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Ellen Sirleaf
Nobel Prize for Peace
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: There was a Liberian Independence Day celebration in 1985, July 26. I spoke in Philadelphia on behalf of the Association of Liberia in the United States. I was a keynote speaker at that celebration, and I said a few things about the government. I had been home trying to register the party, and I left and came to Philadelphia to make the statement, and then went back with the intent of just forgetting it, since the party was not registered, and going back to Nairobi. That's when I was put under house arrest and subsequently was jailed.
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Carlos Slim
Financier and Philanthropist
There were available businesses (to buy). Because in our country, the companies have a "group of control" regularly, because they're not such big companies. Also, there is a group, a person or through the bank, that the controller of the companies is there. In these years, the U.S. companies -- the foreign companies -- want to sell, because to be investing in Mexico was not good, and they sold out these Mexican operations. The banks sold the assets, and many people wanted to sell everything, and we were the only buyers.
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Frederick W. Smith
Founder, Federal Express
In retrospect it was ridiculous to try to put this system together, which required so much up front money, and required changing a lot of government regulations, but I didn't know that at the time. And I think probably my experience in the service, where -- the currency of exchange in FedEx was just money, it wasn't people's arms and legs, or lives. So my perspective on it was perhaps a bit more -- I don't know how you'd say it. I was willing to take a chance, because losing wasn't the worst thing in the world that could happen to you. I had seen that very clearly.
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Frederick W. Smith
Founder, Federal Express
Frederick Smith: The reason I never lost confidence is because I never believed that the consequences of losing were as bad as some other people might have thought, you know? "Oh my goodness, I've lost my money!" or what have you. I mean, I just wasn't motivated along those lines. And I was very, very, very sure that what we were doing was extremely important and was destined to be successful. So that's the definition I think of an insane person, or a zealot. And most entrepreneurs, I think you would find, have that sort of green wire laid in there just a little bit cross-wise. And they begin to get focused on something, and they believe in the idea or themselves far beyond what they probably should.
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