I don't really think in terms of obstacles. My biggest obstacle is always myself.
My biggest problem was to get the coaches to understand that I was a runner, and I wanted to prepare myself based upon the calisthenics I did and get myself ready. For example, I used my forearm when I ran the ball, so I didn't want to do pushups because I wanted my forearms to heal.
The biggest thing is I watch myself: What I need to improve on, what I can do different.
For me personally, my favourite part of performing is just going in the crowd and doing crazy things that they never expected to see. Challenging myself to do new things that I never expected to do. That's the biggest thing for me.
I failed at the biggest things there are in life. I failed in my health, I failed in my marriage, I failed in everything, and I've picked myself up and gone on.
One of the biggest things immigrant kids oftentimes feel is this big disparity between our parents and us. And our parents are staunch pragmatists, and I consider myself to be an optimist.
I wanna be in a movie, I wanna have a clothing line, I wanna put myself in a position where, when I'm dead and gone, or I can't rap anymore, that's still moving. Tupac and Biggie, they've been dead 10-plus years and people talk about them everyday. I'm gonna try to speak everything into existence. I know the music is my key to get there.
Being no bigot myself to any mode of worship, I am disposed to endulge the professors of Christianity in the church, that road to heaven which to them shall seem the most direct plainest easiest and least liable to exception.
I've never concerned myself with what anyone thought about my activity, be they people within my profession or people outside of it, and I definitely wouldn't concern myself with anything coming from a racist bigot like a Klan member.
Sports have always been a really important part of how I energize myself, as well as how I relax. I spend a lot of my spare time with my family playing tennis, biking and rollerblading.
My mother at a young age put me in bilingual, so my strength is really more in Spanish. Even though I live and I was born and raised in the States, you know, in the Bronx, in Spanish I get my point across. And when I'm writing music, when I'm doing music, it's easier for me, and I know exactly how to express myself.
One of my major goals off the field is to conduct myself in a way that... parents are proud to say, 'Oh yeah, look, he wants to be like Sonny Bill Williams.'
Certainly early on, I kind of modeled myself after Steve Martin and Bill Murray. I would imitate them sometimes.
I had auditioned for 'Saturday Night Live' two or three times before and never really saw myself there. I looked up to Belushi and Bill Murray and Aykroyd and I never saw myself as in their world.
For the first ten years of my career, I felt suffocated. People constantly stood over me while I tried to create. And in 2009, I hit rock bottom. I couldn't find myself because I was looking to be defined by the music industry or by being number one on the Billboard charts.
I definitely consider myself extremely blessed to have great partners in endorsing products. It's not about being on billboards. I endorse something because I believe in it.
Fame, for me, is different. Fame, for me, is not seeing myself on big billboards: it is when I go on a street and people connect to me. If I going to walk on the street, I know I can get 100,000 people following me.
I'm just excited to see myself on billboards. I'm getting ready to be a star.
'I don't need brains,' says the billionaire contemptuously. 'I'm brainy enough myself!' The broker cries out in desperation, 'What, in heaven's name, do you want?' 'Goodness,' is the answer.
I never wanted to be on any billionaires list. I never define myself by net worth. I always try to define myself by my values.
