As a small business owner for the last 15 years, when I think of what truly changed my life, it was my faith, a strong family, my mom did a really, really good job of encouraging me in very clear and discernible ways.
It's far more difficult being a small-business owner starting a business than it is for me with thousands of people working for us and 400 companies. Building a business from scratch is 24 hours, 7 days a week, divorces, it's difficult to hold your family life together, it's bloody hard work and only one word really matters - and that's surviving.
I've always wanted to partner with a family business because their stories inspire me. One of my biggest hopes is that the family will invest in me, educating me about their business, and imparting many other valuable lessons. This process of helping an owner transition her business to trusted hands really excites me.
My life has changed because somebody fed my family on Thanksgiving when I was eleven years old. It wasn't the food that changed me, it was the fact that a stranger cared. That's what changed my life. That made me the person I am today and have been for the last 37 years. All that came out of that, that simple act of getting a result.
My mom was really busy when I was growing up, but she did a really good job in terms of balancing her home life with her professional life. She basically took me everywhere.
What's really clear to all of us in the business community is that GDP is slowing everywhere. And the reason is productivity has been declining now for 15 or 20 years all over the world. So we've got very high unemployment, and it's structural. And it's compounded by real-time climate change - that's really a game changer.
I am no David Beckham. I have not changed my life since I was 15 years old. My family is the only thing that has changed for me.
If you're always waiting for a producer to hire you... your chances are really, really small. I've been knocking on doors and asking for a job for many years, and my career really changed when I decided to create my own material.
Our party [Republicans] has been focused on big business too long. I came through small business. I understand how hard it is to start a small business. That's why everything I'll do is designed to help small businesses grow and add jobs. I want to keep their taxes down on small business. I want regulators to see their job as encouraging small enterprise, not crushing it.
We were brought up Protestant, and I went to church three times a day on a Sunday. My parents weren't Bible-bashers, but we all have a strong belief in God and a strong faith. We had a huge garden; our house was a bit like a scene from 'The Good Life.' I think Mam and Dad had it really hard, bringing up a big family on very little.
We really began to think in different ways about our business in terms of climbing this mountain and it became very clear very quickly this was the smart thing to do. Not only did we start to generate answers for those customers, they embraced us for what we were trying to do. The goodwill in the market place has just been stunning. The rest of the business case is pretty simple. I cost it down not up.
It doesn't matter whether you have the happiest upbringing... the young Joe Scot had the most dysfunctional family there could be but it's still a family and it's a really good, strong family. But in spite of that he runs away from home. I relate to all of those things very directly. I hit 40 this year but I still think about being a teenager and hopefully I will for the rest of my life. They are important years.
My mom is a painter and an artist. She would play music, and she always had very good taste in music, fashion, and art. She was also a young single mom, so I think she had really good style; she was really free... just really inspiring in her own way and allowed me to find the direction I wanted to take in my life.
In the beginning, I was very punk. I was very revolutionary. When they asked me to do Givenchy, I didn't want to do it. My friends pushed me. But the situation with my family was so bad financially. I really did it because, when they told me how much they would pay me, I saw that my sisters and my mom could have a better life.
I'd just come through cancer in 1995. Which really changed my soul. It really did. It changed me... It made my faith alive - and real. God's real.
I learned years ago, I adore acting and I think it's the most alive I know how to be - almost - but I really want a good life. I've been married for 17 years - I know, they call us the last couple. I have a 13-year-old daughter. I have a lovely home life with good friends who aren't in the business... and I have no desire to cost my whole life in pursuit of the career alone.
My mom and I have always been very close since she did raise me as like a single mom. My friends and everyone I know are like, 'Wow, you guys really have a really good relationship.' She's with me a lot of the time, so people find that kind of shocking.