There is always hopefully a next.

When you coach and teach leadership, most people think about them. It's like you're the leader and how do you influence them. Clearly, leaders do take their followers, their flock, their enterprise, their business - whatever - hopefully to a better place. But I think the foundation of what makes really great leaders is they lead themselves, and they're conscious about knowing themselves and coaching and leading themselves in a very profound way. The simplest of us talk to ourselves. The question is, "Do we really lead ourselves?"

I was single for most of my life. The best thing that happened to me is my wife. I've got four kids. All of them go to Harvard. Much better than their dad. They're really bright kids.

One of the things I've probably absorbed when I was in business school - and didn't know I was learning it - was about life cycles, that things begin, and they peak, and then they decline. So whether you look at life cycles of fashion, or you look at life cycles of things that people buy, designs, everything is in a life cycle. Getting out of the apparel businesses and into beauty and lingerie, those were very big bets, but they were very deliberately thought about and tested over time.

Society can't wait. It's sad there are so many entrepreneurs, business successes and venture capitalists who give no thought to society.

The risk of failure is a very personal thing. One of the quotes I like, I think this came from the famous basketball coach from California - John Wooden - is that, "Successful people - winners - do everything necessary to prepare to win, without the certainty of winning." Everybody would do everything necessary to prepare to win if winning was a certainty. So you're willing to put yourself out publicly and privately and say, "I'm going to do this."

My friends don't understand, whether it's belonging to a country club or playing golf, or whatever a vacation is, that should make you happy. And it's like, "No, happiness is much deeper." I think people have to struggle to find things that give them purpose, the real meaning. Why am I alive? Why did God bless me with these skills or these resources? What am I to do with them? If God just lets some person be very fortunate, let's say financially, it's kind of a funny God.