Deanmichaels, 64

I've traveled the world, loved beautiful women and stood toe to toe with powerful men. I've been a cook, a baker, and a cabinetmaker. I've worked as a soldier, an encyclopedia salesman, a trash collector, a factory worker and much more before I discovered what I wanted to do for my life's work.

I have dedicated my life to taking care of people who cannot do for themselves. I fight every day for those in my care, and I refuse to allow anyone to harm or neglect them.

I create. I write and sing and cook every day. I solve problems and do my best to make life for the people I love and the people in my care better.

I've been rich and poor, healthy and sick, loved and not. I've sang songs to great throngs of people and to just one, and I've made people laugh and cry and wonder on the stage and on the page.

I despise mediocrity and half assedness, and would rather fail in pain and blood than to safely do nothing.

I've experienced great victories and joy and also abject defeat and despair. When I love, it is with my whole heart unreservedly and I refuse to hate anyone.

When I work I give my all, and when I play I do the same. I do not believe in keeping score or counting beans or the fifty/fifty proposition. I stand up every day and give everything – one hundred percent – I have to everyone around me.

And at the end of the day, I lay down to rest and start again tomorrow.