The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 334: Yancey Strickler - Using The Power Of Metaphors (This Could Be Our Future)

Episode Date: October 20, 2019

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk #334 Yancey Strickler Text Learners to 44222 Full show notes can be found at www.LearningLeader.com Yancey Strickler is a writer and entrepreneur. He is the cofounder and former CEO of Kickstarter and author of This Could Be Our Future: A Manifesto for a More Generous World.Yancey has been recognized as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum and one of Fast Company's Most Creative People. He's spoken at the Museum of Modern Art, Sundance and Tribeca Film Festivals, Web Summit, and events around the globe.  Notes: Commonalities of leaders who sustain excellence: Selflessness - "You have to get over yourself first" Have strength to know what's important Flexible It requires more time living into the minds of other people - "Not necessarily compassion, but 'what's going on with them?'" Curiosity - A desire to know more Amazon thinks 'customer maximization' - thinking in the best interest of the customer How to get hired for the next management role? Spend 1 hour a day with your current team -- Learn from them.  What's really going on? Be the "go to" person for important objectives What was Day 1 as the CEO of KickStarter like? "I remember the new fancy office... I needed to set proper expectations." "People need to know how to make decisions" "The weight I felt as a new CEO was very high" The "on-me-ness was so high" - A huge responsibility that was felt The skill of "sandwiching ideas" -- Using metaphors to put together different ideas Japanese cuisine "Hara Hachi Bu: stop eating when you're 80% full so that you're still hungry for tomorrow." We shouldn't overfull ourselves because there is always something to learn tomorrow "My brain is really good at storing and making connections." "As a CEO/Leader, you need to be able to speak in metaphors to bring more oxygen to the situation..." How can we all do this? Read --> Write it down --> Take notes of something interesting "Metaphors are powerful." The power of story --> science --> application During his time at KickStarter, they grew from 70 employees to 155 in just a few years... What did Yancey look for in candidates? Selflessness, servant mindset "When they shared accomplishments, did they use 'we' or 'I'?  We like the people who use 'we'" Mission driven Honest Not afraid to share bad news "Whenever I found myself having to talk myself into something and overlook a red flag, I often found that was a mistake." Why did he leave KickStarter? "I got tired, it took the energy out of me.  It was my identity for a decade..." Had a rough 360 review (full review of people above, beside, and below him in the organization) "One morning, I got to the door to leave my house, and I could not do it.  I broke down crying to my wife and said, 'I don't want to be a CEO today.'" Why writing is so beneficial: Forces clarity of thought "It forces you to accept rejection and just roll." Why write a manifesto(the book)? "I gave a talk, had it transcribed, put it online, and it went viral." When deciding to work for himself: "I need to treat myself as if I'm a company." -- How to properly plan and strategize as a solo entrepreneur "I wrote down five options... One of them was writing a book.  I chose that option." A publisher said to Yancey, "You don't need to hide. Your book is good enough without all the fancy artwork." Going against the grain: "I'm challenging the dominant ethos of our time." Bentoism - A balanced view of what's in our rational self-interest as inspired by the layout of a Japanese lunchbox. Now me, future me, now us, future us.  The four quadrants... Do you want do this in a small group with Yancey? Email me How Adele did this? She used an algorithm to measure how loyal a fan was.  She used that information to help them get tickets at a decent price instead of the extraordinary prices on the secondary market. This is both emotional and rational.  It's possible to be done for all of us. Life advice: Yancey originally felt like a failure because he didn't identify with what the magazine covers were telling him: He didn't feel the urge to want to crush his competitors.  It's hard to be aware of the water you swim in... Have awareness... Be curious, read a lot. Have a plan... An idea of where to go.  Understand new values. Use the "Get To Know You Document" Why joining The Learning Leader Circle is a good idea

Learning to own yourself and eventually eventually I came to realize that I just needed to make friends with my fear I needed to befriend the pressure I shouldn't run from those I needed to embrace those because Those were also good things for me like I can see how fear produces excitement how pressure how like my My best moments my favorite moments as CEO were crisis moments You know that that pressure brings out such clarity and like I am exceptional in those moments the mundane is that like harder can be harder. Because then you don't know what to do.

When there's a crisis, you know that something needs to be solved, and it's about digging deep enough to get to the real problem. We are opening up applications for our next learning leader circle. We only do this once per year. And think back to the great conversation I had with the legendary Jim Collins, episode 216. He said, Ryan, before you get too caught up in the why, in the what? You need to first be very intentional about your,

Who? Who will be your friends? Who will be your mentor? Who will you help? Who will you choose to surround yourself with? That will be the single greatest determining factor in your long-term success. And I would ask you the same question. Who are you surrounding yourself with? Do you want to be surrounded by growth-oriented leaders that are willing to push you? We've added specific curriculum and elements so that by the end of the year you'll have tangible outcomes to measure your growth and be a more effective leader both personally and professionally. These groups are intentionally curated and kept small. Time and again, the thing that people say they love about these groups is the relationships they're able to build with one another in a short

period of time. If you'd like to apply, go to learning leader circle.com. That's learningleater circle.com to apply. Welcome to the Learning Leaders Show presented by Brixie and Meyer. I am Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 44222 in order to join tens of thousands of learning leaders from all over the world. Receive mindful Monday updates, what I'm reading, writing, watching, thinking about.

Also give you the opportunity to be part of my book launch team. Text learners to 44222. Now on tonight's featured leader, the great and thoughtful Yancey Strickler. He's a writer and entrepreneur, co-founder and former CEO of Kickstarter. He's been recognized as a young global leader by the World Economic Forum and one of fast company's most creative people, also author of a great new book titled This Could Be Our Future, A Manifesto for a More Generous World. A few of the topics we discussed.

What is bentoism? And Yanchi shares why this framework. will help you. And then as the CEO, he shared the unique way he chose to hire leaders and the qualities he looked for and how you could develop them. And then how was he able to use storytelling and metaphors as a sandwich, as Jancy calls it, to inspire people? And more importantly, how can you do this as well? Ladies and gentlemen, this one is so useful with Yancey Strickler. All right, Yancey Strickler, man. So good to have you here. the Learning Leader Show. Welcome.

Yeah, thanks, Ryan. I mentioned to you before we started recording, I was really looking forward to this one as I dug into your book. I'm a big fan of Kickstarter. I've certainly backed my fair share of projects. And so there's a lot to get to, but to get us going, you know I'm fascinated by leaders who sustain excellence. And I'm curious to think about the ones in your life,

because you've lived an incredible life so far. It's still a relatively young age, and you surround yourself with others who have done a fantastic job of sustaining excellence. And from your perspective, what do you found that those leaders all seem to have in common? It's a great question. And one, as I use you ask it, I should have spent years always studying this, trying to figure this out. But the word that comes to mind is selflessness. And I first think of a couple people in my life.

I think of Greg Popovich, the coach of the Spurs. I'm a huge NBA fan. And Pop is, you know, there's a selflessness there. There's a famous line that to play for the Spurs, you have to get over yourself first before he'll consider you. But yeah, I mean, I think the right kind of leaders are able to, like they have the strength to hold on tight to a vision or a goal or they have a strong sense of what's important. And then they just have incredible flexibility everywhere else. You know, you have a sense of like what other people need and you're willing to move. to meet that, you know how to anticipate that, you know how to ask questions.

It just requires spending more time living in the minds of other people than I think yourself while still like, you know, having that strong kind of self-coherence that lets you know what the right direction is. But, you know, the leaders that have been the worst leaders I've experienced in my life are people that are just the job as a reflection of them, everything is about them, you know, that it doesn't take long for you as an employee or a peer just to learn that like how irrelevant you kind of are to that person. So that sense of, you know, because it's interesting because as a leader, you need to have that strength. You need to be able to command respect. You need to be someone

that people look to. But at the same time, you have to use that power to mirror back what's around you. That is that. That's what succeeds. Yeah, that's an interesting balance. And I think I'm curious about how to develop that. Is that innate or have you, I wonder about your evolution. You know, you're a CEO of a wildly successful company Kickstarter and there's a lot to your story. But as I think about that for the person who may be a little, that's listening that is currently leading a team, let's say they're a mid-level manager within a big company and they think, wait a second, Yancey brings up a good point. I don't know if I've been showing enough compassion. for the people on my team or understanding how to meet them.

I think it's understanding more than compassion because it's not just about like giving love. It's just about like what's going on with them. Yeah. It's a weird way to go about this, but like part of the brilliance of Amazon and the reason why it's, you know, run a lot of retail out of business other than being monopoly. But another reason for that is that Amazon makes decisions thinking about this customer maximization idea. So they're thinking Amazon's thought process is what is in our self-interest is what's in the self-interest of a customer. So by us maximizing for someone else's desires, that actually will produce the best outcome for us. And I think as a manager, it's similar.

Now, that can lead you to like a death by a thousand cuts of just like listening to a million complaints about what's in the cafeteria and whatever, you know, whatever mundane things aren't that important. but on a daily basis, if you know where your team is, if you know how to check the temperature, and if you have that curiosity, it's a huge advantage. So I think that some people naturally are more curious about others. Some people are more pro-social, more inclined to think that way. Interestingly, I think those are people that maybe have a harder time getting into management because they're maybe not advocating for themselves as strongly as they could. As may perhaps ambitious enough?

Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, but these are people that probably have such a high level of self-awareness to know their faults that they question, oh, should I really be the leader? Whereas the person next to them who's too dumb or, you know, not self-aware enough to look at their own faults is like, well, of course I should do it. How do we fix that? Like, how do we put that into practice? Let's say somebody's listening as an SVP at a big company and they make hiring decisions for leadership roles. And, you know, I grew up in the profession of selling and what, what? got me in the room to interview for management roles, as you could probably guess, as they took the stack rankings, and they said, all right, we're going to interview the five

people at the top for this management job. Now, I like to think that I could fulfill and did a good job as a leader, even though I made a million mistakes along the way. But that's not necessarily the best way to choose managers is just to look at the top of the top performers and say, well, because they were good here, they will be good at this. completely different skill set of a job. So how do you manage that? Well, if you are, if you're already in that management position and you're looking to have more of this, I think it's a daily habit. I think it's, you know, it's putting on your calendar an hour a day that's,

you know, could be one-on-one conversations with your team. It could be you're going to go deep into whatever customer surveys came back to let you know about who you're serving. But I think it's setting aside an hour a day where you're just imagining like this is, you know, I want to be a sponge and I want to soak up what everyone blowing around me is thinking about. And, and just like that's a key part of my job. You know, I think those sorts of daily, daily habits, just if it's on your calendar, but something you have to do, you'll do it. For someone that, like, if you're trying to find who on your team has that skill set, like rather than going to the person who talks the most in the meetings and saying that should be our leader, but instead asking another way,

That's a great question. I would imagine the team might know. The team itself might, if you ask them who should be the leader, they still might not call out that right person. But they also probably know if you ask them, hey, when you're having an issue and you don't want to a manager, who do you go to? And if like more than 40% of people say the same person, it's like that, maybe that should be your leader. But those are people are great because just the ego, you know, the ego can serve the mission, can serve the team. but at the same time their energy is going into just like just just being an amplifier for other people. Yeah.

And I think for that person who wants to get to that role, being known as the person that people go to for help and being willing to offer that help to serve others is a great way to, to what I would say get earned respect and earned leadership, not leadership by position. We all know positional leaders, right? the people who were placed in big time roles yet, they hadn't necessarily earned respect and didn't take the time to do it. And so this is a way you could do it from within. Yeah, totally. I mean, I think promoting from within just provides huge dividends,

but it requires you having a healthy organization to start with. You could also just end up further replicating whatever your foibles already are. But it's, you know, I've had, you know, I've hired and developed so many leaders. over my career and have made a lot of bad hiring decisions, which is like extraordinarily painful for everybody, for everybody, you know, because it's like, if you hire a bad fit, it's not that that person is like the worst person. It's just like we didn't, there's something wrong with how we each conceptualize what this outcome was going to be. And ultimately, if I'm the one making

that decision, like, that's, that's on me, you know, so I've had to learn from those things. But yeah, it's, you know, especially as a CEO, like I had years where I feel like, you know, 30 to 40 percent of my job was just recruiting executives and just having a lot of, a lot of dinners, a lot of dinners just trying to sniffing for the right kind of person. So how many, so what, how many employees did you have ultimately within your organization as a CEO of Kickstarter? Yes, I was CEO from 2014 to 2017, late 2017. And when I left, it was like 155 people. When I started as CEO, I think it was 70. Wow. And so it was, I mean, it was crazy.

It was like my first day as, I mean, I've been there from the beginning, run the company with, you're co-founder. Yeah, your co-founder. Yeah. But then my first day as CEO is our first day in like our fancy new office, which was like so much bigger than the size of the team we had. And it was just a real, a real moment of like you swallow hard. and just realize how much things are about to change.

And so, you know, I was, I was leading through the quote-unquote, like, professionalization of the organization where you go from a family where everything just works because that's how it works and you so all know each other to operations become more complicated. That increasingly breaks down. And then you have to implement systems and structure and you have to make some sense of things, which is like for me, for me as someone who did a dream of being an entrepreneur, when I discovered I was good at working in companies as I had an earlier job. Like I felt weird about it because I wanted to be a creative person.

I didn't want to be like a good guy in a meeting. I wanted, you know, I wanted to be more rock and roll than that. Your backgrounds in music, right? My background's in music. So yeah, so I felt like a little bit of a sellout being good and, you know, whatever, inside a room with a whiteboard. It's silly. It's silly now.

I could see it. At the time, it was hard to deal with. But, you know, but it was also, you could very easily look around the organization and see where very good people were struggling to know what was expected of them, where too many decisions were having to go up, go up the chain and like reach me. And like every time a decision reaches a CEO, you know, you could argue that's a little bit of a failure of the organization to like, people should know how to, we should inform people how to make these kinds of decisions. So it's that process of growing and then discovering what systems no longer work and then trying to build new ones, but try not to build systems that are too oppressive where it sucks to work there. And, you know, it's a gnarly,

a gnarly part of the process that during, there were moments of it that I thought we were like, I was doing great. There are moments of it where I'm like, oh my God. Like, what, what's going on? How did you feel, so we'll take us back. You move into the new fancy office. It's too big for you, but you're planning to grow into it, obviously. And I'm always curious because there are people who are either going for a promotion have just been promoted and now they have much more responsibility than they used to. And these people are listening right now in their car, they're working out and they're saying, I'm scared, but I don't want to admit it.

I don't want to tell anybody. How did Yancey feel when he became the CEO? I know you co-found it, so it's a little bit different because you were there from the very beginning. But still, there's a different responsibility from when you now go from a founder to it. So what was the feeling going on? And I guess I'm slightly hoping you're going to help make these people feel a little bit better. Yeah. I mean, it took kind of years to really wrap my arms around it.

Really? I mean, well, in a way that like... How were you scared? Well, it's just more like just, just I felt like I had to, and I'd always felt this kind of weight as a founder. the weight of the responsibility of everything. But the weight that I felt as CEO was, was bigger than I expected. Like, I thought I was ready for that. And I think I was in a lot of ways, but also like the, the on-meanus of it. The what? I'm sorry? The on-me-ness. I'm making up a phrase, but just like how it was. It's on your shoulders. Yeah. Gotcha, gotcha. Just like that.

The feeling of that exceeded what I anticipated. And I first tried to hide that feeling. I mean, I, like, talk to my co-founders about it. You know, I was, like, real with them, but in general, I just tried to hide it. Yeah. And I write about this in the book, but eventually, you know, I came to accept these parts of me that had that were, like, still learning and tried to see that as a positive thing. And, you know, just try, just learn to own it and just understand that, you know, I'm, whatever, at the time, I'm 36 years old. I'm, like, a music critic who has in this thing. Like, what am I expecting? Like, do I really want to go back and redo my life so I feel differently now? Or do I accept that like part of what makes me unusual for a job

like this is also a strength and I should, you know, so there's just a lot of like learning to own yourself. And eventually, eventually I came to realize that I just needed to make friends with my fear. I needed to befriend the pressure. I shouldn't run from those. I needed to embrace those because those were also good things for me. Like I can see how fear produces excitement, how pressure how like my my best moments, my favorite moments as CEO were crisis moments. You know, that pressure brings out such clarity and like I am exceptional in those moments. The mundane is like harder, can be harder. Because then you don't know what to do.

When there's a crisis, you know that something needs to be solved and it's about digging deep enough to get to the real problem. And I'm really good at digging in problems. I'm really good at like really trying to think through of what's at the core of this. Where does that come from? talked at the core. Where have you developed that? Is that innate or have you developed that somehow? I think it's innate. It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, I read all the time. I'm just, I'm just, I'm just super curious. Like, whenever I meet anyone, like, the first half hour of a conversation is me asking them questions just because I, I, I learn that way. What do you like to read? I mean, I, I, I read

widely, uh, you know, I love sci-fi. I, I read lots of nonfiction. I'm currently reading like the new new Jonathan Saffron-Four book about, about the climate. I don't know. I don't I'm always reading two or three different things, but my whole life I just read nonstop. I've learned so much, Nancy, from doing this show that you know what is an absolute superpower are leaders who are willing and able to aggressively pursue what they're curious about and then digest it, distill it, be thoughtful about it, and then share what they think after being. after having this large intake engine as a consumer of information about what they're curious about, and this can then make you better in any area. You may be reading about the climate, but then you also are reading about three other books that were mentioned by that author that you saw him on a podcast or something like that. And now all of a sudden, because of this one area that you were curious about, you've become more knowledgeable in four different areas, which helps you as a husband, a dad, a CEO.

You know what I mean? Well, yeah, I mean, I've come, my wife pointed this out to me, but like the, what makes the, my, the book that's coming out work and what's made, like, the things I've written or my most successful moments work as my wife puts it as like, I make these sandwich ideas where I squish together unrelated concepts and through that reveal a greater truth. And taking, and that's often done by taking something that's very pop and attaching to something that's very not pop. And through that reveal, you know, revealing something. And it's that, like, that's what my brain is so good at is finding these sandwiches, weirdest phrase, weirdest metaphor for this. But yeah, but just always just making these connections, just making these connections. Like I read one somewhere that companies that have stakeholder boards rather than shareholder minder boards are on, are on average worth 80% as much as they're traditionally for-profit counterparts. So like a German automaker that has a, a board of governors that includes employees and environmental activists or whatever.

Generally, those companies are worth 80% of what their more traditional financially maximizing competitors are worth. I just read that one time. And then learn about this Japanese eating philosophy called Hada Hachibu, which says that the goal of any meal is to be 80% full. That way you're still hungry for tomorrow. And this is the concept behind like Japanese cuisine is that we shouldn't overful ourselves. That way there's always still room to grow.

And like, I don't know, I just, in the span of a month, I read about this 80% valuation thing for stakeholder companies, read about this Japanese philosophy. And it's like, all right, well, what's this 20% that we're bleeding right now? Like, is that the problem? Is that that extra 20% we're trying to get? But anyway, I just love, yeah, my brain is just really good at storing and making connections. And that, you know, that helps so much as a CEO, too, like being able to. to be able to speak in metaphors to the team, you know, talk about the hard thing that's going on,

but talk about it in a slightly indirect way that brings more oxygen to the situation that would be harder to otherwise. Can this be developed or I guess a better question is, how can this be? Because it sounds like you certainly have some innate talent and skill. Yeah. But I also believe everybody has the capacity to lead

in some way, shape, or form, and everybody has the capacity to learn if they're willing. What is it just the simple act of reading what you're curious about or or how can other people listening be better at speaking in metaphors? Understanding the sandwich idea so you can pull from way over here and way over here and mash them together and then they're at their Monday morning team meeting and they're working to inspire and exceed goals and build a culture. How can what's a tactical thing someone could do to get better at this right now? That's a great question. And I think it's, I mean, one thing I do is anytime I read anything interesting, I write it down. I mean, I'm good at remembering, but I tend to write, you know, I'll highlight in Kendall, which is much less effective.

But I'll just take notes of things that just are interesting, you know, whatever, the gestation period of a lizard, you know, they're just things. They're whatever reason they stick out and that act of writing it down, you know, has a real impact. You know, I would say a lot of people could be a lot more creative in using metaphors. I mean, they're so powerful. They're so powerful in like helping us make sense of things. Probably if you look at like every tweet that has more than 5,000 retweets, it's probably some sort of sandwich metaphor of like pop internet meme plus current event or whatever. And that through those combinations, it's like we see some truth.

Trump really is like X or Pelosi really, you know, whatever. It just, it tells us, it tells us something. And I think we all have access to those things, you know. I mean, doing it as good as those people do. I mean, I look at with jealousy of people on Twitter who do that too. Like, I'm not at that level. If you give me, you know, a conversation, I can do it. But in 10 words, that can be difficult.

Well, but you look at your book and like you can tell a story about Adele going on tour and then how that applies to one of the ideas that you come up with, right? As someone who's obviously, and we'll get to that one in a second, but I was just pointing out that if you just share the science, and I try to do this with speaking and writing, I just finished my first book. I'm speaking a lot. Congrats. Thank you. And thank you. You obviously know the process of how hard it is.

But I think the part that people remember if you meet up with somebody after a keynote is, is I'm a story. science application speaker and a story science application writer. So I want to hear the story. Yeah. Then the science so that the story was not just entertainment, but there's a reason that story was told. And then me, I'm sitting in your audience. How do I apply that to my life? Why do I care? Why does this matter? And so that's like, even some of my line of questioning can be along now like, Yancey, let's get tactical. How can a person develop that skill? Totally. One other thing I just want to say, just like, I, think maybe where I learned this, as we have this conversation, maybe where we learned this, is that I grew up evangelical Christian in southwest Virginia, and every pastor I ever had,

you know, the Sunday sermon always goes this way. You start with the light popcorny hook. Sure. To make everyone sit up straight in their seat. You transition that into scripture, and you transition that into like what you're left with. But I, you know, that taught me a lot about, yeah, how to speak to people, how to get people to hear you. Yeah, no, that's a good point. I want to get back to one thing because I think, let's get practical for a second, and then I'm going to dive into some notes I took on your book, which we've touched on some of them so far.

But one of them was, so you mentioned you went from 70 to 155 people as your time at CEO at Kickstarter. So over the course that time, you're obviously hiring, and some of those roles you're hiring are leadership positions. Yeah. And I'm fascinated by, from a thoughtful, curious person like you, what are some of the qualities you would look for when hiring for a leadership role? Obviously, not necessarily position specific. Because if there's an engineer, yes, they got to be able to do those, those, they got to have some of those skills in order to do the job.

But I'm thinking just more at a quality slash characteristic level of the people, their makeup as a person. What are some things you really valued? You know, as I think back on like the most successful of those relationships, I mean, it's funny, the things where it didn't work, there was always some, there was some sense I had that that was the case that I tried to ignore. Even in the hiring process? Maybe a little bit. Maybe a little bit of just like, but you sort of talk yourself into, well, maybe that, you know, but that doesn't really matter. No one else brought that up. No one else, you know, and because you want, because you want it to work out.

Like, the longer the process goes, the more likely you are to talk yourself into things. So I think I might have known the outcome in every case. But definitely, because of who I am, I only wanted to work with other leaders who also had that kind of selflessness, that servant mindset. You know, people that would talk about the accomplishments of their teams was great. People who would talk about personal accomplishments, you know, I just, like, didn't really believe. You know, Kickstarter is so mission driven and also we've always made this vow to never sell the public, never sell the company or go public. So like whatever stock options in executive is getting, I would have to explain to them. It's more like, you know, it's more like you're getting royalties for a hit song.

You wrote the 1970s than it is you're getting like a lottery ticket. And so that was actually super helpful for just screening out a lot of people who are like, hey, you know, well, I've got four more years where I need to earn. And so this isn't right for me. And I'm like, great, that's why we have this conversation, you know, because I don't want you coming in here and having those different expectations. But the leaders that I promoted, the leaders that just stood up, you know, stood out so well. People that I always felt a real comfort being honest with and I always had a sense they were being honest with me. They didn't seem afraid to give me bad news. And, you know, you could just, I think you can tell when, when maybe it's harder to tell.

but when a team believes in a leader and when they don't. I mean, the team knows, even as you as the boss don't know, like the team knows the truth of whether it's working or not. So there's all sorts of, you know, how do you get that information as interesting. But yeah, you know, there were, I had a lot, yeah, there's a lot of ups and downs with that process, but did get to a point of having the right nine people around the table together and having that chemistry of like people respecting.

each other people working together like i had confidence that i could lay a problem out on the table and that someone would grab it and would like know the steps to take and it you know it's it's it's amazing it's amazing when you're there you know you do feel like voltron you know pretty cool when that when it starts clicking but also you have this mindset of like okay now that we're here like we're good it's set and reality it's like you get those periods for like three weeks and then more static starts and you have to fight your way back and And I mean, that's leadership is a constant fight to stay at equilibrium. And you keep waiting for a Wednesday moment where everything starts running itself.

And guess what? It never happens. You know, there always has to be some hand on the till or you do such a great job at empowering people. And your organization is so wide open that people are empowered to act on the things that they're doing. But I don't, I think that's possible early. I think that's harder as you go along. So at the end of 2017, you decided to leave. What was it that made you want to leave?

I mean, there was much greater complication than I'm saying in a lot of this stuff. So, you know, I was, I got very tired by the end of this. I mean, this was like 12 years. And, you know, and honestly, like having to replace people all that, like really took so much. energy out of me. And so I end up having, like, I had a, I had a rough 360 review at the end of 20s, at the end of 2016, I think it was. Like, I had to let go to people and, you know, just like it was, it was like my first rocky period. And it showed up in my 360 and I put in front of my board and I said, hey, like, here's what it says. Like, I think these criticisms are legit,

you know, this is something like, yeah. So you didn't get defensive. You got, you were, like, I think it's easy for, I got defensive by myself. I remember getting those and all, and my immediate initial thought was, you know, I hate admitting this honestly, but I'd say they're wrong. You know, what are they talking about? Or they don't understand, you know? And then you have to. About some of those things still. Yeah.

But, you know, but I have to reflect that if like people feel unsteady. Right. Like that, you know, what did that. Of course, I have all my explanations of why. I have every justification, but still the end result is people feel unsteady. Like, how can I deny that? So I had three days of, yeah, they're all idiots and whatever. But then I, you know, I force myself to put on my co-founder hat and to say, you know, what does the organization need?

Maybe I'm not what the organization needs. Maybe the organization needs something different. And so I put that out to the board. You know, I had that conversation. And I said, I think it's me. I hope it's me. You know, I'm excited for it to be me. But I also think these are things like we really have to look at.

We're, you know, almost 10 years into this business. And through that process, like, it was revealed. You know, I think the truth of the situation was revealed. And I, you know, it was really, really hard. It was really, really hard because that had been, you know, my identity for like a decade. But it's funny. Like, you know, once I, once I, once I. reached that decision with the board and we you know we talked about it you know i just made the choice

to step away entirely from the company and to just like think about what was next and uh and and and just discovered like a wealth of energy i had no idea i had and like the the exhaustion of the job uh had i hadn't felt it i did feel i mean there were there were i remember i remember one day i was like had to go to work and I was standing there in the house and had my hand on the door knob and I and I couldn't turn the door to leave the house and I just started crying I just started crying there my wife like walked up she's like what's what's what's what's happening what's going on you know like did I get a phone call like what and I was just like I just don't know how to be a CEO today like I don't I don't know like in this 20 minutes of riding

the train to work right now like I don't know how to put on the mask like I feel I feel really tired. And I never had a moment like that before. Wow. And that was the pressure of like these conversations about what should the future of the company be, me, you know, just all these things. And so it was very, you know, it's very challenging. But I think we all were growing up about it and trying to keep in mind of like what's most important beyond us as individuals. And I think did a good job of that.

Well, I have to think as a co-founder, though, it's not like you were hired as the CEO of a company that you just came into from the outside. Yeah. It had to just add to that those emotions, I would imagine, given that this was your baby. You started the company. And now you were potentially going to give your baby to somebody else. I can't imagine. But there's a, you know. Yes, there's like a responsibility that I still feel.

I still feel. And, you know, the company's had its ups and down since I've left and I've had, you know, zero involvement. And it's like I viscerally feel everything that's going on, you know. You still feel it. You still. Yeah. Did you ever have a, do you ever have a moment? Sometimes in the quarterbacking world, you know, I got beat out for a job.

My sophomore season to Ben Rathesburg, the quarterback for the Steelers. We were in college together. And I can act like I rooted for him to play well. but I didn't, you know, obviously. I wanted them to play bad because I wanted to play. And I feel bad admitting that, but I also know I'm a human and I wanted to play and I'm competitive. Do you have any moments, even though it's your baby, and I don't know, understand the financials.

So maybe you need the company to do well and you'll be even more rich. But do you have moments you're like, you know what? If they do bad without me, like, I don't, I don't know. Or if they struggle, like, that shows that they needed me, do you ever have those feelings? I mean, you know, I don't think in any real way. I mean, I think there was a, I had a, you know, the whole time, the whole time I was leading the company as a co-founder, many hats as CEO, you know, I always felt, I always felt very, very good about my ability to lead. It just felt, felt natural. And I sense from the people that I worked with that, you know, whatever, I have my foibles.

And, you know, I get excited about shiny objects just like anybody. but in general I think I think good at that and you know that process of getting that 360 and then the unentangling and going through all that like made me really question a lot of that and like put my own legacy in some doubt for me that I think I probably had a year of after leaving like really not knowing what to make of that but over time have come to like accept my value, you know, which like, but it's, it's hard. It's hard, right? Like, I'm sure you had your moments of like, well, am I, what kind of quarterback am I?

You know, whatever. And it's like, well, you know, you can be, but maybe it's not the right system for you. Maybe it's not the right, whatever. Just time doesn't work out the right way. Well, yeah. There are, looking at the person sitting directly next to you in the meeting room and watching the tape together and realizing he's better than you is not the easiest thing to feel. especially as a 19 year old to say the tape doesn't lie.

And I, he's outplaying me. And yeah, that is a crushing feeling. However, still very valuable to go through because it forces you to be resilient or you could quit. And I think that's usually, you know,

not the right way. I mean, it's a, it's a weird gift. It's not a gift I want my child to receive. I want my child to learn every lesson through unmitigated success. But these are good ways to learn things. And even this book process, I'm like, you know, pitching to all these places I'd love to write for whatever.

And you get turned down a lot. And your proposal you did or I'm curious. I mean, oh, I'm in for the book proposal. No, the book proposal worked out. Yeah. It worked out the way it was supposed to, you know, which I'd be happy to talk about. But I even mean like now trying to place op-eds or whatever. Yeah.

You know, I'd love to be in the Wall Street Journal, you know. And then they say no. And then the book's coming out anyway. They're still the next thing. And so it just forces you to accept rejection and just roll and just roll. And I'm finding that the first three times that happened. I mean, it's still every time it happens, I feel annoyed and upset. But I'm also like, wow, this is super valuable because I'm like, I'm failing all over the place.

And things are still working. You know, it's still moving forward. Like the book's still coming out, whatever. And where there's the part of me that just wants to like, there are days where I'm like, I just want to get under the cover. I want to pull the book, you know, whatever. Just burn it all. Just whatever. I will, you know, no one should see anything.

You go through these swings. And yeah, but it's so valuable to experience failure and then discover that it's not that big a deal. Yeah. So this could be our future. A manifesto. It's a big word. For a more generous world. What was the impetus behind you saying, I'm going to do the hard work of having 70 to 80,000 edited words put in a book for all people to judge?

What went behind you wanting to do this? It presented itself to me in multiple ways. The whole thing started. I used to live in New York, in the Lower East Side, and in my neighborhood, around the corner from my house, there had been a dive bar, a punk bar, it been there forever called Mars Bar. And in 2014, it got torn down in a TD bank in that same corner. And the crazy thing about this was at the time, there were three other TD banks within a 15-minute walk of that same corner. So this is the fourth TD bank in a 15-minute walking distance radius.

Wow. So I started researching this. I was super curious. I'm someone who likes to dig. So I started digging and found that there were almost a little bit of a little bit of a little bit of, a thousand bank branches in Manhattan alone that was like up 400 over the past 10 years like there were more than ever and I realized that every one of these bank branches before had been something like Mars bar probably not a punk dive bar but a New York locally run business

that was now like a Bank of America or Chase or whatever and that just seemed insane to me because it was clearly making the neighborhood worse but also clearly like everyone's developing fancy things everyone's making money even though the neighborhood's getting worse. So like how does this work? So I was I ended up having a talk that I was supposed to give at an event called Web Summit in Ireland. And I was the CEO of Kickstarter. And I just kept thinking about this idea and I decided I wanted to give a talk about it. I wanted to talk about watching this change in my neighborhood. And what I believed was the reason behind it, which I said was a belief in financial maximization, which is that the belief that the rational

choice and any decision is whichever option makes the most money. And that this was this hidden default setting that was running the world and running our decisions. And so I gave a talk just like talking about this and connecting that with like why every movie is a sequel and why Taylor Swift is on the cover of every magazine and why country radio had the same number one song for a year straight. And you know what? I put a transcript of it online later.

went nerd viral. Like it was number one on hacker news for a couple days and just like people really connected to it. And I responded to that by you know, like just saying, wow, I found a sandwich to talk about this.

This is a sandwich that people are able to see something that's otherwise harder to see. And so from that point on, whenever I gave a public talk about Kickstarter, it was always around this idea. And then when I stepped down, I went through that whole process, I wasn't sure what I was going to do, but I, you know, I thought I was just like going to hide under my covers for a month.

But like my first day, I had so much energy and was ready to like, you know, just rip the roof off the world. And I had this thought that like as CEO, as a leader of the company, I did like so much strategic planning, thinking about the, you know, how do we frame goals, values, all these different frameworks for thinking about what to do. And I just thought, I need to treat myself like I'm a company. and I need to run quarterly and annual planning on myself. And so I spent a week going through these various thought processes that I'd gotten from like this book, The Advantage is one of them by the same guy they wrote. Len Shoney? Yes. Yeah, man.

He's been on here a few times. He's awesome. Yeah. Advantage is amazing. Yeah. So like a lot of those kinds of frameworks and I just had a notebook that I filled with all these ways of thinking. At the end of that, I'd come up with five possible paths for like what I would do next. And so I decided that the next week, I would spend each day of the week fully living inside that idea. So one of the ideas was that I would be like I'd try to write a column for a newspaper or something like that.

So like I had a day. I woke up that Monday and I'm like, all right, I'm a newspaper columnist. That's my job today. I'm going to try to experience that job. So like I'm going to try to write something. I'm going to imagine I'm pitching more ideas. I'm going to try to imagine if I'm three years from now, how am I doing this, you know, whatever. and just getting that like body sense of is this right or not.

And one of those and one of those five choices was to turn that talk into a book. And so I had a day just like, I'm going to try to do an outline of this. I'm going to see. And of the five things I tried, it was, you know, it was the one that flowed the most. It was the one that I just could feel it. I could feel it. And I had this, I had a very clear sense of the emotion that I would want someone to feel reading this. It would be a feeling of greater awareness, a feeling that they're seeing something they're not supposed to see.

And a sense that in the same way that Kickstarter made me feel like I was like floating two feet above the ground just because I had a different sense of how the world works. Like how can I allow everyone to have that same emotional experience? And yeah, so I just started, you know, it just sort of presented itself to me as the thing. And the final step that was so important was that I, you know, I went to. around starting to meet literary agents. I want to write a book. And of course, most people I meet, like I'm the ex-seo of Kickstarter, they imagine I have way more power and sway than I actually have in the world.

So they're like, you know, write whatever, kickstart your business. Like, let's do it. It's going to be a bestseller. Let's do it. And instead, I was like, actually, I want to write something that I'm scared to say this word, but I think it's a manifesto. And it's about these ideas. And there was one agent in particular who I could tell was really smart.

he was like really skeptical of me and I really loved that. Who was it? His name is Daniel Greenberg and I just thought I want to win you over and if I can convince you that like my pitch is good enough for you to send to publishers like then I'll really know it's good enough because any of these other jokers like who knows what they're going to tell me is good and so I used him as my first kind of shadow you know to to bounce this off of and it was so helpful it was so helpful and then the publisher I went with. My first proposal of this book was like different than it is now. It was a little more art

booky, a little more complicated. And these publishers Viking books told me that they, their message was that they would be happy to meet with me. However, only if I was willing to take out all of the imagery and all the like complicated things I was doing, which I thought was the coolest stuff in the book. But I went and met with these, these two women. And they immediately explained to me, listen, you're doing this stuff as a crutch. You're trying to hide behind these other things. You don't need to hide. And your book is good enough to do it on its own,

and we can help you do that. And again, it was like this amazing critical feedback given in a way that was so loving and so helpful and so empowering. And so I feel like I was very fortunate from the beginning to be working with people that did, I think, had my best interest at heart, but weren't going to act blindly based on that.

that. And then the writing process, because I know I'm like challenging the dominant ethos of our time, I also had like close readers of the book were like partners at investment banks, a very prominent conservative economists. Like I wanted to go to the people that I thought would be most critical and just say, hey, I don't, I don't want to be an idiot. Like help me not be an idiot. But also like, I think what I'm saying is real. So I really sought out like what I, you know, I sawed out that negative feedback because I could just sense that without that, who knows where I'm going to talk, what corner I'm going to pack myself into. So that was so important. One of the topics you bring up in the book, I'm getting into my notes now is, so I've only read this and I haven't

heard it. So sometimes I botch it when I do these types of things. Bentowism? Yeah. Does I say it right? Yeah. So explain what that means and why it's important to you. So the book, I argue that our our belief in the universal rationality of financial value is based on a limited definition of our self-interest that ever since game theory, which is like the study of strategic conflicts, we've been operating on this mindset that the rational choice is always to self-maximise. Whatever you want, you do that to the maximum possible without going to jail. And basically that is our definition of rational behavior. And that mindset is like illustrated today through a hockey stick graph, is what I imagine.

You know, the graph of whatever that, whatever it is, your popularity, your power, your sales, your wealth is growing so fast it goes, the line goes up and to the right. And so I just had this thought that that hockey stick graph is actually just a small slice of the picture because if you take a step back, the x-axis of the hockey stick graph of time goes from now all the way into the future. And the y-axis of that hockey stick graph goes from just the self-interest of me to us. As our self-interest grows, so does our responsibility. The difference between being a solo entrepreneur and having 150 employees is enormous. Like what counts as your self-interest changes? And so bentoism is this, it looks like a bento box, it's four quadrants, but it argues that our rational self-interest is not just now me, which is the bottom left corner of this bento or the hockey stick graphs.

the hockey stick graph lives. Our rational self-interest is also our future me. It's the bottom right box of the bento. And that's the space of like the 70-year-old, wrinkled gray version of ourself

that made all the right choices and that we live up to our values and we are the person we say we are. And we do that on a daily basis. It's that voice. There's also in the top left, bento, there's now us,

picky of those people that we rely on and who rely on us, our families, our employees, our friends. our decisions affect them. They are also an irrational self-interest. And finally, the top right corner of the bento is called Future Us, and that's the next generation, our children.

And so this two-by-two graph, which is produced with a one-axis representing self-interest, the other axis representing time, I call bentoism because it looks like a bento box. And the beauty of a bento is that a bento is, it comes from a Japanese word meaning convenience. And a bento box always has a variety of dishes, never too much of any one thing, and it honors that same philosophy I said before of Hada Hachibu,

which says the goal of the meal is to be 80% full, so you're still hungry for tomorrow. So a bento box is a default for a convenient and healthy meal. Bentoism, the idea of looking at our choices this way, is meant to be a healthy and convenient default for us to make choices that are in our true self-interest. right now we act according to a very, very, very narrow idea of what is in our self-interest, so just now-me. But these other spaces exist. They're real.

They're rational. They're in our self-interest. And our inability to understand spaces beyond now-me is part of where we're screwed right now. Like we can't solve the climate crisis because there's no solution that will improve our now-me being. But that's just because we're borrowing from tomorrow to pay for today right now. So we just have a very limited notion of where our problems and solutions are.

And so bentoism is an expansion of that and an argument for a new way to see our lives. I brought up Adele earlier. And I think she is an example we can talk about and then relate how this could be practical for me as in the listener. But what did Adele do when it came to tickets and scalping and the second. market, what did she do to make it better for her fans? Yeah. So for most artists, big time artists, like their concerts get scalped, artists can out participate in the proceeds of that scalping, like Live Nation ticket master,

ticket master lets them do that. But Adele, rather than do that and rather than choose to just accept the fact that she's performing shows for either wealthy fans or people who are spending more money than they probably should to see her play, she found a startup in the UK that had built an algorithm that would measure how loyal someone was as a fan to hers an artist. So they could go to any market and using social data. They would identify whatever, the top 30 percentile of Adele superfans in each market. They use this algorithm to like numerically, mathematically determine these things.

And then allow those people the opportunity to buy tickets, not restricting how the tickets could be resold in any kind of way, just trying to make it so the tickets got into the right hands. And for shows that operated this way, it was only 2% of those tickets ended up being scalped. So 98% of people just held on to them and just went to the show. And so here, my argument is that Adele is in her rational self-interest. She is maximizing for fairness and for the community of people at her show, that this technological tool of this algorithm allowed her to do that. And for her, this heightened sense of her self-interest to think not just of herself as a performer, but to imagine the audience member as well, like allowed her to make a better choice,

a more creative choice. And we might look at that as a emotional decision by Adele. You know, what a good soul she has, which she certainly seems to. But like, it's a rational choice, too. It's something that is replicable that anyone could do. It doesn't, you know, when we're relying on people to have a good heart to make these, these better choices, I think we're going to struggle. But when these decisions that are for the better self-interest and more people can be portrayed in such a way that we can see them rationally where we can all operate from the same logic and same way of thinking, then that becomes something that really can be a mass movement. So I thought that was super interesting by her. And I think that's a lot of what the future is going to be. It is going to be around defining and measuring new kinds of values, things like loyalty.

I think we're going to need a global universal metric for carbon and the environment where we're all trying to collectively make decisions based on the same criteria. Because, you know, we're all, we're dealing with a lot of global challenges and we're all trying to do them in highly localized ways that may not really work. When you, so somebody hears that story about Adele and there's, and I want to try to be the contrarian because to be the voice of the skeptical listener, Yancey, and they're saying, well, yeah, but she's, already a multi-millionaire. She loses a few million bucks. It's no big deal. Easy for her to do. Well, what about me, the person who has the mortgage and cars and kids and not living paycheck to paycheck, but, you know, we're not well off. We're fine. How does the Adele story and bentoism go from this, okay, that's actually for other people. That's not for me. How does that relate to the normal person. Well, I have been teaching workshops. I did one in my house yesterday. It's the fourth

one I've done. I'm teaching workshops for strangers on the internet. This goes out in my email newsletter where I say there's going to be experimental event. This is a criminal event ends up, it's at my house. Yesterday, 15 strangers came to my house and sat around my living room. And I taught them bentoism. and I lead us through a process where we build our bentos together, where everyone answers. I first do it with someone in the class. We'll volunteer and we'll do it on a whiteboard in front of everyone, filling out their values in each of the four bentos.

I began the whole session by asking people to write down four, should I questions from their life? Should I do this? Should I do that? And after they've built their bento values, which I lead us through, then people pair up. I pair up everyone.

they go to different parts of the house, and then they take turns asking their bentos questions and talking them through with another person. So this is the third or fourth time I've done this. So now it's like maybe 50 people that have bentos. But I'm going to be doing this a lot more. I genuinely, like my bento, it's my home screen on my phone. I'm turning my head right now on my desk,

looking at it hanging on my wall. But it's literally how I make choices. I look at my bento and the values in each one. I'll read you what they are. My now me, what I have written there. What am I about? I'm about showing people the matrix. That's what drives me.

That's where I'm best at. Like when my now me is clicking is when I'm doing that. My future me, the old version that's wise that like always wants me to do the right thing. It's telling me two things. It's telling me create harmony, bring people together, find the sandwich that delivers happiness to people. And the other one is don't sell out. Like, strong in my values has always been this belief of not selling out. My now us, what is the value I create or put with the people I'm with?

I'm about, I realize I'm about deep time. I'm a terrible texting friend. I'm super sporadic on email, but, like, I will give you six hours of undivided time. And it'll be amazing. Like, that's the kind of friend I am. I came to realize that. And my future us, my value is about building a better matrix. It's not getting rid of the matrix.

It's can we iterate on this? And so when I make choices, I'm looking at these things and thinking about them. And there's one area where it really changed my really changed how I thought, which is part of how I make a living is by giving paid speeches. And I will get asked to speak for companies that sometimes the companies that I have a problem with. And in the past, I've always just said no to these things because I have this like, don't sell out vibe in me. And I just like, and when I get asked to speak for these companies, I, I get super angsty and I'm not fun to deal with and I just get in a pissy mood about it. And then I just say no.

And then I got an invitation for a company like that shortly after I made the bento. And when I made the bento, I resolved I will make all choices according to this now. So I asked my bento, should I do this? So to ask your bento a question, you ask each of the four boxes what they say. So I ask my now me, which is about showing people the Matrix. Should I go give a talk for this company? NowMey's like, yeah, you show people the Matrix. That's what you're doing.

you should do it. My now us voice about deep time, not really relevant, but I find it relevant to think that my bento doesn't say I should just spend time with the choir. Like the idea that I should only share my message with my tight us, like doesn't seem right. So I think my now us says I should do this talk. Building a better matrix, my futurist goal, like it's companies like this that are going to need to change. It's not like a bunch of little companies. It's the big ones evolving. Yes, I should do this. But then I looked at my future me and that don't sell out. And that still said no. And I looked at this and I came to think about this in a totally new way.

I thought, you know what? This like future me don't sell out voice is like a bouncer standing outside, like protecting me. And I have the right to go and tap that bouncer on the shoulder at any time and say, hey, let this one in. But like, keep out. Yeah, keep an eye out for this shit. And that I was, I could both be empowered to have that value and to overrule. that value while still being in line with myself, while still being self-coherent, without compromising. And I also can choose to still say, no, don't sell out is what's important, even if the other

bentos may disagree. But I feel like I have an actual understanding of what's going on in my head when I'm getting so frustrated about, why can't I, why do I, why does this get me so angry when Exxon asked me to give a talk or something, you know? And yeah, so I found that to be like really eye opening because I felt like I had a greater understanding what was going on within me and I was I felt way more in control of my decision because I was just I could really see it and so it's been like that so I literally have lived now I the bento I first designed the bento it was last August so I've been living a you know following my bento now for over a year and making every major decision by and my wife too we look at ours we talk about it together and trying to make choices that are in line

with this. And it's not easy. I mean, there are things I'm doing now. They're in conflict because my bento says, no, you should go do this. And I'm like, I'm a little scared. Like I'm not, I'm not ready yet. Like what? Well, I mean, just like, I don't know, just like patching things up with an old friend or, you know, having a hard conversation with somebody. They're like, yeah, I know that's what I should do. But like, I just don't want to. But I don't know. It's genuinely been enlightening. And so the workshops I've given with people, you know, I gave one in July, and I'm still emailing the people who went who are talking to me about it and who are explaining like what they're doing, just like, hey, here's what's happening.

And it's going to happen with the same 15 people from yesterday. I'm going to do another one next week. Like I'm trying to really, like, I don't want to just have the idea and just say, hey, like make the most of this. Like I, and the more I share it with people, and almost to my kind of terror, like I'm seeing that it's bringing them real value.

And the terror I feel is like, oh man, I really have, like, I can't have to ask this. I need to do this. Yeah. No,

that's good stuff. But I just start to do it now. I love to hear it. I might have to, are they always in L.A.? No, I'm going to start doing them on Zoom. I haven't tried that yet,

but I'm going to friend. All right. I'm going to join one of those. I'll have to talk about that afterwards. One last question, Yancey. So you're sitting face to face with a young, ambitious, smart person who wants to make a positive contribution in the world. And they say, Yansi, you wrote a book that's a manifesto for a more generous world.

What are some pieces of life advice you could give me to help me with that goal to make a positive contribution to be happy, content? And do good. What are a few nuggets that you could share based on your experience to help me? Well, I think a lot of what I, there's a couple areas that are like personal in the book. And one of them is about my struggle with feeling like a failure according to the dominant concepts of success that I was surrounded by. So I'm like looking at, I'm a CEO of a famous company seeing magazine covers about like go crush your enemies, CEOs, whatever, all this kind of like language.

And it's like, and it's making me feel bad about myself. Because I think like I'm not like I'm not that guy. And do I like every magazine I see is telling me I have to be that person. Like do I can I do that? Like and in that, that made me feel broken. And you know, never to the extent that I truly tried to change who I was. Because I just, I think I knew that I didn't have that capacity. So I would say that.

that it's hard, it's hard to be aware of like the water you swim in. There's the David, the David Foster Wallace story about a little fish and a big fish are swimming in the ocean, the little fish, or the big fish says the little fish, how's the water today? And the little fish says, what's water? It's hard to recognize the water that we swim in. But that is like such a superpower,

to have that heightened awareness of like why the things are happening around you. Because most people are moving around without a lot of awareness of that. So just having that awareness gives you like such a leg up. And so I, you know, it's, I don't know exactly how to teach that except reading, being curious, not just doing what people tell you to. Like, I don't know how to have exactly how to have that mindset, but I feel like that's, that's really important. And I'm spending a lot of time now talking to people under the age of 25, even under the age of 20,

because the book is geared, is trying to speak to those generations. is to say, hey, you're going to be in power 30 years from now. My generation, I'm 40 years old. My generation, we made the mistake of thinking that we could just go with the flow and everything would just keep working, that institutions could keep running themselves, that nobody had to do a job they didn't like. We could all just like try to be on MTV reality shows and the world would be cool. And it hasn't worked out that way.

And so my plea to the younger generation is to have a plan, to have an idea of where to go, to not just to say it's like today only 8% better, but it's like actually engage with some of these questions more deeply. So when I'm meeting amazing young people, which I do all the time, my pitch to them is like, the great new frontier is the definition of new values. It's discovering loyalty.

It's discovering how to measure carbon in a way that's like truly effective and helpful for everyone. It's in approximating the social cohesion of a neighborhood and discovering how to do these things. But like, you know, I believe that human beings always do the best with what we know. Like I'm a very positive person about humanity. I think we do the best with what we know. So like what new knowledge could we possess that would allow us to do even better? And to me, it's understanding new values beyond just financial value, moving those things from

irrational, emotional, feelings-based space to one that still honors those things, but is also, like, is put in a language where we can all act on it, where, like, Jamie Diamond can be, you know, whatever, whatever he is like as a person,

and still make the kinds of choices that would produce this greater benefit. And, like, you know, an analog I use is the NBA and what happened when analytics discovered how valuable the three-point shot was, like everyone started playing differently because it was just a better way.

to play. There was first this like, it first was about ideology and computers telling us what to do and whatever, the Charles Barkleyisms. But like, over time, it's just like, well, shit, people win more when they play this way. So we should all play this way. So I think that if you can produce results, if you can create value, that will be borne out over time. And that's how we should decide to make these choices. So I would say to the young people, like, to me, that's the greatest opportunity. Like to me, that is like, that is step change for our planet if we were to begin to uncover some of those things. And so I think that's, you know, maybe that's what I will be dedicated to for the foreseeable future. We'll see.

But that's the big bet. That's like the optimistic bet on human beings. Like look at the wealth we've created focusing on money. Amazing. Truly amazing. Now imagine, let's apply that to some of the other things that we need to do. And, yeah. Yeah.

Thank you, Yancey. Where would you send my listeners to learn more about you online? I'm online at Y-S-S-R-S-C-L-E-R dot com. Perfect. And the book is called This Could Be Our Future, A Manifesto for a More Generous World. Check it out. It's really good stuff. Yancey, I told you I was really looking forward to this one and you certainly didn't disappoint,

crushed it. And I really appreciate it. I absolutely want to continue our dialogue as we both progress, and I'll certainly be a part of one of those bento sessions. Yeah, yeah, you know, I really appreciate it. And I, the mid-level leaders that I worked with over the years, I mean, just my favorite people, like I just, you know, I, everyone who chooses to step into leadership roles,

I just, I commend, I have so much love for. It's not easy. But the world needs great leaders and selfless ones. So if when you hear me say that, you feel like that little inkling in your belly or your heart that like maybe I'm talking about you like step up listen to that voice you know the world the world needs you and don't be afraid of that thank you so much man uh as mentioned let's uh let's keep this thing roll and look forward to the next one already cool thanks right wow conversations like that with someone as intelligent as yancey

really stretch me as an interviewer and a conversationalist. And I think what that illustrates is it's very healthy to regularly put yourself in positions to speak with people who are smarter than you because over time, you will learn at a faster rate than if you're just speaking with people at your level. It forces you to stretch. A few of the areas that Yancey talked about that really stuck out to me, metaphors as a sandwich with different ideas and stories and put them together. I found this is a commonality among really impressive, inspiring, intelligent leaders.

I thought that was helpful. And then the challenge of receiving tough feedback, that 360 review from people that were all around him within Kickstarter to have to learn that there were areas where he was particularly getting it done was a massive challenge. And you heard the emotion in his voice, especially talking about that moment where he had his hand on the door and he couldn't leave his house. And he broke down crying to his wife saying,

I'm not able to be a CEO today. That was a really compelling part of the talk. Then bentoism, right? Now me, future me, now us, future us doing that exercise. I'm going to have a follow-up call with them to go deeper in that. and I'd be happy to share that with you if you are interested to learn more. You can email me, Ryan at learning leader.com. I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did.

If so, I would love it if you would tell a friend or two, perhaps one that has never listened to the Learning Leader Show. The best form of marketing is word of mouth, one person at a time. I thank you so much for continuing to do this and giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis for that. I will forever be grateful. All right, talk with you next week. Can't wait.

We are opening up applications for our next learning leader circle. We only do this once per year. And think back to the great conversation I had with the legendary Jim Collins episode 216. He said, Ryan, before you get too caught up in the why, in the what? You need to first be very intentional about your who. Who will be your friends? Who will be your mentor? Who will you help?

Who will you choose to surround yourself with? That will be the single greatest determining factor in your long-term success. And I would ask you the same question. Who are you surrounding yourself with? Do you want to be surrounded by growth-oriented leaders that are willing to push you? We've added specific curriculum and elements so that by the end of the year, you'll have tangible outcomes to measure your growth and be a more effective leader. both personally and professionally.

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