When you're more valuable, the people around you will do more to make it work.

If you ask men why they did a good job, they'll say, 'I'm awesome. Obviously. Why are you even asking?' If you ask women why they did a good job, what they'll say is someone helped them, they got lucky, they worked really hard.

I go around the room and ask people, 'What do you think?'

But the upside of painful knowledge is so much greater than the downside of blissful ignorance.

We need to talk more openly about mentorships and sponsorships. Women don't get the mentoring, and particularly the sponsors, they need to succeed as much as men.

My hope in writing 'Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead' was to change the conversation from what women can't do to what we can.

All of us want the same things. We want to be good to the people around us and for our lives to have meaning. For me that means making the world a little bit easier for women.