IDL109 Season 3: Pursuit of Excellence with Ryan Hawk

What is one of the easy shortcuts to succeeding in life? Are you investing in yourself? Why is intensity a barrier to leadership but passion isn’t?

Today I’m excited to bring back our first ever guest on the Impact Driven Leader, Ryan Hawk. Ryan is the author of the Pursuit of Excellence, our new book of the month at the IDL bookclub. Ryan and I have a wide ranging conversation. We discuss his book and dig into his experiences as a leader, growing his leadership podcast and community.

Meet Ryan Hawk

Ryan Hawk is the host of The Learning Leader Show. He has recorded more than 500 episodes over the past 8 years. Forbes called The Learning Leader Show, “the most dynamic leadership podcast around.” Inc Magazine said, “it’s one of the 5 podcasts to make you a smarter leader.” Apple named it an “all-time best seller” in 2020 and 2021.

Ryan is the author of Welcome to Management: How To Grow From Top Performer To Excellent Leader. Book Authority named it to its 100 Best Management Audiobooks of all time (#25). Forbes called it, “the best leadership book of 2020.” Ryan’s second book is called The Pursuit of Excellence: The Uncommon Behaviors of The World’s Most Productive Achievers. It sold through its first printing in eight hours and shot to the top of the Amazon rankings.

Visit Ryan’s website, listen to his podcast, and connect on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

IN THIS EPISODE WE DISCUSS:

• Lead through building authentic relationships - 08:15

• Invest in yourself - 16:24

• Intensity is a barrier in leadership - 20:32

• Don’t be quick to judge - 41:12

• Learn from others - 47:08

Lead through building authentic relationships

Avoid being a leader that mimics the authoritative figure that you had before. Each leader should ideally be unique because your leadership style should come from you and your authenticity, and that will look different from person to person.

Be an authentic leader by truly being curious about your people, and striving to connect with them beyond just the day-to-day job. Your employees will value you for it, and they can easily tell whether you’re being genuine or not.

So, be your genuine and authentic self, and your ideal people will gravitate toward you.

Invest in yourself

If you want to be a great leader, then you have to invest in yourself. You have to put time, effort, and energy into developing who you are.

You need to get to know yourself better, and practice self-compassion and empathy, if you want to be able to extend those qualities to the people around you.

Remember that a great leader also models behavior, so you need to know what to do if you want to show it and exemplify it for others.

Intensity is a barrier to leadership

Intensity is different from passion. Intensity pushes people away and acts as a barrier. On the other hand, passion is a shared energy that brings people together under a shared direction or cause.

Work alongside people instead of steaming ahead. Slow down to match the pace of the people that you are leading so that you can all pick up the pace together.

Don’t be quick to judge

People lead complex, nuanced, and private lives.

You may think you know what happens in someone’s life, but most of the time, you often only see the outside.

Be careful of judging and careful of making assumptions, because it will harm your ability to be humble and offer compassion to those that probably need it the most. Don’t accept poor behavior, but offer a kind and understanding hand without playing the judge.

Learn from others

A secret shortcut in life is to learn from other people’s experiences. Have your eyes and your mind open to learning from those around you.

Follow your mentor’s journey. Look up and learn about the people that you admire. What did they go through? What were their successes, failures, mistakes, and triumphs? How can you learn from these experiences, and bring some of that knowledge in when you go on your journey?

Additionally, one of the best ways that you can learn is to be a teacher yourself.

Resources, books, and links mentioned in this episode:

BOOK | Ryan Hawk – Welcome to Management: How to Grow from Top Performer to Excellent Leader

BOOK | Ryan Hawk – The Pursuit of Excellence: The Uncommon Behaviors of The World’s Most Productive Achievers

BOOK | Jim Collins – Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

BOOK | Robert Greene – The 48 Laws of Power

Antonio Garrido – My Daily Leadership: A Powerful Roadmap for Leadership Success

Visit Ryan’s website, listen to his podcast, and connect on Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube.

IDL03 SEASON 1: BEING A LIFELONG STUDENT OF LEADERSHIP WITH RYAN HAWK

Sign up for the roundtable at: hello@theimpactdrivenleader.com

Check out the Practice Of the Practice

www.tylerdickerhoof.com

Awaken the Leader Workshop April 3rd and 4th 2023: theimpactdrivenleader.com

About the Impact Driven Leader Podcast

The Impact Driven Leader Podcast, hosted by Tyler Dickerhoof, is for Xillennial leaders who have felt alone and ill-equipped to lead in today's world. Through inspiring interviews with authors from around the world, Tyler uncovers how unique leadership strengths can empower others to achieve so much more, with real impact.

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I think you should take bits and pieces from all of your mentors and teachers … from before but then ultimately, you’ve got to find your own voice, and it’s got to be real.

Ryan Hawk

Podcast Transcription

[TYLER DICKERHOOF Welcome back to the Impact Driven Leader Podcast. This is your host, Tyler Dickerhoof. Excited to bring back the number one guest, the first guest, not number one guest, first guest ever of the Impact Driven Leader podcast, Ryan Hawk, author of that book right there, The Pursuit of Excellence. The Pursuit of Excellence is the book of the month for the Impact Driven Leader book club here in March. Make sure you grab a copy of that if you have not already been notified. Ryan and I have just a wide-ranging conversation, and it's a little bit about the pursuit of excellence, but really, it's about him as a person. It's his experience going through developing and continuing the Learning Leader Podcast and community and everything he's doing now. We share a lot of our interactions. It's much more of a back-and-forth conversation than it is an interview. If you've been a longtime guest, that's my style, that's my preference. That's where I feel you learn the most. Excited to share this episode with you. Excited to share this conversation. We'll meet back at the end, and I'll hit on a couple high level notes that Ryan really shared that really made me stop and think, but also appreciate the journey that we're on together. So thanks for listening and we'll catch you at the end. Ryan, excited to be back with you. Love this opportunity to catch up. All right, so I just made a comment right before I hit record that your last episode, podcast episode that released at the time this recording is with Dan Martel. If you haven't listened in, the audience, please go listen to it. This is the question I'm going to ask that leads into me saying it was different, what instances or instance have moved you from being very substance focused to connection focused? Let me frame it in, maybe you forgot about the episode, you made a comment halfway, three quarters of the way through that episode, and you're like, man, we haven't even talked about your book, Dan's book, which I imagine is an amazing, which 75% of your outline and you're three quarters of the way through the episode and you're like, I haven't even asked those. [RYAN HAWK Well, so the difference with Dan's episode or that conversation with Dan was we had talked four or five years ago, and one of the things I try to do when I have conversations, especially if a friend like Jason Gayar introduces me to somebody who, Jason has never steered me wrong, and his introductions is I take a lot of notes. So we talk for like an hour, hour and a half over the phone and I took tons of notes and Dan talked probably 85% to 90% of the time during the initial phone call, which is a little not normal, I would say, for those. But I was mainly, because I asked them questions just like I would on my podcast. So instead of just going straight into the book, I went into some of the notes that I had taken from our previous call and before I realized that the conversation had gotten away from me. Not that, not that like we're there to only sell a book or promote a book, but there are some guests, not many anymore who come on my show I guess, but there are some guests who really want to talk about whatever the thing is they're promoting. Dan did not necessarily care at all. In fact, I think he enjoyed it. We had a good conversation afterwards about that fact too, because he had been in the heavy promotion stage of book launch and talking about it a lot. So I think he enjoyed the fact that he could talk about his origin story, his life, cold emailing, making the big ask, books that have impacted him the most, things that I had asked him about. So it turned out, I think to be a really cool conversation and a great episode but not the one, not necessarily what I had outlined or thought it would go, but I think that's why we do this, Tyler. I think you're the same way you do this to connect, you do this to have deep, long form conversations with one person and build a relationship. Usually that happens because you ask interesting questions that you're deeply curious about and then you ask even better follow up questions because you're a good listener and when you do that's how I think you can connect both with the person you're talking to as well is with the person who's listening. Fortunately, I think more of my conversations, more of my episodes have turned out that way than most. [TYLER Is that something that you think you started with or it it's evolved to that? When you mentioned that it's like there's a lot of either guests or authors that were trying to promote something where, you didn't maybe have the opportunity to have those, I don't know, real conversations. [RYAN I think as you get more repetition I just, you get more comfortable doing this and you also get more comfortable, like in almost in your own skin as an interviewer, as a conversationalist. That then helps you go in whatever direction you're most curious about. I've also gotten good feedback both from mentors and random people who listen, that they seem to connect and like the episodes of my podcast, when they can tell I'm asking the questions that I'm most curious about, not just teeing them up to tell the fun story from their book. So I also like having guests on who aren't promoting anything, which I have quite a bit of, so it's a good mix. Even if they are promoting something, I tell them ahead of time before we hit record, listen, you don't have to sell your book. If you are engaging and informative, a great storyteller, they'll buy whatever you're selling. So don't feel like you have to mention your book or name-drop that or whatever. It's really about you being I think, an interesting person and then people say, well, I want more. I I want more. And then the book is one of those avenues to get more. [TYLER Again, I agree with that, why I do what I do. I think probably last episode, which was the very first episode of the Impact Driven Leader that I had, you as a guest, you agreed. As I've hopefully learned and grown and well over a hundred episodes now, the thing that I really enjoy is being able to have an outline, prepare, is a preparer like you are, and to set it aside and never even go there because the conversation is so good and so rich that it leads to points where, again, things that would yes, have your book here, great. We're going to feature your book as part of the book club here in March when this releases, but yet I want to hear the things that aren't in there that actually enrich that book. [RYAN Yeah, I'm with you. I think that those are the conversations that I like to think of, well, if we were going out to lunch, what would we talk about? That's what I tell what here, these are the exact questions I would probably ask you if we were sharing a meal. The difference is we're going to record it. We're going to have like I said, a deep, long form meaningful conversation and get closer and build, potentially build a relationship. That's the most rewarding and fulfilling aspect of this. And actually, initially surprising because I wasn't sure if that would happen, but it has and that's a really cool thing when, especially for a lot of the guests. They're people I deeply admire and look up to and have read their work or follow what they're doing and then to be able to form and build some sort of relationship with them is really cool. [TYLER Well, this is a piece from it, kind of follow up what I started with, is I think that's so much of a change in leadership that leaders that actually approach their relationships within their organization in that way actually lead much, much better. Instead of being the leader that has to have a position and very authoritarian and very directive and more relationship and connection driven, I think over time, and we've seen more of that, those are the leaders that make an impact. [RYAN Yeah, I mean, authenticity is a big word. Being real when it comes to your messaging. Certainly, learning from others, learning from mentors, but not in the way that you are somebody else or you try to be this. You see this in sports all the time. Maybe somebody was an assistant coach for a while and they get their own head coaching job and they just try to mimic the person before them and usually that doesn't work that well. Like I said, I think you should take bits and pieces from all of your mentors and teachers and people who have led you from before but then ultimately you got to find your own voice and it's got to be real. People don't follow leaders if they don't think they're authentic and they're not real. So that's why I think humility is a big quality in leaders and being an effective leader that is becoming much more talked about now. But in the past, it was something that was almost like you had to hide and now I think it's much more out in the open. [TYLER Do you think that's changed in like, the time that you've been learning, eight years, right? Do you think that's something that's changed or was there the beginning, but it's just way more like, oh, this is a big deal, to be that authentic, to be that vulnerable, to, as a friend of mine, Brad Lanik says, stand in front of the room, throw your arms up in the air and say, yeah, I got sweaty pits. It's ok, we're all in this together. Is that something you've seen or you've championed? Like how, explain to me your deeper thought on that. [RYAN It feels like it's much more common now. It's almost to the point where now the essays that are being written are like, don't go too far. It's like people are going too far with that. So whenever you start seeing those things come out, you know we've probably hit an inflection point on authenticity on being real. So yeah, it's just striking that balance and I think that's where having a good level of an emotional intelligence of understanding that we want to be transparent, we want to be honest, we want to be authentic but also not like cross the line of being an oversharer. So I think the effective leaders are figuring out where that is. We talked about Insight Global before we recording, Tyler and one of the most effective speakers and leaders I've ever seen when it comes to knowing how to be humble and authentic and real is Bert Bean, he's a CEO at Insight Global. Bert's, like, I don't know how he does it, like he just always seems to strike the right chord, but when I ask him that he doesn't have like a calculus or he doesn't have like, well, this is exactly how you do that. He just is what he is. I think that's why it comes across the way he does now. He practices his keynotes, he's ready for any speech to the company. His communications to the entire company, which they're 4,000, 5,000 employees are written by him, edited by him. So I think you, like, when you find your own voice and you use that voice, your people know, they know. They also know when a comms team has got a hold of an email, and it's just so different. So I give leaders huge credit who, that there's, there are comms people at the company, but I give leaders huge credit who yes, they'll listen and they'll talk to them and they'll have strategy sessions, but at the end of the day, it's got to be their message. It's got to come from their voice and it's got to be from them. That's why communication skill and developing, developing your voice is just, it's essential, I think if you want to be an effective leader especially of a team of any size. [TYLER Okay, I want you just, let's just chat about this, with that moment, that said, ChatGPT is everywhere. Somebody the other day, it's like, "If you're not using it, you're going wrong," and I said to him, I was like, "You know what, I played with it." This is what I found is that my thoughts are so far different that even using it was like the difference between a rocky road or like a very flavorful has a lot of element ice cream compared to vanilla. Yeah, vanilla, it may have worked in. So I look at that, and a question I had for you is like, how do you see that changing in the space of thought leaders, people that try to put out content You talk about if someone in a comms team use ChatGPT and said, "Hey, this came from our executive," if that's not authentic and real people are going to catch up real quick. Does that lend to the, I'm not so polished, but yet I'm real that people are going to gravitate towards that? [RYAN I mean, one, I also imagine those tools like ChatGPT and others will get a lot better. I think right now they're in the infancy stages, so they're not, it's not great. It's helpful for some things. I've worked with with people who utilize those tools to create long form blog posts off of transcriptions of my podcast. They're okay. Whenever I get those, they're not even close to being ready to be published. I have to do a, not a full rewrite, I can use parts of it, and I have published some that have done fine. They don't blow people away. So yeah, I mean, again, I think they'll get better. I'm curious to see how tools like that get better where at the very beginning but at least in the business that I do, I mean, it is still such a people-driven, relationship-driven business when I'm asked to come in to do any sort of work, whether it's a speech or a leadership circle, or build a leadership development program, that's a people-driven thing. I think you could, I think all of us should be, have our eyes open to potential tools that could help us, that could assist us, that maybe could get us started or maybe could just create bullet points or give us ideas. I think that's great. I think we should use those, but that's really just like the pre-first draft version. And any first drafts of things are terrible. So I think I look at those as like the pre-first draft, then the first draft, which is awful. Then we'll go through heavy edits, then we'll write the next draft, then we'll have to go through edits again, and eventually we'll get to something that's ready to be published, but as of today, I think that's where we're at with that stuff. [TYLER Well, and I think what we're from that, and I agree with, I've seen that, is you're going to see people that tried to shortcut that per se and say, hey, we're going to try to go down that pathway. The difference between someone that's able to stand up on stage or record a live video and actually have that ability and that content in that authenticity communicate, even though there may be a little bit of flaw here and there. Like, one thing that I noticed from, again, one of your last podcasts is the willingness to be very conversational and not so much of a reading a script. All of this, my open, this content, all of it is conversational. It's not written on a script. Why? Because I'm more comfortable doing that, speaking extemporaneously, but I also want it to feel real. I want it to feel like you shared earlier that we're sitting at lunch or a coffee shop just having a conversation. I come back to that and put a tab there. I think that's what people want of their leaders. [RYAN I agree, I agree. I mean when you think about the leaders in your life who you've been most inspired to follow, and the qualities they possess and what they're like that is at the top of the list the real, they're authentic. Whether it, like I said, it's a coach you've played for, a boss you've worked for, a teacher, anyone in any sort of leadership position, I think that's at the top of the list. To me there's not really ever a substitute for that. That's something that we should always be striving to be. And I think there's a lot of work to be done on yourself in order to be comfortable to be yourself. So a lot of reflective work, a lot of understanding what your core values are and the critical behaviors that prove your core values to be true and questioning yourself, am I living these out? I think all of that is part of knowing yourself, being comfortable in your own skin and then living out in an authentic way but usually the ones who are able to do that, they've done a lot of work. [TYLER Well, I think it's taken me a lot to get there and it's the willingness to start pulling back the layer, or as I describe it, taking off the armor of the insecurities. Whether that's insecurities, whether that, for me, one of the biggest ones that I've seen, and there's a sense that I can relate to it. The barrier that I have in relationships is intensity. What I've learned is intensity is a divider. It drives people away. It pushes people away that whether you want to intimidate or not, but that look of intensity makes people want to go, whoa, okay, just --- [RYAN Oh you're too intense? [TYLER Absolutely. [RYAN What do you mean? Like, what do you mean? [TYLER Too intense, it's the look, it's the drive, it's the push. I am going to get wherever I'm going to go, whether I want to go and it's something that I share as a part of my community. I'll share it for you, just conversation, for me where that came from, and I've been able to identify when that came from. There was a kind of go to the end here when I realized it was a problem and it was a leadership role and we were just having some conflict with different individuals. I had this, I call it divine. It's spiritual. I'm a person of faith and it was like, this is how you deal with things. It was, put my head down and just push and if they didn't want to go with me, fine, go by the wayside. And really probably a lot of learning from John Maxwell of putting your arm around people and going with them. That to me is a display of empathy. It's put your arm around people, walk with them. Where I realized intensity became a barrier was when my brother died when I was in high school. I'm not, don't know if you're familiar with the story, but after that happened, when I was talking to the sheriff and he's asking questions and I'm like, I'll answer all the questions you have, but I have cows to milk in there. I'm going to go do that. It was that intensity that got me through life and people have shared, "Yeah, you are great, but you're intense." That's where I've realized many times and the leaders that I talk to, and we establish and we go through it, when people are like, you walk in a room and you're just being you, whether it's intimidation or not, in realizing that's the greatest barrier in leadership is intensity or unanticipated intimidation because you're just, it's almost too much. They're like, whoa, dude, like --- [RYAN Wouldn't you think though, wouldn't you attribute a lot of what you've accomplished to that intensity? [TYLER That's what's funny. Yes, but this is what I've, it's come at a tremendous cost. It's come at a cost of relationships. It's actually, I think I wrote this down as a potential point, is that high level individual performers can be intimidating, intense but yet how do they bring people with them? We see that transition. Think back at yourself. You were a high-level performer, and then you move into that managerial role and you share a little bit of, like, I think you morphed in that sense because you share in Pursuit of Excellence how you, instead of throwing higher expectations on the high performers, you said, no, we're going to do this together. I think inherently you did that in order to bring people together because you knew from being quarterback's, like, I can be the most intense quarterback in the game, but if my offensive tackle doesn't want to block for me, I'm dead. It's not going to work. And I think that happens in leadership and that's where I've realized that intensity is an absolute barrier in leadership. It's too much. It's a divider. What I've understood is people are like, well, what about passion? I said, that's different. Passion invites, compassion binds, intensity divides and pushes people away. There's a big difference. It's that, think about an intense person, what do they look like? Furrow brow, they're just deep intense. Well, I'll go over here. Like, we'll go hang out in the corner and just chat, Ryan. And you think about it as I describe it's like, oh, I've been there. [RYAN Yeah, it's a good point. I haven't thought of it that deeply, but that makes a lot of sense. And it's also like striking that balance though, knowing that it is partially why it's helped you as an individual probably do what you've done but then knowing too, how it, like, being aware enough that if it is dividing or if it is pushing people away, that that's a problem and how to scale that back when you're trying to, when you're trying to do something with other people with that, where you need a team. Because every once in a while, yes, you can do things like being intense as trying to get to like an individual project done probably works. But for things that usually that take other people, which most things do, okay, now I need to understand how one of my innate talents, because I do think there's a talent there and skills. I need to pull back a little bit. [TYLER John Maxwell was one that, through some of his books, really taught me that lesson. He had to deal with that. He was in his forties and he was like, people were like, "We don't want to work with you." And he had to like, take it back what a lot of people have [RYAN I bet a lot of people like you have. I mean this is probably a common theme, huh? [TYLER It's common, but no one talks about it. Because as you just said, it's intensity is applauded. We want that intense driven, but then intensity turns to intimidation real quick. It's when it's too much and if I look at again, the example that the mentor that John's been to me, and it's like I see him interact with people and him acknowledging and saying, hey I have to go with people. He'll say that you can finish the race, great, but if you're the only one, you didn't accomplish much. You've heard that from him. I agree with him. That's where I had to really realign myself and understand, oh, that's a major barrier and if I can learn, I was talking to Mark Cole, his CEO, and I said, Mark, we were talking about this and I said, "I had to learn to be lazy." He's like, "I get it. I get it." For people that get it, they get it and for people that don't, they're like, huh? I'm like, people would not describe me as lazy. People would not describe you as lazy, Ryan, never would. But yet in my mind, I had to slow down to go at the pace with others so that we could pick up pace together. [RYAN That's a good point. It's a good call. It's an interesting thing to think about because you're going to be more impactful with a group, most likely than trying to just attack everything on your own. [TYLER Let me layer this in a little deeper. How would you define empathy? You can just off the cuff, you don't have to have to --- [RYAN I guess thinking of putting myself in other people's shoes, thinking of what it's like to be them, thinking of what it's like to view the world through their eyes and experience it from their perspective instead of my own. [TYLER Okay. So that's a very, a commonly held definition. As I've read those and as I've thought about those, and again, tongue in cheek laugh with this, I said, if I put myself in their shoes, that's going to hurt them because where are they? They're in their shoes too. If I'm going to try to see things through their eyes again and think about it in this, all right. But there's a deeper layer is if I'm trying to see it through their eyes, well then, I'm wearing their skin, that's not comfortable. But this is what I came up with one day, and it comes back to this intensity factor, is empathy is putting your arm around someone and walking with them. Because if I put my arm around them and walk with them, I have to care for them. I have to be vulnerable enough. Think about it, if I put my arm out, put arms around somebody, I'm vulnerable. You think about it a war setup, somebody is stabbed, put my arm around them and walk with them. Then there's also this context, and it's Biblical in reference, but it makes sense to me, don't be unequally yolked. If I put my arm around someone and I walk with them and I'm dragging them, I'm going to end up strangling them. At the same point. If they're walking faster than me, I'm going to pull them back. If there're arms around me, we're going to just, we have to be in step. To me, if I'm practicing empathy, then there's no place for my intensity because my intensity is going to drive me to go faster than maybe what others can't. [RYAN That's a good point. That makes sense. I like it. [TYLER So let me go a complete different direction. We talked about your daughters earlier, and I really want to know as they're getting older and you're going to their events this weekend, what have, being involved in their lives, either coaching them or watching other coaches coach them, what has that taught you about leadership? What has that taught you about championing the pursuit of excellence for yourself and others? [RYAN The thing I think about most is patience. I can't expect them to be exactly like me. They're not, they have their own points of view, their own style, their own way to approach what they do. I think if you asked me this five years ago, I probably got frustrated more often if I felt like they showed up at a sporting event just probably the, where this happened the most and did not necessarily perform like I would. That's just a, that's an egocentric way to view the world. Like if they didn't give maximum effort, if they didn't like get super off when they lost, if they didn't, those types of things, which now is actually coming out in our youngest daughter, our eight-year-old Charlie, who I do coach her basketball team, but she, Miranda my wife says like, she's the one who acts the most like I did when I played. I don't know if that's a good thing. But I'd say I have learned a lot more about being a patient about trying to meet them where they are and be interested in what they're interested in instead of just steering them into whatever I'm most into. Buzz Williams came on my show a few months ago and we talked about writing letters to our kids and these letters, I had not ever done that and outside of like the normal birthday or holidays. So that's one of the, I like taking learnings from the podcast and actually taking action on it. I think it's not that useful just to have these conversations, but never do anything with them. So that's one of the things I started incorporating. It's a great practice to be writing those letters because it, I like forcing functions. It works as a forcing function to have a conversation with my wife to say, okay, what is going on with each of them in their lives like that maybe I miss? Like what's something that's happening so that when I write these letters, I can reference them and make it about them, not about me, like sharing a motivational quote or something like that. They don't care about that. Like, they roll their eyes at the stuff I do. They laugh. Right now they give my merch out to all their friends, which is hilarious to see it popping up at school but they still make fun of me directly to my face. So to me it's really just trying to meet them where they are, figure out what they're most into, like go there and show up there and be interested in them and care for them and love them unconditionally. I've learned a lot more about what unconditional love means. That means you're loving somebody with no conditions. That means it doesn't, obviously I don't want them to do, to be mean spirited or to be unkind or to do any of those things. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm saying, there's no conditions. You don't have to play this sport or do this thing or win this game. Those are, that's conditional love and I have learned a lot more about that with the help of a very great partner about, it's our job to show up for them and show them unconditional love and they are work in progress for sure. But that's just, those are the things that I probably think about more than anything in my life. [TYLER Has that affected how you see your work for others? [RYAN Yeah, for sure. I think it's also made me much more patient with just everything in life and every person I come across as and certainly a lot less judgmental. Everyone has a story, everyone has a past, everyone has things going on in their life and I think the spectrum of being judgmental and being curious are their opposites. Maybe if at some points in your life, and for me it was when I was probably less mature and not as grown up as I am now, but I was down to this end of the spectrum where very judgmental. And I think as I've grown and talked to more people, and certainly being a dad has helped with this, I think I've moved down that scale closer towards the other end. I hope, at least I try, this is aspirational to approach people with curiosity far more than judgment. That is a, I think that's a skill. I think I really do. It's something that I think about a lot, try to work on and approach all people that way. I think that's been helpful. I think that can help you connect better with people too, and that's certainly a part of what I do for a living. [TYLER There's a tie in here that I really equate the pursuit of excellence to the pursuit, it's a curiosity. It's a drive to curiosity that if you're, and again, I want to dig a little bit deeper into the heart context of all this is what drives you for that pursuit? [RYAN Well, I mean, my purpose is to inspire others to both value and pursue excellence in themselves and I think excellence is really about being better tomorrow than you are today. There's two parts of that statement is, first you have to value it. Not everybody does. I want to inspire people to value excellence. I want them to value the thought of getting better. Then I want to inspire people to pursue it and that takes a lot of work. So if you, obviously, you've read through it and you see that the bulk of the leadership that I talk about is the leading yourself part, is to working on yourself, is to doing that necessary work. Because I also come across people in life and it's just interesting to see the difference between those who consistently and regularly do that work on themselves versus the ones who don't. It's just, you're just in dramatically different places and I think the ones who are willing to hold the mirror up close, the ones who are willing to have prompts for themselves each night, the ones who are willing to do that necessary work, not only are they in a better position today, but they're setting themselves to be up in a, to be in a much better position next year, the year after. It all compounds. It's really powerful. So that's also exciting to me is because maybe I can give a talk or I can release an episode and it changes somebody. I mean that's like the transformational element of leadership. As you know, you start getting feedback from people when you're out there in the world and you're willing to publicly do this work, whether it's a podcast, it's a book, it's speaking, whatever. I'll tell you Tyler, one of like some of the coolest emails I get. Let's say somebody is in one of my leadership circles, and this has happened a few times, and it's like, it's emotional when it does, the spouse, not the person themselves, but the spouse of the person sends me a note separate without even telling their husband or wife and they say, "Hey, initially we had a conversation about my partner being in one of your circles. It was too much money. I didn't want them to do it. But he stood on the table to say, I really want to do this. I hope you'll support me and I did. Not only has he, has the three years that have gone by since he's been a part of that, not only has he been promoted multiple times, are we now building an additional house because of how he's been a great provider, but he's a much more present husband, a much more present dad. He's a much better thank you note writer. He writes me love notes. He's a better gift giver, he's a better journal entry writer." They list all these things off that are very specific and those are the things like bringing a tears man, like they seriously do because I didn't know if that was necessarily like, you don't set out to do those things. At least I didn't, I didn't really think about that. I think about, okay, how can I help somebody build a great career? Or how can I help them get promoted? Or how can I help them be, hit whatever goal they've set business wise? I didn't think about the fact that their wife may send me a note thanking me and thanking the people in our, with the company, my company to say, "Hey, they're doing great at work and I know that was original intention, but even more important they're doing so much better at home and that is awesome." That's life changing stuff, man. I mean, that changes the arc of not only them and that person you're working with, but for all of the people around them, most importantly, their partner, partner and their kids. So to me, like that's what it's all about like when you think about purpose or why do you work so hard to do this stuff. I think of those notes right at the top of the list. [TYLER I mean, that's why I'm doing this. You talk about it and different stages, different careers, and I guess different evolutions there and I think about the impactful encouragement to me was do something significant. I've wrestled with doing this because it's like, we go back to when I very first asked you a couple years ago now, oh, it's been like five years ago to be a guest on Podcast I had then with my wife. She hated it. I loved it because I loved these conversations and learning and growing and you were gracious enough to join me then. I think I want to have more of those conversations and that's why I'm doing this, but it's not for me. I'm growing. That's why I do this. But it's also, can someone else learn and grow from it that's not going to affect them, but everyone else that they're in contact with [RYAN Yeah. It's that, I think like the ripple effect. It starts here and just, it goes out wide amongst all of the people that they interact with and then that has a more ripple effect too. So I think thinking about the impact, I actually had a boss one day say this, he wasn't actually that good, but this was a good statement that he did say. He said, "You are now going to be the dinner table conversation of the 40 people that you're leading." I was like, it's a good way to think about it. It's a good way to think about and like you're going to have an effect on them at the dinner table, which people talk about their boss right at the dinner table. So I do think about that. Like, you think about the people that you're impacting. It's not just the one individual, but it's all the people in their lives too and that ends up being a lot of people. [TYLER Yeah, I mean it's, there's a thought I have here, it's understanding where does the pursuit of excellence intersect with significance? I think you just described it. That's the point where it's like I have to, it's something I share. I don't call it the pursuit of excellence. I think it's a great way to describe it though, that my goal desire is to be better today than I was yesterday with the intention and purpose to be better tomorrow than I am today. That's been something implied upon me that I work at every day. And it's amazing, as you say, as I've committed to that and I've learned and grown in ways that I would've never been able to. Then I think about how that has had significance in other people's lives. [RYAN What has changed you think from the beginning in that first conversation now that years have passed, what's changed the most or what's been one of the bigger learnings that's maybe rethink something? [TYLER I had that question for you, but I will answer that first and you have to oblige me as well. For me it is being more cognizant. So I have a, in our group, the four barriers of leadership, and I've talked about that already, it's insecurity, which has been huge for me to get over. Am I, do I have enough value? Do I have any worth? Do people want to listen to me? Coming from a background in agriculture and look at this space that we're in and leadership and everything else, it's like, I grew up in the world where farmers were laughed at because they weren't as smart, they weren't as whatever. Now our society is like, man, the most trusted and admired people in our society right now are farmers. It's been documented, it's crazy. And yet trying to understand what value I have and then getting to a point my value is that I'm willing to be vulnerable and be I'm trying to figure this out and work through it and that those barriers of insecurity, inactivity, not wanting to do it because I'm afraid of what might happen or if they say no, the intensity, I didn't know of what I didn't know. Then the last one we mentioned earlier was the intensity and that being the reaction to a traumatic experience that I just had to deal with. But that caused where so many people are like, man, you're an a-hole. I was like, I love and I care you. I want, I'm not, I'm just trying to protect myself. And me growing through that and being able to have those conversations work on it myself, but work on it within others and share those and be like, oh, okay, now it's even more meaningful because of what you just shared about the gentleman in your leadership circle whose wife said but you probably don't understand the impact you've made. [RYAN Yeah, man. [TYLER What about you? Like the eight years? [RYAN I think a combination of things happen. One, it's, my growth is probably compounded over the time from doing so much of it, which is a good thing. I would say you become much more, or at least I would become much more reasonable and less black and white and more gray. What I mean by that is that. [TYLER Yeah, I get it [RYAN You're this or that, and that's just not how the world operates. It doesn't work that way. There's usually a lot of gray involved. And then I think the other element of it that I think has changed the most is just being as mentioned before, when your job is to ask people questions and learn about their stories and learn about their life experiences, and you realize, oh, like we all have such different backgrounds, we all have such, like different events in your life have obviously impacted you in a great way. Stop judging people for maybe making mistakes or maybe doing something wrong. I mean, I think back to one of my very early episodes with Maurice Claret, I mean, I remember even before starting talking to him saying, man, this guy had everything and he just threw it all away. He was All American as a freshman at Ohio State, winning a national title, getting drafted to play for the Broncos. Then he drives in a car and he is drunk and he is got Vodka in his water bottles and he has got guns. I'm like, what is he thinking? Until you talk to him and you realize this guy grows up with a mom who's doing everything she can to support him but's got to work all the time, no dad and is selling drugs to get by doing a lot of things that are illegal just to basically survive and versus my background with two amazing parents and two amazing brothers and people who are like, support you all the way from everything they've taught me, everything I know. It's just two dramatically different upbringings, and yet I'm being judgmental. I mean, that is just wrong. Now that doesn't excuse poor behavior or say, "Hey, you can just do whatever you want and break the law." I'm not saying that, but it does just make you rethink being such, being so quick to say, oh my gosh, why would somebody do that or how do they blow their money and how are they broke? Well, you don't, they didn't have the same financial upbringing as you did. They didn't have someone to teach them those things. So I think that's the biggest thing that is, that has made me a bit better, is just being more open-minded and I think effective leaders, not, they can be decisive and they can understand what they know, but they also have an open mind to learn more and to also wonder more instead of just saying like, that's that. I think that's a big thing that I've learned. [TYLER I know he is a big part of your life and mentor and what that makes me think of is a level five leader. It's that person. It's Jim Collins's talking about the good great evolution. To me, that's the separator of good to great. The great are the ones that are willing to say, "We didn't have the same experiences, but I value you because you have value and my role as a leader is to help that value shine and just whether explode or just be more than what you ever thought it was." [RYAN Yeah, a hundred percent. I agree. Big fan of Jim Collins' work, John Maxwell stuff. Like that stuff is huge and really admire the way that they are able to take their key learnings and document them in these artifacts that we get to read over and over and over again. It's pretty amazing to see all the work they've done. [TYLER Well, I think what is great is, we're both of the same age think about moving into that generation, that gap. Between Gen X, Gen X, that millennial, but the gap between boomers and the millennial, Gen Z, it's how do we do a better job of leading? That's really why I have this podcast, is I want to empower, help people do that, to bridge that gap. Because so many of us might have had great leaders or bad leaders, great examples of parents and mentors or none, and we're trying to figure that out. Like, it doesn't always have to be the way that everyone else did it, but yet we can learn and grow and develop and get better. [RYAN Yeah, that's a big responsibility, man. I like the way that you're thinking of that. I think that is yeah, that's a big, it's a big thing to tackle, but a worthy cause. It's so important to figure out. I don't know, do you meet with like high school or college kids and speak with them and meet with them? [TYLER] Yeah, a lot. A lot, because either being involved in our high school or, I mentioned soccer. [RYAN] Yeah, what do you think of, oh, your overall feeling about the future and people of that age? [TYLER] It's, that's fun to think about because as you mentioned earlier the ability to impact, I get it, through this platform, and there's probably some of my daughter's friends that listen to this, I hear about it every once in a while and whatever else, but it's like, if I can share a little bit of my failures and be able to help them, but also, as you mentioned, Maurice, he didn't have a guy in his life to put his arm around him and say, "Hey, let me guide you." If I can do that and if I can show people that, hey, we can work through this together and be that example, the difference is, this is what I find, is whether it is that teenage, whether it is early twenties, they are yearning for someone to say, "Hey, help guide me. Help point me." I don't remember that when I was 21, 22. That wasn't a thing. I've talked to others about this a little bit younger. It's like, I was never encouraged, "Hey, go find a mentor." Ultimately, how I started this path of growth is like, man, I need a mentor. I need someone that's going to help me. It was more of, I always grew up and figure it out on your own, just figure it out. Like figure it out. I think that was very generational where it switched of, hey, go to people like Ryan, go to people that are going to show you the way that have been there, seek that mentorship. That is what's new and different. [RYAN] Yeah, but in a way though, having to figure it out probably was helpful. [TYLER] Very much. Something I read this morning though, and you talk sometimes about Robert Green and one of his, I'm reading the 48 Laws of Power this year. I'm spreading out through the year and really digging through it. I get it. One of the comments today was, hey, profit off of the experiences of others. The most expensive way to learn is through your experiences. In that it's like, hey, to me and what I shared today and one of my thoughts was the secret to the shortcut of life is learning from someone else's experiences. That mentorship, and that's what you share so much. That's why we're trying to share like, one, to share different ideas is that's the shortcut. [RYAN] Yeah, I think that's a great way to, I mean, there's one thing said for you got to get on the field and learn from doing it yourself. And I think coupling that within learning from the successes and failures and mistakes and triumphs of others is super helpful. I think that's, I think doing both of those things is a great way to learn to get better to probably maybe create your rate of speed to be a bit higher, is to go about it that way, as opposed to just one, just the other. [TYLER] Yep, totally. I don't think you can, well, it's like this, and I've heard you, if you want to really learn something, go teach it to someone else. And the only way you can ever learn something is you have to do the work of learning it to be able to go teach someone else. But if someone can help you learn it at a faster, more effective rate, well that means you should be able to, in a timeframe, be able to teach and share with others. [RYAN] Yeah, man, that's true. I think one of the best learning tools in the world is putting yourself in the position of being a teacher, whether it's giving a speech, doing a podcast, meeting one-on-one with a mentee. Putting yourself in the position to be a teacher, I think is a great, great tool for learning. [TYLER] What's something you're learning right now? Like, I'm learning this this morning, I'm learning this yesterday, I'm learning. [RYAN] So one of my issues with having a podcast that ships every week is constantly recording, constantly having to read a wide variety of books to prepare all of that. I had Brian Kite on recently, I don't know, have you talked to Brian? [TYLER] I have not, but I know Brian [RYAN] Great dude. A great guy out in Denver. Brian had this point that we really hammered down on, which is you learn more through depth, not width. So one of the things that I am thinking about is going deeper on fewer topics instead of just trying to go wide and then most importantly, taking action on the key learning so that they're not just sitting in a notebook, but you're living them out. I mentioned the Buzz Williams element of, okay, what is an action I can take to actually change lives to do better, to make myself better? In that example, it's of writing letters to my kids every week, which I had not been doing until after talking to Buzz. So to me it's about going deeper with fewer things that I'm learning, and then not only going deep on those topics but taking those and actually doing something with them, putting them into play, putting them into action. So I'm just, I'm working through that right now. I'm trying to get better. I still will prepare the same way. I still will be overly ready to go, but I also want to be better at taking action. Then a whole separate thing that I've been working on a lot quietly is speaking with people who have built a business like I'd like to build but there maybe five to 10 to 20 years ahead of me. For example, Patrick Lenchi has become a close mentor and friend, and he opens up his business to any person I want to talk to at any time. His CEO, Cody and I have regular conversations as well as other members of their team because I think that the table group is a beautiful business who helps a lot of people and without getting into too much of the boring details of just how you, how that business was built over the past 20 years. So that's a separate thing that I'm really working on is meeting with people like Patrick Lenchi, like Don Miller, like Michael Bunge Stander, these guys who over the last 20 years have built these amazing businesses. They're being, them being kind enough to open up their doors to their COO, all of the people who were like in the trenches building it with them so they know, oh man, the first however many years it was a train wreck. So, like, hearing those stories and how they moved through those tougher times to create their offerings and figure out what their business actually is, that's a fascinating thing for me, that I'm currently working through myself. So to be able to lean on others and learn and have them completely open up their books is one, it's super helpful, but it's also inspiring to say, well, I want to do the same thing for other people. Like, there's so many good people in the world, man. Like people are inherently good and kind that that's inspiring to see these giants of the world say, whatever you need, man, whatever you need. Here's call these 10 people. Like whatever you need, happy to help out. I think that's another area that I've gone deep on and haven't really shared publicly because there's nothing like, there's nothing really to share. It's really about just trying to build something that sustains over time. [TYLER] I see it's the top of the hour. I want to be respectful. We had an hour booked. I have more time. Do you, it's your call? [RYAN] Sure. [TYLER] Keep going? [RYAN] Yeah, yeah, sure [TYLER] Oh, so that is one area that I would say that I've been very, as far as going deeper that I've really tried to focus on the last couple years. That is something that I caught myself at times, I learned this from John actually in one of his books, and he goes, it's better. This is how I internalize, this is how I phrase it, it's better to be the sharpest knife in the kitchen than all the utensils in the drawer. One of the intentions with my podcast is leadership. It's not the oh, that would be, at times people, you get it way more than I do. I get it enough and I will get pitches, hey, here's this author, here's this person, here's whatever. And sometimes it's great. I've had amazing guests and friends that have been developed through that, but there's a lot of times, like, it's not leadership centric. It's not to help people feel equipped to be able to bridge that I don't know what I'm doing and what does real leaders look like? So I've been very specific there. Part of it is because of that. It's like, if I'm trying to learn in so many areas, I just get scattered. I appreciate what you're saying and it's, I don't want to say it's daunting at times, but there are times where I have to be like, all right, I want to put out great content for people. That means I'm going to prepare. It is for me to do a podcast, it's about a full day of prep. That's for me. If it's a, it's a full day, it's eight to whatever hours, but all of it, I enjoy that. Like, I would be mortified to go on a show and not have that preparation, be able to say, honor the person that's there. But also when you're trying to do all the other things and you're trying to focus on learning yourself, so you bring more value, man, it can get overwhelming. That's where I have made the conscious effort and remind myself, find a couple areas, where do I specifically want to grow, but then knowing that if I'm focusing the interviews like this along that path, then that's part of it for myself, but also keeping me so I don't get scattered and I don't get short and I don't get frustrated and I do still to continue to enjoy it. [RYAN] I think that's the key part of, especially when depending on how these things start or your purpose behind starting it. For me it was another form of a leadership Ph.D. program. There's no intention of any sort of a business. But then when that, and when it evolves to that, it's remembering what got you here, remembering what's the foundational element of whatever business is built off the back of the platform. So to me, that's another reminder, like, you can't ever stop. If you ever get to the point where you stop by you, I mean me, if you ever get to the point where you stop enjoying the process, the prep, that's going to lead to bad things. So I think that's, just like you said, it's still one of my favorite parts about it is all of the preparation needed to do a great episode because all of the opportunities have come because of that thing. So don't ever forget it that's why. I think that's, sometimes when a podcast is built on the side as like, hey, this is going to be our marketing for our business and there isn't like a deep curiosity or a deep love of the process, they usually don't end up being very good. It's just too hard. They don't last, they're not that good, it's too hard to make them good if you don't love the process. And that goes for most things if you don't love all of the work that goes into it. Peyton Manning said the same thing when he stopped. Like he took every rep in every practice that he ever had and when he didn't either, like, couldn't do it because his arm didn't work or he didn't want to do it was time to stop. I think that's the case for most people, whatever it is they're doing, whether they're the quarterback of a team or they're running a podcast or a business, if you don't like and have like a desire for the grind parts of it that nobody sees, then you probably got to stop [TYLER] Or it's the wrong place for you. It's something you're doing to because I think obligated to do, but it's not, you're not living out your purpose. If you're not doing that, then you're not serving people. [RYAN] Yeah, exactly. [TYLER] As you evolve forward, you mentioned earlier about trying to go deeper and at the same point as you grow this, what's one area that you're like, this is foggy, but I'm excited to explore it? Makes sense? [RYAN] Yeah. Well, the business the business part's one of them because, especially when you're meeting with people who are 20 years, that have been doing it for 20 years, where I've only been doing it for a few because it looks like, oh wow, it's so clear. It's so, it's just like a machine, a flywheel was spinning. But then you ask them, okay, what was it like in year two or year three? And that's when you say, oh, oh, I get it. Like, there are just certain necessary steps to figure things out. So I'd say that's one part of it. Then the other part that will always be follow, or I don't know, maybe it won't, but it currently is writing, I mean, writing's the toughest thing. Publishing a book is, publishing a good book is one of the most challenging things in the world for me at least because it takes many drafts and many editors and people helping out to get something from an idea to properly structured and have a point and have a, make a proper argument that's backed up with entertaining stories and the empirical evidence to prove it true, and practical takeaways, practical action that a reader could take. Like that is each page, each section, each subsection of a chapter is a lot. There are a lot of hands touching it. There's a lot of thought, there's a lot that was started and gone all the way to completion that then goes straight in the trash. So it's still, if you say, use the phrase like, foggy or what's still really hard that now, that's also why I will always do it. Or at least I can't envision a date stopping doing that because I think when I'm in book writing mode, which I am most of the time, nothing clarifies your thinking more. Nothing creates more for, it's one of the greatest forcing functions for me, is because I have to always be on the lookout for interesting stories and the science to back up the story and then the practical application for the reader. When you're always in that mode I end up being just better at everything else that I do. So I think that's another good reason not only to get the cool artifact to have the thing which I love. That's really cool. I do like that. But it's all of the, like, the person you become along the way in order to get the artifact is really more of the reward than anything else. [TYLER] I've interacted with enough authors, whether it's through this platform or, that most people are like, writing is not fun. It is not this glamorous what people think, but the process and or what I learned by doing it, man, that was invaluable. [RYAN] I exactly. It's like, it's not really like hiking up the mountain and getting there. It's the person that you become, the person that it takes in order to do that thing, whatever the thing may be. All of the prep, all of the work, all of the resilience, all of the fighting through, all of the doubt, all of that stuff. Like going through that process is really the ultimate reward more so than whatever it is you get whether you reach a top of the mountain or you reach a published book or whatever it may be. I think that's the part that you, if you really stop and think is really the ultimate prize. [TYLER] One last thing, and this showed up the other day, there was a, someone roughly our age that passed away, a popular person. When I looked at the eulogy, it caught me by surprise. There was a book that I had the author as a guest, and it's called My Daily Leadership, Antonio Garrido. In that encourages you to write your eulogy and how impactful that is. When I read this person's eulogy my heart hurt because one of the things that I, why I do what I do, why I think you do what you do is not to be the host of the Impact Driven Leader podcast. It's not to be the host of the Learning Leader, group and podcast, all of that. If you are writing that or maybe you have written, that'd be awesome if you have, what's that first line? [RYAN] Yeah, I have. I have the song that's playing. I have the person who's reading it, my daughter Charlie. The bulk of the eulogy talks about our days in the summer when I leave my studio at 3:00 o'clock so I could throw her in the pool until my arms fall off and how that created the biggest smile in the world. So the bulk of what is in that is about our family, is about our time together. There may be little snippets about the impact on people from the other work, but almost all of it, I do think it's a great exercise. It's emotional. It makes you think. It also can help you make decisions. When people ask, like, you leave every day in June and July at 3:00? I do. Yes and now part of how I do that is I plan well ahead so that when it's cold here in Ohio, I do a lot more than when it's warm, specifically in the summer months when she's not in school and our older ones aren't in school. So that there's more to do. So my days are designed differently. I realize not everybody can do that. Some people you do got to clock in. You got to be there. I get it. I don't though, and because I don't, based on what I want that eulogy to say, my actions then need to follow so that the things that she and my whole family remembers are those things more so than any book or any podcasts. I mean, like I said, they don't care about that. I mean, they may at some point. If somebody else brings it up, they may smile and talk about it, but for the most part they don't care about that. That's ultimately what matters the most. So to me I would hope it would be all about that and so I try to make sure that my actions follow what I want that to be about. [TYLER] I love it. I appreciate that. Ryan, appreciate the conversation. The encouragement that you've given me over the years, it's been great. Thank you. I'm excited that Pursuit of Excellence is our book for March. [RYAN] Thanks man. I appreciate the support, dude. It means a lot and spreading the good word. I know people, you're an influential dude and people listen to you, so it means a lot that you would think, there's a lot of books out there, so I appreciate you choosing mine as one of them, or two of them. [TYLER] Yeah, both of them. It's good. I'm just waiting for that third, so no pressure. [RYAN] Hopefully in January, we'll see. [TYLER] Okay, well, awesome, Ryan. Thank you. [RYAN] Thanks, man, appreciate Tyler. [TYLER] There's a, as I look over my notes and I think about this time that Ryan and I had, and one thing is I want to focus on, you have to value getting better, not for yourself, but for others. Ryan talked about his evolution of just either his personality or whatever it may be, but going from judgment, being judgmental to curiosity, I believe that's an evolution in growth. I believe that's also as a result of coming to grips and appreciating our insecurities and understanding those barriers that I discussed that hopefully you're familiar with as a part, as a listener of this podcast and being a part of this community. Being willing to go deep in that area, knowing that that's going to yield benefits for others, I believe that's the greatest opportunity for leaders today in our space. How can I go deeper in either myself and or the relationships I have with others, learning to be able to be better for others? You have to value getting better. Why value getting better? Because you value those around you. He talks a lot about that in The Pursuit of Excellence. As I summarize, The Pursuit of Excellence is very much so in my opinion, the drive of curiosity. It's that arc and the more that you pursue excellence, and I think it lays it out and Ryan laid it out so well, you go from wherever you're at, and as you continue up that arc and become more and more curious, you're pursuing excellence, not for you, but it comes that intersection of the pursuit of excellence where you find significance and where maybe you get a note or a letter about the impact that you made. That to me is why I'm doing that. That is why I want to serve and help other leaders be impact driven leaders. That's the very, very thing. Those experiences, those blessings, those beliefs that have been poured and shared into me, that's why we're doing this. That's why I'm here. That's why I have the workshop that I have. That's why I have the leadership circle, the round table that I have. Why? Because if we all grow, as I shake, scratch my head, we all get better and if we all get better, life is better and we make that impact. Thanks for listening and thanks for being here. I'm excited for you. I'm excited for you to join on the journey. If you want to learn more about the Impact Driven Leader Roundtable, we have a workshop coming up April 3rd and fourth. You can go to theimpactdrivenleader.com in order to sign up for that, get more information. Love for you to join, and we'll catch you later. See you next time.