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The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk

As Kobe Bryant once said, “There is power in understanding the journey of others to help create your own.” That’s why the Learning Leader Show exists—to understand the journeys of other leaders so that we can better understand our own. This show is full of learnings taught by world-class leaders—personal stories of successes, failures, and lessons learned along the way. Our guests come from diverse backgrounds—CEOs of multi-billion dollar companies, best-selling authors, Navy SEALs, and professional athletes. My role in this endeavor is to talk to the most thoughtful, accomplished, and intentional leaders in the world so that we can learn from them as we each create our own journeys.
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Now displaying: June, 2022
Jun 26, 2022

Text Hawk to 66866 to become part of "Mindful Monday." You along with 10's of thousands of other learning leaders will receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right!

Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com

Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12    https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12

Susan Cain is the #1 bestselling author of Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole and Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, which spent eight years on The New York Times best-seller list, and has been translated into 40 languages. Susan’s TED talks have been viewed over 40 million times. LinkedIn named her the Top 6th Influencer in the World, just behind Richard Branson and Melinda French Gates. Susan partners with Malcolm Gladwell, Adam Grant, and Dan Pink to curate the Next Big Idea Book Club.

Notes:

  • "Compassion means to suffer together."
  • How to use sadness? "Make the pain your creative offering."
    • To suffer with other beings brings people together.
  • When people are grieving the loss of a loved one, they often want to talk about that person.
  • Aristotle wondered why the great poets, philosophers, artists, and politicians often have melancholic personalities… his question was based on the ancient belief that the human body contains 4 humors: each corresponding to a different temperament - melancholic (sad), sanguine (happy), choleric (aggressive), and phlegmatic (calm).
  • Joseph Campbell said, “We should strive to participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.”
  • Connecting with what matters and taking committed action—moves us from bitter to sweet, from loss to love.” Everyone experiences loss. It is part of the human condition. How have you moved “from bitter to sweet, from loss to love”? Are there coping strategies you recommend?
  • The bittersweet quiz — 1-10. If you scored between 5.8 and 10, you’re a true connoisseur of bittersweetness: the place where light and dark meet.
    • Questions: Do you tear up easily at touching TV commercials? Are you especially moved by old photographs? Do you react intensely to music, art, or nature? Have others described you as an old soul? Do you find comfort or inspiration on a rainy day? Are you moved to goosebumps several times a day? Do you feel elevated by sad music? Do you tend to see the happiness and sadness in things, all at once? Do you seek out beauty in your everyday life?" (I scored a 7.1)
  • “The secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some, it's a Broadway spotlight; for others, a lamplit desk. Use your natural powers -- of persistence, concentration, and insight -- to do work you love and work that matters. Solve problems. make art, think deeply.”
  • “The secret to life is to put yourself in the right lighting. For some, it's a Broadway spotlight; for others, a lamplit desk. Use your natural powers -- of persistence, concentration, and insight -- to do work you love and work that matters. Solve problems. make art, think deeply.”
  • “There's zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.”
  • “If we could honor sadness a little more, maybe we could see it—rather than enforced smiles and righteous outrage—as the bridge we need to connect with each other. We could remember that no matter how distasteful we might find someone’s opinions, no matter how radiant, or fierce, someone may appear, they have suffered, or they will.”
  • “The secret that our poets and philosophers have been trying to tell us for centuries, is that our longing is the great gateway to belonging.”
  • “The tragedy of life is linked inescapably with its splendor; you could tear civilization down and rebuild it from scratch, and the same dualities would rise again. Yet to fully inhabit these dualities—the dark as well as the light—is, paradoxically, the only way to transcend them. And transcending them is the ultimate point. The bittersweet is about the desire for communion, the wish to go home.”
  • “Introverts, in contrast, may have strong social skills and enjoy parties and business meetings, but after a while wish they were home in their pajamas. They prefer to devote their social energies to close friends, colleagues, and family. They listen more than they talk, think before they speak, and often feel as if they express themselves better in writing than in conversation. They tend to dislike conflict. Many have a horror of small talk, but enjoy deep discussions.”
  • Life and Career advice:
    • You have to find a way to do it. Life can sweep you up quickly.
    • Establish a backup plan. It frees you up to be more creative.
    • Develop rituals for writing... Purely with pleasure.
Jun 19, 2022

Text Hawk to 66866 to become part of "Mindful Monday." You, along with tens of thousands of other learning leaders will receive a carefully curated email from me, each Monday morning, to help you start your week off right!

Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com

Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12      https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12

Steve Holmes founded Springfree Trampoline in 2003 and has overseen its growth to almost 400 employees globally. He is responsible for strategic business development and leads growth initiatives worldwide. Springfree® Trampoline, the World's Safest Trampoline™, was introduced in 2003, and available in Australia in 2004. Dr. Keith Alexander re-designed the trampoline from the ground up to invent Springfree Trampoline, over fifteen years of research and development.

Notes:

  • I hope that customers describe Springfree as a company which has integrity, honesty, great character, and deals with its customers in a way that values their experience with the brand and the product, and delivers on the promises they make.
  • Living in the tension of competing priorities. This is the job of the leader. It’s happening at all times both at work and at home. We must be aware of and understand how to live in that tension.
  • Your working genius - Jim has learned that his sense of wonder and invention is what brings him the most joy. We have to know what lights us up in order to sustain excellence over time.
  • Responding to losing the Costco account. Steve called the Jim Sinegal and worked out how the relationship would end and then immediately planned for the future to keep his company in business.
  • "The greatest piece of marketing is our customers."
  • How to find your purpose: Ikigai is a Japanese concept that means your 'reason for being. ' 'Iki' in Japanese means 'life,' and 'gai' describes value or worth. Your ikigai is your life purpose or your bliss. It's what brings you joy and inspires you to get out of bed every day.
  • Life is about giving so that others will benefit.
  • The C's of business
    • Clarity
    • Competency
    • Confidence
    • Choice
  • "The pace of change is faster than the pace of learning."
  • Sustained excellence:
    • Humble
    • Hungry
    • Smart
  • As the leader, you must create an environment where people want to learn
Jun 12, 2022

Text Hawk to 66866 to become part of "Mindful Monday," and join tens of thousands of Learning Leaders who receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start your week of right...

Full show notes at www. LearningLeader.com

Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12    https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12

Kat Cole is the President, COO, and board member at Athletic Greens. She was previously President and COO at Focus Brands, the parent company of Cinnabon, Auntie Anne’s, Moe’s, Schlotzsky’s, McAllister’s, Carvel, Seattle’s Best Coffee International, and Jamba. She oversaw all businesses, their 6,000 operations globally, and the multi-brand licensing and CPG business with 90,000+ points of retail distribution. She has more than 20 years of operational, brand, and executive leadership experience and has an MBA from Georgia State University and an honorary Doctorate from Johnson and Wales University. This episode was recorded at the Insight Global Headquarters in Atlanta, GA as part of the Women's Leadership Council "Raise Your Hand, Raise Your Voice" event. 

Notes:

  • pragmatic optimist: When Kat was 9 years old, Kat's mom decided to leave her dad. Her dad was an alcoholic. Kat has two younger sisters. Kat was in multiple car accidents with her dad while he was driving drunk. At the age of 9, Kat looked at her mom and said, "What took you so long?"
    • She learned that "the people who are closest to the action know what to do long before the senior leaders do. But they lack the language to articulate the problem and the solution. And they lack the authority to do something about it."
    • "I learned to stay incredibly close to the people who are close to the action from that moment."
    • "With all that he did, my mother never spoke ill of my father. I remember in all of those years, we were super poor. Taking meat scraps from the butcher. I remember one holiday season we were driving around looking at holiday lights. We went through the fancy neighborhoods and she said, 'isn't that beautiful, they must work so hard.' There are these things I absorbed that I started expecting from leaders. I learned to be grounded in the practical (the pragmatic part), but still optimistic because a whole lot is possible with very little, especially if the leader stays close to the action."
  • "I am a learning leader. Learning is my currency." Oh! I get to do something new and I can help people, and I can make money doing it. And money is freedom because it's independence." 
  • "When we left my dad, my mom only had one goal, all she wanted was to raise three independent girls. Our willingness to be independent was her north star."
  • Kat got a job at Hooters and quickly set the record for "close-opens." The shifts where you close the restaurant and open it the next day. She did it 22 straight days.
  • She was then asked to travel to Sydney, Australia and open a new restaurant. She had never left the country and didn't have a passport. She said yes anyway. 
    • She went on to open restaurants on four continents before she was twenty. 
  • How to build trust:
    • It's important to lead through action, not just words.
      • Something as simple as when we get together in person, take time to buy the donuts and coffee or some AG1. Just that effort to find a way to do something that shows you care about their experience. I don't need to say 'I thought of you.' It is obvious."
  • "In my role, my success is your success. Your success comes from me removing friction for you."
    • Vulnerability - Lead with vulnerability first. Share your story. 
    • Holding people accountable - A players do not like seeing B players, C players, people who don't give their best being given equal opportunity. Someone needs to be in control, expectations are communiated and managed, and the leader is keeping us on the tracks. You have to hold people accountable. 
  • Conflict resolution - On Friday night a regular patron would go to Hooters with his friends and order 50 wings... "After finishing the wings, he would call me over and say, 'there was only 40 wings.' He did this 4 weeks in a row. "The 4th Friday, he comes, orders 50 wings, and while they were finishing, before he finished, and I on my own waitress discount ordered 10 wings, and brought them to him. And winked. And his buddies busted out in laugher, and he said, 'good one' and tipped me 100 bucks." 
    • "Don't confuse my kindness for weakness or stupidity. I'm generous. I'm thoughtful. I'm caring. I assume positive intent first, but I'm not going to be taken advantage of."
  • "Confidence is not an old school overly masculine swagger, I know what I'm doing, I've got this. It's a humble confidence. It's not I know what I'm doing, it's I know I can figure this out. My confidence is deeply humble. I have screwed up so many times. I spent 10 years doing humanitarian work on the border of Ethiopia. I know what bad actually looks like. Which keeps western world business bad equally in perspective. That helps me chill. And that translates as ease. And ease translates as calm. And calm translates as both maturity and confidence. But it's actually from perspective."
    • "Confidence is built doing many new things where you are repeatedly uncomfortable."
    • Humble confidence is like from The Mandolorian, "This is the way."
    • "Traditional confidence, that swagger, can be successful. And can drive outcomes, but the teams don't last very long. But the humble confidence is a learning leader. Any leader who suggests they know the way will be wrong at some points. Teams won't last as long if they don't have humble confidence."
  • Productive achievers: The behaviors of the most successful humans have these four qualities:
    • Courage & Confidence + Curiosity & Humility -- They must be equally balanced. 
  • Speaking up - "If you are speaking up with the expectation of a specific outcome, you will always be disapointed. Period. That may be part of the problem. But if speaking up is about contributing and pushing the conversation forward, you're sort of lowering the expecation of the outcome. So I have very low expectation on the impact I make, but I don't expect one hand raise or one memo to change the world. But I do believe in participation."
  • As a first time vice president at Hooters, Kat was 26 years old. She's at the table and every one of her peers was in their 50's. They had been in business longer than she had been alive.
  • Kat's "Hot Shot Rule."
    • The Hotshot Rule is the act of thinking of someone Kat admires, then pausing, reflecting, and asking what they would do in her situation/shoes/role, then answering what that one thing is and acting on it. The answer tends to appear quickly because it seems to be clear when you think about it through someone else's lens. That alone doesn’t create change - the trick is taking action on it right away and then telling someone - the person it benefits, the person you envisioned who inspired you, or just someone you know will appreciate the change you’ve made.
      • "Every time I tell my team, husband, or friend about the one thing I’ve done differently after the exercise, they say, 'What took you so long?' Or 'Finally!'"
  • Kat's Monthly Reflection Questions:
    1. What has been the best part of the last 30 days?
    2. What has been the worst part of the last 30 days?
    3. Tell me one thing that I can do differently to be a better partner/teammate?
    4. What has worried you the most in the last 30 days?
    5. What is one thing you are most proud of in the last 30 days?
    6. What have you been most grateful for?
Jun 5, 2022

Text Hawk to 66866 to become part of "Mindful Monday." You along with 10's of thousands of other Learning Leaders will receive a carefully curated email from me each Monday morning to help you start your week off right...

Full show notes at www.LearningLeader.com

Twitter/IG: @RyanHawk12    https://twitter.com/RyanHawk12

Chandler Bolt is an investor, advisor, the CEO of Self-Publishing School & SelfPublishing.com, and the author of 6 bestselling books including his most recent book titled “Published.”. Self Publishing School is an INC 5000 company the last 3 years in a row as one of the 5,000 fastest-growing private companies in the US. He's currently spending his time scaling Self Publishing School, a company he's built from 0 to $20M+ in 5.5 years. 

Notes:

  • Thinking of your topic – What are the broken record conversations you continue to have? What questions do others ask you on a regular basis? The market will help you understand where you add value…
  • Hiring others-- An hour is an hour. A simple metric… Your take-home pay is divided by 2,080. That is your hourly rate. Hire others to do work if it’s cheaper than your hourly rate. This is hard to do but appears to be a wise investment long term
  • The 4 P’s of writing – Person, pain, promise, price. Write to one person… just like you’re responding to an email.
  • "A book is a $15 mentor"
  • Writing process:
    • Mind map
    • Outline
    • Rough draft
  • "People who pay, pay attention."
  • "Go from I want to, to I am doing it."
  • The root word of authority is author
  • Revenue = Vanity
  • Profit = Sanity
  • Cash = King
  • Designing the life you want first... Michael Hyatt has helped him schedule his time off first.
  • “Valuing freedom above all else; entrepreneurs work harder to create future freedom, which directly takes away from their freedom in the present.”
  • “The truth is, you'll never "find the time" to write a book. You have to make it.”
  • “Don’t be the person who misses out on opportunities in life because you take too long to accomplish your work tasks. Be the kind of person other people marvel at. Be the kind of person other people see and say, “I don’t know how they do it.” Be the kind of person who takes action and does so immediately.”
  • Get a free copy of his new book, go to www.PublishedBook.com/Hawk

 

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