The most significant barrier to female leadership is the actual lack of females in leadership. The best advice I can give to women is to go out and start something, ideally their own businesses. If you can't see a path for leadership within your own company, go blaze a trail of your own.

It is absolutely critical for competitiveness in the United States for us to really raise the bar in education, especially in math, in science, in technology.

What happened in the past can help you know what's going to happen in the future. That insight brings a next level of intelligence not just to sales and marketing but to ERP, where you can save more money in procurement or figure out whether the people you recruit are going to be successful in your organization.

In the finance world, we used to spend all of our time looking backwards, reporting on what happened. Can I book it? What are the numbers? Now it's about looking into the future. It's about planning and integration. The role of finance is now that of a partner in the business.

I don't like technology and all that. I'm a farm boy. I would rather live in that time when you had to provide for your family. I don't know. I'm a country kid, so I don't like modern technology.

My family aren't performers. They're just normal people. They don't understand this entertainment world. They just think it's mental. They have no idea what I'm doing in America.

My friends and family refused to give up on me even when I gave up on myself, and I wanted to hopefully encourage even just one person to try again.

I grew up in what you might call a relentlessly creative household. We were given art supplies, music supplies... Our mother knew enough to get us started and then stand back and not meddle. My parents never said to us, 'Don't you think you'll need something to fall back on?' They acted as though creativity was completely normal.