IDL12 Season 1: Introducing 'Think Again'
Why is the sense of community in business a big deal? What does it mean to be a leader who encourages instead of critiques? Can you keep an open mind and why should you ‘think again’?
Today I am introducing to you the book ‘Think Again’ by Adam Grant. This is not like any of the other episodes, but I really want you to think about what this year has meant so far, what possibilities lie ahead of you, and how you can be an encouraging leader by building a strong community.
In this episode we discuss:
Think again
Business and community
THINK AGAIN
Everything you think you know, you do not know.
“Everything you think you know, you don’t know because the reality is every new discovery was after someone else had another thought of a different one. ”
This can be exciting. This is a whole new way to perceive the world, to simply be aware that you might not know as much as you think you know, and by being curious instead of all-knowing, you can go far.
Cultivating a love of learning and a powerful, open mind is a strong combination to better arm yourself to perceive the world with strategy and with humility.
Be open to unlearning what you already know because learning is a set of patterns. By developing a skill of relearning, it will enable you to develop yourself as a person and as a capable and dynamic leader.
business and community
When business owners and entrepreneurs work together, lift one another up and connect to one another you, can fully integrate and encourage growth on an exponential level.
Being a leader is not only about leading the group, but allowing yourself to be led by the people you lead to show you what needs to be done.
Being a leader who admits their weaknesses as well as their strengths, who embraces differences and encourages instead of critiques their employees is a leader that embodies growth and therefore encourages growth in both their business and within the journey of their employees.
“We can become better, more empathetic, secure leaders in our society and [if we] embrace everything that is different and celebrate it and say ‘that’s what makes organizations and communities strong’. I know that because I’ve seen that and it’s a lot of fun but the only way you can do that is if you open your arms and say ‘hey, who’s with me?’ ”
Resources, books, and links mentioned in this episode:
Find out more about Adam Grant
Brené Brown with Adam Grant on the Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know
The Impact Driven Leader YouTube Channel
Join the Impact Driven Leader Community
Connect with Tyler on Instagram and LinkedIn
BOOK | First, Break All the Rules: What the World's Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham
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.
Rate, review and subscribe here on Apple Podcasts or subscribe on Stitcher and Spotify.
Podcast Transcription
[TYLER DICKERHOOF]: All right. Welcome in to the Impact Driven Leader podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Dickerhoof. Whether you're watching on YouTube, yes, did you know that these episodes go on YouTube? I also release a thought of the day pretty much every day on YouTube. If you want to catch that out, go there, subscribe to the Impact Driven Leader YouTube channel. All right. So here we are.
It's a little different episode today. We're going to be launching our next book for the book club, for the Impact Driven Leader Book Club. Unfortunately, you just got me today. As much as I tried to get this author you know, it didn't happen. And I just want to share that from a standpoint of, there's sometimes in life it doesn't quite all work out, but there's still ways to push through them. So I am hoping that you get tremendous value out of this. Today. This episode is going to go one or two ways. It's going to go down in flames, or it's going to add value to you. My hope and what I have prepared for you from my heart is that it adds value to you today. So here we are, we're a quarter of the way through the year. This is releasing on April 2nd and, we're three months starting the fourth month of the year. This is the quarter pole. You know, if you go to horse races, you go to races, they divide it up in segments, quarters. This year is divided up in segments and quarters. And our life sometimes is divided up in quarters and halves. And you know, maybe this year in 2021, has looked a lot like what it did last year, meaning you're not really sure, there's a lot of unsurity.
There's a lot of, like, "I'm not sure what's going to come." Some of the guests that I've talked to, we've talked about how they see the landscape of the world changing. I listened to this yesterday from the author who releases this book and you guys have already seen the title, so I might as well let you in on it. We're going to be going through the book Think Again, by Adam Grant. I've had the opportunity to read it twice, to really go through it, listen to podcasts with Adam really digest this book a lot. And you know, there's a few books over the years that I just pick up instantly and I go through it and it's consuming. And that's this book. Now, one of the things that I've realized is one of the greatest books that I ever read was First, Break All the Rules by Marcus Buckingham. And it's kind of this idea that, oh, rethink it.
I've learned and part of this learning that I've had is creativity, is not held just for those that can take a blank canvas and draw. And if you're looking behind me, as I'm doing this on the video, there's this map of the earth here. It's not the person that can create this masterpiece. Creativity is really someone that's able to look at the world around them and reimagine it anew, to be that visionary and say that we have this widget and how can I apply that in different ways? And that's something quite honestly that I love to do. That's where I enjoy thinking again. And so there's the idea of thinking again, and you know, one of the subtitle to this book is the power of knowing what you don't know. To me, that's invigorating. That gives me the desire to grow and learn.
And let me do this. We're about three minutes into this episode. You're already like Tyler, where's this going? And I told you, this is either going to go down in flames or it's going to be of great value. So as you're listening to this podcast, man, I'd love for you to subscribe, to rate, review it. I know this, none of us can get better without people giving us tips and advice and suggestions. And sometimes that's in the form of encouragement. I've learned it's better off an encouragement. I used to think it's someone to be the critique and critique and critique. And I had to think again. I had to look at the landscape of my life and look back and say, "Am I getting the results I want to get?" Man, I love to be a collaborative part of the team.
I love to see everyone perform better. I love to maybe look at that canvas and see that painting and say, "Oh, what if we splash a little red on there? What does that do? How does that change it?" Well, what I learned is encouragement goes way farther than critique. Critique is limiting. Encouragement expands. That's an element in life. I've had to think again, as a leader, I was challenged by them. You know, I've had this desire to want to serve people, to help people accomplish more. If you're listening to this podcast, my hope is as a leader, whether that's at home, whether that's in your community, whether that's at work, that you're able to help people accomplish more than they ever thought. That's my desire; is to help you do that and my desire is to help others do that.
And I realized in my life is one of the factors that held me back was my personal insecurity. The fact that the only thing I had to offer my opinion was what I knew. Now what's funny is I've really enjoyed Adam Grant's writing. If you haven't read his other books, Give and Take or Originals, I encourage you to do so. This book think again, Adam really opens up and shares that he struggled with many of the same things, his value and worth for much of his life, he thought was based upon his knowledge, what he knew. And he exposes in the book here that sometimes it's not what you know at all. It's the great questions you can ask. So he really kind of describes this as being a preacher, a prosecutor, a politician, or a scientist. You know he describes a preacher, someone that's trying to really evangelize you. It's like, "Come on, get with us, get with us."
A prosecutor is trying to really say, "Hey, you can't possibly think a different way." A politician is just trying to schmooze you over. "Do I need to go into that one in 2021?" Whereas a scientist is one that's asking great questions to think again. And as Adam recognized and I recognized in my life that when I was covering up my insecurities based upon, "Hey, this is what I know. This is what I know. This is what I know," I wasn't allowing for growth. I wasn't allowing for personal growth. I wasn't allowing for those around me to grow. And that's where I look at it from a standpoint of, as a leader. The greatest hindrance we have on others is not encouraging them to explore their own strengths and gifts. If we try to hold them to the pattern, the design, the idea of what we think a leader should look like.
And we do more harm to ourselves by that because we don't allow them to grow into a place. You're going to hear this, this next month. I'll be talking to some great guests that we talk about mindset. And to me, this book Adam brings to us, again, is about mindset. It's about the mindset to say, Whoa. Everything you think you don't know because the reality is every new discovery was after someone else had another thought of it a different way. When we first discovered that the earth was round, the original thought was that it was flat. When we first thought that sickness came from something kind of from a soul level and not bacteria or viruses, we had to rethink that, the fact that they used to think that, "Hey, the greatest way to get rid of a sickness is get rid of blood, bloodletting."
I mean, we had to think again about that. There are things today that we believe in 2021. Tomorrow, we're going to have to rethink it. And to me, that's exciting. You know, I realized, you know, we haven't talked much about this on the podcast. Haven't had the opportunity. You're going to hear from some guests where we talk really about the Enneagram. I get to talk some fun guests, interviewed, and you're going to hopefully love that and enjoy that. To me, it's been a great tool to identify, understand myself, how would I relate and connect with others, how I can take some of the rougher points of me and make it more synergistic with others. And one of the tools that I've used in the past was strengths from StrengthsFinder. It talked about Gallup Marcus Buckingham.
He was helped with that. And one of my strengths is being strategic. And it's also a learner. I love to learn. And so if I were to have Adam on the podcast today, I'd say, "Adam, are there certain strengths, which make it easier for people to think again, or are there certain strengths that make it harder?" I mean, I understood that strategic is looking at those pieces and parts that are available in our world and how they fit together and how can I think five or six steps ahead. It's kind of like those chess players that they can think three and four moves. If you're thinking about sports or you're thinking about basketball or, or soccer, maybe sometimes you'll listen to those and they'll talk about all, they see two and three passes ahead. To me, I've realized, and as it's been told to me, that is a strength that has been conditioned by someone being strategic, but then the desire to learn, say like, there's always something new to learn to meet those pensions, those strengths, make it easier for me to pick up this book and be enamored and say, "Man, I love this. This is great. This is what every organization should endure and those that don't is like, embrace, not endure." All right. This is one cut. One cut, wonder.
We're not going to edit this. We're not going to whatever, just be with me here. I'm trying to voice this out, and again, musics from Tyler and thinking again, because that's what this is about as leaders today. How can we think again, if we hold onto the pattern of before. If we think the only way to lead is how they lead in 2010 and how they led in 1999 and how they led 1979, we got to think again. The world changes. We have new learnings, we have new discoveries. We understand how people operate. If you go back and listen to the podcast I have with Dr. Caroline Leaf, they're learning stuff about the brain every single day, that we didn't realize how it all fit together and connected. And so I've worked, trying to approach how the brain operates based upon our knowledge level in 1984. And it's 2021, well then work plan from behind.
They're playing chess and moreover you're playing checkers. We're out here using a switchblade and they're using a Howitzer. You know, they're using a single lane plane, and we're over here flying drones. I mean, it's two totally different paradigms. And so I think again, this idea of, you have to look at the thought that man, whatever I know today ain't true. It's the yoda effect is as Adam talks about is you must unlearn whatever you have learned.
[PROMO]: All right, we're going to do something special this month. Share this episode with five people. Make sure you tag us, share it on social media, five people, first five people to do that, I'm going to send a copy of the book, Think Again, by Adam Grant. Again, share on social media, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook tag us, tag the Impact Driven Leader. First five people to do so, I'm going to send the book Think Again. Thanks for listening.
[TYLER]: You heard on the the podcast here in the first quarter, John Maxwell. One of the greatest things that I love about John is John teaches the the pattern of learning. And one of those patterns in one of those elements in that pattern of learning and growing is relearn. You know try and you fail, you got to relearn. To me this idea of thinking again is how can we relearn in our society? How can we relearn as leaders? How can we say, well, "This is the way we've always done it." If someone has said it, you do what you've always done, you'll get what you've always gotten. Whatever's gotten you here, won't get you there. If you're a leader listening today and you're leading an organization and you're like, "Our revenue is a hundred million dollars a year and we're just cruising along," whatever got you to a hundred million dollars, there's elements of it that will help you get to 200 million.
But whatever you've gotten to a hundred million will not get you to 200 million. Whatever got you to become a regional leader in your organization won't get you to a a national level and international level. You're going to have to learn new attributes. I've had to learn to attributes. Let me share this. I want to connect this because, one I hope you learn a little bit more about me. If 12 minutes and you've already checked out, that's fine. I'm here to learn in the process. And one of the things I want to learn, and I've shared this a little bit with some of the guests, but I'm going to give you details how it kind of made me change.
When I was 14, it was a Saturday afternoon. I lived on a farm, grew up on a farm and I was bailing hay. I mean, come on, dude. Hopefully you can relate and understand that. That's one of the things that happens on farms. And my younger brother saw me. He waved to me and as I was driving moving one of the wagons for the hay he must not have realized that I was driving. He was three and he ran to me. As I drove around the corner, I looked down and there on the ground he lay. Now, whatever happened from there, and it's kind of broken up and choppy, but one of the things that I remember vividly, and this was a strength that helped me endure the next 27 years since it's been. So it probably helped me as a strength for 25, 24 is I can remember vividly is the authorities, the ambulance, the whoever else, and I was talking to the sheriff.
We were standing right outside of the barn where our cows were and the sheriff was asking me questions like, "Hey, what happened?" I'm like, "It was an accident, dude. I don't know what happened. I really don't. I waved to him and drove around, turn back, look down, he's laying on the ground." And I said to him, I was 14 at the time, I said, "You're welcome to ask me whatever questions you want to ask me, but I'm going to go inside that barn." At this time, it's like 4:30, 5:00 o'clock in the afternoon. "And I'm going to milk those 50 cows because they can't do it for themselves." And I know that's something that I can do to get myself through this day. So I'm going to put my head down and push forward and do that.
It was a couple of years ago I realized that's how I dealt with a lot of things in life. I had this opportunity, this clarifying moment to sit on a bench in a gym, going through some myths of some struggles in business. We owned a gym and our network marketing business and just, there was an angst. There was tough. There was dry. I mean, a little bit of stress. There was a little difficulty and I realized that how I dealt with things and whether that my marriage or other relationships that I just put my head down and push. Now, as I've learned, I don't realize that I don't understand it. It can be intimidating. I don't think I'm intimidating. If I'm intimidating, please send me emails to let me know. I'm sorry for intimidating.
And I had to rethink how I engaged with people. I I had to let my intensity, which helped me get through that period of my life. And maybe it's in your business. Maybe your business is struggling here in 2021. You're trying to get back on track. Man, you were having a great first quarter up through the middle of March in 2020 and you're like, "Man, we're going to set records this year." And all of a sudden something happened and all of a sudden you got thrown out of whack and here it is the first quarter of 2021 and you're like, "I want to get back to that."
Maybe whatever you've done to get through the last year is pushing everyone away. And so I encourage you to rethink that and say, "What do I have to do to become a scientist? What do I have to do to use the Yoda effect, to unlearn what you've learned?" Because we've learned a lot in the last year. Neil Adam, in his bookie, he goes through the joy of being wrong. He said some of the greatest people that are able to forecast, they don't get hung up on what they're right about. They'd rather find out what they're wrong about and then they end up discovering what they're right about. And so as I'm sitting here, as you know, three months into this year of 2021, launching this podcast, launching this book club, and I'm sitting here thinking, "Oh, how do I have to rethink this?"
Some of you listening may know if you're not, I mean, you fell upon this episode and that's great. That's exciting. My wife and I have operated a network marketing business for the last 10 years and one of the things that we chose to do here back in March, was move from Facebook to Mighty Networks. We saw more and more people not wanting to engage with Facebook so we thought, "Hey, let's move to Mighty Networks." And one of the things that's important in this community, if you're listening to this episode as much less, any other community that you want to help people grow and improve and succeed is engagement. And when people aren't engaging, they're not progressing, big secret here for you. And my viewpoint is, as I've shared with you, maybe this isn't a secret kind of labeled tongue and cheek there, all right? We all have insecurity.
And I've learned the sooner that I admit my insecurities and be vulnerable about what I am struggling with, the sooner that people can help me. And I've realized to grow as a person, I needed a community around me to help me grow. There's no like five step path. It's kind of like you got to jump in the deep end. And the cool thing about it is when you start linking arms with people, you get a lot stronger and then you start to learn, "Well, what am I really good at? I'm really good at encouraging everyone. I'm really good at treading water and kicking my feet, egg bader style to keep the group up because we're all a group." So as I've realized in our network marketing business, community's a big deal. Our life community is a big deal. You'll hear guests talk about the loneliness pandemic and that's a bigger deal than the coronavirus pandemic, nothing aside from death. I mean, there's deaths on both the corners.
And so on our network marketing business, we kind of assess this, "Eh, this isn't going. What do we do?" Now we could have held onto, "This is what we're going to do. We've spent several thousand dollars to make it happen. We're going to hold onto it." Nope. We pulled the plug and said, "Hey, it's not working." You know, as I am here into this year three months into this year or quarter into this year, this is, I think the 11th or 12th podcast releasing is like, "Ah, how do I need to rethink how I do this now?" How was this episode planned? It wasn't planned. You're listening along and you know, kind of ramblings. I hope you're getting value. I hope you're learning with me. And so I need to now rethink again and say, "Hey, how do I need to help people grow better? How I need to really the purpose of this is to help that person out there." That's trying to lead a team, lead an organization, lead a business, lead a family. How do you get better at that?
Well, for me, what I learned I had to do is I had to become vulnerable, I had to address my insecurities, I had to appreciate the fact that I didn't know everything, but I was really good at something. I'm still trying to figure out what I'm really good at. Don't worry, we all do, but I know I have a purpose. My purpose is to say, "Hey," throw my arms in the air, let my pit stains, you know my sweaty pits show and say, "I know that I can help us as a group move forward. I know I have strengths to move us to where we want to go." I know this is possible, the vision is there, that we can become better, more empathetic, secure leaders in our society, that we can embrace everything that is different and celebrate it and say, that's what makes organizations and communities strong. I know that because I've seen it and it's a lot of fun, but the only way you do that is when you open your arms and say, "Hey, who's with me?"
I had a friend who is a Navy Seal, just a recent friend, share with me that how they would, Navy Seals, and you've seen maybe how [inaudible 00:22:09], you've seen how they go through their training, very arduous training in Cornado, California. And one of the things they do is they spend a lot of time in the water, cold, harsh surf, and he shared the only way to survive that is link your arms with the other guys with you, because that's how you're strong. The moment your arms break it's over. The ability to survive in there on your own dramatically reduces. And as we were talking about that, I said, "Matt," to me is, the only way to link arms is if you open your arms, because if you hold your harms close and tight, there's no way you can link arms with someone. And so if you're finding yourself and your challenge today, and maybe this idea of thinking again, it's like, "Oh, I need to rethink everything that I thought. I need to get outside of everything that I've believed." Maybe your business is, you know, for the last year you've had to go into a different style. You're a restaurant, now you have to go to delivery style, pickup style. You're no longer eating in house.
Maybe you're a business that you had everyone coming to your office building, and now everyone's working remote. You're going to hear from a guest who is that anchor of MSNBC and he shares that 5% of their staff actually worked in the studio. 95% of their staff worked outside of it. Now, if I'm a leader in that organization, I know I have a significant expense in this building every month and I'm at no one's showing up here. I got to rethink this. You know, the idea that the only way that people can be productive in work is if they show up for 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, a hundred hours a week. I think 2020 shows us, we got to rethink that. We've got to rethink what that looks like and how that looks. And you get into this idea of rewriting the textbook as Adam shares.
I'm going to share one more element from this book that really struck out and it really showed me how important this idea of encouragement as fuel is. And this flies in the face of a lot, my generation. I'm 41, I will be 42 this summer. And so often you're like, "Oh, you got to be tough. You know, you got to coach up toughness. You got to really...," you know, coaches, they get after players and players love that. It's like, "Oh he was hard on me, but I knew he loved me." Really? Well. Maybe we should rethink that. Now there's virtues of that. I think it's important to have candor as we'll hear a guest talk about coming up in and say, "I keep alluding to this stuff that's coming. It's really good stuff. I've learned a lot from out." Hopefully you guys learn in time.
And he talks about a teacher. I think this is, Mr. Berger was the teacher and he taught art and he was able to help kids who couldn't even manage a stick figure, create imaginable, just crazy high-quality artworks. And they were like five and six. Why? Because he approached it with fun and said, "Great, that's a draft. Now go do another draft. And they worked together as a community and said, they gave each other critique, but it was encouraging critique. "Hey, how about the butterfly wings look a little bit more like this?" And Adam talks about the quality of the pictures and how it blew him away and he's done this with his own kids. And I think when we start to embrace that idea of we're just here to help each other get better. How can I encourage you to get better and not chastise you and not shame you, not really attack your insecurities because if I attack it, that's, what's going to make you better. Then we become better leaders.
And those are the ideas of this Think Again, that constantly go through my head, that's saying, "How can I help people get better?" So as I'm through the quarter pole of this year, and I'm looking, how can I serve and help people get better, because that's what my heart and desire is. And I'm grateful. I got great guests. Yes, I missed out on Adam Grant. I worked with his team, I had a friend connect me and it just, it didn't work, but I know I have great guests coming and I know if I keep at this and I'm willing to rethink and how do I get better, how do I really try to add value then you know, what, if my desire is to help and serve and I continue at that and I continue to try to get better every day, man, I'm convinced from the James Clear model of 1%, how can I be 1% better than, you know what, it's going to yield results. I'm going to help someone out there.
That's what I'd love to see. I've had that experience, and just to see where someone's like, man, I couldn't have done this high. I didn't do it because of they did it, but I couldn't have done this without the encouragement, the support, the teamwork, the collaboration. Yes, that's a lot of fun and to me, that's what makes leadership great. As I finished up this episode, I again, thank you for listening. For those of you that have subscribed, for those of you that have left reviews, man, I appreciate it tremendously because I'm just here trying to serve, trying to help, trying to figure out a way that I can use my personal experiences to help others get better. I don't know if I've shared this, maybe I have on social media, maybe you've heard it. It's a repeat.
Be willing to make a fool of yourself in service of others, because if you're willing to do that, then you're willing to change somebody else's life and not overthink yourself. So as I encourage you to join the book club, to take part in this community where we get to link arms together and learn and grow, I just share with you, it can be better than what you think it is. But the only way you can get there is if you open your arms and are willing to link arms with someone else and fight that surf, because if you try to fight that surf of life alone, it's going to overwhelm you. It's going to overtake you and you're going to drown. Now the great thing about it is even if you don't have any arms, somebody can put their arms around you.
So that's this episode of the Impact Driven Leader podcast, little different than a lot of the others. And I encourage you as you're listening to this to rethink what is this year meant? To think, what are the possibilities? To join this book club, to read the book. I'm going to leave you with some great resources in the show notes, a link to the podcast with Adam Grant and Bernay Brown, a quiz from Adam Grant's website that'll challenge you to discover and assess how you're thinking.
And I want you to take those and I would love for you to share what nuggets or highlights popped. What really struck a chord with you, if you do that, because that's how I'm going to learn. That's how I'm going to get better. That's how I'm going to be able to serve others.
So again, thank you for listening to this episode. If you got value out of this, man, I'd be so grateful if you shared it with someone and just impact their life. This is about being impact driven. I'm here to make an impact. And how do we make an impact? One person at a time. As a note here on my desk says, 'please an audience of one.' And to me, that one is got. And if I'm doing that, then I'm serving today. So thank you for joining in, appreciate it. Rate, review, subscribe, share this with someone and you're going to want to come back over the next month.
We're going to have some amazing guests and really focus on this idea of thinking and mindset and commitment and growth. I can guarantee if you spend time in the next month reading this book, listening to these episodes that we have coming up, you're going to look and think differently. Thanks for joining. Have a great day.
