I've seen that phenomenally successful people believe they can learn something from everybody. I call them 'mavericks with mentors.' Richard Branson, for instance, is a total maverick but he surrounds himself with incredibly successful, smart people and he listens to them.

Even if you overcome a tremendous challenge and feel the personal victory, it's simply not powerful enough. It may activate your left brain, which says, 'I have achieved,' but it will not activate your more social right brain, which desperately desires to say, 'Look, Ma, I did it!

No matter how small you start, start something that matters.

We get to choose how we're going to live - what level of energy, what level of vibrancy, what level of excitement.

People say, "I wish I had more motivation today, because then I would try something." But our thinking is backward. The way our brain works is that dopamine - the so-called feel-good chemical - is released the second we actually do something. So the motivation doesn't come before, it comes after.

Selecting your next challenge in life, choose one that is meaningful and will demand your complete concentration.

My best mentor is a mechanic - and he never left the sixth grade. By any competency measure, he doesn't have it. But the perspective he brings to me and my life is, bar none, the most helpful.