The top experts in the world are ardent students. The day you stop learning, you're definitely not an expert.

Raise your ambition beyond where you're capable of now. There's nothing about my hometown that said I'd be working with Fortune 50 CEO's, Olympians, at the highest level.

People are remarkably bad at remembering long lists of goals. I learned this at a professional level when trying to get my high-performance coaching clients to stay on track; the longer their lists of to-dos and goals, the more overwhelmed and off-track they got. Clarity comes with simplicity.

Challenge is the pathway to engagement and progress in our lives. But not all challenges are created equal. Some challenges make us feel alive, engaged, connected, and fulfilled. Others simply overwhelm us. Knowing the difference as you set bigger and bolder challenges for yourself is critical to your sanity, success, and satisfaction.

At school, I'd refuse to take part in biology lessons when animals were being dissected. One time, the teacher announced that we would be gassing worms. So I ran around the room, gathered up all the worms and set them free in the fields. I just loved animals and couldn't bear the thought of them suffering.

To some people, Common Core means what it actually is, which is a set of standards. That's not necessarily most people. To other people, Common Core is a new curriculum that's been implemented at their school that they don't understand. It's applying new teaching tools.

When I talk to older people, they're like, 'you know what Karen? Life will always offer you new situations where you'll feel totally inexperienced.' But I think that's a good thing because without struggle you don't learn anything, and if you stop learning, you stop living, you know?

When I was a kid, I had trouble at school because of my learning disabilities. Carving is my body compensating for the lack of other skills.