SPEAKERS

Ryan Hawk, Clint Murphy

 

Clint Murphy  00:00

Ryan, welcome to the growth guide podcast where I’d love to start is if you could introduce our readers a bit to yourself in case they don’t know you yet.

 

Ryan Hawk  00:10

Thanks, Clint. Appreciate the opportunity guessing you reached out initially based on a combination of my work with my podcast, it’s called The Learning Leader Show have done that for the past eight and a half years and since then, have published a few books, the first one called Welcome to Management, second one called The Pursuit of Excellence. And really, I think my purpose is to try and inspire others to value and pursue excellence in their own lives to get out of the world of comparison of others. And really focus on your inner scorecard, th, of comparing yourself only to your previous self. And I try to follow my my own curiosities with great rigor and reach out to people and ask to speak with him and record those conversations, hopefully, for the better betterment of myself, as well as all those who choose to follow along. So I’ve had a lot of fun, man. I’m a big believer in that I don’t think there’s any point in doing this stuff if it’s not fun. Those are things I do for work. There’s plenty more in the backstory, but I’m guessing we can, we can get there if you want.

 

Clint Murphy  01:10

Well, hopefully we’ll cover some of that off in the conversation and the Pursuit of Excellence is what we’re going to talk about today. The first thing that jumps out at me in the pursuit of excellence is surrounding ourselves with great leaders. In two people that you talk about mentors in your life are Bob Greg and Ron Ullery. Can you share with the listeners? Who are they and how have they impacted your life to where you are today?

 

Ryan Hawk  01:35

Coach Bob Gregg was the head football coach at Centerville High School for more than 30 years as a legend. He’s in our Hall of Fame. I was fortunate to be a part of the team that helped him win his 300th game, which is an incredible feat for high school coach since you only played 10 games per year. Coach Ullery was our offensive coordinator who then went on to become the head coach when Coach Gregg retired after my senior season. I share them because I think I learned most everything about leadership initially from them other than my mom and my dad, and my two brothers, Coach Ollery and coach Craig are probably the most important people in my life as far as the ones in my formative years who made such a difference. They taught me what it means to work, they taught me what it means to have resilience, they taught me what it means to be overly prepared. It taught me to what it means to have attention to detail, note taking, they showed us that we gained confidence, because our leaders we knew would be the most prepared people on the field every Friday night. They also taught me that most of the greatest things in life follow really tough moments. And so if we wanted to be excellent, on Friday nights in October, well, then we’re going to work really hard in January and February and March and those June and July and August workouts starting at 415 in the morning, we’re going to be absolutely brutal. And so when I think about any of the work I do today, that if I want it to be excellent, it takes an immense amount of work leading up to these big moments. And now that’s what my life is, is a series of big moments and a series of getting ready for those moments, whether it’s a keynote speech, a podcast, writing books, helping with senior leaders, in an advisory capacity, all of that preparation in detail, orientation, and care and love and just an immense amount of work. It goes into all of those things. So I learned that luckily, when I was an eighth grader going into my my freshman season at Central High School.

 

Clint Murphy  03:34

Wow. How does that speak to you to the power of sport in our children’s lives, and how it transcends more than just clearly the playing field.

 

Ryan Hawk  03:47

I’m very biased. And I realized there are other ways but especially when you you grow up and if your parents have the means to be able to give you and provide you with anything, it can be easy. Life’s not necessarily easy, but it can be made easier. The great thing about sports is they don’t care about where you come from, who your parents are, who your siblings are, all that matters is what happens between those lines. And so there’s so much to be learned from losing, from getting knocked down ,from getting beat out by the other person from the starting quarterback drop. There’s so much you can learn through sports. And so I love what it can provide. I love what it’s currently providing for my children. I love seeing them embrace sports and the work that goes into it. And so I’m just a big believer in I don’t know if I call it manufacturing hardship, but when we’re able to provide them with pretty much anything and anything they could ever want. We need to do our best to manufacture hardship in their lives. And I think sports is one, one of the great ways we can do that.

 

Clint Murphy  04:54

How old are your kids, Ryan?

 

Ryan Hawk  04:56

The oldest is 16 and then the youngest is eight

 

Clint Murphy  05:00

16, yeah, great years for sports. So I have a 15 year old. As of next month, 15 year old and 11 year old boy and absolutely aligned. It’s a totally different lifestyle growing up than we were afforded, or at least I was afforded growing up. And so the only spot where I can see that we can push them, it’s on the basketball court, on the football field, in the gym. So I love that response and something that I try to reinforce with them, that I didn’t realize was Darren Hardy’s formula was a question I want you to be able to take the listeners through is the idea of the compound effect being small smart hoices, plus consistency plus times equals radical difference. Can you break down for the listeners what that looks like? And how they can be using that in their lives in the pursuit of excellence.

 

Ryan Hawk  05:56

One of the number one questions I get at the end of a keynote speech is usually around hacks, or what’s a quick fix, or something I could implement immediately that will change my life. And my answer is usually disappointing for the members of the audience. Because I’ve learned that there really aren’t any, the compound effect is about consistently doing the work each and every day. And then watch compounding happened. James Clear writes about this in Atomic Habits, we just recorded again about this. But it’s that incremental work, and then that can compound. So we’re trying I’m, I’m trying to create a visual for people to think of yourself on this, this trajectory. And if we do the necessary work each day, whatever that may be, like write the page a day, go to the gym every single day, get the sugar out of that whatever the thing is, for you, but you consistently show up and do that every single day, that compounding effect and creates this upward trajectory where it the behaviors compound on one another, just like compound interest with your money, right? That’s what Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger talk about all the time, how to get rich, really slowly, it just takes a while. Don’t interrupt the power of compounding. The same thing with money is the same thing with our habits with our daily behaviors. Which is why consistency and reliability and dependability. Very important and very unsexy qualities in a person however, the ones who are sustaining excellence over an extended period of time seem to all embody those. And that’s just not as enjoyable to hear. Because there is no hack, there is no quick fix. It just takes time and effort and consistently doing it. The interesting thing about that, though, Clint is the fact that most people can’t or won’t do that. They’re not willing to, they’re willing to for a short period of time they, they get on the new diet. And then once the diet term length is over, they go back to their old bad habits, as opposed to saying, what system can I implement that I could do forever. That’s what I would urge people to if you want to be a writer, well, then you need to write every day, if you want to get in shape, you have to watch what we eat, not a diet, but we actually watch what we eat, and we go to the gym every day, or we go on our walks or whatever it may be, whatever the the person that you’re trying to become is what system are you willing to put in place and adhere to each and every day, in order to become that person and then get better and better and better. Again, it’s not as fun, it’s not as quick, it’s not as sexy. But to me, it seems to be a commonality among those who sustain excellence over time.

 

Clint Murphy  08:31

And one thing, tying it back to sports earlier is a lot of people may have this fear of, but I won’t be good when I start. And I’m not seeing results early on. What we’re looking for, though, is being willing to embrace the suck, if you will, I’m going to be okay until I’m good. I’m going to be good, long enough, consistently enough to become great. You talk about the importance of focusing on that process over the results. Can you talk a little bit about that?

 

Ryan Hawk  09:05

I think it’s a superpower to be okay to suck at something initially. I recently started playing pickleball I don’t really I still don’t fully know the rules. I’m not very good at it. I’m getting beat by people who are far less athletic than I am. But it’s okay. I’m not embarrassed by it. I think that’s part of the deal. When I look at people again, who sustained excellence over time, they gotten rid of the fear of looking stupid initially, whether they’re trying to learn a new instrument, they’re participating in a new activity or game that they have never played before. They’re doing improv right, I’ve learned a lot from doing improv and seeing how people show up for that. All of those things like you’re not going to be very good at it. And I think if you can develop the skill, a beginner’s mindset knowing that at the beginning of anything, you’re probably not very good and being okay with that, that in itself is a superpower because then whatever the thing is that you’re showing up to do that you’re new and not good at knowing, Hey, I am willing to ask questions, I’m willing to get repetitions, I’m willing to to be embarrassed, I’m willing to look a little bit stupid initially, I’m willing to get beat by somebody who isn’t as as athletic as I am, like, whatever that thing may be, I think having that and then the willingness to keep going, and keep going, keep going. And eventually, you do get better. And you see the results of that. But if you’re too afraid to look stupid initially, you’ll just stay in your little hole of things that you’re currently good at, and never really expand. And again, I don’t think that’s a really fun way to live, I’d rather go out and say it’s okay, to look kind of dumb initially. That’s all right. And maybe two, you try things right now, I’m not, that’s not for me, I don’t want to do that. But you don’t know until you go and do it. It’s like anything else. People say I want to be able to get up on stage and give speeches like I’ve seen you do online. Well, the only way to do that is to get up on any sort of the stage and to do it. And I promise you, when you’re brand new, you’re not going to be good at it, because it’s really hard. And I think the fear though of looking stupid or being embarrassed, unfortunately paralyzes people, and they don’t expand their kind of current zone. And to me, I think those people, I look for the ones who are pushing their edges on constantly, even if initially, they look dumb in a way, like I really admire seeing somebody who it is obvious they don’t know what they’re doing. They’re not good at it. And they’re completely fine with that. Now they’re going to ask questions, they’re going to try to get better, they’re gonna do it again and again. And again. That to me is like, I want a person like that on my team, or I’m gonna follow a person like that if they’re a leader in my organization.

 

Clint Murphy  11:34

We’re jumping really far ahead in the book. And so I will come backwards and explain a bit more to people. But when you you hit something there that I really love zoning in on, is the idea of the beginner’s mindset. Because you later contrast, we have beginners, we have experts, and then we have masters and when we’re looking for mastery. We still have that beginner’s mindset, even when we’re far along in our journey. So we’re asking the questions, we’re digging in. What does that look like? For example, you mentioned a Warren Buffett or Charlie Munger, people who you might think are at the pinnacle, but they’re still so curious to learn even more and have that beginner’s mindset. What does that look like for people to develop and bring into their life?

 

Ryan Hawk  12:21

So Charlie Munger talks about becoming a learning machine, right? The biggest difference between people who seem to all say sustained excellence,  he’ll use other words, maybe but over time  is the fact that they turn themselves into learning machines. And I think there’s a simple prompt you could ask yourself is, at the end of each day is what did I do today to be a little bit wiser going to bed than I was when I woke up? Who did I talk to? What books did I read? What TED talks did I watch? What podcasts did I listen to? What class did I teach, because I think teaching is a great way to learn. What did I do today to be a little bit wiser, going to bed than I was when I woke up? And if you can stack those days, consistently, day after day after day by following your curiosity with great rigor, asking questions, being a great listener asking better follow up questions than initial ones, right, just like you’re doing right now. That to me, if you continuously stack those days, you’ll notice you’ll be in a much better place a year from now. So, Clint, when you listen to your podcast one year from now, and you listen back to old episodes, I would hope that you’ll be embarrassed. You should say, Man, I can’t believe that was that bad a year ago. That proves to me that you’ve grown, you’ve gotten better, even if you’ve done it for 20 years, you should be better your 20th year than you were your 19th year. I think your previous and past work if you reread the writing, or you look at the videos, or listen to the podcast, or you watch yourself speak on stage God, I do this from time to time, like what? They paid me for that? That was horrible, right when I looked at one from a couple years ago, and I thought it was good at the time. So I think that’s a good signal and a marker for growth that if that if we look at our old stuff, we’re a bit embarrassed. Yeah, some of it’s good, but some of his terrible. And I think one of the ways to have that happen is to ask yourself that question, what did I do today to be a little bit wiser than I was going to bed than then when I woke up? And being able to answer in the affirmative day after day after day and let compounding take over. But that takes thought and intention. And those are two other qualities that I found to be a commonality among those who sustained excellence is the fact that they’re very thoughtful, and they’re very intentionally think about things. They’re reflective. They’re pausing from time to time, they use silence. And then when they decide to act, there isn’t just wandering around, crossing our fingers, hoping for the best, they act with intention. They do it because they have thought it through, the have talked to people. And then once they decide they go, versus just kind of like, oh, you know, let’s see what happens. Hope for the best. Oh, not really thinking about it, because maybe that’s hard or it takes too much time. No, it’s like put a lot of thought. And then after that put a lot of intention with your actions. I think that’s, that’s a big key,

 

Clint Murphy  15:06

Absolutely 100% on all of that so much to dive in and chew on Ryan. And I can even see, when you say you’ve been doing this for eight and a half years, your ability to use pauses, enunciate words, clarity of how you’re speaking, it’s so clear that you’ve been on this journey for that period of time. And I’m sure when you look back and say, What were my first podcast interview like, there’s dramatic change from then to now. And I already feel it after a year. And you’ll recognize when I started this journey, I knew that podcasting wouldn’t be easy, and the results wouldn’t come fast. And what I said to myself was, you have to give it until episode 100. Before you even assess yourself, get better every day, generally, for me in all areas of my life. And the key is what you said there thought and intention, intentionally, what am I going to focus on? But don’t assess yourself until you’re at least 100 episodes in, and then understand how has that change worked? And how has it grown? Have I seen the results, but so many people stop, because they don’t have those results. And sorry, total digression, we’re gonna take it back for a second to your book. And what I want to cover for the listeners at a high level, is you talk about three broad buckets that we’re going to look at which are the build, the fuel, and the chase, can you take us through those at a high level? And then we’ll dive into some of the parts of each one and then we’ll leave the listener to go find the rest in the book?

 

Ryan Hawk  16:51

Yeah, I mean, at a high level, I think we’re always in the building phase, we’re always working on ourselves, you can’t lead anybody else until you lead yourself. My first book, Welcome to Management was lead yourself, build your team lead your team. And this second book was was entirely focused on the believe in yourself element. So there’s a bill that the fuel is like, where the drive comes from, where’s the purpose? Why are you doing what you’re doing? I think it’s important to be to acknowledge that to think about that, to understand that, right. And the chase is just the daily action. We have to, we can’t just be the learner who sits in the corner and takes a lot of notes and reads books, but then doesn’t do anything. We have to take that learning from theory to action, right? We learn who we are in practice, not in theory. That’s what Herminia Ibarra said, and I’m a big believer in that, because sometimes that can be a problem for me, where I am very curious. And I want to learn and I’m taking a bunch of notes, and I’m reading a lot of books. Well, in a way, it’s it’s I wouldn’t say it’s useless, but it kind of is if we’re not doing anything with it. So I think it’s just important to push people that we mostly learn from doing. I played, played football, growing up, all sports, but played football in high school and college and after college for a little bit. And I know the difference. The difference is between when I was on the field playing, versus when I was watching somebody else play. Yeah, I could watch film, I could see what they did well, we can have conversations. But it’s a completely different ballgame when you’re actually taking the snap from the center, having to stand in the pocket, while 300 pounders are trying to kill you and make the throw. That’s completely different than watching somebody else do it. I think that’s the case, with pretty much everything that we’re doing, maybe not to that extreme. But for the most part, if we really want to learn we got to put it into practice.

 

Clint Murphy  18:39

That super resonates right in this moment. Last night, my my son who’s about to turn 12 said, I was watching succession while doing some writing later in night. And he said, Dad, do you believe in manifestation? So I said, Well, come on over here, grab my notebook over there and come sit down with me. And I took them through the notebook and showed them all the writing that I do, Ryan, that shows, here’s where I’m going to be in 2025, Mission 2025, what life’s gonna look like how I’m gonna get there. I do a little bit of the Dilbert idea of, you know, write have a goal, write it down 20 times a day. And then you start to really think about it. But what I really emphasize with him was son, everyone will tell you about they call manifestation the law of attraction. The problem is the law of attraction doesn’t actually work. Unless it’s combined with the law of action. And that’s what I’m hearing from you as well is you can’t get what you want simply by wanting it. You have to get onto the field and play every day to get there. So the goal is important but you have to bring it back to what do I need to be doing today to get to that goal tomorrow? What does that look like for you in your life?

 

Ryan Hawk  18:43

Well, I’m actually curious to ask you because I was digging in all your work ahead of time, then let’s say for example, at one point, you probably said, or maybe you didn’t, maybe you stumbled into it. But I’d be curious to hear, I would love to have, you know, 100,000 followers on Twitter, because I think it’s a great medium to influence and impact people. And it can be good for brand building all other stuff, too. So saying that is great. We all could say that, but then actually getting there and then tripling that or wherever you’re at right now, is really hard to do. So I’m curious, like, did you actually do that? Did you set a goal like that? And then what did you do to achieve whatever that first goal was, and then compound on that?

 

Clint Murphy  20:41

It’s legitimately everything in your book. I found it a masterwork. So I’ll take a step backwards. For me, everything comes down to similar to you, what I’ve read in the past. And a few key things for me have always been begin with the end in mind and the flywheel. Those are two big drivers of my life and the compound effect. So you’ll start to see the three of those play in that plan. So what I did was I said, I want to have a successful podcast, I want to transition from a CFO to someone who writes, podcasts, public speaks, coaches and consults, private equity, real estate investing. And I created a plan in 2020, to be doing that by a certain point in time. And when I looked at my list, I created a list that said, for each of these categories, where do I want to be in each category? What do I need to be doing to achieve that? And what education requirements, if any, do I need? And then I brought it all the way back to today instead, if that’s my goal, five to 10 years from now, what do I need to be doing today to get there, and the one that jumped out for me was build a brand it was every single one of those buckets. And so I started on social media. And I said, I realized pretty quickly with the podcast, it’s very hard to reach out to you, Ryan, when I have 100 followers and say, Ryan, would you like to come on the podcast? And I’ll share this with my mom and my brother and sister. Versus Ryan, would you like to come on  and I’ll share this to 300,000 people plus a newsletter with 10,000 people. So the idea I realized quickly was that if I increase the growth of social media, I can reach out to more people for the podcast. If I have conversations with someone like Ryan on the podcast, I can write about that on social media. And people will be more interested, which will start to fuel each other. So when I started, I said, Well, the first goal is I need to be able to get to this many listens and reach out to these people. I need to get the social media to this level. And then the question became, how do I do that? So the answer was, I’m going to learn, I’m going to look at the people ahead of me who’ve done it, I took probably three or four courses, and I put in the reps. So last April, I started writing threads, I took ship 30 for 30 with Dickie Bhushan, Nicolas Cole, and wrote a thread every single day for 75 days.

 

Ryan Hawk  23:20

So hold on hold on that point. So there’s something about quality and quantity, and and consistency I’ve actually had a long conversation with Jason Garrett about this, because when he had his podcasts, he actually said like, well, consistency doesn’t matter, as long as the quality is top notch. And to a point, what I said is, I think I think you need both. I think it needs to be very high quality and consistency builds routines for people it builds trust, it lets them know you’re going to be there, you’re going to show up for them. So like that’s why eight and a half years, every Sunday, seven o’clock Eastern. My podcast is shipping no matter what, right, no matter how much travel or how much COVID, doesn’t matter, like it’s coming. So 75 days a thread a day, how did you maintain, because anybody can write threads, but not anybody can write great threads. How do you maintain high quality all set for all 75 of those? And you’re still doing it right? Not every day, but how did you still you maintain high quality for 75 days?

 

Clint Murphy  24:24

And not all of them were high quality and realistically to begin with. They were low quality because I was learning and it goes back to what we talked about earlier is I’m willing to embrace the suck for a long periods of time. I know I’m not going to be good at things. And so I do them anyway. And say I will suck until I’m good. I will be good until I’m great. And in there there, there was some repurposing so one of the things we talk about in socials is when you when you have a thread,three months later if you’re growing by a certain percentage, you have an entirely new audience. So you can reshare what you wrote three months ago. The bigger you get, the longer those gaps between reshares can be. And so there was a certain amount of resharing in there and early on, I’d be willing to do: here are the top 10 movies everybody should watch. And I would put some thought into it, it would have the movie, some lessons from it sports movies, you should watch The Blind Side, here’s what you’ll learn. And over time, I was less willing to do that superficial and you’re not going to be surprised. The more you did it, the better the quality automatically became. Because you start to train your brain.

 

Ryan Hawk  25:45

Yeah. So you basically said to yourself, though, I’m doing this, right, you made the choice. And then you follow through on the promise you made to yourself.

 

Clint Murphy  25:56

Yeah, and this for me started at 32. When you know a lot of people, we live our life in our head. Yeah. And you talk about this, you get the dopamine rush of you talk about doing something, but you don’t do it and around 32 was when I went from talking about doing things to doing things. And the first one was an Ironman. And that was the first time I took Stephen Covey and said, Okay, I’m going to, I was fat and out of shape of couch potato. And I said, I’m going to do an Ironman, it took two years, and we did it. And I always use we because I can’t do Twitter, I can’t do this podcast, I can’t do the Ironman unless I have that partner who’s supporting the journey. And so that was the first time bringing it all the way back to say and saying, Well, if we’re gonna get there, what do we need to do today to get there? And let’s start. And let’s do that consistent steady march in once you do that, and this is why even our conversation on sport, and I’m going to get back to your book, you’re very good at turning the table here. The idea that doing that Ironman taught me any goal you have, you simply have to bring it back to today and say, What do I need to do every day? Over a long period of time starting small, which is something you talk about, and we can dive into that for the listener? What’s that first step I need to take, if you’re going to do an Ironman, you don’t need to go run a marathon tomorrow, you need to buy a pair of running shoes, get your bike tuned up and take some swimming lessons. And step one, and then we’re going to work our way up to that over a long period of time. And when you do that, with that, you realize, Wait, I can do that with a Twitter following. I can do that with building a business. I can do that with becoming a CFO. I can do that with becoming a leader in a company. Anything I want is achievable if I break it down into its smallest components steps. And I learn along the way and I just show in this is why I love what you wrote. It’s a masterclass if I show up every day, and I do the work.

 

Ryan Hawk  28:03

Yeah. So you were a CFO and you decided to peace out on that. Like, I don’t want to do that anymore.

 

Clint Murphy  28:07

No, I’m still a CFO. Yeah, I’m a CFO by day, run a finance team with about 30, 33 people. And by night I create content and on the weekends, and they’re cool with that. They’re less cool with that over time, Ryan.

 

Ryan Hawk  28:25

Are you gonna come to the point where you have to make that call or what?

 

Clint Murphy  28:31

Yeah, I’m fine doing both as long as feasibly possible. And, and I, I recognize at some point, and it’s probably starting to tear at the edges that you grow a little too much on social media and things become a little too popular and people become unhappy with that. The thing I always come back to is, to the extent it’s not getting in the way of what you’re doing, the focus is still on my role as a CFO and making sure I’m doing my job and we’re performing it becomes a distraction for other people.

 

Ryan Hawk  29:06

I personally thought it helped I was a VP of sales at a big huge company. And the podcast element started becoming in some people’s minds a distraction I actually got hired by a boss wholoved it, he was all about it you know in but eventually he moved on. And I got a different boss who wasn’t asbig of a fan of the quote distraction even though I felt it made me a better leader within an organization. So it’s nice if you can work with people who see it as a feature not a bug. I’m guessing all of your work. All of your writing all of your podcasting makes you a better leader and makes you a better CFO. And hopefully people are open minded enough to like see that like having Clint as a real asset. Let’s not do anything to make him just want to leave even do that work full time. Because you’re also going to be I liked the fact that it was a side hustle for three and a half years, because there was no pressure to make a single dollar. And when you’re not focused on having to make money, you’re focusing on just doing great work, and not thinking, Well, how do I monetize this thing as fast as possible, as opposed to saying, No, I’m just focused on the work, because to me, I don’t know about you like, the podcasting part is the reward. I mean, it’s the reward for this for me is that I just get to keep doing it. Right. I love recording podcasts. I love writing. I mean, there are days I don’t love writing, but I love kind of what it does for me, the person that helps me become and I think it’s great for people to have these side interest in pursuits and I think companies, they’d be better off. And I think they’re, they probably are getting better at this because they understand the power of the internet and writing online, all the things podcasting, they’d say, hey, let’s not call these distractions. Let’s say this is great. Now, you do have to do the work, right? You got to make sure you’re as a CFO, you’re doing excellent work. That’s that those are table stakes. But I think we should highlight and reward people who do that type of thing you’re doing not like, slowly pushed them out the door.

 

Clint Murphy  31:15

If I look at your example, I would imagine that as a leader in sales, the way you’re able to listen, the way you’re asking questions, the way you’re getting someone to open up and tell you how they feel what they want their desires. That’s a massively powerful tool that you may not have had before you started the podcast. Would that make sense to you?

 

Ryan Hawk  31:43

Yeah, 100% 100% helps you in your personal life? I mean, wouldn’t it be? Aren’t you a better husband and dad, by being a better listener by following your curiosity by understanding people and emotion like your emotional intelligence gets better every single interview that you do, every conversation that you have? I think it’s I’ve noticed my wife talks about this all the time, I’ve noticed a giant difference socially, just with friends, with random parents on the soccer field, right of kind of connecting and building relationships. With people, all of those things get better, and definitely makes you better as a sales professional. I mean, in sales, I think the people who are the best, they understand that there’s a current state, and there’s a desired state, right. That’s the sales process. And through the process of discovery, which is what we’d call it in our sales world, you are trying to figure out the gap between the current state and the desired state. And the best way to create that big gap is to ask questions, to listen, to be thoughtful, to figure out where they’re at, and to figure out where they want to go. And the only way to know where they’re at and to know where they want to go is to learn from them is to ask them questions. And so while I’m doing that, as a sales professional, and then teaching others to do the same, I’m professionally doing that, or was, on the side by asking all these really wise people a bunch of questions and learning from them. So yeah, I think the act of having pointed, intentional conversations with people who are wiser than you, I see all upside. I just don’t see any downside for people doing that. And if someone said, Yeah, I have this practice, or what I do in my off hours, in addition to my family, what I do my off hours is I go talk to people who are a lot smarter than me who have different life experiences for me. And I ask them a bunch of questions, and I try to synthesize their learning, so I help other people as well along the way. I would say, Yeah, I’d likeClint to be in my organization. I don’t even care what job it is. I’d like that person to be in my organization. I want a team full of people like that. I’m guessing good things will happen if people approach their days as opposed to saying, I’m pretty tired just to go watch TV when I’m done. I mean, I get it, we all need to rest, we need to recharge, we need to relax, like stress plus rest equals growth. I get that, had Brad Stulberg on, right, we talked about those things. But to me like I think it’s a huge feature to have people in your organization who are just striving to get better, and they have an intentional process in place to help them do that.

 

Clint Murphy  34:16

And how do you look for people like that? Because you do talk about this, that when you’re building a culture, or you’re pursuing excellence, is finding people who have that curiosity. So when you’re building a team, or you’re looking for someone to add to your team, how do you look for that curiosity element in people?

 

Ryan Hawk  34:35

Well, a couple of ways. One is how it’s how they behave. And two, it’s the questions I ask. So the questions I’m asking them about what they’re into what they like, what drives them, what they’re most curious about. And here’s a great question. What are you most curious about right now? What are you most excited about right now? What are some times in the past year you were, what happened as a result? And then the initial questions are just, their just to get it kicked off, then you have to be a good listener and ask great fall. Little questions based on what they say. So I think that that’s important. The other thing I’ve noticed, and we ran this little study, because I was interviewing and hiring salespeople for a long time, then eventually sales managers. So I got, I was fortunate to hire lots of them over the course of my 12 year corporate career, and I found the ones who ended up doing the best, having the best results, being the best mentors being great teammates. They were the ones who both had the confidence and the curiosity, to ask me questions throughout the process, as opposed to just waiting till the end. So think about the typical interviewer, you come in, you want this job and they ask you questions, and you answer them. At the end of the hour, or whatever they say, what questions do you have for me, and then that person kind of opens up their notebook, they look at their prepared questions, and they ask, that is like a C, or a B minus, versus the candidate who comes in and it immediately shifts to a conversation and not an interview, because they’re interviewing me just as much as I’m interviewing them. Because they probably have options, they probably have multiple companies and multiple people who want them. So because of that, they’re going to be interviewing me to see should I come to work here, it’s not like I’m just trying to get the job. It’s, I’m seeing if this is the right place for me to go. And by doing that, that takes confidence that takes preparation, and that takes curiosity, all great skills, at least in the sales profession, but probably most jobs, to be confident to be curious, right, to have some courage. All those things are good qualities in people. And so that that little thing, which I would always know after every interview, it wasn’t foolproof, it wasn’t 100%, I haven’t found any rule that is there are certainly exceptions to the rule. But when I found those people, and then we put them in our culture in our organization, more often than not, they did really well,

 

Clint Murphy  36:55

And when you look at yourself, the curiosity, the passion for learning, for asking questions in growing through doing that? Did you always have that or how did that develop over time? And how did your podcast help to facilitate that as part of your journey?

 

Ryan Hawk  37:13

No, it’s not something ingrained in me. It’s not something I had for a long, long time. I mean, as a football player in college, and afterwards, I just kind of did whatever the coach told me to do. I wasn’t a book reader. I wasn’t even big on meeting with mentors. This is a regret. I think it was a mistake. I was immature, like a lot of kids, although now I meet college kids, and they are way ahead of me. But no, I think what happened is funny. I got in the corporate world. And I got really lucky, I got a sales job at a company called LexisNexis. And I was fortunate that one just to get the job, a family friend had to kind of take a shot on me. And he only I don’t think he would have if he wasn’t friends with my dad, which I was super lucky to get the opportunity. But also, I really wanted to prove him, right. I had people come to me an offer to help me.I tried to show up with an open mind with a desire to be hungry and try to get better and learn. And so I would come in at all hours on the weekends, do whatever you have to do to learn. And so I learned by asking questions of these mentors who were helping me who were doing it just because they’re good people. Wow, this is actually kind of a superpower in itself that I hadn’t really tapped into. Prior than that. I started reading books. I remember reading Good to Great by Jim Collins, and Give and Take by Adam Grant and these books, and I realized, I’m kind of amazed and slightly embarrassed that I didn’t realize that there’s so much value you can gain from simply reading books. I mean, it sounds basic to say that, but there’s so much you can learn. And so one book then led to the next and the next and the next. And one conversation led to the next and the next. And I love the interview process. When I worked in sales, I love kind of learning about people and their stories. And then do we take a shot or not like I love that. And so I started my podcast after I finished my MBA, because my official schooling was now ending. And I wanted to create a different version of my own school to create my own form of leadership PhD program to follow my own curiosity where I get to pick all of my teachers. When you get your MBA, I don’t know what you think you got some of the certifications. You don’t get to choose the curriculum, the University says Here, take these classes. It’s only offered by this one teacher at this time, go do that. And sometimes you get lucky and it’s great. And sometimes it really sucks. And I thought I’d rather create my own school where I’m choosing the topics and I’m choosing the professors. And if you choose to learn in public or you choose to create a platform as you’ve done, your odds of attracting higher caliber professors, podcast guests, in this case, go up and one leads to the next and so to me, like all of those things started happening. All of this started happening and I realized this kind of being curious thing is pretty good. This kind of reading things kind of good. This talking to people and asking them questions and being a good listener, and asking better follow up questions was pretty cool. And what I wish I would have learned that when I was 16 instead of 27. Yeah, that would have been great. But hey,better late than never. So in a way, it proves like, definitely not born with it. Definitely not in my DNA or my makeup. Maybe it was it just needed something to bring it out. But it didn’t come out for a pretty long time.

 

Clint Murphy  40:27

Even though you’re saying you started late and you regret not starting earlier. You mentioned having the podcast for eight years now and shipping every Sunday. Yes, would put you reasonably early in podcasting parlance, in something that jumps out at me is publishing every Sunday for eight years. There’s a level of focus and discipline that goes into that. And you probably learned some of that as a quarterback on the gridiron. What is that focus  and discipline mean to you in the pursuit of excellence and how does your concept of the wall tie into that?

 

Ryan Hawk  41:08

So the Michael Phelps story, right is the wall right? If you watch him in the Olympics, when swimming, there’s this amazing picture that was taken in the middle of his butterfly stroke,the guy who was supposed to win her favorite to win that race, they made the turn, they come back, Phelps was losing, and they make the turn, he comes back, he gets ahead of his competitor. And the picture is Michael Phelps is squarely focused on getting to that wall and his competitors looking sideways at him. Now, some have said he was breathing. But regardless, the picture shows the competitor looking right at Michael Phelps, and Phelps crushes him. And to me, it’s just a great metaphor of priorities and focus. So to me priority one, when it comes to my work is is consistency. Because I don’t know how many emails I’ve received over the past eight and a half years that have said this exact thing, Clint, they said, every Sunday night, after our family dinner, I’m washing the dishes. I listen your podcast. Every Monday morning, I’m riding the train commuting to work. I listen, your podcast, every Monday morning, I go on a walk by myself, I listen to your podcast, what they’re saying is, this is my routine, you’ve become part of my routine. That is how you build relationships. That’s how you build trust. If you publish randomly, it could still go well, but to me, starting a platform with no name, completely independent. With no platform, I had no email list. I know social media, literally zero social media following, nothing out of the blue. This was one of the things that I could potentially differentiate myself is by becoming a part of your routine by consistently showing up for you the listener. And if I do that, I can build trust, I can become part of your routine. So to me, I think that focus by saying, no matter what, no matter how crazy the schedule gets, no matter how many speeches or how much air travel or whatever, I am not going to miss and so the my Podcast Producer, the guy who helps me We text every single day, and we are now scheduled out for the next eight weeks, something catastrophic can happen. I do have a good bit of travel coming up. We have family stuff, we have everything. We’re good for two months, if I don’t record a single podcast now I have over the next few months, I probably have 10 to 12 podcasts already scheduled to make sure we stay way ahead of it. But that was a a decision I made at the very beginning. I mean, I recorded 22 episodes before I released one. So that says I’m going to be 22 ahead of this thing. Because I never wanted to miss, I never wanted to be inconsistent. Consistency is something that I think is in my family DNA. I do see that from my parents, I definitely see that for my brothers, definitely see that myself. So I think that was just a big thing for me, which is no matter what, no matter what, I’m going to do this thing. And I think that’s just a choice. That’s an intentional choice to make, because it’s important to me. And I’ve learned over time that it seems to be important to the audience, too. And so we’re very aligned in that regard. And I think that’s been helpful for the show’s growth.

 

Clint Murphy  44:17

And I’m going to share a quote you have from the book, or section from the book, because I think it speaks to that. And it speaks to what’s required in order to do that. And so what what jumped out at me was a quote that you had from Chase Jarvis. It’s ruthless discipline. There are no tricks. The focus part is what’s wildly misunderstood. When you’re focused on doing a thing and you do that thing relentlessly, until you get the outcome you want. It’s celebrated. No one else sees the other stuff. My best work has always come through discipline and focus. So I always say to excel, it’s ruthless prioritization. and discipline bordering on obsession. When they’re I think I wrote last night, the downside to that can be burnout. But the upside to that is results that you can really be proud of. So what does that look like for you in prioritization in the discipline to always hit that? What are you saying no to to say yes to? What are your tools for prioritizing every Sunday, I’m pressing go.

 

Ryan Hawk  45:30

The saying no part is critical. Because you start having to say no, to really cool things or really great opportunities. Yes, traveling out of the country, giving a keynote somewhere, that’s going to take three days of time to get there to get to do it to get home, whatever it may be people wanting to partner or do something really, that would be cool, but would take you away from kind of the daily work. And so it’s, I’m not great at this. I think I’m getting better at it, though, of just saying, No, I’m not doing that. It’s like somebody says, hey, you know, I love your stuff. I’m the coach of this golf team, it’s a five hour drive. So you show off the fly, but you come talk to us and do this. I was like, that sounds cool. But I can’t do that, you know, I have I have this, this and this, or I’m recording the podcast. So to me, it helps, I don’t know how it is for you of like, what’s your number one thing,I kind of built this chart or this, I actually drew it out at the very middle, the very the foundation of every all of the branches, and all the cool things I do is my podcast, because it’s what leads to pretty much all the cool stuff in my life. workwise. So that’s there. And then there’s branches. But even the visual of knowing this has to be number one, it that may change, I guess at some point, because yes, having books actually becomes another mode of having people become aware of your work. And if that happens, then maybe that could bleed back to the podcast or whatever, or it could lead to work or a speech or whatever. So it’s, it’s knowing that this is the reason for everything and staying true to that it helps that it intersects in with the fact that it’s my favorite thing to do. So it is nice that the thing that provides the most for me is also my favorite thing to do. Again, the reward for great work is the ability to do more. So that’s what it is now. I do need to make money. And so there are elements of my work that I say yes to in order to make money. Writing books, speeches are good way to do that. And then I host leadership circles, I work with leaders one on one, I do group leadership development things. So there are things I do need to do in order to keep doing the work that I love. But I try to limit the stuff that is like oh, you know, you know, there’s days where like, oh, gosh, I gotta do this thing. I try to limit the amount of that there’s still some of that there’s no job in existence where there isn’t some of that. I’m just trying to eliminate, you’re saying the more. The cool thing is, the more the show grows, the more the books do well, the better I speak on stage, demand increases a lot. And so when the demand increases, like simple economics, you can be much more picky in what you decide to do. So I’m very picky and intentional. Now with the clients I work with, they know this, obviously, your leverage, your pricing goes way up. And then you can have, I prefer to have like fewer, better clients. So that takes like the time I’m working on it. It’s enjoyable, like you become a real partner with them. But it’s not overtaking your day. You’re not on airplanes all the time. And so then I remember how they became acquainted with me and my work. And I’m so focused on doing that. Well, there are moments in time with the podcast where I have not done enough preparation, and it shows I usually don’t release those episodes. But I get pretty upset with myself and say, What am I doing like I get to do the coolest thing in the world. Why did you not prepare? Right? That’s probably because I said yes too much to other things. And it’s just a good good way to put yourself in check and get back to remember what’s the fundamental thing that is the reason that all this this this cool career got started.

 

Clint Murphy  49:10

And when you talked about that something that really jumped out it sounds to me like you’ve realized what your flywheel is. And your flywheel is driven off the podcast and all of these other avenues are what what grow because of it. And then at some point, they also start to feed it being if you’re writing books, if you’re giving speeches, people are going to come to the podcast, it’s going to continue to grow which will give you an opportunity to do more speeches and to have more clients. So you’ve built your flywheel and the key though, is at the center of that flywheel is what you love. And so people want to be motivated, they want the passion, but all of that tends to be fleeting. What you’ve done is build at the center, this is what I love. And that is hard to lose energy for. How important is it for people to put something they love at the center of what they want to pursue?

 

Ryan Hawk  50:15

It depends because loving, it’s not enough. You also have to, to quote Steve Martin or Cal Newport, you have to be so good at that thing that they can’t ignore you. And so there are people doing things they love that the industry or the marketplace would say, hey, good for you, but I’m not paying you. Right? And unless you don’t need to make money, which there are some people like that I’m not in that bucket, I need to make money. So I think it’s a combination of doing the thing you love and continually getting better and better and better. If you love it, the chances of you getting better go up. And then the market is the ultimate arbiter to say, is this good enough or not? Because what happened when I had a full time job, so that’s why it was cool. Initially, for three years had a full time job, I didn’t have to worry about the market telling me they wanted to pay me. What happened though, was specifically with keynote speaking and some of the one on one stuff. The demand for that went up to the amount that I was out of PTO is out of paid time off days. And people might post it on LinkedIn and other places that those could see where I’m on a stage. And then it in some people’s eyes, it became a distraction. Well, the reason I left to do it full time and launch my own business is the market had told me enough times. There’s something here, there’s something here, the thing you love, also is valuable enough in the marketplace that we will pay you because I do talk to people more and more now actually, I get more of these, where they say hey, I love this, like I want to work with people on mental health or something. I’m like, okay, cool. You know, whatever. Well, have you proven that the market values what you do? And the only way is that you have people tell me how good it is. Like have they paid you? They haven’t paid you, no, it’s completely different for a friend or even a random person. Oh, yeah, it’s great. It’s great. And then writing a check. So yes, this is kind of more, I’m not trying to be like, push people away from doing what they love. I’m trying to help people find the intersection between what they love and what the market says is good enough that they’ll write a check, because unless you don’t need to make money, maybe for some, it should always remain on the side. And I don’t think there’s, Austin Kleon writes about this all the time, I don’t think there was anything wrong with that. In fact, I think it’s awesome. If it does, because sometimes making your passion, your love, a businesscan make it not your passion and your love. I’m very like, I know that those stories exist, I don’t want that to happen for myself. So in a way, you have to just kind of make that call for yourself like do I want this to become my main thing? Or am I okay? And even like the fact that I don’t need to make money at it.

 

Clint Murphy  52:51

And Ryan, when you’re describing it that way. It sounds to me almost like the Japanese concept of Ikigai where we’re looking for that intersection of what do I love? What am I good at? What does the world need? And the key? What will people pay me for? And when you find that intersection, and you can’t really find it until you’ve ticked that box of I’ve become good at it. So when you look back at your journey, because it feels a lot like you’ve found your Ikigai and are in living it. Three years when you started was the plan that you would eventually be there? Or was it something you were doing out of passion on the side and then at some point in that journey, you realize, well, wait a second. The thing has become the thing. What was that like for you on your journey?

 

Ryan Hawk  53:47

I loved my job. I loved my team. I love the people I worked with, I love the company, zero intention to leave literally none. I think I got asked to give my first speech probably like 10 months into my podcasts, they paid me 500 bucks, I thought it was a lot. I spent $700 on the video team for that speech, because all these speakers are so you gotta  be on video. So I lost money, but it was worth it. I watched the speech. It was horrendous. But like, you know, went out and did it. What happened though, is more and more the market was telling me we want this, right, and then the rate starts going up and up and up and up and up. More opportunities create the ability to be a little bit more picky. So really, I just kind of listened to what the market was saying. Combined with the fact that it did start to be a little bit of distraction for some of the leaders within the company. And my thought was, I don’t know if you think this way, but I was like I could always get a job in sales. I know I can maybe not this this job that I’m at now like this really high level awesome job with these great people. But I bet I can get a job in sales. But doing the other thing where you’re gonna go out and podcast full time and speak and advise, and consult, write books, I probably need 100% of my effort in my focus in order to write great books in order to be even better at my podcast in order, especially speaking on stage, which is really hard to get good at it. Like I hired coaches, I still work with coaches, I still go over everything, when it comes to the visuals that we use, I still run through bids constantly with people who are far wiser than me, because it’s so hard to be good at that. Doing that on the side, when you have a demanding job where you have leaders who are reporting to you and they have individual contributors reporting to them. It just, I think, what would have ended up happening if I would have continued on that path, as I probably would have been average to good at both of them, and would have sacrificed being great at one of them. And to me, I am grateful that I didn’t have to make any money. I’m grateful that I got to follow it as a pure passion in pure fun for that amount of time. But it’s probably not sustainable, long term to be excellent at both, especially if you’re using up all your PTO to go do these things. And during the day, you’re constantly right meeting with people, when you have a big corporate job like that your calendar is crushed. Man, it’s tough. There’s not a lot of time to think, there’s not a ton of time to prepare, it really cuts into family time, it cuts into sleep, it cuts into a lot of things that are not good. So I don’t know how sustainable it is. Long term. But at the beginning for me, no, it was purely just to learn. And I thought it would be cool if if I could build a little bit of community around being a learning leader because my favorite leaders in the world are those who are constantly learning striving to get better and improve. And that’s that’s how I would define a learning leader.

 

Clint Murphy  56:39

Yeah, we’re definitely going to dive into that one. And you’ve you’ve accurately described everything I’m realizing is, I don’t believe that the things that I’m doing can have a negative impact at work. That I’ve been doing for 23 years, my ability to do it is only improving through the podcast to your point. The podcast, though, and the writing and the content creation cannot improve as much as I would like while working. Because the ability to put the amount of reps in the amount of time and the amount of investment into it.

 

Ryan Hawk  57:21

When do you work on your threads, when you write. When do you write when you work on your threads? How do you stay consistent with that?

 

Clint Murphy  57:28

Everything you just said is nailed it. Yeah, and for me, what I do for a lot of my writing is I write when I’m not writing. And so what that looks like I implemented, I had Juliet and Kelly Starret on the show and on with for their book built to move. And that really lit a bit of a fire. So I’ve been walking about 15,000 Plus steps a day, a lot of it’s walking. So I’ll take my dog for a 90 minute walk and while I walk. I’ll listen to a podcast. In for a portion of the walk, I’ll put the headphones in the pocket. And while I’m walking, I write the threads in my head where I write my newsletter in my head. And then when I get back home, I’ll just sit in front of the keyboard and start jamming away on on what I wrote. And so I do a lot of my thinking visually or if I’m driving and this maybe about one minute I’m driving my kids to and from sports. The whole time I’m driving, I’m just noodling a thread idea. What’s the hook going to be? Once you get the hook? And then I’ll come up with well, what are the titles of each of the threads? And so I’m just thinking it through. Okay, today I’m going to write about the flywheel. What is a flywheel? What’s a good catchy hook for a flywheel? Okay, let’s what are the four or five points I want to hit on for the flywheel. So I’ll brainstorm that. While I’m just going about my day. In that way, when I sit at the keyboard, I’ve thought it through and I have the plan on what I am going to write. So it’s not as formulaic as I would like to become. It’s not this the content engine or systems and notion files and the roadmap of I’m going to write the newsletter, the newsletter will lead to a long form video which will lead to two threads which will lead to four individual tweets. It’s not that yet that’s what it will become. But to have that is to your point you need the time you need to have the dedicated hours to put into it. And right now that’s not there.

 

Ryan Hawk  59:36

Are you a good, how are you as a note taker like when you’re on that walk? Do you pause and like write it in your phone? Do Voice Memo like I know you’re talked to Tiago forte probably about some of this, like, how do you not forget the stories or the ideas?

 

Clint Murphy  59:50

I have. I’ve realized over time I have a reasonably decent memory. And so if I say it enough times in my head, it’s just in there and I don’t take copious notes on it. Where I’ve started to implement Tiago’s work is in reading books. So putting a resource file together and keeping notes on that book that I can then go back to when when I want to write something on that book. But on those walks, I rarely will take notes. If there is something that I’m not noodling enough, so I just add inspiration, then what I might do is I have a channel with my wife in WhatsApp for The Growth Guide. Because she yesterday was her last day. So now she’s working on this full time with me. Wow, cool. So I’ll just message her and say, write about this. And she’ll just make a note, hey, here’s a topic you want to write about. And so that will give me the inspiration that I’ll come back to. And then I’ll put it through the noodling process of really just, I guess, the brain just incubating it on those walks, just winging it.

 

Ryan Hawk  1:01:03

What’s your note taking process, then?

 

Clint Murphy  1:01:06

I use Click Up. And what I’ll do is, is I go through the book, all just the key information that’s new, that that isn’t something that that you already know. For example, if I’m reading the Pursuit of Excellence, when I see the flywheel, it’s definitely something I want to talk to you on about on the show. But I won’t need to take that note and Click Up because the flywheel is something that has been on my list for a dozen years, let’s say. So I won’t need to take that note, what I’ll take is what are the notes that are things that I wasn’t already aware of. And this comes back to what you talked about early in the book, this concept of thinking and rethinking. So I thought this now I think this because I need to continuously be learning, adapt and adapting. And so I’m not trying to capture what I already know, because that’s not adding value to the growth. What’s adding value is, oh, that’s a concept I didn’t know. And, for example, the wall. Oh, okay. Yeah, I knew about focus and discipline, but this idea of the wall and being able to conjure that image when I’m having a conversation with someone, because those are the things that I’m assuming you love in in doing the podcast, and giving speeches and having conversations with people, is when you have those metaphors that you can pull out and give to someone. It really emphasizes that point. So I can talk about Focus, focus and discipline. But now to be able to say, let me give you an example of Michael Phelps and the wall. And people are lining the wall, they just give you that, oh, your covers a story. So that I want to write down and I want to capture, because actually we’ll use that later. And so that’s generally the process there. And if if we take that for people, we just brought up this idea of thinking and rethinking? What does that look like for you on your journey? And how can the listeners use that concept in their pursuit of excellence?

 

Ryan Hawk  1:03:06

So I would say one of the biggest changes over the past eight point five years, 8.5 years for me is I think I’ve become more reasonable. I talked about this with Paulina Pompliano. And she writes about, she does a similar thing, but does it in written form, where she’s studying people who have sustained excellence over time and trying to deconstruct their excellence and understand the behaviors of those people, the mindsets the way they show up in the world. What I mean by more reasonable is, I think, I was quite judgmental, growing up and earlier on in years ago. And then you talk to people for a living, and you realize that everyone has a unique set of life experiences a unique way they view the world and for a specific reason. And instead of living in the black and white, which is where I think I’ve lived a lot, or it’s either A or B, is you become more reasonable realizing that the world is just very gray and very messy. So instead of judging somebody for anything that they do, why not approach them with more curiosity, there’s a spectrum on one end is being judgmental. On one end, it’s being curious. And I think what the podcast has done more than anything that I’m grateful for is it’s taken me from being way over here. Quite a judgmental person. And closer to the other end of being a more curious person, even if someone for example, I had Maurice Claret, a great football player at Ohio State got drafted, could have been an a pro bowler, every year could have gone to the Hall of Fame. He was very, very talented and Maurice got in trouble for driving drunk and having guns in his car and maybe made some really horrible choices on using the pros and eventually ended his career, and I judged him for that. I’m like, man, what an idiot. He threw it all away. How stupid Could he be? Until I talked to him. And I learned about his upbringing. And I learned about the fact of, hey, I take for granted almost that I had great parents who taught me what I should do and what I shouldn’t do. Maurice didn’t have that didn’t have a dad, his upbringing was dramatically different. He didn’t have money. Why was he selling drugs? Because he wanted to eat. Now, does it mean you should break the law and make bad choices? No, Maurice will be the first one to tell you that he should not have done those things. But instead of just immediately judging him for selling drugs, or riding with all these guns or driving drunk, right things that he bought, he broke the law. And he served his time and he should, right. But instead of just immediately judging people, I got more curious about his story. I got more curious like, oh, yeah, I understand you don’t know how to manage money, or that you didn’t have the same upbringing I had, why not be more curious about people and less judgmental? Why not realize that the world is very messy, people are messy is very gray, it’s not black and white. And so I think the so many experiences now over 550 of these conversations has helped me become more reasonable, helped me become less judgmental. I think from a leadership perspective, that’s a good thing. Just from a living perspective, that’s a good thing. And I tried to share that message with people who maybe were like on that spectrum, or living closer to being more judgmental, because I think it opens you up to so many amazing opportunities and potential relationships. If you approach people with curiosity, instead of judgment, who likes when you when you walk up somewhere you have a conversation, you can tell they’re judging you. And they’re judgmental in the way they maybe the way they talk negatively about other people behind their back. They’re judging them. What do you do Clint like, you’re like, I’m gonna go over here, right? I’m gonna steer clear, versus the person who approaches you with curiosity, who speaks kindly behind the backs of others? Who says like, wow, did you see what they did this? Oh, my God, that’s like Clint 330,000 followers on Twitter, how did he do it? What have you have you learned, like, whatever the thing is, right? Those people then open themselves up to potentially, you know, wanting to have a relationship with them. And I think at the end of the day, I mean, having deep meaningful relationships with people is, is kind of what life’s all about. So I just want to create the space, that container for those opportunities to exist, and it’s not going to happen, being judgmental, it’s not going to happen, speaking negatively behind people’s backs, it has a better chance of happening if I’m more reasonable, and if I’m less judgmental, so I think the podcast has really made me rethink and change how I approach people over the past almost decade now. And that’s one of the things I think about the most.

 

Clint Murphy  1:07:45

And some things to chew on in there. One of them that jumps out on at me right now is we’re seeing that scenario you talked about play out right now in the media with Ja Morant. I don’t know what’s happening in his life. It’s easy to say, Well, what a bonehead. He shouldn’t be doing this. He’s a celebrity. He’s an athlete. He’s making all these mistakes. But what I’m not seeing in the national narrative is, well, let’s pull back and let’s ask ourselves, what’s happening in his life? What’s happened in his past? What’s informed the decisions he’s making today? And to your point, approaching what he’s going through from a place of curiosity, versus indicting the guy in that doesn’t seem like the right answer. There’s clearly something deeper at play that should be explored. And it doesn’t mean what he’s doing. Right. It doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be repercussions. But how do we get underneath the cover and help the guy not just vilify and punish?

 

Ryan Hawk  1:08:55

I again, it doesn’t excuse poor behavior. We’re not doing that. But it is say like, let’s wonder why. I mean, Liz Wiseman actually said this to me on my podcast, when I was complaining about, I was getting a lot of emails about people saying, like, I’m all into growth and getting better and improving, but I work for a terrible boss. And one of the things she said to me was, well, what if you just ask the question, like, I wonder why, I wonder why, I wonder why they are that way. It doesn’t mean like, it’s gonna fix it or make them a better boss, but it may make you approach them again, with more curiosity and less judgment. And maybe when you’re during your interactions with them, you will approach them that way. And who knows what could happen, it might not make it better. They may not become all of a sudden overnight, a great boss, but I guarantee you the odds of it getting better increase if you approach them that way versus saying this person sucks. I don’t want to be with them. I hate them. When you show up from how do you think you’re gonna show up in that room when you talk to them? If that’s what you’re thinking subconsciously, if that’s what you’re thinking privately if that’s what you’re talking to your partner about. Right? And I’ve been that person and it doesn’t it the chances of you getting better are basically zero versus saying my wonder why now? I’m not saying be a doormat or get walked over any of those things. I’m just saying approach people with more curiosity and less judgment. Let’s see what happens. I think I think the odds of of it going better increase if you approach them in that way.

 

Clint Murphy  1:10:13

And the other thing that happens when you’re curious that you touched on. So if we pull back and look at broader society, there’s so much of this, well, there’s a fence in the middle, and I’m on this side, and they’re on that side. And I have to be on the opposite side of them, whoever they are, on every single issue. Which seems odd to me, it would seem that there are some things we can just we can just agree on. When you look at that, it always brings up the quote, for me, I believe it was John Maynard Keynes, who said, when the facts change, I changed my mind. Yeah, what do you do in your journey? You’re looking to learn, you’re looking to rethink you’re looking to be curious. I’m assuming somewhere along that journey, you change your mind on a lot of things. And your listeners may say, Well, Ryan, you’re a flip flopper, like you used to think this, now you think this. How do you respond to that, as you’ve learned on your journey, and you have probably changed your mind on a lot of different things.

 

Ryan Hawk  1:11:17

Well, I mean, Abraham Lincoln, was for slavery, at one point in his life, change his mind. Right? Facts he understood, he learned He educated himself, he change his mind, is he a flip flopper? I doubt that phrase is used with him. It’s fact. I mean, it’s part of it. If you study, I think the history’s greatest leaders and greatest thinkers. They’re constantly updating and evolving and getting better. And they have an open mind. It doesn’t mean you don’t have conviction, or it doesn’t mean you have courage to stand up for what you believe in. It means the willingness to rethink things into update your thinking, when better evidence presents itself. And so that’s what I what I say on my show is this is what I think right now, this is what I think as of today, based on the evidence based on everything I’ve learned, this is what I believe. But if better, when and if better evidence for this itself, I will, I will definitely update my thinking and change my thoughts change my mind on that. I think that should be rewarded. The that should be something that we strive for. It doesn’t mean it happens all the time. It doesn’t mean like there are flip floppers, I understand what you mean, like, I think it gets a bad name, because there are politicians who, and not just politicians that happens in the corporate world to who they don’t even know what they believe in, they don’t even take the time to do the necessary work to know what their core values are to know how they want to show up. They simply want me in some cases, they want power. And they’ll do whatever it takes to get power. So whatever the polls say, This is what I need to be. That’s what they do. And I use polls, because in the political landscape, right, they’re constantly polling, and then there are politicians who just base, whatever they’re gonna say, at their stump speech, based on what the polls say, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about like, you’re actually doing the work to be a thoughtful and reflective person. And then when you say something, you say it with intention and belief and evidence behind it. Not just saying, Well, what do they want? Oh, they want this? Well, I guess I’m gonna go for that now. That’s why it gets a bad rap. And I agree with people who give that a bad rap. I’m talking about a, there are things in the world where you’re going to update what you think and what you believe. And when you do when the evidence presents itself, and then share it and share why you’re changing or why you’re updating it. I think that’s important.

 

Clint Murphy  1:13:36

And something you said right there, I believe it was Charlie Munger who talks about this a lot is doing the work to support what you believe in, which can often mean, you understand the opposite viewpoint, right? As much or more than you do your viewpoint. What does that look like for you in your journey? And how can our listeners apply that to their lives to become more intellectually rigorous, I would say?

 

Ryan Hawk  1:14:06

I don’t love getting into politics, but and so I won’t, like share details.

 

Clint Murphy  1:14:10

But it doesn’t matter. Politics, it could be fitness, or whatever it is,

 

Ryan Hawk  1:14:14

Well, I mean, fitness, god that stuff’s changing all the time. We use, hey, keep your metabolism going. So eat eight meals a day, so that metabolism runs now I’m intermittent fasting all the time. And I told my wife, I’m like, hey, you know, we intermittent fast now. And there’s gonna be studies that come out two years from now, intermittent fasting is horrible, whatever. So that’s one thing. But with the political thing I think this has, it’s more broad than just that. I think it’s important to have a friend group, a peer group of people who are all across that spectrum. We may not agree and there are times when we definitely do not agree. But it is helpful to understand where they’re coming from and why. And it’s helpful that we can still love each other ,we still give each other hugs, we still text, we still do it all even though we disagree and maybe we’ll never I agree on certain things. I think that’s healthy. I think that’s a good thing. I, as much as there are moments when I get upset with him, I’m like, how do you really like how is that possible? It still is better to have those friendships and those conversations than just being in your little bubble with the people who only think exactly what you think. I think we have to regularly expose ourselves to people who do think differently from us. Ask them questions, be curious, you may find even if you still disagree with what they believe you could better understand why they believe it. And I think that’s a really good thing. I think that’s something we all probably need more of. And it seems in this world where it is divisive at times where there is division, like my camp or your camp, if you believe this, blah, blah, blah. It is really good to be in a room, I was at a small group dinner, it was one I was hosting a couple weeks ago in Columbus. And there’s two people, both guys I love very bright. Both business owners, they do very well for themselves. One of them, I’ll just say his name, one of them loves Jordan Peterson and one of them hates him. And they both shared why. And they both respectfully listen to why they loved him and why they didn’t and what he did. And at the end of the dinner, they shook hands, gave each other like a half hug and said I love that we could talk about that. They didn’t agree on Jordan Peterson, but one of them loved him. And one of them didn’t. And I was sitting in kind of a front row seat. And I didn’t say a word, just observed. And to me I was proud both these guys who are part of my leadership circles, who are good dudes, that they respectfully completely disagreed about something, shared why and I bet opened each other’s minds a little bit. And then at the end of the conversation, shook hands and gave each other half hug. Like I liked that guy. And they both independently sent me a text about like, I love that we can have that type of conversation like that’s, that’s like high rung thinking that Tim Urban would write about. And so I think that’s important. I just think it’s important for us to try to get ourselves in positions in situations where we can have conversations like that.

 

Clint Murphy  1:17:08

And I always look at that Ryan is having those people in, or in an organization leaders, having friends in a circle that will push challenge and support you. If they’re doing all three of those things. You’ve really found people that will help you on your journey. You talk about this concept of and I might have the pronunciation wrong, having a Junto on your pursuit of excellence. What is it Junto and what does that look like when you’re building one for yourself?

 

Ryan Hawk  1:17:43

I’ve heard it pronounced both Junto and DONTO. The Benjamin Franklin riots is a gathering of people to bring ideas and share it originally when they formed them. It was you were to show up and usually it was like tradesmen, and people would show up and they would actually write and they would read what they had written about any type of philosophy or political element, any topic at all, and they would share what they believe, with the group and have this then constructive dialogue amongst people. And oftentimes there would be disagreements. But the purpose of the junto or Judo was that we set a container up a space for us to have constructive dialogue. And I think that is I mean, this is literally when I built my leadership circles. It was around, I studied these so much because I wanted to create these for myself. And that’s why I have members from all over the world, all different industries, all different levels of experience. But then we all do the same curriculum and show up with the same pre work and have the same share ideas about certain topics. And oftentimes, we don’t all agree and I think that’s great. The concept of your who was said to me on episode 216 of my show by Jim Collins, I’ll never forget it when I was rambling on and on kind of like an with you from time to time but rambling on and on excitedly about what I was doing and why I was doing it and how I was going about building this business, all this stuff. And Jim’s like, whoa, chill out, dude. The single greatest determining factor in your long term success or failure will be your who, who will be your friends, who will be your spouse, who will be your partner ,who will be your mentors, who will you teach, who will you spend the most time around, that is who you will become. And so again, we talked about earlier in the conversation about manufacturing hardship for kids, I was trying to manufacture community, I’m trying to create juntos for people who don’t have this in their lives. I actually offer this this is an offering that’s become one of the biggest parts of my business. Now I form the groups I do all the interviews, I create the curriculum, I facilitate all the meetings we meet in person, sometimes we do a lot of it on Zoom. That is a missing element and a lot of leaders lives leadership is lonely. They get promoted or they have their own business and they don’t have people they can go to They don’t have a safe place where they can actually share what they’re thinking what they believe, and get constructive feedback and dialogue, they ask questions, right? It is an obvious need, the applications for this are far more than I can do on them to the next step in my business is having more people who are going to run it facilitate leadership circles. People want this they need it. And they don’t have there’s not enough of it. And so that from from Benjamin Franklin, I think is as needed, and as wanted more now today than it ever has been.

 

Clint Murphy  1:20:33

Which is and so interesting, in that we’re in this world that’s hyper connected, yet. We’re also so alone, in how do we bridge that divide? So this is a beautiful way to do that. In on the topics in the book, I could probably talk to you for days. But I do want to respect your time on that. So a last question, I’ll I’ll throw it up on the book, before diving into final for if we have a few minutes, Ryan is you talked about the pursuit of excellence being a life long journey and two concepts that you talk about are good for chanting of knowing nothing, and personal mastery. What are those look like for you on your journey? And what should our listener be thinking about when they’re looking at? I want to grow and I want to pursue excellence for the rest of my life.

 

Ryan Hawk  1:21:27

Sometimes if you know how hard something’s going to be, you won’t do it. Often I share this in the beginning because like launching a new podcast. It’s crowded. It takes so much time if you want to do it. Well, it sounds like people think it’s easy, but it’s actually really hard to do it. Well. If you do it great. You make it look easy. And so being naive, not realizing how hard it would be helped me. It was very helpful. Because the hardest part is saying yes, I’m going to do it is committing to recording 22 times before you launch is, is not realizing that you kind of sound like an idiot at the beginning. And you don’t know what you’re doing. Like being naive to all of that of not knowing, that was helpful, because if I would have known all of that, if I would have thought I sounded stupid if I realized how tough it is to consistently ship it every Sunday. I don’t know if I would have done it. I just follow my curiosity, with great rigor as Brian Koppelman says in doing that lead to what it became. And so sometimes I just think it’s almost better to be here about like Dustin Johnson talked about this with golf, like he’s like, I’m not, I’m just not really thinking I just figured out the distance. And then I get the pull the club and I hit it. And in a way, there’s some beauty in that, like, I’m a thoughtful and reflective person as a core value of mine. However, there is some luck maybe involved with not knowing everything. And if you don’t, if you knew too much, you might not do it. And in my case, I think that’s absolutely true for the beginning now, the momentum has already been been started. It’s like James Clear writes about in Atomic Babits, like sometimes the hardest part of the run is lacing up your shoes. Once you’re running. You just keep running versus the like starting is hard. Like, what’s the heaviest weight in the gym is the front door. And I think that think about these things like that plays a role in everything. So sometimes not realizing how heavy that thing is, you’re like, Well, I’m just going to try to go can be a good thing. So to me, that’s really where that all stems from is, is I’m grateful in a way that I was naive to a lot of this stuff.

 

Clint Murphy  1:23:38

I love that as a way to wrap up the pursuit of excellence. Do you have a few minutes for a final four rapid fire questions? All right, what’s one book that has had a significant influence on your life out of all the many books you’ve read?

 

Ryan Hawk  1:23:55

The Wright brothers by David McCullough, I live in Dayton, Ohio. That’s where the Wright brothers lived. It’s really grew up their bicycle shop is like 15 minutes down the street. That’s where they were tinkering and starting to think about creating the first ever flying machine. learn a lot from that book, because it’s beautifully written by David McCullough. He’s a master storyteller. And those guys really follow their curiosity with great rigor. That’s what they did, against amazing odds against others who were far, far better funded than they were. And yet, they just kept going. They kept showing up and then they got on to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and they would stand in the sand dunes, dunes and watch birds and eventually they would, they would, they would try to get that thing flying to me. Like there’s so many good stories and metaphors and that for life. I think it’s the ultimate leadership book. I think it’s a thing. It’s the ultimate book of personal growth of the pursuit of excellence of following your curiosities. I just think there’s so many key learnings. I love biographies and that’s been at the top of my list for quite some time now.

 

Clint Murphy  1:24:51

And the way you talked in the book about them sketching the different wings shapes and where the Hawk was when it was doing and X or this bird as it was moving up and how none of them did why when there was a draft or no draft, it was powerful imagery. So I imagine that would have been beautiful in the original one as well. And what’s on your shelf right now? What are you taking down at the moment?

 

Ryan Hawk  1:25:17

I’ve been reading a McRaven, his latest one, the wisdom of the bullfrog? I don’t know if you read that one yet. I think Admiral William McRaven, I had on my show a couple years ago, you know, the leader in charge of the Bin Laden raid, I’ve been deep into that book, because one I like kind of the manner. He just titles each chapter with like a core saying or concept or belief, and then and then tell stories around it. And from writing books, and you probably know, Twitter actually probably makes you better at this. If you’re not careful, you will add fluff to your book, if you’re not careful. And tweets kind of don’t allow you to do that, that can there’s power in the constraints of the character limits, especially if you’re I know, they’ve kind of undone some of that. I think that might be a mistake. But I think constraints are a good thing. I think McRaven is one of the best at saying, what are the fewest number of words, I could put in this book to tell these amazing stories. And then he somehow does it. This is the constant process with my writing where it’s like, God, dude, there’s way there’s, there’s too many words like, we need to get our point across better. And the people who do it well, they make it look easy, right? But it’s actually really hard. It’s really hard. So I don’t maybe I can talk to you about that offline. And later about about, maybe Twitter would help with that. But I admire a guy like him, there are others. But I admire a guy like him who really gets the point across and then there’s not another single word beyond what’s needed to be in there in order to get that point across.

 

Clint Murphy  1:26:48

Yeah, I believe that you’re absolutely right on Twitter as a resource for doing that. Because you often have to take complex topics and boil them down into 280 words or character story. How do I get that idea across in 280 characters, and it really forces you to refine and pull out any filler words?

 

Ryan Hawk  1:27:13

It’s probably why I’m not very good on Twitter, honestly. I’ve been focused on practice. Yeah, yeah, that’s the other thing. I don’t focus on it. I don’t I don’t, I don’t even. But at times when I’m doing like, this isn’t that good? Like, it’s probably why maybe that should be like a commitment. I don’t know. I’ve thought about that. But again, I’m also trying to get better at being focused and saying no, so that’s like the the honestly, man, and maybe we’ll talk about it later. But that is something that I think about a lot is like getting better at it would serve multiple masters, one, it will grow your social reach, but two, it will make you probably make you a better writer. And so it’s not just about growing your following. It’s about using a tool to become more skillful at something that is so important, which is becoming an effective writer.

 

Clint Murphy  1:28:02

My general view has been that it helps in multiple areas. So one, yes, absolutely. Being a better writer on that platform allows me to be a better writer overall. So if anything on my newsletter, I feel like I have to add, because it’s a little too tight. Well, you can’t just repurpose a thread, I have to actually put some meat on the bones. The other thing it does is in your public speaking, or in your conversations, your ability to convey ideas, in a very tight answer increases, I tend to give very long rambling answers. And I would say that they’ve reduced in length and have a level of brevity that gets the same, same or even more meaningful a point across in a tighter response. So it’s playing double duty. And I think that comes down to so many people say that our writing improves our thinking, if you can convey ideas, in few words, to do that, you have to be able to think that way. Which translates to better speaking, and writing as hell.

 

Ryan Hawk  1:29:19

Yeah, I just think it’s the ultimate tool to create clarity of thought. I don’t personally know what I think about something until I write about it. And I think being clear on what you believe in what you think is an important skill for definitely for leaders, but for all people. And so that’s why I push them all to have some sort of writing practice rather than whether they’re going to publish or not, because I would imagine you don’t fully know about the like fully what you think and believe about the topic until you sit down to write about it.

 

Clint Murphy  1:29:48

And you can’t defend it until you actually start to Well let’s look at this from different angles and the hard part for you and for me is how Much of the writing has improved my public speaking or your public speaking, versus the fact that we’re also speaking on the podcast. So it’s hard to tell how much each is improved? Or what’s the driver? Is the public speaking, improving simply because we’re having these conversations with people we can week out day in day out? Or because of the clarity of our writing? Or is it a combination of the two, and I think it is that combination.

 

Ryan Hawk  1:30:32

Probably, I mean, I think speaking is such a repetition game and writing is too. So doing both of them, they’re both forms of communication. So they’re, they’re both making, hopefully making us better communicators. So whether you’re speaking on a stage, having a conversation with a thoughtful person, or writing, all of those combined are all you exercising the communication muscle, and by regularly exercising it, it should get better versus those who are not regularly exercising that which there are some who their only form of writing is maybe emails, or emails at work, and they’re not reading a lot. And they don’t have they don’t give presentations or speeches. They’re not recording a podcast, we’ll think about where you’re going to be versus where that person whose only form of writing and reading our emails, which, unfortunately, are probably a lot of people where they’re not really reading books, they’re reading emails, and they’re responding to them. Whereas you are giving talks and talking with wise people in writing all the time outside of emails, that’s over time. I mean, you’re going to be in completely different spots, you’re going to be here, they’re going to be, you’re going to be going like this, and they’re going to be going this I mean.

 

Clint Murphy  1:31:50

a=And Twitter improves your emails, we need more people to learn how to write tweets, so that we don’t have to read so many bad emails, right? What’s the one thing you’ve spent less than $1,000 on that has in the last, let’s say, 12 months that you look back and say, Wow, I wish Ryab bought that earlier?

 

Ryan Hawk  1:32:10

I should have thought about this move for less than $1,000 on that’s made a big difference? I don’t know. I mean, I probably could have a better answer. I think about this more. But it’s probably like headphones or something along those lines to help me focus. But that’s not really a good answer. So I wish I had a better answer for you for that one. But if I think about that more, what about what about you? Is there something that on your list, maybe it’ll jog my memory?

 

Clint Murphy  1:32:35

I mean, for me, it would probably be Yeah, it’s going to tie to podcast equipment. So now that we’re doing this show on an I’d have to double check if it’s under $1,000, it’s going to be close to that I have a teleprompter in front of me. So I can have a conversation with you. And I’m making eye contact throughout the conversation. While because I’m looking into the camera, while having the conversation with you instead of you know normally before this, I would have been on my laptop and I’m looking down talking to you on the laptop and just the views off. So having that teleprompter allows me to have a much more it feels like I’m much more engaged in the conversation with you and the video will will show me looking straight at the listener so that I’ve found that a really cool little tool that that my wife picked out as she starts to build out a YouTube studio, which is just a whole other ballgame to learn so it’s going to be fun. That’s awesome. I love it in and I’m really eyeing that mic you have that’s a that’s a beauty so if that was in the last 12 months it’s it shows.

 

Ryan Hawk  1:33:45

I’ll send you the link I’ve tried pretty much everything I have. Yeah, I’ve tried them all I liked I liked this one I like how it seems to sound when we release episodes. There are others like it but but yeah, I think it’s worth it to if you’re going to have a podcast and you’re going to be on video you know, have the good camera have the good mics make sure you like try to try to look and sound as good as possible and obviously the contents everything but don’t ruin it by having poor audio or poor visuals with especially if you want to you’re gonna be on video this if you publish the videos.

 

Clint Murphy  1:34:18

Starting now. So we started that a couple episodes. So that’s brand new, and that’s the next step we’re working on in there synchronicities in life Ryan, our tenant just gave notice a week ago. So there’ll be moving out July 1. So we’ve decided we’re going to turn the basement suite into a YouTube podcast studio. So now all of all of this will change with time. Last question and I’m sorry, I know I’m going over is because the show is about growth which ties to to the idea of excellence. What’s one habit, mindset shift or behavior change that has had a dramatic impact on your life?

 

Ryan Hawk  1:34:58

We probably mentioned earlier Come on, I just wasn’t fully aware when I was a little bit younger, on the benefits, there’ll be two things the benefit one of if you actually deeply read books and try to apply your key learnings to your life, that’s one and then one book will usually lead to the next and the next the next idea. And unfortunately, not enough people read and two, the relationships that have been built through recording with somebody, which I hope happens for us, quite frankly, man, because there’s a lot of interesting and certain things about your story that I’d like to learn more about. But there are people who have been guests on my podcast that now are legitimate, lifelong friends, where not only do we hang out socially and see each other when he when we’re in each other’s cities. But we’re doing work together where maybe I need another person, and I call on them and we do something together, or they do something where I am not able to go. And so in a way, like, we haven’t become business partners, but kind of I mean, we have and so having long form conversations, like how often do you have deep, long form meaningful conversations with people off air, we probably don’t do it enough. In fact, I think the podcast has helped me do that more. But these are kind of vulnerable. And they they’re, they’re longer than most conversations, you’re actually talking as opposed to texting. So you have the ability to actually build relationships with people that go far beyond just recording a podcast not every time, but it definitely happens more than I would have ever expected. And to me that led to immense growth in my life is just the building of these relationships with people who I really look up to. And it’s cool to be able to have them as friends to both meet with in person to text regularly and to sometimes do do work together.

 

Clint Murphy  1:37:01

There’s a definite power there. And I know it’s something that to your point as I transition, eventually to this being full time is when you jump on a call and you have that type of conversation with someone wanting to say hey, the way you think the way the way you talk the way we dove into this topic, like I’d love to just explore this with you off platform. And, you know, a person you mentioned earlier that jumps out at me like that is is Brad Stulberg, you know, when I he’s going to come on for his next book that’s coming out later this year, again, but having that conversation, I just it’s similar to talking with you right now, I thought to myself, like I could talk to you for a day or two nonstop. And it would be crazy to record that. But just the value that I would get out of it. The reader, the listeners were would for sure get value, but you can’t record for an entire day. So it’s like okay, well, how do we do that again? So I absolutely understand the value of that over time and see some beauty in that. The we went pretty wide pretty deep. Is there anything we didn’t hit on the pursuit of excellence that you want to make sure the listener gets?

 

Ryan Hawk  1:38:15

Here, you did a great job. And it’s obvious you read it and prepared. Thank you for that. But I think you did a great job. I mean, there’s there’s still plenty more obviously in the book that because that’s how books are. But I thought you really hit the things that I could tell you’re you’re most curious about. So I just appreciate you and your work leading up to this. I know how that goes. And it’s obvious that you did the work.

 

Clint Murphy  1:38:37

Again, and for the listeners that this was one of the take a step back, I think you were hard on yourself earlier when you said about the fluff because there was a lot of concepts in there. And and it’s not a giant book. So to be able to get that much good material and that many good ideas. In that tight of a book, you did a very good job on the gravity and hitting a lot of points. So for the listeners, there’s a ton to take away that you’ll get out of this. That’s the equivalent of reading 10 to 20 other books, so definitely it was great there, Ryan, I want people to dive into that. We’ll have that in the show notes. Where can the listeners find you?

 

Ryan Hawk  1:39:18

Learningleader.com is the home base of everything I do. My podcast is called the Learning Leader Show So if you’re in podcast apps, you search my name Ryan hawk or learning leader it’ll pop up but that’s those are that’s really the home base. That’s kind of the central point for everything else that I do.

 

Clint Murphy  1:39:33

Perfect. We will get all that in the show notes. And thank you for joining me today on the growth guy. That was a blast.

 

Ryan Hawk  1:39:38

Thanks, Clint. Really appreciate it man. Cheers.