Book Review: Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh

A formative business book for me personally and a book I wish I reviewing much sooner. Tony exemplifies what he preaches in the book, be good, do right by people, with the ultimate focus on enjoying the journey and being happy day to day. In light of his very recent passing, it’s incredible to see the insights and accomplishments of this incredible entrepreneur and leader. This book is a must read for business leaders and a wonderful testament to the brilliance and generous nature of the author.

Hi, it’s Ahmed back from mountaintop. I was actually not planning on recording a video today but I felt like I needed to record a very special book review. This morning I just found out that Tony Hsieh, the fabled CEO of Zappos and the author of delivering happiness, has unfortunately passed away in an accident. And that I’m sure like many others I’m deeply moved, deeply saddened and my thoughts and prayers go out to Tony and his family and his loved ones and friends and the folks of Zappos who probably miss him very much and all the other people that he’s influenced.

So today, I felt like I needed to talk about how instrumental Tony Hsieh’s book, Delivering Happiness, has been in my own entrepreneurial journey. I’m kind of ashamed of the fact that I didn’t talk about it before. It was one of the early books that I read and it skipped my mind, you know, kind of like availability bias but when I found out about his passing, it brought to me the things that I learned from his book and how it impacted me as an entrepreneur. The biggest thing about his book that I can remember that I’ve implemented is culture, understanding culture, growing as an entrepreneur, and realizing what’s truly important. From the outside, it’s always like, ’oh, it’s money and success and all this other stuff.’ But what you can see from Tony’s journey is he saw that it was not just about the end result but also the journey. And the biggest thing that he showed in his book is that you could, you know, build a great company, a great culture, and make money while doing it. So I would highly recommend you checking out the book, Delivering Happiness, if you haven’t already and it’s just a wonderful read.

Many people have done reviews on Tony Hsieh’s books and I think that’s another incredible thing about being a great leader, being a great entrepreneur is he’s not just leaving behind, you know, just money or a charity that he’s done. The impact of someone like Tony Hsieh is huge from the works he’s done, from companies he’s built. If you ever been to downtown Las Vegas, you’ll see his imprint there. But even beyond that, I think from knowledge that he’s shared. Everybody who’s been responding on social media today, many of them have had personal interactions with him. Others have just known him through his works like myself. I’ve unfortunately never got to know him personally but I did read his books and took a lot of inspiration out of that.

So bottom line, if you do well, if you do well by other people, you’re gonna do all right in life and you can actually do all right in life, do all right, you know, even afterwards. But the legacy that you leave behind in the organizations that you build and the people that you touch again highly recommend checking out Tony Hsieh’s book, Delivery Happiness. One of the best business books that I’ve read and it’s a wonderful personal development as well. Thanks. Take care.