Obviously I've spent most of my working life with men and they have this way of operating which seems a bit alien to me.
The working-class black Southern Christian culture I come from still nurtures me, and I mean directly, daily.
It's hard for me to understand how working-class people support themselves.
I put myself on the same level as everyone else around me - from the directrice to the workman, everyone. Except my pets - they are the Kings; you must treat them like royalty.
That's kind of how I see my workmanship: it's how many hours I put in that makes me better.
If you say you're going to do something, you do it. If you start it, you finish it. Yes sir, no ma'am. And you've got to have that kind of structure in your life. It kind of helped me be that disciplined person that I am, whether it's with workouts, film or just the game of football.
For me, I'd rather be the inventive one, and if something doesn't work, I'll go back to the workshop, put it on the bench, and pound on it for awhile.
I have never gone on a real trip, never taken a holiday. The best holiday for me is spent in my workshops when nearly everybody else is on vacation.
I do atypical work for a white person, which is that I lead primarily white audiences in discussions on race every day, in workshops all over the country. That has allowed me to observe very predictable patterns. And one of those patterns is this inability to tolerate any kind of challenge to our racial reality.
Until my father brought me into Reliance, I was pretty sure that I wanted to study in a U.S. university: hopefully, a little bit of time, either work at the World Bank or teach as a professor.
I think one of the main challenges that the World Bank faces is creating an organizational structure that doesn't get in the way of its staff. We have fantastic staff. People told me as I was coming into the organization that the greatest asset of the World Bank Group is its staff, and I think there's no question that that's the case.
I was world champion, but I was never able to celebrate it. It was a joke for me.
For a long time, I felt like my identity was to fight. My identity was to be a world champion. That almost defined me.
No world championship has been easy for me.
If somebody ask me to do something for my country, I will. If there's a world championship, I go.
It wasn't until '79 I won my first amateur championship, and then, by '81, I was 14, and I won my first world championship, which was amazing to me, and in a very real sense, that was the first real victory I had.
Athens is a great place for me. It is my second home. It's where I won my first world championship medal, it's where I set my world record.
One thing is for sure: a World Cup without me is nothing to watch.
That makes me think of the 2002 World Cup Final above all else. Nobody thought at the time that our team would get through to the Final against Brazil. We should remember that this summer.
I actually love history. I've devoured book after book of stories from World War I and World War II. They're really two sections of world history that really interest me.
