Crazy is a compliment.

When Edison first started out with his "crazy" idea for the light bulb, skeptics were unmoved. They called Thomas Edison a con man and taunted him to prove his bulb could really work. Despite the naysayers, Edison pushed on, demonstrating the importance of sticking with his "crazy" idea which would go on to turn him into one of the world's most well-known entrepreneurs. The key here is to fan the foolish fire no matter what!

You can't rock the boat without being told you're off your rocker. Entrepreneurs' greatest asset is their contrarian way of thinking, their tendency to zig when others zag, to go in a new direction. But many people don't give themselves permission to get going for fear that they will be called crazy. I say not only is crazy a compliment, but if you're not called crazy when you start something new, then you're not thinking big enough!

In my experience, some of the biggest obstacles to becoming a successful entrepreneur aren't financial or structural - they are internal and psychological. It's important for dreamers to believe in themselves and their ideas, to fend off the skeptics and find others who will share in their dreams. Once you understand that being called "crazy" is a compliment, you realize that you can get beyond other people's opinions and zig when others zag.

The first major issue you need to consider when focusing on today's workers: You have to know what motivates them. If you think it's primarily money, think again. The biggest single change in the workforce of the entrepreneurial age is the list of priorities workers bring to the job. Except paycheck there are new considerations: impact, freedom, quality of life. Employees today have higher expectations; they are looking for what I call "psychic equity". Make your workplace more entrepreneurial and flexible or find your workers fleeing to launch enterprises of their own.

One of the key skills you'll need to bring change to the world will really test your creativity, as well as your sanity, your patience, and your resolve. It has to do with how to take your dream and make it as real as possible. It doesn't really matter what your dream is, "going big" means doing it to the utmost. To do that, you need one thing: other dreamers to share your dream. If you learn to make your dream a team effort, you'll find the key to growing big.

Agile leaders encourage their teams to adjust and experiment constantly. In today's age of oversharing, the best leaders also have to be more open and accessible. To be effective, you also have to be aware of how others perceive you and cop to your flaws every now and then. One of the lesson to successful leadership may be quite challenging but very important. Expose yourself. Allow yourself to be vulnerable - less super and more human. These "Leadership 3.0" practices, as I call them, are critical to being an effective manager when you're getting started in today's world.