As a writer you know you don't have to deal with a lot of the crap that most people deal with, the political things. Every couple of years when your book comes out then you have to go into these fights with the publisher and the publicist and that's it.

You have the power to think differently about who you are. You have the ability to turn off the critical voice inside of you. That's not you. That's coming from the culture. That's coming from the outside of you. You've internalized the voice of your parents, your teachers, your friends.

There are things that you study, classes you've taken, activities you've done that feel right, that feel like they're in your power zone. So it doesn't take incredible amount of effort for you to do it - it just comes more naturally to you.

Expand your notion of what adversity is.

Hip-hop has a feeling element, it's not just about knowing music. It's not like classical music or jazz where you can go on raw energy.

The worst thing is to sit and whine and complain and obsess about money as if that were the only sign of your worth as a human.

We are a social animal, power only exists in a social sense, we have to work in groups.