**Great article we found on FastCompany.com.**

According to an old Chinese proverb, we’re given three chances to succeed in life. If we use them wisely, we get another three. If not, I’m afraid that’s it. There will be no more.

It’s True: What’s Past Is Prologue

Way back in 1994, on a plane home from giving a talk in Montreal, Canada, the person sitting beside me began chatting about a country I’d never visited–Australia. It was somewhat strange in light of the fact that only just earlier in the day a middle-aged Australian man had approached me, asking if I could give his advertising agency advice on how to crack this new thing called the “world wide web.” Bear in mind that this was 1994, the year Netscape was invented, the very year the Internet as we know it today was born. It was one of those inexplicable synchronicities: two different people from a faraway country approaching me in the same afternoon.

I hadn’t been back in Denmark much longer than a few days when I received a call from the Australian adman. He said he happened to be in Copenhagen and would like to stop by my office for a chat, if that was okay with me. When he arrived he explained that the concept of the world wide web was still preoccupying him. “Martin,” he said, “how do you reckon we should handle this Internet thing at the agency?”

I found the serendipity of the situation hard to resist. I gave it a moment, took out a pen and scribbled a few lines on a napkin: “I hereby employ Martin Lindstrom to oversee all WWW activity for my agency. Signed, Glenn Williams.” I passed the napkin Glenn’s way. He took one look at it and said, “What a splendid idea!” And to my surprise, he signed it. The deal was done, and within a few weeks I was on a flight bound for Australia. My mission was to start up the online arm of BBDO in Asia and Australia.

Identifying Opportunities

As I emptied my desk ready for my new venture down under, a colleague asked, “How do all these interesting opportunities come your way? What do you do?” I didn’t know what to answer then, but I do now. Not only have I always had an eye open to adventure and opportunity, but I have always had a tendency to seize them the moment they occur. Herein lies the problem for many. Too few of us see the opportunities that are presented to us. Even fewer of us dare to meet them head on and run with them.

**Great article we found on FastCompany.com.**

1. Hire the right people

Hire for passion and commitment first, experience second, and credentials third. There is no shortage of impressive CVs out there, but you should try to find people who are interested in the same things you are. You don’t want to be simply a stepping stone on an employee’s journey toward his or her own (very different) passion. Asking the right questions is key: What do you love about your chosen career? What inspires you? What courses in school did you dread? You want to get a sense of what the potential employee believes.

2. Communicate

Once you have the right people, you need to sit down regularly with them and discuss what is going well and what isn’t. It’s critical to take note of your victories, but it’s just as important to analyze your losses. A fertile culture is one that recognizes when things don’t work and adjusts to rectify the problem. As well, people need to feel safe and trusted, to understand that they can speak freely without fear of repercussion.

The art of communication tends to put the stress on talking, but listening is equally important. Great cultures grow around people who listen, not just to each other or to their clients and stakeholders. It’s also important to listen to what’s happening outside your walls. What is the market saying? What is the zeitgeist? What developments, trends, and calamities are going on?

3. Tend to the weeds

A culture of passion capital can be compromised by the wrong people. One of the most destructive corporate weeds is the whiner. Whiners aren’t necessarily public with their complaints. They don’t stand up in meetings and articulate everything they think is wrong with the company. Instead, they move through the organization, speaking privately, sowing doubt, strangling passion. Sometimes this is simply the nature of the beast: they whined at their last job and will whine at the next. Sometimes these people simply aren’t a good fit. Your passion isn’t theirs. Constructive criticism is healthy, but relentless complaining is toxic. Identify these people and replace them.

4. Work hard, play hard

To obtain passion capital requires a work ethic. It’s easy to do what you love. In the global economy we can measure who has a superior work ethic, who is leading in productivity. Not many industries these days thrive on a forty-hour work week. A culture where everyone understands that long hours are sometimes required will work if this sacrifice is recognized and rewarded.

**To read the rest of the article from the original source, click here.**

**Great article we found on Inc.com.**

Should you work for a big company first, or stay as far away from them as possible? Read the debate and weigh in.

As an Inc.com columnist it’s my job to take a position. (Columnists who don’t have opinions also don’t have readers.) The result, though, is a one-sided conversation where the natural exchange of ideas between people gets lost.

Sometimes I’m right. Sometimes I’m wrong.

Mostly I’m a combination of the two, because in business for every rule there’s an entrepreneur who proves the exception to that rule. My way is not your way, and neither is the right way… until we prove it works for us, as individuals.

So I’m trying something new:  I’ll pick a topic, pick someone smart–as you’ll soon see, in this case smarter than me–and we’ll trade emails.

The first is the email exchange between me and Dave Lavinsky. Dave is the founder ofGrowthink, a business-planning firm and investment bank that has helped over 500,000 entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses.

The premise: I think the average would-be entrepreneur should spend a few years working for a big company.

Dave disagrees.

Jeff: Maybe it’s only because my first post-college job was with a Fortune 500 company, so that’s all I know, but starting and running a business would have been way harder without the skill and experience I gained working in a corporate environment.

Would I want to work there today? Oh hell no.

But am I glad I once worked there? Absolutely.

Dave: Sure, you can learn some things from big companies–mainly how to run a big company. You’ll learn the type of corporate structures that are needed and the key departments, etc. But most of that doesn’t help you when you first start a company. For that, you need to think very differently. You need to think and act like an entrepreneur, which is the art and science of accomplishing more with less (less money, less human resources, less time, etc.)

**To read the rest of the article from the original source, click here.**