How mindfulness gave a boy peace and confidence

James Doty's prospects were bleak, but then one summer he was taught a new, compassionate way to think

When I speak in my capacity as a professor of neurosurgery at Stanford University or as an entrepreneur with a company worth $1.3bn, there is an assumption that I had a privileged background, one of affluence. In fact I grew up in poverty on public assistance with an alcoholic father and a mother impaired by a stroke who was chronically depressed and attempted suicide many times. My father was jailed repeatedly and we were evicted from our home on quite a few occasions.

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