Whatever you do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet

Your sweet spot is the intersection of your motivations and your strengths. When you are operating in your sweet spot, you feel inspired, energized, and confident that you can do great things. You're fulfilled by your work because you are passionate about it. This creates a powerful flywheel that enables you to be satisfied and successful.

Warren Buffett Found His Sweet Spot

No renowned leader has focused their time and energy around their sweet spot more than Warren Buffett. Through his stewardship of Berkshire Hathaway since 1965, he has created hundreds of billions in value for his shareholders. Yet Warren made the choice to spend time doing what he loved, and delegate the rest—well before his success was assured.

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, Warren made his first stock market investment at age 11. As a teenager, he read Benjamin Graham's seminal book on value investing, The Intelligent Investor, and became a believer in Graham's thesis to value stocks based on the company's business fundamentals. Graduating from the University of Nebraska, Warren studied economics at Columbia University under Graham.

Although Warren loves investing, his first full‐time job as a stockbroker tortured him because brokers were rewarded for networking and selling, which were not his strengths. Instead of becoming a broker who generated commissions by pushing clients to trade actively, he yearned to analyze financial securities.

If you think that Warren Buffett operating in his sweet spot doesn't apply to you, consider this: Warren left the brokerage business to start his own investing firm, an unusual move in the cautious postwar era. At 26, he was unimpressive, insecure, and unproven. Nobody would have predicted he would become a business titan. He was so afraid of public speaking that he took a Dale Carnegie course. He was rejected by the local country club because people thought his investing firm was a Ponzi scheme.

German poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe wrote, “Whatever you do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.” By opening his own firm, Warren could spend time on what he loved: fundamental analysis of financial securities. His early decision to position himself at the intersection of his motivations and his strengths turns out to be the best investment he ever made because he is operating in his sweet spot.

Warren's investment philosophy evolved from focusing on cheap stocks to identifying companies with sustainable competitive advantage and high‐quality leadership. As his reputation grew, he won access to investments because of his my‐word‐is‐my‐bond character and the value of his imprimatur. While he stayed away from investing in tech stocks, more recently his investment in Apple netted his firm a $120 billion gain.

Despite this success, Warren manages to retain his modesty and humility. My MBA student Vitaliy Pereverzev told me about his experience with Warren when he traveled to Omaha with 80 members of his investment club. After lunch at Warren's favorite restaurant, Vitaliy realized he left his camera at Berkshire Hathaway's offices. Rather than sending a member of his staff to get it, Warren offered him a ride in his Lincoln Town Car. Warren immediately offered him some advice: “Vitaliy, you have to do what you love. I do not want to live like a king. I just love to invest.”

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivations

To deliver high performance, leaders need to sustain high levels of motivation, just as Warren Buffett has done. There are two types of motivations: extrinsic and intrinsic (Figure 6.1).

Extrinsic motivations—such as getting good grades, winning athletic competitions, or making money—are measured by the external world. Most leaders have had a strong achievement orientation since childhood, as they excelled in school and competed in athletics. After graduating, many young leaders want a job with a prestigious organization. Eventually, their extrinsic motivations take the form of wealth accumulation, power, and prestige.

Although reluctant to admit it, most leaders are motivated by achieving external success. They enjoy the feelings of recognition and status that come with promotions and financial rewards. However, each success often leads to a desire for more money, fame, or power. That's why people with great wealth and power are always comparing themselves with those who have more. Being driven entirely by extrinsic motivations is a dangerous trap that can lead you astray from your True North.

Intrinsic motivations are derived from your deepest inner desires and are closely linked to your life story and your crucible. Examples include personal growth, building your family, helping other people, taking on social causes, creating great products or services, and making a difference in the world.

Because modern society has placed unprecedented attention on visible achievements, extrinsic measures of success cause many leaders to seek the world's acclaim rather than pursuing their inner motivations. The pressure starts early when college graduates compare salaries and evolves as they compare new home purchases. Alan Horn, chair of Walt Disney Studios, describes how he consciously avoided these traps:

Early in your career, the incremental dollar can change your quality of life because it enables you to buy a better car or bigger house. At some point, the incremental dollar does not change your quality of life; rather, more purchases just increase the complexity of life, not its enjoyment.

Debra Dunn, who spent decades at Hewlett‐Packard, advises emerging leaders to beware of getting caught up in social, peer, or parental expectations:

The path of accumulating material possessions is clearly laid out and easy to measure. If you don't pursue it, people wonder what is wrong with you. The only way to avoid getting caught up in materialism is understanding where you find happiness and fulfillment.

The term sweet spot describes your motivated capabilities when your motivations and your strengths align (Figure 6.2). Late Claremont professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, a pioneer in positive psychology, provided us this simple advice about motivation: “Find out what you are good at and what you like to do.” In these two dimensions, Csikszentmihalyi cut through the jargon and summed up what our interviewees learned through hundreds of years of experience.

You will be most effective as a leader when you find opportunities that highly motivate you and use your greatest capabilities. One without the other is insufficient. To find these opportunities, you must understand your deepest motivations and be honest with yourself about your capabilities. You won't be successful as a leader by pursuing something you're not good at or by pursuing leadership roles that don't motivate you. When you find a role that meshes your motivations with your capabilities, you will discover the sweet spot that maximizes your effectiveness as a leader.

A Contrasting Sweet Spot

Like Warren, Mike Bloomberg is an extremely successful businessperson—yet that's where the similarities end. While Warren keeps an open schedule, Mike enjoys being double‐booked. While Warren prefers Omaha, Mike hops across the globe. While Warren avoids management, Mike is notoriously hands‐on. While Warren works on financial analysis, Mike is the front man.

Their contrasting mutual successes illustrate an important truth: you cannot achieve sustained success by emulating someone else. You must do the hard work of self‐discovery to unlock your personal potential. Zeroing in on your sweet spot may take years, as it did for me.

I have known Mike since business school, where he was both brilliant and brash. While I had to work my butt off, Mike was so smart he could skim the material, go out and party, yet offer brilliant insights in class. He recalls the time he was cold‐called in class when he hadn't bothered to glance at the case.

Called out for not being prepared, I suggested to the professor he should first get inputs from several students and then I would summarize and draw conclusions. With that, he dismissed the entire class and told us to come back prepared the next day. When he called on me, I offered a radical solution that he and the rest of the class rejected. Years later, the company did exactly what I suggested and was highly successful.

After graduation, Mike went to work at Salomon Brothers. Fifteen years later, he was a rising star as head of equity trading at Wall Street's hottest firm. When Salomon merged with Phibro, he was ushered into Chair John Gutfreund's office and abruptly fired. Mike was shocked and hurt. “I was 39 years old, terminated from the only full‐time job I'd had and the high‐pressure life I loved. Was I sad? You bet, but as usual, I was much too macho to show it.”

His firing gave Mike something to prove and freed him to start his own company. He used $4 million from his $10 million termination settlement to create the Bloomberg Terminal. There he found his sweet spot—building his own company. Extrinsically, Mike loves recognition and being at the center of the action. He enjoys the trappings of success, including private planes and multiple homes, but he isn't just about money.

Mike served as mayor of New York City for 12 years, taking a $1 per year salary. At business school, I would have guessed Mike would be the last person to run for office, shaking hands and holding babies, yet he turned out to be the best mayor New York ever had, restoring it to greatness after September 11, 2001.

Direct, practical, and completely unafraid of confrontation, he has taken on tough issues and powerful groups, including liberal teachers' unions and the conservative NRA. When Goldman Sachs cancelled its plans for its new headquarters across the street from 9/11's Ground Zero site due to security concerns, Mike knew he needed an anchor tenant and forced his departments to meet Goldman's needs. Today New York's lower West Side is flourishing thanks to his tenacity.

Mike explains,

To succeed, you need a vision that's affordable, practical, and fills customer needs. Then, go for it. Don't worry about details; don't second‐guess your creativity; most importantly, don't strategize too much about the long‐term.

Worth an estimated $70 billion, Mike told me, “I intend to give it all away. The best financial planning ends with bouncing the check to the undertaker.” True to his word, he is one of the country's three most significant philanthropists, as Bloomberg Philanthropies gives away billions to restore cities, reduce the racial wealth gap, prevent gun violence, and support women's economic development.

Mike knows his strengths and what motivates him and has found his sweet spot to make a unique impact on the world.

Recalibrate Your Motivations

Emerging leaders are often too eager to get ahead. My friend Kevin Sharer is a talented leader who lost his way midcareer when he grasped for the brass ring before he was prepared. Yet he learned from his painful experience, recalibrated, and found his sweet spot at Amgen, where he had a spectacular 12 years as CEO.

As a submarine officer and McKinsey alum, Kevin's early experiences prepared him for the bare‐knuckle intensity of GE. A rising star at GE, he was eager—too eager—to get to the top. By age 40, Kevin ran GE's satellite business, was elected a corporate officer, and was promoted to run the jet engine business. This would be heady stuff for anyone, but especially for someone as ambitious as Kevin. When the headhunters came looking for a new head of marketing for MCI, he seized the opportunity to leapfrog his career.

“The CEO race is wide open,” MCI's vice chair assured him. Kevin took the bait. This time, however, things did not go his way. Upon joining the company, Kevin learned the chief operating officer (COO) was in line for the top slot and didn't welcome competition, especially from the young, ambitious GE hotshot.

Kevin wasted no time in developing his strategy to transform MCI and position himself for promotion. Within six weeks, he concluded that the company's geographic marketing organization was improperly structured. “I was at the zenith of my arrogance at that time,” Kevin says. “I marched into the chairman's office and proposed restructuring MCI's sales organization.” His proposal was threatening to senior executives who had spent their careers building MCI. Lacking telecommunications experience, Kevin faced failure for the first time in his life.

“MCI was a crucible for me,” Kevin observes. “I learned that there is a price to be paid for arrogance.” He also found out his style did not suit MCI's hypercompetitive culture. “People were personally competitive in a way that was inconsistent with my values,” he explains.

The internal competition was mean‐spirited and at your throat. It was eating me up, and I was becoming less effective. If your values aren't consistent with the people you're working with, you shouldn't be there.

Desperate to escape from MCI, Kevin telephoned CEO Jack Welch and asked to return to GE. Upset with the way Kevin bailed out after he had promoted him, Jack said, “Hey, Kevin, forget you ever worked here.” Kevin recalls,

I realized I couldn't just bail out. It was a gut‐wrenching 2 years for me. I'm not a good knife fighter, and I was getting outmaneuvered. At first, I went into denial; then I became defeatist and cynical. Without question, it was the toughest time of my life.

Kevin's story illustrates the difficulties that many leaders face. Their egos tempt them into situations that don't play to their strengths and don't inspire them. With self‐awareness and insight, they readjust their compass to get back on track of their True North to find opportunities where they are in their sweet spot. Kevin's crucible at MCI was invaluable; it forced him to control his arrogance and recognize there is more to life than just the next promotion. Kevin got caught up in the glamour of being a rising star, but MCI brought him back to reality.

Two years later, Kevin nominated himself to become president of Amgen and was offered the position, under the tutelage of CEO Gordon Binder. Having learned a painful lesson at MCI about being a know‐it‐all, Kevin recognized he knew nothing about the biotechnology business. “Had it not been for that chastening experience at MCI, I could easily have blown up at Amgen,” he says.

My last brush with health care had been ninth‐grade biology, so I asked one of our scientists to teach me biology. By being patient, I became an insider before I started making changes. I learned the business from the ground up, made calls with sales representatives, and showed my desire to learn.

Kevin patiently understudied Binder for 8 years. This time around, he wasn't seduced by headhunters, telling them being number two at a rapidly growing company like Amgen was “better than anything else on the plate.” When Amgen announced Kevin would become CEO, he met individually with the top 150 people in the company to get their insights. “These interviews were the most important thing I did upon becoming CEO. They gave me the mandate to create a shared reality for the company and align around the new vision and strategy for building Amgen for the next decade.”

Early on, Kevin knew his intellect, determination, and drive were strengths. Through searing experiences at GE and MCI, he learned about his limiting behaviors that offput others, and that pushing too hard to get ahead could be detrimental. At Amgen, he learned the business before taking charge, listened to his colleagues' wisdom and experience, and was patient in reaching his goal. As a result, he led Amgen for a decade with spectacular success, transforming the company from a two‐drug firm to a highly innovative organization that continues to produce breakthrough drugs.

Reflecting on his experience, Kevin says, “We are the mosaic of all of our experiences.”

In retrospect, the MCI experience wasn't all bad. It gave me genuine empathy for other people. I learned the importance of doing what you love, because if you don't, you won't do your best.

Avoid Focus on Extrinsic Motivations

Ignoring external validation from your achievements isn't easy. Ambitious leaders grow so accustomed to successive accomplishments in their early years that they don't pursue their intrinsic motivations. For many authentic leaders it takes a crucible to free them to do what they love rather than seeking external acclaim.

Many leaders we interviewed turned down higher‐paying jobs early in their careers to pursue roles they were passionate about. In the end, they came out ahead—in both satisfaction and compensation—because they were successful in doing what they loved. Former Time, Inc. CEO Ann Moore had a dozen job offers after business school and took the lowest paying one, with Time. “I had student loans hanging over my head, but I took the job because I loved magazines. At the time nobody in my class understood why I made that choice, but at our twenty‐fifth reunion they understood completely.”

When Dave Cox was CEO of Cowles Media, an MBA student told him, “I get my satisfaction someplace else and just do the business part to make money.” Amazed by the comment, Dave raised his eyebrows quizzically, asking,

Why would you spend your time doing work you don't enjoy? These are the best years of your life. You add the greatest value when you connect with your passions.

It is natural to seek the esteem of peers, promotions, and financial rewards that come with success. The danger comes when leaders become so enamored with these external symbols that they can never get enough. At this point, they are at the greatest risk of losing touch with their intrinsic motivations and abandoning things that give them a deeper sense of fulfillment.

If your life's purpose is to accumulate possessions, fame, or power over others, you may discover these rewards are unsatisfying and chasing them will pull you away from your True North. Fame is fleeting—it can be built for many years and then slip through your fingers. Seeking power over others is the ultimate corrupter of the human character.

Many young leaders make the mistake of taking high‐salaried jobs to pay off loans or live the high life, even if they have no genuine interest in the work. They erroneously believe they can move on to do the work they love after 10 years. By then, they are so dependent on maintaining expensive lives that they are trapped in jobs they don't like yet perceive they cannot afford to do work they love. That holds people back from pursuing what truly brings them satisfaction.

Many leaders have learned the hard way that external recognition is a fickle lover. When things do not go their way, external sources of gratification quickly disappear. So do superficial friends and acquaintances who are more enamored with their success than they are in supporting them when things go poorly.

Finding Your Sweet Spot

Many emerging leaders still early in their careers haven't yet found their sweet spot. You may be terrific at your first job, but you need to look deeper at whether it motivates you. Do you feel connected to the organization's purpose? Is the industry one you feel proud of? Do you have a boss who is helping you develop? Are you in a job that doesn't play to your strengths? Look for opportunities in your company better suited to your skillset.

When you are operating in your sweet spot—in a role where you add distinctive value and are highly motivated (Figure 6.3), you'll develop your skills faster because your work fascinates you. Great people will find your passion attractive and want to join your team. Your success will give you a deeper sense of fulfillment.

Minnesota Commissioner of Department of Human Services (DHS) Jodi Harpstead knows her greatest strength and her motivation is creating breakthrough cultures that achieve amazing results. She did just that as president of marketing and sales at Medtronic. Then she took a less lucrative position to became CEO of Lutheran Social Services, where she used the same skills to build a highly successful nonprofit organization. Currently, she is turning around an ailing DHS with the same approach to creating a breakthrough culture that provides services to needy people throughout Minnesota. Her career in leading across three sectors shows what can be done when you utilize your strengths and are a highly motivated leader.

Success versus Significance

As we strive to get ahead in our careers, many of us—myself included—strive so hard for success that we fail to ask ourselves: Is our leadership significant? Are we making a positive difference in the lives of others?

In The Road to Character, David Brooks challenges us to ask whether we are merely building resumes or leading in ways for which we will be remembered—our eulogy virtues, the kind of person we are, and how we care for others. Resume achievements are easy to measure and give us superficial self‐esteem, whereas eulogy virtues are more difficult to gauge. At the end of our lives, our net worth, press clippings, or power we once held pale beside making a significant impact on the lives of others. The former is fleeting, the latter is eternal.

Emerging Leader: Tracy Britt Cool

There is a paradox that leaders who focus on their intrinsic motivations wind up achieving the greatest extrinsic success. Tracy Britt Cool illustrates how this paradox works in practice. She grew up working long hours on her family farm in Kansas. Friends describe her as kind, thoughtful, and honest. In my MBA classroom, she had deep insights in recognizing human dimensions of business challenges.

While still in school, Tracy wrote dozens of letters to notable investors asking to meet with them. One day she received a response from Warren Buffett, who invited her and her investing club to meet with him in Omaha. Thereafter, she continued to correspond with Warren and volunteered to help him on projects.

As Warren got to know Tracy, he sensed her talent and integrity and invited her to join Berkshire. She didn't hesitate, saying yes without asking about her title or compensation—an unusual response in the finance industry. Tracy served as Warren's financial assistant for 5 years, researching investments worth billions, sitting on Kraft Heinz's board, chairing four Berkshire portfolio companies, and organizing dozens of events for Berkshire's CEOs.

The pressure of such a position in your 20s is intense. Tracy's early stumbles were dissected in media articles questioning her competence. Bankers, consultants, and CEOs flattered her, trying to win access to Warren. During this time, Tracy stayed focused and grounded, shunned the spotlight, and learned from her experiences. Meanwhile, she took numerous leadership assessments to build self‐awareness of her strengths and weaknesses.

At 30, Tracy became CEO of Berkshire subsidiary Pampered Chef. Warren told her to treat it like a family business she would own for 50 years and make decisions on that basis. For someone who had solely worked as an investment analyst, the shift to operating a company was a significant challenge, as she had to turn around a company in free fall. She succeeded with flying colors—growing revenue from $300 million to $700 million, dramatically increasing profitability, and increasing employee engagement.

In 2020, Tracy left Berkshire Hathaway to form Kanbrick, an investment partnership to acquire and build businesses. Why leave the job working for the world's best investor? She says, “There are companies that we can help take to the next level, but they're too small for Berkshire.” She also realizes her strengths lean more toward people and strategy than analyzing securities. Creating her own firm allows her to custom design her role to her strengths and motivations.

Whereas many investment funds think in quarters and plan to exit from the day they invest, Tracy committed to raising a longer‐term vehicle, enabling her firm to operate with a time horizon akin to Berkshire's philosophy. Throughout the year Tracy convenes CEOs for free workshops in which she and her partners share their knowledge and ideas about building growing and healthy organizations. The approach gives credibility to Tracy's claim that “we are business builders who happen to invest.”

Tracy has positioned herself in her sweet spot as she values learning and personal growth more than money or fame. She knows her strengths as an astute team builder and strategist who partners with strong operational leaders.

Bill's Take: Finding My Sweet Spot at 46

It took me 2 decades in business to find my sweet spot. In midcareer, we may find ourselves in situations from which we think we cannot escape. As Dante wrote in The Divine Comedy, “In the middle of the road of my life, I awoke in a dark wood, where the true way was wholly lost.”

In the mid‐1980s I was en route to the top of Honeywell, promoted several times while developing a reputation as “Mr. Fix‐It” for turning around Honeywell's troubled businesses. I know how to turn businesses around, but that's not what I love to do.

Driving home one day, I looked in the rearview mirror and saw a miserable person—me. On the surface, I appeared to be confident and successful, but inside I was deeply unhappy. I realized I wasn't passionate about Honeywell's businesses, nor was my job playing to my strengths. I had all the trappings of success, but my life lacked the significance I yearned for. Worse yet, I was losing sight of my True North—more concerned about becoming CEO than making a positive impact on the world. I faced the reality that Honeywell was changing me more than I was changing it, and I didn't like the changes in myself.

Over the years, I had turned down three opportunities to join Medtronic, which was then a fledgling medical device company. It finally dawned on me that I was so caught up in my drive to run a major corporation that I was in danger of losing my soul. In the process, I realized I had sold Medtronic short and maybe myself as well.

In moving to Medtronic, I joined an organization whose mission to “alleviate pain, restore health, and extend life” was extremely inspiring, and I felt fully aligned with Medtronic's values. My job gave me the opportunity to build an organization in a role which used all my strengths.

At age 46, I finally found my sweet spot.

Idea in Brief: Find Your Sweet Spot

Recap of the Main Idea

• Extrinsic motivations, such as getting good grades or making money, are measured by the external world.
• Intrinsic motivations are derived from your deepest inner desires, not the world's adulation. Examples of intrinsic motivations include personal growth, helping others, taking on social causes, creating great products or services, and making a difference in the world.
• When you combine your motivations with a role that utilizes your strengths, you are operating in your sweet spot.

Questions to Ask

1. What are your extrinsic motivations? Which of them might become too dominant?
2. If money or success didn't matter, what would you choose as your vocation?
3. What are your intrinsic motivations? How do you ensure you are prioritizing them?
4. Recall and then list one or more instances in which your extrinsic motivations conflicted with your intrinsic motivations. What did you do?
5. What are your greatest capabilities? How does your work and life use them?

Practical Suggestions for Your Development

• To accelerate the discovery of your strengths and your intrinsic motivations:
  • Take personality tests like Enneagram, StrengthsFinder, and Myers‐Briggs, which provide deeper insights into your natural way of being. Tests such as Hogan, DISC, and Caliper make distinctions around the suitability of your personality traits to different roles, such as sales or operations.
  • Inventory your effectiveness by activity. Rate it on two dimensions: first, how effective are you at the activity; second, how much do you enjoy it?
  • Use this inventory to create a set of unique activities that fully use your strengths and energize you. Each week, evaluate your calendar and determine what proportion of your time you spent on these unique activities.