Perfect is the enemy of good, especially as it relates to eating less meat. The whole premise of my books is that it’s way more realistic to just dial back our meat consumption as opposed to eliminating it entirely. Eating can obviously be so incredibly social and emotional and nostalgic — and shifting our habits around food can be hard. But becoming a Weekday Vegetarian, as Get Simple shouts over and over, does not have to be complicated.  It felt too overwhelming to say goodbye to recipes that have been in my family for years — in the case of my Great Grandma Turano’s Meatballs, even generations! — so treating those meatballs and burgers and pork ragus and fried chicken sandwiches as indulgences instead of as default dinners, felt like a manageable and meaningful strategy that I could really stick with. And I have.

Res Ipsa Loquitur, or The Thing Speaks for Itself. It’s a legal phrase — I’m sure you/Gretchen can explain this better than I can — that allows you to argue that the mere occurrence of an incident is evidence of negligence. But ever since my mom, also a lawyer, taught me the phrase, I have completely co-opted it (probably incorrectly) as my personal mantra on humility. As in, I don’t need to speak for myself — my work, my behavior, and hopefully the way I go about in the world, will speak for me. The exception of course is when I’m promoting a new book, then I can’t shut up about myself. [From Gretchen: Ever since my first year of law school, I have loved this phrase! But I never thought of using it in this way. Usually it means something more like, “If a barrel falls onto a customer’s head, someone has screwed up.”]

More of a parenting motto than personal one: You are always allowed to brag to your parents!

When my daughters were little, in an attempt to teach them to exercise humility, I asked them to try their hardest not to brag to their friends even when they wanted to so bad it hurt. BUT! In their own house, under their roof, and especially at our dinner table, there would be no limit on the boasting and the bragging, and in fact, we wanted to hear every little accomplishment possible, right down to the extra star on the math assignment. Because (perhaps sadly!) I genuinely want to know all of it! I had sort of forgotten about the rule, but one of my daughters reminded me recently, and mentioned she still thinks about it all the time.