I realize I'm very fortunate to hopefully make a lot of money playing football. I don't know if I want to abuse that privilege and make myself a larger figure than I am.
A long time ago, I made a promise to myself: "Okay, you know what? I'm going to play music, and hopefully I'll make enough money that I can go back to school. Once I make enough money to put myself through school, that's what I'm going to do."
I don't sell myself. I am what I am. I'm a role model for a lot of people, for my kids. I don't want to just change because I want to make more money.
To take pressure off myself, I realize how fortunate I am to be playing a sport for a living. If I take that mentality onto the court, there shouldn't be any pressure because I'm already fortunate to do what I do.
I make more money in the off-season than I do playing football.
Football is a great love because I was born into a family of players and therefore born into football. I'm fortunate to have a style of play that a lot of people like. It's a privilege to be able to do what I like best and in my own way, but I'm fortunate that people like it, and that motivates me even more.
So one thing that I want to do is to make people realize that astronauts in general are very normal people. They are down to Earth, so to speak. I know it sounds contradictive, but we are very normal people. We are very normal people with a fantastic privilege and opportunity to do something that is extraordinary.
People got to realize that the owners who been paying me are a lot richer than I am. It's not like I was born rich; I had to play basketball to make this type of money.
I'm a very fortunate person. I get to choose the movies that I want to do. I have a lot of friends in this industry that don't get to do that. I grew up in L.A. A lot of my friends are actors so I realize every day how lucky I am to have this opportunity, so while I'm here, I'm going to try to do exactly what I want.
There's an obligation to let people know where their money is going, so the tour has an educational aspect, mostly as a way to thank people. But the most practical use is to raise money and do the research to figure out the proper ways to spend it. You want to make sure that the money doesn't just go somewhere where it does more harm than good.
You know, civil rights is great and everything, but a lot of people don't realize that plumbers in the South make less money than when they used to install separate drinking fountains.
If you are extremely well known and have a very desirable product, then yes, you probably do suffer a bit from piracy, in the same way that if you make a lot of money, you pay more in taxes than if you don't make any money.
I have been very lucky because I have had the opportunity to see what it's like to have little or no money and what it's like to have a lot of it. I'm lucky because people make such a big deal of it and, if I didn't experience both, I wouldn't be able to know how important it really is for me. I can't comment on what having a lot of money means to others, but I do know that for me, having a lot more money isn't a lot better than having enough to cover the basics.
It was so strange, coming from Nashville, Tennessee, where I was playing to 15 people, to going to London and playing in this crowded little dive pub. I know Tom Petty had a similar thing - I realize, on a lot larger scale.
I gladly, I voluntarily gave up the kind of commercial film career I had going as soon as I had enough money to finance my own films. I didn't make that money necessarily from the film business, but I eventually made a lot of money and that's what I do. Of course, I consider myself unbelievably fortunate, and I'm pretty content with my life.
If money comes along I will take it. I just want good scripts that try to make you think. I've been offered lots of money in the past but I just know that I would abuse it and get drunk.
I don't look at myself as a hero, I look at myself as somebody who has taken life with a lot of fun and I take it very seriously, I know it s a very short journey and so I want to grow, I want to develop, I want to be as good as I can be so I can share what all my talents and gifts allow me to share with other individuals to make their lives better.