Lessons From Steve Jobs on Leading With Love, With Ron Johnson

Ron’s new book, Shop Different, is out now: www.ronjohnsonshopsdifferent.com What does the man who built the Apple Store think is the secret to great business? Two words: love and kindness. Ron Johnson worked alongside Steve Jobs to create the Apple Store and the Genius Bar, and he helped bring the iPhone to market. Before Apple, he changed Target by partnering with architect Michael Graves to bring great design to everyday prices. Then came his toughest chapter: CEO of JCPenney. In this episode of Big Swings Only, Kwame Christian sits down with Ron to go through his biggest wins and his biggest losses. Ron explains why Steve Jobs believed you should “ruthlessly eliminate hurry,” why every big idea should fit in four words or less, and why the details are what make something great. He talks openly about the “situational arrogance” that led him to move too fast at JCPenney. He also explains why he doesn’t believe failure teaches you more than success, and how luck shows up for people who are present enough to catch it. Plus: what it was really like to negotiate with Steve Jobs, and why Ron says managers lead with fear while leaders lead with love.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Today, we had a conversation with arguably the most powerful man in the history of retail, Ron Johnson. You've probably heard the name Steve Jobs. Well, Ron is the guy that Steve Jobs was working with to create the most iconic products of Apple. For us, it's Steve Jobs. For Ron, it's just his friend, Steve. I was ready for an insightful conversation, but it took a shocking turn. What do you think are the two words that fuel his business ethos?

• 0:28Speaker 01

  So if love works at home, love works in the office. If people respond to kindness at school, a teacher and a student, you see that, or a coach and a player, people respond to kindness at the office. So this idea that you have to manage your way through work, you have to hold people accountable, you have to create a sense of fear to get people to perform. You've got to have deadlines. All these kind of negative emotional words at work is the opposite of what we try to do at home.

• 1:06Speaker 00

  In this episode, we evaluate some of Ron's biggest swings. From helping to launch the iPhone and create the Genius Bar and the Apple Store, to being the CEO of JCPenney. We talk about his wins, we talk about his losses, and what he has learned from both. If you are a person who wants to take a big swing or make a big swing in your life, this episode is for you. My friends, we've got a good one for you. This is the story of Ron Johnson, and welcome to Big Swings Only.

• 1:37Speaker 00

  If you listen to this show, you're probably one of two people. You're someone who's trying to improve their communication skills and learn how to resolve conflict, or you're a dealmaker who's trying to learn how to get an edge in their next negotiation so you could either make more or save more. The American Negotiation Institute is built for both. We have keynotes for conferences, workshops for teams, and courses for everyone, because the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations.

• 2:05Speaker 00

  What is it that's giving you the most energy right now?

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Well, it is the book, because it's my newest... You know, when you launch something, launches have always been fun for me. You know, I've launched product lines, I've launched stores, I've launched iPhones. I've now launched a book. You put a lot of energy into something, you never know how it's going to do. And it's fun to have that moment where all that hard work and creativity comes together. So I think that's given me a lot of energy.

• 2:40Speaker 00

  Oh, you see, now, body language analysis for the folks who are listening on audio. So that was a real answer, because you lit up when you were talking about launches. What is it for you about launches in general? Let's go deeper into that, because I want to follow this.

• 2:57Speaker 01

  Well, so, you know, I've always been a guy who, in your terms, loves to take big swings. You know, and I started in the bookshop, different talks about that. But my first, when I was a junior in high school, I got elected captain by, selected by the coaches and team as captain of my soccer team. And that was my first really big leadership thing. And it wasn't a huge honor, because we only had two returning players, and I was one of them. So it wasn't like there were a lot of choices. And, but, I decided, well, I'm the leader. What if I bring the players together who would be playing next year?

• 3:42Speaker 01

  Not at the beginning of next year, right now. And we got together and I said, I don't know about you guys, but, you know, we won one last game last year, we have two people returning, but our school is known for winning state tournaments. I want to go to a state tournament, does anybody else want to go? And all these young kids went, yeah, let's go. It was like a big effort. And people thought we were crazy, because nobody had really played much soccer. But I said, you know, most teams will have a captain's practice two weeks before the season starts. What if we start 52 weeks out? Now, this Sunday, I'll be in the field house with a ball, just join me. And people started joining.

• 4:24Speaker 01

  And a year later, nobody remembered what had happened the year before. We had this amazing confidence. And we tied our first game, won like 16 of the next 17, were the number one ranked team in the state going into the tournament. So we made the state tournament. We lost the semifinal game in overtime, won the consolation, but it was a big swing. And what you realize is in life, you can only accomplish, you'll never accomplish more than you dream. You know, what you imagine. And so, for my whole career, I've been imagining things to do with teams.

• 5:09Speaker 01

  And at Target, that was to bring good design to everybody through a partnership with Michael Graves. At Apple, that was to launch the Apple Stores. It was to help launch products like the iPhone. Now I'm launching a book. Now, and so what's interesting about these, these are things that are really hard to do, that take an extraordinary amount of commitment, you know, to do your very, very best. And then at the launch, you get to, for the first time, see what people think your work. You know, did it work? And some things work really well, some things fail miserably. I've been on both sides, you know. And, but there's something super exciting about, you know,

• 5:53Speaker 01

  giving your all to something that's important to you, that gives you meaning, and seeing how it does. So launches light me up, you know, they're fun, they're moments. They're a celebration of a lot of hard work, is what they are.

• 6:08Speaker 00

  Oh, I love that, a celebration of a lot of hard work. Tell me if I'm overstating, but it sounds like the launch itself is the win. And then we can, when we put the thing, the product, the service, or the team out into the world, we're going to see how it actually does. That's a separate thing, but getting to the launch is in itself a success.

• 6:32Speaker 01

  Well, that is the journey. It's bringing something into the world that's never been there before. And that's the, that's the hard work. Then you're kind of improving. But when you're launching, that's, that's the breakthrough. You know, that's when most of the significant work is done. There are a lot of people who can operate something. There are very few who have the gift to create something.

• 7:04Speaker 00

  Now, interesting use of the word skill, because, and I agree with it. I want to go deeper into what this means to you. Because I know that there are going to be some people who are listening to you tell your story and say, okay, so Ron was just born with this. He was born a leader, he's doing it since high school. But you were very intentional about using the word skill. So let's, tell me, tell me what that means to you in this context.

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Well, I, I think everything we do, you have some innate, you have innate talent. But through hard work, you develop a skill. Okay? So imagine the best athlete in your high school class, the best person on the basketball team. Obviously, that person, whether you think of it as a men's or women's team, had some natural talent. But you know they spent a lot of time working at it. Look at a guy like Steph Curry. You know, because I live in the Bay Area, I love Steph. I mean, the amount of shots that guy has taken and still takes, and the condition he puts in every offseason to be in shape.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  For this year, he's 38 years old, 40, whatever he is, you know, it's a skill. You know, obviously, he's talented, but he's got a skill. The same is true of business. You know, you develop skills. You have certain talents, but it's really about perfecting a skill. You know, and, and you develop a skill for launching something if you've done it a few times. You get the skill to know how to put a team together.

• 8:39Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 8:40Speaker 01

  The skill how to, you know, identify the North Star and hold people to that and not give up on that. You know, you know when it's ready. Like, you know, you know when you have to hit the rewind button sometimes. You know, but these are all skills you develop as you, as you build things. And so I think most of life is, it's more about skill and will than it is about gifts or talent.

• 9:14Speaker 00

  I agree 100%. I even think about, for me as a parent, we have two kids. And my mentality, my methodology is skills-based parenting. So I always think about whatever it is, whatever behavior I want to see, or whatever behavior I don't want to see, I dig down deeply and figure out what skill is it that's underlying this, that will unlock the consistent behavior that I want to see. And it's funny, because a lot of times, we might see something on the surface, and we might just stop our analysis there. But there are several underlying skills that are required in order to be effective there. So for example, with my son, one time, he wasn't paying attention in class. He was kind of getting bored and wasn't feeling very challenged. And so he was starting to disrupt.

• 9:59Speaker 00

  And I said, Kai, what's wrong? And he said, I'm, I'm just bored, Dad. I just, I just can't focus, because I'm bored. I said, okay, so what, I understand that it can be boring. And I just want you to know that there are going to be a lot of things in life that you might find boring. So let's work on developing this skill of dealing with that. So let's, we're going to practice focusing. And so we spent the whole weekend working on that. And that, the focus was the thing that was the underlying skill that helped him to not be as bored and be more focused there at school. And so when you think, thank you. And when you think about the launches, there are probably some surface-level skills that people think that's what's required to do a launch really well.

• 10:42Speaker 00

  What are the hidden skills that you've discovered that really make things happen effectively at a launch?

• 10:49Speaker 01

  Well, the hidden skill is, I learned this from Steve. Steve said, you got to get the big idea right. You know, and you get a big idea, you ought to be able to communicate that to someone in an inspiring way that will wake them up every day on the journey in four words or less.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  That's pretty interesting. That's the big idea. So for Steve, that was a thousand songs in your pocket.

• 11:21Speaker 01

  It was, we're going to reinvent the phone. So you think about it, you come up and you're working at Apple and you're told, I get to work with Steve Jobs to reinvent the phone? That thing that Alexander Graham Bell invented a hundred years ago? That'll wake you up in the morning. You know, it's not, oh, we're going to produce the consumer electronics product that will compete with this and you know, we're not, we're not produce a phone. No, we're going to reinvent the phone, the phone. Not a smartphone, not a cellphone, the phone. You know, you think about all the, all that's captured in those short, you know, few words. So you gotta get the big picture, but the skill is the recognition that the devil's in the detail.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  And the recognition that every little detail counts. While I was waiting for this interview, I saw an article about the new CEO of Apple, John Turner's. And it ended with the story about when he was a young engineer over in China or somewhere on his, one of his first projects, which was the Apple Cinema Display. And I remember when Apple came out with that cinema display back in the early 2000s. And John was a young engineer. He's been there 25 years, you know, back to early 2000s. But he was sitting there late in the morning, counting the, the little details of a screw on the back of the screen.

• 12:51Speaker 01

  And he was wondering if anyone would ever see it. But he said, no, I will see that. And the rest of his career, every time he saw that screen, look at the back and goes, that's what made it great. It's that the devil's in the details. It's the skill is to be able to understand and appreciate the details. And it's kind of like your son. You know, it'd be pretty easy for some people to get bored. I want to work on the big picture. But I gotta do all these little details. But one detail after another is what creates something great. You know, like for our stores, every detail, picking the location, getting every location right.

• 13:33Speaker 01

  Design that store, hiring the store leader, training the team, picking all the people, doing the laundry, getting the opening right, blah, blah, blah. It's a million little details that make something look so effortless to a customer and they come for the first time. But everything great in life has a lot of details and the, the, the simpler you make something, the harder it is. Cause you've got all the complexity out of the way, but you had to eliminate all that complexity. You know?

• 14:06Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 14:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:07Speaker 00

  And so there is, we have details. We have work ethic. But what do you think about the word obsession too? Because to get to that level of sophistication, to that level of simplicity, I, I find it hard to believe that somebody could replicate what Steve Jobs did without being as obsessed.

• 14:31Speaker 01

  No, I don't think many, no, but there are very few people that had the obsession with.

• 14:38Speaker 01

  I, I, obsession, yeah, it's just

• 14:43Speaker 01

  a commitment to the best. You know, really a commitment to perfection. Now Steve used to believe, he genuinely believed this, that if you thought about any question hard enough, you'd come to the inevitable, only answer and everyone would agree with you that you got it right. You know, think of how many people today. You know, especially the danger of something like ChatGPT or one of these agents is you quickly get to an answer that feels like it's, that's pretty good. And you think your work's done. No, no, no, you're just getting started, right? That you gotta think through something really, really hard. And that's what Steve did. Steve was a perfectionist.

• 15:29Speaker 01

  And he would obsess over every detail till he knew he had thought it completely through. That they explored every single potential way to do something. And reached a conclusion with a team of people, not himself, that we all agreed that was the right answer and that we'd move on. You know, but that it's obsession.

• 15:56Speaker 00

  Wow.

• 15:56Speaker 01

  It's a, a standard. But it's something really high. And what the amazing thing about Steve is that example he said for Apple. You know, it's now 15 years, whatever, since he passed away. It's still what makes Apple great. It's that obsession with detail. You know, we all know if Apple does something, they've worked really hard to think it through. Now they've even got to a point where they're so confident in their ability to execute the details that they don't have to be first. Now they say innovation today isn't about being first, it's about being best. You know, in some ways, yeah, I don't know if that's true or not, but that's what they believe.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  But they do deliver a quality level that nobody else can touch. Like I believe the iPhone Duo is gonna

• 16:52Speaker 01

  blow people away and far exceed Apple's expectations, customers' expectations. Because they'll have taken this concept that's been around for seven years. But they'll have thought through the details of how software magically unlocks a really elegant hardware in a way that you have never seen before. And that magic is going to make a big difference to people. And everyone's going to realize that I've been using the same form factor for fundamentally 20 years. And now I can use something different. And I use these devices, I mean, everyone uses these devices six, seven hours a day, more than any other thing they use.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  So the marginal cost of owning that is not high. I think, you know, because of Apple's standards and attention to detail, that product is going to be magical. I have no doubt about it.

• 17:49Speaker 00

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• 18:35Speaker 00

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• 19:20Speaker 00

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• 19:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, yeah. Well, first of all, I hope you're right because I know I'm going to get one eventually. We are, we're a proud Apple team. Actually, Apple was a client of ours for some trainings back in the day. Thank you, thank you. So it was cool to get in there and do some of that work. And I, it's really interesting because you talked about the, the level of obsession that is required to get to this level of success and how you have to really focus and think down deeply. And if you ask a good enough question and think long and hard enough, you can get to the answer. What are your thoughts about the patterns that we're seeing

• 20:25Speaker 00

  of more people outsourcing deep, critical thought to AI? What do you think the future is?

• 20:32Speaker 01

  It's super dangerous.

• 20:34Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 20:34Speaker 01

  No, what my, my belief, AI, you know, AI is just, to me, the next technology. You know, we've always had disruptive technologies that have changed our world. And AI is the next one. And the reality, the way we have to look at it is it just enables us, it's kind of a shortcut to making really rapid progress. Right? But that's going to create time for you to go to a whole nother level of such of detail. You know, and that's what you gotta do because it'd be easy to just move on. You know, one company did a big disservice to the world and they said, move fast and break things.

• 21:21Speaker 01

  You know, think about that. Move fast and break things. That's the exact opposite of Steve Jobs.

• 21:28Speaker 01

  Steve would say ruthlessly eliminate hurry. Don't be in a hurry. If anything, be in a hurry to do high quality. But you get one chance to do something and make it great. And you're not going to let someone touch that or try that until you know it's absolutely perfect. That's the exact opposite of move fast and break things. Right? So there's these two things in the world. Now move fast has been kind of a hallmark of the valley for about 20 years. And that's created a lot of issues. Right now we're seeing with AI where people are truly

• 22:08Speaker 01

  and probably rightfully nervous about these models going into the wild before they'd been appropriately vetted for safety, for example. Well, that's the ethos. I've got to move fast or someone else will. You know, you're, when you, when you make a product, you are responsible. You are absolutely responsible for the outcome of that product and how it impacts people in their lives. And, you know, Steve would never move fast. I mean, I remember when we came out with, you know, the internet came out. One of the first things he wanted to do is he had young children was to create something called KidSafe, which was a way to let kids surf the internet, but put some safety, you know, uh, levels into that. That was really important to him.

• 22:54Speaker 01

  And to this day, Apple probably cares as much about privacy as any large company. You know, and that's been a hallmark of Tim's leadership. But safety, privacy, these are all things that, you know, as a creator of something, you've got to take responsibility for all of the impacts that that product might have. But move fast and break things is saying, I don't care about responsibility. I just want to get stuff out in the wild. It's a whole different mindset.

• 23:24Speaker 00

  Yeah. And when we're seeing how dangerous it can be. And I, I love this answer because you, when we look at AI, a lot of these, these conversations about artificial intelligence are so simplistic in a very problematic way, which are, which is kind of emblematic of the lack of deep thought that we were just talking about too. But when you look at it as a tool, tell me if I'm interpreting what you're saying right. You can still use the tool effectively to be more efficient. But it does not diminish the quantity of effort that you put in.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  Correct. No, it allows you to put the same effort in, but yield a lot faster progress, go a lot deeper.

• 24:09Speaker 01

  You know, it used to be I could, I can only go as fast as I could bring together a group of experts. Cause I had to put together experts to fill in the holes for what I know as a person. Now I've got the general knowledge that's been accumulated by mankind available to me right now with a query. Right? So I can operate independently at a level of detail that I never could before. And that's what makes the tool so powerful. But you've got to keep asking more questions, refining, polishing, getting to, like you said, get to the real core issue that's underlying

• 24:54Speaker 01

  what you're trying to do. And you're trying to, and I think the most important thing, because we each come with our own personal geography. It's our live life. We all are going to value something a little bit different. Right? That's the thing about AI. That'll lead you to common knowledge. Right? What we bring to the world is our inner voice. And that's a product of our own personal geography and how we think and understand about, think about and understand it. And that's the value that you do. So AI should let you get to your own inner voice and how I apply that to whatever I'm working on. And that's the unique contribution we make to the world.

• 25:39Speaker 00

  Yeah. Oh, that's brilliant. I love this. I love it. Let's go back to.

• 25:43Speaker 01

  It's just what I think about. It's, it is.

• 25:46Speaker 00

  Uh, listen, you see, this is the problem, Ron. You're too humble. You're too humble now. And now I need to ask a question to get you to, to flex a little bit. Okay. So when you think about all of the contributions you've had with the Apple Store, with Target, everything. I, I want the, the audience to get a really good idea. When we talk about launches, the impact of the launches and the projects that you've worked on. How would the world look different if your contributions to some of these marquee products were not there?

• 26:21Speaker 01

  Oh, I don't know. Um, it might not look different. Maybe, you know, I just did some things ahead of other people. Other people might've eventually got to the same answer. You know, but I'll give you an example is when I was at Target, you know, there were creators like designers and the rest of us were copiers. And what retailers did is we'd go out, you know, Target had its own product lines and we'd go sample shopping and buy things others had done. And then we'd bring them overseas and make them at a lower price. So we weren't creating, we were copying.

• 27:01Speaker 01

  And then I had this, you know, thought at one point, I, I saw this tea kettle when I walked into a store in London on a rainy day, like it is here today in the south of France. And I ducked into a store and I saw the most beautiful product. I, I don't know. I just couldn't stop staring at it. It was the most beautiful tea kettle. And it was designed by a guy named Michael Graves and produced by an Italian company called Lessie. It was like a hundred forty nine dollars. And at Target, our highest priced tea kettle was nine dollars ninety nine cents. But I asked this question, why does good design have to be so expensive?

• 27:42Speaker 01

  And I thought, what if Target could win on design? What if we didn't copy? What if we created? And we used our strength, this ability to buy things at scale and figure out how to do high quality at a low price? Wouldn't that be great? And, you know, and I, and I did that with a big, bold initiative partnering of Michael Graves, who designed for Target. We launched with a hundred forty products and it kind of changed Target. And I didn't, I was just doing something I thought would be really fun to do. It was a launch and it had a huge impact. And today you see collaborations every other day in retail. So and so's working with so and so, so and so's working with so and so.

• 28:25Speaker 01

  But those didn't exist, you know, at any scale when I did that for the first time. So, you know, but I, I do believe if I hadn't, that someone else would figure that out. So I just happened to be, you know, early at it, you know? But what I, somebody's making, but like the Apple Store, the Apple Store is a very unique thing. It's hard to go back now and remember what stores are like before the Apple Store. But everything we did there was unique, you know? Especially how we hired and trained people and serve customers.

• 29:03Speaker 01

  And to this day, the Apple Store, I think is the most vibrant, dynamic store, most crowded store in most locations. And people love going to the Apple Store. So we did some things right. And I think Apple stores are widening the, I mean, a lot of people say, do it like Apple did it, you know? How do you serve people like Apple? How do you design a store as clean as the Apple Store? How do you, you know? So I don't know. A few things I've done probably have been, you know, firsts or had some following. I don't know which is more important. They're all kind of just things I loved doing, didn't, you know?

• 29:42Speaker 00

  I love this answer for so many reasons. First of all, the that I really like that strategy of collaboration, finding unique collaborations. Because especially when you think, you know, I can't, I can't shake it. I'm still the negotiation guy. That's the heart of effective deal making. If you can be creative and collaborate in ways that are synergistic, then you can create something incredible. And that's a perfect example there. And it really blazed the trail for other future collaborations. So I think that's, that's really notable.

• 30:12Speaker 01

  You, everyone has their own. When I was young, my dad, you say, Ron, you should do something significant. And I said, what's that? He goes, well, you have to figure it out. And I looked up significance in a dictionary, said it has meaning. Okay, if you look up meaning, it'll say, meaning is something significant. And then you start to think that through and you realize what is significant to me is uniquely significant to me. Cause it has meaning to me. Right? And so we've got to each pursue our own significance. And sometimes it'll have broad impacts, sometime it doesn't, but you're doing something meaningful. Well, what's interesting about negotiation is you've got to find a way.

• 30:56Speaker 01

  We each come at a problem or negotiating with different priorities. But when we get to the right outcome, it is meaningful to both of us. And those are the best ideas, right? And so you got to find a way to do it. We built a little store on Fifth Avenue, that glass cube, which, you know, in, you know, in some ways, people think changed the skyline of Manhattan at 32 feet in a sheet of glass. Which is pretty amazing. It was the most, five years after it opened, it was the most photographed object, according to Flickr in New York City. Of all things taken, more people took that building than all these buildings that were 100 stories tall. Or the Statue of Liberty, you know?

• 31:42Speaker 01

  But when we built that store, we had to make a decision to do it. It, we all got to that we should open the store from a different perspective. You know, I, I wanted to see a first store I get to open on Fifth Avenue. I loved it because it was always would be the first store on Fifth Avenue. Forget being in the middle of the street at the 50 yard line. There's only one great shopping street in the world. And imagine being on the, the first store forever. Because we're on, you know, right across from Central Park, the plaza, it's zoned residential the rest of the way. No matter what, that's where Fifth Avenue shopping starts. That was meaningful to me. Steve, for his entire life, had loved the form of a cube. Right?

• 32:26Speaker 01

  He, he had tried to make products in the shape of a cube. Next, the company founded after Apple, the logo was a cube. Right? He just thought that was a perfect form. And when we had to go underground for that store, the architect said, well, I am painted a, a pyramid over the lube and brought light downstairs in Paris. Why don't we find a shape that we can put over the, and bring light into the basement on Fifth Avenue? And next week he came into the cube and Steve found meaning through the cube. Right? But each of us found a different reason to love that location.

• 33:05Speaker 01

  And the more people who find a way to, that that is significant, the bigger the idea will be. But we all, uh, value significance or meaning according to our own personal geography. I don't know where I'm going with this, but it's, I think it's really fascinating. You know, so it's not like there's one reason why the cube work. It's because it works for so many people. You know, it works for people who are out of town and have flown in from Europe and they're jet legged and they wake up in the morning, they got nothing to do. And they go down to the hotel and they said, well, the Apple store is open. It's open 24 hours, just go over to the Apple store. It works for all the people that support the city that never sleeps.

• 33:49Speaker 01

  Cause when they finally get done working, they're wide awake, they want to do something. They got a place to go, they can come in the middle of the night. Right? It works for people that are doing a project and their computer breaks and they can run to the genius bar at three in the morning. Right? That's an idea that has significance in so many different ways. Then we opened that around the clock. It exceeded the break even in the store during the hours it wasn't intended to be open. You know? But those are, I think that's where you find the big ideas. They have meaning to a broad number of people for a variety of different reasons, not just one.

• 34:29Speaker 00

  That's fascinating because it, it brings a, it, it's, it's very hard to describe because it's nuanced. Because there's energy that goes behind significance and purpose. And it will look different for different reasons for different people.

• 34:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 34:45Speaker 00

  But if you can create something that other people find significant, then they will put their energy to it. And then you almost have to, to honor their rationale for bringing that energy and just appreciate it. And find a way for everybody to work toward the same goal, even if they're working toward the same goal for different reasons.

• 35:04Speaker 01

  Exactly like, and then if you don't give people a chance, that's when you fail. Like when I went to Penny's, I had this vision for Penny's and for a variety of reasons, we went way too fast. And the team at Penny's, they, they didn't see a need to change. I don't think it was the idea was bad, but they didn't get a chance to have any input into it.

• 35:24Speaker 01

  Cause it was Ron's idea. And people want to all understand why this idea matters. And they want to make a little contribution to it. And you got to give people time to do that. And if you go too fast, you never do that. And that's how, you know, a humble guy like me was seen as being arrogant. I think probably the people that worked there. Because, you know, this Apple guy knew exactly what he thought Penny's needed. And he didn't take the time to ask me what I thought, you know? And I can understand that.

• 35:56Speaker 00

  Yeah. Yeah. Let's, let's go into humility and arrogance in business and life. Because what's, what's interesting to me, hearing this, hearing you talk, having this conversation with you, is that there is a lot of humility in the way that you describe your contributions. And now you're talking about the chapter of JCPenney's where it was a launch or an endeavor that didn't turn out the way that you wanted to. So over your years, your relationship to the concepts of humility versus arrogance, tell us where, where this came from and, and.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  Well, I think what, I think what happens, what happens is, uh, success is addictive. And, uh, blinding is what I'd say. You know, when you, and I think Steve was, Steve was that way. Yeah. He changed the world at age 24, when Apple went public, you know, and he created the personal computer with Was and other people at the time. And I think the rest of his life, he lived for moments like launching something that would change the world. You know, he loved, you know, imagining, you know, movies like at Pixar.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  When he acquired that little animating software, you know, he had a dream that he could make a motion picture movie some way like some time like Disney. And he got to do that, right? He got to come back to Apple, he got to create the iMac, he got to launch the iPod. And then he wanted to something, he wanted to reinvent the phone. And he lived for those moments, right? And each time you succeed, you become more confident in your ability to succeed. Right? And, and that can lead to arrogance. Normally, when you're doing something for the first time, you're just working so damn hard, you have no reason to be confident. You just want to go try something. Like when I, I had no reason to think we'd go to the state tournament.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  I just thought it'd be fun to try to go to the state tournament, you know? But I had no idea that we could get there and we did. But that gave me confidence to try something else. And then as you succeed and succeed, you realize, okay. So then I'm now going to go to Penny's and leave Apple. And I'm given six months because for a lot of reasons, I had to delay the arrival for six months. I, in my own mind, started working up all these visions for what Penny's could become. And then I told the board what I wanted to do. And they go, that sounds great. I said, should we wait? And they said, no, let's go, what do we have to lose? And we went way too fast. But I was situationally arrogant. You know, and they said, go, I actually could have pushed back and said, no, no, it's too fast.

• 38:44Speaker 01

  Even though I knew in my bones, we're a little reckless into going this fast.

• 38:50Speaker 01

  You know, I should have known better. And my only point is, this humble guy who grew up doing things, got to a point where I had such confidence in what we're going to do. That I was willing to risk, take that bigger risk with a big company with all those employees. That's borderline arrogance. When you do something reckless, that's arrogance. You know? Not unlike your kid who's got your license for the first time and you love to drive fast and you're just speeding around a corner. Cause you just have confidence, you can go as fast as you can do it.

• 39:27Speaker 00

  Right.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  That's reckless, but it's, you're arrogant. Cause you don't know better, you know? And, you know, I had, I've had those moments. And so I think like all these things, you know?

• 39:40Speaker 01

  The line between good and evil cuts right inside of us, very close to each other. The line between humility and arrogance, very close to each other.

• 39:49Speaker 00

  Hmm.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  You know, the line between great work and not great work, very close. You know, you gotta really work at these things, you know?

• 40:00Speaker 00

  Hmm. And when you look at the successes that you've had and you look at the failures that you've had, which have taught, which of those have taught you more?

• 40:09Speaker 01

  Honestly, I don't buy anything that failure teaches you more. I, I think you learn from everything you do. What, what you learn is when you think deeply about cause and effect, you know?

• 40:22Speaker 00

  Ah.

• 40:23Speaker 01

  It, it's really the depth at which you think about your history that provides the lessons, right? Um. I think when we're successful, we're so busy doing the next thing, we don't take time to learn. When we fail, it is so overwhelming to your psychology, your, your confidence that you have to explore, what is meant? Why did this happen? How did I get into this position? What do I learn from it?

• 41:05Speaker 01

  So I think we tend to dwell on failure more than we, we tend to celebrate success and move on. You know, you think, oh, wow, we got the, we picked the right location on Fifth Avenue. No, it was every little detail of decisions that got us there. But we don't tend to think about that when we're successful. But when we fail, we tend to dwell. So we learn more through failure because we think about it harder. But I don't think you learn more from failure.

• 41:33Speaker 00

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• 42:16Speaker 00

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• 42:58Speaker 00

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• 43:27Speaker 00

  Ron, that's a fascinating answer because most people go in the direction that you said most people go because it's the pain. The pain has a focusing factor and there's a lot of negativity bias. We're going to just naturally pay attention to the things that hurt the most. And but really what it's sounding like is that you have to coach yourself

• 43:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 43:47Speaker 00

  to evaluate activities. What did I do? Cause and effect, regardless of the outcome. And that's, it sounds like that takes a lot of discipline.

• 43:56Speaker 01

  It does. Well, think of like a, I'm thinking NFL football, right? They play a game every week. And when a team lose a game, they go, God, we gotta go in and really watch the film and figure out what we did wrong. You know, and these guys go nuts. You, you feel it when you've, your coach is just going nuts trying to dissect why you failed. When you win, they just go celebrate. You know, they don't go back and say, what did we do that made us so great that game? We just go on to the next game and imagine what can we do next? But we, we can lose sight pretty quickly of what it, you know, so we, we go deeper on things that don't work. I really believe in that.

• 44:38Speaker 01

  And, and that's why people think they learn from failure. But you can learn, you learn from life. And the problem is, most people don't, they aren't very introspective. That was the beauty of writing shop different. When you write a book, it forces you to think deeply about not just what you did, but why you did what you did. What made me believe in that love could be a strategy for serving customers? You know, where did that come from? It went all, all the way back to my mom. You know, that's, that's where it came from. And I read about that in the book. But, you know, you've got to be introspective.

• 45:20Speaker 01

  And right now, unfortunately, people move way too fast. They multitask. You know, they're, I, I get so sad. You see people taking a walk and they got headphones in and they're not even thinking. They're just listening to something. Whether it's music or a podcast or they're not listening, they're not in touch with their own inner voice and reflecting on their, what they could be learning, they're trying to find an answer from somebody else, you know?

• 45:49Speaker 00

  Hmm. So true. It's, it's so true. And again, it goes back to what we were talking about. Depth of thought is, is a skill and a discipline. You have to be able to be willing to do it.

• 46:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 46:01Speaker 00

  And when you think about not just your career, but also just business and, and life in general, what role does luck play in all of this?

• 46:10Speaker 01

  It's a huge role. Oh, no, we're all, uh, like, you know, in the valley, like I, my kids, you know, my kids, you, you get to know the parents of your kids' friends, right? And there were so many people, parents, who were working as hard as I worked, who were smarter than I am. But they had found a company that had the success that I got lucky with at Apple. Right? And so I think luck plays a big role. Now you make your own luck. I think there's some truth to that through

• 46:51Speaker 01

  how you carry yourself and things you do and, but no, I think most people, you know, that's why you say we're blessed, right? You, you had some good fortune. Now you got lucky, you know? I was lucky to be born into the family I was born on, dude. I was lucky to

• 47:11Speaker 00

  Right.

• 47:11Speaker 01

  uh, somehow have the faith coming out of business school to pursue an industry I could love for a lifetime, you know? I was kind of lucky to pick retail for me because that was a great choice. I was lucky to go to Apple when I did. You know, to get to work with Steve, you know? Um, I was lucky that the iPod went to Windows and it made Apple a great company. And our stores had a product that everyone wanted to buy and they packed the stores that we had a good vision for and got the volume well above her breakeven. I was lucky that

• 47:48Speaker 00

  Right.

• 47:49Speaker 01

  Apple then came up with the iPhone that I got to help just at the margin with in terms of developing, but got to bring it to the market. But that made the stores reach another level. You know, so I was very lucky in my career, you know? And I think that's true. You know, that luck plays a big part. Um, that's where you just gotta be patient because it's gonna come. Uh, you just have

• 48:16Speaker 00

  Right.

• 48:16Speaker 01

  be ready for it when it comes. And you can't miss those moments when, when.

• 48:24Speaker 01

  The future is a thought away. So many of us miss those opportunities that come in, you know? Like when I was in that store.

• 48:34Speaker 00

  Oh, for sure.

• 48:35Speaker 01

  When I was in that store in the rain, looking at that decal, that changed target. If I hadn't gone out to walk into stores that day, I might have never come up with the idea that good design didn't have to be expensive, right? But I not only found that, I let that idea, I let my entire body embrace that idea, you know? And I just wonder how many people have these moments just happening all the time? And they miss them because they don't know how to spot them, you know? The genius bar, yeah.

• 49:14Speaker 00

  That's a big part of it.

• 49:15Speaker 01

  But to deliver service to a bar, that's just all of a sudden, there's an idea and you go, wow, that's kind of cool. And then you ruminate on, then you share it with someone and you end up, what do we call it? Let's call it a genius bar. And suddenly an idea is born that could have been very fragile, a thought that just went away. But I caught it, you know? And, and you gotta be ready to catch these things when they, you know, pass your way, you know? And that's kind of the luck, that's the luck, yeah.

• 49:48Speaker 00

  Right. And so there's a fun study where they talked about luck and they said, they wanted to divide, divide people on whether or not they self-identified as lucky. It was a really interesting study. I'm going to butcher the numbers, but the, the essence is going to be the same. So they said, read this newspaper, both part, both groups were going to read this newspaper. And the goal was to count how many images were in the newspaper and then see how long it took. And so the average time for the people who identified as unlucky was, let's say, about one minute or two minutes, something like that. But the average time for the people self-identified as lucky was about 15 seconds.

• 50:27Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 50:28Speaker 00

  And so what, so what happened was in the newspaper, there might be two images on the first page. You flip to the second page and then on the second page, there's a box that says, stop counting immediately. There are 50 images in this newspaper. The lucky people saw that, the unlucky people didn't.

• 50:47Speaker 01

  Right.

• 50:47Speaker 00

  And so what I'm finding is that luck is all around us. We just have to train ourselves to see it. And when you are obsessed with your craft, the world becomes your library. And you see opportunities for growth everywhere.

• 51:00Speaker 01

  I totally agree. And to, to see the opportunity, you have to be present. You've got to be so present. Now, you can't, you gotta eliminate all the regrets from the past. You gotta eliminate the anxiety of the future. You have, you gotta be grateful for this presence that you get to be a part of. And just be just present, you know?

• 51:31Speaker 00

  Okay. What is the single thing, the single most important thing that Steve Jobs taught you that business school did not?

• 51:41Speaker 01

  To ruthlessly eliminate hurry. Steve was never in a hurry. Every time I called him, he answered the phone. He talked as much as we needed to, to get things done. He'd come to a meeting, he wouldn't carry a cell phone for the iPhone. You know, he would just stay until things got done. You know, we launched an iPod in 2001. We didn't launch another product till 2007. Cause we had to make the iPod great and then we launched the phone. But you look at all he accomplished in his life and he was taken too early. He was never in a hurry.

• 52:20Speaker 00

  With your book, Shop Different.

• 52:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:22Speaker 00

  Um, when, when you think about your book, when you think about your book, when somebody reads your book, what changes in their mind?

• 52:33Speaker 01

  Um, their approach to life. I think they will end up choosing kindness more frequently. Yeah. No, the book, this book really talks about, I mean, it's funny. I've, I've had quite a few people tell me it's not a business book, it's a love story. And, you know, I kind of go, a love story? Yeah, you love retail, you love Steve, Steve love you, you love stores, you love customers, you love creating stories, you loved life. And that shows up on every page, you know?

• 53:10Speaker 01

  And ultimately, all I do is I just chose kindness every day with every person, with every moment. And the outcome of that was the book. And so I think you read the book, you will start to understand how you can live a life filled with kindness every moment.

• 53:30Speaker 00

  Let's make a compelling case. I want you to go back to business school. Let's talk about the, the young aspiring business person who wants to take over Silicon Valley. And compel them with this, what's a compelling argument for love and kindness as a fun, as fundamental principles in business?

• 53:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, because, well, the reality is most people sleep in a good, they sleep eight hours a day. They work eight hours a day. It's a 40 hour week and you live life eight hours a day. That adds up to 24, right? So in your personal life where you live life, most of us were, grew up either with a faith or a family that talked about, you know, filling that life with love and meaning and purpose and how we treat people matters, blah, blah, blah. Well, that's eight hours a day. Why do I then have to wear a different hat to work?

• 54:31Speaker 01

  I spend as much time working as I do living my life. And so then why do I try to separate those? So if love works at home, love works in the office. If people respond to kindness at school, a teacher and a student, you see that, or a coach and a player, people respond to kindness at the office. So this idea that you have to manage your way through work, you have to hold people accountable. You have to create a sense of fear to get people to perform. You've got to have deadlines, all these kind of negative emotional words at work

• 55:14Speaker 01

  is the opposite of what we try to do at home. So why is that? You know, and there is really no, there's two things in life, love and fear. You know, you can choose which one do I want to lead with? Managers tend to lead with fear, leaders tend to lead with love. Oops, that was two, three minutes, so I apologize.

• 55:36Speaker 00

  It's all good. That's Simone's job. He'll chop it up. He'll make it look good. Okay, now let me push you on this because Steve, and this is from me, from the outside looking in. I did not have the pleasure of meeting him like you did. From the outside looking in, Steve Jobs seemed to be equal parts brilliant and equal parts ruthless. So what would you think his relationship is with bringing love and kindness into the business world?

• 56:03Speaker 01

  Oh, well, Steve, Steve told me once that the highest form of kindness is telling the truth. It's letting people know exactly what you think. Now Steve's view, and he wore his opinions on his sleeve. And he was never criticizing the person, he was criticizing the work, the idea, you know? So Steve would say, I love people, but I didn't love the output all the time. And I was very demanding on that, you know? So Steve, the light of God burned as brightly inside of him as it does in me. You know, it just, it was harder to get out sometimes because he was so obsessed and

• 56:47Speaker 01

  demanding of himself. And a lot of people have that trouble, you know? They, they, they get in the way of, you know, being their, the best version of themselves. But now Steve was a, really a wonderful human being. And there is some truth, he, you know, he had a pretty tough side. But you know what he did then? He surrounded himself with really nice people. Now Tim Cook's a really good guy. Johnny Ive, a really good guy. Eddie Q, a really good guy. I like to think I'm a nice guy. You know, so Steve understood that one of the ways he could be himself

• 57:28Speaker 01

  was to let people around him who reflected what he really wanted to be, but couldn't bring himself to be there every moment of the day. So he understood the importance of love and kindness and he, he let me do that. He said, just use a different word, you know, don't call it love, call it something else, you know? He was very supportive.

• 57:50Speaker 00

  I love that. That's great. Okay. Now, and last one. As somebody who has negotiated with and perhaps against Steve Jobs, how would you describe his negotiation style?

• 58:03Speaker 01

  He negotiated until the best idea won. Steve never came into negotiation with a, an outcome he wanted to achieve.

• 58:14Speaker 01

  He came into a negotiation trying to find a way to whatever idea he had come to could be better yet, right? So for Steve, the best idea is what he was in pursuit of. It was never his idea. So I don't feel like I ever negotiated with Steve. I just had a lot of conversations about what would be great.

• 58:42Speaker 00

  If you were going to take a big swing this holiday season and start a business, what would you build? Maybe it's that one idea that you can't stop thinking about. I've built a business from the ground up and I can tell you that the hard part isn't the idea. It's getting it live. That's where Shopify comes in. You can sell everywhere people shop, online, in person, across social media, even in AI chats. And Shopify checkout with Shop Pay converts up to 36% higher than the competition. So more of the people who show up actually buy. Plus, Black Friday is when more people are already shopping and ready to buy. So the sooner you're live, the better. If you're ready to launch your business before Black Friday, go to Shopify.com/Quami to start your free trial.

• 59:26Speaker 00

  That's Shopify.com/Quami. Go to Shopify.com/Quami to hear your first. Every year, I swear that I'm going to get ahead of holiday shopping. This year, it started with a Quince cashmere sweater that I bought for myself. It was so soft, so well-made, and my first thought was, who else on my list needs one? Quince makes high-quality staples with 100% Mongolian cashmere and Italian leather. And their cashmere sweaters start at just $60. All of it is 50 to 80% less than similar brands because they work directly with ethical factories and cut out the middlemen. As a negotiator, I know a great deal when I see one. This is luxury quality without the luxury price tag. I use Quince, and you should too.

• 1:00:11Speaker 00

  Give the gift of quality this season. Download the Quince app for app-exclusive offers or just go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365-day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was Quami with Big Swings only. That's the best way to support the show. Wow, that's so paradigm shifting. Oh, so good, so good, Ron. Now, before we wrap up, I want to bring Simone in. He's always, he's very humble, just like you. So he probably didn't tell you that he has the number one Spanish negotiation podcast in the world.

• 1:00:46Speaker 01

  Well, he told me he doesn't speak French very well. He lives in Ottawa, so. No, go ahead.

• 1:00:55Speaker 00

  Not yet. I'm sure, Simone, are you going to learn?

• 1:00:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

• 1:01:01Speaker 00

  Cool, so Simone, what's on your mind?

• 1:01:03Speaker 02

  Well, I'm a designer. And when you design something new, you start hearing the voices of people saying, no, this is not going to work. This is not going to work. And as I see the Apple stores, those are very different from anything else. So I am sure that you heard voices saying, this is not going to work. This is not going to work. So how did you deal with that pressure of people even more experienced than you saying that this was not going to work and kept going with your idea?

• 1:01:36Speaker 01

  Well, that's a, no, it's really important that you, Johnny has said that many times. Johnny, ideas are fragile. And that's where in their early stage, you want to keep them close to a few people. And you want to have people understand the fragility of an idea. Because once you start becoming a skeptic and people start to compromise, the idea just goes away. Because it becomes something that's not very special, right? So I had the privilege with the Apple store of working with Steve. Because no matter what I would come up with, he always had a way. What if we did this? You know, he was an adder, not a subtractor, you know?

• 1:02:21Speaker 01

  And Steve wanted to take risk. And he was willing to be a contrarian, to think different in his, you know, words. And so I had the privilege with Apple of, you know, leading the group, working side by side with Steve and a team of people that really wanted to change the world and were willing to take risks. The problem is you get to other companies and people don't have that culture. That's what I ran into at JCPenney, a group that didn't want to change. And wanted to, wanted things to fail more than they wanted things to succeed. You know, they didn't want the best idea, they wanted to maintain their idea. That was my, kind of what I ran into there. And I should have been smart enough to see that, but I wasn't.

• 1:03:05Speaker 01

  You know, but I didn't have that issue at Apple. But you're right, with creatives, you gotta, you gotta stick to your guns. You gotta stick to your idea. You gotta have belief. You know, you are the one, if you're in charge of creativity, you gotta be the believer and you gotta get people to believe. That's your job. Now, you're, you're, you're selling your idea. You're creating that North Star that people will say, okay, let's go. You know, and that's, you can't, you can't compromise on that.

• 1:03:35Speaker 02

  Thank you. Thank you.

• 1:03:36Speaker 00

  So good, so good. So Ron, when, when you think about your legacy and where you are now, where you want to go, where you've been, everything, how would you, how would you describe your career? And what do you see your future being now?

• 1:03:55Speaker 01

  So I don't have a lot, I'm a retail guy. And I spent my entire industry trying to improve the retail experience, you know, through stores and, and I love doing that. And I'm now 68 years old. I had a birthday recently. You know, I don't need more. I don't need more, I just need to, you know, hopefully give back more, you know? And I can do that in a lot of different ways. A book is one way to do that. It's mentoring one-on-many, whereas most people only get to mentor one-on-one. A book is a way to mentor one-on-many when people get to read it and maybe something

• 1:04:39Speaker 01

  will connect with them. So I don't, I don't, I don't believe in legacies. I just think you be the best that you can every day. Try to become a little better tomorrow and see where it leads. You know?

• 1:04:53Speaker 00

  So good. Ron, I appreciate you for coming on the show and thank you for writing this book too. So listeners, we will put links in the description of this episode. Ron, really appreciate it, brother.

• 1:05:04Speaker 01

  My pleasure. Thank you, thank you both.