Author Archives: Mark

Mentor and Long-time Boss, Charles Schwab tops $2 trillion in client assets

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My half-hour meeting turned into 90 thrilling minutes yesterday atop Schwab HQ, overlooking spectacular San Francisco as the fog settled on the Bay Bridge and Silicon Valley. I met privately with my mentor and former boss Charles ‘Chuck’ Schwab in his office to hear mind-blowing news. How did Schwab attract $2 Trillion in customer assets despite the crash, competition and rapid change?

Schwab has become among the most admired brands in history—despite an industry where the public’s trust has been deeply shaken. His company didn’t get seduced by the greed and leverage that led to the financial disaster, so he’s widely respected by customers and investors. “Success takes as much humility as it does audacity,” Chuck said. “You have to be willing to listen and grow with your customer—that’s the humble part. At the same time, you have to be bold—with the audacity to know you can do it better than bigger competitors.”

You become Great by Choice, not by circumstance or chance. What are the traits of the best performers who earn admiration in a chaotic marketplace?

1) You Have Fanatic Discipline. Steadfast and Consistent&mndah;driving forward at what you can do that is world class and “the discipline to be clear about what NOT to do!” You must be focused with your goals like a hedgehog, as Jim Collins says, rather than a fox that is frightened by change or easily seduced by distractions.

2) You Drive Change, Don’t Follow It. You know your customers better than your competitors, so you are always finding ways to make them more successful and therefore earn their trust and loyalty.

3) You have Productive Paranoia. You’re never satisfied with your level of service—never complacent about your success vs. competitors.

In his new keynote, Mark shares insights from his face to face work with Chuck Schwab, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, and other Level 5 leaders, along with his national research conducted at Stanford and his favorite former Stanford professor, Jim Collins, on how Fortune’s Most Admired Companies go from Good to Great.

Mark was Chief Investor Relations Officer during two of history’s greatest crashes, and later served as Chuck Schwab’s Chief Customer Experience Officer and then as Executive Producer of Schwab.com with over 10 million customers. Mark has been an investment partner with the Schwab family in innovative growth companies that have become Great by Choice.

The Willpower Instinct

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The Willpower Instinct by Dr. Kelly Mcgonigal is a great primer on how to make a change or climb a mountain. Mcgonigal covers the latest research on what it takes to set a goal and achieve it. There are so many surprising ideas in this book regarding more effective ways to get to the top of your mountain. Here are some of my favorites…

1) Plan for Failure –
To prevent the emotional high of setting the goal and the crash of having to implement the goal, researchers have found that people who plan for failure are less likely to give up when the first setback comes. Planning for failure isn’t self-doubt–it’s determination.

2) Getting Distracted From Our Goals is Due to a Lack of Meaning –
“We live in a world of technology, advertisements, and twenty-four hour opportunities that leave us always wanting and rarely satisfied. If we are to have any self-control, we need to separate the real rewards that give our lives meaning from the false rewards that keep us distracted and addicted,” writes Mcgonigal in the book. The key to a determined mindset is to focus on the meaning of the goal. When we get distracted, we need to remember the rewards and stay in the game.

3) Practice Willpower –
Like most things in life, stronger willpower comes from practice. Willpower is a skill that can be learned. If you don’t use it, you’ll lose it. Like a weak muscle, we run out of willpower when we aren’t working it.
This book is like your willpower personal trainer. I really enjoyed its helpful, practical advice. The Willpower Instinct is well researched and friendly, a refreshing approach to setting and achieving goals.

 

What’s worked for you in sticking with your goals?

Third Edition of Coaching For Leadership: Writings on Leadership from the World’s Greatest Coaches

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An excellent new edition of the book Coaching For Leadership, edited by Marshall Goldsmith, Laurence S. Lyons and Sarah McArthur, is now out and available for purchase.

This version features writing by Frances Hesselbein, John Baldoni, James Kouzes, Barry Posner, as well as myself, Bonita Buell-Thompson and many outstanding others. The chapter Bonita and I penned, “Double Your Value”, is an iteration of the successful webinar we did with the AMA last year.

Warren Bennis calls the book, “the single best collection of writings and writers on executive coaching.” It’s an incredibly valuable, well put-together resource for anyone interested in coaching and leadership, and it was an honor to contribute to. Order your copy here.

The Dream is Free, The Journey’s Not

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Why is it that we get in our own way as entrepreneurs? We have the ambition, the drive, we’re highly motivated to accomplish the goal. So what is it that holds people back?

I recently had the opportunity to meet with the leadership-great John C. Maxwell. John’s taught and authored over 60 books on leadership, including the bestseller, The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership.  I posed the question to him–what prevents us from following through on our dreams?

“I think that when we don’t follow through, we lack enough valid reasons to follow that dream,” he responded simply.  “If I don’t have a lot of valid reasons to pursue my dream, I’m likely to give it up because the journey to accomplish it is very difficult.”

John went on to articulate the difference between dream and doing in a way I’d never heard–the reason we like dreams is because they’re free. They don’t cost us anything, there’s no sacrifice involved. Dreaming is the easy part. Making it happen?

“We can sit around the table imagining all these great things, ‘Wow! Wouldn’t be great if I did this? Bought that?’ Well, the dream’s free–the journey’s not,” John emphasized. “When we start the journey, that’s when we begin to realize there’s a cost. And every time we have to pay another price, or experience another set-back, the troubles and trials try to pull our hand off of the dream we’ve been clutching.”

Unless we have a lot of good, valid reasons to continue pursuing our dream, more than one or two, we’re likely to give it up.

“Entrepreneurship has a lot of uncertainty,” John affirmed.  “The more valid reasons we have for why we want to be what we want to be, and why we want to accomplish what we want to accomplish, gives us the tenacity and holding power to stay true to that dream and not let go of it so quickly or easily.”

 

 

Watch the video version of my chat with John C. Maxwell below:

Mark Accepts JFKU Lifetime Leadership Award

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I am extremely honored to be receiving the Chuck H. Smith Lifetime Leadership Award from JFK University’s Institute of Entrepreneurial Leadership today. They will also be awarding the distinguished columnist and economic advisor Tapan Munroe in recognition of lifelong dedication to entrepreneurship, innovation, and leadership.

Wahid Tadros, President of California Engineering Contractors Inc., and Jeff Gray, CEO of Glue Networks will be presented with inaugural Entrepreneur of the Year Awards. They are two leading California entrepreneurs who exemplify business entrepreneurship with a social conscience.

JFK University’s Institute of Entrepreneurial Leadership offers a powerful program designed for today’s entrepreneurs, who are at the heart of future business growth and job creation in the Bay Area. They’re a wonderful institution and it’s a great honor to receive this recognition from them!

 

Richard Branson Selects Mark Thompson as One of 5 Judges in the World

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Sir Richard Branson has selected me to join him as one of only 5 entrepreneurship expert judges in the world for the Virgin Global SBAU Entrepreneurship Competition.

The panel of judges also includes Jane Tewson (Igniting Change), Creel Price (Co-founder of Blueprint Management Group), Peter Boyd (COO, Carbon War Room), and Tony Banks (CEO, Balhousie Care Group).

 The Screw Business As Usual competition, launched in November 2011, was designed to find ideas from around the world that are truly screwing business as usual and making the world a better place. They have had a wealth of brilliant ideas, ranging from an ethical football Soccket that harnesses and stores energy from play for use as a power source in resource-poor areas to Rapanui, an eco-fashion brand that makes casual wear in line with the latest trends from sustainable materials, to an idea to introduce a ‘Thinking Class’ for air and train passengers to opt into, where passengers can donate their time and generate ideas through a virtual community platform.

 Sir Richard Branson and this great group of entrepreneurs will be responsible for judging the Top 10 ideas, as voted by the public. The winning idea will be announced on 14th May 2012. The lucky winner will join Richard on a money-can’t-buy Connection Trip to South Africa with Virgin foundation, Virgin Unite. As part of the prize, the winner will get to meet frontline leaders who are making a difference, share ideas with young entrepreneurs at the Branson Centre of Entrepreneurship and get to spend several days with Richard and the rest of the group, experiencing the beautiful wildlife of South Africa at Ulusaba, Sir Richard’s private game reserve.

The contest is open until April 17th 2012, so there is still time to vote for your favorite idea to help find the winner of the 2012 Screw Business as Usual competition.

Read more about it here.

Create Value at Any Job

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Floodgate co-founder Mike Maples has been responsible for helping to kick start some of the most revolutionary new companies around: Twitter and digg, just to name a couple. His secret? The ability to recognize talent and value in even the most wild sounding ideas and business plans.

“Great value creation is fundamentally a creative act. Part of that is taking the current job you’re in and doing the best you can at it. But the bigger part is taking only jobs that you’re passionate about. If you don’t have a job you’re passionate about, you’re flunking a cosmic IQ test,” he imparted.

As Mike says, most of us here in the U.S. have more choice than we think about pursuing the things we’re passionate about.

“You have to have an authentic voice for what you do. You can be entrepreneurial at any job,” he shared emphatically. “If you think about your product and what you do not as convincing someone to buy something but rather as propoagating the truth because you care about it so much, than you’re more likely to succeed and you’re more likely to create value.”

Creating something valuable that people will be attracted to and want to be a part of first comes from your belief in it, so why waste your energy on something you don’t think matters? True value comes from the pursuit of your passions.

Watch the video version of my interview with Mike Maples below:

My New Production, Peter and The StarCatcher, Co-Produced by Disney

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Exciting news: my latest endeavor as a Broadway producer includes Peter and the StarCatcher, which will be co-produced with Disney. Like Wicked, Rick Elice’s fantastical play is based on Pulitzer Prize winning humorist’s Dave Barry‘s book, Peter and the StarCatcher, a wildly popular bestseller by Hyperion/Disney.  It’s the semi-irreverent prequel to the beloved children’s classic, Peter Pan, that provides the backstory of Peter Pan and Captain Hook. Roger Rees and Alex Timbers direct the production, in which 12 actors play scores of vibrant characters.  Nancy Nagel Gibbs from Wicked is General Manager, and the cast includes Christian Borle, who’s also currently starring in NBC’s Smash!

“SENSATIONAL!
Showbiz at its most brazenly infectious.”
Ben Brantley, The New York Times


The Banjo Player: Steve Martin’s Diligence

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Most of us know Steve Martin as comic, actor, and occasional author and director. His role as banjo player, however, has been one of the most informative of his career.
In his 2007 interview with Charlie Rose, Steve recounted his experience learning to play the instrument.
“I remember getting my first banjo, and reading the book saying ‘this is how you play the C chord,’ and I put my fingers down to play the C chord and I couldn’t tell the difference.”

“But I told myself,” he continued, “just stick with this, just keep playing, and one day you’ll have been playing for 40 years, and at this point, you’ll know how to play.”

In 1960s California, the banjo was an interesting choice of instrument–there weren’t a lot of lessons being offered if any. Instead, Steve would take Earl Scruggs records and slow them down from 33 RPM to 16 RPM and then tune down the banjo to match the slower speed. He’d then tediously pick out the notes, one by one.

Later, when Steve began his stand up comedy career, he decided to make the banjo part of his routine.

“The reason I played [banjo] on stage,” he explained in an ABC interview, “is because…I thought it’s probably good to show the audience I can do something that looks hard, because this act looks like I’m just making it up.”

50 years after Steve began his attempt at playing banjo, he released his first album, “The Crow” in 2009 and it won a Grammy. He’s since been nominated for another. It’s not far off from the 40 years he’d told himself as a teenager it would take to learn how to play.

Steve’s memoir, Born Standing Up, defines diligence not just in terms of persistence, but also the integration of seemingly unrelated pursuits.
Steve was of course exagerrating when he projected it would take 40 years to get good at the banjo, and was obviously playing at a high-level after 5 – 10 years of taking up the instrument when he began using it in his act. But his resolution reflects a deeper truth: getting good at something is not to be taken lightly, and skill is to be developed over the course of a life.