Your successful past will block your visions of the future.

When you think about it, if the fittest always won, all forests should be completely homogeneous. One species should supplant all others as the most superior competitor. But it doesn't happen that way. Nor does it happen that way in the marketplace.

The past guarantees you nothing in the future if the rules change.

When most of us hear the phrase, 'survival of the fittest,' we assume it originated with Charles Darwin. It did not. The phrase doesn't exist anywhere in Darwin's first edition of 'Origin of the Species.'

When you drop any new idea in the pond of the world, you get a ripple effect. You have to be aware that you will be creating a cascade of change.

The invention of the micro-loan was a big surprise to me. Who would have guessed loans of less than $20 made to poor people in undeveloped countries could create thriving local economies? And, even more surprisingly, that they more reliably pay off their debts than the wealthy of the world.