Doctors Gave Him 6 Months to Live. He Said “Watch This” with Tom LeNoble

Speaker A: I love when someone says to me, it just can't happen. It's impossible, it can't be done. That little voice comes up and says, watch this.

Speaker B: Welcome to the next episode of the Entrepreneurial Excellence podcast. It is with a ton of pleasure that I have the amazing Tom Lenoble here with me today. Most founders measure their lives, uh, in funding rounds and exits. Today's guest, Tom, has been told three different times that he has six months to live and he's been building advising, inspiring at the highest level for 14 years since that happened. Tom is the kind of operator turned mentor every founder wishes they had on speed dial. So I'm lucky to have some time with Tom right now. His resume reads like a tour of the most consequential tech companies of the last 30 years. MCI, Walmart.com, pOM, Facebook, where he was employee number 3057 and interviewed personally by a teenage Mark Zuckerberg and earned the in house nickname the Adult in the Room. For the last 24 years he's also been the CEO of the Academy of Coaching for Coaching Excellence, a leadership coach at the Miller center for Global Impact at Santa Clara University, founder of Tanga Enterprises, host of the Opening Pathways podcast, which I was lucky enough to be on, and a bestselling author of the award winning memoir My Life in Business Suits, Hospital Gowns and High Heels. His new book, Morning Ground releasing next month and My Life at Facebook, the Adult in the Room dropping at the end of the year. He's a creator of the Risk riskability factor, a framework that helps leaders take bold, purpose driven action under uncertainty. And he has lived with metastatic cancer for 14 years while doing all this. Tom also happens to wake up, I believe at 3:30am M every single day to get things started. Tom, welcome to entrepreneurial excellence. I hope you don't mind that long intro.

Speaker A: I don't. Adam, it's great to be with you and thank you for that long intro. And it's great to still be here.

Speaker B: Ah, absolutely. And there's so much to learn, I think, from your resilience and the fact that you are still here and the things you've been able to learn and do in your career, in life. And so I'd like to kick things off by asking everyone the same question. And you've worked with a lot of entrepreneurs, including some of obviously the world's best. How do you define entrepreneurial excellence? What does that mean to you?

Speaker A: You know, for me, entrepreneurial excellence is very basic. I think that's having A mindset that whatever didn't work today, whatever didn't get done today, whatever challenge happened today, is nothing more than a stepping stone to tomorrow and start fresh the next day. Some of us had these long to do lists and I've learned that if you didn't get the to do's done today, you're going to have a new list tomorrow. So do your best, keep going and, and not hang out in the past. So many people I talk with are hanging out in the past as if we get a do over. As if we're like those videos we watch on our phones where we have go back 10 second button. Life isn't that way. Be here in the present, do the best you can. Tomorrow's a new, new chance at it.

Speaker B: That is such a great definition. And, and I agree with you. I mean, Grant, look, I, I live in San Francisco, so I see a lot of people I hang out with that probably are looking forward to. But I think a lot of people in life really do look to the past and, or obsess, um, about why something went wrong or where they could have fixed it. And certainly for me as an entrepreneur, I always am thinking of the next big thing. It's funny, I'm sure you hear lots of people say if you have a call on a Friday, people say, oh, happy Friday, things like that. And I always say, no, like Fridays are depressing for me because there's so much I didn't get done. Whereas on Monday, it's a fresh slate. I can do so much on Monday. Anything is possible. And I think most people find that really weird. And I do not say that I'm a great entrepreneur, but I feel like that's a helpful definition for me. Like maybe the way you defined it, like, I start Mondays, but anything's possible this week. Let's get it done.

Speaker A: You know, I hear you say that and one of the things that really brings for me is that that idea that there is a week and some time away from it. I think people forget often that the time that we take away from it makes us sharper, makes us, makes us more effective. We come back fresh, whatever days it is, however you structure it, but breaking it off. You know, I've had people that tell me they dread Monday because they know that Friday's going to be here too soon. And other people, they dread Friday because, you know, it's going to go by so quick and Monday's going to be here. My first thing when I hear that is to check in to see how they're how fully engaged they are with what they're doing. Because, you know, we, we are doing work, we're all working really hard. We're giving out our best. If there's not some element of enjoyment and flow and love to what you're doing, it becomes this structure of time where we're dreading something or uh, looking forward to something. When, let's just look at this past year, we're almost in June as we have had this conversation and it, it passed by really quickly. And so make the most of what's going on today. Let's don't dread or look forward or look back to anything. Let's just keep going.

Speaker B: And so do you think that is once again to maybe re, restate this point? Like what Mark and the other founders you've worked with, is that really what set them apart is that they were just able to say, look, there are problem, there are problems and fires today, and I'm going to deal with those today. And then tomorrow is going to be a new day, fresh. I'm going to just move forward. Yeah.

Speaker A: You know, one thing that I found in entrepreneurs that have been in my experience so effective is the willingness to make a decision knowing they can change their mind, they can fix it, but moving forward because these decisions in fast paced environments stack up really quickly and we can, a lot of times when having a meeting over, we want to talk about it, wring our wrists over what, this, what that. Get to the point. Trust, trust that you're making good decisions, that you've got all the facts, get what you need, but keep moving forward and know that you can iterate.

Speaker B: So, so we call that a chore and cribbing from Amazon, you know, two, uh, way doors are one way doors. Right. And into that mindset of that and even then I will say it's really interesting. So chore itself, my company, right, we're going through, we're about to make a fairly big change this weekend. Um, we'll be kind of launching it live, publicly. But it's, it's more of a change, frankly internally to our team than it is to our customers. But our team sort of says like, hey, let's have more meetings about this. What data do you have? And I'm trying to like explain things to the team and help them really understand it. But what I've said, one of the answers I said to them, I said, hey, look, in the end this isn't forever, but we need to keep making changes and continue to update what we're doing. Otherwise, we will die. If we don't want to make changes or we wait till we have all of the information, it will be too late, and then we will be dead. But it's, I think for a lot of people, it's hard.

Speaker A: Yeah. You know, I think. I don't know about you, but some of my biggest mistakes have turned out to be my biggest successes. And the thing that I notice about them, um, was that I was willing to move forward. I was willing to know and understand that again, I could iterate on it and shift it, change it and move forward, as opposed to holding back and not doing anything.

Speaker B: Yeah. Well, and maybe this is a good example for the podcast. Talk through. So, so part of what this decision came from, we actually sort of did a, uh, quasi opposition of another company's assets and in their, sort of their, their customers. And from that, like, that happened very quickly. So the customer, the company reached out to me. I knew them a little bit. They reached out to me out of the blue. Like, we need to move really quickly here. I moved really. And I was like, all right, do we do this? Like, how do we make this happen? A lot of kind of figuring things out, but very quickly. And, and I, and I let my team know, my leadership team know, but we moved very quickly. And I sort of said, like, we just need to go fast. I don't know if this is going to work, but here are the pros and cons. We need to make this, take this opportunity. And I think it's been a really good decision for us. But that was because we didn't have a lot of committee meetings. We moved quickly, made a decision. In worst case, we could have not walked that back. Exactly. But enough of it back, if we had to, that would, would have been fine.

Speaker A: You know, I find this as well as in people's personal decisions about things that are going on in their personal lives, about so many things that people forget their evidence, they're faced with a challenge, and they forget the things they've been through before and what they've learned. While it may look new, while it may look like it's intense and going to be the biggest challenge ever. We've all been through these things before, and sometimes it just requires a little trust and remembering what you've done before. Yeah.

Speaker B: And, and, and also maybe that, like, none of, none of it is that serious. This might sound weird, but maybe not to you, given that you've been through so many times. We are all living in a very privileged world. Right. Anyone listening to this podcast privileged, Anyone? Um, doing the things that we've been able to do is privileged. None of it's that bad. What's the worst that could happen? Yeah, like the worst that could happen for me would be my company, like obviously a health issue for my family, but then let's say my company having going out of business. And even then, guess I'm still so lucky despite all of that.

Speaker A: You know, Adam, it actually does translate into the cancer world, oddly enough. You know, I gave a talk a few weeks ago and in that I had mentioned that I had gotten a test back that was a little, a little troubling. And um, I realized later that there were a number of people who knew me that came to me. Is everything okay? Is everything okay? And when you've been given six months to live three times, you've already dealt with this idea of dying. I'm looking for something else totally in the thing. And so I didn't take it as serious as other people's did. It's not that I didn't take it serious. I didn't let it, I didn't let it throw me off course or I didn't engage in that. What might happen, the fear of it, because I don't find it to be useful. I've proven that to myself. That's not where things happen. Where things happen is. And two things for Tom Lenoble, ever since a kid, it's got me in trouble a few times. I am super curious and when anybody's ever said to me, you can't do that or it's impossible, this little voice crawls up in my ear and said, watch this. That's how in the business world and in this crazy world I've been in of two life threatening illnesses, six months to live, that I approach it, it's like, okay, what are you going to throw at me next? Because I've already dealt with that idea of what happens when it doesn't work. I've already dealt with the failed startups. I've already dealt with having one time I had to lay off 165 people on my birthday. On my birthday. These are things that I believe we do the best we can do. We come out the other side having learned something. And for me it's looking for what the next thing is I can dig my teeth into and jump into.

Speaker B: How do you teach? I mean, you coach a lot of people. How do you teach that resilience? And then maybe walk me through, then, uh, I want to talk through kind of how you became the person you became with that resilience. Like, it's not that you were born to it, but how do you teach it?

Speaker A: You know, I think I like to share with people. For me, that resilience is a couple of things. One, I look at resilience like a muscle. Just like we exercise our bicep and tricep, the more you use resilience, the more available it is to you. I like to say resilience is your greatest currency. The stock market can crash, you can lose your title, your job. A disaster can happen. There's so many things that can happen, but no one can take your resiliency away. And to me, it comes in three things. Being willing to take risks, being resilient from them, whether it's the success or the opposite, and being willing to reinvent yourself, understanding that standing still in the middle of a challenge does not get you anywhere. And just trying to risk be resilience and reinvention. You know, Adam, if nothing else, it feels a lot better.

Speaker B: And so. So it definitely feels better. How do you teach that right? How do you tell someone if they are down in the dumps or they're sad about their company failing, how to.

Speaker A: Or.

Speaker B: Or is that just a muscle you build over? As I've gotten older, maybe I've gotten more confident or who knows? But, like, I don't think there's a lot that really, once again, there's a few big things that probably would generally stop me in my track, but not very much. I don't know if I was that way when I was younger.

Speaker A: One of the first things to do is I delve into a little things like this may not be the exact same have happened before. And it's about remembering that evidence. You got through these things before. You know, I spoke to someone, uh, recently, a client, and he sold his company, started a new one, and was giving me all these reasons why he was going to fail. And I often have people bring me questions, and they leave with a different answer. In this case, as I listened and observed what was being said, this guy was trying to make it on his own. Everything he was screaming, he needed the support of others. I call it the energy of support. He wasn't willing to do it. And when we reflected back on times in his life when he didn't do it and what happened, it was really, are you willing to, like, let go of what you perceive as the risks of helping people support you to get to this mission? Because your timing, you've described it as if you Miss this timing, you're going to miss the mark. You're not going to make it again again in this company. So it's interesting things like that of people who speak out loud with the challenges but are so locked into it. It's almost like it's, it's a habit. I love to talk with people about these habits. I spoke with another guy who shared with me that he thought his kid had a divorce and he now was in another relationship he really enjoyed and he thought he was going to ruin it because he was always taking people's calls. You know, he wanted me to tell him taking those calls are important. What I shared instead was, do you think the person whose call you're taking would do the same for you if it was time to have dinner with their kids or if they had promised their significant other that they were supposed to be doing something together for an hour? Do you really think they're going to stop everything? And how to weigh the difference of uh, when it really is I need to take the call versus just a habit that I think I have to take the call.

Speaker B: And I bet he came to the conclusion like very few of those calls were necessary.

Speaker A: He came to the conclusion that he couldn't break the habit. It was very, very interesting. And he went away with, I don't think I can break this habit. We're still working on the idea of, you know, sometimes it's baby steps. You know, some baby steps make giant leaps. If you add the moccasin, you know what I'd like to do with people, it can happen. About exercise, the things we've talked about, so many things is we put everything else on our calendar. Put it on your calendar. Don't think you're going to do it. Put it on your calendar. Know in your mind it's just as non negotiable as your staff meeting. Just as non negotiable as the other things that you hold in that way, start out small. Don't do it every day of the week, do it three times. And if you really want to do it, great, go ask that other person, what do you want to do with this time I'm carving out for you?

Speaker B: Yeah, that's smart and shortly for, uh, an executive like that, probably putting it on the calendar is a critical element, um, to success. So walk me through like your own, like history, right? How did you end up becoming this guy who moved from D.C. to San Francisco working for all these top, top tier companies? Like, you know, your resume reads like a, uh, who's who of companies and founders from the past sort of 30 plus years.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, how did you put yourself in those positions?

Speaker A: Like, I'm going to start when I was in Atlanta and I was, believe it or not, running a clinical lab in a psychiatric hospital, of all things. And I took a side job. I think I wanted to buy a new car at MCI as a part time service rep. Well, I got there and I realized that I had like a knack for this and soon they wanted me full time. I quit the other job and I was on this huge fast track. I ended up being capped for this project in, uh, corporate that they brought 26 of us from around the country. It was supposed to be three months long. I was there for nine in a hotel. I went back to Atlanta and then I was tapped to run the department that was challenged with putting this in place. So things were happening really fast. And then I was sitting at my desk one day and I, this mentor of mine who became a mentor, stood behind me and said, I want to know who you are and what you do and asked me to come open the first commercial technology service center at mci. So I, I kept moving with the company and it was just so energizing.

Speaker B: So, okay, like that's. You're moving the company, but why? What was it about you?

Speaker A: If you look at my career, there's few things that are very common. I'm either creating, building, tearing it down. When something's in maintenance mode, you always want to keep it the same, or it's humming and now we're happy. Not for me. That's not when I want to be there. And so I got sick, had to go on disability. I was told this is the best it's going to get. Yours is what your life is from now on. Your, your disability check. You've got a Q department. This is what you get. That little voice came up and said, watch this. So I decided to go back to work on my own. Against all odds. Doctors said, it'll kill you. Disability companies said, we'll give you another year. And to make it worse, I decided I was in San Francisco. I'm going to go jump into the dot com madness and get a job at an Internet startup. Now, Adam, the important thing to know is I had missed the whole Internet revolution. Well, I knew a little bit about email. I didn't even know what was going on. I was sick. But I jumped in, knew I was bright, knew I'd do it right. Here's the great news. I excelled at it. It Led to one thing, led to the other, but my health soared.

Speaker B: Why did it soar, do you think? Was it because you were keeping yourself busy?

Speaker A: Many of us, when we get these challenges, whatever flavor are, we think that's it. We don't think we can excel. People ask me, tom, why do you think you're still here after this? Had, uh, the best medical care. I've had access to the greatest treatments. My skin color gives me privilege. But there's one thing behind it all, Adam. I believed I could, and I think that's what it is, is that when we challenge ourselves, when we're willing to take these risks, know that we're exercising that muscle of resilience as we go along, be willing to revit and reinvent ourselves, can be very empowering in how we live our lives. And that's what happened for me. I went from one thing to the other. All building and creating from those early days at Facebook. I mean, mci when I got there, and it was all phone books. We were calling to sell people codes. Walmart, uh, dot com was not even as big as a supercenter. In fact, we were thought of as a gnat flying around in the way. And I got to go to Bentonville, Arkansas and represent the company many times and bridge that gap in those early days. Now, they couldn't do without it, obviously, um, Palm, at a time when, um, Handspring and, and Palm one came together as one of, uh, of running global service operations, it went on in Facebook. I mean, I didn't even know what it was. It was in colleges. I almost didn't take the call. Interviewing with mark Zuckerberg at 19 and going and setting up their first customer operations. I love these things that are high risk, really difficult, and require you just to step up. Uh, the most important thing to me, though, I want to share with you, is so much of this, I believe, is about people, how you treat people, Setting clear expectations for people and being a leader and more than your title.

Speaker B: Okay, so maybe break each one of those down. What does that actually mean in. As founders and entrepreneurs listening to this, how do they implement those steps?

Speaker A: You know, first is realizing that the people in your company and without them, you're going to have a really difficult time. How you treat them, how you involve them. I'm a CEO of a company today, and one of the things I do at my staff meeting is we percolate ideas. Everybody has their input. We try and collectively make a decision, and when we can't, I make the decision. But that Inclusion of people in getting their ideas allows the tough times. When you make something that's unpopular, people realize that you're doing it for a reason. It it they join you and, and, and stand with you much faster. I think that I love the idea of who's your customer. Don't ever forget them. Recently there was this judgment about social media that went on and I got asked by the, the press to comment on it and I said look, this isn't about those. I'm not, I don't even want to get into the individual companies. This is a wake up call for businesses. We grow fast, we build. Never forget who your customer, your user is and keep them in mind. Don't ever forget it. And I think these things are really so important in business besides just that you're successful and remembering that is what will make you successful.

Speaker B: Why, why do companies forget or why do founders forget about their customers? Like how does that happen?

Speaker A: Yeah, I think they get so into what they're building so and to embroiled in what's, how they're growing and what the challenges are. And a lot of times many companies I've uh, worked, they keep dropping in the top and not realizing they're falling out the bottom. And those are customers you have to re own. Some of that churn is natural but not always helpful. But I think it's just simply moving so fast and often I see. I don't know if you've seen this Adam, but when you get so close to something, you don't see things anymore. Yeah. Remembering that outside influence. One of my favorite things that I used to do in all my companies is um, I would have a day where I would get the executives to come into either the service center or where service was being operated. And I would structure it so they eventually would talk to some customers. Well, it's great to see these senior executives like freak out. What do you mean talk to a customer? I don't know what the answers are, but think of what that happens with the people that are actually um, talking to those customers. To have that exposure to people and how they handle it. They're always there to help them. It turned out to be a great day. And what I always found out was the executives then walked away with a much better understanding of what the customer was saying, how difficult it was to do the job. I'll give you a perfect example. I was at Palm. We had an outsourced service model. I always heard everyone refer to all the service centers and the people work there as those People.

Speaker B: Mhm.

Speaker A: I got invited to this huge meeting. Everybody from around the country, the world came together for it was like, I think, a sales meeting. I reported into sales at the time and I thought, how am I going to shift this? So I went to these service centers. I got them to record and answer two questions. What do I love about working for Palm and why do I care about the Palm customer? I had it turned into this video. I walked in and when it was my time to speak, I walked up, didn't say a word, hit play. Let them watch that. You could hear a pin drop. I never heard them refer to those customers, those people again. Not only that, we created a program to bring people in that were top performers to experience what we were doing in the company. Totally shifted the perception of what we did. Thinking we're providing for a customer and tying it in with the actual customer and what they were saying and how they felt about us and the people that were serving them.

Speaker B: Yeah, uh, so smart. And what, what was it about you or what is it about you? Is it the curiosity? Or what is. What is the. What is the element that people can emulate that that leads to this person who's having these different and weird ideas and taking these chances and obviously landing on your feet sounds, uh, like almost every single time.

Speaker A: I don't know about every time, but I think that you just keyed into something I'm willing to realize and willing to accept that what we perceive as mistakes or failures are simply fodder for growth to do better. So some of the biggest mistakes I've made have led to my biggest successes. But what I would share with others is often we look at things as a huge risk. And so we don't go there. We are not willing to step into it. And I'm willing to step in to take the risk. I mean, you know, if I can handle being given six months to live three times, what else do you want to throw at me? But I think it's taking these risks and stepping into it and giving a try. Sometimes I think when people approach those things, it brings up what we call fear. Or we've, uh, got books written on it forever now. The imposter syndrome. Here's what I've learned about all of those things. They are simply opportunities for growth. Most of us want to grow. When you're feeling that, remember the evidence of what you've done. Learn what you can and embrace it. Because all it is is an opportunity to grow and learn more. The other thing I love to tell people that are just starting out is one of my key secrets along the way is if I had my eye on the next position, I act as if I already had it. I knew, uh, how I would have to behave in it. I knew what I would have to deliver. I knew what accomplishments were be do it and draw it to you instead of being way to pull towards it.

Speaker B: Uh, that is great advice. Everyone should take that advice. I had some in some teammates who are no longer with us who we, um, asked them to kind of change up how they were doing their job a bit. Um, and they basically said, you know, I'm not able to hit some of these metrics unless I get promoted, basically. And I sort of said like, hey, look, I will, I will pay you a ton of money. If you can go out there and start owning these things without me pushing you. Show me that you can do it. Yes, then I'm, um, It's not about the money. I'm happy to promote you. But they somehow believe that it was the opposite. They're like, well, I'm not going to do any more and prove that I can do it with until I get paid. And they're no longer with us. Because that to me is the absolutely wrong mindset.

Speaker A: You need to.

Speaker B: If you want to get promoted or you want to make more money or you want more responsibility, you need to act like you deserve it. And then a smart company, and not every founder is smart, not every company is well led. But hopefully one that is will say, oh my God, we can't lose this person. They've taken on so much and they're so good at what they do. I want to put them in more positions. And so you having that mindset, I'm sure led to a lot of those quick promotions and growth.

Speaker A: Yeah, you know, I think I find people that don't seek out support and then we're not there to offer it. I remember at one point a woman that applied to be in my department and when I looked at, she'd been with the company a long time, but she had bounced around and nobody ever took the time to look at why this was happening because she would work for a while, then leave. And so I started talking and I learned what it was is she always wanted to manage people. M. I said, great. I took her through an exercise over a few sessions to help her understand what it meant to manage people. She looked at me and said, I don't want any part of that. Yes. No one ever took the time. What we uncovered was she wanted to Manage projects and get things done through people. Once she realized it, she excelled and soared in the company. Ended up after a long time being actually the chief of staff. She had this in mind, that success meant you had to manage people. And because she was a little rough around the edges or, uh, abrasive about it, no one ever took the time. And I think that's part of it sometimes is we get to learn something too. When we take care of people and talk through some of these things and just give it a little time. In our fast days, we don't know how we might change someone's life.

Speaker B: So, I mean, that's well said and it's true. We so many of us don't give enough time to that. By the way, it's also a pet peeve of mine when companies take their best performers and make them managers. Um, and it's. And it should be the opposite. We try to chore to say, hey, look, we want. If you want to be a manager, you have to know what that entails. You are managing and dealing with people. It is a very different track than the other track. And it is not a way to grow or be promoted. In fact, it could even hurt your career. Not. It shouldn't, but, like, if you're great at your job as a manager, you will be promoted and do well.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: But if you're not, you should stay in the job that you're already good at and not try to move.

Speaker A: Just other thing we don't do is we don't frame things. We don't put things in things that people get. I know running HR at a few companies, I would have people come to me about, they applied for the position, they didn't get it. They didn't think it was fair helping someone understand that there's a position available. Six people applied. There's one position. We went through the first round of, uh, interviews. Now it's three. There's still one position. You're down and it's between you and someone else. There's still one position. Someone's going to get it. If you didn't think about maybe what it is that person had that you can get, or even go talk to that person and learn more about them for the next time. But we turn our eyes on ourself as if we're deficient, as if we did something wrong instead of celebrating that we even were considered for the position. Because the fact is there was only one position.

Speaker B: Uh, also, also another word, word of wisdom. And so many people forget that. And then yeah, it's, it's people. Everyone needs to be listening to you. Tom. Um, so, so I think there's a bit of an old phrase, right? Like a career is a portfolio of bets to some extent, right? When you look back at mci, Walmart, Palm, Facebook, is there a through line that like helped you make that decision, make sense at each time? Like, why did you jump from one to the next, the next? Like, what was that through line that helped you get that?

Speaker A: You know, I get asked often which one was my favorite, I thought, so are you going? And my answer is always yes. Because there are things that I learned and that's what I wanted out of it was I worked for the scrappiest startups and at the time m the largest company in the world at work, Walmart. And the, what I learned at them, um, is invaluable to what I do today. Not only in helping other CEOs, founders and professionals, but I learned what it meant where you have no one to rely on but yourself. I learned what it meant to have to go in and when you needed to try sell something to a vendor, you had to prove it. Whereas at Walmart, just the name Walmart gave you privilege to have an entree into who you were doing at the scrappiest of startup, trying to figure out how to make the wires connect, make the phones work. At Walmart, sitting in a meeting and having them talk about one of their famous Friday meetings, about how many strawberries they sold in one week, mind boggling. I'm thinking of a carton or maybe a flat that I'm going to buy millions of dollars in strawberries. Or sitting in a room where I was asked to participate in a new device that came out. It was pre swifter, really cool vacuum cleaner. And I got invited by the vp, the youngest VP at Walmart ever to come to this meeting. She wanted me to support her product. But we were in the meeting and at the break she said, what do you think? I said, you know, GE's making this product. All their competitors are in the room. I don't get it. She looked at me and smiled and said, tom, we need so many of them that the competitors are willing to make them and put GE's name on them of how much m money it brings to them. Mind boggling, right? And we all know, you know, being in a, in a startup, you're just trying to, to make sure there's enough tools in the house. The computers are up, I've got enough PCs for everybody, or Apple, whatever. We're using that people can get through the day. I think all of that together and so many things in between taught me so much. I'm able to work with people at all different levels, which is really great. One of my favorite things is the person who has been the CEO and their time is up as the CEO, uh, they're still young enough, they don't want to stop working and they're trying to figure out what to do next. I love to ask them what was it you always wanted to do and someone told you you couldn't, you couldn't and you thought you wouldn't. It's fascinating how to take that and look at what they might do next. It's just so much fun.

Speaker B: And so for you then like what's once again, what's the through line of like how did you choose to go from, you know, you're the entrepreneur of your own career. What was it that made you decided m to move from each. Like when was it, oh, I'm going to move from this job and go to this new one.

Speaker A: I think in each one of them the through thing I said to you earlier was I knew they either needed someone to come fix the disaster, it was in the creation phase and it wasn't just humming along and let's keep it the same way and manage it. And so those things inspired me. And I love building teams. I love the whole idea. You know, one of my favorite things about building teams is you hire people with the the thing they have the domain experience that they're the best at. Once you do that, what I find is that team is what I call humming. And then you find that people are willing to stick their toe into other things they never thought they would and you get this great cross pollination of skills and stuff. What I like most about it is people then see that they can do something more than what they just always were in a lane that there's more for them to do. So I think for me that's part of it too is not only is it for me that I'm going to create, build or fix the disaster, but how can I develop the next the next leader? Who's going to develop the next leader that's going to develop the next leader.

Speaker B: So a little bit about that. I know you didn't quite develop him as a leader, but your employee 57 at Facebook. Um, interview by Mark 19 year old. Tell us the story. How did that happen and why did you say yes to this crazy company? Um, and you weren't there you were there, I think, only, what, a little over two years? You weren't there all that long. Walk me through all of. All of it.

Speaker A: Yeah. You know, I was sitting at my desk at Palm. I was traveling a lot internationally. Probably 60% of my time, I was out on the road. And I was at my desk, corporate staff of 45. I think there were about 4,000 people in the field that I was responsible for in these centers. And the phone rang, and it was a recruiter from Facebook. I didn't know what Facebook was. I told them I had my dream job. As I looked out from my view of my office, my cushy office over the bay, and thanked them and hung up the phone, a buddy I used to work with called me. He's a VC in the Valley now, and said, I referred you to Facebook. He didn't talk to them. And I'm like, what? What's Facebook? You know, they were still in colleges. And so I ended up going and engaging. And I went to interview with mark, who was 19. And I went in a suit. And they were in this little space, tiny space over a Chinese restaurant. And as I went up the stairs in my suit and got to the top, it was graffiti art of murals, um, of graffiti of women's breasts. I came around the corner and saw about 12 people, all young enough to be my child. All I wanted to do was take something off because I'm in a suit, right?

Speaker B: I think that artist, that art, who. The guy who made that, some of that art is, like, made fifty, sixty, a hundred million dollars.

Speaker A: You're paid totally in stock. He's probably worth easily a quarter million or more today. He got pain. Scott.

Speaker B: His name is Dave.

Speaker A: And I got took into this, um, conference room, and here came Mark in his signature T shirt, sandals, and, um, shorts. And I remember thinking, what am I doing here? You know, these people are all young enough. But it sparked that curiosity that I get, what is this about? And I finally took off my jacket, we sat and started talking. And I got very curious about two things. One, there was something about this product that intrigued me. And I was fascinated with the willingness of this generation to be willing to share information with each other. And one thing led to the other. And I remember the first day when I got back, they had moved across the street, had half of the second floor. They eventually took over the building. Every other building of Palo Alto, I even built one. But I got there, and as I walked in, there was this huge room and a sea of desks, Triad desks. You know, the typical look like, uh, tape, uh, doors on top of stilts. And I. There was one office in the back corner. And as they're walking me towards it, I'm going, oh, God, thank God. I'm going to get that office. Uh, we got to that side of the room. That was the controller's office. They put me outside the controller's office. And as I sat there with two people that were going to report to me, I think there were nine at the time, all young enough to be my child. And we're talking, I said to them, where are the phones? And they looked at me and turned white. Phones, we don't want phones. We talked to everybody on email. Well, I knew in that moment somebody would be talking on the phone and it was likely going to be me. Later that day, I sat back in my chair and said to myself, what have you done? The next day I came in and it was going so fast, it was so exciting, and the opportunity just took over. And I think that's the thing I would share with your viewers is when you've tried something and you're taking a risk, go ahead, get fully engaged. Give it all you've got. Give it all you've got. Because what things look like on the surface today is not what might be there tomorrow or the next day. And especially in a startup, what you've got to contribute gets to really affect change and you get to have a part of it. And it's really, really cool to do it. Just have to be willing to take the risk.

Speaker B: Yeah, once again, take, take the risk. Go at it. Give it a try. I tell so many people that right now in, in just a quick, quick detour to San Francisco because it's sort of about taking risk as well. Um, I talked to a lot of founders and entrepreneurs and they're not based in San Francisco. And I try to tell them, look, this is the place you need to be right now. Take that risk. Come out here. And a lot of people don't. What made you decide to move from D.C. to the Bay Area? A long time ago. I mean, this was the first dot com bubble, actually.

Speaker A: I made the move for survival. I knew if I wanted to live. I was told that the disease I had was terminal. And I knew that if I had a chance, I needed to get to a major city. And it was either going to be New York or San Francisco.

Speaker B: And you in, like, D.C. or, uh, Atlanta before that?

Speaker A: Yeah, I was in Atlanta. D.C. baltimore, back to Atlanta, back to D.C. those are major cities.

Speaker B: With like good medical centers.

Speaker A: They, yeah. Uh, not like what I needed at the time. And so, um, I also had a friend that was having a baby. I also knew that, that if I had an itch to do anything new, if I ever thought about working again, which I never gave up on that, I, that's the difference about it is I never gave up. Into the talk that you're gonna die, I never believed it it more for me about what, what, what could what was possible and how to make things happen. So anyway, I had some personal reasons and it was the place to be. And so I, I, I came and you know, I'll share a story with you of how my mind works. Um, um. The third time I was given six months to live, I was sitting with some doctors and they said, your cancer is back. It's in five places. We can't do anything for you if we radiate you. I've had enough radiation, Adam, that I glow in the dark. You could put me in the corner. I could be your nightlight. But they said, if we give you this much, it will kill you. And I chuckled. Now, if you want to upset a few doctors when they give you six months to live, chuckle at them. But you see, at that point, I knew something. I already dealt with this idea of dying. I knew there was something more to this, more to explore. I knew what possibility was. I knew when taking a risk was. So I did. I found some treatment somewhere else. There's a whole story about that you can read in my book that's pretty fascinating. I share that story with you because these things I've done are much like that. It's sort of like, okay, what's the, you know, what, what can happen here? But what's the opportunity? What could be possible? And I love when someone says to me, it just can't happen. It's impossible. It can't be done. That little voice comes up and says, watch this.

Speaker B: Yeah, so. And actually, by the way, I would take a quick detour to the cancer stuff and the health. Do you think that has been a secret for you? Like when doctors say they're six months l are some of the best doctors in the world, it sounds like is each time you just saying, hey, watch this. I'll prove you wrong. And then, I mean, you still can't beat biology, but it sounds like you have. Was it because mental you mentally overcame it, which doesn't sound quite right. Or you got lucky enough that there was one medical treatment that was out there that no one knew about what was the secret?

Speaker A: No, it's a great question because one thing, if you hang on long enough, something's going to come. But that wasn't.

Speaker B: Now that's by the way as view a statement for startup founders in general. Um, really sneak around long enough, good things happen.

Speaker A: I think what it was, was and I try and impart this on others. We can spend a lot of time in what happened. We can spend a lot of time in the oh, poor pitiful me or I'm going to uh, this is going to take me or whatever I choose and I know everybody can't I choose my, spend my time in what's possible, what can I find. And dealing with the reality of what is, uh, when we accept what the reality of what is, it opens up so much more possibility because we're not hanging out trying to change what is right. So you open all this avenues and doors of being able to see something and see possibility. And if nothing else, if nothing else it feels better.

Speaker B: Yeah, um, but feeling better, obviously you need some of the medical treatments too. But feeling better and having that mental attitude also enables you to uh, accomplish more, get over these, these big things in your life. And so, okay, so you're, you're out in San Francisco. Everything else you're working with these startups, like walk me through how do you deal with founders, like sort of founder mode and being a great early operator alongside those founders. Like how did you deal with somebody like Mark Zuckerberg who seems obviously like a brilliant founder, probably a bit headstrong. Many founders are, um, and it actually is a company that in most of these companies you've worked at growing incredibly fast. How do you be? I know lots of founders who go back and be an operator and it's really hard to be an operator to some founder who like you're 19 years old, you know, you don't know what you're talking about and to sort of keep your mouth shut and say, you know what, like they're still the boss. Like how did you deal with that?

Speaker A: Um, you know, I, I think again I'm not, I don't left them being the boss affect my decisions. I respect them. But if I believe something or I know something or I have something to offer, I'm going to put it out there. I've had a number of founders with some interesting stories. In fact, I probably could write a book about those founders, although I think they'd probably come after me.

Speaker B: You know, Johnny, you can share without, without names.

Speaker A: I'm going to share without names. But Mark, for one. I remember the first time I met him, it felt like there were five computers going at the same time. And I was fascinated with his brain. I could see fascinating with people. So it drew me in. I wanted to know what was going on and how this worked and then how I could adapt to it and communicate with it. You know, I had this great experience with Mark. I'll share with you briefly before I, uh, go back is when I left Facebook. I said, mark, I want to see you in 10 years. He said, why do you want to see me? You're leaving, so just want to see what happens. You know, you were 19 when I met you. You're 21, 22 now. I want to see what happened. And so I forgot all about it. Ten years later, I'm sitting at my desk, a Facebook message pops up. Still want to have lunch? I looked at that message from him and thought, do I want to have lunch with the fifth richest man in the world? Which is what he was at the time.

Speaker B: Heck, yeah.

Speaker A: I want to have the fifth lunch with the fifth richest man in the world. I wanted to see what happened. Still the same thing going on. By the way, that story is going to be in that book that's coming up. But, uh, back to the founders. You know, I. I realized that founders, we put them on this pedestal, and they're just like the rest of us. We. We all are. We all have our thing. We all are good at stuff. We all have our. Our vulnerabilities. And, um, one founder I know, I was sitting at my desk one day, I was running service and HR in the company. And the founder came to me one day early in that and said to me, I don't understand this. You're running service and hr. They have nothing to do with each other. And of course they do. They're both about customers. One's an external customer, one's an internal customer. It's all customer stuff. This founder I had, I looked up from my desk one day, and here are two women locked in arms. And I knew something was wrong because they don't do that often. And I learned there was some funky stuff going on. And I got to tell this founder, look, you are no longer allowed and alone with any female in this organization. And he looked at me and said, you don't get to talk to me that way. I looked at him and said, I just did. Would you rather me say this to you or to the board? I think I share that story with you. As some of the founders Is we all again have our own vulnerabilities. We all. That's an extreme thing of something that's going on. Some people have a weakness about being able to stand up to certain kind of personalities, whatever it may be, we all have it. Meet them there, share it with them and see how you can share and be real with them and exchange what, what goes on between you.

Speaker B: Did that founder keep you on or did. I mean, I can imagine. He also said, I'm going to fire this person who saw this and talk to me that way.

Speaker A: How do I say this without, uh, with keeping confidentiality. I was there till the end.

Speaker B: Okay, nice. Well, so then it worked out really well. He appreciated he obviously speaking that way. Why, why leave a rocket ship like Facebook?

Speaker A: You know, um, there were four of us that came at the same time that were all, uh, sort of experts in our areas. Marketing, service, uh, legal and finance. And you know, we're working with a bunch of 19, 20 year olds that are brilliant. And most of them deferred business school, law school, medical school to work at Facebook because it was in colleges. It was their dream job. And I think there was this point in the company where it was time to change and evolve if you're going to really be a big company. And that happened later of course, but at that time and I think that, that in trying to move it along, maybe it wasn't ready yet to move along. Like I remember one day sharing with Mark, uh, about performance reviews and you can see him dig his heels and we're never going to have performance reviews of this Mark. Well, you're going to have performance reviews. I mean I look like a normal performance performance review. You may call them something else, but you will. I understand their performance reviews are a major thorn in people's sides, but it's things like that that I think didn't evolve fast enough. And m the other thing that was happening at that point in my career, remember I'm old enough to be everyone's father. I had already done the whole idea of punch your card, move around a lot of things. I had found where I wanted to work and what I wanted to do and there was a lot of that still going on. And I really didn't go Warner work on sales. I'm happy to support sales. I didn't really want to go learn finance. I'd already done that. And I think just a different level of where the energy was. So great experience. I wouldn't trade it for the world. But it was time to take another risk. And move on? Yeah.

Speaker B: And do you think founders should bring on kind, uh, of an adult in the room like you? Like, when should founders consider bringing on that quote, unquote adult?

Speaker A: Yeah, whether they bring them on or use them as a consultant or an advisor, I think it's the smartest thing you can do with somebody that isn't wedded to having it their way, but to bring mentorship. So one of the things I have been fortunate in my career is I worked with many generations. I work with a lot of zoomers right now. And what I've noticed is every generation, yours was the same, mine was likely the same. Those older than us are what we should be. I remember the Millennials when I was at Facebook. They, they don't wear good clothes, they all have tattoos, they don't wear shoes. They're lazy. The zoomers are. They don't want to come to work. They only want to remote. All they want to do is talk about their mental health, blah, blah, blah. What I have learned is what's going on in those young minds is the societal shifts that are going to happen to us as the future goes on. Our job isn't to tell them what to do, to criticize them. It's to be open, share what you know, answer their questions, and mentor it and be willing to learn something yourself in the process. So I think that's one of the things that I think is important to bring someone in with that right mindset, because you don't have to, um, make a lot of mistakes and have a lot of things happen that you might not just by adding a perspective to something and some stories about what this could look like or might be, or what you might try here. And be willing. I love this. Be willing to adapt it a bit to, uh, the situation.

Speaker B: You know, you, you've helped, in a sense, like, be a coach to some of these founders and leaders. And, and yet there's also. And you coach nowadays, of course, too. And you, you lead some coaching institutes. There's a kind of a glut, though, of founder coaches, right? Like, how does a founder tell the real coaches from the LinkedIn influencer coaches from. And even how do they know when they need a coach?

Speaker A: A good question. Because people think the coach is going to come in and tell them what to do or minute or fix all their problems. A, uh, good coach isn't doing that. A good coach is helping you look at things maybe through different eyes or explore things and uncover where some of the things are that could make you stronger or Do a better job, be more effective in what you're doing. And I'm going to relate this to a story that has nothing to do with the founder, but you'll get what I mean. One of my favorite restaurants in San Francisco that I go to, I watched a guy that was a bus person.

Speaker B: Which, which restaurant, we all need to know. What's the, what's the best place to go in sf?

Speaker A: Um, well, I love Novi in Noe Valley. This guy, I watched him and he was a bus person. So I asked him one day, I said, hey, why aren't you a server? You do everything except take the order. So he tried to give me this excuse that he was too shy. I could see that wasn't true. We talked a little bit more over the weeks. If I make that much money, I'll never follow my dreams. This went on for a while and I realized this 19 year old was, uh, studying to be a pilot, was already flying planes by himself at 19. What happened was sometimes we're not willing to be vulnerable enough, uh, to take the biggest risks that we may see as being risky, even founders. Right. So he came to me one day and said, they offered me the server position. What'd you do? I didn't take it. I said, you know what if, what would it feel like if you said, let me try it a couple days, let m me try a couple shifts and see how it goes? Um, I could do that today. When I go there, he takes my order. He's the server. Now I realize that's not a founder, but in his world, at 19, he's on his way to finding what he's going to be. We never lose that. It's whether we're willing to be vulnerable enough to share those things that we have that we think we either can't do, don't want to do, or that there's some reason we have that's just maybe not real, that we can't see. I love applying that same type of mentality. I'm often told I came with one question and left with a very different answer. Mhm. You see, I don't care if I make you mad. I don't care anything. I'm going to respect you. I'm not going to hurt your feelings, but I'm going to take you to a place to find those things that are maybe a roadblocker in your way of really excelling. And often they aren't about running the business as much as it is about how you're being with people. I had A CEO one time that said to me, he called me on the phone, got this huge problem. What is it? He said, you know, I've got this policy where anybody can come to my office. I might as well have a red carpet. Nobody ever comes. I don't know what's wrong. I need help. I said, I have a simple answer for you. You don't need to spend money on me. I'll just give you the answer. What is it? I said, did you ever think about going out of your office to see people instead of waiting for them to come in? It was mind blowing. I know it sounds so simple to us, but in this person's mind, he thought he was doing everything to keep. To bring people and be open with people. He didn't see that it was just as simply as go meet them where they are, get out of the.

Speaker B: Get out of the office. Part of. Part of you taking all this learnings from all your life, right. And turn that into a book, right. My life and business suits, hospital gowns and high heels. It's won I think five awards. Is that correct?

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Um, what. What is the key thesis of that book? I mean, I'm sure we've talked about some of those key themes, but what are the key thesis of that book and. And why did it win those rewards and how has it had an impact

Speaker A: on, you know, Adam ah is such a good question. I think about this book. I'm a really private man and I just with this book spilled every secret I've had. None of those places that I worked at knew I was sick because they wouldn't have hired me. None of places I work knew anything about high heels in my past or they wouldn't have hired me. Right. But my.

Speaker B: And what are the high. High heels? Just because you enjoy wearing them and you're in San Francisco and pride and

Speaker A: all that, you know, people just, you know, I think, right. That's not what they need. They certainly don't army if they think I've got an illness that could take me out. Right. But here's why I wrote this memoir that crosses over a little self help. Who we are today is the some parts of who we've been in our life. Some of those parts might seem outrageous. We want to keep them private or we just think somebody wouldn't understand. But the reality is we wouldn't be who we are today without all of those parts. Embrace them, be who you are and move forward. I think, you know, I hear most often, I can't put this book down I laughed, I cried. I did both at once. And it takes you from me living. I grew up in a shack. We actually called it the Shack. No hot water, no refrigerator. And there I'm in boardrooms at Fortune 500 companies. And I did it through the business suits. I did it with the hospital gowns. And yes, there were some high heels involved along the journey back in the day. But I realized I wouldn't be who I am. I wouldn't have an appreciation for people the way I do and all of our nuances and all the things we do had that not been my experience. You know, I'll share this with you. I can't quote Thoreau's poem right now because I would mess it up. But on my refrigerator for the last 50 years is that poem about, I want to live life to the fullest. And it says, I want to suck the marrow out of life. I've lived by that. When I take my. I'm a lifelong learner, so when I take my last breath, I'm probably going to go, just a minute, I have a question. When I take my last breath, I don't want to be there going, oh, I wish I had done that. Why didn't I do this right? Or, uh, how I could have done that? I don't want any of that. I want to know that I grabbed it and got the most out. Because the fact is, whatever we believe, whatever the great mystery is, we have a finite time in this body. What I want to know from people is, what are you going to do with it?

Speaker B: Where do you think. Where do you think founders fail on that front? So if you think about founders or entrepreneurs who are trying to be successful, what part. What part of that do they miss? Like, where do they go wrong in. In that.

Speaker A: I find that a lot of founders have an image of how they are supposed to be, how they're supposed to behave, what they're supposed to act like. And often we find that just be who you are. It's so much easier. There's so much more you can get done, because we're all different. Just be who you are. Are. Let people be who they are, because they're going to show up that way eventually. And so I find that, too, with founders, where this idea of take the risk, you know, look at what you've done before. You've got evidence. You got this for exercise, resilience, and if all else fails, just reinvent yourself.

Speaker B: Do you think that's what also holds them back from being as successful as they can Be like, if you look at the most successful one, to be like a Mark Zuckerberg or Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk. What it made them so, so, so successful, whereas so many people have not been able to pull it off. Right. I'm sure part of it's just luck. Right. Mark Zuckerberg could have just been another smart guy from Harvard, but he had the right idea at the right time and he took it and ran with it. But what helped him and all these other unfortunately, mostly guys that I mentioned but like be so successful, what do you think the differentiator is?

Speaker A: One of the things I noticed was there was no doubt. Mhm. There was no doubt. They believed fully in what they were doing and they didn't doubt that it could be successful.

Speaker B: Do you think the great founders have a delusion then of some sort? Almost like. Like in a way like m. You. You could argue the rational thing is to have some doubt because you need to think through what are the problems that could occur and try to head them off ahead of time.

Speaker A: I had this guy that I worked with and he told me this story. They were cracking this new thing the business had been going for for two years. He knew they could do it. They were a week away from running out of money. They made the decision, if we can't figure this out in one week after two years of we can't figure it out, this week this is done. They cracked it. Hugely successful business. He didn't doubt that it was possible.

Speaker B: Yep. I know another startup like that that they were, I think, two weeks away from shutting down. Running out of money for payroll. They ended up selling for 600 million.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker B: Uh, many years later. So you can definitely pull it off. It's just you've got to stick around and keep, keep on fighting every single day. I try not to talk too much about AI, although it's a great topic. But I have a question that's going to relate to AI for you. Um, you've watched five different tech waves, right? Tell me if these are correct.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Long distance telecom, E commerce, mobile, social. Uh, and of course now being AI, what is the pattern across all of those and how do founders sort of fail to ride that wave properly?

Speaker A: Adam, I'll date myself. I remember the first facts and we thought it was magic. I was there when we took paper off people's desks and put on computers. I was there for email. God knows we just want to get rid of it now. And every one of those, we thought we were all going to lose our job. So that's one thing. And it's continued with the Internet and now with AI, which there should be some change, but there'll also be many opportunities, uh, created as a result of it. I think one thing that I've noticed through all of it is they call it the wild, wild rest or the gold rush of how everybody's doing their thing. And I get to talk to some people doing some amazing things, things with AI I think eventually five years, 10 years, whatever it turns out to be, some will be cannibalized, some will fall by the wayside and there'll be some big winners just like there has been in everything you just spoke to. And I think that's what's going to happen. And I think I've watched technology advance where it builds and builds on top of each other. Um, my only concern about AI is it's sort of like what I worried about when I saw customer service reps in the break room having little groups and talking. At least I could walk in there and talk to them. With AI, I'm just concerned these bots are out there talking and I don't know what they're doing right now.

Speaker B: They're talking to each other in language you probably can't understand. I actually know people who've watched their bots like just have conversations that are unintelligible to a human. So talking, kind of rounding this out a little bit, um, a few quick questions, kind of going back to health a little bit. But like, you know, there, there's sort of a brand of founder, like kind of a grind culture mindset with founders today, maybe, probably always, um, you know, you should sleep four hours live on like uh, you know, protein shake, protein shakes. But you wake up at 3:30 every morning, you prioritize sleep, friendships, eating well. What's the version of intensity that actually sustains a career?

Speaker A: You know, I think that all of us are wired a little different. And what I learned in this career is when, when I didn't honor this body or what it is needed, or I didn't feed it what it needed, or I didn't address things as they happened health wise, I was just going to end up doing it. It likely was going to be much worse later. And believe me, I've abused this body a few times. Today I get up at 3:30 by 4 at the latest. I don't use alarm clocks. Wherever I travel, I still wake up at the same time. I go to bed at 8:30 or 9. Sometimes I stay up a little late. If I go to uh, a play or something like that and I still wake up. So that's the trade off. You know, I, I, I go through these battery of tests every year that I do at a company called Biograph or they do all sorts of tests. I just did it for the fifth year in a row and on my VO2 max for those viewers that know what it is, is above average. I'm in the 94th percent off for my age. I'm going to be 72 this year. And um, you know, I, I think that what I, I, I learn about this health stuff is many of us are, and I'm not judging, but many of us are fearful to find out what might be there, what might be wrong. What I've learned on this journey is the sooner I know it, the more I can do about it. And that I realize that without this body I'm not going to be able to do a whole lot. I'll be able to do some, but I won't be able to do the things I want to do. And by taking care of it and making that a priority as well. It's back to the calendar. Put it on your calendar. I have an avid Pilates practice. I used to be able to do a hundred, uh, century, uh, rides on the bicycle body changes. But I have, I'm a super, what they call super advanced in Pilates. Um, I take walks in nature because remember how we used to have to defrag our computers? I think they do it on their own now. Going out in later, no music, nothing is like my own defense frag. Whatever it is for you do it to optimize. What I have found is that time I take to do it that we say I don't have time, I don't have time. How many times do we hear it makes you much, much sharper and more efficient and more effective when you are doing it. Yep.

Speaker B: No, uh, it's a great, it's a great point. And I, I see on a note, I mean what do you, what do you say to founders who might be listening right now, who, who is healthy, who has the time and who's still wasting their days kind of on like the wrong things or ignoring the things that are important. Right. I know, I know a friend whose family has BRCA too. Um, they have a genetic cast. They refuse to open it to see if they are a carrier, um, which is putting themselves at risk. I would much rather know and say, well, if I have it, like let's figure out how to deal with it. They don't want to know. So they're just not opening it, which doesn't change the diagnosis. And so in a sense, they're healthy right now.

Speaker A: Yeah, it doesn't change reality. Fear is very powerful thing. Opportunity for growth, though. I'll answer this question for you this way. I have a keynote in a workshop I do. I hope to do a TED talk with it called Living Fully While Dying. The first phase for me was living fully without regard to dying. The second phase was living fully being told I was dying. The third phase is living fully realizing I've been dying all along. It's not a heavy talk. It's not a heavy workshop. It's to help people get in touch with again. This time is finite. What are we going to do with this time? Knowing that if I'm going to live fully without regard to dying, I realized that the day I was born, I started aging and I'm going to die. Some of us get longer, some of us get shorter. The older you get, the light gets a little brighter. The coming. But the fact is, you and I woke up this morning. Some people didn't. Yeah. What are we going to do with this day? My book, My Life in Business. Seuss Hospital gowns on high heels. When you open it up, the first thing you see is a quote from Maya Angelou. Every storm runs out of rain. You see, behind the storms and the weather, behind the hail and the wind, the sun is shining. We have these same storms in our life. They will pass, too. Every storm runs out of rain. Just like those storms, they leave the ground wet and fertile for planting. So do the storms in our life. My question is, what are you going to plant?

Speaker B: Yeah, that is. That is so eloquent. Um, in. In a great way to sort of end it in. The last question I ask people when I. When I end the podcast, Tom, is if there's a single piece of advice you could give. Um, I guess maybe I'll add two things here for you. One is a single piece of advice you just give to every entrepreneur to. To attempt to achieve excellence in their life right now. Um, and similarly, a single piece of advice you might have given yourself when you were early on in your career that when you were just starting, what would you have told yourself given what you know today?

Speaker A: Yeah. I think the piece of advice I would give to every entrepreneur today we've touched on it, is there's more to your life than your business. And while you feel like you have to allocate all your time and your energy to it to reach that goal that you've set for yourself. Never forget that the other parts of your life, I call them the six forms of energy. Time, money, enjoyment, physical vitality. There's two others. When you don't do them all, you get either excess in one or two or a deficiency in one or two. That balance, they don't have to be equal, but being knowledgeable that all these things are important is how you'll optimize yourself, you'll be more effective, and you're going to feel a lot better doing it. Yeah, I think for me, what I would tell myself is there was a voice telling me that I should wake up and listen more when I was trying to climb to the top, when I thought that the only answer was to do better, better, better, Get a better title, get a better this, a better that. And what I would tell myself today is all those things would come and maybe a lot easier, smoother, and a lot less just drama. If I had taken care of myself, if I had remembered that that time in nature, that time with others asking for support, understanding some of these things about those forms of energy, that that balance creates so much more stamina and success.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, and, and Tom, that's such, uh. It's funny, my team kind of makes fun of me because I'm fairly focused on, like, my own health. And what I say is, like, look, I have to show up really well every day for you. Like, my job is to show up in as good as shape, mental shape, physical shape, health. Like, I don't want to get sick. I, you know, lots of people team get sick, they have to take time off. If I get sick, uh, it's. It's really painful for the organization. So I have to do everything I can to stay healthy every day. And same with my family. I want to be there for them for those things. And so that is such great advice. And it's something that it's easy to forget when you're young, especially, but also when you're just. Just going through things.

Speaker A: Here's what's even better about it, Adam. All those things are true and wonderful. When you make that commitment to yourself, you're being a model for others. Those new people that are just starting their career or somewhere along the journey see that and realize how important it is and what it means to you. And if you can only change a few. One person's mind along the journey, how important that is, you've done a great, great service to others.

Speaker B: I appreciate hearing that is actually something I feel that way too. That no matter where my company goes, I think we have a great future ahead of us. But I know I made an impact on a lot of people and people have told me that multiple times. And that means the world to me as well.

Speaker A: I had this thing happen to me, Adam, um, where I got a Facebook message one day and I thought the name looked familiar. And it was a rep at MCI from all those years ago who said to me, there was a training class. You only had part time positions. All the full times were full. I mean, I couldn't do part time. I came to you the day before the class started and said, I'll do full time. And you let me in the class. I was a single mom. I had gone through a horrible divorce. Today I make multi six figures. None of that would have happened if you hadn't given me that chance. I had tears coming down my face. We never know the impact we make on others. In fact, someday we'll talk about my talk, the philanthropic mindset about your smile. Hello. Sitting with someone in need or these things we're talking about are just a philanthropic gesture.

Speaker B: That is a great parable in many ways, I think for life and giving back in doing those things. Tom, um, how can people find you? Get in touch, learn more. If they want to read the books, have you as a coach, where can they find you?

Speaker A: My website is openingpathwayscollective.com I'm on all the socials, I'm on LinkedIn and my team gets crazy when I do this. But my email is resilience@tom lenoble.com I'd love to hear from you.

Speaker B: Tom, um, as we know very well from this talk, your time is so precious. Thank you so much for spending it with me and with our audience. I appreciate you.

Speaker A: Thank you. It's been great and I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Adam.