Sheryl Sandberg Quotes

In order to protect ourselves from being disliked, we question our abilities and downplay our achievements, especially in the presence of others. We put ourselves down before others can.

Even when you are in the darkest hours you can stay hopeful. That’s the thing about faith…it helps you know that sooner or later this too shall pass.” Last

Adam has published five different studies demonstrating that meaningful work buffers against burnout.

Crying at work is not a best practice.

​When it’s safe to talk about mistakes, people are more likely to report errors and less likely to make them.

If we could get to a place of true equality, where what we do in life is determined not by gender but by our passions and interests, our companies would be more productive and our home lives not just better balanced but happier.

The researchers speculated that men in traditional marriages are not overtly hostile toward women but instead are “benevolent sexists” — holding positive yet outdated views about women.10 (Another term I have heard is “nice guy misogynists.”)

Padmasree Warrior, Cisco’s chief technology officer, was asked by The Huffington Post, “What’s the most important lesson you’ve learned from a mistake you’ve made in the past?” She responded, “I said no to a lot of opportunities when I was just starting out because I thought, ‘That’s not what my degree is in’ or ‘I don’t know about that domain.’ In retrospect, at a certain point it’s your ability to learn quickly and contribute quickly that matters. One of the things I tell people these days is that there is no perfect fit when you’re looking for the next big thing to do. You have to take opportunities and make an opportunity fit for you, rather than the other way around. The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have.”13

Teams that focus on learning from failure outperform those that don’t, but not everyone works in an organization that takes the long view.

When I was on the other side, my reply became, “I can’t imagine either, but I have no choice.” I

As former secretary of state Madeleine Albright once said, “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women.

"I learned that effective communication starts with the understanding that there is MY point of view, (my truth), and someone else's point of view (his truth). Rarely is there one absolute truth, so people who believe that they speak THE truth are very silencing of others. When we realize and recognize that we can see things only from our own perspective, we can share our views in a nonthreatening way. Statements of opinion are always more constructive in the first person "I" form. The ability to listen is as important as the ability to speak. Miscommunication is always a two way street."

Study after study suggests that the pressure society places on women to stay home and do “what’s best for the child” is based on emotion, not evidence. In 1991, the Early Child Care Research Network, under the auspices of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, initiated the most ambitious and comprehensive study to date on the relationship between child care and child development, and in particular on the effect of exclusive maternal care versus child care. The Research Network, which comprised more than thirty child development experts from leading universities across the country, spent eighteen months designing the study. They tracked more than one thousand children over the course of fifteen years, repeatedly assessing the children’s cognitive skills, language abilities, and social behaviors. Dozens of papers have been published about what they found.23 In 2006, the researchers released a report summarizing their findings, which concluded that “children who were cared for exclusively by their mothers did not develop differently than those who were also cared for by others.”24 They found no gap in cognitive skills, language competence, social competence, ability to build and maintain relationships, or in the quality of the mother-child bond.25 Parental behavioral factors — including fathers who are responsive and positive, mothers who favor “self-directed child behavior,” and parents with emotional intimacy in their marriages — influence a child’s development two to three times more than any form of child care.26 One of the findings is worth reading slowly, maybe even twice: “Exclusive maternal care was not related to better or worse outcomes for children. There is, thus, no reason for mothers to feel as though they are harming their children if they decide to work.

Self-compassion often coexists with remorse. It does not mean shirking responsibility for our past. It’s about making sure that we don’t beat ourselves up so badly that we damage our future. It helps us realize that doing a bad thing does not necessarily make us a bad person. Instead of thinking “if only I weren’t,” we can think “if only I hadn’t.” This is why confession in the Catholic religion begins with “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” not “Forgive me, Father, for I am a sinner.

Professional ambition is expected of men but is optional — or worse, sometimes even a negative — for women. “She is very ambitious” is not a compliment in our culture.