Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Figure Skating Legend Scott Hamilton

I recently interviewed figure skating legend Scott Hamilton on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today is the most recognized male figure skating star in the world. Scott Hamilton is an Olympic gold medalist, a member of the United States Olympic Hall of Fame and the World Figure Skating Hall of Fame, and the winner of four consecutive US championships and four consecutive World Championships. Scott, thank you for joining us.

Scott: Wow, my pleasure. My pleasure. That's so funny to hear all that stuff. It was so long ago. It's coming up on 40 years since my Olympics, or since I competed. I've done nine as a broadcaster but it's so wild to think back on that time. I was very young, very clueless. I knew that I had an opportunity. And in that it just was this carrot that just kept me going every single day to try to get on an Olympic team in 1980 and what it took for that to happen and then waking up one morning – it was really wild. I was fifth in Lake Placid. I thought if I were eighth in Lake Placid in 1980, it would be like winning the lottery. I thought eighth is probably the best I can do, looking at the field and everything. So I ended up coming in fifth. And then three weeks later was the World Figure Skating Championships and all the same people were there and I came in fifth, which was remarkable. And so I'm sitting around having breakfast after that World Championship and I'm thinking ‘wow, I'm ranked fifth in the world.’ And it's like, well, no, Robin Cousins, the gold medalist, just turned professional. So actually, I'm ranked fourth. Well, no, Jan Hoffman, the silver medalist, just decided to go to medical school. I'm ranked third in the world. That means I'm on the podium at the World Championship. Wait, no, Charlie Tickner just signed with the Ice Capades. So all I had to do was wake up one morning and I'm ranked second in the world. I was like, wow, what do I have to do in order to be like, number one? So I had to take a hard look at myself at that point. Because I realized that, and I tell this to my kids all the time, that the greatest strength is a lack of weakness. Every time I step on competition ice, Dick Button would be doing the broadcasting and he would be really free and very consistent in telling the audience what I was weak at what I wasn't good at. And so I listened to that. And I'd say, ‘Okay, I'm going to work on that, so he can never say that again.’

Adam: I love it. So many great lessons there that I want to unpack over the course of our conversation. But before we do, I want to ask you about your early days and early influences. You grew up in Bowling Green. You were adopted at six weeks old. You contracted an illness that stunted your growth when you were two years old. By the time you were 13, you were training with a former Olympic gold medalist. Can you take listeners back to those early days? What experiences and lessons most significantly shaped your worldview and shaped the trajectory of your success?

Scott: Yeah, well, I always knew I was different. My parents were very aware of our culture. And my dad was way ahead of his time. He looked after a lot of the international students that came to Bowling Green from around the world. He despised any racism at all. He just – we lived in a college town – and so he looked and he made sure that everybody had what they needed as far as international students. And I remember, one of my early babysitters was a guy from Kenya named Jim Carigou. He taught me how to speak Swahili when I was like three years old, but I knew growing up that my parents were just loving, loving, loving people. And I always felt really cool about that. But I always felt like, I don't know, there's always this sort of odd… not a disconnect. But there's this odd thing where, you know, you're in a family, but you're also unique to the family. So my brother and I, he's four years younger than me, we were both adopted, he was obviously going to be huge, and I was going to be very small. So it was kind of this disparity of identities in the family. And so we just grew up that way. And I was allowed to be whoever I wanted to be and do whatever I wanted to do. And it was around age four that they realized that I had a medical condition that needed attention. So I stopped growing and developing and I was showing really signs of stress with lack of nutrition, even though I was eating a lot. I was having a hard time digesting food properly. I was, again, not growing, and it was very frightening for them and so we started going from hospital to hospital. It was about four years of that: went from Bowling Green Hospital, no answers, to Toledo Hospital. Bigger city, obviously bigger doctors, I guess. No answers, to Ann Arbor University of Michigan Children's Hospital. No answers, to Boston Children's Hospital. Kind of, like, the biggest one with the biggest doctors. I had every symptom of the disease Shwachman-Diamond syndrome and Dr. Shwachman himself was looking after me , and I was there for about a year. They put me through test after test and they couldn't figure out what was wrong with me. He said I had every symptom of Shwachman-Diamond syndrome, but I didn't have it. So he just sent us home. At that point, I was on restricted diets thinking I might have some sort of food allergies. So I wasn't eating dairy, I wasn't eating flour, and no sugar. So I was different from other kids. At least I spent more time with sick kids than well kids. I couldn't eat things. Birthday parties were, like, no fun at all. And I knew I was different. I was smaller. I was weaker. But all the time I spent in hospitals really allowed me to understand how strong and independent I could be at a young age. And then when we got home from that last visit, Dr. Shwachman just said, ‘Take him off all the restrictive diets, just go home and live a normal life. We can't diagnose this thing. And if we can't diagnose it, we can't treat it. Maybe he'll grow out of it.’ So we came home and our family physician just said ‘Intervention, you need a morning off.’ And they said ‘How are we going to do that?’ And he goes, ‘I wouldn't come but didn't have a plan.’ And he said ‘There's a brand new facility at Bowling Green State University where they teach children how to ice skate every Saturday morning for four hours. My kids are in it, they love it. It'll be a great way for him to socialize with kids. And it's a great environment. It's safe. And you guys can sleep in, recharge your batteries, spend a lot of time with the younger boys, my younger brother, Steve, and really just be a family and just give you that four hours off in the morning.’ And so I went to the rink and I fell in love with it. I fell in love with the coaches. I fell in love with being around all those well kids. Again, I was more used to sick kids. And then I realized after several weeks that I could skate as well as the well kids. And after several more weeks, I could skate as well as the best athletes in my grade. And for the first time in my life, I tasted self esteem. Like ‘I can do something, I can do something as well as everybody else and maybe even better.’ And I became a rink rat. From then on, I was just like at the rink every moment I possibly could be at the rink and my health just did a total 180. I started growing again. I started building muscle. I started being more active. I started digesting food properly. And my world just changed completely and I became a skater.

Adam: How did you become great at your craft? How did you become Scott Hamilton, Olympic Gold Medalist, Hall of Famer skating legend? How did you reach peak performance?

Scott: I was blessed to work with a guy named Pierre Brunet, who was a two-time Olympic Gold Medalist in Paris, skating way back in the 30s. So he was an amazing man and just a scientist in the sport and really never gave up on the lesson. I had lessons from him that would go two hours until I figured out exactly what he was trying to teach me. He was that kind of coach. And so, as a second year novice, I made it to the Nationals. And it was there that I had to skate in front of 17,500 people. We were waiting for Janet Lynn, the most popular woman athlete in the world competing in her last nationals in the Seniors which was the next event, so standing room only. And I wish I would have stood. I came in dead last. I fell five times in my free program, came in dead last, humiliated. Next year, I came in ninth out of 10, only fell twice. Decided to go up to the junior level because what's the worst thing that can happen? I'm Last Place Guy and I went there with a new jump (double axel), and I beat two guys who were very embarrassed that I would actually beat them because I'm Last Place Guy. And then it was there that everything changed. My mom came home from a doctor's visit and with a very cheerful tone told us that we're having a family meeting. She said, ‘Well, I've just been diagnosed,’ in a very cheerful way she said ‘I've just been diagnosed with a disease called cancer, and I'm going to have some treatments and some medicine that may not make me feel good. And down the road, maybe some surgeries, so I'm going to need some help around the house.’ And then she looked at me and she said, ‘And you. We're bankrupt. We've got nothing left. We put everything into your skating, and we can get you through one more year. You're a senior in high school. And we'll get you through one more year of skating. And then next year, you come home and you can be a student at Bowling Green State University since we're both professors there, you can go for free. We can afford free. And that's going to be your life after this year, no more skating.’ And I said ‘Okay,’ and she said, ‘Make it count.’ My Olympic champion coach had retired and my new coach was sort of a very disciplinary coach and he scared me to death. And things just took a turn. And I got to the Nationals and I was in better shape, I think, because I was more invested and because I was scared of my coach. And my mom arrived at the Nationals. They had just removed her left breast, and the inside of her left arm and she was wearing a wig because she lost all her hair to chemo. And she just had the biggest smile on her face. And I just said, ‘Are you okay?’ And she said, ‘I am actually fantastic.’ And she just said, ‘Look, go out and skate, have a great time. And when you're done with your competition, we have lots to talk about.’ So I went out, did my first jump, normal. Second jump is usually the hardest jump in the program. And that's where my view would be of the ceiling of the building, because I'm laying flat on my back, because that's kind of how I competed in those days. And I decided to throw in this triple salchow. My last competition ever. Let's see what happens. And I landed it. And I got so excited that I forgot to mess up the rest of my program, and I won Junior nationals. Well, what I didn't know and what my mom was very cheerful about was, on our way to the Nationals, she connected at O'Hare Airport, where a meeting was arranged, where she met a couple, an older couple with no children who were very wealthy and loved skating, and didn't want to have me quit because of my parents lack of funds. And they agreed in that meeting that they would sponsor my skating. So I had a second life. The only string attached was that I had to move to Denver and that I was going to take from a coach who that year was coaching a woman named Dorothy Hamill to an Olympic gold medal. And a guy named John Curry to an Olympic gold medal in the men's figure skating. I won the lottery basically. I went to the Nationals that year and that would be the last competition my mother would ever see me skate in. And the day I lost her, I had to make a choice of how I was going to live my life. And I decided that I didn't want to do this without her. And so I would bring her with me to the ice every single day and I would skate for her. And I had her hold me accountable. And from that moment, everything changed because I was skating for something bigger than me. And I really wanted to honor her sacrifices, like every single one. Like, she never bought clothes for herself. Everything went to her kids. Everything. She was the most sacrificial, most loving, compassionate woman, but she was beloved in our community. And I loved her more than any other person on the planet. And I thought if I honor her by showing up every day, and just honoring her sacrifices and keeping her with me and keeping her close to me, it'll help me with my grief. And it will allow me to channel my grief towards something positive. And from then on that year, I made it onto the podium of the senior level and made it to the World Championships where I was 11th. Next year, I thought coming in eighth would be great. I came in fifth at the World Championships. Following that I came in fifth again, which was miraculous. And then I woke up one morning and realized that the top three guys in the world, the Olympic gold medalist, the silver medalist, the bronze medalist, had just retired. So all I had to do was wake up and I'm ranked second in the world. And the punch line was that the year that I came in dead last, falling five times at the novice, the guy that I now had to beat was on the senior men's podium at I don't know, 13 or 14 years old, because he was a genius at the compulsory figures. Perfect storm. And it's just remarkable that as the Last Place Guy, I was able to just understand where my weaknesses lie and rise above them. And just stay focused and competitive and be consistent and not allow failures within my performances to allow anyone else to get any footing. And that was a big part of it was training and consistency. I loved repetition. I loved the whole idea of showing up at the rink every day and doing something I love. It was commitment, and repetition and love of the game and I didn't like competing that much. I liked winning. But I didn't like – the whole process of competition was very stressful. But I found ways of distracting myself and getting through the gauntlet of those four years and then it was time to turn professional and build a career.

Adam: Scott, you shared so much there that I want to dive into. So many critical lessons that are applicable for anyone listening, regardless of what they're trying to become great at. Starting off with the importance of not being afraid to fail, being willing to take chances. And when you do fail, getting right back up. How many times did you share that you fell or you fell twice or five times or 10 times?

Scott: I did the math, that was on the low end. I've fallen on the ice 41,600 times. And many of those falls were in front of millions of people. And it's sort of that muscle you build by getting up that the failure takes on lesser meaning. And you look back on coach John Wooden of UCLA Bruins basketball team, his quote was, ‘My teams never fail. They never lose, ever, they never lose.’ And he won a lot of championships but obviously, they lost games. He said, ‘Either they win, or they learn.’ And that's the mindset that I got into was, if things didn't go the way I wanted them to, then that was a learning opportunity. It wasn't necessarily a failure, it was that there was something I needed to work on, something I needed to repair, something I needed to fix, in order to master that ability, in order for that failure not to happen again. So all of us have this human tendency to take our failures and put them into a bag and carry them around with us for the rest of our lives. And our failures haunt us, but he gave us a way to rise above it. And so I've learned so much in my life from the negotiation of being on two knives strapped to my feet and trying to master them on a very slippery surface in front of thousands of people. But it's also sort of what it means to be strong physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually. And I think if we invest ourselves in all four of those capacities, we build superpowers where now we cannot be defeated ever again. We just have to roll up our sleeves and shake that off and give it another try.

Adam: Scott, we're going to come back to the word superpower later on in this conversation, but I want to list a few more lessons that you shared in describing your path to greatness. By the way, something else you shared, which I love is that quote, ‘either you win or you learn.’ Could not have summarized it better. A turning point you described when you got more invested in skating, when you started taking ownership of your life, when you started taking ownership of your career, big turning point: focusing on your work, focusing on your craft. Another big turning point, when you spoke about your mom's passing, and how that brought an extra level of meaning to you. And figure skating no longer became a vocation for you, it became serving a higher purpose. Love of the game. If you don't love what you do, are you going to become great at it? Having passion? You spoke about the buzzwords: commitment, repetition, practice. When you love what you do, it doesn't feel like work?

Scott: No, it doesn't at all. It's remarkable just how everybody thinks that if you win an Olympics, you have all the answers. I just felt like my timing was perfect. Like, if I would have gone four years before or four years later, maybe not. But where my skating was and who I was and how I kind of operated my skating life in those years, were perfect for that four year window. Winning that gold medal was life changing. But it also offended me in so many ways to the point where my Olympic gold medal lived in a brown paper bag, crunched up in a brown paper bag at the bottom of my underwear drawer for eight years until I could finally get rid of it.

Adam: Why is that? Why did it offend you?

Scott: I didn't understand it at the time. But as I dedicated my life to my faith, I understood that it was an idol. And you can get so wrapped up with an idol. It's almost like ‘precious’ in the Lord of the Rings movies. You've just become so consumed with this moment in time that you can't – like, your feet are in cement. You just can't rise above it and you're stuck. So I've got this thing that is in my mantra over time where it's like nostalgia is expensive on every level. Professionally, personally, emotionally. It's expensive to live in the past. It's expensive to want to relive your past. It's just, we're going this way, we're going forward. And I've seen so many people get stuck in that moment that the rest of their lives are less than. And I really was hungry to leverage that moment into the next. And I'm just trying to figure out how I could build a professional career and to create new opportunities so the guys that are coming up after me would have it better than I did. And I love the challenge of that and I joined the Ice Capades, because that was the best situation for me at the time. I could keep my skating up. We arranged my contract where I could build my broadcasting career. I had a two year deal with a third year option. And the President of Ice Capades was at my last show of my second year. And I'm thinking. ‘Here comes my third year option.’ I figured if I skated two to four years as a pro, that I was fooling a lot of people, but I was really just very dedicated to being at the top of my game and to learn how does lighting work? How does staging work? How does choreography work? How does music choice work? What audiences respond to? These are all things I was learning as I was going. And he came to me after my last show, and he put his arm around me and started to walk. And I don't know about you, but anytime someone puts their arm around you and starts to walk, it's never good. And so in that walk, he told me that they've just agreed to sell that Ice Capades to a new owner. And I said, ‘Oh, my.’ This man, I really respected, President of the Ice Capades. I said, ‘Well, I can't wait to meet him.’ And the President of Ice Capades just said, ‘Well, he can wait to meet you. He doesn't really have any interest in you or your contract. So we're letting you go.’ And I was like, ‘Wait, how does that work? I've, I've done everything as well as it can be done. How am I now getting let go?’ And he said, ‘He only wants women stars. He doesn't want a male star.’ And so my manager and I had a meeting. And he wanted to do it on the beach in Florida. I was a big tennis fan at the time. So I went down to a tennis event to meet with him. And he goes, ‘Let's go out to the beach and talk.’ And I go, ‘Okay.’ So we're sitting on the beach, beautiful place. And he just breaks to me gently and says, ‘I've tried every trick I have, they're not going to take you back.’ And I said, ‘Okay, well, thank you for trying.’ And he said, ‘We've been talking internally, and we're thinking, maybe we at ING would like to build a skating tour, is that something you can help us do?’ And I remember my response was, ‘Let me check my calendar.’ I was so unemployed, and that opportunity, I mean, we built Stars on Ice together. And they just completed another tour. We're talking 37 years of Stars on Ice, it's still out there. So what I thought was going to be a two to four year professional career, if I was able to fool enough people, became a 20 year professional career. And it was an adventure. And it was hard at times. I think it was year 11 or year 13 in my professional career, I was on tour and I couldn't stand up straight. And I went to an emergency room where I was diagnosed with cancer. 50 cities into a 60 city tour of abdominal pain, it's like… ****. So I just went through chemo. And my carrot was to be on tour the very next year. And I had a 38-staple abdominal surgery to get rid of the rest of the cancer and chemo was hard. Now having a seam in my abdomen meant my coordination was going to be different and I knew I had to work my way back from there. And I had to find a way to soften the scar so it'd be more pliable and so I could  move. And I was back on tour the next year. And so my best 20 years were post cancer. It’s remarkable. And Stars on Ice was a huge success story. It was just all about learning and growing and rising above your circumstance. And I think too many young people now struggle with the idea of long term investment, long term commitment to a long term goal, because everything in the palm of their hand is instant gratification. And all the information they get is given to them in 30-second bites. And it's harder now for people to understand that this journey that you're about to take is going to last for 16 years. If you're in today's society and you're a young person, and you can make that commitment to long term success of being humble and hungry in equal components, no one's going to stop you. No one. No one.

Adam: Scott, as you were describing your journey. I was thinking about a question that I think about all the time, which is: what is your superpower? And the answer that I have is resilience. What do you think your superpower is?

Scott: I've been fortunate, really fortunate that the Lord has allowed me to see things in really remarkable ways and that the Lord has given me a path to rise above my failures and shortcomings, all of those things. But the whole idea that failures are meant to be learning opportunities. Again, the only ingredient in failure is inflammation. I've learned that and it's helped me rise above a lot of things. But the resilient part of it is really cool. But so much of it is also understanding that we can take our opportunities and leverage them. And we can take our failures and equally leverage them. It's a remarkable thing, that each of us have our own unique and specific identity. You and I have one thing in common: we are the only us to ever be born to this planet, ever. And then that becomes different obligations, responsibilities, opportunities, failures. And it was funny, a Forrest Gump story: I was having lunch with the Commissioner of the NHL Gary Bettman who I've met on many occasions and actually really like him as a friend, I can say that he's a friend. And we were talking over lunch. And he said, ‘Why have you, of all the Olympians (there've been a lot of people that won the Olympic gold medal) – what is it about you where you've had the staying power that you've been able to create?’ I have a Cancer Foundation where we're funding immunotherapy research, targeted therapies that treat the cancer and spare  the patient harm. We're really looking at the future of cancer research, and we're working really hard to make that happen and save lives. He goes, ‘How has that been possible for you?’ And I just, I thought about it for a second. I go, ‘People tend to like me.’ He said ‘What?’ And I go, ‘Yeah, I mean, people are nice to me. I'm nice to them, but generally, people have been really kind to me/ They've given me opportunity where maybe I didn't have it before. They've extended themselves in ways that were really crucial to my overall wellbeing.’ And he said, ‘likeability,’ he goes, ‘I never thought of that as a superpower before.’ But it really is: likeability. Like, to be interactive, kind, interested, to be supportive, to be compassionate, to be all those things my mom taught me early on, it allows people to embrace you. And in that, that interaction really creates a great deal of new opportunity, right? In all the years that I skated professionally, I'd look into the audience and I'd see all these men, and they'd be staring at their watch. And they'd be looking around to make sure none of their buddies were there on date night. They’d say ‘My wife wanted to go to a skating show, and here I am stuck here. Yeah, there's some pretty girls to look at. But other than that, it's like [snoring noise]. And I looked at that, and I was like, ‘If I can get that guy who doesn't want to be in the audience, if I can get him on his feet, that changes everything. That changes everything.’ And so to be accessible, to be strategic in a way of, ‘Man, I don't care who's in the room. I'm making time for everybody. And I want to make sure that they all have a great time. And I'm the host of this party, and it's going to be awesome.’ And it's funny now, I go to the airport, and a guy walked up to me and he said, ‘Are you the skater?’ And I go, ‘Yeah.’ And he goes, ‘Yeah, I don't watch that stuff at all but my wife loves it. And can I introduce you to her?’ And I go, ‘Absolutely.’ And so knowing that I spent all those years building my skating routines to be really appealing to the men in the audience, he'll get his wife, bring her back. And he'll say, ‘Honey, look who I found.’ And she'll look at me and she'll look at her husband and say, ‘I have absolutely no idea who that is.’ It's like I win. I won that guy over somehow. I won him over. And it's again, it's that understanding of being likable, presenting yourself in a way that's easy to be accepted and easy to be supported. And that idea that I wanted to work hard enough to get that guy's respect and get him on his feet. And the dividends long term have been extraordinary.

Adam: Scott, I think that's really interesting. I would answer Gary Bettman's question by saying that that's 50% of it. And that the other 50% of it is what you shared before, which is, in your words, nostalgia is expensive. The fact that you were always looking forward, never looked back. No matter where you were in your journey, you always had a forward-looking mindset. You won the Olympic gold medal. You stash it away. You weren't Scott Hamilton, Olympic Gold Medalist. You're Scott Hamilton, what's next? And no matter what happened along the way for you, you are always open to that next opportunity. And something that you shared in this conversation, that you are the beneficiary of great luck. You mentioned that you were down on your luck, and next thing, you know, you come across this couple that is extraordinarily wealthy and loves skating, and they sponsor you and you hit the jackpot. But that wouldn't have happened if you didn't make your own luck. If you didn't put yourself in a position where when you met them, they were going to fall in love with you. So now that I know you even better, I would say it's resilience plus likability.

Scott: In a judge sport, and then transitioning into the entertainment industry, it is that. You're winning people over. Judges, I had to win over the majority of the panel in order to be successful. And if I didn't, let's say it was my vision, my way. I didn't have any consideration for what they wanted to see. It was only my, my, my, my, my. It was never a shared experience and it was never going to amount to anything. And I see a lot of skaters that are stubborn, and they say ‘No, no, every judge has told me that I lack artistry, but I know I'm a great artist, so I'm going to ignore that feedback.’ And it's like, they're the make or break. And it's the same with employers. I'm not saying kiss up, I'm just saying, be the genuine, authentic person you are and just invest in the relationship. And it's funny, when I stepped in front of an audience, they knew for the next three and a half, four minutes, whatever that is, I'm going to work my tail off, and I'm going to do everything I possibly can to win them over. And in that, it's a giving situation and the take comes after the gift. So it's not like I'm there to take. ‘Okay, okay, we have 90,000 people in the audience tonight in St. Louis. Well, that's a take.’ No, no, no. Now it's up to me to convince them to come back next year. Like that's my responsibility. Your time is valuable. We are in the same place at the same time and it's my job to make you feel welcome to make you feel like you made the right choice in sitting in the rafters for this 5’4” figure skater that is maybe 120 pounds, whatever. No, there’s this interaction obligation that comes with it. And it's really remarkable that it starts with being accessible, being giving, and then that relationship can happen. It's not all take; there has to be a huge portion of give, in order to be able to, on the back end of it, come away better in some way or enriched in some way. So it's up to us to give them not only what they expect, but maybe a little bit more. And in that they just can't wait to be with you again.

Adam: The importance of being accessible. The importance of being laser-focused on your audience, being laser-focused on your customers. Not only delivering, but over-delivering. Performing to your very best, whatever the expectations are, not only meeting them, but exceeding them.

Scott: And that's kind of the secret sauce. I think people get generally offended when they see only take. Whether it be a politician, whether it be a celebrity that won't sign autographs or take pictures, or whether it be just someone that's all take in your relationship. It's all take, there's no interaction. It's all take. That's the house it's built on sand. It has no chance of surviving the storm. Matthew, I think, 27 says, ‘Build your house on the rock. And when you build your house on rock, the storms come and winds blow and the rains come crashing down and you can stand. You can live through it.’ But if your whole life is just meant to receive, it's worthless.

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

Scott: Try editing that down to 30 minutes. Good luck.


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.

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