I recently interviewed Thomson Reuters CEO Steve Hasker on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:
Adam: Our guest today is the leader of a conglomerate that generated more than $7 billion in revenue last year. Steve Hasker is the CEO of Thomson Reuters, where he leads more than 26,000 people across more than 75 countries. Steve, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me, Adam. It’s good to be here. Great to have you on. You grew up down under and you stuck around to get your undergrad degree in economics from the University of Melbourne. You came to the U.S. to do a joint master’s program at Columbia. Can you take listeners back to your early days? What early experiences and lessons shaped your worldview and shaped the trajectory of your success?
Steve: Yeah, thanks, Adam. I did indeed grow up in Australia. My father was an engineer who turned himself into a business person and managed a number of businesses and had various roles throughout his career in sales and general management, and then went on to be a board director, including the Australian Red Cross Blood Service, which he was part of a team that modernized that service and helped make it world-class in terms of its quality of service to Australians. My mother was a social worker and a psychologist and throughout my growing up she worked full-time a lot of the time and part-time occasionally when my two siblings and I were particularly young. We moved around a lot. So as my father took different roles and got different promotions, we moved cities. So I was born in Melbourne. We then, when I was very young, moved to Tasmania. From there, we went up to Brisbane. From there, we went to Sydney and then back down to Melbourne. And at that time, in my final years at high school, my parents moved to Adelaide and my father took a job there and then finally they moved to Sydney before retiring back in Melbourne. So we were put in new schools every couple of years. My older sister and my younger brother and I had to make new friends every couple of years and as I look back on it, it was probably the best thing our parents did for us. because it forced us to figure out how to relate to a new set of kids and how to both fit in and distinguish ourselves at the same time. So I think that’s been helpful to me as I forged a career in the United States and first starting a graduate school and then in different roles to sort of have that set of experiences in being placed in new environments relatively regularly and also having to fit in and stand out at the same time.
Adam: What are the lessons that you took away from that experience moving to new environments and ultimately taking that to moving to new environments in your career, moving not only to new companies but to new countries where you’ve been in these senior leadership roles?
Steve: Perhaps, Adam, the biggest lesson is that we all have something in common with other people and we have to have both the interest, the persistence and the skill set to uncover those areas of commonality. It’s easy to figure out how we’re different than other people, whether that be race or gender or age or interests. It’s harder to find the commonalities, but they exist. And so that’s a lesson that I learned growing up in Australia in these sorts of different junior and high school environments that I’ve been able to apply in other walks of life and as I’ve forged my career.
Adam: It’s a great lesson and it’s a lesson that I’ve explored with so many different leaders across so many different verticals. I’ve explored this topic with political leaders who are thrust into this environment where they have to work with people who they don’t really have a lot in common with and in many cases really don’t like personally, but have to work with because they simply have to in order to get things done and the biggest takeaway from those conversations is the same takeaway that you shared which is we all have something in common and it’s ultimately on you to take that step to figure out what that commonality is and when you do You can find the humanity in anyone. You could find the humanity even in people who you might think you don’t have anything in common with, who you might, on a fundamental level, not like. But you can get over that once you find what it is in them that you do like. Well said. What were the keys to rising in your career? How did you get from where you were starting right out to where you are today?
Steve: I’ve never had a career plan. I envy those who have a career plan. You meet young people and they say, okay, here’s where I’m going to start and here’s where I’m going to finish. I think it’d be great. I’ve never had that. sort of approach which I would characterize as a curiosity. So a focus first and foremost on learning rather than compensation or promotion or title. So in other words, I’ve always looked to take an opportunity where I thought I could learn the most. And so I’ve moved jobs or I’ve changed roles or I’ve said yes to a project where I felt that I was going to learn more in that environment than I was currently learning. And that’s been North Star for me and I think it served me well. Has it served me as well as if I’d been more sort of careerist or compensation-focused? I don’t know, but that’s been an important part of it. The second is humility. The longer I’m in this role, and in fact any role, the more I realize how much I don’t know. And so I try to do more listening than talking in any given meeting. I don’t always succeed. But the more people you get exposed to, the more problems you get exposed to and try to solve, the more you realize how much you don’t know and how much you have to learn from the environment around you. I try to bring that humility into every interaction. And as I say, I don’t always succeed with that. And then the third is resilience. You’ve got to work hard. I’ve willingly made a whole series of sacrifices throughout my professional career. And I say willingly because nobody’s forced me to do it. And so therefore, in some sense, they’re not really sacrifices. But I don’t think there’s any substitute for showing up and working hard. And that’s the, I suppose, the third guiding light in my career, in addition to the curiosity and the humility. It is that resilience, that willingness to make mistakes, to get knocked down, to learn from them, as being more important than necessarily succeeding at every milestone.
Adam: What are the willing sacrifices that you’re referring to?
Steve: I wouldn’t characterize myself as a workaholic or anything. I enjoy getting home at night and doing some exercise or reading a book or watching a movie like most people. I don’t often work at weekends but if it needs to be done, I’ll do it firstly. Secondly, I prioritize getting a good night’s sleep and I’ve done this for 30 years. If it’s the choice between sort of going out, having a celebration with friends or a social occasion and getting a good night’s sleep, I have consistently prioritized that. That may not be a popular thing for people to hear, but I think it’s very, very important that, particularly as you assume greater and greater leadership responsibilities, that you are well-rested, that you have a sense of humor and that you’re ready to help problem-solve whatever comes your way. And I think if you get too fatigued and run down, either because you’ve sort of over-committed to any particular task or you’re just out running around, you can’t do that. Or at least I can’t. Some people may be able to. But I’ve consistently in a sense sort of prioritized that health and wellness and that ability to focus in a work environment over other stuff.
Adam: It’s a really interesting topic and it’s a really interesting takeaway. Literally just yesterday I recorded an interview with an Olympic gold medalist and I recorded it around her training schedule and she’s in the middle of training for a huge competition and I was chatting with her off the air and she’s training at high altitude in a foreign country and In your words, willing sacrifices that she’s making to pursue greatness in her craft, very similar to what you’re sharing with listeners to make it to the top in your craft. And we were chatting off the air about the topic of sleep, something that you prioritize as a leader, something that she prioritizes as a competitive athlete and It’s the little things that ultimately add up to getting to where you want to be.
Steve: I would always sort of caution comparing business leader with an elite level Olympic athlete. I think there are more businesses to run and more leadership opportunities in a sense that the air is much thinner in those Olympic disciplines because very, very few people rise to the top. But I do think that the kinds of commitment and resilience that she’s showing, I don’t think anyone should kid themselves. I mean, if you want to rise to the top of any field, you need to have some of those attributes. and be able to apply them in a very personal way. So for some people, a particular schedule will be grueling and difficult and really taxing. For other people, it’s a relatively easy thing to achieve. So we’re all different, but there is a base level, I think, of commitment and resilience that’s required because of the competition. There are other people who covet these roles and if you’re not prepared to commit and have those habits, then there’ll be someone else better placed to take the role and that’s the way it should be.
Adam: what is your daily routine and how are you able to get to a place where you’re ultimately able to effectively manage your time and manage your priorities?
Steve: Yeah, I mean I don’t know that I necessarily have a daily routine because I travel a lot. I have a view that at Thomson & Roche we have 600,000 customers and I like to get out and meet them. I think that in large part requires traveling to where they are and meeting them in person. And so I can’t meet all 600,000, but I certainly commit each day to have a conversation with at least one customer. And often that’s virtual, but ideally, it’s in person. So that requires a level of travel, which of course involves different time zones and coming in and out of airports and delayed flights and so on and so forth. And so every day is slightly different, but I tend to wake at about six and try to do a bit of exercise and always have breakfast. If I can, I like to walk into the office or at least my commute, whether it’s on public transport or something else involves some walking. I think that’s a great way to sort of get ready for what’s coming up. At some point the night before or in the morning, I’ll look at the schedule just to get a sense of what’s coming my way and what’s necessary and what perhaps isn’t quite as critical. And then I tend to finish at about six o’clock. If I’m going much beyond that, I tend to see my concentration levels and productivity drop. And I’ll do a couple of work dinners a week. I don’t like to do more than two. Years ago, I used to do four and I just found it was too grueling. And I try to get into bed by nine or ten o’clock at the latest, which for some people may sound crazy. I’ve had a number of young parents, particularly mothers, say, Steve, you’ve got to stop saying that because they say, I would love to get into bed at nine or ten o’clock and I just can’t. I’ve got too many things to juggle. So please stop saying that because it’s not helpful. But it is the truth about my schedule. It works for me. For other people, I think they probably find it perhaps a bit dull. But as I say, everyone’s a little bit different.
Adam: But there’s a lot to learn from what you shared, starting with the fact that for all that goes into your schedule, the discipline, getting up at the same hour every day, making sure that you’re working out, having breakfast, taking a walk, meeting one customer a day, focus on customer centricity, having the right habits for success, something that you shared that really stood out to me As hard as you’re working, as much as you’re putting in, as dedicated as you are to your craft, you recognize that there are only so many bullets that each of us have in our arsenal. And once you exhaust them, there’s no reason to keep going. Take care of yourself. Take that time to make sure that you’re getting the rest that you need so that you can recharge, refuel and show up the next day with all the energy that you need to be successful.
Steve: Yeah. Young people, you know, I’ll ask a question about work-life balance and I don’t have any particular pearls of wisdom but I would say it’s different for everybody. You have to like if not love what you do to be able to do it year in year out. If you’re doing something you really don’t like. and it doesn’t resonate with you and it doesn’t get you excited and motivated. You can do that for a few weeks or a few months, maybe in a few years, but it’s hard to do that for long periods of time. So I do believe in exploring and finding things that really do light you up from a motivation standpoint. Everyone’s idea of work-life balance is different. I mean, one of the things that our head of HR, Mary Alice Vucic says, which I think is very well put is, Thompson & Roy is not responsible for our employees’ work-life balance. What we are responsible for is providing flexibility. so that people can craft a life and a lifestyle and a family and friends and so forth and interests around their careers. And there may be days where it’s out of balance because of some imperative at home or some imperative at work. But over time, we provide the flexibility to enable people to both forge a career and live the life they want to live. And I think that’s the right mindset rather than in each and every day, I need perfect work-life balance and I’m going to get really frustrated if I can’t achieve that. I think that’s unrealistic given the competitive dynamics in this business or any business and the demands of customers. It’s something that requires a slightly longer-term view, I think, and the ability to really lean into work on some days and some periods of time and perhaps back off a little bit at other times.
Adam: As you shared the keys to rising in your career, you spoke about your focus on learning, you spoke about the importance of humility, key characteristics among the most successful leaders. And I want to know if you could share with listeners in your experience, what do you believe are the key characteristics among the very best leaders and what can anyone do to become a better leader?
Steve: Well, I don’t have a great answer for you, Adam, because I think everyone’s different. We’ve all seen leaders in different parts of our lives that are not particularly humble and have sort of developed their own deep expertise and perhaps are not all that embracing of different points of view around them and yet they’ve been spectacularly successful. I don’t think there’s any one particular model that works and I think different professions and pursuits and different industries require at different times different models of leadership. I think the most important thing though is authenticity because if you bring yourself into a role and into a leadership position, it may or may not be the perfect fit but people will see that authenticity. and they’re more likely to follow someone who is authentic than someone who sort of has a manufactured persona or has figured out that there might be a particular prototype of leadership that will work and is adapting and adopting that versus bringing themselves to work. So I think the most important thing is to figure out before or as you’re moving into leadership positions, who are you? What is it that makes you tick? What are the things that you’re good at? What are the things that you’re not good at where you need help? and you need to surround yourself with people who are better at those things than you are. And I think that, for me, is the single most important guidance I can provide for want of a better term, which is to know enough about yourself to figure out what’s an authentic version of yourself that you can bring into any leadership role because you’ve got a better chance of A, having people follow and having it resonate with them, and I think B, it’s more sustainable. creating some persona around yourself. It’s very hard to do that year in, year out. I love that.
Adam: And I agree with you 110%. One thing that I do want to explore a little bit more with you, which is something that I think emerging leaders in particular oftentimes get a little bit confused about when you look at leaders who lack some of the characteristics that we often attribute to really successful leaders, like humility, like the desire to grow, improve, get better. They see leaders who are really successful, who don’t follow the best practices, who break the rules, and they say, well, they did it, why can’t I do it? And oftentimes it’s because that leader has something about them that allows them to break the rules. But that isn’t to say that you’re going to be able to break the rule. An example that I think about when I bring up this topic is Steve Jobs broke a lot of the fundamental rules when it comes to successful leadership. And I’ve had conversations with contemporaries of Steve Jobs, leaders who knew Steve Jobs well, worked closely with Steve Jobs, and their point is, Don’t try to be Steve Jobs because there was only one Steve Jobs and to your point Steve Be you be yourself focus on what makes you great focus on what it is about you that will allow you to excel as a leader and that’s going to be different than what Makes the next person great. It’s ultimately unlocking and unleashing what it is about you that can allow you to become great.
Steve: Yeah, it’s well said. And when I was growing up in Australia, I was a track and field athlete. I had a hurdles coach by the name of Stuart Ambling. And Stuart always used to say, champions can be champions in spite of themselves. Because, you know, there was always a video of whether it was Ed Moses or Roger Kingdom or one of the great American hurdlers that we saw in Australia. And I would say, I want to do it that way. And he would remind me. I mean, Roger Kingdom was one of the most extraordinarily powerful athletes to ever compete in 110 meter hurdles. So for people to try to emulate his technique, probably not going to lead to a lot of success because unless you bring that just immense physical power to the track, you’re not going to be able to do it. You need to do something else. And I think the comparison with Steve Jobs is an interesting one because My reading of history is that Steve was one of the most uniquely talented industrial engineers ever to live and he leaned into that and that was his relentless focus and he was unforgiving in terms of the products that he produced and sponsored. Not everyone has that innate ability. So I do think it comes back to knowing yourself and having a pretty good sense of what you’re good at and maybe even more importantly, what you’re not good at and be able to craft the leadership style. And the other thing is you’ve got to be prepared to try things and fail. You’ve got to be prepared to try different leadership techniques and watch others and say, okay, I like that particular attribute. Could I apply that? Could that work for me? Because we don’t come into leadership positions quite ready. And we’re not always fully formed by the time the heat comes on and we need to start making decisions and helping people through different choices. And so that openness to experiment, to make a mistake, to fail, but most importantly to learn from it and say, okay, that didn’t work. I’m not doing that again. Or it didn’t quite work, but there was an aspect of it that really could be applied to great effect. I think that’s the other part of being open-minded.
Adam: Was there a moment in your career, whether it was a failure or whether it was an experiment, that transformed you as a leader?
Steve: Look, I’ve made a lot of mistakes and some of them have been highly visible. I still sort of get chills thinking about them, whether it was a technical error or whether it was making an assumption that turned out not to be true. applying a particular communication technique to someone who just didn’t resonate. I’ve made lots of those mistakes. What I try to do is remind myself that it is a learning process, that none of these mistakes are fatal and that there is something to be learned and ultimately, it’s a good thing and it’s a step in that journey. But yes, certainly we could spend the rest of the day talking about all the errors I’ve made and continue to make, candidly. I think it’s an important part of the process. The most important thing is A, you own it. and B, to learn from it. I think the minute people see you’re not owning it, then the veneer of authenticity goes away. And then from a very personal perspective, if you’re not prepared to learn from it, then you’re not going to get better. And therefore, it really is a failed experiment. And so that’s sort of how I try to remind myself to comport myself going forward.
Adam: And not to beat a dead horse, but it really comes back to the two key pillars of your career, humility and commitment to learning. When you’re making a mistake, which is inevitable, everyone makes mistakes. When you fail, which is inevitable, we all fail. How do you respond? Do you respond with humility? Do you respond with a desire to learn? If you do, the people around you are going to respect you. They’re going to admire your leadership style. They’re going to respond the way that you want them to respond.
Steve: Like everyone else, I’m human, so I tend to initially respond with frustration. but ideally quickly get into that mode of saying, okay, what did I learn here and what do I need to do differently? And I think in a sense, the more visible that journey is to other people, the more they can relate to you and the more they can say, okay, I’ve learned something here and I admire this person for their courage and being able to go through that journey and do it in a visible way.
Adam: We’re in a moment right now where the pace of change is faster than it’s ever been. Anyone in a leadership role needs to understand how to lead through change, lead through transformation. What advice do you have for anyone listening on how to lead through a change and transformation?
Steve: The first is you’ve got to be open-minded to it. And that’s hard, particularly for successful people. for whom a particular set of motions and actions have led to that success and reinforced that success. I think the more successful you are, the harder it is in a sense to embrace a different direction or a counterpoint of view. So there is a mindset question. I think the second is you’ve got to surround yourself with people who have different points of view. We talk a lot about diversity and that typically is defined as age or gender or race or sexual orientation and all of those things are important. But what’s most important for a successful business is having a team of people who bring differing perspectives because chances are that your customers have differing perspectives, that they come from different walks of life, they’ve all had different experiences. and they’re not an homogenous group. And so the more that the management team, the leadership team can represent that customer group and that diverse set of perspectives and bring those into a conversation, the better prepared you’ll be. That for me is a very, very important part of being open to change, is having these differing perspectives that ask uncomfortable questions, that bring in a perspective that’s different, that’s foreign, that’s a bit irritating to some of the folks on the team. And it’s really important as a leader that you enable people to have those conversations and enable those points of view to be brought to bear, but you still are able as a team to make a decision. You can’t go into a mode of endless debate and discussion, but you’ve got to bring those perspectives and then ideally in a fact-based way, make a call and get on with it. Those are the behaviors that I think underlie openness to change. And as you say, we’re in an environment where I think it will just continue to accelerate. We talk about unprecedented pace of change. I think no matter which year we progress into; it’s going to be unprecedented in terms of the pace of change. It’s just one of the outcrops of technological advancement.
Adam: and implicit in what you shared, the power of AI, how AI is driving the change that we’re seeing today. What should leaders understand about AI? How can leaders most effectively leverage AI?
Steve: The first thing is I don’t think the implication of generative AI in particular conversational AI is going to be uniformly the same across all professions, and for that matter, all roles or parts of the world. I do think it will be much more impactful in some areas than others. At Thomson Reuters, we provide content-driven technology to lawyers, to tax and accounting and audit professionals, and to risk fraud and compliance professionals and law enforcement. And I think the impact will be different in each of those. I also think, though, that the professions we serve happen to be among the most ripe for AI-driven efficiency and effectiveness changes. And so whether it be automating and freeing up CPAs to provide more advisory services to their clients, or whether it’s taking a lot of the grunt work out of legal research or legal drafting, initial preparation of contracts. You know, I think AI is poised to make a very meaningful shift in those and other professions. And I think there’s going to be a premium put on judgment, on critical thinking, on curiosity, on communication, on people’s network. the ability to sort of be the human in the loop in a largely automated process and be able to provide a level of judgment and also, in a sense, provide the authority to the output of that automated process. So in other words, I don’t see all that many where that the human being will be completely taken out. and a machine will perform the task. But I do think a lot of the repetitive, for want of a better term, grunt work will be automated, will be performed by machines, and then that enables the professional. to step up a level, to be a bit fresher and perhaps a bit better rested, but to apply a level of judgment and experience and bring their network in to enable to say, okay, this work product is now ready for prime time. We can send it to a client. We can put it in front of a judge. We can send it to the IRS. And so I think that’s the way this is going to play out. And the question is, well, how fast does that happen? I think we’re in an environment where 12, 18 months ago people said, well, this is going to be a revolution and it’s going to happen pretty quickly. I think we’re now seeing that it will take a number of years because it’s a business transformation as much as it is an AI transformation. Business models need to change, budgets need to change, skill sets need to change, and ultimately business practices need to change to embrace this technology. And that will happen in the professions I’ve mentioned, but I think the part that’s uncertain is just how fast it happens.
Adam: What’s maybe most interesting to me about what you shared is that as technology advances, as AI becomes more and more and more essential to how businesses are run, soft skills become even more valuable. Yeah, well said. I agree with that.
Steve: Nobody quite knows. We’re going to find out in the next few years, but as we see here today, I think that’s a pretty good bet.
Adam: right at the heart of your business is a focus on data. How can leaders most effectively utilize data? What are the keys to leading data-driven businesses?
Steve: Now, almost every business is a data-driven business. Whether you’re consumer-facing or business-to-business, whether you’re serving government agencies, the world, to generalize, tends to be data-rich and insight-poor. So you’ve got to embrace the idea that most, if not all, businesses are data-driven, firstly, and secondly, actively look for the insights. And so that means somewhere in your organization, you’ve got to have data science skills. You’ve got to have the technical and engineering capabilities to be able to apply, whether it’s AI or broader machine learning, tools and techniques to patent recognition. and then to generate that into insights. And so we happen to be at the cutting edge of that because of the nature of the work we do. But it’s hard to think of a business nowadays that isn’t in some way, shape or form data driven. Aspects of agriculture are becoming very, very data intensive. You’ve got more and more farmers who are, in their own way, pretty impressive data scientists and technologists. And simplistic, you’d think, well, that’d be the last place that it’d go. But it turns out there’s some impressive innovations coming out of the ag sector.
Adam: To your point, even small businesses, even the local mom and pop shop has to understand data, has to utilize leveraged data in order to not only stay alive, but thrive in today’s environment.
Steve: No, absolutely. And if you look back at the best small business people, the best mom and pop shops, they had an intuition about their customer base and knew what was that database or not. It was certainly based on a set of signals and information that the proprietors were using. Now we’ve got the opportunity to scale that up and to have technology capture those insights and in some way, shape or form automate some of those insights. But at the end of that process, you still need a human being to make a judgment call.
Adam: clearly focus on the customer is at the heart of your mindset as a leader. You mentioned right in the beginning of our conversation that every single day, you make sure that you meet with a customer. How can leaders build customer centric organizations?
Steve: Well, it’s an interesting question, Adam, and everyone talks about it here at Thomson. We certainly talk about it. It starts with a mindset, which is the old adage, the customer is always right. And it starts with a mindset, which for us is along the lines of we want to understand The work that our customers do on behalf of their clients and the challenges and opportunities that that brings as well, if not better than our customers do themselves. You may interpret that as a sort of an arrogant statement. How can you understand the work that a tax and accounting or an audit professional is doing for their clients better than they do? But at least it’s an aspiration and it sets the bar. It doesn’t absolve us of the responsibility to really understand what is it that an auditor goes through day-to-day, what are the challenges, what are the opportunities. And then secondly, we want to be able to take that knowledge and embed it back in our products. So we provide content and AI-driven technology to the audit profession, to the tax accounting profession, to lawyers, to risk fraud and compliance professionals. And we first want to understand their day-to-day lives, the opportunities and challenges, the work they do, the value they provide, the problems they’re trying to solve. And we want to make sure that we bring that understanding back into our tools so that when a customer opens up one of our apps, logs into one of our technology solutions, that what they see and what they experience and the value they derive is solving problems that they are facing every minute of every day. And if we continue to just be relentless about doing that, because that’s a changing set of dynamics, that’s what customer focus means to us, that deep understanding and the translation back to our product.
Adam: Another way of saying what you shared is that you’re an organization of professional listeners.
Steve: Yeah, we have a lot of subject matter experts, so they’ve got deep practice and domain expertise, but ultimately, we’re all in the customer service business and that requires listening. That really does. It requires more listening than talking.
Adam: Do you have any tips on how anyone can improve as a listener?
Steve: I think the first thing is to shut up as often as you can. which is hard for us, right? We all have something to tell. And the second is there are lots of active listening tools and techniques. I’m certainly not an expert in them, but I think at the right time, asking the confirming question to simple techniques like saying, okay, so forgive me for interrupting, but if I understand correctly, here is the issue you’re describing. That both gives a chance for the interviewee to take a breath. It gives them a chance to sort of reflect and think and often it can help progress their thinking because getting someone else’s synthesis or perspective on what they’ve just heard can improve the quality of the thinking and the conversation. So I think it’s those sort of active listening techniques which enable you to truly sort of engage with a customer and make sure that you’re understanding what they’re saying along the way and being able to play it back in a pretty efficient and effective way. I think that those kinds of things tend to work well, but there’s obviously entire schools of thought on this particular question.
Adam: Steve, what can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful personally and professionally?
Steve: I think having that learning mindset people describe as a growth mindset and being focused on opening the aperture to different inputs, different points of view and being open to the information that’s coming your way. I think that if I could point to one thing And it’s hard to do because we’re all busy and we’ve got stuff going on in our lives. We’ve got tasks to perform and pressures that come down on us. And I think if along the way you can open the aperture and listen to the inputs, take in the information, the more we can do that, I think the better leaders we all become. And it’s hard to do. If it was easy, everyone would do it and we’d have a very different set of leadership profiles. But that’d be the one thing I’d throw out in answer to that question, Adam.
Adam: Steve, thank you for all the great advice and thank you for being a part of Thirty Minute Mentors.
Steve: Great. Thanks for the opportunity, Adam. I really appreciate it.
Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America’s most successful people – Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders – for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America’s top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.
