I had a heartbreaking experience when I was 9. I always wanted to be a guard. The most wonderful girl in the world was a guard. When I got polio and then went back to school, they made me a guard. A teacher took away my guard button.

I think how pay gets determined is pretty broad - experience, how people look, what they bring to the job. But there's no question women are paid less. Women don't ask.

Something happens to us all when we experience something as a unit that doesn't occur when we're on our couches or holding our little portable DVD players.

What we have to get clear to kids is that when you offer your stillness and open yourself to the experience of music, it pays you back more than you give.

The things I was allowed to experience, the people I was able to call friends, teammates, mentors, coaches and opponents, the travel, all of it, are far more than anything I ever thought possible in my lifetime.