‘Something Was Missing’: 5 Choices that Lead to Enduring Success

I was clean and sober. Something was missing.

I had built a career. Something was missing.

I had achieved financial independence. Something was missing.

I had friends, community, and people I loved.

Still, something was missing.

For years, I kept arriving at milestones I thought would finally feel like success. Each one mattered. Each one represented growth. Yet after the celebration faded, I found myself feeling … something is missing:

Many CEOs know this feeling.

The revenue goal is reached. The company grows. The acquisition closes. The succession plan comes together. Yet the finish line keeps moving. Success remains just beyond reach.

I understand that feeling from a very different starting point.

Thirty-one years ago, I was 20 years old, crouched on a dirty bathroom floor with a needle in my arm and enough crystal meth for one final overdose. I had no money, no job, no hope, and no desire to keep living.

Years earlier, I had endured childhood abuse and betrayal that taught me that love was pain.

I learned not to give it. I learned not to receive it.

I lost love. And I found drugs.

On April 22, 1994, sitting on that bathroom floor, I had become nothing. Then the phone rang. It was my sister. I answered.

Had my sister called me a day earlier, I wouldn’t have answered. Had she called me a day later, I couldn’t have answered.

That decision became the first of 5 critical choices that launched my journey to enduring success.

Today, I believe enduring success is the type of success that cannot be given to you and cannot be taken away from you. It is built through choices. These are the 5 choices that changed my life and continue to shape my leadership, relationships, and definition of success.

Enduring Success Choice No. 1: Make a First Choice

Years after I picked up the phone, I asked my sister how she knew to call me at that exact moment.

She smiled and said, “I never stopped calling. You just finally chose to answer.”

That first choice didn’t solve my problems. It didn’t erase my addiction or heal my past. What it did was give me a chance to change.

As leaders, we often wait for certainty before acting. We want more information, a better plan, or a clearer path.

But progress rarely begins with certainty. It begins with a choice.

Question for reflection: What decision have you been postponing because you’re waiting for certainty that may never come?

Because I picked up the phone, I earned a chance to change.

I thought that was success. But something was missing.

Enduring Success Choice No. 2: Commit to a 2-Way Agreement

Within 48 hours of answering my sister’s call, I was living on an Army base in Killeen, Texas, sleeping in her spare bedroom. But living there was conditional. We entered into a 2-way agreement.

Most people assume love is what got me sober. They are right. But not love the emotion. It was love, the action, and that manifested as a contract.

Love was an agreement. Love was clarity. Love was accountability. Love was consistency.

My sister loved me enough to create a clear agreement and expected both of us to honor it. She didn’t lower her expectations. She didn’t excuse my behavior because of my past. The agreement wasn’t separate from the love. It was one of the purest expressions of it.

I agreed to detox, recovery meetings, a curfew, family meals 3 times a day, a weekly family meeting, and church on Sundays.

I negotiated one condition of my own: nobody enters my room before noon.

My sister countered.

“Nine o’clock. And you’re at the breakfast table by 9:05.” Not 9:00. 9:05.

When I missed breakfast, there was no lecture. No argument. No guilt. I simply waited until the next meal. That was the agreement.

My sister never lowered her expectations. More importantly, she never failed to meet her own. Over time, “I have to be at the table” became “I want to be at the table.” Six months later, my sister and her husband asked me to babysit their two young children. A former meth addict. A former thief. A former liar.

That was the day I knew I was living an ordinary life.

I learned something that continues to shape my leadership today: clarity is an act of love.

Question for reflection: Where in your organization are people struggling because expectations have been implied rather than clearly agreed upon?

Because I committed to a 2-way agreement, I found joy in ordinary life.

I thought that was success. But something was missing.

Enduring Success Choice No. 3: Build Trust

I was completely dependent on my sister and her husband emotionally and financially. I was not independent.

I needed a job. But what was I going to do? I didn’t have a degree and had no professional skills.

Eventually, I landed a job selling gym memberships at a Gold’s Gym in Killeen, Texas. No degree. No experience. No impressive resume.

Just an opportunity.

I learned to focus on the small things. Showing up on time. Learning names. Following through. Asking for help. Doing what I said I would do. Smiling.

Nothing remarkable. Yet those small decisions changed everything.

Over time, my employer trusted me with more responsibility. My sister trusted me with more freedom. Most importantly, I trusted myself with more opportunities.

I learned that if you do the little things great, great things happen.

As CEOs, we often talk about trust as something others should give us. But trust is earned through repeated evidence.

One decision. One action. One small promise kept at a time.

Question for reflection: What evidence are you consistently giving others that you can be trusted? What evidence are you giving yourself?

Because I chose to build trust — in myself and inspire the trust of others — I achieved independence.

I thought that was success. But something was missing.

Resilience is more than just a trait. Learn how Vistage members built resilience into themselves and their organizations in the latest issue of Vistage Perspectives magazine. 

Enduring Success Choice No. 4: Create Community

For most of my life, I was surrounded by people but connected to no one.

At 30 years old, I decided I wanted a friend and wanted to be a friend. I joined a marathon training group despite never having run a step in my life. But what started as training became something much more.

Community.

I discovered that belonging requires contribution. Friendship requires vulnerability. Connection requires sharing more than your strengths.

Many CEOs experience isolation. The higher you climb, the fewer people seem to understand the weight of your decisions.

But leadership was never meant to be a solo endeavor. The strongest leaders intentionally create spaces where people can think, challenge, support, and grow together.

Question for reflection: Who in your life has permission to tell you the truth? Where do you belong without having to perform?

Because I chose to give more of myself to others, what I got was safety, belonging, and community.

I thought that was success. But something was still missing.

Enduring Success Choice No. 5: Embrace Your Boundless Capacity to Love

The biggest thing was still missing.

Boundless love. Not love as an emotion. Love as a choice.

As a child, I learned that love and pain traveled together. As a result, I became very good at protecting myself. I could care about people deeply while still holding part of myself back.

Then my daughter Lilly fell in love with horses. To support her, I had to return to horse stables — the same environment connected to some of the most painful experiences of my childhood.

I had a choice. Stay outside and protect myself. Or step inside and fully give my love to my daughter.

I stepped inside the stable. What I learned changed everything.

Giving all your love is a choice. Receiving all the love others want to give you is a choice.

And it often is the hardest choice. But the reward is worth the risk.

Nothing Was Missing

On the day of my daughter’s first horse competition, I stood surrounded by family, friends, and community. I watched love flow freely between us.

In that moment, I realized nothing was missing anymore. The little girl who had lost love had found it again.

I learned that true success, enduring success, is choosing to embrace my boundless capacity to love.

Today, when I think about success, I don’t think first about accomplishments, titles, or achievements. I think about choices. The choice to begin. The choice to commit. The choice to build trust. The choice to create community.

And the choice to embrace our boundless capacity to give and receive love.

Question for reflection: As leaders, love is not a weakness. It is not soft. Giving love, the verb, manifests around us in countless ways.

We have the power in each moment to give love or withhold it. To receive love or resist it. The question is, what will we choose?

I’ll leave you with this final question: What if success isn’t something you achieve? What if success is something you choose?

And what if the thing you’ve been chasing isn’t actually what’s missing?

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