The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 127: Adam Grant – How Originals Impact The World

Starting point is 00:00:00 I don't think we struggle at creativity. I think we struggle at originality because leaders fall apart all the time when it comes to idea selection and knowing which ones are good, which ones are bad, and creating organizations that fight groupthink and welcome dissent and voice was something that was pretty interesting to me. And, you know, in a way, that's like the backdrop of my collaboration with Cheryl is she's the most open-minded leader, the best listener of anybody I've collaborated with. And, you know, there are lots of times when I've said something. offhand that other people would have dismissed or ignored. And she's, you know, no pun intended,

Starting point is 00:00:35 she's leaned in and said, yeah, that's really interesting. Tell me more. 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 everyone, it's Ryan. I wanted to make a quick announcement. A number of you had sent me emails in regards to asking for a place to further this dialogue with like-minded people, other listeners, fans, and friends of the Learning Leader show. So I set up a group on Facebook.

Starting point is 00:01:22 It's Facebook.com slash groups slash learning leader. It's a closed group, but if you'd like an invite, simply shoot me a quick note and I'd be happy to bring you into the group. This is a place where we can freely communicate and discuss leadership, learning, creative ideas, podcasting, and new and innovative ways of thinking a place where we could potentially argue a little bit, have an open mind and have constructive dialogue. I've loved the early response from the people who are already in the group, but simply send me a note. I'll add you to it. I look forward to talking with more of you very soon. Hey, and welcome to the Learning Leaders Show. I am Ryan Hawk, and thank you so much for being here.

Starting point is 00:02:07 really appreciate it. You know, the long-time listeners of the show know that there are probably a handful of leaders that simply stand out above the rest. People that I idolize. And one of those happens to be Adam Grant. His book, Give and Take released in 2013, quite frankly, changed my life. It changed how I view the world, changed how I view success and what it takes to achieve certain levels of it as well as sustain it. And so I've been fortunate to speak with Adam a number of times over the last few years and it's been so interesting to see him kind of beyond this rocket ship to fame as his ideas have spread. He's been Wharton's top rated professor for five years. He's been recognized as one of the world's 25 most influential management thinkers,

Starting point is 00:03:01 bestselling author of two books, as I mentioned give and take, as well as most recently originals, which explores how individuals champion new ideas. We talked about a number of topics during this conversation, a few of them. The common characteristics of original thinkers. I promise his answer will actually surprise some of you, even if you've read his work. And then the worst investing mistake of his life, he'll tell that story, and how to deal with it when takers have success. This is something a lot of us struggle with.

Starting point is 00:03:32 I know, and I personally do. and then the key to delivering a world-class TED Talk. I loved learning his process for putting this together. The number of coaches that he had helped him, the number of drafts that he wrote, the number of times he gave the speech and why it took him quite some time to get it right. Ladies and gentlemen, I could not be more excited than to have this one with Adam Grant. Adam, so excited to have you here on The Learning Leader Show, man.

Starting point is 00:04:10 Thank you so much for being here. I got a question for you that. I routinely ask because it's important to me to hear a lot of different opinions around this. And that's on people who have sustained excellence. And the word sustained is in that phrase on purpose. And that's because I'm not looking for flash in the pan. I'm looking for people who can sustain it over an extended period of time. And you've studied these types of people.

Starting point is 00:04:35 You are one of those types of people. What are some of the common characteristics you found that they all seem to share? Well, I'm not sure that I deserve that, Ryan, but thank you. You know, from studying other people who have been wildly successful and done it again and again, I think the most consistent common attribute is that they're dedicated learners. And I think that what's fascinating about them is no matter how much excellence they achieve, they're always raising the bar. So you see this with a lot of the tech titans.

Starting point is 00:05:09 You know, when I talk to Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg or Larry Page or Jeff Bezos, it's the first thing that you see is the more they accomplish, the more they expect of themselves. And they always have something new. They're excited to learn. And I think if that's your goal, you're always getting better and you're always discovering new insights. It makes me think of, and I was obviously doing a lot of research prior to this conversation, Elizabeth Gilbert said the starting point for creativity is curiosity. And it's one of the readings that you recommend on your TED page. And so I love, you know, curiosity is a big aspect of my whole, this whole project, the Learning Leaders Show.

Starting point is 00:05:50 I mean, 125 plus conversations with incredible leaders from all different spaces. And it's mainly born out of the fact that I'm innately curious. And so I'm curious from your perspective, when you think about creativity and curiosity, how of you, or when it comes to you, how do those relate to what you do and what you've studied? I love that Elizabeth Gilbert quote, and I think it's not an accident that you created a learning leader podcast, Ryan, because you are somebody who embodies this just almost insatiable desire to learn. And I think that curiosity is, I mean, to me, it's the starting point for all originality. When people come up with ideas that are not only different but better, they've, without fail,

Starting point is 00:06:40 they've started by looking at something in their world and saying, why is it that way? Who created it? And does it have to be that way? Is there another way to do it? And if that's your mindset, if that's your orientation toward, you know, the world around you, then you're going to be constantly coming up with ways to challenge the status quo and new inventions and discoveries. You've been on this. It's interesting.

Starting point is 00:07:02 You've been on this meteororic rise. I think I started paying attention to your work when give and take came out a few years ago. And it's been so interesting to see you, you know, I think almost are like, I've seen some of the circles that you even run around it. And you're obviously one of the most modest people I've ever followed. So I know it's going to be really hard for you to talk about yourself and some of the fame that you've achieved. But talk to me a little bit about what your life has been like since, let's say, 2020. to now here we are in 2016 and the effect that two incredible books, a world-class TED talk and a bunch of other things mixed in have had on your life.

Starting point is 00:07:44 Oh, dear. Well, 2012, I was a year past getting tenure. Yeah. And basically felt like I had no excuse to not communicate my ideas to a broader audience. Right, so before tenure, I felt like my responsibility was to contribute knowledge to my field of, you know, organizational psychology, which is like a, you know, a mix of psychology and management. And if I did any communication to anybody else who wasn't in my field, it was my students in the classroom. And then, you know, 2011 comes along, I got tenure. And one of my favorite collaborators, Barry Schwartz, who you might know from his book The Paradox of Choice and hilarious and enlightening TED Talk on.

Starting point is 00:08:32 how too many choices are ruining our lives. Barry and I had worked on a paper together, and he reached out right after I got tenure, and he said, do you want to write a book together? And I was incredibly flattered and excited about the idea, and I went and sat down with the students who were working with me on research and said, I'm so excited, Barry Schwartz wants to write a book together, and they all told me I couldn't do it because I had my own research that I'd been working on, and if I was going to sit down and write for a broader audience, I needed to actually share my own ideas.

Starting point is 00:09:03 And I've always been more passionate about other people's ideas than my own. But I had been doing this whole body of research on givers and takers. And the students actually convinced me that I needed to get that message out there. So I sat down to write the book, give and take. I didn't think anybody would really read it. Really? And between then and now, I feel like I stumbled into this world of people who are having fundamental impact on every industry. And they're hungry for knowledge about how to leave more effectively,

Starting point is 00:09:34 how to build cultures that innovate and that allow people to become more than the sum of their parts. And, you know, I don't know how I ended up stumbling into it, but I feel both a lot of responsibility and incredibly lucky to have the chance to, you know, to share ideas with some of these people. And, you know, it motivates me to look as broadly and as deeply as I can. can for a good insight. Cheryl Sandberg calls you an original. And some of the things you've written about, you've, I think, said that maybe you doubt that a little bit.

Starting point is 00:10:11 I don't know. And so I wanted to ask you that when you, you know, the book originals that you've written for those of you who, for the few people listening who maybe haven't heard you, is obviously a world-class piece of text that I absolutely love. But do you consider yourself an original? No. Really? Why?

Starting point is 00:10:29 Because I study originals. Yeah. So, you know, I think that I don't think that I'm particularly good at being creative. And any... But you're really curious, though, and that's the starting point for creativity, right? Yeah, but I think that when, you know, when I brought insights into the world, my strengths are more about being a synthesizer. Yeah. Than a discoverer.

Starting point is 00:10:56 Yeah. So, you know, I guess I guess what that means for me is, like, I, I read a lot and, you know, I've done a lot of research in my own. And what always jumps out at me is there are patterns, right? There are connections between, you know, all the different things that I'm looking at. And I think what I've tried to bring to the table is, like, seeing the forest in the trees and helping people come up with frameworks to organize, you know, the insights that are out there and, you know, trying to bring the highest quality, evidence to the table. And I will say, I mean, a lot of originality is about being a nonconformist. And I've always been somebody who's more comfortable with conformity. But since getting tenure and, you know, sharing ideas more broadly, I think I've become more of a nonconformist.

Starting point is 00:11:42 And it's meant that, you know, sometimes I am going against the grain and I'm being contrarian. Is that original? It's not my place to judge. I'll leave it up to others. It's, I think when I read that at the beginning, when she wrote that, the great forward of your book, I liked it. I thought she did a great job, and it's interesting. How you and Cheryl develop such a great relationship over the last few years? Well, she's the most extraordinary leader I've ever worked with. And I think, you know, a lot of that relationship is me being fascinated by things that she does and saying, we should write about this. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:12:19 And then her for some reason saying, yeah, we should write about that. But immediately wanting to take the spotlight off of her and, you know, her saying, you know, let's bring the data. We met actually because Lean and Give and Take came out within about a month of each other. And we spoke at some common events. And she asked me a bunch of questions about, you know, had I analyzed my data through gender. And I hadn't done a whole lot of that, naively thinking that this is the 21st century. century, right? Like, we evaluate people on their contributions, not on their gender. And I had a long flight back to the East Coast after one of these conversations and reanalyzed a decade of my own data and was deeply disturbed by what I found that, you know, when women were stuck with most of the office housework, the planning meetings, organizing events, taking notes. They also did most of the giving and helping that was the most valuable, but the least visible. So they tended to do the lion's share of the mentoring, the problem solving one-on-one behind the scenes. And in the domain of originals, when a man brought a new idea to the table, people tended to celebrate it.

Starting point is 00:13:26 And they would say, wow, you're so creative. When a woman brought the same idea, either it was barely heard or she was judged as too aggressive. And that really got me interested in understanding how can we do a better job getting ideas heard? Because, look, we have tons of new ideas in organizations. Right? Every leader has access to many, many novel insights. And I don't think we struggle at creativity. I think we struggle at originality because leaders fall apart all the time when it comes to idea selection and knowing which ones are good, which ones are bad, and creating organizations that fight groupthink and welcome dissent and voice was something that was pretty interesting to me. And, you know, in a way, that's like the backdrop of my collaboration with Cheryl is she's the most open-minded leader, the best listener. of anybody I've collaborated with. And, you know, there are lots of times when I've said something offhand that other people would have dismissed or ignored.

Starting point is 00:14:23 And she's, you know, no pun intended, she's leaned in and said, yeah, that's really interesting. Tell me more. And, you know, do you have data to back that up? Do you have, you know, like, do you have examples of where you've seen that happen? I think that curiosity that she brings to the table has led us to lots of new insights together. I love it, man. It's an awesome partnership. it comes to some of the work you guys have produced, shifting gears a little bit from an interesting

Starting point is 00:14:51 story. I love to hear, and I'll tell you why I'm asking about this, because I think I think you've talked about it a few times, but a lot of the emails that I get Adam from listeners come from people who have ideas, but might be risk averse. And so they're scared and they have doubts, and And originals do have doubts and they are scared. And the guys at Warby Parker came to you with an opportunity to invest prior to them launching their company. And I want you to share the worst investing mistake of your life, as you've put it. And why specifically you didn't invest in them and why it was a mistake? Because I'm thinking specifically of that listener who emails me saying,

Starting point is 00:15:37 I have this idea, but I'm a little bit scared, and I don't necessarily want to just burn the boats, so to speak. Yeah, well, you know, it's funny. I had this amazing opportunity. Very first class I'm teaching at Wharton, the student Neil comes to me and he says, I want to sell glasses online and invites me to have some dialogue and then do you want to invest in the company? And I expected that if you're going to be a successful entrepreneur, you should drop out of school. but Neil and his co-founders are all still in school. And then instead of working on the business full-time, three of the four of them have taken summer internships,

Starting point is 00:16:14 you know, really hedging their bets. They don't want to take too many risks. And then, you know, I asked them if they're going to go in full-time when they graduate and they say, no, we've all lined up backup jobs just in case this doesn't work out. And I'm like, all right, you guys are not serious. So I declined the investment. And, of course, they've gone on to be valued at over a billion dollars.

Starting point is 00:16:36 and it just got named last year as the world's most innovative company by Fast Company, which is why my wife handles all of our investments now. So why? Yeah, go ahead. Why not? Well, I think that, you know, this stereotype that to be a successful entrepreneur, to do anything original, you have to be a huge risk taker. That's a myth. What you see is the biggest risk takers, yeah, a lot of them are entrepreneurs and doing creative things, but they're not the successful ones.

Starting point is 00:17:03 My favorite example of this is, if you look at the data on this, there's a fantastic study that came out last year looking at entrepreneurs of two kinds. So the risk takers are the ones who, they have a big idea, they quit their jobs, and they do go all in. The people who are more cautious, like me and like the Warby Parker guys, they're like, I don't know if this is going to work out. So I'm going to hang on to my day job, and I'm just going to start this company as a hobby on the side and see what happens.

Starting point is 00:17:32 It turns out if you follow those entrepreneurs for over a decade, that second group is 33% less likely to fail. And that's exactly what happened with the Warby Parker founders, is all of the risk aversion that they brought to the table meant that they were constantly testing and iterating ideas instead of putting all their eggs in one basket. So in one case, for example, they kept telling people, we want to sell glasses online, and people said, that's crazy. You have to go into a store and try them on. You want to see if they fit, how they look, how they feel. And eventually they realized, well, we want to do a home try-on program free like Zappos. And a risk taker would have just said, let's do it. The Warby founder said, no, this is actually something we have to be careful about

Starting point is 00:18:17 because we have to custom-make glasses for every single customer. And if we make you, you know, you need glasses and then you send them back, we've lost a lot of money and we can't resell those. And the more time they spent debating this and thinking about it, they more than they realized that that was too much of a risk to take. And they said, aha, here's what we can do. The only thing that's custom, really, is the lenses. So what if we do a free home try-on program just with the frames?

Starting point is 00:18:43 And that way you can try them on, you can see how they feel, you can see how they look, and we can reuse those frames with other customers. And that way we don't have to make any investment in the lenses. And that turned out to be a huge part of why their company took off. I think that's an inspiring story for people who have thoughts and who are cautious and they think I got to, you know, I just have to give it all up and go for it. And you hear that's kind of popular out there now. I talk to Todd Wagner on this podcast. She's Mark Cuban's business partner.

Starting point is 00:19:12 They started Broadcast.com sold it for billions of dollars. And that was his advice. He said, if you got an idea, you've got to just go all in, you've got to burn the boats, was the phrase that was used. That's why I used that with you previously. And so I have to tell you, Adam, when I saw your research, I've heard you speak about it, it made me feel good. It made me feel better about, I think, having ideas and being a creative, but also being a little bit cautious and being conservative in the approach. I also think when the focus is on, if you have a backup plan as far as money is concerned, and so your only focus is on producing and providing a great piece of content or a great product, you're in a much more healthier place as a business leader when you don't have to initially think

Starting point is 00:20:01 all about money and just keeping the lights on. I think that's so true. And I found it very reassuring as well. It's somebody who is so risk averse that I chose the one career where no one could ever fire me. What I find fascinating about this is most of the highly original people that I've interviewed and studied and observed, they think about risk like a stockport. where if you were going to make an investment in a really risky stock, you would then take a bunch of money and put it in some very boring mutual funds to make sure that nothing horrible happened to your entire portfolio. And a lot of great entrepreneurs think about risk the exact same way.

Starting point is 00:20:40 So, you know, take Marcus Person who, you know, worked on creating all kinds of different video games and most of them didn't go anywhere. So, you know, he hung on to his day job and made sure that he had a stable income. and eventually he puts a game up half finished and people start to like it and they kind of tinker with it and it becomes Minecraft. He hung under that job for almost a year before he walked away to make sure that Minecraft was really something worth betting on. And you see this over and over again.

Starting point is 00:21:14 Sarah Blakely sold fax machines for more than two years by day while coming up with Spanx. And then eventually becomes the world's youngest self-made billionaire and I think it's so encouraging to all of us, you know, who are afraid to make that leap. You actually don't have to, right? You can start these things on the side and then see if they gain any esteem. Yeah, I want to bounce around a little bit because I have so many ideas and thoughts when it comes to your work. And one of the specific ones, I get asked this a lot because the book that I gift the most is give and take.

Starting point is 00:21:44 When people, when I think I see anyone, especially when I mentor somebody, that's a book I immediately will give them and I just want to have a conversation around it because it quite frankly it changed my life when I view how I view the world I used to think it was a cutthroat and I needed to step on others in order to get to the top so to speak and that's such a terrible way to think and so that's why I have to first thank you for for putting that book out and secondly one of the questions I get from a mentee after they've read that book or they've read parts of it and this is something I struggle with and I don't know how to answer the question so I thought why as well ask the guy who wrote it and that is when you're when let's say you work in a company or it doesn't really matter where you work and you see a taker

Starting point is 00:22:29 having success because they're great at kissing up and kicking down and you don't really know how to handle it and I know I'm big on only you know measuring myself first my previous self and not thinking about others but it's really hard and I'm curious from your perspective when you see a taker having success like how do you deal with that how do you what do you you think about that? What's the way it's that it doesn't just make you stew and sit there and get upset? Oh, I've had so many conversations about this question, and I'm not sure I have a good answer to it, Ryan, but I'll tell you what I hear most consistently and what I've found personally useful, because to my knowledge, there's no good evidence about this.

Starting point is 00:23:14 The first thing is, you know, a lot of people, especially leaders who are more senior in their careers. What I've heard them say often is, you know, I used to be upset when I saw that happen, and now I just feel sorry for them. Bob Sutton, who's written a lot about this book, or excuse me, this idea in his, you probably know him from a number of his books, my favorite one being the no-a-hole rule, which he spells out. And Bob has just said, look, like, you might have achieved some career success, but you're a loser in life. And, you know, you. You know, if somebody just walks around, like, being, you know, totally selfish jerk, nobody wants to spend time with them.

Starting point is 00:23:54 Nobody likes them. They have kind of tragic relationships and, you know, very little meaning in their lives. And, you know, that's just kind of sad. And you see a lot of leaders progress to that view over time. Another response that I've occasionally found to be intriguing is every once in a while, I will just get an just outrageously bold request from a little. total stranger. Like, you know, somebody I've never met emails me and says, I need you to introduce me to Cheryl Sandberg. I'm like, first of all, like, I am not going to take from

Starting point is 00:24:28 Cheryl to give to somebody I've never met. Secondly, you know, there are lots of other people who are probably in a position to help you, and you should have thought a little bit more about who you should be asking for an introduction to. And, you know, every once in a while, like, I will come back with that feedback, and then they'll keep pushing over and over again. And I realize, okay, this person is just a complete taker. And so I come back and actually will be tempted to introduce them to another taker. Knowing that either they'll get a taste of their own medicine or, you know, maybe they'll start to see their reflection in that mirror and not like the person staring back at them.

Starting point is 00:25:06 And the hope is that that's some impetus for change. But the sick of taker on a taker strategy, you know, I think because takers see the world to zero sum, it's a great way to fight fire with fire. Do they realize that you've done that after the fact, or how does that work? Sometimes. Sometimes they do, but in other cases, you know, they just, they disappear, and I have no idea what has happened. Interesting advice, because it's something I think is a, it's not a daily struggle, but it comes up from now and again. And so I appreciate your advice.

Starting point is 00:25:39 Another really February of this year, 2016, you gave just a world-class TED Talk, going back to a And the message, you know, we've discussed some of the message of that talk. What I love to learn about, and this might be selfishly, I don't know, but I also get notes about this too, is when it comes to the preparation of giving what is a, I think, transformational speech, a speech that could influence and impact so many people. What was your prep work like, I'm obviously, you wrote the book, but your prep work for getting on the actual TED stage. It's not a TEDx talk.

Starting point is 00:26:13 It's the TED stage, the once-of-year conference. to get ready to deliver that and then go and absolutely just crush it. You're overly complimentary, Ryan, which is the sign of a serious giver, if I've ever seen one. I was just glad that there was no major disaster that happened on the stage. I, you know, look, I got the invitation over the summer. The talk was going to be in February. I basically woke up the next morning in a cold sweat that I hadn't finished it yet. Because you're a pre-crastinator, right?

Starting point is 00:26:45 Totally. Yeah. You know, like I have always done things that were important to me ahead of schedule. And like, I knew that this weight would be on my shoulders if I didn't have it, like, something that I was proud of and, you know, eager to deliver on stage ready in advance. But I could not get it right. And I just, I worked on, you know, different drafts over the course of several months. I gave, like, my first practice talk in front of a real audience in November. And I hated every word of it.

Starting point is 00:27:13 I threw out the draft, went back to the drawing board. Then Tim Urban and I did a practice talk. We just gave our talks together in December, and I couldn't stand that talk either, went back to the drawing board again. And finally, I realized I had to take some of my own advice seriously and start procrastinating and give myself a chance for ideas to incubate. And the funny thing was, I had an agreement with Ted that I wouldn't give, my TED talk anywhere else because the book tour started a couple weeks before I would be on the

Starting point is 00:27:47 TED stage. And that meant that I had to test out lots of new material. And it was in the process of trying to write other talks that I finally discovered what I was going to write my TED talk about. And it really only crystallized about a week before I was on stage. And I think, you know, it was comforting to know that, like, Martin Luther King, Jr., didn't finalize his, I have a dream speech until, like, not even like the near all-nighter he pulled the night before, but the seconds before he was walking onto stage, and that Abraham Lincoln wrote half of the Gettysburg address basically the day before,

Starting point is 00:28:23 it's like, okay, if those epic speeches were written at the last minute, I can have some flexibility too. But I really think being open to revised was the most important thing that made my speech less awful than it would have been. Did you have a coach? I actually had several coaches. So I'd worked with a speaking coach the year before Dylan Chalmers,

Starting point is 00:28:43 Alfie, who gave me a ton of excellent advice. And then Ted connected me with two of their coaches, Abigail Tenenbaum and Michael White's, who, you know, just they, we actually did these, like, these Google Hangouts where I would give practice talks and they would watch and then we'd discuss. And I, you know, the process was, was often frustrating because I would give the talk and know while I was giving it that it wasn't the right talk.

Starting point is 00:29:09 But they really pushed me to have the discipline to keep going through it so that, you know, we didn't lose, like, any little nuggets that might come out in minute 17, even though I didn't like the first 16 minutes. And the most valuable thing that I learned from them was they said, look, draw a two-by-two. And anyone who's a consultant just loves two-by-toes. So I said, what do you mean? And they said, well, one axis is, you know, abstract versus concrete. You know, how much do you, you know, do you gravitate toward really specific examples that you can taste and touch?

Starting point is 00:29:43 versus, you know, more sort of ethereal ideas and concepts. And then the second axis is logical to emotional. How much do you resonate with facts versus feelings? And they basically, they drew the two by two, and they were like, Adam, one thing you should know is you are like off the charts on the logical and the abstract and the way you keep giving this talk. And if you look at the other talks you give that have gotten, you know, good reception, you do, you know, you do a great job telling stories. that, you know, that speak, like they tug at the heartstrings. They're not just all data points. And they also, like, you know, you bring the data to life by creating these characters. You know, like you give us examples of givers and takers. And they said, I want you to try to channel that

Starting point is 00:30:29 in, you know, in your talk on originals. And drawing that two by two has really changed the way that I think about creating a speech because I know that different audience members are going to be in different quadrants, right? Some will be, you know, that's sort of the opposite of my instinct. you know, they'll be concrete emotional. But you can fill out all four of those cells. And I want to make sure that I have some content to speak to each of them. And that ultimately was what got me to the talk that I felt comfortable giving. Really interesting.

Starting point is 00:30:56 I asked that because I think I think of even the best performers in the world need somebody to help them from a mentor perspective, from a coaching perspective, to give you critical feedback. I have a hard time believing, though, that like those speeches you hated, Did your coaches really dislike them as well, or was it just you being extremely self-critical? Oh, no. They were, I mean, they were not bad. They were so bad.

Starting point is 00:31:21 Come on. That they destroyed all of the recordings. Are you serious? Yeah, my literary agent, Richard Pine, suffered through probably more practice talks than anyone. And he came up to me after one of them, he was like, Adam, you know that, you know, I'm a big fan of yours. and I know that you're going to give a great talk, this is not the talk. Wow. That's hard to believe.

Starting point is 00:31:49 But you did scrap the first draft of give and take. Is that correct? Yeah, I threw out all 1002,000 words. Okay. So, I mean, I remember that. I'm like, I would love to see those 100,000 words too, because the writing that you put out, I think there's millions of people who love to read every aspect of it. I know we're getting here short on time.

Starting point is 00:32:10 I really appreciate it. I just have another question. I'd love to do this again at some point here in the future if we can, if we can fit it into schedules with you especially. But when you hear the phrase learning leader, what's the first thing that you think of? I think of someone who cares more about getting better than showing others how good they are.

Starting point is 00:32:32 And, you know, that means basically whatever progress I want to make is more important to me than protecting my fragile ego. I love it, man. Thank you so much. Adam, Grant, I appreciate the work that you put out in the world and the impact that you're having on so many people. And certainly on me, life-changing material. And I mean that genuinely. So thank you so much for being here.

Starting point is 00:32:53 It's a thrill to talk to you. Oh, right. No, no, no, no. You are not getting away with that as the closing. I get to turn this around on you and ask you a question. Oh, God. You are somebody who, you know, who lives the giver values. You also have this, you know, tremendous passion for learning.

Starting point is 00:33:10 When you think about all the people you've interviewed and had a chance to learn from, what do you think is the thing that stuck with you most about how to stay in a mindset of focusing on others and being willing to recognize your own mistakes? Wow, what a question. You know, I think back to, I'm going to reference somebody because I think a lot of what I talk about are things that I've learned from other people. people. And it's actually someone that you know very well, uh, cat Cole. And this is, this has stayed with me since she told me this, but I think great leaders in the way to, I think potentially have an impact on the world or to, to have courage and confidence mixed with curiosity and humility because ego can be a really dangerous thing. Ryan Holiday says ego is

Starting point is 00:34:01 the enemy. So I think those are the, I think the, I don't know if you call them your values, but that's what I tried to live by. And somebody recently, I just gave a talk a couple of days ago, they asked me, what do you want to be known for? And I said, I want to be known, and this is kind of simplistic, but I would rather, I want to be known for, or if somebody said something about me, I'd like for them to say, you know, that guy, he actually, I noticed he treated the janitor the exact same way that he treated the CEO. And if that's all they say about me, I'm very happy.

Starting point is 00:34:27 I'm happy if that's what people say about you. That's, I think, can impact a lot of people. So I appreciate the question. I think we could probably talk about it for an hour, but courage and confidence, curiosity, and humility, and just being a good person. and treating the janitor just like you would treat the CEO because the one the one person in the world adam who I despise more than anything are people who kiss up and kick down and I've said that in talks to people have heard me say that I can't stand those types of people it bothers me and

Starting point is 00:34:56 that's why I asked you that question earlier in this conversation because I want to I want to do a better job myself of handling those situations when I see people who kiss up and kick down have success because I still struggle with it and I'm trying to get better, man. That's what it's all about. Well, you, I mean, you completely, you live the opposite of that, right? Try to. I've watched you. You engage with everybody the same way, which I think is admirable.

Starting point is 00:35:25 And Cat Cole is a rock star. She's awesome. One of the most insightful and wise and generous people I've ever met. And I think that you couldn't have picked a better person, so I'd love that answer. Can you talk her into running for president someday? I'm dead serious. I said that to her when we were talking. I would love for her to be the lead our country.

Starting point is 00:35:43 I think if anybody could, she'd be a great one. You know, I think there are many, many people who share that view. And who knows? We'll see if we can persuade her. Yeah, man, that would be cool. Adam, thanks again for being here, man. I really appreciate it. I look forward to – I definitely want to have this – have this one again because I love talking to you, man.

Starting point is 00:36:02 It's awesome. Pleasure was all mine, Ryan. Thanks for having me and thanks for helping to share such important ideas with a big audience. Appreciate it. Thanks, Adam. 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.

Starting point is 00:36:34 Thanks again, and we'll see you. you next time on The Learning Leader Show.

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 127: Adam Grant – How Originals Impact The World

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