People also lose sight of the fact that technology driven globalisation has been extremely beneficial for a lot of people outside the US. Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted above the poverty line in India, China, Africa and elsewhere.

Backlash is sadly an intrinsic part of social progress. When oppressed people make their claim for justice, they trigger a response – a fightback by those who want to maintain the status-quo.

In our market-economy, consumers have the power. I also believe that almost every consumer has an element of compassion in herself or himself. If they are educated and sensitised about the existence of child-labour directly, I hope they use their consumer-power and translate it into pressure and change in corporate behaviour.

Short-term vision does not allow one to build better businesses and create value. If we keep a long-term perspective in mind, we will go through the good cycles and the bad cycles and reach the other side.

We estimate with the World Bank that US$20-40 billion each year is lost in developing countries through corruption. If you add to that $5 billion each year in stolen assets, it clearly shows that corruption is a serious obstacle to the achievement of the millennium development goals.

The most corrupting idea about power is that it gives you a set of techniques to enable you to get more of what you want, no questions asked. If we think about power in that way, our soul will get eroded. We need to start thinking differently, the Ubuntu interpretation would be that parts of us are hidden in others – that we will only fully exist if we explore and encounter.

In higher states of consciousness, we also lose our fear of death. The transcendent you is not in time. Only thought exists in time… only perception exists in time…

I'll hope I have helped be more generative and less extractive, through my own actions, and through my support of others. We live in a world where we're constantly battling these forces and we need to ensure we're more generative than extractive — of each other, of our planet — I believe we can do it.

Without the extreme magnifying glass that was on my life, I don't know if I would have stumbled on any of the discoveries I've made.

Everyone has important skills and likely unique skills, but they may not always be as confident in those skills as they should be. We need to challenge the notion that if you don't feel like a superhero, then you must not be the right person for the job. Being underestimated in that way often brings out the best in me. For me, it's not just about overcoming insecurity but leveraging it as a catalyst to ensure that I bring everything I have to the mission.

Mixed martial arts aren't like boxing. In boxing, if you lose on your way up? It's pretty much career over. In mixed martial arts, there are so many ways to win and lose... When that happens, you say, 'OK, what did I do wrong?' – you have to be honest with yourself.

The small act of paying attention to people is extraordinarily rewarding to every member of the team — and it’s amplified in an inverse way from their level on the hierarchy.