Growing up, I started developing confidence in what I felt. My parents helped me to believe in myself. I wasn't the best looking guy, I wasn't the best athlete in the world, but they made me feel good about myself.
Acting helped me as I was growing up. It helped me learn about myself, helped me travel, helped me understand life, express myself, all those wonderful things. So I'm very, very grateful; it's a fun job. It's a luxury.
I started to really believe in myself, and my abilities, when I won the World Under-10 championship in Doral, Florida. I was nine and saw for the first time that I was amongst the best players in the world for my age. This was a massive confidence-builder for me.
I felt like the luckiest kid in the world. And I was. I was growing up middle-class in a time when growing up middle-class in America meant there would be jobs for my parents, good schools for me to prepare myself for a career, and, if I worked hard and played by the rules, a chance for me to do anything I wanted.
I have pessimistic moments when I think I should go on a diet because people are paying money to see movies with exceptional-looking actresses. But being in college has helped me realize that the best thing I can do is to feel good about myself and forget about other people's standards.
And if I let myself down, appear on stage when I'm not looking my best, it's not fun for me. I just beat myself up about it.
My husband is actually the nicest guy in the world. He's my sweetheart and best friend, and one of the things I love best about him is that no matter how terrible I look - and believe me, it can get bad - he makes me feel pretty.
I know I've made huge gains in my confidence, and knowing more about my racing and myself as a person. That has made me a better athlete
Working with Sofia Vergara and growing up with her was great because she was, you know, a really amazing, curvy role model for me. She helped me learn to accept the way I looked and love it and dress for it and feel good about myself.
I just started training with the best fighters in the world trying to get better. I was a pretty good athlete so I did pretty well with the team and that gave me confidence that I would be able to compete with people.
I have a mantra of my own that has helped me through the most chaotic of times. I remind myself that: I am the best, I have the best, and I deserve the best.
I'm the type of guy where I feel like if you throw me in against the guy that's gonna be my hardest match-up, I think that's gonna bring out the best in me, and I know that the best of me can beat anybody on any given day to become the world champion.
I'll never have a bad word to say about how Chelsea treated me growing up and developing me into the player I am today. It's probably the best academy in the world that anyone would want to go to and develop.
Whenever I feel bad, I use that feeling to motivate me to work harder. I only allow myself one day to feel sorry for myself. When I'm not feeling my best I ask myself, 'What are you gonna do about it?' I use the negativity to fuel the transformation into a better me.
'Fat' was a terrible, terrible word for me growing up. When I was able to reclaim it and call myself fat and identify with it, that was the best moment ever. That was the moment I really started to feel free.
I had an upbringing in which I was allowed to be free and use my mind. My parents only helped me to be myself. It was only in my teenage years that I met people who made me start having doubts about who I was. They said you shouldn't be confident, you shouldn't be strong. It is only when you meet those other people that you lose confidence.
If my parents were still alive, they would be very proud. They gave me a good start in life, the values that have driven me, and the confidence to believe in myself.