The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 643: Anthony Scaramucci - Getting Fired by President Trump, Working With a Life Coach, Playing Quarterback, Building Confidence + Charisma, Telling The Truth, & Finding Your Superpower

Starting point is 00:00:00 This episode is brought to you by Insight Global. Insight Global is a staffing and professional services company dedicated to being the light to the world around them. If you want to learn more about the CEO, Bert Bean and Chief Revenue Officer Sam Kaufman, check out episode 424. We had a fantastic conversation talking about my partnership with the great people at Insight Global. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through talent or technical services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver.

Starting point is 00:00:40 Hiring can be tough, but hiring the right person can be magic. Visit Insightglobal.com slash learning leader today to learn more. That's Insightglobal.com slash learning leader. Welcome to The Learning Leader Show. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Go to learningleader.com. For show notes of this and all podcast episodes, go to learningleader.com.

Starting point is 00:01:13 Now, on to the night's featured leader the mooch. Anthony Scaramucci served as the White House Director of Communications for President Trump from July 21st to July 31st, 2017. Yes, 10 days. He was at Harvard Law. school with President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama. He's the founder and managing partner of Skybridge Capital and he's the founder and chairman of the Salt Conference. He's done a lot. During our conversation we discussed what he learned from getting fired by President Trump after

Starting point is 00:01:48 working for him for just 10 days. Then why his wife filed for divorce and how he was able to do the work to reconcile and turn a bad situation into a good marriage. Then we talked about the importance of finding your superpower. And he shared what he feels mine is as well as his and how they're the same thing. And then I think you'll just enjoy his willingness to say exactly what's on his mind at all times. I don't necessarily think this will be for everyone, but I think some will absolutely love it. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy my conversation with the mooch, Anthony Scaramucci.

Starting point is 00:02:39 Anthony, man, it is awesome to have you here on the Learning Leaders Show. Welcome. Hawk, how's my lighting, by the way? You got to be impressed, right? No. I was going to say, you lined it up perfectly with the window. I'm so happy to do. Are you London?

Starting point is 00:02:53 Is that where you are? No, I'm in the British countryside. I'm going to the chalk history festival. But, you know, I'm a vain son of a bitch. And I'm just wanted you to acknowledge my life. waiting before we started. Are you wearing makeup? No, no, no makeup. I swear got good skin. Okay. All right. Those are those are those are stem cell moisturizers. Hawke, you're a young man when you know, you're going to teach me about leadership. I'm going to

Starting point is 00:03:19 teach you about vanity, okay? I'm going to, I'm going to teach you my tricks, okay? Afterwards, you're going to send me where you go, okay? I want to look like you. All right, okay. You can use a little sod replacement on the top there as I'm noticing. I got I got that trick down too. All right, but this is your podcast. I just wanted you to acknowledge my life. Did you just say me an email after with all of your advice on things I need to do to look like you? I just wanted you to acknowledge my lighting before the show started. Okay. Well, the show's already started, but you look great. Okay. Hey, an uncommon, common on that. I was doing all my prep. I talked to Paulina Pompilano, who did a big, deep dive on you,

Starting point is 00:03:53 and she's amazing. She's been on the show. So was her husband, Anthony. You play quarterback. I'm a former quarterback, high school, college, a little bit after college. And I've drawn so much from that time. I'm curious about you, though. What have you drawn in your life as a leader doing a variety of things from your time as a quarterback leading a team? So I had hurt, by the way. You know, I hurt my left knee. I tore my ACL and that knocked me out of my senior year, but I was captain of the team. I'm a little short guy, but I had a good throwing arm, and this is going to sound a little bit braggy, but I'll just say it. I was something that could read the defense. And so there was a kid on the team that a much,

Starting point is 00:04:32 much better armed than me, but he wasn't as anticipatory. So I could get to the line of scrimmage and you could see the eyes and the people, you know, what were their blitzing or what their formation was. We did a lot of audibles at the line of scrimmage. So I think I learned a couple of things, flexibility, fluidity, and decision-making. You can't just say, okay, here's the game plan, right? Because that's what Mike Tyson says, right? You have the plan until you get punched in the face or all battle plans go by the wayside with contact with the enemy. So fluidity was one of them. I didn't really understand this until later in life. And Derek Jeter said it better than anybody. So I'm going to paraphrase from him and quote it back to you. But one of the key things that

Starting point is 00:05:17 makes a good leader is service. And so if you're on the team, it's not about me, right? It's about you. How am I going to make you better? How am I going to make you feel good about your role? how am I going to get you to think that I'm here to help you? And so Jeter understood that better than anybody. I think he was the real glue that got them to all those championships. Never cared about his percentages, never cared about his hit totals, averages, averages, didn't care. He was like, how am I going to get there?

Starting point is 00:05:47 How am I going to get the team there? And so you learn that in sports. But then the number one thing, Ryan Hawk, is bone-crushing defeat. You know, you've got your little cheerleader girlfriend. out there and she's waving the pom-poms and you're going to take her out on Saturday night and you are getting your ass kicked on the field smashed left and right. And there was a guy named Viti Testaverdi, that son of a bitch. Okay, he played for Sawanika High School. He went on to University of Miami. He ended up playing for the Jets, Cleveland Browns. He was a monster in high school.

Starting point is 00:06:21 He was a year older than me. And his team, Sahuantaga High School, ran over us. I mean, literally, I have tire tracks on my back from politics and business, but my first tire tracks came from Testa Verdi, that son of a bitch. And I had to get my ass kicked. Here I was this little five-foot-nine squirty, Doug Flutty-like quarterback, and this six-foot-four good-looking giant where the howitzer was, you know, destroying us.

Starting point is 00:06:49 And I just remember feeling so puny in front of my high school girlfriend. So you got to get over that, right? That's called resilience, right? such a good question but that's that that's how i would unpack that for you well i love i think there's so much to learn especially from the adversity and preparation it takes and you understanding a defense like some of that so much plays as you're out in your life building a business or getting tapped i am curious about your story though let me tell you something about because you know this okay because you have an aura about you of confidence and charisma you know people

Starting point is 00:07:25 listening, confidence, the first fight is with yourself. That's the first fight in life. Am I good enough? Am I worthy? Can I get to the game? Can I believe in myself enough so that I'm standing next to someone else who believes in themselves that I can compete? Because if you go into the game mentally thinking that you're not there, you're not going to be there. Henry Ford had one of the best lines in civilization. You want to hear the line? He was a son of a bitch, but he had a great line. You want hear the line? If you think you can or you can't, you are right. You've heard it before and you know exactly until you've got to get in the mindset, okay? You're going to fire me from the White House? No problem. I'm a crash dummy. I'm mayhem from the Allstate commercial. I'll fly through the window

Starting point is 00:08:13 and I'm going to get up and dust myself off and I'm going to keep going because that's my mindset. You're not going to take that away from me. Whatever you think of me actually is not. of my business. I'm going to do me. And I think that's a big thing in sports. It's a big thing in business. It's a big thing in life. You mentioned the White House. So I'm curious about no offense, but I had not heard of you prior to your job there, right? So I believe it started. No, no offense. It's taken. July 21st, 2017. What's going through your mind on that day? Well, you know, look, I had worked with Trump during the, you know, I left 14 months with Donald Trump on the campaign. I work with him on the executive transition team.

Starting point is 00:09:01 I had a good relationship with him. Jared Kushner once said that Trump likes talking to you because you remind him of his dad. You made your money on your own. You don't give a shit. You're not trying to kiss his ass like these other people. And you tell him right to his face what you think. Unfortunately, I brought that with me into the White House. That was not the right attitude in the White House.

Starting point is 00:09:19 He was a little bit more brittle in the White House, and so you needed to be a lot more obsequious, and I didn't, I didn't, I didn't have that. Why would that be any different? I think the job, the personnel, look, you get in that job, Barack Obama once said about that job, it magnifies your personality. And so I think in his personality was, I'm right, my instincts are better than everybody else's. you better cout to me and we're going with my instincts come hell or high water and don't talk back to me or don't contradict me. In the campaign, it was way more loosey-goosey. He was more entrepreneurial. He was like, okay, I'm taking a flyer on the presidency.

Starting point is 00:10:02 Nobody thinks I can win. He didn't think he could win. And so it was a little bit more loosey-goosey. It was a little more interactive. But when he got to the White House, it was like, okay, I got to the White House. You didn't get to the White House. Don't tell me what you think. I know what's best.

Starting point is 00:10:16 You see what I mean? See, people think I got fired for the newspaper article. Trump didn't give a shit about that. Trump laughs about stuff like that. I got fired because I was in a little bit of a tangle with him on a couple of different issues. And then he finally said to me, I knew I was cooked when he called me a deep stater on Friday. He said, you know, I didn't realize you were a deep stater. And I'm like, well, first of all, I'm not a deep stater.

Starting point is 00:10:39 I've only been to Washington once prior to this. I think it was on like a school field trip. Okay. I'm a kid from Long Island. I'm just looking out for your interest. And don't tell me that. Don't tell me that. And then Monday I get fired. But that's fine. Listen, I mean, you're asking me about the 21st of July. I really thought I was going to go in there and help him. There was some friction going on in terms of the cultural merger of the MAGA team with the RNC. And so the RNC was more establishment. The MAGA team was more aligned with Trump. And I had good relationships with both sides. I was hoping to see if I could fuse those. But would Trump figured out, again, rightly or wrongly, I just want to be objective and observant is they weren't going to fuse, so he blew up the R&C. You know, Trump has done something politically masterful.

Starting point is 00:11:28 Again, you can like Donald Trump or dislike him. I'll just tell you what he did. He decapitated the Republican National Committee. He decapitated what was formerly known as the Republicans of George Bush and John McCain, and he did an M&A transaction, hostile takeover. He inserted his team into that team and it's now full MAGA. You know, you can't be on the team unless you're full MAGA. And of course, to quote Donald Trump himself, well, what is full MAGA, whatever I say it is. So it's a party of personality now, less about any levels of guiding principles. But the best thing they've got going for are the Democrats because they're in complete disagree. They're lurching further and further to the left. The country's not that far to the left.

Starting point is 00:12:14 And so the Republicans under the Democratic mismanagement, they have an opportunity here to control the card table for probably a decade, maybe a decade and a half. If Democrats are going to go hard left in a national election, like they just got this kid who won the Democratic primary in New York City, he's a hard left, progressive, devout socialist. I'm just going by what he says, not me. The country doesn't want that. And that's been a failed situation in Oakland. failed situation in San Francisco, failed situation in Chicago, and it will fail here in New York. And so, you know, it is what it is, you know. Well, it feels to me, it seems like we're somewhat aligned.

Starting point is 00:12:57 Elon Musk, in fact, when he was kind of going through that little breakup stage with President Trump, he put out a poll and was like, do we need a third party that's somewhere in the middle. And I know that's kind of where I live. That's somewhere in the middle. And it was like 82% of the respondents to that. And there's millions and millions of. millions of respondents to this is Elon Musk, right? And they said, yes, absolutely. We feel like we

Starting point is 00:13:20 don't have a home. We're somewhere in between. What do you think about that? You know, it's, it's a, I gave you bad news. And Elon Musk is right and we do need a third party. And if anybody can pull off a third party, it's him, actually. He'd have to make a decision to go in that direction. It would cost $50 billion. He'd have to put up 10, find five other guys to put up 10. And then, you know, have to build a coalitional party that that is radical moderates, radical centrist, that want to reform the government and not do what's happening now. This is a little bit longer of a conversation, so forgive me, but what happened in 1992 is a gentleman by the name of Ross Perrault ran as a reform party candidate won 19.9% of the vote. So 33 years ago, the Republicans and the Democrats

Starting point is 00:14:12 got the shit scared out of them. And so they collapsed. on third parties. They tightened their duopoly. They put up a lot of procedures to block third parties from entering races. They've squashed them. Now, that was a good thing for them to keep their power bases, but it was a very, very bad thing for the country, because they allowed each other to gerrymandered districts. They allowed each other to stay in this permanent perpetuation of power. So, you know, Chuck Grassley's like, I think he's like six or six. 700 years old. He's still in the Congress. I mean, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. He'll be running from Iowa from a Ouija board long after he's in the crypt. You know, I mean,

Starting point is 00:14:56 they don't leave and they don't have to leave because of what these guys did in terms of the way they set up the system. And so this causes candidate and public servant apathy for the people. So, like, I don't have to serve the people. I can do whatever the hell I want. And I'm going to curry favor with the lobbyist. I'm going to feather my bed and I don't have to worry about the people. And so in the undercurrent of that, you've had this specter of populism. The people have said, hey, man, this sucks. You guys are taking care of the fat cash. You're taking care of the rich. What about me in the lower middle class? What about my rising living standard? I was once in an economically aspirational family as a blue collar person and now these families

Starting point is 00:15:40 are economically desperation. Fuck you guys. And so that's what's happened. And so, that's what's happened. So, you know, Musk is right. Can he break that duopoly? That's the question. Can you break the duopoly? And the answer is you probably could, but you need $50 billion and you need some very cunning people. You need candidates that understand reality television and understand that this is an entertainment festival, understand that this is a popularity contest as much as it is a hiring decision, right?

Starting point is 00:16:14 The kid, the 33-old kid that won in New York, he's a charismatic kid. The policies are misguided, but the social media was A-plus. You know, the little clips and this and of that, and he energized a group of people. And Andrew, my friend Andrew Cuomo, was running a campaign that was more politically consultant-driven, was more advertising and mailer-driven, and we're in a digital world now. You know, and this is why Bitcoin is going to do well. The old folks don't see it, but Bitcoin's going to do well because the younger people like you, Ryan, are living in a digital world. And so they will accept things like digital currencies and digital stores of value. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:16:55 Well, we could go really good there. That's a mouth. That's a mouthful. No, I appreciate it. But how's my lighting, Hawk? Forget about it. You look great. You look amazing.

Starting point is 00:17:05 Okay. Can we get personal for a second? Anything you want. And we get to all that. So. So. I love you show and it's a, I'm flattered beyond. Thank you.

Starting point is 00:17:15 So there is a time where based on like your devotion to your work, at least from what I read, you can correct it if it's wrong. Your wife was going to divorce you and was like, Anthony, peace out, dude. I'm not doing this anymore. But then at her insistence, again, correct me if this is wrong, she's like, you need to work with somebody, get a life coach or somebody like that to help you. Is that true? Can you take me inside that story and how you work?

Starting point is 00:17:41 worked through that problem because you guys are still from what I've read, happily married to this day. So that was close to not continuing. What did you do to fix that? So not only is everything you said true, but it's worse than that. And so yeah, so I would say to you that I owe my wife, Deirdre, a debt of gratitude for actually really loving me because I was off the rails on a few things. It wasn't just the political ambition. You know, I had made some mistakes in our marriage. And so she's like, hey, I'm not having this. Loves me. File for divorce. You know, we're a little bit of a hot-headed Italian group of people. It was sort of like a shot across the bow. And she's like, hey, I'm not having this. So if you love me, get your shit together. Otherwise,

Starting point is 00:18:30 we're going to be divorced and we're going to live apart. And so she was right. I was wrong. And I think the lesson to that is you have to take accountability in your life when you're wrong. Now, I do love her very much. And thank God she loves me, right? Because if you love each other, you can stay married. You know, there's a great cliche. Are you married, Hawk? Yes.

Starting point is 00:18:50 Okay, so there's a great cliche. Tell your wife this, you can be right or you can be married. You have to make a decision, okay? Meaning, you know, you can, you know, meaning you can be right. You can be right like in righteous, you know, your husband's wrong and you're right. and then you have divorced, or you can be right, or you can be married. You know, meaning you have to, I'm sorry, go ahead. The one thing that I, the one phrase I don't like, Anthony, let me see what you think is happy wife, happy life.

Starting point is 00:19:17 I'm okay with happy spouse, happy house because like we're equals in this thing. And so like, I don't think you just. It's good insight. You know what I'm saying? Like, that's the one thing I don't. When people say, so, so I think at times I'm right and my wife is wrong. And at times she's right and I'm wrong. So I don't know if that's exactly.

Starting point is 00:19:36 My point is, you might be right. Let it go. You know what I mean? In other words, like you love her, you know, your people. There's going to be some friction. It's not going to have perfect harmony. There's no such thing except in a fairy tale. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:19:49 You know, we were both on our second marriage, love each other. I was over my skis. I mean, she hated Trump. She probably hates Trump almost as much as Melania hates him, which is like a very high standard of like hatred, right? I mean, that's like Eastern European hate. You know what I'm talking about? I mean, that's like, you know, Joe Stalin type of shit, right?

Starting point is 00:20:09 I mean, they are still married, I think. Yeah, but she fucking hates him and she doesn't live with them. And, you know, part of the reason why he's so miserable is that he's into white. You know, you want to hear you want to want to laugh? You know, Trump once called me and he told me that, you know, you can't get any internet porn in the White House because they got all the sites blocked down, you know. No way. That call happened. Living alone by himself, yeah.

Starting point is 00:20:31 Well, you know, anyway, we can move on to another topic. But, I mean, that's the funny part of Trump, which I do, you know, you have to understand, like, I don't like the policies. I don't like the bellicosity of the personality, but there are some fun things about him. And it's the reason why 80 million people voted for him, right? He is the most famous comedian in the world. I mean, you have to just accept that he is, right? He has a dryness and a delivery that goes over in a way that people find humorous. But back on the target, Deirdre and I heading for a divorce, did a perp walk in the Nassau County family court together.

Starting point is 00:21:10 At the end of that session, I drove back to the home that we were living in, which I was now living a part of. And I said, hey, you know, I still love you. I think you still love me. Should we try to work this out? She then said to me, yeah, but you're fucked up and you need to go see somebody. and Tony Robbins is a good friend of mine and Tony recommended a life coach who worked with him for 30 years and Tony said something to me said let's you come down and see me you and your wife should come down and see me and let's see

Starting point is 00:21:48 if we can help you and so we did that we went to like date with destiny we had some private sessions with Tony I then went to the life coach and one of the things about it is accountability Ryan right you talk about leadership your books, your podcast, are you or are you not accountable? Like sometimes we go into the denialism about our own weaknesses. We go into denialism about who we really are. We want to pretend to the world that we're all good when there's some dark features to our personalities. You know, this is why Robert Green's books have done so well, you know, the 48 laws of power. And I've interviewed Robert on my podcast and I love Robert. But I had to go through a reckoning with myself. I

Starting point is 00:22:29 had to become less conflict avoidant. I had to become more honest. I had to become more direct in terms of what my feelings were. And we turned our marriage around. Now, was it perfect in the beginning after the fight started? The first six, eight, 12 months? No. But is it a way better marriage, a stronger marriage today, eight years later? Do we love each other? Yes. And I think we have a tendency in our society to be very disposable with each other. You know, she could have divorced me and been totally justified in divorcing me in 2017 and called it quits. But that would have been bad for her, in my opinion. It was certainly going to be bad for me.

Starting point is 00:23:10 It would have been bad for our two beautiful children. And I think the message, again, this ties back to leadership, stay in things. You know, you don't make everything in your life disposable, particularly the things that matter. And if you're working on yourself, one thing I have found with my advice, adult children, because I've obviously had a failed marriage, my first marriage was a failure, but I've got three beautiful adult children. I think they give you the benefit of the doubt if you're working on yourself. I think your employees give you the benefit of the doubt. You know, talking about athletics. If you're the guy in the gym working out training your body

Starting point is 00:23:48 to improve your performance, are your fellow players going to like you more or like you less if you're doing that, right? So work on yourself. You know, this is a way. You know, this is a what makes your podcast so good because you're bringing on people that talk about real things and put things in perspective with a level of authenticity. And genuine curiosity. What are you currently doing to still work on yourself? Well, you mentioned my life coach. I have a life coach. Oh, you still? Yeah, yeah. I speak to him once a week. Sometimes I ask him to speak to my kids or maybe even an employee or, you know. Is that like therapy? I'm not. I'm not. I'm, fascinated by like how a coach works with a person. Like what do you, is it? Does it, does he or she give

Starting point is 00:24:33 you prompts? How does it go? Such a great question. So again, I've had therapy. I feel that therapy is a regression. Life coaching is a progression. Okay. So if Tony Robbins were here or Alonzo Gahoon, who's my life coach, and I'm happy to mention his name in case people want to use him, easy to find first name alonzo west in c a h o'o-o-n i just say that scaramucci sent you okay he'll let out a laugh because i've referred to him a lot of clients but a life coach is forget about the past what the hell are you going to do you're not going to what are you going to do we're going to relitigate the past all day and discuss what went right and wrong who gives a shit what are we doing today to make yourself a better person a better dad a better athlete a better leader a better

Starting point is 00:25:22 friend, what are we doing today? And how are we setting up tomorrow so that tomorrow is a better day than today? And how are we going to live with a cup overflowing with optimism about the world? There's a lot of reasons to be pessimistic. That's life. You know, the human condition, the ancient Greek said it better than anybody. If you walked into one of those outdoor theaters, there was a placard of a face that was smiling. And then right next to it, there was a face of great sadness, comedy and tragedy. And what would the ancient Greek say? That's your life. You're going to get a package of tribulations in your life. Some of them are joyous and some of them are tragic. And by the way, it's going to be tragic. Okay. You're going to end. You're going to meet your own demise. You're

Starting point is 00:26:08 going to have to say goodbye to people you love. And so you have to accept that. And by the way, you could be a billionaire, a multi-billionaire. It doesn't matter. You know, one of the most heart-rendering things. And I always tell people this, about 30 years ago, Bill Gates, his mom died of breast cancer. And I think he was on Charlie Rose or one of those interviewers. And he said, look, at that time of my life was the richest person in the world. You don't think I would have given my money away to save my mom's life to extend the years of her life. But it was an impossibility, right? God has batted a thousand on planet Earth. I mean, we had one guy came back. He rose from the dead three days later. And he was here for 40 days. And he's gone.

Starting point is 00:26:49 My point being, you're going to die. Okay, so what are you going to do? Face the music in your life. Enjoy your life, embrace your life. You know, the pessimists look at it and say, oh, well, it's worthless anyway. Why would I even bother? The optimists are like, hey, I'm here. I'm breathing.

Starting point is 00:27:09 I'm having a good meal, a good cup of coffee. There's some fun people around that I can love and hang out with. And there's some businesses I can build while I'm here. Why not enjoy myself while I'm here to the best of my best. my capability and whatever tragedy besets me let me handle it with some level of dignity let me handle it with some level of kindness towards others right I think I think that's the messaging of life coaching versus you know my dad hit me when I was eight and so now I'm fucked up and you know I don't know I don't I don't think I'm not a huge fan of the therapy

Starting point is 00:27:42 I'm not saying you shouldn't do it if you need it but I'm a better fan of the life coaching because I think it's more progressive. I read that your dad abused you guys growing up, and it messed your brother up big time, but it turned you into a workaholic. What impact? How does that played out now that you look back on those years? I know you're looking forward,

Starting point is 00:28:03 but that is a part of your life and a part of your history. How did that impact you? I'm impressed that you did your homework. So I did a podcast with my brother in 2016, which I always refer to people to a bad addiction. And so my brother became a cocaine addict, 40 years cycling in at a cocaine, maybe seven or eight rehabs. He's 63 today, doing well, very smart guy, lovely guy, you know, sensitive guy, but a real guy, you know, someone I love very much. He became a cocaine addict.

Starting point is 00:28:34 I became a different type of aholic. I became a workaholic. And so, yeah, my dad was rough on us. So what do you do? You can either hold that anger for. the rest of your life or you can forgive and you can choose to forgive him. Who the hell knows what happened to my dad when he was a kid? You know, who the hell knows? I can't tell you, but for me, and this is the same thing for you or anybody listening, okay, the best among us,

Starting point is 00:29:03 okay, this is something my grandmother would have said. She would have said it in Italian, but I'll say it to you in English. The best among us choose not to judge human frailty so harshly. Okay, so whatever was going on with my dad, maybe depression, a lot of anger in human life is represented. There's underlying depression that gets represented in anger. When I see somebody blowing off or super angry in charge all the time, they're probably manifesting some level of not feeling well about themselves. I mean, look, everyone can have a temperamental blow off. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying a consistent.

Starting point is 00:29:43 level of anger is usually a sign that there's an underlying depression issue. And maybe that was my dad. What am I going to do? I have to choose to forgive him, which I have. But I would also say this about human frailty. That means ourselves. So if I'm working in the White House and get my ass fired, which I'm fully accountable for, I never bring the president or John Kelly or anybody for getting fired. I'm fired because I wasn't serving the president the way he wanted me to. He fired me. I can wake up in the morning, Ryan, and say, oh, I did something stupid in the White House. Let me kick myself in the pants today and have this regret. Or I can take that millstone of regret and leave it behind me. Take it off of my neck and leave it behind me. And I would say to people, human frailty and not judging it is not just you judging others, but also yourself. The shit that you're doing that you don't like, the shit you're doing that you regret, why don't we forget that? why don't we move forward? Why don't we forgive that? And I think that's a very big message,

Starting point is 00:30:49 very big resonating message that helped people. Again, that helps their careers. It helps their relationships. It helps their business life. And but yeah, no, my dad was very rough on us. He was rough on my mom. They were in a traditional Catholic marriage, so no one was going anywhere. And that's, that's where we are, you know. I mean, but listen, I talk about it for a reason because somebody could hear it and they could recognize it. There's a signal that I'm trying to send to somebody. And I appreciate you bringing it up on your podcast because maybe someone's listening and they hear the signal and say, okay, look, that guy got through it. I can get through it.

Starting point is 00:31:29 And I think it's important. And by the way, that podcast, my brother and I did, 500,000 people have listened to it. I was in an airport once when I was passing my luggage through the, you know, the TSA. and a guy taps me on the back and he says mooch i said yeah he goes oh you don't know me i'm bah bah he goes you know i'm seven years clean and uh i go to meetings every week you know i'm in aa to keep myself off of alcohol and sometimes when i can't get to a meeting i have the conversation that you and your brother had on that podcast i have it downloaded on my phone and if i can't get to a meeting i will put my earbuds in and i will listen to you guys describing your

Starting point is 00:32:09 upbringing and you guys describing directionally what happened to each of you because there's compassion there you know there's a there's a you know you know you know you want to relate to other people express your vulnerability show them that side of you know and they're like all right this guy's a real dude he's not he's not trying to be better than me i'm not trying to be better than anybody right i'm not better than anybody i'm not worse than anybody though either you know and that's another big message for people you know yeah i appreciate you sharing that and i think you also just taking ownership over the situation because I know there are some who would choose to use that and have a victim mentality and then go act out in a bad way and cause harm to others.

Starting point is 00:32:50 Ed Lattermore was on this podcast and he grew up in a really tough situation. Mom's a drug addict selling drugs. And he said, if I go out and commit a crime, the judge and jury don't care about my upbringing. They're sending me to jail, right? I got to take ownership over what I do. I'm like, I like that. One of the things about you, Anthony, is that you are a very very very. powerful person and you've been surrounded by power a big chunk of your life. You got fired by the

Starting point is 00:33:17 most powerful person in the world. He hired you as well to work with him and there are many others around that orbit. And so I'm fascinated by power and how it works and power dynamics and how you work well and kind of bob and weave amongst powerful people and continue to rise up, which you're doing as we speak. When you think about power, how have you been so good at managing egos and people with immense power in the world? I mean, I don't know if I'm really that good. I mean, I got my ass fired by Trump, right? I mean, I'm probably, um, I'm hesitating is I really want to be thoughtful about this. I guess what I would say to you is, I mean, again, this is probably going to come across bragging or something like that. I'm not trying to brag. I'm just trying to say to, it's what I

Starting point is 00:34:12 would say to people. Find your superpower. You're a great interviewer. You've got great insight. You understand leadership. You're fascinated by it. I think your superpower is very similar to my superpower. And I'll tell you what that is intellectual curiosity. And so if you can blend intellectual curiosity with neuroplasticity, meaning you can adopt and change, okay, then you can move in various circles. You know, I'd like to think that the clamors on Long Island, I can relate to them as well as any person that I would meet at the world economic form because I grew up with them and they're me.

Starting point is 00:34:54 The flip side is the people that are meeting at the world economic form, guess why? You're the clamors. You're better or no worse. You know, there was a kid. It was a very smug kid I was in law school with. And he was, you know, some kind of intellectual bullshit. spewing from his mouth. And I just looked at him. I said, let me tell you something. Okay, there are kids in my neighborhood that are putting in sheet rock right now that are fucking

Starting point is 00:35:16 smarter than you. Okay, I just want to let you know that. The problem is that those kids' fathers put in sheet rock. And guess what they're doing? They're putting in sheet rock. But they had super high IQs. It did really well in school, in high school. But because of their financial limitations in the family and the way they thought about things, hey, you're joining my sheetrock business. Okay, and so cool yourself out. And so I guess the point I'm making to you, combine intellectual curiosity with neuroplasticity, you can go from a polyester suit, which is what I was wearing at my first Goldman interview. I was fully flammable Ryan Hawk for my first interview at Goldman's Axevibe.

Starting point is 00:35:56 If a match went off, the whole thing would have caught on fire. I had a polyester shirt on. Okay, I looked like a young Italian undertaker from Brooklyn. And the guy said to me, look, you're a smart kid, but you're the worst-dressed person. that we've like ever met here at the Harvard Law School. So I can't invite you down to Goldman Sachs dressed like this. And I've looked at him. I was like a beat red. I was so embarrassed. He said, you got to go to Brooks Brothers. Buy yourself some natural fiber clothing. Okay. I remember calling my mother. My mother's like, he doesn't know what he's talking about. You look great. I did not look

Starting point is 00:36:27 great, Ryan. Okay. I did not look great. But I didn't know any better. And so you can either have shame about that or you can create that adoption. And you can say, okay, I got to get with the program. I got to find what I need to do to get into these channels. But I'll leave you the one last thought. Okay, I'm a comfortable outsider. I'm not an insider. Even though I may be inside the room at the White House or inside a salon at the World Economic Forum, I'm a kid from Long Island that grew up in a blue-collar neighborhood that went to a public high school, K-12 public schools, and has some reasonable brain capacity and built a couple of businesses. But I'm not an insider, but I'm comfortable with it.

Starting point is 00:37:16 You know, like guys like Trump or Rudy, they're uncomfortable outsiders. You see what I mean? And they get, they get nerved up. They're like, you know, you won't let me into your golf club. I'm going to build 18 golf clubs. You're not going to let me into your salon dinner on the Upper East Side. I'm going to become the President of the United States to shove myself up your ass. You see what I mean?

Starting point is 00:37:36 But I'm a comfortable outsider. I don't need to do that. You know, there are golf clubs on Long Island. They would let me in possibly to landscape the Greens. That's possibly what they would let me in for. They're not going to let me in to be a member. And I can either be upset about that or I could laugh about that. You've got to make a decision about being comfortable in your own skin in life.

Starting point is 00:37:55 Yeah, I sensed that from you. Did you go to law school with Barack Obama? So he was behind me. I did. I was, I actually, Michelle Obama was at a couple of years ahead of me. Sort of weird. So she was class, I was class of 89. Michelle was class of 87. So she was a 3L when I was a 1L. And by the time I was a 3L, Barack Obama, who's a few years older than me, was a 1L. And so I didn't really know them. I mean, I'm not going to BS people. You know, all the faculty when he was president said they taught them, which was mathematics, and every single person in the school said that they knew them. Also, again, mathematically impossible. But I gave Obama some money in 07 and I walked over to him at a fundraiser and I said, Senator, I mean, he was

Starting point is 00:38:42 Senator at the time. I said, Senator, I got a big check in my breast pocket here. You and I went to law school together. We didn't really know each other. I said, I'm about to hand you a big check. Can I lie to my friends and tell him that you and I knew each other really well in law school? Well, he looked at me, and he had probably the best smile in American politics since Jack Kennedy. He smiled. He said, you know what? He says, Anthony, he said, if you double the amount of the check, we could take it back to Hawaii, meaning like we were in high school together. It was really funny. So I ripped the check up. Of course, I had another check in my wallet. I doubled the amount of the check, and I handed it to him. And, you know, but he was very nice to me. I went to a couple of Christmas parties at the White House during his term there. and I like him. I think he did some things that he feels bad about today. I think he needed to let Joe Biden run in 16. I don't think they understood the threat of the populism in the country or what Donald Trump was going to do to their party. But, you know, listen, it is what it is. I think he generally did a good job. Remember, we were in a midst of a real bad crisis, the global financial crisis. And he was a thoughtful guy, smart guy. And I think he, I think he was a pretty good president.

Starting point is 00:39:52 Changing gears a little bit. One of the things that you did, I believe this is 2008, that I like is you started hosting events, specifically in an event, I believe the Skybridge Alternatives, the Salt Conference, where you gathered kind of people together. And I love this idea of bringing curious, thoughtful people together and creating collisions so that we could have conversations and learn through those things. Can you walk me through this idea that you had in 2008 to host. this event and how it became like this big time thing to bring people together. So I was at this college event in 2011. And the event you're referring to is called Salt. It stands for Skybridge alternatives, but now it's got its own brand as a fault leadership event.

Starting point is 00:40:41 And some kid said to me, sir, could you explain to me your strategy and your visionary genius to create salt? And I looked at the kid and I said, okay. we were going out of business. I just want to make it very clear to everybody. We were getting our ass kicked. Our phone was down 22%. Redemptions were piling up.

Starting point is 00:41:01 I thought for sure we were going out of business. And so I'm like, what the hell am I going to do? I'm probably going to be a third-party marketer for hedge funds. And so what should I do? Let me start a conference. Because if I start a conference, I might be able to bring people together, convene them, and then raise money from them.

Starting point is 00:41:20 And at that time, it was during TARP. All the big companies had canceled their conferences in Vegas. I went to the Encore Hotel, which is attached to the win, and we were getting rooms for $99 in 2009. That's how bad the situation was. And so this was an accidental survivor strategy. This was a pivot that we were making in order to stay in business. This was not some mastermind plan, Ryan. Moreover, during COVID, I'm sitting there.

Starting point is 00:41:58 My portfolio was languishing. I've got to make a decision. What am I going to do? Well, we're going to pivot the whole goddamn business. We pivoted into digital assets. You've got over a billion dollars of Bitcoin-related assets on our balance sheet right now, almost nine figures of digital assets on our corporate balance sheet. But I'm talking about the balance sheet of the portfolio over.

Starting point is 00:42:19 a billion dollars in Bitcoin related assets, that didn't exist five years ago for Skybridge. So why do we do that? Again, for survival. You can't sit in a typewriter business and say, you know, the typewriters have sold successfully for 100 years. Let's stay in the typewriter business. You can't sit in the yellow pages. You say, you know, we cut down these trees.

Starting point is 00:42:43 We're dropping off four-pound books stained with yellow dye. And that's been our business for 95 years. stay in that business. You can't do that. You've got to move and you've got to recreate yourself. Wolfgang Puck, who's a brilliant restaurateur, he's got a restaurant that's been in existence for 40 years in Beverly Hills called Spago. You know what he does at a restaurant? Blows it up every 10 years. The restaurant's being shut for renovations. Blows it up. It doesn't look like it did in 1977 and the menu doesn't look like that. And you have to do that with your life. You have to do that with your business.

Starting point is 00:43:21 You know? This is. I can eat 30 Twinkies at age 15, 30 Twinkies. Trust me, because I did it. Eat 30 Twinkies, not gain an ounce, okay, and go out and play football.

Starting point is 00:43:33 No problem. I can't eat 30 Twinkies today at age 60. Well, first of all, I don't know what the hell I was doing, eating those Twinkies, but you have to look at your world the way it is, and you have to accept the world the way it is and adopt, adapt and operate in that world.

Starting point is 00:43:51 And so that conference business was accidental. It turned to a phenomenal business for us. And it also fed Skybridge, lots of customers. And it also helped a lot of my friends in the industry. You know, I've had people come to me and say, Mooch, I went to your conference and I raised money from somebody that's my kind. That's awesome. Those positive externalities are good karma,

Starting point is 00:44:14 and they're good for your overall relationship building. Well, I just think it's a great idea to bring people together, too. I mean, like good things tend to happen if you thoughtfully bring people together, whether that's dinners, big conferences, event, anything in my life, in my experience, in my business, it feels like so many good things have happened from bringing people together and from relationships. That's how all this stuff really happens. And there's another event I recently saw you given a talk about the Sun Valley Conference.

Starting point is 00:44:46 was it maybe 1999. Jeff Bezos was speaking. And I remember I feel like you were like, God, I got to invest in that guy. But then you changed your mind because Warren Buffett spoke after him. And was that like a teaching moment to trust your gut? I'm curious about what happened. You did a lot of research, man. You did a lot of research.

Starting point is 00:45:03 I'm impressed, Hawk. Okay. Thank you. Yeah, no, you did a lot of real. I'm trying to tell the story. I missed a lot of the tech boom. By the way, Warren Buffett is the man. I attribute his teachings and writings to making my family financially independent.

Starting point is 00:45:21 But like Warren Buffett, I've got a lot of things wrong in my life, you know. I had the Uber guys in my office. You want to hear another? I had the Uber guys in my office. And they're like, okay, it's a $500 million valuation. We want you to put in $500,000. I'm like, okay, so give me the pitch. We're going to have an unknown guy in an unknown black car driving your 16-year-old daughter around Manhattan.

Starting point is 00:45:43 and we're going to charge your American Express car. That's what we're doing? Yeah, okay, get the fuck out of my office. I'm not going to put my daughter in an unknown car with an unknown guy. Okay, and I totally didn't understand. I totally missed it. Okay, probably be retired if I gave him that money, right? You know, the point I'm making is you can make a lot of mistakes and still be a success,

Starting point is 00:46:05 but, you know, learn from the mistakes. Be more open-minded. Bezos gave, he's my age, by the way. He's born in January of 64 like me. We're only separated by a few days in terms of the timing of our births, but we're also separated by about $250 billion, me and him, okay? But he did something that was absolutely brilliant, and he did something that was very well executed.

Starting point is 00:46:31 So he gave a speech that day about books. He basically said, look, I'm not a bookseller. I mean, I am a bookseller, but I'm not going to be just a bookseller. I'm moving these books around because there's, roughly the same size, roughly the same weight. I'm trying to reverse engineer and dot plot where the warehouses should be. I'm going to build an everything store. And by the way, if you invest in this thing, maybe take 10 or 15 years,

Starting point is 00:46:55 I'm going to make any money with me. I'm thinking about this over 10 or 15 years. And then when I hit the spiket, we're going to make a lot of money, but we're not going to make a lot of money right now. I have to build the infrastructure of this. Okay. And he was building real estate. He just wasn't building.

Starting point is 00:47:12 retail real estate. He was building warehousing so that he could retail deliver one-to-one to people. This was a B-to-C move that was absolutely brilliant. And Buffett said something after he was done speaking. I was like, okay, Buffett's always right. Let me rip this up. I ripped up all my nose. He said, oh, lovely guy, really smart. I don't really understand technology or the internet. I'm not investing in this. Oh, by the way, can you believe that this guy's valuation, his market capitalization for Amazon is bigger than Sears Roebook, the storied Sears Roebook with all of its bricks and mortar retail everywhere. And I was like, yeah, of course.

Starting point is 00:47:53 And I don't have the exact numbers, but I want to say, and Frank Quartreung told me this, he was the banker that took this public. And this number may not be perfect, but you could get the number from Grok. If you put $10,000 into Amazon on the IPO, what's it worth today? I think it's like $20 million or something like that. Now, you would have had to gone through eight periods of time where you lost 50%, one period of time where you lost 90, and very few people held it, Bezos did, but very few people held it from day one to today.

Starting point is 00:48:27 But he's a genius, and he's a great executor, and you have to acknowledge, I missed it. It was right there. It was right on the T for me. And I could hit it over the fence, but I missed it. And so it can miss it. So how am I not trying to miss things in the future? Bitcoin to me is that. Bitcoin to me is that.

Starting point is 00:48:50 And I don't want to miss Bitcoin. You know, Bitcoin is me sitting there in that meeting in 1999. Yep. I know we got to run, man. You're doing podcasts. And most recently this one called Lost Boys with our mutual friend Scott Galloway, who's been on three or four times and we'll be on again soon to promote us next book. What's that like, Ben, with Scott and your banter.

Starting point is 00:49:12 You guys have both these great personalities. You're not afraid to speak your mind. And I got to imagine that's got to be fun for you guys. So I adore him. I think he is one of our leading thinkers. I think he can turn a phrase about as well as anybody. I mean, I would love to see him in public office, frankly, because he's a healing sort of a guy.

Starting point is 00:49:39 He's a visionary. He's not an us versus them guy. He's an inclusive guy. And he's also honest. What I love about him, and I met him through one of his books, actually. I interviewed him for one of his books. He invited me then on his podcast, I think, with Ed Elson. They do a brilliant job on that podcast.

Starting point is 00:50:00 He's also friends with Kara Swisher on the Pivik podcast. I know Kara. And so a couple of mutual friends put us together. And then I went to him at dinner with him. and we started talking about this epidemic of male self-esteem. If you're 14 to 34 and you're a white male in the United States, you have a 30% higher likelihood to commit suicide than other demographic groups. Whoa, that's a big number, by the way.

Starting point is 00:50:27 And so we started talking about that. And then I suggested them, why don't you and I do a limited series? We don't have to make it a permanent podcast, but let's just do it like a documentary, like a podcast documentary. We'll interview Richard Reeves. We'll interview sociologists. We'll interview people that are studying this problem. We'll interview people that think we're full of shit that don't agree that there is a problem.

Starting point is 00:50:49 And we'll put it out there into the public domain so that we can raise awareness. Because like that podcast I did with my brother related to addiction disorders, let's talk about these things. Let's remove the stigma of what these things are and what they represent in our culture. because if there's someone listening to you and me that doesn't feel good about themselves or they're in pain and there was a woman recently i think she was a famous ticotker or YouTuber she just took her own life her husband put out a press release and said that she was dealing with extraordinary personal pain and she ended her life and so you know let's get those people help and the way to get those people help let them not feel shame about the way they're feeling

Starting point is 00:51:39 It's like the message is, you know, it's okay to express what you're feeling and you're not going to get judged, okay? By the real people that really care and love you, you're not going to get judged. If anything, they're going to embrace you and they're going to help you start to feel better about yourself. Because there are, just like there's a treatment for your heart, Ryan, and just like there's a treatment, if you have a bad knee, there are treatments for issues related to your brain. and we need to end the stigma associated with that. And I can't think of a better guy to do a podcast within him in terms of discussing that reality with people. Yes, love it, man. And I know you got to run to Bloomberg.

Starting point is 00:52:22 I appreciate you doing this, dude. I would love to do a round two in the future if you're game. Yeah, anytime. You're the man. You did a lot of research. I'd like to have you come on open book for my, I want to read your books and have you come on and we'll have a spirited conversation. Let's do it, man. My fucking lighting was awesome.

Starting point is 00:52:39 I'll try to look as good as you. You got to hook me in with your people. Just letting people know that are listening to this on audio, you're missing this lighting moment for me. I think the lighting is fucking fantastic in here, no. You look good. You're ready for TV. So enjoy the TV hit you're about to do.

Starting point is 00:52:56 And I meant it, man. I'd love to continue our dialogue. And let's keep this thing going. All right. God bless you, man. Awesome. Thank you, man. It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club.

Starting point is 00:53:12 If you are, send me a note, Ryan at learningleader.com. Let me know what you learn from this great conversation with Anthony Scaramucci. A few takeaways from my notes. Confidence and charisma. The first fight is with yourself. You have to believe that you can do the big thing. Henry Ford said, if you think you can or you think you can't, you're right. And I get this sense that Anthony has developed this charisma.

Starting point is 00:53:38 and confidence about himself, to be brutally honest and just say what's true in doing this, kind of endears him to others, and it makes you want to work with him. It's kind of cool. And then how he handled his wife filing for divorce. She said he was a complete mess. He took accountability for it. He worked on himself. He met with Tony Robbins.

Starting point is 00:54:01 He hired a life coach, and he continues to work with his life coach to this day. He said therapy is regression. It's all backwards. Coaching sessions for him are about progression. They're about movement, moving forward, being an optimist. I liked his viewpoint there. And then find your superpower. He mentioned that ours is the same, which is intellectual curiosity plus neuroplasticity,

Starting point is 00:54:29 meaning you're willing to have an open mind, to change your mind, to ask questions, to listen, to be a learning leader. dare I say. Once again, I want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Anthony Scaramucci. I think the mooch will help you become a more effective leader because you continue to do that and you also go to Spotify and Apple Podcasts and you subscribe to the show and you rate it hopefully five stars and you write a thoughtful review by doing all of that you continue to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis.

Starting point is 00:55:11 And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 643: Anthony Scaramucci - Getting Fired by President Trump, Working With a Life Coach, Playing Quarterback, Building Confidence + Charisma, Telling The Truth, & Finding Your Superpower

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