Honestly, I didn't expect my call-up. I was just playing my game and will continue giving my best. Rest will be taken care by selectors. If they think I am good enough, they will take me in. Champions Trophy is a very big stage and there will be lot more opportunities for me in the coming future.
If I am playing the game freely, and those opportunities come up to cross the line, then I get enjoy that a lot. But when I try to force things, I am not playing my best footy.
Every game's a championship game. When we focus that way, get prepared that way-that this is it, you know, this is the last one, the biggest one-you get ready, you get amped up, you get that laser focus and you're ready to play.
This is not the job. We are just playing the game here. I am enjoying the game. I am playing every game as a game of pickup basketball in my hometown.
I'm really at ease in being me and going all around the world playing music. But I do get a lift once we start. I'm humming stuff in the dressing room and smiling, looking at myself and making sure I don't have nose hair! But once I get really close to the stage, and the guys are doing the intro thing, I do get a pick-me-up.
I am an advent Arsenal fan, so wherever I am doesn't matter what time it is, when they're playing I have to get up and watch the game.
Once you accept that playing the game will be uncomfortable, and you do it for a while, it will become much easier (like it does when getting fit). When you excel at it, you will find your ability to get what you want thrilling.
My job is to play chess, the game that I love. I achieve what I can in chess. That is what I focus on. Basically, I am always focused on playing the game, and this is important to me.
They are playing a game. They are playing at not playing a game. If I show them I see they are, I shall break the rules and they will punish me. I must play their game, of not seeing I see the game.
I will cross that bridge when it comes. I am not stupid. I am a very bright guy. I know that in the fighting game, you get people who get brain damage and do themselves long-term harm. I am into it in a big way, and I am good at it, and I am going to get very, very rich and then I will get out and we will see what comes after that.
I get lots of fouls on me, but it is no foul because I am physical. Because I don't go down, that is the problem as well. But I will keep playing my game. Why would I change? It's my game.
You have to forget what has gone before, get on with the game and focus on that. You cannot afford to be affected and let things worry you.
.. I get more of a dreamy thing from the audience - it's more of a thing that you go up into. You get into such a pitch sometimes that you go up into another thing. You don't forget about the audience, but you forget about all the paranoia, that thing where you're saying, 'Oh gosh, I'm on stage - what am I going to do now ?' - Then you go into this other thing, and it turns out to be like almost like a play in certain ways
The first year I moved to Nashville, I started playing these songwriter nights with people like Nickel Creek, Duncan Sheik, and even Ryan Adams... That was the first place I really started playing music, and I had to really step up my game. Really quick. Or get kicked off the stage.
Imagine if you're playing at home and your girlfriend is badgering you all the time not to play. Wouldn't it be great to have a game you could play with her? Because then you can carry on playing the game and not get beaten up for it.
You want to get to the top of the cliff. But that's not what you focus on immediately. You focus on the next ledge just beyond your reach, because you need to do one clever thing to get up there. And then, once you get there, you do it again. A lot of this is rather boring and not very glamorous. But you can't jump cliffs in a single bound.