I think with 'Claws,' it came at such a perfect time where I really started to focus and to take myself seriously.
I could have took the easy way and just been a cowboy, looking good, trying to make my money off Hank Williams and being this clean-cut guy. But I always wanted to be myself and go against the grain.
My grandmother taught me that accomplishments meant less than what you left behind. I started to ask myself what impact my comedy would have on people's lives. And that changed my act. I got cleaner. I stopped talking about generic stuff like airplane peanuts and started speaking the truth about my gift.
Whatever dramas are going on in my life, I always find that place inside my head where I see myself as the cleanest, tallest, strongest, wisest person that I can be.
I do a lot of cardio. I think it's super important, especially for women. I don't have a tremendous amount of time to work out, so I find myself cramming in a cardio because that's all I can fit in. I think that if you don't have a lot of time, that it's the cleanest way to burn a few calories.
Laughter and tears are both responses to frustration and exhaustion. I myself prefer to laugh, since there is less cleaning up to do afterward.
I'm obsessed with cleanliness for myself, so I will take a bath three times a day, sometimes a steam twice a day in addition to that.
The Deep Cleansing Pore Strips have been a staple product in my life for years. I don't pop blackheads. I don't touch my face. I like that this allows me to feel like I'm getting them out without grossing myself out.
I knew that if I wanted to stop being a pushover I had to get comfortable with small rejections myself. That took some work, but because of it I can now say 'no' to other people with a clear conscience.
All the muddy waters of my life cleared up when I gave myself to Christ.
I think of myself as Special Forces, clearing the path for the infantry.
I still describe myself as the activist with cleavage. Breast implants made me feel a lot sexier.
What Bill Clinton did to us was cruel. The White House gave my attorneys indications that there was a good chance for my clemency to be granted. I had to prepare myself for being released because there was no sign that my petition would be denied.
I checked to see if there'd been a really good book published in the last few decades. Then I started with what Cleopatra would have read, asking myself, 'What can we know about her education?' It turns out to be a very great deal, and bizarrely, no one had written about that before.
Why retire from something if you're loving it so much and enjoying it so much, and you're blessed with another group of people to work with like the gang on 'Hot in Cleveland?' Why would I think of retiring? What would I do with myself?
I've always felt that because I'm from Cleveland, which isn't recognised as a place for hip-hop, I needed to step it up if I wanted to make myself known.
My best investment, as cliched as this sounds, is the money I've spent developing myself, via books, workshops and coaching. Leadership begins within, and to have a better career, start by building a better you.
As cliched as it sounds, music is my only form of expression. So I have to be honest with myself, and with that comes being vulnerable.
Everything really came together on ‘1992.' That isn't to dismiss my earlier works - they were great - but when I focused myself on hip-hop everything just clicked.
I've had the fortune of meeting most of the 'Kids in the Hall.' One meeting was special in particular because this was before I had gotten anything, before anything was clicking, and I just found myself hanging out with Scott Thompson.
