Almost anything difficult, any challenge takes time, patience, and hard work.

You cannot get tired if you're interested in what you do. That's the key thing.

I didn't mind basic training. It taught me that something that seems impossible at the start can be achieved.

People say, My God, you're so disciplined. But it has nothing to do with discipline; I loved it. Because I knew that every time I went to the gym I was one step closer to winning the competition.

We had the Berlin Wall; we had walls everywhere. But we always looked at the wall as kind of like the outside of the wall is the enemy. Are we looking at Mexico as the enemy? No, it's not. These are our trading partners.

For me, life is about continuously being hungry. It's meaning is not simply to just exist or to survive, but to move ahead, to go up, to achieve, to conquer. Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength. We all have great power. That power is self-faith. There's really an attitude to winning. You have to see yourself winning before you win. And you have to be hungry. You have to want to conquer.

What we face may look insurmountable. But I learned something from all those years of training and competing. I learned something from all those sets and reps when I didn't think I could lift another ounce of weight. What I learned is that we are always stronger than we know.