Allow for many paths to your goal. Do not fixate on one path, because then you are likely to give up when that path is blocked.

Allow for many paths to your goal. Do not fixate on one path, because then you are likely to give up when that path is blocked.

We've all lost something along the way.

Make sure your characters are worth spending ten hours with. That’s how long it takes to read a book. Reading a book is like being trapped in a room for ten hours with those characters. Think of your main characters as dinner guests. Would your friends want to spend ten hours with the characters you’ve created? Your characters can be loveable, or they can be evil, but they’d better be compelling. If not, your reader will be bored and leave.

Women are very good at judging the risk and don't want to waste time with losing. So not that they're not as competitive, and certainly once they're in the race they're every bit as competitive, but they make that choice to compete in a more calculated way sensitive to the odds.

‎It's not easy / It's not supposed to be easy / Most people make mistakes / Most people have to learn the hardest lessons more than once.

I can push myself and you can push yourself, but competing, we push ourselves a little farther and we bring out our best even if one of us wins and one of us loses. The virtue of competition is that we both get better, not that one does. And that means we have great respect for the opponents, whether we win or whether we lose.