#011: Gabe Muller (33 yrs) on Becoming a Corporate Executive of a Billion Dollar Company

Welcome to the Hackiversity Podcast, where students learn how to achieve more by doing less in college. Learn the hacks from wildly successful recent college graduates as your host, Kyle Whiney, explores the colleges, majors, and paths that produce the biggest results in college using less effort. It's hacking time.

Hello.

Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Hackiversity podcast, where I, Kyle Whiney, show students how to achieve more by doing less in college. Today, I'm really excited to have on Gabe Muller. In less than seven years following graduation, Gabe became the chief operating officer at Glassman Wealth Services, a financial services company that manages over $1 billion. Let me say that a different way. Gabe landed himself a role inside the executive suite. Inside a company that runs $1 billion in only seven years after graduation. That's nuts. And in this episode, Gabe explains how he did it. Also in this episode, Gabe and I discuss, first, how to leverage people skills to break into the corporate executive suite. Second, how to develop self awareness without spending $1. And third, how, quote, interrupting the pattern can lead to a job without further ado. Let's dig in.

Gabe, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

Hey, man, thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to actually get to spend some time with you and I'm sure, I hope, have a phenomenal conversation. Thank you.

Yeah, likewise. This is going to be fun. So, Gabe, you are the. The youngest executive of a premier company that I know, so I'm obviously super excited to have you on. So other than being a really young executive, how would you describe yourself?

Well, number one, it's funny that you say executive, because while that is in my title, it's interesting, I've never even really considered that. But nonetheless, as far as myself, I would describe myself as one who is a tremendous, tremendously curious individual who really likes to try to find just a variety of ways of maybe doing things differently. I have a massive amount of passion behind quite a few things, including aviation, helping people, telling stories, and learning more about people just in general.

Cool. A guy who loves people.

That's right, man. That is right.

So, Gabe, before we go any further, can you just set the stage and tell the listeners, how old are you?

So I am 33 years old, but some would say I'm about eight and a half. I guess about eight and a quarter. I was born on leap year, so yeah, I'm 33 officially.

It's nice. So you have a birthday officially every four years.

You got it, brother.

So, Gabe, I want to start off with your career first and you are currently the chief operating officer at Glassman Wealth Services, which is a boutique wealth management firm. And I know it just recently won the number one best places to work, so congrats on that.

Thank you. Thank you.

So, Gabe, how many years after graduation was it until you landed this position?

I'm going on 10 years out of college at this point, and I've. I landed the position three years ago, so it took me seven years.

That's amazing. And so just to provide some more context in regard to what Glassman, well, Services does, how much money do you guys manage there?

Well, we just passed the $1 billion mark. I think we're probably right around a billion point one or so. And we have about 250 or 260 clients at this point.

Cool. So in other words, in seven years, you became the executive of a company that manages over $1 billion.

Yeah, I guess that would be about right.

So, Gabe, what does it mean to be a chief operating officer?

Well, it's funny, I actually get this question quite a bit. And, you know, originally it was hard to answer. It's like, oh, you know, I really helped the, the operations of the firm and the technologies and systems and things like that. And while that's true, I feel like this particular role of Chief operating officer within Glaston Wealth Walls has more to do with developing people, understanding people and making sure that they're thriving in their roles. And with that comes deep one on ones, things like that. So I spend a lot of time with people understanding both the challenges and successes that they're, that they're going through, and then really matching solutions with perhaps the problems that they might have.

So that's so interesting because a lot of soft skills then it sounds like, are involved with what you do, that is people skills in particular. Yet you're working in a very technical industry, that is finance. So how do you as an executive, combine both the soft side of your skills within a very technical technical environment?

I think that, I guess, to answer your question, it really starts with culture. You really have to define what your culture is, articulate that, and then have people join your team who believe the same thing so that they understand that there is a balance between qualitative and quantitative, if you will.

That's so interesting because, Gabe, I think many students out there believe that they need to be the smartest in the room from a technical level to rise to the executive suite, that the boardroom is just filled with these uber smart technicians. But is that true?

No.

So what you're Saying then, Gabe, is at the executive level, there's really diminishing returns on technical abilities, that while you need a certain degree of technical competency, the people in the boardroom aren't necessarily the best technicians. They don't necessarily have the deepest know how of the industry. There's other elements going on that got them into the executive suite to begin with. Is that right?

That is absolutely correct. So I think what matters is really having this self awareness to kind of step back, understand that there's more out there than probably what you see at this point.

So for students looking to break into that executive role and developing that, that self awareness, Gabe, that you were talking about, what is the first step that they should do?

Understand their strengths and weaknesses. And you really do that by auditing who you are. And it really takes some time. You got to find the right people to ask those questions, you know, whether it's your friends, your family, your past teachers, whoever, you know, whoever it is, you really got to have an honest conversation with them to understand, hey, what am I good at? What do you think I'm good at? How do I come across? What is it that you like? How is it that. What do you, you know, just what are your strengths and what are your weaknesses? And so then you then understand each and you accentuate your strengths and you kind of forget about your weaknesses and you are who you are from that point forward. You know, you can really do a lot of different things, but I really think it starts with understanding who you are as an individual.

Yeah, I love that. In my book, I have a section titled strengths, and the tagline is go all in on your strengths and go all out on your weaknesses. So I love that point.

I completely agree with you, brother. That's. That's kind of my motto, honestly. And it's funny because I've been involved in a few different executive leadership courses over the past few years. And one that we had in 2015, the foundation of the entire program, which was, by the way, a year long, was based around the strengths finder. And I'm sure you're familiar with that. And so, you know, that was a great tool, a great assessment that we used to kind of start that program. And then all the conversations that we had with my cohorts throughout the year, you could always relate it back into your strengths somehow. And so it was just really cool to kind of have that data and, and kind of work from there, you know?

Yeah. So, Gabe, I love the technical, practical step of wanting to approach people and get feedback from them about what the strengths and weaknesses are. The one thing that I found when I've done that with people and asked them to provide feedback with me is that they often don't feel safe. They often feel like I might say something in response to them being truthful with me. So how can students create an environment in which when they approach people to ask for that kind of feedback, the other person feels comfortable responding?

Yeah, that's a big one. I mean, I think that first of all, again, you kind of got to know who, who the right people are to talk to. And it's not just your friend because you know that they're going to tell you good stuff. I think that you need to preface the conversation with, hey, you know, I'm really doing a lot of. A lot of self reflection here. And really what I'm trying to do is learn more about myself so that I can communicate better with others. I can understand myself maybe a little bit better, and it'll help me give. It'll help give me a sense of maybe the direction I need to go. And I really need some good, honest feedback from you so that I can try to, you know, help me help you help others. And would you be willing to kind of share that with me? It would be an off. It would mean an awful lot to me and just really be open with it. Right. And then just say, this is why I'm asking. And I don't, I don't need you to just say, hey, you're great at this, this and this. I really need some good, honest feedback and give them the reason why. And if you open yourself up and you have the vulnerability to say to somebody that exact sort of thing, I mean, if you're asking someone that and they don't want to do that, then you're asking the wrong person. So I feel like you just got to be honest about it and you just got to open yourself up.

Yeah, it is. And if you can actually get that advice from people, that is pure gold. Because like you said, self awareness is, is the game. It's so key. One other thing, Gabe, that I found that is super helpful. That's kind of a tactical approach is. And I've actually done this. It was recommended to me by one of my mentors. And that is instead of just asking the person to provide you with direct feedback, you can do what's called the house exercise. And the idea is that you speak in kind of metaphors. So you say, look, imagine my life as a house. What do you see about my House that kind of represents me. And so it's kind of an indirect way of getting at the same thing. So like for instance, some of the feedback I got was that there were carpets inside my house. And what this was supposed to represent was my house was meant to be used, people were on the floor kind of engaging with one another, families, kids, friends, that kind of thing. That it was a house that was meant to be lived in. And so I think that was meant to kind of illustrate my engagement with people and kind of my love of family life and that sort of thing. So that's also, I think, a great way to create comfortable space with the other person. Invite them in to talk about things that can help you develop that self awareness.

That's phenomenal. I really like that. I've not heard of the. You call it the house exercise.

Yeah, house exercise.

Okay, I'll have to remember that. I have not heard of that, but I really do like that as far as the whole aspect of kind of inviting them in, I like that a lot.

So, Gabe, I want to circle back to this idea of people skills, of soft skills, and how they can be so much more important than uber technical abilities. But I think one of the problems that students often face is they realize that people skills are very, very important. Yet the people who tend to get recognized in the workplace, particularly early out of graduation, are super competent technicians, people who do a very great job on the work in the trenches, even though they might not have the best people skills. So. So how can college students prepare themselves with enough technical abilities to become sufficient and adequate to get the job done, but then kind of catch the eye of the employer, as it were, with their great people skills.

Yeah, that's a good one. I think that. Honestly, I think it starts with. As a student, you really do have to take. If you've decided to invest your time and money into attending a university or college somewhere. Well, number one, you should take that seriously and you should figure out ways to get the most value out of that from the technical, from the knowledge base side in all aspects. I think at the same time you have to realize, and this is what I would have done probably different if I were doing this all over, is to really try to tap the networks within college more than what I did. That will then give you the ability to kind of create relationships, whether they're just your friends or your acquaintances or your peers, whatever, your classmates, to learn more about them. You start having dialogue, you start conversations, you start learning about each other, and then that's how you develop your interpersonal skills. And so if you take college seriously. Yes, that's priority number one. Priority number 1.5 should be really tapping your networks and being involved so that you can develop those skills. Because it really does take time. I mean, you just can't go out there and be like, oh, hey, I can have a really productive conversation with someone, you know, off the cuff and know what it means and know what I need to do afterwards. I think if you start that process early on, you know, within your freshman sophomore years, you can have a phenomenal network and then those, those things that you learned are going to benefit you down the road tremendously.

Yeah, I love that. Get out of the library and start connecting with your classmates, start connecting with real people and start developing real relationships and as early as possible, 100%.

And you know what the other thing about that is that we live in a world now where, I mean, I'm on my iPhone having this dialogue with you for this podcast. You have technology at your fingertips. There's no reason for a college student to hide behind that or not exploit that, I should say. And that's through writing, through sharing, through connecting and using those platforms, not only just the in person, you know, the in person activity, but also using platforms to kind of create connections as well. I think that's, that's something that there's a lot of value in.

I do want to touch on, Gabe, the hiring process. So we just talked about everything that kind of led up to and caused your success, but now that you're kind of at the top, so to speak, within your company, I know that you're in a position that you hire people now, so you're kind of on the other side of the table. And so what are the skills and the sort of resume line items you want to see from the people you hire, including college students?

The types of people that you'll find at Glassman wealth are people who are very curious. I kind of led with that, if you recall, kind of curious. Who have a passion for something and who really want to be involved in an organization where they can thrive in their role. And so that's a kind of a broad aspect, if you will. And then when you kind of drill down, it's like, okay, so what type of role are we hiring for? And what type of person might we need in that role? And so you kind of start to look at it from a standpoint of that technical side, if you will. You know, a recent graduate coming out of school who may have been in The Financial Planning association somewhere or in the financial planning program. And we're looking for an associate advisor. Perfect. So we start to narrow our search that way for that particular role. From that point, once we are introduced to them or they reach out and we create the connection, that's really when we start to dive in and learn more about that person. And we've used different assessments along the way. One's called TTI or the DISC assessment. And we have each of these candidates kind of take this assessment so that we can learn more about them, what makes them tick, how do they handle certain situations, what is it that they do under pressure or not, Their natural and adapted styles. And then that basically creates the opportunity for us to have additional dialogue to different situations so we can have them walk us through real life situations based on what we learned. And so that really helps us understand that person. The conversations are incredible. So you can really go deep versus kind of going, you know, just broad. Hey, I know my stuff. Let's, let's talk about specifics. And so for us, it's really, again, curious. People who love to share and who love to kind of get to know more and just say, hey, what if? Why not? In that type of mindset.

Yeah, I love that, Gabe, because I think the feedback you just provided runs so contrary to what a lot of people think. They think that they have to demonstrate their technical abilities and really emphasize them. And what you're saying is, yes, those abilities are important, but what is also really important, perhaps, maybe even more important, are certain characteristics about you. You know, passion, curiosity. And those characteristics are just as fundamental to your hiring decision as the person's technical abilities. Is that right?

100%. And you know, it's funny when you look at it from a standpoint of a recent graduate coming out of school and giving me their. And saying, hey, here's my resume. I have a degree in, let's say, accounting. Well, what would be the differentiator between that person and another person who has a degree in accounting? And I've seen just a piece of paper for either one of them. So you have to figure out a way to one stand out, to even get that in front of somebody. But then once you do, that's when those interpersonal skills, those qualitative, those soft skills, whatever you want to call them, that's when you can seriously stand out and create a connection with whoever it is that you're interviewing with. And then that's when the magic happens. I think I really do. And so you've got to Find a way to stand out. Get your resume in front of somebody if you're coming right out of school that actually sees it. And then once you do, capitalize on what it is that you have the opportunity to do.

Drilling down on that. How can students stand out on a resume? Or maybe to ask it a better way, what is the best way you've seen personally for, from a student who's done something to stand out on a resume?

When you. Again, you take a look at where we are in this world and the fact that we have technology at our fingertips. To me, the resume is very important. Don't get me wrong, I really think it's important. But what I also think is important and maybe probably even more important is figuring out how to kind of interrupt the pattern and whether that's saying, hey, here's my resume. But by the way, I wanted to send you a quick note or a quick, you know, one minute video of just an intro into myself so that you can learn more about me, get to know me as a person. And by the way, here are my qualifications. Just that would get my attention. And I've seen that done in the past. I've seen where people have sent their resume and then followed it up with a short little link to a, you know, web based or a hosted video that they recorded somewhere. That to me shows, number one, they can really interrupt the pattern. And number two, they're serious about trying to do that. And so if I see that, I'm like, okay, that's a pretty good indication that they might want to do that for us, stand out, interrupt the pattern, things like that. So I think that on the resume it's being buried to the point it is what it is, this is what I, this is who I am. But then start to figure out a way to use technology to kind of supplement that, if you will.

Yeah, I think that's really great. And I like that phrase, disrupt the pattern. And like you said, it doesn't have to be anything that requires an extraordinary amount of effort. You know, just sending a quick link in an email that is attached to a one minute video, I mean, takes, you know, the one minute that it takes to record, record the video and then the three seconds it takes to copy and paste the link into an email. But yet it's so effective doing that. I think that's really great advice. Something I've done is I've kind of taken that same advice that you just said, Gabe, and rather than link to a video, I actually sent a written recommendation letter that I received from one of the judges I used to work for and sent that to the people who interviewed me in a thank you email. I said, hey, thanks for interviewing me. Oh, by the way, I know you didn't ask for any letters of recommendation, but let me give you one anyway. Here it is.

That's great. That's awesome. I love that. I love that. I mean, you're basically giving. You're trying to answer the questions that I know that I'm going to have about you before I even ask them. That's what you should be doing. That's what the student or the person coming out of school, or even if they are already in the industry and they're just looking to move. You really want to create that sense of, hey, this is who I am and I'm not running away from it. I'm actually embracing it. And it's so easy to do when you think about the fact that we've got Facebook, you've got YouTube, you've got Vimeo, you've got Instagram, for God's sakes. Like, you've got everything out there. Send them that stuff and say, hey, here's what I was up to this weekend. It was pretty cool. I know that you're a golfer and you might find this cool little video interesting that I was on the golf course. Just a little tidbit. Hope you have a great weekend. So just stuff like that. And it's. And it's just really thinking about it from a different aspect. One other thing that I'd mention there is that you and I, I mean, how long does it take you to switch away from a video on YouTube if it doesn't load?

Not long at all.

Right. So our attention span is so short. So if you send me a resume and it's three pages and I know that you're just coming out of school, well, number one, there's a problem because it's way too long. And number two, I'm not like, even if I thought you probably were the best person in the world to hire, I'm not going to read it. It's way too long and my attention span is already onto something else. So you've got to remember those little things. And I don't know that a lot of people do. It's like, hey, hey, here's everything about me. Read it, read it, read it without respecting the other person's time. So how can I get you the most amount of information in the most efficient way so that you can make a very good judgment? Call on whether or not you want to have another conversation with me. That's how you should approach it.

Yeah, I think that's gold. So you're saying less than a page. No, more than a page. Resume, right?

Correct. Correct.

Gabe, one last question about your hiring process. What is the one interview question that students need to be able to answer?

Well, what is their favorite app?

I like that it tells you something about them, huh?

Yeah. So we actually use this question all the time and it's, hey, give me your favorite app. And we let them answer. And sometimes it takes a little while for them to maybe come up with it, but they do. And then we ask them the follow up of, well, number one, why is it your favorite app? And number two, who have you told about it? Who have you shared that app with? There's a lot of stuff within this question that you can learn about a person. And so that, to me is my favorite question to ask regardless of the position. I just love it. I love it.

Cool. I like that. And again, it's about demonstrating not the technical skills of the person, but the personal skills and kind of provide a deeper window into their life.

Yeah. And the key takeaway there is this is the reason that we love the question is that again, you start to see if you ask me, hey, Gabe, what's my favorite app? I'm going to tell you immediately. It's Flight schedule Pro, because I can schedule my airplanes to go fly this weekend in a few clicks. I love it. You should see it if you are a pilot. It's so cool. My enthusiasm, my passion, my just interest is so off the charts. You're like, my gosh, they have a lot of passion. So the follow up to that is if they share it, they love to provide. Or maybe they do, maybe they don't love it, but they do provide value then to other people by sharing it and then how do they tell the story around it so then you can get their storytelling abilities to see how they shared it out. And so when you look at that, it's so simple. But all of those different qualities or abilities play into exactly what we do. And so it's just a really easy way to kind of learn more about something.

I love all of it. Great, great advice, Gabe. Let's switch gears here. I don't want to switch all the way to your college experience just yet. I want to switch to a sort of middle ground and that is these other activities, your kind of hobbies, your other interests that you have been referencing along the way here and in particular, I want to start with the fact that you are a pilot. So in my book, I emphasize this idea of. Of embracing what I call interestingness. And that is just doing something that catches people's attention, disrupting the pattern, if you will. And so, at least by my standards, the fact that you are a pilot makes you super interesting.

Well, thank you.

So do you think that being a pilot has made you more interesting? And if so, to what extent has that attributed to your success?

I will tell you this. When I was in college, all through college, I would have had no idea that I would have come out of school, found a job, and then decided to start flying airplanes as a hobby. I couldn't even have dreamed that. And so has it led to being more interesting? Depends on who you ask, but I say yes. Yeah, thank you. I think the. It gives me a different way of approaching things, though, honestly. And here's why I say that, is that, you know, you learn so much about how to fly an airplane and about, you know, the checklist items that you need to be doing and making sure you're going through before you take off or land or really about anything. But then you have to prepare for the things that. That might go wrong, and you have to have a backup plan to the backup plan to the backup plan. And so you kind of got to situate yourself in a way that, hey, if that happens, I know what I'm gonna do, and if that happens, I know what I'm gonna do. And there's so many lessons within that that I can apply back into both life and business. And that's one of the things that has sort of happened, sort of happenstance. It wasn't planned. It was just like, hey, I want to fly an airplane. I don't know why, but then what is it within aviation that I can learn and then apply back.

Cool. Gabe. The other thing that I want to chat about, another hobby, another interest that you have, is, like you mentioned before, blogging. And so you and I share a very similar love for Gary Vaynerchuk, who says basically that you need to be producing content not only around a brand, as if you're a company or something, but kind of around yourself, as around, you know, your own resume, promoting yourself, promoting the things that you can do. So to what extent do you believe that college students should be producing content about themselves, whether it's video, Instagram, tweets, posts, whatever, in order to promote their abilities and enhance their job prospects?

It's a great question. And just before I forget, you are totally right. Gary Vaynerchuk is probably one of the most influential sort of entrepreneurs that have changed my sort of course, if you will. As far as thinking about all of this over the past two and a half, three years, he's just, he is the man. And I love the way that he is able to kind of influence everyone else to kind of think, think differently as well. As far as students and sort of building their brand or using blogging or whatever you want to call it. I do think that again, if you want to stand out and you really want to be an A player and you want to create a brand around yourself and then attach it to something or even make that what you're going to do, you start early, you dive in and you don't necessarily need to have a set strategic plan of, hey, this is what I'm going to do. This is the platform I'm going to engage and this is how I'm going to go about it. Just start, just start and pick up your phone, pull out Instagram stories and shoot a quick little story, a one minute story of what you're about to do today. And then maybe before you go to bed at night to your followers, say, hey, this is what I accomplished today. Pretty sweet stuff. What was everybody else up to? Number one, it's like getting yourself out there showing your personality, showing that you're driven, but just why not? If that's what you want to do and you want to stand out and utilize platforms and technology to do that, just do it. The other thing is that if you start early, 10 years down the road, you have so much content that you can then pull from and you know that you can continue to write, you can reference those things down the road and you never know who might find that valuable and then share it with someone that you might need to know.

I hope someone is sharing this podcast episode 10 years from right now.

Me too, man, me too. I'm gonna Instagram it later.

I love it. Yeah, cool. But I completely agree. And you know, we are moving, and I referenced this in my book, we are moving away from just resume line items into individual brands. So, you know, who are you, not only in terms of your abilities, but like you were saying before, your personality, your interests, your passion, who are you from the whole package and that is in a lot of ways your brand. And you can definitely enhance that and promote that, like you're saying, by creating content on different platforms. And it doesn't have to be super labor intensive. Like you said, if you're Just living life. Why not document it? You don't have to create content, but rather just document.

You're exactly right, man. I mean, you nailed it and you took the words right out of my mouth. And we've heard that from a guy we both just mentioned. I mean, that's what it is. It's document, don't create. And if you're doing cool things, then share it. And who knows what it can lead to. But the thing that I want to make sure that people actually do understand, and I hear this so many times of, oh well, I'm in the professional industry and I don't really want to have a Facebook or I don't want to have a Twitter or I don't need to be on Instagram because I don't want my clients to know that stuff. Well, I basically have a few things to say to that. Which is, which are number one. If that's the case, maybe you're doing the wrong things. Maybe you are doing the wrong things if that's what you don't want to share this stuff. Or maybe it's just your personality. I get that. I mean, that's cool too. But your brand should be the same both in business and in life. I mean, it should be. There should be no difference as far as a value based person and how you come across or how you build your brand. It should be the same. I don't see any difference between a brand in business and a brand outside of business. I just don't. What are your thoughts on that?

I talk about this in my book, this guy named Stuart Friedman, he's a professor at University of Pennsylvania. It's kind of the thought leader on this and that is this idea of integration, which is exactly what you just said, that there's some kind of consistency or integrity across all the different spheres of your life. So your business sphere, if you will, looks a lot like your home sphere. You know, you kind of live by the same principles, you kind of act the same way. You just are living in a different environment depending on if you're in the business sphere, the home sphere. So not only do I think it's just from a personality perspective because you get to be the same person all throughout the day, but you are continuing to build on that brand no matter what time of day it is, no matter what sphere you're in. So in other words, if you're at home, you know, communicating with friends or hanging out with friends or whatever, they're going to see those kind of principles you live by. They're going to kind of see those interests that you're involved with, and if those things are connected to how you operate in business, how you operate in the job market, that's going to translate directly over to the job market, which is going to directly translate into your success.

That's awesome. Yeah. And you couldn't have said it any better.

So, Gabe, let's transition to your college experience. So you graduated from Ball State University in 2007 with a degree in accounting. So why did you choose Ball State?

Well, let's see. So I'm from a little town called Fowler, Indiana, which is about 30 miles north of Purdue University. And I knew that I did not want to go to Purdue because it was way too close to home. And I just was like, you know, what am I going to do? I don't. I don't know. And turned out I had a lot of friends getting ready to go over to Ball State. And as a matter of fact, I ended up going down to University of Southern Indiana, which is in Evansville, quite a ways away from where I lived for just a year or two, and decided that's not the place. So I went up to Ball State, and because I had friends from high school that went there, and so I just made my way over there, and I knew that it was a good business school, and I knew that, hey, if I just surround myself with people that I already know that I kind of. I know that it's going to be fun. I just kind of went with it. And I never really put a lot to thought into it as far as why. I just got there and decided, hey, I'm going to declare my major in accounting. And I kind of went for it. And that was it. There's really no grandiose story to it. It was just, hey, something to do. And rather than stay down in Evansville, I just wanted to go back up to Ball State, which is two and a half hours from home. And that's what I did. And I didn't just definitely didn't want to go to Purdue.

Yeah. Cool. You didn't want to be a boilermaker?

No. No, sir, I did not.

Cool. Cool. Yeah. So speaking about your degree, you have a degree in accounting, which is a very technical major. So what has your accounting degree done for you in terms of leading to your success?

Well, I think from the beginning, right out of the gates, coming off college down in Fort Myers, working on a firm, kind of having that, you know, just general sense of business of coming out of school, working in, you know, the debits and credits, things like that. Not that I was doing debits and credits, but I just knew and kind of understood the accounting side. And when you get into the financial industry that I'm in, it just kind of. It kind of played off of each other. And so I've never really practiced in accounting, which is kind of funny. And I will tell you, coming out of school, before I even graduated, I knew that I did not want to be an accountant. I mean, that was like the most ridiculous thing I could ever think of. And that sounds really strange. And I'm sure the listeners are like, what does that mean? But I used accounting as sort of a stepping stone, knowing full well that I didn't want to be an accountant or an auditor or anything like that and just get my foot in the door and business somehow, I don't know where, but I just used it as a stepping stone. And so that's kind of my story. It sounds kind of weird, but it's actually, that's exactly how it was.

Gabe, you must be a really wise man, because I think that is the play today. And that is even if you don't want to necessarily do or practice or pursue the name of your major. So for instance, for you, accounting, even if you don't want to do that, there are certain majors that lend themselves much better than others to breaking into a particular industry. And those majors, those kind of high leverage majors, tend to be more technical in nature. So again, accounting, technical major, great way to kind of break into a finance position, even if you aren't necessarily doing the debits and the credits and the more technical work of what you do. So I always emphasize to students when they are selecting a major to really focus on the technical majors, even if they don't necessarily want to pursue that major for their career.

Yeah, I mean, you've absolutely nailed it. I mean, and the way that you just articulated it, I've never really seen thought of it that way, but you're 100% right. I mean, you couldn't have said any better.

Gabe, in college, what do you think is the one fundamental skill students need to learn while they're there networking?

It's just one of those things that will live with you forever if you can start to build those skills early on. And notice I didn't say go to class every day or do your homework and don't ever be late.

Or lock yourself in the library.

Right, or lock yourself in the library. It's funny, I was talking to my brother about coming Onto this podcast just this evening actually. And I said to him, I said, you know, it's really interesting. My advice to college kids now is completely different than what I sort of did in college. And I just feel like if I would do it any different, and I did it again. I would like I said, tap my networks, learn about people, create as many connections as possible, and then go from there. And what I did in college was sort of not buried myself in the library or locked myself in the library, but I did go every day to finish the work that I had to do from that class and then would go to my part time job. And so I had a very rigid routine that I had to follow and it helped me sort of keep on track. I'm one of those guys that I've learned through this Colby index called A Quick Start. So I do something for a little while and then I kind of get bored with it and I do something different. And I didn't do that in college. I actually made a very, very intentional effort of actually going to class, go into the library, finishing school, and then go into work. And that's what I did for four years. And so coming out of college and knowing what I know now, I probably would have. Probably would have worked more, tapped my networks more, and maybe not, you know, I don't want to say not concentrated on school so much, but I wouldn't have been so just like, oh, I have to be in a library right now.

A lot of people hear that advice and I think they immediately associate that advice with preaching laziness. And it's not that at all. It's just, it's approaching college with a different strategic mindset because the old way no longer yields the results that everyone claims it does.

Yeah, exactly. I mean, you have to figure out how it is that you get the most value out of school for you, and it's different for everyone. Going back to the beginning of this conversation, self awareness, right? So if I said to myself back then, I'm like, oh, I need to really go about school this way, because I know that I'm going to, you know, get bored with something to do that like, I kind of knew that going into it. So that's why I made the concerted effort to do it that way. So self awareness plays into that tremendously.

Cool, cool. Yeah, couldn't agree more. So, Gabe, let's transition to the final section of this show, which is also my personal favorite. And that is the rapid fire question section, which is where I offer up some quick hitting Questions, but that by no means. Means that your answer has to be quick hitting. So you ready?

Okay. All right, let's do it.

Gabe, would you say there's a specific college track to get you where you are today?

No. No, I don't.

There's not a. You know, you cross three boxes off at the kind of, you know, on campus, and all of a sudden you're a corporate executive.

So here's the funny thing, man. I had this conversation with someone last week, and I said if I would go back to school, I would probably go back and study psychology. Ironically enough, isn't that crazy, considering that this whole conversation has been around people sort of, and learning more about how to communicate better? I mean. I mean, so, like, when I look back, and I'm like. And as a matter of fact, back in school at Ball State, Dr. Paladino was my psychology teacher, professor, and I actually got 100% in that course. And now I look back at that, I'm going, I mean, why didn't I read more into that? You know? But kind of to your point, I wanted to use accounting as a leverage point of just getting into business. So, you know, it comes full circle.

Gabe, second question. What made your college experience unique compared to everyone else?

During college, I actually lost my father to a. To an unexpected heart attack. And, you know, while this has nothing to do with, you know, learning and actually school itself, I will tell you that that experience and that tragedy might more or less has really. That sort of shifted my mindset of how I approached the remaining portion of my college career. And that was, you know, just take everything in, really. Life's too short to overthink something. Just go with it, do things, experience things, try it out and adapt. And that was sort of a game changer for me. And I will tell you that I took a semester off because of it, and I think that that was a really good thing. But if I look back, I mean, I never have considered this question. So you just really sort of got me on that one. But I think that's what it was. I really do. And I think that it taught me how the things come up, you know, whether losing a family member, a parent or whatever. And you've got to learn how to continue to move forward and move on and adapt and figure out how to just take everything in as you go and never hold back.

Gabe, did you complete all of your homework? And if not, how did you determine what homework to complete?

So I will tell you that I actually did complete all of my homework man, which is so stupid, but I did.

So you would not advise that for upcoming or current college students.

Look, I think you weigh your risk and you weigh, you know, what's the ROI in not doing your homework. So I feel like for me, I did this is, again, kind of going back to my thing. I'm one of those guys where if I know that I got to do something and my professors are telling me I have to, and I'm just going to do it. And knowing what I know now, I probably would have pulled back a little bit and tried to experience more outside of the coursework that itself, if, you know, I think applying work that you learn would be so much cooler than just doing schoolwork and just doing homework. Figuring out how to apply it, whether that's an internship or something like that, I don't know. But I think that's where the real value comes in.

Yeah, couldn't agree more. Cool. Gabe, suppose next month is your first day of freshman year and you must retake all of your courses. You have to retake the major selection process. You have to do everything over again. So where are you going to concentrate most of your energy?

Marketing. I would probably focus solely on marketing and how to build a brand and how to storytell. I think that there's so much to obviously how you take that and build out different brands of companies or products or services. But again, it goes back to yourself too. So you can learn those skills. Skills early on. And then let's say that you kind of navigate. You say, hey, I really do want to go into business or something. Well, you've now learned how to market yourself. You've learned how to storytell your story in a way that's going to capture attention and then you apply that elsewhere. So I'd probably focus on market marketing and selling more than what I did or at all that I did. What do you think about that? Would you do something different?

Oh, yeah. I mean, basically how I got started on this entire path is that my story of college is I worked really hard, I studied really hard to get really good grades, and that's exactly what I did. So I graduated at the top of my class, and I'm like, oh, I accomplished exactly what I set out for. Now I'm going to take my dazzling GPA and wow all these employers, and they're just going to give me a job because I'm smart. Right. I just proved it. The fact was, I got zero job offers out of college. I don't even think employers knew I existed. But Yet I watched one of my fraternity buddies, who is one of the biggest slack I knew in college, land a job on Wall street, which is exactly where I wanted to work. And so I didn't understand why he was landing the job that I wanted when I was working really hard, getting really good grades, doing everything, quote, unquote, right. And he was staying up late, watching movies, sleeping in because he'd been up all night before, doing everything, quote, unquote, wrong, but yet still getting the results that I wanted. And I just found out that I was really good at doing the wrong things, and he was really great at doing the right things that he needed to do. And as long as he executed on those things, the results were extraordinary. So I just didn't get that concept. He did. And so I would allocate a lot of my time away from studying, library time, that sort of thing, into precisely what we have been talking about. Networking, brand development, connecting with people, that sort of thing. Gabe, what is the one thing you want a college sophomore listening to this.

Podcast to know that there's not one way to do something, there's always another way to do something. And having the mindset of being open to possibilities and being kind of vulnerable to that, but very much removing ego and being open to possibilities.

Gabe, last question. If you could recommend something to a college student in the form of a tweet, what would it be?

Again, I think it's show them, don't tell them. I think you got to show people what you're about and you just don't tell them. So, you know, hashtag, show them, don't tell them. The other thing that I would tweet, and I know you asked for one, but I'm going to give you two.

Sure.

Is you get to versus have to. So you get to go to college, you don't have to. You get to have a job that's phenomenal, but you don't have to. You get to get in your car every day, but you don't really have to. So you get to do everything. There's nothing that you have to do other than eat and drink and sleep.

You always have a choice.

You got it. So kind of the whole when things are a little challenging and you kind of see that, oh, my gosh, I've got this test or I've got this final coming up. No. And I have to take it and I have to do well. No, you get to. You really, you've got the. We live in America, you get to do this stuff. So those are the two things I'd probably tweet.

I really like that I've never considered that perspective. I really like that you get to. You don't have to. That's cool. Awesome. Well, Gabe, this has been really fun. I just, I always enjoy connecting with people, learning about them, and kind of teasing out the practical things that can make college students experience so much better. So thank you so much for coming on. Where can people find you? Learn more about you, learn more about that brand you've created and all the awesome things that you're up to.

That's awesome. Well, thank you so much for having me on and I really enjoyed this conversation and I hope that your listeners have as well. Everyone can find me@glassmanwealth.com and or on my vlog, which is on YouTube and it's mullerblog.com and on there you'll find pretty much every flight that I have, I try to record and create some sort of cool little videos. So I'd say our website. Thank you. Our website, glassmouth.com or mahlerblog.com either one.

Awesome. I'll include all that stuff in the show notes so people can easily link to them. Gabe, we will leave it here. Thanks again for coming on.

Hey, Kyle, thank you so much, man.

Hey all.

Two things I want to emphasize before I let you go. First, Gabe admits that the executive suite is not filled with brainiacs. Obviously these people are competent and capable of. But they aren't necessarily technical wizards. Instead, they bring with them a different dimension and that dimension are soft skills or people skills. As Gabe and I discuss in this podcast, one of the best ways to develop these people skills is to develop self awareness. What are you good at? What are you passionate about? What are you curious about? Answering these questions provides the raw material to land you inside the executive suite in rapid fashion. The second point I want to emphasize is that Gabe is a really interesting guy. He vlogs, he flies planes, he's always doing something interesting. These things make him different. And being different is career currency. As a result, Gabe can interrupt the pattern, as he calls it, and stand out. It's no surprise that he found himself at the top of a billion dollar organization so quickly. What are you doing? To quote, interrupt the pattern. If you can answer that question, you too can end up like Gabe in the executive suite quickly after graduation. That's all for now. I'll catch you next time.

If you want more hackiversity and achieving more by doing less in college, you can subscribe to the podcast on itunes or grab the book on Amazon. For the show notes and the latest on Hackiversity, check out kylewine.

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Don't forget to follow Kyle on Twitter at Kyle Whiney and on Facebook at facebook. Com Hackiversity Till next time, Happy hacking.