The Leadership Conversation

Leadership, written by an operator.

Short reads from 25 years of building: the stories and rules behind the Creed and the Code. New posts daily, drawn from the work itself.

The Code

The Night Before: How Pros Prepare

Do not start on the big day. Start the night before. Richie Hosein on the pro routine: review the film, eat well, sleep well, and set the morning before it starts.

The Code

How to Be a Team Captain: The Five Rules of the Captain Standard

A captain is not the person who gives the speech or wears the letter. A captain is the person the team can set its clock by. Richie Hosein spells out the five rules of the Captain Standard, one by one.

The Code

Feelings Visit, Standards Stay

Feelings visit every team, every week. Richie Hosein on the Captain Standard, and why a standard is set by what gets enforced on the worst day, not announced on the best one.

The Code

The Painter and the Conductor

You are the painter of your masterpiece and the conductor of your own orchestra. Richie Hosein on the goal sheets and daily documentation system behind a $200K territory that became $12M.

The Code

Stop Improving, Start Decaying

An active mind is living and a retired mind is a decaying process. Richie Hosein on why growth is the feeling of being alive, and the back to basics reset for the days you feel nothing.

The Journey

Own the Channel: The Distributorship

After helping Empire Surgical grow from $2M to $60M and exiting to Johnson & Johnson, Richie Hosein started his own distributorship, TRE Medical. Why owning distribution beat running someone else’s territory.

The Code

Attack Life

A hallway race at six years old, a glass window, and the rule I have run every business by since: never slow down at the moment everyone else does.

The Code

Game 7

Pros prepare the night before the biggest game of the year. Your ordinary Tuesday deserves the same respect.

The Code

Rule #11

Be selfish with your own personal development. If you cannot be great for yourself, you cannot be great for anyone.

The Creed

Built, Not Funded

25 years of companies funded by revenue, not rounds, and why capital should follow proof instead of replacing it.

The Journey

The Turnaround

Playboy Club NYC grew revenue 1,200% in 11 months. Then ownership stopped paying. The turnaround, and the walk away.

The Code

The Camera Is Always On

People are always watching: how you hold the door, how you speak to the waiter, how you deal with adversity. Leadership is what you do in the moments nobody applauds.

The Code

Lead Yourself First: The Captain Standard

Named team captain as a junior at Island Trees, an honor that almost never happens. The Captain Standard behind it, and why leading yourself first is where all leadership starts.