#CEO 6: Why All Great Leaders Find Time for Solitude

WEBVTT 1 00:00:04.160 --> 00:00:09.550 Crunch, crunch, crunch, was the sound of my gait as I marched 2 00:00:09.589 --> 00:00:15.310 along a distant, barren landscape. Here there were no demanding customers, no 3 00:00:15.550 --> 00:00:20.789 competition putting pressure on me. There were no employees anxiously seeking consensus, or 4 00:00:20.829 --> 00:00:27.660 nor investors asking endless questions about our sales forecast. Absent was the industry publications 5 00:00:27.820 --> 00:00:32.859 that offer views of the future from their favorite pundits. If I had access 6 00:00:32.859 --> 00:00:37.369 to my tri quorder, it would perhaps have shown my location to be somewhere 7 00:00:37.450 --> 00:00:43.530 on the moon. Fortunately, my addictive device was safely locked away, far 8 00:00:43.649 --> 00:00:48.689 away from here. Tonight, it was just me walking across the via de 9 00:00:48.770 --> 00:00:54.359 Luna under a cloudless sky that offered a clear view into the origins of our 10 00:00:54.399 --> 00:00:59.759 universe. I had transformed myself to this distant place in the Atacama Desert to 11 00:00:59.880 --> 00:01:06.189 embark on an annual ritual I call finding solitude. Today we're going to be 12 00:01:06.269 --> 00:01:12.230 talking about finding solitude, something that many leaders of high groadventures fail to experience. 13 00:01:12.870 --> 00:01:18.430 In fact, we're constantly bombarded by critical decisions. We make thousands of 14 00:01:18.469 --> 00:01:22.620 them each week that make or break our companies. We spend time multitasking, 15 00:01:22.980 --> 00:01:27.459 putting out fires, communicating rushing to meetings, making a sail, all while 16 00:01:27.579 --> 00:01:33.530 monitoring our phones for the next crisis. This can be exhausting. Sometimes it 17 00:01:33.890 --> 00:01:38.049 can be so fatiguing, often depleting us of energy, and this is when 18 00:01:38.090 --> 00:01:44.329 we make fatal decisions. But what we rarely get is time for ourselves to 19 00:01:44.530 --> 00:01:49.719 just think. So once a year I would ship myself and my wife off 20 00:01:49.760 --> 00:01:53.560 to a remote location on earth to find rest and solitude, being far away 21 00:01:53.599 --> 00:01:57.959 from the business, away from management, away from decisions, and it offered 22 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:02.709 me an opportunity to gain perspective. With my mind at rest and my stress 23 00:02:02.790 --> 00:02:09.150 reduced, I finally possessed the cycles to think, think, think about my 24 00:02:09.270 --> 00:02:14.189 life at home. My wife and I tend to discuss our relationship. During 25 00:02:14.229 --> 00:02:16.580 these times, I get to think about the challenges ahead for my business, 26 00:02:17.219 --> 00:02:23.340 and in this process of purposeful thought, I find unexpected solutions to that business. 27 00:02:23.020 --> 00:02:28.740 My own beliefs, if you will, about the business sprout, unencumbered 28 00:02:28.780 --> 00:02:34.409 by group think or consensus. Reaching I like to read about history during these 29 00:02:34.490 --> 00:02:38.409 escapes. In the text I usually find examples of systems that transcend time. 30 00:02:38.930 --> 00:02:43.930 Sometimes I don't think at all. That's when I often get epiphanies that unlock 31 00:02:44.129 --> 00:02:47.319 the next stage of my journey as a CEO. There are advantages to solitude. 32 00:02:47.520 --> 00:02:52.840 In fact, leadership and solitude are not often combined, but a look 33 00:02:52.840 --> 00:02:58.360 at one leader in recent history that stood alone uncovers the advantages of doing so. 34 00:02:58.830 --> 00:03:01.150 I want to talk about General David Petrayus. In two thousand and eight, 35 00:03:01.310 --> 00:03:05.830 the general, the former head of the US Central Command, was named 36 00:03:05.949 --> 00:03:09.430 intellectual of the year by Prospect magazine. As the judges saw it, the 37 00:03:09.509 --> 00:03:15.340 socalled petreyus doctrine is the only written piece of intellectual output in the last two 38 00:03:15.379 --> 00:03:19.939 years that have made a direct difference to the lives of millions. It's radical, 39 00:03:19.979 --> 00:03:23.500 among other things, for being the first actively humane war fighting doctrine to 40 00:03:23.659 --> 00:03:28.569 ever come out of the Pentagon, in shrining the ideas that winning a modern 41 00:03:28.610 --> 00:03:34.210 war requires ensuring the security and well being of the civilian population and that humanitarian 42 00:03:34.210 --> 00:03:38.689 assistance and construction projects are critical to any fight, and that eighty percent of 43 00:03:38.770 --> 00:03:42.319 the battle is a political one. It wasn't always easy for Petray us. 44 00:03:42.599 --> 00:03:45.680 His path to where he is now was not a straight one. When he 45 00:03:45.719 --> 00:03:49.000 was running Mosul in two thousand and three as a commander of the one hundred 46 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:53.199 and first airborne and developing the strategy he would later formulate into the counterinsurgency field 47 00:03:53.240 --> 00:03:58.469 manual and then ultimately apply that field manual throughout Iraq. He pissed off a 48 00:03:58.550 --> 00:04:01.430 lot of people. He was way ahead of the leadership in Baghdad and Washington 49 00:04:01.629 --> 00:04:05.389 and a number of bureaucracies didn't like that sort of thing. Here he was 50 00:04:05.509 --> 00:04:10.860 just another two star general and he was saying implicitly but loudly, that the 51 00:04:10.900 --> 00:04:14.539 leadership was wrong about the way it was running the war. Indeed, he 52 00:04:14.699 --> 00:04:17.220 was not rewarded at first. He was put in charge of training the Iraqi 53 00:04:17.259 --> 00:04:20.620 army, which was considered the blow to his career, a dead end job, 54 00:04:20.939 --> 00:04:25.689 but he was struck with the focus that he should stick to his guns 55 00:04:25.970 --> 00:04:30.490 and ultimately he was vindicated. One of the central elements of his counterinsurgency strategy 56 00:04:30.850 --> 00:04:38.050 is precisely the idea that officers need to think flexibly, creatively and independently. 57 00:04:38.329 --> 00:04:43.399 This was remarked upon and presented in a speech to a class at West Point 58 00:04:43.680 --> 00:04:49.839 by an essayists, bill the resouts, who eloquently explained the difference in Petray 59 00:04:49.839 --> 00:04:55.230 us his leadership, his ability to think flexibly to be creative and independent and 60 00:04:55.389 --> 00:05:00.110 other words, portray US successfully fought against the conventional wisdom of the Pentagon. 61 00:05:00.310 --> 00:05:04.709 He took the time to think, found solitude and developed a winning approach to 62 00:05:04.829 --> 00:05:10.540 Iraq. In fact, the resorts also explains today that we have a crisis 63 00:05:10.579 --> 00:05:15.500 in our society. Many young leaders, perhaps many of the CEOS that are 64 00:05:15.500 --> 00:05:17.339 listening to this podcast right now, have come out of some of the best 65 00:05:17.339 --> 00:05:23.810 schools in the country without the necessary faculties to become leaders. I'm not trying 66 00:05:23.889 --> 00:05:28.009 to be rude to the listeners, but would the results? was saying in 67 00:05:28.129 --> 00:05:32.209 his speech to these young cadets was that thinking is something we actually have forgotten 68 00:05:32.569 --> 00:05:35.480 how to do and what we don't have, in other words, are thinkers, 69 00:05:35.839 --> 00:05:40.600 he said, people who can think for themselves, people who can formulate 70 00:05:40.680 --> 00:05:44.000 a new direction for the country or corporation, a college for the army, 71 00:05:44.360 --> 00:05:46.480 a new way of doing things, a new way of looking at things, 72 00:05:46.879 --> 00:05:50.750 people, in other words, with vision. He emphasized. What bill the 73 00:05:50.829 --> 00:05:57.230 reserts is preaching is that the best leaders make time to think, they find 74 00:05:57.430 --> 00:06:01.430 solitude, quiet places where they can develop their own thoughts and perspectives. This 75 00:06:01.790 --> 00:06:05.660 is the key to developing critical thinking skills that are going to be vital to 76 00:06:05.779 --> 00:06:11.540 effective leadership, and they are vital to effective leadership as a CEO of a 77 00:06:11.579 --> 00:06:15.339 high growth company. Now, how do you find solitude? Well, some 78 00:06:15.459 --> 00:06:19.449 of my favorite leaders have all had their own habitual ways of finding time alone. 79 00:06:19.689 --> 00:06:25.490 Though Gates, when he was cee of Microsoft and ultimately continues this process 80 00:06:25.730 --> 00:06:29.970 as the founder and see of the bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, he would 81 00:06:29.970 --> 00:06:33.240 go out on these annual retreats, he calls him reading retreats, where he 82 00:06:33.279 --> 00:06:38.560 would bring these two large canvas bags of books, with magazines, white papers, 83 00:06:38.600 --> 00:06:42.920 all types of reading content, and he would sequester himself away with a 84 00:06:43.000 --> 00:06:46.990 week or more of reading materials and he would offer emerge many times with new 85 00:06:47.110 --> 00:06:51.110 strategic imperatives for his personal computer empire he was running at the time. His 86 00:06:51.230 --> 00:06:57.230 legendary Internet tidal wave memo came from one of those retreats. This was when 87 00:06:57.269 --> 00:07:01.779 he decided to integrate the Internet explorer with the operating system. That ultimately put 88 00:07:01.980 --> 00:07:06.980 Microsoft on the map in the war for the Internet browser. President Barack Obama, 89 00:07:08.019 --> 00:07:12.259 for example, survived the White House by isolating himself in what he likes 90 00:07:12.259 --> 00:07:15.009 to call his cave. In fact, his wife often says, I don't 91 00:07:15.009 --> 00:07:18.850 know where BARAC is. He's probably in his cave. It's a room dedicated 92 00:07:19.009 --> 00:07:24.250 to deep thought that he insists on having in every home. There he'd read 93 00:07:24.250 --> 00:07:29.649 presidential biographies, sometimes Apocalyptic Sci Fi's of the ladder, for example. He 94 00:07:29.810 --> 00:07:33.000 said it unexpectedly put things in perspective. The scope of it was immense. 95 00:07:33.399 --> 00:07:38.040 So that was fun to read, partly because my day to day problems with 96 00:07:38.160 --> 00:07:42.079 Congress seemed fairly petty, not something to worry about. I mean, aliens 97 00:07:42.079 --> 00:07:46.750 are about to evade. My friend David Kensel CEO of drift, takes a 98 00:07:46.029 --> 00:07:49.670 three month sabbatical every three years. In fact, he share some of his 99 00:07:49.750 --> 00:07:55.750 experiences on that Sabbatical on his podcast, seeking wisdom. Even in fictitious examples 100 00:07:55.790 --> 00:08:00.100 of leadership we find the importance of rest and solitude. My Favorite Star Trek 101 00:08:00.220 --> 00:08:05.939 captain is Jean Luc Picard from Star Trek Next Generation and, as his commander, 102 00:08:05.980 --> 00:08:09.699 riker, would say, Picard's ready room on the starship enterprise serves as 103 00:08:09.779 --> 00:08:13.930 a place to surround himself with things that give him a much needed perspective on 104 00:08:15.050 --> 00:08:18.290 his duties. Anyway, these examples, and you can find many examples of 105 00:08:18.449 --> 00:08:22.970 CEO's great leaders that take time away from the office, away from the Hustle 106 00:08:24.089 --> 00:08:28.079 and bustle and decisions and pressures, to make time to think. So I 107 00:08:28.160 --> 00:08:31.879 want to offer up a four step recipe before we leave here. Number one, 108 00:08:33.279 --> 00:08:37.000 how to find solitude once a day. So once a day, what 109 00:08:37.120 --> 00:08:39.960 you need to do is block your calendar for at least one hour. The 110 00:08:39.039 --> 00:08:43.549 morning is the best time because usually you're sharp that time, you haven't gotten 111 00:08:43.669 --> 00:08:46.509 inundated with a host of meetings and decisions already, and you use that time 112 00:08:46.669 --> 00:08:52.070 to think, read, gather your thoughts. Gary Keller in his book the 113 00:08:52.230 --> 00:08:56.220 One thing suggest doing it for four hours a day so you can focus on 114 00:08:56.379 --> 00:08:58.860 that one thing. He's really talking about your one thing of focus. If 115 00:08:58.899 --> 00:09:01.460 your one thing is sort of getting your strategy right, or you need to 116 00:09:01.620 --> 00:09:07.100 make time for yourself once a day to focus on strategy and you block your 117 00:09:07.179 --> 00:09:11.370 calendar and you keep that block religiously. Ideally you're doing this before you get 118 00:09:11.370 --> 00:09:13.169 to the office, so so no one can find you. Next is once 119 00:09:13.250 --> 00:09:16.649 a month. Once a month you sequest to yourself, let's say to a 120 00:09:16.730 --> 00:09:22.610 coffee shop, a place offsite out of the office, and you write down 121 00:09:22.090 --> 00:09:26.200 your most important learnings for the month. Ideally, you're writing down your mistakes, 122 00:09:26.440 --> 00:09:30.879 because from those mistakes is where all the learning happens. We talk a 123 00:09:30.919 --> 00:09:33.080 lot about that on CEO playbook and you can find a method for doing that 124 00:09:33.240 --> 00:09:37.710 writing on our website, CEEO playbookco once a quarter you can also do something 125 00:09:37.990 --> 00:09:41.669 really different. You do something outside of your field, something that interests you 126 00:09:41.830 --> 00:09:46.429 beyond your role as CEO. For example, I have been known to take 127 00:09:46.509 --> 00:09:50.789 cooking classes, online, coding classes, Salsa Dancing, lessons of bartending class, 128 00:09:52.269 --> 00:09:58.019 attend science fairs and teach entrepreneurship at an independent school during my quarterly escape 129 00:09:58.059 --> 00:10:01.220 from the office. So once a quarter, finds something that it has nothing 130 00:10:01.220 --> 00:10:03.779 to do with the business, so you can rest your mind and ultimately find 131 00:10:03.860 --> 00:10:07.730 time to think. And then, once a year, get lost, I 132 00:10:07.889 --> 00:10:13.090 mean really get lost. Get as far away as you can from your office 133 00:10:13.409 --> 00:10:16.570 and immerse yourself in an experience that freese your mind. And every one of 134 00:10:16.649 --> 00:10:20.289 my companies we've had in mandatory shut down between Christmas and New Year's and this 135 00:10:20.519 --> 00:10:24.080 is when I would escape. That's how I got to that Outocoma desert location. 136 00:10:24.399 --> 00:10:28.480 So the summarise, once a day once a month, once a quarter 137 00:10:28.639 --> 00:10:33.559 and once a year. Fine solitude. It's going to be hard because we're 138 00:10:33.559 --> 00:10:37.269 always thinking we can't get away, we can't make time to get away from 139 00:10:37.269 --> 00:10:41.909 the office, but finding solitude is a learned behavior, a habit that's so 140 00:10:41.070 --> 00:10:45.990 important to the success of being CEO. It takes practice, but you don't 141 00:10:45.990 --> 00:10:48.950 need to transport yourself to another planet to find it or to the moon. 142 00:10:48.350 --> 00:10:56.059 While it is counterintuitive approach to leadership, it is incredibly a prescription for success. 143 00:10:56.740 --> 00:11:01.899 See you next time. Are you currently making the transition from founder to 144 00:11:03.019 --> 00:11:05.490 CEO? Are you a first time CEO in the middle of a huge challenge, 145 00:11:05.529 --> 00:11:09.889 or you just curious about what it takes? Then you need to read 146 00:11:09.129 --> 00:11:15.490 ceeo playbook. It's an online publication full of stories from real CEOS and practical 147 00:11:15.649 --> 00:11:18.960 sage advice for leaders of high growth companies. Go to CEEEO PLAYBOOK DOT COM 148 00:11:20.120 --> 00:11:24.120 to start reading some amazing content for free. You'll find out why over four 149 00:11:24.120 --> 00:11:26.639 hundred CEOS go here to learn what it's really like being CEO.