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    “Similar to using an opponent’s energy to gain an advantage, leaning on your calloused mind in the heat of battle can shift your thinking as well.  Remembering what you’ve been through and how that has strengthened your mindset can lift you out of a negative brain loop and help you bypass those weak, one-second impulses to give in so you can power through obstacles.” ~ David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

      “Until you experience hardships like abuse and bullying, failures and disappointments, your mind will remain soft and exposed.  Life experience, especially negative experiences, help callous the mind.  But it’s up to you where that callous lines up.  If you choose to see yourself as a victim of circumstance into adulthood, that callous will become resentment that protects you from the unfamiliar.  It will make you too cautious and untrusting, and possibly too angry at the world.  It will make you fearful of change and hard to reach, but not hard of mind.” ~ David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

        “Human beings change through study, habit, and stories.  Through my story you will learn what the body and mind are capable of when they’re driven to maximum capacity, and how to get there.  Because when you’re driven, whatever is in front of you, whether it’s racism, sexism, injuries, divorce, depression, obesity, tragedy, or poverty, becomes fuel for your metamorphosis.” ~ David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me

          “Recovery, at its deepest level, evokes the art of valuing, caring for, and sustaining.  The relationship one sustains may be toward oneself, toward others, or even toward the world itself.” ~ Terrence Real, I Don’t Want To Talk About It

            “I challenge you all to look at your ‘problems,’ and stare them in the eye and say, ‘Listen, this is how it’s going down… I’m not going to try and overcome you anymore or try and face you anymore—you are going to become my friend.  And I am going to learn from you as much as I possibly can.” ~ Claire Wineland (14), Positively Positive

              “I’m sure you have challenges, things that you wish you could overcome, or things that you could get over… Stop.  Stop trying to get over it.  Because if we’re trying to get over all of the problems in our lives then our entire lifetimes are just going to be trying to get over problems—that’s all there is going to be.  And that is not a life to be proud of.  Instead, find those challenges in your life and use them!  Use them and turn them into an opportunity.” ~ Claire Wineland (15), TEDxMalibu

                “I’m not stuck in this belief that challenges are given to us to hold us back.  I am lifted up by the belief that challenges are here to help us move forwards—and that is the difference.  That is the only difference between people who are living a passionate, proud life and people who feel sad—or people who get older and feel like they don’t know what they’re doing anymore.” ~ Claire Wineland (15), TEDxMalibu

                  “If I have learned anything from living and dying, and from being sick, it’s that we all have something really incredible to share.  And that maybe for once we should stop trying to get over our problems, trying to get rid of our problems, trying to jump through hoops to evade our problems, and maybe we should start using them because they are one of the biggest gifts you will ever be given.” ~ Claire Wineland, Worldz 2017

                    “A lot of motivational speakers will tell you that the point of life is to be happy… I think that’s bullsh*t.  I think that happiness is an emotion—it’s some dopamine firing in your brain and it’s great and it’s awesome when it happens.  But we can’t chase happiness—we have to chase deep satisfaction and pride—and there’s a difference.  And the way that we do that is not by running away from our pain or sickness, it’s by being sick and saying, ‘So what?'” ~ Claire Wineland (19), Zappos All Hands Meeting

                      “Innovation doesn’t happen because there’s some person who’s in some great circumstance and everything is going well and they get on a roll and they make something for the world.  Innovation happens—art happens—because of suffering.” ~ Claire Wineland, Klick MUSE New York

                        “I have lived a life of a lot of pain and I’m not pretending that I haven’t.  I’ve had to deal with death; I’ve had to deal with painful surgeries; I’ve had to deal with being alone and scared in the hospital.  But I have had a beautiful life—and one that I am so incredibly proud of.  And that is not in spite of having Cystic Fibrosis… That’s because of it.” ~ Claire Wineland (19), Zappos All Hands Meeting