Be as fluid as water, do not give your enemies anything solid to atack

When you understand the fear then you can begin to move past it. So when I hear the people say it's innate, you can't learn it, I just want to hit them in the head.

You can't disengage yourself from that game if you are completely unaware of what people out there might be doing, you're just going to be tripped up, you're going to find yourself continually at a disadvantage.

Mastery is not a function of I.Q. or natural talent or wealthy parents who can send you to the best school, but rather the result of going through a learning process, fueled by the desire to grow and the persistence to push past any obstacles.

If we experience any failures or setbacks, we do not forget them because they offend our self-esteem. Instead we reflect on them deeply, trying to figure out what went wrong and discern whether there are any patterns to our mistakes.

A lot of people in college go astray because they choose something that doesn't really, really connect to them. And if it doesn't connect to you, you're not able to put in that 10,000 hours that people talk about. You don't have the focus. And you start off in life on the wrong foot and you never get back.

The idea of social performance, that we're always performing identities, is something I got fairly obsessed with. I think it's probably because I am a person who went to 15 different elementary and middle schools. I moved all the time, often having to run out in the middle of the night because my mom couldn't pay the bills. There were schools where I'd be the poor loser kid. There were schools where I'd suddenly be the smart kid or the cool kid, although that was very seldom.