Transcription
Learning is a lifelong thing. It doesn't end at Harvard Business School. It's your responsibility, I think, if you're in any profession at all. You have to do it consistently, all the time. I think I spend probably 50 or 60 percent of my time learning, reading, talking to people, traveling. It's the only way you can keep on top of this global world of ours. And it's even tougher now because of the globality of the businesses you're all going to deal in.
How reading is the most important one. But the second one, which is often forgotten, is talking to other people. You can learn more from speaking to people in 15 minutes than if you spent your life doing something they can explain it to you. And you can learn from watching people. You also are going to learn by, I'm going to call it imitation, but by watching other very good people and how they operate in difficult circumstances. I learned a lot of things, what not to do, and also what to do, by watching other people.
There is already a book on you. That book is already being written. And if I spoke to your teachers, your friends, your professionals, your parents, I would know whether you trusted, how hard you work, if you're ethical. I would know so much about you, you'd be shocked. I don't even have to meet you. So that book is already growing. You should write the book you want the way to be written. You actually have that choice. And you can do it as you want. Now, don't let others write it.
And when you get caught in situations that you're uncomfortable. I remember I worked at a company not far from here. And I remember I was asked to do something I didn't want to do. I'm not telling you I'll take this advice. You can always quit. It's your responsibility whether you accept to do something or not. And it will be in that book written on you.
How do you deal with failure? Making mistakes? Many of you already have dealt with some very difficult times. So this is no different than some of you already dealt with. When you fail, it's okay to get depressed. It's okay to cry. It's okay to go home. It's okay to blame others for a while. But eventually, you have to get over it and move on. The greatest people have ever walked this planet, and I'm talking, I'm not talking business people, I'm talking about people like Nelson Mandela and Abe Lincoln, constantly had setbacks in life and failures, constantly. It happens all the time in business. And some of your success will be how you deal with the failure, not how you deal with the success.
When I get introduced, I always get introduced that in 1998, I was the president of Citigroup. And in 2000, I took over Bank One. I was fired in 1998. So I went a little bit of experience like this. And it's a painful thing. My boss, who had worked for 15 years, called me in and said, "Uh, we want you to resign." So I said, "Okay." I went home. I told my wife and children. I called my wife up and said, "Judy, I'm going to tell you something. I'm not kidding." Because I always make jokes about things like that. But I wanted to make sure the kids were fine. I went home. I had three wonderful daughters. They were much younger then. I said, the oldest, youngest one said, "Dad, do we have to sleep on the streets?" I said, "No, hon, we're okay." The middle one, who just graduated Barnard, said, "Dad, can I still go to college?" I said, "Yes, dear, you can." And I knew things were fine when the oldest one, who was going to Harvard Business School, said, "Dad, can I have that little cell phone you have? You won't be needing it." And I remind people, when you fail at something, it's your. I told you about Citigroup is my net worth, not my self-worth. And I was able to move on. And yes, it was difficult. I did call my boss a year later. He did not call me. I called him and said, "It's time to break bread." We went to lunch together. I told him I didn't think he did the right thing for Citigroup, which is pretty obvious at this point. But I told him the mistakes I made. And whether it was 40-60 or 60-40 wasn't important. I wanted to learn from the experience and move on. He acknowledged my mistakes.
You had better be a little tough in this world of ours because you will be criticized. When you take jobs of leadership, and almost any job, and so you have to grow a little bit of a thick skin. At one point, when Secretary Hank Paulson, Secretary of the Treasury of the United States, was getting a lot of criticism, and Tim Geithner, about some of the things they're doing in a very difficult environment, I called them up and read them a Teddy Roosevelt quote, which I hope you should all remember, or took all the students here. And it was something like the following: that the credit does not go to the critic in the stand. It goes to the person on the field, bloodied and bruised, striving to achieve something. And I think that that's very true. So when you get the criticism, let it go off your back. And I think we should remind ourselves when it comes to mistakes, a lot of what's going to happen the next 25 years to you, it's not just your skill. There's luck involved. So don't get too exuberant when you do well, and don't get too depressed when you don't.
Number four: To their own self be true. You have to fight self-deception. We are human beings. We are experts at it. I do it all the time. It's one of my favorite things to do until people bring me back to earth. Very often, who brings you back to earth? Very often, your friends, your spouse. We all do the same kind of thing with friends and spouses. We come home, we tell them how we were treated and why that person treated us so badly. And they agree with us. So it's very important to try to step out of those situations and try to understand yourself deeply. I'm going to give you two examples about this. It's more personal. It may relate to some of you here about myself. When I was in fifth grade, my teacher made a sign that said "Self-Control" and she put it on the desk facing me. That went on for many, many years. And it wasn't until I was 45 years old that I realized that anger is a bad thing. And that people used to say when I was younger, "That was a well-placed blow of anger, well-timed and well-delivered." It was never deliberate. It was just a welling up of anger. I usually had to apologize. In fact, at one point, someone gave me a box of cards, which all I had to do was fill in the day. And the card said, "Hello, my name is Jamie Dimon. I like to apologize in advance for my behavior on the day of X." And so anger always backfires. It hurts people. You have to apologize all the time. It's better to skip it.
You all know about IQ and EQ. Your IQs are all high enough to be very successful. Where people often fall short, it's on the EQ. And emotional intelligence is critical. And it's something you will develop over time too. Matter of fact, a lot of management skills are more EQ. How do people function? And when I look at EQ, I always think to myself, why is it that when some people walk in a room, we all brighten up? Why is it when you really want advice, you call certain people? Why is it that some people you never would question what they say? And that some people you never would trust what they say? And those are emotional skills and empathy. And but you're a human being. You have these other things, which we all have to develop all the time and work at them all the time. And they're things like passion, work ethic, character, integrity. And you're the sum of all of these things. Your IQ alone will not get you through the dark days or the tough times. You need to develop all these things. To develop them consistently. Take care of yourself, your family, and your friends. You're going to get involved in very high-stress situations. If you don't take care of yourself physically and emotionally, you will fail. You have to do it. I used to feel guilty when I got in the office late, sometimes late being 8:30, 9:00, because I stayed to exercise. Exercise is a good thing. It clears your mind. You have to give yourself vacations and family time all the time. One example I had, I went on vacation many years ago. Like a lot of you, I played tennis, met friends, ran in the afternoon, we had dinner with friends. And my kids were kind of ignoring me that whole vacation. And the next vacation, I said, "No, I'm going to go. I'm going to spend only with the kids. Nothing else. No friends, no tennis." And it's amazing how much fun you have and how much time you play with them. There is no such thing as quality time without quantity. So when you have children, don't think you can make up for it with short briefs or quantity time. They won't. They won't get there with you.
First of all, it is an honor, a privilege, and a very deep responsibility to be a leader of a small group or a bigger group. You have to remind yourself if you make a mistake. And I worry about this all the time. I can hurt a lot of people. And I'm not talking about your shareholders. I'm talking about customers, communities, employees, parents. We have to lay off people. So that's what I worry about every single day. It is personal. I hear all the time that people say, "It's not personal, it's just business." It is personal. I want to do a great job for this company, this team. I bleed JPMorgan blood. I don't like it when people act, I see this all the time, like it's a third party they're talking about. It is not a third party. I wear the jersey of this company. I want patriots. I want people to fight for it and do the right thing all the time.