Feelings are self-justifying, with a set of perceptions and "proofs" all their own. - Daniel Goleman

… a psychological system (was) at the heart of Buddhism … absolutely unknown in Western psychology. … I started to write about it, and the way it worked with the mind, the way it conceived of what you could do to transform the mind, … meditation was very much at the heart of that. … Western psychology did not understand that … meditation did transform the mind, and now we know, the brain. No one had ever heard of the word, neuroplasticity in the 1970s, … repeated experiences change the structure and function of the brain was implicit in Buddhist psychology and unknown in Western psychology. … you could transform the mind, to the point where, … your inner emotional state was not at the whim of external conditions, but was an ongoing, …equanimous state that was one of kindness. This was inconceivable. … I would say psychologists in the 2010s don’t think about it that much as whole.

… I discovered … an alternate psychological system. … Abhidharma, which is the Sanskrit term for this model of mind. Then I started writing about it in psychology journals, albeit very obscure psychology journals, because they were the only ones that were interested. … it was important to bring this news to Western psychology because … it …extend(ed) the horizon line of the potential of being human. … if psychology’s about anything, it’s about the mind and what are it’s (sic) upper limits; what are the worst places we can go, what are the best places we can go? And this described some best places that we hadn’t heard of yet…

If your emotional abilities aren't in hand, if you don't have self-awareness, if you are not able to manage your distressing emotions, if you can't have empathy and have effective relationships, then no matter how smart you are, you are not going to get very far.