Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - John Donahoe: eBay, PayPal, Bain... Leadership

Episode Date: March 2, 2016

John Donahoe served as president and chief executive officer of eBay Inc. from 2008-2015. In this role, he was responsible for growing each of the company's business units, which included eBay Marketplaces, PayPal and Skype. In this episode: -Notion of servant leadership -Being a purpose driven leader -Growing from adversity -Figuring out what’s right for you -The right fit – team ethos -Facing down fear -How success in team sports and business aren’t so different -Emulating his father -Balancing his professional and personal life -Qualities of those who sustain success over time -The importance of grit -The constant process of understanding who he is -Meditation and why “Buddha Nature” is important to him_________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And in this conversation, I was fortunate enough to sit down with John Donahoe. And as you might recognize from his name, he was the former president and CEO of eBay. He's recently left that position and he's in a transition phase right now. So it's a really unique opportunity to allow us, and he allowed us to understand how he's come to understand how leadership works, how the world works, how business works. Before his time at eBay, he ran or was the CEO of Bain and Company, which is one of the world's largest consulting firms. So he has a deep point of view about leading and coaching. And this is a wonderful conversation. I hope it translates how thoughtful, how clearly he's able to think about the human experience, about how corporations and large groups of people

are best served. And he's got a hunger and a thirst for insight. And he searches for other people to help him along that path. And I hope that we can also be so inspired by what he shares with us. I know I was, I really enjoyed this conversation. It was wonderful. I left feeling better and it's just better because it confirmed many of the things that I had not yet been able to exercise in my own life, but I was curious about. And it was just, it was absolutely wonderful. Towards the end of the conversation, you'll hear that there's a lot of clanking in the background. It's because we pulled up just before a dinner meeting for a speakers conference. I'm sorry. Yeah, a's event for Wisdom 2.0. And if you haven't checked out Wisdom 2.0, it's very, very wonderfully thoughtful and it's wonderfully a word, a very thoughtful conversation with people that are interested in technology and mindfulness and business. And you can find it at, I don't do a search for Wisdom 2.0. I think there's some sort of sub handle around that, but it was a great do a search for Wisdom 2.0. I think there's some sort of sub-handle around that.

But it was a great conference. I've been fortunate to be around. Okay, so enjoy. I hope you walk away with as much as I did. And let's get right into John. All right, John, thank you for coming on the Finding Mastery podcast to have some conversation about your life, your path, and what you've come to understand of

your storied career. And so, yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, cool. Thank you. Okay, so bring us up to speed right now. I mean, everyone will already know what you've been up to for the last probably 30 years. 30 years, yes. So you've been in the trenches, on the world stage with companies that are making global

impact. And then, so bring us up to speed what you're doing at this point. Well, last year, as you said, I've been blessed in my career of having what ended up being two wonderful platforms, two wonderful organizations, institutions, where I was able to both learn and grow an enormous amount and grow an enormous amount and contribute an enormous amount. Yeah. Contribute to, when you say contribute, what do you mean there? Well, one of the things that I was deeply sort of versed in when I was at Bain, and frankly, I first saw this with my father, but I really learned more consciously at Bain was this notion of servant leadership.

Okay. Yeah. And the notion that the job of the leader is not necessarily to lead, as in top of the learned in, instead of an organization chart being a triangle, like most people think about it with the CEO on top, the organization that I understood and still live with today is one that's an upside down triangle where the customers are on the top of the organization chart. And they're the reason why we exist, why any organization exists, which is to serve the customers. Got it. And then the customer serving employees are on the top of the organizational chart. Now at eBay, those were our customer service colleagues and our customer service teammates. The people that dealt with customers day in, day out, dealt with their

problems and resolving their problems and helping with their issues. And I always understood them, they're at the very top of our organization chart. And then everyone else in the organization exists to help them serve our customers. There you go. And as CEO, I was on the bottom of the organization chart because my job ultimately was to serve the customers and serve our organization by helping to enable the people on our team achieve our purpose and serve customers. And so the notion of servant leadership was sort of how I learned about leadership. And at Bain, it was very much around serving for a discrete period of time. Stewardship is how we describe the leadership roles. You're in them for discrete periods of time. And then when I joined eBay, it was interesting. When I first met Pierre Midiar, he talked about how he really wanted to build an enduring company. When you say you joined, it's an interesting point of language that you joined, but did you come right in at the CEO level?

No, I didn't. No, you didn't. Okay. So I worked with Meg Whitman in mid-80s at Bain. And in 2005, she called me and said, John, I don't have a successor at eBay. Why don't you join eBay, work with me for a couple of years, and then succeed me? And at the time, eBay was one of the hottest companies on earth. It had just come through a phase where it was a cat's meow. And I initially said to Meg, Meg, that's not me. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a lot of things.

I'm not hot. And that's not, that's, you know, I'm more of a built to last guy. That's just not, that's just not my thing. Okay. And she said, please take a few minutes and meet our founder, Pierre Aminia. And so I'll never forget it. Okay. So at that point in time, what you just described,

what I heard was that you had a clear sense of your philosophy, your center, which is a built to last, which is somebody who goes on the long journey. It's not a sizzle approach, right? It's more of a stake like, Hey, listen, this is, there's, there's, um, gravity and weight and endurance that I want to bring to whatever I'm doing. And am I getting that close to right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I was, you know, I sort of knew who I was and who I wasn't. I was a purpose-driven leader. I was someone that when I can lock into a purpose of an organization and I can lock into the notion of service and servant leadership and stewardship. How did you come to know that that was you? That purpose? I get the servant leadership part.

It just was my, you know, Mike, it was just, you know, when I was at Bain, Bain had a strong sense of purpose and then went through a lot, almost went bankrupt. Oh, really? Oh, in the early 90s, almost went bankrupt. So for those that don't know Bain & Company, it's a consulting firm. It was a consulting firm. One of the best. And so you were there. I was there. I was joining in 82 out of college. And 10 years later, it was almost bankrupt. And

that's when Mitt Romney actually came in to run the firm. But you see in moments of adversity, when things are going great, everything's fine. Life's good. But you don't really learn and grow. And it's during periods of adversity. That's when you learn. That's when you develop character. That's when you develop character as a person.

That's when you develop character as a leader. That's when a team develops character. That's when an organization develops characters in the periods of adversity. And I saw those periods through Bain and was part of the team that really helped lead out of that. And it was some of the most fulfilling periods of my life. The challenge and the adversity. The challenge and then leading through it and seeing how we could build and rebuild the purpose and the values and the organization in a way that was dynamic. And so I kind of knew who I was. And one of the things at Bain is you get to see lots of companies, right, through clients.

You see dozens and dozens and dozens of different companies. And it was always the ones that I was attracted to were purpose-driven companies. And this is not good or bad. What I've learned in life is it's what turns one person on may not turn the next person on. It may not turn the next person on. And there's no right or wrong. What each of our jobs is, at least as I understand it, is to figure out what's right for me. What turns me on or what motivates me, what inspires me, what gives me that irrational source of resilience and commitment and energy you need to try to accomplish anything that's worthy. And so when Meg called about eBay, I just thought, hey, that's, it's great.

Cool company. Love it. It's just not for me. And then I met Pierre Midiar, eBay's founder. And I'll never forget it because I was expecting this larger than life entrepreneur founder of one of the world's most successful companies. And I expected sort of this brash, charismatic guy. And I walked in and he was one, I could see immediately, he was one of the most grounded human beings I'd encountered. He had this sense of presence. And I said, so how will you define

success? You asked him. I asked Pierre. And he said, he didn't talk about growth. He didn't talk about share price. He didn't talk about the media. He didn't talk about all the things that society sort of holds up on a pedestal. He said, eBay will be successful in my mind by how many hundreds of millions of people's lives we can positively impact over time. That's what I care about. And I was like, you had me at hello. Yeah, there you go. And when I say joined, I said, that's a cause, that's a purpose, that's a cause I can believe in. And he was a leader. He was a force. I said, that's the kind of person. He embodied servant leadership.

And in fact, that was part of eBay's, this is a long-winded answer to your short question, working your way around where I am right now. He handed off the CEO role to Meg Whitman before the company went public. There's probably one in a thousand founders that do that. But Pierre had enough self-knowledge knowing that he didn't want to really run the company. He was still chair of the board, still owned the largest shareholder by far, but he handed off to Meg. And then Meg ran it for 10 years, again, in this notion of servant leadership. And she handed off when she was 52 years old.

She said, I'm only going to stay 10 years, get that service. And she handed off to me. And I understood every day I was there of my job was to be a steward of the values and purpose of the company and the people associated with it, both our customers, our community of users, and our employees. And after 10 years, you know, I then handed off to the next set of leaders. Yeah. When you're talking, the filter that I'm going through right now is, because I talk about this all the time with loved ones and people that I spend time with, is the importance of having a philosophy. Like who are you as a man or as a woman? What are the guiding principles is another way of

thinking about a philosophy and when you know that and you're really clear about it nobody can take it away from you yeah and then you can work to align your efforts in life that um that will amplify to use that word you know it's a very popular word now but amplify how you understand how the world works and how you fit in it. And then when those two come together and you've got a real clear vision of what you would like to see yours and or others' future, then things, I think then we can weather the storms. Then we can be resilient, to use your word earlier. And then we have the fuel and energy because it's really clear who we are and where we want to go, that there's going to be challenging times.

Yes. And I'm curious for you, do you want to do challenging things? Yes. I would say it this way. I believe deeply in the power of people. Yeah. I believe deeply in the power of people. I believe deeply in the, I talk about the multiplicative impact people can have. And so I have been fortunate enough to been part of two organizations that believed deeply in people and by empowering those people, by helping them learn, develop, and grow, both individually and collectively, the impact the people had was enormous, both when it was at Bain, both with clients, but even perhaps more so when people left Bain and went off and made contributions

all over the world. And so I got a huge amount of, um, of, of, um, inspiration seeing that that way. It was challenging. Would you work on the, on the individual level to help people or like your direct reports and maybe support some of their direct reports when things were escalated to, you know, your position, or were you working more on a systemic, uh systemic view on how to help the entire organization to be able to serve the customers better? You have to do both. I mean, you absolutely have to do both. You have to say, all right, what do we stand for? And what's our plan to win?

And what do I expect and we expect of each other as a team? But then you have to go at least with a subset of people and understand each person, understand each person's hopes, dreams, aspirations, fears, and link, help them link their own personal passion, their own personal energy, their own personal aspirations to the broader cause. And as you said, Mike, I loved what you said earlier, which is on a team, you don't want everyone that's exactly the same. You want people that have different skills and maybe even different skill sets and backgrounds. And

you want them to have a shared aspiration, but they can have different styles to get there. And so linking the different styles to a shared goal, a shared aspiration is sort of, I think, the job of a leader. What would you do when you were running from a global organization and you needed to have an outcome. And because if you don't have outcomes, people lose jobs, people lose money, and you don't get to do the thing that you've set out to want to do at some point. Like in the sport world, people get fired and they're cut, coaches and athletes. And so the need for outcome is really important. The value is my interpretation to accelerate the outcome, place both eyes squarely on the ball, which is all about the process and not about where you want the ball to go. Because if you can get the ball in the right direction, it's going to eventually get there.

Maybe that's a weird way of saying that the process is really where to put all of one's attention. When somebody is a high earner and they are absolutely crushing it, take it at eBay or wherever we can think about a large company, and they're high earners, but they don't fit the culture. They don't fit. They create a wake of destruction. And I'm sure you have them. I've seen them across sport where people mistakenly will trade talent for culture. And you might get some short-term wins and get you through some dark periods, if you will, but the darkness thereafter is really dark. And can you talk about that decision-making process of maybe it's really simple for you. It's like, listen, if they don't

fit and they're destructive to culture, they got to go. But I'm curious how you would work with an individual in a position of influence that might not have fit. Well, you always give them a chance. And again, it gets to understanding what their specific aspirations are, their specific hopes, dreams, and fears, and connecting it to the broader goal. And we were talking before we started this podcast about one of my probably single greatest leadership role model in my life, other than my father, has been Phil Jackson. And what I just loved about Phil Jackson is one, he was a servant leader. He absolutely was quite clear that the players on his teams were better basketball players than he ever had been. But he got

Michael Jordan, the greatest player that ever played up into that period of time to buy into the team. And he got Scotty Pippen and someone like Dennis Rodman. He got Steve Kerr, I think, as a protege of Phil Jackson having success in a similar way. But he was able to take a guy like Jordan that maybe could have gone either way and Michael Jordan bought into the team concept. He then replicated at the Lakers, getting Shaq and Kobe,

two guys that did not have a history of doing this, to buy into playing together. So when you can do it, and it takes individual conversation, it takes understanding their unique skills, talents, and helping to link it, but being clear about the teamwork ethos you expect. And so my experience is more times than not with the top, top performers, they actually are human beings as well. Ultimately, they want to win and they want to be part of something broader and they want to feel respected and appreciated for who they are. That said, I'm crystal clear that if that individual doesn't make that choice, the team is almost always better off without them.

Yeah, that's crazy. choice, the team is almost always better off without them. And so I've had multiple experiences in my life where I've just said to someone, you know, I love you to death. You're as talented as can be, but you're not the right fit for where we're going right now. And so I want you to get to a different situation where your skills and proclivities and your attitude may be a better fit, but it's not right for where we're going right here. And I've never- You're really clear about this. I am because every single time the question was not, did I do it too fast? It was, why didn't I do it faster?

I mean, you almost always see a collective. It's like the organization takes a breath and then other people step up. Other people step up and they- I see the same exact thing inside a sport organization. Same exact thing. And it's this fear that without them, we're not going to be okay. We're not going to be good enough because they're such a star. They're so incredible at what they do, but it's a bad fit. Yes. And the fit is really important.

And I love the idea of like, why did I wait this long? And I think for me, at least, it's out of fear. It's that I'm not going to be okay without him or her. And operating out of fear is a whole different, well, if you were chronically operate of fear, it's called anxiety. And it's one of the, maybe somewhere between a third of the population or less likely have clinical anxiety, which is they're worried about, will they be able to manage the future? Okay. Yeah. But I love your, I love your analogy of sports because I use analogies of sports all the time. And I love basketball. The greatest basketball team in the last decade has been the San Antonio Spurs. The team ethos just exudes. Phil Jackson's teams were the great teams,

the Lakers and the Bulls before that. They had superstar, but what they were known for was the team. And now what the Golden State Warriors are doing, right? And it's, yes, they've got Steph Curry. They have the best basketball player in basketball, but he is not what's making them great. It's the team. Yeah. It's the collective. Yeah. And so the winners, and I think the same thing's true in many other sports, the people that win sustainably over time are the people that not only have the talent, but they have the shared commitment toward not just winning, but it's not just how such as the fact that we win, but it's how we win. It's how we operate as a team. It's a buying into the to the full program.

Yeah, there you go. And there you go. And then I think the difference between winning and losing is often the people that aren't the superstars. It's just amazing. You see somebody that's kicked around the NBA, maybe did not have that distinguished a career. Then they land on the San Antonio Spurs and they're great. Because the fit. The fit. The whole team makes them better. You see that happening with the Warriors right now.

And it's just electric to see. So I think the same applies in business is the same precepts and principles. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust Momentus. From the moment I sat down with Jeff Byers, their co-founder and CEO, I could tell this was not your average supplement company.

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creeping in. Plus they look great, clean, clear, no funky color distortion, just good design, great science. And if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to FelixGray.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FindingMastery20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. So what was it about your path before you even got into Bain? What was it about your path that led you down this journey on your life? Like what was childhood like? What was that those formative years for you? what an important impact my father had on me. And, you know, he was my dad growing up. I loved him.

So I thought he was an important influence, but I hadn't realized how much he shaped me as a leader. And he was a- He was an accountant. He was an accountant. He worked for Pricewaterhouse for 40 years in Chicago and very successful. And I used to, he used to on Saturdays go into the office in downtown Chicago sometimes. He'd take my sister and I with him because we get to be on a Saturday. We get to drink hot chocolate or play in the typewriters. We had typewriters back then. Isn't it great to go to wherever with dad? Yeah.

You know, the special access to go do that. Yeah, that's really cool. It was special. And I so distinctly remember we'd pull into the parking lot and my dad would know the parking lot attendant. You know, hey, Billy, how you doing? How are your kids doing? How's everything? Say hello to your wife.

And I realized my dad treated everyone the same. He treated the parking lot attendant the same way he treated the CEO, the same way he treated the receptionist, the same way he treated. He treated everyone the same. And I used to just watch how people responded to him, which was that good word, a little personal touch. And so that was one thing I learned from him. And then the second thing I learned from him is he did not have the word I in his vocabulary. He just didn't. He was a servant leader. I didn't have the word servant leader to understand what it was, but we would sit down in any environment and he would never talk about himself. He's always asking about, hey, how you doing?

Asking questions. And the attention was always on the other people. And I think I unconsciously watched how people like to follow him. He, he just had a way of bringing people together and they felt better about themselves individually and collectively. And so I ended up going into a service business as well. Surprise, surprise. And this, when I heard the phrase servant leadership, I probably first heard it in my late 20s,

mid to late 20s. Tom Tierney was my late twenties, uh, mid to late twenties, Tom Tierney was my mentor at the time who still is today. And he used that word and that was like, bingo. That's what my dad was. Yeah. And that, that's what I both want to be. And, and that's what I felt called to be. Who, who are you becoming? Like, what is the way that you capture, um, who you want to be as a man or what's your ideal experience as a man would be? There's two questions in there. It's a great question, Mike. And, you know, it's it's you asked back to your first question. What am I doing now?

I've had the the the blessing of having the last six, seven months just reflect. And I probably would have answered that question differently 10 years ago than I'd answer today. 10 years ago, I would have said, I want to be Phil Jackson. He's my role model. He's the person. Now, I've never met Phil Jackson, just to be clear. But he is someone that I have admired and read his books and tried to emulate in some ways. And now, 10 years later, I'm 55 at a different phase of my life, and I need to be myself. I need to, as I get older, I think the journey is more. John, when you said that, even when you just said it, it was like a relaxed state that came over you, just watching your physiology. Did you feel it as well? Sure. It's unbelievable. Even just saying it. Yeah. It's back to what you first said when you said each of us, I realized, I've realized that the hardest

thing is to figure out, all right, who am I? How are you going on that journey? What do I believe in? Yeah. Well, it's been a continuous journey and a journey that I sense will never end. But I'll just highlight a few things in the last, you know, in the last maybe five years and then last year that have been really accentuated. I've, I've I was raised Catholic and, you know, prayer and the contemplative notion was always something that was very present and resonated with me. And then about 15 years ago, someone gave me one of Jack Kornfield's books and one of Pema Chodron's books. And I found- Do you remember which book it was? Jack's initial book was The Laundry and the Ecstasy, or After the Ecstasy Comes the Laundry.

After the Ecstasy, yeah. And then Pema's first book was, you know, her books are so great around dealing with adversity and suffering. And I remember the chapter I read on the Tonglen practice and this notion that you breathe, instead of trying to avoid adversity, instead of trying to avoid pain, trying to avoid the suffering that is inevitably part of all of our lives, that no, quite the contrary, you breathe it in, you hold it with an open heart, and the only way you can develop fearlessness of the heart is to confront the fear and sit with it and be with it. One of the Brazilians fighters that I've been fortunate to work with in the UFC, a really very, very skilled practitioner and craftsman. And so we were talking about this very concept and he called it facing your ghost. And he said, not until you face your ghost, which is another way of saying the thing that you're afraid of. Yes. Not until you face it, can you rest? And then once you can rest, you can be. Yes. And then you can be yourself in unrestful scenarios. Yes. And

so I think I added to some of that, but like but that's so good. And this idea of what you just talked about, to me, it sounds like a mindfulness practice of being able to breathe in, hold, but almost transform, if you will, once you've breathed in the pain or the suffering of someone else. And when you exhale, literally do something with it. I'm not sure what you would do with it, but is that – Absolutely. Yeah, so you've been – And then the learning is the ghosts never go away. Right. Because the ghosts – and this is where Jack has been just so helpful to me over the last year. I was lucky enough to do a Vipassana 10-day silent retreat with Up at Spirit Rock that Jack led and Trudy, who will be here tonight. And the notion of that

the habits of our minds, that some of those voices and those ghosts, we don't get to exercise them. That's like out of a movie. They are part of who we are. And we almost have to make friends with them and yet not have them dominate our lives, not have them fill us with anxiety and fear. found this sort of this buddhist framework and the the practice of meditation and mindfulness to be a wonderful um bellwether and a wonderful challenge because you never get there isn't it's amazing isn't it yeah and is is your training is it more about um contemplative mindfulness or is it single point focus where you're relentlessly following one thing for an extended period of time? Or are you observing and saying hello and goodbye and winking and just noticing where thoughts link and how they link? What would be your primary approach? You know, Mike, I'm not sure. I'm not sure I have. It's not specific. I think it's more the latter, more the power of observation, of observing myself, of observing how I react to different situations, of sitting with hard but important questions and just sitting quietly and then understanding that the I don't know this sounds trite but the struggle's the

journey the the yeah you know the again I'll use the sports analogy. When you watch game seven of the NBA finals or you watch a World Cup final, it's rarely a smooth game. It's rarely the winners. Rarely, oh, they were just kicking ass. Pardon the French. It's often a messy, tough, back and forth. Usually the winner had to sustain a run against them. And the winning team's usually the one that had the grit, the commitment, the determination, the character, the resilience to just stay in there longer, to maybe overcome a mistake or maybe capitalize on a little opportunity. And then, so once I, it's been really helpful to me to understand, you know what, that's the world of business. And that's actually what life's like. I was just going to say, it's like, I think it's the world of relationships. Yes. And whatever the craft is, whether it's something in sport or the craft is music or the craft is creating services that impact the world through eBay and other global footprints that such companies have. I think it comes down to the relationships and being able to help people embrace and have the tools. How wonderful it is to be in the arena rather than

observe it and watch it, to be in it, to be messy and to know that that is kind of the essence of what the struggle is. And, but it's so hard and it's so difficult. And because of that, you have to earn the right to know that you can do difficult things. Excuse me. And because of that, you have to earn the right to know that you can do difficult things. Excuse me. And because if you, and if you don't spend enough time in the messiness of the arena, then you don't know if you can do it. And so the natural inclination is to say, well, I'm not sure I can do that. And that looks hard. So let me not. And it's the slow decay that takes place for the human spirit, for all of us, when we don't go and try to do difficult and challenging things based out of fatigue or fear. And in that space where I find myself struggling is like, I want to do challenging things.

I want to understand deeply the nuances of how people work and how we as a race can excel into the next generations. And at the same time, what is the cost for me, for family, for loved ones, for missing important moments in important people's lives to try to understand something that is tugging on my heart? Did you have that same process? I don't know if you have children or yeah. Absolutely. I have, uh, I have, uh, and I have four children. Um, but I, I just want to, before I comment on that, I want to say, I, I really respect the work you do because you By studying and understanding really accomplished people who've been accomplished in their fields and understanding that that messy process they've been through. Yeah.

And that adversity. And I know you're interviewing Pete Carroll tomorrow. Yeah. And how about that Super Bowl, right? That call that he made and turned out to not work out? That's right. He took accountability for it. That's right.

He hasn't regretted it. Think about all the regret and just the cost of being on the field. And I've never met him, but I've always respected. He seems to be someone that it's always about his teams. His teams always have a commitment and an ethos. They have a brashness, but it's not a show-off brashness. It's a brashness of they believe in each other. And so I just think what you're shining the spotlight on some of these relationships that it's success doesn't come easily for anyone. Accomplishing great things doesn't come easily for anyone. And it's often an intensely personal journey that each of us have to take to even aspire to something like that, let alone go after it.

I want to come back to that struggle about being away from loved ones at some point, but what gave you the right? And I don't mean this aggressively, but what inside of you thought that you could lead one of the most influential technology companies in the world? What gave you that idea that you could do that? I mean, that's a really big, and maybe as I'm talking, I'm thinking that if when we walk upstairs and we take one step or three steps at a time, and even if we take a couple steps back over time, we wouldn't think that we've gone so far, meaning that we're 20 flights up now. And when we're starting, it's like, how could I get to 20?

And it's one step at a time. And there's some messiness in that arc. But maybe it just felt like the next natural step for you because you were already at floor 20. And I'm a weird analogy, but what gave you the right to think that you could go do something so important for the world? It certainly wasn't a case where I had some preordained idea or image of myself doing those things. Did you set out to want to do amazing things in life? I want to win. Like big? I want to win. I want to make a difference and I want to be part of a team that I'm proud of. And over time, I think what ended up happening in my case is I frequently ended up in what I will call the coach's role. That's the leader's role. But I almost always understood it

as the coach. I love it. Yeah. The coaching metaphor, which is so powerful in sports, where the stars are on the field, the coach is there. The same, I think, is true in leadership, whether you're servant leadership or Jim Collins level five leadership, his phrase or coaching. And so I just found myself from fairly early on in my career in leadership roles or coaching roles. And one thing led to another. And I just, so it's, again, and these things always look so logical in hindsight, and they rarely are logical when, you know, in foresight. And then as you said, when you're in the middle of them,

you're just very present with the moment. It's not, it's not thinking about the future. I have a, I have a deep desire to win, but winning is, can we make the purpose come to life? That's what we do. And then it's, can we do it in a way that we're proud of, proud of each other, proud of the team and what we stand for and commit to, and proud of how we carried ourselves. And then if you do that, you almost let go of the outcome a little bit. You badly want to win, but you say, you know what, if I'm committed to the team, I am committed to the shared commitment we have committed to the, the shared, uh, commitment we have to each other and to reaching our goal, then whether or not we reach our goal actually ultimately becomes a less account because it is the, it is the journey that, that, that makes a difference. And,

and you end up winning more. It's perverse. But and so. Yeah. So you have a lot of conviction when you say that. I will have the same amount of fire and conviction that you end up winning more when you've got the right fit. You've got both eyes on the process. And you're going to go through challenges with other people and hold high regard for the people that you go through the challenge with, not at the cost of the outcome, but because the struggle is the process that you're both choosing to go on, right? Or embracing all the struggles that come with wanting to win. And there was a, there was an Olympian, uh, multiple time Olympian that I've been fortunate

enough to know. Um, she's an amazing human being and she was was, she podiumed gold twice. And she says, when I go for the next one, I want to make sure that I'm really connected to my loved ones. Right. And because, and this is back to that other question I had earlier, is that connection with loved ones is so important. And it's like this hidden trap that you trade success for connections with the people that are at home or that have truly been supporting you for, you know, many, many years. And so I don't know why I'm keeping coming back to that, but I'm looking at you and what you've been able to do and at the clip you've been able to do it and the arc you've had and the influence you've had, knowing that there's people that have supported you. And I'm curious about that relationship, those relationships.

Well, I'm blessed in that I'm married to a woman who is more accomplished than I and smarter and more intelligent and nicer. And I don't say that facetiously. Anyone that knows us both would say that. Good job. And we're blessed with four children who would all say the same thing, by the way. And, you know, I'd say two things, Mike, on this. One, we started out early on with a commitment.

We used to call it Chamber Ho. Her maiden name was Chamberlain and mine obviously was Donna Ho. And we talked about our relationship as a partnership and that we both cared deeply about making a positive impact in the world through our careers, but we also care deeply about our relationship and about building a family. And, and so I think it just starts with saying, being really honest with yourself. Are you committed? What are you committed to? And, and you can hold commitments that have conflict with one another, but you've got to be connected with the commitment to them. And then we just had some wonderful resources that have helped us over the years.

I'm thinking of one in particular that's a direct answer to one part of your question. I've had a wonderful therapist for the last 30 years, a woman named Jill Mellick, and who's just been enormous help for me at many times. And I remember back, we only had two kids at the time. This would have been probably the early 90s. And I was worried that, am I being a good father? Am I, you know, and fatherhood was relatively new for me. And I was wondering, am I present enough? And, and she made a, she made a comment, Jill made a comment saying

that her experience, um, was that, um, children are often more impacted by how their parents treated themselves than how their parents treated them. And that obviously in the early, very early years, that mother-child and parent-child relationship is critically important. But at some point, children end up internalizing watching how their parents are treating themselves. And Jill said, John, I just have a sense if you were home every day at five o'clock and if you were feeling frustrated with your life or not feeling, um, fulfilled,

you wouldn't be serving your children well. On the other hand, if your children see you engaged with the world, passionate about what you do and what you care about, cognizant of the tradeoffs and sacrifices and willing to talk about them, saying, you know, oh, I'm really sorry. I've been traveling a lot lately and I've missed being here. And then they see you set some priorities. I traveled a lot, but I almost never missed one of my kids' athletic events. And they knew that was, I treated those like board meetings and everything else. I might've been traveling a lot. And so she really liberated this notion of that how the best thing we can do as a parent is to make sure we're leading a full and engaged life and taking care of ourselves.

And I don't want to overplay this. I'm not saying that there aren't tradeoffs. I'm not saying this is easy. But instead of someone else's notion of what is good and what is bad, this shared commitment and shared journey with your kids as a family. I'll take another example of it. My wife, when in 2009 was appointed a U.S. Ambassador to the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland, and we still had two kids at home. And so she brought it home. We talked about it as a family. And our two kids who were a freshman and junior in high school at the time, our two younger kids, were like, Mom, are you crazy? This is great.

You should go for it. And then we talked about, okay, so how do we make that work as a family? Really cool. And so I just think the tradeoffs are there. And you've always got to confront them with integrity and it's never easy. It's like being on the field in the analogy you were using earlier. But I think with the commitment to trying to make it work, ultimately that our friends and family, they see that and they see that these things are important priorities and you try to do the best you can. And it's a constant readjustment process. You never get it

right. I can't say there's any given moment where we felt like, oh, we've got the proverbial balance. That's when it goes sideways for sure. But it's, you know. What is the hardest question you ask yourself? You were talking about, what are those? It's an ongoing question of who am I and what, I talk about thy will, not my will. What is the thing I am meant to do? How am I supposed to live my life's energies? And this is a particularly relevant thing right now because I'm in this period of discernment. And a discernment was probably more choice than I've ever had in my life. And my kids are grown now and I have a little more freedom. And so I find myself, it's in a really easy question to be a sounding board

and a friend to others about it. It's really hard to apply to, to, to myself. And so, you know, and I'm just, it's, um, and, and are you doing this as a mindful practice? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So who am I? Absolutely. And then followed up by what are my gifts? Yes. And then how am I going to... Exactly. Those three questions. Yes.

And then how am I going to share those gifts with the world? And then being really conscious about letting go about other people's perceptions. Because what happens as we get a little older is you know, we get labels attached to us. That's right. You know, you are famous for what you do. Others project into you what they expect. I've, I've had certain roles. People project certain what they expect and the act of, wait a minute, not being prisoner

to that, but letting go of it and really listening inside. You know what I get a sense of, John, as we're talking is that you're, you're working from a very deep level. Like some people will say all the right things and it sounds right. And it sounds great. And I'll, I'll nod my head to it. Um, but I'm left wanting or wondering how deep it is within them and your curiosity, uh, about where you're going to set your next efforts really feels really deep. It doesn't feel like you're taking this lightly for business or otherwise, but it feels like you've taken it to a really deep level.

Yes. Let me say this. I can tell you I'm trying very hard. And it's very hard. So I guess that, I don't know if that's a definition of deep. And the, you know, the other thing, Mike, I don't, my sense is you may have found the same thing. Resources, people, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm here because of Jack Kornfeld. Jack Kornfeld's words so deeply touched me before I ever met him. I mean, his books, his capacity to share his wisdom and insight.

The podcasts you create, I listen to a few of them. Your commitment to developing insight and sharing it, I have felt blessed with the ability to benefit from those things. And when things are really hard, reaching out and enjoying the resources, whether direct, interpersonal, or the work that others have created have just been of enormous help to me. And I'm doing a lot of that now. I'm like reading 12 books simultaneously right now. What's your favorite one that you're reading right now? Oh, you know, Jack's book, Wiseheart. Jack Kornfeld's book, Wiseheart, is like an old staple. Pema's book, Things in Difficult Times. Henry Nowen's got a wonderful book,

The Genesee Diary, about his time in the Trappist Monastery when he went and he wanted to just get inside himself. There's a book on chakras in my meditation practice. My wife came across this great book on chakras, which I'm just beginning to understand. And so I have a book of that, uh, open. Um, if you could give yourself some, take the insight and wisdom you've come to understand, whatever that might be. And then you look back at your younger version of yourself, what would be the number one thing that you'd hope that you'd figure out? Not necessarily advice, but what would you hope that that young kid figures out?

Oh, I don't know. Be true to yourself. You never, I don't think you can ever go wrong by loving, you know, and having a spirit of generosity. What does that feel like to say? I just love this notion of we're all deeply endowed with what Jack or Pamma may call the Buddha nature, which is kindness, generosity, compassion, and love. And that every human being- And it's all there. It's all there at all times. You just got to reveal it. You got to uncover it. You got to get out of your own way. That's there. Exactly. It's there at all times and it gets covered over. And I've had phases of my life

where I think it's probably more active than I feel like it is and it gets covered over. And so- What covers it? What's the thing that covers it the most for you? Oh, it can be a range of painful experiences. You say you have some experiences. I got to protect myself from that. Um, um, you know, I had a little bit of this being in the public eye, you know, you, you, you get, you get, you can get absolutely attacked. You can get, you know, and, and so you put up a little bit of a defense, a self-defense. So I think those experiences, I think chatter of the mind, the inner critic, these are all things. And again, the mindfulness practice has helped me to label them. Oh, identify them, label them, understand that they're always going to be there.

It's not a matter of, as we said earlier, getting rid of them, but saying, ah, this wonderful image. And I forget who first gave it to me, which is our Buddha nature is the blue sky, right? And the sun. And that every place on earth, the blue sky and sun exists every day, 365 days of the year that every place on earth the blue sky and sun exists every day 365 days of the year in every point on earth now they're clouds often they're clouds covering it over and we don't we forget that there's blue sky and those clouds are dark or they're they're stormy or and those clouds are our thoughts our emotions our, our experiences, and they're real, but they're just air. And to remind, I'll just speak for myself, to remind myself that, wait a minute, the blue sky, the Buddha nature's there.

And to quiet the mind and remind myself of that, reconnect with that. And then you talk about at times when, when the, the energy just drops down to a different level of, of, um, quiet and, and calm and presence. It's when connecting with those things. Yeah. And you, which, which is interesting because you just close your eyes to kind of tap into that as we're talking and we're in a loud environment right now. Yes. But I still, at least it feels to me that you're connected. You're not distracted.

You're working to be right here. And because it's important for you. Yes. Right? And not all the other stuff that we could be attending to is just noise. Yeah. Yeah. What is the...

You know what was interesting? Going back to another book that I've loved. It's not open right now, but Phil Jackson's book, Eleven Rings. And he talks about how he used meditation with the Bulls and then the Lakers. Yeah. And that he attributed one of the main reasons they won is toward the end of games, when NBA games are often decided in the last two, three minutes, that his teams often felt like they were playing in slow motion. That when the pressure got most intense at the end of those games, their mindfulness, their quiet and calmness of their mind, that they would actually feel as though they had an advantage because they knew they were playing almost in slow motion. So good. And it's trainable. It's completely trainable. You have to earn it though. You can't just say that that's how I want to be. You have to earn it by training your mind to find stillness, to find the fluidity that is required

to be on time and you have to earn it. And it's, it's an exciting time right now, I think for humans, because, um, the, the interest in wanting to grow and to be more authentic and be true in, in the rugged world that we're in, it feels like a really exciting time for some stuff that's been around a long time, but, you know, meaning the concepts of presence, the concepts of mindfulness training, you know, 2,500 years old. But there certainly is a resurgence of the importance of it now. It feels that way at least. Well, and don't you think, Mike, that it's in some ways never been more important because I don't know how you feel. If I just, I mean, I love technology. But it also is just wildly fragmenting.

You know, you can be constantly checking the email, checking the phone, checking the always connected, always on. And so the antidote to that, that mindfulness can bring is for me, at least more important than ever. And you know, what we forget is your company and social media, or your former company and social media companies in particular, or gaming companies, they've got 20 plus on just one little project, 20 plus PhDs on just one small little project. Let's use a game, for example. In the gaming company, there's X number of PhDs working on just one attribute for the game. And there's no way a 14 year old or a 24 year old kid could possibly have the sophistication to not become, um, I don't want to say victim, not become consumed by the thing that those sophisticated PhDs are trying to create, which is the dopamine,

the serotonin, that sensation of needing it to be okay. And I mean, there's a game inside the game, which is keeping people connected. And that feeling of needing something outside of ourselves to be okay, to be liked, I think it's a real challenge for all of us. I find it for myself. I find it for the next generation to be really a deep challenge. And then in that idea, so there's noise in what we're talking about that gets in the way of signal. When, when for you, how well are you able to lock in when it's risky? Lock in and be focused when there's a risk involved. You know, that's a great question, Mike. And I guess here's what comes to mind when I think about that or reflect on it, which is, it's sort of like, you know, everyone turns to prayer in a foxhole, or there's no such thing as an atheist in a foxhole right and so i don't i don't know if risk but it's when things are most challenging

when things are most difficult when i'm feeling fear or pain or anxiety or or the the the symptoms, perhaps, of risk, that's when I find it most essential to turn to some sort of mindfulness practice, be it prayer, be it journaling, be it meditation. And it's in those moments that it is, I don't want to say most valuable. It is most valuable, but it's almost essential. It's essential. Would this be the number one habit that you have cultivated that would point to your level of success in your life? Yeah, I've had my fair share of diversity in challenge.

Yes. And so I think of, you know, Snatham Kaur is a Hindu Sikh woman who has a chant that's just beautiful. And the number of times when things were really difficult in the last 10 years where driving to work or at night with some headphones on, I would just listen. It was a form of meditation and of calming my mind, reconnecting my spirit. Meditation plays a part. This is why you've earned the ability for you to have the depth that we're sensing

or I'm sensing right now in the conversation. And on that note, not to make light of that last statement that I just said, but it's getting noisy. We're about ready to go into our dinner. So I do want to ask you what mastery is, but maybe we can save that for offline and we'll come back and maybe I'll add that somehow. But I want to say thank you. The word that comes for me is there's a relief in having this conversation with you right now. And the relief is that how authentic you are, how hard you've

worked to create a winning track record and to have success, how much you care about people. And you've been able to really grab family, business, global footprint or impact, and at the same time be honest and authentic about anxiousness and frustrations and fears and the other sides that we don't get to talk about much as men. So I want to say thank you for the conversation. And I look forward to where this might go for us. And so thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Well, thank you thank you thank you well thank you mike yeah and i feel privileged and honored to have had so many teachers along the way people like you

and um thank you yeah so i look forward to continuing our dialogue and and thank you for what you diving into another episode of finding mastery with us our team loves creating this podcast and sharing these conversations with you we really appreciate you being part of this community and if you're enjoying the show the easiest no-cost way to support is to hit the subscribe or follow button wherever you're listening. Also, if you haven't already, please consider dropping us a review on Apple or Spotify. We are incredibly grateful for the support and feedback.

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