Authenticity

Embrace your journey to your own potential. It wasn't until I stopped worrying about my own validation and finally refocused my energy on things I could actually change that I finally grew as a person and as a professional.

As important as freedom of expression is — and it most surely is — so too it is important to know what it is we want to express, and why.

It's easier to friend someone than to be someone's friend. It's easier to like things than to love them. It's easier to say nothing — but people who become used to saying nothing become used to being nobody.

Don't just be yourself. Be all of yourselves. Don't just live. Be that other thing connected to death. Be life. Live all of your life. Understand it, see it, appreciate it. And have fun.

One of the greatest threats we face is, simply put, bullshit. We are drowning in it. We are drowning in partisan rhetoric that is just true enough not to be a lie; in industry-sponsored research; in social media's imitation of human connection.

I'd rather be wrong and cringe than right and regret not speaking up.

Learn to trust yourself. That's very vital. Just stand with yourself. Remember, in his lifetime, Van Gogh sold only two paintings. I personally sold even fewer.

Don't buy society's definition of success. Because it's not working for anyone. It's not working for women, it's not working for men, it's not working for polar bears.

Develop your own compass, and trust it. Take risks. Dare to fail. Remember the first person through the wall always gets hurt.

You are not special. You are not exceptional.

If everyone is special, then no one is. If everyone gets a trophy, trophies become meaningless.

Whatever it is you try, make sure it's what you really want to do, because the only person who knows what that is, is you.