David Novak 0:04 

Welcome to How leaders lead where every week you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world, I break down the key learning so that by the end of the episode, you'll have something simple you can apply as you develop into a better leader. That's what this podcast is all about. Today's guest is Eric Gleacher, a former Marine Corps officer and investment banker, who, along with a handful of others, pioneered and developed the mergers and acquisition industry and transformed the face of American business by making big bets and calculated risks. What you'll hear in this episode is that Eric believes the world belongs to the aggressive the way he leads, is by taking risks. But we're not talking about delusional optimism here. Yes, it's the leaders who are willing to take risks that will be successful, but only if it's done in the right way and at the right time. Now, perhaps you have a big decision coming up, and you're wondering if it's worth the risk, I think you'll get a lot out of today's episode, perhaps this will actually be the boost that you need to charge forward. So here's my conversation with my good friend, and soon to be yours, Eric leecher.

You know, Eric, I want to first of all, congratulate you on your new book, what was the thinking behind the title, risk, reward, repeat,

Eric Gleacher 1:33 

the thinking is that to be successful, in this world, where so much is going on, so fast, in so many places, that a businessman, regardless of what kind of business, he said, it's got to be comfortable with taking risks, they won't happen unless you take chances, and obviously, all the chances don't necessarily turn out. So that's the risk. If you're successful, I believe you have to reward those who helped you. So in my case, the universities that gave me scholarships and afforded me the chance to go and various people, and then repeat is that you hope you influence people to do some of the things that you've done. In my case, it was philanthropy. So risk reward, repeat. That's kind of how I lived my life. And that turned out to be the title for the book.

David Novak 2:27 

When was it that the lightning struck Eric? And he said, You know, I'm gonna write my story.

Eric Gleacher 2:32 

I've been thinking about doing it. And then I must say that one of the stipulations was, we got locked down in early March 2020. So I'm a procrastinator, like most other people, and I said, Alright, if I'm ever going to do this, I'm going to do it now. So that was part of how it gets started. But what I was thinking was that, over my career, I've given lots of speeches and taught courses, the classes at various business schools all over the, you know, from Harvard, Stanford, and University of Chicago in the middle, and various talks. And invariably, in fact, if you remember the talk we gave together, a couple of years ago, no matter what the subject was, that I was speaking about, the question was, what did you do to succeed? And what do I have to do to succeed? And that's an obvious question. So I said, you know, if I write a memoir or memoirs, a story in in the narrative of the story, if I bring out all the things I learned from the beginning, which applied to business, the way in which I applied to the business into my life, that should help answer that question, that invariable question that always comes up. And then the philanthropy was going to be part of it. Because a reward for me, has been all the people, whether they're veterans at the University of Chicago that benefited from the Veterans scholarship fund that I started, or the golf program at Northwestern where I had a golf scholarship, and we got five guys playing on the PGA Tour. Now, these people who've benefited are really appreciative, and it's a great reward. And I hope that other people who are successful in life will heed to that and do the same thing. So that was the motivation for trying to write a book.

David Novak 4:23 

Well, you mentioned the beginning. So I want to take you back to your beginning. He became one of the top amateurs in the country as a golfer, and everybody talks about golf and its impact in business, you know, how did you parlay the golf experience into helping you have a successful business career?

Eric Gleacher 4:41 

You know, do we what I did, I didn't play business golf. Some of my clients were avid golfers and we became friends and we played golf but you know, I didn't know you very well. And I admired what you had done the young brands but I wouldn't walk into your office and say hey, let's go play golf. I've maybe I should have because I know how much you love golf. off, but, but I wouldn't have known that, you know. So it wasn't like you're going around saying, Hey, let's go play golf, you know, playing golf, you meet a lot of people. When I was at business school, I went out to play with a buddy of mine who was at that time, became a golf pro. And we play, we joined up with a guy and his son. He pulled out his card when we were done. And he said, If you ever want a job, call me. And he was the chairman of the board of a big company in Chicago, the jewel food storage company. And you know what I did, I called him that winter and worked for him in the summer. They offered me a full time job, and I said, I've want to go to Wall Street, I'm gonna give it a try fight and get a job. And they said, Well, we have two partners of investment banks on our board. Of course, I didn't know what a board was. I really didn't. They said once from Goldman Sachs, and once from Lehman, they're both great. But the Lehman guy, we give him the edge, you know, he really cares about our business. Would you like to meet him? Well, obviously, so I went to New York and had lunch there with him and the head of their investment banking, and they offered me a job. So the golf, you know, that random occurrence of playing golf with a guy and just talking to him? I wasn't asking him for anything. But for some reason, I guess he was interested in me, and boy, did that help.

David Novak 6:23 

Yeah, absolutely. You know, Eric, you took advantage of that opportunity. And you contend that the world belongs to the aggressive, where's that line of thinking come from?

Eric Gleacher 6:34 

I can tell you exactly where it comes from. Back in the around 1975. I was at Lehman Brothers. I became a partner, four and a half years after I started. And I was handling big accounts, and Lehman like Caterpillar Tractor, General Foods, great big companies, and basically doing bond deals. And then I started working on transactions, companies acquiring other companies, I found that that's what I liked. And I observed the CEOs, and they were different. And I, I could see that the ones that were more aggressive, were going to do things to develop their business. And they were going to do it as quickly as they could, in situations that made sense. And I felt that the merger business was going to change, it was going to become a active tool of American business and developing companies. It wasn't that and there was an entity called the Business Roundtable, you probably were a member of it. And back in the 70s, it had big power, everybody, all the big CEOs remembers, and they had kind of an unspoken deal. And that deal was I want to try to take over your company, and you're not going to try to take over mine. So there wasn't a lot of aggressive merger activity. You didn't see hostile takeovers, and I felt that was going to change, because there were just too many aggressive CEOs that wanted to do things. And I went to a lawyer, the Marty Lipton, and I didn't know him well. And I told him, I said, I think this is all gonna happen. And I want to set up a professional merger and acquisition department within Lehman Brothers so we can compete. I said, Will you teach me about m&a? And he said he would. He said, All right. He said, Every Saturday morning show up here at nine o'clock, and we'll spend the morning and we did it for weeks. And I set up a merger and acquisition department at Lehman and my buddies all said, you've made you've made a career ending mistake, you're toast is nobody's going to cooperate with you. Because if they're m&a deals to be done, the fees are big. And, you know, the partners are gonna want to keep those fees for themselves. They're gonna say, I did this deal, I brought it in, why would they will bring you in, and I said, they're going to have to, because it's going to get professional and complicated. And if they don't, their clients are gonna lose, and they're gonna lose the client and Lehman Brothers is gonna lose, also. And so it's if you're a partner, it's not good for you, you know, I set it up. And you know what? It worked?

David Novak 9:13 

Yeah, absolutely. If you're aggressive, and you have vision, and you're seen as like, the founder of the all m&a business, which is amazing. You know,

Eric Gleacher 9:21 

I was there, certainly toward the beginning of it. And it worked. And I loved every minute of it, the better the more active it got, the more interested I got it. It was a pleasure. And it went on that way for my entire career. So it was a blessing. Well, I want

David Novak 9:36 

to come back to that a little later. But Ellen take you back a little bit further early on in your life and right after you know, the college and everything you your education, I understand you volunteered to go into the Marine Corps. Hey, versus, you know, taking an easier route. You could have gone in the reserves, you could have done a lot of things. What made you go that route?

Eric Gleacher 9:57 

You know, I said okay, everybody goes in Mill. third service in those days, I decided that if I was going to do it, I was going to do it right. The six month reserve stuff didn't appeal to me. It didn't seem to me that you could be really proficient doing something like that where you weren't really trained and you and then a screwed up your summer you had to you had to go for two weeks or a month. And by that time, I wanted to play golf in the summer, that's when the tournaments were. So I said, the hell with this, if I'm going to serve, I want to do the most challenging thing available. And that was the Marines. The Navy SEALs didn't exist. They were coming. It was the UDT the underwater demolition teams in Little Creek, Virginia. But the Marine Corps was where it was, I signed up and I said, you know, let's see if I can cut it.

David Novak 10:48 

Well tell us a story from your time in the Marine Corps, that you kept top of mind throughout your career, the story that you just never could forget.

Eric Gleacher 10:57 

It was after the training at Quantico when I got assigned to the fleet marine force. The Second Marine Division at camp was June, North Carolina and I went down there and I went out to the company I was assigned to an A platoon was out in the field training and they weren't going to be back for a couple of days. And the first sergeant said we'll go through the folders on each Marina platoon. platoon was very experienced half of them have been there. They were offshore Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis ready to land and I started thinking, what am I gonna do here? I'm supposed to be the superior officer. I'm 23 years old. I've been playing golf I got through the training at Quantico. But you know, this is this is really serious. And, you know, I figured it out. I said, Okay, your only alternative is to be yourself. There, we got started, I did what I thought I was supposed to do. And we then three or four months, it was unbelievable. And I learned everything. I learned everything that was important to me for the rest of my career. And for more than net values that I acquired the way I treated my children, you know, things like that. And I learned you had to deal with people with flawless integrity, anything short of that dealing with Marine infantry troops, you could forget about it. Flawless integrity had to be the truth. You had to pursue excellence in everything you did. If you went out to the rifle range, you had to try to be the top shooter, you whatever you tried to do, you had to pursue excellence. You had to lead by example, you had to delegate, you had to give people responsibility. And now I learned I had 45 men. And I would say that two thirds of them didn't graduate from high school. And they some of them came in, they're 17 years old, at the lowest age. They were black, brown, they were big. They were short, they were all different sizes. And I want to tell you, most of them were smart as hell. They were intuitive. And the beauty of the Marine Corps is they got into it, you can motivate them, they wanted to be the best. I gain that breadth of knowledge about people that affected me forever. I remember my my son, Jimmy, who's a novelist, he wrote a book and he dedicated to me. And the thing he said, I never forget it. He said, My father treats the doorman, and the CEO the same way, something to that effect. And I'm very proud of that made me cry. When I read it. It was much more articulate than, than I just said, but I'd learned that in the Marine Corps that affected me, I got it.

David Novak 13:39 

Well, you know, Eric, you said you had, you're 23 years old, and you've got all these people that many of them had more experience than you. And that created a lot of anxiety for you, and how did you go about leading them? And what advice can you give to people who, who have to lead people who are more experienced than them?

Eric Gleacher 13:56 

You have to be yourself, you cannot fake it in a situation like that, where you're absolutely right, David, but you just have to do it. And you have to use your common sense. And you just have to do what you think is right and behave the right way. Until they know you until I see what you can do and, and I did all the things they did, I felt that I could whatever they whatever they were supposed to do, you know, physically I was I felt that I was as good as them and I could do anything they could do or do it I wanted to do it better. And so you just get into it and you try and you learn and and then there becomes things where you do have the advantage and and you can explain things and you can say here's what we're doing and why we're doing it. Here's how we're going to do it and so forth. And and you know the build up a mutual respect over time. When did

David Novak 14:49 

you Eric decide that finance was the route that you wanted to take?

Eric Gleacher 14:53 

I decided when I got out of the break where I wanted to go back to school to get an MBA because I'd heard about a new MBA and an MBA, set a person apart from the people that just had undergraduate degrees. And I wasn't coming from a prestigious background. And I knew nothing about business. I had a great father. But he was an engineer. He didn't know anything about business. He never had an investment in his life. And I figured if I had an MBA that would set me apart a little bit. So I, I said, that's what I'm gonna try to do. And I did it. When I was getting out, I took the tests, and I applied and lo and behold, I got into the University of Chicago, I was thrilled that I did, and I went there. And I learned about business. Finance intrigued me the most. I just, I just felt I was more interested in it. And so I said, Well, I want to do something you finance. I interviewed some big companies. I interviewed the Ford, financial staff and Procter and Gamble, and I didn't want to work for a big company. I didn't for whatever the reason is, who knows, I didn't want to do it. And investment banking sounded interesting. And then I told you, I got lucky with my job with jewel. And they sent me to Lehman Brothers,

David Novak 16:13 

as you were coming up in your career, was there a pivotal moment that really changed the trajectory of your career, got you noticed and put you into a different stratosphere?

Eric Gleacher 16:26 

Well, there were kind of 211 was at Lehman, Lehman was in a very, very eclectic place, they had a lot of really talented people, they're all different. And one of them was a fellow named Louis Glucksman. And he joined them. And he created a commercial paper business, which is, you know, it's very valuable to big corporations, they all use it for short term financing. His business made a lot of money, which gave him a lot of power to Lehman. And with the commercial paper business, there was a lot of other businesses that came in there were a lot of companies that use commercial paper, but they didn't have this is back now in the late 60s, they didn't have the investment banking relationships, but they had the commercial paper. So they if they had an investment banking issue, they had something to do with a subsidiary, they wanted to buy something, they would call Lewis Glucksman. And he didn't know what to do with it, and he didn't want to fool around with it. And he took a liking to me, because I was different. So I was, they all thought I was Midwestern, you know, because I came from Northwestern. But, you know, I was from all over. But I wasn't one of these guys went to Andover, Harvard, you know, Harvard Business School, I was different. And he liked that. He did not, he didn't like the other guys, because he was from the Lower East Side of New York. And I was a former Marine, so he knew I'd been out with real people. And lo and behold, that was, you know, 2728 When I started with him, and he would, every time one of these pieces of business would come in, he would call me. And I go over and meet with him and the guy from the company. And he turned over to me, and all of a sudden, the guy was looking at me, like I was the investment banker, I was gonna help him solve his problems. So I had to do it. And so it was a tremendous boost for me. And I was able to do it all, you know, I figured it out and just did it. So that was that was one than the other one was the story I told you about starting the m&a business, because that really transformed me. And it led to big things.

David Novak 18:30 

You started the business at Lehman. And then you got to Morgan Stanley, what was it that made you leave Lehman?

Eric Gleacher 18:37 

Lehman was a contentious place the whole time, the old senior partners were at each other's throats. There was no teamwork at Lehman. That's why my buddies all thought I would fail when I tried to centralize the Berger business. Eventually, there was a power struggle between Glucksman, the guy that I described, he became very important because he added all kinds of fixed income businesses there was making all the money. And again, he Pete Peterson, who he succeeded, the former CEO of Lehman, and he was the CEO. And they, he treated Glucksman, like a subordinate and Glucksman couldn't stand it and eventually forced him out. And since I was tight with Glucksman, I thought, well, this is probably pretty good. You know, he's, I'm his guy. And the bonus pool at Lehman was where everybody got paid, the salaries were low. And if the firm had a good year, the bonus pool was how everybody got paid. So the first year he divided the bonus pool, he took a disproportionate amount for himself and a couple of guys in fixed income. I couldn't kind of stomach that not because I wanted more. I just knew it was the wrong thing to do. And I decided that I'd been at Lehman almost 16 years, and I was gonna do something else. And I knew the guys at Morgan Stanley and I called up, Bob Greenhill. Lou was running investment banking, who I knew I'd done deals with him was great guy. And I said, Look, I've had enough. If you're interested, you know, like to talk to you. And he said, Can you be up here at four o'clock this afternoon? So, I was and we decided that I was coming to Morgan Stanley.

David Novak 20:19 

What's the best advice, Eric, that you could give somebody to help them decide whether it's time to change?

Eric Gleacher 20:25 

Well, that's a big decision. And you know, think it through. But follow your gut, follow your heart don't get too tangled up on Well, I got a mortgage this is that if you think it's the right thing to do, take the risk and go do it. Because you can always figure out something else. I decided very quickly that I was gonna go do something else. And it was turned out to be a super decision.

David Novak 20:50 

And then, you know, what was it that made you want to run your own show is like to get inside of the head of the leader? I mean, take us through that thought process. Because you know, you're at Morgan, you're doing well. And what made you have the guts and courage to step out? How did you make that decision?

Eric Gleacher 21:07 

It was very simple. I wanted to do it. I wanted to see if I could do it. There was similar to going into Marine Corps, like I want to do it right. I want to see if I can cut it. And there were a few boutiques, then I was very friendly with a guy named Bruce Wasserstein from First Boston and he and Joe Perella had started, when a couple of years before they asked me to join them, I didn't want to do that I liked them. But if I was gonna do something, I was gonna do something on my own. And I just wanted to do it. And I told my wife, I said, Look, I know you're tired of talking about this, I think she was. But I said, if I do this, I'm gonna probably make 25% of what I'm making errands. So she immediately she said, So what she said, you've been thinking about this, go do it. You know. And so I did. And it was just because I wanted to, I wanted to see what it would be like. And you know, it was fascinating in a book, when I talked about all the things that happened when I started the first few months, it was unbelievable. So it was an experience I never had before. I guess I just I like taking a chance I felt it would work. It did. There was something I would have never wanted to miss. It led to all kinds of different things. And you know, I did it for a long time until I retired I worked for 45 years from 1968 When I joined Lehman to 2013 when I started to work on my golf game again.

David Novak 22:35 

What did you learn about culture, working at Lehman's and Morgan Stanley, that shaped the kind of culture you wanted to create your own company?

Eric Gleacher 22:44 

Teamwork was a key teamwork. You know, think about the Marine Corps. You got these 45? Guys, most of them are young. You okay, really young, 17 1819 years old. They're all different. They come from crazy backgrounds. How do you put them together? How do you call us? You know, all that young talent in make it an outstanding warrior machine? How do you do that? And it's teamwork. And it's morale and, and treating people right and letting them know where they stand. So in business, when I went to Morgan Stanley, it was all teamwork. And it was almost too homogeneous. There wasn't a diversity and the people there, there were some women and some fantastically brilliant women who went on like one of the route Puratchi is that CFO of Google, you know, incredible talent like that. But it was very homogeneous. And, but the Teamwork was good. And when I got there, and I got a chance to run the m&a department, it turned out to be exactly when Mike Milken was creating the junk bond business and the takeovers. In the latter half of the 80s. were unbelievable. And I was involved in almost all of the big ones. And it gave me the credibility. You know, I knew that that really helped. And when I started my own firm, my attitude on teamwork was one, I wanted all the senior people to have equity, including my assistant, I gave her 1% of the business, she always had it. She had two sons, and instead of sending him to the State College, one went to MIT one with the principal, and was summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa. Unbelievable. And so stuff like that really makes a person feel good, David, I mean, you feel like you've really done something.

David Novak 24:33 

Absolutely. But you have that ownership mentality. It's it's a big driver, you know, and I gotta ask you this, Eric, you obviously have a huge desire to win and the will the win can be a powerful force. Have you harness it properly? How do you do it?

Eric Gleacher 24:50 

How do you do it? Well, the world to witness infectious at the beginning, you don't have much of a self image okay? If you're a normal versus because you haven't accomplished anything. But as you go through your life, you know, in school and in sports and business and in relationships, and so forth, if you've done pretty well, you know, all of a sudden, you get a self image in an ego, that you're not so bad, you know, you're pretty good person, and you know what your capabilities are. And in my case, that just led to me wanting to do more. You know, I was lucky when I was a kid golfer, I started winning the first two tournaments, I played it when I was 13, I won. And I still have the silver cup from the first one. And you know, you that you get a taste of that, and you want more, and then you develop a will the winner that I felt David, and I know you did I know you too well, in business, it's the same thing. When you have the momentum, and you're doing something and you know, what you did with yum brands, and all this stuff in China and everywhere. And it was the same with me with m&a. You know, if I was involved in something, I wanted to win, I want to do the best I could do for my client. And my firm. And and you know, it just it's a driving force, but I think it accumulates over the years, I don't think all of a sudden, you press a button and snap on the lights.

David Novak 26:17 

You know, there are a few people Eric that know more about it and mergers and acquisition than you do. Can you boil down what you think are the key success factors?

Eric Gleacher 26:26 

Yeah, I think first of all, you have to try to know almost as much as the people you're working with. First of all, if you've done enough of it, you pick up a lot of the legal aspects, the legal choices involved with them financially, you have to really know accounting, and you have to be able to evaluate a chief financial officer. And you have to be able to discern whether he's telling you what he should be telling you whether it's correct. Or whether it's not, it's really credibly important. But the great m&a guys have a gift. It's a little bit like I can make an analogy to Wayne Gretzky. You know, he knew where the puck was two or three moves ahead. And a really great m&a guy, he understands all the aspects. And he can look ahead, and he can see what the right decisions are based on the financial capabilities of each company, and can see what the decision should be two or three moves ahead. And he can counteract that if you can figure out how to do it. And that's not many guys can do that. Well. And that's what separates the really good ones from everybody else.

David Novak 27:39 

I remember you telling me once that you said you'd rather work opposite someone that is highly skilled, versus a weak adversary. That seems a bit counterintuitive. But why is that?

Eric Gleacher 27:52 

For the reason I just said, if you if you can look ahead and figure out what the decision should be, you can figure out how to counteract that if you work against somebody who doesn't have the skill to make those decisions. On the other side. The model kind of splutters and it makes it harder. And so that's why I always wanted to be opposite Bruce Wasserstein or somebody like that, because we both knew what we were thinking and we could we could figure out who was gonna win and we could end up there and you know, it, it was professional.

David Novak 28:26 

You know, you lead in an industry that was tainted with some pretty bad actors who actually did some jail time for trading on inside information and other graphs. How did this affect you?

Eric Gleacher 28:38 

didn't affect me at all. Ivan Boesky approached me said he wanted to hire me he was said he paid me incredible amounts of money to set up a private equity business for him Merchant banking, he called it and I told them on a spy so I have no interest. I just took a peek at him and talked to him and said a one for me. And so those guys didn't affect me. You remember, the first thing I said about trying to succeed in the Marine Corps with these troops is for all us integrity. And you know you don't cheat and you know this David, you're playing golf. Golf is the most honest sport on under the sun where the guys are playing for a zillion dollars now but but there's very little cheating you when somebody crosses the line, it comes down hard on him so yeah, I didn't worry about that and never had a problem with the SEC or anybody else.

David Novak 29:29 

You know, Eric, you're like a make it happen kind of person that I'm sure you had people telling you on deals that that just couldn't be done shouldn't be done. But you had a different feeling. How did you go about leaving in those kinds of situations?

Eric Gleacher 29:42 

I had those situations and I just went with my gut. If I figured there was a way to do it, we had one where we were defending Union Carbide from milk and sponsored takeover the Union Carbide it was kind of a big commodity chemical cow But they had developed and they had patented Glad bags, STP, and ever any batteries, which are all well known consumer names. I wanted to use those companies to raise value for them so that they could beat milkins offer. And the lawyer said, Well, we couldn't do it, you know, and if we don't have the audits, and the SEC won't agree to it, and I didn't take no for an answer, and we ended up using them. And we had a special dividend business that the shareholders could choose to either keep their shares, or take this special dividend, or take milkins offer, and 85% of them took special dividend. Eventually, these companies were sold, and the proceeds went to those shareholders. And they made out really well. And I just never took no for an answer. Because logically, they own these companies. And they had this choice, and why couldn't it be done? And the SEC eventually said, Okay,

David Novak 30:55 

and there's another argument that you use, which I love, it's called the nickel argument, my nickel argument, talk about that one?

Eric Gleacher 31:03 

Well, there was a group at Morgan Stanley, very smart, 1520 people that were developing ideas for clients, you know, they've looked at yum brands to try to figure out ideas. So there was a reason somebody could call yum brands and go visit them and talk to them about buying this company or spinning something off. They most of them didn't create business directly, but they created dialogue. And the dialogue is what creates the business. So once in a while, though, they had a great idea. So they had one for a guy named Bob says ik who was running a company in Houston, the fellow with the idea called up the corporate development Fellow at the company in the corporate development guy said, Oh, we know that company. And there was McGraw at us. And he said, we're not interested in that. So Talak Bob luster was his name. He came to see me and told me the story. He said, he said the wrong this company is different than they think it is, is a great fit. So I called up Bob Susan, the CEO, and I met him, you know, I was acquainted with him. He was required of mine. And I told him what I just told you, you know that my guy says you're a little bit out of date on this company. And I said, I'd really like to talk to you about it. And I said, You know what, it's my nickel. I said offline on the Euston. It won't cost you anything. You spend an hour with me? Will you do it? And he laughed. And he said, Yeah, sure. So I went down there. And of course, we ended up doing the deal. You know, because my dad was right. And we showed him and did it again. When AIG got in trouble. They appointed director Mickey Cohen with his name at the lawyer from Toronto, to sell off whatever he could sell off. And he needed a banker to do that. This is in Oh, eight, when the troubles were coming in severity. And I called him up. I didn't know him at all. And he said, Oh, you two ladies that I've got somebody in mind. I don't want you to come up all the way to Toronto for nothing. And I said, Look at Mickey, it's my nickel, I said, I want to come up and talk to you. And I want to tell you how I would handle this. And I said, don't worry about it. And he said, Well, on that basis, he said I'd love to meet you. So I went up there. And we talked after a while he said do you want have lunch? So I was with another fella Ken Ryan, and one of my partners. I said, Sure. So we went into cafeteria, the law firm sit down and lunch, he said, You're hired. And so we ended up doing a whole bunch of things for AIG. So that's the my nickel theory,

David Novak 33:37 

it sounds like that my nickel theory ended up in a lot of dimes, which is good. Local currency

Eric Gleacher 33:42 

came in. Yeah,

David Novak 33:44 

that's a great common sense argument to break down a barrier and get into somebody's door. Did you learn that from somebody else? Or was that just your idea?

Eric Gleacher 33:53 

No, you gotta it's part of being aggressive. It's part of being aggressive. You know, you got to self image. You know, I felt that if I went up and had a chance to talk to him, there was some chance that he would be interested. That's the self image you thought you're good enough to do it. Investment Banking is a business where you're not sitting on your rear end, you know, you're out there trying to do things. So, you know, to fly down to Euston or fly up to Toronto, who cares?

David Novak 34:20 

Getting back to how you make decisions? What was it that made you decide to sell your company and then buy it back?

Eric Gleacher 34:27 

It was an accident. I actually, we're having a great run in the business. And one of my key partners was a golfer. He said, Let's go down Australia, and play golf for a week. And of course, I said, Well, you know, that's interesting. I did. So we did. And I had been to Australia and I knew some people down there and we spent a week in Melbourne playing those incredible courses in the sand belt. And my partner John Craven in London, said, You know, you're down there, why don't you come back? back to London. And you want to call on NatWest, they're there, they're really interested in investment banking, doing things. So I did. And they hired me to try to help them by DLj, which was a pretty good sized investment bank owned by the equitable insurance company, which is owned by AXA, the big French insurance company. Anyway, long story a little shorter, we couldn't get the deal done. The executives at DOJ didn't want to do it. And that was said, well, we'd be interested in buying your business and having you build DOJ for us, you know, we were trying to sell it. So I was thinking about it. And I said, you know, for the right price, you know, I know I could do that. I know, I we you know, we got a great m&a business, and they've got capital, we didn't have the capital. So we ended up selling it. And we had a great run for three years. And then now West, the parent company had a major problem in equity derivatives, we had nothing to do with it. It was two completely independent of us. And they decided to get out of investment banking, because the problem was so big if they disclosed that they were all gonna get fired. And we had a clause in our agreement with them that they couldn't sell us. Anybody else so we could buy back our business. So we did.

David Novak 36:17 

That's a great story. You know, there's been so much fun, Eric, and I want to have a little bit more with you here and do a lightning round of questions. Are you up for this? I'll try. Alright, what three words best describe you.

Eric Gleacher 36:30 

This is tough. Three words. Endurance risk taking, and interested in helping other people.

David Novak 36:44 

If you could be one person for a day, who would it be and why?

Eric Gleacher 36:49 

For a day, I would pick a golfer, and I would have picked Tiger Woods before he got injured. And now, I would pick somebody like Justin Thomas,

David Novak 37:04 

what's your biggest pet peeve?

Eric Gleacher 37:06 

My biggest pet peeve is why this country ends up with political leaders like we ended up with.

David Novak 37:14 

What's something about you that few people would know?

Eric Gleacher 37:18 

That I'm just a pussycat at heart.

David Novak 37:23 

I don't know if I believe that. Okay. And do you have any hidden talents?

Eric Gleacher 37:28 

Well, not particularly. I think I think I did a good job writing this book. I would have to say that. I didn't. That's something obviously I'd never done before. And so I'm proud of that. But no, I think I think the talents are the ones you know, you know, playing mediocre golf and maybe being a decent businessman.

David Novak 37:51 

Okay, Paul SeeAbility. Favorite book and why?

Eric Gleacher 37:57 

Favorite book? Atlas Shrugged. Why? Because it's reality. That was written a long time ago, and it depicts exactly where we are, in my opinion, right now, you know, with our great country.

David Novak 38:11 

So I thought you're gonna say rinse reward, repeat? Yeah. No, no. Number of club Championships

Eric Gleacher 38:20 

27 or 28, including senior club championships, which I think are just as important as the other ones.

David Novak 38:27 

So your wife Paul is also a multi club champion who wins when you play each other?

Eric Gleacher 38:32 

Well, we're pretty even now. You know, I've as I've gotten older, it's gotten harder. Paula is sensational putter. And, you know, the greatest golf quote ever was was by Willie Park. He said a man who can putt can win. Now she's a woman, but it applies to women. And she's tough to be.

David Novak 38:53 

Eric, you've had so much success. Is there any particular recognition you're most proud of?

Eric Gleacher 39:01 

Yeah, the philanthropy. The Veterans scholarship fund, we have 99 United States veterans right now at Booth University Chicago Business School.

David Novak 39:10 

And when you think about aspiring leaders, what would be your three best bits of advice you could give people,

Eric Gleacher 39:20 

aspiring leaders? Well, I would it's flawless integrity, be aggressive, and have the will to win.

David Novak 39:30 

Well, you certainly have all of that Eric. And I, for one really enjoyed your book and I enjoy your friendship and I really appreciate you taking the time to sit down with me.

Eric Gleacher 39:39 

Well, David, I get a lot out of be your friend. Because I think you're the most positive guy I've ever met. And I'm telling you, I think about it a lot. And I wish I could be as positive as you. You've just got this infectious ability and I'm telling you when we were playing in that tournament, and we were four down with I have to play. And I'm thinking about, well, let's see, it's, it's five o'clock, I'll be home about six. And what am I doing tonight? And you put your face right up here, you know, what are you gonna beat these? And I'm thinking, and you mentioned and you know what we did?

David Novak 40:18 

Is the operative word read

Eric Gleacher 40:21 

your question of, you know, what's, who's one guy I'd like to be for a day. I'm happy to be myself. But I would like to be, you know, as positive and as optimistic and so forth, as you are. And I'm not saying that blow any smoke in your direction. I mean,

David Novak 40:39 

you're the best, Eric. And thank you so much. I appreciate it. Well, it's

Eric Gleacher 40:42 

an honor for me to be on. Thank you for inviting me.

David Novak 40:54 

You can't help but listen to these conversations without bringing it back to your own particular situations. And it reminded me that sometimes you have to take a risk by actually saying no. When I was running KFC for PepsiCo, Roger Enrico, the chairman of PepsiCo asked me to go be the CEO of Frito Lay. But I actually told him no, now I knew I was doing this a great risk, because he wanted me to take that job. But I love the restaurant business. I love food. I love people. I love marketing, I wanted to stay in the restaurant business. Now, what I didn't know is that he was planning on spinning off the restaurants and making it an independent public company. So by saying no to something that I didn't want to do, I was in the perfect place to end up running Yum, brands. That was an unbelievable risk that I took, that gave me a huge reward. And what's really exciting to me is I've been blessed in so many different ways I can give back now I can make the world a better place by helping you become the best leader that you can be. And I can do that only because I took that risk. Okay, that's enough about me. Let's go back to your big decision that we talked about at the beginning of this show. If there's one thing we've learned from Eric, it's that you gotta be willing to take risks. So let me ask you, are you ready to charge forward? I hope that today's episode has infused you with a dose of courage to make something big happen, take some risks, and then give generously to those who help you succeed. That's what great leadership is all about. So do you want to know how leaders lead? What we learned today is that great leaders are willing to take risks. Thanks again for tuning in to another episode of how leaders lead where every Thursday you get to listen in while I interview some of the very best leaders in the world. I make it a point to give you something simple on each episode that you can apply to your business so that you will become the best leader that you can be. I'll see you next week.