"The world will shape you if you let it. To have a sense of yourself as you live, you must make conscious choices."

On a tranquil Boston evening in the fall of 1983, John Donahoe, then an energetic twenty-three-year-old, enjoyed a relaxing dinner with his fiancée, Eileen. Just a year out of college, Donahoe had already earned an excellent reputation as a consulting analyst at Bain. His eyes lit up as he talked about his career prospects.

As dinner wore on, Eileen became more concerned about the toll John’s career could take on his life. She expressed concern about how the long hours, constant travel, and stress might limit his ability to have close relationships. Then she asked him pointedly, “Is that really what you want in life?” John answered adamantly, “No!” He reached into his wallet to find a piece of paper and wrote on the back of a Shawmut Bank receipt, “I will not live the life of a management consultant,” and signed his name. John recalled, “Her challenge to me was, ‘Be who you are.’“

John Donahoe eventually developed his own scorecard to measure his success. His criteria are the number of lives he can influence while being the type of husband, father, friend, and person he would like to be.