My advice is to stop trying to "network" in the traditional business sense, and instead just try to build up the number and depth of your friendships, where the friendship itself is its own reward. The more diverse your set of friendships are, the more likely you'll derive both personal and business benefits from your friendship later down the road. You won't know exactly what those benefits will be, but if your friendships are genuine, those benefits will magically appear 2-3 years later down the road.

Envision, create, and believe in your own universe, and the universe will form around you.

At Zappos, one of our core values is to Pursue Growth and Learning. In the lobby of our headquarters, we have a giving library where we give away books to employees and visitors that we think will help with their growth, both personally and professionally. I can't wait to add The Compound Effect to our library.

Just figure out what your personal values are then just make those the corporate values.

Inspire other communities and cities to reinvent themselves.

The brand is just a lagging indicator of a company's culture.

I think the most important thing is just if you hire people whose personal values match the corporate core values - and not just the stated ones.