In America, for less than $200, you can go
get any business registered at the City Hall and call yourself a CEO. You can even get a business card and call
yourself a CEO and give your business card away and say, "Man, I'm a CEO." But you know when you're a real CEO? When hundreds of other people call you a CEO. Because you've earned the right for other
people to see you as a CEO. So today, today, before you become a CEO,
one must act, behave, walk, talk, think like a CEO before you become a CEO. Way before I became a CEO, I worked on thinking
like a CEO, walking like a CEO, asking myself how I'd make a decision like a CEO, and then
I became a CEO. And then once I was called a CEO years later,
other people started seeing me as a CEO. Then the rest was history. So, today, qualities of a great CEO. And I'm telling this from a lot of my personal
mistakes on what can help you out for one day being a CEO and maybe one day you aspire
to become a great CEO, but regardless of whether you plan on becoming a great CEO or not, you're
going to learn a lot of things you can do to help yourself with your leadership abilities. So I have 19 different points to give you,
and I'll get right into it. Point #1: Great CEOs know how to manage their
ego. Let me explain. Nobody becomes a CEO who doesn't have an ego. Nobody. Not a single soul becomes a CEO who doesn't
have an ego. Nobody becomes the President of the United
States without being a little bit mentally off to believe you have the best processor
to make decisions. You've got somewhat of an ego. Right? So you've got to realize, people who don't
have egos don't want to be presidents. So there's nothing wrong with having a big
ego. But you've got to learn how to manage your
own ego, because if you don't control your ego, you're definitely in trouble. Let me explain why. When you become very successful, and you start
making a lot of money, and everybody knows you and you have fame and all this other stuff,
there's something that happens. And let me tell you what that one thing is. It's called you are flooded with compliments. You are flooded with compliments. Let me give you the compliments. Oh, you're so amazing. You're so ridiculously good. Oh, you're better than this. Oh, you're better than that." And so many people are going to feed you this
stuff because you're surrounded by people that are afraid of the decisions you could
make to fire them, so everybody wants to tell you how amazing you are, right? Let me tell you, 90% of it is lies. I just want you to know that. Because most people are not going to tell
you what you need to hear. If you have a small circle of people around
you that are telling you the truth, you need that. Because that's going to help you manage your
ego. If you no longer talk to the guys that tell
you off, and are not afraid to tell you things you need to hear - and I'm talking about a
small board that you have, or mentors that you have that are willing to sit with you
and tell you otherwise, you're going to be in trouble. I've seen this happen in sales many times. I've been dealing with sales people for a
long time. They start making money. Everybody starts telling them how amazing
they are. They're no longer coachable, not willing to
learn. They don't listen to anything. They know every single thing because they
already know it. They forgot how to manage their own ego. Now that's step number one. Let me tell you step number two of a great
CEO. They have a way of finally realizing that
they need to get a touch of humility in them. Here's why. You know why humility helps? Because other people want to work with you. If you don't have humility, you can't bring
people together. If you don't have humility, people who disagree
with you won't want to do business with you. If you don't have humility, you can't have
an environment with a lot of different personalities. Because they have to be in a certain set of
personalities to be able to work with you. Humility is extremely needed. Point number three. CEOs are extremely driven. What I did last week, can you give me that
packet right there, the bag right there. Just give me the whole bag. So, I brought, all the, [Edgar, you can say
hi to everybody. This is Edgar, a new teammate of ours for
about a month and a half.] So, two weeks ago I invited some of the biggest
insurance companies in the world, CEOs, all these different people showed up. We took them to a nice dinner, at Capital
Grill, in Dallas, at Cresent, which is my favorite building in the world is the Cresent. The last five years I wrote a book. It's a fiction book. It's my first fiction book I've ever written. The entire book was inspired by this building,
The Cresent. The setting is at a building that looks like
The Cresent. So we had dinner at the Capital Grill and
I brought up to dinner, and normally in the insurance industry, they pay for our dinner. I paid for everybody. That's not a cheap dinner, a few thousand
dollars. Then the following day, The Cresent has a
17th floor, it's a club, where President Bush goes and other presidents - many different
presidents, both on the left and right have been to this club. And there's a lot of strong billionaires,
oil people that go over here. I rented the entire room, and I took them
over there. We had lunch. From 8:00 in the morning till noon, I presented
to them with the 2017 vision. When we had this meeting, and it's a room
filled with a lot of egos, full of a lot of egos, and everybody is products - we sell
their products. And they're all multi-billion dollar companies,
ranging from a $10 billion company to a $300 billion company, they're all in the room,
and we're presenting all this stuff that I'm sharing with all these guys. This is how the meeting got started, the first
thing. I said, "I got a gift for you." Typically, these meetings start in a different
way. But I got a surprise for you. I said, first, we need to realize that ego
is the enemy, and we all need to set aside our ego. If we don't lead with humility, and we lead
purely with ego, nothing's going to get done. If you're willing to set aside your egos,
we're willing to set aside our egos. Hopefully we can do something big together. This doesn't mean I'm going to stop negotiating. Because I'm going to ask for a bigger contract,
but this [ego] needs to be set aside. It's as simple as that. I gave it to everybody. We laughed, we had fun. They enjoyed it. Then I gave them the next hat here. And this hat, doesn't say "Make America Great
Again." Obviously, we're trying to have some humor
with these guys. It says "Make Insurance Cool Again." Make Insurance Cool Again. The reason why I gave them these hats is because
there's nothing cool about life insurance. If you've ever been to a life insurance traditional
convention, with all these insurance companies go to, it's pretty bad, when you go to it. So we gave them this hat, everybody starts
laughing, and we took a picture, everybody took a picture again, together, and I said,
"We've got to make insurance cool again." What's the likelihood of doing that? It's very difficult for a lot of other people,
but we're doing it. We made it cool. Millennials love working for our firm. We have multi-culture, the average agent in
our company is a 34-year-old Hispanic female, while America right now is struggling to get
Hispanics, multiculturals, and millennials and gen x-ers to become agents. And we're very good at that. So I gave them this hat. And everyone starts laughing. The next thing we gave them, was a phone charger. The phone charger said, "Every single time
you charge your phone, I want you to think about that we're going to power up the entire
industry. That's what we're going to be doing. So next time you charge your phone, think
about us. Because we're probably out there growing the
industry." And last but not least what I gave them was
the following. Here's what I gave them. We gave them two cigars, Romeo and Julietta,
okay, two cigars. And the reason why we got them these two cigars
for them, I said the following. I said, Look, in business, sometimes, we end
up spending more time, with people, we're in business with, than our own family. Because that's just kind of how business works. You're traveling and doing all these other
stuff. I said, "It's even greater if you can enjoy
doing business with people that you enjoy being in business with." And I said, "I hope we can take our business
relationship from what it is today to a friendship by sharing many different cigars together
so you and I can get to know each other so we make tens of millions of dollars together,
but at the same time we establish a relationship with you as well. Are you open to that?" Yes. Then we kicked off the meeting. That's how the meeting got started. Now why am I telling you this? Here's why I'm telling you this. We're extremely driven. Everybody in that room is driven. Everybody's got ego. But we have to figure out a way to set aside
the ego and manage this [humility] and lead with this for everybody else to open up and
say, fair enough, let's do business together. This is one of the things that a CEO typically
has to start with a lot of this [ego], because this is what survives, and you just want to
kill everybody and compete and all this stuff, and then you realize, sometimes you're killing
your own allies. These are your friends you're killing. You know how sometimes you play those video
games and you kill the wrong person and you lose? You're killing your own allies. That's not smart. Because your ego. We need to lead with this [humility] and you
need to know how to manage your ego, while still being driven, while still knowing you're
going to be dealing with a lot of other driven people. #4: Care for their people. Great CEOs care for their people. If you ask any of the CEOs, like I got a call
the other day from a guy I worked with a long time ago. His name ______________. Let me tell you what he called me and told
me. He called me and he and I were speaking about
something on the private side. I haven't talked to this guy for the longest
time and I was mentoring him way, way, way many years ago. He was like family. I protected this guy. I looked over him. I wanted to make sure he had a very good life
and enjoyed himself. I enjoyed the company of his mom, dad, sister,
everybody with his family. Now, certain things happened. He called me. He said, "Pat, every single time I make a
decision, I say the following. I say, what would Patrick so in this situation? Some of the best times I had in business was
working with you. I haven't learned as much as I learned, except
when I was working with you." Let me tell you why it's so important to care
for people. I got another call from a guy named Danny. I won't tell his last name, Danny. He called me in tears. He called me a year and a half ago, and he
was in tears. He said, you have no idea how reluctant I've
been about calling you because it's been a decade." I said, "Danny, what's going on?" because
it's been a decade. I remember everything, the people that worked
for me, I know their stories, because I care for the people, I know their stories. And he said to me, "Pat, I got to tell you
something, man." He's quiet and I'm like why is this guy crying? I haven't talked to you for 10 years. He said, "I'm now the president of the bank
I work at. I'm doing very well. I am married. I am so happy I can't even tell you. I'm making a multi six-figure a year income. And I'm here to tell you, everything I'm putting
in this leadership position, is the stuff I learned when I was working in the business
with you." You may be watching this and you're in Malaysia. You're in Brazil. You and I will never meet each other. The possibility of us meeting each other may
be never, right? But you may realize that the only way you
will be called a great CEO is if you realize the most important product you will ever have
as a CEO is the people around you. If you forget that, you're in deep doo doo. Let me tell you. They make you look good. Without them, you're not existent. So if you think the world revolves around
you as a CEO, you're in deep trouble. Without them, nothing happens. And by the way, there's fake care, and people
can tell. And there's real sincerity, and authenticity,
about you truly caring about the people around you. By the way, most people know how to read through
the BS. You truly got to care about your people. So ask yourself, how often do you care about
your people? Do you think about their dreams, their goals,
what they want their purpose to become a reality. Are you thinking from that standpoint? If you are, you're going to end up becoming
a pretty solid CEO one day. Number 5. Human nature. You've got to study human nature. Why human nature? Great CEOs understand human nature because
they realized a very, very long time ago their number one product is not technology. I was at a Dallas Cowboys game. They lost to the Packers. Tough game, man, let me tell you. We were at the game, we had box seats. We were with this technology guy and doing
a bit of negotiation with them and the CEO of this company they did about $100 million
last year. So, Tom, asked them a question about, hey,
how long have you been coding? He said, "I've never coded in my life." Wait a minute, we cut a massive check to you,
and you've never coded?" He said, "I've never coded in my life. Him, and the biz dev guy have never coded
in their life. But they were both good in one thing. Human nature. Human nature. Because the number one product is not coding. The number one product is not insurance, annuities,
all this other stuff. By the way, if you're a CEO and you know your
products very well, you got an edge on everybody. So don't take this for a moment for you to
say, well, thank God, because I know nothing about my product. I'm not giving you an out. So don't take the out there. Hang on. Come back here. You've got to learn the product. But the number one product of all, is human
nature. You got to know what happens when people are
down, why this person's not all in, why this person's being a little bit forgetful, what's
in the personal life. You've got to take them out to lunch and talk
to them and say, "Is everything okay? How's your wife doing? Are the kids good?" This is all the stuff you got to know about. Because it's relationships. Business is purely relationships. #6, comfortable handling contradictions. This is very difficult for a lot of people. Let me explain. So any time I try to develop somebody into
becoming a CEO or an entrepreneur, somebody that's running their own business, they're
so like, I'm a black and white type of person. And it's the only way I do business, black
and white. I'm like listen, I wish life was black and
white. But life is not black and white. Life is blue sometimes, it's white sometimes,
it's black sometimes. Sometimes it's pink, green, purple, sometimes
it's colorful. Sometimes it's very weird. So if you go into business expecting just
black and white, you're going to miss out on 80% of the opportunities. There are some gray areas in business and
it's about learning how to deal with contradictions. What am I talking about with contradictions? On one side, one can say, hard work! You got to work hard to go out there and be
successful. 100% true. The key is working smart to become successful. And these guys may be true. Sometimes people say no, it's only about working
hard. No, it's only about working smart. Of course you need to work smart and have
tools. But if I got a guy that knows how to work
hard and manage his energy and his health, and he knows how to work smart by having the
right tools and people around him, he's going to kick the other guy's but that only thinks
about working hard or only thinking about working smart. So you got to learn that there's a lot of
contradictions in life and in business. "Success, happiness is about living a balanced
life." Okay, okay. I mean, what is so balanced about being pregnant
and having a kid, and 24/7 a woman all they have to think about is pregnancy. Nursing. We have several, I'm okay with people that
want to bring their kids here to work. They're pumping milk all day long. So what is the balanced life about it when
you're nursing the kid seven, eight times a day and they're pooping. Your life is not balanced. Let me explain to you, one of the biggest
highs is having a kid. "But life is about being balanced, right?" You got a person that's chasing to win a championship,
a Super Bowl, plays in a movie six months they're shooting, it's not a balanced life. So what is balance? Is this like certain balance is supposed to
be 9-5. You got to know how to live with contradictions
as a CEO and you got to dance with contradictions. And don't be stiff when you're dancing with
contradictions. Just kind of dance with contradictions and
be okay with it when you're dealing with contradictions because if you don't, you're going to have
a lot of anxiety attacks and you're going to be having a lot of migraines if you try
to control all these contradictions. Number 7. They think outside the box. Solid CEOs, they think outside the box. It's not always one way of doing anything. They think outside the box. They regularly think outside the box. One of the videos I did on thinking outside
the box is how to think big as an entrepreneur, that's a video you ought to watch. It has to do a little bit with how to think
outside the box. But they don't just look at one thing and
say, "we have to do this, this, this, this." They're very good at looking at this and saying,
you know, connect the dot, I think it's. . . Yeah, I never thought about that. Yeah, it's this. We need to focus on this. We've never done this before. And they're willing to think a little bit
different than most people would think. #8, they have a reputation. Let me explain to you what I mean by a reputation. They can't be pushed around by competitors. Typically strong CEOs, I was watching this
one president of a company and he went up there and he was being pushed around by Elizabeth
Warren. And this was a financial firm company I was
watching. And she was just pushing him and pushing him. And I'm sitting there saying, where is your
spine? Stand up already! It wasn't Wells Fargo. I said, stand up already! Stand up for your industry! You're making everybody look like they're
doing something wrong. Have some backbone. Say something! He's just sitting there like this, shaking. Because he's worried about his $6 million
bonus. Say something already! He's no longer the president. I wouldn't have him as a president. Voice your opinion a little bit. You can't be a CEO representing the industry
and you don't have a backbone to share your thoughts and opinions because you're worried
about regulators and the government. You've got to say stuff a little bit. I'm not talking about being disrespectful. But you can't just sit there and take it all
the time. A CEO can't be pushed around. You can't bully a CEO. They stand up. One of the most respectable CEOs I ever met
was named Bob Benmosche. We established a relationship together. At a conference in 2015, I will never forget
he died that night during our awards ceremony, he had died that night. The was the former CEO of MetLife. He retires, very wealthy, goes to Croatia,
which is my favorite place in the world, and he buys a vineyard. And all he does is make wine. And one day his son is over there, and it's
2008. AIG's about to go bankrupt. I'm having dinner with the CEO of AIG, David
Herzog and they call him. They said, we need you to help us out. He said, "I'm not coming." They said, we need you to help us out. He said, "Look, I'm good. He has three years to live. He's got cancer. He's dying. He's got three years to live. AIG calls him. Bob Benmosche gets up, out of retirement,
is on his death bed, three years to live. On steroids all the time because he's dying. He gets out of retirement, comes to AIG, starts
working, promotes David Herzog, believe from American General from AIG CFO, they go to
the government, they ask for $183 billion check. And when I'm having dinner, I'll never forget. They said, every day we were getting hounded
by regulators about our debt. Finally, Bob Benmosche calls. Hey, this money we took from you, we're not
GM. We're going to pay you back. You're not going to bully us on a daily basis. I'm going to tell you right now, not a single
call. I'm going to let you know exactly what we're
doing, but not one more single call. Whoa. Bob Benmosche comes, sells off all the companies
they didn't need. Some of them he held a little bit longer to
sell. AIG's a very big company. He pays back $183 billion plus another $23
billion in interest or so. Then he pays that back. GM still hasn't paid back. So many other people haven't paid back. AIG paid back. AIG's credibility comes back in the marketplace. Six months after that, he died. It was a Friday night when this man died. And all I remember about Bob Benmosche, every
time he and I were together, all I remember is a man with presence, with leadership, with
backbone, that people wanted to follow. He wasn't liked all the time. But there's one thing everybody knew. If that dude's at the helm, he's leading it
as a CEO - you're going to be fine. He's a general, the way he led the company. And not everybody has his personality. But generally strong CEOs, they can't be pushed
around. Next, number nine. They're great at asking questions. They're great at asking questions. When they don't understand something, they're
going to ask questions. When they want to find the deeper issues,
they know how to ask the right questions. A lot of times people don't ask the right
questions. You can ask questions, but then it's asking
the right questions, that gets the right answer, that solves the bigger problem, not the smaller
problem. Great CEOs are very good at asking the right
questions. Study great CEOs on what questions they generally
ask and you'll tell yourself, man, I was thinking about the surface. This guy's thinking here [deep]. These are the questions I want to be asking
about. That's what you want to be thinking about. Number 10, they want feedback. What do you think? What are your thoughts? What do you think about this? What do you think about that? And they know who to get the right feedback
from, and they're constantly asking for feedback. Number 11, they raise standards. They're always raising standards. It's uncomfortable being around strong CEOs,
great CEOs. They're always raising standards. Most people believe it or not, don't even
like working with great CEOs. Because it's not comfortable. It's always raising standards. Almost a feeling of it's not enough. It's not enough. It's not enough. We're not there yet. We're not there yet. It's always a standard. "Every time I get somewhere, you move the
marker." That's the job of a leader. "Every time I feel like I go, you move it
a little bit more. When are you going to be fully happy?" That's what makes them so special. That's why history books are going to favor
Bob Benmosche and when he died, a bunch of people go and buy his book because they wanted
to know what made him so special to save AIG from a major debacle or major issue that we're
going to be facing. Right? Because they know how to raise everyone's
standards. I remember when in Napa Valley, and Bob Benmosche
walks in, and there's a meeting going on, everybody in that room that reported to him
was uncomfortable. It was so funny just watching everybody. They were uncomfortable, because he was a
leader. He raised the standards. He told everybody, here's how the meeting
to started, and he had just become a CEO three months ago. He said "This Napa Valley thing," he told
everybody, this is not going to happen for six years. We got money to pay back. We got money to pay back. That's how he started the meeting. This stuff, not happening anymore. We got money to pay back. And he looked at all of us and he says, hey,
we know we haven't been good, but we need your business. We need your business. We need you to work with us. We need your business. Flat out. I've got a lot of respect for a man that talks
like that, and is very open about it. Number 12, they build strong alliances. Remember when I talked about humility? They build very strong alliances, because
look, you can only go somewhere, so far, by yourself. Amazon, if you read Amazon's case study from
Harvard, if you type in Amazon case study, and you type in Amazon, Toys R Us, if you
study what Amazon did in '01, if Amazon doesn't build an alliance with Toys R Us, forget about
Amazon. There is no Amazon. He gets credit for what he did with Toys R
Us. So how did he do that? Building strong alliances. How did Steve Jobs, when he was about to go
out of business, go to Microsoft, Bill Gates, his biggest enemy and the meeting starts like
this - we have been under this impression that in order for Apple to win, Microsoft
has to lose. He says this in his talk. Just type in Steve Jobs, speech, Microsoft
has to lose. He says this. He says that's not true. He had to go to Bill Gates and say, "I need
$300 million." Bill Gates, his biggest enemy gives him $300
million but imagine if he doesn't build that alliance. They're out of business. Everybody in Silicon Valley, Palo Alto's saying
a guy from here went to Seattle to raise money from the enemy. That's called building an alliance. Today you and I use our iPhone or all these
other great devices because somebody was strong at building alliances. Number 13. They speak different languages. What do I mean by that? I'm not talking English, Spanish, I'm not
talking about that. I'm talking about they speak different languages. Let me elaborate. They know how to talk to employees different
than the way they talk to executives, different than the way they talk to salespeople, different
than the way they talk to investors. Different than the way they talk to media,
different than the way they talk to their family, different. . . They know how to speak these dif - and
let me tell you. It ain't the same language. It is not the same language. You cannot go talk to the front desk clerk
at a company that you're the CEO and then talk to that person as if that person's a
full on executive. You can't. Because it's a different language. So you got to know how to speak these different
languages. You can't go to an investor and just kind
of be lollygagging with them, while they're expecting returns on their tens of millions
of dollars that they give you. And I walk into these rooms, it's different
conversations, regularly. I did a video that's called seven different
audiences CEOs talk to, I think it's seven different audiences CEOs talk to. Let's put the tab up here, Edgar make sure
we put it up there, and the link on the bottom. You have to watch this video. It's seven different audiences a CEO speaks
to. That will help you out on understanding how
they speak to those different customers. Next, number 14. They know their strengths, very well. But guess what? They know their weaknesses even more. Here's why. They're very comfortable being weak. They're so comfortable being weak. At least the great ones. At least the great ones are very comfortable
being weak. Because what they do with the weakness is
they recruit the weakness. So whatever they're weak at, they bring somebody
who's strength is in their weakness. Simple. And the sooner you identify your weaknesses,
the sooner you're going to be able to leverage your abilities to focus on your strengths
and not have to worry about your weaknesses. You can always recruit your weaknesses. By the way, everyone's got weaknesses. Focus on your strengths. Next point, number 15. They know what they know, and they know what
they don't know. Let me say it again. They know what they know, and they know what
they don't know. Similar to weaknesses, but it's not. Meaning, whatever they don't know, they know
the person who can get them to the answer of what they don't know. It's simple. If it's a question that's technical, ask this
one. I know who to call to get me the answers to
stuff I don't know about. And they're fine with it. So they know what they know and they know
what they don't know. #16: They're very decisive, they make the
decision, boom. I had Tom the other day told me, Pat, when
you want to fire somebody, it's like [snap] that quick. I said, I'm good. The moment I know somebody doesn't fit in
a, and I've seen a trend of three times, I'll typically give someone three chances. But if I notice somebody just is not fitting,
and it happens like this [up and down] over and over again, gone. They have to go to a different place. It's like a relationship. That doesn't mean that person's a bad person. They're not going to fit in a place like this. Because for whatever reason this culture doesn't
fit with that person, that constantly keeps coming back. That person may go to a completely different
place and be happy. Just not on this team. We have a certain set of culture here that
we have to follow through. #17, timing. Timing in business, timing in statements,
timing in comments, timing in marketing campaigns, timing in breaks, timing in initiatives, timing
on stuff for the associates and employees, and sales. Everything's about timing. They're very good at timing. #18: They're very strong drivers. If there's an initiative, they will be driving
it over and over and over and over again, until you do it. They will drive the initiative nonstop. That's what makes these guys special. They drive. They're going to drive the initiative. And the moment you thought they forgot about
them, they're about to give you a speech on driving that initiative, why everybody should
be focused on that. They're nonstop drivers. And 19, last point here, they're very good
at rallying the troops. They're very good at rallying the troops. They know how to get the troops going. If it's sales, if it's team, if it's home
office, if it's support, they know how to rally the troops. So that's 19 different qualities of a great
CEO. And by the way, if you're watching this and
saying, "Oh my gosh, I got a lot of work to do. All this stuff's going to take years. Don't expect to be good at this overnight. It's just good to look at it, and say I can
improve in the following areas to become a better CEO myself. One day, where other people start looking
at you as a CEO instead of just going out there and paying a couple hundred dollars
and getting a Vista Print business card just to call yourself a CEO. With that being said, if you've got any questions
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