Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose

Book: Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose by Tony Hsieh

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Synopsis: The visionary CEO of Zappos explains how an emphasis on corporate culture can lead to unprecedented success. Pay new employees $2000 to quit. Make customer service the entire company, not just a department. Focus on company culture as the #1 priority. Apply research from the science of happiness to running a business. Help employees grow both personally and professionally. Seek to change the world. Oh, and make money too. In his first book, Tony shares the different business lessons he learned in life, from a lemonade stand and pizza business through LinkExchange, Zappos, and more. Ultimately, he shows how using happiness as a framework can produce profits, passion, and purpose both in business and in life. [via Amazon]

Book Notes: You know a book is good when right after you put it down you have this overwhelming feeling of wanting to learn so much more—that was exactly what I felt after! I suddenly found myself at the Zappo website looking for all those uncanny details written in the book. With some of the insanely hilarious anecdotes, I was so close to having some random and totally unrelated conversation with one of their live chat customer representatives. I even signed up for a copy of their famous culture book and started following their visionary CEO on twitter.

The book was easy to read and extremely relatable. It wasn't about Internet jargon and html codes, it was their remarkable story from the brink of bankrupcy to becoming a billion dollar Internet sensation. But more than the dollar signs and the added zeros to the their paychecks, the Zappos story is really about the culture they managed to cultivate. It wasn't just a business, but a family, a network of individuals who were passionate, driven and imaginative. Their very unique transparent company structure was fascinatingly employee oriented and prided in their development and advancement within Zappos. I suddenly found myself googling their offices and thinking what a pretty kick-ass environment to be a part of! I even made a mental note that the next time I find myself in Vegas, I should sign up for one of their tours.

Overall I thought it was a very timely book for me to have read especially with the months pending to the opening of my business. It gave me a different perspective on how to be a boss and how to relate to my employees. These little people are the backbone of your business and they must be nurtured to be the best employees possible, and thats your job as the boss. It made me realize how important it is to create a working atmosphere that doesn't feel like work. It has to remain challenging, exciting and fun combined with getting everything required done.

Quotable Quotes:

"I always fantasized about making money, because to me, money meant that later on in life I would have the freedom to do whatever I wanted. The idea of one day running my own company also meant that I could be creative and eventually live my life on my own terms."

"We had no idea where it would lead us, but wherever it was, we knew it had to be better than feeling bored and unfulfilled. We were ready for an adventure."

"I thought about how easily we were all brainwashed by our society and culture to stop thinking and just assume by default that more money equals more success and more happiness, when ultimately, happiness is really just about enjoying life."

"I had decided to stop chasing the money and start chasing the passion. I was ready for the next chapter in my life."

"Looking back, a lot of our growth happened that way. We'd just throw ideas against the wall to see if they'd stick, improvise and make it happen."

"Play only with what you can afford to lose."

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

"Some of us tried to figure out what our true passions were so that we would have something better than partying to focus on. I was one of those people."

"There's never one way to do things, but an incredible amount of ways to get things done. It takes an open and creative mind to find, invent and execute them."

"We learned a great lesson: If you just focus on making sure that your product or service continually WOW people, eventually the press will find out about it."

"...they saw a real-life example that it was actually possible to run a values-based company that also focuses on everyone's happiness. They saw that it wasn't just theory, that there was a way to combine profits, passion and purpose."

The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life

Title: The Trump Card: Playing to Win in Work and Life by Ivanka Trump

Synopsis:  Eager to share what she's learned at some of the best schools in the country, as well as from her driven, successful parents, Trump is straightforward and fully self-aware, realizing that readers will dismiss her achievements as simple nepotism; as such, she owns her privilege, acknowledges her advantages and then sets about disabusing readers of their presumptions with intelligent, well-conceived, positive advice; unbridled ambition; and a strong measure of graciousness and humility. [via Amazon]

Book Notes: The starts out with a narration of her early up-bringing and it gave a glimpse into why she became the woman she is today. Being born into privilege and with her last name, she quite frankly doesn't have to work a day in her life. But a silver spoon life has no meaning if it wasn't earned, and the ambitious Ivanka was not just going to live off her last name. Of course she got the elephant out of the room and acquainted the truth that she was rich, her last name was an extra leverage and her father was her boss. Politics on being a young VP existed but there's a distinct difference being the boss's kid who got the title and being someone who stepped up to deserve the title. Ivanka has proven to be the latter. Throughout the book she also gives smart pieces of advice on moving up the fierce corporate ladder, emphasizing on hard work, dedication and exceptional ideas as keys to success. Between chapters, she included excerpts from her famous associates penning various pieces of advice from their own experiences.

Overall it was quite refreshing to read about a 27-year-old that wasn't all about sex, drugs and DUIs. I would definitely recommend this to children with family businesses to work in or are working in already. Hopefully it would inspire a next generation of young entrepreneurs to take advantage of a very lucky position they find themselves in—you're already one step ahead, own your birthright.

Quotable Quotes:

"And so: get over it. Go ahead and bring it up if you feel you must. Acknowledge the elephant in the room. But then move on. Move on, because I'm way past it. Move on, because even though those who believe that my success is a result of nepotism might be right, they might also be wrong. Try as I may—and try as my critics may—there's just no way to measure the advantage I've gained from having the Trump name, just as there's no way to know if the person sitting across from you in a job interview or a negotiation is there on his or her own merits or with an assist of one kind or other."

"No other day is like another, and they've added up to a wealth of experience. My experience. I've been exposed to a level of responsibility that's very rare for someone my age. My responsibility. While most young people in business spend their twenties enduring the growing pains and lowly paper-pushing assignments that come with earning your stripes, I've been able to bypass (mostly) that sort of grunt work and have been part of upper management from very early in my career."

"if i get creative and think against the grain, I can make a whole lot of noise."

"It isn't enough to win a transaction. You have to be able to look the other guy in the eye and know that there is value in the deal on the other end too—unless, of course, you're a onetime seller and just going for the gold."

"The single most important thing you can do in business is stay away from negative people."

"Some people turn whining into a career, but those people can be so depressing. They'll bring you down, and you'll never be at your best when you're down."

"...to reinforce for their children to earn their lifestyle. They put out the message that all those fine things were there for the taking but we would have to reach for them; nothing would be handed to us."

"Make no mistake, I wanted to enjoy first-class comforts, but not so much that I was willing to pay for them. Not with my own money, anyway." (on spending her modeling money when she was young)

"If you want something, you have to work for it."

"Somehow my parents had me thinking I should be self-sufficient, and for as long as I can remember I've never been comfortable relying on someone else to provide for me."

"Now, as an adult, I like the feeling of being able to provide for myself and of owning my own lifestyle."

"At this point they are not friends, because there's no room in my life for people who can't seem to find any motivation in theirs. They're more like a sad collection of cautionary tales."

"If you're merely surviving at work instead of thriving, perhaps it means you're not in the right field. Or maybe you don't have enough passion for what you're doing to succeed to the highest level."

"Stress does not equal hard work."

"We have been conditioned to expect success—sometimes instantly."