I certainly didn't think of myself as gifted. The standards for being gifted in my environment were if you were good in Little League or if you were good in football.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I wasn't naturally gifted in terms of size and speed; everything I did in hockey I worked for, and that's the way I'll be as a coach.
Somehow our society has formed a one-sided view of the human personality, and for some reason everyone understood giftedness and talent only as it applied to the intellect. But it is possible not only to be talented in one's thoughts but also to be talented in one's feelings as well.
I don't consider myself to be particularly gifted in the way that other filmmakers are gifted.
Being gifted needs courage.
The truth is that throughout my careers in both chess and the martial arts, I often knew that my rivals were more naturally gifted than me - either with their mental machines or their bodies. But I have believed in my training, my approach to learning, and my ability to rise to the challenge under pressure.
We are all gifted. That is our inheritance.
Even a lot of kids who are gifted can be kids who feel like wimps or nerds.
I'm not particularly gifted; I'm not genetically freakish in any sense; I'm absolutely average.
I was always the youngest person in class, skinny, scrawny, no good at sports. I asserted myself by being smart. But then I got to college and started to get C's and D's. That was fantastic. I no longer had to be the smartest person in the room.
I have always been an outstanding football player, I have always had uncanny abilities, great arm strength, an immense ability to play the game from a quarterback standpoint. The problem was that I wasn't given the liberty to do certain things when I was young.