I thought resilience was the capacity to endure pain, so I asked Adam how I could figure out how much I had. He explained that our amount of resilien… - Sheryl Sandberg

Resilience is the strength and speed of our response to adversity — and we can build it. It isn’t about having a backbone. It’s about strengthening the muscles around our backbone.

In China, women who are single past the age of twenty-seven are stigmatized as sheng nu, or “leftover women.” They face severe pressure from their families to marry, stemming from the widespread belief that regardless of education and professional achievement, a woman is “absolutely nothing until she is married.” One thirty-six-year-old economics professor was rejected by fifteen men because she had an advanced degree; her father then forbade her younger sister from going to graduate school.

Being my friend meant not just comforting me in my grief but dealing with a level of anger that I’d never felt before and struggled to control. My anger scared me — and made me need the comfort of my friends even more.

No wonder women don't negotiate as often as men. It's like trying to cross a minefield backward in high heels.