Katy Ferry

I attribute my success to being true to myself and my family. My family is supportive - my kids, my husband, my parents, my sister, and all the people in my life - but it's also about being true to who I am as a person. It's not an easy thing, particularly when you write commentary about current events, because it's not for everyone and you can upset people. But choosing to do it in the face of opposition is one of the things that makes me good at what I do. I also think that being kind and being empathetic makes a huge difference in my life. Kindness and empathy really matter.

The best career advice I've ever received is that success does not happen overnight. If you want to succeed in your career or in your life, you need to be committed to always getting better, and always learning about your craft.

I would say you need to work on having a thick skin, because you get a lot of rejections. You probably get more rejections than you get acceptances a lot of the time, certainly in the beginning. If you believe that this is what you are meant to be doing, you have to keep doing it and you have to keep working to get better at it. You have to keep refining your work. You have to keep trying, even when it's hard, and let yourself feel sad when rejections happen or when someone comments something ugly. But then keep moving forward. That's the most important thing - you have to believe in it and keep trying.

The biggest challenge right now that most writers, and certainly freelance writers, are finding is AI - fighting against the overwhelming desire of businesses to use AI in various aspects of a business. I get that it might be faster or cheaper, but the reality is that a human writer adds heart to the work. It is not always something a person can pinpoint, but it is what makes any writing exceptional rather than serviceable. It's that human touch that matters. Another challenge in general is that the writing process doesn't look the way that people think. It is not as easy as people think, and you need time to sit with something and let it marinate for it to work. Creative work is often 60% thinking and 40% doing. Anytime you write, you need time to think about what you want to say, and getting it right sometimes takes longer than most people think. There are plenty of times when I write something, read it, and think 'nope, this is terrible,' throw it away, and start over again. It might take two or three times before I get to a point where I feel like it flows easily and sounds correct.

Empathy, understanding, and kindness are the most important values to me. I think kindness is very different from being nice. Plenty of people are nice, but nice feels somewhat surface. Kindness is who someone is. They do not necessarily go hand in hand. Someone can be nice, but not kind, and vice versa. That is probably the most important thing I try to teach my children - that kindness and empathy matter in life. Caring about people and treating people, everyone, no matter who they are, like they matter and treating them with kindness is the most important thing you can do. I was always taught to be kind, but I was not necessarily raised to be nice all the time.