We cannot grow when we are in shame, and we can't use shame to change ourselves or others.

If you put shame in a petri dish, it needs three ingredients to grow exponentially: secrecy, silence, and judgment. If you put the same amount of shame in the petri dish and douse it with empathy, it can't survive.

Understanding the difference between healthy striving and perfectionism is critical to laying down the shield and picking up your life. Research shows that perfectionism hampers success. In fact, it's often the path to depression, anxiety, addiction, and life paralysis.

Guilt is just as powerful, but its influence is positive, while shame's is destructive. Shame erodes our courage and fuels disengagement.

There is no innovation and creativity without failure. Period.

When they teach [doctors] how to suture, they also teach them how to stitch their self-worth to being all-powerful.

Everything that these folks are saying that they're trying to move away from, like comparison, perfectionism, judgement, and exhaustion as a status symbol - that all describes my life. It was more like a medical researcher studying a disease and figuring out he or she has it.