Have you ever read one of those thought-provoking magazine Q&As probing the mind of someone important and wondered: How would I answer these questions? Well I did… answer the questions, that is. I gave it so much thought, I wrote them down. Now I’m going out on a limb and sharing my answers. I want you to do the same.

Pick one of the questions, and share your answer in the comments.

Thanks to “The O Quiz” in February’s Oprah Magazine for the inspiration to do a little self-reflection, and to California State Sen. Holly Mitchell for letting us borrow her Q&A (or at least the Q part. I filled in my own A. Now it’s your turn.)
1. What’s your guilty pleasure?
Sleeping in. I do it too often. I’m not a morning person, and I often stay up past midnight when my creativity is flowing. I’m self employed, so I don’t have to be up early, but I should to be more productive.

2. If you could send a note to yourself in 2030, what would it say?
Remember those doubts you had about whether you had the right idea, skills, and connections to build a multi-million dollar business? It all worked out, so stop stressing so much about whether you will achieve the latest big goal you’re working on.

3. What’s the one thing in your life you’re so happy you did?
Have kids and not leave them for a full-time job, so I could be the kind of hands-on mom that made me love my life while my kids were growing up.

4. Who’s the one person who changed your life?
My dad. He taught me to negotiate deals and laugh often, and he helped me so much by giving me a down payment to buy my first house and watching my kids multiple times a week for years.

5. What makes you cry?
When someone dies who still had so much to give. I don’t believe there is a grand plan, and it saddens me that amazing people leave this Earth when there is so much more good they could have done.

6. What gives you hope?
The inherent similarities of humans. When you get to know people, even chatting a few minutes, you discover we all have the same desires – to love and be loved, to contribute and feel appreciated, to take care of ourselves and others. There is so much good in the world that outweighs the bad.

7. What’s the best mistake you ever made?
Buying a bunch of rental property with no money down right before the Great Recession. It caused me terrible financial and emotional difficulty for years, but it taught me so much about money and investment and business — things I didn’t want to learn about but realized later those things are critical for anyone who wants to become wealthy.

8. What keeps you up at night?
All the things I want to do in the future, and my impatience to wait until tomorrow. My goals and dreams and the steps to get there. I hate going to sleep because I want to keep working towards all those things.

9. What’s your secret talent?
I can tie a cherry stem in a knot in my mouth.

10. What’s one thing you were wrong about?
If you put the truth in a plain box and a pack of lies in a pretty package with a bow, people won’t be fooled. It crushes me how gullible humans are and how the truth has been so twisted and purposely misrepresented by those who are expert commutators and marketers and manipulators. Truth is my compass in life because I will always consider myself a journalist first, no matter what job I happen to be doing.

11. What movie could you watch on an endless loop?
“50 First Dates.” Sometimes I feel like parts of my life have been stolen because I don’t have clear memories of intricate details and day to day experiences from years ago – just the fleeting big and little moments that stick with me. That movie is so beautiful because someone loved the main character (who had daily memory loss) so much that he found a way to wake her up every morning by showing her the wonderful life she had lived, in order to allow her to live yet another glorious day surrounded by love and happiness.

12. What’s your worst habit?
Being late. It’s disrespectful to other people, and there is no excuse. But I’m always trying to do too many things in the moment before leaving for the next thing – and I never learn.

13. Cats or dogs?
Definitely cats!

14. When is the last time you felt in awe?
When my daughter sits down at the piano and plays and sings a string of emotionally powerful songs she wrote in the past several months while battling her own demons.

15. If you could choose any magical power, what would it be?
To be able to never have to sleep but still be healthy and live a long life feeling energetic and capable until the end.

16. What is your most prized possession?
All my photo albums and videos and journals documenting my personal life, and the notebooks full of my print clippings and video tapes of my stories documenting my professional life, to remind me of experiences and achievements I may have forgotten.

17. What places or adventures are still on your bucket list?
Meeting my relatives in Italy. Watching my children graduate college and get married and visiting my future grandchildren. Throwing a grand party bigger than my wedding and inviting all the family and friends I know in the world to a giant field where we can eat, drink, play games, enjoy nature, watch my husband’s band and dance the night away to my favorite songs.

18. What ignites your sense of injustice?
When people who work hard are not earning a wage that allows them to live comfortably, causing them to be stressed by the gnawing fear of not having enough money for necessities. It seems there’s more income inequality than ever before, and raising all wages — even if it means reducing profits — is better than giving handouts.

19. What’s the greatest gift we can give ourselves?
Compassion to forgive ourselves for our perceived mistakes and grace to acknowledge to ourselves that we’re not making as many mistakes as we think, because comparing our real life to the social media highlights of others is wrong on so many accounts.

20. What’s the greatest gift we can give one another?
Understanding. Even if we have different opinions about how to get there, recognize we all have the same goals to live a good life and help those we love do the same.