She's one of the world's highest-paid athletes, but Serena Williams says money wasn't a motivator.

Over the course of her career, the 35-year-old has earned tennis Grand Slam titles, Olympic gold medals and more than $84 million in prize money on top of a slew of endorsement deals and multimillion-dollar partnerships. She is the only woman to land on Forbes' 2017 list of The World's 100 Highest Paid Athletes (at No. 51).

"I just played for the love of the sport," Williams said. "I've never played for money. Not once did I think about a check."

Of course, the checks have poured in. The superstar athlete has signed deals with Puma, Nike, Delta, Gatorade, IBM and JPMorgan Chase among others.

But Williams said her father Richard Williams' hands-off approach when it came to money encouraged her to learn about finance early on.

"Since I was a teenager I've made every financial decision in my life, and I've had to learn how to make good ones," she said in a conversation with Maverick Carter in an episode of "Kneading Dough," a new series by Chase and digital media company Uninterrupted.

When she received the first check in the amount of $1 million, she simply deposited it directly into her account. "I didn't touch it," she said. "I should have taken a picture of it, but selfies didn't exist back then."