Daily Archives: 30 July 2011

Simon Sinek – First why and then trust

Simon Sinek (@simonsinek) created a simple model, The Golden Circle, that codified what makes the most inspiring people and organizations so successful and influential. Beginning as a student in anthropology, Simon Sinek turned his fascination with people into a career of convincing people to do what inspires them.

Through his struggle to rediscover his excitement about life and work, he made some profound realizations and began helping his friends and their friends to find their “why” — at first charging just $100, person by person.

Never planning to write a book, he penned Start With Why simply as a way to distribute his message. With a bold goal to help build a world in which the vast majority of people go home everyday feeling fulfilled by their work, Sinek is leading a movement to inspire people to do the things that inspire them.

Now Simon takes the next step. After why comes : trust. I also recommended you to see his presentation at TEDxPugetSound about How great leaders inspire action.

Simon Sinek – How great leaders inspire action

Here’s how Apple actually communicates:

Everything we do, we believe in challenging the status quo. We believe in thinking differently. The way we challenge the status quo is by making our products beautifully designed, simple to use and user-friendly. We just happen to make great computers. Want to buy one?

Also check out his talk at TEDxMaastricht.

Tony Hsieh – Profits, Passion, and Purpose

Tony Hsieh visits Google in Mountain View to talk about his new book – Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose.

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.

Sound crazy? It’s all standard operating procedure at Zappos.com, the online retailer that’s doing over $1 billion in gross merchandise sales every year.

In 1999, Tony Hsieh (pronounced Shay) sold LinkExchange, the company he co-founded, to Microsoft for $265 million. He then joined Zappos as an adviser and investor, and eventually became CEO.

In 2009, Zappos was listed as one of Fortune magazine’s top 25 companies to work for, and was acquired by Amazon later that year in a deal valued at over $1.2 billion on the day of closing.

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.

Also interesting to read is the blogpost of Brain Solis about Zappos.