When you gather and you exclude with purpose, you're not making it personal. And when we start creating a culture where we all gather on purpose and we develop a habit where we're cleaner and clearer about what we want and don't want, now, not forever. Every gathering is temporary.

Start with your need and communicate it to other people, and then exclude people in your life who are not going to help you with that need in that specific moment.

The discerning gatherer understands the difference between routine and ritual. Rituals are powerful when the form continues to match the underlying need or purpose of the gathering.

We tend to conflate category with purpose. For example, when I say I am having a birthday party, most of us have a specific archetype of what that means—candles, a cake, etc. And we follow scripts in those categories. . . . The most powerful gatherings begin with purpose and don't begin with form.

The transformative unit of gathering was that every gathering carried some amount of risk. Risk can be psychological, emotional, or physical.

Part of the reason why marriage therapy or conflict resolution is so powerful is because it gives a common language and a common structure for a temporary moment of time to destigmatize attitudes, language, and behavior that we assume to be scary.

Part of the reason we're scared of conflict is because it's dangerous. And we have lost our collective rituals to deal with it. . . . Therefore, it goes into unhealthy heat.

Conflict is about power.

In our multicultural world, we've lost the capacity for civic discourse in part because we don't have a common language; and in part because we're operating in a different power structure.

A part of the art of gatherings is to get people off their scripts and do things that are unexpected.

Fear comes from both not knowing but also offending. When the fear comes from not offending, if you're really listening, the fear is coming from love. And that's a different source from fear that comes from hate.

CreativeMornings, to me, embodied transformative gatherings.

You know when you see work that makes you cry, you're doing the right work.

Context turns competitors into comrades. Because each artist has their own story, we aren’t really competing at all.

The beautiful thing about the digital world is that it allows us to connect instantly.

Food is about connection and eating and community…eating well means gathering at the table with friends and family.

What the world needs is a unique point of view – a specific way of looking at things. Artists with a unique context and voice.

"When you take a step and commit, providence moves with you."

Take any painful experience, any type of adversity that you may be faced with, and use it to bring more light into the world.

Being a survivor is not just limited to living through a tragedy. Being a survivor is taking that tragedy and making it purposeful.

This is what makes me a survivor: taking a negative experience and flipping it upside down, making it positive.

Me being able to forgive has empowered me. It has showed me that I can still live a positive lifestyle regardless of my physical circumstances. I’m able to embrace each and every moment.

CREATIVITY = INTENT + FLOW = (Resolve + Resilience + Action + Preparation + Focus) + (Flexibility + Joy + Immersion + Energized Focus)

Craft is the opposite of conformity and of perfection.

Creating is inherently personal. Our work grows and changes as we do.