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.