Marina Gallegos

I attribute my success to my surroundings - everyone that I work with, all the students, the children, my family, my children, my grandchildren. It keeps me motivated to keep going and doing more. One day I'm here, tomorrow I won't, but maybe one day in the future someone will be reading one of my children's books and they can use their imagination. Hopefully that'll grow.

The best career advice I've ever received is to keep being creative, striving for the best, and being true to me. I think that's perfect, and that's all you really can - you trust yourself to be able to be the person you want to be for everyone else.

Never give up. Keep going. You have to believe in yourself. You are here, and you have a purpose in life, whether it's sitting behind a desk and greeting someone, but that greeting might make someone's day for the rest of the year. So it's very, very important to just keep going, stay positive, and just continue to strive to do the best at whatever you're doing.

My biggest challenge in my career is sometimes it's hard to see someone broken, someone struggling with mental illness. That's the hardest part, but I always try to be positive, and I always try to tell them to look out that window. And they're like, yes. And I'm like, what do you see out there? And they're like, a tree. And I said, okay, and what else? And they're like, I hear a bird. And I said, exactly. I said, we're so lucky to be here, to wake up, see that tree, hear that bird singing its little lungs out. I said, we have to appreciate every little thing. With being an author, the challenge is trying to send a positive, motivating message to everyone, not only young adults, not only children, but for adults and someone that can relate to what I'm trying to get out there for the world. The tough part is the broken ones - when I see someone broken, and I'm like, no, you gotta... it's gonna be okay. But you can't just say everything's gonna be okay. It's a process.

Faith.