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Welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am your host,
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Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Go
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to learningleader.com for show notes of this and all podcast episodes.
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Go to learningleader.com. Now on to tonight's featured leader, one
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of my favorites, Dan Coyle, New York Times bestselling author
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who spent the last two decades studying what makes great
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teams great. He wrote The Talent Code, The Culture Code,
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and now Flourish. These are books that have shaped how
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millions of people think about skill development, team culture, and
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meaningful connection. He works with the Cleveland Guardians as a
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special advisor on culture and performance. We got together in
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Cleveland to record this one in person. So glad I
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got to spend time with him. Half a Day with Dan.
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A few things we discussed. The craft of writing and storytelling,
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including the advice Dan gives to his 24-year-old daughter who
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wants to be a writer. Love it. And then the
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Chilean miners story. You've heard me talk a little bit
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about this with Mike Deegan. 33 men trapped underground for
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52 days who should not have survived but did. And
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what that reveals about human resilience and group And then
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I love this concept called yellow doors. They are about
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spotting opportunities to create meaningful connections and exploring new paths,
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including a new story that Dan tells about rock climbing.
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I think you'll find it useful. Ladies and gentlemen, please
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enjoy my conversation with Dan Coyle. This episode is brought
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to you by my friends at Insight Global. Through talent
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or technical services, Insight Global can get you the people
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you need and help you develop them to reach their
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full potential. Developing your people can be tough, but having
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productive employees can be magic. Visit insightglobal.com slash learningleader. That's insightglobal.com
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slash learningleader to learn more. Who are you reading lately that, like,
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you're loving?
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You know, this guy, and it's more in the writing area,
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but George Saunders, bump into his stuff at all.
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I've heard that. Yeah, what's something he's written that you
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really like?
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It's called A Swim in the Pond in the Rain.
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He teaches a class on writing, but it's really kind
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of about life.
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What's that book?
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A Swim, it's a terrible title. A Swim in a
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Pond in the Rain.
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And that's nonfiction?
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It's based on a class he teaches on Russian short stories.
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So it's super abstract.
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Oh my God.
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I'm trying to think of something that's more in your,
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in your world or our world.
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Are you, so you're studying writing?
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Yeah. Yeah.
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Is that like your favorite thing?
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I'm always looking to deepen that skillset.
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Yeah.
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Look at that.
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Uh, dude, that is clapper.
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This is elite.
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I have no idea. This would be a clapper.
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Yeah.
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It's not the uh ten thousand dollar cameras it's the
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it's the fifteen dollar slate from.
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You clapped it you clapped it it works it's got
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the colors.
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On it hey i love it you're not alone wow
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so you still feel like you're i have an official
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start but i'm too curious oh yeah you're still you're
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still deep into learning about being about.
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100 real 100 what do you mean like There are
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people that, you know, sort of mountaintop of craft, right?
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Like you work your way up it, you learn, you relearn.
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You have the strange experience of reading something that you
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wrote and thinking, oh, hey, that's actually pretty good.
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Who wrote that?
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You know?
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Your own stuff?
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Your own stuff. And you also see how you've decomplicated
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things over the years. Like I think in the journey
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of craft always involves getting simpler, period, right? And is
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there an end to that? I know that I could
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definitely be simpler because simple is not easy, right? And
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I think the great ones are always they've got their
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craft to where it is– where there's a simplicity to it.
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And I feel hungry for more of that. Like especially
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in this world we live in where we're all trying
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to communicate and there's so much clutter and noise and
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it's easy to want to compete with that. and bring
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a lot of energy and speed to your communications. And
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yet the stuff that really resonates is quieter for me
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and is simpler. And he, George Saunders, this writer we're
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talking about, embodies that. And he really deeply has a
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beautiful explanation for how he does what he does. So
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it's just, it's like reading, it happens to be about writing,
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but it sort of could be about archery or chess
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or baseball.
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What about like, how does climbing play a role with
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any of that or does it?
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Yeah, I think it does.
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Or is that just a challenge, like hard, do the
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hard thing with other people, develop relationships, doing hard things?
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I mean, that's some culture code stuff, right? Like doing
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hard things together with other people.
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Completely. Suffering, for instance, like suffering together, how powerful that is.
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Untangling things together, literally and figuratively is super powerful. And
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being vulnerable is super powerful. For me, if it is–
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we're talking about this mountaintop of craft with climbing, I'm
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at the very, very, very bottom. Like, how do I
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tie that knot? And with writing, I'm somewhere in the middle.
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So it's fun to feel– to have a couple of
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those zones in your life where you're a beginner again.
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And it's kind of freeing, liberating, but it also develops
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empathy because there's some stuff that is really, really– it
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looks very simple, but it's not. And so it gives
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you empathy for– for people that are learning.
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You said one of your daughters wants to be a writer,
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but she's fiction, right? Does she come to you and say, dad,
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how do I do what you did? In a little
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bit different way, but, or is she, is she old
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enough now where she's mature to say, my dad's actually really,
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really good and legit and great. Cause you know, teenage years,
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you're kind of, they're going to make fun of you
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and all that stuff. That's not worth. How was that?
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Yeah, no, interesting. We've always had kind of a, I
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think a good relationship. I've got, I've learned from her
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a lot actually. Yeah. She's, reads really deeply. She's interested
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in kind of Greek myths and writing fiction off of that.
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And so that was a total education for me. So
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there was, it was a kind of a two-way dialogue.
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She doesn't ask me my opinion very much, which is
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kind of a relief. I don't really know how she
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does what she does, but it's been kind of fun.
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I've had to lean on her sometimes and she leans
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on me sometimes.
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But the craft of storytelling is you're one of the
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best in the world at that element and then weaving
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the stories together. To help other people, I would say,
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to simplify that as much as I could. Yeah. What
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about that part, this craft of storytelling?
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Yeah. I've edited some of her stuff and I've tried
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to– there's a thing in Ohio that's kind of strange.
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It should be everywhere. It's called Power of the Pen.
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It's where you take writing and you turn it into
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like a high school varsity sport.
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You've heard of this, Corey? Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah.
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Right?
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Yeah.
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It's the thing.
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Power of the– Oh, wow. Okay.
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It's the thing. And the way it works is you
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have a little team from different schools. They're all middle
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school kids, I think. And you all go to a
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gym and you get a prompt, 20 minutes, go. And
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then there are judges that write all the essay, all
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the short stories. They're like, the prompt is a tree
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in spring. Go write, go. A prompt is my dog
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is sick. Go. And everybody writes a story based on
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that prompt. And then those stories are judged and you
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write three of them in a day. And then the
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winners get trophies. And it's just this crazy fun thing. Well,
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I happened to coach the middle school team when my
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daughter Zoe was there. And then Zoe went on to
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become the coach of the team when she got older.
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So And she was a way better coach than I
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was because she was closer.
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She was more of a peer of the kids. And,
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you know, storytelling is a craft because there always is,
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there's some desire, there's some obstacle, and there's some transformation
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in every good story, right? There's like, I want to do,
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I want to get somewhere. There's this thing standing in
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my way. And then there's some transformation on that journey.
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It's like everything, like teaching it teaches you. And so
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being the coach there really helped me, being the coach
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there really helped Zoe. And then Zoe ended up coaching
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me and I ended up coaching Zoe a little bit.
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So it was never this like, transmit, let me teach
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all my wisdom to my daughter. It was much more
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of a rich two-way dialogue that I think ended up
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helping both of us a little bit.
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Man, I love hearing stories like that. I'm going to
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pepper you forever about your, since you're a little bit
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ahead of me. And so I'm always going to be like, oh,
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this is, seems like you figured some things out in
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this really hard game of being a dad with daughters.
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And it's the most important thing in the world and
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the coolest thing in the world. Talk about suffering together.
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That's why I love skiing together. Maybe it's just so–
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I don't know how you feel about this, but like
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this idea of skiing with your kids and seeing them
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fall and then they got to get themselves back up.
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And then keep going. And then by the end of
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the day to see the smile on their face and
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they've kind of conquered a hard thing and you did
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it together and you got in the hot tub together afterwards. Like,
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does it get better than that?
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It's the perfect day.
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Does it get better?
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It does not.
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I don't know if it does.
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It does not.
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With your kids and your wife, like, I don't know if.
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It gets any better than that.
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No, no, no.
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It's a perfect day. And they have the perfect amount
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of like freedom and togetherness. It's like every run is
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like freedom and then togetherness, freedom and then togetherness. There's
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such a great pulse in that. It is like the
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pulse of family.
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It's so good. Okay. Flourish. So it was so cool
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to get this book from your team. I appreciate you
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sending it to me and they sent me the PDF too.
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So I was devouring it and taking so many notes.
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I got to start at actually the very beginning.
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Yeah.
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We were just talking about Jenny. Right. You guys are
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now empty nesters. You're still figuring it out.
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Yep.
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But you dedicate it to her and just says for Jenny,
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like a simplicity in that.
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Yep.
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How does she help you, Dan Coyle, flourish?
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Oh my God. In every possible way. There's not a
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book deep enough or long enough to tell that story.
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But yeah, it being, you know, one of the lessons
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of getting older is, And I just turned 60. So
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it's like, this is like, this is like.
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It's hard to believe.
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It is.
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You think it's hard to believe.
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I'm looking at you. It's hard to believe.
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I'm just saying you look great.
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No, it's one of the things is like, I think
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growing up, I always had the idea of kind of
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individual success, individual greatness. It's like, we were fed all
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these stories about kind of heroic journeys of improvement. And,
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and a lot of the information we get is how
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we can get better as individuals. And, Over and over again,
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I keep seeing when you scratch one of those individual stories,
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what is revealed is a community of people. And it's
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a community of people who support in ways that they
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don't even realize they're supporting. But we're all deeply enmeshed
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in these kind of ecosystems. And so Jenny is like
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the ecosystem for me to be able to do what
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I do. Because what I do, similar to I think
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a lot of careers, it's like it doesn't actually make
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that much sense. Going from writing project to writing project,
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hoping stuff works out, exploring. Some of those explorations work out.
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Some of them don't. It ain't efficient. It ain't like
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getting on the train and going to your work and
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then coming back and getting on the train and coming
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home at 5 o'clock every day. It's not that. It's,
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I think I need to go to Russia. I think
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I need to spend some time digging into this. It's
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not knowing where the next check is going to come from. It's,
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you know, hoping that that works out. And so she's been,
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you know, more than a partner during all that time
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and being an incredible teammate, incredible support. So all my
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books are dedicated to her with the exception of one.
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I don't have to think long about who to dedicate
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books to.
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That's cool, man. I love stories like that. And when
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you look at people who have sustained excellence over time,
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it seems like that's one of the
commonalities is either
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their who in general, or in your case, that plus who.
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this rock of a support system at home that you
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love unconditionally and have built a life with. The other
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thing you write about is yellow doors. I loved reading
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more about yellow doors. Can you explain this idea of
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what yellow doors are and how you're trying to make
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the most of them? Yeah, no.
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I mean, most of us go through our lives. This,
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by the way, it's an idea from a Columbia University
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psychologist named Lisa Miller. And what she points out is
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that most of us go through our lives looking for
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the green doors that are open. Clear go. Let's go.
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Not to be too McConaughey. I don't know how he
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would even say his own name. Green lights.
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It's a good book. It's amazing. The audio book's really good.
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Oh, I'll bet it is. Yeah.
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He's a voice actor. I mean, he's great.
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Most of us go through life looking for the green
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doors that are open and the red doors that are closed.
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Like that's clearly a path forward for me. That's clearly
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a path I should not go. And there's a lot
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of those in life, right? But that I have yellow
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doors is that there's another kind of door, right? That's
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kind of out of the corner of your eye. It
285
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might be something that makes you uncomfortable. It might be
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something that's brand new, but that's where life actually happens.
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One of the reasons that that's true is that, you know,
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we tend to think and perceive things in straight lines.
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We tend to sort of go from A to B
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to C to D and sort of think of life
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as this big, I don't know, like a big game. Right?
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A big game that has rules and you should analyze,
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follow the rules, make good decisions. But in fact, that's
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like a misperception. I think I've come to believe that
295
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that is absolutely wrong. Life is actually not a game.
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Games are machines. Life is– there are elements of life
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that are like a game.
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Parts of it are.
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But deep, deep down, it ain't a game. It ain't.
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This is something– it is a living thing. It's complex.
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And complex things don't have straight lines. They've got like
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little doorways and pathways and it's like this jungle trail
303
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that keeps shifting and moving and you're moving along with it.
304
00:14:02.120 --> 00:14:06.110
There's some weird science connected to this that basically says
305
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it's about complexity, right? All of life's problems, there are
306
00:14:10.190 --> 00:14:13.789
two kinds of problems in life. Some are complicated and
307
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some are complex. And we typically use those two words
308
00:14:16.049 --> 00:14:20.019
like interchangeably, right? They're not. Like complex is really different
309
00:14:20.039 --> 00:14:23.360
than complicated. And I found this to be really, really useful.
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Complicated things come together the same way every time. A
311
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goes to B goes to C. There's cause and effect.
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It's unchangeable. Like I could, if I told you to
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build a Ford Mustang and gave you all the information
314
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and all the materials and a set of instructions that
315
00:14:37.929 --> 00:14:39.980
was accurate and you followed those instructions, you would have
316
00:14:40.019 --> 00:14:43.700
a Ford Mustang every time, right? That's complicated. It takes,
317
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you have to analyze, it takes expertise, but it's complicated.
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Complex is, are problems where when you involve yourself in them,
319
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they change. So the difference is, is this more like
320
00:14:55.220 --> 00:14:57.440
building a Ford Mustang or is this more like raising
321
00:14:57.480 --> 00:15:00.480
a teenager? There's no script I can give you, as
322
00:15:00.539 --> 00:15:02.919
we know. There is no set of instructions. There's no
323
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A to B to C to D. It ain't complicated.
324
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It's freaking complex, which means everything I do changes the relationship, right?
325
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Complex things live in relationship. And so- That's where the
326
00:15:16.080 --> 00:15:18.460
yellow door idea really resonates for me because it's like
327
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when you think of your life as complicated, you think, oh,
328
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what's the next good move? I just need to make
329
00:15:22.159 --> 00:15:24.200
one good move. It's
straight lines. I'll be able to
330
00:15:24.240 --> 00:15:25.580
figure it out. I need to analyze it more. I
331
00:15:25.580 --> 00:15:28.159
need to think about it more. Complexity is like, wait
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00:15:28.179 --> 00:15:31.450
a minute. There's like something opening up over here. Let
333
00:15:31.470 --> 00:15:34.730
me check that out. That seems interesting. Let me probe.
334
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And to go back to ground it in the science,
335
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if you've got a complicated problem, you need to analyze it.
336
00:15:42.029 --> 00:15:44.309
Find out, where are you in that list of instructions? Like,
337
00:15:44.370 --> 00:15:47.669
get the next best instruction. Find the expert. Follow the guide.
338
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But if you're in a complex problem, information is not helpful.
339
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If you're in a complex problem, you got to probe. Like,
340
00:15:54.899 --> 00:15:58.240
you got to test out. Take a step into that
341
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yellow door and be like, huh, that sucked. I'm going
342
00:16:01.220 --> 00:16:04.309
to turn around. Or, whoa, that's kind of cool. I'm
343
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going to keep going and see what the next step is.
344
00:16:07.470 --> 00:16:10.840
And so what I see in highly... kind of thriving people,
345
00:16:10.899 --> 00:16:14.120
especially in people that I studied for this book, was
346
00:16:14.159 --> 00:16:17.759
this willingness to kind of let go of analysis, kind
347
00:16:17.799 --> 00:16:22.080
of let go of information and let their experience guide them. Say,
348
00:16:22.120 --> 00:16:25.610
let's try that. It seems kind of stupid. I can
349
00:16:25.649 --> 00:16:27.710
make all kinds of logical reasons why it won't work,
350
00:16:27.750 --> 00:16:29.330
but I'm going to let go of logic for just
351
00:16:29.370 --> 00:16:33.370
a second. And I'm going to actually probe and see
352
00:16:33.389 --> 00:16:36.129
what happens. I'm going to actually live it. And then
353
00:16:36.269 --> 00:16:37.409
I'll get some information by.
354
00:16:37.330 --> 00:16:38.169
Doing that, right?
355
00:16:38.559 --> 00:16:41.950
So they're living their way forward into these questions, into
356
00:16:41.970 --> 00:16:45.149
these yellow doors. Like you're living into the question. That's
357
00:16:45.169 --> 00:16:47.870
the way there was a poet a long time ago, Rilke,
358
00:16:48.250 --> 00:16:51.409
the poet. Somebody asked him, he got older, they asked him,
359
00:16:51.429 --> 00:16:54.870
it was a young, letters to a young poet. So
360
00:16:55.269 --> 00:16:57.190
somebody wrote him, how do I live my life? And
361
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he wrote back. And Rilke said, live the question. That's
362
00:17:01.269 --> 00:17:03.509
how you should live your life. Live into the question.
363
00:17:03.990 --> 00:17:06.119
And That's what I kept seeing in these flourishing groups
364
00:17:06.140 --> 00:17:09.440
that I've been spending the last five years visiting. They're
365
00:17:09.480 --> 00:17:12.779
not about the answers. And we live in this age
366
00:17:12.819 --> 00:17:16.319
where answers are as cheap as tap water, right? AI
367
00:17:16.500 --> 00:17:19.519
will give you the answers. We have the answers. But
368
00:17:20.119 --> 00:17:22.240
do we have the questions? And are we noticing the
369
00:17:22.279 --> 00:17:24.140
questions that are just in the corner of our eye?
370
00:17:24.200 --> 00:17:26.740
And are we able to live into those questions in
371
00:17:26.779 --> 00:17:30.910
ways that help us to grow? That's what flourishing is.
372
00:17:31.220 --> 00:17:34.160
This idea of being... I found you since, I don't
373
00:17:34.180 --> 00:17:36.920
even know how many years we've been talking now, from
374
00:17:36.940 --> 00:17:40.559
that first meeting, dinner, breakfast, all of them. When you
375
00:17:40.740 --> 00:17:43.240
asked me to come up and hang out, at the
376
00:17:43.279 --> 00:17:46.670
time I think they were still the Cleveland Indians, Chris Antonetti,
377
00:17:47.269 --> 00:17:51.809
Jay Hennessey, you, there were some others in the room.
378
00:17:52.549 --> 00:17:55.210
And I was just, one, I thought this is the
379
00:17:55.230 --> 00:17:57.430
coolest thing just to be in this room, president of
380
00:17:57.450 --> 00:18:00.960
a baseball team who's crushed it, you, a guy who
381
00:18:01.019 --> 00:18:04.789
I've idolized as a writer. Josh Gibson, another brilliant guy.
382
00:18:05.789 --> 00:18:11.150
And the level of curiosity just blew my mind. Because
383
00:18:11.230 --> 00:18:13.299
those are the guys who should be telling me everything.
384
00:18:13.400 --> 00:18:16.019
I showed up trying to learn and learn. And all
385
00:18:16.079 --> 00:18:17.799
that Chris and you and everybody in the room was
386
00:18:17.839 --> 00:18:21.700
doing was peppering me. I couldn't believe guys that had
387
00:18:21.799 --> 00:18:25.119
this stature and this level of excellence that they have
388
00:18:25.180 --> 00:18:29.569
sustained over time. And yet... They were as curious as
389
00:18:29.710 --> 00:18:32.210
anybody I've ever met. I just love to hear you
390
00:18:32.230 --> 00:18:34.970
kind of riff on the level of curiosity amongst the
391
00:18:35.019 --> 00:18:37.420
leadership with the Cleveland Guardians, the guys that you are
392
00:18:37.460 --> 00:18:41.240
an intern for. I mean, just to hear more, like,
393
00:18:41.259 --> 00:18:43.640
and how cool it is to be in an environment
394
00:18:43.660 --> 00:18:44.420
like that. It is.
395
00:18:44.480 --> 00:18:46.079
It's totally energizing, right?
396
00:18:46.119 --> 00:18:49.049
I feel like that's a part of this too, though. Like,
397
00:18:49.069 --> 00:18:51.430
it's kind of like, you know, like a curiosity about life.
398
00:18:51.509 --> 00:18:54.130
Yeah, I know. I know. Well, I mean, if we really,
399
00:18:54.549 --> 00:18:56.650
you
know, we can dig into the Guardians some more.
400
00:18:57.160 --> 00:19:00.819
Because for me, they really do embody that curiosity. And
401
00:19:01.180 --> 00:19:04.660
it's really easy, especially in sports, especially in high performance stuff,
402
00:19:04.700 --> 00:19:07.240
to focus on those answers. The thing that I like
403
00:19:07.279 --> 00:19:12.200
about hanging out with them is that they raise everybody's level.
404
00:19:13.039 --> 00:19:19.799
Answers stop conversations. And by stopping conversations, they don't fuel relationships.
405
00:19:20.440 --> 00:19:26.160
They don't. Questions bring people together, right? And the ability
406
00:19:26.289 --> 00:19:30.000
to Really, especially as you move up in the world,
407
00:19:30.420 --> 00:19:32.759
as you get older, as you have a higher status,
408
00:19:33.099 --> 00:19:36.119
it becomes increasingly tempting. If you have the model of leadership,
409
00:19:36.279 --> 00:19:38.440
that a leader is the pilot of the boat and
410
00:19:38.460 --> 00:19:40.140
the person who's flipping the levers and has the answers.
411
00:19:40.400 --> 00:19:42.289
And that's how I grew up thinking of leaders.
412
00:19:42.529 --> 00:19:42.710
Sure.
413
00:19:42.750 --> 00:19:43.950
Right? They were the ones with the answers.
414
00:19:44.029 --> 00:19:44.190
Yeah.
415
00:19:44.569 --> 00:19:46.650
It becomes tempting to become that. And all the other
416
00:19:46.690 --> 00:19:48.670
signals you get in the organization reinforce that. So it
417
00:19:48.710 --> 00:19:53.259
takes a really special personality. think, to realize and a
418
00:19:53.299 --> 00:19:57.450
really different model for what a business is, for what
419
00:19:57.730 --> 00:20:00.990
a high-performance organization is. You know, we typically think of
420
00:20:01.049 --> 00:20:04.150
them as kind of machines. You know, Indiana football last
421
00:20:04.210 --> 00:20:06.710
night looked like a freaking machine, right? They win the
422
00:20:06.750 --> 00:20:09.900
national championships. We think of the SEALs as a machine.
423
00:20:09.920 --> 00:20:12.339
We think of Pixar as a machine. But actually, when
424
00:20:12.380 --> 00:20:15.420
you get close to those organizations, they're not functioning like machines.
425
00:20:15.859 --> 00:20:20.000
Machines are controlled from the outside, and they're very predictable,
426
00:20:20.039 --> 00:20:22.799
and they produce a predictable result. That's why they're machines, right?
427
00:20:23.140 --> 00:20:26.440
But what we're having here is more of an enlivening,
428
00:20:26.640 --> 00:20:30.789
an animating of energy that's hidden. Those questions, why are
429
00:20:30.809 --> 00:20:34.509
they powerful? Because they bring out people's energy and curiosity.
430
00:20:34.549 --> 00:20:39.650
Why is curiosity so powerful? Because It creates these explorations.
431
00:20:40.670 --> 00:20:43.930
And leaders who are good at like lobbing that question
432
00:20:44.049 --> 00:20:47.150
in and then closing their mouth, it's the most powerful
433
00:20:47.190 --> 00:20:50.390
skill because it's not a machine. Because these organizations are
434
00:20:50.430 --> 00:20:53.470
actually more like these energy channels that are exploring stuff.
435
00:20:53.490 --> 00:20:55.910
They're more like rivers. It's like a river. How do
436
00:20:55.930 --> 00:20:58.309
you make a river flow? Well, you give it a
437
00:20:58.650 --> 00:21:01.670
horizon to flow toward, like where are we going? You
438
00:21:01.710 --> 00:21:03.890
set up some riverbanks, which is where we're not going
439
00:21:03.910 --> 00:21:05.190
to go. We're not going to go to either side
440
00:21:05.210 --> 00:21:07.390
of this. But inside the space, I want to create
441
00:21:07.430 --> 00:21:11.289
energy and agency. And questions do that. And it's a
442
00:21:11.349 --> 00:21:14.910
super interesting skill too, because in the book, I write
443
00:21:14.930 --> 00:21:17.430
a little bit about Peter Block, who's like one of
444
00:21:17.450 --> 00:21:20.849
the best ever at answering and asking these questions and
445
00:21:20.890 --> 00:21:26.390
exploring these questions. And the questions that work in these situations,
446
00:21:26.450 --> 00:21:28.650
whether it's at the Guardians or somewhere else, they're not
447
00:21:28.710 --> 00:21:32.130
questions that are kind of fact-based. They're more like deep questions,
448
00:21:32.329 --> 00:21:35.650
like what makes a great player? what happens in championship
449
00:21:35.690 --> 00:21:39.250
locker rooms? Like there are questions that are impossible to
450
00:21:39.950 --> 00:21:42.559
simply answer. So what they do is they kind of
451
00:21:42.660 --> 00:21:48.720
spark more exploration. And in that exploration, something bubbles up usually.
452
00:21:49.440 --> 00:21:51.299
And the funny thing about those conversations that I've had
453
00:21:51.319 --> 00:21:53.710
in the guardians a million times is like, you'll be
454
00:21:53.730 --> 00:21:56.630
in a meeting, somebody will put in a question, like
455
00:21:57.210 --> 00:21:59.269
how do great hitters recognize pitches, whatever it might be.
456
00:21:59.849 --> 00:22:02.029
And this conversation will happen and some ideas will bubble
457
00:22:02.109 --> 00:22:04.240
up and it's later on, no one will know where
458
00:22:04.259 --> 00:22:07.700
those ideas came from. It wasn't exactly you. It wasn't
459
00:22:07.720 --> 00:22:11.369
exactly me. We were building on ideas. You threw out
460
00:22:11.390 --> 00:22:13.009
an idea and I built on it. Somebody else built
461
00:22:13.089 --> 00:22:14.730
on it. Somebody else built on it. And all of
462
00:22:14.750 --> 00:22:17.650
a sudden you walk out with not only energy, but
463
00:22:17.859 --> 00:22:21.710
agency and a fresh idea. And so- It cracks me
464
00:22:21.769 --> 00:22:23.730
up actually to go, you still can go to some
465
00:22:23.769 --> 00:22:25.970
places and they're still in that
old model of leadership
466
00:22:26.009 --> 00:22:28.789
where it's like, I'm the answer man. I'm the answer woman.
467
00:22:29.009 --> 00:22:31.549
I will speak first. I will speak last. I will
468
00:22:31.670 --> 00:22:34.559
not invite conversation. And my role is to deliver the truth.
469
00:22:35.339 --> 00:22:37.319
And I can see how that would have worked. Like
470
00:22:37.359 --> 00:22:39.460
that would have worked on Mad Men. That would have
471
00:22:39.480 --> 00:22:42.000
worked in the 50s, 60s, and 70s when we didn't
472
00:22:42.099 --> 00:22:46.720
have so many answers around, where we didn't have the challenging,
473
00:22:46.799 --> 00:22:50.690
changing landscape that we're in. Like, but now the landscape's
474
00:22:50.890 --> 00:22:51.849
freaking moving.
475
00:22:51.970 --> 00:22:52.329
Yeah.
476
00:22:52.450 --> 00:22:54.869
And the idea that one guy can have all the
477
00:22:54.970 --> 00:22:56.930
answers is actually kind of insane.
478
00:22:57.029 --> 00:22:57.329
Yeah, it is.
479
00:22:57.349 --> 00:22:59.190
I was like, that doesn't work. So how do we
480
00:22:59.250 --> 00:23:01.029
create those conversations? Team dialogue.
481
00:23:01.069 --> 00:23:03.390
I think I learned this, like, dialogos. Was this from
482
00:23:03.490 --> 00:23:06.369
Jay and you probably? Is it Peter Senge? How do
483
00:23:06.410 --> 00:23:08.390
you say his last name? Yeah, Senge. Senge. So the
484
00:23:08.450 --> 00:23:11.079
fifth discipline, I've used this a lot that I learned,
485
00:23:11.119 --> 00:23:12.960
I believe, was from you and Jay when I was
486
00:23:13.000 --> 00:23:16.299
in that meeting about this, the power of, I want
487
00:23:16.319 --> 00:23:18.519
to get in like the DNA of excellent teams, because
488
00:23:18.559 --> 00:23:20.440
this is something you're good at to go along with
489
00:23:20.480 --> 00:23:26.049
this is this team coming together doing exactly what you said,
490
00:23:26.390 --> 00:23:28.470
but you can't do it if you're not open minded.
491
00:23:28.549 --> 00:23:31.170
If you're not curious, I'm not willing to ask questions. Again,
492
00:23:31.190 --> 00:23:36.009
you talk about asking good questions. And maybe it's context dependent,
493
00:23:36.089 --> 00:23:38.150
but I am curious to learn from you. What are
494
00:23:38.250 --> 00:23:41.789
some of like the best questions to ask when you're
495
00:23:41.849 --> 00:23:45.210
in a team environment and you're trying to figure things out?
496
00:23:45.250 --> 00:23:48.539
You got complex or issues happening. What are some of
497
00:23:48.559 --> 00:23:51.019
your favorite questions to ask in those situations?
498
00:23:51.220 --> 00:23:53.259
Yeah, that's a great question.
499
00:23:53.279 --> 00:23:55.980
I think we're doing it, dude.
500
00:23:56.880 --> 00:23:59.059
I think what's energizing you right now? Is it a
501
00:23:59.079 --> 00:23:59.839
really good question?
502
00:24:00.039 --> 00:24:02.349
Didn't you ask me that right before we started recording?
503
00:24:02.460 --> 00:24:05.789
I think I did. I only got one question. I
504
00:24:05.829 --> 00:24:06.200
loved it.
505
00:24:06.430 --> 00:24:06.990
That's the one.
506
00:24:07.049 --> 00:24:08.869
Well, I mean, it led to like a 10-minute monologue,
507
00:24:08.890 --> 00:24:09.230
but yeah.
508
00:24:09.250 --> 00:24:09.730
It kind of did.
509
00:24:09.769 --> 00:24:10.230
Yeah, it did.
510
00:24:10.250 --> 00:24:10.809
Right, right.
511
00:24:11.089 --> 00:24:12.069
It's great.
512
00:24:12.549 --> 00:24:15.730
And what else is a really good question? I think
513
00:24:15.769 --> 00:24:19.279
people tend to, you know, there's usually like something underneath
514
00:24:19.319 --> 00:24:21.859
the surface. Asking the same question again is a really
515
00:24:21.900 --> 00:24:24.920
good question because sometimes the first time doesn't go. What
516
00:24:24.940 --> 00:24:27.650
are you really curious about right now is a good one.
517
00:24:28.210 --> 00:24:30.299
And there's always the double header, which is like, what
518
00:24:30.319 --> 00:24:32.240
do you want to do more of? I think that's
519
00:24:32.279 --> 00:24:35.299
a really good question. Because what we're talking about here
520
00:24:35.420 --> 00:24:38.660
is like where your energy is going and where do
521
00:24:39.039 --> 00:24:41.569
you see it's going really well? What do you want
522
00:24:41.650 --> 00:24:43.730
more of? I want more of this. I want more
523
00:24:43.750 --> 00:24:46.549
of that. And what do you want to do differently
524
00:24:46.849 --> 00:24:49.329
is another good question. Like, what do you want to
525
00:24:49.369 --> 00:24:53.079
do differently? Because I'm not... You're trying to create space here,
526
00:24:53.180 --> 00:24:55.059
which is such a groovy phrase. Like, we're going to
527
00:24:55.079 --> 00:24:57.519
create space right now. But it kind of captures what
528
00:24:57.559 --> 00:24:59.509
it is, which is like, I want to make you
529
00:24:59.609 --> 00:25:02.329
feel like I'm not interrogating you.
530
00:25:02.349 --> 00:25:02.890
Yeah.
531
00:25:03.029 --> 00:25:06.089
That I'm not judging you. If I say like, what
532
00:25:06.109 --> 00:25:08.710
are you doing that you think is going poorly? That's
533
00:25:08.750 --> 00:25:10.849
a crappy question. But what do you want to do
534
00:25:10.869 --> 00:25:13.410
differently is not a bad one. It creates space for
535
00:25:13.430 --> 00:25:15.990
you to go, yeah, here's what I want to do differently.
536
00:25:16.009 --> 00:25:16.910
Yeah.
537
00:25:17.809 --> 00:25:20.190
Those are all good. And then other questions kind of
538
00:25:20.250 --> 00:25:24.630
about– the future i think are really are really liberating
539
00:25:24.690 --> 00:25:27.839
and good and all these questions you know paint a
540
00:25:27.880 --> 00:25:30.900
picture for me describe for me five years from now
541
00:25:31.140 --> 00:25:34.720
things go great give me an average
tuesday like what
542
00:25:34.740 --> 00:25:37.019
do you do on that day and you're probably obviously
543
00:25:37.059 --> 00:25:39.700
skiing with your daughters that would be one of my
544
00:25:39.740 --> 00:25:43.150
family's right alongside you but you know something and all
545
00:25:43.170 --> 00:25:45.950
of those what you're i think trying to do is
546
00:25:46.009 --> 00:25:50.130
get people out of kind of their narrow bore attention
547
00:25:50.150 --> 00:25:53.680
yeah and Let go a little bit, surrender a little bit,
548
00:25:53.880 --> 00:25:55.980
and open up and point out things that are maybe
549
00:25:56.000 --> 00:25:57.400
in the corner of their eye. Yeah.
550
00:25:57.720 --> 00:26:00.440
So, Dan, I was recently asked to give two talks
551
00:26:00.480 --> 00:26:03.460
to the same company. One was just the salespeople, and
552
00:26:03.480 --> 00:26:06.640
they asked me to talk about excellence and habits and
553
00:26:06.680 --> 00:26:09.640
routines and rituals of high performance, right? Stuff I learned
554
00:26:09.660 --> 00:26:12.460
about on the show. The second was with the entire company,
555
00:26:12.500 --> 00:26:14.920
and they said, we want you to title it. I
556
00:26:14.940 --> 00:26:17.319
don't usually do this. I'm sure you don't either. Where
557
00:26:17.359 --> 00:26:18.920
they tell you what they want you to talk about.
558
00:26:18.940 --> 00:26:19.140
Yeah, yeah.
559
00:26:19.460 --> 00:26:22.259
They say it needs to be titled the DNA of
560
00:26:22.400 --> 00:26:26.839
great teams. And I said, initially I said, no, I
561
00:26:26.880 --> 00:26:28.640
don't know if I have that talk in me or whatever.
562
00:26:28.680 --> 00:26:30.069
And then I thought, well, it might be kind of
563
00:26:30.130 --> 00:26:32.690
a cool topic. Yeah. So anyway, so I did that
564
00:26:32.710 --> 00:26:35.990
a couple like a month ago now. And I would
565
00:26:36.009 --> 00:26:38.130
be curious if you were asked to give a talk
566
00:26:38.230 --> 00:26:41.329
titled the DNA of great teams, what are some of the,
567
00:26:41.349 --> 00:26:42.750
I don't, you don't need to give the talk right now,
568
00:26:42.769 --> 00:26:44.670
but what are some of the bullet points that would
569
00:26:44.750 --> 00:26:47.990
immediately start popping up in your mind of, Oh, this is, yeah,
570
00:26:48.009 --> 00:26:49.829
this is great team. It's great. I mean, you're maybe
571
00:26:49.890 --> 00:26:51.869
the foremost guy to ask this question too.
572
00:26:51.910 --> 00:26:53.190
So no pressure.
573
00:26:53.250 --> 00:26:53.470
Huh?
574
00:26:53.589 --> 00:26:54.170
Yeah. Right.
575
00:26:54.369 --> 00:26:59.319
Yeah. So this better be good. Great. I expect perfection.
576
00:26:59.339 --> 00:27:00.539
Oh yeah.
577
00:27:00.799 --> 00:27:03.480
No, it's good. You know, part of my mind there
578
00:27:03.539 --> 00:27:07.990
goes right to kind of these core things of, of deep,
579
00:27:08.609 --> 00:27:13.210
deep belonging sort of sacrifice, but I'll get a little notch.
580
00:27:13.250 --> 00:27:14.789
So you got the big principles there that I think
581
00:27:14.829 --> 00:27:17.289
are true in every great team, but I'll go like,
582
00:27:17.369 --> 00:27:19.990
since Indiana football is fresh in our minds after seeing
583
00:27:20.029 --> 00:27:23.410
that there is something, you know, if we notch a
584
00:27:23.410 --> 00:27:28.480
little bit deeper, it's like peer leaders who sacrifice for
585
00:27:28.519 --> 00:27:31.359
the team for me is like, is like really big.
586
00:27:32.069 --> 00:27:32.829
seeing that.
587
00:27:32.849 --> 00:27:36.319
You see if Mendoza got smoked, smoked. I mean, he
588
00:27:36.380 --> 00:27:39.859
was battered and he just kept going. That guy, he
589
00:27:39.900 --> 00:27:42.059
was getting hammered and he didn't complain.
590
00:27:42.119 --> 00:27:43.680
And interview talks about his teammates.
591
00:27:44.579 --> 00:27:45.920
I mean, yeah.
592
00:27:46.140 --> 00:27:48.809
How do you respond? And that, and so that leads
593
00:27:48.829 --> 00:27:50.750
to the second one, which is like that moment of, of,
594
00:27:50.990 --> 00:27:55.369
of terrible adversity. What is the instinct? Are we turning
595
00:27:55.450 --> 00:27:57.849
toward each other? Are we turning away from each other?
596
00:27:58.109 --> 00:28:00.730
To me, that is like, Such a litmus test. You
597
00:28:00.750 --> 00:28:02.690
could actually see it last night. You could see the
598
00:28:02.750 --> 00:28:06.210
contrast between the two teams. When things went bad, they
599
00:28:06.450 --> 00:28:12.609
responded very differently, right? That response is just so important
600
00:28:12.650 --> 00:28:15.299
to DNA of great teams. And I actually don't think
601
00:28:15.319 --> 00:28:17.740
the coach is that important in a way. Really?
602
00:28:17.789 --> 00:28:19.269
With Sigvetti?
603
00:28:19.369 --> 00:28:21.430
No, I think he obviously sets the tone and everything.
604
00:28:22.150 --> 00:28:24.509
And it's part of the DNA, but it's not as
605
00:28:24.589 --> 00:28:27.349
big a part as people think. I think great coaches
606
00:28:27.390 --> 00:28:30.170
can create the conditions for the team to emerge. But
607
00:28:30.210 --> 00:28:33.190
the thing with the great teams have, because they sometimes
608
00:28:33.269 --> 00:28:37.009
pit themselves against the coach. They can sometimes see the
609
00:28:37.069 --> 00:28:39.529
coach as we're going to come together against this guy.
610
00:28:39.569 --> 00:28:42.329
The U.S. Olympic hockey team of 1980 would be an
611
00:28:42.369 --> 00:28:45.400
example of that. So I would put that on there.
612
00:28:45.500 --> 00:28:49.369
And I would also put a shout out to this
613
00:28:49.640 --> 00:28:53.710
curiosity is at the very, very, very core of it
614
00:28:53.730 --> 00:28:58.589
because that keeps you going. And it's really hard to
615
00:29:00.170 --> 00:29:03.990
consistently succeed. And I think
the teams that I've seen
616
00:29:04.269 --> 00:29:07.309
do that. are ones that do not get gassed up
617
00:29:07.390 --> 00:29:10.789
on their own stuff, do not drink their own Kool-Aid,
618
00:29:10.809 --> 00:29:13.509
do not believe in their success, actually, in a way.
619
00:29:13.529 --> 00:29:17.470
It's not skeptical exactly, but they're not buying into it
620
00:29:17.589 --> 00:29:18.930
in a like, oh, now I'm at the top of
621
00:29:18.950 --> 00:29:21.710
the mountain, everything's fine. They get curious about that next mountain,
622
00:29:21.730 --> 00:29:23.579
and they get curious about each other, and they get
623
00:29:23.640 --> 00:29:26.859
curious about the situation, and they're willing to let go
624
00:29:26.900 --> 00:29:29.960
of stuff that didn't work. OKC's really good at this,
625
00:29:30.940 --> 00:29:34.980
the basketball team. I mean, they are incredible. incredibly intentional
626
00:29:34.980 --> 00:29:37.690
about how they evolve and how they lead. And they
627
00:29:37.690 --> 00:29:39.809
were here last year and I had a a coffee
628
00:29:39.869 --> 00:29:42.769
with with their coach and their shooting coach Chip Englund
629
00:29:42.789 --> 00:29:45.690
who's a brilliant brilliant shooting coach and Mark Dageno and
630
00:29:46.670 --> 00:29:47.880
they told me something that was kind of cool that
631
00:29:47.910 --> 00:29:51.640
I hadn't appreciated when someone gets traded in pro sports
632
00:29:51.700 --> 00:29:53.680
it's like a death like this is the locker room
633
00:29:53.759 --> 00:29:56.460
everybody knows each other trade deadlines come in somebody got
634
00:29:56.480 --> 00:29:59.740
traded and then their locker's empty it's like a gravestone
635
00:30:00.470 --> 00:30:03.069
And what the coach at OKC does is on the
636
00:30:03.109 --> 00:30:05.329
day after somebody gets traded, he spends a minute of
637
00:30:05.369 --> 00:30:09.819
practice expressing his appreciation for that person who's gone. It
638
00:30:10.019 --> 00:30:15.920
takes like 10 seconds, 30 seconds, whatever. But how simple
639
00:30:15.980 --> 00:30:21.009
and human is that? How powerful is that? And it really,
640
00:30:21.029 --> 00:30:23.269
I think what I'm seeing in these places, it's the
641
00:30:23.309 --> 00:30:24.950
same thing that I see in these flourishing groups that
642
00:30:24.970 --> 00:30:28.380
I wrote about. The word is community. Like the thing
643
00:30:28.460 --> 00:30:32.140
that makes people flourish is community. It's not a bunch
644
00:30:32.180 --> 00:30:38.039
of individuals that are individualing together. It's like, can they connect?
645
00:30:38.380 --> 00:30:41.279
Can they, I mean, the way that some people would
646
00:30:41.319 --> 00:30:43.519
say it would be like, love your neighbor. Are they
647
00:30:43.740 --> 00:30:46.680
loving their neighbor and supporting their neighbor? And that is,
648
00:30:47.019 --> 00:30:48.619
that's just magical when that does happen.
649
00:30:48.900
--> 00:30:51.880
One of the groups that was blowing away reading about
650
00:30:52.259 --> 00:30:57.180
those Chilean miners. Oh yeah. Man, I didn't know. and
651
00:30:57.240 --> 00:31:00.339
understand the full story until reading about it in your book.
652
00:31:00.869 --> 00:31:04.829
Tell me about how they somehow, after what seems like
653
00:31:05.029 --> 00:31:06.990
one of the worst things that could ever happen to you,
654
00:31:07.990 --> 00:31:13.250
flourished together and survived, all of them together. Incredible.
655
00:31:13.349 --> 00:31:14.769
I mean, yeah, if you had to trade places with
656
00:31:14.829 --> 00:31:16.539
anybody in the history of the world, these guys would
657
00:31:16.599 --> 00:31:19.700
not be in the top list. They're a couple thousand
658
00:31:19.720 --> 00:31:22.019
feet below the surface. Happened in 2010, most of us
659
00:31:22.039 --> 00:31:25.279
remember it, I think. Chilean San Jose mine caves in.
660
00:31:25.319 --> 00:31:27.599
There's 100 million tons of rock on top of them.
661
00:31:27.740 --> 00:31:32.829
They're in a room called a refugio. And there's probably
662
00:31:32.890 --> 00:31:35.470
no escape. They're probably thinking this is it. And there's
663
00:31:35.490 --> 00:31:40.329
a little cabinet with some tuna fish cookies, spoiled milk.
664
00:31:40.809 --> 00:31:44.069
Like not much, not much food. 33 people down there.
665
00:31:44.109 --> 00:31:46.630
And for the first couple hours, it went as bad
666
00:31:46.670 --> 00:31:49.009
as it could have gone. Like people are eating the food.
667
00:31:49.049 --> 00:31:51.980
People are running around scrambling, yelling at each other. And
668
00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:55.279
then they sort of tire out, they circle up. And
669
00:31:55.839 --> 00:31:57.700
it's funny. And, you know, we all know that they survived.
670
00:31:57.740 --> 00:31:59.759
We all know that they ended up kind of creating
671
00:31:59.779 --> 00:32:02.500
a little civilization down there. And the original thought when
672
00:32:02.519 --> 00:32:04.359
they came out was like, oh, they had great leaders.
673
00:32:04.460 --> 00:32:06.589
They had like these two guys that seemed to be leaders.
674
00:32:06.619 --> 00:32:08.410
And those leaders had a plan and they had a
675
00:32:08.420 --> 00:32:10.970
strategy and they did it. And they were like steering
676
00:32:10.990 --> 00:32:13.690
the ship. And it turns out that wasn't the case.
677
00:32:13.750 --> 00:32:16.049
What happened was that they sort of circled up and
678
00:32:16.089 --> 00:32:18.690
they stopped and they kind of paused. They just stopped.
679
00:32:19.509 --> 00:32:21.869
And they said, look, we're in the shit. This is it.
680
00:32:22.230 --> 00:32:23.890
We're not getting out of here. And then the boss
681
00:32:23.930 --> 00:32:26.099
stepped forward. His boss, everyone was kind of afraid of him.
682
00:32:26.109 --> 00:32:28.450
He wore a white helmet. His name was Luis Urzúa.
683
00:32:29.190 --> 00:32:30.730
And he took off his white helmet and he said,
684
00:32:30.779 --> 00:32:33.579
there are no bosses and no employees. There's no bosses
685
00:32:33.619 --> 00:32:37.220
and no employees. We're all one here. And then there's
686
00:32:37.259 --> 00:32:39.200
another pause and somebody else pointed out that there were
687
00:32:39.200 --> 00:32:41.839
33 of them, which is the same age Christ was
688
00:32:41.880 --> 00:32:44.240
when he died. And so they saw that as being,
689
00:32:44.259 --> 00:32:46.720
they're mostly Catholic, saw that as being a symbolic. And
690
00:32:47.259 --> 00:32:50.440
From those pauses, like they weren't actually trying to do anything.
691
00:32:50.839 --> 00:32:53.420
But what happened in those moments is their attention shifted
692
00:32:53.539 --> 00:32:58.599
from this terror and this task of survival to this
693
00:32:58.819 --> 00:33:01.960
larger connection that they had, this relationship they had with
694
00:33:02.019 --> 00:33:05.380
each other and with this moment. And they started to
695
00:33:05.400 --> 00:33:07.950
kind of self-organize at that time. Like just let's build
696
00:33:07.990 --> 00:33:10.710
a little sleeping area. Let's get the food sorted. Let's
697
00:33:10.750 --> 00:33:14.049
figure out how much lamp battery power we have. And
698
00:33:14.589 --> 00:33:18.250
they started this set of rituals, right? And they almost
699
00:33:18.309 --> 00:33:21.509
like each meal, they would get out a certain flake
700
00:33:21.549 --> 00:33:23.450
of tuna and they would all share it and eat
701
00:33:23.470 --> 00:33:26.470
it at the same time. They built small games out
702
00:33:26.490 --> 00:33:29.250
of little reflectors and they would play these games with
703
00:33:29.269 --> 00:33:32.390
their limited light. And it didn't, like it didn't, it
704
00:33:32.450 --> 00:33:35.089
wasn't easy. And it was, there was an incredible amount
705
00:33:35.109 --> 00:33:38.130
of shared suffering down there, but it was shared. And
706
00:33:38.509 --> 00:33:40.769
when they finally got contact with the surface, one of
707
00:33:40.789 --> 00:33:42.539
the things that they did that kind of blew everybody
708
00:33:42.559 --> 00:33:45.759
away was they, they sung the Chilean national anthem together. So,
709
00:33:46.190 --> 00:33:50.279
They're down there, no food, very little supplies, dark, infection,
710
00:33:50.319 --> 00:33:54.240
it's super hot. And they end up kind of creating
711
00:33:54.259 --> 00:34:00.500
this little model civilization that functioned incredibly well for the
712
00:34:00.519 --> 00:34:02.720
situation that they were in. And what let them do
713
00:34:02.779 --> 00:34:07.640
that was not information, it wasn't analysis, it was letting go.
714
00:34:07.660 --> 00:34:12.030
It was having this moment of meaning, of making meaning
715
00:34:12.110 --> 00:34:15.349
and creating presence I saw that pattern in all the
716
00:34:15.389 --> 00:34:17.889
places that I visited. They were able to create meaning
717
00:34:17.909 --> 00:34:19.750
because you can have all the information, you can have
718
00:34:19.769 --> 00:34:22.250
all the success, you can have all the productivity, but
719
00:34:22.289 --> 00:34:24.530
if you don't have the ability to like stop and
720
00:34:24.610 --> 00:34:29.289
create relationships and create community, all that stuff is, we
721
00:34:29.329 --> 00:34:33.929
say it's meaningless because it's meaningless. And community is how
722
00:34:33.969 --> 00:34:35.670
we do that. And so they were just a beautiful
723
00:34:35.710 --> 00:34:37.730
example of like, all right, they don't have anything. How
724
00:34:37.750 --> 00:34:40.909
did they create community? Well, they did it by stopping
725
00:34:41.050 --> 00:34:45.219
and looking to something bigger than themselves. stopping and looking.
726
00:34:45.500 --> 00:34:47.820
And that moment of stopping and looking is something that
727
00:34:47.860 --> 00:34:50.579
I saw in all the groups that I visited. They
728
00:34:50.619 --> 00:34:53.489
had the ability in all the busyness of this world
729
00:34:53.570 --> 00:34:56.849
to be like, wait a minute, stop. What are we
730
00:34:56.889 --> 00:35:01.050
really about? What matters here? What is our community? Why
731
00:35:01.090 --> 00:35:03.210
are we here? What is bigger than us that we're
732
00:35:03.269 --> 00:35:07.030
connected to right now? And they grounded themselves in those
733
00:35:07.110 --> 00:35:10.239
moments over and over and over again, And that's what
734
00:35:10.460 --> 00:35:13.380
creates growth and that's what creates connection. That's what creates community.
735
00:35:13.760 --> 00:35:18.679
So that's an extreme story. What about for the person
736
00:35:18.699 --> 00:35:22.210
who has a pretty good life and they're a mid-level
737
00:35:22.409 --> 00:35:26.449
VP-ish leader at a Fortune 100 company trying to hit
738
00:35:26.570 --> 00:35:30.789
an aggressive goal, hire well, fire when needed, you know? Yeah.
739
00:35:31.590 --> 00:35:34.289
Different than being stuck way down there.
740
00:35:34.030 --> 00:35:35.789
With 30, 30 others. Sometimes, yeah.
741
00:35:35.809 --> 00:35:39.670
Well, yeah. What would you take from that experience and
742
00:35:39.769 --> 00:35:43.230
all of these stories of flourishing groups and people that
743
00:35:43.250 --> 00:35:45.650
could help the person who doesn't have it terrible? In fact,
744
00:35:45.690 --> 00:35:48.389
they have it pretty good. Maybe not excellent or great,
745
00:35:48.429 --> 00:35:52.289
but they're doing fine. What could they learn from those guys,
746
00:35:52.369 --> 00:35:55.809
the Chilean miners, to implement into either their place of
747
00:35:55.869 --> 00:35:59.710
work or their life at home to flourish, to do really,
748
00:35:59.750 --> 00:36:03.050
really well from a team perspective, from a family perspective,
749
00:36:03.139 --> 00:36:04.090
and as individuals?
750
00:36:04.260 --> 00:36:06.320
Yeah. I think the thing though, there's a lot of
751
00:36:06.360 --> 00:36:08.820
lessons to learn. And one of them is getting smart.
752
00:36:09.519 --> 00:36:10.860
Smarts will only get you so far.
753
00:36:11.079 --> 00:36:11.519
Yeah.
754
00:36:11.539 --> 00:36:15.179
It's kind of one big one. To really have this
755
00:36:15.260 --> 00:36:17.940
sense of fulfillment. We only flourish. I think there's a
756
00:36:18.019 --> 00:36:21.860
myth in our culture right now that individuals can flourish.
757
00:36:22.639 --> 00:36:25.280
Like you think of, oh, that person, you see them
758
00:36:25.500 --> 00:36:28.889
as a single person, as an individual, and you hear
759
00:36:28.909 --> 00:36:31.909
about their success. And the appearance, by all appearances, like
760
00:36:31.949 --> 00:36:36.760
that individual is flourishing. Underneath them, invisibly, they're part of
761
00:36:36.800 --> 00:36:40.219
a larger community. Flourishing is only part. We only become
762
00:36:40.260 --> 00:36:46.590
our best through other people. So we have this pronoun problem, basically. I, me,
763
00:36:46.909 --> 00:36:51.050
when actually it's we and us, right? Self-improvement. We're talking
764
00:36:51.070 --> 00:36:55.369
about self-improvement. Actually, that's not as powerful as shared improvement, right?
765
00:36:55.909 --> 00:37:02.460
So this idea that we're actually pre-wired to flourish through community, pre-wired.
766
00:37:02.900 --> 00:37:04.880
And one way to access that, I think, is to
767
00:37:04.960 --> 00:37:08.260
think about times in your life, moments in your life
768
00:37:08.380 --> 00:37:12.320
when you have felt the most alive, the most connected,
769
00:37:12.360 --> 00:37:15.530
the most growing, that have challenged you and that have
770
00:37:15.630 --> 00:37:18.469
made you who you are. I'm going to say those
771
00:37:18.550 --> 00:37:21.329
moments didn't happen when you were by yourself in a sauna,
772
00:37:21.610 --> 00:37:25.449
when you were training alone. Those were relationships. Those were
773
00:37:25.489 --> 00:37:28.139
moments when you're in community. Those are moments when community
774
00:37:28.489 --> 00:37:30.809
was lighting you up in some new way and challenging
775
00:37:30.829 --> 00:37:32.969
you to grow and creating conditions where you could grow.
776
00:37:33.869 --> 00:37:35.949
So the challenge to somebody in a Fortune 100 as
777
00:37:35.989 --> 00:37:40.219
a mid-level is who's your community? How are you nurturing it?
778
00:37:40.639 --> 00:37:43.639
Life looks like a game every day. Guess what? Sorry,
779
00:37:43.699 --> 00:37:44.280
it's not a game.
780
00:37:44.619 --> 00:37:45.260
It's a garden.
781
00:37:46.139 --> 00:37:49.900
And long-term, growing the garden of your career is going
782
00:37:49.920 --> 00:37:52.920
to benefit you. It's in your self-interest way more than
783
00:37:52.960 --> 00:37:55.840
playing the game of your career. Growing the
garden of
784
00:37:55.880 --> 00:37:57.980
your career. So the question to ask every day is like,
785
00:37:58.429 --> 00:38:01.250
Who's in my garden? Who can I learn from? What
786
00:38:01.309 --> 00:38:04.130
relationship do I need to feed and nurture? And who
787
00:38:04.190 --> 00:38:07.860
can I feed? Who can I help? We had Craig
788
00:38:07.880 --> 00:38:11.019
Council in to interview for the Guardian's manager position a
789
00:38:11.039 --> 00:38:15.119
few years ago. And somebody asked him what he did
790
00:38:15.159 --> 00:38:18.139
when he was feeling down. Like hard job, lonely job,
791
00:38:18.659 --> 00:38:21.210
like a lot of jobs. Talk about sort of the
792
00:38:21.250 --> 00:38:24.210
loneliness of the manager. His answer was, I go find
793
00:38:24.250 --> 00:38:27.230
somebody I can help. Go find a rookie I can help.
794
00:38:27.289 --> 00:38:30.139
Go find a clubhouse person I can help. That's my cure.
795
00:38:30.159 --> 00:38:34.659
It's like that really stayed with me because it's his problem, right?
796
00:38:34.679 --> 00:38:37.099
You'd think he'd want to sort of self-gratify and I
797
00:38:37.119 --> 00:38:40.659
need to fix myself. It's like, no, it's community comes
798
00:38:40.699 --> 00:38:44.210
down to like serve thy neighbor. It comes down to
799
00:38:44.269 --> 00:38:47.710
helping other people. And that instinct, which is kind of
800
00:38:47.750 --> 00:38:49.710
the opposite of what we really want to do in
801
00:38:49.750 --> 00:38:52.050
some ways, right? It's hard to do that. It's freaking
802
00:38:52.070 --> 00:38:54.340
hard to get out of your own head. But that
803
00:38:54.420 --> 00:38:56.519
instinct to flip it and say, wait, who can I
804
00:38:56.579 --> 00:39:00.920
go help is a really powerful question. Talk about powerful questions.
805
00:39:00.940 --> 00:39:03.880
It's like when Jeff asked you to go rock climbing.
806
00:39:04.300 --> 00:39:04.599
Oh, yeah.
807
00:39:04.659 --> 00:39:07.949
It's kind of a yellow door, isn't it? Because initially,
808
00:39:07.969 --> 00:39:11.030
from what I read at least, you're thinking, I don't
809
00:39:11.050 --> 00:39:11.869
think I want to do that.
810
00:39:11.889 --> 00:39:12.869
No, no.
811
00:39:13.050 --> 00:39:16.469
But now, since you said yes to that invitation, how
812
00:39:16.550 --> 00:39:17.590
has it changed your life?
813
00:39:17.750 --> 00:39:21.429
Yeah, no, it's given me this whole new community, really.
814
00:39:21.489 --> 00:39:21.690
Yeah?
815
00:39:21.809 --> 00:39:24.219
Really, you know, and just– Yeah, I didn't want to
816
00:39:24.260 --> 00:39:26.559
go indoor rock climbing. That is a stupid sport.
817
00:39:26.619 --> 00:39:27.960
Like, let's be frank.
818
00:39:28.280 --> 00:39:30.900
You put on these stupid shoes. And you go some
819
00:39:30.980 --> 00:39:34.360
indoor thing with painful grips and chalk and all these
820
00:39:34.460 --> 00:39:36.900
bags and this stupid harness that I put on backwards
821
00:39:36.920 --> 00:39:40.530
when I first put it on. And you feel like
822
00:39:40.719 --> 00:39:45.710
an idiot. But my friend, he was looking to create
823
00:39:45.769 --> 00:39:48.130
some new friends and friendships. He recently went through some
824
00:39:48.190 --> 00:39:50.090
changes in his personal life and I wanted to show
825
00:39:50.170 --> 00:39:53.409
up for him, right? And so I ended up getting
826
00:39:53.449 --> 00:39:55.969
involved in this. And now five, six years later, here
827
00:39:56.010 --> 00:39:59.300
we are doing trips and playing music and going skiing.
828
00:39:59.360 --> 00:40:01.179
It's this whole new group, a whole new community of friends.
829
00:40:01.199 --> 00:40:04.710
So that yellow door and reaching out, I mean, through
830
00:40:04.750 --> 00:40:06.110
that yellow door is really what.
831
00:40:06.150 --> 00:40:08.389
Made it work. Has that changed for you? Because I'm
832
00:40:08.429 --> 00:40:11.090
with you. There are days you probably have introverted tendencies
833
00:40:11.170 --> 00:40:13.230
as a writer. I definitely do. Especially if you go
834
00:40:13.250 --> 00:40:15.710
on stage, you need to recharge and it's usually by yourself.
835
00:40:15.789 --> 00:40:19.360
But that Craig Council, which I'm going to borrow forever
836
00:40:19.380 --> 00:40:22.130
now too, of, you know what? When I'm feeling down
837
00:40:22.170 --> 00:40:24.659
or when something happens, like let's say your daughter gets
838
00:40:24.739 --> 00:40:27.320
temporarily hurt on the soccer field, like it's the worst
839
00:40:27.360 --> 00:40:30.340
feeling in the world. What makes that better? Having a
840
00:40:30.360 --> 00:40:32.960
conversation with you, trying to help somebody else, trying to
841
00:40:33.000 --> 00:40:34.480
do something I think is going to make a positive
842
00:40:34.539 --> 00:40:38.289
dent in the world, help someone one-on-one. It seems obvious,
843
00:40:38.349 --> 00:40:42.170
but it's almost harder now than ever because we have devices,
844
00:40:42.269 --> 00:40:45.369
these incredible computers that we all carry in our pockets.
845
00:40:45.469 --> 00:40:46.989
And if we can take it out and look at
846
00:40:47.010 --> 00:40:51.099
it forever and always have an unlimited supply of things
847
00:40:51.139 --> 00:40:52.780
to look at, but what are you doing when you're
848
00:40:52.800 --> 00:40:54.840
doing that? You're completely by yourself.
849
00:40:54.900 --> 00:40:55.099
Yes.
850
00:40:55.579 --> 00:40:58.780
In fact, it's worse because you might be watching videos
851
00:40:58.820 --> 00:41:01.179
or pictures of people who are together and you're not.
852
00:41:01.280 --> 00:41:01.530
I know.
853
00:41:01.889 --> 00:41:03.269
You know what I mean? So how does that play
854
00:41:03.289 --> 00:41:04.949
a role into this community and flourishing?
855
00:41:05.389 --> 00:41:07.369
Oh my God. I mean, I sort of think of
856
00:41:07.409 --> 00:41:09.769
these places I visited as
being the cure for this
857
00:41:09.849 --> 00:41:13.369
kind of AI dystopia that we're moving toward. I mean,
858
00:41:13.409 --> 00:41:16.210
we're clearly moving toward that. And there's a lot of
859
00:41:16.250 --> 00:41:19.250
structures in our society that really want to divide our
860
00:41:19.289 --> 00:41:22.690
attention and keep us individualized and keep us apart from
861
00:41:22.769 --> 00:41:26.130
community or provide a fake artificial friend for us to
862
00:41:26.170 --> 00:41:30.110
talk to, which is absolutely hilarious and dark and wrong.
863
00:41:30.730 --> 00:41:34.750
But the idea that The cure is we're pre-wired for
864
00:41:34.789 --> 00:41:38.230
this stuff. There are these huge meta studies that show,
865
00:41:38.510 --> 00:41:40.550
are you happier when you get a gift or give
866
00:41:40.590 --> 00:41:42.929
a gift? Guess what? You're happier when you give one.
867
00:41:44.309 --> 00:41:47.150
We all know that already. We're increasingly learning. It feels
868
00:41:47.190 --> 00:41:53.250
like there is this sort of humanist revival. Maybe I'm
869
00:41:53.710 --> 00:41:57.269
gassed up on my own research, but in visiting these places,
870
00:41:57.309 --> 00:41:59.769
these communities that have kind of come back to life,
871
00:42:00.309 --> 00:42:05.380
these businesses- Like Zingerman's Deli, for example, that have absolutely
872
00:42:05.579 --> 00:42:10.280
thrived by not scaling. We think of scaling as being this, oh,
873
00:42:10.300 --> 00:42:12.360
that's good to do. Oh, always good to do. They
874
00:42:12.400 --> 00:42:14.360
had an offer. This is this little deli in Ann
875
00:42:14.420 --> 00:42:18.159
Arbor that I write about. They were very successful. Just
876
00:42:18.320 --> 00:42:20.219
the best Reuben you've ever had. And a lot of
877
00:42:20.460 --> 00:42:23.159
your listeners may have even been there. It's very famous.
878
00:42:23.219 --> 00:42:26.019
It started in 1982. They've grown and grown and grown.
879
00:42:26.300 --> 00:42:28.559
At one point, Walt Disney came up to them. Part
880
00:42:28.579 --> 00:42:30.340
of their values is to be in Ann Arbor. That's
881
00:42:30.360 --> 00:42:32.280
where they are. That's where they do their business. Walt
882
00:42:32.300 --> 00:42:34.480
Disney came up to them with a $ 50 million offer
883
00:42:34.500 --> 00:42:36.360
to say, we want you in our park. You guys
884
00:42:36.420 --> 00:42:38.460
are a great deli. We want you in our park.
885
00:42:38.500 --> 00:42:41.179
For most businesses, that's a no-brainer. We're going to do it.
886
00:42:41.860 --> 00:42:44.309
For Zingerman's, it took 20 minutes. They're like, nope, we're
887
00:42:44.329 --> 00:42:46.130
not interested. If you ever come to Ann Arbor, if
888
00:42:46.150 --> 00:42:47.969
you ever have a Walt Disney World in Ann Arbor,
889
00:42:48.030 --> 00:42:50.380
we will be in it. But Short of that, this
890
00:42:50.460 --> 00:42:52.119
is where we get our meaning. This is where we
891
00:42:52.139 --> 00:42:54.960
get our purpose. This is the ground in which we
892
00:42:55.000 --> 00:42:58.699
grow our roots. And they have got this community of
893
00:42:58.820 --> 00:43:02.679
businesses there. There's a creamery. There's a travel business. There's
894
00:43:02.719 --> 00:43:06.690
a wedding planning business. There's a Korean barbecue. There's all
895
00:43:06.730 --> 00:43:10.150
these connected business, this family of businesses that is deep
896
00:43:10.230 --> 00:43:12.329
in Ann Arbor and has all kinds of deep connections
897
00:43:12.369 --> 00:43:15.670
with that community. So not to say every business has
898
00:43:15.710 --> 00:43:21.139
to follow that model, but there are models. for creating
899
00:43:21.159 --> 00:43:24.440
those kinds of relationships that can actually lead to a
900
00:43:24.599 --> 00:43:28.840
much deeper sense of thriving than simply the present model
901
00:43:28.860 --> 00:43:30.840
we're given, where it's like, go, go, go, go, go,
902
00:43:31.110 --> 00:43:32.889
and be narrow in scale.
903
00:43:33.570 --> 00:43:36.170
I like the question, too. James Clear has said this.
904
00:43:36.190 --> 00:43:37.730
I had dinner with him recently, and he said, what
905
00:43:37.750 --> 00:43:39.829
are you optimizing for? He asks that all the time.
906
00:43:39.869 --> 00:43:42.690
And Corey and I were talking about this before you
907
00:43:42.730 --> 00:43:45.670
got here, and I said, I'm optimizing for this.
908
00:43:46.190 --> 00:43:46.489
Oh, yeah.
909
00:43:46.670 --> 00:43:51.679
For amazing things. experiences with great, great high character people
910
00:43:51.739 --> 00:43:54.389
who've put a positive dent in the world and being
911
00:43:54.639 --> 00:43:57.670
with them. We had this scheduled on Zoom. I remember
912
00:43:57.949 --> 00:43:59.889
when I emailed the day before, or maybe it was
913
00:43:59.929 --> 00:44:02.389
the day of, you and your team and said, wait
914
00:44:02.429 --> 00:44:04.730
a second, Dan might be in Cleveland. I'm just going
915
00:44:04.750 --> 00:44:06.489
to go up there and see him. Or Clark Lee's
916
00:44:06.510 --> 00:44:08.610
down in Nashville. I'm going to go see him. Or
917
00:44:08.650 --> 00:44:11.730
Will Godera's down there too. And to me, this is
918
00:44:11.789 --> 00:44:14.739
the community building that is hard to do. You can
919
00:44:14.780 --> 00:44:16.599
do it a little bit on Zoom. You can still
920
00:44:16.619 --> 00:44:19.449
feel some of it. But there's nothing like meeting you
921
00:44:19.469 --> 00:44:21.869
down in the lobby, hanging out for a little bit, talking.
922
00:44:22.449 --> 00:44:24.639
I think that brings me so much joy.
923
00:44:24.659 --> 00:44:24.739
Yeah.
924
00:44:24.800 --> 00:44:29.500
Like this flourishing is being with people, being together, connecting,
925
00:44:29.559 --> 00:44:33.860
developing friendships and relationships. That's what I'm optimizing for. And
926
00:44:33.900 -->
00:44:35.579
you hope you know you got to make money, right?
927
00:44:35.639 --> 00:44:36.920
I got a family. We all have to do that.
928
00:44:36.960 --> 00:44:39.909
But that's what I feel like. Is there anything better
929
00:44:39.949 --> 00:44:43.389
than optimizing for those big relationships that can be transformative
930
00:44:43.429 --> 00:44:45.429
over the course of your life? To me, that's been
931
00:44:45.449 --> 00:44:47.590
the number one thing that I'm shooting for. I love it.
932
00:44:47.719 --> 00:44:48.110
I love it.
933
00:44:48.139 --> 00:44:50.820
It's so good. And optimizing is kind of a good
934
00:44:50.860 --> 00:44:53.179
word because it kind of implies, too, that you have
935
00:44:53.219 --> 00:44:55.019
to leave some space. It's imperfect.
936
00:44:55.440 --> 00:44:57.119
Right. Right. It's definitely not efficient.
937
00:44:57.139 --> 00:44:59.889
I'm aiming for it. Yeah. It's not efficient. Like you had,
938
00:44:59.909 --> 00:45:01.010
you had a better way to spend, you had a
939
00:45:01.030 --> 00:45:03.389
more efficient way to spend your morning. Sure. Driving up here.
940
00:45:03.429 --> 00:45:04.690
And I had, I probably do too.
941
00:45:04.730 --> 00:45:04.949
Sure.
942
00:45:05.429 --> 00:45:07.489
That's not where the, you know, the value is not
943
00:45:07.590 --> 00:45:11.130
evenly distributed here. Like there's, you're aiming. And that's the
944
00:45:11.150 --> 00:45:13.590
thing that the flourishing groups have. They're kind of, it's
945
00:45:13.639 --> 00:45:17.480
about moments. It's not measurable in conventional ways. Right. It's
946
00:45:17.559 --> 00:45:19.719
measurable in terms of value or in terms of joy
947
00:45:19.739 --> 00:45:23.420
or in terms of feeling connected or in terms of relationship.
948
00:45:23.679 --> 00:45:27.570
And like, relationship is so mysterious. All these studies show
949
00:45:27.630 --> 00:45:30.849
us it's the most important thing to a life, relationships, right?
950
00:45:30.909 --> 00:45:32.989
The Harvard study of longevity that we've all read about,
951
00:45:33.030 --> 00:45:36.909
Harvard study of development, you know, what is it? It's relationships,
952
00:45:37.030 --> 00:45:40.110
full stop. Like that's it. That distinguishes health and happiness
953
00:45:40.170 --> 00:45:45.630
more than nutrition, more than exercise, more than IQ, more
954
00:45:45.670 --> 00:45:50.170
than genes, like it's relationships. And yet there's not a
955
00:45:50.190 --> 00:45:53.909
playbook for it. Like What is the playbook for relationships?
956
00:45:54.030 --> 00:45:57.980
It involves curiosity. It involves risk. It involves looking at
957
00:45:58.000 --> 00:45:59.880
people who are good at it and learning from them.
958
00:46:00.280 --> 00:46:03.099
It involves community. You could probably make a case that
959
00:46:03.239 --> 00:46:05.900
communities are where we learn how to play that sport.
960
00:46:06.780 --> 00:46:08.800
And that's why they're so
important. And that's why isolation
961
00:46:08.860 --> 00:46:15.670
is so detrimental. Communities teach us how to be in relationship.
962
00:46:16.210 --> 00:46:18.809
And that's the cool part of it. And as dystopian
963
00:46:18.829 --> 00:46:21.880
as the world can feel sometimes, that's just Part of
964
00:46:21.980 --> 00:46:25.639
us were pre-wired for community when some of these places
965
00:46:25.659 --> 00:46:28.280
that I visited, they were inspiring because they were kind
966
00:46:28.320 --> 00:46:30.800
of able to flip the switch. It wasn't like a
967
00:46:30.840 --> 00:46:33.380
lot of work to get people to click on that way.
968
00:46:33.500 --> 00:46:36.139
And when you walked into the guardian's office and people
969
00:46:36.159 --> 00:46:39.880
start asking questions, it clicks on. Like people have that
970
00:46:40.039 --> 00:46:42.599
quality in them. It's not predetermined that we're going to
971
00:46:42.639 --> 00:46:45.610
be in this like tech dystopia forever. It's like there
972
00:46:45.619 --> 00:46:49.650
really is a possibility for kind of a community revival.
973
00:46:49.670 --> 00:46:51.989
Well, one of your- The things I love about your
974
00:46:52.150 --> 00:46:56.820
style of research is you can learn a ton by
975
00:46:57.159 --> 00:47:02.099
using AI tools, by reading books online. You just go there, though.
976
00:47:02.659 --> 00:47:05.719
You go there. You kind of embed yourself with these
977
00:47:06.250 --> 00:47:09.289
groups of people. You've done it for multiple books now.
978
00:47:10.090 --> 00:47:12.389
I'd just love to hear your decision-making of, okay, I
979
00:47:12.409 --> 00:47:14.949
should go see those people, or I should go there. What,
980
00:47:14.969 --> 00:47:17.510
the Navy SEALs? You know, Pixar. Can you just walk
981
00:47:17.550 --> 00:47:20.230
me through the way you think about, okay, I should
982
00:47:20.250 --> 00:47:22.550
go study them or study that. I'm going to go there.
983
00:47:22.849 --> 00:47:24.289
And I've got to imagine there are times when you
984
00:47:24.309 --> 00:47:25.969
go study somebody and— Whoops.
985
00:47:26.130 --> 00:47:26.329
Yeah.
986
00:47:26.630 --> 00:47:27.869
It's not a waste of time, right? It's part of
987
00:47:27.909 --> 00:47:29.989
the deal. But I am curious how you think about that.
988
00:47:30.010 --> 00:47:32.360
Totally. No, I used to think I had to go
989
00:47:32.420 --> 00:47:34.860
someplace where I already knew the answers, right? I need to,
990
00:47:34.900 --> 00:47:36.920
I would go like, oh, it's definitely there. It's definitely,
991
00:47:37.039 --> 00:47:39.760
I know as I got older and as I made mistakes,
992
00:47:40.239 --> 00:47:43.130
I end up going to places that are most mysterious.
993
00:47:43.570 --> 00:47:46.889
Like it's the mystery that draws me. For example, for
994
00:47:46.909 --> 00:47:50.429
the talent code, somebody had told me about a Russian
995
00:47:50.469 --> 00:47:53.670
tennis club in Moscow called Spartak that had produced more
996
00:47:53.739 --> 00:47:56.219
top 20 women players than the entire United States over
997
00:47:56.239 --> 00:47:59.389
a span of time. And I called a filmmaker who
998
00:47:59.409 --> 00:48:01.239
had been there, and he just made a sound over
999
00:48:01.260 --> 00:48:04.440
the phone. He was just like, dude, you won't believe
1000
00:48:04.480 --> 00:48:08.139
this place. And right at that moment, I'm like, I'm going.
1001
00:48:08.219 --> 00:48:08.639
I'm going.
1002
00:48:09.179 --> 00:48:10.119
There's no question.
1003
00:48:10.500 --> 00:48:12.500
My curiosity gets the best of me. And it's like,
1004
00:48:13.099 --> 00:48:18.659
I'm looking for places that are credibly unique. They stand out.
1005
00:48:18.969 --> 00:48:21.369
For some reason, and often it's a performance difference. Like,
1006
00:48:21.489 --> 00:48:25.230
what is going on? Zingerman's Deli. I've heard about that
1007
00:48:25.269 --> 00:48:28.340
a lot, but not every deli grows into a $ 90
1008
00:48:28.019 --> 00:48:31.860
million community of businesses. What is going on there? And
1009
00:48:31.889 --> 00:48:34.469
then you have your first, your probe to go back
1010
00:48:34.530 --> 00:48:38.050
to our earlier idea, like it's complex. So you have
1011
00:48:38.090 --> 00:48:40.250
a call, you have a couple of interactions. If that
1012
00:48:40.590 --> 00:48:43.449
is still resonating for you, it's like a guitar string, right?
1013
00:48:43.769 --> 00:48:45.449
Can you still hear it? Is that mystery still there?
1014
00:48:46.150 --> 00:48:49.329
And then you go. And for the Spartak thing, it
1015
00:48:49.389 --> 00:48:51.010
was not an easy thing to fly to Russia. And
1016
00:48:51.050 --> 00:48:52.670
it was not an easy thing to sort of get
1017
00:48:52.710 --> 00:48:55.869
a translator and get there and, you know, it was
1018
00:48:56.010 --> 00:48:58.469
dead of winter and it was in a very strange place.
1019
00:48:58.489 --> 00:49:00.429
It was the middle of this giant park and it
1020
00:49:00.449 --> 00:49:03.159
was an old, old kind of Quonset hut building with
1021
00:49:03.260 --> 00:49:06.420
a little narrow door. And you just kind of keep
1022
00:49:06.480 --> 00:49:08.579
exploring and you keep going in and there's an old
1023
00:49:08.619 --> 00:49:11.380
lady in there moving in slow motion, teaching kids how
1024
00:49:11.420 --> 00:49:13.360
to hit. And she had been teaching there for 50
1025
00:49:13.360 --> 00:49:17.800
years and you start asking questions and, you give enough
1026
00:49:17.880 --> 00:49:21.420
time to where people will open up a little bit.
1027
00:49:21.480 --> 00:49:24.619
But what I've found is that when people come up
1028
00:49:24.639 --> 00:49:26.579
to you and say, hey, I find what you do
1029
00:49:26.800 --> 00:49:30.099
kind of fascinating. Can you tell me about that? Most
1030
00:49:30.159 --> 00:49:36.170
people are thrilled to share that. Now, there are some
1031
00:49:36.210 --> 00:49:40.349
where they're not. The San Antonio Spurs famously– closed culture.
1032
00:49:41.369 --> 00:49:43.309
They don't like people who write about them because they're
1033
00:49:43.329 --> 00:49:44.860
a great culture. And part of what makes a great
1034
00:49:44.880 --> 00:49:46.840
culture is they don't brag and they don't sort of
1035
00:49:46.880 --> 00:49:51.000
spotlight their own greatness. So in approaching them, I ended
1036
00:49:51.039 --> 00:49:53.639
up having to take sort of a side door and
1037
00:49:53.760 --> 00:49:59.380
appeal to their curiosity about learning. R.C. Buford, the GM,
1038
00:49:59.599 --> 00:50:01.739
he's like one of the most curious people I've ever met.
1039
00:50:02.380 --> 00:50:04.019
I sort of explained what I was doing and that
1040
00:50:04.199 --> 00:50:06.500
kind of opened a door because he wants to learn
1041
00:50:06.539 --> 00:50:08.739
about the seals. He wants to learn about the guardians.
1042
00:50:08.780 --> 00:50:11.250
He wants to learn about the U S Olympic hockey
1043
00:50:11.269 --> 00:50:15.010
team of 1980. Like, so I end up sort of
1044
00:50:15.070 --> 00:50:17.650
serving as a bridge a little bit so that those
1045
00:50:17.829 --> 00:50:18.909
conversations can happen.
1046
00:50:18.969 --> 00:50:19.969
It's a back and forth. Yeah.
1047
00:50:20.050 --> 00:50:22.800
And then it sort of connects back to what we
1048
00:50:22.820 --> 00:50:24.659
were talking about at the very beginning, which is like,
1049
00:50:24.699 --> 00:50:26.719
you get up to the top of these super top
1050
00:50:26.760 --> 00:50:30.019
learning organizations and you find the most curious people you've
1051
00:50:30.059 --> 00:50:30.380
ever met.
1052
00:50:31.059 --> 00:50:31.260
R.C.
1053
00:50:31.280 --> 00:50:34.760
Buford picked me up in his car at the airport.
1054
00:50:34.940 --> 00:50:37.260
And I didn't stay at his house, but I spent
1055
00:50:37.300 --> 00:50:41.440
vast amounts of like three days with him. And I
1056
00:50:41.480 --> 00:50:43.380
think I asked him like five questions the whole time.
1057
00:50:43.420 --> 00:50:47.730
And he asked me like 5,000 questions. Really? I was
1058
00:50:47.809 --> 00:50:49.670
wrung out when I left. I was like, I don't
1059
00:50:49.710 --> 00:50:52.579
think I have anything else to talk about. And it
1060
00:50:52.619 --> 00:50:55.079
ended up being a great, a wonderful experience. I got to,
1061
00:50:55.179 --> 00:50:58.000
you know, watch pop work and meet Chip England and
1062
00:50:58.039 --> 00:50:59.699
meet all those other people. So it was a great
1063
00:50:59.800 --> 00:51:03.010
kind of embedding, but it really reinforced to me what's
1064
00:51:03.070 --> 00:51:06.210
driving those places is that they do not think they
1065
00:51:06.230 --> 00:51:10.010
have it figured out. And they are delighted to find
1066
00:51:10.030 --> 00:51:13.010
where they make mistakes. And they are super curious about
1067
00:51:13.070 --> 00:51:15.900
other people that do it well. And it's, it's fun
1068
00:51:15.940 --> 00:51:16.440
to be around them.
1069
00:51:16.900 --> 00:51:20.199
Man, that's, that is absolutely a commonality of the elite,
1070
00:51:20.280 --> 00:51:22.610
the best of the best. I mean, Jay's this way
1071
00:51:22.670 --> 00:51:25.739
as well with the guardians and the seals that this
1072
00:51:25.800 --> 00:51:30.280
just inherent curiosity is so inspiring, man. I think that's it.
1073
00:51:30.599 --> 00:51:31.579
I know we got to go soon, but one more
1074
00:51:31.599 --> 00:51:35.860
question that I'm curious about you personally. So I learned
1075
00:51:35.880 --> 00:51:38.280
this question called the champagne question from my friend, Jason Gaynard.
1076
00:51:38.320 --> 00:51:41.000
I've asked it a million times since then. It's exactly
1077
00:51:41.039 --> 00:51:41.760
a year from now.
1078
00:51:42.139 --> 00:51:42.380
Okay.
1079
00:51:43.639 --> 00:51:46.960
And you and I are popping bottles. We're celebrating.
1080
00:51:47.179 --> 00:51:47.340
Yeah.
1081
00:51:47.929 --> 00:51:48.739
What are we celebrating?
1082
00:51:48.840 --> 00:51:52.880
Ooh, that's really good. That's really good. We just arrived
1083
00:51:52.900 --> 00:51:55.280
at the ski resort with our nine combined girls.
1084
00:51:55.360 --> 00:51:56.019
Let's go.
1085
00:51:56.500 --> 00:51:56.639
What?
1086
00:51:56.659 --> 00:51:57.440
You've got five?
1087
00:51:57.480 --> 00:51:59.679
I've got four? We have nine girls.
1088
00:51:59.719 --> 00:52:01.389
Just a whole football team of girls.
1089
00:52:01.409 --> 00:52:04.309
We just got there, right? We just got there. Okay.
1090
00:52:04.349 --> 00:52:07.050
And we're about to spend like four days.
1091
00:52:07.070 --> 00:52:08.409
Can you hang on the blues with me, though? I
1092
00:52:08.409 --> 00:52:11.010
can hang. I can hang. Love the blues. You could
1093
00:52:11.110 --> 00:52:12.949
ski backwards maybe and just make it harder.
1094
00:52:14.889 --> 00:52:18.000
Absolutely. No, that kind of stuff where like there's something new,
1095
00:52:18.400 --> 00:52:21.510
new relationships, but also connected to old. That to me
1096
00:52:21.570 --> 00:52:25.349
is very super appealing. And I think you've got this
1097
00:52:25.869 --> 00:52:29.090
community that you've built. And to a certain extent, you know,
1098
00:52:29.110 --> 00:52:31.610
I think we all do. And seeing those communities kind
1099
00:52:31.650 --> 00:52:34.230
of meld and merge and grow is exciting.
1100
00:52:34.949 --> 00:52:37.510
I love it, man. The book flourished the art of
1101
00:52:37.610 --> 00:52:40.389
building meaning, joy, and fulfillment. How fun was it to
1102
00:52:40.409 --> 00:52:41.079
write this thing?
1103
00:52:41.199 --> 00:52:43.599
Super fun. And I'm still learning about it too.
1104
00:52:43.659 --> 00:52:44.989
Like, Is there going to be a part two?
1105
00:52:45.030 --> 00:52:48.550
We're going to change. Well, we're
going to, what I'm realizing,
1106
00:52:48.570 --> 00:52:51.510
we'll try this out, but we're going to shift the
1107
00:52:51.570 --> 00:52:53.150
subtitle on the book, actually.
1108
00:52:53.170 --> 00:52:54.949
So this is wrong.
1109
00:52:55.369 --> 00:52:56.949
We're going to shift it at some point. It may
1110
00:52:56.969 --> 00:52:59.159
be with the paperback or maybe in a little bit,
1111
00:52:59.219 --> 00:53:01.719
but we've got to sell the copies we have now
1112
00:53:01.760 --> 00:53:04.570
with this subtitle. But what we've realized in these conversations
1113
00:53:04.960 --> 00:53:07.659
is that this is actually about the transformative power of
1114
00:53:07.760 --> 00:53:11.199
creating community. That's what the book's about. And that gives
1115
00:53:11.219 --> 00:53:13.480
you fulfillment. That gives you joy. That gives you meaning.
1116
00:53:13.909 --> 00:53:17.030
But that's what people are craving right now, I think.
1117
00:53:17.090 --> 00:53:19.340
And that is what I'm craving right now. And that's
1118
00:53:19.380 --> 00:53:21.960
what each story in the book is about, the power
1119
00:53:21.980 --> 00:53:25.960
of creating community. And that's what's exciting. So all those
1120
00:53:26.000 --> 00:53:28.400
things will be true. Both those subtitles will be true.
1121
00:53:28.500 --> 00:53:31.719
But we're kind of realizing, it's funny. I mean, a
1122
00:53:31.780 --> 00:53:34.139
book is kind of an exploration into the world. And
1123
00:53:34.619 --> 00:53:36.679
there's the book you write. And then you get to
1124
00:53:36.949 --> 00:53:39.170
see what people respond to. And you get to see
1125
00:53:39.210 --> 00:53:40.949
where the conversation is going to go. And so that's
1126
00:53:40.969 --> 00:53:43.800
been really thrilling to go like, wait a minute. This
1127
00:53:43.820 --> 00:53:46.940
is about something that I wasn't quite appreciating a year ago.
1128
00:53:47.099 --> 00:53:48.539
And now I really see that clearly.
1129
00:53:48.559 --> 00:53:51.710
Yeah. I mean, do you even think about the next thing?
1130
00:53:51.730 --> 00:53:54.309
Or are you just all in on this? Because I
1131
00:53:54.329 --> 00:53:56.730
know some authors are already working on the next thing
1132
00:53:56.789 --> 00:53:59.389
before this one comes out. And other ones are, I'm
1133
00:53:59.690 --> 00:54:01.570
going to go on in this for years. Like, how
1134
00:54:01.590 --> 00:54:02.530
does that work for you?
1135
00:54:02.750 --> 00:54:04.699
Yeah, I'm kind of in between those two. On the
1136
00:54:04.800 --> 00:54:07.320
one hand, like, it is really fun to kind of
1137
00:54:07.900 --> 00:54:11.219
see this land, see people connect to it, see it resonate,
1138
00:54:11.360 --> 00:54:14.960
see what emerges from it. And in a larger way,
1139
00:54:15.000 --> 00:54:16.860
I've been doing that. You know, the talent code is
1140
00:54:16.909 --> 00:54:20.630
about what's making that individual so cool. Culture code is
1141
00:54:20.650 --> 00:54:23.769
about what's making those groups perform so well. And now
1142
00:54:23.829 --> 00:54:28.190
it's like, what's making these communities so thriving? Like what
1143
00:54:28.230 --> 00:54:30.699
is going on in that group? What is that joy
1144
00:54:30.760 --> 00:54:33.800
coming from? So each one is kind of led to
1145
00:54:33.820 --> 00:54:37.599
the next. So what's the next one? Beyond the grave?
1146
00:54:37.760 --> 00:54:39.619
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know what
1147
00:54:39.639 --> 00:54:42.090
it is. But life is really big and deep, so
1148
00:54:42.130 --> 00:54:43.889
we'll see where it goes. But it has a way
1149
00:54:43.909 --> 00:54:44.869
of leading to the next thing.
1150
00:54:45.210 --> 00:54:48.139
I appreciate you, man. And thank you for taking so
1151
00:54:48.159 --> 00:54:51.659
much time off air, listening to me ask you stupid
1152
00:54:51.699 --> 00:54:56.179
questions about everything and anything and writing and sports and everything. Yeah,
1153
00:54:56.239 --> 00:54:57.900
it's funny. Your name comes up all the time in
1154
00:54:57.920 --> 00:54:59.420
a lot of the work we do when it comes
1155
00:54:59.460 --> 00:55:02.780
to great teams and culture code type stuff, talent code,
1156
00:55:02.820 --> 00:55:05.119
all of it. And now I know this is going
1157
00:55:05.139 --> 00:55:08.139
to inject its way into everything we do. So super
1158
00:55:08.159 --> 00:55:09.239
grateful for you. Thank you, man.
1159
00:55:09.280 --> 00:55:10.079
Thank you for what you do.
1160
00:55:10.099 --> 00:55:17.340
Appreciate it. It is the end of the podcast club.
1161
00:55:17.360 --> 00:55:19.760
Thank you for being a member of the end of
1162
00:55:19.780 --> 00:55:21.380
the podcast club. If you are, send me a note,
1163
00:55:21.480 --> 00:55:24.199
Ryan at learning leader.com. Let me know what you learned
1164
00:55:24.219 --> 00:55:28.280
from this great conversation with Dan Coyle. A few takeaways
1165
00:55:28.469 --> 00:55:33.210
from my notes, find your yellow doors, those opportunities you
1166
00:55:33.269 --> 00:55:35.949
glimpse out of the corner of your eye, the conversations
1167
00:55:35.969 --> 00:55:39.059
you that could go deeper, the friendships that could be closer,
1168
00:55:39.340 --> 00:55:42.659
the projects that might scare you a little bit, instead
1169
00:55:42.679 --> 00:55:45.119
of walking past them or saying, nah, I kind of
1170
00:55:45.139 --> 00:55:47.750
feel like being by myself, try to go out and
1171
00:55:47.849 --> 00:55:52.250
create some community, say yes, you never know what could happen.
1172
00:55:53.050 --> 00:55:58.199
And then create presence conditions, the ski trips, the long drives,
1173
00:55:58.239 --> 00:56:02.250
the shared meals, no phones, schedule them. This is how
1174
00:56:02.369 --> 00:56:06.389
connection happens, whether it's with your family, your kids, or
1175
00:56:06.449 --> 00:56:09.369
with your people at work. And I love the story
1176
00:56:09.409 --> 00:56:11.989
from Craig Council, what he talked about when he said,
1177
00:56:12.389 --> 00:56:14.510
how do you bounce back when things are going rough?
1178
00:56:14.550 --> 00:56:16.309
You're having a bad day. And he just said, simply,
1179
00:56:16.869 --> 00:56:19.440
I try to go help somebody, right? So good. So good.
1180
00:56:19.460 --> 00:56:25.039
And then practice curiosity like a superpower. I experienced this
1181
00:56:25.159 --> 00:56:29.750
firsthand with Dan. Jay Hennessy, Josh Gibson, their team president,
1182
00:56:29.809 --> 00:56:34.349
Chris Antonetti at the guardians. I walk up in their office,
1183
00:56:34.429 --> 00:56:37.570
kind of intimidated, expecting to pepper them with tons of
1184
00:56:37.590 --> 00:56:40.230
questions to learn from them. And that was the opposite
1185
00:56:40.250 --> 00:56:43.260
of what happened. They just kept asking me question after question,
1186
00:56:43.320 --> 00:56:45.980
wanting to learn. And what it taught me is that
1187
00:56:46.099 --> 00:56:50.179
those leaders who sustain excellence are just so curious and
1188
00:56:50.199 --> 00:56:53.230
a desire to learn, improve and get better. And Dan
1189
00:56:53.250 --> 00:56:55.949
has seen the same things with all of the excellent
1190
00:56:56.010 --> 00:56:59.719
leaders from teams that he has studied. Ask better questions. Listen.
1191
00:57:00.219 --> 00:57:05.219
Actually listen. Ask follow-up questions and strive to learn more.
1192
00:57:05.320 --> 00:57:09.760
Curiosity is also the ultimate way to show love. Once again,
1193
00:57:09.780 --> 00:57:11.780
I would say thank you so much for continuing to
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spread the message and telling a friend or two, hey,
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you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader
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Show with Dan Coyle. I think he'll help you become
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a more effective leader because you continue to do that.
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And you also go to Spotify and Apple Podcasts, write
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a review, rate it hopefully five stars, and definitely subscribe.
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By doing all of that, you are giving me the
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opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis.
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And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so,
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so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.