This conversation is with Toto Wolff. If you follow Formula One, you know what Toto has helped build over the past handful of years. He’s an owner and the Head of Mercedes-Benz Motorsport.

Formula One is known as the tip of the arrow when it comes to motorsports — their cars are the fastest road course racing cars in the world, being able to maintain very high cornering speeds (pulling 6g’s) by generating incredible amounts of aerodynamic down force. They race at speeds of up to approximately 230 MPH.

Toto is a father, husband, and businessman. He knows risk. He knows innovation. And he knows winning. Under his leadership, Mercedes-AMG Petronas Motorsport has clinched a hat-trick of Formula One World Championships, winning a total of six titles and more than 50 Grand Prix since 2014.

The reason I wanted to have the conversation with Toto is because he has an incredible way about how he see’s organizational success — how he balances the financial tension between innovation and risk and how he works with highly talented drivers and engineers and ultimately — I wanted to understand what is at the center of his relentless drive…..and….how exactly does someone become able to be an owner of a Formula One team (let alone the Mercedes team).

This conversation is loaded….Hope you enjoy and are able to put at least one of insights in the conversation into action.

Oh, by the way, Toto speaks fluent German, English, French, Italian, Spanish, and Polish.

“How you cope and behave in moments of failure, is in my opinion the way you can see right into the soul of somebody.”

In This Episode:

• Father suffering and passing from brain cancer during his adolescence
• Having to support rather than being supported
• What makes a high performer?
• Why he loves sports and competition
• How he came to own a Formula One team
• Why he he’s not ready to call himself successful
• Creating a culture that embraces challenge
• The danger of ego running away with you
• How he manages ego when things don’t go his way
• Why skeptical is a word that defines him
• Setting the right targets and writing them down
• What it feels like when he’s at his best
• The relationship he has with his inner-critic
• Why he prefers to spend time away from entertainment and electronics