Verizon CEO: The Secret Daily Habits For Ultimate Performance & Productivity

For me, it's all about how do I serve best. We are lazy by nature. You tend to do the easy things, but you have always done. This process forces me to do the things that really is where I can make a difference. Wow. Joining us right now is none other than Verizon's chairman and CEO, Mr. Hans Vestberg. Hans Vestberg.

Hans, great to have you. This guy's a legend in business.

If you're gonna lead others, I learned over the journey, you need to know yourself really good. Wow. Now, I come in every day and feel that, wow, time to do something, Hans Vestberg. You need to really really step up. I cannot be stagnant. The day I'm stagnant, I'm the wrong guy. Wow. I remember I stopped the car and started crying.

I could see you get emotional right now. Yeah. What was that like, that call?

One of the biggest thing you can do, you know, was my dream. So it was big. I knew that it's not going to be easy, but I really want to do it.

You have a lot of success, a lot of accomplishments that you've created in your life from sports to business. And what is the thing that you are most proud of, Hans, that most people don't know about?

First of all, I think. Welcome everyone to the School of Greatness.

Very excited about our guests. We have the inspiring CEO of Verizon, Hans Vestberg, in the house. So good to see you.

Thank you for being here. Thank you, Louis. It's just great to be here together with you. A lot of commonality to see between us.

I'm looking forward to it. Gary Vaynerchuk made the introduction, so big shout out to Gary Vaynerchuk. I want to share a couple of stats before I ask you the first question. this is what I saw online in these statistics. In 2023, Verizon generated revenues of $134 billion and also had over 105,000 employees that worked at Verizon and also top 10 best workplace on LinkedIn to work at. I'm curious, you've had such a unique background from growing up in Sweden, being an elite semi-professional handball player, to then growing and building from the ground up in a company for 25 plus years until you move to Verizon as the CEO six years ago roughly. And you were the leader at Verizon in bringing 5G to the marketplace and really bringing this new innovative idea. And I'm curious about this. The thing is I'm most curious about when big companies usually are risk averse, right? They want to minimize risk and not be too innovative. Some innovation, but not too much that we lose everything. Where did your vision come from? How did you develop the skill of having courageous vision to innovate, to see something that's in the future that no one else sees and bring it to the now? Was that from sports? Was that from your parents? Was that from skill sets you developed over the years at other companies? How did you see the future and bring it to a massive corporation that usually takes years to take on a new initiative and say, We're going to go for this. And it could be billions in losses or even more in success. How did you develop that skill of vision?

I think over the years I had such a luxury of my life. I've had so many different jobs in my life. I've changed so many times. Even though I was in one company, one was work. over 25 years. But I changed job and I lived in six different countries. I moved around and got new challenges all the time. So I got the process where I always, when I get the new task, I sort of write the white paper without talking to people what I want to do.

Really?

And I write and I started in 1993 in Chile when I got my first job. I wrote five manager job. I wrote five bullets and I gave it to my boss. what I'm going to do and he said, I don't care. You do accounting, I do sales. But afterwards, I understood he talked to all my managers and our managers, they sort of, oh, we are doing this. I understood I was managing my boss and I called it the boss contract. Since then, even though I probably have changed job 15-20 times, I always do a boss contract. There was no different when I came into Verizon. I wrote a white paper what I thought should be done in the company, moral insights, ideas I had. And then in order to penetrate it in the company, I did 256 meetings with 256 different people. And I had a set of questions that I knew were sort of coming into my white paper. And when I was done, I would know that, okay, 70% it's not going to be a problem to implement. They themselves will say, I told him to do it. 20% was sort of Wow, they didn't even bring it up. They don't even think about it. I need a strong internal communication. I need to be very clear why I wanted it. And then 10% was probably, I was wrong. I probably need to change it. So I've done that in all my life. All the jobs I've changed, sometimes my boss contract has been 25 pages, sometimes I've been one PowerPoint slide. But I always decided ahead what I want to do, and then I take all the stakeholders around me. to get their input and then I calibrate it when I implement. But I always want to have my own view before I start. And that's the process I have and that process I have applied when I moved to Brazil, when I moved to Chile, when I moved to China, wherever I moved Mexico, taking on new tasks when I became the CEO of Ericsson, which I think I was still 43 years old when I became the CEO of Ericsson. I did the same. I need to do it. So that's how I did it this time when I came in at VeriSign as well. And my job is constantly to be three to five years ahead of the people in my organization. And so I think about these type of things a lot.

How do you enroll people in the vision when maybe there's, ah, this is how we've always done things and we're comfortable with the revenue we're getting and how we sell and how the retailer--.

I do the white paper because I know if I would ask everybody internally, what should we do where we're going? I will get a sort of a just an organic view where we're going. So I want to start with my white paper. That's where I want to go. That this is what I want to do. Then I go back and calibrate. And the most important is to understand that how far away are my organizations thinking and my stakeholders think I have a board. I have a lot of other stuff as well. What do I need to do to get them convinced more than instead of saying, hey, I'm wrong. I'm going to do what they know.

So how do you do that, though? How do you convince them? Because there's so many 256 meetings.

I put the projects are people to some of the 20% where they were very distant. I put them on project. I made a project spec for them. This is what I want you to do to review. And then they start doing it and they come to the insights themselves. It's never good when the boss tells you, this is what you're going to do, go that way. You want to have the insight, you want to have the hunger and the motivation from a team, from an organization that they are driving you where you're going rather than you telling them what to do. And that's have sort of been my sort of ID all their life because if they feel successful, yeah, somehow I might be less unsuccessful as I usually say.

Wow, so you paint the picture of the vision. This is what I want to create.

Yeah.

And then you ask the stakeholders, how can we get there?

Yes.

Interesting.

So you're not telling them the answer. I just give them the task. How are we going to organize the company? How are we going to go to market with these products? So I think I have a view what I want to do. Right. But I let them work it through because that gets the power of organization. And I'm probably only good at one thing, that's leading large organization. I mean, it's probably more than 200,000 people or 250,000 people coming to work every day and they only work for one company, Verizon. Some of them are contractors, some are of course employees, but all of them have only one task, they work for Verizon.

Wow, 200,000 plus people?

Yeah, probably 250,000 full-time equivalents.

How did you learn to mentally navigate that pressure. A quarter of a million lives at stake every day who have families, who have hopes, some dreams, who have bills, problems, stresses, loss, grief. How do you navigate the emotional and mental weight of being a CEO of a quarter of a million lives and the millions of lives that those people impact daily?

I think first of all, I feel a huge responsibility for the platform that I've been given to manage for a while, that's surrounding Verizon and all the stakeholders in there. I have customers I need to take care of, I have shareholders that really want me to perform well, I have all my employees that are super important, and then I need to show up in the communities and be a good guy in society. So all that for me is how I think every day, and of course, it's a lot of pressure, you know, all these people getting food on the table, having a workplace. But ultimately, if I do this in the right way, I'm creating a long-term company. It's going to be around for decades and decades and decades. And that's what I'm doing. And some of the decision I've taken, you know, I wouldn't take them if I were optimizing my tenure. I wouldn't, I wouldn't take some of the decision I've taken that because they're probably not playing in my favor. I mean, I bought spectrum for 52 billion dollars. Wow. 2020, I think that's going to be lasting for decades and decades and decades. If I would optimize it for my own legacy and my own career, I would have bought way less. But I'm here, actually, to manage in this platform for a, for a time. And I have to see that the stakeholders, whatever I leave off to me should be better than what I took over. That's the most important me.

So how do you learn how to navigate the emotions yourself?

I have a lot of emotions. I feel pressure. I.

How do you. How do you manage it all? How do you like.

I don't know. I mean, I've been trained all my life. I started leading three people. Now I'm leading this. I led the Ericson with 120, 000 people. So I've been trained on every level to larger and larger organization. That's one of the toughest things. you have if you work in large organization is that you go from 300 to 300 people you're managing to 3,000 to 30,000 to 200,000. Is that how do you move yourself to work with the right things when you move up? Not bringing how you worked when you were a leader or three people or 300 or 300 to 30,000. You need certain way of moving up and actually changing your head every time. So every time I got a new job, I actually sat down, start sitting on it started way earlier, but let's say when I became the CEO of Ericsson 2009, I mean, I had a CEO, I saw him 10% of the time. I don't, nobody knows what the CEO is doing. I mean, there's no job description you can put on when and that, what should I do? They have no idea. So I decided what these things that only I can do in this position that nobody else in the company can do. There are six things. Very easy. The three internal and three external. The internal thing is talent, nurturing the best new talents for top. That's only me. Strategy of the company, that's me. And then governance, meaning board meetings, leading the team. Those are the three things that only I am the one. Externally is meeting the top shareholders, the largest partners and customers, and then being on big stages because I'm only one being invited to those big stages. So if those are the only thing, I'm the unique person to you because of the position, not of Hans Vestberg, but the position. I need to spend time. So since 2009, I measure every hour I work in these six buckets. Really? I do a forecast in advance in order to see that I spend the time on the right thing. So for example, when I took over Verizon in 2018, I spent a lot of time on internal talent governance and strategy way more than the external part. When I was done with that, I spent way more time with shareholders, being big stages, launching 5G and all of that. So for me, it's all about how do I serve best. I'm super good at certain things and people are lazy by nature. You tend to do the easy things and what you have always done. This process forces me to do the things that really is where I can make a difference.

Wow. What was the thing you had to let go of and the thing you had to do new? Leaving a company of 100,000 to 200 plus thousand?

I think what you need to trust people, you need to trust people. That's hard. You need to trust people, you need to spend hours and hours to recruit people, to learn to know them, and you know, one of the most important for being a leader on this level is to be curious. You need to know the people you are managing because you and I are very different in background. Everyone in my team was so different than me in background. They're born in other countries, they are studying other things, they have been trained on other things, so they react differently how I coach them. The better I know them, the better I can coach them. And over time, I used to tell that, so How do I do that? So not on my badge, my Verizon badge, on the flip side on that, I think I have 39 names. Those 39 names are the ones that makes a difference for the success for Verizon every day on my level.

The leaders of the company.

Yeah, there's some internal, some external. Every week I need to call or talk to these 39 people, one on one. And sometimes I just call, how are you doing? I have no task, I have nothing. I just want to learn what they're working on, how can be helpful. So one day I can be even better to get 110% out of them. So usually on Thursday I used to tell my team, oh, I have a lot of people to call on Friday. But it's just that interaction because I learned when I was a young employee, my boss only called me when I had a problem. You have to fix this, you're late with this, this isn't good quality. Only called he, it was a he as well. He only called when it was bad. And I remember, It doesn't feel good.

If you're getting called out.

My motivation went down. Then I got the boss that called me all the time, checked up on me. And every time I was, wow, he calls me, there was nothing special. You just want to be friendly with me. And I realized that's how you want to be treated with respect, regardless if it's something good, bad. And of course, it makes it easier when you have a tough conversation with someone, Hey, maybe I need to tell somebody. It's time for you to do something else. But if you know them, you know also how they're going to react and how you're going to do it.

You started at Erickson, is that right?

Yeah.

And you were, you know, at the bottom of the income scale. I checked travel expenses.

Right, yeah, you were at the start. And I wasn't even good at it.

Right, exactly. And how many employees did it have at that time, roughly?

Erickson, in total, that time probably had over 100,000 or 150,000.

When you started?

When I started.

At the beginning of your career.

Yeah. And you're what, 20 something years?

I think I'm 25.

25. and I'm moving back to my hometown because my hometown team in Team Hamburg is trying to go up to the first division. So I started two years at the university in Sweden. In Sweden. And as I take a year off and go for Hamburg. But when they asked me, can you come back to our hometown and try to take us up to the first division, I said, I need to work. You're going to work. No, no, I want to work. So where do you want to work? The only company in my home city was Ericsson. So they said, okay, we're gonna talk to them. You see if they want to have you. So I never applied for a job. My humble team called them up and they said, hey, you can work for us. He can work four hours in the mornings. He can check travel expenses. And that's how we started.

Wow. What would you say is the greatest three lessons you learned in 20 plus years at that career? Starting from the bottom of a big company to becoming the CEO. Not many people do that. They start at the bottom and then become the CEO. three big lessons you learned on how to get there, but also what you learned about yourself, what was possible in you?

First of all, I think most of always do more than expected for you. I learned that. I always did more. If I check travel expenses, I also took over the coffee machine to serve coffee. And I saw that people were feeling good. I probably did internal communication. So always do more. and expected if you want to do what I did. And I was competitive. I wanted really to be better and thrive all the time. The other is curious. I talked to everyone. I asked everyone, Can I get 10 minutes? Tell me what you're doing. And people love to talk about what they do. And I learned a lot from that. And then finally, if you're going to lead others, I learned over the journey, you need to know yourself really good. Start by knowing yourself. before you start leading others, how are you going to recruit? What type of people do I need around me that is very different than me? Those three are the learnings that I learned five years ago. I still applied them today.

Wow. What would you say is the skill that you need to learn in the next few years to take Verizon from where it is to 10x in the next five plus years?

I think that the main things I need to do is create a vision for my team so they get excited and motivated and then have the right type of diversity around me to deliver on that so they can give that back to their teams and it goes on. That's what I need to do and that's why I constantly thinking how I can innovate on products, how I delight customers, how I move the technology forward, work with the partners and then paint that for my team and my team is extraordinary good on execution. Really? But, but, you know, you don't want to be told something. You want to be part of something. And that's what I'm trying to create, and that's how I work all the time. Wow.

What's it going to take from you in order to create that ability to, you know, become that new person? Because you've become what it takes for.

Me is that I need to improve every day. I mean, I come into the office every day and I feel that, wow, today is find the time to do something great. The day I lose that drive that I have every day. Now I come in every day feeling, wow, time to do something, Hans Zespaer. There's much more you need to do. You need to really step up. And that's what is needed for me. And I need to continuously improve myself as a leader. I need to be a better leader every day. I need to lead better, give even more empowerment, support, understanding. for the people around me and for the stakeholders I have. I need to, I cannot be stagnant. The day I'm stagnant, I'm the wrong guy.

Where did that come from, that drive, that motivation? Because you're 35-ish years in your career, you've been at the top of the world in multiple industries and companies, you've got board seats in some of the most powerful companies and industries in the world as well. You're connected to the most influential people. Why be so driven at this season of your life? to want to serve and give more, why not just chill, relax, you know, play a little old time handball, run, travel, you know, and just take it easy. Why so motivated to create greatness at this season of life?

First of all, I think it would come with any job you have if you love the job. Everything around it with bank accounts is totally relevant. I do this because this is best I can do and I love to do it and I love to be with people. I probably would be a disaster at a venture company, you know, I would go bananas on them. So this is sort of the what I really try for and that giving me energy. And it comes from my father. My father was just a unique guy. He was my coach from I was five, six years old. I was 21, 22, following my whole career. He was there every day. Every time I started to be too egoistic, he showed me out. And he showed the respect for the team. He also showed me that, Hey, everybody has their profile in a team in order to succeed. And all of that and the respect. And then I come from a country with equality, sort of super high on the agenda. Everybody's equal. You can be called CEO, but actually everybody is equal and we should treat one equally. I come from that environment and you do right, then my elevator has been going up almost all the time and I met a lot of people, you treat them with respect and support, that elevator will go down and people will treat them well, they want to remember that was a good guy. And in my case, I meet so many people, I meet them maybe one once in 10 years or something going to have a meeting with me. I'm the biggest brand Verizon had. And the encounter with me is so important for people, my employees, big customers, partners, even shareholders, that I need to be my A-game every day. And that's why your question comes, why is it drive? The drive is if I'm not on the A-game every day, I'm not doing right for the company.

What are the habits that support you to stay on your A game consistently? Because I know you, I've seen in the interview, you rate yourself from 1 to 10 for the last, I don't know, 15, 20 years.

Yeah.

On your mood, your energy, kind of a nightly reflection, how did I show up today, all that stuff. But what are the three habits that support you in being on your A game as consistently as possible that you do every day?

I think what I do every day, I, Of course, try to do some well-being every day.

You run a lot?

I run a lot.

Hashtag Ramin Hans.

Yeah, hashtag Ramin Hans. For me, that is, and I don't impose it on others, it's just find your way to get your peace. And that's a habit I have all the time. The other habit I have is also that I usually say I have two piles of paper on my desk. I have one which is yes, no. Should I go to that meeting? Should I not go to that meeting? super simple thing that usually people go to. And then I have a pile here, you know, solve an enormously complex things in technology, product, something. The habit I have, I always go to the left on the, on the, on the desk to the complicated things. I, I, I give a about the ones to the right because somebody else can do that for me. So I force my, that's a habit I learned in order to make progress. I always go to the things that I It's hard. You cannot solve them in one meeting. You cannot solve them right now.

It's time. Yeah.

It takes time. I need meetings. I need to talk to different stakeholders. And then I said, I learned also that one of the strengths I have is to give energy to people, the mood I have, I'm the ambassador for the company. I cannot be a grumpy, screaming guy. That's not me. So that's why I started in 2009. to measure every day between zero to 10. If I'm zero to two, I'm really grumpy bad. I shouldn't meet people. If I'm nine to ten, I have too much energy. So people get tired of me. So usually I said that my sweetspot is three to seven in order to see that I get the best out of myself. And that's a self-awareness when you go to lead, lead other people. If you want to have, I usually double down on my strength in order. I have so many weaknesses, we all have. And I can try to be better on them, but I will never fix them and be great on them, but I can be greater on what I'm really great at. And that's what I'm trying to do with my mood indicator. And I have it since I have done it every day since I think 20th of June 2009.

Wow. And when's your birthday?

23Rd of June.

Why a couple of days before?

Because that's on the day when I got the call on the highway. in Stockholm to be the CEO of Ericsson. Wow.

20Th of June 2009.

Yeah, I think it was. Yeah. Wow.

On the highway.

Yeah. I was going home from the job, from work, and the chairman of Ericsson called me and said that they want the job. And I. I remember I stopped the car and stopped driving.

I could see you get emotional right now. Yeah. What was that like, that call?

One of the biggest thing you can do, you know, was my dream. So it was big. I remember I called my wife and I told her, you know, I need to talk to my family if I was going to make a joke. And she told me, why do you even ask me? This is what you dream with your life. So it's a big moment. But I realized also that running this company with the pressure, things go good, they go bad. the pressure going to be under. I knew that it's not going to be easy, but I really want to do it.

Yeah.

I decided to do it. And I was a CEO, someone from 2009 to 16.

Speaking about your wife, I mean, you've been married for 25, 30 years.

Since 1998. Yeah.

So whatever that is.

Yeah. Exactly.

20 something years.

Yeah, exactly.

She sounds like an incredible woman. And you've moved your. You have two. Two kids and you've moved your family, I don't know, seven, ten times. Your wife has been, you know, a lot of people see you as the leader and the figure and the one driving the businesses you've been a part of. But your wife has moved, I don't know, five or 10 times to multiple countries taking your kids with you.

Yeah.

You're probably on the road, I'm assuming half the days of the year. What is the thing you love about your wife the most since being with her on this incredible journey that you've had with all the, the moving, the travel, the commitments, the big highs, I'm sure massive losses, challenges that you guys have faced as well, economically or people attacking you personally, whatever it might be. What is the thing you love about her the most and the thing she's taught you?

I think what, first of all, the good thing was that I met her at work. She worked at Ericsson. She left when I became the CEO. She always understood what I was going through and how It works and what me thinks I need that. So the understanding for it has been just amazing and coping with me is probably the biggest thing you can do for so long. So I couldn't, I would never be here if I didn't have a stable family that have supported me through this. It's just impossible because with everything I'm doing all the time to have a stability and a support from home. and feeling that I can come home, I can be in bad mood, I can have so much bad things going on in my life, but always good support and they don't really care, you know? And, well, okay, that's a job, but we are here with your family. And we have moved so many times, as I said, and every time we come to a new country, if it was Chile, Brazil, Mexico, US, so back to the US right now, we have to restart every time with friends, family, school, everything. that has, of course, made our team extremely tight. So I'm, I'm grateful every day, and, and probably I don't say it enough, but it's been a unique Journey, and I'm very grateful for it.

How do you. I mean, how do you guys create a relationship that, that is effective long term, that is happy still knowing that you may not be around much some days and some weeks. She and the kids may get five, ten minutes at best for a lot of those years, some of those days. How did you create the harmony in the relationship and the family where you still were able to show up as a present husband and father, but also be able to lead a company with that much pressure?

I think you should say this one. I also at least during my era sometime, I actually did a boss contract with my wife. Because the problem was that I could work seven days a week, 24 hours per day. It was very easy. So agreement we had was I have to be home Friday evenings and I cannot travel out until Sunday evenings again. Because remember, if I go to Asia and Singapore and I'm like, oh, I miss Saturday and then I need to go to somewhere else on Sunday, I can go Sunday morning, say I'm home 24 hours. so the deal was so during my time as CEO when I traveled a lot at the erison that I I I I I I I I'm going to be home Friday, Sunday and my children know. So it was at least doing some rules. Then the rules was very strange for anyone that wouldn't be in that family. Wow. It's not home in the weeks. And my, I was actually my coach for my son's humble team. I was the coach for my daughter's humble team. I I had friends doing it during the weeks. I took care of everything during the weekends. Of course, I worked as well. But I knew that I had to be present there during the week. I couldn't have yet, like when I came home from Asia on a Friday afternoon. No, no way. I had to be 100%. So it's also a commitment to the family, equally much a commitment to work. And that's the only way to do it. But of course, I've sacrificed a lot. I mean, I have friends, but, you know, I moved around. It was not like I can prioritize, like going out with my friends on a Saturday or doing something like that. but I don't regret the second. And I hope my family doesn't regret the second either. But it's been, no, I've been since 2009, basically a CEO of a large cap company. I had the, I had six months or nine months where I didn't have, I was chairman of the Swedish Olympic Committee instead. But no, I have been working hard all my life, but I really like it. But you need to find with your constituency, you have to set rules as well.

Agreements.

Yeah, agreements. And that's where then if I violate the remit and I work a weekend, they would know why. And it has to be something important.

Communicate it in advance. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's, yeah. They don't like that I had a boss contract. I felt I have one, but, but it was a way during that time. Nowadays a little bit easier. My, my children are adults and they're actually working.

They, they actually, they understand what it's like.

Yeah, they understand better. Of course, when it was smaller, they couldn't do that.

Yeah, of course. What was the, it sounds like your father had a massive impact in your life, being your handball coach, but also just a great mentor and leader for you. What was the greatest lesson that he taught you?

I think that he, the greatest lesson he took care of all the children in the team. I mean, that was a great level. He took care of everyone. It was not only me. He cared about everyone in the team, how they had it. I think that was the greatest lesson, you know, he, of course, he cared about me, but I felt that he cared way less about me.

Really?

Yeah, of course, because, you know, I mean, I was his son, you know, he felt that he should show up for all others and see that he was a good leader. And so I think that was a lesson I learned, you know, the humbleness of, and the respect for each and every individual in the team. And even if they didn't play or they were on the bench, Just take care of them. And that was his role. And he needed, he was tough. Wow. He was a police officer. He was super tough, especially on me. But that created what I am today with how competitive I became, but also I think fairly fair, respectful guy. And he taught me all of that. So it was a great, great journey with him. He was, and I had the luxury, you know, in his last season, When he was 40, I think, and I was 13-14, we played together once.

No way.

Come on.

In Sweden.

In Sweden. And he, I remember one of the games at the end there, he made 13 goals and I made one. And he always reminded me who was the best team handball player in the family. So yeah. And then he continued as my coach after that. So yeah, no, we spent enormous lot of time together, basically every day during my childhood.

Wow, that's beautiful. Now you also have a foundation for him, right? Or an academy in some way?

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, I try to give back to my hometown that created me and my father. So, I try to invest. I've invested in the gym for them. I also invested so they can have a humble academy on every Friday afternoon, open house, two hours with coaches coming and taking care of all the children. And it's just great to see the name. that we take care of them and a place to go after school. And that's giving back to the people that gave you everything.

The first time I saw Team Handball was on TV, the Beijing Olympics. I'm sleeping on my sister's couch, broke. I have no money, have no direction, because I just got injured playing football and was trying to figure out what I would do with the rest of my life. And I see handball at 3 a.m. because they're showing it at no time. And I go, what is this sport? And I go, this is a sport I was made to play. You're going to play this sport.

Yeah.

But I have no money and I start emailing and trying to find access to a USA handball. Yeah. There's no information. In 2008 specifically, there's like, I'm emailing the Olympic committee. I'm like, is there a USA handball team? Is there a handball team in Ohio, which is where I was living in Columbus?

Nothing.

I see one website that is like the New York Handball Club. I don't know if you know those guys. No, no, no, no, no, no. Beanie, right?

Yeah, Beanie.

Beanie, the Croatian guy, whatever it is. Crazy. So, crazy guy, great guy. And so I try to email and text people there, no one's replying to me. So I say, I'm gonna figure out how to be an entrepreneur. I'm broke. I have no money. I'm gonna figure out how to be an entrepreneur to make enough money to move to New York City. to go play handball in New York City. Oh, that's a great idea. Because they're the national champions in the club teams. Yeah. At the time it said national champions. So I, in two years, I make enough money, I get off my sister's couch, I move to New York City, and I show, I still can't get a hold of them. I show up because they have an address of where they practice on a Tuesday night in Brooklyn somewhere at a middle school gym. I show up and I say, hi, my name is Lewis Howes, My dream is to make the USA team and go to the Olympics. They all laugh at me. There's like 20 guys. I'm the only American. They all speak every different language.

Yeah, there are a lot of.

And I say, and they say, We just won the national championship last weekend. This is our last practice of the season. Come back in three months if you're still interested. I come back three months later. I show up, I say, I want to make the USA team, I want to learn handball, and I want to go to the Olympics. They laugh at me again, but they let me practice with them. Nine months later, I get an email that I got selected on the USA national team. So I played the whole year with them, all of the tournaments, make the USA team, go to the Pan Am championships in Buenos Aires, and it was like, whoa, this is a whole nother level. Played for eight years until COVID, until 2020, And then I'm just running my business. I'm playing while I'm building my business.

Yeah.

But I never played full-time.

No.

I only played two, three weeks a year, maybe. But I was athletic enough to be a good defender and just be a good enough athlete, right? I still didn't have the technical-- Not at all. But I was a good enough athlete that every time I would make the USA camp for the team, I was always the last guy selected 'cause I wasn't playing in Europe. But I would go because they knew I was good enough. And I was like the last man on the team, but I'd always start on defense. And then we'd play for a week and then go back for six months. And I would just train, but I wasn't on a court 'cause there's no teams here.

There's no teams here.

The Olympics happen. And the dream reawakens in me. It reawakens. I message, a coach friend of mine from the top Spanish league, who's a coach of the team there, and I say, Hey, I'm thinking of getting back into the game and playing professionally full-time to go to Los Angeles Olympics.

28.

Because it's an automatic qualifier. Yeah, you're automatically qualified. So for years-- that's why I'm hanging in there. Exactly. So for years, I was always like, hopefully Chicago. Hopefully, you know, it was like New York, maybe, maybe LA, 2016, 2020. And then, no, 2028. So I'm like, Man, when they got the announcement, I was like, Ah, it's 10 years away. That's a long time.

That's a long time.

But it was not enough for me to go play professional full-time, 'cause the business was too big and too important. It wasn't enough to like make $1,000 a month or whatever in Spain, you know? And we were making a big impact here, you know, in his life. So I was like, Ah, it's not worth it. But it's reactivated. I feel stronger than ever and the Spanish I emailed the contact got on the phone with him. He said listen I said can you connect me to Barcelona? Because I want to be in a big city. I want to play with Barcelona FC.

I have a friend there.

Yeah, so I met with the coach the head coach. Yeah, I think his name's Carlos Ortega. So I met him at the Olympics because he was training coaching the Japanese team.

Japanese team.

So I was with him in the Olympics Village right outside in the hotel. I said, this is my dream. Can I come play with FC for.

The next four years? Yeah.

But I want a flexible contract.

Yeah.

Maybe two months on, one month off. Yeah. He said, I don't know about the first team unless you're all in.

Yeah.

But the second team, for sure, I can get you to practice with them, which is still a big thing.

Fantastic. Yeah, it's a great team. Best in the world.

Yeah. Second team's still good. But they're young guys. They run constantly. I wouldn't be able to train like that. He said, listen, it's gonna be tough unless you're full time, like with the second team. Like you can't come and go. But my other friend was a coach in Leon, Spain, who's Ademar.

Ademar de Leon, yeah.

I went out to fly out to Madrid a couple days later. I left the Olympics and I went to Madrid and took a training at Leon. And I did a workout with the team. And they're gonna offer me a flexible contract for four years to be the home club. to train and see if I'm good enough to be on the USA team. So I talked to your buddy Robert.

I don't know if you know Robert well. I know Robert. I know the Robert in there.

These are my people I work with 24/7. So I talked to Robert. I said, Robert, who I played with in 2018-2019.

Yeah.

I said, Robert, this is my dream still. It'll be 20 years since the dream first started in 2008 to 2028. This is my home city now. I've lived here for 12 years. And you guys made history two years ago by winning two games in World Championship. And no one knew about it in the USA.

Exactly.

No one.

No, I knew about it.

But no one else. No coverage, no media, no attention. Because most of the guys on the team are European. They don't care about promoting in the USA. The two guys that I know on the USA team were US Americans. They have no following. I said, I'm gonna be the biggest champion of USA handball. I'm gonna bring this to the biggest country that needs to know about it over the next four years. But you gotta tell me that there's a chance I could be on the team.

If.

I'm training six months a year with this team, you gotta bring me to the, I'm gonna bring the media, the marketing, the attention, and this country's gonna know about it. And hopefully we can actually do something about this in the future, 'cause no one at the USOC has helped to build the fundamental programs. Everyone's disjointed, Beanie and someone in LA and people in Detroit, they're all doing their own thing. We need to bring a movement. So anyways, I wanted to share that story. So when I met Gary, so I flew back from Madrid. This is bringing it full circle. I flew back from Madrid. The next day I spoke at Gary Vaynerchuk's conference.

Yeah.

It was a closing keynote here in LA. We hang out afterwards. He's like, what have you been up to? I was like, I just got back from the Olympics. and I've got a dream again. And he said, Handball? 'Cause he knows my story. I said, Handball. And on the TV, the championships is playing, right? And I go, that's Handball.

He goes, I know what Handball is.

I've seen your content. And he goes, that'd be amazing. He's like, you, got to meet a guy, Hans. And I go, I know who he is. He's the only sponsor of USA Handball. Yes, I am. So that's-- that's the cheapest sponsorship I have.

I know.

So I said, that's why the synchronicity of this meeting is around this.

Amazing.

You have a lot of accolades, a lot of success, a lot of accomplishments that you've created in your life from sports to business and a lot of charities that you support as well, things that you guys do at Verizon also. What is the thing that you are most proud of, Hans, that most people don't know about? That's not out there publicly, that's not in the headlines. You know, I see you guys in the paper almost daily. about all the things you guys are doing at Verizon. What's something you personally are proud of, whether it be at the company or in your own personal life that you're really proud of?

I'm proud that I have a great family. I think that I'm very proud of. But if it's not like if I think one need to understand that at least in my life, I feel like a professional in sports or a professional CEO. I don't think that anybody, if you're great like LeBron or Tom Brady, you sit there, I'm proud in the middle of the season. I'm proud I got my Super Bowl, so I want to be. They would never think about that. They think what am I supposed to do in the future? And I'm the same. I'm not thinking about I'm proud. I've been doing great. That when you are in the middle of what you're doing, you always think about what can I do better? How can I be better? How can I be greater leader? How can I support my people around me. I think that's how I think every day. Then of course, if I would bring out something that I'm proud of is that when I came out, when we came out from COVID I worked with digital inclusion all my life.

Digital inclusion?

Digital inclusion. And I've seen where people are connected, they become part of the society and they have an equal chance. Doesn't really matter where you're born or who you are, where you come from. But if you have connection to the internet, you can start the, you can get healthcare information, probably digital healthcare, you can start doing banking, you can apply for a job. So when I worked with that since 2008 and when COVID hit them, I think that everyone understood I cannot work if I have not broadband at home. I cannot start the. And I decided I want to take on the task, which is of course part of Verizon doing, but way larger. I took on the task. where I called a couple of multi platforms, but I ultimately ended up calling Klaus Schwab, the World Economic Forum, and I told him, I want to run a project. If I can have your platform, I can rally a lot of countries, companies to help to connect more people in the world. And after a half year of work, we decided in 2021, I think, we wanted to go over 1 billion people connected either to digital healthcare, digital education or financial included to mobile payment and things like that. I rallied some 350 different partners from countries to companies, the largest companies in the world, to make targets that I'm auditing. The 1 billion is so close right now.

Really?

We probably want to pass it in weeks to come. Wow. And that's one and a half year before we put out the commitment. And again, I put out the wild vision of 1 billion connected people. Not only that they have broadband, they should have education digitally, healthcare digitally or financial inclusion digitally. So work with all these stakeholders and so I'm proud of that, but that's also what we are doing. When Verizon is doing it in healthcare or in the education, so it's part of our strategy, but what's beyond and above is in the whole world, slot in Africa and Asia. So for me, that that is to do the right thing for the company, but also using the platform that I have to do better.

And how do you make that happen? How do you set this vision? I want to connect.

I have great people around me. I know a lot of people. I call the big companies like Google, the master cards of the world, Apollo, which is the biggest hospital in India, which is one of the biggest in the world. Private Equity people say, hey, what are you doing in these areas? What can you help to accelerate that? So we add 1 billion people connected. Wow. And that's why we got the 350 champions, we have a board and all we have structure, we auditing everything. So that was something that you can say that I feel good that I took the decision and we have said we're going to pass the billion very, very soon.

Wow. Again, you were a visionary in seeing 5G and bringing that to Verizon and being the leaders in that space. At Ericsson, I saw you took from hardware to software and services, you kind of switched the whole business model. In a company that had been a long time in one thing, you said, let's actually go away from this and start doing services and software. What do you see as the future for the next three to five years with Verizon? What is the innovation? What is the thing that most people aren't seeing that you see in the next three to five years? that is possible to connect the world even more, to serve humanity on a greater level, to obviously make your customers even happier and healthier. What is that vision you see possible?

So the vision I see is that the importance of broadband and mobility in cloud services in today's societies is a necessity to work. So I have a product that is so important. But what you need to create with the product is of course seeing that it's flexible enough, you get value enough and you get loyal to it. It has to work, the network has to be the best. So that's why I started building sort of a vertical stack of offerings. You have the networks, different type of network configuration on broadband and wireless, and then you add, okay, what is needed on this network? I do the streaming services. So I'm partnered with Disney, with Apple, with Max, all of them. I can distribute for a cheaper price than they can do because I have the cost of acquisition. And then I add FinTech on that, insurance, banking. And then on top of that, I have something called MyAccess. I have more tickets to NFL, NBA, and NHL than anybody else. I have the live concerts. So I'm building sort of a resilient offering that, hey, if I go with Verizon, I'm going to get the really good wireless. plan that I can choose from, but I can also continue with getting other services from them that suits me, that I pick, because historically personalized. Yeah. Basically, I want every person to have their my plan, my plan on Wireless and my home on broadband. So they feel this is what I choose because historically our industry was clunky, you know, hey, if you take my wife's head, you, you get Disney Plus and they say, I don't want Disney Plus. So I get the value. And so. I need to personalize everything, but you still need to have the best network, but you need the optionality on the network on broadband and wireless. And that's what I'm building right now together with my team, with a vision to building out this and seeing that we are delighting our customers with different offerings and they're saying, hey, Verizon is not only a great wireless network and broadband network, hey, I get my Netflix at a cheaper price with Verizon. I get my insurance on my devices, I get my credit card with Verizon. All that I'm trying to build in order to delight my customers and see that I continue to be the number one in everything I do because that's really what we are and I want to continue to be.

What is the main obstacle in your way of achieving greatness in this dream, in this vision at Verizon? What's the challenge in your way? And how can anyone listening or watching be of service to help you overcome those obstacles faster?

I think that when you're running large size companies like this, you inevitably need bureaucracy, which sometimes is slowing you down. The other thing you really need that you need to listen constantly is feedback from customers. I think anyone that's listening to Aaron with the market shares we have on wireless and broadband, we're touching probably more than 50% of all the households every month with a bill. so there are multiple people can give us feedback and they do. I have a public mail address which I read all my mail myself. I get probably 50 to 100 mails every day from customers. I read them all. I have no one else reading my mails and I distribute them to my team members which I think should answer. That's for me. So if I get 10 mails they're complaining about the complexity of switching my Netflix with Netflix to Netflix to Verizon. Then I know we have a problem. So that type of things is important for me. I dedicate my mornings, I don't know, an hour every morning, just to read them through. And then I distributed them team. And I know my team is taking very seriously on them. They read them, they see that we are actually addressing them. So I think that that's what everybody can do to help me internally. It's more about painting the vision and giving the freedom how to get there for my team. because they know better than me how to get there. But I need to be good enough to articulate where I want to go. So they dare to do it because they have the court branch.

Wow. What's the public place for people to message you? Is there an email somewhere?

Yeah, no, they can find it in the US government and ask them my email address. It's a super easy.

Okay, perfect. So people have feedback, but give the good feedback too. So set it to high.

Yeah, it's 1 to 10 on good. That's nine complaints.

Setups are good stuff. That's what Couple final questions for you, Hans. If you could go back and.

Have.

A conversation with yourself right before you started the first day at Erickson, you're playing handball, you're at your home club, you're still playing plus working, part-time, half and half. If you could at this moment go and speak to your 25-year-old self and look back and think of how far you've come, Everything you've had to overcome, the challenges, the beauty, the joys, you know, getting married, to having kids, and everything in between, the greatness, the losses, everything. What would you say to yourself at 25 right now if he was standing right in front of you? Just getting ready, I'm gonna start this new job and play handball, and I have no idea the future. What would you say to him and what advice would you give him as well?

I don't know if I could give some any advice. I think the advice I would have given that probably had helped me a little bit more was to be a little bit less centric on yourself. Because even though I was a team player, I was really focused on myself and my career, which might be a little bit unsweetish. And I remember, I'm gonna tell you a story. So I had a great CEO of Ericsson, and I came in very early on to run the one division and. we had our yearly performance review and it was really, I think it went really good for me. I was young, I was wow, and we sit down and he said, oh, you're doing great here. We had a very systematic way. They were doing great here. And then when everything is over, wow, it's great feedback. And then I said, do you want to be the CEO Ericsson? And he asked me, and I said, wow, of course, easy. And he tells me, that will never happen. All this performance and all of this, they said, yeah, but Hans, you need to understand one thing. All your team or your colleagues that you have horizontally, I mean, you're not supporting them. You're delivering your unit exceeding what you're doing, and you sometimes even tell the others what they're going to do instead of helping them. If you one day, if somebody would ask who's going to be the CEO, all your colleagues will say, I don't want to work for that guy. So you need to think how you're dealing with them. And I think that was a learning for me, how to be equally important to work with my boss, with my boss contract, how I lead my people around below me, but also the people around me. That was a learning. And I think that moment, wow, Okay, and I think a couple of years to date, I became the CEO.

Wow, that's incredible. I've got one final question for you because my time is just about up, Hans, but before I ask the question, I want to acknowledge you for your authenticity, for your realness, for your generosity, for coming down here just to have this interview and to share your wisdom. I think there's a very few people in your position who have come from where you are to get to where you're at right now, to lead one of the biggest companies in the world, with all the benefits and the challenges that come with that to be able to share the lessons that you shared today. So if everyone watching and listening, I want you guys to really take it in and share about this. Post about it, tag Hans on Instagram, let them know what you thought about this, the biggest thing that stood out for you, the biggest piece of feedback as well. And I acknowledge you Hans for constantly being of service. I think what your CEO at that time said you started to implement that and started to serve everyone around you. You started to become more Swedish, it sounds like.

Yeah, equality, everybody's equal. I see that you're handling the ecosystem around. Yeah, definitely.

And I acknowledge you for having a big passion and heart to give. Your energy, this is the first time I was connecting, but your energy, you just seem full of love. And I really acknowledge you for having that serving leadership quality. at such a big company, and I'm excited to see what you continue to create. But I have one final question, Hans. What's your definition of greatness?

My definition of greatness is actually a person that see that others are shining. That's greatness. Greatness is to see that people around you are happy, motivated, empowered, if that's your workplace or if it's at home, that's greatness. That you realize that others feeling good, feeling great, that's the greatest greatness I can give to someone. I think that's greatness for me. Say really great leaders, I've seen it in sports people that really thinks about their team more than themselves. That's greatness for me and hopefully living up to half of that greatness how I am. But that's really what I strive for. That's great people and greatness for me is how you deal with other people, how you respect them and good and bad and see that you listen to people and try to see how we can motivate them help.

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