Whatever we focus on is bound to expand. Where we see the negative, we call forth more negative. And where we see the positive, we call forth more positive. Having loved and lost, I now love more passionately. Having won and lost, I now win more soberly. Having tasted the bitter, I now savor the sweet.

Often we see a couple who has separated or divorced and look with sadness at the ‘failure’ of their relationship. But if both people learned what they were meant to learn, then that relationship was a success.

If I'm honest with myself, I think it's probably true I have learned more in my life through pain than through joy. But hopefully that's changing.

Think of the mystical three days between the crucifixion and the resurrection as the time it takes for a situation to change once spirit has infused our consciousness. As we come to look at an experience differently, in time in begins to transform.

What we really need to avoid is this epidemic of false positivism and false happiness, which says if it hurts, it must be bad. Sometimes it hurts because you have a conscience.

Your playing small does not serve the world. Who are you not to be great?

It's been fascinating over the last few years, watching the high and mighty in business and politics fall precipitously-not because their plans didn't work, but because their character flaws undercut those plans. Whether the microphone caught them making racist comments or their greed overcame their common sense, who they were as people made all the difference-more than their résumés, their degrees, or even their past successes. If you fail at the art of being human and staying human, you recklessly court disaster.