Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Ambassador Howard Gutman

I recently interviewed Howard Gutman on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today has been involved in a number of high-stakes negotiations and was recognized as the most popular ambassador in Belgium ever. Ambassador Howard Guttman served for four years as U.S. Ambassador to Belgium, where he also found himself at the center of multiple negotiations involving Middle Eastern countries. Howard also spent 20 years as a partner at Williams and Connolly, which has been called the world's most powerful law firm. Ambassador Guttman, thank you for joining us.

Howard: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Adam: As listeners might be able to discern from your voice, you grew up in New York, and you are the son of a Holocaust survivor who emigrated to the U.S. illegally. Your childhood was spent without much money, but you did extremely well in school and graduated from Columbia and Harvard Law School before a couple of major clerkships including a clerkship for the great U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart. Can you take listeners back to your early days? What were the key experiences and lessons that shaped your worldview and shaped the trajectory of your success?

Howard: So looking back from the top as an adult, you would say it was the American dream. But there's nothing American about that dream. I've been a U.S. ambassador, and every parent wants their child to have a better life and be more successful than them. So that's true, whether you're in America or in Belgium, or in the Congo, the streets in Whitestone, Queens were the best place to learn about life. My neighborhood was 1/3 Italian Catholic, 1/3 Irish Catholic, and 1/3 Jewish. I didn't meet a Protestant till High School. So when I heard when I was in second grade, I think in first grade, I heard that John Kennedy had been killed. And he was the first Catholic president. I was amazed by that notion. So I went home and told my mother, I never realized that George Washington and Abraham Lincoln were Jewish. Because John Kennedy was the first Catholic president and I had only met Catholics and Jews, but in your world, you're king, you're always king. And so if you do your best, try hard tomorrow. Good things can happen because it's a level playing field.

Adam: And speaking of level playing field, you got into one of the most competitive universities in America without applying. How did that happen?

Howard: So in my neighborhood, you had three choices. If you were smart, you went to Queens College, the city public college, the borough public college. If you were less smart, you went to Queensborough Community College. And if you were still less smart, you went right to work after high school. Those were your three options. I thought there had to be something more. I was at the Bronx High School science, which is a specialized school in New York. But yet my choices seem to be Queens College, Queensborough community college, or work. That's what everyone in my neighborhood did. And I wanted more. So I negotiated endlessly with my father. And Queens College was, I think, about $300 a year and the State University in Albany was like $1,200 a year. He finally agreed I could apply to State University of New York at Albany. So I applied to Queens College, State University of New York. And I had gotten into the State University in New York and I was headed there. When lo and behold, on January 22, of my senior year, my father died. I missed the death of my father as in January I was out part of February. I got back to high school at the end of February, and I went to see my guidance counselor, and I said, “I have a problem. I cannot go to college next year. I need a year off”. Because I've accepted the University of Albany and now that my father died, I couldn't leave my mother and my sister. I had to stay in New York City, and I no longer had the 1200 hours I imagined to pay for it. And my guidance counselor, the Bronx High School science, looked at my record and looked at me and said, “You knucklehead. For financial aid in America, you only count the income of the living people”. So all of a sudden with my father having died in January the prior year's income for my family went from the overwhelming $12,000, a year that my father earned in the Lower East Side to zero. If you have a family income of zero, every school will put together a financial aid package to cover costs. And so she said I could now between working after school and what they would pay in loans, I could afford any school I wanted. I pointed out that it was now March, and I had only applied to Albany, Queens, and I accepted Albany. She looked at my record and said, “Would you rather go to Columbia University or to NYU?”. I looked at her like, what? Acceptances have all gone out and the classes are set. But she knew at Bronx Science, what level of performance Columbia University would take and NYU would take and the class was almost 900 Students of Bronx Science, your class rank was 250 or above, you would make Columbia and my class Frank was in the top 40, or something. She picked up the phone called Columbia University and said I have someone here who didn't apply because they want to qualify for financial aid. Their father passed away, here's their class rank, here's their SATs scores, and they accepted me on the phone. And all of a sudden, Howard Guttman of Whitestone, Queens was now Howard Government of Columbia University. I got in on the phone, they sent me the acceptance materials, but there's no application. Then I just studied hard. When you graduate at the top of your class at Columbia University, 50, Columbia University, Howard Duckman of Whitestone, Queens becomes Howard Government of Harvard Law School. And when you graduate at the top of Harvard Law School, Howard Guttman of Whitestone, Queens all of a sudden becomes federal court clerk on the Fifth Circuit, and then on the U.S. Supreme Court, and then you're no longer Howard Government of Whitestone, Queens.

Adam: And there's so many important lessons there, starting with how just one experience can completely shift the trajectory of one's success. And it starts with having someone who looks out for you, having someone who is willing to step in and go that extra mile to help you out. Not everyone is going to have that in their life. But be that person, be the person who's willing to do that for others. Look out for others around you. Take that extra step, because you don't know what impact you can make on someone else's life on someone else's career. By doing one small favor, like the guidance counselor did for you.

Howard: The notion of paying it forward is amazingly powerful. As a former ambassador, who was well known in Belgium, I get emails all the time from somebody in a town somewhere, who says, “Would it be possible for you to blank?”. And in some respects, you might sit there and say, why would they cold, you can get anyone's email these days, cold email a U.S. ambassador? But the minute you begin to think of yourself that way, you've got to blow it up and say, it's worth writing, saying, I'll be delighted to write recommendations. Let me call this person to put you in touch. And you never know with paying it forward. How you've changed someone's life and it's invaluable as anything you could do.

Adam: Don't be afraid to ask, don't be afraid to put yourself out there. Worst thing that happens is you either don't get a response back or the response you get back is no. But if you don't ask, your answer is automatically no.

Howard: I'm writing a book, the title of the book is, Swing Hard, In Case You Hit. And that definitely is the most important model you can have. Why bother with the ground ball because you didn't bother and thought you could? If you swing hard, it might go over the fence.

Adam: However, when I played high school baseball, I had a very hard time hitting the baseball. So I would just hope that the pitchers threw the ball outside of the strike zone or would hit me with a pitch because that's how I would try to get on base.

Howard: Walking is honorable, but still swing.

Adam: In your formative years, you spent time working closely with a number of extremely interesting historical figures, ranging from the co-founder and co-owner of Studio 54 to multiple Supreme Court justices. What are the best lessons you learned from the people who you consider to be the key influences in the early stages of your career?

Howard: First of all, you can learn something from everyone. So there I was 16 years old. I needed a job because my father had just died and I walked into the only restaurant being built in my neighborhood to get a busboy or dishwasher job. And the guy who was opening the place a little short guy turned out to be Steve Rebelled, the most important cultural person of the ‘70s. He changed our appreciation for sex, drugs and rock'n'roll all at once and he was a cultural icon. But on the other hand, you could say he was a bad influence. He is a major drug dealer and a tax fraud. I learned all the best from Steve. I wasn't driven, it wasn’t motivation. You get to see Potter Stewart. And I've met lots of people who believe themselves great and the other people believe them great. But let's say the judge I clerked for in the Fifth Circuit and Potter Stewart, judge her from the Fifth Circuit, a man named Irving Goldberg. He was a judge who ruled from his heart, that cases would bother him at a personal level, ruled from his heart, and just wanted people to be taken care of. Potter Stewart never went outside himself. He was thoughtful. He was moderate, but you can earn the best of each. There was a time when Justice Stewart and I were traveling just alone. We're having a conversation. And we're due to be sitting on a seventh circuit panel as a visiting judge. And I said to him, “Would it be okay if I made a suggestion to you?”. And he said, “Sure”. And I knew enough about the man that I could say it then I said, “Your ties are too narrow. Your ties go back to the patrician lawyer, you were in Cincinnati 30 years ago. And when you take the bench or you meet people, it defines you the way Brylcreem does. And that's not who you are”. And I just said that as a 21-year-old, to one of the greatest men in our country. But what made him so great is I knew I could say it because he laughed, and we got off the plane. And we went tie shopping. And he came back. And when he got back home to Andy Stewart, she said, “Potter, what happened?”. And he said, “I've joined the modern age”. So that's a great man. It's not about his definition of pornography and how brilliant he was, of course, lots of brilliant men, but a great man is one you know, you can suggest a change even if you're a 21-year-old from Whitestone queens who went to Harvard Law School.

Adam: Great leaders are great listeners, great leaders have an incredible sense of humility, they understand who they are, they're not afraid to accept the input of others. And that's a great story that really sums it all up right there.

Howard: He was a great man. And I missed him terribly when he got to a premature death. But I learned so much from him. What I learned from Steve Rebell, the most notorious person of the ‘70s. And what I learned from Potter Stewart, the most respected person of the ‘70s, and yet there were life lessons, take the best of what you get, and make sure you have a filter to get the rest of them out.

Adam: And a broader lesson there is the importance of being able to learn from everyone you encounter, every person you meet is an opportunity to grow in some capacity. Whether you're meeting a Supreme Court justice, or whether you're meeting someone who's completely anonymous, everyone has a lesson that they can share with you. Everyone has an opportunity to enrich your life in some capacity.

Howard: Absolutely. And then there are the special people. Anyone listening today remembers the professor they had in college if they went to college, with a teacher in high school, who didn't nail it in, whose class they would never admit. But they couldn't wait to go because the guy cared. The woman cared. They didn't nail it in. They really wanted to change lives and minds. I know who that was in high school. I know who it was in junior high school. I know it was at Columbia, at Harvard Law School. And I know who those people are in life. And when you find them, you want to internalize not just what they said, but how they became that kind of person.

Adam: I love that. One of those people in your life was the former president of the United States. You connected with him as he was running for office. You were a partner at Williams and Connolly, and you had raised money for a number of political candidates over the years. It was 2007 and Barack Obama was an underdog in the race, but he convinced you to join his campaign and the rest is history. What are the best lessons on leadership that you've learned through your relationship with President Obama?

Howard: He is the single most amazing person I've ever met. And it was even in the first hour. So I was more than a fundraiser I had. I'm not a rich guy and I was a lawyer. Warriors can force people to give because they want to make sure their warriors are happy. Warriors give to keep clients happy. But I was an active strategist and FBI support in July brought full energy and enthusiasm. And I had gone back 40 years with Mark Warner to the first day of law school. Mark remains a dear friend. Who's a dear friend back in 1977, the senator from Virginia and the former governor and we've been friends for 44 straight years from my wedding to my wife's surprise birthday party this summer. He's been at every one of them. And I believe Mark represents the future. For the OAE, the election, we started that in ‘05. We knocked on the doors from ‘05-’06, when Mark finally realized running for president is a horrendous experience, you've got to be some kind of nut to want to go through that. So he announced at the end of ‘06 that he would not formally run for ‘08. And I at the time was devastated because I believed that Mark represented the future. There were lots of Democrats who were doing the left versus right, Mark was doing the past versus the future. And I thought that Mark was the guy. And so when I got back from the announcement in Richmond that Mark wasn't running, I got calls from heaven by what I go help him and from John Kerry and Hillary Clinton. And I told each of them, I was done. I had done this for two years, because I believed in the candidate, not just looking for someone to support. And then I got a call a couple of months later, from Barack Obama. And the call went like this. He said, “Howard, I've heard a great deal about you. I'm planning to go home tonight at nine o'clock and write my speech announcing I'm gonna run for president. But if you could spare me at hour nine, when I'm done at the Senate, I'll go home at 10. And I'd love to meet you for an hour”. Now, just the way he put it. How do you tell a guy, no go home at nine. So I called my wife and said I would be late, that I had to go meet this guy Obama, who I would tell the same things I told the others, which is I'm out for 2008. I had no intent on working for him. And that hour was transformative, absolutely transformative. And I've been in those meetings before. I was at John Edwards when he had you over for dinner with his then-wife, for that meeting to try to convince you to support their campaign. And when I went to John Edwards, he had maps of the country all over the walls and blue states and red states. And it was a whole presentation of why he could win. Not a minute on why he was running. Not a minute on what our country was about. It was all Machiavellian. And if you thought that was a sales pitch to me, because I was just looking to back the winner. He didn't understand me and he didn't understand our process. And he didn't understand himself. But the most amazing thing about that one-hour meeting was Barack Obama, the hour was not trying to convince me to work for him. The hour was realizing no one could convince anyone to work for them. That's a decision you have to make. That no matter what happened in this race, he'd be a very long odds against Hillary Clinton. No matter what happened in the race, he would be fine. The second he came in, that would be a young Senator first time and he would be alive and doing great the next time whatever happened, and he'd have a long career. But if I supported him and burnt my bridges with Hillary Clinton, I had to do it. He thought with my eyes open because although he would be fine, I would be toast. And the one thing he wanted to make sure of is that he did not want to cause people to become toast so that if I did it, he would love it because we'd be doing it for all the right reasons. But he would ERGs that unlike supporting any other candidate, you think twice or three times, it was the most at a different level than anything. The guy genuinely didn't want my support, he didn't want my help if it meant that he had hurt someone because they hadn't thought it through. Well, he was recruiting me caring more about me than his campaign.

Adam: The desire to genuinely put yourself in the shoes of the people around you and ensure that you're acting in their best interest, that is core to being a great leader. What can anyone do to become a better leader?

Howard: I think the best thing you can do to become the best leader you can is to diversify your experience and your inputs. If you have not been in the Bronx, New York, or in Southside Chicago, or you've not been in Beverly Hills or the wealthy areas in Washington, they're all valid. They're all valid. Mothers want the best and fathers want the best for their children. They want to feel like they're being treated with respect and fairly it doesn't matter the socioeconomic. It comes out differently. It sounds different. Yeah, it's expressed in words that seem different. But it's there. So I walked into Belgium not knowing anything about the Belgians, particularly I studied the best I could. And when I got there, the Belgians had been as negative as you could be against America, because of some of our policies that preceded the Obama administration. They had banned our planes from Belgian airspace, they had closed the port of Antwerp to our ships, and they had indicted Donald Rumsfeld for genocide coming out of Iraq. And I got there then. And we went from being favorable, unfavorable, one to seven one favorable to 7% unfavorable, F toward American leadership and Belgium to more than two to one favorable in two years. I did it. And my Embassy did it using the same techniques that should work with anybody. We listen. So what I vowed to do is say we had to rebuild the partnership. To rebuild the partnership, I had to respect my partner. So the first thing I did is half the country speaks Dutch, half the country speaks French, and all U.S. ambassadors conduct their business in English. I'm the U.S. ambassador, so you've come to me. Now, I was not going to be fluent in French or Dutch, but I announced I would take French lessons at 7:30 in the morning, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and Dutch lessons Tuesday and Thursday, at 7:30 in the morning, before I started my day from 7:30 - 8:30. And I took language lessons five days a week, three days a week, French two days a week Dutch. And so when TV stations started to get interested in the new ambassador, they would always start by covering my language lesson and Flemish kids would see this 55-year-old man struggling with the same grammar issues in Dutch as they have. And then I said we need to rebuild the partnership with Belgium. And although you have to speak to political leaders, and speak to ex-pats left to build partnerships with the people, so I vowed to visit every city, village, and commune in my four years. That's 579 at the time, and I visited every Belgian city, village, and commune and met every mayor. And the key was not that it was a stunt. The key was that an American ambassador wasn't looking down on Belgium, he was looking up to Belgium and you could build a partnership.

Adam: Showing that you care, leading by example, being willing to get into the weeds. No matter what you're leading, whether you're leading an embassy or leading a small business leading a multibillion-dollar business, it is universally applicable. You want to write that most Americans might imagine that the biggest challenge facing the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium, is fighting through the chocolate, beer, and waffles. And you described a couple of things that you were focused on other than chocolate beers and waffles. But during your time as ambassador, you are also involved in a number of major negotiations involving countries, not only outside of Belgium but outside of Europe. Can you share with listeners what the best lessons you learned or from the high-stakes negotiations that you've been involved in? And more broadly, what are your best tips for listeners on the topic of negotiations?

Howard: So my sense always is you will never convince anybody to do something they don't want to do. The only way you get to yes, is that they take that step to say this is something they want to do. If you leave someone only this much room, it's not that they are forced into a corner, it's that they would rather die in that corner than agree on. So first, you've got to have respect. But second, you've got to discuss it in a way where you're not telling them, you're providing the tools for which they can decide. And only that. So for example, when I was a lawyer for 27 years, and we had a mediation, I always told the other side to pick the mediator. They could pick their brother, they could pick their best friend, they could pick their wall part. Because ultimately, for me, they settled the case. They had to agree. The mediator could be whoever it is on there, and I knew where I was gonna go and what I was gonna say. So he could tell me I'm a knucklehead and then I positioned myself wrong. I'm gonna lose and I'll make my own judgments, but if they believe the process is slanted towards them if their guard is relieved, they don't have their backup. We can get to yes if there is a point of overlap. So the first question you always ask is not what does each side want. Because by definition, you cannot both get what you want. Is there a point of overlap? Where what I will take, and what you will take, and say it's better than not taking it, whether that overlaps. And if there is in that Venn diagram of an intersection of that, and you fail to reach it, you failed in negotiation. And once you understand it, you then say, what compromises will x be willing to take? And will I be willing to take not what you want, if you start with what you want, you want the sun and the moon and the stars and you want the sun and moon, stars, and there's only one set of each, that won't work. But would you take the sun and the moon, if he gets all the stars. And once you begin to get there, if there's a place where they can live, that means you're not going to beat it into them. But you've got to have your own backbone, you've got to be confident enough in yourself. But you've got to get to yes, by them concluding they want it to be a yes.

Adam: Finding common ground, another area that you and I have spoken about. You actually spoke to my class about the importance of having a common set of facts. And that all too often that could be a major impediment to negotiations.

Howard: That is the biggest problem we have today. We used to have a society where everybody listened at seven o'clock to Walter Cronkite. And he gave us our facts. And then it was valid to form your opinions on that. Today, we think we have differing opinions, we're arguing about every issue, we argue bitterly about vaccines, and you name it. But if you ask people, they have the same values. They're starting with different facts because we're getting our facts from different places. And that's because we now have a micro-society, where I can tell her what I listen to, where I get what I get, we're not all listening to Walter Cronkite, and you can tell her what you're getting. And so you've got to first figure out where they're coming from, and what do they believe? Once you get to the common facts, then at least you can address desires and needs. And without it, you're talking past each other because you haven't started on from the same place. So you've got to talk past each other.

Adam: Any other tips you'd share with listeners on how to reach a successful agreement in a negotiation, regardless of the type of negotiation? 

Howard: You have to figure out what the motivation of each person is. So I got a back channel overture from the head of Turkey, asking me to come in and negotiate the spirit they had with Israel. About when the Israelis had a blockade of the Palestinians and border a Turkish ship, and some of the Turks got killed. And the Israelis regretted that that's not what's supposed to happen. And the Turks had some back up in arms. But ultimately, they were allies. They both needed this for trade, for tourism, for their relationships around the world. They needed this fixed. So now you have to think: What did each need to take away? Since you knew that the Venn diagram was ultimately they both needed to have it fixed. And if you can identify the motivations, the rest comes easy.

Adam: Listeners may not know this about you by virtue of listening to this conversation, they know that you're one degree connected to U.S. Supreme Court justices to American presidents to U.S. senators, but they may not know that you are one degree connected to Kevin Bacon and George Clooney. Everyone has six degrees connected to Kevin Bacon, but you're one degree connected to both George Clooney and Kevin Bacon. And those are two people who among the many people you know, you truly admire. Can you share with listeners what they can take away from Kevin Bacon and from George Clooney?

Howard: I'm amazed by both and so in your domain, you feel confident in law. I've been a supreme court clerk and I've been a senior partner at the most powerful firm. I'm not gonna get dazzled by anyone at law. But I'm never in my domain in Hollywood. And Kevin Bacon and George Clooney are great men in that world. Well, when you go meet them, the question is what kind of people are they? So I was once with Kevin Bacon at a political dinner. And we're talking and he said, “Howard, I feel so incompetent here. You're a supreme court clerk and you know what's going on in the light. And I just feel like everybody here is so smart about politics and the issues”. And I turned and said, “The book defining who you know is the greatest separation from you. You are the center of the universe and you're intimidated by this”. But he was genuine. So the fact that you could be Kevin Bacon and be not falsely humble. Not playing a role of humble, but actually feeling out of your turf and willing to admit it to get your sea legs to someone with George Clooney. But I wanted to be in Hollywood, and trying that out was kind of fun. So I figured out how, and lo and behold, I ended up first visiting an HBO series called K Street and then, being so useful as an advisor Steven Soderbergh, finally turned to me. It was produced by Seiberg and George Clooney, and turned to me and said, “Can you just do it?”. And all of a sudden, I'm acting in four episodes of this HBO series called K Street. But in their world, I'm some lawyer. But George Clooney never thought of it that way. George Clooney made you feel like you were special, no matter who you are. And then, we get to be friendly. His father's running for Congress in Cincinnati. And I know a little bit about politics. I know about fundraising. I offered to have a fundraiser for George Clooney, his father. And so we do and it's pretty easy to raise money to have George Clooney come to your house in Bethesda. In L.A. maybe it's not that special in Bethesda. It is. So George comes to our house. And he felt so warm to Michelle and myself about what we've been doing and how we were there in all genuineness. He said, “You guys need to come to Lake Como this summer”. Now, I can tell you, Howard Guttman lawyer from Bethesda, Maryland, and Michelle Lowenthal, and your dentist from Bethesda, Maryland. We're not going to go to a summer party, George Clooney, Lake Como. So I said, “Look, that's very, very nice. No, we really appreciate it”. He goes, “No, no, no, no, everybody comes, Brad and Jen”. He did not distinguish between Brad Pitt and Howard Gutman in his mind, because Brad Pitt and George Clooney were no better than Howard Guttman in his mind. You're just people. And so Kevin and George, have humility. Nobody I bet has ever said, the number one trait I think about for George Clooney is humility. But that's where I am.

Adam: Those are two amazing lessons, the power of humility, the importance of treating everyone around you the same. It doesn't matter if you're the janitor, or if you're the CEO. We're all human beings.

Howard: But it's even more than that. It's not just, yes, we're all breathing or the like, the janitor is as important. The guy I'm always the most impressed with is the shoeshine guy who cares all the time about the people in his chair. That guy asks all the time about where you're headed. What's going on? That guy loves people and interacts with people. And so if I heard someone who had passed away from some great political figure who I knew to be less than a wonderful guy, or that shoeshine guy, I would be blown away by the shoeshine guy.

Adam: You know, Howard, you bring up a really important point, which is taking the time to find what makes each person special, because, again, no matter who you are, you could be the janitor, you could be the CEO. There's something about each and every one of us, that makes us special, that makes us different, that makes us unique. And all too often, we have a tendency to look at people and judge them based on some sort of superficial marker. Kevin Bacon, we judge him based on our familiarity with him in movies. George Clooney, we judge him based on a very superficial marker. But if you take the time to really get to know people, and get to know what they're all about, you'll understand that there's something about each of us that makes us special. And regardless of what your vocation is, what you do professionally, that is not what defines you. That is not who you are. What defines you, is you, what defines you is your superpower. And again, I love that as such an important lesson.

Howard: The seven-year-old grandchild, never bothered to ask Grandpa, what does he do? Does he shine shoes, or is he George Clooney? She knows a seven-year-old Grandpa loves to put her on your shoulders and loves her without limit. And that's the part that you got to get to with the person. That he has a granddaughter, they were putting his shoulder and carry around that he couldn't be more proud of. And you've got to regard him the way they do. The first question isn't what do you do? In so many towns in Washington, what do you do? That means, how close are you to the party in power in L.A.? It's where you are in the biz. In New York, it's where you are in the financial community? It is, have you put anyone on your shoulders that day because they are the light of your life? It is by far the most important question you could ask them. 

Adam: I could not agree with you more. However, before we go, I want to ask you one last question. What can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful, personally and professionally?

Howard: So I always believe, as I've referred to, a couple of times, it's swing heart and Keisha hit. The worst word in the English language is, just. I used to give a speech in Belgium, saying that the three dirty words that should be banned from the language are, I'm just Belgian. I'm just Belgian. So that's for Americans to do or to change the world. Nobody should be just. It is there if you can dream it. If you believe it, there's no doubt you can achieve that. You have to think it through and work hard. It's going to take some luck. There'll be some bad breaks. You can never tell what's a bad break from what's the next break around the corner. Mark Warner drops out of the presidential election, I think it's over. Barack Obama gets in and I'm the U.S. Ambassador of Belgium. My father dies, I think it's over and I go from Albany to Columbia. So swing your heart, in case you hit you might end up acting with George Clooney, and he might even regard you as a good actor when you're just a lawyer. 

Adam: Thanks, Howard. Thank you for all the great advice and thank you for being a part of Thirty Minute Mentors.

Howard: Thanks so much, I greatly appreciate it.

Adam Mendler is the CEO of The Veloz Group, where he co-founded and oversees ventures across a wide variety of industries. Adam is also 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. Adam has written extensively on leadership, management, entrepreneurship, marketing and sales, 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. 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.

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