“China traditionally has been a tea-drinking country but we turned them into coffee drinkers.”

Beverages have to be created. And they’re created by looking at what trend is in, say, the fashion industry – what color’s hot right now.

I don’t have any secret sauce and I’m no smarter than anyone else. I will say I have surrounded myself with unbelievable talent that has made my job easier.

Everyone starts strong. Success comes to those with unwavering commitment to be at the end.

My passion. My commitment. This is the most important thing in my life other than my family.

I conduct my life with an expectation that people will do the right thing. Yet even with all my experience, I am still surprised when they do not.

Every step of the way, I made a point to underpromise and overdeliver. In the long run, that’s the only way to ensure security in any job.

Grow with discipline. Balance intuition with rigor. Innovate around the core. Don’t embrace the status quo.

One of the fundamental aspects of leadership, I realized more and more, is the ability to instill confidence in others when you yourself are feeling insecure.

When we began Starbucks, what I wanted to try to do was to create a set of values, guiding principles, and culture.

You cant build any kind of organization if you’re not going to surround yourself with people who have experience and skill base beyond your own.

Be bold, but be fair. Don’t give in. If others around you have integrity, too, you can prevail.

You must find something that you deeply love and are passionate about and are willing to sacrifice a lot to achieve.

When companies fail, or fail to grow, it’s almost always because they don’t invest in the people, the systems, and the processes they need.

My mother taught me something at a young age – she said ‘you are the company you keep.’ To define yourself by some label or some level of resources – that’s pretty shallow.

Risk more than others think safe.

I think that sometimes the difference between winning and losing, success and failure, is this gray line between will, passion and self-belief that says, ‘I’m going to do this’.

We can win respect in the world only if we are strong internally and can banish poverty and unemployment from our country.

Because the only thing that stays with you from the moment you’re born until the moment you die is your breath. All your friends, your family, the country you live in, all of that can change. The one thing that stays with you is your breath.

Ask not what you can do for your country. Ask what’s for lunch.

A lot of country music is sad. I think most art comes out of poverty and hard times. It applies to music. Three chords and the truth – that’s what a country song is. There is a lot of heartache in the world.

The unique thing about our country is that we have Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Parsis, and people of all other religions. We have temples and mosques, gurdwaras and churches. But we do not bring all this into politics. This is the difference between India and Pakistan.

The world’s ‘freeest’ country has the highest number in prison.

After Modi became the PM, development happened across the country.

As Africans we shouldn’t ever have to reach out to build our own country, there is enough money in Africa itself.