It was tennis that got me started in business. When I was 16 and about to embark on my A-levels, I set up a tennis academy and became one of the youngest qualified tennis coaches in the country. It did well; by the time I was 19 I was able to buy my first house.
I learned to ride a ten-speed when I was 4 or 5. My uncle gave me the bike, hand-me-down, and everyone used to stare at me riding up and down this block. I was too short to reach the pedals, so I put my legs through the V of the frame. I was famous. The little kid who could ride the ten-speed.
I was very successful from a very early age, and I want to keep it.
I was the youngest producer of a national television show when I was twenty-five. I took it to 182 markets. Tremendous success.
I was in 20 Shakespearean plays by the time I was 20.
If I'd had a great level of success early on, who knows how I would have responded. I might have been a complete jerk.
I've been fortunate to be working mostly right out of school. Every year, there was a little something, and it kept the confidence going. It's about confidence and the belief.
When I was 27, I won an honorable mention in a scriptwriting contest and got a television job as an assistant director.
At 18, I got a publishing deal, so I was like, 'I can do this for real and not go to college.' When I was a teenager, my parents dragged me to a lot of songwriting conventions.
I was never a prodigy. I was never a child genius.
I feel really blessed that I found what I love doing and was able to make it a living from such a young age. I realize that I'm really fortunate. I didn't train; I kind of got lucky. And I remember that every day. I think I have to remind myself of that to really, fully appreciate life now.
I had been writing poems and stories since I learned to make letters. I had placed poems in a hardcover anthology at the age of 6. And I knew more big words than anyone else in the 10th grade.
I started a theater company when I was 17.
I was 15 when I got my first job as a proofreader for an advertising agency in the City, earning £12 a week. But by then, I was already playing darts tournaments every weekend, regularly winning the £50 first prize. By the time I was 16 and winning two or three contests a weekend, I ditched the agency job and concentrated on darts.
When my career took off it surprised me, I was only 22. To have that much success so fast, I just wasn't prepared.
I was 15 when I made my debut for the national team.
I was in Washington, D.C., on the morning show, by the time I was 18, programming a station by 19, No. 1 in the mornings. I think I was making, I don't know, a quarter of a million dollars by the time I was 25.
Having done what I've done at 24 years old, I'm not the kind of person who likes to be out of work.
Well begun is not only half done, but often fully cooked.
I became very successful at a young age... I had lots of opportunities and lots of power and had no idea how to focus it.
I was a protege; by the age of 10, I was studying with ballet choreographer Anthony Tudor in a class of adults.
The first thing I did was a print ad for Century Plaza. I was five.
By 21, I was earning six figures a week. By 23, I had a Ferrari. It was nuts.
As a driver, you always dream of winning a F1 race, and to win so early on in my career was very special.
'Fresh' was maybe the third audition that I had after I got an agent, so I was crazy excited when I booked it.
