Success, Happiness and Sustainable Business

I happened to stumble across this blog post entitled "Success or Happiness?"

Well, being curious, I thought those concepts weren't mutually exclusive. Maybe that was the point. The only way to know was to read the post, so I did.

Here's some of what the post said, to wit:


We talk about our career choices as if they are mutually exclusive: either you make tons of money and buy fancy things you never have the time to enjoy, or you do what you love and live in poverty, but you’re happy. You sell your soul to Goldman Sachs or write poetry nobody reads.

Not Steve Jobs.  People often eulogize Jobs for his revolutionary success, but for all his accomplishments, he also came off as an intensely fulfilled human being. Jobs managed success and happiness. And the advice he left behind for entrepreneurs is immensely inspiring.

Jobs said you can have both. And he told us where to start: Do What You Love.

So ... already I'm loving this guy, Guillaume Gauthereau CEO of Totsy.com. Awesome!

Sounds nice, but this is not easy advice to follow, at least at the start, because it runs counter to tens of thousands of years of human conditioning.  If you stick with your group and conform to what the group’s doing, you are going to be safe, because the group is protecting you. When you leave the herd, all bets are off. You’re alone, uncertain, different, rejected, vulnerable. It’s a very old fear, an animal fear.

But we are not  animals living in the Serengeti anymore. We are not going to die if we leave the herd. Quite the contrary: it’s where we go to thrive.

Once you start forgetting about what you should do and how, and removing the old constraints and limits and fears – salary, what will others think, is this something I know how to do – all these fears restrict the possibilities you can explore.  When you remove that, there’s a whole new world of possibilities out there.

The barrier and the issues you think you are going to face are all in your head. You are basically restricting yourself because at the end of the day, if you’re smart or if you went to a good school or have the privilege and opportunity to work in the startup industry, there’s no limit to what you can do. Unless of course you stay where you are.

When we started Totsy, the dominant thinking was that flash sales online only worked for impulse buys, things you wanted but didn’t need, like designer clothes. Fashion is about the impulse buy, luxury items.

We took a risk and bet that flash sales would also work for products you need. So we decided to focus on a specific vertical sell products new parents need. There was a risk people would not buy that way in that segment because it’s not about Marc Jacobs, it’s about buying a toy for your baby.

And for the success we’ve found here, we are not going to stay put. You have to keep reinventing yourself and taking new risks.

Wow! I am so on the same page with this fellow. Do tell more.

I started my career with a PhD in veterinary medicine. When I made the decision to work in pet nutrition for Colgate Palmolive and then Nestle Purina, I was effectively closing the door to practicing veterinary medicine. Then at a certain point I left that behind and went into luxury fashion at Louis Vuitton, and then left that behind again to become an entrepreneur and start a company that had nothing to do with pets or high fashion.

Most jobs today’s graduates will have don’t exist yet, or might be in an industry that doesn’t exist yet. Your college major may not be as important as you think. Zac Bissonnette writes for The New York Times:

Many students encounter tremendous pressure from their parents to adopt “practical” majors, and I’ve talked to a handful of students whose parents flatly refused to provide for their educational expenses unless they majored in something career-oriented. With less than half of recent college graduates landing jobs that require a college degree, this concern is understandable. But it’s misguided. In recent years, research into the importance of choice of major has led to a surprising conclusion: it’s really not all that important.

All the more reason to start with what you love.

Well, Guillaume, I used to practice law, but I became a freelance and fiction writer. Then, I went to library school and added research to my skill set. Then in December 2009, I decided to take a chance and become a full-time fiction writer.

BTW, I had a stroke in November 2004 and developed dystonia in my left hand and foot a few months later. Dystonia is a rare movement disorder, which I've blogged about and which affects my typing and concentration.

However, after a series of epiphanies, I've come to see that I can overcome adversity and run a sustainable business as an author, too.



PS: If you're interested, I'm doing a promotional giveaway until Sat. April 21 of my latest novel RIPTIDE from Smashwords. Just click here for the details. Thanks! :)