"The philosophy behind much advertising is based on the old observation that every man is really two men -- the man he is and the man he wants to be."-- William Feather


"If you are kind," reads the gift, "people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway. If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies; succeed anyway. If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; be honest and frank anyway. What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight; build anyway." -Mother Teresa


I'm convinced that the greatness that matters more is the greatness people achieve through helping each other, through collaborating, more than the greatness that's achieved by grabbing all you can or getting all you can or building all you can. The 'you' needs to go away for there to be the real greatness to things. So for me, the genuine part, it's a weird thing -- to get to the real you, you have to be less you."


He raced BMX and motocross bikes from a young age, under the tutelage of his father, who taught him that "part of the joy of winning is the infliction of loss." Now, he says, tapping his forearm like a junkie, "I've been messing around with this less-competitive version of myself, because the other doesn't make you happy. You can't win enough."


"I'm trying to think ... midlife crises occur generally because we fear death, right? And I'm pretty sure I don't fear death. So maybe, what do I fear?" He pauses again. "What I fear -- actually, I'll tell you what it is -- what I fear is, I fear" -- his eyes start to pink around the rims, his voice cracks -- "I fear a moment when my children are older, and they look at me and say, 'What did you do? The world is like a spiraling cesspool. You were an adult, you needed to do something, I was just a kid. What did you do?' I want to be able to say, I did this, this, and this. And did my best. Yeah, that's it. It is a midlife crisis, and it's not my death. It's the fear of not being able to say that you tried, in all sincerity. I think it's a new kind of midlife crisis."


 "Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn't have it in the beginning. -- M. Gandhi."