555: Shane Parrish - Raising Your Standards, The Difference Between Nice & Kind Feedback, The Inner vs. Outer Scoreboard, & Turning Ordinary

WEBVTT
1
00:00:00.320 --> 00:00:04.809
This episode is brought to you by one of my favorites, StoryWorth.
2
00:00:05.089 --> 00:00:08.609
StoryWorth is an online service that helps you and your
3
00:00:08.689 --> 00:00:12.570
loved ones preserve precious memories and stories for years to come.
4
00:00:12.910 --> 00:00:15.679
It is a thoughtful and meaningful gift that connects you
5
00:00:16.070 --> 00:00:20.260
to those who matter most. Every week StoryWorth emails your
6
00:00:20.339 --> 00:00:24.079
relative or friend a thought-provoking question of your choice from
7
00:00:24.100 --> 00:00:28.429
their vast pool of possible options. Each unique prompt asks
8
00:00:28.510 --> 00:00:31.530
questions you've never thought to ask, like, what's the bravest
9
00:00:31.570 --> 00:00:33.549
thing you've ever done in your life? Or, if you
10
00:00:33.590 --> 00:00:35.659
could see into the future, what would you want to
11
00:00:35.700 --> 00:00:40.020
find out? And after one year, StoryWorth will compile all
12
00:00:40.060 --> 00:00:44.000
your loved one's stories, including photos, into a beautiful keepsake
13
00:00:44.039 --> 00:00:46.859
book that you'll be able to share and revisit for
14
00:00:46.920 --> 00:00:49.859
generations to come. I did this with my dad. I
15
00:00:49.899 --> 00:00:52.960
have the book on my shelf, and I love revisiting
16
00:00:53.000 --> 00:00:56.979
it often. Reading the weekly stories helps connect you with
17
00:00:57.100 --> 00:01:00.659
loved ones no matter how near or far apart you are.
18
00:01:01.539 --> 00:01:05.400
To take advantage of this, go to storyworth.com slash leader
19
00:01:05.939 --> 00:01:11.879
and save $ 10 on your first purchase. That's storyworth.com slash leader.
20
00:01:14.819 --> 00:01:19.939
Welcome to the Learning Leader Show presented by Insight Global.
21
00:01:20.200 --> 00:01:23.859
I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much
22
00:01:23.920 --> 00:01:28.159
for being here. Text HAWK to 66866 to become part
23
00:01:28.519 --> 00:01:32.909
of Mindful Monday. You, along with tens of thousands of
24
00:01:32.950 --> 00:01:35.989
other learning leaders from all over the world, will receive
25
00:01:36.049 --> 00:01:39.430
a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to
26
00:01:39.489 --> 00:01:42.150
help you start your week off right. You'll also receive
27
00:01:42.170 --> 00:01:45.930
details about how my book, The Pursuit of Excellence, will
28
00:01:45.950 --> 00:01:49.170
help you become a more effective leader. Text HAWK to 66866. Now,
29
00:01:49.180 --> 00:01:55.250
on to tonight's featured topic. leader, Shane Parrish, is the
30
00:01:55.450 --> 00:02:01.319
entrepreneur and wisdom seeker behind Farnham Street, FS.blog. That's where
31
00:02:01.359 --> 00:02:06.299
he focuses on turning timeless insights into action. Shane's work
32
00:02:06.319 --> 00:02:09.199
has been featured in nearly every major publication, including the
33
00:02:09.240 --> 00:02:11.620
New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Forbes. He
34
00:02:11.689 --> 00:02:16.090
is the New York Times bestselling author of Clear Thinking,
35
00:02:16.509 --> 00:02:21.699
Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results. During this conversation, we
36
00:02:21.740 --> 00:02:25.979
discuss the power of a leader believing in you and
37
00:02:26.020 --> 00:02:29.629
how we can use our power for good to raise
38
00:02:29.830 --> 00:02:35.349
expectations for ourselves and others. Then Shane shares the number
39
00:02:35.530 --> 00:02:39.409
one trait CEOs look for when hiring leaders. He talks
40
00:02:39.430 --> 00:02:44.939
about the difference between nice and kind feedback. And then
41
00:02:45.039 --> 00:02:50.139
Shane shares an emotional story from his childhood about standing
42
00:02:50.340 --> 00:02:54.379
up for people and doing the right thing. I really
43
00:02:54.879 --> 00:02:59.759
appreciate how vulnerable Shane was right away during this conversation.
44
00:02:59.840 --> 00:03:08.430
Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy Shane Parrish. Shane, longtime reader
45
00:03:08.449 --> 00:03:10.430
of Farnham Street, it is awesome to have you here
46
00:03:10.469 --> 00:03:11.870
on the Learning Leader Show. Welcome, man.
47
00:03:12.710 --> 00:03:14.150
Thanks, Ryan. I'm excited to be here.
48
00:03:14.639 --> 00:03:17.780
Let's flip to the back of your latest book, which
49
00:03:17.840 --> 00:03:21.930
is called Clear Thinking. And I enjoy reading the acknowledgements.
50
00:03:22.849 --> 00:03:25.229
And one of the people that you named in that
51
00:03:25.270 --> 00:03:29.389
book that changed the trajectory of your life is a
52
00:03:29.830 --> 00:03:34.120
high school English teacher named Mr. Duncan. What did you
53
00:03:34.180 --> 00:03:35.460
learn from Mr. Duncan?
54
00:03:36.500 --> 00:03:38.379
I mean, to put things in context, I was a
55
00:03:38.479 --> 00:03:42.990
straight D student up until grade 10.
56
00:03:42.990 --> 00:03:43.430
Wow.
57
00:03:43.830 --> 00:03:46.349
Like literally, I think my highest grade was a D.
58
00:03:46.750 --> 00:03:50.629
And to further reinforce this, my grade nine teacher wrote
59
00:03:50.669 --> 00:03:52.889
in my report card that I would be lucky to
60
00:03:52.949 --> 00:03:55.800
graduate from high school. I was going nowhere fast.
61
00:03:55.819 --> 00:03:56.319
They actually wrote that?
62
00:03:57.039 --> 00:03:59.500
Yeah, this is back when they wrote what they actually thought.
63
00:03:59.560 --> 00:04:01.340
They don't do that anymore. They got to pick from
64
00:04:01.400 --> 00:04:05.639
these like prescribed comments now. And I was almost expelled
65
00:04:05.719 --> 00:04:08.150
multiple times. I was hanging out with the wrong kids,
66
00:04:08.250 --> 00:04:11.349
the wrong crowd, doing the wrong things, making bad choices
67
00:04:11.370 --> 00:04:16.500
all getting bad consequences. And I found computers in grade nine.
68
00:04:16.699 --> 00:04:19.220
And that's when the schooling started to like, I stopped
69
00:04:19.259 --> 00:04:21.339
getting in trouble. I didn't get good grades, but I
70
00:04:21.379 --> 00:04:23.060
was going to school. I was staying up all night
71
00:04:23.100 --> 00:04:25.990
playing on my computer. And I would go to school
72
00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:28.589
the next morning and I would fall asleep in class.
73
00:04:29.029 --> 00:04:31.550
And I was the only kid in my class that
74
00:04:31.569 --> 00:04:34.709
did that until another kid came over and we started
75
00:04:34.750 --> 00:04:37.810
talking about programming. I was like, oh, I'm not alone.
76
00:04:37.910 --> 00:04:40.129
This is cool, right? So we'd both stay up all
77
00:04:40.170 --> 00:04:43.500
night programming. And then we'd fall asleep in class. So
78
00:04:43.519 --> 00:04:47.600
school wasn't a priority for me. And then no teacher
79
00:04:47.639 --> 00:04:50.480
had ever paid attention to me. No teacher cared about me.
80
00:04:50.660 --> 00:04:53.360
Everybody just wanted me out of their class. And totally
81
00:04:53.379 --> 00:04:56.540
understandable why in the context of this, right? Like I'm
82
00:04:56.560 --> 00:04:59.939
not putting in much effort. I'm falling asleep in class.
83
00:05:00.139 --> 00:05:04.139
I don't tend to respect you just because you're a teacher.
84
00:05:04.500 --> 00:05:07.199
I want you to demonstrate that I should be paying attention.
85
00:05:07.779 --> 00:05:10.660
And then this grade 11 teacher comes along, Mr. Duncan.
86
00:05:11.899 --> 00:05:14.300
And Mr. Duncan believes in me.
87
00:05:14.779 --> 00:05:15.100
Mr.
88
00:05:15.160 --> 00:05:18.860
Duncan tells me I have a unique mind and I
89
00:05:18.939 --> 00:05:21.769
see the world in a different way and it's beautiful.
90
00:05:21.790 --> 00:05:26.750
And Mr. Duncan starts to encourage me. My parents go
91
00:05:26.970 --> 00:05:30.350
to the parent-teacher interview. I think it was around November
92
00:05:30.430 --> 00:05:34.329
this time in grade 11. And they're like, we're here
93
00:05:34.389 --> 00:05:37.240
to talk about Shane. And they just walk in and
94
00:05:37.250 --> 00:05:40.180
they're like, We've done a host of these things. This
95
00:05:40.259 --> 00:05:43.139
is our 11th year of doing these. We know exactly
96
00:05:43.300 --> 00:05:47.019
what you're gonna say. And Mr. Duncan goes, Shane is
97
00:05:47.120 --> 00:05:52.750
my best student. And my parents go, what? Is there
98
00:05:52.769 --> 00:05:55.029
more than one Shane in your class? Like you're clearly
99
00:05:55.089 --> 00:05:58.769
not talking about our son. And he's like, no, he
100
00:05:58.829 --> 00:06:01.850
sees the world in this beautiful way. And he's got
101
00:06:01.870 --> 00:06:05.740
this incredible mind. And I just love it. His grades
102
00:06:05.769 --> 00:06:10.389
don't necessarily reflect all of his ability, but he's got
103
00:06:10.550 --> 00:06:13.410
so much potential if he would just try a little harder.
104
00:06:13.870 --> 00:06:17.589
And everything he had to say was really positive. And
105
00:06:17.709 --> 00:06:20.149
that was sort of reinforcing for, you know, what I
106
00:06:20.189 --> 00:06:22.430
was doing. And I started hanging around the right kids,
107
00:06:23.560 --> 00:06:25.899
by right kids, I mean, not the bad kids. And
108
00:06:26.000 --> 00:06:28.720
my grades changed. I, you know, I didn't even know
109
00:06:28.740 --> 00:06:31.100
what university was. One of the other moments and the
110
00:06:31.180 --> 00:06:34.420
other people, if you're listening to this, Earl Corkery, Mr. Corkery,
111
00:06:35.120 --> 00:06:38.649
he also changed my life. in grade 10 when I
112
00:06:38.670 --> 00:06:40.879
was hanging out with his son and I had just
113
00:06:40.920 --> 00:06:42.879
moved schools. So I was hanging out with his son
114
00:06:43.839 --> 00:06:46.639
and I went to his house. It was October. We
115
00:06:46.660 --> 00:06:49.220
had dinner and we started talking about university and direction.
116
00:06:49.240 --> 00:06:52.709
And I remember Mr. Corkery looked at me cause I
117
00:06:52.730 --> 00:06:56.750
was like, let's university. And then he pulled me aside quietly,
118
00:06:56.769 --> 00:06:58.449
not in front of his son. He did this very
119
00:06:58.490 --> 00:07:01.370
like tactfully, but he basically said, Hey, if you're not
120
00:07:01.410 --> 00:07:04.259
going to university, You're not hanging out with my son.
121
00:07:04.420 --> 00:07:07.439
Like he is on this path and you hooligan, right?
122
00:07:07.620 --> 00:07:10.000
Correctly identifying me for what I was at the time.
123
00:07:10.480 --> 00:07:13.180
You're not going to derail him from that path. And
124
00:07:13.199 --> 00:07:14.399
I had a lot of respect for that, but I
125
00:07:14.420 --> 00:07:16.040
was like, I don't know what university is. Like, I
126
00:07:16.079 --> 00:07:17.639
don't even know what this thing is. And he's like,
127
00:07:17.660 --> 00:07:19.870
I'll help you. I'll teach you, but that's gotta be
128
00:07:19.889 --> 00:07:21.589
your path. You want to hang out with my son?
129
00:07:22.009 --> 00:07:25.110
He likes you. I'd love for that to happen. And anyway,
130
00:07:25.149 --> 00:07:27.170
he became my best friend in high school and we
131
00:07:27.189 --> 00:07:29.470
spent a lot of time together, but those two people
132
00:07:29.610 --> 00:07:31.790
really changed my trajectory.
133
00:07:32.689 --> 00:07:36.180
Doesn't it show you just the power of now you
134
00:07:36.259 --> 00:07:38.399
in a leadership role, you can do this for others.
135
00:07:38.459 --> 00:07:40.060
And I think as leaders, we should all try to
136
00:07:40.100 --> 00:07:46.220
do this. But when we specifically tell somebody why we
137
00:07:46.259 --> 00:07:49.699
believe in them and how much power we have in that,
138
00:07:49.990 --> 00:07:53.089
we should wield that power to do good. What an
139
00:07:53.269 --> 00:07:56.769
awesome example of that. Is this something now you try
140
00:07:56.810 --> 00:07:59.569
to do in your own life to use the power,
141
00:07:59.610 --> 00:08:02.240
the weight of your words to To help others.
142
00:08:02.250 --> 00:08:05.720
Totally. I think for me, it becomes a lot about
143
00:08:05.759 --> 00:08:09.680
giving people opportunities. Yeah. It's like, okay, let's see what
144
00:08:09.699 --> 00:08:12.339
you can do. Let's see how much autonomy you can handle.
145
00:08:12.399 --> 00:08:15.800
Let's see how much responsibility you can handle. And I
146
00:08:15.839 --> 00:08:18.019
believe you can handle all of it. So like, let's go,
147
00:08:18.180 --> 00:08:20.439
let's go to the ceiling of what you're capable of
148
00:08:20.959 --> 00:08:23.199
and let's figure it out together. And if you fall,
149
00:08:23.220 --> 00:08:24.100
then I'll catch you.
150
00:08:24.240 --> 00:08:26.899
There's another story about your dad. I would love for
151
00:08:26.920 --> 00:08:29.699
you to tell it. You're 13 years old. You're standing
152
00:08:29.740 --> 00:08:32.360
with a group of your friends after school and your
153
00:08:32.379 --> 00:08:35.100
friends were teasing one of your classmates and the teachers
154
00:08:35.679 --> 00:08:39.299
intervened and it ended quickly. And I read that you
155
00:08:39.330 --> 00:08:42.889
didn't realize that your dad was parked nearby and was watching.
156
00:08:43.529 --> 00:08:45.289
What did your dad say to you when you got
157
00:08:45.309 --> 00:08:46.070
in the car that day?
158
00:08:48.190 --> 00:08:52.149
Yeah, this story really hits home for me because for him,
159
00:08:52.169 --> 00:08:57.129
I walked in the car and I said, I get
160
00:08:57.169 --> 00:08:59.389
emotional talking about this because it reminds me of something else.
161
00:08:59.950 --> 00:09:01.509
I walked in the car and I said, I wasn't
162
00:09:01.549 --> 00:09:04.129
teasing him. And he was just really upset at me
163
00:09:04.350 --> 00:09:08.830
for what I didn't do. I didn't try to stop it.
164
00:09:09.210 --> 00:09:10.399
I didn't try to defend it.
165
00:09:10.389 --> 00:09:11.000
I didn't.
166
00:09:12.019 --> 00:09:15.080
And so I was guilty of doing all those things.
167
00:09:15.759 --> 00:09:18.740
And the reason I get emotional is there was a
168
00:09:18.799 --> 00:09:20.720
girl who went to the same high school I did
169
00:09:20.740 --> 00:09:30.570
about 10 years after I did. And She was gang
170
00:09:30.610 --> 00:09:34.889
raped by a group of students and committed suicide after.
171
00:09:36.250 --> 00:09:41.480
And her last Facebook post said something to the effect of,
172
00:09:42.779 --> 00:09:46.559
my friends will be remembered for their silence, not speaking up,
173
00:09:46.639 --> 00:09:51.159
not doing the right thing in the face of people
174
00:09:51.200 --> 00:09:55.909
doing the wrong thing. I think that those stories really
175
00:09:55.950 --> 00:09:59.370
hit home for me and They've had a profound impact
176
00:09:59.570 --> 00:10:00.690
on me. Wow.
177
00:10:00.789 --> 00:10:03.210
Thank you for sharing, man. And I appreciate, I think
178
00:10:03.830 --> 00:10:06.710
my friend Jason Gaynard said relationships move at the speed
179
00:10:06.730 --> 00:10:10.730
of vulnerability and you're a leader when it comes to that.
180
00:10:10.870 --> 00:10:14.250
I admire that about you. Thinking about that moment with
181
00:10:14.269 --> 00:10:17.710
your dad and obviously the tragic stories that followed that
182
00:10:17.730 --> 00:10:21.789
you just shared, How does that change you or how
183
00:10:21.830 --> 00:10:25.730
do you behave now when it comes to maybe speaking
184
00:10:25.830 --> 00:10:29.269
up for someone whose voice isn't as powerful as yours
185
00:10:29.409 --> 00:10:32.289
or helping other people? How do you try to speak
186
00:10:32.370 --> 00:10:32.850
up for them?
187
00:10:34.000 --> 00:10:37.250
The lesson was sort of one of self-accountability, right? It's
188
00:10:37.320 --> 00:10:42.340
not enough to know something is wrong. You have to
189
00:10:43.279 --> 00:10:46.080
try to stop it. You have to do something about it.
190
00:10:46.899 --> 00:10:48.919
It's not enough to watch it happen. It's not enough
191
00:10:48.980 --> 00:10:54.519
to walk away. If you see somebody abusing their power,
192
00:10:55.460 --> 00:10:59.330
taking advantage of somebody else, then you have a responsibility
193
00:10:59.529 --> 00:11:02.529
to do something about that if you can. And I
194
00:11:02.570 --> 00:11:04.870
think that's an important lesson for all of us to
195
00:11:04.909 --> 00:11:10.490
take away. And it doesn't necessarily mean something strong. It
196
00:11:10.529 --> 00:11:12.950
can be something just like supporting the person. It can
197
00:11:12.970 --> 00:11:17.799
be doing something more. And the actions are sort of
198
00:11:17.860 --> 00:11:20.840
up to you in the situation. You can't be reactive
199
00:11:20.899 --> 00:11:22.899
about everything going on in your life. Sometimes you have
200
00:11:22.919 --> 00:11:25.460
to be proactive and step in and intervene. We all
201
00:11:25.500 --> 00:11:27.299
think that somebody else is going to do that. And
202
00:11:27.330 --> 00:11:30.769
then we all end up watching something horrific happen. And
203
00:11:30.809 --> 00:11:33.509
we all know it's horrific. And we have to have
204
00:11:33.549 --> 00:11:39.330
the self-confidence and the courage that we need to do
205
00:11:39.750 --> 00:11:43.440
what's right in those moments. And that often means going
206
00:11:43.500 --> 00:11:47.220
against the crowd. That means thinking independently. And that means
207
00:11:47.259 --> 00:11:48.659
a lot of the stuff that I talk about in
208
00:11:48.700 --> 00:11:49.019
the book.
209
00:11:50.720 --> 00:11:53.759
You talk a lot about being a dad and I'm
210
00:11:54.360 --> 00:11:55.940
a dad as well. And so it's like the number
211
00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:57.700
one thing I think of, and it feels like it
212
00:11:57.779 --> 00:12:02.320
is for you too. How do you spread these important
213
00:12:02.379 --> 00:12:06.159
messages to your kids? What's your way, your process of
214
00:12:06.279 --> 00:12:11.149
making sure that they are growing up to be the
215
00:12:11.190 --> 00:12:12.789
type of people that you want them to be?
216
00:12:12.809 --> 00:12:14.809
I think they're going to grow up to be the
217
00:12:15.549 --> 00:12:18.259
type of people they want to be. Yeah. Not the
218
00:12:18.279 --> 00:12:21.019
type of people I want them to be. And to
219
00:12:21.059 --> 00:12:23.899
the extent that I can help them and influence them
220
00:12:24.220 --> 00:12:28.379
and give them tools, all that changes. It changes so
221
00:12:28.460 --> 00:12:31.629
quickly with them. What resonates with them in one moment
222
00:12:32.230 --> 00:12:35.309
carries no weight the next moment. What really resonates with
223
00:12:35.350 --> 00:12:38.169
them some of the lessons from the book that we've
224
00:12:38.210 --> 00:12:41.110
applied for the last few years. And hopefully we continue
225
00:12:41.129 --> 00:12:45.289
to apply our sort of gas or water, which is
226
00:12:45.509 --> 00:12:48.860
I have two kids, they're 14 months apart. And they
227
00:12:48.879 --> 00:12:51.539
get into, they're two boys, so they get into like
228
00:12:52.139 --> 00:12:54.759
little spats. They're each other's best friends, but they're also
229
00:12:54.820 --> 00:12:57.240
each other's worst enemies at times. And they sort of
230
00:12:57.279 --> 00:12:59.899
get into these moments like we all do. We get
231
00:12:59.940 --> 00:13:02.259
into them with our partners, with our colleagues at work.
232
00:13:02.879 --> 00:13:05.460
with everybody, you just end up arguing about something silly.
233
00:13:05.700 --> 00:13:08.360
Like it could be how you stack the dishwasher at
234
00:13:08.419 --> 00:13:11.019
home or with my kids, it's like, who's taking out
235
00:13:11.080 --> 00:13:13.740
more of the table while they do homework. But if
236
00:13:13.779 --> 00:13:16.440
that line is not perfectly down the middle, then some
237
00:13:16.480 --> 00:13:20.279
days that causes a bit of a, and what I
238
00:13:20.460 --> 00:13:22.370
like to do is same thing that I would do
239
00:13:22.399 --> 00:13:24.909
with you, Ryan. If you're arguing with your wife and
240
00:13:24.950 --> 00:13:26.730
I tap you on the shoulder and I'm like, Ryan,
241
00:13:26.750 --> 00:13:29.269
do you want to put water or gas on this situation?
242
00:13:29.289 --> 00:13:35.059
You're going to say, oh yeah, we're arguing about the dishwasher.
243
00:13:35.200 --> 00:13:37.419
What are we doing here? This doesn't make any sense.
244
00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:39.860
I want to put water on this. And then it
245
00:13:39.899 --> 00:13:42.399
goes out. And I do the same thing with the kids.
246
00:13:42.500 --> 00:13:45.590
And I say, hey, water or gas? Because we've been
247
00:13:45.669 --> 00:13:47.110
using this for a while. So I can just say
248
00:13:47.149 --> 00:13:50.830
those words. And sometimes they still choose gas. They have
249
00:13:50.850 --> 00:13:53.169
some agency in this, right? They have some judgment involved.
250
00:13:53.769 --> 00:13:57.940
Most times they're like, hmm, okay, yeah, water. And so
251
00:13:57.960 --> 00:14:01.139
that language has really gone through them, and it's something
252
00:14:01.159 --> 00:14:03.830
that they use. It's something we use externally too. So
253
00:14:04.330 --> 00:14:06.909
rather than sort of embarrass them if they're doing something
254
00:14:06.929 --> 00:14:09.629
and they're escalating outside the house, I'll just say water,
255
00:14:09.809 --> 00:14:12.970
and nobody knows what that means. The other ones are confidence, right?
256
00:14:13.029 --> 00:14:18.350
So I put my kids in really difficult schools. I
257
00:14:18.389 --> 00:14:21.629
think they need to be held to high standards, and
258
00:14:21.649 --> 00:14:26.139
I think that they can handle the workload. And the
259
00:14:26.200 --> 00:14:30.200
inevitable sort of failures that come with that. And that
260
00:14:30.240 --> 00:14:35.940
requires a lot of confidence for them in that moment.
261
00:14:36.059 --> 00:14:39.289
Because going from grade six to grade seven, when they
262
00:14:39.330 --> 00:14:43.769
changed schools, they started taking exams. They started having tests
263
00:14:44.009 --> 00:14:46.610
every week. They started having big tests every month. They
264
00:14:46.629 --> 00:14:49.309
started having exams twice a year. They started having a
265
00:14:49.309 --> 00:14:52.830
lot of homework. And that's a very different situation than
266
00:14:52.870 --> 00:14:55.149
what they were used to. And they didn't have the
267
00:14:55.210 --> 00:14:58.950
confidence to sort of do that. And so we started
268
00:14:58.970 --> 00:15:00.929
breaking this down a little bit and saying, I didn't
269
00:15:00.950 --> 00:15:03.710
have the confidence to start a business. I didn't have
270
00:15:03.730 --> 00:15:06.559
the confidence to do all these things. What I did
271
00:15:06.620 --> 00:15:10.740
have was the confidence to take the next step. I
272
00:15:10.759 --> 00:15:14.120
had the confidence to take one step at a time
273
00:15:15.379 --> 00:15:20.450
and the determination and the resourcefulness to figure out the
274
00:15:20.490 --> 00:15:23.659
next step. And that's how we get anywhere. And so
275
00:15:23.700 --> 00:15:26.080
that's how we approach school, which is one step at
276
00:15:26.120 --> 00:15:28.139
a time. You don't need the confidence to get to
277
00:15:28.159 --> 00:15:30.769
the ultimate goal. You need the confidence to take the
278
00:15:30.809 --> 00:15:34.490
next step. We call it next step confidence. And it's
279
00:15:34.529 --> 00:15:39.129
helped them do everything from cliff jumping to snowboarding to
280
00:15:39.190 --> 00:15:42.120
exams and tests, which are really scary to kids who
281
00:15:42.460 --> 00:15:45.970
haven't done that before. And then the other one is
282
00:15:46.049 --> 00:15:49.230
something along the same lines as gas or water. What
283
00:15:49.250 --> 00:15:51.970
we use are these actions and these behaviors getting you
284
00:15:52.029 --> 00:15:53.909
closer to what you want, or is it moving you
285
00:15:53.929 --> 00:15:56.889
further away from what you want? Again, I'm not judging them,
286
00:15:57.740 --> 00:16:00.559
but there's no agency. I'm not telling them what to do.
287
00:16:00.620 --> 00:16:03.559
They get to make their own choices, but it's recognizing
288
00:16:03.600 --> 00:16:06.919
that your choices are moving you closer to or further
289
00:16:06.980 --> 00:16:10.799
away from what you want. And then the final thing
290
00:16:10.850 --> 00:16:13.190
that I would say resonates that we use all the
291
00:16:13.230 --> 00:16:17.029
time is positioning. And the language I use with the
292
00:16:17.080 --> 00:16:20.639
kids is easy mode or hard mode. A great example
293
00:16:20.879 --> 00:16:23.240
is one of my kids came home and gave me
294
00:16:23.320 --> 00:16:25.639
one of his exams and he did really poorly on it.
295
00:16:25.700 --> 00:16:29.950
And I'm okay with this. Inside, I'm like tiger dad
296
00:16:30.009 --> 00:16:32.149
sort of thing. But on the outside, I think it's
297
00:16:32.190 --> 00:16:34.370
really good for the kids to experience this. And it's
298
00:16:34.409 --> 00:16:38.340
really good to fall down and stumble and recover. But
299
00:16:38.360 --> 00:16:40.299
he hands me the test and he does what kids
300
00:16:40.360 --> 00:16:42.500
do these days. And same thing I did when I
301
00:16:42.519 --> 00:16:44.240
was a kid. Same thing you probably did when you
302
00:16:44.279 --> 00:16:47.360
were a kid. You get a bad mark. Your parents
303
00:16:47.399 --> 00:16:49.110
have to sign it. So you like give it to them.
304
00:16:49.669 --> 00:16:51.950
You shrug your shoulders and you're like, I did my best.
305
00:16:52.309 --> 00:16:56.549
And you keep walking. And I know from playing sports,
306
00:16:56.610 --> 00:16:58.549
I used to play high school football. I used to
307
00:16:58.590 --> 00:17:03.320
play soccer. That most people quit in the car ride
308
00:17:03.340 --> 00:17:06.579
on the way home. Not the performance on the field.
309
00:17:07.210 --> 00:17:08.529
They could have had the best game of their life.
310
00:17:08.569 --> 00:17:09.990
They could have had the worst game of their life.
311
00:17:10.049 --> 00:17:12.630
That doesn't matter. Most people quit because of the car
312
00:17:12.690 --> 00:17:14.799
ride on the way home and that conversation with the parents.
313
00:17:14.839 --> 00:17:19.180
So I'm like, let's let this dissipate for a little
314
00:17:19.200 --> 00:17:22.279
bit here. Let's go for a little while. And I
315
00:17:23.579 --> 00:17:26.660
came back to him later that night. And I said,
316
00:17:26.779 --> 00:17:28.890
it's 9.30. We're lying in bed. We're reading. I'm like,
317
00:17:29.170 --> 00:17:31.869
talk to me about what it means to do your best.
318
00:17:33.569 --> 00:17:36.440
You said, You did your best. I want to understand this.
319
00:17:36.680 --> 00:17:39.069
I want to understand every step of it. So like
320
00:17:39.089 --> 00:17:43.049
go through it in detail. And he's like, really? And
321
00:17:43.069 --> 00:17:45.289
I'm like, yeah, I really want to understand when you
322
00:17:45.390 --> 00:17:46.809
come at it and you say this, I want to
323
00:17:46.849 --> 00:17:48.930
know what that means to you. So he's like, I
324
00:17:48.970 --> 00:17:51.210
sat down at 10 AM and I looked at all
325
00:17:51.230 --> 00:17:54.509
the questions and I figured out the point system and
326
00:17:54.549 --> 00:17:59.500
I allocated my time appropriately. And I answered the questions
327
00:17:59.539 --> 00:18:01.849
to the best of my ability. I was like, wow.
328
00:18:03.009 --> 00:18:05.849
You think about that the same way that a lot
329
00:18:05.890 --> 00:18:10.049
of adults think about decision making. So you think about
330
00:18:10.130 --> 00:18:13.880
it from the point that you show up to forward.
331
00:18:14.380 --> 00:18:16.119
How do I make the best choice in this moment?
332
00:18:16.779 --> 00:18:20.480
And I was like, let's rewind 72 to 96 hours.
333
00:18:21.579 --> 00:18:24.839
Like before this moment, let's go back in time. Did
334
00:18:24.920 --> 00:18:31.450
you study effectively? No. Did you stay up late? Yeah.
335
00:18:32.009 --> 00:18:33.950
Why did you stay up late? Because I was cramming.
336
00:18:34.650 --> 00:18:37.789
Why were you cramming? Because I didn't study effectively. Did
337
00:18:37.809 --> 00:18:41.059
you have a healthy breakfast that morning? No, I ate
338
00:18:41.130 --> 00:18:43.200
crap because I was in a rush. Why were you
339
00:18:43.220 --> 00:18:44.920
in a rush? Because I got up late. Why were
340
00:18:44.940 --> 00:18:47.779
you late? Because I was cramming the night before. Did
341
00:18:47.799 --> 00:18:49.700
you get into a fight with your brother? Yes. Why
342
00:18:49.720 --> 00:18:51.859
did you get into a fight with your brother? Because
343
00:18:51.900 --> 00:18:54.289
I was up late. I was agitated. I was like, oh.
344
00:18:54.450 --> 00:18:57.670
So when you sat down to do that test, were
345
00:18:57.710 --> 00:19:01.900
you at your best? No. You are playing on hard mode.
346
00:19:02.460 --> 00:19:04.940
All the things we just talked about, everything that we
347
00:19:05.420 --> 00:19:11.089
just mentioned is 100% within your control. Now, that doesn't
348
00:19:11.910 --> 00:19:14.990
mean you do all that and you're always going to win.
349
00:19:15.930 --> 00:19:18.250
But doing all that puts you on easy mode. And
350
00:19:18.349 --> 00:19:20.549
so in the book, I talk about the idea of positioning.
351
00:19:20.609 --> 00:19:22.549
And that's sort of like the adult version of this.
352
00:19:22.990 --> 00:19:25.079
How do we position ourselves so our life is on
353
00:19:25.140 --> 00:19:27.029
easy mode? Doesn't mean we're not going to get angry.
354
00:19:27.289 --> 00:19:30.390
Doesn't mean we're not going to have emotions. Doesn't mean
355
00:19:30.430 --> 00:19:33.200
the world's not going to kick our butt sometimes. However,
356
00:19:33.779 --> 00:19:37.079
if we put ourselves on easy mode, we're always going
357
00:19:37.099 --> 00:19:38.759
to make the best choices possible. We're going to have
358
00:19:38.779 --> 00:19:41.059
more choices to make, and we're only going to have
359
00:19:41.099 --> 00:19:43.400
good choices to make. It's like every decision when you're
360
00:19:43.440 --> 00:19:45.849
on easy mode is a good decision. And when you're
361
00:19:45.890 --> 00:19:48.109
on hard mode, it doesn't matter what you do. Every
362
00:19:48.150 --> 00:19:49.890
decision makes everything so much harder.
363
00:19:50.089 --> 00:19:54.200
It feels like, for example, a big keynote speech I
364
00:19:54.240 --> 00:19:57.420
think the greatest speakers make it look like they're on
365
00:19:57.440 --> 00:20:00.299
easy mode because of the hard stuff they're willing to
366
00:20:00.359 --> 00:20:03.799
do leading up to that moment. So the decisions they
367
00:20:03.839 --> 00:20:07.920
make as far as preparation and practice and rehearsal and
368
00:20:08.059 --> 00:20:12.500
studying and knowing your stuff, all that takes work. That's
369
00:20:12.539 --> 00:20:16.220
like the work behind the scenes that's hard and not
370
00:20:16.279 --> 00:20:19.359
everybody wants to do so that when they get on stage,
371
00:20:19.400 --> 00:20:23.279
it looks easy. How does that relate? This hard preparation process?
372
00:20:23.809 --> 00:20:26.710
getting ready to go so that when it's time to shine,
373
00:20:26.730 --> 00:20:29.730
you're like, wow, Shane makes that look easy. He doesn't
374
00:20:29.759 --> 00:20:32.440
even have to really think, although they don't know all
375
00:20:32.460 --> 00:20:33.759
of the work that went into it.
376
00:20:34.259 --> 00:20:36.160
And if you're really good, you don't want them to
377
00:20:36.200 --> 00:20:37.880
know all the work that went into it. You want
378
00:20:37.900 --> 00:20:40.200
to have some magic around it. And that magic is
379
00:20:40.299 --> 00:20:42.259
created by the fact that you make it look so easy.
380
00:20:42.660 --> 00:20:47.400
The difference between preparation and positioning, and they're both very
381
00:20:47.519 --> 00:20:50.259
similar and related concepts. I use the word positioning in
382
00:20:50.279 --> 00:20:53.720
the book because we always We can't always tell the future.
383
00:20:53.839 --> 00:20:55.809
And I don't get into this nuance with the kids,
384
00:20:55.880 --> 00:20:59.509
but with adults, I do. Preparation is, I know I
385
00:20:59.630 --> 00:21:04.190
have a presentation coming up. So I'm going to put
386
00:21:04.230 --> 00:21:06.670
myself in the best position possible to do that. I'm
387
00:21:06.690 --> 00:21:08.950
going to prepare for the presentation. I know how to
388
00:21:08.990 --> 00:21:11.289
prepare for the presentation. I know what to do. I
389
00:21:11.309 --> 00:21:13.450
know how to rehearse myself. I know how to record myself.
390
00:21:13.880 --> 00:21:16.299
I know what points to hit. I know what intonation
391
00:21:16.319 --> 00:21:18.769
to hit. I know what to do. So I'm going
392
00:21:18.789 --> 00:21:20.349
to prepare. And if I don't prepare, I'm going to
393
00:21:20.369 --> 00:21:22.069
be on hard mode. And if I do prepare, I'm
394
00:21:22.089 --> 00:21:23.890
going to make it look easy. I'm going to knock
395
00:21:23.950 --> 00:21:24.190
it out.
396
00:21:24.130 --> 00:21:24.529
Of the park.
397
00:21:25.150 --> 00:21:28.589
Positioning is more, I don't know what the future holds.
398
00:21:28.710 --> 00:21:31.789
I'm not going to predict what the future is. I'm
399
00:21:31.829 --> 00:21:35.750
going to position myself for multiple possible futures. Often we
400
00:21:35.789 --> 00:21:38.569
make predictions about the future without even knowing we're making
401
00:21:38.630 --> 00:21:41.230
predictions because we're not really thinking about it. If we
402
00:21:41.319 --> 00:21:45.039
buy a house that is bigger than we can afford
403
00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:49.390
on a changing interest rate environment, but we want the
404
00:21:49.410 --> 00:21:52.670
house today, we're making an assumption that the future is
405
00:21:52.710 --> 00:21:55.680
going to look like the present and that interest rates
406
00:21:55.720 --> 00:21:58.099
are going to stay the same. And so if the
407
00:21:58.160 --> 00:22:00.759
interest rates change, we're ill positioned. We're not in a
408
00:22:00.779 --> 00:22:05.000
good position. So positioning is all about giving yourself optionality
409
00:22:05.039 --> 00:22:07.859
in the future. So instead of trying to predict the future,
410
00:22:08.140 --> 00:22:10.329
how do I win no matter what happens in the future?
411
00:22:10.440 --> 00:22:13.769
This is one of the hidden lessons. I almost wanted
412
00:22:13.809 --> 00:22:16.789
to call the chapter like the Titan's Blueprint. If you
413
00:22:16.829 --> 00:22:20.349
go back in history and you look at how sort
414
00:22:20.390 --> 00:22:24.109
of the titans of industry or people who always got ahead,
415
00:22:24.369 --> 00:22:27.529
always seemed to always be in the right place at
416
00:22:27.549 --> 00:22:30.390
the right time, the people who seemed lucky, when you
417
00:22:30.430 --> 00:22:33.599
start studying them, what you learn is they're the people
418
00:22:33.660 --> 00:22:37.019
who didn't go all in on any particular version of
419
00:22:37.039 --> 00:22:40.859
the future. They're the people who were prepared for whatever happened.
420
00:22:40.880 --> 00:22:42.720
They could take advantage of it. And if you look at...
421
00:22:43.950 --> 00:22:47.730
Rockefeller or Carnegie or even Berkshire Hathaway. I mean, the
422
00:22:47.769 --> 00:22:51.259
list of examples goes on and on. What happens is
423
00:22:51.339 --> 00:22:54.779
when there's an inevitable financial panic, they're not predicting when
424
00:22:54.819 --> 00:22:57.859
the panic is, but they know there'll be financial panics
425
00:22:57.980 --> 00:23:01.470
because they used to happen every five or six years.
426
00:23:01.549 --> 00:23:03.950
Now they happen a little longer apart, but we know
427
00:23:03.990 --> 00:23:07.200
from history that they do come And when they came,
428
00:23:07.319 --> 00:23:09.859
they were always able to play offense. Why were they
429
00:23:10.099 --> 00:23:12.140
able to play offense? Because they knew it would come.
430
00:23:12.299 --> 00:23:15.960
Look at Berkshire Hathaway today. They have $ 150 billion in
431
00:23:16.000 --> 00:23:19.160
cash on their balance sheet. If the economy takes off,
432
00:23:19.440 --> 00:23:23.039
they win. If the economy goes into a recession, they
433
00:23:23.059 --> 00:23:26.099
can play offense. And if everything stays status quo, they
434
00:23:26.119 --> 00:23:28.779
keep going on. No matter what happens, they win. But
435
00:23:28.799 --> 00:23:32.009
they're not predicting any sort of path into the future.
436
00:23:32.069 --> 00:23:35.319
They're just prepared for whatever happens. And you can also
437
00:23:35.380 --> 00:23:38.619
do that in our own lives by simple things like
438
00:23:38.859 --> 00:23:41.980
low debt, fixed rate debt that you can handle and
439
00:23:42.099 --> 00:23:45.960
adequately cover, saving money, saving more than you make. I mean,
440
00:23:46.000 --> 00:23:49.079
those are very simple things. Sleeping, working out, these are
441
00:23:49.099 --> 00:23:52.789
things that all position us for the inevitable emotional ups
442
00:23:52.849 --> 00:23:55.670
and downs in life, the inevitable crises that come. And
443
00:23:55.769 --> 00:23:58.690
one counterintuitive one that people don't often think about is
444
00:23:58.809 --> 00:24:02.369
sort of investing in your relationship with your partner So
445
00:24:02.549 --> 00:24:05.630
if you imagine that there's a patch of grass between
446
00:24:05.829 --> 00:24:09.130
you and your partner, and every day you invest in that,
447
00:24:09.190 --> 00:24:11.539
you water that grass. And every day you don't invest
448
00:24:11.579 --> 00:24:13.440
in that grass dries out a little bit. After a
449
00:24:13.480 --> 00:24:16.640
few weeks, what happens with dry grass? Any spark, including
450
00:24:16.680 --> 00:24:19.539
that dishwasher conversation, now all of a sudden it lights
451
00:24:19.599 --> 00:24:22.029
a flame. And that's sort of where the gas or
452
00:24:22.069 --> 00:24:23.690
water reference came from as well.
453
00:24:24.569 --> 00:24:26.890
God, there's so much good stuff, man. There's a story about,
454
00:24:27.029 --> 00:24:30.579
you write about the USS Benfold. one of the worst
455
00:24:30.779 --> 00:24:36.089
performing warships in the US Navy, I believe it was 1996.
456
00:24:36.089 --> 00:24:40.990
But the destiny of the USS Benfold changed, I'm going
457
00:24:41.009 --> 00:24:46.130
to mispronounce his name, the day Michael Abershoff was named commander.
458
00:24:46.789 --> 00:24:49.170
What did he do? How did he change the destiny
459
00:24:49.319 --> 00:24:50.119
of that warship?
460
00:24:50.799 --> 00:24:56.599
So what makes this story so spectacular and almost unbelievable,
461
00:24:56.720 --> 00:24:59.990
almost a work of fiction, is that he takes the
462
00:25:00.049 --> 00:25:02.609
ship that is the worst performing ship and has been
463
00:25:02.630 --> 00:25:06.130
for a long time in the US Navy. And what
464
00:25:06.170 --> 00:25:08.390
do you think, before I get into a little bit
465
00:25:08.430 --> 00:25:10.509
of the details, what do you think would happen? If
466
00:25:10.730 --> 00:25:12.339
I tell this to a friend, they'd be like, oh,
467
00:25:12.400 --> 00:25:16.039
it changes all of his top commanders. And the same
468
00:25:16.079 --> 00:25:18.180
thing a CEO would do when they take over an
469
00:25:18.220 --> 00:25:23.039
organization that's not functioning correctly. They would start identifying people,
470
00:25:23.369 --> 00:25:26.950
replacing them, and they'd probably be doing that very quickly.
471
00:25:26.970 --> 00:25:30.329
And That is a type of leadership style that works.
472
00:25:30.930 --> 00:25:33.789
Frank Slootman, who is on our podcast, he approaches things
473
00:25:33.829 --> 00:25:37.089
that way and he's super effective with it. But Michael Abershoff,
474
00:25:37.130 --> 00:25:39.779
he takes a different approach. And his approach, he doesn't
475
00:25:39.890 --> 00:25:43.640
change a single person. There's no turnover in the ship
476
00:25:43.859 --> 00:25:47.500
before it goes from worst to first. But his approach
477
00:25:47.579 --> 00:25:51.619
is totally different. So his approach is one of the
478
00:25:51.680 --> 00:25:55.240
person closest to the problem probably has the best information
479
00:25:55.309 --> 00:26:01.049
about it. independent of rank one of there's no class
480
00:26:01.109 --> 00:26:04.650
division on the ship the officers don't get to eat
481
00:26:04.789 --> 00:26:07.009
first they get in line like everybody but he didn't
482
00:26:07.150 --> 00:26:11.059
tell everybody what to do what he did was he
483
00:26:11.079 --> 00:26:13.279
just got in line and then a couple days later
484
00:26:13.400 --> 00:26:15.759
everybody kept sawing him getting in line now they're getting
485
00:26:15.799 --> 00:26:18.059
in line all of a sudden and what happened to
486
00:26:18.079 --> 00:26:20.400
the crew this class warfare that was going on the
487
00:26:20.480 --> 00:26:25.400
ship between the officers and the enlisted no longer existed
488
00:26:25.460 --> 00:26:29.859
everybody seemed equal And all Abershoff really did, if you
489
00:26:29.880 --> 00:26:31.839
think about it, if you boil down the essence of
490
00:26:31.980 --> 00:26:35.619
what he did, was he saw the world through the
491
00:26:35.779 --> 00:26:39.089
eyes of his crew. So he changed his perspective from
492
00:26:39.460 --> 00:26:42.470
what he could see, and he added a different perspective,
493
00:26:42.730 --> 00:26:45.670
which is what the crew can see. And then he said,
494
00:26:45.730 --> 00:26:47.549
if I saw the world the way the crew saw it,
495
00:26:47.809 --> 00:26:51.210
I would probably be just as dysfunctional as the crew was.
496
00:26:51.269 --> 00:26:54.769
So how do I change that so that they have ownership?
497
00:26:54.829 --> 00:26:57.670
How do I change that so they feel like they're
498
00:26:57.730 --> 00:27:00.670
part of the team instead of just the people that
499
00:27:00.730 --> 00:27:04.230
do the work. And I think that's a really powerful
500
00:27:04.269 --> 00:27:07.230
message for everybody because what's really happening is if you
501
00:27:07.250 --> 00:27:10.480
think about the source of all bad decisions is blind spots.
502
00:27:11.720 --> 00:27:14.400
That's the source of all cognitive biases. It's the source
503
00:27:14.420 --> 00:27:14.980
of everything.
504
00:27:15.019 --> 00:27:17.460
I want to talk about hiring. I read that you
505
00:27:17.519 --> 00:27:21.269
were hanging out with a CEO of a large public
506
00:27:21.309 --> 00:27:24.269
company and you were talking with them about hiring. And
507
00:27:24.309 --> 00:27:26.650
you said, if you could pick one trait Just one
508
00:27:26.740 --> 00:27:28.740
trait that would predict how well someone would turn out.
509
00:27:29.059 --> 00:27:31.440
What would it be? And he said, that's easy. How
510
00:27:31.599 --> 00:27:36.259
willing they are to change their mind. Why is it
511
00:27:36.299 --> 00:27:40.390
so important that we be willing to change our mind?
512
00:27:41.569 --> 00:27:44.210
Think of it this way. The people that don't change
513
00:27:44.250 --> 00:27:47.869
their mind, what has to be true for that to happen?
514
00:27:48.710 --> 00:27:50.960
It has to be that they're right all the time.
515
00:27:51.200 --> 00:27:53.059
And who do we know that's right all the time?
516
00:27:53.180 --> 00:27:56.920
Almost nobody does. And so what's really happening below the
517
00:27:56.940 --> 00:28:01.319
surface here is that we're putting our energy into feeling right,
518
00:28:01.460 --> 00:28:05.319
not being right. And if you switch that around and
519
00:28:05.339 --> 00:28:08.539
you put your energy into being right and not feeling right,
520
00:28:09.079 --> 00:28:11.900
which is simple but far from easy, then you're gonna
521
00:28:11.940 --> 00:28:14.170
change your mind a lot. When the evidence sort of
522
00:28:14.210 --> 00:28:17.549
indicates your approach isn't working, you're going to change your approach.
523
00:28:17.910 --> 00:28:22.349
And that's easy with something like math where the answers
524
00:28:22.400 --> 00:28:24.670
are black and white, but it's harder with way more
525
00:28:24.710 --> 00:28:28.549
subjective things like opinions or assumptions, or especially things that
526
00:28:28.589 --> 00:28:33.009
you can't see. Feelings, on the other hand, when you
527
00:28:33.130 --> 00:28:36.609
want to feel right, what you're really doing is you're
528
00:28:36.690 --> 00:28:39.990
thinking you're an exception. So it's like we know the
529
00:28:40.029 --> 00:28:44.420
path to financial independence. It's save more money than you make,
530
00:28:44.500 --> 00:28:46.849
invest it in a low cost index fund and wait
531
00:28:46.869 --> 00:28:49.609
a really long period of time. We know that is
532
00:28:49.789 --> 00:28:52.730
as close to a guaranteed get rich formula as we
533
00:28:52.789 --> 00:28:55.390
are ever going to have. And yet, how many people
534
00:28:55.509 --> 00:28:59.650
follow that path? Very few. Why? Because it's boring. They
535
00:28:59.690 --> 00:29:02.230
think they're an exception. They want to get there quicker.
536
00:29:02.890 --> 00:29:05.880
And so they go after get rich quick schemes that
537
00:29:05.940 --> 00:29:10.140
promise the outcome sooner. And when it inevitably fails, which
538
00:29:10.180 --> 00:29:13.210
it does, it always does, what tends to happen is
539
00:29:13.289 --> 00:29:15.509
that rather than tell yourself you made a mistake and
540
00:29:15.549 --> 00:29:17.609
chalk it up to the... What we do is we
541
00:29:17.670 --> 00:29:20.789
say the world didn't work the way that it should.
542
00:29:21.309 --> 00:29:25.990
And that's really interesting because should becomes a form of bargaining.
543
00:29:26.349 --> 00:29:28.809
You're bargaining with the world. The world is telling you
544
00:29:28.869 --> 00:29:30.849
how it works. You know how it works. There's these
545
00:29:30.930 --> 00:29:34.950
general principles that you can follow, but we don't follow them.
546
00:29:35.069 --> 00:29:37.130
And why don't we follow them? Because we think it
547
00:29:37.289 --> 00:29:39.630
should work in another way. We think we're the exception.
548
00:29:39.750 --> 00:29:42.720
Another example is health. How many people do we know
549
00:29:42.779 --> 00:29:45.000
that get too little sleep? They drink too much. They
550
00:29:45.160 --> 00:29:50.109
eat an incredible amount of overly processed food. They don't
551
00:29:50.240 --> 00:29:55.670
exercise at all. And everybody knows health is important. It's
552
00:29:55.730 --> 00:29:59.079
a general principle of life. And at some level, these
553
00:29:59.140 --> 00:30:03.829
people think that they're the exception to it. And acceptance,
554
00:30:04.289 --> 00:30:07.450
if you think of it as acceptance, is knowing that
555
00:30:07.990 --> 00:30:10.609
you must care for your health because it's the foundation
556
00:30:10.690 --> 00:30:14.730
for everything else. Without your health, everything multiplies by zero.
557
00:30:15.509 --> 00:30:17.230
And so we just want to believe that we're the
558
00:30:17.269 --> 00:30:20.230
exception because it's the easy path. But the best people
559
00:30:20.269 --> 00:30:23.869
in the world tend to put their ego into being right,
560
00:30:24.170 --> 00:30:27.130
not feeling right. And there's a huge difference between that.
561
00:30:27.150 --> 00:30:29.250
And I sort of encapsulate that in the statement in
562
00:30:29.269 --> 00:30:32.950
the book saying outcome over ego. But what you're really
563
00:30:32.990 --> 00:30:35.650
doing is you're wrapping your ego up in the outcome,
564
00:30:35.970 --> 00:30:37.849
not how you feel about your beliefs.
565
00:30:40.329 --> 00:30:43.190
I think you've probably done a great job of surrounding
566
00:30:43.230 --> 00:30:46.960
yourself with exceptional people. And I like this distinction when
567
00:30:46.980 --> 00:30:50.880
it comes to feedback, because I think like my foxhole
568
00:30:50.900 --> 00:30:53.059
guys and the people I'm closest to, the ones, my
569
00:30:53.079 --> 00:30:55.619
kitchen cabinet, ones who can provide me like with the
570
00:30:55.660 --> 00:31:00.099
difference between kind versus nice feedback. I think this is
571
00:31:00.119 --> 00:31:02.819
page 47. And you say like, we ask people for
572
00:31:02.839 --> 00:31:06.269
feedback and people are nice, but they're not kind. Can
573
00:31:06.289 --> 00:31:10.410
you tell me the difference between nice and kind feedback?
574
00:31:11.529 --> 00:31:13.849
A kind person will tell you, you have spinach on
575
00:31:13.890 --> 00:31:18.509
your teeth. A nice person won't. And that's an easy example.
576
00:31:18.589 --> 00:31:22.059
Here's one that applies to everybody listening to this. At
577
00:31:23.490 --> 00:31:27.779
Every single person here has one thing that's holding them
578
00:31:27.819 --> 00:31:32.579
back at work. And who has told you that one
579
00:31:32.640 --> 00:31:35.859
thing that's holding you back? It would be very kind
580
00:31:35.920 --> 00:31:37.809
of somebody to tell you what's getting in the way
581
00:31:37.829 --> 00:31:42.049
because you can't see it. Your perspective is only your perspective.
582
00:31:42.069 --> 00:31:44.910
You need an outside perspective to see what's holding you back.
583
00:31:45.589 --> 00:31:48.329
And nobody will tell you what's holding you back because
584
00:31:48.369 --> 00:31:51.940
they're being nice. If they were being kind, they'd walk
585
00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:54.740
up to you and say, hey, Ryan, I love you, man.
586
00:31:54.900 --> 00:31:57.740
I really want you to be successful. I see this
587
00:31:57.799 --> 00:32:00.079
thing you're doing and I think it's holding you back
588
00:32:00.220 --> 00:32:02.059
and you can't see it. So I want to share
589
00:32:02.099 --> 00:32:04.759
that with you. And that's exactly what they would do
590
00:32:04.960 --> 00:32:07.380
if they were being kind because they want you to win.
591
00:32:09.519 --> 00:32:10.539
Why is this so hard?
592
00:32:12.519 --> 00:32:15.529
That in that particular example, it's hard for two reasons. One,
593
00:32:15.740 --> 00:32:19.250
it's hard because we're not used to telling people uncomfortable
594
00:32:19.470 --> 00:32:23.150
feedback that is kind and because it makes us feel
595
00:32:23.190 --> 00:32:25.049
not nice. We're brought up to say, if you can't
596
00:32:25.089 --> 00:32:27.750
say anything nice, don't say anything at all. That excludes
597
00:32:27.829 --> 00:32:30.369
being kind. I was fortunate enough to be able to
598
00:32:30.410 --> 00:32:33.250
work with people who didn't have that sort of upbringing
599
00:32:33.809 --> 00:32:35.750
and would tell me exactly what I was doing that
600
00:32:35.789 --> 00:32:38.160
bothered them, what I was doing. Now, that doesn't mean
601
00:32:38.180 --> 00:32:40.480
they were always right, but they would tell me, hey,
602
00:32:40.539 --> 00:32:42.019
I don't want to work with you. You can't do
603
00:32:42.079 --> 00:32:45.700
this thing. And that was not very nice, but it
604
00:32:45.740 --> 00:32:48.960
was actually pretty kind. Your excuses don't matter. You have
605
00:32:49.000 --> 00:32:51.549
to do the job. You're in an operational role. It
606
00:32:51.589 --> 00:32:54.279
doesn't matter. Nothing matters. You have to figure this out.
607
00:32:55.259 --> 00:32:57.019
And I think that we can adopt a little bit
608
00:32:57.039 --> 00:32:59.059
of that. We can sort of take that approach with
609
00:32:59.119 --> 00:33:01.980
the people that we care most about because we're secure
610
00:33:02.019 --> 00:33:05.279
in our relationship. We're intimate in our relationship and we
611
00:33:05.319 --> 00:33:07.660
want people to win. And if all those things are
612
00:33:07.720 --> 00:33:10.450
true and we approach it as if those things are true,
613
00:33:10.829 --> 00:33:12.529
and we're going to be working with this person for
614
00:33:12.549 --> 00:33:14.710
a long time, then it's easy to give nice feedback.
615
00:33:15.309 --> 00:33:17.890
At work, it's a little harder because we tend to
616
00:33:17.950 --> 00:33:22.460
judge ourselves our success, our identity as relative to other people.
617
00:33:22.839 --> 00:33:26.339
So I want Ryan to be successful, but not that
618
00:33:26.400 --> 00:33:29.470
much more successful than me. And that's another thing that
619
00:33:29.490 --> 00:33:31.990
sort of holds me back from saying that is because
620
00:33:32.509 --> 00:33:34.809
if I know the thing that's actually holding you back,
621
00:33:35.170 --> 00:33:36.630
I don't really want to tell you because it might
622
00:33:36.690 --> 00:33:39.210
mean that you leapfrog me. But if I tell you,
623
00:33:40.119 --> 00:33:44.039
and this comes to your reciprocation, And I'll come back
624
00:33:44.059 --> 00:33:46.019
to that in a second. You'll tell me what's holding
625
00:33:46.059 --> 00:33:48.069
me back. And now what are we doing? Instead of
626
00:33:48.150 --> 00:33:51.569
dividing the pie, we're growing the pie. And the world
627
00:33:51.650 --> 00:33:53.950
is such a better place if we focus on growing
628
00:33:53.990 --> 00:33:57.130
the pie instead of like dividing all the pieces. Because
629
00:33:57.150 --> 00:33:59.750
when we're growing it, there can be enough for everybody.
630
00:33:59.769 --> 00:34:02.240
And when we're dividing it, I can never have enough.
631
00:34:03.099 --> 00:34:07.519
And I think that's such a powerful behavioral algorithm to life.
632
00:34:07.740 --> 00:34:11.440
And you can encapsulate that into going positive and going first.
633
00:34:11.869 --> 00:34:14.170
If I walk down the street and I smile at people,
634
00:34:15.090 --> 00:34:16.650
what are people going to do? They're going to smile
635
00:34:16.690 --> 00:34:18.530
back at me. If I walk down the street and
636
00:34:18.570 --> 00:34:20.630
I scowl at people or I look angry, they're going
637
00:34:20.650 --> 00:34:24.070
to avoid me or scowl back at me. If I'm
638
00:34:24.179 --> 00:34:26.280
kind to people at work, what are they going to do?
639
00:34:26.320 --> 00:34:28.099
They're going to be kind back to me. If I
640
00:34:28.139 --> 00:34:30.559
go out of my way to help you be successful,
641
00:34:30.900 --> 00:34:32.500
what are you going to do? You're going to go
642
00:34:32.599 --> 00:34:34.659
out of your way to help me be successful. This
643
00:34:34.739 --> 00:34:40.360
is Newton's third law applied to human relationships. For every action,
644
00:34:40.400 --> 00:34:44.539
there's an equal and opposite reaction. And it's the most
645
00:34:44.639 --> 00:34:48.579
powerful behavioral force in the world. What most people do
646
00:34:48.800 --> 00:34:51.739
is they sit around, they wait for other people to
647
00:34:51.800 --> 00:34:56.199
recognize their potential. And they're like, look, my boss could
648
00:34:56.260 --> 00:34:58.280
just see what I could do. And what are they
649
00:34:58.340 --> 00:35:01.570
not doing? You need to start this. That's why go positive,
650
00:35:01.590 --> 00:35:04.980
go first matters. And you have to do it consistently.
651
00:35:05.000 --> 00:35:07.110
You can't just do it once and expect people to
652
00:35:07.739 --> 00:35:10.909
recognize it. But if you're consistently looking out for other people,
653
00:35:10.949 --> 00:35:14.250
if you're consistently being win in all your interactions, if
654
00:35:14.269 --> 00:35:18.429
you're consistently helping other people be successful, I've never seen
655
00:35:18.469 --> 00:35:21.050
a person in my entire life who does those things
656
00:35:21.489 --> 00:35:23.719
who is not incredibly successful themselves.
657
00:35:24.079 --> 00:35:27.219
Think about people you'd want on your team. I want
658
00:35:27.260 --> 00:35:29.480
the kind people on my team. I want to work
659
00:35:29.519 --> 00:35:32.719
with kind people, the ones who are willing to and
660
00:35:32.800 --> 00:35:35.900
in some cases have the guts to really tell me, like,
661
00:35:36.039 --> 00:35:39.119
I crave, my background's also in sports. Shane played in
662
00:35:39.139 --> 00:35:41.199
high school, college, and a little bit after college football.
663
00:35:41.219 --> 00:35:43.239
I played quarterback, which is a position where you get
664
00:35:43.300 --> 00:35:46.460
tons of feedback. And so once you leave that world,
665
00:35:46.500 --> 00:35:51.440
the tough thing is you stop getting the play-by-play feedback,
666
00:35:51.940 --> 00:35:54.699
and I miss it. I still crave it and want it.
667
00:35:55.000 --> 00:35:58.239
And so when I find the kind people, the ones
668
00:35:58.360 --> 00:36:02.179
willing to give the tough feedback, I They're as valuable
669
00:36:02.199 --> 00:36:03.800
to me as anybody in the world. And I want
670
00:36:03.820 --> 00:36:05.940
to try to do the same thing for them and others.
671
00:36:06.599 --> 00:36:09.880
But I really liked that distinction between being nice, which
672
00:36:09.960 --> 00:36:13.320
I think is the easy path, and being kind, which
673
00:36:13.409 --> 00:36:19.829
is the unselfish, probably harder path. But you're such a
674
00:36:20.050 --> 00:36:23.190
much more valuable person to be in people's lives and
675
00:36:23.210 --> 00:36:25.880
then them for you if you're willing to choose to
676
00:36:25.920 --> 00:36:27.239
be kind over nice.
677
00:36:28.590 --> 00:36:31.309
So what have we just hit on in two separate subjects, right?
678
00:36:31.369 --> 00:36:32.969
So we hit on this here and we hit on
679
00:36:33.010 --> 00:36:35.869
it with sort of alignment in the world with the
680
00:36:35.929 --> 00:36:38.550
difference between being right and feeling right. And now we've
681
00:36:38.590 --> 00:36:42.110
hit on it here again, which is we tend to
682
00:36:42.190 --> 00:36:47.409
default to whatever is first order easy, even if it's
683
00:36:47.760 --> 00:36:51.119
first order positive, even if it's second order negative. What
684
00:36:51.159 --> 00:36:54.639
we don't do is we don't do the first order negative, second, third,
685
00:36:54.719 --> 00:36:57.889
fourth order positive thing. We don't choose the hard path.
686
00:36:57.929 --> 00:37:01.429
We always tend to default to the path of least resistance.
687
00:37:01.889 --> 00:37:04.230
So it's really important for us to think through to
688
00:37:04.690 --> 00:37:07.690
at least the second level of what we're doing. And
689
00:37:07.730 --> 00:37:10.179
if we think through to the second level of what
690
00:37:10.199 --> 00:37:12.679
we're doing, not just the first level, we can start
691
00:37:12.699 --> 00:37:14.739
to see the consequences of these choices.
692
00:37:16.739 --> 00:37:20.039
I love this quote that you wrote. Champions don't create
693
00:37:20.400 --> 00:37:26.610
the standards of excellence. The standards of excellence create success. champions.
694
00:37:26.750 --> 00:37:28.750
Can you expand on that? Yeah.
695
00:37:28.769 --> 00:37:31.670
So that was a play inspired by something Bill Walsh
696
00:37:31.710 --> 00:37:34.690
had said, and he said something quite different, but similar
697
00:37:34.789 --> 00:37:37.889
sort of impact to it. And I think that so
698
00:37:38.070 --> 00:37:43.750
often we just let people slide with low standards, but
699
00:37:43.769 --> 00:37:47.130
you come in and you're hung over and, oh, you're
700
00:37:47.150 --> 00:37:49.570
going to have a bad day. Okay. That's okay. It's like, oh,
701
00:37:49.590 --> 00:37:52.090
we're all human and we do this. But if you
702
00:37:52.139 --> 00:37:55.659
look at the very best, the people who win the championships,
703
00:37:55.960 --> 00:37:59.099
those teams, if you're inside them, I've been inside these teams,
704
00:37:59.139 --> 00:38:01.480
I've been in the locker rooms, I've talked to these teams.
705
00:38:01.659 --> 00:38:06.139
If you showed up hungover to a practice with Michael Jordan,
706
00:38:06.880 --> 00:38:09.739
he would eat you alive and he would do it
707
00:38:09.820 --> 00:38:11.750
publicly and he would do it in front of other
708
00:38:11.789 --> 00:38:15.789
people and you would feel so ashamed and so embarrassed
709
00:38:16.409 --> 00:38:19.710
that you would never ever do it again. If you
710
00:38:19.769 --> 00:38:22.889
showed up to a practice with Kobe Bryant and you
711
00:38:22.929 --> 00:38:27.260
didn't put in 100% effort, he would do the exact
712
00:38:27.320 --> 00:38:30.360
same thing to you. And yet we do this thing
713
00:38:30.440 --> 00:38:36.239
at work where somehow it's not kind to hold, it's
714
00:38:36.280 --> 00:38:39.599
not nice to hold people to these high standards. And
715
00:38:40.340 --> 00:38:42.610
it's actually very kind to hold people to high standards
716
00:38:42.670 --> 00:38:46.190
because I know what you're capable of, Ryan. This is
717
00:38:46.230 --> 00:38:48.889
a shitty draft. Why are you giving this to me?
718
00:38:49.269 --> 00:38:53.090
You can do better than this. And If we work
719
00:38:53.170 --> 00:38:55.949
for somebody exceptional, if we play on a team with
720
00:38:55.989 --> 00:38:59.170
Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant, if we go work for
721
00:38:59.530 --> 00:39:04.309
somebody who is an outlier, I guarantee you they have
722
00:39:04.389 --> 00:39:07.869
higher standards than average of themselves and of the people
723
00:39:07.909 --> 00:39:10.889
they work closest with. If you're fortunate enough to work
724
00:39:10.929 --> 00:39:15.130
with people who are at this level, you will adopt
725
00:39:15.170 --> 00:39:18.510
those standards as natural. At first, they'll seem sort of
726
00:39:18.550 --> 00:39:21.820
like crazy to you. Like how can somebody hold themselves
727
00:39:21.860 --> 00:39:25.099
to the standard? But if you work with them for three, six,
728
00:39:25.159 --> 00:39:27.590
nine months, all of a sudden those standards become your
729
00:39:27.630 --> 00:39:30.909
baseline and you're going to go far and you're going
730
00:39:30.929 --> 00:39:34.739
to go fast. And if you are not fortunate enough
731
00:39:34.800 --> 00:39:37.960
to work with these people, you can adopt the standards
732
00:39:38.000 --> 00:39:40.800
of the best in history. You can sort of make
733
00:39:40.840 --> 00:39:43.679
your own personal board of directors. You can put people
734
00:39:44.199 --> 00:39:48.449
in your life that have higher standards. just because we
735
00:39:48.489 --> 00:39:51.219
adopt the standards of the lifestyle that we're born into.
736
00:39:51.360 --> 00:39:54.500
And that's luck. We have these unwritten rules that we
737
00:39:54.559 --> 00:39:57.900
inherit from our parents, including ceilings, including habits, including all
738
00:39:57.940 --> 00:40:00.860
this stuff. But at some point, you take control of
739
00:40:00.900 --> 00:40:04.519
your life. You take control of your trajectory. And if
740
00:40:04.559 --> 00:40:08.260
you don't change your standards, you're going to end up
741
00:40:08.360 --> 00:40:10.619
exactly where your parents ended up. And that's not a
742
00:40:10.639 --> 00:40:13.519
bad thing. There's no judgment involved in that. But if
743
00:40:13.599 --> 00:40:16.300
you want something different than that outcome, and you want
744
00:40:16.340 --> 00:40:20.059
to be better, way better, whatever it is, then you
745
00:40:20.079 --> 00:40:22.480
have to change it. Because if you do what everybody
746
00:40:22.539 --> 00:40:24.800
else is doing, you're going to get the same results
747
00:40:24.880 --> 00:40:27.559
everybody else gets. One of the best things that you
748
00:40:27.579 --> 00:40:29.940
can do is start to hold yourself to higher standards.
749
00:40:30.659 --> 00:40:33.170
I'll listen to this episode afterwards and I'll be like,
750
00:40:33.329 --> 00:40:35.329
oh man, I should have said this, or I got
751
00:40:35.369 --> 00:40:38.309
confused here. Why didn't I pause for a second before
752
00:40:38.369 --> 00:40:40.570
I spoke? And that's how we get better.
753
00:40:42.369 --> 00:40:45.809
I remember when I had Michael Youseem on this podcast, Shane,
754
00:40:46.389 --> 00:40:48.469
And he was talking about Gene Kranz. And one of
755
00:40:48.570 --> 00:40:50.929
the best quotes when it comes to these high standards
756
00:40:51.469 --> 00:40:55.670
is this. He said, expecting high performance is a prerequisite
757
00:40:56.070 --> 00:40:59.309
to which achievement among those who work with you. Your
758
00:40:59.409 --> 00:41:04.619
high standards and optimistic anticipations will not guarantee a favorable outcome,
759
00:41:05.079 --> 00:41:09.579
but their absence will surely create the opposite. I think
760
00:41:09.659 --> 00:41:11.840
as leaders, this is our duty. This is something we
761
00:41:11.900 --> 00:41:15.219
have to do if we care. We care about our mission,
762
00:41:15.320 --> 00:41:18.090
if we care about our people, I think it's on us.
763
00:41:18.119 --> 00:41:20.710
When I think about my favorite coaches, my favorite teachers,
764
00:41:20.769 --> 00:41:24.449
my favorite leaders that have impacted me, this is what
765
00:41:24.510 --> 00:41:29.150
they did. They expected high performance. They expected me to
766
00:41:29.190 --> 00:41:31.469
perform at a level that I didn't even think I
767
00:41:31.510 --> 00:41:34.119
was capable of, and they got it. They got it
768
00:41:34.219 --> 00:41:38.039
out of me. That's leadership. That expectation, that setting of
769
00:41:38.059 --> 00:41:40.480
the standard, those are the people we want. Those are
770
00:41:40.500 --> 00:41:43.260
the ones who make a difference. 100%.
771
00:41:43.260 --> 00:41:45.699
And if you think about it, we naturally have high
772
00:41:45.739 --> 00:41:49.119
standards for things we care about. Yeah. If you're building
773
00:41:49.139 --> 00:41:50.829
a house, you have a high standard for the cost
774
00:41:50.889 --> 00:41:52.789
of it. Why could you care about it? Why do
775
00:41:52.809 --> 00:41:55.050
you care about it there, but not at work? Is
776
00:41:55.110 --> 00:41:57.030
it that you don't care about work or is that
777
00:41:57.250 --> 00:41:59.230
I'm letting you get away with it, right? And we just,
778
00:41:59.449 --> 00:42:01.880
we do tend to act like teenagers. We do what
779
00:42:01.889 --> 00:42:04.440
we can get away with. And so calling people out
780
00:42:04.559 --> 00:42:10.559
on it in a polite, kind way. And what I
781
00:42:10.599 --> 00:42:13.480
mean by that is, There's a difference between calling somebody
782
00:42:13.659 --> 00:42:15.800
out and being an asshole about it, beating them over
783
00:42:15.860 --> 00:42:18.300
a head with a newspaper like Michael Jordan might have.
784
00:42:18.559 --> 00:42:20.739
And that might win championships. That's not how I want
785
00:42:20.760 --> 00:42:23.980
to act, but you can still call people out and
786
00:42:24.019 --> 00:42:26.429
you approach the conversation. And a lot of people are like,
787
00:42:26.469 --> 00:42:28.610
how do I approach this? Approach it the same way
788
00:42:28.650 --> 00:42:31.309
that you would approach your partner. And so your default
789
00:42:31.429 --> 00:42:34.630
going into that is I love you. And it doesn't
790
00:42:34.650 --> 00:42:37.590
have to be a love like a romantic love. It's like,
791
00:42:37.909 --> 00:42:39.650
I love working with you. I want the best for you.
792
00:42:40.269 --> 00:42:42.889
And I'm going to be working with you for 20 years.
793
00:42:42.989 --> 00:42:45.570
And that part is super important. Because if I think
794
00:42:45.699 --> 00:42:47.800
I'm going to be working with you for 20 years,
795
00:42:47.900 --> 00:42:51.900
I'm going to approach that conversation much differently than if
796
00:42:52.000 --> 00:42:54.300
I think I'm going to be gone after a year
797
00:42:54.440 --> 00:42:56.059
or you're going to be gone after a year, because
798
00:42:56.099 --> 00:42:59.019
then I can get away with some bad stuff. And
799
00:42:59.099 --> 00:43:01.599
we don't want to get our brain into that circumstance.
800
00:43:01.739 --> 00:43:04.219
If you change your timeline, you eliminate a lot of
801
00:43:04.260 --> 00:43:08.250
poor behavior. Think long-term, you need win. That doesn't mean
802
00:43:08.289 --> 00:43:10.989
you don't have a tough conversation. but it changes how
803
00:43:11.030 --> 00:43:14.050
you approach that conversation. Ryan, I really want you to win.
804
00:43:14.809 --> 00:43:17.389
I really want you to be successful. I really want
805
00:43:17.409 --> 00:43:19.710
to be here with you. But the quality of work
806
00:43:19.750 --> 00:43:22.090
that you're doing right now is not up to what
807
00:43:22.190 --> 00:43:24.530
I know you're capable of. I don't know if there's
808
00:43:24.550 --> 00:43:26.949
something in the way that I can help with, but
809
00:43:26.989 --> 00:43:29.550
this isn't acceptable. This isn't the standard we have here.
810
00:43:30.429 --> 00:43:32.590
And I use this language with the kids all the time.
811
00:43:32.800 --> 00:43:36.300
This isn't the standard our family has. Did you study?
812
00:43:36.860 --> 00:43:39.170
And then I'll ask them, Did you study up to
813
00:43:39.570 --> 00:43:43.610
our standard? And that puts an emphasis on the fact
814
00:43:43.650 --> 00:43:48.190
that our standard is higher and our standard for working
815
00:43:48.210 --> 00:43:50.929
hard and our standard for doing good deeds and our
816
00:43:50.969 --> 00:43:54.369
standard for giving back to the community and our standard
817
00:43:54.449 --> 00:43:57.110
for being good people is higher than other people's. I
818
00:43:57.139 --> 00:43:59.980
don't care what other people's standard are. I care about
819
00:44:00.139 --> 00:44:02.679
our standards as a family. I care about your standards
820
00:44:02.699 --> 00:44:05.880
for yourself because other people aren't always going to be
821
00:44:05.920 --> 00:44:08.530
there to hold you to a high standard. And you
822
00:44:08.570 --> 00:44:10.909
have to hold yourself to that standard. You have to
823
00:44:10.949 --> 00:44:13.489
be capable in those moments where I failed when I
824
00:44:13.530 --> 00:44:17.690
was 13 to hold myself to that standard. And you
825
00:44:17.730 --> 00:44:20.199
have to be able to do that on your own
826
00:44:20.530 --> 00:44:23.599
when nobody's watching. And if you can do that, you
827
00:44:23.619 --> 00:44:24.239
will be great.
828
00:44:25.539 --> 00:44:27.820
It makes me think, Shane, of one of my favorite
829
00:44:27.840 --> 00:44:31.820
posts you've written on FarnhamStreetFS.blog. And there's a lot of
830
00:44:31.860 --> 00:44:34.320
Buffett stuff and Munger stuff, which is there's just a
831
00:44:34.360 --> 00:44:37.119
treasure trove. But I'd love for you to expand on
832
00:44:37.139 --> 00:44:39.840
this quote when it comes to the two scorecards that
833
00:44:39.880 --> 00:44:42.440
Warren Buffett writes about. Here it is. The big question
834
00:44:42.460 --> 00:44:46.079
about how people behave is whether they've got an inner
835
00:44:46.139 --> 00:44:51.179
scorecard or an outer scorecard. It helps if you can
836
00:44:51.199 --> 00:44:54.920
be satisfied with an inner scorecard. What does that mean
837
00:44:54.940 --> 00:44:55.199
to you?
838
00:44:57.860 --> 00:45:02.119
If we let society dictate what we go after, money, power, fame,
839
00:45:02.300 --> 00:45:05.309
and yet we know– I know– a lot of people
840
00:45:05.329 --> 00:45:07.469
who've achieved all those things. And we all know a
841
00:45:07.530 --> 00:45:11.269
fictional character, Ebenezer Scrooge, who achieved all of those things.
842
00:45:12.269 --> 00:45:15.159
And what they all want, including the real life people
843
00:45:15.219 --> 00:45:18.420
I know, is they want a do-over. And it usually
844
00:45:18.480 --> 00:45:23.079
dawns on them somewhere between 50 and 70. And they
845
00:45:23.119 --> 00:45:28.139
realized that those things weren't worth chasing. And if you
846
00:45:28.179 --> 00:45:31.429
go look, there's a great book by Karl Pilmer called
847
00:45:31.469 --> 00:45:34.119
Lessons for the Living, I think. What he did was
848
00:45:34.159 --> 00:45:37.480
he went around and he interviewed people near the end
849
00:45:37.500 --> 00:45:40.909
of their life. He asked them what really mattered about living.
850
00:45:41.469 --> 00:45:44.869
What lessons would they like to pass to the younger generation?
851
00:45:44.989 --> 00:45:48.070
What hindsight do they have that we can make our foresight?
852
00:45:48.090 --> 00:45:52.670
It basically boiled around that. I would do my own thing.
853
00:45:52.769 --> 00:45:55.690
I would take the chance. I would write the book.
854
00:45:55.849 --> 00:45:58.590
I would go after the love. It's the things that
855
00:45:58.670 --> 00:46:02.050
you don't do that you regret. The other thing is
856
00:46:03.780 --> 00:46:06.150
They would live their own life. And what they mean
857
00:46:06.190 --> 00:46:08.409
by that when you dig into it is that they
858
00:46:08.429 --> 00:46:12.329
wouldn't chase things because other people are chasing them. When
859
00:46:12.369 --> 00:46:17.710
you're 95 and you're lying in the hospital enjoying your
860
00:46:18.309 --> 00:46:22.510
last night on this wonderful planet we have, and you're
861
00:46:22.530 --> 00:46:26.010
in a coma and everybody around you is talking about
862
00:46:26.070 --> 00:46:29.530
you and you can hear them, but they don't know
863
00:46:29.550 --> 00:46:31.369
that you can hear them. What are they going to
864
00:46:31.449 --> 00:46:33.619
say about you? They're not going to say, oh man,
865
00:46:33.639 --> 00:46:36.800
I wish he had like an extra 10,000 Twitter followers,
866
00:46:37.579 --> 00:46:40.719
or I wish he had $ 10, 000 more in his bank account,
867
00:46:41.440 --> 00:46:44.969
or his Porsche was really nice. Or maybe they are.
868
00:46:45.050 --> 00:46:46.909
Maybe they'd say his Porsche was nice, but he was
869
00:46:46.949 --> 00:46:49.489
an asshole. What do you want them to say about you?
870
00:46:49.889 --> 00:46:53.150
You probably want them to say some version of he
871
00:46:53.190 --> 00:46:55.429
was loving. He was always there for me when I
872
00:46:55.469 --> 00:46:58.539
needed him. He was a great friend. He was a
873
00:46:58.719 --> 00:47:02.940
good parent. he was a great partner. He loved with
874
00:47:03.019 --> 00:47:05.760
all of his heart. He did these things that at
875
00:47:05.800 --> 00:47:08.760
the end of the day matter a lot more than
876
00:47:09.050 --> 00:47:13.710
chasing an extra dollar or these physical material possessions that
877
00:47:13.750 --> 00:47:17.389
we all go after the status that we want. And
878
00:47:17.449 --> 00:47:19.610
I think that's it, right? So if you're driven by
879
00:47:19.630 --> 00:47:23.349
an external scorecard, somebody else is going to set the
880
00:47:23.369 --> 00:47:25.210
scoreboard for you and you're going to try to rack
881
00:47:25.269 --> 00:47:27.539
up as many points as you can. And at some point,
882
00:47:27.579 --> 00:47:30.219
you're going to realize that you've done that unconsciously. And
883
00:47:30.579 --> 00:47:32.699
this is not to say that I'm judging people who
884
00:47:32.719 --> 00:47:35.219
do that. I actually want people to do that if
885
00:47:35.420 --> 00:47:39.000
that's what they want to do. But the difference is
886
00:47:39.300 --> 00:47:42.360
you have to be conscious about it. If you're consciously
887
00:47:42.400 --> 00:47:44.719
going after money, man, go after it. Do it in
888
00:47:44.739 --> 00:47:47.360
the right way. Sell products you want to buy. Don't
889
00:47:47.409 --> 00:47:50.510
scam people. But go after it. Own it. But do
890
00:47:50.570 --> 00:47:53.690
it consciously. I am consciously choosing this. And I know
891
00:47:53.710 --> 00:47:56.090
the implications of it. I know that it means X, Y,
892
00:47:56.269 --> 00:47:58.500
and Z. And if that's not what you want, think
893
00:47:58.539 --> 00:48:01.500
about what you want. And so the book ends with
894
00:48:01.539 --> 00:48:04.599
this sort of question, which is it's one thing to
895
00:48:04.659 --> 00:48:07.739
know how to get what you want, and it's a
896
00:48:07.780 --> 00:48:11.349
completely other thing to get what's worth wanting. And I
897
00:48:11.369 --> 00:48:13.670
think we have to be conscious about both. The book
898
00:48:13.750 --> 00:48:17.510
is an instruction manual to get what you want, and
899
00:48:17.530 --> 00:48:20.019
it ends with a thought about is what you want
900
00:48:20.239 --> 00:48:20.820
worth wanting.
901
00:48:23.139 --> 00:48:25.380
I love those two questions you pose. You write, if
902
00:48:25.420 --> 00:48:29.409
you want to develop good judgment, start by asking two questions.
903
00:48:29.630 --> 00:48:32.510
What do I want in life? And is what I
904
00:48:32.590 --> 00:48:36.349
want actually worth wanting? This reminds me so much when
905
00:48:36.369 --> 00:48:38.820
I asked James Clear on this podcast, I've had him
906
00:48:38.840 --> 00:48:41.719
on a few times about advice and he always gives
907
00:48:41.760 --> 00:48:44.440
me prompts instead. He always gives me questions. That's what
908
00:48:44.480 --> 00:48:47.199
this reminded me so much of, Shane, is how you
909
00:48:47.320 --> 00:48:50.909
end the book is that it's really think about these questions.
910
00:48:50.949 --> 00:48:53.150
If you're trying to develop good judgment, what do I want?
911
00:48:53.250 --> 00:48:55.409
And is what I want actually worth wanting?
912
00:48:55.590 --> 00:48:57.469
The key is just to be conscious of it. You
913
00:48:57.750 --> 00:48:59.989
don't just think about it once. What you want at
914
00:48:59.989 --> 00:49:01.630
20 is not going to be what you want at
915
00:49:01.630 --> 00:49:04.150
40 or 50 or 60 or 70. You have to
916
00:49:04.289 --> 00:49:07.989
ask yourself these questions all the time. The question is,
917
00:49:08.110 --> 00:49:11.150
am I going in the right direction? Am I moving
918
00:49:11.210 --> 00:49:14.070
towards the right place? Is that the place that I
919
00:49:14.110 --> 00:49:17.679
really want to end up? And Importantly, but nobody ever
920
00:49:17.969 --> 00:49:21.110
asks when you go after your goals, because we always
921
00:49:21.130 --> 00:49:24.170
think that the ends justify the means. But what we
922
00:49:24.230 --> 00:49:27.880
learn from living is that the means are just as important,
923
00:49:27.949 --> 00:49:31.320
if not more important than the ends. Am I going
924
00:49:31.400 --> 00:49:34.300
after it in the right way? And the right way
925
00:49:34.400 --> 00:49:37.199
for me is when the right way for me is
926
00:49:37.260 --> 00:49:41.070
with kindness. The right way for me is growing the pie.
927
00:49:41.590 --> 00:49:43.690
The right way for me is approaching things as if
928
00:49:43.710 --> 00:49:46.469
we're going to work together forever in every interaction I
929
00:49:46.489 --> 00:49:49.719
go with. That doesn't mean it always works out that way,
930
00:49:49.760 --> 00:49:52.659
but that's always my approach from the get-go. And that's
931
00:49:52.679 --> 00:49:55.519
what I mean by the right way. Ebenezer Scrooge got
932
00:49:55.579 --> 00:49:57.900
all the things he wanted, but what he realized was
933
00:49:58.000 --> 00:50:02.500
the way that he achieved them was mutually exclusive from
934
00:50:02.559 --> 00:50:05.530
living a life of meaning. And that's what he wanted
935
00:50:05.570 --> 00:50:06.219
to do over.
936
00:50:07.010 --> 00:50:09.230
One more question, Shane. Let's say you're meeting with somebody
937
00:50:09.269 --> 00:50:15.260
who recently graduated from university. They're bright, thoughtful, kind, want
938
00:50:15.280 --> 00:50:17.960
to do good in the world, want to leave a
939
00:50:18.019 --> 00:50:22.039
positive dent, but they don't necessarily know what exactly they
940
00:50:22.139 --> 00:50:25.460
want to do. What are some general pieces of life
941
00:50:25.940 --> 00:50:28.519
slash career advice you'd give to that person?
942
00:50:28.539 --> 00:50:30.760
I got to ask them a question. Where are you
943
00:50:30.800 --> 00:50:36.429
most determined? You answer that question, I think, for your path.
944
00:50:37.710 --> 00:50:39.309
At what moments are you most determined?
945
00:50:40.050 --> 00:50:42.289
Did you know where you were most determined when you
946
00:50:42.309 --> 00:50:44.309
were like 23, 24-ish though?
947
00:50:45.329 --> 00:50:48.750
Totally. I mean, at that moment, I think it changes. Yeah, totally.
948
00:50:49.309 --> 00:50:52.510
I was determined to go work for an intelligence agency.
949
00:50:52.610 --> 00:50:55.380
I was determined to be really good at my job.
950
00:50:56.099 --> 00:50:59.860
I was determined to work harder than anybody else. You
951
00:50:59.880 --> 00:51:03.400
couldn't stop me. And that's the place to look. Where
952
00:51:03.500 --> 00:51:05.880
are you unstoppable? And it doesn't even have to be
953
00:51:05.900 --> 00:51:10.090
a natural talent. Because if you're unstoppable in something, you
954
00:51:10.139 --> 00:51:15.420
will eventually pass somebody who is only natural talent. So
955
00:51:15.440 --> 00:51:18.440
we often look for where we're passionate. I think we're
956
00:51:18.860 --> 00:51:22.349
asking the wrong question. Where are you curious? Where are
957
00:51:22.389 --> 00:51:26.489
you determined? The intersection of those two things, you're going
958
00:51:26.510 --> 00:51:29.170
to go places. And it might change. You might dive
959
00:51:29.250 --> 00:51:32.190
in for five years and then it's run its course.
960
00:51:32.309 --> 00:51:35.400
And that's cool, too. But I think determination is one
961
00:51:35.440 --> 00:51:38.039
of the biggest predictors of whether somebody is going to
962
00:51:38.059 --> 00:51:40.639
be successful or not. If we want to work backwards
963
00:51:40.699 --> 00:51:43.000
from that, we sort of ask, where are you most determined?
964
00:51:44.079 --> 00:51:46.019
What a great question. Where are you most determined? What
965
00:51:46.039 --> 00:51:49.000
are you most curious about? And attack that. Shane, the
966
00:51:49.039 --> 00:51:53.579
book is called Clear Thinking Turning Ordinary Moments Into Extraordinary Results,
967
00:51:53.940 --> 00:51:59.489
an instant New York Times bestseller. And then I got
968
00:51:59.510 --> 00:52:03.639
to say, fs.blog.com. is something I've read it front to back.
969
00:52:03.820 --> 00:52:05.860
And I highly encourage people, if you're somehow listening to
970
00:52:05.880 --> 00:52:09.239
this and you haven't read through fs.blog, as Shane said,
971
00:52:09.260 --> 00:52:11.969
it's evergreen articles. These things will live on forever. They're timeless.
972
00:52:12.010 --> 00:52:16.489
And there's so much knowledge packed on fs.blog. So I
973
00:52:16.530 --> 00:52:19.530
highly recommend that. I really appreciate you being here today, Shane.
974
00:52:19.570 --> 00:52:21.869
This is awesome. Is there anywhere else you would send
975
00:52:21.949 --> 00:52:23.909
people to learn more about you online?
976
00:52:25.010 --> 00:52:28.050
No, I think fs.blog, sign up for the newsletter. That's
977
00:52:28.449 --> 00:52:31.090
the best way to sort of get my thinking. I
978
00:52:31.119 --> 00:52:33.469
really appreciate you, Ryan. I think that was a very
979
00:52:33.530 --> 00:52:35.510
generous way to phrase things. So thank you.
980
00:52:36.190 --> 00:52:38.369
Absolutely, man. As I told you before we started recording,
981
00:52:38.409 --> 00:52:40.150
I've been reading your stuff and listening to you for
982
00:52:40.170 --> 00:52:42.489
a long time. Glad this book is now out in
983
00:52:42.510 --> 00:52:45.710
the world. And I love to continue our dialogue as
984
00:52:45.750 --> 00:52:46.670
we both progress, man.
985
00:52:47.489 --> 00:52:49.849
Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much. Thanks, man.
986
00:52:52.280 --> 00:52:55.360
It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you
987
00:52:55.519 --> 00:52:58.579
for being a member of the end of the podcast club.
988
00:52:58.719 --> 00:53:02.179
If you are, send me a note, ryan at learningleader.com.
989
00:53:02.460 --> 00:53:04.550
Let me know what you learned from this great conversation
990
00:53:04.630 --> 00:53:08.329
with Shane Parrish. A few takeaways from my notes. One,
991
00:53:08.369 --> 00:53:13.130
the power of believing in someone. Mr. Duncan, Shane's high
992
00:53:13.190 --> 00:53:16.690
school English teacher, was the first person to tell him
993
00:53:16.750 --> 00:53:20.539
that he believed in him. He changed the trajectory of
994
00:53:20.659 --> 00:53:26.619
Shane's life. Now, we as leaders can and should do
995
00:53:26.679 --> 00:53:31.820
that for others. Let's proactively look for opportunities to tell
996
00:53:31.880 --> 00:53:34.880
people we're leading that we believe in them. Let's use
997
00:53:35.019 --> 00:53:39.679
our power for good. Next, the difference between nice and
998
00:53:39.929 --> 00:53:43.829
kind feedback. Too often, the people we ask for feedback
999
00:53:43.889 --> 00:53:48.010
are nice but not kind. Kind people will tell you
1000
00:53:48.070 --> 00:53:51.130
things a nice person will not. A kind person will
1001
00:53:51.170 --> 00:53:53.780
tell you that you have spinach in your teeth. A
1002
00:53:53.940 --> 00:53:58.590
nice person won't because it's uncomfortable. A kind person will
1003
00:53:58.630 --> 00:54:02.150
tell us what holds us back even when it's uncomfortable.
1004
00:54:02.590 --> 00:54:06.050
A nice person avoids giving us critical feedback because they're
1005
00:54:06.110 --> 00:54:09.869
worried about hurting our feelings. Let's strive to be kind
1006
00:54:10.389 --> 00:54:14.199
people as well as surround ourselves with those who are kind.
1007
00:54:14.579 --> 00:54:18.920
And the next, champions. Champions don't create the standards of excellence.
1008
00:54:18.960 --> 00:54:23.789
The standards of excellence create us. Expecting high performance is
1009
00:54:23.849 --> 00:54:27.489
a prerequisite to which achievement among those who work with you.
1010
00:54:27.789 --> 00:54:32.739
Your high standards and optimistic anticipations will not guarantee a
1011
00:54:32.780 --> 00:54:37.119
favorable outcome, but their absence will surely create the opposite.
1012
00:54:37.460 --> 00:54:41.309
Let's hold ourselves to high standards and those around us.
1013
00:54:41.389 --> 00:54:43.659
So good. Once again, I would say thank you so
1014
00:54:43.699 --> 00:54:45.440
much for continuing to spread the message and telling a
1015
00:54:45.480 --> 00:54:47.480
friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode
1016
00:54:47.519 --> 00:54:49.719
of The Learning Leader Show with Shane Parrish. I think
1017
00:54:50.280 --> 00:54:52.119
he'll help you become a more effective leader. And because
1018
00:54:52.139 --> 00:54:54.119
you continue to do that and you continue to go
1019
00:54:54.139 --> 00:54:57.969
to ryanhawk.net, which launches you into Apple Podcasts, and once
1020
00:54:57.989 --> 00:55:00.369
you're there, you write a thoughtful review and you rate
1021
00:55:00.409 --> 00:55:03.210
the show, hopefully five stars. And by doing that, you
1022
00:55:03.670 --> 00:55:06.170
are giving me the opportunity to do what I love
1023
00:55:06.210 --> 00:55:09.170
on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever
1024
00:55:09.449 --> 00:55:11.909
be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon.
1025
00:55:12.150 --> 00:55:12.369
Can't wait.