The tougher the times, the more clarity you gain about the difference between what really matters and what you only pretend to care about.

Failure is hard, but success is far more dangerous. If you're successful at the wrong thing, the mix of praise and money and opportunity can lock you in forever.

There was a culture that came out of the self-esteem movement which was don't anybody keep track of the goals. The kids keep track, but nobody keep track of the goals because we don't want the kids to have the experience of losing. And in depriving them losing, thinking it scarred them to lose, we made losing so taboo, so unspeakable, that we instead made losing more scary to kids, not less scary.

Who you are is more important than what you do. The goal is to bring what you do in alignment with who you are, so you don’t end up being someone you don’t want to be.

A surgeon might want to be the best surgeon in Manhattan, but out on Long Island on the weekend, not care at all how he is on the tennis courts or on the Ping-Pong table. Even turning your competitiveness off when it's appropriate, when other people are not being competitive, to recognize that social circumstance and, you know, cool it. That's a crucial competitive skill.

We all make mistakes, but we need to learn from them and move on. You can own a mistake, or the mistake will own you.

We've all lost something along the way.