Delivering Happiness, written by Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay), the CEO of Zappos.com, is about much more than one of Fortune magazine’s top 25 companies to work for. It’s about more than Amazon’s acquisition of the company valued at over $1.2 billion. It’s about more than making money and starting a company. In fact, this book is about starting from scratch. It’s about trusting strangers. It’s about taking giant leaps, and hoping for success. Most importantly, it’s about happiness. Discovering it, and distributing it around the world.

Hsieh’s journey begins at a strikingly young age. There’s no questioning his sense for business as he built relationships and strategies from day one. In the early years (before Zappos), Hsieh dabbled in as many different business relationships as possible. From creating personalized buttons to managing a restaurant on his college campus, Hsieh’s main goal was to make money. And he was very good at it. He was smart and innovative and determined to make as much money as possible.

“My goal was to find a high-paying job. I didn’t really care what my specific job function was, what company I worked for, what the culture of the company was like, or where I ended up living. I just wanted a job that paid well and didn’t seem like too much work.” (p. 29)

This is the goal for many recent college graduates – heck, many people in general. They have an idea of what life is going to be like if it’s filled with money. It’s comfort. It’s security. It’s luxury.

But, it’s not necessarily happiness.

After learning a high-paying, but excruciatingly boring job wasn’t all he expected, Hsieh started his first company, LinkExchange. LinkExchange was a huge success, made him tons of money, and then was scooped up by Microsoft. However, Hsieh would only get the full $40 million negotiated if he stayed with LinkExchange for one year post-acquisition.

“This practice of sticking around but not really doing anything was actually pretty common practice in Silicon Valley in acquisition scenarios. In fact, there’s even a phrase that entrepreneurs use for this: ‘Vest In Peace.’” (p. 50)

It was during this “vesting” period when Hsieh realized this life he created, with all its money and cars and apartments and material objects, wasn’t the success he’d always dreamt of. It wasn’t fulfilling. It was just…stuff.

“I thought about ho easily we are 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.” (p. 53)

And this is where the true story begins.

Comparing the ever-changing and always-tricky business world to the equally challenging game of poker, Hsieh learned dozens of lessons on strategy that he would later employ in a new endeavor: Zappos.

“Envision, create, and believe in your own universe.” (p. 85)

After spending New Years Eve with several hundred of his closest friends, these words were spoken to Hsieh. They resonated with him and it was these words that truly began his journey toward happiness.

The early years of Zappos were a struggle, to put it mildly. Money was inconsistent, job security was unreliable, and saving the company seemed like a lost cause. But Hsieh was determined to help Zappos succeed. To make Zappos succeed.

It wasn’t until after moving the Zappos headquarters from San Francisco to Las Vegas that the company really started to take off. The magical part of it all? It wasn’t about the money.

It was about Customer Service

Over the years, the number one driver of Zappos’s growth has been repeat customers and word of mouth. Creating an above excellent experience for each and every customer ultimately helped Zappos build the necessary momentum to succeed.

“Usually marketing departments assume that the lifetime value of a customer is fixed when doing their ROI calculations. We view the lifetime value of a customer to be a moving target that can increase if we can create more and more positive emotional associations with our brand through every interaction that a person has with us…[many marketers focus] too much on trying to figure out how to generate a lot of buzz, when they really should be focused on building engagement and trust. I can tell you that my mom has zero buzz, but when she says something, I listen.” (p. 143-144)

The Zappos Mission is: To live and deliver WOW. Whether this means upgrading a customer’s order to two-day shipping as a surprise, or ordering a call-in customer a pizza from out of state, Zappos is committed, 100 percent, to putting customer service above all else.

It was about Company Culture

“At Zappos, our belief is that if you get the culture right, most of the other stuff – like great customer service, or building a great long-term brand, or passionate employees and customers – will happen naturally on its own.” (p. 152)

Zappos formally defined the culture in terms of 10 core values. These core values were to be infiltrated in every aspect of every employee’s life. Once they truly committed to these core values, their unique company culture was born.

With Zappos’ rapid growth came the fear that this prized company culture would be tarnished. Hsieh came up with sample interview questions interviewers should ask the potential hires. Fitting into the company culture was number one. With this mentality, they were able to not only expand Zappos as a company, but also as a culture.

“We never want to become complacent and accept the status quo just because that’s the way things have always been done. We should always be seeking adventure and having fun exploring new possibilities. By having the freedom to be creative in our solutions, we end up making our own luck. We approach situations and challenges with an open mind.” (p. 168)

It was about Happiness

It wasn’t long before talks of an acquisition surfaced. After much discussion and planning, Zappos was, in fact, acquired by Amazon. But, they didn’t really view it as an acquisition – more like mutually-beneficial partnership.

“I summed everything up in on sentence: ‘Getting married to Amazon will allow us to fulfill our vision of delivering happiness to the world that much faster.” (p. 225)

It the final chapter of the book, Hsieh asks his readers “What is your goal in life?” He gets a variety of answers – start a company, find love, get healthy. He then asks, “Why?”

No matter what goal you have in your life, the “why?” is always the same – Happiness. The roads may be different, but, if you’re lucky, the end result is always the same.

“Happiness is really just about four things: perceived control, perceived progress, connectedness (number and depth of your relationships, and vision/meaning (being part of something bigger than yourself).” (p. 232-233)

Hsieh believes these “pillars” are relevant in both the business world and in real live. If we are constantly meeting the unrecognized needs of customers as well as ourselves/friends/family, we will all reach our ultimate goal of happiness.

Hsieh also refers to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Happiness. There are three types of happiness: pleasure, passion and higher purpose.

“The pleasure type of happiness is about always chasing the next high…The passion type of happiness is also known as flow, where peak performance meets peak engagement, and time flies by…The higher-purpose type of happiness is about being part of something bigger than yourself that has meaning to you.” (p. 236-237)

Many people go through life just chasing after the pleasure type of happiness, not necessarily aware there are higher and much more rewarding levels of true happiness.

Me? I think I’m nestled right in the Passion sector.

This book was an inspiration. It inspired me to approach my clients differently at work. It inspired me to work on building and maintaining the company culture in my office as we grow leaps and bounds – I never want to lose the bond we all share in the office. It inspired me to seek out my own happiness and know it’s possible and entirely attainable. Because…

“When you walk with purpose, you collide with destiny.” – Bertice Berry (p. 240)

I’m attending a MeetUp in San Francisco tonight to discuss this book – I’ll let you know if anything interesting comes of it!