What we talked about
Michael Hickman, CEO of Seven Gables Real Estate for nearly 50 years, shares his journey from starting as an agent to leading a company with 500 advisors across Southern California. He discusses the importance of learning from the ground up, the influence of mentors and coaches, and how values drive decision-making in business.
Show notes
Mike Hickman joined Seven Gables Real Estate in January 1977 as its fifth employee, working out of a trailer with an outhouse for a bathroom. He never left. Nearly 50 years later, he leads 500 advisors across Orange, Los Angeles, and Riverside counties, and still has two coaches, because he believes the best players in every sport have specialized coaches, and sees no reason why a CEO should be different.
What we covered
- Mike traces his leadership philosophy directly to his college baseball coach at UC Irvine, Gary Adams, who trained his teams by never asking players to do anything he wouldn’t do himself. That team won back-to-back College World Series championships, not, Mike says, because they were the most talented team, but because they outworked and outprepared everyone else. Dave Roberts, current manager of the LA Dodgers, is a product of the same coaching lineage.
- He uses a baseball analogy to reframe failure: Hall of Fame hitters fail six and a half times out of every ten at-bats. If the best hitters in the world fail at that rate and still reach the pinnacle of their sport, the lesson for business leaders is that “done is better than perfect,” and the right question after a mistake is not “why did I fail” but “what did I learn and how do I over-prepare for next time.”
- Seven Gables started as five agents in a trailer doing things nobody else in Southern California was doing at the time: full-page newspaper ads, then the first company in the region to include photos in those ads. That early culture of refusing to be average became the foundation. Mike describes average as “halfway to the bottom, not halfway to the top,” and the culture he built since then has self-selected out people who aren’t willing to hold a higher standard, they leave on their own without being asked.
- He is most proud that all four of his children work in the Seven Gables businesses, and that people on his team have worked there for 30, 40, and 45 years. Seven Gables has been named the number-one workplace in Orange County three consecutive years, as measured by third-party surveys of the agents and employees themselves. He views that recognition as the true measure, not revenue, not market share.
- On transmitting hunger to the next generation, he is honest that he doesn’t know if it can be done. His answer is to model it, symbolize it, and illustrate it in everything he does, and then acknowledge that his children will have to decide for themselves whether they want to commit to the level of obsession the CEO role requires. “This never leaves me,” he says. “It’s seven days a week in my head.”
- His closing advice centers on two practical anchors: find a mentor, because every successful person he can think of, from Disney to Musk to Southwest’s founder, had someone or some moment of guidance that shaped their trajectory; and build a morning routine that includes gratitude. He cites Dr. Robert Emmons of UC Davis, whose research documents the physical, mental, and emotional improvements that follow a consistent gratitude practice.
About Michael
Michael Hickman is CEO of Seven Gables Real Estate, which he joined in 1977 as the company’s fifth employee and grew from 35 agents to 500 across Southern California. He also serves as chairman of the Brainstormers Collection, a network of 24 of the top independent real estate companies in the United States, and has served as chairman of the board for Make-A-Wish of Orange County Inland Empire.
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-hickman-2aba995
- Website: http://www.sevengables.com
Episode 142 of the PreVetted Podcast.
Full transcript
Federico Ramallo (00:01) Welcome back to the pre-Vetted podcast where we spotlight extraordinary people and remarkable talent reshaping our world. Today we are joined by Michael Mike Hickman, CEO of Seven Gables, Real Estate. ⁓
Mike Hickman (00:19) Yeah, sounds
better than I thought it was.
Federico Ramallo (00:22) Yes, CEO of Seven Gables Real Estate, enrolled his head since January 1977, almost 50 years. Mike oversees 500 real estate advisors across Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside counties, and also leads several core services businesses, lending escrow, property management, insurance and more. He’s also chairman of the brainstormers collection.
and has served as chairman of the board for Make-A-Wish of Orange County Inland Empire. Michael, welcome to the show.
Mike Hickman (00:57) Thank you. Thank you for having me, Federico. I appreciate it. Thank you. Very nice of you.
Federico Ramallo (01:00) I am honored to have you here today.
So you’ve been CEO for almost 50 years. What helped you lead for so long?
Mike Hickman (01:13) Well, to be honest with you, I want to retrace that a little bit. I have not been CEO for 50 years. Not that I’m correcting you, but I started as an agent at the company and worked my way up. So started at the bottom, so to speak, understanding the roots of the business, the community of agents around Southern California, and the mindset that goes with being an agent in a very complicated, what has become a very complicated process of real estate.
I went from an agent to a manager to a general manager to president and finally full ownership of the company and CEO of the company over the years. And I think when I look back on that connecting all the dots, I think it was really important not to go from directly to or not. There’s a direct connection between being an agent and going directly to a CEO position. There’s no substitute for learning it from the ground up.
Federico Ramallo (02:06) right, because it allows you to know the business, every detail of the business. And when you ask somebody on your team, you’ve done that. You know what that role entails.
Mike Hickman (02:10) you
I had a, as a very younger, younger man.
I had the extreme upper, extreme.
opportunity to play college sports. And the reason I hesitated there is I wanted to make sure that I put that in the proper light. There’s a lot of people who play college sports, but I had this exceptional opportunity of playing for a gentleman that as a coach in baseball, that embedded in a certain characteristics and qualities that many of us still talk about today.
And through this gentleman, he embedded it. I was barely 18 years old and taught us things about how to prepare, how to be graceful, how to learn.
how to understand, how to be humble, how to be poised, how to be confident. And what I didn’t know that I was learning at the time was all about what a famous basketball coach named John Wooden had taught him. And John Wooden was named the greatest coach of the 20th century by the sports writers of America. So it all kind of, kind of traces back up to a higher authority and more knowledgeable people that were, as he coached us,
He often said, I wouldn’t expect you to do anything that I would not do myself. So when he made us over prepare and outwork everybody that we played.
By the way, we’re the number one college baseball team in the country for two years running and one back to back college World Series. So there was something special there because I recognized early on that we were we were a talented team, but boy, there was a lot more talented teams out there than us. But somehow we managed to to overcome that and beat them very thoroughly in head to head competition. And what I learned from all that was whenever we ran, whenever we practiced,
He was there with us and he never asked us to do anything he would not do himself.
So carrying that over for a minute into leadership role, of the true characteristics of any leader is the ability to influence people. leadership, as a good friend of mine says, who’s an author, leadership coach, an author says, leadership is not for cowards. I have no doubt about that. OK, because it is not for cowards. Number two, what I’ve also learned is you have the ability to mess with people’s lives, OK, because you’re in a leadership position and you can influence that.
What’s important about that is that your head has to be on straight and your goals and your values and your standards have to be in line and aligned with everybody in the organization. So the long and short of it is learning as an agent, I would not expect the agents that I have a chance to work with, I call them my partners.
to do anything that I would not do myself in terms of working, being over prepared and not demanding on them. Because if I can do it, you can do it. It’s sort of my attitude. And if you don’t know how to do it, I’ll show you how to do it. So I expect us to be over prepared. I expect us to outwork the competition. The same exact things that I learned as a little guy, know, at 18 years old. And it carried over for many, many years. It worked as an agent. It worked as a manager, general manager, president, and now the CEO of the company.
of one of the leading firms in the nation today in the United States.
Federico Ramallo (05:39) Amazing.
Mike Hickman (05:40) long drawn out story that probably
bored you a little bit, but you have to get some background on that to understand my mindset because it’s different than a lot of people. I had this incredible opportunity to be mentored by this man as a young person and be influenced by him. And to this day, I did a podcast with him. You’ll appreciate this, Rico. I did a podcast with him in August. And he’s 86 years old now, my coach.
I said, well, why can’t you do this live with me in front of my whole company at our particular event? goes, Mike, I’m going to play in the men’s.
softball World Series, national championship game. He’s 86 years old playing in a national championship game of men’s softball. That’s what kind of a guy he is. I mean, it is truly, he’s truly remarkable. And it’s up and down, up and down all these men’s lives. So he coached us at UC Irvine for years and went to UCLA, coached there for 30 years. The manager of the Los Angeles Dodgers is his protege. The manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks played for him as well. So Dave Robertson, Tory Lovello.
Federico Ramallo (06:25) Wow.
Mike Hickman (06:46) These are people that are just examples of the influence he had on people throughout the years. Dave Roberts attributes his managerial skill and coaching ability and mindset completely to Gary Adams in an article that I recently read prior to the podcast.
So Gary’s just that really special man that had the ability to affect so many people in our lives. So I owe a lot to him and I want to dedicate the comments about my success over the years to Gary and what I’ve learned from him as a young man.
Federico Ramallo (07:21) Amazing, Yes, and I have coaches like that that they inspire you to do better. You see them keep going, keep moving forward, and kind of makes our problems, our hesitations small, And push us without asking to do better, right?
Mike Hickman (07:40) Exactly, I agree with you. have two coaches now that I work with because I figured no matter how good you think you are or how much you think you know, it’s what you learn after you think you know it all that matters, right? I have that old saying, what you think you, you know, what you learn after you think you know it all is what matters most.
So I have two coaches now, they’re dynamic, they’re outstanding people, never mind coaches, before all that even enters the equation. So I’m very fortunate to be aligned with these two individuals and couldn’t be more grateful to them.
Federico Ramallo (08:14) Right, right. And the other thing you mentioned about high performance sports, I think a lot of the lessons that you learn by being on a team like that translates to business, right? It’s hard because you need to learn how to take feedback without taking it personally, you know, putting your ego aside and working on.
the task at hand, right? Because at the end of the day is the result that counts.
Mike Hickman (08:41) agree 100 % and ultimately we as leaders sometimes veer off the path from our gold standard belief system. We all have a belief system and that’s what separates us and makes us different. The beliefs create the values that we live by, right? So I think it’s important that when we do veer off those paths, very easily done,
that coaches, people that influence me or people in our industry today, bring us back to what is most important. And that’s exactly what both of my current coaches do. And that’s what I learned years ago as well. But the important part is they understand me and they understand what my values are. think that’s what makes a big difference.
Federico Ramallo (09:22) Right, right. I think it’s amazing that after so many years, you’re still having coaches that guide you on how to do better.
Mike Hickman (09:31) You know, and thank you for that Federico because.
I look at the best players in sports, kind of the elementary mindset I may have, maybe embedded in me, I don’t know. But I look at the very best players in sports, and they all have coaches. I don’t care if you’re, you know, the old Tiger Woods, if you’re Scottie Scheffler in golf, I don’t care if you’re the best hitter in baseball, the best quarterback on the football team, the best basketball player, they all have specialized coaches. So I look at, I look at
And it always. I look back on baseball. This is just one example. I know this may sound a little. It’s off our track. I know, but in baseball I mean you can get into this. The ultimate place of baseball player that plays professionally wants to be is the Hall of Fame. And if you were hitter, if you were hitter, you know you’re going to make it out to get in the Hall of Fame. 6 1⁄2 out of seven times you’re going to make it out of 10 times 6 1⁄2 out of seven.
Over 10 at bat, six and a half or seven of those, you’re going to make an out, strike out, make an out. But what do you do? How do you come back from that? How do you only three to three and a half times out of 10 are you successful that you can reset your mind, come back and be that good at what you do and get into the hall of fame? That has always fascinated me. So I think we in the business world have to look at the knocks sometimes we take. have to, but the one thing that holds
us true is our values. Close our mindset off to what’s happened in the past and look forward, learn from the past, and dedicate the learning to over preparing for the future. And I think that’s what has helped me along the way. That sort of mindset that says, boy, know, these guys fail six and a half times out of 10 and still the best there is in the world, right?
And like, okay, Hickman, what if you fail two times out of 10? Are you gonna be okay? Instead of worrying about it. In other words, done is better than perfect. Go forward, take action, right?
Federico Ramallo (11:33) Right, right. It’s a hard thing to describe, it’s not taking the failures. You see where you made the mistakes, you let them go, and you move forward.
Mike Hickman (11:48) You have to. You have to. If you want to keep moving forward, you have to let go of that. It’s a chapter that you just close the book on and you move forward.
Because if you don’t learn from your mistakes, the best way we all get better, other than reading or learning from a coach or something, is by failure. Mistakes create greatness. We learn from those, and then we try to perfect them. And I think that’s, I’ve made plenty of mistakes. I would admit that. But with those mistakes came a hard, long look at how do I get better from those mistakes? What did I learn? That’s true for
all of us. I don’t care what you do, whether you’re in school, doing what you do every single day, pardon me, with our kids, whatever it may be, right?
Federico Ramallo (12:36) Right, right. What is experience? Right. Experience is just the wisdom of all the mistakes you’ve done before. Right. That led you to the point you are today.
Mike Hickman (12:47) In a lot of ways it
certainly is, Federico.
Federico Ramallo (12:52) Yeah, I sometimes I I go through this mental exercise of, know, man, I wish, you know, I didn’t make this mistake or that mistake or, know, that I, you know, but we are where we are because of those mistakes. So if we don’t kind of erase them magically, then we lose who we are now. Right. So there is a value in those mistakes. Right.
I explained to my son, are mistakes that you can fix and there they are like permanent mistakes, right? If you lose a leg, if you lose an arm, then let’s try to avoid that, but then you can have as many fixable mistakes, right? Because then that’s how you learn, right?
Mike Hickman (13:27) Yeah.
But I could be off on this little bit. My recollection of history is that for the many years of the world, there’s only one individual that was mistake free. ⁓
Federico Ramallo (13:43) Yeah
Mike Hickman (13:48) When you look at it sometimes from a point of view like that, it’s like, okay, I’m human, I’m going to make mistakes, I’m not going to be perfect. How do I learn from them and how do I get better from every single mistake, no matter how big or how small it is? What did I learn? I think we have to stop and ask ourselves that question. I question myself daily. Am I doing the right thing? Am I influencing people the way that they would like to be influenced to achieve the best version of themselves? That’s what I ask myself.
Am I doing the right thing that will challenge them? Will it influence them to be the best version that they can possibly be of themselves? I think that’s what leaders should do. Anything short of that becomes egotistical, becomes narcissistic, and it’s about the leader and not about the people that you get a chance to serve. They don’t work for me.
I serve them and we’re partners and we work together and jointly together toward one common goal. There’s a different mentality.
Federico Ramallo (14:45) Right.
You become a servant leader, right? You serve your people.
Mike Hickman (14:53) Yeah, that’s what I enjoy doing exactly because my joy, what I get out of it is watching them excel, watching them become the best people, the best version of themselves. I know I keep saying that repeating them. I apologize, but it really is true. The best version of themselves is what I look for when I can tell there. I can just see it in their eyes. Sometimes I can hear it in their voice when I talk to them. And that’s where I get my joy.
Obviously there’s a financial component to it too, but that’s a byproduct of doing the right thing. That comes along with doing the right thing, doing it at the right time. If it’s all about the transaction side of it, then you end up with a whole transaction mindset, transactional mindset, which is not healthy for any leader to have. You have to have a transactional mindset, yes, but there’s a linear relationship between transactional and relational mindsets as a leader that you have to manage constantly.
Federico Ramallo (15:49) Right. Yeah, I think it all starts with having an alignment on the mission and the vision, right, that we want to go together towards the direction and building that dynamic of how we’re going to help each other because we need each other to be able to move forward faster.
Mike Hickman (16:07) Well, would venture a guess, and I may be off in this a little bit, but I would say I’m definitely not a leader if I turn around and nobody’s behind me. If I’m the only one standing there and I’m a leader and I turn around and everybody’s deserted me, right?
Federico Ramallo (16:19) Right.
Mike Hickman (16:25) But I also would venture guess that there’s probably people that would say, I’m glad you’re leading us too, because of the values we have and the standards we have. So that’s the true measure of it. And I think that’s been the true measure of my company for many years.
challenging the status quo of being a top 10 workplace in Southern California. And that’s measured by the agents that work there and the employees that work there. it’s surveys taken by a third party company that I engage every year to make sure we’re doing the right thing. And that’s our benchmark. And in fact, in the County of Orange, which is a major dynamic economic hub in Southern California, we’re the number one workplace with three years consecutively. And I think that speaks volumes to my management team, how they lead.
their intelligence, their care, their compassion, their empathy, and how they approach their roles with the people that they manage on their behalf. So very fortunate that way.
Federico Ramallo (17:23) That’s amazing. mean, that’s very hard to do, particularly in this high performing environment, challenging market conditions, and particularly in the industry that you are, California is one of the highest regulated industries in terms of real estate.
Mike Hickman (17:31) Yeah.
It is it is very highly regulated. Yes, for sure. And sometimes by state and by county standards, yes, but yeah, Orange County is a very vibrant place. We’re very fortunate.
Federico Ramallo (17:51) So what was Seven Gables like when you started?
Mike Hickman (17:56) You’ll get a laugh out of this. The founders of the company were brilliant at the time.
Federico Ramallo (17:58) Hahaha.
Mike Hickman (18:01) And what attracted me to them was their desire to do something completely different than everybody else was doing in the industry. Be just stand apart, be more educated, be more sophisticated, be dressed better, talk to people more intelligently, and know your craft. Like, you know, what it was like. I was the fifth person to join Seven Gables, okay, as a young guy.
When I joined Seven Gables, we were working in a trailer and we had an outhouse for a bathroom. So as the story goes, there was many a day.
I joined in January and I can remember even that far back. There was many a day where I was walking on pieces of wood to get to the outhouse that was about 30 feet from our trailer that was sitting on a new home development of custom homes.
And from there, it moved in, it moved along to starting to attract people like, are they, why are they so, why are they selling these expensive properties? Why are they writing these unique advertisements? Why are they taking so much time to do it like, unlike everybody else? Why do they have a full page ad in the newspaper when we were the first company to ever do that in Southern California? Why do they have now, look, they have pictures in the newspaper, first
company
to do that in Southern California. So just things like that set us apart and began to attract talented individuals to the company and educated individuals that were interested in careers, not just making the traditional real estate impression upon people that so many people have because they think the bar is so low. So I always felt like I felt like
This is going to not sound so good, but I felt like I was a step above the average agent in the business. I never wanted to be average because the average for me was always halfway to the bottom. That’s how I saw average.
not halfway to the top, it’s halfway to the bottom. I just don’t want to be average. I wasn’t average in sports and athletics. I wasn’t average academically. I wasn’t average when I got an advanced degree in graduate school. And so why would I want to be average? I didn’t want to be average. So I joined an above average company. And I think their standards that they set, I have carried out over the many years. They’re both gone now. But as a result, I’ve carried that out as best I could for the many years that
I believed in the culture of the company and built a dynamic company from those five agents. And for when I took over the company with roughly 35 agents in the company to grow it to the ancillary companies, our core service businesses we have now and up to 500 agents that we have now. It’s been a joy to attract people that think similarly. Culture is a funny thing because when you build your culture, it rejects people who don’t align with your values. Because your values become very clear when you talk about
them, you show them, you symbolize them. And when people don’t align with those values, the culture will essentially say to them, you don’t belong here. You don’t even have to ask them to leave. They just leave. So it’s very fascinating. It always has fascinated me, you know, the culture. They opt out because it feels uncomfortable to them to have a higher standard. Go be average. Go be average somewhere else. There’s plenty of companies out there that are average. This isn’t one of them.
Federico Ramallo (21:25) it becomes this self-selected group.
Mike Hickman (21:29) for selecting out. That’s right.
Federico Ramallo (21:31) I think that the hardest part is when you start a small group or a small team because the next hire that you bring in, it’s a significant percentage of your whole team. can have a significant impact on your culture, right? But building that culture, right, with a bigger team, the next hire becomes easy and the next hire becomes easier, right? Because it’s a smaller percentage of everybody else, right? So if I join a team and I see everybody doing the way they’re doing it, then I’m going
Mike Hickman (21:44) yeah.
Federico Ramallo (21:59) to try to mimic what they’re doing, right?
Mike Hickman (22:02) Correct. Correct. And to fit in. That’s their version of fitting into the culture that suggests to that individual, I need to step it up. I need to be more educated, perhaps. I need to refine my language skills. I need to refine my negotiating skills. I got to be familiar with everything that, and the details by which we operate our business. And uphold those values.
Federico Ramallo (22:05) fit in.
Right.
Mike Hickman (22:30) because you’re going to be challenged by buyers, by sellers, by other agents who are less qualified.
Federico Ramallo (22:38) Right, right. And it’s a values that allow us to make every decision we make. We can contrast it with the values and say, is this, what would Mike do basically, right? Or what would Seven Gables do, right? And that defines how should we move forward, right?
Mike Hickman (22:57) It absolutely does.
Unfortunately, some of the decisions I’ve made that resulted in mistakes were not aligned with my values perhaps, or I get outside the values or overreacted to the values, whatever it may have been. But as long as your decision making ability and the decisions that you make are aligned with your values, you’ll always be right. It’s just that simple. And so decisions based on values make it right. As long as your values are aligned with everything else in the company, it works.
It’s a really interesting simple formula for leadership.
Then I can come up with 10 different reasons why they don’t do it, including their egos, okay, or transactional mindset that’s all about dollars and the deal. When sometimes it’s better to walk away than to do certain things.
Federico Ramallo (23:40) Right.
Right. And also the when things go wrong, you know, because sometimes you do everything right, but still, you know, it’s not the outcome you expect. I think it’s the values that holds the team together. Right.
Mike Hickman (24:02) Yes.
I can tell you firsthand it’s absolutely the values that hold the team together, hold the company together and bond it as one. And it’s tough because not everybody is going to believe in those values. But when things get a little tough or there’s challenges or headwinds, then I think those values become highly critical, highly important and very, very necessary. Those are the guiding lights for your business.
Federico Ramallo (24:28) Right.
Right.
So can you tell us a little bit about how Seven Gables is today? Can you tell us what are you the most proud of today?
Mike Hickman (24:43) Gosh, that’s very broad question. I am not in this order necessarily. I know what I will say to that and then answer that question, Frederico. I am most proud of the fact that I have four children and they all work in the businesses that we have.
I’m most proud of the fact that they work very, very hard. They take nothing for granted. Their work ethic is second to none. Their care and concern for the people that work there is second to none. And I just love how they interact with people. From my oldest daughter in compliance to my oldest son, and who’s our legal counsel, who’s also a general manager. What he’s learned in this industry and to my middle daughter.
who’s just a, she’s a toughy man, but she works in our accounting department along with my youngest son, who’s an amazing lender who is so skilled at what he does, helping people with financing and things like no other.
So that’s probably one of my proudest moments, but that’s not necessarily directly related to the business. In terms of Seven Gables, I’m proud of the fact that we’ve weathered, gosh, how many business cycles, how many ups and downs, a great recession.
we’re still here 50 years later. It blows my mind. It really does. It blows my mind. I never thought that would, I never thought I’d even stay in the business that long, let alone be working any place. I’ve only worn one uniform my entire career in business. That’s the Seven Gables, because I believed in the system and the entire process that was associated with Seven Gables. So I’m most proud of the 50 years. I’m proud of the fact that
We have people that have worked in Seven Gables for 30, 40, 45 years, and they have earned the right to slow down maybe or to continue. And they’ve had exceptional careers based on the foundation, and I think the company provided them.
company provided the foundation, but they did the work. And we worked hand in hand with each other, glove in glove with each other, glove in hand with each other, however you want to term that. And their success showed me that you can become the best version of yourself, okay? And have a wonderful life, have it balanced correctly, have your values in the right place. And I can cite 30 examples of that right now, of people that have gone through that. So I’m most proud of that, I think.
event coming up in a couple of weeks and two weeks from tomorrow actually and I’m beginning to put together my usually it’s a two and a half hour presentation so it’s a long script and what do I want to say and so I’m gonna I’m gonna think about that a little bit but the bottom line through all that what makes me most proud is what I just described I think longevity because you know anybody can run a sprint but to run a marathon it’s a little bit tougher for challenging points and that’s what I feel like we’ve
at Seven Gables, I’ve run at Seven Gables. on that day, on that recognition day, I’m going to close the chapter on the 26th of February to the past 50 years and look at the next period of time, whatever that looks like.
with a modern vision and old school values. That’s how I define it. A modern vision with old school values. I think that’s a pretty darn good representation of how we feel, how we wanna go forward and continue our progress with the people that were fortunate enough to work with us that entrust me with their careers and our management team with their careers. How’s that for an explanation?
Federico Ramallo (28:11) That’s amazing.
Mike Hickman (28:14) I just thought of that off the top of my head, really. You asked me that question. I mean, honestly, we didn’t really prepare for this. So you’re asking me questions and I’m giving you answers straight from my heart and straight from what’s in my head. There’s no preparation here. There’s no AI using these answers. This is just me and you having a conversation. That’s what I love. I love this part of it.
Federico Ramallo (28:34) I’m blown away by your answer. I think it’s really, really hard to retain people. I’m happy to hear how long people are staying in the company that reflects on all the work that you’re doing as a leader. It’s very interesting to hear that your sons and daughters are into the business. They join.
the company and that they’re working, they’re very deeply committed to keep the company working. You have built a legacy.
How can you transmit to your kids the same hunger that you had when you Because after having success, it’s hard to transmit that to the kids, right?
Mike Hickman (29:16) I think it’s extremely difficult, know, Frederico. I don’t know that I can transmit that. All I can do is illustrate it, model it, and symbolize it in everything that I do. And they, at some point, should they become the successors to me and the company, at some point, they’ll have to make up their own minds.
about what they want to do and what they’re willing to commit to. I’ve committed, you know, it’s a funny thing. I was talking to somebody the other day or I run into people and I’ve been here so long and say, when are you going to retire? go, why would I retire? OK, what in the world am I going to do when I retire? I mean, I’m going to play golf. No, golf sounds like once in a while. I go to the gym. I go to the gym every day. OK, great. Now what?
And so I said, you know, I want you understand something. When you own a company and you run a company like this,
This never leaves me. It’s seven days a week on my head, in my head. I may take a couple hours off to enjoy a fabulous night out for dinner or spend some time with friends at events or go places and travel, but it never leaves you. It’s always in your head and in your soul. And so…
But that’s how I learned and that’s how I grew up. don’t know, I truly don’t know if my kids, my children, I should say kids sound so infantile, if my children want to do that. They want to dedicate and commit their lives to that. So that’s a decision they’d have to make if I’m no longer with Seven Gables or no longer here for that matter. I that all happens to all of us, right? So if that’s the case, I think they’d have to make that decision. They can hire a CEO to come in and run the company.
Federico Ramallo (30:58) Right.
Mike Hickman (31:06) oldest son is becoming more more qualified to do that and I think he will be ultimately very qualified to do that. I have a wonderful president that is above him that he cannot jump over or leapfrog over to become the CEO. She’s been with me for 38 years and she’s dynamic and talented and
values that are fantastic, completely aligned. We may not agree on everything, but when we disagree, we work through it and understand each other. And the values are really what keep us together and united. So going back to that, don’t know that it can be transmitted to kids. They either have it or they don’t, or they have the desire to do it they don’t. And it’s going to be for all the right reasons. If it’s just transactional and monetary, you’ll fail. You will fail, I promise you.
because you enjoy being around people, I promise you, you’ll fail. You’ve got to find that blend of transactional and relational management of your own soul and manage to carry that out and emanate that through the entire organization. So the long and short of it is, I don’t know, that’s going to be up to them. I’m not going to make that decision for them or put them in that role. But sooner or later, I’ll probably ask that question that I’ve never asked.
You know, different generations have a different belief system, right? They want to balance life. Like, you can’t have a balanced life if you’re a CEO. Let’s just stop this nonsense of balancing life and work. That’s a bunch of nonsense. It never gets out of your head. You’re always trying to think of ways. And if you have a certain curiosity, which you have to have as a CEO, I am convinced a curiosity that is never ending about how you can get better, what you can improve, how you can affect people in a positive way.
Federico Ramallo (32:23) Right.
Mike Hickman (32:53) Unless you have that, you can’t be in my shoes. You can’t sit in a CEO position. Unless you want to sit back, collect a paycheck for short time, and then walk away with a disaster on your hands and leave it to somebody else. It just doesn’t happen.
Federico Ramallo (33:10) Right, right. I mean, we raise our children to become independent. So now they have to make their own decisions, right? And that’s both as parents, this for me, it’s frightening and exciting at the same time, right?
Mike Hickman (33:15) Wait.
It is, and especially I think you probably have younger children than me by far. I think you had a younger child. Yeah, you raise them to be independent. You raise them to be thoughtful and all the characteristics that you want to embody in with them, right? You and your wife.
But at some point, they’re going to make decisions on their own. It’s like I told them when they’re going away to college. I said, if I haven’t had taught you by the time you’re 16 or 17, you’re driving a car now, this is basically a lethal weapon, OK, on the road. If I haven’t taught you the proper values by now, shame on me when you go away to college and you become some village idiot drinking and doing whatever you’re going to do and parting it up and not paying attention to school. If I haven’t taught you the proper values, shame on me as a parent.
I haven’t done my job. So it all goes back to that somehow, doesn’t it? feels like values and standards and living a good life, getting an opportunity to do that.
Federico Ramallo (34:09) Right.
Right, yeah I think that the reason we come back to values is because that’s the foundational anchor that we have that sets everything else that we do around.
Mike Hickman (34:27) Right.
I agree with you 100%.
Federico Ramallo (34:32) Can you tell us a little bit about the Brainstormers collection?
Mike Hickman (34:37) Sure. The Brainstormers is a group that was actually celebrating its 70th anniversary. It’s a collection of 24 of the top independent companies, real estate companies in the United States. You have to be a leader in your market. You have to be an independent company. can’t be associated with a national brand.
And it gathers, I’m the chairman of that group. This would be my third year, my second term of doing it, third term actually, I guess of doing it. And we gather twice a year in different parts of the country, usually East or West to essentially brainstorm. And what I like to do is I’m the one that usually,
unsettles the group put it that way. I’ll bring new issues and new ideas to the group that are non-traditional and make them think out of the box. I love doing that. I do it with my own company. I love doing it with these guys. These folks are super intelligent and they have great companies.
And it was established a long time ago so that people could get together and share ideas, best practices, what works, what doesn’t, how do we better serve the consumers that we have a chance to interact with.
And I brought some things to them that our last meeting in last October that I think for a lot of them were so eye opening that it was shocking to them. So it’s really good because you actually get to see parts of the country too. They’re a little bit behind, they’re ahead, they’re equal, that kind of thing. So Brainstormers is a good group that we all learn a lot from each other.
Federico Ramallo (36:24) That’s amazing. mean, I think you’re inspiring the next generation of leaders. And it shows that you have this curiosity because you’re running your company, but you also get involved in the Brainstormers collection. And you kind of challenge the status quo on the industry as well. That’s amazing.
Mike Hickman (36:42) Yeah, I have that written on the back of my iPad that’s sitting across from me. Always challenging the status quo. Just something I’ve learned to do and don’t know any better, probably. Just don’t know any better. Put it that way. I don’t know.
Federico Ramallo (36:55) you
You can help it, right? Can I help myself? Yeah.
Mike Hickman (37:00) can’t help myself. Yeah. Zach,
can’t help myself. It’s so true, honestly.
Federico Ramallo (37:05) You
So we are running out of time, but I truly appreciated you being here today. Any final remarks, any final advice to the audience?
Mike Hickman (37:21) I don’t know exactly who your audience is, but I’m going to assume that many people in your audience would be people that might want to learn what other people would create success and what doesn’t create success. And I would start with the fact that success…
starts with a mentor somewhere, somebody that provides you with some guidance, whether it be your parents. After the Super Bowl this past Sunday, everybody, what are you grateful for? My dad, my mom, my parents, my brother, my mentor, my coach, whatever it is, somewhere in people’s lives, there needs to be a mentor to help you get to where you want to achieve, where you can be the best that you can possibly be.
I think too often times people settle. One of my mantras always has been never settle. Okay, never settle. I tell that to my oldest granddaughter who’s getting ready to go to college and she’s thinking, my gosh, the acceptance rate at this school is X. The acceptance rate at this school is another very, very low. I said, honey, I I Riley, I love her to death. said Riley, the grade point average is 4.9. Okay.
you go to a top high school that’s private, your parents are fortunate enough to do that with you, don’t sell yourself short, never settle for second best, right? So I think sometimes we settle because it’s just comfortable. And I think I’m trying to reshape her mindset. I think a mentor is critical, but I also think opportunities are there.
And sometimes people never see them because they don’t take the time in busy day time, busy day, busy lives, sorry, busy lives to recognize opportunities no matter how small or how big they are that are present that can take you to a place because of fear. We don’t take those opportunities and look at them seriously. See, there’s no fear and failure.
There’s no fear. There’s nothing to lose with failure and there’s everything to gain. Because I don’t think there’s been ever a person.
I don’t care if you want to use sports, you want to use anything that is, I mean, the richest man in the world, Elon Musk. How many times did that guy fail? How many times did Walt Disney go bankrupt before he built Disney World or Disneyland? Imagine if he had an attitude like, I failed again. I’ve only gone bankrupt seven times now. Okay. Imagine that.
Imagine the guy who started Southwest Airlines if he had said, I don’t know if this is gonna work. I don’t know if it’s gonna work if I have a low cost airline. How are we gonna make that work, right? Instead of getting into the details of it, because he saw an opportunity that was just a little opportunity that he got into now is one of the most successful airlines in the world. The guy’s at Starbucks.
You know, they hold true to their standards. If you walk into a Starbucks and any of the employees are wearing perfume or cologne, they’re immediately terminated and dismissed. Did you know that? Because, yeah, the standards of Starbucks are…
Federico Ramallo (40:32) really? I didn’t know that.
Mike Hickman (40:36) All I want people to smell is the coffee and what we’re doing here. The coffee and the aroma. The aroma, when you walk into a Starbucks, and I’m using that, most coffee stores are like that. Not just Starbucks, but they’re the example because they hold two other standards. If you’re wearing cologne or perfume, typically you would lose your job. That’s just, you sign that off when you agree to work there. So values are important. Opportunities, values.
and set your goals but I don’t know try to be the best version of yourself that you can be at all times I think that’s what this boils down to
Federico Ramallo (41:15) That’s amazing. I think that’s… Oh, go ahead, go ahead.
Mike Hickman (41:17) And I have one more thing to that.
One more thing to this. I learned a long time ago that there’s something about a morning routine.
that probably most executives follow and have built for themselves. Whatever that looks like, whether it looks like exercise, cup of coffee, a prayer, time in your morning, meditation in your morning, personal time in your morning, whatever you want to call it, exercise I mentioned. But that should set the basis for your day. If you don’t have a good morning routine, I can promise you your day will be disruptive. It will magnify the
the lack of discipline in your life and the lack of the ability to execute in your life. You need a good morning routine. And the last component to morning routine, many people may not agree with me on this, but I know it for a fact to be true because I’ve read books about it, is gratitude. And gratitude is the one thing that will take a kind of a lousy day in your life and turn it around. It’s amazing when you stop and think about how
maybe not so good your day is going, that when you have a little gratitude in your life and take three minutes of gratitude, it can turn your mental mindset into something really, really special. And so I think it’s quite amazing, really. So that’s my words of wisdom, I think, right there.
Dr. Robert Emmons has a study, he’s a professor at UC Davis in Northern California. He’s done a study on gratitude and there’s several books about it, but he spells it out so clearly in his books about the physical improvement, the mental improvement, the emotional improvement by the way of gratitude. And we all have so many things to be grateful for, but we just have to look at them and remember them, keeps us going.
Federico Ramallo (43:10) Right, right. I think that your journey, your experience and your insights are inspiring and as I said at the beginning, I’m honored to be able to share your story.
Mike Hickman (43:21) Thank you for the ability to share that. I don’t know if I have an impact on anybody, but I think the point of it is I’m very, very grateful for the people that have paved a path and walked with me in my life to get to where I am today. I think I just wanted to mention that because I think looking back and just trying to do the best you can and create success and success is defined very well by several people, but I define it as the self-satisfaction of knowing that you did the very best
you could do. Whether or not you reach the pinnacle of that doesn’t matter. It’s the self satisfaction of knowing that you do the very best you could possibly do. That’s how I define success. That’s my story.
Federico Ramallo (44:02) Mike, thank you for joining us today.
Mike Hickman (44:06) It is an absolute pleasure. You’re quite a host. And thank you for the question. Some of those things I had not thought about for quite a long time. And thank you for bringing that out. It reminds me of a lot of different things in my life. So thank you.