Speaker 1: My name is Jeffers Carrion, and you're listening to four
Speaker 1: Courses with Jeffrey Z. Carrion from I Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: four Courses, I'll be taking you along for the ride
Speaker 1: while I talk with the top talent of our time.
Speaker 1: In each conversation, I focused on four different areas from
Speaker 1: my guests life and career, and during those four courses,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna dig deep and cover new insights and inspirations
Speaker 1: that we can all use to fuel ourselves to push forward.
Speaker 1: My guest for this episode is the man who many
Speaker 1: credit with putting the clothing brand Gap on the map.
Speaker 1: He went on to found Old Navy, run J Crew,
Speaker 1: and even designed the first Apple store for Steve Jobs.
Speaker 1: His success in turning around clothing companies earned him the
Speaker 1: nickname the Merchant Prince. Without further delay, let's get into
Speaker 1: my conversation with my good friend Mickey Drexler. You're looking
Speaker 1: good man, Thank you. I'm wearing Alex Mills. Can you
Speaker 1: see this? For our first course, I wanted to learn
Speaker 1: about Mickey's upbringing in the Bronx and how the flavors
Speaker 1: of his childhood home helps shape his taste in clothing.
Speaker 1: Years later, I know you love food and I knew
Speaker 1: you as the boss of Gap first, but then I
Speaker 1: realized you're a foodie. Um, so where did that come from?
Speaker 1: Like when you were in your house? Well, I know
Speaker 1: your mom passed it, um tragically when you're sixteen, But like,
Speaker 1: what was the smells, I mean any out of your
Speaker 1: house that it came from somewhere, just like your love
Speaker 1: of clothes came from somewhere. What do you remember about
Speaker 1: like sort of the visceral smells of the food cooking
Speaker 1: in your house and who was cooking. Basically that's a
Speaker 1: funny question. No, no one ever asked me that. But
Speaker 1: you know what I remember most, and I'm not even
Speaker 1: sure I have the right name sweet and sour meatballs.
Speaker 1: And they smelled my grandmother made them, and that's what
Speaker 1: I remember most. But you know, when you say of foodie,
Speaker 1: I did. When I was a kid. My my aunts
Speaker 1: cooked for me, mostly after my mother passed and then
Speaker 1: my mom before everything came out of the freezer. Everything
Speaker 1: would come out of the freezer. So I I really wasn't.
Speaker 1: I think as I got older, I just like quality.
Speaker 1: I always wanted quality in my life, so liking good
Speaker 1: food is part of liking clothes or cars or people. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's a standard I have. When I started to change gap,
Speaker 1: it was always a matter of good taste should not
Speaker 1: cost anything extra. Now maybe in food it does because
Speaker 1: the cut of the steak is maybe important. But it's
Speaker 1: just the way I changed, I evolved in my life.
Speaker 1: Who doesn't love I don't know anyone doesn't love good
Speaker 1: food really, And it's harder and harder sometimes to find
Speaker 1: good food. Um, but it was not my family cooking
Speaker 1: for me, guarantee. But you remember sweet and sour? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess the soup smelled nice. It was a homie smell.
Speaker 1: It was you know, the the emotion that emanated from
Speaker 1: a good smell was more important than the food itself.
Speaker 1: And that was always important to me, So as anyone
Speaker 1: in that time that you remember, say after your mom passed,
Speaker 1: that that critical time in your life that really sort
Speaker 1: of put their arm around you and sort of guided you,
Speaker 1: your dad or someone who was there to sort of
Speaker 1: like help you succeed, help you become an adult. Well,
Speaker 1: my dad frankly didn't pay much attention to me, never
Speaker 1: did he Uh was self centered. Uh, he wasn't a
Speaker 1: kind easy affectionate person, and my mother was ill for
Speaker 1: many years before she passed on, so I never had
Speaker 1: a father who really did that. I was always kind
Speaker 1: of self driven. My aunts, my three aunts who took
Speaker 1: care of me, were wonderful and I love them. But
Speaker 1: the irony in a family like mine, with eight cousins
Speaker 1: growing up in the Bronx, I was the only one
Speaker 1: who went to college, which was very surprising to this day.
Speaker 1: But I I was driven partly because my dad, I
Speaker 1: was the opposite. I didn't want to be him. And
Speaker 1: when I didn't want to be him, that means I
Speaker 1: had to be successful. I had to have a much
Speaker 1: better job, and a lot of that drove me because
Speaker 1: I'd work with him, and he worked in a coat
Speaker 1: manufacturing company, and I used to work in the shipping room,
Speaker 1: and I took the payroll one day to the bank,
Speaker 1: and of course I went through the entire payroll for
Speaker 1: the whole company, and I saw that he was among
Speaker 1: one of the lowest paid people in the company. And
Speaker 1: it devastated me because he would always try to be
Speaker 1: big shots. Maybe the wrong word, but it might be
Speaker 1: the right word. And I'll never forget that day in
Speaker 1: my life, and it was all very motivating to get
Speaker 1: out of here and do something else and not be
Speaker 1: with him per se. So no one really guided me.
Speaker 1: I guess I was an ambitious kid, you know, it's
Speaker 1: hard to explain certain things, and I wanted to be successful,
Speaker 1: and that I think was partially him not being and
Speaker 1: not being the kindest, nicest person in the world. I
Speaker 1: guess you're not supposed to say things like this on podcasts,
Speaker 1: but you know that was my father, and you know
Speaker 1: that was the hand I was dealt. Thank God for
Speaker 1: my aunts who who mothered me incredibly well for the
Speaker 1: rest of my teenage years, etcetera. Well, you certainly went,
Speaker 1: I believe, from the Bronx to Buffalo to Boston to
Speaker 1: blew me the four Bees. So so so your dad
Speaker 1: was in He was in the rag business also. He
Speaker 1: he was in the co business and the button business.
Speaker 1: So it wasn't I mean the apple was there, maybe,
Speaker 1: you know, not the exact apple, right, I think that's true.
Speaker 1: He bought buttons and piece goods. And I worked in
Speaker 1: the garment business as a kid on on Saturdays, holidays
Speaker 1: and all that, and I took it seriously. I find
Speaker 1: a lot of people, you know, the apple doesn't fall
Speaker 1: far from the tree. I ask all the young people
Speaker 1: and older people who I meet an interview, what did
Speaker 1: their parents do? And you do see a trend in
Speaker 1: the creative sense, which I include your world, then, is
Speaker 1: that someone would play music, they danced, they cooked, they
Speaker 1: did art, and more likely than not, the apple does
Speaker 1: not fall far from the tree, which is I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's true in in the food world, but
Speaker 1: definitely I find it true in other world. Well, my smell,
Speaker 1: Mickey was rice peel off, because I was raised by
Speaker 1: three ounce as well, and all they did was cook.
Speaker 1: At breakfast, they talked about lunch. At lunch, they talked
Speaker 1: about dinner, and at dinner they talked about the next day.
Speaker 1: That smell I can I remember to this day. If
Speaker 1: I close my eyes, I know what the house smells like,
Speaker 1: the rug smells like. And I asked that question because
Speaker 1: I think, like you said, it's more important than the apple.
Speaker 1: It's really it is what you know. You can't help
Speaker 1: not feel that and suck it in. It just comes
Speaker 1: back somehow. Right in our second course, I had to
Speaker 1: hear how Mickey transformed his drive for success into a
Speaker 1: thriving retail career. It turns out Mickey discovered his knack
Speaker 1: for fashion almost by accident when he took a job
Speaker 1: as a buyer from Bloomingdale's after getting passed over elsewhere.
Speaker 1: And you know, you start looking at your life and
Speaker 1: you look back and you say, all these moments change
Speaker 1: you dramatically. I was very, very lucky, and I do
Speaker 1: believe that all of us are given a certain skill
Speaker 1: that we have to live our lives. For me, I
Speaker 1: went to Bloomingdale's interestingly enough, because when I worked at
Speaker 1: A and S, they offered my good friend five dollars
Speaker 1: more in salary. And I was furious because I worked
Speaker 1: at A and S for summer job and they knew me,
Speaker 1: So I was really upset. I went to work at Bloomingdale's.
Speaker 1: I was very lucky. I worked and worked for this woman,
Speaker 1: Katie Murphy. She was a fashion director. Katie Uh and
Speaker 1: I hung out for two years. We go to Europe together,
Speaker 1: we go to the markets. She would have probably been
Speaker 1: the CEO if she weren't a woman in those days.
Speaker 1: She had a great eye, a great instinct, and I
Speaker 1: loved her dearly. Um and so uh it a lot
Speaker 1: of it came naturally. My first my second day at Bloomingdale's,
Speaker 1: they assigned me to be a buyer and I loved
Speaker 1: what I did, and it was I was very successful.
Speaker 1: I went to the market every day and I picked
Speaker 1: goods out. I had a budget. My boss, Stanley's during
Speaker 1: a wonderful guy. But it wasn't like bosses then paid
Speaker 1: attention to what you did per se. But he was
Speaker 1: a great guy. I I just it just took off
Speaker 1: in terms of my career. But after two years or
Speaker 1: three years, I got bored. I didn't like everyone getting
Speaker 1: promoted around me. But that's corporations, and you know, corporations
Speaker 1: aren't the most creative places in the world ever. And
Speaker 1: so I made a move to a year and a
Speaker 1: half at Macy's. Didn't like it there, but I had
Speaker 1: to make a living. I had a wife to support,
Speaker 1: I had a rent to pay, and so Macy's a
Speaker 1: year and a half, I left a and s four years,
Speaker 1: I quit, and I'm saying, I don't like this anymore.
Speaker 1: I spent six or seven years and not liking what
Speaker 1: I did. And then I met the own is of
Speaker 1: and Taylor, and I kept saying, no, I didn't want
Speaker 1: to do that. I was a little nervous about giving
Speaker 1: up my safe job. Which forget about being nervous about that.
Speaker 1: I went to become the CEO of Ann Taylor for
Speaker 1: four years. And how old were you? I was thirty
Speaker 1: five and just incredible. Yeah, that was the beginning of
Speaker 1: of my career. And what was nice about it was
Speaker 1: great about it. I just did it. And then we
Speaker 1: had about twenty five stores losing a lot of money.
Speaker 1: We turned it around dramatically, being a very hip store,
Speaker 1: and so I switched the company to and Taylor Studio
Speaker 1: just when I got there, and then we were taken
Speaker 1: over by an awful, big, bureaucratic company. I stayed for
Speaker 1: four years, learned how to do my job, and then
Speaker 1: I moved to California to run Gap. Did that for
Speaker 1: eighteen years. You know, the rest is history. So a
Speaker 1: lot of people like Gap boys just the ads and
Speaker 1: Gap I remember the advertising almost more than I remember
Speaker 1: the clothes. But what was the premise that made you
Speaker 1: think that you could have a remarkable effect on how
Speaker 1: people dressed with this company rather than doing your own
Speaker 1: thing at that time? Well, it's it's a good question.
Speaker 1: I'm basically a conservative person, and in nineteen eighty three
Speaker 1: own things were not like today, you go out, you
Speaker 1: raised five million, you raised three million. I didn't think
Speaker 1: of that. Plus it wasn't what people did as often.
Speaker 1: You know, I grew up without any money and I
Speaker 1: was would be nervous not to have a salary, which
Speaker 1: is what I had. And now here I am, fifty
Speaker 1: years later, doing my own thing. But by the way,
Speaker 1: own thing is an interesting comment. If you don't know
Speaker 1: in fifty one percent, it ain't your own thing. People
Speaker 1: ought to know that. So at Gap I owned five
Speaker 1: or six percent and I left. I went to J Crew.
Speaker 1: I was the biggest shareholder with my own money, but
Speaker 1: still not the same because private equity owned ent with
Speaker 1: their money, which is everyone's money I owned. I bought
Speaker 1: ten percent of the company with my own money. So
Speaker 1: the funny thing is again I controlled ten percent, but
Speaker 1: they control. So your own thing. People ought to remember
Speaker 1: is only your own thing when you control the financial
Speaker 1: percent of the company. But I learned at a late age.
Speaker 1: Now I have a company that my son and I
Speaker 1: own with some sack who is our designer. I'll listen
Speaker 1: to anyone who's smart and gives us feedback, but I
Speaker 1: don't have to listen to someone who has a short
Speaker 1: term view of making a profit, especially in the restaurant business.
Speaker 1: I think is this same back and forth and up
Speaker 1: and down, you hit a wall, you come back, and
Speaker 1: so at this later stage of my life, uh, this
Speaker 1: is kind of what I've wanted for many years. To
Speaker 1: your question of doing your own thing. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: I mean I do my own thing. And it's people say, oh,
Speaker 1: you're an owner, you're this, you have all this. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you have no idea. It's just like you know, at
Speaker 1: the end of the day on Monday, if there's a
Speaker 1: cash call, guess what they call. They call you, and
Speaker 1: of course you know they don't call the owner, and
Speaker 1: you're like, it's the almost beauty. I always tell people
Speaker 1: stay on salary and so you're absolutely certain that you
Speaker 1: have another vein of cash to live off for a
Speaker 1: certain amount of time, because it ain't as easy as
Speaker 1: you think. And the press makes it seem very easy
Speaker 1: because they wanted to be good. They wanted to succeed
Speaker 1: because they need something to write about. And when I
Speaker 1: learned that these critics and critiquing goes, they need something
Speaker 1: to write about it, otherwise they be out of a job.
Speaker 1: It was sort of like a lightning bolt came down
Speaker 1: and then it was like I felt free, So right,
Speaker 1: you must be. I feel much freer that you don't
Speaker 1: need approval of anybody. You just need to do great
Speaker 1: stuff and if it doesn't work, you do some other
Speaker 1: stuff until it works. I don't have any need for
Speaker 1: any investors. And uh, it's what I worked my life
Speaker 1: for is probably to do this. I didn't think this
Speaker 1: was my grand plan. My son's story at the company
Speaker 1: six or seven years ago, and he's a terrific person
Speaker 1: and works his butt off, but he needed a CEO.
Speaker 1: And then I said, geez, I'm gonna work now, I'm
Speaker 1: going to have a job again. So because I have
Speaker 1: to be busy, I have to work, I have to
Speaker 1: do and all that. So I love doing and I
Speaker 1: love the fashion business. So being in Alex Mills, which
Speaker 1: is your son, it's a great story. I wear all
Speaker 1: of his clothes um and and I'm not saying that
Speaker 1: because I have to say it. A lot of American designers.
Speaker 1: I love to wear, but I love to mix and match.
Speaker 1: But I think Alex Mills does great is give you
Speaker 1: the ability to do that, And so is how do
Speaker 1: you at that level and your your son is dealing
Speaker 1: with both hip and trend. How do you discover hip
Speaker 1: and trend? And how do you marry that? It's a
Speaker 1: really good question, and uh, how do I answer that?
Speaker 1: You know, going there, it's if it's too trendy, it's
Speaker 1: gone gone. What you really want a day in, day
Speaker 1: out classics ish with a twist. My wardrobe is always
Speaker 1: things that around forever and ever and ever. And I
Speaker 1: think most men dressed pretty much the same way since
Speaker 1: they were ten years old, you know, kind of classic ish,
Speaker 1: the same thing. But we are always evaluating the life
Speaker 1: of a garment. You know, it's an art. It's an art,
Speaker 1: not a science on what has life to it. But
Speaker 1: for example, this is our number one T shirt in
Speaker 1: the company. It's just a blue T shirt, comes in
Speaker 1: six or eight colors. In fact, we had an issue
Speaker 1: today the prices of shipping goods. I don't know if
Speaker 1: your world's affected by my pants and pots, it's insane,
Speaker 1: it's a killer. So we went from forty five to
Speaker 1: forty eight dollars on this and now the accountants here,
Speaker 1: I want to raise it to fifty five dollars, And
Speaker 1: I said, you raise this to fifty five dollars and
Speaker 1: everyone's gonna notice. They're not going to notice other things
Speaker 1: like this jacket here, they'll notice. So I said, I
Speaker 1: don't want to change it. I don't want to raise
Speaker 1: the price. He said, well the margins low. I said,
Speaker 1: let it be low on the number one T shirt
Speaker 1: because that's a signal. It's a signal to customers that
Speaker 1: the prices were raised because they're gonna remember this. They're
Speaker 1: not going to remember a few bucks. It's just a
Speaker 1: call we make. It's very exciting when you ring the
Speaker 1: register up every day for something customers want. So you know,
Speaker 1: that's why a micromanage. You've got a micromanage. You've got
Speaker 1: to make sure things are right and take risks by
Speaker 1: the way, always taking a risk, and if you lose,
Speaker 1: you lose. Now, the stupid things we did this year,
Speaker 1: we're buying too much fleece when we should have figured
Speaker 1: out with COVID coming to an end, fleece will not
Speaker 1: be what it was. And everyone was in the fleece
Speaker 1: business and we're not a fleece seller, so we ended
Speaker 1: up owning too much of that. That was a big
Speaker 1: mistake we made. But on the classics. We're good at it. Well,
Speaker 1: we have to be good at it. That's what That's
Speaker 1: what I've done my whole career, is you know, trying
Speaker 1: to sell things that don't have an expiration date. For
Speaker 1: our third course, I knew Mickey would have unique reflection
Speaker 1: on what makes a good leader. He was famous at
Speaker 1: JA Crew for not having his own office, instead using
Speaker 1: a loudspeaker to congratulate colleagues or just share thoughts about
Speaker 1: the weather. Even at the pinnacle of his career, giving
Speaker 1: that personal touch mattered, And I wanted to know why.
Speaker 1: You know, there's all kinds of schools on leadership. If
Speaker 1: you if you click the internet now, there's maybe two
Speaker 1: thousand courses on leadership and hip and trending and direction.
Speaker 1: It's very hard to pass out sort of how you
Speaker 1: run a business and how you lead people. I know
Speaker 1: you have a specific way that's pretty unique, that's been
Speaker 1: very good to you even to today. So what would
Speaker 1: you say is the best way? How do you act
Speaker 1: like an owner without acting like an owner? Well, it's
Speaker 1: a really good question, and I can tell your leadership
Speaker 1: is it's very hard to put it into words. It's
Speaker 1: hard to explain, but it's having a point of view.
Speaker 1: It's having a vision, it's sticking with it. It's being
Speaker 1: able to say to someone you're not doing a good job,
Speaker 1: or you've got to change this. It's telling them what
Speaker 1: you think. And it's also having an ability to teach
Speaker 1: by example. So for me, I could do I could
Speaker 1: do the jobs here of any buyer, so to speak.
Speaker 1: I've been practicing my craft for many years, and part
Speaker 1: of my craft is people and an energy, and and
Speaker 1: you feel it. I think, I guess you're born with
Speaker 1: it to a degree. You have to feel the energy
Speaker 1: and the leadership and the excitement and the passion. And
Speaker 1: there by the way, there are people who don't necessarily
Speaker 1: do that are great leaders. But I was with Steve
Speaker 1: Jobs for sixteen years and felt You've felt him feeling it,
Speaker 1: You've felt him and Steve's you know, people always could
Speaker 1: criticize Steve, the smartest, most exciting person I've ever worked
Speaker 1: with in my life. But there's something there that you
Speaker 1: can't really teach and learn. In my opinion, he of
Speaker 1: course is an easy one to choose as the best
Speaker 1: because he was by far the best. But I think
Speaker 1: you're turning people on, You're getting him excited, you're leading
Speaker 1: him forward, you're taking the right risks, and they respect
Speaker 1: that and treating people well. Needless to say that goes
Speaker 1: first always, like like coming to the major D. But
Speaker 1: I also think what I heard from you is the
Speaker 1: habit of communicating all the time, because I find most
Speaker 1: people in my world don't communicate well because they're too
Speaker 1: addicted to the one forty word tweet or small texts
Speaker 1: are simple that that's not communication. That is telling the
Speaker 1: people your location. It's not communicating. You've got to sit
Speaker 1: down in front of someone and like, let me this
Speaker 1: is what I feel, and they have to even if
Speaker 1: it's inaccurate communication. You need to show some of that.
Speaker 1: I can. I can fail too, but you're gonna fail
Speaker 1: with me and we're both gonna learn absolutely and um.
Speaker 1: And people also feel b s all the time or
Speaker 1: they feel that it's so you've got to be a
Speaker 1: bullshit detector always, and most people are that, except I
Speaker 1: will say growing up and I tell the young people this,
Speaker 1: I said, forget what the title is, look at the
Speaker 1: human being, look at the person, and whatever you're thinking
Speaker 1: about them is true. Because you know, when I started working,
Speaker 1: i'd see fancy titles, big shots here and big shots there,
Speaker 1: and you say, gee, I don't get it. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure why they have this job. Well, you know something,
Speaker 1: if you think it, you're usually right. And I always
Speaker 1: say even in business, every day, even picking merchandise, you're
Speaker 1: usually right. You know who the winners are you feeling.
Speaker 1: I did a short stint working for you, and but
Speaker 1: what I knew about you from some of the executives
Speaker 1: and the team was that you would answer your phone
Speaker 1: calls all the time yourself, which is almost unheard of. Um,
Speaker 1: and I wondered, like where that came from? It did
Speaker 1: it come from sort of like an early sense of
Speaker 1: connection that you felt was so important that it never
Speaker 1: left you because you do it to this day. I mean,
Speaker 1: you're very hands on to the point where it's almost
Speaker 1: like you would call people back when people used to
Speaker 1: leave messages back then, you would call them back where
Speaker 1: they come from. It's it's an interesting question. I'll tell
Speaker 1: you where I think it came from, because you know,
Speaker 1: we kind of developed into being who we are from
Speaker 1: who we were. And I grew up, you know, kid
Speaker 1: in the Bronx, you know, not important. But the point
Speaker 1: was when I started to work and people didn't say
Speaker 1: hello at work or where I was ignored or things
Speaker 1: like that. I I found that I left a message
Speaker 1: today at seven o'clock this morning, quite important text, and
Speaker 1: I haven't heard back yet from the CEO of this company.
Speaker 1: And uh, it tells me so much when I don't
Speaker 1: hear back from people. And I don't want to be
Speaker 1: the person who is too important, who ignores someone or
Speaker 1: who doesn't get back to them. It's very respectful. I
Speaker 1: don't want to be the person who doesn't say hello
Speaker 1: to people. I am who I am and if I
Speaker 1: know how I feel when people don't return my calls
Speaker 1: or they wait a day or two, and to me,
Speaker 1: it's just being a mention. It's doing the right thing.
Speaker 1: I love that and I so agree with you, and
Speaker 1: I think that it's really important. And this is what
Speaker 1: Eli's Abart does. So he told me said, you know,
Speaker 1: if you don't if you don't know your customer, in
Speaker 1: one split second, they're gone and if you think they're
Speaker 1: coming back, you're wrong. And you need to treat them
Speaker 1: like they feel like you're part of the family. And
Speaker 1: family messes up. Family screws up, and you can screw up.
Speaker 1: You can screw up many times like I have. And
Speaker 1: he said, I screw up all the time. But I'm
Speaker 1: part of a family and those are my customers, and
Speaker 1: they'll come back and they give me another break and
Speaker 1: another break in another break, And I thought that was
Speaker 1: It was austere, yet so like it. The perspective is rare.
Speaker 1: And I don't know whether it's a sense of patience
Speaker 1: or a sense of honesty, but I loved his honesty.
Speaker 1: You're right about customers and if you respond quick well,
Speaker 1: you can respond the same way to a customer as
Speaker 1: you do to a CEO or anyone else. That's the
Speaker 1: way it should be, and especially with customers, because they're
Speaker 1: shocked when you answer your phone or you chat with
Speaker 1: them the second they call, and they tell fifty friends said, wow,
Speaker 1: the this big company cares is what it is. And
Speaker 1: I'm allergic to rude people. I'm allergic to stores that
Speaker 1: aren't nice, but restaurants, you know, with attitude, I just
Speaker 1: will never go back. And uh, well, you know that
Speaker 1: you always had friendly restaurants. It is at some point
Speaker 1: in time the business that you're in, which is I
Speaker 1: always say clothes and rags and whatever do you want
Speaker 1: to call it. And my business is the same business
Speaker 1: where wooing customers, we're telling what to wear and what
Speaker 1: to eat, and we want them to listen or at
Speaker 1: least try us. So you can't be rate them, right,
Speaker 1: That's the first step is not to be rate them.
Speaker 1: The first step is to sort of like welcome them
Speaker 1: and like what do you think? Right? Isn't that what
Speaker 1: you want to hear? It's almost I mean, my ex
Speaker 1: wife was a therapist and your wife's a therapist, and
Speaker 1: she would always tell me said, stop and listen and
Speaker 1: ask someone what they think. If you do that first,
Speaker 1: all that ship that they have in their brain goes
Speaker 1: away momentarily. Right. For sure. It's just just I mean,
Speaker 1: always be nice and it just always be nice if
Speaker 1: you feel it. It does work. Fake nice doesn't work.
Speaker 1: I didn't mention that the best people to speak to
Speaker 1: the staff in the stores or online. I go into
Speaker 1: the stores. I spent my whole career I never speak
Speaker 1: to I listened to what they say in headquarters. But
Speaker 1: you go into a store where you speak to people,
Speaker 1: you'll learn more than anything. Listen, tell them what they
Speaker 1: listen to what they say. And that's true of customers anywhere,
Speaker 1: you know, there's restaurants I go to. I was in
Speaker 1: a restaurant the other day and the guy walks by.
Speaker 1: He says, how is everything. Well, the bread on my
Speaker 1: avocado and toast was so hard a crust I needed
Speaker 1: a sort of to cut it. He says, how is everything?
Speaker 1: I said, well, to tell you the truth? Um, and
Speaker 1: he walked away. Because it's called touching at table. They
Speaker 1: don't want to really hear the truth. He didn't want
Speaker 1: to hear anything. And now when I go in, I
Speaker 1: for avocado toasted toast, but no crust, please. He didn't.
Speaker 1: He just walked away. It was the funniest thing I've
Speaker 1: ever seen. And that's because he's been trained not to listen,
Speaker 1: which is a big deal. I mean, just you you.
Speaker 1: I think you got something right there. You hit it
Speaker 1: on the head. You listen. You want to hear bad things.
Speaker 1: Tell me the negative. Of course, don't tell me everything
Speaker 1: is fabulous because it's bullshit, right, Just tell me, tell
Speaker 1: me what's wrong. And if you tell someone what's wrong,
Speaker 1: you correct the problem. That's a customer for life. It's
Speaker 1: it's a simple equation. And what economic stratus you are
Speaker 1: if you're fifteen or fifty or seventy five. If someone
Speaker 1: has a problem, you listen to them and you solve
Speaker 1: the problem, or you apologize. You know, an apology goes
Speaker 1: a long way if it's sincere. I think that those
Speaker 1: habits you said are just it's so true to who
Speaker 1: you've always been. And just listen. You treat people well
Speaker 1: and you don't ignore the criticism. If I get a letter,
Speaker 1: if someone sits and writes me a letter, the amount
Speaker 1: of effort it takes to write a letter is astounding.
Speaker 1: First of all, you have to you have to not
Speaker 1: get over your anger. You have to get home maybe
Speaker 1: you're buzzed. You have to think about it the next day,
Speaker 1: and you have to get up in penel letter, I mean,
Speaker 1: you better listen to that customer, and I tell everybody
Speaker 1: you respond within twenty four hours. You invite them in,
Speaker 1: fall all over yourself and say we made a terrible mistake,
Speaker 1: We're so sorry. Coming as my guests bring two extra people.
Speaker 1: It's on us. Not one time in my forty year
Speaker 1: career has that person not become either a friend or
Speaker 1: the best customer ever. And when I tell that story,
Speaker 1: they're like, you're kidding me. Aren't you scared? I'm like,
Speaker 1: what am I scared of? These people? Are? They're telling
Speaker 1: you what's wrong? Right, it's a favor. Well, it's a
Speaker 1: gift to consultant to come in and write a see
Speaker 1: the two they deal with every return right here, we're
Speaker 1: we're not a we have one store. We have you know,
Speaker 1: mostly online or opening another store. But they tell all
Speaker 1: I have to do is what are the returns about today?
Speaker 1: What are people returning? You know, if you find out
Speaker 1: a pants not fitting in this set and the other thing,
Speaker 1: you gotta fix it. It's a hard business, your business
Speaker 1: and and my business. Yours is probably more difficult because
Speaker 1: you gotta be on on every dish, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the problem with my business is it's stuff. The
Speaker 1: stuff goes bad and in two hours it's gonna be friend.
Speaker 1: We were like, we're manufacturers. Their carrot looks like this
Speaker 1: when it comes in at five in the morning, and
Speaker 1: it's like this, it's six and the next day there's
Speaker 1: no more carrots. You're gonna do it again. Imagine if
Speaker 1: you have to make the clothes every day and they
Speaker 1: you sold out. You gotta make up every day unbelieved.
Speaker 1: It's tough. It's incredible. For our fourth and final course,
Speaker 1: I got to hear what advice Mickey would pass on
Speaker 1: to the next generation of leaders, and as we kept learning,
Speaker 1: his world of fashion is not so different from my
Speaker 1: world of food. What keeps you at the top of
Speaker 1: the heap? What are some of the things that you know? Work?
Speaker 1: You know? Time sites terrific? Uh? You know, I joined
Speaker 1: a company at Bloomingdale's. I was really lucky. I had
Speaker 1: Katie as my boss. I would say, if you can
Speaker 1: pick your boss, not the corporation per se. You know
Speaker 1: when I was when I was young, you kind of
Speaker 1: didn't switch jobs. I did, but most people didn't try
Speaker 1: to choose a great boss. Who are you going to
Speaker 1: report to? You can't really do that at such a
Speaker 1: huge difference. Uh. And whether they're not great or great,
Speaker 1: you're gonna learn as much from weak or bad bosses
Speaker 1: as you will from a good boss. And you're gonna
Speaker 1: follow your instinct. And I was a shy kid. I
Speaker 1: never had a chance to do what I did. But
Speaker 1: when I got my first job at Bloomingdale's, it was
Speaker 1: like I was a changed human being because I had
Speaker 1: a responsibility and I was hugely driven to do well,
Speaker 1: and so you're gonna make yourself successful unless you get
Speaker 1: into one of these companies where I don't know if
Speaker 1: it's hedge funds, where a lot of people have the
Speaker 1: right jobs and they get very rich, so to speak,
Speaker 1: not necessarily successful, but rich. But I think the thing
Speaker 1: is try to get into a high quality company that's
Speaker 1: driven with good management, and if you don't, you make
Speaker 1: a mistake. Big deal today, and take every interview you can. Always.
Speaker 1: I used to do that, even when I liked my
Speaker 1: job at Blooms. Every into they call me I want
Speaker 1: to learn from someone else. I always walked away most
Speaker 1: of the time saying, where where are the people that
Speaker 1: impress me? And they weren't a lot um. Do your job,
Speaker 1: take the risks if you can. You've got to suck
Speaker 1: up a little, I guess, But don't be a wise guy.
Speaker 1: Don't be a know it all. I remember when I
Speaker 1: was twenty three and twenty two and with the I'm
Speaker 1: going to be vice president is joined from whoever said it.
Speaker 1: Be humble, be likable, don't play the competitive card at all.
Speaker 1: For me, you never want to me because sending an
Speaker 1: alienate people in a sense. So I was and by
Speaker 1: the way, I had no reason to play it. In hindsight,
Speaker 1: I did really well in my career, but I never
Speaker 1: was that guy out there or the woman out there
Speaker 1: playing the competitive card because I think most people are
Speaker 1: a bit insecure. Good leaders no matter what they tell you,
Speaker 1: they're insecure or worried about the next year, the next day.
Speaker 1: None of us don't worry. I've never seen anyone not worry.
Speaker 1: So worry about your job every day like it means everything. Uh.
Speaker 1: And if you get to a point of being bored
Speaker 1: or I quit Blooming Deals because I didn't respect who
Speaker 1: was being promoted. I didn't have great respect for the leadership.
Speaker 1: I left Ditto from Macy's. I left Ditto for A
Speaker 1: and S. And I guess I was destined maybe not
Speaker 1: to work for someone, although I always did and have
Speaker 1: a skill set. You know, I have to say, if
Speaker 1: you're a great salesman, you might just be a great salesman,
Speaker 1: which is okay. I happened to be fortunate that I
Speaker 1: had an intuition about apparel, I an instinct, a feel,
Speaker 1: and I also had a vision that GAP would become
Speaker 1: the affordable version of nice clothes because I always said
Speaker 1: good clothes don't have to cost anything extra. And that
Speaker 1: was me. But I always like nice I like nice things.
Speaker 1: But you have to be hugely focused. Also, focus, focus, focus.
Speaker 1: If you're running a piece of a business, just try
Speaker 1: to eliminate all the wasted stuff you have on your desk.
Speaker 1: You know the books, I don't. I don't read the
Speaker 1: books because I just don't read the books. I read
Speaker 1: the people. I listen, and I've learned most from people
Speaker 1: who are good or not good. So I mean it's
Speaker 1: again L TIB comes down to what you're saying is
Speaker 1: sort of this such a focus on communicating with people
Speaker 1: every day, and they will communicate back by so that
Speaker 1: they inform you what works and what doesn't work without
Speaker 1: telling you. They just they buy things because they like
Speaker 1: the way you think about them. That's what I found.
Speaker 1: I never cooked for a person. I would cook for
Speaker 1: myself what I like to eat, what I found delicious
Speaker 1: and yummy, and I would like explain it and just
Speaker 1: present it and then people will. You know, people like
Speaker 1: to be told what to do. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's a fashion the USA. Tell me what to drink,
Speaker 1: tell me what cocktails you're drinking, and I'll be happy
Speaker 1: with that, and I find that it was almost very
Speaker 1: easy to satisfy people if you have this sense of vision.
Speaker 1: But it has to be really kind of homespun and
Speaker 1: if you just stick to it, you're gonna catch a
Speaker 1: lot of people. And I know you as a person
Speaker 1: in this incredible retail business, but I also know you
Speaker 1: as a person who loves the the pace of restaurants, right,
Speaker 1: that's certain. Shouldn't say choa that that like ZEITGEI used
Speaker 1: of walking into a restaurant that's busy and buzzing and happy.
Speaker 1: You want to be a part of this. You feel
Speaker 1: it the second you go in. Second you go in,
Speaker 1: you do you feel it? And of course the front
Speaker 1: desk has got to be nice and gracious or else
Speaker 1: you feel that too. I felt that when I used
Speaker 1: to go into the old Barneys downtown. I felt it
Speaker 1: was the same thing. And that's why I love fashion
Speaker 1: so much, because I think it's so mirrors our world
Speaker 1: of food, my wilder food, because we just recreate food
Speaker 1: from twenty years ago every twenty years or five years ago.
Speaker 1: And I feel fashion there's a lot of parallels, don't
Speaker 1: you think fashion? Absolutely? Yeah, It's like French pastros now
Speaker 1: are all the rage your night in French peast has
Speaker 1: been around since god knows when, and now it's like
Speaker 1: on fire, which I find like kind of wonderful because
Speaker 1: it's a twenty year old discovering that never saw it.
Speaker 1: So why isn't that great? Right? Yeah? So, speaking of food,
Speaker 1: how do you stay how do you stay fit? What
Speaker 1: do you eat? Which I know you love Italian coffee shops,
Speaker 1: but what do you what do you do to stay fit?
Speaker 1: I go to Soul Psycho every morning at seven am.
Speaker 1: That's amazing. Uh, That's what I do every morning. I
Speaker 1: do that, come rain or shine. Uh. And I'm also
Speaker 1: the godfather of soul, so that helps. That's my that's
Speaker 1: my official title. And I do that every day. And
Speaker 1: I watch what I eat now like crazy. And I
Speaker 1: had this thing. It's interesting. About two weeks ago, I'm
Speaker 1: sitting next to a woman at dinner who knew a
Speaker 1: lot about cancer and everything else. She sees me put
Speaker 1: the splendor in and she says, don't you dare have
Speaker 1: artificial sweetness? I never met this woman, and then she
Speaker 1: starts giving me some bad news on artificial sweeteners. I
Speaker 1: stopped drinking diet coke. That next day. I grew up
Speaker 1: on cream, soda, root beer, and cola with a Stevia.
Speaker 1: That's what I drink. That's my food. And I just
Speaker 1: try to eat light, try to not eat lunch if
Speaker 1: I can, and I don't try to eat a lot
Speaker 1: of food. I have a weakness on ice cream. I
Speaker 1: love ice scream, but I work out and I watched
Speaker 1: my waight and well, you're entitled to like. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's good to have a little ice scream. I think
Speaker 1: I could have. I could eat it all day long. Mickey,
Speaker 1: thank you so much. I'll see you real soon. I
Speaker 1: appreciate your time. This was fun. I appreciate it. By bye,
Speaker 1: thank you, I appreciate it. Thanks very much for listening
Speaker 1: to Four Courses with Jeffrey Zacarrion, a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Corner Table Entertainment. Four Courses is created
Speaker 1: by Jeffrey Zacarrion, Margaret Secarrion, Jared Keller, and Tara Helper.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Christopher Hesiotis. Four Courses is produced
Speaker 1: by Jonathan Haws Dressler. Our research is conducted by Jesselyn Shields.
Speaker 1: Our talent booking is by Pamela Bauer at Dogtown talent.
Speaker 1: This episode was edited and written by Priya Madavan and
Speaker 1: mixed by Joe Tistle. Special thanks to Katie Fellman for
Speaker 1: help as recording engineer. For more podcasts from I Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. H