If you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, don't ask what seat! Just get on.

After my husband, Dave, died, I called my friend Adam, a psychologist who studies how people find meaning in our lives, and I asked him what, if anything, I could do to help myself and my kids get through this. We started talking about resilience, then reading about it, then talking to other people who had gotten through grief and other huge challenges. In time, those conversations and that research helped me heal.

Women systematically underestimate their own abilities.

It turns out that a husband who does the laundry, it's very romantic when you're older. And it's hard to believe when you're younger. But it's absolutely true.

The reason I don't have a plan is because if I have a plan I'm limited to today's options.

I wish I could just go tell all the young women I work with, all these fabulous women, 'Believe in yourself and negotiate for yourself. Own your own success.' I wish I could tell that to my daughter. But it's not that simple.

Women need to shift form thinking "I'm not ready to do that" to thinking "I want to do that- and I'll learn by doing it.