Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Putting People First - Leadership Insights from Former United Airlines CEO | Oscar Munoz

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

Today’s guest gives us a behind the scenes look at one of modern business’s greatest corporate turnarounds. When Oscar Munoz became CEO of United Airlines in 2015, this global organization was anything but united – and its reputation was in free fall.Oscar's journey at United began with a whirlwind of challenges and it's through those experiences that he gained invaluable insights into the power of listening, learning, empathy and resilience. In this conversation, we dive into Oscar’s first 100 days at the helm of United as he faced a daunting task of reshaping the company's culture, addressing severe customer concerns, and navigating a rapidly changing global industry. All while 37 days into his new leadership role… he suffered a severe heart attack. In this episode, you’ll hear about that story, how Oscar was able to persevere, and the warning signs that saved his life. We also talk about his first principles – the ones that guided his leadership approach, and how he stayed true to them even during a very public PR crisis for him and United. In addition to United, Oscar has served in various leadership positions across diverse industries, including U.S. West, AT&T, Coca-Cola, Salesforce, CBRE, and PepsiCo. He is a wealth of knowledge and there are so many gems in this conversation – I can’t wait for you to learn from Oscar’s wisdom, insights, frameworks for leadership, and life._________________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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was certainly in free fall. Oscar's journey at United began with a whirlwind of challenges. And it's through those experiences that he gained invaluable insights into the power of listening and learning. So we dive into Oscar's first 100 days at the helm of United as he faced a daunting task of reshaping the company's culture, addressing customer concerns, and navigating a rapidly changing industry. All while 37 days into his new role, he suffered a severe heart attack. You'll hear about that story and how Oscar was able to adjust to those conditions.

We talk about his first principles, the ones that guided his leadership approach, and more importantly, how he stayed true to them, even during a very public PR crisis for both him and United. There are so many gems in this conversation. I can't wait for you to learn from Oscar's wisdom and his insights and frameworks for leadership and for life. So with that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with Oscar Munoz. Oscar, I am thrilled to sit down and learn from you.

And so thank you so much in advance for spending the time with us. Oh, no, well, listen, it's a pleasure. And it was great to kind of get a chance to meet you and those pre-calls that we all have. I just, such an important part of conversation and communication is to get to know the person that you're talking with. It just makes for a more, you know, insightful and I think listenable too, that's a word, conversation. So thanks for doing that and looking forward to this. Yeah. I mean, I think you're like, we'll just start there because you are so relationship based. I want to kind of see if we can bridge that idea of being relationship based with your first 100 days at United.

And yeah, OK, so good, because I think that you can't win in the first 100 days, but you can definitely lose. You can lose people. You can lose money. You could lose vision and buy and you can lose trust. So when you look back at your first 100 days at United, can you paint that picture for us? So much happened in particular with me because in the middle of that, I also had developed a very dramatic medical condition and part of that. So let me see if I can be a bit succinct.

First and foremost, from a perspective of so many people and so many experiences I've had in the business world, I've learned from many activities that I've done in my previous jobs that when you have a turnaround situation, and United was all that and more with regards to it was broken on so many angles, I've learned to quickly ascertain that you have to figure out what the thing you want to start with first before you start building all of those other things. And as you go through that, you're going to get lots of input. Your consultants are there. Your board is there. Your senior management's there, of course. And then guess who's also there? Your customers, your investors. And then the one group that's always left out of that are the actual employees

that provide the service in a business like an airline, right? We're not making widgets in the back room and shipping them out everywhere. Our service product is on time, friendly sky level of service. And we were doing none of that. And so the first hundred days, and as I first walked in, the first day is always exciting. And it was dramatic because the departure of my predecessor had all sorts of activities associated with it. So it was a very surprising move. And then since I was on the board, I knew everyone. So coming on board was a little bit of a shock to many, inclusive in the aspect that I did not have a deep industry experience in aviation. I had deep experience in many of the things that you do to run a company,

but not in aviation in particular. And like any industry, if you don't have that depth, people immediately worry and cost you. So that's the, you have to set that sort of structure coming in. Okay. Before you get to the answer. So let's frame this is that let's say there's any event, whether it's the, you're walking into an arena or you're walking on stage to give a keynote, or you're walking into a living room to have a hard conversation, whatever, whatever it is, you and I, we walk into an environment in a specific or particular state. And we could extend that. We could narrow that down to like a time sensitive, like right now state of mind or state of body, or we could elongate it just a bit

and think about a state of confidence or a state of, um, um, what's the word I'm looking for? Imposter syndrome. Like there could be lots of, you know, states going into something. So what was your state going into your first hundred days? How would you articulate? I think I always go to a solution rather than a specific answer because exactly what I've had so many experiences in my career where you walk into something at a relatively or very young age where people you know in the room are like, who the hell is this person? Why is he here? He doesn't know anything. So I've spent a lot of that aspect walking in nervous, over-indexing on trying to impress, not really express myself. And importantly, having that hidden imposter aspect that's just like, oh my God, oh my God, I shouldn't be here. So I think that's one of the

things, and you do this for a living, all of us suffer from this. It's normal. That's the thing that's important. So over time, what I've learned is to prepare for that moment that you're describing in the best way possible. So leading up to that first day, my first instinct was this company, United, has been through tumult. They've had six or eight CEOs in the previous decade. The departure of this person was sudden. Here comes a new person. Nobody knows who it is. So if I'm a regular person in this company and I've been through all this, I'm like, oh, what am I going to think? Well, I'm going to be like, here we go again. Who the heck is this guy? What's he going to bring? And so my first instinct, the self I wanted to bring is a different angle, a different perspective.

And for the regular person in the company to feel like, wait, this sounds a little different. So before I even got on there, the initial, it seems simple. In fact, the announcement letter that we went through when it was written by, you know, whoever PR firm, because it was all this was done at the end of the cloak of night. So there's only a few people sort of, you know, under the cover. And so this first letter I get, I remember looking at it and just, oh my God, it turned my stomach only because what I just discussed, I know the, there's a level of empathy and care that you have for others. You have to understand. So putting myself into, you know, a hundred thousand people over the global organization that are about for others, you have to understand. So putting myself into 100,000 people over the

global organization that are about to be upended again, I rewrote that letter in a way that was so personal, so promising of something different, and that I hear you, I see these things, and before I fix anything, I want to talk with you. That was the basic tenet of this thing. It was just an instinct. It proved to be magical because once people met you, they now had an expectation for sure. Or is it really true? Or did he really write that? Or is it just something? But it sounded different. And to somebody, I grew up in a very blue collar, not poor, but certainly not elevated society. So I know what people like that are like, because they're my family members. And so the instinct was to walk in very different

with them in mind. And so that first day when I walked in, I felt confident about my abilities. I talk about a lot of things here, but knowledge of contribution, really know who you are, really know what you do well. And if you put yourself in a situation with what you do best, you're going to succeed. I had a high, high degree of confidence that this was going to work because what I did best is what I think United needed. So I walked in with a little confidence, but you're always wary. You're always aware of everything around you. And I knew I was walking into a senior leadership team that had no clue this was happening.

They've just been called into a room in some legal office in Chicago and they don't know what's going on. They probably know that there's been some, you know, some, some, so there's, they probably are hearing that their, their, their last CEO is gone and they weren't expecting to hear this. So, you know that. So when I first walk into that room to announce that nothing's been announced, it's with that sense, not walking in with this cocky, yeah, I'm the boss. My, my comments were simple. It's like, listen, there's been some change. I'm going to be the new leader and i i i spent the time to look at every single one of those senior leaders who i knew

look at him in the eye and said and i will be in touch we will talk we're going to discuss a host of different things there are no plans everybody in this room is here because we've made a collective decision for you to be here and how we move forward from here will be dependent on a whole lot of things. But for today, we need to get back to work because this place is broken and I need your help to fix it. Something in that regard. But again, to your question, how do you put others at ease? Understand the viewpoints and concerns. Human dynamic is, I'm scared, I'm worried. Should I be pissed? Why? All of those different things. So how you deal with it in a way that's, you know, just grounded and not, I don't want to use the word humility and all of that stuff. I was confident that as I'm going to be your leader, but I'm also confident that you and

I, you should be confident that you and I are going to discuss. So that's how we walked into that. That was the first day. I'm going to pause the conversation here for just a few minutes to talk about our sponsors. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true. Meaningful relationships are at the center of sustained success. And building those relationships, it takes more than effort. It takes a real caring about your people.

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That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. And now back to the conversation. Do I have it right that you are a relationship-based leader? Is that an accurate statement? I'm not sure what the descriptive, you know, technical thing. I am a big relationship person. Yes. Okay. And then, so you come in wanting to understand. You have clarity. You're demonstrating that you have clarity of the issues. Then you want to make sure that you're there to listen. And I know you've got a framework about listening.

So we'll get to that in a minute. But so you're going in to listen. And is that listen with empathy? Or is that listen to understand information, context, data points? Or is it to understand their unique experience in the company and or both, you know, or somewhere in between, I would imagine. You know, I've done a lot of speaking about a lot of the terminology in the book, and we'll talk about that. But people, everybody wants to know, so how do you do that? How do you listen? And then you just described, because you're knowledgeable in this space,

the many different ways that you can listen. And my answer is like, I don't know. I apply. Well, it is situational. I mean, I see you and I have a sense where you sit and what you do and where you and your head might be going. I, one person, I'm really worried. I'm really concerned. I think I'm going to lose my job. you know, or someone is, no, I know him well. We've worked together. This is great, right? You can sense that in the body language in a room. And so the follow-up conversations with every one of those individuals was very vastly different because it just had to be. So in some cases, you know, empathy, it's like, hey, I know, I understand you were close to our predecessor. You spent 20 years with him.

And I know this is sudden. And I want you to understand how the decision about his departure was made. So you don't think it's some, you know, harebrained thing that someone just pulled the cord. The people that you're familiar with and you have a good confidence, it's more about the facts and data,

but it is situational and it's so hard. All of it, all of it. And I can't express this enough. If you are disingenuine in any way, shape or form, you are screwed. You just, people, we forget how intuitive people are, regardless of their level. We can all understand when somebody actually gives a hoot about us. And when somebody is looking at you and they're looking around the room and where am I going to go next? Or he's got to catch five, six different people. You have to bring them in.

And over this whole process of the book, I've heard all these great terminology, but I heard one that says that trust travels at the speed of vulnerability. And that was really resonant with me because I know when I walk into a room, I try to expose myself and all my worries. And in that particular speech, it was really simply around, listen, I need your help. We are broken and there's many things and I'm going to need all of you to do that. It wasn't like, hey, get out of my way. I'm here. You guys are clearly screwed this place up. Because A, it wasn't true.

And B, I did feel the way. But that vulnerability begins to develop a little trust. And then how you communicate sort of increases it or kills it if indeed you do it wrong. Oh, Oscar, you got gold in here. Okay. So you were tapped under the, the, the, the cloak of, um, not secrecy, but you know, how things work. You were tapped to come in and turn around United. And like these phrases that you just are eloquently sharing that, that, uh, trust travels at the speed of vulnerability. That's, that is beautiful actually. And there's a phrase in the score. I want to make sure I'm going to find the person who's that. Cause I love that. It is not my, that's not your phrase. Yeah. let's find let's find let's find that right attribution. But like, let's borrow it for right now that it's as an anchor to this conversation, because there's a phrase in elite sport that that many people will be familiar with.

And it goes something like the athletes, right? They won't care what you know until they know that you care. And so that caring, actually caring about their well-being, about their goals and vision, about their ambitions, about caring about the relationship, they don't care what you know until they know that you care. It's a really nice, so I see you working in that same way, if you will. And then it doesn't sound, I want to tell you a story, but it doesn't sound like you're coming in cocky in any way. You're coming in to learn, but if you come in too much of a learner, this is like an interesting tension, too much of a learner. And it sends a signal like this person outside of our industry

has no clue what's going on. So there's a, there's a tension here. I want to, I want to unpack a bit. Okay. So here's the story. Uh, total wolf is one of the principals at, or the principal at, um, Mercedes formula. Yeah. And I know the way you, okay, great. Going to a race in, uh, go and end of August. My daughter is like a nut crazy fan and I'm taking her there for her birthday. Oh one are you going to which one to his answer board oh i was there last year it's a if you haven't been it's a phenomenal track they are incredible and um i was with a formula one team for a couple years and and i've known total for a long time and here's the story that i want to share with you is that toto says um he was talking to me about his first day.

Here he comes in and on the garage floor there's hundreds. I don't know if people appreciate that there are nearly a thousand people that are responsible for this car to go a couple hundred miles an hour. He's speaking to some of the brightest engineers in the world. And they are from Oxford and Cambridge and Princeton and, you know, the Ivies of the world. And he gives this passionate speech about the vision he holds and how it's going to be different and how he sees the potential, you know, for Mercedes Formula One. And then, you know, there's the applause, right? And then everyone leaves and there's still one engineer there and he's looking at him and he says, Mr. Wolf, those are nice words. And then he just looks at him. And so when Toto tells the story, he's like, oh, I knew I had to actually like really bring it like this is a culture that is demanding it to be right. And words won't just get it done. And he was so inspired that somebody had the courage to say, I hear your words and I want to see your actions. And so you've got another framework.

Before we get to the listening framework, you've got another framework about proof. Proof, not promise. Yeah. Can you share that insight before we go back to your first day, your first 100 days? Sure. So a quick aside back to this tension about highly confident and almost arrogant to, oh, golly, what's going on here? You know, it's like, what do we do next kind of thing? And that learner mentality, that is a delicate balance that I think we all play.

I think we have to, as leaders, be very comfortable to acknowledge that there are things that I need somebody's help on. And if you're going to think ill of me, that's okay. Together, we're going to learn. And in a very short period of time, you're going to learn that I learn quickly and that we can help each other. So I have that ability and confidence. So I am not, I am not afraid because too many leaders come in all asses and elbows and I know everything. And that's how we get into trouble. In so many cases, because people go, you know, pell-mell into the distance, you got to run off a cliff. So bringing everybody together, but the tension is there. And especially as a public company CEO, the scrutiny is awful. There was one very significant headline by a very prominent

person in the space that writes about this. He says, you know what? I met Oscar. What a great guy. Very similar to your total Wolfconn in conversation. It's like, you know, he's great. I like him. I like all his views. I was like, you know, but golly, you know what? I have to ask, when is United going to find a CEO who actually knows how to run an airline? And so you're like, oh, man, it's like, here we go. And that's a tension we all face and you have to accept that. And so the way I approach it, it's like, hey, that's a very fair point. And you're right. So let's go let's go about that sort of thing. So back to the first, you know, the concept of the 100 days and what we're doing and the whole learner. I mean, the whole evolution from there. That all of that background noise began very quickly.

Who is this person? What does he know? What's he going to do? Investors are up in arms because I don't have the history and background. I am saying words that they don't necessarily care. They want to see things shut down. They want to see people fired, right? Customers want to see you're going to make our prices cheaper and improve our coffee

and all those things. And then of course, everybody has an opinion of what should be done strategically. So you have all of those things going on. And so back to this concept of truly listening and learning is the term, listen, learn, and only then can you lead. I've come about it in several ways. My heritage, how I grew up, I had just incredible people in my formative years that just very simple human beings who had exhibited nothing but a high regard for others and unwillingness to blame or to cast aspersions or to do anything but work hard. And I just saw that in example all my life. So these are the things, these latent values that, you know, sort of surface at the right times. So

the listen and learn thing came up. So as I went around and fly to our different locations, there was a wonderful reception. And I can't even describe it without sounding full of myself. Many people, many, many people would wait for me outside the gate. And there would be hooting and hollering and picture taking. And it was kind of this mob scene scenario. And, you know, the industry has a little bit of that. But this was kind of double. First of all, someone of my heritage having been the only one to do this, right? A lot of people in my community inside that

have Latin backgrounds. And so the term is in Spanish, orgulloso or proud. That proud moment was certainly there, but I was joined by so many other people. So I'm having, I'm enjoying this. And this is back to being aware of your background, of your surroundings. In the midst of all that fanfare, and it's easy to get caught up in the edulation, I still looked at people in the eye.

And I just saw those lingering looks, the tug on the coat, the lingering just too long looking at me that I sensed. I don't know what it was, but I describe it now in hindsight. It was kind of like this, help me, help us, because not everything is as it seems. And so I just had that sixth sense about it when I first came. And so when our first earnings call, this is still in the first 100 days, what are you going to do? The street wants to know all this stuff. And I said, you know what, again, back to this learner mentality sort of thing. It's like, I don't exactly have a plan you want to hear at this point because I don't have all the input I need. What input do you need? I told you, right? I told you what needs to be done and so on and so on. And I said, no, and I appreciate all that. And I think those are wonderful things. You know, who's not been asked is the people that actually

run this business and provide you that service and keep your airplanes. Something is amiss there. I need to understand. So I'm going to go out and hear them. So for the next 60 to 90 days, that was an arbitrary number. I'm going to go listen. You could hear the tape, the stock, just crashing down. It's like, oh, wait, you got this guy. He doesn't know anything about this business. He says all these wonderful things. And now he's going to go figure out by talking to people that, you know. And so the whole thing was in a place where it just wasn't going to be. It turned out to be the biggest thing that I did. And hence the term, listen, really listen, learn from that. Not just, oh yeah, I think that's great point, Mike, and then move on. But there's a whole function and faction there of how you do

that. And then, and then, and only then can you lead. And it proved to be so impactful because my approach really quickly was I went out, I found the first person I could find that had a United and started talking to him or her and not like, hey, how's it going? I'm Oscar. It's like, you know, hey, Mike, how are you? How long you been here? You have kids, family, you know, know this and you do enough of that now you're only going to catch a few people and again we have 84 000 people at the time um so there's no

way you can do that with every single one but the power of of real solid direct genuine communication with one person the ripple effect of that proved to be amazing so i would just and there was no entourage there was no entourage. There was no people. It was just me, one person. And I said, oh, where, you know, I'd go to their rest area and meet some other friends. And soon enough, that just became Oscars visiting. What do we do? You do nothing. He's going to go left. He's going to go right. He's going to, if somebody asked him to go somewhere and it was, you couldn't, you couldn't choreograph this or any way, and I learned so much.

And by the way, not all of it was smiles. There were some pretty dark, angry moments throughout the story where people were clearly angry and you had to stand there, usually in the middle of the night, you know, because we worked 24 by seven and try to answer their questions, try to take their blows

because they were angry about so many things. So you let them expel that energy and you try to bring them into the fold. And then questions like, yeah, we've heard all that expletive before. And my point to finally would be back, really, the CEO of the corporation has been here at two o'clock in the morning, standing on a picnic bench in the middle of a hangar where we repair aircraft, been sitting here asking you a very simple question. What can we do to help? And then you have to give me actionable things. You can't say, fire everybody. And so that listen and learn and then lead concept really proved to be magical because out of all that conversation, I got some really

good insight that eventually became the platform, the one thing that we had to change first in this turnaround that frankly, without having done that, I don't think any of the strategic things that we've been able to do since would have held because we have lost the trust of all our employees. Okay. Quick pause here to share some of the sponsors of this conversation. 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

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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. And with that, let's jump right back into this conversation. Okay. So you've got a surprised leadership team. That's 37 days into the job, by the way. Okay, okay. So surprised leadership team. You've got a board that you need to answer to. You've got consultants, the smarty consultants from all over the planet saying what they think you should do.

And then you decide to go on a listening tour and not popular. I want to understand. And then you show up on the listening tour and it's not scripted and they don't know how to help the facility or wherever it might be to prepare. So you do your own thing. You've probably always done your own thing. I would like to know what was it in your early experiences in life? Was it a person or a set of people or experiences that took place that supported you or challenge

you to do your own thing. And I'll give you a quick little aside is that one of my dear friends is a very successful real estate entrepreneur and he owns large complexes. And we're talking about sport. He played sport in college and he was a backup. He was a receiver at Penn State and he was a backup. And he said, you know, it was out of my control, Mike. And it was terrible. I was a good athlete in high school. I got to college, one of the best college football programs in the country. And I was a backup. I was behind the best in the, you know, he was like a top draft pick going into the NFL. And he was significantly better than me.

But what I had to learn was the pain of not being able to control my destiny. And so that's why he went into being an entrepreneur slash real estate investor, where he's like, no, I decide. So he went through four years of struggle. And then that was his experience. But he didn't come through frustrated. He came through inspired with clarity about how he was going to design the next phase of his life, meaning I'm going to take control of the things that I can control and I'm not going to be dependent in an unhealthy way to other people deciding how my future is

going to be. So what happened in your life that allowed you to do your own thing, to zig when everybody else from the downward pressures were saying you should be zagging? It's an evolution. My integrity, my principles, how I treat others came from largely my maternal grandmother, who I spent a lot of time with outside of this country, separated from my mom, who was a single mother. And so we spent these wonderful eight years, first years of my life, traversing northern Mexico, going from one family's house member to another, and exhibiting the proof,

not the promise of my grandmother and how she interacted with folks. So that was those, that latent dormant value that was always there. Along the way, certainly at school, but mostly when you get into the business place, I found folks that took the opportunity to share things to me because they cared about me that maybe I didn't want to listen or nobody was going to say. So I know my career was great. I had a beautiful trajectory. I was getting promotions, all that sort of stuff at very young ages, like a lot of people on your call, I'm sure, go through it, all your athletes. But it always takes someone along the way. And so who I am and how I lead to your question is a function of people along the way that have stopped. I have a good friend who used the phrase, you know, Oscar, sharing is caring.

And you just have to allow people to share. And so I've had conversations along the way about, you know, Oscar, you're really good at what you do. I took a chance on you and, you know, you exceeded my expectations and everyone around you. It was like, you know, I'm like, yeah, that's right. That's right. And then he kind of closes the book and says, but if you allow me as a friend to give you some advice, so I'm all of, you know, maybe 26 years old and I have this big job. So I'm getting, I'm feeling pretty good about myself. I'm like, okay, he wants me to date his daughter or something. That's how my little arrogant mind was working at the time.

And he said, and I remember the words to this very day. He said, you know, you're good. You're really good. But you're not yet as good as you think you are. And I'm like, I'm sorry, that didn't sound like praise. And what he was saying in essence of today's parlance, like, dude, slow your roll. I mean, you're going to be great. And just, again, just allow other people. I was raised by a maternal grandmother, just by her. I became part of another family that my mom had remarried. And there was, you know, eventually nine of us there. And so I learned to be independent and be on my own and provide for myself. And as a minority with a finance background going into business, you always felt like you had this duty of perfection. And you had to be all of that.

And it became this absorbed thing where I had to prove to you every time I saw you that I was indeed smart enough to be there that I could. So and that. Oh, wait. Oscar, there it is. There it is. I was waiting for it. There it is. So that's the place that you're, so you've got this heritage, you've got your grandmother and the early experiences. And I don't want to spend too long on this question, but how much space does your grandmother take in your heart, in your mind, in your spirit, however you'll place that? How much space does she take up inside of you? It is a, gosh, it is a, I don't know if I can put a percentage of it because it's a perpetual dynamic sort of coding, if you will,

about everything. Because again, when you have these latent or dormant values that are in you, when they finally arise and really help you make decisions that are critical and important, you value them even more. So I don't want to say, gee, what would my grandmother do kind of thing, but there's a picture behind me of her to this day. And I look at it every day I'm in my office. I use her in a lot of conversations because a lot of people have that same thing. And so you asked me about mentors and guiding factors in my life. And I know so many people that have had such wonderful, and I know so many, quote, important people who I do talk and seek advice

and communicate with. But fundamentally, I am, you know, what's that old phrase that Tennyson wrote in Ulysses? I am parts of all that I've met. And I couldn't be truer. I am clearly such a person. I can never pinpoint one little thing, but my grandmother for sure is at the, it fills up a significant space in me as to how I work with others. I figured that that would be the case. And I love that imagery. One of my mentors asked me that, like, who do I bring, you know, from my heritage, from my life into moments that are high pressured, high stressed. And these are the people that

they've looked into me and that they've seen me and they've embraced all of me. And they say, I still love you. And I love you even more because you've been honest enough to be real with me. And like, I got your back. But the concept is a good one for all of us to learn. The people that truly love you, love you. And they know everything about you. You think there's some facade you're putting up. But when you finally figure that out, it's like, oh my, what Sally feel, right? When she took that, oh, you guys really, really love me. That's a wonderful moment. And back to some of the questions about how you bring confidence, how you're able to go in unscripted and do all of these different things.

There's this level of, you know, I know who I am and I know how I do this. And I know that I, my conversation with anyone is going to be a positive one because they'll feel that I actually do care about that person. And for all of us out there. Okay. So caring is one of your first principles. And like, I've, I've said this a thousand times. about that person and for all of us out there okay so caring is one of your first principles and like i've i've said this a thousand times so forgive me for saying it one more time when i'm speaking to

the to our community that your first principles are not your first principles until you pay for them and so those are the latent or the dormant values that you're talking about it's not until you actually have to pay for them or you've earned them in some respect that you're talking about, it's not until you actually have to pay for them or you've earned them in some respect that they're yours. And so you keep talking about once you know who you are. And I finished that phrase, when you know who you are, it's an incredibly powerful position because nobody can ever take that away from you. And so how, what have been some of the ways that you've gone to know yourself better? And like people will talk about journaling or meditation or radical life experiences or reflecting with people they trust. Like how do you get to know,

or how would you guide somebody to better know who they are? So it's changed and it's evolved. There's so much self-help now. I worry that it's too much and people rely on a book. Hey, help me fix me. I grew up in a generation where there was none of that, right? I mean, you just, it was, you know, pure, simple trial and error and having people around you dust you off after you fall and throw you back into the fray. So I would say that, you know, it's taken some seminal... My mom passing away, she was very young. And when she passed, and I was this really structured, rigid... I wanted to prove to the world that I belonged there. And I was trying

way too hard. And watching her die at such a young age and all that impact that it had on my eight brothers and sisters who were younger than I was, and all of that, it made me realize, like, what am I doing? Why am I trying so hard to prove the thing? First of all, it isn't me, too. It's too gosh darn hard. Yes, I'm having success at it, but I'm not having a good time. And I am 31 years old at the time. And I was like, Oh my God, this is, this is not going to lead to anything good. So I came back and I started embracing people around me just like I would normally do with, with us. And I, I use that, I use a term. I began to swing easy. For all of us that play sports and

watch professional golfers or tennis players, right? You watch them just, it's just, it's just, it's perfect. Ball goes straight, goes down the middle. And then you watch us play, right? And we try too hard, we swing too hard, and the ball goes all over the place. And so from just a terminology and an optic view for someone, it's like, learn how to swing easy, which means this concept of finding yourself. And I always add, no, really, we all have, we're all petty and greedy. And, you know, we have all of those very unenviable sort of things in our body. The best of us understand that we have those and do enough to modulate or moderate or bring those things down or become aware. So awareness is a big thing. So

I did it through trial and error. I was so rigid, had this seminal moment with my mom passing, came back and learned how to swing easy. I go into a job and I'm all that. And somebody tells me, slow your roll. And it just goes on down the line from that. And somebody tells me, slow your roll. And it just goes on down the line from that. I'm so happy that you're sharing this part of it. And your book lines up so well with this narrative. However, the pain that you, the origin story of the pain that you experience, I'm not quite clear. I mean, I don't think it's your mom passing. Of course, there's pain there and real loss. But there's something I think earlier there that I'd like to understand because the role you adopted was to be a grinder, to be a high performer, to be excellent, near perfect in your words. And I love that insight that, yeah, you were successful, but you were not having fun. You're not having a good time at it. So then you, so then you pivoted

to start to care and which is an interesting pivot. So what was the origin story of the pain? And for me, it was like, I have a similar experience. Mine was, it was a person that I loved and trusted told me I wasn't very smart. And it kind of made fun of me. And it was just, it was a brief comment. It was so fleeting. And then I was like, oh shit, maybe I'm not. And I was young and I metabolized it and I internalized it. And then what ended up happening is like, I had to show to myself and to them that I was,

and then it started working, unfortunately. And then, you know, I lost my way in that work ethic to be okay for others' approvals, which like is exhausting. And so where was your origin story? You know, it's an in-depth question. Oh, it's just the two of us. Oscar, it's just the two of us here. Oh, no, no. I am thinking through what led to that. And again, I want this to sound, because I don't want to play the quote race card. But I think a couple of things that people don't understand about being a minority is that it has a thousand

offshoots of negativity that you're constantly bombarded with. If you don't feel those from other people, you don't know what that means. You know, I have a spouse and she's very white and she gets to feel this over the course of my life, what people say. And it's like it shocks her that people are that way. So you have these little barbs that constantly come at you, that prod you, that bring you down, that say, oh, you must have done this or somebody must have done this. And there's always a little bit of that that just kind of always poked and prodded for sure. And the other thing is, and I talk about this a lot with regards to,

we now have things like DEI and then people have variant views, it's become politicized. I really want, I'd love to share the fact that the best thing a human being can do is what somebody did for me way back in high school. I had a high school counselor found me in the hallway, saw some of my test scores and said,

hey, where are you thinking of going to college? My answer, as honest as I can be, I said, what's a college? And in the crux of that, you have to understand that in certain communities, the avenues people have to further themselves are really confined to what they do today. My dad was a meat cutter and he had taken me to work. And, you know, it's like, if you want a job

here, I'm sure they'll take you and you can do this. And he earned a good living, raised nine of us. And, you know, all of us have turned out just perfectly, but he wasn't a particular deep, wise person, but he did say, but I'm sure there's something else you would like to do instead. And so when I think of diversity, think of that, her name was Mrs. Duckworth, finding me and just giving a hoot, taking a bit of care to do that, because without it, I wouldn't have found this avenue that is education and then everything that's resulted from that.

Now, I would have gone out, got a job, got married, had kids and lived happily ever after. But now I have a chance to really speak about that. And it's wild is you declined Harvard. And you chose. I spoke at Harvard recently. And boy, did I get a lot of quizzes about that. Yeah. So you were grinding and working hard, so much so that before somebody said, where are you going to go to college?

You obviously were getting it done. I guess what I'm not clear about is why. Why were you working that hard? Because that's exceptional what you're doing. You know, honestly, first of all, there are certain skills that we learn and then certain skills that are given to you dependent on who you are.

I'm not an overly religious person, but God provided me with certain skills that allow me to think in a certain way. And so I went to a public high school in Orange County, California, not necessarily the bastion of high intellect and tough courses, but I could understand things. I love to learn. I love to read all these little things that are markers for wanting to exceed or expand your education. So I had those naturally built into me. It did not come from home. It did not come from my surfer community friends, right?

Everybody was just enjoying themselves. So there's certainly something that's God-given that you're provided with. And so it wasn't so much of a grind or anything. It was just, hey, you go to class and I'd rather get an A than a C. I don't mind learning about some of these things. So it turned out just well. And then that led to a test score that I was able to, you know, do okay with. That's what started. So it wasn't, yes, I was doing all those things. Nobody was guiding me. It was after I, you know, with Mrs. Duckworth and says, you know, you know, I want you to take these three or four classes this next semester, because I think that'll really, you know, do well. So then I began to say, oh,

what is this? But I didn't know what college was. Back to the Harvard thing, I had no earthly idea what that meant. Zero. I don't know what a college is. How would I know what Harvard stands for? And I write about it in the book, my visit there with my dad, which was in hindsight, just hilarious. Talk about two country rubes. And back to the pain thing. Not often do you feel really different, but I felt really different that day. Nothing to do with Harvard and school. You're just looking at it in this space and like, oh my God,

who are these people? Because Orange County, California is a very laid back place. I went to a high school that was predominantly white. And so I wasn't exposed to that other than when a girlfriend's father or mother would say to her, you know, it's a funny story about one of my girlfriends in high school when she says, well, my dad and mom talked to me and said something like, don't you think you should be someone like yourself? And my, so she's telling me, she's breaking up with me and telling me this, her parents are going to do this painful at the time. And I'm making light of it only because my first thought was, wait, they want you to date another woman.

I had, I had, I had no, I, again, and so you're reminded of being different can have an impact on your psyche for sure. And now one final word from our sponsors. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that.

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And with that, let's jump right back into our conversation. Okay, Oscar, so you had a moment early on at United where, in my mind, you fumbled. And it was public, and it was pretty big and do you know what I'm talking about oh yes and I don't know that I'd characterize it as a fumble I the ball disappeared I don't think there's a phrase for it that it was of epic proportions. And when you say it was big, there were rumored to be between 500 and 800 million views of that across just China alone. And so, yeah, it was an epic, horrible mistake. Yeah, let's walk through it because you recovered.

It was a fumble recovery. Like you recovered in a way that is worth noting the story. So can you talk about what happened in your first response and then what you actually did? This is the fumble. And then your recovery. There's like three parts to the story that I'm interested in. So simply said, what happened through regular normal procedures in an airline, there's an ability to, when a plane is full, but you still need to get people on it,

we ask people to not get on or remove themselves. So we can put, in this particular case, we needed to put a couple pilots to get to a destination so they could fly the next aircraft so that those people wouldn't be stranded, right? So the intent was the right one. Unbeknownst to many of us and the way the system sort of cascaded in a horrible way, when nobody wanted to get off that aircraft, they went to this little known procedure that sort of randomly, you choose a couple of people that are on the plane and you ask them to say, hey, listen, I am sorry we've chosen you, but we need to get these people on the aircraft. And of course, nobody wanted to get off to begin with. And now you're, in essence,

asking someone to do that. Well, this particular case, one of those customers said no. And through, again, a lot of fault and a lot of things going on inside the system, the next step is we've chosen two people. One of them won't get off. Call the authorities. So the authorities show up. Their job is to go in and say, excuse me, ma'am or sir, you know, you have to get off the aircraft. And of course, what ensued was a level of brutality and physical incursion on someone's personal well-being that is highlighted in the video was awful, horrific, just an awful thing. That's what happened. The facts from a United perspective, it was not a United aircraft. It was something we call United Express. There was no United employee per se involved in any of this. The altercation was between the police and this

passenger. And then the only United employee was a supervisor who kind of watched the whole thing in the same state that we all watched it, including me. So that's what happened. So the facts were, hey, first of all, Oscar, there wasn't a United employee. Then as we delve into the into the details of this human being and like anyone else, there was faults. This person had some background. There was a little salacious, if you will. the first response. And by the way, we may have been the first large global brand to hit this concept of virality, viral. This went viral very quickly because this person, that video showed up, Twitter, I think was the mechanism initially. It got sent to us. Someone early in the morning responded by, oh, it know, it was just a

trite response that created even more energy. So by the time, this is a Monday morning, by the time we all got into the office, it just, you know, kind of blown out in a different way. I know I didn't understand Twitter necessarily at the time. There was lots of things that we don't need to get into here as to why we responded the way we did. But basically, I used the word reaccommodated rather than overbooked to take the focus away from this concept of overbooking, which has regulatory sort of offshoot to this simple word thinking where I'm thinking, I don't know where this is even going, but we don't want to use that word. Let's use this word now. In hindsight, of course, you look at me like, I mean, did you watch the video? I mean, really, how could you possibly, that was the major aspect of the mistake. Now, here's the trick for all of us as leaders, it is never, never too late to do the right thing. And so the next day

was just, you know, just the escalating thing. This is going global. Everybody's talking about it for sure. And it's important that I now go on TV and they chose Good Morning America just because it has the biggest English language following anyway in the morning. And I'm going to go sit on that hot seat. And as you might guess, they can't wait to have a CEO standing up there trying to, in essence, spin their way out of all of this. And so we spent a little bit of time the day before trying to figure out how I was going to answer some of the questions and how I was going to, in essence, help people understand that it wasn't united. It was the police and this and all these circumstances. And this is not a great upstanding citizen and all those sorts of things.

So go through all of that. Nothing felt good. I'm awful. I go to bed, very early morning call, obviously, to get to the TV. And in the middle of the night, I wake up. And for no other reason other than I think Lincoln said it, I kneeled and looked up, not because I'm a pious person necessarily. There was nowhere else to look. And we talked about my maternal grandmother. And these are where these

latent dormant values come to roost in a decision-making because the fate of the company, that's brand, it's reputation, my reputation, my heritage. Can someone like me from my background do this job? All of the, you know, you know, almost a hundred thousand employees that we have, it's all out there to be blown up. And I'm going to go on TV and everybody's going to be watching. And this is going to be told forever. And we've all seen the media training of how not to handle those conversations. Oil spill is probably the best example of that. But when I kneeled and looked and there was no light shining, there was nothing dramatic.

But I thought about my grandmother. I thought about myself and I felt this calm and I didn't know what I was going to say the next morning. Really, I didn't. But when I got there and they thrust that thing in my face and what'd you think? I said, you know, it's my fault. It was horrible. We let the policies and procedures of running an airline get in the way of treating someone, a human being, and that should never happen. And so kind of an amusing aside now is her ear is going off because everybody back in New York is like, no, no, no, no. That's not the answer we need know, they're ready for let's grill this guy and make him sweat. The louder gasper was for my team, legal and CorpCon who were like, wait, he's not supposed

to say that. And, and my rationale was simply, and this is, again, this concept of it's never too late to do the right thing. I knew that I would have to talk about this for the rest of my life and to begin to try to spin something that just wasn't spinnable. No one's gonna listen to it. They've seen the video. You're in the pooper already.

There's just nothing that's gonna get you out of this. That's the practical side. But the human side of just being honest and truth will set you free. Know what? There's nothing else to say. My fault, I did this. And if you say that enough,

nobody can keep poking at you because that's like he already said that. And we, we, no, we did some things. We laid out things we were going to do very quickly and we're doing that. But I talked to a lot of business leaders and political leaders when they get into these issues privately and I'll tell them the same story. And I said, you know, it's like, you know, we're always going to make mistakes, but at the same time. And I said, you know, it's like, you know, we're always going to make mistakes. But at the same time, you have to talk about this forever. And if you, you won't remember how you spun it, you will remember what you really felt. And that's what I really felt at the time. And it's wonderful that it came from my values, from my heritage

and my grandmother. But it also comes from a position of being a good human, right? It's like, you know what? We screwed up. I broke this. We need to fix it and then move from there. So I offer that as advice to your audience and hopefully they can read it in the book. It's much more dramatic in there, but it was tough to write. It is evidence of you doing your thing, your own thing, and listening and knowing yourself and then acting in alignment. So thank you. By the way, it wasn't easy because while in hindsight and all the, you know, the Harvards and all the business schools wrote horrible business cases that are now business cases that are positive on how to handle this, but it wasn't without its, you know, know, my employee base really turned negative very quickly.

Like, wait, why didn't you tell them that it wasn't us? It was somebody else. And they were very, you know, put me to the task of it. So it does take a little courage and truth. And I would tell the same story that I just told. It's like, listen, there's no practical way. And we survived it and they've thrived since. And it's not been forgotten, but it's a good lesson for a lot of people of the hard handling. Yeah. That's really cool. You know, I think that one of the responsibilities for leaders

is to be able to demonstrate that they see people that they understand like that's what i want to know if i'm working for you or if i'm going to fly on your airline again then i want to know you get it that's that and that you really get it not that you academically or intellectually get it but you've embodied it and you feel it and um yeah like it sounds like you were able to hit that sweet spot yeah we can often outsmart ourselves right like no no i'm smart i can feel that it's like well sometimes it's not an intelligence issue it's uh it's that very same concept it's not like hey you don't get it then it's like i'm not asking that question you don't you don't get it yeah right that's it so you've you have a demonstrated track record of taking United, which is a high-pressured,

high-speed, high-risk, planes are expensive, humans in the air, there's an inherent risk there, industry and turning it, turning it around and creating it into a high-performing environment or a high-performing company that it feels more United probably than when you started. That being said, it's a proof source. Like, are you interested in running for office? You know, it's funny, but part of writing this book and having a lot of these conversations, that question has come up. I fundamentally feel that that's what's great about our country and our structure is that you can be helpful whether you're in a private sector or the public sector. And the public sector is just so difficult to navigate. It's just so many issues that come with it.

A lot of good people don't go there because of the scrutiny, because of the, you know, the, you know, it's just, it's just, it's become a very difficult thing. So at least for now, you know, you never say never. I think there are roles in the public sector that I could be very helpful in. I, having not been born in this country, I remind everyone, if you've read my book, you know, I can't be the president of the United States. Oh God, that's right. That's right. Yeah.

I would never purport myself to be at that level, but there's so many other things that I would love to have a chance at because I think I can persuade in a meaningful, durable way for people to think differently about their views not to change them but just to get a broader view and all human beings and with the right information will often sort of soften on things and when I tell you by the way I saw you solve labor union issues that's how you solve employee morale and customer issues so the business sector does have some some some essence of impact here well I don, I think we're better. We're missing out because you weren't born here.

We're missing. But wherever you place your gaze, I think those people will be better. And look, I haven't worked for you or with you, but it's a feeling that I get of authenticity and genuineness and understanding how to work with those in high-performing environments. So let's go back to the 100 days. And it'd be remiss. So if I just oversimplify, you go on a listening tour, there's downward pressure not to do that. You do that anyway.

You're bringing in your grandmother into those conversations in spirit, if you will, about stay the course, care, understand what's really happening, go to the people rather than what Wall Street or whatever the street has to say. And then you need to build trust with people. But amongst that, 37 days in, your heart gives out. Come on, Oscar. You can't be doing that at 37 days in. My life is all, I don't mean it. I never meant it to be so dramatic.

It is dramatic. That is dramatic. That's as dramatic as it gets. Yeah. They're too big. Yeah. So with no history of illness in my family, I never knew my real father. So there may have been something there, but I would have never known. Certainly I was

working hard, but you know, it was also a weekend athlete. And this is a little bit of a public service announcement, if you don't mind. Heart disease is the biggest killer in America by a lot. And one of the reasons it's that is because it comes on Sunday. You don't know you have it necessarily. This optic of the really heavyset person, you know, being a walking heart attack, so to speak, it couldn't be further from the truth. There's so many symptoms that are there that it's not this, oh my God, I have something in my chest. And so that's the first sort of for context. Why people often perish from this is because we avoid those symptoms. We blow them off. Guys in particular, you go out for a run or

whatever, and you don't feel great. Like, ah, I'll just sit down. I'll lay down. I'll jump in the shower. Your blood flow is clotting and cutting off all blood to your organs, and you're going to die in minutes if you don't do something about it. It is that quick as to how this can happen. And so the PSA for you by my story is I had just gone out for a run, came back to my apartment. I was vegan at the time. I just ran five miles, so I was relatively – I just raced in a bike race two weeks earlier and finished in the top 10% of my age group.

I always say that because that feels good to say. Let them know, Oscar. That's good. The 80 and above sector, there was two people, and I knocked one of them over. So I'm making my vegan protein shake, and my phone buzzes across the room. And it's like, oh, I know. I'm going to go see what that is. I'm, you know, 37 days in the job. It's just one of many, a big full day of things going on. Walk over. And as I'm walking, my legs sort of give out. And going quickly back to a good friend of mine, is a cardiologist would always tell us that our group of guys that we ran and biked together and swam and surf.

He said, you know, so many of the people that die on my operating table are relatively young and relatively fit. So if you ever feel anything, quote, weird and you know your body and you know what feels differently than normal soreness he goes for god's sake just call 9-1-1 the worst you can be is embarrassed um and and and he said and very dramatically and when you reach 9-1-1 immediately tell them where you are like duh i mean what because nutty added because you may not make it past the phone call. And I remember when he said that, vividly looking across. I'm like, okay. That was a little dramatic, Mark.

His name is Mark. But fast forward to this event I just discussed. My phone's buzzing. I'm walking. My legs give out. My legs feel weird. I take two more steps. My legs actually give out.

And I'm on my knees. I feel a little clammy. And that word and that story comes flowing back to me. So I look at my cell phone and I look at the landline. It was a rental apartment that was just there. Some of us may remember what a landline is. I've read about them myself. So I pick up, I pick up the phone and I dial 911 and immediately tell them where I am. So 37 days into the job, 37 minutes from my call, I'm at Northwestern Hospital in Chicago on a heart-lung machine. They basically put me in a medical coma.

And for the next seven days, I was in La La Land because I had, or as the doctor said, your heart has received major insults. And I always tell that story and I try to be as dramatic as possible because for God's sake, and by the way, I have thousands of emails and notes and people stop me that have heard that story. Grown man with tears will say,

I told that to my dad, it saved his life. Again, I'm not taking credit for any of that, but it's an important story for people to tell, for people to acknowledge. When you feel that way, don't, I mean, just do it because it is so sudden and so quick. And for me, I was blessed to be, there's a lot of other miracles associated with that and

great stories. They're all in the book if you care to read about them, because it is quite dramatic and how blessed I am to be here. But importantly, to tell that story, because it was dramatic. And yes, it was 37 days into the job and I had so many things to go. And the one funny note that I'll add, one of the doctors, Dr. Flaherty, who was one of the attendants, the attendees, when I walked in, he tells the story that when I came into the hospital, they were trying to get information from me, like, who are you and what's your name? Yeah. He said, he says, you know, you're saying something I couldn't tell. And so I leaned over and he kept repeating, I don't have time for this.

I don't have time for this, which sounds so on brand for me because we had lots of things to do. So yeah, that was my day. And lots of things happened after that. And I recovered and had a transplant a couple of months later that came on my birthday. My new heart arrived on my birthday. Again, you cannot make this stuff up. And so, yeah, I'm really blessed and happy to be here for sure. Finding Mastery is brought to you by iRestore. When it comes to my health, I try to approach things with a proactive mindset. It's not about avoiding poor health. This is about creating the conditions for growth. Now, hair health is one of those areas that often gets overlooked until your hair starts

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lisa.com. The promo code is finding mastery for 25% off and then plus an extra $50 on us because quality sleep is just too important to leave to chance. How old was the heart that you received? I always kid about as the oldest of my family. I said, you know, technically, if you take my heart at heart age, my heart is now 37 years old. So I was roughly 30 years old. Remarkable. Okay. So thank you for sharing that and um i mean it's we we we're talking about it like it's um i don't know not uh an emotionally

jarring event which i don't but i don't want to make that narrative up. Did this put you to your knees or did you numb it and say, I need to get back to the office? You know, it did not bring me to my knees at the time. Again, this, this concept of, of, of mind over body that we hear or read about, I don't know that this is what happened but i despite my very serious condition i never had a doubt i was lucid mostly i was articulate i was ready energy to go in um and so i never felt that i learned a lot about things along the way. The outpouring of affection from the United family was beautiful. I mean, it became a morning reading, they called it, when my children would bring a bag of letters and they would personally read them to me from everyone around the United

family. When anyone ever doubts, you know, sort of my loyalty and why I wrote this book, which is a love letter, it comes from that. When I was down, 37 days, I didn't know everybody. So that was wonderful to this nurse who explained to me that people survive for a couple of different reasons. A lot of people ask why things happen to them. And some people are defiant and angry. I'm a good human being. I'm religious. I'm a good father or a good wife. And how did this happen to me?

And she says, those don't fare as well. It's people like I sent you, Oscar, to be where you ask the why, but differently. You know that something bad has happened to you, yet you've survived. And you ask the question, why am I still here? What is there left for me to do? And you seem to take that approach. So you learn a lot of that on that regard. But I never really felt like I was never coming back. It was always that. Now, the postscript on that, exactly a year later, celebrating sort of the one year anniversary of the heart attack and that friends and family, my family shared pictures of me when I was in that they had kept them for me for this whole year. You know, it's like, don't show that to him because it's kind of, if you saw those pictures, you would, you would gasp, you would possibly fall to your knees because I looked like death, literally what death would look like. And I remember how I felt at the time. I know when I took those pictures and I have my mind,

but my body was decimated. So, so much to that. Is that, is that, if you look at a mental and emotionally healthy person, physically, you just described that you look like death. Were you mentally and emotionally healthy at that point? You know, I think yes, complete control of my faculties. I'm assuming there was some with medication and pain and, you know, middle of the night is the worst time in a hospital when you're sick. I always say for all of us, you know, we always mean to do well, mean to send a note, mean to send flowers or food or whatever. And we always, oh, gee, they're so busy. They're probably getting this from everyone. Don't do that. Send the card.

Send the note. It's so meaningful. I would read that stuff in the middle of the night when my mental faculties were beginning to slip away from me when I did want to be angry at the world. And so I think it's an important part to do that. But yeah, no, I think I had most of that. I mean, as my nurse said, I asked her how crazy I was when I came off the meds. She said, oh, you know, you were average crazy. At scale of one to 10, you were a six or seven. I said, ah, I was disappointed because I felt really crazy. She goes, ah, but on a convincing scale, you were off the chart. You had me looking, you had me looking for things and people in that hospital walkway that were never there. I knew they weren't there, but you taught me to going out and looking.

So not complete control, but certainly I never, I never once doubted that i would be coming back i just did and it was the power of all those people around well the reason i was asking is because like is it let's let's do a kind of a reverse like a post-mortem would you want your one of your daughters to have this high challenge job have a heart attack heart attack 37 days in and let's say she's really into it she loves it it's a it's a like she's very excited about the opportunity has a heart attack looks like death and and would you support her to get back on the horse or would you say that's not that's not the choice of health i i think um it be, you know, my son's or daughter's choice for sure. There would be lots of factors, but, and you know this, people that get to these levels

of achievement and attainment, we don't get there on our own. We don't get there with a lack of energy or desire. And importantly, we don't get there because we want to stay on the sidelines and remain silent and all that. It is what drives us. That's right. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to sort out. Yeah. Yeah. No, Teddy Roosevelt said it, you know, it's a long phrase, but it's, I'd rather rust out than wear out.

Yeah. No, I'd rather rust out than wear out. Yeah. No, I'd rather wear out than rust out. Than rust out. Because it's like, and I think if in your hypothetical, hopefully case, I would, I would be very supportive of them making their own decisions. If indeed they had all the faculties and physical energy to do that. And again, everybody told me I couldn't, but it did. Yeah.

So this is again, like you're doing your own program. Like there's an autonomy about you. There's a bravery to zig when the world might suggest zag that is noted and appreciated by me. And this is kind of the mark of a leader, you know, is to be able to see down the road to see something about where we could go and uncommonly so figure out a way to make that happen. And nobody does it alone.

So it really, it rests on the relationships between the people that are signing up for that shared ambition. And so I've got two parts. Maybe what we do, because two parts here. One is like, let's shift to the future of aviation. What is scaring you? What is exciting you? How does AI fit into this vision for what you're seeing in the future? But if you could be concretely specific to your best abilities about how you're seeing the future of aviation. Sure. Let's just start with AI as a broader concept, which is both

exhilarating and scary at the same time. Are you an optimist or pessimist on? I am very much an optimist. I think these are things that come along. This is truly new science, and I've learned a lot about that. It's been around for 50 years. People don't know it. You know, as we go from generation to generation, it is going-made, and I think men and women can create this. And men and women, yeah. Humans, right. There you go. So I'm with that. With regards to aviation, which is more my – there's two areas that are really exciting.

This concept of flying cars, and we use that. For all of you old enough to remember the cartoon, The Jetsons. It is The Jetsons. We'll start shuttling people from some big city centers to the airport where traffic is horrendous. And if you're used to taking in Chicago, it's 19 miles from my apartment to O'Hare. It can take 45 minutes or it can take three hours. And I never know when. Imagine having a service that can get you there in seven minutes, period. So, you know, you have that. And then you have that ability. And also at a cost that's, you know, it is not helicopters at $1,700 an hour.

It is the cost of an Uber black card to get there. So accessible, short range, completely sustainable, and it's going to loosen up the congestion on the roads. So you have that on one hand, and then you have supersonic is coming back. The ability to fly quickly, again, 100% sustainable and a much different product than what people remember as the Concorde. It is meant to be a much more comfortable environment. Again, priced at a point that's accessible to most people. So not exclusionary to people. And so everybody's about sort of this egalitarian aspect of that, which I'm supportive of in the sense that you give people

that access. And so those are two really exciting things. And we haven't really had anything in the aviation industry like that. Our planes have gotten more fuel efficient. You got better entertainment. And I think the food varies. So I'm not even going to go there on that regard. But you do have some things on the horizon that are really good. And the concept of sustainability, again, another politicized aspect of that. I've always approached it in a way that's practical. As an aviation industry, we burn almost 100 billion gallons of jet fuel every year worldwide. If we don't start thinking about what we can do and actually doing some of it, things are going to break in some way,

shape or form. And so we've been able to get the global industry. I started it when I was CEO. My successor is a really big proponent of this as well, but lots of different actual actionable physical things that actually help the environment, not the paper stuff that people like to do and credits and all of that facade, but actual meaningful things that help the planet. And so the combination of all those threes will allow us to continue to travel, continue to make this world a smaller place, hopefully unite the world to some degree. Because as my friend Tim Shriver says, in a world that's constantly divided, when we are announcing our partnership, he goes, I choose a world united.

And he turns to me, and it was a really wonderful moment and a play on words. But those are good words to live by, um because you know we're all on this planet together awesome um i've read as early as 2025 we might have some of those um air cars i'm not sure the word that you use is that is that accurate uh that is very accurate now all of these things of course it needs to be safe above all and so the the FAA will be very much involved. I know the one I'm personally involved with, we are working alongside FAA on every single step of the way. And we've engineered the whole aircraft to be ready to be going into the marketplace directly. So it's not a, it's not meant to be a pilot. It's not meant to be some so show me, we're meant to put it into

service. And right now, at the early 2025, as we're thinking, subject, of course, to the FAA. FAA just hired someone finally as director. So hopefully we can make progress there. The supersonic, they're saying 2029. They're making such great progress that I suspect that might go sooner than that. But again, above all else, safety is going to be the most meaningful long pole in the tent, as people like to say. Yeah, very cool. And then the last bit here is on trust. Do you have a process that you could guide people for enhancing trust? Well, we talked about this concept of vulnerability. Everyone, all of us are guarded when we first meet someone. I don't know you, you don't know me. I use a phrase,

we want to be judged and measured by how we think and how we feel about things. Yet, we choose to judge others very quickly by what we see, right? It's like, ah, you know, you're on certain TV stations, so you must have this view, or you're tall or short or heavy or thin or, you know, whatever, you're dressed this way or that way. We judge so quickly, yet we don't want to be judged that way, right? And so it's a simple thing that I always use in my head. When I first meet someone, I always have an immediate sort of instinct and awareness,

but whether it's good or bad, I sort of bide my time, wait a little bit, and then actually seek first to understand that person before being understood. And that builds a level of trust because people sense that. Even if they're angry, even if they have completely different viewpoints, you can't, you know, you can't necessarily fix everyone. Okay. Oscar, like you created a turnaround, you created, you know, a set of practices and operations that helped United get back to what it once was. And, you know, I just want to say the things that I'm paying attention to in this conversation is that it starts with caring. The way that you enlist that caring is to listen, to understand, to really learn what somebody is talking about and where

they're coming from. And then taking the exciting position of being able to lead forward by gathering all the right information, metabolizing it in your unique way. And then the mechanism is to build trust. And that trust needs to be earned. And you do it through proving that what you say and how you operate are in alignment. And so I've I've loved this conversation and I'm wondering if you could just give us like a flyover pun intended of maybe three things that, that you would love for people to be able to take away from a leadership perspective. Gosh, it's hard to boil everything down to. So I would say starting with a simple concept of figuring out a way to know yourself, to really know yourself, not the self you want others to see, but the true, really self. And then take all the appropriate actions and things.

It's as simple as like, you know, I am not a detailed person. My chief of staffs are very detail oriented because I will speak to people. I have great ideas and get them all energized, but they also have to walk away with something. Oh, what do I do? And how do I do it? And so that's a simple thing. We have deeper demons, if you will, inside us, understand that about you. And I'm telling you, and then the more you can accept it and work through it and have others be aware of it, that can help you. It makes it really, so know yourself, truly know yourself for sure.

And I think, you know, it's hard to not go with, you know, listen and learn as a practice. It works in personal lives and it works in professional lives and then never forget the thing that probably is missing the most in our nation today is this concept of proof not just promise so many people walking around and i'm not just thinking politics but everybody loves to get past the conversation. Oh, no, no, yeah, get that done, boss, or whatever. Have an opinion, an educated opinion that is yours, not the world's, not what everybody's talking about, not what social media is talking about. How do you feel about that? You will find you have infinitely more allies than you think. And more importantly, you will have an ability to change the world in a way that's

meaningful because just agreeing with everything and not having your own opinion, you're just, you know, you're just one of the masses. And so, and that's part of knowing yourself to some degree. We've got to learn how to stand up and be humans and individual thinkers. And this is where AI can be scary, right? If you don't do it, you know what what and you just turn to a computer to get your ideas and viewpoints what have you done what have you done too many questions beautiful and you know the insight express not impress i love it so much so that i've got a book coming out november 7th on the what i consider to be one of the greatest constrictors of human potential, which is the fear of people's opinions. And so the anecdote to commit to expressing yourself, not trying to impress, I mean, so clearly said, I love it. So Oscar, thank you so much for your time and being

able to distill those insights that you've earned, you know, throughout your, your career. And I'm really excited to see what you're doing next. And I just want to say, thank you so much for your time. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. It was a great conversation. Ditto. All right. Thank you so much for 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

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