Growing up, I knew you were supposed to have a profession - and something better than being a shopkeeper, which is what my parents were.

You have to keep being curious. The notion that the present is different than the past, and the future will be different than the present, and the present is past, as we say it. I think I, by nature, am an optimist. Maybe I was driven to escape from my childhood and to be something, create my own world or career the way I wanted it to be. And I keep doing that in very interesting ways.

Sometimes I wish I lived more in the day, but I'm happier thinking about tomorrow or the day after. The way I see it, there's always a new or next thing.

I think different societies, cultures, individuals, teams of people, make the world a better place. The founding fathers, they made New England, they made those 13 colonies. I don't know if they thought they were changing the world or just changing their world, but they did make the world a better place. Doctors that cure patients or cure diseases or make discoveries, they're making the world a better place. Can I make the world a better place by selling underpants? Not really. That's just the means. That gives me resources to try to make the world a better place.

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.

My faith is very important me. I think the notion that there's this greater force outside of ourselves that's created the universe, created challenges, creates opportunity, the notion of man's responsibility to man.

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