If we want girls to receive positive reinforcement for early acts of leadership, let's discourage bossy behavior along with banning bossy labels. That means teaching girls to engage in behaviors that earn admiration before they assert their authority.

The more important argument against grade curves is that they create an atmosphere that's toxic by pitting students against one another. At best, it creates a hypercompetitive culture, and at worst, it sends students the message that the world is a zero-sum game: Your success means my failure.

The mark of higher education isn't the knowledge you accumulate in your head. It's the skills you gain about how to learn.

The culture of a workplace - an organization's values, norms and practices - has a huge impact on our happiness and success.

Productive givers focus on acting in the long-term best interests of others, even if it's not pleasant. They have the courage to give the critical feedback we prefer not to hear, but truly need to hear. They offer tough love, knowing that we might like them less, but we'll come to trust and respect them more.

When takers talk about mistakes, they're usually quick to place the blame on other people. Givers are more likely to say 'Here's the mistake I made; I learned the following from it. Here are the steps I'm taking to make sure I don't let people down in the future.'

I have two rules for a great book: make me think and make me smile.

When medical students focus on helping others, they're able to weather the slings and arrows of long hours and devastating health outcomes: they know their colleagues and patients are depending on them.

When people are depending on us, we end up finding strength we didn't know we had.

It's ironic that when you go through a tragedy, you appreciate more. You realize how fragile life is and that there are so many things to still be thankful for.

Instead of assuming that emotional intelligence is always useful, we need to think more carefully about where and when it matters.

Some of the greatest moments in human history were fueled by emotional intelligence.

For women to achieve equal representation in leadership roles, it's important that they have the backing of men as well as women.

In the conversation about women in leadership, male voices are noticeably absent.

Takers believe in a zero-sum world, and they end up creating one where bosses, colleagues and clients don't trust them. Givers build deeper and broader relationships - people are rooting for them instead of gunning for them.

When a salesperson truly cares about you, trust forms, and you're more likely to buy, come back for repeat business, and refer new customers.

From a relationship perspective, givers build deeper and broader connections.

When you procrastinate, you're more likely to let your mind wander. That gives you a better chance of stumbling onto the unusual and spotting unexpected patterns.

From a motivation perspective, helping others enriches the meaning and purpose of our own lives, showing us that our contributions matter and energizing us to work harder, longer, and smarter.