Kareem Mayan emailed me to say that he couldn’t believe he’d never heard of Life Is Good, a company whose founders Bert and John Jacobs go by the respective titles chief executive optimist and chief creative optimist.

I can’t believe I haven’t either, but now that there’s a great article about them in inc magazine, I have. From the article:

Sixteen years ago they hawked $10 T-shirts featuring their own artwork from a card table on the corner, making themselves scarce whenever the cops swung past. “It’s a one-way street so one of us could always keep watch,” says Bert Jacobs, who is now 41, the older brother by three years. “We had a folding table so we could pack up quickly.”

It’s great to hear the founders of a $100 million business saying things like:

“Don’t determine that you’re going to be happy when you get the new car or the big promotion or when you meet that special person,” explains John. “You can decide that you’re going to be happy today.”

John also points out that the assertion is, in fact, a modest one. “It’s important that we’re saying ‘Life is good,’ not ‘Life is great’ or ‘Life is perfect,'” he says. “There’s a big difference. We know that there are lots of bad things in the world. But overall life is good. You have to focus on the good things and help others to focus on the good things.”

I agree, life IS good :o)