641: Larry Connor - The Big 6 Leadership Attributes, Building a Values-Based Culture, Becoming a Billionaire, Working on Saturdays, Flying Into Space, Diving To The Mariana Trench, & Existing To Be The Best

31:41By the way, we don't tell anybody a start time. You come here at six o 'clock tonight, you're going to still see a lot of cars in the parking lot. We don't tell everybody you got to be here at six o 'clock. And if you're just doing it for FaceTime, you're not going to work here very long. And so that's why you're going to see cars on Saturday, but not everybody on every Saturday. So for example, quality, not corny, quality time with your family. So, Hey, you got kids and let's say your son or your daughters playing soccer at nine o 'clock on Saturday morning. Well, yeah, you ought to be there to support them at their game, right?

32:22So it's back to culture and it's back to people. If you have those two things at an exceptional level, there's literally nothing you can't do. You write in the book, Culture, we exist quite simply to be the best. How do you measure being, I understand trying to be at my best, but how do you try to be the best? Those are two different things. I'm curious how that works. So our belief is you can measure anything. Like you have a crew here, right? Yeah. Yeah. We can measure every one of these guys. For sure. We do. Okay. Yeah. So this misconception that there's a lot of things you can't measure, we don't believe it.

33:21Yeah. There's not a business. Keep in mind, we've owned other kinds of business. Like we've started different technology firms when they said, well, you can't really measure this. We've been able to. So if you're a planner, well, here's the foundation pieces that allows you to measure anything. If you got the four Ps, four Ps. If you've got the right people, you've got the right plan, you've got the right processes, and you have perseverance, you're going to end up with measurables no matter what the endeavor is. So by the best, you mean you can measure the industry, you can measure what you guys do, what other companies do, how you're doing versus them, against them?

34:15Yeah. So we can measure, just think about the industry we're in. Return on investment. We can take our return on investment, whether it's for last year, three years, five, 10, or the last 30 years, and measure against everybody. And ours is in the top one-tenth of 1 % over the last 30 years. That is wild. We can look at customer satisfaction, resident satisfaction. We can measure it against the best standards of customer satisfaction, either against in our industry or other industries. Productivity. I just gave you the one example. We can measure our productivity, either in leadership roles or specific roles, against anybody else.

35:10Sales, service, you name it.

35:15So there is virtually nothing we've ever found in any business. Keep in mind, we've started eight different businesses. One of them really unsuccessful. We talked about that. Fortunately, the other seven really successful. And I'm hard-pressed to find anything we haven't been able to measure. But keep in mind, a lot of these things are hidden. They're not apparent. You have to find the hidden opportunity. No matter how bad things are, there's always opportunity. But many times it's very hard to find. What do you mean? What are some examples of that? Well, recently, we've done a really poor job in 2023 and 2024 on a couple of our key metrics.

36:10One of them is occupancy. The other is what we call resident retention. We think that's vital. Keep the resident versus get a new one versus what our historical numbers are. And these are real problems. But what we said to people, let's figure out what's really at fault. And I bet we can actually not only fix the problem, but go to the next level of excellence by finding a better solution. And by the way, we've done that on both those fronts. So there's almost, whether it's personally or professionally, there's almost nothing. So anytime something bad happens to you, what's your reaction? I want to know why and try to fix it.

37:02That's good, but I'll offer one other thought. Okay. You want to know what's wrong, you want to fix it. But where's the opportunity? Almost everything, when it goes bad, if you can find it, again, maybe personally, professionally, whatever, help other people, is going to be a hidden gift, a hidden opportunity. It's a great way of framing it. You seem pretty hardcore. I say that as a compliment. It's not for everybody. I'm serious. Chris is laughing at me. I'll second that. But I'm curious, since you've had experienced multiple businesses, a failure, a lot of success, maybe for the future. Have you noticed the world is not as hardcore as it used to be?

37:56Or is, no, it's always been this way. I've always been hardcore. We find people. It's fine. Or do you have any concern, I guess, for the future and the people when you interview? Like, are we going to solve? That's kind of the question. Or you feel like, no, we're good. We just got to find the right people. I have great faith in some people. Okay. You know, people say, oh, well, the kids today, you know, they're not like when I grew up. That's every generation, right? I don't know whether that's true or not, but it's not relevant for us. Yeah. There will always be people who want to be high achievers.

38:35And there'll always be a lot of people who are low achievers or, ah, that's good enough. It is very difficult to do what we do. But we wouldn't have it any other way. And I don't know if it's being hardcore or whatever. If you go around here, you're going to find that people genuinely like each other here. By the way, not everybody, but the vast majority of them do. Because it's like tribal in the best sense of the word. Like we have a tribe. We have a language. We all kind of believe in roughly the same things. We all get along because we have purpose around what we're trying to do. And we're going to help each other.

39:31By the way, this place is not political. It's not who you know or how long you've been here. It's based upon your performance and the content of your character. Sometimes when a place is like this, very high expectations, commitment to excellence, it's not for everyone, as you said. Sometimes people come in and they're like, whoa, not for me. What's your turnover rate? I'm curious when it comes to that because of how the expectations are so high. Sure, that's a very fair question. So it depends. So for example, if we're talking about somebody, let's say one of our, what we call GMs, general managers at the property.

40:11We have actually done a good job in reducing turnover. But again, we're going to hire all people who have never done before. We're going to invest six months of training before you ever run a property. Wow. Okay. And if we hire 10 of those people, probably a third of them are not going to make it. But the other two-thirds will, and they're going to be successful. And they're going to see and feel and achieve success that the majority of those people never thought they were capable of doing. Gotcha. And so it depends upon the position. If you look here in this office here, this what we call, we never call this headquarters.

41:05We are the central support office. Our job is to serve our internal customers. Who are those? Well, we own 15 ,000 apartments in 17 different markets. It's all those people who run those properties. Sales, service, management, everything else like that. And so there's turnover, but there's not excessive turnover here. Got you. So the second part of this conversation is also fascinating. It could be hours long. You may be one of the most interesting humans on the planet. You spent time off of the planet. You spent time in the deepest parts of our planet. all within 12 months. So you're an astronaut.

41:54You've gone down to the Mariana Trench. You've done a, I mean, looking around, you skydive from outer space. It seems like, I mean, crazy racing cars, all this stuff. Let's go to the one 12 month period when you went into outer space. You're an astronaut. You also go down to the Mariana Trench. I remember reading all about it as this happened. I'm like, who is this Larry Connor guy? He's crazy. Like in a good way again. That's awesome. So can you tell me more about going to space and why you wanted to do these crazy things? Sure. I'll give you one interesting component. Okay. We never do anything that doesn't meet two specific standards.

42:35Can we do it safely? And can we do it successfully? And that's why we've been able to do all these things. And I'm still here talking to you today. The other thing is, if you go, is there a common thread? Because there's a lot of different things. Good question. Challenge and purpose. For example, when we did the AX-1 mission, 17 days at the International Space Station. Extraordinary. By the way, the backstory that nobody knows is I spent 10 months full-time training. I was the first private citizen NASA has ever trained. And I was the pilot, which, by the way, is kind of a bit overstated. You're not piloting anything.

43:30You're maybe pushing some buttons. So the challenge was to be the first. and nasa astronauts before they ever go into outer space have generally been in the astronaut corps for five years and they all have advanced degrees stem degrees science medicine engineering things like that i have none of the above i went to ou ohio university I was an English major with a concentration in Shakespearean literature, which qualifies me for basically nothing. So that was the challenge. The purpose is we did over 200 hours, unheard of, of experiments and research at the International Space Station. Two of the key partners I worked with is Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic.

44:33my other crewmates all had experiments. We brought great purpose to that mission. And by the way, we weren't space tourists or anything else like that. We had to pass most of all the rigors of any NASA astronaut. And we were designated by NASA as astronauts. So. Wow. Okay. That theme runs through kind of. Yeah, because now there are some space tourists. And you saw Bezos just sent one up and they went up for like seven seconds and came back. Yeah, but the difference is there. So we spent 10 months in training and 17 days in space. That's wild. For them, they spent one day of training, one day, and 10 minutes in space.

45:12Yeah. It's completely different. Right. You're like a full-blown astronaut, correct? We would argue that, yes. It's wild. Okay. But within 12 months, you also go to the deepest parts on our planet. Well, we did three research dives, 36 ,000 feet, 35 ,000 feet, and 25 ,000 feet. What was the purpose behind that? Research. So an organization contacted me. They had heard about the AX-1 mission and said, look, we have a research vessel. We're in the Mariana Trench. We have a crew of 40, seven scientists, but it's expensive. And so we're not trying to make money. We're trying to cover some of our costs.

45:59Would you be interested in doing a dot? I said, well, first off, I know nothing. Tell me more about that. Once I learned, as a layman, I'm like, these guys, keep in mind, 71 % of the earth is covered in water. A lot of people don't realize that. So what you do in terms of research in the ocean actually matters. So I went back to them and said, no, I won't do one dive, but I will do three. And so we did three very successfully, lots of research, lots of papers written. So again, it was a challenge and it had purpose. What's it like down there? I mean, that - Dark. Dark? Once you get past 600 feet, it's dark.

46:43And you went how far? 36 ,000 feet. Wow. What do your ears feel like? It's not because you're in a chamber where you don't really have to equalize. Okay. So you're not subject to the bends coming up. And so it takes about, took us about four hours to get to the bottom. We spent three hours on the bottom, three, three and a half hours on the bottom, another three and a half. So it's about 12 hours and you're in a titanium sphere that's literally no bigger than this table. And there's two of us. But we have cameras and we have lights. And the guy that I was with was the founder of Triton Submarines, the best sub-submersible building company in the world that's based here in the United States.

47:39And so it's extraordinary if you know what you're looking at. No, I didn't know what I was looking at, but fortunately I had him. And I started doing some of the piloting because I've got a lot of background in piloting things. And so it was really worthwhile. Are you always on the lookout for something that's going to scare you, challenge you? You're not. I have no interest in being scared. Are you scared when you do these things, when you go 36 ,000 feet, when you go to outer space? No. No fear? No. How? Well, training, preparation, mental attitude. When you go like 36 ,000 feet down, I knew so much about the vessel, their safety record.

48:32Keep in mind, insubversibles. It's a shame what happened with the Ocean Gate tragedy in June of 2023. Well, that was a submersible that had bad technology, bad engineering, bad planning, bad leadership. Okay? And it had never got what's called DNV certified. That's a Danish company. And so with the submersible we went down with, a little known fact is in the last 50 years, any submersible that's been DNV certified has never had an accident. The Ocean Gate disaster tragedy was completely outside the realm of safety. Gotcha. Okay. So I am curious, though, like, do you have things on the docket looking forward that you want to do?

49:30Are they secret? I do. What are they? I can't tell you. So we have two different projects going on. Two big projects coming up. Two big, yeah. One of them this year, but they generally tend to be complicated. And so this one is hopefully we've actually been doing training. We were actually on location. I can't tell you where. Is it on this planet? It is. It's actually. I was like, maybe Larry's going to be the first guy to go to Mars. Yeah. No, no. It's actually, and you would know the location as soon as I told you the words. Okay. And so hopefully in the fall, we might be able to do it. And then we have another one that's planned for 2026 or 2027.

50:15But most of these were operating under embargoes with non-disclosure agreements. So it's just, we're just not able to talk about them. Sure. How do you balance out? I know you obviously know your stuff here inside and out. You're a family man and you do all this crazy stuff like go to outer space and go deep in the sea. Sure. That's a lot of different things, competing priorities. How do you manage all that?

50:45discipline, focus, organization, and really good people around you. And so you're right, but it's amazing what you can get done in a day or a week if you have all the things I just mentioned. And you think about family time as quality, not quantity. It's not that you're at home. What are you doing? Are you present? Are you engaging? We try to do things as a group. And then I try to do things like one-on-one. Like my granddaughter, who's nine and game for anything. Like I've taken her indoor skydiving. I took her hot air balloon, okay? I've taken her zip lining at these really like high kind of.

51:46So you try. I think kids learn with experiential learning. And so that's what with like her, I'm trying to do to expose her. I take her on business things with me. In fact, my, so that's a grandchild, but my kids, I have three. I've tried to do the same thing with them. Like, if you just take them with you and you expose them, whether it's sports, whether it's business, whether it's charitable, whatever it might be,

52:25I think they really learn a lot by seeing and observing. When you have the means and extreme wealth, now you didn't start getting your wealth until after the age of 40. So this may not apply directly to your kids. But how do you raise kids to be tough, resilient, and gritty if they're son of a rich guy or granddaughter of a rich guy? How do you do that? First off, never act like you're rich. What does that mean? Well, it means you don't like, oh, whatever you want. Oh, you want a brand new, oh, you're 16 and you want a brand new Mercedes? No way. My son wanted a car. I'm like, well, you earn a third of the money and we'll do the other two thirds.

53:11And oh, by the way, it's not going to be some hot ride. Like we went over to this Ford Mustang dealer and he's like, oh yeah. And, and, and, oh, it's got this small engine and everything. Keep in mind, I got a racing bracket. I'm like, okay, fine. We go to the dealership. I said to the salesman, you mind if I drive, let's say I took him on a ride. Then on the drive back, the sales guys, like sitting back in his seat, like, oh my God, what happened to me? And my son from the back goes, well, I guess we're not buying this car. So he got a Honda, a little small four-cylinder Honda. Okay, fine. So I think it starts with the parents having perspective and teaching about the right things to do and the right way to do it and how you treat people.

54:09and understanding that wealth can be used for good, but it also can be really bad. Yeah. Looking forward, I know there's some things you can't talk about, but I am curious, what are you most excited about? Because I talked to your guys before doing this, and I was like, will Larry ever retire? And they said, no way. He's like doing what he loves. Why would he retire? And I love that feeling. I feel the same way. It's an amazing place to be. So knowing that you're not going to chill or relax, it doesn't seem like the way you are. What are you most excited about moving forward? Yeah, so I'll answer it, Ryan, slightly different.

54:46People have asked me, well, of all the things that you've ever done, what was the one that you liked the most or was most exciting? My answer is always the same, the next thing I'm going to do. And so you get to make a choice. Do you live in the past or do you live in the future? My recommendation, live in the future, not the past. What about the present? I think the present's important because that is the next step to the future. And so you have to be aware of, hey, what am I doing today, tomorrow, this week, this month? But you need a plan and you need some objectives. And by the way, whether it's personally or professionally or whatever it may be, and I think you need a balance.

55:37If all you think about is work or career and nothing else, and you need to think about family and you need to think about your friends, IRU can do all those. But you got to have a plan. I may be going somewhere where I shouldn't, but from what I've read, it seems like you have a really good family life, a good marriage, a long marriage. How have you done that in the midst of being hardcore at work, doing crazy stuff? Again, spending a lot of time doing other things. I'm personally curious about, I like to think I want to go do big things, be a visionary, go to space would be cool, whatever. What's the key to a good marriage?

56:18Well, I think it's... And having relationships with someone who they understand who you are and you understand who they are. And it's about accommodating each other, compromising in some cases, and also kind of thinking about, is this really worth the argument? You know? Yeah. And nothing is perfect. So you try your best and you work on it. And, but it's, I mean, you got to, you know, you're going to get out of it what you put into it. And then the kids, you know, it's amazing to me. If you were to meet my kids, great kids, all three of them, you're like, did they all grow up in the same house?

57:20Really? And they did, but they're all very different. So, you know, and then understanding each person and how can you help them? How can you coach them? How can you encourage them? Right? And then trying to individualize what you're going to do. But believe me, it's not a perfect deal and it's certainly not easy. Yeah. One more before we get out of here, Larry, I'm curious. you have a lot of young people you hire. I'm really thinking about those who are fresh out of college. And I remember being in this place where I want to leave a positive dent in the world. I want to do good, but I'm just kind of not sure what to do.

58:02What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you have for that person? So number one is don't sweat it. Yeah. So what I said to my kids, because I believe this, hey you get out of school let's say you went to college by the way not every kid has to or should go to college let's say you're pick a number 22 go out and experience and explore you may even start with trying to figure out what you don't want to do which is what i did my 20 i didn't know what i wanted to do but i ended up making this long list of everything i didn't want to do. I think sometimes there's pressure. Maybe it's from family members.

58:54Maybe it's pressure they put on themselves. Maybe it's other people. Oh, you know, you got to have a career and you got to do this. You got plenty of time. Stop and think about it today. If you're 22 years old and you just graduated from college, you're probably looking at you got 80 years of living. 80. If you're like, what do you mean? You're going to live to be 100? If you look, and we're real involved with Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic and Cincinnati Children's and other places, absolutely. Obviously, there can be accidents and tragedies, But that is not, today the average age is 79. That's going to accelerate.

59:45And so are you worried about the first 10 % of that remaining life? That's eight years, 22 to 30. So my belief has always been to say to them, go out and explore, learn, enjoy yourself. And then by the time you get to 30, you ought to think about what you really want to do. And here's my approach. Base it upon passion and purpose. If you have something that you're really passionate about and you got purpose around, chances are you're going to be happy and successful. By the way, it is not about how much money you make. I've tried poor and I've tried rich. Okay. I mean, Rich is probably a little better.

1:00:39It is a bit better, but it's not the most important thing. Yeah. And I would argue if you have passion and purpose, you're going to have a full life. I lied. You're in impeccable shape. You look really good. What do you do? I do 10 workouts a week. Okay. So I do four cardio. I do three weights, and then I do three yoga. So generally, and some days are double workouts, others are rest days. And eat really clean? Yeah, I eat very healthy. I'm 90 % of the time I eat like super healthy. I have two cheap meals a week where I eat anything I want to eat. I think you got to do that. Sleep is huge. For me, I'm not one of those people who can go on short sleep.

1:01:35I've actually met very few people, Ken. For me, I need eight hours and 20 minutes. Really? You know this? We've calibrated it down to that. You've tracked it all. Yeah. Love it. And then, you know, mindset, you know, stress. You know, I mean, how do you manage all that? So if you put together diet, exercise, sleep, manage stress, have good friends, have good relationships, do things with purpose, you can probably be pretty healthy and do amazing things for a long time. Love it. Larry, thank you so much for having us. Happy to do it. This was so much fun. I really appreciate it, man. Thank you.

1:02:17Yep. Great. Awesome.

1:02:22It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a note, Ryan at learningleader.com. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Larry Connor. A few takeaways from my notes. I enjoyed the part when I commented about how hardcore Larry is. And Larry's head of communications, Chris, he started laughing off camera. And I said, what is it? And he said, no, I agree. He is. And Larry, for his part, he doesn't apologize for how hard he works or how demanding he is of his team. He just honestly shows up that way each day.

1:03:00People are very clear of the expectations and you either like it or you don't. And he said, we don't hire for experience. We hire for knowledge. We don't care where you went to school. We hire for personality traits, especially in leadership roles. You have to have the big six. They are be able to motivate and inspire others. Two, self-accountability and ability to hold others accountable in an honest and direct manner. Three, organizational multitasking. The speed of the game is so fast. Four, cultural fit. Five, Brit, doing the thing that others say are impossible. Then six, work orientation.

1:03:33If you want to come in at 8.30, take a 90-minute lunch, leave at 4.30, the Conor Group is not for you. And again, Larry does not apologize for that. And then when I asked him about becoming a billionaire, Larry immediately jumped to the impact he's trying to have on others. He said, there are far more important standards than money. How well have you treated your associates? Have you made them better people? How much have you done to help others? Have you made a difference? Now, all of that is available to all of us, regardless of us becoming a billionaire or not. And I think that's what's inspiring to think about is what impact are we having on others?

1:04:15Are we helping them become better? Once again, I would say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two. Hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Larry Connor. I think it will help you become a more effective leader. And because you continue to do that, and you also go to Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and you subscribe to the show, which is really important. And then you write a thoughtful review. And you rate it hopefully five stars. And by doing all of that, you are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis.

1:04:43And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.