We cannot wait for great visions from great people, for they are in short supply. It is up to us to light our own small fires in the darkness.

A good team is a great place to be, exciting, stimulating, supportive, successful. A bad team is horrible, a sort of human prison.

The companies that survive longest are the one's that work out what they uniquely can give to the world-not just growth or money but their excellence, their respect for others, or their ability to make people happy. Some call those things a soul.

Forget land, buildings, or machines-the real source of wealth today is intelligence, applied intelligence. We talk glibly of "intellectual property" without taking on board what it really means. It isn't just patent rights and brand names; it is the brains of the place.

It is tempting to call for better leadership, but we probably expect too much from the leaders of the nations. Those nations are too big, the connections not strong enough, the commitment to the future not long enough. It is better to look smaller, to our now-smaller organisations, to local communities and cities, to families and clusters of friends, to small networks of portfolio people with time to give to something bigger than themselves. We have to fashion our own directions in our own places.

A leader shapes and shares a vision, which gives point to the work of others.

The sobering thought is that individuals and societies are not, in the end, remembered for how they made their money, but for how they spent it.