750 Words on Happiness: Is Happiness At Your Core?

by Micah

The concept of core is one that has been on my mind lately. I’ve been traveling a lot this year (which was really not the plan), and interacting with hundreds of different types of people (investors, actors, entrepreneurs, big company executives, my family, etc.).

And, in our pollyanna world of social media, I am supposing that you are expecting a post about how at the core, everyone is really the same.

Thats not this post.

My thoughts around core center on the idea of conviction of values and morals. What values and/or morals live at the core of YOU or YOUR COMPANY? Are they the same? Are they different?

While at Comic-Con in San Diego, I got to spend time with Cyan Bannister (which was way more fun than trying to figure out if we should kill each other or not during a game of Werewolf), and we talked a lot about our startups and entrepreneurship.

If you dont know Cyan, and her husband Scott, you should. As entrepreneurs, they have built some awesome companies between them, including Submit-it (which made me good money with Current Wisdom, my interactive agency), IronPort, Zivity, and others. As investors, they are just amazing in their selection of companies and entrepreneurs.

Cyan and I got to talking about company culture, and how it shifts and changes as the economy, industry and, of course, company grow and morph. She suggested I read Tony Hsieh‘s (of Zappos) book, Delivering Happiness.

About a week ago, I finally got around to reading it on a day trip to LA (quick read). I assumed I would get a lot of “look how awesome building Zappos was” and “It was so hard, but we just blasted through.” Instead, what I got was a lot of “Who are you?” and “Why does that make you happy?”

Recently, Cyan posted a video interview we did at ComicCon where we talked a lot of startups, Boulder (surprise!), and comics. In the middle of the conversation, we ended up talking about my tattoos, and their significance. Its a story Ive told a hundred times, and one that I never think anything of, but it seemed to resonate with Cyan.

After watching the interview, I had a friend IM me.

him: you are an anomaly

me: why?

him: because you are so truthful in an industry not known for its truth

me: thats sad.

Is that true? Am I different than most? Tony seems real enough. People like Joe Green, Michael Galpert, Dave McClure, Brad Feld, Erin Kotecki Vest, Lisa Stone, and many other folks are people that I consider to be “real.”

What makes me like this folks?

It then dawned on me. I have immutable core values. Core values that dont adjust or morph based on the situation. They are clear and they are specific.

1) Always tell the truth.

2) Always do the right thing.

Thats how I view my world. I tell the truth. I do the right thing. Always. Sometimes that choice leads to pain, loneliness, detriment. But, it always leads to happiness. I can live with myself, which is not something that I could say was always true.

Whats my secret to happiness? Not having regrets. How can I never have regrets? I always tell the truth, and I always do the right thing.

Its that simple. But arent the best things always?

At Graphicly, we have almost finished moving into a new space. We have a clear vision towards the future, and have a rockstar team.

But, we are missing articulated core values. As a long time manager and coach, I have learned that you can only push your core values on a team so far. At some point, the team has to create their own. And not just the internal team, but the entire corpus of stockholders. For us, thats our community, our investors, our team and our advisors. As we build out our list of core values, we have solicited feedback from each of these constituencies.

The outcome will be a list of core values that matter. That are solid and focused.

The outcome will be a company that people can be happy to be part of, not because of the checks they receive, but because of the experience we provide.

After all, its really that simple.

Related articles by Zemanta
Enhanced by Zemanta