Search inside yourself
With Search Inside Yourself, Chade-Meng Tan, one of Google’s earliest engineers and personal growth pioneer, offers a proven method for enhancing mindfulness and emotional intelligence in life and work. Meng’s job is to teach Google’s best and brightest how to apply mindfulness techniques in the office and beyond; now, readers everywhere can get insider access to one of the most sought after classes in the country, a course in health, happiness and creativity that is improving the livelihood and productivity of those responsible for one of the most successful businesses in the world. With forewords by Daniel Goleman, author of the international bestseller Emotional Intelligence, and Jon Kabat-Zinn, renowned mindfulness expert and author of Coming To Our Senses, Meng’s Search Inside Yourself is an invaluable guide to achieving your own best potential.
Stats for nerds
21recommend
47mentions
24people
2013–2024years
91% recommend6% neutral2% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Semi digital nomad here:
1. A good backpack [1]. I bought one in such a way that it is technically too big for aircrafts but in such a way that aircrafts won't bother you with it. Mine has 45L and expands to 55L. I got in trouble for it twice. I've flown like 50 times. When I got in trouble for it, I just put everything in my pockets and I'm good to go.
2. A Quikflip rain coat [2]. It's a coat and can transform into a big. Sometimes you need both at the same time, which is a bit iffy but it's harder to forget this raincoat and it is harder to forget this bag compared to other bags/raincoats.
3. A long coat, cut out the pockets so that the whole coat becomes a pocket. I put stuff in here when the airlines are being annoying. I bought mine at a second hand place for $25.
4. Airtags: "where did I put my keys?" BEEP "oh there!"
5. Merino whool socks, underwear, shirts and sweaters. Only got one sweater? That's like 4 days worth of sweaters! It down regulates temperature when it's hot and up regulates temperature when it's cold. Only downside: you need to take good care of them.
6. Tinder: to be fair, I needed to get my hacker mindset to go from 1 match per month to 100 matches per month (it took me a few months to figure out how to get good pictures - average people can look photogenic!). I met my wife on the app, best $120 ever.
7. A dating coach. 12 years back I went to a convention for $100 and a dating coach that wasn't really commercial charged me $400 for being a full week with him. He took me and another person. He just wanted some pocket change while traveling. He changed my life. I've had other dating coaches way above $1000 that didn't help so much. It's about the click first and foremost.
8. Getting diagnosed by a psychologist. This happened quite recently. I knew I was neurodivergent, now I know how I'm neurodivergent and how it screws with my sleep. There's a very big chance I have a melatonin defficiency. I need to test that. In terms of social skills, I've been thriving thanks to #7 and #10. I now see what kind of support I should ask at work (in my case: the ability to work flexible hours is huge).
9. Dutch time-released Melatonin (0.1 mg per tablet) - see #8. I take 0.3 mg two hours before going to bed. My sleep has gone from a 3.5 to a 7 out of 10.
10. meditation retreat [3], it's on a donation basis and I've paid less than $1000. My first retreat was 14 years back. Related the Search Inside Yourself book from Chade-Meng Tan to learn more about meditation. Meditation has allowed me to deal much better with neurotypicals, without realizing as I started meditating 15 years ago whereas my diagnosis is new.
11. Some ear protection blockers that construction workers use for sleep (also for in the plane). I have tinnitus so can't use earplugs well. I could use earphones with noise cancellation but they run out after 4 to 6 hours, waking me up (and it's hard for me to fall asleep). You need to get used to it but afterwards it works fine. An eye mask too. I've slept in the loudest, brightest places and got to sleep well.
12. Spotify: my music listening is much more varied now and it's an automatic mood booster if I don't listen too much. So I use it as a pick me up for when I become gloomy. It took 2 years to get good enough curated playlists for that though.
13. A curated list of downloaded cooking videos from YouTube from recipes that I love that are now linked to in an google spreadsheet that I share with my wife. "What should we have for dinner?" 3 suggestions from the spreadsheet works, videos are there.
14. Traveling and because of it feeling more free to meet people. I met my wife in Valencia, for example.
15. Macbook M1 2020, I have 2. I use the 32 GB version as my "always on computer" and it is with some family members of mine. It sometimes runs certain scripts, I can always use it as a server, etc. The 16 GB version, I travel with. Downloading an LLM on the 32 GB is also more easy and the LLMs are more useful. I've saved my friends a lot of time with the scripts that my "always on computer" has been running (chrome plugins that monitor certain websites and sends push notifications to them).
16. Nothing Ear earphones [4]. If you're in a loud cafe, these are the only earphones that give you a good chance that the call quality is still good. They're better than whatever Apple offers (I have every Apple product).
17. Gyokuru green tea: good nootropic. Ceremonial grade matcha: same. Coffee hits too hard. This is more smooth.
18. A $300 chef's knife from a Japanese brand. I think I could've optimized a bit more, but it is really useful to know how a sharp knife "should cut". My knife is an Anryu Knives Aogami Super Walnut Gyuto 21 cm.
I'll leave it at this. I've noticed quite a few of these entries weren't in there, so I figured I'd share my list and view. If you like it, feel free to reach out!
My email is in my profile.
[1] https://www.snowcountry.eu/lowe-alpine-airzone-camino-trek-3...
[2] https://www.quikflipapparel.com/products/dryflip-rain-jacket...
[3] dhamma.org
- This perspective is inspired by: pickup artists, feminism and hacking. I feel I belong to all 3 groups (it sounds paradoxical but it's resolvable, too long to write here).
This is not structured.
Use meditation to learn about love as a skill (metta, tonglen). Read Search Inside Yourself. Become more altruistic, less egocentric, more equanimous and more sensitive to the own sensations in your body. See dhamma.org
Also screen for if you have compatible values (really do this, I see so many issues because some men are already happy if anyone loves them at all)
The biggest hacks are:
1. Traveling: it's easier to hookup so the hard part is done (making them sexually attracted to you). Now you can get to know them for real and be serious. For people that claim this can't be done. I'm living it, I might need to relocate to the US but I'm currently a nomad, so I can do whatever. Of course, you'll find party girls or non-serious women. Somewhere after making out with them, you'll realize that and can screen them out.
2. Social momentum: sometimes I go out during the day, cold approach 5 to 10 women and cold approach a couple of strangers to for social fun (I met a friendly music hippie the other day!). At the end of it, you're much sharper and much wittier. If you then cold approach a woman the likelihood of her being attracted to you is higher. Note: you need to be optimistic about the process, you're going to be rejected a lot (or at least feel rejected a lot). I always ask myself "what could I do better in this approach" and most times I see improvements since my social skills aren't that great. Such as: talk louder, talk slower, talk with a more positive tone (she doesn't know you and is a stranger you need to be positive in the beginning of meeting someone on a cold approach), stand up straight, smile, have an open body posture, do your best to make her day better, etc.
3. Play the numbers, play them hard. Pickup artists that say you can seduce anyone and everyone: lol, no. It's a numbers game and you can improve your likelihood of attracting, seducing and loving someone but we're talking about the 1% to 10% range at most. Become used to rejection desensitize yourself to it. Stay nice and respectful to everyone while becoming numb to it. Think by sets of 100.
My method:
I'm imaginative and curious. I've noticed that in order to be found attractive by a woman at the very least I need a few things:
1. A good or positive vibe
2. Something special, pickup artists call it status (bullshit). I call it something special because if she values that you have a crazy intelligent mind, boom, you're in.
3. Intent from my side
Here's how I fill that in:
1. I focus on playfulness, I find playfulness awesome. Banter is fun, being funny is fun, but being playful gives me existential satisfaction. So playfulness forms the (conscious) fundament of whatever good vibe I vibe out. It's either that or metta/love.
2. That something special in my case is I'm a fantastical person. My imagination is huge, if women don't appreciate me for it, next, numbers game, rejection, whatever. Talk to the next woman you fancy. I screen hard, because I know that what in order to experience a better love life I need fireworks on: intellect, emotions and physical.
3. Intent: simply say it somewhere during the interaction 1 to 3 times.
Don't underestimate meditation and metta in all of this. Also, when it comes to love there is little to no room for ego. Every time when I put myself out there and get rejected I am reminded of that. Got rejected yesterday pretty harshly, Tinder date. Vibe was awesome, intellectually cool, I found her visually really appealing. So I asked “do you kiss on the first date?” It turns out she felt more friendship. It fucking hurts, I (almost) always get it. It frustrates to no end. But I have to feel it. I have to empathize with how she feels about it. It matters to keep on feeling. It matters to empathize, despite my own wants/needs. Meditation helps to give those feelings a place by using equanimity. It still hurted, and there I saw my ego. Hello ego, no more ego. Ego went away (it’s all temporary if course). I felt at peace. Better luck next time :)
Relationship-wise:
Non-violent Communication
Even more meditation (anapana, vipassana, metta and tonglen)
Empathy (note: not always sympathy but always empathy)
Read the sex god method
Learn about kink/bdsm, even if you’re vanilla. Visit a munch even
Help others, like the homeless (cultivates love)
Help your partner
Have boundaries
Ask for help when you need it, dare to!
Be amazing at detecting shit from yourself and shit from others. Aka don’t walk over your partner and have the skills they won’t walk over you
More playfulness, playfulness forms like 50% of all interactions. You will see each other’s weird side
Learn a dance together like bachata
That's all I have for now.
- Check out the book "Search Inside Yourself" based on the mindfulness program developed at Google
Many great and fun team / workplace activities. Applicable too more than just devs or work too!
- Search Inside Yourself by Chade-Meng Tan
I learned a meditation from there called Tonglen. It’s hardcore. I have only done it a few times in my life but it really made me want to help alleviate suffering from other people a lot more after doing that a few times.
The whole book is also littered with scientific studies about meditation. So it can explain things clearly to very sceptical minds, like mine ;)
- I'd recommend "Search Inside Yourself" by Chase-Meng Tan for bonding exercises that build deeper connections
- There's a really good book written by Chade-Meng Tan who was a software engineer at Google called "Search Inside Yourself". It includes quite a lot of content on empathy - e.g. that apparently the same "hardware" is used in the brain for both empathy & self-awareness, so developing self-awareness through exercises like mindfulness is likely to boost empathy as well.
