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So many people grew up with challenges, as I did. There weren't always happy things happening to me or around me. But when you look at the core of goodness within yourself - at the optimism and hope - you realize it comes from the environment you grew up in.

I try to find hope in struggle and resistance in small places as much as I can.

In my life I've gone through a lot of really hard times. I went through depression and had so many challenges that I overcame. And I overcame because I just decided to be happy.

I'm used to adversity and working really well in difficult situations. It was hard for me to accept the success.

I feel impressed to counsel those engaged in personal challenges to do right. In particular, my heart reaches out to those who feel discouraged by the magnitude of their struggle.

I try to give people hope. Even though life is bleak, there's hope out there.

I think it's about not just the crisis you're in, but how do you get to the other side? How do we heal? How do we survive this experience while remaining hopeful instead of filled with despair? That's what interests me.

To me, it's always been a challenge to look for the light: to look for those spaces in your heart where there is hope and faith and try to embrace that rather than crush it. I've spent so many years trying to crush those feelings of hope, and I certainly succeeded for quite a while.

I'm a big believer in overcoming and achieving and doing things and not feeling sorry for yourself.

I have battled clinical depression and have come out of the other side. I've been free of it for many years now. Finding the place in my own mind and heart to win that battle without using medication, finding the place within myself where I could be alive again, that was one of the biggest challenges I've faced.