Summer Roshni Bhullar

I always say that it's my own resilience, because I had to find strength within me. We often feel like we cannot do this anymore, or we're done with this - we all human beings get to that point where we feel that this is it, we don't have anything else left in us. I attribute my success to that at that point, whenever I got to that point, I knew that I had two options: I can stop, or I can keep going. That resilience, which came from the love I had for the people who had passed, meant that I can't stop, I have to keep going. So that always kept me going. I'm very much aware that if we keep going, we're going to get there. I attribute it to that I never stopped - I took a breather, but I never stopped.

There wasn't advice which someone gave me externally, it was more the time when I lost my mother. She would always say just be you. Because of the unexpected nature of how things happened, and then I also lost my brother, those losses just woke me up in realizing that life is too short to not be oneself. I just grabbed onto that realization and got going, and it's all about just being myself. As easy as it sounds, it's very difficult, but I experienced it, and it hit home, and I started doing rather than thinking that I would do things.

I would say that don't look at - people look outside of them for support. You have it within you. This journey of life is difficult, and there's so many people who are there to support us, help us, but we have to do it ourselves. I think as women, we forget. I recently told my cousin who's going through a difficult time with her relationship: you have it within you. The people, everybody, they're there, but they're not there to do the work, they're not going to do the work for you. You have to do it yourself, and you have it within you. Just take a look in the mirror, the person you're waiting for is you. I think we women tend to forget who they are. They think they're less than they are, and I see it all around me when I've worked with women. They always need a reminder that they're stronger than what they think they are.

For me, because I'm from another country, I didn't grow up here, I'm an immigrant. I look different, I sound different, so that is a challenge for me, especially in podcasting, because the first impression people have of me is of another accent, and I know it's coming. But I don't try to change it, I try to get accepted, because I would stop being true to who I am. In the art field, it's the women and men gap that we just talked about - it's still very, very prevalent. I've talked to people, I've interviewed people, and people are still hesitant to even address it. People who are leaders in the field, men who are leaders in their field, are hesitant to answer that question when I bring it up. I think it's changing, but it takes a little longer to get the opportunity.

I think speaking the truth is most important to me. I don't mean the truth like not stealing or that kind of honesty - I mean the truth about what we are feeling. We go around in the world not saying what we feel in our relationships with our friends, so that's the main thing - the truth of who I am. Just keep putting it out there. That's what I'm trying to go about with these days.