Chapter 90

Hungry, smart, and humble? These are the key elements of highly successful people I see around the world. Not too many people my age are any one of those three. Instead we are highly opinionated and selfish and proud and full of ourselves. We aren’t interested in paving the way for anyone, much less the young generations coming behind us. Each piece we touch, we make about us, we are more interested in prosperity than change, more committed to ease than hard work, more consumed with the idea of my rights than everyone’s well being. You don’t have to look far at all to see it everywhere.

When is the last time you were hungry for some result, or some change, or some action or even just physically hungry?? This ingredient is a great leverage maker. When you are hungry you have drive to satisfy that hunger and it is fairly relentless. Hunger won’t let go. It will keep at you until it is resolved.

Smart is not just a marker of intelligence and computing power. Smart is an awareness of what is driving you, the big picture, what others are feeling and going through and what is driving them, the stakeholders, the customers, the purpose, the idea, the outcomes desired, and goals you are reaching for, and the tasks necessary to see you through to them.

And humble is easiest and the most difficult to understand and master. It seems to baffle geniuses and give power to the simple. It is the glue that holds leadership in place and gives rise to new hope in everyone. It is what makes the followership so easy when your boss has it, and makes you and me want to please such a person. It allows every idea to be voiced and for no dissention to drive a wedge in between.

Like I said, you don’t see these things very often in my age group. Big sigh.