The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk

Order my new book, The Price of Becoming... www.LearningLeader.com/Becoming
This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world has the hustle and grit to deliver.
My Guest: Nir Eyal is a Stanford lecturer, behavioral designer, and bestselling author who has spent his career at the intersection of psychology, technology, and human behavior. He's one of the most rigorous thinkers alive on why people do what they do, and what it actually takes to change.
Notes
Julie introduced Nir to the Turnaround technique. Nir and Julie met the first week of college in 1997 and have been married since 2001. A big part of the genesis of Beyond Belief came from Julie introducing Nir to this technique called The Turnaround, which comes out of the work from Byron Katie, that she used with her mother to repair the relationship she had with her mom.
A limiting belief is a belief that saps motivation and increases suffering. It does that by creating short-term relief from discomfort. "I hate public speaking, I'm no good at public speaking, so I'm going to avoid public speaking." You reduce your motivation to go on stage, providing yourself temporary relief, but long-term suffering.
The Turnaround helps you collect a portfolio of perspectives. The problem is that our minds hate changing beliefs. We use these beliefs to justify passivity. A turnaround helps you identify many different kinds of beliefs, and then you can choose the ones that serve you versus the ones that hurt you.
Your conscious mind can only process 50 bits of information per second. Your brain is processing 11 million bits of information (the sound of a voice, light hitting your retinas, the ambient temperature of the room). Your conscious mind is not aware of all this. Your brain has to filter out and leaves you with 0.00045% of the information that's coming in.
The brain sees reality through a tiny pinhole of attention. It's the difference between reading a simple sentence or War and Peace twice every second. In order to make sense of all this data coming in, the brain has to see reality through a tiny pinhole of attention, just a tiny fraction of reality you're actually consciously aware of.
The brain makes predictions based on our beliefs. How does the brain make sense of all this information? It has to make predictions, and those predictions are based on our beliefs. We call this predictive processing. Everything you experience, everything you see, everything you feel, and everything you're inspired to do is determined by the three powers of belief.
The three powers of belief:
The power of attention changes what you see
The power of anticipation changes how you feel
The power of agency changes what you do
Limiting beliefs hide themselves. A limiting belief, by definition, is hidden because we think that what we see is accurate. We all think that what we experience is a fact. "I saw it for myself. I'm stating my truth. This is the way things are." But that's not true at all. The way the brain processes information is woefully inadequate to put that burden of truth on it.
The Turnaround uses four questions to challenge limiting beliefs. 
Is it true?
Is it 100% absolutely true?
Who am I when I hold onto this belief?
Who would I be without this belief?
Nir's story: "My mother is too judgmental and hard to please." Nir sent his mom flowers for her 74th birthday. She said, "Thank you very much. But just so you know, the flowers were half dead. Don't order from that florist again." Nir instantly became his 13-year-old self and blurted out, "Well, that's the last time I order you flowers again."
Venting is terrible. It does nothing but reinforce your beliefs about people because not only do we not see reality clearly, we certainly don't see other people clearly. We see our beliefs about people. We don't see reality as it is. We see reality as we are.
The Turnaround opened up new possibilities for Nir. In 30 seconds, he determined: (1) that belief may not be true, (2) it doesn't really serve him, and (3) there might be a better way to be. He could actually be happier without that belief.
The brain hates changing its mind. The turnaround asks you to look at the diametric opposite of your belief. We have a psychological immune system. Just like if you get a splinter in your finger, your body will mount an immune defense. The same happens in our minds. The more you feel "that's crazy, I don't wanna think that way, that can't be true," the more you need to explore it.
Nir found four beliefs instead of one:
My mother is too judgmental and hard to please
My mother is NOT too judgmental and hard to please (maybe she was just conveying information)
I am too judgmental and hard to please (I had rehearsed a script of effusive praise I wanted)
I am too judgmental and hard to please towards myself (I felt incompetent that the flowers didn't work out)
"Beliefs are tools, not truths." This is the most important thing Nir can convey. Which one of those four beliefs is true? All of them. None of them. Who cares? Beliefs are tools, not truths.
Facts, faith, and beliefs are three different things. 
A fact is an objective truth about reality. It is so whether you believe it or not. The world is more like a sphere than it is flat. That is an objective fact. 
Faith is a conviction that does not require evidence. 
A belief is a conviction that is open to revision based on new evidence.
Most problems come from thinking faith is a fact. Too many people think that their faith is a fact, and the things they think are facts are nothing more than beliefs, which are changeable. That's where most of our problems come from: interpersonal problems, personal problems, geopolitical problems.
The original belief left Nir powerless. "My mom is too judgmental and hard to please" only has one way out: she has to change so I could be happy. Good luck. The other three beliefs, Nir could do something about. They were in his control. That enabled him. It freed him. It was liberating.
Misattribution of emotion: hurt people hurt people. When we feel bad inside, if you've ever been bullied or been a bully yourself, this is always what happens. When you feel crappy on the inside, the first person you can find, you're going to punch him in the face, either physically or verbally, because you feel crappy. That's what Nir did to his mom because he felt bad. So now she should feel bad.
How to handle narcissists: acknowledge they're operating with the best tools they have. That person is a narcissist? Awesome, because you don't have to be around them. But narcissists are operating from the best tools they have. It doesn't mean you have to include them in your life, but how do you stop suffering because of them? Acknowledge they are, and reduce your suffering around them.
Nir called his mom and apologized. He said, "I'm so sorry for my behavior. I realize that you were trying to help me. You were conveying information about the flowers, so I wouldn't order from that florist. Thank you for that." That call completely changed their relationship.
We expect people to change, but we can't even change ourselves. We can't do the simplest habits like eating better, exercising more, and managing our time. Why are we expecting other people to change?
"Love is measured by the benefit of the doubt." When Nir's daughter was born, and he held her for the first time, he felt overwhelming adoration. Five minutes ago, she didn't exist, and now he loved her more than anything. He gave her complete, total benefit of the doubt. Why? She didn't do anything. She never sent him flowers. Babies poop, they need food all the time, they cry. But he never said, "she's crying to annoy me." We give babies the ultimate benefit of the doubt.
Why don't we give adults the benefit of the doubt? When those babies grow up and become adults, we don't give them the benefit of the doubt. The narcissist in your life, the person who offends you, the person that hurts you, those are the best tools they have. It doesn't mean you have to be with them or include them in your life. The requirement is: how do you figure out how to stop suffering, to be at peace?
We're constantly judging everything. Somebody cuts you off in traffic. Jerk. There's a line at the burrito place. The business thing didn't work out. The stock market goes down. Judging, judging, judging all day long. Good, bad, good, bad, good, bad. Expecting things to be different than they are. These are all limiting beliefs, and all they do is make us suffer.
"We don't have relationship problems. We have belief problems." The problem is your belief that something should be different from what it is. It's like asking Nir's daughter to speak Russian. She can't speak Russian. What am I expecting? She doesn't have that ability. Why should I have expectations that people should meet my expectations?
Nir and Julie now collaborate instead of argue. Since they started using the Turnaround technique, they used to have disagreements. Now they collaborate. If there's a very smart person, much smarter than Nir, who has an opinion, who he respects deeply and loves and admires, why would he fight with that person? He would collaborate with that person.
Different perspectives are an asset to collect. If Nir sees things one way and Julie sees them differently, that's amazing. A new perspective. It's like collecting Pokémon cards. You've gotta get 'em all. Now with more perspectives, he can pick the best one.
Writing sessions with Tim Urban, Shane Snow, and Mark Manson. Nir would work on his own and get distracted. But when he had other authors around him, they would sit down, write for 45 minutes, take a 15-minute break, write for 45 minutes, take a 15-minute break. They'd do that for three hours every morning. Not only is it inspiring, it keeps you on track.
Find a focus friend. Somebody you can go to a coffee shop with and say, "I really need to focus. Let's keep each other accountable. Let's just work next to each other." Just like working side by side and seeing that other person also working on the stuff they should be working on keeps you accountable.
Comparison is the thief of joy. Sometimes it can be tricky to be in a room with people who are super successful. Nir was the least successful author there at the time. You have to put it in perspective and know it's not about the outcome, it's about the journey. The best thing you can do is do the work.
Time boxing is better than to-do lists. To-do lists are one of the worst things you can do for personal productivity because there's no constraint. You can always add more things to a to-do list. You come home from work every day and say, "I still have all these things I haven't done on my to-do list." 
A time box calendar is the most well-researched time management technique. What's much more effective than a to-do list is planning out what you're going to do and when you're going to do it. This is called an implementation intention. The goal now becomes not to finish anything. The goal is to work on that task for as long as you said you would without distraction.
Make time to do the work, to turn your values into time. That's the secret to avoiding comparison. You put in the time to do the work. When you have it on your calendar, the goal is doing the work, not finishing the work.
Lucky people literally see reality differently. They did a study where they asked people who were self-described lucky or unlucky to count the number of photographs in a newspaper. The unlucky people took on average two and a half minutes. The lucky people took 11 seconds. Why? On page two, one of the images said in big, bold text, "There are 43 images in this paper. Collect your prize." The unlucky people never saw it. Their brains took in the information, but it never became part of their conscious awareness.
Entrepreneurs see $100 bills on the ground when everybody's walking over them. That is driven by beliefs. You believe you can will things to change. Walter Isaacson, in his biography of Steve Jobs, talked about his reality distortion field. That's exactly what this is. Entrepreneurs tend to be way more optimistic. They believe that lucky things happen to them, and so they see opportunities.
"With our luck, it's going to be a bright, beautiful, sunny day." So many people say "with my luck" and follow it with something bad or negative. This belief and mindset of saying "with our luck" followed by something extremely positive is contagious and enjoyable.
"Everything good happens to us." Nir's family says this whenever something good happens. There's no line at the TSA. "Everything good happens to us." The food was good. "Everything good happens to us." Little things, big things. Do more good things happen to them than bad things? Maybe, maybe not. Who cares? Beliefs are tools, not truths. When you believe those things, you notice them more. Your life actually does seem magical, blessed, like you're always lucky.
60% of opportunities are provoked luck. They studied super successful entrepreneurs and VCs and found that 60% of their opportunities provoked luck. They provoked the lucky thing that happened. How? Something as simple as sending a note of gratitude. Never hold back on a compliment. They're free. You get so much back from them.
Thank you notes create provoked luck. Tina Seelig writes thank you notes compulsively. She wrote a thank you note to somebody. The thank-you note landed on someone's desk. You're sitting at your desk with things to do, and here's a thank you note, and to the right is your laptop with an email about a new opportunity. Who is going to get the call about that opportunity? You're top of mind. "Ryan's such a nice guy. He sent me that note. I'm going to call Ryan about that opportunity."
Changing Nir's relationship with his mom changed his relationship with his daughter. Love is measured by the benefit of the doubt. When Nir started giving his daughter the benefit of the doubt, it pushed him to figure it out with his mom because he needed to give her the benefit of the doubt as he would want his daughter to give him the same. He's doing his best. He's not perfect. He makes mistakes. Those are the tools he's got. 
You go from loving your kid to liking them. Nir and his daughter went skiing together for his birthday. The entire three hour car ride up, the entire three-hour car ride back, they were chatting. They wrote an article together in the car. You always love your kid. As soon as your kid's born, you love them. But if you do your job right and things fall into place and you're very lucky, you like them. And that's a game changer.
Reflection Questions
What limiting belief are you holding onto where someone else has to change? What are three other ways to look at that same situation that would put the control back in your hands?
Are you treating your beliefs like facts or like tools? Which beliefs are you holding because they're true, and which ones are you holding because they serve you?
Who in your life are you not giving the benefit of the doubt? What would change if you gave them some grace?
More Learning:
#554 - Tim Urban: Become a High Rung Thinker
#342 - Shane Snow: The #1 Leadership Skill is Intellectual Humility
#596 - Arthur Brooks: The Art & Science of Happiness 
Podcast Chapters
02:19 Julie Introduced Nir to The Turnaround 
04:28 Limiting Beliefs: How They Sap Motivation 
07:51 Your Brain Filters 99.99% of Reality 
10:17 The Flower Story: When Nir Became His 13-Year-Old Self 
12:41 The Four Questions That Change Everything 
15:25 Finding Four Beliefs Instead of One 
19:08 Beliefs Are Tools, Not Truths 
22:52 Narcissists Are Using Their Best Tools 
27:53 Focus Friends: Writing with Tim Urban, Shane Snow, and Mark Manson 
31:09 Comparison Is the Thief of Joy 
32:04 Time Boxing Beats To-Do Lists 
35:04 We Don't Have Relationship Problems, We Have Belief Problems 
35:59 Why Nir and Julie Don't Fight Anymore 
38:25 Explaining Worlds vs Changing People 
42:03 You Can't Write Clearly If You Can't Think Clearly 
43:23 Lucky People See $100 Bills on the Ground 
46:29 "With Our Luck, It's Gonna Be a Beautiful Day" 
49:38 Thank You Notes Create Provoked Luck 
52:42 From Loving Your Kid to Liking Them 
56:16 EOPC

My new book is The Price of Becoming. To order, go to www.LearningLeader.com/Becoming
This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world has the hustle and grit to deliver.
My Guest: Will Guidara is the former co-owner of Eleven Madison Park, the restaurant he took from a struggling two-star establishment to become the number one restaurant in the world. He's the author of the New York Times bestseller Unreasonable Hospitality, the host of the Welcome Conference, and a co-producer on the Emmy award-winning series The Bear.
Notes:
Key Learnings
"Obsession is a beautiful thing when you can grab it by the tail." This quote is from chef Sean Brock when he opened his pizza place in Nashville. For Will, obsession is when you care so much about something that you give all of yourself to bring its most fully realized version to life.
What obsession means to Will: "Loving with every ounce of my being the pursuit of something."  He can't imagine a life where he doesn't have something to be obsessed about.
When you lose yourself in the pursuit of something, that's when it gets ugly. Obsession is a beautiful thing if you can grab it by the tail. For those that can't, it becomes ugly. You need to hold onto yourself while obsessively pursuing whatever it is.
Find a hobby to be obsessed with before you retire. Will is 46 and has seen people he's long looked up to finally retire in their late seventies without a hobby they're obsessed with. They're feeling listless and without purpose. He's thinking about this now for his future: start to become obsessed with a hobby so that when you do one day retire, there's something else to fall into.
"Adversity is a terrible thing to waste." You cannot always control what life throws at you, but you can always control how you react to those things, what you choose to learn from them, how you allow them to fuel your competitive spirit, the perspective you glean from those moments.
Allow yourself and your team to feel the weight of the disappointment. When there's a moment of adversity, leaders hear "adversity is a terrible thing to waste" and immediately shift into cheerleader mode. That is not the right thing to do. You need to allow yourself to be as human as humanly possible, and give your team the grace to fully feel the weight of that disappointment. 
Sometimes adversity sucks, and you just need to be able to say, "This sucks. I don't feel good. I feel bad. Let's feel bad for a moment."
Suffer together. When your team is going through adversity, you want to know that your leader thinks it sucks, too. It's good to feel bad alongside a community, but then after a measure of time, that's when you say, okay, now how do we grow from this? How do we use this to compel us forward?
Be thankful for the tough moments. Will can look back at every tough moment with gratitude. The girl who broke his heart two years before he met his now wife, he's so grateful that she did. Breaking up with his business partner and selling his restaurant company felt like the worst thing ever, but he wouldn't have written Unreasonable Hospitality had that not happened.
"Who is a restaurateur without restaurants?" COVID forced Will to find the space to decide what he wanted to do next. When he sold the company, two days later, he had a full-blown identity crisis. COVID gave him the gift of forcing him to find the space to decide what he wanted to do next, as opposed to running back to do the thing he'd always done.
Team first. "The best way to make sure that you are taking care of your customers is to start by taking care of your team." This is what Will learned from Danny Meyer.
The power of language to define a culture. How beautiful and impactful it is when you take the time to clearly and succinctly articulate your values through language. Danny spoke in "isms." Every time he gave them an ism, it was clear that thing mattered to him, so it needed to matter to the team as well.
Cult is short for culture. Will's friends from college joked that he worked for a cult, but cult is short for culture. The funny thing is, they worked for companies that lacked a culture. Every great team feels a little cultish, and that's because of the leader.
Hospitality is the advantage. The only competitive advantage that exists over the long term comes through hospitality. Every company is trying to identify its competitive advantage: what is the thing about the business that will prevent someone else from coming in and taking away its customers? Those conversations almost always center around the quality of the product or the strength of the brand. Here's the thing: it does not just matter how good the product is, and it does not just matter how strong the brand is, because eventually someone's going to come around and build a better product or create a stronger brand.
Relationships matter. Hospitality comes through consistently, generously, and creatively investing in relationships. Those take a long time to build, and if you build them in the right way, the loyalty you will earn takes a very long time to erode.
McDonald's vs. Chick-fil-A. The hospitality difference. McDonald's does some of the coolest marketing things in the world. Their product is consistent, and there was probably a season for a very long time where they were the best burger chain out there. Compare that to Chick-fil-A: if you ask 10 people who makes a better chicken sandwich, a lot of people would say other people make better chicken sandwiches than Chick-fil-A. But people are still loyal to Chick-fil-A, not because of the brand, not because of the product, but because of the way that they make people feel.
Little gestures go a long way. Chick-fil-A does things like "my pleasure" and refilling your drinks in the dining room. These little gestures go a long way because we are much less likely to leave one company and go to another, even if the other company is better priced and the product is a little bit better.
Food is just a conduit through which to express hospitality. As many stories as you hear about Chick-fil-A doing little and big things to make people feel seen, you don't hear those stories about McDonald's. And that's not an accident. One company has chosen to invest all of itself in pursuit of that. The other one has not. If you're in the business of serving other people, these opportunities exist for you in an endless way.
Find the smallest touchpoints. Every experience you're serving is filled with lots of big and little touchpoints. The problem is so many companies focus on only the most obvious touchpoints without realizing that there is impact to be made with each one of them. 
Hospitality is a craft, a muscle that you can strengthen. Will created the Welcome Conference because he wanted someone who was a server at a restaurant who had dreams to own their own restaurant to have a place where they could learn about the craft of hospitality.
What you can't afford to do with money, you can afford to do with time. Will can't afford the kind of speaking fees that people who inspire others on stage at his conference deserve, so he came up with a more creative way to show appreciation: a dinner the night before. It's about community, because the people who take that stage have the responsibility to create the conditions through which attendees can come together and form community. And it's impossible to form a community for others until you first feel a sense of community amongst yourselves.
There needs to be a good reason for the event to exist. Will created the Welcome Conference years ago because there were chef conferences all over the world, and he was always the only dining room person speaking at them. He wanted a place for the dining room people to have community.
Gift bags are a terrible idea. People think the more they put in the bag, the more hospitable they are. It's usually junk.
"I look at something, design the version of that I wish existed, work obsessively to bring that vision to life, and then welcome others into my imagination." 
What makes a great conference is meeting the people at those events. The best events are about the people in between the meetings. That time matters.
Energy in a room is so important. Will is one of the most extroverted people in the world, but if he walks into a cocktail party and he doesn't know anyone, he seizes up. He doesn't like it. He likes to be around people he knows.
Be a connector. A month before Will's event, he realized many people were coming alone, which he wasn't expecting. They sent an email to all of them and said, "We saw that you're coming alone. We have an idea. If you'd like to meet some people, let us know." They set up dinner reservations at Will's favorite restaurants in Nashville and did some matchmaking. Those 40 people ended up coming into the beginning of the conference the next day already like this one big, awesome community.
Make the "yes" as easy as possible.  Will gets Emmy screeners, and some people send DVDs (which he doesn't have a player for), while others send QR codes, which make it very easy to watch. The lesson: make it easy for people to say yes to what you're offering.
Shop your own business. Stay in your own hotel. Until you've actually been on the receiving end of whatever you're serving, you have an inability to see all the things you're doing wrong or the opportunities you have to do more things right.
"Never let a gracious impulse pass." There's the devil and angel on your shoulder. The devil will tell you how hard it will be. Don't listen to that. If you are going to shop your own business, when an idea pops up, do something about it. Get out of the sea of mediocrity.
The Unreasonable Hospitality Guide is the "how." There are exercises on how to build a team, how to build a culture of hospitality, how to work with your team to create magic, daily huddles to move the needle, the dreamweaver concept, etc.
"I've never once regretted caring more. I have regretted not caring enough." People can't always notice things, but they can feel it.
Reflection Questions
What are you obsessed with? If you had to retire tomorrow, what hobby would you fall into? If you don't have one, what can you start becoming obsessed with now?
What adversity are you currently facing? Have you allowed yourself and your team to fully feel the weight of that disappointment before shifting into problem-solving mode?
Map out every single touchpoint in your customer experience. Which ones is nobody else thinking about? How can you make those more awesome?
More Learning
#545 - Will Guidara: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect
#372 - Will Guidara: The Nobility of Service
Podcast Chapters
01:00 The Price of Becoming
02:16 The Correlation of Obsession and Excellence
08:06 Adversity Is Fuel
11:38 COVID Identity Reset
15:19 Lessons From Danny Meyer
20:36 The Hospitality Advantage
26:01 Touchpoint Experience Audit
28:55 Welcome Conference Preview
30:44 Creating Community Over Dinner
32:02 Creating A Magical Event 
33:35 Why Events Must Exist
35:30 Designing Hospitable Touchpoints
40:42 Make It Easy To Say Yes
45:58 Never Let a Gracious Impulse Pass
47:29 Unreasonable Hospitality Field Guide: The How To
51:20 Obsession, Care, And Excellence
55:53 EOPC

Go to www.LearningLeader.com/becoming to learn more about "The Price of Becoming." -- My new book!
 
Clark Lea is the head football coach at Vanderbilt… He's led one of the best turnaround stories in college football. He got hired as head coach in 2021 to inherit a program that had gone winless the year before. What he's built since is remarkable: a 40–35 upset of No. 1 Alabama, back-to-back SEC Coach of the Year awards, and Vanderbilt's first 10-win season in program history. He's won games and changed the culture.
Key Learnings
Better people make a better team. Development in one area is development in all areas. We're trained to see life in separate lanes (coach here, husband here, father here, student here, athlete here), but when you live that way, you're in constant conflict. Instead, see each person as a circle where all those roles define who we are, and development in one area is development in all areas.
Show up on time, deliver on time, engage resources. If you show up on time, turn your work in on time, and engage the resources that are here to help you, you're not just going to survive, you're going to thrive. This is what it takes to be a great football player and a great student.
"We are not victims in this process." After missing the playoffs, Clark told his team: This is the ground we stand on, this is who we are. Let's be really proud of what we accomplished, but also acknowledge we've fallen short, and that is no one else's fault. Vanderbilt football doesn't need to complain loud enough to get someone to change their mind. We need to play better football.
The joy we can experience is equal and opposite to the pain we can experience. In athletics, you're suspended between the pain and the joy, and the depths of that pain can be excruciating. But the joy we get to experience together in a shared way is unbelievable. The entry fee is the acceptance of that.
?This is exactly where we're supposed to be because there are no mistakes." Driving into work the day Vanderbilt didn't make the playoffs, Clark realized: this is actually exactly where we're supposed to be because there are no mistakes.
As a leader, they have to know who you are. How do you coach a team and make sure your personality shows up on the field? As a head coach, being open, honest, and exposed in front of the team is essential to leadership philosophy.
Take new players through your entire story. Clark does an intake meeting with new players every year that runs an hour and a half. He starts with an image of himself as a kid and takes them through high school, college, his career journey, where he met his wife, where they got married, where each of his kids was born, the highs, lows, all of it. Then he takes them through the state of the program when he got here and every team since.
Share your family with them. Clark's kids are around all the time, his wife comes out to practice, and they talk about things in an open and honest way. That's a gateway to really meaningful relationships, and that's been the bedrock of this program build.
"Change is hard. Change is painful. Are you willing to go to the hard places?" This job has been a personal evolution for Clark, which has allowed for program evolution. He had to change, and he didn't know about going to the hard places until he took this job.
When you get so obsessed with long-term goals, you leverage the moment in such a way that makes it impossible to breathe. Clark thought he was going to be a major league baseball player. He went to Birmingham Southern, won the NAIA World Series, but his skills were diminishing. He was experiencing the yips, a mental block, because he was holding it too tight.
Even though you change places, your problems will follow you. Clark transferred to Belmont for a fresh start, but his skills diminished even further. It was humiliating and challenging to his identity. That year was really difficult.
"Relatedness is our edge." Brotherhood is the most overused word; family is overused. Relatedness is this shared experience we have, a sense of belonging and community, a deep respect, a foundational respect. Once we learn how to see each other at that depth and understand one another and care for one another and fight for one another, we carry that as an edge in our performance.
"Belief is a practice." Clark said four years ago that they're building the best program in the country, and everyone laughed except people internally. The phrasing is important: "We are building the best." That means it's early stages. Hope is passive; belief is an active decision.
Hope is passive; belief is an active decision. When you hope for something, you kind of sit back, and you go, man, I hope that's the case. Belief is, I believe this is the case, so here's the thing I'm going to invest in that puts me on the pathway to actualizing that outcome.
If the belief isn't there, your tolerance for sacrifice won't be there. You're going to see the entry fee, and you're going to hope that it happens. When we take belief into a practice, we make it happen.
"I don't have to be bigger, faster, stronger in my role anymore, but I need to suffer." Anyone on an aspirational journey makes sacrifices. Clark's tolerance for suffering shows up in getting in the weight room and training, eating habits, social habits.
"Make sure before you give the thumbs up that you get your skis up." Clark's dad taught him water skiing: if your skis are parallel or pointed downwards, you're going to go up and over those skis and just be dragged in the wake of the boat. As a leader, once Clark gets in the building, his time belongs to everybody else. He has to have his skis up in the morning.
If you're late at night drinking, you're not going to be able to have that time in the morning to prepare yourself to be what I need to be for others. There's sacrifice, but it's also joyful. Sacrifice isn't something you have to do; it's actually what makes us special.
"Head, body, head, body." This is from the movie The Fighter. This is Clark's mantra that puts you in the present: no matter what's happened, I'm not going to focus on what's come before, we're not going to forecast, we're going to be right where our feet are, and we're gonna remember the plan. Body shots accumulate. You can't knock the opponent out in one punch.
Be the chief alignment officer and the chief reminding officer. Mike McDonald (Seahawks HC) said these are two of his primary roles. Clark uses the spear as a representation of alignment: the spear has to move in one direction to be effective.
It doesn't matter what you say as a head coach in the team room if it's not taken into the tightest echo chambers. That environment's not powerful enough to inspire action. The culture of a school is defined in the classroom. For Clark, if what he says isn't taken to the position groups and reinforced, then driven into behavior, they're going to lose alignment and lose focus.
"The culture of a school is defined in the classroom. Good teachers make for a good experience. Poor teachers make for challenging experiences."
You can never tire of driving the standards and behaviors. The reminding part is: how tired can you get of driving the standards and behaviors? The skill becomes, can we focus on the things that impact winning?
Let me focus on the things that are most important and let me be relentless in making sure those show up. Clark is reminding coaches, players, staff, all of it, and helping them and guiding them into driving accountability within their spaces. Then he has to let the program breathe a little bit.
Performance can't be tight, it can't be restrictive. Clark needs his guys to bring their unique personalities and their creative energy that makes it so much more fun, and it shows up on the field. Let me remind you of who we are and what we do and how we do these things and how it impacts winning. But then let me let you be yourself and bring your personality and help us elevate this program, not just be a part of it.
"Coach, I look forward to coming to Vanderbilt to help you win championships." When Diego Pavia got off the phone with Clark after their first conversation, he said this in the most genuine way. Clark had spent a lot of time trying to convince a lot of people of what was possible at Vanderbilt, and that felt like the first time that someone was meeting him right where he was.
"The world doesn't need a watered down Diego Pavia." When Diego's at his best, he's being himself. It's also important to have boundaries, and without conflict, there's erosion. So you have to fight for those boundaries. 
"We really are a group of misfits." Brian Longwell, one of their linebackers, commented during a team building exercise. A five star coming to Vanderbilt is not your typical five star. That choice in and of itself is the acceptance of a challenge. The misfit ignores the external and tends to the internal."
As we elevate our people, we don't ever lose our identity. As long as they're true to who they are, the people they accept in this program will quickly get in lockstep with where they're moving.
Reflection Questions
What area of your life are you treating as separate from the others? Development in one area is development in all areas. How would this shift change your approach?
Are you practicing hope or practicing belief? Hope is passive, belief is active. What would change if you made the shift?
Do you have your skis up in the morning? What sacrifices do you need to make the night before to be what you need to be for others?
More Learning:
#062: Jim Tessel - Servant Leadership Through Coaching
#325: Ron Ullery - Demanding Excellence & Delayed Gratification
#503 - Sherri Coale - The Art of Asking & Winning On & Off the Court

Audio Chapters:
00:00 The Price of Becoming
01:10 The Turnaround at Vanderbilt
02:48 Coaching Network and Mentors
04:48 Winning with Academic Standards
07:48 Have a No Victim Mindset
11:56 Leaders Must Share Your Story
17:27 Relatedness Is Our Edge
18:44 Belief Is a Practice
21:30 Belief As Practice
23:13 Sacrifice And Suffering
24:30 Do You Have Your Skis Up?
26:05 The Head-Body Mantra
27:35 Leaders Must Align And Remind
31:53 Quarterback Diego Pavia
34:33 Misfits And Five Stars
35:48 EOPC

Go to Go to https://www.learningleader.com/becoming to see the pre-order bonuses for The Price of Becoming
This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world has the hustle and grit to deliver.
My Guest: Scott Galloway is the New York Times bestselling author of books including The Four, The Algebra of Happiness, Post Corona, Adrift, and The Algebra of Wealth. 
Notes:
Key Learnings
Routine speeds up time, novelty slows it down. If you want life to go fast, just spend it alone and have a routine and never bust out of that routine. What makes life interesting is diversity in people, because people are complicated, and relationships are complicated.
Lean into your emotions to slow time down. If you see something that moves you, stop, think about it, ask yourself why it moves you, and try to cement that moment in your brain. Otherwise, you're not sleepwalking through life; you're sleep sprinting.
"The greatest wasted resource in history is good intentions that don't get articulated." No matter how famous someone is, they love affirmation as much as anybody else. Good thoughts that don't get articulated are wasted.
Absorb when you're upset and lean into emotions, good and bad. This sort of marks the day and slows things down. Otherwise, if you get up every morning, do the same thing, eat the same thing, have the same relationship, the week's just gonna go really fast.
Reverse engineer your success to things that aren't your fault. What are the things that played a role in your success that you had no control over? Your luck, your good fortune. For Scott: big government, assisted lunch, Pell Grants, University of California, technology financed by middle-class taxpayers, DARPA, the internet, deep pools of capital, and acceptance of failure.
His mom told him he had value every day. Scott's mom, every day, implicitly and explicitly, told him and communicated to him that he had value. That builds a basic confidence that manifests in different ways: the confidence to fail, approach strangers, believe you're worthy of love, that you'll add value to a company, and that you can ask for tens of millions of dollars from someone.
When good things happened, he used to call his mom. Whether it was getting a bonus at Morgan Stanley or striking up a conversation with a woman at Starbucks and getting her number, Scott used to call his mom. Your parents can bask in your victory, and you can brag to your parents, and it's okay.
If there's no one there with you, it's like it didn't happen. Scott travels for business and stays at really nice hotels, and inevitably gets upgraded to the penthouse or the George V in Paris when he's alone. But if there's no one there with you, it's like it didn't happen.
Celebrate victories, tell people how much they mean to you. You have to call your friends, celebrate their victories, celebrate your own, and tell people how much they mean to you.
Every day, no matter what, tell your kids you're proud of them and love them. No matter how much Scott's kids piss him off, at some point, he finds a way to say, "I'm proud of you, and I love you immensely. You know that, right?" He hopes they have that same kind of base or pillar of confidence he had his whole life.
Having someone tell you they believe in you every day works. You don't have to be a baller or successful. Just having someone in your life and every day telling them they mean a lot to you, they can't help but not believe you after a while.
Being a leader isn't about being the smartest person in the room. Scott used to think being a leader was being the smartest person in the room, and he had trouble, especially with other men, thinking if he acknowledged someone else was doing a good job, somehow that made him less impressive.
You have so much currency as a founder or manager. If you're in a management or leadership role, much less a founder, you have so much currency to pull someone into a conference room and say, "You were outstanding in that meeting" or "I just read this, and I love this paragraph. God, where did you come up with this idea?" You literally see these people just light up.
"If you're thinking it, say it." The instant you're thinking something positive about somebody, just tell them, text them, call them. Don't wait. We have a tendency to think other people are telepathic, that they must sense we think they're wonderful. No, they don't sense it. Articulate it. When you're on your deathbed, you're not gonna think "I gave too much praise at work and told too many people how much they meant to me."
Young people need watering. If you don't give young people feedback and praise when they deserve it, it's like having a ton of capital and not spending it. Especially with young people, they need watering.
Feedback is incredible compensation. Whenever someone does something good, Scott tries to remind himself via email. Then, when he does their review at the end of the year, it's like, " Wow, this dude is paying attention. That is a form of compensation.
Give thoughtful reviews that show you understand them. Tell them what they need to develop to get to the next level. Pay for the courses they need. They're a single mom who needs flexibility and wants to make more money. That's compensation.
"Become a clip machine." Certain people are clip machines: James Clear, Morgan Housel, Kat Cole, Scott Galloway. These are people who communicate ideas in ways that are instantly shareable and memorable. For leaders, becoming an effective communicator isn't optional anymore. You need to be able to inspire and move people.
The ability to write well is the stem of storytelling. It forces you to manage your thoughts and think things through. It's difficult to be a great storyteller if you can't write at a competent level.
Rank yourself across every medium and go deep on one. Look at every medium (texting, LinkedIn, short form video, TikTok, long form writing, speaking), rank yourself, listen to yourself, decide what your specialty is, and then go very deep into one.
Figure out your medium and commit to being in the top 1%. Challenge yourself to be in the top 10% within a year, the top 1% within three years. Identify which medium you have skills in, then challenge yourself. If you're in the top 6,000 podcasts out of 600,000 that put out content every week, you're in the top 1%.
"Social media may make you want to shower after you use it, but it's frightening how powerful it is." In terms of economic power and influence, it's frightening how powerful social media is right now. If you're a young person and you want to be influential or economically secure, you need to master it.
Storytelling is the enduring skill to give your kids. Scott's core competence is storytelling. His superpower is attracting and retaining people who help leverage his skills.
The most radical act in a capitalist society is not participation. Scott started Resist and Unsubscribe because action absorbs anxiety. He was sick of being virtuous and courageous on a keyboard or a mic and wanted to do something.
"Ready, fire, fucking aim on this thing called life." Scott wants to dance like no one is watching. He's gonna be dead soon, and it's all going really fast. He doesn't want to look back and think about losing sponsors or what people thought was stupid. He wants to think, "Right on, I tried to do something." He wants to be that guy who was unafraid, who showed up with a carpool to try and make a difference.
Your spending or lack thereof is a weapon hiding in plain sight. The government most quickly responded six years ago during COVID, not because tens of thousands of people were dying, but because the GDP crashed 31%. The president backs away from plans when the bond market or stock market goes down.
Even a gnat on an elephant matters. Even if it's just a gnat on an elephant, enough gnats will take down an elephant.
If you have economic security and people who love you unconditionally, you have an obligation to speak out. Sam Harris has this great saying: if you have economic security and people who love you unconditionally, then you have an obligation to speak out and speak your mind, because most people don't have that luxury.
Do what makes you feel good about yourself. It's not easy being mediocre-looking; it takes real effort. Scott grew up very skinny with bad acne and thinks maybe he's a little too focused or self-conscious about his looks.
America is ageist, and looks matter. New York is the ultimate tip of the spear for a capitalist society, and it's optimized for two people: hot women and rich guys. For everyone else, it's a soul-crushing experience. We can talk about the way the world should be and the way the world is. That's the way the world is.
Start working out. Scott coaches young men: start working out. It's good for your head. It shows women and employers you're in shape, not just because it looks good (which it does), but because it reflects how you show up, that you have discipline, that you can commit to something.
The rule of threes puts you in the top 5% of attractiveness. If you work out three times a week or more, if you spend at least 30 hours a week working outside of the house, and put yourself in the company of strangers (church group, nonprofits, sports league), just by doing those three things, you put yourself in the top 5% of attractiveness of young males.
Anyone who's had great yeses has had a shit ton of no's. If you can be in the top 5% and learn how to mourn and move on from rejection, at some point, you'll be voluntarily celibate, which is awesome. There were hundreds of no's for you to get to a top podcast. You get used to no.
No one has the right to a living or to reproduce. If you want to score above your class economically or romantically, get out a big spoon and get ready to eat shit. It's what everyone of us has done.
"I'm constantly worried about my boys now." Scott didn't worry about his kids when they were little unless they were sick - they were safe and home. Now he's worried about them all the time: are they doing okay at school? Is the quiet one okay? His champagne toast moment would be celebrating his son's first year of college going well - having fun, a good friend group, a couple of dates, football games, and gearing up for sophomore year.
Reflection Questions
What things played a role in your success that you had no control over? Your luck, your good fortune. How does reverse engineering to those things change your perspective?
Who in your life needs to hear that you're proud of them and that they mean a lot to you? When's the last time you actually said it?
Rank yourself across every medium you participate in (texting, LinkedIn, video, writing, speaking). What's your specialty? Are you willing to commit to being in the top 1% of that medium within three years?
More Learning
#578: Scott Galloway - The Algebra of Wealth
#492: Scott Galloway - Finding What You're Good At
#396: Scott Galloway - Turning Crisis Into Opportunity
Podcast Chapters
00:00 Preorder my new book!
02:45 Meet Scott Galloway
04:13 Resilience To Criticism
05:43 Slowing Time With Novelty
08:43 Scott's Mom Building Confidence
14:52 Use Praise As a Leadership Currency
24:27 Becoming A Great Storyteller
31:06 Resist And Unsubscribe Origins
35:35 What Comes Next
37:13 Facing Both Backlash and Support
39:45 Living Unafraid
41:23 Why Sell Prof G?
42:37 Building Enterprise Value
46:46 The Openness of Cosmetic Surgery 
48:47 The World's View on the Physical
50:42 Rule of Threes for Men
53:11 Scott's Champagne Toast
56:52 The Belief of Reasonable Politics 
58:10 Where to Find Scott Online
01:02:14 EOPC

Go to www.LearningLeader.com 
This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world has the hustle and grit to deliver.
My Guest: Kat Cole is the CEO of AG1 (formerly Athletic Greens) and a renowned business leader known for a meteoric rise from Hooters waitress to Fortune 40 Under 40 executive. As former President/COO of Focus Brands (Cinnabon), she specializes in scaling global brands. Her career is defined by driving billions in sales, strategic innovation, and a strong, people-first leadership style.
Key Learnings
You can't market your way out of a bad product. AG1 has 3x'd the business in four years while being in only one channel (direct to consumer) for 15 years. 80% of retail is in brick and mortar, so they were doing that volume in less than 20% of where transactions happen. That only works when customers love the product, keep buying it for years, and tell their friends.
Scale comes from trusted recommendations, not marketing spend. Real volume comes from people telling their friends, recommending it to their teams and companies. That's where real scale and sustainable growth comes from.
Two questions guide every career decision. Is my work done here? Can someone else do what the company needs better than I can? If the answer to either is yes, that guides you toward pushing for change in your role, the way you show up, or finding the next opportunity.
Sometimes the best move is the lesser-known role. Kat could have stayed running big franchise brands everyone knew (Cinnabon, Auntie Anne's), but becoming COO of the parent company, Focus Brands, was a bigger, more complex role. Lesser known, smaller team, bigger stretch, more learning. That bridged her into consumer packaged goods and got her ready for AG1.
Consider financial needs, learning, and ego separately. Between financial needs, your ability to learn or contribute, and your ego or optics, there are questions you can ask yourself about a particular moment or opportunity that will help you be sharper in what you actually want versus what just looks like what's best next on the surface.
The founder heard her on podcasts and asked for an introduction. AG1's founder heard Kat on a couple of podcasts, knew Sahil Bloom, and asked Sahil to make the intro. She just happened to be taking time off and had been a customer for two years.
"You're interviewing for your next job every day." Whatever you do now, that choice of time, that tone of voice, that decision, how you show up or don't, creates an impact that leads to an experience and people's actions and then results. Eventually, it leads to the next thing.
Showing kindness in the airport matters. A caring note to someone struggling, a teacher or stranger saying, "I see something in you," a compliment when someone's in a dark place. It helps people out of darkness. Or opportunistically, being the one who sent the email or made the ask means you're the one who got the opportunity.
Don't burn bridges even when you feel wronged. When Kat was an executive at Hooters at 26, peers in their 50s and 60s would say things in meetings that weren't kind or appropriate. She would write letters expressing how it made her feel, but never sent them. She processed, reflected, and showed up professionally. Years later, those same people became advocates, partners, and references.
Four key mindsets for senior leaders. Humility, curiosity, courage, and confidence. By the time candidates get to Kat, they've been vetted on technical capability. She spends time validating those four characteristics because leadership and style trickle far into the organization.
Ask "if not for" questions to reveal humility. When someone tells you how they stood tall in tough moments, ask what enabled them to do those great things. They'll say, "I had access to this data, this team, this technical leader." Then ask: "If those people did not exist, if that resource did not exist, how would you have navigated that?" You peel back layers and see if they have the humility to acknowledge their success was due to critical factors.
The best candidates do the job in the interview. When someone says, "If we're doing this, we'll absolutely need this person in this specific role," or they have people in mind they're bringing with them, that's a good sign. Hiring leaders who have people who are loyal to them shows something real.
In reference checks, ask, "What does this person need to be successful?" It's a positive framing to get at what someone might lack or require around them to be effective.
Help people answer "how should I think about this?" In a fully remote company, you have less context and fewer vibes. When you send a note about ending a product line or launching something you said you'd never launch, people's subconscious internal war is "how should I think about this?" Leaders should start communications with "here's how I think about this" or "here's how we should think about this."
Sometimes the answer is to shut up and speak last. As teams get stronger, there's more weight on the few things the CEO says. Leave space for other leaders to lead. Kat removed herself from some meetings entirely because she has such great leaders and a strong culture.
Pay attention to themes in criticism, not individual attacks. When competitors attack you, ask: Are there patterns? Is there something reflective of industry questions? Sometimes criticisms point to things you already do well but aren't communicating well enough.
Comparison ads work short-term but don't build credibility long-term. Challenger brands use the playbook of "we're like the leader, but better/cheaper." Consumers see through it. People tell AG1, "I saw an ad comparing their product to yours, and they're clearly saying you're the leader."
The rage bait is brief; the truth is long. Algorithms reward dopamine hits and rage bait. Something untrue or negatively spun can quickly become widely seen because the critique is brief and witty, but the explanation and truth are long. AG1 has more human trials on a single SKU than any other multi-ingredient product ever in the space, but that's harder to say in a sound bite.
Don't criticize a car for not taking you to the moon. Someone criticized one of AG1's products for not doing something the product isn't supposed to do. When addressing criticism, clarify what the product is actually designed to do.
Her husband will be the fourth person ever to row across three oceans. He's already rowed the Atlantic (set the US record as a pair) and the Caribbean. Now he's training for the Pacific. If he completes it, he'll be only the fourth person to have ever done it in the world. 
It's about who you become while striving for the big thing. After her husband got rescued in the Caribbean, he questioned why he was doing this with two kids. But this pursuit is who he is, what drives him, it's inspiring for the kids, and it makes him a better person when he's home. It's about the journey and who you do it with.
More Learning
476: Kat Cole - Raise Your Hand, Raise Your Voice
078: Kat Cole - Courage, Confidence, Curiosity, and Humility
Reflection Questions
Is your work done where you are? Can someone else do what the company needs better than you can?
When interviewing someone, ask what enabled them to succeed in a tough moment. Then ask: if that team or resource didn't exist, how would you have done it differently?
What communication this week needs context? Start with: here's what this means, what it's not about, and how we should think about it.
Audio Timestamps
00:18 Meet Kat Cole 
02:42 AG1's Growth Story: $160M to $500M+ 
03:28 Product-Led Growth Wins 
05:57 Kat on Writing and Reflection 
07:39 Two Questions for Every Career Move 
12:25 How Kat Joined AG1 
16:09 You're Always Interviewing 
18:47 Neutralizing Opposition at Hooters 
24:19 Hiring Great Leaders 
27:43 Inside Executive Interviews 
31:56 Reference Checks That Reveal Truth 
32:52 CEO as the Storyteller 
34:16 "How Should I Think About This?" 
35:46 Speak Last, Empower Leaders 
37:41 Handling Public Criticism 
39:59 Separating Signal from Noise 
44:49 Staying Focused Through Criticism
48:00 Champagne Question: Family First 
48:45 Rowing Three Oceans 
51:37 Who You Become on the Journey 
56:14 EOPC