The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) began to take form when dozens of educators from across the country were led by governors and chief state school officers in gathering and reviewing the academic standards of states that had the best outcomes. Their goal was to determine what the current best academic standards were in the country and then improve on them. Race to the Top allowed Common Core advocates to implement the new standards with speed. But the fast implementation came with some liabilities. Once opponents branded the effort as centralized, exclusive, and Washington driven, even the states that had educators intimately involved lost the ability to show their own local involvement in the end product. This report attempts to give navigation advice for social and emotional learning (SEL) advocates based on the difficult road CCSS advocates experienced. SEL advocates should take four concrete lessons from the Common Core era: (1) resist the allure of speed and scale; (2) take time to define the problem and get the terminology right; (3) communicate early and often; and (4) establish the circle of trust.