My parents instilled a very strong work ethic in me from a young age, fortunately.

At a certain age it just became apparent to me that this was probably the work that I would have to do.

I was a commercial roofer before this, until about age thirty. I will not work others under me and do not want to work under others.

When I first started writing, when I was 15, I would go to work with people and they would tell me my lyrics were too mature for my age!

The bulk of my fans are my age, and I'm aging at the same rate they are. That makes me relevant. They like hearing what I have to say. I work hard at it, but it's addicting, really.

Doing modeling was a fun thing for me. At a young age, being able to earn was exciting. I got to work with some very talented designers and models. But there was always a yearning in me to do something more.

I came back to work when my children were two months old. At that early age, they seem to have little awareness of anybody but their Raggedy Ann dolls, so it wasn't a matter of them missing me. I was missing them.

I loved 'Matilda.' The kids are so brilliant and uninhibited. They were inspiring. Seeing them onstage, just going wild, reminded me of when I was that age. I was excited for them and completely taken by their innocence and hard work.

I never really felt like my age stopped people from wanting to work with me. I was speaking at conferences and lecturing at universities at 18, and I think that was mainly because web developing and management was a really young industry.

At 21, right out of college, I had two producers, about my age, who had never produced a show before, and they wanted me to write and produce an hour-long show before I turned 22. Which is a whole lot of work for someone who's just an 'airhead.'

I've reached a stage and an age in my career where I need to do work that keeps me economically and emotionally comfortable. And for that I need to get into spaces that don't require me to make too many compromises with my beliefs as an an actor.

I was attracted to cricket at a very young age. My father's elder brother Akram Siddiq saw the passion for cricket in me, so he pushed me, and then another uncle - father of Kamran, Umar, and Adnan Akmal - advised my father to work hard on me, as he thought that I will make it big in cricket.

I used to help my grandfather on the farm, driving tractors, raising crops and animals. I used to feed some of the baby cows and pigs, and I had to be no older than 7 or 8. Then at about 9 or 10 I started driving tractors. It showed me at an early age what hard work was all about and how dedicated you have to be, no matter what you do.

I was focused on building things from an early age. When I was about 3, our toilet broke, and my mother was ready to call the plumber. I told her I would fix it and asked her to get my Richard Scarry book 'How Things Work in Busytown.' Between the picture of a toilet and the text she read to me explaining how the parts worked, I fixed it.

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