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When you decide to start a new business, at first everything is happiness, enthusiasm and energy to start your project. Nevertheless you need to take into consideration that only 15% of new businesses make it past the first two years.

Therefore if you want your business to past its first two years, you need to take into consideration the following survival kit, which will serve you to move forward and get though the beginning.

You will find next the 11 lessons that compose the survival kit that every entrepreneur should know:

1. By yourself or accompanied: if you are going to start your business with an associate, keep in mind the possible risks that engaging in business with bad associate may involve. It is essential to acknowledge everything in writing, and especially important to specify what would happen in the case of disagreement or dispute.

2. The business has to be flexible: this allows the entrepreneur to test the idea and to change it if needed, being able to adapt it to a constant changing market.

3. Networking: surround yourself with the right people, nowadays networking is part of our everyday life inside the business world, you have to contribute to it with emotional intelligence to turn these relationships into something fruitful.

4. You have to be able to sell your idea: you must be very clear about what your product or service is. The clearer you are with your clients about your product, the easier it will be for your potential clients to understand your product.

5. Financial basis: you must have a financial cushion. If you have a normal daily job, we recommend you not to resign until your business is self-sustainable and working well. To do so, it is necessary to put in extra effort, it is not easy to work the whole day and later to work extra on another project, which is the one that really excites you and the one in which you want to succeed in.

6. Choose an idea that excites you: Building a new business is hard work, in which you will have a lot of difficulties along the way; therefore it is necessary to love your project, of course, being realistic and open for changes along the way.

7. Be cautious: Plan and manage well your budget and spending, it is important to spend the least possible amount of money until the business begins to bear its fruits.

8. Your image is important: worry about designing a coherent identity that lasts with time. Your clients must perceive quality and professionalism from your brand.

9. Delegate: when setting off a new business you have to be careful of not letting all the minor administrative tasks to take up all your time, if you can and have the resources, delegate to specialized third parties, this is called outsourcing.

10. Many-sided and flexible team: as the business grows you will need a good team, but be cautious, this team has to have very clear the vision and mission of your business.

11. Be open to the possibility of readjusting your initial idea: it is possible that your initial business plan does not work and you have to do some changes. You need to be aware, that when you engage in a new business probably you will have to change your first idea at any moment along this way.

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There has been a bright light shining recently on the lack of diversity in Silicon Valley, and the tech world in general. The discussion became so intense that it bled over into the larger corporate world, so that the beam widened to focus first on boards of directors, and then the entire workforce. I believe that we are at a tipping point in the discussion. The question no one seems to be able to answer definitively is, why are the business and technology industries still so deficient when it comes to people of color in leadership roles?

Recent conversations of mine lead me to believe that part of the answer lies in lack of role models. And it is not because they don't exist, because there are plenty of them. It's just that they are largely invisible. Even other highly accomplished, prominent executives are not aware of dozens of their peers.

Over the last two years of traveling across the United States, I have met over 150 fascinating innovators and leaders of great influence. Their accomplishments would easily lead you to expect them to be household names. Yet when I mentioned 20 of them to three different people who fit comfortably in the same group, a vast majority of the names were unknown. One knew 7 of them, the others less than half that.

If these leaders of color are not known to their peers, how can they be effective role models to those who would follow in their footsteps? How can children aspiring to be scientists, young adults with an aptitude for entrepreneurship and those already beginning to climb the ladder of success, benefit from the experience of those who have successfully blazed the trail before them...if few know about it?

This is certainly not the case in sports. Even the entertainment industry is not lagging quite so far behind as it was, though the process is still a long hard slog. But while Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Oprah Winfrey became legends in their own time, how is it we are not hearing more about the Chairman of Microsoft?

Not only does John W. Thompson lead one of the giants of American technology companies, but he was an early player in Silicon Valley innovation. And there are so many more. Isn't the man who invented the color monitor, and holds three of IBM's 9 patents, worthy of a magazine cover? Wouldn't you expect the former CEO of Onyx Pharmaceuticals, who created a cancer drug and sold his company for $10.4 billion, to be a household name?

What's important to note here is that these are business leaders who have been performing steadily for years, if not decades. They have outperformed their competition, carved out unique subject matter expertise, invented much needed health care solutions or are quietly, successful and profitably leading Silicon Valley corporations and boards they serve on into the future. Not only should they should be on the cover of magazines, they should be serving on more corporate boards, invested in and collaborated with to improve business outcomes and enhance innovation.
These recent conversations of mine made me realize that this has become a trend in my career. I have somehow come to know about all of these amazing people, while a vast majority of the public is not aware of their existence let alone impact. So I would like to introduce a small group of business geniuses. There are literally hundreds more men and women, but I hope you will find these as inspiring as I do. Google them! Our world could benefit from their stories. From their profiles being raised. Hundreds of others just like them are also out there.

1. Frank Baker, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, Siris Capital
2. Dr. Keith Black, Neurosurgeon and Inventor
3. Byron Boston, CEO, Dynex Capital
4. Lloyd Carney, CEO, Brocade
5. Dr. James Cash, Business Advisor
6. Ted Colbert, Chief Information Officer and VP of Information Technology, The Boeing Company
7. Tony Coles, M.D., Yumanity Therapeutics, Co-Founder (former Onyx Pharmaceuticals CEO)
8. Ed Dandridge, Chief Communications Officer, Marsh & McLennan Companies, Inc.
9. Lloyd Dean, CEO, Dignity Health
10. Mark Dean, Inventor
11. David Drummond, SVP, Corporate Development, Chief Legal Officer and Secretary, Alphabet Inc.
12. Chinedu Echeruo, Inventor of HopStop.com and Tripology.com
13. Lonnie Johnson, Inventor
14. Strive Masiyiwa, Founder and Executive Chairman, Econet Wireless
15. Emmit McHenry, Founder, Network Solutions
16. Robert F. Smith, Chairman and CEO, Vista Equity Partners
17. Kevin Stephens, President, Commercial & Advertising Operations
18. David Steward, CEO, World Wide Technologies
19. John W. Thompson, Chairman, Microsoft
20. Bernard J. Tyson, Chairman and CEO, Kaiser Permanente

About the Author
As the founder and CEO of Culture Shift Labs, Andrea Hoffman is a business growth strategist, advisor to senior leaders, author and subject matter expert on the "diverse elite." She helps bold thinking executives and corporations assess and create growth strategies and tactics. Email her to ask why friends affectionately call her a "leprechaun".

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I've spoken to literally thousands of women about intentional networking and always ask "How many of you have gotten a job, promotion, or large piece of business from a connection in your network?" Most of the people in the room raise their hands and this is consistent with surveys that say 65% to 85% of all jobs happen through connections.

What is curious to me is that most women are like I was -- we don't think of our network as a means to achieving career goals -- and personal and professional networks are likely the most powerful resource in our toolkit. Most of us naively hope our work performance stands on its own and that we will rise on the corporate ladder based on merit. Corporations say they are meritocracies/pay for performance cultures and we believe them. We believe it even though there is significant evidence to the contrary. Women are entering the workforce in large numbers, getting strong performance reviews and working hard, yet there continues to be a disproportionate lack of women in senior ranks. And what is most frustrating is we frequently see men getting promoted into jobs where we know there are more qualified women who could fill those roles -- but the man who got the job is better connected to that (male dominated) senior leadership group making the decision.

This is not something I had thought about until a lack of network support had a negative effect on me personally. I then transformed my career by making a concerted effort, even as an introvert (it is a myth that good networkers are extroverts), to build a network inclusive of many influential senior level executives, and I did it during work hours. I also recognized, while in the Chief Diversity Officer role that building inclusive networks is one of the most successful ways to change representation at the highest levels.

I found there are two factors that have the greatest impact on representation at the highest levels: (1) having advocates and (2) having a strong network. When we teach women how to build and leverage intentional networks, inclusive of engaging advocates in their networks, women can influence both of these factors that ultimately support career success and growth. It is not that women don't have the skills to build a strong network, they do, it is that they have not been intentional about who is in their network and they are not opportunistic about leveraging their network for career growth.

I suggest thinking of your core network as a Personal Board of Directors (PBOD). A PBOD is typically between 8 - 15 people (you're not looking for 100's of people). The goal is not to collect cards or get more connections on social media sites. What is important is to carefully select and be as intentional about the make up of your PBOD as you would be if your career were a company's board.

Are your PBOD members the people who will help you achieve your career goals? If not, you need to start thinking about others to add to your PBOD.

It's important to strategically build a PBOD with a diversity of people including about 25% who are a level or two above you at work, or leaders in your field. These are people who are willing to help you achieve your career goals. They are recognized for having the cachet, and desire to invest in you. They will help you see potential that might not be immediately obvious to you. And, they are willing to open doors to opportunities, clear away obstacles and even fight for you when necessary.

Their personal endorsement of you is often all you will need to have other people interested in your career and help you achieve your goals. Through your relationships with these power players you stay current, get to know the informal leaders, and often discover solutions to stubborn professional problems.

Consider adding someone outside of your inner circle for your Personal Board of Directors. Is there someone in your existing network you can reach out to for a warm introduction to someone you want to cultivate a relationship with and ultimately invite to be a member of your PBOD? Once you have an introduction you need to build your own relationship. Make the meeting easy and attractive for people you are hoping to add to your PBOD. Start with a request for just a few minutes with them to address a targeted issue -- or ask them a specific question that you would like their advice or guidance. Contact an expert in the area you are working or someone a level or two above whose advice you would value. Asking for help with one specific project, on one topic, makes it very time bound, provides the person with information on what you are working on and gives you a reason to meet with them. Always follow up with the person to let them know the outcome of your project and how their advice helped. This establishes a relationship and lets the person know that you will not take a lot of their time, and that their input makes a difference.

Networking has to be a win/win. When I ask for help from anyone in my network I also ask if there is anything I can do to support them. Be a connector for others in your network and look for ways to support the people in your network -- expecting nothing in return -- and you will build strong connections.

Ben Franklin said the best way to get someone to be an ally is to ask them to help you and it has proven to be true for me as well as for many women. We're all wired to want to contribute. Give others the gift of the chance to feel good by helping you.

Please don't add networking as a task to your busy lives, but make leveraging your network the way you work. As you strengthen your network, you will find the "networking genius" in you! You will work more efficiently cross-functionally, be more connected to your company's overall goals, provide better support for your team's career goals and ultimately tap into the right connections at the right time to get the work done.

The intentional network must be exactly that. Intentional. When you build an intentional network success will follow.

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You spent hours doing the background research and more hours organizing all of the data and information. You focused on extracting the essential elements from the countless documents you read, summarizing it all and adding your own conclusions and call to action. Finally you burned the midnight oil arranging your Powerpoint so that it was succinct, creative and professional. You believed your boss and coworkers would be amazed at your talent, intelligence and hard work.

But now, you're scared. You begin to have second thoughts about the entire presentation.

What if you couldn't pull it off? What if you stumbled or your boss and cohorts frowned upon your ideas?

What if someone asked a question you couldn't answer? What if... ?

STOP!

You just spent many hours focusing on creating something very important. Why would you allow fear of failure to derail you?

Unfortunately, this scenario is all too common. You are able to be so focused and directed, with a sincere intention to create something you know is going to be great, but then when it's time to launch, you get the pre-launch jitters. Well, some of us do.

Here's a secret: even some of the most successful leaders, corporate executives and entrepreneurs feel excitement about launching a new product, idea or pitch, but they don't allow fear to grip them. They simply "let it land" where it may. The best leaders take the fear of uncertainty out of their success equation. And that's how they create a WiN!

There is always a great deal of excitement (and some anxiety) with any new launch of a product, idea, or business. Calm those fears. Calm any propensity to think what "could go wrong ". Instead, switch it up: What if everything goes so right? Honestly, most often reality falls somewhere in the middle, between what you wanted/expected to happen and what actually happens. And more often than not, the upside is so UP, that you would never have imagined just how good it could be! So why give way to fear? It will only short you in the long run and cause a ton of needless suffering along the way.

I am a huge believer of "endless possibilities" (shout out to Deepak Chopra for this mantra).

When you are dedicated, focused and persevering to create anything with a beautiful intention behind it, let go of your fears and, let it FLY ! Let it land where it lands. No regrets , no awful self esteem "would have/could have's". Just acceptance. Flow with where it takes you. Who knows, there could be an awesome opportunity just lurking behind door No. 1, door No. 2, or even door No. 3!

And you will get to revel in that! Fear no MORE!

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BEIJING -- Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has not only read Jeremy Rifkin's book "The Third Industrial Revolution" and taken it to heart. He and his colleagues have also made it the core of the country's 13th five-year plan announced in Beijing on Oct. 29.

"The future development of China," Premier Li told us at the outset of the "Understanding China" dialogues organized by the Berggruen Institute's 21st Century Council, "is about economic transformation and upgrading -- about expanding domestic consumption and advancing the new type of industrialization through the application of Internet technologies, urbanization and agricultural modernization. And it is about pursuing green growth. This will bring new opportunities to the balanced development of other economies and the world's sustainable development." The aim, in the words of the Chinese premier, is to move from "quantity" of growth to "quality."

The aim, in the words of the Chinese premier, is to move from 'quantity' of growth to 'quality.'

Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, the Politburo Standing Committee member in charge of the economy, laid out for us the comprehensive dimensions of the plan that will guide China's development over the next half decade. The new buzzwords in his presentation could have been pulled right out of the series of essays by Rifkin -- and responses by global political and thought leaders -- that we have been publishing in recent weeks in The WorldPost. Zhang envisions linking up China's manufacturing and infrastructure through the resource and logistical efficiency enabled by the "Internet of Things" -- what the Chinese call "Internet Plus." He spoke of "circular" use of resources in which waste is recycled and about "weakening the urban concentration of Beijing" by integrating development through decentralized, smart infrastructure in the northern provinces surrounding the capital. Under the new plan, he said, the first criteria in the promotion evaluations of mayors, governors and party secretaries will be their "green" accomplishments.

Above all, the mantra now on the lips of every cadre and bureaucrat in every corner of China is "innovation" and "mass entrepreneurship." Though it is questionable exactly how fully the Communist Party apparatchiks grasp what this means in any practical sense, it nonetheless reflects the recognition of China's leaders that the export manufacturing model that has resulted in the high-growth rates of recent decades due to massive inputs of labor and capital has about run out of steam. New wealth and sustained growth, they now understand, can only come from the innovation of industry through the application of information technology.

Can Innovation Be Planned?

Slogans, of course, don't make an economic revolution. The big question about this great leap forward proposed by China's leaders is whether innovation can be planned, and just how far they are willing to go in giving "a decisive role to the market," as President Xi Jinping told us in a separate conversation, as the vital spur to "mass" entrepreneurship.

Jack Ma's Alibaba, Baidu and the rest of China's high-tech companies are clear evidence of the entrepreneurial genius of Chinese society when left to its own devices. Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and a top venture capitalist, observed at the meeting that Chinese start-ups have an edge over Silicon Valley entrepreneurs because "they work much harder and will do anything to win."

But there is a core challenge for the Communist Party as it tries to shift from the Second Industrial Revolution to the third: innovation entails steady disruption while the Party seeks above all to maintain stability. It is not easy to see how you can both clamp down and "purify" the Internet by limiting the flow of information, as Xi has called for, while at the same time extolling "Internet Plus" innovation. Can "Internet Plus" and "Internet minus" go together? Where the Chinese authorities decide to draw the line between "freedom" and "order," as we discussed with Internet czar Lu Wei in Beijing, will determine the scope of innovation-based prosperity.

Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel with China's Internet czar Lu Wei and Berggruen Institute Chairman Nicolas Berggruen in Beijing. Berggruen Institute.

One can be more confident on the integration of smart technology and infrastructure side of China's ambitions. That lends itself to the long-term continuity of policy and purpose that has been the strength of the one-party system. On this score, the five-year plan marks only the beginning of the transition China's economic managers hope to complete through their longer range policy known as "Made in China 2025." German Chancellor Angela Merkel also visited Beijing recently, signing agreements with Premier Li to bolster coordination between the two manufacturing powers. Germany has a similar plan to integrate the Internet into industry called "Industry 4.0." Here, Germany and China clearly have an edge on the U.S., where we have plenty of mass entrepreneurship but precious little political capacity to build out the infrastructure of the future.

China faces other challenges as well in the transition ahead. To stimulate faltering growth in recent years, it has unleashed vast amounts of credit into the economy, above all generating overcapacity in real estate. The massive, empty apartment buildings one used to associate with second and third-tier cities in the boonies, are now plentiful even around primary cities like Beijing. By some estimates, the resulting debt ratio is more than 280 percent of GDP.

Where the Chinese authorities decide to draw the line between 'freedom' and 'order' will determine the scope of innovation-based prosperity.

This debt-fueled effort to keep up the growth rate was necessary because of slackening demand in the global economy upon which China's export model has depended. It is clear that there is now an interdependence that cannot be disentangled; the world needs the Chinese economy in order to grow, but China needs the world economy to be healthy for it to grow.

In our conversation with President Xi at the Great Hall of the People in early November, he pinned his hope on this score to the G-20 summit being hosted by China next year. As Xi put it, he wants to "cement" the role of the G-20 as the governing body that can coordinate common policies to foster global growth. Not incidentally, the meeting will be held in Hangzhou, the hometown of Jack Ma and headquarters of Alibaba -- the foremost emblems of China's Third Industrial Revolution.

Earlier on WorldPost:

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Networking is weird. It's weird because you're in a room with people you probably don't know and no one wants to be sold anything but everyone is there to sell something and most people feel horrible that they have to hawk their product or service like some sideshow carnie. It all feels a little dirty. We tell ourselves we're there to build relationships but really it's all so unnatural that we just want to get through the damn experience. And if that isn't enough to make you sweat through your suit, you've been told to create an elevator pitch and make sure your name tag is on the right shoulder instead of the left. If you hate networking or feel as if it's manufactured and manipulative and cruelly unnatural, well welcome to the human race, we're happy to have you!

I once went to an event where the speaker's networking advice exemplified why humans are so terrified by the notion of networking. She insisted that you have to have an elevator pitch. Not just any pitch. You should also sound like you could be a host on a children's television show. For instance mine might go something like, "My name is Ann marie and I teach people how to make money because if you can't make money, how are you going to make your life happen?" This sort of singsong tagline makes me want to cry for humanity. If this is what's necessary to be "memorable" I would like to be forgotten. It's akin to the name game where you say something like, "My name is Ann marie and I came from Alabama on an alligator." I'm an outgoing, try anything kind of gal but this forced networking behavior is something that should be reserved for torturing the worst of humanity.

The speaker also insisted that you wear a jacket so you could put your business cards in the left pocket and the cards you were collecting in the right pocket - always making sure to have that name tag on the right shoulder so it's easy to find. What? Do the people you network with have the IQ of raisins? If you need GPS to find my name tag on the left shoulder instead of the right, I can't do business with you. I don't even want to speak with you because I'm afraid, no terrified, at the thought of doing business with you. Has this ever been an issue? Has someone been completely lost searching everywhere on the right side of someone's body for their name tag and then finally seeing it on the left say, "Wow! I thought I'd be here all night looking for that sticky, "Hello, my name is box. Whew. You sure are a rebel aren't cha?"

I sat through this presentation and started to develop a facial tick when the presenter asked us to stand up and introduce ourselves with our catchy pitch. I'm an extrovert but even I start sweating at the discomfort of the awkward exchange I'm about to have with a stranger because I know we are going to walk away filled with shame at behaving to the business equivalent of dancing bears.

People get paid to teach people these skills. I do not jest and this is not fiction. People get paid to train people to not act like people. It's really effed up.

This kind of well meaning advice is excellent for very young children who behave like wild animals or aliens unfamiliar with human behavior but for the rest of us it's like asking us to sing a Karen Carpenter song in an elevator. Any direction, training or advice that strips the humanity out of human interactions is not sustainable. We all agree that business is created through meaningful relationships but then we create situations in which the norm is to behave like a non-human, and we fail to connect.

And because networking itself is not disgusting enough, some genius decided to marry the most offensive activities in modern society to torture people even more - networking and speed dating. It's called speed networking and was invented by some misanthropic sadist who wants to watch grown people cry and develop intestinal difficulty. Who thought of this fresh hell? The goal is literally to collect as many cards as you can because NOTHING says business relationships like a fist full of sweaty cards of people you cannot remember one single fact about. The whole artificial production causes us to laugh a little too easily and say things that make us look like we have limited social skills and low IQs. If you get through such an event without crapping your pants or drinking excessively, I congratulate you. You are a warrior.

We also have a tendency to behave like middle school students at an eighth grade dance. I can't tell you how many times I've gone to a networking event where there are nothing but closed circles with a few people orbiting on the outside hoping for some human kindness. It's among the saddest things you've ever witnessed watching someone try to make eye contact with a member of the circle so they can participate in the discussion and end their public shame at being all alone. When someone notices someone alone and invites him or her into the circle, that act of decency tells me more about that person than any elevator pitch or extra large business card. It tells me that they notice other people, they have empathy, and they also take responsibility for those around them. Next time you go to a networking event, pay attention to how people behave and if they exclude or include.

If you're an introvert or an extrovert like me who doesn't care for networking events for all of the reasons I've mentioned, then find the other introvert or introverts in the room. When someone is standing alone or looking lost, they are extremely grateful for someone who takes the time to connect.

Rather than seeing everyone as a dollar sign, be curious about people. Ask questions. Don't think about what you can sell someone; think instead about how you can help someone. Go with the goal of learning about people instead of collecting cards. Card collection is great if you have a paper mache project you're working on but if you want to connect with people then worry more about how you engage than how many rectangles of cardboard you have in your pocket. People will forget your pitch and possibly lose your card but they will remember how you made them feel. What do you want people to feel when they meet you? If I met a real estate agent I would be more likely to refer him or her business based on how they made me feel than the fact that they told me they sold more houses in the county than any other agent. I don't care if they have a business card shaped like a house or hand me a pen with their name on it. I will remember that this person felt like someone I could call if I got anxious during escrow. I will remember that they were respectful instead of slick, kind and smart instead of dismissive and self-centered and perhaps made me laugh. Yep, the 'f' word - feeling emerges once more. You leave an interaction and that is what remains.

The market is flooded with competition. There are a million real estate agents, five trillion social media experts and more business and life coaches than cats. I can't remember exactly where this data came from but I will for sure site the source at the end of the book not to worry.

Networking Activity Sheet - Do it Like a Human

1. Before you attend a networking event make sure that the event will be a good source of prospective clients or referral partners. Create some criteria for yourself so that your networking is focused and strategic.

2. You should absolutely be able to communicate what you do in a succinct way but be more concerned about learning about people than talking about yourself.

3. Get permission to follow up. Don't wait until you leave to request a meeting. Get permission to follow up in the moment.

4. Follow up within 24 hours. This is not some weird dating experiment. The longer you wait the more likely someone is to forget you.

5. If you feel uncomfortable or alone, look for someone else that is on his or her own and introduce yourself. The walls are completely capable of holding themselves up and do not need your assistance so step away from them.

6. If you know lots of people there, don't get stuck in a circle of people you know. Invite others into your circle.

7. Be curious about people. The more you ask, the more you'll learn and the better you'll be able to help someone.

8. Don't get stuck. If you need to extract yourself then do so. Don't spend the evening with someone who is driving you to drink excessive plastic cups of bad wine.

9. Don't make it a card collection contest. It's not about getting a hundred cards; it's about meeting a few great people.

10. After the event you need to have a follow up strategy that involves something more than a shoebox. Connect on LinkedIn, send a personal e-mail, and put each person in your database with good notes and follow up alerts as appropriate.

Networking Language - Speak Like a Human

1. Tell me your story. How did you get here?

2. It's been great getting to know you. I'm going to introduce myself to a couple more people.

3. I would love to connect further. What's a good day for us to chat next week for a few minutes by phone? (Notice I don't set up a $1,000 coffee meeting.)

4. Who are you interested in meeting?

5. Compliment people. Be sincere but notice when someone is wearing a particularly lovely color or great piece of jewelry. We all love to be acknowledged. It's a great way to connect that will be appreciated.

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My fifth-grade classmate Mary Beth was one of the nicest people in our school. But playing against her in the girls' basketball league, I found her incredibly intimidating.

This was not the NBA. Back in those days, girls' teams had three guards and three forwards and only the forwards could shoot. Forwards stayed on one half of the court, guards on the other. I was a forward.

But Mary Beth towered over me, and I was exasperated every time I was up against her.

After one game, my dad pulled me aside and told me I'd never be able to compete with Mary Beth on height, so I'd have to find another way around her. And he taught me how to do a jump shot. I was the only girl in the county who could do a jump shot, so I was a phenom. And I got over my frustration with Mary Beth.

I recently relayed this story at a panel hosted by NBC Sports on how strategies learned through sports can help develop leadership skills and career success, particularly in women. Learning that jump shot was a lesson that later helped me build a business: Don't let obstacles like Mary Beth stand in your way. Play to your strengths and develop other skills to compensate for your weaknesses.

I have long advocated for women in leadership, especially since stepping down as CEO of WWE in 2009. It is well documented that women are underrepresented in leadership. Women are 51 percent of the population, but only 20 percent of Congress. Women earn the majority of college degrees, yet on average earn only 78 cents for every dollar a man earns. Women make 80 percent of household spending decisions, yet only 5 percent of Fortune 500 companies are led by women. Numerous books, conferences and pundits have examined theories behind these gaps, but whatever the reason, a simple truth remains -- we need more women in leadership.

It's not just the guys who can advance their careers on the tennis court, baseball diamond or golf course. Even my old recreational center basketball games held some valuable lessons:

Make plays happen. Don't wait for them to come to you. As a basketball player, I was competitive but I also wanted to include everyone on the team, so I passed the ball a lot. My coach told me that wasn't always the best thing to do. If you have a good shot, take it, he told me. That will benefit the team, too. In business, I advised employees not to wait for the phone to ring. Take initiative and make the phone ring on someone else's desk.

Play every position. Like a good utility player, be willing to do anything, even if it's not in your job description. Early on, I answered the phones, managed the books, even wrote our first magazine. As our company grew, I understood every aspect of the business because I had been there, from licensing products to negotiating contracts. I have even been in the ring as a performer and learned how to take a few hits! You will not excel in every position, but you will know from experience how you can best contribute to the team's overall goals.

Be a good coach for your team. I believe in leadership by example. As a CEO, I never expected anyone to work harder than I was willing to work myself. A coach calls the plays, but understands the strengths and weaknesses of each player and gets them to work as a team toward the greatest benefit for all. Praise in public, criticize in private.

Learn to accept defeat. Business, like sports, is about winning and losing. Of course you would rather win, but handle a loss with dignity. Learn from your mistakes, understand what could have been done differently, and do better the next time. All eyes are on the coach or the boss to set the tone after a setback. If the boss stays down, it's like a pernicious infection that will spread throughout the company and bring everyone down.

Bring your "A-Game" every day. Show up ready to deliver. In sports, practice your drills, condition your body, and give it your all at every game. As a CEO, I had a motto for employees: "Treat every day at work like it's your first day on the job." Take a risk. Come in with a fresh approach. If that fails, try again. If you have never failed, you haven't tried.

Be competitive, but be yourself. Women who are assertive at work are too often labeled as bossy. Or that other "b" word. Don't think you have to act like "one of the guys" or be someone you're not to express your authority. As a leader, set expectations and hold people accountable, but be authentic. You may still be labeled, but you will never regret being yourself.

You don't have to go to business school to learn to be a leader. Opportunities to lead are everywhere, and the path to the boardroom may just run through the locker room. Or in my case, through Mary Beth.

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The tide is rapidly turning towards widespread city acceptance of the need for a shift to a low carbon economy. This was just one of many important headline messages coming from an unprecedented group of leading city figures who met last week at the magnificent Guildhall, in the heart of the City of London, to discuss climate change, the 'carbon bubble' and the transition to a low carbon economy.

Another headline of the event was that world leaders have now made it clear that they will defend the line of a 'two degree planet' in the upcoming COP21 climate negotiations in Paris, and that investors must heed these political and market messages and shift to a low carbon roadmap or risk their shirts.

In a specially recorded video address HRH The Prince of Wales told the Guildhall audience that "The finance community needs to consider whether to divest from sectors involved in fossil fuels, and whether to invest in sectors which support the low carbon economy and are therefore better position in terms of risks and opportunities."

The event was attended by CEOs, Chairs and senior executives from many leading city firms as well as 300 leaders from the worlds of finance, business, government, policy, civil society, faith, philanthropy, higher education and health.

A major theme running throughout the event was that of stranded carbon assets, a concept that many leading figures have come out in support of. For example Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England has said that the "vast majority of reserves are unburnable" if global temperature rises are to be limited to below 2C and that this represents "potentially huge losses" to asset managers. Because of this the Bank of England and the G20 are both now examining the risk this issue poses to the global economy.

Sarah Butler-Sloss, representing Europeans for Divest:Invest, and one of the organisers of the event, spoke of the rapid flow of global investments divesting from fossil fuels and into the low carbon economy, amounting to over $2.6tn. She told the audience that "There are overwhelmingly strong financial as well as moral and ethical reasons for doing this" and went on to say that Blackrock, the world's largest money manager, is exploring a fossil fuel free fund development for launch in early 2016.

In a rallying call for action from the city Butler-Sloss said that "We urgently need you the finance sector to provide good investment opportunities aligned with a two degree world. I call on you - our colleagues in the asset management world - to take a leadership position and to become future makers not future takers in the way we respond to the dire threats of climate change".

Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change delivered a rousing speech in which she thanked HRH The Prince of Wales and Mark Carney for their leadership on carbon risk issues and referred to a pre event CEO breakfast that morning at the Guildhall which Carney had attended. Figueres emphasised the unstoppable pace of climate negotiations and how that is influencing the way markets approach carbon risk.

Highlighting a number of market signals, including the $2.6tn of assets already divested from fossil fuels, she talked of a super tanker which had now firmly changed its course and "a major transition already in place". According to Figueres there is no doubt that the world will transition away from fossil fuels, it is only question is pace of shift.

In a phase that was echoed by other speakers Figueres said that "we are not in a world of business as usual, we're in a world of business as urgent" and argued that, while a climate change deal to be agreed in Paris in December will not come up with a global carbon price, this was not relevant because "We already have a strong carbon price signal" in many jurisdictions around the world, with almost 80% of global emissions under some sort of carbon pricing now.

Figeures made it clear that the Paris deal will sketch out a roadmap to a net-zero emission economy in which most reserves booked by fossil fuel companies will not be able to be burnt and will therefore become stranded assets. But she warned that, despite this, the energy industry is still banking on ever-rising demand for its products as if nothing has changed. For Figueres, "these [projections] are pure fiction".

Mark Campanale from one of the event organisers, Carbon Tracker, echoed this saying that fossil fuel company growth plans are "irreconcilable with the carbon budget which is doubtless going to be agreed in Paris".

From other panel discussions it became clear that many investors are increasingly concerned that fossil fuel groups and their insurers are on the wrong side of a powerful historical shift and could be swamped with exorbitant class-action lawsuits along the lines of tobacco and asbestos litigation in the US. Abyd Karmali, Bank of America's head of climate finance commented that talk of such litigation risks "is setting off alarm bells that there could be long tail risks" for those not incorporating such issues into their analysis and that "Paris gives us all a non-exchangeable, one-way ticket to a low-carbon economy."

Karmali said that because of this, and the increased risks associated with carbon heavy assets, his bank has now accelerated its shift out of coal stocks to "a very low level" and that Bank of America now have three times the exposure to renewables as they do to coal. Underlining how significant this shift is, he described this as "remarkable for a conservative institution like ourselves".

Mark Lewis of Barclays shook the audience with a cautionary tale that ten years ago, the utility sector ignored the signs of the coming tsunami of renewables and that those utilities lost 60-80% of their value. He also pointed out that sell side analysts completely misread the way the market would shift on renewables. He warned that translating what comes out of the Paris talks for financial analysts will not be straight forward and it will need their clients to be calling for more incorporation of carbon risk in asset mangers investments for this issue to become of focus for most mainstream financial analysis.

Echoing what Figueres had said, Lewis underlined that a huge market shift away from high carbon assets is underway, whether or not analysts are always recognising this, and quoted the CEO of energy company ENEL that "there is a huge tide flowing, you can decide in which direction to swim but the flow is not in your control and nor is the direction it is flowing."

However, despite some city institutions being more and more engaged with these issues, Helena Morrissey, CEO of Newton and chairman of Investment Management Association, warned that the impact of climate policy is still not high enough on agenda of most investment companies and that there is a need for an end to silos and a shift to integrated investing in which climate change becomes fully part of the mainstream way of doing thing for city institutions.

Morrissey warned her peers that "We slept walked into the financial crisis and we have no excuse for sleepwalking into a climate crisis" and called for more sense of urgency from the investment community who should stop delaying tough decisions for lack of a clear enough roadmap from politicians. She also called for more pressure from clients and others to encourage bodies like the Investment Association to take carbon risk more seriously.

Anthony Hobley of Carbon Tracker echoed this idea of sleepwalking into crisis saying that the old energy order is living on borrowed time and compared what is happening today with the inevitable shift away from carbon to the decline of Britain's canals in the mid-19th century when railways burst onto the scene and drove down cargo tolls, destroying the business model.

Giving Kodak and blockbuster as more recent examples, Hobley pointed out that technology takes no prisoners and to a long graveyard of industries and companies that stuck doggedly to business as usual at key inflexion points and said that "Incumbents invariably fail to see it coming."

Hobley underlined what other speakers had said in terms of the message expected to come from the December Paris climate summit saying that "Most international laws or treaties are not about breaking new ground. They are about codifying what the major powers are doing anyway. The success of Paris will be in codifying what is already happening. For incumbents and for you as investors it will open a window for you to see the transition that is already taking place. It will give the incumbents an opportunity to get on the train before it departs the station."

Lord Adair Turner, former Director General of the Confederation of British Industry, chair of the Financial Services Authority and the UK Climate Change Committee, echoed much of what was said by others when he closed the event and said that "Businesses should embrace a low carbon economy, particularly in the wake of the VW scandal rather than finding fancy, non honest ways of denying what is coming towards them." Turner also warned that asset managers who are not talking about how to keep the two-thirds of high carbon stranded assets in the ground should not be taken seriously on climate change.

Turner said that the transition to a low carbon economy will be "scrappy, organic and non-linear" and require all of us to accept responsibility and not abdicate it to politicians and in closing the event called for business, asset owners, and asset managers to "co-create the energy transition" we need in order to combat climate change.

The conclusion for those of us attending the conference was that we can now be optimistic about the shift to a low carbon economy, but only if we all take responsibility. Here is what you can do as an individual: pledge to Divest:Invest and sign up to Share Action's Green Light Campaign to start lobbying your pension fund to engage with these issues.

You can view the video recording of the speeches and panel discussions here.

Jules Peck, a Founding Partner at Jericho Chambers, is Strategy Adviser to Europeans for Divest:Invest.

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I love Paris. Thanks to my job I am fortunate enough to travel there several times a year. And I would like to offer a few words of advice to those attending (or planning to attend) the Climate Conference (COP 21) later this year.

Many tourists come to Paris with an idealized and romanticized notion of what the city will be like. And of course, the City of Lights is indeed a special place. But it is also a 'real' city, with real inhabitants, real businesses, real issues (like air pollution), etc. And those who cannot reconcile the reality with their fantasies may find that it does not live up to their expectations.

In addition to being a great tourist destination, Paris is a center of commerce and business. From those selling trinkets at the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Coeur to those multinationals headquartered there, Paris understands business. And the climate meeting is about business (as well as government) doing its part of protect conditions on Earth. This is a serious business we are in; and that cannot be lost on those outside the meetings themselves.

Here then, my advice:

People come to Paris to find, or rekindle, romance. And it is certainly a great city for that. But the COP meeting cannot be only about coming together for shared experiences with people who share the same values. It must appeal to more than just our hearts. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs tells us how important the 'social' aspect is but COP21 needs to avoid the impression that the meeting is nothing more than a giant boondoggle of wine, camaraderie and a good time, then the messages must be about more.

Learn from the impressionists. We all know that pictures of meetings are boring, especially compared to the evening in Paris when the light is just so perfect. But like the photo (above) that I took late one December evening after a long day of work; people are far more likely to see the good times one is having if that is all one chooses to share. Share both the seriousness as well as the lighter moments.

Paris is far cleaner than it used to be a few decades ago. Trash and recycling receptacles are easy to find and use. Organizers must make sure that there are enough, and that they are emptied frequently. And attendees need to use them. There is nothing quite as compelling for those who would attempt to discredit our efforts as the images of climate meetings swimming in trash.

Take inspiration from the great writers like Balzac, Victor Hugo, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein and Earnest Hemingway who have found their muse along the banks of the Seine. The climate meeting must be driven by plot (what happens and what it inspires), and not just characters (big names). It must offer a compelling story. And this includes digital media where the images and tweets from the COP21 meeting will set the idea in the public's mind in real time. And please, as part of your narrative, do not equate 'sustainability' with the environment. The environmental pillar is a critical part of sustainability, of course, but advancing the human condition and increasing profitability are also essential elements that are lost too often in the words those who should know better sometimes use.

Lastly, do not waste this opportunity. I have been lucky enough to spend many days and weeks in what is acknowledged to be one of the world's most beautiful cities. I have worked long hours and hard and I have also taken advantage of my nights and weekends to enjoy the city. Do so, because opportunities like yours - and mine - are often once in a lifetime. And nothing is worse than looking back with regrets for the things not done. And that applies to advancing efforts to become better stewards on the only planet that we know that sustains life.

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Whether they should they rent or buy a home is one of the toughest financial decisions Americans face. The factors at play in making this decision revolve around not only where you are, but also who you are.

The questions you should be asking yourself are: How mobile do I need to be? Am I a strong saver? Do I prefer a lot of amenities? Can I create more wealth through renting and reinvesting or buying a building equity?

For starters, some self-inquiry is helpful when making the decision of whether to buy or rent a home. Ask yourself a few questions:

How mobile do you need to be over the foreseeable future?

Mobility is very crucial to the buy versus rent question. If you feel that you will be very mobile in the near term, say perhaps to keep up with the best job opportunities or you think that your housing needs will soon change, then you are probably better served to rent, in terms of wealth accumulation, rather than own as the costs of transacting are relatively high for ownership versus those for moving from rental to rental, which are relatively low. All else being equal, high transaction costs from the sale of property tie you to an area and property, while renting allows for rapid changes in location and housing type.

Are you a strong saver?

If you rent a comparable property and reinvest your down payment and monthly payment saving (renting is typically less expensive than owning in the early years), then you are typically better off renting, in terms of wealth accumulation, than owning. If you are not a monastic saver, then housing ownership becomes a forced savings vehicle and is the best wealth accumulation method.

Do you prefer amenities or are you happy with "bare-bones" living?

Housing amenities are expensive to rent but less expensive to own. This is so because tenants tend to be rough on these amenities, while owners tend to carefully manage their upkeep. Thus, landlords charge higher rents for providing and maintaining these housing amenities. Therefore, if you prefer more amenities, then you should seek to own.

After completing this self-inventory, it's time to consider the housing market where you live and ask yourself the following question.

Can you create more wealth through renting and reinvesting or buying and building equity?

Owning your own home has long been a major part of "The American Dream." However, with fluctuating housing prices, whether to buy into that dream is more difficult to answer than ever before.

Historically, Americans have exhibited a mania towards owning rather than renting their homes. Casual arguments such as "don't throw your money away on rent" or "why rent when you can own?" have been regularly offered, and these arguments were generally sound until pricing cycles began to creep into U.S. housing markets. Slow but steady property appreciation has been replaced by housing price cycles that significantly complicate this question.

To give some guidance to people trying to decide whether to buy or rent in different parts of the country, my colleagues and I developed the Beracha, Hardin and Johnson Buy vs. Rent vs. Buy Index, designed to signal whether current market conditions favor buying or renting a home in terms of wealth creation over a fixed holding period in a particular market relative to historical market conditions and alternative investment opportunities. It examines the entire housing market in the United States and isolates the markets of 23 key cities. The index conducts a "horse race" comparison between an individual that is buying a home and an individual that rents a similar quality home and reinvests all monies otherwise invested in homeownership.

While there is no perfect answer to the age-old question of buying versus renting your home, this advice should help in the decision-making process.

Follow Ken Johnson, Ph.D. on Twitter: twitter.com/FAUHousingEcon

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by Rod Collins, Director of Innovation at Optimity Advisors

There is a rapidly emerging phenomenon that, while hidden in plain sight, is about to dramatically transform the longstanding fundamentals of business. While this nonpareil is often touted as a defining attribute of most business organizations, the simple reality is that, for too many business leaders, their aspirations are nothing more than lip service. That's because their core organizational structures are not designed to support the cultivation of this increasingly vital phenomenon: a fully human work culture.

Despite all the corporate rhetoric about people being a company's "most important assets," conventional practice usually favors making money over building culture when the two come in conflict. However, management innovations by a new breed of business leaders are challenging the business wisdom of conventional practice. Steve Hilton, visiting professor at Stanford University and former adviser to the U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron, sounds a clarion call for change in his recent book, More Human: Designing a World Where People Come First. Hilton argues that the working models of government and business don't work and are unsustainable in a hyper-connected world because their underlying systems and structures have a basic design flaw: the prioritization of numbers over people. That's a problem, according to Hilton, because real businesses are "about people, about bringing people together in a structured way to benefit each other and society."

The Dumbest Idea in the World

Since the genesis of Scientific Management at the end of the nineteenth century, the context of business has been about delivering the numbers. It's been about market share, profit margins, return on investment, and earnings per share. Business has been so defined by numbers that the creation of shareholder wealth--making money--has become the commonly accepted purpose of a business. However, this conventional wisdom has come under recent fire from both traditional and new breed business leaders.

Hilton cites a March 2009 Financial Times interview where Jack Welch, the celebrated former CEO of General Electric, referred to maximizing shareholder value as "the dumbest idea in the world." This may explain why the innovative leaders of today's vanguard companies, such as Zappos, Apple, and LEGO, are redefining the purpose of a business as the creation of customer value. It may also explain why the most important number at these innovative firms is not about money, it's about people: the Net Promoter score, which measures the intensity of customer delight with a company's products or services.

The True Purpose of a Business

This is not to imply that the leaders of these vanguard companies believe that making money is not important. Quite the contrary, these leaders fully understand that positive cash flow is the lifeblood of business continuity. But they also understand that, without customers, there is no cash flow and that making money is not the purpose, but rather the reward companies receive when they fulfill the true purpose of a business by delighting their customers. In other words, the vanguard leaders believe that businesses, at their core, are human rather than financial enterprises. Like Hilton, they believe that real businesses are about people. And if work is really about people, then building highly effective human cultures--both work and customer cultures--needs to be the organizing principle for an organization's systems and structures.

Unfortunately, in most traditional organizations, building fully human work cultures is not a serious priority. Hilton observes, in the typical bureaucratic organization, "people are often made to behave in inhuman ways by the systems and structures around them." Hilton believes that people are not instinctively inhuman, but are forced by the bureaucratic norms of traditional structures to behave in ways that they would not naturally choose. As a consequence, workers are often viewed as costs and customers as sources of revenues. When we treat people as numbers, we all lose a little bit of our humanity.

A Post-Bureaucratic Age

Hilton argues that people are happiest when they can relate to each other in a human way and that people work best when things are organized on a human scale. However, organizing on a human scale means coordinating the voluntary contributions of large numbers of people, and until recently, that has been nearly impossible. While bureaucracy is a workable solution for coordinating large work groups, the downside of this human architecture is that the distribution of work is based on assigned tasks rather than voluntary contributions, which may explain why, in the most recent Gallup study, only three out of every ten employees feels engaged in their jobs. Nevertheless, people have chosen to accept the inhumanity of bureaucratic structures because there didn't seem to be a better alternative.

However, thanks to the digital revolution, bureaucracy no longer has a monopoly as a workable design for large work groups. In the quest to build more human organizations, an unusual suspect--technology--is coming to the rescue. While technology is often viewed as dehumanizing, Hilton observes that the digital revolution is giving us the tools to be more human by transforming the world into a hyper-connected network where the distribution of work based on self-organized voluntary contributions is not only possible, but also practical and efficient. Hilton's observation is supported by the sudden emergence of a new management paradigm based on the notion that the most effective way to organize the work of large numbers is to build peer-to-peer networks rather than top-down hierarchies. This new paradigm is the energy behind Wikipedia, Craigslist, eBay, Airbnb, Uber, and Linux, all of which were inconceivable a mere two decades ago. This new paradigm is a clear indicator that we are moving into what Hilton calls a "post-bureaucratic age."

The Importance of the Human Experience

The structural transformation from hierarchies to networks across all social institutions will dramatically alter the way our basic systems work. We see evidence of this in the rapid shift from traditional to Agile methodologies in the development of software systems. Rather than designing grand plans around the dictated preferences of managers and engineers who are far removed from the people affected by their decisions, Agile software developers puts the user at the center of the work and leverage self-managed teams working in short iterative phases, called "sprints," to continually align what they build with what the customer needs. The driving force behind this rapid shift in the software world is that Agile is smarter, faster, and cheaper for the simple reason that iterative sprints keep companies better connected to the human experience of their users in a new business world where success is more a factor of the quality of the human experience than the efficiency of the financial transaction.

In a hyper-connected world, businesses cannot afford to ignore the importance of the human experience. A flight attendant unreasonably mistreating a passenger or a customer service representative going out of her way to resolve a customer issue can go viral on social media in a matter of minutes and either nullify or magnify the value of the budget spent on building a company's brand.

Small Things Can Make a Big Difference

Hilton points out that one of the ways to build a fully human culture is to trust workers to make local decisions. He suggests that if the doctors and nurses in the UK's National Health Service were given more autonomy to make decisions around all aspects of care in hospital facilities, they would be able to act on the small things that make a big difference in the experience of their patients.

An organization that agrees with Hilton on letting workers make local decisions is Zappos, which found out how small things can make a big difference the day the story of one of their customers went viral. Zaz Lamarr's mother had been stricken with cancer, and Zaz thought a pair of shoes might brighten her mom's spirits. However, given the weight loss that can happen with cancer patients, Zaz wasn't sure what size would fit her mother. So, she placed an order with Zappos for several pairs of shoes in a variety of sizes hoping at least one of them would work. Fortunately, two of the pairs fit and Zaz made arrangements to return the remaining shoes. However, before Zaz could get to the UPS store, her mother took a sudden turn for the worse and passed away. When the Zappos customer service representative (CSR) contacted Zaz and found out why she didn't have time to return the shoes, rather than insisting that Zaz had to make time to go to the UPS store, the people at Zappos sent UPS to Zaz, and then the next day sent Zaz a beautiful bouquet of flowers to let her know they were thinking of her in her time of need.

The touching humanity of sending flowers rather than insisting on policy compliance--a decision that Zappos' CSR's can make--is a reflection of the fully human culture for which Zappos is well known. In a hyper-connected world reshaped by the digital revolution, Hilton is right. Real business is about people.

Rod Collins (@collinsrod) is the Director of Innovation at Optimity Advisors and the author of Wiki Management: A Revolutionary New Model for a Rapidly Changing and Collaborative World (AMACOM Books). He writes for this column on the first Thursday of each month.

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High-impact Design Driven Startups are investors' darlings and the INDEX: Award is taking advantage of this by applying their unique design award evaluation process to vetting candidates for venture capital funding. The organization's newly launched Improve Life Foundation is the next step in securing that high-impact, contextual and superior fashioned offerings are actualized.

How does one effectively assess design quality and relate it to funding potential? In studying the Industrial Design Society of America's Industrial Design Excellence Award, along with hundreds of new product development projects in established and startup businesses together with the INDEX: Award, we found three key performance metrics: Design Index, structural integration and technology. When assessed by investors, these act as strong predictors of a design's investment worthiness.

The three key performance indicators are straightforward to determine. The Design Index is the average rating of nine Design Quality Criteria, divided into three categories: Strategy (Philosophy, Structure and Innovation), Context (Social/human, Environmental and Viability) and Execution (Process, Function and Expression). Each criterion is rated on a scale from one to five, one being least and five being most and together, with market and technology risk, they are assessed on a scale from zero to one hundred percent likelihood of success. The combined risk can be calculated and the design value of a new venture can be determined.

A variety of unconscious biases, however, influences assessment of design quality. Startup founders show to be biased towards over assessing the quality of their design and design experts are found to be somewhat skewed towards breakthrough innovations. However, potential investors have a wider focus and are, thus far, unattached to a design. Even more importantly, they seem to intrinsically know that top-level design performance is required to take advantage of high impact and high-risk opportunities.

Studying the INDEX: Award process and outcome we learned how founders, investors and external experts assess designs differently.

Founders tend to consistently overestimate their ventures and rate design quality, on average, approximately twenty percent higher than that of investors. Also, their assessment did not correlate with either that of investors or design experts. However, founders' assessment of technology risk correlated strongly with execution risk. The higher the technology risk, the higher the execution-risk. They showed, however, no correlation between market risk and technology risk.

Design experts assessment of the design quality level, on the other hand, was on par with that of investors, on average, though the two stakeholders assessments did not correlate. As with founders, design experts' assessment of technology risk correlated strongly with that of execution risk, however market risk did not factor into execution risk.

Investors' assessment of a new venture's design quality correlated strongly with their propensity to invest. They also showed a strong correlation between their likelihood of investing and a design's structural performance (how well the design internally integrated, its integration with the surrounding ecosystem and the supply chain.) However, investors did not see technology risk and market risk having an influence on execution risk.

2015-11-06-1446788766-846232-designqualityinvestcorrelation.jpg

In assessing risk on breakthrough innovative high-impact new ventures, founders, design experts and investors are flying blind, when it comes to market risk. However design experts understand technology and execution risk, founders understand technology risk and investors see the connection between design quality and investment potential.

Therefore, combining the three stakeholders' assessments of design provides the best insights into design quality and risk. It can also help 'red flag' discrepancies between founders' perception of individual Design Quality Criteria and that of design experts and investors. This, in turn, can help founders focus on where to improve their design performance.

The INDEX: Award's first-to-world design valuation vetting process, now tied to an investment organization, offers a breakthrough innovative approach to attract, assess and fund high impact new entrepreneurial ventures. The Design to Improve Life Investment program has a competitive advantage when selecting design driven startups and thus represents a vanguard for progressing our world.

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What a difference a few years make. Over the past year, Facebook shares have jumped roughly 38%. Just reported third-quarter earnings are 57 cents per share on revenue of $4.5 billion - exceeding analyst expectations of 52 cents and $4.37 billion respectively. Facebook has learned that one of the best ways to increase the stock price is to exceed analyst expectations. It was not always so.

IPO mistakes disappoint the markets

When Facebook went public roughly 3.5 years ago, its executives conducted a road show to generate interest in their stock. The anticipation of the IPO was already high as a result of the secondary market that developed. Therefore, the road show proved counterproductive because detractors spun it as an example of overselling, or hyping the stock. Overselling is rarely good. It is what inexperienced sales people do when they are insecure about their product. Veterans, such as Apple, often understate performance to set lowered expectations. They know that beating expectations will make the stock price pop, whereas falling short of expectations has negative side effects, such as a falling stock price, lawsuits, and a tarnished corporate image. The hype during its road show set an expectation level that was bound to disappoint, and it did. The opening stock price of $38 per share went down quickly and hit a low of $17.73 in the summer of 2012. Then, it fluctuated during the first year in the low to mid-$20's.

What's going on now?

Leaving its IPO mistakes in the past, Facebook appears to be firing on all cylinders. From a marketing perspective, it has created an ad platform that gives marketers what they want while engaging the eyeballs of users that advertisers crave. Here's a summary of just some of the data just released:

Monthly Active Users. Jumped to 1.55 billion - 14% higher than the year before.

Daily Active Users. Increased even more to 1.01 billion - a 17% jump over the previous year.

Ad Revenue. Climbed to4.3 billion - a whopping 45% jump over the previous year, and 78% of that is mobile ad sales, which is up 66% from the year before.

Scale and engagement

With a growing audience that numbers 1.55 billion, Facebook has unprecedented scale and reach. To give you a point of comparison, the average Super Bowl audience is between 110 and 117 million. Facebook has 1.01 billion daily active users, and unlike Super Bowl watchers that are distracted by parties and food, Facebook users are highly engaged. According to ComScore...

"Facebook remains the goliath of social media, leading all social networks with 81 percent reach of the total U.S. digital population and nearly 230 billion minutes of user engagement. With time spent that is 18 times that of the next biggest social network."

Lower cost

While Super Bowl ads cost a small fortune (a 30-second spot on the 2016 Super Bowl will cost $5 million), Facebook ads are far more affordable. According to Jack Marshall in Digiday...

"if you invested $4 million (which bought you only 30 seconds on the 2014 Super Bowl), you could buy 14 billion Facebook ads - giving you a new ad every second for 469 years."

Not only that. Facebook ads are in the news feed rather in distracting and interruptive places, and users can share their endorsement of the companies and products they like with friends and family.

Highly targeted

One of the reasons Facebook ads cost considerably less is advertisers are able to better target specific audiences they want to reach. In many other media, advertisers reach an audience that is broader than the segments they prefer to target. While this can be good too, most advertisers do not want to spend money reaching lower-probability targets. Being able to send ads to only those that are most likely to want the product is very attractive to advertisers that know their target audience.

Effective measurement tools

There are many tools readily available to measure the marketing impact of Facebook. A free tool from Facebook, called Facebook Insights, enables you to measure engagement and social return on investment. Google Analytics provides information on the business you generate from Facebook ads.

Better results

Using the measurement tools available, those that have measured the effectiveness of their promotion channels have found that Facebook provides a better return on their investment than many other alternatives. Marketing Sherpa and many other sources have independent case studies that show the kind of results advertisers can achieve on Facebook.

Scratched the surface

Since Facebook has only scratched the surface on monetizing its huge, highly-engaged audience, it appears that it will continue to deliver the results that marketers want from their advertising. If it does, the company stock is likely to continue to experience healthy increases. As of this writing, Facebook's price/earnings ratio is 110.53. While some may consider this to be high, it is with reason for a fast growing, highly-regarded and tech company. To put it in perspective, Amazon has a P/E ratio of 939.33 and Linked In's P/E ratio is 774.89.

Bright future

After a rocky start 3.5 years ago, it appears that Facebook and its stock are on a growth trajectory that is likely to excite its constituents for quite some time. At the very least, it will be interesting to follow the path Facebook takes as it competes to stay on top of the social media world.

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An international move is not only a mentally difficult decision to make, but a serious logistical challenge.

Two years ago I found myself packing my bags, sorting out the things I own and planning to move to France on relatively short notice.

In retrospect, I can confirm that I've coped pretty well with minor drama and a small amount of failure. However, during those months, when I was mapping out all the details, I had questioned my sanity on a daily basis.

If you are planning to relocate internationally, I've picked out some essential advice that helped me sort out all the logistics and keep high stress levels at the bay.

1. Figuring out the best moving dates isn't easy.

If you have some room for decision and your moving dates are flexible, that will slightly reduce the heap of problems you are about to face.

Summer -- late August in particular -- is among the worst times to plan your move: First of all, everyone is planning to move during summer. Next, vacationers make the airline ticket prices skyrocket and hunting for an apartment during summer gets difficult as well. Most landlords are out on vacation too, especially in France.

Agencies and all sorts of middlemen tend to charge more as summer is a popular season for apartment hunting as well. If the city you plan to move to has a big university, you are likely to compete with a bunch of new students flocking the city by autumn. According to Lifehacker you are likely to spend $90-100 extra a month on a $3000 unit if you sign the lease somewhere from July until September.

Last, but not least: the moving costs. Yes, even the moving companies have adopted a similar strategy to airlines and charge more during peak seasons to high-demand destinations. Allied household moving company confirmed that they indeed offer different pricing for different dates to help them manage their inventory. So if you are choosing popular dates (weekends, holidays, end of the week), you are likely to shell out more cash.

Do your research in advance. Get quotes from different moving companies and ask the reps if your dates are "popular" and maybe it would be more budget-wise to schedule to move for another week.

Moving internationally, just like traveling internationally can be much cheaper when you don't have a fixed date.

2. I owned more things than I needed

Preparing for the move and going through all the things I had in my household, I was amazed by the amount of absolutely useless stuff I had.

You don't happen to notice that until you have the international move dilemma: "Should I sell everything or pay to transport it?"

Selling everything is surely a liberating experience. At least you can now brag that you've gotten rid of everything and got to the new country with just a carry-on and a one-way ticket.

However, the hustle of selling your unwanted items can be deterring.

Here's the strategy I used to get rid of things I no longer needed (or planned to move):

1. Identify the items sale value.

Check Amazon, eBay and Craiglist to identify potential profit. Jot down the prices other sellers ask for the same or similar items, product availability and the condition of those sold. Items in high demand and low stock could obviously be sold for more.

2. Offer all your stuff to your friends' first.

Make a farewell/garage sale party and invite all your friends and their friends, and your family to scout through your apartment for some goodies. Offer a slightly discounted price compared to those you have outlined during your research. Also, offer bonus items or a bigger discount for those ready to take away larger items (e.g. your couch) on their own.

3. Selling household items and small appliances:

In most cases it would be cheaper to sell most of them and just buy new once you arrive, rather than pay the hefty transportation fees.

Amazon Marketplace comes as the best option as you can tie each appliance directly with an Amazon product listing. Meaning when a person looks for some gadget they will see your listing as well. Goods are likely to sell faster this way, but don't expect huge profits as Amazon takes a significant cut from your sales.

4. Furniture and large appliances:

Shipping these costs a tiny fortune, so I highly recommend getting rid of as many as possible. Everything that wasn't bought during your open-house party/sale can be listed on Craigslist.

If some items didn't go there, try bringing them at the flea markets or community sales.

5. Clothes and apparel:

Ladies, this is for you. You will have to admit the ugly truth: You cannot transport all your garments without going broke.

Selling clothes can be somewhat tricky, as you need to find a person in the same size and style as you. Unless you are a celebrity or a popular fashion blogger, no one will rush into buying your outfits.

If you have some unique, vintage and labeled items, list those on Etsy. Mass-market clothes in mint condition could be sold via ThredUp. You can expect to earn around $2-$25 for items from Gap, H&M, Banana Republic etc. However, the company covers shipping costs, so you just need to pack everything in a box with no added fees. ThreadFlip is another good place to sell some good-condition clothes for a decent price, however there are certain restrictions on kinds of clothes you can trade.

6. Analyze what's left.

Scrutinize the items left after the grand sale. Do you really need them? Are you ready to pay big bucks to bring it with you? And lastly, is it worth it to pay for them or is it cheaper to replace the item with a new one once you arrive?

3. To-do lists are essential

From managing your sales and the move itself to various appointments that are likely to pop up once you announce your relocation plans, to-do lists were my lifesavers.

My schedule was filled both with personal appointments -- like visiting the dentists and attending loads of goodbye parties; to more business-like meetings with the landlord, my bank and insurance reps and so on.

I used Anydo to manage my daily chores and plans, plus Google Calendar to keep an eye on the upcoming tasks and appointments. Keep everything as simple and straightforward as possible to avoid missing out the essential tasks. Don't plan more than three complex tasks per day and move those to-dos you didn't manage to accomplish to the next day.

4. Mental breakdowns are inevitable, but that's okay.

Despite the fact that I carefully planned my move for a few months, I still had a fair share of nervous breakdowns and panic attacks at night (especially as the date approached).

Now the easiest way to cope with this is just to accept the simple fact -- moving is stressful and it's okay to panic. This mantra helped me stay relatively sane until the day I boarded the plane.

Have your methods in place to cut down stress. Breathing exercises, double-checking everything and the support I had from my family helped me get through the whole process without losing my mind.

5. Renting remotely is difficult.

Sometimes you are lucky and your employer has taken care of finding a new place for you. Sometimes you have to do it yourself.

Frankly, it kind of sucks.

Some people prefer to find a temporary stay via AirBnb and apartment hunt once they arrive. However, the perspective of living out of a suitcase for another month didn't seem too appealing to me at first.

So I started searching online and digging through various French apartment listings and trying to communicate with the landlords in my broken French through a glitchy Skype connection. I have found the best listings via Leboncoin, Vivastreet and LocService.

The biggest challenge was that a lot of the landlords didn't want to deal with me up until I arrived. Additionally, some of them wanted to get a deposit to hold a place even if I did not confirm I was planning to rent it.

Of course property agencies were really glad to assist me... for a really hefty fee that grew only larger if I was looking into getting a bigger apartment!

Eventually, I gave up and rented out a small studio for a few months via Sublet and kept visiting more properties in person until I located the ideal place.

6. Research your new home base in advance.

Last, but not least, get to know the neighborhood in advance. I cannot emphasis this enough. Unless you do the research, you may find yourself in a really shady place like Department 93 in Paris.

Safety concerns aside, the first few days in a new place will be the toughest ones. So it's nice to have a transport map and app downloaded in advance to help you navigate the area.

Next, scout Yelp and Google Maps for the closest shops, eateries and pharmacies in your area. You'd likely to need some essentials once you arrive.

Read a few city guides, especially those written and curated by the locals like Spotted by Locals.

Join a few expat forums or Facebook groups to ask your questions and connect with a few fellow expats. Living abroad can be lonely at first; so do establish at least some virtual connections in advance. Ask your friends if they happen to have acquaintances in your new home country and ask for an introduction.

Moving is never easy, especially abroad. But you shouldn't stress out too much and make it look difficult. If you can tame the anxiety and stress, everything will go really smoothly! Living abroad is an incredible experience, so when the opportunity comes your way, grab it!

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By Paul Sisolak, Contributor

Men and women who serve in the U.S. Armed Forces make sacrifices for their country. In honor of them, Veterans Day is celebrated. Unlike Memorial Day, which honors the memories of soldiers who have died in battle, Veterans Day is a time to acknowledge all surviving and deceased veterans, active and retired.

Visit GOBankingRates for updated bank hours on Veterans Day >>>

So, when is Veterans Day? Nov. 11 marks this annual tradition. And although the most significant event of Veterans Day is the wreath-laying commemoration at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, you might choose to attend any number of similar local events, parades or other ceremonies. Volunteering your time at a local VA hospital is one way to pay tribute on this holiday, or donating money to a charity like the Wounded Warriors Project.

If a financial contribution is in order, you might need to visit your local bank or credit union to withdraw money, make a transfer or certify a money order or check. But are banks open on Veterans Day? Although Nov. 11 is a federal holiday and most bank branches across the country will be closed, there will be exceptions. Here are banks that will be open and closed on this holiday.

Related: 10 Best Military Banks of 2015

Which Banks Are Open on Veterans Day?

Most branches of U.S. Bank are closed for Veterans Day, though several grocery store walk-up locations will be open this Nov. 11. According to Susan Beatty of U.S. Bank, numerous U.S. Bank branches will be open, in addition to locations at:

Safeway on E. Cypress and Pine Street in Redding, Calif.

Sav-Mor in Orland, Calif.

Hy-Vee in Asbury Plaza, Iowa

Schnucks in Bettendorf, Iowa

Meijer locations in Hamburg, Lexington and Richmond, Ky.

Walmart in Mayfield, Ky.

Coborn's in Little Falls Eastgate, Minn.

Walmart in Springfield, Mo.

Kroger in Mt. Orab, Ohio

Albertsons in Edenbower and Stewart, Ore.

Safeway on Hwy. 20 in Bend, Ore.

Walmart in Clarksville and Ft. Campbell, Tenn.

Smith's in St. George, Utah

Safeway in Nob Hill, Wash.

Fond du Lac in Horicon, Princeton and Ripon, Wis.

Oshkosh in Wautoma, Wis.

Meanwhile, all branches of American Chartered Bank and TD Bank will be open for Veterans Day. All in-store locations of Ohio Valley Bank -- such as at Foodland, Walmart and Save-a-Lot -- will be open from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Additionally, all Northfield Bank branches will be open for business.

Bank Branches Closed for Veterans Day

The majority of bank branches will be closed on Veterans Day. Even banks open on this holiday are liable to process checks the following business day. Here is a list of banks with branches closed on Veterans Day:

Bank First National

Bank of America

Bank of the West

BBVA Compass Bank

BMO Harris Bank

Canandaigua National Bank & Trust

Central Bank of the Midwest

Chase Bank

City National Bank

The Columbia Bank

Commerce Bank

F&M Bank

Fairfield County Bank

Fidelity Bank

First Merchants Bank

First Niagara Bank

Fulton Bank

KeyBank

M&T Bank

Nevada State Bank

PNC Bank

Regions Bank

Washington Trust Bank

Wells Fargo

Whitney Bank

The History of Veterans Day

This article, Are Banks Open on Veterans Day 2015, originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com.

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Here is an example of a typical call that I receive from our clients at SHAMBAUGH: An organization is undergoing significant change. To keep pace with the evolving marketplace, customer demands, and industry trends, they need to reexamine their existing culture and leadership models to successfully adapt. Often in such scenarios, the desire to evolve is prompted by the president or CEO attending a conference that referenced the importance of an inclusive and collaborative culture.

In one specific instance, a company president (whom I'll call Steve) shared with me that his organization had just invested a lot of money in a new IT system that would now cross-integrate information across the organization. Would this do the trick to build a more integrated and collaborative environment, he asked me? I responded that while that's part of the equation, it's not the whole solution. What ultimately needs to drive this important shift, I told him, is your leadership -- which means that your organization must reinforce the right leadership model to ensure that the proper mindset, behaviors, and culture are first in place. Doing so will ensure lasting results versus a quick fix.

According to research that SHAMBAUGH conducted on 21st Century Leadership, one of the top attributes for today's successful leader is collaborative intelligence. Cultivating the type of leadership that results in a collaborative culture is more than a passing trend; it's directly related to the success of any organization. This form of leadership does not require that every decision be made by consensus. Instead, it means that your leaders must value and demonstrate the capacity to build productive partnerships and supportive relationships across divisions and the entire organization, connecting diverse viewpoints that include the perspectives of both genders.

I then shared with Steve that collaboration is the collective determination to reach an identical objective by sharing knowledge and learning while building consensus. "Collaboration is not solely based on having the best business processes and systems," I said. "You also need to cultivate a culture of collaboration and infuse this mindset into your organization's overall leadership strategy."

Steve shared that he believed lack of such a culture might explain why a number of people in his organization were resistant to the recent changes -- as well as why the leadership team and employees were not working as collaboratively and effectively as he had hoped. Steve wanted to know more about how to build a leadership mindset of collaboration -- with a culture that would support it.

Below are two of the most essential skills that I shared with Steve on how to build a strong collaborative team:

Move from top-down authority to shared power. Traditional leaders in the corporate world believe that their power derives from their position of authority in the corporate hierarchy. Yet allegiance to this approach is rapidly shifting, with many senior leaders now recognizing the urgency for a different approach to leadership. The idea of a new leadership model that moves away from hierarchy toward shared power is now essential for most organizations to be successful in our ever-changing--and perpetually challenging -- business environment. Collaborative leadership recognizes that power becomes greatest when shared in a collective team. By encouraging equal participation across all levels and distributed between both genders, collaborative leaders allow solutions to emerge from the best ideas of the group via a team approach to problem-solving.

Build bridges of cooperation and collaboration. In many cases, 1 +1 = 3. Today's complex problems and new environment require fresh thinking that in most cases requires a diverse spectrum of backgrounds to reach first-rate results. Factoring in the best team input, collaboration, and cross-disciplinary engagement with other colleagues in your department, company, and industry can help bring diverse perspectives forward to develop more robust solutions. As every good athlete knows, you can't reach your desired results if you don't work together as a team. Better solutions lead to better outcomes--for you and everyone in the company.

In my next post, I'll share five more strategies that leaders can use to help leverage collaborative intelligence to increase corporate growth, vitality, and competitive advantage for their organization.

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This article is for the investor who wants to move into real estate, but they want a higher level of involvement than just buying shares in a REIT, Real Estate Investment Trust. You still do not want to buy and sell properties or work with contractors, but you would like to get a nice return on investment in a real estate investment environment. You also want short term turnover of your money to limit market risk.

Let's say that you're currently invested in stocks or bonds and your pre-tax return in in the low single digits. This isn't that bad considering the current interest rate environment, but after even nominal inflation, it really isn't exciting at all. You'd love to up that return by a few percent, and you would do a dance for double digits with acceptable risk.

The problem is that there aren't really any formal mechanisms in place to connect someone like you with a fix & flip investor or wholesaler who is knowledgeable in real estate and in need of funding. This lack of an established communication connection makes it tougher for those deserving of your funding from connecting with you and happily giving you the returns you want.

The best place in most local communities where an individual passive investor can connect directly with active wholesalers and fix & flip investors is in a real estate investment club. The thing to remember in the club situation is that there will be investors with varying levels of experience and success; or lack of it. This just means that you'll need to know your business and do your due diligence.

What is Level 2 Passive Investing?

So, you don't want to just buy REIT shares. You want to invest directly into properties in your area by partnering with active investors. You still want to be passive, just providing funding for their projects. We're not talking about long term rental investing in this case. We are interested in providing short term funding for fix & flip and wholesale investors.

The wholesale investor usually does no rehab on a home. They specialize in locating deep discount properties and flipping them to other investors. Those could be rental investors if the property is ready to rent, but more often they go to rehab or fix & flip investors.

The fix & flip investor is going to do repairs or major renovation to bring a home to livable condition. They then sell it to a rental property investor or sell it on the open market to a retail buyer.

Our passive role is to provide the money they need, which could be a time requirement of just days to months. A wholesale deal can even close both ends on the same day. So, as the money person, you can put funds to work for hours, days or weeks and get returns well above other traditional investments.

How Does it Work?

When you connect with one of these active investors, you really need to check their track record. If you want to take a gamble on a newer wholesaler or fix and flip investor, definitely do your research on the property, their buyer, and the time your money will be at risk. They should have a buyer or potential buyers lined up before you put up money to buy a property unless they're selling in the retail market. It is easier to work with investors selling to other investors, as they often have a standing relationship and offers to buy properties that meet their requirements.

Before you dish out money, you take out a note or lien against the property to cover your investment, and generally keep your involvement to 60% or less of the current value of the home. This gives you some room to sell it and get your money back if something goes wrong.

You charge whatever fees and interest charges you want within reason. They have to make a profit too you know. Professional transaction funding companies charge loan initiation fees, double digit interest rates on loans that are out for more than a day or so, and they also charge other fees. You should be able to achieve double digit returns on your invested money. Check transaction funding websites to see how they set their charges.

Do your homework to limit your risk, and you can turn your money over multiple times each year for some amazing ROI numbers.

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All signs point to an intensifying Afghan conflict, and prospects for an early resumption of a peace dialogue appear dim. Yet ironically, if security across the country continues to worsen and public confidence in the Kabul government further ebbs, there may be a call for a peace process to be revived. This time, though, the initiative for talks will come not from the Kabul government and its allies but from the Taliban. Those talks will differ markedly from the informal and formal discussions over the last five years. From a position of strength, it could be the Taliban that will set the terms framing a possible Afghan settlement.

Until now, the envisioned negotiated peace was one in which the Taliban were expected to join the Afghan political process by agreeing to a power-sharing arrangement. While some revisions of the Constitution could be considered, Taliban leaders were called on to accept its basic tenets and agree to preserve gains in civil and human rights secured over the last 14 years. A meeting in July outside Islamabad hosted and largely orchestrated by Pakistan raised hopes that serious negotiations might finally be on track. Although no great strides were taken at the meeting, participants did agree to resume discussions at the month's end. Meanwhile, diplomacy was being overshadowed by high profile Taliban attacks in several Afghan cities. Then when the revelation of Mullah Omar's death put Taliban leadership in contention, chief negotiator Mullah Akhtar Mansour backed out of the scheduled talks.

Yet even while denouncing the negotiations, Mansour left open the door to their resumption at a later time. The Taliban have retained their political office in Qatar with the "authority to contact and negotiate with different entities." At the height of the battle for control of Kunduz in early October, Taliban spokesmen stated that fighting alone was not the solution, and the city's capture did not preclude the resumption of peace talks. However, in a speech by Mansour on the occasion of Islam's Eid ul-Adha, he made clear that future negotiations would have to be "in line with the principles of the Sharia [and the] aspirations of jihad."

While relatively few Afghans are anxious to see the Taliban's return, many seem willing to believe their promises to govern differently than in the past.

The Taliban leader is thought to reflect the insurgency's more flexible, softer face. Official Taliban propaganda gives assurances that no harm will come to innocent citizens and that prisoners will not be abused. Taliban rule is portrayed as inclusive of all Afghans. On negotiations, Mansour's views stand apart from many elements of the insurgency. He expressed willingness to attend talks with Kabul government representatives, a stand some of his own Taliban colleagues were deeply critical of. Along with Haqqani Network, Islamic State and foreign insurgent fighters, they are believed single-minded in seeking a military victory. While Mansour may never be able to command the deep respect of Mullah Omar, with further Taliban successes on the battlefield he could probably win over most of his movement's dissidents, leaving him free to pursue a political option.

The question is, then, how does Mansour reconcile his holding out the possibility of a political path with the Taliban's escalating insurgency. After the occupation of Kunduz, Mansour was only too ready to take ownership. While it is possible to understand how military gains might improve the Taliban's bargaining position in a resumed round of discussions in Pakistan or elsewhere, Mansour is instead likely to use the Taliban's growing strength to try to change the parameters of any future negotiations. He and others probably recognize the greater obstacles the Taliban face compared with the 1990s when it had taken nearly eight years to overrun -- only to be denied full victory by the American 2001 military intervention. Why now fight a prolonged war when an envisioned Sharia state could be achieved through negotiations?

The Taliban can be expected to offer a Sharia complicit political system in place of existing democratic institutions and Western interpretations of human rights. Girls would be promised schooling and citizens a more just society through Islamic courts. Taliban leaders will no doubt pledge to end corrupt governance and move, as they did in late 1999, to halt poppy growing. Mansour will do his best to assure Afghanistan's neighbors that a friendly Taliban regime will not export instability or allow any groups to launch insurgencies from Afghan soil. A revived Afghan emirate will want international recognition and declare itself open to economic and humanitarian assistance, just as long as they do not carry undue foreign influence and respect the Islamic character of the state.

Incidents like the one on Kunduz's Doctors Without Borders hospital by American gunships can also serve to channel anger against a Kabul regime reliant on foreign troops.

The Taliban will be counting on an Afghan public demoralized by growing violence to be receptive to peace overtures. Overwhelmingly, Afghans have expressed their yearning for an end to fighting, and many are already resigned to a settlement on terms more favorable to the Taliban, especially if a peace process appears to hinge on meeting the demand for the departure of foreign forces. While relatively few Afghans are anxious to see the Taliban's return, many seem willing to believe their promises to govern differently than in the past. This readiness to contemplate Taliban rule could grow if the economy continues to struggle and the unity government falters. Incidents like the Oct. 3 strike on Kunduz's Doctors Without Borders hospital by American gunships can also serve to channel anger against a Kabul regime reliant on foreign troops.

A Taliban peace offer may appeal to some of the Parliament and even gain the cautious endorsement of former President Hamid Karzai and his allies. But it is likely to be looked on skeptically by most government officials and almost certainly rejected by the educated urban community and the North's major power brokers and their militias. Mansour may, however, be less interested in opening discussions with government interlocutors than with appealing to a broad band of Afghan society, including locally influential figures and tribal leaders, attracted to the idea of an early peace. The Taliban could try to use resistance to their overture to cast doubt on the sincerity of the government to finding a peaceful solution.

None of this is imminent or on the near horizon. The decision of the United States and several of its military partners to extend their presence in Afghanistan should help stave off any rapid decline in government defenses. It may also bring international attempts to revive the suspended talks, though the newly intensified Afghan distrust of Pakistan could complicate even that uphill effort. Regardless, absent a reversal of deteriorating security nationally, future discussions offering a political way out of the conflict may be those initiated by the Taliban, talks that will be Afghan-owned, leaving Pakistan, the United States and others mainly on the sidelines.

Earlier on WorldPost:

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If you had the opportunity to make the whole world happier, where would you start? Educate adults and children about the tested, practical steps they can take to consistently flourish? Measure wellbeing at a national level to shape government policies? Overhaul capitalism to be less self-serving?

Given less than 30% of people in the world today describe themselves at flourishing clearly we have a way to go. And yet we know, that when people have higher levels of wellbeing all sorts of individual and collective benefits are likely to flow.

For example, a meta-analysis of more than 200 studies has found that when people feel happier they are more energetic and healthier, they show more flexibility and ingenuity in their thinking, they have better relationships and are more charitable, they are more resilient in the face of hardship and they are more productive at work and make better leaders. Given the environmental, economic, social and political challenges our world faces, surely this is the kind of population growth we need to be supporting.

But just how can we possibly make the world happier?

Professor Jonathan Haidt, from the Stern Business School at New York University and author of the New York Times Bestseller, The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion and The Happiness Hypothesis, took me by surprise with his answer to this question: "More capitalism."

Really? What could the growth of capitalism possibly have to do with improving happiness in the world? Surely it's one of the very practices taking us away from, not towards, happiness.

"In 1999, when Martin Seligman held the first gathering of researchers to inform the conceptualization of positive psychology he asked us: 'How do we raise the total tonnage of happiness?" explained Jonathan when I interviewed him earlier this year at the World Congress of Positive Psychology. Click here to listen to the full podcast.

"At the time we agreed to focus on improving positive experiences, cultivating positive character traits and enabling positive institutions. While we've made rapid progress on the first two, the third has been much slower," he said. "But, if you really want to have a gigantic impact you don't do that with a therapy, you do that by changing the nature of human interactions, changing the economy or curing a disease."

"For example, in the last fifteen years we've seen more than a billion people escape poverty as a result of capitalism rising up in Asia," Jonathan explained. "Capitalism is the major force that has shaped the physical and institutional world that we live in. It changes our minds, it changes our brains, and it changes our relationships."

To be clear, Haidt is not naively advocating that capitalism doesn't have its ethical challenges as a platform for building global happiness. Rather his intent is to provoke conversation and exploration about the stories we tell about the impact and possibilities of capitalism.

Haidt argues that there are two basic narratives about capitalism. The first is that capitalism is exploitation. It allows the rich to get richer, because they exploit people and the environment. The second is that capitalism is liberation. It allows people to reap the profits of their own work, and energizes an explosion of civil society.

But what if there was a third possibility for what capitalism offers the world?

In his book "The Happiness Hypothesis" Haidt concludes that happiness comes from getting the right relationship between yourself and others, yourself and your work and yourself and something larger than yourself. What if capitalism wasn't actually about our monetary relationships, but instead became focused on how it helps the human heart and mind to flourish?

"Capitalism doesn't necessarily have to be the evil of just more, more, and more to the detriment of everybody," explained Jonathan. "Rising prosperity can bring rising security, which causes changing values, which causes rising education - especially for women - which causes demographic transition, which causes shrinking population, which benefits our environment. It holds the potential to free us to find more meaning and flourishing."

As we begin to re-discover the possibilities of capitalism, Haidt suggests three principles that may help us to realize this third story:

Invest in positive-sum relationships - Libertarian philosopher David Schmidtz observed: "At its best, a free market society is a game that we can only win by making other people better off." We don't live in that world just yet, but when you get an economy right people aren't just thinking about how to get rich, they're thinking about what people need and how they can be of service.

Value the yin and yang - The exploitation and liberation stories of capitalism both have some truth to them, but if you just embrace one side you miss seeing both the possibilities and threats that the other side sees. The only way we can develop a more humane and effective version of capitalism is to acknowledge the need for both decency and dynamism and find ways to balance these forces.

Answer the hundred trillion dollar questions - The total productivity of the planet is rapidly on its way to a hundred trillion dollars in the next five years. What are we going to do with all that wealth? How are we going to live? What will give our lives meaning? These are questions positive psychology can help people, businesses and governments to answer if we're willing to be part of the conversation.

How might you harness the possibilities of capitalism to help more people in the world to consistently flourish? You can watch Jonathan speaking more about the three stories of capitalism here, hear him debate these possibilities with the Dali Lama here and look out for his new book on this topic in 2017.

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How do you navigate those most difficult business challenges if you're an advertising agency or a brand marketer? By focusing on the end goal, and then hiring great people and allowing them to problem solve in a winning environment.

If you do that well, your challenges will be met. And you won't have to actively recruit, because great talent (and big ideas) will find you. Or so said a panel of world-class talent experts I recently had the privilege to moderate.

Here are the top 5 tips I heard from Umang Shah (Global Director of Digital Marketing and Innovation at Campbell's), Vin Farrell (Global Chief Content Officer at Havas Worldwide) and Michelle Hoover (Director of Corporate Training at General Assembly).

Work together. From the start.
Creative collaboration is all about teamwork. When advertising agencies and their clients agree on an engagement strategy from the start, in pursuit of discovering something that hasn't been done before, magic happens. Often this means enlisting thinkers who aren't necessarily immersed in the every day who can think about things differently, who can push toward uncharted territory together. And bringing in the client, early, because they usually understand the brand better than anyone else.

Hire wisely. And then live up to the hype.
Start by throwing those old school naming conventions out the window. Recruit new talent around mindset, and commit to that change when thinking about what you're looking for when recruiting the talent of the future. Create job descriptions that deliver on the engagement you're trying to create, and commit to recruiting against them. Rent the Runway's Chief Disruptive Innovation Officer certainly lives up to the hype as do the IT Pro Evangelists at Microsoft.

Create a culture where people want to come to work every day. And realize there's not just one way to do it. People want to push boundaries and if they're allowed to, they'll want to come to work every day to play that way. So don't be afraid to create new positions and new titles that challenge that new way of thinking. Clients will embrace it, and if you deliver capabilities and solutions that pay off these hires that they haven't seen before, they should reward you by paying for it.

Fail fast. Recover faster.
When you've never done something before, use that as a learning opportunity from the start. Take chances on discovering the unknown, (potentially) fail fast and then recover even faster. Coping and then recovering from failure will enable you to make something greater than you ever could have imagined, and deliver work that'll take your clients to places they haven't been to before.

To Umang, it's important to instill a corporate culture where you actually force failure, as long as you redefine the word and make sure your team understands that it's about taking a risk and not being afraid. Because that's when you sway from the norm and end up creating something that's never been seen before. One of the key metrics at Campbell's marketing innovation lab is that his success rate should never be calculated at 100%, that failure should in fact be expected to happen...and then it should happen. If it doesn't, then the team isn't trying hard enough. Failure should always be a necessary expectation and can lead to greatness.

From an advertising agency perspective, according to Vin, you've got to be ready to get in the trenches on every project, remain nimble, and put the right experts and makers in place from the start. If you always remain strategic, and keep up with the changing business model, then that's how you stay out ahead as agencies, rather than merely just exist as brokers for brands.

Be innovative. But be smart about it.
Don't innovate just to innovate. Be smart about what you bring to the table, whether you're client side, or an agency partner. For Umang, this means trusting an advertising agency partner to do what's expected of them first, and to do it well. Then entering uncharted territory together becomes easier, and more encouraging. When they come back with interesting ideas they don't think anyone else will buy, chances are higher when the proof is there already. And if the insight is right, and the emerging technology delivers on that consumer need, then that's when the idea comes together and everyone moves forward together.

Plan now for the future.
At the end of the day, we need to change the way we operate. In order to survive, and then thrive, we need to re-evaluate our infrastructure and then prove to our clients, and our colleagues, that we know what we're doing. At Havas, and at A&G, it's important to be subject matter experts in our fields. To recruit top talent, at every level, top down, bottom up, and then prove we can be nimble, agile and that the teams we put in place to solve our clients' business challenges are worth the investment.

And when there's an additional need to seek out the right thinkers to put against those challenges, employing a strategic talent development partner like Michelle Hoover from General Assembly's Enterprise business to entrust with strategy, and allowing them to think about how mindset, behavior and skillset can be applied to growing human capital at any organization that prides itself on a think/make culture can only make us stronger.

Uncharted territory is our playground. It can be a scary place, but when we challenge the status quo together, we create work that's truly awe-inspiring. That pushes us to all work harder, and that helps us all be better places to work. Which is always the best place to be.

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