The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 396: Scott Galloway - Making Predictions, Sharing Love, & Turning Crisis To Opportunity

Episode Date: December 14, 2020

Text LEARNERS to 44222 for more... Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12 Episode #396 - Scott Galloway: Professor at NYU Stern, best-selling author, entrepreneur (started 9 firms) Notes: Scott and I have the same book agent, Jim Levine. It's the first person Scott thanks in the Acknowledgement section of his latest book... "Jim is someone I can go to for help with any aspect of life. He's much more than just a book agent. You need people in your kitchen cabinet that you can go to." Sharing admiration for others? Why did Scott struggle with this when he was younger? "We should do this. It doesn't make you less impressive because you shared your admiration for someone else." "The greatest untapped resource = good intentions, good thoughts. Express them. Verbalize them. Don't let that resource go to waste." Leaders should be constantly giving praise to the people on their team. Send the quick email, give the shout out. "People need watering. Give them recognition. Notice others, let them know when they do good work. That's how you recruit and retain great people. That's how you build loyalty." Action step: Call the parents of the young people on your team. Tell them their daughter or son is doing excellent work and are a joy to work with... "Be the man your kids think you are." It's motivating to try to live up to those standards. Life is about those moments with your kids. The key to excellence? "Success is not my fault. I grew up as a heterosexual white male, born in 1964. We have this problem of conflating luck with talent." Commonalities of leaders who sustain excellence? Competence - Must be highly competent in one area. "You must demonstrate excellence. Be outstanding at it." Grit - "As the leader, I wanted to show my team I was willing to pull all nighters when needed. I would never ask my team to do something I wasn't willing to do." Empathy - "You have to want others to win. You have to leverage all your talents to help others be successful. That creates loyalty." "People's loyalties are misplaced. Don't be loyal to companies, be loyal to people." Why make predictions? "It's not about being right. It's about catalyzing a conversation. I want ideas to have sex." "Plans are useless but planning is invaluable." "Once a prediction happens, it seems obvious." When I go to keynote speaking engagements, I'm often asked about Scott Galloway. He's become the person so many men follow? Why? "Most business news is PG13. I'm the rated R version and I speak my mind. There aren't enough people doing that." "Most guys have trouble talking openly about their feelings. We have trouble expressing our emotions. Men want to do it, but don't. That's what I do." "Write as if your kids will read it in 30 years." In Chinese the word for crisis… the first character means danger, and the second is translated as a critical juncture A Scottish MP George Galloway said "nothing can happen for decades and then decades can happen in weeks"

For some reason, people, especially men, have a difficult time really speaking openly and honestly about the reward they get from the people they love, their affection and love they feel for other people, and some of their weaknesses and their insecurity. So I think that's the place where I'd like to think I show some, I show some, I don't know what the term is, courage or bravery. I try to write as if no one's going to read it. When I write my blog, I try to write it as if my kids will read it in 30 years or 40 years. when I'm gone and feel as if they understand me better. And imagine no one else will read it. Because sometimes I read it and I think that's a little bit, I get a little bit embarrassed. And I think, you know, people like that. People like you expressing yourself and being vulnerable. This episode is brought to you by a very special advertising partner for me. In fact, this is an

endorsement of how great their product is. Because this year for Father's Day, I got my dad story worth. and what it is, each week StoryWorth will send a question to your loved one. Or you can choose the question. It is then sent through StoryWorff's platform. The person you then buy this gift for will respond to your question and can add in some cool pictures to help with the memories. And at the end of 52 weeks, StoryWorth will compile all of your stories, including the photos into a beautiful keepsake book that's shipped for free. And this is a book that I know my family

will treasure forever. It is a highlight of my week seeing the responses that my dad has given to these questions. In fact, I'm learning so much about him and his life that I didn't know before, which is amazing considering how much we talk. And so I would urge you to give your loved ones the gift of spending time together wherever you lived with Storyworth. Get started right away with no shipping required by going to storyworth.com slash leader. You'll get $10 off your first purchase. That's storyworth.com slash leader. Welcome to the Learning Leader Show presented by Rixian Meyer.

I am your host, 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, receive Mindful Monday updates. What I'm reading, writing, watching, thinking about. It will also give you more details about how my book, Welcome to Management, will help you become a more effective leader.

Text, learners to 44222. Now on to tonight's feature leader. He's back the great Scott Galloway Professor at New York University's Stern School of Business where he teaches brand strategy and digital marketing to MBA students. He's a serial entrepreneur, has founded nine firms, including L2, Red Envelope, Profit, and Section 4. He's been named one of the world's 50 best business school professors. He's written multiple bestselling books, including the 4, the algebra of happiness and most recently post-Corona from Crisis.

Two opportunity. A few of the topics we discussed. Scott shares the greatest untapped resource in the world and how our awareness of it will make us better leaders. And then the three mandatory qualities that leaders must possess if they care to build a business. And then Scott shares why he regularly makes predictions and why you as a leader should consider doing it too. Also, one quick note, there is some colorful language from Scott and this one.

Please take care while listening to this great episode with Scott Galloway. I was reading through your newest book post-Corona, and the first section I always go to in books is the acknowledgement section. And the reason that this one really piqued my curiosity is because the first person you mentioned is a friend of mine, my literary agent and yours, Jim Levine. Can you share with me the impact that Jim Levine has had on your life? Yeah, I think everyone needs role models. And here's a guy who's in his 70s who makes a good living, has been married for 50 hours, is great of what he does, is in fantastic physical shape. The guy looks like he could play tied end at the age of 74 or 70s.

or whatever he is. And he's also started in child psychology. And he's kind of my go-to for not only what books, you know, what my next book should be, but how do I create moments of engagement with my 10 and 13-year-old boys? So, you know, advice I give to young men, and I didn't have this, and I think it's equally true for young women, but women, I think, are better at establishing relationships early, is you have to have a kitchen cabinet of people you can turn to.

that you admire and you get to know them so well that you can almost sort of channel them. And when you're in situations where you don't know what you're doing, which happens to all of us dozens of times a day, you can channel them and get the benefit of their wisdom. And Jim Levine is one of those guys from me. So, yeah, Jim Levine's a world-class book agent, but, you know, for me, he's just more of a role model around life. So I'm obviously a big fan of Jim's and I feel fortunate to have met him.

He showed up in my office and said, you should write a book. Based on this video, I said, I don't know where to start. And he pulled out an iPad, hit record, and said, okay, just start talking. And that was literally the start of all this, Ryan, of all this. So it started this enormous empire called my third book. Well, so I want to talk to you about some of this empire because last time we recorded, you didn't have a podcast yet. And Scott, there is only one podcast I can say where I've listened to every minute of every episode they've ever published. That's the Proffee Show,

which is your podcast, Professor. Galloway for those who haven't listened and I highly encourage people to check it out. But the reason I share that with you is because at one point during that show, not one point, at many points, you have said it took you time to mature and grow and to be able to give another man a compliment. And I obviously want to give you a compliment because of the work you've done. And I learned that from you of the value of when somebody puts out incredible work, you should tell them.

And that's why I wanted to first lead off by doing that, but also share if you could expand on the importance of leaders being willing to give compliments, share the good work of others, speak positively behind the backs of other people, because I feel like you have really reinforced that point for me. Well, first off, that's very generous and thank you. And your fandom of my work says more about you than it does about me. specifically says you're pretty fucked up on the head, Ryan. You have real issues that you need to deal with. Okay, so what I just did there is how most men express affection. And that is we give

each other a hard time and we mock them, right? We like grab them and put them in a headlock and that's how we make fun of them. That's how we express affection. You are more self-actualized, I would say, and confident than the majority of young men, especially how I was at your age. And that I thought, if I expressed admiration or said someone else in my peer group was impressive, that somehow it made me less impressive, that I was giving up a currency. And then as you get older, what you realize is that when you express admiration for other people or respect, you're signaling confidence. And also, it's just a fantastic tool as you build your career, because we're a fairly, you know,

self-absorbed, insecure species. and the fastest way to get someone to like you is to like them. So if you, I always say the greatest untapped resource in the history of mankind, and this I got this from Cindy Gallup, is good intentions. But it's not only good intentions, it's good thoughts. So if you're blessed with recognition that someone is great at something they do or they're funny or they like what they're wearing or they have a great sense of style or they handled themselves particularly well in a difficult situation,

to not express that sentiment, to not verbalize it, to not actualize it with admiration, is to basically let a resource go to waste because I don't care how powerful you are. I don't care how much you've achieved. When people express true affection and admiration, it makes you feel wonderful. And it makes you feel wonderful about that person. And leaders, really good leaders, have figured this out. They constantly, and this is something. I learned later in life as a CEO of small medium-sized companies. Anytime you hear about someone doing

good, a quick email, a quick shout-out, pulling them into a conference room, this was great, well done, especially with young people. Young people need watering. And that is, if you want people to act like owners and act like leaders, you've got to treat them like owners and leaders, and that is you've got to give them equity. But you also have to give them recognition and inspire, you know, that types of good behavior. And let them know, you know, you may not think people are looking when you stay late. You may not think people recognize that you are not taking credit where you could have taken credit. You may not think people realize you're giving a lot of credit to other people when a lot of it was your work,

but people notice. And when you're the leader of an organization, you need to be the guy or gal that not only notices, but lets people know that you notice. So I would argue that a third of your time as a good CEO is either recruiting or retaining people. It's all about, you Team of the best players wins. And the easiest way to, loyalty is a function of appreciation, full stop. Retention is a function of compensation, but not only economic, psychic compensation. And the easiest form of retention is when you feel good things about people is to express it and to, especially with young people, to express it publicly.

Because you find out when you tell people something, I find out I said something nice about a young person, a new person, an accomplishment. And you find out later that they called their parents in total. them, you know? And this is what it's all about. And think about those moments when you were a kid and someone you looked up to and respected said something meaningful and true about something positive. It's just a wonderful way. It's not only a wonderful way to lead a company. It's a wonderful way to live your life. And I'm disappointed. I didn't figure that out later. I welcomed praise from others, but I was cheap and miserly with my own praise. And it was a huge mistake. And I'm

trying to make up for it and, you know, kind of the last half of my career. Speaking of that, we're starting off a little deep here, Scott, but I, but this is, this is why I listen to you and why I love and I never miss a, miss a show. Regularly, you say, quote, be the man your kids think you are. I've heard you say this a lot. And you got two boys, I know, you talk about them a lot and trying to be the man that they think you are. Who is the man that your kids think you are? So I'll answer generically as I don't think my I think my boys loosely have a roughly a similar impression of me and it's also I need to age gate it in the sense that are age adjusted from sort of zero to 10 my kids thought I was this superhero that was capable of almost anything that was

strong loving the best athlete and I did these super impressive things that they sort of understood but really looked up to me. And I remember thinking it was motivational to try and be that person. And what I've come to discover is I'm not the man, probably, that they thought I was then, but I'm not nearly the dork. My 13-year-old boy thinks I am now.

Everything I do, I'm an idiot and embarrassing to him and the rest of the world now. So I think there was probably a three-month period where he saw me for who I am. So not nearly as impressive as he thought I was, nor nearly as much of a disaster as he thinks I am now. But look, I think it's really motivating. I think when you have kids, you know, for the first time, at least in my life,

I kind of realized it wasn't all about me. And it's really relaxing. Ryan, do you have kids? Yeah, we have five girls. Oh, my God. Okay, so you're there. All right. And one of the things, and I hope my wife isn't listening to this,

she wanted a third kid, she wanted to go for a girl. and I always said, no, I'm getting too old. And we didn't do it. And now I regret it. You know, to have five girls, and how old are they? 13 to 6. Okay, so you're in Vietnam. You'll pretend that it's amazing, but that's just, that's a living hell.

That's hand-to-hand combat in Hway dealing that. I can't even imagine what that's like. But you also know, you know, it's stressful to be the provider. I don't know if your wife works with five girls. I imagine one of you has to stay at home. But that economic pressure, that constant chaos, someone is always unhappy with five. Yes. And the household is only as happy as the least happy person.

So there's a lot of research around happiness. And while we talk about kids, generally speaking, people with kids on an average basis are happier in the moment of not having kids than people are in the moment when they have kids. But there's that moment when your kid just sort of innately, your daughter comes up and lays her head on your chest and is upset and immediately turns to you and thinks that you're the only one that can comfort her. They instinctively grab your hand. And, you know, kind of for the first time as a man, you think you've spent your whole life grabbing for more. I want more money. I want more experiences.

I want more prestige. I want more relevance. I want more reaffirmation and admiration for my colleagues. It's just more, more, more, at least it was for me. And the first time in my life, first time in my life, where I thought, okay, this is enough, I know I'm here, this is the destination, is when you have those occasional moments with your kids, where you think, wow, this thing loves me immensely and it's totally dependent upon me.

And so look, it's a mixed bag. It comes at a huge price. and we don't talk about the downside. Generally speaking, people are least happy from 25 to 45 across their life. And it's because they're under tremendous pressure. They're trying to live up to the expectations their parents and themselves and their college

built for them up until 25, right? You should be a senator or have a fragrance named after you. That's kind of what we're all taught. You live in America, anything is possible, which is fantastic. The downside of that is if you don't recognize that incredible possibility, you've screwed up. And everybody knows.

failure. Everybody will be short at some point of their expectations. Most people know economic stress unless you're smart enough to be born into wealth. And everybody faces tragedy. Someone you love, gets sick and dies. So 25 to 45 are hard. But yeah, leaving the household from zero to 10 and trying to live up to your kids' unrealistic expectations of who you are is very motivating. And it's also, I think, really comforting for the first time of my life. I remember on weekends when I was single, it sounds like you started really early. I spent most of my 20s and 30s or all of my 20s and 30s as a single guy, just pursuing money, women, fame, status, just generally just trying to be more and more awesome and have

a more and more awesome life than the next guy or gal. And it's fun, but it's exhausting. What are you going to do this weekend? Well, I want to have a fabulous brunch with fabulous friends. I want to go to St. Bartz. I want to be ridiculously cool. I need to work out. I need to buy cool clothes, go to a cool place, get ridiculously fucked up and talk to strangers such that I have the confidence to meet people. I mean, it just, and then I want more, more, more. And you get to a point where you have kids and all of a sudden it's kind of relaxing because you really don't have any choices on the weekend. What are you doing this weekend? You know what you're doing. You're taking your daughters to soccer practice. And then you're going to a play date. And then you're finally carrying some weight of your partner who has carried more weight during the weekend.

because you're doing these dumb podcasts all week. I mean, it's almost, it's not nearly as fun, but it's almost sort of relaxing. It's kind of, and it just feels like, okay, this makes sense. This is what I'm actually supposed to be here for. So I have found, you know, I just can't get over. The most life-changing thing that's happened to me, and I think that happens to most people,

is simply put, these little beings that seem to adore you and are dependent upon you, the joy, the pressure, The stress, but also the satisfaction, I think is hands down, the most seminal important thing that's ever happened to me. And you really can't, unless you're a dad, you just don't get it. You just can't relate to it. It's so true, man. I don't remember what it's like beforehand, but it's the greatest and the toughest thing at the same time. I'm with you. Scott, let's shift gears a bit because you have started businesses. You're an operator. You're currently running a business. You've exited and sold

businesses. You've done extremely well for yourself. You've helped other people along the way. And this show is all about leadership, which leadership happens at home and it happens at work. And I want you to think about the people in your life, as well as some of your own habits and routines and rituals, but the people in your life that you've surrounded yourself with that have sustained excellence over an extended period of time, right? Now, one hit wonders, not had a good year, but I'm talking about sustainable excellence. What have you found those people seem to have in common? That's an interesting question. First off, I want to acknowledge a lot of it, and we don't talk enough about it. A lot of it isn't their fault. And I'll start with myself. The biggest

factor in my success was I was born a heterosexual white male in 1964, which meant that I came of age in California where the vision of the Regents of the University of California, California taxpayers gave me an amazing undergraduate education at UCLA and then a graduate education of Berkeley, which is impressive. But what's more impressive is that I was unremarkable and yet they had the bandwidth and the admittance capacity to let in an unremarkable kid. And that's not a humble brag. I took the SAT three times to score in the 80th percentile, which wouldn't get you into, you know, a second tier school now, much less the top tier school like UCLA. So I came into college in the 80s and I got an undergraduate and graduate degree for a total

tuition of $7,000. And then I came a professional age in the 90s in San Francisco where there was more wealth created because of processing power in a seven mile radius of SFO than it had been created in Europe since World War II. So, and the fact that I, my roommate, my freshman year in college, same exact benefits as me. Both of us came from kind of what I call upper, lower middle class households. My mother was a secretary, his parents were farmers. And we both got amazing opportunities, but God decided when he was born that he was homosexual. And I ended up living what I would describe as a fairly extraordinary life. He ended up dying alone of AIDS at the age of

34. So, you know, the first is I want to acknowledge a lot of my success and I think a lot of people success is not their fault. And I think there's a virus that plagues a lot of people, I find especially in tech, especially among white heterosexual males, this virus that infects us is we conflate luck with talent. And so the first thing I want to acknowledge is a lot of the wonderful things that have happened to me are not my fault. Now, having said that, the people I know who have put themselves in a position to have taken advantage of their blessings, generally demonstrate, I think leaders demonstrate kind of loosely speaking three things. The first is you have to demonstrate excellence.

Show me any CEO and I can show you someone who either can do almost any job in the company as well as anybody else or they are the best in the company at one thing. People want to follow people that are just great of what they do. Excellence, it sounds, you know, it sounds pat, but you have to be great at something. You have to develop a skill that makes you outstanding at something. The second thing is grit. Every company I've started, I make, and this is people call it FaceTime or what have you, but I've made a point of pulling all-nighters early and often.

I want the young people and other people in the firm to come in the following morning and see, and I don't just sit there all night, I'm working on a research report to get out, a client presentation, but I want them to see that I'm in it, and I'm not going to ask them to do anything I wouldn't be willing to do myself. And then I have endurance that I'm strong, and I realize some of that is kind of my macho coming out. But I think it sets the right tone for a company. And then the third is, I think, a certain amount of empathy. I think great leaders basically convince everyone in the room. I want you to win.

I'm invested in your victories. And that creates loyalty. And I didn't figure that out until I was in my 40s as a leader or as a CEO. I used to think, well, I just want to be super rich and super awesome. And you're so lucky to be in my universe that if I get super rich and super awesome, some of that will flow down to you. And what you recognize is that people have their own aspirations, that you're not the only, you know, you're not the only star in the room or the only person who wants to be, you know, really kill it. And taking the time to understand their objectives, and a lot of people have different objectives.

A lot of people have more flexibility in their life, but they want to manage. Some people would rather have a bigger team than be a sole contributor who makes more money, whatever it might be. Some people are just purely economically motivated. Some people are like, look, I got three kids at home. I want to have the ultimate balance. However you can get me home on Tuesdays and Thursdays early and pay me the most, that's where I want you to fine-tune my career. And other people, you know, people just want, some people love having their name in the paper. Okay, if I've worked for companies to get a lot of press and media, I'm going to put you, you want to be on stage. You want to go on, I would say, okay, you want to go on Carson. Fine. That's

important to you. There's nothing wrong with that. But really understanding what people want, one of my role models is a former dean at NYU Stern as a guy named Peter Henry. And he just immediately knew when he got in the room with him, he wanted you to win. He was very focused on, and this is a guy who was Rhodes Scholar, MIT PhD, wide receiver for UNC Chapel Hill, Stanford faculty, youngest. I mean, this kind of guy, one of these guys sort of unreal, also was six foot four and really handsome, you know? It's just one of these guys you think, okay, is this person actually real? It's something out of the Hallmark Channel.

But the thing I think his success was, beyond his accomplishments, is you just knew right away. This guy was very focused on leveraging all of his talents to try and make you more successful. And I just find, what does that mean? It means that short of doing anything unethical, I would do anything for this guy. And when you collect a group of people, because you show, you demonstrate such commitment to their victories that they end up being a exceptionally loyal to you, I think you can't help, but end up being very successful.

And the other kind of, one of the lessons I would say coming out of this, it's, you know, just a bridge is I find that people's loyalties are misplaced oftentimes, that they're loyal to companies. Companies are inanimate legal constructs. They do not have emotions. They are not concerned with the condition of your soul. They're not going to take care of you when you're older. Be loyal. Be loyal to people. And that is establish strong relationships with people at work and be loyal to them. Being loyal to companies just makes absolutely no sense to me. I think being loyal to organizations is largely a construct invented by governments so young people would go, put themselves in physical harm's way to maintain the wealth of older people back at home

who've decided not to go to the front lines. But this notion now in the U.S., which has just become crazy that we personify companies and you should be loyal to Twitter or at IBM, no, be loyal to people. Scott, one of the things you do is make predictions, and I know one of the reasons you've that you regularly make predictions is it's not about being right. It's about catalyzing a conversation. And I think from a leadership perspective and the work that I do, that is a key learning I've taken from you is be somebody who can catalyze a conversation much easier said than done. Can you share more about your philosophy on being a catalyst for conversation? Well, the way we shape and craft better solutions is through respectful evidence and argument

in debate. And I think to say, okay, if you're whether you're in a boardroom or at a company and say, this company is a real threat to us and they're going to overtake us in the next year, that catalyzes a debate or we are having trouble retaining the best people. What are the best people in our company have in common? They all leave and go to Google. You know, putting out what I would call provocative, I don't want to call it incendiary, but being the person that's not afraid to make predictions and say things and then forcing people to in an honest data-driven way. You know, it's this whole notion of ideas having sex, bumping up against each other to craft better ideas, which are the offspring. You know, I look at predictions the way Eisenhower looked at

plans. Plans are useless, but planning is invaluable. I think predictions are useless, but predicting is invaluable because it starts a debate about, okay, why is Tesla overvalued? I thought it was massive, and I'm talking about kind of my most famous wrong prediction, and there's a a lot of them. But two years ago, I said in front of 3,500 people that Tesla's stock was going to get cut in half. It's up sevenfold since then. But it catalyzed, I thought, an interesting conversation around what is Tesla? Is it a car company? Is it something else? And it's okay to be wrong. No, anyone who gets predictions right all the time is the devil or Jesus. So you want to take note of that person. But the idea is, okay, let's have a conversation and let's craft a series of

actions that give us better outcomes across whatever scenario hits us. So I absolutely love it. It's a terrible business to be in because, you know, one of the ones I got right, I said, WeWork was going to go out of business three weeks before it went public. So it's about to go public at 50 to 80 billion. A month later, it's, you know, it's out, it's almost out of business. And I predicted Amazon would acquire whole food. Once they happen, they seem obvious. You don't get the credit you deserve because they're like, well, of course they did that. That makes, that course that happened. But when you get them wrong, all these trolls on the internet come for you. So predicting is, from a brand standpoint, it's a bad idea, I think, because the stuff you get right seems

obvious. It wasn't obvious when you set it. But once it happens, it seems obvious. But I absolutely love it. And I spend a lot of time thinking about it. I'm marinated data. I talk to a lot of people that I think are really smart. And I'll make a prediction and back it up with data. And then I'll timestamp it and revisit it. And the wonderful thing about our society and our business environment of media is, if you get a prediction right, great. But if you get it wrong, I mean, it's okay. As long as you acknowledge I was wrong. And this is why I thought of the military evaluates decisions when they're reviewing a situation. They look at the outcomes. They don't look at the outcomes. They say, given what was known at the time, did the officer of the person in

charge make the right decision given all the information available at his or her at his or her fingertips? And I think that's the right way to look at predictions. And we'll look back at the moment. What was this, what did this person see or not see? The outcome, yeah, being right or wrong is interesting, but it's more interesting to look back and say, how did the moons line up to, to lead you to predict that? And where did you get it right? What did you get wrong? What happened that you couldn't have seen? So, but I think it's a, I think it's a really interesting practice. I love it. I think it's something everyone should engage in, you know, some people call it scenario planning. I just call it predicting. Scott, I recently went to an event for a YPO and Michigan organization.

that you've probably spoken at YPO chapters. And it was interesting. Some of the people in the crowd had never heard of me and had never listened to my show. And they said, you know, there's one guy that you've got to get on your podcast. And this happened in separate parts of the conversation. It's this guy named Scott Galloway. And I was like, well, I actually already have. So you can go like, I made him.

He owes me everything. Yeah. Yeah. No. My question, though, is you become like a like this cult like figure that so many. these are like 40 to 50 year old white dudes just so you know you become like the guy for this I mean much more than that because I've heard you get a ton of email from young people as well but that seems like everybody wants a piece of Scott Galloway in that range what do you what do you think

that is is it is it a combination of being that catalyst of making predictions of being very outspoken of making people mad all of the above I'm curious what you think it is as you reflect on yourself. That's a very generous. First off, thank you. You're being generous. The opportunity or the wide space, I think I have failed is not being smarter than anyone else around business. I like to think I'm a good communicator. And I approach business from a most business news is very PG-13. It's CNBC. It's women in sleeveless dresses and Andrew Ross-Sorke and talking about how amazing Zoom is. And I find that if you can be R-rated and just speak your mind and hold companies and our new Jesus Christ tech billionaires accountable, that there's opportunity there, there's white space for

there. There aren't enough, I'll call it white space. There isn't enough people filling that that space. However, however, I think that the recognition I'm getting from a lot of people you described is a function of a white space that is still huge. And that is for white heterosexual. sexual males to talk openly and honestly about their feelings. You know, I talk about being now a 56-year-old man. I'm still not over my mother's death. I still struggle with it. And that sounds weird to say. You know, she died 17 years ago. You know, she raised me on her own. It was just me and her against the world. And it's still kind of like something I haven't gotten past. You know, and it's weird. I say that, And I feel weak.

I feel, I don't know, less manly. And I'll write about it. And I'll get 100 emails from other men, including people, a lot of people would say are masters of the universe. I'm not exaggerating. Like CEOs of Fortune 50 companies saying, you have no idea how much this, you know, resonated with me. So we have as a cohort, and it's a sexist and I guess,

you know, bigoted thing to say, we have trouble expressing our emotions. And I have found there's just a reservoir of men who want to talk openly and honestly about how wonderful it is and hard it is to be a father, how difficult it is to lose, you know, someone you love, how upsetting and humiliating professional failure can feel, and that you put up this constant, facade of strength and success and, you know, so many times professionally, you just get beaned in the face, right? And I think everyone has those moments where you think, I'm not a good provider, I'm not a good dad, I'm letting everybody down, it's all my fault. I feel economically stressed. I'm not living up to the potential that I have and it's my own

fault and everyone that believed in me was wrong and I'm a huge disappointment to them. go on and on and on. And I think everybody feels those things. And to talk about them, I think that's where, I think that's the white space, is that for some reason, people, especially men, have a difficult time really speaking openly and honestly about the reward they get from the people they love, their affection and love they feel for other people, and some of their weaknesses and their insecurity. So I think that's that's the place where I'd like to think I show some I show some I don't know what the term is courage or bravery. I try to write as if no one's going to read it. When I write my blog, I try to write it as if my kids will read it in 30 years or 40 years when I'm gone

and feel as if they understand me better. And imagine no one else will read it because sometimes I read it and I think that's a little bit, I get a little bit embarrassed. And I think, you know, people like that. People like you expressing yourself and being vulnerable. Anyways, I, I could go on forever. This is my favorite topic, me. But yeah, I think that's the space. Being open and honest and vulnerable about your feelings, I think is what other men it resonates with.

I would love to go on about it. Can I ask you one question about your new book? Sure. Oh, that. With the reason we're here. I know you want to sell some books. I want to help through that. By the way, I think the greatest way to sell books is to be informative and likable.

If you're going to go on podcast guests, be informative and likable and entertaining. those three things sell books regardless of we cover, but we're going to cover one question from the new book post-Corona, which everybody's to get, I'm grateful your team sent it to me. So I want to focus on the Chinese word for crisis because there's actually, there's some misinformation out there or the translation is wrong. Let's talk about the correct translation. In fact, I won't answer it. You, I mean, specifically the critical juncture part is what I was curious about because that's where we find ourselves. But can you share why you? you wrote about the Chinese word for crisis and how the combination of danger and critical juncture that we find ourselves in right now as we're looking forward. Yeah, language is, I'm fascinated by language. So the Chinese word for crisis, it means something different or the word crisis is interpreted. Their word for crisis is interpreted as this juncture between opportunity and disaster. And so a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. And we're at a crossroads. Do we come out of those with more empathy for the households with children, one and five, our food insecure. Do we come

out of this not commuting and spending additional five to ten hours we get back with our children or making more money? Do we decide that emissions are something that should be permanently reduced? Do we decide the national cooperation, coordinating with Taiwan, who has the population of New York, but so far as that's 61 infections, I think, in six deaths? Do we, decide to reinvest in our institutions. CDC, do we real align our priorities? There's very little risk of invasion from tanks or planes in the US,

but we spent $700 billion on the military, but we've lost more people in the month of April this year than we lost in eight months of World War II or in the entire Vietnam conflict, yet we devote $7 billion to the CDC. Are we, you know, do we come out of this crisis recognizing there's a huge opportunity for remote health care?

The 99% of the people that contracted, endured the antibodies for and survived and endured the antibodies for the novel coronavirus, didn't enter a doctor's office, much less a hospital. Could we distribute health care and get off our heels and onto our toes? Instead of being reactive and defensive about it, start thinking about primary health care and helping people live healthier, better lives and seek treatment with smart cameras and smartphones and their handheld at home. Is there an opportunity to take my industry education and take it back to where it should be, the ultimate? The ultimate upward lubricant of the middle class, where a great education is affordable and accessible.

You can get into a great school. Or are we going to continue to be drunk on luxury, as my institution is and most elite universities are, and brag every year that we reject 90% of the applicants, which is tantamount to the head of a housing shelter bragging. They turned away nine and ten people who showed up last night. So we're at that juncture. Are we going to show more empathy? Are we going to find a reason to call ourselves Americans instead of Republicans and Democrats? Are we going to decide that capitalism means being harsh or Darwinistic on companies, but such that we can create this violence called capitalism at a corporate level that creates unbelievable spoils such that we can be more empathetic? We had competition in the 60s and 70s such that we could be more

generous with our seniors. Social Security take senior poverty from 38% to 11%. Do we let the tech companies duke it out such that we can do an earned income tax credit for children to make sure that there just is no household in America that is food insecure. You can't have the wealthiest nation in the world and have households that are food insecure. That's not capitalism. That's the hunger game. So I think there's an opportunity, I'm hoping, that this juncture, if you will. The Russians had crises all the time and they oftentimes, they use those crises to devolve into to totalitarianism and lose 20 million people in World War II, only to go on to kill millions more. So where are we here? There's an opportunity. There's a big silver lining, but there's also

some very scary things that have emerged about our economy around income inequality, around a lack of empathy, around unfettered big tech that pits us against one each other, against one another. So I think a crisis, again, opportunity or disaster, which, you know, which where are we going to go. Well, the book's called Post-Corona from Crisis to Opportunity. Scott Galloway, a big fan of your work. I've been impacted in a big way. So thank you for doing it. I know there's millions of others out there. So I appreciate you investing more of your time with me to come back on the Learning Leaders Show, man. Ryan Hawk, five girls. My brother, hang in there. Hang in there. Oh, my gosh. Five girls. I feel like it's the intro of the

Prophs G show when you say go, go, go. Do you have to put on like a character? Like, do you have to get into character or can you just turn that on and off? Because I sense you're actually more of an introvert yet when you listen to the intro of your podcast, which people will now go and do immediately after this one, they're going to say, this dude's got insane energy and really turns it on. Like, is that a mindset shift for you? It's a bit of a, I don't want to call it an act, but my family's constantly saying you're so much more interesting and likable on your podcast, at home I'm very, I'm actually what you would call fairly intense and fairly quiet. When I'm in home, I don't know how you are at home. Same. I'm paid to be an extrovert. I'm paid to get in front of a

group of people at 280 kids last night. You got to keep them engaged over Zoom for my brand strategy class NYU. When people are listening to your podcast, you want to be provocative, in their face, loud. But when I get home, I want to hear the sounds of my kids' voices. I want to hear other people talking, but I just, for the most part, just want to be in my own head and very quiet. And so, yeah, so, yeah, Yeah, it is a little bit. I wouldn't say it's an act. It's a different dimension. But at home, when I'm around loved ones,

what I find most relaxing, quite frankly, is just to be the one listening. But yeah, I'm absolutely hardwired to be, to be an introvert. But I have actually listened to your podcast. I am so impressed you are able to get such interesting people. From freaking Dayton, Ohio, you score these ballers. I know you talk about having to live in a big city, do you still feel that way considering, I mean, I don't and never have.

I moved down to Birmingham, Alabama, to play arena football. That's similar to here. What do you think about that? Oh, my God. Arena football podcast, Five Daughters. You're dreamy, Ryan Hawk. You are dreamy. Anyways, arena football.

You're doing the same thing to me that I did to you to start this podcast to set the proper tone so that you would feel good. Arena football. I know how you are, man. Good for you. Yeah, look, I think. I think that it's going to be situational. My sense is a place like Dayton has reinvented itself. My sense is it used to be auto parts and kind of industrial,

and it's done a pretty good job. You have good universities in Ohio. Ohio is a well-managed state. It's always produced a series of raging moderates who I love. I love your current governor. I love your old governor. I mean, I like raging moderates, even if they're center-right. I'm kind of center-left.

I think it's a well-managed state. Some good cities there. We were talking about I used to live in Columbus, Ohio, and I had wonderful summers there. My dad was on his third marriage then. Anyways, hold me, Ryan. But look, I'm bullish on cities. San Francisco gets a lot of play as an example of a city that's going to decline.

That's situational. San Francisco has just become expensive yet bad. Big cities typically thrive in a pandemic. I'm actually quite bullish on New York. If you look at what Facebook and Amazon are doing, they're actually doubling down and creating more office space because the future is 60% of college grads. are going to be from top schools are likely going to be women. Seven and ten high school

valedictorians are now girls. And I think most, you know, men like to move home and stay close to home. Women like to move to the city. The most talented human capital in the world, 25-year-old woman who has a double-e from Dartmouth. The idea of spending three to five years in New York and the Xanidu-like environment that Google and Facebook will create for them, big cities typically do really well. So I'm actually bullsons cities. Every young person should get to a city, I think, for a few years just to see if they like it or don't like it. But the economic activity there and the experience, I think, is unparalleled. So I'm actually quite bullish on cities, but I'm also bullish on Dayton. I'm also bullish on Dayton. I feel like you might be pandering,

but I'll take it. I'll take it. No, thank you, Scott. I would love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man. Yeah, congrats on all you've done, Ryan. Thank you. Appreciate it, man. All right. Thanks, Scott. Drew, thanks so much for hooking us up, man. Appreciate it. Yeah, thanks. I have your email here. So I'm going to kill that. and send it over. Miss the probably first 30 seconds, but that's okay. Thank you, man. Scott, you have a phone interview coming up right now from CBS.

Thanks, Ryan. Thank you, Scott. See, man. Have a good thing, see what. Thank you. Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed that one with Scott Galloway, a master at catalyzing a conversation and making you think.

A few of my key takeaways after reviewing my note. when he mentioned that the greatest untapped resource, good intentions, good thoughts, express them, verbalize them. Don't let that resource go to waste. When you come across excellent work done by somebody else, tell them, tell them, let them know the impact that their work has had on your life. it will mean a lot to them. I try to do this and I certainly enjoy it when others share that with me.

It is part of the fuel that keeps me working so hard at this. So that is the greatest untapped resource, good intentions, good thoughts, express them, verbalize them. Don't let that resource go to waste. Next, when he mentioned the three keys for leaders who have sustained excellence, number one, excellence, demonstrate excellence. Be the best at at least one thing. Be outstanding at that one thing within your company, your place of work. Two, have grit. Be willing to pull our all-nighters. Do not ask anyone to do anything that you are not willing to do yourself. Scott mentioned how he showed this as a leader and how he currently does it. The endurance, the energy, very important having grit. Three, empathy. Empathy creates loyalty. You have to have. to want others to win.

You have to leverage all of your talents to help others be successful. My dad has always told me my success will only follow the success of the people. I am helping the people. I am leading the people. I am responsible for. My success follows your success. And then when we were discussing crisis, the Chinese word for crisis, the first character means danger.

And the second is translated as a critical juncture. And that creates opportunity. As he said, it quoted, which had been said many times before, Churchill often attributed to it, never let a crisis go to waste. Think about the opportunity you are faced with currently, especially if you're still amidst the crisis, and many are, of viewing that, shifting your framework to viewing it

as an opportunity to make something happen, an opportunity to support people, an opportunity to lead, an opportunity to step up, an opportunity to be a value add to someone else's life. That what being a learning leader is all about. Thank you once again for continuing to spread the message, for telling a friend or two you should listen to the Learning Leader Show.

This one with Scott Galloway will help you become a more effective leader. Thank you for rating the show, hopefully five stars in iTunes Apple podcast, for writing a thoughtful review. That helps more than you know. It helps spread the message to people who have never listened to this show. And I am so appreciative for you doing that. And because you continue to spread the message one person at a time, you give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful to you. Thank you so much.

Talk with you soon. Can't wait. This episode is brought to you by a very special advertising partner for me. In fact, this is an endorsement of how great their product is. Because this year for Father's Day, I got my dad Storyworth. And what it is, each week, Storyworth will send a question to your loved one. or you can choose the question. It is then sent through StoryWorff's platform.

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