Success breeds complacency. I remember Bono of U2, once saying, “U2, we’ve been on the verge of irrelevance for 20 years.” And so one of the greatest snares and pitfalls of financial success, is you develop a retirement mentality. You lose the fire in the belly, you stop learning, you take your customers for granted, you stop going to conferences and hanging around with the young people that are just starting. You’re more interested in playing golf and sitting around and resting on the trappings of success. And that very way of being puts you on the descent to obsolescence. And it happens really, really incrementally, it makes me think of broken windows syndrome. There was an area in New York City and it once was a wonderful area and then a few windows got broken and people accepted it. They didn’t fix the broken windows. “Oh, it’s just a broken window or two, it won’t make a difference.” But quietly that mediocrity caused people to think it’s okay to throw some trash on the street too. So litter increased and as litter increased, people stop taking care of their gardens and their front lawns. And when people stop taking care of their front lawns, old broken cars were okay on the decaying streets. And as old broken cars started littering the streets, crime started to go up and things started to degrade and the entire neighborhood fell apart. Well, a lot of people, when they get to the pinnacle of success, they stopped doing the very things that made them great. They stopped getting up early, going the extra mile, being a merchant of wow, learning as much as they could, being polite and civil, taking care of their health, being excellent, being an instrument of service. Do not let an old person and a complacent person ever enter your body. Here’s the real key, as you become more successful, become even more nimble, as you become even more iconic, get this, become even more humble. It is so rare to be the most successful person in the room and to be the quietest person in the room, as you become even more successful, become even more humble. And the irony is, as you become more humble and as you want to serve more and produce more magic and do even better by your customers and your suppliers and as you treat your team like they’re the most important people in the world because they are some of the most important people in the world. And as you remember that the job of a leader is to grow more leaders and help your teammates see gifts and talents in themselves, that they’ve never seen before, you not only do a great service for your team and your customers and your suppliers, you not only raise the world in your own special way, but you give yourself a great gift. You fall in love with yourself more, because of your honor. And when you fall in love with yourself more and you become bigger, you do become the kind of person who can hold a world-class life, who says, “I can build a business that changes the world. I can launch this idea, even though it’s revolutionary and radical, even if the world doesn’t believe in me and I am laughed at, and the trolls come out to play, I love myself and honor myself and I deserve to bring this value to the world.” And when you operate like that, the world bends to your dreams and the world gives you not only the prosperity, but the recognition and the love that you are showering on the world and that, is how you rise to greatness.
