The ultimate definition of success is: you could lose everything that you have and truly be okay with it. Your happiness isn’t based on external factors.
It doesn’t cost anything to say hi when you pass someone else in the hallway, whereas, most corporations if you pass you avoid eye contact.
Don’t play games that you don’t understand, even if you see lots of other people making money from them.
A lot of people realize “I don’t have to work in this job that I’m miserable at every year, or every day, and I don’t have to live in, for example, New York City where it’s super expensive and if I live somewhere else that is less expensive and could pursue my passion like, I can afford to do that.”
Launching a business is kind of like a motorboat: You can go very quickly and turn fast.
For individuals, character is destiny. For organizations, culture is destiny.
If you’re worried about putting food on the table or putting a roof over your head, that stress is definitely will contribute to unhappiness, but once you have your basic needs met then incremental money.
Learn by doing. Theory is nice, but nothing replaces actual experience.
A bigger business is like a cruise ship: There are lots of amenities and you can go a lot further, but it’s harder to turn quickly.
Envision, create, and believe in your own universe, and the universe will form around you.
If I was going to go into an office I wanted it to be with people I would choose to be around even if we didn’t have to work together and so that was one of the major reasons why I decided out of all the different companies we invested in to work with Zappos.
To never forget that the most important thing in life is the quality of life we lead.
Without conscious and deliberate effort, inertia always wins.
If you’re focused on the friendship as its own reward, serendipitous stuff just happens. I know that sounds weird, but I can tell you for our 12 years of existence, it’s actually how a lot of stuff happens.
Twitter is like hugging. Just because it’s hard to measure the return on investment doesn’t mean there isn’t value there.
If someone is self-aware, then they can always continue to grow. If they’re not self-aware, I think it’s harder for them to evolve or adapt beyond who they already are.
Every employee can affect your company’s brand, not just the front-line employees that are paid to talk to your customers.
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 empowering passionate employees and customers, will happen on its own.
Your brand is your culture.
Having a higher purpose is more than just about profits. You actually end up making more profits in the long run because employees really are a lot more engaged and customers see the higher purpose in the company.