The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 522: Kevin Kelly - Excellent Advice For Living, The Best Way To Learn, Building Better Habits, Becoming A Better Listener, Being On Time, & Making The Big Ask

Episode Date: April 16, 2023

Text Hawk to 66866 to become part of "Mindful Monday." Join 10's of thousands of your fellow learning leaders and 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/IG: @RyanHawk12   https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12 Kevin Kelly is Senior Maverick at Wired magazine. He is also the editor and publisher of the Cool Tools website, which gets half a million unique visitors per month. He co-founded Wired in 1993 and served as its Executive Editor from its inception until 1999. During Kevin's tenure, Wired won the National Magazine Award for General Excellence (the industry's equivalent of two Oscars). He is the best-selling author of many books including New Rules for the New Economy, The Inevitable, and his latest is called Excellent Advice For Living - Wisdom I wish I'd Known Earlier.  You lead by letting others know what you expect of them, which may exceed what they themselves expect. Provide them a reputation to live up to. Habit is far more dependable than inspiration. Don't focus on getting into shape. Focus on becoming the kind of person who never misses a workout. "Every great and difficult thing has required a strong sense of optimism," Prototype your life. Try stuff instead of making grand plans. The best way to learn anything is to try to teach what you know. Don't create things to make money; make money so you can create things. The reward for good work is more work. The more you are interested in others, the more interesting they'll find you. To be interesting, be interested. Promptness is a sign of respect. The consistency of your endeavors (exercise, companionship, work) is more important than the quantity. Nothing beats small things done every day, which is way more important than what you do occasionally.

Our time, your time, my time is the most valuable asset we have by far. Therefore, the highest leverage thing that you can do is to convince someone else to use their time on your project. 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... of other learning leaders from all over the world will receive a carefully curated email

from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right. You'll also receive details about how my book The Pursuit of Excellence will help you become a more effective leader. Text Hawk to 66866. Now on tonight's featured leader, one of the most interesting humans on the planet. Kevin Kelly is the co-founder of Wired Magazine, served as its executive editor for seven years. Also the founding editor of the popular cool tools website, which has been reviewing tools daily since 2003. He's the best-selling author of many awesome books.

His most recent is called Excellent Advice for Living, Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier. So good. During this conversation, we discuss the most effective tool to use to become a great learner. Then Kevin shares the three key behaviors of a... An effective leader might surprise you a bit. And then why all leaders should have a writing practice. And Kevin shares both how this has attracted people to him as well as helped him build companies. And I think you'll find it useful.

This is a very wide-ranging and full of depth conversation. I love it. I think you're going to enjoy it. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy Kevin Kelly. Kevin, it is great to have you back on the learning. leader show. Welcome. It's my delight in honor to be here. Thank you for inviting me. It's such a pleasure to chat with you. So 2016, man, was the last time we talked. And I would imagine a lot has changed in your life. I mean, what are some of the big inflection points or moments since 2016 till now?

Well, we had this pandemic. I don't know if you heard about it, but that was, um, it came through. And my livelihood was giving talks in China about technology, and that immediately stopped, canceled, evaporated. And I haven't been back to China since then. I was there just right before the COVID, and not to Wuhan, but close. And so that has gone, and it's really unclear whether that will even come back.

because of the kind of shift in the relationship between China and the U.S. right now. I think the Chinese are a little bit more interested in trying to grow their own technology experts. So that was a big shift for me. So for almost three years, two and a half years, I did not go anywhere after having, you know, I wouldn't say live on an airplane, but I was traveling in motion tremendously, and that was a huge thing. And here's the weird thing was I didn't miss it. I didn't miss the traveling.

Yeah, I was very content to be at home and stay down. It wasn't that it was burned out. It was just that it was a nice different country, the country of home. Yeah. Why China as opposed to everywhere else in the world? That's a really great question. So through serendipicist, just got a bit of luck, my first book, Out of Control, translated late. It came out in the early 90s, but it was translated late in the 2000s,

maybe 2005, into Chinese at the very moment when the Chinese entrepreneurs like Jack Ma were starting up and they read the book and found it inspirational for what they were doing and talked about it. And it's like having, and then they, and so it's like having Steve Job read the book and talk about it to everybody, they have to read this book. book. So that's what happened. So most of my fans numerically are in China. Wow. And so they have translated all my books. In fact, inevitable, this is a story I haven't told. The inevitable actually began as a book that was only in Chinese. Do you speak fluent Chinese? No, I understand from Chinese. But what I meant was, um, I, the, the Chinese,

were so eager for my content that they and I wasn't writing books fast they said can we translate can we make an anthology of your blog posts and and then translate it into chinese and i said sure that sounds like a good idea so they made this book and it was called detecting him and it only appeared in chinese and then my agent jar brockman said you know it's a pretty good book it's better than most of the other books we published just as the anthology of blog posts when we do an English version of it. And I said, fine, that's great. And then Brockman being an agent, he said, well, you know, like, if we could maybe make a theme out of it, I could get more money for you.

And I said, well, okay. And then the next thing was, you know, if we could rewrite parts of this. And so it was pitched as this new thing. And then I wound up having to rewrite the entire. hire all the blog posts and everything. So it was like, it was way more trouble than I was initially, but this origins was in the Chinese book, the tech view. Writing has created so many amazing opportunities for you. And I'm a huge believer, Kevin, that all leaders should have some sort of a writing practice, even if they choose not to publish, because writing creates clarity

of thought. Leaders need to be clear thinkers. Yeah. I also, nudge them and push them to get to the publishing point, even if it's just your own personal website, a blog, if you get to a book, whatever it may be. Can you share more about two-part? This is a lot, I know, because it's your life, but how writing creates clarity of thought, which and leaders need to be clear, so this is why leaders should be doing this leadership show, as well as how it's created a serendipity vehicle for you in your life and created so many opportunities. The economic reality for publishing these days is that books don't even make any money. And so for me, they've become an advertisement for the talks, again saying, that was my livelihood.

It was not from the books, sales of the books. They generate opportunities, to your point. The act of writing is exactly that I am not a born writer. I am a very, very reluctant writer. I write under, I wouldn't say distaste, but I just avoid it at all possible. And there are people that work with at Wired who are born writers, and I know what their day is like. And there are people who can say, I have an idea, I'm going to write it down. I don't do it that way. I sit down and I don't have any ideas. And I write in order to find out what my ideas are.

I write to figure out what it is that I think. It's not like it's making my thinking better. I don't even have the ideas until I write it. And it's that act of actually trying to write it to generate the ideas. And so I will sit down and I'll think, oh, I'm going to write about, you know, AI or image generators. And, you know, I've been using my note. I'm going to say something about this. And then I make the first sentence.

And even if the first sentence, I realize I don't know what I'm talking about. Do I really believe this? This is really true? I don't know what this is. And so then I have to go back and figure out and talk to more people and think about it a little bit more. and work and then I have a so now I know what it is okay I'm going to write the second sentence and that's also like wait wait wait wait I still don't know what if I'm talking about so there's this very laborious and painful process of getting that first draft that which is just a killer for me

and so that that is just hard because it's thinking it's like it's like having very clear thinking and to get there requires um thinking observation, talking to people, sending it around, all that kind of stuff. And then at the end, there'll be these beautiful ideas. It looks like I just sat down to write the ideas, but it was not. It was the act of writing that generated it. We're going to launch right into your most recent book here, which is really cool book, and I'm so glad that you decided to take some of your writing again and put it into book form,

right? Excellent advice for living. Wisdom, I wish I'd known earlier, because this stemmed off of it. of a post that I told you that I've probably shared more than any other post, whether it's people who follow my Mindful Monday emails or just people on mentoring called 68 bits of advice. And one of those pieces of advice, you write, is the best way to learn anything is to try to teach what you know. And I would love for you to expand on this because I think I've learned through the course of doing the show

and then getting up on stages that that is so true of someone's like, hey, you go give a speech on leadership development or being a learning leader, whatever it may be. Okay, yeah, I got that. And then all of a sudden you're in the prep process of trying to put your talk together

and think about it. What am I going to say? How is it going to be compelling? How is it going to help the audience? That's the part where so much learning happens that the prep, then the doing, then the feedback in that loop so much learning,

happens. How is it for you? Yeah, it's very, very, very similar. And I often joke that the best time to write your book is the year following when you've been on a book tour for a year. And then you know what the book is about. And that's when you should write the book. Because the same idea is that, you know, even writing it down, you don't really know until, again, you have to talk to it and explain it a thousand times.

And then at the end of that, you're saying, I wish I could write my book now because I know what it's about finally. So, yeah, so this iterative process, and that's another bit of advice in the book, took me a long time to learn, which is you want to prototype your life. You want to prototype everything. You want to see things.

Instead of having grand plans, you iterate your way, You make things knowing that you're going to throw them away along the way, that that is the process. The process is lots and lots of versions, lots and lots of things that seem perfectly good enough, but you toss them to make them even better. You redo them over and over again. And that is true for whatever you're teaching or saying,

is that it's very, I mean, there are maybe some mutants. somewhere who were able to get it the first try. But even Jack Kerouac's, you know, on the road was not just an outpouring of one time. So, so you have to get this idea that you're going to keep prototyping, iterating, tossing out, backtracking. It's like life, doing detours. It's the same process of making a great thing and making a great thing.

great life are very, very equivalent. Do you think that's hard for people to do? It is. And again, for me, it took me a long time to understand that I was been a person making things my life. And the idea that I would make a chair or a bench or something and then toss it, I mean, for me, just making it. It was like, once.

It was like, oh, now I'm done. but, you know, watching YouTube and stuff is very clear that that's not how professionals do it. You know, it's like, you know, that redoing things is not like the, redoing things is not the mark of an amateur, redoing things is the mark of a professional. And that they're constantly,

then they have a little saying is, make one to throw away. And that idea, and this book, by the way, I prototyped them many ways. a prototype first by putting it online, but actually physically made a little tiny bound book, which I don't have with me right here, and printed it on Amazon and made five copies of it just to see whether it worked, whether the size was right. And so my other books, my Asia book, I've prototyped three different versions of that at different levels to,

see what it is. And so now I understand that anything I'm going to do, and it's like, no, it took me, I don't know what it took. It took experience. It took working with other people who were doing world-class level work and seeing what they were doing. It was watching YouTube for hours on end

and seeing what professionals do, how they do things. It was working at Wired and seeing what it took, again, to make a world-class thing, which is that you are, I mean, the thing about Wired, it was just such a shock is, we do a magazine every month. And after seven years of every month, putting out a magazine, you would think that it would become routine. But no, every single issue, it was a miracle that we got it out on the deadline. and it was because we were still throwing out things at the last minute and trying to improve it

and we were just raising the level of the quality and it was still this sort of the thing of making stuff and having it ready and then deciding no not good enough we're going to redo it even though there's two days left and so that sense of like iterating in creeping towards betterment is something that I wish I knew earlier. You're a creative, a maker, a builder. You start Wired Magazine. It grows. And when that happens, you have to take on different roles, right?

Not just a maker, but a manager as well. Right, exactly. I'm sure you've read it. And I'm curious about that part for you, how you were able to oscillate back and forth between being a maker, which it feels like is kind of who you are at your core, but then also managing a business and growing something that became amazingly cool. So I'd be curious about that process.

Well, one of the things that took, again, another piece of advice that took me a long time to understand, and I try to encapsulate very, very briefly, which is, you know, our time, your time, my time, is the most valuable asset we have by far. I mean, that's the only scarcity there is. And so that therefore the highest leverage thing that you can do, if time is your greatest asset, is to convince someone else to use their time on your project. Right? It's like the most valuable thing is your time. I'm going to get you, I'm going to take some of your time for what I want done. That's, you know, that's hiring. But it's also outsourcing. And so I was kind of a hippie do-it-yourself thing that i that that that i was always thinking that you know you kind of do it

yourself and i didn't early on in the beginning of the internet's didn't do a tech company because like i don't program how can i don't program i can't do a tech company and the idea that will you hire a programmer just had never occurred to me um that you could just um outsource and use someone else's time so this idea then of kind of kind of of bringing other people on board and trying to maximize them was a step that was sort of not natural to me. And to be honest about Wired, the reason why I did Wired was because Lewis, Rosetta and Jane, the other co-founders, the major co-founders, I realized that I didn't have the kind of business

skills that I needed to run this. and he did. And that was why I said, yes, I'm going to join this because there are people who have the skills that I don't have, the business, skills of running the business. And they were running the business. Mostly they were running the business. I was in charge of the editorial, and that was a good thing.

So I partnered with them to run the business. I didn't have to deal with the bankers and the investors and stuff. because but I realized enough having done my own magazine myself and two other magazines that I didn't have those skills so I would partner with somebody either hire them or join them as a partner to do it. So that was my solution was work with people smarter than yourself on the things that you can or don't want to do. It makes so much sense getting back into some of the parts of it which I think also relates

to kind of the creative pursuits as well as how to support your family as it may be a better way which is and that is don't create things to make money make money so you can create things the reward for good work is more work it speaks so much to me Kevin because my favorite thing to do is this and this does have a direct channel to make money which is like selling ads and things like that to consultive work the speaking the books the advising of companies I do love it don't get me wrong but this is what I love the most is speaking with somebody who's far wiser than me learning from them and like just the sure like when you do an energy audit right what gives me the most energy this is it yeah and so you do some of the other things so that you can do this right

you make that money so I so felt that quote I love for you to talk more about like the reward is that you get to keep doing it and yes you got to go find ways to make money but the reward is that like this is it right now like we're living it literally in this moment rather than trying to focus on tasks that you can get through as fast as possible, focus on doing tasks that you want to do as long as possible. That was sort of like the Holy Trinity for most people, which is to be doing something you love to do, doing something that you're good at doing,

and then doing something that is value you get paid for. but there is another level and that was the thing that I didn't know and took me a long time to understand that's in the book right now which is don't aim to be the best aim to be the only the place that you want to get to is you want to get to the place where you can say am I good at this do I enjoy it does it pay well but can anybody else do it that's a business or individual And if the answer is a lot of other people do it, it's like, well, you want to move on to that place where those first three things are true and you're the only one who is doing this or could do it. And so that's my little bit of advice for young people is try to work on something and somewhere where there's no name for what it is that you're doing. I love it.

There's this video that went viral a couple years ago. So it's, Ferrell is, you may have seen this visiting, I think it was a college where there was a music school or people who are majoring in music and they were making music. And he was sitting in and listening to what they were coming up with. And he sits down with this young woman and she's, you could tell she's a little bit nervous and she presses play on the song that comes up. And his face immediately gets kind of like, what? You know, it turns, not the head turns a little bit. He kind of looks at her like and she's still kind of eyes. She can't look him in the eye because you're a little nervous when you're first showing your music.

And it's this beautiful song. I mean, it's awesome. It's not like anything I'd heard before. And it stops. This is emotional, actually, telling the story. It stops. He looks at her and he goes, I have absolutely no notes. That is so beautiful.

It is so good. You know why? Because I've never heard anything like that before. Only you can do that. What guts to, this girl's probably. 21, 22. She's with one of her musical heroes. Presses play. And this dude is blown out of like the world of, oh, gosh, she's so good. This is so original. That, though, is really hard. I think it's easier. It's easier to be, to try to be like the next Beatles or something along those lines.

Because you can hear it. You've seen it. Right. It's familiar. It's harder to be that young. woman who presses play next to her musical hero to say what do you think because you know why because she could have been deeply embarrassed he could have been like oh my god this is terrible how can i let her off nicely right that's the thing like how do you get people how do you inspire people kevin to to press play on that to create that thing and i by the way i don't think this is just for art i don't think this is just for people who like write or make things this is for leaders in general of being a leader in your own unique way being being the only, being one, not just somebody who, like I said, creates a beautiful painting,

but it's somebody who actually leads other people in a business. Like most things, it's actually a skill that you can get better at. And I think there are, we all have natural talents in different places that we start. But that's the thing about these is that no matter where you start, you can always improve. And so I think this is a skill. And I was, I'm pretty sure that's like other skills. where she gets there because this is not the first time that she is pressed play, right? That you practice this, you work up to it.

It's part of education, it's part of how you're making your life where you are looking for those things. You're gravitating things you're trying stuff and it doesn't work. And by the way, here's the really paradoxical thing, a paradoxical aspect of this. Like the only way that you can become this unique and only person is with the help of other people. All right. It's like really strange. It's like you need everybody else to become unique. And so you need family and friends and siblings and customers and clients and colleagues and consultants.

Whatever it is, you need the world around you in order to help you. arrive at the place that only you can get to by yourself, right? And so it's like a strange thing. So you have to use that world. And so that's part of growing up. And so if everybody else is around you is helping you develop that, then it'll be easier to be successful. Do you mean say, hey, what do you think of this? Can you give me feedback? Having that, those group chats of mentors. I'm thinking that's because this is what I have where I say, hey, right, I'm giving a speech. What do you think of this bit?

I may even record it and send it to that group. And the only rule is brutal honesty, right? Is that what you mean by you need the help of others to give you feedback along the way? Exactly. It's that. It's writing in public. It's prototyping as we were talking about where you're putting stuff unfinished. That's the time when you can actually change things rather than when it's done.

doing multiple versions of it, but you're kind of listening to the universe to give feedback because we are opaque to our own selves. We're just, our human beings are just, we don't have access to how we actually think. And so it takes other people to kind of help us see who we are, what we're good at, to, as you said, be honest about what was working and what not is not working. And also to, I mean, the question that we kind of want to be asking each other is, like, can anybody else do this? Are you, are you on that path to look for something? Or are you just sort of trying to be the best of something that's already existed? Is your success just an imitation of someone else's success?

Yeah. And that's the issue with, like, trying to be the best basketball player in the world, is that just a very limited. number, high competition, and everybody knows what that looks like already. So the likelihood of you doing that is like one in a billion. The likelihood of you going out and doing something your own is it's opposite. You're much more likely. And that's sort of a little bit of the origin of a thousand true fans idea,

that you want to change your definition of success. Yeah. Just not to imitate someone else's, but to actually engineer your own version of success. I sent some of the earliest versions of my first book, my friend Todd Henry, who's published six or seven books, an amazingly great speaker and writer. And I'm so grateful for his feedback. He said, this is a cover band.

What you've sent me is a cover band. And cover bands don't change the world. Cover bands can have a fine career. You can do actually pretty well. You can do fine. Yeah, yeah. But I know you and you want to make an impact. And this is a cover band book.

right now. So my suggestion is while it probably helped you to write what you've got so far is to throw it away. Right. And to start anew as if you're the original band not covering like two or three or four other bands. And that analogy sticks with me of cover bands don't change the world. You can live a fine life if that's your choice to be a cover band. But if you have higher ambitions, then that life's not for you. Right, right. Yeah, I mean, it should be, that book should be the book that you, or your aspiration for the book that will change things would be a book that's probably doesn't fit into any category. It's going to take some time to explain to someone. Well, it's not, that's kind of whatever it is. And so, you know, it's the head of language. There's not a name for what it is that it's actually trying to do. and I had a conversation with a friend of mine who's writing a book and I was delighted because it's possible that that book would be just be so strange in many ways I can't think of another book that would be like it and that's it can't either be a huge flop

or a great success but it's not going to be in the middle of a cover band And that's, you know, and that's the, that's the risk. The risk is, is that it could be a flop. And that's, that's good. Yeah. Well, and as long as it's like authentically you, from a leadership position perspective, if you're standing up in front of your group, that's the one thing we all can see you rather quickly is if, if you're authentically you and we follow people more who are

than those who are trying to be somebody else. I have a follow up, actually, Kevin, on feed. So I'm thinking of Bray Brown and the man in the arena quote that she shares in her books that basically if you're not down in the arena with me I don't I don't care about your feedback. I don't need your feedback. I want I want feedback from people who are in the arena. What do you think about that? You can't you can't go with conventional wisdom all the time. You have to you have to buck what everybody knows. You have to persevere even when everyone's telling you, you're nuts. Or else you have to listen to what they do and quit what you're doing because it's not working.

And so, and that's sort of where you need other people to help you kind of make that. So there is both going on. It's a dilemma and it's an art of when to be the man in the arena who is saying, you know, I'm not going to pay, I'm not going to listen to what you're saying to I'm paying a lot of attention to what you're saying.

and there's no formula, I think, for deciding. It's art and listening and all these other signals, but that is a balance. You're kind of on surfing on a wave where on one side you have to not pay attention in what people are saying and what the conventions are. And the other side is you are definitely paying attention to it. And I do think it matters who, those people. people are like are they in your foxhole with you do they genuinely care for you are they

pumped when things go well are they bummed when things go bad in a genuine way they literally and deeply care for you that doesn't mean they're going to be right right but but that is i think a part of it that at a minimum they are trying their best to help you versus the critic who sits up high in the stands and yells from the cheap seats one of the bits of advice in the book is when one of those people points out to you something that's wrong, they're usually right. When they are suggesting a solution, how to fix it, they're usually wrong. Oh, okay, okay, okay.

Okay, so, so, so, because just in general, in life in general, it's much, much easier to identify the things that are wrong. Yeah. And that's true. That's why there's critics everywhere. they're usually right. But coming up with something that works is extremely difficult. And that's not going to be easy,

and they're usually wrong about that. So that generative act is so much harder than the Criticism Act. And there's like 100 to 1, whatever it is. And so, yeah, so when people are criticizing, you have to understand that that's like a cheat. that's cheapness. It's inexpensive.

They could be utterly correct, but generating the actual solution is a very different matter, and they're usually not correct about that. I like this one. Habit is far more dependable than inspiration. Don't focus on getting into shape. Focus on becoming the kind of person who never misses a workout. That one really spoke to me because I was literally reading it

on the elliptical this morning again while working out because that is the type of person I am I don't miss and that's very important to me it affects me mentally just as much or more than physically so can you share more about this habits more dependable than inspiration right be the be the kind of person as opposed to whatever the the actual task is so so so there's something really odd about habits and that is in our identity. The consistency is more important than the intention, I guess, is a word. And this is ancient wisdom, stoic. This is current stuff from, you know, James Clear and atomic habits.

this is well-established, you know, kind of scientifically proven in terms of looking at studies and people doing it, is that you commit to the process and then the outcome, rather than committing to the outcome. So you, and it's not hard for someone to actually occasionally make something good, almost accidentally, but if you want to consistently make it, and that's true whether it's a, exercise habit or producing a book or a podcast is that you do it on a consistent basis. And that consistency is the fountain of the great stuff because you were going to have days when you aren't very good or that you don't produce the results that you want.

So you don't focus on the results. You focus on the process. And that process is something that you hold dear. and that process is what will make the good stuff. I love setting process-oriented goals versus results-based goals. Exactly. Right, because I have complete control over the process and over that element of it. I don't have control over the outcome, right?

The B-Hag world, I get it, and it looks better after the fact, we set this giant, audacious goal, and we hit it, look at us. Well, you hit it because of the system you put in place every day. not because you set the B-Hag. And the other thing, I mean, kind of like, you know, just for exercise or those kinds of things, you can see it, but this also works for creativity and actually greatness.

So the idea is that I always remember Terry Gross, saying she did her daily radio show. It's like, you know, the benefit of it being daily is if you have a really crappy, you know, session or event. It doesn't matter because you're there tomorrow and you're going to do it again. And it's that kind of consistency that actually allows you to generate great things

because in order to get something great, you have to have a lot of crap. You have to do a lot of mediocre ones to get to where you want. And all the YouTube stars, they all say, yeah, you want to be YouTube star, post 100 videos and you'll almost be there. You know, you just have to do it. And that doing it on a regular basis, most of the, will not be spectacular, but the only way to get that to a spectacular one is to do it. So it's a process.

So you're focused on the process. The results will vary tremendously, but you're not focused on making the great thing. You're focused on doing it, and out of that will come the great thing. It's like the parable of the pottery class. Have you heard of that one? Exactly. You know, the teacher divides the class into two groups. Hey, this one group, listen, in 30 days.

you're going to produce the best possible pot you can. So you're going to work and practice do whatever you can. This other group, you've got to produce a pot per day. Okay? A pot per day, you've got to work on it and create one per day. At the end of 30 days, they measured the pot from the group that's only about quality, right? Only about quality versus the group that was only about quantity, right? You're going to practice and actually create a pot a day.

And the quantity group absolutely destroyed the quality group because they actually did it. We learn who we are in practice, not in theory. we learn by doing, not saying they're trying to perfect the thing, but not doing it. I think that applies to so many different areas in our lives. Yeah, exactly. That was an art and fear is the book where that story was told. And yeah, so there is this sense of the process. And I mean, we say quantity, but what we're really talking about is it's a process.

You're focused on that process. Yeah. That process generates quantity. And the beautiful thing about that is that it also cultivates a generosity. In order to be able to comfortably toss away things that are not good, is you have to believe that there's more where that's come, where that came from. And one of the things you get from doing something on a regular basis is you have confidence that there's more of that where that's come from, that you can kind of keep doing it.

And so the more you do it, the more kind of free you are to abandon things, to redo them, to toss them out, to forget them. Because you're in this mode and being very generous with them and just kind of the mode of abundance. And that's crucial, I think, to this kind of process in the creative world that we're talking about. I think all of your bits of advice are great for leaders and leadership. But this one, you actually use the word lead. and it is you lead by letting others know what you expect of them, which may exceed what they themselves expect, provide them a reputation to live up to.

Kevin, personal example real quick, and then I want you to expand. My high school football coaches, two of them, Bob Greger and Ron Ulary. They thought higher of me than I thought of myself. They expected more for me than I expected of myself. And I'd like to think I have. have high expectations, but then as an immature, insecure young kid, not as much.

Right. Their belief in me and then pushing me so, so hard, created performance that I honestly did not think I was capable, which then led to a college scholarship and a whole life in that world. Right. That's because of them. That's because of their leadership. Like how powerful is that man?

Like we have that, we have that ability to do that for us. other people. Like, that's what leadership's all about, right? Is I love how you wrote, provide them a reputation to live up to. That's just beautiful, man. Right, right. It's funny you mentioned it because that's exactly, I had a track coach in high school. That was exactly who I was thinking of. I loved, who believed that I could run.

It was like, I, you know, it was like, he didn't actually tell me what he thought I could because I would not have, I would have walked away, but he kind of moved me. And I realized that, you know, all along, he was like, you know, he was like, he was like, he was like, he was sort of had a certain time that he believed I could get to. And I, yeah, so he gave me the image that he believed and that I could walk into. And that was really great. So, yes, and I think there's another bit of advice that related to leadership too, which is that your goal as a leader is not to have followers, but to make leaders.

And I got that from, well, I was inspired by Jeff Bezos, who came by the Wired Offices very early on. We were talking about hiring because we were trying to hire like crazy. And this is the beginning of the, you know, in the 1990s. And when tech companies were kind of a new thing, there were kind of a new breed of animal, and this kind of super growth was unknown before. And Jeff was saying, yeah, yeah,

there's one quality, one main quality. I'm looking for when the people that I'm hiring. And that is that there are really good judges of character and can hire themselves, that they're good hirers themselves. So I'm looking at this. It was like, wow, that's an incredible amount of foresight. So he's looking at for leaders who can make other leaders. It's like, wow.

And that sort of blew my mind, but it was actually utterly true that that's for that kind of growth. How do you do that? How do you judge if somebody else is a good judge of character and will make good character? I, you know, I wish I had done the Tim Ferriss thing and drilled down with him, but there was not the proper setting for that. So I don't, you know, I don't know. That is a really good question of how that second order to predict, right? It's just hard to It is. It is. You know, there's lots of little exercises you can do to kind of fair that up, but I'd never heard of someone saying, like, I don't know, maybe there's, maybe that you could do it in a kind of a shred or some kind of a workshop where there are

picking sides or picking people. You know, I don't know. I should ask. One of the things I try to do, I was in a role prior to the, we're doing this full time, where I was hiring leaders. So directors and managers reported to me as a VP role. It's not, this isn't foolproof because nothing is, but looking at their track record, if they, of the people they've hired in their past and what those people did. So I kept detailed track of my hires so that I could share that when I was going for leadership roles. This is what the people have done that I've hired. Here's how they've performed. Here's where they are.

Here's the promotions they earned. They're not all my company anymore because they've gotten poached. So it was a way of kind of showing I try to be a talent scout and then develop that talent to then get recruited. And I don't, my dad helped me a lot with that. And so I was lucky to have that. But I think that was one thing, but it's, it wasn't foolproof because sometimes people don't have accurate records of all that stuff. But that was something that I thought probably helped me get hired earlier than maybe I should have. A related piece of advice, not about leadership per se, but which is,

You know, it's always unfortunate when someone that you train really well leaves, but it's worse if you don't train them and they stay. Yeah, for sure. So, so like, so the other bit of advice is like, you know, you train someone so well that they could easily get another job, but you treat them so well that they never want to leave. Sometimes I get criticized for much. I don't know why. And simply, this is one of the. shortest ones, one of your shortest bits, but I try to live by it. Promptness is a sign of respect. We were both early to the Zoom, because I think we both believe in this. Just expand on this one

of being prompt and being, you're either early or you're late. You're not on time. Yeah, there's no such thing being on time. You're either early or you're late, and it's your choice. And I am choosing to be early and because it's a sign of respect. Because the other thing is that when you are late, the first thing people start to do is to think of all your flaws. Like, what else? Who is waiting? So, yeah. Okay.

There's a counter to this, though. Adam Grant, who I deeply respect, who's been on this podcast, a very good author and thinker and speaker. He completely disagrees with this because he says something along the lines of, if I am deep in conversation with the person before you, I'm meeting with, it goes long sometimes. And if it goes long, then I am late to the next meeting. And to me, to him, he says it's about like respect. Not that he cares, but I disagree.

And I said, figure out your calendar so that you could, if you, you know, if you go long, you go long. I don't know. Like, what do you, how do you respond? I fundamentally disagree. I would have a huge argument because I would say, here's what it is. This person you're going to converse with you and I. We say, look, we're going to stop at, you know, 10 o'clock, whatever it is, because we both

have something to go on. I respect you. I'm respecting your time and you're respecting my time. And even if we're in the middle of something, we're going to be mutually agreeable. And that's the condition. And by the way, I didn't write about this in the book, but there's another thing about interruptions, which is, for me, when I'm having a face-to-face conversation with someone, that trumps the conversation with someone by phone, which trumps someone by email. So in other words, I would say, like if I'm having a conversation with someone and my phone rings, I don't answer it. Right. Unless I say at the beginning of the conversation, I sit down, it's like, I'm expecting a call, a very important call that I might get.

Yeah. During this. So forgive me, but if I have to stop that. Otherwise, I'm ignoring any kind of, because that takes preference. That's the priority. And if I'm on the phone, then I'm not. going to be emailing unless or reading a text unless I say, okay, there may be a phone, I may have to be interrupted. So you're kind of doing the respectful thing of saying that there's

a condition here. So I think your friend is completely wrong in that you should just say, this is the parameters of our conversation. We're both respecting a time. And if I need to go in the middle of it, we'll continue with some other time. Okay, a couple more before we have that hard stop. This is true, colon. It's hard to cheat an honest person. I view this. I may be wrong. I like leading with trust. I like extending trust to others before they have earned it. Jim Collins told me this on this podcast, right? Make the trust wager. His mentor, Bill Lazier said it's a better way to live. I 100% agree. I trust you, Kevin, before you have earned it for me. You will never have to earn it. You can break it. And if you break it, I won't trust you.

But you have it now. And to me, I found living that way with that posture of leading with trust, the type of people that I want to be around seem to be attracted in this orbit. And the ones who cheat and steal, we don't seem to do well together. It just doesn't really jive. And so that's what I gather from that statement. Am I right there? You're absolutely right. And here's the thing is that when you have that kind of trust first, the default,

what that means is that occasionally every now and then you might be cheated. I consider that a tax. Yes. Or the huge overwhelming abundance that you get by trusting everybody as default. So yes, there are occasional things, but that's just a small tax. And it has minor compared to the benefits that you get of when you trust people and treat them well, they give you their best. So, okay, occasional cheat, that's, that's, I'm willing to pay that a little tax. Yes, 100% worth it.

Another one, show me your calendar and I will tell you your priorities. Tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you where you're going. So true, right? What are you actually doing? What you're doing tells me what you value most. What's most important to you is showing me what you actually do. Not telling me, but showing me, right? Exactly.

Yeah. And it is 100% where it goes back to, you change world not by what you say or how you vote or even what you believe but what you do and that's that action is so so so i have a much of an action bias a bias to action the action is the way we think you know you have to write something to think it it's the way we actually influence you do things it's the way that we get things done and create habits it's much easier to change how you think by acting it out then to change how you act by thinking about it.

So this is a bias to action, which is, you know, in general. And I think part of Silicon Valley culture as well. Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger talk about others have two. And I've thought a lot about this recently, this inner versus outer scorecard or scoreboard. And one of your bits is don't measure your life with someone else's ruler. And to me, I take that as like creating your. your own code, your own core principles and values and living by that versus whatever you're seeing on Instagram, for example.

I was thinking less of the values and more of your definition of success or victory or whatever you want to call it. Yep. You know, I think, I don't know, I tend to think that a lot of our values do converge on something similar, you know, treat others well, blah, blah, blah. But I think our ideas of what is successful. can really vary. And part of this idea of being not the best, but being the only, is about having some idea of what a successful life would look for you.

I ask my kids all the time, they're kind of almost tired of hearing. As I sit them down when they're kind of trying to make sense, what would you do with a billion dollars? Okay? What would you do? I'm going to give you a billion dollars. What would you do? And, you know, for most people, they're kind of like, well, buy a house, and you know, I'll buy, maybe travel around the world and say, okay, you still have a bill. million dollars. You haven't spent any of that. Yeah. And then what do you really want to do? And, you know, there'll be something I want to go, you start a knitting store or something like that. I say, you don't need a billion dollars to do that. Okay. You don't need, you know, whatever it is,

you don't need a billion dollars to travel around the world. You need $5,000. And so your definition of success, you really want to focus on what that means because it is probably more attainable than you think and it doesn't usually require a lot of money. This is awesome, Kevin. I so appreciate you coming back now. It's been a while since we talked, and I highly recommend your latest book. Excellent advice for living, wisdom. I wish I'd known earlier by Kevin Kelly. It's so good, man.

And I think it's so hard to actually write a book like this, to make it so concise and so, and so useful and practical. You make it look easy. I think that's the mark of someone who's just really good at something. It's like, oh, yeah, I could do that book. I could write that book. You're like, then you sit down and try to write. I'm like, no, I didn't.

I can't write that book. And I think that's like being the only or that's making the hard look really good. So I highly recommend it. It's awesome. I reread it again this morning. Thanks again for doing this, man. And I would love to continue our dialogue as we both for us. This has been so much fun, man.

It was really great. I enjoyed every minute of this. And thank you for the fantastic questions. I really appreciate your support and interest. Thank you so much, man. All right. Here we go. The end of the podcast club.

Love this conversation with Kevin. What an interesting guy, super thoughtful. I could talk to him all day. A few takeaways from my notes. You lead by letting others know what you expect of them, which may exceed what they themselves expect. Provide them. I love this part.

Provide them a reputation to live up to. I shared again the story of Bob, Greg, and Ron Allery and how they'd done this for me. Kevin shared about a coach in his life. I like all of us as leaders to think how we could do this for others. How can we provide the people we're leading and a reputation to live up to, so powerful. Then habit is far more dependable than inspiration.

Don't focus on getting into shape. Focus on becoming the kind of person who never misses a workout. That's all about habits and systems, not grand statements. Become the kind of person who never misses. All about consistency. And then show me your calendar and I will tell you your priorities. So true. I'm not as interested in you telling me what your priorities are.

I know what they are. All I have to do is look at your calendar. And I would urge you to do an audit. Look at your past month's calendar. Does that match up with what you claim are your priorities? If not, then the time to do something about it is right now. Once again, I'm going to say thank you so much for continuing to spread the word and telling a friend or two, Hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Kevin Kelly.

I think he'll help you become a more effective leader. And because you continue to do that and you continue to go to Ryanhawk.net, which launches you into Apple Podcasts. And once there, you write a review, a thoughtful review, and you rate the show hopefully five stars. Because you do that, you continue to give me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be able. grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to this soon. Can't wait.