Keep promises- Lead- and Don't be Afraid

Keep promises, no matter how small

Talk is cheap and meaningful customer relationships are built on promises. Same goes for your personal life, right?
Well, maybe.
Success is built on mutually trusting relationships with just about everybody. If you say you're going to walk the office dog? Well, you'd best walk the office dog.

Lead, don't dictate

There's a big difference between being a leader and being a boss.

Don't be afraid--or embarrassed--of your failures

Sir James Dyson, creator of the famous Dyson vacuum (who recently came by and vacuumed the Fast Company offices), is no stranger to failure. In fact, he embraces it.

I made 5,127 prototypes of my vacuum before I got it right. There were 5,126 failures. But I learned from each one. That's how I came up with a solution. So I don't mind failure. I've always thought that schoolchildren should be marked by the number of failures they've had. The child who tries strange things and experiences lots of failures to get there is probably more creative.

Dyson's point: If you want to discover something new, you're bound to fail a few times (or in his case, 5,126 times), and that's okay. It's also okay to quit something your heart isn't into, in order to get somewhere better.