What happens when a near-death experience forces you to reassess everything you thought you knew about work and life priorities?
In our fourth episode in the series on wellness at work, Scott Friedheim shares the lessons he's learned about wellness and resilience and how a written code of conduct can be a game-changer for achieving both personal and professional goals. We discussed mental health awareness in corporate culture and the progress corporate America has made and still needs to make in promoting mental well-being. Scott also offered insights on how leaders can foster supportive environments that recognize employees as whole individuals on their unique life journeys.
Scott Freidheim is the Managing Partner of Freidheim Capital, a private family office that partners with founders of businesses in their first institutional capital monetization event to access growth equity. He serves on leadership boards across industries and has served on executive committees including Lehman Brothers, Sears Holdings, Investcorp and CDI Corp. Scott’s insights and business contributions have garnered him many board seats including in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy and Denmark. Scott’s nonprofit contributions have included serving on the boards of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee Foundation, Institute of International Education, and Spelman College.
A sought-after voice in the conversations that shape global economics, Scott has participated in many panels at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, New Champions Meeting in Dalian, China and participated in the first World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council in Dubai, UAE as an inaugural member.
Go to https://betterhelp.com/resilience or click Notes on Resilience during sign up for 10% off your first month of therapy with my sponsor BetterHelp.
Invite Manya to inspire and empower your teams + position your organization as a forward-thinking leader in fostering resilience and trauma sensitivity.
What happens when a near-death experience forces you to reassess everything you thought you knew about work and life priorities?
In our fourth episode in the series on wellness at work, Scott Friedheim shares the lessons he's learned about wellness and resilience and how a written code of conduct can be a game-changer for achieving both personal and professional goals. We discussed mental health awareness in corporate culture and the progress corporate America has made and still needs to make in promoting mental well-being. Scott also offered insights on how leaders can foster supportive environments that recognize employees as whole individuals on their unique life journeys.
Scott Freidheim is the Managing Partner of Freidheim Capital, a private family office that partners with founders of businesses in their first institutional capital monetization event to access growth equity. He serves on leadership boards across industries and has served on executive committees including Lehman Brothers, Sears Holdings, Investcorp and CDI Corp. Scott’s insights and business contributions have garnered him many board seats including in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy and Denmark. Scott’s nonprofit contributions have included serving on the boards of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee Foundation, Institute of International Education, and Spelman College.
A sought-after voice in the conversations that shape global economics, Scott has participated in many panels at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, New Champions Meeting in Dalian, China and participated in the first World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council in Dubai, UAE as an inaugural member.
Go to https://betterhelp.com/resilience or click Notes on Resilience during sign up for 10% off your first month of therapy with my sponsor BetterHelp.
Invite Manya to inspire and empower your teams + position your organization as a forward-thinking leader in fostering resilience and trauma sensitivity.
Leaders should think about not just, obviously, the P&L of the company, not just the stock price, not just the strategy of the company. Rather holistically, have I created a wonderful place for people to deliver on their personal and professional goals in life goals in life.
Manya Chylinski:
Hello and welcome to Notes on Resilience. I'm your host, M manya Chylinski, and my guest today is Scott Friedheim. He's a managing partner at Friedheim Capital. He is on the board of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee Foundation and the author of the book Code of Conduct. We had a wonderful conversation about wellness at work and resilience and what it means, from a leadership perspective, to be building an organization that takes care of the health of its employees. This is another one in our series, wellness at Work. I think you're really going to learn a lot in this episode, scott. Hello, I'm so excited to be chatting with you today.
Scott Freidheim:
Wonderful being with you. Thanks so much for having me.
Manya Chylinski:
So we're going to be talking about wellness at work and resilience, and we're going to weave in your book on code of conduct. And before we dive into those topics, though, I would like to know if you could have dinner with any historical figure, who would it be and why?
Scott Freidheim:
I don't know if you call Jesus a historical figure, but he would obviously be number one on my list. That being said, if I'm going to go more secular, I think any sitting president of the United States is a fun person to sit down with, in essence, because the universe of feeds of information are the greatest in that seat. Therefore, the vantage point is as good as any planet. So any sitting president, but obviously I've got a couple that I am particularly fond of, whether that's Ronald Reagan or Abraham Lincoln, george Washington some people who went through some amazing periods of time in history.
Manya Chylinski:
Wow, I'd like to get all of those people together at the dinner table. That would be amazing. So thank you for sharing that and let's get started. I'd love to just get a feel for if you could give us an overview of your book and what is the code of conduct and how should we be thinking about that in our lives?
Scott Freidheim:
Sure. So about four years ago I was meant to give a presentation in Colorado Springs, for I'm on the board of directors of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee Foundation. I was out of shape, woefully out of shape. My Division I soccer days are long in the rearview mirror as we're marathon running. But I was like how am I going to connect with the audience when I'm so out of shape and I hadn't ridden a bike in two years? I was like you know what, I'll just ride a bike. And then somehow it's going to come up and they're going to say, hey, how did you get here? I said I rode my bike. And they'd be like, well, where do you live? I'd say Aspen. They'd say, well, how's that possible? So I wanted to have one of those just do it kind of moments.
Scott Freidheim:
But unfortunately, 30 miles. Actually it was actually fortunate, but 30 miles from Colorado Springs it was about 200 mile ride. I lost control of my bicycle on a highway. I was going 30 and it launched me into oncoming traffic and I was certain that I was going to hit the grill a truck going about 70 miles an hour in the opposite direction. But somehow I'm here, yeah, and I don't know how it happened.
Scott Freidheim:
So it was a very humbling moment when you're facing what you believe is certain death. And what I realized in that moment is what we achieve, accomplish, accumulate is irrelevant. The only thing that matters is how you live your life, and that was the revelation that I had, and I say it was the luckiest day of my life because I get a redo at my edge of life moment. I get to redo my track record. But I thought about what can I do to improve my track record?
Scott Freidheim:
And I came up with lots of ideas, but one of them was I'd never write a book about my experiences as CEO in private equity or of a publicly traded company. There are over 7,000 CEOs of publicly traded companies. We have to read a book from every single one of them on leadership. So I would not read that book. So this book was more near certain death experience. There was a revelation how you live your life matters. Therefore, if you're going to write down your personal goals, if you're going to write down your professional goals, it might make sense if you haven't already write down the tenets by which you aspire to, and you will then, just like a company puts together a budget you're more likely going to achieve your personal destiny, your personal legacy, if you actually write it down. So that's the premise of the book.
Manya Chylinski:
Wow Okay.
Scott Freidheim:
But the book itself is 32 very short stories which are curtain reveals on moments in time, collisions with history. But like me sprinting out of the building on 9-11, not thinking I was going to get out stuff like that, Right, Absolutely Well.
Manya Chylinski:
Thank you for sharing that and thank you for writing the book. It looked at parts of it and it's very interesting and I like this concept of the code of conduct and you are executive leadership in your organization. How do you think of that code of conduct and what it means for you as a leader in an organization and how you take care of the people that you work with?
Scott Freidheim:
I wish I had had this moment in time early in my career so that I could have had that revelation and I could have incorporated that into my leadership. I think that leaders need to think about their talents not as hired guns that you pay a salary and a bonus or whatever it is per hour, rather as people who are on their own journey. And oh, by the way, whatever they're doing professionally with you is just a piece of the portfolio of time for which they're allocating and that in those other areas, they've got family, they've got friends. They've got family, they've got friends, they've got spirituality, they've got service, they have all these other things that they're trying to achieve and that if leaders think about it in that context, then there are lots of decisions that are going to fall out of that, that are going to make the company a better place to work. It's going to be a more rewarding and fulfilling career for the employee and there are lots of mutually beneficial things that are going to happen.
Manya Chylinski:
Yes, absolutely. Thank you for sharing that insight. Now, do you, in your role as a leader, are you thinking about mental health or resiliency issues for the folks that you work with? I mean, is that something that's on your mind?
Scott Freidheim:
Historically, it wasn't. I actually just wrote a piece on this topic. We're now kicking off Mental Health Awareness Month and in 1986, I was a senior in college and we were having a fraternity party. I wasn't drinking because we were in the soccer season, but I was hungry. I don't know, maybe it was midnight.
Scott Freidheim:
I get in my car and I drive south to go to Burger King and on the way I saw a woman who was walking alone and I had read a few days before that there was a woman on campus that had been raped, which I thought was most revolting. So I stopped, said, hey, do you need a ride south? Assuming she was one of the sorority women who was just walking home south. It was about a mile. I dropped her off. There was no, there was no. I'm a relative, I'm an extrovert, so I'm pretty transparent. But there was no flirtation, no exchange of numbers, nothing. I never saw her again or spoke to her again the rest of my life. I just wanted to give someone a ride who I thought might have been in harm's way. Well, fast forward, it turns out. I gave a ride to a woman named Lori Dan and the medical system failed her and she was actually being treated with two sets of drugs and she was pretending to be a student on campus and one day these drugs created a cocktail violence and she walked into a school and shot and killed five-year-old Nicholas Corwin and hit six others. I got a call the next day from the FBI saying did you notice that she left you something or anything? I was like well, actually there's an empty plate and there are these Capri Sun packets and it says to Scott love your little sisters and joy. The evidence technicians came over. Well, the empty plate were Rice Krispie treats that she baked with lead and the Capri Sun pack. She used a syringe to inject arsenic and the FBI said that my name was on a list of people who she tried to bring to the afterlife. So she tried to kill everyone on the list.
Scott Freidheim:
But when I reflect on that moment at the time, and however many years later, it was a system that failed someone. It was a universe of people who could have seen that there was a problem here. She was stuffing raw meat in her neighbor's couches. When they were gone, she was riding the elevator naked at night, urinating in the hallway. There were so many signs that there should have been an intervention and the price of ignoring mental health for society. In this case she lost her life, as did Nicholas the five-year-old, but think of all of the families that have a permanent hole in their heart and soul. So a lens of compassion is a powerful lens in life and I think for Mental Health Awareness Month there's a profession saying there's a problem. There's some leaders who are trying to sound the alarm. I think we should all listen.
Manya Chylinski:
Yeah, absolutely Well, thank you for sharing that story. That's very harrowing to be connected to that story itself. As you're talking about. You know we need to be looking through the lens of compassion. What role do you think that the organizational culture, whether that's coming from the leadership down or from the bottom up, plays in helping employees stay healthy and mentally well?
Scott Freidheim:
Great question. I think it's both top down and bottom up. Top down, I think leaders need to make sure that all of the levers within a company, the architecture of the company, is seamlessly consistent. So that's in the vision, the mission, the strategy, the compensation, the advancement. Vision, the mission, the strategy, the compensation, the advancement all of these things, the communication, obviously, all of these things should align. And if a leader is saying we're going to create a product that is going to make, you know, contribute to the sustainability of the planet and that's all we care about, but then fires a whole bunch of people right before quarterly earnings because they're going to miss quarterly earnings by a penny, because this leader is a little worried that there's going to be a pronounced, although temporary. You pay people is one of the more important levers you have as a leader. Now bottoms up if you have your own personal code of conduct, there are going to be some things that you are going to push back and say you know, I'm just not going to do that. In the worst case scenarios there are breaches of ethics and morality. But there are going to be some day-to-day things and I think you're going to have a more fulfilling career and life if you're principled and when I say principled I mean the ones that you define for yourself.
Scott Freidheim:
I'll give you an example. I was on Wall Street. I was a fourth-year associate and a managing director called me into his office and I had 720 on the GMAT. He's the top finance student at Stanford and he has an offer in hand from Morgan Stanley and he looks at me incredulously like we're not on the same page and he says but he's black. I lost the blood flow in my face. I lost the blood flow in my face. In that instant I thought, if I say the wrong thing, my career is over. Today you say well, that's an interesting perspective. Let's see what the CEO of our company thinks about that comment. And that person would be gone in a 10th of a second.
Scott Freidheim:
But back in the early 90s that's not how it was, and I had seen a case where a vice president had a young woman analyst go up to his room. He said if you don't sleep with me, I'm going to get you fired, and she reported it to HR and guess what? Nothing happened. She ended up leaving the firm. So the environment was very different back then. So in this instance, when he said that to me. I just said yeah, anything else? And he looked at me for another five seconds and said no, and I went back to my office not knowing if he was going to get me fired or not, because I disagreed with him on something. The topic probably wouldn't come up Right.
Scott Freidheim:
So in a company, I think corporate America has come a long way, but there's still a long way to go.
Scott Freidheim:
They're unconscious biases and I spent a bunch of time with Professor Mahzarin Banaji up at Harvard. She's great on the topic and I redesigned recruiting and interviewing based on her principles and we got a different talent pool through the door and it was a higher quality talent pool. So I think leaders should think about not just, obviously, the P&L of the company, not just the stock price, not just the strategy of the company, rather, holistically. I created a wonderful place for people to deliver on their personal and professional goals in life and when you think about it holistically, you'll start ticking through a universe of these aspects where the company has a footprint. You'll spend more time on those sets of things and frankly, it's kind of like team sports, except in companies the team is 500 people, it's 100,000 people, it's the team is so big. Your CEO might be the MVP, but the best CEO is going to be one who harnesses the power, mobilizes that enormous team and gets them to be passionate about the company they work for Right.
Manya Chylinski:
Now you just shared a lot about where you're coming from as a leader and how you think about wellness in the organization. Not all CEOs or company leaders necessarily buy into that as to be thinking about the wellness of their employees or their mental health. What is the lever to push or pull or flip the switch to have people really be thinking about that and how critical it is to the bottom line and the health of the organization?
Scott Freidheim:
I think there are lots of levers of pressure that can be applied, as well as influence, so the media is one. The media shines a light on those things in society that it deems necessary for us to focus, so the media from time to time celebrates companies that are delivering on that. More often, they shine a light on those that are doing an abysmal job, on whatever it is. Both are constructive Talent. The current generation of talent is incredibly mobile, flexible, tech-enabled. They're doing it with the power that they have, with the skill sets that they have. There's a generational shift in competence and by them saying, no, I'm not going to go in the office five days a week, I just don't want to do that, I'll go somewhere else. There's a supply, demand imbalance. Talent Look at AI and what's going on there. I mean they get to.
Scott Freidheim:
I was just talking to a founder of large AI company yesterday and we were talking about the talent and he said you know, scott, just so we're clear, if one of them says I want a latte with a double shot, and my response to him is going to be at exactly what time do you want it? So kind of a metaphor for ways that organizations will have to change, and I think the same thing applies to all of the rest of those allocations of time and life, this one simply being I don't want to physically be there so that whatever I can get in my hike, I can get in my run, I can go to a museum, I can go to the soup kitchen, I do whatever it is that I'm pursuing in life. So there's supply and demand, there's media, there's awards, there's what you're doing right now. All of these things contribute to either top-down or bottoms-up change. Bottoms soms up, employees can create networks at the company, service-minded things where every Wednesday at noon they go off and they build a house for someone in need. There are an endless number of ways to create a great culture that creates a motivated talent pool that drives higher performance, higher stock price all of those things but at the same time meshes with the rest of their life. Absolutely so, Scott. We are getting near the end of our time and I'd like to know, as you're thinking about wellness at work and the concept of resilience, what is giving you hope these days.
Scott Freidheim:
This month is a good example. I like that. I think it's taking too long. I wish we could cheat the curve of progress. But Mental Health Awareness Month is an example. I can't remember people talking about this a few years ago and I think it's a pretty big deal right now. And right now Michael Phelps did a wonderful job on this one.
Scott Freidheim:
The most decorated Olympian ever is coming out and saying I got a problem and this was. He's the embodiment of human architectural perfection. And here he's saying, and going into a lot of detail on all of his troubles, and saying it's okay. If it's okay for him, well then, guess what I'm? On a relative basis, I'm the complete and total loser. It's got to be okay for me. So I think we've got some heroes in society, and my heroes are our firefighters, our police, war fighters, humanitarian aid workers, health care providers all these people who have committed their lives to service. They didn't do one good deed, they committed their entire life. So but there are other heroes, and Michael Phelps and Michael Phelps, when he came out and became the face of mental health awareness and it's OK to ask for help, he's my hero for that reason more than anything else, absolutely.
Manya Chylinski:
Oh, thank you for sharing that. So, before I let you go, how can our listeners reach you to learn more about you and your work or to get your book?
Scott Freidheim:
The book's on Amazon, okay, and there's a bunch of information there. So, yeah, code of Conduct. Tales of the Roller Coaster of Life.
Manya Chylinski:
Excellent, Scott. Thank you so much for joining me today. This has been a great conversation.
Scott Freidheim:
Thanks so much. I really appreciate everything that you're doing and getting the message out. Thank you.
Manya Chylinski:
Bye. Thank you for listening. I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I did, so if you'd like to learn more about me, manya Chilinski, I work with organizations to help understand how to create environments where people can thrive after difficult life experiences, and I do this through talks and consulting. I'm a survivor of mass violence and I use my experience to help leaders learn about resiliency, compassion and trauma-sensitive leadership To build strategies to enable teams to thrive and be engaged amidst difficulty and turmoil. If this is something you want to learn more about, visit . My website www. manyachylinski. com, or email me at manya at manyachylinski. com, or stop by my social media on LinkedIn and Twitter. Thanks so much.
