It's a special person - and personality - who can lead a start-up to soaring success and sustain that success for the long term. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg are star examples.
While it is clear that we need to make some adjustments to protect Social Security for the long term, it is disingenuous to say that the trust fund is facing a crisis.
In the long term we can hope that religion will change the nature of man and reduce conflict. But history is not encouraging in this respect. The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars.
In the long term, Germany didn't need a finance minister who was absent during important negotiations in the European Council. But the chancellor strongly encouraged me to stay. And everything did work out for the best in the end.
The long term versus the short term argument is one used by losers.
It is the greatest scam in history. I am amazed, appalled and highly offended by it. Global Warming; It is a scam. Some dastardly scientists with environmental and political motives manipulated long term scientific data to create an illusion of rapid global warming.
Integrate purpose into your for-profit business model through a long term commitment to a cause that is aligned with your core values and those of your community.
The company that creates one global social graph will be very important going forward. It will be Facebook, with maybe 2-3 local social networks able to sustain competition long term.
Keep yourself motivated. You've got to be motivated, you've got to wake up every day and understand what that day is about; you've got to have personal goals - short term goals, intermediate goals, and long term goals. Be flexible in getting to those goals, but if you do not have goals, you will not achieve them.
I think it's very important not to confuse the importance of dealing with Social Security in the long term with these short-term deficit reduction challenges. They're different issues.