The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 511: Brian Kight - Creating Confidence, Building Daily Discipline, Handling Imposter Syndrome, Goal Setting Systems, & Writing Your Culture Playbook

Episode Date: February 6, 2023

Text Hawk to 66866 to become part of "Mindful Monday." Join tens of thousands of other Learning Leaders to receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right...  Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com Twitter/Instagram: @RyanHawk12  https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 Brian Kight is the founder of Daily Discipline. He writes essays on how to pursue your most meaningful objectives with intention, purpose, and skill. His work is read by millions of people all over the world. Brian (known as BK) personally works with leaders in business and in sports on how to align teams and accelerate results. Notes: What mistakes do leaders make when trying to change the culture? They are too fuzzy with their language. It's plain. They separate culture from execution. In reality, execution is the strongest indicator of culture. "The testing of my beliefs is the discipline of my actions." Learning Happens through Depth: People now place too much emphasis on learning fast and not enough on learning deeply. The consequence is a false equivalence of consumption with learning and a false confidence that what gets consumed is understood. Learning occurs through immersion, not cheat codes. No one cares how many books you've read or podcasts you've heard.  These are not marks of success, achievement, or wisdom. Success is applying the lessons of one book in a manner so disciplined that it transforms your life or at least impacts it in a meaningful fashion. To learn, transform, or build something of lasting capability, merit, and value, immerse yourself in the learning experience. If you want a change, fully engage. Shed volume for depth. Swap variety for rigor. Don't minimize your effort through hacks or cheapen your experience with cheat codes. Are you trying to feel good for a while or improve yourself forever? Leaders create the culture that drives the behavior that produces results… E + R = O Event + (Your) Response = Outcome The confidence - Doubt spectrum The 5 things confidence comes from: I know what to do I know how to do it Do I feel capable of doing it? I expect good results I'll be ok if the results are not what I expect Leaders instill confidence in people Reps are a tool for belief Goal Setting: "I'm not into goal setting, I'm a system setter." "My commitment is to execute the system." "Outcomes are not my goals." Light can be pushed through a prism or a magnifying glass. A prism creates a rainbow. Nice, looks good. A magnifying glass creates focus and fire. Ask, "Am I a prism or a magnifying glass?" Businesses are not rational environments, they are emotional environments. They don't run by rational rules, they run by emotional ones. Everything is an exchange. You give attention, time, and energy (ATE) to things with the expectation of a return on that investment. How do we align our inner and outer Pursuits? – Getting secure and aligned on the inside leads to excellence on the outside. The best way to position yourself for external excellence is to prioritize internal fulfillment. Life & Career advice: Be a creator of the energy you need. Your energy comes from your purpose. "Don't follow your passion, just always bring it with you." "Your response needs to always be better than your circumstances."

Hey, it's Ryan. I have a quick ask of you prior to this episode. If you have received value from this podcast, the Learning Leader Show, over the past seven and a half years, I would be very grateful if you would write a review and rate the show in Apple Podcast. And I set up an easy link to do it. It's Ryanhawk.net. It's my, name, Ryanhawk.net. It will shoot you straight to Apple Podcasts where I'd love it if you would spend invest a minute or two and write a thoughtful review and rate the show hopefully five stars. This really helps spread the message to people who have not yet heard it. And as you know, it is a goal of mine to impact as many people as possible. So Ryanhawk.net write a thoughtful review and rate the show hopefully five stars. All right, here we go. Welcome to the Learning Leaders Show, presented by Insight Global.

I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text, Hawk to 666866 to become part of Mindful Monday. You, along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world, will receive a carefully curated email for me each Monday morning to help you start your week of rights. You'll also receive details about how my book, The Pursuit of Excellence, will help you become a more effective leader. Text, Hawk to 6-6-866.

Now, on to tonight's featured leader. This one's so good. Brian Kite is the founder of daily discipline. He writes essays on how to pursue your most meaningful objectives with intention, purpose, and skill. This work is read by millions of people all over the world. And BK personally works with leaders in business and in sports. on how to align teams and accelerate results during this conversation. We discuss the dichotomy between goals and systems and how you can set up the proper system

to achieve your goals. Then he shared the five things that confidence comes from, how to earn it, how to keep it, how to grow it. Then the mistakes leaders make when trying to change a culture. This part made me really question how I've approached past cultures as well as future ones. I am certain it will be helpful for you. Ladies and gentlemen, I love this conversation. It's Brian Kite.

BK., great to have you here on the Learning Leaders Show. Welcome, ma'am. Ryan, good to see you. So let's start actually back when you're a young kid. You wrote an essay about being a child of divorce and how you had to really learn about this concept of E plus R equals O, this mindset of E plus R equals O, as you would drive back and forth from San Diego to Los Angeles between your parents' homes. Yeah.

Can you take us back to that moment and how you formulated something like that at such a young age? You know, it's interesting. Actually, ironically, I was literally just talking about this with somebody on our team going through his own experience with his kids around it. And, you know, I had, you know, I think the first thing that's important for me that, that, you know, there's probably people out there who are dealing with some version of this, is that while I had two parents who didn't want to be married to each other, and, you know, people always ask, you know, they ask the difference.

And the easiest way I can describe it is that my dad was a pastor and my mom was not a pastor. It's the easiest way for me to help people kind of grasp it. But what I benefited from and what really matter was that they both not only loved me, but gave me and showed me love and structure in a very different way. It's right, one pastoral, one worldly. But they both gave me love. And so I benefited for that. For all the pain of divorce, I had this.

this incredible amount of like really great formative love and structure and teaching and education. It just, they came from different worldviews and perspectives, which is why they didn't stay together, but I benefited from that. But then what I had this experience was, was my mom is a flat attendant. It still is. Best flat attendant in the world. And I would fly between San Diego and L.A. Because I could fly for free.

But I would fly by myself. And so I would fly, get on an airplane in Carlsbad, and I would fly up to L.A.X. by myself. And so I had to sit at literally eight years old, nine years old, on an airplane by myself, wearing that little plastic lanyard for an unaccompanied miner. And I had all this time, Ryan, to just be alone. And this is what I was talking about this morning. And I learned in that window how to be okay with being by myself and make my brain and my thoughts work for me, not against me. Because maybe the most dangerous thing for human beings of any age is to let

isolate them and let their minds and imaginations go to work. And watch what happens. We are our own worst enemies in that way. So I had this time where I would flip between these really different environments. My dad's house and environment was really different than my mom's house and environment, not just geographically or environmentally, but like the rules and the standards and the expectations, right? And in one house, you know, no R-rated movies. In the other house, and the R-rated movies. And, you know, in one house, you know, it was very, very strict. In the

other house, it was wide open, like make your own decisions. And both had a lot of benefit and value. But the, you know, E plus or equals O, event plus response equals outcome, my event, the context of my of my world changed so drastically on that flight, that that flight kind of became my, all right, shifting my response to meet the environment that I was going into. And that was really where I started to like explore that. I didn't call, obviously, I didn't call it that at the time, but I like intuitively started to like wrap my head around that and certainly helped by the fact that my parents educated me and like worked hard to like teach me about why they live the way that they live and how they saw the world and and then I use that time in between to like you know this is

time for me to harness myself and that isolation for me and it was a really really good thing and I mean it fundamentally was I would I would put it as one of like probably that isolation was one of the those flights one of the top three formative on texts of my life for sure really so at the time at the time were you upset that you had to do it, but looking back, you're grateful that you've gone through, that you had to go through it. Oh, I mean, I was a normal kid, right? I would cry all the time, like, leaving one parent to go to another. I mean, think about that. And get on the plane like all the time by yourself. I think as an eight, nine year old, that's wild to think about. Crazy. But, you know, also a little bit of, I, I would say I'm,

wired a little bit like I'm wired naturally confident. I'm just wired that way. That's just kind of how I am. You're wired to be a confident person? Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm wired. I'm wired confident. I'm wired confident. Like to this, I mean, at 40, like you go back to 8 year old me, 40 year old me is not a surprise. Which, which is, you know, there's a lot of good that comes with that. But there's also a lot of, you know, challenges that come with that. Right. One being, I'm wired confident even when I'm not competent enough. So like I can, I can certainly confident myself into a scenario that I'm not good enough for or like wing it or whatever. And I did that as a kid and I can do that now. The other side is it's obviously very easy to misinterpret. You know, not everybody likes that inherent confidence.

Like they're like proven confidence. Yeah, it could rub some the wrong way. Yeah, and it does. And what I've acknowledged and accepted is that like that's just, I'm just wired that way. I can't undo that for myself. And frankly, what I want to do. I don't want to undo my confidence because somebody doesn't like it.

But what happened was like, like, nature nurture nature wired confident the context of my life could have undermined that in me right it could have crashed that part of me but instead again I think partly because of

how my parents did it and then partly just sort of like the way it happened because it was so normal for me because my parents divorced when I was one and I would fly back and forth you know it I don't know it's like DNA right like like why does it unlock

somethings and others. Like we still don't quite know why certain things get unlocked at others and, you know, different stuff. We don't know that. So I, there's no formula for why that got unlocked in me, but what I know now is that as painful as that was and the tears and I don't want to go to dad's house or I don't want to go to mom's house or I want to stay here, whatever it was, that time by myself, I used that and I learned things and I learned about myself and I learned how to like be okay with my emotions and be okay with being afraid or angry or whatever it was. And I learned independence. I learned like, hey, there is nobody who's going to come and do this for you, PK. Like, this is it. Like, you either figure this out or you're alone. And if I fast forward a little bit, what was

actually really cool was like that's eight year old me, right? But now fast forward to like 12, 13, 14, 15 year old me. I'm flying like large or frankly even 18 year old me. Like, you know, I'm broke as a joke and I'm still a high school kid, whatever, but I'm flying all over across the country. And I'm like, you know, I'm flying by myself at 14 years old across the country, you know, taking the trains at DFW or O'Hare walking, you know, half a mile across. And like having to find my way through an airport at 14 years old where like parents today, with kids with cell phones, would be terrified to let their kids do that. I would imagine, too, becoming so independent at a young age, like supercharges that confidence.

I get a question a lot, especially with newly promoted. promoted leaders. And that question is of imposter syndrome. They got promoted and they have enough awareness to realize that they don't, that there are parts of the role that they don't know or they're scared or they're unsure if they even deserved it, even though they killed it in the whole process leading up to the promotion. When you hear about people with imposter syndrome, as someone who's more naturally confident, so you probably have that less, although I don't want to make any assumptions. How do you suggest people handle that and deal with it? Well, one, I have it just as much as everybody does. Okay. I mean, let's just acknowledge it.

Imposter syndrome is universal. Yeah. I think, by the way, I think the first sign that somebody for sure has imposter syndrome is somebody saying they don't have it or have never felt it. Because they're again, they're trying to what? They're trying to make sure that they still see that mask. At the end of the day, all of us, all of us are in rooms. where we're going, hold on a second, right? For real? You know, and I mean, look, I joined a private equity firm just a little over a year ago. At 40 years old, like, like, peak of my game, like, I'm better than I've ever been before and not what I want to be, but peak of my game.

And then put me in a private equity firm, and I'm immediately up to my eyeballs and stuff that I don't know, language I can't speak. So, like, it's context dependent. as well, right? Like, I wouldn't feel like an imposter on a football field, but put me in a private equity firm, no doubt. Is there a part of you that actually yearned for that challenge of not being comfortable? 100%. I mean, the biggest reason I made the shift was to put myself into an environment where my capability was, frankly, the low person on the totem pole in terms of the technical side of this space, no doubt. No doubt. But here's what I think about with, here's, what I think about with imposter syndrome. And I think this actually pulls up a really interesting piece

that I've not heard people talk about this. And maybe you have, I mean, obviously I'm not listened to every single one of your shows, but like you have had such an incredible array of guests and insights and stuff that you've compiled. So here's an interesting question. First, let's call this, you know, imposter syndrome is a lack of confidence. at least in some there's a lot of dynamics to it but like the foundation is it's this lack of confidence and this presence of doubt like is that a fair is that like a fair simplified version of this okay for sure let's just take those two things confidence and doubt and let's treat them as opposite ends of the spectrum on one side you have confidence and it can be pegged at 100%

and there's a whole spectrum and the other side is doubt and you could be at 100% and you can be anywhere in between here's a question and i've been asking people recently where does confidence come from? What is it? And where does confidence come from? How would you, if I asked you that question, right? You do a lot of stuff. You talk to a lot of people.

Like you're out there creating incredible value, great insight. Because we talk about this with our kids and students and people and leaders. It's like, be confident and go create and build confidence. Okay, awesome. Where does it come from? What is the reliable path to confidence for somebody? How would you answer that? For me, personally, it comes through repetition and proving to myself, following through

on what I say I'm going to do, repetition, living to my values, consistently doing that day after day, stacking days makes me more confident. I mentioned the word repetitions. the reason I'm a much more confident interviewer and actually overall conversationalist with literally any human on the planet is because I've done this more than 550 times with people who are far wiser than me

in rooms I definitely do not belong in and can hang and can do it. Now, a lot of it through deep preparation, but that's also part of what builds confidence. Think about when you play sports, when you play football or any sport, I'm a much more confident quarterback when I know I have over-prepared for the moment. And I think the same holds true in kind of all elements of what I do.

That's why I've drawn so much from sports and kind of taken that work ethic and lessons learn from amazing coaches on preparation and resilience and bouncing back when it doesn't go your way and proving to yourself that you can do that. And when you stack enough of those moments, those days, that has built a good sense of confidence in myself and what I do. So I appreciate the question off the cuff because that's like a whole almost books worth of stuff we could talk about. But I love to hear from your side where it comes from. So I like that. I like that answer.

And so like here's one of the things I really like to do is let's pressure test stuff. Like even with my own things, like what I, you know, I encourage from a listening perspective is, you know, and I know we're going to talk about this later, but I think one of the reasons why one of the one of the downsides of the volume of content that exists in the world is that we consume stuff and then we just consume new stuff before we pressure test what we just consumed. Is that real? Is that true? Does that actually work that way? Does that reflect? Like can I invalidate that? With instead of depth. Definitely we're going to get to that next. Go ahead. So let's let's pressure test this, right? Yeah. I would agree. that like the more prep you do and the more reps you get and the more stuff should create confidence. Let me ask this question. Have you met people and interacted with people who had lots of experience, had done lots of reps and still struggled with pretty serious self-doubt? Sure. Sure. Yeah. So reps and performance don't guarantee confidence, but they could create it. Have you met people

who have never done anything in an environment, whether it be starting a podcast or starting sports or whatever? and they were full of confidence, even though they had no reps, and they hadn't prepared a ton. They just had confidence. Oh, yes. I'm thinking of people right now. Yes. You can see them, right? Yes.

So we know that reps and performance do not guarantee confidence. Right. And we also know that people who have no reps in performance can have confidence. My six-year-old son is going to be going into football this April. He's never played football in his life. Right? like if you were talking to my son, would you tell him to be confident or say, don't have any confidence because you have no reps and you've not really prepared for this? So go in and don't be confident because you have no right to be confident. Of course we would never say that to him, right?

Right. We want him to go into that environment full of confidence, but there's a problem. He doesn't have any reps. Yeah. So how about this? Have you ever personally wrestled with self-doubt yourself? All the time. Of course, so have I, right? Have you ever wrestled with self-doubt on brand new things that you'd never done before? And it was very unknown to you.

Definitely. Have you ever wrestled with self-doubt in places where you had tons of reps and experience? But you're still kind of working through self-doubt. So have I. So here's what's fascinating. This is what's fascinating to me. Both confidence and doubt, they're not realities, they're just beliefs. I don't think people fully grasp what confidence is.

Confidence is not proof. Confidence is simply something that you believe about what hasn't happened yet. Your confidence about your past interviews, that's not really a thing. Are you confident in the interview that you interviewed 100 that you did? Like, what? No, that's the past. Your confidence is all about your belief about what? That hasn't happened yet.

Your doubt, my doubt, same thing, is about what? Something that hasn't happened yet. So both confidence and doubt are projections into the future about things that haven't happened yet, and it's what we believe about that. So when my son goes and plays football, he is going to project what happens to me.

What's this going to be like for me? And if he projects success and good performance and fun, he's going to feel very confident. But if he projects failure and criticism and pain and he's going to feel very doubtful. So quickly on that, if we recognize that both, I think the mistake people make is they try to root confidence in reality. This is where imposter syndrome comes up.

They look at the reality of their life. I've never done this. I haven't done that. I haven't, whatever it is. And the reality causes them to believe unworthiness or incapability or they're better than me. Whereas if we stop looking at reality and we start saying like, what do I believe? Even if it's not, I can't see it. What do I believe? And then all of a sudden, I believe I'm capable. I believe I can do this. I believe. So here's the five things where

competence comes from. And I think this is tremendously powerful. And it works in a checklist. And it's like so intuitive and obvious to people. And you can just pressure test this. We feel confident or we feel doubt based on the presence of five beliefs. Number one, I know what do. Number two, I know how to do it. So right away, if I know what to do and I know how to do it, I'm on my way to confidence. But if I don't know what to do or I'm unsure or I don't know how to do it or I'm unsure, immediately doubt injects. Right. Somebody's that wanted to start a podcast like they see you. They're inspired by the learning leader show and they're like, I want to do a podcast. But then they're like, what? I don't know how to interview or I don't know what microphone to get or I don't and you

immediately like the doubt starts to chisel right. But if you know what to do and all how to do it, you're well on your way. But that's not enough. What to do how to do. Number three, do I feel capable of doing it. Have you ever run a marathon? No. Trave one. Are you interested in running a marathon? Uh, maybe. I'm not. If you are, do you know how to run? Yeah. Yeah. you know what it takes to do a marathon from a physical perspective? Yeah. If I asked you to do a marathon, do you feel capable of running a marathon tomorrow? Probably not.

There you go. So you are present. Yeah, we can say, right? So your my presence of doubt doesn't have anything to do with the actual task of running. It has everything to do with whether we feel capable of doing that. When I imagine myself running 26.2 miles, there's a mileage at which point I'm like, yeah, I don't know if I'm actually physically capable. It has nothing to do with knowledge.

It has everything to do with feeling. Capable. So number four is do I expect good results. So I feel capable and I expect good results to actually happen from that capability. And then number five is I'll be okay if results are not what I expect. So you look at all five of these. I know what to do. I know how to do it.

I feel capable. I expect a good result. and I'll also be okay if results are not what I expect. For us to feel the kind of confidence that any of us would call like real confidence, we have to have all five of those. And if even one of them is missing or like hold down, confidence as a whole starts to be overcome by doubt. Yeah. Maybe what?

Like what if I, like you think about, go back to sports. Like what, what crushes? Why do we feel? Why do we crumble under pressure? It's because this, what happens if my family's in the stadium and it's the big game and I don't make that throw? It's not that they don't know how to throw or where to throw or they don't feel capable of making the throw. It's the projection in what if I fail here. And projection into the future of what if I fail says, I won't be okay if that happens.

And the next thing, you know, doubt starts to show up about whether they are who they think they are. Does that make sense? Yeah. So let's take it to the newly promoted person or even your son. playing football for the first time, who doesn't have a fully formed brain to think all this stuff through. So maybe you take both of those examples for that person. It almost feels like they have to get to number five. Like, I got to be okay if I fall on my face during my first town hall or my first whatever. I expect good results and I'm going to prepare to have good

results, but I'm okay if it doesn't happen. You got it. Okay. So, and this is the thing, right? Like, so now we start looking at because- But like, forgot like you, though, who like has high expectations and high standards. We're very aligned, right? Yeah.

That in a way, I could see not being okay with blowing my first town hall in front of my new team because I have high standards and high expectations of myself. And I could see me like, no, no, I can't, I can't. screw this up. It's got to be good. It's my first impression. It's whatever, you know. And here's, and this is why confidence is so fragile because that's the debate. We start to, we start to negotiate with ourselves in our head around this stuff. Yeah. Part of you wants to say, I will be okay. But then there's another part of this says, no, you won't. No, you won't. Right. Like, I did a keynote recently and, and, and, you know, big keynote, I know you're on stage in

front of people, and I don't know how you craft this, but, but one of, one of the ways that I started doing a long time ago when people will ask me about this occasionally and I'll tell them and sometimes I'll tell them on stage it's a very funny way to kind of do this is here's how I cultivate this practically and I'll come back to my son about I'll go through all five of them teaching my son out to ride his bike because that was where it like for me it's where like it it became this whole thing became alive for me in this process here's how I craft this when I speak to people including as a leader and I'll ask the audience I'll say did I check with any of you before today for me to feel good about myself. Did I email you guys and check in with you to say,

am I allowed to be okay today? And everybody kind of laughs and shuggles and they say, no, of course you didn't. And then I tell them, then I will be just fine if you don't give me your approval after this keynote is over. I didn't check with you for me to feel confident in myself before today. So why in the hell would I check with you after today? I didn't need. your approval for me to feel like a good guy, a good husband, and confident. I didn't need your approval before today. So the fact that I'm on stage right now and talking to you, I still don't need your approval. And what that does, Ryan, is this. It frees me up to say this, I'll be okay with or without your approval. It's not that I'm not interested in it. It's that I as a person,

as a man, in my heart and my business, everything, will be just fine. Because before today, you didn't even know who I was. Yeah. Right. So after today, great. And then what that does is now I can speak confidently without fear of you not liking me or this not going well. And guess what that puts me in position to do? Increasing the likelihood that I speak and interact and engage in a way that's valuable to you that actually does get you like me.

But as you know as a speaker and I know as well. Every keynote, right? Even if it's 4.9 out of five, right? there's always one person in there. That guy sucked. I didn't like him. Never hire him again. Too intense for me.

Too intense. Chill out, dude. Let me relax in my life. So go to my son riding his bike, like practically. How do you bring this down? So I look at my son, it's like, look, okay, does he know what to do writing his bike? Yeah, I started like solving that with him. Great.

You knew what to do it. Does he know how to do it? We had some mechanics to work on and little things here and there. Does he feel capable? man, that was where it really started to swing with him. His feeling of capability of like, I taught him what to do. He would start to pedal a little bit and then he would stop. And he's like, oh, I was.

And he was projecting. While he was like pedals later. And he's like, oh, my feeling of capability went down. And then he's like, do I expect a good result? Like he was picturing all the worst stuff where I was like, dude, you're writing. You're doing it. And then will I be okay if it's not what I want? I know he's going to be fine with a crash.

I know he'll be fine. He doesn't. I took him snowboarding last Sunday. It was this, like fear initially. What if I do this? What if I do that? What if I do this? What I realized was there was this difference between his projection into the future

and my projection in the future. I believed in him more than he believed in him because he projected trees and getting too far away from dad and never getting back to him and all this different stuff. And the difference between us wasn't the reality. he'd never snowboarded before ever, right? But the belief of what was going to happen. And so what I had to do was I had to instill in him belief.

And I think this is one of the things about leaders is our job is to create confidence in people. And what that means is far more than just the reps. The reps are a tool for what? Belief. What our job as a leader is is instill belief in people. What beliefs? belief that they know what to do, belief that they know how to do it,

belief that they are capable, belief that good things are going to happen, and the belief that, hey, guys, if things don't go as we expect, we're going to be okay. It's not what we want, but we're going to be okay.

It will go again. I love it, dude. Love it. How does this relate to goal setting? Okay? I've been studying a lot about this writing and reading a lot about results-based goals. we're going to win the Super Bowl

versus process oriented goals. How do you view this, what's your overall thought process on goal setting? I'm not a goal setter. I'm 100% of system setter. So, you know, I don't know if this is heresy and I'm sure there's plenty of different people.

This commitment to smart goals, you know, with respect, like it just it doesn't do what it promises. I'm personally, there's nothing wrong with goal setting I don't think. But I'm not a goal setter. I'm a system setter. I want to be in my systems. Somebody call it processes. I want to be in the systems. And my commitment is to executing the system. In E plus R equals O terms, here's what my foundation is. Right. Again, event plus response equals outcome. Here's one of the things that is very clear to me that I try to help people understand.

The outcomes are not in my control. They're just not. not. I mean, if outcomes were in my control, I'm sure like you, like my bank account would look different. And like, you know, the reach and the scope and my favorite teams would win and everybody that I work with would, you know, apply every single thing that I did. Like, my people would treat me differently. Like outcomes aren't in my control. So setting a goal, no one's ever achieved a goal because they set one. Right. They, they achieved their goals because they did what was required to get there. People like to romanticize after the fact. Before the season, we set the goal to hit $10 billion in revenue. Before the season, we set the goal to win the Super Bowl, and look what we did.

We said we are going to do it, and now we have, right? Like, this is why the guy by you actually, before this season, Russell Wilson said, I want to win three to four Super Bowls in the next 10 years, which was bizarre to me, because if you are a results-oriented goal setter, which again, you do you, whatever, like, not you, but, you know, why wouldn't it be 10 Super Bowls if you plan to play 10 years? Like, if I play 10 years and I say my goal is to win the Super Bowl three or four times, that literally makes no sense to me. Like, none.

It would be, now, if you said my goal is to win 10 Super Bowls, I would say, not realistic, but, hey, you know, go go do whatever you got to do. You know, so like that's the thing that I don't know, like it really is odd to me. Yeah. I mean, I mean, look, for some people, like the targeting of that goal, I mean, I watched Caleb Williams, uh, Heisman speech, right? And my, my dad works with USC and, and, and those guys real close and stuff. And I watched his He has, I'm just thinking about, you know, he has all his sheets and all

the stuff and all the goals and everything. And I'm thinking about all the kids who are watching who are probably going to go copy that from Caleb, which is great, good for them. But the goals without the systems in place, I mean, with love and respect, good luck. So can you do it all? Yeah, for sure. But I'll say there's a dark side of goal setting.

There's a really dark side. Again, something I happen to be talking about this morning. Maybe that's why it comes to my brain. When we set a goal, and there's a lot of research around this, when we set a goal, I mean, you know this as an author, right? Anybody who's ever written a book, what's the goal of that book? Oh, it would be a bestseller? You want it to be a bestseller.

Okay, great. What's the reason why people don't finish books and actually publish them? Because they don't feel like that book is going to be a bestseller. They get so scared of not hitting that goal that they don't ever publish. So the dark side of goal setting is this. Once we set a goal and then we square it up against our immediate reality, most people, and I think that's a fair statement, most, most people, the discomfort and the distance between the current reality and where their goal is creates so much discomfort and doubt

that it actually undermines the work to go make that happen. It's the goal that makes them feel separation. Now, for other people, and this is wiring, for other people, that big goal is the fuel. It's the fact that they're so far away from it and this intensity, competitive desire to go chase it. So it's hard to identify which people are fueled by that giant goal and which people will be crushed by the distance between them and the work. And so I'll give a very practical example of this. Let's take diet and exercise. The most universal thing that people are doing, right? People set goals. I think the big problem in this, I write about this in daily discipline and I think this is the fundamental challenge for people in life is the problem is they

set a goal for eight weeks and then if they don't feel like they're on progress or on track or hit that goal in eight weeks, what do they do? They stop. Right. And then next thing you know, it's a year later, they're even more out of shape. And the reason is because they missed the eight week goal. So my thing for people is this. It doesn't matter where you are in eight weeks. What matters is where you are in a year. That's a meaningful period of time. If you want to set a goal for a year, awesome, great. But also that's so far away, it's like what? If you put the right systems in place and you don't have a goal, but you just execute the system every day, you will wake up in a year and guess what will happen? You'll feel better, be in better shape. The results take care

of themselves. They take care of themselves. So some people need a goal. I get it. Other people, like, I'll just tell you so you're listening. Like, your goal is your biggest problem. It's you are so goal fixated that you are projected into a future that you're so far away from that it makes you feel miserable today, makes you feel insignificant today. And you need to drop the goals and put systems in place. I think this starts with self-awareness, right? You've got to know who you are and you got to know what fuels you and stop. Yeah, like setting the B-Hag, if that's part of how you're wired, and that, that,

keeps you inspired and motivated to execute your system every day, then I think it's great. That's not necessarily how I'm wired, but I think if you are, I think that's awesome. But only if you get the second part, right? Like the system is what makes it happen. The goal, again, makes the story better after the fact. It says I was 22 and wanted to write a bestseller, and by the age of 30, I'd written three of them because of I set the goal when I was 22. It's like, no, no, no.

It's not because you did the goal. It's because what you did every day from 22 to 30. That's why you have the three best sellers or whatever. And you and I both know that most people who are telling those stories are crafting that story in retrospect. Right. That wasn't the story from the beginning. Right. That's the story they look back at their path, see it.

And they're like, oh, here's a really good narrative to lay over the top of this. Right. Like it's like me. Like I can't say that I am what I am now because my parents got divorced and I traveled. I'm looking back and I'm trying to explain my life today. Yeah. Given what I went through. And that seems to make a lot of sense for me.

But that wasn't like that wasn't an intentional thing that I did. It's just kind of a story that Kim seems to make sense. So this is an interesting example about sort of goals and like the thing that fuels us. A lot of people like to copy. Like we look at something and we model it and we want to copy it. too many coaches today are modeling Nick Saban because they see Savan he's successful and they're not wired like him, right? Or they model Urban Meyer or, you know, business leaders, you know, people are modeling Gary V or whatever. And like, they're not that guy, right? Or they're modeling

Sarah Blakely from, you know, Spanx or like, but you're not that person. And you're modeling something, you're building something not honest to self-awareness. So take, let's look at Tom Brady as a great example, right? Like what fuels Tom Brady, he's been pretty public. about this is this chip on his shoulder. Yep. Right. And for me, it's a, it's a great example because I'm not fueled by a chip on my shoulder. That would undermine me.

Like that, that gets me to a spot where, like, my attention is now on proving something to other people. This is not a good fuel source for me. It distracts me from real true purpose, right? It burns dirty, as Todd Henry would say on this show. That's dirty fuel. Yeah. It is dirt for me is dirty fuel.

Undenidably, it is. clean fuel for Tom. Okay. So we're just in this time. Is the chip on the shoulder helping or hurting Stefan Diggs as a teammate and a football player? Yeah. I don't know him. He's a good dude. I saw a thing. He does amazing thing for a kid who lost his dad and like, like it made me tear out like watching what he did for this kid. But I'm going to acknowledge right now, every time Stefan Diggs catches a ball that's over 20 yards. The first thing he does is mean mug the whole crowd like he's some kind of underdog. Dude, you. You. You know, You are like one of the best athletes on the planet and you have been your whole life.

You've never been an underdog. You might not have grown up in like with wealth and stuff, but dude, you won the lottery physically. Like you have always been the best everywhere. Like no one's overlooking you. And then what? The whole team, he's got this chip on his shoulder. I want to. And every single game, the question is how many drives and still Saffon Diggs is causing an issue on the sideline and getting upset?

Like it's working against you. So here's Tom that is using this goal of proven people wrong, and it's turned him into a Hall of Famer. And here's Stefan Diggs where it's like, dude, I would go so far as I say it's, it's cutting out 30% of his potential. Yeah. Because it's about this chip as opposed to being really, really good. The chip's getting in his way. And goals can do the same thing to us. That's a great point.

You wrote a post for Daily Discipline about learning and how it happens through depth. And this was, it really was timely for me because I can tell myself I'm both a width and a depth guy. But if you really analyze it, one of the mistakes I make is too much width, not enough depth when it comes to the learning. And whether it's the new year and people saying I'm going to read 52 books this year or whatever, can you talk about that learning actually happens, through depth, not volume, not the width of what you're doing. It happens from going deep on maybe four books or whatever. Can you walk me through? There's a great post that you put out.

Yeah, I mean, it was, for me, it was sparked with sort of this, this inundation that we see on social, right? Of, you know, the end of the year. Here's every book I read last year and, you know, the e-pieces in them or, you know, or like, you know, I think I saw another one. It's like, you know, I forget who it was, wherever. It doesn't matter. But like, you know, cheat codes at 40 that I knew I wish at 22. And it's like, you know, I get its headline and it's marketing.

And I understand it. Like, you have to grab people's attention. And there's a certain practicality for what, you know, if you write the best book that's ever been written, very few people have probably read because it didn't sell very well. So like things that you got to get people's attention. Here's the thing about like about learning. What's the difference? How much can somebody apply?

Like just think about human brain capacity, time, attention, energy. If somebody reads 52 books, how much of that do they do really well? Like that, to me, that's just the question. If somebody's like, man, I listen to, you know, Gary V talks about this a whole lot, you know, and he has for a long time. And everybody has different perspectives on him. but I give him credit and respect because, and I view my content this way, if all you're doing is, he talks with this, stop following me. If you've been following me for six years, stop.

You don't need anything else. You have consumed plenty. Turn this off. Turn the notifications off. Unsubscribe. Go put your head down for two years and do 50% of the things that you've heard me say for the last six years. But if you're still consuming.

consuming my content, thinking that is what's going to do it. I didn't come up with this phrase. I don't know who did, but it's infotainment. And I just think the self-awareness for people confusing, consuming content with actually doing it. Like, be a doer. That's my encouragement. Be a doer. I would much rather somebody read, you know, two books.

a year and read those books three times and do everything they say on the two topics that are the most important to you and watch what happens to your life just watch what happens and there's a there's a there's a there's a great example of this and you know I look at this I think about and I've been this is what I've been writing about this week on daily discipline is for a long time I've recognize the three personal resources, like actual true resources that we have as human beings that have the biggest power on the shape of our lives, are attention, time, and energy. Those are the three resources that we have that are yours or yours to spend, mine or mine to spend, and we are the only decision maker about those things. I think the number one skills

somebody can have in this world is to create their own energy. Sidebar, we'll see if we have time for it. But take attention, time, and energy. whatever you give attention to like first lesson from a content perspective things don't get your attention you give your attention to things a lot of people think that distractions exist in the environment when the reality is distractions are not environmental they are personal you are the distraction not the things why why do i say that it sounds kind of harsh well it's because this once you take responsibility for your attention that means that there's not things Instagram or Twitter or any other spot that get your attention, you gave your attention to those

things. You gave your attention when you opened it. You gave your attention when you put your eyeballs on it. You gave your attention when you read that line, heard that emotion and decided that that emotion was something you wanted to follow. They wrote the headline. They didn't make the decision, right? You know, whatever that piece happens to be. So with content, take ownership of your attention. Ownership of attention. Yeah. Is this. Okay, great. out, think about those resources. And let's think about attention, time, and energy. And let's just kind of put them all into like one whole thing. Right. And they do have consequence. Anything you give attention to also consumes your time. Could be five seconds. Could be five hours. Okay. And anything that consumes your time and your attention, naturally is something you're putting energy into. Like there's a causal flow. It begins with attention and then it moves into some time and then it moves into some energy. So think about this. Let's take that and let's put it all into like a singular ball. And now let's think about what do we do with that? What do we put it through?

And now let's let's let's think of that attention, time and energy. Let's think about as like the source coming from the sun, light. Okay. Light can be pushed through a prism or it can be pushed through a magnifying glass. So if you go out in the sun, I'm sure you did this as a kid, a lot of people did, you go out in the sun on a summer day, sun's coming through, here in Colorado and Denver, we get a lot of fun in the winter months, not quite like my years in Ohio. But I can go out right now and I can take the same exact, right, focus for the same amount of time with the energy coming from the sun.

It's the exact same. And I take two different devices, one a prism and one a magnifying glass. The energy and the attention of it doesn't change. The time spent doesn't change. But if I put those two things side by side, the same amount of resource coming through the prism, what does what does the light from the sun going through a prism turn that light and energy into? A rainbow. Something pretty, not without value, but it's, you know, pretty and makes nice stuff and has its place in the world. What does the exact same energy going into a magnifying glass do to do?

that energy. Super power. Focuses it onto a single point. And when that energy focuses on a single point, what does it do? Fire. Creates a fire. And that fire can be turned into any number of things, right? It can cut stuff. And we also burn leaves as a kid, right? It can start a fire. It can warm things. It turns it into this very intense value. And so I ask myself, am I a prism? with the content I'm pulling in, creating nice images on the wall and like something that everybody likes to look at? Or am I a magnifying glass that is taking that energy and turning it into something brand new and value and warmth and heat and fire and like doing things to go make stuff happen in my life? There's a time where consuming content and there's a there's a time

of place for Prism. There's a time of place for consuming something that's like, man, this is cool. It's kind of lens shifting. It's, you know, it's fun or it's enjoy. it's whatever. But most of the content I want to be consuming is I want that content to turn into something that is actionable in my life. It's very hard to do if I'm diffusing that across all these fronts. I want to focus that energy. And then like, no, a time and place, right, all right, which, which, which motor zone am I in? And where do I want to spend most of my time? I tend to 80, 20. I want 80% of my time dialed in on something that I'm in depth. 20% of my time. Yeah, go play around, have some fun, do some stuff, but recognize that 20% of the time is going to be

like, play and let's figure some stuff out. And in that space, I'll find what I really want, and then I'll move it over into the 80% where I'll dive all the way into it. That's how I tend to think of it. So you help leaders, you help teams with their culture. I'm curious because this is such a huge topic of conversation and people saying they're taking action on this. what are some of the biggest mistakes leaders make, whether they're a new coach hired to take over a team that was not doing well, or they're a new SVP at a Fortune 100 company who is put in charge of a group that struggled, whatever. And they say, well, we got to rebuild this culture. Like there was either a bad culture or it's not useful, it's not creating results, whatever. What are some of the biggest mistakes leaders make?

trying to change the culture somewhere so the first one is they don't think the culture is too fuzzy yeah they make it they make it too impractical and it starts with the language that people use i mean they pick the same culture words as every other company we're going to be a team of you know if it's business we're going to be a team of you know respect diversity collaboration trust It's customer service and accountability. Like, okay, like, yeah, that's the words everybody else uses. And then the people who hear that put you into a place where it's like literally just playing a tape recorder of every other business they've ever heard.

It's nothing remotely unique. In sports, it's what? We're going to be tough, discipline. You know, again, you just run the script. It's the same stuff. That's number one is they go way too fuzzy and way to, like, they pick the mountain a bad, average in terms of in terms of the things that they do. Number two is they may they separate culture and this is probably number one if I'm going to be real like they separate culture from execution.

They make culture like its own standalone thing when in reality culture is the strongest vehicle and driver of execution in any group. Culture is 10 times more information. influential on how people execute than strategy. Every business has a strategy. Every team has a strategy. Why do some businesses execute their strategies exceptionally

well while others are scrambling to get people to please do this strategy? Culture. Strategy is what you want to do. Culture is how are we actually going to do this? The best teams in sports aren't the ones that draw the best plays.

They're the ones that can get their players to execute those plays at the level of intensity and technique and assignment that they were required to do. So is that like a, the culture is not what you say, it's what you do, is what I'm gathering. It's part of what you say, but it's really more about what you do. How does that get at, how do you, how do you put that into action? Is it having a set of values and the behaviors that match those values and that's what we believe in?

It's not the fluffy, fuzzy words of. you know, trust and be a good teammate or whatever. It's really about bringing the values to life through a set of actions and then measuring, do we actually do that? Are we? Okay, go ahead. Yeah. Matt, don't know.

I'm just like you, you just articulated, that is the gap. Right. When you look at how detail most teams or businesses' strategies are, very thorough. They have playbooks, right? Yeah. What's the playbook for your culture? Like how many how many big 10 teams and SEC teams have offensive defensive special teams playbooks? All of them all.

How many of them have playbooks for their culture? This is what we believe. This is how the behavior shows up. And this this could happen in teams anywhere, not sports, meaning if you say you, even if you choose a word like trust or integrity, okay, which everybody uses. Which you do got to have. It's important, right? It's to me, how do you live out? being a person of integrity at your company. What does that mean to you? That's where, right?

Yes. I love that example you go to because it's the first one I do. Here's the pressure test I ask. And that's the word I use whenever I'm asking this. Yeah. I say, great. I go awesome. And it's one company with 100 people or 10 people in the room, whatever it is. I say, awesome. What is integrity? Yeah. And guess how many definitions there are as many people as there are in the room? Yeah. Some people go like this, well, integrity is doing the right thing. And I go, awesome.

I live in America. Do people in America agree on what the right thing is? And it was like, like some of our biggest fights are over what two different people view as the right thing. So we call it this, the culture playbook. This is the same thing for business, right? We have we have playbooks for processes and operations and IT and sales and HR and finance. We have, you know, we don't necessarily, in sales, they call it a playbook, but otherwise it's like written processes and standards and all this different stuff. But then when it comes to culture or behavior styles, like we just use these like empty words.

And yeah, accountability is an empty word. Yes, integrity is an empty word. Not because the actual thing. It's an empty word because they've become empty words. Contextually. You say the word accountability in a business and people run away because that word now means punitive, punishments. you did something wrong. So people are trying to build cultures of accountability that run away.

So what we do is this, to build a culture playbook is we put together something called a BBO, belief, behavior, outcome. And we tie people into the grounded, practical, revenue generating, revenue saving, client winning, touchdown scoring, right? Like, you know, runs stopping, get three outs, fast, but, you know, whatever it is, whatever your context is. What are the beliefs that we hold? And then here's the key piece.

What do those beliefs look like in action? And I think, Ryan, not I think. This is bigger than just culture. This is about human beings. And here's the test. What is a belief worth if we don't act on it? I mean, this is so like this is where I think right now the world, it's probably the biggest challenge that we've got going on in the world globally right now.

And it's really acute, at least in the U.S. What's a belief worth if we don't act on it? Nothing. Nothing. But here's the point. You don't get credit for saying you're a person of integrity. You get zero credit for that. What do we get credit for?

Doing it. Do the things that are integrity. My question is this. what does it look like that? Right. Honesty is my favorite example of this is honesty. You ask people, who believes in honesty? And everybody puts their hand up.

Yeah, I do. And I lovingly, no, you don't. You believe in selective honesty. Right. Honesty that what? Especially like husband and wife. And then, you know, the husband's always laugh. I'm like, yeah, you believe in what?

You calculate adults do this. You calculate how honest you can be with somebody, including your wife, without having to pay a heavy price for it. But as soon as you calculate that the price for being honest is too high for you, you put that honesty below and you either ignore it or you actually tell a lie. Why? So that you don't have to experience the discomfort of the honesty in this conversation. We do it in feedback in business.

Why do people? Why do performance e-bells? Why do we have to do the sandwich technique? Say a positive thing that you kind of made up. Say the thing you really want to say and then say the positive thing after. Why do we do that? Because we can't handle the comfort and discomfort of being honest with each other. We can't just say something and then feel that's honesty.

It's a little awkward. Let's do this. So in culture, what people do is they use these fuzzy words so as what? So that nobody feels uncomfortable. What we do is this. Identify the belief. And then here's what it is. Understand that is empty until we what?

Until we map out. This is the behavior that proves whether you do or do not believe this. If you do it, it's because you believe it. And if you believe it, you will in fact do it. But if you don't do it, and this is the test I hold to myself, anything that I don't do it, why don't I do it? Because I don't really believe it. The testing point for my beliefs is the discipline of my action. And then what we do in business and in sports is we tie the outcomes that we are all going after that are dependent on us living those behaviors.

out at the highest possible standard. So, you know, in sports, right, it's what do we want, right? We want to be tougher than every team. Well, that's an outcome. What is the behavior that would actually earn and produce that? That's a culture issue, not a strategy issue, right? We want to, we want to be tight and bonded when things get very, very difficult, very hard. Okay, well, what's the behavior that's required in order to earn that outcome?

I can't control it. I can't control my behavior. So we tie beliefs, behaviors, and outcomes. And obviously, we can do that culturally. But at a personal level, right, I call it's a character blueprint. Build a blueprint for your character where you actually write out. And it's so uncomfortable for people, but so good. What do you actually believe?

Okay. Now this, do an audit of your life and say, how often do you live that belief out in full integrity, meaning integrity being this? total and complete alignment in your actions with what you say that you actually believe. And when we do this honesty example, people laugh and chuckle, it's a little nervous chuckle because it's like the first time they've realized that while they claim honesty, they actually look at like their last week and they're like, oh shit. I've actually like specifically not had conversations because they were awkward for me. And people don't know that I have this opinion of them.

I'm not even being honest. And they look and they have this. like a little like uncomfortable smile, but like I love those moments because that's the kind of self-awareness that like moves our hearts that changes lives. I mean, that's what this is all about. You started when you were 22. I would imagine you would go to mentors, ask for advice, ask for help. I want to put you in the position of being the mentor and the early to mid-20s person who just graduated college says, I'm not 100% sure what I want to do, but I, do know that I want to leave a positive dent in the world. I want to do good, right? What are some general pieces of life slash career advice you give to that person? Number one is, and I already

said it, but here's number one. Be a creator of the energy that you need. Don't ever be dependent on the energy around you or energy from other people to be where you need to be. Learn to create your own energy. Energy comes from somewhere. You either create it or you catch it. And it's becoming increasingly difficult to count on the energy around you. And the older I've gotten in life, the more I've seen that, man, if you can't create your own energy, you are going to catch the wrong energy from some people in your life. And you're going to catch the wrong energy from social media or whatever. Be a creator of energy. And I heard, I believe that for a long time, and I heard Mike Roe on a podcast.

He might have been on Tim Ferriss podcast or whatever. And he said something that he heard from somebody else, maybe from his grandpa or something. Like, you know when you're listening to something and like you're like walking or whatever? And like it feels like it just arrests your body. Like it's just like stonewalls you. Like it's happened when I'm driving sometimes.

Like I have to pull over. This was when I was down to Myrtle Beach and I was like walking. I was just by myself. I listened to this podcast and Mike Roe said, you know, you heard this advice like follow your passion. Follow your passion. And he goes, that's so wrong. So wrong.

He goes, here's the answer. Don't follow your passion. Just always bring it with you. I remember he said that. And I was like, damn. My part validating for me because I feel like that's what I've done. But I also flirted with like following my passion and doing this. And I dropped out of college and went to be an actor.

I made the mistakes. Like I left Worcester, Ohio like three times before I actually. went and stayed and missed a year of football and I moved graduated and then I moved back and I try to follow my passion to coach sports. But the one thing I did, even though I made a bunch of those mistakes, was the one thing I did was I brought energy and I bring energy that I need for me to be who I want to be and how I want to be regardless of my circumstances. And that has made by far the biggest difference in my life is bring the right energy to every single situation. That's number one. Real quick, can I, can I interrupt? What's the source, though? Where do you get it? How do you

manufacture, create, like how do you bring this? Because I feel like you got to get it from somewhere. Like, where does it come from? Yeah, my belief system. Okay. I've identified what I believe. So one of my beliefs, I wrote down, is create my own energy. One of my beliefs is, is contribute and add value. I learned that one from my mom. She taught me leave things better than you found them. When you leave a conversation with somebody, leave that person better, not worse.

And I credit my mom with that. Discernment, credit that, my dad with that. Like, be discerning in the moment. So my energy comes from my belief system, which I have written down. Like, I've documented it. I've put it down. I've not followed a template that anybody else's talking.

It's almost like your purpose. Yeah, no, no doubt. Like this is my purpose of life is to do this. And I derive energy from living out my purpose. Correct. At any scale. Any skill. I don't need significance.

I don't need to be, you know, I'm as happy having a conversation with one person as I am on stage in front of 10,000. Yeah. Now, 10,000 is different energy and it's fun for me. Sure. But that's, you know, like it's living out. I, that was why I like football. I was competitive in that way. Like, I liked, I just liked being able to put energy into something that I decided was important.

I brought that energy into it. And so when I write down, it's like, you know, I write down, these are the things that I believe in. And this is what they look like in action. And here's what I think it creates for my life. And I attach that to purpose of like not needing to accomplish things, but needing to be doing things. And then the outcomes, again, there'll be whatever they are. And I don't know what outcomes I don't create in my life. Like, you know, that's that.

So number one, create your energy, be an energy creator, bring that energy. And by the way, energy can come from anywhere. Like you can get energy from back to the chip on the shoulder or, you know, a vision or a goal or a system. Like, explore. Like be creative with yourself about where you can get energy from, but just never, ever, ever be a victim of the energy around you. There's too many of those people going on right now. It's not immoral or unethical. It's just ineffective.

And then the second piece that I would just say for everybody is, and you know, this goes back to E plus articles O where we started. Make sure that your response is always better than your circumstances. It doesn't matter what the circumstance is. Because if your response is better than your circumstances, you're going to be a value creator. You are going to find yourself in every circumstance that you can ever imagine, I promise you. We were talking beforehand, right? Like, you know, my parents got divorced.

Make my response better than that situation. Great. I had a lot of opportunity. Make my response better than my opportunities. I have a lot of advantages. My mom's husband growing up with a big sales guy and went to all the Magic Johnson Laker camps. And so I got to go like hang out with the Lakers in the 80s. And like we knew like magic and rampas and all these guys. Unbelievable opportunity. Somebody would call it privilege these days. Right. Like the point is this. Don't why a lot of people miss. opportunity because they get into a really good situation and the response isn't as good. So when you get great situations, make your response even better. But when you get awful situations, when we talked about beforehand, my dad got diagnosed with stage four prostate cancer, like state, you know, the first time he got assessed and diagnosed was at stage four, which is permanent and terminal in March of 2020. That situation is not great.

Here's our responsibility. make our response better than the situation. So whether you're in like tragedy of that level, right, or like death and all the stuff that we have to do with, or you're in this like unbelievable opportunity where like you were blessed with great talent or super great intelligence or, you know, you find yourself in a room where you're like, oh my gosh,

like look at where I am. This is amazing. The key is this. Always make your response better than your situation. And that applies to like delayed flights, cancer, great opportunities, you know, you got a date with somebody that you've wanted to be on for a long time. Like whatever it is. Like just make sure that you're responding better than your circumstances. That will take you pretty much anywhere that you want to go.

That's the cool thing about the simplicity of E plus R equals O is there's so much focus, right? The event is the event, whatever it may be. Like you said, flight delay, change it. Flight delay are way worse, right? but we have so much we have complete control and as humans like we're the only ones on the planet that actually have this buffer between the stimulus and our response and some people are better at that than others and that's really a big part of what you teach the people who understand that buffer between the stimulus and our choice for how we choose to respond typically over time

we'll have much better outcomes I like your addition to that in the fact that no matter what the situation is, make your response better. Awesome situation, make your response even better. Terrible situation, make it much better. That will then determine, like, playing the long game, the over, like, even the outcomes, when you have a good response won't always go your way. I think over the long haul, the percentage of them that go the way that you would like will probably be much higher if you really focus on that are part of the equation.

A hundred percent. And to capstone that, because you got a lot of people listening to this who have talent and have really good situations. Just understand this. The longest line in history are talented, unsuccessful people. Yeah. That's the biggest line in human history. Talented people who came from opportunity, who never utilized it because their response was lower than their talent and their situation.

And so you want to honor your life, make your response better than your circumstances. And that means that the person who comes from poverty is just as responsible for responding well as the person who comes from privilege because each is its own challenge, especially if you have young people, do not criticize them for coming from privilege. Do not make them feel bad for coming from privilege because the highest suicide rates going on right now in young people are young people that come from privilege. Why? Because they have sky high expectations and they get no empathy. It's a big deal for me because you have a lot of people who are coming from really great situations being made to feel bad or as if success is somehow guaranteed or required for them. And they don't get space to say,

you're a real person and you came from privilege. You didn't create it. Like you need to build a better response to this. And same thing for kids who come from less. So, You want to honor your life. You want to honor your situation. Man, maximize your response to your situation because opportunity and success can easily be your downfall. It can very easily be the thing that undermines you. So capitalize on that thing, man. Go double down on your response.

Love it. Definitely be more rounds of this. I encourage everyone go to daily discipline.com. I've been following for years. This conversation has been the work for, God, I don't know how many years. I'm just glad that we got the first one down and we'll keep this going. but just seeing the consistency of how effective your messaging is for very bright, talented people. It's helping them.

And I think you market to a group of people that are doing very well. And I think that's a much smaller group, and it's really hard to do what you do, man. So I give you huge props. I'm a big fan. I'll continue to be, and I'd love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man. Yeah, same here, man. you do such an incredible job. And anybody who produces at this clip and this consistent understands the challenge

of being in the arena and showing up, there's people counting on it. You know, I mean, I really seriously as I know you do. And the quality of your craft is apparent and obvious. And the world's a better place because you're doing what you're doing, man. I appreciate you having me on. Thanks, dude. I really appreciate it.

Mortimerickle. That conversation could have. I've gone on for hours, and I'm certain we'll do a round two, three, four, five. Who knows, if you enjoyed it as much as I did, as you could probably tell, send me an email, Ryan at learning leader.com, tell me what were the most useful takeaways for you. I'll share mine. Goal setting. He said, I'm not into goal setting.

I'm into system setting. He said, my commitment is to execute the system. I would ask you for whatever goals you have set. What system do you have in place? to ensure you're doing the work each day that then will make the results take care of themselves, which mean you'll hit that goal. That's really what it's about when it comes to goals is what is your system. When I asked them about the mistakes leaders make when trying to change a culture,

he said they separate culture from execution. In reality, culture is the strongest indicator of execution. And remember the culture playbook, BBO, belief, behavior outcome, right? You set your belief, your value. The behavior are your beliefs in action. It's not real unless you actually do it. It's not about the words on the wall. It's the action that takes place between those walls with your team. Then he said the testing of my beliefs is the discipline of my actions. Really? It's just about what we do. How do you live out those beliefs? How do you live out those values? And then life career advice at the end, don't follow your passion. Just always bring it with you, the Mike Roe advice.

Figure out where your energy comes from and create it for everything you do. As his mom told him, leave people better than you found them. You've got to find a way to generate your own energy. Where does it come from? How do you bring that to each person you interact with? I love that part. Once again, I just want to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the word telling a friend or two, hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Brian Kite. I think it will help you become a more effective leader. And because you continue to do that, and you continue to go to Ryanhawk.net, which then launches you into Apple Podcast. And once you get there, you write a review and you rate the show hopefully five stars. By doing that, you continue to spread the message

and continue to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will always be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk who soon. Can't wait.