I feel like people are expecting me to fail, therefore, I expect myself to win.
I don't feel pressure because what everyone expects of me is what I expect of myself anyway. Everyone expects me to win this fight, I expect myself to win this fight. It's not any more pressure than what I put on myself. I don't suffer nerves, I don't feel pressure, I just go out and do what I need to do.
I beat myself up in the studio because I know that a lot of people are expecting me to fail.
Instead of wanting to win, we expected to win. There's a lifetime between wanting something and expecting something. When you expect something, it means you've prepared, done the work, and EXPECT TO WIN!!
I feel like sometimes people see us as like robots and out there expecting to win every time. But, in reality, that's not how it is, and it's not that easy.
I definitely, at times, felt the pressures of life similar to the pressures anyone would feel growing up. The only difference was that maybe more people were aware of mine. But, if anything, I changed the pressure from negative to positive. So, instead of thinking everybody wanted to see me fail, I decided everybody wanted to see me win, since I wanted to see myself win.
I feel like certainly there are people expecting 'Looking' to be representative of everyone that's gay, the entire gay community. And it's a dangerous expectation to come in watching the show expecting that. Expecting that out of any show.
I was blessed with a sense of my own destiny. I have never sold myself short. I have never judged myself by other people's standards. I have always expected a great deal of myself, and if I fail, I fail myself. So failure or reversal does not bring out resentment in me because I cannot blame others for any misfortune that befalls me.
Expectations don't scare me because I have worked towards them. I want people to expect better things from me with every film. I never want to be in a position where they don't expect anything from me. I want to be in a position where if they are expecting sun from me, at least I will be able to reach the moon.
For me, that's the most important thing, feel myself happy when I am playing. If I am healthy and I feel myself competitive, I am happy. Then is obvious I would like to win. But I know if I am in finals of important events, the normal thing is I finally win titles.
At the end of the day, you just have to focus on winning. No one can take a win away from you. That's what I focused on. Life is not fair, so I don't go out there expecting it to be. I don't think any of us should go out expecting life to be fair. I think that's expecting too much, and I remind myself of that sometimes. You can get on with your life after that.
It's funny. I'm attracted to things that don't have any impact on life. People say I've done a great thing for women. I don't think I have. People say I've given people courage. That makes me feel good, but I don't see how I do that. I think my running is a selfish thing. But it provides the challenge that allows me to feel good about myself. How can I expect to do well in other activities if I don't feel good about myself?
But as for me, Emperor, nature has not given me stature, age has marred my face, and my strength is impaired by ill health. Therefore, since these advantages fail me, I shall win your approval, as I hope, by the help of my knowledge and my writings.
I don't go into these Daytona 500s expecting to win. I go into it hoping to win, but definitely not expecting because there's just too many moving parts and pieces for you to guarantee your success.
I wasn't really expecting me to win the gold in this race. To get another medal for myself and for the U.S. was a pretty good thing to happen, I'd say.
I have failed many times, but I have never gone into a game expecting myself to fail.