If you had asked me growing up what a stylist does or what a magazine editor does, I would have had no clue - how do you research something like that when you are a first-born child of an immigrant who only grew up knowing doctor, engineer, and lawyer as careers?

You could be an 18-year-old girl in Tokyo wondering how you could ever break into fashion or beauty, so you follow your favourite designer or editor, see what their day comprises, where they go, who they meet, how they do it... If I were setting up my own label today, I would definitely do it through Instagram.

My job is more about helping people tell their stories in ever more interesting ways.

The best perk of my job is getting to take products home. I mean, my bathroom looks like Sephora; like a clean, smaller Sephora.

There is nothing more valuable than great classroom instruction. But let's stop putting the whole burden on teachers. We also need better parents. Better parents can make every teacher more effective.

At age eleven, I became a member of the circulating library of my home town. From there on I was rarely seen outside but was reading two to four books per week, the subjects ranging from archaeology over ethnology and geography to zoology. Needless to say that I did not do much homework.

To throw obstacles in the way of a complete education is like putting out the eyes.

I think it's become an economic necessity for people to be able to learn and grow throughout their lives, because most people can't get through their entire career with one skill set. We have to keep reinventing ourselves.