1) "Here’s how I see the progression of my work: The Gifts of Imperfection—Be you. Daring Greatly—Be all in. Rising Strong—Fall. Get up. Try again."

2) "I once made a map of my heart, and smack-dab in the center of that map I drew Lake Travis. [...] After long mornings of delivering Avon, we’d make sandwiches, pack them up, and grab a handful of worms from the worm farm Uncle Joe had made in a converted 1930s Westinghouse Coca-Cola ice chest in their backyard. With our lunch and bait, we’d head down to the dock to fish and float in inner tubes on the lake. I was never happier anywhere in my life than I was floating around on Lake Travis. I can still close my eyes and remember what it felt like to drift along in my tube, feeling the warm sun on my skin as I watched dragonflies skip along the water and kicked away perch nibbling at my toes."

3) "The irony is that we attempt to disown our difficult stories to appear more whole or more acceptable, but our wholeness—even our wholeheartedness—actually depends on the integration of all of our experiences, including the falls."

4) "Choosing to be curious is choosing to be vulnerable because it requires us to surrender to uncertainty. It wasn’t always a choice; we were born curious. But over time, we learn that curiosity, like vulnerability, can lead to hurt. As a result, we turn to self-protecting—choosing certainty over curiosity, armor over vulnerability, and knowing over learning. But shutting down comes with a price—a price we rarely consider when we’re focused on finding our way out of pain."

5) "We can’t heal if we can’t grieve; we can’t forgive if we can’t grieve. We run from grief because loss scares us, yet our hearts reach toward grief because the broken parts want to mend."

6) "Composting Failure: Rumbling with Fear, Shame, Perfectionism, Blame, Accountability, Trust, Failure, and Regret"

7) "The difference between shame and guilt lies in the way we talk to ourselves. Shame is a focus on self, while guilt is a focus on behavior. This is not just semantics. There’s a huge difference between I screwed up (guilt) and I am a screwup (shame). The former is acceptance of our imperfect humanity. The latter is basically an indictment of our very existence."

8) "Experiencing failure often leads to feeling powerless simply because we didn’t achieve our purpose and/or effect the change we wanted to see. The connection between failure and powerlessness is important, because all of my years of research lead me to argue that we are most dangerous to ourselves and to the people around us when we feel powerless. Powerlessness leads to fear and desperation."

9) "To get to the delta and the key learnings, I had to rumble with shame, identity, criticism, and nostalgia. One reason for this is the complexity of shame resilience."