What intrigued me at first was the young age of Tony who is the CEO of zappos.com and I was interested to find out how he transformed a company from scratch to $1 billion within a short period of time.

I didn’t know what zappos is all about and suspected it was the brand of the lighter people use to light up their cigarette.

I really love the book as it is written in a story manner, casual yet informative and inspiring. It’s contains the life story of Tony’s experiences, his ups and downs and how he handled his challenges.

I notice quite a number of similarities between entrepreneurs; one of the more distinctive one is that they had very enterprising mindset when they were young. Both Tony and Richard Branson (of Virgin Airlines) shared this in their books.

Who doesn’t encountered failures? It’s the way to react to the unsuccessful experiments which make them stronger, more determined. This is part of what ‘Delivering Happiness’ is all about. It involves the initial struggle of Zappos facing cashflow problems, lack of investors to pump in the money, failure of their 3rd party logistics company to meet up with expectations…

Tony’s (and his team) strong belief in Zappos led him to take risk to purse taking Zappos to a higher level. It’s really WOW for me to read his adventures, given the fact that at the age of late 20 – early 30, he was able to steer the company through such storm. It speaks volume of his foresight and entrepreneur’s spirit.

Next part of the book dedicates to the USP (unique selling point) of Zappos which differentiates itself from its competitors. Initially I thought it would be a boring section as it discusses on the company culture which to me is merely some SOP (standard operating procedure) meant for the sake of being on the wall. I was totally wrong. Zappos walk the talk, the entire company, everyone from management to customer service. I enjoyed the stories by their employees to illustrate each of the 10 core values Zappos follow.

Delivering Happiness isn’t a autobiography of Tony Hsieh, isn’t about Zappos but it’s a book which compasses the essential elements which created Zappos to be what it is now, courtesy of remarkable leadership in a fun and enjoyable environment!

I highly recommend this book for everyone who’s interested to

• Bring your passion to another level
• Create a more enjoyable working environment
• Understand what leaders do and their way of thinking in creating great companies
• Get some inspirations on creating ever-lasting business
• Broaden your perspectives on business-building in this new age period
• Doing differently for outstanding output
• Get more happiness

PS: It was written in the book that Zappos has a culture book for anyone who’s interested in reading more about their cultures through their employees. I thought I would have to pay for their book but instead there wasn’t any payment details when I went to the sign up page. The WOW thing is that I saw the UPS package on my desk 3 days later! Totally blew me off. When they meant fast delivery, it’s really fast!

Usually I get my books (Bestsellers) from Popular (Cheapest + I have 10% (?) members’ discount). As for books which are atypical (usually from other countries of a Niche area), I will get them from Borders (with their discount voucher certainly, usually I check out hardwarezone as users post the link to such vouchers), Kino.

The books which I usually read for non-fiction type revolving around these few subjects

• Self Improvement
• Business Books eg Marketing, Entrepreneurship
• Wealth Investing Books
• Internet Marketing Books eg Blogging

I found a useful blog which collects the major online bookstores in Singapore. It serves as a real useful guide especially in getting the best deal. This is also the reason which prompted me to blog on online bookstores so that I can refer to my blog in future when I need to order any books.

Here’s a look at some of my books on my desk.

Let me know if you share the same interests, we can perhaps order books in more quantity to save more $ .

Zing for now.

1. Explore

2. Freedom

3. Pause

4. Embrace

5. Life!

This is one of the rare books which walk the talk of creativity.

Zing for now!

something interesting happened last weekend. i thought i must share it since someone did me a favour for that interesting encounter of mine. here it goes:

i met up with a good fren of mine last weekend. she was late and didnt want any lunch so i went ahead with my favourite chicken rice at Far East Plaza. Yummmy! so i was walking around to this 2nd hand book store. some of the books caught my attention as i have them at home but not read yet . i went in, this particular book that a lady was holding onto caught my attention!

it was “The Secret” book … she was flipping through it and she sensed my interest so she passed the book to me. I ‘ve watched the secret dvd and have even uploaded its full version of this film on this blog i think at least a mth ago.
(searched for it if you r keen; that post is my highest page view so far)

it took me a good 5 minute to decide if i want to read that book since i’ve already watched a lil’ of the film. well, in the end, i decide to buy it. the paying process is interesting. it costs me $22 for that book. btw, this book though 2nd hand is in real good condition! 9.5/10! love it.

being someone who usually pays my purchases with cards, i don’t bring much cash with me. that shop didnt have card facility for payment so i was forced to gathered all my “wealth” from my wallet. i had only $20 left after lunch and i offered the boss then he asked for more, coins also all right. so in the end, i paid him a total of $20.90. he being a nice man, didnt say much except to offer me his namecard.

i guess the best way to appreciate this kind gesture is to get more people to know of his place? some of you might already know this store perhaps. here it is:

ANA BOOK STORE
FAR EAST PLAZA #05-01
14 SCOTTS RD
SINGAPORE 228213
TEL 67372385

well, i completed “the secret” book in a total of about 4hours for a 100++pages book. it’s a feat for me! yes frankly, cos my usual time for this no. of pages will be probably 30 days of 30 minutes each! 900 minutes = 15 hours! some of you might wonder what’s the big deal. Well, the faster i finish the book, the faster my other interested frens can get hold of it! haha…. in fact i got a queue of almost 10 people wanting to borrow the book.

all right, i would like to summarize one main thing i pick up from this book:

Think of what you want ALWAYS..

btw, i understand that some of you are living out of Singapore, if you are interested to get a copy, it’s easily available in amazon.com i’ve placed the direct link to the book at the top of my blog under ” instant lifestyles”

Let me know your thoughts if you have read the book or some comments about the book. in fact, i’ve created a blog solely on “reporting” my personal experiences as well as my friends. feel free to drop your story here

http://thesecretechoes.blogspot.com/