For whatever reason, I didn't succumb to the stereotype that science wasn't for girls. I got encouragement from my parents. I never ran into a teacher or a counselor who told me that science was for boys. A lot of my friends did.

My parents believed in exposing each of their children to an abundance of varied activities in the hope they would find something they loved. They each had found a passion - Dad with his music and Mom with her horses - so it was natural for them to encourage experimentation.

What's interesting is with a lot of the work I do through my foundation, the 'Manifest Your Destiny' foundation, we really encourage people, and we attempt to empower, uplift and inspire people to live out their dreams, live out their destiny.

I know when I have kids, when I'm older, I'm going to encourage them to play sports because I think it teaches you a lot. It teaches you discipline, teamwork, and that there's really no 'I' in team.

The entertainment industry isn't a line of work encouraged in the Persian culture. When I called my dad to say I wanted to quit medicine, there was about three minutes of silence. I'm not sure he knew what to do with himself!

[T]he problem was too much information. The population was being inundated with conflicting versions of increasingly complex events. People were giving up on understanding anything. The glut of information was dulling awareness, not aiding it. Overload. It encouraged passivity, not involvement.

Don't you ever get in trouble for things like that at the school for the Incredibly gifted?" Jane asked. "No," Merissa said sadly. "Our talent is mischief, so whenever we do something bad they just encourage us to try harder.

There are high spots in all of our lives and most of them have come about through encouragement from someone else. I don't care how great, how famous or successful a man or woman may be, each hungers for applause.

Music does a lot of things for a lot of people. It's transporting, for sure. It can take you right back, years back, to the very moment certain things happened in your life. It's uplifting, it's encouraging, it's strengthening.

Every success I have ever had or will have in the future comes not solelyfrom my own ambition and hard work, but also from those that have encouraged,supported and challenged me. Success is never, ever a one person job.