TrulySignificant.com presents Kyle Young, author of Success is a Numbers Game

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Tim TOKENI. This show is brought to you by thewright
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one dot Net. Our very special guest today is author
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Kyle Young. He wrote the book's success is a numbers game,
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achieved bigger goals by changing the odds. Kyle, great to
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have you on today. I'll tell us about your background
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and where you're from.
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Originally, well, I ended up writing this book as a
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result of my consulting career, and my consulting career happened
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a little bit unexpectedly. I actually went through back to
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back layoffs from different leadership positions in a span of
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thirteen months. Lost a job, moved across the country, lost
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another job. And that did a couple of things to me.
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One is I wanted a way to diversify my income.
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I was tired of going to my wife and telling
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her that I'd lost these leadership positions. The first time,
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we just bought our first house, so not an ideal
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time to lose a job. The second time, we were
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actually in the process of adopting our first child, which
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is pretty famously expensive, so again not a great time
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to lose your job. So I wanted to diversify my income.
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Consulting made sense from that standpoint, what the layoffs really
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taught me was in both cases, I was performing well.
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I was getting great reviews. People liked me, respected what
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I did. In fact, and the first job, I got
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the highest performance review the company had given out. I
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had turned to department around things were going very well.
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The second time, I was so respected for what I
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was doing. I had four job offers the day after
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the layoff. That was just how many people wanted to
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work with me. So it wasn't necessarily a performance issue.
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And what that taught me was that, to some extent,
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I couldn't just bet on my own performance to make
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my career successful. As long as I was working with
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these other people, I needed to find ways to try
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to make the project successful, even if that was maybe
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outside the scope of my job description. I had to
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be asking the question, what can I do to make
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sure that the organization has the money it needs to
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pay people? What can I do to make sure that
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the organization is accomplishing its objectives so that I can
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stay on the payroll. And so that really developed in
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me this folk maybe even a little bit of an
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obsession with odds of success. How likely are the projects
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I'm involved in to get the outcome that they're looking for,
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and so that became really a focus point for my consulting.
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That led to some writing with sites like Harvard Business Review, Forbes,
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Fast Company, et cetera. And then ultimately I got the
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opportunity to write the book, which is kind of a
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long form explanation of how I empathize with how frustrating
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it is to lose a job, especially too back to back.
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I'm going to go off topic here before I get
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into the many questions that we loaded Kyle up with.
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But when I look back on sure, please say a
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similar situation at Pepsi COO where I was leading the
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way and had all the numbers and da da Da
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da dad, and then the door closed. That happened thirty
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some odd years ago. I still have PTSD, which I
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call Pepsi COO traumatic. How have you to absolutely emotionally
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get over it and not lose sleep?
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Well? I don't know if I can in good conscience
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say that I've completely solved that problem, because it is
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still an issue. I still will get, you know, kind
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of cryptic emails once in a while, Hey can you talk?
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And I think, oh great, here we go again. One
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of the things that has made my life easier, of course,
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has been having a diversified income. So I went through
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recently what I considered to be a oh, kind of
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a frustrating consulting breakup, got an email I didn't anticipate
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in a fairly lengthy relationship, was ended abruptly and not
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how I would have done it. It's good to be
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in a position where it's one client not the source
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of your income, so that helps a little bit. But
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I wouldn't necessarily say I have a perfect solution. I
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agree with what you're saying that it's a dramatic thing
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to feel like you're secure in the work that you're doing,
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be focused on your own performance, feel like you're doing
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a good job, and then find yourself unemployed. There's some
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challenging conversations that follow, sometimes with your spouse, your friends,
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you know, with the people in your community. So I
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can't say that I've completely beaten that. I can't say
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that diversified income helps, and I can say that having
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some money in the bank homes I really mean that.
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I think that having having some runway, you know, having
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that rainy day fund, takes a little bit of the
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edge off when we worry about something that could go
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wrong in our lives, whether that be a layoff or
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something else. I'll tell you one more thing, though, which
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is to say that that I interned one of my
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first big internships was actually with Coca Cola Coke zero,
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so I was on the other side. They flew me
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down to Atlanta to HQ, and they were trying to
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get the Coke zero brands. There's a new version of
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Coke zero, a Coke zero sugar or something, but they
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were trying to get that new brand at the time
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into college campuses, and I was one of I think
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forty people they took in around the country and we
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got to spend some time at World of Coke headquarters,
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and it was an interesting experience.
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So I you say that every goal has two hidden
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numbers attached, probability of success and probability of failure. From
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a truly significant perspective, what inner qualities most inf les
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sales numbers?
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Well, your inner qualities. If I can, I'll push back
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a little bit, which is to say that I think
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our inner qualities are some of the things we can
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leverage to try to change our odds of success. But
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when it comes to what actually determines our odds of success.
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It's really a combination of what could go right with
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what could go wrong. If we think about the idea
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of flipping a coin, if we needed to land on
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heads to win the game, we have a fifty percent
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chance of winning. Why only fifty percent, Well, because it
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might land on tails, and there's a fifty percent chance
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it will land on tails. So what I encourage people
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to do in the context of a goal is get
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really clear on what you want to happen, but then
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also get clear on the potential bad outcomes. What are
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the things that could happen instead of what you want,
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Because ultimately, our odds of success can be understood as
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the odds that none of the bad things happen. And
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if we want to change our odds of success, one
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of the smartest ways we can do that is try
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to look at those bad outcomes and find creative ways
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to ultimately take some of the risk out of that
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actually happening. And so our inner qualities definitely speak to that.
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If one of the risks of a goal failing is,
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you know, a lack of follow through, then our resilience
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CanCERN be something that impacts the odds of success. We
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can also use really creative and tangible solutions. I gave
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one a minute ago. How can someone consult with confidence
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knowing they could lose a client in an email at
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any time, or the you know a person could lose
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a job at any time. A couple of things you
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can do. One is you can try to diversify your
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income and others you can try to have some savings
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in the bank. Those are things that you know your
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qualities will help you accomplish. It's going to take some
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self control to build up a nest egg. It's going
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to take you know, some resourcefulness to go build a
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client tell. But ultimately, if you can be successful in that,
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you will take some of the risk out of a
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bad email, a bad phone.
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With the income, I think you're sharper because of what
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happened to you, and you you would not even have
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been capable of writing or speaking with such wisdom unless
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you had gone through that career.
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I've found that pain and suffering are typically a shortcut
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to wisdom. Sometimes I wish as.
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How much of probability hacking is about strategy.
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Well, it's all about strategy, you know. I'll tell you
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the story of the first job that I actually got
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laid off from. When I graduated from college. I wasn't
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really inspired by the entry level positions that I was seeing,
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and so I decided to do something a little crazy.
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I applied to become the product development director at a
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health organization, and I was if I got this job,
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I was twenty one years old. I was going to
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be managing people who were fifty sixty seventies, people who
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were significantly older than I was. Some of them had PhDs,
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master's degrees, you know. I had just graduated with the bachelor's.
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So this was about fifteen years ago. But I applied
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for the job and I actually got an interview, and
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I wanted to make the most of it. So the
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work of probability hacking, again is getting clear on what
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we want. I wanted them to offer me the position
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what could happen instead of what I want? What are
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the potential bad outcomes? Well? I identified three. The first
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one was I thought that they might and I'll tell
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you this really quickly. I think when a lot of
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us are pursuing goals, we get the advice that we
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need to think positive, we need to you know, don't
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worry about what could go wrong. If it's meant to happen,
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it'll happen. Don't discourage yourself. But I actually give people
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the opposite advice. I encourage people to think negative. And
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it's not because I'm a pessimist. It's because I think
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if we identify those bad outcomes, we can use our creativity,
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we can use our inner qualities, try to put ourselves
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in a position to take some of the risk out
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of those goals. So that's what I did here. I
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thought negative, Why would they maybe not give me this job?
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One of them was I thought that they might not
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give me the job because of how young I looked.
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I might walk in the door, they take a look
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at me and say, he can't manage this team. You know,
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we don't have confidence he can do that. So a
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really simple hacked, a really simple solution that I tried
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in response to that was I grew a beard. Just
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made me look a little bit older, took some of
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the edge off of how young. Didn't change how old
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I was, but it changed how old I looked to
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some extent. Another risk that I perceived going into that
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was they might be concerned about my lack of experience,
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and I couldn't change my experience. I couldn't conjure a
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better resume overnight. I wasn't going to lie. But what
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I could do is I could try to change the
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conversation a little bit. So I actually typed up a
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plan for how I was going to turn this department around.
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I given the job, and when they asked questions about
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my past experience, I would redirect my conversation or redirect
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the conversation to be about this plan that I typed
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up Cyril Bound. It was a book that I'd written
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about the future of the department. A third and final
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risk that I identified was maybe they wouldn't hire me
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because they thought I couldn't fit in with the existing team,
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maybe because of just the big age gap. So one
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of the things I did then and I still use
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this trick today, is I asked if they read any
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books recently as a team, and they sent over a
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few titles. I read every single one of them, and
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when I went into the interviews, I was able to
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make inside jokes. I knew the frameworks that they were using.
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I could you know, I understood their jargon. We were
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speaking the same language because we'd all read the same books,
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and that gave me an inside edge. So I ended
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up getting that job. I became the twenty one year
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old product development director at a health organization. I would
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later get laid off, but it dramatically accelerated my career,
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helped me get the second job, and helped me made
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the connections. It ultimately led to the consulting opportunity. So
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your question how much of this has to do with strategy,
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It's really all strategy. You can do this without any
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numbers at all. The key is identify what has to
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go right, identify what could go wrong, and then use
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your creativity and use those inner qualities to try to
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take as much risk as possible out of your goals.
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That tells me that if people will read truly significant
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or success is a numbers game or aligning the odds,
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they may they may have a an advantage to getting
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some of those two.
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I think they would.
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Realize that your own mindset might have been lowering your
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probability of success.
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Well, there are certainly moments where your mindset can lower
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your odds of success, but frankly, there are also moments
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where your mindset can cause you to overestimate your odds
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of success. And that's why I encourage people to create
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a success diagram. If you do that, you can actually
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align around more realistic expectations. So I'll give an example
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of what that is. Let's say that you're training to
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run a marathon. I'm about to run a half marathon
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in a couple of weeks, which I've never done before,
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so wish me luck. But let's say that you're training
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to run a marathon and you want to get a
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sense of how likely you are to be able to
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accomplish that goal. Let's say you've hired a running coach
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and she tells you there's three things you're going to
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have to do in order to be successful on race day.
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She's going to create some plans for you, and you're
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going to have to eat, sleep, and train according to
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these plans. And if you cheat any of those three things,
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you're not going to be able to get ready in time.
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So in this goal, there's three things that have to
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go right. So if I were creating a success diagram,
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I would write down eat the way I'm supposed to sleep,
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the way I'm supposed to train, the way I'm supposed
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to on a sheet of paper, and at the end
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the goal is successfully run a marathon. And then for
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each of those things that could go right, i'd well
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that need to go right. I'd try to identify the
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things that could potentially go wrong. But the way we
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can get a sense of our odds of success, we can
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avoid overconfidence but also maybe avoid a mindset that hurts
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our odds of success, is we need to just do
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a little bit of estimating how likely do we think
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we are to be able to stick with each of
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those three things. Then this is where a lot of
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people make a big mistake, and this is what I
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think accounts for a huge amount of the failure we
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see in our world. Exactly what you're describing how a
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mindset hurts our odds of success. Let's say that, just
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for really easy numbers, we think it's seventy percent across
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the board, seventy percent chance I'll eat the way I'm
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supposed to, seventy percent chance I'll sleep the way I'm
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supposed to, seventy percent chance I'll train the way I'm
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supposed to for this period of time. A lot of
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people fall into a trap called averaging. If they feel
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good about the individual's required to accomplish a goal, they
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feel good about the goal as a whole. That actually
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isn't how it works. If we want to understand how
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likely we are to accomplish a goal, we can't average.
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We actually have to multiply. That's the true mathematical solution
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to this question. And if we multiply that out point
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seven times point seven times point seven, we find that
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we only have a thirty four percent chance of being
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ready on race day. Even though we feel good about
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each of these individual things, this goal is an expected failure.
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And this, I think explains exactly what you described, which
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is how mindsets can impact our odds of success. If
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people are falling into traps like averaging, and they aren't
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then intentional about optimizing what they can do to take
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the risk out of their goals, then a lot of
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times we have people who are pursuing a goal they
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think is supposed to succeed, when if they understood the math,
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they would realize it's actually supposed to fail. And do
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we see things in our world that you know, support
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that theory? I think so. When we think of how
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many people fail at their New Year's resolutions, like ninety
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two percent, some studies say, I have no idea how
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accurate that is, But lots and lots of people are
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unable to succeed their New year's resolutions. You know, we
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hear status it's like nine out of ten businesses fail.
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We hear that the majority of mergers and acquisitions fail
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to create lasting shareholder value. Why are so many initiatives failing? Well,
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in many cases, it's because people don't realize that they
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were expected to fail. So that doesn't mean that we
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give into a discouragement. That doesn't mean that we don't
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pursue big goals, but we do exactly what I demonstrated
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in the previous question. We think strategically, we try to
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identify what are the risks that are currently weighing down
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our odds of success, because if we can take those
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bad outcomes off the table, we can kind of that.
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There's an expression of kind of putting a goal on
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railroad tracks so it can't get off course. We can
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kind of put it on railroad tracks and it's not
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able to veer and swerve and it kind of has
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to end up where we want it to go.
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That is exactly right. Okay, we're talking to author Kyle Young,
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and he wrote the book success is a numbers game.
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We're going to cut to a commercial. Kyle tell us
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where we can buy your book and maybe even get
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an autograph copy.
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Well, you can get the book anywhere. You can get
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it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target, directly on the
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on random House website. I'd be honored if you did that.
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If you want an autograph copy, I guess, send me
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an email and I'd be more than happy to sign
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one for you and we'll put it in the mail.
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But I tell you what. Find me on LinkedIn, Kyle
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Austin Young. I'd be happy then.
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Right back with Kyle Young after this special message.
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I'm doctor Shannon Poach. I've been a clinical psychologists for
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more than two decades. Many of my patients and people
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I know are frustrated with the dating apps. They end
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up just making them feel lonely. They've learned a lot,
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they know themselves better now, but they're tired of repeating
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the same relationship patterns. If that feels familiar, you're not alone.
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What I see over and over is that dating doesn't
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fail because of lack of effort. It fails because people
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don't understand and have the insight about their emotional needs
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and how to connect with people on the same emotional level.
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That's exactly why I created the Right One. If you're
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ready for a more intentional way to connect, go to
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the Right one dot net and learn what creates lasting
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relations and chips. Use the Truly Significant promotion code in
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TS five zero and received fifty percent off services for
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a limited time. Visit us today at the right one
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dot net.
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And we're back with author Kyle Young. Hey, Kyle, if
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you had changed the title to Significance is a numbers game,
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knowing that you're talking to a person who is obsessed
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about changing the world from success is Significance, how would
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your book have been different?
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Well, I'm not sure it would be very different because
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a lot of the goals that I teach people how
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to accomplish in the book are about significance. I talk
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about goals like you know, wanting to maybe help people
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live longer and experience more joy in their lives. I
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talk about goals related to justice and people who wanted
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to make a difference in their community. I worked with
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a doctor out of Harvard metas and who wanted to
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change the national conversation around cancer, So I think a
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lot of these goals can have really significant undertones. What
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I would encourage people to recognize is that every goal,
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no matter how missional the motivation, is still going to
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have two hidden numbers attached to it, odds of success
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and odds of failure. And if we want to maximize
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our impact, you know, just as if we wanted to
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maximize our revenue, we need to do what we can
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to tilt the odds in our favor. And I think
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that when you do that in the context of a
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single goal, you can change your outcome. When you do
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that in the context of several goals, you can change
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your life, and over time that can change your legacy.
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But then, how do you increase the odds that a
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team becomes truly significant instead of merely high performing.
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Well, it starts with getting a really clear definition of success.
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And so that's what we would have to do here.
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If we're going to create a success diagram, we need
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to be able to have a true past fail or
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we accomplish this or we did not accomplish this. So
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I'll put that back to you to some extent. Rick
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you know, in the context of a success diagram, there's
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critical points. There's things that have to go right in
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order for you to get what you want. I can't
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tell people that for every goal under the sun. Right
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if you came to me and said, my goal is
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to start a business where I'm a scuba diving instructor, well,
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I don't know off the top of my head what
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exactly is going to have to go right for you
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to become a successful scuba diving instructor. So there's going
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to be some research. I can show you how to
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create a framework to estimate your odds of success, and
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then I can teach you how to ultimately try to
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improve those odds of success through strategic thinking. But Rick,
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what do you think what are the key ingredients to
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building a team that leads with significance.
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I think it's about starting with the perspective of it's
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not about me, it's about we.
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Let's even pause on that. That's great. So one thing
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that's going to have to happen. One critical point is
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we've got to shift out of me thinking to we thinking.
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So now let's think about what are the potential bad outcomes?
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What are the things that might keep someone trapped in
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me thinking? What have you experienced in your career. What
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are some of the things that keep people stuck on
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that idea of me? Hmmm, amazing. So we're going to
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need to find ways to try to put our employees
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in a position where they are not constantly worried about
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am I going to be able to pay the bills?
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And am I going to be able to provide for
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my family? So there might be opportunities from a compensation
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structure standpoint. There are also some organizations right now, and
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I think this can be used improperly. I very much
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believe in paying people a living wage, but there are
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some organizations now that are also even providing some financial education,
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teaching people how to make their money go a little
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bit further in you know, a world where there are
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high cost of living, just to kind of help them
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on both sides, because sometimes you find you're writing bigger
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checks as an organization, but the money's kind of disappearing. Well,
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if these people haven't been taught, you know, some basic
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financial success principles, then maybe that's where the gap is.
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So right there, I think we have an example of
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one thing that has to go right is we need
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to transition from me to we thinking what's one thing
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that could go wrong, Well, it's they might get stuck
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in me thinking because of cost of living. They're so
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focused on their own needs. You know, psychology teaches us
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there's kind of a hierarchy of needs, and one of
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the most foundational is we need to be able to eat.
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We need to be able to put a roof over
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our heads. If not, that's going to distract us from
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some of those higher callings that we have an opportunity
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to enter into. So we've now done some brainstorming and
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we've identified that we need to maybe have a fair
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compensation structure. Maybe there's some ways that we could provide
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some free financial education to team members so that they
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can make the most of the money that they do have,
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and in doing so put them in a position where
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one of those risks is taken off the table. So
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we've increased the odds a little bit that they'll be
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able to transition to we thinking. And if we do
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that across all of the steps that it's going to
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be required, we can build that significant team.
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And inside that is a team that has character and
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authenticity and heart. And what we've learned over the course
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of four thousand podcasts is you can actually teach children
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how to have big hearts and teach generosity. So it
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starts at it that in your experience, does character and
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integrity actually compound the way capital does.
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Absolutely, because the reality is so many of the goals
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that we want to accomplish are going to involve relationships.
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It's going to be very uncommon for you to accomplish
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anything significant without the help of other people. And if
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you are not conducting yourself with integrity, if there's not
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character in what you're doing, then you're putting yourself in
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a position where you might be able to accomplish one
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goal where at the end of it you've cheated everybody else,
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You've swindled everybody else. It might work once, probably not
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going to work twice, very unlikely that's going to work
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three times. So you put yourself in a position where
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it's kind of short term thinking. Like you said that,
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me thinking versus the we thinking. On the contrary, when
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we are looking out for each other's interests, not just
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our own, we put ourselves in a position where we
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can develop trust, which can become an enormous source of
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competitive advantage. I have had so many successful client relationships
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where the reason I got hired instead of somebody else.
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Was They trusted me, And a lot of times that
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trust came from a referral. It came from somebody else swearing,
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this is somebody who's going to do what he says
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he's going to do. You know, I had a really
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interesting conversation early in my career. This was over a
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decade ago. I got a call from the CEO of
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a biotech company I was working with, and it was
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dinner time. I didn't usually hear from this guy this
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late at night, and I thought, oh goodness, this could
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be anything. You know, Like you said, you have some
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of those that PTSD and I thought, oh, this might
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be one of those kinds of phone calls. I answered
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the call. He said, Hey, sorry to interrupt dinner. I
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just really needed to tell you something and I needed
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to say it right away. I thought, all right, you
484
00:21:36.319 --> 00:21:38.240
know what do you need to tell me? And he said,
485
00:21:38.440 --> 00:21:41.160
we had a meeting earlier today and we realized you're
486
00:21:41.200 --> 00:21:44.440
the first consultant we've ever worked with who did exactly
487
00:21:44.480 --> 00:21:47.079
what he said he was going to do. And once
488
00:21:47.119 --> 00:21:49.319
I had that phone call, that became the new standard
489
00:21:49.359 --> 00:21:51.880
for me. It wasn't about I need to have, you know,
490
00:21:52.160 --> 00:21:54.119
the nicest car I want to be the best at
491
00:21:54.119 --> 00:21:55.720
this or that or the other. If I could just
492
00:21:55.759 --> 00:21:57.720
make a career out of people saying he said he
493
00:21:57.759 --> 00:21:59.519
was going to do X, and he did X, so
494
00:21:59.599 --> 00:22:01.400
that was good enough for me. And I think that
495
00:22:01.400 --> 00:22:02.880
that's one of the things that's allowed me to grow
496
00:22:02.920 --> 00:22:04.799
this career. Because again, if you have goals that involve
497
00:22:04.839 --> 00:22:06.920
other people, and pretty much all of them do, then
498
00:22:07.039 --> 00:22:08.359
character is going to be a big part of how
499
00:22:08.359 --> 00:22:09.839
you are in trust, and trust is going to be
500
00:22:09.839 --> 00:22:10.799
a big part of how you get what.
501
00:22:10.839 --> 00:22:16.200
You are right. Okay, that having been said, When you people,
502
00:22:16.240 --> 00:22:19.279
when you buy this book, success is a numbers game.
503
00:22:19.319 --> 00:22:24.000
You're getting a framework, and I think everyone needs frameworks.
504
00:22:24.160 --> 00:22:27.000
So how do you want your framework to change not
505
00:22:27.200 --> 00:22:28.839
just outcomes, but people.
506
00:22:33.519 --> 00:22:36.000
Well, one of the biggest impacts that I'm hoping to
507
00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:37.559
have through the book is I want to put people
508
00:22:37.559 --> 00:22:41.119
in a position where they feel a sense of ownership
509
00:22:41.160 --> 00:22:43.240
in their own lives. I think a lot of people
510
00:22:43.240 --> 00:22:46.359
believe that success is reserved for two kinds of people.
511
00:22:46.440 --> 00:22:48.920
People who are just incredibly talented. You know, we think
512
00:22:48.960 --> 00:22:52.279
about a basketball player like Victor Winmbin Yama he's like
513
00:22:52.359 --> 00:22:55.440
seven foot six or something insane, and so of course
514
00:22:55.480 --> 00:22:58.079
he's going to be successfully he's seven foot six. I
515
00:22:58.079 --> 00:22:59.640
think a lot of people think that success is for
516
00:22:59.680 --> 00:23:01.920
that type person, and maybe also for people who get
517
00:23:01.960 --> 00:23:04.240
really lucky. In the book, I tell the story of
518
00:23:04.279 --> 00:23:08.119
Norma Jean Doherty. She's working at an aviation munitions factory
519
00:23:08.200 --> 00:23:10.839
during the war when a photographer comes to take pictures
520
00:23:10.839 --> 00:23:13.680
for a military magazine designed to inspire the troops with
521
00:23:13.720 --> 00:23:16.359
all the manufacturing going on back home, and when he
522
00:23:16.400 --> 00:23:18.519
meets Norma Jean, he notices that she's a lovely woman.
523
00:23:18.519 --> 00:23:19.799
He says, can I take some pictures of you from
524
00:23:19.839 --> 00:23:22.240
magazines and we'll submit them and see if maybe there's
525
00:23:22.240 --> 00:23:24.880
a career for you there. She says, sure, let's try it.
526
00:23:24.880 --> 00:23:26.920
It goes really well, so well, in fact, that she
527
00:23:27.000 --> 00:23:29.799
ends up becoming an actress and has incredible success under
528
00:23:29.799 --> 00:23:33.119
the stage name Marilyn Monroe. Now that's a pretty remarkable
529
00:23:33.160 --> 00:23:37.200
story of success. But is that the kind of success
530
00:23:37.200 --> 00:23:39.319
we would want to reverse engineer? If somebody came to
531
00:23:39.319 --> 00:23:40.920
me and said I want to be a successful movie star,
532
00:23:40.960 --> 00:23:42.599
would I say, now, we need to get you a
533
00:23:42.640 --> 00:23:45.599
factory job just in case a photographer happens to stop
534
00:23:45.640 --> 00:23:48.559
by someday. No, that's a very unlikely success. That's somebody
535
00:23:48.559 --> 00:23:51.160
who got very, very very lucky working at a factory
536
00:23:51.319 --> 00:23:53.400
and that leads them to become a movie star. So
537
00:23:53.720 --> 00:23:55.359
I think a lot of people believe that success is
538
00:23:55.359 --> 00:23:57.720
for those who are just incredibly talented successors, for people
539
00:23:57.720 --> 00:23:59.680
who have a big break. What I want to do,
540
00:23:59.680 --> 00:24:01.640
what I want want to impact people with the mindset
541
00:24:01.680 --> 00:24:03.440
that I want to change is teaching people that you
542
00:24:03.559 --> 00:24:07.640
have the opportunity to acknowledge and better understand the risk
543
00:24:07.759 --> 00:24:10.119
in your lives, and then you have the opportunity to
544
00:24:10.160 --> 00:24:12.640
be intentional, to use your creativity, to use those inner
545
00:24:12.759 --> 00:24:15.000
qualities to try to change your odds of success. You
546
00:24:15.000 --> 00:24:16.759
don't have to sit on the sidelines hoping that things
547
00:24:16.759 --> 00:24:19.440
will one day work out for you. You can set goals today.
548
00:24:19.559 --> 00:24:21.599
You can identify what has to go right, and you
549
00:24:21.599 --> 00:24:23.319
can spend some time looking at the things that could
550
00:24:23.319 --> 00:24:25.680
go wrong. And the beautiful thing about a success diagram
551
00:24:25.720 --> 00:24:28.119
is once you have that written down in the same
552
00:24:28.119 --> 00:24:30.000
way that people maybe talking about like a brain dump,
553
00:24:30.039 --> 00:24:31.319
you know, make it to do list, get it all
554
00:24:31.319 --> 00:24:33.400
out of your head. Well, success diagram is kind of
555
00:24:33.440 --> 00:24:35.400
the same thing for probability. When you get it out
556
00:24:35.440 --> 00:24:37.359
of your head and onto a sheet of paper, you
557
00:24:37.400 --> 00:24:39.079
put yourself in a position where you can now just
558
00:24:39.160 --> 00:24:41.559
live your life looking for the kinds of things that
559
00:24:41.599 --> 00:24:44.400
will help you change your odds. In my case, one
560
00:24:44.440 --> 00:24:46.480
example would be I wanted to write a book. It
561
00:24:46.519 --> 00:24:48.319
was a goal I'd had for a long time, but
562
00:24:48.359 --> 00:24:49.960
I knew that I wasn't really in a position to
563
00:24:50.000 --> 00:24:52.640
do that when I first set that goal maybe fifteen
564
00:24:52.680 --> 00:24:55.680
years ago. So as I just lived my life, I
565
00:24:55.720 --> 00:24:57.440
had the ability to make decisions to put me in
566
00:24:57.440 --> 00:24:59.599
a better position. When I had opportunities to write for
567
00:24:59.599 --> 00:25:02.160
publica it's like Forbes and the Harvard Business Review, I
568
00:25:02.240 --> 00:25:03.920
took it in part because it was going to put
569
00:25:03.920 --> 00:25:05.720
me in a better position to write this book. When
570
00:25:05.720 --> 00:25:08.480
I had opportunities to work with literary agents on projects
571
00:25:08.519 --> 00:25:10.359
that maybe didn't pay as well as you know, say
572
00:25:10.359 --> 00:25:12.480
a biotech CEO calling me in the middle of the night,
573
00:25:12.799 --> 00:25:14.759
I took those contracts too, because I wanted to have
574
00:25:14.759 --> 00:25:17.119
those relationships. So when we know what has to go
575
00:25:17.200 --> 00:25:18.720
right to get what we want, we can then live
576
00:25:18.759 --> 00:25:21.640
our lives. And it's not exactly passive but it does
577
00:25:21.680 --> 00:25:24.599
feel almost a little bit on autopilot because we're just
578
00:25:24.640 --> 00:25:26.400
living the same life who would have lived otherwise, but
579
00:25:26.440 --> 00:25:28.480
we're making more intentional decisions as a result.
580
00:25:28.640 --> 00:25:34.359
And with that though, you are speaking as a person
581
00:25:34.440 --> 00:25:41.039
of clarity, and I think because you left a corporate job,
582
00:25:41.880 --> 00:25:46.640
you had a higher mindfulness to know what has to
583
00:25:46.720 --> 00:25:50.799
go right, because you left the trappings of what someone
584
00:25:50.880 --> 00:25:52.920
else thought has to go right.
585
00:25:56.759 --> 00:25:58.279
I think there's a lot of truth in that. I
586
00:25:58.279 --> 00:26:01.119
think that it's easy to lose perspective when you get
587
00:26:01.160 --> 00:26:04.119
too deep into a project, and that can certainly be
588
00:26:04.160 --> 00:26:05.839
the case with a full time job. One of the
589
00:26:05.880 --> 00:26:08.680
benefits of consulting is when you're transitioning from project to
590
00:26:08.680 --> 00:26:11.200
project to project over the course of the day, you're
591
00:26:11.240 --> 00:26:13.519
able to, i think, maintain a little bit more of
592
00:26:13.519 --> 00:26:16.680
that fresh mindset, a little bit more of that outsider's
593
00:26:16.759 --> 00:26:18.960
view that allows you to spot the things that have
594
00:26:19.039 --> 00:26:22.799
maybe become so commonplace that people stuck in the middle
595
00:26:22.839 --> 00:26:26.920
of it that they aren't able to notice anymore. Consulting
596
00:26:27.000 --> 00:26:28.640
is basically getting paid a lot of money to have
597
00:26:28.640 --> 00:26:30.680
a fresh perspective, which is.
598
00:26:30.680 --> 00:26:37.519
A great I think it's fresh eyes, fresh ears, and
599
00:26:37.680 --> 00:26:41.759
somebody who can ask some of those existential questions that
600
00:26:41.839 --> 00:26:47.720
aren't being asked inside of a company. So I value consultants.
601
00:26:48.279 --> 00:26:51.359
Final a question for you when you start frameworks, what
602
00:26:51.559 --> 00:26:55.200
does being truly significant mean to you? And how are
603
00:26:55.240 --> 00:27:01.680
you increasing the odds of living that life?
604
00:27:01.759 --> 00:27:03.319
Well, when you say step back for the boardrooms first,
605
00:27:03.359 --> 00:27:04.640
I want to talk about just in the context of
606
00:27:04.720 --> 00:27:06.559
the boardrooms, because exactly what you just said. When it
607
00:27:06.559 --> 00:27:08.319
comes to consulting, a lot of times, what you're doing
608
00:27:08.359 --> 00:27:11.240
is you're giving voice to team members who maybe have
609
00:27:11.319 --> 00:27:13.319
too much on the line right because their incomes are
610
00:27:13.319 --> 00:27:15.920
not diversified. They're in a position where if they ask
611
00:27:16.039 --> 00:27:19.440
that existential question, they might be inviting risk into their career.
612
00:27:19.480 --> 00:27:20.839
They might end up having to have the kind of
613
00:27:20.839 --> 00:27:22.920
conversations that you've had with your spouse that I've had
614
00:27:22.960 --> 00:27:24.759
a couple times with my spouse. So one of the
615
00:27:24.759 --> 00:27:26.519
beautiful things about being a consultant is you can go
616
00:27:26.599 --> 00:27:29.240
into the room and you can watch the people around
617
00:27:29.240 --> 00:27:31.359
the table as you say things, and you'll see in
618
00:27:31.400 --> 00:27:33.799
their eyes if you're barking up the right tree, if
619
00:27:33.799 --> 00:27:35.799
this is something that needs to be explored more deeply.
620
00:27:35.880 --> 00:27:37.759
So I think one of the ways you have significance
621
00:27:37.799 --> 00:27:39.920
in your consulting career is you're giving voice to people.
622
00:27:40.200 --> 00:27:42.960
Because you have taken on the risk to over time
623
00:27:43.000 --> 00:27:45.440
build a clientele and have that diversified income, which is
624
00:27:45.480 --> 00:27:47.680
a challenging thing to do. You've now put yourself in
625
00:27:47.680 --> 00:27:49.480
a position where you can help other people who don't
626
00:27:49.519 --> 00:27:51.759
have that, And like I said, you shine a light
627
00:27:51.839 --> 00:27:54.400
on issues in companies that maybe the internal team feels
628
00:27:54.440 --> 00:27:56.480
uncomfortable shining a light on. So I think you're absolutely
629
00:27:56.519 --> 00:27:59.039
right about that. When it comes to stepping back, how
630
00:27:59.039 --> 00:28:00.519
do we do that? We I think in a lot
631
00:28:00.519 --> 00:28:02.359
of ways, it's the same thing. I wrote this book
632
00:28:02.400 --> 00:28:04.880
not just to help people accomplish corporate goals, but also
633
00:28:04.920 --> 00:28:07.200
personal goals. Maybe you're training for a marathon. Maybe you
634
00:28:07.240 --> 00:28:10.039
want to get a pilot's license. Maybe there's an issue
635
00:28:10.039 --> 00:28:12.400
in your community that you want to change, something that
636
00:28:12.480 --> 00:28:15.920
really speaks more to nonprofit work than for profit work.
637
00:28:16.240 --> 00:28:18.200
All of that is still a goal where there's going
638
00:28:18.240 --> 00:28:19.680
to be things that have to go right. There's things
639
00:28:19.680 --> 00:28:21.839
that could go wrong, and there's your odds of success
640
00:28:21.839 --> 00:28:23.519
to think about, and if you take the time to
641
00:28:23.599 --> 00:28:26.720
understand those, change your odds of success. I think The
642
00:28:26.759 --> 00:28:29.079
biggest impact this book can have is when it's helping
643
00:28:29.160 --> 00:28:31.640
people try to accomplish those sorts of the goals, When
644
00:28:31.640 --> 00:28:34.680
it's helping people recognize an injustice in their community and
645
00:28:34.759 --> 00:28:37.359
think about it more like an actual project. What's going
646
00:28:37.440 --> 00:28:38.920
to have to happen? What could go wrong? How can
647
00:28:38.960 --> 00:28:41.680
I change my odds of success? Sometimes we want to
648
00:28:41.720 --> 00:28:44.920
pretend that, you know, a virtuous goal is an antidote
649
00:28:44.960 --> 00:28:47.839
to risk. If I'm pursuing something good, that'll take the
650
00:28:47.960 --> 00:28:50.319
risk out of it. That's not true. Sometimes we want
651
00:28:50.359 --> 00:28:53.759
to treat, you know, desire as an antidote to risk.
652
00:28:53.839 --> 00:28:56.160
I really want this to go right. Well, let's say
653
00:28:56.160 --> 00:28:58.160
we're training to run that marathon and one of our
654
00:28:58.200 --> 00:29:01.119
potential bad outcomes is some inclement. Wal I just had
655
00:29:01.119 --> 00:29:03.400
an ice storm here where I live in Nashville, Tennessee,
656
00:29:03.759 --> 00:29:06.200
and for about two weeks there was ice on the sidewalks.
657
00:29:06.200 --> 00:29:08.519
I couldn't train by running on the sidewalks because of
658
00:29:08.559 --> 00:29:11.400
that ice. It was too dangerous, too slippery. So how
659
00:29:11.400 --> 00:29:14.960
does my desire take that risk away? It doesn't. But
660
00:29:15.039 --> 00:29:16.920
other other things I could do to take that risk away?
661
00:29:17.039 --> 00:29:19.160
Could I have a treadmill in my house? Could I
662
00:29:19.200 --> 00:29:21.000
get a gym membership for a period of time while
663
00:29:21.000 --> 00:29:23.839
I'm training for this marathon? Could I identify some alternative
664
00:29:23.839 --> 00:29:25.960
exercises that work some of the same muscles as running.
665
00:29:25.960 --> 00:29:28.000
Could I climb the stairs? You know what else could
666
00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:31.359
I be doing? When we think that way, we put
667
00:29:31.359 --> 00:29:33.319
ourselves in a position to do what I said earlier,
668
00:29:33.319 --> 00:29:35.759
which is take some agency in our lives. Move beyond
669
00:29:35.759 --> 00:29:38.640
the mindset that only really talented people succeed, only really
670
00:29:38.720 --> 00:29:42.240
lucky people succeed. Realize that anyone has the opportunity to succeed,
671
00:29:42.559 --> 00:29:45.839
and the most reliable way to achieve that success, experience
672
00:29:45.880 --> 00:29:48.200
that success is to have the odds on your side.
673
00:29:48.440 --> 00:29:50.640
You've been a great guest, and I need to have
674
00:29:50.720 --> 00:29:52.640
you back on again. And I think you've got to
675
00:29:52.799 --> 00:29:53.920
keep out up your sleeve.
676
00:29:54.359 --> 00:29:59.079
Please do right now in about three years writing this one.
677
00:29:59.160 --> 00:30:01.400
So if and I tell you writing another book, please
678
00:30:01.440 --> 00:30:03.119
talk me out of it. But I'm very thankful for
679
00:30:03.400 --> 00:30:04.839
what this book has done, and I hope it's helping you.
680
00:30:05.000 --> 00:30:07.160
Thank you so much. That was Kyle Young. He's the
681
00:30:07.200 --> 00:30:11.480
author of Success is a numbers Game. Achieve bigger goals
682
00:30:11.519 --> 00:30:15.000
by changing the odds. Wonderful guest, Thank you sir. We
683
00:30:15.039 --> 00:30:21.640
appreciate you being on Folks. We hope that you enjoyed
684
00:30:21.680 --> 00:30:27.880
today's program and by reading wonderful books like this, you'll
685
00:30:27.920 --> 00:30:30.680
be able to change your odds. But I would also
686
00:30:30.880 --> 00:30:33.960
add this that we know that you are on your
687
00:30:34.039 --> 00:30:39.200
own chase of success. Along the way, pay attention to
688
00:30:39.240 --> 00:30:42.000
what's significant. Also have record