I am a family man who has children, who is a good person, who cares about women's rights and my kids' rights and education, and I'm not a leftist elitist. I live a very normal life.

I was in college, and I studied everything, but was really not good at anything until I found philosophy, and, then, political science. I thought, 'Wow, this is something I really enjoy.' I kind of got into that whole world of law and political science. I was really into it and enjoying it, and then I took an acting elective, and that was it.

My mom always told me to set goals for myself. And slowly going through and checking those things off of my list, that feels like success to me.

Yeah, I probably got in too much trouble as a youth to be a politician.

I've never isolated role models based on gender. I have more male role models due to the mere fact that I've done business with more of them and they're leaders within the verticals I work. Of those, Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos.com, is an entrepreneur and personal friend that I have a great deal of respect for.

When I was in politics, I always got accused of image-making and trying to make them something they weren't. Truth was - and nobody ever discovered it, although I was in that business for twenty years - what I was trying to do was to get them to be themselves.

The Great Depression, they come out with the New Deal, black people didn't have access to those government stimulus packages. The New Deal set up what is known as the modern-day middle class. We didn't have access to programs - the G.I. Bill, Social Security, home loans - none of that.

The Australian public are very fair and they are always prepared to give the leader of a major political party a fair go.