For good ideas to flow smoothly, your people have to first feel empowered to offer—and execute—them. You can’t motivate someone by giving him or her the position but not the power to do the job or to voice input. Powerlessness is the ultimate demotivator.

Facts are important, but the story matters. Poorly

Talk up your story anywhere someone is likely to ask you, “So what do you do?”

Conscious capitalism is about more than simply making money—although it’s about that too. It’s about creating a successful business that also connects supporters to something that matters to them and that has great impact in the world.

For me, the ultimate success of this book will be measured not by how many copies it sells but by the number of people it inspires and the number of letters we receive. So please keep me posted by posting your story at www.startsomethingthatmatters.com. I look forward to hearing from you. Carpe diem, Blake

when you need an address, there are creative ways of getting one.

Do Doodle (www.doodle.com):

The lesson: The power of your story isn’t just a way to connect to your ultimate consumer but is also a means of making you attractive to potential partners who want to attach themselves to something deeper than buying and selling.

When you dispose of formal titles, no one knows the pecking order. Both an executive vice president and an intern can have solid-sounding titles. This framework forces people from outside the company to treat everyone they meet as though they were the most important person in the company—because they don’t know they’re not.