Carlos Gutierrez: ADHD Diagnosed at 65, Career Lessons

[00:00:00] Today on The James Altucher Show In China, one time we were going to have one of our annual meetings and I heard that the Chinese didn't want to put intellectual property rights on the agenda. So I made the speech and I said, well, canceling the trip. It was a tactic and it worked. In negotiating style with China, what we have to learn is that they will come in and say, I want this one thing or I want two things.

[00:00:28] And we come to the meeting with a list of 20 things. So because of that tactic, a lot of these meetings were just about butting heads. This isn't your average business podcast and he's not your average host. This is The James Altucher Show.

[00:00:57] So Carlos Gutierrez was diagnosed with ADHD at 65. 65? I mean, by then he'd already run Kellogg. He'd already sat in George W. Bush's cabinet as secretary of commerce. And only then did someone finally explain, you know, the procrastination, the disorganization, and those like three week stretches where he just locked onto one thing and nothing else existed.

[00:01:22] And honestly, I know that feeling a little too well. He left Cuba as a kid after his father basically told off Che Guevara. In community college, he got D's and F's in every single class except public speaking. And then he went from selling cereal off a truck in Mexico City to, you know, running the whole company. Then he ran a department where like 80% of the job is trade.

[00:01:46] So of course I had to ask him about Trump's tariffs. And look, he's not a big tariff guy. He thinks they're raising prices, hurting small businesses. But he also said something I didn't expect. Trump runs the government like a CEO. And future presidents are going to hear voters ask, wait, why are your hands tied? And China. This blew my mind. We'd walk into meetings with like 25 complaints. They'd walk in with one. One. And it works.

[00:02:14] At the end, I asked him, okay, what would you tell a 25 year old today? And his answer is pretty much the opposite of everything I've been writing for the last 10 years. And you know, he might be right. His book is Sheer Will, Learning to Lead When There Is No Path. All right, here's Carlos Gutierrez.

[00:02:40] Carlos, welcome to the show. I so much enjoyed your book and I am so glad you agreed to talk to me about it. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. Now, I feel like in your interviews and in the book, you've been very, I want to describe it as hardcore in your life. And I want to take one quote, which is your relentless refusal to be average. And what does that mean? What does that mean to you?

[00:03:06] You know, I think it's a remnant of what happens to someone who has ADHD as a child. And you know, you have the impression that people think this guy is because of his lack of organization and procrastination and all these little things that we see, he's not going to be successful.

[00:03:30] So there's a little bit there of wanting to prove people wrong. You know, I would, I mean, for me, a nightmare would have been, yeah, I didn't go too far, but we didn't expect it.

[00:03:39] But you know, let me ask this, given your experiences as a child in Cuba and your father basically tempting fate with his, he's basically told off Che Guevara. And the next thing you know, you're getting kicked out of Cuba. He's losing everything. Do you have this kind of from childhood fear of, if you don't constantly push yourself, you could slip back just like your dad did?

[00:04:07] Yes, yes. The idea that you have to struggle. You know who talks about this, which is very interesting, is Jensen from NVIDIA. He talks about the beauty of struggle in life. I feel the same way. I have found that, that struggle is good. Struggle is part of the price you pay. And it's actually something you have to go through. So welcome it.

[00:04:29] I think there's also, you know, ambition. One of the things I mentioned in the book is this is the only country in the world, I think, where if you call someone ambitious or competitive, it's a good thing. And I think that's what ambitious is. You want to go as far as you can. And if, if average is the farthest you can go, well, that's it. But I think most people can do better.

[00:04:53] Well, let me ask you, like, where was the point in your life where you suddenly realized, oh, I'm kind of average at this. And then you pushed yourself to be better. And, and how did you push yourself?

[00:05:04] Yeah, I think that was a good question. That was at Kellogg when I started to deal with people, when I had people reporting to me, when I went back to sales, then I realized that, that there was a breakthrough, that that was my breakthrough was in managing these people, which is something I had never done.

[00:05:27] I would say right there. That's when I realized that, that, you know, it wasn't just about market research reports and numbers that people, you know, that at the end of the day, that's it. It's everything. Well, and you know, by the way, just to mention, and this is a little bit to the side, you guys should really bring back product 19. That was my favorite. Yeah. Yeah. Good product. It doesn't compete. It's product 19. Product 19. Yeah.

[00:05:56] I think it was the 19th product, by the way. But you're right. It was, it was a unique product, a lot of vitamins and very crispy. And were you responsible for stopping that product? We're going to make the entire podcast about products. No, that was before my time. There's so many products. It is so competitive that if you end up with a 0.2 market share, that's kind of expected. A lot of, it's very, very competitive, but yeah, it's too bad. Product 19.

[00:06:20] You know, so, so look, something you're very unusual in that, you know, a lot of times kids are diagnosed with ADHD and then parents, teachers, doctors take the appropriate measures, whether it's a medication or special training or whatever. And, you know, and then there's a spectrum for ADHD, but you were basically diagnosed at 65.

[00:06:46] It's like, it's like after your, your career kind of was, you know, peaking. And so what does that, what does that mean for you? And what parts of your career suddenly made sense after this diagnosis? Well, a lot of things made sense looking back at my career, especially I understand that, you know, the negative symptoms and they're there and I can see them, but the twist where

[00:07:11] ADHD actually helped me, the moments of hyper-focus where I dropped everything and focused on a project or on a, on a presentation for three weeks on end or maybe longer or on a business plan. Those were the things that, that really, that really helped me. Those were the things that helped me beyond just the negative symptoms. What you realize when you get diagnosed and you start reading about ADHD is all the positive stuff. And yeah, what I thought is, gosh, I wish someone

[00:07:41] would have told me that. And I suppose I just had to find them on my own, but they're definitely there. I did it instinctively. This is a great example. Empathy for people helps you incredibly to deal with people. People can see that. People can see a leader who, who's empathetic, but you know, also makes the tough decisions. So, yeah. So I'm wondering like, should ADHD, given these benefits you've had before you were diagnosed,

[00:08:09] do you think ADHD should even be diagnosed? I would say yes. Yes. I mean, that happened to me and, and, you know, I, when I got diagnosed at 65, it wasn't a total regret that I wish I would have known. Then I would have had a different career. I had a successful career. I think it is. I think it's good. The problem is that there isn't a, you know, there isn't a clinical machine led way to assess it. It's, it's, the doctor asks you

[00:08:38] questions and he perceives and he sees and becomes pretty obvious after a while. But I think it's important. I think it's important to, to know and to understand yourself. It's just, there's such power in, in, in knowing yourself. So, and I, and I guess a lot of it has, you know, when you're just starting a new task, it's sometimes, yes, it's important to hyper-focus, but also it's important

[00:09:03] to slow down and to understand, Hey, this was a job that, you know, it's been around for a while. There's teams, there's, there's procedures in place. Like when you became CEO of Kellogg, it's not like you have to go in there, hyper-focus and change everything. You had to learn the environment. Like in your first 18 months, what would you say were the mistakes you might have made that came closest to actually damaging the company?

[00:09:29] I would say that the two biggest mistakes were hiring wrong people. I made some decisions about hiring people from the outside. I thought it was a great thing to show the Kellogg executives that people from the outside can bring more value. Well, I did it and it didn't really work. It did a cultural fit to a lot of reasons why it didn't work. That was one thing. And, you know, just getting

[00:09:56] the business back on shape was another, and it wasn't, you know, it doesn't happen immediately. So I tell CEOs, expect the first 12 months to be difficult. If they aren't, then I don't know, you should have had this job a long time ago. But I think the first year is usually difficult. You start making decisions on the basis of what you think you should do, what you think you should decide based on what you've seen, based on your understanding of how a CEO works. After a year,

[00:10:25] you start, I concluded that I'm going to follow my gut. I'm going to follow my intuition. I'm going to follow, you know, 30 years of experience, and I'm not going to do what I think technically I'm supposed to do. And so, you know, again, a lot of this is related to, you know, what you were saying earlier about ambition. And you say in the book, you had an ambition to succeed that was strong enough to overcome every obstacle. And let's say someone is hearing this and they're beginning their

[00:10:52] journey and they don't really know what they want to do. And sometimes it's a passion like, oh, someone wants to be a musician. And sometimes it's maybe something a little bit more ambiguous. Like you didn't have necessarily a passion for cereal until you were at Kellogg and then, but you maybe had a passion for success. And so how does someone kind of figure out what avenues they should

[00:11:15] be ambitious at and should not allow for mediocrity or being average? Like how does someone learn this? How did you learn it? Well, I was lucky enough that I learned, I was good. I was very good at two things. I learned one of them in a community college where I had all D's and F's except for this one course that was public speaking. And then at another university, I learned financial management. Those two areas have been my passion.

[00:11:47] And I didn't realize the financial manager was such a passion until writing this book. But I used those two skills, but I didn't always realize that I was very good at it. I think everyone in this, I think this is what school is about. If you go to university, find out what you're good at, find out what you love. What do you love to do? I was going to go through university saying, I don't love anything of this until I found those two courses, things that

[00:12:17] really, really attracted me and attracted my attention. So is it like a, is it like a quantity versus quality thing? Like you have to expose yourself to many things in order to see what kind of lights that fire? That's a good question. I think that's, yes, you have to expose yourself to many things, which means you are going to be wrong about many things because they don't all fall into those two areas where you have great skills. There are a lot of

[00:12:41] areas where I did not have the skills or I did not have the interest. So yes, you go in, you think you can do it. Then you realize this is boring. I'm not, I don't find anything of value here. And then you step back and I realized I shouldn't have done that. I should have gotten involved in that. I still do that by the way. But, but by and large, you learn to avoid things that you learn, you learn that they're not for you. And like, so when let's move to when you became secretary of

[00:13:11] commerce under, under Bush. And it's such, it's such an interesting thing to serve the government at such a high level. I mean, you're, you're one of the handful of people essentially running the country at that level. How much of it is political versus you actually getting to make decisions and execute on them. And I'll give an example, like in, in March, 2008, in a testimony, you basically call the economy fundamentally sound. And there were a lot of things happening then that would

[00:13:38] have questioned that like kind of bear Stearns breaking down. There was a lot of canaries in the coal mine. Of course, it's easy in retrospect to say, Oh, we're, you should have realized we're about to have a financial crisis, but what, what was real, what were you worried about then? And how much of saying fundamentally sound was just a matter of, you know, making sure the American people have confidence in the economy, even if maybe within the cabinet, you guys were uncertain. Well, you know, the, the, the numbers at that time were actually pretty good.

[00:14:06] It was what's, what was coming behind the numbers that we, we didn't see there. A lot of it being the, the, the, the subprime mortgage crisis. So it was back then, it was an accurate statement. I believe if you just freeze everything the way it was in March or in February. Now, is it political? Everything in Washington is political. And the, the people who stand out are those who,

[00:14:34] who shun politics or who avoid politics more than others. But everything in DC is political. How you manage the place, how you lead it, what you say, what you don't say, very different to the private sector. Totally, totally different. The results here is how you're perceived. Are you perceived to be a good manager? Are you perceived to be a good leader? Politics is the art of

[00:14:59] perception. Business is the art of results. Right. For instance, when you're CEO of Calab, ultimately you're going to be, the metrics are going to be earnings and cash in the bank. So, you know, selling off companies where those good sales, changing products, changing marketing plans. Whereas I feel like the metrics for judging a government or an administration or a role in administration is very difficult. Like how would you let, like, you know, take like the second year

[00:15:28] of a presidential administration, particularly the first one. So, so W one versus W two, which you served in, how would you judge it? Because some of it, it's going to be because of Clinton. Some of it's going to be because of Bush. It's very, very hard. That's very true. That's very true. And there's not a lot of continuity on some of the big projects. You know, a new president may come in and have a different foreign policy, which makes things very tricky. I mean, there are numbers.

[00:15:54] Unemployment. I wouldn't say that that would, would be my responsibility, but the president, the president has unemployment, inflation, you know, metrics that are truly important. And I believe that president Bush was underrated by the press. I mean, if you look at what, what happened, you know, we talk about the deficit being at six, 7%. The average during the president

[00:16:19] Bush's time was, I think it was 1.5 or something like that. You know, the deficit was under control. The big decisions that people criticized, those are the ones that people talk about, but not everything that took place. I think, you know, I don't want to agree with, with president Trump on this, but yes, the media can be very, very unfair, extremely unfair, and they can make or break legacies. You know, speaking of that, and this is just a side thing.

[00:16:48] I'm just curious, you know, Trump just banned CNN from the white house press room, you know, saying, you know, they, they publish fake news, which is really, let's just say he's saying they're, they're stating mistruths and they don't always report. They, they focus on negative things as opposed to positive things. And then other people are saying now, okay, this is a conflict of the first amendment, just like on the surface of it. Is it, does it conflict with the first amendment or

[00:17:14] does it, does he have the right to do that? Well, I, yeah, I think he makes the point and I, this goes into the law, but he's making the point that they do this on purpose, that they try to make him look bad. So it's not a mistake. It's not that they quoted the wrong number. It's that these folks are doing something on purpose for political reasons, whether he can get away with that. I understand the court's going to rule on that very soon, but you know, we'll see. No question about it.

[00:17:43] And it's a bold move. Take a quick break. If you like this episode, I really, really appreciate it. It means so much to me. Please share it with your friends and subscribe to the podcast. Email me at altitra gmail.com and tell me why you subscribed. Thanks. You're one of the few handful of people who

[00:18:12] can really assess what's going on now from maybe even an objective point of view. And so I really value that in the sense that a lot of Trump's decisions, and this is directly related to your experiences as secretary of commerce, a lot of Trump's decisions in terms of tariffs or in terms of how he deals with subsidizing other countries or NATO or whatever, and the decisions he makes about that. A lot of them have caused these other countries to hate him. And in part, it's because

[00:18:42] he's maybe withdrawing money from them or he's increasing tariffs or he's disputing their tariff policies and other reasons could be because of just his own personal style. Like he's very much, you know, got this aggressive style, which W had the opposite. Like W was such a congenial person in many respects, but a lot of this is related to commerce department decisions like tariffs, subsidies,

[00:19:07] you know, trade agreements and so on. So given your experience as, as commerce secretary and, and, and almost as a diplomat of commerce in that sense, what was your view then? What's your view on what's happening now? Like how much do you be diplomatic as opposed to saying, Hey, we need this to be fair for the U S the way the Trump administration works. And this is pretty unique. He, he runs the

[00:19:32] executive branch like he would a business, just his instincts and the way he manages his day. He's the CEO of the executive branch, which means that he makes decisions. He expects them to be implemented in the executive branch. What you should be doing is understanding that you really can't move a lot of things without going to Congress and your hands are tied. And if you issue an executive order, you'll,

[00:20:00] you know, you won't be able to sustain it. I think president Trump just says the heck with it. I am going to make these decisions that are very controversial and I may not be able to make, but many of them will survive. And that's what's happened. So commerce, of course, we did a lot of things, tariffs, we negotiated with countries and, but a lot of those were constrained by Congress,

[00:20:27] by the law, by the procedures, by the way, the way things are typically done. The commerce secretary, Secretary Leibnick, he has USTR. So USTR, the U S trade representative reports the commerce. That's never happened. That gives commerce an incredible amount of power. So the secretary of

[00:20:50] commerce is like a, like a CEO of commerce. And that's not the concept. Typically you manage the department based on the rules, based on the fact that yes, hands are tied because of the influence, tremendous influence of Congress on the executive branch, how it's run, who reports to who, what agency has, what accountability for certain topics. So today it's the CEO's department,

[00:21:19] whether it will sustain, I think some of it will, I think a future president and I'm not, but by no means am I trying to support president Trump or anything like that. I'm just saying that at some point in the future, I think voters may say, wait, why do you say you have your hands tied? You know, Trump did this, he did that, he did all the other things. So he may change a bit of the

[00:21:46] expectation for future presidents. So like in what sense, and, and again, this is based on your own experience seeing this happen in the Bush administration. What, what, what would you say are the top three or four good and tough year for bad decisions currently happening from a commerce perspective, whether they're tariffs or again, you know, sanctions or trade agreements or, or.

[00:22:11] Yeah. I, I tend to, I am not a big tariff guy. I, I do believe that surgically some tariffs are good, but, but today we have taken this as far as we've ever seen it. I just think about our economy is doing pretty well. What would it be like if we didn't have those tariffs? And we have these tariffs, it's driving up prices. It's, it's, it's hurting small businesses.

[00:22:38] So I would say tariffs is, is, is a big one, but look, 80% of the commerce department is trade. And so that one decision of tariffs is something that no one, no one expected. I think the thing about president Trump that we're seeing is if he does something and it looks like it doesn't come out as well as he thought it would, he doubles down as opposed to saying, well, I'm going to change.

[00:23:06] I'll try something else. And that's what happened with tariffs. More people said, it's not going to work. He just kept doing it. And I don't think he'll stop. I mean, it's just, it's just something that he believes in. He's believed in all his life and he's going to continue to push it. But yeah, I'd say tariffs is the biggest thing that hit the commerce department in a long, long time. The rest of the commerce department is NOAA and patents and census and things like that. And so, and so like when you were secretary of commerce, you know, you would see countries like,

[00:23:35] let's say China that had huge tariffs or other restrictions on trade with the U S. And I'm sure there was an instinct to kind of fight back with your own, like a trade war to fight back with your own tariffs, your own sanctions and so on. How would you navigate that? Because clearly that didn't really happen. And because I think to your point, maybe not having tariffs is not necessarily the solution to unfair trade. So, so how did you view it then? Did you get angry

[00:24:04] when you saw a country treating it fairly? Sure, sure, sure. It's hard not to get angry. China, one time we were going to have one of our annual meetings in China. And I heard that the Chinese didn't want to put intellectual property rights on the agenda. So I made the speech. I said, we're canceling the trip. It was a tactic that worked, but sure. It's very hard to hold yourself back because it's very obvious. Sometimes their talking points are infuriating because

[00:24:33] that's all they are is talking points. So it's hard to, to hold back with China. It doesn't necessarily help. I think they value, they value someone who can stay pretty calm, but negotiating style with China. What we have to learn is that when we negotiate with China, they will come in and say, I want this one thing or I want two things. And we come to the meeting

[00:25:02] with a list of 20 things because we've heard from businesses. We've heard from big companies are having a problem in China. They want us to take it up to the Chinese. So we're doing a lot of advocacy on behalf of many people that makes it very easy for the Chinese. Well, I'll give you 19, but I'm not going to give you any of these. And, but what about my ask? And they'll bring it back to that. We want to be a market economy. We want you to take away export control. They're unfair. So because of that

[00:25:30] tactic, because of what they do, a lot of these meetings were just about butting heads, you know, and they continue to do that. That's very interesting. I've only heard once before that a key approach to negotiation is to have a big list so you can give up the nickels times. And you're saying they wouldn't have as big a list, but they were very hardheaded about pursuing their specific list. Yeah. They would just say, um, this is a nice list that you have 25 things. Well, I only have

[00:25:58] one thing or two things, and I expect some results on that. If not, I can't give you any results on those 20, unless it's 25. So it makes their position, it, it, it, their ability to say no to something or to not follow through is justified by, well, we have these export controls that they won't lift. Well, we're designated a non-market economy, which is not fair. So I think it, it,

[00:26:26] it helps them. I found this with unions that when a union came in, well, only one or two ask or three ask that it made their position more powerful. That's, it's really interesting. So basically it's, it's almost like they're outsourcing to you. Like they're basically saying, listen, we came here with only one item. So help, help us figure it out or we don't know what to do. Yeah. Give us, give us something, give us something. Maybe you won't give us the whole thing,

[00:26:55] but show us that we're moving forward. Give us something regarding export control. And that's where they start getting little things. They start getting an agreement here and agreement there, but that's, that's pretty much the way they operate. Now there's also the sense that the Chinese don't want to feel like they're at our mercy for 25 things, right? They have one or two and they know

[00:27:20] what it is and they think it's unfair. So a lot of complexities and cultural complexities, but, but it works pretty well for them. You know, one thing I always worry about with the Chinese U.S. relationship, and this again applies to your term, it applies to now, it applies to every time in between, is the rare earth minerals. Like clearly we're dependent on them. The whole world is dependent on them. You know, the, the media says the electric grid goes down without China's,

[00:27:46] you know, trading rare earth minerals for us. Is there a real danger where they could just say, Oh, we don't like you anymore. We're going to cut this off. And you, you get no electric grid. You know, you get no minerals for your electric grid anymore. Like, is that a real issue? Sure. It's a tactical possibility, but I don't believe that's their approach, that their strategy, the Chinese are first and foremost transactional. They love business. They may be bigger capitalists

[00:28:13] than we are. So for them, not selling rare earths when they could be selling rare earths is a bit of a contradiction. So there may be some moments when they hold it back, they don't deliver on their commitments. And the way they justify it is, well, but you said that we're going to get your, your most advanced chips. And then later on, we heard that you said that we won't get the most

[00:28:38] advanced chips. There's always a way to justify what they're doing. And there's so much in the relationship that you can always point to something. So yeah, that's what makes it complex. Chinese also, they view contracts as a guideline, as an intent, but because we're friends, I would expect you to, to give me a break on, on a certain clause. That's, that's the way they see

[00:29:05] it. Friends, friends do that for friends. You know, for us, there's the sanctity of a contract. That, that concept doesn't exist. Not yet. That's interesting. So, but, but I want to, I want to key on the word friends here. Like, did you ever have these negotiations and they're on the other side of the table and they've got, you know, thousands of years of culture, you know, impacting how they're negotiating with you.

[00:29:32] And do you ever like come away thinking, Oh, I, I kind of like this guy I was negotiating with. And you just call them later and say, Hey, let's just work this out on the phone. Like, what do we need everybody around us for? Yeah. It, sometimes it works that way. And it's very hard to get these folks one-on-one and you don't know if they can decide because a lot of what will be

[00:29:58] decided has already been decided. So it, to expect spontaneity from the Chinese is, you'll be disappointed, right? Because what you get is talking points, speeches, things that they want you to hear, not a spontaneous conversation. The concept of friendship is interesting that you bring that up. Chinese will always call someone an old friend of China. It's a very common saying, Oh,

[00:30:25] an old friend of China. That's, they're very good at buttering people up. And I mentioned this in the book as well. They, as soon as you get off that plane, you feel like the most important person on earth. You know, they take care of you. So the goal of course is they have been so good to me and they have, they've taken care of me that so much that I'm not going to be so rough on them because they're such

[00:30:54] nice people. This is, this is the way, and sometimes it works, you know? So let's say like when you were at Kellogg and let's say you're selling a company, if knowing now what you know about everything you've learned as secretary of commerce, which was afterwards and knowing this now, how would you negotiate differently? How would you sell a company differently? I mean, you, you made a lot of

[00:31:21] big decisions at Kellogg that maybe could have benefited from the experience you had later as secretary of commerce. Yeah. I look at the difference, of course, government and business is those decisions I made in business, buying a company or selling a company. I made them. Maybe sometimes I had to go to the board and the board approved it and then I'd run with it. It's not the way it works in government. It's hard to decide something that a secretary can decide without going through someone else. The thing about the way

[00:31:49] government is organized is that no one has everything of a, of any given issue. So climate change, there are 11 agencies that have responsibility for climate change. There are dozens of areas where you'll find law enforcement. And, and this is by design. Congress wants certain topics to be in, in places where they have jurisdiction, an agency where they have jurisdiction. And it just makes

[00:32:18] managing very, very difficult. I feel also like, and this is, I'm curious when you're rising up, you're a young guy, you're finding success, you're moving up the hierarchy faster than your, your, your colleagues. In general, you're making people happy. You're not disappointing people. Sure. You're disappointing maybe the boss every now and then, but in general, it feels very good. But when you're actually CEO at some point,

[00:32:45] or at some point when you get closer to the top, you have to start disappointing people. So for instance, when you shut down Kellogg's, the, the battle Creek plant, you had to basically tell people, hey, this is going to change your lives. This is going to affect you. And how do you, how do you do that? How do you, how do you make that transition? How do you develop empathy? I mean, you know, there's many examples of CEOs who didn't have empathy and they would just do it. And they were

[00:33:14] known as like, you know, like chainsaw out, they're just going to do it. And the company, the shareholders will benefit and that's how they'll be judged. But you know, what did you do? And when you kind of hit that point where you realize, oh, I'm actually at a position where I'm starting to disappoint people. Yeah. There's a quote in the book from my father, actually. He says, if you can't make the tough decisions, someone else should have your job. So kept that in

[00:33:39] mind. You know, I'm not going to let anyone say that I shouldn't have this job because I can't make the tough decisions. Now, once you make them, I think that that says a lot and it's very important how you do it. We were very careful. I mean, we explained why we had to do it. And what I kept telling people is I'm in charge of the viability of the company. And this very difficult decision will

[00:34:06] help the viability of the company. That's my job. You know, just try to explain that you're doing what you have to do. But while you're explaining, you have to be firm on the decision. So having something like that in my mind, if you can't make the tough decisions, someone else to have your job is a wonderful motivator to remember what your job is. I mean, you know, and I should really mention this is that throughout the book, you really, the influence of your father is everywhere. He was,

[00:34:34] you know, almost this larger than life, which is how it should be for many people. Father is this larger than life person and has a lot of influence over you. And even after he's no longer there, at what point would you say you were, some things were a positive pull, like you wanted to be like him, but what things didn't you want to be like? Where did you pull away? Yeah, it was, I think it was

[00:34:59] this idea of risk-taking, risk-taking from the standpoint of having your own business, right? So it was have your own business, take the risk, be an entrepreneur, which was his philosophy. I didn't want that. I wanted just the opposite. I found comfort in a corporation. You know, a certain amount of certainty, you get paid on a certain day, you have healthcare, you get a development, you get a

[00:35:29] promotion from time to time. I believe I did that very consciously. I did not want my business, my life to be hanging on a string, which is what I saw with his businesses. So that was important, a more conservative approach of trying to be more, more prudent in the way I approach life. Do you think starting a business or being an entrepreneur has become a little bit more

[00:35:54] de-risked since then, just because of tools like, like AI? Like we, would you, would you decide differently now? And, and, you know, because working for a corporation isn't always the most stable thing because you could be laid off without your permission. Whereas an entrepreneur, you can't really be laid off. You have to kind of go out of business. Yeah, no, exactly. I think it's always, always difficult. Sometimes people say to me, well,

[00:36:18] you know, when you, but 30 years ago when you were working your way up Kellogg, they didn't have all these digital, uh, digital tools. So it was less complicated back then. Well, but it was less complicated for everyone, right? So yes, AI can help me, but AI will help everyone, which means if I want to gain share, if I want to compete, I have to be better than they are. I don't think it

[00:36:44] will get ever get easy to be an entrepreneur. I really believe it's just work. Whenever you do it, it will be difficult. Yeah. I think I, because in, in, even when it gets, even if it is de-risked, that means there's more competition, which makes it harder. So everyone else has access to what you have access to. But on the other hand, the pathway to wealth is much greater in the sense that you look at all these specifically Silicon Valley, you know, AI entrepreneurs, there's trillions of dollars

[00:37:10] of wealth being created, which is not the same as if you rise up and from, you know, a sales guy to CEO of a consumer products company. Yeah, that's true. Now, you know, what is the success rate in, you know, in our society, we hear a lot about Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, and it's almost like that is the imagery of success. It's now billionaire, you know? Yeah, a millionaire is okay, but you have

[00:37:38] to be a billionaire. How many people actually do that? I think it's a bit of a trap that people say, well, look what Zuckerberg did. I'm going to do the same thing. I don't know. Is it one in a million, one in a billion? You know, so the, I think the odds are still very, very tough. You don't have to build a plant. You don't need bricks and mortar. That's a huge advantage. You don't need that kind of capital that helps form a business these days, but it will never be easy. You know, I'm, I'm really

[00:38:05] fascinated by at the very top level of government, what the behind the scenes relationships are like. So, you know, when you were secretary of commerce, like you said, it's almost like you're the CEO of commerce. And you mentioned that it's more true now than then, but when you and President Bush had a disagreement, and again, he seems like a very congenial guy. When you had a disagreement, what would it be like? What would you, how would you resolve it or talk to him privately? Like what was,

[00:38:33] what was behind the scenes there? Well, you know, it's rare that you are in a meeting with the president of the United States and, and you decide to argue or you decide that you're not in agreement. What usually happens is there's so many people surrounding the president, his chief of staff, the head of policy, that you probably hear that the president doesn't agree with that,

[00:38:59] or the president's point of view is different. So you have a decision to make. You know, do I, do I challenge the president in a debate with him or just change my decision based on what I've just learned? It's very odd. I don't think I ever saw anyone in a meeting room take on the president or have a debate with the president. If that happens one-on-one, it happens very quietly, but it's usually

[00:39:27] stopped by advisors who say, don't, you know, your, your idea is not in tune with where the president is. Most people will decide, well, I'm not going to take it up then. Yeah. So let's say you're like at his ranch or you're hanging out and you're kicking back and, and just relaxing. And you'd be like, George, listen, don't bail out the Detroit automakers.

[00:39:54] And which is something that you did say, which, which a few days later he kind of went against. What, what would happen? Would he say, I, I, I hear you, Carlos. I'm thinking about it. Like, well, what would he say? And then what would happen? You'd get a sense. I mean, what you just said, I hear you, Carlos, you know, but there are other issues. If he said that, you know, that you're not going to win the argument. You know, he may not say you're wrong. The answer is no. But if he doesn't say yes, you know, he should say,

[00:40:22] that a Kellogg, just because someone doesn't say no, it doesn't mean that the answer is yes. So you can get a lot of the signals about whether the president agrees with something or not. I went to see him after government because I had changed my position on Cuba. I went to Cuba, which is, it's just blasphemy for a Cuban exile like me to go to Cuba and deal with the communists

[00:40:47] and have meetings with them. And so I went to see him and just to let him know, I changed my position on Cuba. And I felt that I needed to come see you and let you know what I did. We talked for an hour and I think we talked three or five minutes about Cuba. And in the end, he said, look, I disagree with you, but yeah, I respect what you're doing. That's it. So wasn't, I would say there's a lot more today, the style of the presidents. There's a lot more today.

[00:41:17] There's a lot more of that, that clash or those types of debates among the cabinet. Yeah. I feel like, I feel like both Bush and Obama were very diplomatic and, and also I think things weren't as politically polarized as they are now. Like for instance, I always tell people I missed 2012. Like nobody could even tell the difference between Obama and Romney at that point. I don't even think

[00:41:44] that election actually happened. Like it just sort of came and went in history. And, but now though, obviously every election is so, so polarized, it's, it's very different. And, and look, I do want to express my appreciation again, your book, share will learn to lead when there is no path, such an incredible story, you know, between the ups and downs of, of your own immigration experience and then experience in the corporate world. And then, you know, helping run the largest government on the

[00:42:12] planet. If, if I have to ask the, almost the cliche question, if you are a young person starting out today, what would you do differently? Like, what would you do period? Like, what would you do? You know, I would say that after government, it was probably the toughest part because you, you know, I was 55. I was a cabinet secretary, a CEO. What do I do? And I just chased some things

[00:42:38] that sounded great, but I didn't have the same hunger to do something incredible. So maybe getting out to government, I would maybe go out and look for a different kind of a job, try to be a CEO again. But, you know, for me, it's very much what I'm thinking at the time. And if I just don't want to go back to business, I, I can't do it. So I would say maybe, um, using my time wisely after government,

[00:43:07] which most people retire then, but I will not retire. I think that's, that's probably it. You know, if I do something different, yeah, I'd get a college degree, but that's easy to say. Yeah. But, but, but what about, let's say you're 25 years old, you're trying to pick your path in life. What would you advise someone now to do? They've let's say they have their degree or not degree or whatever, and they have like an initial job experience and they're just trying to figure out, you know, which direction should I go in? What advice would you give?

[00:43:34] Look, I would say, and then I, this worked for me is if you find a company, you like the product, you like the people stay with it, stay with it, go for it, give it time, give it five, 10 years. Where can you be in five, 10 years? Not in two years. And that's where people get themselves in trouble. They, they leave one job and then they realize had I stayed there, I would have been doing

[00:44:00] pretty good because of all these little things that happen. I still believe that making a career in a great company is a wonderful thing. If you're lucky enough to be able to find a company like that, that will develop you, that will, you know, send you to travel, see other countries, other cultures, it's a wonderful life, but it's somehow it's, uh, it's not appreciated as much, but, you know,

[00:44:26] imagine Google, Facebook going to work for Google and Facebook and staying there for 30 years. What a wonderful career. You know, that is really great advice. You almost become unique now by being, having a longer tenure in a place because people switch so much. So it's. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Without thinking about the advantages of the longer tenure. Yeah. So it's interesting though, by the time you said, you mentioned you were 55 when you stopped being commerce secretary, you were a young man. I'm 58

[00:44:55] years old. I'm still trying to figure out what I want to do in life. And you, you were, had so many accomplishments by then. I, I really, again, congratulate you on your success. Thank you so much for, for writing. Thank you. Appreciate it. And thank you for appearing on the show. Good luck with it. And thank you. I've enjoyed it. Yeah. Thank you. Thanks. Thank you.

[00:45:56] TV. Stream now, they never. Some mysteries have haunted us for centuries. Others are unfolding right now. This is History's Greatest Mysteries, a History Channel original podcast brought to you by Rewind Studios. Every episode dives into one of the world's greatest enigmas, the vanishings, the myths, the lost relics, and the unexplained. Follow History's Greatest Mysteries, available now

[00:46:25] wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you.