Growing up, I was a little hippie kid. I went to some good concerts... Amnesty International with Bob Dylan and Tracy Chapman... The best concert I ever went to was this one at the Cow Palace my freshman year in college on New Year's Eve. It was Pearl Jam opening for Nirvana opening for Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Daily repetition matters when a kid is learning to swim. It can be 20 minutes in a lesson or an hour practicing for a couple of weeks.

If you write something down on paper, it becomes an actual goal. Before you write it down, it's a thought, a dream that may or may not get done.

It's not really about the competition. Your biggest challenge in a race is yourself. You're often racing against time. You're frequently running everything through your mind. You're always competing against preconceived ideas. It's not really the person next to you that you worry about.

My parents are very competitive, so we are very competitive as kids. But it's a good kind of competition; it's not a jealousy. You always want to do your best, and if it can't be you, you want it to be your brother or your sister, you know what I mean?

Parents must lead by example. Don't use the cliche; do as I say and not as I do. We are our children's first and most important role models.

If my children were as unhappy as I was at school, I'd send them somewhere else, but it never occurred to my parents.

You draw the best things from your parents and family. You're going to pick up some of the bad things as well - there's a temper that runs through my dad's side of the family that I'm not especially keen on picking up a giant block of.