• 2 years ago
When the President of the World Bank was once asked to not fly commercial or walk to work for his safety...
Transcript
00:00I got shouted at and abused with verbal abuse.
00:04My boss used to come to my house and walk with me to work.
00:08You've always been a visible minority.
00:37Throughout your career.
00:42And has that ever presented any challenges for you
00:44in the workplace?
00:45You do stick out a mile when you look the way I do
00:47and you walk into a company which is a Fortune 50,
00:51Fortune 100 company and you've got,
00:53let's say 200,000 people in the city who work for me.
00:55You just, you've got to get comfortable with your skin
00:59and have a little bit of confidence in yourself
01:01as compared to worrying about what the other person
01:03is thinking about you.
01:05You're going to get stared at,
01:06but you can use that to your advantage
01:08if you care about talking to people.
01:11It's a great conversation opener.
01:13I've made friends who've talked to me about
01:15why I look the way I do and they're still
01:17the best friends I've had out of a casual conversation.
01:21So not in work life.
01:22In your personal life, yeah,
01:23it can be quite an interesting thing.
01:26Look, there are times like after 9-11
01:28when life was very complicated for me
01:31and I lived in New York City at that time
01:33and I'd say the best way I could describe it to you
01:37is I got shouted at and abused with verbal abuse,
01:41no physical abuse fortunately, many times.
01:44But you find your way through it
01:46because you realize that only .5% of the people
01:49or smaller than that are doing that.
01:51The other 99.5% of the people around you
01:53are actually on your side and they care deeply
01:57about what you're feeling at that time.
01:59And so that kind of, if you have that strength,
02:02you can get through a lot of stuff.
02:04Look, I still get randomly pulled out for checking at TSA.
02:07I'm the ultimate random check guy.
02:10But, you know, I, what are you going to do?
02:13You can't fight that.
02:14You're going to just take it with you.
02:16So personally, a lot of things come around you.
02:18My boss at Citi at that time was,
02:20boss is boss is boss, was Sandy Weil
02:22and he called me the second day
02:24after these issues erupted in New York City
02:26and said to me, listen, you're not going to fly commercially
02:30for the next few months.
02:32You can have the company plane,
02:34which I was not entitled to at that time,
02:36to go wherever you've got to go.
02:37I'm not taking a chance with you
02:39getting caught up in security at the airports.
02:41You're not going to do that.
02:42Rule one.
02:43Rule two, you need a car to bring you back and forth
02:45from home.
02:46I used to walk in Manhattan to work.
02:48You can have my car.
02:49And I still walk to work
02:51because dealing with it is more important
02:54than hiding from it.
02:55And yes, I got the looks and I got the odd comment,
02:59but I walk to work and I walk back.
03:01And once in a while, my boss used to come to my house
03:04and walk with me to work.
03:07That's pretty cool.
03:08That's leadership.
03:09And it matters.