CB LIVE! Courage to Leap & Lead with Doug Guthrie: part 2 - Episode 122

You've got courage to leap, courage to lead.

Be brave and be bold. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Let it roar.

Welcome to the Courage to Leap and Lead podcast, where each of our guests share the stories of courage that helped them become powerful leaders. Before we start today's show, please remember to visit courageconsulting.com where you can find all of the episodes and lots of other excellent resources. That's courageconsulting.com. Now, here's your host, Leadership Courage Coach CB Bowman.

But I want to go back and I want to ask you, what was so embarrassing about being terminated? Why was— I mean, you said it was done in a public way. What does that mean?

Well, you know, when you're a dean or a senior university administrator, I mean, you're sort of like a CEO of a little company. So like, you know, George Washington University is like, I don't know, a $4 billion a year organization, and I was running a $100 million a year business unit. But because it was the business school, it was in some ways a very public job. And it was my job to be a public figure and a public intellectual because you have to take this school to new heights and you have to raise money and you have to have a vision and you kind of have to be out and about.

And, um, I—

when I was fired, you know, the In my opinion, the university could have handled it differently. They could have done it much more quietly, but, you know, it was sort of happened suddenly, and then everybody had to explain why this person who was the dean of the business school was suddenly gone. And so there were a lot of newspaper articles written about it. And so it wasn't just like I was asked to step aside and go on vacation. It was suddenly being written about in the Financial Times, the Washington Post, The New York Times, that— and it was, you know, it just felt like not just a failure, but it was being splashed all over the media.

And what did they say when they wrote about it?

Well, I mean, in that case, again, I was fairly fortunate in that, you know, the university had to explain what had happened. And the real reason was they just wanted— they had agreed to something as a financial deal when I was signed on, and I think they thought I wasn't going to be successful at what I was doing. And we had agreed that all of the new money I made up from new programs I was going to keep for the school. And, you know, they sort of reneged on that deal, and I got in my hypomanic state, I got uppity, and I was just like, nope, nope, nope, this is our deal, this is what we're doing. And I was sort of very you know, just aggressive about it. And so eventually they said, you know, I remember the day when the provost called me in and was like, I think it's over. We've lost trust. And I was so shocked. But then they had to explain it. And so they wrote, they sent out these press releases saying that, you know, the dean lost $13 million, which was not true, but they had to explain what was happening. And in my case, I was fortunate because it didn't really all make sense. And then so lots of people came and interviewed me, and there were articles written from my side. But the whole thing just felt like such a, you know, oh my goodness, like I was given this gift of this job at such a young age and all this responsibility, and suddenly it's, it's over. Um, and again, like, you know, when I sort of unpack the next steps in my life and got a call from this little company called Apple, I can't be too, too woe is me about it, but it was painful when it happened. It felt like a big failure.

You know, I actually went through not the same thing but something similar, which I haven't talked about. Because I was not allowed to according to the legal settlement. But who cares now? But I was in working for a company, a major company, where people were taking bribes left and right. And being an Army brat, I wasn't having any of it. And they were very upset. And so they set me up to fail.

Hmm.

And I just, I never bought into it. And they just made up all kinds of things. And fortunately, I had some good friends who said, you better stop this nonsense because she is like as straight as a straight pin. And, you know, I wound up winning a nice lawsuit because of the damage.

Yes.

But I remember feeling like what you're feeling. You know, I woke up and I said, I have no home. I've been shamed. I, you know, everything that you could possibly fear. The major difference between us, I think, was that that just pissed me off. It was like, oh, no, no, no, not this woman.

Well, I'll just tell you one additional piece. Oh, sorry, sorry, sorry.

They put themselves in such a bad position that they had to bring me back and retract. And then in addition, I won the lawsuit.

So good for you. So yeah, I didn't have anything as dramatic of a comeuppance as that, but I did have a moment that, as you were telling that your story, and thank you for sharing that. I am— there was a moment where I was, you know, 3 weeks out, and I was just angry and morose and walking around like I had been wronged. And a woman who I just admire so deeply, her name's Linda Rabbitt, and she's just a tremendously successful entrepreneur in the Washington, D.C. area. She was a member of the Board of Trustees and was on the committee that hired me, and she became a friend. And a mentor. And, and she asked me if I'd go out to lunch with her. And again, like, these are these gifts of moments when the universe is talking to you. And so we went out to lunch and she said, Doug, I, I need to talk to you. You need to listen to me. Sometimes people get fired. I've been fired. I know how painful it is. And I was like, I didn't know that. And she's like, yeah, I don't talk about it. It's the past. But sometimes this happens. Now you have a choice right now. And I remember her so clearly. She was— she said, you have a choice. You can either spend the rest of your life running down this rabbit hole of being angry at all the people that wronged you, or you can look up at the sky and ask the universe what it's trying to teach you right now.

Mm-hmm.

And that person— and as I— my heart just skipped a beat. I was like, I want to be you, Linda. I want to be— I want to be the person who's that strong.

And so Or that pissed off. It works the same.

Right. Yeah. Yeah.

I think we're both lucky to have some amazing people in our life who, you know, made a difference to how we were able to cope with so much. Yeah.

Yeah.

So where are you now? What is it What, first of all, what have you learned from these failures? And where are you now?

Oh, I'll take the, the, what, what have I learned first? You know, as these failures got, as the depression and the swings between depression and hypomania got, got worse. I mean, eventually they affected my life. I mean, you know, I'm— I mean, they always affected my life, but I was sort of always able to sort of climb back on the horse and get the new job. And, and I feel blessed to be in a really good position right now. And, but, you know, my swings between hypomania and depression destroyed my marriage. And, you know, I hurt my partner in life who's the mother of my 3 kids. And, you know, I'll never forgive myself for that. The best I can do now is really try to be the best dad and best co-parent that I can be. So when you ask the question of where am I now, I still like am sometimes consumed with like, oh my God, that next China book or that next book on leadership, or, you know, still kind of have those swings. But I've, I've learned to sort of walk away from Super Doug. He's not allowed in my life anymore. Uh, my psychiatrist doesn't let it— doesn't allow it. Uh, and, and I have 2 meetings a week with my psychiatrist and lots of medication to check in on those issues. And so what I've realized is You know, I still have a chance to be a really good dad and a really good friend to the people I love. And hopefully I'll still do some things that help the world understand China and help the world understand leadership and failure in leadership and how to come back from that. And so I do feel like I have a much— a sense of my place in the world that has much more perspective. Than it used to have. And I'm not consumed with the question of whether I'm going to be president of university or the China scholar of my generation, or— I'm just consumed with questions of, am I being a good dad? Am I being a good co-parent? Am I being a good teacher? Um, I had this one— I'll tell you one quick story. When I teach now, whether it's a leadership class or anything I teach, I teach in a much more vulnerable way where I introduce a— especially if it's a leadership class, and I'll introduce myself to— and last semester there was— I was in a new class and it was the first day and I was like noticing the room and trying to read the room, and there was a man who was sitting in the back and was kind of glaring at me, and I wasn't sure. He just looked a little angry and Um, and he came up to me after class and he said, I've never heard a professor talk like you. And I, I was like, I'm sorry, did I do something wrong? And he's like, that was just very honest and vulnerable. I was like, okay. And then he goes— and he's this guy who's bigger than I am and kind of, you know, looks tough— and he said, can I give you a hug?

No, no. Love it.

I will never forget that moment, CB, because if that is like what I've become, you know, instead of being a business school dean, having— being a professor who has a student who says he wants to give me a hug, I'll take it.

That is such an achievement. Holy Toledo. Yeah. Wow. That's all I can say.

It's, it's in my top 5 of teaching moments for sure.

Wow. Wow. That's like our friend Marshall who read a letter that somebody wrote to him thanking him for all of his help and stuff. And he said, my wish for everybody on this call is that someday in their life they'll get a letter like this. And you got your letter through a hug.

Yeah, you're so right.

You know, it's very interesting that you talk about today's students too, because I think that for so long our teachers have been textbook. And so when students get out in the world and they're hit with, I'm going to call real-world business emotions, They don't know what to do. There's been no education about it. And I've tied it in my latest article about CEO suicide. Yeah, I am not a research scholar, so I can't say this is true or not, but I believe I'm smarter than some of the recent scholars out there.

I'm sure you are.

And my belief is that this whole concept of this whole situation where we're seeing more and more suicides from the C-suite is that nobody taught these men how to be courageous. Nobody taught them how to celebrate the microcourage, as I've coined it. which we experience every single day of our lives.

Yeah.

Each day we do something that leads to a bigger courageous picture, and we just brush it off as part of everyday life and don't even think about it twice. And I think that's gotten us in a lot of trouble because then when the big bomb hits, we have nothing to fall back on. We, you know, it's like everything is falling apart, and that's so not true. And we need, we need that recall to help us.

Mm-hmm.

And I just think that we, we need more people like you and myself to tell it like it is. Give us the real deal. It's not all smooth sailing.

Right.

I love it when I get letters from people saying, you're so accomplished and you're so successful. I'm like, you think so? Okay. My pocketbook is probably less than yours.

Right.

But my wealth of knowledge and information and spirit, yeah, I'm much richer than you are. So with that, I want to tell you that Doug, you're so rich, and I'm so happy that you're sharing that with people because there's not too many people out there that are willing to be— and I'm tired of the word vulnerable. I just want to say, um, honest? Revealing. Revealing. Revealing. With such honesty that people could take that information and say, if he did it, if she did it, I can do it.

I love that.

You know, it may be different, it may be the same, but I can do it. That's my wish for people after they read my book is I can do it. Yeah. So with that, I'm so excited that you were here, Doug, to talk to us and to share your adventures. Let's call them adventures.

Yeah.

But one thing I do want to ask you, it's kind of like a political question. With COVID and China, give us your perspective.

Okay, I, you know, I firmly believe that China is going to be the most dominant economy in the world within the next 10 years. This current book that I'm working on is called China 2035, and China 2035 was a date that was sort of set by— at the 14th Party Congress with what their goals were in place. And it scares me because I think in this country and in the geopolitical system that we work in, so the people who are making decisions, but also just people whose everyday lives are going to be affected, we have so little understanding of just how fast that train is moving and how powerful China is going to be economically. I mean, you hear these things like, well, if we have a trade war, China's going to lose all of their big markets because they are exporting so much to us. Trust me, the organizations that are going to be hurt are the organizations that we care about the most in this country, which are the large corporations like Tesla and Apple and Walmart. And China, they're already pivoting. They're already moving away through the Belt and Road Initiative. And so there's that, which is just the big question on the table is like, is China dependent on us or are they pivoting away? And who's in the driver's seat economically? In my view, 100%, it's China. There's just no question. You also asked about COVID And this is an interesting thing because China, Xi Jinping is the president of China and the authoritarian leader who wanted to show that he could prove to the world that zero-COVID policy and lockdowns would have Fewer deaths, many fewer deaths than happened in the United States. But we saw the answer in November of 2022, which is what's more important: people's lives and zero COVID policy or the economy? And the answer is the economy. China has it very clear that it is on pace to reclaim its position, and they view it as a reclamation. Because hundreds of years ago, China was far and away the most powerful economy in the world. They are headed towards that. And my view is that they're smart enough economists and, dare I say, capitalists, that they're going to do it. And so it's a very interesting moment. And I worry that whether we're talking about the White House or people in Congress, or just everyday business people or consumers that we don't really understand where this is going. But it's— it is going to end up with China being the most powerful economy in the world.

Well, do you think it's that we don't know, don't understand, or we want to wear blinders? Which of the 3?

Well, maybe it's that we want to wear blinders, but I would say it's that we don't understand. And part of the reason I think this is because I'm too often— I get a lot of calls from reporters and people who want to write about things, very smart people who write about global technology and global supply chains, and they'll say things like, well, can't Apple just— I mean, Foxconn already built a factory in India. We can just go to India. fine. And they have no understanding, CB, about just how complex the manufacturing supply chain in China is. Like, if Apple and Tesla wanted to move to India, it would take a decade to build the infrastructure in India that China has built over the last 40 years. And so I do think that there's just some fundamental misunderstanding. There's also a misunderstanding culturally and historically. You know, the Taiwan issue is a big hot-button question right now. Um, but, you know, both Taiwan and Hong Kong are remnants of a period of colonization that China was very embarrassed by for hundreds of years. And so just kind of working through all of that and kind of snapping your fingers and thinking, well, this is an easy set of issues to, to decide on It's a complex history, and it's a complex geopolitical system. It's interesting. I often ask when I'm whether I'm teaching younger students or executives, so and they'll talk about Hong Kong. I'll say, "What do you know why Hong Kong became a British colony?" People say, "I don't know. Colonization. Who knows?" And the answer is because of a drug war. The you know the British wanted the right to sell opium in China. China said they didn't want their opium. So there was a war called the First Opium War, and then the second. Opium War. Britain won the war, and then they took China's crown jewel so that they could freely export. I mean, that's a bad history, right? And Chinese people remember that history. And so, you know, I just— I do think, as somebody who studied language, literature, and history, but also the economy extensively, I think we're in for a really turbulent time.

So these are 2 ignorant questions. One is, if we know that it would take a decade for Apple, Tesla, Walmart to pull out of China, why not start now? Is the first question. And 2, I mean, if we're serious about the separation of church and state, quote unquote. And 2, was COVID released on purpose?

Ah, okay. So with respect to your second question, I do not believe that. I do believe it was testing that was happening in a Wuhan lab and it was accidentally released. And we've seen this a couple of different times just with diseases that have spread quickly in China. But I don't think it was— it was a military process or a purposeful release. With respect to your first question, here's the problem. You know, when we talk about how strong the US economy is, we don't really talk about economic fundamentals. We talk about the Dow Jones Industrial Average, and we talk about people's 401s and how much money people have made over the course of the last X number of years and how great the Dow is.

Right?

So when you say, why don't we just start preparing for this now? Who's going to tell Tim Cook that he has to get out of China? Because China is not just a big market, and it's Apple's second largest market. But when Foxconn builds a factory in India, it doesn't mean anything because Foxconn is just final assembly for Apple. But Apple relies on more than 1,000 factories across China that all negotiate so that they can do business with China and drive prices down. Apple's profitability depends on China. And so when you say like, why don't we just prepare it now? What's going to happen? Like, you know, Joe Biden and Congress are going to tell Apple and Tesla that they have to get out of China? I just— we, we, we pray at the altar of the corporate elites and the profits in this country. I just don't see it. If we wanted leverage, you're right, like that's what should happen, but I just don't see it happening.

And why is it that the Tim Cooks of the world need to be told? Why can't they just make a decision? Again, naive question, to say we need to prepare just in case, so let's start. Now so that if it should be that way in 10 years, we have options?

Well, you're speaking to somebody who asked that question for a number of years when I was working at that company. And I would, you know, get in trouble at meetings because I would say, we have no Plan B. Do you guys understand? Like, and they would be like, it's fine, it's fine. We know that you're really worried, but it's going to be fine. We have really good relations with the Chinese government. But I'll tell you, I mean, what has happened— like, I started getting a little bit of attention there because some of the things I predicted would happen started happening. I, you know, I said, look, it doesn't matter how much money you're pouring into this country. If you're not doing what they want you to do, they will shut you down. And they shut down the iTunes Store, and people were, you know, suddenly my phone was ringing and people were like, what's happening? And the interesting thing was they were setting up all of these laws that were making it very difficult for companies like Apple and Tesla. And I knew the Apple case the best to operate. And I would get these calls from people on the legal team and saying like, how can we follow this law? This law makes it impossible. And my answer would be, and you can imagine how a Western-trained lawyer might take this, but my answer would be, that's the point. You're supposed to be out of compliance. And they would say, Yes. Why? And I would say, because they're not allowed to do a quid pro quo for market access, but they can make your life really hard. And now you're supposed to go ask the mayor of Zhengzhou what he wants from you. And so Apple built R&D centers and they built data centers and they, you know, so they are so, so deeply enmeshed with the Chinese government that And Apple's not the only one. I mean, Walmart— when we talk about the exports from China to the United States, Walmart is the single largest exporter from China to the United States. So it's not—

I'm a Plan B person.

I agree.

He teases me all the time. He goes, okay, Miss What If. And I'm like, I'd rather have the what if than I don't know.

I agree. I agree with you 100%.

But so I'm, I'm like saying to Tim Cook and Sam and all those other people, what if? I mean, you've seen an example of what if, and so what's stopping you now? You don't, you don't need government to tell you what to do. You know what to do.

Yeah.

Protect yourself.

Yeah, that's right. Can I, can I, can I tell you one more quick story?

Absolutely.

It's, it's off topic. It's not on Apple or, or China or, Yes. But it is about our sort of discussion of how you see things evolving in your life and about second chances. So probably the biggest story of my life was when my friend saved my life from my depths of depression. But recently I had another one of these and it made me think, what is the universe doing to me? So this is a crazy, crazy story. I, you know, I spend a lot of my time commuting back and forth from where my kids live in Michigan to Phoenix. And I used to spend all of my time before I had an apartment here in the Sheraton. And one day I was just like feeling morose and down because I wasn't being the dad I needed to be. And, you know, I wasn't with my kids. And, and I started thinking about Second Chance.

Can I interrupt you a second?

Yeah.

This business of dad that you wanted to be, You're troubled by it? No, I just think you're wrong because you made the decision to be the most incredible dad by staying here with us.

Fair enough.

Drop the mic right there.

Okay, okay, drop the mic. You're right. All right, but can I finish this one piece of the story? Because it's about second chances, and maybe it's about the mic drop on second chances. So anyway, I was sitting there, and one of the ways I show love to my kids is by playing music with them. I learned that from my dad. And so I played the guitar, and their favorite song right now is Wagon Wheel. And so I was feeling just a little sad, you know, and missing them. So I went to this guy who was playing the guitar in, uh, in the Sheridan lobby, and I said, can you take a request? And he said, sure. And so I said, can you play Wagon Wheel? He said, sure. And I didn't have the right bills, and so I ended up giving him a pretty big tip. And he came over to me after the song, and he looked at— he was looking a little bit stern. And I was like, is everything okay? And he said, that was a really big tip you gave me. I was like, I know, I was just supporting the arts. I, you know, it's okay. He's like, well, I have to give you something. I said, okay. And he gave me A CD, and the CD was called Second Chances. But it gets better. It was called Second Chances, and the guitarist's name was Doug Guthrie. And I see be I I thought that I was on Candid Camera. I thought it was like some kind of joke, and he was like, "Why are you freaking out?" And I was like, "Why does this say Doug Guthrie on it?" He's like, well, that's my name. And I was like— and I took out my license and showed him, and, and, uh, I was like, okay, this is the universe trying to talk to me.

Oh, I would not say trying. I'd say is talking to you. Holy— talk about synchronicity.

Isn't that crazy?

Have you read Jodorowsky's book on synchronicity?

I haven't. I haven't.

It's scary. You've gotta read it. Okay.

I will. I will.

Um, so he's the son of the guy who pulled the plug on the Watergate crisis.

Okay.

And he wrote this book called Synchronicity for short. And it's about how when you make a firm decision, everything in life folds into that decision. to support this decision. And I read it when I was quite young, and I went, this is kind of scary. And I could see where he's coming from. You've got to read that book.

Okay, I will. I promise.

So I hate to end this conversation because it's been such a beautiful conversation.

Oh, thank you. And I feel exactly the same. It's— I'm so thankful to, to be here and be able to have shared time with you. It means a lot.

You know, that MG100 group, they just— it's a weird group, right? It puts together people that need to be put together, right?

It feels— it's such a gift. It really is.

So, audience, I don't even know how to end today's show, so I'm just going to say, see you next week. This is CB Bowman, With courage to leap and lead. Thank you so much, Doug.

Thanks for having me, CB.