Finally and most important of all, authenticity means that you must do what you do the way you do it and allow everyone else the same courtesy. There was a time I wanted to be like every famous writer that ever lived. I tried to copy styles, reframe information, use similar artwork. I almost drove myself crazy! Now I just do what I do. I have mentors. There are people whose work I admire, but I write the way I write. I eat the way I eat. I dress the way I dress. I can't believe that God made us each so unique only to have us do everything the same way.

Life doesn't have to be hard, life is on your side.

When you don't show up as who you are, people fall in love with who you're not. Then when they find out who you are, that's when they leave.

No storm can last forever. It will never rain 365 days consecutively. Keep in mind that trouble comes to pass, not to stay. Don't worry! No storm, not even the one in your life, can last forever.

When you give to others to the degree that you sacrifice yourself, you make the other person a thief.

Many of us believe that we are victims to what happens to us, and therefore unworthy of anything better. What we've been taught and trained to believe about ourselves as children, often this is negative and we need to unlearn that. The way we unlearn them is by having a vision and moving forward. Staying focused and being true to that vision of what we desire for ourselves.

The event is not what you should be working on. You should be working on your response or reaction to an event. You either react to it - that means you become victimized, and you say this thing is happening to you - or you respond to it and say the solution must come through you - that's where you stay focused, not on the rightness, wrongness, fairness of the event, but on the appropriateness of your response.