(121) The Modern Executive’s Communications Playbook - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Aazbgwyqfc

Transcript: (00:00) If people don't know who you are, that's a disadvantage. All other things being considered. It just to me it is. Not that many people are really good at communicating, who are very articulate at getting their message out. But understand how to do it, when to do it, what's appropriate. It will become clearer who does it well. (00:17) And that's going to drive people to not want to be that person who doesn't do it well. I think that increasingly in our lives and in business, the reality is there's cameras everywhere. You're being recorded all the time. You have to have a unified presentation. (00:35) And so I think that the important thing with communication is be direct and honest because that story will effectively establish you as a thought leader because it makes you a protagonist in the drama. All right. I'm here joined by Ted M, the founder of Principles Media, which is a modern storytelling company. You work with CEOs and executives and help them create social media content. (00:53) So technically kind of you could say competitor to us. Um before starting Principles Media in 2022, Ted was last the uh the the head of the global head of news product at Bloomberg and you spent 32 years at Bloomberg starting as a reporter I think and working your way all the way up and I do want to dive into that story of ending that part and and starting Principles Media. (01:26) But um yeah, anything to amend or correct in that little intro? No, sounds great. Excited to be here and thanks for having me on. Awesome. Cool. Yeah, thanks for joining. And uh I wanted to talk to you because obviously we're in similar spaces, but you do it more, you know, I would say sophisticated than us. We work with a lot more startups and uh and and you come at it from a more traditional communications and and journalist background. (01:52) Um and so I think you have you bring a little bit of a different perspective. Um, so yeah, I wanted to have you on, but but can you maybe expand a little bit on the story of how Principles Media was founded, why you founded it, and the the backstory with with Bloomberg? Yeah, sure. (02:10) Um, I like to say the story is easy in a way and hard at the same time, but I started at Bloomberg in 1990. I was the 15th reporter hired for Bloomberg News and I kind of started at the bottom of the the ladder as it were summarizing other media publications and I had the good fortune of being there at a time when Bloomberg itself was a startup and it was growing very rapidly. (02:36) So about a year and a half after I'd been there, I was tasked with building out the news operation in Latin America. And I spent the next several years, opening seven offices and hiring about 40 people for just that group. So that the growth at Bloomberg in the early 90s was incredible. And it's hard to picture now because it's a well-known media property and company, but it was it was small and people didn't know the company. So that was kind of my formative experience. (02:59) And I I remained in the news organization for 16 years. ultimately becoming the managing editor for the Americas and then I transitioned I was recruited internally to join a nissent product team and uh I ended up spending 16 years in the product group and ultimately running the news product and I think it's hard to even imagine this now but think back Bloomberg didn't have search capability and that was one of the reasons when I moved into the news product team the articles that were published were basically just you just paged back if you wanted to find an (03:31) older article, you couldn't type in words and look for things. Uh but Google had come out and the landscape was changing. And so they paired um I joined another uh another guy and we worked with engineers and sort of built out this news product which was search capability as well as a lot of other content. (03:54) And so my my career really was a combination of creating content and distributing content. And so I have a little bit of that um technology side. I'm not technical. I wasn't I never was a coder but um but I worked with the engineers to build all these kinds of applications. And so that that was my career at Bloomberg. And that um that came to a sudden end in 2022. (04:14) I was suddenly let go surprised and I wasn't sure what to do uh with my life or my skill set and I had a lot of time on my hands. So what happened to me quite organically is I started writing. I was a vocationally a writer. So I started writing on LinkedIn and I just started writing stories about my career at Bloomberg, about my thoughts about fintech, the media and technology. (04:40) I always started writing a lot of stories about my father who was kind of a greatest generation a classic figure who's now um 98 almost 99. And so I wrote these stories and um I got a lot of response. I got a lot of um followers and comments and engagement and organically I started getting DMs from people who said we write on LinkedIn and nothing happens and you write these stories and you get all this engagement and they said can you tell us what you're doing? So, so you know that was kind of my introduction to this whole (05:16) new genre which you know you are in as well which is telling stories and tell you know creating content and raising your visibility and establishing personal brand and that whole thing was I had not been aware of but it became it hit me hard and I realized I think something pretty profound was that my whole career and indeed like the last 75 years companies and people had used PR and they'd used um advertising to raise their visibility. (05:49) And what we're seeing now is this this new lane, this new ability to actually become visible by telling your own story. So, I got very excited by that and I I was a natural kind of storyteller. So, I started to lean into it and that's kind of the origin. I it it people started calling me. I created a company and um and I took it from there. That's awesome. (06:12) Our story is actually more similar in a in a ironic way because obviously we there are so many differences but I was in New York in 2018. I had just dropped out of college in university because I realized I was studying for other people and not for myself. I was studying physics and philosophy and I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life. (06:31) And so I went to New York because it felt like the craziest thing I could do. And I also just started talking and I made all these videos on social media, Instagram mainly, Snapchat, Twitter, YouTube. I was doing a daily vlog on YouTube and a friend of mine told me about this platform called LinkedIn, which I in my age group wasn't really a thing. Um, and they had just bought uh they were just bought by Microsoft back then. (06:59) And I just started putting out videos on LinkedIn with no plan. And then people reached out to me and said, "This is cool the videos that you make here. Could you help me make some?" Exactly. Right. And it's hilarious. I have a follow-up question. Yeah. You said you when when you were let go by Bloomberg, you are good at writing. (07:17) So, you just started writing on LinkedIn. You said it kind of nonchalantly as if as if it's obvious that if you're good at writing, you just start writing on LinkedIn, but obviously that's not what a lot of people do. Why LinkedIn? Why? I mean it seems like the more obvious next step is you found find a new job and you apply at a lot of companies and you don't create content on LinkedIn especially because you didn't even have that plan to start this media company out of it right so it wasn't a plan in in the create when I started writing that I had no intent (07:49) or no thought that the writing would bring me work or a career or a job so now I see that quite clearly but I didn't see that at the point I I think that I I first of all just wanted to take some time off. I'd been in one company for 32 years. I think the other thing which is quite interesting and maybe we can get into was I was 57 years old at the time and one of the realities that's facing people of that age is first of all a lot of people are losing their jobs at that age. (08:19) It is really difficult to find a comparable job at that age. And in fact, you know, the whole agism thing there is something to companies are not that eager to hire people who are older. So you have to ask yourself, are you if if I had applied for another product manager job or another job, how long was that going to last? And I just didn't have a lot of um I thought it I wasn't confident that you could get a job that would last another 10 years. So part of the thinking was also when this started to happen was can I make my (08:49) own career and and and build something myself which would not be reliant on working for a company. And so I think it's it's quite interesting because a lot of people I know who are my age are in a similar position like they've lost their job. They're not they're struggling to find another job. (09:06) And in terms of the content, you know, that you and I create for for clients, I'd say that younger people have an advantage generally because they're more digitally native and they're more, you know, they have less of a notion that it's an issue to just write online and express themselves. They've been doing it with Tik Tok or Instagram reels or so forth. (09:25) Most of the people my age and particularly I'd say executives have a sense that that is not only not beneficial, but they like it's not something you should be doing. Sure. their the perception is you should be running the company and not tweeting or that it's too self agrandizing and it's putting so much attention on yourself and that's that's wrong and there's a there's these addages where they say you know there's no eye in team and you know and I put the customer first I put the client first I don't want to front run the client and I think there's just been a shift I' love to hear your thoughts too but there's been a shift in (09:59) perception of that I think a lot of folks who are a little older are struggle to understand the changing lands landscape. Yeah, I'm curious to hear you commenting on that trend because to me it comes quite natural to, you know, create content on these platforms. (10:22) And like when we think about executive communications and CEOs or founders or senior leaders at now larger and larger companies going on to LinkedIn or Twitter X to post things. Is this like is this truly a new trend or is just the medium changing and before that they would be interviewed by a Bloomberg reporter you know or they would uh give a keynote and it's the same idea just now it's social media instead of a Bloomberg reporter like given that you've seen so much more of this this timeline it do you think about it as a major change or is this just a small nuance that's different nowadays I see it as a major secular change. (11:01) Why? Yes. I see it, however, as an evolution and a natural arc. Mhm. So, let's give you some history. When I started in the business as a reporter in the 1990s, it was very difficult to access CEOs. You couldn't just call them, you couldn't email them. You didn't have their email or their phone. You know, they weren't on Twitter. There was no Twitter. (11:25) So what you saw was um a very institutionalized world where they had gatekeepers of PR firms that managed their access and in an analogist way. If they had a message to get out, they would typically leak it to a major publication like the New York Times or Wall Street Journal and they would arrange to be on television like CNBC or Bloomberg. (11:47) And so the playbook that that CEOs of my generation are operating under is that is how you do things. Okay? You work through the channels of the institutions and those gatekeepers and they provide you validation and distribution. And another thing I tell a lot of people is remember in the 90s when companies had earnings calls and announcements, they weren't typically done by the CEO. (12:13) So CEOs were not on earnings calls 25 years ago. The CFO did that. Before Steve Jobs, it wasn't normal for a CEO to make a product launch like, you know, Steve Jobs and the the unpacking of the iPhone. That was revolutionary, right? So now, so you think about that arc now CEOs absolutely have to be on the conference call. (12:32) They have to give a lot more speeches. They have to basically if you're in tech, you have to announce the products like Tim Cook does. Mark Zuckerberg does that too now. Yeah. Um, so there's been an evolution where the CEO has become more prominent. We we would say as the storyteller, but as the face, but also what's happened is that they now because of technology have the ability to to have distribution direct to their stakeholders and audiences. (13:02) That didn't exist. That didn't exist. You had to go to the New York Times to get your message out. So now you can if you have you can just message directly as Sam Alman and many other people are doing. But it's a gener I think this is a generational change. (13:21) If you're a 60-year-old CEO, you didn't grow up doing that and it's not the behavior you're modeling and it's not what you see your your peer group doing. Yeah. So when you see Sam Alman doing that, it doesn't make any sense. Okay. It it is a weird behavior. However, I think that this is this is an evolutionary trend. (13:41) It's there's no going back because there's an an immense advantage to being able to communicate directly. And let's take Mark Zuckerberg for an example. Um again, uh when the last four major product launches from Meta have all been announced with Mark Zuckerberg holding up an iPhone and doing a reel on Yeah. Instagram. And that is crazy because Mark Zuckerberg didn't do reals like two years ago and he owned Instagram. (14:07) It's like crazy, right? So Mark Zuckerberg didn't post like a few years ago. It was just a thing that CEOs didn't do, but it's now it's becoming this thing. It's it's there's going to be a tipping point. I I still look at it like there's very very few executives who do this in an authentic natural way. Yeah, that would be like with with Sam Alman, Elon Musk, whoever, many people in tech. (14:29) But I think it's a muscle and I think it's a skill that they ha that they will it will become part of the job just like doing like if you said to them you have to do a town hall they'd be like okay but if you had said that 35 years ago like maybe not you know if you if you had said you have to do a product launch today they'd understand but they that wouldn't have been part of the job 30 years ago. (14:52) So I think part of the job is this communication and that's you know where you and I come in is we help them do that uh effectively but they have to participate. That's that's how I see the landscape that's changed. I think it's absolutely different than it was before. One comment and one follow-up question. I think what you're saying you can you can see that adoption curve where it started with basically tech and startups. (15:22) I think they were the earliest at least in B2B right B toC companies they did that even earlier where the founders might be present in B2B tech startups and then it's just moving up market into larger and larger companies you now see some executives of you know public companies being out there and creating content like I think of DSH CTO at HubSpot y um and and then I'm assuming it will also trickle into other industries that's not not just tech but construction and uh you know other more boring industries where I mean in Germany I don't like there's so many companies Mercedes and Zmens I have no idea who the CEO is. Well, right. I mean, this is a question I have for you, but my I tell clients if if people don't (16:04) know who you are, that's a disadvantage. All other things being considered. It just to me it is like the more people that have an awareness of your name, your your image, it's going to help you because you'll be more top of mind. You'll they'll think of you, they'll associate with you. (16:23) But it's this is a generational change. You know, this is most of the executives are not used to it. They haven't seen it. they don't want to do it. So they'll give you a hundred reasons why it's um first it's just a startup thing or maybe it's a tech thing or this wouldn't apply to cement or whatever. Right. Yeah. But I just don't see that. (16:49) I I I mean if you look at the trends for other industries like fashion, celebrities, uh Hollywood, sports, these have all had similar um arcs, right? And the business is in a way business and executives are kind of like um behind the curve in this way. They're behind the curve and I think it's just inevitable. It's an and again not everybody has to do this but if you don't it will be I think a disadvantage for you and your company. So you're ultimately going to end up seeing this. (17:15) And I think part of that has to do with the adoption curve of social media too because it it used to be true that it is a young people's thing. Now it's obviously not anymore. The example that I give is my my father. He is in his 60s. He is the head of IT at a German partly government-owned company. Okay. He will never get another job in his lifetime probably. (17:44) Um, and two or 3 years ago he had a LinkedIn account, but he never opened the app. Now, like I see him liking some of my posts here and there, right? And it's like person in his 60s, head of it in Germany, partly governmentowned company. Yeah. Right. And and you can now reach these people, decision makers on LinkedIn. (18:03) And I think that will also drive the adoption by um other companies. Now, follow-up question for you. When you see, have you had your dad on the pod yet or not? I have not. I have not. No. Um, when you see people like Sam Alman tweeting, do you think the skill will actually be learned that all of them will manage it themselves and they just open their phone and they tweet something or will this there still be a communications person, an advisor, their chief communications officer that they will, you know, go back and forth with (18:37) and hey, I'm thinking of tweeting this. What do you think? And ah, don't say that. Maybe say it in this way. Yeah. Um, how do you see this kind of relationship? Yeah, 100% for the vast majority of people there will be a communications person helping them. Yeah. Not that many people are really good at communicating. (19:04) Not that people are Steve Jobs or Sam Alman who have not just are very articulate getting their message out, but understand how to do it, when to do it, what's appropriate. A lot of people struggle when they communicate with knowing what is the most effective story to tell or what is an appropriate story to tell. (19:23) And so as the stakes go up, yeah, you know, so I think I think it's going to be very interesting because I think for a lot of CEOs, if they don't want to participate, they effectively outsource this entirely. And that in my opinion doesn't go well. Is not authentic. It's not helpful. There's no ROI. You have to participate. Um, and I think it's in their long-term interest to be have the capability to write and v do their own videos. (19:44) But, you know, if we take Mark Zuckerberg for example, I mean, 100% I mean, he may have held a iPhone and and and talked for two minutes, but 100% the lawyers and everyone else looked at that video. He didn't just he didn't just dash that off. Okay. Right. So when the stakes are high, look, he he may do a quick video at a birthday party, but his his his adviserss are thinking about image and they're thinking about what stories to tell. And I also think I don't think there's anything weird about that. (20:14) I think that you know when lots of us if we write an important memo, you may run it by someone else, your colleagues and say, does this get my idea across? My wife your your wife. So similarly I think that you know I if I do a video or if I write a post and I'm not sure I'll show it to a few people and say does this work? Yeah. (20:39) And and and so I think it's similar to that like it's the the executives are going to be in they they need to be in a position where they can execute this but they will get advice and counseling and so forth. And so I do think it's I I I compare it a lot more to speech writing. So let's say you're going to give a speech and it's a really important speech. (20:56) you know, uh, you have ideas you want to get across, but you might hire a professional speech writer. And I think something else that's missed when you talk about getting help. I think what you and I do is a very specialized skill. I don't think it's PR. I don't think it's general comms. (21:14) It's more akin in my view to speech writing because you have to have a sense of what's going on on the platform. you know what the memes are like what's appropriate who's who's who so I don't think I think increasingly comms is becoming this very complicated thing where you might have somebody who handles the PR somebody else somebody else having handling social media someone else handling speech writing uh and I I don't think that I don't think that has evolved as you I think are aware there was a kind of a big excitement when PayPal hired yep a person to for this to write the CEO's is social head of CEO content. Head of CEO content. I think that makes (21:53) total sense because I think it's a different job. And I and I I can't write PR and I don't meet a lot of PR people who can do effective social and and the reason is because they're just different skill sets. When you when a social post is too promotional, it it just doesn't work well. Yeah. You and you know what I'm talking about. It doesn't work well. It doesn't resonate. (22:18) And uh so it's a different sensibility. I've I've not I feel like you can tell when a CEO or executive's LinkedIn etc sits underneath the PR person versus the brand person. Okay. Yeah. Because the PR person is very much playing it safe. We want to get the company messages out. We want to just tell the world that we just launched this, that we just partnered with that company, that we're so excited to announce this. That's PR. (22:51) And the the executive's profile is almost just it's it's a it's a medium to just get the company message out. Yeah. And then the head of PR, I think they are much more interested in thought leadership, sharing interesting takes about what's going on, storytelling, some personal stories in there, things that they learned in their career. (23:13) And and some of those are more, you know, a little bit more spicy. Sometimes they might ruffle some feathers. And I personally resonate way more with the maybe I'm oversimplifying things but with the PR driven uh brand sorry brand driven communications than with the PR driven. I know I think that's right and I think that will become clear. (23:32) I I think the next evolution so right now I mean if I ask you how many let's just take the S&P 500 for example how many CEOs in the S&P 500 do you think do social media any any aspect of social media in kind of an authentic way where you think they're actually writing it and participating? I mean love it or hate it probably the most authentic person is Elon Musk. (23:58) So Elon Musk is kind of sooie generous and let's put him aside. Yes. But but yes, when you read Elon Musk, the one thing you know is that he absolutely wrote that. And I think the way I think about that is you ask yourself, could somebody have written and published that without his knowledge? And the answer is almost always no. (24:16) So, so whether he had help or someone actually pushed the button doesn't matter. It's like they couldn't have done it without. But how many other CEOs in the S&P 500 do that? Uh like it's really small. Yeah. you know and and so most of them to the degree they have handles are handled I think from the PR department and mostly so the PR department's put in the position of writing something that can't possibly be problematic and and in kind of ipso facto that means it's going to be it's not going to say really move the ball forward it's not going to be memorable let's put (24:53) it that way it's not gonna be memorable so you end up with all these posts that say you know I was visit you know visited the team in the Frankfurt office today and you know, go team. Yeah. And you're right, great effort by everyone. Great effort by everybody. (25:12) Uh, and that's like, okay, I think that's fine for 2020, but I think increasingly as more people adopt this kind of direct communications, it will become clearer who does it well. And and that's going to drive people to not want to be that person who doesn't do it well. I think it's very clear like if you went to a major conference and a CEO gives up gets up and gives an amazing speech, the next person going up is not going to want to give a bad speech. (25:43) So So I think this happens this going to take years, but over time people cos are competitive by nature. They're going to want to distinguish themselves through the nature of their communication. It's just they can't be otherwise. Yeah. You know, I think what you just said what you just said on like what is the likelihood that you could have posted this through your CEO's profile without them ever giving their input. (26:07) I think that's a great measure. I was talking to the head of PR at a publicly traded tech company and essentially what she was interested in us doing was they would have a company announcement that she would write up like a PR announcement about some product release and she would want us to basically just create five versions of that. (26:30) One for their CMO, one for their CEO, one for their CPO, one's for their CRO to all say the same thing but just slightly different. Okay. where I said you could just run that through chat GPT and you know give it some prompt and one is a little quirkier and the other one is more serious but that's exactly what you said in that post there is no input needed from the actual CEO or the actual CMO their take I think those are two things I look at I look at could this have been written without the person's knowledge and if it's if it can then it's generally not optimal and not effective (27:02) probably the other thing I look at is could this be cut and pasted and published by someone else right and if if that's possible that doesn't for me that doesn't work either so you know all the people who publish these things that say Warren Buffett is the greatest investor and five lessons from Warren Buffett like you just anybody in the world can cut and paste that and put it somewhere else and um it it is posting and it's you're having an online presence but but it's not memorable and it's not unique to you. So I I think the thing that for CEOs to understand and and calms people (27:39) to understand is that the opportunity here is to connect with people and to connect with people you have to say something memorable and distinct. The goal being that when you're executive walks into the next meeting or the next room the people there say, "Wow, I saw that post you wrote about X." Mhm. And they're just not going to do that for kind of five lessons of Warren Buffett. (28:06) They're just not they're um they're going to do it for something that actually has some something memorable in it, right? That's that's the hard part. That's hard. You know, you we were talking about kind of being authentic and I think that word is being thrown around very loosely. I saw this great I saw this great post you did and you were talking about the difference between being vulnerable and being honest and direct. Can you expand on that a little bit if you remember what what Absolutely. Yeah. (28:36) So there's there's kind of three buzzwords in our industry and I I like hate them all. I just you know vulnerable, authentic and personal brand. I hate all those but I'll tell you why. Yes. It's because it it's it gives you the wrong idea of what the purpose is here and the opportunity. Um so a lot of people believe and for some reason this has come up that you have to be vulnerable and say something vulnerable to to get attention or to get um I don't know to to connect with people. And I I think number one it's terrible advice. Number (29:10) two CEOs are not going to want to do that. And because by vulnerable they understand show weakness. And nobody I don't think anybody wants to show weakness and I don't think it's a good idea. Uh honestly but and I would draw this distinction. It's not about being vulnerable. (29:32) It's about telling the truth and being uh telling people what actually happened. Yeah. Like what did I do and what what happened? Um, so I wrote a post about getting fired at Bloomberg and a lot of people said to me, "Wow, that was super vulnerable for you to say that." And I guess so, but that the the point was not to be vulnerable. The point was to tell the truth about what happened. (29:53) And I found myself in this position where people would ask me, "Why did you leave Bloomberg?" And and for a long time, I kind of danced around it and I just didn't say, you know, I'm just gonna, well, it was time for a change, whatever. (30:10) I came to a point where I was like that's you should just be you should just I was telling people in private one thing and people in public something different. Yeah. So I think that's bad. I think that in increasingly in our lives and in business the reality is there's cameras everywhere. You're being recorded all the time. You have to have a unified presentation. And so I think that the important thing with communication is be direct and honest. (30:33) That doesn't mean and it doesn't mean you have to tell people everything about your life. And I think one mistake that's made in brands is when people hear vulnerable, they think that you have to talk about some childhood trauma, you know, and and I think that's not true. You know, I don't think anybody's interested in your childhood trauma. (30:53) People, but they do want to know what you actually think about the business and and what's going on. And I think you should be direct and honest about that. And and that's to me the difference between like vulnerable and and direct. Right. Right. That's what I think that it comes down to. And I think most executives are going to be com are going to be on board with that that view, you know. (31:12) Right. It it may might be the difference between posting, you know, I I got let go at Bloomberg and that was a very tough period in my life. End of story, you know. Yeah. versus you have a bigger story to tell which is you know the the the company that you started and why and what you do and and one really important piece of context for that is that you were let go at Bloomberg because otherwise it otherwise it doesn't make sense and I think that's a really interesting point is that like you don't have to (31:41) tell people everything about your life here but but if people have a question that that that is a natural question about why the the business is the way it is or why you're there you know you should communicate that because it's g in the modern world it's going to come out like people you know what's interesting is that this is one for you too is that people used to give these siloed messages they would do a town hall for employees they would do a different meeting for investors different meaning for regulators and a different meeting for the public and (32:13) that all broke down with the iPhone because people started recording things and just publishing it right and so then you ended up with Google couldn't have a town hall anymore because you know it all gets comes out. So I think I think it's important now your messaging has to be it can be in different vernacular but it has to be consistently the same story. (32:40) When you work with CEOs and executives what advice do you find yourself repeating the most? Like where do they get stuck the most? What insights tips do you find are most useful helpful when you work with them? So most people the the the hardest thing for most people is knowing what stories to tell. And this might explain why I don't think Chachi PT will take away our jobs because there is a writing component but by far the bigger component is deciding what to write about. Yeah. (33:14) So the number one thing I keep repeating to them or work with them on is how do what is their story? What are the things they want to talk about? Generally speaking, the biggest problem people have is they think that they need a big idea to talk about. And I don't think that works very well. And if you think about thought leadership and the evolution of thought leadership, that is the way it used to work. (33:37) So 10, 15 years ago, people would say, I want to be a thought leader. And then they would say, what do people want to basically they'd say, what do people want me to say? and they started writing these these pieces about uh it could be about diversity, it could be about the climate, it could be about a variety of things, but honestly in most of those cases they were things that they thought the audience wanted to hear and I think that style of thought leadership is on its way out. Okay. And what's replacing it is instead of having a big idea, you (34:10) should talk about your experience, what you have done, what you've accomplished, and what you've learned. And it should be somewhat concrete. And um that's a big difference for them. That's hard for them because they walk in saying, "I have a big idea about the euro or about crypto or about whatever." And I'm like, that's not going to be that's not going to go over well because people can't relate to that. (34:34) They can't get their head around that. Talk to me about what you've done in crypto. Did you did you launch a coin? Did you like it? Were you early an investor? Tell me about your experiences. Did you meet Sam Bankman been freed? Like what? Tell me a story about crypto because that story will establish effectively establish you as a thought leader because it makes you a protagonist in the drama. You see what I'm saying? And I think that is absolutely crucial. (35:03) I think this is the hardest thing I as I say to people, what have you done? Let's talk about that. Let's tell that story. And that story will itself in you know tell explain to the reader your passion. So don't tell me about your passion you know sort of show me your passion through the actual events. Maybe this is the same advice that you give would give. (35:27) But if if a communications leader comes to you, their VP of communications and they really like this idea and they work at a big tech company and they just really want their CEO and their leaders and their execs to be more active on LinkedIn because they see the value. They would like to do this. They would like to activate them. (35:54) What what what what should their first steps be to go down that path or evaluate? You're asking for like a communication director wants their CEO to be more active. Yes. And their senior leaders co is more reticent or reluctant. Yeah. It it hasn't happened up until now. So clearly either it doesn't come naturally to them or they just don't have the right program to support them. (36:14) um maybe they prodded them like, "Hey, can't you like how about we post this or we post that?" But there's always some push back. So, they're not the the hardest ones to convince, but it it hasn't happened yet. So, what what could they do to get So, so generally speaking, the communications people are going going to be more aware of the opportunity than the executive because they're they're they have more time. They're looking at the landscape. So, so in my experience in that case, the most effective thing has been to (36:44) show them examples of other executives who are posting and posting effectively. And the reason for that is because I still find a big split between the online world and the real world. And so, for example, we were just talking about DHH. Okay? So, if you're online and in tech, you know who that is. And if you're not, you don't know who that is. (37:11) Okay? And and so like a good example, one of the most prominent executives who does online videos is John Gray at Blackstone and he does these kind of famous running videos where he talks camera about what he's doing. But I when I tell other CEOs about the things John Gray is doing, they don't know. They don't know because they're not they're not chronically online. (37:34) Okay? And it's not it's not their fault. But so my point is when you show them John Gray's video or you show them Mark Zuckerberg's video or you show them Rich Hendler's Instagram, they understand it normalizes for them that this is not a strange and aberant behavior that there these are serious people who are at the top of their game. (38:00) And moreover, if those people, if John Gray can make time to make a video that he posts on LinkedIn on a on a regular basis, it's kind of like, well, what's your reason? Because John Ray runs a massive company. So, you know, I had Ena Noelski, CEO at Hootsweet. Yes. On the podcast and she said this thing which like still stuck in my head. (38:24) She's like, a lot of CEOs will go travel to meet with customers. So, if you think that's worth your time, I can record a two-minute video posted on LinkedIn and hundreds or thousands of our customers and prospects and investors can all see that video. So, yeah, you think it's worth your time to go travel and meet one customer. (38:43) So, what you just said is an incredible thing. It's incredible. And I think the thing to understand about that is that you think about executive time, they meet very small groups and then like midsize groups. So, a small group would be 10 people in a conference room. A mid-size group, they're addressing a a convention or a conference, 100 to 400 people. (39:04) Anything that you would say to 400 people in a room, you should say to 8 billion people online, right? And and anytime you don't do that, it's like a missed opportunity. Yeah. Or the sirens of New York. I I miss those sounds. Yes. I love it. I I do know we need to wrap up here. If you have the time for another for one more question. Sure. (39:31) I I've seen your your obviously you were reporter number 15 at at Bloomberg and and I know that you had many interactions with with Mike Mike Bloomberg himself. What's and I've seen some of the leadership lessons that that you've posted. What's the your favorite Mike Bloomberg lesson story? the thing that you maybe think back to remind yourself of most often that you apply in your own business or your own life. (40:03) Does any one come to mind? Well, I have, you know, a lot of Mike Bloomberg stories and I I write about them a lot on LinkedIn because I think they are management lessons. I will tell you this. I think the most significant thing that he that I took away from him there there's there's many but compared with other executives that I have experienced in in a lot of ways Mike has a um as a habit generally when I worked with him as a product manager he he leads with a question and I think this is the most powerful thing I I took away from my interaction with Mike relative to other executives both at (40:37) Bloomberg and in other companies when you meet with the CEO because they want to get things done quickly and other reasons. They're they're oftentimes in this habit of telling you what to do. This is what we have to do. This is the solution. This is what you need to do now. (41:02) And Mike may have that in in his head already, but usually when I interacted with him, the first thing he asked me is why is this the way it is? So I was a product manager. He would use the product and if he found something he didn't like, he would call you over to his desk and he would ask you like, "Why is this work the way it does?" And this is very subtle, but the fact that you start with a question allows the in this case the product manager, but anyone the ability to to provide input and and that is unswwayed by any indication of where he's going. And so he can also gauge is (41:35) this person on top of their game or not? And the person has an ability to say this is why we built it the way we did. If you lead with here's what I think you already change the environment and and and also it's profoundly demotivating to the person who spends all day long building something. (41:59) So so imagine in your job if you're interviewing I'm a CEO and you say like the first thing you say is let me tell you what your story is. That would be the analogy and and but you wouldn't do that. you'd say, "Tell me about your story. Tell me about your life. Tell me about your business." And it elicits something and it changes the dynamic. And I think it's a leadership uh uh superpower. Yeah. No, I wrote it down. (42:19) I think it's a great question. Why Why is this the way it is? Um I thought you were going to say the first question he asked you is, "Can I make you coffee?" Well, I did write about that. He that is a that is something he does which I think is extremely uh disarming and charming which is I wrote a story about this where um you know if you go to his desk and assuming it's not completely crazy he um we come up he says can I get you a cup of coffee and you're like yeah um but the really shocking thing about Mike in that moment is he does not ask his assistant or someone else to make (42:54) you the coffee and that would be a normal move He goes over to this coffee pot and he pours you the coffee and then he asks you, "Do you want cream and sugar?" And if you you puts it in there and he hands you the coffee and it takes 20 seconds, but it has a profound it changes the um the social dynamic. (43:17) And again, one of the things I think about executive leadership a lot is that Mike is very attuned that the leader can dampen input. He's very very focused on getting information and getting input and he realizes it by giving you a cup of coffee. And I think this is subliminal, by the way. I don't think it's tactical, but by subliminally, he's he's opening up and changing the relationship. So, you will give him more information. Yeah. And I think that's kind of what's behind it all. (43:40) But I I think he doesn't do that. And it's not like he's he's he's not Machavelian in the way of um thinking that through. I don't think the best tactics always work when you actually mean them and you don't do them as a tactic. Um Ted, this was awesome. Thank you so much for your time. (44:00) If people want to check you out, I'll link up both your LinkedIn profile and Principles Media in the show notes. Anything I you want to leave people with? Anything I should have asked that I didn't ask that I glossed over that needs to be said? No. If people reach out to me on LinkedIn, if you come to New York, I'd love to get a cup of coffee with you.