At the end of this Midas touch year he said “guys, I’d like to have a break”.
Obviously, we were kinda surprised to hear this after he’d just had the best 12 months of his CEO career.
I asked: “Why is that?”
He said: “I’d like to see if it’s me or you guys working with me that’s making the difference”.
We get it, CEOs are very pragmatic.
So, I said: “Sure, no problem, happy for you to see the contrast.”
Paolo then said, “And we’ll leave you with one question.”
He said: “What’s that?”
Paolo said: “You have to work out why you won this award.”
Fast forward five months and Paolo checks in with him to see how he’s doing, this is when he said:
“My deals aren’t working and I don’t know why, I feel like throwing in the towel.”…in a confused tone.
“Have you answered that question we left you with?” Paolo asked.
“No”, I haven't thought about it" and then asked five times why until Paolo revealed the answer.
“When you win an award like this it’s no longer about proving how good you are at business, you’ve already done that.
Now it’s about developing yourself, having a higher purpose & helping others do the same”.
He breathed a sigh of relief and said:
“That makes a lot of sense, can we continue working together?”.