A couple of days ago, I chanced upon this podcast in which Steve Schwarzman (King of Capital) shared what he learned in life and what made him successful.
Learning 1: Not surprisingly, early on, his parents repeatedly encouraged him always to keep trying and NEVER look for external validation. Hard work is hard for a reason.
Learning 2: Steve was an athlete in high school and attributed a lot of his later success to how his coach Jack Armstrong coached him. The training was INTENSE, and coach Armstrong pushed the players to surpass their limits. This intense training under harsh conditions and advice from his coach made him internalize that making deposits for withdrawal on gameday is vital.
The more I read, the more I appreciate the value of sports in making people competitive right from an early age. Steve, too, said that athletics played a big part in him being competitive and instilling a feeling of to ALWAYS BE AHEAD
Learning 3: Hard work paid off, and he enrolled in Yale, where he gave up Athletics because he did not like the individualistic culture of the track there. High school athletics was fun. At Yale, he razor-focused on LEARNING.
Learning 4: Post Yale, he got his first job by accident at an investment firm (a fascinating story which you can google). During the interview, he was asked: “Why do you want to work for us?”. He said that forget working he did not even know the firm did, but he wanted to do whatever it was the people were doing because they were so excited. He saw these people chirpy and excited while sitting in the office of the firm. A few days later, he got hired, got a secretary and an office, and did not know what to do. He then enrolled in the army before starting his MBA at Harvard.
Before leaving for the US Army, he asked the founder of the investment firm that despite knowing nothing, why did the firm hire him? The founder said that I had the feeling that one day you will end up running my company. Some years later, he was offered the role of the President of the investment firm.
Learning 5: He did not like HBS, the Boston winter, and wanted to drop out (another fascinating story of how an exchange of heartfelt letters persuaded him not to drop out). He says HBS teaches you one thing through all its courses (marketing, HR, operations, etc.): All pieces of a system need to be coordinated else the system fails.
Learning 6: Graduated from HBS in 1972 and joined Lehman Brothers. He stayed there till 1985. In 1985, he launched Blackstone with Peter Peterson, and that assumed that doing business would be relatively easy because of the same set of people with the same reputation are now a part of a different tribe. Unsurprisingly he was dead wrong, and no one wanted to hire them.
Learning 7: People in finance are great at talking and, therefore, CON themselves with optimism. Ergo, multiple smart people should analyze risks.
Learning 8: The most important decision in business is not to lose money. DO NO HARM.
Learning 9: Never treat people like they are deals.
Learning 10: Executives are made and not born. Don’t assume people don’t need to be trained. You need to train people well.
Learning 11: DECLARE a culture of feedback in your organization and implement it. I found a hard time digesting this one.
Learning 12: Constant WORRYING helps. It tells you what can go wrong and helps you fix stuff.
Learning 13: In relationships, people change over time. Matching two people for 60 years is hard.
Learning 14: In hiring, good enough does not cut it. Never compromise.
Learning 15: Four types of people in the world:
- 10s: They can do anything, do not need COACHING, have a sixth sense of what lies ahead, and what can go wrong. 10s win you championships. Think Michael Jordan and Lebron James.
- 9s: They are great, do not need COACHING, go above and beyond, and get stuff done. They don’t win you championships, though.
- 8s: They are good. They do what they are told they should do. They need coaching.
- 7s: You ideally don’t want 7s.
Rohan Manchanda 