Transcript
WEBVTT
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Welcome to the CEO Series on B
Tob Growth. This podcast is for entrepreneurs
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who are navigating the transition from founder
to CEO, and it's all about what
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it's like being a CEO. I'm
John Bella's are and I'll be your host
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for the series. About twenty years
ago, I started my first company and
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became a CEO. Now I like
to say it's who I am. This
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may sound Cliche, but being CEO
is a journey, not a destination.
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For everyone, it starts with a
first time experience and, if you're lucky,
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it becomes a lifelong ride on your
way to mastery. I've had the
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opportunity to live in much of this
journey over the past twenty years. I
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have been the CEO of three different
ventures, some very successful, some not.
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Two years ago, I decided to
write down my learnings. I call
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it the CEO playbook. It's the
list of things I wish I knew before
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I became CEO. In fact,
it's a window into what it's like being
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a CEO, and it's two things
I wish I never forget as I continue
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my journey to mastery. At first
it was for me and then I thought
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why not share it with other CEOS. That's when my blog, CEO playbook
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was born. In fact, it's
become more of an online publication specifically for
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founders and CEO's making that transformation every
day. In this podcast series I share
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my personal stories and some practical advice
that you can put into practice in mediately.
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I also invite my CEO friends to
share their stories and pages from their
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playbooks. I hope you can find
something useful here for your journey. Thank
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you. Welcome to the show.
For today's episode, I want to talk
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about the first time. I'm not
talking about you know what kind of first
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time. I'm talking about the first
time as CEO. For those of you
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who have been CEO for several times, maybe you can think back to what
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it was like that first time.
I'm going to share my experience as a
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first time CEO. I spent a
lot of time with founders as an angel
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investor and investor these days, so
I see lots of first time CEOS and
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I'm always amazed by how similar their
experiences as first time CEOS was to mine.
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So I'm going to talk about my
first time and then what I'd like
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to do is share with you some
real sage advice for my own experience and
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from other CEO friends over the years. That would be very helpful to you
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as a first time CEO. So
let's set the context. So in my
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case, my first time was in
one thousand nine hundred and ninety seven.
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For those of you who are just
getting into the tech business, one thousand
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nine hundred and ninety seven there was
barely any kind of social media, facebook,
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any one of these large networks.
The Internet was really just taking off.
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This whole feel was known as thecom
era. Companies were forming to support
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technology, to get into the business, and myself and for the CO founders
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got together to form our first venture. None of us had done startups before,
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so this was really the first time. Four of the five were friends
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from college. So some of you
first timers might resonate with with that concept
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of really forming a company with people
that you're close to and can trust.
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And some of the folks we met
later in our professional lives. And as
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a team. We got together every
Saturday until we you know, talked about
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different ideas, until we found an
idea that we can start and I moved
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from the West Coast. I was
in the West Coast at the time and
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my other four co founders were in
Boston. So I moved from the West
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Coast to Boston. I found myself
installed on the floor of one of my
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co founders home. He was just
he just got married, so they were
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newly weds and we just started coding
and getting into the into the business of
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creating our new company in the product
and at some point we finished our business
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plan and we were starting to form
the company and it was time to give
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titles to everyone. So some of
you might also be resonating with this.
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Right someone had to be in charge
of the product, someone had to be
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in charge of different aspects of the
business that were technology related and ultimately someone
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had to be CEO. And so
the question was, how do we decide
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five co founders? And essentially we
decided to bring it to we vote,
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in my case, for votes for
John said, one of my cofounders,
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as we were sort of doing the
voting, and I was happy to win
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the election. I won four out
of the five votes to get named.
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One of my other cofounders was also
in the running and while I was happy
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to have been named, I really
had no idea what it meant to be
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CEO, I really had to sort
of begin thinking about what that meant.
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But it was okay, it didn't
really matter, because now we had names
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on everyone and we can write the
BIOS and put it in the business plan
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and really sort of work on that. But it wasn't until the first outside
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capital came into the business, and
that's right when, I believe it was
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one of our friends and family investors
sent us a pretty sizeable check to our
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Boston office, and that's when it
sort of dawned on me. Now they
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were expecting us to turn that money
into something valuable, and so being CEO
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really started to mean something. And
it usually happens just like that. When
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the first fresh amount of outside capital
comes in, it's no longer your money
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or blood and sweat and it's someone
else's money. Being CEO really kicks in
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and that's when you start asking yourself, Oh, what is my job?
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What do the CEO supposed to be? What am my duties? And the
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next day, in my case,
I really started going out and searching for
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the answers to those questions. I
did something again in one thousand nine hundred
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and ninety seven. You couldn't just
go to Linkedin or these angel groups or
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different, you know, social platforms
that help you to find coaches and people
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who can give you advice. What
I did is I actually went the old
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school way and pulled out the Cornell
Alumni directory. So I am a alum
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of Quinel University. I searched the
directory. If Cap, it's got to
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be some entrepreneurs or heads of tech
companies in Boston that I can go talk
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to and I called each one of
them and, honestly, I begged each
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of them to give me thirty minutes
of their time. A few of them
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agreed and they gracially shared some of
the nuggets of advice that I was desperately
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looking for. What's it like to
raise venture capital? What is venture capital?
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How does it work? What are
some of the things I should be
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thinking about as a CEO when I
pull this thing all together? I was
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now, happily, you know,
engaged with some of these co founders and
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CEOS. Some of these folks were
serial CEOS. There was one gentleman that
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I literally had to chase down.
I call them every week, persistently until
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I reached him. In fact,
I had called the Cornell Career Center and
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asked them who in Boston I should
talk to and they kept focusing on this
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one person and so I decided to
really hunt hunt them down. He called
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me back. He was driving and
he said, John, I'm sorry it's
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been so long to, you know, get a hold of you, but
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here I am. What questions do
you have? And you really walked me
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through, you know, a lot
of these different concepts and things that I
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should think about as a CEO.
So I'll talk about some of the advice
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that he gave me in a minute. So that was my first time.
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I knew nothing and what I did
is I went out and spoke to as
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many people as possible to better understand
what it's like to be CEO. What
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is a CEO? Being a CEO
all about? And now what I want
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to do a shift to advice.
Seven things that I have found in my
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experience every first timer should know.
These are the things I wish I knew
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when I was a first timer,
and some of these things are things that
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I learned when I went out and
started talking to some of the folks out
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there and they gave me advice that
has stayed with me for the last twenty
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plus years. So the first one
is take charge. So after I we
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sold our first venture, which was
very successful, very exciting. I was
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part of a management team at the
parent company, the company that bought our
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adventure, and they held these big
sales meetings every year. And as you
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get into the enterprise space, you'll
know the concept of a President's Club.
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This is where the top sales people
get to go to Hawaii or the Bahamas
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or some important area of the world
to celebrate the fact that they've closed millions
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of dollars a business. And as
you build your companies and become CEO,
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you're going to have to run similar
programs where you reward the success of the
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teams, the product teams, to
the president's etc. Where one year they
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invited a keynote speaker, which was
very common at the time, and one
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of the keynote speakers that they invited
was Norman Schwartzkoff. Again, I'm dating
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myself, but Norman Schwartzkoff was the
general who is best known for leading the
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US into the Iraq war, also
known as Desert Storm. I actually watched
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Desert Storm on TV ON CNN at
university. Believe it or not, when
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CNN started showing wars on TV.
Seven kind of funny to say that right
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now, but that's what was happening
at the time. Anyway. After they
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ended a war, the general went
on to speaking circuit and one of his
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stops was this President Club at the
the new parent company. BEA was the
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name of the company. The firm
that bought my first company in my first
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company was called Theory Center. In
his talk what he shared was a set
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of leadership principles. In fact he's
written a book on it. General Colin
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Powell has done something similar. But
one of the things that he said in
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his talk really sticks in my mind, almost sort of like peanut butter on
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toast. He said when in charge, take charge. When in charge,
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take charge. So that's the first
piece of advice. Take charge. Many
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new CEOS or first time CEOS or
really shy about starting to make the decisions,
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going from a sort of team of
founders where it's a consensus based decision
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to really stepping into the leadership role
and starting to make decisions like an executive
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would, because, believe me,
you're going to be making lots of decisions.
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And many first time CEOS really avoid
that decision making process like a plague.
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You know, some are going to
weigh their options and definitely or their
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hold their breath for consensus. I
think the message here is take charge.
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You are now the CEO and it's
up to you to make decisions and to
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make them quickly to keep your business
moving. And some instances you might make
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them quickly, you might make them
slowly, but, more importantly, you
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will be the one responsible for making
sure that important decisions that the business in
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the management team needs to make our
made. Their different decision making styles and
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we'll probably talk about some of that
in the series, but for now I
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think the most important thing is when
you become CEO, remember you need to
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take charge and make decisions. Look, you're going to make mistakes, and
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mistakes are unavoidable. In fact,
I've made many mistakes in my twenty plus
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career. Is CEO. I'm making
mistakes right now as CEO as I'm producing
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this podcast. Don't let the fear
of making them prevent you from making any
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progress in your business. Okay,
let's go to the second piece of advice.
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The second piece of advice actually came
from that gentleman that I was chasing
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all this time. He gave me
a whole host of things to think about.
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In the business we were building at
the time, we were building this
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whole series of component software that you
can use to build software applications very quickly
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in a combination way, or these
days will call them sort of API based.
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Is Funny to talk about this,
but at the time none of this
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technology was really available and we were
sort of really breaking the mold at the
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time. But going back to to
this person, what he said was,
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look, I've just shared a lot
of things with you right now and if
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you leave this room and forget everything
I told you, please remember one thing
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right in other words, if you
forget everything I said to you, remember
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this. To succeed you must be
laser focus, and I'm telling you right
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now I have been a CEO and
in a professional role for twenty plus years.
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That's the number one piece of advice
I give every new CEO that I
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meet and that is to be laser
focused. Focus is everything. It's completely
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true. I'm telling you. To
succeed you must be laser focus, and
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unwavering focus is a skill that you
have to master as a CEO. You
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have to learn how to say no
more than you say yes. In fact,
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Steve Jobs was a master at it. One of the big things he
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focused on is teaching his team to
do less, and do that less extremely
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well. We should have less products, not lots of products, less products,
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amazingly beautiful products that everyone wants.
In fact, there's a famous story
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about when he came back to Apple. He asked to team what do they
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think is wrong with the company,
and people talked about all sorts of different
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reasons and basically what he summed it
up was, I tell you what's wrong
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with the company, product stock.
There's too many of them and we need
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to really focus our efforts to be
more successful. So let's just talk about
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how you you do that. How
do you get focus right? The market,
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your employees, your investors, even
people you love are going to pull
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you in different directions and you're going
to experience this a CEO. To be
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focused comes from being clear about your
company's wise one of the key questions around
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why, for example, is why
do you exist? What is your core
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purpose for being? Without it,
it's really hard to figure out where you
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should be in what should be for
laser focus as a company. Are you
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an application solutions company? Are you
in API company? Are you a B
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Toc Services Company? Are You ASSASS
company? Are Your Platform Company? Why
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do you exist? which change in
the world to make your company become existent
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and, ultimately, what is it
that you're doing that makes you unique?
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As a really good book that I
recommend every first time or read, and
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it's called the advantage by Lynchioni,
he explains that one of the keys to
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the success of any company is the
achievement of clarity. I call it.
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Getting clear is asking essentially the wise. There's a series of those why questions.
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In fact he has about five of
them that he takes you through,
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six, I believe, and essentially
ask you key questions that you really need
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to understand, that that are going
to help you through your business. So
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that's extremely important. It's going to
take practice, but as soon as you
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get the helm, get clear,
get focus and then focus that energy around
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being laser focus, around what you're
clear about. Okay, what's the next
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what's the next piece of advice?
Read? Read, read now. As
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a first time CEO, I have
to be honest with you. I grew
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up watching lots of TV. I
grew up reading newspapers and magazines and even
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at university, while I read lots
of tech books. I really wasn't a
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big reader. I would read nonfiction
mostly, some fiction and university, but
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over time I developed a penchant for
reading and really taking in as much information
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and examples of companies and leadership that
I had built over over the years.
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And I can tell you that one
of the keys to success as a CEO
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is to make time for reading.
Read everything spending. Try to you you
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want to try to set aside anywhere
from one to two hours per day to
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read. Charlie Munger, Warren Buffett, Bill Gage, Sherrow Sandberg, Jeff
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Piso's, all of them do it. You should do it essentially, make
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it a habit, put it in
your calendar, create some sort of tickler
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or whatever tool helps you get things
done, but read as much as possible.
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Okay, just some examples of reads. A books you can read about,
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and I'll put this in the show
notes for you, but you should
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read, for example, that that
advantage book I just talked about. You
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should read what it's like to run
a high grow tech company. The most
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common choices these days include the heart
thing about heart things, by her it's
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living at the speed of growth,
by the Catlin group folks as a great,
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great book called Culture Code that helps
you sort of think about what makes
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a good culture. If you're in
the SASS business, you should really read
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the book subscribe. You should read
a books about pain, the pain of
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being a CEO, because, believe
me, you're going to experience lots of
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pain. And an old favorite of
mine is how to castrate a bull.
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There's so much pain in that book
I'm telling you, you will be overwhelmed
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by it. The other is making
cognitive bias, marketing and cognitive bias technology,
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evolution, human behavior and storytelling.
There's lots of great ones out there
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and on the blog you can on
my blog ceeo playbook co you can find
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lots of examples of that. The
fourth idea is equate the pain of making
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mistakes with learning. I have made
many mistakes, as I said earlier.
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I've made bad hires, I've lost
deals due to bad decisions. I've made
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bad deals due to not thinking through
sort of the second order consequences of the
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deal structure. I've underestimated competitors,
I've failed to show compassion towards employees.
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I fought with my cofounders. I've
had miss judgments at them. That about
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the market we were in. I've
overestimated where we should have scaled back.
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You get the point. I've made
a lot of mistakes, but many of
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these failures were like a world ending
moment in my life as CEO. But
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at the same time, each one
of them has taught me something incredibly valuable.
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So I'm going to tell you something
counterintuitive here. You want to make
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mistakes. In fact, you're going
to make the mistakes. What I want
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to impress upon you is how important
embracing those mistakes as really a source of
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learning and growth as a CEO.
In fact, the best CEO's have a
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long list of those mistakes, you
know, lining their pathways to success.
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So you, I really want you
to embrace yours, write them down and
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take time to reflect on them,
and we talk a lot about that on
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our blog, about how to do
that, and there's a whole series of
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recipes that are offer for that and
probably in this series we're going to be
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touching on some of that. Another
one is live with your customers, I
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mean really live with them. I
once had a customer that took his shoes
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off during a meeting and he rubbed
fungus cream in between his toes. I'm
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not joking. I must say high
was shocked, but it did not determine
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me from spending time with him once
a quarter, if not more. Why?
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Because most customers are the answer to
everything. In fact, all of
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your customers really tell you a lot
about your business. The fact that you
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have customers all at all shows that
your product has a fit within the market
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place. So you want to get
close to them so you can know how
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to improve your service. If you
want to know how to do that,
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you ask your customers. If you're
wondering how to get around or beat your
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competitors, or understand what your competitor
has that you don't, ask your customer.
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If your marketing campaign is not hitting
the mark, ask your customer.
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These are things that are very easy
to answer if you spend time with the
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people that pay your bills. Look, anything you need to know to help
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drive your business forward can be found
by walking the halls of your customers.
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In fact, sometimes you can find
new business and new ideas by walking those
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halls. I call it sort of
having the past to get to get into
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the door so that you can you
can solve for that and this is true
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for any type of business. So
be to be business, to be to
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see business, to beat a business
and beat anything business customers are gold.
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So, as CEO, I recommend
you spend at least one day a week
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talking to your customers. Next piece
of advice. Find a role model.
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My first exposure to a chief executive
officer was when I started my career as
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an engineer at Intel. I talk
a lot about that in the content on
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our on our blog. In fact, I was in a cafeteria in Hillsboro,
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Oregon. If folks out there are
from Oregon, I hope you can
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resonate with what I'm talking about.
Andy Grove was the CEO of intail at
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the time and he was delivering this
quarterly town hall meeting. I don't know
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why, but this is when I
knew I really wanted to be CEO,
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and not just any CEO, I
actually wanted to be him, Andy Grove.
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I have read everything about Andy Grove. I watched him intently as he
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helped to grow Intel into probably one
of the most well run companies ever and
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one of the top players in their
field for very long time, probably for
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the better part of a few decades, and in that our meeting I saw
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a leader who was extremely focused,
clear gritty. He was compassionate and driven
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to win. That was in one
thousand nine hundred and ninety five, and
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he grow row went on again to
lead Intel and the PC industries through some
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of the greatest challenges and transformations.
In fact, he is known as the
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godfather of Silicon Valley and I go
far ast to say that he is my
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role model. WHO's your role model? I think you have to think about
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who that role model is and if
you don't have one, I encourage you
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to find one. Having a role
model really really helps you to create an
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architecture, blueprint for the type of
CEO you're going to be. Choose one.
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Sometimes you might want to choose one
that's similar to you or in your
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field, or maybe pick someone that
represents an aspiration or goal that you have
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for yourself, and he was mine. I really loved his grit, his
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management style, his approach to adversity, his ability to learn, his resilience.
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In fact, this guy is incredibly
resilient and if you read his biography
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you'll learn that he, you know, went through lots of challenges in his
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life, both personal and businesswise.
That really drove his success. To bringing
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it back to that, make mistakes
and and learn from them, comment,
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but he really focused all of his
energy around developing a passion for the business
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he was, he was in the
people that were running the business and really
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focusing on mastery. We're going to
talk a lot about how important it is
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to master the role of CEO as
you grow and develop, and he was
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who I wanted to be back in
one thousand nine hundred and ninety five,
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and it's and he still who I
want to be now. I really sort
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of see myself as emulating from that
now and he, Grove, may not
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be as obvious as someone like a
Steve Jobs or be Zo's or, you
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know, the facebook folks or the
the Google folks, but choose whoever you
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want. I think it's important for
you to choose someone who should really relate
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to and that is ideally with in
reach, and someone that you can relate
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to and who's in who's within reach, and spend time with this person if
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you can, or just study them. Try to get introductions to that person
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and really use their example to create
goals for your own growth. My next
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piece of advice is to get a
coach. Some of the best athletes in
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the world have a coach. Seems
counterintuitive that a CEO would need a coach,
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but I have to tell you it's
probably one of the most important things
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you can do as CEO to grow
your skill set, become better at your
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craft and develop in your role.
The most important reason that athletes seek out
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CEOS and need someone to help them
practice, someone the route for them when
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they're down and someone to really help
them unlock their their rough talent and hone
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it for the win and, frankly, just someone to talk to about things
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on their mind. The CEO role
can be a very lonely role, as
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you're fine and we talked about within
this series. CEO's need coaches and,
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whether you know it or not,
many of the best CEOS in the world
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have them. Steve Jobs had a
coach, Bill Gates had a coach,
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Eric Schmidt had a coach, I
can keep going on, and so everyone
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has a coach who's really, you
know, carefully behind the CEO, playing
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a very important role. They're really
offering the impartial eye. They they can
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see things about you that you can't
see. They help you improve on your
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strengths and find your weaknesses. They
tell you like it is. And finally,
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coaches have seen your movie before and
they can help you avoid making unoriginal
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mistakes. In the series we're going
to meet a coach and we're going to
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talk about some of the best coaches
in the industry. So definitely stay tuned
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for that. But I think the
most important thing I want to resonate with
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is the role of the coach and
why you needed as a CEO. Think
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of yourself as an athlete that's really
honing it raw skill to become better over
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time. May become the best it
that you can and I just said you
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know, being a CEO is lonely, and so you need a community.
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At times you're going to feel really
by yourself dealing with some tough challenges as
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a CEO, really hard decisions that
you have to make, and if you
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don't have a community around you to
support you, it can be very,
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very challenging at times, both personally
and professionally. So if you truly want
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to master the craft that being a
CEO, the next piece of advice is
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really to join a community. Being
CEO is a very lonely job at times.
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In fact, in forums, which
is where you want to go.
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CEO Peer Groups you can find leaders
of companies of all sizes that get together
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and share their challenges and they provide
sound advice. In fact, I joined
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my first one nearly ten years ago. It was the best decision I've ever
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made. I continue to participate in
forums as much as I can, both
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to stay current with challenges, learnings
best practices and, more importantly, to
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bounce off ideas with real CEOS who
are living and fighting every day just like
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you know, I finally had a
place where I could I could work through
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some of the real challenges in my
business and personal life and I could speak
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freely and vent when I wanted to. So, more importantly, it gave
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it gave me time away from the
business to think strategically. I also learned
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so much about my business looking at
others in my peer group. So there
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are number of them out there.
I certainly encourage you to take a look
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at those and in our series we're
going to be meeting some of the best
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as well and having conversations about how
they've benefit CEOS and and how CEOS can
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learn from them. So let's recap. So you know, this episode is
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about being a CEO for the first
time. The first piece of advice is
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take charge right so when you're in
that seat, take charge. You're now
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responsible for making those tough decisions.
Be Laser focused. Don't do too many
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things at once. To start out, understand where business you're in. Ask
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Your Business to tough wise and really
try to understand where you should be focused
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right now. Read. Read as
much as you can, spend about one
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to two hours per day reading,
and try to get books in a advice
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from other CEOS or, as I
said, we've got lots of books for
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you to choose from. Next,
equal pain of making mistakes with learning.
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Equal pain with learning. Pain is
where the learning happens. Remember that pain
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is where the learning happens. Next
is live with your customers. In fact,
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fall in love with your customers.
Never unlove them. You should be
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spending at least twenty percent of your
time a week, that's at least one
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day a week, with your customers. Get out there and see what what's
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going on with them as a CEO
and spend your time face to face with
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those customers, having dinner with them
and engaging with them. Final Role Model.
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Who are you trying to be as
a CEO. Who's the best person,
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man or woman, that best describes
who you want to be as a
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CEO? What sector is that person
from? What's their background? Really get
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into who they are and hopefully you
can meet them in person and learn from
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them. Get a coach. There
are some amazing coaches out there who will
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help you to understand a lot about
yourself so that you can become the best
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athlete, to master the game of
CEO and finally, join a community.
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Get together with other CEOS, even
if it starts out with one friend of
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yours that you have dinner with once
a month. The runs a couple of
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weeks, just kicking around the pain
and suffering that you're experiencing as a CEO.
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Do that and you will improve and
definitely they will get a lot more
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sleep as a CEO. I want
to thank you for listening to this first
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00:29:36.880 --> 00:29:41.269
episode in our series. I'm John
Bella's are. See you soon. Thanks
394
00:29:41.309 --> 00:29:45.269
for listening to this episode of be
to be growth CEO series. Again,
395
00:29:45.309 --> 00:29:49.190
I'm John Belaz are from the CEO
playbook. To get the full list of
396
00:29:49.230 --> 00:29:53.339
advice I shared on this show and
more, please visit CEO playbook DOTCO.
397
00:29:55.140 --> 00:29:57.900
Please connect with me on Linkedin,
seeo playbook. I'm also on medium,
398
00:29:57.900 --> 00:30:03.099
CEEO playbook and twitter. John Belaz
are, CEO. I'd love to hear
399
00:30:03.140 --> 00:30:07.569
from you. Please send me any
questions or recommendations my way at any time.
400
00:30:07.569 --> 00:30:10.809
If you like this episode, please
leave a review and share it with
401
00:30:10.890 --> 00:30:14.690
a friend. It really helps.
If you have a question, join the
402
00:30:14.730 --> 00:30:18.890
discussion on Instagram at CEO Playbookcom.
Thanks for tuning in and subscribing to be
403
00:30:19.009 --> 00:30:23.079
to be growth. Until next time, keep pushing and stay healthy out there.
404
00:30:26.440 --> 00:30:30.640
I hate it when podcasts incessantly ask
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405
00:30:30.680 --> 00:30:34.359
get why they do it, because
reviews are enormously helpful when you're trying to
406
00:30:34.400 --> 00:30:37.750
grow a podcast audience. So here's
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leave a review for be tob growth
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of the review to James at Sweet
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409
00:30:47.029 --> 00:30:49.740
copy of my new book, content
based networking, how to instantly connect with
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anyone you want to know. We
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book. We both win.