The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 082: Daniel Pink – The Science Of Motivation, Legendary Writer & TED Talk

Episode Date: December 21, 2015

Episode 082: Daniel Pink – The Science Of Motivation, Legendary Writer & TED Talk Dan Pink is one of my all-time favorite writers and speakers.  He truly understands the importance of an intense focus on continuous improvement.  His focus and work on “Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose” is fantastic.  We are extremely fortunate to have Dan share his knowledge with us, the loyal listeners of The Learning Leader Show.  Dan Pink is the author of five provocative books — including three long-running New York Times bestsellers, A Whole New Mind, Drive, and To Sell is Human. Dan’s books have been translated into 34 languages and have sold more than 2 million copies worldwide.   In 2013, Thinkers 50 named him one of the top 15 business thinkers in the world.  Dan’s TED Talk on the science of motivation is one of the 10 most-watched TED Talks of all time, with more than 19 million views. His RSA Animate video about the ideas in his book, Drive, has collected more than 14 million views.  Before venturing out on his own 18 years ago, Dan worked in several positions in politics and government, including serving from 1995 to 1997 as chief speechwriter to Vice President Al Gore. Episode 082: Daniel Pink – The Science Of Motivation, Legendary Writer & TED Talk Subscribe on iTunes  or Stitcher Radio The Learning Leader Show “For a sales professional, I look for: Conscientiousness, Willingness to develop expertise, and Ambiversion.” Some Questions I Ask: What are the common characteristics of high achievers? What was your proves for quitting your job as a speechwriter and becoming a full time writer? What was your preparation process for your legendary TED Talk? What are the specific skills needed in order to remain in control of your career? How does your research have an effect on the profession of sales? Why do we struggle to implement and execute on what we learn from books/speeches/workshops? What advice would you give to your 20 year old self? What books have had the biggest influence on your life? What does being a learning leader mean to you? In This Episode, You Will Learn: The critical components of sustaining excellence: Curiosity, Generosity, Hard Work What it was like writing speeches for Al Gore The process for starting his own business and leaving his comfort zone The specific traits he looks for in a sales professional His interview process to increase his odds of hiring the right people The specific elements of “To Sell Is Human” Focusing on one small task and doing it daily Drew Brees and moving the chains… Getting first downs Habit Formation and how to do it Having a Growth Mindset vs. a Fixed Mindset “Focus on moving the chains.  Can I do one small thing every single day?” Continue Learning: Go To Dan’s website: DanPink.com Read: Drive- The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us Read: To Sell Is Human See why over 345,000 people follow Dan on Twitter: @DanielPink 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.  Dan Pink 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 From DanPink.com   Dan Pink is the author of five provocative books — including three long-running New York Times bestsellers, A Whole New Mind, Drive, and To Sell is Human. Dan’s books have been translated into 34 languages and have sold more than 2 million copies worldwide.   In 2013, Thinkers 50 named him one of the top 15 business thinkers in the world.  Dan’s TED Talk on the science of motivation is one of the 10 most-watched TED Talks of all time, with more than 19 million views. His RSA Animate video about the ideas in his book, Drive, has collected more than 14 million views.  Before venturing out on his own 18 years ago, Dan worked in several positions in politics and government, including serving from 1995 to 1997 as chief speechwriter to Vice President Al Gore. He received a BA from Northwestern University, where he was a Truman Scholar and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and a JD from Yale Law School. He has also received honorary degrees from the Pratt Institute, the Ringling College of Art and Design, and Westfield State University.

The real question is, and this is where I think where people go awry, the question you should be asking is, can I do one small thing tomorrow to make things a little bit better? And the answer is almost always yes. And so I think it begins, I mean, it sort of takes us back full circle to Ryan to our talk about how to get started working for yourself. I think what you want to try to do is pick one thing to do and do that. And if it works, keep doing it. If it doesn't work, stop doing it and try something else. If it works, keep doing it, and once it becomes a little bit of a habit, add one more thing. 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 guys, before we get to this great conversation, I want to let you know that this episode was brought to you by Mizan and Maine. You'll probably remember from episode 64, I spoke with a CEO of Mizna and Maine, Kevin Lavelle. And, you know, we promised to continue that dialogue as we both progressed on our journeys. And we certainly have, and we formed a partnership.

And Kevin and his great companies and support and people that he works with have agreed to sponsor my podcast. But for me, I'm very picky when it comes to this. I only wanted to work with people who I truly believed in their products. So this is not just a sponsor to me. This is an endorsement. I absolutely believe in everything that Kevin and his company stands for. I love who they partner with, whether it's Tony Shea's Vegas Tech Fund or the Loan Survivor, Marcus LaTrell's Fund, or Chris Kyle Frog Foundation.

I love that. But I also most importantly love the product. their shirts are my absolute favorite shirts. They feel very similar to the clothes that I wear when I go and work out. I didn't really believe that was possible until I tried one. But the four-way stretch fabric is literally like nothing I've ever felt before. And so originally I bought one just to try them out to see if this is really true. A button-down shirt that looks great with a suit or in business casual.

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I love the button downs. You'll see on that site my favorite shirts. And when you're checking out, use the code Ryan Hawk to get free shipping if you're only buying one shirt. If you happen to want to buy three button downs like I've done a couple of times, use the code Ryan Hawk 3 and you'll get $50 off. Again, I love Miz and Maine. I love everything they stand for and I promise when you try the search, you will too. Hey and welcome to the Learning Leader Show. I am Ryan Hawk. This one was huge for me. I am a massive

fan of tonight's featured leader. It's Dan Pink. Dan is the author of five provocative books, including three long-running New York Times bestsellers titled A Whole New Mind, Drive, and to Sell is Human. Dan's books have been translated into 34 languages and have sold more than 2 million copies worldwide. He also was the chief speechwriter for Al Gore from 1995 to 1997. We discussed that during our conversation. Then you go check out his TED talk titled The Puzzle of Motivation. It has over 14.6 million views. It's one of the most viewed TED Talks of all time.

I loved it. Came out in 2009 and still holds true day. It's a phenomenal talk. A couple of things we got into. His process for quitting his job as a speech writer to go out on his own and to write under his own tagline as he says, why he did it, how he did it. Some of the tactical things he implemented in order to give himself a better opportunity to be successful.

The importance of taking small steps and setting daily goals. And then specific interviewing tactics, both as the interviewer and the interviewee. We talked about the profession of selling here since he wrote the book, To Sell is Human. So I wanted to know what does he look for in a sales professional? What are some of the questions that he asked in order to help uncover that the people that he's speaking with have those specific skills and traits? This was particularly fascinating for me since I was speaking with the guy who wrote one of my all-time favorite books to sell as human about what he looks for in a sales professional. Just really a cool moment for me.

And then also we went into how can we implement and execute our learnings? Most people listening to this podcast do a great job of reading books, going to seminars, to workshops, listening to podcasts. And I want to know specifically how he thought we could best implement and execute what we learn. and mainly doing one small thing tomorrow, or as Drew Breeze once told me, focus on moving the chains. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, it's my pleasure to introduce Dan Pink.

All right, Dan, this is a highlight one for me, man. I'm so excited to have you here on a Learning Leader Show. I know what the listeners are as well. And I got a quick question to get us rolling, and that's around people who have sustained excellence over time. And you've been fortunate to spend an immense amount of time around these people, whether it's talking to them, writing about them, interviewing them for books, as well as you are one of these people yourself. You've sustained excellence over time. So I'm curious.

What are a few of the takeaways or a few things that those people all seem to share? Interesting question. I think one of them would be curiosity. They follow their noses. They remain interested in stuff, even if they know a lot of stuff. In fact, especially if they know a lot of stuff. One of the consequences I think of knowing a lot of stuff is you realize how little you know. And so there's a lot more to be curious about. So I put, I'd actually put curiosity at the top of that list. The second thing is that I, not uniformly, but in many, many cases, I think there's an element of generosity to these folks that might surprise you. They're actually, I think the people who, and I love the way you put it, of sustaining excellence, who do that over time. Many of them,

not all of them, end up being reasonably generous people. They're willing to help other people out. They're willing to, you know, they're not people who pull up the ladder once they get on the top. They're willing to help other people along. And the third thing is that they, it's going to sound a little old fashion, but they are extraordinarily hardworking and conscientious. Those old, the old fashioned virtues of persistence and grit and conscientiousness are their hallmarks. So that's what I would say.

That's what I've seen. Are there a few people instantly that pop in your mind when you think of sustained excellence and curiosity, generosity, extraordinarily hard workers? Who comes to mind initially? You know, it's funny you say that. The first person who came to mind on this was the late Peter Drucker who was writing and thinking and doing great work, I think, until his early 90s. And it was just relentless. And so he's somebody who came to mind. The writer, it's interesting, the writer Philip Roth has been productive, well into.

his, he actually said he's no longer going to write any more novels, but he's been productive and creative well into his 70s and, well into his 70s and 80s. Someone like, I'm always, I don't know why I'm picking writers. Tony Morrison has been productive and engaged and creative, you know, all the way through. These are people who have won the big prizes, people who have done very well in their careers, people who could have easily, easily started phoning it in or not even picking up the phone at all and continue to do really, really great work. Really interesting. So, Dan, let's take a step back and dive into you.

You know, I distinctly remember the first time I saw your TED Talk, which was actually published in 2009 titled The Puzzle of Motivation, and it's since been viewed by over 14.6 million people, one of the most popular TED Talks in the history of the event, which is really incredible. as well as then, of course, your great books. And I love specifically, you know, I have a background in the profession of selling. And so I was really interested in to sell as human as well as drive. I think I found that to be, both of them to be very fascinating books.

And so I'd love to dive into your story because I know initially I was preparing for our conversation. You were the chief speech writer for Al Gore. And I didn't know that before doing the research here. So it was really interesting to find how you've gotten to where you are between going to Northwestern, going to law school, being a chief speech writer for a guy like Al Gore into where you are now is one of the, I'd say, one of the best authors out there, especially when it comes to nonfiction writing. Talk to me a little bit about your story and how you've gotten to where you are today. Well, I mean, thanks for that. I mean, a very generous explanation of how things went. You know, I think that in life there's an enormous amount of serendipity and randomness and to some extent luck.

And so, you know, as you know, like you, I grew up in Ohio. I went to high school and grew up in central Ohio, land of football and public libraries and Fourth of July parades. And, you know, had a pretty sort of normal middle class childhood. Went to Northwestern, ended up studying, thinking I would study journalism, but instead studied linguistics, social sciences. Graduated from college, didn't know what I wanted to do. did a few stupid things, you know, like dead-end jobs and whatnot, a little bit of traveling. And finally I went to law school because that's sort of always in the plan because that's what you do when you're a middle-class kid from Ohio and you're not going to go to medical school or become an engineer or an accountant. And so I went to law school.

I didn't really like it very much, really knew pretty quickly that I didn't want to be a lawyer. So I graduated from law school. I didn't do it very well in law school. I met my wife in law school, so it was a great move on a number of different fronts. but otherwise there was just a colossal mistake, graduated massively in debt, and actually never practiced law. Instead, I started working in politics because I was really deeply, was emphasis on the past tense, deeply interested in politics,

and did that for a while. And then, you know, again, this is where the serendipity and the lack of planning comes in. I became a speech writer basically because somebody asked me to write a speech, and I did it reasonably well. and then they asked me to write another one. And did that reasonably well, and they asked me to another one. And suddenly that's what I was doing.

And became a speechwriter for the Labor Secretary at the time, Robert Reich. Yeah. I did that for a few years. And then, you know, the job as chief speechwriter for then Vice President Gore came open. And, you know, speechwriters are, it's kind of like managers in Major League Baseball. there's just, you know, there aren't that many people who can do the job. And so it's always the same group of people for every opening. You know, it's like, oh, let's get Dusty Baker.

Oh, let's get Bud Black, you know? Yeah. And, you know, it's a very small universe of people. And it just happened to be, you know, my turn in the rotation, I guess. And I got that job. And I liked the people I work with quite a bit, quite a bit. I really love the people I work with there. And I really like working for Al.

Gore the person, not just because he was vice president, but Al Gore the person I really like working for. He was a terrific guy. But I ended up realizing that I didn't like politics very much. There was way too much BS. There was so much nonsense. I just couldn't really stand it. And I also realized, and again, you know, at this point I'm in my early 30s, I really felt like I wanted to do my own thing. And I'd always written a lot on the side. I'd written magazine articles and newspaper columns or whatever on the side for really since I was in high school. But never thought I would do it for my job as the center of what I did. But my wife finally convinced me that, you know, I'm taking all these demanding jobs,

but doing my own writing on the side, maybe what I should do, what I was doing on the side is what I should be doing in the center. And so I just, so I left saying I didn't want to become a career political hack. And I decided to try to write under my own byline. And that's, and I just, my wife kept her job, kept her health insurance. I moved the house that we lived into the time had kind of a third floor attic and that became my office and that was 18 years ago, over 18 years ago, 18 and a half years ago now. And just tried to, going back to your first question, follow what I was curious about and do work that I was proud of, but do it in a way that was strategic enough that my kids had winter coats. And then, you know, rather rinse repeat.

That's, yeah. So what was the process like to make that transition? Because I think I get a lot of emails from people who listen to this show and this is a topic that comes up where people have something they aspire to do. But they have a mortgage wife, kids or spouse, whatever maybe. And it's not that they're afraid to fail. It's that they have responsibilities. And part of what, you know, growing up and having a spouse with kids and mortgages and cars is that that it takes. money simply just from a practical perspective and people are a little bit fearful of the fact that

they have this big responsibility and they're not able to do it. What was the process like for you in order to make that jump to say, you know, I'm not into this politics thing. I can write speeches. I'm a pretty good writer. I'd like to write with my own byline. And practically, how long did it take before you were actually making money and making it a career?

Great question. So let me unpack it just a little bit. So in terms of what I did, which ended up being what I would advise people to do, I think in this case, this is one of those areas where you take a small step or two rather than a giant leap. And a small step or two went like this. First of all, you know, I had been doing writing on the side before. So it wasn't like, oh, I'm going to go become a ukulele player, even though I've never picked up a ukulele. You know, it was like something that was, you know, within my, you know, sort of much more at my fingertips.

And so I went out before I left and negotiated a very modest contract to do some articles for a magazine. But, you know, very, very modest. And again, you know, I'm your example. I was a guy. I had a kid. I had a wife. I had a wife. Now, my wife happened to be working.

My wife was a lawyer at the U.S. Department of Justice. Wow. And so, as I said, and I don't know what I was telling you this, you know, she kept her job. And she kept her health insurance. And so it wasn't like, oh, we're going to go from having an income to having no income. No, we're going to go from having two relatively modest incomes to having one relatively modest income for a little while while we try to bump up the second income. And so I think you take a small step. And, you know, again, and I believe this, I've operated my entire business this way for, you know, for, you know, for.

18 and a half years now is as mundane as it sounds, low overhead. I mean, I have never had an office that I've paid rent for. Really? No, I have always, we had one house. I worked on the third floor. Then we moved, you know, like a mile away where I'm talking to you right now and we just converted the garage behind the house and made it Pink Ink World headquarters. I have never paid rent for office. Indeed, I have always deducted the cost of my office on my, on my taxes. Wow. So, low overhead. Right now, I'm organized as a, as an S corporation. That's a relatively recent development. There are two employees of our S corporation, me and my wife. I've never had another employee. I've had contractors, whom I like, but I've never brought another employee to carry the cost of having

to meet a large, you know, a significant payroll. Yeah, so you have like literary agent or speaking agent, things like that that are... I have a literary agent, obviously, I have a speaking agent. There are people who help on my website who are awesome. There's somebody who helps on research and some administrative stuff who's awesome, but it's all on a contract. It's not full time. Gotcha.

Et cetera, et cetera. I haven't, I mean, small thing, I haven't had business cards for, I don't know, four or five years. You know, I just think, you know, frugality and low overhead. And I've seen a lot of people get burned by that. where they say, I'm going to go out on my own. Okay, well, I can't just work out of my house. I have to have an office.

So I'm going to pay rent on this office. And I just can't have people walk into the office. I need to have like a receptionist in the office greeting people. So they have, suddenly they have that salary. And suddenly they're working their asses off just to like pay their overhead. And so I think that frugality and low overhead, especially at the beginning. But I just think it's an ethic that is enormously, enormously important. And so, you know, small steps don't take a huge risk.

I think it's harder, you know, frankly, for people who are single. If you're single and you don't have a spouse who's bringing in an income, I think it's a harder thing to do. In that case, what I would recommend would be frugality in your personal life to allow you to save some money, a certain amount of money, you know, every month for a year or two, and that becomes your, that becomes your cushion. Another thing people can do is take a small step, so maybe go. part time at your current gig and supplement that with your working on your own.

So again, whatever it is to, there's a lot of risk out there in the world of work in general, but in the world of working for yourself in particular. And so I just think you have to be smart and savvy about how you mitigate that risk. And the way you mitigate that risk is, I think, by taking small, as I said before, taking some small steps rather than a giant leap. Gotcha. I love the practical nature and the way you respond. Bonnie, so I appreciate that.

I want to dive in now to a couple other aspects, mainly some of the core concepts in your writing, and you've, obviously, the TED Talk as well. Specifically, I mentioned earlier in our conversation that, you know, I have a background of the profession of sales. The first job that I had when I got done playing football, I still think of myself as a sales professional, even though I've progressed into other things, because I believe, as I know you do, that we're selling every day, regardless of what it is, and it's a noble profession. So if you were interviewing for a sales professional, what are some of the qualities, this is a two-part question.

I asked the first part part now. What are some of the first, you know, if you had to say three to five qualities in that person that you're looking for to hire in a role that is all sales? Okay. I would look for conscientiousness. I think that's incredibly important in every realm, but certainly in sales. Do you say what you're going to do? Do you follow up? I mean, you know that as a sales professional, conscientiousness.

It's true in any profession, but I would look for conscientiousness. I would look for the willingness to develop expertise. Today in sales, expertise is matters more than ever before. If your customer or your prospect knows exactly what they need, they don't need you very much. You have to be able to, let's say, whether it's, let's take B2B. If you're in B2B, you have to understand your prospects, business better than they do in some cases. You have to be an expert in what you're talking about. Do you subscribe to the Challenger sale method?

I think the Challenger, I think there's a lot to be said for the Challenger sales. You know, I'm not a big believer in embracing a single methodology, a single process as like the be all and end all. Right. But I think that they're parts of the Challenger Sale approach that ring true with my experience interviewing tons of salespeople and also my experience in writing to sell as human and talking about what are the abilities one needs. needs in this remade landscape where sellers don't have an information edge. Gotcha. So I'm a big believer in, so I would say, so conscientious expertise, one thing that I think is a little counterintuitive for people but comes out of the research, some of which I wrote

about in To Sell as Human, is what's called ambaversion. There's a mythology out there that strong extroverts make the best salespeople. There's absolutely no proof of that. it is empirically untrue. But that doesn't mean the strong introverts are better. There's some great research from Adam Grant, who I know you've interviewed, showing that the best salespeople are what are called ambiverts. They are not strong extroverts. They are not strong introverts.

They're kind of in the middle. They're a little bit of both. Now, it turns out that most of us, meaning most human beings, are ambiverts. relatively few of us are very strong extroverts or very strong introverts. Most of us are ambiverts. So I would look for conscientious person who's ambiverted and willing to develop expertise. Okay. I love those qualities.

And it's a great note-taking part of the conversation here for me and people listening. So the next follow-up to that natural question is, how do you ensure that the people you are interviewing for these roles are, have those qualities because it's one, you know, people can do a good job of preparing for interviews and sometimes fooling you. And I know you and Adam Grin, I've read a lot about this on certain websites where you guys have had these conversations about the interview process and making sure that we, you don't mess up. I mean, there's, there's going to be, you're going to make mistakes. Every human makes mistakes. But what are the questions specifically, or what do you do during the interview process to make sure that the people you hire are ambiverted,

their willingness to develop expertise, and their conscientious people? Well, I think it's ensure might be too hard, too high of a burden, too high of a standard, because I don't think you can ever be sure. So how do you, how do you increase your odds, let's say? Right, gotcha. Okay, one way to increase your odds tactically, programmatically is through structured interviews. I don't do one interview, don't do the kind of free range job interview with one person that you mostly do. There's a lot of good, that companies typically do or free range interviews with a couple of people.

What the evidence shows is that structured interviews where a bunch of people ask essentially the same common set of questions have a higher predictive value than these free verse free range interviews. So I would say structured interviews. I would look at, it's not, it's a little. bit perilous, but I would look at, I would look some at past performance, although a lot of past performance is very contextual. So someone who is a star in one environment might not be a star in your environment. So I would look a little bit at that. And then, you know, there's some evidence showing that giving people essentially a kind of a trial task that's similar to what they'd really be doing on the job is not a bad way to do things. I guess sell me this pen type of a question.

Yeah, maybe not as dramatic as that. Maybe not as dramatic as that, unless you're, unless you're hiring pen sales people. But, you know, something on the order. I'll give you an example. I mean, I had this when I interviewed for, when I interviewed for Al Gore. So they called up, you know, as I said, Dusty Baker and Jim Leyland and Bud Black and all the people who were in that world. And they, they, they, they, we had some initial interviews. And then they gave us a, uh, um, a task. They gave us a little, they gave us a memo. They said, here's a situation. Here's where the vice president is speaking. Here's the briefing memo on it. Write us a speech of this particular length. That's what I mean. That kind of task is, because that task is not sell me a pen. That task is, here's the sample of the kind of work you're going to be doing on this job. Go do it. Do it. And that has some, that has some predictive value as well. So that's what I, that's what I would go for. I found weaving in and out of role plays can be beneficial. I'm not. I'm not. even talking about a role play so much as actually, you know, I mean, I guess it's a roleplay of

sorts. In a way. I mean, to say to them, you know, even if it's whatever there, if you're talking to salespeople, for example, and you just say you don't have to sell, you know, whatever our product, sell whatever it is you're currently doing or something you've sold in the past. Let's, let's hear it. I just want to hear what it sounds like to be on the other end of it, even if I need, I, as the interviewer, need to do a little bit of homework myself to ask the right questions if we're going to go through discovery and things like that, you know? Yeah, I would, you know, I wonder whether you would, you know, give, like for sales, whether you would give somebody a, you know, give them a scenario and have them come back the next week and tell them and describe what they would do. Yeah.

So they have to show that they have to be conscientious and try to learn exactly what it is and then. Well, yeah, exactly. I mean, so it's part. So it's, so it's a hidden measure of conscientiousness. Absolutely got that right. And then, but the other thing would be it's basically have them do something very similar to where. you're hiring them to do. Because, you know,

but all these, you know, but some of, but, but, you know, these, these kind of free range interviews, you know,

if you were, if you were a jungle animal, what jungle animal would you be kind of questions or those ridiculous kinds of brain teasers, you know, if you had to collect all the salt in St. Louis, where would you put it kind of question?

Those are preposterous. Why do you think people ask those, is to feel smart as the interviewer or do they, they actually have a specific reason? I've seen some of those. I've actually been in interviews. I've been asked some of those questions before. I always found them to be, you know, I try my best to answer them to show whatever it is.

I never know what they're looking for, so I just try to answer the best of my ability. But I found them to be interesting. I've never wanted to really go there as the interviewer, though. I don't really get it. I think that they do it because other people have done it. Yeah. That's pretty much it. Yeah.

And say, okay, let me just copy it even if there's, not it because I think that's the one thing that's that's really important whatever the job is if you're going to be an interviewer and ask people questions it's think of it as like like a movie that like in good movies great movies every scene is shown for a specific reason and if there's not a good reason for it they cut it they get rid of it it's the same thing I think with the interview process have a specific reason behind everything every question you're going to ask it to make sure that they're you're trying to uncover and as you said increase your odds of finding people that have the qualities that you want.

Yep. So I want to talk now about, let's take it back to 2009. So you're preparing for your TED talk, the puzzle of motivation. And I love learning about the preparation specifically for something big. And I want to learn from you, did you, what were you thinking before giving this talk? Did you have any grand thoughts? that this could kind of blow you up, make you, I guess an easy word to use is go viral all throughout the internet

and really put your name on the map. What was your thought process, one, preparing for the speech and what you had hoped would happen when it was published? Well, yeah, I didn't really think about it at that level. I mean, I was fortunate in that at that point I had already had a, a book, a whole new mind that had done well and maybe gave some legs to the speech only because you know a few hundred thousand people had read a whole new mind and therefore might tune in a 18 minute speech but no I I mean truly I just wanted to do a good job I wasn't like

I wasn't even thinking about the virality of it now I think a lot of people actually now get get into trouble by things become viral because they become viral. If you're aiming for that, you're going to miss much, much, much more often than you're going to hit. What you have to do is you have to do something, you have to do something good and something that you're proud of.

But I think it's a very, very hard thing to game. And I think it's become harder to game as there's more stuff out there. So your best off is just doing something that's meaningful that helps the audience and that you're proud of. And that's what I was thinking of. What I wanted to do, at that time, I was a lot of the way through my book dry, but I hadn't actually finished it, finished writing it.

I can't remember exactly. But I was, you know, I definitely hadn't finished writing it, but I was, you know, maybe halfway through or over halfway, probably over halfway through. And so what I wanted to do is just try to explain the core idea in a way that was, in a way that was compelling. And I also wanted to be true to myself. And a lot of the TED talks, which I think are awesome, are people telling these very compelling. personal stories, I don't have any compelling personal stories. You know, certainly about this topic. What I did have, what I thought was a very well-research, very hard-headed argument that

was, I thought, persuasive. And so I said, well, instead of trying to concoct some kind of personal, dramatic narrative arc about some time where I found my true motivation, which would have read as completely inauthentic, I said, let me just go with how I approach the world, which is, unfortunately, in a very logical, unfortunately, in some case, for a very logical way. So I said, well, obviously, I'm not going to tell a personal story. I'm just going to make the case for why we're thinking about this thing in the wrong way. And so it makes sense.

As far as preparation, and so one of the things that you touch on is there's a mismatch between what science knows and what business does. And especially, I mean, a number of the things, whether the, the things, whether the fact of how we reward people, how we incentivize them, how do we think we motivate people, specifically the row, which is results only work at work environment, because this is one thing that particularly piqued my interest because I really believe in this is there's no schedules. Meetings are optional, optional times to go in and out of whatever office or if you even ever go to the office. And the fact that as long as you're getting your work done, that the engagement

turnover, turnover goes down, engagement goes up, the work output goes up, all of these great things. And it's backed, though, not just because you say it, but it's backed in empirical evidence and research that you've personally done and studied from others. And so now that some time has passed since you initially said that, have you developed that more? Have you found that maybe that idea, you still believe in it just as much or even stronger, or perhaps maybe you've found other evidence that suggests that that is not correct. I'm curious.

Well, you know, I think if you look at the totality of the research that's embodied in drive, there's a considerable amount of nuance. And essentially what it says is that there's certain kinds, it's not that all rewards are bad and that at all, at all. It's a little bit more nuance than that. And basically research says this, that there's a certain kind of reward that we use in organizations. Psychologist, and there's a reward that I was talking about in that talk, psychologists, social scientists call it a controlling contingent reward. I like to call it

something more simple. And if-then reward, as in if you do this, then you get that. And 50 years of social science tells us very clearly that if-then rewards are extremely effective for simple, algorithmic, short-term routine tasks. If you're filing or recipe, you know exactly what you need to do, the finish line is pretty close, those kinds of rewards are pretty effective. But the same body of evidence tells us that those kinds of rewards are far less effective for more complex creative work with longer time horizons. And the mistake that we make is that we use if then rewards for everything rather than the area where we know that they work. And when they apply them in areas where they don't

work instead of saying, oh, let's try something new. We say, oh, let's double down on that outdated approach. And so, you know, again, what I was doing, excuse me, what I was doing in the book and what I was, what I did in the book and what I thought, what I tried to do in that short talk was try to take this very, very large body of research, which was saying, which is scattered all over the place, but was saying some extraordinarily important things. And, and, and try to channel that, distill that, so that it was understandable and actionable for people outside of the academy. So have you, now that it's come out,

I got to believe that there were leaders in business came to you and said, how can we implement this into our business? Can you come and help us do that? Is that, did that become a big part of your business after? A little bit. a little bit. But again, you know,

I think that the answer to that question is complex in that I don't think it's the same answer for every organization. I don't think it's the same answer for a particular organization

at different moments in that organization's life. And so, you know, there are a lot of people who are, you know, looking for kind of a cookie cutter

answer, and there isn't a cookie cutter answer. And, you know, so what I was trying to do with the book, especially, is, present the evidence, get people thinking in new ways, outline the broad principles,

give plenty of specific tools, tips, and takeaways, but recognize that, you know, what it looks like inside of a five-person ad agency and what it looks like inside of a 55,000 employee hotel chain are going to be very, very different. I got you. So another interesting question that pops up, with, so people that listen to podcasts, that read books, that know all your work, these are types who typically give themselves better odds and better chances to, to achieve levels of success over, I think, longer periods of time.

They're learners. They're trying to improve. They're trying to get better. And one of the things that those people tend to do, and I would, I like, I'm in one at this camp, and obviously you are and you're giving speeches to these types of people as well is we go to talks, we go to seminars, we go to workshops, We invest money to try to become better. We listen to podcasts and read books.

But one of the issues is we do a great job of trying to learn. We take good notes. We do all the right things. We read the right books. But then when it comes to implementation and execution, we fall apart. And we're all guilty of this to where we did that great seminar and great workshop. And then we just didn't do anything once we got back to whatever it is, our daily work may be. Why?

Why? Why does this happen? And is there an answer or something that you could, maybe a little piece of advice? Because this is kind of a nuanced thought, too. It's not just a cookie cutter question and answer. What do you think why that is? And what is something that we could do to help fix that? It's a great question. I think the reason is that we're taking on too much. We, in some level, at some way, are. asking the wrong question. So if you go, if you read a book, I don't know, pick a book that you think is interesting or profound. And you say, okay, great, I'm going to go back and on the basis of this book, can I change everything in my life? Or can I change everything in my organization? The answer is no, you can't. I don't care what book you read. If you're asking yourself, can I change everything that I'm doing? Can I change everything in my company? The answer is no. because the world doesn't work that way.

But to my mind, you're asking the wrong question. The real question is, and this is what I think where people go awry, the question you should be asking is, can I do one small thing tomorrow to make things a little bit better? And the answer is almost always yes. And so I think it begins, I mean, it sort of takes us back full circle to Ryan to our talk about

how to get started working for yourself. I think what you want to try to do is pick one thing to do and do that. And if it works, keep doing it. If it doesn't work, stop doing it and try something else. If it works, keep doing it, and once it becomes a little bit of a habit, add one more thing. But I really think, and I've come to this over time, I really think that we have given short shrift to the concept, both in terms of personal development and organizational performance. We've given short shrift to the concept of small wins. We tend to poo-poo those.

We want big, hairy, audacious goals. We want moonshots. We want giant transformations. And that's cool sometimes. And sometimes that's the approach. But many times, most times, in fact, I think the more practical, realistic, and ultimately effective way is to go for a small win. Speaking of, you know, you said you learned this. No, I mean, listen, I hate to use a football analogy with you.

Go for it. Like, you know, it's like, okay, you want to score a touchdown, right? Okay, do you throw it into the end zone every time? Or you just like, let's just get a first down. It's really interesting. And let's get another first down. Yeah. And let's get another first down.

Yeah. And hey, look how much close to we are in the end zone now. Yeah. It's really interesting you say that just brought me back to when I was in college. I sent an email to Drew Bree, as quarterback now, the saints. Drew was still in college at the time. And I just told him, I admired him and I wanted to reach out to him. And maybe he could give me some pointers to help me a little bit.

It wasn't a really well-written email. And he wrote me back. And the thing he said, he said, focus on moving the chains, man. Yeah. You move the chains and everything usually works out. And I always remember, like, that was really interesting. Because I'd never really heard someone put it that way. Just focus on moving the change, which to non-football people, I mean, just getting the first down.

Because if you do that enough, you're going to be successful. Listen. And I'm so glad, I love that. I mean, it's a more vivid way of talking about it. But I told, you know, if I'm singing the same tune as Drew Brees, I feel pretty good about myself. Yeah. But, you know, I think that's, you know, I think that's right. And again, I mean, it's very easy, especially in business to keep using these sports metaphors.

But I think there's a lot of truth to that. You know, it's like, you know, I got a son who plays a lot of baseball. And, you know, especially at these younger ages, you know, these kids get up there. They just want to smack the ball over the fence. And it's like, no, make contact, put the ball in play. You know, get on base. Michael Lewis, yeah, money ball. Do it again.

Yeah. Do it again. Move the chains. Yeah. Move the chains. And I really think that that's, I think that's true in just so many different realms. I think it's true in the realm of organization development and some of Jim Collins' research, even though Jim has talked about Big Harry Audacious goals.

He also talks about the whole concept of the flywheel. wheel where you're just sort of pushing, you know, getting that thing, getting that momentum going. If you talk about personal development, you know, in terms of a habit formation or even something like getting in better physical shape, you know, you don't, like if you want to try to get in better physical shape, you don't say, okay, I'm going to start running and I'm going to start swimming and I'm going to become a vegan, you know. Some people will try that and it doesn't really work. It never works.

You know, what you do is you say, okay, I haven't run before. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to take a mile walk every day for a week. And then the next week, I'm going to take two mile walk every day. And then the next week, I'm going to maybe try a one mile jog. You know, and that's how you do. You just move the chains. That's my new mantra. Do it.

It's my new mantra. I'm going to call it the – I'm not going to give Drew Bree's quit. I'm going to call it the Ryan Hawk mantra. Move the chains. Oh, that is awesome. Cool. The one thing you mentioned earlier is as some time has passed, and now you have kids who are growing up. Can you think of maybe things that you wish you would have known at an earlier age,

like even in your mid-20s, that you now instill in your kids' minds, or at least you just say to them, hey, can you think about it? What are a few things that you wish you would have known when you were in your mid-20s that you probably now are passing along to your kids, that maybe things that you messed up? Oh, I would go, I mean, my messing stuff up goes back way before my mid-20s. I guess the most important thing is I wish I had known earlier in my life. And my wife and I've tried to bring this way of thinking to our kids is really Carol Dweck's concept of the growth mindset. Yes.

And I think that's one of the most powerful ideas I've encountered in anything as a human being, as a parent, as someone who tries to get work done for a living. And I really wish that I had encountered the growth mindset way, way, way, way, way. way earlier in my life, like literally as a kid. And that's the one. Now, fortunately, I groped the whole growth mindset before, or my kids were little, so we tried to instill that in that. But that's the one thing personally, I wish I would have. I believe it now.

Right. And, and it's, you know, it's very helpful to me because, and I was in fact just talking about this. So what I've done now is for exercise, I learned how to swim when I was like six years old. But I've never been a particularly strong swimmer. I'm not sure that my swimming was right. And so I decided at my ripe old age, I said, okay, I'm going to finally learn how to swim well. And so I started doing that.

And it's freaking hard, you know. And so at a certain point of my life, I might have said, oh, I'm just not a good swimmer. It's not the sport for me. But now I'm like, growth mindset, man, keep working at it, even though I have a ways to go on flexibility and coordination. I talk about Carol Drowack quite a bit. Could you explain, though, the difference between a growth and a fixed mindset? Growth mindset and a fixed mindset. So when you have a fixed mindset, let's say something like intelligence.

If you're a fixed mindset about intelligence, you believe that intelligence is a, there's a finite amount of it that you have. And you can't increase it. And as a result, everything that you do becomes a test of that. And so if you do something and you fail, it means that you're not smart or you're not that. that smart. And so as a concept, and growth mindset is when you think of intelligence or something else, not as a finite resource, but as something that you can grow through effort and diligence. And so if you try something that you can't do very well, that means that that's an opportunity for you to grow, to learn how to do it better, to expand things. And so her work

shows that, I mean, some really deleterious consequences for kids. So the kids who are constantly say, you know, who think that they're smart, or told that they're smart, end up taking less challenging courses because they don't want to be proved dumb. I actually end up cheating more than you would expect because they don't want to be found out as being dumb. Whereas kids with a with a growth mindset are willing to take on challenges and ultimately learn and grow and outperform those with a fixed mindset. Yeah, there was a lot of parents like they, and I'm certainly guilty of this with our children, we want to reward the child for getting straight A's.

And I now have since learning a lot more, mainly from talking to people on this podcast as well as reading a lot, to say that's not necessarily the perfectly, the best way to go about raising your children because it's better to tell them that it's okay to get things wrong from time to time. That means you're stretching a little bit. It means you're trying. It doesn't mean that we don't try our hardest that everything we do,

but it's stretching to learn more, to try new things, to be willing to be wrong sometimes because we don't fully know. I mean, that's why I reach out to guys like you to say, hey, I know you're going to challenge my belief something where I'm going to learn from it, even if at times I may look stupid doing it, but it's okay because we're going to get better. I'm going to grow from it. And I think that's the thing, too, with kids. And I'm curious to get your thoughts on that when it comes to report cards and how kids are

graded and how the best. parent kids and teach them the best way to grow up to be people with a growth mindset. Well, I mean, I have to think about grades. You know, grades are kind of a mixed bag. If grades are ought to be a form of feedback. And so grade should be, you know, if you get, if you get a perfect score on a math test, it means that the math test is probably too easy. You should be doing something a little bit more challenging. If you get a poor score on the math test, It doesn't mean you're stupid. It means that you haven't learned that material well enough.

And so instead of moving on, you should make sure you learn that material first. That's the thing that drives me crazy about school is that kids who clearly haven't mastered a set of material, it's like, oh, okay, you haven't mastered it, but we've got to move on. And it's just crazy. Meanwhile, there's a kid who mastered it two weeks ago who's bored out of her mind, and the kid who hasn't mastered it yet who's absolutely frustrated. So we've got to look at grades as a form of feedback. I think unfortunately, especially in a lot of upper middle class, middle class and upper middle class settings, grades are the entire point of the exercise.

Grades are the only reason anybody shows up for school. Grades are what you go to school for. I mean, you're not there to learn anything. You're just there to get grades. Yeah. That's one issue that I was thinking a lot about, and especially once report cards come out, it's like how do you respond? What's the best way to parent? I'm constantly trying to read new things, whether it's Paul Tuft's work.

or other people that could help when it comes to leading children. Because our job, I think, is to open doors and help create opportunities that they can run through, but then also prepare them for life without you and making sure that they're able to stand on their own two feet and make things happen and have the right mindset going into whatever it is that they're going to do with their life. Absolutely. Dan, so I have to just two more questions and I'm really curious. and I've loved this conversation. One of them is what books have most influenced you,

outside of the ones that you've written, what books that have most influenced you? I was deeply influenced by the Avengers of Johnny Bunko. Well, I'm sure you're influenced by the process in putting them together. Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah. As far as books that you've read

that have influenced you that could potentially help others. Okay, so there's so many of them. And again, this goes to one of your earlier questions, Ryan about, it reminds me the earlier question about, you know, you read a book or you go to a seminar or whatever you hear a speech. And I don't think that you should adopt anyone's methodology, point of view approach, whole hog regardless. I think that the key is to do the kind of thing that you do, which is read a lot of stuff, listen to a lot of podcasts, hear a lot of voices, and then pick the pieces that are most valuable to you and fashion it into your own unique

set your own unique approach. You know, I wouldn't say, oh, I'm going to follow, you know, even though, you know, I love Adam Grant, he's a terrific guy, he's a great writer, but I wouldn't say, I'm going to, you know, uniformly follow the theology of Adam Grant, you know, or Daniel Pink or Susan Kane or Bray Brown or, you know, Julie Liffcott Haymes, whoever, I think what you want to do is you want to read stuff and take the pieces that are relevant to you and fashion into your own unique approach. So with that said, I mean, there are a lot of books.

books, or I've gotten some great, you know, whether it's really sort of great insights into the world. And among them would be Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. Oh, yeah. I think that's a book that everybody should read. You know, earlier in my life, I was, you know, even as basically as a teenager, I was deeply influenced by the writings of a guy named Alvin Toffler, who wrote Future Shock and the Third Wave. Those have been really, those have been really important to me. We mentioned Carol Dweck. So she obviously would be in there.

Tom Peters, I think, is a great source for how to write about business in a way that is enlightening and fun and interesting and captivating rather than dull and dreary. Great follow on Twitter, too, Thomas. Yeah, no, he's awesome. I think that, no, he's a hilarious and good-hearted human being who basically is everybody who writes about business today for a popular audience stands on Tom's shoulders. I mean, he's like the reason we're able to do this stuff. I'm a huge fan of a book called The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt, which is about how we do and do not do moral reasoning. I think that Adam Grant's book, Give and Take, is a classic.

Help me think about the world in a different way. On a more tactical level, David Allen's getting things done is really important to me in terms of just my day-to-day. ability to yes get stuff done so you know a lot of great a lot of great folks out there

with a lot of great stuff I love it by the way this just popped up so it wasn't one of my final two though what is next for you though what do you look to do next the next book or

I mean what are you focusing on writing I assume you are but I oh yeah I'm a writer writing is at the center of what I do so pretty soon I'll be sitting here in the office swearing at the computer what is your writing process like? Do you get up early and do it in the morning, late, all day? I mean, what is it like? When I write, when I have a, like, I'm writing a book or writing an article.

Are you writing a book right now? No, not right now. But I'm going to start doing that pretty soon. Okay. What I will do is I will, I'll basically treat it like a brick layer. So when I'm actually like, not in the research phase, but in the writing phase of a book, I will be very rigid, actually. So I will work generally, depending on how behind I am, six or seven days a week. And I will work basically the same schedule every day. And so what I will do is I will come to my office, be in my office by not insanely early, but not late, you know, maybe 8.30. And then I will set myself a word count for the day. So I'll say today generally 500, sometimes 750, so not a massive number of words. I'm a very slow writer and say you are not leaving the seat, you are not turning on your email, you're not answering the phone, you are not doing anything on Twitter.

The only thing you are doing right now is getting out these X number of words, and I will not do anything until I get out those X number of words. Sometimes if I start at 830, I get those X number of words by 11 a.m. Sometimes I don't get them till 1 p.m. Sometimes I don't get them till 4 p.m. Sometimes they don't, some really, really bad days they don't get until 7 p.m. But I won't do anything else until I hit my word count. And then I'll come back and do it the next day. And the thing is, if you do, if you write, say, 600 words a day, every day for 100 days, you got 60,000 words.

Yeah. And that's the first chapter of book. So the process is a little something that Drew Brees and I call moving the chains. I thought you were giving me credit for that. Oh, sorry, something for Wannock and I call Moving the Chains. Okay, good. I'll just pull that out and play it on my website. What's the topic of the next book?

I can't talk about it yet, unfortunately. I don't want to be a jerk about it, but yeah. No, no, no, that's all good. I appreciate it. So final questions about the whole purpose of my show. It's the Learning Leaders Show. As I mentioned to you earlier, I'm fascinated by the art and science of leadership and what goes into it, and the fact that I believe it's a learned

trait or skill meeting even if you're not born with any innate or natural leadership tendencies that you can develop them by working at it, by being a curious, listening human. And I wanted to get your impression. When you first got the email from me or you saw that the title of my show was Learning Leader Show, what was the first thing that popped into your mind when you saw that phrase, learning leader? I think the first thing that popped in my mind was that it could mean different things.

So it could be somebody who is a leader who is learning. It could be somebody who is a leader in the field of learning. It could be both of those at the same time. I actually liked the subtlety and the multiple interpretations of it. Nice. Interesting way to look at it. I appreciate that because it was chosen for a reason, because I've been in leadership positions, and I talked with a friend of my name, Joey Coleman here, is a great public speaker, and he talked to me about being an ambivert, meaning there are a lot of moments in our lives where, and me and him agree on this, we're introverted, but then other moments where we are extroverted, so we're really ambiverts because it depends on the situation and where we are.

And I learned that, you know, obviously from your work, so it's really incredible. But Dan, thank you so much for investing your time with me here. I really appreciate there's so much so much good stuff here. I had really high expectations and you absolutely crushed it. Where can everyone go to find you online? You can go to www.

Danpink.com My website and the best way to follow, find out what I'm doing is sign up my free newsletter or follow me on Twitter at Daniel Pink. Perfect. Again, thanks so much for being here. Dan, I look forward to keep it in touch

as we both progress, excited to see what you do with your next book as well. All right, Ryan. Thanks for having another show. Thanks, Dan. All right, cheers. Bye. 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 Leader. show.