When I was 20, I was on top of the world.

I was an East Asian studies major,

and I had just won

a prestigious fellowship
from the Japanese government.

I would spend a year in Tokyo,

studying language and culture,

all expenses paid.

For a financially strapped kid like me,
that was like winning the lottery.

One day on campus,
there was a health fair,

and just for the heck of it,
I got my blood pressure checked.

And to my surprise,
it was startlingly high.

So the nurse sent me off
to the school clinic for more tests,

and they found protein in my urine.

This was not a good sign,

and so I rushed off to see a specialist,

and within a few weeks,

I found myself diagnosed

with an incurable autoimmune disease
that was attacking my kidneys.

And the doctor’s best guess
was that I had five years left.

In an instant,

it felt like my life
was tumbling into darkness.

And I realized what was worse
was that I had to give back the fellowship

(Laughter)

to stay in Ohio, where I live,
for medical treatment.

After the initial shock passed,

I looked around at my classmates.

They were throwing frisbees,

partying,

getting drunk,

and I got pissed

because I was 20 years old

and I was dying.

Intellectually,

I knew that anger and resentment
were not a way forward.

But the bigger question was,
How was I going to deal with it?

And my mind kept coming back
to a favorite documentary

on the journey of the hero.

And this is a kind of universal theme

that revolves around a central character
who is thrown out of his comfortable world

by a call to undertake a perilous quest.

And if that quest was successful,

it results in growth, transformation,

and renewed life.

And I thought to myself,

"Could kidney disease be that call?"

I began to realize

that I could approach this illness
as an inner spiritual challenge

in addition to a medical one.

But again, how?

It wasn’t like I could call my doctor
and get a prescription.

However,

as if on cue,

my religion professor
introduces me to a classic book

on how to practice Zen meditation.

In Japan, historically,
Zen was the practice of warriors,

and they would use its intense focus

to transform fear and other emotions
that came from facing mortality.

I was intuitively attracted to the idea
that I could be a warrior

and face this illness
with Zen as my weapon.

So, night after night,

in my sweltering attic apartment,

I would sit cross-legged
with my eyes closed

and do battle, Zen-style,

with the darkest parts of my life.

And one by one,

I would face inner demons,

and as I observed and accepted them,

little by little,

they began to shrink,

and little by little,

in their place grew

very slowly

a sense of calm.

The focus of Zen

gave me something to do with my mind

because at that point in my life,
it was the only thing I could manage.

A year went by,

then two, then four,

and I got on with the business of living.

But I made a deal with myself

that I would only do
what I was passionate about.

And my passions led me to graduate school,

where I found a lab that was run
by an eminent psychologist

who studied flow experiences.

And flow experiences 
are those moments of intense focus

where we feel vital and alive.

And he found that people 
who could manage their minds into flow

were connected to themselves and others,

to a sense of meaning
and purpose and to life.

Flow showed me, through science,
what I had only begun to learn in Zen.

We eventually moved the lab

from a department of psychology
to a school of management.

And there I had the opportunity
to study successful professionals

who were long-term practitioners 
of something called mindfulness.

Mindfulness, like Zen,
was a way of training the mind,

and one thing that mindfulness does

is return you from being stuck in the past

or fixated on the future

to what’s going on right here, right now.

These professionals
had all kinds of backgrounds.

They were Fortune 500 CEOs,

world famous architects, filmmakers, 
artists, musicians, writers,

and I would ask them,

"So, you know, what do you think
your life would be like

if you didn't have this practice?"

And they'd say,

"My life is so complex.

I’m being pulled
in so many directions at once

that if I didn’t have this to keep me
centered, grounded, and sane,

I think I’d be dead."

And then it hit me:

there was something missing
from management,

that management education

had focused almost entirely
on what happens outside you

and there was precious
little, if anything,

that spoke about leadership
from the inside.

And I sensed that was an opportunity.

So with my school’s blessing,

I created a course that put executives
through a series of grueling challenges.

They would have to learn
how to focus their mind

in a world of distraction.

They would have to rigorously observe
their emotional reactions.

And they'd have to face unflinchingly

their own ego.

This was not for the faint of heart,

and to my surprise,

people signed up!

And one CEO drove three hours
to take the class.

My coworker warned me
that he was a "very difficult man."

And my colleagues were intimidated
by his hard glare and short fuse.

And they smugly wished me,

the youngest guy
on the faculty at that time,

"Good luck."

I felt like I was
being thrown to the lions.

The CEO sat right up front,

and for a while he was quiet.

But as time passed, he began to open up.

And he confessed that
he was completely overwhelmed

by endless email and customers' demands
for instant responses.

Constant multitasking
made his life frenetic,

and pressures to increase the bottom line
escalated his stress.

But as he began to awaken,

he admitted to me

that perversely,

he enjoyed playing the role of victim.

Now, that might not sound like much,

but for a CEO to admit that,

that turned into a turning point for him.

As time went by,

he started to see how hardened
and indifferent he had become to others,

how his management style
was to fly off the handle

and lose control and get caught up
in a swell of his own emotions.

He wrote to me saying,

"I’m beginning to see
my own obsession with me,

and my own pride, vanity, and greed."

And what was surprising to him

was that when he was open, 
unguarded, and vulnerable,

he felt stronger and free.

"Maybe," he says,

"Maybe I’m beginning to know
what compassion means."

At the end of the class,
his eyes smiled more.

And I asked him how had the class
affected his personal life.

And he says, "You know,

I realized that I haven't had
a personal life in 35 years.

But back then
my hair was a lot longer,

and I was interested
in consciousness and spirituality.

But then we got married,

and then we had kids,

and then I realized
I had to support this family.

And I went to work,

and I never stopped.

And all of those longings
quietly faded away."

And with tears streaming down his face,

"My wife says to me the other day,

'I don’t know what’s happened to you,

but you’ve turned back
into the man I married.'"

That moment, for me,
was like being hit by lightning,

and to see such a profound shift
in this "difficult man"

showed me the path
that I had to take for my life.

So I quit a promising
research career to do this work,

which I felt like is what I needed to do.

He, In a decade of teaching,

he became the first
of a long line of "difficult people"

who were fundamentally
existentially frustrated.

They had used all their talent,
skill, and intelligence

for external achievement,

and they enjoyed it.

But in the end,
they found it unsatisfying.

But they didn’t know what to do.

And that’s why they were frustrated.

We are told

that the unexamined life
isn't worth living,

but we’re never told how to examine it.

And I think the secret
is cultivating mindful attention

because that creates self-awareness.

And the self-awareness creates
the opportunity for change.

And that can lead to self-transformation.

As a society, we don't pay
enough attention to "attention."

We don’t take care of it,
preserve it, grow it.

We need to take care of attention!

So when are we going to realize

that a meeting where everyone
is staring at their laptop

isn’t really a meeting.

And shouldn’t memories
of Grandma and her blackberry

be about a pie,

and not a phone?

(Laughter)

Quality of attention is quality of life.

It’s quality of relationship,

quality of work!

Attention is the secret ingredient
that connects us to ourselves and others.

And mindfulness and Zen
are ways of enhancing attention

so we can live with more flow.

I'd like to think

that my practices helped me live
beyond the five-year diagnosis.

But after years of teaching,

fatigue, gout, and undeniable lab results

all pointed to the fact I was dying.

But since 16 years had passed
since the original diagnosis,

my doctor believed that
a kidney transplant could save my life,

and this presented another problem.

I would have to ask for help.

And the idea was like
throwing a birthday party

with a secret fear
that no one was going to show up.

So, like the CEO,

I had to look at my own fear,
pride, and vulnerability

to live.

And so when 25 people
came forward as organ donors

and 13 of whom were my former students,

I got more help than
I could have ever imagined.

And luckily,

one was a positive match.

And here I am.

It’s not done.

(Applause)

I used to think that pain was a negative,

but I learned, with the right tool
it could become fuel for growth.

And it led me down a path
of strength, courage, and love.

I believe that we all have
the capacity within us

to make our minds beautiful.

So my wish is that we become
warriors of our own journey.

Because when we do,

we change our heart,

our mind,

and our future.

Thank you.

(Applause)