0:00:12 I’m Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People.
0:00:18 I want you to meet James Reed, he is a Harvard law graduate, a former high school teacher
0:00:23 turned private equity investor and unexpected CEO.
0:00:30 James blends math and management with emotions and he marries capital with purpose.
0:00:35 He’s recognized by many organizations for his transformative leadership.
0:00:43 His TED Talk, The Value of Kindness and his podcast interview with Brene Brown has captivated
0:00:45 millions of people.
0:00:49 James was the chairman and CEO at Ashley Stewart.
0:00:54 This is a testament to his resilience and innovation because Ashley Stewart was a struggling
0:01:01 retailer for plus-sized black women, which doesn’t exactly describe James.
0:01:06 Beyond the private sector, James serves as the Johnson chair of entrepreneurship at Howard
0:01:11 University and as a senior lecturer at Duke Law School.
0:01:16 Plus, he’s affiliated with the MIT Sloan School of Management.
0:01:23 His book, Red Helicopter, Lead Change with Kindness plus a Little Math, delivers great
0:01:26 insights on catalyzing change.
0:01:30 Join us as we delve into James’ remarkable journey.
0:01:35 It’s filled with wisdom, kindness and a commitment to positive impact.
0:01:42 I’m Guy Kawasaki, this is Remarkable People and now, let’s explore the world of James
0:01:43 Reed.
0:01:46 Actually, give me a second here.
0:01:51 I want to mention that Madison and I, the producer of this podcast, have finished and
0:01:57 published a book called Think Remarkable, Nine Paths to Transform Your Life and Make
0:01:58 a Difference.
0:02:04 So in addition to James’ book, you should read our book if you want to make a difference
0:02:06 and be remarkable.
0:02:15 Now, here is James Reed.
0:02:19 How long have you two known each other?
0:02:21 Four years, maybe?
0:02:26 Yeah, you can tell you guys have been doing a bunch together.
0:02:27 It’s fun.
0:02:34 We met in the water, which actually I read in your book that you never were successful
0:02:35 in standing up.
0:02:38 Oh, man, I’ll hold you to that.
0:02:39 I’ll come visit you.
0:02:40 Give me a lesson.
0:02:41 My kids won’t teach me.
0:02:42 They’ll like that.
0:02:43 We’ll make you better than your kids.
0:02:44 It’s not a problem.
0:02:50 It’s the guy in Madison surf camps, the Remarkable surf camp.
0:02:52 We’ll take care of that.
0:02:59 You talk about a lot of Korean terms in your book and I just want to know, is there a Korean
0:03:05 term for sandbagging and excessive modesty and excessive humility?
0:03:10 Because this whole story in your book about I’m a second generation Korean American from
0:03:12 a simple background.
0:03:19 I happen to have a Harvard undergraduate degree, Harvard law degree, law review editor.
0:03:21 I worked at McKinsey.
0:03:25 I turned around a retailer for black plus size women.
0:03:27 I started a private equity firm.
0:03:32 I’m affiliated now with Howard Duke and MIT, but it’s just a little low me.
0:03:33 Come on, James.
0:03:34 Be serious, man.
0:03:35 You’re an overachiever.
0:03:36 Maybe.
0:03:39 And I didn’t go to McKinsey.
0:03:40 My wife went to McKinsey.
0:03:45 She wanted to go, I actually signed my offer letter and then she wanted to go and I didn’t
0:03:47 think it’d be good for us to work together.
0:03:49 So I ripped it up and went into finance instead.
0:03:53 But it’s indicative of the decisions I make.
0:03:58 I tend to prioritize my relationships with other people first.
0:04:01 I think it’s a quality definitely I have from my parents.
0:04:07 No one’s crying near river and I’m not asking anyone to, but as I’ve gotten older, yeah,
0:04:11 when I look back, it’s the path wasn’t so easy.
0:04:12 It wasn’t.
0:04:16 And there were a lot of things I think that when I was younger, I guess I was an overachiever
0:04:22 and that’s not a great thing that causes a lot of stress and lack of self-awareness,
0:04:23 right?
0:04:28 So I think as I’m older, I give myself more grace to say, look, it wasn’t as easy.
0:04:32 It’s not easy for anyone, but yeah, but I know from the outside, you know, give me
0:04:33 a break.
0:04:38 I think a lot of the book is trying to show to everybody that there’s a lot of remarkable
0:04:42 people and they didn’t have those things on their resume and I admire them for it.
0:04:50 In a sense, as you struggle with this kind of reckoning about private equity and Harvard
0:04:57 and all that stuff versus the concept of jiang and caring for people and empathy.
0:05:04 In a sense, did you have to overcome your Harvard and private equity background to reach
0:05:05 a different place?
0:05:06 I did.
0:05:08 I think I’ve been fighting it for most of my life.
0:05:12 After I graduated from college, I went and taught high school and I think I am a teacher.
0:05:16 I think that’s my nature, I’m a caregiver.
0:05:21 But I was in debt and money is part of the equation and I have testosterone too and so
0:05:25 I saw all these things happening and for a while, I think particularly my 30s, I was
0:05:30 mistaking my identity for my professional identity and it’s easy to do when you come
0:05:33 from a background where I didn’t have anything.
0:05:38 I was a public school kid when just, I think Harvard was the first quote brand I had and
0:05:43 sometimes can be a pretty weighty albatross around a shoulder when you have, you know,
0:05:45 you don’t know how to wield it.
0:05:49 Sometimes it subsumes you, which I think it did for me a little bit during my late 20s
0:05:52 and 30s and I didn’t like it.
0:05:53 Just backing up a little bit.
0:05:56 The title of your book is Red Helicopter.
0:06:02 Now I read the book, so I know the story, but can you just explain the origin of the story
0:06:03 for people?
0:06:06 I’m sure no one’s ever asked you this before.
0:06:08 I think we all have a Red Helicopter story.
0:06:14 For me, the literal story is that when I was five years old, I came back around Christmas
0:06:19 time from my public school kindergarten class with this two, three, four dollar toy that
0:06:24 was a Red Helicopter and there were all these series of misunderstandings like, did you
0:06:25 steal it?
0:06:26 Did you take it from school?
0:06:29 And then my Korean parents saying, oh, we screwed up.
0:06:32 You’re never going to make it in this country because we didn’t know you’re supposed to
0:06:34 give toys at kindergarten.
0:06:35 Is that how it works?
0:06:38 And I’m like, nah, you didn’t screw up, dad and mom.
0:06:41 Not this time, but I’m the only one who got one.
0:06:44 And they got frustrated with me, particularly my dad about like, why?
0:06:46 And I just wasn’t sure.
0:06:52 And so they found out later on I’ve been sharing half of my perfect lunch created by my very
0:06:56 devoted Korean mother who expressed her love through food.
0:07:01 I’ve been sharing half my lunch with this boy who came to school without lunch a lot.
0:07:06 And I found out later from my parents that, you know, his dad didn’t have the time where
0:07:09 with all he had just lost his wife.
0:07:11 And so my friend was the youngest of four kids.
0:07:14 And so my memory was mistaken.
0:07:16 It wasn’t the whole family who came in.
0:07:21 It was the dad and the two older boy siblings of my friend.
0:07:23 And they just gave it to me and they didn’t say anything.
0:07:27 They just gave it to me and they remembered the dad’s patting me on the head.
0:07:31 And I think that’s, it’s a good teaching because I figured out late.
0:07:36 One, it was gracious, but two is that he put responsibility on me to find out why.
0:07:40 And once I found out why, it just stuck with me.
0:07:44 And that sort of very simple, intuitive wisdom.
0:07:49 It’s really hard to keep it and it’s really easy to confuse Harvard degrees or whatever
0:07:50 with wisdom.
0:07:56 I think great leaders, great people, great brands are, they’re transcendent, right?
0:07:57 They’re wise.
0:08:03 For me, it’s been that sort of mnemonic, just a symbol of just reminding me of that simple
0:08:04 wisdom.
0:08:11 You lowercase the R and the H. Why are they lowercased?
0:08:13 Because I think a kid would write it like that.
0:08:14 It’s play.
0:08:21 It’s funny in some pretty serious venues like MIT Executive Ed, where I teach some executives
0:08:24 or even in like boardrooms at Howard.
0:08:27 I make people read Harold and the Purple Crayon.
0:08:31 I just said, isn’t this like fearless leadership and creativity?
0:08:37 No matter what happens, no matter what trials and tribulations he confronts, he just takes
0:08:38 out a crayon and he draws something.
0:08:40 When he’s falling, he draws a balloon.
0:08:41 And I just said, how brilliant is that?
0:08:43 He follows the moon instead of the sun.
0:08:45 You know, the lunar cycles are so unpredictable.
0:08:49 He’s not beholden to time in a different way.
0:08:54 And then I love when he gets hungry, he makes pies and then he shares it.
0:08:57 He doesn’t want to have waste or muda in Toyota production terms.
0:09:02 So he draws a porcupine and a moose and he shares it with them.
0:09:06 I just think Harold and the Purple Crayon, he’s a great entrepreneur.
0:09:07 He’s a great leader.
0:09:08 He’s a sustainable leader.
0:09:11 And so that’s why lowercase R, lowercase H. I said, it’s great.
0:09:12 It’s childlike wisdom.
0:09:13 Do you like it?
0:09:15 You’re the, the brand expert.
0:09:16 You like how it looks?
0:09:19 Was it a feeling to you?
0:09:21 I love the story.
0:09:22 Don’t get me wrong.
0:09:27 Earlier in my life, I started a company called garage.com.
0:09:37 And garage.com, it was trying to be a matchmaker between two wings of the butterfly.
0:09:40 One wing was all these entrepreneurs.
0:09:43 The other wing was all these investors.
0:09:49 And so garage.com was going to be in the middle connecting investors and entrepreneurs.
0:09:54 And we lowercase the G in garage because we had this very clever thought.
0:10:01 We could say, we put the capital in you, not in our name, which I thought was very clever.
0:10:08 But I got to tell you, that was a mistake because in all the news coverage and all that,
0:10:12 I’d forbid if somebody started a sentence with the name of our company, what do they
0:10:13 do?
0:10:15 Lowercase it or uppercase it.
0:10:17 So that’s that problem all the time.
0:10:24 And then there were three or four other companies that did the same thing, but they had uppercases.
0:10:28 So it was very easy to spot proper nouns.
0:10:34 But when it became like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah and garage.com, your eye, not seeing
0:10:38 the capital G, you start wondering, that’s such a generic word.
0:10:39 Is that a typo?
0:10:41 Is that for real?
0:10:43 That’s what I think.
0:10:46 But hey, all right, we’ll see.
0:10:48 Yeah, we will see.
0:10:53 But I come up with a fun slogan and it’s like we put the, I don’t know, I got to come up
0:10:54 with something.
0:11:01 I can work on that on the side for you, that would be great.
0:11:06 I don’t want to get read too much significance into the metaphor of the helicopter.
0:11:14 But as you point out, a helicopter flies right, left, up, down, front, back, that’s six directions.
0:11:22 And also the hardest thing in a helicopter is to hover as opposed to fly forward, backward,
0:11:23 up, down, right or left.
0:11:30 So this flying in six directions and difficulty of hovering, that does this also apply to
0:11:31 life?
0:11:32 It is.
0:11:39 It’s this red helicopter in addition to getting people to really trust their intuition, see
0:11:46 new patterns, not rely on just complete binary mechanisms, which increasingly seeming like
0:11:48 people seem hell bent on going to.
0:11:56 Yeah, I think it’s a better trope for at least this 53-year-old guy and like dad and husband
0:11:58 and I’ve been an investor and I’m a life entrepreneur.
0:12:00 I think it’s a better trope for life.
0:12:06 Like I think as kids or as maybe in school, if you ask people, would you rather be a jet
0:12:07 plane or a helicopter?
0:12:10 I bet a lot of people say they want to be a jet plane.
0:12:12 They want to fly fast, high.
0:12:13 They want to power.
0:12:15 They want to be the pilot.
0:12:18 They want to carry a lot of people.
0:12:21 And I don’t know if that’s the right sort of visual.
0:12:26 And so I’m asking people, maybe particularly in inflection points in society, business
0:12:31 when you can’t rely on patterns.
0:12:33 In chaos, I think I’d rather be a helicopter.
0:12:35 I can fly in six different directions.
0:12:37 I have vertical lift.
0:12:39 I don’t need a long runway.
0:12:42 I can land wherever I want to land.
0:12:45 And I think it’s a great symbol of agility and agency.
0:12:51 So you can’t carry a lot of people, but you are in control and I’d rather be in control
0:12:56 and have a great team around me, but that doesn’t mean I fly them.
0:12:59 It means I help them find their own agency, too.
0:13:05 And so if you look at the illustrations, I have the helicopters flying in bird fractal-like
0:13:06 formation.
0:13:10 I think a great team is independently agile.
0:13:14 Each member is buying in and individually agile.
0:13:18 And then the group from a physics standpoint is collectively agile.
0:13:23 And so from an oryx theory standpoint or just from a growth standpoint, I think it’s a pretty
0:13:25 good metaphor for leaders to keep.
0:13:27 I think it’s very good.
0:13:28 Yeah.
0:13:34 Maybe if they make a movie about this book and we can get Tom Cruise to play you and
0:13:39 it’ll be like Top Gun 3, the helicopter version.
0:13:44 There’s been some inquiries over the years of turning this book or story now that it’s
0:13:45 a book into a movie.
0:13:48 And I always say, hey, we don’t have to exaggerate the story.
0:13:52 It’s a pretty simple story of a lot of people doing some decent things together.
0:13:57 Like I said, the only embellishment that I want, I want, if someone plays me, I want
0:14:00 the guy to be shredded.
0:14:02 Somebody like Henry Fielding.
0:14:03 Yeah.
0:14:07 I’ve met Henry before, and I actually said that to him.
0:14:09 This doesn’t come naturally, Henry.
0:14:12 And by the way, for your listeners, I’m not shredded, okay?
0:14:16 For your listeners who can’t see me, I’m like the opposite of shredded.
0:14:19 So that was, and people always laugh way too much when I say that.
0:14:21 And then I’m like, “Hey, you’re hurting my feelings now.”
0:14:23 I mean, I can see it now.
0:14:30 So it’s Henry Fielding as you and directed by John M. Chu and Michelle Yeo will be your
0:14:31 mother.
0:14:32 There.
0:14:33 Done.
0:14:34 Everything cast.
0:14:35 There you go.
0:14:36 There you go.
0:14:37 And maybe like Viola Davis, right?
0:14:41 That would be awesome if she played the counterpart, heroin.
0:14:45 And you know this, the way this story is, and I mean it, it’s, I think the real protagonists
0:14:49 and heroes of this story, it’s the women that I worked with and my mom.
0:14:50 They are.
0:14:51 Okay.
0:14:52 Let’s go down that path.
0:14:58 So give us the gist of how you went from leading a store for black plus size women,
0:15:04 who’s Korean American, two degrees from Harvard, background and private equity.
0:15:06 Those things don’t fit together exactly.
0:15:09 No, that is like the Sesame Street jingle.
0:15:10 One of these things don’t look like the other.
0:15:12 I was at a place in my life.
0:15:15 I think in a lot of ways it’s, it’s a parable.
0:15:17 It’s where sometimes people get.
0:15:22 You’re thinking about things that was dad, young forties, like I guess on the surface
0:15:28 of it, I was quote, what you were saying, I was achieving, I was master of universe,
0:15:29 whatever that is.
0:15:33 And at the time, you know, my dad was dying.
0:15:35 He died two years later after I made this decision.
0:15:36 I admired my father.
0:15:38 We had a complicated relationship.
0:15:39 I admired him.
0:15:40 And he took care of a lot of people.
0:15:42 He saved a lot of lives, my dad.
0:15:46 And then I didn’t love the way that this world that I lived in, which I didn’t grow
0:15:52 up in, we’re talking about the company or the women that served.
0:15:55 And this is meant to be, we’re going to have a fun conversation, but yeah, let’s be real,
0:15:57 like the financial markets and things.
0:16:01 It’s not conducive to plus size black women.
0:16:03 It’s just not.
0:16:08 And I was in that place and I’m like, I’m a former high school teacher and I went to
0:16:10 law school not to be a lawyer.
0:16:12 I thought I was going to be a public defender.
0:16:17 And so in many ways, I am now in a weird way, like it’s just the heart there.
0:16:19 It just struck me as not great.
0:16:23 And so I only, just for your listeners, yeah, I took six months off of my life.
0:16:28 I said that I would go and be interim leader of this company that was about to liquidate.
0:16:31 And I have a fair bit of experience in distress situations.
0:16:35 And I thought that the Wall Street connections I had would buy this company a little bit
0:16:41 of extra time, like it would be less bullied, less completely eviscerated.
0:16:42 And I did.
0:16:46 I bought it a little bit of time, but much to my chagrin after six months, I failed.
0:16:48 No one came to help.
0:16:49 And I was stuck.
0:16:50 What am I going to do?
0:16:54 I really believed in the vision of the future.
0:16:58 I really believed in the math and the vision for the company.
0:17:01 And I really believed in my friendship with the women that I had been working with for
0:17:04 those six months, but no one believed it.
0:17:07 And so I ended up staying for seven years.
0:17:11 I called in some favors and yeah, showed up at the bankruptcy court and said, I guess
0:17:14 I’m an owner and I’ll stay and run it.
0:17:27 That’s what I did.
0:17:33 Let’s take you back to the first day and you’re in that makeshift conference room and you
0:17:40 bring up the subject of kindness and math to a room full of black women who are running
0:17:42 a retail operation.
0:17:45 Like how exactly does that work?
0:17:46 Yeah.
0:17:50 Look, I went down there and I think in the book I said I was wearing pleated khakis.
0:17:52 It’s also a fashion business.
0:17:56 So that was the best I had that think about Boston private equity attire.
0:18:02 And I had no reason nor justification to put on any pretense.
0:18:04 It was actually very liberating.
0:18:06 My name is James.
0:18:08 None of my pedigree matters to you.
0:18:09 Honestly, it doesn’t.
0:18:14 I’m the least qualified person potentially in the world to be standing in front of you
0:18:15 on every front.
0:18:17 I’ve never run a company.
0:18:20 Yeah, I used to wash dishes at Red Lobster, but I’m not a woman.
0:18:21 I’m not black.
0:18:24 I have pleated khakis.
0:18:29 We’re about to get the hurricane of bankruptcies is coming at this company.
0:18:31 No one cares.
0:18:35 In this moment, it’s actually ironically very, it’s freeing.
0:18:36 I didn’t have fear.
0:18:38 It wasn’t debilitating fear.
0:18:43 It was freedom to tell the truth and was the truth.
0:18:47 And if I think of, I had said anything else, like, I know what I’m doing.
0:18:51 I know exactly what I’m doing, which a lot of leaders say as when they get parachuted
0:18:53 into something, they’re like, do you know who I am?
0:18:56 I don’t care.
0:18:57 And so I said, I was going to learn a lot.
0:18:58 So I asked people to help me.
0:19:00 I’m like, don’t teach me.
0:19:03 And I watch for people who could teach me because if you can’t teach someone, then
0:19:04 you don’t know it.
0:19:06 And so I learned.
0:19:09 And then I was very grateful for them.
0:19:13 The reason why the red helicopter story came back, I buried that story for a long time.
0:19:14 It was embarrassing.
0:19:19 But the reason why it came back during that time, I was overwhelmed with how generous the
0:19:22 women in the stores were to me.
0:19:28 Just picture me, this guy in pleated khakis Asian guy walking into predominantly black
0:19:33 neighborhood stores and they’ve been burned a lot before, not just at this company, but
0:19:35 their personal lives.
0:19:37 And they accepted me.
0:19:42 They really, I can’t emphasize enough how generous they were to me.
0:19:44 And it felt great.
0:19:48 I was grateful, particularly dying father.
0:19:51 And that’s not easy being that guy in Boston private equities.
0:19:52 Just not.
0:19:54 And I’ve always tried to be.
0:19:58 And I realized that I’m like, look, this is who I am.
0:20:03 All the things I’m good at, like quant music, whatever it is, law, that doesn’t go away.
0:20:08 Like, just because I’m generous or just because of myself.
0:20:13 In fact, as I hope the readers will know, it made me smarter.
0:20:17 It made me more capable of doing and seeing things that didn’t exist before.
0:20:23 And yeah, that was the speech, not that inspiring, I know, but in the moment, it was honest.
0:20:24 It was the truth.
0:20:26 And I think that did inspire people.
0:20:31 And I don’t know if everybody realizes it and you mentioned it in your book, but a black
0:20:36 community and Korean people, they have this history, right?
0:20:42 So the Korean person owns the liquor store in the black community.
0:20:44 Rodney King images appear.
0:20:50 It wasn’t necessarily a friendly relationship between Koreans and blacks back then.
0:20:51 Yeah.
0:20:52 And maybe still, right?
0:20:57 Sadly, that’s a lot of them still exist, but there’s also a lot of stories that don’t
0:21:01 get told that while this was happening to me over the last 10 years.
0:21:07 I’ve met so many people who are black and Korean who have wonderful friendships.
0:21:12 Those stories, it just doesn’t play to the ratings.
0:21:14 And that’s part of why I’m telling this story.
0:21:17 And I just, this happens, this is not a superhero story.
0:21:21 I believe this story happens every day.
0:21:25 The women that were leading the stores do it every day and no one tells those stories.
0:21:27 My mom led every day.
0:21:29 No one tells her story.
0:21:31 The vast majority of the world, their stories are not told.
0:21:34 And so I’ve taken this opportunity, I’ve written the book.
0:21:40 I go through a lot of perspective change and there are lots of moments of weakness and
0:21:41 I’m honest with people.
0:21:43 I’m like, there were times I wanted to go home.
0:21:44 I didn’t want to do this.
0:21:48 And I was cursing myself and saying, “What are you doing?
0:21:49 You’re idiot.”
0:21:54 I said that a lot in the motel room and it also kind of sort of portend.
0:21:58 I think, I don’t want to spoil the end of the book, but it’s public.
0:22:04 Yeah, I felt like I had done a good job, not from the financial results or the gains on
0:22:08 the private stock, but it was that after I had left that Howard University asked if I
0:22:11 would be the Johnson Chair of Entrepreneurship.
0:22:15 It was that phone call to me that I looked in the mirror and I got very emotional.
0:22:19 I just said, “I think I did it the way I did it, I think I did a good job.”
0:22:24 If I can be the Johnson Chair of Entrepreneurship and also teach at MIT, I think things are
0:22:29 possible in this country and I think that relationships between two schools that don’t
0:22:32 know each other very well, if I can play a small part in getting them to know each other
0:22:38 well and engineering new solutions, that gives me a lot of hope for this country.
0:22:44 Yeah, and I want to point out to listeners that Howard University, not Harvard, Howard
0:22:48 University asked you to do this out of the blue.
0:22:55 And Howard University is a historically black university, which I think makes it an even
0:22:56 bigger deal.
0:23:01 Arguably, it’s a bigger deal than if Harvard asked you to do this, right?
0:23:03 It’s more flattering, I would think.
0:23:04 Yeah.
0:23:10 When MIT called me to teach, I was very excited, but I didn’t cry.
0:23:16 When Howard called me, and Howard is the mecca, this is arguably, this is in DC, it has a
0:23:19 lot of, it is maybe the HBCU.
0:23:20 Yeah, I cried.
0:23:27 It was so shocking and it felt like that chest feel that I felt when I was five years old
0:23:30 when learning about why I got a red helicopter.
0:23:31 It’s when you earn it.
0:23:35 It’s when you didn’t think anyone was watching and you didn’t expect it.
0:23:40 It is nice when you do that, that down the road someone says, “Oh, we were watching.
0:23:42 We would really love for you to be part of this.”
0:23:44 And that took a lot of courage from Dr. Frederick.
0:23:50 I’m sure that he had to think, is I’m inviting this Korean American Boston based private
0:23:54 equity/CEO guy to be the Johnson Chair of Entrepreneurship, the Johnson family founded
0:23:55 Ebony.
0:23:57 I’m sure he had to think about it.
0:24:02 So it took him to have courage to say, “When you look through all of this, he is the right
0:24:03 guy.”
0:24:04 And so I’m grateful to him.
0:24:10 I would say that is one of the most flattering things that could happen to anybody.
0:24:12 I would have to say that.
0:24:13 Thank you.
0:24:19 I don’t want any HBCU to call me up and ask me to do that, but I’m saying that would
0:24:20 just make my day.
0:24:23 I don’t know, more so than an Ivy League.
0:24:27 Frankly, I wouldn’t affiliate with an Ivy League these days.
0:24:32 I think they’re so tarnished and not by plagiarism, but by their graduates.
0:24:34 But anyway, that’s a different subject.
0:24:38 No, it is, but I’m glad you brought it up.
0:24:39 You were right.
0:24:41 It was funny in the beginning, you were teasing that, you know, having two degrees from Harvard
0:24:43 and I was talking about the weight of it.
0:24:44 Yeah.
0:24:49 I’m really proud to be teaching at Howard and I’m really proud to be at MIT, they’re
0:24:51 both in Cambridge.
0:24:53 And I loved my time at Harvard.
0:24:58 I think I wrote in the book that I think there’s a big difference between, I know there’s
0:25:02 a big difference and you know this better than anyone, it’s pedigree versus performance,
0:25:06 but it’s also wisdom versus quote education.
0:25:09 And we are seeing that systemically in our country right now.
0:25:14 I think there are a lot of people in this country who underestimate themselves.
0:25:18 Pedigree, a credential, it is important, but it’s nice that those credentials and pedigree
0:25:21 prereqs are getting less important over the next 30 years.
0:25:26 Show me the person that just, they get it done and they’re rawly intelligent, curious.
0:25:30 You don’t have to go 250,000 bucks in debt to prove that to me.
0:25:37 Well, I would also say show me the Harvard graduate who underestimates himself or herself.
0:25:45 Point a few out to me, okay, but let’s not go too deep on the anti-Harvard theory.
0:25:49 When you got to Ashley Stewart, by the way, I never heard of Ashley Stewart till I read
0:25:55 your book, but when I learned that it was named after Laura Ashley and Martha Stewart,
0:25:57 I could only laugh.
0:25:59 That is just hilarious.
0:26:04 I wrote, there’s the irony of it, right?
0:26:06 It’s a false aspiration for these women.
0:26:11 Because Laura Ashley and Martha Stewart, you couldn’t be whiter, right?
0:26:14 Yeah, and this is like, it was found in 1991.
0:26:20 So this generation of young people, they wouldn’t stand for that, right?
0:26:25 It’s the standards of what it’s, of aspiration, they’re very different and I think it’s healthier
0:26:27 than it was when I was growing up.
0:26:32 Although you have to say to her credit, Martha Stewart is hanging out with Snoop Dogg these
0:26:33 days.
0:26:34 Yeah, Martha Stewart.
0:26:35 I saw her.
0:26:36 She’s cool.
0:26:37 She’s cool.
0:26:38 Yeah.
0:26:39 I think she’s cool.
0:26:40 She’s got, there’s so many sides to her.
0:26:44 It’s, yeah, the image that was portrayed to us, just cookie cutter.
0:26:46 That’s clearly that’s not her.
0:26:47 She’s a pretty interesting person.
0:26:48 I’d love to meet her.
0:26:49 I would love to.
0:26:55 I actually had her on this podcast, but I only had her for five minutes in the green
0:27:00 room, but she’s, she is definitely a remarkable woman.
0:27:05 When you got to Ashley Stewart, what business did they think they were in?
0:27:06 Fashion?
0:27:07 Retail?
0:27:08 Yeah.
0:27:14 They thought that they were selling clothes to size 12 and up plus size women and I didn’t.
0:27:19 I thought that they had 3,500 square foot of space of safety.
0:27:24 They were selling courage or selling permission, self-permission, confidence and that the way
0:27:29 it manifested itself in order to stay in business, they had to transact something.
0:27:33 So they sold clothes and I think in the book, I write about capital P product versus lower
0:27:38 case P product and that’s something in your career you’ve done incredibly well.
0:27:41 The capital P product, what is it?
0:27:45 It was really putting in a philosophy and saying, okay, once you have the philosophy,
0:27:49 the brand right, then you can have lots of lower case P products.
0:27:57 It took a while for that mind ship to happen, to really take hold a couple of years.
0:28:02 The way I could convey it was through media, it was through song, it was through getting
0:28:09 people to feel it and see it and so that’s why I built out a whole internal media department
0:28:13 but the other big way was just changing, this is where it gets maybe boring for your listeners
0:28:20 but I unleashed myself and the finance and the whole ops from Gap.
0:28:25 I wanted to create a beautiful, consonant system and accounting does not allow you to
0:28:26 do that.
0:28:29 It doesn’t, it records and so that’s what we did.
0:28:34 And can you just mention, because I think it’s such an important lesson that, at least
0:28:41 my interpretation is that you truly understood what Ashley Stewart stood for, not by hanging
0:28:44 out in the headquarters but by going to the stores.
0:28:50 Yeah, the headquarters didn’t do any of the answers and they didn’t know the product,
0:28:54 they didn’t know the customers so yeah, it was pretty quick, I just left and just was
0:28:59 hanging jewelry and trying on things, talking to customers, like seeing their interaction
0:29:02 with the kids, listening to the words that they were speaking with and I’d done this
0:29:08 a lot as an investor, this is my job before I did this in my 40s as CEO.
0:29:12 I would do this whenever we invested in Meow Mixed Cat Food and that was one of my first
0:29:17 investments and I remember back then, I think I was 29 at the time, 30, we bought it at a
0:29:21 Ralston Purina and we literally bought the ingredient list and set up a company from
0:29:26 scratch in four months and I basically was on succumbent, I thought it was normal to
0:29:29 do that as a private equity guy, I’m like, okay, we got to set up a company, so I set
0:29:30 up a company.
0:29:36 But I remember telling everyone, every number, marketing, org, every decision we make, every
0:29:42 employee has to understand and it has to be consonant that Meow Mix is like Wendy’s,
0:29:47 not McDonald’s, it’s not Burger King, I think it’s Wendy’s for cats.
0:29:53 And once people were like, I got it, a bit of an attitude, a little bit different, the
0:30:00 third player, it made sense, who we hired, what we said, what type of brand extensions
0:30:04 we had, why would Wendy’s do that, Wendy’s wouldn’t do that, and anyway, that’s what
0:30:08 I do for a living, it’s taken me a while to understand that, it’s sort of hearing the
0:30:13 sound of a brand and then putting it into math and music and org.
0:30:20 I must admit that I don’t completely comprehend the McDonald’s Burger King Wendy’s metaphor.
0:30:23 So what is Wendy’s in that mix?
0:30:27 Wendy’s has a little bit of, it’s quirky, right?
0:30:32 Even the signage and the branding with Dave’s daughter, it’s quirky, and even if you look
0:30:37 at their Twitter account, there’s a little bit of toot in the Wendy’s Twitter account.
0:30:42 It’s not mean, it’s not harsh, but it has a distinct voice, there’s a point of view.
0:30:48 And it’s that third player that says, okay, big guys, big girls, you two can fight it
0:30:54 out to say who’s the best, that’s fine, we’re the best, we’re Wendy’s, that’s who we are.
0:30:57 So if you don’t want that or that, come to Wendy’s, it’s fine.
0:31:02 Square patties, right, just baked potato with what they do, they’re different, and they’ve
0:31:06 never tried to be better than McDonald’s or better than Burger King.
0:31:10 Those two have gone back and forth, Coke, Pepsi, back and forth.
0:31:16 Wendy’s, I think as an observer and as a consumer of it, I eat it too much still, I think they’ve
0:31:18 always tried to be a really good Wendy’s.
0:31:23 And in fact, after word got out with Ashley Stewart, what we did in the local papers in
0:31:29 Saqqaqas, it took three years, four years, the owner of the Wendy’s franchise, I forgot
0:31:35 about this, sent me gift certificates to his Wendy’s.
0:31:38 Not the franchisee of McDonald’s or Burger King.
0:31:42 It was Wendy’s, and he said, “Dude, you should come here to hear some free food, you’re
0:31:46 working hard, we’re proud of what you’ve done, it’s awesome.”
0:31:47 It was Wendy’s.
0:31:48 Wow, that’s a great story.
0:31:50 Is that story in the book?
0:31:55 No, I literally had forgotten about it, but yeah, I got this really cool letter on the
0:32:02 letterhead, it had the pigtail girl on the letterhead, and dear James or dear Mr. Ree,
0:32:06 we are watching, we’re very proud of what you all did, keep it up.
0:32:12 And here’s 50 bucks worth of free food, which I basically consumed in three settings.
0:32:16 So yeah, I remember in the book, I said, “I came to a lot of weight,” it was not an
0:32:19 easy run, but it was worth it.
0:32:23 That’s like Madison and I sending you a merger for socks, that’s all.
0:32:31 I’m wearing the socks, look, I mean, I’m wearing them, I got in the spirit, but thank you,
0:32:34 they’re comfortable, yeah.
0:32:37 If you need any more for your kids, let us know.
0:32:44 As far as a little piece of business advice, how can people understand what business they
0:32:45 are in?
0:32:50 Because I think that is one of the most difficult things to see, especially when you’re in the
0:32:51 business.
0:32:59 And I would make the case that Kodak invented digital photography in 1975, but I think they
0:33:03 thought they were in the business of chemicals on film, chemicals on paper.
0:33:08 From the outside looking in, I would say Kodak was in the business of preserving people’s
0:33:12 memories, but they didn’t see it that way.
0:33:15 So how do people figure out what business are we truly in?
0:33:20 I think I would answer that in maybe two ways, and it’s sort of my way.
0:33:21 I answered in counterpoint.
0:33:25 So the first one is that, not tell us a grown-up executive who run major companies, you’re
0:33:27 running a lemonade stand.
0:33:29 And it’s in my book, chapter five, right?
0:33:32 It’s a lemonade stand of you.
0:33:33 Always will be.
0:33:35 If you can’t get that, you don’t understand what the product is.
0:33:40 It’s not the lemonade in the lemonade stand, it’s you, why people buy lemonade.
0:33:44 And if you don’t understand a basic P&L of a lemonade stand and like the balance sheet
0:33:48 of a lemonade stand, how can you run a $20 billion company?
0:33:49 So get the fractal right.
0:33:50 Test number one.
0:33:55 The second thing, and people get it, it’s amazing the Eureka that people sort of, I see
0:33:56 in their face.
0:34:01 The second thing is, you have to solve a problem.
0:34:03 And you have to have a product that solves a problem.
0:34:06 And hopefully you’re really passionate and intimate with that problem.
0:34:07 It helps.
0:34:13 And if you’re not, I hope you’re highly empathetic, but yeah, solve a real problem and care about
0:34:15 it, and then deliver it.
0:34:17 And it doesn’t matter what the product is over time.
0:34:23 It changes with tech, with consumer interests, but really try to solve a problem such that
0:34:27 you do it so well, maybe you put yourself out of business.
0:34:32 But I think over time, with the loyalty that you develop for actually doing something like
0:34:37 having, not just talking about it, but like doing it, I don’t think that your consumer
0:34:41 base will really want you to go out of business, and they’ll help you adapt and be agile.
0:34:44 So that’s my two pieces of advice.
0:34:49 Solve a problem so well that’s so real that you care about that you solve it such that
0:34:52 you put yourself out of business.
0:34:58 So what business is your book Red Helicopter in?
0:35:02 I wrote this, I think it’s in a business, it’s a tough question.
0:35:05 Like I talk go back and forth with Harper One on this.
0:35:07 Is it a business book?
0:35:08 Yeah.
0:35:09 Is it a memoir?
0:35:10 Yeah.
0:35:13 Is it a philosophy book, sort of?
0:35:15 Is it just a really compelling narrative?
0:35:16 Yeah.
0:35:18 I think it’s why I wrote the prelude the way I wrote it.
0:35:24 I think the business really, when you put it all together, it’s about change.
0:35:25 It’s change.
0:35:28 And it’s the change inside you.
0:35:32 It’s whether you are a CEO in charge with changing an organization or whether you are
0:35:36 a part of a family and you want to change the family dynamics.
0:35:37 It’s change.
0:35:43 It’s just like before when I think that people are mistaut about what to be, right?
0:35:48 Like you should be a plane versus I’m saying, what about a helicopter?
0:35:50 Like, that’s pretty cool.
0:35:52 It’s pretty agile.
0:35:55 Handles chaos much better than a plane does.
0:35:59 But I think that this book also does that for the concept of change.
0:36:03 I think the way it’s taught often, and it is taught often, and a lot of this is getting
0:36:07 debunked in business schools now, it needs to be debunked faster.
0:36:09 Change is not violent.
0:36:11 It’s not angry.
0:36:15 It’s not like, quote, like masculine, like on a horse.
0:36:21 Change like the best change, it’s actually quite calm and it’s relentless.
0:36:25 And if you do it that way, it sustains and it’s actually ends up being much faster.
0:36:27 It’s like the tortoise in the hair, right?
0:36:32 You give people agency to find that change and to do it that way, you have to be very
0:36:39 patient and you have to be able to really present your vision of change in a very multi-sensory
0:36:40 way.
0:36:43 People, learner, quant learner, legal learner, doesn’t matter.
0:36:50 Can you convey that same story, that same song of change in multiple, quote, languages?
0:36:54 Not literally just languages, like Italian or Korean or French.
0:37:00 It’s languages of money, languages of philosophy, languages of org, languages of anthropology.
0:37:02 It doesn’t matter.
0:37:03 That’s what the book is about.
0:37:09 It’s about just giving people also comfort and saying, you can do it and don’t get bullied.
0:37:12 Up next on Remarkable People.
0:37:17 And so a lot of why I wrote Red Helicopter and like the story of that what we did and
0:37:21 I will not let anyone tell me something’s impossible or any more.
0:37:22 I just won’t.
0:37:23 We have a right.
0:37:29 The group that did this together and sitting at my desk at Howard University, I can look
0:37:33 at people and say, I’m sorry, it’s not impossible.
0:37:39 I’d rather you just say that you’re choosing to not do it.
0:37:44 If you find our show valuable, please do us a favor and subscribe, rate and review it.
0:37:51 Even better, forward it to a friend, a big mahalo to you for doing this.
0:37:56 Welcome back to Remarkable People with Guy Kawasaki.
0:38:02 If you were to ask me, Guy, what business is Red Helicopter in the book?
0:38:07 I would say that it is inflection points for dummies.
0:38:10 It’s all about inflection points.
0:38:13 How you navigate inflection points to me.
0:38:19 In that discussion you just had, this is a leading question, but aren’t you basically
0:38:23 refuting much of what private equity does?
0:38:30 The image of private equity is like some Wall Street guy goes in, buys something, cuts it
0:38:37 up into various assets, sells pieces off, flips it and makes a billion dollars.
0:38:40 None of that was what you just described.
0:38:42 Are you refuting private equity?
0:38:46 I think there are many different forms of private equity and many different types of
0:38:48 investors of private equity.
0:38:53 In the most basic form, when I was first joining it, I didn’t know any of this.
0:38:57 I was a son of a freaking pediatrician who went and taught high school, so I was learning
0:38:58 on the fly.
0:39:01 But in the beginning, there were two types of private equity firms.
0:39:06 There was ones that were more deal guys, like they came more from investment banking, and
0:39:09 it was in, “Hey, how much EBITDA was the leverage?
0:39:10 Let’s do deals.”
0:39:12 It’s financial arbitrage.
0:39:16 Then there were other people who came more from, quote, the consulting world that were
0:39:21 more strategic and knew how to think about market share and margin improvement at the
0:39:23 gross margin line.
0:39:28 I think that as I’ve gotten older and wiser, and I think the industry has evolved too, and
0:39:32 I think the West Coast has done a much better job of this than the East Coast.
0:39:35 In retrospect, I should probably should have lived on the West Coast.
0:39:37 That’s the other realization I’ve had.
0:39:42 I like to see more operators who also control the financial capital too.
0:39:47 I’m seeing things change, and that existed much less when I first started out in the
0:39:48 business.
0:39:53 But yeah, private equity has its worst, creates very little value.
0:39:55 It’s arbitrage.
0:39:57 Not true arbitrage, but like financial arbitrage.
0:40:01 But at its best, it does create real value.
0:40:03 Would you want your kids to go into private equity?
0:40:04 No.
0:40:07 I’d like them to know the skill set of it.
0:40:12 I would like them, if they wanted to learn it, I valued my career in it.
0:40:13 I still manage money.
0:40:16 I wouldn’t want them to stay in it.
0:40:21 I realized very late, I hope, guy, you can glean this from, I’m a creator.
0:40:23 I always have been.
0:40:29 I think that just the way I look, the generation I grew up in, you got a few years on me.
0:40:30 I wish I’d known you earlier.
0:40:32 And I didn’t understand what a creative meant.
0:40:38 I thought it meant just someone who plays music or draws or sculptures and things, but
0:40:39 it’s not.
0:40:42 I think that’s the other thing I hope that this book shows.
0:40:43 It’s a mindset.
0:40:44 I’m a creative.
0:40:45 Like Harold and the Purple Crown, right?
0:40:47 I have drawn a life for myself.
0:40:52 I help other people draw life for themselves, and I want my kids to create.
0:40:54 I think creatives create real value.
0:40:55 By definition, they do.
0:40:57 It’s something that didn’t exist before.
0:41:00 I don’t want them to just move lawn chairs or deck chairs on a boat.
0:41:02 That’s not what I want them to do.
0:41:07 Well, while we’re on the topic of kids, would you want your kids to work for Goldman Sachs
0:41:08 or McKinsey?
0:41:09 Same answer.
0:41:13 In the beginning, training, getting exposure, but I’m not pretty like, you want to talk
0:41:15 about the opposite of a helicopter?
0:41:17 I’m like the opposite of a helicopter parent.
0:41:20 It’s more of the helicopter definition of agency.
0:41:22 It’s a lot of free will for me.
0:41:24 It’s informed free will.
0:41:29 And so as part of being informed, if you want to try on lots of hats, do it.
0:41:31 For me, I’ve done that my whole life.
0:41:35 People have always wanted to put me in a box.
0:41:37 It’s driven me nuts.
0:41:38 And I just don’t do that to people.
0:41:44 I’m like, okay, you did that, and you paint here, and you do that, and you like that.
0:41:45 That’s cool.
0:41:49 I will not put anyone in a box, particularly my kids.
0:41:54 And so they should try on lots of hats and suits and get skill sets.
0:41:55 I’ve done a lot of different things in my life.
0:42:02 I think the book is really, really arguing for lateral education and its systems dynamics.
0:42:06 I think it’s very dangerous to be a vertical learner, particularly when everything that’s
0:42:08 vertical, it’s going to be automated.
0:42:09 It’s going to be all machine-learned.
0:42:12 And so humanity, to me at its best, is lateral.
0:42:13 And I said this at the end of the book.
0:42:16 I will not treat people as a zero or a one.
0:42:19 I treat people like they’re a two.
0:42:22 And I don’t want people to treat me like a zero or a one.
0:42:26 Because as an investor, you don’t make money either as a zero or a one.
0:42:29 Like you’re supposed to be predictive of a future.
0:42:35 And so that’s what I want my kids, I would like for everyone to have that ability to
0:42:41 do that, to have the confidence, have the agency, informed agency, to carve out a future
0:42:46 for themselves and then hopefully take a lot of people along for the ride.
0:42:47 Do you ever worry?
0:42:51 I’m third generation Japanese-American.
0:42:55 My grandparents came to pick sugarcane.
0:42:57 My father was a real estate broker.
0:43:00 My mother was full-time mom.
0:43:03 My father became a state senator in Hawaii.
0:43:07 And now I have four kids.
0:43:13 And I worry that, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have this really tough life, like poverty
0:43:16 and not enough clothes, not enough to eat.
0:43:17 That kind of life.
0:43:20 So I’m not trying to make myself into a hero.
0:43:26 I had a good lower class, middle class upbringing without trauma.
0:43:31 And yet I worry that my kids, in a sense, I could hand everything to them in their life.
0:43:35 You don’t need to work summer times to afford college.
0:43:37 You don’t need to work during college.
0:43:39 You don’t need to work during high school.
0:43:46 Do you ever worry that in the third or fourth generation of an immigrant’s family that your
0:43:48 kids are going to lose the edge?
0:43:49 Totally.
0:43:50 And it happens, right?
0:43:54 That’s what happened in the 17th century to the Puritans, right?
0:43:57 It was the third generation, 1670s, where that happened.
0:44:01 I think in some ways it’s happening on a macro scale with this country.
0:44:05 If they really, greatest generations, then you have the next generation, next generation.
0:44:09 Particularly if we cut off the immigration, legal immigration spigot, not so wise, right?
0:44:10 Yeah.
0:44:11 So you want to hear something?
0:44:14 It sounds like I’m going to get like the Bad Dad Award, so I’m going to just tell the
0:44:15 story.
0:44:17 I like to tell stories that make me look stupid.
0:44:21 Long time ago, there was a board game that my brother and I played all the time.
0:44:25 It was like we had bonkers, careers, and monopoly.
0:44:27 And we saved those games.
0:44:32 We played them like every day, but they were still in pristine condition because the way
0:44:35 we grew up, if we lost pieces or broke it.
0:44:37 We weren’t getting another one.
0:44:42 And so when my kids were like, God, I don’t know, like 10, 8, 6, I gave them these board
0:44:44 games.
0:44:50 And then within a day, they lost the pieces to two of them.
0:44:51 Okay?
0:44:52 And I’m sitting there.
0:44:55 I’m like, okay, these are like fully depreciated board games are worth like a dollar and like
0:44:56 whatever.
0:44:58 But I was, I was mad.
0:45:04 And I said, your dad, I sounded like my dad, your dad had this.
0:45:06 These are the only games we had.
0:45:10 I saved them for 40 years or whatever it was.
0:45:14 And then my oldest was upset.
0:45:16 I think the other two were too young to really get it.
0:45:20 My oldest said, we’re doing the best we can, dad.
0:45:22 And I’m like, oh, you’re a bad dad.
0:45:27 But anyway, so like that story, I’m like, was I a bad dad?
0:45:28 Yeah, maybe I was a bad dad.
0:45:32 But that story captures what you’re saying.
0:45:36 What I’m glad in a lot of ways, they’re like outgunning me from a creativity standpoint.
0:45:38 I realized it took me a long time.
0:45:43 And you have other guests who can speak about this more intelligently, but like, it took
0:45:48 me a long time, particularly during my 40s, I got it to find that spirit of abundance
0:45:50 again.
0:45:51 It did.
0:45:55 Did that red helicopter kid, I may not have enough, I’ll give you half my sandwich.
0:45:56 I’m not going to ask questions.
0:45:57 Just have it.
0:45:58 We’re fine.
0:46:01 It’s funny, like when you’re in your 20s and 30s, you can lose that and you just, even
0:46:05 though you’re earning more, gaining more, it’s, you become self-centered and selfish.
0:46:08 And it really limits your creativity.
0:46:14 And so my kids have much more of that abundant mindset too, partly because they don’t have
0:46:17 to worry about saving all the stupid pieces for bonkers.
0:46:21 So in some ways it works in a good way for them.
0:46:23 Are your kids driving?
0:46:24 All of them.
0:46:25 Yeah.
0:46:29 The youngest one just got her ability to drive alone.
0:46:31 I love it and it sucks too, right?
0:46:35 You don’t talk to them anymore in the car and I’m bopping along to music and.
0:46:36 Okay.
0:46:39 One bad dad to maybe another bad dad.
0:46:46 You tell me, my youngest son, he has a car and it’s an electric Hyundai.
0:46:47 Hyundai makes great cars.
0:46:49 I think not that because you’re Korean.
0:46:53 That sounded like an advertisement right there, like a product placement.
0:46:58 Well, it’s not like they’re paying me, but I think South Korea or Korea is the new
0:46:59 Germany.
0:47:05 But anyway, so my son has this Hyundai and I go in the car sometimes and there’s four
0:47:13 empty cans of liquid death, four empty bottles of water, his clothes, his like, it’s a freaking
0:47:15 mess.
0:47:16 And I look at that.
0:47:21 I say, God, man, when I was in high school, I would have killed for a car.
0:47:23 I would be washing that every week.
0:47:29 It would be like, I would win the Toyota Corona concours, the elegance, if that was my car.
0:47:32 And you treat this car like shit.
0:47:35 And I say, God, man, am I spoiling him?
0:47:36 Am I ruining him?
0:47:41 Is he going through the rest of his life thinking that life is a silver platter?
0:47:46 So you don’t need to be my psychiatrist, but you ever have thoughts like that?
0:47:47 Yeah.
0:47:49 And I love this bad dad competition.
0:47:52 We should have another conversation just who’s the worst dad.
0:47:53 I don’t know.
0:47:57 Like all my kids, they work not during the school year, but one of them does and they
0:47:58 like it.
0:48:01 I think they have a healthier relationship with money than I did.
0:48:02 I didn’t have any.
0:48:06 And then when I started having some, then it’s like, oh, like I’m just in a different place
0:48:12 now in my life in terms of the attitude toward money, it’s really important to use it.
0:48:15 And it comes when you don’t even think about it.
0:48:16 Seriously.
0:48:17 And you know that.
0:48:21 I mean, your whole, I’m telling someone that knows that and has lived it much longer than
0:48:22 I have.
0:48:23 Okay.
0:48:24 Yeah.
0:48:27 What concerns me more, I live in a lot of different worlds right now.
0:48:31 And one of the things that I should have said when we were asking about, when I was begging
0:48:35 for money for Ashley Stewart during that six months, I made some predictions about the
0:48:36 world.
0:48:39 In college, I studied 19th century.
0:48:42 I studied the 1830s, 40s, 50s, 60s.
0:48:46 I studied when everyone thought the telegraph was gonna, and the railroad was gonna exhilarate
0:48:48 and bring humanity together and technology.
0:48:53 That’s what I wrote my thesis on was just people not being direct and addressing the
0:48:57 problems and ultimately we had a civil war.
0:49:01 It’s a fascinating time, like the founding fathers died 50 years later, think about our
0:49:06 generation now, greatest generation, that generation’s died off in terms of service.
0:49:09 I went around after everyone rejected me in the world to get money.
0:49:11 I also made the argument about the zeitgeist.
0:49:14 I just said, watch what’s gonna happen to this country.
0:49:18 We are like, I’m telling you as a humanities person, there’s a reason why Margaret Atwood
0:49:20 ‘s book is so popular now.
0:49:25 There are things happening and people behave in certain ways, there are cycles, America’s
0:49:26 not immune to this.
0:49:28 It’s already been through it.
0:49:33 I worry more about that for my kids and they are too.
0:49:38 It’s these broader forces that I worry about for them.
0:49:44 A lot of why I wrote Red Helicopter and the story of that what we did and I will not let
0:49:47 anyone tell me something’s impossible anymore.
0:49:48 I just won’t.
0:49:54 We have a right, the group that did this together and sitting at my desk at Howard University,
0:49:59 I can look at people and say, I’m sorry, it’s not impossible.
0:50:03 I’d rather you just say that you’re choosing to not do it.
0:50:06 I had Margaret Atwood on this podcast.
0:50:08 She is brilliant.
0:50:16 I had to chase her across Canada in a train, but wow, that was like a really powerful interview,
0:50:17 but anyway.
0:50:23 She certainly has predicted the dystopia that we’re now going through and anyway, okay,
0:50:25 the last big topic.
0:50:27 We’re going back to bad dad.
0:50:32 No, no, we’re going to good mom.
0:50:41 The writing you did about your mom, I think was just so heartfelt and so brilliant.
0:50:45 About a week ago, we interviewed Angela Duckworth.
0:50:51 She had a very kind of similar feeling story where she said, when I was young, my father
0:50:56 was the huge influence forced me to achieve and blah, blah, blah.
0:51:02 And I never realized, however, that my mother was such a force that she came from Taiwan
0:51:06 to America, not speaking the language, not knowing anybody.
0:51:12 She wanted to be an artist, but she subsumed her desires to be a mother and a wife and
0:51:15 never really got to blossom.
0:51:21 And then my father died and now she’s 90, but now she’s just blossoming and becoming
0:51:24 an artist and all this kind of stuff.
0:51:28 And let’s just say that most people don’t ask Angela Duckworth, the mother of grit
0:51:30 about her mother.
0:51:36 But I just want you to discuss the influence your mom had on you and how you came to realize
0:51:37 this.
0:51:43 Yeah, it’s a wonderful way to ask the question because so much wisdom is in what Angela was
0:51:44 saying.
0:51:52 It was similar to the helicopter versus airplane or work versus light, its perspective, just
0:51:59 like an artist, the importance of negative space or in leadership, what you don’t say.
0:52:05 Or when you’re composing a piece of music that you have the cello lead and not the violin.
0:52:08 It’s these decisions of what doesn’t get said.
0:52:12 My mother, like a lot of great leaders, she did.
0:52:16 She didn’t speak or do no histrionics.
0:52:18 She did consistently every day.
0:52:21 Yeah, I didn’t appreciate it as much when I was in my teens.
0:52:25 And then as I got older, you really watch what my mom did.
0:52:28 My mom was so intentional about her life.
0:52:33 Like the thing that struck me is like the fact that she renewed her nursing degree in
0:52:40 a second language 25 years after not doing that, being a house mom, in a language that
0:52:45 made her very uncomfortable, English always did, and that she chose to use that to go
0:52:50 take care of the soldiers who fought in the Korean War, who saved her life when she was
0:52:52 10 or nine.
0:52:57 My mom was so intentional about how she plant and lived her life.
0:53:01 She lived her life in a giant set of concentric circles, which is one of the inspirations for
0:53:03 the cover of the book.
0:53:07 She thought that way, and I didn’t see it for a long time.
0:53:11 I think we’re all, you want to talk about that dad, like it’s also being an idiot guy
0:53:13 sometimes when you’re younger.
0:53:19 And as I got older and older, and I realized she’s the one who took, she led our house.
0:53:22 She took care of my father for 15 years with Parkinson’s.
0:53:25 She did it, and she never asked for credit.
0:53:29 My mother was a great investor, not with money, but with other forms of capital.
0:53:33 And when I look back, I learned some of my greatest lessons in being an investor and
0:53:35 leadership for my mom.
0:53:37 I miss her.
0:53:43 It took me a long time to write this book because I had to get to a place where I could
0:53:49 try to be objective about losing the most important person that it was for me growing
0:53:50 up.
0:53:57 It’s a common theme, James, and many of the people we interviewed that as they get older,
0:54:02 they understand and appreciate their moms more and more and more.
0:54:07 And it’s happened over and over again in this interview, and I think you’ll enjoy this story.
0:54:09 I’ll close with this story.
0:54:11 So another Angela Duckworth story.
0:54:15 So she’s telling me about her mom, and she says, “My mom is 89.
0:54:22 She’s living in an assisted living place, and she’s now blossoming as an artist.”
0:54:29 So she went to the director of the assisted living place and said, “I want another room.”
0:54:31 And he says, “Well, what’s wrong with the room you have?
0:54:32 Don’t you like it?”
0:54:34 And she said, “No, I want to keep that room.
0:54:39 I want a second room to be my art studio.”
0:54:45 So at 89, she’s doing that, and I think that is a great story.
0:54:47 That is a great story.
0:54:50 I’m 53 in about a month.
0:54:56 And so I’m thinking to meet for myself, and I’m like, “Okay, from 22 to 52, 30 years,
0:55:02 like one generation, that was an interesting life, learned a lot of things, met a lot of
0:55:07 great people, met some not so great people too, and stubbed my toe, made some mistakes.
0:55:11 And I’m looking at the next 30 years of my life, when I’m 82, that’s why I’m trying all
0:55:17 sorts of new things at 52, because I suck at a lot of things I’m doing right now.
0:55:21 But at 82, I don’t know, maybe I’ll be good at them.
0:55:27 I know, keep me alive longer because the synapses in my brain are going to be forced to not
0:55:29 be comfortable to learn some new things.
0:55:30 What?
0:55:31 Like surfing.
0:55:33 I’m going to take you up on.
0:55:34 Okay.
0:55:35 Like surfing.
0:55:36 Okay.
0:55:37 Two last thoughts for you, James.
0:55:44 So one is, you should consider doing a podcast because 52 times a year, I have to figure
0:55:45 out a guest.
0:55:53 I have to learn about private equity and selling clothes to black plus size women this week.
0:56:00 I had to figure out Angela Duckworth the week before I interview Vivek Murthy, Surgeon
0:56:06 General, Bob Cheldini, Neil deGrasse Tyson, every week, Stephen Wolfram, every week I
0:56:09 have to figure out something completely new.
0:56:13 That keeps your brain active, I hope.
0:56:18 And then since you mentioned the S word surfing, you’re 52.
0:56:22 I want you to know that I took up surfing at 60.
0:56:28 So if I can take up surfing at 60, you could actually wait another eight years.
0:56:31 Although if you want me to help you with surfing, you cannot wait eight years.
0:56:33 You better get your ass out here now.
0:56:37 But anyway, that’s part of the growth mindset, right?
0:56:43 At 52, you take up surfing by the time you’re 62, I guarantee you’ll be very good.
0:56:46 Now’s the time, baby, don’t wait till you’re 60.
0:56:47 I’m doing it.
0:56:48 I’m going to come out there.
0:56:50 I’m going to take you up on it.
0:56:51 Okay.
0:56:57 And if I can’t help you, certainly Madison can, because she’s a very good surfer.
0:56:58 So that’s James Rhee.
0:57:01 It’s a very interesting story.
0:57:05 Be sure to check out his book, Red Helicopter.
0:57:08 I want to thank the remarkable people team.
0:57:14 If you think this podcast sounds good, it’s because of Shannon Hernandez and Jeff Sees,
0:57:21 Sound Design, Maven, and my producer, Madison Nysmer, who is also the co-author of Think
0:57:22 Remarkable.
0:57:25 There’s Tessa Nysmer, who’s our researcher.
0:57:31 And then there’s Louise Magana, Alexis Nishimura, and Fallon Yates.
0:57:36 Until next time, mahalo and aloha.
0:57:43 And I hope that you read our book, Think Remarkable, because I guarantee you it will help you make
0:57:50 a difference and be remarkable.
0:57:52 This is Remarkable People.

0:00:06 From time to time, we’re going to add a few episodes to the Remarkable People podcast.
0:00:13 These will be re-broadcasts of other people’s podcasts or interviews of Guy or Madison or maybe
0:00:20 speeches, stuff that’s just a little treat, a little icing on the cake. We’re calling it the
0:00:28 Pau Hana series. Pau Hana are the words in Hawaiian for after work. So we’re going to post these
0:00:34 after work, typically Friday afternoons or maybe Saturdays. This first one is a
0:00:42 re-broadcast of the Masters of Scale interview that was conducted in March 2024.
0:00:50 It was, in my humble opinion, particularly good, particularly fun, really great production values.
0:00:58 So we thought we would run it. Here you go, Masters of Scale, Mahalo and Aloha.
0:01:08 Twenty years ago, I had a Porsche 911 and I’m driving in Menlo Park, California in my Porsche.
0:01:20 That’s Guy Kawasaki, author, podcast host, a veteran of the early days at Apple and currently
0:01:27 chief evangelist for Canva. So I pull up to this stop sign and I look to my left
0:01:34 and there’s a car with four teenagers in it and they’re smiling, they’re laughing,
0:01:40 they’re making eye contact with me and the girl in the front seat, she makes this motion roll down
0:01:49 your window. I press the button, the window goes down. She sticks out her head and like in my mind,
0:01:56 I’m saying to myself, Guy, you have truly arrived. Even teenage girls know who you are. It’s because
0:02:02 of your work at Apple, it’s your startup garage dot com, it’s your writing, it’s your speaking,
0:02:08 it’s your TEDx, you know, everybody knows who you are. This is the thought going through my head
0:02:18 as I’m sitting in my 911. So she sticks her head out and she says to me, “Are you Jackie Chan?”
0:02:26 Oof, on so many levels, but Guy says he used that day to distill a deep learning.
0:02:35 Don’t worry about what motivates you, just worry about that you got motivated and you made a difference.
0:02:45 The lesson that I took away from the story is that now one of my motivations in life
0:02:53 is that someday Jackie Chan is in Hong Kong in his Bentley or his S-Class
0:02:59 or his Panamera and he pulls up to a stop sign and there’s four teenagers in this car next to him
0:03:06 and they roll down the window and they say to Jackie Chan, “Are you Guy Kawasaki?”
0:03:10 That’s one of my goals in life.
0:03:16 We would all be so lucky to be mistaken for Guy Kawasaki
0:03:22 and to dream as big as he does and they don’t just mean movie star status.
0:03:33 Guy joined Apple in 1983 and helped launch the Macintosh line of Apple computers starting in 1984.
0:03:40 His title was Software Evangelist, selling and advocating the new product line.
0:03:44 Since the 1980s he’s held the position of evangelist, advisor and brand ambassador
0:03:49 at several high-profile companies including Mercedes-Benz, Motorola and now with the design
0:03:55 firm Canva. He’s been a founder and investor in tech beyond personal computers through his firm
0:04:02 Garage Technology Ventures. Now in the fifth decade of his career Guy also shares his experience far
0:04:08 beyond his business partners. He’s written 16 books on entrepreneurship, leadership and personal
0:04:13 growth. Guy hosts a podcast called Remarkable People with accomplished figures from all walks
0:04:19 of life. He says the one thing they have in common is an insatiable desire to learn and to do more.
0:04:24 It’s this combination of an impressive corporate resume and personal growth
0:04:29 that I wanted to explore with Guy Kawasaki. He has keen insight into how founders and
0:04:34 entrepreneurs can grow their companies by expanding their thinking about what’s possible in their own lives.
0:04:39 You’ve got to have incredible talent at every position.
0:04:43 It’s like this huge push. There are fires burning when you’re going out.
0:04:48 Can you believe it? Such an idiot and then you go back to this is totally going to be amazing.
0:04:53 There are so many easy ways. I have no idea what to do. Sorry we made a mistake.
0:04:57 But you have to time it right. Oops. Working out of a free bedroom apartment.
0:05:02 Stuff that just seems absolutely nutball 10 years later. Well that’s just how you do it.
0:05:08 We haven’t made it just how you do it. This is Masters of Scale.
0:05:22 I’m Jeff Berman, your host. One of my favorite aspects of Masters of Scale is hearing stories
0:05:26 behind groundbreaking innovations. And it’s not just the person with the original idea
0:05:31 who takes it to scale. The people to first work alongside any boundary pushing founder
0:05:36 need to have vision too. Vision, perseverance and a growth mindset.
0:05:42 That’s the perspective we focus on today. Guy Kawasaki had an up close view of the early
0:05:47 scaling journey at Apple. The first days of the computers we now simply call Max.
0:05:51 But he didn’t set out to work in a brand new industry or for a Maverick company.
0:05:57 Guy Kawasaki grew up in Hawaii before moving to California for college at Stanford University.
0:06:02 His early understanding of relationships would have a huge impact on his life
0:06:09 and on his career. Growing up in Hawaii, you learned about family. The Hawaiian word for family is
0:06:17 ohana. But ohana extends beyond your blood relatives. There’s this sort of honorary title
0:06:24 that you give to people who are like family but not blood related. I think that the sort of horizons
0:06:33 in Hawaii. If you were successful, you ran Sears Roboc at the Alamoana Shopping Center. You ran
0:06:41 Hilton Hawaiian Village. You work for Dole Pineapple. That was the sort of spectrum of opportunities
0:06:48 there if you were very successful. And then I get off this airplane and I land in California.
0:06:56 And it was as if the scales were removed from my eyes because there’s Hewlett Packard,
0:07:02 there’s National Semiconductor, there’s Intel. And these people are creating international
0:07:09 companies, not just one great department store, one great hotel. And so it just totally brought
0:07:16 in my horizon. After graduating from Stanford, Guy tried law school. He got in and he started,
0:07:20 but he dropped out after just two weeks. Law school was basically saying, yeah,
0:07:25 you may be bright, but we’re going to tear down your mind and build it back up again.
0:07:31 And I could not handle that pressure. Quite frankly, I wimped out. Maybe that’s the last
0:07:35 time I wimped out. Of course, you could make the case that Guy, you wimped out and you ended up
0:07:44 working for Steve Jobs, which is quite the contrast. But before Apple, Guy earned an MBA from UCLA.
0:07:51 While I was at UCLA, I worked for, of all things, a small family owned jewelry manufacturer.
0:08:00 So I literally schlepped gold and diamonds, and we sold to retailers. And from there, I sort of
0:08:08 jumped the curve from jewelry to software in the McIntosh division. And the only explanation I can
0:08:17 give you for that is nepotism. My Stanford classmate and buddy hired me. And on paper, you know,
0:08:23 you wouldn’t need AI to reject me as a candidate to be software evangelist for the McIntosh division.
0:08:28 Well, I’m going to push back on you that it was nepotism, because one, that was Ohana you made,
0:08:34 not Ohana you were born into. And two, the lesson that I’ve heard you talk about having
0:08:40 learned from shopping jewelry all over the world is that sales is everything. And you have to know
0:08:46 how to take care of your customers. And I have to imagine that Apple in those early days, having
0:08:52 someone in your role who was relentlessly focused on the needs of the customers, was a critical
0:08:58 component. And so actually, you seem like the ideal hire for it, given the experience that you’d had.
0:09:06 Far be it from me to correct the record. But let me more accurately describe this. So people think
0:09:13 of sales today as, should I make the border blue? Or should I make it yellow? And let’s do A/B
0:09:19 testing and see if we get more than 1% click through rate increase. This jewelry business is
0:09:26 hand to hand combat. You called on jewelry store owners, and you begged them for business. They
0:09:31 kept you waiting in the lobby. Sometimes the end of the day came and they said, sorry, I don’t have
0:09:37 time to see you anymore. And they stick your designs on a scale and they want to pay you slightly
0:09:47 over what the scrap value of your ring is. And all that really taught me how to sell. And that skill
0:09:54 has stayed with me the rest of my life. Believe it or not, working in the jewelry business prepared
0:10:00 me to be a tech evangelist. In jewelry, Guy had to convince his buyers it’s something about the
0:10:06 product made it worth more than just its literal weight in gold. Maybe the design, the craftsmanship.
0:10:11 At Apple, the pitch was more complicated. What exactly did his job title mean,
0:10:16 software evangelist? In the 1980s, it meant convincing software developers to make programs
0:10:22 for Macintosh computers. Guy was the hype man. He had an enthusiasm in grit rooted in his sales
0:10:27 experience and the knowledge and passion to push for widespread acceptance of Apple’s new technology.
0:10:35 It was sales, marketing and leadership, all rolled into one. And so with Guy as software
0:10:41 evangelist, Apple’s Macintosh computer set off the desktop publishing revolution, empowering
0:10:46 customers to produce documents with text and images. Guy also fostered relationships with
0:10:51 developers who designed software and programs for Apple computers. He convinced them it would be
0:10:57 worth the effort. When Guy left Apple in 1987, the company was just starting its meteoric rise.
0:11:04 When you reflect back on those early days at Apple, was there a sense of how big Apple could
0:11:13 be back then? So you are talking to a person who quit Apple twice and turned down Steve for a third
0:11:21 position. So you know, the receipts indicate that I obviously did not think that Apple was going to
0:11:26 be the most valuable company in the world because I left there twice and turned down the chance to
0:11:32 come back. Guy’s referring to the time he came back to Apple for a couple of years in the 1990s,
0:11:38 then left again for his own projects and declined later opportunities to return to Apple. He left
0:11:43 to pursue other opportunities that simply couldn’t happen within Apple. And maybe there’s no scenario
0:11:49 where Apple or any other big company could have contained his multitudes. But there are ways for
0:11:55 leaders to encourage and keep innovative team members within their ranks, the entrepreneurs,
0:12:01 those who are bursting with ideas they dream of pursuing. What can big companies learn from your
0:12:08 experience about how to not just keep talent like you, but inspire talent like you, especially when
0:12:12 your role is as evangelist. You’re the one who’s outpitching the vision for the company.
0:12:18 Well, I’ve thought about this a lot and I’ll give you some factors that I believe would help
0:12:28 entrepreneurs. So first of all, you will need an ego maniac leader because this ego maniac leader
0:12:34 has to withstand a lot of pressure from the existing infrastructure of the company.
0:12:38 And the negativity that this leader is going to face is that
0:12:44 the sales force is going to save. We’re not interested in this problem. Just give us better,
0:12:55 faster, cheaper status quo. If you don’t make the company jump to the next curve, the company will die
0:13:05 and Kodak is a particularly good example because in 1975, Steve Sassen, an engineer at Kodak,
0:13:12 invented the digital camera. Now, if you invent these digital camera and you go to your boss and
0:13:18 you say, guess what boss, I figured out a way people don’t have to buy film anymore. Am I not a
0:13:27 remarkable engineer? You would have been probably fired because they were geared towards making film
0:13:34 and so the lesson is, do you want to be the next Kodak? Or do you want to be like Apple that went
0:13:44 from personal computer to handheld devices to app stores to continuously reinventing itself?
0:13:51 It sounds counterintuitive, redirecting resources, time and energy from the current product line
0:13:58 for an experimental future unknown innovation. But as Guy says, the bold thinking of these
0:14:04 entrepreneurs is what allows companies to survive in a competitive marketplace and have a chance to
0:14:12 dominate it. A second thing you need is a separate physical building. I don’t think you can do
0:14:21 entrepreneurship inside physically, a company that is already existing and if you are sharing
0:14:28 resources physically inside a building, you’re never going to be top priority. You want people
0:14:34 who are going to live and die with your idea, not people who are matrix managed and giving
0:14:40 a slight part of their perspective and a slight part of their bandwidth to one thing
0:14:45 and they’re doing mostly the existing thing. I think that separate building should be at least
0:14:51 a mile away from headquarters. You want something that’s close enough where you can come back and
0:14:58 steal resources, but far enough so that when managers at the company, if they want to come
0:15:04 see you, they have to get in a car and it’s like such a psychological barrier. “Oh God, I gotta get
0:15:09 in my car, I gotta drive, I gotta find parking, I’ll just leave them alone.” Guy, part of what’s
0:15:13 inherent in what you’re saying also is something I’ve experienced a number of times in my career.
0:15:19 I’ve been asked to present a five-year business plan. You’re laughing because it’s a joke,
0:15:24 but you think about where we were five years ago. As we sit here today, we hadn’t had COVID.
0:15:30 Generative AI was not something that more than a few thousand people were really thinking about
0:15:34 seriously. The world was a very different place and five years from now, it’s going to be even
0:15:40 more different. Given that we know that this is true, why do so many investors, why do so many
0:15:45 big companies, why do they think in this very narrow constrained way where you’re trying to
0:15:51 forecast something that is literally unimaginable? Who among us five years ago said there was going
0:15:57 to be a day when there’s large language models that are sentient and smarter than most people,
0:16:03 and they can write your essays, they can create your PowerPoints, they can generate images.
0:16:09 Nobody said that. It’s part of a game that you have to play, that you have to pretend like
0:16:15 you know what’s going to happen in five years because if you took the opposite approach and
0:16:19 somebody asked you for a forecast and you said, “Listen, I have no freaking idea. I don’t know
0:16:26 what’s going to happen. I’m just making it up as it goes,” which is the truth. I would not say that
0:16:34 is an optimal answer for receiving investment. I think that the sophisticated entrepreneur realizes
0:16:41 it is part of the game. It has to do with the fact that many venture capitalists have to report to
0:16:48 limited partners and limited partners are fund managers and fund managers are spreadsheet jocks
0:16:54 and that’s part of the game they play, but truly sophisticated investors and sophisticated
0:17:02 entrepreneurs know that it is a game. It’s kind of a litmus test on how they feel about your business
0:17:07 as opposed to really what they’re trying to do is do diligence.
0:17:11 Well, it’s interesting. I hadn’t thought about it this way before, but the way you’re describing it,
0:17:16 it sounds like it is a filter for deciding what work to do that is similar to Warren Buffett’s
0:17:21 investment thesis. If you love the product, if you use the product, if you’re obsessed with the
0:17:26 product, then that sounds like a pretty good place to be. Well, it’s easy to evangelize
0:17:32 great stuff and it’s hard to evangelize crap. Guy has been evangelizing for his current company,
0:17:38 Canva, long before most of us heard about it. He started there in 2014 when awareness of the
0:17:44 product was critical and the role of evangelist was clear. Guy saw similarities between Canva
0:17:50 and the early days at Apple. Canva was trying to democratize design the way Apple did for computing.
0:17:57 So 10 years ago, it was me and a handful of people looking like fools when everybody was
0:18:02 using Photoshop and Illustrator. And people were saying, if you truly want to be a designer,
0:18:08 you have to learn Photoshop. You have to be an Adobe customer. And same thing with Macintosh,
0:18:16 when everybody was using MS-DOS. And I guess what I learned, at least in my life, is that
0:18:24 a demo is worth a thousand slides. So you can have all the slides you want and talk about your
0:18:33 differentiation and your key selling points. And everybody makes a chart. And there’s these
0:18:39 features in your competition. And your competition’s column is all empty, but your column is all
0:18:46 check, check, check, check, check. Everybody does that. It’s all BS. So I think the rubber hits the
0:18:55 road when you, back then in 1983, you pull your Macintosh out of a bag and you show them MacPaint
0:19:02 and you show them MacRight. Now these are people who are used to select your correctable typewriters
0:19:11 or at best, at best, Daisy Wheel printers. And you show them MacPaint and MacRight and
0:19:18 Bada Bing, Bada Bang. They either get it in 10 seconds or they never get it. I think the same
0:19:26 is true with Canva. With Canva, I can build an Instagram graphic faster than most people can
0:19:32 boot Photoshop. And you immediately get it. So I’m telling you, if there’s a skill that is
0:19:41 necessary for entrepreneurs to succeed, it is you have to do a great demo. A demo counts for
0:19:46 a thousand slides. It is a well-worn adage of sales and marketing that when you’re selling
0:19:52 something great, it is far better for a prospective customer to experience the product rather than
0:19:57 merely hear a pitch. Do you remember the first time you used a product or service that was
0:20:04 simple, it was useful, perhaps even a beautiful experience? That was Canva for Guy. When he first
0:20:10 saw the product, he knew the impact it could have. For Guy, evangelizing Canva meant and means
0:20:16 showing people its customer-friendly interface for graphic design. The company has attracted 170
0:20:23 million monthly users and earns $2 billion in annual revenue. At first, it drew mostly individuals
0:20:28 and small enterprises, customers who needed visual assets for marketing without hiring a designer.
0:20:36 Now, clients include FedEx, Zoom, and Starbucks. By deeply understanding and believing in the
0:20:42 advantages of his products, Guy has helped Apple, Canva, and others scale to incredible heights.
0:20:48 After the break, we’ll explore more of his personal experiences and insights,
0:21:04 especially around AI and spoiler alert. When it comes to AI, Guy is yet again an evangelist.
0:21:11 We’re back with author, entrepreneur, podcast host, and tech evangelist Guy Kawasaki
0:21:16 to watch our complete conversation head over to the Masters of Scale YouTube channel.
0:21:25 Guy has worked alongside entrepreneurs who grew their ideas into some of the most valuable
0:21:30 businesses of the last half century. He’s also struck out on his own, starting a venture fund
0:21:36 and his own companies. He’s learned countless lessons in leadership, marketing, sales, and
0:21:41 attracting investors. His most recent endeavor ranges widely outside the realm of business.
0:21:47 Guy’s podcast, Remarkable People, features just what you’d expect from the title.
0:21:51 Life stories and lessons from authors, scientists, politicians, and more.
0:21:55 With so many hours of incredible insights on the show,
0:21:59 Guy decided to turn the podcast premise into a book.
0:22:09 Guy, we sit here talking in March of 2024. Your book, Remarkable People, is just out.
0:22:13 You’ve talked a little bit about how you’ve used AI in the process of writing.
0:22:18 Can you give a specific example of where AI made a real difference for you in writing the book?
0:22:25 Absolutely. I use AI as a research assistant. I don’t just go to chat GPT and say,
0:22:30 “Give me 50,000 words on how to think remarkable and be a remarkable person.”
0:22:34 I use it as a research assistant to help me write the book.
0:22:39 Writing a nonfiction book today with chat GPT is so much easier than before,
0:22:44 because before, you had to depend on reading extensively and knowing a lot of people who
0:22:52 could give you ideas. That approach meant using AI tools to help identify examples and patterns,
0:22:58 adding layers of insight to Guy’s innate curiosity. When someone’s story struck him,
0:23:01 he boiled it down to some specific elements he found intriguing,
0:23:04 and then he asked NAI to help him find more.
0:23:12 And I noticed this book comes from interviewing 250 remarkable people,
0:23:20 like Jane Goodall, Stacey Abrams, Wozniak. And what I noticed is that every remarkable person
0:23:25 had a growth mindset. To be remarkable, you have to have a growth mindset. Now,
0:23:30 there are two kinds of paths for many of these remarkable people. Some people,
0:23:36 like Jane Goodall, they fall in love with animals at age six. And for the next 84 years,
0:23:43 they’re focused on animals. Then there’s people like Julia Child. Julia Child, until her mid-30s,
0:23:50 was a spook working for the OSS. The OSS is the organization that became the CIA.
0:23:55 And in her mid-30s, she moved to France, fell in love with French food,
0:24:01 and that’s why Julia Child is the French chef. There’s these two theories, and part of being
0:24:07 remarkable is you have to be able to hold two conflicting ideas in your head. One is be like
0:24:14 Jane Goodall, stick to the path and grow on that path. Another is change horses in the stream.
0:24:21 And so I love the theory of people making great changes. So I need examples.
0:24:28 So I go to ChatGPT, and I said, give me five or six examples of people who have made radical
0:24:37 shifts in their career and achieved great success. 30 seconds later, ChatGPT says Jeff Beasles.
0:24:44 Jeff Beasles started as a private equity person, and he moved to selling books and e-commerce.
0:24:51 And the second example it provides is Julia Child. And I say Julia Child, how is Julia Child
0:24:56 an example of switching careers? And that’s how I learned she worked for the OSS. Now ChatGPT
0:25:04 makes crap up. So then my co-author, I just read this about Julia Child. Go verify that it’s true
0:25:09 that she worked for the OSS. And I can tell you with total certainty that Julia Child would not
0:25:18 be an example in my book where it’s not for ChatGPT. And I would make the case that at least
0:25:25 at the state of the art today, generative AI, you still have to make sure that the message is right.
0:25:32 So it is the world’s greatest assistant, but it is not a replacement for you.
0:25:41 I hear that. And as I use AI as the team behind Masters of Scale uses AI, we’re getting more
0:25:47 efficient. It’s helping us work more quickly, whether that’s grammarly or descript. It’s incredible
0:25:53 how much more productivity we get. But that human element is still there. And it feels like what a
0:25:58 lot of AI is becoming right now and is likely to be at least for the next few years, which is
0:26:04 it’s not a replacement for the human element. It’s really a co-pilot. It’s something that’s
0:26:10 augmenting your analysis, informing your decision making. But it’s like AI-informed, not AI-determined.
0:26:16 And I would say that’s a very good use of AI for writers. And it’s a very good use for
0:26:22 investors to make decisions. At the very least, you could stick in a business plan
0:26:29 and ask ChatGPT, are there any other similar ideas that are floating around the world?
0:26:34 Because I don’t know about you, but I’ve met many entrepreneurs and they always say that
0:26:40 no one else is doing what we’re doing and no one else is capable of doing what we’re doing.
0:26:48 And I’ll tell you that my initial reaction to anyone who says that is, do you not know how to
0:26:56 use Google? I mean, how stupid are you? At the end of the day, there’s only going to be one, two,
0:27:02 or three winners. So what’s your unfair advantage? And I think that is the most difficult question
0:27:12 an entrepreneur will face. And when I looked at plans and pitches, I kind of made the assumption
0:27:19 that, yes, they can deliver on the technology. Yes, they can do this. And now let’s assume
0:27:26 they can do this. How do they differentiate from everybody else? And I’ll tell you something,
0:27:34 the irony of this is that that’s going to occur in LLMs. Like, today, if I had to explain to
0:27:42 someone when to use ChatGPT, when to use Bard, when to use Perplexity, when to use Claude,
0:27:49 when to use all this, I can’t. I mean, I use all fives kind of at random. And in the car business,
0:27:55 if somebody says, well, I want the car that’s the safest, okay, Volvo, I want the car that’s
0:28:03 the sexiest. Okay, Ferrari, you know, I want the car that gets the furthest on a charge. Okay,
0:28:11 I understand that. But I don’t know how LLMs are going to create unique positioning in people’s
0:28:18 minds. We don’t yet know how AI tools are going to distinguish themselves from each other.
0:28:25 We also don’t yet know how and whether customers will care which large language models power those
0:28:31 AI tools. But if anyone knows how to make a product stand out in a new or underdeveloped market,
0:28:37 it’s Guy Kawasaki. And he sees AI as something every company should embrace to speed its innovation.
0:28:45 I’m a glass half full kind of guy. And I would say if I were running these companies, I would say,
0:28:53 oh my God, this is the best thing ever for us to innovate. And we’re going to embrace AI before
0:29:00 our competition does. And we’re going to embrace AI before two guys in a garage do. And we’re going
0:29:06 to take those two guys and two gals in a garage who are innovative. And if we can’t out innovate them,
0:29:13 we’re going to buy them. And even if they’re close to us, then we have to use our other strengths
0:29:21 such as brand awareness, scalability. Huh, what a concept. There should be a podcast about that.
0:29:30 So we can scale, you know, Apple has significant advantages to make anything over any two guys,
0:29:37 two gals in a garage. So I think that you just have to figure that this is going to happen.
0:29:44 And I think it’s the most exciting time to me. AI is is a bigger deal than personal computers,
0:29:53 chips, social media, internet all combined. This is, I cannot believe how much has happened in one
0:29:59 year. Bigger than the Industrial Revolution. Bigger than the Industrial Revolution. I seriously
0:30:05 think so. I feel so lucky to have been born and, you know, been living when this happened.
0:30:14 This is humongous. It’s great talking to you. I appreciate you. Thank you.
0:30:22 Of all the lessons Guy Kawasaki shares, I’m perhaps most struck by the simple question
0:30:27 that every entrepreneur should ask. How does my product improve on what came before?
0:30:34 When you answer that question with conviction, your team members, investors, and customers
0:30:40 are far more likely to join you on your journey. Passionate advocates who’ve seen and believe in
0:30:47 new products can authentically spread the message of their value. That’s evangelism. Done well,
0:30:49 it works no matter what you are selling.
0:31:02 I’m Jeff Berman. Thank you for listening.
0:31:12 Masters of Scale is a Wait What Original. Our executive producer is Eve Tro. The production
0:31:18 team includes Chris Cotier, Alex Morris, Tucker Lagursky, Masha Makutanina, and Brandon Klein.
0:31:24 Mixing and mastering by Aaron Bestinelli. Original music by Eduardo Rivera and Ryan
0:31:31 Holliday. Our head of podcasts is Lita Malai. Visit mastersofscale.com to find the transcript
0:31:44 for this episode and to subscribe to our email newsletter.
0:31:46 [end]
0:31:56 [BLANK_AUDIO]

0:00:15 I’m Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People. Aloha! We are joined today by the remarkable
0:00:22 Jerry Lopez. He’s known as Mr. Pipeline. He was born in Honolulu, Hawaii and his early
0:00:28 surfing career started at the Alamoana Balls. This paved his way for a spectacular surfing
0:00:35 career. He won the title of Hawaii State Champion at just 14. His evolution continued
0:00:41 at Oahu’s North Shore, where he mastered the Banzai Pipeline. He scored victories at
0:00:50 the Pipeline Masters in 1972 and 1973. His influence extends beyond riding waves to also
0:00:55 surfboard manufacturing. He co-founded the Lightning Bolt Surfboard Company, where he
0:01:02 pioneered high-performance shortboards. He’s also somewhat of a movie star. He had great
0:01:07 roles in North Shore and Conan the Barbarian. He’s the source of one of my favorite movie
0:01:14 lines of all time. He’s so Howley, he doesn’t even know he’s Howley. I’ll explain that
0:01:21 to you. Howley is a somewhat negative term used in Hawaii for white people. So when this
0:01:27 mainland Howley came to Hawaii and started surfing on the North Shore, he had to break
0:01:33 into a group of locals. And let’s just say that locals are not always initially welcoming
0:01:40 to strangers. Basically, Jerry is saying that the mainland Howley is so dumb, he doesn’t
0:01:48 even know he’s dumb. What can I say? You had to be there. Jerry is truly a legend. He exemplifies
0:01:54 passion, innovation, and inspiration. You’ll also find out in this episode about the relationship
0:02:00 of yoga and surfing, as well as whether I should fix a board that he made for me that
0:02:08 was damaged in a very funny incident. I’m Guy Kawasaki. This is Remarkable People. Join
0:02:14 me in celebrating the remarkable life of Mr. Pipeline, Jerry Lopez.
0:02:21 Quote, he’s so Howley, he doesn’t even know he’s Howley. That’s you in North Shore, right?
0:02:26 Yeah, that was a fun project we did. That was a while ago. I was in the early 80s. When
0:02:32 I read the script, I thought, wow, this is a pretty good script. This is believable.
0:02:41 And today, now with the whole wave pool thing, it’s really becoming like a very real possibility
0:02:47 that there may be some very near future world champion that learns how to surf in a wave
0:02:54 pool. And who came up with that line? Because whoever came up with the line truly understood
0:03:00 Howley. When I read the script, obviously, there was a lot of whoever, the guys that
0:03:05 wrote the script were a little bit Howley, but they wanted to use pigeon in a lot of
0:03:11 the things that I was saying and the who we guys were saying. But their pigeon wasn’t
0:03:20 very authentic. I ended up actually becoming one of the technical advisors. You mean putting
0:03:27 most of the pigeon lines in that movie. So you’re a linguist as well as a surfer, just
0:03:32 like you. We grew up with pigeon. Probably your parents were just like mine. They wouldn’t
0:03:39 let us talk pigeon in the house. But when we were with all our friends, it’s funny because
0:03:46 I’m 69 years old and I went to college in the mainland and I have been trying to lose
0:03:53 my pigeon for 40, 50 years. But people still come up to me and say, I heard you just talk.
0:03:59 Are you from Hawaii? And I’m like, what the hell? What’s giving this away? And then a
0:04:04 few months ago, I interviewed this linguist on this show and she said you should stop
0:04:11 being ashamed of your accent. It’s part of you. Don’t try to clean it up. Just be you.
0:04:18 It’s always there. And when us locals hear each other speak, even if we don’t know each
0:04:27 other, just look at them and go, so I’m local. So has anybody ever pointed out the irony
0:04:35 that someone from Punahou was playing a North Shore Moke? I mean, there is some irony there,
0:04:46 right, Jerry? I guess there is, right? Okay, let’s take us back to your first wave at Queens.
0:04:51 What was the feeling? That’s a feeling that never leaves. I don’t think any surfer. They
0:04:58 always remember that first wave. And what they remember is that gliding, just that the waves
0:05:04 doing all the work and you’re just gliding along like riding down a hill on a bicycle
0:05:15 with no hands, just sailing along. And I think it just touches everyone somewhere deep inside.
0:05:22 And that’s the reason, you know, surfing is like it is. And surfers are like they are
0:05:30 that all they want to do is go surf and recapture that feeling again. But it’s always the first
0:05:37 one that makes the biggest impression. Yeah, I started surfing at 60. And if I had surfed
0:05:43 as a kid, I would not be where I am today. There’s no way. I’d be making coffee at Alamona
0:05:50 Center for somebody right now. I know surfing doesn’t take some of your time, it takes all
0:05:57 of it. Yeah, I take a break from surfing to work now. There’s a story in your book about
0:06:04 how you got arrested on Kauai for trespassing on the Robinson land. And I want to know what
0:06:12 you took away from that experience though. You didn’t serve any time, you got exonerated.
0:06:19 But what’s the lesson there? You better know the rules before you play the game. Yeah,
0:06:27 you know, we were just tired and lazy from surfing all day. And we knew better. But right
0:06:32 at the end, right before you get to the Waimea River, there was a little road that you didn’t
0:06:39 have to walk over all the rocks on the beach. And we just weren’t thinking and we jumped
0:06:46 on that road. And we knew that was a private road, even though it was right next to the
0:06:55 beach. And then they were waiting for us busted. But it’s not like I’m a big localism kind
0:07:03 of guy. But you could make the case that this is Hawaii and you guys are howley rich plantation
0:07:09 owners. What is the big deal about letting surfers walk on your road? Well, obviously
0:07:16 the judge felt that too, because in the end, he said there was no intention to trespass.
0:07:23 And he let us go. We couldn’t believe it. We didn’t know what was going to happen. But
0:07:33 we didn’t think we were going to, you know, get away with that off to Oahu prison we go.
0:07:41 I have a question from left field, which is maybe you can explain to me. Why is the skill
0:07:48 100 held in such high regard? It’s almost like mystical. The people who have a skill
0:07:55 100, it’s like this magic thing that you cannot get. And what’s so magical about that tool?
0:08:03 It was just the ideal tool for shaping foam, because we’ve tried to recreate it. I worked
0:08:10 with Gordon Clark at Clark foam and Jeff Holtby when they tried to take a Hitachi and make
0:08:17 it work like a skill. And it was just, it was the angle of the handle. And it was the
0:08:26 way the adjuster for the depth of cut worked that it was just perfect for shaping foam
0:08:32 into a surfboard. And today they’re really hard to find. How hard could it be for skill
0:08:43 to re reintroduce that? I don’t think there’s that big of a demand for them. Okay, fair enough.
0:08:50 A lot of the information about you goes really deep into yoga. So can you explain for us
0:08:57 the connection of yoga and surfing? When I was, I think it was my sophomore year, I
0:09:02 saw a bunch of good looking Wahinis looking at a bulletin board. So, you know, I like
0:09:08 to think I just went walk up there and hey, how’s it? What’s happening? But most likely
0:09:13 I was very meekly peeked over their shoulders to see what they were interested in. And there
0:09:19 was a yoga class announcement there on the board when they looked at me and put me on
0:09:27 the spot. Are you going? And of course. And I’m sure I went to that class hoping to see
0:09:35 those girls again. But what I found was something that really made a big impression on me ever
0:09:42 since then. I mean, I thought that watching that yoga instructor, this was in 1968, too.
0:09:52 There weren’t many yoga opportunities like this available. And watching that gal just
0:09:57 watching her move, I thought yoga is going to make me a better surfer. I better learn
0:10:04 how to do this. And I stuck with it. You know, I found that over the years that like surfing,
0:10:11 yoga only comes into a person’s life when I guess it’s supposed to. It has to be the
0:10:18 right time. And I’ve tried to introduce so many friends to it, but it wasn’t the right
0:10:26 time for them. So they weren’t that interested. But when it is, it will happen. And is it
0:10:32 the effect of stretching and strengthening or is it a mental thing that links yoga and
0:10:39 surfing? This is like the one hand clapping question for me and something I’ve thought
0:10:48 about over all these years, which for me, it’s been like over 50 years for yoga and long
0:10:55 time for surfing. Obviously, the physical part is really important. But the idea in
0:11:05 yoga is that there’s this whole universe of experience that occurs in this unseen realm
0:11:13 of existence that is constantly every moment of our lives influencing us. And the yogis
0:11:20 call it prana, the Hawaiians call it mana, which is another interesting thing that why
0:11:27 these two cultures on opposite sides of the world world would have almost the same word
0:11:33 for the exact same thing. What they’re talking about is the life force that animates all
0:11:41 life. And I believe that in order to surf successfully, which you have discovered later
0:11:47 in life, which is probably a better time to find that because you probably have thought
0:11:57 about it a lot. But in order to ride away successfully, you have to be in that meditative,
0:12:04 deep meditative state of mind. And if you aren’t, wipe out. And the beauty of surfing
0:12:12 is that you attain that state of mind almost instantaneously the moment that you start
0:12:18 paddling for that wave and especially the moment when you stand up on that surfboard.
0:12:26 To get to that same state of mind in a yoga practice requires a lot more time and some
0:12:35 pretty deep concentration. In a way in surfing, we get to cheat. We get to that state almost
0:12:43 more easily than anyone else except maybe Yogananda who lived in that state. But that’s
0:12:50 something that’s been really intriguing to me for a long time. And I’m really thinking
0:12:56 more and more about that. I’m actually working on another book right now, dealing exactly
0:13:10 that.
0:13:15 We will help you promote that book when it comes out. I don’t suppose it’s as simple
0:13:23 as I asked Jerry Lopez, tell me the three or four yoga poses that will improve my surfing.
0:13:26 And I just do that. It’s not that easy, I think, right?
0:13:36 One of the real lessons in yoga is not in perfecting the pose, but it’s embracing the
0:13:45 process. That way it doesn’t become a dead end of unfulfilled perfection, but an ongoing
0:13:52 evolution of the whole process. And it’s just yoga. It’s something that everybody’s
0:14:01 different level of experience, just development. And you just hug the process and be happy
0:14:04 with where it takes you.
0:14:11 I’m friend with Sean Thompson. And Sean once told me, guy, professional surfing, there
0:14:18 is no training like there is for football and basketball, football and basketball offseason,
0:14:24 you’re hitting the weights, you’re doing all this kind of stuff. But surfers, they just
0:14:30 go out and surf. And now you have yoga. And every once in a while, of course, when you
0:14:35 see a movie or documentary about surfing, there’s the scene where they’re holding a
0:14:40 rock and they’re running underwater. But is that true? Like, why don’t surfers go and
0:14:46 really lift weights and do all that kind of stuff and train? Or am I just mistaken about
0:14:47 that?
0:14:56 No, the top guys all train now. I mean, they spend a lot of time in the gym. And the fitness
0:15:03 level has to be so high, especially for the guys that are surfing the big waves, but even
0:15:10 for the guys that are on the tour that are surfing smaller waves, they have to be top
0:15:20 condition at the highest level of athleticism to do what they do. And injury is so close
0:15:26 with especially the maneuvers and stuff that they do these days, they fly in the air and
0:15:34 easy to get hurt. And when you’re injured, just like football or baseball, if you can’t
0:15:37 come back and play, you’re out.
0:15:38 Tell Sean he’s wrong.
0:15:47 No, I mean, he’s not wrong at all. But that’s true because there’s really nothing except
0:15:52 paddling a surfboard that gets you in shape for paddling a surfboard. It was really interesting
0:15:59 when I moved up here to Oregon, my son met these kids in school and we became friends
0:16:05 with the parents. And I introduced them to surfing out on the Oregon coast here. And
0:16:12 I was telling them the hardest part is paddling. And these kids took to surfing like I couldn’t
0:16:19 believe I’d never seen anybody do that, even top athletes. And I went, wow, what’s the deal?
0:16:24 How come they can paddle surfboards? I go, were you guys swim team guys? And they go,
0:16:32 oh, we swam a little. Later on, I found out they were Nordic skiers. And Nordic skiing
0:16:39 requires the same arm movements that paddling a surfboard does. And it was really interesting
0:16:46 to me that, wow, there’s some cross training for surfing that no one ever thought of. But
0:16:52 that’s the hard part. Surfing is 90% paddling. When, when you don’t do it, you lose it.
0:17:00 So you gotta keep doing it. So no, Sean is absolutely correct. All you can do is just
0:17:05 go surfing as much as you can. I reached out to Sean and I said, Sean, I’m interviewing
0:17:14 Jerry Lopez tomorrow. What should I ask him? And Sean, Sean says, ask him what kind of
0:17:21 cake he was eating when he said pipeline is a cake walk.
0:17:26 The pipeline was really a big part of my life. And Sean says, well, when he came over from
0:17:35 South Africa, he really liked that wave too. And he was very skilled already. And he adapted
0:17:42 to it much quicker than many, many guys that lived in Hawaii. But when you surf a spot
0:17:48 enough, you get familiar with it. Eventually, if that’s what you’re trying to do, you develop
0:17:56 a relationship with it, a personal relationship. And I really always thought that my relationship
0:18:03 with the pipeline was pretty deep and pretty special. And I got away with a lot of stuff
0:18:11 that a lot of other guys didn’t get away with. And eventually at the pipeline, everybody
0:18:18 gets hurt. It’s not if it’s when, and the more you push it, eventually that’s going
0:18:25 to happen. And I had to pay to play out there. And I did willingly because I really enjoyed
0:18:32 that spot, just like Sean and all those guys, they did too. And they came at a time when
0:18:40 the pipeline was just becoming a popular spot because back in the late sixties and the very
0:18:45 early seventies, the place to surf on the North Shore was Sunset Beach. That was the
0:18:53 challenging spot and nobody came to the pipeline. It had a reputation. It had hurt a lot of
0:19:00 people and had already killed one really good surfer from Peru. And so it had a specter
0:19:08 about it, a reputation. And everybody went to sunset. That’s why I think I had a little
0:19:14 bit of an advantage at the pipeline was because nobody was there. And I got to learn about
0:19:21 that place without the big crowds. And then the attention started changing because not
0:19:27 only was it really easy to photograph, but when the waves were good there, it looked
0:19:32 really spectacular on film. And they had my picture in a couple surf movies before that
0:19:37 in the beginning days, when they started surfing, the pipeline was in the surf movies,
0:19:45 but it was always the wipeout section. And that was really mostly because the equipment,
0:19:51 the surfboards weren’t really suited to that wave. And it was our generation when the early
0:19:58 seventies there, when the shortboards started coming that we were able to develop equipment
0:20:05 that worked there. And that gave us some success surfing the wave. And then they showed it
0:20:10 in the movies. And then the next thing, you know, all the attention now is all on the
0:20:16 pipeline and nobody even remembers sunset beach.
0:20:22 In a sense, isn’t this Jeff Clark has Maverick’s to himself for 15 years. And now when you
0:20:29 go out to Maverick, there’s like 40 people out there or more or more. Yeah. Surfing was
0:20:38 a small sport. And because it is so attractive and appealing, it’s grown so rapidly. None
0:20:46 of us ever believed it was going to get as big as it has. And Sean had, and his group
0:20:52 where they first guys, when they came around, they go, we’re going to get paid to go surfing.
0:20:58 These guys in Hawaii, me and Barry Kanaiapuni, Tiger Espar, Eddie, I come, we looked at them,
0:21:04 we laugh up. Hey, who’s going to pay you to go surfing? Nobody going to pay you. They
0:21:14 were right. And they had some vision in regards to that surfing was going to grow and the
0:21:19 industry was going to get on a footing where like it is today, where they pay these top
0:21:24 surfers a nice salary to go surfing. Jerry, a lot of people listening to this, they may
0:21:30 not know, what the hell is he talking about pipeline? And obviously it’s a break and it’s
0:21:36 a place people surf, but at a higher, more metaphysical level, can you explain what pipeline
0:21:45 represents to surfing? What it’s become in my lifetime is maybe one of the higher or
0:21:54 if not highest level of surfing for any surfer to test himself to test how much of a surfer
0:22:02 he wants to be, it’s become one of the ultimate waves. Yeah, the pipeline, like I said, started
0:22:13 out as not a real popular spot. And suddenly the focus completely changed. And now it is
0:22:20 considered one of the ultimate surfing spots in the world today. And just in my lifetime,
0:22:26 surfing went from a very small obscure sport that none of our parents wanted us to become
0:22:32 surfers. They wanted us to do something useful with our lives. And we just, we couldn’t help
0:22:39 ourselves. And here I am 75 years old. And I still, that’s all I want to do is go surfing
0:22:47 as much as I can. And I don’t know. I don’t feel bad about that. I actually feel good
0:22:54 about it. For any surfers out there listening, what’s the gist of how you successfully surf
0:23:01 pipeline? Not that I’m going to do this, just give us kind of the insights on how you conquered
0:23:09 or maybe not conquer, but how you sink with that wave. In the beginning, it looked so
0:23:16 fast and so hollow. And this was the reason that the old longboards had such difficulty
0:23:24 there because the surfers were equally as skilled as any of the surfers are today. But
0:23:30 their equipment was holding them back. As the boards improved, then the guys started having
0:23:38 a lot more success. And the surfboards have continued to improve. And today, these guys
0:23:45 are at, like I said, such a high level of athleticism that they’re able to ride surfboards
0:23:52 that in my time, I would think, well, it’s way too small a surfboard. But they are such
0:23:59 good surfers now that they’re able to do that on this wave, wave that hasn’t changed. It’s
0:24:05 still very fast. Their quick draw has gotten a lot quicker these days. There seems to be
0:24:11 better shots. When you see Garrett McNamara surf a hundred foot wave in Nazaree or people
0:24:17 at Mavericks, do you say that’s not really surfing or that’s the ultimate in surfing?
0:24:23 What’s the difference between someone surfing Nazaree and someone surfing pipeline? It’s
0:24:33 all surfing. And all of it is impressive. On the top guys are just unbelievably impressive.
0:24:39 And even the guys, I don’t think I’d paddle out at Nazaree. In fact, I know I would and
0:24:46 especially nowadays, someone like Garrett who pretty much pioneered the place. So he got
0:24:54 an email from two Portuguese surfers that said, Hey, can you come over here and look
0:25:01 at our wave and tell us what you think? Because we think it’s really a good wave. And you
0:25:08 know, at first, he, I don’t know. And then finally he went and he looked and he went,
0:25:16 holy cow. And so he was really the guy to pioneer that place and show the rest of the
0:25:26 world how big a wave can be surfed. And that’s something else. And you know, in Europe, Garrett
0:25:35 McNamara is like a legend because the Europeans, they take their sports heroes really seriously.
0:25:41 I mean, even more than us guys over here, especially the people in Hawaii, but Garrett’s
0:25:46 a big deal for what he does, you know, and he made surfing, which was already becoming
0:25:56 big in Europe, much bigger. I watched the Patagonia documentary about you. And you more or less
0:26:03 freely admit that you got better. And one of the methods was stealing a lot of waves.
0:26:07 What’s your current thinking on surf etiquette these days? Is it like every man for himself
0:26:17 or have you gotten mellower in your old age? No, you got to surf with Aloha. But Duke tried
0:26:25 to tell us all us guys that in the beginning, you know, and we was young and stupid. And
0:26:32 of course surfing was, like I said, such a much smaller sport then, but today it’s busy
0:26:39 and you can’t get away with being a jerk anymore. Yeah, it’s all about learning how
0:26:44 to not only live with Aloha, but especially to go when you go surfing to surf with Aloha
0:26:51 too. I surf with a few people who don’t have Aloha and they’re pretty good surfers. And
0:26:56 I’m always wondering if I could surf as good as you, I would be so freaking happy. I’m
0:27:03 like a beginner, maybe advanced beginner, and I’m so happy surfing and you’re a much
0:27:07 better surfer. Why are you angry? What are you angry about? I don’t understand those
0:27:14 people, Jer. We have a wave here in the river. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of a river
0:27:23 wave, but I saw one in Munich. Yeah, that one, which that one has because it’s been
0:27:31 surfed for so long, they have some heavy localism issues there. But we have a wave here in our
0:27:37 little town in Ben, Oregon, that when we go surfing in the summer, you know, I wondered
0:27:43 why everybody was having such a good time, not everyone was having good time, but everybody
0:27:49 was happy. And there was no tension. And I was going, why is that it’s not like that
0:27:58 in the ocean? And I realized, wow, it’s because everybody knows whose turn it is, because
0:28:04 you wait in line until it’s your turn. And in the ocean, you get so many guys that think,
0:28:12 oh, not enough waves for me. That’s why it was like me when I was young, take waves instead
0:28:23 of share. And that’s a real interesting part of surfing. Eventually you learn, but sometimes
0:28:28 it takes a long time. I always think that you get plenty lessons in surfing. I was surfing
0:28:36 like 20, 25 years before it was like, that was just a test to see if I was really interested.
0:28:42 And then when surfing realized I was interested, then I started to understand that there’s
0:28:48 all this great stuff to learn and many very interesting parables about life. And while
0:28:56 the waves of life may seem indeed more challenging to ride than the waves of the ocean, when
0:29:02 we apply the lessons learned in the surf, we sometimes can find in a metaphorical sense
0:29:09 the easier paddle out, hooking into that rip current that lets us slide out smoothly through
0:29:14 the closed out sets of day to day life, and maybe even get to the outside lineup with
0:29:21 our hair still dry. That’s a metaphor for life. Yes. Yes. And that’s, that’s one of
0:29:27 the big lessons of surfing that you learn from the beginning, but you don’t really
0:29:33 understand what you’re learning. And it takes a while to see that, oh, maybe the whole
0:29:40 Hawaiians were really onto something, yoga and surfing go back maybe thousands of years.
0:29:46 We don’t know yoga we do. They had Pantajali. He wrote the yoga sutras, but we didn’t have
0:29:53 somebody like that in Hawaii that was recording what the ancient Hawaiian surfers were all
0:30:01 about. And it just may be that both those cultures are equally as ancient. I can tell
0:30:07 you as someone who’s been surfing nine years that surfing is one of the hardest sports
0:30:14 to learn. It is. And, and I think the hardest part of the hardest sport is how do you pick
0:30:19 a wave? How do you pick where you sit? I feel like when I’m out there trying to read the
0:30:25 waves, I’m blind and I’m trying to use Braille. I want from Jerry Lopez, what goes through
0:30:31 your mind? How do you pick a wave? First, you gotta see it coming. It’s all about paying
0:30:36 attention just like in life. And that’s why I used to make these funny rules. Hey, no
0:30:42 talking in a lineup because you get distracted. And then a lot of set comes and you get caught
0:30:48 inside and all surfers, no matter how long they’ve been surfing and how good they are,
0:30:54 you’re going to get caught inside. And that’s, there’s a great lesson to be learned from
0:30:59 that. But when you’re out in the lineup, you don’t want to get caught inside. You want
0:31:06 to be where the waves are. And that’s hard to do because no more sign posts out there,
0:31:14 no more place to mark the lineup. And it really all comes back to paying attention. And it’s
0:31:21 just repetition. You have to just like Sean Thompson said, you got to just go all the
0:31:28 time and each time you go, you don’t even realize it. But you are learning things. And eventually
0:31:34 it’s like you get little bites every day, little advances every day. And then one day
0:31:39 all of a sudden something happens for what reason you don’t know, but you get a big bite
0:31:46 on you. Wow. And that’s the light bulb moment where, oh, I really learned something today.
0:31:52 But then the next day you forget it. You got to relearn it again. And that’s the beauty
0:31:58 and the downside of surfing. That’s why it’s so hard. Up next on Remarkable People. I
0:32:05 think John was a great mentor to both of us. And not only do we have all of us have a whole
0:32:11 lot of fun making that movie, but he really got Arnold and I through that. And Arnold
0:32:17 went on to a brilliant film career. And I think that John Millius really had a lot to
0:32:30 do with that. If you find our show valuable, please do us a favor and subscribe, rate and
0:32:37 review it. Even better, forward it to a friend, a big mahalo to you for doing this. Welcome
0:32:47 back to Remarkable People with Guy Kawasaki. Two years ago I lost my hearing and now I
0:32:51 have a cochlear implant. So with the cochlear implant, obviously we’ve been having this
0:32:57 conversation, but you cannot use a cochlear implant in the water. And I got this cochlear
0:33:04 implant about a year ago. So basically when I’m in the water, I’m essentially deaf. And
0:33:10 then I read your rule about not talking in the lineup, pay attention. I think being deaf
0:33:15 has helped me become a better surfer because I cannot talk in the lineup because I cannot
0:33:23 hear. That’s my theory. In surfing, you’ve got to use all your senses. And like I said,
0:33:30 attention is the main thing that you have to constantly be on top of. But hearing comes
0:33:36 into effect when you’re surfing big waves because sometimes you see a set coming and
0:33:44 you think, “Wow, maybe to get one big one outside.” And then you hear it already breaking
0:33:49 and you know you’re in trouble. And you know if you don’t catch the first one that’s right
0:33:54 there, you’re going to be in bigger trouble. That’s the only time that you really need
0:34:01 your hearing in surfing. Well, Jerry, just to be transparent, a big way for me is four
0:34:07 feet. And so when the waves are bigger, the only thing I’m surfing is a couch. Okay,
0:34:14 just FYI. Yeah, but surfing is such a compelling sport. It’s going to suck you in just like
0:34:21 it sucks everyone else. And pretty soon, oh, five feet is good. And then pretty soon, wow,
0:34:27 I want to be out there when it’s six feet. Before you know it, you might be scheduling
0:34:32 a trip to Mavericks. My daughter surf said Mavericks and she has
0:34:37 caught a wave and she’s been towed in and all that. And I got to tell you, the thought
0:34:41 of that just scares the shit out of me so much. I won’t even go and watch her surf.
0:34:48 Could not handle watching her surf at Mavericks. It would be. Wow. That’s very impressive.
0:34:55 Okay, completely switching gears. How did you get the part of Sabotai in Conan the Bobrarian?
0:35:03 It’s not a left field. How did that happen? I worked on a movie called Big Wednesday that
0:35:14 John Milius co-wrote and directed. And we became friends. And later on, when he took
0:35:21 on the Conan project, he rewrote the script. Oliver Stone had written a script that John
0:35:28 wanted to improve on. And so he wrote the script and wrote in this part and sent the
0:35:34 script to me. And what do you think? He goes, I want you to play the part of Sabotai. And
0:35:42 I read the script and went, Oh my God, this is like a big part. I can’t act. He said,
0:35:52 don’t worry, you’ll be fine. And Arnold couldn’t act either. But I think John was a great mentor
0:35:56 to both of us. And not only do we have all of us have a whole lot of fun making that
0:36:07 movie, but he really got Arnold and I through that. And Arnold went on to a brilliant film
0:36:13 career. And I think that John Milius really had a lot to do with that.
0:36:17 Is Arnold a good guy? You know, it’s hard to tell from the outside who’s a good guy.
0:36:25 Who’s an asshole as an actor. He’s great. Arnold is awesome. They kept delaying the
0:36:33 start date on Conan. And we were doing some sword training with a Japanese instructor
0:36:43 from Anaheim, Yamazaki son. And so Arnold and I got to spend almost a year together
0:36:51 before we actually went to Spain and started to work on the movie. And I think he’s a
0:36:54 great guy. I thought he was a great governor too.
0:36:57 Yeah. Yeah, I’d vote for him for president.
0:37:06 I would too. I was going to say that. Okay. You’re 75, Jerry. Have you like transitioned
0:37:11 from shortboards to longboards or are you still a shortboard ripper?
0:37:17 I ride them all. I’ll ride anything I can. I like all the ways you can ride a wave. I
0:37:23 even like body surfing, but there’s all these new sports, kite surfing and wing surfing
0:37:31 and foil surfing. They’re all equally as compelling and challenging and attractive as surfing
0:37:37 is, but it always comes back to surfing. Yeah.
0:37:42 Just like you, you know, you hear about a good swell or some good wave somewhere and
0:37:46 you’re thinking, okay, what do I got to do to go surfing?
0:37:53 So Madison and I live in Santa Cruz and there’s a theory that you start in calls at your
0:38:01 end in calls. Okay. So would you say that’s true of Queens? You started Queens, you ended
0:38:06 Queens? I’ll tell you what, when standup surfing came, I really got into it, especially here
0:38:12 in Oregon where the water’s super cold and the waves are hard to catch. And it was because
0:38:19 of standup surfing that I rediscovered Waikiki, the joy and even much deeper than that. What
0:38:24 the ancient Hawaiians, they used to call that area in front, the Outrigger Reef Kawehe Wehe.
0:38:30 And that was where they went when they weren’t feeling good, when they were ill or sick or
0:38:38 or just not feeling right. They would go there and just go in the water and they felt that
0:38:44 would make them feel better. And so with the standup boards, we started touring Waikiki
0:38:50 area again, because you have all that mobility with the standup board. And we start out right
0:38:56 there, Kawehe Wehe, paddle out from in front, the Outrigger Reef there, go out to number
0:39:03 three’s or pops. And then we’d look up and let’s go cruise. Let’s go check out Publix.
0:39:10 And then from Publix. Publix. Hey, Publix. Yeah, you know, and then next thing you know,
0:39:20 we’re at Tongs. And then, wow, a long way from Waikiki. That whole area was really special
0:39:27 to me growing up. And I just was really wonderful to renew that specialness with Waikiki. And
0:39:35 I still encourage every surfer, no matter how good they think they are, go Waikiki.
0:39:44 Because that’s where it really all started. And just feel it. It’s interesting in Santa
0:39:52 Cruz anyway, many of the surfers look down on paddleboard, paddleboarding and paddle surfing.
0:40:01 And what I’ve noticed is that the really good surfers, like you, like Bob Pearson, to them,
0:40:06 it’s like surfing is surfing and paddleboarding is just as good as prone surfing. There’s
0:40:12 no pecking order and we shouldn’t let paddleboarders in here because what, they can catch the
0:40:19 wave further outside. It’s kind of the surfers that think they are better than they are that
0:40:25 have that attitude. I always been like that. Yeah. But like I said, there’s plenty of ways
0:40:30 to ride a wave. And might as well try them all. You might find one that you like better
0:40:37 than the other, you know, and they’re all great, but a surfboard is still the greatest.
0:40:44 It’s simple. It’s the most simple one. Yeah. And there’s a real beauty in that simplicity
0:40:51 that just you and you got to have wetsuit when you stay in the mainland, but just a surfboard
0:40:58 pair of shorts and Waikiki. That’s all you need. Yeah. Yeah. Are you still shaping boards?
0:41:07 I am. Yes. And can anybody order one? Yeah. With COVID, I took a break. COVID was weird.
0:41:14 I did really disrupted all of our lives. And it’s just coming on the other side of it.
0:41:20 What happened when COVID hit was that everybody wanted surfboards and the surfboard industry
0:41:27 went crazy. And it was, if you weren’t doing all the work yourself, it was really hard
0:41:33 to get, if you were just a customer, it was really hard to find surfboards. But if you
0:41:38 were a shaper like me, it was hard to get your surfboards glass because everything was
0:41:44 in big demand. That’s turned completely upside down now. And the surfboard industry is in
0:41:49 one of the biggest slumps it’s been in, in my lifetime. And I don’t know what’s going
0:41:57 to happen, but yeah, I still love shaping surfboards and building them. And I still
0:42:03 do it. Yeah. People can get boards from me. So, so I can order like a 11 foot glider from
0:42:08 you or is that beneath you to make a long board like that? That’s my secret weapon,
0:42:17 the glider. Okay. I’m ordering right now. I want an 11 foot glider from you. Okay. Just
0:42:23 tell me how much and where to send the money. I have two gliders that I make with surf deck
0:42:29 which is started as a Santa Cruz company that are really beautiful that I enjoy riding
0:42:35 very, very much. And those are easy because you don’t have to wait. If you order a board
0:42:42 from me, you got to wait till I get in the shaping room and then get them shaped. Even
0:42:51 me, even I have to wait. Even I got a week. Yeah. I haven’t made myself too many new
0:42:58 surfboards these days. Okay. I got to ask you this. What’s the deal with the Jerry Lopez
0:43:08 Wave Storm board? Oh, the Costco board. Yeah. Yeah. It was a way to have a cheap surfboard
0:43:14 that people that don’t want to spend a thousand dollars, $2,000 to get one of my surfboards
0:43:22 to try surfing. And there’s been, I got a lot of flack about that, but I always felt
0:43:29 that just like Duke, hey, Duke Hanamoku traveled the world to share the gift of surfing with
0:43:36 a lot of people. And when he went to Australia, that was in what 1915 or something that he
0:43:43 went down there and he saw, he was in Sydney for some swimming exhibition and he saw good
0:43:50 waves and he went, wow. And so he tracked down big piece of pine wood and made himself
0:43:56 a surfboard. And then when the surfboard was Paul, he went surfing and you know, all the
0:44:03 people were watching going, wow. And they still have that surfboard. Really? It’s in
0:44:09 the freshwater surf lifesaving club. And I looked at that board and went, oh, that’s
0:44:15 not that big a board because part of that story is that he wrote a couple of waves in
0:44:22 all the way to the beach. And then he came in and he asked some young girl, her name
0:44:29 was Isabelle Latham. And he asked her if she would like to accompany him out and ride
0:44:37 a wave in with him. And so she went, sure. And so he paddled out tandem with her. They
0:44:43 caught a wave and they both stood up and rode all the way to the beach. And that’s how surfing
0:44:52 started in Australia, which surfing is huge in Australia these days. But the Duke was,
0:44:58 that was what he did. He shared the gift of surfing with people. You know, now, like we
0:45:04 were talking about earlier, plenty serving. We don’t like anymore surfers get too many
0:45:11 already. But surfing is a beautiful thing that that should be shared. And the whole
0:45:15 deal with that Costco board was to make an affordable surfboard so that people could
0:45:24 try it and see what it is that people like you and I live for. Why we live for it.
0:45:30 I never thought that my name and your name would be in a sentence together about surfing.
0:45:39 So my life is complete now, Jerry. So my attitude on that Costco board is God bless
0:45:43 him. I hope he makes millions of dollars like that, right?
0:45:50 Well, you know what? It was your guys fault in Santa Cruz because the first year Costco,
0:45:56 when they’re looking at a new product like that, they do a test run and they put them
0:46:02 in certain stores. And it was the Costco you guys have in Santa Cruz that all of a sudden
0:46:08 the guys went, Oh, these things are selling like hotcakes. And then that’s when they put
0:46:13 in their order. Seriously. So it’s your guys fault.
0:46:19 Oh, when this episode comes out, there’s going to be protests in front of that Costco
0:46:29 board. And I won’t be able to get into by my hot dogs anymore, so Jerry, what do you
0:46:35 think about holding like WSL or even Olympic events in a wave pool? I mean, it seems to
0:46:41 me that so much of surfing is about figuring out where to sit, when to go, all that kind
0:46:46 of stuff. And some of those variables are not exactly there like in the ocean. So do you
0:46:52 think that’s a bastardization of the sport or figure skating in the Olympics? The ice
0:46:59 is perfect. Every rink is kind of the same. And so you compete not on the conditions and
0:47:06 reading the ice. So which way do you fall on wave pools and competitive surfing? I think
0:47:14 the wave pools are an absolute definite part of the future of surfing that you know what
0:47:20 it’s like in most lineups, especially the good lineups, that it’s busy. It’s crowded
0:47:27 and there’s tension. And the thing we talked about earlier about how you go to a wave pool,
0:47:33 everybody knows who’s turn it is. Right. And everybody has a good time. So that’s the experience
0:47:41 of surfing that I’m sure that Duke Hanamuka was trying to promote all over the world.
0:47:48 I just don’t think that he had any idea that surfing was going to grow as large and certainly
0:47:59 not as fast as it did and become how it is now, which is crowded, not enough way for everybody
0:48:06 or me. Whereas in a wave pool, everybody takes turns. And the level of surfing, the
0:48:14 few events that they’ve had at the surf ranch is incredible. And I don’t think there’s any
0:48:22 one of those surfers that would say this is not a good place to have a surf contest.
0:48:30 And the karma factor is taken out of the equation. It’s not like a lot of times in surf
0:48:36 contest, sometimes the last good wave doesn’t come for the guy that all he needs is one
0:48:45 more ride. But in the wave pool, it levels the playing field a little more. So everybody
0:48:50 gets good chance. And obviously, that’s not going to be the only place they have surfing
0:48:56 competitions. But I think it’s if they have good waves. Have you been to the surf ranch
0:49:03 yet? No, I’ve been invited many times. But I’m afraid to go because if I go in, I fall
0:49:12 in love. I just be going all the time. And I don’t need any more distractions in my life.
0:49:18 It’s just like I said, like all the different ways to ride a wave. This is just another
0:49:24 one of them. And when you get there and you see that, holy cow, they’re creating this
0:49:33 wave in a pool, you can’t believe it. You really can’t believe it that such an unbelievable
0:49:42 wave can happen in a big swimming pool. Okay, two more questions. All right. So I got Lopez
0:49:50 rules. The first four are surf to surf tomorrow. Pace yourself. Don’t talk in the lineup.
0:49:58 And the fifth one is best surfer is the one who’s having the most fun. So now with hindsight,
0:50:04 you got any more rules or different interpretation of the rules? Has anything changed about the
0:50:12 Lopez rules? No, I mean, those rules I feel are still valid. But the bottom line of all
0:50:22 of it is keep paddling and not only in a literal sense, because otherwise the next time you
0:50:28 go surfing, you’re going to be all out of shape, but certainly in a metaphorical sense.
0:50:36 Okay, great. I got to tell you a little story. So I go to make this speech for Bob Reef, right?
0:50:42 And at the end of the speech, he presents me with a Jerry Lopez lightning bolt board.
0:50:48 This a gift for making that speech. So this is the most valuable board I have, right? Jerry
0:50:55 Lopez is even signed to me. So during the pandemic, I used to do a lot of virtual talks
0:51:02 and all over the world. So sometimes I’m talking at three, four, five, six a.m. So one day after
0:51:09 I got your board, I decided in my talk, I was going to put it behind me so that I can
0:51:14 show you how cool I am. I surf. I don’t know if I’m a surfer. But anyway, there’s a freaking
0:51:20 Jerry Lopez board behind me as I give this speech. And this is like five a.m. Okay, I
0:51:26 figure. And I lean it against the door because that just happened with the camera. That was
0:51:31 the best place to open the door and the board fell down. Six a.m. I figure what could go
0:51:37 wrong. I don’t know why because my son has never gotten up at six a.m. in the morning
0:51:45 in his life. He opens the door, board fell down, and there’s two dings in it. And this
0:51:50 board has never been waxed, never been used, but it’s got two dings. It’s hanging on my
0:51:58 wall. And ever since that day, I’ve been wondering, what should I do? Should I just put two decals
0:52:06 on it and cover it? Should I ask some local board guy to fix it? Should I ask Bob if I
0:52:12 can send it back to Jerry to fix it? Should I ask Bob if I can send it back to Jerry and
0:52:20 Jerry just circles it in signs? It’s okay, guy. No problem. Leave the ding. So I’ve been
0:52:27 thinking about this for years. Seriously. So now I’m talking to the Jerry Lopez who made
0:52:32 that board. Leave them. No, it is a great story. So maybe I should leave the things.
0:52:39 Little trophies. What do you advise me to do about the two things in my Jerry Lopez board?
0:52:46 What about these? And then you can tell him the story. And then when your son comes, look
0:52:52 at those things. Oh, boy, gonna shake his head. But you know what we should do, guy? We gotta
0:53:01 tell Bob, hey, we got to get guy the 10 six glider. So when he goes out at Cowles, he can
0:53:08 sit outside by the guys with the stand up boards and he can catch all the waves he like. Never
0:53:18 miss one. Yeah. Yeah. Just tell me how much you want the money. Start today. Call up us
0:53:27 phone order the blank. I would do that in a second Jerry. Although another funny story
0:53:33 is I gave a speech for a company in Santa Barbara. And as a gift, they gave me this
0:53:40 yater spoon. And this is a triple stringer yater spoon. Beautiful board. It’s got wood
0:53:47 tail, wood nose, the block. It’s just beautiful. So I bring it home to Santa Cruz. And the
0:53:52 guys I surf with and my family, they tell me, you’re not going to surf that board that
0:53:58 board is too beautiful. Just put it on the wall. So that board has never been ridden.
0:54:05 And then I decided that when I die, and there’s a paddle out for me, hopefully, I’m going
0:54:14 to have my ashes paddle on that yater. Because finally I get to ride the yater. But when
0:54:19 you make me this glider press up, brother, I may save this moment and be paddled out
0:54:29 on the Jerry Lopez glider for my last trip at calls. Thank you guy. Pressures on Jerry.
0:54:36 I hope you enjoyed this episode with Mr. Pipeline Jerry Lopez. Now you know why I need to take
0:54:43 up yoga. You know the origin of the Jerry Lopez Costco board, which drives local surfers
0:54:51 in Santa Cruz absolutely crazy. And you know why I will not fix the ding in my Jerry Lopez
0:54:57 board. I have to tell you one more story about this episode. Madison and I were so excited
0:55:03 to interview Jerry Lopez that we forgot to press the record button for the first 30
0:55:09 minutes. Luckily, we have backup systems. But I will say when we told Jerry what happened,
0:55:15 he was totally cool about it and willing to start all over. That’s the kind of guy that
0:55:22 Jerry Lopez is. I want to thank the people that made this episode possible. First and
0:55:30 foremost is Bob Reef. Without Bob Reef and what a great last name for a surfing enthusiast.
0:55:36 Without Bob Reef, this episode would not have happened. And then there’s the remarkable
0:55:44 people team. Shannon Hernandez and Jeff C. on sound design. Tessa Nizmer, researcher.
0:55:50 And there’s Louise Magana, Alexis Nishimura and Fallon Nyapes. Finally, there’s Madison
0:55:57 Nizmer. She’s the producer of this podcast and co-author of the book, “Think Remarkable”.
0:56:02 The point of this book is to help you make a difference and be remarkable. If this interests
0:56:10 you, you have to read this book. Let’s just say that on this day, March 17th, 2024, there
0:56:19 are 31 reviews of “Think Remarkable” on Amazon. They are all 5 stars. What can I say?
0:56:24 We are the remarkable people team. We’re on a mission to help you make a difference and
0:56:36 be remarkable. Until next time, mahalo and aloha.

0:00:13 I’m Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People.
0:00:14 Thank you very much for listening.
0:00:18 We are on a mission to make you remarkable.
0:00:22 And today I’m very pleased to host Margaret Wang.
0:00:27 She is the president and CEO of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
0:00:32 Margaret is a longtime human rights and racial justice advocate.
0:00:40 She leads the SPLC in its mission to foster racial justice, end white supremacy, strengthen
0:00:44 intersectional movements, and advance human rights.
0:00:51 Before joining the SPLC, Margaret was Amnesty International USA’s executive director.
0:00:58 She led campaigns to protect migrants, refugees, torture survivors, gun violence victims, and
0:00:59 activists.
0:01:05 Margaret led human rights missions to the U.S.-Mexico border to advocate for asylum
0:01:08 seekers and to document abuse.
0:01:14 Her work includes accompanying transgender youth seeking asylum and leading observer delegations
0:01:20 to monitor U.S. police responses to civil and human rights protests.
0:01:24 Margaret brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the fight for justice with a
0:01:30 master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University and a bachelor’s
0:01:33 in Foreign Service from Georgetown University.
0:01:37 I’m Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People.
0:01:43 And now let’s explore Margaret’s remarkable journey from East Tennessee to the top of one
0:01:51 of the most important organizations in the fight against injustice.
0:01:55 How did your family end up in East Tennessee of all places?
0:01:59 It’s a great question, so what a good way to kick off.
0:02:04 So my father actually was born in mainland China.
0:02:11 His family fled to Taiwan in 1949 as part of the nationalist departure from China.
0:02:18 They settled in Taiwan and were very poor when they arrived, like all of the mainlanders
0:02:20 who resettled in Taiwan.
0:02:26 And then he chose to study chemistry because he understood that was the best way to get
0:02:30 a visa to come to the United States to study.
0:02:37 And so he came to East Tennessee to get his master’s degree in chemistry.
0:02:38 Where?
0:02:44 Johnson City, Tennessee in the Appalachian Mountains.
0:02:48 Did it not occur to him he could have gone to Stanford first?
0:02:54 I really don’t know all the details of why that place, but he had a friend who had a
0:02:57 connection to the university.
0:03:01 And for him, it was just the chance to come and study in the U.S.
0:03:05 He did his master’s degree there, so two years there, and then he went to the University
0:03:12 of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana to do his PhD, where he met my mother, who was doing
0:03:14 her PhD in mathematics.
0:03:20 And after they finished at that university, they ended up being offered a teaching job
0:03:22 back in East Tennessee.
0:03:25 So that’s how we landed there.
0:03:29 And how many Chinese people were in East Tennessee?
0:03:39 Very few, actually in a nearby town, so I grew up in Johnson City in Kingsport.
0:03:44 There was the Kodak Eastman plant.
0:03:49 And they actually did recruit a number of Chinese to come work there.
0:03:51 So I did grow up with Chinese school.
0:03:53 Do you know about Chinese school?
0:03:56 You grew up with Chinese school in East Tennessee?
0:03:57 Yeah.
0:03:59 The parents organized.
0:04:00 They were the teachers.
0:04:09 We learned calligraphy and Mandarin, and sometimes if there was a really inspired parents, Tai Chi
0:04:11 or something.
0:04:17 Every Saturday afternoon, morning and afternoon, for several years in middle school.
0:04:18 It was pretty tough.
0:04:19 Yeah.
0:04:20 Did you play marjoram?
0:04:21 Make dimsum?
0:04:26 We didn’t do anything that fun.
0:04:27 Yeah.
0:04:32 And in East Tennessee, how much Chinese history did you get?
0:04:33 None.
0:04:34 None?
0:04:35 None.
0:04:36 Zero?
0:04:37 Zero?
0:04:38 And this public schools, you mean?
0:04:39 None.
0:04:42 At the same time, how much black history did your classmates get?
0:04:43 None.
0:04:44 What was history?
0:04:48 Columbus, the white guy, came over and saved this native Indians from peril.
0:04:51 Made them Christian and had happy Thanksgiving.
0:04:52 Absolutely.
0:04:53 That’s it?
0:04:54 Yeah.
0:04:58 What did you expect plus a lot of memorization and dates of wars?
0:05:02 I seem to remember that was really important in history, was to remember when people were
0:05:03 fighting.
0:05:08 And if you study World War II, did anybody mention that Japanese being interned?
0:05:09 No.
0:05:14 So this is no pun intended, but history was completely whitewashed?
0:05:15 Completely.
0:05:19 In fact, do you know how I learned about Japanese internment?
0:05:20 I do.
0:05:21 I read your profile.
0:05:22 Ah.
0:05:23 So you know.
0:05:26 So I moved to Washington for college.
0:05:35 I went to the National Museum for American History and I visited the exhibit and I sat
0:05:36 down in the museum and I cried.
0:05:38 Because you’d never heard of it?
0:05:39 Never heard of it before.
0:05:45 And I couldn’t believe that that had been left out of my history classes.
0:05:49 This is slightly bizarre, but I grew up in Hawaii.
0:05:50 Yeah.
0:05:51 Okay.
0:05:59 And I swear to God, I learned about Japanese internment also in college because in Hawaii,
0:06:03 even though it was one third Japanese American, there was very little internment in Hawaii.
0:06:05 I think there was a couple hundred people.
0:06:14 I get to the, I get to Stanford and I meet these Japanese American from the mainland.
0:06:18 There’s a derogatory term called Katonks.
0:06:23 So I meet all these Katonks and they’re all like, “Oh, pissed off because in World War
0:06:25 II, their family was interned.”
0:06:26 I don’t know.
0:06:27 What the hell are you talking about?
0:06:29 Man, I’m from Hawaii, man.
0:06:30 We own Hawaii.
0:06:36 It was like, for different reasons, we both didn’t get that part of World War II.
0:06:37 Exactly.
0:06:39 Oh, that’s amazing.
0:06:43 And did you experience racism as a kid?
0:06:44 Of course.
0:06:45 At what?
0:06:46 We were the slaves.
0:06:47 We were the intern of color.
0:06:51 I mean, in the United States, has anyone ever said no to that question?
0:06:52 What?
0:06:53 You were the slandidema?
0:06:54 Yes.
0:06:56 Ching-chaw.
0:07:01 Some other less polite words, yeah.
0:07:06 But then your black school ways had it worse or the same?
0:07:08 Different and probably worse.
0:07:12 And there were no Latinos in my school at the time.
0:07:13 There were what?
0:07:16 There were no Latinos in my school at the time.
0:07:17 No.
0:07:20 It was black, white, and a few of us Asian.
0:07:23 That has changed over the years, but yeah.
0:07:30 Okay, now, switching gears here, can you just explain what the Southern Poverty Law Center
0:07:31 does?
0:07:32 Sure.
0:07:36 Because I’m fairly literate and I don’t know what it does.
0:07:42 We are an organization that was founded in 1971 with a commitment to making the civil
0:07:45 rights movement a reality.
0:07:50 So not just the laws that were being passed in the ’50s and ’60s, not just the Supreme
0:08:00 Court wins that promise a new kind of United States, but actually suing on behalf of people
0:08:07 who were being denied equal opportunity, equal access, equal treatment under the law.
0:08:11 Over time, that has evolved significantly.
0:08:14 And that is because of what we learned along the way.
0:08:22 Our initial cases were representing women who were suing for discriminatory pay or unequal
0:08:23 access to jobs.
0:08:29 We also sued on behalf of black families who were being denied access to the YMCA swimming
0:08:37 pools or in some memorable cases, we represented women who were forcibly sterilized by the
0:08:42 federal government as being people who should not have children.
0:08:52 So we did a lot of those cases and as we went along, we kept running into the open and ongoing
0:08:59 discrimination of white supremacist groups in the Deep South that were causing serious
0:09:03 harm to black communities, black families.
0:09:10 And in one terrible case, there was a young black man who was lynched by the KKK and we
0:09:17 decided to represent his mother in a civil suit against the KKK.
0:09:21 And that decision and that win, we did win the case.
0:09:26 They were forced to compensate the family and they were then forced out of business.
0:09:31 They had to give up all their property, all of their holdings as a chapter of the KKK
0:09:34 and they were put out of business.
0:09:36 This was in Alabama.
0:09:39 I should remember the name of the city and I’m sorry I don’t.
0:09:42 And this is in the ’70s?
0:09:44 This was in the early ’80s.
0:09:49 We were founded in ’71, so it’s the beginning of the next decade.
0:09:52 We took this case on and it really changed.
0:10:00 We became experts on the topic of extremism, on white supremacy and on putting those people
0:10:02 out of business.
0:10:09 And if I were to go visit your office, is it just basically a bunch of lawyers and administrators?
0:10:10 I mean, what?
0:10:14 It would have been then if you visited our offices in the ’80s, that’s what it would
0:10:15 look like.
0:10:19 But as I said over the last few decades, we’ve evolved.
0:10:24 So first we developed research and an analysis capacity.
0:10:29 So we were studying who are these groups and where do they come from and what are their
0:10:32 ways of operating and where does their funding come from?
0:10:34 In a sociological sense.
0:10:36 And a political sense.
0:10:41 We’ve provided a lot of information over the years to law enforcement about groups who
0:10:44 are planning bad acts.
0:10:48 We at different points have collaborated with law enforcement.
0:10:52 We don’t do that anymore, but that has been part of our history.
0:10:56 We also then developed an entire educational arm.
0:11:00 And this is where your questions about education are so important.
0:11:06 What we saw is that when children don’t learn about our true history, they’re much more
0:11:13 inclined to repeat it or to not see the risks and the dangers of what’s surrounding them
0:11:17 because they don’t recognize the peril.
0:11:22 Is that learning a language in the sense that if you don’t get on my 10 years old, it’s
0:11:24 too late or something?
0:11:32 I think you can reach them at different ages, but I think you also can’t avoid it in early
0:11:33 ages.
0:11:39 And so we now have curriculum experts and training specialists who offer professional
0:11:46 development to teachers and schools across the country on how to teach about the civil
0:11:47 rights movement.
0:11:50 How to teach about slavery and genocide.
0:11:56 How to teach about some of the difficult periods of our life in the United States.
0:12:02 And how to make sure that all students feel welcomed and included in the classroom.
0:12:05 And that is a huge part of our work.
0:12:10 And these people doing research, are they just poring over books and data or are they
0:12:16 like literally not on the caprio and they’re out there in a field, patting heat?
0:12:20 Is there going to be a movie, SVLC, CIS or something?
0:12:21 Definitely not.
0:12:22 No movie.
0:12:25 But when we started, it was a lot of human intelligence.
0:12:32 So it was actually going and studying the groups in person, sometimes infiltrating, collecting
0:12:34 information that way.
0:12:38 When you say infiltrated, you mean into the Ku Klux Klan?
0:12:39 Yes.
0:12:44 SVLC members were like wearing the sheets and being spied?
0:12:49 I’m not going to comment on all the ways that that was done, but just to say that that was
0:12:54 the best way of getting information at earlier times.
0:12:56 That is no longer the case.
0:13:01 These groups are meeting in person and these groups aren’t doing the activities the way
0:13:03 that they always have.
0:13:06 Now all of it has moved online.
0:13:13 And so in order for us to track what’s happening, we have to use online open source and other
0:13:16 sources of intelligence.
0:13:21 And that it’s worse in the sense that obviously digital communication is instant and free
0:13:24 and far-reaching and all that.
0:13:27 But it’s also more easily monitored.
0:13:35 Yeah, but you know this, there are hundreds, thousands of platforms out there that have
0:13:39 no restrictions or rules about the kind of content you can post.
0:13:44 And it can be very challenging identifying and tracking all of those, but that’s what
0:13:46 our researchers do today.
0:13:51 So every once in a while I read that such and such organization has been labeled a hate
0:13:52 group.
0:13:57 What does that mean when you guys label something a hate group?
0:14:00 So we have a definition, you can sign it on our website.
0:14:10 It is a group that actually designates a community of people, either by the words of their leaders,
0:14:19 by their official statements, or by the association, the activities that they do around those groups
0:14:27 that malign or attack a group of people based on their immutable characteristics.
0:14:36 So forms of identity, race, gender, religion, immigration status, all those two things.
0:14:37 And that’s a hate group.
0:14:44 We also track anti-government extremist groups, which can be different.
0:14:50 So sometimes they share some of that ideological hatred of groups, but sometimes they really
0:14:53 just want to overthrow a government.
0:15:11 Walk me through the mechanisms.
0:15:16 Okay, every Monday we meet at eight and this Monday we’re going to decide on a queue.
0:15:21 How do you say we’re declaring you a hate group?
0:15:27 So in our annual year and hate report, we start the slate clean in January.
0:15:32 So even if you’ve been on a report in the past, it doesn’t mean that you’re continued
0:15:34 automatically.
0:15:39 And we spend that year, everybody’s wiped clean in January.
0:15:47 And we start the year by monitoring what are groups across the country saying, doing, what
0:15:49 are their leaders saying?
0:15:54 How are they using their platforms to talk about other communities?
0:15:59 And if we see evidence, then you can be added to the hate list.
0:16:00 But it’s not an automatic.
0:16:04 We’ve had groups that have been on the hate list one year and then they’re not the next
0:16:10 year because they no longer embrace that ideology or because they’ve become defunct.
0:16:13 But I’m really interested in the tactics.
0:16:17 Is there like a person who stands up at a meeting and says, okay, this is a group.
0:16:20 This is why I think this should be designated a hate group.
0:16:26 And there’s a demos advocate who argues against the like, how’s the decision made?
0:16:27 You pull your members.
0:16:28 I mean, what?
0:16:29 No, not at all.
0:16:31 It’s database.
0:16:37 It’s a rigorous analysis by trained researchers and data folks.
0:16:40 And they’re looking at a whole range of things.
0:16:43 It can’t just be that you stood up at a meeting and said something.
0:16:45 That’s not the way to designate.
0:16:46 It has to be a track record.
0:16:50 You have to be publishing things that malign a group of people.
0:16:55 You have to have your leader go out and criticize a group of people.
0:16:59 Maybe you’re involved in things like fliering where you’re dropping off pamphlets in a neighborhood
0:17:01 and criticizing a group of people.
0:17:06 Those are all activities that will get you listed.
0:17:11 But not one person affiliated loosely with somebody who stands up in a meeting and says
0:17:12 something.
0:17:14 I meant someone on your staff.
0:17:16 No, no, no.
0:17:20 And we have researchers who backstop one another.
0:17:25 So when one person comes and says, I’ve been researching this group, I think they might
0:17:26 need to go on the list.
0:17:31 There are other researchers who then go back and check all of the facts and determine whether
0:17:33 that designation is appropriate.
0:17:37 Okay, so let’s say this group makes this hate list.
0:17:39 What’s the impact on that group?
0:17:41 It really varies.
0:17:45 I don’t think the Ku Klux Klan ever minded that they were on our playlist.
0:17:47 Some groups considered a badge of honor.
0:17:50 Other groups very much resent the designation.
0:17:58 We do get sued on a somewhat frequent basis, I would say, by groups who do not appreciate
0:18:00 the designation and want to have it removed.
0:18:04 But the other thing to remember is this is the opinion of the SPLC.
0:18:07 We ground it in data and analysis.
0:18:12 We don’t think it’s frivolous in any way that we’re ready to stand by our research.
0:18:17 But it’s our opinion, just like you can have an opinion about the Southern Poverty Law Center.
0:18:22 If we think that you’re a hate or extremist group, we actually are allowed under the Constitution
0:18:23 to save.
0:18:31 Every year it resets, and so in one month, QAnon might not be, Moms for Liberty might
0:18:33 not be, or they might be, or who knows.
0:18:36 Or their actions could change.
0:18:42 Their activities, their leaders could change in the way they talk about things.
0:18:48 It would be really unusual to see that degree of change in our experience.
0:18:50 That doesn’t happen often.
0:18:54 But we create the opportunity every January.
0:18:56 We start again.
0:18:58 And that’s the thing about the Year in Hate Report.
0:19:02 It’s a snapshot of the year that we’re reporting on.
0:19:08 For example, the year 2023, our new report will come out in March, and it will cover
0:19:15 who was actively engaged in hateful or anti-government activity in 2023.
0:19:18 It’s not who’s doing it in 2024.
0:19:19 That will be the next year.
0:19:27 Is there someplace that even you would not go let you, you, STLC, take an extreme example.
0:19:31 March 2024, you guys say the Republican Party is a hate group.
0:19:37 The qualities you missed, it seems to me that it’s based on race, it’s based on the
0:19:38 qualities.
0:19:41 You can check the box for the GOP.
0:19:45 It’s not necessarily the case.
0:19:49 We haven’t typically watched political parties for that.
0:19:50 You haven’t?
0:19:51 No.
0:19:54 And remember, we only look in the United States.
0:19:58 We’re not designating groups outside of the United States.
0:20:06 We have identified individual candidates running for a political office as extremist candidates,
0:20:09 and that is something that the SPLC Action Fund does.
0:20:10 That’s our C4.
0:20:15 So there’s a bad boys list, and that comes up once a year?
0:20:19 It’s come out around election times every year, and we haven’t been doing it that long.
0:20:22 Our C4 has only been around for six years.
0:20:26 There are some names you might recognize, but there are also some folks who are running
0:20:32 for local or state office who might not be familiar, but you can find those on our website
0:20:33 as well.
0:20:34 I’ll just throw a name out now.
0:20:35 Sure.
0:20:38 So Marjorie Taylor Greene’s made it on the list.
0:20:39 This is not a surprise.
0:20:40 No.
0:20:41 Yeah.
0:20:43 There are a few others.
0:20:49 We actually just recently uncovered that Congresswoman Greene has a white nationalist
0:20:55 working for her who has formal affiliations with extremist organizations.
0:20:58 I think that he no longer now works there.
0:21:00 What’s the trend like, though?
0:21:05 Because it’s hard to judge from reading media.
0:21:06 It is worse.
0:21:09 It is worse in some way, so let me explain.
0:21:16 There has always been hate and extremism in this country since before it was founded.
0:21:25 And the organization of that hate and extremism has never been as open, as coordinated, as
0:21:32 well-funded, and as tied to political leaders as it is now.
0:21:37 These groups have traditionally been more on the extremes.
0:21:44 Now, of course, in the Deep South during Jim Crow, there were political leaders, law enforcement
0:21:46 leaders who were part of the KKK.
0:21:48 So that’s familiar.
0:21:50 George Wallace, Dave.
0:21:55 But we haven’t seen that since the end of Jim Crow, right?
0:21:56 That was–
0:21:57 We’re getting close.
0:21:59 And what I’m trying to say is it’s a return.
0:22:00 So it’s not new.
0:22:02 We’ve seen it before.
0:22:10 But we are going back to a moment where it is inextricably tied to people in power and
0:22:17 seeking to return to power in ways that we have not seen for decades.
0:22:27 And do you see this as a last, gas, desperate play for survival, and the trend is not their
0:22:31 friend, or this is just how it’s going to be forever?
0:22:32 Or is it–
0:22:33 It’s not inevitable.
0:22:35 No, it’s not.
0:22:40 The key here is that this is coming as part of a backlash.
0:22:46 They’re recognizing the changes that are happening in the country.
0:22:53 Demographically, the values and morals of the younger generations who are growing up
0:22:58 and coming into power, they are not aligned with this way of thinking.
0:23:07 And so it is a bit of a last gas, but only if we stay organized and aware and pushback.
0:23:16 If we don’t turn out in record numbers to reject this in 2024, we may lose the opportunity
0:23:23 to have our democracy pushback because our opponents have been very clear that they’re
0:23:28 going to take away all of the powers of participatory democracy.
0:23:34 This will become much more of an autocracy of a fascist state.
0:23:38 And that is when we are really in trouble because we won’t be able to organize at that
0:23:39 stage.
0:23:43 It would be very difficult to dig yourself out of that hole.
0:23:44 Very difficult.
0:23:49 Not impossible, but it will be much more difficult and likely much more violent.
0:23:51 They’re suppressing the vote now, guy.
0:23:57 If you look at the states where the Southern Poverty Law Center has offices, work, staff,
0:24:05 we are seeing hundreds of bills to suppress the vote in each of our states every year.
0:24:10 They’re going after people of color, they’re going after people with disabilities, they’re
0:24:16 going after women, they’re going after young people, they’re going after senior folks.
0:24:22 There’s not a constituency that they haven’t identified ways to suppress their vote.
0:24:28 And the more that we let them do that, who will be voting in the end?
0:24:31 That’s when we lose our power.
0:24:37 Call me naive or stupid, but how can you believe that it’s going to be a winning strategy
0:24:39 in the long run?
0:24:42 For some of them, I don’t think they care about the long run.
0:24:47 If they did, we wouldn’t be seeing the crisis and climate issues, right?
0:24:50 Really only thinking about themselves at this moment.
0:24:51 Maybe they’re kids, probably not.
0:24:55 So I don’t think these are people who care about the long term.
0:24:58 I think they’re people who are in it for their own benefit right now.
0:25:03 I think for the rest of us who are worried about the future, who have to think about
0:25:08 what happens next, it’s a very different calculation.
0:25:13 And how do you think they came to have this kind of mentality?
0:25:16 I think people like having power.
0:25:21 I think once they’ve had it, they’re unwilling to share or give it up.
0:25:22 It’s a depressing interview.
0:25:28 I don’t mean it to be because I’m not actually demoralized by this.
0:25:32 If anything, I feel strongly motivated.
0:25:37 And I’ll tell you, we see stories all the time, even in the deep South where some of
0:25:43 these challenges are the biggest, I think, there are communities that aren’t organizing
0:25:44 and fighting back.
0:25:51 The organization that happened in Georgia over the last decade, Stacey Abrams, moved
0:25:58 and the movement of so many other strong black women who led the organizing effort in Georgia
0:26:05 has transformed the way that people in that state feel about their relationship to government
0:26:10 and the accountability that they expect elected officials to have.
0:26:11 Is it sustainable?
0:26:13 We’ve got to keep working on that.
0:26:17 But they’ve shown us how to do it.
0:26:23 And we are trying to replicate that incredible model across all of our states in the South
0:26:29 to really build strong leadership, strong communities who understand what their priorities
0:26:31 are and what they’re going to stand for.
0:26:37 I interviewed Stacey for this, which took me two years of groveling to get there, but
0:26:38 it was worth it.
0:26:44 Funny, it’s just a coincidence, but I asked her for a blur for my book today.
0:26:47 I’m such a thought master, I set the wrong attachment.
0:26:51 So she said back in the day, it was just worth it again.
0:26:54 So anyway, she’s a powerhouse.
0:26:55 She is.
0:26:57 She has a vision.
0:27:00 She has a vision for what people led democracy should be.
0:27:03 Now you were also Amnesty International.
0:27:04 That’s right.
0:27:08 Another organization, I think very few people understand.
0:27:11 So what does Amnesty International do?
0:27:15 Theory is actually a movement for human rights.
0:27:19 It is member organized and driven.
0:27:22 It is international in scope.
0:27:29 And the theory is that by individual people paying attention, taking action on behalf
0:27:35 of human rights defenders, that we can make change happen, that we can hold autocrats and
0:27:37 dictators to account.
0:27:43 The original founder of Amnesty International was somebody who wrote a letter to a newspaper
0:27:46 about some political prisoners in Portugal.
0:27:49 He was in the UK.
0:27:54 And after he wrote his letter, other people around the world started sending in letters.
0:28:01 And ultimately the prison officials decided to release those detainees rather than continue
0:28:06 to have the scrutiny and attention from the international community.
0:28:07 So it’s premised on a few things.
0:28:12 It’s premised on the idea that individual actions matter.
0:28:19 It’s premised on the idea that you can shame government officials into changing their behavior.
0:28:27 And it’s premised on the idea that the international community can work coherently and coordinating
0:28:30 their efforts to push for human rights.
0:28:35 All of those are premises that have certainly been challenged in the last few years.
0:28:41 But it’s a powerful, powerful message when people from around the world are all demanding
0:28:46 the release of a prisoner or the change in policy that’s harming a particular group
0:28:47 of people.
0:28:57 Now, to get really tactical, at the US-Mexico border, what does Amnesty mean?
0:29:02 I mean, is Amnesty a certain kind of person trying to get into America?
0:29:07 Or is it just people trying to find a better economic situation for the family?
0:29:12 What defines the Amnesty group from the other group?
0:29:16 Sometimes Amnesty advocates on behalf of asylum seekers and refugees, but that’s not where
0:29:18 the name came from.
0:29:24 So it’s fundamentally trying to reverse false imprisonment?
0:29:25 Amnesty?
0:29:26 Yes.
0:29:33 Amnesty really believed that people were being arrested and detained because of political
0:29:36 belief or because of identity.
0:29:41 And the idea of Amnesty was to seek their release, to seek Amnesty on behalf of those
0:29:42 prisoners.
0:29:43 But it’s only political.
0:29:44 It’s not.
0:29:47 Some are wrongly accused of murder.
0:29:49 Over the years, it’s evolved quite a bit.
0:29:52 And now it’s not even necessarily about people who are being detained.
0:29:59 Now Amnesty campaigns on behalf of, for example, women, human rights defenders in Iran who
0:30:04 may or may not have been arrested, but who are being mistreated, maligned by political
0:30:05 leadership.
0:30:10 So they’re campaigning on a whole host of issues, not just those who are being detained.
0:30:17 I keep forgetting to ask you this, but how is it that a Chinese American from East Tennessee
0:30:24 is running the Southern Poverty Law Center?
0:30:33 No, of course they never had a black leader of the Southern Poverty Law Center.
0:30:38 So I’m only the third president and CEO of the SPLC.
0:30:41 And the first two were white men.
0:30:46 Is that just an interesting factoid, or is there like something deeper meaning to draw
0:30:47 from that?
0:30:49 Well, I think it’s an interesting factoid.
0:30:56 But what I will say is this, the person who leads the SPLC has to have a fundamental belief
0:31:03 in the priority of serving black communities of the South, which I do.
0:31:10 Because I truly believe that none of us will be free and able to exercise all of our rights
0:31:17 until we prioritize the equality and the equal treatment of African-American communities
0:31:18 in the South.
0:31:22 So we’re only as good as our weakest link?
0:31:26 African-American communities have always suffered, and in fairness, still have indigenous
0:31:29 communities in this country.
0:31:36 And until we prioritize those communities, the rest of us are competing for breadcrumbs.
0:31:41 It doesn’t do me any good to worry about the treatment of Asian-Americans and Pacific
0:31:46 Islanders if I’m not willing to put it all in the line for African-American communities
0:31:48 or indigenous populations.
0:31:50 It has to be in all of us.
0:31:55 And in the South, particularly because of the legacy of slavery, because of the legacy
0:31:59 of Jim Crow, it has to be a priority.
0:32:04 So for my organization, I may be the leader, but my organization is deeply committed to
0:32:12 prioritizing black communities in the South for everything we can do to ensure they can
0:32:15 exercise all of their rights moving forward.
0:32:20 And focusing on the South, well, that was easy, because I grew up in Tennessee.
0:32:27 And that knowledge of the South, that awareness of the history, that being in community in
0:32:34 the South really helps when confronted by the realities of the day-to-day lives of my
0:32:37 neighbors and fellow residents.
0:32:45 What’s your reaction when you hear politicians say something so stupid, you know, slavery
0:32:49 help teach black people new skills?
0:32:55 Like how do you wrap your mind around someone saying something like that?
0:32:58 I actually am not sure that person even believes it.
0:33:03 I think that person is merely trying to make a political point.
0:33:07 And if they do believe it, I feel really sorry for them.
0:33:09 I think we’re in a real battle at the moment.
0:33:17 We have a battle of worldviews of people who think that it is only by hiding the worst
0:33:24 parts of our history and pretending that they weren’t bad, that we can be a society comfortable
0:33:25 with one another.
0:33:30 And then those of us who recognize that will never happen unless we reckon with the past
0:33:34 and we make amends to those that we owe.
0:33:40 In that sense, do you view Germany dealing with its Nazi past?
0:33:46 When you go to Germany, there’s that place where there’s all those blocks.
0:33:48 That’s Berlin, right?
0:33:49 So there’s that.
0:33:51 It’s not like they’re hiding anything.
0:33:56 This is the wall and there’s a lot of Nazi stuff there and it’s not hidden.
0:34:01 Do you think Germany is reconciling with its past better than we are?
0:34:06 I think they’re a model in seeking to address the past.
0:34:07 Did they get it all right?
0:34:08 No.
0:34:10 And there are still a lot of extremists in Germany.
0:34:13 So it’s not like you can end the problem.
0:34:16 But the distinctions are really important, guy.
0:34:22 In Germany, they teach the history of the Nazis in school.
0:34:29 When you grow up in Germany, that your neighbors, your family participated in that process.
0:34:31 You’re not exempt from that history.
0:34:34 It is part of your history as a German.
0:34:39 And they have museums and they’re openly acknowledging that history and the concentration
0:34:45 camps are open for tour groups and school groups and others to go learn.
0:34:53 It is a deep commitment to both honoring and refusing to look away from the past.
0:34:56 And we have nothing like that.
0:35:01 If you look at our comb state of Alabama for the Southern Poverty Law Center, that’s where
0:35:03 we’re headquartered.
0:35:09 The state legislature of Alabama funds only one museum in the entire state.
0:35:12 And it’s a museum to the Confederacy.
0:35:19 There’s a statue on the grounds of the state legislature in Alabama to the man who liked
0:35:24 to call himself the father of gynecology, Jane Mary and Sims.
0:35:30 And the way he developed his tools and his procedures as a gynecologist was by operating
0:35:33 on enslaved women without anesthesia.
0:35:39 And there’s a statue to this man on the grounds of the Alabama state legislature.
0:35:44 This is a society that refuses to acknowledge past harms.
0:35:49 Nevermind seek to make amends or apologize for the past.
0:35:55 And in that context, it’s not a surprise that they don’t want the younger generation to
0:35:58 know about those terrible things.
0:36:01 They want to pretend that everything has been fine.
0:36:03 Young people are not fooled by this.
0:36:08 Well, how come Germany has that attitude and we have this attitude?
0:36:09 What happened?
0:36:12 I’m sorry to say, it’s not just the United States.
0:36:16 There are many other societies that don’t do it.
0:36:20 Japan is one, Italy is one, Austria is one.
0:36:26 They do not teach about their honest history in the conduct of World War II or any other
0:36:28 wars for that matter.
0:36:34 So it’s not unique to the United States that we are unwilling to look at our past in that
0:36:35 way.
0:36:38 But there’s something very compelling about Germany’s model.
0:36:43 And as I said, if we just started with the premise that it is our obligation to look
0:36:47 at our history and to reckon with it, we are not going to get it all right.
0:36:52 There are going to be times when we make a mistake and don’t acknowledge something or
0:36:57 miss a community who was in fact harmed in the past.
0:37:03 But by seeking to do it, we actually invite a very different world and a very different
0:37:06 democracy as we move forward.
0:37:10 Are we doing irreparable harm by not teaching this history?
0:37:12 I believe so.
0:37:17 And our educational materials seek to make that point.
0:37:24 We want teachers and schools and communities to understand that it is only when you recognize
0:37:31 the problem and the history that you’re able to make it better and to move past it.
0:37:33 What’s education’s role in this?
0:37:37 What are the tools you have or we have at our disposal?
0:37:43 So the Seden Poverty Law Center has an educational initiative called Learning for Justice.
0:37:52 We produce curriculum, teacher’s guides, articles and resources for children, for communities
0:37:58 who care about learning about our civil rights history and our inclusive history.
0:38:01 We have curricula on a whole host of issues.
0:38:06 So if you’re a teacher who wants to know how do I talk about the genocide of indigenous
0:38:12 peoples in the United States, we have materials that can help you.
0:38:18 If you’re a teacher who has students of diverse backgrounds in your classroom and you want
0:38:24 to teach about the history of immigration, good and bad in U.S. history, we have resources
0:38:30 for you on how to talk about that and offer an inclusive way to make everyone in the classroom
0:38:32 feel represented and heard.
0:38:38 So that’s our goal, is to give teachers schools and communities the tools they need so that
0:38:45 they’re not concerned about how to handle those questions that come up from young people.
0:38:52 Would a teacher from Florida or Texas be in deep shit if they used any of those materials?
0:38:53 Sometimes, depends on the district.
0:38:58 We do have teachers from both of those states and from many, many other states.
0:39:04 In the country, we have folks on our mailing list, teachers who’ve come through our training
0:39:07 and professional development.
0:39:12 And we have teachers who teach, for example, African American history in Florida who’ve
0:39:14 come through our programs.
0:39:19 So they’re there and the question is, wherever they are, are they allowed to teach what they
0:39:20 want?
0:39:21 Not everybody can.
0:39:25 Do you think that’s getting worse?
0:39:26 Yes.
0:39:27 There’s no question.
0:39:34 I’m really suing on behalf of a teacher who was fired in Georgia for reading a book called
0:39:35 My Shadow is Purple.
0:39:42 And a book is about a young person who talks about how their father has a blue shadow, their
0:39:46 mother has a pink shadow, and their shadow is purple.
0:39:52 And the idea is that everyone might have a different identity and way of seeing the world
0:39:54 or wanting to be seen in the world.
0:39:55 And that that’s welcome.
0:39:58 And you get fired for that?
0:40:00 She was fired for reading the book to her class.
0:40:06 The class chose the book out of a book fair and asked her to read it to them.
0:40:07 She did.
0:40:08 And she was fired.
0:40:10 So we’re now representing her in a lawsuit against them.
0:40:11 Okay.
0:40:12 Wally.
0:40:18 So a kid went, Wally said, “Mommy, we’ve read a story where people have different colors
0:40:19 or I don’t know, whatever.”
0:40:24 And mommy or daddy went crazy and called the school board.
0:40:25 Called the school.
0:40:28 Wanted the school to fire the teacher.
0:40:30 Raised a big ruckus.
0:40:31 The school did fire the teacher.
0:40:34 The teacher appealed that decision to the school board.
0:40:38 And the school board ruled that she had to be fired.
0:40:40 So we’re now suing on her behalf.
0:40:42 Yes, it’s getting worse, guy.
0:40:50 This is why we listed a number of groups on our extremist list last year.
0:40:54 We call them the anti-student inclusion groups.
0:41:01 And they’re people who don’t want books about LGBTQ characters, books about people who
0:41:07 see the world differently or have different identities, books about somebody with parents
0:41:13 who are the same sex, the book about the two male penguins in the New York City Zoo who
0:41:16 raised a baby penguin.
0:41:20 They’re all offended by these books, groups like Moms for Liberty.
0:41:23 And so they’re organizing to remove those books from libraries.
0:41:27 And the truth is, I didn’t have books like that when I was growing up.
0:41:34 And many people that I grew up with probably would have felt so much more welcomed and
0:41:40 included in our classroom if they felt that they could see themselves in books that were
0:41:41 available.
0:41:47 Over the years, we’ve seen such a beautiful explosion of themes and identities shared
0:41:53 in children’s books that really make children feel seen and heard in ways that
0:42:00 I could only dream of in my little East Tennessee public school.
0:42:06 I think it’s incredible that a huge gift and the notion of banning those books is truly
0:42:07 bizarre.
0:42:11 It’s strange that parents think that you would read a book and that would change who
0:42:12 you are.
0:42:16 I think reading a book helps you understand who you are.
0:42:19 And that is a gift for any of us.
0:42:25 It’s a huge challenge for us to not let parents attack people’s identities in ways that are
0:42:43 harmful.
0:42:47 Do you think these people have even read those books?
0:42:48 I think they have.
0:42:52 I think they’re children’s books, so they’re pretty easy to review.
0:42:59 But I also believe, Guy, very strongly that ultimately these folks are not actually doing
0:43:01 any of this because of books.
0:43:06 I think these are people who want to destroy public education.
0:43:11 Because they see it as the cornerstone of our democracy.
0:43:16 Because people who are educated participate in democracy.
0:43:21 Because they expect things from their elected officials, because they vote based on their
0:43:24 knowledge and understanding of things.
0:43:26 And that’s not what these people want.
0:43:31 But what I understand about this thinking is, like, what’s the end game?
0:43:37 We’re going to do this to the educational system and then our kids will be better off
0:43:38 for it.
0:43:39 I just shake my head.
0:43:42 I do not understand what the end game here is.
0:43:47 The people who are pushing this agenda are the same people who have been trying to remove
0:43:49 public funding from public schools.
0:43:55 They’re the ones fighting for vouchers to be used for private and parochial schools.
0:44:01 The more you defund public schools, the less capacity those schools have to serve those
0:44:02 with the least.
0:44:06 We’ve been seeing that onslaught for decades.
0:44:12 Now this is the next level where not only are they attacking funding, which is already
0:44:18 a huge problem, but they’re now trying to prevent these schools from actually offering
0:44:20 quality education to young people.
0:44:26 So it’s part of a larger strategy, and this is all being funded by the same people who
0:44:33 fund the voucher systems and who fund the parochial and private schools.
0:44:38 So somebody listening to this, and they agree, what do they do?
0:44:42 And they should definitely check out our website.
0:44:43 Learn more.
0:44:47 The website is splcenter.org.
0:44:49 There’s lots to learn.
0:44:52 There’s different ways to get involved.
0:44:57 We always welcome donations, but even more importantly, we need partners and people who
0:44:59 want to do this work with us.
0:45:07 Maybe that means sharing our curricula and resources with educators or community members
0:45:09 who they know might be interested.
0:45:17 Maybe it’s talking about the concerns about voter suppression with their elected officials.
0:45:22 Maybe it’s participating and get out the vote drives in their local community.
0:45:25 There are many ways for people to get involved.
0:45:34 We want to champion the institutions of democracy that protect all of us with the rule of law.
0:45:36 And we’re going to have our hands full.
0:45:38 But we have them pretty full now.
0:45:45 So we just need to figure out the best ways to organize, to mobilize, and to bring people
0:45:50 together because none of us can do this individually, organizationally.
0:45:55 We need all of us participating to win this.
0:46:01 Well, you could build the case that unintended consequences, for example, of gerrymandering
0:46:06 and voter suppression.
0:46:09 You think you solved the problem by suppressing votes, but you’ve exacerbated the problem
0:46:15 because there’s, well, I don’t know if there’s no one, but very few G&Z are going to say,
0:46:17 “Yeah, let’s suppress hope.”
0:46:18 That’s a good thing, right?
0:46:21 So we just wiped out one generation there.
0:46:22 Yeah.
0:46:31 Just all of this, pure marketing, don’t understand the logic here.
0:46:35 The demographics and trend is not your friend, and instead of gerrymandering and suppressing
0:46:38 votes, why don’t you just do what’s right for people?
0:46:43 Maybe you’ll get reelected that way, right, what it might be.
0:46:44 It defies logic.
0:46:46 Two last questions.
0:46:47 Sure.
0:46:51 You’ve mentioned democracy several times.
0:46:56 And one of the arguments that just makes my head explode is whenever you get into an
0:47:03 argument with some people, and how preserving democracy and all that, and they come back
0:47:08 with, you know, that the American system is not a democracy, it’s a republic, and we’re
0:47:13 elected officials and not necessary majority rules and blah, blah, blah, blah.
0:47:18 It’s as if when they say that that bit of sophistry, it means, “Oh, it’s okay to gerrymander
0:47:24 as the press holds because we’re not a democracy, we’re a republic.”
0:47:27 What should I say when somebody says that?
0:47:35 There’s a famous line that democracy is the worst form of government except for every
0:47:36 other form.
0:47:39 And I actually think that’s the right line.
0:47:41 It’s not that democracy is perfect.
0:47:47 Certainly a republic has different angles than a pure democracy.
0:47:54 But democracy can really help a society to make better decisions.
0:48:01 You pull the talents and expertise and ideas and commitments of an entire community of
0:48:04 people to make the best decisions you can.
0:48:08 And you can make mistakes, but you can learn from those mistakes and get better.
0:48:11 And when I look at American history, that’s what I see.
0:48:13 Well, I see plenty of mistakes.
0:48:15 Don’t get me wrong.
0:48:21 It has not been a great form of government except that no other form has a better.
0:48:29 We take democracy to be the best chance we have of ensuring that we all feel a state
0:48:32 in the outcome.
0:48:33 And that’s why it’s so important to me.
0:48:37 It’s why it’s so important to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
0:48:46 For a long time, communities of color in the Deep South have not been part of the democracy.
0:48:50 They were intentionally excluded in the past.
0:48:56 They now, they’re now facing a whole host of obstacles seeking to suppress their vote
0:48:58 and participation.
0:49:06 But they also championed and led a movement to win the vote for their communities that
0:49:11 has inspired progressive movements around the world.
0:49:14 Everywhere I have traveled around the world, people have talked about the civil rights
0:49:21 movement at the U.S. as something that fundamentally gave them hope that they could be part of
0:49:23 making change happen.
0:49:24 So I believe that.
0:49:30 I believe that the South can demonstrate how we bring that change about.
0:49:37 I used to make a lot of money with speeches and now I will not speak in the state of Texas
0:49:40 and Florida.
0:49:44 Just to be transparent, I am going to South by Southwest, but I don’t consider Austin
0:49:45 part of Texas.
0:49:46 Okay.
0:49:47 They probably don’t either.
0:49:48 So no.
0:49:49 I just decline something in Florida.
0:49:55 I decline in Florida all the time because I don’t want to support in any way, manner
0:49:57 or form Florida.
0:50:06 And tell them what I’m asking you is a better attitude would be to go with Florida and you
0:50:08 show them there is a better way.
0:50:12 So instead of boycotting Florida, you should go and educate Florida.
0:50:17 So you should accept those speeches and go to be a little bit of land.
0:50:21 I’m asking you what’s your advice?
0:50:26 Should I decline Florida and make a statement or should I go there and try to be part of
0:50:28 the solution, not the problem?
0:50:34 It’s a fair question because we have offices and staff in Florida too.
0:50:41 And we’ve had internal discussions about when are our presence contributes in ways that
0:50:48 are unintended to supporting or enabling the government that is doing so much harm.
0:50:55 But I will tell you that there are extraordinary organizations in Florida who are not giving
0:51:04 up, who are fighting hard for their communities to be heard to be represented, to have a voice.
0:51:07 And I think they’re going to win.
0:51:08 They have young people.
0:51:14 They have a diverse constituency that is truly outraged and ready to fight.
0:51:18 And I feel an obligation to stand alongside and support.
0:51:20 And so that’s the question.
0:51:24 Can your presence help lift up that effort?
0:51:29 I think you can look at each request to you individually and say, is this going to give
0:51:37 me an opportunity to speak to people who need to hear my message about what’s important?
0:51:42 Is this going to give me a chance to connect with people in Florida who are fighting that
0:51:45 good fight and lift up their work?
0:51:48 If it is, I should go.
0:51:51 And if it isn’t, I’m happy to decline.
0:51:56 It’s not, it’s the MRA asked me to come to Florida just to be clear.
0:51:59 That’s good.
0:52:00 That’s good.
0:52:02 So I may have to go to Florida.
0:52:05 You don’t have to, but it is worth asking.
0:52:15 Because there are people who will welcome your support and desperately need it on the ground.
0:52:23 I guess I’ll be accepting more speaking engagements in Florida per the advice of Margaret Wang.
0:52:28 She’s the remarkable person who runs the Southern Poverty Law Center.
0:52:30 I hope you enjoyed this interview.
0:52:36 I hope it gives you hope about the future of our country.
0:52:37 I’m Guy Kawasaki.
0:52:40 This is Remarkable People.
0:52:49 The Remarkable People team is Shannon Hernandez and Jeff See, Tessa and Madison Nismar, Louise
0:52:53 Magana, Alexis Nishimura and Fallon Yates.
0:52:57 And don’t forget, Madison and I have a new book out.
0:53:00 It’s called Think Remarkable.
0:53:07 And if you want 88 methods to make a difference and change the world and make the world a
0:53:09 better place.
0:53:17 Please read, Think Remarkable, Mahalo and Aloha.
0:53:19 This is Remarkable People.

0:00:08 [MUSIC]
0:00:16 Hello again, it’s Guy Kawasaki and you’re listening to the Remarkable People podcast.
0:00:18 We’re on a mission to make you remarkable.
0:00:25 Today, we have for her second time, the extraordinary Angela Duckworth.
0:00:33 The last time we had her on, I interviewed her about her book “Grit, The Power of Passion and Perseverance.”
0:00:36 It was a New York Times number one best seller.
0:00:40 She is, in a way, the mother of grit.
0:00:44 Angela is a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania.
0:00:55 She is also the CEO of Character Lab, and she has won a MacArthur Award in 2013 for her contribution to the concepts of self-control and grit.
0:01:04 If all of this wasn’t enough, Angela is also the co-host of a podcast called No Stupid Questions.
0:01:07 It’s a great podcast. You should listen to it.
0:01:13 When a podcaster tells you to listen to somebody else’s podcast, there’s no higher form of praise.
0:01:22 Anyway, I’m Guy Kawasaki. This is Remarkable People. Let’s give it up for Angela Duckworth.
0:01:27 (Cheering)
0:01:45 So, Angela, you’re in Rare Company because only you, Bob Cheldini, Jane Goodall, and Julia Cameron have repeated on this podcast. I want you to know that.
0:01:49 What? Oh my gosh, a little pressure there for me.
0:01:54 Alright, I’ll try not to screw up. That’s impressive. The other people are impressive.
0:01:58 We saved this honor for MacArthur Fellows.
0:01:59 (Laughs)
0:02:06 I think you’re just waiting to get the other guests back. This is my alternative explanation.
0:02:11 First of all, I want to catch up a little. Is Lucy still playing the viola?
0:02:21 Oh my gosh, has it been that long since we spoke? Because no, Lucy, my younger daughter, is no longer playing the viola and hasn’t played the viola.
0:02:30 Gosh, I don’t know how long it’s been since we talked for a while, right? Because she’s 20 now and she’s in college. She hasn’t been playing the viola for a while.
0:02:39 And when she quit viola, did she pass the hard thing rule or did she just bag it?
0:02:50 I had been improbably the outspoken advocate for quitting viola for not weeks or months, really for years.
0:02:57 And I think I have back up on this. You could ask other people in our family and you could ask Lucy.
0:03:03 I was the one who said, “I think you should quit viola. I think you should do a different hard thing.”
0:03:11 So, Guy, you’re referring to the hard thing rule, which our family, we raised our kids with this rule that everybody had to do a hard thing.
0:03:20 A hard thing was defined as something that took true practice, according to the kind of, you know, practice that I researched the experts were doing.
0:03:26 It was a rule that also said that you weren’t allowed to quit the hard thing in the middle of your commitment.
0:03:31 So that didn’t mean you could never quit it. It just meant that you can’t quit in the middle of track season, right?
0:03:37 Or if you’ve paid for 20 lessons of viola, like you can’t quit in the middle of your commitment to your teacher.
0:03:44 And the last part of the hard thing rule was that nobody got to choose your hard thing but yourself.
0:03:52 So I thought this brought together everything I knew as a psychologist and I was trying to figure out as a mother of all the things that go into somebody developing a passion.
0:04:06 I was very certain that my daughter, Lucy, was not developing a passion for viola because she never talked about it outside of her required practice.
0:04:10 She never read about it. She didn’t want to go to concerts.
0:04:14 She wasn’t even watching YouTube videos of people playing the viola.
0:04:20 It was as certain as anything I knew that she probably shouldn’t be doing that as her hard thing.
0:04:26 And I told her that over and over again. And I’m not saying that she finally listened, but she did finally quit.
0:04:35 I’m having an out-of-body experience, Angela. So the mother of grit told her daughter to quit. That’s the headline.
0:04:36 Yeah, I know. Doesn’t that sound crazy?
0:04:48 Grit-shaming or something or quit-shame. I don’t know what it is, but I think one of the intuitions I had then that has only become stronger since then because of scientific research that’s been published.
0:04:56 But also, just the more I reflect on it, is that the essence of grit is not never quitting anything, right?
0:05:06 It’s true that there’s one item on the grit scale, the questionnaire I use in most of my research on grit, and this question says, “I finish whatever I begin.”
0:05:12 And of course, to get the highest score on the grit scale, you would have to be five out of five on “I finish whatever I begin.”
0:05:15 I think that item gets at something very important.
0:05:26 I own up fully to that. If I could go back in time, I just would have argued more loudly and more vigorously to quit earlier because I think Lucy quit viola years later.
0:05:32 And it’s not that I think kids should quit everything. It’s not that I don’t believe in practice. It’s not even that I don’t believe in music.
0:05:42 It’s just that when you learn to do things that are hard, I do think you learn to fulfill your commitments and to do something that’s not immediately gratifying.
0:05:53 I think it’s a lesson that we have to learn. It’s a lesson that I’d rather young people learn earlier than later, to do something where in the moment of the practice, in the moment of doing the scales, in the moment of revising a sentence,
0:05:58 there’s a thousand things that you could do that are easier and more fun.
0:06:07 So I think it’s an important thing to do a hard thing, but I think one of the most important things you have to do, especially as a young person, but probably all of life,
0:06:14 is to figure out whether it’s the right hard thing for you and the word for this in scientific research is called sampling.
0:06:21 So eventually, you do want to become a specialist of a kind to become really great at anything. You have to specialize.
0:06:31 But what research is finding, and I even had this intuition before the research that’s come out in the last few years, and it would have been too late for my kids because Lucy’s now 20,
0:06:41 but even then, I had the intuition that scientists have since affirmed, which is that sampling is a necessary prerequisite to specializing for almost every expert.
0:06:52 Not all. There are definitely the David Beckham’s. I don’t know how much sampling David Beckham did before he committed to playing football/soccer, depending on what continent you’re in.
0:07:05 But most professional athletes who are truly world-class, and for example, Nobel laureate scientists, if you look back into their childhoods and you ask the question, how did they spend time when they were young?
0:07:19 When they were young, they were not specialists. They were actually sampling a variety of things, and we can have a conversation about why that’s so important, but absolutely, I encourage Lucy to quit viola and to start another hard thing.
0:07:31 Okay. So now your daughters are in their 20s. So are they basically grit monsters? Are they just put anything in front of them and they’re going to take that hill?
0:07:41 It’s dangerous to talk about daughters who are 22 and 20 because they’re old enough to hear and they’re young enough to care, but at the risk of being overly candid.
0:07:54 So Lucy and Amanda, Lucy’s 20, Amanda’s 22. Are they hardworking? Yes, they are hardworking. Do they quit commitments in the middle? No, they do not quit commitments in the middle.
0:08:09 I don’t know that either of them, however, have the kind of fierce ambition that Jason, my husband, and I had when we were 22 or 20, and we were really driven, maybe in a way that was less healthy.
0:08:25 Like we spent less time with our friends than they spend with their friends. Like we were just, I think for me, I think I was sleeping probably like four hours a night and then all the other hours, like all the other 20 hours a day, seven days a week.
0:08:32 I was basically being productive in one way or another, and I don’t think that would be a true statement of my daughters.
0:08:40 Yeah, you know, I feel the same way that each generation gets lazier and lazier. And I’m third generation.
0:08:48 Do you feel that about? I know you’re supposed to be asking me about my family, but now I’m just curious. Like, how has it been for you?
0:09:08 So my grandfather and grandmother side, they came to picture Kane. My father was a fireman. My mother was a housewife. I am who I am in tech. My kids, I don’t see them working as hard as I remember, but that could be selective memory.
0:09:17 You know, it also could be regression to the mean, right? Like statistically, the more you are an outlier, the less likely it is that your kids will be just like you.
0:09:26 The more you are exactly, I mean, just statistics, right? Like, I remember being this, um, well, for some things, you’d be like, wow, there’s hope, right?
0:09:34 Maybe you won’t be as screwed up as I am because it also works on the other end of the distribution. Outliers of any kind get closer to the mean the next time you roll the dice.
0:09:47 But I remember being in a meeting, it was still in graduate school. And I remember I can picture the conference room. It was this like windowless conference room that somebody had the good sense to paint like the ugliest peach color you can imagine.
0:10:03 Anyway, we had all of our scientific meetings in there. It was probably good for concentration, because there’s nothing else to do other than listen to the speaker. And the speaker was Ed Deener, who was and maybe always will be, he’s now passed, but the reigning monarch in the study of happiness.
0:10:17 So he really founded the field of well-being. And he was holding forth. And it was a scientific talk on a number of topics that I cannot remember, but one thing I’ll never forget was he looked at everybody in this room.
0:10:29 It was a room of very eminent academics. I think it was a conference of some kind that happened to be held with that particular talk that I was able to attend. And he said, none of your kids are likely to be as successful as you are.
0:10:45 And by the way, if you’re extremely happily married, they’re unlikely to be as happily married as you are. And if you’re really good looking, they’re unlikely. And by the way, nobody really needed that to be told to them because it’s a basic fact of statistics. And they all knew it.
0:11:03 But it just to be told it was kind of startling. So yeah, maybe it’s not that every generation is lazier than the one that came before. But maybe the more we are something gritty or extroverted or whatever, you know, maybe our kids are just unlikely to be like that because you’ve rolled the die.
0:11:11 And when you throw the cards up in the air, if you started out with a royal flush and you pick up five cards, they’re probably not going to be a royal flush.
0:11:15 Angela, I don’t know if that sounds incredibly denigrating.
0:11:39 I feel like that sounds terrible. Like, oh, you know, I’m a royal flush and my kids are not. I’m not at all hinting that. By the way, when I look at my kids and how they’re living their life, I was not a tiger mom. I have no regrets about that. And I think that in so many ways, my kids are making wiser choices than I did. And certainly, my husband would say the same.
0:12:04 Were we wrong to spend so much time working? Like, when we go to our reunions, we hardly know anyone. I’ll speak for myself. My husband may be a little bit more socially successful. But when I go back to my reunions for college, I hardly know anyone. They’re all like the only people I know are ex-boyfriends, because I had a number of those. But I don’t really have a lot of friends from college. It’s it’s my fault.
0:12:11 Wow. This interview is not turning out how I thought it would.
0:12:12 I’m probably taking you off track.
0:12:21 No, it’s okay. It’s okay. What’s your current thinking about the roles of talent, grit and luck in success?
0:12:41 I think there’s something on that list that I think I would add unless you want to call it luck. But I started off thinking only about talent and grit. I started off only by thinking there’s how fast you get good at something. Let’s call that talent. And then there’s how long you work at it. Let’s call that grit.
0:13:01 And I started out thinking it’s a kind of tortoise in the hair story. And what I’m going to do in my life and in my research is shine a light on effort and how important it is and how it’s easy to find the hairs. But it’s really important to follow the tortoises.
0:13:22 And then clearly the fact that there’s other things than talent and grit that began to shape my perspective. But I don’t know if it’s just luck because it depends on what you mean by by luck. So first let me ask you like when I say, well, yeah, there’s also luck. What immediately springs to your mind? You’ve thought about success a lot as well.
0:13:39 If I look at my own life. So I’m lucky to fundamentally be healthy. I’m lucky that I was born in Hawaii multiracial. I was lucky that my parents appreciated education and made sacrifices for me.
0:13:54 I was lucky that I met someone at Stanford who hired me at Apple. I didn’t earn any of that. I just showed up and where I say grid and talent. You could say they’re part of you. So there’s a distinction between luck and like things that are you.
0:14:10 Those are not me. Those are luck in my mind. Yes, exactly. I’m saying that luck is like what’s not you. What you can’t take credit for in any way because they happen to you. If you define luck broadly that way, then I don’t need a fourth thing and you could just three is a better number than four for list.
0:14:19 But I’m only thinking about those things these days, actually. And it’s not because I’ve decided that effort doesn’t matter and it’s not that I’ve changed my mind and I think talent is everything.
0:14:29 But I think these things that you would say are not you, but they shaped who you are. They broadened your horizons and for some people narrowed their horizons.
0:14:44 So I wrote this book, I don’t know, nearly a decade ago and and I wrote that book very much motivated by my father’s story and my father played such an outsize role in shaping my identity.
0:14:57 He gave me an obsession with excellence and achievement and he probably gave me a kind of, I don’t know, like a sort of I’ll show you sense because I kept trying to prove him wrong too because my dad loved talent.
0:15:06 But but then since writing the book, I’ve been spending more time with my mom and my mom, I never really paid much attention to growing up.
0:15:18 They both immigrated from China. My father seemed to me like the ambitious and gritty person who made a career at DuPont and was a very successful scientist.
0:15:25 He never won the Nobel Prize, but there are lots of innovations in car paint that my dad can put his name next to.
0:15:37 My mom was the devoted wife. She was the soul of generosity and affection, but I never thought of my mother as ambitious and I never thought of my mother as gritty.
0:15:42 I only recently got to understand my mom’s full story.
0:15:45 So my mom came to this country in her early 20s.
0:15:47 She couldn’t speak a word of English.
0:15:50 She had come via Taiwan, but originally she was born in China.
0:15:58 She came here as the very first person in her family, so she was not joining brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins.
0:16:02 She knew nobody and she came here because she had an ambitious dream.
0:16:06 She wanted to become an artist and she didn’t think she could do that in Taiwan or China.
0:16:17 So she enrolled in this Art Academy in Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts and she ate a drank and slept art and she had all the sort of ups and downs that anyone does.
0:16:23 Being told by her professor that she’s merely copying other people’s work and that she needs to find her own style.
0:16:29 But the reason I never knew this story is that by the time I was born, I was the third of three children.
0:16:32 My mother had transformed into an entirely different person.
0:16:36 You know, at that point, there was no talk about art.
0:16:42 She never even asked to go to a museum, much less have her own room to paint.
0:16:46 And the misunderstanding that I had was that my mom lacked grit.
0:16:48 But really, I think my mom lacked luck.
0:16:59 She didn’t have an advocate, a coach, a group of like-minded artists who wanted to talk about art after work and compare notes and show each other their work.
0:17:02 And most of all, she didn’t have a partner.
0:17:11 So so my father, who was a great person in many ways, was an absolute failure, I think, in the respect of supporting my mother’s ambition.
0:17:22 She said that sometimes she would, early in her marriage, paint something and hang it up in the kitchen by the dining table where my father would sit every breakfast and every dinner.
0:17:28 And months would go by before he might even notice there was a new painting up.
0:17:41 So really, I think what I’m thinking about these days are all the things that are not directly that person’s grit or that person’s talent that enable them to do things.
0:17:46 Or in some cases, like my mom’s, hinder them from realizing their ambitions.
0:17:55 I love when we go into stuff like this, because I bet you never discuss stuff like this on your podcast or when you’re interviewed, right?
0:17:58 So no, this is like to the bone.
0:18:05 Let’s take this as a given that these things you don’t control, not part of you are a big factor.
0:18:12 But what’s the practical implication of that because get lucky is not a strategy either.
0:18:14 So what do you do with this knowledge?
0:18:26 So I think one of the reasons why we don’t think about these things, especially when I say we, I think really hardworking ambitious people often think about overcoming the poor odds that they’ve been given.
0:18:36 They think about the situation sometimes as the thing that you can’t really change, but you are going to overcome it because one thing you can change is your own attitude, your own effort, your own will, right?
0:18:41 And I think that’s half right, or I could just say, I think that’s not quite right.
0:18:44 That’s the kind of obvious thing about the situation.
0:18:45 There are many factors.
0:18:55 My mom couldn’t directly change my father’s attitude towards art, towards the right of a woman to have ambition in a marriage.
0:18:57 She couldn’t directly change those things, right?
0:19:06 So oftentimes hardworking, ambitious, gritty people think about the situation as something merely to be overcome through personal will.
0:19:08 And I think that’s why we like poems.
0:19:09 You know, I am the captain of my fate.
0:19:11 I am the master of my soul, right?
0:19:16 But the reason I think that’s a great mistake is that you ask the right question is, well, what are we going to do?
0:19:23 And I think there are things that we can do sometimes and in some ways to actually change our situations, right?
0:19:27 So instead of thinking the situation as that, which we cannot change.
0:19:32 And there are so many quotes on this guy from every religious tradition, from every philosophical tradition.
0:19:35 Like, you can’t change the situation, but you can change how you react to it.
0:19:36 I think that’s not true.
0:19:38 Sometimes you can change the situation.
0:19:42 In my mother’s case, I’ll tell you what she did very recently.
0:19:44 So my father died during the pandemic.
0:19:46 It was the end of a very long illness.
0:19:49 It doesn’t make it any less tragic, but he died.
0:20:02 And when he died, my mother was, I’ll say emancipated from this role that she had that in some way she was born into, given her upbringing and the way her mother talked to her.
0:20:06 But my mother was liberated to do whatever she wanted.
0:20:14 And she lived in this and still does live in this kind of like senior community that had everything up to the most skilled nursing care.
0:20:16 And that’s why they were there because my father’s illness.
0:20:20 And my mother was still an independent living because she’s a spry as a fox.
0:20:23 So she walks down to the manager’s office.
0:20:24 It’s called the quadrangle.
0:20:28 And she says, I’d like to rent another unit.
0:20:32 And they asked her what’s wrong with her unit, you know, it’s got good sunlight.
0:20:33 It’s quiet.
0:20:35 She says, oh, I want to keep my unit.
0:20:39 I just want to have a whole other apartment, still more confusion.
0:20:41 Why would you need to?
0:20:47 Like they’ve never had a resident in history asked to own two separate units and pay rent on two separate units.
0:20:55 And she says, oh, because I’m an artist and I need a place to paint and I need a place to mess up and not worry that it’s a mess.
0:21:01 And when she told me this story, I immediately thought of Virginia Wolf, right, a room of one’s own.
0:21:09 And this idea that a writer or an artist or a maker of any kind that I went back and reread because I read that when I was in high school.
0:21:13 And I went back and reread the passage that gave this this book its name.
0:21:23 And Virginia Wolf said that when you have an idea, it’s like a fish and the fish is darting here and there through the water and you’re trying to catch the fish, right.
0:21:26 And maybe you’ll catch it and maybe you won’t catch it.
0:21:37 But one way never to catch it is to be interrupted because the doorbell rings or you have to make your husband breakfast or you have to rub his back or you have to clean the dishes from dinner.
0:21:42 And and then you come back and you’re looking for your idea and it’s gone.
0:21:47 So my mom had a situation that was not ideal.
0:21:49 She’s now 89 about to turn 90.
0:21:53 But in her late 80s decides to change her situation.
0:21:56 She didn’t say, oh, the situation is something you could never change.
0:21:58 She said, I have agency.
0:22:01 Let me create opportunity for myself.
0:22:04 So now my mom has two units at the quadrangle.
0:22:07 One of them she lives in and the other one is her art studio.
0:22:09 And and she’s painting.
0:22:11 She’s never been more prolific.
0:22:13 She just had an art show in Tennessee.
0:22:17 She just flew back, got back at two in the morning actually today.
0:22:20 And I think that is a kind of parable for for me anyway.
0:22:28 I mean, it says to me both that we should have humility when we see somebody who is or isn’t obviously ambitious.
0:22:32 Before we pass judgment, we should think what is the role of the situation here?
0:22:37 How much has this person been supported or hindered in their dreams?
0:22:42 And then the second lesson of this parable, I think it goes along with humility is hope,
0:22:46 which is that it’s never too late to try to change your situation when you can.
0:22:54 And so my mom, to me, is belatedly and that’s my fault, not hers, teaching me these these important lessons.
0:23:01 And there are not really lessons about will and what you should do to overcome the situation only through your own,
0:23:04 like changing the things inside you.
0:23:06 There really are about changing what’s outside you.
0:23:07 This is what I’m thinking about, guy.
0:23:08 This is literally what I’m thinking about.
0:23:12 When I wake up in the morning, I go to bed at night and every moment in between.
0:23:19 Angel, I can tell you that that may be the best story we have ever heard on this podcast.
0:23:22 Seriously, my mother’s story.
0:23:28 I mean, my my mother’s the nicest and kindest person I have ever met.
0:23:32 So if she has the best story you’ve ever heard, I would only be appropriate.
0:23:36 And guy, to be at the age that I am and to realize that, oh, my God,
0:23:43 I’ve lived more than half a century without really paying attention to my mother and my mother’s story.
0:23:45 I mean, what a hero, right?
0:23:49 And my whole life, if you ask me, like, who in this family has ambition?
0:23:51 Who in this family cares about excellence?
0:23:52 Who has a dream?
0:23:56 Who’s willing to work and do anything, sacrifice anything?
0:24:01 I would have said my father, I wouldn’t even been able to tell you that my mom sailed across an ocean.
0:24:04 I’m not knowing anyone, learning a new language, being so lonely.
0:24:08 She told me how hard it was to be totally alone in this country.
0:24:11 She painted this painting that I have in my house.
0:24:12 It’s my most prized possession.
0:24:16 If there’s ever a fire, it’ll be the one thing that I take with me.
0:24:21 It’s this painting of an ocean and there’s a big rock in the middle.
0:24:23 It’s like an island made out of rock.
0:24:25 And in the distance, you can see these little white sailboats.
0:24:28 And she painted that painting when she was 24 years old.
0:24:30 And she told me the story of that painting.
0:24:34 She said, while I was here in Philadelphia, I knew no one.
0:24:39 And my professor had just told me, Teresa, you know, you can’t copy everybody else’s style.
0:24:41 You have to find your own art.
0:24:43 That’s what it is to be an artist.
0:24:46 So if you really have this dream, that’s what you have to do.
0:24:53 And she went home and she decided to come back to the studio and paint this picture of this Mount Island.
0:24:55 It was a symbol of everything she had left behind.
0:25:03 It was a symbol of stability, of family, of friendship, of knowing the language, of fitting in, of belonging.
0:25:12 And she painted that painting because it was a painting to show that that she was willing to sacrifice all of that for her dream of becoming an artist.
0:25:20 And I’m embarrassed to say, Guy, that I’ve had that painting for many more years than I knew that story because I never asked.
0:25:25 I never even thought to ask my mother about who she really was and who she wants to be.
0:25:28 Up next on Remarkable People.
0:25:32 And sometimes, it’s certainly the things that go with the DNA that make it expressed.
0:25:34 So like, you know, the mark wasn’t entirely wrong.
0:25:36 So we’re continually revising.
0:25:42 I think that the world is ready for a more complicated version of science.
0:25:46 I think if I think back in the last 20 years, it’s the New York Times changed.
0:25:49 Now they actually have scientists saying things and research.
0:26:02 But the next 20 years will be like, people are going to be sophisticated enough to understand when things are not settled and that there are two sides or more to a question.
0:26:10 If you find our show valuable, please do us a favor and subscribe, rate and review it.
0:26:16 Even better, forward it to a friend, a big mahalo to you for doing this.
0:26:20 Welcome back to Remarkable People with Guy Kawasaki.
0:26:24 We are so freaking deep.
0:26:31 I’m sure this is not at all what you want to talk about, because I haven’t really told people about what I’m thinking about.
0:26:38 Beyond my wildest expectations, we got to lighten up for a while because my head is going to explode.
0:26:44 I have to say that I love your new show about no stupid questions.
0:26:48 So can we veer off into that?
0:26:50 Totally, a little levity.
0:26:57 First of all, just fundamentally, how do you come up with the questions that you decide to answer on the show?
0:27:03 So no stupid questions is a show on the Freakonomics radio platform.
0:27:05 And I started it with Stephen Dubner.
0:27:08 Oh, gosh, maybe three and a half years ago.
0:27:11 And we had the idea that there are no stupid questions.
0:27:15 I mean, there probably are a few stupid questions.
0:27:17 But questions are just things that you don’t know.
0:27:20 And there’s this definition of curiosity that I love.
0:27:25 So scientists who study curiosity often say it’s simply wanting to know.
0:27:26 That’s what a question is anyway.
0:27:28 It’s the formulation of something that you want to know.
0:27:38 So Stephen and I would come up with questions and then we would ask the people who listened to no stupid questions, what questions were on their mind, what they were curious about.
0:27:40 And so now I have a new co-host.
0:27:42 His name is Mike Maughan.
0:27:44 He’s a he’s like you.
0:27:44 He’s from tech.
0:27:50 So he’s interested in human nature like you, but he comes from a tech background.
0:27:54 And every week we have a question that is either from a listener.
0:27:56 I think that’s about half of the questions.
0:27:59 We just get these emails and we read through them.
0:28:03 And if there’s a question that we think there’s there actually are no stupid questions.
0:28:08 But the question has to be one where there’s like something to say from a behavioral science perspective.
0:28:10 Otherwise, I’m not especially helpful.
0:28:12 So we pick half the questions from that.
0:28:18 And then I would say the other half of questions just come from things that I’m thinking about or Mike’s thinking about.
0:28:21 OK, so that’s how you get the questions.
0:28:25 Now, what’s the process to answer the question?
0:28:28 There is a little of a conceit, if you will.
0:28:31 It’s not that I have a spontaneous conversation.
0:28:33 Nothing’s rehearsed and nothing is scripted.
0:28:38 But I think about the question for a week or so in advance.
0:28:40 We decide, oh, let’s take these questions.
0:28:43 And then I’m on my side anyway.
0:28:45 I think Mike probably does the same, but he does it without science.
0:28:48 He looks at stuff and I don’t know, he reads things in the newspaper.
0:28:50 He thinks about stories.
0:28:55 For me, if anybody asked me any question, I look at scientific research.
0:28:57 Really almost any question anybody asked me.
0:29:01 My first instinct is to ask what research has been done.
0:29:06 So I make sure that I’ve put in my working memory things that I think are important to say.
0:29:07 And then we really do just have a conversation.
0:29:13 And then we cover the things that I think are important, the things that he thinks are important.
0:29:17 I think to me, the model in a way was, did you ever listen to Click and Clack?
0:29:19 The two guys, wait, from MIT.
0:29:21 Yeah, right.
0:29:23 They had those great Boston accents.
0:29:25 The Tapit brothers, I think they recall.
0:29:29 Anyway, they would have that show where they would like talk about a car problem
0:29:31 every time was car talk, right?
0:29:34 And they would just answer the question about somebody’s carburetor,
0:29:36 but also they would digress and they would.
0:29:38 So that was a little bit the model.
0:29:41 OK, but getting even more tactical.
0:29:44 So when you say you want to seek the answer to this question
0:29:49 and you look at all the research, exactly how do you do that?
0:29:54 Do you use Google Scholar or do you go to the Journal of Applied Psychology?
0:29:55 What do you use?
0:29:59 That is a good journal guy, by the way, the Journal of Applied Psychology.
0:30:02 OK, this is the way I would go about research.
0:30:05 So this is, I think, the advice I would give to my graduate students,
0:30:09 but humans can do this if they want to know the answer to a question
0:30:11 and they want to know what scientists think.
0:30:16 So I do go to Google Scholar, by the way, ChatGPT is quite good.
0:30:18 And I use that as well.
0:30:21 I think everybody should use ChatGPT every day.
0:30:24 And I try to discipline myself because otherwise it’s it’s like physical therapy.
0:30:27 I just feel like I should do it every day and make sure I’m keeping
0:30:29 my ChatGPT muscles toned.
0:30:33 But I first go to Google Scholar because when you enter anything into Google Scholar.
0:30:36 So say you say income and happiness, right?
0:30:40 Like perennial question, if I get richer, will I be happier?
0:30:44 And you just put income and happiness into the search bar for Google Scholar.
0:30:50 What you’ll get is a rank ordered list of scientific publications
0:30:52 with some algorithm on the back end.
0:30:55 That’s pretty damn good because they give you the most highly cited,
0:30:59 but it’s not exactly in order of citations, like the most prominent,
0:31:02 well regarded journals like the Journal of Applied Psychology.
0:31:06 And and whatever they’re doing on the back end to give you that,
0:31:09 I will tell you because I can search for things that I really know well.
0:31:12 And I would give like roughly the same rank ordering.
0:31:17 So if you look at the first 10 or 20 references,
0:31:21 when you do a Google Scholar search for anything, you have a medical problem,
0:31:25 you have a problem to solve at work or you don’t have a behavioral scientist
0:31:29 or another scientist on look up, just put into Google Scholar.
0:31:32 So I go to Google Scholar and I do ask ChatGPT,
0:31:37 which sometimes actually I think what this new generative AI is so very good at
0:31:41 is on the reason why it’s a good adjunct to do in Google searches.
0:31:43 But you know, you know more about this than I do, I’m sure,
0:31:46 is that it is really able to synthesize.
0:31:49 So instead of just getting the top 10 or 20, I mean,
0:31:51 it’s looking at all the hits and then it’s putting it all together for you.
0:31:54 So I triangulate between those things.
0:31:56 And I think for any topic, and I don’t know what you think,
0:31:59 because you’ve done a lot more interviewing and a lot more thinking
0:32:02 about like how to get smart about a topic, I think fast.
0:32:06 But for me in science, there’s always between three and five key people.
0:32:08 And I say this to my doctoral students,
0:32:12 like if you can find the three to five key people
0:32:16 and then just follow the breadcrumb trail of the things that they’ve done.
0:32:19 And I would read their work in reverse chronological order.
0:32:21 So once you do the Google Scholar search
0:32:24 and you’re like, oh, I see this name a lot and like this article is really good,
0:32:29 then find that person, go to their profile and read in reverse chronological order.
0:32:34 In other words, read their most recent stuff first and give it the most weight.
0:32:36 Because if they change their mind in 1985,
0:32:40 you don’t really need to know what came before 1985, right?
0:32:43 And you can get pretty smart on a topic very fast.
0:32:48 I just want you to know that you, Katie Milkman,
0:32:55 Bob Cheldini and Brene Brown are probably my three to five key people that I follow.
0:32:59 Your amount, your amount, Rushmore. I don’t want to put myself on it.
0:33:04 But like, I think you’ve named and I include Brene Brown on this, right?
0:33:06 Because I think she’s not exactly in my social network,
0:33:10 because she’s not she’s not primarily dedicated to like publishing academic research.
0:33:13 But I would count her actually as a world class psychologist.
0:33:16 I think her training is more like sociology or whatever.
0:33:23 But sometimes I read things and sometimes they’re like poets or novelists or CEOs.
0:33:25 Sometimes I hear or read something.
0:33:30 And I think that person is a world class psychologist.
0:33:32 I often am talking to a high school track coach.
0:33:34 I’m thinking of one in particular. His name is Kirk.
0:33:39 And when I talk to that person or I’m thinking of an eighth grade teacher named Al Hassan,
0:33:41 like they are world class psychologists.
0:33:43 So I have my own little Mount Rushmore also.
0:33:45 But I think these insights into human nature,
0:33:49 I think Peter Drucker said at the end, not at the very end,
0:33:53 maybe toward the end of his career as a management guru.
0:33:58 Peter Drucker said something like the challenge of our time is not a technological challenge.
0:34:02 And it’s certainly not an industrial or manufacturing challenge.
0:34:07 The challenge that faces humanity is to understand itself, right?
0:34:10 Like human nature is the next frontier.
0:34:14 And if you just look at our physical health and the climate
0:34:21 and how we’re getting along these days and war and voting and politics and education,
0:34:25 I just can’t see how Peter Drucker could have been more right.
0:34:31 We have to understand human behavior and emotion and thinking now more than ever.
0:34:35 I think that is exactly the challenge of the 21st century.
0:34:40 Yeah, I love that you love Peter Drucker because Drucker said something like
0:34:44 the task of a company is to create customers.
0:34:49 And I have held that in my brain since I read that.
0:34:53 All about creating customers.
0:34:56 What does that mean to create customers as opposed to what?
0:35:03 As opposed to make money as opposed to create jobs as opposed to foster innovation.
0:35:07 The way you create customers could involve any of those.
0:35:12 But the goal is to create a customer where there was no customer before.
0:35:13 I would say that I love Peter Drucker.
0:35:17 But maybe I can’t say I’m a Peter Drucker aficionado because I didn’t know that.
0:35:20 Then again, I never had to read Peter Drucker to run anything.
0:35:24 I was actually reading him for his you should read the effective executive.
0:35:29 It’s really, I think his is that his best work best.
0:35:31 Yeah, best work. Yeah.
0:35:35 So now let me ask you that’s very good when you first come up with this question.
0:35:41 How often does your intuition prove to be right versus wrong?
0:35:43 It’s such an excellent question.
0:35:44 I think I only have half an answer.
0:35:52 And the answer that I’ll give you is I’m not often surprised by what I find
0:35:54 when I look at something in GOSA.
0:35:58 But the reason why I think that’s half an answer is that I am most certainly
0:36:00 committing confirmation bias, right?
0:36:03 When somebody asks us anything, we have an idea, we have an intuition.
0:36:07 The problem about human cognition is that we then search for all the reasons
0:36:10 why we’re right and that’s called confirmation bias.
0:36:11 And I think I’m guilty of that.
0:36:16 I do think, though, that all of these biases, so many people are familiar
0:36:17 with Danny Kahneman’s work.
0:36:21 If you’re going to have a Mount Rushmore, by the way, you have to have Danny
0:36:24 Kahneman. Do you not have Danny Kahneman on your university of Chicago?
0:36:27 No, Princeton. You know, who’s at University of Chicago?
0:36:30 I think you’re thinking of Richard Thaler and they’re very good friends.
0:36:34 And they’re both credited with birthing behavioral economics.
0:36:39 But but Danny Kahneman spent the last decades of his career at Princeton.
0:36:40 And he’s still alive, by the way.
0:36:45 So he’s like a living legend, and he pioneered this field where like, oh,
0:36:46 there’s this bias and there’s that bias.
0:36:48 And here’s another one and yet another.
0:36:54 But one of the things that I think Danny would like readily and loudly and not
0:36:59 only admit to but want to shout out to everyone is that all these biases that
0:37:02 exist, anchoring bias, et cetera, they’re there for a reason.
0:37:05 It’s when you think about them as mistakes, but they’re these rules of
0:37:09 thumb that mostly work and sometimes don’t.
0:37:13 So confirmation bias probably has a sort of fun.
0:37:16 And I’m not saying there’s not a problem with always looking for reasons
0:37:18 why you’re right. It’s a problem in hiring.
0:37:20 It’s a problem in decision making.
0:37:23 You don’t want to run a business and be prone to confirmation bias all the time.
0:37:29 But it’s also helpful, I think, to for me, I do have this very simple framework
0:37:33 that I’ve learned in psychology that I’m probably confirming all the time.
0:37:36 But without that framework, and I can tell you what it is.
0:37:39 But without that framework, I think I would be like flotsam and jetsam
0:37:41 on a very tumultuous ocean.
0:37:42 I’d be like, I don’t know.
0:37:44 Somebody would ask me a question about what they should do with their kid
0:37:48 who feels anxious because she said something that she hopes her friend doesn’t
0:37:51 hear or not. And if I didn’t have a framework where I was like,
0:37:55 let me go and confirm this with my framework, I would be like, I don’t know.
0:37:57 I have no idea.
0:38:01 So I’m probably engaging in confirmation bias, but that’s maybe not entirely
0:38:03 a bad thing. Wait, wait, what’s the framework?
0:38:08 So the framework is so I’ll use the term that Steven Tupperner used to use.
0:38:09 He was like, oh, the three box frame.
0:38:11 I was like, oh, yes, the three boxes.
0:38:14 So he causes like the three boxes model.
0:38:16 It’s that when you try to understand anything.
0:38:19 So say your daughter is anxious or you’re anxious, right?
0:38:23 You’re ruminating about some negative feedback that you got from your for me.
0:38:27 Oh, I got some negative reviews on this course that I just taught at Wharton.
0:38:28 I got positive reviews, too.
0:38:31 But of course, I’m only thinking about the negative reviews.
0:38:32 So I’m ruminating, right?
0:38:34 And I’m trying to understand the rumination.
0:38:37 I’m trying to also maybe change the fact that I’m ruminating.
0:38:39 So that’s box number three.
0:38:40 That’s one of three boxes.
0:38:42 And that is like how I’m responding right now.
0:38:49 I’m feeling anxious, a little bit embarrassed, maybe preoccupied.
0:38:52 OK, I want to understand box number three and even change box number three.
0:38:56 All I have to do is reverse engineer the boxes that came before.
0:38:57 And there’s only two others, right?
0:38:59 So what’s box number two?
0:39:01 Box number two are these what clinical
0:39:04 psychologists often call the automatic thoughts, right?
0:39:10 So before I have the feeling of embarrassment or anxiety or shame
0:39:13 or regret or happiness, joy, you know, fill in the blank.
0:39:17 And even before I do anything, there’s always this box that comes before.
0:39:21 And that is this very quick thought of what’s going on.
0:39:23 And sometimes we’re conscious of these thoughts.
0:39:25 But very often you’re not conscious.
0:39:29 And that is why a lot of therapy is the assistance of another individual
0:39:34 to help you realize what those fleeting, automatic, but very powerful thoughts are
0:39:38 that lead you to then feel anxious, to lead you to then feel pride
0:39:40 or to make a decision in one way or the other.
0:39:43 So those are your thoughts, automatic thoughts.
0:39:45 Again, not always conscious, very often not conscious.
0:39:48 And then box number one is the objective situation
0:39:52 that gave rise to the thoughts that gives rise to the response.
0:39:55 So it’s situation, thought, response.
0:40:01 It’s a three box model for all the things that human beings do for good or for ill.
0:40:05 And the reason why I find this to be very helpful is that, first of all,
0:40:09 three is a very good number because it’s small and people can remember it.
0:40:12 But it gives you three points of entry for changing things.
0:40:16 So what most people try to do is they just try to change box number three directly.
0:40:18 Like, oh, I’m feeling anxious. I should stop feeling anxious.
0:40:20 Oh, I’m rumored. I should stop ruminating.
0:40:22 Oh, I keep eating too much. I should stop eating too much.
0:40:25 So they attack box number three directly using willpower.
0:40:30 And then what they fail to think about is like how to, you know, attack earlier, right?
0:40:33 I read parts of the art of war by Sunson.
0:40:39 And one of the major things that this great strategist said is you’re trying to like defeat the enemy, right?
0:40:42 The worst thing to do is to just fight them in hand to hand combat, right?
0:40:44 You have to think about things more strategically.
0:40:47 So more strategically, you could work on box number two.
0:40:49 You could change how you think about things.
0:40:53 That’s a lot of therapy, reframing things, putting things into perspective,
0:40:59 taking some distance from things that might seem catastrophic because you’re losing perspective.
0:41:00 I think that’s very important.
0:41:04 And I’m a big fan of therapy and I’m a big fan of my therapist, whose name is Dee.
0:41:05 And I love her.
0:41:09 But what I’m increasingly thinking about these days and trying to write a book about,
0:41:13 partly because of the things that my mother had to go through and how she changed her situation.
0:41:18 But box number one solutions like when you are unhappy or your your weight
0:41:23 isn’t what your weight should be, or you’re you’re not as productive as you want to be.
0:41:24 And you’re procrastinating.
0:41:28 Instead of trying to attack box number three directly, which generally doesn’t work.
0:41:32 I will tell you as a behavioral scientist, willpower eventually fails.
0:41:36 And instead of just working on box number two, oh, maybe I reframed things.
0:41:37 Maybe I think about things differently.
0:41:39 I won’t procrastinate.
0:41:41 What about changing box number one?
0:41:43 So one very specific example.
0:41:46 I have not yet met a young person who has a healthy relationship with their phone.
0:41:48 And what would you do?
0:41:51 I’m not going to advocate using willpower to resist Instagram
0:41:53 or being on TikTok at all hours of the night.
0:41:57 I’m also thinking that just box number two isn’t the only thing you can
0:42:01 oh, reframe this, think about your phone as something which is not only good, but also bad.
0:42:05 But just put your phone in a different room.
0:42:09 If you literally put your phone in a different room, I do this in my classes.
0:42:13 I’m like, put it somewhere you literally can’t see it and it’s not directly in arms reach.
0:42:15 You have to land over and unzip something.
0:42:21 I think those box number one solutions are sometimes the least obvious and the most effective.
0:42:25 This is the purview of tiny habits, right?
0:42:27 Oh, is that BJ Fogg?
0:42:31 Yeah, BJ Fogg, Stanford University, now Maui.
0:42:33 OK, oh, he moved to Hawaii.
0:42:34 I don’t know, BJ Fogg.
0:42:37 Yeah, I think, honestly, like Ariana Huffington, I think a lot of people
0:42:41 have had this intuition that if you want to change your habits,
0:42:45 you should make changes to your like the cues in your situation.
0:42:48 So I’m not taking any claim of originality.
0:42:52 I think Balanchine, the great choreographer, said there are no new dances.
0:42:54 They’re only dancers that we forget and then remember.
0:42:58 So I don’t think anything I’ve said is genius or original.
0:43:00 But when someone asked me a question in psychology,
0:43:03 I think I always go back to these three boxes and I’m like, OK,
0:43:06 they’re trying to usually they’re trying to understand box number three.
0:43:09 And then I’m like, what was box number two and what’s box number one?
0:43:12 So I think that’s probably converging with probably what a lot of other people
0:43:16 you’ve talked to say. Now, on your podcast,
0:43:22 what happens if the research that you do is conflicting?
0:43:24 There’s no clear right answer.
0:43:29 But one respective scientist says one thing and the other one says the opposite.
0:43:31 And the two are in direct opposition.
0:43:34 And you can’t say one is a kook and one isn’t.
0:43:38 What do you do when there’s a time and you literally can’t say, right?
0:43:41 Like, you don’t it’s not just I can’t say because it would be in politic.
0:43:44 When things are in conflict in the scientific literature.
0:43:46 Who am I to judge?
0:43:48 So I’ll give you an example of this.
0:43:52 There is an author and a scientist who studies generations
0:43:56 like the millennials versus the Gen Z years, etc., etc.
0:43:58 And her name is Jean Twenge.
0:44:03 And she’s a very prolific writer and oft quoted thinker.
0:44:06 And she really does believe that there are generational differences.
0:44:09 And she has a really provocative thesis, by the way,
0:44:13 which is that if there’s one singular force that has changed culture
0:44:17 and therefore changed the way we think and act and feel as individuals,
0:44:20 it’s technology. So anyway, that’s Jean Twenge in one corner.
0:44:24 And in the other corner are people who are critics
0:44:28 and that they have methodological concerns and they have their own studies.
0:44:31 And they will sometimes come to different conclusions.
0:44:33 On our podcast on those two big questions,
0:44:36 I try to represent both sides.
0:44:38 I think it’s almost always the case
0:44:43 that both sides have some thing that is true,
0:44:46 that they are strenuously advocating for, you know,
0:44:49 and when I believe that one side has a lot more evidence,
0:44:52 I am not shy about offering my personal opinion,
0:44:54 but that’s just an opinion of one person.
0:44:57 But one of the things I think that’s misunderstood about science
0:45:01 is that it’s kind of like, oh, well, when scientists say they say in a chorus
0:45:03 and it’s fact etched in granite.
0:45:08 But the whole endeavor of science is to keep discovering more,
0:45:12 which means that almost certainly the things that we say today are wrong.
0:45:15 The whole beauty of the scientific engine
0:45:19 is that it’s continually updating and revising.
0:45:21 So things that we thought were true about DNA
0:45:23 aren’t quite the same as we know.
0:45:27 We all thought Darwin was right and his rival Lamarck,
0:45:30 who said that giraffes have longer necks because they stretch their necks
0:45:34 and then they have a baby giraffe and the next giraffe has a slightly longer neck.
0:45:37 And we thought, oh, Lamarck was wrong, like how stupid?
0:45:39 And Darwin was right, right?
0:45:40 That no, that’s not true.
0:45:44 It’s just through genes and the genes just get selected through natural selection.
0:45:48 And the taller giraffes survive and they have more babies.
0:45:49 And so we’re like, oh, Darwin.
0:45:51 But you know what is true now with epigenetics?
0:45:54 It’s like, you know, Lamarck wasn’t totally wrong.
0:45:58 It turns out that if you experience famine, there are changes
0:46:03 in your, in sometimes DNA, certainly the things that go with the DNA
0:46:04 that make it expressed.
0:46:06 So like, you know, Lamarck wasn’t entirely wrong.
0:46:09 So we’re continually revising.
0:46:14 I think that the world is ready for a more complicated version of science.
0:46:18 I think if I think back in the last 20 years, it’s the New York Times changed.
0:46:22 Now they actually have scientists saying things and research.
0:46:26 But the next 20 years will be like people are going to be sophisticated enough
0:46:31 to understand when things are not settled and that there are two sides
0:46:34 or more to a question.
0:46:54 You know, one of the great examples of this is when Tony Fauci
0:46:58 at the start of the pandemic says not to wear a mask, I don’t know,
0:47:00 because there’s a shortage of masks.
0:47:03 And then two years later, he says everybody should wear a mask.
0:47:07 And then people point out, Tony, you said we shouldn’t wear a mask.
0:47:10 Two years ago, you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, right?
0:47:13 Yeah. And this term flip flopper, right?
0:47:16 It’s I think that’s the like the highest compliment you could give
0:47:18 to a scientist is that they’re a flip flopper, right?
0:47:21 Like the highest compliment you could give is somebody who would say,
0:47:25 hey, I said this before, and by the way, we were just talking about confirmation
0:47:29 advice, you know how rare the person is who can say, oh, you know what?
0:47:32 I was wrong. And you know who says that more than anyone?
0:47:34 He’s on my Mount Rushmore, Danny Kahneman.
0:47:39 Danny Kahneman says I was wrong out loud and in writing more often
0:47:40 than any person I have met.
0:47:44 And there is no greater thinker than Danny Kahneman hands down.
0:47:47 And that’s like an excellent example, right?
0:47:49 And you could say, oh, well, we can’t trust Tony Fauci
0:47:53 because one day he said this the next day, no, there’s humility in that person.
0:47:56 And also there’s curiosity and he’s getting a better answer.
0:48:01 It seems to me that when people say they don’t know something,
0:48:07 it gives them greater credibility when they say they do know something, right?
0:48:09 I think and I’m not sure.
0:48:13 So I should say, I think I think there’s research affirming exactly what you said
0:48:16 that when people are like, you know, I don’t know, like, here’s what I think
0:48:18 or here’s what I do know, but I mostly don’t know.
0:48:20 I have to look that up.
0:48:22 But I think people have the opposite intuition that they, you know,
0:48:26 when you want to show any weakness, you don’t want to show any hesitation.
0:48:28 You don’t want to show any uncertainty.
0:48:31 But but I think I think you’re right.
0:48:37 Well, if Angela Duckworth thinks I’m right, I can take that to the bank.
0:48:42 So now can we have a little speed round?
0:48:46 And the reason why I want to have this speed round is not only
0:48:51 because I want to hear the answer, but I want to illustrate to all of you
0:48:57 listeners why you should listen to Angela’s podcast.
0:49:00 It should be near the top of your list of podcasts.
0:49:03 Maybe tied with, wait, wait, don’t tell me.
0:49:08 OK, we did some research about the most recent questions you’ve asked
0:49:13 or answered on your podcast and to give the readers a taste
0:49:17 for the kind of questions you ask and the kind of questions you answer.
0:49:20 And you don’t need to spend 15 minutes on all of these.
0:49:24 Just give us the quick gist. OK. The one liner.
0:49:26 Yes. The one liner. OK.
0:49:30 Why is it so hard to make decisions?
0:49:34 I can’t do this guy. This is too hard.
0:49:37 I was like, wait, no, I can’t do this. You know why?
0:49:41 It’s unsatisfying, but there are too many thoughts in my head.
0:49:44 They don’t fit in the line and like one liners don’t have semicolons.
0:49:47 So I’ll feel like I’m giving you shitty answers.
0:49:49 That’s the problem.
0:49:50 How about this? I’ll pass.
0:49:52 And then let’s see if there’s any that I feel like I could give you one.
0:49:55 OK, why is astrology so popular?
0:50:01 Because it gives you answers for questions that you have.
0:50:04 And it makes you feel like the answers are right. OK.
0:50:07 What is the point of IQ testing?
0:50:09 I don’t think there is much point to IQ testing.
0:50:12 What is important in your choice of words?
0:50:17 I think the answer is that words and language are actually changing.
0:50:21 And so anytime somebody says something and it really annoys you
0:50:25 because you think they’ve said it incorrectly, me and my friend went to the mall
0:50:30 and I literally jumped out of my skin when I saw my friend from fourth grade.
0:50:34 Right. Like for me, oh, my gosh, that I know we might not be alive to, you know,
0:50:37 is it harder to make friends as an adult?
0:50:39 Yes, it is. But there are ways to do it.
0:50:43 And the number one thing I would say that people mistake about friendship
0:50:48 is the friendship is just like exercise or learning to play the violin.
0:50:49 It’s time on task.
0:50:53 And the number one mistake I think people make is that they just don’t
0:50:56 invest enough time. They don’t make it a ritual. OK.
0:50:59 Is marriage worth it?
0:51:02 Yes, I think it is worth it. I think it is worth it.
0:51:05 And if you allowed me a semicolon, yes.
0:51:08 What marriage really is, is a lifelong commitment.
0:51:11 And I do think there are different kinds of marriages.
0:51:13 People sometimes are kind of married to a best friend.
0:51:14 But I believe in lifelong commitments.
0:51:16 Lifelong commitments will never go out of style.
0:51:19 And marriage itself is a great version of a lifelong commitment.
0:51:22 Are we getting lonelier?
0:51:23 Everyone thinks that we are.
0:51:27 But the unequivocal data is that we are spending more time alone.
0:51:30 So we are getting a loner.
0:51:33 But there’s mixed results on whether we’re truly getting lonelier.
0:51:36 That’s more to say about that.
0:51:38 But but we are definitely spending more time alone.
0:51:40 OK. And the last one,
0:51:43 would we be happier if we were more creative?
0:51:47 Pretty much. Yes.
0:51:52 Creativity and happiness are related positively, not nearly.
0:51:55 A lot of people think that unhappy people are more creative.
0:51:58 But there’s no real research suggesting that’s true.
0:52:03 And in addition to happiness making you more creative,
0:52:06 being creative looks like it might make you happier, too.
0:52:10 OK. Julia Cameron will be happy about that answer, too.
0:52:13 Because she’s a happy creator.
0:52:18 And just FYI, Julia Cameron has been on my podcast four times.
0:52:19 So you have a goal.
0:52:23 Well, yeah, bring you back for your new book.
0:52:24 So that’ll be three weeks.
0:52:25 Can you tell me who she is?
0:52:31 Because I am ignorant and I don’t know Julia Cameron wrote The Artist Way.
0:52:32 Oh, I haven’t read that.
0:52:34 You should write that down with the effective executive.
0:52:37 Or you can just listen to the podcast we released today.
0:52:40 It’s her fourth time. OK.
0:52:42 Yeah, I don’t know what you called after a three.
0:52:49 She I’m she would absolutely do backflips over the story of your mother,
0:52:51 the one you told earlier.
0:52:54 I will buy her book.
0:52:58 I think she will love it if I listen to your podcast with her and by her book.
0:53:00 I would love the former.
0:53:02 She would love the latter.
0:53:04 She would love the latter is his way to make both of you happy.
0:53:08 Now, I’ll buy a copy for me and I’ll buy a copy for my mom.
0:53:11 OK, I was thinking about having like a family book club.
0:53:13 You know what I mean? I think that would be fun. OK.
0:53:17 So now I’m just going to rattle off some questions.
0:53:20 I hope you consider for your podcast and we’ll call it.
0:53:21 Oh, good. OK.
0:53:23 You don’t even have to write them down.
0:53:25 Maybe none of them passed the test.
0:53:26 OK, good. I’ll just listen then.
0:53:31 I think in the year 2024, you should answer questions
0:53:37 that are at least related to politics to help people make decisions.
0:53:41 I would argue you may have a moral obligation to do that, but I digress.
0:53:47 Now, I suppose you could start something simple like what was the cause
0:53:51 of the civil war, because at least one person needs that question answered.
0:53:55 But I digress. Here’s some questions.
0:53:57 We won’t name names, of course.
0:54:00 No. No, no, no, no, no.
0:54:03 Well, it would be like Haley’s Comet anyway.
0:54:11 So here’s some questions as an active political wonk, like I love politics.
0:54:16 I would love to get the combined brainpower of the two of you to answer.
0:54:18 OK, you ready? One is I’m ready.
0:54:24 Does gerrymandering really work in the intended make my party win?
0:54:30 Second question is Zoom and all the other virtual conferencing?
0:54:33 Is it a net positive or a net negative?
0:54:39 Because in my podcast, Tom Peters and Julia Cameron both said it’s a net positive.
0:54:43 It’s not nearly as destructive and inefficient as people say.
0:54:46 Third question or whatever number.
0:54:51 Does plagiarism truly represent a threat to society?
0:54:55 Next question.
0:54:59 Does the electoral college system work as intended?
0:55:01 Or I mean, does it work at all, really?
0:55:08 Next one. Does the programs improve a company?
0:55:13 Next one. Is there a correlation between wealth and wisdom?
0:55:16 I’m not seeing any evidence of that just to tell you the truth.
0:55:19 Yeah, I was going to say, I bet you have a hypothesis about that.
0:55:24 You could have asked, are they inversely correlated?
0:55:28 I think it tops out around five million.
0:55:30 And after that, it degrades.
0:55:34 But anyway, and then I have an agenda here.
0:55:36 But I think you should answer the question.
0:55:41 Do you think that anyone can become remarkable?
0:55:45 And as you may guess, you know how I feel, but I would really like to hear.
0:55:48 Do you think anybody can become remarkable?
0:55:51 Can you just I know what you I know the one word answer,
0:55:53 but can you give me the three sentence answer?
0:55:58 Well, to go back to the start of our interview,
0:56:06 there are at least three factors, which is talent, grit and luck.
0:56:11 Luck. And I would say that based on 200 guests,
0:56:16 some of the most remarkable people have been on our podcast
0:56:21 are people who have been imprisoned for 22 years
0:56:25 for a murder charge or they were homeless
0:56:29 or they were smuggled across the border as a baby.
0:56:34 And my inclination is anybody can become remarkable.
0:56:37 It’s not something that’s genetics.
0:56:43 It’s a real combination of luck and perseverance more than anything.
0:56:45 Yeah, you won’t be surprised that I agree with you.
0:56:47 And I was like writing in my journal
0:56:49 because it’s the beginning of a new year.
0:56:52 And I’m thinking about what I want to do.
0:56:55 And when I think about the people who are most inspiring to me,
0:56:57 they’re not even my peers.
0:57:00 They’re not even people who are like doing what I do, but just doing it better.
0:57:02 And they’re not celebrities.
0:57:04 They’re like high school football coaches.
0:57:09 And I’m not like glorifying, having a job that you don’t get a lot of attention for.
0:57:12 It’s just that these when I read about certain people
0:57:18 who are just doing what they do for reasons that are truly sincere
0:57:21 and deep and they’re trying to do it really well and be decent people,
0:57:24 you know, and care about character more than reputation
0:57:27 and help as many people as they can help in their craft.
0:57:30 Like they cultivate their garden and they try to do it very well.
0:57:33 And they’re not looking for fame and they’re not looking for fortune.
0:57:37 They’re not choosing, you know, a path that’s going to lead to the most prizes.
0:57:39 I have to say, I’m like genuinely inspired.
0:57:42 I wrote in my journal this morning for a long time instead of doing work.
0:57:45 I was like, oh, I could work or I could write in my journal about what I want.
0:57:47 And I was like, I was going to write in my journal.
0:57:49 And I think those people really are remarkable.
0:57:52 Like the people that we probably already know.
0:57:56 Yeah, I will tell you that in our book,
0:58:00 we bend over backwards saying that you don’t need to be Jane Goodall
0:58:02 or Steve Jobs to be remarkable.
0:58:05 You can change just one life and be remarkable.
0:58:08 And one more plug for Julia Cameron.
0:58:11 I’ll give you the gist of her main concepts.
0:58:15 So believe it or not, one is every day
0:58:18 you write in your morning journal.
0:58:21 It has to be longhand.
0:58:24 It’s on paper. You cannot type it out every morning.
0:58:26 You write in your daily journal.
0:58:28 The first thing you do.
0:58:32 The second thing is she believes in walks.
0:58:38 And this is a walk, not with your phone, not with your dog, not with your spouse.
0:58:40 It is just you walking.
0:58:46 The third concept is the concept of artist dates,
0:58:50 where you take yourself on a date to go surfing
0:58:54 or you take yourself on a date to go visit the zoo
0:58:59 or you have this like joyous thing that you do by yourself.
0:59:02 Huh. Oh, so it’s a date with yourself.
0:59:04 Yeah, it’s a date with yourself.
0:59:07 And it could be going to your favorite bookstore
0:59:10 or it could be going to listen to someone play the viola.
0:59:14 Yeah. And so these are three things
0:59:15 and you do them all by yourself, right?
0:59:17 You write in your journal in the morning. Basically.
0:59:19 Yeah, go on a walk without. Yes.
0:59:24 Even a podcast in your ear and then you take these artist dates where you do.
0:59:26 And yeah. So Angela.
0:59:28 I love it.
0:59:29 I just love interviewing.
0:59:31 I’m definitely going to do the first two things.
0:59:33 I definitely going to do the first thing.
0:59:36 I’m going to do the I’m going to do the daily the morning journal.
0:59:38 I have to think about the last one.
0:59:39 And I’m not sure about the second one.
0:59:45 Her her most recent book is she adds a fourth thing.
0:59:47 But I’m not going to tell you what it is
0:59:49 because I want you to be curious and figure it out.
0:59:53 Her book came out just now and it’s her fourth thing.
0:59:57 It took 30 years for her to write this book.
1:00:00 And I asked her, why did it take 30 years to write this?
1:00:06 And she said, because I thought people would think I’m too boo boo.
1:00:11 Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, which that definitely brought a smile to us.
1:00:12 You definitely wet my appetite.
1:00:15 I love it when I say that I’m ignorant because I don’t know.
1:00:17 I was really ignorant of her.
1:00:21 It’s not a name I know, but I know it now, Julia Cameron.
1:00:26 I’m a Julia Cameron evangelist. Yes, you are a Julia Cameron evangelist.
1:00:27 That could be your new title.
1:00:29 I think the white reason why people like you so much
1:00:33 is that you really are an evangelist, but you’re not an evangelist for yourself.
1:00:35 Like, I think I think that’s the secret.
1:00:40 It’s like, oh, how to be an evangelist for like Julia Cameron, you know,
1:00:43 or like, you know, or Angela Duckworth. Exactly.
1:00:46 And I’m not kidding. I was like, you know what, that is really profound.
1:00:48 I am going to think about that.
1:00:53 It’s, it’s, it’s by the way, you sent me headphones, but then I was like,
1:00:54 oh, I’m coming to Baker.
1:00:57 So then like I kept them in case you want me to send them back to you.
1:01:04 No, no, no, no, because I was like, well, because you might need to give those to people who are recording from home.
1:01:07 No, we give every speaker new ones.
1:01:15 I have to admit that one of the reasons why we send free headset to every guest
1:01:22 is not just that we want high audio quality, but in a sense, it’s a signal, right?
1:01:28 It’s like we are probably the only podcast team that sends you a headset
1:01:34 because we are so attentive to detail and we want such a high quality product.
1:01:37 And this is proof. And then it’s also, it’s a gift, right?
1:01:40 It’s a gift. It’s generous.
1:01:43 There’s no denying that Madison and I are generous people.
1:01:49 But truthfully, the reasons why we give our guests a headset
1:01:54 is because we want a very high quality recording for you, our listeners.
1:01:59 And I also believe that by giving them that headset, we are signaling to them
1:02:02 that we really care about quality.
1:02:07 I dare say it’s probably true that no other podcast that you listen to
1:02:10 sends every guest a headset.
1:02:12 Anyway, I digress.
1:02:14 So that was Angela Duckworth for the second time.
1:02:21 And I have to tell you that I was not at all prepared for that story about her mom
1:02:28 and getting that second room to create an art studio and just blossoming at 89.
1:02:33 And that is one of the best stories ever on the Remarkable People podcast.
1:02:37 By the way, Madison and I have written a book called
1:02:43 Think Remarkable, Nine Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference.
1:02:49 The book is divided into three sections, growth, grit and grace.
1:02:54 Growth, as you might suspect, features Carol Dweck.
1:02:58 Grit, as you might suspect, features Angela Duckworth.
1:03:00 Please check it out.
1:03:02 Think Remarkable.
1:03:06 And now my thanks to the Remarkable People podcast team.
1:03:08 That would be Jeff C.
1:03:14 And Shannon Hernandez on Sound Design. Tessa Nizmer on Research.
1:03:18 Madison Nizmer, Producer and Co-Author.
1:03:23 And Louise McGanna, Alexis Nishimura and Fallon Yates.
1:03:26 We are the Remarkable People team.
1:03:29 We’re in a mission to make you Remarkable.
1:03:32 Mahalo and Aloha.
1:03:41 This is Remarkable People.

0:00:13 I’m Guy Kawasaki and this is Remarkable People.
0:00:19 Welcome to another episode of the podcast that’s designed to help you make a difference
0:00:21 and be remarkable.
0:00:25 Today’s guest is Mary Murphy.
0:00:28 Great story how I came across Mary Murphy.
0:00:33 When I was interviewing Carol Dweck, the mother of the growth mindset, she told me
0:00:40 you have got to include Mary Murphy and I don’t know, I forgot or I just let it drop.
0:00:46 And then a few months went by and I started getting hammered with email from Angela Duckworth
0:00:53 and Katie Melkman, two previous guests on this podcast and two of my favorite people
0:00:55 in the world.
0:01:00 They are the future of behavioral economics and social psychology.
0:01:04 And they started telling me you have got to get Mary Murphy.
0:01:11 So let me just say that if Carol Dweck and Angela Duckworth and Katie Melkman tell you
0:01:16 to put somebody on your show, you should just put that person on your show.
0:01:18 And so here she is, Mary Murphy.
0:01:22 She is a professor at Indiana University.
0:01:29 She specializes in equity, diversity and inclusion in education and in organizations.
0:01:35 She founded the Institute on Diversity at Stanford University Center for Advanced Study
0:01:37 in the Behavioral Sciences.
0:01:41 Oh my God, you had to take a deep breath to say that sentence.
0:01:48 She was raised in San Antonio, Texas and earned a BA from UT Austin and a PhD from Stanford.
0:01:50 She has an upcoming book.
0:01:57 It’s called Cultures of Growth and I’m telling you that this book is eye-opening.
0:02:02 So Carol Dweck had this concept that the growth mindset is something in your head.
0:02:05 It’s your approach to life.
0:02:10 Mary Murphy supplemented this theory that it’s not just what’s in your head, but it’s
0:02:13 the environment that you’re in.
0:02:20 So I guess you could kind of say that Carol Dweck is the mother of the growth mindset
0:02:24 and Mary Murphy is the daughter of the growth mindset.
0:02:33 So with that perspective, I thought why don’t I go back to Carol Dweck and ask her about
0:02:35 Mary Murphy.
0:02:42 So the first part of this podcast is Carol Dweck talking about Mary Murphy.
0:02:44 I’m Guy Kawasaki.
0:02:50 This is the Remarkable People Podcast and this podcast is about Mary Murphy with an
0:02:55 introduction by Carol Dweck.
0:03:00 Mary Murphy was a graduate student at Stanford at the time.
0:03:02 She made an appointment to talk with me.
0:03:04 I was really excited.
0:03:06 What was she going to say?
0:03:13 She came in and she was very respectful but also I could tell she had kind of a renegade
0:03:15 idea.
0:03:18 So she said to me, “I like your work.
0:03:19 It’s important.
0:03:21 I respect your work.”
0:03:29 But you have treated mindset just as something that’s in the mind of the individual.
0:03:38 Isn’t a whole culture or context or classroom or organization have a mindset, too?
0:03:46 A mindset that is embedded in the beliefs and practices and policies of the organization.
0:03:50 And can’t that be really, really powerful?
0:03:58 And boy, have her words come true as she has studied and we’ve followed in her footsteps
0:04:04 studying the cultures, the context, the setting.
0:04:11 I do this little dance when I’m excited and I said to her, “Let’s do it.
0:04:16 Let’s do that initial research and see where it goes.”
0:04:30 And she has taken it to amazing places.
0:04:34 What is a growth culture and what is a genius culture?
0:04:37 Explain those two concepts.
0:04:38 Absolutely.
0:04:44 So a fixed mindset culture, what I have been calling in my work, a culture of genius, is
0:04:47 really going to be focused on star performers.
0:04:51 It has this belief at the core of it that there are some people who have it and some
0:04:52 people who don’t.
0:04:55 There are some people who are inherently more capable.
0:04:59 They have superior intelligence, superior talent, superior ability.
0:05:05 And the culture of genius looks for those people, gives them power, and then they create
0:05:06 the environment.
0:05:10 And everything kind of revolves around those genius individuals.
0:05:14 So it has this fixed mindset idea, you either have it or you don’t.
0:05:18 I’m a math person or I’m not, I’m a creative person or I’m not.
0:05:23 And that’s the belief at the core of the team or the organization or the family that has
0:05:26 one of these cultures of genius embedded in it.
0:05:31 And then the growth mindset culture, what I call a culture of growth, has as its core
0:05:36 belief the growth mindset belief, which is that given the right support, everyone can
0:05:41 develop and contribute, that our intelligence, talent, and ability is a potential and that
0:05:44 we can grow that over time.
0:05:49 And in these cultures of growth, supports are given to people in order to be able to
0:05:51 grow and achieve their potential.
0:05:56 And the reality is that most contexts, most cultures aren’t going to be just one or the
0:05:57 other.
0:06:02 Mindset culture exists on a continuum and most mindset cultures are a mixture of the
0:06:03 two.
0:06:10 And this is a very subtle but important point because prior to your work, I think most people
0:06:15 who understood the growth mindset thought that it’s all in the person’s head.
0:06:19 It’s guy believes he’s a growth kind of person or guy believes he’s fixed mindset kind of
0:06:21 person.
0:06:26 And now if I interpret you right, you are introducing another variable.
0:06:32 That is that it’s not just what’s in your head, it’s what environment you exist in.
0:06:33 Did I get that right?
0:06:35 100% you got that right.
0:06:41 I think that there are several mindset misconceptions that we’ve had as mindset Carol’s ideas have
0:06:48 been transformative and how they have changed education, they’ve changed workplace environments.
0:06:53 And as they have been interpreted and applied in these contexts, I think they’ve been largely
0:06:54 misunderstood.
0:06:56 And so we start with this mindset reset.
0:07:02 And just to your point, exactly what you said, there are three major mindset misconceptions.
0:07:07 And you’re going to see the irony of this in a minute, is that there are just two mindsets,
0:07:10 the fixed and the growth mindset, and you have one or the other.
0:07:13 And there’s not much, you know, there are some things you can do to move yourself towards
0:07:16 your growth mindset, but it’s this false dichotomy idea.
0:07:17 It’s either one or the other.
0:07:23 It’s a very fixed way, ironically, to think about the fixed and the growth mindset.
0:07:27 And so to correct that, we go back to the very beginning of the way mindset was even
0:07:32 measured and used in the literature years and years and years ago, 40 years ago.
0:07:34 And that’s that mindset is on a continuum.
0:07:37 We all have both the fixed and the growth mindset in us.
0:07:44 And we’re going to move between our fixed and growth mindset based on what context, the situations
0:07:47 that we encounter on a day to day basis.
0:07:51 Sometimes I’m going to be inhabiting my fixed mindset, sometimes I’m inhabiting my growth,
0:07:53 and we can know what those mindset triggers are.
0:07:56 What are those common predictable situations?
0:08:00 And that’s where the book really focuses in the last part of the book is really on those
0:08:06 mindset triggers for individuals, but even beyond that, those situations are located
0:08:12 in a larger culture, the teams, the divisions, our organizations, our schools all have a
0:08:14 mindset culture that is impacting the people in them.
0:08:17 The question is, do we know what those cultures are?
0:08:21 And do we know how to move ourselves towards growth at the cultural level, not just at
0:08:22 the individual level?
0:08:24 So dumb question.
0:08:29 You were a doctoral student under Carol Dweck, right?
0:08:30 That’s right.
0:08:37 So one day, did you go and say, Sensei, you are wrong, or you are at least incomplete Sensei
0:08:38 Dweck.
0:08:39 You’re thinking all in a person’s head.
0:08:42 I’m telling you, it’s also in the environment.
0:08:43 What was that moment?
0:08:48 Did she slap you on the side of the head and say, speak when spoken to, or did she said,
0:08:51 oh my God, the scales are removed from my eyes?
0:08:52 Yeah.
0:08:56 So you’re going to have to ask her, but I will tell you from my perspective, the mindset
0:08:58 culture origin story.
0:09:05 I would just like to point out that I did, in fact, ask Carol, and you heard it in the
0:09:06 introduction.
0:09:12 So I was, in my last year of the PhD program, Carol had moved from Columbia to Stanford,
0:09:15 so she was relatively new to the faculty.
0:09:20 And I am sitting there in a seminar supporting a friend of mine, because the tradition at
0:09:25 Stanford is that every PhD student presents in front of their faculty the research that
0:09:27 they’ve been conducting for the year and what’s going on.
0:09:31 So I’m sitting there in this seminar, and I’m watching my friend present his life’s
0:09:35 work, what he’s been working on for the last four years of the PhD.
0:09:39 And all of a sudden, this faculty member sitting in the audience raises his hand.
0:09:42 I don’t even know that he raised his hand, actually, he just blurted out, well, it’s
0:09:45 clear the fatal flaw is XYZ.
0:09:49 And then over to my left, another faculty member shouts out, no, the problem is in
0:09:51 XYZ, it’s ABC.
0:09:52 It’s very simple.
0:09:55 This is a fatal flaw and this work has no merit.
0:10:00 And then I watched my friend, and I saw what this, they started fighting amongst each other,
0:10:03 these faculty members, to show who was the smartest in the room.
0:10:08 And I saw what it was doing to my friend, and he was basically falling apart.
0:10:10 He couldn’t engage in the answering the questions.
0:10:17 He had a lot of disfluencies, trying to remember everything about his own work.
0:10:21 He’s the expert on his own work, but yet he can’t engage in this.
0:10:25 And more importantly, I noticed what it did to him over time.
0:10:28 After that seminar, it really took him out.
0:10:33 He didn’t want to touch his work for weeks because he was so taken down and didn’t believe
0:10:38 in his ability to actually be able to be successful and finish the PhD.
0:10:44 And then two weeks later, I’m in a different seminar, and it’s equally eminent faculty members,
0:10:48 but they’re taking a totally different approach to the PhD students’ talks.
0:10:52 They’re still finding the fatal flaws and the mistakes, but they’re not fatal in this
0:10:53 context.
0:10:58 They’re really competing with each other to see who could build up the experiment and
0:10:59 the studies the most.
0:11:02 “Oh, well, what she needs to do is include this new measure.
0:11:04 Oh, this manipulation should be in a different way.”
0:11:08 And they’re brainstorming, and I saw the way that it affected students.
0:11:12 Students were able to answer questions, participate in the brainstorming themselves.
0:11:17 And when they left the seminar, they were motivated to get going right away, and they
0:11:20 had strategies to be able to apply to do that.
0:11:24 And so as I was sitting here, thinking about these two different environments I’d just
0:11:28 been in, I thought, “What is different about these two environments?”
0:11:33 And it occurred to me, there are two different ways that people set up environments that
0:11:36 they think are motivating.
0:11:38 One is this harsh, proven performance environment.
0:11:39 You’re only as good as your last performance.
0:11:41 Show yourself to be a star.
0:11:45 And the other one is about learning and development and growth together, and where experts are
0:11:51 really helping novices get better with their ideas and to improve over time.
0:11:55 And so I thought, “I think mindset is at the core of both of these.”
0:12:02 And so I go down the hallway, I knock on Carol’s door, and I say, “Carol, I have an insight,
0:12:07 and I’m not sure it’s correct, but I don’t think mindset just exists in the mind.
0:12:14 I think mindset can exist as a group phenomenon in teams, in organizations, in school settings,
0:12:15 in companies.
0:12:21 And mindset culture could be the thing that actually impacts whether or not people are
0:12:25 able to be in their fixed or their growth mindset at any given point.”
0:12:27 I said, “Carol, has anyone looked at this?
0:12:30 I know most people think of mindset as a quality of the mind.
0:12:34 Has anyone looked at it as a quality of the context?”
0:12:35 She said, “No, ma’er.
0:12:37 No one’s ever done that before, but we should do it together.
0:12:39 Let’s go.”
0:12:44 And within six months, we had done the initial five studies that we published in 2010 that
0:12:46 really talked about a culture of genius and a culture of growth.
0:12:52 And since then, the work has exploded in organizations and schools around the world.
0:12:54 That is a great story.
0:13:01 So as I’m reading your book, and I’m digesting this, and I’m obviously a fan of both of you
0:13:10 and in agreement, I have to say that I went back to my Macintosh division experience.
0:13:13 And Mary, let’s just cut to the chase.
0:13:20 The Macintosh division was a culture of genius on steroids.
0:13:24 Now, if they just heard that, they might be thinking, “Culture of genius, that’s a great
0:13:25 thing.
0:13:26 Everybody wants to be a genius.”
0:13:33 The way you use it, it’s a culture that only geniuses survive, and they’re born like that,
0:13:34 et cetera, et cetera.
0:13:36 So it’s a negative, the way you’re using it.
0:13:41 And I’m telling you, the Macintosh division was a culture of genius led by a genius, Steve
0:13:42 Jobs.
0:13:47 And so my head was exploding when I’m like, “How the hell did we pull anything off like
0:13:48 this?
0:13:49 Was that a mere aberration?”
0:13:54 Or, “I don’t think if you asked anybody in the Macintosh division, did Steve Jobs foster
0:13:56 your growth?”
0:14:01 He fostered our growth by intimidation.
0:14:03 Help me put my head back together again.
0:14:04 What happened there?
0:14:05 Yes.
0:14:09 Well, I want to hear more about that experience because you were there on the ground.
0:14:14 One of the things is that a lot of times these cultures of genius, by the way, they’re not
0:14:18 great for the geniuses themselves either.
0:14:23 A culture of genius actually puts straight jackets on those deemed to be the genius.
0:14:28 There’s very little room for mistakes, very little room for learning and growth.
0:14:32 And if you are dethroned in a culture of genius, you’re nobody, right?
0:14:34 So you’re always watching your back.
0:14:37 It’s always about, “Am I the smartest in the room?
0:14:39 How can I show it?”
0:14:44 Proving and performing, looking at this competitive, there’s a lot of information hoarding oftentimes
0:14:49 because information is power and a lot of focus on the status quo, trying to maintain
0:14:53 my status in a particular organization and setting.
0:14:57 But how I understand Apple is that there’s probably many different microcultures within
0:14:58 Apple.
0:15:03 My understanding of the R&D division, for example, is that they really embody this culture
0:15:04 of growth.
0:15:06 It’s all about prototyping, fast failure.
0:15:07 It’s about learning from their mistakes.
0:15:09 It’s about trying a new way.
0:15:12 And that really embodies the culture of growth.
0:15:21 But when it came to this almost messianic view of this leader that embodied everything
0:15:25 about genius, and when you look at genius and you look at the Google images, you’re going
0:15:31 to see pictures of Steve Jobs among Albert Einstein and many others, including sometimes
0:15:32 Elon Musk even.
0:15:35 But what was it like while you were at Apple?
0:15:41 How did you experience growth in any way, the growth mindset, or was it really just
0:15:42 proven perform?
0:15:44 No failure is acceptable.
0:15:51 Well, on that continuum, the way I remember it anyway is that the concept was we only
0:15:54 hire A players or A plus players.
0:15:56 We never hire B players.
0:15:59 And right there kind of summarizes the whole attitude.
0:16:04 It would be different if we hire B players, we can help them grow and become A players.
0:16:07 I never heard that uttered at all, right?
0:16:13 It was like you took a urine test and you tested positive or negative and that was it.
0:16:20 So within your framework, it’s hard to explain the success of Macintosh.
0:16:25 Yeah, I think that some cultures of genius can be successful.
0:16:29 But what we find in our research is that there’s a cost to that.
0:16:31 There’s a people cost.
0:16:36 And then there’s also often times the work is not optimized in the way that it could
0:16:37 possibly be.
0:16:42 And so it might take longer or it might burn people out along the way, or it might cause
0:16:48 like terrible rifts and relationships where people are jockeying to be seen as the genius
0:16:50 when they should become cooperating, right?
0:16:53 They start to compete against each other and this can take down friendships.
0:16:57 It can take down relationships between divisions of an organization that should be working
0:17:01 together rather than competing against each other.
0:17:03 And it doesn’t mean that success is foreclosed.
0:17:06 It just means that it’s going to be much less effective.
0:17:10 It’s going to be much less efficient and it’s probably going to burn people out along the
0:17:11 way.
0:17:18 In that sense, maybe Tim Cook saved Apple, not Steve Jobs.
0:17:21 Certainly changed the culture, right, around some of these ideas.
0:17:26 And really, I think for what I understand about Apple today is that it really is trying
0:17:31 to focus on this growth idea at the center of really trying to understand mistakes, trying
0:17:36 to understand grow people from within, take people in and build them up throughout the
0:17:40 organization, give them opportunities to learn, grow and develop so that they can actually
0:17:43 rise within the organization and make change within it.
0:17:48 It’s been several decades since I worked for Apple, so I cannot tell you, I have insights
0:17:50 into the current Apple.
0:17:57 Oh, my God, I used to tell people that Apple’s continued survival and success is proof there
0:18:00 is a God because there is no other explanation.
0:18:05 So this kind of fits into what you’ve just said.
0:18:06 That’s right.
0:18:07 That’s right.
0:18:10 That proves the point is what you’re saying.
0:18:19 Let’s get beyond my PTSD and from the outside looking in, people listening to this are probably
0:18:26 asking from the outside looking in, what are the cues and tells that this is a culture
0:18:29 of genius as opposed to a culture of growth?
0:18:32 So how do I tell what I’m getting into?
0:18:34 Yeah, absolutely.
0:18:41 This goes back to very early researchers and the Godfather of organizational culture.
0:18:46 His name was Edgar Shine and he developed this idea of this organizational culture triangle
0:18:51 at the bottom or what’s called the base is called core beliefs or assumptions.
0:18:55 And there have been very few of those core beliefs or assumptions that have really been
0:19:00 identified in the research literature, but we have shown that mindset or beliefs about
0:19:02 intelligence and ability are those core beliefs.
0:19:07 And then the next middle part of the triangle are these values espoused values.
0:19:09 And you can look at those on mission statements.
0:19:11 You can look at those on websites.
0:19:14 You can look at those in CEO speeches.
0:19:17 You can look at that in leaders, directives.
0:19:21 And then at the very top of the triangle are called cultural artifacts.
0:19:25 And these are the things that we can look at it’s the very tip of the triangle, right?
0:19:29 But if you drill down into those artifacts, you can see how it aligns with the values of
0:19:32 the organization and then these core beliefs.
0:19:36 And so we look at some of those espoused values and then we look at some of those artifacts
0:19:40 to understand if right now we are in more of a culture of genius or more of a culture
0:19:41 of growth, right?
0:19:44 We’re not going back to that false dichotomy of individual mindset.
0:19:46 It’s on a mindset culture continuum.
0:19:53 And so to identify where a team or a division or an organization is along that continuum,
0:19:57 we look and see the extent to which all of the interactions and all of the tasks that
0:20:02 are being assigned, how much of it is aligned to learning and development.
0:20:07 And so you can think about this in terms of the way tasks are assigned in an organization,
0:20:09 the way that evaluation and promotion is set up.
0:20:12 What actually counts when it comes down to it on the ground?
0:20:16 Is it about someone’s learning and development, their contribution, the way that they build
0:20:20 up themselves and others over time, their willingness to develop?
0:20:22 Or is it about just the outcome?
0:20:25 Is it about the process or is it just about the outcome, right?
0:20:27 Did you check the box and that’s it?
0:20:30 Well, then we know we’re in more of a culture of genius.
0:20:35 We also look at the way that people recruit team members to your point around looking
0:20:39 at stars or looking at people who have a proven track record.
0:20:40 What is the journey people have taken?
0:20:42 What’s the distance people have traveled?
0:20:46 Knowing that distance traveled is going to be a good predictor of distance going forward.
0:20:49 And so you’re still looking for people.
0:20:53 One of the things that I think many organizations misunderstand about this is that they think
0:20:58 that cultures of growth are just soft, easy going places, right?
0:21:03 All about rainbows and sunshine and growth and development, they’re actually much more
0:21:09 rigorous and oftentimes annoying than some of these cultures of genius.
0:21:10 Why?
0:21:14 Because they’re always expecting people to be taking that next step towards growth and
0:21:15 development.
0:21:17 Sometimes that’s kind of annoying.
0:21:18 Sometimes it’s exhausting.
0:21:22 We’ve looked at this in college classrooms when faculty have more growth mindset and
0:21:27 have more growth mindset practices built in to their course.
0:21:31 Students learn more, they do better, but they kind of get annoyed.
0:21:35 It’s like, “All right, I’m done with my learning and growth and development.”
0:21:40 They’re more rigorous too because they’re actually going to use data to figure out whether or
0:21:45 not they’re on track rather than in a culture of genius, they’re going to rely on gut instinct
0:21:47 of those geniuses.
0:21:49 What does the genius say we should do?
0:21:53 And what does the genius’s gut say we do versus looking at the data and actually having an
0:21:59 eyes wide open approach to the decisions we’re going to make strategically in an organization?
0:22:03 That’s another big tell, is the extent to which we rely on these beliefs, gut attitudes
0:22:09 of the leaders, the geniuses in the context versus whether we look at this data, make
0:22:10 it available to everyone.
0:22:15 Everyone makes decisions in a data informed way and are willing to take small experiments
0:22:20 setting up these risks that they’re going to take in the organization so that we can
0:22:26 get a sense of the extent to which those experiments over time are actually moving us to our goal
0:22:28 that we have for the organization or the team.
0:22:37 So maybe you have solved my Macintosh division problem for me because high growth, high achievers,
0:22:39 people constantly improving and all that.
0:22:45 And you know, as you say, a culture of growth can be more rigorous than a culture of genius
0:22:49 because if you’re declared a genius, you can rest on your laurels, right?
0:22:55 So maybe in the culture of growth, it’s just that Steve Jobs had such a manner of him that
0:23:00 the culture of growth wasn’t this kumbaya sitting around in Birkenstock sipping white
0:23:07 wine, completing each other’s sentences and watching the Coca-Cola ad of We Are One.
0:23:14 So maybe his culture of growth was just a harsh culture of growth and those who survived
0:23:15 grew.
0:23:16 I could see that.
0:23:18 I could see that for sure.
0:23:20 And then we have these different levels of culture, right?
0:23:24 It’s why on my book, I have these circles that kind of go out over and over because
0:23:27 we’re embedded in so many different kinds of cultures.
0:23:31 We have the culture that we have between our partner and our family.
0:23:36 We have the culture that we have in our workplace teams, then in divisions of the organization,
0:23:39 then the whole organization, then our societal cultures.
0:23:44 And it’s not surprising to me that very well we could be holding on to this genius mythology
0:23:48 because there’s so much power in that genius mythology, right?
0:23:50 It covers all manner of sins, right?
0:23:55 It allows me to make all kinds of decisions and a lot of power and leeway in that.
0:24:00 It’s why I think it’s persisted over time, this mythology of the genius.
0:24:05 But then when it actually comes to doing the work, if you’re not embodying that growth
0:24:11 mindset, you’re not collaborating, innovating, taking risks, making mistakes, learning from
0:24:16 those mistakes, sharing that learning throughout the organization, you’re just not going to
0:24:17 be competitive, right?
0:24:23 We did this great study with over 200 early stage entrepreneurs and startup companies
0:24:31 and we looked at how these founders and their mindset actually influenced how they hired
0:24:35 and how they grew their organization from the very beginning.
0:24:40 And we started to understand that those who embodied more of a growth mindset and built
0:24:48 those into their founding principles and practices, they were more likely to reach their fundraising
0:24:50 goals and exceed their fundraising goals.
0:24:56 They were more likely to actually scale and have successful exits than other entrepreneurs
0:25:01 who embodied more of the traditional Silicon Valley fixed mindset culture of genius kind
0:25:02 of culture.
0:25:20 I started this with cues and the tales, right?
0:25:21 Yes.
0:25:25 And one of the things you mentioned was mission statements.
0:25:30 So give me some examples of mission statements that you would read and you say, that’s a
0:25:31 culture of genius.
0:25:35 And then some mission statements, oh, hallelujah, that’s a culture of growth.
0:25:39 What is it in the mission statement that makes you come to those conclusions?
0:25:46 Yeah, well, we did a study where we actually used technology to scrape the mission statements
0:25:49 of the entire Fortune 1000.
0:25:55 And then we used an algorithm that was the smart algorithm that was able to actually identify
0:25:59 more fixed and more growth mindset language within these mission statements.
0:26:04 So we actually know quite well which mindsets are really embedded in some of these mission
0:26:05 statements.
0:26:10 So the fixed mindset mission statement is we’re an atmosphere of bests, the best people,
0:26:13 the best leaders, the best work, the best strategies, right?
0:26:16 We’re a proven perform organization, right?
0:26:19 We’re going to make sure that we meet the mark every single time.
0:26:23 We’re an environment where we allow geniuses to come in and be the geniuses that they were
0:26:24 meant to be.
0:26:28 Literally, this comes from a Fortune 1000 company mission statement.
0:26:31 We see this, a culture of growth talks about developing people.
0:26:36 It sometimes will tell stories about people who rose throughout the organization, really
0:26:40 got to know the organization from within and then was able to rise to the leadership.
0:26:41 It talks about passion.
0:26:42 It talks about purpose.
0:26:48 It talks about learning, how it invests in its people, how it invests in its clients to
0:26:52 get to know what the clients actually need and then learn everything that they need to
0:26:57 do to be able to provide the services at the highest level of competence that they possibly
0:26:58 can.
0:27:03 Okay, so let me suggest a possible improvement to that.
0:27:04 Yes, please.
0:27:05 Okay.
0:27:12 Having been inside many organizations, the assumption that the mission statement accurately
0:27:17 reflects the sentiment of the company is dubious at best.
0:27:18 100%.
0:27:19 Right?
0:27:25 So it may reflect what McKinsey was paid to say or it might reflect taking your…
0:27:28 What a company paid McKinsey to say.
0:27:29 Exactly.
0:27:35 Or we took our 50 top people and over two days, they crafted a mission statement and
0:27:38 everybody got to put one word into it.
0:27:43 And so finally, we came out with this mission statement, none of which we believe, but it
0:27:45 just sounds good on an annual report.
0:27:52 So I think another variable you could look at is not only to analyze the mission statement,
0:27:57 but to determine from, I don’t know, polls of employees, does this mission statement
0:28:01 actually reflect the reality of this company?
0:28:02 Because that’s…
0:28:03 Yes, yes.
0:28:04 It absolutely is.
0:28:09 And you know, there is this debate among organizational culture people.
0:28:10 Is culture what we will say?
0:28:16 Mission statements, websites, CEO messages, annual speeches that are being made, or is
0:28:17 it what we do?
0:28:22 And I come down on the side that’s about culture is really what’s going on on the ground.
0:28:28 And you have to really ask people on the ground to know the extent to which these organizational
0:28:33 values and beliefs are actually widespread and are being used in their day-to-day interactions
0:28:34 and their work.
0:28:39 So in that same study that we analyzed these mission statements, we actually pulled other
0:28:46 data, Glassdoor data, which is organizational surveys of people within the organization.
0:28:52 And we looked to see which parts of those data was predicted by the mindset culture described
0:28:54 in the mission statements.
0:28:56 And what was predicted was not everything.
0:29:02 These companies are rated on benefits in HR, they’re rated on whether they got good feedback.
0:29:04 They were rated on culture.
0:29:10 And what these mission statements, mindset, predicted was really that culture variable.
0:29:14 And then when we dig in and we look at the extent to which the culture on the ground
0:29:17 matches what people are saying and doing, it’s mixed, right?
0:29:21 There’s going to be some places where the mission statement, and especially now people
0:29:24 are listening to this podcast, they’re going to know the right words to say in the mission
0:29:25 statement, right?
0:29:27 We’re going to have to be more dubious of that now.
0:29:29 And we have to get down on the ground.
0:29:30 How are people evaluated?
0:29:31 How are people brought in?
0:29:33 How are people promoted?
0:29:37 What are the ways in which people are actually investing in individuals?
0:29:44 Patagonia, Dean Carter at Patagonia talks a lot about using this idea of regenerative
0:29:47 agriculture practices within the organization.
0:29:52 So many companies think of their people in this extractive way.
0:29:54 What can I do to get the most out of people?
0:29:58 The nice way to say it is we’re an environment where you can be your best as if you’re just
0:30:03 going to magically just be your best yourself by yourself.
0:30:08 And they really had this idea that they have to actually think about the soil and they have
0:30:13 to be putting things back into their people, putting things back into the development and
0:30:14 the potential of people.
0:30:19 And so if you look at their practices and you look at how they actually implement that,
0:30:25 that’s where you see real culture of growth, policies and practices, norms and interactions.
0:30:29 That’s where I think the power of culture really is, not just in the mission statements.
0:30:30 Okay.
0:30:35 So now give us examples of some mission statements that whether they actually proved to be true
0:30:40 or not, but from the outside looking in, you’d say, “Ah, that company gets it.”
0:30:47 They paid McKinsey extra to get a growth culture mission statement.
0:30:48 Yeah.
0:30:52 So, you know, the mission statements that we see talks about offering the highest growth
0:30:57 potentials, emphasizing employees’ motivation and their hard work.
0:31:01 That we focus on results and we also focus on the process, right?
0:31:04 You’re going to be as happy with the process as you are with the results because we’re
0:31:08 really going to be paying attention to that process along the way and we’re going to make
0:31:11 sure we hit those targets for you.
0:31:16 It’s an atmosphere that fosters a love for learning, passion, creativity, resourcefulness,
0:31:22 and we’re going to make sure you have everything you need to become the best version of you.
0:31:27 So it talks about becoming rather than just an atmosphere of best instincts, best people,
0:31:28 best ideas, right?
0:31:32 That you have to be fully formed before you sort of arrive.
0:31:38 And the truth is that we’re all in a state of becoming, in a process of becoming.
0:31:42 And the question is, is this going to be something that’s supported by the environments we spend
0:31:47 50% or more of our time and life in, or are we going to have to do that on the side for
0:31:48 ourselves?
0:31:54 I just, I want you to know that every day I think about how I can help Madison become
0:31:57 the best person she can be.
0:32:01 I love that.
0:32:05 That was a paid political announcement and I approve of that advertisement.
0:32:09 That message.
0:32:14 So let’s say that you’re a job hunter and you have found this mission statement and
0:32:16 it ties in with Glassdoor.
0:32:23 There’s no sort of warning signs and now you’re talking to the company, you’re interviewing.
0:32:28 What are the key messages that you pass along to prove to them, I’m a person you want to
0:32:32 hire, I have the growth mindset and I’m looking for a growth culture.
0:32:38 I think at that stage, a lot of people get this idea, this misconception that you have
0:32:42 to trade off this idea of rigor and high performance.
0:32:47 If you think about ability and performance and then you think about mindset and you think
0:32:52 about them as this grid, this cross section, every company is going to want people who
0:32:55 are high performers above the line.
0:33:02 The question is, as an organization that’s hiring, do you want someone who has a fixed
0:33:06 mindset belief about their high level of skills and abilities?
0:33:09 Someone who’s really thinks, “Listen, this is just what I’m good at.
0:33:10 I’m the star at this.
0:33:11 I’ve always been good at it.
0:33:12 I’m a natural.
0:33:13 It just comes easy.”
0:33:18 What happens when that person comes up against challenges or gets assigned to a new division
0:33:24 and now has to master an entirely new product line, services, resources, right?
0:33:27 What if now they get promoted and they have to manage people instead of being the best
0:33:31 coder, now they’re managing a team of 15 coders, right?
0:33:37 Do you want your person who’s the top person who has the most ability and the most intelligence
0:33:38 and talent?
0:33:41 Do you want them to have a fixed mindset of their ability or do you want them to have
0:33:42 a growth mindset?
0:33:48 Now, as a person who’s sitting there interviewing for a job, a growth mindset individual is
0:33:52 going to talk about their successes, but they’re also going to talk about the ways and the
0:33:58 challenges that they came across and what they did to overcome those challenges, showing
0:34:03 that I’m resourceful, I’m creative, I’m innovative, I’m motivated by those challenges.
0:34:04 They don’t stop me.
0:34:08 In fact, here are the six different ways I got around the most challenging thing I ever
0:34:10 encountered in my previous job.
0:34:14 I’m going to put that resourcefulness, that creativity, and that growth mindset to work
0:34:16 in your company.
0:34:21 They talk about the distance traveled, the journey taken in their own career, and you’ll
0:34:27 see that, recruiters will see that, that people are not afraid of talking about mistakes that
0:34:31 have been made in their previous organization because they’re also talking about how they
0:34:36 were able to overcome those mistakes, learn and grow from them, and actually make an even
0:34:40 better product, service, or outcome for the organization than existed before.
0:34:47 I would say that anybody’s listening to this who’s a former Terranos or Twitter employee
0:34:52 should start off their interviews with, “I worked at Terranos, I worked at Twitter.
0:35:00 I understand culture of genius and how destructive that is, and I’ve seen the light and I want
0:35:05 to work for a company with a culture of growth that will help me be the best person I can
0:35:11 be as opposed to Twitter or Terranos where I’m supposed to be a bona fide genius forever.”
0:35:12 That’s right.
0:35:13 That’s right.
0:35:16 And when you’re in a culture of growth, you’re not learning alone.
0:35:20 The entire organization is tuned to learning and development.
0:35:24 And from a leader perspective, it makes it less lonely.
0:35:25 Not everything rests on my shoulders.
0:35:30 I can actually have faith in my team that they’re going to be proactively looking for
0:35:37 ways to innovate, ways to try new things, ways to grow and develop our organization.
0:35:41 And they’re going to bring good ideas in a culture of growth come from everywhere.
0:35:43 And that’s just a place that people thrive in.
0:35:51 Okay, so now let’s suppose that I am a director or a CEO of a company and I’m listening to
0:35:55 this podcast and I’m having this religious experience about, “Holy shit.
0:35:57 We got to stop this culture of genius.
0:36:00 We got to get to this culture of growth.”
0:36:04 And they contact Mary or they contact Carol and they say, “We need help.
0:36:05 What do we do?”
0:36:07 So, what do you do?
0:36:08 What do you do?
0:36:14 Ironically, the first place to start is to get to know and normalize and get to working
0:36:18 with your fixed mindset because we all have it within us.
0:36:23 And the truth is that as growth mindset has permeated organizations and cultures, there’s
0:36:29 been this sort of idea that fixed mindset is not to be spoken of, not to be acknowledged,
0:36:30 something to ignore.
0:36:35 And actually there’s power in understanding what are our fixed mindset triggers?
0:36:42 What are the places, the situations, the context that I know on a regular basis move me towards
0:36:47 my fixed mindset and which ones are the context and situations that move me to my growth mindset?
0:36:52 So the first place to start as a leader is to understand your own mindset triggers.
0:36:57 We have in the book these four mindset triggers, evaluative situations, high effort situations,
0:36:59 critical feedback and the success of others.
0:37:04 And which of these really move me more to my fixed mindset or my growth mindset?
0:37:08 And then it’s important as a leader to know the mindset triggers of those you lead.
0:37:13 Those people that are direct reports, those people who are team leaders under you, which
0:37:16 one are their mindset triggers?
0:37:19 Because then you can, the next time you’re giving an assignment, that’s going to be an
0:37:20 evaluative situation.
0:37:23 You’ve asked someone to write a report, you’ve asked someone to do a deck, you’ve asked someone
0:37:28 to make a speech, you’ve asked someone to engage in a new client development process.
0:37:30 They know they’re going to be evaluated on that.
0:37:35 If that’s someone’s fixed mindset trigger, how do you do that in a way that actually
0:37:36 moves them towards growth?
0:37:42 Now in that relationship, you’ve created a mini, a micro culture of growth in that relationship.
0:37:48 If the success of others is someone’s fixed mindset trigger, that every time you praise
0:37:51 so and so on the team, you can see so and so cringe.
0:37:52 They feel left out.
0:37:53 They feel passed it over.
0:37:57 They wonder whether or not they’re going to be as good as this other person who’s being
0:38:02 praised on the team or gets an award or a promotion or a bonus.
0:38:08 How do you as a leader create that success of others in that praise practice in a way
0:38:13 that actually moves everyone towards growth is inspirational rather than competitive?
0:38:18 How do you actually help people understand the strategies and the approach that made that
0:38:20 person successful that got the award?
0:38:26 How is that unearthed and spread across the team so that now everyone can understand what
0:38:31 are the right strategies and they can take them up in an authentic way that works for
0:38:32 them?
0:38:37 That’s the power of these culture creators, leaders, individuals who really exist and
0:38:42 in an organization and work with many other people across the context.
0:38:46 How do we know when we’re moving towards our fixed and growth mindset?
0:38:50 What are these mindset triggers and how do we shape them to shift everyone towards growth?
0:38:52 That’s the first place.
0:38:58 What if you’re working for an organization, you’re not the CEO, and clearly it is a culture
0:39:08 of genius organization, so can a microculture of growth survive inside the macro culture
0:39:11 of a culture of genius?
0:39:12 Yes it can.
0:39:15 There are many examples of this.
0:39:19 One example that I like to talk about is Melinda Gates at Microsoft, right?
0:39:26 So Melinda became a leader within Microsoft and she was struggling against the dominant
0:39:30 culture of genius that existed at Microsoft at the time.
0:39:31 And she was fed up.
0:39:36 She tells the story that she thought about leaving multiple times and she got this promotion
0:39:39 and she had the power to create a team around her.
0:39:41 And she said, “I’m going to do this the way I want to do it.
0:39:45 And if I get fired, okay, I’m ready to go anyway.”
0:39:53 So she took a risk and she created this microculture of growth on her team and suddenly they were
0:39:55 working together to solve problems.
0:39:59 They were unearthing mistakes and figuring out how to work around those mistakes, how
0:40:00 to learn from them.
0:40:05 They were able to be more creative and innovative than any other team and she started to attract
0:40:09 the most talented engineers at Microsoft that there were.
0:40:12 And suddenly her team was growing and growing because people were just asking and begging
0:40:14 to be part of her team.
0:40:19 And she became known as really an evangelist for this culture of growth approach within
0:40:22 this larger culture of genius.
0:40:23 And sometimes that’s what it takes.
0:40:28 Now, if you’re not a leader who gets the power to create your own team, you can always as
0:40:33 an individual contributor find other people who are really motivated to create this kind
0:40:36 of culture of growth for themselves, right?
0:40:40 Finding your culture of growth pod is a strategy that you can do.
0:40:42 You can do it within your organization.
0:40:44 You can do it outside of your organization.
0:40:47 People who are in similar roles but aren’t in your organization.
0:40:51 That can be a place where you can practice moving towards your growth mindset more of
0:40:52 the time.
0:40:56 Talking about when you got that critical feedback, you got that negative performance evaluation.
0:40:58 How do you respond from your growth mindset?
0:41:02 How do you actually talk to your manager or supervisor in a way that’s going to move them
0:41:06 towards their growth mindset when they’re interacting with you?
0:41:08 Practice some of those skills and strategies together.
0:41:14 So there’s a lot of power in these microcultures of growth to be able to shape people’s experience
0:41:18 responses and their motivation and their performance on a day to day basis.
0:41:20 Up next on Remarkable People.
0:41:25 And so I think there’s a lot of power that companies and organizations have to put pressure
0:41:32 on schools and universities and legislatures and others to really say, we know the power
0:41:34 of having a diverse workforce.
0:41:35 The data are pretty clear.
0:41:38 It’s not always easy to work in a diverse context.
0:41:40 There’s going to be a lot of cultural differences.
0:41:44 It can be stressful, we can have misunderstandings.
0:41:51 But the ultimate outcomes of creativity, innovation, product design, when it comes to actual success
0:41:57 with fundraising and market share, we know that diversity of a workforce predicts those
0:41:59 things.
0:42:05 If you find our show valuable, please do us a favor and subscribe, rate and review it.
0:42:07 Even better, forward it to a friend.
0:42:11 A big mahalo to you for doing this.
0:42:16 Welcome back to Remarkable People with Guy Kawasaki.
0:42:18 Can I give you a thought that–
0:42:19 Please.
0:42:26 And I give it to you only in the spirit of one author to another and one worshiper of
0:42:28 Carol Dweck to another.
0:42:34 Which is, when I read that example of Melinda Gates and Patty Stonefif– Stone– is it Stonefifer?
0:42:37 I knew her when she was at Microsoft.
0:42:44 I think that example would be more powerful if you anonymized her, right?
0:42:49 Because a skeptic would say, “Yeah, she could have a culture of growth inside Microsoft
0:42:51 because she was dating Bill Gates.
0:42:52 Nobody else could.”
0:42:53 Right?
0:42:54 Yeah.
0:42:55 Yeah.
0:42:57 I guess that’s one way you can view it.
0:43:03 I don’t remember when she was building her team, if she had yet started to date Bill.
0:43:07 I actually think it predated her relationship with Bill Gates, but we could look into it.
0:43:12 But I think you’re right that there’s power in anonymizing, particularly in that kind
0:43:13 of context.
0:43:18 I know there’s many other contexts and other places where people have really been able to
0:43:25 make change within very notorious, should we say, cultures of genius.
0:43:28 But you know that Silicon Valley– you know Silicon Valley best, I feel.
0:43:33 Where are the places in Silicon Valley that really embody the culture of growth and buck
0:43:34 the dominant culture of genius?
0:43:36 What would you say?
0:43:39 There are no cultures of growth in Silicon Valley.
0:43:41 Wow.
0:43:46 That is a powerful statement.
0:43:47 I’m scratching my head.
0:43:51 Listen, I am living in Silicon Valley.
0:43:54 That doesn’t mean I understand the culture of every company.
0:44:01 But the way you described it, most Silicon Valley tech companies are– you describe
0:44:07 Uber and all that, and it’s a bunch of white bros, frat and brothers.
0:44:13 And maybe they’re self-proclaimed, but they think their geniuses and then venture capitalists
0:44:15 are even more so like that.
0:44:16 Yeah.
0:44:17 In our study–
0:44:20 Maybe this is on the kettle black, but.
0:44:26 Well, in our study of entrepreneurs, we actually found that when entrepreneurs and founders
0:44:32 perceived VCs, venture capitalists and other investment groups, to endorse more of these
0:44:38 cultures of genius, they felt less confident that they’d be able to raise their funds,
0:44:43 and it had a bigger impact on women founders and entrepreneurs.
0:44:48 They felt that because they don’t fit this model, this cultural model that we have of
0:44:49 genius, right?
0:44:51 How do you know what a cultural model of genius is?
0:44:55 You go to Google Images, you put in Genius, and you look at Google Images, and you see
0:44:57 the faces that emerge, right?
0:45:03 You’re going to be hard-pressed to be able to find women, people of color, LGBTQIA, people
0:45:04 with disabilities, right?
0:45:07 You’re going to be hard-pressed to find anyone with any difference.
0:45:09 And people know this.
0:45:13 So when you have VCs, whether you have– when you have companies that really endorse these
0:45:19 strong cultures of genius, women and people of color know that they are unlikely to fit
0:45:20 that prototype.
0:45:23 They’re unlikely to fit that mold in other people’s eyes.
0:45:28 And so they anticipate that they’re going to do worse, fair worse, when it comes to investment,
0:45:31 when it comes to relationships and mentoring.
0:45:34 People are going to knock at– be their sponsors in the way that they’re going to sponsor the
0:45:38 white guy with the hoodie who matches our genius prototype.
0:45:43 And I think this can explain why we have so much inequality, right?
0:45:49 So much inequity in this world of entrepreneurship and one of the things we can do.
0:45:52 And yet, when we look at these companies, who’s actually successful?
0:45:53 It’s not the cultures of genius.
0:45:55 It’s the cultures of growth.
0:45:56 So we’ve got it wrong.
0:45:59 We’re actually not right in our predictions.
0:46:01 And I’m hoping that we can start some change here.
0:46:04 Together, guy.
0:46:05 You brought up gender.
0:46:09 So do you think there’s a fundamental difference between the kind of cultures that men and
0:46:11 women create?
0:46:12 No.
0:46:13 I don’t.
0:46:20 And I think the reason is because there’s a larger socialization in industries that really
0:46:25 impact the extent to which people embody a culture of genius or a culture of growth,
0:46:28 especially founders and entrepreneurs.
0:46:32 The dominant industry culture is really hard to buck.
0:46:36 And we see some women able to do it, some people of color able to do it, but also some
0:46:38 white guys that are able to do it, right?
0:46:44 And so I think that dominant mindset culture in an industry actually trumps the effects
0:46:47 of gender most of the time.
0:46:53 Now I will say that what we have seen is that many of the companies that are on the far
0:46:57 end of the mindset culture continuum, most closely to the culture of growth, like a
0:47:02 pure culture of growth, those do tend to be more women and people of color because they
0:47:09 acknowledge and see the extent to which collaboration, innovation, risk taking, making mistakes,
0:47:12 having to invest in people and develop them over time.
0:47:18 What that kind of investment actually affords in terms of people’s productivity, their trust,
0:47:20 their commitment to the organization, right?
0:47:23 Their willingness to go the extra mile.
0:47:27 We have seen a lot of companies really at that far end of the culture of growth continuum,
0:47:30 often being helmed by women and people of color.
0:47:37 You brought up the name Adam Newman in your book, the founder of WeWare.
0:47:41 So he gets thrown out of that company.
0:47:51 And then in this culture of genius sit called Silicon Valley, he gets funded again to build
0:47:52 another company.
0:47:53 Now.
0:47:57 Guy, why do these guys fail up?
0:48:03 I mean, how do you explain that?
0:48:04 Does that make your head explode?
0:48:07 Adam Newman gets funded again.
0:48:10 And now he’s even talking about buying back WeWare.
0:48:12 What does that tell the world?
0:48:13 Yeah.
0:48:18 I mean, I think that it tells the world that the culture of genius is powerful, that it’s
0:48:24 influential, that it is moneyed, and that we are committed to the status quo.
0:48:32 And people see more risk, even though they know what the consequences are of investing
0:48:37 with this person and with the kind of orientation that he had for developing WeWork.
0:48:40 People kind of know what they’re getting into.
0:48:48 And yet they feel that is somehow less risky than someone who’s really going to grow their
0:48:54 folks and grow themselves as a leader, like Katrina Lake, for example, a very growth-minded
0:49:00 oriented person, failed and failed and failed again, until she got her company right, decided
0:49:04 not to take every piece of investment that was offered to her, really work to be sure
0:49:09 that the growth and the values were going to be aligned for her work.
0:49:12 And then her story kind of speaks for itself.
0:49:17 And so it’s interesting, I think, what do you make of it, the fact that he gets to re-up
0:49:22 and fail up in this Silicon Valley culture of genius?
0:49:23 What do I make of it?
0:49:24 Yes.
0:49:25 What do you make of it?
0:49:28 How do you make sense of it living in this world?
0:49:36 I think one of the most plausible explanations of that, and Elon Musk, for example, is that
0:49:43 we are living in a simulation controlled by God, and God has a sense of humor.
0:49:50 And she’s sitting up there, she’s saying, “Let’s get Adam Newman another round of financing.
0:49:54 And let’s make Elon Musk the richest man in the world.
0:49:58 And let’s see what these dumbasses called humans do with that.”
0:50:02 That’s my only explanation.
0:50:08 I think that there is something to this, right, that if we invest in enough chaos making,
0:50:15 the only solution in this time, technology, moment of truth around technology, moments
0:50:21 of truth around energy, moments of truth around earth and sustainability, it just shows to
0:50:25 me that the only way forward is going to really be these cultures of growth that people are
0:50:30 going to have to find in order to build within these larger, dominant cultures of genius
0:50:32 in order to solve our problems today.
0:50:36 I think that the only way forward is to let women control the world.
0:50:37 Seriously.
0:50:38 I really do.
0:50:41 I think men have screwed it up for 2,000 years.
0:50:47 Let’s let women try, and then if women fail, let’s just let AI run everything.
0:50:48 Let’s let AI.
0:50:50 That’s my theory.
0:50:51 Yeah.
0:50:52 Yeah.
0:50:53 Yeah.
0:50:56 I am afraid that the culture of genius is baked into many of our base algorithms that sort
0:50:58 of motivate AI.
0:51:02 So we’re going to have to do some work there too around reprogramming around a culture of
0:51:03 growth.
0:51:08 But I think women and people of color have shown themselves to be focused in cultures
0:51:14 of growth and committed to their development more so than dominant groups like white men
0:51:20 who have really benefited for centuries from this genius mythology and this genius culture
0:51:23 that they’ve created to sustain power and sustain privilege.
0:51:26 I’m with you.
0:51:28 Okay.
0:51:38 So now it seems that, not seems, it is that companies that have DEI programs and support
0:51:43 diversity and inclusion and all that, they’re all been slapped on the face and they’re retrenching
0:51:47 and in the state of Florida, you can’t even say those three letters.
0:51:54 Look, what’s going to be the long-term effect of all this anti-DEI, anti-wog philosophy?
0:51:55 Yeah.
0:51:58 I think that the future is yet to be written on this.
0:52:05 I do think that there are more and more, I am seeing companies really having to be the
0:52:10 bellwether and the beacon for diversity, equity and inclusion.
0:52:16 When schools and colleges across these different states are being told they can no longer teach,
0:52:21 they can no longer have policies and practices that have a diverse student body attract and
0:52:26 then graduate a diverse student body, what I am seeing and especially in STEM, that a
0:52:33 lot of these tech companies are telling these schools, listen, we need a diverse STEM workforce.
0:52:37 And if you aren’t going to be training them, we’re going to be getting our workers from
0:52:41 other universities that will and other states that will.
0:52:47 And so I think there’s a lot of power that companies and organizations have to put pressure
0:52:54 on schools and universities and legislatures and others to really say, we know the power
0:52:55 of having a diverse workforce.
0:52:57 The data are pretty clear.
0:53:00 It’s not always easy to work in a diverse context.
0:53:02 There’s going to be a lot of cultural differences.
0:53:03 It can be stressful.
0:53:05 We can have misunderstandings.
0:53:13 But the ultimate outcomes of creativity, innovation, product design, when it comes to actual success
0:53:19 with fundraising and market share, we know that diversity of a workforce predicts those
0:53:21 things.
0:53:26 And so it’s going to be up to companies, I think, to put pressure on schools and legislatures
0:53:31 and others to say, this is a value we have to make the American workforce competitive
0:53:32 globally.
0:53:36 And if you can’t do this, we’re going to go to the few states that are going to be producing
0:53:38 this workforce.
0:53:42 My fingers are crossed that what you said is true.
0:53:51 But to take one real solid example, what happens if Ron DeSantis defeats Disney?
0:53:53 Isn’t that a big tell?
0:53:54 Yeah.
0:53:56 I think that we’re waiting to see.
0:54:00 I think that Disney has had some wins when it comes to this fight.
0:54:04 And other companies are locking arms, right?
0:54:07 Other companies are pushing back, I think, in many different ways.
0:54:13 Powerful companies are pushing back because they see the value of diversity, equity, inclusion
0:54:16 for their own workforce and for their products and services.
0:54:20 Now I also think there are many other reasons to support diversity, equity, inclusion besides
0:54:21 the bottom line.
0:54:28 I think that the strongest even justification for DEI is the bottom line, though that exists.
0:54:33 I also think that there’s a lot to be said about really creating a middle class, a solid
0:54:39 middle class, an upper class that’s able to actually rise over time and be able to recreate
0:54:40 society in this way.
0:54:43 I do think there’s a whole bunch of reasons for this.
0:54:45 We’ll see what emerges in this.
0:54:46 I think you’re right.
0:54:53 Disney DeSantis fight is one that really I think powerfully shows what’s at stake here.
0:54:58 For the record, my money is with the mouse, okay.
0:54:59 Never bet against the mouse.
0:55:00 Come on.
0:55:03 Come for the mouse.
0:55:09 My mice are going to be here long after man disappears.
0:55:10 I’m with you.
0:55:11 I’m with you.
0:55:18 You had a great discussion about the benefits of high effort challenges.
0:55:23 Now, many people might believe, God, if it’s high effort, it’s not worth it.
0:55:24 I’m going to fail.
0:55:31 I’m going to be defeated and I need to look for the low hanging fruit, et cetera, et cetera.
0:55:36 Tell us why high effort challenges are in fact a good thing.
0:55:37 Yeah.
0:55:38 Yeah.
0:55:39 This is great.
0:55:44 High effort situations are one of the most popular fixed minded triggers, fixed mindset
0:55:45 triggers for people.
0:55:47 This is when I’m asked to do something I’ve never done before.
0:55:54 I have to master a whole new area, a new kind of division or task or role that I’ve had
0:55:56 that I’ve never had before.
0:56:00 What we have seen, this actually the research on this comes from neuroscience where people
0:56:04 looked at brain activation of people who do a whole bunch of different tasks.
0:56:10 What they found was that the more challenging the task, the more effort it required, the
0:56:14 more parts of the brain were recruited to help.
0:56:20 Not only did it develop new neural pathways and cells, which it did, but it actually recruits
0:56:23 different parts of the brain to work together functionally.
0:56:26 Connectivity across the brain actually increases.
0:56:31 This means that we’re activating higher level functions like complex problem solving, working
0:56:36 memory, abstract reasoning, all the things we need in order to solve the problems that
0:56:40 we’re trying to solve and to be the most creative when doing it.
0:56:44 One of the things we’ve seen is that it’s not just any effort though.
0:56:47 I think that when people think about high effort situations, they’re thinking about
0:56:51 just pushing their head against the wall over and over again.
0:56:52 Just trying hard.
0:56:53 I’m just trying hard.
0:56:57 We see this in kids with teachers who say that they’re teaching with a fixed mindset.
0:56:59 They oftentimes will talk about, “We’ll just try harder.
0:57:00 This kid just needs to try harder.”
0:57:02 It gives up too easily.
0:57:06 What we know is that if you just keep pounding your head over and over and over against the
0:57:07 wall, what happens?
0:57:12 It’s your head that’s going to bust open, not the wall.
0:57:16 When it comes to high effort situations, what’s really important is what I call effective
0:57:18 effort.
0:57:22 That is effort that moves us in the right direction.
0:57:25 Effort expended in the process of learning.
0:57:30 That’s more complicated because if I’m in an organization and I am really asking people
0:57:35 to put high effort into a new situation that they’ve never been before, I have to understand
0:57:36 where they are.
0:57:40 I have to understand the kind of effort they’re putting in and I have to understand the extent
0:57:44 to which it’s actually moving them towards the goal that we have.
0:57:48 A lot of times, people talk about solving these crossword puzzles, the New York Times
0:57:53 crossword puzzles or Sudoku as a way to keep their brain going.
0:57:57 What I would say about that is that these activities can serve up to a point in terms
0:58:03 of effort and applying our brain in new contexts, but only so long as they remain challenging.
0:58:07 The key is that it’s got to be challenging and that the effort we’re expending is effective
0:58:09 effort, moving us in the right direction.
0:58:11 That means we have to know each other better.
0:58:16 We have to know the kinds of effort we’re putting in and we have to know process, not
0:58:17 just outcome.
0:58:22 We have to know the extent to which it’s actually helping us develop better processes and moving
0:58:24 us in the right direction over time.
0:58:29 I have two more questions and then I’m going to ask you a series of short questions.
0:58:32 We’re almost at the end.
0:58:36 Okay, let’s do it.
0:58:40 My first of two bigger questions is this.
0:58:42 You’re from Indiana, right?
0:58:46 I live in Indiana and I live in California, yes, both.
0:58:51 How long have you been in Indiana or when did you live in Indiana?
0:58:52 Since 2012.
0:58:55 Yes, about 12 years.
0:58:58 Was Bobby Knight there still alive?
0:59:06 No, Bobby Knight was long gone by the time I came, but his legacy and his reputation
0:59:07 remained to this day.
0:59:15 In fact, he was there at IU at Indiana University making a comeback and really being valorized
0:59:19 in his last few years, actually, before he passed pretty recently.
0:59:21 I saw some of that happen.
0:59:22 Tell me about Bobby Knight.
0:59:25 Give me an analysis about Bobby Knight.
0:59:29 Was he culture of genius or culture of growth?
0:59:34 I think that he embodies this mixed mindset culture.
0:59:37 I think that he believed in some stars.
0:59:44 He believed in putting certain stars in certain positions in order to maximize the potential
0:59:50 of the team, but he also was really a taskmaster when it came to the growth and development.
0:59:56 He was forcing people in those practices to engage in mastering their particular role,
0:59:58 their particular practice.
1:00:03 He reminds me a lot of the way that Michael Jordan took on his approach when he was rejected
1:00:08 from his high school basketball team because they thought he was too short, where he would
1:00:14 go after school to the courts and he would take shots from each different part of the
1:00:19 court from various locations, but he would only count the shot as making the basket.
1:00:21 He had a certain number he had to do every day.
1:00:26 He would only count it when it went in and it didn’t hit the rim.
1:00:28 It was just the swish.
1:00:30 That was one.
1:00:36 Bobby Knight applied that kind of philosophy, I feel, to his development of his players.
1:00:40 Now, he also did other things that I would say embody a little bit of this culture of
1:00:45 genius in terms of sidelining people when they made mistakes, but then afterwards there
1:00:51 was a real analysis of each game to say, “Where did we get this right?
1:00:52 Where did we get this wrong?”
1:00:57 The next week’s practice would focus on doubling down on the places that they could grow and
1:00:58 develop.
1:01:04 If you talk to the teammates, if you talk to the students who learned from Bobby Knight,
1:01:10 they will talk about how he made them a better player and better people with this kind of
1:01:11 ethic.
1:01:16 I think it’s a mixed mindset culture, but one that had growth and development at the
1:01:19 core of what they were doing in interaction with each other.
1:01:20 Okay.
1:01:27 My last big question is, it’s not a question, it’s an opportunity for you.
1:01:30 I want you to pitch your book.
1:01:33 Why people should buy your book?
1:01:34 This is it.
1:01:35 This is your free ad.
1:01:37 Go for it.
1:01:38 Tell people why they should buy.
1:01:43 Listen, if you’re listening to this podcast, duh, obviously, if you’re not listening,
1:01:47 you wouldn’t hear me say this, but I’m telling you, you should buy this book.
1:01:53 If you bought Carol Dweck’s book mindset, you will love this book.
1:02:00 This should be a two-volume bound set, so that’s guy telling you, but now I’m going
1:02:02 to let the author tell you.
1:02:09 I think that everyone in every interaction that they have has a mindset culture.
1:02:13 The way that we talk about mistakes around the kitchen table with our kids, the way that
1:02:16 we talk about their potential and their talent.
1:02:21 When we go into the workplace and we’re interacting with coworkers and colleagues, when we are
1:02:25 taking on leadership roles and management roles, right?
1:02:28 And we actually now are in charge of forming those teams and making sure that they’re doing
1:02:31 their work that we need them to do, right?
1:02:34 And also growing and investing in people over time.
1:02:39 How do we do that in a way that’s going to motivate people, engage people, and also contribute
1:02:41 to the bottom line?
1:02:46 And what I think this book does is it resets our whole idea about mindset, and it gives
1:02:50 really actionable strategies, tools, questions to ask.
1:02:54 There’s a quiz on the book website that you can take to understand your mindset triggers
1:02:58 and then built in strategies about how to do this.
1:03:02 Stories of individuals and organizations that have done this successfully, right?
1:03:08 How do we move from this fixed-minded culture of genius that boxes everyone in, and as people
1:03:13 who are in these cultures of genius, in fighting and watching their back, it’s not surprising
1:03:18 to me that is a less successful context than one that’s more collaborative and really investing
1:03:22 in people’s growth and development and places where people frankly want to be.
1:03:26 So if you want to create these kinds of environments and understand how mindset is at the heart
1:03:30 of all of it, buy the book.
1:03:36 So the bottom line is you have to grow your growth mindset.
1:03:39 It’s not just what’s in your head.
1:03:41 It’s also the environment.
1:03:49 And if you’re responsible for an environment and you want people to grow, you need to provide
1:03:54 them an environment that makes that growth possible too.
1:04:00 I want to thank the remarkable people team, but wait, let me stop right there.
1:04:07 Listen to this whole episode to the very end because Carol Dweck is coming back.
1:04:09 Now where was I?
1:04:11 Back to my thanks.
1:04:18 Thanks to Jeff C. and Shannon Hernandez, Sound Design, Tessa Nizmer, Researcher, Madison
1:04:26 Nizmer, my co-author and producer of the show, Louise Magana, Alexis Nishimura, and Fallon
1:04:27 Yates.
1:04:31 And finally, my thanks to Angela Duckworth and Katie Milkman.
1:04:37 They made me aware of the amazing book that Mary Murphy has written.
1:04:45 Frankly, in my humble opinion, Angela Duckworth, Katie Milkman, and Mary Murphy are the future
1:04:47 of psychology.
1:04:54 And I would be remiss if I didn’t tell you and remind you that Madison and I have published
1:04:55 a new book.
1:05:01 It’s called “Think Remarkable, Nine Paths to Transform Your Life and Make a Difference.”
1:05:04 Just get Carol’s book and our book.
1:05:06 You’ll be good to go.
1:05:12 And now I’m going to give the final word to Carol Dweck.
1:05:19 When Mary’s work, when mindset was just thought of it, something inside the individual’s head,
1:05:21 it was up to the individual.
1:05:28 It was their responsibility to put it into practice, so teachers could just define what
1:05:35 a growth mindset was and expect the students to live according to the credo of the mindset.
1:05:46 Regers, CEOs could just have workshops given to the employees and then it was their responsibility
1:05:54 to carry forth in a growth mindset, challenge-seeking and persistent way.
1:06:00 It kind of absolved the people creating the culture.
1:06:10 It absolved them of the responsibility for creating a culture that supported growth mindset
1:06:12 beliefs and behavior.
1:06:26 Mary’s work really brought forth that responsibility of the culture creators.
1:06:28 This is Remarkable People.