Fear of failure is the fuel of achievement. If you weren't afraid to fail, you probably wouldn't be highly motivated to work at the level that most of us have to work at to do well.

I would like to make it possible for many women and men in Latin America to win the lottery and receive the type of reproductive health services they so urgently need.

If you want to scale-up, the first thing you have to do is to expand your own team.

A focus on people's health and well-being must be the core of family planning research and policy. This may seem self-evident, but the realities of program implementation in third world countries has often shown that the health and well-being of individuals is not a priority.

If policy makers and program managers participate in an interdisciplinary assessment team, make informal visits to local families and have in-depth conversations with local providers and health authorities, the real needs and complex challenges of organizing good reproductive health services become apparent.

International "experts" from technical assistance agencies or universities can make important contributions, but they certainly don't have all the answers. When ownership is local and national, and various stakeholders work together, program innovations have a greater chance to take root and survive.

It's very important in a leadership role not to place your ego at the foreground and not to judge everything in relationship to how your ego is fed.