If you’ve been anywhere in public in the last 30 years, you have very likely seen T-shirts embellished with a happy little cartoon man and a short but eloquent saying beneath, reading “Life is Good.”
That simple message of optimism has carried a clothing brand through tremendous growth from selling shirts out of a van for five-plus years, to earning a couple million dollars in sales in the mid-1990s to generating over $160 million in sales in 2024. But creating a multimillion-dollar apparel company was not the goal of brothers Bert and John Jacobs. The Boston-born brothers started the company, essentially, as a side hustle, just trying to make a buck as their family lived in poverty. The brothers would come up with silly sayings and other designs to print on shirts and sell at local events, such as the St. Patrick’s Day parade. One shirt, sold outside of a McDonald’s in 1994, turned out to be their first hit; it read, “Life is Good.”
Despite the size and success of the company, Bert Jacobs—the keynote speaker of Signature Travel Network’s Conference in Las Vegas last month—still says he doesn’t lead a clothing company. Rather, he shares a simple, positive message that just so happens to be printed on shirts, sweaters and other attire. In launching the business, Bert says, “We identified one interesting thing, and that is a T-shirt is a powerful vehicle for communication.”
What you are communicating, however, is equally important. Optimism, it turns out, was the magic concept for the Jacobses, who now believe this is “the most powerful tool for living a happy and fulfilling life.” And that became the whole basis of Life is Good.
Every morning when we wake up and sit on the edge of our beds, we can think about our faults and challenges, or, as Bert says, “we can acknowledge our challenges and pour more of our time and resources—which are limited—into our strengths, into people that are also positive, that we can gravitate towards and partner with.”
Another important lesson Bert says they learned early on was the value of authenticity: “Whoever you are authentically, if you can be that person when you are at work, you will be more effective.” He adds, “We have never been the strongest or the fastest or the smartest, but we’ve always been authentic, and our customer base has grown and grown and grown because people can count on us knowing who we are and acting like it.”
In one act of authenticity, Bert and John realized they were getting in the way of the business rebounding successfully after the Great Recession in 2007. They stepped to the side and hired people who “knew what the hell they were doing.” Sales once again surpassed $100 million en-route to the record $160 million they’re hitting today.
“You don’t have to do everything just because it’s your agency or your organization—you got to have the right people in place,” says Bert. It’s a challenge many entrepreneurs face but, as he adds, it’s not always about being the fastest and strongest; sometimes it’s about being the most flexible.
Bert closed his keynote with a couple pieces of sage advice that were almost too wise for a T-shirt salesman: “Challenges happen; our disposition in how we handle them is what matters,” and “everything marches forward; you can’t stop it no matter what. So, if there are changes you want to make in your life, make them today.”
I guess I shouldn’t undermine the words of a man who trademarked the phrase “Life is Good” and sells optimism to millions of people a year. Instead, I will let his words do the talking and, hopefully, you will find some inspiration in them.
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