HS 240 - Know Your Strengths And Weaknesses With Lori Ann LaRocco

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It's my pleasure to welcome Lorianne Larocco to the Show. She is CNBC's senior talent producer and the author of three books, including her latest entitled opportunity Lessons from Business Leaders. Loriann, welcome. How are you?

I'm doing well. How are you doing?

Good. Fantastic. So you wrote this book with Dick Armey? Well, Dick Armey wrote the Forward, I guess.

Yes.

Looks very interesting. Let's dive in and tell us all about it.

Sure. Well, I have been at CNBC for 14 years and before that, I was an anchor and reporter around the country for about a decade. And the reason why I wrote the book was because it dawned on me that no matter what job you have, you could be the owner of a corner deli, or you could be a manager or even a billionaire. All successful leaders have seven strategies that they use in order to achieve success. So what I wanted to do in opportunity knocking was actually create what I call the opportunity pyramid, which takes you through the seven layers until you achieve what I like to call world domination, which is pretty much deemed the absolute best that you can be.

It looks like that opportunity pyramid very logically starts with fortifying one's foundation. Tell us about that.

Sure. Well, the very first thing you need to do when you want to assess an opportunity or be successful is to know yourself. You have to know your strengths and you have to know your weaknesses. All good leaders know both. You want to play up on your strengths and you want to work on your weaknesses. Because if you actually do something that you like and you are good at, chances are you are going to be very good at it. So that is the very first level of the pyramid.

There's two schools of thought there. Some say that if you work on strengthening your weaknesses, at the end of the day you'll just have a bunch of strong weaknesses, you know, and some like Dan Sullivan who's been on the show, he says, you know, just focus on your unique ability and let all that other stuff go. And you know, if you're not good at it or you're not interested in it, just ignore it. But I don't know if you can really do that in a small business. For example, if you're great at sales and you hate account, someone better be doing the accounting.

Well, you have to work on your weaknesses because if you're not, say you're not a good communicator.

You have to have that self awareness. All good leaders have a very heightened self awareness. So if you can't communicate and that is a weakness, you're not going to go anywhere. You have to recognize what you need to work on and you have to.

Really focus on your strengths. I mean, you have to focus on both not saying that you divide your attention, but you have to recognize that you do have shortcomings and you have to play on your strengths because that's what's going to make you special and that's what's going to make you different. If you own your company, you're going to play on what you're good at. If you work for somebody, you want to show your boss that, hey, listen, this is what I can contribute to the team. Because you and I both know when it comes to a successful company or a small business, it's everybody, everybody plays a part and everybody supports each other and everybody has those strengths and weaknesses that complement. So that's why it's so important.

Yeah, yeah, it definitely is. Okay, well, know thyself. That's certainly been said throughout the ages and it's most certainly important. What's next on the opportunity Pyramid?

Well, once you lay down your foundation and knowing yourself, you want to build your knowledge on what you want to achieve. In Opportunity Knocking, I actually do mini biographies so the reader can get to know this one individual that I want to use an example in building that layer of the pyramid.

It looks like for building your knowledge, it's Harold Hamm.

Exactly. And Harold Ham, for folks who don't know him, he is America's richest oil man and he's a billionaire with a high school education. And I wanted to show him because if Harold can become successful, anybody can. And here's why. He was one of 13 children. His parents were sharecroppers and he only went to school during the wintertime and they lived in a one room house. He had to work. It was a very, very tough time. And he actually, when he was younger, he met somebody in the oil industry and it left such an impression on him, he said, this is what I want to do. And he literally worked from the ground up. He, you know, he would grab, you know, drag the lines and he got to pick everyone's brain. And he was, he was like, listen, I, no job is too small. And one day because somebody liked him, they told him, hey, listen, somebody is falling behind on their payments for their oil truck. So he took out a loan and he bought one oil truck. And his motto was, if I could have the best service and not charge as much as the next guy, I would become successful. And he did. And now, and then, you know, Harold, throughout the years he would save his money. He worked hard, he put some of the money back into, of course, his company. And then he was able to actually take a couple of courses from college to help expand his oil business. And he took classes in geology.

And now, of course, he's got Continental Resources, which is the largest fracking company in North Dakota.

Amazing.

So I wanted to show the reader, and especially with today with the economy and the prices of education and people trying to reinvent themselves for jobs, Harold is a wonderful example if you're strategic and you can't. I mean, who really can afford to go back to school? For four years?

He played on his strengths, but also he built his knowledge. He furthered his knowledge by being strategic. And he did the geology courses. So I really tried to kind of hit home saying, listen, if he can do it, so can you.

Yeah, yeah.

It takes a long time, but you can do it.

Yeah. And, you know. You know, what strikes me about Harold Ham is, and you alluded to it, of course, is the humble nature there of the. You know, just the concept. There's no small parts, only small actors. You know, he was willing to do any job just to be around that industry and to really learn it from the ground up.

Exactly. And it shows the passion and the drive.

The next is, define your opportunity strategy and stick to it. And you profile Alan Mulally.

I do. Alan Mulally, when he took that job over at Ford, a lot of people didn't want was a beleaguered icon. It was terrible. It was bloated. It had all these different brands. It didn't know who it was. It was in the middle of not only a financial disaster, but also an identity crisis. And Alan had to really redefine the company. And sometimes I always say the biggest story could be at the end of your nose and you might not realize. You just have to open your eyes. And Alan was flipping through old ads, and he came across an ad from 1927 created by Henry Ford. And it was very simple. Opening the highways to all mankind. And that was his mission statement.

The light bulb clicked off. He's like, this is what we have to do. This is what Ford needs. So he sat down saying, okay, how am I going to achieve this? And he defined his opportunity strategy and every decision, even to this day, that Ford makes, be it on their.

There are lines of the autos that they're creating. All go back to that one mission statement, opening the highways to all mankind. And he had tough decisions to make. As you know, he sold off brands like Volvo. He had to lay people off. It was tough decisions, but he had to make these plans and stick with it, even though they weren't popular, in order to stick to what he wanted by knowing themselves, building their knowledge in terms of what they had to do, and continue with that strategy. So I thought Alan would be a wonderful example for folks to see just how sometimes you have to go back to the drawing board in order to achieve the success that you need.

I love, you know, the mini biography format by the way is just an excellent format, Lorianne, because it's a great Cliff Notes. You know, you, you don't have to read a whole book about Steve Case. You know, your next example, who has a fascinating story, but you can get it in a chapter and you can get the. You've distilled kind of one of his main qualities that's really important and how you make a whole person or a whole strategic plan here out of, out of the seven different items on the pyramid.

Thank you. And you know, Steve is amazing. Everybody knows, of course, aol AOL for his thing, but it's interesting. The reason why I wanted to have Steve, particularly when you're looking at.

Sticking, you know, stoking your inner passion, is because passion is what gets you through the highs and the lows. And Steve actually went through it twice. He left his job at Procter and Gamble to go to Gameline, which is actually the precursor to aol. And he gave up a solid job for his dream, which was social media. Back then it wasn't called social media, but in essence what it was. And at his first meeting, he realized that the company was going under. So you can imagine driving cross country with all your belongings and you go to your first meeting and you're like, geez Louise, what am I going to do? And a couple of his colleagues and himself created what is now what was America Online.

At one point. A lot of people don't realize this, but at one point, Steve Case was thinking of buying Apple back when they were talking, wow, could you imagine what Apple would be like today if, if they all bought it? It's just, it's unbelievable.

Without my comment. I don't want to prejudice you. What do you think it would be like? I'm curious.

I don't, I don't know. It's.

I mean, what, what year was that?

I don't know. It's kind of weird. I mean, it's, you know, Steve Jobs, you know, such a visionary. And I'm not saying that Steve's not, you know, Steve Chase isn't, but he's.

Not a Steve Job.

But.

You know, Steve Jobs was, you know, a visionary and fearless and driven and.

He really pushed the boundaries, you know, I don't know, folding it in, if it would have been part of the, you know what I mean? Like, it's not, it's not like a fold in brand.

Right? You know, Apple's Apple, it has standalone for sure. I mean, you know, obviously the AOL Time Warner thing didn't work out too well, but. Yeah, well, interesting.

Yeah, no, definitely an interesting. But then, of course, when Steve, with the demise of AOL Time Warner, he had to reinvent himself yet again. And he's been very successful with revolution, and he has helped hundreds of entrepreneurs, including the big brand Lollywolly Doodle Zipcar. There are countless companies out there that he's given seed money to. And he is very passionate in terms about the team. And he has this wonderful. He lives by this African proverb. And I'm going to kind of sum it up because it's a little bit long and I'm not going to remember all of it. But he says something along the effect of.

If you want to get there quick, go alone. If you want to go further, go with others.

And again, it kind of ties back everything in terms of it's the human capital that makes or breaks a company. It's the people. And you have to value people and you have to support one another and encourage one another, and that comes from passion. And you know how you remember, like, when you were little and your mom said, your friends are a reflection of you?

She was always orchestrating who I'm hanging out with.

Exactly.

And of course, you know, of course she was right. I'll admit it.

But it's the same thing with your colleagues. And even if, like, you're a small businessman, you want to hire people that are like you in terms of the passion not being like a carbon copy, because that would be boring in my class.

Well, then you don't have any new thinking.

Exactly. But you want people that are passionate. If you're passionate, why are you going to want a Debbie Downer? So that's that whole level of the pyramid and why I wanted Steve in there.

And, you know, that goes back to the late business philosopher Jim Rohn you're probably familiar with. He would always talk about how your income will be the average of the five people you spend most of your time with. And I think that's true. And that passion is contagious. And it also reminds me of Simon Sinek and the why issue. And, you know, if you can get people on your team that are. This is not really about money. Of course, it's always about money to some degree. But. But, you know, it's like, we want to prove something. You know, I would rather have someone who's out to prove something, then, you know, that person is. Is far more motivated than any amount of money will ever motivate anybody, you know?

Exactly. And you want to be happy. You know, we Work a very long time in our life. Why don't we do something that works?

Oh, of course. I mean, it's a good third of our life, if not more.

Exactly. And that's also part of it as well.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Okay, well, let's keep going up the pyramid here and talk about the last few items.

Sure. Well, the next one is staying the course. And I chose Don Kruzchevsky of Stifel Financial. And Ron is very, very charismatic, and he is a CEO whose plan is not a specific plan.

He sets a goal, and then he doesn't have, like, every point in between, like A and Z, to get there. He assesses the situation as he goes, and he relies on his team, and he talks about. Because he has no plan, a lot of people don't understand it. So when he first started his job at Stifel, you know, he would have these business meetings, and all they would do would be complaining about, this is wrong, that is wrong, blah, blah, blah. And he told his wife, listen, when I first go into my first meeting, I'm not going to say anything, because he tends to talk a lot and not listen. So he listened. And then the next day, he came in and said, I want you guys to fix these problems. I don't know how you're gonna do it, but just fix it. And he says, and we will have a next meeting when we have another problem. And that was about 10 years ago. And he's all about empowering. And, you know, he would have these board meetings with his. With his board members, and he's like, I want to grow the company by, let's say, 15%. And they're like, well, how? He's like, I don't know. When the opportunity comes by, you know, I'm assessing everything right now. I will let you know. And they just couldn't wrap their arms around it because they wanted to know, like, every piece of the puzzle. But sometimes, as you know, especially in business, you got to let. You got to. You got to let things go. You got to let it flow. And that's his management style. And now he's been there for a very long time. And, you know, his.

His business, you know, his. His board members actually understand, and they're fine with it, but they didn't understand how he would stay the course if everything wasn't plotted out. So I thought he'd be a good example to say, listen, you know, you've got your course, you know what you want, but not everything's in your control. And, you know, Staying the course, it takes a long time. I mean, success doesn't happen overnight. And it's interesting, Brian Sullivan from cnbc, when I was on Squad Box, he was filling in for Joe and he hit the nail on the head saying, you know, not every level of the pyramid is going to be quick. And I really believe that staying the course is one of the longest levels of that pyramid because that's where you've got to get everything going in terms of getting to where you want to go and that's where you rely on your passion and things like that, because you've got to stay the course.

Absolutely, absolutely staying the course. No question about it. And also not being attached to the. The idea that you've alluded to of you're not going to know everything, you're not going to know how to figure this out before you just do it. Business, life, it's all an iterative process. We just learn as we go. And every new learning expands her ability to solve problems.

Exactly. And you might miss, you might hit failure along the way, but failure doesn't mean that you're never going to achieve success like you're your definition of success. But they're all learning experiences. Like, harold ham had 17 dry wells. Wow, 17. I mean, that's a lot and that's expensive. But he kept, he stayed the course because he knew something's got a break. You know, I always say, you know, gosh, if you work so hard, something's got to give, right? I mean, something's got. Something good has to come out of something. If you're working so hard, you know, you just have to. You just gotta wait for it.

Yeah, absolutely. And Harold Ham, back to, you know, the build you'd knowledge the second level on the pyramid, I mean, he invented fracking. Huh?

He was. He didn't invent it because the technology was already there. But they're the leading fracking company in the nation.

Wow. Amazing. Wow. What a boon.

Yeah.

What's next?

Well, the second to last level is execution. And this is where everything starts coming together because you stayed the course. Now you've got to kick it into gear and you really have to execute and you have to pay attention to the details because you can't be sloppy. And David Rubenstein, who is one of the co founders of Carlyle, is meticulous. They've created what's called the one Carlyle culture where if you go into any office around the world, be it China or London, here in the us, Latin America, everything is the same. Everybody believes in the same principles and how you achieve that. And they even have, like little tchotchkes on the desks. They're all identical. The posters that are in the lunchrooms, they're all the same because that way it feels like home. So if you're traveling abroad.

You feel it's comfortable, it's familiar. And he's very meticulous about the details. He's like, especially in today's world where you've got the smartphones, you've got Twitter, you've got Facebook, you've got all this stuff. Our time is so limited in terms of paying attention to things. It's crazy. And he says when you're a business leader, if you work for somebody or if you want to be that aspiring entrepreneur, you have to take the time.

And that's what's so important about the execution phase, because you have to look at everything, you have to relook at everything. It's the strategies that you employ that will make or break you. And in times of stress, the way that you handle it will make you a leader or a loser.

And it's so pivotal because once you execute everything and you're successful at it, that's where you reach the final, the apex of the pyramid, which is world domination.

World domination. I love the sound of that.

You know, it's a hefty word, but come on, don't we all want to, like, have world domination in our own little world?

Yes, we do.

You, you want to be the best that you can be. And it doesn't matter if you're a stay at home mom or, you know, you, you own a small business or, you know, I work for cnbc. I want to be the best senior talent producer they have. I want to be valuable, I want to be invaluable. I don't want them, I want them to be worried that they would lose me, you know, you want to be that pivotal part, you know, and in this level, I choose the three founders of Blocker. Now, these three women, they were all successful in previous careers, but they all shared one common elements. They were miserable. They hated their jobs. Lisa Tamahore Page, for instance, she worked in Silicon Valley. And during the dot com bubble, when it burst one Friday, pink slips went out. She left work. She was miserable. Why? She didn't get a pink slip. She wanted to be fired. And she was like, oh, my God, what is wrong with me? I'm one of the few people that didn't get a pink slip. And I don't want to work there. That was her kung fu moment, saying, listen, I need a change. And she went into her job and said, can you please lay me off? And they were like, no, we like you. She's like, but I really don't want to be here anymore. So then she went to consulting. And then you had Lisa Stone, who was a correspondent for cnn, but she had just recently had a son. And when you're a correspondent in national news, you travel a lot. And she knew that she didn't want that anym. And he had Jory Desjardins who worked in publishing. And it took her three tries to quit her job before she finally like totally left. And I wanted to show how, you know, it was all hard. You know, they all had different stories and a lot of people could relate to that. Be it, you know, you're a new mom or you can't stand your job or you want to be an entrepreneur but you're too afraid to leave. And I just figured there are three stories, there's something that you can relate to. And they created BlogHer, which is this enormous blogging network on social media. And they created this space where now Fortune 500 companies approach these bloggers and a lot of them are mommy bloggers to put ads on these websites, on their blogs and they make money, a lot of women, that's how they make their income. So they created something out of nothing. So what I wanted to do is just to show the reader, give you guys like a wide breadth, you know, of individuals to say, you know, take what you can and be inspired. Because it could be like one thing will inspire you, one thing will inspire me. But in the end, if it's something that.

Get ignites that flicker inside you where you can believe in yourself and you can do it, and I know it sounds corny, but it's true. You know, you have to believe in yourself before anybody believes in you. Because you know what I mean? That's what's going to drive you and that's what's going to give you the energy.

Absolutely, absolutely. That's going to, that's going to drive you. And believing in yourself is really believing in your mission, your why, you know, some of the other things that we've alluded to here today and without that kind of self confidence, you just can't get anywhere. You're not going to stay the course, you're not going to do, you're not going to do the other levels on.

The pyramid, but you're not. And I think, also I think it's very Easy to be negative. It's much easier to be negative than positive.

No, no question.

And I think that sometimes we dwell on so much of the negative that you don't realize the positives that are right there. And that's what's going to get you to the next level.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Those are excellent points, Lorianne. Give out your website and tell people where they can find you and just learn more about your work and your three books.

Oh, sure. I have a blog and it's loriann larocco.WordPress.com I think that's what it is.

It is.

By the way, that is.

Okay.

Thanks. I don't type it in for myself so I just kind of go to my homepage. But you know that that's pretty much where all my stuff is. I actually have downloaded, I do speaking engagements and I have some videos up.

Sure. And Lorianne, you know, I want to ask you before you go that website again, loriannloraco.WordPress.com and then of course, you're with CNBC, which we're all very familiar with and do a great job there. But I want to ask you before you go, if you can tell us a little bit about your book from 2009, Thriving in the New Economy. I find your timing for writing that pretty interesting too, I must say, right on the right on the heels of the financial crisis, just as it's I'm.

Known in the industry as the producer with a trillion dollar Rolodex because I have at least 13 billionaires on hand, of course. And then I've coupled with the multimillionaires that I know. And during the financial crisis when things crashed, I was having a lot of these big contacts calling me, asking me what was going on, which is kind of scary because I'm a reporter so I'm just reporting on what's going on. I mean, I don't have the answers for you. So it was a very interesting time because normally when you're working in breaking news, you kind of know like if it's a hurricane, you're going to be going nonstop for so many days. But then life will go on with this. With the financial crisis, it was going on and there was no end in sight and there was a lot of chaos and there was a lot of confusion and people were scared. And it dawned on me during that time and I alluded to it earlier, it's the strategies that you employ and how you react to a crisis that will enable you to be successful. So in thriving the new economy. What I did there was. I again, did mini biographies.

Taking those CEOs back to get their reaction to the financial crisis, but more importantly, what did they do about it? And take, for instance, Wilbur Ross. He was over in Asia when it happened. So can you imagine seeing everything going down the drain, and you're millions of miles away and you're on a time delay.

You'Re time ahead. So it was interesting to get their thoughts and all that, but also to. They admitted some mistakes. Richard LeFrak, who comes from a real estate dynasty, he told me that. Oh, goodness. It was probably about eight months before the financial crisis hit. His Caddy, that was his regular job. He had 13 kids, and he's known Richard for many, many years. And he went to Richard LeFrac, and he said, Mr. LeFrac, can I please have a loan for $8,000? And Richard's like, sure, what's it for? And he's like, well, I'm putting a down payment on the house. So Richard's like, wow, where are you buying? Well, I'm buying an $800,000 home in Brooklyn. So Richard was like, oh, okay. But looking back at it, he's like, if that wasn't the biggest red flag being waved in front of a bull.

I would have known right then and there that the real estate market was going to blow up, because that caddy made about $25,000 a year. So common sense would tell you, how can a man that makes 25 grand a year afford a house that is $800,000? But not only that, put down $8,000 on the home?

So.

And this is somebody. Yeah, and he was a real estate. His whole industry is real estate. And he failed to say it.

Well, I mean, I didn't have any trouble predicting the mortgage and foreclosure crisis. You know, I have a real estate investment company and teach people how to invest. And I was saying that, you know, about two years before it happened. But the part I didn't know is what was going on on Wall Street. I mean, you know, I had no idea about all the acronyms we all learned. Well, maybe you knew them because you're closer to it than I am, obviously. But all the acronyms we learned after the crisis and all of the financial innovation in snarky, single quotes here, that was going on.

Until after the fact. I mean, I just had no way of knowing about that. But it was so obvious that the mortgages were just getting stupid. It was fogamir, get a loan. It was just dumb. I mean, it was Just. I don't know how anybody could miss that, frankly. But I guess a lot of people.

Did, but they truly believe it wouldn't end. I remember we were doing. I can't even remember who I was talking to, but.

We would get data every month, some housing data. And I said, and oh, gosh.

I was there for what, seven years? I think it was like 2006.

I asked somebody, I said, you know.

If I have a loan and in two years, you know, it's fixed now, but in two years it's going to be up at whatever percentage. What happens if I have an $800,000 loan and it goes from 3% to 18%? How am I going to make that? How am I going to make my payment? The person's answer, and it was the CEO. That will never happen.

Yeah, that's. That's just. That's just mind boggling. I mean, you know, but. But that, that's the nature of every bubble throughout history. It's the nature of the tulip bubble. It's the nature of, you know, every bubble. Nobody. I mean, well, some do, but, you know, the vast majority of people cannot see it while they're in it because the whole context within which they live their lives is shaded by that belief system in that, you know, in, in real estate, it's, you know, we call it the greater f matter what I pay for this property, some greater fool will come along and pay more. And it's just, you know, every time it ends this way, every time. We all should learn from history, you know, we all should learn from history about big government. It doesn't work, you know, but human beings are stubborn learners, aren't we?

Well, and it's also too. It's funny. I wrote, you know, my second book is the shipping book, and the shipping history has been very cyclical and has problems, as you know. And I interviewed Dex in Lund, who's a banker, and he said the reason why people make the same dumb mistakes is because they're different people and they think they're not as dumb as the other people that made those decisions before them. But you know what? They're just as stupid. So it's different people making the same stupid mistakes. People don't learn from the mistakes of others.

That is most certainly true.

That's crazy.

Yeah, it is. It's crazy, but it's the way things are, you know, that's just. That's just part of life and human nature. It's fun to watch. Let's just not make the same mistakes ourselves. Right?

Exactly. It's almost like with business, it's almost like psychology.

Oh, of course it is.

You really just have to, if you just, if you kind of just observe and watch others, you can learn a lot.

Oh, you sure can. And I always say, Loriann, if you think for a moment that people are actually logical creatures, you know, get a clue, because they are not exactly. We make decisions with our emotions and rationalize them with our logical abilities. Exactly. Well, it's been very interesting talking to you. What a great topic. And we covered some really interesting stuff. And your books are, of course, on Amazon with fantastic reviews. So I thank you so much for joining us and Everybody, that's Lorianne LaRocco. Thank you.

Thanks for having me.

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