I thought about something I taught my kids when they were in elementary school ... I used to ask them to cup their hands and put them in front of me. And I said, 'In your hand is your flame. It's your soul. It's your light. You need to surround yourself with friends who, when your light is shining bright, don't feel the need to blow it out.

Let's say you decide to make some chocolate chip cookies. You get out a bowl, you add the milk, you add the flour, the brown sugar, the egg. But what if I told you that the cookies changed, the way they tasted, based on the bowl you picked. That's what language is. Language does not just communicate emotion; it shapes what we're feeling.

If all we really have are three words to describe—happy, sad, and mad—what happens to grief, anguish, despair, wonder joy, heartbreak? What happens? And that is why language is a portal to universes, new choices, and second chances.

We cannot be more connected to other people than we are to ourselves.

And for those of us who struggle with perfectionism, myself included, when we invariably feel judgment or blame or shame... our thinking is not 'Ah, this perfectionism thing is BS, it's not working;' our thinking is 'I wasn't perfect enough.'

Do not try to forge connection with others or build a culture of connection until you are fully connected and know yourself.

Envy is usually an experience between two people; jealousy is an experience between three. Envy is when we want something that someone else has; jealousy is when we're afraid of losing something we already have to someone else.

For about 10 years, we've had one question, and we use it to vet everything that comes in—every speaking request, every podcast, everything, which is 'Does this serve the work and the research?'

I am as ambitious personally as I am professionally. I'm not going to miss a water polo game. I'm not going to miss an event for my kids.

I think if we don't figure out how to hold ourselves and other people accountable in a way that doesn't include shame and vitriol and belittling... You have to be accountable for your actions; you have to be accountable for what you say; you have to be accountable for policies. I think if we don't better understand accountability, I think it's going to be a long walk.

The far enemy of connection is disconnection ... But the near enemy of connection is control.

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

The more the drinking and the partying got out of hand, the less connected I was with my superpower of being able to understand myself and other people.

We will do almost anything to not feel pain, including causing other people pain.

I do not think it is possible to learn how to recognize emotion in other people. I think that's bad business.

Our heart is this sea of expansiveness, of emotion, of experience. And at some point, that emotion and experience needs to bump into language.

What a 'near enemy' is, it is an emotion or a virtue that looks and feels and masquerades like the thing that we are looking for or want to be, but it sabotages it.

Worry is defined as a chain of negative thoughts about things that might happen in the future.

If you do not turn toward a painful story and own it, that story owns you.