redacted I’m as old as dirt. I’m not embarrassed to admit that sometimes I get halfway through a sentence and forget the word I was about to use. At this point, it’s all about simplifying and consolidating, not giving a shit. I view myself as a shard of a bottle that started out sharp and edgy but has been worn down over the course of tide after tide and wave after wave into a smooth piece of sea glass, my original and intended form. In all the tumbling, I’ve realized that, for me at least, three interwoven principles have come to guide my business life and my life in general: humility, unconditional love, and a growth mindset. Let me explain. Humility is a spiritual practice, a destination that is impossible to reach but becomes increasingly powerful the deeper you go. It’s a paradox: the more I put others first, the more I receive. The Christian mystic Richard Rohr, in his book “Breathing Underwater,” talks about the Myth of Heroic Sacrifice. He points out that most people who think of themselves as humble, of being of service to others, really are not. Deep down, the humility is for show, to feed the ego, to prove goodness. True humility has nothing to do with self; its only focus is on others and working to let go of ego completely. The Desert Fathers in the 3rd century became upset by what they viewed as the Romans' corrupting influence on Christianity, so they withdrew to the desert and remained in solitude for two decades. Their goal was to let go of the false self, driven by ego, greed, and anger. They viewed solitude as the furnace in which true humility—which is pure compassion and love, which I will talk about in the next section—is revealed in the human heart. Humility is not just a concept for mystics and monks. It’s very practical. And the key to business success at every level, particularly leadership. It is a superpower. Selflessness is admired, inspiring, and the biggest unlock there is. Arrogance is poison. The natural tendency is for success, power, and money to breed ego. The great leader or CEO sees this trap for what it is and instead goes further into humility and service, seeing themselves purely as facilitators of others’ success, taking no credit, focusing on sympathetic joy instead as they witness their organization and its people grow and thrive, stepping out of the spotlight to become as invisible as possible. Humility becomes more effective the deeper it is embedded in an organization’s culture. It’s the key to sustained individual and group success of any kind. Unconditional Love. Buddhism teaches the interconnection of all things and beings. There is no separation between you and me. In the Bible, the parable of the Prodigal Son demonstrates that there is nothing you or I can do to prevent God the Father from loving us. In a world filled with conditioned if-then love, the radical move is to love unconditionally. To create safety, to build trust where it is least expected, in life and the workplace. In the end, we are all relational beings, and to operate at our best, we are hard-wired to want to belong, to feel part of, to have a home. Like humility, the highest-level organizations—whether sports teams, military units, or corporations—foster deep and unconditional love. When shit gets real, you need to know the person next to you has your back. Unconditional love does not mean there is never conflict, quite the opposite. It creates the trust and safety needed to push each other. My best friend on my college rowing team, whom I loved, and I got into a fistfight during winter training because I felt he was dogging it, and I called him out on it. When a CEO I am mentoring makes the same mistake for the third time, I have been known to break my phone and get right up in his grill screaming, because my love is so fierce I simply will not allow him to make the mistake for the fourth time, and ultimately fail. Which leads us to a growth mindset, which is only possible when built on the foundation of a humble mind, forever looking to become the best version of myself, and a loving environment that is safe enough for me to receive constructive feedback — the truth about what I am doing ineffectively — to improve. Growth Mindset. At this point in my life, growth mindset means something different than it did when I was 30 or 40. How can I be a more present father? A better husband? A more effective mentor? How can I train better for the adventures on a bike or running in the woods that are my church? Or, as a friend says, how can I become the person my dog thinks I am? For many of these endeavors, it is about doing less, not more. Pushing that first domino over with my students and then getting out of the way as momentum takes care of the rest, maintaining a safe container for them to find themselves, staying as invisible as possible. My spiritual director once told me that if I am talking 40% of the time in any conversation, that is too much. The greatest skill in life is listening, not talking. At the core of a growth mindset is the understanding that excellence requires two things: passion and a willingness to improve, even when it is hard and seems impossible. The most important part of being great is making yourself vulnerable to falling flat on your face. Failure is the greatest teacher. Push until you are beyond your limit and see what happens. Never take honest feedback personally. Continually seek it out. We live in a world, unfortunately, where everyone gets an A, and people will tell you that you are good at something when you actually suck. Stay away from the people who give you false praise, and seek out those who will level with you, people who are better at the thing you are passionate about and will show you enough love to tell you in excruciating detail all the ways you suck at that thing. And even care enough to break a phone when you are not getting it. When I look back on my 61 years, any success I have had and the most meaningful experiences of my life are all centered around humility, love, and growth.