When Business Is Love tells the story of Jan Ryde's mission to create the world's finest beds and to operate his fifth-generation business, Hstens, on the basis of love.
Love.
It isn't everything. It's the only thing.
Despite the world being such a rich and abundant place, love is one thing that all the world is longing for, yet (as the old song goes) just can't seem to get enough of.
In When Business Is Love: The Spirit of Hstens - At Work, At Play, and Everywhere In Your Life, Jan Ryde, the fifth generation CEO of family-owned Swedish bed manufacturer Hstens, reveals the secrets to running a business and living a life rooted in love.
When Business Is Love is a book about what can happen when one approaches business and life with the single intention to give everyone involved the opportunity to experience their best life.
When Business Is Love shares Jan Ryde's mission to make the world a better place by putting people first and leading with values of humility, honesty, integrity, mastery, gratitude, forgiveness, encouragement, joy, peacefulness, and - above all else: LOVE.
Readers will follow Jan's personal journey from business school professor to CEO of a modest family business that he built into a global company, and learn from his successful leadership philosophy:
* Why you must embrace your whole story - even the dark times.
* The importance of a clearly-defined mission.
* The magic of imagination and retaining one's child-like creativity.
* How to step into and live in abundance through connection to the Source.
* The myth of competition and how you only have to create to succeed.
* The power of modeling and acting on the clues that success freely leaves for you.
* The miracles that show up in your life when you invest in helping people to have their best life ever.
Under Jan Ryde's management, Hstens, founded in Sweden in 1852 as a one-man saddlery, has grown into one of the world's most beloved brands with stores from Los Angeles to London, from Istanbul to Singapore. Hstens enjoys an outstanding international reputation for creating the finest beds in the world, as evidenced by a client list that includes everyone from Hollywood royalty to actual crowned heads of state. Its luxurious, handcrafted, top-of-the-line Grand Vividus sells for as much as a million dollars.
Readers following Jan Ryde's example of business as love will find themselves asking the transformative question that motivates the entire Hstens team: how good do you want to have it?
Industry Reviews
"A CEO's readable and heartwarming story of building beds with love."--
Kirkus Reviews"
When Business Is Love is a wonderfully personal account of the values, beliefs, and principles that guide Jan Ryde's leadership at Haestens. While the book is a captivating story about how a struggling local family business at the brink of bankruptcy has become a thriving global premium producer of high-end beds and mattresses, it is not your usual management book. Jan Ryde outlines a philosophy that is not only about business; it is about life."--Professor Mattias Nordqvist, SEB Chair of Entrepreneurship and Family Business, Director of the Center for Family Enterprise, Stockholm School of Economics, and House of Innovation
"I've been a fan of Haestens for years and now I'm a fan of Jan Ryde. Brain science has awakened us to the critical importance of sleep--both for mental health and mental acuity. Yet the extraordinary quality of a Haestens bed is surpassed by the values and culture that define the company. Jan Ryde sees love as the defining principle of his life and work and wants not only to elevate the way we sleep but to elevate the way we live. This book is not only the story of a bed designed and made by love, but a company fueled and driven by love."--Erwin Raphael McManus, Founder of McManus Mastermind and author of
Mind Shift"Jan Ryde is a fifth generation CEO, and although this is a business memoir, it's rather unconventional, in which he asks whether a business can be founded on love. And let me tell you, he definitively answers 'Yes', saying the purpose of his company is to spread love, peace, joy, and abundance."
--WBZ Book Club
"Leaders at all levels--in every workplace, not just the corporate world--will benefit from reading and internalizing the core messages throughout Jan Ryde's
When Business Is Love. Ultimately, we all benefit when we create a 'Working Together' leadership, management system, and its culture of love by design to create value for all the stakeholders and the greater good." --Alan Mulally, former Senior Vice President of the Boeing Company and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, President of Boeing Information, Defense, and Space Systems, and President and CEO of the Ford Motor Co
