Matt Tenney

There are countless people I would like to thank for their help throughout my life, without whom I would not be who I am or doing what I do. For the sake of brevity here, I would like to acknowledge and thank those who have had the greatest impact on the success of this book.

First, I thank those of you who have been in the audiences of my keynotes and training programs over the past few years, and to the clients who have invited me to serve those audiences. You have shown such an inspiring thirst for mindfulness and other tools that can help you not only realize greater professional success and better business outcomes but also become kinder, more compassionate human beings. You inspired me to write this book much sooner than I had originally intended to.

Thank you, Mom and Dad. Without your unconditional support, this book never would have come to be.

Thank you, Leah, my wonderful wife and best friend. You inspire me every day with your incredible thoughtfulness, your care for the people around you, and your devotion to being as Christ-like as possible.

Thank you, Tim Gard. Despite your grueling academic schedule and the quick deadlines we faced, you took this project on with enthusiasm and precision and made the book significantly better than what it would have been had I written it alone. Also, I thank your wife and son for supporting you on this project.

Thank you, Jon Gordon and Simon Sinek. Your help was instrumental in launching my writing career.

Thanks to the other mentors in my life who played a significant role in helping this book come to be: Michael Carroll, Chade-Meng Tan, John Spence, and Ted Prince.

Special thanks to Chade-Meng Tan for being so innovative and creating the Search Inside Yourself program at Google. You paved the way for books like this one to have a chance of succeeding.

Thanks to Shannon Vargo, Liz Gildea, and Peter Knox at John Wiley & Sons for being so gentle with my naïveté and so patient with my endless questions.

Thank you, Arianna Huffington, for inviting me to write for the Huffington Post, which has helped me share mindfulness and servant leadership with a large number of people I might have never reached.

Thank you, Tim Ferriss, for being so generous with what you learn from your countless experiments. Nearly my entire marketing plan for this book was inspired by your efforts.

Thanks to all those who took the time out of their very busy schedules to read an advance copy of this book and write endorsements: John Spence, Michael Carroll, Skip Prichard, Bob Hottman, Greg Serrao, Chis Thoen, Tara Swart, Rick Staab, Scott Halford, Martin Sirk, Colin Melvin, Chad Paris, Britta Hölzel, and Wibo Koole.

Tim Gard

A variable that is related to mindfulness and predicts happiness is gratitude. Writing an acknowledgment is a beautiful practice of gratitude, and I am delighted to have the opportunity of doing so here.

I am deeply grateful for the beauty of life in general. With regard to this book I am very grateful to my wife, Marasha, and my parents, Karin and Wolfgang, who supported me in many ways and made it possible for me to make time available to work on this exciting project. I am also grateful to my sons, Max and Lex, who are a continuous source of love and inspiration. The photograph of me was made by a very talented 83-year-old, semiprofessional photographer, my grandmother Susanne. Thanks, Grandma! I also would like to thank Sara Lazar for the MRI image, David Vago for the brain template and my brother Fritz for his help with editing the photograph and brain illustration.

Of course I am very grateful to Matt for inviting me to join him in this inspiring and fun project. Matt, you are a very motivating and inspiring person, and it has been a true pleasure to work with you. Thanks for your patience and the wonderful collaboration! I also would like to thank the entire John Wiley & Sons team, including Peter Knox, Lauren Freestone, Judy Howarth, Liz Gildea, and Shannon Vargo, for all their great work, for guiding us through the process, and for turning plain text into an actual book. John Spence, Michael Carroll, Skip Prichard, Bob Hottman, Greg Serrao, Chis Thoen, Tara Swart, Rick Staab, Scott Halford, Martin Sirk, Colin Melvin, Britta Hölzel, Chad Paris, and Wibo Koole, thanks for your endorsements!

I could not have done the job without my training in neuroscience and mindfulness, and I am very grateful to my teachers, colleagues, and friends in the field. In particular I would like to thank Britta Hölzel, Ulrich Ott, Sara Lazar, Dieter Vaitl, Rainer Goebel, Alexander Sack, Carolyn West, and Laurie Rhoades. I am also grateful to the wider contemplative neuroscience community with the Mind and Life Institute at its core. The scientists of this community are the ones who conducted much of the research that I cited in this book. Of course a scientist is nowhere without participants and funding, and I would like to thank all who contribute to this field in their own way. Last but not least, I would like to thank you, the reader, for your interest, time, and trust to work with this book.