Opting for gold shoes could have been considered downright cocky, but I was confident and never doubted my ability to deliver gold medals to match my shimmering footwear.

As an athlete, I was never really comfortable with being a celebrity.

The basis of self-discipline: Don't allow the edges to blur.

You can't control what the other athlete is going to do; you can't control anything except for your competition and how you execute the race or how you execute the task.

That first peak is the best place to pause and look back, to see if you took the easiest route, to learn the lessons from the first climb. And it is the best place to examine the terrain ahead, to change your plans and goals, to take a deep breath and begin climbing again.

How could you look more stupid than to be the guy accepting a bronze medal in gold shoes?

Protect your good image from the eyes of negative viewers, who may look at your good appearance with an ugly fiendish eye, and ruin your positive qualities with their chemical infested tongues.