This morning on reddit, I made some comments about nutrition and subsequently realized that life expectancy is often used as a proxy for health, but that it doesn’t consider quality of life at all.

A long life does not equal a quality life.

This strikes me as the same kind of problem as measuring the success of a company by how much revenue it generates, or measuring a country’s place in the world by its GDP.

Which reminded me of Chip Conley’s TED talk in which he discusses important metrics, such as GNH (Gross National Happiness). It also reminded me of his new-ish book, Emotional Equations, which I’ve been meaning to read.

A while ago I did an exercise where I wrote one sentence, each day, about my company, Bindo. The idea was help me be more clear about my vision for the company and to help keep me on track while pursuing that vision. The first sentence I wrote was this:

I want Bindo to be a place where people love coming to work.

When I look back at it now, I feel proud of that statement, despite the fact that we still have a long way to go before we get there. You have to start somewhere, right? I think it’s a solid tenet upon which to build a sustainable, long-term business.