When you see someone who has turned his passion into a profit, ask yourself, ‘Why not me?

The only thing I hated about the agency business was a lot of business travel. It was the only part of my job that I did not like. I found it very tedious and wearing.

There are agencies who are good losers, places where losing is not only accepted, it becomes part of the culture, it is expected. That is debilitating. Don't let that happen to you. At Deutsch we go into every pitch assuming we are the Yankees. It's amazing what happens when you go into a room of smart, hungry people and say, "Failure is not an option." People are galvanized.

There are moments in business and in life when you have to say, "Failure is not an option."

If the person who runs a company has a belief system and everything he does stays fairly truly to that system, it will attract like-minded people who buy into it and then keeps selling itself in concentric circles.

The best bosses understand the people working for them. That's the first component: what makes my people tick? What are they in it for?

I appear wild on the outside, but I'm a conservative businessman.