Of all the reasons people have for trying meditation, being less emotionally reactive is usually pretty high up. “Being mindful,” or “being zen,” is synonymous these days with rolling with the punches, and being non-reactive (or less reactive). And there’s definitely something to it: Neuroscience is starting to back up the subjective emotional changes we notice by illustrating what’s going on in the brain when people are confronted with stressors.

Dear Liz, A very unfortunate thing happened to me this year. I job-hunted for seven months. In April of this year, I had two competing job offers. That was a good feeling, but it didn’t  last. I accepted the job that seemed to be more secure. It was a Senior Financial Analyst job in a consulting firm with 100 employees in my location and over 3000 in the U.S. The job lasted six months. I just got laid off. It had nothing to do with my job performance.

Dear Liz, I’ve just completed an arduous interview process that included three face-to-face interviews in Chicago (where I live and where the job is based), one trip to the company’s New York headquarters and three additional  Skype or telephone interviews. I received the company’s offer letter today (via email from the HR Manager), and was I ever deflated! The salary is six thousand dollars less per year than what the hiring manager Alan and I talked about.

Former Forbes 400 member Chuck Feeney is America’s most generous philanthropist. (Photo: Mark Doyle/Splash News) Every year, the wealthiest Americans make millions or in some cases billions of dollars in charitable donations. Our list of America’s Top 50 Givers revealed who gave away the most money in 2015, and how much they’ve donated over their lifetimes. But these huge sums can be pocket change for billionaires with massive fortunes.

It isn’t easy to reach the ranks of the 400 richest Americans – the minimum needed was $1.7 billion in 2016 – but 22 new billionaires joined The Forbes 400 club this year. More than two-thirds of them lucked into it, inheriting at least some of their wealth. Seven hit the jackpot on their own, selling everything from plastics to beverages to hair care products.

There’s been much made about the vast divide between the rich and poor in the U.S. The Forbes 400 certainly confirms the fact that the rich keep getting richer. What is perhaps less considered is just how many of the exclusive club’s members have crossed over from the have nots to the haves – or at the very least have created their own fortunes and luck with ingenuity and hard work.

Shutterstock Somewhere between 10% and 50% of a typical job interview will involve listening to and answering standard interview questions. If you are lucky, your interviewer will be a confident enough person to make your interview a friendly, human conversation rather than an oral exam, but there’s no guarantee.

The professional landscape was very different back in 1995. At that time, BlackBerry hadn’t launched its first smart device, just 14% of American adults used the Internet and 1 out of every 10 employees worked from home. In fact, some of America’s largest workforce population–millennials–weren’t even born yet.

Shutterstock These days, being the right person for a job tends to involve a lot more than just showing up with a strong skill set and a passion for the field. More and more companies also want to find someone who’s a good culture fit. What this means varies across organizations and industries, but it suggests that no matter how rock-solid your resume, how airtight your interview answers, if you aren’t deemed the right fit, you may not get an offer.

Shutterstock A good deal of effective people-management is nothing fancy.  It’s nothing that you can learn only at Harvard B-School or Stanford or Wharton. It’s nothing that requires complex strategy or a genius-level knowledge of business. In my opinion it’s more EQ than IQ. Laced with a healthy dose of common sense. In that spirit, here are three practical, fundamental tips to help with people-management. Take time to get to know your people.