The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 555: Shane Parrish - Raising Your Standards, The Difference Between Nice & Kind Feedback, The Inner vs. Outer Scoreboard, & Turning Ordinary Moments Into Extraordinary Results (Clear Thinking)

Episode Date: November 27, 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 The power of believing in someone. Mr. Duncan, Shane's high school English teacher was the first person to tell him that he believed in him. He changed the trajectory of Shane's life. We, as leaders, can do that for others. Let's proactively look for opportunities to tell the people we're leading that we believe in them. The difference between Nice and Kind feedback. Too often, the people we ask for feedback are nice but not kind. Kind people will tell you things a nice person will not. A kind person will tell you that you have spinach on your teeth. A nice person won't because it's uncomfortable. A kind person will tell us what holds us back, even when it's uncomfortable. A nice person avoids giving us critical feedback because they're worried about hurting our feelings. Champions: "Champions don't create the standards of excellence. The standards of excellence create champions." "Expecting high performance is a prerequisite to its achievement among those who work with you.  Your high standards and optimistic anticipations will not guarantee a favorable outcome, but their absence will assuredly create the opposite." The USS Benfold — was one of the worst-performing warships in the US Navy in 1996. The destiny of the USS Benfold changed the day Michael Abrashoff was named commander. Shane was 13 years old. Shane was standing with a group of his friends after school and they were teasing one of his classmates and he was watching. Teachers intervened and it ended quickly. He didn't realize that your dad was parked nearby and was watching. You have to stand up for people who don't have a voice. Warren Buffett: "The big question about how people behave is whether they've got an Inner Scorecard or an Outer Scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an Inner Scorecard." Brent Beshore: "My favorite part of the book was the section on habits, rules, and safeguards (page 101). A principle that Shane and I discussed in January changed my life and was expounded on in the book. Shane said, "It's impossible to work out very often if you have to decide every day whether or not you'll do it. That's why I just do something active every day, no matter what." Solutions/Ego: "Solutions appear when you stop bargaining and start accepting the reality of the situation. That's because focusing on the next move, rather than how you got here in the first place, opens you up to a lot of possibilities. When you put outcome over ego, you get better results." "Small plans don't inspire, but consistently small actions create incredible results." Knowing Your Defaults: The emotion default - We tend to respond to feelings rather than reasons and facts The ego default - We tend to react to anything that threatens our sense of self-worth or our position in a group hierarchy The social default - We tend to conform to the norms of our larger social group. The Inertia default - We're habit-forming and comfort-seeking. We tend to resist change, and to prefer ideas, processes, and environments that are familiar. Ancient Greek word — Phronesis— the wisdom of knowing how to order your life to achieve the best results. Life/Career advice: "I'd give the same advice to someone who's trying to find someone to marry. Go on lots of dates. Experiment. Do stuff. Get out in the world. You can only connect the dots looking backward." If you want to develop good judgment, start by asking two questions: What do I want in life? And is what I want actually worth wanting?

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Welcome to The Learning Leader Show presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text Hawk to 6-6-866 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 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 6-6-866.

Now on to tonight's featured leader, Shane Parenthood. is the entrepreneur and wisdom seeker behind Farnham Street, FS.Blog. That's where he focuses on turning timeless insights into action. Shane's work has been featured in nearly every major publication, including the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and Forbes. He is the New York Times best-selling author of Clear Thinking, turning ordinary moments into extraordinary results. During this conversation we discuss the power of a leader-blower.

believing in you and how we can use our power for good to raise expectations for ourselves and others. Then Shane shares the number one trait CEOs look for when hiring leaders. He talks about the difference between nice and kind feedback. And then Shane shares an emotional story from his childhood about standing up for people and doing the right thing. I really appreciate how vulnerable Shane was right away during this conversation. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy Shane Parrish. Shane, longtime reader Farnham Street. It is awesome to have you here on the Learning Leader Show.

Welcome, man. Thanks, Ryan. I'm excited to be here. Let's flip to the back of your latest book, which is called Clear Thinking. And I enjoy reading the acknowledgements. And one of the people that you named in that book that changed the trajectory of your life is a high school English teacher named Mr. Duncan. What did you learn from Mr. Duncan? I mean, to put things in context, I was a straight D student up until grade 10.

Wow. Like literally, I think my highest grade was a D. And to put to further reinforce this, my grade 9 teacher wrote in my report card that I would be lucky to graduate from high school. I was going nowhere fast. Yeah, this is back when they wrote what they actually thought. They don't do that anymore. They got a pick from these prescribed comments now. And I was almost expelled multiple times. I was hanging out with the wrong kids, the wrong crowd, doing the wrong things, making bad choices, getting bad consequences.

And I found computers in grade nine. And that's when the schooling started to like, I stopped getting in trouble. I didn't get good grades, but I was going to school. I was staying up all night playing on my computer. and I would go to school the next morning and I would fall asleep in class. And I was the only kid in my class that did that until another kid came over and we started talking about programming. I was like, oh, I'm not alone. This is cool. Right. So we'd both stay up all night programming and then we'd fall asleep in class. So school wasn't a priority for me. And then no teacher had ever paid

attention to me. No teacher cared about me. Everybody just wanted me out of their class. And totally understandable why in the context of this, right? Like, I'm not putting in much effort. I'm falling asleep in class. I don't tend to respect you just because you're a teacher. I want you to demonstrate that I should be paying attention. And then this grade 11 teacher comes along, Mr. Duncan. And Mr. Duncan believes in me. Mr. Duncan tells me, I have a unique mind. and I see the world in a different way, and it's beautiful. And Mr. Duncan starts to encourage me. My parents go to the parent-teacher interview.

I think it was around November this time in grade 11, and they're like, we're here to talk about Shane. And they just walk in, and they're like, we've done a host of these things. This is our 11th year of doing these. We know exactly what you're going to say. And Mr. Duncan goes, Shane is my best student. And my parents go, what? Is there more than one chain in your class?

Like you're clearly not talking about our son. He's like, no, he sees the world in this beautiful way. And he's got this incredible mind. And I just love it. His grades don't necessarily reflect all of his ability. But he's got so much potential if he would just try a little harder. And everything he had to say was really positive. And that was sort of reinforcing for, you know, what I was doing.

And I started hanging around the right kids, by right kids, I mean, not the bad kids. And my grades changed. I, you know, I didn't even know what university was. One of the other moments and the other people, if you're listening to this, Earl Corcori, Mr. Corcori, he also changed my life in grade 10 when I was hanging out with his son. And I had just moved schools. So I was hanging out with his son. And I went to his house.

It was October. We had dinner and we started talking about university and direction. And I remember Mr. Corcori looked at me because I was like, let's university. And then he pulled me aside quietly, not in front of his son. He did this very tactfully. But he basically said, hey, if you're not going to university, you're not hanging out with my son.

Like he is on this path and you hooligan, right, correctly identify me for what I was at the time. You're not going to derail him from that path. And I had a lot of respect for that. But I was like, I don't know what university is. I don't even know what this thing is. And he's like, I'll help you, I'll teach you. But that's got to be your path.

You want to hang out with my son. He likes you. I'd love for that to happen. And anyway, he became my best friend in high school. And we spent a lot of time together. But those two people really changed my trajectory. Doesn't it show you just the power of now you in a leadership role, you can do this for others.

And I think as leaders, we should all try to do this. But when we specifically tell somebody why. we believe in them and how much power we have in that we should wield that power to do good. What an awesome example of that. Is this something now you try to do in your own life to use the power, the weight of your words to help others? Totally. I think for me it becomes a lot about giving people opportunities.

Yeah. It's like, okay, let's see what you can do. Let's see how much autonomy you can handle. Let's see how much responsibility you can handle. and I believe you can handle all of it. So like, let's go. Let's go to the ceiling of what you're capable of. And let's figure it out together.

And if you fall, then I'll catch you. There's another story about your dad. I would love for you to tell it. You're 13 years old. You're standing with a group of your friends after school and your friends were teasing one of your classmates and the teachers intervened and it ended quickly. And I read that you didn't realize that your dad was parked nearby and was watching.

What did your dad say? to you when you got in the car that day. Yeah, this story really hits home for me because for him, I walked in the car and I said, I get emotional talking about this because it reminds me of something else. I walked in the car and I said, I wasn't teasing him. And he was just really upset at me for what I didn't do. I didn't try to stop it. I didn't try to defend it. I didn't. And so I was guilty of doing all those things. And the reason I get emotional is there was a girl who went to the same high school I did about 10 years after I did. And she was gang raped by a group of students and committed suicide after. And her last Facebook post said something to the effect

of my friends will be remembered for their silence, not speaking up, not doing the right thing in the face of people doing the wrong thing. I think that those stories really hit home for me and they've had a profound impact on me. Wow. Thank you for sharing, man. And I appreciate, I think my friend Jason Gainard said relationships move at the speed of vulnerability and you're a leader when it comes to that. Meyer that about you. Thinking about that moment with your dad and obviously the tragic stories that

followed that you just shared, how does that change you or how do you behave now when it comes to maybe speaking up for someone whose voice isn't as powerful as yours or helping other people? How do you try to speak up for them? The lesson was sort of one of self-accountability, right? it's not enough to know something is wrong. You have to try to stop. You have to do something about it. It's not enough to watch it happen. It's not enough to walk away.

If you see somebody abusing their power, taking advantage of somebody else, then you have a responsibility to do something about that if you can. And I think that's an important lesson for all of us to take away. And it doesn't necessarily mean something strong. It can be something just like supporting the person. It can be doing something more. And the actions are sort of up to you in the situation.

You can't be reactive about everything going on in your life. Sometimes you have to be proactive and step in and intervene. We all think that somebody else is going to do that. And then we all end up watching something horrific happen. And we all know it's horrific. And we have to have the self-confidence. and the courage that we need to do what's right in those moments. And that often means going against the crowd.

That means thinking independently. And that means a lot of the stuff that I talk about in the book. You talk a lot about being a dad and I'm a dad as well. And so it's like the number one thing I think of. And it feels like it is for you too. How do you spread these important messages to your kids? your way, your process of making sure that they are growing up to be the type of people that you want them to be. I think they're going to grow up to be the type of people they want to be. Yeah. Not the type of

people I want them to be. And to the extent that I can help them and influence them and give them tools, all of that changes. It changes so quickly with them. What resonates with them in one moment carries no weight the next moment. What really resonates with them, some of the lessons from the book that we've applied for the last few years, and hopefully we continue to apply our sort of gas or water, which is I have two kids, they're 14 months apart, and they get into their two boys, so they get into like little spats. They're each other's best friends, but they're also each other's worst enemies at time. And they sort of get into these moments, like we all do. We get into them with our partners, with our colleagues at work with everybody. You just end up arguing about something silly. Like, it could be how you stack the dishwasher at home or with my kids. It's like who's taking out more of the table while they do homework. If that line is not perfectly down the middle, then some days that causes a bit of a and what I like to do is the same thing that I would do with you, Ryan, if you're arguing with your wife and I tap you on the shoulder and I'm like, Ryan, do you want to put water or gas on this

situation. You're going to say, oh, yeah, we're arguing, but the dishwasher, what are we doing here? This doesn't make any sense. I want to put water on this. And then it goes out. And I do the same thing with the kids. And I say, hey, water or gas, because we've been using this for a while so I can just say those words. And sometimes they still choose gas. They have some agency in this, right? They have some judgment and pulse. Most times they're like, hmm, okay, yeah, water. And so that language has really gone through them and it's something that they use. It's something we use externally too. So rather than sort of embarrass them, if they're doing something and they're escalating

outside the house, I'll just say water and nobody knows what that means. The other ones are confidence, right? So I put my kids in really difficult schools. I think they need to be held to high standards. And I think that they can handle the workload and the inevitable sort of failures that come with that. And that requires a lot of confidence for them in that moment, because going from grade six to grade seven when they changed schools, they started taking exams. They started having tests every week. They started having big tests every month. They started having exams twice a year.

They started having a lot of homework. And that's a very different situation than what they were used to. And they didn't have the confidence to sort of do that. And so, So we started breaking this down a little bit and saying, I didn't have the confidence to start a business. I didn't have the confidence to do all these things. What I did have was the confidence to take the next step. I had the confidence to take one step at a time and the determination and the resourcefulness to figure out the next step.

And that's how we get anywhere. And so that's how we approach school, which is one step at our time. You don't need the confidence to get to the ultimate goal. You need the confidence to take the next step. We call it next step confidence. And it's helped them do everything from cliff jumping to snowboarding to exams and tests, which are really scary to kids who haven't done that before. And then the other one is something along the same lines as gas or water.

What we use are these actions and these behaviors getting you closer to what you want or is it moving you further away from what you want? Again, I'm not judge. them, but there's no agency. I'm not telling them what to do. They get to make their own choices, but it's recognizing that your choices are moving you closer to or further away from what you want. And then the final thing that I would say resonates that we use all the time is positioning. And the language I use with the kids is easy mode or hard mode. A great example is one of my kids came home and gave me one of his exams and he did really poorly on it. And I'm okay with

I inside I'm like tiger dad sort of thing but on the outside I think it's really good for the kids to experience this and it's really good to fall down and stumble and recover but he hands me the test and he does what kids do these days and same thing I did when I was a kid same thing you probably did when you were a kid you get a bad mark your parents have to sign it so you like give it to them you shrug your shoulders and you're like I did my best and you keep walking and I know from playing sports. I used to play high school football. He used to play soccer. That most people quit in the car ride on the way home, not the performance on the field. They could have had the best game of the life. They could have had the worst game of their life. That doesn't matter. Most people

quit because the car ride on the way home and that conversation with the parents. So I'm like, let's let this dissipate for a little bit here. Let's go for a little while. And I came back to later that night. And I said, if it's 930, we're lying in bed, we're reading, like, talk to me about what it means to do your best. You said, you did your best. I want to understand this. I want to understand every step of it. So like, go through it in detail. And he's like, really? And I'm like, yeah, I really want to understand. When you come out of it and you say this, I want to know what that means to you. So he's like, I sat down at 10 a.m. and I looked at all the questions and I figured out the point system and I allocated my time appropriately and I answered

the questions to the best of my ability. I was like, you think about that the same way that a lot of adults think about decision making. So you think about it from the point that you show up to forward. How do I make the best choice in this moment? And I was like, let's rewind 72 to 96 hours. Like before this moment, let's go back in time. Did you study effectively? No. Did you stay up late? Yes.

Why did you stay up late? Because I was cramming. Why were you cramming? Because I didn't study effectively. Did you have a healthy breakfast that morning? No, I ate like, I ate crap because I was in a rush. Why were you in a rush? Because I got up late.

Why were you late? Because I was cramming the night before. Did you get into a fight with your brother? Yes. Why did you get into a fight with your brother? because I was up late, I was agitated. I was like, oh, so when you sat down to do that test, were you at your best? No.

You were playing on hard mode. All the things we just talked about, everything that we just mentioned, is 100% within your control. Now, that doesn't mean you do all that and you're always going to win. But doing all that puts you on easy mode. And so in the book, I talk about the idea of positioning. And that's sort of like the adult version of this. How do we position ourselves? So our life is on easy mode.

Doesn't mean we're not going to get angry. Doesn't mean we're not going to have emotions. It doesn't mean the world's not going to kick our butt sometimes. However, if we put ourselves on easy mode, we're always going to make the best choices possible. We're going to have more choices to make. And we're only going to have good choices to make. It's like every decision when you're on easy mode is a good decision.

And when you're on hard mode, it doesn't matter what you do. Every decision makes everything so much harder. It feels like, for example, a big keynote speech. I think the greatest speakers make it look like they're on easy mode because of the hard stuff they're willing to do leading up to that moment. So the decisions they make as far as preparation and practice and rehearsal and studying and knowing your stuff, all that takes work. That's like the work behind the scenes that's hard and not everybody wants to do so that when they get on stage it looks. easy. How does that relate? This hard preparation, getting ready to go so that when it's time to shine, wow, Shane makes that look easy. He doesn't even have to really think, although they don't know

all of the work that went into it. And if you're really good, you don't want them to know all the work that went into it. You want to have some magic around it. And that magic is created by the fact that you make it look so easy. The difference between preparation and positioning, and they're both very similar and related concepts. I use the word position. in the book because we always, we can't always tell the future. And I don't get into this nuance with the kids, but with adults, I do. Preparation is, I know I have a presentation coming up. So I'm going to put myself in the best position possible. To do that, I'm going to prepare for the presentation. I know how to prepare for the presentation. I know what to do. I know how to rehearse

myself. I know how to record myself. I know what points to hit. I know what intonation to hit. I know what to do. So I'm going to prepare. And if I don't prepare, I'm going to be on hard mode. And if I do prepare, I'm going to make it look easy. I'm going to knock it out of the park. Positioning is more, I don't know what the future holds. I'm not going to predict what the future is. I'm going to position myself for multiple possible futures. Often we make predictions about the future without even knowing we're making predictions because we're not really thinking about it. If we buy a house that is bigger than we can afford on a changing interest rate environment, but we want the house today, we're making an assumption that the future is going to look like

the present and that interest rates are going to stay the same. And so if the interest rates change, we're ill position. We're not in a good position. So positioning is all about giving yourself optionality in the future. So instead of trying to predict the future, how do I win no matter what happens in the future? is one of the hidden lessons. I almost wanted to call the chapter like the Titans Blueprint. If you go back in history and you look at how sort of the Titans of Industry or people who always got ahead, always seemed to always be in the right place, the right time, the people who

seemed lucky. When you start studying them, what you learn is there the people who didn't go all in on any particular version of the future. They're the people who were prepared for whatever happen, they could take advantage of it. And if you look at Rockefeller or Carnegie or even Berkshire Hathaway, I mean, the list of examples goes on and on. What happens is when there's an inevitable financial panic. They're not predicting when the panic is, but they know there'll be financial panics because they happen every, they used to happen every five or six years. Now they happen a little longer apart, but we know from history that they do come. And when they came, they were always able to play offense. Why were they able to play offense? Because they knew it would come.

Look at Berkshire Hathaway today. They have $150 billion in cash on their balance sheet. If the economy takes off, they win. If the economy goes into a recession, they can play offense. And if everything stays status quo, they keep going on. No matter what happens, they win. But they're not predicting any sort of path into the future. They're just prepared for whatever happens. And you can also do that in our own lives, but simple things like low debt, fixed rate debt that you can handle and adequately cover, saving money, saving more than you make. I mean, those are very simple things, sleeping, working out. These are things that all position us for the inevitable emotional ups and downs in life, the inevitable crises that come. And one counterintuitive one that people don't often

think about is sort of investing in your relationship with your partner. So if you imagine that there's a patch of grass between you and your partner. And every day you invest in that, you water that grass. And every day you don't invest in, that grass dries out a little bit. After a few weeks, what happens with dry grass? Any spark, including that dishwasher conversation, now all of a sudden it lights a flame. And that's sort of where the gas or water reference came from as well. God, there's so much good stuff, man.

There's a story about that you write about the USS Benfold. One of the worst performing warships in the U.S. Navy, I believe, was 1996. But the destiny of the USS Benfold changed, I'm going to mispronounce this name, the day Michael Abershoff was named Commander. What did he do? How did he change the destiny of that worship? So what makes this story so spectacular and almost unbelievable, almost a work of fiction, is that he takes the ship that is the worst performing ship and has been for a long time in the U.S. Navy.

And what do you think, before I get into a little bit of the details, what do you think would happen? If I tell this to a friend, they'd be like, oh, it changes all of his top commanders. And the same thing a CEO would do when they take over an organization that's not functioning correctly. They would start identifying people, replacing them, and they'd probably be doing that very quickly. And that is a type of leadership style that works. Frank Slutman, who is on our podcast, he approaches things that way and he's super effective with it. But Michael Abrashoff, he takes a different approach. And his approach, he doesn't change a single person.

There's no turnover in the ship before it goes from worse to first. But his approach is totally different. So his approach is one of the person closest to the problem, probably has the best information about it. independent of rank. One of, there's no class division on the ship. The officers don't get to eat first. They get in line like everybody. But he didn't tell everybody what to do.

What he did was he just got in line. And then a couple days later, everybody kept sawing him getting in line. Now they're getting in line all of a sudden. And what happened to the crew? This class warfare that was going on the ship between the officers and the enlisted no longer existed. Everybody seemed equal. And all Abershawf really did, if you think about it, if you boil down the essence of what he did, was he saw the world through the eyes of his crew. So he changed his perspective from what he could see, and he added a different perspective, which is what the crew can see.

And then he said, if I saw the world the way the crew saw it, I would probably be just as dysfunctional as the crew was. So how do I change that so that they have ownership? How How do I change that so they feel like they're part of the team instead of just the people that do the work? And I think that it's a really powerful message for everybody because what's really happening is if you think about the source of all bad decisions is blind spots. That's the source of all cognitive biases. It's the source of everything.

I want to talk about hiring. I read that you were hanging out with a CEO of a large public company and you were talking with them about hiring. And you said, if you could pick one trait, just one trait that would predict how well someone would turn out, what would it be? And he said, that's easy. How willing they are to change their mind. Why is it so important that we be willing to change our mind? Think of it this way.

The people that don't change their mind is what has to be true for that to happen? It has to be that they're right all the time. And who do we know that's right all the time? almost nobody. And so what's really happening below the surface here is that we're putting our energy into feeling right, not being right. And if you switch that around and you put your energy into being right and not feeling right, which is simple, but far from easy, then you're going to change your mind a lot. When the evidence sort of indicates your approach isn't working, you're going to change your approach. And that's easy with something like math where the answers are black and white.

but it's harder with way more subjective things like opinions or assumptions or especially things that you can't see. Feelings, on the other hand, when you want to feel right, what you're really doing is your thinking, you're an exception. So it's like we know the path to financial independence. It's save more money than you make, invest it in a low-cost index fund and wait a really long period of time. We know that is as close to a guaranteed get-rich formula as we are ever.

ever going to have. And yet, how many people follow that path? Very few. Why? Because it's boring. They think they're an exception. They want to get there quicker. And so they go after get rich quick schemes that promise the outcome sooner. And when it inevitably fails, which it does, it always does, what tends to happen is that rather than tell yourself you made a mistake and chalk it up to the, what we do is we say the world didn't work the way that it should. And that's really interesting, because should becomes a form of bargaining. You're bargaining with the world. The world is telling you how it works.

You know how it works. There's these general principles that you can follow, but we don't follow them. And why don't we follow them? Because we think it should work in another way. We think we're the exception. Another example is health. How many people do we know that get too little sleep?

They drink too much. They eat an incredible amount of overly processed food. They don't exercise at all. And everybody knows health is important. It's a general principle of life. And at some level, these people think that they're the exception to it. And acceptance, if you think of it as acceptance, is knowing that you must care for your health because it's the foundation for everything else.

Without your health, everything multiplies by zero. And so we just want to believe that we're the exception because it's the easy path. But the best people in the world tend to put their ego into being right, not feeling right. And there's a huge difference between that. And I sort of encapsulate that in the statement in the book saying outcome over ego. But what you're really doing is you're wrapping your ego up in the outcome, not how you feel about your beliefs. I think you've probably done a great job of surrounding yourself with exceptional people. And I like this distinction when it comes to feedback because I think I like my foxhole guys and the people I'm closest to the ones, my kitchen cabinet, ones who can provide me like with the difference between kind versus nice feedback.

I think this is page 47. And you say like we ask people for feedback and people are nice, but they're not kind. Can you tell me the difference between nice and kind feedback? A kind person will tell you you have spinach on your tea. a nice person won't. And that's an easy example. Here's one that applies to everybody listening to this. Every single person here has one thing that's holding them back at work.

And who has told you that one thing that's holding you back? It would be very kind of somebody to tell you what's getting in the way because you can't see it. Your perspective is only your perspective. You need an outside perspective to see what's holding. you back. And nobody will tell you what's holding you back because they're being nice. If they were being kind, they'd walk up to you and say, hey, Ryan, I love you, man. I really want you to be successful. I see this thing you're doing and I think it's holding you back and you can't see it.

So I want to share that with you. And that's exactly what they would do if they were being kind because they want you to win. Why is this so hard? that in that particular example it's hard for two reasons one it's hard because we're not used to telling people uncomfortable feedback that is kind because it makes us feel not nice we're brought up to say if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all that excludes being kind i was fortunate enough to be able to work with people who didn't have that sort of upbringing and would tell me exactly what i was doing that bothered them what i was doing now that doesn't mean they were always right but they would tell me, hey, I don't want to work with you if you can't do this thing. And that was not very nice,

but it was actually pretty kind. Your excuses don't matter. You have to do the job. You're in an operational role. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters. You have to figure this out. And I think that we can adopt a little bit of that. We can sort of take that approach with the people that we care most about because we're secure in our relationship, we're intimate in our relationship, and we want people to win. And if all those things are true, we approach it as if those things, are true and we're going to be working with this person for a long time, then it's easy to give nice feedback. At work, it's a little harder because we tend to judge ourselves, our success, our identity as relative to other people. So I want Ryan to be successful, but not that much more

successful than me. And that's another thing that sort of holds me back from saying that is because if I know the thing that's actually holding you back, I don't really want to tell you because it might mean that you leapfrog me. But if I tell you, and this comes to your reciprocation, and I'll come back to that in a second, you'll tell me what's holding me back. And now what are we doing? Instead of dividing the pie, we're growing the pie.

And the world is such a better place. If we focus on growing the pie instead of like dividing all the pieces. Because when we're growing it, there can be enough for everybody. And when we're dividing it, I can never have enough. And I think that that's such a powerful behavioral. algorithm to life. And you can encapsulate that into going positive and going first. If I walk down the street and I smile at people, what are people going to do? They're going to smile back at me. If I walk down the street and I scow at people or I look angry, they're going to avoid me or

scow back at me. If I'm kind to people at work, what are they going to do? They're going to be kind back to me. If I go out of my way to help you be successful, what are you going to do? You're going to go out of your way to help me be successful. This is Newton's third law applied to human relationships. For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. And it's the most powerful behavioral force in the world. What most people do is they sit around, they wait for other people to recognize their potential. And they're like, look, my boss could just see what I could do. And what are they not doing? You need to start this. That's why go positive, go first. matters and you have to do it consistently.

You can't just do it once and expect people to recognize it. But if you're consistently looking out for other people, if you're consistently being win and all your interactions, if you're consistently helping other people be successful, I've never seen a person in my entire life who does those things, who is not incredibly successful themselves. Think about people you'd want on your team. I want the kind people on my team. I want to work with kind people, the ones who are willing.

And in some cases, have the guts to really tell me. Like, I crave my background's also in sports. Shane played in high school college and a little bit after college football. I played quarterback, which is a position where you get tons of feedback. And so once you leave that world, the tough thing is you stop getting the play-by-play feedback. And I miss it. I still crave it and want it. And so when I find the kind people, the ones willing to give the tough feedback,

they're as valuable to me as anybody in the world. And I want to try to do the same thing for them and others. But I really liked that distinction between being nice, which I think is the easy path and being kind, which is the unselfish, probably harder path. But you're such a much more valuable person to be in people's lives and then them for you if you're willing to choose to be kind over nice. So what have we just hit on in two separate subjects, right? So we hit on this here and we hit on it with sort of alignment in the world with the difference

between being right and feeling right. And now we've hit on it here again, which is we tend to default to whatever is first order easy, even if it's first order positive, even if it's second order negative. What we don't do is we don't do the first order negative, second, third, fourth order positive thing. We don't choose the hard path. We always tend to default to the path of least resistance. So it's really important for us to think through to at least the second level of what we're doing.

And if we think through to the second level of what we're doing, not just the first level, we can start to see the consequences of these choices. I love this quote that you wrote. Champions don't create the standards of excellence. The standards of excellence create change. champions. Can you expand on that? Yeah, so that was a play inspired by something Bill Walsh had said, and he said something quite different, but similar sort of an impact to it. And I think that so often we just let people slide with low standards, but you come in and you're hungover and, oh,

you're going to have a bad day. Okay, that's okay. It's like, oh, we're all human and we do this. But if you look at the very best, the people who win the championships, those teams, if you're inside them, I've been inside these teams, I've been in the locker rooms, I've talked to these teams. If you showed up hung over to a practice with Michael Jordan, he would eat you alive. And he would do it publicly and he would do it in front of other people. And you would feel so ashamed and so embarrassed that you would never, ever do it again. if you showed up to a practice with Kobe Bryant and you didn't put it in a hundred percent effort, he would do the exact same thing to you.

And yet we do this thing at work where somehow it's not kind to hold. It's not nice to hold people to these high standards. And it's actually very kind to hold people to high standards because I know what you're capable of, Ryan. This is a shitty draft. Why are you giving this to me? you can do better than this. And if we work for somebody exceptional, if we play on a team with Michael Jordan or Kobe

Bryant, if we go work for somebody who is an outlier, I guarantee you they have higher standards than average of themselves and of the people they work closest with. If you're fortunate enough to work with people who are at this level, you will adopt those standards as natural. At first, they'll seem sort of like. crazy to you. Like, how can somebody hold themselves to the standard? But if you work with them for three, six, nine months, all of a sudden those standards become your baseline. And you're going to go far and you're going to go fast. And if you are not fortunate enough to work with

these people, you can adopt the standards of the best in history. You can sort of make your own personal board of directors. You can put people in your life that have higher standards just because we adopt the standards of the lifestyle that we're born into. And that's luck. We have these unwritten rules that we inherit from our parents, including ceilings, including habits, including all this stuff. But at some point, you take control of your life. You take control of your trajectory. And if you don't change your standards, you're going to end up exactly where your parents ended up. And that's not a bad thing. There's no judgment involved in that. But if you want something different than that outcome and you want to be better,

way better, whatever it is, then you have to change it because if you do what everybody else is doing, you're going to get the same results everybody else gets. One of the best things that you can do is start to hold yourself to higher standards. I'll listen to this episode afterwards and I'll be like, oh, man, I should have said this, or I got confused here. Why didn't I pause for a second before I spoke? And that's how we get better. I remember when I had Michael Yuseeem on this podcast, Shane, and he was talking about Gene Kran.

and one of the best quotes when it comes to these high standards is this. He said, expecting high performance is a prerequisite to which achievement among those who work with you. Your high standards and optimistic anticipations will not guarantee a favorable outcome, but their absence will surely create the opposite. I think as leaders, this is our duty. This is something we have to do if we care. If we care about our mission, if we care about our people, I think it's on us.

When I think about my favorite coaches, my favorite teachers, my favorite leaders that have impacted me, this is what they did. They expected high performance. They expected me to perform at a level. Then I didn't even think I was capable of and they got it. They got it out of me. That's leadership. Like that expectation, that setting of the standard, those are the people we want. Those are the ones who make a difference.

100%. And if you think about it, we naturally have high standards for things. we care about. Yeah. If you're building a house, you have a high standard for the cross measure. Why? Why do you care about it there, but not at work? Is it that you don't care about work, or is that I'm letting you get away with it? And we just, we do tend to act like teenagers. We do what we can get away with. And so calling people out on it in a polite, kind way. And what I mean by that is there's a difference between calling somebody out and being an asshole about it, beating them over ahead with a newspaper like Michael Jordan might have. And that might win championships.

That's not how I want to act, but you can still call people out. And you approach the conversation. And a lot of people are like, how do I approach this? Approach it the same way that you would approach your partner. And so your default going into that is, I love you. And it doesn't have to be a love, like a romantic love. It's like, I love working with you. I want the best for you. And I'm going going to be working with you for 20 years. And that part is super important. Because if I think I'm going to be working with you for 20 years, I'm going to approach that conversation much differently than if I think I'm going to be gone after a year or you're going to be gone after a year because then I can get away with some bad stuff. And we don't want to get our brain into that circumstance.

If you change your timeline, you eliminate a lot of poor behavior. Think long term, you need when. That doesn't mean you don't have a tough conversation, but it changes how. you approach that conversation. Ryan, I really want you to win. I really want you to be successful. I really want to be here with you. But the quality of work that you're doing right now is not up to what I know you're capable of. I don't know if there's something in the way that I can help with, but this isn't acceptable. This isn't the standard we have here. And I use this language with the kids all the time. This isn't the standard our family has. Did you study? And then I'll ask them, did you study up to our standard?

And that puts an emphasis on the fact that our standard is higher. And our standard for working hard and our standard for doing good deeds and our standard for giving back to the community and our standard for being good people is higher than other people's. I don't care what other people's standard are. I care about our standards as a family. I care about your standards for yourself because other people aren't always going to be there to hold you to a high standard.

and you have to hold yourself to that standard. You have to be capable in those moments where I failed when I was 13 to hold myself to that standard. And you have to be able to do that on your own when nobody's watching. And if you can do that, you will be great. Makes me think, Shane, of one of my favorite posts you've written on Farnham Street, FS.blog. And there's a lot of Buffett stuff and Munger stuff,

which is there's just a treasure trove. But I love for you to expand on this quote when it comes to the two scorecards that Warren Buffett writes about. Here it is. The big question about how people behave is whether they've got an inner scorecard or an outer scorecard. It helps if you can be satisfied with an inner scorecard. What does that mean to you? If we let society dictate what we go after money, power, fame, and yet we know, I know a lot of people who have achieved all those, And we all know a fictional character, Ebenezer Scrooge, who achieved all of those things.

And what they all want, including the real life people I know, is they want to do over. And it usually dawns on them somewhere between 50 and 70. And they realized that those things weren't worth chasing. And if you go look, there's a great book by Carl Pilmer called Lessons for the Living, I think. And what he did was he went around and he interviewed people near the end of their life. And he asked them what really mattered about living. What lessons would they like to pass to the younger generation? What hindsight do they have that we can make our foresight?

And it basically boiled around that. I would do my own thing. I would take the chance. I would write the book. I would go after the love. It's the things that you don't do that you regret. And the other thing is they would live their own life. And what they mean by that when you dig into it

is that they wouldn't chase things because other people are chasing them. When you're 95 and you're lying in the hospital enjoying your last night on this wonderful planet we have and you're in a coma and everybody around you is talking about you and you can hear them. But they don't know that you can hear them. What are they going to say about you?

They're not going to say, oh, man, I wish he had like an extra 10,000 Twitter followers, or I wish he had $10,000 more in his bank account, or his Porsche was really nice. Or maybe they are. Maybe they'd say his Porsche was nice, but he was an asshole. What do you want them to say about you? You probably want them to say some version of he was loving. He was always there for me when I needed him. He was a great friend.

He was a good parent. he was a great partner. He loved with all of his heart. He did these things that at the end of the day matter a lot more than chasing an extra dollar or these physical material possessions that we all go after the status that we want. And I think that's it, right? So if you're driven by an external scorecard, somebody else is going to set the scoreboard for you and you're going to try to rock up as many points as you can. And at some point, you're going to realize that you've done that unconsciously. And this is not to say that I'm judging people who do that. I actually want people to do that if that's what they want to do. But the difference is you have to be conscious about it.

If you're consciously going after money, man, go after it. Do it in the right way. Sell products you want to buy. Don't scam people. But like go after it. Own it. But do it consciously. I am consciously choosing this. And I know the implications of it. I know that it means X, Y, and Z. And if that's not what you want, think about what you want. And so the book ends with this sort of question, which is it's one thing to know how to get what you want. And it's a completely other thing to get what's worth wanting. And I think we have to be conscious about both. The book is an instruction manual to get what you want. And it ends with a thought about is what you want worth wanting. I love those two questions you pose. You write, if you want to develop good judgment, start by asking two questions.

What do I want in life and is what I want actually worth wanting? This reminds me so much when I asked James Clear on this podcast. I've had him on a few times about advice and he always gives me prompts instead. He always gives me questions. That's what this reminded me so much of Shane is how you end the book is that it's really think about these questions if you're trying to develop good judgment. What do I want? And is what I want actually worth wanting. The key is just to be conscious of it. You don't just think about it once. Like what you want at 20 is not going to be what you want at 40 or 50 or 60 or 70. You have to ask yourself these questions all the time. The question is, like, am I going in the right direction? Am I moving towards the right place? Is that the place that I really want

to end up? And importantly, but nobody ever asks when you go after your goals, because we always think that the ends justify the means. But what we learn from living is that the means are just as important, if not more important than the ends, am I going after it in the right way? And the right way for me is when the right way for me is with kindness. The right way for me is growing the pie. The right way for me is approaching things as if we're going to work together forever in every interaction I go with. That doesn't mean it always works out that way, but that's always my approach from the get-go. And that's what I mean by the right way. Ebenezer Scrooge got all the things he wanted, but what he realized was the way that he achieved them was mutually exclusive from living a life of meaning.

And that's what he wanted to do over. One more question, Shane. Let's say you're meeting with somebody who recently graduated from university. They're bright, thoughtful, kind, want to do good in the world, want to leave a positive dent. But they don't necessarily know what exactly they want to do. What are some general pieces of life slash. career advice you'd give to that person. I got to ask my question, where are you most determined?

Hmm. You answer that question, I think, for your path. At what moment are you most determined? Did you know where you were most determined when you were like 23, 24-ish though? Totally. I mean, at that moment, I think it changes. Yeah, totally. I was determined to go work for an intelligence agency.

I was determined to be really good at my job. I was determined to work harder than anybody else. You couldn't stop me. And that's the place to look. Where are you unstoppable? And it doesn't even have to be a natural talent. Because if you're unstoppable in something, you will eventually pass somebody who is only natural talent.

So we often look for where we're passionate. I think we're asking the wrong question. Where are you curious? Where are you determined? the intersection of those two things, you're going to go places. And it might change. You might dive in for five years and then it's run its course. And that's cool too. But I think determination is one of the biggest predictors of whether somebody's going to be successful or not. If we want to work backwards from that, we sort of ask, where are you most determined? What a great question. Where

are you most determined? What are you most curious about an attack that? Shane, the book is called clear thinking, turning ordinary moments into extraordinary results, an instant New York Times bestseller. And then I got to say, FS.Blog is something I've read it front to back. And I highly encourage people, if you're somehow listening this and you haven't read through FS.com blog, as Shane said, it's Evergreen articles. These things will live on forever. They're timeless. And there's so much knowledge packed on FS.

So you highly recommend that. I really appreciate you being here today, Shane. is awesome. Is there anywhere else you would send people to learn more about you online? No, I think FS.Blog, sign up for the newsletter. That's the best way to sort of get my thinking. I really appreciate you, Ryan. I think that was a very generous way to phrase things. So thank you. Absolutely, man. As I told you before we started recording, I've been reading your stuff and listened to you for a long time. Glad this book is now out in the world. And I love to continue our dialogue as we both progress, man. Yeah, for sure. Thank you so much.

Thanks, ma'am. It is the end of the podcast club. Thank you for being a member of the end of the podcast club. If you are, send me a note, Ryan at learningleader.com. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Shane Parrish. A few takeaways from my notes. One, the power of believing in someone. Mr. Duncan, Shane's high school English teacher, was the first person to tell him that he believed in him. He changed the trajectory of Shane's life. Now, we as leaders can and should do that for others. Let's proactively look for opportunities to tell people we're leading that we believe in them. Let's use our power for good. Next, the difference between nice and kind feedback. Too often, the people we ask for feedback are nice but not kind.

Kind people will tell you things a nice person will not. A kind person will tell you that you have spinach in your teeth. A nice person won't because it's uncomfortable. A kind person will tell us what holds us back even when it's uncomfortable. A nice person avoids giving us critical feedback because they're worried about hurting our feelings. Let's strive to be kind people as well as, around ourselves with those who are kind. And the next champions.

Champions don't create the standards of excellence. The standards of excellence create champions. Expecting high performance is a prerequisite to which achievement among those who work with you. Your high standards and optimistic anticipations will not guarantee a favorable outcome, but their absence will surely create the opposite. Let's hold ourselves to high standards and those around us. So good.

Once again, I would say thank you so much for continuing to spread the message and telling a friend or two. Hey, you should listen to this episode of The Learning Leader Show with Shane Parrish. 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 you're there, you write a thoughtful review and you rate the show, hopefully five stars. And by doing that, you are giving me the opportunity to do what I love on a daily basis. And for that, I will forever be grateful. Thank you so, so much. Talk to you soon. Can't wait.