I do feel like a loner but I think it's because I look at things differently than other people.

I think if I were a college professor, no one would say I was uncomfortable about being shy because that might be expected. But I think because of people's stereotypes, they think of a football player as someone who is very outgoing and I'm not.

I realized a while back that I have an innate ability to be compassionate, and I saw that the strength of compassion is something that healers have and healers use.'

I think it's very easy for people to stereotype athletes, good and bad.

There's more to life than success, and if you can try to be more well-rounded, you'll be able to enjoy your success more. It won't own you or control you.

I can look back at it now as definitely like an initiation into adulthood. Almost overnight in the NFL, I was put on a pedestal and I was supposed to be this icon or this image of what a professional athlete was supposed to be. I felt like I just got stuck trying to be someone else and I forgot who I actually was.

Depending on their fondest memory of you, most people hold on so tightly to their fondest memory they don’t usually let you be anything greater than that. And that’s one of the things I think I allowed myself to be a victim of earlier in my career. What I learned as I got older is I decide. I decide what it’s like for me, not other people. You can be whatever you’d like to be. You just have to choose it.