The Learning Leader Show With Ryan Hawk

• 627: Jenny Wood - How To Go After What You Want and Get It (Wild Courage)

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

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• 626: Rob Kimbel - Living By Your Values, Caring For Your People, Taking The Back Seat, & Creating Opportunities That Improve Lives

  Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes. The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. Go to www.InsightGlobal.com/LearningLeader Rob Kimbel is an owner of Kimbel Mechanical Systems, located in Fayetteville, AR. He joined KMS in 1993, and in 2001, at the age of 26, he became the CEO and grew what was then 3 local plumbers making a couple hundred thousand dollars a year into a national company with more than 750 employees and earning hundreds of millions in revenue per year. Rob is also a partner in multiple start-ups, real estate projects, and real estate funds that specialize in affordable housing across the United States. Rob is also a mentor and advisor to several local businesses and entrepreneurs in NW Arkansas. He has also served on the boards of Generations Bank, NWA Home Builders Association, and Beyond the Game, a non-profit organization serving the impoverished of the Dominican Republic. Notes: Betty Joe Drive… Lived in the hood. $200/month. Rob regularly takes his children to see where they lived. "I want to remind the kids where we came from." They started as a 3-person plumbing company. Rob was working for his dad, making $12-$14 an hour. Now, they do $260m in revenue and have 750 full-time employees. When Rob was 25 years old, his dad asked him to be the CEO. He initially said no. Strategic risk-taking as a cornerstone of growth: Rob navigates the industry challenge of balancing new work with workforce capacity by making bold hiring decisions—demonstrating a greater risk appetite than his father. "We are always hiring" reflects their proactive approach to scaling. Kimbel is good at growing people. They fail, and stick with them to grow. “Profits are the applause for growing our people.” How to be good? Show up, work hard, and finish the job. The bar is so low. The No Child Left Behind Act wasn’t great for the trades industry. They made it seem that every person needed to go to college. When every person shouldn’t do that. Some should go into the trades. There are high school grads who make $100K/year by their mid-20s at Kimbel. The Kimbel Purpose: Create opportunities to improve lives. Values - TEAM, Humility, Hunger, Grit, Integrity. TEAM- We willingly sacrifice for the good of the team. Row together. Humility - We never consider ourselves above anyone or anything. Take the back seat. Hunger - We choose to continually raise the bar. Never complacent. Integrity - We do the right thing, in all places, at all times. The how matters. Grit - We persevere, no matter the situation. Remember the why. Thank you notes – Each executive member writes at least one thank you note per week. This works as a forcing function for them to look for people doing great work and living by their values. Touch points - Senior leaders (30 people) reach out to 2 people per week to check on them. That’s 3,000 touches per year. Free from all, servant to all. Tattoos on Rob's forearms. I have made myself a servant. Free from work, I don’t care what society thinks. But I have a responsibility to be a steward. To be a servant to all. Rob works out like a psycho. Super hard. Why? Start with the end in mind. I want to hold Cheri on my shoulders when I'm 65. I want to ski with my kids when I'm 80. I like to compete. I want to win Spartan races. I like doing hard things. It also creates clarity in my mind throughout the day. Karomy messages me that she knows I'm running the stairs when she gets emails from me with lots of ideas. Marriage insights: "It must be intentional. We have fun together. We are genuine friends. We still have to work through stuff." Parenting philosophy shaped by observing other wealthy families: "It's critical that kids do hard work. They shouldn't start in an office. They should be out with the chickens. Be in the mess. Start at the bottom. Start in the ditch." Family-business boundary maintenance: "We get together every other weekend for family game night. We try not to have much business talk." Sold 70% of the business last July. What was the feeling the moment the money was wired? It was surreal. Want to honor Dad with 25 years of GRIT. Excellence defined: "It's continual learning. Wanting to get better. Think, what can I do better?" Creating a truth-telling culture: "Have to be willing to hear it and create a space where the truth is spoken." Life and career wisdom: "A career is not linear just like a marriage isn't. Have patience and live in the suck. Don't quit. There will be seasons of suck. Keep going."  

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• 625: Melody Wilding - Effectively Managing Up, Designing Your 1:1s, Getting Paid What You're Worth, Creating The 1 Pagers, & Earning The Triple Win

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

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• 624: Chris Beresford-Hill - Writing Excellent Cold-Emails, Taking Responsibility of Your Career, Pushing Your Edges, Becoming Dave Matthews' Pen Pal, Building Culture, & Leading a Creative Agency

  Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. www.InsightGlobal.com/LearningLeader Chris Beresford-Hill is the Worldwide Chief Creative Officer at BBDO. Previously he spent 2 years as North America President and CCO of Ogilvy, where he helped bring the agency and its clients a new level of relevance. He brought Workday to the Super Bowl, led the team that brought in the Verizon account, and one of the biggest Super Bowl campaigns ever, “Can't B Broken,” featuring Beyonce, and created the most celebrated Super Bowl campaign of 2024, the social & influencer lead "Michael CeraVe," for CeraVe. Chris and his teams have won every award for creativity and effectiveness many times over. He has been included in ADWEEK Best Creatives, the ADWEEK 100, and Business Insider’s Most Creative People in Advertising. Notes: Cold Emails: Be specific in your praise and specific in your ask. The lame "Can I pick your brain" type emails get deleted and ignored because they aren't specific. You never need permission to take responsibility. Chris learned this from Ed Catmull’s book Creativity Inc.… And he’s embodied this his entire career. The people who build huge careers take ownership of their own and regularly solve problems and improve their clients' and colleagues' lives. Chris has done this since his early days as an intern. At any level taking on responsibility yourself, unasked, makes you stand out. Competence combined with insane follow-through. For some clients, it takes 50 ideas to get to the one that will work. Creating a culture where the team can share all of their bad ideas safely to get to the one great one. The creative process: Brain dump everything. Purge your brain of everything it has. When you think you're done, you're not. There's more. You have to get it all out. "A lot of creative people aren't fully aware of the process or the structure, they just feel it (Rick Rubin). "When you can see it lift off the page, you feel a sense of mastery over it." Chris's first Super Bowl commercial -- Emerald Nuts. He won it because he was both funny and added the fact that the product provided energy. Most people only covered one part, Chris did both. Push your edges - Chris is like Lionel Messi. He's always walking around in the office, asking questions, looking for ideas, being curious. Then he sees an opportunity and goes for it 100%. Chris has a standing reservation every week at the same restaurant where he meets with a mentor, mentee, or peer to deepen the important relationships in his life. That would be a good idea for us all to do. Chris was pen-pals with Dave Matthews for 8 years.  Chris saw that they recorded at Bearsville studios and wrote a letter to Dave there. He also said, "Show up with gifts." He gave Dave a Beatles Bootlegged album. A leader takes what comes and then turns it into an opportunity. The formula is Competence + Insane Follow-Through. How to build relationships: Meet with people in person. Get drunk with them. Do hard work with them. Go through something bad with them. Laugh with them. I got hired from my internship by cold calling Mark Cuban to get him to approve of using his name in an ad. The best ideas are often bad in their first moments, or massively wrong, and then someone flips it or unlocks it. You have to stay on things and play around. I made my first ad by going through a garbage can to learn how to write a script and sending a bunch of Budweiser scripts to my boss. The art of finding an idea on the edge of possible, and the value of going over your skis when on the cusp of greatness - having a stomach for it. I’ve told a lie to keep things moving on every great campaign I was part of. I learned the best lesson in leadership when we lost our biggest account (Accenture).  I put Danny Meyer's mentality into practice, and we took that moment to put the business and clients second and play for each other. Culture carried us. Culture is built by the stories we tell and the behaviors we highlight.  

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• 623: Stu McLaren - Building Communities, Stories About Transformation, A World-Class Onboarding Process, & The Business Model of The Future

  Go to www.LearningLeader.com for full show notes This is brought to you by Insight Global. If you need to hire 1 person, hire a team of people, or transform your business through Talent or Technical Services, Insight Global's team of 30,000 people around the world have the hustle and grit to deliver. www.InsightGlobal.com/LearningLeader Stu McLaren helps leaders and all types of business owners transform their knowledge, expertise, and influence into recurring revenue by launching, growing, and scaling membership businesses. He’s the author of PREDICTABLE PROFITS - Transform Your Business from One-Off Sales to Recurring Revenue with Memberships and Subscriptions. Notes: People come for the content, they stay for the community. People want to feel a sense of belonging. This has been hard-wired in us from many years ago. We want to be part of a group. In the old days, this was the only way to survive. We have not outgrown that need and the feeling of being a part of something bigger than ourselves. Life advice: Listen to your gut instinct and embrace the unknown. You are not ever going to know how it’s going to pan out. You have to keep taking that next step. And I loved the story of the lengthy process of adopting his son Sam. The raw emotion in Stu’s eyes as he told that story was awesome. Watch this on YouTube and you can see. Take the next step. Keep going. You’re not going to know how it will go. Embrace that. And keep going. Cody Burch Story – In October, Cody’s dad was diagnosed with leukemia. Cody had been sitting with the idea of a membership. He saw the fear in his dad’s eyes that he was nervous about the financial part of it. “I wanted to take that financial fear away from him. Within a few weeks of launching my membership, I had a few hundred members, and I was making thousands of dollars per month." “The more we make, the more we can give. The more we make, the more we can help.” Stu says that all the time Create “super surprises” for your friends. Create an amazing experience for them. Online communities must be one of the three: Can I solve an ongoing problem? Weight loss, dog training Can you teach a skill? Can you make someone’s life easier? Provide teachers with lesson plans You don’t need a big platform to get started. Have founding members. Float the idea that you’re thinking of it. Momentum starts with movement. Get going. Pay close attention to onboarding. The first few days are EVERYTHING. His daughter’s new school was “the best school ever” because she met one friend on the first day. Help them build one meaningful relationship within the first few days. Connect them. Proactively do this. Sales is the most noble profession in the world. Everything must be sold. Stu learned from John Childers, but couldn’t do it like him. So he just told stories about transformation. People don’t care about the “stuff.” They care about the outcome. They care about the transformation. The objection matrix - Match every objection with a story of someone who had the same objection and overcame it. Use stories. The importance of building a membership around transformation, not just content. While many focus on delivering endless content. By focusing on helping people achieve meaningful outcomes, rather than overwhelming them with information, leaders can build stronger communities, improve retention, and deliver real value that keeps members coming back.

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