On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Michael Dell ON: Dreaming Bigger Than Your Goals & How to Play Nice But Win

Episode Date: November 15, 2021

Michael Dell sits down with Jay Shetty to talk about how he built a multi-billion dollar technology business. It was a risk he was willing to take for he saw these risks as opportunities he could leverage to achieve his goals. He didn’t allow people’s opinions to dampen his innovative pursuit to build an empire where failures are seen as stepping stones and financial challenges remain a temporary drawback. Michael is chairman and chief executive officer of Dell Technologies, an innovator and technology leader providing the essential infrastructure for organizations to build their digital future, transform IT and protect their most important information. His first book, Direct from Dell: Strategies That Revolutionized an Industry, was written in 1999 and is currently promoting his second, Play Nice But Win: A CEO's Journey from Founder to Leader.What We Discuss with Michael:00:00 Intro02:52 “I started as a dishwasher boy at a Chinese restaurant.” - Michael Dell05:45 If you got little to lose, go take a risk10:08 Some big risks are just opportunities13:51 Play nice but win14:52 You have too feel right about what you’re doing17:31 It wouldn’t feel right to win if you cheated19:15 Building a business is not for the faint of heart 21:37 Going against a big corporation24:26 Fighting for the company to retain its risk-taking spirit26:26 A great work-life balance doesn’t work when you’re starting a business28:54 Set boundaries when you have a family32:25 Collecting company mementos33:34 3 key factors your leading the company right  35:29 Michael on Final FiveLike this show? Please leave us a review here - even one sentence helps! Post a screenshot of you listening on Instagram & tag us so we can thank you personally!Episode Resources:Michael Dell | TwitterMichael Dell | LinkedInMichael Dell | Dell TechnologiesPlay Nice But Win: A CEO's Journey from Founder to LeaderAchieve success in every area of your life with Jay Shetty’s Genius Community. Join over 10,000 members taking their holistic well-being to the next level today, at https://shetty.cc/OnPurposeGeniusSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Jay Shetty and on my podcast on purpose, I've had the honor to sit down with some of the most incredible hearts and minds on the planet. Oprah, Kobe Bryant, Kevin Hart, Louis Hamilton, and many, many more. On this podcast, you get to hear the raw real-life stories behind their journeys and the tools they used, the books they read, and the people that made a difference in their lives so that they can make a difference in hours. Listen to on purpose with Jay Shetty on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Join the journey soon. What if you could tell the whole truth about your life, including all those tender and visible things we don't usually talk about?

I'm Megan Devine. Host of the podcast, it's okay that you're not okay. Look everyone's at least a little bit not okay these days, and all those things we don't usually talk about, maybe we should. This season I'm joined by stellar guests like Abbermote, Rachel Cargol, and so many more. It's okay that you're not okay. New episodes each and every Monday, available on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hi, I'm Brendan Francis Nuneum. I'm a journalist, a wanderer, and a bit of a bond-vivant, but

mostly a human just trying to figure out what it's all about. And not lost is my new podcast about all those things. It's a travel show where each week I go with a friend to a new place and to really understand it, I try to get invited to a local's house for dinner. Where kind of trying to get invited to a dinner party, it doesn't always work out. Ooh, I have to get back to you. Listen to not lost on the iHeart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. If you looked at it from the outside in, people would say, well, dropping on a college,

that was a pretty big risk. Taking the company private, that was a pretty big risk. Doing the largest tech acquisition ever with $50 or $60 billion in debt, that was a pretty big risk doing the largest tech acquisition ever with 50 or 60 billion dollars in debt. You know, that was a, that was a pretty big risk. But, you know, to me, they actually didn't see that risk. Hey, everyone. Welcome back to on purpose, the number one health podcast in the world. Thanks to each and every single one of you that come back every week to listen, learn and grow. Now today's guest is someone that I was really excited to have today on the show because I think there's so many moments in his life where he's gone through experiences that we can all learn from. I'm talking about none other than Michael Dell, the chairman and chief

executive officer of Dell Technologies, an innovator and technology leader, providing the essential infrastructure for organizations to build their digital future. Now, he's the author of two books, including the next upcoming book, the one that I really want you to read is Play Nice, but When, a CEO's journey from founder to leader. I love the title, I've already loved chapters of the book that I've read

and I cannot wait for you to read it. Michael is an honorary member of the Foundation Board of the World Economic Forum and is an executive committee member of the International Business Council. I welcome to the show Michael Dell. Michael, thank you for taking the time to do this. I cannot wait for people to read your book,

and I'm so lucky that I get to sit down with you as the author of the book before everyone gets to. So thank you so much for your energy. Yeah, thank you, Jay. Great to be with you and great to be with your audience. Yeah, like I said, I love the title. I'm gonna dive into the book a bit later, but I want to start off with asking you a question

that I've been asking a lot of people recently, because I think there's something beautiful about learning about this I'll share with you a story. I was I work with a lot of corporate clients as a speaker or a coach and I was speaking with my clients recently and of course we're on Zoom and he's got his something in his background, and I'm wondering what it is. And he has a paintbrush hanging on his background wall, and it's a real paintbrush, and it's a big paintbrush. You can't miss it. And I said to him, I said, look, I don't want to be creepy, but I'm just being curious, why do you have a paintbrush on your wall?

And he said, he started laughing. He said, no one's ever asked me that before. And I was thinking, wow, like people must really be scared of you. But he said that, he said that the reason he has it is because his first ever job was that he used to paint fences. And then when he did that successfully, he painted walls. And then when he did that successfully, he got to paint homes. And he keeps that paintbrush up there to remind him of where he started today. He's a very successful executive. I wanted to ask you, what was your first ever, ever job

that you did? And is there a lesson that you learned that you've carried with you throughout your success? Yeah, you know, I, I, I, I, I, I, I first of all, I'm big believer in those early jobs. You know, my first job, I was 12 years old. I was a dishwasher in a Chinese restaurant. I got promoted to a water boy and then assistant

made her D so I was moving up pretty fast and I got recruited away by another restaurant and I've been working every day since then pretty much and I have to say I've loved it. That's incredible. Do you do you mind me asking how much did you use to make at the time as a 12 year old? I guess it was like, this would have been in 1977. So what was the minimum wage back then? Like a dollar or two dollars or something like that? It wasn't very much. Yeah, what would you save it up for?

Like what were you doing with that money of that time? What was it leading towards? Yeah, so at the time I was into stamps. And I started, you know, I was collecting stamps and I started, I was collecting stamps and I started like buying and selling stamps. I ran a stamp auction.

I got into stocks and currencies when I was like 14, 15 started investing. My mom was a stock broker, really got interested in financial markets. Around 14, 15, it was sort of the dawn of the microprocessor age, and I happened to get exposed to the origins of what became the PC. And that obviously impacted my life in a big way. So, if you were 12 year old today, you'd be doing NFTs and crypto and that would be a world I'm guessing seeing is probably

Yeah, you know now there's so many interesting things going on with you know technology and You know the intersection of of the biological sciences and the computational sciences and You know used to be technology was about IT departments and stuff like that. Now it's pretty much affecting everything and every business is getting upended in some way by technology and AI and data and networks and it's super exciting to see the pace that the economy is changing with technology at the full group of that.

Absolutely. I know that you dropped out of college and a lot of successful founders have dropped out of college and I'm not at all recommending that or encouraging that and neither are you. I mean, treat to think about though, if you finished your degree, how differently do you think your life would have gone? That's the first part of the question. And the second part of the question is, what gave you the courage to actually drop out and pursue something which at the time, as you said,

was very new and very cutting edge and innovative, but people didn't really have a lot of certainty and surety around it. Yeah, you know, it seemed like kind of an easy decision for me. I mean, let me start with the first part, you know, what would have happened if I graduated? I don't know.

I don't know that I would have gone down this path. I might be like a doctor in Houston somewhere, you know, which is what my parents wanted me to be. But, you know, when I started, first of all, if you have nothing, you have nothing to lose, right? So it's pretty easy decision. The University of Texas here in Austin, you can take a semester off and come back with no academic penalty. So that was kind of the deal I made with my parents that I would go do this for a while. And if it worked out,

I would keep doing it. And if it didn't, I'd go back to school. So, you know, it didn't seem like an enormous risk. To me, my parents were pretty upset with me for sure, because, you know, when the world they came from giving up an opportunity for an education, was like the worst thing you could possibly do, but, you know, it all worked out. I love that.

I want to hear more about that interaction with your parents, Michael, because I feel there are so many children today and young people and young adults that go through the same experience as you did. They either want to quit or they want to start something new or they're on the verge of an idea they have, but they don't have the confidence

their parents might not be into it. What does someone look to at that time, at that early stage in their career, where they don't have the wins on their list yet? They don't have the successes, but they want to follow their dreams, follow their passion, follow their heart. What advice do you have for someone

who's in that position right now? Well, it's difficult and extremely emotional, and I talk about this in the book and the kind of struggle that I had with that and with my parents. Ultimately, I just decided that I was gonna do this whether or not I had their approval, which was a really tough thing to do,

and my mother was unbelievably upset with me. You know, which was a really tough thing to do. And my mother was unbelievably upset with me. And I would say it took about a year or two, maybe three, two or three, sort of fully get through that. I don't know that there is universal advice here, other than if you are in a situation where you can take the risk and you don't have a lot to lose and you can fall back on something else. You know, look, I think a lot of people don't achieve even a small fraction of what they're capable of because they're afraid to

fail. And they're not willing to take on more risk. And there's a lot of potential that's left on the field that never gets utilized because people want the perfect plan or they want to do what they're supposed to do or they're just not willing to take on that risk. And we need people to take on risk. Not just for new companies, but for existing companies

and to redo and rethink and reimagine our world, we can't just do a little bit better version of what we had before. We have to constantly be reimagining things. You spoke a lot about risk there, Michael. I'm wondering, what do you think is the biggest risk you ever took? You said that decision was fairly easy. What do you think?

What was the time when you feel you're like, yeah, it took a big risk. And whether it paid off or not, I'd love to hear about how it panned out. But what was the biggest risk you ever took? If you looked at it from the outside in, you know, people would say, well, dropping out of college, that was a pretty big risk. Taking the company private, that was a pretty big risk. Taking the company private, that was a pretty big risk. Doing the largest tech acquisition ever with $50 or $60 billion debt, that was a pretty big risk.

But to me, they actually didn't see that risk, because I sort of on a risk-adjusted basis, I could see my way through to the opportunity. And could it have all gone wrong? Sure, but I didn't think it was going to. It's also a situation where, you know, if I had sat there and said, gee, should I drop out of school? Should I not drop out of school? Let's go talk to 10 or 100 people and ask them what they think. Probably most of them would have told me, you're crazy for dropping out of school, okay? I didn't ask anybody.

You know, that wasn't how I was thinking about it. Yeah, what would you say would be your biggest failure till date that you feel like you were down and out where it was a really tough situation? Was there a moment where things really felt like they weren't working out? When would that have been? Well, look, there've been plenty of times.

And, you know, I think what people maybe failed to understand is that embedded in success are failures, right? And at the root of success, you have kind of curiosity, learning, experimenting, and failure. And without those things, you don't have any success. And so failures are not necessarily bad, especially if you're learning from them. And so, yeah, we had all kinds of failures along the way to cumulative revenues of about $1.4 trillion, right? But, yeah, I mean,

of about $1.4 trillion, right? But, yeah, I mean, early on, we had some super ambitious technical projects that failed. And we learned from that. We built a lot of capability that allowed us to create all kinds of new products as a result. We had inventory planning challenges early on. That led us to be really world class at supply chain management because we had to. And necessities the mother invention and the key is to learn from

the failures and correct them quickly and hopefully not make the same mistakes over and over again. And if you can learn from other people's mistakes, learn from your new mistakes that you're making and correct them quickly, you're going to be very successful. You've got to be willing to experiment and fail. The other thing is when you're going into new areas, there's no playbook, right? There's, you can't like read a book or talk to an expert and like tell you how to do this. You just have to start. I love that.

Thank you, Michael. No, I love hearing that. It's always, it's always wonderful to hear someone who seems to be having fun and growing continuously and enjoying life on the journey as well. And I want to come to your book now, you know, play Nice, but win a CEO's journey from founder to leader. I wanted to talk about the title for a bit. When you hear the words play Nice, but win,

were these words that you said a lot, were these words that you heard a lot? How did these words take shape in your life? Yeah, so my two brothers and I, you know, when we were little kids and we would go out in the street and play ball with our friends, that's what our parents told us, you know, almost every time they say, play in high-spot win. And so it kind of became this philosophy of,

of, you know, let's not forget about the winning part, right? But we're gonna, we're gonna play nice, we're gonna play fair, we're gonna do it, you know, kind of ethically, responsibly. But, yeah, we're, we're in it to win, right? And so kind of been something that's just stuck with me ever since I was a little kid and it goes goes back to my childhood And I talk about that in the book as well. Did you ever meet anyone along the way that tried to challenge that and tell you it was impossible or tell you you had to play ruthless you had to play bad And when like was there anyone who challenged that and not specifically, I don't need you to tell me exactly who I'm just saying was there anyone who Really debated and challenged that hypothesis and said Michael this is not gonna work. You're gonna have to play on fair and

Was there anyone in your life that you met that completely disagreed with that statement? Well, look I you know, I've been running our company for 37 years. I mean, I believe markets are long-term efficient, right? And I think everything sort of comes back to you in a good way or a bad way if you're playing the other side. And I've just kind of avoided the opposite path. And it's worked for me. And, you know, it just feels right to me. And at the end of the day, you know, you have to feel right about

what you're doing. And, you know, when I'm 90 or 100 or hopefully older, I want to be proud of everything I did. And the way I did it. And that's just really important to me. So, and look, I've run into plenty of people that didn't play nice and I just tried to, you know, certainly not have them in our company, you know, avoid doing business with them to the extent I could. And that's what's worked for me. I'm Yvonne Gloria. I'm Mike Degelmister Hohen. We're so excited to introduce you to our new podcast, Hungry For History! On every episode, we're exploring some of our favorite dishes, ingredients, beverages, from our Mexican culture. We'll share personal memories and family stories, decode culinary customs, and even provide

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Listen to Hungary for history with Ivalangoria and Maite Gomez-Rejón as part of the Michael Tura podcast network available on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm David Eagleman. I have a new podcast called Inner Cosmos on I Heart. I'm a neuroscientist and an author at Stanford University, and I've spent my career exploring the three-pound universe in our heads. On my new podcast, I'm going to explore the relationship between our brains and our experiences by tackling unusual questions so we can better understand our lives and our realities. Like, does time really run in slow motion when you're in a car accident? Or can we create new

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Yeah, was there ever a time though that you felt pressured, that you might have to change your approach to win or was it always easy to stay to that? I just I feel like I love it, by the way, I completely agree with you. Like I think my favorite way to win is to play nice and the best way to play nice is to make sure you win. So I I love that approach to life. I'm just wondering whether there were any times where you actually maybe just had

a thought and you thought, well, maybe if I didn't place so nice, maybe I'd win more. Maybe I'd maybe I would be more successful if I did this or did this thing. Did you ever have that debate? Did you ever have that thought internally or will you always convince that this was the way? Not not not for a second. I mean, it wouldn't feel right to win, if I had cheated or done it in an unscrupulous way. You know, and I talk about in the book

some of the early formative experiences where we had people that did things that weren't exactly correct, right, in one way or another. And it really surprised me. Maybe I was naive or I think people love the clarity of of knowing what we stand for, right? And knowing that we don't change the rules depending on who it is or how important it is or anything like that. It's like, hey, we're we're we're very clear about the ethical standards that we uphold as a company.

And it's just a lot easier that way. I love hearing that. Trust me, I'm so happy to hear that because I think value-based business is so needed in the world right now. And when we look at things like conscious capitalism and the idea of creating wealth, creating impact through values and through purpose and through mission. It's beautiful to hear that you never even got, you know, you never even had a moment of doubt. I love hearing that because I think it shows what's possible. I wonder, there's a lot of our listeners who may be trying to decide between entrepreneur or employee. And you know, today because the entrepreneurial life mindset has become so mainstream culture and accessible, a lot more people are thinking in that direction.

I wonder what can you do to teach us about the difference between the entrepreneur mindset and the employee mindset and what differences people can see so that they can see where they're best placed. When things get pretty heated, I think you see more opportunities, and not necessarily the pure entrepreneurs. That's okay. Everybody can choose their own path. In my experience,

it's not for the faint of heart, right, to go start a business. I mean, it is all in and, you know, when I started, fortunately, I was 19 years old and I could work 18 hours a day and sleep at the office and had no responsibilities, you know, in terms of family or anything like that. And I had the kind of physical stamina to work like a maniac for several years, which I sort of what it took at the beginning, fortunately that didn't have to perpetuate.

But yeah, I mean, it's not all glamorous and success and there are plenty of businesses that don't work out. And yeah, I mean, it's easy to look at the successful businesses and say, wow, it was just straight up, you know, to the right forever. It's like, ah, not exactly. That's not exactly the way it goes really in any business. But, uh, yeah, I mean, it's a very personal decision in terms of what someone's risk appetite is. And, you know, are they willing to take all that on? And when you put your head down at night, you're thinking about all those people that you're

responsible for. I love telling chapter three, you said, you don't start a company if you're not an optimist. There has to be that optimism. And part of your optimism was the openness to compete with IBM and to challenge a long established company. Even when you were young, where did that confidence come from? Where did that ambition, that desire come from, that gave you so much confidence and strength in that sort of mindset?

I guess if I was being objective looking at it now, I'd say there was some naivete there for sure as well, but all that mixture was was pretty powerful. And you know what what I saw when I looked at the IBM PC back in 1981 when it first came out, it just had the 40th anniversary, a month or two ago, of the IBM PC was, it was this thing they sold for like $3,000, but it had $500 with a parts in it. And none of the parts were made by IBM. So, to my teenage mind, it kind of seemed like a criminal enterprise. You know, it's like, why does it cost so much? And why does it take so long? And why can't it be faster and had a ton of ideas? And it's hard for people to really understand right now. But back in the early 1980s, IBM was not just

the most successful computer company. They were like unbelievably dominant in this field, unlike any other company except maybe like Standard Oil, you know, back in the day. They just dwarfed any other company in the IT-dit-slash data processing field. Obviously very different 30, 40 years later. But at the time, they were were the giant and they were also like the most valuable company in America, right? So it was a big business, but hey, they seem vulnerable to me. I love that example of what you said, like looking at it and seeing a criminal enterprise because of the, you know, because of the shocking difference between the parts and the pieces. And you're right.

I mean, I grew up in a world where IBM was still very powerful, but I know what you mean. You talk about the scale of it at the time. And you talk about in chapter seven, the fight for Dell to go private. And it's been like a long, disruptive process for everyone that's involved. And you mentioned in the book that in Del you had this saying of failure is not an option. I want to know what kept you going in that fight to make it private. Like what was the thing that kept you consistently fighting because sometimes we're fighting for fighting sake, but in this situation, that wasn't it. You were fighting for something more important and more deep.

Where did that come from? Yeah, I really felt that going private would allow us to accelerate our transformation. And it would allow us to kind of reignite the entrepreneurial risk-taking spirit that was the origin of the company. And I think Winston Churchill said something to the effect of, you know, if you're going through hell, you know, keep going. Right? So we were in the middle of it.

It's not easy to like stop and say, we're just kid, never mind. Forget it. You know, I guess we could have done that. But once you get started, it was a fight worth winning. I thought we could win. You know, I thought it was truly believed in it. That it was a very important thing for the company to do at that time

to inflect the transformation and we can look back seven years later and say, yeah, good thing we did that. Everyone else can make the connections in hindsight, but you were able to make the connections in the process. And I think that's always what's harder. But another area of your life, apart from your professional success, of course.

But you're one of the few people who have this rare personal success too, with marrying your wife, your four children. And I wanted to understand, you probably get asked the work-life balance question a million times. I personally don't believe in balance. I think it's a myth. I'm not convinced question a million times. I personally don't believe in balance. I think it's a myth. I'm not convinced that it's real.

And I think that it actually causes more pressure than creates fuel in our lives when we're constantly trying to balance. I wanted to understand what was your journey in creating a successful professional life and extremely successful professional life, but also managing to have a real genuine personal life as well. Yeah, so first of all, I think when you're starting a business, you know, this idea of balance,

you know, just forget about it. It's like, you're not going to have it. So, you know, if you're thinking, oh, I'm going to be an entrepreneur, I'm going to start a company and I'm a great work life balance. And it's not going to happen. If it is, it's a foreign thing to me. I don't understand how you could do that. But once you have a business up and running,

and you're into your 10, your 15, your 20, you've got systems and processes and people and well what you find is there's a diminishing return to the number of hours worked and also you know your happiness is impacted and you don't have to do everything yourself and you sort of always kind of are reassessing what is the point of impact where I can make a meaningful impact on the company and cause something great to happen? And I'm not gonna do that in my 90th hour or 100th hour of work in a week, right?

There's a sweet spot there. And so, yeah, I also consciously wanted to have a family and children and a family life and that kind of grounding that I had as a child. And that was something I really desired. So I sought it out and planned my life in that way because I also knew that if I kept working for another 10 plus years and didn also knew that, you know, if I kept working for another 10 plus years and didn't have that, I would be unhappy. Yeah, and, and, but I'm sure that there were those tough decisions to make.

Like, I'm sure there were moments where maybe your wife and your children wanted your time, but you had to be at an important meeting or you had to be on a plane or how did you deal with those challenges? Because they're very natural it doesn't you know, it doesn't make you a bad person But it's like you I'm sure there were moments where you felt guilty or you couldn't be somewhere with your family That you really wanted to be with how did you deal with that and get through that successfully when so many other people struggle with those moments first of all, you know You have to have some boundaries and set some boundaries.

And I'll say I was pretty good about having boundaries, didn't really do a lot of work on the weekend. So that was pretty sacred time. When in the journey did that happen? Or was that from the beginning you never worked weekends? I'd say, you know, when we started having, you know, little kids. I also, you know, kind of set up our house

where we had a place where people could come over for dinner. And so I would often have a lot of dinner still do at the house. And that way, to just save time, sometimes my kids would, you know, it's kind of a funny story, my son. He figured out when he was about five or six

that, you know, if he came to one of the dinners toward the end, he could get a dessert, right? But then after a while, he's like, hey, that's Bill Gates, you know, there's like, let's, like, you know, maybe I'll work something, you know, so he's like, hey, that's Bill Gates. There's like, let's lay, maybe I'll work something. So he would like come and sit down and participate in the dinners. It helped a lot to do that at home.

And yeah, you gotta have some boundaries. You can't make it perfect all the time. And there are gonna be times when we haven't been doing this lately, obviously, but when I would go to Europe or Asia on business trips, you're just going all out like for a long time from early morning to late at night. And that's okay. You can sprint for a while and do that.

But also, yeah, I made time to relax and play and exercise and think and not be overly scheduled too. I think the dinners is a genius one. I love that opening up your home and having those work dinners or people over for dinner so that you're actually at home, you're with your family. It's still part of family time. I think that's genius and it makes so much sense as to why that's beneficial for the family, for work, for so many other things. So I love you sharing that tip. You can make story time with the kids and still have a dinner with your business colleagues. Yeah, it's brilliant. That's a brilliant one.

I'm Danny Shapiro, host of Family Secrets. It's hard to believe we're entering our eighth season. And yet, we're constantly discovering new secrets. The depths of them, the variety of them, continues to be astonishing. I can't wait to share ten incredible stories with you, stories of tenacity, resilience, and the profoundly necessary excavation

of long-held family secrets. When I realized this is not just happening to me, this is who and what I am. I needed her to help me. If something was annoying at me that I couldn't put my finger on, that I just felt somehow that there was a piece missing. Why not restart? Look at all the things that were going wrong.

I hope you'll join me and my extraordinary guests for this new season of Family Secrets. Listen to season eight of Family Secrets on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In the 1680s, a feisty opera singer burned down a nunnery and stole away with her secret lover. In 1810, a pirate queen negotiated her cruiseway to total freedom with all their loot.

During World War II, a flirtatious gambling double agent helped keep D-Day a secret from the Germans. What are these stories having common? They're all about real women who were left out of your history books. If you're tired of missing out, check out the Womanica podcast, a daily women's history podcast highlighting women you may not have heard of, but definitely should know about. I'm your host Jenny Kaplan, and for me, diving into these stories is the best part of my day. I learned something new about women from around the world and leave feeling amazed, inspired, and sometimes shocked. Listen on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts,

or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jay Shetty and on my podcast on purpose, I've had the honor to sit down with some of the most incredible hearts and minds on the planet. Oprah, everything that has happened to you can also be a strength builder for you if you allow it. Kobe Bryant. The results don't really matter. It's the figuring out that matters. Kevin Haw. It's not about us as a generation at this point.

It's about us trying our best to create change. Lurus Hamilton. That's for me being taken that moment for yourself each day, being kind to yourself because I think for a long time I wasn't kind to myself. And many, many more. If you're attached to knowing, you don't have a capacity to learn. On this podcast, you get to hear the raw real-life stories behind their journeys and the tools they used, the books they read, and the people that made a difference in their lives so that they can make a difference in hours.

Listen to on purpose with Jay Shetty on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Join the journey soon. You mentioned in the book that you always kept mementos in your office, like some personal, some about the highs and low points of the company.

Can you tell us about some of these momentos? Because I'm a, I mean, you collected stamps, obviously, so collecting is part of your, your DNA. I love collecting momentos as well. I want some inspiration. What were some of the things that you heard onto? Yeah, you know, I kept things that were meaningful. In the book, I have, I have a picture of the motherboard

that J Bell, our first engineer, hand-wired up. That's obviously a pretty treasured momentum for me about the origins of our company and tons of stories there. I love how one of the values of your company was to be known as a great company and a great place to work at. The first few years of my entrepreneurial journey

and trying to build a team, we have a team of, you know, just shy of 50 people across the world that are working on my certification school, my courses, my podcasts, my videos, my books, just the whole area of my work. And I love that you said you wanted your company, one of the values was to be known as a great company and a great place to work at.

I wanted to know what were three key ingredients in ensuring you were doing that as a leader. First of all, you wanna have an inspiring mission and you wanna have people excited, not just engaged, but you wanted to believe that what they do is really important and makes a difference in the world. And you're basically engendering passion,

which is way more powerful than just about anything else you can present as a motivational tool. I'd say the second thing is you want people to feel like they can succeed and grow and fulfill their full potential inside the organization. And there's nothing holding them back. There's no limits for them. And that you're caring about their success. I think a part of that is probably the third point is that you've created an environment

that is inclusive and anybody can succeed. You're not looking for people that are all the same. You want to hear a diverse set of voices and you're stronger because of the diverse set of voices and ideas coming together. And we're all focused on ultimately something that's bigger than ourselves. And, you know, again, we got a really important reason to get up out of bed every morning. You know, what we do matters in the world. Yeah. Absolutely. I love that. Thank you so much. That's going to be really, really useful to me as we continue to grow. So, Michael, I want to thank you for just being so generous with your time

and giving us such great insights. And I'm so excited for my audience to read, play nice, but win. And I want to end as we always do on on purpose with our final five. These are our fast five questions. You have to answer them in one word to one sentence maximum. That's it. So Michael, these are your fast five. The first question is, what is the best piece of advice you've ever received? If you find a problem fixed in this fast, as you find it. I love that. Okay, second question.

What is the worst advice you've ever received? Nobody ever says, boy, I'm glad you waited to make that tough decision, right? And so it's important to lean into difficult conversations and difficult decisions and anybody that tells you otherwise is just creating more problems. Got it. Yeah, absolutely.

Question number three, what's the first thing you do in the morning when you wake up and the last thing you do at night before you go to bed? I spend some time every morning thinking about what do I want to accomplish during the day? What's really important for me to get done today and be proud of at the end of the day. And then as I'm going to sleep, I'm really trying to wind down and relax and you know calm myself and sleep is super important. I try to go to sleep early, get up early, want wanna get a great night's sleep, wanna get a high score, my order ring, and my sleep eight pod,

and just try to relax, call myself, think grateful thoughts, and not be too wound up about all the stuff I have to do tomorrow. Okay, awesome. Question number four, what is your current purpose today? Our purpose as a company is still enabling human potential with technology. And I think that's a super powerful mission that will continue for a long, long time that's enduring and we're continue to be excited by it.

Fantastic. And fifth and final question, Michael, if you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? Be grateful for what you have and take responsibility for your own life, self-determination, don't blame it on other people. It's all on you. You've got to go make it happen and it's nobody else's fault.

I love it. Michael Dell everyone and the new book is out. It's called Play Nice, but when a CEO's journey from founder to leader, Michael, I want to thank you again for your energy. I hope that everyone who's been listening or watching that you're going to share your greatest insights on Instagram, on Twitter, make you tag me and Michael and let us know what resonated with you. And again, go and grab a copy of the book. Michael, thank you for this time. I look forward to meeting you in person one day soon, all the best with everything you're working on.

And I'm so happy that we got to spend this time together. Thank you so much, Jay. Great to be with you. If you want even more videos just like this one, make sure you subscribe and click on the boxes over here. I'm also excited to let you know that you can now get my book Think Like A Monk from ThinkLikeAMonkBook.com. Check below in the description to make sure you order today. What if you could tell the whole truth about your life, including all those tender invisible things we don't usually talk about?

I'm Megan Devine. Host of the podcast, it's okay that you're not okay. Look, everyone's at least a little bit not okay these days. And all those things we don't usually talk about, maybe we should. This season, I'm joined by Stellar, Gas like Abbermote, Rachel Cargol, and so many more. It's okay that you're not okay. New episodes each and every Monday,

available on the iHeartRadio app, or wherever you listen to podcasts. The episodes each and every Monday, available on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you listen to podcasts. The world of chocolate has been turned upside down. A very unusual situation. You saw the stacks of cash in our office. Chocolate comes from the cacountry, and recently Variety's cacao, thought to have been lost centuries ago, were rediscovered in the Amazon.

There is no chocolate on Earth like this. Now some chocolate makers are racing, deep into into the jungle to find the next game-changing chocolate, and I'm coming along. Okay, that was a very large crack it up. Listen to the obsessions while chocolate on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or whatever you get your podcast. Getting better with money is a great goal for 2023. But how are you going to make it happen? Ordering a book that lingers on your nightstand isn't going to do the trick. Instead, check out our podcast How to Money. That's right, we're two best buds offering all the helpful personal finance information

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