Strangely, from a life-change standpoint, I sold the company I was running and got divorced in the same month. And so there I was, at home, and I'm not the CEO. I took a few months thinking about what I wanted to do. When the first call came in about running a company owned by Deutsche Telekom, I thought it was laughable and really not something I'd do. I took the meeting mainly because the headhunter I knew. At first I thought I was just helping her fill out the roster, but then I dug into it.

I started to be the brand, more and more. Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, I wear T-Mobile gear. I'm a bright beacon of magenta. My clothing's gotten more elaborate because a lot of people want me to wear their clothes! And then when I go to a call center, I give away my T-Mobile clothes, and walk out to my car with my socks on.

It's kind of fun at my age to go back and talk to business-school people. I tell them, "I can summarize everything you need to know to lead a major corporation. Are you prepared to write this down?" And then they get all ready. I tell them I can summarize how I succeed as a leader: Listen to your employees, listen to your customers, shut the f - - up, and do what they tell you.

On my very first day at T-Mobile, I demanded that every time I spoke publicly to the company, all employees across the country would be invited to watch. I faced legal and all that crap, but ultimately we were able to figure it out. We record it, too, so if somebody can't leave the sales floor, they can watch it later. Another thing I did very early on is give every employee stock, which we continue to do. So every time I speak to them I speak way over some of their heads.

I've given my email address to all 3,000 T-Mobile stores. Serious customer escalations come directly to me. Customers get a kick out of me responding to them, and the employees do, too.

I think this job at T-Mobile has more than anything else helped me really see and understand how to set a strategy, communicate like crazy, and then passionately lead from the front of it.

When I go to T-Mobile retail stores, I jokingly tell the employees that everybody between me and them is the enemy. In effect, what I mean is that in my paramilitary hierarchy, if I can hear them and they can hear me, everything will be fine. All we need to do is make sure the entire company understands that it's their job to pass information between us. And so far so good.