Former Marvel CEO Peter Cuneo on Leadership, Resilience & Raising Strong Leaders | One Sharp Sword

You're listening to One Sharp Sword, cutting through to what matters most with Outfluencer Dr. Wayne Pernell. Welcome to One Sharp Sword, cutting through to what matters most. I'm Dr. P, Dr. Wayne Pernell, your host, guide, and coach on this journey. Today's guest is someone whose work has touched millions of lives, whether they realize it or not. Peter Cunito is the turnaround leader who helped guide Marvel Entertainment from bankruptcy to one of the most valuable entertainment brands in the world, culminating in its $4.5 billion acquisition by Disney. Along the way, he built a reputation as one of America's premier turnaround CEOs, transforming companies, restoring cultures, and leading organizations through moments that would have overwhelmed most leaders. What struck me most, though, was the person behind the business success. In a conversation we had prior to today's interview, I met a leader who combines courage with humility, conviction with curiosity and decades of experience, with a genuine desire to help others grow. Peter speaks about leadership not as a title, but as a responsibility to serve, to develop people, and to create opportunities others may not yet see for themselves. I came away wishing I had met him years earlier. He would have been a great mentor. Maybe it's not too late. Let's bring him on and you'll get a sense of why I say all of that. Peter Cuneo, welcome to One Sharp Sword. Thanks for being here.

Thank you, Dr. P. It's never too late to answer your question.

That's awesome. I look forward to it.

At my advanced age, I'm still meeting people and learning things from other people. I think you never stop learning. And, uh, if you're, you know, inquisitive and interested in the world, theoretically you go on just about forever.

That's so great. Uh, yeah, my dad was, uh, 99 and, and was a big fan of curiosity and, and continuing to learn and started a preschool when he was 94 because he was so so driven by the idea that people learn how to learn. And it's great.

Yeah, well, good for him. I think I may put him on my heroes list already, just hearing that description. I hope I make it to 99 and so on, but all good.

Yeah, you've got a good track record, so this is great. Uh, so let's, let's talk about your early history. Um, you shared with me that your leadership lessons began for you as a child when you were around 8 years old. Um, what— can you just share the earliest experiences that shaped the leader you eventually became?

Yeah, I think, I think, you know, you, you— I think that when you're growing up, when you're very young, I'm saying age 5 on, um, it's possible depending on how you grow up, how you're raised, uh, the experiences that you have as a very young person, um, can start you on a life of leadership. Um, I have a podcast, as you know, and I have two podcasts actually, but I interview proven outstanding leaders, and I always ask them about their childhood, just the way you're asking me now. Perfect. And the reason that I do that, Wayne, is because there are a lot of parallels that I've seen. The kind of experiences they had personally, in school, if they're a little older, professionally. Um, I define young as age 5 to age 30. Okay. And, and so on. And you don't know at a very young age that you're— you don't even know the, the word leadership, what it really means. True. I'll give you an example in my case that something that happened that I didn't really think about till decades and decades later as having been very important for my getting started on a life of leadership. My father was a lieutenant in the New York City Fire Department. We lived in Queens, New York, in a part of Queens called Flushing, and his firehouse was in Manhattan on the edge of what is called Chinatown, which is right next to another area called Little Italy. And so on. But my father, uh, when— was a veteran, a U.S. Navy officer of the South Pacific. And in— actually, I was 8 years old, he was called up because he was a reserve Navy officer for the Korean War. And we went from New York City over a 2-year journey, adventure in a way for me, an adventure for him. I don't know, I don't think he would have just described the Korean War as adventure, but, um, we went from New York City to Pensacola, Florida, where he, uh, he was going to go on an aircraft carrier, so he was getting some additional training. We went from Pensacola, Florida to Bremerton, Washington Bremerton is where there was, and I think may still be, a mothball fleet, a big Navy mothball fleet. Bremerton is across the bay from Seattle, and he was tasked with many other people of taking a carrier out of mothballs to go into the war. We then went from there to San Diego. San Diego is maybe the biggest Navy base in the, in the country. Certainly on the West Coast, but maybe that's the biggest. And so my mother and I and my sister lived in San Diego when he went off to war on the ship. And after the war ended, he was moved to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard to do some work again on putting steam catapults in our Navy carriers, Prior to that, they were all hydraulic. You basically just threw the planes off the deck, but with steam, you had much more power and you can get them up to speed much quicker. Wow. So he worked for that for a year also. So I did the 4th grade in San Diego, the 5th grade out outside of Philadelphia. And, um, so as a young person, I lived in 4 different very uniquely different places in 2 years. I had to make friends in each place. I don't remember it being difficult, um, but I even could tell at age 8, 9, 10 that there were differences, regional differences, in how people behaved and thought and talked in the United States. Um, and if you study proven leaders, they are typically very flexible people, right? They're able to handle unexpected problems very flexible and resilient, right? That's right. Yeah. And so I often call it getting thrown into an alien environment. By alien in this case, I always clarify, I'm talking about different, not necessarily bad, right? But different, right? And being able to handle that. In your personal life, business, whatever a situation is, um, you can change your environment yourself, but to an alien environment. Uh, you work in New York, take a job in London, well, guess what? It's going to be very different for a while for you, okay? But that's a decision you made. Sometimes, unfortunately, you're thrown into an alien environment when you didn't expect it. My first turnaround I was thrown into. I had no idea that I had any skills whatsoever handling difficult situations. But as it happened a number of times in my life, someone believed, saw something in me I didn't see in myself. In this case, it was my boss. And one day he said, Peter, we're having trouble. With the international division. You're now going to run it.

What organization was that?

If you don't— um, it was a company called Clairol. Oh, which is women's hair care products.

Yes. And not a, not a small—

I found myself—

that's amazing—

running a business overseas. And that, in this case, just to clarify, this is what we call the appliance division. This was not hair coloring or shampoos or so on. It was hot rollers, curling irons, foot spas, those kinds of things. So beauty appliances.

I remember some of those in my house. My mom was a consumer. Yeah, right.

So, you know, I didn't know it at the time, but because of the kind of life I'd led, I had built up some good things, traits in terms of leadership, that I had no clue personally. That's happened to me quite a bit in my life. I start out with no clue and then discover some, some nice things.

But I think, you know, if, if we pause there for just a second, I think that that's something that is also a leadership trait, right? That we, we sometimes miss what we take for granted about ourselves. This is just the way I think, and other people see that and go, you know what, we need that thinking style, we need that there. So that's, that's great. What I'm curious about is, I'm just, I'm, I'm wondering, you know, you talked about building, uh, you're about to show me your book, which is awesome. Oh, good, because I wanted to ask you about that as well. Um, what I'm curious about is when, when, uh, you develop traits as a child and you don't actually know what traits you've developed, but you see traits in others that you would, would like to develop. Even now, like, depend— somebody in their 20s, their 30s, 40s, all the way through 60s, 70s, like Can you deliberately— because some of this comes innately to you because of your early experience— can you be taught the leadership traits? Or is it, you know, I look at people, I ask them about their early times, and that's what helps me discern whether they're going to be a good leader or not? What do you do with that?

Well, it's a good question. Uh, as I said, I didn't really I didn't even aspire to being a leader. I didn't know that I would enjoy it, actually. Although, since I do turnarounds, there's a certain amount of stress involved.

That's just a little part of it.

But I think, yes, of course, you can be taught. And sometimes, being taught is very subtle. And here's what I mean. My, my, one of the reasons that I'm the way I am and I'm kind of an adventurer, and again, I didn't think of myself that way at all until maybe 20 years ago, uh, is because my, my grandparents, most of whom were immigrants, several of whom came to the United States, did not speak any English, but got out there and survived. And they were people who needed, they couldn't sit at a desk. They were people to get out there and work. My parents were the same way. My mother was an EMT for 30 years. 30 years. She was a dispatcher for the last 10 of those 30 years because she physically, you know, you can only do that for so long. Back of an ambulance. My father was, as I said, he was a fireman. Fire lieutenant in New York City. Before that, he was in the Navy, and he did 2 tours in the Navy. So he was an adventurer. My father was Boy Scout of the Year in Manhattan. And so— and I want to say the year was 19— 1932, something like that.

Amazing.

And so he was a person who just had to get out there. He later in life had a lot of problems, mental problems with PTSD and other things, but he was never a person who could sit at a desk. And so when you grow up and your grandparents, your parents, they're not— the thing that you see, which you think is natural and good and fun, they were all risk takers. So I became a risk taker. You know, I wasn't afraid to take certain risks, um, and so on. That became part of my nature. That was the model that they set for me. The other great thing is, which I didn't appreciate at the time but really do now, is my parents raised me and my grandparents with absolutely no prejudices about other people because of their color, their religion, their ethnic background, their sexual orientation. My parents said basically, you're going to run into good people in the world and bad people, and you got to figure out who's who. That was it. So the— I was not ever burdened by these other, you know, kinds of things getting in the way of my growing up. I was open to meeting and working with or learning or having as friends anybody. As long as they were good people. So my life was very diverse growing up, and it was diverse geographically, as I mentioned, going around the US as well. But that diversity helped me be— learn the instincts of being a leader, because the instincts come from primarily face-to-face interactions with the diversity of other people in diverse situations, professionally, school, personally, whatever. That's how you learn how to influence the way other people think.

You have to have a perspective that basically acknowledges, I don't know it all, right? And, and be willing to say, okay, what might I be missing? And, and then to actually seek— I mean, you, you were in such, um, diverse, culturally rich areas where you grew up. The diversity was just part of who you were. I saw a very, very disturbing film, uh, short interview from 1964, uh, recently, and it was Um, what do you think the difference between the races is? And it's— it was frightening, um, how adults had grown up and in 1964 were talking about things. And if that's what they're exposed to, that's what they know. And so to recognize that we actually have a responsibility, I think, to go beyond what we know and, and deliberately ask, right? That's That's how you grow.

You know, I just mentioned one thing in that regard, which, you know, again, I will tell you, I've said this over and over again, and is I could not have been successful. The biggest reason I was successful, have been successful, is I really enjoyed working with teams that were highly diverse so that I would get all manner of different opinions. Points of view, even emotions on a certain subject or issue, opportunity, problem, whatever. Okay, I was always getting different points of view. And what I discovered also in doing that is, is that people, if you as a leader are genuinely interested in what they think and hearing from them, One, it builds a lot of trust in an organization. And of course, in my case, because I was going into turnarounds where everyone was scared, I'd walk through the door the first day, they're, who is this guy? What is he like? You know, what's going on? Are we going to lose our jobs? All of that. Yeah. So it was always on my top of mind to start to build trust. It wasn't conscious. I like to listen to other people's ideas. I still do today. Okay. I'm always interested. I may not agree with them, you know, but it doesn't matter. And what I found out—

that's huge, by the way. I think that's what's missing in our culture.

You're so right, Wayne. And listen, I found that people As long as you're interested in what they have to say, you know, genuinely interested, whether a decision doesn't go their way or not doesn't matter because they feel wanted, needed, respected, and they start to trust you.

Huge points.

Okay, and you trust them implicitly because you're asking for their opinion.

How do you help someone feel wanted and needed and, and to build that trust, listen to. I think that's the, that's the core of all of it. And I think that's part of what's missing as well. This is—

we're faced with a world, you know, I do these, I have two podcasts and I have two themes.

Yes.

One is that we have less good leadership in the world than maybe ever in human history. I mean, it's so awful and it's everywhere. It's not, I'm not talking just about the US. I'm talking about, you know, all over the world there's chaos, there's conflict, there's hate, okay? And it's unbelievable. And the second theme is young people are not learning leadership, and we need them to, because heaven knows we're going to need them in the future. Yeah. We're going through a time in life I never in my wildest dreams Wayne Pernell ever thought I'd see.

Ah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the world has definitely changed. There's a— you know, I was reviewing old political, um, uh, public brief speeches from presidents from ages ago, and I mean decades, not ages ago, but just decades. So over, over the past— and, um, on both sides. And the whole sense of, uh, poking fun at themselves, the whole sense of, we are going to get through this. You may not agree with me or my policies, but we are going to get through this. And, um, and the sense of being willing to listen to both sides of an aisle to bring people together. That's— and we're seeing that. We are seeing that internationally. It's not— it's not commentary on the US. It's— we're seeing it internationally. And I think that is what's needed.

You know, I mentioned— I may have mentioned to you when we first spoke that I'm on the board of the National Archives Foundation. I've been on for 15 years. I love history. The Archives Department of the government— we are a foundation that works with that department, but we are separate. Um, but our job is basically to raise money so that the Archives can do programs to educate Americans on our history, uh, programs that typically would not be funded by the government. So, uh, but I, I believe very strongly that part of learning— a way to learn leadership is to study history and to see how people behave. Great leaders and poor leaders behaved historically, because you'll see parallels. There's a phrase, the past is prologue, and it's right in terms of human nature. Absolutely right. We can go back 1,000 years to leaders 1,000 years ago, and you will find the same emotions, good and bad. And, and so, so I think there's some, some wisdom to be gained from studying, from studying history. So I've always loved history, and the Archives keeps all the records of the United States government. I think last count, there's something like 22 billion documents. Okay. And, and, um, You know, I, I, I, I, what I'm doing right now, I do a number of different programs. I'm doing a series right now of 28, uh, 1.5-minute bite-size, um, presentations by, by me about great moments in American history. Of course, being on the Archives Foundation board, this is a big moment, the biggest moment since I've been on the board because it's the 250th anniversary of the US. And so I'm doing 20 because I— my book has 28 chapters, 20, uh, things that I would love to be able to teach to, you know, budding or current leaders.

And so, so let's say the title for those, for those that are on audio only, the book is called Superhero Leadership. And it's— it talks about 28 ways of leading with, uh, courage and strength and compassion. And that last one is often left out. Um, so, uh, but my point—

yeah, so my point is I have these, um, different moments in American history when leaders in the U.S., um, did showed great leadership and tie exactly to the 28 chapters, which are all based on 28 one-liners that I have in the book. And so, uh, the latest one, which everyone can find if they're interested, um, you know, is, is, uh, is about, uh, FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Taking over the presidency in the midst of a depression and where everyone's scared, the country's in chaos. People are, you know, it's a terrible time. Reminds me of some of my turnarounds walking through the door. But he gave one of the greatest speeches ever in our history. And this is the speech in which he says, The greatest thing we have to fear is fear itself. Mm-hmm. He gets, just by saying that, starts the American people to start to trust him. Sure, he had to put in, along with Congress, many changes, big, important changes to get us going again. And it didn't happen, obviously, in a year or two. Yeah. It took, you know, the Depression lasted technically for at least 10 years. So it was, you know, it's that kind of thing. And I'm enjoying putting that together.

I have—

I can't wait. George Washington crossing the Delaware, another example. Yeah. Great moment. And I won't bore you with them, but you get the idea.

This is where it gets great. I mean, Personally, I can't wait to dive in and watch them. I haven't seen, I haven't seen them. I didn't, I didn't—

there's one new one every week. Okay, this particular week is number 3.

How do we find them? These videos are called what?

So these, these videos, uh, all you have to look up is, is Superhero Leadership with Peter Cuneo. But you can go to my website, Peter cuneo.com. Okay, you can, you can hear or see both my two podcasts as well as a lot of other things I have listed there, things I recommend for young people to learn leadership. That's great. So on and so forth. There's a lot of interesting things, and that includes all of these minute and a half, minute and a half kind of bite-sized moments.

I'm very excited about this. For, for very, for many reasons. It's so, so good. Um, can I ask you about, uh, a couple of the, of the one-liners? Um, you know, in— I do a lot of work with organizations, I do a lot of work with leaders. Um, I'm known for being what people have said, life-changing, which is a huge honor to be told. And yet they're the ones doing the change work. I get to guide it, but they, they're the ones that make the change. Along the way, I, uh, I help cultures shift. And one of the things that you say is always hire, always hire world-class people who never settle. How does that work when you're, you're listening openly and you're accepting? And, and how do you sort, wow, I would hire this person on, and oh, I will listen to this person but they're not on my team? How does that, how does that work with you? Do you understand? Like, I understand what you're saying.

I must say that I think anyone I hire is automatically on my my team. You know, one of the things I like to tell people when they first meet me, when they're new hires or I'm just coming into a new situation.

Yeah.

And this may seem very subtle because it is, but I say to people, you have to prove to me that you can't do the job. I don't say to them, I love to prove to me You can do the job.

You start with the assumption—

one is a pessimistic statement.

Yeah.

And one is an optimistic statement. And they're actually quite different.

They're very different.

But I would always say to people, you have to prove to me you can't do the job. If you're here and I hired you, I hired you of course expecting you to be successful.

That's so great. So what's your—

you're on the team automatically till you prove you shouldn't be on the team. And unfortunately, sometimes that happens. It's no one bats a thousand. But, you know, what's your philosophy?

What's your— I love that. So what's your— how do you categorize somebody as always hire world-class people? How do you categorize somebody as world-class? Because, I mean, again, that is how you build a world-class organization, is you get people who think—

you know, honestly, for me, it starts And let me say, first of all, of the— I'll be honest, of the 28 essentials in the book, which are these one-liners we've been talking about, this one is probably the hardest. Because to always find the right person in the time you need that's world-class in every situation is, I'm gonna be honest, impossible. Okay? This is meant to get people to try their best. Great. Eventually, you may have to settle to get someone who's not world class, but certainly can do the job and will be fine.

I would land on the hardest for you.

Yeah. I mean, so I'm usually looking for people that have a broad view.

Yes.

And depending on the business, a worldview potentially. Okay.

Yes.

That I've had, I'm looking for people that have had difficult experiences. I don't ask— some people when they interview others will say, tell me about your biggest failure. I never do that. I don't feel that's appropriate. But I am looking for people who I feel, and sometimes a little hard to get at this exactly, have worldwide view, have had a few missteps, but learned from them, but took them seriously and learned from them. Because I believe you have to, you have to fail to succeed. Without seeking failure, I've heard, you know, of course no one, no one, yeah, unless you're nuts, right?

No one wants to fail, right? I just, I've heard it's like you have to, you know, go out and fail and fail fast.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Right. It's like fail fast.

I can't even imagine that concept. Right.

But that was big in the '80s. That was like, go fail fast. Yeah.

Wayne, I missed that one. I have to be honest.

Why are we telling people that? Yeah. So I love this. One of the reasons that I really appreciate you and your philosophy is that it does come from this positive place. This positively promotional place of other people, that you see the best in them, you expect the best from them, and that almost commands versus demands— it almost commands the, uh, the drive for others to step up into what you see in them, right? I, I just love that. I love that. I— here's, here's a question from, uh, one of your 28. It's number 27, and it's about about having the courage to act when change is mandatory for both survival and success. And those are two different action states. Survival requires, like, quick assessment, I would think, and success requires some, um, a longer vision. Can you talk a little about that?

Sure. So I think, uh, well, it's pretty easy to recognize poor leaders because one of the biggest attributes they have, negative attributes, is that they, uh, really don't want to face decisions they know they need to make. They don't want to face them head-on. Their mentality is maybe the problem will go away, maybe I can work subtly with this individual that's not working out and turn them around, which is really a mental excuse for they're not going to work out, or I just can't talk.

We used to joke— I, I worked with a team, and we, we used to joke that, uh, some leaders are like, well, maybe if I go on vacation and come back, this person will have died. And it's like, no, that's not how you handle— oh no, cultural issues or change management.

Now look, it takes courage to make a difficult decision. But this is what, you know, I often say in my definition, I ask often in a speech, we'll ask the audience to take a minute and just think about their definition of leadership. I'm not going to ask anyone to stand up and tell everyone, no, but just think about what's their definition of leadership. And I share mine and the The two key words are courage and change, and it comes down to the courage to make change. Most human beings do not aspire, do not want to be a leader. I've had experiences where offering great promotions to people and they don't want them because they're going to have more people or more new people reporting to them. And in leadership, there are going to be times when you're going to have to make others unhappy, and you can't avoid it. And a lot of human beings want to be liked, loved by everybody, and that's human nature. That's to be normal. That's normal. Yeah. And that's fine. But they knowing that they're going to have to make other people unhappy. They don't want responsibility that will require them to do that. So, you know, I often go to MBA programs and talk about leadership and sometimes do a little role-playing. And very often the students think that being a turnaround person is very sexy. It's, you know, it's an adventure. If you're good, you can make some really good money and so on. And I do role-playing though in, in this. And then when I'm done, you can tell by their body language that the class is rethinking whether they want to do turnarounds.

It's all glamour until you get—

yeah, I will say, I will say, pick anyone in the audience, but random. Let's, let's say it's John Doe or Jane Doe, and I say, congratulations, So happy to have you here. Your title is, of course, Senior Vice President. You're going to be in charge of manufacturing. And there's your corner office. Here are the keys to your company car. And, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and all these other things. Okay. And it's great to have you here. And, you know, they're all smiling and happy. And then I said, oh, I have to mention one thing though. Next week, we're closing our factory in Omaha, Nebraska. And you're gonna have to go out there and do that. You're in charge of manufacturing. It's a unionized facility and it provides 50% of the jobs in that particular town. And the union has figured out that we're probably gonna have to close. And, you know, they're very unhappy, as are all the residents of the town. 'But you're going to have to go out there and do it.' And you could see the students suddenly thinking, 'Wait a minute, maybe this isn't for me.' I can actually see the body language.

Yeah, I would bet that they stopped breathing for a second, just like—

Well, that's— I made that situation up. I have moved manufacturing in several turnarounds from the United States to Asia. I've never, you know, and in that sense, there were closures or partial closures of different facilities.

But it's the toughest thing to announce.

That's just one example of making just very difficult decisions. And it's hard. It is. It is courage. I often tell a story. Usually on my turnarounds, the CEO or president, whatever the title was that I'm going into, is long gone. So I'm walking into an empty office, you know, that kind of thing. There was one exception, it's very interesting. And he was still in the office. He reminded me of Mr. Rogers. He had been with the company 30 years. He had been the CEO president for probably 10 years. He knew everybody, okay? And so on. And he was a very gentle soul. I, at least that's the feeling I had. So before he left, there was an overlap of a couple of days between my arrival and him leaving. And we had a conversation and he said to me, you know, Peter, I have to tell you, I'm actually happy you're here. And I thought to myself, you can't be happy that I'm here. But I said, okay, why is that? He said, well, you'll do the things that I just couldn't do. I said, really, what do you mean? And he said to me, Peter, I couldn't fire my friends. Wow. Yeah. So, uh, an example of kind of what I'm talking about, courage. You know?

Yes.

Change. Yes. So I will say that very nice man who, but who was honest with himself, but he just couldn't do it. After 30 years, everyone was a friend. He cared about everyone. He knew their families. You know, he knew their kids in college. He knew, etc. He just couldn't pull the trigger. And he, to the point where he'd write it down rather than basically make his friends unhappy.

I've seen that happen.

It was left for me to make his friends unhappy.

But bring in, bring in the axe or the hammer.

Yeah, sometimes, not always, but sometimes.

Yep. Can you, can you weigh that, what you just said, like having to be the one with courage to maybe be the one to not only deliver the news but architect the change and weigh that against the leadership principle of generating positive energy from minute one?

Well, so I think I understand your question. I always say you need to be positive. You need to be optimistic even at times where there's no good, there's bad news. I got a lot of examples of having to give speeches shortly after I've got some bad news out of the blue. And to be an actor, and I don't mean that you had to talk like everything's wonderful or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. No, but I could not carry, you know, in my demeanor, giving a speech to 200 employees what I just heard.

Mm-hmm.

And I had— you have to be an actor. That, that is a requirement sometimes. But I'm fundamentally an optimistic person. And so, you know, so let's take the example I was talking about, movie manufacturing in Asia. Right. Okay. So obviously everyone hates that. Okay. Your, you know, maybe your people in manufacturing, half of them unfortunately are gonna lose their jobs. Alright? And it is what it is. And yes, you know, people might be mad at me for a while, but I try to explain that if we don't move, we will be out of business and everyone will lose their job. You see? So for me, it's an easy decision to make. Because I'm not thinking about the unfortunate people that will lose their jobs. I'm thinking about the ones we'll save, which is far more. Okay. And when I explain that the competition is already making similar product to ours in China, okay, for example, or any, any of the Asian countries, and the cost for the same quality of product is 25% of our costs, US, we will not— no one will be buying our product shortly. So we will be out of business. So we have to move and we have to move now. So look, no one likes to hear that, but when they hear the realities, you know, that it, it, it, and you're being— it builds trust again because you're being honest. I'll tell him flat out, here's the numbers. Yeah. And we should have been there already. We're late. We need to go.

So, um, interesting. This is, this is really good. What I have— I'm, I'm watching our clock and I have so many questions. I have so many questions. Um, The, the leaders of today, do they need different skills than leaders of 30 years ago?

I don't think it's different skills, but there's no question that the vibe, the tone of those skills has changed. And I will say honestly, it's so much harder to be an effective leader today than it was in past generations. It just obviously the world is much more competitive. Technology has moved forward. Technology can make you or break you almost overnight. There is constant change that you have to deal with as a leader almost every day. When I first came out of business school and started in big corporate life, I was before I got into turnarounds. I was a classic big corporate finance guy, and every year we would make a long-range plan, a 5-year plan, and we never had to change it in that year. Today, if you can even do a long-range plan, you need to modify it monthly.

Yes, weekly.

It's unbelievable because of the pace of change and challenge.

I think this is huge.

Made a major, major difference.

I want to underscore that because that is true. You know, when I work with individuals and, and organizations, and I know you've done the same, it, it's, it's so important to call out that even if you have a plan for yourself, like, this is who I want to become in 5 years, The 5 years, it's better to do a 3-year plan or a 2-year plan and recognize you're going to be changing it quarterly because the environment around you is changing, which means both the resources you have as well as, uh, the resources you'll need, your own growth and development, are going to be changing really fast.

Much harder for young people., to get on in the, in, in the world with their careers than it was going back. It, it just, it, it's much, much harder.

Yeah.

And, um, yeah, but the fundamentals, my book, these 20 essentials, or you call it, you can call them fundamentals. And these, these one-liners, you know, and I have a chapter on each one-liner. And there's, I wrote this book because I believe this. Will still be read 20 years from now because these, these essentials—

okay, they are essentials—

are, are fundamental. Yeah, they really are fundamental, you know.

I mean, you have, you have one that says maintain your energy, right? Mental and physical. Yes. And, and I think that is so different. That's what distinguishes a leader in so many ways from you know, oh, it's another day. I'll get up, I'll look at my calendar, I'll see what I'm supposed to do today, versus being in charge of your life, maintaining your energy, bouncing out of bed because you love it, and, um, choosing to lift. Like, I have a, I have a saying, lift as you lead, right? So it's, it's like, choose to lift the people around you as you go because your energy's there. You choose that energy. So, uh, I, I just love that the, the inner self section is main— one of, one of its number 24, uh, maintain your energy.

I think, see, I— Wayne, honestly, I think people can, can feel it. Definitely this body language, you know. I— yes, I really feel very strongly that Communications is a lost art. Oof.

Yes.

Our world now, and body language is 50% of communication. That's why I like to go face to face with people. I can't really honestly see much of their body language on a Zoom call. Right. Particularly people I don't know. You know, it, if I know them, it's not a problem.

Yes.

People, and I meet a lot of people for the first time in my life, the, the way I do things now. And so, and so on. But this, but you know, body language really means a lot. But I think people can read your body language. And if you're tired and you're down, you know, that, that has an effect. If you're a leader, people just naturally think, what, something's wrong? Our leader's down. This is not good for us. Okay, and sometimes not even conscious on their part. Yeah, just feel it.

Yes.

And then it spreads to other people. So you owe it to the people you work with to get enough rest, to get your head clear, figure out your life, how you lead it, so that you have those moments to completely detach, you know. And I've had these hobbies, what, you know, Detaching can take many, many different forms. Yes. For me, hobbies was a big one. You could work out, do things physical. You could— I mean, there's a million things we can all talk about where you could just escape. Watch a stupid TV show for 3 hours. Just a completely inane show for 3 hours, but that's fine. That's all you're doing. You're not thinking about anything else. There's so many things. But whatever form that detachment takes, maybe you ride a bike at home or ride a— whatever form it takes, you need that. You owe it to yourself and to others. And you must get a good night's sleep. I'm a Vietnam veteran and I did 2 tours. As you know, I was on a guided missile destroyer off of North Vietnam and we would typically what we call go on the gun line. Into combat for 30 days at a time. And then you would normally get 3 or 4 days in some port in Asia. We call it rest and relaxation. And very often, many of us, when we first get in the port, we sleep. I once slept for 24 hours. I was so tired because of what you're doing. Yeah, and on a ship you have two jobs. You have a job of your functional job. I was communications officer in one, was damage control officer in another. But in addition to that functional job, you have a ship driving. You learn to drive this big ship if you're what's called a surface warfare officer, which is what I was. Over time you qualify. No one jumps on these ships and drives these ships like, you know, immediately. Of course not. You have a lot to learn and to practice and to practice, not in the war, but when you're not in the war, you can practice. And so I, I, I think that, um, I got, would get very tired. You couldn't avoid it. And I'd learned to, you know, very often 4 hours of sleep. That was it a night. You just had no choice, you know. And I learned how, with that experience, how important a good night's sleep was when I couldn't get one, which is half the time in the combat zone.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

You're struggling to keep in, you know, I learned how, you know, I think that many people really don't appreciate how important it is to really get that deep, that deep sleep they talk about.

Yeah. No, that's a, that's a pet of mine as well. That's, that's great. So we have a few minutes left, and I, I would love to weave together a couple of questions I have for you and give you the opportunity to talk about, again, your book and how people can reach you. Um, I, I'm a big fan of the existential dilemma, right, and fixing that, helping people get through that. Who am I? Why am here. So I wanted to ask you about identity, right? Because you've changed your identity in various ways, and yet you've maintained this grounded sense of self. And then, uh, so if you could talk about that and maybe weave that into— if you had one leadership lesson that you could give to people today, what would that be? And then we'll talk about again your book, how people can talk and find you, petercunio.com, um, and, and, and such.

Well, I, I, again, I, I just think that, um, the lesson goes back to what I talked about before. Get as much face-to-face experience as you can get with a diversity of people in a diversity of personal situations, professional situations. If you're in school Fine. Travel also.

Travel's amazing.

See different environments. Okay. Understand that we don't have everything right in the US. There are good ideas in other countries as well.

Yeah.

You know, deal with people and how they think. The fact that we all have the same emotions, but we dress up our emotions differently depending on the culture in our country versus another country. But we're basically— get behind that. We're all feeling the same emotions, good or bad, okay? And, and, and I think that's again how you— it's very hard. Look, why isn't it happening? One is this. Oh yeah, that you can't learn a thing by spending hours on your cell phone, particularly if you're a teenager. This is killing you. No, I'm serious. It's— I'm not saying you shouldn't ever be on? No. But, but the stuff that's on here, if you don't understand what's real and not real, which is unfortunate because many young people don't— they believe anything they read or hear or people tell them, okay? Um, you, you, you've got to have those face-to-face experiences. People will say things to you on a cell phone that they'd never dare say to your face, okay?

It's like road rage, right? You're not— because you're not in, uh, in that, uh, proximity, in that sphere. Yeah, right. You'd never say that to somebody if your mom was standing next to you, or if you had to say it face to face looking at someone in the eyes.

Yeah, I think, you know, so there's so many, but technology is a problem. You know, Zoom calls are nice. Again, you know, they don't replace a face-to-face, as I've mentioned before. Okay, so that's one thing. Second is we have overparenting in our country.

Oof.

Parents are making all the choices for young people. Let your kids fail. I know what I'm saying. Let your kids fail. They're not gonna be, you know, screwed up for life over something. No, the decisions they're making are little tiny things, okay? And some will be right, and guess what? Some will be wrong. That's okay. If you raise your kids to never have a negative thought about themselves, when they really get out in the real world, they will disintegrate. And I have seen this happen with—

I've seen it happen as well—

Ivy League graduates. Cannot handle the simplest, tiniest setback. Things that you and I would laugh at.

Okay. Yes. So apparently there's, uh, there is a certain percentage— I think it's, I think it's as high as, as 17%— yeah, job applicants bring their parents to the interview.

Yes. It's crazy. We have— we— so, so there's so many— I could list other things. Our culture is a celebrity/non-celebrity culture. If kids are raised to be interested in what some celebrity had for breakfast, some non-celebrity, some influencer.

Yes.

No, that's— and that's not the kid's fault. That's our culture.

Yeah.

There's these— nothing wrong with these kids. They're good people. They're fundamentally good people. They're shaped wrong. And it's a shame. I've got to run, man. I'm sorry.

Okay, this was amazing. 28 Essentials for Superhero Leadership. Superhero Leadership is the name of the book. Peter Cuneo, thank you. Thank you so much for joining me. Really appreciate it. And, uh, yeah, we'll, uh, I'll, I'll reach out. You and I will continue this conversation.

Right, right, Wayne. Thanks so much, Dr. P, very much.

Alrighty, we'll see you.

Bye-bye.

Bye-bye. All right, as he exits, this is One Sharp Sword, cutting through to what matters most. I'm your host, Dr. P, Dr. Wayne Pernell, your host, your guide, your coach on this journey. Please, please look up petercuneo.com, P-E-T-E-R-C-U-N-E-O dot com. Uh, his work is amazing. We didn't even touch on the barest little piece of it. So amazing stuff, amazing human, and, uh, I, I hope you got a lot out of that. As you, uh, have been listening to this, watching this, please like, please share, please engage, interact with me, interact with Peter or any of my guests, and I'm looking forward to seeing you again here Next time. Thanks so much again, Dr. P, Dr. Wayne Pernell, and this is One Sharp Sword, cutting through to what matters most. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening to One Sharp Sword, cutting through to what matters most, with Outfluencer Dr. Wayne Pernell. For more information, please go to onesharpsword.com.