Stephen A. Schwarzman, WHAT IT TAKES
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zimi Owens, and you're listening to the web-in-nominated podcast,
[0:12]Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:14]I am very, very excited to be interviewing Stephen A. Schworsman today,
[0:18]who is the chairman CEO and co-founder of Blackstone,
[0:21]one of the world's leading investment firms,
[0:23]and the author of What It Takes Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence.
[0:27]He is an active philanthropist with a focus on education,
[0:30]culture, and the arts. He's the founder of the Schworsman Scholars Program in China.
[0:34]He currently lives in New York, and he's my dad.
[0:37]So, welcome dad. Thanks for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:41]Well, it's great to be here. Can you please tell listeners what What It Takes is about
[0:46]and what inspired you to write this book? What It Takes is about what I've learned,
[0:52]and I would like to pass on to younger people, people working in organizations,
[0:57]people who start organizations, and people who run organizations
[1:02]so that they can do a better job, so they can be more successful,
[1:07]so that they can have fuller lives, and so the world can be a better place.
[1:11]And that's why I wrote it. You know, the-
[1:14]Small goal.
[1:15]Well, we have ambitious goals and a fun story.
[1:18]And then the book is a very quick read. A lot of people tell me they laugh a lot,
[1:24]and the reason is, you know, I've failed at a lot of things, not all things, obviously,
[1:30]or there wouldn't be a book, but part of the reason I wrote the book
[1:35]is so people learn that when things don't go well, that's the time that they can learn
[1:41]how to do better. It's- successes don't teach you anything. You just do them.
[1:48]But when something goes wrong, it's because you miss something,
[1:52]and you really need to confront that. And if you're working with a group of people, they need
[1:56]to stop and figure out what did we do wrong, and how do we fix that for the future?
[2:02]Not on that one situation, but what have we learned? Because being successful requires a lifetime
[2:10]learning model. And so I wanted to show people, you know, how to do that, and simple skills,
[2:18]like how to take an interview, and how do you behave in an interview, and what is the other
[2:24]person looking for? As well as instructing the people who are doing interviews.
[2:30]How do you find somebody who's the right fit for your organization, or situation?
[2:37]And there are so many different things that are experienced based, where other people are doing them
[2:45]either for the first time, or not so well, or they're anxious about it. And so it's a little bit
[2:50]of a how-to, but it's a disguised a bit with the story of how I went through things like that.
[2:57]And I managed to learn and, you know, figured out how to create a culture, where people are
[3:03]happy and productive, and, you know, sort of don't leave, and are excellent at what they do.
[3:10]So, Dad, in the book, you say that when people ask you the secret to success, basically, your answer
[3:15]is, I see a unique opportunity, and I go for it with everything I have, and I never give up.
[3:21]So my question is, well, what if it's not that good an idea? How do you know when you should let
[3:26]go of an idea and when you shouldn't? Well, it's really about going forward. When should you go
[3:32]forward with something, and how do you assess how good something is? And that's the most important
[3:40]thing in almost any form of human activity where you're trying to achieve something. And
[3:48]have to look at every idea and say, is this unique, or is this just repeating what other people
[3:56]hoping I could do it a tiny bit better? The world doesn't much care about doing something everybody
[4:02]else does, a tiny bit better, because they're already being served by someone else.
[4:08]And so you have to look at something that's a bit paradigm-shifting, but if you're too early,
[4:16]no one will adopt it. If you're too late, other people have done it, so you're offering nothing
[4:24]unique. And so you have to be very objective about what you attempt to do, and you have to not
[4:32]do things just because they'll be successful. The question is, how successful will they be? Because
[4:40]if you pick one, that's what you're doing. And you'll miss the other ones because you're enmeshed
[4:49]in what you picked. So in my experience, the most important thing, I call them worthy fantasies,
[4:58]they're worthy of your time. They're worthy of the effort to create them. And a lot of this is
[5:06]produced before you do anything. Actually doing things isn't as hard if you have a great
[5:15]vision of something you're trying to do. You'll also be able to recruit people easier to something
[5:21]that is, in effect, inspirational or new rather than something that they're almost doing before
[5:29]and already being well paid for it. So there's no rigid way of knowing whether you'll be right or
[5:36]wrong. And if you're failing, you have to adapt. You have to change your execution, but you always
[5:45]have to monitor whether the vision is right. If you realize that you've made a mistake
[5:53]on the vision, you're done. You won't achieve stuff by trying harder. But if the vision is good,
[6:00]you know, sort of a friend in China who started a company called Alibaba, which is one of the
[6:06]biggest in the world, and he said he almost went bankrupt twice. He had a vision, but he didn't
[6:12]really know how to get there and was inexperienced. He was an English teacher. And, you know,
[6:18]that's where you never give up, because the vision was exactly right, but the execution was flawed.
[6:25]You don't keep doing the same thing and knocking your head against a wall if you are not ever
[6:30]going to make that sale. You find a different way. You adapt. Excellent advice. I can apply that to
[6:36]a lot of different areas. Thank you very much. Your rule number four in the 25 rules for work and
[6:42]life, what you include at the end of the book, is there is nothing more interesting to people
[6:46]than their own problems. Think about what others are dealing with and try to come up with ideas
[6:51]to help them. Almost anyone, however senior or important, is receptive to new ideas provided
[6:57]they are thoughtful. And then number 10, which is very similar, sort of similar. You said people
[7:01]in a tough spot often focus on their own problems when the answer usually lies in fixing
[7:06]someone else's. So both of these have to do with listening and figuring out what motivates other
[7:11]people. Tell me a little more about that and how powerful it can be. Yeah, it's really powerful in
[7:15]the sense that everyone is in their own world. And I remember I, when I was sort of in my 40s,
[7:26]I was at the White House for something. And the president that was George H.W. Bush, and you know,
[7:32]I had met him once or twice. And you know, I spent 10 minutes talking to him, which is a lot
[7:38]when somebody is a president and you're in your 40s and you have no connection with what they're
[7:44]really doing for their job. Because there was something going on in the world I had thought a lot
[7:49]about that I knew was one of the top things on his mind. And it's very simple. Once you start talking
[7:57]to somebody about something that's of interest to them, where they haven't figured out exactly
[8:04]what to do yet, you'll find you can interact with anyone until you've presented what you have to
[8:12]as soon as fast as you can. And then they go, okay, that's really useful. I've figured it out.
[8:19]If they want to take the dialogue further, they will do that. But almost anyone will focus
[8:26]on things that are important to them if somebody else has something productive or interesting
[8:33]to add to their thought process. I was surprised to learn in the book. And there weren't,
[8:38]I mean, I guess there were some things I was surprised to learn. I feel like I had heard a lot of
[8:41]stories. Now I feel I have no unique stories about you in your past, but that's okay. I can live
[8:47]with that. You said you learned how to use your breathing to make your thoughts clear in times of
[8:51]stress and how you would focus on your breathing, slow it down, relax your shoulders, make your
[8:56]breath long and deep. And you said the effect was astonishing. My thoughts became clear,
[9:01]I became more objective and rational about the situation at hand, but what I needed to do to win.
[9:05]Now obviously mindfulness and all this is very popular. But to hear from you, it seems very
[9:10]different because you don't usually talk about all of that. So tell me a little bit about that
[9:14]and any other sort of stress management tips maybe you've been withholding from me because maybe
[9:19]I could have used that or I can still use it. Well, you know, everybody is very good at being back
[9:26]stage and thinking about things. But sometimes when you go out on the stage, people get nervous,
[9:32]they stumble, you know, and it's that way in all walks of life. And you know, you need certain
[9:40]ways to make sure you're grounded. And I learned that I could figure out all kinds of stuff,
[9:45]but in the heat of battle, if you were with people, you know, sort of unhappy or nasty faces,
[9:53]or they raise their voices. You just as a person recoil from that and you realize you're being
[9:59]attacked.
[10:00]And then that brings sort of adrenaline into play.
[10:04]And when that happens, I think the blood
[10:07]is going to your musculature and it's not
[10:10]going to your brain in the same amount.
[10:13]And so you have to normalize a stress.
[10:17]And if you're in an occupation where you regularly
[10:21]in stress, you have to figure out how to not
[10:26]sort of not be comfortable.
[10:29]And so I've developed little tips.
[10:32]I always try and think through, like, actually,
[10:35]it happens to me when I'm sleeping.
[10:36]But different scenarios of what's going to happen
[10:40]is so that you accommodate to the future that hasn't happened.
[10:45]But usually, there are only a few different alternatives.
[10:49]And then when you get involved with things,
[10:51]you have to make sure you're always calm.
[10:53]And you can let other people get excited.
[10:56]But it's going to be one of those scenarios probably.
[11:00]And your job is always to keep perspective,
[11:04]to listen to what's going on, and then say things
[11:08]to change where that dialogue is going.
[11:11]And there's a time to interrupt somebody.
[11:14]There's a time to just let them play it out.
[11:17]And if you're enmeshed in the whole thing,
[11:20]you're not going to get your timing right.
[11:22]So I've learned to observe what's going on.
[11:27]And sometimes it's a situation where people are tentative
[11:31]and you need to be in control of that situation.
[11:34]You need to take control.
[11:36]If there's a really aggressive person
[11:38]and you try and do that, then you'll
[11:40]be in conflict with them.
[11:42]And then you have to retreat and let
[11:44]them put their wares on the table,
[11:47]whether they're sensible or not.
[11:49]And then you play it differently.
[11:51]So all of these dynamic situations are actually fun,
[11:56]because you never know exactly the way they're going to evolve.
[12:01]And that's what makes it interesting.
[12:03]And you want to make sure you're progressing whatever
[12:07]dialogue you have and keeping it on track.
[12:10]And by watching and inserting yourself
[12:14]when it's productive, but withdrawing
[12:17]when things are going fine, that's
[12:20]the way you do it.
[12:21]It's now clarifies to me why no matter what shocking news
[12:25]I may have told you at any point in my life,
[12:27]your response is always really, and you just not and wait.
[12:32]So it don't make sense now.
[12:34]Speaking of sleep, I think I heard an HBS
[12:37]or in some study or something that the one thing that
[12:39]differentiates really successful people from other people
[12:43]when they've factored everything else out
[12:45]is their need for sleep.
[12:46]And that people who need less sleep
[12:49]are more productive and successful in life.
[12:50]And in the book it says, and as of course I know,
[12:52]you don't need that much sleep.
[12:53]You get about five hours a night.
[12:54]What do you think about that theory?
[12:56]I think that theory makes arithmetic sense,
[12:59]because if you're just as good as somebody else,
[13:02]but you're awake for three hours longer,
[13:05]you have a competitive advantage.
[13:07]In my case, it's even worse, because when I'm supposedly
[13:11]sleeping, I'm thinking about things.
[13:13]So for me, it's all sort of a continuum.
[13:18]And that does give you the ability
[13:20]to sort of have more time to be doing things.
[13:24]But it's also when you're asleep.
[13:27]And I don't think it's time determined.
[13:30]You're not under the pressure of more inputs.
[13:33]So your brain can process things and sort them out
[13:37]in a way that when you are awake, there's
[13:40]so much stimuli coming in that it's hard to take it in
[13:44]and reflect on exactly where you should be going
[13:49]strategically on something.
[13:51]So this doesn't mean that people who want to be more
[13:53]successful should set their alarms earlier?
[13:55]No.
[13:57]Because everybody's got their own circadian rhythms.
[14:00]I'm just getting it.
[14:00]And you have to play the way your body tells you you can do it.
[14:05]And what about coming up with ideas?
[14:07]Because you're always thinking, you're always
[14:08]coming up with something new.
[14:10]Sounds like allowing your sleeping.
[14:11]How do you get these ideas to just percolate?
[14:13]Does it just happen to some people and not other people?
[14:15]Is there things you can do to help it?
[14:17]Well, I have certain weaknesses that I remember reading
[14:21]Prused and thinking, how could I be productive in a
[14:26]court-lined room with no stimuli?
[14:29]And I realized I don't know how to think great thought.
[14:33]I need things to happen.
[14:36]I need input.
[14:37]I need information.
[14:40]And so in my business, it's just called Blackstone.
[14:43]I set it up so I could get the maximum number of feeds,
[14:48]the maximum amount of information.
[14:51]Because once you have enormous amounts of information
[14:54]flowing all the time, it's easy to think about new things.
[14:59]It's easy to see the relationships.
[15:02]It's not a challenge.
[15:04]If I were just left on my own in a desert island,
[15:07]I can assure you I would come up with nothing.
[15:10]And I'm not even mechanical, so I probably couldn't even
[15:12]get a coconut.
[15:15]So that's really how it works.
[15:18]So on your 60th birthday, you reflected on parenting, which
[15:21]was a passage of particular interest to me.
[15:23]And you said, as a parent, you strive for balance between
[15:26]doing enough at work to succeed and being
[15:28]their in person for your family, emotionally available
[15:30]for your kids.
[15:31]At the time, you never know if you're doing a good job.
[15:33]The reckoning comes years later.
[15:35]Looking back on the night of my 60th and the memories
[15:37]of those closest to me, I didn't think I'd done too badly.
[15:41]There's so badly that's like, OK, thanks.
[15:45]But seriously, you have always made a point of whenever
[15:48]I call taking my calls and showing me as a daughter that I'm
[15:51]in priority.
[15:52]And now I have four of my own kids and everybody's lost
[15:55]in their busy lives in some way or another.
[15:56]What are your strategies or tips or what have you learned?
[15:59]What do you wish, is there anything you wish you'd done
[16:01]differently?
[16:02]What advice would you have for people who are in your spot now?
[16:06]Well, I think it's, first of all, it's very important
[16:10]to let your children know that you love them.
[16:12]And that's unqualified love.
[16:14]And that's a good foundation.
[16:17]Not all parents do that.
[16:19]Secondly, you want to spend enough time with your children.
[16:23]And so they get to know you.
[16:25]They get to understand sort of your values
[16:29]and you're around to give them advice and help them.
[16:33]When I made those comments at my 60th birthday,
[16:37]the issue is where you were around enough.
[16:39]Did you help enough?
[16:41]And as the parent, you never know what's going on with your
[16:46]child and what they're taking in and whether you should be
[16:49]available more or you should have said something different
[16:52]or you should have handled a situation differently.
[16:56]All parents, we like parents in effect for the first time.
[17:01]And we do the best we can.
[17:04]And so I've had two excellent outcomes.
[17:08]So it was so, it was good.
[17:11]But you always worry, am I doing the right thing time was?
[17:17]So I went out of my way to go to some of the sports things
[17:22]were probably didn't matter.
[17:24]But I just wanted to be there to support my children.
[17:28]Because I love them.
[17:29]And I wanted them to understand, even if I was on the phone
[17:33]trying to do some kind of transaction, which was my job,
[17:37]I was there.
[17:38]And I saw what they were doing.
[17:40]And I was supporting them.
[17:42]Now, would I have been a better parent if I wasn't on the
[17:44]phone and was just looking like the other parents and
[17:48]cheering every time?
[17:49]I would cheer when they did something.
[17:50]Well, I mean, that wasn't the issue.
[17:53]So you never know as a parent.
[17:55]Well, I think you did a nice job.
[17:59]I feel very lucky.
[18:00]You told a story to go back to your training a little bit.
[18:04]You told a story about your freshman year English teacher.
[18:07]And I want to hear a little bit more about the writing of this
[18:09]book.
[18:10]Because when you got to Yale, your English teacher gave you like a
[18:13]68 or something on a paper.
[18:15]And when you went to talk to him, he was going to get upset
[18:17]with you.
[18:18]And you said, no, I had nothing to say.
[18:19]And I said it badly.
[18:20]And he taught you how to write.
[18:22]What do you think your English teacher would say about this
[18:24]book?
[18:25]What grade do you think he would give you?
[18:27]Well, I think he definitely gave me an A to A plus.
[18:31]Because this has the advantage of not just being me, but
[18:35]it's all these different people who've been involved.
[18:39]And having an editor who's really extremely gifted can
[18:45]have a sentence that you think is really good.
[18:48]And by the time they move one word around and change the
[18:52]phrasing slightly, all of a sudden it sings.
[18:56]And so writing isn't as isolated a sport.
[19:01]It's more of a team sport than I thought.
[19:04]And so it's difficult to write.
[19:08]But that professor saved me.
[19:10]I wouldn't have made it past my first year in college.
[19:14]I had a 68 on the first English paper, 66 on the second.
[19:18]This is a bad starting point and the wrong trend.
[19:23]And he saved me.
[19:24]And I ended up one dean's list by the end of the first year.
[19:27]So I wasn't stupid.
[19:29]But this wasn't a game I was used to play at a level of a
[19:34]great university.
[19:36]And now you've taken education on one of your biggest
[19:39]causes.
[19:40]I feel like you've benefited so much from your education.
[19:42]You're always talking about how much it has shaped you.
[19:45]Is that why you think you've pursued education as your
[19:48]major?
[19:48]Yeah, because I think it's really a right.
[19:52]And it's sort of like health.
[19:54]And if you don't have a good education, particularly in
[19:57]an information based.
[20:00]Society is we're moving into it.
[20:02]Your ability to be successful
[20:04]unless you happen to have a great odd skill
[20:06]of being in athlete or entertainer or something of that type
[20:11]is gonna be harder and harder.
[20:13]And so we have an obligation to make sure
[20:17]that everybody has the opportunity for self-actualization
[20:22]and the ability to have lifetime learning.
[20:25]To the extent we don't provide it as a country,
[20:29]we will not be competitive.
[20:31]You know, as individuals,
[20:33]we will have less than optimal outcomes.
[20:37]And so that's a worthy thing to be focused on.
[20:41]And it took you more or less 10 years to write this book.
[20:44]Even though most of it you have dictated,
[20:46]which is unique, I feel like you dictate everything,
[20:49]you don't write it down, it just comes out of your mouth
[20:51]kind of perfectly shaped.
[20:53]How do you do that?
[20:53]Well, this wasn't exactly that easy,
[20:57]but I did sort of, one of my friends,
[21:01]Hank Paulson told me I should keep notes
[21:04]because I'd forget things as it works out.
[21:05]I don't forget much lucky like that.
[21:09]But I was a journalist who would follow me around a bit
[21:14]and if I was flying someplace,
[21:17]he'd asked me about what happened in this year
[21:19]or what happened chronologically.
[21:21]And so we got that out and there were a bunch of transcripts.
[21:25]And then I had somebody work with me
[21:28]to organize that and figure it out,
[21:32]which things should be in that.
[21:34]And he took a draft and was good.
[21:37]But writing is a peculiar thing.
[21:40]Unless you do the thing yourself,
[21:43]it won't be your voice.
[21:45]I mean, somebody else's voice could be good,
[21:47]but it doesn't have that authentic aspect
[21:51]where somebody says, yeah, that is you.
[21:53]That's what you think.
[21:54]And so I had to go over this
[21:57]and it wasn't quite so easy.
[21:59]So to sort of turn this into my voice
[22:03]and I find writing and you've always been really good at it.
[22:07]I find writing incredibly painful.
[22:09]I like talking, I like doing videos,
[22:13]but writing is hard because every word has to be right.
[22:17]Every phrase has to be right saying what you really think.
[22:21]Because if your objective is to expose it
[22:24]to really smart people and you're not telling them
[22:29]sort of what to think because you've got the wrong words,
[22:32]then they're not either gonna like it
[22:34]or you won't be able to communicate.
[22:36]And so this was really tough.
[22:38]I mean, the writing part was over three years
[22:42]and I can't tell you how many times I had to read
[22:46]this book what it takes, even picking the name.
[22:50]It's months and every aspect of this was painful.
[22:55]The reason I'm excited now, you can hear it in my voice,
[22:58]is I'm done.
[22:59]And everyone I've exposed it to thinks it's terrific.
[23:06]It's inspirational, it's an easy read, it's funny
[23:12]and you don't have to be a business person to like this.
[23:15]So I'm totally pleased with that outcome.
[23:19]You should be, that's awesome.
[23:21]So I have to say I'm pleased
[23:22]because I've watched a lot of interviews you've done
[23:25]and almost every time when someone asks you a question,
[23:28]you say, well, the real question is,
[23:30]did it up?
[23:31]And you ask another question.
[23:33]So I'm relieved that you haven't turned around
[23:35]any of my questions to just ask you
[23:37]with the real question.
[23:39]So my last question, if I can get away with one more,
[23:42]is what advice you would have to aspiring authors out there?
[23:46]But also to someone who's trying to make America
[23:49]in the world in the way that you have.
[23:51]Well, for the, for aspiring authors,
[23:54]the process is so long and painful.
[23:57]It doesn't ask me that, but that you really have to have
[24:01]something to say.
[24:03]Why are you spending so much of your life doing this?
[24:07]And what do you want to communicate to somebody else?
[24:11]And you really want to know that before you start.
[24:14]And then it's just a question of figuring out the route
[24:18]to do it.
[24:19]As to people trying, you know,
[24:23]more starting out or restarting their lives
[24:26]on some level, you know, in terms of advice,
[24:30]be careful about what you're spending your time on.
[24:35]And know who you are and know what you're good at
[24:38]and pick something that fits you.
[24:41]Not something that somebody says,
[24:44]you should be working at this company
[24:46]because it's a good company.
[24:48]I've found that unless you're normally gifted
[24:52]and can do everything, which is sort of very few people,
[24:56]that individuals have things that they're much better at.
[25:01]And it's what they love doing.
[25:03]And when somebody says, well, that's interesting,
[25:05]but irrelevant, you know, you should be doing something else.
[25:09]You have to get back to where you have a passion.
[25:12]You have to be back to where you have a gift.
[25:15]Because everyone isn't the same.
[25:18]Time goes really fast when you're doing something you love.
[25:22]Time is really endless when you're doing something you don't.
[25:27]And so you have to just find that match between your gifts
[25:31]and everybody has something that they're good at,
[25:34]that they love, you know, you have to identify that
[25:39]and find a path to integrate that
[25:42]with the opportunities in the society.
[25:45]Excellent.
[25:46]Well, thanks, Dad.
[25:47]Thanks for coming on Mom's No Time to Read Books.
[25:49]Thanks for writing this amazing book.
[25:50]And thanks for being my dad.
[25:52]I love you, Zipp.
[25:53]Oh, I love you, too.
[25:55]Thanks for listening to Mom's Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[25:58]You can follow me on Instagram at Mom's Don't Have Time
[26:01]to Read Books.
[26:02]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at Texture Sound
[26:05]for the Sound Editing.
[26:06]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[26:08]for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.
[26:10]Thanks for listening.
[26:11]You can always email me at zippy at zippyowens.com.