If you start painting yourself into a corner, life starts shutting down. There is always hopefully a next.

Everything has a lifecycle. You have to believe it’s going to change.

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.

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."

Ask yourself: What forms the decisions you make? What is it that gnaws at you? What are your crucible moments?

I was very lucky to find a career which let me travel, sourcing stores in other countries, just the opportunities of the career in design and finance and all the things that make retailing - my career - interesting to me. That's why I started looking at community responsibility. I felt I should give of myself.

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