When you are doing something that is your passion - you are professional but you enjoy it - playing with fear, training with fear is not something you can do. How can you come with fear and without confidence to your job?

To see professionals working hard every day, making a big commitment to the club with a desire to improve every day is something I want. That's the only way they can play with me.

When you are professional and working in a club like Everton, the obligation is to be motivated, to be focused.

I have my philosophy in my mind: you need to adapt for each moment and each team.

My failures were something for me - my first contact with professional football. Though it didn't go all that well, it's not a regret, it's just like that. But looking back, those failures helped me consider football differently, consider the professional game differently.

Some people go off to an ashram or they, you know, have a midlife crisis and buy a sports car. For me, I do 'Hedwig,' and I see it's a midlife crisis maybe, and I see what's next. And it's a good trampoline, maybe, into the next part of my life.

When I was 4, I had a schedule. I was playing softball. My brother was playing football. My parents were teachers, and they'd owned businesses. We like to work hard. Work and then books. Books and then work. We just knew that we had to excel. It sounds militant, but trust me, it was fun.

I guess I compete in everything I do, but it's always good to get out and be active and find an outlet for all of that pent-up aggression you had as an athlete.