Top Life Lessons from The Ride of a Lifetime (Bob Iger)

I was never into reading books growing up. My parents weren’t big readers so I never developed the habit of reading until after I graduated from college. Hate to blame my parents, but most don’t fully realize the impact your parent’s habits have on you throughout your childhood. Little did I know how much I missed out on and how valuable reading can be.

Because you only get to live one life, you are guaranteed to have a limited number of experiences. Seems very obvious, but you will never know what is like to have grown up in a different country / time period, position of power, or how your experience going through life can simply change with just the color of your skin or your religion.

I wish I learned this simple concept early on in life because reading solves all those problems and opens up new worlds and perspectives.

One of my top five favorite books of all time

Bob Iger’s story is one that represents the classic corporate rise to power. Work at one place for the majority of your career and sooner or later you may likely be at the top. His life is the epitome of climbing the corporate ladder.

As a side note, there is absolutely nothing wrong with this approach to a career; just realize that there are only a few seats at the top and the vast majority of people who work in corporate life will not rise to the very top. Most people’s careers will stagnate at some point and the only solution is to continue rising by switching to a different company.

Ride of a Lifetime ranks as one of my top five favorite books of all time. He takes everything he has learned over his career and summarizes the key lessons in less than 250 pages. And he doesn’t just talk about career lessons. He goes into an amazing amount of detail on lessons on leadership, managing people, mending relationships, handling failure, being a contrarian, controlling your emotions, you name it. There are so many life lessons in the book that everyone should read it, regardless of the career path they are on.

Detailed insider knowledge on Bob Iger’s relationship with Steve Jobs

My other favorite part of this book is the amount of insider knowledge he provides on his relationship with Steve Jobs. Before Bob became CEO of Disney, Steve hated the company. The relationship between the two companies could not be any worse before Bob stepped in.

The book goes into great depth about how Bob was able to turn that relationship around completely to the point where Disney would likely have merged with Apple if Steve was still alive today. Shows you that despite how hard something may seem to achieve, impossibilities do not really exist in life.

Most important lessons and insightful quotes from the book

You can’t let ambition get too far ahead of opportunity…Their focus on the small thing in the distance became a problem…It’s important to know how to find the balance-do the job you have well

Too many people are so focused on landing that job or career path they dream about and forget about the current job they are in. This happens all the time in investment banking. People fresh out of college are so focused on exit opportunities and landing a job on the buyside that they turn out to be terrible analysts. They think their current job as an investment banker is just a temporary two-year stint and don’t put in much effort.

Realize that others quickly catch on to this. That analyst gets labeled as the person that nobody wants to work with. You won’t get put on any of the interesting deals and you won’t learn as much as others who put in more effort during those two years.

Your first few years of your career are your most important. It is when you develop a good foundation of transferrable skills to help you in your jobs down the road. Most importantly, you need to be able to have a few good references after your first job out of college. I still am close to a lot of my co-workers during my time in investment banking and I would not be where I am today without them.

Good leadership isn’t about being indispensable, it’s about helping others be prepared to possibly step into your shoes

Once people are mid-level employees, they tend to become paranoid about losing their jobs. This is understandable because mid-level employees are one of the first places to cut costs because that is where companies realize the most savings without losing much in terms of talent. People at these levels tend to become defensive about their jobs and responsibilities, as they don’t want others to think their junior employees can do the job without them.

Iger explains that this is completely the wrong approach to leadership. To be a good leader, you need to teach others everything you learned that has led you to be good at your current job. Your junior employees will appreciate the mentorship and become more motivated with the increased responsibility.

You never want to be defensive about your position or constantly be worried about potentially losing your job. Nothing good comes of it.

…as a leader you can’t communicate that pessimism to the people around you. “It’s ruinous to morale. It saps energy and inspiration….no one wants to follow a pessimist

If you have worked with someone who is constantly complaining, you realize that their words have a big impact on how you think and feel each day in the office. Overtime, someone who always complains about work or is never optimistic will bring down the motivation of other employees.

During the first few years of my career, analysts would always complain about their life as an investment banker and constantly talk about how they can’t wait to move to the buyside. Most junior investment bankers love to complain about their life and their superiors.

Realize that being a pessimist will make you worse at your job. Your words have meaning and impact not only yourself, but others around you.

Optimism sets a different machine in motion…the people you lead need to feel confident in your ability to focus on what matters

On the other end of the spectrum, working for someone who is constantly optimistic about the future can be extremely energizing. Life is so much easier when your boss and coworkers are constantly upbeat at what they do and the projects they work on.

In every career path you are bound to experience some sort of failure and have to take a step back to reevaluate what went wrong and what to do next. I even quit a $500K / year job because I experienced signs of burnout and knew it was not what I wanted to do longer term. If you stay optimistic during these times and realize that taking a step back in work or in life in general is a natural part of the process, it makes it so much easier to move forward.

Projecting your anxiety onto your team is counterproductive… often it just meant reminding… that I believed in all of them

I worked for a boss once at a multi-manager hedge fund that would be extremely anxious every day we were losing money in the markets. Just so everyone knows, you are successful in this type of investing role by being right just 55% of the time. That meant at best we would lose money every 45 days out of a 100. It was extremely hard to work for someone that wore his emotion on his sleeve for almost 50% of the time. It wore on me and overtime I could not handle it.

This applies to any type of job. Working for an anxious boss is extremely challenging and usually tends to not work out. Realize that if you are in a position where you have subordinates, your own emotions have a dramatic impact on others.

I couldn’t let the negativity being expressed by people who knew little about me affect the way I felt about myself

You are guaranteed at some point in your life to be criticized by someone who knows very little about you. Whether it is the media, a boss, a coworker or a random stranger, don’t take it personally. Don’t ever let the views of others impact how you feel about yourself. Realize that everything about how you feel or think is completely in your control.

It was a big job, a big title, but it wasn’t my life.. My Life was with Willow and my boys…All the strain was ultimately still about a job, and I vowed to myself to try to keep that in perspective.

Those who have a big drive to succeed often lose sight of what is most important to them in life-their parents, wife, kids, friends- the people who actually care about you. When you are young, you tend to focus a lot on money, success and prestige, but later in life you realize that money and success don’t mean anything unless you have others in your life to share it with.

I’ll admit, it is hard to balance the drive for success with the need to maintain relationships, especially early on in your career. I learned a lot of lessons in my 20s and maintaining that balance is one that I still struggle with today. Sacrifices are needed if you want to be successful, but realize that all the money you make won’t mean anything unless there are others around that care about you.

 It’s easy to be optimistic when everyone is telling you you’re great. It’s much harder and much more necessary, when your sense of yourself is being challenged, and in such a public way.

This is especially true in investing. You feel on top of the world when you are right and make good investment decisions. Your bosses love you, your coworkers love you and you feel like the smartest person in the world.

The hard part comes when you fail and make decisions where you lose a lot of money. You can go from being on top of the world to feeling like you are terrible at what you do very quickly. They always say people only remember you for the last thing you did for them.

As an investor you are bound to make a major mistake and lose a lot of money. Most can’t handle the pressure of losing large sums of money- even for me after all these years. It is the worst feeling ever when you make an investing mistake. You can imagine how hard it is to stay motivated to find more investments if your last deal did not work out well. Working in a team and a portfolio manager that understands mistakes are part of the process makes it so much easier to stay motivated.

Those who can control these emotional swings in life and keep grinding forward are the ones that tend to be the most successful.

…being present for your people-and making sure they know that you’re available to them-is so important for the morale and effectiveness of a company

It is very annoying to have a boss who prioritizes his own schedule and thinks his time is more valuable than yours. If you are in a management position, you need to spend time caring about what your employees think and have to say.

People are motivated when they realize that their opinions matter and that they can make a difference. Give your employees the responsibilities to make key decisions and truly listen to what they have to say. That is how you build morale and keep everyone motivated.

I’ve been in the business long enough to have heard every old argument in the book, and I’ve learned that old arguments are just that: old, and out of step with where the world is and where it should be

Bob was basically laughed at by his Board because everyone thought they could never buy Pixar. At the time, Disney’s relationship with Steve Jobs could not get any worse.

People will always question your ability to accomplish anything that seems impossible. Always question the impossibilities and don’t be afraid to take the path least followed.

People sometimes shy away from taking big swings because they assess the odds and build a case against trying something before they even take the first step.

Fear of failure is the #1 reason why most people do not try to start a business on their own. It is also why most people stick to the job they currently have and do not try to strive to do something greater. They become comfortable about their position in their current company. They question why they should leave and start building a reputation all over again at a new company. What if it doesn’t work out? What if people don’t value me there as much as they value me in my current spot. What if I am not as good at that job as I am in my current one?

You can come up with dozens of excuses for not trying something new. Complacency and success do not go together. You must continuously try to improve and put yourself in situations that make you uncomfortable. Situations that seem impossible initially.

In college I never thought I could get a job at one of the “elite” investment banks. Let alone move to a career in investing. If I talked myself out of applying to all these companies and reaching out to people that worked at those companies, I would not be in the position I am today. You lose nothing from trying.

To summarize:

1. Don’t let your ambitions get in the way of succeeding in your current role
2. To be a good leader, teach others everything you know
3. Don’t ever be a pessimist; it ruins morale and energy of yourself and those around you
4. Change your mindset to constantly be optimistic despite any roadblocks
5. Anxiety kills productivity-control it
6. Don’t let the negativity of others impact the way you feel about yourself
7. Realize that money/success doesn’t mean anything unless you can share it with others
8. Control the emotional swings in life by realizing success doesn’t come without failure
9. Never think your time is more valuable than others
10. Something that seems impossible, probably isn’t – don’t listen to the naysayers

Purchase a copy and read for yourself