Hippie CEO Life #14 - What Is Success?
July 15, 2022
How do we grow as a team? How do we help our teammates become better?
In the first few years after getting 33 Sticks off the ground, i fielded several meeting requests from larger agencies and private equity firms that had interest in purchasing the company. It was weird to me at the time (it still is) knowing that we were just getting started, there was literally nothing to buy, but i took the calls anyway because i was intrigued.
Every single interested party i talked to was disgusted with the strategy that we had designed for the company. “What do you mean you aren’t focused on doubling the company year-over-year?”, “If you aren’t motivated by profits, then what are you even doing?”, and my all-time favorite, “It seems like you are just playing house, building some sort of lifestyle company, rather than building a real business.”
Perhaps at one point in my career i was guided by a desire to win in business, to make all the monies, to have the corner office with the fancy title but that changed as i got older and as we started designing 33 Sticks, my focus was not on how i could use this as an opportunity to generate a lot of income for myself but my focus was on how can i use this company so that we can grow together as a team, how can i use this opportunity to help our teammates become better, more elite at what they do?
How do we inspire others?
As we put our focus on our team, as we put our focus on people first, we saw that something magical was happening, this approach, this way of doing business, dare i say this way of living life, was working.
And as i got even older, my focus changed yet again from how do we become better as a team, how do we become more elite, to how do we inspire others? That question is what really drives me.
Sure, recognition is nice but things like “Rising Star” and “Fastest Growing” and “Best Agency” and “Best Place to Work” are fleeting, they aren’t a great measure of success. We could win one of those awards this year and the next year another agency wins those awards.
The awards, the recognition, they come and go but what stays is your ability to use your passion to inspire others to find their passion, who will then go on to inspire even more people to find their passion.
