The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk

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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

www.LearningLeader.com
The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk
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: Jamie Siminoff is the founder of Ring, which he sold to Amazon for over a billion dollars. He's an inventor and builder who couldn't hear his doorbell while working in his garage, so he built a video doorbell. When his wife said it made her feel safer, he realized technology had changed, and home security needed a complete reinvention. Ring became the world's largest home security company with a mission to make neighborhoods safer.
Key Learnings 
Jeff Bezos reads and writes his own stuff. When Jamie asked Jeff to write something for the book's back cover, Jeff actually read it and wanted his own curated quote that was from him.
Jeff loves entrepreneurs, so they kept him out of negotiations. After the Whole Foods deal, Amazon learned to keep Jeff out of negotiations because he finds it tough to negotiate hard with someone he respects.
Hardware companies can die while growing fast. Ring grew from $3M to $30M to $174M to $480M, which sounds amazing. But to go from $170M to $480M, you're buying hundreds of millions of dollars of product when you're selling less than that. If sales growth slows, you're basically going out of business.
Going from $480M to over a billion in revenue was like being on a motorcycle at 200 miles an hour. If a leaf falls down and hits you, you're dead. At Amazon, when Ring said, "We need another billion dollars to order stuff for next year," Amazon said, "Okay, what else do you want?"
There are different types of entrepreneurs. Jamie is an inventor/entrepreneur. There are business entrepreneurs who are maniacal business people we've never heard of that have just crushed it. Jamie is maniacal on product and brings invention into how they run the company.
Hire marathon runners. Marathons are the dumbest thing any human could ever do. Even if you win, no one cares. Jamie finished the Boston Marathon in 22,000th place and he's so proud of himself. You want people that don't care about external validation; they just care about getting the mission done.
AI has democratized all information. With AI making it so you don't even need to know C++ programming anymore, fill your business with passionate people who care about the mission and they'll crush anything.
When building your team, start with the mission. Jamie tells people, "Our mission is to make neighborhoods safer. Do you want to work on making neighborhoods safer? Because if you don't, you're going to be miserable here. You're going to hear it every day, and you're going to roll your eyes." 
Referrals work because people don't want to let you down. The best hires are when someone's referred by someone (uncle, friend, whatever) because they feel guilty. They don't want to let the person who referred them down.
Find an infinite truth to work on. Amazon's core principles are infinite: Will customers always want lower price, more selection, and faster delivery? Yes. If you deliver in 30 minutes, they'll want it in 10 minutes. Making neighborhoods safer is an infinite thing to work on.
Your wife saying one thing can change everything. Jamie built a video doorbell so he could hear the door from his garage. His wife said, "It makes me feel safer at home." That's when he realized technology had changed and home security needed a whole new approach.
The hard part is bringing the infinite down to the tactical. When you have an infinite mission, you can get overwhelmed trying to solve it all at once. You have to figure out what to do every single day to work toward that infinite goal.
Shark Tank was a disaster that turned into everything. Jamie went on Shark Tank desperately needing money. He got zero offers and cried in his car after. But when it aired, the boost in sales gave them cash to hire people and build Ring, which started the clock on their success.
Sometimes you can't stop because you're in too deep. After Shark Tank bombed, Jamie couldn't back out. He'd already ordered too many products and owed too much money. He'd be personally bankrupt if he stopped. People think he's tough for keeping going, but he didn't have a choice.
Being naive is a superpower. Great inventions are things people say can't happen because if they could happen, they'd already be out there. You have to be naive enough to say "I think I can do this" or "I don't even know that I can't."
People said you couldn't build a battery-operated camera on WiFi. Jamie had never built anything before, so what did he know? They just went out and tried to put some parts together that seemed like they would work.
Knowing too much gets in the way of doing the work. If you're thinking and analyzing the whole world, that's time you're not inventing, building, making calls. When are you actually doing the work?
The Ring.com domain negotiation was survival. The owner originally wanted $750K for the domain. Jamie had $178K in the bank on the day he was supposed to pay. He called and said "My board said I can't do the deal, but they approved $175K today and $1M total over two years." The guy hung up, called back, and said fine. There was no board, it was just Jamie. 
The stress internalized and destroyed him. Jamie wasn't sleeping and was super stressed. There are different types of entrepreneurs: some can handle that stress and sleep like a baby. Jamie internalized it, and it affected him terribly.
Be transparent at home. Jamie's son was six years old and knew where the business was. His kindergarten teacher would say, "I hear the business isn't going well." They just had open, adult conversations about everything.
Work-life integration, not balance. Jamie integrated work, life, and family together. His son came with him to pick up the first DoorBot in China. Oliver has been to 40 countries and almost every state because he traveled to every meeting.
Bring your kid to the meeting. People asked, "How do you bring your kid to a meeting?" Jamie said, "Who do you think they're gonna remember more?" We're always scared to be different.
Follow your passion, but make money when you need to. It's hard to see anyone who's achieved greatness who didn't do what they loved. But there are times you have to work your ass off to make money (Jamie was a bellhop and valet parking cars). When you set out to do something, do something you care about.
If you fail trying to make money, that really sucks. If you fail trying to do something you love, at least you tried to do something you love. If Ring fails, they try to make neighborhoods safer. That's noble.
You can tell who's successful by how fast they respond. It's a weird flip-flop of what it should be. You'd think a successful person should respond in a month, but the people running at the highest levels are actually very efficient. There's something about it.
First principles thinking eliminates recurring meetings. There's no way every single Monday at 9 AM you have something important to talk about. The world can't exist like that. Meet when you need to do something, not on some cadence.
Hire the best and let them work. Get the best quarterback, best kicker, best coach. Let them work together, let them practice, have the plays. You don't need to get together every day to talk about how you're feeling.
No standing meetings, zero recurring one-on-ones. Jamie doesn't have a standing meeting with his team in any cadence. He talks to people all day long, all night long, Sundays, but it's event-based. "We have to get sales up on this, where are the issues?" If you're not doing your job, we'll fire you.
Service to others is the best thing you can do. A year from now, Jamie would be celebrating something on the charitable side. Probably something with their work in South Central LA with LAPD, or at their 75-acre farm in Missouri helping the town that's been impacted by opioids and industrial farming.
More Learning
#191: Robert Herjavec: (Shark Tank Investor) - You Don't Have to Be a Shark to Be Effective
#626: Rob Kimbel - The Power of Grit and Generosity
#632: Nick Huber - The Sweaty Start Up
Reflection Questions
What's a problem you could pursue for decades without exhausting its potential? What mission has no endpoint, only continuous improvement?
Work-life integration. What are you keeping separate that might be better together? Where could you stop trying to "balance" and instead integrate?
Audio Timestamps
02:19 Bezos' Endorsement for Jamie
03:30 Selling Ring to Amazon
05:04 Hypergrowth Cash Crunch
07:54 Inventor vs Business Operator
09:34 Hiring Marathoners
11:20 Interviewing and Firing Fast
13:25 Mission Origin and Big Vision
15:40 Infinite Truth and Focus
17:06 Getting on Shark Tank
19:32 Live Demo and Rejection
23:13 The Aftermath and Momentum from Shark Tank
24:57 Naivete as Superpower
27:00 Doers Beat Planners
27:33 Winning Ring.com Deal
30:17 Stress and Family Support
31:33 Work-Life Integration
33:26 Passion Versus Practicality
36:08 Scaling Authentic Culture
37:26 Frontline Leadership Style
42:15 Team DNA & No Standing Meetings
45:19 Service and Jamie's Farm Mission
47:39 EOPC

Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes
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. www.InsightGlobal.com/LearningLeader
The Learning Leader Show
Key Learnings 
Go out and dent the universe. Erin's parents didn't put pressure on her to get perfect grades or go to Harvard; they wanted her to use her privilege and beautiful upbringing to make the world a better place.
Youngest child syndrome makes you quick. Being the youngest of six, Erin learned to speak very quickly to get her thoughts in at the dinner table, and she was given unsolicited advice her whole childhood (which is why she loves giving advice now).
Your siblings' sole job is to keep you grounded. Erin's parents are proud and supportive, but her siblings roast her and beat her down (all in good fun) to keep her as humble as possible.
Success is attributed to a sense of humor. Erin gave career advice that was funny, and nobody had ever really seen that before. You don't get that unless you're the slightly bullied youngest of six kids your entire life.
Rejection rage is a choice. At a Women in Film networking event, the head of the organization paused Erin's documentary trailer 30 seconds in and said, "You need to be more realistic." Erin went on to get a Pulitzer fellowship and premiered a feature documentary at 23 with international distribution. When you get a rejection, you can either let it beat you down or say, "I'm going to show them."
"Tell me about yourself" is the world's worst interview question. It's lazy, not specific, and hard for the interviewee to truncate their entire life into 90 seconds. Use the past-present-future template: 1-2 sentences about your past, 1-2 about your present role, then future (where the interviewer's ears perk up), connecting to why you're applying for this specific role.
Specificity is the magic word. When sending cold emails, the chances of getting a good response dramatically increase if you're specific: specific praise, specific question. Instead of "Can I pick your brain over coffee?" say, "I watched your video about X, and when you said Y, it piqued my curiosity." Higher quality questions get higher quality answers. This isn't just for podcasts or job interviews; it's a life skill.
Good professional communication is like chess, not checkers. Most people just play checkers (you said this to me, I'm going to say this to you), but chess is thinking 10 steps ahead about what your end goal is and how this person falls along the path to that goal.
Don't ask for a raise; ask for an adjustment to your compensation. Your job is transactional (you do work, they pay you). When you accepted your salary, you were doing X, Y, Z. Now you're doing X, Y, Z plus A, B, C. It's no longer an equal partnership, so you need an adjustment. It's not personal, it's just professional. Know your audience and your leverage. 
Emotional regulation is powerful communication. If we just act impulsively and say what's on our mind all the time, it doesn't actually get you where you want to go.
Always keep your desired outcome in mind. It's about checkmate. Don't just react, think about what the end goal is and how this conversation gets you there.
Humanize people, don't make them wrong. That egotistical senior VP is probably actually really insecure about where they are in their career and wakes up every morning not knowing what they're doing.
Put your ego to the side. Being a great communicator requires taking a break from thinking about yourself and thinking about what the other person's life is like and what their goals are.
Align your goals with their goals. Think about how you can create that authentic relationship by figuring out how your goals align with what they're trying to accomplish.
Shut up and listen. We do a little bit too much talking when we're trying to negotiate or strategize. It can be very beneficial to embrace the silence and practice active listening.
Curiosity is an amazing way to show love. Being genuinely curious about a person makes them like you, and it becomes more natural the more you do it.
Compliments have to be genuine and specific. People are way better at sniffing out fake compliments than you realize. If you can't find one thing you truly admire about someone, don't say anything.
Don't make it transactional. When people ask, "How do I not make it feel like I'm using them?" Erin says, "Well, don't use them. Just be genuine."
The most loving thing you can do is respect people's time. Meeting bloat has gotten really bad since the pandemic, and a lot of time is disrespected in meetings across the world.
Maybe don't have the meeting. A lot of meetings are completely unnecessary, or at least the way they're set up, the people invited, or the way they're run are really inefficient.
Only invite crucial people. Make sure that only the people who absolutely need to be there are invited to the meeting.
Always have an agenda. At the beginning of every meeting, say "Here are the three things we're going to cover today, and here's the goal of this meeting." Put it in the calendar link with bullet points.
Don't have brainstorming meetings. Have meetings with very tangible goals at the end, state them up front, and make sure that goal has been achieved by the end.
Email subject lines are underutilized. Erin's dad's company would put tags like "request," "informational," or "command" on subject lines so you knew exactly what type of email it was and what was expected.
The exercise of making a five-year plan changes your brain. Erin doesn't believe in sticking to a five-year plan, but the exercise of thinking about the future creates new neural pathways that change the way you think about yourself and your life.
A happy life is an intentional life. The vast majority of people float through life and act very reactionary. Sitting down and thinking about what you actually want in five years is powerful self-care.
Sit down with your partner and do this together. Before you get married, make five-year plans together. They might look really different (which is revealing) or really similar which doubles down on alignment.
Create multiple five-year plans if you're young. If you don't know which path you're going to take, create five different scenarios for yourself and see which one energizes you most.
Financial freedom is a goal worth stating. Erin wants to be financially free in the next five years, which allows her to pursue mission-driven work on her own terms.
You're just another human trying to figure it out. Even though Erin wrote the book on workplace communication, she's still winging it every day just like everybody else.
Combat the knowledge curse by staying connected to real people. When you're an expert in something, it's hard to imagine not being an expert. Erin moved back to Maryland suburbs to experience people working normal corporate jobs, DMs with people daily about their experiences, and gets on free calls just to listen. The data in newsletters tells a different story than people's actual experiences, so she stays grounded by hearing real anecdotes from IT workers in North Carolina or nurses in Kentucky.
Set goals really high. Erin wants her startup to help 500,000 job seekers in a year, which is ambitious, but she doesn't care if she fails as long as she tries to reach it.
More Learning
#507 - Jesse Cole: How to Build Your Idea Muscle
#344 - Jesse Cole: How to Create "You Wouldn't Believe" Moments
#365 - James Altucher: How to Become An Idea Machine
Reflection Questions
Good communication is chess, not checkers. Think about a difficult conversation you need to have this week. Instead of just reacting to what they say, what's your desired outcome? What would "checkmate" look like, and how can you think 10 steps ahead to get there?

Who in your life keeps you humble If no one does, how might you be losing perspective on yourself? What would it look like to invite that kind of honest feedback into your life?

Erin recommends making a five-year plan, not to stick to it, but because the exercise creates new neural pathways. When's the last time you sat down and intentionally thought about what you want your life to look like in five years? What's stopping you from doing that this week?

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The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk
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My Guest: Jesse Cole is the owner of the Savannah Bananas. He went $1.8 million in debt, slept on an air mattress, and built a business that is now valued at over a billion dollars. I spent half a day with Jesse in Savannah watching practice, and Jesse gave me a personal tour of their entire operation. It was incredible.
Notes:
Fans First - The sign is on every locker. And leading out to the field, "Tonight is someone's first time seeing our show."
Obsessed/Focused - Banana Ball/Serving people is his life. We didn't talk about hobbies, TV shows, or anything other than what they're doing now and in the future. He's obsessed with what he does and super focused.
Transparent - Jesse just released their full P&L as a private company: revenue, expenses, player salaries, everything. Most businesses guard this religiously. He's completely transparent. I asked why, and he said, "Fans first. They deserve to know everything."
Reps - We went to the field to watch practice. It looked just like a game. Players were dancing all the time. And every single rep they practiced as a trick play (behind the back, through the legs, etc.). They never play normal baseball. You wonder how they are so good on gameday at doing a backflip while catching a fly ball. Because they practice it thousands of times without fans so that when they're there, they put on a great show.
Hiring – "Love your people more than you love your customer." 12,000 people on the waitlist to work for the Bananas. When you hire, have them do a "fans first" essay. Then they write a future essay. 
Always Be Caring, Different, Enthusiastic, Fun, Growing, & Hungry
Fans First: The Counter-Intuitive Decision - Jesse sacrificed $6 million in ticket revenue after a system messed things up for fans. 
Merch – 787,000 fans purchased merchandise in 2025, totaling 1.96 million total items. That means the average person is purchasing ~2.5 items at checkout, with 80% of total sales taking place in person. 621,000 at live shows versus 166,000 online. It's a $50m business!
TV: The Distribution Strategy - Giving Away Value - Jesse insisted on free YouTube streaming even when ESPN wanted exclusivity. Jesse is building a zero-profit secondary ticket market. He's literally giving away things other sports properties would monetize. So, even with all of the team's games still airing for free on YouTube, the Bananas averaged 500,000 viewers on ESPN, The CW, and Roku. The team's most-watched broadcast was a July 4th game at Fenway Park, which averaged 837,000 viewers on ESPN, making it the holiday weekend's most-watched primetime sports broadcast. TV networks want exclusivity, but you demand that the games still be broadcast for free on YouTube (in addition to whatever channel they are on)
Social Media - The Bananas added 12.7 million new social media followers in 2025 alone. That pushes their total social media following across all channels north of 35 million... Roughly 2x more followers than MLB's most popular team, the Yankees, at 18 million.
You have to believe something before you achieve something. Six years ago, Jesse said, "We're gonna sell out Fenway Park," and his team looked at him like he was crazy (they were a college summer baseball team, not even doing tours yet).
You have to get through the messy to get to the great. Their first world tour was brutal: the sound was terrible, the show wasn't great, the game finished in the seventh inning because they didn't have a rule to make it go nine innings.
See what's best for the guest, not what's best for the business. Walt Disney was the first to go into full-length animation, color, sound, and with Disneyland, he focused on one entrance to control the experience, custom rides, and invested in a castle and landscaping, which made no money.
Go where others won't go. Sam Walton went to small towns, and no one paid attention to him for the first five to ten years.
It's somebody's first time every night. Fans wait three years on a waitlist to come to a game, so Jesse doesn't care if you're having a bad day. That's their first time.
Control the entire experience. Walt learned he couldn't control the experience when people watched his movies at a theater (it could be dirty, and people might not be nice), so he built Disneyland.
Who do we work for? Fans. Jesse opened the books completely (numbers, player salary, merch sales, everything) because they have a responsibility and accountability to their fans.
We have to feel our mistakes. When they sent a wrong email to 44,000 fans instead of 4,000, it cost them $6 million to take care of those fans with tickets (more than the company brought in their first five years).
We need to have bigger failures. If we're not trying things big enough, we won't have bigger failures and mistakes that cost us a lot more in the future.
Turn mistakes into moments. After the $6 million email mistake, Jesse set up a Zoom call with all 44,000 people, had everyone turn their cameras on, and apologized while looking at every single person.
Build something you wish existed for yourself. Jesse played baseball until he couldn't anymore. He put so much pressure on himself that it wasn't fun anymore, and he was told he wasn't good enough.
Design every second of the first-day experience. When players showed up, they went to a parking lot with a DJ at 8:30 AM. Three buses arrived with balloons, hundreds of people lined the streets cheering, Man-nanas served munchkins on silver platters, a custom hype video played, the host introduced from the roof, and fireworks went off.
Every player has been told they're not good enough. All Bananas players have been drafted or been top college players, and at some point, they've all been rejected, cut, told to hang it up.
Obsession is awesome. If you can find something you're obsessed with, so few people in the world get to have that.
Watch the best of the best obsess over details. Derek Hough (one of the greatest dancers) wasn't just focusing on the dance; he was producing while dancing, telling the camera crew exactly where to come, when to hit him, and where he would wink.
No one goes home excited about normal. No one says, "That restaurant was really normal, the waiter served it the same way, the food was pretty normal, the parking lot was normal."
Whatever's normal, do the exact opposite. Normal gets normal results. There's a lot of normal in the world, but not a lot of extraordinary.
Put yourself in the customer's shoes and eliminate friction. Where's the game tonight? On Amazon, Peacock, CBS, NBC? Jesse threw away millions to keep all games free on YouTube because that's a friction point.
Your fans will reward you. The Bananas sold over 1.9 million merch items last year because they built something people are proud of and want to wear.
If people don't want to wear your merch, you haven't made them feel something yet. One fan gets a new Bananas tattoo every year (he's got six logos on his leg now).
Invest everything in the experience, spend zero on traditional marketing. Make the experience so good that fans will share with everyone that this is something they haven't experienced before.
Social media growth came from trying and stumbling into learning. In 2016, an intern said he could create videos; they did a lip sync to "Can't Stop the Feeling" by Justin Timberlake. It wasn't even well-produced, but they tried.
Give energy back because of how good it feels. A woman came up to Jesse on a cruise and said she was there because he gave her a hug at a Sacramento game the day after her sister died. She came on the cruise to give him a hug back.
Do what gives you energy. Jesse's entire day is filled with things that give him energy: being with people, rehearsing shows, banana ball youth meetings, broadcast team, and talented writers.
Have people who love to execute. You do what gives you energy and have them execute at a high level. Be very involved at the beginning (get the idea and vision right) and at the end (make adjustments).