"If someone said to me, 'Paul, would you come run this dot-com?' I'd say, 'No, I'm running my toy company.' And it feels great."
The seduction is new because the money can be so big, the time needed to get it so short, that people postpone their lives to chase it. We postpone health, friends, family, dreams. We postpone happiness. We tell ourselves there will be time for those after the IPO, right? After the options vest, after we've sacrificed whatever we have to sacrifice in order to grab one of those brass rings that are everywhere, that everyone else is already getting ahold of. We say to ourselves that the sacrifices will be worth it, that we'll collect our spoils and then get out, then get back to living. The rewards are so big, we'll do life serially. Work now, live later.
But Paul Eichen knows better.
In the end, what Eichen's journey has to teach us is that you don't do life that way.
You do life day by day.
And once you make that leap, reject those seductions, you may even make a discovery: you don't miss what the world seems to think is so dazzling.
"What's to miss?" he says. "Is it bad to have fewer meetings? Is it bad to travel less? Is it bad to worry less?
"Look," he says, "at a company like Rokenbok you still get to keep the good parts: intellectual stimulation, social activity, the fun of competing to win." And you get to have a life, too. You get less money but enough. Design your company right, and not only can it give you a good life but it can even grow a little, too.
There's a story Eichen tells about driving to work in the early days of Rokenbok. Every morning, he would pass under the freeway, the eight lanes of shoulder-to-shoulder traffic that he didn't run with anymore. The ride he'd gotten off. And for a long time he felt guilty for seeking what he was after instead of what the people on the freeway chased. "And then, you know what?" he says. "I got over it. It passes, you know? It just does."
In the end what Paul Eichen wants you to know is that there has been nothing harder in his life than his two untethering breakups -- from Proxima and from his companion of 20 years -- but that the best thing about Rokenbok is how it has carried him through them. The best thing is what it feels like "to go in and see your friends every morning, to be with people who are happy to be doing what they're doing, happy with the lives they can have while doing it," he says. What's best is each day.
And so it's the same question again, always the same question. How was your day, Paul? we ask.
"My day?" He thinks it over a moment. Thinking, maybe, of everything about the experiment that's worked. And he says, "My day was good.
"Really good," he says.
"How was yours?"
Michael Hopkins is the executive editor of Inc. Research assistance for this article was provided by Anne Marie Borrego and Mary Kwak.
Once more, with feeling
What would a company look like if its first aim were to foster a good life? In the course of building Rokenbok, the second company he's run, Paul Eichen identified some of the considerations that guided him:
Location. Where a company is determines not only the commute but the richness of life outside the office.
Industry anxiety level. Some products or services are outmoded even before they're marketed; the typical life cycle of an industry's products affects the daily anxiety felt by those who work in it.
Workstyle. As long as employees can do their work, they can be encouraged to set their own hours, dress as they wish, attend to their health, and put their families first.
The nature of the product and family or personal life. If the company's product or service is easy to understand and inherently interesting to kids, partners, and friends, then work life can easily and enjoyably be shared with them instead of compartmentalized. It becomes a source of connection instead of distance.
The nature of the product and collegiality. Similarly, an easy-to-understand product or service enables coworkers to be engaged by one another's problems and achievements. It promotes teamwork instead of isolation.
The nature of the product and relationships with customers. Work feels better if the product or service generates customer loyalty.
An attention-getting product. If a product or service is inherently charming to outsiders, including the media or financial communities, the attention it gets promotes the stature of the workplace.
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