While I am proud of a number of accomplishments, there are real costs to being unreasonable. Long hours. Too little time with family. A near incapacity for, as they say, stopping and smelling the roses.

A lot of executives act like their time is worth more than anyone else's. But I always respect an employee who guards his or her time, even from me.

I am old enough to remember when America's K-12 public schools were the best in the world. I am a proud graduate of them, and I credit much of my success to what I learned in Detroit Public Schools and at Michigan State University.

I'm strong-willed. Architects are strong-willed. You get the best results with a strong client and a strong architect working together.

I don't think the market can keep going up. In the U.S., we see real estate not going up.. houses are selling at lower prices. You can't have anything going up 10 percent to 20 percent to 30 percent indefinitely.

Research – and using what you learn from it to analyze every situation – is what separates being unreasonable from being irrational.

I'd rather be respected than loved.