The Infinite Game

The final chapter of The Infinite Game explains why companies who follow their just cause, despite financial risk, end up succeeding in the long run. Sinek provides the example of CVS, the health and pharmacy store chain, who decided to stop selling cigarettes in 2014. Initially, the decision was met with mockery from Wall Street and business pundits. CVS ignored this to advance an ethical just cause—that is, to make people healthier. Eventually, CVS stock increased, and customers expressed approval of their decision by purchasing from CVS. CVS ignored the pressure of finite-minded voices and practiced the “courage to lead.”

The courage to lead can cost leaders and companies money, jobs, and reputation. When they practice an infinite mindset, this courage becomes a “standard of ethics” (200). Sinek identifies two paths to find the courage to lead:

1. We can wait for a life-altering experience that shakes us to our core and challenges the way we see the world.
2. Or we can find a Just Cause that inspires us, surround ourselves with others with whom we share common cause, people we trust and who trust us, identify a Rival worthy of comparison that will push us to constantly improve, and remind ourselves that we are more committed to the Cause than to any particular path or strategy we happen to be following right now (201).