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When Business Is Love
The Spirit of Hästens—At Work, At Play, and Everywhere in Your Life
By Jan Ryde
Published by Forefront Books
Distributed by Simon & Schuster
Table of Contents
About The Book
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, Hästens Sangar, 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 Hästens — At Work, At Play, and Everywhere In Your Life, Jan Ryde, the fifth generation CEO of family-owned Swedish bed manufacturer Hästens, 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, Hästens, 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. Hästens 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 Hästens team: how good do you want to have it?
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 Hästens — At Work, At Play, and Everywhere In Your Life, Jan Ryde, the fifth generation CEO of family-owned Swedish bed manufacturer Hästens, 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, Hästens, 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. Hästens 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 Hästens team: how good do you want to have it?
Product Details
- Publisher: Forefront Books (January 9, 2024)
- Length: 352 pages
- ISBN13: 9781637631980
Raves and Reviews
"A CEO’s readable and heartwarming story of building beds with love."
– Kirkus Reviews
“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
“Every great company ends up being a reflection of the personal vision of a leader. Jan Ryde’s remarkable tale of self-development and his creation of a belief system that defines Hästens has transformed what was once a saddlemaker into one of the world’s most unusual and respected companies. This book is well worth reading, if only for the simple pathways we can all attempt to follow.”
– Cliff Einstein, Chair Emeritus of The Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles
“Jan Ryde's book should be a required text for every Family Office or MBA program, illuminating the successful intergenerational path of one of Europe’s most beloved companies and the values that serve as its compass.”
– Gary R. Pickholz, Jerome A. Chazen Scholar, International Finance, Columbia Business School
“I’ve been a fan of Hästens 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 Hästens 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
“The end result of any product always begins with the leader of the organization creating that product. Hästens comes as close to perfection as possible because it begins with CEO Jan Ryde himself. Jan’s approach to leading Hästens is more than just a ‘leadership style’—it is a way of being. His love for his company, his people, his clients, and the end products is infectious. Jan’s love for creating the world’s best sleep spreads organically from the designs to his people inside his organization, including his two sons who are also leading Hästens to building of each and every bed that comes out of his manufacturing facilities in Sweden. To create a better world through better sleep is not just the CEO’s dream, it is a passion shared by Hästens’s global team. Jan Ryde is a once-in-a-lifetime leader whose company truly runs on love, which is manifested in every Hästens bed and this beautiful book.”
– Ferris Rafauli, Designer and Artist
“What a great inspiration and reminder of the boundless possibilities that await us! Just what I needed to hear in this moment of my journey when I want to make significant changes in my life. And to have a life where everything I am capable of becomes possible and more.”
– Virpi Helena Varjonen, International Business Lader and Consultant
“Sleep is and has always been an integral part of my performance and recovery. So much so, that one of my very first investments after winning a big tournament was a Hästens bed. Jan’s business is very much the definition of labor of love, and it comes through in every thread of his work.”
– Maria Sharapova, Tennis Champion & Entrepreneur
“When Business Is Love is a wonderfully personal account of the values, beliefs, and principles that guide Jan Ryde’s leadership at Hästens. 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
"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
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