The Secret to Success in Life

In the Leadership Challenge, Major General John Stanford replied when asked how he’d go about developing leaders:

I tell them I have the secret to success in life. The secret to success is to stay in love. Staying in love gives you the fire to ignite other people, to see inside other people, to have a greater desire to get things done than other people. A person who is not in love doesn’t really feel the kind of excitement that helps them get ahead and to lead others and to achieve.

Of all the things that sustains a leader over time, love is the most lasting. Leadership is not an affair of the head. Leadership is an affair of the heart.