With all the media attention, all the love from the fans, I felt I needed to prove myself. Prove that I'm not a marketing tool, I'm not a ploy to improve attendance. Prove I can play in this league. But I've surrendered that to God. I'm not in a battle with what everybody else thinks anymore.
In a time when everybody is talking about finding oneself, how do you find yourself? I wanted to do it as literally as possible. How do I prove that I'm concentrating on myself? I prove it by doing something physical. I can bite myself. I can burn the hair off my chest. The goal? Yes, I have a body. I have this thing that people call the self. Maybe I can change the self.
My philosophy in life... is to prove myself to myself and not to others. I tried to teach my children that, that I have to respect myself, to prove to myself that I can do the best I can.
One girl came up to me - I remember it so vividly - she said, "You're not fit to model socks." It crushed me. But at the same time, it made me unbelievably determined to prove everybody wrong and prove to myself that I could live an incredible life.
I don't want to prove to anyone or prove to myself. I'd rather just enjoy and show myself that I am capable of doing it and actually going through the process.
I had to earn the respect from everybody, from referees to opponents, but my teammates, they saw some European guy coming here and I had to prove myself. Luckily, I proved myself, but with big help from the entire Lakers organization.
I don't feel the need to prove myself to others, but to prove myself to myself
I want to prove to myself and everybody else how good I can be, and I'm willing to work as hard as I need to to achieve that goal.
Do I really need to prove anything to anybody? I don't feel that I have to prove anything. The only thing that I have to prove is to myself, that I have value.
I think my passion for wrestling and this business is clear to any fan out there. I don't feel I need to prove myself to them, but I do need to prove to myself that I can do this.
I'd just like to prove to myself that I'm all here and all together and can get the best out of myself. I'd also like to prove that to a couple of other people.
At the end of the day, nobody has higher expectations for me than myself. I don't really try to prove anyone wrong anymore as much as I try to prove myself right.
My aim was always to come back and prove myself because that is the type of character I am. Whether I get the chance is another thing, but I always want to prove myself.
In the NBA, it's different. You must do everything. Defense, offense, shooting, everything. I wanted to prove myself here and I will prove myself here.
At the same time, it makes me feel like I have to prove myself to the new guys coming in as well as prove myself to the coaching staff, which is a good bit of motivation for me.
Guys are more apt to test me than they are to test a Charles Barkley. I think I have to go out and prove myself all the time, and that's fine, because I've had to prove myself my whole life.