241. Beware of Success
At The Table with Patrick Lencioni
Patrick Lencioni
4.8 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 29 April 2025
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What happens when the external validation of your success conflicts with your internal values and purpose?
In episode 241 of At The Table, Pat Lencioni and Cody Thompson explore the hidden dangers of traditional success metrics. They also discuss how businesses and individuals can lose their way when they chase recognition that doesn’t align with their original purpose.
Topics explored in this episode:
(0:40) The Michelin Star Story
* How a small restaurant in Italy gave up its Michelin star to stay true to its identity.
(4:51) Aligning Success With Intentions
* Why companies lose their way when they follow external expectations.
* The importance of anchoring decisions to the question: "Why do we exist?"
(8:46) Success and Personal Growth
* Arthur Brooks' wisdom about valuing the process over outcomes.
* How personal definitions of success change over time, especially in creative fields.
(13:02) The Cost of Chasing the Wrong Goals
* How woundedness can drive people to seek approval through achievements.
* Reflections on athletes and leaders who chose integrity over external trophies.
* Why true success means being proud of who you're becoming, not just what you achieve.
(17:53) Staying Grounded Amid Temptation
* Lessons from early Table Group decisions to resist the IPO craze.
* The ultimate call to stick to your "why" for lasting fulfillment.
Books mentioned in this episode:
* Unreasonable Hospitality by Will Guidara.
* The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business by Patrick Lencioni.
* From Strength to Strength by Arthur Brooks.
This episode of At The Table with Patrick Lencioni is brought to you by The Table Group: https://www.tablegroup.com. We teach leaders how to make work more effective and less dysfunctional. We also help their employees be more fulfilled and less miserable.
At The Table is a podcast that lives at the connection between work life, leadership, organizational health, and culture. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts (https://apple.co/4hJKKSL), Spotify (https://spoti.fi/4l1aop0), and YouTube (https://bit.ly/At-The-Table-YouTube).
Follow Pat Lencioni on https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-lencioni-orghealth and http://www.youtube.com/@PatrickLencioniOfficial.
Connect with Cody Thompson https://www.linkedin.com/in/cody-thompson-a5918850.
Be sure to check out our other podcast, The Working Genius Podcast with Patrick Lencioni, on Apple Podcasts (https://apple.co/4iNz6Yn), Spotify (https://spoti.fi/4iGGm8u), and YouTube (https://bit.ly/Working-Genius-YouTube).
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You should only do for your customers the thing you want for yourself. |
| 0:06.9 | Don't ever do for them what you think they want, but you wouldn't want that because you're not going to have joy in that. |
| 0:13.8 | Welcome to At the Table, the podcast that lives at the connection between work life, leadership, organizational health, and culture. |
| 0:22.2 | I'm your host, Pat Lincone, |
| 0:29.1 | joined by my co-host. Cody Thompson, how you doing today? Cody? Pretty good, Pat. We're on video again, |
| 0:34.1 | so the listeners can have, their eyes can have the same mediocre experience their ears have been for years. That's right. We'll try to push it a little above mediocre. |
| 0:40.5 | And today's topic in doing that is what, Cody? |
| 0:43.6 | We're calling it beware of success. |
| 0:46.4 | Beware of success. |
| 0:47.7 | Let me tell you where this came from. |
| 0:48.8 | I read this story about a restaurant in Luca, Italy. |
| 0:53.9 | Luca is the town where my family comes from in past generations in Italy. |
| 0:57.9 | It's in Tuscany. |
| 0:59.0 | And there's this restaurant there called Giglio. |
| 1:01.6 | And these guys started the restaurant, and it did really well. |
| 1:05.8 | And it did so well that the Michelin Guide came by and gave them a star. |
| 1:12.1 | Now, let me explain what that means. |
| 1:13.3 | The Michelin Guide, which is named for the company, the Michelin Company, that makes tires. |
| 1:19.1 | Like, over 100 years ago, they started giving ratings to restaurants. |
| 1:24.2 | And the idea was, if they would tell people about these really good restaurants that people |
| 1:28.0 | hadn't heard of, they would drive there and use their tires to eat at these restaurants. |
| 1:32.5 | Crazy. I love that. I actually did not know that that was where that came from. That's great. |
... |
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