5 pieces of advice from Past Redskin Owner Jack Kent Cooke

What were these awesome pieces of advice? Here they are:

1) Never, ever, be afraid to hire someone smarter than you.

2) Always remember the 7 most important words: “I don’t know but I’ll find out“.

3) Take the word “can’t” out of your vocabulary, it’s useless.

4) Be a doer, not a thinker.

5) Beware of those calling themselves “experts” – they really don’t know everything.

Consider the underlying concepts in each of them: building the best team, fostering honesty & humility, displaying positivity and persistence, “getting stuff done”, and showing professional skepticism – all essential to great leadership.
I was grateful to have a mentor like him at that stage of my career, because I didn’t need to be force fed the concepts in a scholarly way – I needed it (literally) straight, no chaser, and, with the authority of someone who had “been there, done that”.

Cooke was 75 when he told me these things, so he certainly qualified as experienced. So it was really easy to take what he said as the gospel truth.