I wouldn’t change anything about myself. If you asked me 20 years ago, I probably would have had a long list. But I’ve learned to appreciate and love who I am.

So for years I kept calling myself an entrepreneur until one day I realized like, wait a second, this is expired! Like somebody who is an athlete in high school can’t keep calling himself an athlete forever.

Nothin’. All my experiences, talents, wins, and L’s make me who I am today. I am constantly evolving, learning, and working toward not just being great, but also staying true to who I’ve always been—just a kid with a big dream from the LBC.

A little more self-confidence wouldn’t hurt.

It is in human nature to contain both the positive and the negative. However, it is also within human capability to work to reinforce the positive and to minimize or neutralize the negative.

Can we afford to indulge in compassion fatigue? Is the cost of meeting the needs of refugees greater than the cost that would be consequent on turning an indifferent, if not a blind, eye on their suffering?

If I advocate cautious optimism it is not because I do not have faith in the future but because I do not want to encourage blind faith.

Long years ago, sometimes it seems many lives ago, I was at Oxford listening to the radio programme Desert Island Discs with my young son Alexander. It was a well-known programme (for all I know it still continues) on which famous people from all walks of life were invited to talk about the eight discs, the one book beside the bible and the complete works of Shakespeare, and the one luxury item they would wish to have with them were they to be marooned on a desert island.

Of the sweets of adversity, and let me say that these are not numerous, I have found the sweetest, the most precious of all, is the lesson I learnt on the value of kindness.

It takes courage to feel the truth, to feel one's conscience because once you do, you must engage your fundamental purpose for being alive. You can't just expect to sit idly by and have freedom handed to you.