What that looked like for you, because clearly it varied and turned out very differently for you.

Once Opal was done, I was really lucky.

Again, a family friend named Rex Caswell decided to hire me.

I had no sales skills like a lot of people who are getting their first sales job, but he took a shot because he'd seen me play sports and he said, I want you to be one of my leaders one day.

But At first, you got to prove yourself as an individual contributor because, you know, sales professionals will not respect you if you don't actually carry a bag and do it yourself first.

I was lucky, but I've also been like super motivated to prove supporters right.

And so a person like Rex, I just had dinner with him last week, so I still love him and appreciate him.

Okay, so give us an example of one of the wild ways that you were able to get some of these big names on your show.

Can you speak to why the best leaders also have extremely high standards? And also if there are some potential traps in having high standards

too.

I mean you get what you create or what you allow, Dr. Henry Cloud.

I believe in that.

The instant you kind of let off – It's wild to see the impact it has on the rest of the team if the leader lets up even a little bit.

Again, I reference Coach Bob Gregg and Ron Ullery all the time, but that's because I remember we got pretty good my junior year, and I was lucky to play all four years for them on our varsity team.

We weren't as good my first two years, but we were really good the last two.

So when you talk about the law of compounding and the principles behind it, what are some of the main principles that Charlie Munger and his team and the people you've kind of studied in that area convey around compounding?

What prompted you to go into that world?

I had gone back to school because my company, LexisNexis, gave me $52.50 a year, which is a standard amount to be reimbursed to go get a graduate degree or any degree.

And it took me six years to get my MBA.

I did it slowly because I was working full time.

And once I finished, I got my MBA.

I immediately started looking into further graduate degrees because I thought it was wasting money to not go through the reimbursement process every quarter because I'd done it for six years.

And I thought, wait a second, wait, I can't stop.

Can you share your take on both of those?

Yeah

... or someone you look up to, when you get a chance and have ha- had some of those moments.

And yeah, again, that's just more fuel, like little signals that you get that, that you're doing it right.

And so it's like, all right, keep going.

Like, keep going, keep going, keep going.

Especially, again, a lot of the work we do, it's quiet time by yourself and then getting up and practicing or running it, running it by a friend that you trust.

So it's not like, there's not bright lights or there aren't people.

Oh, amen.

So I'm really curious, how do you think sports in general have maybe affected the way people think about life as a zero-sum game?

Well, I know personally it took years to... to not approach people, teammates, colleagues, coworkers with a zero-sum attitude.

When I finished playing football, again, I played quarterback too, like other positions, multiple, like linebackers, three or four guys can play.

So it's not a zero-sum.

Quarterback is the one spot, right? where only one gets to play.

So even in that world, it took me years to be a better teammate at work, to share my ideas, to speak up in team meetings, to mentor other people.

I was lucky to have mentors who said, hey, man, if you want to get promoted to leadership roles, You got to stop being so selfish.

So what's the 20-80 rule of leadership and everything that you've learned over these 11 years? Can I give

So tell us, how did this all begin for you? Where did this journey get started?

Thank you.

I mean, a lot of it like that is certainly not my fault.

There is a lot of luck component.

And that actually flows into part of my core values.

And one of my four core values is to be grateful.

And I think when you've been given a lot, you should give even more.

How do you put me in line with something that happened where you realized that or some part of you that understood that you were ultimately responsible for when the team won or lost?

Can you expand on that perspective of discomfort when somebody is in over their skis?

So a little context, General Stanley McChrystal, he's a four-star general.

He wrote Team of Teams, so he's also a great writer and he's led us at war.

Known for his frontline obsession as a four-star general, by the way, which I think is awesome, right? The CEO, like understanding the business from the front lines, in his case, war.

uh we recorded a podcast and we hit it off and he said hey you should come to gettysburg with my i teach a class a year-long class not a semester a year-long class at yale my students come you should come just be one of my guests i was like Yeah, I've never been there.

I was like, great.

So I show up and he has like six guests and I am, I'm not, this is not false humility.

You did a

Yeah.

Um, that- that's, that's super moving, especially any time a wife and kids are involved.

I immediately think about mine, and, uh, puts me in a, in a, an enjoyable space.

Um, so I t- I interviewed, um, JJ Redick years ago.

Uh, he was a player at the time.

Now he's a coach in the NBA.

And, uh, he told me this story about a time when he went back to Duke, is where he played his college basketball, and he was getting ready to give a, like a little short talk to the players.

Yeah, we did it together.

What was that truth that you confronted there with lacrosse legend Paul Rabel?

Well, I mean, he goes to a camp when he was a middle schooler, and this legendary coach is speaking and says, who wants to get a scholarship to play lacrosse in college? And every single kid raises their hand, and he said, I have a way to guarantee that you do that.

I'm like, what? You can't guarantee that.

He said, yeah, I can.

You have to take 100 shots a day, every day, now until you graduate high school.

And you think about it like, I could probably do that.

I could take 100 shots a day.

People who are more European-minded to the beauty of the game, they'll call it football, yeah.

Is there a question that you consistently go to that you look for a consistent answer? Or is there a question that maybe you've learned the most from when you interview all of them?

Man, we could go for a long time talking about how to approach these things.

So one, I've evolved over time.

So I used to open with the same question and close with the same question.

That was around the commonalities among leaders who have sustained excellence, asking others what They have seen some people had good answers.

Some people do not.

I've shifted that.

And then you give us some action steps in each each segment right and and so let's talk about the price that you've paid that was absolutely worth it or maybe a price and I think you might have just mentioned it a price that you wish more people were willing to pay as they go into this journey of leadership and and maybe even beyond corporate leadership into leading their family or leading a life in a different way what's the price you've paid and maybe what is the price you wish more people were willing to pay

did it together.

Uh, it's really about, so, um, The title, in addition to the JJ Reddick story, I've studied Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett for a long time.

And they talk a ton about the power of compounding.

And really, that's what I think is the price.

For example, if you want your money to grow, you dollar cost average every month.

and you never interrupt the power of compounding, right, and let it do its work.

So every month on the 15th or whenever you choose, you invest X percent of your income and then watch in low-cost index funds and watch it just go like this, right? I wanted to think about how does that mentality when it comes to investing apply to me as a human? What does the power of compounding look like For me, if I want to go to bed a little bit wiser than I was when I got up, if I want to go to bed just better than I was when I got up, what do I need to do? And so the words that you use are like, dependability, reliability, doing what you said you're going to do.

Maybe more.

Number one, who would you want to invite to that dinner? And what would be the topic that you think would be important enough to discuss with these individuals?

Oh man, that's so tough.

I did one of these in Columbus a little bit ago.

I organized it with James Clear.

He would be one.

We had Mike Deegan there.

He's the head coach at Denison University.

what what many of us misunderstand about the power of compounding and maybe a bit more about that and how it applies to the price of becoming

What made you realize that being unique wasn't the linchpin to becoming?

David Perell and I recorded a couple years ago, and he loved this phrase, which is, "Imitate, then innovate.

Imitate, then innovate." The guys you're referencing, uh, The Beatles, they started out as a band of five, uh, later would slim down to four.

They were writing their own stuff, but they didn't think it was good enough.

This is, like, super inspiring for me to think about, that they had written their own songs, and yet for the first year of their career, you hear about these marathon sessions they would play.

Well, they were playing covers.

They were a cover band initially, and they had to be pushed by a manager to say, "Hey, you guys should play your own stuff.

I can.

Um, so what would you say is the, the main message of The Price of Becoming? If someone's picking up the book, what are, what are they gonna take away from it?

Th- I- it stems really, um...

At the end of keynotes, you know, you get- you do, like, Q&A sometimes, and a lotta times the question you get, or one of the questions that I would get are, are, uh, like, "Hey, what's the one quick thing I could implement right now that could be transformational for me?" And, uh, I'd give these answers and, and, [laughs] uh, I pa- try to pay attention to both the questions and the, and the things I ended up saying and, and e- e- I'd even have, uh, team members sitting in the crowd to, like, write down verbatim what I was saying and also to pay attention to how people would respond.

And one of the, the, the common responses after I would answer that question is, like, people would slump their shoulders and go, "Oh." 'Cause I'm using words like the power of consistency and reliability and dependability and following through on your word and going to bed a little bit wiser than you were when you woke up, but doing that day after day after day for decades, and that's really what I think the price of becoming is, this never arrived, always becoming ethos, that way of living regardless of what you accomplish or what you've done in the past.

It's this kind of willingness to keep going.

Jim Collins talks a little bit about it in Great by Choice with, uh, that 20 Mile March.

And so it's a version of implementing your 20 Mile March n- not necessarily for your business, but for your life.

Um, why should we plan this sort of gathering, and, and how do we make it work?

Oh, that's real- I've never heard somebody talk about the importance of that before, but it's so true.

It's, it's funny.

I was, I was asked a question in a Q&A forever ago, I feel like seven or eight years ago, about what's your framework to, to ensure you are improving? And I d- I kinda made something up on the fly, but it's kinda like this flywheel.

I was really big on Jim Co- I still am, but was really thinking about the flywheel.

And so that's, if you look at it, it's actually shaped as a flywheel.

So the first part of that flywheel for me of what maps a perfect day of going to bed wiser than I was when I woke up is fueling the intake engine every day.

What am I doing specifically to fuel the intake engine? Read books, have conversation with mentors, record podcasts, listen to podcasts, right? Fueling the engine, the learning part, chasing down your curiosity with great rigor, right? That part's important.

Can you share an example or a story? I know you just shared your own example, but what, was there a specific story that resonated with you that caused you to think about that?

What do you think that has to do with this idea of the price of becoming a

Well, I mean, to me, I think of the word consistency.

It's in my family's DNA.

I learned it from my parents.

My dad's still maybe the most consistent person I've ever met.

My younger brother, I think consistency has been a core tenant of his entire career, both in athletics and what he's done after getting done playing football.

But that's part of the price is that I think a lot of people are okay to be good every once in a while or to show up every once in a while or maybe even be brilliant every once in a while or be really, really intense every once in a while.

But then he started,

quince.com slash NBID.

I am Ryan Hawk, host of The Learning Leader Show.

That's my podcast where I've interviewed more than 700 of the world's most impactful leaders over the past 11 years.

I've also published four books.

First, Welcome to Management.

Then, The Pursuit of Excellence.

My third, The Score That Matters.

Wow,

I didn't know that, yeah.

I didn't.

I didn't, either.

They'd always...

They had, they had written their own stuff.

They were afraid to play their own music initially.

So those long marathon sessions initially, they're covering other people's music, and eventually they got really good at playing together, at getting their reps together, playing other people's music, that they would start to sprinkle in their own.

Wow.

That's kind of intense.

It is.

Uh, and he would put them in, like, our family room above our garage, which was, like, a storage space, and there were a number of them up there.

I remember thinking when I was little, "Dad, this is weird.

Why are there so many hawks?" And he goes, "Well, you know, people are trying to be original or whatever.

That's our last name, and so they're doing that." And, and he goes, "Have you ever, have you ever looked in and studied what a hawk is like?" I said, "No.

Why would I? You know, why would I do this?" "You should.

Mm.

But, uh, what does your book teach people out there about resilience that maybe haven't been hit physically on a field perpetually?

Well, I mean, part of the price are, are these, like, unsexy words.

And, and I...

And this comes up, like, I, I, I wrote about this because at the end of keynote speeches you do Q&A, and, uh, John Maxwell gave me this advice years ago to say, "Hey, pay close attention to the questions that those people are asking you at the end of your keynotes.

There's, there's a lot of gold in there, right, in those questions." And so the, the questions were, were about, like, how, what's the quick hack or what do I do or h- h- how do I, how do I get on stages? How do I achieve whatever they're trying to achieve? What's the quick thing I can change right now? And the answer always, like, would be upsetting to people because, uh, I'd say there, there's not a quick hack.

It is, yes, the, the only certainty of life, there's a few of them, but one of them is the fact that you're gonna get beat down.

Adversity is going to strike.

I think if you are just, if, if you're somebody watching this and you're kinda antisocial, I think the best thing you could do for your career is to maintain a longtime relationship.

So I wanna know from you, since you are someone who is, I mean, so immersed in personal and professional development, in your opinion, what are the best questions you are asking of yourself right now?

I think they're, they're de- dependent upon your core values and your purpose.

So I'll give you an example.

Um, so one of my core values is, so my values are thoughtful, thankful, curious, and consistent, and one of my val- values is thankful.

And the critical behavior that makes that value true for me is, is, it, that I have at least for me, is push your edges.

Um, and so push your edges, like, what does that mean? It doesn't mean anyone to anybody else, but it means something to me.

To me, it means living on that thin line of my comfort and competency zone and pushing it every single day, okay? And so the, the, a question to ask is what specifically did I do today to push my edges? Okay? Write that down at the end of every night.

Mm-hmm.

So can you just talk about some of the individuals that you've interviewed, including Simon Sinek and Jim Collins, for example, and some of the lessons that you've distilled from those individuals that are at the top of their game?

Yeah, I was just in Colorado last week with Jim Collins, actually, and it was amazing to see...

It was just an amazing experience, first and foremost.

But one little kind of fun story from that, that just showed how present and engaged and intense and fiery.

Jim's one of my heroes.

So Good to Great is one of his all-time classic books.

It was the first leadership book I ever read when I was out of college.

So can you talk about what the cost is that maybe a lot of people don't understand about what it takes to be successful and maybe some of the things that they have to sacrifice along the way?

That, that's what I'm trying to get to, is, is not necessarily easy, but accessibility of high performance.

Okay.

I, I love, um, so the whole idea of this, the idea of compounding comes from, uh, Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett, and one of my favorite Charlie Munger quotes, there's lots of them, is this idea of going to bed a little bit wiser than you were when you woke up.

And I love prompts.

I'm a prompt-driven writer, a prompt-driven thinker.

I love Q&A sessions during keynotes, all that stuff.

And so one question I think that, that I, I think is, is worth it to ask yourself if you're trying to work this curiosity muscle at the end of every single day is what specifically did I do todayTo go to bed a little bit wiser than I was when I woke up.

How do you work through the ego in your own life in making sure you're staying aware and open and humble to accepting what these truth tellers give you?

What are some of the commonalities among those few people?

Standards, period.

You don't get your goals in life most of the time.

You will always eventually get your standards, and most people spend a lot of time setting up goals and never take a real inventory of what their standards are.

Standards are, like, actually how you live.

Standards are everything about you.

If you're meticulous, if you're excellent, if you're like what you did today.

[laughs]

What do you think the biggest mindset shifts are that somebody who is aspiring to be a manager or is a new manager needs to make?

that everybody is different.

They all have different modes of communication.

We actually created this exercise that I learned from a mentor of mine named Tom Ogburn, and he named it something different, but we kind of shifted it and we call it a user manual.

Essentially, there are manuals for everything in the world that you buy, a refrigerator, a computer, a phone.

A camera, like whatever is out there, there are manuals, but there are not manuals for people.

And that just doesn't make sense for me.

When did you realize in your life that you were a lifelong learner? When did that become important to you?