From Adversity to Achievement: Ed's Leadership Journey

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:00:59

Well, hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight podcast. I am Jaclyn Strominger, your host, and I have the most amazing guest for you today. His name is Ed. Hey, Jim, right? Can I get that right?

Ed Hajim: 00:01:17

You got it. Right.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:01:18

And okay. And so what, guys?

I just, you know, listeners, I want you to know Ed has had an absolutely amazing career in the corporate world, great companies, financial services. He's done a lot of amazing things.

But really what he is doing right now, he is sharing his story and the principles and pieces of knowledge that he has gained from a very interesting childhood. And he has written an autobiography and a amazing fable. It's going to call it the islands of four. P.S.

this is really, really great because, you know, with when you read a fable, you actually really remember things because it's a story. This is an amazing story as well that you will actually remember, too. But it's start lessons and we keep going.

So I am so excited to welcome Ed to the show to learn a lot and hear about your principles, your story and how it pertains to leadership. So I know there are going to be an amazing wealth of nuggets. So welcome.

Ed Hajim: 00:02:32

So nice to be here. Thank you for having me.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:02:34

Oh, my God, it is such a pleasure. So, you know, you know, first when I was looking at your bio, I was like, oh, my God. I saw the, you know, University of Rochester.

I looked at where you, you know, was reading your story, and there's so many questions I could ask. But, you know, I really am just amazed that you started, you know, three years old, you had something crazy, tragic in a way happen. And I'm.

And the biggest thing is, well, tell us a little bit about that. But how on earth did you go down your.

The path you went on versus where some people may have gone down a path of destruction, you went to a path of success. And I just find that just so fantastic.

Ed Hajim: 00:03:31

It's hard to define it. I'm going to write another book called From Black Leather Jacket to It to a Bronze Statue, but we'll leave that one out.

The question you ask has been asked me a number, number of times, and I really had a lot of thinking about it because I was kidnapped by my father at 3.

And I spent my first 18 years in 15 or so different places, including five foster homes, spent the summer in the YMCA on 34th street, hotel in Coney island, and then two orphanages. And, you know, at age 17 or 18, I became a ward of the state. My father disappeared completely Father's story is a long one, and it wasn't his fault.

So I'm not going to go into that. But from there, I mean, I look back on those 18 years and say, you know, why didn't I make the wrong turn? And I made the right turn.

A couple of things along the way. There were mentors, especially at the last orphanage. But more importantly, I was raised early on.

My father had some principles, and although he spent very little time with me, the letters which I kept had messages. Cleanliness is next to godliness. Always work hard. Always do this, always do that.

But then the second step was five Catholic elementary schools where the nuns made it very clear that, you know, there's a golden rule. And they put it out with the golden rule.

Or if you didn't pay attention, they also, you know, said, if you do the right things, you go to that good place. If you go to the wrong things, you go to that other place.

Then finally, when I was a child, when you went to the movies every Saturday afternoon, there were heroes. They were complete heroes. So those were the kind of three things that said to me, there's a better life out there.

If I do the right thing, I'll get ahead. And then I got a break. When I graduated from high school, I had no money at all.

But the mentor at the orphanage said, you got to go to a private college. I didn't know how I'd get there. Didn't have many scholarships in those days.

And the scholarship I thought I would get was a New York State scholarship. I didn't get it, but I got the NRTC scholarship. And that gave me the chance to go any place I wanted to go or could get in.

I wanted to go to Cornell, but they said the NRTC scholarships is five years. The Navy only paid for four. Didn't know how to do it. So I went to Rochester, which was really a third choice, and that was my first real home.

And although the first year was very tough because I. I didn't have the right clothes, I got rejected by all the fraternities and so forth.

As I always say to people, the food was better than the food at the orphanage. And instead of living with a bunch of guys, I was living with one person. So things were better. And from there, I've lived the American dream.

And I feel biggest principle I have now today is gratitude. I'm a very, very lucky person. If you describe my life today, I had a really successful business career.

I had a simultaneous career in education, and I have the most important Thing I, I've been married for 60 years next August and I have three children.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:06:26

Congratulations. That's huge.

Ed Hajim: 00:06:28

No, that's huge. And you know, and, and what's her, her credit? We have three children and we have eight grandchildren. I have seven grandsons.

So you know what, what I started with essentially one. I now have 16. I'm with my in laws. So it's, you know, I'm a very lucky person.

And I, that's why when I wrote this book from Bo, first of all, when I graduated from high school, I went to college, I decided to bury my background. Wasn't going to tell anybody. I didn't want anybody to give me anything because of my background. I was ashamed of it.

I didn't want any special privileges for it. So this really. My wife didn't know the whole story.

But in my 70s, when I became the chairman of the board of trustees at Rochester, they wanted to know more. And then my wife said she wanted to know more. And then the kids came hard on and said, you've got it. So I sat down and started to write it.

And as I started to write it, first of all, I couldn't write my, my, my childhood. My daughter, who's a writer, wrote the first draft of it. Once she got it done, I was able to. Just couldn't.

There were so many things I buried that I didn't want to remember. And so, but I, when I started right, I started to learn things about it.

Then I started to say myself, you know, Lisa, maybe community ideas I can communicate to other people. And then when I said, when I finished the book, it took me four ghostwriters.

But when I finished the book, I sent it out and 15 people asked to write blurbs. They said, you cannot not take this public. So a publisher came running in and said he would publish it.

And I thought that would be great because I had nothing else to do. Well, you know, publishers don't do anything. You have to hire a publicist so you get a hold of people like yourself. So I have a publicist now.

The publisher was good though, because he did a brilliant job on the second book at least it's a beautiful book. He also introduced me to a person who did the Audibles and the Audibles are great.

The second book has six voices and you can do it in about two and a half hours. It really is. She got rid of the, all of the work at the end of each chapter, made it a real story all the way through.

Now one of my weaknesses, I should have said this earlier is answering short questions long. My daughter's at TED talks as a dad. That's your problem. So I'm going to stop now and give it back to you if I can.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:08:32

No, it's, it's, it's actually, it's. It's so fascinating. So I want to go back a few different questions.

So at what age did you say that you finally started telling your wife and your family about your.

Ed Hajim: 00:08:49

My wife knew. My wife knew most of it, probably 75% of it, because I saved all my letters for my father. Okay. When he died, he saved all the letters from me. But we.

I really buried. And I didn't want to talk about it. Well, I was, I was in my early 70s and, you know, and, and then.

But Horatio Alger came along, finished it off, and Rochester dug into it because they had to tell a story. But Horatio Alger came and said, you know, we really like to become a Horatio Alger, you know, member. And then I had to go public with it.

he world. I mean, I sat up to: 1200

So when I was out there and once I got comfortable with it, you know, I really felt there was a. You know, it's inspirational. I mean, the kids say my main. I have three messages. Anything is possible. I'm proof of that. Because I was a runt, too.

I, I didn't. I wasn't 5ft or I didn't weigh 100 pounds when I entered high school. So I, I had all the problems and, and, you know, anything's possible.

Education is the solution to everything. That's my life. And the last but not least is one of my. A lot of little Edisons, they call them. Last one is never be a victim. Never be a victim.

Because the energy used in the victim, you need use on what's next. And you're going to hear this what's next to me a number of times this evening because that's the answer to a lot of problems. Take that energy.

And it's not easy to find out what's next. But I have a couple of examples in my life that I just, I wasn't.

You got to be a victim for a couple hours or days, but get rid of that and focus on what's next now. So those are. That's.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:10:26

You can't dwell on the negative. You cannot dwell on the negative.

Ed Hajim: 00:10:29

It doesn't do you any good if it doesn't, you know. And I at points, in times I could have probably made up, made a point of really hurting somebody who hurt me, not onward next, you know.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:10:38

And, and so that's. That brings me to my. Some of the kind of key questions that are things that really big ahas, because I want you to share this.

You said like you did not fault your father. And, and it's not. And don't and. And kind of staying in, in the same place of, of don't, don't wallow in being the victim mode.

And I think that's, you know, leaders. I really want you to listen to that because it's really big. So you did not fault your father.

And was there a point in time where you like were like maybe a minute of the time we had a.

Ed Hajim: 00:11:24

Break, a very bad break after I got out of the Navy. Writing the book has helped me not default my father, but you know, he loved me more than anything else.

That's why he kidnapped me, my mother, when they got divorced. And in his letters was. He basically sent me the message that in my mind, the one thing you give people is unconditional love.

In fact, there's a letter when I was 10 years old which I kept. It's in the book. Basically, I wrote him a letter, said, dad, I'm not as good a kid as you think.

I sometimes I'm a bad kid, you know, because I had to convince him because he would never. I could do no wrong. So that, that message also is one of the things that sent me forward.

ontextual. So man was born in: 1900

Okay, then the First World War, you know, a couple good years where he made lots of money, became very successful, then lost it all, then went through the Depression and the Second World War. And you know, that that leaves very big scars. And so, you know, he was just unlucky. Unlike, unlike people today.

The last 40 years have been almost besides 9, 11 non stop straight up. It's a different period of history. Also he was an immigrant and so on and so forth. So, you know, and he did what he could do and he tried hard.

And you know, he abandoned me when I was 15 at the orphanage and I had to become a ward of the state. And I didn't find out why until 50 years later when Tom Dewey, the Governor of New York's papers came to Rochester. It's too long a story to tell.

But again, it wasn't his fault. So I.

Writing the book and studying the thing, I found out that he did what he could do, and that's all we can do, you know, And I also don't blame people. Excuse me.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:13:08

That's true. We don't blame people. Right. We don't blame people. So something that you said that I really kind of want to.

Want to bring out, and then I want to talk about, you know, how we'll talk about how this all kind of goes into leadership, too. But you said lucky, and I. And I would say maybe not the right word, because we create our own luck.

You create your own destiny, and maybe things fell into place for you, but I also. So I kind of want to get your take on that. And what's.

Ed Hajim: 00:13:41

What do you think the context to me is? I was born in the right time. I was born in the right country, you know, and I got. I got a break when I was at, you know, I did study hard.

I became a varsity athlete and did well in math and science and so forth. But, you know, I went into my physical for this. This. This scholarship.

And you had to weigh 125 pounds, and I weighed 122 pounds, and I ate three pounds of bananas that morning. And I walked in and got on a scale, and I didn't make it. And the corpsman says, you didn't make it? I said, I gotta make it. I have no money.

He said, okay, 125. Get out of here.

So the luck, you know, that this guy was willing to pass me through, all right, you know, or just going to the second orphanage when I become a ward of the state, they could have sent me to a reform school. Some wonderful lady found another orphanage in Yonkers which was close to a high school.

And that high school, 80% of the kids went to a private college. And I got an epiphany then. This was my ticket out of my predicament. These people are doing something that shows me the way.

So those are all, but also lucky. I mean, we've been. America for the last 40 years has been something to behold. I mean, just simple things.

1983, I became the chairman and the managing partner of an investment bank. All right? The stock market was 1,600. Today, it's 45,000. So, you know, it's. That's.

The wind has been at my back, you know, that respect, so forth, right? And so, you know, I mean, you could have, could have messed it up. There's no two ways about that.

People have, but I mean, I feel you have to have a certain amount of luck. And in my book, you'll find out in the chapter under plans.

After all the studying they do, they spend an afternoon in a festival where there's lots of games of chance just to give that little extra. You need that little extra little bit of luck marrying the right woman.

I mean, you know, I mean, we always, Barbara and I kid each other, so we didn't know each other that well. We were in love. We didn't know each other that well. And 60 years later, I mean, I wouldn't be here without her. There's no two ways about that.

I mean, she's a real partner and my p for partner P.1 is the most important decision you're going to make. Get someone you can share your life with, someone who will support you.

And by the way, even in your business life, my wife has a much better sense for people than I do. She can tell a bad, bad guy from. And by the way, the network of women that you're around, you know, they know when something is wrong.

And, you know, it's, it's shocking. And I wouldn't want to go into that, but she, you know, some person that I was getting very close to, she said, shook her head and she was dead.

Right. And so I stayed away. And that was very good. But that's, that's a whole process you have to go through, I think. But I am, I've been lucky.

You can't, you just, you know, you, you don't go from where I was to where I am today without a little bit of luck, you know, or a lot of luck.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:16:31

Right? You know.

Ed Hajim: 00:16:32

Yeah, but you do make your own luck. I mean, I, I did, I did put my head down at age 15 and I said, I'm going to a private college. How do I get there?

I'm going to study and I'm going to work. I worked after school too. It's not same kind of thing. And, and you know, and when I went to, went to graduate school, you know, I didn't work.

I borrowed all the money to go to graduate school because I felt in college I didn't do that well. And the reason I did that well is I'm working in laundry in a post office, you know, high boy hamburger.

I had about seven jobs going at the same time. And you know that, that took away from the studies in some, Some expense, right?

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:17:08

No, that's it's very interesting.

So you know, one of the things, you know, and you just, you said this and, and I want to talk about the P's because your P's align a lot with what I think are really key principles in leadership. You know, I, I talk a lot about, you know, leveraging that communication and that communication actually is what you say to yourself. It's.

And that what you say to yourself is your vision and your mission. And you talk about your passions and it's. And find the things that excite and motivate you.

And so you know, and you just said one of the most important parts is partner too, as one of the other P's.

And I want to try to talk about those two things because I'm a real believer that companies today need to really look whether you're the CEO and you've got 100,000 employees or you've got three employees. They're not employees. They're partners.

Ed Hajim: 00:18:16

They're partners.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:18:18

They're partners. And so I wanted you to talk a little bit about, you know, well.

Ed Hajim: 00:18:23

That you, you've got it, you've got it nailed. You know, I, I had, during my lifetime I had a particular period of my life where I had three employees and at Rochester I had 30.

30 or 40, 000 employees that I was the chairman. So I've had this whole, my company Furman sells, when we sold finally at 800, started with 70 employees, ended up with 800.

So I've had this whole process and getting back to that whole leadership kind of. What's your passion? Let me just give you the road of my passion. When you're a teen, you get a lot of passion.

You want to be an astronaut and so forth. But somewhere in your teenage years you start to isolate your passion. Passion is not overused word.

It's your talents, your interests, your likes, your dislike. Mine in high school was math and science, baseball and basketball and girls, probably in the reverse order.

And then when I went to college that morphed first of all, math and science morphed first into physics, which was a mistake, and then into engineering. Okay. And the, the baseball and basketball freshman year was over. I wasn't going to be a professional athlete.

That morphed into extracurricular activities and extracurriculars really. I found my passion my junior year taking organic and physical chemistry. I started something called a humor magazine.

Like I wanted to get a look alike like the Lampoon at Harvard because I thought that Rochester was a place where fun went to die and you know, I said, you know, I'm going to have a little more humor. And everybody's against. The president was against it. The provost was against it. The library was against it.

But I put 30 people together, and I truly found my passion, looking back, was to put people together to solve a problem, put people together to create a product.

And inside that, there was another passion, which I discovered 10, 15 years later, was I really got a kick out of helping people do better than they thought they could. And that became a very big leadership principle for me. Because people.

When young man came in about 10 or 15 years later when I was working, I was at the division, he came in and said, Mr. Hazem, he said, I know why you're successful. I said, what do you mean? He says, because you really want me to be better than I really think I am.

And I copied that down. And it's really one of my passion. And then, of course, when you develop, you understand your passions, you say, I've got to add principles to that.

And that principle there was, what should I have on my wall? There's nothing that someone can't do if he doesn't worry about who gets the credit. You connect that that's a leadership trait.

People recognize that you're not trying to take the credit. In fact, I added to that later on in my life. A little bit later, after I got enough credit, I said, I started to deflect credit.

Every time someone said to me, you've done a great job, I would say, no, no, I did okay. But Mary sue and Jose, they did a great job. Without them, I couldn't do it. By the way, today's world, you'd never do anything alone anyway.

But when you do that, you get a trifecta. You feel good. The person who's spoken to you is really a good guy. And when Mary sue and Jose find out, they feel good.

So those, what I call transferring your passions and developing your principles to basically make those passions happen. And I love putting people together.

And then that, that there's another, other principle which I found to be very, very important, is give people as much responsibility as you can possibly do and leave them alone.

Because the only thing you have greatest satisfaction in life is doing something yourself, you know, you know, and then, and then, then, then the two major words, there are two major words are, are congratulate and celebrate. Congratulate. Anytime someone does something good, make sure you're there, Congratulation.

And then, if possible, if it really lends itself to it, celebrate, you know, and that that those are two. Those are managing techniques. And the last one I want to tell you is never tell anybody you're the boss. Never use the word CEO or managing partner.

You're a partner. You're just. And then he was fixed.

And then, then you have to have a little techniques, which I always felt there's, there are two goodies in being a working company. One is money, and the other is power. No, you can't have both.

David Kearns at Xerox taught me that, you know, he was the boss, but he didn't make the most money. He said some of my salesmen made more money than I did. And at firm and sales, I worked for them for nearly 20 years.

And in only one year out of the 20 was I as the highest paid player and all. I was a managing partner the whole time. And so there's a little, those are little things you do, you know, And I found other people did it.

Your question, which I'm answering all your wonderful questions. But my, my, my question was everybody has their own strategies based on their personality and the business situation. That doesn't work all the time.

If you've got a really ugly situation, you may have to be the boss and go in and beat people up and so on. And I did that, you know, for some short period of time when I had to turn Lehman around, because I got there, it was a mess.

For first six months there, I really, you know, I really had to fire people and, and change things and so forth. But as soon as I got some kind of rhythm, I went back to this concept of getting people a feeling that it's their company.

And that's another thing in my Furman sells, I, when we bought it back, I distributed stock to Everybody. In fact, 200 shareholders. And I, always kidding, I didn't have to come to work in the morning. They were pulling the rock up the hill.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:23:48

You know, something that you just said, I think, I mean, there's so many great little nuggets here. And something that you said that I just kind of, that, that really kind of hits home is that. And I, I really want to applaud you for it.

And it's a key takeaway, which is, you know, to not say, you know, to not quote, unquote, always, like, put yourself at, like, I'm the boss.

But I would even say, even during the time when you may have had to fire people, one of the key things is that you recognize in that you are a partner and you recognize the people who are not playing on the team and it's right. So it's not necessarily the being the boss. It's maybe more being the captain.

Like I'm the captain of the team and I get to find out who's not playing in the sandbox the best way, so to speak. And we need to take those people out of the sandbox and find them someplace else where they can thrive.

And sometimes by doing that, you can help somebody else be a partner someplace.

Ed Hajim: 00:24:52

Else in your mind. In your mind, you've got to take responsibility when you're eliminating someone to realize that at least half your fault.

If you believe that and let that person know that. But this is, this is my fault as well as yours. You just don't feel back.

There's one of your answers here is that one of the weaknesses of many managers is they can't do that. They can't do it effectively.

Where the person doesn't feel like, for example, in 14, almost 20 years at firm sales, I think I fired two people, you know, quickly, the rest, everybody else was, this is not going to work out. Let's go find you another job. I'll write your recommendation.

You know, and supervisor and I got together, we try to find this person another job because really it is yours. When you hire someone, it's your responsibility.

If they don't fit, you know, it's your fault, you know, you've made a mistake and it's not fair to blame them.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:25:44

And that's a key thing. And that goes back, I think, also to the principles that if you know both. Both principles, values, how you want to describe it?

I kind of put the principles and values together.

But if you know your principles and you know the principles of your company and the values that you have, and you can bring people in, let's say, like the top five values, they may not all be in the same order, but maybe the top five, you know, somebody might have leadership and whatever, but roughly those same five somewhere in their mix, they could be a great fit. If they don't have those and you don't recognize it, then yes. Right. Then it's like, you know what? You were not the right fit.

My fault for not realizing that, let's find you someplace else. And.

Or if you are, and I like to look at, think of it in terms of a team within a company, whether it's if you're leading marketing versus operations versus accounting, whatever, maybe that person has the values better fit with the accounting guy or the marketing person. Right.

Ed Hajim: 00:26:48

So that's your job.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:26:50

Right.

Ed Hajim: 00:26:50

See, see, I had A boss who basically didn't believe that at Lehman Brothers he would fire people. Just fire this. One of the guys. In the morning I came in, I said, where is Lou? He's this other guy. He said, Lou Gluckman fired him this morning.

He told me, get clean out his desk. Guy had 11 children. I wanted to say, what are you doing? You know, but he taught me that was not the way to do it.

And, you know, other people that I'd come in contact, you know, this is. And by the way, it costs you so little because what happens if you don't treat people right all of a sudden?

If you're in a business, a long period of time, you've got a lot of bad people, people badmouthing you out there. But if you find you help people along the way, they say, you know, Ed did. He let me go. But, you know, I. He treated me right. And that.

That was very important. These are sort of management techniques that I think are very, very vital in today's world because it's really a small place.

But that concept, you got to act, you will hire some incorrectly, or the company will change, too.

That's another problem in today's world, I tell young people, is that you're going to have to pivot a number of times because the world's going to change. And when everybody says, give me an example. I used to have black records, then cassettes, then discs, and now I have this.

And think about being in that business all the way through. If you stayed with it, you're dead. You know, that's the. That's the answer.

Your major question here is, is, you know, what are the biggest blind spots for. For executives? And it's what's next? I mean, I.

No matter what I have been in all my life, even myself, we go away on Christmas time and we sit down and say, what's next? But, you know, in my company, I make sure that every year we do something different and new. And, you know, most people get stuck. And I.

There's some brilliant examples. Kodak is one. When things are too good, you just can't do what's next. And, you know, I was at EF Hutton, and I ran.

He hired me to run the institutional business. It was a retail firm, a wonderful retail firm. Super. In fact, it was the best retail firm in the United States. Better than Merrill lynch at that time.

And they were really at carriage trade. Wonderful. He needed an institutional partner. He didn't want it very big. I didn't know that. Hired me to institutional Business. I got it going.

It was going great guns. He said, okay, now you're done. You can run the institute retail business. That was a really big job. That was, that was wonderful.

I said, you don't understand. The way the business is going is institutional is going to become someday more important than retail. He said, no, you don't understand.

And so I had to leave Hutton because he didn't look at what's next. And then five years later, he was gone because the institutional business became the major business.

Lehman Brothers at the time was building a trading room with 400 seats in it. And it said, we're going to take advantage of what's coming. So I had to move in that direction.

And I think everything you do, I mean, I'm the lead director in the golf club. And every year I say, what are we going to do? What's next? This year we're redoing the pergola in front of the club and so forth.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:29:46

So how do you think companies find what's next? Or how do leaders find what's next?

Ed Hajim: 00:29:56

First of all, your team. I had a requirement that every day at 4:00, we'd sit around a round table. That was one of my secrets of making everybody equal.

Have a round table in the conference room. So there was no head at the table. That was very important. No.

But your team, you send the message to them and you spend time thinking about what I call the drivers. The economy, demographics, geography, Most important, technology. They're drivers. Keep looking. Drivers. You should.

And if you're, if you have enough money and you're a large enough company, you should have an outside service that keeps telling you what the big trends are. But your trends really come from your people. You ask each person in each of their divisions, you know, what's.

Who, what are your competitors doing really well, you know, what would, what could you do to make, you know, take the next step? What, what takes you to the next level? These are kind of words you use with people. And I think that's what happens. And it is a. You, you do.

You do it weekly. Like, I did it in a very mild manner. And then kind of on a quarterly basis or some periodic basis, you do it in depth.

You actually go, go someplace in a hotel room and you sit around with a whiteboard and you, you brainstorm and you do that. I do that personally every Christmas with my family. And we have, you know, we go on a boat. It's great about a boat.

I love giving, giving advice to, to families. I said, you Know, you go on a boat. What's great about a boat is at night, guess what? Kids can't get away.

Hotel, they're gone, you know, skiing, they're gone. Boat, they're stuck.

And you know, for years our kid, we went down the British Virgin Islands with little tiny boat at the beginning and now a bigger boat. So no, but this is, this what's next has to be a formal experience.

And, and you gotta, you gotta also this is one of the early things that I very important failure is okay. In fact, I want to. You asked the question of how do I handle failure?

Early failure is a gift you get in your life, I'm saying, but you also got to contribute to your guys. That the fact if you fail, it's okay if you, if you're taking a shot. The. We all think it's a pretty good idea. We're all in it together.

You know, my board meeting used to be like a Quaker meeting where guys would stand up and say, I need some help. And the guys will all help each other. You know, because we were a small firm and we were competing against a lot of big guys.

But what's next is it's a process and it's not one of these long term planning things so much. It's little steps. Little, tiny.

I'm going to add a little of this, you know, I'm going to do this, I'm going to hire a salesman to cover this little new area. You know, so it's little steps.

You know, this business about a long journey starts with a small step is, you know, it's a cliche, but it really is true.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:32:41

And each person, you know, and I, I talk about, I talk about something called two steps to. Yes. And two steps is basically because one step doesn't get you anywhere. Two steps create starts creating the momentum.

But you have to, you have to be taking those two little steps and they get to be bigger and bigger and bigger.

Ed Hajim: 00:33:03

Automatically gives you a chance to take a second step. Right?

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:33:07

So the interesting thing is that, and I think this is really, really important for our listeners, you know, when we're talking about leadership, something that I really want to make sure that you.

We've talked about this, but I want to really kind of hit it home is that you need to listen, you need to, to get to that next and find out what's next. You need to keep your ears open. You need to be listening to your team and your partners.

Your partners need to be listening to your customers and your clients. And you need to keep Your ears open. Because you will. If your ears are clogged and you're. You got them, you're not listening, you're going to miss.

Ed Hajim: 00:33:52

It may be the most important word I use that also, people ask me, how did you spend 60 years? How did you stay sick, married for 60 years? And I said one word. Listen. No, no, no. And the same thing there. You got to listen. Especially the head.

The head person. You got to listen. Because if you start putting things out, you don't know how those are accepted.

But when people come to you with stuff, you know, you know, if you agree with it, you're on your way. But you have to listen. Absolutely. I mean, I think when a person says to me, how do you. I say, how do you stay married?

Because people change, systems change. And if you don't listen to that change, you will get left behind.

You'll be a stranger in your family and you'll be a stranger in your job if you don't listen. I. You've hit it on the head. You don't need me.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:34:39

Oh, my God. And I could talk to you forever. So how can people find you? You've got. I'll put links to the books.

You got to make sure I give me links to the book so people can get these. Seriously. I was reading.

I was sitting down yesterday, started to read this one and I got like, probably halfway through it and I'm like, God, this is really good. And I had a. Didn't get to finish it last night. And I cannot wait to read this. I read a parts of the synopsis, but really, really great.

So where can people find you? How.

Ed Hajim: 00:35:09

You know, they named the engineering school after me at the University of Rochester. And I always say I love that because kids have to pronounce my name correctly.

Having an unusual name is wonderful because if you punch in Ed Hadron into Amazon, you get my two books. If you punch www.edhedrom.com into Google, you end up getting a very robust. Which is, I give my publicist credit, very robust website.

And that's, you know, tells the whole story. In fact, I don't like to put people on my website because they don't have to read the books then.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:35:39

All right, so go to Amazon, get the books and get. Download them. Download them. Audible so you can listen to them.

Ed Hajim: 00:35:48

Audible. Audible. The. The. There's six voices in the the. And the guy who did the, they wanted me to do. To read the first my autobiography, but I did.

It took me two hours to do eight minutes. And so I got somebody that actually, it sounds like me. And he's, he's quite good. And we had a lot in common.

His father and I both, you know, were in the Navy. Both, both engineers and so forth and so on.

Jaclyn Strominger: 00:36:11

Oh, well, that is fantastic. So listeners, I hope you get these books. I hope you taken some great nuggets.

And from today's episode, you have to understand that leadership, you know, if you're looking at it from the standpoint of what you can learn from this, think about those P's, passions, principles, partners and plans. It is really important, really important. And then, and I'm just going to add in there, add the L in there, make sure that you're listening.

So I really, really want you to add that in there. I don't know what cancel. So I can't spell ear or listen with a P. So otherwise I would. So, Ed, thank you for being a guest.

This is the Unstoppable Leadership Spotlight podcast. If you have love this, please hit subscribe. And please share this with your friends and colleagues.

Our goal is to make better leaders great leaders out there and great leaders makes a greater world. So thank you so much for listening and thank you, Ed, once again for being an amazing guest.

Ed Hajim: 00:37:17

Thank you very much. Amen.