... there is an irrational, cultish tendency in many intellectual movements, and Objectivism, alas, is no exception. Ayn Rand's personal obsession with loyalty did little to discourage this trend.... Rand had often protested, 'Protect me from my followers!'

The lies most devastating to our self-esteem are not so much the lies we tell as the lies we live.

If you are terrified of making mistakes, you will be reluctant to acknowledge them when you do make them-and therefore you will not correct them.

If you bring five percent more awareness to your work tomorrow, or to your most important relationship, what might you do differently? Are you willing to find out?

The more you surrender to the fear of someone's disapproval, the more you lose face in your own eyes, and the more desperate you become for someone's approval. Within you is a void that should have been filled by self-esteem. When you attempt to fill it with the approval of others instead, the void grows deeper and the hunger for acceptance and approval grows stronger. The only solution is to summon the courage to honor your own judgment, frightening though that may be in the beginning.

One of the characteristics of love relationships that flower is a relatively high degree of mutual self-disclosure - a willingness to let our partner enter into the interior of our private world and a genuine interest in the private world of that partner. Couples in love tend to show more of themselves to each other than to any other person.

The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance.