Name: What Bernie Swain Learned from His Famous Clients
Uploaded: 2016-10-04
Duration: 3 min 40 s
Description: The Washington Speakers Bureau CEO opens up

Bernie, some of your clients are the most famous world leaders, American presidents, prime ministers. As you've analyzed their careers, have you come down with one common characteristic that they all have that makes them such great leaders. Honesty and trust. It was the greatest characteristic I found that was uniformly through Through all of them. I mean the kind of people they were their lives is they didn't put themselves first, they put other people first. And I found that's what met the most made I think .>> You said that you wrote the book because you wanted to share with other people the insights and impressions that you got from these incredible people. You profile A 34 of your client. What was that the key take away or the key impression that was stacked with you. I think that we all have defining moments and influences in our lives and the key is for us to pay attention to those turning points. And use those turning points as finding a way to To develop a passion for what we want to do in life based on who we are. I think they all knew what they were talking about. They all understood who they were. I think they all had a vision about what they wanted to do and their They're all great communicators. You told me that Robert Reich's story had a powerful impact on you and his story predates before he became very famous as labor secretary under president Clinton. Tell us why it has such an important impression on you. Well, I think it was a total reversal. I mean, here's someone who, first of all, has no interest in current events whatsoever. Probably would have done something totally different with his life. He was 4 foot 11 inches tall and was bullied from the time he was in pre school, found a person that people at different times in life who were older who would protect them. One of those people went down to the civil rights movement in the 60s and was killed by a sheriff and his Deputies and what he realized in life was this person protected me and I have an obligation in my life to protect other people and that's where the economic quality in his life came from. So, Washington Speaker's Bureau, you started, this was your own business and you started it from scratch, you said you've been very honest in saying that you You learn from a lot of mistakes that you made along the way. What's the one mistake you wish someone had told you, so you could have avoided doing it. Well, I think understanding, have an education of what you're going to do. We sat in that closet that we rented from Chuck Hagel for twelve months not knowing exactly what we wanted to do. We were thinking of famous people writing letters and making phone calls and nobody would call back again. I think you have to have an understanding. Whatever you are getting into a talent for it. I think passion in life is a lot more important than talent but I think you have to have a talent for something. I'm not sure I had the talent or the education for this, it just worked. [ INAUDIBLE ] You had a fascinating career. You started out in academia, you went on to become a businessman, you've had exposure to so many really fascinating people in your life. And I'm sure many of them gave you. Advice along the way, as you look back, what's the best leadership advice you ever got? The best leadership advice I ever got was from a football coach in Notre Dame named Lu Holdson, who told me just do the right thing. And I think that's the problem with leadership today is that whether it is the people represent us in Congress or is it the government that we depend on or the business, we do business With or, we worked for. There seems to be a moral code that's missing and I think there's nothing more important in life than trust. And people trusted me when I was starting out and I've never forgotten that lesson. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

The Washington Speakers Bureau CEO opens up