What It Takes: Lessons in the Pursuit of Excellence

by Stephen A. Schwarzman

I’ve always believed that it’s just as hard to achieve big goals as it is small ones. The only difference is that bigger goals have much more significant consequences.

Since you can tackle only one personally defining effort at a time, it’s important to pursue a goal that is truly worthy of the focus it will require to ensure its success.

Every entrepreneur knows the feeling: that moment of despair when the only thing you are aware of is the giant gap between where you find yourself and the life and business you imagine. Once you succeed, people see only the success. If you fail, they see only the failure. Rarely do they see the turning points that could have taken you in a completely different direction. But it’s at these inflection points that the most important lessons in business and life are learned.

“The best executives are made, not born. They absorb information, study their own experiences, learn from their mistakes, and evolve.”

People are fascinated by the process of imagining, starting, and growing an organization and creating a culture that attracts highly talented people.

It also allowed me to refine my ability to simplify complex problems by focusing on only the two or three issues that will determine the outcome.

the greatest rewards in life have come from creating something new, unexpected, and impactful.

When people ask me how I succeed, my basic answer is always the same: I see a unique opportunity, and I go for it with everything I have. And I never give up.

Today, I understand. You can learn to be a manager. You can even learn to be a leader. But you can’t learn to be an entrepreneur.

If you want something badly enough, you can find a way. You can create it out of nothing. And before you know it, there it is.

if you’re going to commit yourself to something, it’s as easy to do something big as it is to do something small. Both will consume your time and energy, so make sure your fantasy is worthy of your pursuit, with rewards commensurate to your effort.

People often think theirs is the only reality, but there are as many realities as there are individuals. The more you see of them, the more likely you are to make sense of them.

As long as you can be honest and rational and are able to explain yourself, there is no reason to feel uncomfortable.

Here are my rules for how to have a successful interview: 1. Be on time. Punctuality is the first indicator of how much thought and preparation you have put into an interview. 2. Be authentic. Interviews are a mutual assessment, a bit like speed dating; everyone is looking for the right fit. Be comfortable and natural, and chances are you will be liked for who you are. If you share who you are and the interview results in a job offer, that’s great. If it doesn’t work, it’s likely that the organization wasn’t right for you either. Better to know and move on. 3. Be prepared. Learn about the company. Interviewers always enjoy discussing what’s happening in their environment. Plus it’s a good way for you to hear how enthusiastic an employee feels about the place where he or she works. Describe what draws you to the company and why. An interviewer wants to understand your motives and whether they fit with the organization’s culture. 4. Be candid. Don’t be afraid to talk about what’s on your mind. Focus less on impressing the interviewer and more on being open and striving for an honest conversation. 5. Be confident. Approach the situation as an equal, not as a supplicant. In most situations, employers are looking for someone who can hold the table. Provided they are not arrogant. 6. Be curious. The best interviews are interactive. Ask questions, ask for advice, ask your interviewers what they enjoy most about working for their organization. Find a way to engage interviewers, an...

THE BEST WAY TO LEARN IS BY DOING

Investors are always looking for great investments. The easier you make it for them, the better for everyone.

The more you know, the more perspectives you have and the more connections you can make, which allow you to anticipate issues.

money is a poor cure for a bad situation.

A classic LBO works this way: An investor decides to buy a company by putting up equity, similar to the down payment on a house, and borrowing the rest, the leverage. Once acquired, the company, if public, is delisted, and its shares are taken private, the “private” in the term “private equity.” The company pays the interest on its debt from its own cash flow while the investor improves various areas of a business’s operations in an attempt to grow the company. The investor collects a management fee and eventually a share of the profits earned whenever the investment is monetized. The operational improvements that are implemented can range from greater efficiencies in manufacturing, energy utilization, and procurement; to new product lines and expansion into new markets; to upgraded technology; and even leadership development of the company’s management team. After several years, if these efforts have proved successful and the company has grown considerably, the investor can sell it for a higher price than he or she bought it, or perhaps take the company public again, earning a profit on the original equity investment. There are a lot of variations on this basic theme.

The general partners put their own capital up alongside the LPs, run the investment business, and tend to be rewarded in two ways. They receive a management fee, a percentage of the capital committed by investors and subsequently put to work, and a share of the profits earned from any successful investments, the “carried interest.”

What I didn’t know was that all the grunt work, the hours I had spent in my career building my own financial models with a pencil and slide rule, learning the craft of finance from my colleagues, was about to prove invaluable.

the harder the problem, the more limited the competition.

when you believe in what you’re doing, overwhelmed or not, you have to keep moving forward, even when the quest feels hopeless.

my “goals are so demanding and dynamic that sometimes it is even hard for me to accept yes for an answer.”

The way to avoid this type of situation is to invest only when values have recovered at least 10 percent from their lows. Asset values tend to increase as economies gain momentum. It’s better to give up the first 10 to 15 percent of a market recovery to ensure that you are buying at the right time.

Far better to focus on what you can do, do it well, and share the rest.

It’s important to always be open to new experiences, even if they don’t completely fit your agenda.

If you are going to start a business, I told them, I believe it has to pass three basic tests. First, your idea has to be big enough to justify devoting your life to it. Make sure it has the potential to be huge. Second, it should be unique. When people see what you are offering, they should say to themselves, “My gosh, I need this. I’ve been waiting for this. This really appeals to me.” Without that “aha!” you are wasting your time. Third, your timing must be right. The world actually doesn’t like pioneers, so if you are too early, your risk of failure is high. The market you are targeting should be lifting off with enough momentum to help make you successful. If you pass these three tests, you will have a business with the potential to be big, that offers something unique, and is hitting the market at the right time.

You are never more vulnerable than at the moment you think you have succeeded.

Changing your behavior in the face of changing information is always hard. But when people are doing well, they don’t want to change. They choose to ignore the discordant notes and the tunes you are hearing. They feel threatened by bad news and dread the uncertainty of change and the hard work it demands. This tendency makes them passive and rigid at the very moment they should be most active and flexible.

don’t miss a can’t-miss opportunity.

When people are being stopped, for no good reason, from buying what they need, the system has to adjust. When it adjusts, the price of the commodity will rise.

“bilinguals of the future,” fluent in both AI and their own academic discipline, scientific or not.

education is the passport to a better life.

“Devote your time and energy to the things you enjoy. Excellence follows enthusiasm, and doing anything solely for prestige rarely leads to success.

25 RULES FOR WORK AND LIFE 1. It’s as easy to do something big as it is to do something small, so reach for a fantasy worthy of your pursuit, with rewards commensurate to your effort. 2. The best executives are made, not born. They never stop learning. Study the people and organizations in your life that have had enormous success. They offer a free course from the real world to help you improve. 3. Write or call the people you admire, and ask for advice or a meeting. You never know who will be willing to meet with you. You may end up learning something important or form a connection you can leverage for the rest of your life. Meeting people early in life creates an unusual bond. 4. There is nothing more interesting to people than their own problems. Think about what others are dealing with, and try to come up with ideas to help them. Almost anyone, however senior or important, is receptive to new ideas provided they are thoughtful. 5. Every business is a closed, integrated system with a set of distinct but interrelated parts. Great managers understand how each part works on its own and in relation to all the others. 6. Information is the most important asset in business. The more you know, the more perspectives you have, and the more likely you are to spot patterns and anomalies before your competition. So always be open to new inputs, whether they are people, experiences, or knowledge. 7. When you’re young, only take a job that provides you with a steep learning curve and...