I stopped being a fighter in 1999 and I became a fight executive the moment I retired and took control of my brand.
The desire to build a risk-free society has always been a sign of decadence. It has meant that the nation has given up, that it no longer believes in its destiny, that it has ceased to aspire to greatness, and has retired from history to pet itself.
Dick Moss, my agent. Dick became my agent in 1979 when I signed my contract with the Houston Astros.
I've always been a guy that liked to stay in control of my own destiny.
I want to earn a contract. I don't want a contract because in the next year I'm a free agent, so they might look to tie me down.
I've got to make a new life for myself, I'm out to learn how to enjoy my leisure now that I'm retired. I've been doing things people expected of me always. I want to feel free. I want to sit under a linden tree with nothing more important to worry about than the temperature of the beer, if there is anything more important.
I got an agent when I needed one, when I had a contract negotiation for the first time. I was doing the Second City E.T.C., and I got invited to audition for the last season, it turns out, of 'In Living Color.'
You control your own destiny. You go out there and work hard and show people that you come to work and earn your respect. All you can control is how you go out there and perform every day.
I have never, for a single moment, been aware of pressure from anyone in television about how I dress, what my shape is or how I speak. I've always written my own scripts. I've always been the first to point out that I need to be fit. I need to look good.
Destiny is not preordained. Destiny is ordained totally by you. Every single moment of your NOW existence is the result of your previous thought. The idea that everything is already laid out for you in advance is a hallucination. You can and do manifest your own destiny.
I can't control my own income, I can't control my own destiny, I can't even control my own farm if I'm a farmer. This is not going to last.
No man can claim to be free in real terms unless he is fully in control of his own destiny!
In waiting for the glorious moment of that first book contract, writers must have giant reservoirs of patience. Yet they must persevere because they don't know the destiny that is being worked out for them. They creep humbly along the ground, without the spacious aerial vision of their lives that would show them the destiny in store for them.
All men are created equal. It is what you do from there that makes the difference. We are all free agents in life. We make our own decisions. We control our own destiny.
Perth is not industry-heavy, so just figuring out how to get into the industry was tough. Eventually, I found out what a U.S. agent was, and so I got a U.S. agent.
I just went and got an agent because I thought I can create my own world - you can't right your own life, but you can escape to a world where you can have control.