The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 345: Kamal Ravikant - Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It

Episode Date: December 30, 2019

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk Tex LEARNERS to 44222 Full show notes found at www.LearningLeader.com #345: Kamal Ravikant - Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It Notes: Commonalities of leaders who have sustained excellence: A belief in the power of commitment to self: WHO am I going to be that day? Don't just float through life "Excellence means continuing through imperfect days." --> Moving forward: It's a mindset How to learn how to keep pushing forward? "Don't wait until you're qualified to do it.  Jump in, learn to swim." Kamal's process for selling: "You have to believe it." Writing process -- Forced Kamal to deal with rejection... It was part of the process to get better. Studied the greats: Hemingway - Clear, simple, prose. "Writing is more rewarding than anything.  It's just you and the blank page." "Love yourself like your life depends on it."  It's story about responding to failure. How does this work with someone who already feels great about themselves? "Fundamentally, this is about how to be better.  Learn from the maps of humanity."  It's all about what's intside. "The internal impacts the external." Kamal had to come to terms with his tough childhood.  He appreciates the strength developed from sleeping in a car (temporarily homeless) What was learned from boot camp (in the Army)? "I can handle anything thrown at me."  It teaches the value of mission and responsibility. Leading a team in business: "Hire people for what they're best at."  And then support them to do that work. "The best leaders are those that have actually done stuff."  They understand the nuance of the industry and the work. Must be hungry. Why walk across Spain? Having the mentality of, "No matter what, I'll figure it out... Take chances in life.  Go beyond comfort zones." How has a life altering event (a surgery that went bad) impacted perspective on life? "I feel blessed and lucky." "You can become a mess or become awesome." What Kamal learned from spending time with monks? "The construct of self disappears." "Love and compassion." Advice: "Excellence requires persistence."

Excellence requires persistence. There is no way around it. You don't wake up and be excellent or something. You wake up and you work at it and you become excellent over time. Right? So, you know, whatever your thing is. And if you don't know what your thing is, then pick the one that interests you the most and go all in on it.

You will grow and you will find through it what your thing is. And that, you know, it's true to doing that we find it. After five plus years, more than 350 interviews and much more vulnerability than I'm comfortable with, my book, Welcome to Management, is now available for pre-order. The foreword was written by legendary four-star general Stanley McChrystal. I am on an extremely ambitious mission to rid the world of bad bosses and your support by buying my book helps make that a reality. We've put together a number of pre-order bonuses for you to take advantage of. Go to learningleader.com, opt in and pre-order my book, Welcome to Management,

how to go from top performer to excellent leader. Go to learning leader.com. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show presented by Rixie and Meyer. I am, right. Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text learners to 4422. In order to join tens of thousands of learning leaders from all over the world. Received mindful Monday updates when I'm reading, writing, watching, thinking about. Text learners to 44222. Now on tonight's featured leader, the great Kamal Ravakant. He's meditated with monks and the Himalayas, served as a U.S. Army infantry soldier, walked 550 miles across Spain and co-founded several companies and a venture capital firm in Silicon Valley, also author of multiple books, including many bestsellers. Most recently, Love Yourself, like your life, depends on it. A few of the topics we discussed. What specific qualities he looks for when investing in a leader. Then why you should need. Never wait until you're ready to get started.

This applies in many different aspects of your life. And then the hiring mistakes he made earlier in his career and what he learned from them and how these could help you. So much to get to from a fascinating guy. It's Kamal Ravakhan. All right. Let's bring you in Kamal Ravakant, man. It's so good to have you here on The Learning Leader Show.

Welcome. Thank you. I'm really glad to be here. And we were talking earlier about the show, and I'm just really impressed by what you're doing. And it's funny, I was like, yeah, and you tell me about your book. And oh, I want to send your book to all these companies that I invested. So I'm very happy to be here. There's music to my ear, so I appreciate that.

But as we talked about briefly before I hit record, I am fascinated by people who have sustained excellence, in particular their behaviors. And so when you think about, when you reflect on your own life as well as the people that you surround yourself with, the ones in your sphere, when you analyze their actions, their behaviors, their virtues, what have you found to be the commonalities among people who have sustained excellence? You know, that's a great term. I think, first I'll speak for myself. I think for me, comes from this fundamental belief I have. And I don't know where it came from, but I think I just create for myself. believe in the power of commitment and the power of actually committing to thing to myself to making like actual commitments I'm literally to transform my life around by making commitments to myself by

writing a vow to myself and then like they're having to live it because if you make a vow to yourself it is a I believe it's a fundamentally a sacred act between you and life itself that you got a good then go fulfill the fact I'm playing around these days with uh something even more nuanced where I'm like every day I get up and I get that day, I make a commitment to myself of who I'm going to be that day. And it's up to me to live it. And I check it up with myself and who I am. And it doesn't have to be like, hey, I'm going to, rah, right.

Could we just be like, it could be dependent on, it's all dependent on the day. And it's just between me and myself. Because otherwise, we kind of just float through life. You know, we get caught up in things. But if you always need like a guide or compass to just something to check in with and say, hey, I'm in the right direction. So for me, it's always been commitment. For others that I've, I'm fortunate, you know, my training in Silicon Valley since the late 90s building companies,

I'm surrounding with people now who become, you know, household names. And I know some of them quite well. And, you know, one thing you get to see is, first of all, in excellence, we have to remember we're human. You know, like excellence does not mean that you have imperfect days. Excellence means continuing forward through imperfect days. In fact, every day is imperfect if you think about it. And I everyone goes to the down times. You know, there is no, man, I know all a lot of the top people and like no one sits around all the time just quote unquote killing it or feeling great about it.

You know what I mean? Like people, you know, no one's, but you don't see the Instagram stories about people sitting, crying in their toilets eating hog andaz. You know, but that's a reality, right? I mean, that's a reality of life. So I think sustained excellence is continuing just forward, you know, through no matter what. And that comes from a mindset. That's not something that I think, I think that really is a mindset like my brother. We were talking about him earlier before the show, you know, who I was my brother I loved dearly, very fond of, obviously.

He was my little brother years ago when you were early in the Valley. and he had started his first company and then I think that he went out to do venture right after that. I was like, how do you learn to do this? You know, because I was doing stuff too,

but I wasn't doing at that level. And I'm like, he's like, he's like, I don't. He said, you know, if I was just doing what I've,

what I was qualified for, I'd be pushing a broom somewhere. You know, which obviously is like, well, tugging cheek, the guy is really freaking smart, right?

But it's like, it's a good point. You don't wait until you're qualified to do something. You just jump in and you figure it. out. That actually is the fundamental trade I found in everyone who's had great success. You jump in and you figure it. That's actually excellence. You know, you jump in, you figure it out. You're jumping. You're going to swim. And every day, I mean, that's building a company that's jumping, that's being a leader.

You know, you can train and read all the books you want, but, you know, until you got a team, you know, you have no idea what it's like, right? And you just jump in and you, you know, you learn and you figure it out. So that brings excellence. I interviewed James Clear who wrote Atomic Habits. It's going really well. I sold a 1.1 million copies in the first 49 weeks.

Pretty amazing. And James said the big thing he's found is to start before you're ready. And realizing that that's part of the iterative process as you're building something is if you wait until you're fully ready,

you'll wait for the rest of your life. And I think that what you just said really reminds me that. And the fact that your brother, Naval, has said that as well. Can you think of a time, Kamal, in your experience where you jumped in and learned to swim after, using it as obviously a metaphor, but you jumped in, learn to swim and then what you learned as a result of doing that, whether it was starting a company, whether it was investing in something, writing maybe. I'm curious of an example of that that brings that to life. Yeah, I started a company that was actually turned out to be a sales driven company, and I did nothing about sales. In fact, I didn't, you know, and I had to learn to do it.

I made all the classic mistakes, too. I was focused too much in the product rather than I should have just been out in selling Excel spreadsheet and just making phone calls. I made all the classic mistakes, but I learned from them, because it wasn't moving the dial forward and then I started doing the painful stuff first for me was picking up the phone Excel spreadsheet and calling Dahlink for dollars and I did it and I eventually I think I got to find my my close rate was 100% like no one in my company could out sell me because I was the founder and I'd learned the hard way I'd made all the excuses I'd made all the mistakes I'd made

the embarrassing 100% what wait what were you selling 100% there's no way I built an online online ad network and because I was also the founder and I built it from scratch I could and and I made all the mistakes, I could answer every question thrown on me. I knew that, you know, I knew what was coming in because... So you knew the, you had heard all, through doing, probably a lot of repetition,

had heard all of the objections and had proper responses that were, because I think, you know, I grew up in telephonic sales too, and my, my hit rate of dial to sale was like less than 1% if you actually did the math because of just

the fact that I was calling people who didn't want me to call them. But I draw so much from that experience because I probably improved, you know, slowly over time through repetition that now there's, there's maybe not many more things harder like mentally than than cold calling. And it wasn't, I was, I was trying to help them. And I think that was the mindset because I almost felt like I learned to feel a responsibility that my product, what I was offering them, would literally make their life better. And I couldn't be a good sales professional until I got to that point, as you say, a mindset that, no, no, no, I'm not trying to fleece them or cut corners.

I'm trying to help them. And what I am here to offer genuinely will make their life and certainly their business better in a business-to-business selling environment. And that, I feel like that batting average got higher and higher and higher as I developed that mindset. Is that – and you learn that through a lot of rejection and objections. Is that kind of like your process is what you were hearing too? That's actually brilliant. I do fundamentally believe that if you're selling, you must believe in what you're selling.

Yes. You know, I mean, that gets rid of most of the issues with selling, by the way. And if you don't believe what you're selling, go find something you believe and sell that. Absolutely. You know, or shift your mindset. You have to find, you have to believe in it because we're just human beings. We are that way. You know, like when we feel like we're on point or we're on purpose, we just step up.

We just do better, you know? And that's a fantastic point about it. You felt like you were actually helping that. If you do that, it kind of gets rid of the objections in your mind. You know, it's a natural thing. And same thing with mine. I was like, I was, you know, like, I actually took away business from Google Yahoo and and a vertical and no one ever done. Why? Because I built this product from scratch. I'd seen all the

objections. I'd seen all the issues. And I, before they even asked me, I'd already covered it in my first five lines when I talked to them. Right. So it was just like, they're like, where to be signed. But I had to go through the process. I'm not doing, not knowing when I was doing a building and making the mistakes and learning from it to the point where I was able to actually then overcome any reject and rejections by them pointing out mistakes because, like, I'd already cover them. But I did believe in it. I fully believed in it. Yeah.

I forget. I think it was David Epstein. We learn who we are in practice, not in theory. This is really the transition for being a learner to a doer. You have to actually do it in order to learn. That's part of the process of learning. And I think that's exactly what you're describing. Real quick, I want to get there's so, I have like so many notes here, Kamala.

I'm pumped to get to. But what did you learn through the process of getting rejected, getting your thoughts and ideas rejected as a writer? What did you learn through those moments? Oh, man, it sucks. Rejection sucks. That's what you learned. You don't like it. You don't like it.

You don't want it. You want to get better and better until one day they're chasing you. How did you improve? How do you think you improved as a writer? What was the process? Is it simply the act? I studied the great. Really studying and then doing it?

And then doing it. Studied. And that's a great thing about art. You can study the masters. You know, their work is their, their work is their lesson, right? Especially with writing, man. I obsessed over Hemingway, and I took apart his books line by line and just saw what he did and down to the last comma.

And then Hemingway led to other writers, but Hemingway was the first one. And he's the one that came up with like clear, simple prose, you know, and there's a brevity, but there's a depth that just didn't exist before Hemingway and that kind of prose. And so it was a lot of reading and then a lot of writing, you know, studying and doing. And that was like, no one was paying me to do it, man. No one was, people like, what are you doing with your time? You should be out having fun when you're just like, I was just studying and writing. Yeah.

You know. When you go to a, let's say it's tonight, you go to a dinner party and the majority of the people there, let's say they don't know you. It's one of those types of dinners. And they say, oh, hey, Kamal, it's nice to meet you. What do you do? How do you respond? It's my least favorite question in the world. I know, I know.

Sometimes I've gone around and said, well, you know, I'm on a work and release program. I just got out of full film, you know, like it depends on my mood, man. It depends actually on the intention of person because you can tell. If they're just sizing you up to see what they can get, you know, who you are, then I play. But I play gently, you know, like jokingly. It's not offensive. But usually they say, like, look, I'm an author. I'm an author and I run a venture capital firm.

But fundamentally, if you would really ask me, what do I exist for writing books. I want to write about this today, man. The form that I work in is a form that will be around, people will read my books 100 years after I'm gone and they'll be affected by it because I write about human concepts, about being better. That's fundamentally very important to me.

That's been more rewarding to me than anything else I would say I've ever done. You know, more rewarding the building companies, more rewarding it. You know, writing is truly, for me, it's just you and the blank page, right? And there's something very special about that. And when you come out, when you create something, it's yours. It's really yours. You know, I don't think one needs that.

That's just been my thing. Love yourself like your life depends on it. So there's kind of two different versions of this, right? first one, which I know it was self-published. I assume it was self-published because a publisher would not publish it for you. I didn't even look. And honestly, they wouldn't have because it was so short. So like 8,000, 9,000 words, right?

But yet it sells like half a million copies, and now a publisher has picked up the second version, which is much more expanded. Why was this an idea worth pouring your heart and soul and everything you have into it to then publish basically twice. That's a great question. Look, the first time I self-publish it, I didn't expect anyone to buy it. I basically was sharing an experience of,

and this comes from entrepreneurship and leadership as well because the company I was building fell apart, and I fell apart with it, and I lost everything at the time. And I was in a severely bad place. And basically, I wrote this book to share what I did to get out of it, and I worked on the internal

on the mindset. And I shared just very simply how to get what I did step by step in a way that anyone could do it. And the book took off. I never expected it to take off, man. I literally expected these just buy copies to give to friends. I didn't have to tell the same story and explain the same concepts again and again. And when it took off, I think part of it was the fact that what I wrote really works.

I have all the email, so many emails from people telling me like how it changed their lives. Literally, I met people that told me the stories of how this book literally. literally stopped it for killing themselves. Like one guy, he had the pills on the bag in his hand. And for some reason, he was watching some video on YouTube about my book and when I got it. And he actually lives in Brooklyn and he now becomes friends now, that he put the bag away and he went and put his daughter to bed instead. Wow.

He was like that close. And he read the book and it was just like, okay, I might do this. So I was done with the book. I was like, look, I did what I did. I don't need to do anything with it because publishers and age, just went chasing me. They're like, look, this is a gold mine. You got to go to regular publisher. I was like, look, you know, I owe it to my readers, you know, all these wonderful people email me. I did something special. I shared the truth. I shared my truth. I risk looking

like a complete out fool. And I want, there's something pure about this. I don't want to screw up. So this was 2012. But, you know, the thing is, all these questions, all these emails that I get in there are cushions as well. And I've noticed a pattern over six years, seven years of emails that I all respond to, there's certain questions that keep on coming up, and certain issues people keep on having. I realized, look, Kamala, you held back. You held back a lot because you were scared of what people were going to think. And so you gave enough, but you didn't give the whole thing, right?

You got to go deeper. You got to give everything. And you owe it to this book. Because I was also thinking in terms of, like, you know, I'm going to be gone someday. What do I want left behind? No, you know, what if I'm here until 90 or whatever, right? And this book is something really special that has changed lives all over the world, and it wasn't available all over the world. People were torn in it like crazy all over the globe, which is a hell of a compliment, you know, people turning your book.

If you think about it, like, who tors books? And I was like, I got to make it, I got to give it my all. You know, I didn't give it my all. And I knew that to give it my all, I don't have to go deep. I don't have to go to places that hurt. I'd have to go to relive them. And I would have to find those lessons that put them in so that, I didn't. so that I can show readers like, look, you're not alone.

You know, you think you go to them because your suffering is special. It's not, man. Suffering is suffering. Let me show you how to get out. Let me show your mind. What are a few of the key ways that somebody listening right now could love themselves? Like, what are some of the initial, I'm not trying to, like, create a Cliff Notes version, but just to give the teasers or some of the early action points that someone, as soon as they get done listening to this episode,

they could start thinking about and then doing immediately. Well, I think the one thing that changed everything for me was when I was at bottom was when I set out and I made a vow. I sat down and wrote a vow to love myself. And I don't know where that vow came from. It came from someplace deep. It came from a place of no more. And because I made that vow and because I've dwelt a belief in the power of commitment,

which anyone can. I'm going to say, look, I'm going to keep my commitments to myself. I may fail some days, but what was the two words you used earlier in the podcast? Sustaining excellence. Sustaining excellence. You get up and you move forward. You get up, you move forward. So because I was not in a place of loving myself, maybe where that vow came from, and I set out to live it, and I did it, and I figured out how to do it.

And I did was work on myself. Like, no one taught me. Like, I didn't go take workshops on classes on loving myself. You know, so fundamentally, we have, whatever is the most important, And I think loving ourselves, which may sound a little fru-frou, but it's actually a very practical way to live because it actually really affects your life when you come from a place like that. It affects you as an entrepreneur. I have far greater success when I'm loving myself than when I'm not, you know, where I'm feeling good about myself, where I'm just like I know inside just who I am. And so first thing is you've got to make a commitment to yourself to do it.

and you got to just decide with yourself, I'm going to do what it takes to keep that commitment. Then obviously there's a practice I've developed that some things I do every day that to basically layer in my mind these feeling and these emotions of loving myself eventually become a natural state. Any emotion I thought,

how long enough, consistently enough, becomes the one that tends to run more often. That's just basic neuroscience. And I kind of use some of those principles here. But one very simple thing is, I start asking myself questions. You know, because our mind is always asking itself questions anyway. A lot of times, thoughts, or feelings are visceral responses to internal questions.

We don't even realize where questions. Like, fear is a question often to like, what's missing, what could go wrong. You know, it's just mind just going there versus what's right, what's working, right? So one question I trained myself to ask was in moments where I had choices to make and I wasn't feeling good or wasn't. I would ask myself, if I love myself truly and deeply, what would I do? Now, the if frees up any, having to be anything, right? If means if, if I was, okay, let's pretend I was. If I was loving myself truly deeply, what would I do?

And that allows me to actually make choices that serve me. And if I don't, I made that choice consciously. I take responsibility for it, you know. Would you ask that question like as you're, when you have a tough, decision to make or let's, I guess let's take it to, you're at work and you're going through challenges, whether it's hiring or firing or you're not achieving the, the targets that your company has set for you. Are you talking about, I guess I always try to take kind of the thoughts and the concepts and then make them practical immediately. So when would be the optimal times to ask yourself

this question, right? If I love myself truly and deeply, what would I do? Yeah. So I would emphasize the if, because that takes away all pressure. Okay. What I started doing was, I started asking myself that anytime I was in a, I felt uncomfortable in a situation or any time there was some situation where I wasn't like I wasn't feeling good.

That simple. Like, so I would just ask that question. Because you got to train your mind, you know, like, because the thing is if we don't, we'll just fall back into, into the habitual patterns. patterns, right? And so all you're doing is you're creating a habitual pattern. So it was here, it was like, I wasn't feeling good. If I were, or if I was like, or I would do something like, take a goal I have for myself, fitness-wise, for this month, right? I would just ask myself that daily, got me to the gym every day. You know, like, if I did feel like going to the gym, like, if I love myself truly, like, to achieve a goal, this is great one for achieving goals. So you just, or like if you're, if you're focused on your health and your diet, you know, make a, it's a great half. It's a great half. to ask yourself every time you sit down to eat. Yeah, it's very simple. And you start doing, you start realizing you consciously,

because we make most of our choices on autopilot. And we make our habitual patterns often, most of them don't serve us. So all I was doing was I was creating this pattern so that I stopped making conscious choices. And eventually that becomes unconscious and I just start making better choices with myself. What about?

Yeah. Well, I was just thinking like, there are, and this is a bit of a projection too. For like I don't actually, I don't know the proper way to say this. I don't know if I really struggle from this. Like I feel pretty solid level of kind of appreciation of myself and the actions

and don't have many moments where I really, I don't know, like I guess I feel good most of the time. I feel progress. I feel like I'm helping people, and that brings me joy. And so I guess I just don't know if I struggle with loving myself that much. And I have to believe I'm not the only one who's thinking this as you're saying this. What about for that specific person? How can the concepts and ideas and frameworks you write about and love yourself like your life depends on it?

How can that help somebody like me who feels like, not that I certainly don't have things figured out, but I feel pretty good most of the time. How could it impact us to make sure not only do we continue that, but that we improve and grow and get better? Look, honestly, I think that's great. Look, I'm in that place, but I, you know, like I've also been in a place where I wasn't. Yeah.

Yeah. And so I wrote the book. I wish someone had given me back then. Gotcha. You know, I don't think everyone needs to read it. I would not push my writing on everyone. But what it does do is, like, look, what I fundamentally write about is how to be better, how to be better internally. You know, and the practical things I do internally to be better.

One can apply that to anything, right? It's like something I believe that, like, look, like the maps of humanity available to us. It's up to us to actually, like, learn from them and apply them to ourselves. All I'm doing is showing you the map of what I do, right, to be better. And it's all internal. Because I really do believe if you work in the internal, the external just naturally works. It's something I've learned. You see that.

You just see that. I'm surrounded by enough high performance people to know that the internal determines the external. Because I've also known, you know, you also come across some very unhappy, successful people. But, man, you don't want their lives, man. You don't want to be in their head. You know, people forget that. They just look at the outside. I think that, man, you would not.

If you were in the head, it would be like, it would be a horrible prison. So what you want to create is actually always working in your internal self, which is, which is on purpose, which is like feeling good about the self, feeling good about life, feeling good. You know, what I got to a place was where I walk around feeling like my everything is, my life is magical. I wasn't someone who grew up that way. I wasn't someone who believed that, man. I mean, you read the book. You know where I come from. Yeah, explain that.

So what was your upbringing like? Like, how do your upbringing? I mean, our upbrings affect all of us in different and unique ways. How did yours impact you? I mean, look, I had a really rough childhood. You know, I talked about the book. I don't know if you want me to go in details because, I mean, look, I don't want to throw my details on anyone.

They're in the book if someone's curious. And I put them there for a reason, right? So, I mean, at one point, we were homeless. We were on the streets, you know, with single mom. And built ourselves, no money, built ourselves, you know, built up from there. So, like, that leaves an impact on you, that you can. carry with you and I've had to, you know, I've had things to deal with over there. But, you know, it's also like what your greatest wounds are and also where your greatest strengths come from.

You know, it's a fundamental thing in human, in humanity, man. Like everyone I've met who actually has been through something and then just kind of like, you know, they're using the old phrase girdle up their loins, you know, like, and then just go through it. They've become better for it. They've become someone that you can, you can see in their eyes, you know. You've been through something, you've gone forward. We all have in our lives. You don't have to have a shitty childhood. We all go through stuff.

Yeah. I think there's a lot to, though, how I would imagine that that prepared you for the tough moments in your life because of what you went through. Right. And so what did you draw from a tough at times homeless upbringing as you then progressed into this world of leadership of of building something, right, of dealing with tough moments as you got older. Like, what did you draw from your early childhood? Honestly, I don't think I didn't. Really?

A sucky child is a sucky childhood, you know? You don't think it helped prepare you for tough? No, no. Really? What I did do, like, look, what I did do was I had to work through resolving it in my head. I had to come to terms of things. So what I've learned is that I can figure stuff out, but that didn't come from my childhood. And honestly, like, we weren't homeless all the time.

Like, look, it was a temporary thing. But that was just one of the things, right? And what I actually kind of appreciate these days as an adult is actually the strength a child has, the child that I didn't give this child credit for, you know, get through something to go through and continue for moving forward in life. and become the man that I've become. But that I can only look back and appreciate more as a matured as an adult. Did it help me in entrepreneurship? I don't think so.

Did it help me? I think what helped me more entrepreneurship might have been, like when I was in the Army, I was an infantry soldier. So leading a small fire team. That helped me more in leadership than I'd say anything else. And that was very simple. You take care of your team before you take better than you take care of yourself. Very simple principles.

You know, leaders eat last, right? I think that's a book title somewhere. It's really the truth. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, last. I followed, I had very passionate, uh, team, like, people who really cared about me that worked for me because I took, literally, I was a lowest paid guy in the company. They got paid for startups, man.

Like, I was funding it for one, one example. I, they, their bills were paid before mine were, right? And it was just a philosophy that came from, from just being an infantry soldier. What made you join, uh, the army? I was 18. I was in college for a year. I was getting drunk a lot and going to, you know, just doing the Jewish.

I was like, is this all there is? And I also wanted to serve by country. I'm going to do something where it felt like it was bigger than me at 18. And I went to the different recruiters offices. And the infantry looks, they had the best posters. And they had some posters of guys with M60s, like shooting off in the Panama jungle. and then they had a one for the 10th mountain. I was like, oh, that was a badass poster.

I chose that. Wow. And so in addition to the leaders eating last part of it, what were some of the key learnings that you took from your time as an Army infantry soldier? I'll tell you from boot camp. One thing that I carried with me, boot camp was one of the best things I ever did for myself. It was not the one of the most fun thing I ever did for myself, but I learned that I can handle anything thrown out of me.

You know, that's, and to give yourself that at 18 is what a gift. Military does do that because it's designed to make your life kind of crappy. But it also teaches you the value of mission and responsibility, you know. And it's kind of funny. Like, you know, I see a lot of people tweeting about, are like celebrating that they took a cold shower that day, you know, like a big deal. I'm like, look, man, just turned the army. you'll get paid for it. All the cold showers you want.

Yeah. No, I think that's admirable. So obviously, thank you for your service. Given the fact that this show has a big focus on excellence and leadership, I am curious to get practical for a second when it comes to your time building companies. And part of the building phase is you are hiring other people for, leadership roles. And so when you were, if you think, think the time when you are hiring others to have

really high levels of responsibility, they're going to be leaders within your business. What were you looking for in people through the interview process, through adding them to your team? Like, what are the qualities in people that you really looked for and valued? And you'd say, I want to hire him or her because of these few things. That's a great question, man. I wish I'd had your book, honestly. I would have given it to them.

I kid you not. I really kid you not because I made mistakes there. And the biggest mistake I made was I was putting people of leadership in roles who don't want to be leaders. Some people are great at executing. Man, they're like, you know, it's like, to use military terms, some people are just great Navy, you know, like Green Berets and some people are great like infantry soldiers, right? And you try to put one of the other and that's when people screw up. So what I learned actually was hire people for what they're best at and just give them everything they need to be best at that and don't ask them to do stuff that they're not. That's not their forte to get their best work.

So that was a mistake I'd made by putting people in situations or leadership positions that they weren't right for them. Then there's people who want to be leaders, but I think the best leaders are actually the people who have done stuff, right? who've executed have shown that they've done something so they've been through the pain points you want the leader to actually to understand the pain points that the people underneath them are going to go through you know you don't want to just if you want to like I remember saying to someone once like if I was to start a fund in the oil business I would actually go working out oil refinery or rig for six months like really understand the nuances of the bottom like what's involved and then the hangout in management you know you get a

sense in a way that no one else, that you don't get through reading spreadsheets and charts and reading books. And you understand like really how things work, right? So if I was in hiring people for startups, I do prefer people who come from a startup background. It's very, very different than say corporate, right? Or if they're coming from corporate, they must be hungry. They got to be hungry. Because startup, you got to be hungry. You got to be like, you're working in ways and in corporate, because I've actually consulted of a corporate, is you have a lot of infrastructure. You have a lot of backup. You can like, you know, you have accounting,

you have this and that, you can send this to them to get it done. You have some startups you don't, it's just you. It's like even if it's 30 people, right? It's still just you doing your thing. You're responsible. So certain people excel in that. Certain people don't. So one thing I learned the hard way was you find what people excel at and put them

there and not everybody wants leadership or is going to excel at leadership but you figure out aren't and don't put them in positions of leadership if there aren't and I think leadership actually sometimes what I looked for people who were um was a certain level of experience for leaders a certain level of empathy you know you have to have a certain level of empathy you can't be a you know the best friend of everyone you're leading but a certain level of empathy definitely helps being a leader. When, like, when you partner with someone, is that different? Like, are there certain qualities you look for in somebody to do a, if you're going to, like, go in on a deal or you're going to do something where there's some sort of collaboration or partnership?

Are there a few core or is this more of a, I get a sense that you, correct me if I'm wrong, but I sense just from our interactions, like you trust your gut feelings and go with it because you've, you've learned. from probably past mistakes and success, and that then has given you a good intuition to make decisions? Is that accurate? Like when you're partnering, you go a lot off of your, I believe gut instinct and intuition is built up over your previous things that your own experiences combined with learnings from mentors and books and things like that. Is that how you make decisions on how to collaborate and partner with others, or what is your process to do that? Well, these days, given what I run, like I run a small venture firm, which is my own, so I'm the only partner. So in a collaborate, I do deals with someone or, you know, it's usually like with individuals.

I look at their values. I've learned a hard way, man. Your values matter. People you do business with, I mean, sure, you write contracts, but all the contract is is it gives you ability to sue in a court of law, which is like a really painful thing. So you want people that you would want you only want to do handcheck deals with. You write the contract just to keep everything, you know, legit. But I only work with people I do, I do headcheck deals with. Really?

And so, yeah. Wow. But I mean, obviously I do contracts. Sure. But these are people that I trust. I like their values. I want to also like, if I can, I want to back entrepreneurs those values I like. Especially when you're investing seed.

you know, the DNA of the company, the founder goes to the end of the company. Now, does that mean that I'm like some investing in saints? No, I'm investing in human beings building companies. Like, for example, let's look at Uber. I didn't invest in that one, but I didn't have a fund then, but some friends of mine did. You know, the CEO is a friend of mine. The former CEO's a friend of mine. And, look, yeah, Travis.

And why was your great way in your back? First of all, but everyone I know invested in the seed round, right? I think it was raised an angel list like a $6 or $8 million valuation. What's it now? Like $140 billion. So like those, that those checks did very well, right? But everyone invested in it. It was called Uber Cab then, right?

I think Uber Cab overtax. I think it was Uber Cab. And it was just a black car service for basically people had a little bit of money and wanted to look good, right? A few of us, I think they had a few of us were using it, but having fun with it. No one expected to become the Uber of this, right? But what they also invested in was also Travis. Travis was a fighter, you know, and you knew that it was just in San Francisco, you would have to fight the taxi mafia.

And the taxi service in the cities, people forget, was a mafia. You know, the medallion system. I mean, they played dirty. You know, they had this monopoly, this really unfair monopoly that didn't serve consumers at all, right? That kept competition off the streets. that kept supply artificially low, right, and just kept, this was all going on forever.

And you needed a fighter to, it would just fight the San Francisco one, let alone go to another city. So, like, you also look at, like, whose values, who's this person that cannot be able to pull this off, right? And, like, a lot of people give him grief, but I don't know anyone who could have built Uber

the way he did, honestly. You had to have a fighter go city by city. And then some countries, where people get, the tax monies get dirty. you know, at least in the U.S. you have a rule of law, right? You needed a fighter at the help to go build this company.

So I do look at the person. It almost comes down to people, man. You invest in people. When you do deals, you do deals with people. And you say, like, first, is this someone I want to work with? And second, is this person the right person for this deal? Are they going to be the right person to pull this off? I'm fascinated by that process of who to, you guys are,

in a way, placing bets, right? Especially when you're making... It's betting on horses. Yeah. When you're betting, when you're investing money in the seed rounds or that early, there's just so much that could happen that you have to be then placing your bets on people. And so when you say you look at the value, the reason I bring this up, Kamal, is because the leaders who are listening are trying to.

trying to, I don't think it's not, it's my audience is not heavy entrepreneurs. It's heavy people who are leading teams, which some of those are entrepreneurs, but some of them work within big companies because that's just simple mathematics of the population, right? Most people just work at a company and a lot of them that listen to this show work to build their own teams and their own careers. And I think a lot of it, though, applies because my dad told me early on in my career when I got my first management role, if you hire well, you will become rich and famous within this industry. And if you hire poorly, you will become poor and unemployed. Do it right. Hold your standards high and know what you're doing. And it was very helpful. I didn't get it right

right away. I think I got lucky in some cases, just sheer luck with some candidates that I hired that worked out. But I also made mistakes. And so that's why I focus on this so much. And you've you've lived a life of doing this, right? You're placing bets on founders. You're hiring to build companies. So that's why I think it's really important to think about how do we increase our odds? What are some mindsets or shifts we could take to increase our odds when it comes to surrounding

ourselves with the type of people that we want to be around in order to, whether it's hiring them for our business, investing in them for their startups, I think it all can be in a similar space. No, you're absolutely right. I mean, look, there's a lot of crossover.

I've actually, I've consulted with corporate for a while and I led teams in corporate as well, I think the fundamentals are the fundamentals when you're hiring, you're hiring human beings. You're a flawed human being, hiring flawed human beings. Right, right. I mean, let's just start off of that.

So, given that out of the way, there is no perfection. And, you know, you hire what you're thinking the best you can, and then give them everything they need to succeed. And I don't think I have a clear, like, cut, like do this, that, that, that, you know, Like, yeah, that's part of us is that it's really tough, right? And there's also a lot of intuition and nuance and the world's extremely gray.

And there is at times a luck component. And so I'm always just trying to increase those odds. So I get it. I think it's, it's real, if everyone, if anyone had these answers and, you know, that person would be doing extremely well for itself. Hiring is the hardest part of building a company, man. The hiring is the hardest part of business. And all I can say in that is in leadership. in any team you are, wherever it's lead by example.

Yes. That comes with military, right? And that I fundamentally believe in. You leave from example. And then you find the right people stick around and the right people step up and the ones who don't, you know they're not right. Yeah. But there's no better substitute for leading by example. So you've also done some incredible, and I'm going to miss some of them, but you've walked, what, 550,

miles in Spain. You've spent a lot of time meditating in the Himalayas with monks. You've co-founded many companies. You're in the Army. I know you jumped out of a hot air balloon, I believe I read. That's an old thing, yeah. Okay. So, I mean, all these different life experiences, what's your thought process on?

And we could maybe dive into one or two of them if you'd like or one that had a profound impact on you. I think most recently you're with the monks. What's your mindset towards making decisions to put yourself in these situations, whether you're going to walk hundreds of miles or spend time with monks or join the Army? Why do you do these things that most people don't? Some people say, like, oh, you can do this stuff now because you do well financially. A lot of these things you mentioned I did, but I had no money in my pocket. You know, like I walked across Spain on an ancient pilgrimage, an 11th century pilgrimage, when I literally had.

I was in my mid-20s and had a few thousand dollars to my name and no job. And that's literally, that's all I had and no backup. Right. And I backpacked around the backpack for eight months until I ran out of money. I came back and figured it out. I think one fundamental thing that helps me is no matter what, I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out. Like, I'll do fine.

I'll figure it out. That comes from, I think, experience. Because you realize you do these things and you don't die. You know, interesting things happen. You come away with a great experience. You realize like, okay, I got through this. That only comes through life. They're taking chances in life, man.

You know, I don't think that can be taught. That comes from actually stepping up and taking, going beyond a comfort zone. I wasn't someone who was comfortable traveling in countries where I didn't speak the language. I had to, like, just do it and realize, you know, I can figure out how to eat. You know, I can figure out how to point at something and grunt and offer someone a dollar and to take it. You know what I mean? Like, you do these things and you realize the world's actually pretty interesting place. And the focal point being you, and it's you who's going through it.

And you just, yeah, you figure it out. It's really that simple. There was nothing profound about it. You know, all these experiences I do, it's like I'm more curious. I want to be better. Like the meditating of the monks in Nepal that was a couple of months ago, you know, I want to be better. And like, look, these are monks that have never taught Westerners and I had an opportunity to go study with them. I thought, okay, they'll help me make my mind better.

You know, like a month ago, no, two months ago, that was three months ago. Two months ago, you know, we were talking earlier, I had emergency surgery. I was almost dead. I had a surgery, then a complication afterwards and I had an emergency surgery, like I think 12 hours later or something like that. I mean, the time period is hazy to literally save my mind. life. And it was a hard experience. But even that to that, I'm coming through, I'm like, okay, how can I use that to make me better? What is my mindset out of that? You know, I'm more focused on gratitude during the day, you know, walking around and feeling just as we were talking earlier,

like the fact that I'm not an immense pain right now, you know, like little things like that. So you've had these life-altering experiences, both some chosen and some not, right? And I was reading about the craziness of blood gushing out of your body it's sounding like the sound from a hose and that's blood leaving your own body right you've written written about that and it's crazy

I have to imagine like what what did that how did an experience like that where I believe they told you too if you wouldn't have been in the hospital when that happened you were dead like if you were in the Uber two hours it was two hours later when you were supposed to leave the hospital you were done like how does it impact your perspective on day-to-day life?

Look, I think it impacts you early on, but then we get caught up in life and your mind kind of like just gets used to it. So what I'm doing is I just remind myself with just the feeling of being blessed, you know? Yeah, the feeling of just like what a hell of a close call and what a shitty close call, excuse my language. But just the feeling of being blessed. like our friends of mine who have been in the military who got through some real shit in the military like been some serious stuff

right and it goes two ways one they can become a mess you know I've lost friends who became a mess right after the military or they can become awesome they really live their lives and they just go full out because they were that close and they lost people

and they almost like they feel like they owe it to them you know it's our choice yeah what was it like with the monks what did you learn from that time it was interesting it was a training what they called awakening the mind and it was

look I didn't go there to awaken the mind I just wanted to get better but I got to taste a little bit of it and all that happened was like when when you do that kind of meditation the self the construct disappears the construct that's Kamal disappeared

and underneath was just like this fundamental layer of love and compassion you hear Buddhism they talk about compassion and I thought it was like it's a nice you know it's okay it's a nice human thing we should have compassion for others but I realized that's actually something

that's present underneath all of it because if you have love compassion is a natural thing and all it was just a state of like just love that's underneath the that's the foundation that's the layer the whole thing. What did you do every day? Like, what was the day-to-day like? We got up and we studied with them.

It was like, there was only like 14 to 16 of us and they, it was lectures. It was visualization. It was meditation and then just breaks. And we were in the Himalayas, which is, you know, just the senior was just off the charts. I love mountains and to be in the rooftop of the world. But it was basically just all day, just training. Wow. How long do you do that for?

It was like nine days. Wow. And what made you decide to do it? Just a simple, because it sounds like your mindset is I want to get better. And so I'm searching for ways to get better. Was it just that simple? And then you came across it or somebody said, hey, you should do this? Or what was it?

That's it. Really? And it was also an opportunity that hasn't been offered before. And it was like, okay, that sounds really cool. You know, like it's not something I can learn in the U.S. These guys don't train outsiders. These were a very specific sect of Tibetan Buddhism. Wow.

And Nepal. And this was a one it was almost like a once in a lifetime opportunity and it was like, okay, that's worth getting on a plane for and going to the other end of the world. Yeah. The things that I come to you, you follow them. Yeah. I love it. One more question, Kamala. Let's say you're sitting across from a young, ambitious, smart person who looks up to you and your work has been impacted in a really positive way because.

of they've read what you've written or watched videos of what you said or listened to you on a podcast. And they said, you know, man, I want to live a life of significance and make a positive contribution to the world. What are a few pieces of advice you could impart on me to maybe help steer me in the right direction? Well, then you got to do what's whatever, you got to follow whatever is inside you. Cush as that sounds, man. Like for me, the greatest effect I've had is through my writing. But, you know, like I said, I was writing forever with no assurance of anything. Right.

But I knew that was the way I wanted to express myself to the world. Right. And you told me earlier how many podcast episodes you've done. That's insane. These people don't do that, man. And I bet you your episode one versus this episode is very different. Yes, definitely. Right?

Even episode 10, episode 50, episode 150, whatever. to get, you know, it's like you go for it and you persist. Yeah. I think the excellence requires persistence. There is no way around it. You don't wake up and be excellent or something. You wake up and you work at it and you become excellent over time. Right.

So, you know, whatever your thing is. And if you don't know what your thing is, then pick the one that interests you the most and go all in on it. You will grow and you will find through it what your thing is. And that, you know, it's through the doing. that we find it. They find our thing. It's through the doing

that we express ourselves. It's not through the researching. You know, researching as a form of, spending all the time researching and thinking about it as a form of fear. It's a great book by Stephen Presfield, The War of Art, where he calls Shadow careers,

you know, where like a writer who's really afraid of being a writer and may go work in publishing, you know, that kind of thing. So they're involved, but they're not writing. I mean, that he's an example because he's a writer, right? But it could be in anything.

So, like, find your thing. and then you've got to just persist. And you don't have to do it. You have to quit your day job. I was building startups all I was writing. I wasn't just only writing full time. So you can do multiple things. I think that's a fallacy.

A lot of people make, oh, I have to do this all. I have to be that starving artist. No, you don't. Like, what's the rule? There are no rules. You know? Like, it's nice to pay your bills.

It's nice to be able to afford what you want to afford, you know? Like, do that, but do your thing. In fact, you'll have even more, you'll be more focused. because your time will be limited. And like constraints as the greatest gift of creativity. Definitely.

Right? If you have infinite time to do something, you will use it. Yeah. And it's freeing. You know, I started this on the side, just following my curiosity and obsessions of having long form one-on-one conversations with intelligent, thoughtful people. And it really, I felt like a freeing sense that I could almost speak more truth to power because I had this thing I loved on the side.

and it started it started to turn into a real business even though I never I never planned for that to happen and I became better at my day job because of what I was doing on the side and I became I became better at what I was doing on the side because of my day job like there wasn't it is amazing now part of it though as you said excellence is persistence like that is a crucial line that I'll probably clip and think about a lot but it's it's simplistic a lot of like how you write but it's so true and a lot of the things that are so true are really simple in nature, but it's about doing it. And part of excellence, too, is just the ability and willingness to keep going and just keep going and keep going. When I'm asked that question, that's like, you just got to keep going. And that consistency is important and persistence and plays a big role in that. And so, come on, I know I told it, I could talk to you all day. I love, um, no, I'm enjoying the way.

The way you think, I want to, the latest book is called Love Yourself, like your life depends on it. go get it it's a special book it's changing lives yeah yeah that's for sure and so I'm just very grateful for you for being

here man where would you send my listeners to learn more about you online I'll come to Twitter come to Instagram just you know look at my name or my blog is I think Kamala blog that I haven't launched yet I'll launch mid-December but yeah just

find me on Twitter find me on Instagram I'm just, Kamal Ravikant. Gotcha. All right, man. Thanks again for being here. And I would love, well, we're definitely going to continue our dialogue as we both progress because we're going to talk books and I'm appreciative of your support. It means a lot to me.

But thanks again for being here, man. My pleasure, man. Thanks for having me. And I hope it was useful to your listeners. Definitely, definitely. Kamal is a really interesting dude. We did this one on video so I could see his mannerisms and the facial construction as I would ask a question and a follow-up,

and it's always better that way because I could see the thought and care he was putting into each and every answer. Very appreciative of that. A few of the parts that stuck out to me, how the internal impacts the external, right? Starting with yourself as a leader on the inside, thinking about that will impact everything on the outside.

And then don't wait till you're ready to get started. started. This can apply in so many areas. I am a massive proponent of preparation. However, if you only prepare and never do, nothing will get done. So at some point, you have to get going and take action and the James Clear start before you're ready mentality. And then excellence requires persistence. Part of this deal is just the willingness and the ability to keep going day after day. It sounds simple, but it's true.

I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did. I would love it if you would tell a friend or two, perhaps one that has never listened to the Learning Leaders Show before. It makes a big difference. Word of mouth marketing, one at a time, is the absolute best form. And because you do that, it continues to give me the ability to do what I love on a daily basis and for that I will forever be grateful. Thank you so much. Talk with you next week. Can't wait. After five plus years, more than 350 interviews and much more vulnerability than I'm comfortable with,

my book, Welcome to Management, is now available for pre-order. The foreword was written by legendary four-star general Stanley McChrystal. I am on an extremely, ambitious mission to rid the world of bad bosses and your support by buying my book helps make that a reality. We've put together a number of pre-order bonuses for you to take advantage of. Go to learning leader.com opt in and pre-order my book, Welcome to Management, how to go from top performer to excellent leader. Go to learning leader.com.com. Okay, thanks so much, man. Man, you're really good.

You're actually really good. Oh, thank you. I'm impressed. Thank you. You asked really good questions. You had really good commentary. It's nice to have interviews like this. Oh, thank you.

It means a lot that you would say that. I, like I said, I love it. And so I really try hard to get ready to go and ask thoughtful questions and hopefully even better follow up so that we can, you know, get to a level of depth that could be helpful for that it's enjoyable for you and you're getting to a place where you want to go, but also enjoyable and helpful for the people listening. That gives me the opportunity to keep doing it. That's all I want to do, you know. Thanks, man.