← How Leaders Lead with David Novak
How Leaders Lead with David Novak
#271: Childhood moments that shaped the world’s top leaders
00:29:52
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- [00:00]
David
Hey, everybody. Welcome back to Hal Leaders Lead and Merry Christmas Kula. Thanks for joining me to host this special episode of Hal Leaders Lead. And today's show is different. And in this episode, we're going to reflect on some incredible guests we've had on this show this past year. If you're a regular listener, you know that one thing we always ask our guests for is for a story from their childhood that has shaped the kind of leader that they are today. In fact, it's my favorite question. And today, to celebrate the holidays and spending time with the ones you love, we're going to dive back into some of the great stories that have shaped the lives of leaders that we've had on the show this past year.
- [00:44]
Kula
David, I'm so excited to revisit some of these amazing guests and their insights. And you're right, it is such a great time to air an episode like this. It's the holidays. Merry Christmas, by the way. People are spending time with their families, and it really is such a special time to reflect on the year we've had and all the moments we've experienced that have helped us grow.
- [01:03]
David
And as you start to slow down for this holiday season, I mean, that may be hard to do and spend time with your friends and family. Let's revisit some of these stories that have shaped some of the world's greatest leaders. And hopefully it will remind you that every experience, every and person you encounter in your life can teach you something about yourself and how you want to show up in the world.
- [01:25]
Kula
In this episode, you'll hear lessons from CEOs, coaches, and leaders and the moments from their lives that have shaped who they are today. Lessons from their parents, from their mentors, really everything. And we hope that they'll inspire you as you enjoy this season with your loved ones.
- [01:40]
David
So let's start here with the story from Jamie Dimon's childhood. Jamie's the chairman and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, and you're going to love this story about his mom.
- [01:50]
Jamie Dimon
I'll tell you a quick little story about my mother. We must be 12 or 13 years old, and my parents are having a glass of wine in the living room. And my father says to my mother, something about her name was Themis, which means justice in Greek, by the way. I believe the goddess of justice. And he used the word, you're acting hysterical. And I don't know if you remember those books about the second mystique or the second sex. And she said, I told you not to say that, Ted. He said, well, when you're acting hysterical, you're acting hysterical. She said, I told you not to say that. And he said it one more time. And she walked up to him and took her wine in his face and left the room. And he was in shock. And the three boys, we've never seen anything like that, not in my house. And now, of course, the three of us were like, the revolution has begun. Because he was the boss. And it was like, we're gonna overthrow the king. And to his credit, when we all sat down for dinner a little bit later, he came back and said, I just want you all to know your mom was right.
- [02:51]
David
So that sounds like the Jamie Dimon I know today.
- [02:55]
Jamie Dimon
The other thing about my mother, you gotta understand. My mother was a Freudian. So my father kind of was, but my father was more like us. What did they do? But she was like, why did they do it? So I was like, so you have these conversations. I don't care why they did it. You know, it's what they did. And so. But because of that, I read a lot of Freud before I finished college. I mean, I read almost all of it before I finished college, just how, you know, how people think. And, of course, a lot of Freud was wrong. But it is a real insight into trying to figure out how the mind works.
- [03:29]
David
How much do you think that really helped you as you started working with people?
- [03:33]
Jamie Dimon
Quite a bit. You know, I always try to be, I think, both sides, you know, trying to act and do something, but also try to figure out people and their, you know, their motivations. They're all those EQ things you talk about. Are they real? Are they authentic? What motivates them? Why treating people respectfully. So, yeah, I do think it helps. In part of your life, you're always thinking how the world works, but also how people work. And as you know, both those things can be very complicated, and we still spend most of our time trying to figure that stuff out.
- [04:05]
David
How did the fact that your dad was in finance and was totally indoctrinated in that world, how did that impact where you headed? And when you think about your dad, what was the biggest thing you learned from him that you took into the business world?
- [04:26]
Jamie Dimon
So of the three boys, I was the only one who took an interest in finance. I worked from the Samuel, basically, like, doing mailings and answering phones and stuff like that when I was 14 or 15. But I was interested. I always read the papers. I always read the business section. I read the sports section. I read the. So he nurtured that he didn't make anyone do it. Like I said, my older brother became a physicist. My other brother educator, which my parents enormously respected. But I was interested in that part of the world. And so he'd give me stuff to read. I remember reading a book that Merrill lynch had done, like how to read an income statement, a balance sheet. I read Graham and Dodd. There's a big thick one, but there's a one called the Intelligent Investor. I probably read it when I was 15 and I bought my first stocks when I was about 14 or 15, and so that my interest was peaked. I wasn't heading to be a stockbroker. In fact, my father didn't want me to his, his view, you know, a lot of people like the grass is green on the other side. He didn't think it was what I should be doing or stuff like that, but. And I didn't had to be a stockbroker. But yeah, of course it nurtured my interest. And you know, I wrote a couple of papers in college about business and stuff like that. So I was interested and. But the interest was more about building something. Building something great. You know, I would read the stories about companies that had really done interesting stuff and built things and bought things and you know, made, you know, made more employees and stuff like that. So. So yeah, it nurtured it gave me stuff to read. I remember a very humbling thing. He came home one day a couple of times. Remember, Yum Brands. Take a business you think you would understand, like a restaurant, you know, and, and you can understand what the profits are and you know that you actually eat there as opposed to like, you know, chips, which is hard for a kid. But he would, he would take in the. Back then annual reports were much shorter and he would rip out the page that had the price and he'd say, read this thing and tell me you would pay for it. And for anyone out there, I don't care how smart you are or how good I think you are, you would be humbled by that exercise.
- [06:29]
Kula
I love how Jamie ties the story back to curiosity and really trying to understand people. His mom was a Freudian thinker and that shaped the way he thinks about motivation, EQ and even business strategy. You could see that early upbringing really fueled both his empathy for others and his intellectual curiosity.
- [06:47]
David
Curiosity and speaking of early lessons that shape your career path, it's not just about parents. Sometimes it's the mentors, the coaches, or even the sports you play. As a kid, Andy Jassy, the. The CEO of Amazon has a perfect example of that from his tennis days. Listen to this clip.
- [07:06]
Andy Jassy
A lot of my childhood was dominated by sports. I played competitive tennis, I played that junior national circuit and I played soccer. And I would say on the tennis side, it was, it was actually kind of a hard way to grow up. It's such a intense sport. It's so individual focused. When you lose, there's nobody to blame but yourself. When you win, there's no one to really celebrate with but yourself. And growing up in the East Coast, I also felt like the parental environment around tennis was very intense. But, you know, tennis taught me a lot of lessons that have really helped me later in my life. It taught me what hard work looks like and what happens when you don't work hard. It taught me really how to be focused in the moment. You know, when you get to competitive levels in tennis, all the matches are won by like 15 to 20 points during the match. So you just have to have the ability to be laser focused in the moments that matter. It taught me how to move on. You know, when you, you can play a tennis tournament and you can have the best win of your year at 9am and then go out at 2pm and play another match and it's all gone. So you have to be able to move on from success really quickly and from failure very quickly. Because the other thing is when you play tennis at a competitive level, you rarely win the tournament. So it means you actually lose almost every single time that you play, you know. And then it did teach me as well that you have to find a way to be good to yourself even when things go wrong. We all plan so hard and work so hard and no matter what happens, sometimes it just doesn't work out. And if you're competitive and have high standards, you have to live with that. And then you have to find a way to give yourself a little bit of a break. And I learned those things, I would say, from tennis, which have been helpful. And, you know, I would say that one lesson, I would say from my soccer life, which really involved my dad, who's probably the, you know, the person on this planet that I most respect. And you know, as a kid, I really kind of worship my dad. I still do, but it. But I remember I went to a soccer game, my younger brothers, and I was driving my dad crazy and just being antsy and he said, well, why don't you go run a mile around the track? The field was inside of a, you know, quarter mile track. And so I went and I ran And I ran it really slowly, but I ran it. And I got back and I said to my dad, I said, see, I did it. And he said, if you're going to run like that, why bother running? Like, if you're going to do something, do it. And he doesn't really remember that story, but that story always stuck with me, that if you're going to do something, whatever it is, do it and do it to your fullest or don't do it. And so that was. Those were good lessons for me.
- [10:02]
Kula
God, tennis is brutal. I mean, you win, you celebrate alone. You lose, you really only have yourself to blame. And Andy talks about how that intensity taught him focus, resilience, and self accountability. But I also love the story with his dad in soccer. It's. It's a simple but universal lesson. If you're going to do something, you got to give it your all. And that mindset really sticks with you for life.
- [10:25]
David
And sometimes those lessons are reinforced in many different ways. Pat Kelsey, the coach of the Louisville Cardinals basketball team, talks about how both family and coaches shaped him, giving him a template for leadership that lasts a lifetime and something that he executes day in and day out.
- [10:45]
Pat Kelsey
I'm a big believer that you're a product of your upbringing. I'm really blessed. I'm biased, but I think I have the greatest mom and dad in the history of planet Earth. My father is my hero. My father is my role model. My dad was a marine. My dad was a college basketball player. My dad's a very successful businessman, father of five, a grandfather of 24. And he just always amazed me from the time I was little. And, you know, my dad was a disciplinarian. You know, he held us accountable at the highest level. He loved us with everything he had, but just the way he went about his life, how he treated people. He's in the car business, David. And, you know, the car business in general probably doesn't have the best overall reputation if you compare it to all the other, you know, industries. And look, my dad thinks it's one of the most noble professions that there are. And the way that he leads, the way he leads his sales force, the way he leads his dealership. My dad sees the world in black and white. You know, there's no gray area. He always chooses the right path regardless of the consequences. Tell the truth at all times. Just has such, you know, just. Just has a way about him that's infectious with the people around him. So I. I felt like I learned from the best. And then as I've proceeded throughout my career, David. I've been very lucky to work with and work for some just phenomenal human beings. My high school coach, Joe Schoenfeld, who is one of the winningest coaches in Ohio basketball history, was in my wedding. He's one of my best friends. And, man, what a phenomenal leader. He is not the type of coach that raises his voice, but he's the type of leader that you're just so you don't want to let him down, you know, and he just has that way of getting the most out of people without raising his voice. And then, you know, when I got into the coaching profession, I worked for a man named Skip Prosser. David. And Skip was the head coach at Xavier University. He was my college coach, and then he became the head coach at Wake Forest University all throughout the 2000s, was amazingly successful and tragically passed away in 2007 at the height of his professional career. And, you know, the legacy he leaves is on all of the people that he coached and worked with like me, that I pay forward the lessons and the ideals that he taught me as I move forward in my career. So it's a long winded answer to say that I just had great, great role models, whether it was my dad, whether it was Coach Schoenfeld, whether it was Coach Prosser. I just had men in my life that taught me right from wrong, that taught me how to go about my business and be a professional with class and integrity and. And all three of those men were leaders of men, and I learned so much from them.
- [14:11]
Kula
I love this. You see how this combination of a disciplined parent and incredible coaches build someone's character and their leadership style. He really emphasizes the human side of leadership and how you can inspire people without having to dominate everything.
- [14:26]
David
And sometimes it's the lessons from youth sports that really stick with you. Mike Worth, the CEO of Chevron, has a story about running up a mountain as a teen. That's kind of like a blueprint for how to push through the limits. You'll love this one.
- [14:41]
Mike Worth
Well, I'll give you maybe two. One of them. I grew up playing sports. I love playing sports, team sports, the typical US sports, baseball, basketball, football. When I was 10 years old and showed up for my first football practice with this youth football team, we were coached by a guy who I grew up in Golden, Colorado. He worked for the Coors Brewery. He'd take three weeks off work his full allotment of vacation for our fall practice before the football season began. And we used to have three a day practices. You know, most people hear about two a days. We'd actually practice three times a day, early in the morning, kind of in the middle of the day and then in the afternoon. And he had built blocking sleds and these ropes and chutes, things that look like medieval, you know, systems. And we're a bunch of 10 year old kids out there. And he taught us technique and hard work and he walked around and he was always giving us these kind of development and leadership inspiring quotes and bromides. Some of them he'd stolen from people like Vince Lombardi, some of them were his own. But what would happen by the time those three weeks were up and we showed up to play our first game, we were so well prepared that for the three years I played for this team, not only did we never lose a game, there was only one game where a team scored a point on us. And we didn't have any special talent. We worked harder than everybody else. And what I learned is you can outwork the other guy. And he taught us to believe in ourselves, to believe in one another. It was a little bit like Ted Lasso before Ted Lasso came along.
- [16:31]
David
I love Ted Lasso.
- [16:33]
Mike Worth
I do too. So I learned, look, leaders can keep people focused and they can really change the outcomes if you can get a team fully aligned and absolutely committed to a specific goal. Second one I mentioned from my youth was I was in high school and playing high school basketball. And I had high school coach who was basketball coach, was an Ironman competitor back in the early days of the Ironman, this is in the 1970s. And he taught me that the only thing holding me back were the limits I put on myself. And the way I learned this is I broke my thumb, I caught a tip, a pass on the tip of my thumb, fractured my thumb. And so I had a cast on, I couldn't practice. And so he said, well, you're gonna stay in shape, so let's go out for a run. So I go out for a run one day with him and in Golden, Colorado, it's a little town at the base of the Rocky Mountains. And there's a big mountain there called Lookout Mountain. And at the top of it is one of like three or four places in the western US where Buffalo Bill allegedly is buried. But it's a windy road up, you know, several couple thousand feet to get to the top of the mountain. And so we're running through town and have gone maybe a couple of miles. I'm getting a little winded and I, And I say, Mr. Myers, where are we going? He says, we're going to run up Lookout Mountain. And I said, no, really, where are we going? And the next thing I know, we're on this road, this windy road with switchbacks running all. And there was no way I could get to the top. I said, I can't do this. But I was 16 years old and he was, I don't know, more than twice my age. And I was going to admit that a history teacher was going to be able to run farther than I could run and do something I couldn't do. So 45 minutes later, there we are at the top of Lookout Mountain. And he had this habit, he'd run, he had his always tuck his keys in the waistband of his shorts. And so I thought, oh, he must have his car parked up at the top here and we're gonna drive back down. And we got up and he took two laps around the parking lot and then we started running back down the damn mountain. And the only thing harder than running up a mountain is running down one. And I managed to get the run in. And then I realized I could do that, but I didn't, I, I didn't think I could do it. And I've used that a lot in life. And one of the most rewarding things I ever am involved in is when I'm working with a team and they accomplish some goal that is way beyond what they envisioned they could do. And I actually see this a lot in people is they don't see the greatness in them, they don't see the opportunity in themselves. And my coach saw in me something that I didn't see in myself. And I try to look for that in people and try to help them achieve things that maybe they didn't think they could.
- [19:21]
Kula
I love this idea from Mike that limitations are often self imposed and a great leader sees potential in people that they don't always see themselves. Mike really ties us back to how he looks for that potential in his teams today.
- [19:33]
David
You know, some lessons are as much about passion as they are about work ethic. Now, Zach Brown, the CEO of McLaren Racing, shares here about how falling in love with racing as a 10 year old fueled his approach to business and mentorship. You know, you've got one of the most interesting jobs in the world, you know, running a Formula one team, but I want to start with the fan in you. You know, just what makes you a fan. What's the moment that you first fell in love with racing?
- [20:05]
Zach Brown
I remember it like it was yesterday and I carry it with me today. And as far as not only my fandom for the sport, but how I personally engage with the fans and how I expect our team and drivers to engage with the fans. And that was 1981, Long Beach Grand Prix. I'm from Los Angeles. My mom and dad took my brother and I and just because it was kind of the circus is in town, they didn't know anything about racing, I didn't know anything about racing. But a ten year old boy running around with his eight year old brother. The Long Beach Grand Prix, the sound, the speed. I remember the grandstand I was in. I remember the first racing driver I met, I remember who won, which was Alan Jones, then current world Champion. And some funny tiebacks to it, such as the gentleman montrouge who's unfortunately since passed away, brought me into McLaren, was a sponsor of that, that racing team that won that day. So all sorts of cool stories, but it was when I was 10 years old and I just fell in love with racing at that point and the whole visceral experience. And I still have the race program to this day. I'm a bit of a hoarder of stuff, always have been. And you know, I was fortunate back when I was racing to hang out with successful people at an early age, people like yourself, because when you're racing cars, you've got CEOs around you. And so it was a great education for me and I was always very interested. I had to fund my own racing career through sponsorship. So I needed to understand how business worked so I can understand how I could deliver motor racing sponsorships to build their business. So instead of kind of, you know, I'm an advocate of everyone, go to school. It's what I told my kids, they're doing a great job. One's graduated, one's close. That wasn't my background, but I got mine by hanging out with CEOs of these great companies, seeing how they worked, what they did great, where they had some blind spots and learned along the way so much of what to do, what not to do. So I've kind of developed my own ways of working if you'd like. But it just comes from years of being around successful individuals and quite frankly some unsuccessful individuals to go, oh, I would do that, I wouldn't do that. And a lot of what I do today are things that I've seen and I've learned from, from my mentors. I've got an advisory board of 20 people that I had at my old company that I've always had, which is kind of a build on surround yourself with great people. Whether you work for them, they work for you or their, their mentors. And for us, they're very engaged. And I, I, I just learned a lot over the years.
- [22:58]
Kula
It's interesting because Zach doesn't just learn the sport. He learns the environment, how fans behave, how teams interact, the business side of everything. And when you can combine your passion for something with acute observation like that, you really can motivate people to achieve incredible things because you have this global view of what it is you're doing. And that curiosity carried through as he started racing himself. Yeah, you know, leadership is about showing up authentically as yourself. And this next story from Lindsey Snyder, who's the president of In N Out, is an inspiring one about doing just that while leading a family business.
- [23:34]
David
You know, you come up, you know, in a family business, you know, how hard was it for you to really, you know, forge your own identity and be Lindsay and have everybody see you as the president?
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Lindsey Snyder
It was interesting. I'm not very tall. I'm blonde.
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Kula
And.
- [23:59]
Lindsey Snyder
There was a time there where I was trying to maybe dress the part. Like, I would get some business suits and dress differently. But then I finally just found I'm like, you know what? This is a family business. My uncle wanted to dress up, my dad wanted to dress down. Like, I think I'm just going to do what I feel comfortable with, and I'm going to encourage the same. So we kind of brought a more casual work environment to our offices. And it's not the outside. Right. It's the inside. And so we want our people to be happy. We want our people to know that we're all going towards the same thing. We want to take care of our customers. And whether we're in the store handing the customer their order, or behind the scenes making things right for our customer, I just want people to know that they're cared for, that they're loved, and that we're giving them this opportunity to do this in a, in a fun way, you know? And so I think I just started kind of connecting with my identity, really in this world. First with God, and then from there. It just brought me to a place where I didn't really care what people thought. Like, I don't care if you feel like I should dress up. I don't feel that I need to try to please everyone. What you see is what you get, and hopefully, you know what I'm about and that I really love people and want to hold things to a standard that my. My family would be proud.
- [25:41]
Kula
What really hits me here is her authenticity. She tried to dress the part, but ultimately realized that leadership is less about appearances and way more about values, connection, and creating a culture where people feel cared for.
- [25:55]
David
You know, leadership is all about connection, and it's all about learning how to work through your anxieties of moving into new situations, which leaders have to do all the time. And I love this story from Damola Adam Alekin, the CEO of Red Lobster, who really shares how he came from Nigeria and goes to Springfield, Illinois, and then on to Columbia, Maryland. And it's not quite my childhood because I lived in 23 states by the time I was in seventh grade. But I can tell you one thing, you learn a lot when you go into new environments.
- [26:30]
Damola Adam Alekin
Yeah, you know, I've got a. Something of a unique background and upbringing. I was born in a small town in Nigeria, so I had an international background. I was born in Nigeria in a town called Eleife. Lived abroad in Nigeria and Zimbabwe and in the Netherlands through my childhood, and then moved to the states when I was nine to Springfield, Illinois first, and then Columbia, Maryland, before I went to college at Brown. So for me, I had a. A childhood that required a lot of adapting from place to place, country to country, different types of people, different languages, which taught me how to do well in any situation and very widely varying situations. I think I learned a lot about people, obviously, the differences in these places, but more importantly, the similarities across geographies and cultures and people and what kind of the threads that humanity kind of have in common, no matter where you are, which I think is an important part of leadership is being able to connect to a wide range of types of people. And then finally, I'd say I learned that the best way to do well in any place that I went was just to be good at stuff. Right. So I learned that excellence travels. If you're a good athlete in Zimbabwe or in Springfield, Illinois, you're going to make some friends. Right. So I learned to try to be good at stuff that I did, and that was always the best way to fit in.
- [27:53]
David
I love that excellence travels. That is so true. No matter where you go, if you could take excellence with you, it definitely gives you heads up, you know, And I've heard you say, when it comes to excellence, that your parents set a real high bar. What's something they did or said that still plays in your head today?
- [28:14]
Damola Adam Alekin
Yeah, you know, I think for me it's. It's all about expectations. So, you know, my parents always. When we got to America, what they. My father said was, you know, in America, it doesn't matter what you do, because you'd look at, you know, we had a barber that was driving an S class Benz because he had the biggest barbershop in the town in Illinois, in Springfield. And my dad would say, it doesn't matter what you do if you're a doctor or a barber, if you're the best at what you do, you can do well in this country. Right? So it's never about forcing us to do anything in particular. It was all about, whatever you do, aim to be the best and let your work speak for itself. So that was the ethos within my family. And, you know, I remember I'd complained because I'd get all A's in one B, and my dad would want to.
- [28:58]
Zach Brown
Talk about the B.
- [28:58]
Damola Adam Alekin
And I'd say, my friends would be. You know, they'd get. They'd get money if they got 1C on their report cards. On my football friends, my dad, you know, he'd say, look, when you have a child that's doing 99% perfect and you see one thing that can be better, we're gonna work to make it better, right? So that was always the mentality, and it was all about doing the best you can and striving for excellence and perfection in everything you do.
- [29:19]
David
You know, Kula, you hear stories like these, and it's a reminder that every experience you have shapes the kind of leader you become. So as you spend time with your family and reflect on everything you've lived and learned this year, take a moment to think about the voices, the moments, and the memories that help make you the leader that you are today.
- [29:38]
Kula
Thanks for listening to how leaders lead, and we hope you have a very happy holiday season.
- [29:45]
Mike Worth
Sat.