The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 341: Behind The Scenes Of The Learning Leader Show With Jay Acunzo

Episode Date: December 2, 2019

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk #341: Behind The Scenes Of The Learning Leader Show With Jay Acunzo Full Shownotes can be found at www.LearningLeader.com  Text LEARNERS to 44222 Notes: SECTION ONE: Superlatives Hardest interview:  -- Jim Collins. Most-downloaded all-time:Show has steadily grown since it was created, so the most downloaded is a recent episode.  From this year: #310 David Epstein. He wrote Range and The Sports Gene,  Some popular ones from the past are: #300 with my dad and brother AJ, #216 Jim Collins episode is a popular one.  Most referenced: the one you cite the most in conversation or your work - #78 with Kat Cole (Courage/Confidence + Curiosity/Humility) = Productive Achievers. Biggest delta between what you thought they'd be like...and what they were actually like?  General Stanley McChrystal.  War hero. 4 star General.  Expected him to be super intimidating, but he was so kind, thoughtful, curious, and caring.  Followed up to ask him to write the Foreword to my book and he said yes.  Hardest part of running this show?  It's never ending.  Must always be working on it - Reaching out to guests, cold emails, preparing for each conversation, reading their books, watching everything they have online, etc.  It never stops. Where have you most improved? Better conversationalist.  Understand how to ask better questions, be more thoughtful, intentional with my actions/behavior.  Biggest benefits to your life...  1) The more I learn, the more I realize I don't know…  I've become more curious.  Most active listeners: who do you see popping up a lot?  - My Leadership Circle  SECTION TWO: Stagnation Is The Enemy We undervalue the power of consistency:  Consistency + Quality is the key to long term success.  Most people quit.  Must keep going. Why start it? - I wanted to create my own Leadership PhD.  One where I get to choose the professors.  Share with others, be a multiplier… Had dinner with Founder of Broadcast.com, Todd Wagner. Publishing work is the best form of networking.  Create a reason for people to WANT to contact you. The preparation process -  Read their books, watch their talks, read articles written by them and about them.  Talk to friends we have in common. Read the ACKNOWLEDGEMENT section of their books to ask questions about meaningful in their lives (this gets them to open up and feel free to speak more emotionally… Which can be great audio and REAL) Given repeat ability and longevity, how do YOU stay engaged? Mental heuristics, intrinsic things that you just do/try, proactive remixes and reinventions? -- Have to be genuinely curious in the guest.  Have to enjoy the pain of preparation. What are you willing to struggle for? Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives turn out (Neil Pasricha). I love the preparation process, reading/thinking of angles to take a conversation with a specific guest that I'm curious about. Given that stagnation isn't just caused by US but also by the market saturating, how do you operate today compared to before? Early mover advantage wanes...and so many more podcasts about your topic specifically now exist. -- Willing to try new things (like this).  Study and understand my listeners. You'll often hear me speak to the exact avatar of my listener.  I'm not trying to have the biggest show ever. I'm trying to be the right show for the people who email me (mid-level manager in corporate America.  Building teams, hiring/firing, qualities to look for when building a team). It helps directly with those people, but have also found niche audiences in other spaces like NCAA basketball coaches, NBA players, etc.  SECTION THREE: What's next?  What are you excited to do next?  Try new projects like this episode… Continue to do live shows with an audience, travel more for in person recordings (Koppelman, Roberge), and keep going.  My book. Where does this show go? What other projects surround it now, vs what you want to try? - Live shows, travel for in person.  Bring on guests for my Leadership Circles (paid Mastermind groups.  My groups ask for a guest, I bring them on). Creates group teaching and a ton of value for my Leadership Circles. My book. What's pissing you off about leadership in the corporate world that you'd like to explore and help solve? - Bad bosses.  I've worked for a few (as have we all).  I wrote about that goes through the process of being a bad boss to being a better one.  I lived it and I've learned so much from others. That's what WELCOME TO MANAGEMENT is all about.

Welcome to the Learning Leaders Show presented by Rixie 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. Received Mindful Monday updates what I'm reading, writing, watching, thinking about. Also give you the opportunity to be part of my book launch team, which is coming very soon. Texts learners to 44222. to two. Now on tonight's

featured leader and topic, my friend Jay Akunzo is back to take us behind the scenes of what it's like to make my show. We turned the tables or flipped the scripts and Jay interviewed

me for this one. For those you who don't remember, Jay is author of a great book titled Break the Wheel, also a former digital media strategist from Google and was the head of content at HubSpot. A few of the top topics we got into the most popular episodes and why then what's the hardest part of putting together and running this show and then how the learning leader show has improved my life followed by the preparation process I go in depth into what it takes to prepare the amount of time and my process and what I think about preparing in general for big moments then how to deal with a crowded marketplace there are a lot of podcast out there nowadays. Five years ago, there weren't so many. Jay and I really went inside

to discuss how to stand out in a crowded field. And then where we go from here. What's next? There are some cool projects we have in place and we discuss those. Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you enjoy this one going inside the look at the Learning Leader Show with my friend Jay Akunzo. All right, Ryan Hawkman. So good to talk to you here on The Learning Leader Show. and you know, I've hosted this show for over 300 episodes now. It's crazy. The show means so much to me as the host and creator of this show, quite frankly. And each time I like to ask my guests, what do leaders who sustain excellence have in common? So to you, Ryan Hawke, a guest on this show, my show, the learning leader show, I would ask you, what do leaders who sustain excellence all have in common? What's your answer to that question? Are we really doing this? All right. People are like, what the hell is going to? going on. Some people have no clue. Some people have a vague clue. So let me catch those people up. So my name is Jay Akunzo. And a while ago, I appeared on this show as a guest. I wrote a book

called Break the Wheel. And I spent some time in digital media working for companies like Google and HubSpot and a venture capital firm. And for the last four or five years, I've basically been making original series, so podcasts, documentary series, that kind of thing with brands or teaching it. And when I came on as a guest, Ryan and I, after we stopped recording, just totally hit it off. We talked a lot about the craft of making shows. And we decided that to help refresh his show and try something new and keep learning, he wanted to do a mini-series where I just kept coming back as a guest and we would deconstruct different topics. So the first one, man, they're all blending together, Ryan. It was the art of the interview, right?

Yeah. We broke down what goes into interviewing somebody, not just as a podcast, but just in general, since a lot of people. are either the interviewee or the interviewer. And it was cool to break, break that down with you and get our different perspectives, especially since we both spent a lot of time in corporate America as well as making our shows. Right. And so after the art of the interview, we went to something very near and dear to our hearts and our businesses, which is the craft of public speaking.

And we got into some of the business side of it and how that works for us and for others. And then also some of the corporate side, the team leadership side, just how to craft a great presentation and command attention and deliver a message that resonates. And so that was the second kind of deconstructive episode, topical, you know, deep dive that we did. And in this one, you know, I looked back at those two and I was like, this has been fun and great and we've got some good feedback. But some of the questions we keep getting and one big problem I faced personally was around your show. How did you make it? What's going on with this? What do we learn from someone who sustained excellence in your case through this show, you know, there's a lot of people who they

just fall in love with the program and they want to know what goes on behind the scenes. So this is going to be a very in-depth behind-the-scenes show about your show. And the issue I faced looking back at those two episodes is I talked entirely too much. And maybe we're 50-50, but I think in this episode it's going to be a lot more learning from you, Ryan. So I know you're a humble guy. You like to learn from others. I'm going to put you on the spot and learn from you. Well, I appreciate it, man. And I think part of this is it stemmed from a number of conversations I've had with people who have become listeners and fans. And I actually had a lunch with a CEO recently.

And I texted you, Jay, right afterwards. And she asked me about kind of the creation and all what goes into it, in the why and my prep process and about guests. And just a lot of really, she's an inquisitive leader. And after I got done, and I did the. majority of talking in that conversation and she said, why have I not heard that podcast? And I remember that's when I text you and say, Jay, I think we have a topic. And that's, that's why we're here together doing this. Yeah. And we've divided up the episode into three sections. So the first section is kind of a fun section, but I think it'll force you to get very introspective and help people learn

from what you've done. The last section, the third section is something actually inspired by a call you and I had not recording it, which is rare for a couple of podcasters, but we just had this great chat a few weeks ago. And we talked about some really, I think, very hard things to face in our line of work, in the corporate world, certainly, things that you're passionate about and almost mad at. And that's how we're going to end. And I love where we're going with that. But for now, I want to dive into a section that we're going to call superlatives. So when we did our Art of the Interview episode. I asked you what was the hardest interview you've ever done?

And you said, Jim Collins, the author of the book Good to Great. And because the book has been transformative for you, you've gone back to it several times. You really admired Jim and his thinking he doesn't do that many interviews. So it took a while for you to get the yes there. And then we talked through some of the mechanics of how when you started, he began asking you questions. And it immediately kind of brought the wall. down and you were comfortable. So I loved that little anecdote and I was like, wow, that's something that goes on behind the scenes of this great show that you really have built, Ryan, with amazing

guests and longevity and a passionate audience. And I was like, I want to know more that puts me in that kind of like behind the scenes place. So here's this section. I'm going to ask you a few superlative based questions about your show to get behind the scenes and give me really quick answers in response and here and there we'll go deeper. So that's not good? Well, the, the, the, The short, quick answers, I can't promise, but I'll try. That's the other thing you and I've learned about each other is we're not short on words. All right. So the hardest interview was Jim Collins.

What is the most downloaded episode of your show of all time? Jim's is up there. The one interesting aspect of my show is that it's steadily grown week over week since inception. So I actually went back and looked through this. And episode 310s with David Epstein, who wrote the book called range why generalist triumph in a specialized world. And so Epstein currently, even though it's a recent one, is still the most popular. And one of the other most popular ones is number 300 that I did with my dad and brother. People seem to really dig it when us three get together and,

and have an in-depth conversation about life and parenting and leadership. So while neither of them may be the most famous people, although Epstein's on a pretty good run right now for those in this world of nonfiction writing, those are the ones that are jumping out as being very popular with audiences. But I think mainly it's because the show has just steadily grown since inception. What do you think you can learn about your audience by looking at those most downloaded episodes? Because I think when I'm as a podcaster and someone who also advises brands that are podcasting, you know, brands sell products and services. They're not selling ad space. The download total matters or should matter a little bit less to them because what they actually

want to know is that people are sticking around. And I would argue that a media company selling ad space wants that too, especially the creators at that company. So a download is, you know, what you might call in marketing of vanity metric a little bit because it's a signal, it's a finger to the wind. It's directional. So one problem with a download, for example, is you actually don't know if people listen. It just means the file was localized. Someone downloaded it. And the other thing is a lot of apps that people listen through automatically download shows that you're subscribe to. So for my consumption experiences with podcasting, it's set to automatically download. So at no point do I kind of like represent a listener in the minds of a show host until I actually

listen at which point they don't know that I'm listening because it's downloaded. So anyways, I could rant against downloads a lot, but there is some insight into it. So what have you learned by looking at the most popular episodes in terms of downloads? A couple things. I look at the trend, first of all. That's what I care about most if you ask me that question. And I, I can, care about that, the arrow is steadily pointing up. And what I've learned is that my show is not very guest dependent, meaning the guest doesn't have to be famous anymore. For example, if I had Gary V on, which I did way back early on, I think it's 31.

So years ago, that one spiked, right? He tweets it out to millions of people and it's spiked. I don't really have spikes anymore for guests. I mean, Jim, Colin gets a little spike. So some of those big names might give me a spike, but really it just steady incline. And that is exactly what I want to show that it's really guest agnostic. People are telling their friends and the best form of marketing is word of mouth. So it steadily increases week over week, meaning the people that are coming on that are new are outweighing the ones that maybe are leaving.

And just from a business perspective, that's that's kind of what you want as well, right? You want your business to have this steady incline. And so that's what I've learned is I can just reach out and find people that I'm most curious about. And my audience has trusted me to do that work on the front end, that it's worth their time to listen, even if they've never heard of the guest. One of the things I love about shows that you can use to your benefit if you're an individual or a whole company running a show or a network of shows is it's an activity that the results compound, the benefits compound. And a lot of people's work, whether you're monthly or quarterly or, you know, especially in a large corporation, it can kind of feel like you're digging holes in dry sand. It's a calories in results out based work. And if you stop, you kind of feel like the walls will cave in on you and you got to start from ground zero again. But a show is sticky. There's that bingeworthiness to it where people go to the backlog, rediscover old episodes. You can re-promote old episodes because new people come in or existing listeners forgot that episode. or missed it, there's this really nice compounding benefit to that. And one such compounding benefit is it gives you, the host, a ton of insights and content

that can not just enrich the way you approach the work, but quite literally you can say in a conversation, oh, that's such a good question or, oh, I've seen this problem a few times before. Let me go back. I'll email you two or three conversations I've had where we address that, right? You're equipped to serve. And so or even in real time. And my friend Greg Meredith brings us up to me all the time when we're in a meeting together

where it just, I don't even hardly think, but there's this big chunk of my brain that has these quotes in my mind because I had the direct conversations with the people who supplied me with those quotes and they just come out at the right moment. And he goes, how do you, how do you have that in your mind? I think this is actually a good part, Jay,

as far as to understand my learning from. the show personally, and I hope others can learn this way, is that during every conversation I have, I write as I hear the person speaking. I type my own show notes and I listen to the show before I release it. So I'm listening in real time, having the conversation. I'm writing in real time while they're speaking. I type out the show notes based on that writing and then I listen to the show again. So I've listened to the conversation at minimum twice with two forms of writing. So if you want to sear information in your brain, this for me has been a really useful method so that at the drop of a hat I could take from episode 78 with Cat Cole that productive

achievers have this great balance of courage and confidence mixed with curiosity and humility. And that's the type of leader that we all want to be. So that type of thing just starts happening. And I think for those, even if you don't have a show, it is very healthy to to, to, regularly put yourself in positions to have curiosity conversations with people who are more intelligent than you, so they lift you up. That's partially, Jay, why I chose you for this because you're a lifter, right? For me, someone who was uplifting. I had many emails, people say, I love that, that one with Jay Akunza. That dude sounds really smart. And I'd say, yeah, I agree. And so

that's, I think, the learning, even if you're not a podcaster or you don't have a show that you could take from what we're talking about is to put yourself in those situations on a regular basis with people who are really bright, intelligent, and offer wisdom so that you could learn that, jot that down, and then use that later on and perhaps a different room with people. By the way, thank you for saying that. Listeners and you, Ryan, and yes, compliments will get you everywhere with me. So let's move on to, I have six more superlatives.

Let's do them fast. Number six, by the way, really special. It's kind of a, I think it'll really light up a few of your listeners in particular. So, all right. So number two, superlative. What's the, we talk about most downloaded. What's the most referenced episode? Like the single episode that you cite to other people or in other projects, the most.

I just said it, actually. And it's funny because I didn't even realize that I didn't think of the question coming. Number 78 with Kat Cole, I referred. I had a speech yesterday, local speech where I could drive to. And I referenced it and it wasn't a part of my talk. when I spoke to Kat and I asked her, this is before I was asking the question around sustained excellence, I was asking about high achievers, which is similar question, but a little bit different because the word sustain isn't part of it.

And Kat gave me this, go listen to 78 if you haven't. She was on the phone, so the quality is not good, but it's not bad, just not as good as this one like we're having here. And she gave this like two and a half minute monologue and started it with the productive achievers, the greatest leaders that I've ever spent time around, have this year. equal balance of courage and confidence mixed with curiosity and humility and they can't, and think of it as a balance and one side can't have too much weight. If it does, it goes crazy. I mean, the courageous and confident leaders of the bowl and the china shop if they don't

have the curiosity and humility. And the person who's just curious and just humble is sitting in the corner reading a book, taking notes. You've got to have both equally weighted. And for me, I've tried really hard to live up to that. And I've certainly shared her message with just about everybody I talked to. Well, okay, so the bull in the china shop is when you lack curiosity as a leader. And if you're just curious and aren't leading, you're in the corner reading a book. I love the vivid imagery there. Well, it's like you've got to have both. Like you got to have that good. And think about the greatest leaders in your life. And she called them, you know, the most productive achievers. And she said, that will be the single greatest determining factor in your long term success. And I thought,

I like it because it's this balance, right? And the greatest leaders in my life have that, that solid balance. And I think she's maybe in the process of writing a book about that one sentence, which I certainly think there's a lot to dig into there. All right. Superlative number next. The biggest delta. I had a coach that used to say that when we would do repeat sprints around the track. He wouldn't tell us how many he had planned. He would just say like number next.

All right. The biggest delta between what you thought someone would be like and what they were actually like. I was very fortunate to have General Stanley McChrystal for. star general in charge of J-Soc overseas. I was I was beyond intimidated by him. One, I hold our military in the highest regard. And, you know, I've hired a lot of former military people in my career and could listen to military stories all day.

I'm not a military guy myself. I was a football player. And so I was very nervous. I expected him to be like Jock Willink was with me. If I was like, Jocco, you're ready. He's like, execute. Dude. Like, that's exactly what he said.

Just like, you know, you and I said before I hit record. Jaka was in character the entire time. I expected Stan to be kind of like that. And we get on the call and he's like, hey, you know, call me Stan. And he was curious and humble and kind and thoughtful. And we had a long conversation after we recorded. And I wasn't intimidated at all. He felt like a good friend.

And then in fact, he invited me to go to Gettysburg with his class that he teaches at Yale, which is a kind of a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And I said yes. And so I went down to Gettysburg. We ran to Gettysburg from the hotel. It was like a surreal, incredible experience. And I got to know him and his wife and really well and just had an incredible trip. And then because he was so kind and giving, it gave me the guts to ask him to write the forward to my book. and he was the first person on the list, Jay,

and I don't know if you had this experience, but the first person on the list that I wanted to write my forward because I thought, this is probably not realistic, but hey, you got to shoot your shot. So I asked him, and he was like, yeah, that would be fantastic. I would love to. And three weeks later,

I have an email with a word document, the forward of my book, written by four-star General Stanley McChrystal. Talk about a moment. And not only, that he did not mail this thing in like it is really well done and it started from a place of i was insanely intimidated and scared to then he became a friend and i got to hang out with him in person and then i got the guts to ask him and he and he did it man so it's just another kind of story to

show hey like go for it i guess is this simple way to say it like get the ask ask for what you want and then be prepared and ready to go and make the most of your opportunity. And you really never know what could happen. Because if you would have came to last year and say, yeah, General McChrystal is going to write the forward to your book. I would have said, yeah, right. There is no chance. And now it's done. Like, it's getting printed as we speak, actually.

So it's pretty wild. Superlative number next. The hardest part of running this show. By the way, my answer is the opposite of short. This is not good. Okay. Hardest part of running the show. it is never ending it just never ever ends i'm always seeking out guests i am always um and

with a variety of ways of of reaching out cold of working with publicists it's never ending just getting guests the preparation is never ending right reading constantly watching video like it just i think that's just the phrase is that it's just a never ending process and you you don't like i don't want to break from it, but even if I did, I don't know if that's possible unless I decided to break my show up into seasons. And I've been really big on consistency and being part of my listeners, rituals and routines and having it out every Sunday night at 7 o'clock Eastern so they could either listen early that night or it could be a part of their Monday morning commute, which it is for a lot of people. So it's just never ending to stay with high quality and consistency.

Let's do three more. So what recognizing it's a lot of different things that have all hopefully headed in the right direction for you. If you have to pick one, what is the one thing that you feel like as a as a podcaster you've most improved at? Overall, I think I'm a better conversationalist in general, just in life, ask better questions, get deeper with a person quicker because I'm not afraid at all to ask, I think go deep fast when it comes to that. I don't, I'm not a big fan of small talk. So I'm willing to meet someone for the first time and start asking them kind of deeper questions within the first five minutes.

And I think I've built that confidence because I've spoken with so many people who are smarter than me that I'm not really, I don't really have any fear of doing that at all, regardless of who the person is. Um, and so I think that's, that's been, that's been helpful for me. Yeah. It's funny. You take it out of the podcast context. On the podcast, you say things like, you know, we first met here, blah, blah, blah,

all these small talk things that can cut out. and you can jump to questions like, why is this work meaningful to you? Those kinds of things. But if you apply it to your life as a person who may or may not have a show, someone listening, for example, it's so much easier to say,

hey, what are you working on that's really exciting to you? Or why is this work meaningful? Or, you know, like, it just cut out the automated responses or questions that look like networking or look like building rapport and just kind of jump to something meaty. you'll be amazed at how people are actually not put off by that. People like it, I think.

I like it. I think it's, I don't know. It's been a big, big benefit. It's something I learned doing a lot of video shoots where it's, it's way more obvious on camera when someone feels bored or stiff or something like that. So it applies to content. It applies to your life. Let's do, all right, two more.

Where or what? Let's do top three here instead of just one. If you had to rattle off the three biggest benefits to you. your life because of this podcast as a result of this podcast. What are those top three things? Number one is relationships built both with my guests who have become friends in a lot of cases or I've met up with them in Gettysburg and they write forward to my book or we get to you and I have these conversations because I'm fortunate to speak with subject matter experts on particular topics and then I can I've built the relationship to where I can have follow up calls

with them about their particular area of expertise and learn even more. So relationships is definitely number one. Growing up, I actually was not a very curious person. I had to mature and become more curious. And this show has really energized and built up a curiosity in me that now is out of this world. And I've realized the more that I learn, there's so much left to learn. and so I think doing this has really, doing the show has really made me more obsessed and curious

to learn more about particularly people's lives and their stories and how they've been able to sustain excellence. So I'd say that's two, yes or three, so relationships that. And I think a little bit from the four, I just overall, my wife Miranda mentions this to me, just overall am better from a conversation perspective with people. lack fear with anybody. I recently was was I did a live show with a CEO of a big company. He's a billionaire.

You know, people are kind of bowing down to this guy all around the room. And you know how people treat sometimes people with power. And I just I just don't do that. I would treat him the exact same way as I treated the person who was taking out the trash and setting up the food for the event, right? With, with, with kindness and care and curiosity.

Um, but nobody is better than me and nobody is worse than me. We're all kind of similar in that regard. I think doing this show has, has, has helped me realize that. And by the way, side, side no, I don't know how if this happens to you. Do you ever get like a little mild joy out of seeing, sometimes it's an older person, but not always, but seeing like a real rich guy with power. And I say guy because it's usually the guys, because the girls are smarter than this, but rich guy with power who can't figure out how to like hook up his mind. microphone or how to get the technology to work when you're trying to record a podcast. In a way, it oddly makes me feel like this, and maybe I'm a bad person for thinking this,

but it makes me feel kind of good when they can't figure out what I think is really easy technology. And they're like, I can't get this to work. You know, and it humanizes them a little bit. I'm always just, I just laugh to myself and I'm trying to help them out. But it's funny to me when I see this real rich guy who can't, he can't figure out Skype or something or a microphone or headphones. It's always funny to me.

Well, my belly laugh gives way my answer, which is yes. But the reason I feel that way is like, I think we all just forget, doesn't matter what you do, especially if you do it a while. You forget how accustomed to it, fluent in it, how good at it you've become. And it could be something as simple as figuring out the tech to get started or something more nuanced that takes a while to learn. And I think I have this analogy I use. And because I used to be a sports journalist briefly in my career and because I'm Italian, I only use analogies that are either sports related or food. food related. So the sports that related analogy here is every so often in your career, you have to dunk on a Fisher Price hoop. And so what I mean by that is if you're a public speaker, this happened

to me. I was like two years into being a public speaker, like being on the road, using it as a source of income, you know, working at the craft and being frustrated by not being as good as I wanted to be, which is just my state of being at all times, which is healthy and unhealthy at the same time maybe, but anyways, I was asked to give my best friend of the world's wedding toast, the best man's speech. And it was that, to me, was dunking on a Fisher Price hoop because here I am now a trained, very consistently speaking public speaker who had worked at the craft and, you know, tried to figure out how to cut out the fat and do a good speech, walking into an arena where we all know those toasts are usually garbush. And so that's dunking on a Fisher Price hoop. And like,

you know, for people who don't know, that's like the toy hoop, the basketball hoop. that kids would play on in their driveway. And when you're an adult and you dunk on it, you're like, look at me. I'm like Shaquille O'Neal here, right? It's like, it's easy. You dominate. And then you go on, go on and go back to the 10-foot hoop and challenge yourself. So the short answer to that is yes.

Gotcha. I like it. Okay. All right. Here's the last superlative, which I mentioned would be special to some listeners. Who are the most active listeners? The people that you see popping up a ton, this is a chance to kind of shout them out because I don't think people realize that when someone is in the public eye, especially when they're not

necessarily on Good Morning America every day or an NBA player, even then, them, I suspect this happens. But when you do something publicly, there are those people who they keep supporting you, they keep saying things. And even if you don't respond to them ever, you appreciate it and you do see them. And so I want them to feel seen. So who are the most active listeners? Who would you shout out?

Man, I'm just getting set up to leave out so many people. Let's acknowledge that at front. There are some people here. So you know, what's interesting to me is like, is I've actually built a part of my business around this. So one of, as you know, one of the things that I do is I, I lead and facilitate leadership circles. We call them learning leader circles. These are paid mastermind groups. And that came out of these types of people, people who continuously were content.

contacting me, saying kind things about the show. And so then I tried to build a community around it where we have curriculum and teach from that. And so, I mean, I'd be remiss if I didn't say members of the leadership circle. One of the first ones ever is Joe Nykert. Joe booked me for a speech after hearing many of it. Now he's in my first original leadership circle and he's become one of my really good friends. He lives in Boston, actually. I should probably introduce you guys.

Larry Seiler, remember in Cleveland from Spyglass, he was doing the same thing. Parker Mays, who I've known for a really long time. Lizzie Merritt is a great one because Lizzie actually emailed me four years ago initially, really thoughtful, kind email about why the show has made her life better. And we just kept saying, she kept sending these emails to me about like really specific good things that had been published on the show. And it was really helping her. And then became part of my second leadership circle. And then since then, and it was a way to thank me, kept doing these extra things over the top to help me.

Like she would transcribe things without me even asking and just send it to me. Like all these little things that were super helpful that I didn't, I wasn't doing. Never asked for a thing in return just for saying thank you. And until it got to the point where I said, Lizzie, like, I'm getting ready to grow my team. And I need to, I need to hire somebody to do some of what you're doing full time as well as some of these other activities. Would you be interested in this? And she said yes. And so Lizzie's the first full-time, I don't like to use the word employee because we work together.

But she is a full-time, full-benefit employee with me now. And it started because she sent me a cold email saying, thank you for this episode. It really helped me and had specifics behind it. And so I share hers and highlight her even more because you just never know, man. Like you never know. If somebody is producing helpful work that is making your work. that is making your life better, tell them, tell them, send them an email, hit them up on social media, or if you see them in person, tell them why.

There's no downside. Literally there's no, you may get ignored, but who cares? I mean, there's no downside to telling somebody that has helped you that they have and why. And it's the fuel, as you know, we've talked about the tour. It is the fuel that keeps us really energized and juiced up to do this. It's part of my motivation is getting those types of that type of feedback. And you never know though. I would have never anticipated that this would be a person that I would hire.

But here we are. And now we're doing it. So it's pretty cool how some, what can happen from just an initial first email? My storytelling idol, the late grade Anthony Bourdain, he talked about how to create anything. And he was talking about, I think, TV and books. But anything I think falls under this category doesn't have to be content either. to create anything and expect people, appreciate it, like it, spend time with it. That's a somewhat monstrous thought is what he says.

There's a little bit of a delusional bent to trying to put out work in the world and expecting others to like it. So when someone actually goes out of their way for however many seconds it might take, it doesn't have to be long, and say to you, I appreciate this. I like this. My favorite show is X. Have you checked out Ryan's show? Those things are profoundly helpful and motivating.

And yeah, the human brain latches on. to the one bad thing, the one bad comment because we're scared of the saber tooth tiger. And, you know, like that's how we're wired. But I think for people in the public eye, people who put out their work every single day, someone is consistent as you are, Ryan. It's just, it's so, so valuable. So I just want people to be clear about that. I saw a, I saw Green Day, the video on Howard Stern recently. And Howard gave him this compliment about some of his music or a video or something. And I looked at the face of Billy Joe, lead singer of Green Day.

This guy's been doing it for like 25 years, right? He's sold millions and millions and millions of copies, right? He's, he's, you would think he's past the stage of caring about a compliment. It meant so much to him, so much that Howard said. And now part of it is because it's Howard Stern. But regardless, you just, I think that's just the message here, Jay, as we're saying very similar things. But I, we're spending more time on it because I do think it's important because

I'll sometimes ask somebody, I'll say, they say they've been listening for four years and they just now email me. And I'd say, well, what were you doing four years ago? Like, why didn't you email me? I didn't think you'd respond or I was nervous or I didn't know what to say. And so that's why I always encourage people. Like if somebody, I'm not just talking about you and me. I'm talking just in general. If somebody is doing something that is adding value to their life, tell them.

And I try really hard to do the same. Like with no ask, if I hear, you know, I just listen to one of Coppulman's episodes and I just said, dude, like, that one was so, with Liz Fair was so legit and here's why, just wanted to tell you. And he's like, thanks, man, that means a lot. Like, real quick note back. Like, just, just tell them, you know, just tell them that it was meaningful and tell them why. And it is definitely helpful for the person who is putting that work together and choosing to publish it to be judged by all. So we have two more sections that I want to get to the, we're going to move on from superlatives.

Section two is called stagnation is the enemy. And section three is that, uh, inspired by that, uh, phone call where, you know, we talked about something very difficult. So section two, I think we undervalue the power of consistency. You know, we're thinking about writing, which is kind of how I identify, like what am I? I am a writer, even though I do a lot of other things. People who have writers block, it's, it's weird to me because I think they're trying to launch the thing. And I think it's incumbent upon a writer or anybody in any job, I think, to just continue to put in the reps. you might have to be bad at it for a while, but if you have a good intent and consistency, it's really difficult not to eventually break through in whatever term, whatever interpretation

of that phrase you're thinking about. And so stagnation to me is the enemy, you know, falling into a rut, no forward motion, or doing the same thing over and over again, not breaking patterns to see the world differently, re-inspire yourself and do better work. So I'm a big believer that consistency is the most important thing and stagnation, or, even inertia, no motion at all, that's terrible. So for your show, Ryan, I want to be clear on a couple facts so people get how consistent you've been, but then I want to dive into this concept of how you are trying to avoid stagnation because this many episodes in, it could creep into you and your psyche or maybe the market has caught up to a show style that at one point was a little

bit rare, but now a lot of people try to do what you do. So the first thing is the facts. Let's be clear to people who may not know this. How long have you done this show and about how many episodes? I know there's a number, but just so people listening understand. Five years. And yeah, I mean, I've recorded over 350 episodes. That's insane to me. I know. It's actually kind of crazy to say it and slow down a bit and think about that. It's nuts, man. So across those five years, how often do you remember why you started and how vivid is that idea or has it? changed. I really remember why I started.

So do you want me to tell that now? Yeah, please. Okay. So a couple of different things were happening all at the same time. One, I'd finished getting my MBA. And my company had paid that I was working for a time. Lexus Nexus, Nexis paid $52.50 a year, $5,250 a year to go back to school.

So I felt like it was a crime not to use that money. So it took me six years, but I got my MBA because I was working full time. after that I said I can't not use this money but I'm done with my master's degree so I'm going to go back and get my PhD I started looking into those programs in like a management or leadership or something and there's a number of programs of University of Chicago was one of them I was looking at and there was some others where I started the process of of applying at the same time I'm also listening to a lot of podcasts and so I'm really digging it and it was as a conversation my younger brother age and I would talk about all the time is like podcast episodes of random people we were listening to Then I can get into the deeper story, but it's also my book, but it basically had, I was fortunate I have a conversation, a meeting if I wanted it set up with Todd Wagner.

Todd Wagner is Mark Huberan's business partner, Todd started broadcast.com alongside Mark. And I had the opportunity to have dinner with him if I was willing to fly to the location where he was going to be at this time. So I flew to him. I had this dinner. And we both actually got there early to the hotel where the dinner was going to take place. And so it was just him and I one-on-one. The dinner was a little bit bigger group.

Him and I one-on-one were talking at the bar. And, man, I was just blown away. Like I was asking, I was just peppering him with questions just like I would do on my podcast. And this is, you know, more than five years ago. And asking all these questions about it. And he goes, I said, you know, what was it like when you sold it? Like, what do you do? And he goes, well, look, you know, we're sitting there face-to-face with the leaders at Yahoo.

And he's kind of getting like dramatic. and he's pausing. And I said, listen, you either are going to have to buy us or compete with us. You choose. And, you know, him and Mark sell for $5.7 billion and they cash out. And, you know, Mark does his stuff with the Mavericks and Shark Tank and Todd's more philanthropic with what he does. I was blown away, man.

And I said, you know what, I would, instead of going to get my PhD and going back through the process of them choosing my course load and them choosing my professors and when I say them, I mean the college, them choosing kind of what I would learn. I want to choose what I want to learn. And I want to choose more importantly who I'm going to learn it from. I want to choose all of my professors like Todd and others. So then I thought of, well, how can I do that? And the podcast came about through conversations with a few friends and to say, well, I could record these conversations and share it.

The scary part is that other people get to judge me and kind of the questions I ask and how stupid I sound. but maybe people could benefit from it. Maybe people could kind of learn alongside me. And so that was the impetus. That was the kind of combination of things that were happening at the time that all was this perfect storm, which then led to me saying, you know what, I'm going to do it. And then I just understood, I studied deeply, you know,

why did shows rate high in iTunes and what did they do? And then the mechanics of recording and microphone, like all that stuff. I did all that. And then I recorded 22 episodes before I launched a single one of them and had a real, you know, intentional launch plan, got it all set up and, and then did it. And fortunately, got pretty good feedback from the very beginning. And that, again, was fuel to keep going past those initial 22. And I haven't stopped since. And I've released an episode every Sunday night at 7 o'clock Eastern minimum, at least one a week, since the very first one.

and if for whatever reason you see me not releasing one on Sunday night at 7 o'clock, something very bad has happened to me. Please call the authority because Ryan Hawk is in trouble. Something very bad has happened. Or we have a Libson issue, which luckily we haven't had yet, right, which is the host of the podcast. So that's really the impetus and that's the story of how of the consistency of what I try to live up to.

Yeah, Libson being the platform that you upload the file to and distributes to all the players. Is that what you use the same? I use Simplecast. Okay. Yeah. I'm a sickler for good design, good software design because they came out of the software as a service industry. So, uh, let me understand the prep process that you have. I think for my own notification as a show host, but also just for people that don't know what goes into, say you have somebody who is now scheduled. And so we can skip that part. Someone is ready to go. They're on the calendar. A, how far out? Do you usually try to schedule people? And then B, what do you do in between that moment you know you're going to talk to them and the moment you hit record.

So this is where a lot of the work comes in play when it comes to just to just the prep. So I try to read everything that they've published so that that includes books and articles. So that's that's that's usually hours of work. I try to watch their speeches that are online on YouTube or wherever it may be so I could get an understanding of things they've said. One of the quick note too on when I read their books, I usually start with the acknowledgements. from having just written a book and knowing the care that I put into the acknowledgement section of who the people that have meant so much to me to help me publish a book, I usually go there

first because sometimes that can create good nuggets. So when you and I talked about the interview one, the one with Adam Savage is, there's a good nugget from there in that episode. So I go there. And then if I know friends of theirs, I will reach out to their friends and say, hey, give me something that I can't find on the internet about this person that I could potentially weave in. Now, that doesn't happen every time. But if there are mutual friends, that is great when that can happen.

And then I'll read everything written about that person. And then from there, it goes from creating a loose, like I have just a ton of notes. And then the ton of notes get scaled down to a semi-loose outline of flow that I hope to go. But I've learned through this process, the best question. are follow-up questions. So you've got to be present. You've got to be a good listener. You've got to take good notes.

You've got to be willing to call back things. And then I try really hard to bring in parallel. So I'll think of if I'm talking to a military person, maybe I've talked to another military person that had a similar mission. And then I will, I will think of parallels that I could bring up with that guest because that's something that perhaps has never been done before, right? is that I had a previous guest that had a parallel or a similarity to this current guest. How can I weave that together?

But do it naturally so that it makes sense and it flows right. All of that happens in the prep process where I have like little question marks on my notepad. Like, ooh, could I bring up Jocco with McChrystal? And then maybe this specific topic or whatever it may be. That that's also happening along the way, which just takes, I think it's much deeper and more nuanced. And most of the preparation on the page never makes it in the show, right? I have five, six, seven hours worth of material that we could talk about. And we talk usually for 45 minutes to an hour.

How much of the prep process do you think, like if you had to take a percentage, like almost a pie chart, where it's pre-production. So before you hit record, production time, that's like while you're creating the content and then post-production. And so editing, what are the percentages of those three? So the prep is like 10 to 1, I would say, maybe 10 or 15 to 1. So if we talk for an hour, 10 to 15 hours, post is the main work that I do is I'd write, I, you know, handwrite notes, then I type out the notes. So I do that myself. I will never outsource that because that's how I learned. But I do hire an editor and audio guy who's gotten really good at putting it all together for me.

So I don't do that part of it. So that post is on his plate. I mean, pay him, obviously, to do that. And then my wife helps me create the artwork for each episode. If she's got a little extra time, will help me clean that up and make it look better. So I would say the bulk of the work is in the prep. I've been, you know, this is a quick tangent, but because I run a media company, it's called marketing showrunners, and we're teaching marketers how to make shows in audio and video,

I've been on this soapbox about, well, like a, basically like a, a, thousand things because that's what I do. But like the big one right now is if you are doing an interview show, a lot of people say, well, I can't do a show that's like NPR in video or I don't know, chef's table on Netflix in in video. Sorry, NPR and audio. I tell them like, okay, but the choice isn't, we're not going to do that much work. The choice is, does the bulk of your time and investment come after the shoot after the recording? So heavy post-production, narration, you know, flourishes like you see on TV or in these big shows and podcasting. So is the investment after production or before? Because you're still, you still have to put in a ton of work to be a really

good interviewer. It seems like it's easy. It seems like it flows. It seems like you can switch on the microphone. But I love that you said 10 to 1. So I just want to pull that one inside out from that, from that big answer because I think it's so important for people to understand. When anything seems natural, it usually took a ton of work to get there. Yeah, definitely true. I think that's the, think about anything big you've had in your life, big tests, a big speech, a big triathlon, right? If you're not properly prepared, you're going to fail. That's just part of the deal. Big football games, like, whatever it may be, it's all about the prep.

But I learned that, you know, ninth grade as a freshman quarterback. We, you know, my coaches were not going to not let us be prepared. And so I've taken that into everything. And I have this saying, like, Lizzie and I talk about this now, like, Are we going to do it or not? And if we say yes, then it's all right. If we're going to do it, then we're going to do it. Meaning we're not going to put out something that's just okay.

We're going to do the prep. We're going to work really hard and we're going to put it out. Right. We're making the book page for my website. It's not going to be a 60% good page. It's going to be 100. So we're either going to decide to do it or we're not. There isn't really anything in between.

And even if we're say, hey, we're going to try this. Well, we're going to try it at 100% speed. Like you and I do. doing this, we're trying this. We're experimenting with this, but there's still a full-blown run down. There's conversations. There's a lot of thought. There's a lot of prep. It's not like we're just kind of throwing it out there. There is intentionality behind what we're doing here. And I think that's important too with anybody. Like if you're going to do it, then do it. Totally. We swapped ideas. We landed on this one. Let's do it behind the scenes about the show.

I put together a rough rundown here. The sections. Here's how we want to intro and outro the program. And then we got on Skype and talked about it before we hit record. So there is this, there's all these hidden motions that people go through for podcasting in particular. So I have four more questions, two under the stagnation bucket. And then two under that sort of mystery third section, which I'll reveal in a second. But the two final questions around this idea of stagnation, switching from what you do to your thoughts on it. given your the repeatability of what you do and the longevity, the consistency you have, how do you stay engaged with the work?

Do you have any mental heuristics? Are there like things that intrinsically motivate you that you just try to remember or, you know, are there proactive changes you're trying to make? Like how do you make sure that? Because I think a lot of stagnation happens this way. The person behind the work isn't just like, okay, here we go again and go on autopilot. Yeah. So, and that's a good point. You ended with the, I have to be almost obsessively curious about the guest. If not, I won't be as good. So as you know now, we talked a little bit previously about PR people reaching out trying to get their clients on the show to, you know, push a book or something. Every once in a while, I'll accept one of those that I'm not passionately curious about. And unfortunately, I have a, number of episodes that I've recorded that nobody will ever hear because they don't live up to

the standard of excellence that I hold myself to for this show. If you're going to decide to click listen, that means that I think it's good. I think it's really good. So I've learned through making the mistake of accepting a guest, even if they have a big name, and there's been some of those that if I'm not fully ready to go and I'm not really curious, the episode will just be average. And average is not good enough. And then I have to have the really tough conversation with the person and their PR person saying, I'm sorry, I'm not releasing this episode.

It doesn't live up to the standard of excellence that I've set for myself and that I want my listeners to get, I don't think it will add value to their lives. And that has actually caused some fractured relationships from time to time. that's not good. But if you had an order of priorities, releasing excellent episodes to add value to the lives of my listeners are higher than me potentially losing a relationship with someone who I've recorded with but have never released that episode. So that's part of how I stay engaged. How else I stay engaged is, as I'm telling you, that fuel, the feedback is really helpful for me to hear how something has literally made somebody's life better is really good. Also, I spoke with Neil Preser

recently. I don't know if you know Neil, but... Yeah, Neil and I actually, so Neil is a bestselling author. Yeah. And not someone who wrote a book and said on his Twitter bio that he's a bestselling author. He's actually a bestselling author. Millions.

I mean, millions of books. Yeah, yeah. Millions of books. He is a great TED talk, actually a couple of them. And he now hosts one of Apple's picks for a top podcast in 2018 called three books, which is a brilliant lesson in show running because here he is talking to people,

some of whom you know like Seth Godin or Judy Bloom and Malcolm Gladwell, some of whom you don't like the top rated Uber driver or the top rated bartender in Canada. And he has that he, you learn about these people through them sharing the three most transformative books of their life. And he's, Neil's package the show beyond the episode level as a whole journey to find the 1,000 most transformative books in the world. So he's a smart and generous and very kind guy. I've gotten to know him. I consider him a bit of a buddy and he's awesome. But the show is incredible, three books. So anyways, I wanted to just get the context of the list. He's great. And we had dinner in between recording our first time and our second time in Toronto. And he brought this up the most recent time we recorded. And I think this is good to answer your question. The question, and he attributes it to Mark Manson, but the question is not necessarily, like,

I think the more interesting question that you should ask yourself and people should ask themselves. and perhaps you maybe have never considered before is what pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for? Those two questions. Meaning, are you willing to have some of the work and pain and struggle to prepare? And for me, that is the pain I want in my life. I enjoy and appreciate the process of preparing partially because I know most people are not willing to do it. and I enjoy, like Peyton Manning said this about playing.

Like he loved preparing. He took every rep in practice. He watched all the film. He loved the preparation process. And the reason that he couldn't play any longer was because he couldn't practice. Like his arm wouldn't work. And so he's like, I can't do the thing that I love, even though it's painful for most people. And so I think the lesson that this could be taken for others is like, what pain do you want?

And the pain actually keeps me engaged, as weird as that may sound. but the thought of, oh man, I'm going to record with Jayakunzo in a week. I've got to be ready. What am I going to do? Okay, I'm going to re-break the wheel. I'm going to watch all the speeches on YouTube. And then seeing all like my whole page of notes that I've taken, that gives me a lot of satisfaction and significance. And I feel like I have the opportunity to help other people.

So I like that pain of preparing to get ready. And that helps me stay engaged. on a regular basis. I just don't know if I ever see that going away. I mean, I can say right now, there's no way because it's another question I get is, how do you not get tired of it? How do you not get bored? Well, that's why.

That's hard. And I, I will, I don't foresee that going away anytime in the near future because it's, it's a part of my life. I mean, it's just the way I think and operate. Yeah. Third to last question for you is the kind of the flip side, or maybe it's a, it's just building on the same idea. We're talking about longevity and consistency.

We're talking about how stagnation is the enemy here. And I asked how you stay engaged. And so that's kind of an internal cause of stagnation is you can check out of the work in anything anyone does. But there's another cause of work that seems to grow stale, which is or the reason it grows stale is that the market catches up. So what was once refreshing no longer is, you know, people's expectations have changed the access to in this niche. For example, the number of shows that feature amazing leaders, that's certainly gotten a lot easier. There's a ton more shows.

So early mover advantages, Wayne. And there's just more podcasts in general. So I'm curious, if you think about now, not just your own involvement in your own show, but your place in the broader podcasting ecosystem and the broader kind of business education ecosystem, how do you operate differently today than when you first started? or how do you continue to make this show refreshing and welcome when that's now your backdrop? Well, one, I'm better at it. So that helps.

I felt that progress. And so, while there are a ton of interview shows that have some of the same guests as I do, I think I've learned that people like learning along with me and the process and the type of questions I ask. So that's helpful. Can I just attest to that? So I think it's easy for someone to say I'm better at it. As someone who has been on the receiving end of your interviews, I agree. Like I've appeared on some shows.

a guest and I hosted a lot of shows too and a lot of episodes you do have the preparation the chops the ability to have a good conversation go deep like extract great content and lessons for your listeners I just want people listening to know when Ryan says he's better at it he means it as he improved compared to when he started oh yeah I don't mean like I would like to posit though yeah I know but you're a humble guy so I want to say this on your behalf I would like to posit that you are also better at this craft than most hosts yeah I appreciate that I mean that that what I like to measure is kind of listening to myself and comparing myself against my previous self. So I think that's part of it, too, is I've really understood my audience well. And you

mentioned this actually the very first time record on your kind of official episode that was about you and break the wheel, which is I understand who's listening based on the feedback I've gotten. And so you'll often hear me say the avatar of who's listening is, you know, Jake, that sounds great what you just said, but now can we relate this to a person who is the mid-level manager in corporate America, someone who's working to achieve goals, build teams, hire, fire, build culture, right? That person, we need to understand how to take what you just said, whatever it may be, and apply it to that specific person because that person needs to hear this. And not just in this high-level zoomed out way, but let's zoom in, man. Like, let's have them

be able to, for example, run a better meeting on Monday because of the conversation that you and I had. I feel like I've gotten very specific on knowing who is listening and speaking directly to them. When I get the email or the compliment in person, I feel like you're speaking directly to me. That's the stuff. Like, that is the good stuff. And it's a good signal to say, hey, we're in the right direction because I'm not, I'm not trying to be this broad leadership guy. No, like we get really specific in an area where I struggled personally and improved over time and would have would have loved to have had a resource come out once a week to help me in my specific role of being a mid-level manager in corporate America because there are millions of those people who need more. And I feel like I'm fortunately to be one of the places that people come to for that help and assistance.

I also want to brag a little bit more on your behalf here, which is when I see this as, someone who came out of the marketing world where there's trends and flavors of the week and shiny objects and organizations or people glom onto that because some guru said they should or because it's buzzy and it's in the media or what have you they're riding a wave but when the wave crashes and i saw this working in vc with the firms we would invest in those startups are they actually authentically trying to solve the problem or they try to take advantage of some heat in this niche so when the wave crashes the people who are simply trying to ride a wave get watered. washed away. And the only people that are left are those who really dug in underneath the

trend, who really authentically care, who really understand the first principles and the foundational ideas it takes to be masters of the craft, to solve the problem, and to serve. And so I would liken this wave of podcasts, just like any other wave. There's a lot of people who, on the face value of it, are kind of trying to compete overtly or just because of the category they occupy with the learning leader show. But they're riding a wave. because they want to be famous quick or because they want to take advantage of a trend. And when that washes out, which inevitably will, your show and a smaller subset of competing or similar shows will remain.

And so to anyone listening, if you feel like something you're doing is authentic, it's true, and it's become saturated. Consistency can be a differentiator, like digging into the reasons you're doing it are internal. It's because of me and my team and we're authentically great at this. Or service-minded. It's because of our audience and our customers. and they really need this.

But as soon as you start to look horizontal, wow, look at how many podcasts, we better catch up. Or, oh, my gosh, like, we have to do something as a response to a competitor. It's at that point where you start to uproot yourself a little bit and you're in danger of getting washed away. So just to put a bow on that, I do feel like when podcasting starts to normalize again a little bit,

your show will continue to survive and thrive, while a lot of these other shows will, what they call pod fade and wash away. I appreciate the kind of work. man. Thank you. No problem. No problem. All right. Let's end with that, that mystery section. So, really quick story. A few weeks or months ago at this point, because we're talking a lot behind the scenes now, we had a call about your speech and your book and kind of what's next and how the learning leader show contributes to the larger, you know, kind of like body of work that you're building

for yourself and for your audience to serve them. And we talked about how there are so many similar sounding leadership books and speeches and it's sort of like how do you differentiate or how do you find a thread to pull and I talked about this shift that I you know I mentioned in my book and our first chat together when you switch from acting like an expert who hands out answers towards acting like an investigator who now asks really piercing questions and tries to go and solve them it leads to just this really rich amount of content and ideas and you you kind of go on a journey with your audience and and And we were trying to think about what's Ryan's journey? Like, what are you going on next?

What are you embarking on next or now? And what threat are you pulling? And I asked you a very simple question, which is like, and this helps me in my creative work, what are you mad at? What pisses you off about leadership in the corporate world such that you'd like to explore why it happens and figure out beyond symptoms, what's the illness here? and then try to solve it and prevent it from happening. And so I want to ask you that question publicly. Like this Learning Leader show is part of a body of work. It's a huge part of it.

There's a lot you can learn reflecting back and a lot you can use to inform, you know, the next versions of the show. What's pissing you off about leadership today? This may sound trite, but I am on a bit of a mission to rid the world of bad bosses. And that also may sound crazy, but that is a common email I also receive is I'm learning, growing, and proving, yet I am in this position with a boss who is the opposite. So that is an area where, and I also was a bad boss at one point in my career, because, but it was partially because I was naive and didn't know any better, followed maybe the wrong. person or two because I didn't have my mind expanded or didn't have enough experience with others.

And so that's like the basis of this show and my book is around trying my best and whatever way possible to open the eyes of people who perhaps are leading teams poorly, which is then causing a lot of really good people to be disengaged. and not satisfied and upset at their place of work. And maybe this is a crazy topic to focus on, but it's also, I've experienced it and felt the pain and the impact it's had on me and my family and the people around me

that I don't want others, I want as few as people as possible to live that way, to live with a really bad boss. and I just, it's just unfortunate that there's so many out there. And so I want to get the people early. And so that stage of being promoted from individual contributor to manager is a really big jump. I'm a giant jump in your life. And if I can get to you when you're making that move, then we have a chance to have you

never be a bad boss. Right. Some of the, like, there's a bad boss that I've worked for and I guarantee you he's not listening right now because he already knows everything. He doesn't need to listen to this stuff. He doesn't need to read books, right? He didn't read books and listen to podcasts. So he's not listening right now.

Right. That person, it's probably too late or it's not going to happen. So I'm not going to really mess with that guy in this case. But the person who is going to become that guy or at least have that guy's position someday, that's who I'm speaking to. Right. Right. And that's what I'm trying to help right now.

What you've done here is two beautiful things, hard things, but important things. So one is I think you're. you've identified the thing you just explained, who are your true believers? And if you want to start a movement and effect change, it's not about convincing the skeptics. It's about finding your true believers, especially at first. And they might help get you more and more and more, right? And there's different flavors of this. Kevin Kelly talks about 1,000 true fans. Seth Godin talks about the smallest possible audience. In startup world, you hear a lot about MVP's or a minimal viable customer bases, all that stuff. So you've identified who the true believers are. And most importantly,

that who they're not. And second, and so that's a tool that you can use to embark on a journey. And second, you've also identified, I think, the ball of yarn where there's a few threads sticking out you can start to pull. So bad bosses. That's a ball of yarn. There's a lot of people saying a lot of things to try and solve that same problem. And there's a lot of subsets of the problem, a lot of symptoms. And so as you start to pull that yarn, you start to figure out what are you most interested in or what's the root cause of all this mess. And the thing I want people to hear is, There's this one quote I've heard you say publicly on a stage and in your show that I think represents the most important thread that you're pulling on. Do you mind just sharing that with us?

Yeah. Compliance can be commanded, but commitment cannot. Wait one more time. Compliance can be commanded, but commitment cannot. I'll unpack it. We've all worked in organizations where we were forced to comply because we did not want to get fired. That's a compliant organization. Yes, I will do it not happily or not fully engaged, but I'll do it because I don't want to get fired.

And I'll do it until I have a better opportunity to go to, right? The worst kind of employees, because they'll do it just enough not to get fired and then they'll go somewhere else. But commitment cannot be commanded. You have to earn people's willingness to commit to you and your mission and your vision and the way that you behave. You have to earn that. There's nothing, there's no way to force people to commit to something. So I want to build, I want to help leaders build committed organizations. I hope everyone listening has also worked at a place like that for a leader like that where you said,

oh, I want to do everything I can to win for her. She's so good. She's, she's constantly working on building her skills and helping me and caring and she, like, all of the really good, like I am so committed to her and that. organization to do what I can. I'm actually thinking of a specific person I worked for, right? That's what I hope to do and get people early in their career, or at least with an open mind willing to say, yeah, that's what I want to do. I want to be the one to help build a committed organization, not just one that's compliant because anybody can do that, right? That's that's positional

leadership. I have a higher position than you. Therefore, you will comply and do what I say. No, Now what I'm talking about, creating organization where people want to do what you say. They're committed to it. They have empowerment and freedom to help make it better. That's the type of organization. I want to help people create. And that's why I do what I do, man. I mean, that's really at the crux of everything.

I love it. You're switching from a world where everything used to be based on positional leadership to behavioral leadership when you talk about this. And so let's end here. Let's take one step down. You know, if that's the mountain peak you've identified in the distance and you have a jungle between you and the peak. And by you, I mean you, Ryan, I also mean people listening, people who want to go on this journey with you and who have started on this journey with you through your podcast and your speeches and your book and all that stuff coming up. Let's take one small step in that direction. I want to remix this, the question I pretended to ask you at the beginning, which is the question you asked everybody at the beginning when you actually host the show so well, which is the idea of, you know, what does it take to sustain excellence? What do leaders who sustain excellence have in common? I'm going to remix that and end here with you. And I'm going to ask you this question. What do leaders who

consistently earn commitment? Because remember, we're talking not about compliance. We're talking about commitment. What do leaders who consistently earn commitment from their teams have in common? Do we have another hour? No. They, first of all, are constantly working on them. themselves to improve. They're very competent, right? You've worked for incompetent and you've also worked for so they're competent themselves, meaning they have earned your respect because, like, in the sporting world, you'd say, like, players know, you know what I mean? Players know who's good. So I think they've earned that respect. So they're very competent. They're smart. They understand what they're doing. Then they're, they're certainly willing and seek out ideas.

thoughts, opinions from other people with an open mind. But then they're also at the same time able to be decisive after gathering all the information. And then they create high trust, high integrity, empowering of other people, right, caring genuinely about the whole person that they're leading, not just are you hitting the number, right? All of those things go into, I think, and there's 50 others, but those are the first things that come to my mind when you, say like what the leaders have in common who are building committed organizations? You know him, you like them, you listen to him, he's got a great brain and a really great voice. Ryan Hawk, everybody.

Ryan, thank you for doing this. Thanks, Jay. I appreciate it, man. That's a good ending. Thank you so much for being a part of this end of the podcast club, as my friend Neil Pezrecha might say. When it comes to taking an inside look at what it means to me to make the learning leader show and all of the benefits as well as the process to put it together, really enjoyed having this conversation with Jay and I want to continue having more of them. I really appreciate the early feedback that we've received. That's why we've continued to do it

because we've got such warm responses from all of you. So continue to do that. Email me, Ryan at learning leader.com. Let me know a few things that have helped you, made your life better when it comes to shows like this. And if you want us to keep doing it, because your feedback means a lot to us. And once again, thank you for continuing to give me the opportunity to do what I love. on a daily basis for that. I will forever be grateful. When you spread the word, that's how this show has that steady increase and growth,

despite the crowdedness, if that's a word, of the field of podcasts. It's because of all you. And I am so grateful that you continue to do that and will always be. All right, talk with you soon. We are opening up applications to our Learning Leader Circle. We do this once per year. 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 your why, in your what, you need to 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. Think about that. I'd ask you the same question. Who are you choosing to surround yourself with to help you grow, to push you, to challenge you, and to be there when you need help?

This is a chance to surround yourself with other growth-oriented leaders looking to challenge themselves and grow to become more effective both personally and professionally. We've added specific curriculum elements so that by the end of the year, you'll have tangible outcomes to measure your growth and be a more effective leader. These groups are intentionally curated and kept small. And time and again, the thing that people say they love most about these groups is the relationships they're able to build with one another very quickly. If you'd like to apply, go to learningleaders circle.com. That's learningleaders circle.com to apply.