The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk

Episode #299: Kyle Maynard

Full show notes can be found at www.LearningLeader.com

Kyle Maynard is a motivational speaker, bestselling author, entrepreneur, and ESPY award-winning mixed martial arts athlete, known for becoming the first quadruple amputee to reach the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Aconcagua without the aid of prosthetics.

Oprah Winfrey called Kyle “one of the most inspiring young men you will ever hear about.” Arnold Schwarzenegger described him as “the real deal,” “a champion human,” and “one of the most inspiring people” he’s ever met. Even the great Wayne Gretzky has spoken of Kyle’s “greatness.”

Show Notes:

• Commonalities of sustaining excellence:
  • Consistent action... Plotting
  • Life is a marathon
  • "I've struggled with this."
• "We live in a society that we think we have to reach the summit"
  • "Climb as hard as you can but relinquish the fact that you've ever arrived."  It will never be enough to fulfill you.
• "You've never arrived, you're always becoming."
• "I question what we're driven towards."
• Losing the first 35 matches... His dad told him that no wrestlers win in their first year and convinced him to go back for his second year
• "What you're looking for, you're going to find."
  • A self-efficacy belief.  It's in your deeper nervous system... It becomes automatic.  His dad planted the seed.
• "We have this illusion in our head, but it doesn't happen overnight."
• "The world will not be tailored for your every need."
• "We are softening the edges, we need to learn how to mentally deal with things."
• "We need to choose conscious suffering."
  • "Voluntary hardship"
• The power of meeting veterans in an airport on a way to giving motivational speeches
  • "It shifted, it wasn't about me."  The message helped veterans not commit suicide.
• "It's B.S. to think anyone is self-made.  We all need help."  The ripple effect.
• Why climb?
  • "I want to experience the world.  Just did scuba dive at the Great Barrier reef."
• Crawling 19,340 feet in just ten days... Climbing Mount Kilmanjaro
• "Focus on that next three feet in front of you..." Just the next step.  Before you know it, you put your head up and you're at your destination
  • Reminds me of Alison Levine -- "Just put one foot in front of the other and take that next step. Just keep going."
  • "I don't know if I have enough in the tank, but I'm going to keep going."
  • "The 3 feet in front of you is the only thing that matters"
• "Anything is possible is a lie... Tell the truth, know how to test your limits"
• "What gets measured gets done"
• How long can you enjoy accomplishments?
  • "It's a weird dance."
  • "What I'm learning to do now is plotting the essence of it..."
• Favorite book: Empire Of The Summer Moon
• Fasting: "When you fast (don't eat), your body picks the weakest cells and eats them."  There is a lot of science to support fasting
• Advice to others:
  • Value money but not too much
  • Have a small number of possessions
  • Namaste = "Light inside of me.  Recognize light inside of you."
  • Take calculated risk, go on adventures
  • "Follow your bliss"

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk

Episode #298 with Michael Useem - How To Become A Learning Machine

Full shownotes can be seen at www.LearningLeader.com

• Commonalities of sustaining excellence:
  • Thinking strategically
  • Communicating persuasively
  • Decisive decision making
• The power of using real life examples to demonstrate leadership
• Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
  • He was a learning machine
  • "We know not the future, and cannot plan for it much.  But we can determine and know what manner of men we will be whenever and wherever the hour strikes."
  • He was a self directed lifelong learner - "I have always been interested in military matters, and what I do not know in that line, I know how to learn. I study I tell you every military work I can find."
  • He had a mentor/coach - Adelbert Ames was his tent mate and he learned all he could from him
    • He had a disciplined focus on learning from him.  "I asked him every night to tell me what he knew so I could learn"
  • He routinely got outside of his comfort zone - "I will watch myself and do an after action review to analyze."
  • Get tangible experience
• The purpose behind taking students and family members to Gettysburg every semester - To "stand where Chamberlain stood." And to "get you in their moment on that ground." Recreate the moment as if you're there.
• Gene Kranz and Apollo 13
  • "Expecting high performance is a prerequisite to its achievement among those who work with you.  Your high standards and optimistic anticipations will not guarantee a favorable outcome, but their absence will assuredly create the opposite."
  • Being a decisive decision maker and preparing for those challenging moments with an attitude that "failure is not an option."
  • "I knew my teams even more than they knew themselves."
  • Had a great mentor in Chris Craft to help him
  • Teams that are well developed go through experiences together can outperform individuals under stress
• The motivation behind risk takers:
  • "A calculating adventurer, deriving a thrill from taking a risk and watching it pay off."  This is how visions are created.
  • How to become savvy about calculated risk
  • Risk tolerance is a learned skill
• Persuasive communication is an art form
  • It's a learned skill
  • You can't hide, you must be persuasive as a leader
  • There needs to be a solid narrative (story), a purpose behind it
  • Every person must know how important their specific contribution is -- "Why are we doing this and what is my role?"

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk

#297: Tero Isokauppila - CEO Of Four Sigmatic: Principled Based Leadership

Full show notes can be found at www.LearningLeader.com

Show Notes:

• Commonalities of sustaining excellence:
  • "They love what they do" -- Love the process.  The work
  • Humility/Excitement to learn -- they know things will change and they must adjust
  • Listen more than you talk.
  • Curiosity -- The Dalai Lama exemplifies this very well.
  • Able to adjust -- Madonna is a prime example of being able to adjust and reinvent herself
• How being a 13th generation farmer from Finland helped set the course for Tero's life -- "I have domain knowledge."
• Finnish people consume more coffee per capita than anyone in the world
• The idea of putting mushrooms in coffee came because of this
• Super foods help with:
  • Hormonal response
  • Gut health
  • Immune system
• Four Sigmatic is a company built with super foods
• The beginning -- "It all comes down to value generation.  If you want to generate value, you have to see what others don't yet see."
• Culture -- "You need to rally around people who believe in the mission."
• Find believers and sponsors as your first employees -- his founding team were former teammates
  • Get to know you team deeply -- how they think, feel, act, what motivates them
  • Currently they have a fully distributed team of 37 people
• The hiring process and qualities they look for.  Four lenses:
  • Can they do they job? -- Skills
  • How will they fit in our culture? -- Fundamentals
  • What do they cost? -- Financially and emotionally
  • What is their growth potential?
  • They must be "extra good" at communication - written and verbal.  How do they write emails?  Must be extra organized.
• "Culture exists whether you want or not.  It is what it is."
• Their principles:
  • S - Stay healthy, eat well, exercise
  • W - We are us, not them
  • A - Always carry product
  • R - Results with freedom -- KPI
  • M - Make it grow, let it go
• Examples of innovation

The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk

Episode #296: Emily Fletcher - The Secret Superpower Of Top Performers (Meditation)

For full show notes, go to www.LearningLeader.com 

• Commonalities of sustaining excellence:
  • They have a magnetic quality.  Others are drawn to them.  People look to them.
  • They have the ability to shift their state of being.  Not just being calm.  They are able to be variable and can adapt to situations
• Meditation increases adaptability
  • Meditation helps you take care of yourself
  • Rest, nurture your brain and body
• The failure of most when they attempt to meditate:
  • Emily is on a mission to rid the world of "ex-meditators" -- people who have tried and failed and given up on it
  • There have been 58 million downloads of meditation apps
    • Free apps are gentle by design and not as useful
• Advice -- There is a difference between mindfulness and meditation.
  • "Meditation is a tool that helps you get rid of stress from your past."
  • Mindfulness is "the art of bringing your awareness into the present moment"
• Meditation gives your brain and body tools.
  • "Kind of a nap sitting up. Mind alert, body getting rest." -- Relieve stress from now and past
  • It is not a toy.  It's a very powerful tool.  You need proper training
  • It's ridiculously simple, yet powerful
• Biggest misconception  -- "People think they have to clear their head.  They think thoughts are the enemy.  That's not true."
  • "People think they are too busy to meditate... You know we're talking about your brain right?"
• Emily was on Broadway for 10 years... Living in constant state of anxiety... Sick, insomnia, was miserable.
  • She noticed another performer had none of those issues.  She asked what she did and found out meditation was the key...
    • Emily took a class, and liked it so much she went to India to be trained professionally.
• She created Ziva... An online meditation tool.
• It's about manifesting "consciously creating the life you love"
• "Don't water the weeds" -- Don't focus on the wrong things