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INTRODUCTION: A HIGHER PURPOSE

Ten years ago—coincidentally, right around the same time Zappos was finalizing its partnership deal with a little company called Amazon—I published my very first book, My Life Outside the Ring, with legendary wrestler Hulk Hogan.

I wrote that book while juggling a relentlessly busy, more-than-full-time day job at one of the biggest magazines in the world with my family duties of helping to raise two young children. Which means I wrote it in my “spare time,” toiling away at my laptop from midnight to 3 A.M., every day.

It was exhausting. It was invigorating. It was challenging. It took a toll on my family and my sleep—but the effort paid off. My first book became a New York Times bestseller and would eventually serve as the launch pad for the biggest, most daring decision of my adult life: to leave my steady job behind and take on the life of a full-time coauthor; a life of working from home, doing what I love, but never knowing where my next paycheck might come from.

My leap of faith worked pretty well at first. In my first few years I wrote books with a US presidential candidate, a legendary sports figure, an army general, TV stars, and more. I loved what I was doing—but something was off. As time went by, some of these books weren’t selling as well as I’d hoped. After more than half a decade, I was just sort of getting by (financially speaking). And I was starting to question whether I’d made a bad decision, mostly because the potential new book projects that kept coming my way seemed increasingly driven by less-than-thrilling subjects. They were ego-driven projects by businesspeople who wanted to capitalize on my prior successes, or books from celebrities who wanted to entertain with gossip and fun stories (and not much else) to make some money.

Those sorts of books may have filled up my bank account just fine, but as I considered whether or not to take them, I realized they did nothing to fill my heart and soul. They felt shallow. They felt like something less than what I ought to be dedicating my life to creating.

What I loved most about writing books, and what I tried to infuse into every book I had tackled so far, was coaxing out the best, most inspirational stories from my subjects. I loved finding out how these everyday people actually made it to the top. How they overcame obstacles. How they rose above challenges to chase and achieve their goals.

So I made a decision: I only wanted to write books that inspire—the kind of books that make people wake up in the morning and go out and chase their dreams. I want to dedicate myself to writing books that remind people that the world is full of amazing possibilities, and that all of us have a chance to make life better for ourselves and others every day.

To follow through on that commitment, I chose to back out of a potentially lucrative book deal that didn’t serve that purpose. Was I nervous to let go of a project that was already in process? Yes. Did I know where my next paycheck would come from? No. But I knew it was the right thing to do. So I did it.

It was a leap of faith—the same sort of leap that businesses like Zappos have to sometimes take when they want to transition from good to great.

As fate would have it, just a few weeks later I got a call about a book project that struck me as having the potential to live up to my new goal. So I chased it. I gave it my all. I flew all the way from New Hampshire to the middle of Texas for a fifteen-minute pitch meeting, and, in that meeting, while listening to this couple’s goals for their book, I mentioned my big decision: “I only want to work on books that inspire.” I shared a bit about my personal journey, and they shared a bit about theirs. Despite our geographic differences, it seemed we had a lot in common. We’d all been through some struggles, and we were able to laugh about those similarities. Before we knew it, our meeting had gone well over an hour.

This couple was in a position to hire just about any writer in the world to write their book. But they chose me. And I’m positive that my decision to focus on inspiring others was a big part of the reason they did so.

Those people were Chip and Joanna Gaines, the stars of the HGTV show Fixer Upper, and our book, The Magnolia Story, would go on to become a runaway #1 New York Times bestseller. It sold more than a million copies in its first three months, and more than two years after its initial publication, it still managed to climb back onto some bestseller lists during the holiday shopping season. It’s still selling in hardcover to this day.

The amazing thing is that it wasn’t a fluke. I’ve coauthored three other books that have hit the New York Times bestseller list since then, and every one of them has adhered to the same set of inspirational values I purposefully set out to follow. Putting my focus on something bigger than myself, something bigger than just earning a paycheck, paid off. And the simple act of focusing my life’s work on serving a higher purpose improved my personal life as well, in more ways than I can possibly relate in this short introduction.

So you might understand why I was a little skeptical when someone named Kelly Smith contacted me (through the link on my less-than-fancy, $1-per-month website) saying she wanted to talk about writing a book for Zappos. Why would I be interested in taking on a business book, which I assumed would be a “corporate” project, after I’d left the corporate world far behind and made this big decision to focus on inspiration?

If you know what Zappos is all about, you’re probably laughing at my naïveté. To be honest, I didn’t know very much about Zappos.

I didn’t know anything about Mark, so we’re even.

I knew they sold shoes, but I had never ordered anything from their website. I knew of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh and that he’d written a book himself, but I hadn’t read it. Still, there was something about Kelly’s initial email that caught my eye: She said she wanted to create a book told in the diverse voices of the company’s own employees, which intrigued me. I’d read plenty of business books and I had written plenty of business articles in my career as a journalist (especially during my early years at the Boston Globe), but I had never seen a business book written that way. It felt new to me. It felt unique. I wanted to hear more, so I set up a call with her team.

In the first hour of what would become a two-year journey into the heart of Zappos’ culture, I realized that what Zappos was doing wasn’t about selling shoes. It wasn’t even about “business,” in the traditional sense. It was about service. It was about innovation. It was about reimagining what a business could be and how a business could survive for the long term, while making not only its customers but its employees, its shareholders, its community—everyone—happier in the process.

I traveled to Zappos’ headquarters in Las Vegas and spent time with its employees. I sat around a campfire with Tony Hsieh and steeped myself in this culture, and I quickly realized that this experience wasn’t just about writing a book. This experience was inspiring me to want to do even bigger and better things with my own life’s work, which is exactly what Zappos aims to do with all of its interactions: This company’s very real goal is to change the way business is done, and to inspire other businesses, big and small, to do something more innovative, and more inspirational, along the way.

That doesn’t even sound real, right? In this cynical world in which we live, it’s easy to dismiss earnest integrity and a desire to do good as some sort of a marketing gimmick. But I was blown away to find that every employee I met at Zappos had a story to tell that backed up the company mission. It didn’t matter if it was someone in a leadership position, or behind the front desk, or driving me in a Zappos-branded shuttle to the airport. Every employee had their own passionate, personal story to share, mostly about how changing the way they work has changed their lives for the better. And each of them very clearly showed that their goal in sharing these stories with me wasn’t to self-aggrandize—it was to inspire others to take a fresh look at what they do and to consider ways to make their lives and their work better, too.

I realize that this isn’t news to all of you. Some of you who’ve picked up this book are already steeped in the Zappos mystique. You likely know far more about Zappos than I did when I first started working on this project. But while I had to play catch-up (first and foremost by devouring Tony Hsieh’s book Delivering Happiness), what I’ve learned on my journey with this company so far is that anything anyone thinks they know about Zappos, whether from past books or various articles that have appeared in the press, barely scratches the surface.

What you’re about to read in this book is the result of ten additional years’ worth of collected experience, data, and information to back up what was still mostly hypothesis and dreams back in 2009. The WOW culture, the Core Values, and the dedication to “profits, passion, and purpose” that Zappos became known for in the past still apply, but now those concepts have been road tested over and over. And as you’ll soon see, while a few of Zappos’ ideas haven’t worked, every failure has been a lesson on a road to an exciting future.

Today, the goals at Zappos are bigger than they’ve ever been, as stated in the company purpose: To inspire the world by showing it’s possible to simultaneously deliver happiness to customers, employees, community, vendors, and shareholders in a long-term, sustainable way.

That may sound lofty, but Zappos is in the unique position to set lofty goals—and then chase them. While they have the backing and resources of Amazon, the deal Tony signed back in 2009 ensures that the company remains independent and autonomous.

In fact, Amazon and Zappos have an internal document titled The 5 Tenets Document, which says:

1. Zappos will operate independently, overseen by a management committee that will function similar to the prior Zappos board of directors. The committee will initially be made up of three people from Amazon and three people from Zappos.

2. Zappos’ unique culture has been core to its success to date, and we look to protect it. . . .

3. There will be differences between the customer experiences on Amazon and Zappos, and we will maintain separation so customers understand these differences.

4. Amazon wants to learn from Zappos and vice versa. We will share information back and forth to facilitate learning.

5. The only integration “must-haves” are processes legally necessary (for example, there are disclosure restrictions due to Amazon being a public company). These will be clearly defined and communicated.

Which means that as long as it’s delivering profits and growth, Zappos has the freedom to do, basically, whatever it wants. And what Zappos has become in the second decade of its existence is much more than an online retailer, and even more than a WOW-worthy service company: Zappos has become an incubator for new ideas; a testing ground for the future of how companies large and small can adapt, grow, and thrive in the face of an exponentially increasing rate of change.

The ultimate goal is to deliver WOW to everyone. To create a business formula in which there are no losers. To turn Zappos into a self-organizing, ever-changing, dynamic system that delivers wins for all parties involved: employees, customers, shareholders, vendors, community, the world—everyone.

And that is no easy feat.

As you’re about to discover, the company has gone through some pretty crazy ups and downs in the last decade while trying to enact and establish a way of doing business that hasn’t been put into practice at scale before. But what Zappos is aiming toward, and what it’s unleashing, is a self-organized workplace in which employees operate with the same autonomy and ability to innovate as Zappos itself does under the Amazon umbrella.

“Self-organized” is a technical term with a specific definition that may not be obvious. It doesn’t mean complete chaos with no governance, let everyone do whatever they want, which is a common misperception. One of my favorite ways of succinctly describing what self-organization means is “rules, not rulers.” An example of self-organization in nature is when you see a flock of birds. There is no “leader” bird in a flock that tells the other birds what to do. Instead, the birds follow very simple rules, such as stay a certain distance from nearby birds, not too close and not too far, and leverage the “draft” or “wake” created by other birds to minimize the amount of energy needed to fly more efficiently.

What will that look like?

You’re about to find out.

To best explain all of this, it’s time for me to get out of the way and to hand this book over to those employees. After all, this book was their idea, and allowing them to pull back the curtain themselves is the best way of not only explaining but actually showing you what Zappos is up to. They’ll tell you the story of how Zappos operates, how they got here, and how much fun work can be (for entry-level employees and CEOs alike) when work comes from a place of connection and service. They’ll explain how trust and service in the workplace leads to an unleashing of creativity. And they’ll also share where Zappos (and maybe the rest of the business world) is headed next, using examples of how staying true to a culture and giving employees the ability to lead through self-organization and Market-Based Dynamics (MBD) is already creating new experiences, new categories, and new profitability in areas that no one at Zappos could have imagined when they first got started.

MBD is our internal term for creating a mini-economy within the four walls of Zappos to mimic what happens in the real world. Part of the reason for implementing MBD at Zappos is because the research has shown that markets are one of the primary forces that drive innovation.

Whether you consider yourself a leader, a follower, an entrepreneur, a civil servant, a homebody, or a couch potato; whoever you are, wherever you are in work or in life, I hope you’ll find that this book is written in service to you. Because it truly comes from the heart, from all of the Zappos employees you’re about to meet. And my greatest hope, their greatest hope, is that this peek into the ever-unfolding story of Zappos will WOW you—so you’ll be inspired to go out and WOW the world, too.

—Mark Dagostino