When I launched my blog the Huffington Post, I was in my 50s and well on my way to fearlessness: I had already learned how detrimental it can be to let your critics influence your goals. HuffPo had its detractors, of course, but I believed too much in what I was doing to listen to them. In fact, the whole process taught me the benefits of getting older: The important thing to me was that I was doing it, not whether I had the blessing of everyone in the Internet blogosphere.

Are there lessons you learned earlier in life that became important later on? What were they, and how have you changed?