I decided during my teens that I wasn't going to have the life of a concert pianist, much to the chagrin of a lot of people who had put a lot of money into me!
I had people who were around me, people that I put a lot of trust in that sort of messed me over. So after that I said, only I can look back over my life and say I was responsible for whom I hired. I was responsible for how I managed my money. So I decided I wanted to do it myself. I understood the business of football. And because I can understand the business of football, I decided it's the best decision for me to be an agent. It made the most sense and I think a lot of players are opening their eyes to it as well.
I've had no money, I've had a lot of money, I've lost a lot of money. I've been back and forth with everything. That's why other people's input doesn't really matter to me, because nobody's put me where I'm at.
I was much more interested in the orchestra than the piano, but I did become fairly proficient as a pianist and my teachers felt I had talent and wanted me to become a good concert pianist and earn my living that way.
A lot of people, most people who are working, they do it for money. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. It so happens that I made a lot of money already, so I don't have to worry that much about it. I wouldn't fault anybody for doing it for the money, but it doesn't interest me right now.
I think, a lot of times, network shows are under a lot of mandates. There's a lot of moving pieces. There's a lot of money. There's a lot of people who are going to be disappointed if anything goes wrong.
I felt I had a very innocent childhood and I feel privileged by that. But as an adult, I know that there were people who didn't have that. There are a lot of teens who haven't had as easy a childhood as me, and having literature that explores these "darker" parts helps relieve the burden and stress they may be feeling. As a writer, there is often a temptation to draw back when we write for teens - to preserve their innocence. But the reality is, if someone has already had that innocence taken in their life, then not writing about it is just brushing it under the rug.
I've had a lot of people online say they're going to kill me at my shows. A lot of people say they're going to punch me in the face - never happened. It's just people being sad because their life sucks.
You've been entrusted with a lot of money and a lot of careers, and a lot of people put their faith in me, and every director goes through that every time.
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.
I've got a lot of opportunities, a lot of love in my life, a lot of things going for me. Still, it's not complete. I know this is not the whole thing. There's much more.
I had been playing a lot of chess and I wasn't really enjoying it, so I decided to go to college to see what else is out there for me. But after about six or seven months away from the game, I just decided that the whole college life wasn't for me and that's why I decided to come back.
I really struggled with what I was going to do with fantasy suites, but I didn't really want to think too much about it until we got there. I had a lot of other things on my mind at that point... but really that was just a personal decision between me and whoever I decided to go into the fantasy suite with or decided not to.
I remember when I was working on Mission: Impossible 2, John Woo said, "In Hong Kong, there's not much money and a lot of time. In Hollywood, a lot of money, not much time." Personally I'd prefer not much money, a lot of time.
I've had a lot of support from every corner of my life and my audience, to pretty much do close to what I want. I don't have unlimited time or money to execute my wildest dreams but I have enough get up and go to keep me going.
I was going to be a concert pianist, and when I was in high school, my parents were scared to death that I would focus too much on that too soon. And that I'd end up in some sort of dead end, and not fulfilling whatever potential they thought I had.
As a teenager, I put a lot of pressure on myself, and a lot of that, for me, was about finding a moral high ground. As I've grown up, I've decided to abandon that because it made me judgmental and also stressed me out.