The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 065: Linda Kaplan Thaler – GRIT = Guts, Resilience, Initiative, & Tenacity

Episode Date: October 22, 2015

Episode 065: Linda Kaplan Thaler – GRIT = Guts, Resilience, Initiative, & Tenacity Linda Kaplan Thaler is an incredibly interesting person.  She truly understands the importance of an intense focus on continuous improvement.  Linda and her team have some massive achievements from a Marketing perspective as well as the work Linda has down as a bestselling author and keynote speaker. We are extremely fortunate to have Linda share her knowledge with us, the loyal listeners of The Learning Leader Show.  Linda Kaplan Thaler is the CEO of Publicis New York and a bestselling author. She has written and composed advertising jingles such as: “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up, I’m a Toys ‘R’ Us Kid” (Toys "R" Us); “Kodak Moments” (Eastman Kodak) and “The Heart of Communication” (Bell Atlantic). She is responsible for the “Yes, Yes, Yes” Herbal Essences campaign, and her agency created the well-known Aflac duck advertising.  Her most recent book (she wrote along with Robin Koval is titled, “Grit To Great” How perseverance passion, and pluck take you from ordinary to extraordinary.” Episode 065: Linda Kaplan Thaler – GRIT = Guts, Resilience, Initiative, & Tenacity Subscribe on iTunes  or Stitcher Radio The Learning Leader Show “I never dreamed about success.  I worked for it.” – Estee Lauder Some Questions I Ask: What are the common characteristics of high achievers? What are your thoughts on David McCullough’s famous commencement speech titled, “You’re nothing special” Why should we retire the word retirement? How can someone use their “grit for good?” Why do you coach people to “ditch the dream?” How can a leader build up GRIT in their organization?  What specific steps need to be taken in order to do that? What does being a learning leader mean to you? In This Episode, You Will Learn: GRIT = Guts, Resilience, Initiative, & Tenacity  “Playing Up” and the power of playing against great competition The importance of being over prepared How Linda helped Aflac become so well known The definition of happiness The detailed process showing how Linda’s small agency (at the time) earned the over $200m Wendy’s account (incredible story) The story behind James Patterson waking up extremely early every morning to write for 21 years straight GRIT builders that we can all implement – Exercises and action tips “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” – Harry Truman Continue Learning: Read more about Linda: Linda Kaplan Thaler Read: GRIT TO GREAT Read: The Power Of Nice Follow Linda on Twitter: @lindathaler2 You may also like these episodes: Episode 001: How To Become A Master Connector With Jayson Gaignard From MasterMind Talks Episode 034: Jimmy Hatch – Shot While Searching For Bowe Bergdahl And Sky Diving With Gabby Giffords Episode 004: How Todd Wagner (and Mark Cuban) Sold Broadcast.com To Yahoo! For $5.7 Billion Episode 010: Shane Snow – How To Accelerate Success Using Smart Cuts Did you enjoy the podcast? This was a jam packed episode full of great content.  Linda Kaplan Thaler is leader who is constantly learning in order to help us all live a better life. Who do you know that needs to hear this?  Send them to The Learning Leader Show! Episode edited by the great J Scott Donnell  Bio Linda Kaplan Thaler (is the CEO of Publicis New York and a bestselling author. She has written and composed advertising jingles such as: “I Don’t Wanna Grow Up, I’m a Toys ‘R’ Us Kid” (Toys "R" Us); “Kodak Moments” (Eastman Kodak) and “The Heart of Communication” (Bell Atlantic). She is responsible for the “Yes, Yes, Yes” Herbal Essences campaign, and her agency created the well-known Aflac duck advertising.  Her most recent book (she wrote along with Robin Koval is titled, “Grit To Great” How perseverance passion, and pluck take you from ordinary to extraordinary.”

When we do something to help somebody else and we use our efforts for that purpose, the same part of your brain lights up as when you have sex or somebody gives you money. There is a certain pleasure in it. We just want to help each other, most of us. Are leaders born or are they made? Our host, Ryan Hawk, believes that leaders can be made through determined, focused work on learning the art and science behind the makeup of other successful leaders. Now it's time to inhale knowledge and exhale success.

You're listening to The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk. Hey and welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk. We have an extremely interesting featured leader tonight on the show. It's Linda Kaplan Thaler. She is the CEO of Publicist, New York, which is an advertising agency. She's also a best-selling author. Some of the advertising that she's responsible for, you probably remember

the I Don't Want to Grow Up, I'm a Toys R Us Kid. She wrote and composed that, as well as the herbal essence campaign, yes, yes, yes, which went on to have massive success. And then her most recent book that I highly suggest everyone read is called Grit to Great. We talked a lot about that on our episode tonight. A few of the other things we got into why grit is the number one characteristic in high achievers. And she actually, grit is an acronym for her. It's It's guts, resilience, initiative, and tenacity. We talked about all of those characteristics during our conversation tonight. Another thing we got into is the incredible story of how her, at the time, small advertising firm,

won the right to partner with Wendy's for their advertising. Wendy spends roughly $200 million a year on that. And the story behind how they won and earned that right is inspiring. And I know you guys will love to hear it. And then specific ways we all can build up our grit, both as a professional as well as in our personal lives. I know you guys are going to really enjoy this one with Linda Kaplan Thaler. Okay, Linda, so excited to have you here on The Learning Leader Show. I know there's so much to get to with everything that you've accomplished and the material that you've put out there for all of us.

But I want to ask you a quick question to get this conversation started. and that's around high achievers, people who have accomplished and done big things. And you've obviously done a lot of these things yourselves, but you've also spent time around others who have achieved big things and you've studied them and written about them. And I'm curious, if you had to narrow it down to a few common characteristics that these people seem to share, what would those few characteristics be? Well, you know, when we talk about people having grit, Robin Covel and I, who co-wrote the book, you know, we talk about these four characteristics, which actually makes a nice acronym, guts, resilience, initiative, and tenacity. An easy way to think about grit is those four components. And virtually everybody that we've interviewed and we've worked with so many successful CEOs over the years have these characteristics. And it really belies counterintuitive. counterintuitive wisdom, you would think it has to do with great intelligence or great talent. But no, it's guts resilience initiative and tenacity that kind of rounds it up. Are there a few people that immediately pop in your mind when you think of high achievers,

done big things, maybe people you've worked with, but who's the first that come to mind? Well, I think one of the first people that comes to mind is Colin Powell. I do know him. We went to City College, and I'm on the Colon-Pow board for the Coln-Pow School. So as I've gotten to know him over the years, here is a man of enormous grit, willing to take chances, very resilient in the face of if something doesn't work out to be able to bounce back up. Incredible initiative, of course, that's with that sort of creativity to, you know, it isn't always going to be plan A that works. It might be plan B. And of course, tenacity to really stick to a goal and achieve it, which really most people have goals, but 99% of them don't see.

stay with it. They don't want to go on the long journey. Beverly Sills is famous for saying there were no shortcuts to any place worth going, and we couldn't agree more. The other person, somebody that I unfortunately did not get to know, but I do know his daughter very well, is Wendy Thomas, the daughter of Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy's, and they're one of our clients. And he is, you know, we read his book, Dave's Way, and it was a big inspiration for our book, Written Great. Here's a guy who had a very challenging childhood. And, By the way, there is a disproportionate amount of people who have had a very, very challenging childhoods who have become enormously successful.

Something about those challenges helps people later in life when they reach difficulties or they reach detours and where other people might give up. They're used to working harder than the average person. And Dave Thomas, you know, he started the Wendy's franchise and he could have quit a long time ago, and he didn't, not because he wanted to ensure that his kids would never have to work, but because he wanted to make sure that they always knew how to work. And where others, as Wendy Thomas told us, where others would talk about what work takes out of you, what her dad taught her is what work instills in you.

And we found that in our research, that actually happiness is not defined by the absence of problems. Happiness is the way you feel when you solve a problem. I like that. Happiness is the way you feel when you solve a problem. So I love to get into your backstory, but you brought up Dave Thomas and you brought up Wendy's. And as I was preparing for our time together, you know, and I'm reading great to great. Your phenomenal book that I would encourage everybody to get.

I'd read that book multiple times actually. Thank you, Ryan. It's worth it. But the story, specifically the story, so I'll let you tell it. but the amount of work and preparation that, you know, I was actually retelling the story to my wife. I was so inspired about it this morning. I'm like, I'm so excited to speak with Linda because of this story about how you guys won the Wendy's account. And Wendy's, correct me if I'm wrong, they spend over $200 million a year on advertising.

And at one point, they put this up for bid. And your company was one of the many who had an opportunity to win it. but I'll let you tell the story and maybe tell a little bit about the backstory of your company as well as you're telling the Wendy's story because it's an inspiring one for sure. Oh, thank you so much. Well, Robin and I had both had very long careers in the ad business beforehand.

I had been at a couple of agencies and got to do some terrific work by trade. I started out as a musician and a performer, actually. And one of the first jingles I wrote was, I don't want to grow up on the toys or us kid. I also worked on developing Kodak moments, which a lot of people use in their vernacular now. And we started the agency with that woman in the shower for herbal essences. I don't know if you remember.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. That sort of Harry Met Sally ripoff of Meg Ryan in the, you know, we had told clients that really only an orgasm was going to be able to save this brand because they were about to go up the shelves. And, of course, I was trying to sell this to a bunch of men, and they must have thought I was crazy. But at the end of the day, it basically got everybody's attention and it sold a heck a lot of shampoo. As a matter of fact, so much shampoo that we ended up starting our own agency with this business and helped catapult us to within a couple of years, starting out in Browns, where I looked. Yeah. It might be a bad question, but do you get points like on the back end when the sales, it skyrocket after? an ad or is that do or can that be negotiated negotiated into a contract i got a lot of free

shampoo and conditioner i will have to say that okay and and dr ruth who was in a number of our ads we gave her cases of the stuff so and she told robin and i that she liked the ad so much she thought we were going to have good shall we say romantic experience with our with our spouses for the rest of our lives over that so we're still good friends but but basically so so here we're were we were a very little known agency. We started out in 1997, and within two years, we actually were just about the fastest growing agency in the country, again, not because we were so brilliant or so talented, but as Michael Bloomberg, our esteemed ex-Mayor of New York said, I'm not the smartest person in the room, but I'll outwork anybody, and that's why I win. So our attitude was, we'll just

outwork everybody. And so here we were a tiny little agency pitching this Wendy's account, with hundreds of million dollars of, you know, media buy. And we had no right to be in this pitch. I mean, they must have looked at 80 agencies and they narrowed it down to four. And everybody thought, you know, it was a joke. I mean, we had no chance. And I love when you have no chance because you give up and you do anything because you start off with this. I love my people, but you have this underdog mentality. And I tell this to all of our clients, even if they're number one in their category, make believe you're going to go out of business tomorrow, see how energetic and how gritty you get. And it helps people to become energized and much more proactive about, you know, taking risks and doing things and going that extra mile.

So here we were pitching the account, and we just had to find a way to outwork everybody. So we didn't just work on, you know, what was the strategy and what was the creative. We actually went around to restaurants, Wendy's restaurants, and worked in their kitchens and learned how to construct a great hamburger and learn how to make a frosty. Yes, there are some perks to the job. So we gained a few pounds, but we gained a lot of knowledge in the process. And so here we were. And working day and night, we actually even sponsored sleepovers at the agency where people would bring their sleeping bags and, in our case, curling irons,

simply because we would be getting up at 6 in the morning and going to bed at midnight. So there was no point even going home after a while. And we did this for months because, you know, when you pitch something, you go through a very grueling process of elimination. and our mid-pitch with them was not great, so we had a lot to make up on. And we did something that apparently no other agency did. Three days before the shoot, the three days before the actual presentation, we said to them, what was wrong with our interim presentation and how could we improve on it?

So they told us, and they also told us, you know, you're the only people that actually bothered to ask. So we not only fixed all the problems that we had, we decided to actually shoot commercials. We presented 25 commercials, 40 radio ads. I can't even tell you how many print ads. Digital component. We even with our partners at Sachi X did the entire, we did the entire interior of their store and came in soup to nuts. with a complete redo of how they were going to market Wendy's. And apparently that's what nailed it.

They said other people came up with brilliant ideas, but at the end of the day, we knew that nobody would work harder on our business than you guys. And, you know, we've been partners for over six years now. They are the best people in the world. It's a very familial group, very warm. Don't treat people like vendors, really treat them like equals. And so it's been terrific.

I actually spoke down there. past weekend to their conference. I was a keynote speaker there, and it was terrific. Nice. And I do want to add that a lot of the inspiration came from Dave Thomas. He has a book called Dave's Way, and we got a lot of our, you know, sort of tidbits and grit builders from things that he did. What are some of those things that he did that were, you said tidbits and grit builders? What are some examples? Well, this came out of another interview. This was, actually, we talk about not just preparing, but over-prepare. We had to be a very, we had to a great interview with Nick Willenda when he isn't on the tightrope.

He got the tightrope. One of his days off the tightrope, he actually did an interview for us, which was really nice of him. And he talked about walking across the Grand Canyon a couple years ago with, of course, there is no safety net big enough to span the Grand Canyon. And he said, well, people would think that I'm nuts, but actually it's a bit of a cakewalk. When you've rehearsed and practiced for five years every single day in my backyard under Wind current sandstorms, recreating all the things that could possibly happen when he was walking across the Grand Canyon, but amping it up. So if there were going to be 20 mile an hour winds, he practiced under 90 mile and hour winds. And I show this great footage when I do my talk of him

halfway across sort of crouching down because a big gust of wind happened. And then he remembered how incredibly prepared he was. He gave us this, you know, amazing. advice of over preparing. We tell people whatever you think you've done, go refine it and do it better. The second thing is create your own high wire. Again, imagine if you were going to get fired tomorrow. What would you do to save your job? And he talked about his great grandfather had a quote, which I absolutely love, which is, remember, life is on the high wire. Everything else is just watching. And I love that quote because it means that when you're feeling nervous, nervous and excited and doing something new and scary, that's when you're really living your life.

So we have a lot of grit builders like that in the book. That makes me, one of the things I talk about a lot with high achievers and great leaders, inspiring people on this podcast is comfort zone and makes me think a lot about leaping consciously outside of your comfort zone, finding ways to do that every single day. Is that something you personally try to practice and instill in your team? at your business? Yeah, I mean, we always, when we have a client meeting, we give them what we want, and then we always give them an outlier.

I mean, in the case of verbal essences, you know, we had a lot of other ideas, but we threw that one in. And every once in a while, you find a client who's willing to take the risk with you. We certainly did that for our Affleck. Here's another one that we never thought we were going to win. They had, you know, they were a fortune 100 company, but they had 3% awareness when we met them. We were asked to pitch their account about 15 years ago. And they gave us all this research that said they wanted very emotional advertising,

talk a lot about what the policies are, and therefore things like cancer insurance and catastrophic, you know, insurance coverage. I mean, you know, really emotional things. But Robin and I went up to the CEO, again, using our grit and said, this is great, but I don't know if this is going to differentiate you. What actually keeps you awake at night? And he said, nobody can remember the name of my company because it's an acronym, American Family Life Assurance Company. If you can do that, you could win this account.

And so we went back to the agency, and nobody could remember what the name of this company was. I kept going, Afflack, Affleck. Finally, somebody pinched my nose were a fairly informal company, so it's okay to pinch the CEO's nose. And said, say that again, Affleck. Okay, this, apropos of nothing, you sound like a duck whacking. And that was it. Wow. You know, a little bell went off.

It shows you the intellectual capital you need to run an agency. I said, that's how America's going to remember the name, Affleck. So it worked, and now we're, it's, Affleck is so well known that we say when ducks see other ducks, they immediately think of supplemental insurance. But one of the things that we like to tell people is to get used to being, you know, differing, get out of your habit zone, do crazy things like, instead of walking into an elevator and turning your back and everybody and looking at the, you know, the button, try facing the people and just saying, good morning, everybody, how are you doing? This may seem really brave, but you'd be surprised people answer you and you get used to doing things a little differently.

Go back from work a different day, try a different way, try getting dressed in the dark. Anytime we're using our synapses to create new patterns helps us to be more empowered, to make new decisions. Wow, I love that. I'm really big into practical things that you could go and do right now, especially when it comes to, I mean, everyone,

and I'm definitely guilty of this, gets so comfortable with being comfortable. And it's important to consciously think about ways to leap outside of your comfort zone. So I love that if there's any, hopefully people are taking notes, say, right now. It does seem a little bit uncomfortable. However, I'd love to see how I feel when I get done doing it. So there's great examples. I appreciate that. I have a question. So I was reading through

obviously your work, and I was really interested in this famous commencement speech by David McCullough, Jr. And obviously, you know him well because you wrote about it. And he gave a speech to the graduates of a high school in 2000. Wells in like Wellesley High School. Yeah. He said, you're not special. Contrary to what your U-9 soccer trophy suggests, your glowing seventh grade report card, you're nothing special. So he urged the graduates to read. And then he concluded it by saying, the fulfilling life, the distinctive life, the relevant life is an achievement, not something that will fall into your lap because you're a nice person or mommy ordered it from a caterer. And I was like, bam, like this guy just.

laid it on. I'm right when they got done with high school, and you guys obviously talk a lot about this. I'd love for you to expand upon this. Well, it's so great because I talk a lot about, we talk about in the book and also when we do speaking engagements, this self-esteem movement that was started a few years back about maybe, I think, 20 or 30 years ago, which suddenly said, you know what, what's most important is your child has to have self-esteem. And the way to have self-esteem is you need to tell them how special they are and how

brilliant they are and how talented and unique they are. Well, you know, even if you go back to the Bible or the Torah or whatever, there's no place there that says you should be bringing your children up to tell them they're special. As a matter of fact, you should bring your children up and tell them that they're ordinary. And it's very good to be ordinary because it means that you have a place on this earth and that you have the opportunity to become extraordinary. And so by telling kids how special they were, it didn't really make them feel more. special. That's something you have to learn and you have to acquire in your own. And you know what? You actually have to earn it. And so what we found so fascinating is that that plus the media and the

hype, which says everything is fast and easy and you can become an overnight YouTube sensation and lose 40 pounds, you know, just when you watch, you know, the greatest loser, the biggest loser, and you don't see the fine print that said it took the person a year and a half to do that. Everything is the fast, quick. We're in ADD culture. And as a word, result, you know, it's made us a lot softer, and I think in some ways America has lost a lot of its grit. So what I loved about his commencement speech is he told it like it is. Don't even think about the fact that you have it over somebody. It doesn't matter what your SAT score is. It doesn't matter of fact, in the research that we looked at, it actually sometimes has a negative

impact. Because if you start out being a prodigy, and by the way, of people who are considered real prodigies, you know, either with mental IQs or prodigious talents, only 2% of them go on to do anything remotely interesting with their lives, mainly because they hit a roadblock and they give up very easy because life has been, you know, sort of a fast track for them. So it's so important and the upside of telling people that you're ordinary means that if you think that you aren't the best, there's an enormous, this enormous potential for you to become the best at whatever it is that you want to go out and do. And I love talking to colleges and high schools because a lot of these kids, my goodness, they're depressed before they even started. It's like, oh, I don't know.

My GPA wasn't that good. And I, you know, I didn't get into an Ivy League school. And and I'm here to tell them it really doesn't matter at all. And often what I do is I tell students to, two students to get up. And I go, I don't know what college you're going to go to. And I don't know what your SAT or it was. But I will tell you now that of the two of you, the one who is so resilient when you get your first job and you keep doing it over, and doing it over and doing it over. And if you get fired from your job, go get another job and learn from that and learn from that. My money is on you, not the person who had the great test scores.

And what it makes kids feel is, oh, my goodness, there is so much room for me to develop and grow my grit. And I call it Humanity's Great Equalizer because it's so available to anyone. I mean, we tell a story of somebody in the book whose kid was born with a very marginal IQ. And her daughter, of course, was told she's never going to do much. She probably won't be able to go to college. Well, guess what? She never shared this with her daughter, that she had a learning disability. Her daughter went on to graduate school.

She has a great career now. And what she did is she took what she had and she grew it. And we now know that brain cells multiply, that your IQ can get larger or it can decrease according to how much you use it. And so she did great. she did great. Wow, it reminds me to a lot of this. Jeff Colvin, who was on episode number 54 here on the Learning Leader Show,

the author of Talent is Overrated. Yeah. Talks a lot about deliberate practice. Another thing that Jeff and I talked about that I think has helped me, as well as my younger brother, is my parents, when we were younger, and we were in the athletics and played all sports growing up and ended up being fortunate enough to earn college scholarships. to pay for all of our college. And one of the things, though, that they did for us when we were younger was we would play

up a year, meaning we would be on the teams, the select teams of the kids and the grade above us. So the competition level was higher, especially tough for me who was undersized for my own age, let alone at least growing up. I didn't hit a gross spurt until later. And it forced me to up my game and forced me to face a bit. big amount of adversity at a young age, which then, as I got into high school and really developed, I think it kind of turned some heads because people were like, wow, you were, I think they thought,

you know, pretty good to marginally or to, you know, above average. And then getting into high school and to college and people said, wow, like, really, really good. It worked out. And I, and I attribute that back to the deliberate practice and to, and to our parents being deliberate in forcing us to play against people who were better than us and bigger than us and faster than us and older than us at a younger age. And I think that helped develop grit. I think it helped develop a sense of getting beat down and having to get back up. And I think that's kind of the opposite of how you're saying, you know, parents can be where it's like, hey, you're great, you're doing well. And let's try to put you against competition that isn't very good so that you experience winning and success,

whereas I kind of had the opposite approach growing up. It wasn't my decision, but it, It definitely has helped for sure. Yeah, well, you have very wise parents. You know, I used to bring home if I, I would always try to excel at school, and I'd bring home a 96 on an exam, and my father would turn to me and say, what happened to the other four points? And I got very used to it.

My son has been a competitive chess player since he's four years old, and I used to think it was too tough for him because he'd have these Russian grandmasters teaching him, and he was very young, and he'd get upset when he would lose, and they would say, good, you deserve to lose. You didn't work on your opening. You work on your opening more next time. And, you know, when he was five, he became the kindergarten champion for scholastic chess in the United States

and went on to win two more national tournaments. And he's like, he got used to a very young age of what it really takes, you know, because you're only as good as the next person that you're playing on that board. And you can imagine when you're five years old, you're very rarely playing somebody who's five years old. You're always playing people who are up in their game. You know, it's very interesting. We read some research, and this actually happened at my daughter's grade school, where the principal at the time, Carmen Frina, who's now actually the head of the Board of Education in New York City,

great principal. There used to be a gifted class. They were very, they prided themselves on having the best reading and mass scores in New York State. And she abandoned it. She said, this is nonsense. So what she did is she put all the kids, scattered them all around, all the classes, and she raised the bar, because, you know, instead of just raising the bar for the gifted class, she raised it for every kid. And guess what? All the classes ended up becoming

the best in the state in reading and math. That was her philosophy, was that kids will always, if you give them an opportunity, and you give them that challenge, they will aspire up. I mean, there's really no point in winning all the time. You don't gain anything, you know, you don't get anywhere. I love the Michael Jordan quote. you know, I fail and I fail and I fail and that's why I succeed. I mean, a lot of people do not know that Michael Jordan did not make his high school varsity basketball team. Everybody thinks, oh, they saw all this incredible talent. Well, they didn't see it in his high school.

And he was going to give up. And his mother said to him, you're not giving up anything. You're just going to work harder. I mean, Bill Bradley, I've worked on several presidential campaigns and worked on Bradley's campaign in 2000. And, you know, you think he was born with all this talent and ability. said, no, I would go after school, and I think you, you know, if you're a sports enthusiast, you probably know this, and he would stand on one section of the court and do free throws, and he would do that for three hours straight, and then he would do it blindfold.

And the next day, he would move one inch to the left, and he would do, he said, that's how I learned to play basketball. And so you think these people are born with their stuff. You know, there was a great piece of research that we read that said, when you see somebody who's like an Olympic gold medal winner, what you don't realize, if there's probably a million other people who have the potential to be gold medal Olympic winners, but the difference is only in the fact that that one person actually decided to go for it with their guts, resilience, initiative, and tenacity. I also love the fact that we can grow our grit and we can expand at any age. Pablo Casals, who's arguably one of the best cellists, you know, of the century.

when interviewed at the age 93, they said to him, why are you still practicing three hours a day and you're in your 90s? And you know what he said? What? Seriously, he wasn't saying it to be funny. I'm beginning to notice some improvement. There you go, right? There you go. I'm beginning to notice some improvement.

And this nonsense that, you know, I think they should retire the word retirement altogether. It was an invented word during the industrial age. age, simply to get older people out of the workforce and looked at neurological studies. You don't lose your brain cells. Your dentrites keep growing until you die unless you have, you're mentally incapacitated or physically incapacitated. Things keep growing and growing and growing. And so it's so important to know that, that, you know, the fastest growing segment

of our population are people in their hundreds. So I tell people, what's your rush? You don't have to make up by the time you're 30. You don't even have to make by the time you're 60. You know, Pablo Casas, I'm sorry, Picasso did his best paintings in his 80s, so you've got a ways to go there. Yeah, it reminds me of, I forget his name, but the guy who created Minecraft and he sold it for a couple billion dollars. I don't know if you've seen the stories recently out about him, but he is, he even, he's publicly stating, you know, I can buy anything I want. He bought like a $100 million house in L.A. I can travel anywhere. I hang out with celebrities. I can do all

these things. And now I'm realizing now after doing that for a little bit after he made the money, that my friends all need to work. And I don't have anything right now to work for. And he's, he's openly stating how depressed he is because he feels like he doesn't have a purpose or anything other than this guy made billions of dollars after selling it. It just shows if you're not constantly striving to do something, to get better, to always, you know, work your mind that you could, that could happen to anyone. And so when I spread that story, it was almost like, wow, what a wake-up call for anybody. That's right.

You think you've made it or you think anything's happened. He's not even that old. But it's still, if you don't have anything to strive towards or to work for, you're, you're going to be in trouble. Well, you know, it's so interesting. There's been studies done on lottery winners, you know, people who've been millions and billions and whatever. And there is a huge, huge. rate of depression. For those people, some of the people, they're great. He's a train conductor, oh, he goes back and he's keeping his job, you know, or he's a teacher, you know, yeah, he'll pay

off some debts and make sure his kids are, you know, comfortable enough to go to college. But there are those people who go, well, that's it. I'm not going to work another day. And then you follow them, and there is a very, very high rate of depression. Because we are hardwired as human beings to want to think, to want to grow. One of the things we talk about in the book is so if you've retired or even before you're retired, use your grit for good. You know, when we do something to help somebody else and we use our efforts for that purpose, the same part of your brain lights up as when you have sex or somebody gives you money. There is a certain pleasure in it.

We just want to help each other, most of us. And when you use this hard one, you know, grit to try to accomplish something good, there is such an amazing feeling of happiness, of fulfillment, and we give wonderful stories in the book. One story we talk about is a fisherman. He was very, very poor growing up. And when his wife died and he was at 93 years of age, his name was James Henry, he finally admitted to his family that he was illiterate. He had been faking all these years and didn't want to tell his wife while she was still alive. Well, he could have given up, but he decided at age 19. he was going to hire a tutor, which he did, and he learned how to read. And if that wasn't good enough, he decided that he was going to now write.

And if that wasn't good enough, he decided to write his autobiography in a fisherman's language. And guess what? It became a bestseller. He was 96 years of age, and he actually was invited to meet President Obama because he was so entranced by this autobiography. I mean, look at that. if that should not inspire you in some way. And the people who have had so many challenges, I mean, you look at somebody like Haskell Wexler,

award-winning, world-renowned cinematographer, we got to interview him for a book. Guess what? He's colorblind. Wow. He said, Mr. Wexler, why did you go into this field with this kind of a disability? And he thought we were out of our minds.

He said, are you kidding me? He said, I have an ability that nobody else has who sees color. I can see gradations of white and black and all the grays in between better than anybody. I see those nuances. When I'm asked to shoot people of different nationalities, races, in the same scene, I am able to do that with the sensitivity that nobody who sees color can do. So I have a strength. It's a plus. It's not a negative.

And so we ask everybody, turn your telescope around. something that you may perceive as a weakness may very well end up being your strength. Love that mindset. Oh, yeah. Carol Dweck's book on mindset and having a growth mindset, positive attitude, and sense of optimism, all that. You know, another thing I read that interested me, you know, a stay lauder said, I never dreamed about success.

I worked for it. And in your book you write about, and you say, ditch the dream. And I'd love for you to expand on that aspect. too because I think that could be potentially controversial without some more explanation. I know. You know, someone would say, what do you mean? You have to have a dream. I go, yeah, it's great to have a goal. It's great to have a dream of what you want to do. But if you spend really too much time ever thinking about it, it takes you away from the now. Because look, in our dream life, everything is perfect. They did this great study at NYU. They took the graduates

and they put them into two groups. This is several years back. One group with the dreamers. They had incredibly lofty aspirations, and that's where their heads were. And, you know, in Dreamland, everything is perfect. We win the Pulitzer Prize. I mean, there's no roadblocks. Roblox, you know, it's no wonder we want to keep the snooze button on a little bit longer. And then they had this other group, what they called the plotters. Sounds like a really boring group of people, but the plotters were ones who said, okay, I want to be a writer, but I will first have to write a resume.

I may need to get an internship. I probably should be doing some more reading. Maybe I need to take another course in fiction writing. Anyway, they followed them for years, these groups. And guess what? The Dreamers went practically nowhere. They were still stuck in this sort of utopian future. The plotters were actually moving ahead quite well.

I love this example. I worked for this guy named Jim when I was a Jay Walter Thompson ad agency, and he wanted to be a novelist in the worst way. But, you know, this was his gig. He was a creative director. And so undaunted, and he never talked about what it would be like to be a famous novelist. What he did is he just simply got up every morning at 4 a.m. And he would write until 8 a.m., shower, eat breakfast, and come to work and work a 9 to 5, 9 to 6, 9 to 7 job.

And then he would go to sleep really early, so he'd get up again at 4 a.m. He did this every single day, not for a year, not for 2 years, for 21 years. And I work for him for almost all of that time. And one day we were on a plane going to a Kodak meeting. And he said to me, well, it took me 21 years, but I finally figured out how to write a bestseller short chapters, twist at the end, compelling character. And the next thing that came out was along came a spider. And Jim Patterson, the world knows him as James Patterson, is today the number one selling author.

This just got announced a few months ago, the number one selling author in the world. And he spent no time dreaming. And so I just urge people when we started our agency, we never spent any time really thinking about where we were going to be 15 years from now. Or, you know, we knew we wanted to be successful every moment of the day. And we tell people, you know, like that V8 commercial, you know, knocking yourself in the head. As soon as you start idealizing where you're going to be, knock yourself on the head and go, wait a second, what are the 10 problems I have to solve right now today?

And that's how our agency, you know, went from five people in a third floor walk up to 800 people and $3 billion worth of billings over a period of 15 years. That's how it happened. Nothing sexy or alluring, just always being in the now and solving the problems of the day. It's incredible. How do you – so you mentioned goals. So what do you think about goal setting, both personally, professionally, when you talk about, not dreaming but doing, being a plotter, waking up at 4 a.m. every day and doing and writing or whatever it is that you may do, like James Patterson. What do you think about goal setting?

I think that it's great to set a goal of something you want to do, but I think you always have to have a plan B. You know, for me, I spent most of my 20s performing, and that's what I thought I was going to do. And when I finally realized that I didn't have the perseverance and passion to pursue a life that was for most of the time on the road. Performing is very, very, very difficult. You only see like the Uber, you know, one million of the one percent that actually make it. And the rest of us are just working actors. I was willing to take a chance on a plan B and move on to something where I could be creative, where I could use my presentation, my acting skills for presentation. And that was in advertising. And I'm glad I did it. You know, Stephen Spielberg says

that the best scenes of every movie he's ever done have always been Plan B's. The mechanical shark didn't work in Jaws, so you only see it, I think, once or twice in the movie. So they substituted a bass trombone to make you feel like you were seeing it. And of course, we know the movie became a blockbuster and largely because of that ominous soundtrack. But I love the one where he talks about in Raiders of the Lost Ark. It's so funny. He said, here we were shooting this dueling scene with Harrison Ford. and he shows up to the set and he has a bad case of the flu he has a hundred and two fever

and he said i can't do this scene it's 20 minutes of action i can't do it it's it's a hot sun i feel like i'm going to pass it out spilberg goes uh let's see there's 200 actors extras i can't um okay okay okay okay here's plan b one take it'll take you 30 seconds you really don't have to move and then you go back to the hotel room and of course we all know that scene where you know the other guy's brandishing his sword, and he's going on and on, you know, with that. And then he takes, Harrison Ford takes out his pistol and he shoots him and kills the guy and goes back to the hotel room. And I love looking at that scene now because you can see how really sick Harrison Ford look. And still, you know, it's a great metaphor for all of us of like you got to be flexible.

You know, we have a chapter called Ben Like Bamboo. You have got to really adapt. I mean, getting to your goal is probably not going to be through plan A. It's going to be B, C, D, or Z. Yeah. So just get comfortable with it. And it's probably a greater being's way of saying to you, yeah, you're going to get there, but you've got to go through a few detours. Oh, absolutely.

And so getting back to practical implementation of some of the things you say. So let's drill down and take an example. I want to talk about building up grit within an organization. Let's say somebody listening is a leader. of many people in any type of organization. And they're listening, they're inspired by you, they love the stories, they love the science that backs it up. And they're saying, but how can I do that with my group?

You know, I think I got a few of those people that are pretty gritty and that are, you know, they're tough and they're resilient. But I don't know if I have enough and I need more, but I can't fire these people. They're good people. They do their job well, so I just want to build up more grit. What are some real-life examples or real-life practices that could be implemented right now for organizations and leaders like that? Well, one of the things that we did in our organization, and we did it because we had to when we were growing, we never had enough people. I love the idea of never having enough people because what happens is people would come to our agency and we'd say, well, what's my title?

And we would say, you know what? You're going to be, you know, the account supervisor, but what else can you do? well, I'm a pretty good singer. Good. We're going to put you on demos for things that we present to the client. You are going to get rewarded, not by how you ascend and how many people you supervise, but by how you grow horizontally, how many other things that you take on that could help us grow as an agency. And I think it was very attractive for people to come here because they knew whatever other talents and abilities they had. It went way beyond whatever was going to be on their business card. And the other thing, which of course makes it.

people feel very much empowered and very much part of winning something because you secretly believe and we we love to throw ideas away. You know, Harry Truman once said that you can accomplish anything in your lifetime as long as you're willing to not take credit for any of it. So it was very important as an employer, as a leader, to kind of check your ego at the door. And when you're in a group conversation, you know, find a way that if you have an idea to throw it out and let somebody kind of pick up on it and then turn around and go, fabulous idea.

You know, we talked about that early, but I love the twist you put on it. And I love doing that to people who would be perceived as lowest in the totem pole, because what we often did is we would give this person, you know, okay, you're going to be going to this meeting and you're in a, you know, account executive, so here's what you're going to be doing. But then we love to have them work like you talk about, you know, when you're doing sports as a kid, to always play a level up. We would always give them an opportunity to say, okay, you know what,

so-and-so can't go to the meeting. I know you're not the account supervisor, but we're going to put you in that role for right now. And you'd be amazed how people rise to the occasion. They feel, oh, wow, and they stay up all night because, wow, the boss thinks I'm good enough. I am. I'm going to show her or I'm going to show him that I really can do it. And we have seen so much growth within the company of people who we said to them, you know, you're ready to move up. We need to wear another hat today. Oh, okay. And then they work so much harder. People need to be told that they have this ability to grow and then but then they have to be challenged to show how they can do it. It makes me think a little bit about like Southwest Airlines.

One of the thing they're famous for, notorious for is one, empowering their flight attendants to be funny and hiring people with personalities, but two, hiring people that are willing to do above and beyond whatever their normal job responsibilities. I've even read stories about pilots that are like unloading luggage and all types of, you know, all of their, if you're a Southwest employee, it's not like, hey, I only do this one thing. They're known to do many things. And then they are able to, one, hire fewer people to do the jobs and also pay those people more. So you've got higher employee satisfaction, which then always shows to their consumers, their customers.

I mean, what's the number one way to get people to treat the customer right? It's to treat your employees right. And so I think that that reminds me a lot of the way they do. And if you go to get your MBA, Southwest Airlines is going to be a company that it will be a part of just about every case study you get into through your course load as getting your MBA as I remember doing a couple of years ago. So it's, I love those examples that you use for your business and lifting people up and powering them, maybe putting them in the, in the room that they feel is a stretch. I think that's so powerful to help them grow. Right.

Linda, this has been phenomenal. I could literally go for a couple hours with you. This is great, but I have one more question because I know we got to get this thing rolling. But one question, and it's around the whole purpose of my show, the learning leader show. And I know that phrase, some have said, is duplicative because great leaders are constantly learning. And I obviously agree.

that's why I named it that. But I want to swing it to you now. When you hear the phrase learning leader, what's the very first thing that pops into your mind? Is it a person, a phrase, a definition? What's the first thing that comes to mind when you hear that phrase? Well, for me, it's, well, first of all, it's the fact that you're always in a growth pattern, that there's always someplace better that you can be. And I think for me, what I've learned and, you know, Robin and I've written a few books

before that we always has kind of counter and do an advice is, first of all, two words, be nice, throw out those positive imprints. They will come to fruition in ways you can't imagine. The second thing is don't obsess about thinking big. We're a culture that's about thinking big, the forest through the trees. We like to think small. It is through the details that everything is revealed and more things fall apart because details are not looked at. And again, leading by example. It's never what you do. When we started our agency, we made sure that everybody had to take out because we didn't have our own, we couldn't afford a garbage collector. So everybody had to take out a bag of garbage. You know, Robin and myself included is nothing is too small for the

leaders to do. It's so important, you know. And secondly, just know that the way that you empower other people, those people will go on and do that long after. you're gone. You are part of a great chain of humanity. And the way that you lead will be the way that your folks, when they eventually take on companies, will lead and you pass it on. And that's why we're all on this earth to make it a better place than the way we found it. Wow. That is a great. Love that answer, Linda. And thank you so much for being here. Where can everybody go to find you online? We are everywhere. The grit to write.com website will, you can take our grit quiz. You can also look up. Robin and I do speaking engagements around the country and around the world. Colleges,

corporations. We enjoy it. We love it. The book can be, is found everywhere. You can download it iTunes, iBooks. You can buy it on Amazon, CEO read, Barnes & Noble, and there's an audio book out there. And we were named Amazon's top leadership book when the book came out. So we're thrilled, and we hope people enjoy it and spread the word. And by the way, this holiday season, no better gift than the gift of grit, pass it on to relatives, coworkers, kids. I agree. And I do love the book, and it's well worth the time,

your investment, anybody's investment to do it, to read it and to take notes. I think you guys make it practical, and there's things you can implement immediately. So, Linda, thank you again so much for being here and sharing just a ton of knowledge with me. I got pages of notes here, as well as all the listeners here at the Learning Leaders Show.

I greatly appreciate it. Thank you so much. All right. Talk soon. This episode of The Learning Leader Show is over, but we have plenty more to keep you locked in until next time. Head over to Learning Leadershow.com for more information and to request your favorite entrepreneur, CEO, world-class athlete, or anyone else that inspires you.

You can also talk to Ryan directly by reaching out to him on Twitter at Ryan Hawk 12. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time on the Learning Learline. Peter Show.