Skip to main content

Book Review : Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh

I read with the belief that these books are changing me and shaping me, my subconscious slowly, one day at a time and that just by being on this journey, I am making a conscious effort to be a better version of myself. And here I am serving you a piece of this cake that I devoured to share my understanding of this book with as well as encourage you to live these great lives through these books ! 

As promised I will review the book by answering these 4 questions.

What is the book about as a whole ?

The book takes you on a journey to explore the life and adventures of Tony Hsieh, who is the founder of Zappos. It is a light and enjoyable read with a friendly, conversation like tone and you can almost imagine yourself sitting in Zappos' lobby chatting with Tony yourself.

What is being said in detail and how ?

The story line follows a chronological timeline starting from Tony's upbringing, his formative years, the early signs of entrepreneurship and the relentless drive to make more money. In the process of discovering his businesses, he discovers his own passion in creating memorable experience for people and ends up creating a culture called "Zappos".

Zappos is a story of how culture is created and driven and how it becomes a way of life. Tony shares several anecdotes of culture driving the decisions and the strategy of the organization. The example of shifting the company from California to Vegas only to drive a customer driven culture is unprecedented in the Industry and does pay off in the long term.

The books talks about his own personal sacrifices, mistakes like Link Exchange and the journey to self discovery. There are great details on the Zappos' values and what that means to the employees.

Did the book raise or answer any pertinent questions ?

1. Every successful company has some values and those values drive its strategy, culture and future!

2. One of the underlying themes was what is happiness and how to build sustainable happiness ?

How did the book affect me ?

I identified with many truths in the book and here are some of my favorite quotes

1. It seemed kind of silly to sell a company I was excited about in order to start another company to be excited about !

2. You are in your best negotiation position if you don't care what the outcomes is and are not afraid to walk away.

3.In life, in poker or in business, its easy to get caught up in what your are doing currently and it makes it easy to forget that you always have the option to change tables !

Overall a light and rich read, full of anecdotes and the most interesting tweets !


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ode to Chennai

Dear Chennai, As we part ways I wish to tell you that you are special to me. I know people from my part of the world won't understand, but its between you and me and the bond we share...  All I want to say to you is... As I landed here a year back, you opened your heart to me, You never demanded allegiance, you earned it from me With your soothing sea breeze and mesmerizing sunrise, I cocooned into your warmth, each day grew wise You were relentless at times, with blazing sun in the sky, But you were teaching me patience, so I now know why You got back on your feet, when nature struck you hard, With magnanimity and strength, you rejoined each shard I deserved all on my plate, you only served me sweet, Your Rajini craze and Murugan Idly, no city in the world can beat Not a single day that I spent with you, do I regret I always am, and will always be glad that we met.
2 comments
Read more

As we Part...!

This is all the courage I could gather to put down the avalanche of memories and thoughts rushing to my mind at the rate of 1Gigabytes per second..This is to the place which made or unmade me...K Forever! Living in the fear of having to go separate ways brings pain All my efforts to hold back and let go have gone in vain Every passing moment brings conflict and choices One last time is all I can hear among all the voices! Lost in the sea of where to be and what to be Everything shall pass and yet I want to hold on to thee! I shall never return and this is where we part But to thee I promise, we carry a piece of each other’s heart!
1 comment
Read more

Becoming a demanding reader !

I started reading as a casual reader, more so driven by the perception of reading rather than actually being driven by the need to read. I started with fiction, gradually drifted to non-fiction but never really had a sense of direction about what to read and hence largely dependent on reviews from co-readers to arrive at my next book. However I have lately started thinking about reading for understanding the world better, for creating my mental models of decision making, to enable choices and to understand concepts I think are far more complex than I can process. And in the process, make effort to remember what I read and also hone my abysmal writing skills.  Hence this is an introductory post of my first book review, to summarize my learning and understanding of the last book I read - Made in America by Sam Walton. Deriving inspiration from an article I read on Farnam Street , I will structure my reviews around the following questions and continue improvising as I go along. ...
Post a Comment
Read more