To achieve consistently terrific customer service, you must hire wonderful people who believe in your company's goals, habitually do better than the norm and who will love their jobs; make sure that their ideas and opinions are heard and respected; then give them the freedom to help and solve problems for your customers. Rather than providing rules or scripts, you should ask them to treat the customer as they themselves would like to be treated - which is surely the highest standard.

We have a business that some people feel pollutes, and I happen to agree with them. ... And so on the basis of trying to do good and, you know, hopefully turn a profit, what we did was we pledged that we'd put all the profits from our airline business into trying to develop clean fuels.

However tight things are, you still need to have the big picture at the forefront of your mind.

No matter where my travels take me, my day starts with a good work out, preferably kitesurfing or tennis. Exercise puts me in the right state of mind for the day. Dedicating time in the morning to exercise your body will make a big difference when you have to focus your mind on the day's work.

If you want milk, don't sit on a stool in the middle of a field in the hope that a cow will back up to you.

If I'm setting up a new business I'll spend three or four months learning everything there is about that business, everything there is about that subject and then I will find good people to run it on a day-to-day basis, but whilst they're running it at least I know what they're talking about when they come back to me.

In Africa, villagers look up to elders; they are the moral voice of their community.