Cognitive science studies a wide array, including concentration, selective attention, and open awareness, as well as how the mind deploys attention inwardly to oversee mental operations. Vital abilities build on such basic mechanics of our mental life. For one, there’s self-awareness, which fosters self-management.
Then there’s empathy, the basis for skill in relationship. These are fundamentals of emotional intelligence. As we’ll see, weakness here can sabotage a life or career, while strengths increase fulfillment and success. Beyond these domains, systems science takes us to wider bands of focus as we regard the world around us, tuning us to the complex systems that define and constrain our world. Such an outer focus confronts a hidden challenge in attuning to these vital systems: our brain was not designed for that task, and so we flounder. Yet systems awareness helps us grasp the workings of an organization, an economy, or the global processes that support life on this planet.
All that can be boiled down to a threesome: inner, other, and outer focus. A well-lived life demands we be nimble in each.
— Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence (Daniel Goleman), Loc. 88–97