The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 574: Guy Kawasaki - Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs, Learning How To Sell, Becoming a Chief Evangelist, and The 'Think Different' Philosophy

Episode Date: March 24, 2024

Read our new book, The Score That Matters https://amzn.to/3vjDSt6 Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk 574: Guy Kawasaki - Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs, Learning How To Sell, Becoming a Chief Evangelist, and The 'Think Different' Philosophy "Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it." – William Arthur Ward In 1977, Guy enrolled in the UCLA Anderson School of Management, where he earned an MBA. While there, Guy also worked at a jewelry company, Nova Stylings. He said, "The jewelry business is a very, very tough business, tougher than the computer business... I learned a very valuable lesson: how to sell." It's helpful to know that we are all in sales every day. Whether you think you're in sales or not… You are. You're selling yourself, your ideas, projects, products. It's useful to learn how to sell. Melanie Perkins, CEO of Canva (which is an amazing product and company)... "She's Steve Jobs with heart and soul. They are on a relentless pursuit of perfection." Guy's counting dots story… It started in 6th grade. A teacher pushed him to go to a private school. That led to him getting into Stanford. This is where he met Mike Boich, who ended up hiring him at Apple. Then getting asked to go on the TEDx stage with Jane Goodall… Guy has made the most of the good fortune in his life… Steve Jobs/Change Your Mind: Guy launched his tech career at Apple as the company's "chief evangelist," marketing the original Macintosh computer.  When Jobs first introduced the iPhone in 2007, it was a closed system — no one outside of Apple could create an app for it. Software developers had to use a Safari plugin to make their app work on the phone, as they weren't able to access the iPhone's system directly in order to ensure the phone's security. Just one year later, however, Jobs made a complete "180-degree reversal," The founder opened the iPhone system to the public after realizing how much more the device could offer customers with apps written by anyone with a good idea. "I learned the very valuable lesson that when you're doing something wrong when you're doing something sub-optimally, it's a sign of intelligence to change your mind." Throughout our conversation, Guy talks about being an evangelist, and the definition of that is to "bring the good news."  Default to yes. Make yourself indispensable. Learn to say, "I'm sorry," and "I don't know." Guy shares a story about a disagreement he had with Steve Jobs and how that cost him millions of dollars… But he learned an important lesson from Steve that has impacted him ever since.

To be remarkable, you don't have to be Jane Goodall or Elon Musk or Steve Jobs. You're just making a difference to one person yourself. What happened in 1983? How did you get a job at Apple? Why did you say yes? Steve wanted to make people more creative and productive. This was an Apple was on the ropes. The most valuable things you learned from Steve Jobs was the willingness to change your mind. When CEOs make apologies, they never utter the most important tools. words, I'm sorry. In the current state of the world, it's not enough to think different. You need to think remarkable. Welcome to the Learning Leaders Show, presented by Insight Global. I am your host,

Ryan Hawk. Thank you so much for being here. Text Hawk to 666866 to become part of Mindful Monday. You, along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders from all over the world, will receive a carefully curated email for me each Monday morning to help you start your week off. Write, you'll also receive details about how my new book, The Score That Matters, will help you become a more effective leader if you text Hawk to 66866. Now on to tonight's featured leader. Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist of Canva and author of 16 books. He was the chief evangelist of Apple, Mercedes-Benz brand ambassador, and special assistant to the Motorola division of Google. Guy has led an amazing career. Prior to that, he got a BA from Stanford, an MBA from UCLA, and an honorary doctorate from Babson College.

During this conversation, we discuss why it is useful to learn how to sell early in your career. Then Guy shares a story about a disagreement he had with Steve Jobs at Apple and how that cost him millions of dollars. But he learned an important lesson from Steve that has impacted him ever since. Then throughout our conversation, Guy talks about being an evangelist. And the definition of that is to, quote, bring the good news. He's used that mentality throughout his entire amazing career. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy my conversation with Guy Kawasaki. Guy, it is awesome to have you here on The Learning Leader Show.

Welcome. Oh, thank you very much for having me. So I want to go back earlier in your career. Let's go to 1977. You enrolled at UCLA's Anderson School of Management. You're in an MBA, and while you were there, you got a job working at a jewelry company, Nova styling, I believe it was called. Yes. You said, the jewelry business,

is very, very tough, tough business, tougher than the computer business. But you said you learned a valuable lesson during when you were working in that job, and that is how to sell. Can you go back to that time and talk about how valuable it was to learn to sell early in your career? Yeah. So I think many people, when they hear the word sell today, they only think e-commerce. And when they think about optimizing e-commerce, it's all about, well, let's do this A-B test on our landing page and, you know, does the blue text work better than the yellow text and the

purple text? And if we place this graphic or whatever, do we get 1% more click-throughs? But the jewelry business, this is back in the 70s, as you say, it's a hand-to-hand combat business. So I work for a jewelry manufacturer who sold to retailers. So we didn't sell to the actual end user. we sold to the retailer, the Tiffany's and the Cartieres of the world. And let's just say that when you're Tiffany Cartier or many fine jewelers,

the power is on your side because you're the buyer and we're the seller. And arguably, we need you more than you need me because there's a lot of people manufacturing jewelry. and there's only one Tiffany or Cartier. So you learn hand-to-hand combat. You learn patience because there's many times. You're sitting outside the buyer's office for hours because, I don't know, because they're running late or because they just want to show you who's boss. And jewelry is made out of expensive components,

but they are nonetheless just raw materials. So often you meet these buyers and they look at your ring, for example, and they want to just stick it on a scale and they'll tell you, okay, so there's such and such grams of gold. The spot price of gold is X today. You have 18-carat gold, so it's 18-24ths times the spot price. That's how much your ring is worth. And because I'm a nice person, I'm going to give you like 10% more for $1,000. quality and design and you know all that and by the way i want to place a large order i want to deliver it in 60 days and i will pay you 90 days after i received the shipment

when you're buying golden diamonds it's not like you get a 180 day terms right and so it's a brutal business it's not like working for google doing a b testing and i i have come to the conclusion that when all is said and done, there are two primary functions in business. You're either making it or you're selling it. And everything else is secondary. And so that was a very valuable lesson. And it's a lesson I like to pass on to people that, you know, if your lips are moving, you're probably selling. It may be selling your parent on letting you do something or maybe selling yourself for a job interview. It could be that you're in the check-in counter of United Airlines and you're trying to convince

somebody why you should be upgraded, but you are selling. It's so true. Dan Pink popularized this even more with The Sell is human that it feels like no matter what your job is, you're in sales. You're in sales. And so it's worth it to get good at that. So in a way, I'd have to imagine it was a huge blessing for you to have a sales job, a brutal sales job early in your career to set yourself up for the rest of your career in sales,

whether you had a quota or it was considered a sales job or not. Yes, yes, absolutely. And I wouldn't even say it was a mixed blessing. It was a pure blessing. Because I think as you, and this extrapolates to more than sales training. But I think as you look back, it's the toughest teacher, the toughest coach, the toughest boss, the toughest podcasting host. They're the ones who help you learn and improve your game. It's not the boss or the teacher that lets you get away with murder. But having said that, it can take 20 years to figure that out. Yeah, but you progress on, and we're going to fast forward a little bit to 1983.

Now looking back, it's like, wow, getting a job at Apple, Of course, that would be the coolest thing ever. But in 1983, those were different days. What happened in 1983? How did you get a job at Apple? Why did you say yes? Take me back to that time. Well, it started with falling in love with computers.

So I bet most of your audience can't even understand some of the terms I'm going to use. But back then, if you were in college and you had to turn in term papers, you had to type them. And so you either typed it yourself and you use erasable paper or the selectic typewriter, which lifted off the mistakes, or you used white out. Or if you just surrendered, you found a typist who would type the term paper for you. So that's the state of the art. And you're trying to make it like, you can't make it triple space, but maybe you can get double space because you're trying to meet. the minimum for the paper length and you know all that and then putting in footnotes and i mean it's a pain in they ask to do all these things that's so easy now in word and so you're coming from that

world and then someone shows you an apple tube with a word processor where you can just backspace over airs and you know you get it to where you want it and you press print and it spits off and that's like magic and it's it's hard to explain that to someone who grew up with who didn't grow up with typewriters so now so now you're in the apple two world and you have this sort of 24 by 80 monospace font and it's magic you press print and then somebody shows you mac write and mac write has multiple fonts integration of font and graphics you can change size you can make them bold and outline and shadow and underline. And it's another magical moment. I'm like getting all nostalgic, just thinking about it. And so I had fallen in love with the Apple II and personal computing.

And my friend who I went to school with at Stanford hired me. Now, you have to understand that, I mean, by all modern recruiting practices, you look for a person with the relevant educational educational background and relevant work experience. And I will tell you, I had neither because I majored in psychology at school because that's the easiest major I could find. And I had attended law school for two weeks and quit, which, you know, honestly, I quit an irrelevant program for tech, but still I quit something after two weeks. and I had this easy major and I quit law school

and I was coming from the jewelry business where I was counting golden diamonds. So, you know, if you're, thank God, I mean, if there were these resume reviewing systems today, it would have just spit me out because like irrelevant education, irrelevant work experience. Like, did he apply to this job by mistake? So I got hired because,

of this Stanford roommate and it was 100% nepotism. It was favoritism. It was a personal relationship. And I learned a variable lesson that I want to pass on to people, which is it doesn't matter how you got their job. What matters is what you do once you get your job. So it could be nepotism. You could be the boss's daughter, the founder's son, whatever it is. What matters next is what you do with the position, not how you got in. So true. And obviously you made some waves because it went well for you in your career. How did you take this good fortune, this good friendship, and then make the most of the opportunity?

I'm a grinder. I love to work. and I love to work and I loved the technology and that's a hard combination to beat I mean you could you could love Mercedes-Benz

but hate selling so you will never be a good Mercedes-Benz salesperson but if you love Mercedes and you love selling you're going to be Joe Gerard you're going to be the most successful car salesman in the world

and I loved computing and I love evangelizing. So my first job was a software evangelist. Evangelism comes from the Greek word, meaning bringing the good news. So evangelism, I think, is the purest form of sales because it's not just your quota, your bonus, your salary. Evangelism means you have good news and you're looking out for the best interest of the other person.

So when I was evangelizing Macintosh to developers, I really did believe that, you know, listen, Macintosh is good for you. It has much richer development environment. It's tapping a new market of people who would never buy computers. And it's avoiding your dependence or over-dependence on IBM. So for these three good reasons, becoming a Macintosh developer is good for you and it's also good for me. And that was my basis for evangelism, really for the rest of my career. I read that one of the most valuable things you learned from Steve Jobs was the importance and the willingness to change your mind, to change what you're doing, to reverse yourself

at an extreme. You said that's a high sign of intelligence. Why is it important for leaders to be willing to change their mind? Well, at the most basic level, it's because leaders, leaders are not always right. And I could even say maybe they're seldom right. So, you know, a good leader, this comes to the concept that I explain in the book of what's called a mission driven asshole.

So there are many kinds of assholes, but the most common form of asshole is the eagle-centric asshole. It's, you know, I'm the CEO. So it's all about me. I have my personal assistant. My personal assistant has a personal assistant. I have a driver. I have security.

I have my PR flags. This glorification is all about me. And that was not Steve at all. So the mission driven asshole is driven by the mission of bringing good news. Steve wanted to make people more creative and productive. So I could tell you, it wasn't about him. it was about making people more creative and productive. And that kind of asshole is,

it can be actually quite gratifying to work for because you see that this person is not out for himself. He's out for this cause. Let's make people more creative and productive. Let's bring this great computer to market. And so when you're a mission-driven asshole, it's about the mission. So if you're wrong, it's not a big deal to reverse yourself because it's good for the mission.

It may not be good for your personal prestige and eagle, but it's good for the mission. So mission-driven asshole is, no, I mean, a preference is you don't have to be an asshole, but it's better to have a mission-driven asshole than an eagle-driven nice person. An ego-driven nice person. And so did you work for some of those? Can't say that I have. I've been fortunate. Really?

Well, I'll give you an example of a mission-driven nice person. It's Melanie Perkins of Canva. I thought you might say that. She is a true class act. And she's like Steve Jobs with a heart and soul. Steve didn't have a heart and soul? Well, let's just say. that it was hard to detect sometimes.

But just mission focus, laser focus on that and didn't care about hurting feelings or having a heart or anything else. Whereas Melanie and Canva, I love Canva. I've used it for a while. I know it's one of my wife's all-time favorite tools. We're subscribers. We're paying customers of it. So, you know, you're like chief evangelist. You've been with them.

I feel like for a while now. But yeah, tell me more about Melanie and what it's like working with her. Well, I mean, when I first met Melanie, this is when she was starting this business for printing yearbooks. And it was out of her mom's spare bedroom in Western Australia. I think Perth. I've never been to Perth. So I can't tell you first hand. And listen, I have known a lot of CEOs.

I've known a lot of companies. And I don't know one company that is even close. to the Toyota saying of the relentless pursuit of perfection. Now, there are companies that are completely engineering driven. They're companies that are completely operational driven. There are companies that are completely sales driven. And when you see these companies, they're like really good at engineering, but everything else is kind of second-class citizens.

But I'm telling you, from top to bottom, when you meet people from Canva, They could be just working on the onboarding process. They could be in customer service. They could be in helping people set up their profiles and their billing cards and, you know, whatever. But everybody is trying to perfect what they do. There's people who they're in the position of we have to have a good, diverse collection of templates for any games. and design type, right? So a design type is like Instagram, 16 by 9 presentation, resume,

info landing page for Etsy, whatever. And there are people who are in charge and create the templates. And they are so into creating great templates. And that's why, you know, you can be productive in Canva faster than you can install Photoshop. It's because those people are. are trying to make the best collection of templates. So if you've thought about it, there probably is already a template for it. So if you're running an Etsy store and you say, well, Etsy store has a standard store background. I need to create a good one. You go to Canva.

You type in Etsy. I guarantee you you'll find a background maker. You can see why they hired you. How did that come about your relationship with the company? And what's your current state in relationship and working? what do you do day to day with the company? Okay, this is what I call Guy's golden touch.

Now, many people would assume guy's golden touch means guy, whatever he touches turns to gold. Let me tell you something. I wish that was true. So guy's golden touches, whatever's gold guy touches. What I'm trying to tell you is that Canva

and the key to great evangelists and evangelism is you evangelize something great because it is so easy to evangelize something great, and it is so hard to evangelize crap. So I've been fortunate. At the beginning of my career, I evangelized McIntosh.

At the end of my career, I'm evangelizing Canva. And so I was fat, dumb, and happy. I was using Twitter 10, 11 years ago, and I had someone working with me named Peg Fitzpatrick, and she was making most of my tweet. And we had this theory that every tweet should come with either a video or a picture. So she was using Canva to make the pictures for my tweets.

And one day, Cliff Obrecht, the co-founder, noticed that I was using Canva to make tweets. So he reached out to me and he said, hey, we're from Canva. And we noticed that you're using Canva to make your tweets. we're really thankful that you're using our product and we're going to be in the United States. Maybe there's some time we can get together. And it just, I happen to see that ad mention. I happen to respond. It happened that they're coming to the United States.

And it just all worked out. And then like two weeks later, they're at my house in Silicon Valley. And they give me this demo. And I say to Peg, you know, Peg, isn't Canva the thing you use? She says, yes. I say, well, is it any good? She goes, yeah, it's really good. I said, should I help them?

She says yes. So I can tell you honestly, if Peg Fitzpatrick had not told me all those things, I would not have helped Canva. And if I would not have helped Canva, I might not be on your podcast right now. So it was pure, you know, in a sense, dumbshed luck that they found me. And it was pure dumb shit luck that I responded positively. And the rest is history. But you know what you were doing, you were taking action, you were sharing your thoughts,

you were publishing your writing. Yes, you had somebody helping you that happened to be using their tool, but if you said, you know, I don't want to publish my thoughts publicly or online for all read, I'd rather keep that to myself. I'd rather just go about my life. If you went that route, then also none of this happens. And I think this is a good lesson, guy, that leaders, it is useful. Not only does it help make the world better and it help other people by publishing your or beliefs and your thoughts because you're teaching in a sense, but it also creates more opportunities for serendipity and luck. And anything that can do that for us, why wouldn't we do that in addition to helping

people along the way? It seems like a true win-win. Right. And it's a true win-win. And, you know, it doesn't cost anything, really. It just has to take an open mind, a growth mindset. And as Steve Jobs says, you can only connect the dots looking backwards. Can I tell you the ultimate story of connecting dots and serendipity and all that stuff?

Okay. So we got to go back way, way back in time over 50 years ago. And I'm a young punk in a lower middle class part of Honolulu. I'm in a public school. My sixth grade teacher tells my parents that I have too much potential. You should take me out of the public school system, put me in a private school system, make me go to college. Thank you, God.

My parents listened to her. Thank you, God, that my parents made the sacrifice to do that. So I get into this private school. I don't remember why, but somehow somebody convinced me to apply to Stanford. And I applied to Stanford. This is so long ago, back then, Japanese Americans were considered an oppressed minority. They had to be helped. They needed special treatment.

That's a little reverse today. But anyway, so because I'm Japanese American and by the grace of God, I get into Stanford. And then I meet this guy who eventually hired me into Apple, Mike Boych, right? So there's serendipity. Of course, I was properly prepared to be an evangelist because of the jewelry business of all things. Now I'm working at Apple and I'm successful. I'm pretty visible as a software evangelist, blah, blah, blah. 10 years later, I get this email out of the blue from the executive director of the TEDx Palo Alto conference.

And she says, I'm a Macintosh user. You don't know who I am, but I know who you are because I use a Macintosh. And Jane Goodall has an accepted invitation to speak at TEDx Palo Alto. And I need someone to interview her on stage. Are you interested? And my reaction is, holy shit. I mean, does the sunrise? Of course I'm interested. So I interviewed Jane Goodall and we become fast friends.

And then a few more years go by and I decided to do a podcast. And I'm thinking to do a podcast, you got to make a like splash, right? You got to like show people that you've arrived, that you're not just Guy Kawasaki interviewing somebody you never heard about something you never heard of. So I think, ah, who would be perfect, Jane Goodall? And to my utter amazement, she says yes. So my first guest on my podcast is Jane Goodall. And let me say that once you get Jane Goodall as your first guest, the second guess is pretty easy, right?

I don't know about you, but when somebody asked me to be on a podcast, if I'm not in a book introductory phase where I say yes to everybody, but generally speaking, when somebody asked me to be a guest, the first question I ask is, well, who else have you had? Because I want to see, you know, did you have Daniel Pink? Did you have Bob Cheldini? Angela Duckworth, Stephen Wolfram, Steve Woznih, Margaret Atwood, Stacey Abram, Vivek Murthy, you know, who have you had? And so, from beginning from episode two, when people say, well, who else have you had? I said, well, I don't know, I've had Jane Goodall, for example. Maybe you've heard of her.

And nobody ever says, you have mediocre second tier guests. I'm not going to come on your podcast. After the year, I had Jane Gull. So the point of this whole long story is that from the sixth grade teacher to Jane Goodle on my podcast, I can trace the dots. And a lot of it is serendipitous that I did a lot.

I not only was a software evangelist convincing developers. I just started helping people at random with Macintosh. I did whatever it took, not just developers, but, you know, anybody. And so that's why the TEDx person heard of me, which is why she invited me to interview Jane Goodall, which is how I became her friend, which is why she is on my podcast. Now, this is a long story. I'm starting to bore people, but now fast forward to 2003. And I asked Jane Goodall, can you write the forward?

for my book, Think Remarkable. And she says yes. So basically, I'm telling you, I got Jane Goodall on my podcast and to write the forward for my book because of a sixth grade teacher at Kalihi Valley Elementary School in Honolulu, Hawaii in about 1967. Guy, that is a lot of cool dots. I'll tell you, man, a lot of cool dots. But I'd have to imagine, and you go back and look at a lot of people's dots in their lives, that if you went to the private school and decided not to apply yourself and not to try and not to up your game, you probably don't go to Stanford. And then all the other dots are different as well.

And so, yes, you've got to be grateful for these teachers and these people who lift us up. But then once you get the up, just like you said with the job, once you get the opportunity, if you don't most of it, that dot and the future dots go away. So it's on all of us to make the most of the lucky situations we get to then create the next cool dot. Yeah. And you know what? People disagree with this theory of Biden, but my theory is you default to yes. When people ask you to do something, and I interviewed Andrew Zimmer, the bizarre foods guy.

and one of the points he made that stuck with me and made it into the book is that you know what when you're young you make yourself indispensable right you do the shit work you do the work nobody else wants to do when he was working for the TV station if the TV station management kids said well we got to lay some cable you know yes I'll go we got to set up some lights for this interview yes I'll go we got to figure out how to edit video yes I'll do that and so you make yourself indispensable. And then, I don't know, I don't know if it's just carmic scoreboard or it's justice,

but somehow it all returns to you. You just have to believe that. And if you don't, then be a tight ass and focus on only the things that you can see the immediate short-term return. And you're going to end up frustrated. If we have a daily focus on how we can help other people, how we can make their lives better, easier, help them excel. And that is just the constant drumbeat of how we show up in the world each day. It's weird how things seem to work out, isn't it? Yeah. It really is, and I seriously

think there's a Karmic scoreboard out there. And listen, when you say yes, sign me up, it leads to other opportunities and other conversations. Whereas no is a shut-door. It is a slamming door. It is the end of a discussion, right? So if you say yes, maybe a few days down the line, you have to change your mind because you just cannot do something. It takes a few days or a few weeks to figure that out. And in that time, maybe you figure out that, well, I said yes, and I really can do this. And I really want to.

So it's not that I never say no, but I say yes. yes, more than most people. Especially, you know, there's a whole class of, quote, unquote, influencers. And they're not going to mention your product unless, you know, there's some commission or some kickback or something like that. I'm at this stage in my life. I just help people for the sheer pleasure of helping people. And it comes back.

Speaking of helping people, you wrote in your acknowledgments of your book, or you call them Mahalo, I can make the case that acknowledgments or Mahalo in this case, it should be the first thing you read in a book. I'll tell you, Guy, it is the first thing I read in books because I'm most curious about the people behind how this book got made. And I wanted to ask about one of those people for you. I'll probably pronounce her last name wrong, but Lisa Leopold. Yeah. You said I've written 16 books, thousands of people have read drafts. Hundreds have offered me feedback. Lisa is the best tester I have ever encountered her. for detail and her logical thinking are remarkable and she is an expert in the art of apologizing.

Can you tell me more about Lisa and what she's meant to you? So there's a publication that I highly recommend to people. It's called The Conversation. And the Conversation only publishes articles by academics. So everybody has to have an academic standard and standing. And, you know, they could write about election fraud or they could write about how to apologize. But it's not just because you're making shit up. It's because you're a professor of political science or something. So she wrote this great article about apologizing.

And I was so taken with that article. I reached out to her and I said, I want to put you on my podcast. So we became friends. And I just noticed that she had it. extremely analytical mind. And she would point out logical fallacies to me and stuff like that. So I started sending her my drafts. And I've never met anybody who had a more organized and logical mind. And I pride myself in having an organized and logical mind. And she was just smoking me. And so we became friends. And she, she's a big part of the quality of this book. Because she would see

stuff like, you know, on page 25 guy, you said this, and on page 35, you contradicted yourself. I'm like, whoa. So that's her logical mind. And then her art of apologizing is really, I've never heard anybody so eloquently explain how to apologize. And there's a section in my book where I have an example from a politician and Mark Zuckerberg, where she dissects their apologies. and let's just say it's not pretty.

Can you go deeper into that section? Well, remember when Mark Zuckerberg apologized for the fact that Cambridge Associates got all this data during the election? What happens when CEOs make apologies is they never utter the most important two words. And those two words are, I'm sorry. It's always some kind of hedging like, I didn't intend for our company to leak your confidential data. I'm sorry if it had negative. No, they don't say I'm sorry.

I'm saying we regret that it may have had negative consequences for you. You know, we're always concerned about confidentiality. And this just happened by mistake. It's blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Why don't you just freaking say, I'm sorry, it should not have happened, right? And people don't do that. So she gave me a whole list of how to optimize their apologies. And I think that, you know, going back to the mission-driven asshole, a mission-driven asshole who can say, I'm sorry, is very hard to beat.

I'll give you one more clause. If you're a mission driven asshole who can say I'm sorry. And then three more magical words, which I swear never crosses the lips of most CEOs. And those three words are, I don't know. You show me a CEO who could say publicly, I don't know. And I'll show you a good CEO. I don't know is impactful and important. but I had a CEO tell me once that it's okay not to know,

but you also should follow up with, but I'm willing to work to figure it out. What about that follow-up part of it? Absolutely, yes. So, you know, especially if you're a young person, if somebody says to you, you know, what's the best way to shoot vertical video for TikTok and I want to blah, blah, blah, right?

And let's say that you really, you don't know. You should say, know but I will figure it out you should never ever say to your boss I don't know and stop it should always be I don't know but I'll find out because I pretty much this is even before AI every question that anybody has wondered about is probably answered on YouTube now I'm not saying if your boss says you know guy does God exists. Obviously, it's not that kind of question.

But any question about how do I create a table of contents in Microsoft Word, you know somebody has asked that question. There's something on Reddit or there's something on the Word help system, but there's a YouTube video. There's probably 20 YouTube videos for that. And so if you're a young person in particular, you should never, ever, ever say to your boss, I don't know without saying, I don't know yet. I'll get the answer for you.

You mentioned the title of your book. It appears that you were inspired to connect the title of your book to Apple's iconic think different campaign. What inspired that? Well, trust me when I tell you that one of the hardest parts of a book is the title. Mm-hmm. And what's even harder than the title is the subtitle. So we're searching for titles like how to be remarkable, remarkable you, every kind of permutation.

You throw that into chat, GPT, you describe the book, you ask it to come up with 10 titles and all that. Now, think different for those of you who are not around in 1997. Think Different is the ad campaign. This was an apple was on the ropes. And they came up with this ad campaign called Think Different, which featured because, Casso, Amira Earhart, Richard Branson, Albert Einstein, and people like that, Martin Luther King. And the pitch was that, you know what, if you want to be innovative, you want to be cool, you want to make a difference, you want to dent the universe, you have to think different. You can't think like everybody else.

And so it was a beautiful campaign, and between that campaign and the IMAX, the IMAX that today's IMAX, that today's IMAQ is. It's just like just a monitor and it's flat. But back then an IMAC was teardrop shaped. It looked like a big pregnant watermelon. And it came in colors like cherry and tangerine and blueberry and all that. It was really beautiful in its time. And so that ad campaign focused on people thinking different because you had to think different to use a Macintosh

when the whole world telling you that Apple's going to die. And so I was thinking, you know, that was really helpful for Apple. And well, now in the current state of the world, it's not enough to think different. You need to think remarkable. So I'm trying to up the game and I'm trying to up the challenge to not just think different, but think remarkable. And I didn't come up with the name. It was a surfing buddy of mine who said, you know what?

what you call it, think remarkable, like, based on think different. And I said, yes, that's absolutely what we should do. It's funny. When somebody comes up with the right title, you know, you kind of know it. What happened during the rollout meeting with Steve Jobs when you, with the Think Different campaign? I was afraid you're going to ask that. So I'm in this room.

I'm at Apple. I'm a chief evangelist. And Steve Jobs is just making his re-entry. to Apple. So Lee Klau, the advertising expert and really legend, he comes in and he shows the rough cuts of the think different television commercials. And this is a room with 10, 15 people in it, all the marketing people. And we just love the ad because it just captures the spirit of rebel and innovator and different thinker. at the end of this meeting, Lee Klaus says to Steve Jobs, I have two copies of the videotape.

I'll give one to you and one to Guy. And Steve Jobs, as only Steve Jobs could do, he says, don't give one to Guy. And now, this is one of those moments, you know, that you don't want to look back and say, why did I just cower in fear? Why did I just, you know, stick my tail between my legs and go off in a corner? This is a man or mouse moment. So Steve Jobs says, you know, don't give one to guy. So I stay.

What's the matter, Steve? Don't you trust me? And Steve Jobs, as only Steve Jobs could, he says, yes, guy, I don't trust you. So now, now this is the breaking point, right? This is, you're at the edge of the cliff. You're either going up or down. And so I say to him, that's okay, Steve, because I don't trust you either, Steve. Now, maybe in hindsight that witty remark cost me a few million in stock options, but I'm telling you, it was worth it. It was worth it just to tell this story.

What happened next? Well, eventually, shortly thereafter, I left Apple and I started starting companies in then. But I tell you something, a few years later, Steve asked me to return. turn to Apple to run Apple University. This is the training program for new employees. And I decline. So I'm the dipshit that left Apple twice and turned down Steve once. And if I were a bit more remarkable, I would have stayed at Apple. But then again, if I had stayed at Apple, I would have made a boatload of money, but I would also probably be insufferable. And then I would not have had a lot of these great experiences. And for one thing, you can't exactly be a podcaster and work for Apple because Apple so tightly

controls whatever you say. Talk about great experiences. I know somebody influenced you to start playing hockey in your 40s and surf in your 60s. Can you tell me more about that? Well, stories are true. I started playing hockey at the age of 44 and I started surfing at the age of 60. And for those of you familiar with either of those two sports, that's 40 years too late for hockey, and that's 56 years too late for surfing.

Now, the lesson behind this, though, is the book is divided into three sections, growth, grit, and grace. And this is about growth. So the growth mindset believes that you don't think your ability is fixed. that you can learn new skills, learn new subjects, that you can expand and grow. The fixed mindset says, you are what you are. You cannot be anymore. And if you are born naturally talented, you cannot be any less.

You cannot deteriorate. So I read the book of Carol Dweck, mindset. And it was eye-opening. It says basically, you know what, you're either a growth mindset person or a fixed mindset person. And this is two pieces of real evidence of a growth mindset, because let's just say that most people don't take up hockey at 44, especially if they never skated in their life. Because I came from Honolulu. And let's just say, there's not a lot of pond hockey in Honolulu, right? I mean, the closest thing to ice hockey in Honolulu is probably shaved ice.

And then at age 60, my daughter decides to really take up surfing. And I say, well, what the hell? You know, so I took up surfing too. And now surfing is an absolute obsession. So I have you and then I have one more interview and then I'm going surfing. That's my day today. That sounds like a great day, guy. It is.

The book is called Think Remarkable Nine Paths to Transform Your Life and Make. a difference, guy. I really appreciate the joy that's evident that you bring to each of your conversations as well as your storytelling ability to go through your career and to highlight some of these really cool things you've learned that can help all of us. I really appreciate it, man. Thank you so much for being here. Can I ask you a question? Of course. Is the background behind you? That's real, right? It is real. Yeah. And so what's your lighting? How many lights do you have on your face? I have a big one right here. You can probably tell. shining down. I have a side one right there. I have one right back there that's shooting back

here. I have that one you can see. That's more for show, but I think it's cool there. And then I have two bigger ones up there along with windows that are shining down here. I actually don't, cannot take credit for any of this. I asked the guys who video and film my speeches to come to my studio and to, I just said, hey, what should I buy? And then will you come to my studio and set it up? And so the camera that I have is this DSLR. That's really nice. All of the lights is all from the video guys and then we got it set up because I thought hey this is my full-time thing I want to it needs to be professionally done and so I got help from people who do this for their job and I think it's elevated the level of the podcast ever since we got this professional studio so you're saying

you have about six lights yes holy cow wow yeah and what kind of look as good as you so I got to try my best with everything I can find here you know I mean what kind of DSLR are you using it's a Sony I can send you the exact brand, but it's a Sony. It's a nice one. We have a special lens on it as well. I don't necessarily know the particulars other than I got exactly what they told me to get. And I said, I don't want to, the cost is not a factor. I want the best looking studio in the world. And so you tell me what it is. And those guys were like, it was like Christmas for them. So like, okay. And they got all the stuff. And here we are. Now, it's been a few years. And I love it. It's one of my favorite places to be. I get to hang out. This is where I write. This is where I think.

It's where I record podcasts. Video is really beautiful. So I have, I just learned of something that maybe you will probably all know you have a better system, but I just bought something from, I think it's El Gato, and it's a teleprompter. Teleprompter? Yeah. Do you use a teleprompter? I don't.

I don't. But if I was doing straight to camera reads, that's when I would need one for sure. I've used teleprompters, but not for my podcast. But you know what? I mean, I am the same way. I never put the text on the teleprompter. I just use it. So how are you so good at staring at the camera as opposed to looking at face, which is probably much lower?

It's funny that you notice that, but it is a lot of practice. I do it every day. It is very tiring, though, because I want to look at you. I know. But I'm looking at the camera. Yes. But it's like peak sometimes. But for the most part, for your benefit and for the benefit of the people why,

you have to look into the camera and it's not as natural, although it is natural for me now because I've done it for years, literally, and I do it with clients too. So clients, virtual speeches, you got to look into the camera. And so I'm just used to it by now. But until we find a better way, this is kind of the way we got to do it. I'm telling you, I think I have, maybe I can suggest a better way. So look up Elgato prompt. Okay. And one of the big pain in the asses of a teleprompter is that it's this thing that you put over your camera. But then there's a tray in front and then you have to figure out how to get an iPad or something to display.

That's what's reflected that goes into your eyes. Yeah. And to get that iPad to act as a second screen, there's always some kind of utility. And then every time you boot your computer, it's like, do you want to upgrade it now? or it doesn't find the system or whatever. It's all like it's a headache. Well, the El Gato prompt for like 300 bucks, it comes with a little monitor.

So you don't have to futz with an iPad. The monitor is part of the system and it's flawless. Are you using run right now? I didn't move the window. So right now, right now I think I'm looking your eyes. Now, I'm moving, if I move the window up to the teleprompter, now I'm looking at the teleprompter, and now I know I'm looking at your eyes. It makes it a lot easier.

So. I'm going to get one. Thank you. And you took it right up to your DSLR? It comes with a bunch of little lens brackets. So depending on size lens, you use the right bracket, and then it hooks onto the camera. I mean, it's really well done. Trust me.

Well, you look amazing. You're going to teach your AV people something. They're going to say, my God, you know, wow, you got this before we did. Yeah, I'm going to buy it right when we get off here, man. And then I'll figure out how to work it later. But, yeah, anything to make this thing better, there's no point. Great already. Well, this was awesome.

I didn't know I was going to get this little lesson at the end. But from a fellow podcasters, it is cool to talk through these things. That's usually where you learn this stuff. You look amazing, by the way. So good living and your setup is beautiful too. So anyway, I'm going to leave all this in. I think it's fun. But I really appreciate a guy.

Enjoy your next interview. And enjoy those times on the waves out in the ocean, man. That's the best. Oh, we will. Awesome. Bye-bye. Thank you. 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 learning leader.com. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Guy. A few takeaways from my notes, the jewelry store job. It's helpful to know that we are all in sales every day. Whether you think you are or not, you are. You are selling yourself, your ideas, projects, products.

It's useful, in fact, probably mandatory if you want to do well to learn how to sell. Then I loved his description of Melanie Perkins, CEO of Canva, which, by the way, is an amazing product and company. one I use almost every day. And certainly people on my team use it every day. She said she's Steve Jobs with heart and soul. Canva is on a relentless pursuit of perfection. What a mission.

And then I enjoyed his counting dots story. It started in sixth grade, a teacher pushing him to go to a private school. That leading him to getting into Stanford, which is where he met Mike Boych, who ended up hiring him at Apple, then getting asked to go on to the TEDx state. with Jane Goodall. There's so many stories and dots throughout Guy's career. And it seems that he has been prepared and he has made the most of the good fortune in his life. And we can all learn from that. 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 Guy Kawasaki. I think he'll help you become a more effective leader. And because you do that and you go to Spotify and

Apple podcast and you subscribe to the show and you rate it five stars hopefully and you write it thoughtful were you and by doing that you are continually 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 talking soon can't wait