I've found that once people are introduced to Madam Walker's story, they are inspired but also perplexed about why she was omitted from their history lessons.
My father left me with his love of Jewish studies and cultural life. To this very day, along with several physicians and scientist colleagues, I take regular periodical lessons taught by a Rabbinical scholar on how the Jewish law views moral and ethical problems related to modern medicine and science.
I've always been a bit of a poser. I was chucked out of ballet lessons for looking in the mirror.
Wisdom and penetration are the fruit of experience, not the lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues.
My parents split up when I was nine years old, and I started taking karate lessons at that point. I was very dedicated to my karate, and I looked up to my karate instructor kind of like a second father.
I've always dabbled on guitar, but never took lessons.
I started taking piano lessons when I was about 5, and there was always a lot of music in my family: my parents both play instruments, my grandparents were classical violinists, and my grandfather was actually a music professor and a conductor.
I think the really significant part of it for us, for the western world, is we have a lot to gain from the Tibetans - there are certain lessons that are within Tibetan culture. I mean understandings of compassion and of nonviolence that are things that we really lack in our society.
I wrote the children's books, and those were wonderful tributes to my life as a daughter and a mother and just a thank-you to my parents for all the lessons in life they had passed on to me that I could pass onto my child and to other kids around the world.
Sometimes, growth isn't always equal to success. You may fall forward and continue to make some mistakes, but it's all about growth and really finding the lessons that needs to be learned in order to get to the next level.
