Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I just constantly tell myself that I should be the only one to define my worth and what I'm capable of and how I perceive myself. And that I should never source that worth from other people, especially strangers on social media. They don't know who I am, the length of my journey, who I am as a person.
I'm obviously nervous and excited to take on this opportunity but I don't feel added pressure being the first black Bachelorette, because to me I'm just a black woman trying to find love. Yes, I'm doing on this huge stage, but again my journey of love isn't any different just because my skin color is.
Here's what I know: My rise and success have been a direct result of the merits and fabulous opportunities from mentors, including Roger Ailes. Without him, my journey would be quite different. He has changed the arc of my career. He believed in me when people who looked like me were not in network news.
I never take for granted how lucky I am to be an American and what a privilege it is to spend each day at a nonprofit dedicated to helping the next generation of girls achieve their dreams. My journey, as the daughter of refugees, shows what refugees and the children of refugees can create for all Americans.
When I first found out I had HIV, I had to find somebody who was living with it, who could help me understand my journey and what I was going to have to deal with day-to-day. I found out that a person named Elizabeth Frazier was living with AIDS at the time, and so I called her up, and she took a meeting with me.
I have the cliche 'struggling actor' story. I was waiting tables in New York, went out to L.A. soon after graduation to get some jobs, but it didn't work out. I wanted to cut my teeth in professional theater, so I came back to New York. It made my journey a longer one, but I really wanted to excel in the theater.
When I look back, my journey isn't about a small-town kid from Hazleton traveling around the country, but about the years I put in to get to this place in my life. Playing and finding out you're not good enough, managing in the minors, working in player development, coaching and learning from the best minds in baseball.
My journey began with a single pencil. While traveling through India in 2006, I asked a boy begging on the streets, 'If you could have anything in the world, what would you want?' and he answered me with two words: 'A pencil.' Luckily, I had one in my pocket, and in the second it took me to give it to him, a defining dream was born.
I had been getting relaxers since I was eight or nine. I had no clue. It was a personal mission to really find out who am when I'm not altering myself to look like anybody else. Who am I when I wake up and I don't do anything to my hair? Who is that woman? I want to meet her. And that was what catapulted my journey into going natural.
It wasn't until my girlfriend, photographer Jennifer Rovero, took hundreds of pictures of me as I recovered from my amputations that things started to change. The process was a sort of therapy for me, which Jennifer coined as 'photo therapy.' I grew to see the beauty and strength in myself and my journey through the lens of her camera.
I didn't have any work to do, and I had files of my personal and Guns N' Roses financial statements for the previous eight years. I wanted to learn how to read these, but I didn't trust anybody. I just got a lightbulb in my head and said, 'I want to go to school.' That began my journey, taking accountancy and business classes at Seattle.
I grew up in Zimbabwe in Southern Africa, and I moved to London when I was 17. And I started commuting and, actually, to go to college. And I used to really enjoy that part of my journey where the - it was actually a Tube train, but it was over ground, and it went right past the backs of people's houses, and I could actually see right in.
Every time I talk about 'The Shield' I kind of talk about it from three perspectives, as if I'm three people, because I'm a fan of the show. I'm in love with all the other characters and their journeys and their work. But then, as an actor, I love getting this kind of rich material and having to do it. As my character, did my journey finish?
I do kind of marvel at my journey. But at the same time, I look back at a lot of the steps, and maybe not every step, but a lot of the steps, and since I was 12 or 13, I look at the people who helped me and the moments that were inspirational to me, and you can recall what my mindset and what my make-up was at that time to try and be the best.