The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk

Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes

This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire 1 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 have the hustle and grit to deliver. Go to www.InsightGlobal.com/LearningLeader

Stanley McChrystal is a retired four-star general. Stan is the former commander of the nation’s premier military counter-terrorism force, Joint Special Operations Command (also known as JSOC). His command included more than 150,000 troops from 45 allied countries. Since he retired from the Army, Stan has written multiple best-selling books including, Team of Teams, and most recently, On Character.

• The most crucial discipline is to think for yourself. To a sad degree, we’re lazy. People comment on things they haven’t watched or read, but have seen comments by others who align with their political party. They aren’t thinking for themselves (this is why it’s almost impossible to align completely with one political party for me). If you find yourself saying “I just do” or  “that’s what I heard,” that’s not thinking.
• Being Obsessed – “I am convinced that few truly great achievements are reached by individuals with an impressive work-life balance, and the price of greatness, in a word, is great. In the end, I’m an advocate for obsession."
• The Ranger Effect – The value of unwavering standards.Created near the end of Vietnam when the Army had lowered its standards. They created 2 units of Rangers to raise the standard. It permeated the entire Army. How does a leader do this in Corporate America? Clearly establish expectations. You cannot have a “say-do” gap. The leader must demonstrate the values on a constant basis. BE what you want. Discipline to hold people accountable.
• “My major takeaway at almost 70 years old is conclusive. I wish I’d thought more, been more contemplative about my convictions, and been more deliberate about the person I sought to be.”
• Stan's mom — she died on New Year’s Day 1971 at age 45. Stan was 16. Had 6 kids. Mary Bright McChrystal. Writes about her in the civil rights chapter.
• “I accept no belief or claim to truth automatically or unconditionally.”
• White Water Rafting – When the subject of America’s involvement in Afghanistan arises, Stan is frequently asked, what he might do differently if given the chance to do it all over again. Answer: “Go white water rafting.”
• In Patient Pursuit of Greatness – In the spring of 2012, Stan was teaching a leadership class at Yale. That’s when he met their football coach, Tony Reno: “Not many things materially affect my trajectory. But this time was different. What was different? Coach Reno.”
• Choosing to Lead – Leadership is not a title or position. It’s a choice.
• “Embrace the suck” – “Why suck a little, when you can suck a lot?”
• Eat one meal a day. It’s built on being undisciplined with food. If you only eat dinner, you can eat a lot for that one meal.
• Self-Discipline - Most important attribute for a leader.
• Wife Annie - Dependent on her. Kind, thoughtful, caring.
• Life/Career Advice: Have the discipline to decide want you want to be. Be intentional. LISTEN: Don’t just talk. Be respectful. Don’t be afraid to fail. Try it, get back up. Try again.
•  

The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk

Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes

This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire 1 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 have the hustle and grit to deliver.

Go to www.InsightGlobal.com/LearningLeader

Episode #632: Nick Huber is an entrepreneur who owns stakes in 11 companies, including a real estate private equity firm and several agencies. His portfolio of companies employs over 325 people living all over the world. Nick lives with his wife and 3 children in Athens, Georgia. He’s the author of the book, The Sweaty Startup: How to get rich doing boring things.

Notes:

• Sales is the foundation of Every Business. From Nick’s mentor, Dan Cohen: “If you don’t like sales, I suggest you give up now and go get a regular job. You’re wasting your time.”
• “Life as an entrepreneur is sales.” To succeed in this world, you must have the cooperation of other people.
• The attributes of winners:
  • Abundance mindset
  • A sense of urgency
  • Not afraid to stand up and call you out. The story of his VP of Finance, Kevin. He called Nick out on deals he tried to make while Kevin was on vacation.
  • Make good decisions
  • Aren't afraid to get their hands dirty and do the work
• The Four Fundamental Truths of Life
  • 1. You can’t do it alone.
  • 2. You can’t make people do anything.
  • 3. Everyone in this world is selfish.
  • 4. It isn’t about you.
• So how do we use these four fundamental truths of life to get what we want? Sales. We sell ourselves and our ideas. We convince other people that their lives will be better if they trust us, work for us, buy from us, and more.
• Networking. Don’t go to events telling others to help you. Become someone worth knowing.
  • Do something of value that makes others want to come to you…
  • The story about the guy wrangling carts on a cold night at the Walmart in Ithaca, New York
• Nick credits a lot of his success to his parents, Tim and Susan, for raising him around a dinner table of positivity and curiosity. They made him feel as if he could accomplish anything and taught him to see the world through a lens of opportunity.
• Change your mind: Nick has a note taped to his mirror in the bathroom that says, “Change your mind on something today.”
• The most valuable trait of an entrepreneur: A sense of urgency. Most people walk slow, think slow, move slow, and make decisions slow. They lollygag around life. No energy. No excitement.
• Do uncomfortable things. Make the calls. Start a lawn care business if you're a kid.
• Decision making - You have to practice it. It’s a muscle
• Decathlon at Cornell - Brutally hard. 10 events. You never do your best in all of them. You take L’s. Have to respond and go to the next event. Struggle with grace.
• Ego - Need to balance belief with humility.
• There are two types of people in the world. Those who are humble. And those that are about to be humbled.
• “You’re interviewing for your next job every single day.”
• Hiring is like hunting. Always looking.
• Life/Career Advice: "Don’t be a doctor or a lawyer. What game are you playing? What does winning look like? Most people aren’t thoughtful enough about that."

The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk

Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes

This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire 1 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 have the hustle and grit to deliver.

www.InsightGlobal.com/LearningLeader

Bert Bean is the CEO of Insight Global. Insight Global is a 4.3-billion-dollar, industry-leading talent and technical services firm based in Atlanta, GA. Bert started with Insight Global in 2005 as a Recruiter and has since worked his way up within the company, exemplifying Insight Global’s “promote from within” culture. Sam Kaufman is the Chief Revenue Officer of Insight Global. Sam began his career as an entry-level recruiter in 2004, and he has earned many promotions throughout his career. I initially started working with Sam as his executive coach in March 2020, and then mid-2021, we formalized a bigger partnership with Insight Global, becoming the presenting sponsor of The Learning Leader Show, and we broadened my role working with leaders throughout the company. It’s been so much fun.

Notes

• Insight Global is a $4.3B business. Insight Global grew 9.2% last year, while the industry declined 9%.
  • How is Insight Global winning while all other staffing firms are losing?
    • A lot of companies will succumb to the idea that it's just gonna be a bad year, but our people are like, no, we'll just figure it out. We'll pivot. We'll move industries. We'll change accounts, we'll change our focus. We'll sell different services. And that's really what we've done.
    • “Many in our industry are losing hope. That’s not us. This is where we thrive.”
    • "Our people's ability to show up, keep going, um, do new things, evolve, is really, I think it's second to none. And that's been a huge part of our story."
• The whole world is soft. We love leaders like Laura Downey. She’s so driven, so hardcore. A beast. She’s in Canada. She just reaches right out to me like we’re old friends. If I could get a bunch of Laura Downey’s, it’s game over.
• Obsession: A through-point for the entire conversation was obsession. Being obsessed with caring for people. Being obsessed with doing hard things like running 20 miles to work. Being obsessed with how prepared you are for a big meeting. Being obsessed with your standards. Holding yourself accountable to them and others. The leaders who sustain excellence over time are obsessed with their craft.
• Potential over experience - “If you want to build a culture of commitment and care, you have to choose potential over experience.”
• Things to look for when promoting a leader:
  • Hard decision making
  • Strategic bets
  • Simplifying complex problems
•  “The most important skill as a CEO is getting to the truth. It's really hard because it's really scary. Normal humans find every excuse not to deal with harsh truths.” ­-- Ben Horowitz
• The baseball on Bert's desk from the Atlanta Braves is an example of what not to do.
• The overall brand of Sam Kaufman = CARE
• Hiring in India - One of our folks that's doing the interviews asks this individual if, if they want a bottle of water, gives 'em a bottle of water, and this person says, wow, of all the places I've been to interview, nobody's offered me a single drink of water or treated me like a human being.
• Bert:  I grew up in a small town in Alabama and was a very average kind of kid. But my mom was always like, you can do anything you want. Don't ever let somebody tell you you can't. You can be you, you can be the fastest runner in the world if you want.
• Sam: I get in here at 5:30 every day because I have a couple thousand people that started where I started, and I am obsessed with the idea that they should have the best career ever.
• Bert: I think a lot of people don't ever get a chance to suffer on their own terms. Yeah. You know, like to, to enter the pain cave on their own terms. And that's a really cool thing to, to step into that and to figure out, all right, do you have the stuff or do you not? You know? And I think all of us deep down are afraid to answer that question.
  • I just gotta know if I can do it. I have to know that. I like that challenge. I put in the work, I put in the training. And then when you do it, you're like, I knew I had that in me, and it just is so reassuring to me.
• Bert: I love a sense of accomplishment. I love a sense of accomplishment. Uh, I love that I can do something hard. I've always, you know, I lived in Yellowstone National Park for a summer in college, so I fell in love with the American West and I loved seeing mountains and being like, why can't I just stand on that?
• Sam: The last couple years, I've spent a few hours kind of every morning working what I need to be talking about and what does my voice sound like? And through the course of a couple years of working on it now, I gotta run a call with a couple thousand people this afternoon, and it's like, oh, I'll just go do that next because I'm, I'm ready for that.
• Sam: I'm a person they can count on when they need them. And that's what sales really is. And that's what sales will teach you. And so for, you know, for my organization, if I want my people to see that, I want them to learn that.
• Bert's Tattoo – Be The Light

Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes

This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire 1 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 have the hustle and grit to deliver. www.InsightGlobal.com/LearningLeader

Bio: As an owner of IMPACT, Marcus Sheridan has established one of the country's most successful digital sales and marketing agencies. He is the author of the international best-seller They Ask, You Answer… His new book is called Endless Customers: A Proven System to Build Trust, Drive Sales, and Become the Market Leader.

Notes:

• The 4 Pillars of a Known and Trusted Brand:
  • Say what others won’t say
  • Show what others won’t show
  • Sell how others won’t sell
  • Be More Human than others are willing to be
• 75% of all buyers prefer a seller-free sales experience. Create great self-service tools to help your buyers make buying decisions.
• The buyer's journey - They want to know what it will cost. So, tell them.
• Have a client story for every objection. Collect them. Tell those stories.
• The story of Steve Sheinkopf and Yale Appliance… ($37m to over $100m).
  • “That means obsessing over their questions, fears, worries, and concerns. Answer every single question honestly and transparently, right there on your website, for everyone to see.”
• “Tackle topics your competitors are afraid to touch. Break the unwritten rules of your industry. When you focus solely on empowering your buyers with the information and experience they crave, something incredible will happen: You’ll earn their trust. And when you earn their trust, you earn their business. Do this consistently, and you’ll capture the market’s attention, transform your company, and see numbers you never imagined.”
• The 5 Components of Endless Customers:
  • The Right Content
  • The Right Website
  • The Right Sales Activity
  • The Rich Technology
  • The Right Culture of Performance
• Path Finders - Help others come up with solutions. Your favorite mentor didn't tell you the answers, they helped you figure it out on your own (by asking you questions).
• The #1 thing that will dictate your income is your ability to communicate. As Morgan Housel would say, “Best story wins.” It is worth it to work on this skill. The excuse that you don’t have enough time is lame and not true. Focus on becoming a better writer and speaker. It’s too important not to.
  • Piece of feedback most often given - Say that, but in half the words. Be concise.
• Be willing to say what others won’t. And the idea of going direct. Go Direct – Viral essay written by LuLu Cheng Meservey. Going direct means crafting and telling your own story, without being dependent on intermediaries.
• Marcus called me by my name (both Hawk and Ryan) a lot during our conversation. It felt natural and flowed well. It worked. This is taught in sales training and can feel manipulative if not done well. Listen to how Marcus used my name enough to make me feel special, but not too much that it felt like a sales tactic to get me to like him.
• Book title = "I want. I wish." I want Atomic Habits. I wish I had "Endless Customers."

The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk.

Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes.

This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire 1 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 have the hustle and grit to deliver. Go to www.InsightGlobal.com/LearningLeader

• At 27, Anne-Laure had her dream job at Google. She quit. "Are you sure?" "No."
  • She was focusing on a narrow vision of success.
• Anne-Laure was most curious about the brain, neuroscience, and why we think the way we do. She went back to school to learn more.
• Writing - First, to clarify thinking. Works as a forcing function for that. You need to create your own version of it. You do that by writing. The generation effect. You remember it better that way. Next, it created a magnet of people to her.
• The meaning behind the name "Ness" is "The state of being."
• Goal setting - What are the traps of linear goals? We think we know what we want. We assume we'll always want the same thing. The arrival fallacy. Think we'll be so happy when we get it, but usually we aren't. Instead focus on the process, the daily behaviors. And run continual experiments. Through those experiments, you’ll probably figure out what you want to accomplish. Or you might even stumble into it.
  • Practical goals - Was it useful? Focus on the process. There is nuance. How do you hold others accountable? It's more than just the number. Do the work to understand the nuance, the details behind the number. Too many managers are lazy.
• Collaborate with uncertainty. Understand why you're scared of it. Comes from a long time ago. That's no longer a thing. You don't just want your team to survive. You want them to thrive. Don't cling to the first obvious conclusion. Do more work.
• What about vision for a CEO? Instead of focusing on being #1 in the marketplace, focus on your approach. Your values, your mission. Focus on your company's daily behaviors more than beating someone else. Be curious and ambitious. 
• Escape the tyranny of purpose. People are obsessed with finding theirs. People have more than one purpose. It changes over time. You can reinvent yourself. It can make people miserable if they haven't found it.
• I suggested that hers is what she has on Ness Labs website: "To help people become the scientist of their own lives." She said that it is for her work.
• Procrastination - Instead of getting rid of it, reframe it. Say hello, you're here again; what are you telling me? A tool for it: Triple check - Head, Heart, Hand.
• Her grandmother Oma was the final person she thanked in her acknowledgement. Moved from Algeria to France. Didn't speak the language.
• Her parents always encouraged her that she could do anything. Show up. Do it. Try.
• How do you keep going after the honeymoon of a new project or idea? Keep iterating and trying new things. Have others help you. Sergey Brin got tired of the ad business at Google, so he had someone else run it and he created a lab inside of Google for new ideas.
• Don’t let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It’s your place in the world; it’s your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.—Mae Jemison, American engineer, physician, and former NASA astronaut

Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes

The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk

Episode #625: Anthony Consigli - Digging Graves, Playing Football at Harvard, Learning From Failure, Taking Big Chances, & Growing a Business From $3 Million to $4 Billion

• Anthony's great-grandfather came from Italy and he was a stone mason. He had 6 sons. He gave each a trade. His grandfather had a business mind. Then WWII came. 4 brothers went and fought. His grandfather and blind uncle stayed back to run the business. He brought his son into it (Anthony’s dad) he was a heavy equipment operator. And did business leadership work after it.
• Hard Work: Born in 1967, 2nd oldest of 5 kids. Grew up in the 1970’s remembering his dad always working 2 jobs including Saturdays as a heavy equipment operator in construction with side jobs at night, his mom as a night nurse with his grandmother watching them during the day. Hard work and work ethic were drilled into them by their dad, grandfather, and uncles who all were in construction. All had stoic personalities. Anthony started working full-time in the Summer, Saturdays, and school vacations in the 7th grade when he was 12.
  • Cleaning the mortar off bricks from demolished buildings so that they could be reused, then digging and covering graves by hand at a bunch of local cemeteries.  Chopping wood and burning the rubber off electrical wire from demolished buildings so we could bring the copper to the scrap yard for cash. It was not your typical childhood but I can see now it gave me incredible life lessons at an early age that allowed me to flourish in business and be a strong leader.
• Anthony was a gravedigger -I was a big part of the business because it was a consistent revenue stream. Regardless of a recession, people were going to die. For that reason, his dad and grandfather never wanted to give it up. Anthony dug them by hand, year-round.
  • When I was in high school I was in charge of laying out the graves to be dug for the recently deceased. As the Catholic Church was not known for great record keeping the coordinates were often confused. I would cut the sod, save it and then start digging; 7.5’ long, 4 foot wide, about 5.5’deep. I had to take 22 wheelbarrows of dirt and wheel them up a plank onto a truck as that was the displacement from the coffin and concrete box. One night the phone rang at the house. My dad yelled at me to tell me I had buried the body in the wrong place. He may have had a few expletives in there. The next morning, I spent the day digging a new hole, moving the box to the new grave, and then filling in both graves while the family watched. I tried blaming the priest but this was a losing battle. Lessons like this taught us accountability. Own it. Do what you say you are going to do and clean up your own messes.
• Dump Truck Story - When I was 14  I was helping to demolish the interiors of an old convent and we were throwing all the old cinder blocks into a dump truck. My grandfather didn’t have anyone available to go dump the truck so he showed me the different lever and buttons; the clutch, the PTO, and gears, and told me where to go dump the truck. I knew a little about how to drive standard but had never driven a dump truck so he told me to leave it in first gear. I drove down the Main Street of the town with a long line of traffic behind me as I was going about 5 miles per hour. I got to the dump site, got the truck in position, enacted the PTO let my foot off the clutch, and got the dump body to start raising. I remember being so proud of myself. Like I had made it as a man. All of a sudden the truck jerked up violently and before I knew what happened the truck cab was in the air and the truck was upright vertically. I had forgotten to open the tailgate so the load had shifted and flipped the truck. There were no cell phones so I walked about a mile back to the site very embarrassed to call my grandfather. Construction has no shortage of occasions to be humbled as there are so many changing dynamics at hand all the time. But at the same time, being thrown into situations like this gave me this incredible tolerance for risk.  It was embarrassing but you could overcome that embarrassment.
• 1997 - Anthony became the CEO. $3m business at that time. Anthony pushed for bigger work. 25 people at the company then. 2024 - $3.4B 2,400 employees.
  • What happened? One big thing is a concept/book called Raving Fans by Ken Blanchard. Construction at the time was low bid, hard knuckles, people flipping the table, throw staplers. It wasn’t friendly. It started to get more professional over time. “Raving fans makes sense to me. Apply how you treat people in hospitality to construction. We work hard on client service skills. Being really professional. There is so much repeat business. That was harder than I expected it to be. Clients were rewarding us work over and over again. We were nice people to deal with. Raving fans stayed with us. We’ve done a lot of jobs at Harvard or hospital systems. We’ve earned that reputation. I came into the business during a bad recession. That bruised me. I had to tell people I couldn’t pay them. I worried about where money would come from.”
• The significance of their logo? The arch… The Arch is our logo and helps support these values. The arch is from the oldest surviving picture of our great grandfather who was a simple, hardworking, stone mason building this big stone arch. The arch denotes teamwork as you can’t do it alone. It symbolizes forward progress, quality, and craft. All stuff we want to be associated with.
• Take Big Chances – We got through the first recession knowing we needed to be larger to be able to withstand the ups and downs of the economic cycle. We started taking some chances on some larger jobs with more demanding clients which was extremely stressful as we had no idea what we were doing. It was new territory.  This is where all the humbling experiences as a kid like digging graves helped as it gave me the courage to take some risks.  Failure isn’t final and you can push through mistakes. 
• Football at Harvard - Learned more on the football field than in any classroom. Discipline to a process. All the players at Harvard are there for the love of the game.
  • I was admitted to Harvard with OK grades, but I could snap a football and block.  I was surprised at the time Harvard accepted me.  Looking back on it now, I should have been shocked as I was a meathead.   At the same time, I think my blue-collar work history in a small family business, my being an Eagle Scout, and generally smart kid all helped. Harvard changed me in good ways despite my best efforts not to let Harvard change me in bad ways.  I had this perception of blue-blood kids walking around with ascots and monocles or hippies protesting every earthly transgression on the planet.  But that is not what I found.  I made the best friends of my life; incredible diversity with kids from every socio-economic strata you could think of.  Our team had a kid who was in an LA street gang and a kid who worked summers second shift in a limestone mill outside of Pittsburgh yet at the same time had a kid who was fifth generation Harvard who was just a nice guy.  Really smart but normal kids.  As much as I didn’t want to change, I needed to change; be more open-minded, more curious, have better dressing and grooming habits, and manners. It meant being able to engage in meaningful conversation on heady topics; not Hulk Hogan and the WWF or how tough Chuck Norris was.  I would always say that I didn’t learn much in the classroom at Harvard but that’s not fair.  Liberal arts education is a bit under fire right now but it has served me well.  I learned more through exposure to different people, other students smarter than me who were in random conversations and late-night debates. I learned more on the football field as I learned more about resilience, how to lose, and how to prepare.  The liberal arts education gave me an appreciation for continued curiosity, learning, and study which may be a more important skill than any in a fast-changing world.  It was the well-roundedness I needed.
• Leadership in Construction - Leadership means different things to different people. It can be easy in some settings. In football, all the players wanted to play. For a job site in South Boston, you walk onto a job site, you have 300-400 that don’t want to be there, some don’t speak English, then we get a union group, or an architect has other ideas, then traffic, weather, and things you can’t control. It’s hard for a leader to keep everybody working in the same direction. That’s a huge leadership task. I was thinking about that. A construction superintendent at 6 am is thinking about all of this stuff.  What makes someone good at that job? Sense of urgency, align and motivate hundreds of people, great planners, organized. Had a former Marine Vietnam Seargent who was great. A gym teacher who’s awesome, he’s in NYC with a job several city blocks. High sense of urgency, detail-oriented, motivates and aligns people. We do personality testing, and we’ve got a lot of people who are lower A and just as successful as higher A personalities. Such team players. Can put a team together. We like people who have played sports.
• Hiking – About 12 years ago, Anthony, his brother, son, and a few guys went out to hike a 10,000-footer in Colorado.  They met their guide who was this little, old dude who looked like he smoked pot fairly regularly.  As they looked to get started, Anthony asked him for the trail map and he said he didn’t have one.  “How do you know how to get to the top?" He pointed to the top of the mountain and said “It's right up there, we just need to keep going up." But when they were at the top, Anthony realized it was just an analogy for their business. We just needed to keep taking one more step up.
• ESOP - Consigli implemented an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) to make the company entirely employee-owned, fostering a culture of accountability, shared responsibility, and pride among their teammates, where employees directly benefit from the company's success and feel a stronger sense of ownership in decision-making; essentially, it aimed to create a more engaged and motivated employee base by giving them a stake in the company's performance.

Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes

Notes:

• Serendipity isn’t found. It’s made. Make your own luck. The best leaders create serendipity for their teams. A success mindset precedes success.
  • From Jenny - In 2011, I was single and living in New York City. I spotted an attractive guy across the train from me. I wanted to talk to him, but I was too nervous. Then he got off the train. She met her future husband by chasing after him off a train in NYC. "I was letting life pass me by." She used some wild courage to approach him.
•  What sits between you and the thing you want is fear. Who are your dynamic dozen? The 12 people you need to meet.
• Monday mini-festo. In 15 minutes, write the 2 things you did last week that you're proud of. Write 2 things you're excited about for this upcoming week.
• Focus on doing the work that helps the company be better. Solve problems. Read the VP email. Know your stuff.
• Get to know your boss's boss. Do it the right way by talking with your boss.
• Jenny's career at Google - First 11 years in sales, Go To Market, Operations. Own your Career project. She got 2,000 people to come to her first training. Used all resources within the company to do it.
• Use "for example." Don't speak in generalities.
•  Role, Objective, Impact - ROI
• At work, say no to the small. Don’t reply all to the Happy Birthday emails. Don’t do the NAP work. NAP stands for “Not Actually Promotable” Work. Sign up for the projects that help make your company better.
• Carlye Kosiak is one of their best hires at Google. She had the courage to stand out. She was specific. Her resume indicated interest in “recipe tasting in pursuit of the perfect oatmeal raisin cookie." Personality popped off the page. She was weird, reckless, nosy, obsessed, brutal. Must be yourself. Don’t just be weird to play a role.
• Goal Setting framework - Rock, Chalk, Talk, Walk.
• Jenny's goal is to sell 15,000 books by the end of week 1 and hit the NY Times best seller list.
•  If you sell 12,000 copies in week 1, how will you feel? "You ask such great questions."
• Don't play it cool.  Play it hot. Don't decide to fit in. Stand out.
• Watermark your work. Put your name and picture on the deck. Let people know you made it.
• Lady Gaga – A group of students at NYU created a Facebook group called “Stefani Germanotta, you will never be famous." Have the courage to stand behind your work. Lady Gaga wanted to be a big star.
• Life and Career Advice - Performance reviews - Focus 75% of your time on your strengths. Say yes to 75% of the things asked of you. Start sentences with "YOU" instead of "I" - Focus on them. Build influence thru empathy.

Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes.

The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk

This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire 1 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 have the hustle and grit to deliver. Go to www.InsightGlobal.com/LearningLeader

Rob Kimbel is an owner of Kimbel Mechanical Systems, located in Fayetteville, AR. He joined KMS in 1993, and in 2001, at the age of 26, he became the CEO and grew what was then 3 local plumbers making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year into a national company with more than 750 employees and earning hundreds of millions in revenue per year. Rob is also a partner in multiple start-ups, real estate projects, and real estate funds that specialize in affordable housing across the United States. Rob is also a mentor and advisor to several local businesses and entrepreneurs in NW Arkansas. He has also served on the boards of Generations Bank, NWA Home Builders Association, and Beyond the Game, a non-profit organization serving the impoverished of the Dominican Republic.

Notes:

• Betty Joe Drive… Lived in the hood. $200/month. Rob regularly takes his children to see where they lived. "I want to remind the kids where we came from."
• They started as a 3-person plumbing company. Rob was working for his dad, making $12-$14 an hour.
  • Now, they do $260m in revenue and have 750 full-time employees.
• When Rob was 25 years old, his dad asked him to be the CEO. He initially said no.
• Strategic risk-taking as a cornerstone of growth: Rob navigates the industry challenge of balancing new work with workforce capacity by making bold hiring decisions—demonstrating a greater risk appetite than his father. "We are always hiring" reflects their proactive approach to scaling.
• Kimbel is good at growing people. They fail, and stick with them to grow. “Profits are the applause for growing our people.”
• How to be good? Show up, work hard, and finish the job. The bar is so low.
• The No Child Left Behind Act wasn’t great for the trades industry. They made it seem that every person needed to go to college. When every person shouldn’t do that. Some should go into the trades. There are high school grads who make $100K/year by their mid-20s at Kimbel.
• The Kimbel Purpose: Create opportunities to improve lives.
• Values - TEAM, Humility, Hunger, Grit, Integrity.
  • TEAM- We willingly sacrifice for the good of the team. Row together.
  • Humility - We never consider ourselves above anyone or anything. Take the back seat.
  • Hunger - We choose to continually raise the bar. Never complacent.
  • Integrity - We do the right thing, in all places, at all times. The how matters.
  • Grit - We persevere, no matter the situation. Remember the why.
• Thank you notes – Each executive member writes at least one thank you note per week. This works as a forcing function for them to look for people doing great work and living by their values.
• Touch points - Senior leaders (30 people) reach out to 2 people per week to check on them. That’s 3,000 touches per year.
• Free from all, servant to all. Tattoos on Rob's forearms. I have made myself a servant. Free from work, I don’t care what society thinks. But I have a responsibility to be a steward. To be a servant to all.
• Rob works out like a psycho. Super hard. Why?
  • Start with the end in mind. I want to hold Cheri on my shoulders when I'm 65.
  • I want to ski with my kids when I'm 80.
  • I like to compete. I want to win Spartan races. I like doing hard things.
  • It also creates clarity in my mind throughout the day. Karomy messages me that she knows I'm running the stairs when she gets emails from me with lots of ideas.
• Marriage insights: "It must be intentional. We have fun together. We are genuine friends. We still have to work through stuff."
• Parenting philosophy shaped by observing other wealthy families: "It's critical that kids do hard work. They shouldn't start in an office. They should be out with the chickens. Be in the mess. Start at the bottom. Start in the ditch."
• Family-business boundary maintenance: "We get together every other weekend for family game night. We try not to have much business talk."
• Sold 70% of the business last July. What was the feeling the moment the money was wired? It was surreal. Want to honor Dad with 25 years of GRIT.
• Excellence defined: "It's continual learning. Wanting to get better. Think, what can I do better?"
• Creating a truth-telling culture: "Have to be willing to hear it and create a space where the truth is spoken."
• Life and career wisdom: "A career is not linear just like a marriage isn't. Have patience and live in the suck. Don't quit. There will be seasons of suck. Keep going."

Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes

The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk

Notes:

• “I sensed something was terribly wrong when I dialed into the conference line at 8:00 a.m. and heard an unfamiliar voice. “Hi, Mel ody, I’m Janine. I’m with an external HR firm. Unfortunately, this call is to let you know that your employment has been terminated, effective immediately.”
• Managing up is not kissing up. Managing up is strategically navigating relationships with those who have more positional power than you, namely your boss. It’s a critical skill set for maneuvering through the complex web of power dynamics, conversations, and unspoken expectations that shape our daily work lives.
• The triple win – What is something you can do that is good for you, good for your boss, and good for the company? Focus on those issues and solving those problems, and good things will happen for you as you grow your career. Like Carly Fiorina. Run towards the fire. Solving those tough problems will help you, your boss, and your company
• Meeting with a CEO. Connect what you did with what matters. Adapt your communication to that.
• Have upward empathy. Put yourself in their shoes. What matters to them? Prior to the meeting, meet with their Chief of Staff. Anticipate objections and answer them before they are asked.
• Create a one-pager for your boss when they are doing your performance review. Highlight your wins. Remind them. Make it easy on them.
  • Do what Lee Rivas told me to do. Every week, send an email with bullet points for all the things you did to help your boss and the company.
  • For the one pagers - be proactive, start with wins, results and outcomes. it's not self-promoting; it's informing. Identify 1-3 key areas where you need their support. Help them become a trusted advisor or partner.
• Design your 1:1. Send them the topics to talk about so you can drive those discussions. Make their life easier. They have enough other things to worry about.
• Feedback can only happen after alignment, styles, ownership, boundaries... They go in order.
• Define your A B Cs
  • Assumptions, Behaviors, Change you want to see
• The advancement conversation - Be open, and share what you want to do and how you can get there. My Dustyn Kim example and how I messed it up.
• The Money conversation - You don't get a raise just because time has passed. It has to be tied to results. Don't talk about the past and what you've done. Talk about what you can do to earn the company more. Don't do the "I deserve this" thing. Bosses hate that.
• Managing up is not kissing up. Managing up is strategically navigating relationships with those who have more positional power than you, namely your boss. It’s a critical skill set for maneuvering through the complex web of power dynamics, conversations, and unspoken expectations that shape our daily work lives.
• Everything changes when you understand the art and science of influencing others while keeping your own emotions and insecurities in check.
•  “Managing up isn’t really about making your boss’s life easier. It’s about taking control of your own work experience.”
• 10 Key Conversations:
  • The Alignment Conversation How can I get in my boss’s head to understand their needs, motivations, and goals?
  • The Styles Conversation Will I earn more respect from my manager if I get to the point quickly, or should I try swapping stories and building rapport? 
  • The Ownership Conversation How can I solve the problems that make my job frustrating? How can I seize opportunities without stepping on toes?
  • The Boundaries Conversation How do I say no and push back with tact when my manager saddles me with yet another task?
  • The Feedback Conversation How can I respectfully and effectively give my manager feedback in order to improve processes and communication?
  • The Networking Conversation How can I build other allies in the workplace? How can I turn day-to-day interactions into opportunities that open doors?
  • The Visibility Conversation How can I effectively advocate for myself and show off my strengths?
  • The Advancement Conversation What do I need to do to get to the next level? 
  • The Money Conversation When is the right time to negotiate salary? How can I make sure I am getting the compensation I deserve? 

Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes

This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire 1 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 have the hustle and grit to deliver.

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Chris Beresford-Hill is the Worldwide Chief Creative Officer at BBDO. Previously he spent 2 years as North America President and CCO of Ogilvy, where he helped bring the agency and its clients a new level of relevance. He brought Workday to the Super Bowl, led the team that brought in the Verizon account, and one of the biggest Super Bowl campaigns ever, “Can't B Broken,” featuring Beyonce, and created the most celebrated Super Bowl campaign of 2024, the social & influencer lead "Michael CeraVe," for CeraVe. Chris and his teams have won every award for creativity and effectiveness many times over. He has been included in ADWEEK Best Creatives, the ADWEEK 100, and Business Insider’s Most Creative People in Advertising.

Notes:

• Cold Emails: Be specific in your praise and specific in your ask. The lame "Can I pick your brain" type emails get deleted and ignored because they aren't specific.
• You never need permission to take responsibility. Chris learned this from Ed Catmull’s book Creativity Inc.… And he’s embodied this his entire career. The people who build huge careers take ownership of their own and regularly solve problems and improve their clients' and colleagues' lives. Chris has done this since his early days as an intern.
  • At any level taking on responsibility yourself, unasked, makes you stand out.
• Competence combined with insane follow-through. For some clients, it takes 50 ideas to get to the one that will work. Creating a culture where the team can share all of their bad ideas safely to get to the one great one.
• The creative process:
  • Brain dump everything. Purge your brain of everything it has.
  • When you think you're done, you're not. There's more. You have to get it all out.
• "A lot of creative people aren't fully aware of the process or the structure, they just feel it (Rick Rubin).
• "When you can see it lift off the page, you feel a sense of mastery over it."
• Chris's first Super Bowl commercial -- Emerald Nuts. He won it because he was both funny and added the fact that the product provided energy. Most people only covered one part, Chris did both.
• Push your edges - Chris is like Lionel Messi. He's always walking around in the office, asking questions, looking for ideas, being curious. Then he sees an opportunity and goes for it 100%.
• Chris has a standing reservation every week at the same restaurant where he meets with a mentor, mentee, or peer to deepen the important relationships in his life. That would be a good idea for us all to do.
• Chris was pen-pals with Dave Matthews for 8 years. 
  • Chris saw that they recorded at Bearsville studios and wrote a letter to Dave there. He also said, "Show up with gifts." He gave Dave a Beatles Bootlegged album.
• A leader takes what comes and then turns it into an opportunity.
• The formula is Competence + Insane Follow-Through.
• How to build relationships: Meet with people in person. Get drunk with them. Do hard work with them. Go through something bad with them. Laugh with them.
• I got hired from my internship by cold calling Mark Cuban to get him to approve of using his name in an ad.
• The best ideas are often bad in their first moments, or massively wrong, and then someone flips it or unlocks it. You have to stay on things and play around.
• I made my first ad by going through a garbage can to learn how to write a script and sending a bunch of Budweiser scripts to my boss.
• The art of finding an idea on the edge of possible, and the value of going over your skis when on the cusp of greatness - having a stomach for it. I’ve told a lie to keep things moving on every great campaign I was part of.
• I learned the best lesson in leadership when we lost our biggest account (Accenture).  I put Danny Meyer's mentality into practice, and we took that moment to put the business and clients second and play for each other. Culture carried us.
• Culture is built by the stories we tell and the behaviors we highlight.