Culture

I have a few idols. Tony Hawk, Bruce Lee, Napoleon Hill to name a few.  Within the last two years I have become fascinated with Tony Hseih and his company Zappos. I look up to him. His book literally changed my life, and I try to apply lots of the lessons he taught me into Sober Nation. If you haven't read his book I strongly suggest it,  its called Delivering Happiness, I couldn't put it down. In it he talks about the lessons he has learned about running a company, and more importantly, the importance of company culture. His view is simple, if you make people happy, they will be happy to work for you. I think this is an aspect that can not necessarily be measured, but still has a great impact. Some examples are Google, Southwest Airlines, and of course Zappos. All of these companies have very happy employees, and very happy customers. Its all about culture. People and companies who have a purpose, who are striving towards a goal, are the ones who will change the world.  That's what we are trying to do. Change the world.

In spirits of the culture season, let me share a small aspect of Sober Nation culture. I had the bright idea to challenge an employee of mine to a beard growing competition. The rules are simple, first one to shave loses. I am quickly regretting my bold challenge.  We take a picture of it every day so we can watch our beards grow. Here is today's pic.

Frankly I don't know what I was thinking, but its fun to have everyone talk about the competition.  People are taking bets, and its only been going on for a little more than two weeks. The point is that the Sober Nation team is working to build a culture that promotes honesty, hard work, and having fun as a group.  I think that is what our beard competition is all about. The most important thing we can do here is build a community. A community of recovery addicts, of family members, of people that might not have anywhere else to go. The message is that recovery is awesome. Not only is it an escape from the clutches of addiction, but it is a blast. Let us never forget, that LIFE IS GOOD!!