Welcome, fellow Googlers, and guests.

I'm very excited today to introduce

an incredibly inspiring person, author, and speaker,

Joe Plumeri, who is here today to share

a bit about his new book, "The Power of Being Yourself-- A

Game Plan for Success by Putting Passion

into Your Work and Life."

Joe Plumeri is the former CEO of Willis Group, and Citibank

North America.

He now serves as the Vice Chairman of First Data

Corporation, and a member of its board of directors.

His passion, honesty, and sense of purpose

flows through the pages of his book, as well as his speeches.

So please join me in welcoming Joe Plumeri.

[APPLAUSE]

JOE PLUMERI: Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Thank you all for coming.

I appreciate it very much.

First of all, I should tell you why I wrote this book.

I am not a writer.

I don't do that for a living.

But I have passion, and I have a point of view about things.

And a couple years ago, I started

to think about-- as you all do-- about life in general,

and how things are going.

And I said to myself, you know, it's interesting

how we all celebrate authenticity in this country.

We think authenticity is great.

We see people who are genuine, and we

say that person is really a real person.

And then we see everything's filtered today

through emails, texts, Instagrams, Twitters,

LinkedIns, and by the time you get through all of that stuff,

you wonder what's true, and what's false.

I see in companies, people send emails

because they don't want to be there when people are

reading it on the other end.

And I think about how unfamiliar we've become with each other.

I watch television, and I see people read off

of teleprompters.

And I ask myself, did they really write that?

Do they really feel that way about the subject,

or does somebody else feel that way?

I see people on television get choked up, and begin to cry.

And they apologize immediately for crying.

And I ask myself, why are they apologizing

for being themselves, and being genuine about who they are?

And I think about our society, and are we

being disconnected with how we really feel about things?

And so I wanted to write this book.

I had in my head to do it for all of those reasons.

And then a couple years ago, my son-- my now-oldest son

was running in the Boston Marathon.

And it was the day of the terrorist attack in Boston.

And you'll read about it in the book.

And it's really what motivated me

to write the book, when I saw people's emotions that day.

I saw them caring for each other.

I saw people helping each other.

I saw people terrorized.

And I said, why do we have to wait for an occasion?

Why do we have to wait for a wedding, a funeral,

or a catastrophe for people to really show who they are?

Why can't we be that way every day?

So what I did was to set about stories in the book

about being yourself, either my stories,

or other people's stories.

And I didn't do it by virtue of chapters.

I did it by virtue of principles, things

that I believed in.

So that when you read the book, it's

not something you put back on the shelf and say,

OK, I read that book.

But it's something that you could use every day.

And something that you could remind yourself all about.

And I tried to be-- and I know I was-- as transparent

as you possibly could be.

Because otherwise, the book would not have integrity.

I'm just going to talk to you about a few of the principles.

One of the principles is, we all got the same plumbing.

Now you're asking me, what is that all about?

What that's about is, is I've traveled

throughout the whole world.

And what I found out was, is that whether you're from Asia,

or whether you're from Indianapolis,

or whether you're from South America,

or wherever you're from, everybody

feels the same feeling that we all do.

And that if we understood that better,

maybe the world would be a little bit nicer, and more

peaceful.

Because I have traveled the world.

I was the CEO of a British company for 13 years.

And you would think when everybody

talks about the British and being stiff, and stiff

upper lip, and they don't laugh a lot,

they don't do all that kind of stuff.

I found the direct opposite of all of that.

But you hear that, and you begin to think that people really

don't understand what other people are all about.

When I got to this company-- it was called the Willis Group--

it didn't make very much money.

Didn't make any money at all.

So I had to do something to get everybody

engaged in the company.

And so what I did was-- and I didn't know this--

but I created these little pins that everybody

could wear with Willis on it.

And I thought that if everybody wore a pin

they'd become sort of like part of the company.

And everybody would start to feel a sense

of being a part of things.

And I didn't know the British don't like wearing pins.

Nobody told me that.

As a matter of fact, they're really disgusted with the pin.

But they knew that when I showed up,

if they didn't wear the pin, that I

would give them a hard time.

Which I never did.

I just stared at their lapels to see if they had a pin on.

So when people would walk down the hall,

I always knew that they didn't have a pin on,

because a woman would go in the men's room,

and a man would go in the women's room

so they wouldn't confront me.

And so one day-- and I knew that this happened in the company--

they felt that when they confronted me

they'd have to know what was going on.

They'd have to have a reason to not have their pin on.

So I get the one guy, and I look at his lapel,

I don't say anything to him.

And he says, "Oh, Mr. Chairman, I'm

sorry I don't have my pin on.

I left it on my pajamas."

When you think about that, and you

think about that kind of humor, you

wouldn't think that would come from what

your perception is of a Brit.

We dedicated a building in London a few years later.

Made the company successful.

Became a global company.

And I built a building in London right

across from Lloyd's of London.

So I have to dedicate the building, and they say to me,

"Who are you going to have to dedicate the building?"

I said, "Me.

I'm going to dedicate."

But apparently in London, you don't dedicate buildings

unless you have royalty in these buildings.

So a friend of mine says, I can get you some royalty.

I said, who could you get?

He picks up the phone, and he talks to Prince Andrew.

Now, I come from a neighborhood in Trenton, New Jersey.

I don't know royalty from Adam.

But he gets the prince to show up for the dedication.

Now in advance of the dedication,

I get a long list of things that you're not

supposed to do when you're around royalty.

One of them is, you don't touch royalty.

You just put your hands, and you don't touch them.

So I said, this makes me nervous, because I'm a toucher.

Like I did with all of you, I said hello when you came in.

It's just the way I am.

So I meet him outside the building.

And interestingly enough, he drives up

with his own Range Rover.

There's no entourage.

He just drives up by himself.

He gets out of the car.

So I feel more comfortable with him.

And it's going to be like three or four

hours before the two of us dedicate the building.

So I take him around and so forth.