admission.

I’m not one for self-help books. I’ve read a few, but I have this egotistical response to books telling me what to do, a response that makes it seem like everything they are telling me is common knowledge or doesn’t relate to me. I’m aware of this, so I don’t often indulge in that kind of book, but I made an exception for Search Inside Yourself: The Unexpected Path to Achieving Success, Happiness (And World Peace) by Chade-Meng Tan, half because my brother highly recommended I read it and half because I really liked the unique approach to it.This was written by a computer engineer who implemented a mindfulness program at Google that successfully increased productivity and happiness among Google employees. What I loved about how this was written was that it was from a very simple and logical place. As an engineer, Tan explained things very clearly, he had really great examples to support his points – and I don’t mean some philosophical metaphor that you don’t understand, I mean an actual story from his own life, usually a situation in the workplace, that clearly showed what he is talking about. It was so easy to understand what he was talking about, you really do have that “this is such common sense” feeling, but without the egotistical judgement, more of an awakening feeling. Like why haven’t I been doing this all my life?Tan kind of organizes all your thoughts and feelings into situations and actually teaches you how to deal with them. There are in depth descriptions of each element he is focusing on, plus detailed exercises that you can actually practice in your daily life. In my usual fashion, I read through the book skipping over the exercises (this is why I’m bad with self-help books), but even just reading his insights on life, the way he phrases certain situations, the positivity and encouragement he puts within his words, the whole thing was very inspiring. I didn’t feel weighed down by anything too spiritual or religious, I didn’t feel like I was being preached to, I felt like I was learning a lesson and taking valuable tools with me to take on my daily life.If you’re interested in mindfulness or curious about how you can help find a bit of inner peace and happiness, I recommend you start here. I find a lot of books about this can be discouraging or make you feel a little silly if you’re just starting out, but Search Inside Yourself is a great middle ground for people who aren’t quite ready to completely let go of their reservations, but wouldn’t mind seeing what all the fuss is about.Originally posted on citygirlscapes.com

I heard from Chade Meng tan first in a master lecture in MBA. I googled him and found aan introduction video of his project SIY, in succession i bought this book and i have to admit i rarely read a book in my life, but this one is just awesome. I would recommend this book to everyone who wants to improve his/her work/private life and who is searchin for meaning in his/her life.

Meng is an amazing author. What I love about the book is that he's taken the concepts of Meditation and Mindfulness and made them so simple and easy for people to not only understand but follow... and to not only follow but enjoy following. By equipping his readers with the tools with which they can create the conditions for happiness and success in their own lives, Meng continues on his mission to create the conditions for world peace and happiness in our lifetime.