Ryan Hawk: Daily Leadership Habits That Shape Who You Become | Leadership | E408

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young and profiting.com/deal. You're not entitled to anything. Nobody, literally nobody cares how hard you work. They care about the value you can provide to them. That's just the way the world works. You can say, well, no, that's not right. No, that is right. That is how the world works. Stay Ryan Hawk is here to tell us the truth about becoming great. Ryan is a host of the learning leader show and a best-selling author who has spent years studying how elite performers think,

work and lead. I think people are willing to start. They're not willing to keep going. The difference between the ones who sustain excellence and the ones who do not is the willingness and the ability to get up and keep doing it day after day after day after day. So much of success early on is about imitating other people who are already doing what you want to do. Talk to us about the importance of not being afraid of copying, especially initially.

Imitate, then innovate. One of the greatest bands of all time started by copying others verbatim. The Beatles, they were afraid to play their own music initially. In eventually, they got really good at playing together, at getting the reps together, playing other people's music that they would start to sprinkle on their own. The key that was you got to get started, even if when you get started, you're going to copy somebody else. That's okay.

“As an individual contributor, somebody who has a boss, how do you have to act differently”

as a leader? When you're just the player, the individual, you have a specific task and your job is Ryan, welcome to Young and Profiting Podcast. Thank you. I appreciate you having me. I am excited for this conversation. We're both podcasters. We both interviewed hundreds of people on our shows and we know that there is a price tag to success. Everybody wants to highlight real, everybody wants to talk about the outcome, nobody wants to talk

about the price it takes to become successful and that's actually the title of your book, the price of becoming. Let's start there. Why did you call your book that and what are some of the big things that you've learned about the price of becoming? Kindling things are really hard and so our mutual friend and book agent Dave Maltoware who was helping me with my proposal, especially when I got stuck. We were just throwing out ideas of things that have really moved me

at written actually a big chunk of the book before even titleing it. And then one of the things that popped out was a quote from a previous podcast guest named JJ Reddick who was a basketball player

now is the coach of the Los Angeles Lakers and he had said to me you've never arrived. You're always

becoming. So that becoming was a big deal and in fact it's embossed and the background of my book it's raised up as you feel it feels beautiful. I just literally got the first copies of the book yesterday. So it's fresh in my mind. Yeah, it's very, very cool. So combine that. I'm a big fan of Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett and the fact that they've built these extraordinary careers, investing, and business, and finance, but it's actually there's such big believers in the power

of compounding. So you look at that. You look at my life. Look at the 700 plus interviews.

“The idea generation that Dave and I went through and we put it all together and that's how we got”

the price of becoming and the subtitle was important to understanding the compounding practices of high performance. So it's really a book about leading yourself. My podcast is focused on leadership. It's called the learning leader show and so everything that we do is it's focused on how to become

about that is it just never ends. And that's the hard part, but also the fun part. Yeah, I can't

wait to unpack all the principles in your book. So if we're talking about the price that ambitious people pay for success, a lot of ambitious people think like, you know, I'll pay the price tag. I'm going to work hard. And what are some of the common things that people avoid that is a

“price that you have to pay for success? I think a lot of people get excited to start things.”

They think of ideas. They want to start a business. They want to partner with somebody whatever may be. And it's they get all this energy and excitement because it's new. Let's go. Let's do it. The difference is between the ones who sustain excellence and the ones who do not is the willingness and the ability to get up. You know, this is well, it's anybody to get up and to continue doing it day after day after day. I tell

the story in the book of Paul Raeville, the greatest lacrosse player ever, probably. And the fact that he went to this lacrosse camp in middle school. This legendary coach Tony Siemens said, "Who wants to get a college scholarship? Who here wants it? And every kid raises their hand." And he said, "Okay, I can guarantee you're going to get one." And they're like, "What? What do you

“can guarantee?" He goes, "Yes, I can." Here's what you have to do. From this day forward,”

you have to wake up and take 100 shots a day. 100 shots a day. Here's the catch. You can never

miss a day. Ever. It's raining. Take your 100 shots. It's Christmas. Take your 100 shots. You're sick. Take your 100 shots. And that was kind of Paul's move to life of, "I'm going to take my 100 shots." And he goes on to get a scholarship and be one of the greatest players of all time. I think we all have that version of what are your 100 shots. What are you willing to get up and do each day? No matter what. And the problem is, I think people are willing to start.

They're not willing to keep going. And that's like the end of a keynote speech, people ask a similar question. And it's the least interesting answer for them of all time because they don't want to hear that. They don't want to hear what you've got to keep it up and keep doing it day after day after day after day and stack days over the course of many years to give yourself a shot. People, that's not the magic answer. That's not the quick answer. That's the longer term game.

But I found the ones who sustain excellence, they're the ones who are willing to do that. Yeah, it's unsexy, right? Nobody wants to hear consistency. Consistency is the key. As you know, too, the consistency with podcasting is it's I think it's one of the number one ways to build trust. Oh, yeah. If you say, okay, I'm going to ship my work every week or whatever your cadence you choose. But I'm going to do it like for in my case, it's Sunday night, seven o'clock

Eastern, no matter what, never missed 11 years, at least that that much. Sometimes more.

So when you do that, what you're what you're telling and showing people is that you show up and you do it no matter what for a decade plus. And if you do that, people then trust you to follow through on doing what you say you'll do. And I can trust myself because I follow through.

“So I think that's the key thing when you talk about relationships and trust. It's consistently”

doing the thing that you said you do for a decade plus. Consistency is super important. But oftentimes we've got a plan that maybe we want to be consistent on, but the plan doesn't even come to fruition, right? We can never really tell what's actually going to happen. You've got a great story from college where you were going to be a quarterback and somebody basically took your spot and it totally changed your plan. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't have a plan at

all. It's still important to be planning. So talk to us about that. Yeah, I had a great coach. The late, great Terry Hepner, super grateful, unfortunate to play for him. Every single day, Coach Hepner would say to us, you got to have a plan, work the plan and plan for the unexpected. And you know, when you're 18, 19, I kind of was listening and I kind of was paying attention and kind of doing that. But you really get like that fortune cookie wisdom. Like you start thinking about that as

you, at least in my case, as I'm matured and got a little bit older, the importance of having a plan working the plan and then knowing that you're going to get punched in the face and how are you going to respond? And so in that case, what you're referring to in college, I come as a highly recruited quarterback to Miami University here in the Mid-American Conference in Southwestern Ohio. The highest rate of recruit though in the history of the school still to this day also happened to be my exact

same age and to play my exact same position. And so we battled out for two years and during my

We both had played in the game and Coach Hepner looked me dead in the eye and said, he gives us

a better chance to win than you do. And I think that was a turning point and it's a conversation I think about every day of my life still to this day, you know, it's been a while because what it showed me was in order to have an opportunity to play or in order to have the opportunity to run my business or to have any of our clients, I have to add value to those people's lives. And I didn't add enough value to my teammates' lives, at least in that case somebody else added more. And I think

“that's super helpful to learn in your formative years that that's what it takes. And yes, it was harsh.”

Yes, I hated it. I was super upset. But that's what was needed for me in that moment. And it now is one of the luckiest things that has ever happened to me even though at the time I was not

very happy about it, but yeah, I have a plan, work to plan, plan, feel unexpected and know that

your job as a leader, your job as a person is to find a way to add value to other people's lives. And if you do that, I like your chances of good things happening. And if you don't, I don't. And that's what I try to do. Yeah, fam, if I had a dollar for every time a business leader came on the show and told me, Hala, hiring the right people is everything. I'd probably be retired by now. And guys, they're right.

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“percent off their four week AI competency program. I think this is a really big lesson here is that”

effort is not the equivalent of value and I think a lot of young professionals need to understand that they're thinking about why am I getting past up for this promotion? Why am I not getting picked? And it's because they're not adding enough value, even if they're working really hard, can you dig deeper on that for us? Yeah, I mean, you think, in this case, in the weight room all the time, I'm watching extra film, I'm staying after practice throwing with all the receivers, doing

these things that the other guy isn't necessarily doing. The difference was, though, when we played in the games, the other guy played better than I did. He added more value to the team. So, while I don't think that means you should more card, you absolutely should, but you're not entitled to anything. Nobody, literally nobody cares how hard you work. They care about the value you can provide to them. That's just, that's just the way the world works. You can say, well, no, that's not

right. No, that is right. That is how the world works. Do you think you're entitled to something you're literally entitled to absolutely nothing ever? The way the world works is what value do you bring to the situation? What value do you bring to other people? And if you add value to their lives, you make their lives better. Good things are going to happen to you. If you don't, they won't. Say, this, this goes for any relationship. I think about this with my marriage. I'm thinking,

all right, I've been with my wife Miranda for a while now, but my job is to make her life better.

“It's to add value to her life every single day. Right. That's what I'm, I think if you go into”

relationships, you go into your work, you go into your podcast, you go into writing your book with that mentality of, what am I doing to add value to your life? Better things will happen than if you think, well, hey, I've worked really, really hard. I'm entitled to some sort of result. That's not how it works. It's not how the world works. It's all about what are you able to do to add value for others. Yeah. And something that I love reading in your book that really stuck

with me is that you are saying that value is actually the best networking tool. Like you could go all the events and you could do all the performative things for networking, but it's really all about value. So what's the best way to know? You know, again, you're, we do the same thing, but you're,

you've been doing this now for a while. Yeah. How have you gotten like to meet all these amazing

people? You've done something that has made them want to come to you. That's exactly what you've done. This is your career. Right. We're talking about is you've done amazing things that have added value to other people's lives and then they've called you or they've shown up to see you or they've emailed you. So one of the stories I tell on the book is Gracie Abrams who now is like a much bigger star than when I was writing that section a few years ago and I saw her as the opening

act for Taylor Swift when I took my daughters to that show is Gracie sitting there writing songs by herself in her bedroom trying to create amazing music. And what happens? She puts it out into the world for all to judge her and it just so happens that Taylor Swift was listening. And so how did she get on the airs tour as one of the opening acts? She put out excellent work and it caught the eye of the person who was making that decision and that person called her and asked her to come

open for her. And now she's exploding selling out arenas herself without anyone else. So to me,

“what's the best way to network? Don't go to networking. I mean, you can go to networking. That's”

fine, right? The best way to network with amazing people is to put out amazing work and have them

come to you. Again, way easier said than done, but focus on excellent work as Cal Newport or Steve Martin might say, be so good they can't ignore you and consistently ship that day after day after day. And then opportunities start coming your way. But usually that takes a ton of reps, a ton of work, and there is no guarantee. Again, you could work really hard and it still might not be good enough. But I think it's worth it. And I've personally felt the power of that. I know you have as well. And

that's a, I think a fun way to go about this networking thing is to try to ship great work. Yeah. And I feel like mastery is just so important in whatever you're doing. Whether you're a master in your niche for your service or even like a mastery in terms of like your product

when your product is just so good and the amount of referrals and word of mouths that can spread

“your product in service because it's just so good. It just makes everything easier. And I think a”

lot of people focus on the marketing of it all or the the words surrounding it all instead of actually just having a really quality product or service that speaks for itself. One of my favorite writers is Tim Urban. He writes it weight but why.com doesn't really do any marketing not really great on social media. But the work itself is so compelling and so good. Talk about mastery. Now, he's gotten tons and tons of reps. And he's created this, this, this really cool life for himself

because he's shipped so much good work consistently over a really long period of time now that others could go to him. And there's countless examples of of that. But it's creating some sort of

mastery through repetition almost always. You're not normally born that brilliant. It takes a lot

a lot of work. Like Maggie Rogers another one. I know we're getting into music now. But she's

“discovered by Farrell at NYU when Farrell was a visiting professor. Well, you actually look at Maggie”

Rogers life leading up to that day that viral video that you can see of her song Alaska, which you've probably seen on Twitter or other social media places. What was Maggie doing leading up that day writing like crazy performing music for a super long period of time. And then an opportunity came to her by having this great musician come visit her class and they filmed it and now it goes viral and it helps her. So she New York Times writes a story about that as if she's this

overnight sensation. She's just like you talked to her though. And she goes, what do you mean overnight sensation? I know they needed that for this like brilliant story to run in the times. That's not even close to the reality of how it happened. It was years and years and years worth of work. And then she capitalized and made the most of it when she got her opportunity. That seems to be the case for so many of these stories that that people have been doing the work

for a long time honing and practicing mastery. As you said, then the opportunity arises and they make the most of it. Yeah. And part of mastery is not being afraid to keep learning

and never peaking as you say. Talked out of the concept of never peaking and why we should

internally understand that we should never peaking. Yeah. I learned that from Andrew Brandt. So he's had a wild career as a lawyer. He's a sports agent. He's worked as a president of an NFL football team. He teaches law. I'd Villanova now and writes books and has a podcast. Anyway, I go on this leadership retreat. This men's retreat to I rented a house in Scottsdale and we're actually hiking mountains out in Scottsdale, Arizona's awesome 12 of us. And one of the things Andrew said to me,

he also does all these crazy triathlons and he he not only competes but he wins for his age group. And I said, so how do you how do you train like you do you try to build up so that you're peaking

at race time and you go, oh, don't know. My life motto is never peaking. I know I always want to be

gradually and he's in his 60s now. I always want to be gradually getting a little bit better, a little bit better, a little bit better. I'm not trying to peak at race time. I'm never trying to peak. I always want to be getting a little bit better. And so this mentality of no matter what you're doing, we're not striving to peak. We're striving to just get a little bit better. And then again, the power of compounding. He's actually winning triathlons for his age group because he's just always

“getting a little bit better, a little bit better. I have whatever it is that he's doing. And I think”

again, whether it's podcasting, interviewing, writing, keynote speaking, trying to just get like, what am I doing today to get a little bit better at whatever my craft is before I go to bed tonight. And if you stack enough of those days, the power of compounding takes over. So it's just again, the through line of this entire conversation, mastery, consistency, a little bit better. And then compounding takes over if you're willing to do a day after day for many, many days. What are some

of the signs that somebody is living as if they've already peaked? Oh, okay. I have you ever had a job in corporate America? Yes. Okay. If you had like a great boss and have you had like a bad boss? Yeah. So when you said that, when you, the first thing that came to mind when you asked me that question was, my least favorite boss. I won't say his name, but his, I have a thought bubble right here. In this person, in his mind, has got it all figured out. He doesn't really need to read any

books or listen to podcasts or watch TED talks or go to leadership conferences. You know, he's got a big title. He makes good money. He's got it all figured out. And his mind, he's peaked. He's at his

leader is. My name, my podcast learning leader because of how much I love the leaders in my life

who are always taking notes, always reading books, going to conferences, meeting with mentors,

listening to podcasts. They never have this belief that I've made it or I got this, right? It's,

“it almost always have a bit of imposter syndrome, which is weird, but I think in a way shows some”

of their humility versus the person who's just got it all figured out. And when you've worked for somebody like that, you know how bad that feels. You know how it's like, gosh, I do not want to be like that person. So it's really just the anti I've got this. I've got it all figured out. I know what I'm doing type thing. It's, it's a little bit of, uh, I'm in rooms that I'm definitely on the smartest person. I have a little bit of imposter syndrome. I'm not really sure. Some humility

about it every day. And I think that can fuel you and drive you to continually try to get better. And, and to me, like, I'm deeply attracted to people like that. I want to be around those people

have that always becoming mindset. Yeah. It's all about getting out of your comfort zone,

being in rooms that make you feel uncomfortable, feeling that feeling of imposter syndrome, and not being afraid of it. You had a really big imposter syndrome. You were on needy seals,

“and all these, like, really fancy people that I guess it's scared you. What happened there?”

And what kind of imposter syndrome were you feeling? General Stanley McRistell, four star general, had him on my podcast and afterwards we kind of kept talking remain friends. He actually ended writing the forward to my first book. But after we recorded, he said, "Hey, uh, I teach a year-long class at Yale." And in the spring, I take all of my students to get his bird for a couple days. Do you want to be one of my guests? And I thought, I mean, this is, this is, I've ever been there

before, uh, and to be, to, like, tour get his bird with a four star general. I couldn't pass it up. So I said, "Yes." And then I get there. And the other guest of general McRistell. So he has all the students. And by the way, all the students are like, "Way smarter than me." And, and, and, and way brighter, they're doing crazy things. Some of them are really actually a little bit older, um, so they're not just college kids, but some, a lot of them are actually college kids. So I get there, though, and he,

he, the night before we're going to go tour get his bird. He says, "Hey, let me introduce you guys to all of my guests." And the first one he's the, he has stand up is, is the person running Cleveland Clinic. Then the next one he, he has is a top tier leader from the British special forces operator, you know, a guy who looks exactly with the accent, like a British special forces person. And then he has this big time navy seal that he introduces. And then the next person, he introduced,

was me. And he's like, "Yeah, but Ryan and I, I was on his podcast learning leader. It was,

it was great. It was fun. And we kind of hit it off. And, and, and I, all, I felt, I never felt so small.

I thought, what am I doing? Like, why, I, I, I, I kind of wanted to like just go to the bathroom or something to not have not be introduced next to all of these people. But that was precisely why I needed to be in that room. Because like, you feel a little out of depth. You feel major imposter syndrome. You feel like I don't belong here. The funny thing is the other people in the room, they didn't treat me like that. They treat me like they treated everybody else, including the

CEO of Cleveland Clinic and the British special forces guys and the navy seals and all of the students. And so you think like, man, it was all in my own head. Now, it was good because I felt like I learned a ton. I got to meet some amazing people. I got to have these great deep conversations with super thoughtful, accomplished people. But it's way better, I think, to to regularly go into spaces like that where you feel, I don't know if I belong here. Like, what, what is this?

But then you realize, hey, they're actually just people too. They're super accomplished people. But they're just people too. We're having conversations as humans do. I should do this more often.

“So I think it was just a signal to me like you do. You should try to put yourself in more of these”

rooms more frequently because it's a great way to get past this, this thing of feeling. Do I belong here? Actually, yeah, I think I'm good. And then have conversations with these brilliant people. That's how you learn. That's how you grow. What happens when you surround yourself with people who are doing bigger things than you're doing? You can't help but think bigger. I, again, I'm guessing you do this regularly. But you can't help but start thinking at the level that they think.

I love whether it's a conference, especially when you're backstage. If you happen to be speaking at it, and there's other speakers who you really look up to, that's really cool. They do the dinner the night before. Sometimes, which I really love, those moments, I get to go to a golf tournament every year with my younger brother and there's usually a lot of notable people whether they're movie stars or professional athletes or CEOs. And just sitting in the hospitality tent where it's

the round of golf. And the here, here are the way they talk. They're just, they're not able to think small. They're, they're not able to do anything. And it just becomes like normal to them. And when you're around that, it just starts becoming normal to you or you start realizing the back and a private moment afterwards. Whoa, I'm not thinking big enough. And I love that. I love being around when I'm with a CEO of Insight Global, $5 billion company recently, Bert Bean and Bert has become a

good friend. And I was, I was sitting in his office recently and he looked at me and he's just like, bro, why did you come in here asking me for 10 million bucks to pitch a show for Netflix?

You're thinking way too small. And I was like, Bert, that I never that didn't come to mind,

he's like, well, dude, that's a problem. And that's what great leaders do. That's what great CEOs do because we have what we have a partnership stuff that we do because you should be, that's the type of stuff you should be asking me for. That's the way that you should be thinking, you shouldn't be thinking like, well, let's just onto the next podcast. He's like, no, dude,

“yes, focus on doing the work, but also focus on the big thing. That's what you should be doing.”

You're good enough to be doing that. And so being around people like that, that just makes you think bigger. So it's again, another signal puts yourself in those rooms, surround yourself with big thinkers. It'll start rubbing off on you and that's a really good thing. So you've got this simple framework in your book. It's learn work lead. Talk to us about why we've got to follow that order of operations

in order to be a successful leader. It's like a flywheel. So the first part is fueling your intake.

This is like mapping a perfect day for me and again, string a lot of days together and good things happen. So the first part is like fueling your intake engine, which we're both kind of doing right now having this conversation, but that would be listening to podcasts speaking with the mentor, going to a class, whatever it may be reading a book, putting yourself in rooms with bright people. So fuel your intake engine. Then the second part of that is you can't just be a learner. You've

got to be a duer, run experiments, try things, put what you're learning into play. We learn who we are in practice, not in theory that comes from Hermania Abar when she was on my show. We learn who we are in practice, not in theory, meaning we actually learn through doing the thing.

“You want to be a keynote speaker. We'll get on stages and give speeches. That's how you learn to”

actually to be good at it is by doing it and getting the reps. So learn, then you've got to experiment. You got to do the thing. That's the next part of the flywheel. Right? Then there's usually like a stage of reflection of, okay, I ran the experiment. I did the thing. What went well? What didn't? What should I keep doing? What should I stop doing? Right? That part's important too. And then you move on to the leadership part, which is

teaching other people. Teaching I found to be the best tool for learning that exists. And we teach it a number of ways. We teach from just like literally getting up in front of a group of people and speaking, teaching them. We teach through writing, right? You write a book. You're in the process of writing. You and Dave are talking about this right now. Right? That's the ultimate form of teaching is getting those messy thoughts out of your head onto the page. You're getting clear on who you are and

what you believe because you're doing that. And then the flywheel just keeps spinning. Right? Learn, work. So fuel the intake tension, run experiments, reflect on that, teach it to others, and then keep it going and keep it going. I think if you keep doing that again, day after day after day, spending parts of each day doing all of those things, you look back after a year full. I like your chances. I'm probably going to bet on you. And if you can string those days along. Again, the

“problem is consistency or lack thereof. And that's why it doesn't necessarily always work for”

people. But if you can keep doing it day after day, stack days, I like your chances of good things happening. If you're getting luckier, or at least it appears as luck to others, but really it's because of you and your consistency and doing the work. A lot of people who are tuning into this podcast right now, their young professionals are trying to find their footing in their career or their young entrepreneurs who are launching a new business. And so much of success early on is about

imitating other people who are already doing what you want to do, already successful, where you want to be successful. Talk to us about the importance of not being afraid of copying, especially initially in your career. imitate, then innovate. David Perrell said that on my show. One of the things when I was doing research on this, I had no idea that the Beatles started out as a

cover band. They'd always run around stuff. I didn't, I didn't either. They had written

their own stuff. They were afraid to play their own music initially. So those long marathon sessions

together, at getting their reps together, playing other people's music that they would start to sprinkle on their own. So this is one of the greatest bands of all time started by copying others verbatim. Okay, imitate, then innovate. My first job was as a sales rep at Lexus next is sitting in

a cubicle. And my boss, Rex Caswell, what he told me was, okay, here's what we're going to do.

You're going to sit with the best reps in the company. I'm going to have you say with them, you're actually going to plug in so you can hear what they're saying and what the perspective customer's saying. And then after you do that for a while, you're going to go back to your cubicle and you're going to say the things that they said to your perspective customers, you're literally going to copy them verbatim. And then as you go, you'll get more comfortable and you'll start

being able to inject your own personalities. You're going to imitate, then you're going to innovate, eventually you're going to find your own voice. So whatever the thing is like, as a quarterback, I would watch film of my favorite players and my ball handling, my footwork, the way I would throw

the way I would read a defense, try to look off a safety, whatever it may be was literally exactly

like the quarterbacks that I looked up to. So this, this applies, whether it's music, whether it sales, whether it's quarterback play, hosting a podcast, you could do this literally with everything is you find people that you really admire the way they do it. And then initially, nobody's really paying attention initially anyway. So who cares? You're going to imitate them, sometimes copying them verbatim. And then as you get the repetitions,

you're going to find your own voice and it's going to become more and more you. Again, you know this, because at the beginning of your podcast, probably if you listen back to some of them, I know if you listen my early days, it is insanely embarrassing, very cringe to listen to my early episodes. I was copying others. I was trying to figure it out. It sounds bad. Occasionally though, there's like a good moment, but for the most part, it's pretty cringe. But as you go,

you know, you find your own voice, you figure it out. You get better and better and better and better.

“And so I think again, the key that was you got to get started, even if when you get started,”

you're going to copy somebody else, that's okay. Eventually, though, then you find your own voice and do it that way. But I think this, this imitate and innovate can help people get started. Then the key is to keep going and finding your own voice. Something else that I loved in this learning section of your book was your idea of writing things down in order to really understand how you think. I'd love for you to explain that to us and some of the things that we can do to actually

start thinking better. Again, with all the leaders I work with, I, one of the questions that I asked is like, "What is your writing practice?" And I'm surprised that frequently it doesn't exist. And so why I push hard every leader to create a writing practice is because you don't fully know what you believe or what you think until you get those thoughts out of your head onto the page. Now, you can choose to publish them so all others can read or not. I don't care.

“I think it's great to publish them so others can read so then you can get feedback too and then”

it adds an extra piece of learning there. But at minimum, do it for yourself because you don't fully grasp. You don't fully know what you believe until you write it down. And to me, I learned that just from, from doing it because I thought like, "No, I know what I think. I know what I believe then somebody asked me about it." And I, I'm kind of lost. Well, because I, I don't have a writing practice in the my early days as a leader. I need to develop a writing practice for giving

those thoughts out of your head on the page. So whether, whether it's like, have somebody supply you with prompts. Sometimes people have to do tricks where they send them as text messages, they reply to emails. Whatever it is, like, I'll do that with leaders that say, "I'll do it. I don't, I don't even know how to do that." Well, I'll just send them an email with questions. And then they, I'm like, they're backing in to how they're doing that because I'm just asking them

some questions. So whether you need someone to supply you with prompts, whatever may be, create some sort of writing practice. Some easy prompts to start for anybody. Let's say you've

never done this before. That is, okay, write down in a Google Doc. What did I do today

“to go to bed a little bit wiser than I was when I woke up? Right. So if you want to”

ensure that you're learning something every day, you got to have a forcing function to learn. Well, I'm going to supply you with a prompt. You're going to have to answer that every single day. And because you know you're going to write that, we're probably going to be more apt to do it. And then in the process of actually writing it out, you're going to become much more clear on what that thing is. So everybody, I think everybody needs some sort of writing practice. If you publish

publicly, great. If not, you still should do it. If you want to get really clear on what you believe, what you think. And I think all good leaders, they're very, very clear. So this is one of the best ways to do that. Maybe the best way to do that. I totally agree. I feel like it just makes

different concepts. And I find that I'm at my best like right after I finished developing like a new

“webinar. And I want to just like talk about these concepts that I just finished writing down on”

my thoughts about, you know it's so well. You speak it so well. And so teaching is like a really

powerful way. And I also learn from you that you believe that sales becomes easier and better when you

actually write down what you think. Why do you believe that? I mean, you get clear on who you are. I mean, we could go on for another hour about the the the the the profession of selling that that all sales is a part of literally everything we do every single day. We're all we're all selling something at all times sales is beautiful. Maybe the first 12 years in corporate America. That's what I was doing. So I'm a bit biased. My dad was in sales. His entire career. He wrote books on sales.

But I think if you if you're a person who could understand somebody's current state and their desired state and you're really good at bridging that gap, you're going to like good things are going to happen for you. And you're like, if you talk about webinars, that's probably exactly what you do on a webinar. Like you're understanding your your viewers, your listeners current state, you're understanding their desired state. And what you're teaching what you're showing them is helping

to bridge that gap. My solution is helping to bridge the gap from current to desired state. That's

“what sales is. And so to figure that out, you have to write that down from a leadership perspective.”

I'm glad I'm so glad you brought up like you teaching in the webinars. Yeah. I will push every leader I work with the question I'll ask them is, when is the next training you are leading? And they'll be like, what? Well, you got to be putting yourself in the mode of being a teacher on a regular basis. Because when you teach, you're going to want to get up and add value again to people's lives. Well, to do that, you got to prepare to do that. You got to get really, really

clear on what are you trying to teach people? Well, that process is when you will learn a ton of preparing and then doing the webinar. And then afterwards in the webinar, you're probably going to get some feedback of, whoa, that really hit. Oh, that part, you know, whatever. And so now you're thinking, okay, now I'm learning a little bit on all of my prep, all of my teaching, what resonates. Whenever I write a book and if somebody takes notes, I'll ask them, can you send me your notes?

I don't know what's going to resonate with people, right? Like there are certain things that will resonate with some that won't with others. So I like getting notes like actual kind of rough sketch notes of my books, of what when they read, because it helps me understand what resonates

with people. So that feedback is another critical part, which you only get if you teach. If you

put yourself in that position of doing it. So yeah, I push leaders to do that on a regular basis. A lot of learning takes place through the prep, the action of doing it, and then afterwards, getting the feedback. Yeah, and teaching doesn't only have to be tier employees. You can teach the public, and that's such a great marketing tactic. For me, I have a podcast network where I grow and monetize 45 other podcasts. And so 45. Yeah, I represent people like Jenna Kutcher and

John Lee Dumas and all these like Russell Brunson, all these huge business influencers, and I get them sponsorships. And in order to attract these, I just want the biggest podcasts in the world. So I have a newsletter that I send to like the top 1,000 podcasters where I tell them things that they literally can't find on the internet about how to monetize their podcasts. And I'll have people like Alex from Mozi opening it 20 times, right? And it gives me so much visibility and credibility.

“And it's great for me because I get to write down everything that I think and really crystallized”

to your point how I think about advertising and sponsorships. And then when I get on the sales calls, I got all these things to kind of pull from because I already wrote it down and really crystallized my thoughts around it. So I also feel like it's a great marketing tactic to teach to your target clients, basically. Big time. You're showing us things that we don't know. Again, this goes back to kind of like the networking thing too. You're creating a reason for people

to want to come to you. If they're opening your email 20 times, that dude probably wants to Alex from Mozi wants to talk to you. Wait, what is this? What am I learning? Like I know a lot and yet I'm learning more. I need to have a conversation with her. So yeah, I think that's another example. And that's that's all about adding value to other people's lives. Right? You're adding

value. You're doing amazing work there than wanting to come to you. It's it's beautiful when it

works that way. But your focus is on what adding value to other people's lives. Not all of us are perfect, right? Everybody has weaknesses and things that really hinder them in their career. For me, when I worked corporate many years ago, I'm really petite. I'm like five foot tall. And for a while, like when I was like an intern and stuff like that worked fine. But then as I was growing in my career,

respected. I look a lot younger than I am and all the things. And so then I decided, okay, I'm going

to go online on LinkedIn. And nobody knows how tall I am. Nobody, like nobody, and I like blew up on LinkedIn and then started this whole career of podcasting and my business and became an entrepreneur. And I didn't let being petite hold me back. I just changed the game. I changed my environment and just changed the rules. And you tell this great story about Wayne Gretzky, who did the same thing in hockey. Tell us about that. Gretzky's office. So he would watch players

growing up. His dad tells us he's great stories and he'd actually take notes on the way that they would play Wayne was not very big, uh, undersized for a hockey player and found the way to use that to his advantage. When he was studying other players, he saw that other guys who were his size, like the little guys on the ice. Um, one of the tricks was that they would use the behind, I don't,

I don't know hockey that well, I never played. I've watched it, but I never played. So for hockey players,

they may say, dude, you're your terminology is wrong. But I'm going, this is the best I can do. Okay. So anyway, he would hang out behind the net behind the goal. And that became what was known as Gretzky's office. And so he found a way to use what appeared to be a disadvantage being undersized to his advantage and then would go on to have, you know, one of if not the greatest career in the history of of hockey, uh, when it comes to goals and assists and total points and winning, all that stuff.

“And so really, I think the key learning is much like you did of understanding like, wait a second,”

this is a potential issue for me. Where can I go in order for it to where that doesn't matter? Where a potential weakness doesn't really matter. I think all people, if they can think through what their potential or what perceived weakness is, well, how can I turn that into an advantage for me? Like Gretzky's office like you did on LinkedIn that that made it so that you could build the thing that you built. I think that's really important. And so I, uh, some people they say,

oh, I have this issue or whatever. And then they're kind of resigned to their fate of just like, oh, I guess I'm not going to really leave a positive dent. My push to them is now there's other ways. Everybody like literally everybody in the world has something. I haven't met very many people that have got it all or are perfect. It's figuring out what, how to make the most of what you have to then add value to other people's lives. And if you do that, again, I like your chances of

good things happening versus having the mindset of, oh, no, I guess I just can't do it because of fill in the blank. Those people, they're not high agency people. They're not the ones who are leaving a positive dent. Yeah. It's not about fixing your weaknesses. It's about making your weakness irrelevant. What kind of weaknesses have you made irrelevant? Sports wise, I'm not like huge as a guy six, but one, 215 pounds undersized in that world of my position. What I had to then make the most of

was if I can't see over guys, I need to be more agile. I need to be faster, right? I need to use escape ability in order to be a good player. So that in that world, podcasting, I liked the fact like when I got started 11 years ago, I had zero followers on any social media, I didn't have social media. So we all start with zero. Yeah. And that's still as an main thing, but but I did have a ton of repetitions interviewing in corporate America. Now I was interviewing to hire people, both for my

“own team and other teams once I developed some of those skills. And so I think it was really about”

understanding where I had leverage where I had gotten some reps even before launching. And then I had the benefit of getting a little bit lucky that I launched in the earlier days of podcast. So that I could hit new and noteworthy so that more than my mom and my dad and my friends listened to it because once you hit that high on the charts, again, as you know, it gives you a chance for other people

to become aware of your show. And so those first eight weeks were huge for me because I did the

work to understand iTunes at the time, which is now Apple Podcast and that was really the only place where you needed to be to learn all of that to do all of that work. And so my research, my willingness to cold email, my willingness to get rejected constantly, all of that I think I turned into a skill that helped me get off to a really fast start and then just keep building the momentum from there.

“I love how you're not afraid to talk about how hard you work and how much you try. And I think a lot”

of people are scared of admitting how hard they're working. They want to have this thing called like you call it being non-chalant, right? Well, there's a formative non-chalance in the world, right? Timothy Shalame is one of my favorites because of his speech you may be referencing this speech

the work I invested five years of my life into this role playing Bob Dylan. That's, I love it. I love it. I think we should like honor and celebrate people who don't have that performative non-chalant. So like, oh yeah, I can just kind of walk up and be good. It's like not me. I mean, like some people are built born brilliant. The rest of us need to endure and be consistent and get reps and do it over and over and over and over for a long time just to have a chance. And I'm okay

with that. Like, I can't, if I'm not going to be able to win with being brilliant, then the only way I can win is to have endurance and consistency. Well, most people aren't brilliant. Every once in a while, you'll find that James Clear or Morgan Housel, who are both consistent and brilliant.

“And that's why their book sell a billion copies when they come out. And I love them both. They're”

both amazing humans, too. But that's not most of us. Most of us have to just get up and get after

it to give ourselves a chance. And to me, that's just much more inspiring. It shows there is a chance. But you do have to be willing to do that. And then for the tiny, tiny percentage that are brilliant, hey, more power to you, get after go do your thing. But most of us, that's, that's not us. We have to endure over time in order to have a shot. Yeah, we've got to learn. And we've also got to be curious. And you talk about this concept of rigorous curiosity that somebody taught you. Why do we

have to have rigorous curiosity? I go to New York City. I'm with one of my literary heroes, Brian Copeland. He created the movie "Rounders," which I loved. And when I was in college, I watched it over and over. And the TV show billions, which more people are probably aware of. We're in the writers room at billions, recording a podcast together. And he said, hey, man, the thing that you got is the ability and the willingness to chase your curiosity and obsessions with great rigor.

And I love that phrase. I loved when he said it to me and meant a ton to me. And he, and he actually like it was a skill. Like this ability, the skill to chase your curiosity and obsessions with great

“rigor. And I think that's accurate. Curiosity, I mean, we could talk for an hour about this curiosity”

in my opinion, is the ultimate way to show somebody love. So think about when somebody is like, you've been showing me love for like an hour and hour. But think about somebody when they're genuinely curious and interested in you and what you've done and they ask you questions and they actually listen and then they ask you follow up questions to go a little bit deeper. So that is how I both give and receive love. I ask questions for a living. I have conversations for a living.

Right? I try to work with leaders for a living in a lot of the time. When someone says like, you would buy CEOs and leaders like, well, you're just like coaching them and telling them

what to do. That's almost never what happens. When we have our 101s, I'm just peppering them

with questions because these are brilliant bright, smart, thoughtful, intentional people. They have the answers. They just need somebody to help get them out. And so my job is to be curious about them, about their problems, about their business, about their industry, about their people. And so I'm just continually asking them questions after question after question and ask them follow up questions based on what they're saying. And eventually, they have the answers and

their my job is to help them get those things out. So being curious is a way to learn, being interested in people as a way to show them love and respect. It's also a way to build really deep, rich relationships. And it's the ultimate form of love, both giving and receiving it. So

“I think if you want to build a rich life, you want to build a life full of rich relationships.”

You put two really curious people together and just let them go. It's pretty cool to see. So I've had to develop this though. It's not something that I think was naturally born in me. I think over time, I've become more curious. And then as you again, as you know, the more questions you asked, the more you realize you have so much more to learn. And that's the intoxicating feeling that I'm after is, oh my gosh, there's so much more to learn. Let's keep going. And so

if you were not going out to lunch, it'd be a little bit different. But we're recording a podcast where I'm technically the guest. So I understand my job is to kind of play my role here and be the answer person. But normally we would be having this volley back and forth of questioning of each other, which to me is like so fun. So you know, we get to do this as podcast host and just ask

basically whatever we want. Curiosity is a superpower. Curiosity is how you show people love.

I think it's what makes the world go. And so I try to show up with that as much as possible.

It's how you build relationships and every single opportunity in your life comes through a person.

Think of everything good that has ever happened to you, everything. It comes through a person or a group of people. And so the world is all about building genuine great relationships with people. And then figuring out ways you're going to do some sort of work together. I mean, you just said 45

“people. So you have shown those 45 people. You've given them value. And that's why you”

probably were curious about them. You probably asked them questions. And then you figured out a way to add value to their lives, right? Mm-hmm. Are curious about the topic of monetizing podcasts, right? The back to max. Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, right, right. And you know more probably than they do so you're able to add value to their life because you're you're you're telling them that. So to me being curious about ideas, being curious about topics, being curious about businesses,

being curious about people, build relationships, those relationships usually can lead to some sort of opportunity. You're not it's not a transactional thing. It's a transformational thing. We want to actually have people in our lives that we both change in a better way. We get better. We grow. We improve because of one another. And every opportunity that's come my way, every opportunity in my life has come through a person, some person that I've built, some sort of relationship with. And so yeah,

I think curiosity compounds because it is, again, a way to show interest and love and a person and build an actual relationship and then that relationship can create some sort of opportunity.

“And that's, yeah, I mean, that's how that's how these things seem to go. And I tried to”

to make the most of of all those. Again, the more love I show, the more curiosity I show, it seems a lucky are yet. I don't know. It's just, it's, it's cool how that works. I love that. I want to transition into a game. So I made up this game called "Rionisms." Oh, God. And so these are phrases that you use often. Some of them are, you maybe didn't make it up, but it's, it's just concepts that you talk about in your work. Some of them might be

repeats to reinforce what we learned today in today's podcast. But basically I want you to say,

what does it mean? Why does it matter? How can somebody listening actually apply this concept? Okay. Okay. Rhinism. Number one, the cost of becoming is comfort. The cost of becoming is comfort. So meaning you have to give that up. As we talked about with the Gettysburg story and general McCrystal, the comfortable thing to do would be to either not go, not be in that room, to stay in my hotel room, to leave when he's going through all of those introductions when I realize

I don't belong here. So the price though, becoming the price of improving the price of growth of getting better is to put myself to be in that space, have those conversations. And then by the end of the day, I built relationships with multiple people that I still talk to to this day that are accomplishing big things in the world. So that the price was not being comfortable in that moment and being willing to push through that. And I'm so grateful I did.

And if you look at, look at like all of the greatest accomplishments in your life, then look at what happened leading up to those moments. Maybe you won a game. You probably practiced like crazy. Maybe you killed it on stage, giving a keynote. You probably practiced like crazy. You probably had a coach help y'all. You're about to write and then publish a book. Well, that process is a pain. It's really, or hard. It's really, really uncomfortable. You've

gotten to be an amazing podcast host taking a lot of reps. Had to be uncomfortable. Probably

we're interviewing people that intimidated you at times, at least at the beginning, probably not anymore. All of that stuff. All of those examples are times when you were uncomfortable times when we were uncomfortable. We pushed through it and got better because of it. Okay, Ryan is number two. Your circle is not just support. It is infrastructure. One of my biggest fears in

“life is to become an unaware leader. And as good things happen for you and to you and your life,”

sometimes it makes others a little bit intimidated or afraid to tell you the truth. And so from a relationship perspective, I tell us the coaches on my team that I work with. I tell us to my wife, to my friends. I want in crave feedback, especially when I mess something up. We all need truth tellers in our life. And I push really, really hard on people to continue to tell me the truth, especially the tough stuff. And then it's on me to respond in a way that continues to welcome

I think from a relationship perspective, we need truth tellers. We need people to hold us to kind of

we need people to tell us when we're veering into that world of dude. You don't seem like you have

“high levels of awareness right now. That's to me what I think is really important. Okay,”

next Ryan is them. Leadership is becoming the person whose presence makes others better. Well, we're the emotional thermostat leaders. They get to set the dial. Were the ones who are either adding energy to a space and making it better or sucking it out of the room and making it worse. Some people make a room better by leaving it. We do not want to be those people, right? I challenge and push leaders to think about what they're going to bring to the space, whether it's

virtual or in person every single interaction with other people. Regardless if they work for you,

you work for them, peers doesn't matter. So when you're going in to that meeting or you're going

to have that launch or you're doing whatever you pause or even just two seconds and say, what kind of energy am I going to bring to this space? How am I going to lift this room up? How am I going to make this podcast? Now me being a guest when that's not normal for me. How am I going to make her show better? What am I going to do to add value? How am I going to lift it up with my enthusiasm and excitement for what I'm doing? And as leaders, that's our job

is setting the dial that were the emotional thermostat. We get to make that decision and I push leaders hard to understand that, to honor that, to love that responsibility and then to make the most of it, use your power for good. And that's really, really important. Too many people are just existing in the world. And they just kind of wander into the room and say, oh, we'll see what happens. Hope for the best. No way. That's not what leaders get to do. We get to set the dial.

We get to influence the space. Use that power for good. Lift the room up. Make people better because you're in it. Don't make the room better because you're leaving it. So powerful. Okay,

next Ryan is them. Good news often. Bad news early. Never any surprises.

Steph Warren and Barker told me that one. I love it. This is how to manage up. So if you have people

“you report too, good news often. Right. Make sure, though, I think the most important one”

is the fact that there are never any surprises if you're managing up or you're working with somebody else in any relationship. Never any surprises. Right. And if there is bad news, do not wait. Right. So that's why it's good news often. Bad news early. Never any surprises. Bad news does not get better with age. So if you just have that kind of mentality of when you're working with other people, that that's how you operate, you're going to be somebody they love working with. If you're

regularly sending them the good news, the bad news, the second it happens, you're making sure they know so that there's, there's no like lag on that. And then you, you can't have your boss get surprised. Right. If you, as you mentioned now, it might be people who are earlier in their career. Maybe they have these initial jobs before they branch off to be an entrepreneur. No surprises for

“your boss. Make sure they're aware. Tell them early. Tell them often. I think that's really”

big stuff said that to me years ago. She's a president of a big time company now. And it's why the people on her board absolutely love her is because she's really, really good at communicating and people keeping people informed. Okay. Our last rhinism, the price is high. The value is higher, meaning that the price is worth being paid. Yeah. I mean, again, think about what you're doing every day. It's not easy. You probably could have chosen a much easier path than

running multiple companies and trying to write a book at the same time to be so well researched and well-prept like you are, which again, shows a crazy amount of respect, which I deeply and grateful for. That you're a pro, right? All of that takes work. It takes people. It takes systems. It takes preparation. The price of all of that. Both probably monetarily because you have a team. You have other people as well as time and effort and resources. All of that is the, is the price.

And you have said, I'm willing to pay that price because the reward is higher. And I think whatever it is that people are trying to do or that they want to do, are you willing to pay the price, right? Ronnie Coleman, eight-time Mr. Olympia. Everybody want to be a bodybuilder. Nobody want to lift these heavy ass weights. That video is the best. Go out and watch it. And that's the thing with a lot of work in life. Like,

everybody wants to be the thing. But do you want to do the necessary work to be that? You've obviously said, yes. And you do it every day. I'm trying to do the same thing. And I think it's worth it if people are willing to do it. And that's the difference. Again,

I want to talk about more leadership principles that you will want to hear. Your podcast is a learning leader. And I know that being an individual contributor, which a lot of us start out in our career as doing, is much different than actually being a leader. So help us understand,

“like, as an individual contributor, somebody who has a boss, how do you have to act differently”

as a leader? When you're just the player, the individual, you have a specific task,

and your job is to do that with excellence, right? That's it. That first promotion, I remember

that vividly. I mean, I wrote a book about it because I did it so poorly in the book so I'm welcome to manage it because I remember I would call my dad and I would complain. I'm like, why are these people doing this? Or why are they doing that? Or what is happening? Why are they telling me this? And he said, welcome to management, dude. This is why you exist. And so, if there weren't all of those messy problems, if there weren't all of those problems to solve,

you wouldn't need leaders. You would just have a bunch of players and go out and do the thing. But because there are issues, because there are problems, because we have to find a way to bring people together, we annoying, we hire, we promote people into leadership roles. Leadership is the art of getting people to want to do what must be done. Think about the dynamic of that entire sentence. The art of getting people to want to do what must be done. So as a leader,

“you need to know what must be done, which is hard. There's strategy. There's ideas. Are we doing”

the right thing? Then you have this art, this kind of, oh, what do you mean art of getting other people to want to do that thing? Not just to do it, but to want to do that thing and then knowing what needs to be done. And that is really, really tough. It takes repetition. It takes getting help from other leaders who've been there before you. It takes messing it up and being able to respond quickly in a level-headed way so that you're not ruining everybody else. You have the role

of being a multiplier, right? There's so much more than just focusing on, okay, here's the job for me to do. I'm going to do that one job as good as I can, which is what individual contributors do versus, wow, I'm responsible for all of these people. I need to get to know them and show that I care for them. And I love them. I'll do whatever I can to help them and inspire and motivate them to want to do what must be done. And that's the beauty of leadership. It's really, really

hard. It's a high-high price. But one done well. The reward is infinite. I mean, really is. And so that's

“why I love studying it. That's why I'll never, ever have it figured out. But I'll keep trying”

and I'll keep sharing the stuff that I'm learning. And hopefully it helps people as we go. Did you interview the guy who wrote Unreasonable Hospitality? We'll get there. Yeah, I had him on like a couple weeks ago. And he said something that really stuck with me, which is like, you have to be welling as the leader. A lot of my listeners are founder or CEOs to do the lowest level task. And like, when you want to help, go in and do

the lowest level task. And that really helps everybody understand that no task is to, you know, like low level for you and just really gets the team motivated. What are your thoughts on that? I agree. I love Will. Yeah, I had him on a few times. And I remember he told me his dad

had told him when he was growing up in the restaurant industry to never, ever forget what it's

like to do every single job in the restaurant for that exact reason that you're talking about. And actually to take notes on that and to review those notes, so that he would go back to those notes at times when he's the bus boy, right? When he's all the sudden, the host or hostess, you know, right? Welcome in people into the restaurant. You can even cook a little bit, right? Barton being able and willing to do all of those jobs. It's like, General McCristo, he would go on

the front lines, right? Uh, which is very dangerous as a four star general. Normally they don't do that. But that's how you understand. That's how you earn respect. That's how how you show your people that you're with them. Yeah. I mean, my dad told me that too when I got promoted for the first time, he'd say, Hey, dude, you're going to get pulled into all these crazy meetings is now you're a manager, right? All these meetings all throughout the company. Remember, your number one job is to be

with your people and with your customers. Never, ever, ever forget that. Be with your people as

much is humanly possible. And it's true for all leaders frontline obsession, cat coal at AG1, right, athletic greens an amazing CEO. She is so good. It's still having a frontline obsession. I like that phrase, it reminds me, hey, on the front lines, on the front lines, on the front lines, like you're saying with Wogadera, that's so important of showing your people and not forgetting what it's like

lose respect for you and they'll probably stop listening. So that's another reason why it's really

really important to still maintain that frontline obsession. And if you get too far removed, like things to start to break also because you're getting, especially if you're like, you know, responsible for the whole company, if you get too far removed from like the core services that you're offering, things start to break and not be as good as it used to be when you were more involved. So true. And you don't even know. You're not even aware because you're not there. You're not seeing it.

And sometimes the message from the front lines to you can kind of be wrapped up in a nice little

“bow when you need to get there yourself to experience it, to hear it, to see it. And the best”

leaders that I've worked with when I was in corporate America, they were so good at getting to the front lines on a regular basis. And then it would like send me back their notes like, "Mom, have they really know what they're talking about?" They were there with them and they have these very specific notes about what happened when they were on the front lines. And I think that's

critical from a leadership perspective. Now, something that we were talking about earlier was the

importance of understanding that as a leader, your presence and leaving making things better when you're there is very important. This is easy to do when things are going great and you've got good news to tell. But when things are going bad or there's a fire, it's really hard as a leader. I think to do it in a way that has grace that keeps your team motivated to do what they need to do and not be discouraged. So what's your advice around motivating teams when we've got to do something

“that's hard or seems impossible or is trying to put out a fire? Yeah, I mean, it makes me think of”

Carly Fioreena first woman CEO of a Fortune 50 company. She was at HP. She eventually would run for president. But I asked her, I said, she started as an entry-level receptionist. I said,

how do you go from that job to CEO? That's insane. And she said, I always ran towards the fire.

That was her phrase exactly. I ran towards the fire, the metaphorical fires here, right? So when people see problems and issues, they always run away from them, whereas she and the other great leaders decided to run towards them and tackle those. And so like using stories like that can be helpful when you and your team are facing a crisis or facing something hard. This is when we are at our best. I remember with my coaching clients in 2020. We got a group call with all of these CEOs and

other leaders I was working with. And I said, this is why we exist. This moment is March April 2020. The world's upside down. We are not with our people physically anymore. All this crazy stuff is happening. Hey, we're going to remember this moment. Your people are going to remember this moment. How we show up. How much we care. How much we're there for our people. When we can't physically be with our people, this is when it matters most. They will remember this stuff. And so

“I think it's more important to think about the the wartime leader versus the one who's the leader”

when when they're winning. They're the ones who make the biggest difference to the ones who have the most opportunities to the ones who can actually change people's lives. And so I love to bring up those stories when I'm with my teams when things are really, really tough as a way of saying, this is it man. This is why we exist. What are you going to do? What type of character do we have? It's easy to be the team captain at halftime. When we're up 40 to nothing. It's tough. When we're

losing. Right? What are we going to what are we going to do? How are we going to respond now? When our true character is revealed. And so that's the type of stuff I try to do and try to work through with my leaders when times are tough. Like this is this is the moment. This is why we exist. And to your point, it's all about being intentional. Right? If you just like jump on Slack right when there's a problem happening and just like overreact or do something where you're

just not pausing and thinking like, okay, how can I say this in a way that's going to be respectful, that's going to give my team grace so that people aren't like a free to make mistakes, a free to be around you as a leader. I've made those mistakes early on in my career where you just kind of like jump down people's throats and it's way better to just like pause and try to just be like as graceful as you can when you're leading your team. Yeah, I got a lot of practice as a

quarterback. You know, you the quarterback calls the play in the huddle and there's 10 other guys around you like all staring at you listening to what you're going to say and sometimes, you know, you have a bad play and maybe you messed up or maybe one of your teammates messed up and something bad happened. And so you're constantly in the fire of responding to adversity and they're looking to you in your body language, your tone of voice, your eye contact, all of that impacts the other

10 people and if you're not dialed in, if you're not prepared, if you're not able to respond with confidence, with energy, with belief, if you don't have that, there's no way the other guys

they're looking to you again, use your power for good, understand all of those little things matter, all of that. I try to think of like these tough situations back to those days and draw from that both when I messed it up, as well as when I did it really, really well. And that that that also can be helpful. Ryan, this was such an awesome conversation. I and my show with two questions that I

ask all of my guests. The first one is what is one actionable thing are young and profitors can

do today to become more profitable tomorrow. Right down a prompt and answer it every single day. And let's start with, let's start with just a month or even a week. The question is, what did I do today to go to bed a little bit wiser than I was when I woke up? So write that down and then answer that every day for make it very easy one week, seven days. What did I do today to go to bed a little bit wiser than I was when I woke up? And then do that for seven days review your answers. I would

“hope you'll continue doing it because I think if you stack days of going to bed wiser than you”

were when you woke up, good things are going to happen for you. But that would be that would be one very actionable prompt. You can answer every single day we all can do this. And hopefully it works as a forcing function for you to go out and to learn to improve to go to bed wiser than you were when you woke up. And what is your secret to profiting in life? This can go beyond financial. Doing literally exactly what you're doing, adding value to other people's lives.

Think of every relationship of what am I doing to add value to that person's life? Try to answer that question. That could be another prompt you could write down. What value did I add to other people's lives today? Right? Those things specifically down of what you're doing to the actual people and what you did to help make them better without asking for anything in return because trust me. It will all come back. It just does. The world is a weird way of working, but don't

“do it as a transactional thing. Do it as just purely as a way of thinking. It's one sided. What”

am I doing to add value to other people's lives? And you do that enough over and over and over again. Good things. Good things will happen. I totally agree. Ryan, this has been such an amazing conversation. Thank you so much for joining us. Again, his new book is called The Price of Becoming He Host the Learning Leader podcast. Ryan, thank you so much for joining us on young and profiting podcast. Thank you. And your prep does not go unnoticed. This is so cool. I really

really appreciate you. Have a me. Thank you. Thank you, Ryan. Yep, fam. Becoming the person you want has a price and Ryan Hawk reminded us today that the

people who become excellent decide that they will never ever peak and they continue to pay the

price of becoming their entire lives. Because let's face it. A lot of us love the idea of growth and the person we imagine we could become, but we do not always love the cost that comes with it. Because it's unsexy. It's not glamorous. It's the boring reps, the hard conversations, the humility to copy and learn before you actually go and create and innovate. The discipline to keep showing up when nobody is clapping. The willingness to stay in rooms where you feel

scared. Not because you're failing, but because you are growing. I know this from my own journey too. When I started this podcast, there were so many seasons and years where nobody was listening. There was no downloads. There were no awards. There was no chart copying podcast, but I was still putting in the hours. I was learning, testing, improving, taking feedback,

“showing up before the results matched the effort. And that's what Ryan is talking about today.”

Becoming does not happen in the moment everybody sees you winning. It happens in those quiet moments where you choose the hard work anyway. Ryan also gave us the hard truth that every entrepreneur and high performer needs to hear. Effort alone does not entitle you to the reward. Value does. You can work hard, stay busy, and do all the things, but if your work is not creating value for your customers, your team, and your audience, then something has to change. You need to produce

excellent work over and over again to be successful. And I love this idea of never peak because

success is not supposed to be the place where you just stop growing. You don't ever reach success. You want to keep growing. Success is the proof that your growth is working. The best leaders and performers keep learning. They keep refining. They keep acting like their best days are still ahead of them. And that's the real compounding effect. Curiosity compounds. Consistency compound. Excellent work compounds and is your best networking tool. Even your relationships compound because your circle

is not just who you hang out with. It's the infrastructure that shapes your standards, your ambition, and your future. So if you're feeling stuck, comfortable, or like you've plateaued, maybe the next step is not another shortcut. Maybe it's paying the next price. Doing those reps,

but the value of becoming is higher. Speaking of doing the reps, you just finished an episode

“built for people who are serious about growing and this exactly who you are. So here's our next rep.”

Grab a copy of Ryan's book, The Price of Becoming. It's a natural continuation of everything

we unpack today. And it goes even deeper on the compounding habits of high performers. If this

“episode added value to your life, pay it forward and share it with somebody who needs to hear it.”

And if you've not left us the five star review on Apple or Spotify, I'd love to hear from you.

It takes 30 seconds. It helps us reach more people who are out here trying to build something great,

“like you. You can also watch this conversation on YouTube or Spotify video, just search”

young and profiting on YouTube. You can't miss us. You can also follow me on Instagram, @yapathala, or LinkedIn, just search for a name. It's Halataha. And let's keep this conversation going between episodes. Until next time, this is your host, Halataha aka the podcast princess, signing off.