What is it that you're not doing - in your work, in your life - because you feel you need permission? If someone had given you that permission as a youngster, what do you think you'd be doing now?

Every time a confident, successful woman like Marissa Meyer distances herself from feminism, I think of Athena. Athena women, with all their brilliance and strategy, are the ones smashing up through layers of glass. They tend to identify with men, keeping femininity at a distance.

One of the many qualities that separate self-made billionaires from the rest of us is their ability to ask the right questions.

We are born into a particular place and time with a particular set of gifts and limitations. The challenge isn't to pluck the best career out of the air, but to learn yourself from the inside out: to know your gifts and accept your limitations and shape your life accordingly.

I have struggled with self-esteem issues since my teens, but it's clear in my first long-ago diary that I didn't start out that way. I acquired my low self-esteem. I learned it.