 Hello my name is Karen Shepardson and welcome to the leaders room by the Eclipse Leadership and Governance Center. Today we are delighted to have with us Chet Meng Tan, or just Meng as he prefers to be called, a Google pioneer, an award-winning engineer, a New York Times best-selling author, a thought leader and a philanthropist. Meng now serves with Google's people development team. His current job description is, enlighten minds, open hearts and create world peace. At Google, Meng led the creation of a groundbreaking mindfulness-based emotional intelligence course called Search Inside Yourself, which was featured on the front page of the business section of the New York Times. Search Inside Yourself is also the title of Meng's New York Times best-selling book, which he hopes will eventually contribute to world peace in a meaningful way. Outside of Google, Meng is co-chair of the 1 billion acts of peace campaign, which has been nominated by seven Nobel Peace Laureates for the Nobel Peace Prize. Meng hopes to see every workplace in the world becoming a drinking fountain for happiness and enlightenment. When Meng grows up, he wants to save the world and have lots of fun and laughter doing it. Welcome to Malaysia. Thank you. And to the leaders room. Thanks for having me. Thank you. We have this opportunity to speak with you. So may I begin by just asking you one question first. So what makes a data-loving Google engineer like yourself decide to embark on a study of mindfulness and emotional intelligence and your work in Search Inside Yourself? It was very simple. I only have a very simple aspiration. All I wanted to do was to create the conditions for world peace in my lifetime. And so I asked myself, how do I do that? And I figured one way to do that is scale inner peace, inner joy, and compassion worldwide. Inner peace? Inner joy, compassion worldwide. How do I do that? The way to do that is to align these three qualities, peace, joy, compassion, with success and profits. Because if people, it teaches people to be peaceful and with peace, joy, compassion being the necessary and unavoidable side effect, then it will spread because then people want to do that to the training. More than that, appealing to self-interest, because if we go to go now to talking about goodness, people will like yay and then they go home nothing changed. Success, profits, and the goodness is unavoidable as a side effect and it contributes to world peace. People say yeah, yeah, sign me up, right? Because they don't mind contributing to world peace. So that was, that's my skillful means. Yes, yes. The skillfulness is to make it in such a way where the goodness is unavoidable as a side effect. And then so the way to do that, mindfulness and emotional intelligence. Mindfulness is very easy. It is described as moment-to-moment, non-judging attention. That is all. So basically paying attention to this current moment and whatever arises arises, whatever seizes, seizes. So that frame of mind. Anybody can do that. It's fairly simple. The hard part is maintaining it over a stretch of time. Yes and yes. So the way to do this is practice. Yes. So the way to look at it is every time when you bring attention to the breath and it wanders away when you bring it back, it's like doing one bicep curve for the brain. If I brief on the cortex. So if you bring the attention back a lot, so if you do this a lot, this becomes strong. If you bring attention back a lot, this becomes strong. Then eventually that's how you can hold your attention on the breath effortlessly. And then so then the question is how do I get that? Is that easy? I think so. Shall we do it one exercise right now? Okay. For one breath, bring full attention but gentle. Total but gentle to one in-breath and one out-breath. Let's do it now. Thank you. You notice I come now already? A little bit more? Yes. The reason you come, there are two reasons. The first is physiological because by paying attention to the breath, you tend to have slow deep breaths. You notice that it slows down. When you have slow deep breath, you are stimulating a vagus nerve. And that slows down the heartbeat, lowers the blood pressure and so on already. So that's one. And then there's a psychological reason, which is that when you're fully, remember I said total attention to the breath, when you're fully in the to be worrying, you need to be in the future. To be regretful, you need to be in the past. So when you're fully in the moment, free from regret and worry for one moment. And that's how you get one moment of rest. So in other words, it is working already. There's another data point to show that it actually works really well in a small amount of time, which is if you look at tennis players, the best tennis players in the win the, the best versus the very best. Those who go to the in-burden and those who win. What's the difference? According to one study, the difference is that the very best in the world, they are able to relax their body, rest their body and mind between sets to 10, 15 seconds. They can rest it so that when they begin the next set, they are more rested than their opponent. And if they do it over many sets, that's how they sustain the hyper. Yes, yes. So I read about it. I haven't met that at that time, I haven't met a world-class tennis player. So I didn't know whether that was true. And then I ended up meeting this guy called Novak. So I asked Novak and Novak said it's true and not just true. Novak says he says at his level, tennis is no longer a physical game. It's a mental game. It's all about how you can maintain the presence of mind the entire game. Would you say that the tension is equivalent to focus? So attention is what you are directing your awareness to at the moment. So focus is the ability to hold it, the tension. So to finish up, so therefore if you just do one breath once a day, that already puts you on a path. And if you do one breath a day and you become aware of the benefits at the moment, then you familiarize the mind with the benefits, then the mind wants to do some more. And that's how you get to have a what do you call that, a solid practice. So let me ask you this question. About breath, holding attention for this amount of time. How does that play out in terms of the business context when you go to and have a surplus business people say what is this about breath? How do you deal with that? It's extremely important for leadership. For example, you are in a meeting room and there's a crisis and everybody's panicking except for you alone. Because Karen has the ability to calm the mind. I've been training in this. And everybody's panicking, you alone calm the mind and think clearly. And if you do that, everybody is going to look at you and they'll feel in their heart leader. And the reason is because that is leadership. Part of leadership is the ability to think under fire. Grace under fire. Grace under fire. Also clear thinking under fire. You're able to say, okay, this is what happened. This is what you should respond to. You inspire leadership. And you inspire followers. So, and that turns out to be highly trainable. If you bring attention to breath a lot, then that's when your breath under cortex becomes very strong. That's when you can do this. So, this alone has direct implications on leadership. And then the other skills that we do in search inside yourself, every one of them has implications on leadership as well. So, for example, self-awareness. Being aware of the process of emulsion. If you can do that, I mean the best people we ever work for are the type of people who have that awareness. So, and that's again trainable. It just seems like there's this calmness in some people. But you're saying that it's not something that's inborn and actually anybody can train to be that. It is something inborn and it can be trained. So, it's kids that are running. There are some people who are born to run faster than the rest. And everybody can train themselves to run faster. Wow, that's really interesting. Are there any obstacles when you begin to approach an audience and speak about this whole idea of mindfulness and emotional intelligence? What kind of pushback do you get, if any? I actually haven't gotten any pushback, which is surprising. I think the reason I think is because I do a few things. So, one is the science. I'm very rigorous about the science. And the reason is because it's a professional hazard. If I'm not rigorous about science, I get very embarrassed. So, the professional hazard turns out to be a feature. Another professional hazard is precision. The way I use language is very precise. So, for example, a meditation teacher will say, let's go deep into emotional things. And the engineer will like, what is deep or shallow? How you measure? How do you quantify that? So, the language I use is, let's create high resolution perception into the process of emotion. And people get that. It's no longer laughing. So, the precision. The third thing I do is application. So, for example, the calmness of mind thing. Not just it's good for your mind, good for soul. This is how you apply in the work setting. This is how you are in leadership. So, because of that, I think it becomes unfluffy. It becomes useful. And that's why that's so important. I think the biggest, not pushback, but the biggest difficulty is sustaining the practice. So, I introduce this to people and they take it on. It makes perfect sense. They take us on. For some large percentage, it changed our lives. And then, after a few weeks, I'll practice the table off. And I observe the same thing in physical exercise. These people exercise. They do it for eight weeks. They say, oh my god, this changed my life. I'm going to do this every day for a life. And after a few weeks, eh, eh, eh. It just goes down. So, the same challenge presents itself in meditation. So, that's the biggest thing I face. And what do you recommend for people who go through this, you know, high excitement and then slowly going down? So, if you look at the physical analogy, what is the solution? The solution to get people to continue exercise? The couple, the two or three. One is community, the gym body. The other one is gamification. We gamify the exercise. Speak more time. It's called sports. I know that's what engineers speak. Geeks speak. So, you turn it in. You turn physical fitness into a game. Use joy as a vehicle. So, similar mechanisms can apply in meditation. So, community, just get the sitting body. So, it's accountable to each other. The gamification is hard in meditation because sports is necessarily stimulus-driven. Meditation is necessary, stimulus-free. So, how do you do that? So, the answer is, it turns out that when you are sitting in meditation and the mind comes down, there is a joy that arises spontaneously because of that peace of mind. And there's actually, in the Pali language or in the Sanskrit language, Suka. So, for a seasoned meditator, after some amount of practice, you reach the point where you can access Suka on the mind. Then you can, every sitting is joyful. Then it sustains a practice. So, the question is, how do we do this? Make it easier for the beginner. And I think I figured it out, which is to front-load the process with joy. So, right from the beginning, right from the first breath, remember when we did the exercise? Did I ask you to think, see whether there's a joyful component? I think I forgot to ask. So, to see there's a peace component. So, the next time you do this, see if there's also a joy component, a very subtle amount of, like, wow. And the more the mind looks at it, the more the mind becomes familiar with it, and then the more the mind can bring it up. So, that's how you front-load the joy in the beginning. And then, after a while, that sustains a practice. As you speak about these things at Eclipse, we subscribe to the definition of leadership. For us, it's about harnessing energy, so that you can create a better future. Harnessing energy, okay. Harnessing energy. And this energy, you need this energy because whenever you implement any kind of change, there's always resistance. And you need to be able to overcome this resistance. And you need to call upon an intrinsic sort of energy that resides in you. So, does mindfulness actually help? I mean, in that sense, in terms of the energy bit? For the leader, or for the... For the leader, and maybe even for the followers as well. Yes, definitely. So, the couple of pieces, and I'm trying to think out which one is most important. It's not yet clear right now, but the piece that stands out in my mind is the motivation piece. So, it turns out that one of the big pieces of emotional intelligence is actually motivation. Which is finding, searching within yourself, and finding my core inner values. What do I care about? What makes me happy? What are my purposes? What gives me meaning? And so on. So, once you find that, then you're more able to figure out what can I do in my work that align with those priorities in my life. Then, if you have that conviction as a leader, people can see it. So, for example, Steve Jobs, he wasn't an easy person to work with, but he has a few things going for him that are very strong. And one of them is... It's his conviction. Doing this, and it shows that people want to follow him. The other thing that Steve Jobs does very well, which is surprising at first glance. But it makes sense once you take a closer look, which is that he is not about Steve. He's about creating greater good for the world. He's about creating beautiful products that people can use. So, he goes beyond glorifying Steve, and aligning Steve's pocket. And because of that, people buy into the vision. So, they work with him even though he's difficult. So, there are a couple of components. One, the vision and also the going beyond self. Since we're on the topic of leadership, can I just ask very quickly? Is there any particular, when I say a leader that stands out for you, who would that be? Is there anybody? A leader who stands out. There are a couple. Let's see. Let's see. So, the names that come to my mind. George Washington. Ghandi. I think these two are the strongest. And I'm in mind. George Wong Sheetan, to me, could be the most important president in the history of the United States. Most he gave up power. He gave up power. He was as successful as the president as a leader. And he was so successful, somebody suggested that he became King George. And he scolded the guy. And then, after two terms, he voluntarily give up the president. And because of that, he's created the presidents. So, to me, you took other revolutions. Most revolutions tend to fail, because the revolutionary, the rebel became the new dictator. And because of George Washington, we didn't have that in the U.S. So, that's one. And his character, as well, is always serving the better good and glorifying himself. The other one, Ghandi. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, amazing every way. Yeah. So, I watched the Ghandi movie when I was 13, I think. Yeah. That changed my life. When I grew up, I wanted to be just like that guy. Yeah. So, when I met Arun, Ghandi, Ghandi's grandson, I thanked him personally. Thanks to your grandfather. Change my life. Fantastic. Meng, I mean, it's been wonderful talking to you. You know, I really enjoyed this short conversation. So, thank you for taking time. And I just want to say I'm Karen Shepardson, signing off from the leaders room, brought to you by the Ekliffe Leadership and Governance Center. Thank you.