John Shegerian: This edition of the Impact Podcast is brought to you by the Marketing Masters. The Marketing Masters is a boutique marketing agency offering website development and digital marketing services to small and medium businesses across America. For more information on how they can help you grow your business online please visit themarketingmasters.com.

John: Welcome to another edition of the impact podcast on John Shegerian. I am so honored and excited to have today, my friend Mark Sadovnick. He is with us as a guest on impact. Welcome to impact, Mark.

Mark Sadovnick: I am super delighted to be here. Thanks for having me, John.

John: It is absolutely my pleasure. We have known each other through common friends for years. We have been to conferences together. I am a huge fan of your work at The 5th Element group and I just would love for you to share today a little bit about your background first. I want our listeners to get to know you Mark about your journey leading up to The 5th Element group and how you even got to where you are today.

Mark: How much time we got John?

John: We have as much time as you want, Mark. This is all about you.

Mark: All about me? That is dangerous [inaudible] to go down. Well, originally from Montreal huge hockey fan and learned a lot about sports. I guess if you want to start, one person that taught me a lot in my life was my grandfather who — him and grandmother were from Kyiv, Russia. My mom and aunt[?] came over again in the 20s or something and the things I remember most about him was, we would go for walks as a kid with him and he would smile at everybody and it’s followed on the next one, next one. They would call him Zeta which was the Jewish term, I call him, “Zeta, how do you know all these people?” He said, “What do you mean?” “Well, you smile all these people, how do you know the most?” “I do not know them all. I just noticed that when I smile at them, they smile and look happy and then I smile and I am happy so it’s great.” Okay cool, and he was super kind super friendly to everybody and he would share stories with his past in Russia and then after that, but that stuck with me for so long about kindness and caring about people and that was like the first maybe youngest glimpse and then it all went to school and I was involved in community stuff and I enjoyed it. I was enjoyed it is like that when they say around Christmas. It is better to give than to get you feel better about everything. Being involved in the community just there is a light inside of me that it just felt good and then actually wanted to be a sports broadcaster when I was younger. They are going to change my name to David to Mark Jensen[?] but then my mom and dad said, “I do you think should be like an accountant or an attorney or something?” So I went into accounting. Thanks, Mom. I learned to accounting. I was really good at it which was the bad part because I really did not like it at all and but this all just a flowing this may be a little bit faster. I had an influencer at Deloitte, a partner who is the only partner that actually recognized — the other partners saw that I was really good at what I did and wanted me to work on stuff which is fine appreciated that but he saw that I really did not like it and he actually was caring enough to say, “Well you should be talking to clients.” He made me the emcee of all the events they did. [inaudible] we talk to clients and everything like that and he made an impact on me about the people and their relationships is equally as important if not more important than everything else and so it is kind of through my career at Deloitte. Then I was in Winnipeg Canada with a large real estate company there and I got offered a job with the pro hockey team there. That was my dream job. There is a kid from Montreal who plays hockey, loves hockey the whole bit. I got involved like I organized a fan club for kids there and we had three thousand kids in the club in a week. So that was great community things. I got to know the team and so they made me an offer for a senior marketing position at the team. I said, “Damn. This is awesome, my dream job,” —

John: You hit the jackpot.

Mark: Yes. I almost won the Stanley Cup myself and but at the same time, I was in an organization called the Jaycees which is now called Junior Champion JC’s for it is about leadership development and community and we lost having their World Congress in Winnipeg. We lost it Taipei with the two finalists, and we lost. I have talked about this somewhat where things happen for a reason and so they offer me to come down and the executive director at this global headquarters nonprofit for leadership development. At the same time, I got offered my dream job with the hockey team and I am thinking, every single person told me to take the position with the hockey team except for the person from the hockey team that offered me that job.

John: What do you mean? I really thought you took the other job?

Mark: He told me to take the other job and I thought he is just seeing that if I really want this but he was not. He actually sat down with me and I was pretty awestruck with this guy. He used to be a player on the Montreal Canadiens, a tough player, good sworn[?] player, and whatnot and he was heading up the team there. So he was like I am an adult with a kid inside talking to this guy and he said, “Mark, I know you love this. You do a good job. That is why we offered it to you but you know what if I really cared about you,” there is that word again. I remember it. “If I really cared about you I would be saying you are going to travel the world, you are going to meet leaders, you are going to have exposure and other countries that are going to be incredible. Hockey is a game. It is a business. It is fun. It is fantastic, but you are not going to get another experience like that. You may get another one in hockey and you are going to have another experience like that.” The only one including myself that told me to take the other thing and I did. I took that and which I believe that was major for turning down a dream job, but the [inaudible] for me and–

John: No kidding as a young man.

Mark: Yes, exactly. So weird character kept following me and I saw a lot of incredible leaders that were great salesmen tucky[?] ones to use the technical term and it was an awesome experience of how leaders can make a difference around the world and all different ways. Economically socially whatnot and so I did that for a while. A lot of relationships have gone into the executive search business, which is the core business that I do and long story short throughout those years I always had a lot of discussions with leaders of how do we get the very best people? How do we get the eight players? Why are people leaving this not the other and it was examples like a rider system was a big client. I had a lot of young families there and kids now so stressed out working a lot and so I remember talking the [inaudible] just got to figure out how do we get more and better people somehow got to care more about them. So someone says more benefits from this that. Well, they missed their kids why do not we build a daycare center? So they did. They built a daycare center and we were able to talk about that that the leadership ride[?] really cares about their employees. You can be close to your kids and I started getting better people. [inaudible] change one of their HR directors to a director of well-being and back then that was 1990. It was an article in the paper saying give me a job in a treadmill they should be happy basically and unfortunately, it took guts to actually do that but to represent them as leaders who cared made a difference for them and they were low key people that just kept following me through to my career and let me– my own firm were pretty successful regionally nationally and internationally because I had relationships and then even coming to LA growing it there and I join a global firm and it was going well and good people but I found that they were actually uncomfortable with the word care and I think I told you that they were uncomfortable with the world care. It was too intimate for business and I joked with them saying, “Wow, what are you going to do when I start using the word love? You are going to get crazy.” So it was around that point that I met now are my 5th Element group partners, and we together 5th element, but two years ago I was still with my other firm at the same time as launching the decade of women initiative, which is about SDGs Sustainable Development Goal number 5 and empowering women and whatnot in and 5th Element and I just decided that we have a few people that we are together. We decided we need to be together. We had a complimenting different background. One top executive marketing and branding with Coca-Cola, Citibank, Ford, and Kellogg’s, and the other one worked at Matt Damon and water.org and in sports entertainment and another one with foundations and nonprofits and well-being. It was just the epitome of what I wanted to do and I tried trademark just before that the term leaders who care and we made a commitment that what we are is 5th Element, which is basically named after the fifth industrial revolution, which is pretty well been declared as Humanity to oversee the fourth industrial revolution, which is also going on right now about AI and blockchain and whatnot. But we are in charge of it, not the other way around. It is about humans and caring. So that led us to great things happening were as partners, the core of how we are making an impact of why we make an impact is aligning corporate brands, aligning family offices with a social impact not just because not a donation but getting them a higher return on investment, a higher return on value, a measured brand warms how consumers and towns feel about them and at the same time allows us to attract them the best best best people who only want to go work for leaders who care who are making a difference but it is not sacrificing money for that and it is not just making a donation, there is if you can be for a profit and for good as you well know because you do. I have done this for years and you can do both and do better for both.

John: That is well said. For our listeners who just joined us, we are honored to have today with us Mark Sodovnick. He is the partner at the 5th Element group to learn more about Mark’s great and important and impactful work at the 5th Element group. You could go to 5th and you go with a five, use the number five, 5thelement.group.

Mark: You know what is great about that? You said it more times than you would have so it gives us [inaudible].

John: And then I will say about five more times and I might get it right by the end of this broadcast. Mark, first of all, you are so humble and you are such a good human being. You just glanced over your headhunting days, and I do not want our listeners to just think, “Oh, well Mark was a head hunter.” You were recognized by Businessweek as one of the most influential hundred and fifty head hunters in the entire world. So I just want you to give us a little nugget, when you are headhunting and you are doing this for quite some time as a profession you become an expert at people. You become a people expert and so before we go into all the great stuff that you launched two years ago at 5th Element, which is tons to go over. Give our listeners a nugget or two. What did you learn about people to become one of the top head hunters in the world that we can all take with us to interrelate with people better than we do today?

Mark: It is such an important question. One of my favorite quotes in the world is Maya Angelou who said, “Most people will forget what you said. most people forget what you have done, but they will always remember how you made them feel.”

John: I love that quote. That is just the best.

Mark: It is. It is so deep and yet so simple. It goes back to my grandfather making people smile basically. If you are looking to build long-term trust, long-term relationships, and not just quick hits then people have to trust you. People have to really see that you really do care like for real care, authentically care and I learned the very very very first search I did was for some kind of tax position and everything. I worked really hard and it was my first one and got them the company made an offer to this guy and he declined and I was thinking I work so hard in this and he declined. At that time we were just doing contingency search. In other words, you get paid if you place a person. I was thinking, “Man that sucks. How could you turn it down.” I worked so hard and how can you turn down. And he said to me, “I just did not feel it was the right fit,” and it hit me. It is not about me that I did all that work. It was about it is not the right fit for this person. You just see the right fit for the people in the company and sometimes you got to fail or get smack to get what you already know, maybe even and so I do remember that and I am in it for the long term relationship all the time because that is the way you do not get burnt out basically is if you are really in it for the right reason to help people then it is not about making a sale. It is not about all this energy to be on. Remember I did a vlog once that you do not need to be on all the time just being live all the time is exhausting actually. Again back to that caring thing that goes back to my grandfather again the whole thing about. I think people know if you care. I want to tell a little thing I have done over the years is when someone gets an offer I would say do not answer me now or whatever, go home, you obviously want to talk to your family went up but I want you to and I learned this from Sports. Sports teach us a lot. It teaches us so many things.

John: So true.

Mark: But I had a great teacher that taught me about visualization. He taught me visualization. He was a coach also in the game. He taught me visualization if I am preparing for a test to visualize myself sitting at the desk before hands when I get to sit down in the time starts. I do not waste ten, fifteen minutes organizing my stuff. I have already been there and I am doing it or I have already been in the game before I am in the game. I actually tell them to go home. I want them to close their eyes, it works a lot better that way if they are cool with that and I want you to think about getting up the next morning, getting dressed [inaudible] whatever going to the car driving there, get there and you park, in the parking lot you walk in and say “Hi” when you go sit in your office, you go get some coffee or talking to people, getting on the phone to talk to whoever you are going to talk to your boss and then you go home and back home again. Tell me how it was and the minimum it does is it makes them think more about this is real. I have got to go do this now because we all love to date and being courted and all that but then when you get married you have laundry and bills and stuff to handle and everything so it is like the same thing. It is fun. They want me. They are going to pay me this and that. I think I can actually go to do the work. So in almost thirty years, I have had two then I remember maybe three that have told me, “Man, that was great. I do not even want this job. I was just caught up in the whole and a whole thing.” I will have to turn down and different from my very very very first search as a young guy where I was ticked. I was singing great. Now is the time to know not after. The client obviously super happy because it costs money to have someone accepting and not be happy. So really that type of thing where the person sees that I really really really it is okay if they turn it down. In fact, there is no obligation of the leaders of the company to make an offer. There certainly is not an obligation for the person to take it. That is not the game. The game is to, are we the right fit for each other? This is going to be fantastic and I think that is where if you come across because the people I work with now are mostly Senior Management Executive boards and they are busy. They are smart, most of them and it is all about trust. You do not really want to waste their time talking about something that is not an opportunity and certainly not going to try to sell them something. It has to be what we have called the right fit culture ad. What I mean by that is, right fit does not mean you are exactly like everybody in the company. It means you bring you add to the culture in what you have which includes the diversity of experience, diversity of background, culture, language, whatever you add to that culture. You do not want to hire people that are exactly the same as you. It does not make any sense at all, even though people have done that for years before, but that is another thing that really makes a difference is where they especially a lot of younger people these days they are looking for that diverse. They are looking for the right opportunity to not looking for a recruiter to shove them into a job somewhere. So that is kind of where I come from. Again, I compared a lot to sports where people have a pro athlete [inaudible]. It is a blast to be a pro hockey and it is great. If I was playing pro hockey [inaudible] than ever, but they have crappy days too and they have stuff that goes on it becomes routine and everything, and you get burnt out even if you are doing the thing you love the most. You get burnt out unless there is a why there unless your passion is really there and you have got people around giving you the compliment that and so that is kind of, I was honored when they said that about the book business week, but again it is not rocket science. It is about taking care of people.

John: Got it, and again for our listeners out there find Mark or his great organization. You can go to 5thelement.group. At the 5th Element group, you are the Chief Human Element Officer. What does that mean to you?

Mark: You could have stopped what is that means. We were looking at titles but it was a different title. Sometimes people would think I am the HR Director just because this they would think but we have a Chief [inaudible] Officer. We have a Chief Impact Officer. We got a Chief Family Officer and this on. The key to that title is we have a human element practice which is the complementary practice for our [inaudible] Consulting practice of aligning brands with social impact and the human element practice includes the whole executive search practice and includes a well-being initiative and it was diversity and inclusion. We wanted to make a point of again the 5th Element is about humanity. I want to make a point that again it is not about just placing people. The human element is critical to everything we do as obvious as that may sound. It is critical with technology moving at the fastest pace ever. It is very easy to get in a riptide and forget that we are human beings and people that I deal with that are looking potentially open to good opportunities they want to work with human beings that care. They really really really do. They want to work with you and beings that have a purpose that has a why because they do also and the other important element is they want to want to work with people that listen to also what their why is and what their passion is and not just be all the same. This is what we do. You do have to be a team but we are also individual human beings and we have to listen to each other here what is going on with each other. There is one leader of a major company I was with recently and he took me to his office and he knew everybody’s names. It is a big company He knew everybody’s names. He knew if they are having a baby knew, this was going on, that was going on. It was incredible.

John: How great is that that is awesome.

Mark: How does that make you feel let me know and it reminds me of another story. Way back when with Deloitte at that time was called Northern Telecom [inaudible]. There were clients of ours and I was a young kid. I was like a little, little kid because I would ask questions all the time like the sky is blue, why, because he does this, why. You just keep asking why and so the CEO happened to be in the office as we were at corporate headquarters and I am doing some grand twerk[?] of adding numbers or God knows why. I would go to one of the factories there to do an inventory which is actually was that part was kind of interesting because you get to see real the business is about. He happened to come by and say hi, which I thought was cool. I said Hi. I said I was just at the factory. It was really cool. I was talking to this one and that one. I saw how they were making these phones that no one has even seen yet and they work. They are making flip phones. This is back in like the late 70s, flip phones and all sorts of things that are going on and it was really cool. Then somebody told me how they improve this and that. He said, “Well that is amazing. I have not even been there myself,” and I said I started thinking to myself. I was not a genius but how does he know what is going on if he has not been there and it also reminds me always about how at that time head of production people were not even on the executive committee or anything. They would just consider that they were out there and we will decide what to do over here. But you do not know what is going on. I told them they are amazing what is going on over there. When he said he was never been I was kind of surprised but it was funny. Two or three days a week later when I saw him and he said and he came over he said, “I went to the factory. I was amazed too. There is so many things that most people know. He started doing an address that they have communicated to factories and all their employees about the CEO talking about stuff like that. I am thinking, “Man, I was not genius but actually made an impact there,” by easily telling him that those people know what they are doing it to so interesting, and to his credit, he went basically. He could have not gone back then. You see these things to your life to catch you at a time whatever it is and they make an impact. So he made an impact on me on that and I hope that made an impact on him and but it is all about people, right? It is all about people.

John: So leaders with care. Leaders who care. Talk about or the original coming together of that partnership and launching that program, leaders who care, and then take us into what you have been doing recently with your video interview project and how that was evolved and developed over since your initial launch of the Leaders Who Care initiative.

Mark: I almost could not call it an initiative. I would call it a way of being or something that we work and engage and commit to working with leaders who care which gives them basically an extra recognition because really good talent knows that we work with leaders who care about their financial well-being, their physical well-being, and their mental well-being, as well as, they care about the planet, they care about our environment, they care about the sustainable development goals, and we do not just say it because the other half of our core business is aligning their brand with social impact. So they really have to show that they really do care because I learned a while back, candidates are smart, especially younger ones now and every era the young generation comes up and adds new stuff for sure, but this one is an amazing one. They will go into interviews and I will guarantee you they will ask. What are you doing about the environment? Do you care about the oceans? What are you doing for the employees with respect to our well-being? They will ask these questions which we did not really ask.

John: No, and they want tangible answers. They do not want just some fluff, right?

Mark: Oh man, it is not. Yes. We will give you an extra week off when you work your seventeen years or something.

John: That does not cut it anymore.

Mark: No and it is beautiful. It is beautiful because life is not all about money, obviously, and it does not make you happy but you do not sacrifice money to do good. You do not have to do that. It actually has finally come to the point that leaders who care about both making money and having an impact do better in both of those at the same time.

John: I love it.

Mark: So that is kind of where the whole strength of the leaders who care thing is and some of the work we are doing with amazing leaders. We were in Davos in January this year.

John: Yes. Talk about Davos like who you interview there and how did that go?

Mark: Davos was actually great and it seems — well it is just the end of January and we are in May and it seems like it was years ago.

John: January for all of us seems like it was years ago. I mean you are so right on that.

Mark: It is much how the world has changed. So we went specifically with four clients, but we also have really amazing Community, which I am proud to say that we were fortunate Forbes recognized our community as outstanding Global Brain Trust Network and it is really amazing leaders and influencers and inclined[?] leaders and so on that are entered in and we went specifically with four that wanted to do something specific there and then we bring delegates from our community to different events when we were having events and they will come back. For example, one of the big clients we were able to set up with media plays strategic meetings sitting on panels, making announcements. Another one we set up with two or three corporate players there. This was a non-profit one and set up [inaudible] players that were really interested in what they did about trauma and counseling around the world and mental health is a major major issue. Another client of ours is a company that actually has an AI technology that actually identifies, measures and fixes with respect to your eyes and how it affects diabetes and they are going to be expanding that into much more of how it impacts your eyes and your whole body so technology there. So Davos is basically a platform. We are going to go back in January next year with more of that more clients, but it is about really putting our clients in a position to achieve what they need to achieve and a lot of it is about kind of like the search kind of like what we do about putting the right fit together, people in people or putting the right people to the company A together with right people Company B, or the right non-profit for social impact. It is again what we call is an Omniwin. I guess we used to say a win-win but it is really an Omniwin where we may have two we may have five parties involved at the same time and they all benefited AI or win if you will in one way or another and it is interesting. I was told a long time ago I had someone [inuadible]. I never understood why in a sports League the media would say well company or Team A and Team B had a trade. Team B won the trade team A lost the trade. So that cannot be very good for anybody. If one team keeps losing trades and then one team keeps winning championships. If the league is not valued because those teams are crappy or teams losing trades and how valuable is your championship? League has no value. So we live on one planet and if the planet sucks then and you are making a ton of money over here, but the planet sucks what good is that? We are all on the same planet, we are in the same league. Now that does not take away from the competition. Competitions are great because it makes us all better but to win a competition in a league that is super valuable is way better than playing tennis with somebody that you win all the time. Who cares about that? It all applies and one of the things I mentioned to you, one of the exciting things we have done recently is we combine with John Krasinski some good news.

John: Yes, tell us about that story and you had some big wins recently with some huge brands. Please share those stories. I really want our listeners to hear about those.

Mark: Yes, very cool, super honored to be part of it because John blasted this thing and some good news was exactly what everybody needed during this whole time and he put out the news and people started responding because we were craving good news. People started bringing some good news about the nurses and for my workers and drivers and little kids that are creating masks and you name it all on and just grew and grew and grew and then being that what we did we start talking to John and his team and he sees that we bring corporate Brands, online them to social impact. Well, there is a play here. So restaurant employees were suffering a lot. [inaudible] started this restaurant employee Relief Fund. John knew him. We talked to some clients to come in on this and it is not about hogging the whole show you are going to get mentioned for what you did but it is about making a difference and aligning yourself with social impact. So the executives of PepsiCo were amazing. In two days they were able to put a budget together from Pepsi in the foundation of three million dollars to surprise John surprise Guy Fieri saying, [inaudible] seventeen million dollars in your employee fund well, our friends with PepsiCo want to bring that to twenty million in Guy Fieri was like no way. I got goosebumps. It is really amazing to see and then it exploded and social media after that a half a billion people or more now. I have seen it. Pepsi is super thrilled AT&T got better coverage on this. They said in their Super Bowl ad basically. John’s daughter does all the drawings and she draws a Pepsi logo as a kid would. She is now putting that on t-shirts and selling at all for charity and so on and so forth and recently this last the same thing with Starbucks who are spectacularly wonderful and they helped start. This is going to be the show from now on. It is going to be John still be in it and tidbits but it is going to be people around the world bringing some good news to the show and there is now going to be some good news some good merch for merchandise Marketplace that is already open now. It is some of the new stuff and Starbucks initially for a million is going to match the first million that comes in to give to charities that are identified and it is going to keep growing and growing and growing and growing to bring the news and to have social impact and guess what, it is good for business too. We got to have it be good for business because people have to make, people have liveliness, people have whatnot more good news can happen.

John: Yes. So here is one of your Omniwins you have. John’s Channel getting more publicity and more visibility, which is only going to attract more good news for all of us to share and enjoy and get inspired from Pepsi wins, Guy Fieri organization win, Starbucks wins, there is wins all over the place here. So that is why it is much more than that you just said win-win. This is an Omniwin, this is an Omni impact really.

Mark: Yes. This is the opposite of a pandemic on that side. This is a good contagion thing right here.

John: That is awesome. That is just so amazing. Hey, before we have to split for today, you mentioned your grandfather. Give our listeners one other key influencer in your life besides your grandfather who was obviously a huge figure and impact in your life.

Mark: Well, this one maybe a little bit weird. So I am Jewish and I have always been interested in peace. We are doing stuff for peace right now actually called business for peace, business leaders who care about peace and it was good for business and it was good for people but one person that influenced me that I have never met but I did see was Anwar Sadat. It just inspired me when I heard him speak, inspired me that he knew he was probably going to be assassinated at some point. It is an amazing story. Egypt was the archrival to Israel as we all know forever ever ever ever. Funny enough they still have a peace treaty between each other and it is others that our problem but he went against everything. I mean talk about a big dream and knowing that he is in danger all the time. So I read a lot of his stuff but what he wanted to do and how we teach this important that is on his stuff but we are really then hit home as he was the first Egyptian president to make a speech in Israel literally and he was in Haifa and I saw the thousands of Israelis cheering an Egyptian president in Israel. To me, it almost shows what is bigger than that almost and I am sure there is something bigger somewhere or equally good or does it is. It is not a matter of size but how like humble, how inspiring, how big a dream, how brave and how loving was he to do something like that and see how the people of Israel were so taken by how much he cared to be there no matter what the danger was that he was there and it just shows time and time again that whatever you think is impossible it is not impossible. It is super possible and it does not mean it is going to be easy, but it is possible. So that is something– that was a big influence for me too.

John: We are going to end but we are going to bring it all back to sports and I know you and me are both Sports junkies and we love the analogies and sports and life and sports and business. Recently last weekend the Michael Jordan documentary ended the last dance. Did you have a chance to watch any of those episodes?

Mark: Every single one.

John: Okay, and me too, and more than once and my favorite, my favorite episode was episode number eight. At the end of episode number eight, Jordan was on screen and he was finishing his comments and he got very emotional. He ended with this quote and I want to ask you what this quote means to you and to leaders who care. He said winning has a price and Leadership has a price. Was that mean to Mark and to your great work and important work that you are doing at the 5th Element? How does that interrelated with the leaders who care series that you have created? What do you think of that?

Mark: Yes, it is pretty amazing because you saw, he saw his determination throughout that whole show. The highest level of determination, which is absolutely necessary to achieve what he achieved and that is the price and he was willing to pay the price to get it. Out of the circle back in the circle, Colby always said something to Kobe Bryant, that before he passed away then when he passed away they said [inaudible] and he said most people are looking for the dream, the dreams over there and you got to have the dream but they are not realizing is this is the dream right this second. It is almost like enjoy the journey if you will in a different way. This is the dream and I think Michael just like all of us is not perfect but he committed to what he had to the hard work he had to do above and beyond to be at that level in almost lot of times take the team on his shoulders, but he also committed to making Pippen and Rodman in them better. He committed to making them Steve Kerr better and how much it contributes to Steve Kerr’s life because of that and he did not judge Rodman. He would be pissed at him if he was not at practice and he did not judge them. He said he said [inaudible] we need you, we need you here and he brought him in and I do not know if you remember the story he said when Rodman once did something stupid came to his room and asked for a beer and he gave him the beer. He said Rodman never said he was sorry, but that was his way of saying he was sorry by going to his room.

John: Because he never did that, ever did that before. That was way out of his character.

Mark: Yes, exactly. So a leader and a leader who cares listens and knows about the people around them and remembers and gets that because we are all the same but we are also all different and I think if you want to — winning is not who said how did he say when he is not everything but would really is. I think Michael was committed to being the best he could be and in that same light, he made others around him so much better and the devotion that he had to his parents, especially his father you can see the emotion when his father was not there and how it impacted him. So you saw his vulnerability as well and I think people around him knew that and he was okay to do that, but I also think he kind of wished he could be allowed to be more vulnerable to and that is another sometimes hard thing a leader has to go through is to not fake it by a long shot. Do not fake if you want to be authentic and Leadership is not being vulnerable, but it is not easy sometimes when you are leading and so I think he cared about his team. He cared about representing Chicago. He cared about his parents and I think that is what a leader does and even if people and he even said it, be kind of said it like not everybody is going to love him. You cannot get everybody, all the people to love you all the time.

John: He said if I am not for you then find somebody else to inspires you.

Mark: Yes, right fit right. It is got to be the right fit but the bottom line is people recognize the leaders that we really do care about them, really really really do care about them because the end of the day the thing that fills our heart and soul the most is actually feeling like you belong and you are part of a community whether that is a Chicago Bulls team or your family or your department in your company or your city or your country and if somebody that makes you feel like you belong is amazing, amazing leader.

John: Well, you are amazing Mark and we are just thankful for your time today, for your thoughts today and for all the great work and impact that you are making. You are constantly making the world a better place and making a great impact with your organization the 5th Element group. You could find them at 5th. It is a 5-T-H element.group, 5thelement. group. Mark, thank you for all of your impacts. Thank you for your friendship, continued great work and I look forward to having you back on to tell more stories like today that you have done with John Krasinski, StarBucks, Pepsi, and with your leaders who care series. We are so honored to have you today. Thanks again for all the impacts that you make. It is an Omni impact for all of us.

Mark: I want to thank you for everything you have done and we have known each other for a while now and I think I have recycled myself just based on everything you have done. So it is a super pleasure being with you and I appreciate the positive attitude and let us keep making a difference man.

John: You are on.