The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk - 693: Tina Seelig - Fortune vs. Luck, The Power of Curiosity, Why Your Words Change Lives, Failure Résumés, Thank You Notes, and Creating Luck Through Relationships, Observation, & Daily Action

Episode Date: June 21, 2026

Order my new book - The Price of Becoming www.LearningLeader.com/Becoming The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire one person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world has the hustle and grit to deliver. My Guest - Tina Seelig has spent 27 years at Stanford teaching some of the world's most ambitious people how to see and seize opportunities. She's a neuroscientist, the executive director of Knight Hennessy Scholars, and the author of 18 books. Her TED Talk on luck has been viewed over 3.4 million times. Her newest book is called What I Wish I Knew About Luck: A Crash Course on Turning Aspirations into Achievements. Key Learnings Tina's dad died at 99 and a half. Three weeks before his first great-grandbaby was born. He was still driving, going to three dinner parties a week, and talking to Tina every day. His curiosity was his superpower. He gave 66 lectures in his retirement community over 20 years, on topics ranging from nuclear weapons to climate change. Train yourself to be a professional noticer. When Tina's dad walked his grandkids into a new room, he'd give them a minute, then say "Shut your eyes." How many doors? Windows? What color is the carpet? Assume there's a million dollars in every room. It's up to you to find it. Opportunities are ubiquitous. You just have to look. Take the headphones off. The most powerful things happen when you engage with strangers. Standing in line. On the plane. Walking through campus. Tina sat next to a stranger named Mark on a plane. He was a publisher. He said no to her book proposal. She kept the relationship going. Years later, his editor approved the same proposal she had given Mark. Within two weeks, she had a contract. Wear something that invites conversation. A logo. A backpack from a conference. A college baseball shirt. Give the world a hook to start with you. Fortune is what happens to you. Luck requires action. Most people confuse the two and miss the chance to claim their agency. "With my luck, it's gonna rain." Reframe it: "With OUR luck, it's gonna be a beautiful sunny day." The reframe changes what you see.  Luck seldom sails solo. Most luck comes through other people. Cultivating meaningful relationships is the most underrated lucky behavior. You don't get a job. You get the keys to the building. The visible work isn't what gets you ahead. The invisible work is. Between stimulus and response is a choice. (Viktor Frankl) Within the constraints of fortune, agency is everything. "Tina, you think like a scientist." One sentence from a professor changed Tina's life. Leaders, know the weight of your words. Twenty years later, Tina wrote that professor a thank-you note. Twenty years after that, his granddaughter wrote back. They had read part of Tina's letter at his funeral. When a student made a bad decision, Tina's first instinct was to punish. She paused. Said, "Help me understand what happened." The whole community learned what empathy and humility look like in leadership. Unresolved conflict sucks the energy out of your day. Resolve it. You become taller, lighter, more open to lucky things. Oliver Greenwald sent Tina a list of 10 ways he could help her with her book. Nothing on the list was exactly what she wanted. She hired him anyway, because of the initiative. Build the sail to catch the wind. Build the ship. Your internal work. Values. Story. Goals. Recruit the crew. The people in your world. Hoist the sail. What you do every single day. Your core values are the keel of your ship. Without them, the first strong wind capsizes you. Keep a failure resume. Document what didn't work and what you'll do differently. Don't perseverate. Move on. "It's all good in the end. If it's not good, it's not the end." We're always in the middle of the story. Tina sends thank-you notes every single day. Five or ten minutes. Three or four sentences. Closes the loop. Builds the relationship. Don't end the dinner without making the next date. Most people drop the ball. Get it on the calendar before you leave. The instant you think something positive about someone, tell them. Be specific. Text. Email. Call. The instant. Tina's champagne moment: her newborn granddaughter at one year old. She just learned to turn over and looks so proud of herself. Reflection Questions What's on your failure resume right now that you haven't yet extracted the lesson from? Are you perseverating, or moving on? Whose thank-you note are you going to send today? Specific, genuine, unprompted.  Where in your life are you waiting for fortune and calling it bad luck? What is the action you've been avoiding because it requires you to put yourself out there? More Learning #679: Kat Cole: The Four Mindsets Every Leader Needs #669: Oz "The Mentalist" Pearlman: Overcoming Rejection, Getting the Reps, and Always Follow Up  #663: Priya Parker: The Art of Gathering: How We Meet & Why It Matters Episode Chapters 00:00 The Price of Becoming - Pre-Order Now!  01:09 Meet Tina Seelig  02:39 Tina's Dad: A Life of Curiosity at 99 and a Half  05:14 Becoming a Professional Noticer  06:54 The Stranger on the Plane Who Became Her Publisher  11:03 Wear Something That Invites a Conversation  14:11 Fortune vs. Luck: The Difference Most People Miss  16:08 The "With Our Luck" Reframe  21:09 Take the Earbuds Off and Get Out the Door  23:21 You Don't Get a Job, You Get the Keys to the Building  27:58 The Sentence That Changed Tina's Life  28:49 The Thank-You Note Read at a Funeral  31:52 The Student Who Made a Bad Decision  34:03 Oliver Greenwald and the List of Ten Ways to Help  37:04 The Sail Metaphor: How to Catch the Winds of Luck  39:41 What to Tell the Cynic Who Says "I'm Unlucky"  43:01 Core Values: The Keel of Your Ship  45:05 Why You Should Keep a Failure Resume  47:15 Send a Thank-You Note Every Single Day  52:06 The Champagne Question: Her Granddaughter at One  53:36 EOPC

My next book, The Price of Becoming, will be out soon. I have sent it to a number of authors and leaders that I really look up to, and I ask them what they thought. And here is what Liz Weissman, one of the greats of our times, as both a leader and a writer said, about the price of becoming. Quote, Ryan Hawk is a master of dualities. He's a great leader, but also a ferocious learner. He's an accomplished athlete, but he's also excelled in the business world. He's eminently interesting, but he's also genuinely interested. It is kind of weird reading these things about yourself.

Anyway, Ryan hasn't covered the secrets of what the best leaders do and how they think. Do yourself and your team of favor and read this book. I am so grateful for Liz's support and all of yours. I would love it if you'd go to learning leader.com and pre-order the price of becoming right now. or go straight to Amazon and pre-order the price of becoming right now. Thank you so much for your support. Welcome to The Learning Leader Show, presented by Insight Global. I am your host, Ryan Hawk.

Thank you so much for being here. Go to learningleader.com for show notes of this and all podcast episodes. Go to learningleader.com. Now, on to tonight's featured leader. Tina Selegg has spent 27 years at Stanford, teaching some of the most ambitious people in the world how to see and seize opportunities. She's a neuroscientist, an executive director of Knight Hennessy Scholars, and the author of 18 books. Her TED Talk on Luck has been viewed over 3.4 million times. Her newest book is called What I Wish I Knew About Luck.

During our conversation, we discussed the critical difference between fortune and luck, and why a lot of people confuse the two in ways that cost them opportunities every single day. Then, how talking to the person next to her on an airplane changed her life. In fact, we would not have met if she didn't do that. And then the value of keeping a failure journal and why, why writing thank you notes will make you luckier. Ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy my conversation with Tina Sealing. So I thought it was really cool that you dedicated your book to your dad.

My mom and dad both are heroes of mine, very much my life. And you said, for his 100th birthday, I'm so fortunate to be your daughter. Now, I know some things happened from between when you wrote it and when you published it, but I'd love to learn the story of your dad and some of the greatest learnings from your dad. Oh, my gosh. Thank you so much for asking that. My dad was amazing.

He died at 99 and a half, literally three weeks before his first great grandbaby was born. So I sort of feel that she looks at me, you know, that it's his eyes, that he's looking at me through her eyes. He was amazing. My father was sort of larger than life. and so curious.

Obviously, he's 99 and a half, but he was still driving. He went to three dinner parties that week. I talked to him every single day. The night before, he said, everything's under control. Love you. And literally he was walking to get the newspaper and just, it was over. I learned so much from him. I think the most important is his incredible curiosity.

He asked questions. all the time about anything. When I was a kid, he would say, do you want me to come to your class and talk? I'd say, what do you want to talk about? He said anything. When he was living in this retirement community, he gave 66 lectures in 20 years

on topics ranging from nuclear weapons to climate change. He just picked topics. He would do a deep dive because he was just so curious. So I think that's one of the most important things I learned from him. Hmm, how does that, because I think that's a superpower to be a curious person. I've felt the benefit from developing, I think it's a skill from developing that skill personally,

as well as it's one as a dad now that I'm trying to make sure, like, stays very constant and present in the lives of our children. What did your dad being such a curious person do for you as a leader, as an academic, as a teacher? I'm very curious. Yes, and you're curious, right? So he just taught me how to ask really good questions and to question what I was saying. You know, one of the things, in fact, here's a little trick. Maybe you can do with your kids. How old are your kids?

All the way from 19 down to 11. Oh, my goodness. Okay. How fortunate for you. I just have one child, but he just had a baby, and I'm hoping for more. So that would be a good return on investment. But you know what he used to do with his grandkids? whenever they would go into a new room,

let's say we were at a family event or at a party, he would tell them to go, look around the room, he'd give them a minute, and then you'd say, shut your eyes, and he would test them to see how observant they were. Wow. How many doors were there? How many windows? What color is the carpet?

It was really fascinating, and they got trained to walk into any room and just pay, requisite attention to everything. I've never heard of that, but that is awesome of an idea to train and teach people to have their eyes open, to be aware of the world, to be professional noticeers. I found great leaders are that. They're professional noticers of the world.

Of the way people move, of their body language, of all that. What an advanced skill. I've never heard of somebody doing that. Well, when we were kids, he used to turn everything into a science experiment. So, for example, we would be at dinner at a restaurant and there would be a bowl of olives and he would blindfold us and see whether we could tell the difference between black and grieva olives. Or somebody left the cap off the toothpaste tube and he'd line us up and he'd take our pulses and do a lie detector test.

What's your name? What's your birthday? What's your favorite color? Did you leave the cap off the toothpaste? And you know what? we sort of just learned to see everything is an opportunity for an experiment. I love it.

That's awesome. That's awesome. I want to get to us another story about you now, and that's the origin, not only of this book, but some other books. So a lot of us, we get on an airplane and we're gonna fly cross country, and it's like, all right,

let me put on the headphones and listen to music and read a book or watch a movie or take a nap. And you decided one of these flights to not put the headphones on and have a conversation with this guy named Mark sitting close by. Can you tell me what you did that day and how maybe you created some luck for yourself by not putting those headphones on? Well, I think this is really, really important, Ryan. I learned from one of my colleagues years ago that you should assume that there's a million dollars

in every room, it's up to you to find it, that there are opportunities everywhere. And that's actually the thesis of my work on luck, is that opportunities are ubiquitous. And so when you walk into a situation, it could be sitting on an airplane. It could be standing in line next to someone in a coffee shop. It behooves you to at least say hello. And so you're referring to the story I tell in the book about how I am sitting, getting on this early morning flight, you know, you're just tired. You want to just go to sleep. But, you know, after a little rest and breakfast, I turned to the guy next to me and started chatting. And it turned out he was a publisher. We ended up having a fabulous conversation In fact, halfway through the discussion, I said, by the way, I happened to have a book proposal on my

laptop. And he was kind enough to look at it and said, well, this is not for us, Tina, but thank you so much for showing it to me. But we stayed in touch. In fact, as we left the plane, he texted me and said, hey, you know, let's stay in contact. And I did. Again, most people would just drop it there, shut the door. But I didn't. And I kept the relationship going. I invited him. him to come to my class. I had a class course I was teaching at Stanford on creative problem solving. I said, hey, let's do a project on the future publishing. And I got him engaged. I started sending him projects my students did. This relationship continued until at one point he was at campus with one of his editors actually exploring the possibility of doing a project with my students. When his editor

said, hey, Tina, have you considered writing a book? And I was able to give him the, exact same proposal I had given Mark, and within a couple weeks I had a contract. So even though he said no initially, just by keeping the conversation going. And I think this is one of my luck superpowers is I'm willing to try anything, you know, willing to just ask. But if there's a little bit of a spark, to just keep adding a little bit more fuel to it. And maybe it may you make a new friend. Maybe you end up with a collaboration. Maybe you end up with hiring someone. There are all sorts of things that result from saying hello. But you know what? If you didn't do that, that entire world would not have existed. You know, I always love to think that we were always one decision away from a

completely different life. And if I had decided not to start that conversation, we would not be talking now. You think about the butterfly effect of all the things that have happened since then because you didn't take a nap or you said, yeah, let me do the thing that may be a little bit uncomfortable and say hello and strike up a conversation. Maybe he doesn't want to. I don't you, we start telling ourselves all these stories in our head as to why we don't do things when the only way to create some luck or even to give yourself a chance to get lucky is to potentially do the uncomfortable thing or to take some sort of action to show up at the place. I love those stories. I think those stories are inspiring and they actually will motivate and inspire others to,

okay, I'm going to go do it. Okay, I'm going to go do it. I think that's why it's important to tell all of these. There's a difference between fortune and luck. Can you compare and contrast the difference between fortune and luck? I sure can. And I just want to double down on the other topic for one second, which is that one of the ways to start a conversation with someone is to even have some hook. For example, if you're standing in line next to someone and they're wearing a logo from a organization you know about, or they're carrying a coffee cup that has, I don't know, some drawing on it, something that you can mention, something to start the conversation, because it can be an easy, easy thing to do.

I mean, just a few weeks ago, I was standing in line in Brooklyn at a coffee shop. I know this intrinsically that I should say hello to someone. So I just heard of the nice young woman standing next to me and I said, you have a beautiful dress. And she said, oh, it's rent the runway. And we ended up having a really nice conversation. At the end, we got linked on LinkedIn because we found we had so many interests in common. And it came from just literally saying, oh, wow. you have a nice dress.

Yeah. I just had to thought. I was on a cruise out of the country. And I had a guy on this podcast who I've now, I love, and he's become a great friend. He's the head baseball coach at Denison, so college baseball coach. And after the podcast, he sent me a shirt to Denison baseball. I'm kind of prone to wearing shirts like I'm wearing right now, just like I kind of a plain black shirt, whatever.

I don't really like to think about clothes. Anyway, though, I was on this cruise. I'm with my brother, and I wore the Denison baseball shirt this one day, because we're just going to go out for a swim or whatever. And a lady stops me who gets off the cruise boat. She gets Dennis and Baseball, I never see a Denison Baseball shirt anywhere. Amazing. How do you know that? I said, well, you know, I kind of told her a little bit about Mike Deegan is his name.

And he became one of my friends or wherever. She goes, what? And then said, my son played for Mike Deegan. I love him. He's one of my favorite humans. And then I saw her literally throughout the rest of this cruise. And we kind of bonded over Mike Deegan and Dennis and Baseball and had so many good conversations that went a lot further

than that. And so you never know. I'm just wearing a random shirt that a friend gave me of a school that not a lot of people have heard of, and I create a friendship over the course of that. So there's just millions of stories like that. Yeah, that you just never know. Exactly. I was wearing up, carrying a backpack, which had a logo of a conference I had gone to. And I was getting on a plane, and the women standing next to me said, oh, did you go to this conference? And I said, yes, we started chatting, we actually changed our seats on the flight so that we could sit next to each other. We talked for five hours. She became a fast friend. We are now collaborators for the last 15 years. Wow. It would never have happened if I hadn't been carrying the backpack with the logo and she said,

hey, that's, you know, I'm curious. Tell me more. So I think there are little ways that you can tempt luck your way by even inviting people to have a conversation, whether it's your backpack or your shirt or your hat or starting a conversation with somebody who has something that you see a connection. Okay. Let's get to the difference between fortune and luck. Super. Very, very, very, very important. People use these terms interchangeably, and it's a big mistake. Fortune is the things that happen to you, put things out of your control. I don't control the weather. I don't control who my parents were. I don't control where I was born or what decade or what century. But I have some control over luck in my life. Luck requires you to take a chance. It requires you to do something. And if you understand the

difference between fortune and luck, you start claiming the agency you have to make the things you want happen. How lucky of a person are you? I feel extraordinarily lucky. But I also, I I'm very aware that I'm also very fortunate. So I have my students do a fortune and luck resume. Essentially, take a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle, write down all the things that you're either fortunate or unfortunate to have happened in your life, and then the things where you're lucky. And you realize there's a dance between them.

This is very, very important. So let me give you an example. I was fortunate growing up that my aunt and uncle were scientists at the National Institute of Health. like that was something totally out of my control. But I was lucky because I asked if they would help me find a summer internship. Right. I could have ignored it. I was fortunate that they were able to find someone who would be happy to have me in their lab.

I was lucky because I worked really hard and designed my own research and ended up writing some papers. So you're in a constant dance between fortune and luck, the things that happened to you and how you respond, right? If you ask me a question, I get to decide how to respond. or if we're in an argument, you might yell at me, I get to decide how to respond. We're in this dance all the time, and that agency is one of the most powerful things to harness in your life. I want to bring up a pet peeve of mine, and I'm going to just get your response, okay, as well as how my wife, Miranda, and I both handle this. Okay, I don't know if I said that right, but we'll get to it. Okay. When somebody says, Tina, with my luck, and then they fill in the blank with something that's really negative.

With my luck, it's going to rain. With my luck and then fill in with something negative. This is a big part of our relationship from the very beginning where we said, with our luck, and then we would fill in the blank with something that was very positive. Started on our wedding day because it was supposed to rain. And Miranda, I've sold the story a lot. With our luck, it's going to be a bright, beautiful sunny day for all of our guests. and for us to celebrate, it's going to be amazing.

And it was. Now, we don't control the weather. I realize that. But my point is, it is so nice and so enjoyable to be in a relationship with a person who genuinely thinks they're lucky, who genuinely says, with my luck and then fills in the blank with something that is positive. It is not that fun, in my opinion, to be around people who say, well, with my luck, and then they fill in the blank with something bad.

Hearing all of that and you being the person of understanding luck, what do you think? I think that's such an interesting example. I'm going to start using that. Can I borrow that from you with my luck? Please. It's going to be sunny tomorrow. So much about being lucky starts with your attitude.

And if you have an attitude that good things are going to happen, you are much more likely to see them. If I walk into a room and said, gosh, there's probably going to be someone interesting here I want to meet. You're going to go around and start saying, gosh, there's some interesting connection here. If you go into the room and think, oh, this is going to be boring, I can't believe I have to be here. Oh, my gosh, this is another burden. You're going to shut yourself off.

And so, you know, yes, having the attitude that it's going to be sunny on your wedding day is not going to change the weather. But when you walk through life with the possibility of good things happening, there's a higher likelihood that you will see those positive things. Now, if it rained on your wedding day, maybe you would have, you know, said, okay, how do we make, you know. We would have danced in the rain, though. Yes, yes, yes, yes. I think the whole point is, and also from a leadership perspective,

like nobody wants to follow somebody who's in a bad mood all the time or who was such a negative thinker that also thinks they're not lucky. Again, us thinking that doesn't technically make us more luckier. I do think, as you said, though, the way you phrase it is really good. It almost has your eyes opened for the possibilities of the good things, especially like, yeah, I'm going to event, oh, no, I'm tired. I don't want to go instead of saying, hey, I might meet someone who changed my life today. I'm going to try to walk into this event being really curious and excited and have a good,

positive attitude. Let's see what happens. Let's see what happens. Again, that doesn't guarantee anything good is going to happen. But I like your odds a lot more if you show up with that type of juice and energy and enthusiasm versus someone who says, oh, this sucks, I don't really want to do this. Well, also, people want to be around people who are positive and optimistic. So it's a self-fulfilling prophecy, right?

If you walk in the room and you're open and you're generous and you're curious about who other people are in the room, in fact, this brings up a really good point, though. One of the things I talk about is the fact that luck seldom sales solo. Luck, most luck, comes through other people. And so actually spending the time to cultivate meaningful and authentic relationships means that you're much more likely for wonderful things to come your way because you have more people on your team. Right. As an athlete, I'm sure you know this, right? I mean, the better the relationships with those people you have on your team,

the more lucky you will be collectively. And understanding that sets the stage for more positive things to happen. Yeah, it's funny. I had a guy on one of my favorite writers. He's named Tim Urban. He writes at wait but why.com. Sure. You know Tim?

Yeah. Beautiful writer. I mean, I know his work. Yeah. I've recorded them a few times. And he was talking about like how to get lucky in dating. He then eventually met his wife. They have kids, all this stuff.

And he's like, well, I can tell you how not to get lucky in dating. Never go on dates. It sounds basic, but like increase your surface area, the potential for luck. And I think you could take that same metaphor to anything else, just like you going on the airplane. not having the headphones in, having conversations, doing the thing. If you want to get lucky and meet somebody to potentially be a life partner, well, then you got to get out there. You got to go see them.

You got to go meet people. And so I love, again, your whole mentality, this idea of how we can create more of a surface area for luck in all aspects of our life. Now, let's think about this in relation. Well, can I, can I dive in here? Yeah, please. I really don't want to leave this point. Please.

There are two important things here. One thing I want to bring up in one fun story. Okay. First of all, I see people right now on campus at Stanford walking around campus with earbuds in, headphones on. I think this is the worst thing that can happen to the community because the most powerful things happen when you engage with people, especially people who you randomly run into. And if you're walking through campus that has essentially been curated with some of the most interesting people around and you're not engaging. engaging. What a missed opportunity. And I think that this happens when people are walking through the city, not looking at each other, standing in line for coffee. In fact, I got an email from someone

I didn't know who heard me talking about this recently. And she said, you know what? I decided to break my routine and take on my earbuds and I'm standing in line with coffee. I started a conversation with the person next to me. And they became an investor in my company. And it's like in just a very short time taking off those earbuds. The other thing is a really fun story about dating. My neighbor, my next door neighbor, Monique, she really, really wanted to find her life partner. And she's lovely and beautiful and brilliant and interesting and charming. But she just was staying home. She was at the end of the day where she would get at home, put on her pajamas, get into bed, read a book and go to sleep. And one night, her friend,

it was a Friday night about five years ago. Her friend came over on Friday night and said, we're going to this party. She's, no, I don't want to. I'm talking. I'm already in bed. I'm in my pajamas. And she said, no, no, no, no, no, you're going to come. And finally, she relented. She got up. She put on her boots and her jacket over her pajamas. She didn't even comb her hair. And they went out to this club and to make a long story short, two weeks later, she was engaged. I mean, she met this guy there. It was clear from the get-go that this was a match. And she would never ever have had that situation happen if she had stayed at home. Read your book in bed.

You got to get out. Got to do it. Got to do it. One of your quotes that I love, I want you to expand on that I thought was helpful, this is a little shift to careers. Quote, you don't get a job. You get the keys to the building. You don't get a job.

You get the keys to the building. Say more about that. Oh, I tell this to my students all the time, and I try to keep it in mind for myself as well. When you have a job, if you just do the job that you've been hired to do, you've let people know that's what you want to do and that's your job. But if you volunteer for new things, if you see other opportunities where you can be helpful and say, pick me, pick me, or how can I help, how can I help? Amazing things happen. People look around at others who get ahead and they

think, what did they do? Why are they so lucky? But if you look behind the scenes, you will see what they did. There are all these sort of things that are invisible. And what I'm trying to do is pull back the curtain and say, look what these people did. It might have been that they helped someone with a problem and like, wow, I really trust this person. I'm going to put them in a bigger role. Or they showed appreciation, right? They said, thank you when someone did something. Now, maybe that sounds quaint. But most people don't do that. And it's these little things that set you apart that set the stage for luckier things to happen. You call Robert Sapolsky. This guy writes a book that, I don't know, argues against kind of what you believe, what you think. And you just said, I'm just going to call

them, right? Talk about like making it happen, pick up the phone, go see him. Can you tell me that story? Yeah. So, well, Rob Spolte, he's a super famous guy. He's written all these books. He's a very, very famous primatologist and spends a lot of time out with the baboons looking at their behavior. And he wrote a book called Determined, basically arguing that there's no such thing as free will. And I thought that's just crazy. If I think there's no such thing as free will, then like I just think everything is predetermined and there's no such thing as I can't create my own luck. I don't know his work that well, but that seems I want to be respectful.

Not fun. I don't know. Like, can you describe the backstory of that work? because I don't understand. The idea that I live and I don't have agency over my life seems insane to me. Yeah, apparently when he was a teenager, he woke up one day and said,

oh, everything is predetermined. And so he's been sort of working with this framework that, you know, starting from the moment you were conceived, you know, everything is just playing out based on your genetics and your, you know, the things that happened to you. But I beg to differ. I think we do have choices.

And our choices determine. what happens. Now, we had a very long conversation, and it was really interesting. And so I ultimately conceded that there are some constraints, right? I'm not going to become a world famous basketball player, right? I'm not tall enough. I'm not big enough and strong enough to go be a football player. But within this very large, large frame, I have lots and lots of choices. And in fact, you know, one of my favorite quotes is from the famous psychologist Victor Frankel, who says, you know, between stimulus and response is a choice. And that's the point.

What I'm really focused on what happens in that choice? What are the things we get to decide every single day that point us closer and closer to the directions we want to go? How does thinking that way make you better as a teacher,

make you better as a leader? It makes you better because, A, you are much more open to what's happening in a classroom. I compare being a teacher to surfing because you're constantly responding to what's happening and you can be very nimble. And so it makes you better leader, it makes you better teacher, right? The world is changing.

The people in the room are changing. In fact, I've been teaching for 27 years now. And you could say, wow, doesn't that get boring? But not at all. Because every year you have new students, you have a new context. And it's fresh every single year. Think about how different the world is now that it was a few years ago. We have so many different issues that we need to think about.

Problems we get to solve. Students come in with very different backgrounds. And so if you have this nimbleness and you're paying attention and you're curious, you can respond in a very different and fresh and appropriate way to every one of these different situations. What do you like best about teaching? Oh my gosh. I love teaching. The students are so wonderful. I learn something new from them every single day. And it is just an incredible honor to be able to influence them at this time in their life. Now, let me tell you a story.

When I was a student way back in the Stone Ages, I was studying neuroscience. And I had a professor who read one of my papers. And at the time, top he wrote, Tina, you think like a scientist. At that moment, I was a sophomore in college, I became a scientist. It was as if every cell in my body changed in that moment when he gave me that encouragement. I realized that I have that power with my students too. I have that power to say something or do something or encourage them to do something or reframe a situation that they may be struggling with that allows them to see the possibilities they might not have seen before. Now, it's funny, that story is actually more interesting because 20 years later, after I got this

comment for my professor, 20 years later, I started teaching at Stanford. And I wrote this professor a thank you note 20 years later. I wrote the letter saying, thank you so much for being such an inspiring teacher, look, what's happened. I got my PhD in neuroscience and now I'm teaching at Stanford, and I'm trying to embody the same sort of skills that you demonstrated for me. Now, I didn't hear from him, and I actually didn't know if he got my letter, even if he was still alive. But 20 years later, last year, I got an email from his granddaughter, and she said, my grandfather, my grandfather, just died at 95 years old, and at his funeral, my father read an excerpt of your letter. It's a reminder that showing appreciation not only is just a nice to have. This was so powerful

that this letter of appreciation was moved through two different generations. And I think not only was he an amazing teacher teaching me had to inspire myself. students, but reminding me the power of showing appreciation for those people who have done something meaningful for you. When we're in influential and leadership roles, sometimes this is where humility can actually hurt somebody because they don't think of the weights and the power of their words. That's why I wanted to be in this leadership world and focus on it and help others become better as leaders is because there's so much power that you can then lift others up simply. you by what you say. This teacher changed your life and not only changed your life, but changed

tons and tons of other people's lives because of what he said to you, because now you have gone on to be a leader. You've gone on to teach lots of people and impacted them. So the ripple effect is far and wide because that teacher was wise enough and used his power for good. And that's the beauty of leadership. That's the beauty of lifting others up. And that's the beauty of That's our responsibility. Like how cool, like how awesome of a responsibility is it that we get as leaders that we can make that type of an impact. But you got to do it, though. You see it, oh, there's something in Tina. There's something about it. You're a scientist. I see it in you. Those are great reminders for all of us as leaders to understand the weight of our words and then

to use that power for greatness in the world. Right. And it's not just your words. It's also your actions. You know, things happen and people see what you do. And, you know, I run a leadership program now at Stanford. And I know that one of the most important lessons is how I lead. You know, I had a student who did something last week that was pretty unfortunate. They made a decision that was a bad decision. And my initial reaction was, wow, they need to get punished. This was a bad decision with a bad outcome. And I'm really mad. And I'm going to do something. but I took the time to calm down. And when I met with the student, I said, help me understand what happened.

Tell me. Tell me more. What set the stage for this? And once I learned what was going on, I could be very supportive and empathetic because the student had been going through a very difficult time and was not their best self. And I realized if I had punished them, it would have been a very, very bad outcome for everyone. But not only did this student get to see my behavior,

they got to see what it looks like to treat someone that way, and the rest of the community gets to see what it looks like to treat someone with empathy and humility and open-mindedness and curiosity. And even though in times when it's difficult to do it, I mean, we live in a world where there's a lot of confidence, And one of the things that I know and that I write about is the importance of conflict resolution to be luckier. Because if you wake up in the morning and you are in the middle, like the first thing you think about is a conflict you have with someone. And if that is that conversation that you're having in your brain all day long is an enormous distraction.

It sucks the energy out. And if you can resolve that, and especially resolve it in a way that you're proud of, all of a sudden, you're taller, you're lighter, you're more open to more positive opportunities. Another person you've helped, I read about this in the acknowledgments, Oliver Greenwald. Yes. He watched your TED Talk, he reaches out to you. I love stories like this. What happened with Oliver Greenwald?

Oh, I love Oliver. He's like one of my favorite people on the planet. He sent me an email about a year and a half ago. he said, I saw your TED talk on luck and it really resonated with me. I do all of these things. I want to become a luck coach. And could I have just a few minutes of your time to talk about what I'm doing? So I actually thought about it for a little bit because I had just started writing my book on luck. And I wanted to figure out what sort of stance I wanted to have with him around this and I was super busy. And I get lots of emails for people who want to, you know, a few minutes of my time.

But I said, you know, I read his email again, and I thought, you know what, let me take the call. So I took the call with Oliver. He was super kind. He had lots of good ideas, and I gave him my feedback. But he didn't stop there, right? He sent me a thank you know, right? He did the right thing. He sent me a thank you, you know, thank you so much for your time. But he took it to the next step. He said, I understand you're writing this book on luck. If I can be helpful in any way, please let me know. In fact, here's a list of 10 ways that I might be able to help you with your book. Nothing on his list was exactly what I wanted, but I was so taken with his initiative and fortunate for him, the timing was perfect.

I said, hey, Oliver, do you want to be the research assistant for my book? I have never had a research assistant for any of my books. But I thought this could be helpful. And so I hired him. it was great. I would give him different examples of things I was working on and ask him to source different research that either supported or didn't support what I was doing so that I could bake that into the examples. He was great. He's now launched his coaching, luck coaching business and a big supporter of his. He coaches people how to get luckier? Yeah, he's a luck coach.

I've never heard of a luck coach before. I know, but isn't that a great idea? I love it. I'm a big fan of luck. I try to make it happen as much as possible. So I'd be curious to say, it's like, hey, I just hired a luck coach. I'm getting luckier. I mean, but, but it's probably more of just kind of a how to go out and live life coach, but maybe it's just an interesting marketing tool. I don't know. I don't know. You know what? I'm doing a workshop that I'm doing a prototype, actually next couple weeks, a luck makeover workshop, just for free for people. I've got about. Luck makeover workshop. A luck makeover where we're going to talk about all the levers you have at your disposal to be luckier. And then we're going to meet a week later and see what happened to people.

I bet that's an enjoyable group of people to be around. I don't know. I'm going to do it starting next week. But if it's successful, I'll keep doing it. Okay. I might want to join it too. Okay. Is this in person or online? It's going to be online. Okay. All right. Would that even even easier then? Okay. I love this idea. Metaphors can bring things to life. And I think the core idea of this book is built on this metaphor, the fact that luck is not necessarily like this lightning strike. It's not isolated or dramatic, but it's this wind. It's a wind that blows constantly, and you've got to build a sail. The sale is made up of these tiny behaviors, right, to catch the winds of luck. Walk me through this metaphor of it's, we think, oh,

you just, boom, you just got lucky. Like, that's not actually how it works. It's more about building the sale. Exactly. So this framework has come together over the last number of years. The idea is that opportunities to be lucky are ubiquitous. They're like the wind. They're blowing constantly, sometimes, you know, strongly, sometimes weakly. They're very powerful, but they're invisible. And you're not going to see them. You're not going to catch them unless you have a tool to do so, like a sail. So the framework is that you need a sale to catch the winds of luck. And so you start with building your ship. That's the internal work you have to do. You then have to recruit your crew. That's how do you engage other people in your world? And three, how do you hoist the sale?

Those are the things you do every single day to essentially get closer and closer to your goals, right? How do you trim that sail in a way to catch the lucky opportunities around you? Now, it's actually much more nuanced than this, because if luck is like the wind, there are lots of ways to respond, right? I could stay inside. I don't have to get in my ship. I can stay inside and shut the shutters and not pay attention. I can be a wind vane, just looking at it, not doing anything. I can be a hot air balloon, letting the winds of luck sort of take me where they will, with very little agency.

I can be a windmill, catching the luck very efficiently in a very local environment, like in a job, on a team, you know, something very local. Or I can get on my sailboat and seek out those opportunities. and there are different times in our life where we want to play these different roles. There might be a time when you go, I really want to be a leaf in the wind. I want to be a hot air balloon and see where the winds take me. Another time you go, I need to be a windmill right now. Like I'm in this job.

I'm going to focus on being the best I can in this location. And then there are other times, you know, maybe you're starting a company. Maybe you're doing something where you're like, I don't know where the opportunities are. I'm going to get on the sailboat. and I need to really seek out where they are. Let's get practical. And let's specifically think about potentially a cynic. Tina, you don't understand.

I've been dealt a bad hand. And by the way, that's true. Like sometimes there are people who are just, they're dealt a lot of bad luck, illnesses, family members, and some of that would be considered fortune, I realize. But let's say just we have a cynic, someone who thinks they're unlucky, says the thing, well, with my luck,

and then they fill in the blank with something bad, what are some tangible, some tactical, practical things that that person could do to change that, to say, you know what, Tina, with my luck, and then they fell in the blank with something good. This is super important, Ryan.

This is super important because, yes, there are people who are incredibly unfortunate. I mean, we have racism. People are poor. People are in dysfunctional families. I mean, let's be serious here. There are people who are very, very, very, unfortunate circumstances. It might be a war zone. And sure, I mean, there are some situations that

feel totally untenable if somebody has a very terrible illness, and honestly, we're all going to die. So there is an end game. So within this context, what can you do? I have been working for the last 10 years, working with a group called the Last Mile at San Quentin State Prison, where they teach entrepreneurship and coding skills to actually men and women in other prisons to help them so that when they get out of prison, they will be able to have a gainful employment. These are folks who at most cases have been extremely unfortunate circumstances in their lives, right? They've been born into poverty. They've had to join gangs to protect themselves. They've made a lot of bad choices based on their circumstances.

Even in prison, where they might be there for 20 years, these people I've worked with have made the choice to turn their life around. They have decided, okay, I'm going to be on my best behavior. I'm not going to join a gang here. I'm going to keep learning. I'm going to get a new degree. I'm going to participate in the last mile. And they get out and have changed their life.

we see lots of examples of people who are able to escape really bad circumstances. It doesn't mean it's easy. We really need to acknowledge that. That doesn't mean it's easy. But it doesn't mean it's impossible. You know, I often think about the fact that if I ended up with nothing, like if I ended up right now with nothing in my life, what would I do? I was like, I would go be a barista.

and I would work at Starbucks and I would work my way up in the organization. I often think about where would I start if I had nothing? And what skills could I leverage? What building do I want to get the keys to in order to make my life better?

So what are some of the tangible, practical things that people could do if, let's just say, not someone who's in prison or a life like that, but maybe just as a combination of the wrong attitude, as well as is just kind of existing but not taking control.

What are some things they could do to be more lucky? Okay. So let's just talk about building your ship. This comes from, you know, if you ask people, oh, talking about luck. They often say, oh, yes, yes, yes, fortune favors of prepared mind, right? This happens, you know, I get this all the time. Fortune, oh, yes, fortune favors are prepared mine. I go like, okay, what is prepared mind?

Like, what does that mean? To me, that is your ship. That is the internal work you need to do. Let's talk about the first thing is understanding your core values. If you don't have your core values straight, it's like your ship has no ballast. It has no keel. It has nothing underneath, and you're going to get tipped over. That wind comes, and you're just going to capsize.

All you need to do is read the newspaper to see the stories of people who do not have their values straight, who end up in prison because they've ended up on a slippery slope of making decisions that were not correct. I can share a story. When I got out of graduate school, I was asked to misrepresent myself by a company that I was working for, to misrepresent myself at a conference, to tell them I was Tina Seelig from Stanford, not Tina Seelig from this company,

so I could essentially be a spy. And I got caught. And afterwards I said, what the heck happened? I'm so unlucky. Well, I was unlucky because I hadn't taken a minute to think that what I was being asked to do was unethical. And so we need to, from the time we're young, think about what our core values are and stick with them.

And when we're asked to do something, to question it, and if someone is unrelenting to say, I'm sorry, I can't be here, I need to go somewhere else. That's one example. Also, there, I mean, there's so many others. There's like understanding the story you tell about who you are in the world because that story shapes the opportunities you see. It's understanding your risk profile and being willing to stretch in different ways. And also then, you know, knowing where you want to go, putting together in your mind some sense of what your objectives are. Because if you don't know where you want to go, you don't know where to sort of point your sailboat. Yes. You also encourage people to keep a failure resume, like an inventory of your mistakes and setbacks and things you've learned from that.

Tell me more about this failure resume. Yeah, super important. I keep mine up to date. And honestly, you know, it's a very long list. Is it? Yes, of course. Of course, every single day I'm making mistakes. I'm like everyone else. You know, I'm sure maybe you walked the first time you tried. I certainly didn't or rode a bicycle or did complex math.

We take on difficult things and we know that with trial and error, we are going to get better, sort of a growth mindset. But we make mistakes along the way. And if you're willing to capture what you did wrong, like what didn't work and what you're going to do differently next time, you propel your yourself forward as opposed to perseverating about the thing. I mean, I used to when I was younger beat myself up again and again and again. Oh, I shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't have done that. Why did I do that kicking myself? Now it's like, oh, that didn't work. I put my foot in my mouth or I went too quickly or I said something I shouldn't have said. It's like, all right, acknowledge it and then move on

and you're willing then to move on to the next chapter. I always tell my students one of my favorite quotes is, it's all good in the end. If it's not good, it's not the end. We're always in the middle of the story and it's up to each of us to figure out what the next chapter is going to be. Just this idea of documenting your days, both the things that happen that are good and you're grateful for as well as the things that are not and what you learn from them so that you'll be in a better position the next time.

I think there's a lot of power and just, it doesn't have to even be that a huge investment of time. But if you spent five, 10, 15 minutes at the end of every day, documenting maybe some of your failures and or mistakes, as well as key learnings and things you'll do next time, and you stack day after day after day of doing that, again, I like your chances of becoming a luckier person. you can make that happen. You can do that. It's easy, and there's something else really important.

So, yes, you can at the end of every day think, okay, what did I do that I'm really proud of? What are things I want to do differently? What am I grateful for? And to whom should I show appreciation? I have a habit that I have developed over the last decade of sending thank you notes at the end of every day. Every day. Every day. Wow. And honestly, it takes a whole five or ten minutes. I look at my calendar.

I scan it and I go, oh, Ryan, we had a great conversation. I'm so appreciative that, you know, that I was on this podcast. You will surely get an email from me tonight saying, thank you so much. I really enjoyed our conversation. Please let me know how I can be helpful to you. It's just like three or four sentences. But every single day sending thank you notes, you lend the day not just feeling grateful for the opportunities you've had. but you also have closed that loop.

And honestly, Ryan, can I ask you, how many people send you a thank you note after they've been interviewed by you? What percentage of people? It's actually started more and more of this has happened over the last couple of years than in the earlier days. I don't know. It's less than 50%, less than probably like a third at most.

At most. So that's great. That's great. It's that much, I think, for most situations. Yeah, it might be less. Yeah. Does that change your dynamic with that person if they've sent a thank you note? Oh, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I'm more grateful for them. It deepens the relationship. It goes

beyond what some view is the transactional nature of this thing, which is not this endeavor, this whole, I can go on forever about it, but this whole purpose of me doing this is to build transformational relationships with incredible people so that we could hopefully be friends for life. That's my goal. That doesn't happen all the time. But when I still, started learning about you and all the great things you've done, my intention coming into this just so, you know, not to make it weird, Tina was I hope Tina could become a friend for life. And hopefully this is the start of that. This is the first hour of that friendship because why else do it?

You know, like why relationships are what make the world go around with the Harvard study. What does it mean to live a great life? It's love, full stop. And so anyway, I could go on for it. But that's what this is about. Exactly. So that's a really good point. No, but I really appreciate that.

And you know what? We may become new best friends, but it's not going to happen unless we actually cultivate that. And most people drop the ball. Drop the ball. In fact, another thing that I do that has become a habit is if you spend time with a friend who you really want to have in your life, you never end the dinner, the lunch, the walk without making another date.

Yeah. You get the next date on the calendar. Like, wow, this was so great. When should we do it again? Love that. And so you say, it might be three months. I don't know. It might be same time next year.

It might be next week. It might be in a month. It doesn't matter what it is, but getting it on the calendar so you don't drop the ball. Yeah. Another version of this gratitude, Tina, I'm glad you brought this up. The instant you are thinking something positive about somebody, the instant, tell them, text them, email them, call them. If you're in person, tell them directly and be very, very specific. I just did this last night. I sent kind of a text that was this big, you know,

a solid paragraph to a person that I had just seen and I had not seen him in a while. And I tried to be very specific about why I appreciated him and how he showed up and all this stuff. And he just wrote me back, this made my day. This made my day. Well, it made my day too, You know? And so the instant you're thinking something positive about somebody, tell them right now. Don't wait. Write the letter, send the text, give them a call, all that stuff. And if you just, you get in this habit of doing it more and more and more and what does it do? It enriches your relationships, which then enriches your life. And so I don't know if that has any to do with luck. Oh, I think you're absolutely right. Like, you know, when you say to someone, I love that sweater on you or your eyes are bright and shiny. I love, you know, I, I, I, I, you know, I, I, Spent a lot of day with young people. And when someone comes to my office and I say, oh my gosh, you have such a fabulous smile. Yeah.

I am never making it up. I am like it's something real. You see them light up in a way that they have been seen. Yep. And if you're seeing something positive, say it. Say it. It changes the whole dynamic when people feel seen. So I'm sure that this is one of your superpowers of being lucky is,

is doing this. And I'm so glad that you shared that example. One more question. So, Tina, it's a year from now, okay? And you're surrounded by the people that you love, and you guys are all popping bottles and spraying it all over each other's faces, okay? I have no idea if you do that or not, but just go with me, okay? You're popping bottles, you're celebrating. It's one year from now. You're with everybody you love. What are you celebrating? Oh, that is super easy. I have a brand-baby, and she will be one year old, a year from now. And I can tell you, she's actually just three months old right now, but she just learned how to turn over and she looks so proud of herself. And I can't wait to see who she is and where

she is in one year. Oh, that's so cool. I love it. I love it so much. Book is called What I Wish I knew about luck, a crash course on turning aspirations into achievements. It is so well written. It's fun, great storytelling, great people, and very practical. You can do this stuff like right now to change your life for the better. So I highly, highly recommend people read it. Tina, this is awesome. I meant it when I said it earlier. I would love to continue our dialogue as we both progress.

It would be my joy. 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. Let me know what you learned from this great conversation with Tina Seelig. A few takeaways from my notes. Keep a failure resume. Document your biggest mistakes.

What you learned and what you will do differently moving forward. Tina argues it's one of the fastest ways to build the resilience that luck requires. Then, hey, send a thank you note today. specific, genuine, unprompted. Gratitude creates a current of goodwill that flows back. Sometimes, many years later, from directions you never expected, send at least one thank you note today. And then know the difference between fortune and luck. Fortune is what happens to you.

Luck requires your action. Most people are waiting for fortune and calling it bad luck. Be a person of action. Increase your surface area for luck by going out there and getting after it. Once again, I'm going to 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 Tina Seel. I think she'll help you become a more effective leader because you continue to do that. And you also go to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, subscribe to the show, rate it, hopefully five stars, write a thoughtful review by doing all of 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. So we can't see you.