The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk
As Kobe Bryant once said, “There is power in understanding the journey of others to help create your own.” That’s why the Learning Leader Show exists—to understand the journeys of other leaders so that we can better understand our own. This show is full of learnings taught by world-class leaders—personal stories of successes, failures, and lessons learned along the way. Our guests come from diverse backgrounds—CEOs of multi-billion dollar companies, best-selling authors, Navy SEALs, and professional athletes. My role in this endeavor is to talk to the most thoughtful, accomplished, and intentional leaders in the world so that we can learn from them as we each create our own journeys.
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635: Rich Gotham (President of The Boston Celtics) - How To Build a Championship Organization
05/14/2025
635: Rich Gotham (President of The Boston Celtics) - How To Build a Championship Organization
Go to for full show notes This is brought to you by . If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Go to Rich Gotham is the President of the Boston Celtics. He is responsible for all aspects of the Celtics' business operations. In addition, he works closely with Celtics ownership, basketball operations staff, and the NBA on basketball-related matters, as well as team and league initiatives. He succeeds “Red” Auerbach as Celtics team President and serves on the NBA Board of Governors. Since joining the Celtics in 2003, he’s helped grow team revenues by over 300%, and they’ve won two NBA championships. Notes: Must-haves when making hiring decisions for a leadership role: Work ethic, self-awareness, a catalyst for positive energy, purpose-driven, and care ("give a shit"). At the time, the Celtics were run like a mom-and-pop shop. Rich was brought in to help them run like a professional business. Rich was recruited to the Celtics by new owner (at the time), Wyc Grousbeck. 3 different people told Wyc that he should talk to Rich. – Add value. Leave people better than you found them. They will refer you to others for big jobs without you even knowing it. Celtic pride - grew up there, made you proud to be from Boston. "Different here." 18-time champs. Pressure from fans to win: It beats indifference. Making bets on potential - Hiring Brad Stevens. Danny Ainge did a great job selling it to Brad. Watching Payton Pritchard warm up. He cares. Working with the Bruins and Red Sox leaders – Lower the ego, put yourself in their shoes. Seek first to understand. And find a way to get it done. Rich went outside of the office to meet regularly with a leader of the Boston Bruins to get their lease squared away. That had been an issue for decades, and he helped get it figured out so both sides could win. Advice - You have to have self-belief, believe in your ability. Don't let that get chipped away. Why should they pick you? Be vulnerable. Leave others better than you found them.
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634: Tom Nolan (CEO of Kendra Scott) - 2% Moments, Setting Big Goals, Being Unbalanced, Moving Fast, Coaching High Performers, & Going Through Hard Things Together
05/11/2025
634: Tom Nolan (CEO of Kendra Scott) - 2% Moments, Setting Big Goals, Being Unbalanced, Moving Fast, Coaching High Performers, & Going Through Hard Things Together
The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk Go to for full show notes. This is brought to you by . If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Go to Notes "Average players want to be left alone. Good players want some coaching. Great players want the truth." It is not a company’s job to give work-life balance to someone. And he is not balanced. He’s on 24/7. It was refreshing to hear the real story from someone who is running a company. As Dr. Julie Gurner said on episode #538, “People will tell you in books that you have to live a 'balanced life,' but if we are completely honest, almost all great things are born from periods of imbalance.” Make the most of your 2% moments. 98% of the time, life is just happening… But every once in a while, you’ll have the 2% opportunities. Like when he met his wife, or interviewed with Kendra Scott. It’s on us as leaders to be ready to make the most of those 2% moments. Tom's relationship with Kendra: “We’ve been through so many hard things together.” Those hard times can forge a strong relationship, or they can break you. Remember that the next time you’re going through something tough with someone else. It’s an opportunity to fortify a relationship. Hiring - Play your position well. Know what you're good at. Don't have to like teammates, but do need to love them. Learn from mistakes. Work is like family. But you don't fire your family... Discipline comes from a place of love. Read: The Way of the Shepherd Goal maniac - After failing at his first job interview, he asked for another shot and showed up the next day with pages of goals. Tom's Strengths - immediate urgency, insatiable need to win, good problem solver, better when things are hard. How do you navigate slow walkers? It's hard. Need patience and thoughtfulness too. What are the must-haves to be hired as a leader with Tom? Good human. Win + Kindness + Compassion. Tom claims that he is not a good interviewer. Gets help from the team. It is a rigorous process. He wants people who have gone through hard things. "Living through struggle makes people better." Grit.
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633: General Stanley McChrystal - In Pursuit of Greatness, High Standards, The Ranger Effect, Self-Discipline, White-Water Rafting, Obsession, & Making Choices That Define Your Life (On Character)
05/04/2025
633: General Stanley McChrystal - In Pursuit of Greatness, High Standards, The Ranger Effect, Self-Discipline, White-Water Rafting, Obsession, & Making Choices That Define Your Life (On Character)
The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk Go to for full show notes This is brought to you by . If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Go to Stanley McChrystal is a retired four-star general. Stan is the former commander of the nation’s premier military counter-terrorism force, Joint Special Operations Command (also known as JSOC). His command included more than 150,000 troops from 45 allied countries. Since he retired from the Army, Stan has written multiple best-selling books including, Team of Teams, and most recently, On Character. The most crucial discipline is to think for yourself. To a sad degree, we’re lazy. People comment on things they haven’t watched or read, but have seen comments by others who align with their political party. They aren’t thinking for themselves (this is why it’s almost impossible to align completely with one political party for me). If you find yourself saying “I just do” or “that’s what I heard,” that’s not thinking. Being Obsessed – “I am convinced that few truly great achievements are reached by individuals with an impressive work-life balance, and the price of greatness, in a word, is great. In the end, I’m an advocate for obsession." The Ranger Effect – The value of unwavering standards.Created near the end of Vietnam when the Army had lowered its standards. They created 2 units of Rangers to raise the standard. It permeated the entire Army. How does a leader do this in Corporate America? Clearly establish expectations. You cannot have a “say-do” gap. The leader must demonstrate the values on a constant basis. BE what you want. Discipline to hold people accountable. “My major takeaway at almost 70 years old is conclusive. I wish I’d thought more, been more contemplative about my convictions, and been more deliberate about the person I sought to be.” Stan's mom — she died on New Year’s Day 1971 at age 45. Stan was 16. Had 6 kids. Mary Bright McChrystal. Writes about her in the civil rights chapter. “I accept no belief or claim to truth automatically or unconditionally.” White Water Rafting – When the subject of America’s involvement in Afghanistan arises, Stan is frequently asked, what he might do differently if given the chance to do it all over again. Answer: “Go white water rafting.” In Patient Pursuit of Greatness – In the spring of 2012, Stan was teaching a leadership class at Yale. That’s when he met their football coach, Tony Reno: “Not many things materially affect my trajectory. But this time was different. What was different? Coach Reno.” Choosing to Lead – Leadership is not a title or position. It’s a choice. “Embrace the suck” – “Why suck a little, when you can suck a lot?” Eat one meal a day. It’s built on being undisciplined with food. If you only eat dinner, you can eat a lot for that one meal. Self-Discipline - Most important attribute for a leader. Wife Annie - Dependent on her. Kind, thoughtful, caring. Life/Career Advice: Have the discipline to decide want you want to be. Be intentional. LISTEN: Don’t just talk. Be respectful. Don’t be afraid to fail. Try it, get back up. Try again.
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632: Nick Huber - The Attributes of Winners, Becoming Great at Sales, Changing Your Mind, & The Fundamental Truths of Life (Sweaty Startup)
04/27/2025
632: Nick Huber - The Attributes of Winners, Becoming Great at Sales, Changing Your Mind, & The Fundamental Truths of Life (Sweaty Startup)
The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk Go to for full show notes This is brought to you by . If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Go to Episode #632: Nick Huber is an entrepreneur who owns stakes in 11 companies, including a real estate private equity firm and several agencies. His portfolio of companies employs over 325 people living all over the world. Nick lives with his wife and 3 children in Athens, Georgia. He’s the author of the book, The Sweaty Startup: How to get rich doing boring things. Notes: Sales is the foundation of Every Business. From Nick’s mentor, Dan Cohen: “If you don’t like sales, I suggest you give up now and go get a regular job. You’re wasting your time.” “Life as an entrepreneur is sales.” To succeed in this world, you must have the cooperation of other people. The attributes of winners: Abundance mindset A sense of urgency Not afraid to stand up and call you out. The story of his VP of Finance, Kevin. He called Nick out on deals he tried to make while Kevin was on vacation. Make good decisions Aren't afraid to get their hands dirty and do the work The Four Fundamental Truths of Life 1. You can’t do it alone. 2. You can’t make people do anything. 3. Everyone in this world is selfish. 4. It isn’t about you. So how do we use these four fundamental truths of life to get what we want? Sales. We sell ourselves and our ideas. We convince other people that their lives will be better if they trust us, work for us, buy from us, and more. Networking. Don’t go to events telling others to help you. Become someone worth knowing. Do something of value that makes others want to come to you… The story about the guy wrangling carts on a cold night at the Walmart in Ithaca, New York Nick credits a lot of his success to his parents, Tim and Susan, for raising him around a dinner table of positivity and curiosity. They made him feel as if he could accomplish anything and taught him to see the world through a lens of opportunity. Change your mind: Nick has a note taped to his mirror in the bathroom that says, “Change your mind on something today.” The most valuable trait of an entrepreneur: A sense of urgency. Most people walk slow, think slow, move slow, and make decisions slow. They lollygag around life. No energy. No excitement. Do uncomfortable things. Make the calls. Start a lawn care business if you're a kid. Decision making - You have to practice it. It’s a muscle Decathlon at Cornell - Brutally hard. 10 events. You never do your best in all of them. You take L’s. Have to respond and go to the next event. Struggle with grace. Ego - Need to balance belief with humility. There are two types of people in the world. Those who are humble. And those that are about to be humbled. “You’re interviewing for your next job every single day.” Hiring is like hunting. Always looking. Life/Career Advice: "Don’t be a doctor or a lawyer. What game are you playing? What does winning look like? Most people aren’t thoughtful enough about that."
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631: Bert Bean & Sam Kaufman - Obsession, Grit, Growth-Mindset, Winning in a Tough Market, Hiring for Potential, Running Ultra-Marathons, and Caring For Your People
04/20/2025
631: Bert Bean & Sam Kaufman - Obsession, Grit, Growth-Mindset, Winning in a Tough Market, Hiring for Potential, Running Ultra-Marathons, and Caring For Your People
The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk Go to for full show notes This is brought to you by . If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Bert Bean is the CEO of Insight Global. Insight Global is a 4.3-billion-dollar, industry-leading talent and technical services firm based in Atlanta, GA. Bert started with Insight Global in 2005 as a Recruiter and has since worked his way up within the company, exemplifying Insight Global’s “promote from within” culture. Sam Kaufman is the Chief Revenue Officer of Insight Global. Sam began his career as an entry-level recruiter in 2004, and he has earned many promotions throughout his career. I initially started working with Sam as his executive coach in March 2020, and then mid-2021, we formalized a bigger partnership with Insight Global, becoming the presenting sponsor of The Learning Leader Show, and we broadened my role working with leaders throughout the company. It’s been so much fun. Notes Insight Global is a $4.3B business. Insight Global grew 9.2% last year, while the industry declined 9%. How is Insight Global winning while all other staffing firms are losing? A lot of companies will succumb to the idea that it's just gonna be a bad year, but our people are like, no, we'll just figure it out. We'll pivot. We'll move industries. We'll change accounts, we'll change our focus. We'll sell different services. And that's really what we've done. “Many in our industry are losing hope. That’s not us. This is where we thrive.” "Our people's ability to show up, keep going, um, do new things, evolve, is really, I think it's second to none. And that's been a huge part of our story." The whole world is soft. We love leaders like Laura Downey. She’s so driven, so hardcore. A beast. She’s in Canada. She just reaches right out to me like we’re old friends. If I could get a bunch of Laura Downey’s, it’s game over. Obsession: A through-point for the entire conversation was obsession. Being obsessed with caring for people. Being obsessed with doing hard things like running 20 miles to work. Being obsessed with how prepared you are for a big meeting. Being obsessed with your standards. Holding yourself accountable to them and others. The leaders who sustain excellence over time are obsessed with their craft. Potential over experience - “If you want to build a culture of commitment and care, you have to choose potential over experience.” Things to look for when promoting a leader: Hard decision making Strategic bets Simplifying complex problems “The most important skill as a CEO is getting to the truth. It's really hard because it's really scary. Normal humans find every excuse not to deal with harsh truths.” -- Ben Horowitz The baseball on Bert's desk from the Atlanta Braves is an example of what not to do. The overall brand of Sam Kaufman = CARE Hiring in India - One of our folks that's doing the interviews asks this individual if, if they want a bottle of water, gives 'em a bottle of water, and this person says, wow, of all the places I've been to interview, nobody's offered me a single drink of water or treated me like a human being. Bert: I grew up in a small town in Alabama and was a very average kind of kid. But my mom was always like, you can do anything you want. Don't ever let somebody tell you you can't. You can be you, you can be the fastest runner in the world if you want. Sam: I get in here at 5:30 every day because I have a couple thousand people that started where I started, and I am obsessed with the idea that they should have the best career ever. Bert: I think a lot of people don't ever get a chance to suffer on their own terms. Yeah. You know, like to, to enter the pain cave on their own terms. And that's a really cool thing to, to step into that and to figure out, all right, do you have the stuff or do you not? You know? And I think all of us deep down are afraid to answer that question. I just gotta know if I can do it. I have to know that. I like that challenge. I put in the work, I put in the training. And then when you do it, you're like, I knew I had that in me, and it just is so reassuring to me. Bert: I love a sense of accomplishment. I love a sense of accomplishment. Uh, I love that I can do something hard. I've always, you know, I lived in Yellowstone National Park for a summer in college, so I fell in love with the American West and I loved seeing mountains and being like, why can't I just stand on that? Sam: The last couple years, I've spent a few hours kind of every morning working what I need to be talking about and what does my voice sound like? And through the course of a couple years of working on it now, I gotta run a call with a couple thousand people this afternoon, and it's like, oh, I'll just go do that next because I'm, I'm ready for that. Sam: I'm a person they can count on when they need them. And that's what sales really is. And that's what sales will teach you. And so for, you know, for my organization, if I want my people to see that, I want them to learn that. Bert's Tattoo – Be The Light
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630: Marcus Sheridan - How To Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Earn Endless Customers
04/13/2025
630: Marcus Sheridan - How To Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Earn Endless Customers
Go to for full show notes This is brought to you by . If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Bio: As an owner of IMPACT, Marcus Sheridan has established one of the country's most successful digital sales and marketing agencies. He is the author of the international best-seller They Ask, You Answer… His new book is called Endless Customers: A Proven System to Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Become the Market Leader. Notes: The 4 Pillars of a Known and Trusted Brand: Say what others won’t say Show what others won’t show Sell how others won’t sell Be More Human than others are willing to be 75% of all buyers prefer a seller-free sales experience. Create great self-service tools to help your buyers make buying decisions. The buyer's journey - They want to know what it will cost. So, tell them. Have a client story for every objection. Collect them. Tell those stories. The story of Steve Sheinkopf and Yale Appliance… ($37m to over $100m). “That means obsessing over their questions, fears, worries, and concerns. Answer every single question honestly and transparently, right there on your website, for everyone to see.” “Tackle topics your competitors are afraid to touch. Break the unwritten rules of your industry. When you focus solely on empowering your buyers with the information and experience they crave, something incredible will happen: You’ll earn their trust. And when you earn their trust, you earn their business. Do this consistently, and you’ll capture the market’s attention, transform your company, and see numbers you never imagined.” The 5 Components of Endless Customers: The Right Content The Right Website The Right Sales Activity The Rich Technology The Right Culture of Performance Path Finders - Help others come up with solutions. Your favorite mentor didn't tell you the answers, they helped you figure it out on your own (by asking you questions). The #1 thing that will dictate your income is your ability to communicate. As Morgan Housel would say, “Best story wins.” It is worth it to work on this skill. The excuse that you don’t have enough time is lame and not true. Focus on becoming a better writer and speaker. It’s too important not to. Piece of feedback most often given - Say that, but in half the words. Be concise. Be willing to say what others won’t. And the idea of going direct. Go Direct – Viral essay written by LuLu Cheng Meservey. Going direct means crafting and telling your own story, without being dependent on intermediaries. Marcus called me by my name (both Hawk and Ryan) a lot during our conversation. It felt natural and flowed well. It worked. This is taught in sales training and can feel manipulative if not done well. Listen to how Marcus used my name enough to make me feel special, but not too much that it felt like a sales tactic to get me to like him. Book title = "I want. I wish." I want Atomic Habits. I wish I had "Endless Customers."
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629: Anne-Laure Le Cunff - How To Live Freely In a Goal Obsessed World (Tiny Experiments)
04/06/2025
629: Anne-Laure Le Cunff - How To Live Freely In a Goal Obsessed World (Tiny Experiments)
The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. Go to for full show notes. This is brought to you by . If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Go to At 27, Anne-Laure had her dream job at Google. She quit. "Are you sure?" "No." She was focusing on a narrow vision of success. Anne-Laure was most curious about the brain, neuroscience, and why we think the way we do. She went back to school to learn more. Writing - First, to clarify thinking. Works as a forcing function for that. You need to create your own version of it. You do that by writing. The generation effect. You remember it better that way. Next, it created a magnet of people to her. The meaning behind the name "Ness" is "The state of being." Goal setting - What are the traps of linear goals? We think we know what we want. We assume we'll always want the same thing. The arrival fallacy. Think we'll be so happy when we get it, but usually we aren't. Instead focus on the process, the daily behaviors. And run continual experiments. Through those experiments, you’ll probably figure out what you want to accomplish. Or you might even stumble into it. Practical goals - Was it useful? Focus on the process. There is nuance. How do you hold others accountable? It's more than just the number. Do the work to understand the nuance, the details behind the number. Too many managers are lazy. Collaborate with uncertainty. Understand why you're scared of it. Comes from a long time ago. That's no longer a thing. You don't just want your team to survive. You want them to thrive. Don't cling to the first obvious conclusion. Do more work. What about vision for a CEO? Instead of focusing on being #1 in the marketplace, focus on your approach. Your values, your mission. Focus on your company's daily behaviors more than beating someone else. Be curious and ambitious. Escape the tyranny of purpose. People are obsessed with finding theirs. People have more than one purpose. It changes over time. You can reinvent yourself. It can make people miserable if they haven't found it. I suggested that hers is what she has on Ness Labs website: "To help people become the scientist of their own lives." She said that it is for her work. Procrastination - Instead of getting rid of it, reframe it. Say hello, you're here again; what are you telling me? A tool for it: Triple check - Head, Heart, Hand. Her grandmother Oma was the final person she thanked in her acknowledgement. Moved from Algeria to France. Didn't speak the language. Her parents always encouraged her that she could do anything. Show up. Do it. Try. How do you keep going after the honeymoon of a new project or idea? Keep iterating and trying new things. Have others help you. Sergey Brin got tired of the ad business at Google, so he had someone else run it and he created a lab inside of Google for new ideas. Don’t let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.—Mae Jemison, American engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut
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628: Anthony Consigli - Digging Graves, Playing Football at Harvard, Learning From Failure, Taking Big Chances, & Growing a Business From $3 Million to $4 Billion
03/30/2025
628: Anthony Consigli - Digging Graves, Playing Football at Harvard, Learning From Failure, Taking Big Chances, & Growing a Business From $3 Million to $4 Billion
Go to for full show notes The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk Episode #625: Anthony Consigli - Digging Graves, Playing Football at Harvard, Learning From Failure, Taking Big Chances, & Growing a Business From $3 Million to $4 Billion Anthony's great-grandfather came from Italy and he was a stone mason. He had 6 sons. He gave each a trade. His grandfather had a business mind. Then WWII came. 4 brothers went and fought. His grandfather and blind uncle stayed back to run the business. He brought his son into it (Anthony’s dad) he was a heavy equipment operator. And did business leadership work after it. Hard Work: Born in 1967, 2nd oldest of 5 kids. Grew up in the 1970’s remembering his dad always working 2 jobs including Saturdays as a heavy equipment operator in construction with side jobs at night, his mom as a night nurse with his grandmother watching them during the day. Hard work and work ethic were drilled into them by their dad, grandfather, and uncles who all were in construction. All had stoic personalities. Anthony started working full-time in the Summer, Saturdays, and school vacations in the 7th grade when he was 12. Cleaning the mortar off bricks from demolished buildings so that they could be reused, then digging and covering graves by hand at a bunch of local cemeteries. Chopping wood and burning the rubber off electrical wire from demolished buildings so we could bring the copper to the scrap yard for cash. It was not your typical childhood but I can see now it gave me incredible life lessons at an early age that allowed me to flourish in business and be a strong leader. Anthony was a gravedigger -I was a big part of the business because it was a consistent revenue stream. Regardless of a recession, people were going to die. For that reason, his dad and grandfather never wanted to give it up. Anthony dug them by hand, year-round. When I was in high school I was in charge of laying out the graves to be dug for the recently deceased. As the Catholic Church was not known for great record keeping the coordinates were often confused. I would cut the sod, save it and then start digging; 7.5’ long, 4 foot wide, about 5.5’deep. I had to take 22 wheelbarrows of dirt and wheel them up a plank onto a truck as that was the displacement from the coffin and concrete box. One night the phone rang at the house. My dad yelled at me to tell me I had buried the body in the wrong place. He may have had a few expletives in there. The next morning, I spent the day digging a new hole, moving the box to the new grave, and then filling in both graves while the family watched. I tried blaming the priest but this was a losing battle. Lessons like this taught us accountability. Own it. Do what you say you are going to do and clean up your own messes. Dump Truck Story - When I was 14 I was helping to demolish the interiors of an old convent and we were throwing all the old cinder blocks into a dump truck. My grandfather didn’t have anyone available to go dump the truck so he showed me the different lever and buttons; the clutch, the PTO, and gears, and told me where to go dump the truck. I knew a little about how to drive standard but had never driven a dump truck so he told me to leave it in first gear. I drove down the Main Street of the town with a long line of traffic behind me as I was going about 5 miles per hour. I got to the dump site, got the truck in position, enacted the PTO let my foot off the clutch, and got the dump body to start raising. I remember being so proud of myself. Like I had made it as a man. All of a sudden the truck jerked up violently and before I knew what happened the truck cab was in the air and the truck was upright vertically. I had forgotten to open the tailgate so the load had shifted and flipped the truck. There were no cell phones so I walked about a mile back to the site very embarrassed to call my grandfather. Construction has no shortage of occasions to be humbled as there are so many changing dynamics at hand all the time. But at the same time, being thrown into situations like this gave me this incredible tolerance for risk. It was embarrassing but you could overcome that embarrassment. 1997 - Anthony became the CEO. $3m business at that time. Anthony pushed for bigger work. 25 people at the company then. 2024 - $3.4B 2,400 employees. What happened? One big thing is a concept/book called Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard. Construction at the time was low bid, hard knuckles, people flipping the table, throw staplers. It wasn’t friendly. It started to get more professional over time. “Raving fans makes sense to me. Apply how you treat people in hospitality to construction. We work hard on client service skills. Being really professional. There is so much repeat business. That was harder than I expected it to be. Clients were rewarding us work over and over again. We were nice people to deal with. Raving fans stayed with us. We’ve done a lot of jobs at Harvard or hospital systems. We’ve earned that reputation. I came into the business during a bad recession. That bruised me. I had to tell people I couldn’t pay them. I worried about where money would come from.” The significance of their logo? The arch… The Arch is our logo and helps support these values. The arch is from the oldest surviving picture of our great grandfather who was a simple, hardworking, stone mason building this big stone arch. The arch denotes teamwork as you can’t do it alone. It symbolizes forward progress, quality, and craft. All stuff we want to be associated with. Take Big Chances – We got through the first recession knowing we needed to be larger to be able to withstand the ups and downs of the economic cycle. We started taking some chances on some larger jobs with more demanding clients which was extremely stressful as we had no idea what we were doing. It was new territory. This is where all the humbling experiences as a kid like digging graves helped as it gave me the courage to take some risks. Failure isn’t final and you can push through mistakes. Football at Harvard - Learned more on the football field than in any classroom. Discipline to a process. All the players at Harvard are there for the love of the game. I was admitted to Harvard with OK grades, but I could snap a football and block. I was surprised at the time Harvard accepted me. Looking back on it now, I should have been shocked as I was a meathead. At the same time, I think my blue-collar work history in a small family business, my being an Eagle Scout, and generally smart kid all helped. Harvard changed me in good ways despite my best efforts not to let Harvard change me in bad ways. I had this perception of blue-blood kids walking around with ascots and monocles or hippies protesting every earthly transgression on the planet. But that is not what I found. I made the best friends of my life; incredible diversity with kids from every socio-economic strata you could think of. Our team had a kid who was in an LA street gang and a kid who worked summers second shift in a limestone mill outside of Pittsburgh yet at the same time had a kid who was fifth generation Harvard who was just a nice guy. Really smart but normal kids. As much as I didn’t want to change, I needed to change; be more open-minded, more curious, have better dressing and grooming habits, and manners. It meant being able to engage in meaningful conversation on heady topics; not Hulk Hogan and the WWF or how tough Chuck Norris was. I would always say that I didn’t learn much in the classroom at Harvard but that’s not fair. Liberal arts education is a bit under fire right now but it has served me well. I learned more through exposure to different people, other students smarter than me who were in random conversations and late-night debates. I learned more on the football field as I learned more about resilience, how to lose, and how to prepare. The liberal arts education gave me an appreciation for continued curiosity, learning, and study which may be a more important skill than any in a fast-changing world. It was the well-roundedness I needed. Leadership in Construction - Leadership means different things to different people. It can be easy in some settings. In football, all the players wanted to play. For a job site in South Boston, you walk onto a job site, you have 300-400 that don’t want to be there, some don’t speak English, then we get a union group, or an architect has other ideas, then traffic, weather, and things you can’t control. It’s hard for a leader to keep everybody working in the same direction. That’s a huge leadership task. I was thinking about that. A construction superintendent at 6 am is thinking about all of this stuff. What makes someone good at that job? Sense of urgency, align and motivate hundreds of people, great planners, organized. Had a former Marine Vietnam Seargent who was great. A gym teacher who’s awesome, he’s in NYC with a job several city blocks. High sense of urgency, detail-oriented, motivates and aligns people. We do personality testing, and we’ve got a lot of people who are lower A and just as successful as higher A personalities. Such team players. Can put a team together. We like people who have played sports. Hiking – About 12 years ago, Anthony, his brother, son, and a few guys went out to hike a 10,000-footer in Colorado. They met their guide who was this little, old dude who looked like he smoked pot fairly regularly. As they looked to get started, Anthony asked him for the trail map and he said he didn’t have one. “How do you know how to get to the top?" He pointed to the top of the mountain and said “It's right up there, we just need to keep going up." But when they were at the top, Anthony realized it was just an analogy for their business. We just needed to keep taking one more step up. ESOP - Consigli implemented an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) to make the company entirely employee-owned, fostering a culture of accountability, shared responsibility, and pride among their teammates, where employees directly benefit from the company's success and feel a stronger sense of ownership in decision-making; essentially, it aimed to create a more engaged and motivated employee base by giving them a stake in the company's performance.
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627: Jenny Wood - How To Go After What You Want and Get It (Wild Courage)
03/23/2025
627: Jenny Wood - How To Go After What You Want and Get It (Wild Courage)
Go to for full show notes Notes: Serendipity isn’t found. It’s made. Make your own luck. The best leaders create serendipity for their teams. A success mindset precedes success. From Jenny - In 2011, I was single and living in New York City. I spotted an attractive guy across the train from me. I wanted to talk to him, but I was too nervous. Then he got off the train. She met her future husband by chasing after him off a train in NYC. "I was letting life pass me by." She used some wild courage to approach him. What sits between you and the thing you want is fear. Who are your dynamic dozen? The 12 people you need to meet. Monday mini-festo. In 15 minutes, write the 2 things you did last week that you're proud of. Write 2 things you're excited about for this upcoming week. Focus on doing the work that helps the company be better. Solve problems. Read the VP email. Know your stuff. Get to know your boss's boss. Do it the right way by talking with your boss. Jenny's career at Google - First 11 years in sales, Go To Market, Operations. Own your Career project. She got 2,000 people to come to her first training. Used all resources within the company to do it. Use "for example." Don't speak in generalities. Role, Objective, Impact - ROI At work, say no to the small. Don’t reply all to the Happy Birthday emails. Don’t do the NAP work. NAP stands for “Not Actually Promotable” Work. Sign up for the projects that help make your company better. Carlye Kosiak is one of their best hires at Google. She had the courage to stand out. She was specific. Her resume indicated interest in “recipe tasting in pursuit of the perfect oatmeal raisin cookie." Personality popped off the page. She was weird, reckless, nosy, obsessed, brutal. Must be yourself. Don’t just be weird to play a role. Goal Setting framework - Rock, Chalk, Talk, Walk. Jenny's goal is to sell 15,000 books by the end of week 1 and hit the NY Times best seller list. If you sell 12,000 copies in week 1, how will you feel? "You ask such great questions." Don't play it cool. Play it hot. Don't decide to fit in. Stand out. Watermark your work. Put your name and picture on the deck. Let people know you made it. Lady Gaga – A group of students at NYU created a Facebook group called “Stefani Germanotta, you will never be famous." Have the courage to stand behind your work. Lady Gaga wanted to be a big star. Life and Career Advice - Performance reviews - Focus 75% of your time on your strengths. Say yes to 75% of the things asked of you. Start sentences with "YOU" instead of "I" - Focus on them. Build influence thru empathy.
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626: Rob Kimbel - Living By Your Values, Caring For Your People, Taking The Back Seat, & Creating Opportunities That Improve Lives
03/16/2025
626: Rob Kimbel - Living By Your Values, Caring For Your People, Taking The Back Seat, & Creating Opportunities That Improve Lives
Go to for full show notes. The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk This is brought to you by . If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Go to Rob Kimbel is an owner of Kimbel Mechanical Systems, located in Fayetteville, AR. He joined KMS in 1993, and in 2001, at the age of 26, he became the CEO and grew what was then 3 local plumbers making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year into a national company with more than 750 employees and earning hundreds of millions in revenue per year. Rob is also a partner in multiple start-ups, real estate projects, and real estate funds that specialize in affordable housing across the United States. Rob is also a mentor and advisor to several local businesses and entrepreneurs in NW Arkansas. He has also served on the boards of Generations Bank, NWA Home Builders Association, and Beyond the Game, a non-profit organization serving the impoverished of the Dominican Republic. Notes: Betty Joe Drive… Lived in the hood. $200/month. Rob regularly takes his children to see where they lived. "I want to remind the kids where we came from." They started as a 3-person plumbing company. Rob was working for his dad, making $12-$14 an hour. Now, they do $260m in revenue and have 750 full-time employees. When Rob was 25 years old, his dad asked him to be the CEO. He initially said no. Strategic risk-taking as a cornerstone of growth: Rob navigates the industry challenge of balancing new work with workforce capacity by making bold hiring decisions—demonstrating a greater risk appetite than his father. "We are always hiring" reflects their proactive approach to scaling. Kimbel is good at growing people. They fail, and stick with them to grow. “Profits are the applause for growing our people.” How to be good? Show up, work hard, and finish the job. The bar is so low. The No Child Left Behind Act wasn’t great for the trades industry. They made it seem that every person needed to go to college. When every person shouldn’t do that. Some should go into the trades. There are high school grads who make $100K/year by their mid-20s at Kimbel. The Kimbel Purpose: Create opportunities to improve lives. Values - TEAM, Humility, Hunger, Grit, Integrity. TEAM- We willingly sacrifice for the good of the team. Row together. Humility - We never consider ourselves above anyone or anything. Take the back seat. Hunger - We choose to continually raise the bar. Never complacent. Integrity - We do the right thing, in all places, at all times. The how matters. Grit - We persevere, no matter the situation. Remember the why. Thank you notes – Each executive member writes at least one thank you note per week. This works as a forcing function for them to look for people doing great work and living by their values. Touch points - Senior leaders (30 people) reach out to 2 people per week to check on them. That’s 3,000 touches per year. Free from all, servant to all. Tattoos on Rob's forearms. I have made myself a servant. Free from work, I don’t care what society thinks. But I have a responsibility to be a steward. To be a servant to all. Rob works out like a psycho. Super hard. Why? Start with the end in mind. I want to hold Cheri on my shoulders when I'm 65. I want to ski with my kids when I'm 80. I like to compete. I want to win Spartan races. I like doing hard things. It also creates clarity in my mind throughout the day. Karomy messages me that she knows I'm running the stairs when she gets emails from me with lots of ideas. Marriage insights: "It must be intentional. We have fun together. We are genuine friends. We still have to work through stuff." Parenting philosophy shaped by observing other wealthy families: "It's critical that kids do hard work. They shouldn't start in an office. They should be out with the chickens. Be in the mess. Start at the bottom. Start in the ditch." Family-business boundary maintenance: "We get together every other weekend for family game night. We try not to have much business talk." Sold 70% of the business last July. What was the feeling the moment the money was wired? It was surreal. Want to honor Dad with 25 years of GRIT. Excellence defined: "It's continual learning. Wanting to get better. Think, what can I do better?" Creating a truth-telling culture: "Have to be willing to hear it and create a space where the truth is spoken." Life and career wisdom: "A career is not linear just like a marriage isn't. Have patience and live in the suck. Don't quit. There will be seasons of suck. Keep going."
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625: Melody Wilding - Effectively Managing Up, Designing Your 1:1s, Getting Paid What You're Worth, Creating The 1 Pagers, & Earning The Triple Win
03/09/2025
625: Melody Wilding - Effectively Managing Up, Designing Your 1:1s, Getting Paid What You're Worth, Creating The 1 Pagers, & Earning The Triple Win
Go to for full show notes The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk Notes: “I sensed something was terribly wrong when I dialed into the conference line at 8:00 a.m. and heard an unfamiliar voice. “Hi, Mel ody, I’m Janine. I’m with an external HR firm. Unfortunately, this call is to let you know that your employment has been terminated, effective immediately.” Managing up is not kissing up. Managing up is strategically navigating relationships with those who have more positional power than you, namely your boss. It’s a critical skill set for maneuvering through the complex web of power dynamics, conversations, and unspoken expectations that shape our daily work lives. The triple win – What is something you can do that is good for you, good for your boss, and good for the company? Focus on those issues and solving those problems, and good things will happen for you as you grow your career. Like Carly Fiorina. Run towards the fire. Solving those tough problems will help you, your boss, and your company Meeting with a CEO. Connect what you did with what matters. Adapt your communication to that. Have upward empathy. Put yourself in their shoes. What matters to them? Prior to the meeting, meet with their Chief of Staff. Anticipate objections and answer them before they are asked. Create a one-pager for your boss when they are doing your performance review. Highlight your wins. Remind them. Make it easy on them. Do what Lee Rivas told me to do. Every week, send an email with bullet points for all the things you did to help your boss and the company. For the one pagers - be proactive, start with wins, results and outcomes. it's not self-promoting; it's informing. Identify 1-3 key areas where you need their support. Help them become a trusted advisor or partner. Design your 1:1. Send them the topics to talk about so you can drive those discussions. Make their life easier. They have enough other things to worry about. Feedback can only happen after alignment, styles, ownership, boundaries... They go in order. Define your A B Cs Assumptions, Behaviors, Change you want to see The advancement conversation - Be open, and share what you want to do and how you can get there. My Dustyn Kim example and how I messed it up. The Money conversation - You don't get a raise just because time has passed. It has to be tied to results. Don't talk about the past and what you've done. Talk about what you can do to earn the company more. Don't do the "I deserve this" thing. Bosses hate that. Managing up is not kissing up. Managing up is strategically navigating relationships with those who have more positional power than you, namely your boss. It’s a critical skill set for maneuvering through the complex web of power dynamics, conversations, and unspoken expectations that shape our daily work lives. Everything changes when you understand the art and science of influencing others while keeping your own emotions and insecurities in check. “Managing up isn’t really about making your boss’s life easier. It’s about taking control of your own work experience.” 10 Key Conversations: The Alignment Conversation How can I get in my boss’s head to understand their needs, motivations, and goals? The Styles Conversation Will I earn more respect from my manager if I get to the point quickly, or should I try swapping stories and building rapport? The Ownership Conversation How can I solve the problems that make my job frustrating? How can I seize opportunities without stepping on toes? The Boundaries Conversation How do I say no and push back with tact when my manager saddles me with yet another task? The Feedback Conversation How can I respectfully and effectively give my manager feedback in order to improve processes and communication? The Networking Conversation How can I build other allies in the workplace? How can I turn day-to-day interactions into opportunities that open doors? The Visibility Conversation How can I effectively advocate for myself and show off my strengths? The Advancement Conversation What do I need to do to get to the next level? The Money Conversation When is the right time to negotiate salary? How can I make sure I am getting the compensation I deserve?
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624: Chris Beresford-Hill - Writing Excellent Cold-Emails, Taking Responsibility of Your Career, Pushing Your Edges, Becoming Dave Matthews' Pen Pal, Building Culture, & Leading a Creative Agency
03/03/2025
624: Chris Beresford-Hill - Writing Excellent Cold-Emails, Taking Responsibility of Your Career, Pushing Your Edges, Becoming Dave Matthews' Pen Pal, Building Culture, & Leading a Creative Agency
Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes This is brought to you by . If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Chris Beresford-Hill is the Worldwide Chief Creative Officer at BBDO. Previously he spent 2 years as North America President and CCO of Ogilvy, where he helped bring the agency and its clients a new level of relevance. He brought Workday to the Super Bowl, led the team that brought in the Verizon account, and one of the biggest Super Bowl campaigns ever, “Can't B Broken,” featuring Beyonce, and created the most celebrated Super Bowl campaign of 2024, the social & influencer lead "Michael CeraVe," for CeraVe. Chris and his teams have won every award for creativity and effectiveness many times over. He has been included in ADWEEK Best Creatives, the ADWEEK 100, and Business Insider’s Most Creative People in Advertising. Notes: Cold Emails: Be specific in your praise and specific in your ask. The lame "Can I pick your brain" type emails get deleted and ignored because they aren't specific. You never need permission to take responsibility. Chris learned this from Ed Catmull’s book Creativity Inc.… And he’s embodied this his entire career. The people who build huge careers take ownership of their own and regularly solve problems and improve their clients' and colleagues' lives. Chris has done this since his early days as an intern. At any level taking on responsibility yourself, unasked, makes you stand out. Competence combined with insane follow-through. For some clients, it takes 50 ideas to get to the one that will work. Creating a culture where the team can share all of their bad ideas safely to get to the one great one. The creative process: Brain dump everything. Purge your brain of everything it has. When you think you're done, you're not. There's more. You have to get it all out. "A lot of creative people aren't fully aware of the process or the structure, they just feel it (Rick Rubin). "When you can see it lift off the page, you feel a sense of mastery over it." Chris's first Super Bowl commercial -- Emerald Nuts. He won it because he was both funny and added the fact that the product provided energy. Most people only covered one part, Chris did both. Push your edges - Chris is like Lionel Messi. He's always walking around in the office, asking questions, looking for ideas, being curious. Then he sees an opportunity and goes for it 100%. Chris has a standing reservation every week at the same restaurant where he meets with a mentor, mentee, or peer to deepen the important relationships in his life. That would be a good idea for us all to do. Chris was pen-pals with Dave Matthews for 8 years. Chris saw that they recorded at Bearsville studios and wrote a letter to Dave there. He also said, "Show up with gifts." He gave Dave a Beatles Bootlegged album. A leader takes what comes and then turns it into an opportunity. The formula is Competence + Insane Follow-Through. How to build relationships: Meet with people in person. Get drunk with them. Do hard work with them. Go through something bad with them. Laugh with them. I got hired from my internship by cold calling Mark Cuban to get him to approve of using his name in an ad. The best ideas are often bad in their first moments, or massively wrong, and then someone flips it or unlocks it. You have to stay on things and play around. I made my first ad by going through a garbage can to learn how to write a script and sending a bunch of Budweiser scripts to my boss. The art of finding an idea on the edge of possible, and the value of going over your skis when on the cusp of greatness - having a stomach for it. I’ve told a lie to keep things moving on every great campaign I was part of. I learned the best lesson in leadership when we lost our biggest account (Accenture). I put Danny Meyer's mentality into practice, and we took that moment to put the business and clients second and play for each other. Culture carried us. Culture is built by the stories we tell and the behaviors we highlight.
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623: Stu McLaren - Building Communities, Stories About Transformation, A World-Class Onboarding Process, & The Business Model of The Future
02/24/2025
623: Stu McLaren - Building Communities, Stories About Transformation, A World-Class Onboarding Process, & The Business Model of The Future
Go to for full show notes This is brought to you by . If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Stu McLaren helps leaders and all types of business owners transform their knowledge, expertise, and influence into recurring revenue by launching, growing, and scaling membership businesses. He’s the author of PREDICTABLE PROFITS - Transform Your Business from One-Off Sales to Recurring Revenue with Memberships and Subscriptions. Notes: People come for the content, they stay for the community. People want to feel a sense of belonging. This has been hard-wired in us from many years ago. We want to be part of a group. In the old days, this was the only way to survive. We have not outgrown that need and the feeling of being a part of something bigger than ourselves. Life advice: Listen to your gut instinct and embrace the unknown. You are not ever going to know how it’s going to pan out. You have to keep taking that next step. And I loved the story of the lengthy process of adopting his son Sam. The raw emotion in Stu’s eyes as he told that story was awesome. Watch this on and you can see. Take the next step. Keep going. You’re not going to know how it will go. Embrace that. And keep going. Cody Burch Story – In October, Cody’s dad was diagnosed with leukemia. Cody had been sitting with the idea of a membership. He saw the fear in his dad’s eyes that he was nervous about the financial part of it. “I wanted to take that financial fear away from him. Within a few weeks of launching my membership, I had a few hundred members, and I was making thousands of dollars per month." “The more we make, the more we can give. The more we make, the more we can help.” Stu says that all the time Create “super surprises” for your friends. Create an amazing experience for them. Online communities must be one of the three: Can I solve an ongoing problem? Weight loss, dog training Can you teach a skill? Can you make someone’s life easier? Provide teachers with lesson plans You don’t need a big platform to get started. Have founding members. Float the idea that you’re thinking of it. Momentum starts with movement. Get going. Pay close attention to onboarding. The first few days are EVERYTHING. His daughter’s new school was “the best school ever” because she met one friend on the first day. Help them build one meaningful relationship within the first few days. Connect them. Proactively do this. Sales is the most noble profession in the world. Everything must be sold. Stu learned from John Childers, but couldn’t do it like him. So he just told stories about transformation. People don’t care about the “stuff.” They care about the outcome. They care about the transformation. The objection matrix - Match every objection with a story of someone who had the same objection and overcame it. Use stories. The importance of building a membership around transformation, not just content. While many focus on delivering endless content. By focusing on helping people achieve meaningful outcomes, rather than overwhelming them with information, leaders can build stronger communities, improve retention, and deliver real value that keeps members coming back.
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622: Alex Hutchinson - Why We Seek Big Challenges, Adding Texture To Time, The Explorers Gene, Working Through Uncertainty, Tom Hanks, and Pushing The Limits of Human Performance
02/17/2025
622: Alex Hutchinson - Why We Seek Big Challenges, Adding Texture To Time, The Explorers Gene, Working Through Uncertainty, Tom Hanks, and Pushing The Limits of Human Performance
Go to for full show notes. The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk This is brought to you by . If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Be optimistic in the face of uncertainty. We discover who we are by doing it. We learn who we are in practice, not in theory. The only way to fully know if you can do it, is to do the thing. Take action. Fail sometimes. Then keep going. The explore-exploit dilemma. Do we keep on the same path and stick to what we know works or do we go out into the unknown? Do we invest in R&D with no guarantee that it will pay off? This reminds me of Scott Galloway on episode #578, In order to do anything of significance in your life, you must take an uncomfortable risk.” The Hard is what makes it good. From Jimmy Dugan (Tom Hanks) in A League of Their Own. The HARD stuff adds texture to time. The effort needed is a source of meaning. Similar to the Ikea paradox. There is more meaning in the piece of furniture if you assemble it. We shouldn’t run away from the hard things (like Dottie Hinson was doing in A League of Their Own)> We should run towards them. The effort is where find a source of meaning. Opened with gratitude for him helping me with my first book, Welcome to Management. The beginnings of chapters/stories. What’s most important and what’s interesting? Use the best story you have. The beginning is super important. Time with Friction - “I don’t want it to be easier.” Challenge and complexity make it more meaningful. It’s less meaningful if it’s not challenging. Effort is a source of meaning. The Ikea Effect. A piece of furniture is worth more to you if you put it together. Why do you keep pushing your limits? What am I getting out of this? Is there some intrinsic pleasure? We are wired to explore, push our limits We are also wired to be lazy, to rest in between hunts. Dichotomy there. Some are nomadic and some settle. It’s useful to have both. Alex and his wife take their daughters with them on adventures. They earn a feeling like, “I can do anything.” Adding voluntary hardship to a child’s life can be helpful. If it’s a foregone conclusion, it’s not interesting. This is why people love live sports. We don’t know how it’s going to end. Uncertainty makes it interesting. The same is true for life. Uncertainty - We’re willing to pay a lot to not know the ending. The arc is important. “Bold beginning of uncertain outcomes.” Alex was shy and didn’t introduce himself to girls. “I would have had a better time if I wasn’t scared to ask someone out.” My first job getting rejected 60 times a day. Useful. His job as a newspaper intern having to go to people’s houses after their family member died in a car accident and talk with them. Made everything else seem easier. Quote to open the book: “To say that we should not change wines is heresy; the tongue becomes saturated, and after the third glass even the best bottle yields but an obtuse sensation.” – Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin Waffles – They are great. But if you have them every day, you lose the magic. A metaphor for life. Life/Career Advice: Be optimistic in the face of uncertainty. Have both the exploring and exploiting mindset. Explore widely. We discover who we are by doing it. Have to do the thing.
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621: Rachel Botsman - Being Comfortable with Uncertainty, Giving Trust Before It's Earned, Being on Time, Giving Great Keynotes, & How To Trust and Be Trusted
02/10/2025
621: Rachel Botsman - Being Comfortable with Uncertainty, Giving Trust Before It's Earned, Being on Time, Giving Great Keynotes, & How To Trust and Be Trusted
Go to for full show notes. This is brought to you by . If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Rachel Botsman has become an expert on trust in the modern world. She’s written three books: What’s Mine is Yours, Who Can You Trust, and How to Trust and Be Trusted. Her TED talks have amassed over 5 million views. And she teaches at Oxford University’s Business School where she created pioneering courses on trust in the digital age has become an expert on trust in the modern world. She’s written three books: What’s Mine is Yours, Who Can You Trust, and How to Trust and Be Trusted. Her TED talks have amassed over 5 million views. Notes: Trust is being comfortable with uncertainty. Capability and Character - Assholes are capable people with low character. Demonstrate the ability to take risks. Confidence in the unknown. Healthy challenge and push mentality. Trust willing – Lead with Trust. Make the trust wager. What’s the best way to earn someone’s trust? LEAD with trust. Trust them first. This also creates a highly attractive company or team. Don’t you want to attract highly trusting, capable people? The best way to do that is to lead with trust. Be more trust willing. Lead with Trust. Jim Collins story. Make the trust wager. You don't have to earn it, you got it. Willingness to be a beginner. Be curious. Look stupid at first. Those are good qualities in a leader. For keynote speaking: Share your expertise, but don't seek approval Share your stories, but don't look for validation Share your passion, but don't perform for the applause Don't sell from the stage. Don't show your book. Don't give your resume. Honor the present. If you’re running a meeting, start it on time. Honor the people who showed up on time. Leaders who are overscheduled… It’s usually their fault and it comes from ego. If you’ve hired a capable team, then you don’t have to be in every meeting. Also, if you’re always late, you aren’t reliable. And that becomes part of your reputation. That’s not something we want to be known for. How can people trust you if you're always late? They won't. You aren't reliable if you're always late. Reliability is a big part of your reputation. It can become the thing you're known for. That's bad. The power of consistency: Intensity makes a good story. Consistency makes progress. Consistency builds trust. Leaders who are overscheduled have a problem they've created for themselves. It's usually from ego. Interviewing leaders for jobs. High character is a must. We can teach capabilities later. Paul Simon's audiobook with Pushkin is awesome. Rachel's five principles for trust: Competence: Having the skills, knowledge, time, and resources to do what you say you'll do Reliability: Being dependable and consistent in your actions Integrity: Being honest about your intentions and motives, and ensuring your words and actions align Empathy: Caring about others' interests and how your actions affect them Consistent action: Earning trust through how you show up, set expectations, and deliver acts of caring Life/Career Advice: Don’t get boxed in too early and grow a career based on being able to tell people at parties that you work at a prestigious company. Look for great teams and great bosses. The industry doesn’t matter as much as the people. Culture is everything. People are everything. And then when you’re younger it’s helpful to be a generalist. Know a little about a lot of things. But as you get older, it’s useful to become a specialist at something. Become an expert. Go deep on a topic. This is similar to what Mike Maples Jr said on episode #619.
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620: Steve Magness - Defining Success on Your Terms, Setting Process Goals, Speaking Up in the Face of Fear, Winning The Inside Game, & Living a Meaningful Life
02/03/2025
620: Steve Magness - Defining Success on Your Terms, Setting Process Goals, Speaking Up in the Face of Fear, Winning The Inside Game, & Living a Meaningful Life
Go to for full show notes. The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk This is brought to you by . If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Episode #620 with Steve Magness, author of Win The Inside Game Notes: Clearly define your purpose and what you want to do. For Steve, it’s: "Explore interesting ideas that will help people." "Those things will help me too. I'm curious about them." Defining that one sentence frees you up to say no to those things outside of your purpose and to focus on actions within that align with your purpose. Steve's Framework for Sustainable Excellence: Be - Clarity on who you are Do - Clairty in your pursuits Belong - Clarity on where and how you fit in Steve stood up as a whistleblower after earning his dream job at Nike, showing courage and sticking to his values and ethics. Why don't we speak up? We have a built in preservation system. We justify, rationalize, and avoid it because it minimizes the negative feeling in the short term. Don't play prevent defense. Give yourself the permission and freedom to fail. Diversify sense of self. Don't intertwine a sense of self with success or fear of failure. Diversify your sense of self—don’t intertwine your identity solely with success or the fear of failure. It’s not an all-or-nothing game. Outcomes matter, but they aren’t everything. Focus on process goals and let outcomes be a byproduct of good effort. Set your environment up to define what success means for you. Big achievements, like becoming a best-selling author, rarely feel as fulfilling as imagined. Success can be multi-dimensional and definitionally nuanced. The Power of Belonging When facing a challenge (like climbing a hill), it feels easier when you’re with others versus alone. We need each other. We share the load. Surround yourself with compounders. "We are built to belong." It is a mistake to make success or failure a virtue. It's not "I'm a failure." It's, "I failed at that thing." It's temporary. It's not who you are. In moments of stress (e.g., choking in sports like Simone Biles), your brain defaults to survival mode and shuts down higher-level functions. Strategies to overcome it: Narrow your focus: Break tasks into smaller, actionable steps. Create a personal definition of success to shift focus from fear. Try doing something unexpected or crazy to reset your perspective. To have a meaningful life we need to feel Coherent - Life adds up. You have a cohesive story. Significant - You matter and can make a difference. Directed - There’s a purpose to your life and pursuits. Belonging - Part of something bigger than you. “This book is for those who stood up, found courage, and stuck to their values and ethics.”
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619: Mike Maples Jr. - Practicing Reckless Optimism, Betting On Founders, Bill Gates Hiring Mike Sr at Microsoft, Being Overprepared, & What It Means To Do YOUR Best
01/27/2025
619: Mike Maples Jr. - Practicing Reckless Optimism, Betting On Founders, Bill Gates Hiring Mike Sr at Microsoft, Being Overprepared, & What It Means To Do YOUR Best
Go to for full show notes. The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk This is brought to you by . If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. My Guest: Mike Maples Jr is a co-founding Partner at Floodgate. He has been on the Forbes Midas List eight times in the last decade and was recently profiled by Harvard Business School for his lifetime contributions to entrepreneurship. Some of his early investments include: Twitter, DemandForce, Twitch, and Applied Intuition. Mike is also the bestselling author of Pattern Breakers: Why Some Start-Ups Change the Future. Notes Chance favors the prepared mind. We are all visited by luck, but most of us don’t answer the door. We need to become a professional noticer. That is Mike’s favorite verb. Noticing. Most people don’t have prepared minds. Be intentional about noticing the world around you and being prepared for when luck visits you. Mike's dad died 7 days before we recorded. “He was a mentor, a friend, and one of the greatest inspirations of my life.” His advice: Do your best. There’s only one of you. Decide what to do with your gift of time, be intentional. Have gratitude for your time. Make the most of it. Don’t waste it trying to be someone else. Focus - Fishing competition when Mike was 5 or 6. Let’s find a good spot and stay there the entire time. While everyone else moved constantly, Mike and his dad stayed in their spot, caught a big carp, and won. Bill Gates begged Mike’s dad to “be the adult in the room” at Microsoft. Mike Sr would say to the people he led at Microsoft, "I want to know that you’re thinking about what you’re doing." He used a Socratic method. He was not prescriptive. Be proactive. Have an intentional strategy. Be intentional. Jonathan Livingston Seagull - The biggest limits in the world are the limits of your mind, your imagination, and your actions– not the limits of the world itself. Have to get over that voice in your head that says, “You’re not good enough.” We get told to be realistic or stay within the lines. Everybody is figuring it out as they go. Everyone is “winging it.” Only by being radically different can you make a radical difference. Great founders are like Patrick Mahomes and Steph Curry. You don’t know how they’re going to score, but you know they will. Practice Reckless Optimism – The world is built by Optimists. You need to be FOR something. Bet ON something, not against it. Mike sees himself as a co-conspirator more than an investor. There can’t be a recipe for a breakthrough because by definition breakthroughs haven’t happened yet. “Chance favors the prepared mind.” We are all visited by luck but most don’t answer the door. Chris Rock - Forming unexpected connections. Sam Beskind (Stanford basketball player where he played for Rob Ehsan) - Time management strategy. Stanford coaches had a one-pager with 3 keys to winning. Not 20. 3. If you have 20 keys, you have none. Nobody can remember all that. Life/Career Advice: Internalize what it means to do your best. Gratitude for your time. Avoid the trap of mimetic desire. The “T” of knowledge. Charlie Munger. Try to know what the best ideas that have ever existed in a wide range of fields. Then choose one field to know about more than anyone else in the world. Have one area where you are fanatically obsessed. For Mike, that’s startups.
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618: Chase Jarvis - Never Play It Safe, Work Your Creativity Muscle, Trust Your Intuition, Tell Great Jokes, & Become a Transformational Leader
01/20/2025
618: Chase Jarvis - Never Play It Safe, Work Your Creativity Muscle, Trust Your Intuition, Tell Great Jokes, & Become a Transformational Leader
Go to for full show notes of The Learning Leader Show Sign up for "Mindful Monday" (it's free) - My guest for episode #618 is Chase Jarvis. Chase is a photographer, director, artist, and entrepreneur. He was the CEO of an online education platform called Creative Live from 2014 to 2022. He’s earned countless awards for his photography and creative work including a Pulitzer Prize for a New York Times story he contributed to called “Snow Fall.” He’s also the author of multiple books including Creative Calling and Never Play It Safe. Notes: Opening Joke: "What has 52 teeth and holds back a monster?" We are all wildly creative. It is trained out of us as we grow older. Creativity is foundational to all human beings. It’s on us to tap into our creativity and get it out of us to help solve problems, to create optionality, and to be innovative. Regardless of your job, becoming more creative will make you better at it. Play infinite games with transformational people. It seems like when we give to others, genuinely try to help them, and have a service orientation, good things happen to all. There are transactional people and transformational leaders. Let’s strive to be transformative and play the long game with high-character people. Transactional leaders are infuriating. Transformational leaders are inspiring. “A bird sitting on a tree is never afraid of the branch breaking, because its trust is not on the branch, but on its own wings.” Believe in yourself and your ability to bounce back if the thing doesn’t go your way. Set up a series of experiments. Not all of them will work. You’ll be better for having tried, and tried again, and then again. We learn from both our successes and our failures. Initially, Chase planned to attend medical school after graduating from undergrad. A few weeks before his graduation, his grandfather died and left all his photography equipment to his grandson. “Security is mostly superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” - Helen Keller "Safety is an illusion. It does not exist in nature, so why then do we seek it? "Playing it safe is about fear. And fear is only optimized for survival--not creativity, happiness, joy, connection, harmony, fulfillment, or any of the gifts you have to give or receive in this life." Intuition is everything. What if we started paying attention to that? "I don't know why they call us founders. I didn't find anything. I built that shit. We are builders." There are 7 basic levers for life: Attention Time – NYU Professor James Carse. Finite and infinite games. Treat life like an infinite game. What’s the difference between systems and schedules? (why are systems better?) Intuition – The benefits of compounding trust. Chase's wife Kate. First met on a beach just after high school. Sparks were present, but no fire. “She had a special quality I couldn’t quite place.” Went to college 1,500 miles apart. All along it was your intuition that kept you on notice. How do you know when it’s your intuition speaking? Why is playing it safe the riskiest thing we can do Constraints - What can we learn about constraints from Stefan Sagmeister? Play - What can we learn about play from Novak Djokovic? Failure - Melissa Arnot Reid – Replaces the word “fail” with the word “live” – Instead of saying “I’m afraid to fail. She says I’m afraid to live.” Practice - Purposeful practice. Anders Ericsson Keynote speaking - Don't be a robot. Have fun. Let it rip. Results are better in a better state of mind. Do tiny experiments when the stakes are low.
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617: Adam Galinsky - How To Inspire Others, Build a Team, Speak Up For Yourself, Thrive Through Adversity, & Become Their Favorite Boss
01/13/2025
617: Adam Galinsky - How To Inspire Others, Build a Team, Speak Up For Yourself, Thrive Through Adversity, & Become Their Favorite Boss
Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes for episode #617 with Adam Galinsky Notes: 10 Words - “We are not going down. We are going to Philly.” The composure of pilot Tammy Jo Shults after the side of her airplane exploded. Leadership is needed most when things go bad. How do you respond when adversity strikes? Those are the moments when we must be prepared to share the vision and help our team stay the course. EMTs asked, "How did you get through security? You have nerves of steel. You don't even have an elevated heart rate." The 1992 cockpit study of pilots. Did more errors happen at the beginning or the end of a 19-hour flight? You’d assume the end because of exhaustion. However, more errors happen at the beginning of the flight because the crews don’t know each other yet. How does this translate to your team? It’s imperative to genuinely care and get to know the people on your team. Host barbeque parties, ask questions, and genuinely LEARN about the people you’re leading. Those aren’t soft skills, those are essential skills. What did Adam learn from his parents? The idea of Kaizen, is a Japanese business philosophy that promotes continuous improvement through small, incremental changes. Kaizen means "good change," "change for the better," or "improvement." Transactional leaders are infuriating. Transformational leaders are inspiring. Great leader exercise: "Tell me about a leader that inspired you..." What qualities do they possess? "Courage, Optimism, Generous." Inspire - the universal path for leading yourself and others Build habits - floss teeth before brushing. Write thank you notes. Moments of Greatness -- Elks basketball Team thank you notes - Rob Kimbel Columbia football coach -- "Who can I yell at?" Need to know who can handle it. Ron Ullery -- Share the vision early. 1:1 conversation, bring your leaders in. Adam did not get tenure when most thought he deserved it. They messed up by not sharing the vision until after, but then they made it better by sharing and showing him love. He then turned down Harvard to stay at Northwestern because of it. Vision - Big picture. Put context for behavior. Why is consistency important? The Great Gatsby and his dad. Greenlights. When you're thinking about trying to persuade others, you persuade yourself. Parenting -- When you flip out, they do too. We set the tone.
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616: Bob Stoops- Building a Winning Culture, Connecting With People, Creating a Coaching Forest, Caring For Your Team, & Winning Championships
01/06/2025
616: Bob Stoops- Building a Winning Culture, Connecting With People, Creating a Coaching Forest, Caring For Your Team, & Winning Championships
Full show notes at Mindful Monday is the best way to start your week. Sign up for free here: Bob Stoops was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach in 2021. He was the head football coach at the University of Oklahoma from 1999 to 2016. He led the Sooners to a 191-48 record over his career. His 2000/2001 team won the national championship. He earned the National Coach of the Year award the same season. Since 2020, Stoops has been a head coach in the XFL, winning an XFL Championship in 2023 with the Arlington Renegades. He played college football at the University of Iowa, earning team MVP his senior year as a defensive back. Notes: Coaches Bob has worked for: Hayden Fry at Iowa, Bill Snyder at Kansas State, and Steve Spurrier at Florida. He's worked for some amazing coaches. Relationships are everything. You must connect with people. You must be authentic. Learn from other coaches, but you have to be yourself Sherri Coale: “One of my favorite things about him is he’s the busiest man on the planet but never appeared that way. That’s a skill and an art. That fascinates me.” What makes a great head coach? They relate to people. They care about them. They can motivate and influence by clearly sharing the vision of the program and inspiring others to get on board. They are decisive people. Most importantly, they know how to connect with people. All leadership is a people business. If you can’t connect with others, you’ll probably struggle. Creating a “coaches forest” (beyond a tree) - Mike Stoops, Mark Mangino, Mike Leach, Bo Pelini, Kevin Sumlin, Kevin Wilson, Lincoln Riley, and more. How has Bob prepared so many guys to be successful head coaches? Hiring – “I always tried to hire people smarter than me.” A lot of people say this, but not all do this. Coach Stoops looked for people who had a track record of performance… And then he used his gut instincts after he spent time with him. He paid attention to how they treated his secretary, how they treated the waiter at lunch… Some call those the little things, but they were very important to Coach Stoops The overarching theme of the entire conversation was the simplicity of how Coach Stoops built his program. He didn’t try to overcomplicate anything. He knew he wanted coaches who were accomplished, high-character people. And he wanted tough players who loved football. Their offenses may have looked exotic but they didn’t have a ton of plays installed. They focused on what they did and then practiced it relentlessly so that they would execute better than their opponents. I think there’s something beautiful in the simplicity with how he’s built his program and the results speak for themselves. Great players want to be coached - Jeremiah Smith, Adrian Peterson. What he looked for in players: They have to LOVE football. Need to be tough and physical. Someone like Dan Cody. From Oklahoma, was skinny, and nobody on the staff wanted to give him a scholarship, but Coach Stoops did, and he turned out to be a great player. Liked to keep local guys home. Off-season workouts create the culture of the team. "We won because we outworked everyone." The attitude of the national championship team - "They were tired of being kicked around." And "I shared with them the history of Oklahoma and let them know the way it should be. When we started, they were a losing team." Josh Heupel - The most valuable recruit ever for Coach Stoops. Mike Leach was a 1 of 1. An original. He seemed relaxed and casual, but he was also very demanding that they do it right. He was also focused on just a few plays instead of trying to do everything. FOCUS. Do what we do Wife Carol - Impressive leader at Mary Kay. Won a pink Cadillac 16 years in a row. National Sales Director. Life/Career Advice - Go hard, be tough, be true to yourself, enjoy the struggle, and look forward to the fight. Nothing great happens without going through struggles first.
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615: Brad Thor - The Art & Science of Storytelling, Creating Surprise, Billions, Ray Donavon, & The Willingness (& Ability) To Break The Rules
12/30/2024
615: Brad Thor - The Art & Science of Storytelling, Creating Surprise, Billions, Ray Donavon, & The Willingness (& Ability) To Break The Rules
Go to for full show notes and all episodes of The Learning Leader Show Notes: Brad Thor best selling author of 22 thrillers... Excellence as a leader… What has Brad seen from the military leaders he’s studied: Empathy - Understand what it’s like from their perspective. LISTEN - Care for your people. Actually LISTEN to them and be there. Creativity. Innovate, and think of new creative ways to solve problems. Effective storytelling - Don’t start with the weather. Leave out the parts people skip. Don’t be boring. This same advice is useful for leaders when communicating with your team. Put yourself in their shoes. How can you most effectively share your message without being boring. The more entertaining it is, the more likely they’ll remember it. Effective storytellers - Plotters (outlines, Dan Brown), Pantsers (write by the seat of your pants). Brad is a pantser. Take the first 4 ideas and throw them out. You need the element of surprise. Create surprise. Be comfortable breaking the rules. Loves Ray Donavon and Billions for the element of surprise "No joy in the writer, no joy in the reader." "No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader." Brad has served as a member of the Department of Homeland Security’s Analytic Red Cell Unit. Excellence as a leader (McChrystal) - Empathy, Listen, Creativity. PBL - Problem-Based Learning. John Bettis (country singer). How do you recharge your battery? International travel. Immerse yourself in another culture. Loves politics. Ran for President. Advice for writers – “Gotta Keep Writing” Mary Higgins Clark did it for 2 hours each morning before her family woke up. Whatever it is we want to be great at, we have to get the reps. Consistency beats intensity. 00:53 The Art of Storytelling 04:13 Elements of Effective Storytelling 08:26 The Importance of Surprise in Storytelling 11:33 Writing Process and Challenges 20:43 Research and Realism in Writing 27:04 Leadership Lessons from Writing 30:59 The Importance of Open-Mindedness 32:01 Pre-Publishing Feedback Process 35:09 Homeland Security and the Red Cell Unit 39:05 Maintaining Creative Energy 42:38 Political Ambitions and Leadership 50:57 Advice for Aspiring Writers 54:36 The Benefits of Reading Fiction for Leaders 56:43 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
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614: David Yeager PhD - The Science of Motivating Young People: A Groundbreaking Approach To Leading The Next Generation (Author of 10 to 25)
12/23/2024
614: David Yeager PhD - The Science of Motivating Young People: A Groundbreaking Approach To Leading The Next Generation (Author of 10 to 25)
Go to for full show notes. The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk This is brought to you by . If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Notes: The Pete and Leona story - What will people say about you at your funeral? "They changed my life and the lives of my entire family." Tough love out of 100% care for you. Be tough AND supportive. Don't lower your standards. High standards. High support. 10 to 25 - Find the right trigger for motivation. Find out what they care about. They need meaning and significance. They want status and earned respect. Are children less afraid of their parents now than they used to be? Dan Gilbert calls this the "illusion of moral decline." It's been happening for 75 years. The Parental Nagging Study - A common tactic adults use to get teens to “pay attention.” Research shows that nagging triggers the emotional part of a teen’s brain, shutting down their ability to think logically. They’re not ignoring you on purpose—they’re simply wired to tune out. A better way? Speak calmly and neutrally to engage the part of their brain that handles planning and decision-making. This opens the door to real conversation. Satya Nadella’s Model, Coach, Care philosophy at Microsoft. This is the opposite of Jack Welch’s rank and yank style at GE. Remember, the stack ranking methodology limited innovation and stopped people from taking any type of risk. We want to model the right behavior, coach others, and ensure they know we care for them so they feel the support they need to take risks, sometimes fail, get back up, and work to innovate. Theory X = Rank and yank. It stifled innovation for fear of failure and getting fired. Theory Y = No stack rankings. Built on connecting leaders with their people. Still high standards and demanding. Followed the "Model, Coach, Care" methodology. This is what's happening today at Microsoft. Be a place where people want to work. The Mentor's Dilemma - Stef Okamoto - honest, direct, and supportive. The "mentor's dilemma" refers to the challenge of balancing honest, critical feedback to young people while still maintaining their motivation and self-esteem, as this age group can be particularly sensitive to perceived criticism and may easily feel discouraged or disrespected if not approached carefully; essentially, it's the struggle between pushing someone to improve and potentially damaging their confidence by being too harsh. The mentor mindset: A mentor mindset can be adopted by using practices such as validating young people's perspectives, asking them questions, and holding them to high standards. Questioning – Kate, a mom of two who lives in Chicago, whose oldest son was a sophomore came home one night from a party drunk and high. Kate responded with a combination of yelling and prosecuting… She instigated an interrogation and not a two-way conversation. Instead of interrogating, get curious. They had a reason for what they did. Figure out why. What's your plan? Ask questions to get them to own their thinking and share it with you. Advice - Don’t accept some perceived path. Be reliable, show up, do the work, and ask for more work. Add surplus value. Whatever you’re being paid, focus on delivering 10x more value. Find a way to do that and your employer will beg to give you a raise and promote you.
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613: Mo Bunnell - Giving To Grow, Falling In Love With Questions, Mastermind Groups, Delaying Gratification, Long-Term Planning, & Investing In Relationships
12/16/2024
613: Mo Bunnell - Giving To Grow, Falling In Love With Questions, Mastermind Groups, Delaying Gratification, Long-Term Planning, & Investing In Relationships
Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Notes: Mo Bunnell is the author of Give to Grow, The Snowball System, and the founder of Bunnell Idea Group (BIG), who has trained tens of thousands of seller experts at over 400 clients all over the world. I wake up every morning looking to help my friends succeed, and some just happen to be clients. — Proactively thinking of ways to add value to others is a great way to build a meaningful life. Our brains think literally. Relationships grow exponentially. Give consistently to grow relationships. Celebrate incremental progress. Mo writes in a journal the growth of himself, his business, and his customers. We all should be better at celebrating incremental progress. Teresa Amabile’s research shows that this leads to a more enjoyable life. August 4, 1984, was a meaningful day for his family. (Dad’s alcoholism. That was the day of his last drink) The difference between doing the work versus winning the work Example: You win the work by asking lots of questions. You do the work giving answers. Every successful career hinges on two things: Doing The Work and Winning The Work. Both delivering value on the current work and developing the relationships that create future opportunities are vital for long-term success. Whether you’re in a new role or want new outcomes, the most powerful results come from prioritizing both Doing The Work and Winning The Work. Ask questions – Mo shares 50+ questions to ask. Ask self-disclosure questions. Those are questions that only that person can answer. Fall in love with the problem. Pronoia – The world is out to help you succeed. People can live in 1 of 3 ways. Drift - Stay busy. Answer emails. Driven - Hyper emphasis on one thing at the detriment of others (triathlon guy) By Design - Write down where you want to be and make a plan to do it. On purpose. Delayed gratification: Weekly planning process Offer 3 proactive change agent ideas Mo is in 5 masterminds Shawn Blanc in Breckenridge. Net givers. MASHUP - His house. Help others. Ask for help. Elite Adventure athletes GivetoGrow.Info MASHUP! Mastermind of Awesome Super Human Unreal People
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612: Lawrence Yeo - Dissolving Envy, Practicing Curiosity, Writing to Think, Establishing Values, Building Confidence, Being Ambitious, Moving People to Tears, & The Power of Consistency
12/09/2024
612: Lawrence Yeo - Dissolving Envy, Practicing Curiosity, Writing to Think, Establishing Values, Building Confidence, Being Ambitious, Moving People to Tears, & The Power of Consistency
Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes and to listen to all episodes of The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk Lawrence Yeo is a storytelling teacher and the founder and writer at MoreToThat.com. He writes stories about the nuances of the human condition. He’s become one of my favorite writers over the past few years and regularly makes me rethink what I believe. Notes Envy: Envy is inversely correlated with self-examination. The less you know yourself, the more you look to others to get an idea of your worth. But the more you delve into who you are, the less you seek from others, and the dissolution of envy begins. Curiosity is gratitude for the unknown – “The key to cultivating curiosity is to have a healthy relationship with uncertainty.” Lawrence is called the L.S.E. by his wife. The Life Story Extractor. Ask More Questions to Those You Love - It’s quite shocking how few questions you ask when you’re with people you’re comfortable with. If you’re no longer curious to know about the person in front of you (friend, wife, parent), then that relationship is devoid of life. Your Values: Your values are as unique as your genes because no one shares the exact set of experiences and insights that were required to form them. They are the fingerprints of your being, and they are the invisible forces that guide everything you touch. Integrity is the ability to navigate the outer world without discounting your inner values. There is an anchor of authenticity that you’re unwilling to budge, no matter how fervently people want you to.” Confidence is a commitment to trusting your inner compass, despite how strong the outer winds are. If you do the work to know yourself, then you’ll realize that no external voice can convey the inner complexities you embody. And through that awareness, you’ll reliably choose your intuition above all else. The Problem with Following Your Passion - Ultimately, you can’t live off your love for something. It doesn’t matter how powerful your inner engine of expression is; without the fuel of money, you will stall out and be left on the side of the road. And like it or not, the only way for this fuel to be provided to you is to create something valuable enough to warrant that exchange. Ambition - Ambition is critical to the development of a healthy mind. Not only does it allow you to know who you truly are, but it also acts as a gateway to humility. Since ambition is about putting the bar ahead of you, you’ll understand your shortcomings in a visceral way." Ambition breeds humility. Always setting the bar ahead of where you are. "I'm not quite there yet." “This email brought me to tears.” -"Hi Lawrence, I just came across your site and love what I am reading. Great insights and reflects a lot of my thoughts lately, like the last 20 years. I'm 72, stage four cancer, and the happiest I've ever been because I have the luxury of being able to examine my life. Best self-help ever. I'm looking forward to reading more of your writing." Writing: 2 types of writing: Writing to think. Writing to present. Journal vs. Diary. Journal is asking why you feel the way you do. A diary is a catalog of what happened. Have a job that acts as a patron for your creative work. Moretothat.com -- There's always something deeper. Advice - Learn storytelling. Consistency is the driving force of your curiosity.
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611: Codie Sanchez - How To Build Extraordinary Wealth Through Ordinary Businesses (Main Street Millionaire)
12/02/2024
611: Codie Sanchez - How To Build Extraordinary Wealth Through Ordinary Businesses (Main Street Millionaire)
Go to for full show notes The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk Codie Sanchez is an entrepreneur and investor known for founding Contrarian Thinking, a media and business education company. She has a diverse background, including entrepreneurship, finance, and journalism. Through her book "Main Street Millionaire," she advocates for wealth-building by acquiring small businesses and shares her insights on financial independence and business success. Codie emphasizes practical, contrarian approaches to wealth and leadership. Notes: Her dad always said to her: ‘You’re not going to be a princess, you’re going to be the president’ – It’s a great reminder of the power we have as leaders to believe in someone and raise their level of expectations because you see something special in them. Codie was glowing while talking about her dad. How Codie earned a job at Vanguard. She went to conferences. She met people. She got IN THE ROOM and took action. And then when she got her opportunity, she led with her curiosity, asked questions from the woman she met with, learned, read the books she told her to read, and followed up. Showing up, doing extra, and following up are a great way to earn a job that you might not be qualified for. How you start and end your meetings. What type of energy do you bring to the space? Remember, you no longer get to be energy-neutral as a leader. You’re either lifting the room up or taking it away. We want to add energy additives to the rooms we enter. One of Codie's favorite books – Letters to a Young Contrarian by Cristopher Hitchins. “What I like about Christopher Hitchens, he pushed back against the common narrative in a time where to be an activist was really frowned upon” “He was what the people these days that say they're activists actually are. He really had no loyalty to any type of thought; he was simply trying to find the truth. He was the inspiration for contrarian thinking” Career Path – “I don’t believe that humans have linear paths ever. Anyone who has had an interesting career in my opinion has had a completely divergent set of experiences. High Performers: They hate small talk. Are not okay with wasting your time. Do what they say they’re going to do. Do it with urgency. Are obsessed, not just interested. Goal Setting: “If you want to be a person who hits your goals: Skip setting goals and set sacrifices. What are you willing to give up to get what you want? That is the missing piece to winning. Every one of your goals has a price." Codie's Anti-Goals: Being an employee/work for others, Selling other people's products, Speaking for free, Coffee meetings. The richest self-made woman in the US is… Diane Hendricks (co-founded the largest wholesale roofing, siding, and window distribution company). There are billions in the boring. Writing = Clarifying Your Thinking Writing helps Codie think clearly and organize her thoughts. The process of writing demands coherence and structure, unlike verbal communication. 4 Parts to buy a business - Cover debt, Cash to have an operator, Money to make a salary, Operating cash. 3, 9, 12 method - Learn the 10 steps in the first 3 months. Get in on a deal. Stabilize. Boring Businesses - Laundromats, car washes, and port-a-potty services can be very profitable. They are less glamorous but have a higher success rate compared to sexier industries. Advice - Meet with a small business owner. Ask to shadow them. Get curious. 42% of the population works for or in a small business.
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610: Jeff Janssen - The Commitment Continuum, Walt Disney, Holding Others Accountable, Team Captains, & The 7 Secrets of Successful Coaches
11/25/2024
610: Jeff Janssen - The Commitment Continuum, Walt Disney, Holding Others Accountable, Team Captains, & The 7 Secrets of Successful Coaches
Go to for full show notes. Books: The Score That Matters, The Pursuit of Excellence, Welcome to Management Notes: The Commitment Continuum Resistant Reluctant Existent - Stealing scholarships (sandwich eaters) Compliant - Box checkers Committed - Heart is into it. They do extra. They are bought in. Compelled (Obsessed) - On a mission. Do an audit first of yourself. Where am I on that continuum? And then each member of your team. The goal is to get each member closer to becoming committed and compelled. Team audit - Where is everyone? People can drift down if their needs aren't met. For existent and compliant - Shift mindset to "I get to be here!" For committed and compelled - Keep them challenged. Put them in leadership roles. The art of leadership - Make it easier to move up on the commitment continuum. Walt Disney - The little things are the big things. Jeff experienced this firsthand when he went on a Disney cruise and saw the workers polishing the railings on the cruise ship early in the morning. The same is true for the janitor mopping the floor at NASA. There’s a story about President John F Kennedy in 1962. He was at NASA and he asked the janitor what he was doing. The janitor replied, “I’m helping put a man on the moon.” The leader should be praising everyone involved in the mission and celebrate their role and its importance. Holding your teammates accountable - “We’re not calling you out, we’re calling you up.” The encourager and the enforcer help raise the standards and encourage others to aim higher. That’s the role of the leaders on great teams. “We’re not calling you out, we’re calling you up.” What's our vision? Am I embodying the standards myself? Have we clearly set the standards and got buy-in? "These are the expectations and standards of our program." Performance and behavior metrics Praise people when they meet the standard The best teams practice so much that they can't get it wrong. Team Captain's Leadership Manual. Mike Fox. Can you lead yourself first? Commitment. Composure. When it hits the fan, can you stay poised? Character: Can I trust you? How do we get people excited to be part of the leadership development program? Make it a privilege. They have to apply and get accepted into the program. They "get" to do it. Make it relevant to their lives. Give real-world strategies. The encourager - Calls out great work The enforcer - "We need more from you." The servant - It's not about you or your stats. It's about serving others. The Seven Secrets of Successful Coaches Character-based people. They do the right thing. People trust them. Extremely committed to the mission and the team. Competent Care Confidence Builder Communicator (great listener) Consistent
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609: Eric Jorgenson (CEO of Scribe) - The Obsessive Genius, Flawless Fundamentals, Building Mountains of Leverage, The Power of Writing, All Things Naval, & Manifesting Your Dream Job
11/18/2024
609: Eric Jorgenson (CEO of Scribe) - The Obsessive Genius, Flawless Fundamentals, Building Mountains of Leverage, The Power of Writing, All Things Naval, & Manifesting Your Dream Job
Go to for the full show notes of The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. Eric Jorgenson is the CEO of Scribe Media, the largest Professional Publisher. He’s also the author of The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: A Guide to Wealth and Happiness and The Anthology of Balaji. His books have sold over 1 million copies and have been translated into 40 languages. Notes: The obsessive genius. Eric likes to invest in founders who have been obsessively trying to solve a problem for years. They are myopically focused on that one thing. They have a depth of expertise in the area where they focus. Eric has developed the skill to get good at recognizing that genius in others and that’s helped him make good investing decisions. He is an investor in dozens of (borderline crazy) deep-tech startups through . They fund obsessive geniuses building utopian technologies. Eric’s first 90+ days as the CEO of Scribe: He spent as much time as possible learning from the current members of the team. Leading with curiosity, asking questions, listening, and leading with trust. Being both trustworthy and willing. You don’t have to earn my trust, you have it. "Flawless on the Fundamentals" - The one phrase Scribe is focused on. Your content diet: It's more important than a healthy/wellness/food diet. "If you're taking in bad information, you're becoming a moron." You want high-signal sources of information. An audience of 1 - "I wrote that book for myself." Bezos - Great compression of ideas and communicating them to the team. Focused on one thing. Why write a book with Scribe instead of a traditional publisher... You want 100% ownership of your IP We talked in depth about Naval Ravikant and his viral Twitter thread titled, “” – Here are some of the tweets from that thread: Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy. Understand that ethical wealth creation is possible. If you secretly despise wealth, it will elude you. Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth-creation games. Pick an industry where you can play long-term games with long-term people. Pick business partners with high intelligence, energy, and, above all, integrity. Don't partner with cynics and pessimists. Their beliefs are self-fulfilling. Learn to sell. Learn to build. If you can do both, you will be unstoppable. Specific knowledge is found by pursuing your genuine curiosity and passion rather than whatever is hot right now. Insane and Pragmatic – Great founders are insane and pragmatic. Yes, both. Leverage – How do you build a mountain of levers? (Levers are force multipliers. This is how some people can accomplish 10x, 100x, or 1,000,000x what others can. Leverage can multiply outcomes from your effort, your skill, and your judgment.) “You can make it big without accountability. You can make it big without specific knowledge. But if you don’t have leverage, you’re never going to make real wealth. Leverage is the most important component of the principles I’ve discussed.” - Naval Transformation Through Writing: Writing a book can be a transformative process that deeply embeds certain mental models and knowledge. Interview Process: Engaging with a skilled interviewer can help clarify ideas, which is particularly valuable for busy executives who wish to author books but lack the time to write them themselves. Impact of Books: Books can play unique roles in positioning leaders and sharing knowledge, which is an invaluable tool for personal branding and legacy. Learning from Experts: Eric believes that his talent lies in recognizing and synthesizing the genius of others, which he shares through his books and investments. Professional Growth: Through interacting with talented individuals and absorbing high-quality content, Eric has developed a nuanced understanding of what drives excellence.
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608: Anthony Pompliano - (How To Live an Extraordinary Life) Luck Is Not Real, Surround Yourself With Compounders, Fire Your Boring Friends, Get On The Plane, Practice Simplicity, & Taking Big Risks608: Anthony Pompliano - (How To Live an Extraordinary Li
11/11/2024
608: Anthony Pompliano - (How To Live an Extraordinary Life) Luck Is Not Real, Surround Yourself With Compounders, Fire Your Boring Friends, Get On The Plane, Practice Simplicity, & Taking Big Risks608: Anthony Pompliano - (How To Live an Extraordinary Li
Go to for full show notes Read our book, The Score That Matters Notes Luck is not real – “Luck is something we conjure in our minds to grapple with the consequences of whatever life may throw our way. Luck is a physiological concept. It’s determined by how we view a situation. Academic studies show that you can become luckier simply by telling yourself that you are lucky.” Pessimists sound smart, but optimists change the world. Believe in yourself. Have agency. Strive to make something happen. "Luck is the flip side of risk. They are mirrored cousins, driven by the same thing: You are one person in a 7 billion player game, and the accidental impact of other people’s actions can be more consequential than your own." - Morgan Housel Surround yourself with compounders and fire your boring friends– Being around other ambitious people who are willing to push you will make you better. Strike the balance between being loyal to longtime friends, and doing anything for them, but spending the bulk of your time around people who will push your edges and make you think bigger. Fire your Boring Friends - “If you are optimizing for living an extraordinary” life, you have to fire all the boring friends and find people living extraordinary lives.” You don’t get what you don’t ask for. I love the story of Anthony meeting his future wife, Polina, for coffee and asking for the next date for that same night. The answer is NO if you don’t ask. It’s worth the potential rejection because the upside is so great. In this case, they got married and have two children. The people who sustain excellence are not afraid to make the ask. Get on the plane -- When in doubt, go see them in person. "Experience is a liability when it comes to setting expectations." Sometimes, ignorance is bliss. Not knowing that something is supposed to be hard can be useful. Respect other people's time - “When I was playing football in college one of our coaches used to say, “5 minutes early is on time and on time is late.” By respecting other people's time they will realize you are a serious person. Childhood is not a crutch — Don't have a victim mindset to use childhood as a crutch for poor behavior. “It’s easy to use your childhood as a crutch instead of seeing it as a chisel.” - Cameron Hanes Simplicity signals mastery — Tim Urban is the master at this. As a writer and/or teacher, your writing should make the reader feel smarter, not dumber. Using big complicated words and sentences shows that you don’t know what you’re talking about. The world seems to separate itself into two groups - the people who never stop learning and everyone else. Document Good Ideas – Ideas run the world. “I created a system that works well for me. I broke everything down into four areas where I could find a good idea. Books, social media, conversations, and audio/video content. Advice: "Seek risk. What is the riskiest thing you can do? The greatest returns are on the other side of risk. Run towards the risk."
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607: Dr. Meg Meeker - How to Raise Tough, Resilient, Hard-Working, & Kind Children (Author of Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters)
11/04/2024
607: Dr. Meg Meeker - How to Raise Tough, Resilient, Hard-Working, & Kind Children (Author of Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters)
Full show notes at The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Read our book, The Score That Matters Dr. Meg Meeker has spent more than thirty years practicing pediatric and adolescent medicine and counseling teens and parents. Dr. Meeker is a popular speaker and bestselling author of several books, including the national bestseller, STRONG FATHERS, STRONG DAUGHTERS; THE 10 HABITS OF HAPPY MOTHERS; and BOYS SHOULD BE BOYS. Notes: One of the best things fathers can do is raise their daughters’ expectations of life. That will directly affect how your daughter talks, how she dresses, how well she does in school, and even what sports or musical instruments she chooses to play. You can help her set goals, help her define a higher purpose for her life, and as a result, her self-esteem will skyrocket. And it will bring you closer, because she’ll recognize you as a leader and an ally, helping her to chart a better course. Don’t post anything about your kids on social media. It makes them think they are your trophy to show off. And be mindful of how you talk about them to others. Do you only focus on their accomplishments? They are listening to what you say about them… Be the man you want her to marry – See it, do it, teach it. What are the 5 strongest character qualities you want your children to have? How are you showing that to them every day? You are setting the standard. They are watching carefully. You will create what is quote, “normal,” in their life. Are you living with integrity, working hard, not speaking poorly behind others backs? You are showing them how they should behave. If you were watching yourself from outside your body, would you like what you see? We have to live it every day. Your daughter sees you (her dad) as her hero. The smartest, strongest, best person in the world. Kids want their dad's approval. "I want attention just for being me, not for performing a sport." "You don't just love them. You love their company." Always do good work, but don't boast about it. "He believed in me." -- The power of the belief that Meg's dad had in her. Teach her Humility - Genuine humility is the starting point for every other virtue. But teaching it is tricky. Your daughter needs to feel unique and important in your eyes. Humility doesn’t make sense unless it’s modeled. To fulfill her potential, your daughter needs to understand who she is, where she comes from, and where she’s going. Humility is seeing ourselves honestly… Self-centeredness is a problem if we base our entire lives around our kids wants and desires. Clarify your morals (without apology) – If you want her to live by a code or set of values, you must first live by them. If you don’t want her to lie, then you should never lie. If you don’t want her to use cuss/swear words, then you should not use them. If you don’t want to her to drink, then don’t normalize it in your house. She wants to see conviction and leadership in her father. Teach your kids to serve in a soup kitchen. Be in service of others. Gain perspective by seeing how others who are less fortunate than you live. Embrace them when they fail. The dad plants the default in the minds of their children. What do you want that default behavior to be? How to approach your daughter's boyfriends? Shake their hands Be curious, ask questions Invite them over for dinner
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606: Jack Carr - Writing Thrillers (The Terminal List), Working with Chris Pratt, Fighting Wars as a Navy SEAL, Putting In The Work, & Never Missing an Opportunity To Make Someone's Day
10/27/2024
606: Jack Carr - Writing Thrillers (The Terminal List), Working with Chris Pratt, Fighting Wars as a Navy SEAL, Putting In The Work, & Never Missing an Opportunity To Make Someone's Day
Full show notes at Read our book, The Score That Matters Jack Carr is a former Navy SEAL who for 20 years led special operations teams as a Team Leader, Platoon Commander, Troop Commander, and Task Unit Commander. Jack is also the #1 New York Times Best Selling author of 8 books and his debut novel, The Terminal List, was adapted into the #1 Amazon Prime Video series starring Chris Pratt. Notes When Jack was little, he hoped to grow up and do two things. Be a Navy SEAL and become an author. Jack's grandfather died at war. "It's in my blood." "You have to prove that you can add value to your tribe." "Great warriors run to the sound of the guns to be with their fellow service members." Commonality of the best SEAL Leaders: Trust, up and down the chain of command High character Good decision-maker: The decisions you’ve made in the past are your currency. Do things you don’t have to do. Run with the squad, put rounds down range. You don’t have to be the best at it, but you should be very good at all of the things the people you’re leading are doing. Reading novels: "When I was young, I was reading for the magic in those pages." PUT IN THE WORK… Jack has been putting in the work since he was little. He read books for the magic in those pages. All of that reading has helped inform him of what great storytelling looks like. And then he PUT IN THE WORK. If you want to be a published author, you need to WRITE. It’s that simple. Do the work, and get the manuscript done. And then take the next step. A lot of people want to be published authors. Not everyone wants to write. Like Ronnie Coleman said, “A lot of people want to be a bodybuilder, but nobody wants to lift these heavy weights every day.” Mentor, Brad Thor: “Brad told me that the only difference between a published and unpublished author is that the published author doesn’t quit.” Writers Block – One thing I’ll share from Steven Pressfield is that he said “Hey, you never hear of a trucker getting trucker’s block”. Writer’s block does not exist - you just have to go do it. Books to recommend: ONCE AN EAGLE by Anton Myrer. It is advice that a wise Sam Damon shares: “You can’t help what you were born and you may not have much to say about where you die, but you can and you should try to pass the days in between as a good man.” In the end that really says it all. Advice: Never miss an opportunity to make someone’s day… Make that your default setting. Work to add value to others' lives. Make their day. Help them. Make introductions, LISTEN to them, offer ideas to help solve their issues
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