We think, mistakenly, that success is the result of the amount of time we put in at work, instead of the quality of time we put in.

So great becomes the fear of losing what we have that many of us rush back to hide under the temporary shelter of convention rather than follow the path of self-discovery wherever it might lead. Given adequate time and sufficient fear, we may hide so long that we hardly notice we're slowly suffocating.

There is nothing that can bring you closer to fearlessness about everything else in the world than being a parent - because everyday fears like not being approved of pale by comparison to the fears you have about your children.

America is a country ready to be taken - in fact, longing to be taken - by political leaders ready to restore democracy and trust to the political process.

I failed, many times in my life. One failure that I always remember was when my second book was rejected by 36 publishers. Many years later, I watched HuffPost come alive

Clearly drive, IQ, and hard work are incredibly important. But ultimately what matters most is resilience--the ability to quickly rebound from failures, indeed to see failure as a stepping stone to success.

The middle class is teetering on the brink of collapse just as surely as AIG was in the fall of 2009 - only this time, it's not just one giant insurance company (and its banking counterparties) facing disaster, it's tens of millions of hardworking Americans who played by the rules.