Thrive Zones: How Oprah, LeBron, and Steve Jobs Followed in The Footsteps of Henri Matisse
Thrive Zones/ THrīv zōnz/noun
- The vital spaces where people flourish, prosper, and succeed
“One must always keep one’s eye, one’s feeling fresh, one must follow one’s instincts.” — Henri Matisse
Certainly! I’ll revise and incorporate pertinent and interesting details, including the reference to Manet and syphilis, while maintaining the focus on Matisse’s journey and how it ties into the Thrive Zones concept. Here’s the refined version:
When All Else Fails
For Henri Matisse, success wasn’t simply a matter of talent or hard work. It was about finding his muse, a place where his bold, unrestrained palette could flourish beyond the constraints of Paris’ rigid art world. Just as ecosystems support life, certain environments nurture human potential.
We call these Thrive Zones.
Belle Époque Paris was a city of contradictions. A peasant revolt could be as exhilarating as a scandalous affair. On the surface, the city flaunted a proud tradition of radicalism, but beneath the façade, it bowed deeply to social hierarchy. Defying the elite, considered by many to be a career-ending faux pas, was as rare as an empty seat at the Café de Flore.
Paris was a place where even the most avant-garde sensibilities were gently encouraged to align with refined, often conventional, tastes. But Matisse’s unrestrained palette — bold and deeply emotional — needed a space where both art and spirit could truly thrive.
Leaving behind more than just café tables and art salons, Matisse had endured his fair share of failure by this time. He once confessed to a friend that studying law felt like “detesting cold veal,” but his transition to painting wasn’t much easier. Critics, notorious for shredding reputations with as much ease as a Sunday roast, dismissed his work as crude and vulgar. Paintings that would one day grace the world’s greatest museums were mocked. Even Gertrude and Leo Stein, the art collectors who later embraced Picasso and Miro, first called his paintings the “nastiest smear of paint” they’d ever seen. And the term “Fauvism” — meant as an insult — was coined by a critic to describe Matisse’s use of color, suggesting that his art was that of a “wild beast.” Ironically, it immortalized the artistic movement that he created.
Matisse’s attempts to fit into the Académie left him in a kind of artistic purgatory. Rejected by the establishment, impoverished in his career, and pushed to the fringes of the art world, he was trapped in a place that neither appreciated nor understood his work. Paris had turned on him, casting him aside as a failed experiment.
“A young painter who cannot liberate himself from the influence of past generations is digging his own grave,” Matisse lamented.
It was time for a change.
The Unknown: Leaving Paris
Standing at a crossroads, Matisse faced a stark choice: madness or mediocrity. He had little money, no home, and was still a relatively unknown artist struggling to find a patron.
“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore,” wrote André Gide.
And so, with courage and little to lose, Matisse gathered his family and belongings and prepared to abandon Paris — a city that had both teased him with promises yet cast him into treacherous waters.
Leaving behind the familiar is more than a relocation. It’s a journey into the unknown, requiring the bravery to view life not as a series of failures but as an ongoing experiment in search of fulfillment. For Matisse, this was a deeply personal decision. He was no longer content with simply surviving; he longed to create art that brought feelings of serenity and pleasure to both himself and others.
The ticking of the clock also played a significant role in his decision. At 36 years old, Matisse had already lived over half the typical life span of the great painters. Monet lived to 86, Degas to 83, Renoir to 78 — but others were not so fortunate. Manet, for example, tragically died at just 51, his life cut short by syphilis. Time made no guarantees, and Matisse knew the urgency of realizing his artistic potential before it was too late.
“It has bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everybody else,” Matisse reflected.
The search for something new wasn’t just professional — it was a matter of yearning for a place where his art could finally breathe, and his desire for serenity and balance could be realized.
It led him to Collioure.
The Search: New Spaces
Matisse’s story unfolds at the intersection of psychology and place — it’s not just about lifestyle or escaping pressures of work, but about finding an environment that gives us the freedom to fail, learn, and push the boundaries of our potential.
Today, we have a name for these spaces, Thrive Zones.”
The Search is the second step in finding a Thrive Zone. It’s a universal story as old as humanity itself. When our ancestors in East Africa faced harsh conditions, they didn’t surrender to their failing environment. Instead, as Yuval Noah Harari writes in Sapiens, they embarked on a great migration some 70,000 years ago — a detour that would lead to the spread of human ingenuity and cooperation. It is because they took that first fateful, ignoring their fears of the world outside their comfort zone that we are here today. And like those ancient travelers, Matisse’s departure from Paris was also a gamble, a leap into the unknown. But without that risk, he would never have discovered the depths of his artistic genius.
“Before, I had no interest in anything. I knew this was my life from the moment I held the box of colors. It was a Paradise Found. I was completely free…”
The Discovery: Collioure
Collioure was a world away from Paris. The sun-drenched houses along the port were painted in unapologetic hues of blue, orange, and pink. The rhythmic hum of the Occitan language filled the air, blending with the sound of the Mediterranean waves. Rough-armed fishermen, wearing espardenyes — footwear dating back to the 13th century we call espadrilles today — roamed the docks, their days marked by the pungent smell of fish and the sing song chatter of village life.
This place literally reeked of authenticity.
The Discovery is the third stage in the journey to a Thrive Zone — when we see ourselves in a new light. For Matisse, this transformation was both literal and emotional. The people of the South were nothing like the Parisians he had left behind. Here, he found simplicity, warmth, and generosity. The dazzling Mediterranean light didn’t just illuminate the landscape; it reignited his passion for color, joy, and beauty.
In Collioure, Matisse discovered more than just a new location — he found his Thrive Zone. Far removed from the vanity of Parisian salons, Collioure gave him the freedom to explore art without judgment or expectation. It liberated him, perhaps his soul. Here, he could be himself, as he always was — a painter driven by his acute sensitivity to his surroundings.
“I do not literally paint that table, but the emotion it produces upon me.”
The authenticity of the village and its people nurtured Matisse in a way that Paris never could. Collioure offered a space free from the suffocating pressures of conformity, where Matisse could rediscover his passion. This is where Fauvism was born — not in the high society salons of Paris, but in the sun-drenched streets of this fishing village.
The Transformation: Thriving
Thrive Zones aren’t mythical Camelots or magical Shangri-Las. They are real places — whether organizations, communities, and sometimes universal belief systems — where our potential is encouraged to unfold. Just as ecosystems thrive when sunlight, water, and soil come together in harmony, Thrive Zones support human flourishing through the right combination of people, resources, and opportunities.
These are the places where the fourth and final stage, The Transformation, is free to occur.
In Collioure, Matisse found the most powerful key to unlocking his hidden potential — freedom. The sun-drenched colors of the village, the Mediterranean light, and the natural rhythms of daily life gave him the space to create art on his own terms. Far from the constraints of Paris, this humble fishing village allowed him to explore, fail, and ultimately succeed in ways that would have been impossible in the salons of the elite.
In this Thrive Zone, Matisse finally found the space he needed.
A Universal Truth
Matisse’s story reveals a universal truth: success isn’t about changing who we are; it’s about finding the right place where, the words of Thomas Carlyle, we can become all that we can be. We cannot reach new heights if we remain anchored to environments that stifle us. Thrive Zones, like the one Matisse found in Collioure, are spaces that foster success by nurturing our individuality.
Our research ran the gamut from Nobel Prize winners, Olympic gold medalists, and business moguls shows that success doesn’t happen in a vacuum — it happens in environments that provide the right conditions for collaboration and growth.
In the end, Matisse didn’t change to fit the world. He found a world that fit him.
And that made all the difference.
Five Affirmations: The Architecture of a Thrive Zone
Thrive Zones are not just places we live or work; they are environments built on foundational pillars we call the Five Affirmations, or 5Ms:
Mentors, Mates, Methods, Mantras, and Metrics.
Much like the essential elements of an ecosystem — sunlight, water, soil, and air — the Five Ms provide the guidance, collaboration, and structure necessary for growth. They affirm what is possible by shaping the framework of success, ensuring that our potential is both nurtured and unleashed, and create the ideal conditions for flourishing.
- Mentors are the coaches who guide us, sharing wisdom as we navigate challenges and uncertainties.
- Mates are our teammates, pushing us to grow, just as organisms rely on cooperation and competition to thrive.
- Methods are the strategies and tools, the playbook that keeps us on course.
- Mantras are the motivational beliefs that sustain us, fueling our drive and purpose.
- Metrics are our scoreboards, allowing us to measure progress, make adjustments, and stay accountable — much like how ecosystems adapt and evolve over time.
These Five Ms form the bedrock of a Thrive Zone, nurturing our sense of fulfillment and purpose. They provide focus on the ultimate goal — living a meaningful, pleasurable life — and act as guardrails against poorly conceived innovations and fruitless experiments that drain our energy and sap our willpower.
In a Thrive Zone, we are given the freedom to explore, the tools to grow, and the support to thrive. By harnessing the power of the Five Ms, we build environments where success is not only possible but inevitable.
The Call to Action
Whether you’re an entrepreneur, executive, or someone striving for personal growth, Thrive Zones exist around you. They can be found in large organizations, small startups, rural towns, or sprawling metropolises. What they all share is the potential to elevate you to heights you never thought possible.
But before you pack your bags thinking, “Find the right place, and success will magically appear,” it’s also important to recognize the hurdles so that you are prepared to resolve them. First, most people stuck in dead-end jobs or lackluster lives can’t simply head off to a new horizon as Matisse did. Second, fear of the unknown often paralyzes us, leaving us anchored to mediocrity. As Einstein said, “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results,” yet many of us remain stuck. Third, self-doubt can prevent us from taking the bold leap needed to find the right environment — one that will nurture our inner potential and reveal our own “Matisse.”
It is well worth remembering that a Thrive Zone is not just about finding a new place to live away from old pressures and concerns; it’s finding the right partnership where the Five Ms are present — Mentors, Mates, Methods, Mantras, and Metrics — and surrounding yourself in the ideal conditions for transformation.
It’s time to take that bold leap, lose sight of the shore, and discover your Thrive Zone.
Jimmy the Greek: The End Zone Was His Thrive Zone
Yogi Berra once said, “Predictions are difficult, especially about the future.” What the famous Yankee catcher meant was that most of us shouldn’t try to make a living as forecasters. But that’s exactly what propelled America’s number one bookie, James George Snyder, to stardom. Although it wasn’t his first choice. Snyder was an inveterate gambler, pure and simple, before he realized that a personal Thrive Zone was out there.
Snyder — better known as Jimmy the Greek — before he became a successful NFL commentator — made his name by betting on the 1948 presidential election between Thomas Dewey and Harry Truman. He gave Truman 17-to-1 odds and wagered $10,000 — more than his annual salary. Snyder had a gut feeling. He calculated that Dewey would lose because “women in America didn’t trust mustachioed males.”
When Truman won, Snyder hit the jackpot. But he faced a dilemma: his skills as a political oddsmaker were useful only once every four years. So, he pivoted to a place where Snyder could apply his talent for spotting anomalies. He realized good gambling instincts were nothing more than a talent for judging probabilities. With that alone, he began to set the odds on NFL games, and was soon invited to be a sports commentator by the NFL. In time, Jimmy the Greek became one of the most successful bookmakers in sports history.
In his case, “The Greek” as he was called, was a two but bookie until he found his Thrive Zone.
But you don’t need to have Jimmy the Greek’s talent to improve your odds. Just the courage to find the right place for it.
Chicago: Oprah’s Kind of Place
Take Oprah Winfrey, for instance. Anyone who builds a billion-dollar media empire, like OWN (Oprah Winfrey Network), didn’t just stumble into success. But like many such stories, Oprah’s journey began with failure — because she was in the wrong zone.
Born into poverty in rural Mississippi and raised by a single teenage mother, Oprah faced monumental obstacles. Even her birth name was discarded — Orpah — because people found it too hard to pronounce. Then, she endured childhood abuse, and at age 14, gave birth to a son who tragically passed away. By any conventional measure, her future seemed bleak. Yet even when it looked like she might escape that fate, she stumbled.
The Unknown: Hitting The Wall
At age 19, after a promising start as a local newscaster in Nashville, Oprah moved to Baltimore’s WJZ-TV, hoping to break into the big leagues. But things didn’t go as planned.
“My bosses made no secret of their feelings,” Oprah recalled. “They told me I was the wrong color, the wrong size, and that I showed too much emotion.”
The too-empathic newscaster was demoted to a low-budget daytime talk show, People Are Talking — considered the “graveyard” of broadcasting. But as Alexander Graham Bell once said, “When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and regretfully upon the closed door that we miss the ones opening before us.”
But Oprah didn’t just see the door; she ran through it to find a Thrive Zone.
Although her setbacks should have derailed her career, each challenge became a stepping stone toward a place where the opportunities aligned. She later admitted as much. She never felt at ease reporting the news. The rejection reminded her of early life — places that disparage, discriminate, and abuse. But staying in a place of failure — what we call a Zombie Zone — wasn’t an option. Her future lay in connecting with people — but that meant leaving Baltimore for the unknown.
The Search: New Spaces
Hitting a wall often leads to a breakthrough. In Oprah’s case, failure didn’t mean falling — it meant pivoting. She realized hard news wasn’t her thing. But she also realized she wasn’t lacking in talent, she just had to find another platform, one that believed in her kind of reporting. Chicago came calling.
“It wasn’t until I was unceremoniously ‘demoted’ to co-host of People Are Talking that I felt the first spark of what it means to become fully alive,” Oprah recalled.
In 1984, with little to lose, Oprah moved to Chicago to host AM Chicago, the lowest-rated talk show in the city. But Chicago had something that New York and Los Angeles didn’t — a ripe audience ready for Oprah’s unique mix of empathy and authenticity, and for those reasons the city itself became a crucial turning point.
During her very first show, something clicked. “When the hour ended, I felt a sense of knowing resonate in my heart,” she said. “That day, my ‘job’ ended, and my calling began.”
The Discovery: Chicago’s Soul
Even after finding her Thrive Zone, Oprah continued to refine her approach. It’s often in these kinds of spaces that true innovation begins. Early in her career, she followed the typical celebrity-interview formula. But after a lackluster episode with Miami Vice star Don Johnson, she realized that chasing stars wasn’t her strength.
Oprah shifted to stories that resonated with everyday people — those whose struggles and triumphs mirrored her own.
This pivot became the heart and soul of her show, allowing her to connect with her audience in a way few others could.
The Transformation: Owning the Stage
Within a month, AM Chicago shot to the top, dethroning daytime king Phil Donahue. Oprah was finally using the empathy that once got her nearly fired to connect deeply with her audience. Where her talent was appreciated — it became the key to her success.
“When you pay attention to what feeds your energy, you move in the direction of the life for which you were intended,” Oprah reflected.
Chicago was invested in Oprah’s success. Soon after, The Oprah Winfrey Show was born, and with it, an entire media empire. Chicago wasn’t just a geographical change — it was the perfect Thrive Zone for Oprah to amplify her gifts and embrace her authentic self.
As she wisely said, “Trust that the Universe has a bigger, wider, deeper dream for you than you could ever imagine for yourself.”
Know Your Place: Thrive Zones vs. Survival Zones
Success in life and career isn’t just about what you study or how hard you work. It can be just as influenced by where you do it.
This isn’t self-help hyperbole — it’s backed by insights from some of the most accomplished people we’ve interviewed: Warren Buffett, Senator John McCain, astronaut Mark Kelly, Olympian Michael Phelps, and UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, to name a few of our subjects. They all shared one crucial element that made the difference in their lives: they eventually found the right place for their kind of talent, often after failing elsewhere.
A Thrive Zone is an environment where encouragement and empathy, inspiration and trust, converge with opportunity. It welcomes your ability rather than devalues it, and provides the resources to nurture it. It reduces the chaos of life which destroys the spirit, but prevents an excess of order which can limit innovation.
In contrast, a Zombie Zone, where many spend their lives, is an environment with little or no encouragement to do better, nor is there a reward for doing so — where no matter how much talent and ambition you may have, it will be a struggle to gain traction or get attention.
Here’s an examle from modern life at how the phenomenon takes shape in some very complicated and surprising ways.
Trading Places: The Court of King James
In 1984, a 16-year-old single mother named Gloria gave birth to a boy in Akron, Ohio. Life was tough from the start. By the age of five, LeBron James had already experienced the instability of bouncing between foster homes in rough neighborhoods.
But then came a turning point.
Gloria, realizing she couldn’t provide the life LeBron deserved, sent him to live with Frank Walker, a local youth football coach. It was Frank who introduced LeBron to basketball, setting him on a path toward his Thrive Zone.
Supported by Frank and a close-knit group of friends, LeBron enrolled at St. Vincent-St. Mary’s, a predominantly white Catholic school. This environment provided him with more than just an education — it gave him structure and opportunity. His talent truly began to flourish when LeBron and his teammates were given a chance to play in the University of Akron’s arena — televised games that caught the attention of more than just basketball fans. A scout from the Cleveland Cavaliers was there, and the rest, as they say, is history.
This is what a Thrive Zone looks like: a place obsessed with nurturing your talent, where support systems align to help you thrive.
LeBron’s mother was obsessed with his education. Frank Walker was obsessed with teaching him to play basketball. And St. Vincent’s was obessed with making sure he had the right teammates and the kind of exposure that led to stardom.
Without those crucial elements, the direction his life might have taken would be very different. We know that, because there was another example of a potential basketball star with a wildly different outcome.
Cissy’s Boy: George Floyd’s Struggle in a Zombie Zone
George Floyd’s story provides a stark contrast to LeBron’s. Miscalculating the importance of the factors that make one place a Thrive Zone, the other a Zomie Zone, is the cause of great heartache and disappointment.
Take the example of a tragic figure, George Floyd, also born into poverty and raised by a single mother, Cissy, who eventually moved the family to public housing in Houston. Like LeBron, Floyd found refuge in basketball. At 6'6", he earned a basketball scholarship, a rare opportunity in a difficult life.
Until that moment, Floyd had promise. Although we don’t have much knowledge of Cissy’s capability as a mother, clearly helping her son to get into college and receive a scholarship after two decades of single motherhood steeped in poverty took some heavy duty parenting.
Floyd transferred to Texas A&M, perhaps to be closer to family, but he found himself in an environment that lacked the supportive systems needed to keep him on track. In a Zombie Zone, the guardrails that guide young men like Floyd away from destructive paths were missing. Government negligence and corruption only intensifies the gap between those brought up in Thrive Zones with supportive mentors and mates, and those left behind.
Without the structure and encouragement that LeBron found at St. Vincent-St. Mary’s, Floyd drifted into criminal activity after dropping out of college. Eventually he was convicted of aggravated robbery and assault against a young woman in 2007 — a life-altering choice that anchored him in a harsh reality defined by absent fathers, poverty, and destructive influences. What self respect and dignity he had disappeared, and from that point there would be no more second chances.
Floyd’s story, like LeBron’s, reminds us that the power of place can be both a miracle and a curse.
Two young African American men, both coached by men named Walker, with similar beginnings, but their environments — one in Akron and the other in Houston and Minneapolis — couldn’t have been more different. But it wasn’t about the city that made the difference. It was the environment that mattered.
Apple: Thrive Zone of Creativity
Steve Jobs’ story provides yet another perspective on the power of place. When Jobs returned to Apple in 1997, the company was on the verge of collapse. It was seen as an aging tech giant with no future. Even Michael Dell quipped, “I’d shut it down and give the money back to the shareholders.”
Jobs’ response? “F — Michael Dell.”
The problem was that Dell didn’t realize the power of a Thrive Zone. Jobs began to rebuild Apple into one of the most innovative companies in history by not just focusing on the company’s products. He created a creative ecosystem designed to foster brilliance. By bringing together a team of engineers he described as having “100X” the talent of the average, Jobs fostered an environment where innovation thrived, literally.
He took it a step further by shielding his creative team from early-stage criticism, allowing them the freedom to experiment without fear of failure. In a well known anecdote, Jobs had the door to the design studio locked and could only be lopened from the inside.
The message? Let them create. Just as Silicon Valley liberated Jobs to create his Apple, he liberated his engineers to create most successful company in history — a Thrive Zone for creativity.
The result? Just check the metrics for the iPod and the iPhone.
The Quest for Thrive Zones
From Oprah to LeBron James to Steve Jobs, these stories show how the right environment can make all the difference. Thrive Zones are the special places where talent meets opportunity, where support systems liberate people to achieve their fullest potential.
I’ve seen this first hand throughout my career. From my time as the publisher of Forbes Magazine to my role as the CEO of Elon Musk’s first startup, and later as a professor at Arizona State University, I’ve had the privilege of witnessing how greatness often doesn’t emerge until the right environment is found.
Through interviews with some of the most famous and successful figures in the world, I’ve learned that success isn’t just about what you know or how hard you work. It’s just as much about where you do it. This quest led me to Warren Buffett, John McCain, Michael Milken, General David Petraeus, Michael Phelps, Nikki Haley, and many others. What I discovered in these conversations was that the right environment — the Thrive Zone — could catapult even the most talented individuals to new extraordinary heights.
The Power of Terroir and Thrive Zones
These stories got me thinking: This realization led me to a profound discovery: Thrive Zones aren’t accidents; they’re built on a formula as ancient and refined as winemaking itself.
Thrive Zones don’t just appear by chance — they are shaped through time, collaboration, and the right conditions.
But the relentless drive for a new habitat is not just about wanderlust — it’s about thriving. It’s about finding better opportunities, richer experiences, and the chance to build something new. Just as Oprah, LeBron, and Steve Jobs searched for environments where they could thrive, like them, every individual today can follow the example set by our ancient ancestors. Thrive Zones are centers of excellence for a particular individual. All that is left is to find your own.
In the early 1900s, Baron Pierre Le Roy Boiseaumarié, a lawyer and vineyard owner, revolutionized the wine industry by refining the concept of terroir. Le Roy believed that the vineyard — the environment — was just as important as the grape in creating exceptional wine. He called it by the French name, terroir.
What Le Roy understood is that terroir is more than just a plot of land. It’s the alchemy of soil, climate, and culture that transforms ordinary grapes into extraordinary vintages. A vineyard can produce a Grand Cru while another with the same grape, less than a football field away, produces a vin ordinaire. Le Roy recognized this delicate balance was due to a mixture of soil and soul, and developed a master plan to protect it.
Derived from the Latin terra, meaning earth, terroir goes beyond winemaking. Terroirs — and their human equivalent, Thrive Zones — are about the inheritance of values, traditions, and community that nurture greatness.
Through his leadership, Le Roy preserved the uniqueness of French wine, ensuring that the principles of terroir would apply across they world of wine.
More important, decrease the gift to that other well-known species who suffer changes in quality from the year known as the human race. The lessons he left apply universally to any environment that aims to cultivate excellence.
Just as terroir elevates grapes into world-class wine, Thrive Zones elevate people to achieve more than they ever thought possible. Whether it’s a neighborhood, a workplace, or a nation, the power of terroir — and by extension Thrive Zones, lies in unleashing the full potential of individuals and organizations. Le Roy’s vision of terroir gave rise to what we now call the Five Affirmations — principles that shape not only wine but human potential.
The Five Ms: A Framework for Thrive Zones
Le Roy’s shed new light on an old quandary, how do thriving organizations — and that includes local communities to major nations, manage to sustain their heritage? The answer is that the group dynamic mirrors that of the individual. Thrive Zones create an environment that strikes a balance between the freedom to innovate and respect for tradition. The ability to explore new possibilities, while staying grounded in lessons from the past, forms the foundation of a renewable Thrive Zone.
Le Roy gave us the formula when he instructed French farmers on how to create a great terroir, and we call these pillars the Five Affirmations, or the Five Ms: Mentors, Mates, Mantras, Methods, and Metrics, as they affirm the individual:
- Mentors and Tradition: They are the first thinkers — the founders, teachers, and guides who show the way forward. Just as Le Roy valued heritage (it is why every bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape is adorned with papal keys, symbolizing a deep connection to the enduring principles ancient winemakers), a Thrive Zone passes down the wisdom of experience through the guidance of mentors.
- Mates and Collaboration: Success is rarely a solo journey. The vineyard’s of Provence selected 34 winegrowers to work closely with Baron Le Roy, much like our peers and collaborators challenge and support each other in a Thrive Zone.
- Mantras and Discipline: Mantras serve as guiding principles. Le Roy imposed strict standards, telling the grape farmers, “You must give the example of honesty and discipline.” Mantras are the core beliefs handed down through generations, reminding individuals of what matters and helping them stay focused on their values and goals.
- Methods and Best Practices: These are the frameworks that allow innovation to flourish within structured guidance. Le Roy developed best practices that included formulas — only thirteen carefully chosen grape varieties were allowed in the region, regulations governed alcohol content, and volume of output to assure scarcity, and those same practices are in place today nearly 100 years later. Similarly, methods in a Thrive Zone are the strategies, tools, and systems that ensure consistent success.
- Metrics and Standards: Metrics are what subjects every decision to scrutiny. To maintain excellence, Le Roy’s metric is the longest reining standard in history, the quality of great French wine. In a Thrive Zone, metrics are the tools used to measure progress, refine approaches, and ensure continual improvement.
Thrive Zones is written for those seeking both personal and professional transformation, whether you’re striving to create more productive environments within organizations or in your own life.
Just as Baron Le Roy’s vision transformed ordinary grapes into extraordinary vintages through the power of terroir, we aim to guide you in unlocking your hidden potential by discovering the power of your Thrive Zone.
In vino veritas.
