During the 2001 economic crisis, the author discovered a new way of conducting business.

Have you ever found yourself downhearted and unable to see the light at the end of the tunnel? Sometimes all it takes to pull yourself out of a time of crisis is a good book. This is exactly what happened to the author, successful hotelier Chip Conley.

Like many businesses, the author’s chain of twenty boutique hotels in the San Francisco Bay Area suffered badly during the recession in 2001.

The impact of the bursting dot-com bubble hit this region especially hard due to the many internet startups based in the area. Many businesses lost customers and money, Conley’s hotels among them.

One day, struggling to cope with the grim state of his business, Conley left the office to take a walk around town. He soon found himself in a bookstore, browsing the psychology section and recognizing a book he vaguely recalled from his days in college.

That book was Toward a Psychology of Being by Abraham Maslow, a classic in human psychology. The book focuses on self-actualization and finding peak experiences, or those high points of bliss in everyday life and work.

The author immersed himself in the book, reading for several hours, soon realizing what he had to do: reconnect with the dream that inspired him to start his business in the first place.

He would return to the initial idea of creating a business where his customers, employees, investors, and even he himself, would find joy and fulfillment.