CEO TOP SECRET

Mentorship is defined as a relationship in which a more knowledgeable person helps and guides a less experienced or less knowledgeable one.

No matter who we are, no matter how intelligent we are, no matter how tough we think we are, all of us need a mentor sometime in our life. A friend who will be with us in the long-run and for the hard-times.

My first week after graduating college I headed to Chicago for what was promoted as the largest gathering of CEOs from around the world. With very little experience at that time, my first mistake was to take the wrong plane so I landed in Chicago late and as I was running into the hotel, a nice old man was standing there holding the elevator door for me.

I dropped my briefcase and he picked it up for me, then I dropped my computer and again he bend down and picked it up for me. I looked into his tired brown eyes as he was bending over and I felt an immediate bond to him. Mousa says, "Attraction is not a choice~We can't control whom we find attractive! It is something that is naturally handled by Nature.

As we rode the elevator up to the top floor he carried my briefcase and computer while we talked and laughed as if we were old friends. I learned that he was also attending the Conference. When we reached my floor he said, "I will carry these to your room for you". My heart dropped and I felt panic come over me - this was what my mother had warned me against!

As it turned out he stood patiently outside my room while I gathered my computer, briefcase, and suitcases, then he turned around to walk away but before he did, he asked me if I would have breakfast with him the next morning and if I would be attending the conference later that night to hear the Keynote Speaker. Trying to impress him that I was smarter than I was, I said "yes, but I hear he is a really bad speaker". The nice old man laughed in a big deep laugh and said "yes, I've heard the same thing".

Later that night when I walked into the Conference filled with what seemed to be thousands of people, center stage, with a big name tag which said "keynote speaker" was the nice old man. He was the CEO of one of the largest Fortune 500 Corporations in the World.

I didn't think he would be there the next morning at 6 a.m. but he was sitting there waiting patiently for me. We had an immediate bond, we talked and talked and breakfast soon turned into lunch. 

He wanted to know what my dreams were. This was the first time someone really took the time to find out more about me. So I jumped in and rambled on. He sat back and listened to me patiently, without any interruption, the way you listen to a child.

I told him that I wanted to publish a magazine, but this would not be like any other magazine. My magazine was to be limited to the CEOs of the Fortune 500 Corporations. Unlike other magazines where some reporter, repeats and modifies what a CEO states, my magazine would include their entire statements, word for word, with no opinions or bias interjected. It was going to be a technology transfer magazine where everyone could learn in a matter of minutes what it may have taken a CEO years to learn.

He sat back and asked me: How much experience in the publication business do you have. I said “none”. He asked me how much start-up money I had and if I had a Project Budget. I said “no”.

Then he told me, I'm going to tell you three CEO strategies so listen carefully. The first one is:

Leverage your assets, by this I mean your network and connections. Who do you know and what do they know. You should always start at the top and work your way down the organization. Surround yourself with the best of the best, and the biggest of the big. 

He drew an inverted pyramid for me on the napkin and said “see some people start at the bottom of a corporation and waste years and years trying to work their way up but most of the people at the bottom of the pyramid cannot help you because most of the time they cannot help themselves”.

Go immediately to the top of the pyramid, the person who has the power, and work your way down gradually if you need to.

Second: Rich people never use their own money to make money, they utilize someone else's money. Most big ideas and projects are leveraged by other people's money.

And the Third strategy is the BIG CEO TOP Secret. This is the secret that every top CEO knows. I have this secret on my desk at work and everytime, I have an insurmountable problem, which you will, I pull this secret out and use it.

We hugged goodbye and he told me, “I would be honored if you would allow me to write the first article for your magazine”.

By the time I made it back home to the office, there on my desk was the article he promised to write for me with a note which said call my friend Joe, he will also write an article for you.

So I called his friend Joe and to my surprise, he was the CEO of one of the largest banks in New York. Joe actually came to the phone to talk with me. I was so shocked, I couldn’t talk . CEO Joe carried the conversation, “I understand you would like me to write an article for your new magazine, I will be happy to do so”.

Okay, I thought "leverage your assets"! I had no physical assets but what I did have was two of the world's top CEOs supporting me. This gave me the courage to call other CEO's. What I learned was that CEOs are actually quite trendy, if one of them does something, they all want to do it. Soon I had the support of 100 of the Fortune 500 Corporations.

Second, use someones else's money. I took my list of 100 CEO's to the U.S. Department of Commerce and leveraged it to obtain a grant to fund my project.

It was a huge success, everyone wanted to participate in it and the money flowed in. I was recognized as one of the most influential Hispanics in the United States. 

I was on a roll, I would be relentless, I would take no hostages!

BUT I thought if only I knew the CEO Top Secret there would be no stopping me! Then one day it arrived in a plain manilla envelope, the secret that propelled CEOs to the top, the secret that he utilized when he was faced with insurmountable problems.

I opened it up and it was a copy of The Little Engine that Could. It is an American folktale in which the story is used to teach children the value of optimism, hard work, and the guts to keep trying. The little engine struggles to make it up a tough hill, saying all the while "I think I can, I think I can".

So this was it! The CEO Top Secret! The ability to succeed and overcome unsurmountable problems — when you think you can.

Shortly afterward, I learned that my mentor had died of stage 4 liver cancer. He was dying when he met me and when he helped me but never said a word.

I look back and think maybe he needed my support but I was too driven with my own goals and success to see that. I know that when he was fighting for his life he probably pulled out his book and believed in his heart that he could survive. To this day, I keep that book on my nightstand and pull it out and read it again and again. 

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

President of a global government and military defense multidisciplinary research and strategic marketing development firm. Projects include Corporate Technology Commercialization through the U.S. National Laboratories. She is an award-winning video producer, multimedia and marketing strategist whose awards include best documentary and public service TV Commercials for the U.S. Dept. of Commerce, with a demonstrated history of working in the market research industry. Skilled in Analytical Skills, Government, Emerging Infectious Diseases, Emergent Technologies Management, Computer Technologies and Operational Planning. Strong business development professional, advanced degrees from New Mexico State University and the University of Texas. Restrepo is also the Chief Executive Officer of Professional Global Outreach. 

Disclaimer: names have been removed to protect the privacy rights of family members.