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When I first came into the side as captain, I was accused of being quite conservative, quite negative, and just doing what Andrew Strauss did.
That is one of the great things about Test cricket, the ball. Sometimes it swings conventionally, sometimes it doesn't and sometimes it reverses.
In the end, playing for England means very little if you don't see the rest of the world around you. It is why I hate prima donnas and arrogance.
I have loved cricket my whole life, from playing in the garden as a child, and will never underestimate how special it is to pull on an England shirt.
No disrespect to county cricket but when you're playing for England it is the ultimate, it is what has always driven me to push myself above and beyond.
Jonathan Agnew is a good person to learn off because he's a brilliant broadcaster and the calmness and clarity with which he does things is a real skill.
When you are so close to something, it's like a bar of soap - if someone says hold on to it, the harder you squeeze, the quicker it pops out of your hand.
From a purely selfish, batting point of view, I couldn't bat any better than the 2010-11 Ashes and then in India in 2012. That was as good as I could play.
Many people have helped me during my career and without them and fantastic team-mates and coaches it would not have been possible to achieve all that I have.
I suppose you could say I was always having to defend my style of captaincy. I did get a lot of criticism - some of it justified, other times as part of a tactic.
I have achieved more than I could have ever imagined and feel very privileged to have played for such a long time alongside some of the greats of the English game.
The stats suggest that I'm not a dasher. It doesn't mean I can't play the shots, but when you find a method in four-day and Test cricket that works for you, you stick with it.
It does take a lot of effort to perform, playing for England. It's a huge amount of sacrifice to do and one day I might just wake up and say 'you know what, I'm done with it.'
I was never going to be the best player the world has ever seen but one thing I can be proud of is that I genuinely believe I have become the best player that I could have become.
The musical training taught me to focus my mind, before playing in an orchestra taught me how to truly concentrate. If you miss your moment in an orchestra, there is no forgiving.
I made my debut in 2006 and absolutely, there was the pressure of the cricket, but there was no social media. There was no direct feedback to your phone. If you wanted to, you could avoid it.
When I was made captain, one of my things was that whatever happens in those four years, you don't want to make major changes just before a World Cup. We'd done it before, and it never worked.
It is frustrating when you go all that way, you train, and you just don't turn up. It does happen. If you play 100-odd Test matches, there's going to be little periods when you don't score the runs.
Relief isn't quite the right word but there's satisfaction at a job well done and I'm proud to say that I'm an Ashes-winning captain. Without taking it too personally, it has a nice little ring to it.
My stubbornness helped me for the first half of my career; I had that real determination to do it my way - I know the best way. That helped me from a 14-year-old to 25 in getting me to where I got to.
In one sense, what happens for me outside of cricket gives me that break - the farming means I have a really different life outside of cricket; it's not just cricket, cricket, cricket for 12 months of the year.
You don't get to the top in professional sport without being hard and tough, but I do that in my way. I don't shout or scream, but I am determined and I will push harder than 99 per cent of cricketers in training.
I think my general view of day-night Test cricket is that there is definitely something there that the ICC can keep looking at because it moves the game forward with timing and allows more people to come and watch.
The family farm plays such a big part in my life and I genuinely love going back there. In some ways I'd like to spend every day there, but there would be a big hole in my life if I didn't stay involved in cricket.
Throughout my career I have done it my way and used my stubborn streak. I thought the best way to captain was to shut out all the noise - I did it with my batting and thought 'that has served me well, so why change it?'
When I watch Twenty20 cricket, there's a different satisfaction. That hundred you get in six hours is a very satisfying feeling. A real triumph of skill. I don't quite see that in the 20-over game - or the 100-ball game.
The biggest thing was probably a better understanding of the mental side of cricket and also the technical challenges I have in my game. Those two things happened in a very short space of time which changed me as a player.
If you have lost matches and not played to potential, criticism will come your way. Critics and media will say what they see and take you on. They will say things which you might not like to hear. But that's professional sport.
You're either singing on TV or in front of a full cathedral and there's a bit of pressure there. I know it sounds funny but if you get used to doing it, then performing in front of people playing cricket is the same sort of thing.
You have to be very pragmatic, because you walk out to bat at the best time to bowl, with a brand new ball, against the best bowlers, who are fresh. And their job is to get you out, so when you fail there's no point beating yourself up.
My girlfriend comes from a farming background and I spend a lot of time at her farm doing farming stuff. When you're pulling lambs out, or weighing them or worming them or doing whatever you do to sheep you're not thinking about Brett Lee.
Alex Hales has tightened up his game from South Africa and learned about Test cricket. It's great when you see someone who doesn't quite nail it, but goes away and works away at it, come back a person who understands more about Test cricket.
I love the individual sport stuff but the experiences I've had with some great people over 12 or 15 years are what makes is special. That individual thing: me versus the bowler is great but you get that team feeling as well and that's why it suits me so well.
You're there to score runs. If you don't do that over a period of time, people will look elsewhere. That hasn't changed and that'll never change, whether it's myself or Jimmy Anderson, you've got to play to a certain level to be picked for England or even Essex.
It's very hard to reflect properly when you're still playing but the hundreds one - when I got my 23rd in Kolkata - felt the most special because it broke a benchmark that had stood for a very long time. It felt good to do something no Englishman has done before.
Am I happiest on the farm or out in the middle? I am a cricketer, but the farm is a very special place and I absolutely love being in the countryside and getting away from the bubble. I like to think I'm a farmer, but there's so much experience that goes into that.
You need to come to terms with the fact that you are not an international cricketer anymore and that's certainly difficult to come to terms with. But then I love going to my farm and spending time with my family. Drop and pick up my kids from school and play cricket as well.
As cricketers we fail all the time. You score a hundred every now and again but you get out between nought and 20 far more often. If you get 50, you feel bad because you should have got a hundred. Even if you get a hundred, you feel you should have got 150. So you're always failing.
Yes, there are absolutely moments when you're running out of ideas, and you do genuinely feel sorry for the bowlers when you keep asking them to run in again on a flat wicket, when partnerships get away from you, especially at the tail, which is one of the big differences in the modern game.
The beauty of cricket is that there are so many different opinions as to the best way to do something and at times it is easier to see something when you're not emotionally involved in the game and not responsible for the decision. You can go and have a cup of tea and look at it from a different point of view.
The one thing about professional sport is it's all about results, and at the end of the day, if someone is employing you and you're not scoring runs or you're not taking wickets, they ain't going to carry on doing it, and there's no any other way of saying that; that's unfortunately the ruthless business of professional sport.