Mum and dad were very much friends, and up to life. There was no anxiety for anything when I was growing up, they just taught me to be me.
It was just me and my mum growing up, and my mum's always said that's why I'm so mature. We were best friends, and if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't even have started athletics, because she wanted me to have a hobby.
My dad worked all sorts of jobs when I was growing up and finally ended up as a surveyor; my mum delivers meals to old folk around where we live. We didn't have much money when I was growing up, but I had a very happy childhood.
My parents were very young when they had me. They were still growing up and learning themselves. They did the best they could, but my mom and dad split up when I was little... So that kind of made me stronger.
My mum and dad were speaking all the time about, 'In Sudan we do this,' and 'In Egypt we do that,' so I was very aware of cultural differences. I was confused growing up; it gave me a feeling of being an outsider watching others. But I think this is good for a writer.
Growing up in the Philippines, I wanted to be so much like my dad. He taught me simple survival stuff.
From a very young age, my parents taught me the most important lesson of my whole life: They taught me how to listen. They taught me how to listen to everybody before I made up my own mind. When you listen, you learn. You absorb like a sponge - and your life becomes so much better than when you are just trying to be listened to all the time.
Mum and dad worked so hard to help me and my brothers grow up as good people. They were both social workers, working with kids with learning disabilities. They are just great people. It means so much to me to make them proud.
Prison was a blessing. Going to prison was the greatest thing that happened to me. It showed me that I wasn't infallible. It showed me that I was just human. It showed me that I can be back with my ghetto brothers I grew up with and have a good time. It taught me to cool out. It taught me patience. It taught me that I didn't ever want to lose my freedom. It taught me that drugs bring on the devil. It taught me to grow up.
I won an award when I was 15 and my mum and dad were very proud and so was I but for me, individual things like that aren't as significant as I have been part of so much and there were weeks and months of hard work building up to those pinnacle moments and they can be full of moments of pride.
My brother was probably one of the toughest kids from my neighborhood and he didn't make it easy on me. He made sure I was getting beat up as much as possible growing up. If he wasn't beating me up, he was making his friends beat me up.
My dad is the person who taught me how important the mental side of the game is. He studied kung fu growing up and he taught me how to meditate when I was a kid.
Coming from a filmy background, I have seen everything growing up, but even at that point of time, it never really fascinated me. I did not like going to my dad's shoots. We were taught not to get carried away with it from a very young age.
My mum and dad had four pubs when we were growing up, but the main one was the New Inn in Hattersley, on the estate. It was a very good pub.
My dad, since I was growing up, has always taught me that I need to keep my mouth shut and just play baseball.
Music was in the air when I was growing up. My siblings Katy, Dave and Phil were musical; my dad worked in inner-city New York where a musical revolution was taking place - folk music, rock n' roll, gospel music. My sister taught me to sing. My brothers taught me to play.