All Hands on Deck
Why Your Success Matters for Us All
We think of success as a solo pursuit. My career. My promotion. My impact. My legacy.
But that story of success — that it’s mine alone — is one of the most dangerous myths we keep telling ourselves. Particularly we strivers, edge-seekers who look to do things ‘right’, learn, achieve, grow, even contribute.
We approach those goals as things we’re doing for ourselves, on our own, even if there’s some greater good that results. This perspective is flawed. Particularly in the midst of today’s polycrisis, your success doesn’t just belong to you. It matters to all of us.
This is an all-hands-on-deck moment when we need each citizen, each employee, each human, to recognize and deliver on their own best contributions. We don’t all have to cure cancer, capture carbon, or teach children.
But we do need to find the one-eight-billionth of making this world work fairly, healthily, and prosperously that is uniquely ours to do. That might be drawing up balanced contracts as a lawyer; creating honest and engaging campaigns to sell products that enhance our health or joy; raising a family of empathetic and engaged neighbors; or running a restaurant or shop that serves a local community, including its suppliers and staff as well as customers.
So waste no time or energy worrying about your desire for success as egotistical or self-absorbed. And know that others are counting on you when it feels hard to get out of bed or make the effort you know is required. Here are some guidelines for a flavor of success that will feel authentic, aligned, and robustly motivating.
(And if you want some specific, personalized tips before reading on, try this four-minute 3D Leadership quiz!)
The Missing Piece in How We Define Success
From Harvard classrooms and career services to international nonprofit work to coaching and leading executives to impact and purpose, I’ve seen the same blind spot over and over: we define success in just one dimension.
ME: chasing the next title, bigger bonus, public recognition. Or the record time, meditation streak, longevity-promising morning routine.
WE: prioritizing our team over ourselves, overcoming headwinds to deliver results, doing heroics to keep the lights on and the kids fed.
WORLD: tackling a cause, expanding impact, leaving a legacy — changing the world!
All important. But here’s the problem: if your success rests on only one leg, it wobbles.
When it’s only about ME, you risk arrogance or emptiness. When it’s only about WE, you risk burnout and self-erasure. When it’s only about WORLD, you risk martyrdom or overwhelm.
Even two-dimensional pursuits wobble. ME + WE lacks meaning. ME + WORLD lacks reach and sustainability. WE + WORLD almost always leads to burnout.
Real, sustainable success is aligned across ME, WE, and WORLD. Like a three-legged stool, it’s the balance that makes it stable.
The Leadership We Actually Need
This matters more than ever, because we’re not living in “business as usual” times. Workforce burnout, social division, climate risk — none of these have solo solutions.
That’s why I say this is an all-hands-on-deck moment.
We are seeing on a daily basis the cost of one-dimensional leadership: burnout at the top trickles down. Trust erodes. Innovation stalls. Brilliant people quit. Over 1,200 CEOs have quit since January 1, that’s 10% more than the same period last year.
This moment requires formidable, three-dimensional leaders. In the top seat, and throughout the organization, we need people who are brilliant in their industry and healthy in their bodies. Who can deliver results and nurture the next generation. Pursue social and environmental outcomes and expand market share. Set high expectations and show employees at all levels that they, as individuals, matter.
Your success — defined in three dimensions — doesn’t just float your boat. It improves the quality of the water the rest of us are swimming in.
What This Looks Like in Practice
I’ve seen it in my own life. For years, I over-indexed on the WORLD dimension — pouring myself into causes, clients, and communities. Important work, yes. But without sleep, intimacy with friends, and professional progress, I wasn’t a better leader — I was brittle, cranky, and mediocre.
I’ve seen it in others too.
Like my friend who never managed to get to the gym until his granddaughter was born. Suddenly, exercise wasn’t about hitting a step count. It was about staying strong enough to chase her around the playground. His “why” wasn’t ME anymore. It became WE and WORLD.
Or one of the women I worked with who re-entered the workforce in her 50s, founding a tech company to prevent elder fraud. Her success wasn’t just about leveraging her law degree, professional skills, and network to solve a problem. It was about showing her kids a new picture of what a mom, wife, and woman could be.
Each of these stories shows what happens when success gets multidimensional. It becomes more motivating. More resilient. More contagious.
The Science of Alignment
These aren’t just inspiring one-offs. Research shows that success anchored in multiple dimensions is more sustainable.
Psychologists call it harmonious passion: the drive to pursue a meaningful goal while also nurturing relationships, wellbeing, and other parts of life. People with harmonious passion are more likely to achieve big, difficult things — not because they care less, but because they have the scaffolding of a whole life to sustain them.
Contrast that with obsessive passion, where everything gets sacrificed to one pursuit. Obsessive passion can create short bursts of progress — the founder who pulls all-nighters and flubs a customer pitch, the athlete who overtrains to the point of injury — but it almost always ends in burnout or collapse.
In other words: the leaders who achieve most over time are those who don’t confuse obsession with effectiveness.
The Ripple Effect of Your Success
Here’s the part that often gets overlooked: your success doesn’t stay with you.
Rested and present? Your team trusts you. Healthy? Your family thrives. Aligned with a triple bottom line? Your customers and community stick around.
Your success ripples outward, shaping the environment for everyone around you. And the reverse is true: when you grind yourself down, that ripples too.
That’s why I keep coming back to this truth: your success matters to all of us.
An Invitation
So yes: it’s an all-hands-on-deck moment. We need you — not as a burnt-out lone wolf or a martyr to the cause, but as a whole, healthy human whose success ripples into our teams, families, and communities.
I know it can feel self-indulgent — even egotistical — to crave more success. And I know it can feel impossible to muster the energy when you’re tired or discouraged. But neither going quiet, shrinking back, nor grinding harder on your own will get us where we need to go.
Your brilliance matters. Your rest matters. Your love matters. We need you!
But the way forward isn’t bigger heroics — it’s alignment. Define success across ME, WE, and WORLD, so that when one leg falters, the others keep you steady.
Because aligned leaders multiply impact. They do more good, without doing more.
Your success matters to all of us. If you want a clearer picture of how aligned your success really is, I’ve built a short 3D Leadership Diagnostic you can take here.
