The most important step of all is the first step. Start something! What if that idea you have in the back of your head is a really good one, one that might end up helping tens of thousands of people? You owe it to the world ot act. Or maybe it will help only a few people: The same advice applies. If you don't do it, you are missing out on something big, and so are the people who could have been helped.

Giving feels good, but it's also good for the bottom line. Charity is a viable growth strategy for a lot of companies. Our customers get excited to be a part of what we're doing. If you ask anyone wearing Toms how they first heard about us, most won't mention an advertisement; they'll say a friend told them our story.

Vogue Magazine does something really interesting here: They make it look like I know exactly what I'm doing. Because Vogue made it look like I knew exactly what I'm doing, stores from all over started calling.

I don't think college is for everyone. School is awesome, but for me, I was learning a lot more outside the classroom in the real world than I was in school.

When you don't know the rules, you break them all. It's hard to take big risks when you know the history of an industry and what has worked and what didn't.

If you organize your life around your passion, you can turn your passion into your story and then turn your story into something bigger - something that matters.

I surround myself with inspirational quotations. This easy-to-follow piece of advice has played a huge role in my being able to get past my own fears and insecurities throughout my entrepreneurial career.